【英文翻译版82】尼尔·霍利：《摩诃婆罗多》

英文文稿+中文翻译

Zachary Davis: When it comes to epic poetry, there’s a strong case to be made that the Ancient Indian story The Mahābhārata is the most epic. 

扎卡里·戴维斯：说到史诗，古印度的《摩诃婆罗多》无疑是最宏大的一部。

Nell Hawley: So, the epic is like 100,000 verses long...ish. 70,000-75,000 in the critical edition, 100,000 by the text’s own count. That just for a reference is like 7 times the Iliad and the Odyssey combined.

尼尔·霍利：这部史诗足有十万节之长。哪怕是精校本也长达七万到七万五千节，而原文则长达十万节。相比之下，就算是《伊利亚德》和《奥德赛》加起来也只有它的七分之一。

Zachary Davis: That’s Nell Shapiro Hawley, a scholar of South Asian studies at Harvard University. The core part of the Mahābhārata tells the story of a war between two sets of cousins who are fighting over who gets to rule their kingdom.

扎卡里·戴维斯：这位是尼尔·夏皮洛·霍利，来自哈佛大学的南亚研究学者。《摩诃婆罗多》的核心故事讲述了两支王族后裔为争夺王位继承权而展开的战争。

Nell Hawley: The war is 18 days long. It is brutal, almost everybody dies. And at the end of it, the inheritors of the kingdom are left to rule over very little.  

尼尔·霍利：这场战争持续了十八天，十分惨烈，几乎所有人都战死了。在最终，王位继承者所得到的王国已经被摧残得所剩无几。

Zachary Davis: Within the Mahābhārata is the Bhagavad Gita, one of the best known and most beloved of all Hindu texts. 

扎卡里·戴维斯：《摩诃婆罗多》中的《薄伽梵歌》也是所有印度古籍中最负盛名且最广受欢迎的一篇。

Zachary Davis: The Mahābhārata has been read, translated, and reimagined for nearly 2,500 years, but there’s a problem with trying to read it in its entirety.

扎卡里·戴维斯：在过去两千五百年间，《摩诃婆罗多》被不断阅读、翻译、改写，但想要完整阅读这部著作却有一个问题。

Nell Hawley: The text is also a bit cursed. Bad things are said to befall those who read the text from beginning to end. 

尼尔·霍利：据说它受到了诅咒。把这部作品从头到尾完整读下来的人会面临灾祸。

Zachary Davis: Translating the whole thing is even worse.

扎卡里·戴维斯：要完整翻译它就更不妙了。

Nell Hawley: If you're ever wondering why there isn't a complete translation of the critical edition of the Mahābhārata, this is why. it is cursed. People have literally died. And that's I mean, that tradition of sort of it being that of the text being a little standing in a sort of uneasy relationship with us. It goes back a really long time. 

尼尔·霍利：如果你纳闷为什么《摩诃婆罗多》没有翻译完整的精校本，这就是原因了。它受到了诅咒，而且真的有人死了。所以，它的这种传统、它的原文和我们有一种令人不安的关系。这其实有很长的一段历史。

Nell Hawley: So even at the turn of the second millennium, when the Telugu poet Nannayya was going to translate the Mahābhārata, all of it from Sanskrit into Telugu, he got through the first bit and then and then died. And it was up to two more Telugu poets after him to finish the epic. But even then, they left a little bit undone so that the whole thing would be unfinished. And this is actually this is really important thematically for the Mahābhārata, the idea that it is inauspicious to have the whole thing. 

尼尔·霍利：所以即使在第二个千年之交，泰卢固诗人南那亚想要将《摩诃婆罗多》从梵语完整翻译成泰卢固语时，他只翻译了个开头就去世了。而之后就由另外两位泰卢固诗人翻译剩下的史诗。但即便如此，他们还是剩下了一部分没有翻译，好让它保持未完成的状态。而这很重要的一点是它反映了《摩诃婆罗多》的一个主题，即得到它的全本是一件很不吉利的事情。

Zachary Davis: It’s considered bad luck to have the entire Mahābhārata in your house today. People usually only own part of the text, and they often go outside to read it.

扎卡里·戴维斯：据说将整部《摩诃婆罗多》放在家里会带来厄运。所以人们往往只拥有诗的一部分，而且通常不会在家里读它。

Nell Hawley: So we as readers always have a little bit of an uneasy relationship with the text, which is super interesting because the Mahābhārata also claims to contain everything that exists. So if it tells every story, if it contains everything that exists, then that exists in a really interesting tension with the fact that we also must leave it unfinished, that actually it's completeness, it's sort of gestures toward universalism are a little bit dangerous. 

