David Gordon White - Sunahsepa Unbound

Revue de l'histoire des religions
Śunahśepa Unbound
David Gordon White
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
White David Gordon. Śunahśepa Unbound. In: Revue de l'histoire des religions, tome 203, n°3, 1986. pp. 227-262;
doi : https://doi.org/10.3406/rhr.1986.2606
https://www.persee.fr/doc/rhr_0035-1423_1986_num_203_3_2606
Fichier pdf généré le 11/04/2018

Abstract
The myth of Śunahśepa ("Aitareya Brahmana", 7 .13-18) constitutes a primary acknowledgment by
brahmanic tradition of the existence of peoples living outside of the "varna" system. The principal
themes of this account served as the grounds for a socio-religious ideology that continued to develop
throughout the history of brahmanic literature. This ideology established an opposition between the
center — authority, sacrifice and cows of the brahmin Vasistha; and the periphery — antinomian power
and asceticism of the non-brahmin Viśvāmitra, and haunt of marginals and their dogs. This ideology
breaks down in late variants of this myth, in which the expanded universe of "bhakti" can even
encompass the excluded.
Résumé
Le mythe de Śunahśepa ("Aitareya Brāhmana", 7 .13-18) constitue un premier constat par la tradition
brahmanique de l'existence de peuples hors du système des "varna". A partir des éléments principaux
de ce récit, une idéologie socioreligieuse ne cessera de s'élaborer à travers l'histoire de la littérature
hindoue. Celte idéologie opposera au centre, à l'autorité et au sacrifice du brahmane Vasistha vivant
par ses vaches, la périphérie : « chaos » dominé par le pouvoir antinomien de l'ascète non brahmane
Viśvāmitra, où les exclus vivent par leurs chiens. Dans des variantes tardives de ce mythe, il y a un
effritement de cette idéologie, du fait que l'univers élargi de la "bhakti" englobe même les exclus.
DAVID GORDON WHITE
University of Virginia, Charlottesville
ŠUNAHSEPA UNBOUND
The myth of Šunákšepa fAitareya Brahmana, 7 .13-18)

constitutes. a primary acknowledgment by brahmanic tradition of the
existence of peoples living outside of the varna system. The principal
themes of this account served- as the grounds for a socio-religious
ideology that continued to develop throughout the history of brahmanic
literature. This ideology established an opposition between the
center — authority, sacrifice and cows of the brahmin Vasislha; and the
periphery— anlinomian power and asceticism of the non-brahmin
Višvamilra, and haunt of marginals and their dogs. This ideology
breaks down in late variants of this myth, in which the expanded
universe of bhakti can even encompass the excluded.
Sunahšepa déchaîné
Le mythe de Šunáhšepa fAitareya Brâhmana, 7 .13-18) constitue
un premier constat par la tradition brahmanique de V existence de
peuples hors du système des varna. Л partir des éléments principaux
de ce récit, une idéologie socioreligieuse ne cessera de s'élaborer à
travers Vhisloire de la UHéralure hindoue. Celte idéologie opposera
au centre, à l'autorité et au sacrifice du brahmane Vasislha vivant
par ses vaches, la périphérie : « chaos » dominé par le pouvoir anli-
nomien de l'ascèle non brahmane Višvamilra, où les exclus vivent
par leurs chiens. Dans des variantes tardives de ce mythe, il y a un
effritement de cette idéologie, du fait que l'univers élargi de la bhakti
englobe même les exclus.
lievue de l'Histoire des Religions, ccm-3/1986, p. 227 à 2G2

228 David Gordon White
1. Since western scholars first became aware of it in the

nineteenth century, the Brahraanic myth of Šunahsepa has
been one that has fascinated, puzzled and provoked all
manner of speculation. While discussion on the subject has
become more refined over time,1 troubling lacunae remain
in the myth's overall interpretation, not the least of which
is the incongruous name of its protagonist: Šunahsepa means
"Dog-penis".2
The approach which I intend to take to this and other
related phenomena will involve locating the Šunahsepa myth
in relation to other Hindu mythic corpora which might be
characterized, following O'Flaherty, as "myths (which)
ultimately depart from the limitations of the social charter".
Such myths, by revealing " 'a more relevant reality'... inspire
the witness of the mythic drama to reassess his view of
reality; they are 'social' in the sense that they may be shared
or cumulative experiences of moral consciousness as well as
common bodies of traditional knowledge".3
In the case of these myths, I intend to show that the
"more relevant reality" which they describe is one that
comes to terms with — and in a sense, encompasses —margi-
nality, in all of its dimensions. As will be seen, the Šunahsepa
myth constitutes the first mythic explanation for the
existence of persons living outside of Hindu society to be found
in Hindu mythology. This study will concentrate on the
mythic elements and symbols found in the Šunahsepa and
other myths of marginality, as such were employed by
Brahmanic interpreters to describe their own tradition even
1. For a discussion of recent scholarship on the áunahšepa myth, see

Raimondo Pannikar's important article, Le mythe comme histoire sacrée:
Shunahshepa, un mythe de la condition humaine, Le Sacré, éd. Enrico Castelli,
Paris, Aubier, 1974. Most useful among these is H. Lommel, Die Šunaháepa-
Legende, ZDM G, 114 (1964), p. 122-161 ( = H. Lommel, Kleine Schriflen,
ed. K. Janert, Wiesbaden, 1978, p. 440-479).
2. Šunaháepah, in Manfred Mayrhofer, Kurzgefassles etymologisches Wôrter-
buch des Altindischen, Heidelberg, 1976, vol. 3 (n° 22, 1970, p. 374-375).
3. Wendy D. O'Flaherty, Inside and Outside the Mouth of God: The
Boundary Between Myth and Reality, Daedalus, 109, 1980, n° 2, p. 103.
Šunahšepa Unbound 229
as they themselves existed as "being-interpreted",4 through

it. By means of such an approach, perhaps even a "Dog-
penis"
may come to be recognized as meaningful.
The locus classicus of this myth is in the Aiiareya Bmhmana
(АВ),Ъ which, apparently inspired by the elliptical Bg Veda
(BV), 1.24.12-13, is both its earliest and fullest rendering.
Hariácandra, the king of the Iksvâkus, has one hundred wives

but no sons. The brahmin Narada exhorts him to have a son, citing
all of the orthodox canons regarding the duties of the householder
as he denies the way of renunciation. Hariácandra pleads with the
god Varuna for a son; Varuna acquiesces, on the condition that the
son born to Hariscandra be offered to him as a sacrifice, immediately
after his birth. A son Rohita is born, whom Varuna immediately
demands. Hariácandra stalls five times over a period that
encompasses Rohita's youth, each time offering the pretext that his son,
because he is not completely formed, is an incomplete sacrificial
victim (pašu). Finally, when Rohita has become a ksatriya adult,
Hariácandra gives in to Varuna, and asks Rohita that he allow
himself to be offered in sacrifice to the god. Rohita says "No", and
taking his bow, goes to the forest (aranya) where he roams for a
year. Varuna afflicts Hariácandra with dropsy. When Rohita hears
of this, he decides to return from the forest. But on the way, Indra
appears to him in the form of a brahmin, and extols to him the
values of renunciation and the virtues of a wandering existence.
This he does five times, always in a brahmin form, at the end of
each of the five years that Rohita passes in the forest.
Rohita continues to wander until, in the sixth year, he comes
upon the rsi Ajîgarta Sauyavasi (of the Angirasa lineage) who is
starving there with his wife and three sons áunahpuccha, Šunaháepa
and Šunoláňgula. Rohita offers Ajîgarta a hundred cows for one of
his sons, that he may redeem himself to Varuna through him.
Ajîgarta refuses to sell his eldest, and his wife refuses to render her
youngest: the middle son Šunahšepa is thus chosen. Varuna accepts
this surrogate for Rohita, saying that a brahmin is greater than a
ksatriya, and Hariácandra decides to sacrifice Šunaháepa at the
time of the abhisecana of his râjasûya*
4. Paul Ricœur, The Conflict of Interpretations, edit, by Don Idhe, Evanston,

Northwestern University Press, 1974, p. 11.
5. Aiiareya Brâhmana, ed. Theodor Aufrecht, Bonn, 1879: AB, 7.13-18.
For a translation, see A. B. Keith, Rigveda Bráhmanas: the Aiiareya and Kau~
sítaki Bráhmanas of the fiigVeda, Harvard Oriental Series, Vol. 25, Cambridge,
Mass., 1920.
6. In the AB, the Šunahšepa myth is related in the context of the râjasuya
(royal consecration) ritual, of which abhisecana (annointment) is a part. Other
230 David Gordon While
At the sacrifice, the hoir is Viávámitra, the adhvaryu is Jamadagni,

the brahman Vasistha and the udgalr Ayasya. No one but Sunahaepa's
father Ajïgarta will volunteer to bind or put to death with a knife
the human victim; this Ajïgarta does for two hundred additional
cows. He advances towards his son with the knife. Šunahsepa,
realizing that he is about to be slaughtered like an inhuman, sacrificial
victim, cries out to the gods, singing those verses that are attributed
to the rsi Šunaháepa in the Rg Veda.1 The core verses of that song
(RV, 1.24.12-13) are his appeal to Varuna: "Yes, bound to the
sacrificial posts, Šunahšepa called to the Aditya; chained to the
triple post he called to Varuna. Have mercy, Varuna! King, unbind
this victiml Sage who cannot be fooled, may he undo these ropes.
He who was named Šunahsepa, while he was bound cried 'Varuna,
king! May he free us'...".
When he invokes Indra, that god presents him with a golden
chariot (hiranyaratham dadau). Finally, when Šunahsepa praises
Usas, the dawn, with each of the three verses he sings, one of his
fetters falls and Hariscandra's dropsy-inflated stomach shrinks: with
the final verse, Šunaháepa is freed from the sacrificial post and Hariá-
candra from dropsy. Šunaháepa then himself takes the role of
sacrificial priest, completing Hariscandra's rite with RV, 5.2.7:
"Šunaháepa bound, you freed him from those thousand sacrificial posts
when he was in pain."
The hotr Visvâmitra then offers to adopt Šunahsepa as his own
eldest son. When Ajïgarta claims the boy for himself, Šunaháepa
rebukes him, saying he has not divested himself of the sins proper
to áudra-hood (пйрпдпЬ šaudrán nyàyâd). In adopting him,
Visvâmitra renames him Devarâta ("god-given") because the gods (devâ
eva) had given (arâsaîa) him to him. All that now remains is for
Visvâmitra's sons to accept Devarâta as their elder. Now,
"Visvâmitra had one hundred and one sons, Madhucchanda and the fifty
who were his seniors and the fifty who were his juniors. Those who
were his seniors did not think this desireable. Visvâmitra curses
them one after the other (tân anuvyâjahâra): 'May your descendants
obtain the ends as their lot (antan vah praju bhak$ista).'a They are
texts which mention. Šunahsepa in this context are: Tailtiriya Brâhmana,

