The first thing that struck me about The Mahabharata is the similarity of storytelling structure and motifs between this epic and works from the Western canon. The "unquestioning spouse" at the very beginning reminds me of Chaucer's Clerk's tale. Unlike Chaucer, however, the unquestioning spouse is the husband, not the wife, and there's mythological purpose behind the wife's actions towards her husband and children.
Other aspects of this section reminded me of biblical Old Testament stories. A baby is hidden by being floated in a basket down the river, to be taken in and raised by strangers until his return to his homeland. There's also a similar concern in the epic about proper sexual partners and worry over having heirs (with women allowed multiple marriages to relatives, etc. in order to produce such) that crops up in the Old Testament. Finally, the competitions between the cousins and over a wife are pretty stock motifs in folklore, but they reminded me in particular of medieval Arthurian epics with their knights and quests and whatnot.
I was also struck/bothered by the final portion of this section. These epics have had polygyny before, but here's a case of polyandry! Yet there's still conflicts here. In polygyny, the man is allowed time with all wives, but in the polyandrous marriage here, the wife must spend a year with each brother, while the other brothers can't even think of her. There's also sexual freedom for the woman apparent in her past life, with being rewarded by the fantastic 5-in-1 husband for her previous unconditional devotion -- but at the same time, her desire is mentioned as holding back her husband's spiritual condition. It's still not the most enlightened view of female roles.
Draupadi and the Pandavas
Ravi Varma Press, c.1910 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
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