尼尔·霍利：所以它的原文总是和我们读者之间有种令人不安的关系。而这其实很有趣，因为《摩诃婆罗多》声称包含了世间万象。所以如果它讲遍天下故事，又包含万象的话，那它同时也和我们保持着一种很有趣的对立关系，即我们不能完整了解它。它的这种完整性，这种对普世性的指向背后又隐隐透着某种危险。

Zachary Davis: Welcome to Writ Large, a podcast about how books change the world. I’m Zachary Davis. In each episode, I talk with one of the world’s leading scholars about one book that changed the course of history. For this episode, I sat down with Nell Shapiro Hawley to discuss the Mahābhārata. 

扎卡里·戴维斯：欢迎收听：改变你和世界的100本书，在这里我们为大家讲述改变世界的书籍。我是扎卡里·戴维斯。每一集，我都会和一位世界顶尖学者讨论一本影响历史进程的书。在本集，我和尼尔·夏皮洛·霍利教授一起讨论《摩诃婆罗多》。

Zachary Davis: So, is it kind of seen as sacred history for, you know, contemporary Hindus?

扎卡里·戴维斯：所以它在当代印度教徒看来也是一部神圣历史了，对吗？

Nell Hawley: Certainly in the modern period in India, it has been read by many. I don't want to say all, I think far from all, but by many as an absolute like, civilizational epic that tells a very real, in whatever way you want to take real, history of these are the people we are descended from, this is our story. 

尼尔·霍利：没错，尤其是在现代印度，有很多人都读过它，不说所有人，可能离所有人还差得远，但它对很多人来说绝对是一部文明史诗，它讲述了一段非常“真实”的历史，这个“真实”要看你怎么理解，总之是一段关印度祖先发源的历史和诞生的故事。

Nell Hawley: The Mahābhārata was composed or compiled, depending on your theory of how it all came together, between the years 300 bce ish and 300 CE ish. So over a period of about 600 years. 

尼尔·霍利：根据不同的理论，《摩诃婆罗多》大约是在公元前三百年到公元后三百年左右编纂成的。所以这中间大概有六百年。

Zachary Davis: The story was developed and shared over the centuries by bards, people who were essentially professional storytellers and oral historians, and it eventually became the most famous story across India. 

扎卡里·戴维斯：它的故事是由云游诗人们创作并传播开来的，这些人其实就是职业讲故事的人，同时也是口述历史学家，而它最后变成了整个印度最家喻户晓的故事。

Zachary Davis: No one knows exactly how the story arrived in its current form, but the text itself tells a story of its creation.

扎卡里·戴维斯：没人知道这个故事是怎么演变成现在的样子的，但它的原文本身就讲述了它诞生背后的故事。

Nell Hawley: We may not know, but the Mahābhārata knows. And that story of how the Mahābhārata came to be, the text’s own account of its genesis and the text’s own account of its transmission, I would argue, is the thing that matters. So even though we don't know whether this whole thing was written by one person or many people, likely many people, because, Come on. But even though we don't know that, there is at least an imagined single author figure whose name is actually a bit of a pun, his name is Vyasa and he's this sage. And the word Vyasa means the compiler. 

尼尔·霍利：我们也许不知道，但《摩诃婆罗多》自己知道。而《摩诃婆罗多》诞生背后的故事其实就包含在它自己对创作过程和传播过程的记载里面。所以尽管我们甚至不知道这部诗到底是一个人写的还是很多个人写的，虽然很有可能是多个人写的，这一点很明显。即使我们不知道谁创作了它，但至少有一位想象中的作者，他的名字其实是个双关，叫做毗耶娑，又名广博仙人。而毗耶娑这个词其实就是编纂者的意思。

Zachary Davis: In Hindu tradition, a deity will sometimes descend from the spiritual realm into material form and take on the appearance of someone else. This incarnation is known as an avatar. Vyasa, the author of the Mahābhārata, is thought to be the avatar of Vishnu, the god of preservation.

