Learning from Other Religious Traditions by Hans Gustafson

Author:Hans Gustafson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

The Prophecy of India

The Mahābhārata (“Great Epic of the Bhārata Dynasty”), along with the Rāmāyaṇa, is one of the major Sanskrit poems of ancient India. Composed at some time between 300 BCE and 300 CE, the Mahābhārata tells of a family rivalry that reflects much larger cosmic struggles – “the eternal battle between gods and demons [is] to be played out as a human conflict between two sets of cousins.”14 The gods are represented by the heroic Pāṇḍavas; their leader is Yudhiṣthira, son of Dharma (the divine personification of religion, justice , and righteousness). The demonic side is represented by the Kauravas; their leader is Duryodhana, “born on earth from a portion of Kali,”15 a goddess whose name can be translated as Doomsday (as can the Old Norse name of Muspell, the fire giant who burns the world at Ragnarök).

Through eighteen books, the massive text follows not only the main plot of the power struggle between Yudhiṣthira and his cousin Duryodhana, but also gives the back stories of a host of characters central, tangential, and distantly related to the main storyline. Gods and ghouls regularly appear, fantastic locations are visited, and magical powers arise from boons awarded by the deities. The drama builds toward the final battle between the massed forces in alliance with each of the cousins. As the two sides gather on the battlefield, the poet and seer Vyāsa appears and makes a grand prophecy of the destruction to come.

The parallels between Vyāsa and the Norse god Odin are striking. Credited with writing the Mahābhārata itself, Vyāsa is associated with both poetry and prophecy. Odin is the supposed author of Hávamál, the central wisdom poem and longest entry in the Poetic Edda, and his name is related to Old Norse óðr (“furious”) and Old Irish faith (“seer”). He is the deity who wins the Mead of Inspiration and shares it with human poets . He is also married to Frigg, who knows “all fate,”16 and he turns to prophetesses and ancient giants for knowledge of what is to come. Vyāsa is the grandfather of the Pāṇḍavas, the heroes of this great Indian epic; Odin is the progenitor of the Völsungs, the heroes of arguably the greatest of the Icelandic legendary sagas, Völsunga saga (Saga of the Völsungs). In their respective texts, Vyāsa and Odin wander into the story whenever one of their descendants is in need, offer a bit of help, then wander out again. In the Mahābhārata, Vyāsa tells his prophecy to the blind Dhṛtarāṣṭra, father of the Kauravas; in Völuspá, the völva tells her prophecy to the one-eyed Odin , also known as Blindr (“Blind”).

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