by Bibek Debroy
Translated by
BIBEK DEBROY
Harivamsha
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Translator
Map of Bharatavarsha
Introduction
Harivamsha Parva
Vishnu Parva
Bhavishya Parva
Footnotes
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright
About the Translator
Bibek Debroy is a renowned economist, scholar and translator. He has worked in universities, research institutes, industry and for the government. He has widely published books, papers and articles on economics. As a translator, he is best known for his magnificent rendition of the Mahabharata in ten volumes, published to wide acclaim by Penguin Books India. He is also the author of Sarama and Her Children, which splices his interest in Hinduism with his love for dogs.
Praise for the Mahabharata
‘The modernization of language is visible, it’s easier on the mind, through expressions that are somewhat familiar. The detailing of the story is intact, the varying tempo maintained, with no deviations from the original. The short introduction reflects a brilliant mind. For those who passionately love the Mahabharata and want to explore it to its depths, Debroy’s translation offers great promise in the first volume.’
—Hindustan Times
‘[Debroy] has really carved out a niche for himself in crafting and presenting a translation of the Mahabharata . . . The book takes us on a great journey with admirable ease.’
—The Indian Express
‘The first thing that appeals to one is the simplicity with which Debroy has been able to express himself and infuse the right kind of meanings . . . Considering that Sanskrit is not the simplest of languages to translate a text from, Debroy exhibits his deep understanding and appreciation of the medium.’
—The Hindu
‘Overwhelmingly impressive . . . Bibek is a truly eclectic scholar.’
—Business Line
‘Debroy’s lucid and nuanced retelling of the original makes the masterpiece even more enjoyably accessible.’
—Open
‘The quality of translation is excellent. The lucid language makes it a pleasure to read the various stories, digressions and parables.’
—The Tribune
‘Extremely well-organized, and has a substantial and helpful Introduction, plot summaries and notes. The volume is a beautiful example of a well thought-out layout which makes for much easier reading.’
—The Book Review
‘The dispassionate vision [Debroy] brings to this endeavour will surely earn him merit in the three worlds.’
—Mail Today
‘This [second] volume, as voluminous as the first one, is expectedly as scholarly . . . Like the earlier volume, the whole book is an easy read.’
—The Hindu
‘Debroy’s is not the only English translation available in the market, but where he scores and others fail is that his is the closest rendering of the original text in modern English without unduly complicating the readers’ understanding of the epic.’
—Business Standard
‘The brilliance of Ved Vysya comes through [in Volume 3], ably translated by Bibek Debroy.’
—Hindustan Times
For Prakash Javadekar
Introduction
The Harivamsha is not a Purana, though it is often loosely referred to as a Purana. The word Purana means ancient and, as texts, the Puranas are ancient accounts. There are many texts that are referred to as Puranas. To be classified as a proper Purana, a text needs to cover five topics: (1) sarga, the original creation; (2) pratisarga, the periodic cycles of secondary creation and destruction; (3) vamsha, the genealogies of the gods and the rishis;1 (4) manvantara, the eras, each presided over by a Manu; and (5) the solar and lunar dynasties. In lists of the Puranas, there are the great Puranas, the Mahapuranas, and the minor Puranas, the Upapuranas. There is no consensus on what counts as Upapurana and what does not. Lists vary from one part of the country to another. However, there is consensus on the list of Mahapuranas. There are eighteen of these and their names are; (1) Agni Purana; (2) Bhagavata Purana; (3) Brahma Purana; (4) Brahmanda Purana; (5) Brahmavaivarta Purana; (6) Garuda Purana; (7) Kurma Purana; (8) Linga Purana; (9) Markandeya Purana; (10) Matsya Purana; (11) Narada Purana; (12) Padma Purana; (13) Shiva Purana; (14) Skanda Purana; (15) Vamana Purana; (16) Varaha Purana; (17) Vayu Purana; and (18) Vishnu Purana. In some cases, the Bhavishya Purana is included in the list of eighteen. When that is done, either the Shiva Purana or the Vayu Purana is inc
luded in the list, but not both. In greater or lesser degree, all the Mahapuranas satisfy those five characteristics, the Vishnu Purana more than the others.