扎卡里·戴维斯：在印度教传统中，神仙有时候会从灵界下凡化作肉身，把自己变成别人的样子。这具肉身就成了他的化身。《摩诃婆罗多》的作者毗耶娑就被认为是维护之神毗湿奴的化身。

Zachary Davis: According to the Mahābhārata, Vyasa dictated the story to Ganesha, one of the best known, most worshipped Hindu deities, who wrote it down. But Vyasa isn’t just the supposed author of this text, he’s also one of the characters.  

扎卡里·戴维斯：根据《摩诃婆罗多》所记载，这个故事是毗耶娑献给象头神的，而象头神是最广为人知、且膜拜者最多的几个印度教神之一，正是他把这个故事写了下来。但毗耶娑并不只是原文的作者，他还是故事中的一个角色。

Nell Hawley: He'll show up from time to time, give advice to someone, tell someone to do something, share a long story, or try to persuade one of the characters to act in a certain way. And then he'll step back out and he'll come back in again and so on. 

尼尔·霍利：他会时不时的出现，给某些人提供一些建议，让某个人去做什么事，分享一个很长的故事，或者规范某个角色的言行。之后他就会在一旁静观其变，在某个时刻再次介入。

Zachary Davis: I'd love to know what was going on in the subcontinent at this time and kind of, you know, what does culture, politics, everything look like? 

扎卡里·戴维斯：我很好奇当时南亚次大陆上都发生了什么事，当时的文化、政治这一切都是什么样的？

Nell Hawley: This period was just in terms of like massive empires in the subcontinent at the time, a sort of interregnum between the Maurya Empire on the early end and the Gupta Empire on the other end. So all that to say that the Mahābhārata, while it is about the disintegration of a great dynasty, is certainly not supposed to map on to like an actual dynasty that existed at the time. Much as many people believe that these figures in the text were real historical figures.

尼尔·霍利：那时的南亚次大陆处于一个群雄争霸的时代，介于孔雀王朝到笈多王朝之间的过渡期。所以我们可以说，虽然《摩诃婆罗多》讲述了一个伟大王朝如何分崩离析的故事，但它描述的这个王朝我们并不能在当时的地图上找到它。但很多人相信文中的角色都是真实的历史人物。

Zachary Davis: Religiously, this was the era of Vedic Hinduism—a more ancient tradition that was the precursor to modern Hinduism. Veda is a Sanskrit word that means knowledge, and the Vedas are a large body of religious texts composed of prayers, rituals, and hymns. 

扎卡里·戴维斯：宗教上，当时这里处于吠陀印度教时期——这个古老的宗教系统是现代印度教的前身。吠陀在梵语里就是知识的意思，而《吠陀经》则是一套很庞大的宗教经典，其中包含了各种祷文、仪式和吟唱。

Nell Hawley: In the Veda, you have hymns and poems. You have certainly stories, narratives. You have...and those are, you know, in poetic form. You have Mantras, ritual language and instructions for how to perform those rituals. And you also have, a set of, other works that sort of rounds out the Vedic corpus, that is devoted to more and more in instructing and in instructing how to how to do things ritual on how to do things ritually, the sort of interpretation, 

尼尔·霍利：在《吠陀经》中有各种吟唱和诗歌。当然了，还有以诗文形式书写的各种故事和传说。它由仪式性的语言曼特罗以及举行这些仪式的具体步骤构成。同时还有很多其它围绕着《吠陀经》的作品，这些更多的是指导日常生活中的仪式规范，以及如何理解它们。

Nell Hawley: The Veda had, you know, massive cultural weight. What did it mean to be learned to know the Vadas? And that meant memorizing it, practicing it. And yeah. And this sort of question of how many Vedas there are that also has a story there. The Vedic corpus was initially sort of, I think, split into two, then three, then four and different types of Brahmins would recite different parts of that corpus and do the rituals associated with different parts of that corpus. 

尼尔·霍利：《吠陀经》有非常重要的文化意义。怎样才是学懂学透了《吠陀经》呢？这就需要你把它牢记在心，并且日日践行。而关于《吠陀经》一共分多少部其实也有个故事。最开始《吠陀经》是被分为两部的，之后又变成了三部、四部，而不同的婆罗门会背诵全本中不同的部分，并举行相应部分的祭祀。

Zachary Davis: The Vedas were extremely important. However, at the time the Mahābhārata was being composed, traditional Vedic religion was evolving. People were searching for new ideas and approaches to life’s questions and challenges. Many were abandoning rituals and material comforts and were instead practicing asceticism.

