Jaiminiya Ashvamedhaparva in English for the 1st time

[Guest guest]

You might be aware that Jaimini was 1 of the 4 disciples to whom Vyasa taught

the Mahabharata and asked them to produce their own versions. What we have today

is only Vaishampayana's version recited to Janamejaya during the intervals of

the snake holocaust. Of Jaimini's work, only 1 parva is extant. The legend goes

that Vyasa had the rest destroyed as not good enough!

Curiously, in eastern and southern India when the local language versions of the

epic were produced, they invariably preferred Jaimini to Vyasa for the

Ashvamedha Parva, particularly so in Kannada, Bengali, Oriya and Assamese. When

the emperor Akbar commissioned the Persian adaptation (1582-84), calling it the

book of war (Razmnama-- " Bhaara " in MahabhArata, of course, means " war " as in

KarnabhAra) he also chose Jaimini, as the paintings he commissioned show

(viewable online in the British Library).

As late as now, when the epic was telecast all over India produced by B.R.

Chopra, again for the Ashvamedha Parva incidents the choice was not Vyasa's

version but that of Jaimini.

Shekhar Sen, a Sanskrit scholar, has finished translating Jaimini's composition

verse-by-verse into English for the first time. Edited by me, with 4 colour

plates from Akbar's Razmnama, it has been published by Writers Workshop Kolkata,

India, who have also published Professor P. Lal's sloka-by-sloka free verse

translation of 16 books of the 18 so far. It runs to 500 pages with a long

introduction, glossaries of names, plants, weapons and musical instruments.

Indologists interested in the Mahabharata would find this of interest as

Jaimini's approach is radically different from his guru's