Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Vision of Dharma: Violence, Nonviolence, and the Non-Human World in Arun Kolatkar’s Sarpa Satra (Snake Sacrifice)

What is Arun Kolatkar’s reading of Janamejaya’s snake sacrifice and the burning of the Khandava forest, as depicted in his English poem, Sarpa Satra (2004)?  If the poem describes the sacrifice as “cynical,” a “mockery”, and a “grotesque parody” of a yajna, what would constitute a true, proper yajna?  Why does Jaratkaru advise Astika to stop the sacrifice, not for the sake of the Nagas, but to save “the last vestige of humanity”?  In addressing these questions, I will argue that although Sarpa Satra seems to present an anthropocentric understanding of dharma (in which human beings should live and let other species live), there are materials in the poem that suggest the contours of a non-anthropocentric vision of dharma (as that which sustains and promotes all life and the earth), an ideal that is more fully developed in the critical edition of the Mahabharata.

The paper begins with an exegesis of the poem’s description of the burning of the forest and the snake sacrifice.  Why do Arjuna and Krishna participate in the burning of the Khandava?  It was a “senseless massacre,” says Jaratkaru, in which Arjuna went “berserk” with “new toys in his hands”, to destroy “one of the largest rainforests in the land”.  This forest was “God’s laboratory on earth/ where life had been allowed to express itself/ with complete abandon,” in which there was a vast diversity of plants, trees, insects, animals, and human beings, with their own language, music, and medicinal knowledge.  She wonders if they committed this “crime” to test their divine weapons or to acquire the forest land.  Why is Janamejaya undertaking the snake sacrifice?  To take revenge on Takshaka for killing Parikshita, Jaratkaru says, but the sacrifice is excessive and unjust, seeking to destroy the entire species for the wrongdoing of one Naga.  This is a distorted and dangerous yajna, as it might provoke Sesha to shrug and destroy the entire world.  According to Jaratkaru, what would be a true, proper yajna?  A yajna, the poem seems to suggest, that is not indiscriminately violent towards the non-human world.

When Jaratkaru advises Astika to stop the sacrifice, what is her rationale?  Intriguingly, she says that Astika should intervene, not for the sake of Vasuki or other snakes, but because Astika is a human being, and must save “the last vestige of humanity.”  The poem diverges here from the critical edition, in which Jaratkaru sends Astika precisely to save Vasuki and other snakes (indeed, this is why Astika is born to Jaratkaru).  In altering this detail, it seems as if the poem is putting forth an anthropocentric understanding of dharma, with human beings at the center and non-human species in the periphery, in which human beings should survive and prosper, but also allow other species to live.  But alongside this advice, there are details that suggest that the poem is intimating a non-anthropocentric vision of dharma, in Jaratkaru’s concern about Sesha destroying the world, the description of the forest as God’s laboratory, which includes human beings within it, and the poem’s references to Aurva and Parashara, who (in the critical edition) are restrained from annihilating the world.  “The last vestige of humanity”, I suggest, might also be read as, what is possible for human beings at their best, which is the capacity to recognize and pursue non-anthropocentric dharma, that which sustains and promotes all life and the earth, in which no species is understood to be at the center or the periphery.  “God’s laboratory,” Jaratkaru might be suggesting, is not only the Khandava, but the earth as a whole.  If Astika does not keep alive this possibility, human beings might be left only with narrow, anthropocentric dharma, and in time, might egoistically destroy themselves and other life on the earth, perhaps provoking Sesha to complete the world-destruction.  But there is time, the poem might be suggesting, to stop the distorted yajna (i.e. anthropocentric violence to the non-human world), and engage in true yajna, in pursuing non-anthropocentric dharma, in cooperation with other species, as was transpiring inside the Khandava forest.

The paper concludes by arguing that a non-anthropocentric vision of dharma is more fully articulated in the critical edition, through the depictions of the snake sacrifice, the forest burning, and the activities of Krishna, whose mission as avatar is to relieve and regenerate the earth, through a vast yajna of creative-destruction.  This yajna, according to Kolatkar’s Sarpa Satra, I will suggest, is a true, non-anthropocentric yajna.