1.7.10.6; Apastamba Šrauta Sutra, 18.19.10-14; Taitiirïya Sarrihitâ, 5.2. 1.3;
Kátyáyana Šrauta Súlra, 15.6.1-7; Hiranyakeši Šraula Sutra, 13.6.38; Bau-
dháyana Šrauta Sutra, 12.15-16; 109.10-110.1; Ašvaldyana Šrauta Sutra,
9.4.9-16; Šáňkhayana Šraula Sutra, 15.17-27.
7. fíg Veda (RV), 1.24. 1-1.29.22; 5.2.7. It is difficult to know whether
the assignment of names оГ fsis as authors of different Vedic hymns was a
process that had its origins in the compilation of the hymns themselves, or
whether it was an a posteriori tradition.
8. Other examples of such homologous curses are Visvamitra's curse upon
his own sons {Râmâyana, 1.61.16: The Vâlmiki Râmâyana, critical edition,
edit, by G. H. Bhatt, Poona, bori, 1960, Bála Khanda); Saramâ upon Jana-
the Andhras, Pundras, Šabaras, Pulindas and Mutibas, who live

beyond the pale (udantya) in great numbers. Most of the Dâsyus
are descendants of Visvàmitra." Madhucchanda and his fifty younger
brothers accept Šunaháepa as their eldest, and VisVàmitra blesses
them. In this way, Šunaháepa as Devarata enters into the lineages
of the Jahnus and the Gâthins.
2. Most of the mythic themes and patterns to which I

intend to address myself in this study are to be found in
the last part of this myth, and in this I believe I part ways
with the general trend in scholarship on the subject. In
doing so, I will, for the most part, turn my back on the
torturous problems presented by the ritual context of the
mjasuya rite in which the myth is embedded,9 but this, I
hope, will serve as a means to placing in higher relief those
elements which bear an ever-increasing importance in later
mythology.
The themes which I wish to first develop, starting with
this AB version of the Šunaháepa myth, are the following:
1) the relationships between the royal or ksalriya sacrificer
(yajamdna) and the brahmin sacrificial priest in the ritual
context; and the conflicts arising within this relationship
from the confrontation between a brahmin ideal of order
and a ksalriya reality of temporal power; 2) the conflicts
arising from the confrontation between a Vedic system of
sacrifice as it is inclusive of a "balance of power" between
ksalriya and brahmin, and an emergent competing "model"
of renunciation in which there are nearly no constraints on
the accumulation of power; and 3) the mythic recognition
of the existence and nature of those peoples portrayed as
living outside of, or on the periphery of any socio-religious
system of order.
mejaya when he mistreats her pup {Mhbh, 1.3.8: The Mahâbhârala, critical
edition, edit, by Visnu S. Sukthankar et al., Poona, вош, 1933-1959); Vasiçtha
upon Satyavrata-Trišaůku (Devïbhâgavata Purâna, 7.10.55-56); and Vasisth'a's
sons upon Višvumitra (Râmâyana, 1.58.14-23).
9. These are discussed in Jan Gonda, Vedic Literature in History of Indian
Literature, Wiesbaden, 1975, p. 394-396 and passim, and in Johannes C. Hees-
terman, The Ancient Indian Royal Consecration, 'S-Gavenhage, 1957, p. 158-161
and passim.
The portions of the AB myth which are the most relevant

to the first of these themes are those concerning the
relationships between king Harišcandra and his son Rohita with
all the brahmins they encounter, including Nârada, Ajïgarta,
the four sacrificial priests, Šunahšepa and even "king"
Varuna as the god of Brahmanic justice. Nârada (and
Vasista, as will be shown) is a living mouthpiece for the
orthodox conception of an ideal of order and balance. As
he relates to Hariscandra, a father pays his threefold debt
(rnâ) and is advanced to a heavenly sojourn after death
through a son. Nârada refers Harišcandra to Varuna, the
god of order, of justice, of obligation. Varuna agrees to
provide him with a son, but the terms are strictly quid pro
quo: Harišcandra is to immediately offer his son as a pašu
to Varuna's pàia (fetter). Ksalriyas offer sacrificial animals
(especially cows) to brahmins in exchange for their order-
preserving sacrificial activities. In this sense, the god Varuna
is to be classed with the forces of the orthodox order.
All men are born three times: once through biological
birth, once through the sacrifices they offer, and a third
time when their bodies are burned on the funeral pyre.10
All three "births" may be seen as sacrifices: men are born
"indebted" (hence the three rnâs) and are only acquitted
of their debts when they improve their "credit" through
sacrifice, and when they finally reimburse their debt in full
when they return their body to the gods on the pyre.11 In
the câturmâsya sacrifice, in which the year is "won", the
year is equated with the full term of pregnancy.12 In the
sacrificial cycle, creatures are brought forth through the
Vaišvadeva sacrifice, freed from Varuna's fetters by the
Varunapraghasa, and born through the Šakhamedha in which
10. Šalapatha Brâhmana, 11.2.1.1.

11. For a discussion of the language of "commerce" on this subject in
ritual texts, see Charles Malamoud, La théologie de la dette dans le
brahmanisme, Puru§5rtha, 4, 1980, p. 39-62.
12. PaňcaviTfiša Brâhmana, 6.1.3; 10.1.9, cited in Heesterman, op. cit.,
p. 28.
Indra's birth is equated with the slaying of Vrtra.13 Beyond

the general "fetteredness" that applies to all creatures, the
king is yet further bound, for beyond the three rnâs are his
obligations to his subjects and his ties with brahmins in his
maintenance of the political, and thus the cosmic order.
The king is ultimately held in all of his fetters by Varuna,
the enforcer., So it is that when Harišcandra fails to honor
his sacrificial obligation to Varuna, he is seized (jagrâha) by
Varuna's disease of dropsy (jalodara vyddha).
It is through the brahmin Ajigarta that Rohita finds a
way to redeem himself and his father to Varuna from being
a sacrificial victim, through the "gift" of one hundred cows.
The same gift of cows comes into play when Harišcandra
needs the service of Ajigarta to further the effectuation of
his sacrifice of renewal, the rájasuya. This sacrifice is at
once a rájasuya and the acquittal by Harišcandra of his
debt to Varuna.14 It entails the substitution of a brahmin
victim for a ksalriya, in the service of a sacrifice that is
meant to insure an order in which both the brahmins and
ksalriyas concerned have an interest. To begin the sacrifice,
four brahmin officials or technicians are necessary; to complete
it, the "liberated" sacrificial victim— whose liberation is
concurrent with that of Harišcandra who is freed from
dropsy — is equally necessary to him. Both are reborn through
the sacrifice: Harišcandra wins a son and the possibility of
continuing his rule and lineage, and Šunahšepa is given a
new name, family relationship (as the eldest) and goira.
The second theme of this preliminary study is first spoken
to by Narada, in his dismissal of the life of the renouncer as
inferior to that of the gfhaslha (AB, 7.13.7). Yet it is Hariš-
candra's own son Rohita who renounces this order: he says
"No" and leaves to roam in the forest (aranya) outside of
13. Šalapalha Bráhmana, 5.2.4.1 ff and Kau§ïlaki Bráhmana, cited in

Heesterman, op. cit., p. 28.
14. There are no references to Sunahsepa in the Vâjasaneyi Saijihitâ,
9-10 references to the rájasuya.
the sacrificial network of village (grama) society. It is in

the forest that dwell those who, by choice or by chance,
do not conform to the balance of the sacrificial order. So
it is that Rohita, at the end of each of five years of wandering,
meets Indra — the divine paragon of unbridled "kçairiya"
might — disguised as a forest-dwelling brahmin. His teaching
is opposite to that of Nârada: nothing is to be gained by
remaining stationary; one becomes superior through
asceticism and activity outside of the sacrificial system. It is also
opposed to Varuna's injunction to sacrifice. When Rohita
meets the brahmin Ajigarta, he is again clearly in the presence
of a brahmin-hood quite different from that which Nârada
had implied. This brahmin is hardly the ideal grhastha, as
he is starving ("Ajigarta" means "he who has nothing to
swallow", from gr), and is no doubt unable to fulfill his
role of provider to his family. Nor would a brahmin in.
Nârada's ideal world sell one of his sons, much less offer
to drive a knife into him, in exchange for cows. It is not
surprising that Šunahšepa calls his behavior that of a šudra
{AB, 7.17.4). And, of course, there is the question of the
names which Agïjarta has chosen for his sons. The world
outside of the sacrificial order, the forest haunted by
iconoclastic ascetics and wild brahmins is, in the tradition of the
Brahmanas, the ideal order turned upside down.
Finally, in this vein, we have the case of the rajarsi
Visvâmitra.15 He is referred to as "prince" (rdjaputra) by
Šunahšepa {ЛВ, 7.17.6) and his patronymics are Gadhi (or
Gathi) and Kaušika, which are proper to the royal Bhârata
line. How is it that a born ksalriya could come to serve as
technician in a Brahmanic sacrifice? As will be shown,
Višvámitra is the classic example of the dangers which the
renouncer represents for the sacrificial order. In this role,
he is invariably opposed to Vasistha ("replaced" here by
15. Mhbh (D4=Tanjore, Saraswathi Medical Library, No. 1126, cited in

critical edition), 1.65.34; Râmâyana, 1.17.35.
Šunahsepa Unbound 235
Nârada), who embodies the sacrificial ideal. Their opposition