The Mahabharata was composed by the sage Krishna Dvaipayana Vedavyasa. There were many regional versions of this Sanskrit text. Between 1919 and 1966, the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune sifted through these various versions and brought out a Critical Edition of this Sanskrit text. Since unabridged translations of the Mahabharata in English are rare, a translation was published by Penguin Books India between 2010 and 2014 and a boxed set has been brought out in 2015.2 The Harivamsha needs to be read in conjunction with the Mahabharata, and not independently. This translation should also be read in conjunction with the Mahabharata translation and not independently. It is a continuation and incidents and characters will not necessarily be clear without that continuity. After the Critical Edition of the Mahabharata was published, the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute also published a Critical Edition of the Harivamsha (1969–71), as a khila (meaning supplement or appendix) to the Mahabharata text. The Mahabharata composed by Vedavyasa includes the Harivamsha. This translation is based on the Critical Edition of the Harivamsha, as was the case with the Mahabharata translation. Two points need to be made about this Critical text. First, at the risk of some subjectivity, the quality of editing in the Critical version of the Harivamsha is not as good as that of the main Mahabharata. In some instances, we have had the temerity to point this out. Second, there are versions of the Harivamsha floating around, in Sanskrit, with translations in vernacular languages. Compared to those, the Critical text has done some ruthless slashing. We will return to this point later. Therefore, many incidents one associates with the Harivamsha are missing from the Critical text and will also be missed in this translation. To the best of my knowledge, there are only two unabridged translations of the Harivamsha in English. The first was done by Manmatha Nath Dutt in 1897, after he had completed his translation of the Mahabharata. The second is an ongoing online translation.3
The pattern followed in this Harivamsha translation also follows that of the Mahabharata translation. The intention is to make the translation as close to the original Sanskrit text as is possible. In the process, the English is not always as smooth as might have been the case had one taken more liberties. If a reader has the Sanskrit in front, there will be an exact correspondence between the Sanskrit and the English. This cannot be achieved with a verse translation, though the Harivamsha is in verse. Hence, the translation is in prose. Some words cannot satisfactorily be translated, dharma being a case in point. Therefore, such words are not translated. This is a translation, it isn’t an interpretation. However, a straightforward translation may not make everything clear to the reader. This explanation is done through footnotes and should be sufficient to explain the text. Because this translation is meant to be accessible to the ordinary reader, there was a conscious decision to avoid diacritical marks. Names, proper names and geographical names, are therefore rendered as close phonetically as is possible. The absence of diacritical marks sometimes can cause confusion, such as between Vasudeva (Krishna) and Vasudeva (Krishna’s father). When there is a danger of confusion, not obvious from the context, this has been avoided by rendering Krishna as Vaasudeva and Krishna’s father as Vasudeva.
What is the Harivamsha about? In a general sense, it is about Krishna’s life. When we first encounter Krishna in the Mahabharata, he is already an adult. Where was he born? What were his childhood and other exploits, those not recounted in the Mahabharata? The Harivamsha answers such questions. But such questions are also answered in the Puranas, at least some of them. The belief is that after composing the Mahabharata, Vedavyasa composed the Puranas. The Mahabharata is believed to have had 100,000 shlokas or couplets. The Critical Edition of the Mahabharata has a little short of 75,000. Even that, in the ten-volume translation, converts into something like 2.25 million words. Together, the eighteen Mahapuranas amount to another 400,000 shlokas. The Mahapuranas differ greatly in length, from around 10,000 shlokas in the Brahma Purana to more than 80,000 shlokas in the Skanda Purana. Nor were they necessarily composed at one point in time, with a range of anything between second century CE to tenth century CE. In all probability, Vedavyasa composed an original Purana that is now lost and all the present Puranas are additions and embellishments on that lost original. The Puranas are classified in different ways. For instance, some emphasize creation and are therefore identified with Brahma. Some are identified with Vishnu and some are identified with Shiva. But these are not neat silos and all of them traverse similar ground, with minor variations in the stories too. Among the ones identified with Vishnu and known as Vaishnava Puranas are the Vishnu Purana and the Bhagavata Purana. Most of what is found in the Harivamsha will be found in these two texts. In the Mahabharata, Krishna may have been elevated to the status of a divinity in some parts. But in other parts, he does display human attributes. Purely in those relative terms, in these two Puranas and in the Harivamsha, Krishna’s divine status is primary and the human traits are secondary.
