Brian Black’s In Dialogue with the Mahābhārata is a nuanced study of the dialogic form in the Mahābhārata –one of the two great Sanskrit epics of India. Black discusses three ways of construing “dialogue” as found in the book’s title: as verbal encounter, as intratextuality, and as a hermeneutic mode (4). Verbal encounter refers to dialogue as narrated conversation between literary characters, while intratextuality refers to an implicit dialogue between various episodes and conversations within the epic, since the same conversations are repeated, contrasted, and presented under varying circumstances at different points within the Mahābhārata. Finally, dialogue as a hermeneutic represents a Gadamerian encounter with the text, which treats the text as a “living cultural resource,” or a “dialogue partner” rather than as a historical artifact without agency (18). Black uses this framework to successfully argue that dialogue is significant in the Mahābhārata, not simply because of its content, but because, for the epic, the dialectical features of dialogue are integral to the understanding and cultivation of dharma—a complex term which can be understood here as good conduct and the performance of one’s duties in accordance with one’s social roles (54).
The book’s chapters draw on dialogues concerning five central episodes within the epic covering a wide range of philosophical discussions on fate, agency, gender, and social norms: 1) vows of Bhīṣma, the grand old patriarch of the Kuru clan, to never marry or have children; 2) the controversial marriage of Draupadī, the female protagonist of the epic, to the five Pāṇḍava brothers, that has been repeatedly justified in the epic with over-determining explanations; 3) the lead-up to the infamous dice game challenge, as a result of which the Pāṇḍava brothers lose the throne and are exiled to the forest; 4) Draupadī’s questions about the validity of the dice game, at which the Kauravas make an attempt to disrobe and humiliate her, and finally; 5) The conversations of Kṛṣṇa, whom the epic presents as God, with various characters about the role of fate, his own divinity, and his interventions in the war. While the conversations themselves are found in different parts of the epic, and there is no clear sequence between the chapters, Black gives a clear, broad sketch of each discussion, while also laying out each textual dialogue in painstaking detail, emphasizing the incongruities and variances in the narratives. The subtlety of dharma (dharma-sūkṣmatā) remains one of the running tropes in the book, as it is in the epic, and through the dialogues from the epic, we see how different characters understand dharma from the perspectives of their gender, social standing, and experiences, and deploy the trope of dharma being complex and subtle to their advantage.
One of the strongest features of In Dialogue is its critical examination of contradictions and inconsistencies as an important part of the literary and philosophical fabric of the epic itself. For instance, Bhīṣma, who is famous in the epic for his strict vow of celibacy, takes different positions on his own vows throughout the epic, depending on his interlocutor. In fact, at one point, Bhīṣma even tells Yudhiṣṭhira, the eldest Pāṇḍava brother, a story from which the reader understands that making and maintaining a vow might actually go against dharma (47-49). Similarly, Kṛṣna offers different accounts of the role of knowledge and action in attaining liberation in the Bhagavad Gītā and the Anu Gītā (166). The motivations of Duryodhana, the epic’s chief antagonist, are presented more sympathetically in some accounts than in others, all within the same text (102-3). While it is tempting to attribute all these inconsistencies to different historical layers and interpolations, Black shows that this continual meditation of the epic on a single moment or theme, long after the relevant episode is finished, demonstrates a polyphonic, interactive understanding of philosophical ideas, and indicates that the text remains open to further deliberations and fresh perspectives.
The chapter on Draupadī is another interesting addition to scholarship on gender and agency in the Mahābhārata. Here, Black argues against understanding dialogues featuring female characters in the epic either as feminist narratives or as evasive stories that fail to raise the gender question at all, contending instead that characters like Draupadī, Śakuntalā, and Sulabhā play an important role in the text with their critiques of royal power and offer new gendered perspectives on what dharma entails (116). While this argument is harder to reconcile with portions of the text where the same characters—like Draupadī—uphold the ideal of the pativratā, or the devoted wife, Black shows that many female characters in the epic ground their arguments critiquing power precisely in the moral authority of having followed their dharma in social roles such as wives and mothers.
In Dialogue is an insightful study of dialogue and its centrality to the epic’s multivalent understandings of dharma. It is an engaging read for scholars of religion and world literature, as well as non-specialists who want to grapple with the complexities of the Mahābhārata.
Anusha Sudindra Rao is a doctoral student at the University of Toronto.
Anusha Sudindra Rao
Date Of Review:
March 30, 2022
