Lions and tigers in the Mahabharata

Lions and tigers in the Mahabharata - Printable Version

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Lions and tigers in the Mahabharata - LandSeaLion - 03-04-2022

There was an off-topic discussion going on in this thread about whether or not the Mahabharata mentions lions and tigers in conflict.

Obligatory note: I'm not an expert on this topic whatsoever (so if I've gotten anything wrong, please do correct me!). :) I am, however, an absolutely massive nerd who is both curious about languages and has a tendency to waste time researching obscure things that are of no real importance whatsoever, so I went looking to see if I could find whether this line in the English translation by Romesh Chunder Dutt:

"Peerless bowman! Mighty monarch! Nations still his hests obeyed,
As a lion slays a tiger, Bhima hath Duryodhan slayed"

was in the "original Sanskrit."It's important to note that there exist various written interpretations of the Mahabharata. The most complete version in the public domain is this version, which was translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli. This is the source I used to find the corresponding Sanskrit line. I already knew that "siṃhá" meant "lion," so looking for lines with the root "simh-" narrowed down the search for me. I found it on line 17 of this page:

17 एष दुर्यॊधनः शेते महेष्वासॊ महारथः

शार्दूल इव सिंहेन भीमसेनेन पातितः

17 eṣa duryodhanaḥ śete maheṣvāso mahārathaḥ
śārdūla iva siṃhena bhīmasenena pātitaḥ

Unfortunately Google does not offer a translation service for Sanskrit, but I can get a very amateurish translation by looking up each word individually.

eṣa = this/that
duryodhanaḥ = Duryodhan
śete = sleeps/lies down
maheṣvāso = great archer
mahārathaḥ = great warrior/hero/chariot-warrior ("car warrior")
śārdūla = tiger (this word can apparently refer to either a lion - "siṃhá" - or a tiger - "vyāghraḥ" - but given the reference to a lion by "simh-" in the same line, it's more likely to mean tiger here. Fun fact: it's been theorised that the Sanskrit word for tiger mentioned above is where the name for the drug Viagra comes from!)
iva = like/as if
siṃhena = by a lion (simha is the root word meaning "lion," and the na appended to it turns it into the instrumental form. See this page for more info)
bhīmasenena = by Bhima
patitah = was thrown/has fallen down

So basically my translation would be:

"That great archer and hero Duryodhan lies there, like a tiger by a lion, cast down by Bhimasena."

The English translation offered by the same site is: "Alas, there that great bowman and mighty car-warrior sleeps, slain by Bhimasena, like a tiger slain by a lion!"

So, that poem above by Dutt is actually reasonably similar to this (although of course with a lot of flourishes and poetic license to make it rhyme). It's worth noting of course that this isn't a literal description of a lion fighting a tiger; in context, it's being used as a poetic metaphor for one mighty character killing another. Both lions and tigers were frequently used as metaphors for great people (like the expression "a tiger amongst men"). The other example posted in that thread from the Ramayana ("Let not Rama in his rancour shed a younger brother's blood, As the lion slays the tiger in the deep and echoing wood!") is used in exactly the same way. Perhaps this is why Romila Thapar said that there was no mention of lions and tigers in combat in the Mahabharata and Ramayana? Another possibility is that Thapar may not consider the Ganguli version of the Mahabharata to be the definitive one; there is apparently a version called "the Critical Edition" by the Bhandakar Oriental Research Institute. Perhaps it differs, and does not contain this metaphor? It isn't in the public domain though, so I can't compare.

Anyway, that's enough from me lol.

RE: Lions and tigers in the Mahabharata - GuateGojira - 03-04-2022

Great work LandSeaLion, you nailed it!

That is the problem with the old litterature, there are several forms, translations and interpretations.

I found these other translations:
https://archive.org/details/ramayana00seeg
https://archive.org/details/ramayana0000valm

In these ones the metaphor do not exist, just the plain history, and the version that I have (in Spanish) looks like this one.

At the end, we must understand that these are metaphors, poems that are litterary resources to embellish the story. The author Valmiki put the lion over all animals, included the elephant, so he is not a source that we can use for "Vrs" topics, sadly there is a lot of people out there that want to use anything to continue with they silly debates.

Just let me put these images here, from Romila Thapar, showing what she said on this point:

*This image is copyright of its original author