‘Choice’ in Iliad and Mahābhārata PDF

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‘Choice’ in Iliad and Mahābhārata1 Ionut Moise2 By the time of Aristotle (Poetics 1451a) the great epics of the ancient Greek world were thought to have been constructed around a single and complete ‘action’, for as the story goes, heroes’ decisions, ‘choices’, and the dilemmas derived from these, w...

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‘Choice’ in Iliad and Mahābhārata Ionut Moise

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‘Choice’ in Iliad and Mahābhārata1 Ionut Moise2

By the time of Aristotle (Poetics 1451a) the great epics of the ancient Greek world were thought to have been constructed around a single and complete ‘action’, for as the story goes, heroes’ decisions, ‘choices’, and the dilemmas derived from these, weighed heavily upon the subsequent history of the events.3 Choices and decisions are issues discussed in the Bhagavad-Gītā too. Yet, a closer look over the question of ‘choice’ in both 1

I am grateful to Infosys Foundation, India, for having offered a short-term

Fellowship to me at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (February 2020). This draft was initially meant to be part of a Three-Day International Conference on the topic ‘Mahābhārata in Literature and Tradition’ organised by the Department of Sanskrit Sahitya, SSUS, Kalady, Kerala (13-15 February 2020). A visa delay as well as two cyclones Ciara and Dennis - that swiped across the United Kingdom (February 2020) - made impossible my attendance. At the recommendation of my Sanskrit mentor - Prof. Ganesh U. Thite - I have presented this draft instead at a different conference (‘Facets of Ancient Indian History and Culture’, organized by Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth University, Pune, 24-26 February 2020). The writing of this paper was completed in March, during the deadly global pandemic of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) which lead to the closing of many borders across all five continents, and the disruption of many academic institutions. 2

Ionut Moise is Tutor in Comparative Philosophy in relation to the Aarhus University

- OCHS visiting student programme at Oxford. 3

See Alden, Homer Beside Himself: Para-Narratives in the Iliad, 2000. 1

Iliad and Mahābhārata reveals some problems related to the very nature of ‘choice’ in the Indian epics, not least because between Iliad and Mahābhārata there are considerable differences: levels of reality, types of actors, motives, and purposes. In this paper, I propose to explain why in Mahābhārata (MBh) we cannot talk about ‘choice’ as one would do in human terms, such as when selecting between various options or alternatives. The difference between the Greek and Indian view on ‘choice’ is like that between ‘human ‘choice’ and ‘divine ‘choice’, the former being ‘dualistic’, while the latter ‘transcendental’.

Introduction

The importance of the problem of ‘choice’ in both classical Greek and Indian epics4 is confirmed by the ramifications of this topic, namely its significance to questions related to ‘moral consciousness’, ‘freedom’ and ‘liberation’ in Mahābhārata (MBh) on the one hand, and on ‘destiny’, ‘freedom’ and ‘history’ in Iliad, on the other.5 ‘Choice’ carries in the Greek

4

I am aware about the inadequacy of the label ‘Indian’ for the interval 4th BC to 4th

AD, but my discussion here pertains to modern ‘comparative philosophy’ whereby I read texts with a rather global, cross-cultural intellectual scope in mind, namely a reflection on a common Indo-European philosophy, in a likewise manner in which Indo-European comparative linguistics does. 5

That is not say that classical Greek philosophy was not concerned with ‘liberation’

as soteriological goal; see for instance the Myth of Gyges described where a ‘political salvation’ is discussed (Plato’s Republic 2) as opposed to ‘Socratic Salvation’ 2

epics for instance, irreversible effects, and as Aristotle points out in Poetics (1451a), the resultant action determines the whole subsequent plot of the story. Iliad (Il) and Odyssey (Od), he says, seem to be constructed ‘around a single action’ (περὶ μίαν πρᾶξιν).6 Aristotle’s approach indicates

the peculiar ‘historicist’ feature of the Greek epics, where actors are people driven by a rather ‘mundane’ goal of life, namely to act in the world in view of domination, glory, or simply by determining the course of history.7 At the other spectrum of the ‘Indo-European mind’,8 such goal of life, is in Mahābhārata, contrasted with a rather ‘transcendental’ approach to action and history; thus, from a philosophical point of view, MBh’s teleology complements its European counterpart. Instead of three

illustrated by the Myth of Er (Republic 10). For more on Greek salvation see Adluri ed. 2013, Philosophy and Salvation. 6