Once he composed the Mahabharata, the Harivamsha and the Puranas, Vedavyasa taught these to his disciple, Vaishampayana. Janamejaya was the son of Parikshit, Abhimanyu’s son. On the occasion of King Janamejaya’s snake sacrifice, Vaishampayana recounted all three texts to Janamejaya and the assembled sages. On a subsequent occasion, Ugrashrava Souti recounted the same story to sages who had assembled for a sacrifice in the Naimisha forest. It is by no means essential that the Harivamsha, as we have it today, was necessarily composed at a single point in time. The earlier parts, and it is impossible to disentangle the earlier from the later, probably go back to the first or second century CE.
Standard texts of the Harivamsha are divided into three sections or parvas—‘Harivamsha Parva’, ‘Vishnu Parva’ and ‘Bhavishya Parva’. In general, ‘Harivamsha Parva’ has stories that precede Krishna. There are stories about the Vrishni lineage, but not about Krishna. ‘Vishnu Parva’ is about Krishna’s exploits and ‘Bhavishya Parva’ is about the future, about kali yuga. Compared to non-Critical versions that float around, the Critical text of the Harivamsha has seen merciless slashing across all three sections. What remains is 118 chapters: forty-five chapters in ‘Harivamsha Parva’, sixty-eight chapters in ‘Vishnu Parva’ and five chapters in ‘Bhavishya Parva’. There are 2,392 shlokas in ‘Harivamsha Parva’, 3,368 shlokas in ‘Vishnu Parva’ and 205 shlokas in ‘Bhavishya Parva’. There are thus 5,965 shlokas in all of Harivamsha. Non-Critical versions will often have double this number, reflective of the slashing. Instead of numbering the chapters within the three sections separately, we have used a continuous numbering, one that the Sanskrit text also uses.
Harivamsha Parva
Chapter 1: 40 shlokas
Chapter 2: 56 shlokas
Chapter 3: 112 shlokas
Chapter 4: 26 shlokas
Chapter 5: 53 shlokas
Chapter 6: 49 shlokas
Chapter 7: 56 shlokas
Chapter 8: 48 shlokas
Chapter 9: 100 shlokas
Chapter 10: 80 shlokas
Chapter 11: 41 shlokas
Chapter 12: 41 shlokas
Chapter 13: 75 shlokas
Chapter 14: 13 shlokas
Chapter 15: 68 shlokas
Chapter 16: 37 shlokas
Chapter 17: 11 shlokas
Chapter 18: 32 shlokas
Chapter 19: 35 shlokas
Chapter 20: 48 shlokas
Chapter 21: 37 shlokas
Chapter 22: 45 shlokas
Chapter 23: 168 shlokas
Chapter 24: 35 shlokas
Chapter 25: 17 shlokas
Chapter 26: 28 shlokas
Chapter 27: 31 shlokas
Chapter 28: 45 shlokas
Chapter 29: 40 shlokas
Chapter 30: 57 shlokas
Chapter 31: 153 shlokas
Chapter 32: 39 shlokas
Chapter 33: 32 shlokas
Chapter 34: 51 shlokas
Chapter 35: 74 shlokas
Chapter 36: 60 shlokas
Chapter 37: 59 shlokas
Chapter 38: 80 shlokas
Chapter 39: 29 shlokas
Chapter 40: 47 shlokas
Chapter 41: 32 shlokas
Chapter 42: 53 shlokas
Chapter 43: 77 shlokas
Chapter 44: 83 shlokas
Chapter 45: 49 shlokas
Chapter 1
Shounaka1 said, ‘O Souti! You have recounted the extremely great account of those born from the Bharata lineage, all the kings, the gods, the danavas, the serpents, the rakshasas, the daityas, the siddhas, the guhyakas, their extraordinary acts of valour, the supreme and wonderful accounts of their births and the determinations of dharma.2 In gentle words, you have spoken about these sacred and ancient accounts. Our minds and ears have become happy and delighted and are full of amrita.3 O Lomaharshana’s son! You have also spoken to us about the birth of those from the Kuru lineage. However, you have not spoken about the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.4 Tell us about them.’
