Going to the root of the
modern problem of insecure marriages, Jung pinpoints the cause as the
desymbolized world we live in now in which man struggles to relate to his
anima “outside” himself by projecting her on numerous women although,
paradoxically, she is the psyche within that he must commune with. That is
perhaps the message hidden behind the hint to keep ever fresh the memory
of the five maidens so that we become conscious of the anima-projection.
In this context Nolini Kanta
Gupta’s study of these maidens is of importance and tallies quite
remarkably with the Jungian insight into the meaning of being a virgin. He
points out, “In these five maidens we get a hint or a shade of the truth
that woman is not merely sati but predominantly and fundamentally
she is shakti.”[[1]]
He notes how the epics had to labour at establishing their greatness in
the teeth of the prejudice that woman must never be independent, but
always be a sati, known for her single- minded devotion to her
husband. This he describes as the subjugation of Prakriti to Purusha,
typical of the Middle Ages. The most ancient relationship, he says, was
the converse: Shiva under the feet of his goddess-consort. In Mahabharata
we find confirmation of the freedom enjoyed by women in the past. In the Adi
Parva Pandu tells Kunti:
“in the past, women
were not restricted to the house,
dependent on family members;
they moved about freely,
they enjoyed themselves freely.
They slept with any men they liked
from the age of puberty;
they were unfaithful to their husbands,
and yet not held sinful…
the greatest rishis have praised
this tradition-based custom;…
the northern Kurus still practise it…
the new custom is very recent.” (122.4-8)
Pandu narrates the story of
Uddalaka explaining to his outraged son Shvetaketu, when his mother is
taken away by a Brahmana in their presence,
“This is the Sanatana Dharma.
All women of the four castes
are free to have relations
with any man. And the men,
well, they are like bulls.” (122.13-14)
The account of Ulupi’s and
Urvashi’s behaviour with Arjuna and of Ganga’s with Pratipa are
instances of the type of freedom characterising the kanya’s
nature. In these kanyas we find the validation of Naomi Wolf’s
celebration of women as “sexually powerful magical beings”.[[1]] By the time of Pandu,
however, the Aryans settled around Sarasvati-Yamuna had started looking
down upon their Northern brethren and even classed them—such as the
Madras—with Mlecchas, non-Aryans. Karna lashes back at Shalya
criticising the loose morals of Madra women who go as they will with any
one they fancy.
“We moderns also”,
continues Nolini Kanta Gupta, “instead of looking upon the five maidens
as maidens, have tried with some manipulation to remember them as sati.
We cannot easily admit that there was or could be any other standard of
woman’s greatness beside chastity… Their souls did neither accept the
human idea of that time or thereafter as unique, nor admit the dharma-adharma
of human ethics as the absolute provision of life. Their beings were
glorified with a greater and higher capacity. Matrimonial sincerity or
adultery became irrelevant in that glory… Woman will take resort to man
not for chastity but for the touch and manifestation of the gods, to have
offspring born under divine influence… a person used to follow the law
of one’s own being, one’s own path of truth and establish a freer and
wider relation with another.”[[1]]
At the opening of the new
millennium are we too not moving cyclically towards a similar condition
where the relationship between a man and a woman is not permanent and
exclusive externally, where the sexes mingle freely, expansively, on equal
terms, progressing towards fulfilling one’s potential as in the pre-Shvetaketu
days? That is why the exhortation to recall the five virgin maidens is so
relevant now. The past does, indeed, hold the future in its womb.
[[i]] P. Lal: The Mahabharata (verse-by-verse
transcreation) Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 1968 ff. All translations
are from this version unless otherwise specified. References to the
Sanskrit text are to the Aryashastra (Calcutta) edition.
[[i]] M. Esther Harding: Woman’s Mysteries, Rider,
1971, London, p. 103
[[i]] She is of the Dasa race. Bhishma explains in the Anushasana
Parva 48.21 that offspring of a Nishada and a Sairandhri (an
orphan working as a servant maid) of Magadha are called Madguru
or Dasa and their profession is plying ferries, which is
precisely what Gandhakali was engaged in.
[[i]] Pradip Bhattacharya: Themes & Structure in the
Mahabharata Dasgupta & Co., Calcutta, 1989.
[[i]] Iravati Karve: Yuganta— the end of an era (Deshmukh
Prakashan, Bombay, 1969).
[[i]] P. Lal: Introduction to fascicule 19 of Mahabharata
(Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 1970).
[[i]] A.C. Bose: The Call of the Vedas (Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan, Bombay, 1988, p. 262).
[[i]] In the Bengali tele-serial Draupadi (1999) this is
precisely what Draupadi does, brilliantly portrayed by Roopa Ganguli.
Also see Dr Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri’s excellent study, Karna
Kunti Kaunteya (Ananda, Calcutta, 1998).
[[i]] I am indebted for this insight to Smt. Suprobhat
Bhattacharya, MA (Applied Psychology).
[[i]] Significantly, it is only Vikarna and a servant-maid’s
son who voice their outrage. The epic also says that it was Dharma who
protected Draupadi when she was sought to be stripped. Dharma is
Vidura’s other name.
[[i]] Vettam Mani: Puranic Encyclopaedia (Motilal
Banarsidass, Delhi, 1975, p. 549. He does not provide the reference to
the source of this story). M.V. Subramaniam: The Mahabharata Story:
Vyasa & Variations (Higginbothams, Madras, 1967, p. 46-47).
[[i]] Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay: “Draupadi” in Bibidha
Prabandha Part 1, 1887.
[[i]] A term used by Dhritarashtra to describe Draupadi in his
lament in the Anukramanika Parva, sloka 157.
[[i]] Hiltebeitel, op.cit. p. 291, Vol. 2, 1991, p. 400.
[[i]] Amreeta Syam: Kurukshetra (Writers Workshop,
Calcutta, 1991, pp. 38-9)
[[i]] Chandra Rajan: Re-visions (Writers Workshop,
Calcutta, 1987, p. 12)
[[i]] The Bengali tele-serial Draupadi dwells upon this
issue.
[[i]] Naomi Wolf, best-selling feminist author and advisor to
the American President and Vice-President, in Promiscuities
quoted in TIME, 8 November, 1999, p. 25.
[[i]] Barbara Taylor Bradford: A Woman of Substance
(Granada, 1980)
[[i]] Quoted in “Kore” in Introduction to a science of
mythology, C.G. Jung & C. Kerenyi, Routledge, p.141-2.
[[i]] C.G. Jung: “The Psychological Aspects of the Kore” in
ibid. p.222.
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Going to the root of the
modern problem of insecure marriages, Jung pinpoints the cause as the
desymbolized world we live in now in which man struggles to relate to his
anima “outside” himself by projecting her on numerous women although,
paradoxically, she is the psyche within that he must commune with. That is
perhaps the message hidden behind the hint to keep ever fresh the memory
of the five maidens so that we become conscious of the anima-projection.