扎卡里·戴维斯：《吠陀经》十分重要。然而，在《摩诃婆罗多》成书的时期，传统吠陀教也在演变。为解答关于生命的各种疑问和挑战，那时的人们总是在探寻各种新观点和提议。为此很多人抛弃了祭祀仪式和物质上的富足，开始践行苦行主义。

Nell Hawley: You have the more sort of esoteric end of the Vedic corpus, the Upanishads, things like that. You have Buddhism and Jainism. And those are two religions that are both really big, complicated religious traditions that are interested in renunciation, let's say, and then you have this on this sort of Hinduism or Vedic side as well. 

尼尔·霍利：于是就有了吠陀中比较高深难懂的部分，比如像是《奥义书》。还有了佛教和耆那教，这两种庞大而复杂的宗教都摒弃物质追求。而这在印度教、吠陀教的某些方面也有体现。

Zachary Davis: People were asking anew what it means to live a good life, a moral life, the right life. The Mahābhārata explores these questions and possible answers.

扎卡里·戴维斯：那时的人们都很想知道到底怎样才是好的、符合道德的、正确的生活。《摩诃婆罗多》就探讨了这些问题，并给出了可能的答案。

Nell Hawley: So big themes, big themes come up in the text about what is our relationship with the Veda and with Vedic sacrifice, what is what you should know, a king's role in a society? What is the meaning of renunciation? When is it OK to go to the forest and give it all up? When is it not? What are some of the drawbacks if you do? How do you merge the sort of renunciant stream with the practice of ritual stream? 

尼尔·霍利：这些宏大的主题都在文中出现，比如我们与《吠陀经》还有吠陀的祭祀仪式之间的关系？一个国王在社会里应该扮演哪种角色？摒弃物质追求的意义在哪里？我们什么时候应该归隐山林远离世俗？什么时候又不能归隐山林？如果这样做会有什么问题？我们如何把摒弃物质追求和举行祭祀仪式这两方面结合起来？

Zachary Davis: Yeah, it sounds like it was a time when many ideas were being debated with intense fervor and, you know, commitment.

扎卡里·戴维斯：没错，听起来当时的人们热衷于辩论这些想法，也投入了很大的精力。

Nell Hawley: Yeah, I, I think that's likely. That's likely. Quite true. 

尼尔·霍利：没错，当时确实是这样。

Zachary Davis: The Mahābhārata is distinctive in being a religious scripture that doesn’t advocate for a single, universal truth. It is a text that promotes debate, discussion, and exploration as an unending process with no need for a final destination.

扎卡里·戴维斯：作为一部宗教经典，《摩诃婆罗多》很特别的一点就是它不提倡一种单一的普世真理。它鼓励不断地进行各种辩论、研讨和探索，而不需要一个最终结论。

Nell Hawley: You have no idea that is left undebated. No category goes unquestioned. And as a reader or listener, as the case may be, this is one of the most incredible things about being part of this text, is that you'll listen to a debate unfold between two characters about, say, karma, the nature of like good conduct or contextual conduct. And you'll hear it unfold in one way and then somewhere down the line, like three books later or however much later, you'll hear another version of that debate over exactly the same idea, maybe with two different characters. And you'll see the whole thing from a new perspective and maybe you'll come to a new conclusion. 

尼尔·霍利：任何一种观点都经过了辩论。所有事物都遭受了质疑。作为一个读者，或者更有可能是一个听众，这部典籍令人难以置信的一点是你会听到两个角色展开激烈辩论，比如讨论“因果报应”，即好的行为或者取决于情况的最佳行为的本质是什么。你可能会先在里面的个地方听到辩论以某种方式展开，然后在你往下读的时候，可能三卷以后或者再往后你又会听到这场辩论的另一个版本，这次可能是在另外两个角色间展开的。这时你对这件事就有了一个新的看法，可能还有了新的结论。

Nell Hawley: Um, do we come to a work of literature to get a like one-stamp viewpoint of all of the existence? No. The point of literature I think is very different from that. We come to literature for emotional reasons and artistic reasons to help us see the world in a different way. And that is what a lot of these debates are, long and technical as they are in the most part. That is what they help us do. They help us develop a real sense of poly-prospectivity. You see issues and characters and emotions from all sides in this epic. You never have just one perspective.