Suta replied, ‘Janamejaya asked Vyasa’s intelligent disciple about this.5 Following this, I will tell you the truth about the lineage of the Vrishnis, from the beginning. After having heard the entire history about the Bharata lineage, the immensely wise Bharata Janamejaya6 spoke to Vaishampayana. “The account of the Mahabharata has many meanings and is extensive in its compass. O brahmana!7 You have told me about it in detail and I have heard it. You have spoken about many brave ones, bulls among men, and the names and deeds of the maharatha Vrishnis and Andhakas.8 O supreme among brahmanas! You have also spoken about their deeds. O lord! However, you have only spoken about this briefly and not in detail. I am not satisfied with what you have already recounted. It is my view that the Vrishnis and the Pandavas were related. You know about their lineages and were a direct witness. O store of austerities! Speak about their lineage in detail. I wish to know about who was born in whose lineage. What is the wonderful story of their being created earlier, by Prajapati?”9 The great-souled and great ascetic was honoured well and asked in this fashion. He thus recounted the story in detail, following the due order.’
Vaishampayana said, ‘O king! Listen to the sacred and divine account, one that is destructive of all sins. I will tell you about these wonderful and diverse accounts, honoured in the sacred texts. O son!10 If a person sustains this and ceaselessly listens to it, he manages to uphold his own lineage and obtains greatness in the world of heaven. The eternal and unmanifest cause has existence and non-existence in his soul. He is Pradhana or Purusha. Though he is without a sense of ownership, he is the lord of the universe and everything flows from him. O great king! Know him to be the infinitely energetic Brahma. He is the creator of all beings and he seeks refuge with Narayana. Mahat11 resulted from him and Ahamkara from Mahat. From this, all beings were created. The diverse gross elements were created from the subtle elements and this is the eternal nature of creation. Depending on my wisdom and based on what I have heard, I will now describe this in detail. This recounting will enhance the deeds of the ancestors. Listen. All of them were firm in their tasks and sacred in their deeds. This recounting leads to the enhancement of riches, fame and lifespans, slays enemies and leads to heaven. You are purest among those who are pure. I am capable of telling and you can comprehend. Therefore, I will tell you about the supreme story of the creation of beings, including the lineage of the Vrishnis. The illustrious Vishnu Svayambhu12 wished to create different kinds of beings. He first created water and then released his energy into it. We have earlier heard that water is known by the name of Nara. Since he lay down on it earlier, he is known by the name of Narayana.13 While he lay down on the water, a golden egg was generated and Svayambhu Brahma was himself born from this. This is what we have heard. The illustrious Hiranyagarbha14 resided inside it for an entire year and thereafter divided the egg into two, thus creating heaven and earth. Between the two halves that were in the water, the lord created the sky. The earth was flooded with water and he created the ten directions.15 Desiring to create, Prajapati created the forms of time, thoughts, words, desire, anger and attachment. From his mind, he created the seven greatly energetic ones—Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu and Vasishtha.16 It has been determined that these are the seven ancient brahmanas. These seven were born from Brahma and have Narayana in their soul. Having created them, Brahma again created Rudra from his wrath. He also created Sanatkumara and the other rishis, who were the ancestors of the ancestors.17 O descendant of the Bharata lineage! Rudra, and those seven, began to create offspring. However, Skanda and Sanatkumara restrained their seed.18 Those seven19 created divine and great lineages and large numbers of gods are also included in them, as are many maharshis.20 They performed rites and had offspring. He also created lightning, thunder, clouds, the rainbow,21 aquatic creatures and rain. For the success of sacrifices, he fashioned hymns of the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda and the Sama Veda. We have heard that the gods known as Sadhyas are always engaged in performing sacrifices. He created the superior and the inferior creatures from his own body. Prajapati thus created large numbers of beings that dwelt in the water. He then divided his body into two, and one half of the body became Purusha.22 The other half became female and gave birth to many kinds of creatures. In this way, they23 pervade heaven and earth in their greatness. Vishnu created a great and radiant being. Know that being as Manu and manvantara is named after this.24 There is a second creation that is said to have occurred after the mental one. This is known as Vairaja creation and was done by the lord.25 The first cycle of creation was not born from wombs and was a creation that resulted from Narayana. If a man knows about this original creation, he obtains a long life and has fame, riches and offspring. He obtains the destination that he desires.’