may be seen as mirroring that of Varuna's legalistic justice
as opposed to Indra's personalistic might.
The final theme of this study is inspired by the final
episode of this myth. I propose that there are two elements
at play in this portion. The first and obvious one is that
this ending serves as a mythic explanation for a socioreligious
reality with which the orthodoxy had not previously deigned
to come to terms. The "Aryan" rulers of the Indus valley
had no doubt long been in contact with the indigenous
peoples of this region, but for some reason unknowable to
us —perhaps out of ethnocentric chauvinism, perhaps out of
disinterest — had not seen fit to incorporate them into their
order (even if their inclusion would be portrayed as an
exclusion or an exile in their oral tradition).16 Here, at last,
an explanation is offered for this social reality; one which,
moreover, corresponds very well to the "ideology" inherent
in the orthodox order: those who are outside of the ideal
order, beyond the pale (udantya) suffer that condition, are
"fallen", as a result of their own or inherited disobedience.
This is, in a sense, a myth of origins. Before Madhucchanda's
older brothers disobeyed and were afflicted with their father's
curse, there were no people living "outside". All Cándálas17
came to be regarded as the children of disobedience, either
by virtue of having been born from an illicit union of a
man and woman of disparate varnas, or by having been
cursed by brahmins (as will be seen below) for base behavior
in a past or present life. This scenario also further heightens
16. Cf. Vâjasanegi Sarp.hitâ, 30.7, 21, in which the Švaghnin and the
Cândâla are mentioned, but not singled out in the puru§amedha. See also
P. V. Kane, History of Dharmašástra, Poona, bori, 1973, 2d. éd., Vol. III. 2,
p. 167, who says that Cândàlas were not distinguished in Vedic times, although
their professions kept them on the peripheries of towns.
17. Cândâla is the general term for "outcastes" throughout the periods
under study here, although it may have had a specialized or vocational meaning
applicable to those people who, living on the edge of a town or in the forest
or on cremation grounds, disposed of the dead of the community from which
they were generally excluded.
236 David Gordon -White
the ambiguous position of Visvamitra, who is not only a

ksairiya who behaves like a brahmin, but who also becomes
the father and founder of all of what would later come to
be known as the "criminal castes". Whether this view of
Cândâlas had been fully elaborated by the time of the
tradition of this myth, or whether this was the beginning of
such a classification is a moot question: regardless of the
time of its origin, as a part of a world view or ethos, this
was an early mythic expression of an outlook that would
never die.
The nature of and reasons for the exclusion of these
peoples from the brahmanic order may be seen in a subtler
and perhaps deeper way in this myth. Here I wish to speak
of "radical middleness",18 as opposed to a middle element
that mediates between the two elements to which it is
juxtaposed. Nearly all that is foreign to the sacrificial order in
this myth takes place in the forest. But what sort of a forest
is this? It is evidently one which is ill-suited to supporting
life, as Ajigarta and his family are starving there. In a sense,
it must be a forest devoid of life, a waste land. This exists
in opposition to the settled and sacrificial order of the village,
and, as will be shown, to the order of the hermitage (âsrama),
the forest dwelling of orthodox brahmin rsîs like Vasistha.
These latter are generally located beyond the wild waste land,
or in a verdant grove whose profusion of plant and animal
life sets it apart from the wilderness that surrounds it. The
hermitage may be seen in this way as a terrestrial homologue
of heaven, of a devaloka,19 while the village or royal capital
is a dharmaloka and thus a center for sacrificial order— but
all that lies between these two poles is neither: it is defined
by what it is not; it is non-definition, dis-order, the excluded,
the savage, the dangerous, the marginal, the chaotic.
18. I purposely avoid the term liminality here, as I believe its meaning1
has been so extended through use and abuse as to cover nearly everything
in the world.
19. Mhbh, 1.64.19.
Šunafršepa Unbound 237
Radical middleness may also be found in human, familial

relationships in this myth. When Rohita offers to buy one
of Ajigarta's sons, the father withholds the eldest and the
mother the youngest. Šunahšepa, the middle one (madhyama)
is taken by default. In the sacrifice it is through his heroism
in the face of radical middleness as a sacrificial victim— as
a brahmin between, but excluded from the two ksatriyas
Harišcandra and Rohita; a pašu between, but excluded from
the sacrificing men and gods to whom he to be sacrificed;
a brahmin in the midst of, but excluded from the four
sacrificial brahmin priests — that Šunahšepa transcends his
middleness. While the point is not made explicitly, Šunahšepa
seems to epitomize the anaddha purusa, the "non-determined"
man who has paid none of his debts, and who may be used
in place of a human sacrifice.20 It is Indra, in a sense, who
sets Šunahšepa on the path to liberation from his condition
of pašulva21 and thus to rebirth, and Visvâmitra who frees
him from his condition of middleness as Ajigarta's son when
he offers him primogeniture, a new name and a new gotra.
However, to integrate the excluded Šunahšepa into a
less contingent position as Devarâta is to exclude someone
else. The language of this portion of the myth is very
revealing: "Višvamitra had one hundred and one sons;
Madhucchanda, the fifty who were his seniors and the fifty
who were his juniors" (AB, 7.18.1). Madhucchanda, the
middlemost son, determines, defines the positions, from
which he is excluded, of all of Visvâmitra's progeny. And,
in the final lines of the myth, the middle (Šunahšepa) becomes
first, the last (Madhucchanda and his younger brothers)
20. Anaddhâ puru§a is the Brahmanic terra for (the image of) a man placed
on the path taken by a procession leading to the place from which the clay
to be used for the bricks of the agnicayana is found. According to the Šalapalha
Brahmana (6.3.1.24), one may substitute an anaddha ригща for a human
in a human sacrifice.
21. The chariot given to Šunaháepa by Indra and the concluding prayers
to the ASvins and UsSs point to a "solar" motif in this myth, similar to that
found in the end of the Saramâ myth [RV, 10.108.1-11) in which Sarama
finds the cows of Byhaspati (see below).
become blessed, and the first are thrown out.22 This ending
creates yet another undetermined (or overdetermined) middle,
however. The ever-ambiguous Visvamitra, who is neither
wholly brahmin nor ksatriya, at once becomes the progenitor
of several brahmin gotras (his own, as well as those of his
disparate sons— the Babhruvas and Kapileyas are mentioned
in AB, 7.17.2 —and of Šunahšepa who is an Angirasa) and
all of the "outcaste" Dâsyus.
Finally, regarding the third theme of this study, it is
necessary to take into account the ambiguous symbolism of
the dog. The only references to the dog in the AB version
of the Šunahšepa myth are to be found in the names of
the forest-dwelling Ajigarta's three sons. Sunahpuccha is
"Dog-tail", Šunolaňgula may be "Hairy Dog-tail"; and
Šunahšepa can only be "Dog-penis". Although such names
appear as totally unexplained and incongruous here, their
symbolic meaning may be enriched, by extrapolation ■ from
earlier or contemporaneous sources, and by explicit references
in later traditions. As I hope to show, this text, in spite of
its dearth of explicit references to such elements, may be
seen as pivotal within the historical development of symbolic
expressions for the relationship between the dog, social mar-
ginality, ritual impurity, the renunciant ideal, physical danger,
and upheaval in the cosmic order. Central to these
relationships will be the figures of dogs, Cândàlas, the rájar$i Viš-
vâmitra, the Angirasas and Indra. Opposed to this threatening
group are the various symbolic elements of the orthodox
sacrificial order: cows, brahmins, the devarsi23 Vasistha, the
sons of Vasistha, and Varuna. In studying these elements
as they occur in opposition, I will begin with the Vedic
parallels with the Šunahšepa myth as it is found in the AB.
The most difficult relationship to establish is that between
in which
22. This
themay
younger
be a multiform
brothers defeat
of the their
war between
elders. the devas and the asuras,
23. Mhbh (D4), 1.65.34. Rumagana, 1.17.35 calls Višvamitra both a
râjarçi and a brahmar§i.
the Aňgirasas and other elements of the "chaotic". Šunahšepa

is an Aňgirasa, of the goira of the rsï Angiras. The Aňgirasas
are a peculiar group in the Vedic tradition. They are friends
of Indra (who himself admits to having once cooked and
eaten dog in a time of distress24), whose dog friend (sakhá)25
and messenger (duti)26 is the celestial bitch Saramâ" . When
Sarama searches, as a herd dog, for the stolen cows (= wealth)
of Indra's brahmin priest Brhaspati,27 she is followed by the
Aňgirasas. The Aňgirasas are born of the dawn,28 the cows
are freed with the dawn (Usas)29 with the propping open
of the cave (the womb, etc.) in which the asura Vala, or
Vala's Panis, have hidden them.30 The Aňgirasas move with
the fleet (sf) Saramâ. Through their recovery of Brhaspati's
cows, food is obtained for Saramâ's pups, the Sârameyau,31
and for the soma sacrifice through which Indra gains the
strength to defeat the asura Vala-Vrtra. As with Varuna (vf),
Vala-Vrtra binds, withholds. It is through Indra's slaying
of the asura that the fetters are loosened and cosmic fertility
is renewed. The drought — Vala's multiform Šusna32— ends,
and the Aňgirasas render all the rites effective.33 The râjasuya
is stated to be a reenactment of Indra's victory over Vala-
Vrtra.
Râjasuya writ large is ašvamedha.™ In the ašvamedha,35
24. RV, 4.18.13.

25. Alharva Veda, 4.5.2.
26. RV, 10.108.2-4.
27. RV, 10.108.1-11.
28. Wendy D. O'Flaherty, The Rig Veda, New York, Penguin, 1981,
p. 155, n. 6.
29. RV, 3.31, cited in O'Flahertyr ibid., p. 151-152.
30. In the same way, Šunahšepa is freed with the dawn (Usas) in AB,
7.16.12-13. See note 21.
31. RV, 1.62.3; 3.31.6, with the commentary of Sâyana.
32. RV, 3.31.8.
33. RV, 5.45.7-8. .
34. Kane, op. cit., Vol.. II. 2, p. 1229.
35. The ašvamedha is treated in the Tailtirïya Bràhmana, 3.8.2 ff; Taitlirïya
Saiflhitâ,. 7.1.11.1 fî; Baudhâyana Šraula Sutra, ЛЬ Л ff; Âpaslamba Šraula
Sutra, 20.3.10 ff and Vájasaneyi Samhitâ, 22.2. A very thought-provoking
study on the relationship between the dog sacrifice in the ašvamedha and the
myth of Saramâ is Herta Krick, Der vierâugige Hund im Ašvamedha zur
Deutung von TS VII. 1.11.1 (b), WZKS, 16, 1972, p. 27-39.
a black four-eyed dog is killed (by a marginal Ayogava, the

son of a prostitute) who is equated with one of the Sâra-
meyau.36 The dead dog is made to float while bound to the
underbelly of the horse which is made to wade into a pond
such that the dog's corpse floats out from underneath. The
Sarameyau are more closely associated with Yama37— the
first ancestor and lord of the dead — than with Indra, although
the four-eyed dog slain in the ašvamedha is placed in
opposition to Varuna when it is killed ("Whomever the courser
wishes dead, Varuna afflicts him"38), and associated with
Indra when its corpse floats out from under the horse (at
which time the brahman priest takes the yajamana's hand
and says, "You and I, 0 slayer of Vrtra...").
The black(-eared) dog, along with several other animals,
are named as recipients of the Vaišvadeva sacrifice,39 and
are protected by Indra.40 The two Sarameyau — Šyama and
Šabala— or the Šabalau, guard the paths which the fathers
(pilfs) must tread in order to reach Yamaloka, which is
generally portrayed as an auspicious place. The path to
Yamaloka, however, is not. This is again a case of radical
middleness, the chaos between one world and another.41
The Sarameyau guide those who move along the path of the
dead, as terrestrial dogs do the wayfarer or the royal hunter42
in the wild or desert forest, but they are also known to
devour, without chewing,43 those who stray off the path.44
36. Cf. the commentary of Sáyana on Taittirïya Samhitá, 7.1.11.1 <T.