尼尔·霍利：所以我们读一部文学只是为了接受单一一种看待世间万物的观点吗？不，我认为文学的意义并不在于此。我们赏读文学是出于情感上和艺术上的原因，让我们能以另一种方式看待这个世界。而这部典籍中很多这些辩论，哪怕它们可能又长又难懂，为的就是给我们提供这些新的观点。它们能帮助我们意识到视角的的多样性。在这部史诗中，你会从各个方面来看待这些角色、看待这些议题、感受这些情感。你绝对不会只有一种角度。

Nell Hawley: This is not an epic that answers questions, but rather that teaches you how to ask. And I think that's one of the reasons that it has been so often retold and in all of these different ways is not only are all of these retellings giving their own answers, but they're also asking these questions in new ways. So I think that's something that we as readers and listeners now do and we should do and we should keep doing is keep asking the questions. And the text really teaches us how to do that. It encourages us to do that. 

尼尔·霍利：这部史诗不会直接回答问题，而是教你如何问问题。而我认为这就是它能如此频繁地以各种方式被重新讲述的原因之一，不只是因为每一种重述给出了它们自己的答案，还因为它们能以另一种方式重新抛出这些问题。而我觉得我们作为读者和听众，现在就应该继续去追问这些问题。而这本书真的能让我们在这方面受益匪浅。它鼓励我们去问问题。

Zachary Davis: The Mahābhārata creates this atmosphere of searching, debating, and exploring partly through its use of a frame narrative, which is a series of stories within stories. It begins years after the events the main story take place.

扎卡里·戴维斯：《摩诃婆罗多》能营造这样一种不断搜索、辩论、探究的氛围，一定程度上是因为它运用了一个叙事框架，在其中每个故事里又包含了一系列子故事。这些故事可能会在主故事发生数年后再次展开。

Nell Hawley: This bard named Ugrashravas walks into a forest. He's walking around and he finds a group of sages who are in the middle of doing a few years long sacrifice. These things take a long time. And what do you do in the breaks of a ritual? You listen to stories. And so this bard, Ugrashravas, says, all right, what story can I tell you? And the sages say, well, we want to hear about this and that and the other things and, oh, you know, histories. And the Bard says, well, I just came from this other sacrifice. And, you know, they told an amazing story there. So I'm going to tell you. And he tells the story of how he had been at this other sacrifice that is performed by a prince named Janamejaya. 

尼尔·霍利：一个名叫厉声的吟游诗人走进一片森林。他四处漫步，发现一群先知正在举行一场长达数年的献祭。这种仪式会花很长时间。而在献祭的间隙你会干什么呢？你会听故事。而这个叫厉声的吟游诗人说：好吧，你们想听什么故事？于是先知们说，我们想听这样那样的历史故事。于是吟游诗人就说：正好，我刚从另一个献祭过来。而他们那边已经讲了一个很精彩的故事，那我再把它讲给给你们听吧。于是他就开始讲述由王子阇那弥觉耶举行的另一场献祭那里发生的故事。

Zachary Davis: Prince Janamejaya is the great grandson of one of the central figures in the epic. Janamejaya was essentially telling the story of his family at this sacrifice that Ugrashravas attended.  

扎卡里·戴维斯：阇那弥觉耶王子是这部史诗里一个核心角色的曾孙子。阇那弥觉耶在厉声参与的这次献祭上讲的其实就是他的家族的故事。

Nell Hawley: So at this other sacrifice, now we're one frame story in. At this other sacrifice, Janamejaya heard the story of his great grandfathers and their cousins and their great battle with one another. And he, Janamejaya, was told this story by one of the pupils of Vyasa, who is the as we've said, is the central composer figure of the epic and who is also his great great grandfather, quasi biological great great grandfather, 

尼尔·霍利：而在另一场献祭上，我们又到了另一层故事里。阇那弥觉耶听说了他的曾祖父与他的堂兄姐妹们展开的大战。阇那弥觉耶的这个故事是从广博仙人毗耶娑的一个弟子那里听来的。而我们知道毗耶娑是这部史诗的一个主要编纂者，也是他血缘上的曾曾祖父。

Nell Hawley: So anyway, there Janamejaya is at his sacrifice and in the breaks, in his sacrifice, he is listening to the story of his own relatives, his own ancestors. And these two frame stories are, I think, a guide to how we approach the Mahābhārata now. Like those first sages, you can sort of vaguely know about the story and be interested in sort of see and hear it and enjoy it. And you can be Janamejaya listening to it. And it's personal. These are your ancestors. These are, this is your family. This is your history.