ἀλλὰ περὶ μίαν πρᾶξιν οἵαν λέγομεν τὴν Ὀδύσσειαν συνέστησεν, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὴν

Ἰλιάδα (Poetics 1451a 30). 7

In the Nicomachean Ethics 1.5.2.-3 we have the following goals of life: 1) a ‘life of

pleasure’ (ὁ βίος ἀπολαυστικός) whose driving purpose is pleasure (ἡδονή): 2) a ‘life

of public engagement’ (ὁ βίος πολιτικὸς) whose aim is ‘honour’ (τιμή) and ‘worthiness’ (ἀρετῇ); and 3) the ‘life of contemplation’ (ὁ βίος θεωρητικός), the highest of all, whose

main goal is sheer ‘speculation’ (εὐδαιμονία). 8

The ‘Indo-European mind’, a concept I wish to coin here, follows the comparative

linguistics and philological method, and aims to designate the tentative ‘reconstruction’ of some ‘cognate concepts and patterns’ characteristic to the mentality of the ancient world (as opposed to common patterns in the globalised ‘post-modern world’). 3

goals of life - as in the Classical Greek philosophy9 - MBh contains four goals of life, 10 hence by contrast to Iliad, readers face inevitably an increase in the plot’s complexity, ‘levels of reality’ (heaven, not only earth), number of ‘actors’ (gods, not only heroes), ‘motive’ of actions (transcendental, not only historical), as well as different ‘purpose’ (freedom from the world and history, not only glory and history).

Cosmos, Contingency and ‘Choice’ in Ancient Greece To understand the nature of ‘choice’ in Iliad one must analyse first the Greek cosmos as additionally described by Hesiod’s Works and Days (WD) and Theogony (Th),11 but also the first Greek speculations about the original nature of cosmos which is the ‘void’ or ‘chasm’ 12 (Χάεος), out which ‘Darkness’ (Ἔρεβός) and ‘Night’ (Νὺξ) arise, a status quo that contrasts sharply with the Indian version of Ṛta (the balanced implacable law disrupted by ‘sin’ adharma). Χάεος is a term, whose denotation has

9

The three goals of life which Aristotle discusses in Nicomachean Ethics 1.5.2–3 (via

Loeb), were part of an older tradition, handed down via Pythagoras. 10

् धर्मे चार्थे च कार्मे च र्मोक्षे च भरतर्भष | यदिहादि तिन्यत्र यन्नेहादि न तत्क्वदचत (MBh 1.56.33). See also

MBh 13.2789 (Ganguli trans.), where kāma may correspond to both ‘pleasure’ and ‘asceticism’, while mokṣa with correspond to the state of Brahminhood. 11

To understand the cosmos of Iliad, the readings of Hesiod are relevant. The reality

they illustrate is a ‘world falling apart’ due to moral decadence (Works and Days), and due to the decadence of ‘moral choice’ (Iliad). 12

ἐκ Χάεος δ’ Ἔρεβός τε μέλαινά τε Νὺξ ἐγένοντο· Νυκτὸς δ’ αὖτ’ Αἰθήρ τε καὶ Ἡμέρη

ἐξεγένοντο, οὓς τέκε κυσαμένη Ἐρέβει φιλότητι μιγεῖσα (T 123).