37. Atharva Veda, 5.30.10; 8.1.9.
38. Taittirïya Samhitâ, 7.4.15.1.
39. AU later statements on this sacrifice, cf. Apaslamba Dharma Sûlra,
2.9.5.6; Manu Smrti, 3.92; Mhbh, 3.2.57 add Cândâlas or Svapâkas to the
creatures enumerated as sacrificial recipients.
40. Vájasaneyi Samhitá, 24. 40.
41. In other traditions, the Cinvat bridge of the Avesta and the way to
Hades of Greek myth are guarded by dogs.
42. Hymns to dogs and their masters (évapatis) and Rudra may be found
in Vájasaneyi Samhiiá, 16.28 and Taillirïya Samhitâ, 4.5.4.2. Royal kennels
maintained for hunting dogs are mentioned in Pânini. Hunting with dogs is
referred to in RV, 10.86.4 and 7.55.4.
43. Atharva Veda, 11.2.30.
44. Atharva Veda, 8.1.9. A sop is placed in the hands of the dead to be
thrown to these dogs in Kaušika Sutra, 81.22, cited in Krick, op. cit., p. 35.
The Sârameyau and the Aňgirasas are brought together in

the context of two hymns to Yama.45 Sayana, in his
commentary to RV, 8.6. 18,46 identifies the Aňgirasas with the
Yatis,47 who are characterized in the Taiitirïya Samhiiâ and
Kálhaka Samhiiâ as hostile and alien to Vedic rites.48
The Aňgirasas are associated with Visvamitra and his
brother Jamadagni in the last of the twenty-four Rg Vedic
hymns attributed to Visvamitra, RV, 3.53. Verse seven
alludes to the Aňgirasas and the wealth (cows?) of
Visvamitra, after which the episode of king Sudâs' sacrifice
follows.49 In this episode, in which Visvamitra is associated
with the "aboriginal" Kitakas, reference is made to Vasistha's
son Sakti's rendering ineffective of Visvâmitra's sacrifice for
Sudas.50 The hymn ends with a threat by Visvamitra against
Vasistha. In the TS,bl we find Visvamitra and Jamadagni
taking revenge, and defeating Vasistha's sacrifices with
superior sacrifices; the Jaiminïya Brâhmana (JB)52 and
BfhaddevalàbZ speak of = the slaying of Vasistha's one hundred
sons by Sudâs, but do not link Visvamitra to the slaughter.
These are apparently early examples of a long tradition of
rivalry between Visvamitra and Vasistha.
To summarize, we find in the Vedic and Brahmanic
literature numerous associations between the different
elements— dogs, Gândâlas (the Ayogava, the Kitakas),
Aňgirasas, Visvamitra and Indra — we characterized as chaotic.
To these we might add the paths of the dead, an important
example of radical middleness. We find that these elements
45. RV, 10.13.4-10.14.11.

46. Cited in Kane, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 1386.
47. Urinating dogs are mentioned together with Yatis as omens in Varâha-
mihirïya Brhat Samhitâ, 89.1.
48. Tailtirlya Satjihitá, 2.4.9.2; Kâfhaka Sarnhilâ, 8.5; 11.10.
49. A multiform of this myth is the Mhbh, 1 . 166. 1-1 . 168.25 (see n. 79, 81)
myth of Kalmâsapâda, who is Sudâs's son or grandson. Three of the four
brahmin officiants of the AB Šunahšepa myth are together here.
50. Cf. the commentary of Sâyana on RV, 3.53.15 IT.
51. Taiilirïya Sarnhilâ, 3.1.7.3.
52. Jaiminïya Brâhmana, 2.392.
53. Brhaddevalâ, 6.28-34.
are, for the most part, neither portrayed as being excluded

from nor dangerous to an orthodox sacrificial order. Dogs
are guardians, friends to the gods, recipients of sacrificial
offerings, leaders of the hunt and finders of lost cows. The
Ayogava64 plays an ambiguous role (as does the dog) in the
asvamedha. Visvâmitra seems to be a garden variety rsi;
Indra slays asuras as do many gods. The Angirasas are
friends of the gods who aid Indra in particular. The only
sinister elements in this scenario are perhaps the negative
portrayal of the Angirasas in the TS, and the friction between
Vasistha and Visvâmitra. Other elements which might
contribute to a darker perception of these elements are a single
Vedic prohibition against the presence of dogs at the soma
sacrifice, the Sarameyau on the paths of the dead, and a
reworking of the story of Saramâ" in the Bfhaddevalá5S in
which Saramâ betrays Indra and the gods when bribed by
the Panis. But, even when these elements are taken into
account, it is difficult to speak of a clear-cut separation in
this period between these chaotic elements and elements of
a sacrificial order, much less speak of the assignation of
negative ethical connotations to the former.
3. How different a situation we find a few centuries later

in epic and smrti literature! In the Chdndogya Upanisad56
we find the first references to rebirth into a Cândâla body
through vile acts of previous incarnations. By the time of
the Manu Smrti (MS) and the Mahabharala (Mhbh) the
ideas of karmic rebirth have become full-blown, and the
Cândâlas, who are generally identified with the peoples
descended from Visvâmitra's older sons in the AB myth
(i.e. the Pundras, Šabaras, Pulindas, etc.),67 are classified as
being the vilest of all men. They are excluded from all human
54. Cf. the commentary of Mitâksara to Yájňavalkya Smrti, 3.260, in

which the Ayogava is referred to as an antyaja.
55. Brhaddevalâ, 8.24-36.
56. Kane, op. cit., Vol. II. 1, p. 166.
57. Amarakoša, 2.10.20-21.
society except in the performance of their roles as disposers

of dead bodies and all that appertains to death. They exist
as the products of illicit sexual relations, and their "genealogy
of rebirths" in the order of transmigration are minutely
systematized.68 They are portrayed as being wholly without
religion or morals, as living in filth and eating off broken
vessels.
It is in the context of these traditions that the Cândâlas
first come to be called Švapákas, "Dog-cookers", with the
term intended as being flattering neither to the cooker nor
to the cooked. Švapakas cook and eat dogs, and use their
skins and bones for implements.69 They eat off of vessels
that have been licked by dogs.60 They are a whole portion
of society (excluded from society) defined by their base
association with the dog.
The metaphor "as revolting as a vessel which has been
licked by a dog" becomes a prime cliché for all that is horrible,
disgusting and shocking to the socio-religious order in this
period. It recurs dozens of times in the Mahâbhâraia.61 Dogs
are seen as gluttonous,62 cowardly,63 carrion-feeders,64 and
coprophagic.65 Saramâ becomes a ghoul who devours children
who are still in their mothers' wombs.66
The relationship between dogs and Cândâlas (or Švapakas)
is a very close one, to the extent that one is hardly ever
mentioned without the other.67 Ekalavya, a Nisâda (a par-
58. Mhbh, 13.48.10-28; 13.133.22-23; 13.91.42-43; Manu Smpti, 5.129-

130; 10.50-56; Amarakoša, 2.1019-22.
59. The most graphic description of this is found in the myth of VisvSmitra
in the Cândâla village (see below), Mhbh, 12.139.11-71 (see n. 88).
60. Mhbh, 8.30.39.
61. Mhbh, 1.127.7; 3.253.19; 3.275.13.
62. Mhbh, 6.10.71.
63. Mhbh, 2.37.6.
64. Mhbh, 5.139.51; 6.95.50.
65. Mhbh, 5.42.22.
66. Mhbh, 3.219.33. In Atharva Veda, 1.11.4, a charm for easy
parturition asks that the "splotched, moist placenta come down to be eaten by
a dog".
67. Mhbh, 12.291.31. Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, who also offers a
materialist interpretation of the Šunahšepa myth (p. 636-640) in his book
ticular indigenous group classified as Cândâlas), kills a dog

in the forest, and is punished by the Pândavas for his
marksmanship.68 A Gândâla appears in the forest, surrounded by
dogs.69 Visvâmitra, driven to a Cândâla village by thirst
and hunger, finds that village to be filled with live and
cooked dogs.70 A Gândâla who converses with a decadent
ksairiya says that both he and his dog were reborn into
their low stations for evils committed in past lives.71 Whereas
in earlier literature the Cândâlas were hardly ever spoken
of, and dogs were for the most part perceived in terms of
the ways they were useful to all men, both now come to be
regarded as complementary embodiments of impurity, mar-
ginality, danger and death, all of which are charged with
strong negative moral connotations which did not before
explicitly exist in the brahmanic tradition. I will nevertheless
argue that such value judgments are already present in
the AB myth of Šunahšepa, along with neutral or positive
perceptions of the same, even if they are not made explicit.
We must not, however, restrict ourselves solely to the
texts and traditions that preceded or paralleled this version
if we would most fully come to an understanding of its
meaning. Therefore, before we come to any conclusions
about the Šunahšepa myth of the AB, we shall first address
ourselves to the Šunahšepa myths of the later epic and
Puranic traditions, all the while bearing in mind the
associations and oppositions we tentatively derived from the
AB myth itself. Nearly without exception, the Šunahšepa
myth is related, even framed, in these later traditions,
within the context of the interminable rivalry between the
râjarsi Visvâmitra and the devarsi Vasistha, which is to be
Lokâyala: A Study in Ancient Indian Materialism, New Delhi, 1959, sees in

