Двое меня! И не разделяйте!
читать дальшеI am not familiar w/ most of the details about the Ashwamedha yagna. However, one thing I do know is that while the Rajasuya yagna (like the one Yudhisthir did when he was ruler of Indraprastha) was a campaign of world conquest, with the acceptance of rulers who offered their allegances as vassals, the Ashwamedha was a horse going randomly, and only the kingdoms that it travelled in being subject to the challenge. Also, the Ashwamedha choices to a ruler faced w/ the options were:
Letting the horse move freely symbolized his acceptance of the overlordship, friendship and protection of the ruler
If the horse was captured, a battle ensued between the capturer and the protector of the horse
If the protector of the horse won, then the outcome was treated like option 1, where the defeated party was now a vassal of the emperor conducting the Ashwamedha yagna
If the challenger won, then now he was required to conduct a new Ashwamedha yagna of his own (this last seems contradicted in the Mahabharat, where Arjun was temporarily killed by Chitrangada's son Babruvahana, and therefore did not establish Pandava suzereinity over Manipuri, but Babruvahana, far from conducting an yagna of his own, attended Yudhisthir's yagna along w/ Chitrangada and Uloopi)
So while the Rajasuya and Ashwamedha yagnas were almost identical in that they sought to establish the suzereinity of that kingdom over all others, or as many others, the last condition that a ruler who defeated an Ashwamedha performer was himself required to do one could possibly have been a constraining factor to a knee-jerk opposition. After all, if a ruler was simply being challenged over his independence, the choice was plain - wage war. But if a ruler had the Ashwamedha challenge - that there was also a consequence to winning - he'd have to think long and hard. After all, an Ashwamedha yagna was a long and elaborate affair (I believe the entire yagna lasted a year) that could be a huge economic burden on a kingdom, which would have been why only rich and powerful kingdoms could have performed it.
One question - does Bharat's objection to the Rajasuya yagna, and Lakshman's suggestion of the Ashwamedha yagna, appear in Valmiki? What exactly does 7:83-84 say? I know that the next few chapters are Rama and Lakshman narrating to each other stories like Indra & Vritra, Budh & Hila, et al.
Also in the original Valmiki, far from trying to convince Sita to re-join her husband, Valmiki goes out of his way to tell the kids not to reveal who their father was (even though they knew): for instance, when Lakshman, at the point of offering them the 18000 gold coins, asked them that, they (were to and did) ask him how was it relevant to their project of singing the Ramayan, and the Guru was more important in the context, and that their guru was Valmiki. It was only after they had sung everything up to that point in the story that Rama either realized that they were Sita's kids, or asked them and found out.
So given how Valmiki totally left it to Rama to decide whether he wants them or not, the scene on Wednesday of his urging Sita to re-join her husband was totally ahistorical. Yep, I know, we are talking the same serial that gave us the gazillion vidhans of the great vidhi, but now that we are looking at the part of the story which is mentioned in the original, these differences are worth pointing out for the sake of anyone who believes what's being shown. So far, in this serial, we have:
Valmiki urging Sita to return
Valmiki wanting K-L to inherit Rama's throne (w/ that bizzare story of how to divvy up the fruits)
Most bizarre - Valmiki telling Sita that Rama had disowned Sita, but not the kids. But that's only possible had Rama retained Sita until his kids were born, and then exiled her, so how does the above make sense?
All of which can be shown to be contradicted by the original
Letting the horse move freely symbolized his acceptance of the overlordship, friendship and protection of the ruler
If the horse was captured, a battle ensued between the capturer and the protector of the horse
If the protector of the horse won, then the outcome was treated like option 1, where the defeated party was now a vassal of the emperor conducting the Ashwamedha yagna
If the challenger won, then now he was required to conduct a new Ashwamedha yagna of his own (this last seems contradicted in the Mahabharat, where Arjun was temporarily killed by Chitrangada's son Babruvahana, and therefore did not establish Pandava suzereinity over Manipuri, but Babruvahana, far from conducting an yagna of his own, attended Yudhisthir's yagna along w/ Chitrangada and Uloopi)
So while the Rajasuya and Ashwamedha yagnas were almost identical in that they sought to establish the suzereinity of that kingdom over all others, or as many others, the last condition that a ruler who defeated an Ashwamedha performer was himself required to do one could possibly have been a constraining factor to a knee-jerk opposition. After all, if a ruler was simply being challenged over his independence, the choice was plain - wage war. But if a ruler had the Ashwamedha challenge - that there was also a consequence to winning - he'd have to think long and hard. After all, an Ashwamedha yagna was a long and elaborate affair (I believe the entire yagna lasted a year) that could be a huge economic burden on a kingdom, which would have been why only rich and powerful kingdoms could have performed it.
One question - does Bharat's objection to the Rajasuya yagna, and Lakshman's suggestion of the Ashwamedha yagna, appear in Valmiki? What exactly does 7:83-84 say? I know that the next few chapters are Rama and Lakshman narrating to each other stories like Indra & Vritra, Budh & Hila, et al.
Also in the original Valmiki, far from trying to convince Sita to re-join her husband, Valmiki goes out of his way to tell the kids not to reveal who their father was (even though they knew): for instance, when Lakshman, at the point of offering them the 18000 gold coins, asked them that, they (were to and did) ask him how was it relevant to their project of singing the Ramayan, and the Guru was more important in the context, and that their guru was Valmiki. It was only after they had sung everything up to that point in the story that Rama either realized that they were Sita's kids, or asked them and found out.
So given how Valmiki totally left it to Rama to decide whether he wants them or not, the scene on Wednesday of his urging Sita to re-join her husband was totally ahistorical. Yep, I know, we are talking the same serial that gave us the gazillion vidhans of the great vidhi, but now that we are looking at the part of the story which is mentioned in the original, these differences are worth pointing out for the sake of anyone who believes what's being shown. So far, in this serial, we have:
Valmiki urging Sita to return
Valmiki wanting K-L to inherit Rama's throne (w/ that bizzare story of how to divvy up the fruits)
Most bizarre - Valmiki telling Sita that Rama had disowned Sita, but not the kids. But that's only possible had Rama retained Sita until his kids were born, and then exiled her, so how does the above make sense?
All of which can be shown to be contradicted by the original
@темы: Рамаяна