4

now been taken for the English term ‘chaos’, which term stands closer perhaps to ‘असत’् from Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.2.1 translated as ‘nondifferentiated’,13 rather than ‘non-existent’ such as its Greek counterpart concept Χάεος, in fact, pointed to. The confusion between the ‘undifferentiated’ (असत)् and ‘chasm’ (Χάεος) must be assessed in the

context of the philosophical debates about the ultimate nature of things, and the cosmogonic theories about the origin of the world, which were prevalent topics both in the Subcontinent’s intrinsic intellectual debates themselves (such as the old arguments Buddhist anti-substance philosophies clashing with the pro-substance Brahmanical thinkers), 14 but also among Greek Pre-Socratics. The nature of things, the cosmos, and the degree of their contingency is relevant to the understanding of the nature of self, its freedom and capacity for ‘choice’. If cosmos, to which self is intimately bound, is contingent, then self too becomes contingent, therefore to assess the contingency of the world represents a device to assess the degree in which the self can ‘choice’. One such case is illustrated by the early Greek cosmology, as depicted by Hesiod (one of Homer’s contemporaries) who in Theogony, expresses several mythological views on the origin of cosmos, namely the state of ‘chasm’ and ‘void’ (Χάεος),

13

For Ch. Up. 6.2.1, see Acharya 2016: 861.

14

It is in fact a debate between substance and quality, to which each of the two world-

views reduce their cosmology. 5

which should not be confused with the eternalist worldview of ‘asat’ (असत)् Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.2.1.15 The contingent nature of the Greek cosmos, being as it were created ‘ex nihilo’, affects the nature of the soul, its freedom as well as its possibility for ‘choice’. Unlike Mbh, where were actors are ‘gods incarnate’ (Kṛṣṇa), in Iliad, the heroes are hybrid figures, being generated by the union between gods and men, hence their ‘freedom of choice’ is vitiated by the external influence of higher gods (Zeus, Hera, Athena). By looking into Hesiod’s works, one can note two major features of Greek cosmology, both of which are relevant to understanding the question of ‘choice’. One is a historical propensity towards a description of humankind undergoing a process of successive and irreversible degeneration; one may call it historical involution. After Theogony, where the generation of cosmos and gods ends with the enthronement of Zeus, son of Chronos, the ruler and stabilizer of the created cosmos, Hesiod in his Works and Days (WD) continues with a similar generative story, and puts forward the ‘Myth of Ages’ (infamously called ‘Myth of Races’) which describes five different ages created by Zeus: 1) Golden Age (WD 109), defined by ‘peaceful kings’ (ἥσυχοι), and equilibrium where rivalries do not exist; 2) Silver Age (WD 127), where rivalries take precedent, royals lead by hubris refuse to sacrifice; 3) Bronze Age (WD 143) characterised by warfare states and the production of weapons; 4) Heroes’ Age (WD 156) the age of great battles of Thebes, or Troy (as described in Iliad) when demigods can achieve the 15

A fresh interpretation of ‘asat’ as ‘undifferentiated’ (Ch. Up. 6.2.1) has made by

Acharya 2016: 861. 6

Isle of the Blessed; and finally, 5) Iron Age, characterised by hardship and agriculture, the very age in which Hesiod lives (WD 176-8). The succession of generations from a ‘utopic age’ to a degenerated one, is where ‘choice’ comes into play and its role is to put a halt to a seemingly irreversible historical course which leads to subsequent fall of ages, 16 further injustice, and the fall of the cities into complete immorality.17 A second characteristic that interests the problem of ‘choice’ is the dualistic framework in which the Hesiodic degeneration happens. What Hesiod tries is to advice his brother, the king Perses, about the two-fold personification of Eris (goddess ‘Strife’) (WD 11-24): 1) one that creates ‘destruction’, the other ‘rivalry’. Hesiod stresses the dual character of Eris; goddess Strife, he says, is not one but two, and she is being encountered all over the Earth. He exhorts his brother to avert the mistake of past generations, and instead, he should equip himself with ‘justice’ (WD 10)18 and ‘virtue’ (WD 286-92). It was perhaps in the way that Homer saw the city of Troy, namely a place of justice and virtue, pray to the errors such as hubris, which Hesiod drew attention to. With Hesiod, and by extrapolation with Iliad and Odyssey, there emerges in the Greek epics the importance of dualism expressed by a ‘choice’ between usually two 16

Note that Heroes’ Age does not have a corresponding ‘metal’; this age may

represent an ontological hiatus among the five ages described (Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroes, and Iron). 17

On the relationship between city and justice, WD 270-3; Plato’s Republic 2.