the Chandogya Upaniçad (1.12.1 ff) "myth of the chanting dogs" a reference
to "non-Aryan" peoples as seen through the eyes of brahmins, p. 76-122:
68. Mhbh, 1.123.3 ff.
69. Mhbh, 12.136.109-110.
70.. Mhbh, 12.139.11-71. See n. 88.
71. Mhbh, 13.104.3 ff.
ÉunaMepa Unbound 245
taken as one that has existed from time immemorial, even

from illo lempore. There are two myths which serve as aeti-
ological explanations for this state of affairs.. The first is a
myth of the birth of Visvâmitra, which is found in nearly
identical versions in the Mhbh and several Purânas.72 In
this, Visvâmitra's parents are Rcika, a brahmin rsi of the
Bhârgava gotra, and Satyavati, a ksatriya princess of the
Bhârata race. Through a confusion of balls of caru (intended
for Satyavati and her mother) into which Rcika has placed
i the energy of the supreme Brahman,73 Visvâmitra is born
as a ksairiya possessed of the potential for brahmin-hood.
His half-brother Jamadagni is fully a brahmin, but Jamad-
agni's son Parasurâma would become the most warlike of
brahmins, "cruel chastizer of foes", and exterminator of the
kçatriya race.74
The second tradition of Visvâmitra's accession to the
state of brahmin-hood is also a myth of the origins of his
rivalry with Vasistha, and of the origin of the Cândâlas who
in this tradition are born from cow droppings. The tradition
of Visvâmitra's rise through asceticism (lapas) is summarily
referred to in many places,75 and the myth may be found
in its entirety in two places in the МЛ6Л:7в
VisVâmitra, the royal son of Gadhi (Satyavati's father), while
hunting in the waste lands (mamdhanvasu), becomes tired and
thirsty. He comes to the ûsrama of Vasistha, where he sees Vasistha's
wish-fulfilling cow (kamadhenu) Nandinî. He asks Vasistha to give
her to him, but Vasistha refuses, saying he needs her for his sacrifices.
Viávámitra then tries to take her away by force, at which time,
with Vasistha's approval, she resists. From Nandini's anus arise
hordes of Pahlavas; from her dung Šabaras and Šakas; from her
urine Yavanas; and from her foam Pundras, Kiratas, Dramadas,
Sinihalas, Barbaras, Daradas and Mlecchas. The horde of excrement-
72. Mhbh, 13.4.1-48; Viçnu Purâna, 4.7.12-36; Váyu Purâna, 91.63-89

( =2. 29. 63-88); Brahmânda Purâna, 3 . 66. 35-36; Bhâgavata Purâna, 9 . 15 . 3-1 3.
VisvSmitra's genealogy is also found in Harivarp.ša, 23.84-85.
73. Mhbh, 13.4.28, 37.
74. Bhâgavaia Purâna, 9.5.I0, 13.
75. Bhâgavaia Purâna, 9.16.28; Mhbh, 1.65.29.
76. Mhbh, 1.165.1-44; 9.39.22 fT.
born Cândâlas overrun Visvâmitra and his army. After his defeat,
VisVâmitra decides that the greatest power that can be had is to
be obtained through tapas. He performs a tapas so extreme that he
accedes to brahmin-hood (bmhmanaivam avapa).
From that time on, Visvâmitra and Vasistha are enemies.

Visvamitra is not the only character in epic and Puranic
literature who tries to attain a higher status through
austerities and other practices. Interestingly, nearly all those
who do are in some way linked to Visvamitra and thus
placed in opposition to Vasistha (though not necessarily in
that order). Prime examples of this phenomenon are to be
found in the myths of Mâtanga77 and Trišaňku.78
Mâtanga is the adopted son of a brahmin, and believes himself
to be a brahmin. One day he whips a donkey, whose mother tells
him that he is, in fact, a Cândâla, born of a šudra barber and a
brahmin woman. After this, he goes into the forest (mahâranya)
where he performs such severe austerities that Viavâmitra sacrifices
for him and Indra offers him a boon. Mâtanga asks to be made a
brahmin, but Indra insists that such is impossible for a Cândâla.
After two thousand years of austerities, Indra grants him a boon
that he be placed in the sky (vihamgama) as a star, where he would
be adored by brahmins and k§atriyas.
Satyavrata is an Iksvâku who, having kidnapped a brahmin
virgin on her wedding day, is exiled by his father to live in the forest
like a Švapaka. There is a drought at this time, and while Viávámitra
is performing lapas elsewhere, his wife and middle child are starving
in the forest. Satyavrata comes upon them there, and feeds them
with what he can find. As they are in the vicinity of Vasistha's
ášrama, he feeds them one of Vasistha's cows. Vasistha learns of
this, and curses him to become a Càndàla in reality, giving him the
name Trišaňku ("triple-sting") for having stung his father, the
brahmin virgin and Vasistha himself with his offenses.78 Triíaňku
77. Mhbh, 13.28.7-13.30.13 and (D4) 1.65.34.

78. Râmâyana, 1.56.10-1.59.33; Harivamša, 9.88-10.81; Mhbh, 13.3.9;
Devïbhâgavata Purâna, 7.10.1-7.14.24.
79. In Râmâyana, 1.58.14-23, it is the one hundred sons of Vasistha who
curse him, whose name was originally Trišaňku, for gainsaying them after
Vasistha refuses to help him. When Visvamitra promises to help Triáaůku
turned Cândâla, Vasistha's sons curse Visvamitra that one day he would eat
Cândâla food, dog meat. Visvâmitra, by his lapas, has them killed, and curses
them, who abstained from dog meat, to be reborn for seven hundred lifetimes
as the Cândâla (Mrtapâ) race of the Mustikas. Mhbh, 13.3.3, also refers to
Viavâmitra's slaying of Vasistha's one hundred sons, an act which he also
commits indirectly in the Kalmâsapàda myth. See notes 8 and 49. .
Éunàhêepa Unbound 247
performs severe austerities, and VisVàmitra, learning of how he had

nourished his wife and son, performs a sacrifice for him. Triáaňku
then returns to his kingdom where he rules. Later, Visvàmitra places
him in the sky as a star.80
Yet another confrontation between Visvàmitra and

Vasistha must be mentioned in this context. This is the
myth of Kalmâsapâda,81 as related in Mhbh, 1.166.1-167.5,
where it immediately follows the myth of the original
encounter of Visvàmitra and Vasistha :
Kalmâsapâda, an Iksvàku, becomes thirsty while hunting in the

forest. He chances upon the path that leads to Vasistha's âérama,
where he meets Šakti, the eldest of Vasistha's one hundred sons.
When Šakti refuses to yield to him on the path, he beats him with
a whip. Viavâmitra, who is feuding with Vasistha at this time, causes
Kalmâsapâda to become possessed by a râksasa, who then eats all
of Vasistha's sons. When Vasistha finds himself unable to defeat
Višvámitra, he tries to drown himself in a river, having bound
himself with vines, but Visvàmitra causes the river to undo his fetters,
and so the river became known as Vipâaa.82
At this point, having established the "frame story" for

the Šunahšepa myth, we may discuss the transformations
it undergoes and the new elements that are introduced, in
its epic and Puranic versions.83 Rather than to Nârada, it
is to Vasistha that Harišcandra addresses himself on the
merits of having sons.84 It is one of Hariscandra's ministers,
and not Rohita, who solicits Ajigarta to sell one of his sons
to be a surrogate naramedha victim for Rohita. Agastya
80. In the Devïbhâgavaîa Purána, 7.14.1-24, Visvàmitra first sends Tri-

íaňku to Indraloka, but Indra cannot allow him, a human Cândâla, to remain
there. Višvámitra proposes to create another aerial loka for him, and Inda
creates an aerial car for him by which he remains there.
81. Cf. Sudâs of RV, 3.53. See also n. 49.
82. Mhbh, 1.167.6; 13.3.1. Višvámitra also makes the Kaušikl river Para
(traversible: Mhbh, 1.65.30-32), and makes the Sarasvatl river Aruna (red,
with blood), after which a point on the river becomes a tïrtha at which dogs,
râkçasas, and brahmahatyâs are freed from sins (Mhbh, 9.42.21-34).
83. Devïbhâgavaîa Puràna, 6.12.37-6.13.30; 7. 14.25-7.1 4. 4G; Bhâgavaia
Ригйпа, 9.7.7-23; 9.16.30-34; Mhbh, 13.3.6-8; Ràmâgana, 1.60.5-1.61.27.
84. The Bhágavala Parana (9.6.8) states that Vasistha is the priest of
the Iksvâku kings.
replaces Ayasya as the sacrificial Udgâtr.85 When Ajigarta

