FACTORES BIOLÓGICOS DEL COMPORTAMIENTO HUMANO

On two occasions, after 113.81 and after 118.42, both Vaidya and Dandekar print a line of asterisks to suggest a break in the text. On the second of these occasions Vaidya adds a note saying that ‘Stanzas 43 to 49 of the last adhy. contain the phalaśruti of HV. The author of this phalaśruti is either Sūta or at the most Vaiśaṃpāyana’ (Vaidya 1969: 798). But Vaidya says nothing to suggest that either of these two lines of asterisks make a division that is also made in the manuscripts. It looks to me that they are Vaidya’s own interpretive paratextual additions, and as such I have felt at liberty to ignore them when translating, and to omit them from my electronic Sanskrit text. Since they don’t really form part of Vaidya’s text, I feel entitled to omit them without classing this as an emendation. They are also omitted from the Dubrovnik electronic text (Schreiner et al. 2005).

The paratextual details that Vaidya provides are intended to affect the text’s reception and interpretation (Genette 1997: 294–318; cf. Cerquiglini 1999: 13–32), but the rationale for them is much less explicit than the rationale for the constitution of the text. Also in the category of Vaidya’s paratextual details are the names and the dimensions of the Harivaṃśa’s individual parvans (i.e., Harivaṃśaparvan, chapters 1–45; Viṣṇuparvan, chapters 46–113; Bhaviṣyaparvan, chapters 114–18). I call these paratextual because the text itself does not alert us to the beginnings and endings of these parvans. In contrast, there are indications within the text of how it thinks of its division into adhyāyas: although the word

adhyāya is not used, there are end-of-chapter markers which speak of the chapter just

completed in terms of its title and its effects. These markers are most common within the

34 _{Nonetheless, this is how Dutt’s translation understands the situation: ‘On that battle encircled by a}

huge army Salyaki, Chitraka, Shyāma, the energetic Yuyudhāna, Rajādhideva, Mridara, the mighty car- warriors Swaphalka, Prasena, and Satrajit, attacked the left flank of the enemy’s army. They began to fight there attacking half of the enemy’s army led by Mridara and assisted by the highly powerful western kings headed by Venudari and the sons of Dhritarāshtra’ (Dutt 1897: 391). It is clear from earlier in the same chapter that Veṇudāri is on Jarāsaṃdha’s side.

cosmogonical and genealogical chapters (see 1.40; 2.56; 3.112; 7.46, 49; 8.48; 10.80; 20.47–48; 21.37; 22.45; 23.165–66; 24.35; 25.17; 26.28; 27.31; 31.152–53; 111.11; 118.44; cf. 4.23–26; 19.30– 33; 23.163, 168; 113.79–80, 82; 118.43–49). For these chapters, they effectively fix the chapter divisions in a particular place. However, when it comes to the larger divisions of the text, there are not many clues within the text. There is mention of a māthura kalpa (‘tale of Mathurā’) at 31.143 and 113.74, but without any indication of where it would start and end. There is also mention of an āścaryaparva at 113.82, with phalaśruti, and this seems to be the end of that unit. Its beginning isn’t so well defined, but it could presumably be at around 30.56–57, where Janamejaya uses the word āścarya four times in three verses (Brinkhaus 2002: 162–63). But this is the only parvan of the text that is mentioned within the text. Vaidya says that Āścaryaparvan is an alternative title for the Harivaṃśa as a whole (1969: xxvii–xxviii), but that doesn’t square with the title’s usage within the text.

The manuscripts give indications of how the scribe thinks of the text’s divisions, since they often include colophons at the end of adhyāyas, which may provide a name for the adhyāya, and/or for the larger section in which it occurs, and/or for the parvan in which it occurs. However, the details given in these colophons – which are reproduced by Vaidya in his apparatus at the end of each adhyāya – often vary widely from manuscript to manuscript, and they are not part of the text itself; rather, they are aspects of its filing and storage systems. Brockington notes that ‘these manuscript colophons are undoubtedly later than anything included in the text by a considerable period’ (Brockington 2010b: 77; cf. Brodbeck 2016: 396–97).

Vaidya discusses his division of the text into three parvans. It seems that he decided to follow the printed editions as regards the number and names of the parvans and the locations of their beginnings and endings. His only innovation in this regard is to number the adhyāyas continuously even across parvan divisions, a decision he defends with reference to the manuscripts he surveyed (Vaidya 1969: ix; cf. Brinkhaus 2002: 158). Though Vaidya doesn’t mention this, continuous adhyāya numbering across upaparvan boundaries is also the practice elsewhere in the Mahābhārata critical edition. It is incorrect to say that Vaidya’s edition performs a ‘radical elimination of any division into parvans’ (Brinkhaus 2002: 164), since the only thing eliminated is the rebooting of the adhyāya numeral back to 1 at the start of every parvan.

The case of the Bhaviṣyaparvan is comparatively unproblematic, since this parvan is marked off by its taking place outside the dialogue between Janamejaya and Vaiśaṃpāyana; but the location of the division between the first two parvans is less obvious, as is the name of the second parvan. Here the colophon details (Brinkhaus 2002: 164–69) and the mention of the āścaryaparva at 113.82 seem to provide a significant argument for renaming the second parvan the Āścaryaparvan and having it begin at Hv 30, particularly as the name

Viṣṇuparvan is not given within the Mahābhārata’s Parvasaṃgraha as the names Harivaṃśaparvan and Bhaviṣya(t)parvan are (Mbh 1.2.69, 233; Brodbeck 2011: 228–29).

Couture’s translation of ‘l’enfance de Krishna’ begins with chapter 30 (Couture 1991), and all other things being equal, I would probably have preferred to begin the second parvan there. However, I decided to adhere to Vaidya’s parvan divisions and names, because they

were already traditional when he chose to use them, because consequently not doing so would be liable to cause confusion, and because after all it is his text that I am translating. In literary terms, it is also quite neat that the Viṣṇuparvan effectively begins with Kṛṣṇa’s birth.

Part 3. Translating for the General Public

This part of the report discusses the process of translation. It begins by attempting to explain and justify the decision to aim the translation at a non-specialist audience, the general public. Then it discusses various issues that translating for that particular target audience has thrown up, and explains some of the overarching decisions that have been made as a result. The issues discussed concern the format and orthography of the translation, its style in all manner of senses, the question of whether to leave certain words untranslated, and the particular challenges of Sanskrit names. Finally, a series of specific translation problems are discussed, in textual order.