18

κλῦθι ἰδὼν ἀιών τε, δίκῃ δ᾽ ἴθυνε θέμιστας τύνη· ἐγὼ δέ κε Πέρσῃ ἐτήτυμα μυθησαίμην

(WD 10).

7

alternatives. In WD 286-9219 for instance, Hesiod distinguishes between two ‘paths’ (ὁδός): one ‘vicious’ (κακότης) which is ‘easy-going’ (ῥᾴδιος), and a ‘virtuous’ (ἀρετῆς) one, marked by ‘sweat’ (ἱδρῶτα), being as it were ‘initially harsh’ (τρηχὺς τὸ πρῶτον), ‘long’ and ‘steep’ (μακρὸς καὶ ὄρθιος). The importance of ‘choice’ among the two paths is for Hesiod significant;

it has something to do with the decadent nature of the Iron age, characterised by ontological degeneration where good things are mixed with evil ones (WD 179),20 as well as moral degeneration, a stage that is prone to slide even lower, where evils become irremediable, and when there will be ‘no help against evil’ (κακοῦ δ᾽οὐκ ἔσσεται ἀλκή) (WD 201). The Greek cosmos of the Iron age is a confused age, on many levels,

ontological, and ethical, where ‘choice’ and justice are further weakened as even the judges are corrupt (WD 35-41). As a result, Hesiod appeals to the true and perfect judgement of Zeus (WD 35-36).21 It is not clear if this lack of accurate judgement among humans on the difference between the two Eris is a pre-determined wish of Zeus, or a punishment for the human attempt to steal ‘the means of life’ hidden away by gods from men

19

σοὶ δ᾽ ἐγὼ ἐσθλὰ νοέων ἐρέω, μέγα νήπιε Πέρση. τὴν μέν τοι κακότητα καὶ ἰλαδὸν

ἔστιν ἑλέσθαι ῥηιδίως: λείη μὲν ὁδός, μάλα δ᾽ ἐγγύθι ναίει: τῆς δ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ

προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν ἀθάνατοι: μακρὸς δὲ καὶ ὄρθιος οἶμος ἐς αὐτὴν καὶ τρηχὺς τὸ πρῶτον: ἐπὴν δ᾽ εἰς ἄκρον ἵκηται, ῥηιδίη δὴ ἔπειτα πέλει, χαλεπή περ ἐοῦσα. (WD 28692). 20 21

ἀλλ᾽ ἔμπης καὶ τοῖσι μεμείξεται ἐσθλὰ κακοῖσιν (WD 179).

ἀλλ᾽ αὖθι διακρινώμεθα νεῖκος ἰθείῃσι δίκῃς, αἵ τ᾽ ἐκ Διός εἰσιν ἄρισται (WD 35-36).

8

(κρύψαντες γὰρ ἔχουσι θεοὶ βίον ἀνθρώποισιν) (WD 42).22 Suffices it to ask

if ‘choice’, in the context of early Greek epics, is the privilege of gods only, of if man is able to reach a state of self-assertion and choice-related independence. Several scholars have already noted that in Homer,23 the ‘man-god’ hero becomes gradually himself the decisive factor which determines his ‘action’ (Arbogast Schmitt),24 despite the fact that man himself is ‘bonded by dependency and the initiative to act’ (Bruno Snell). 25 Yet there is agreement among scholars that given the difference in intensity of the gods’ influence, in Iliad, there are as result, degrees of individual will allowed by gods as well. Such instances may be mentioned here: Paris’ fatidic ‘choice’ alluded only briefly in Iliad (24.25-30)

26

then

22

For the account on Prometheus, Hesiod’s WD 507-616.

