MONIKA NOWAKOWSKA
Uniwersity of Warsaw m.nowakowska@uw.edu.pl
CHANCE, FATE, DESTINY, RISK, AND LUCK IN THE DROṆAPARVAN 7,77–173—FINAL OBSERVATIONS AFTER THE COMPLETION OF THE POLISH TRANSLATION OF THE PART
The Droṇaparvan 7,77–173 which I had the pleasure to reword in the Polish language as part of the group project headed by Joanna Jurewicz to translate the battle books of the epic (Mahābhārata 6–11) is uniquely occupied with fighting. There is a small number of speeches, usually of a lamenting character, and some combative, even provocative conversations. We are in medias res in a paradigmatic battle book. The part I translated immediately sets the tone of the war in the very parvan 7,77, reminding us of the hazardous circumstances of the warriors’ way of life, and of the metaphorical framework of a dice game (7,77.4). The series of English nouns related to risk and/or fate in the title of my paper signals the series of nouns and concepts related to taking risk, relying on fate, or pointing to chance, which I encountered in the book part I translated. These are (in quantitative order, from most common to a single occurance): diṣti, daiva, kāla, bhāga and bhāgya, svasti, vidhi, karman, as well as such an expression as viparītam or yadṛcchayā. As the terms refer to different concepts and theories, I will place them in their contexts and suggest their poetical functions when they signal such. For, while diṣṭi appears in speeches and seems to have intensive rhetorical value, the notion of daiva refers to cosmological assumptions about the functioning of reality, not to mention the overwhelming kāla pushing the epic characters towards their destination (see Vassilkov 1999). It is also significant that karman as the principle of cause and effect (cf. Schreiner 2016) is absent in this part of the Sanskrit epic. Thus, considering previous research I will formulate final observations about this part of the epic’s approach to fate and/or chance, as well as their presupposition about human and semi-human capabilities, and about the need apparent in my part of the epic to invoke such notions to offer justification for human fates.
References:
Schreiner, P. 2017. Karman-Theory in the Mahābhārata Prolegomena to an Inquiry into the Culture and the Condition of Philosophical Reflection About Human Life and the Requirements of Liberation,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 45: 651–667. Vassilkov, Y. 1999. Kālavāda (the Doctrine of Cyclical Time) in the Mahābhārata and the Concept of Heroic Didactics. In DICSEP 1.