ing instead svarga, “heaven,” while both sam.sa ̄ra andkarma do feature in parts
of the Maha ̄bha ̄rata narrative.
By the middle of the period of growth of the epics, not only are Vis.n.u and S ́iva
becoming more significant but also the figure of Brahma ̄ becomes important for
a time, in the last century or two bceand the first century or so ce. Basically
Brahma ̄ represents a fusion of the Upanis.adic absolute, Brahman, with the
concept of a creator deity, and so he is credited with some of the cosmogonic
myths told in the later vedic period about Praja ̄pati. He is often called Pita ̄maha,
“grandfather,” or Svayam.bhu ̄ , “self-born,” and he is especially linked with
Bra ̄hmans and ascetics (e.g. Mbh. 1.203). His main attribute is to distribute
favours and particularly weapons to those who have pleased him by their ascetic
penance, as he does in the Ra ̄ma ̄yan.ato both Ra ̄vana and his son, Indrajit,
although he does also on occasion utter curses. However, it is Brahma ̄ who leads
the gods when they assemble at the end of the main Ra ̄ma ̄yan.anarrative to reveal
to Ra ̄ma his divinity (Ram. 6.105). There are possible hints of the classical
trimu ̄rti concept – which links Brahma ̄, Vis.n.u, and S ́iva together rather
arbitrarily – a couple of times in the Maha ̄bha ̄rata (12.328.17 and 13.14.183),
but already in the later parts of the epics Vis.n.u and S ́iva have totally eclipsed
Brahma ̄, just as the importance of Indra has significantly declined.
The complementarity of Vis.n.u and S ́iva in the Maha ̄bha ̄rata is a feature which
has been highlighted from a structuralist perspective by several scholars
(Biardeau, Hiltebeitel, and others). Since both epics eventually become Vais.n.ava
works, the Vais.n.ava aspects come to dominate, but this should not obscure the
fact that S ́iva plays an appreciable role in the Maha ̄bha ̄rata narrative: for example,
he ordains that Draupadı ̄ shall have five husbands (1.157 and 1.189), Arjuna
struggles with the Kira ̄t.a who is S ́iva in disguise (3.38–41), S ́iva goes
before Arjuna in the battle killing those whom Arjuna will strike (7.173), and
As ́vattha ̄man invokes S ́iva before the night attack in which he murders the
remaining Pa ̄n.d.ava forces (10.7). Not all of these fit the pattern of S ́iva as the
destroyer and Kr.s.n.a as the preserver so often posited (and in broad terms cor-
rectly so). Indeed, there are occasional references which link him with birth and
fertility: in particular, Ga ̄ndha ̄rı ̄ gained the boon of a hundred sons from him
(1.103.9) and Sagara that of many sons (3.104). S ́iva is less often mentioned in
theRa ̄ma ̄yan.athan in the Maha ̄bha ̄rata, although he becomes more prominent
in the first and last books, which extend the main narrative backwards (to the
birth of Ra ̄ma and his brothers) and forwards (to Ra ̄ma’s righteous rule,
ra ̄mara ̄jya, after the victory over Ra ̄vana – whose previous exploits fill the first
part of the last book – up to his final departure from this world).
TheMaha ̄bha ̄rata
Within the narrative of the Maha ̄bha ̄rata,Kr.s.n.a plays a prominent but scarcely
central role, one which nonetheless is enhanced as he comes to be seen as divine.
the sanskrit epics 119