23

There is no consensus about the real historic existence of Homer, as the creator of

Iliad, or just the bard who put the story on rhyme; throughout the Hellenic world, there were various schools of Homer, some of whose archeological remains are being preserved even today. In July 1019, I had the chance to explore on foot the northern part of the Greek island of Ithaka (probably Odysseus’ place), where I could access a site which was labeled ‘The School of Homer’. The blocks of stones at the bottom were large (comparable to the ones at Delphi), while the upper ones were smaller and possibly added later, because the site served as a church as some point in the past. 24

Thesis reproduced by Arbogast Schmitt (2013: 62) from Albin Lesky.

25

See Adluri, 2013, and Heiden, 2008: 19 who pointed out, that choice in all its

dramatic conceptualisation are undergoing in Iliad an increasing transformation, combination and reconstruction. 26

In Iliad, the name of Paris is often designated by that of Alexander. 9

Agamemnon’s ‘choice’ to conquer Troy, the ‘choice’ of Achilles to fight the Trojan war, or the various ‘choices’ taken as a result of consulting the oracles, a practice that in for example is disapproved in MBh by Yudhiṣṭhira (MBh 2.53).27

Dualism and Dilemmas in Iliad

It is important to read the Greek epic with the mythology of Eris in the background, because its dualistic fatidic role can be felt throughout. ‘Choice’ is contingent upon higher forces, for instance gods, who though not the main actors in the Greek epics, they nevertheless exert often a passive influence upon the ‘destiny’ of the demigods and heroes: Athena and Hera plotting misery to the Trojans (Il 20-22), Athena’s instigation to war by asking Pandarus to shoot a swift arrow at Menelaus as to incite Agamemnon into the war (Il 4.85-103), Apollo strikes Patroclus’ armour leaving him defenceless (Il 16. 787), Aphrodite threatens Helen (Il 3.390), Thetis conveys Zeus’ wish that Achilles should release Hector’s body (Il 24.120-140), and the list of examples may continue. In contrast to Mahābhārata, in Iliad we see one single reality, the earth, where even gods play a part, albeit passively. As for the types of actors, there are clearly two types of players at stake here, the gods in the background and the heroes on the battlefield. Though bonded by dependency and cosmic contingency, the heroes of Homer, seem to make gradual effort to exerting

27

Smith 2009: 131 (MBh ed.). 10

their will, even against the action of an implacable ‘destiny’.28 Mortals demigods and heroes - are constricted by ‘destiny’ (μοῖρα) (Il 24.49, 209; 17.672), and they do seem to undergo a process of ‘emancipation’ seen in the tendency to challenge or even boldly revolt against gods, see for instance Agamemnon attempt to refuse to pay symbolic reverence to Apollo (Il 1.-6-32).29This form of ‘heroic autonomy’ - which can be seen across the broader history of European thought up to Enlightenment and beyond - has roots in the early beginnings of the Greek philosophy, with Heraclitus (B 119) who identified man’s character with δαίμων, erroneously translated with ‘fate’, and developed by Socrates, where we

see being debated at least two contrasting views of ‘choice’: a ‘choice’ for ‘power’ and ‘death’ expressed by the Myth of Gyges (Plato’s Rep 2) which may correspond to Hesiod’s first function of Eris, and on the other hand, an ‘emancipated ‘choice’ as taught by Socrates when discusses the Myth of Er (Plato’s Rep 10),30 where the criteria for reason is the inner voice called δαίμων. 28

There is, I should add, a supercompensation tendency of a feeble will, among the

Greek heroes, a gradual assertion of their human choice allowed by gods, that would eventually determine and define the course of European thought. Iliad remains a genuine, even symptomatic leitmotiv in the European imagination up to the postEnlightenment philosophical thought of Schopenhauer’s will and Nietzsche’ willforce. 29

This is what we infer from Chryses’ speech.

30

With the Myth of Er, Socrates seems to give a lot of scope to ‘choice’ in salvation

(Plato’s Rep. 10. 618d5-619a1; 618b8-c6; 619b3-6). 11

The Hesiodic dualism of ‘choice’ has another implication as well, pertaining to the concept of salvation. In ancient and ...