A treasury is essential for a kingdom's survival. A king, therefore, must fill his coffers at any cost, even if he has to behave like a bandit. In times of famine, a Brahman may even eat dog's flesh in order to stay alive. But what are the boundaries of such behavior? Under what circumstances may a king or a Brahman resort to the kind of conduct that normally would be considered a transgression? Such fascinating questions that test the boundaries of Dharma are the subject of the Āpaddharmaparvan (MBh 12.129–67). Yet this short sub-parvan, tucked as it is between the massive Rājadharmaparvan (Laws for the King) and the Mokṣadharmaparvan (Laws for Gaining Liberation) of the Śāntiparvan (MBh12), has so far received little scholarly attention, with such exceptions as David White's treatment of 12.139 in Myths of the Dog-Man ([Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991], 71–86), and “You Are What You Eat: The Anomalous Status of Dog-Cookers in Hindu Mythology” (in The Eternal Food: Gastronomic Ideas and Experiences of Hindus and Buddhists, ed. R. S. Khare [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992], 53–94).
Bowles opens up the world of this short unit by exploring the ideological discussions in which the Mahābhārata participates through it, as well as by addressing essential problems in the interpretation of the Mahābhārata that the material in it raises. Bhīṣma's instruction to Yudhiṣṭhira from his arrow deathbed in books 12 and 13 (the Anuśāsanaparvan contains the Dānadharmaparvan, the Laws for Gift-Giving) makes up a significant part of the epic, yet as Bowles points out (p. 16), Mahābhārata scholars have tended to assume the priority of the narrative over the didactic parts of the Mahābhārata. We have yet to articulate an orientation to the didactic parts of the epic as deliberate literary and intellectual constructions within it. (On this matter, Bowles quotes Fitzgerald with regard to the Śàntiparvan; see James L. Fitzgerald, The Mahābhārata, vol. 7 [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004], 80). This study of a relatively neglected part of Bhīṣma's instructions is therefore a welcome contribution toward this end.
Chapters 2 and 3 explore the concept of āpad-dharma in prior and contemporary South Asian intellectual traditions. Chapter 2 deals with āpad (crisis, distress) in the literature on law (the Dharmaśāstras) and on statecraft (mainly the Kauñilīya Arthaśāstra). Chapter 3 gives a synopsis of the history of the term “Dharma” up to the time of the Mahābhārata, distinguishing between the “conservative” brāhmaṇic concept of varṇāśramadharma articulated in the Dharmaśāstra literature and the universal ethic articulated by the renunciatory traditions: Buddhism, Jainism, and the Aśoka edicts. The last comes into conflict in some cases with the first, especially, but not exclusively, around issue of the use of violence. This tension within the concept of Dharma is a central thematic concern of the Mahābhārata expressed throughout the epic.
Chapters 4 and 5 are concerned with how the Āpaddharmaparvan fits into the Mahābhārata. Chapter 4 explains how Yudhiṣṭhira's crisis and radical questioning of the king's Dharma in the opening section of the Śāntiparvan provides the narrative impetus for Bhīṣma's postwar instruction and integrates the didactic unit into the narrative context. Chapter 5 analyzes the poetic techniques, especially the framing and the interlocutory system, that establish the Āpaddharmaparvan as a cohesive unit within the Śāntiparvan and the Mahābhārata and by which the diverse texts of which it consists are integrated within the sub-parvan.
Chapters 6–9 provide a summary and an extended commentary of every single unit of the Āpaddharmaparvan. In his discussion of each unit, Bowles applies the interpretive tools established in the proceeding chapters, addressing the thematic justification for the inclusion of each unit as well as the logic behind its place in the sequence. His discussion touches, however, on a broader spectrum of issues, from comparisons with Pañcatantra, Hitopadeśa, and Jātaka versions of fables (e.g., pp. 244–46, 297–304), to commenting on a curious case of possibly anomalous self-reflexivity within the text (pp. 317–18), to discussing Ānandavardhana's and Abhinavagupta's view that the dominant rasa in the Mahābhārata is śānti (pp. 322–28). Bowles concludes by emphasizing the poetic integrity of the Āpaddharmaparvan.
Like most books published in Brill's Indological Library, Dharma, Disorder and the Political in Ancient India is aimed at a specialized readership. It assumes the reader's familiarity with the Mahābhārata and other genres of Sanskrit literature, at least in translation. Its primary readership, besides Mahābhārata specialists, would be scholars who are interested in ancient India's political and social thought and in the development of the concept of Dharma.
The monograph begins (pp. 1–2) by noting that the protagonists of the Mahābhārata are fathered by niyoga, a practice defined as an āpaddharma. Later, in discussing a specific episode, Bowles further proposes that through its development of the theme of avatar, divine “descent” in order to relieve the earth from its burden, the Mahābhārata may be projecting itself onto a time of crisis of cosmic dimensions (pp. 328–30). He concludes (p. 406) by finally asking the question, does “an āpaddharma semantic” frame the entire Mahābhārata? I think this is an important question that may shed light on the nature of the whole project of creating such a text, and it certainly convinces me that the didactic parts of the epic are intimately intertwined with its narrative parts.