steps forward to put Šunahšepa to death on the sacrificial
post, the assembled people call him a pisàca and a Cândâla.88
Visvâmitra, angered at Hariscandra's refusal to spare
Šunahšepa, teaches the latter the Varuna mantra, by which he is
freed from his fetters, and Harišcandra from his dropsy.
When Visvàmitra adopts Šunahšepa as his eldest son, he
curses his fifty elder sons to Švapaca-hood (svapacald) for
their refusal to accept him.87 Praised by Visvâmitra, Indra
is pleased, and releases him from a curse.88
The Devïbhâgavata Purâna (DP) version of this myth
leaves Visvàmitra angry for his refusal to release Šunahšepa
during the sacrifice.89 Furthermore, in this version, Haris-
85. BMgavala Purâna, 9.23: Agastya is substituted here for Ayasya; who
was the Udgátr in the AB (7.16.1) version. Thus, in this tradition, there
are two sets of brothers (Visvàmitra and Jamadagni, and Vasistha and Agastya)
officiating at the Šunahšepa sacrifice.
86. Devïbhâgavata Purâna, 7.16.34-35.
87. Mhbh, 13.3.8. In Râmâyana, 1.60.5-1.61.27, it is not Hariácandra,
but Ambarisa, an earlier Ikçvâku and king of Ayodhya, who plays a pivotal
role in this myth. Ambarîsa's sacrificial animals have been stolen by Indra.
He goes to the forest to find another sacrificial victim, and there he meets
Rcïka (who is also the natural father of Šunahšepa in Mhbh, 13.3.6). He
offers to buy one of Rclka's sons for one hundred (or 1000) cows. Rcika refuses
to give up the eldest, and his wife the youngest. Šunahšepa, the middle son
is chosen. He flees to Puskâra, where he pleads with his uncle (I) Visvâmitra
to help him. Visvâmitra agrees, and calls his sons together, explaining that
he intends to protect Šunahšepa by adopting him. The sons who are older
than Madhucchanda say, "How can you, disregarding your own sons, protect
the son of another? We regard that (accepting Šunahšepa) to be like eating
dog meat (évamaňsam iva bhojanam). Visvàmitra curses them to that very
lot on earth for 1000 years, and he protects Šunahšepa. At the sacrifice,
Šunahšepa, bound to the sacrifical post, pleases Indra, who releases him and grants
him long life. See n. 8.
88. Mhbh, 13.3.14. This is probably the curse placed on Visvâmitra by
the sons of Vasistha for helping the Cândâla Trišaňku (n. 8 and 79). This curse
was, in fact, realized (cf. Mhbh, 12.139.11 ff; he also relates this episode to
his wife in the Devïbhâgavata Purâna version of the Trišaňku myth: DP,
7.13.9-27) during a drought between the Dvâpara and Treta yugas, when
Visvàmitra, famished, chances upon a Cândâla village (n. 59). He spies a
dog's hindquarters hanging from the ceiling of a Cândâla's hut, and decides
to eat it. A Cândâla (who is alternately referred to as "Cândàla", "Švapaka",
and "Màtanga": Mhbh, 12.139.47) catches him in the act and prays him that
he, a fsi, not eat it. But Visvâmitra explains that because he knows the sin
in what he is doing, he can eat the dog without fearing the consequences.
He cooks and eats the meat, and Indra, pleased, causes rain to fall. This and
another myth of the same sort are referred to in Manu Smpti, 10.106, 108.
89. Devïbhâgavata Purâna, 6. 13. 30; 7. 16. 56-59.
Éunahêepa Unbound 249
candra does not decide to perform the râjasuya until after

Šunahšepa had been released from the naramedha. At this
point:
Viávamitra ensnares Hariácandra into making him his Hotr.

When Hariácandra assents, Visvàmitra demands an astronomical
fee for his services, which Hariácandra is bound to pay. He gives
up his kingdom to Visvàmitra, sells his queen áaivyá and his son
Rohita into the service of a brahmin, and sells himself as a slave
to a Cândâla, in an attempt to satisfy Visvàmitra.80 The Cândâla
is always surrounded by dogs,91 as is the Benares cremation ghat
on which Hariácandra is his slave. Hariácandra dreams of rebirths
as a dog, but in his dreams he is promised that his past station
would be restored to him. In the meantime, Hariácandra actually
becomes a Càndàla through his base occupation and associations.
The Viáve Devâh92 take pity on him and try to help him: Viavàmitra
causes them to be reborn as humans, in the form of the five Pàn-
davas.93 His wife comes to his cremation ground twelve years later,
bearing the corpse of Rohita. She and Hariácandra recognize each
other, and decide to throw themselves onto their son's pyre. The
Càndàla then reveals himself to be the god Dharma, and the gods,
along with Viávamitra, appear, praising Hariácandra and Šaivya,
and reviving Rohita. Indra causes rain to fall, and all of the people-
and the city of Ayodhyâ are made to ascend into the sky, where
they became the aeriel star of Šaubha.
The myth adds that all that had befallen Hariscandra

was the outcome of his râjasuya which, along with the rivalry
of Visvàmitra and Vasistha, was the cause of the decay of
the earth.94 It is in this final myth that nearly all of the
resonances of the elements of "chaos" in the Šunahšepa and
other myths of the Visvàmitra cycle are all brought together.
There is the conflict between Vasistha and Visvàmitra, in
part due to the treatment of Šunahšepa by Hariscandra;
90. Devïbhâgavata Purâna, 7.17.47-53; 7.18.1 IT; Márkandeya Purâna,

7.1-8.269.
91. Márkandeya Purâna, 8.81-83.
92. See note 39 on the Vaišvadeva sacrifice.
93. In their apotheosis, the Pândavas have an experience similar to that
of Hariscandra in this myth, involving Indra and Dharma disguised as a dog:
Mhbh, 17.1.23; 17.3.1-20.
94. The Devibhâgavala Purâna version oř all of these myths is framed by
the myth of the battle between Vasistha, who is an Adi-bird and Višvamitra,
who is a heron.
the hunt in the forest; a cosmic decay or drought (which

Indra ends by "unfettering" the rain clouds);66 the close
association of dogs, Cândâlas, base occupations, impurity,,
and death; the reduction of an individual to a degraded
status followed by a final glorification in an aeriel body; a
rdjasuya sacrifice; and Hariscandra's loss and recovery of
his son Rohita.
We may now isolate these various elements as they
appear across the whole of the Visvâmitra cycle, preliminary
to integrating them into a meaningful whole. Concerning the
relations of brahmins with ksatriyas and the conflicts between
the sacrificial and renunciant ideals we have, as we did in
the AB Šunahšepa myth, the dependence of the ksatriya
king Harišcandra (or Ambarísa) upon his brahmin sacrificial
priest. Their relationship is made especially clear in the DP
and Márkandeya Purána (MP) myth cited above, even if
we take into account the somewhat dubious brahmin-hood
of Visvâmitra, as well as the influence of bhakli on the ending.96
Harišcandra needs four sacrificial priests to perform his
naramedha of Šunahšepa. Yet he has power over them, as
is shown when he disregards Visvâmitra's protest that it is
sinful for a ksatriya to sacrifice a brahmin.97 Visvâmitra,
however, is able to offset Hariscandra's advantage by saving
Šunahšepa with the Varuna mantra. Finally, when
Harišcandra needs & hoir for his ràjasuya, Visvâmitra exercises
his power as a brahmin over him to the greatest degree, as
he forces Harišcandra and his family to undergo years of
degradation, suffering and exile. In taking Hariscandra's
kingdom from him, he takes the role of a ksatriya king; in
becoming exiled into Cândâla-hood, Harišcandra takes the
role of Trišaňku and the elder sons of Visvâmitra, cursed.
95. See note 88.

96. Many of the myths in the Visvâmitra cycle (including Šunaháepa'?)
may be seen in the light of bhakli tradition, in which devotion to a personal,
loving (and/or terrible) god brings salvation, cf. the endings of the Trišaůku
and Mâtanga myths.
97. Devïbhâgavata Purâna, 6.13.18-24.
Of course, the most important statement regarding the

brahmin-Zcsařr/ř/a relationships in this cycle is to be found
in the ksatriya Visvâmitra's co-opting of the status of brahmin
through the practice of austerities, as is made explicit in
the second myth of his attainment of brahmin-hood. It is
in this sense that the person of Visvâmitra may be seen as
an embodiment of the crisis that the intermingling of castes
through sexual union and the practicing of one caste's
occupations by another (varnasamsarga) represents for the
established sacrificial order to which, after all, the greater
parts of these oral and written traditions must be attributed.
Indeed, in the tradition of these pious commentators, the
whole of the Pandava-Kaurava war of the Mahàbhârala
comes to be seen as the result of a cosmic crisis generated
by varnasamsarga. Many of the myths of Visvâmitra begin
with a question askin to "How may a ksatriya (or non-
brahmin) accede to brahmin-hood?"98 Visvâmitra's difference
in status from that of Vasistha is referred to as that which
exists between a rájarsi and a devarsi," or between a ksatriya
who performs sacrifices and a surarsi.100 And, of course, his
numerous conflicts with Vasistha, beginning with that through
which he decides to become a lapasvin, are all expressions
of the often ambiguous relationship between power and law,
taken in the senses we have discussed, with power gaining
the upper hand in the end.
The same is true in the cases of Šunahšepa, Trišaňku,
Mátaňga and Kalmâsapâda. All are either born into a sub-
brahmin status, or fall to such a status (Šunahšepa, an
Aňgirasa and therefore a brahmin with ksatriya qualities:
pravarâh ksairopetâ dvijâtayah,101 is degraded to "pasuivam")
through the curses of the brahmin Vasistha, after having
been exiled by their fathers, before being reinstated or
98. Mhbh, 13.3.1.

99. Mhbh (D4), 1.65.34. See note 23.
100. Râmâgana, 1.58.14.
101. Bhágavata Ригйпа, 9.6.3.
252 David Gordon White-
raised through their own tapas and that of Visvâmitra. The

reverse is true in the cases of Visvâmitra's curses on his
own sons and on the sons of Vasistha,102 his degradation of
Harišcandra and his constant overpowering of Vasistha.
Another permutation on this phenomenon is the case of
Parašuráma, the nephew/great-nephew of Visvâmitra who,
having had his kâmadhenu Mahismatï stolen from him — as
Vasistha had with Visvâmitra — by the ksatriya king Arjuna,
wiped out the ksatriya race.103
This episode reminds us of another wrinkle on the
relationships between brahmins and ksatriyas: the case of family
relations. The genealogies of the individual concerned in
these stories is a tangled one indeed. Visvâmitra is descended
from the ksatriya Bhârata line and the brahmin Bhargava
line, and becomes the founder of several other brahmin lines
through his adopted sons, and of several Cândâla races
through the cursing of his elder sons. As regards Visvâmitra's
relations with Šunahšepa, he is generally portrayed as
adopting him as his eldest son, by which Sunahsepa's name
is changed to Devarâta, as he is given (râla) by the gods
(deva).10* But the Mahâbhârala, Râmâyana and the Vâyu
Purâna imply that Visvâmitra is Sunahsepa's natural paternal
uncle (due to his ambiguous relationship with Rcika, Gadhi
and Satyavati, in the exchange of the caru), and the Hari-
vamša calls him Sunahsepa's natural father. Vasistha is the
brahmin priest of the Iksvâkus, all of whom, with the
exception of Harišcandra, he curses.
4. All of these ambiguous family relationships and

overturned relationships between ksatriyas and brahmins, and
between sacrificing and renunciant brahmins, may be seen
in terms of radical middleness, as discussed above. In most
of these cases, the individuals are defined by what they are
102. See notes 8 and 79.

