fहndi - Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya

defies the set patterns of known literarystandards of both the East and the West.In his discourse on Mahabharat though hehas given several examples of westernliterary conventions yet he did not considerthem valid enough to judge the epic. Incomparison to other epics Mahabharat setsits own independent rules, surpassing,narrow boundaries. He says, "Mahabharathas no parallel in world literature. It standsby itself proud and aloof. The adjective'unparalleled' is not one of praise. By thisI want to emphasise that in comparisonto other epics, whether it be the Illiad orthe literary epic Odyssey, the meaning andpurpose of Mahabharat is a differentprimary epic structurally and thematically.The unparalleled status of Mahabharatis inexpressible in words. It is the samesituation with the Indian sub-continent.To understand it fully one should refer toboth Buddha Dev Bose and RabindranathTagore and their discourses on Bharat. Oneshould try to decipher the primarymeanings contained in their works. If onelooks only at the surface, missing thevarious layers of the complex text, therewould be a danger of misunderstanding,since Mahabharat in its totality is not mereliterature but an all inclusive philosophicaltext, related to the mysterious and theunknown; Buddha Dev Bose's point ofview was that one should not look forverification of historical facts inMahabharat. To get to the real meaningof Mahabharat our approach to the textwholly depends on our aims and the natureof our study as well as our expectationsfrom the text. B.B. believed that one shouldnot have a truncated vision of Mahabharat(India is not only the India of RamaKrishna Paramhams or Vivekananda orAurobindo or Tagore or some revolutionarypersonalities). B.B. was of the opinion thatmany of the stories of Mahabharat whichappear to be unbelievable fictional tales arethe expressions of the longings of theprimitive man, but which may come truein some future like many of the fantasiesof science fiction. In Mahabharat time isencapsuled, both its past and future appearin one scene. Buddha Dev Bose'scomparative techniques are encyclopaedicin nature.Buddha Dev Bose shows howMahabharat is an exception in comparisonto other epical writings in its range andbreadth as it contains several branches ofknowledge as astronomy, geography orarcheology.Buddha Dev Bose is truly a modernscholar. His poems, his novels, his criticismare inspired by a modernistic, progressiveoutlook. He started a new trend of poeticexpression different in content and texturefrom Rabindranath Tagore. The fact thata new poetic movement was started withthe publication of "Kavita" does notforebode an assetion of mere differencesfrom Tagorian ideas or writings but to givespace and recognition to a new generationof writers which came after Tagore.28 :: April-June 2013fgndi •