103. Bhagavaia Purâna, 9.15.13-26.
104. Vâyu Purâna, 90.91-92; Brahmânda Purâna, 3.66.65-68.
Šunafyšepa Unbound 253
not in terms of two poles of a concept of order. In a similar

way, the elements which we characterized as chaotic, to
which we may add Mataňga, Trišaňku, Kalmâsapâda and
Hariscandra, are excluded from the two poles of order on
several levels.
We already spoke of how, in the context of the AB Šunah-
šepa myth and elsewhere, the wild forest and those who
move through it are excluded spatially from both the center
of the village where sacrifices take place and that of the
lush divine forest in which the ášramas of the rsis are located.
We see this again in the myths of Mátaňga, Trišaňku,
Kalmâsapâda and Visvâmitra (in his first encounter with
Vasistha). In every case, they are wandering, hungry and
thirsty, in a wild forest or waste land devoid of water, either
for hunting or because they have been exiled there,105 until
they enter the forest around the hermitage of a rsi, which
is a paradise.106
The desert nature of the wild forest, or of any excluded
locality, like the cremation ground in the MP Hariscandra
myth which is defined by its being between but excluded
from the worlds of the living and the dead, may be heightened
by another form of exclusion: exclusion from fertility, or
drought. This sort of seasonal or temporal radical middleness
may be even qualified as cosmic when the drought is the
result of a transition between cosmic epochs (yugas). This
is the case in the myth of Visvâmitra in the Gândâla village,
which takes place in a twelve year period of drought between
the Treta and Dvâpara yugas.107 This is equally the case in
the myth of the seven rsis and Šunahsakha ("Dog's friend"),
who is Indra in disguise.108 This myth takes place during
a time of drought between yugas, in which the seven
rsis — including Visvâmitra, Vasistha and Jamadagni— dying
105. This theme is most explicit in the myth of Dusyanta-BhSrata (who

would later marry Šakuntala) in Mhbh, 1.63.13 IT.
106. It is called "devaloka" in Mhbh, 1.64.19.
107. Mhbh, 12.139.13.
108. Mhbh, 13.94.5-95.80.
of hunger in the forest, nearly cook and eat the corpse of

the dead prince Šaibya. After many adventures, they are
saved by the disguised Indra Šunahsakha. In the same way,
Indra saves Visvâmitra when he ends the drought after
Visvâmitra has eaten a dog's tail, and sends rain at the
end of the MP Hariscandra myth.
Another pattern of radical middleness to be derived from
these myths is a vertical one. Between heaven and earth
there is midspace (aniariksa, viha, etc.). Trišaňku, Mâtanga
and Hariscandra with all of his city become stars in this
region. The DP version of the Trišaňku myth109 implies that
Indraloka is located in the same space. The seven rsis
themselves are stars in the sky, and Višvámitra is located in the
midst (madhye) of them.110 The word aniariksa itself connotes
middleness, as it lies between (anlar) heaven and earth.
The location of the dog and of Gândâlas in this position
of radical middleness can be integrated from the intersection
of all of these forms of middleness — the genealogical, the
spatial (or horizontal), temporal and vertical — as they have
been encountered in the myths discussed above. Gândâlas
are defined by the fact that they keep, kill, cook and eat
dogs.111 Their race is the product of a curse. Whatever one
may say about the dog is equally applicable to Gândâlas
and vice versa. They live on the peripheries of towns, which
are neither town or country; or on cremation grounds which
are neither the place of the living nor of the dead; or in
waste lands which are neither earthly center nor divine
center, and which are under a continual state of drought.
It is only in times of distress, as between yugas, that one
may cook and eat the meat of dogs; but as the Cândâla is
always in the middle he is excluded from such prohibitions
at all times. Gândâlas dispose of the dead and execute
condemned men, and in this way too they are defined by
109. Devïbhâgavata Pnrâna, 7.14.1-9.

110. Mhbh, 13.3.15.
111. Manu Smpli, 10.106, 108. See note 88.
something that is neither one thing nor another: the cadaver

or condemned are neither existent (alive) nor non-existent
(immaterial). They are a remains, like the remains (ucchisla)
that Cândâlas eat off of broken vessels. The dog who leads the
hunters in the forest is neither hunter nor game (yet, in different
cases, he may kill or be killed); he is between the hunters
and their prey. So the Sarameyau on the paths of the
dead — another middle, being neither in the land of the living
nor of the dead, just as with the Cândàlas on the cremation
ground — may bless or blast. The Gândâla is also defined
biologically as the bastard offspring of an illicit sexual union
between disparate castes. He is neither of one nor the other,
but is degrated to something outside of and below both of
them. The dog, like men cursed to (rebirth into) Cândâla-
hood, is the product, through reincarnation, of an individual's
base or criminal previous lives: they are reborn into sin
together. As all of these elements may be readily recognized
in the contexts of the myths we have discussed, there is no
need to extract them in detail here.
It is by virtue, then, of their radical middleness that
dogs and Gândâlas are considered to be marginal, impure,
dangerous and chaotic, as their existence is defined solely
in terms of their opposition to an established order. It is
because they live in the space between the living and the
dead, the town and the ášrama, the killer and the prey, one
caste and another, and, by metaphorical extension, between
one epoch and another, between heaven and earth, that they
are seen as being threatening. Their very presence is. a
reminder to those who live within the spatial, temporal,
vocational, societal, sacrificial, biological and living order of
the precariousness of their situation, for they represent for
order that which it is not but that which it always has the
potential for becoming.
5. This brings us to the question of ideology and

perception. It would perhaps . be most fruitful to look at the
"role" of Cândâlas and dogs in these myths as expressions

of an ongoing speculation on the nature and place of the
sacrifice in the Brahmanic world view. In this context, the
depth of symbolic meaning for which these creatures stood
would have been both recognized and manipulated in order
to cast the ethical implications of sacrifice in a new and
more revealing light. At the same time, it must be recognized
that the "strategies of emplotment" which these myths
followed were greatly influenced by rituals of royal dïksâ
which took the form of exile (on the parts of Hariscandra,
Trišaňku and Kalmâsapâda) in these myths.112
It must be remembered that the orthodoxy, which
defined the order against which chaos was opposed, was
possessed of a certain power in the manipulation of social
and religious values. If Cândâlas came to be defined as
dangerous, yet were allowed to exist, it was in part because
they were needed to relieve the existing social order of its
own detritus and excrements. If dogs came to be defined
as dangerous and yet were allowed to exist, it was in part
because they were needed for the hunting and herding of
animals. In any case, the proper question was not "Should
dogs and Cândâlas be allowed to exist?" because they did
exist, everywhere; and reality— be it empirical or the reality
of one's tradition — is most difficult to negate. The real
question was something more on the lines of "Who are we
in terms of them? How are we to relate to them?".
The myths that have been related here represent at least
two millennia of rethinking of these questions. As this period
which these myths encompassed was one which saw the
renunciant ideal come to take precedence over the sacrificial
one, only to give way to a devotional (bhakti) ideal, we
must be careful to recognize that it is not one, but several
112. Cf. David Shulman, "On kings and clowns: Indra, Trišaňku and
the Killekyâta", paper delivered at American Folklore Congress, Mysore,
August 22, 1980, p. 44. The exiles of the Pàndavas in the Mhbh, and of Rama
in the Râmâyana may be of the same type.
ideologies that are being reflected through these myths. For

this reason, the interpretation of the Šunahšepa myth
proposed here will be one that integrates as much as possible
of all of the resonances of the mythologies of dogs, Cândâlas
and all of the other elements derived above as they are
found in the Vedic, epic, Puranic, etc. corpora that precede
and follow the AB version.
The Šunahšepa myth is one of a movement from non-
differentiation to definition through separation. In this sense,
it follows the dynamics of sacrifice, which establishes order
through differentiation. It is divided into two parts, with
Šunahšepa fettered to the sacrificial post as its pivotal
midpoint. Nearly all that precedes is characterized by
ambiguity and nondifferentiation, and nearly all that follows as
a result of what happens to Šunahšepa bound is characterized
by definition. This solidifying of that which was previously
amorphous appears to be founded, to a great extent, upon
an ethos which is not that of the sacrificial order.
The myth begins with a dilemma: Harišcandra is a king
who is not a king because he cannot have a son. Varuna
is a god of justice who allows the effectuation of his
justice —through the sacrifice of Rohita —to be postponed until
it slips away from him completely. Rohita is a son who is
a son only by default: every moment he is alive he should
be dead, as he exists as a debt that is perpetually falling
due to Varuna (he is truly "thrown" in the Heideggerian
sense). When Rohita flees to the forest, he becomes a ksairiya
who follows the renunciant path, encouraged into remaining
there by the royal god Indra who is disguised as a brahmin
renunciant. Both are neither ksairiya nor brahmin. Ajîgarta
is a brahmin of the dubious Aňgirasa lineage who behaves
like a šudra and who lives like a Cândâla in the forest with
his three sons who are also dogs: Šunahpuccha, Šunahšepa
and Šunolaňgula. Šunahšepa and his brothers are neither
wholly human nor wholly canine, which is reflective of the
ambiguity of Cândâla-hood. Furthermore, Šunahšepa is
HHR — 10
neither wholly a man nor wholly a dehumanized sacrificial

(animal or anaddhà purusa) victim, but is suspended between
the two. The sacrifice is not a proper sacrifice, as it involves
the exchange of a brahmin for a ksatriya victim by a ksatriya
sacrificer. The sacrificial priests are only so in name, as they
are unable to sacrifice the sacrificial victim; Ajigarta is a
biological father who is not a father because he has sold off
his own son. To summarize, the situation that precedes
Sunahsepa's activity is one of chaos. Every individual and
element at once stand symbolically for one thing and for
its opposite, or for neither. Theirs is the undifferentiation
that precedes creation: they represent the pangs of a cosmic
birth.
All of these disparate chaotic elements are brought
together and given definition in the course of the second
half of this myth. Central to this creation of order is the
ambiguous, chaotic dog-victim-Cândâla-brahmin Šunahšepa.
He is Ajigarta's middle son suspended between his mother
and his father's protection of their favorites; the sacrifice
suspended on the sacrificial post between humanity and
animality, between life and death, between Hariscandra's
sacrificial ground and Varuna's heaven, between a brahmin
birthright sold for three hundred cows and his role as
surrogate victim for a ksatriya in order that a royal line might
continue.
Šunahšepa stands for all the ambiguities of the first
portion of this myth as long as he remains passive, as a
mere sacrificial victim. From the moment he begins to
invoke the gods, however, he becomes active and the master
of his own destiny. In this way, Šunahšepa as the epitome
of radical middleness becomes the source of definition for
all that falls on one or the other side of him.
By singing, Šunahšepa becomes the sacrificer, thus
replacing all of the other elements that stood apart from
him as sacrificial victim. The gods obey his injunctions to
come to him. The last gods Šunahšepa invokes are the
Višve Devâh (whose sacrifices are enjoyed by dogs and

Cândâlas), Indra (who gives him a golden chariot), the
Ašvins (morning stars) and Usas (rosy dawn). And so it is
that with Sunahsepa's final three verses to Usas, in which
his fetters fall, that the — day — breaks. Šunahšepa on the
sacrificial post is the prop that opens the mountain, that
separates mother earth from father sky. This is birth, creation,
differentiation, definition. Creation proceeds from chaos.
Once unbound, Šunahšepa, on the urging of the sacrificial
priests, continues and completes the soma sacrifice with a
new rite. Just as the sacrifice which Šunahšepa completes
is wholly different from the one begun by Hariscandra's
priests, so the world that issues from his sacrifice is wholly
changed vis à vis that which preceded it. It is a world ordered
on a new ethos. Šunahšepa Aňgirasa, the middle son, is made
Devarâta, God-given, blessed by Indra, Varuna and the
other gods, the first son of Visvâmitra and head of the Jahnus
and Gâthins. In this way, Visvâmitra too, is singled out
(from the other sacrificial priests), and his way of
renunciation — even as a means to changing one's social station — is
sanctioned and validated. The greedy brahmin Ajigarta is
turned back out into the forest, having lost a son through
his avarice. Harišcandra is reinstated as king, but will later
have to answer to Visvâmitra— who in a sense replaces
Varuna as the lord of justice of the new order — for his
inhumane acquiescence to the taking of the life of a brahmin
to save his own skin within the workings of the mechanistic
legalism of the purely sacrificial order. The elder brothers
of Visvâmitra's middle son Madhucchanda, by their refusal
to recognize the new order that Šunahšepa represents, are
cursed by their own haughtiness to become Cândâlas, the
radical middle of the new order. At the same time,
Madhucchanda and his younger brothers are blessed by their
humility.
Vasistha, who is nearly completely left out of the
concluding part of this myth, is in reality relegated to a position
260 David Gordon' White
whose importance would thenceforth be on the wane. Never

again would he be able to defeat Višvamitra through his
sacrifices as he had before. In this way, in all of the multi-
forms of the Šunahšepa myths, in which Vasistha curses
Kalmâsapâda, Trišaňku and Mataňga, or in which his sons
curse Visvâmitra to Cândâla-hood, their curses always
backfire onto themselves, and those who curse become cursed.
The symbolic depth of the dog, the Gândâla, the renunciant
and the sacrificer remain constant throughout all of this
tradition: it is the ethical order for which they stand that
is altered, or created or recognized (anamnesis, in the Eliadean
sense) through the Šunahšepa myth. In this way, the
Šunahšepa myth is both a model of a new world and a model for
a corresponding new ethos. It is the appropriation of an
existing sedimentation of a symbol system evolved through
tradition, in a new and innovative way which, in turn, gives
rise to new layers of sedimentation, symbolic statements of
the new ethos, through the succeeding myths of Trišaňku,
Mâtanga and the others.
6. But, even as these symbolic resonances on the

Šunahšepa myth stand as models of and for this new ethos and
world view, all of the previous and successive symbolic values
of the elements of these myths stand within them. This is
what gives symbols their depth. It is for this reason that
we must not look at this myth in merely historicist terms,
in ascribing the "new" world view and ethos it reflects and
proposes as resulting solely from a change in the politico-
religious power structure. Višvámitra remains ambiguous
because he is still the iconoclast, the innovator and the
enforcer. Šunahšepa defined as Devarâta must be constantly be
redefined through the myths of Trišaňku and the others who
were degraded and redefined. In these phenomena we find
the coincideniia opposiiorum that makes symbols more than
mere signs. With these remarks, I believe we have done
justice to the possibilities for the description of symbols and
types that this myth offers to us. We have perhaps even

brushed the surface of its meaning. I believe, however, that
we might go one step further, to glimpse the intentionality
of and for which this myth is a manifestation, and ultimately
speak of what meaning Šunahšepa can have for us.
We have spoken at great length of radical middleness.
There remains one final reinterpretation of this phenomenon
which is best stated in terms of the vertical middleness
"type" derived through the myths of Trišaňku, Mátaňga
and Harišcandra. To these we may add Šunahšepa, who is
suspended between heaven and earth on the sacrificial post.
These cases should indeed be seen in terms of definition
through differentiation, that is, in terms of the primal myth
of the separation of earth from heaven. Men or heroes
(beginning with Indra in Hinduism?) push their parents apart in
order that they might exist. This is the symbolism of the
sun that rises out of the rosy dawn created by the propping
up of the mountain. This is Šunahšepa on the sacrificial
post; and Trišaňku, Mátaňga and Harišcandra "reborn" into
the anlariksa, between heaven and earth.
Differentiation is necessary to creation, to the attainment
of (self-)consciousness, but consciousness quickly becomes
consciousness of being apart, excluded. The divine child who
pushes his parents apart quickly comes to realize, in the
light of the first day that floods over him, that he is totally
alone. Yet, he must emerge, that he may be alone. It is a
dilemma to which there is no permanent answer, yet which
is so humanly urgent that self-conscious man cannot help
but constantly question himself about it. In Hindu, indeed,
in nearly every mythology, the question is continually posed
in the form of myths of creation through separation that
at once constitutes a fall from wholeness.
Myths of creation through separation continue to bear a
depth of symbolic meaning throughout the periods under
study here. Yet it must be recognized that the Šunahšepa
myth stands as a restatement of this myth-as- reinterpretation-
262 David Gordon While
of-the-existential-question that is innovative. For in this

myth we find a primal statement of existential self-affirmation,
even in the face of the radical contingency of death and the
thrown-ness of destiny. Šunahšepa, by asserting his courage
to be, becomes the master of his own fate. His is a statement
of meaning in being that is "true" because it is one which
arises out of the jaws of meaninglessness, and asserts itself
in the face of a threat of annihilation.
In this way, the Šunahšepa myth stands as a model of
and for a "new man" who, rather than being the slave of
a meaningless order, makes himself the master of an order
whose meaning he creates as a being-interpreted through it.
The proof of this lies in the persistence of this myth through
time, in its place as a "classic" in the Hindu tradition. It
has yet to become an incomprehensible "relic" because it
outsurvives and transcends the conditions of its production.
It continues to speak to the question of existence, just as
it did over two thousand years ago, because its meaning
continues to overflow any statement that can be formulated
continue"
about it. So it is that we, as being-interpreted, may
to appropriate meaning through the Šunahšepa myth.

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The myth of Šunákšepa fAitareya Brahmana, 7 .13-18)

lievue de l'Histoire des Religions, ccm-3/1986, p. 227 à 2G2

1. Since western scholars first became aware of it in the

1. For a discussion of recent scholarship on the áunahšepa myth, see

as they themselves existed as "being-interpreted",4 through

Hariácandra, the king of the Iksvâkus, has one hundred wives

4. Paul Ricœur, The Conflict of Interpretations, edit, by Don Idhe, Evanston,

At the sacrifice, the hoir is Viávámitra, the adhvaryu is Jamadagni,

texts which mention. Šunahsepa in this context are: Tailtiriya Brâhmana,

the Andhras, Pundras, Šabaras, Pulindas and Mutibas, who live

2. Most of the mythic themes and patterns to which I

The portions of the AB myth which are the most relevant

10. Šalapatha Brâhmana, 11.2.1.1.

Indra's birth is equated with the slaying of Vrtra.13 Beyond

13. Šalapalha Bráhmana, 5.2.4.1 ff and Kau§ïlaki Bráhmana, cited in

the sacrificial network of village (grama) society. It is in

15. Mhbh (D4=Tanjore, Saraswathi Medical Library, No. 1126, cited in

Nârada), who embodies the sacrificial ideal. Their opposition

the ambiguous position of Visvamitra, who is not only a

Radical middleness may also be found in human, familial

the Aňgirasas and other elements of the "chaotic". Šunahšepa

24. RV, 4.18.13.

a black four-eyed dog is killed (by a marginal Ayogava, the

36. Cf. the commentary of Sáyana on Taittirïya Samhitá, 7.1.11.1 <T.

The Sârameyau and the Aňgirasas are brought together in

45. RV, 10.13.4-10.14.11.

are, for the most part, neither portrayed as being excluded

3. How different a situation we find a few centuries later

54. Cf. the commentary of Mitâksara to Yájňavalkya Smrti, 3.260, in

society except in the performance of their roles as disposers

58. Mhbh, 13.48.10-28; 13.133.22-23; 13.91.42-43; Manu Smpti, 5.129-

ticular indigenous group classified as Cândâlas), kills a dog

Lokâyala: A Study in Ancient Indian Materialism, New Delhi, 1959, sees in

taken as one that has existed from time immemorial, even

72. Mhbh, 13.4.1-48; Viçnu Purâna, 4.7.12-36; Váyu Purâna, 91.63-89

From that time on, Visvâmitra and Vasistha are enemies.

77. Mhbh, 13.28.7-13.30.13 and (D4) 1.65.34.

performs severe austerities, and VisVàmitra, learning of how he had

Yet another confrontation between Visvàmitra and

Kalmâsapâda, an Iksvàku, becomes thirsty while hunting in the

At this point, having established the "frame story" for

80. In the Devïbhâgavaîa Purána, 7.14.1-24, Visvàmitra first sends Tri-

replaces Ayasya as the sacrificial Udgâtr.85 When Ajigarta

candra does not decide to perform the râjasuya until after

Viávamitra ensnares Hariácandra into making him his Hotr.

The myth adds that all that had befallen Hariscandra

90. Devïbhâgavata Purâna, 7.17.47-53; 7.18.1 IT; Márkandeya Purâna,

the hunt in the forest; a cosmic decay or drought (which

95. See note 88.

Of course, the most important statement regarding the

98. Mhbh, 13.3.1.

raised through their own tapas and that of Visvâmitra. The

4. All of these ambiguous family relationships and

102. See notes 8 and 79.

not in terms of two poles of a concept of order. In a similar

105. This theme is most explicit in the myth of Dusyanta-BhSrata (who

of hunger in the forest, nearly cook and eat the corpse of

109. Devïbhâgavata Pnrâna, 7.14.1-9.

something that is neither one thing nor another: the cadaver

5. This brings us to the question of ideology and

"role" of Cândâlas and dogs in these myths as expressions