尼尔·霍利：于是呢，在祭祀的间隙上，阇那弥觉耶就听到了这个关于他祖先的故事。而我认为这两层故事就为我们如何去品读《摩诃婆罗多》提供了一个引导。就像一开始的那些先知一样，你已经对故事有了一个大概的印象，而且想继续读下去、听下去，去品味它。而且你可以假装自己是阇那弥觉耶在听这个故事。这就成了你自己的故事，这些人是你的祖先，他们来自你的家族，这是关于你的历史。

Zachary Davis: Now, you've talked about it as being, you know, at its highest level, a story of a family war. Take us through, what is this enormous text about?

扎卡里·戴维斯：您说到它总体来说是一个关于家族内部纷争的故事。请给我们继续讲下去吧，这部宏大的巨著究竟讲了什么？

Nell Hawley: Well, it all begins when a king and a fisherwoman fall in love and both of them have children from previous relationships. 

尼尔·霍利：它始于一个国王爱上了一个渔家女子，而他们两人在之前都已经各自有了孩子。

Zachary Davis: The king is named Shantanu. Before he met this fisherwoman, Shantanu had a son with the river goddess Ganga. Their son was named Bhishma, and he was in line to inherit his father’s kingdom. Then one day, King Shantanu was on the banks of the Ganges and he met this fisherwoman.  

扎卡里·戴维斯：这个国王叫做福身王。在他见到这个渔家女子之前，福身王已经和恒河女神甘伽生了一个儿子。这个儿子被取名叫天誓，而且理应顺位继承父亲的王位。之后有一天，福身王在恒河岸边遇到了这个渔家女子。

Nell Hawley: And this woman named Satyavati, she marries this king, but her father only allows her to do it on two conditions. One is that her children will inherit the kingdom and not Bhishma, Shantanu’s son from the previous relationship. And Bhishma will also not himself, then have any more sons that could possibly get in the way of this inheritance. 

尼尔·霍利：这个女人名叫贞信，她和国王成了婚，但他的父亲提出了两个条件。第一，继承王位的将会是贞信的孩子而不是福身王之前的儿子天誓。而且天誓自己也不能再生儿子，以免日后篡夺王位。

Nell Hawley: So already you see this wonderful theme of the sort of ideal of perfect inheritance that is about to be completely stomped on. Because what happens is Bhishma, who loves his father and wants him to be happy, says, OK, I will take a vow of total celibacy and I'll never get married. I'll never have kids. You and Satyavati can have all the kids you want. Mazel Tov. And King Shantanu and Satyavati have two sons. Shantanu dies. And of these two sons, the first one dies before having an heir and the second one does marry. He marries two princesses, but he also dies before they can have a child. So we have this classic now story of there is a kingdom with no heir. 

尼尔·霍利：所以你可以看到这种理想的完美的继承制度就要被彻底践踏了，因为深爱着父亲的天誓为了让父亲高兴，就同意了这两个要求，说道：我发誓终身不娶，绝不生一个孩子。你和贞信想要多少个孩子都行，恭喜你们。于是福身王和贞信生了两个儿子。福身王去世后。其中一个儿子在留下继承人之前就去世了，而另一个儿子确实结了婚。他娶了两位公主，却也在生下孩子前就死了。于是我们现在这个王国没有了继承人，我们也就有了这个经典的故事。

Zachary Davis: At this point queen Satyavati, the fisherwoman, is left with the two princesses. her second son married and no one to inherit the kingdom. She turns to Shantanu’s son from a previous marriage, Bhishma, and asks him to step in and produce an heir with one of these princesses.

扎卡里·戴维斯：这时渔家女子贞信皇后就只剩下了两位公主。她的次子虽然结了婚却没有留下后人来继承这个王国。于是她只好去找福身王之前的儿子天誓，要求他和其中一个公主结合好生下一个继承人。

Nell Hawley: He says, no, I took a vow. That's it. So she then says, well, turns out I actually have a child myself from a previous dalliance with a sage named Parashar. And this is a relationship that she had before she met Shantanu. And she says, well, and, you know, and the child, he went off into the forest to become a sage. And, you know, I haven't seen him in a while, but like, OK, let's get him in here and see if he can help us out. And she does. She calls upon him. And who is this one? Vyasa. This is our Mahābhārata composer and compiler. So that is who Vyasa is. 

尼尔·霍利：可天誓说，不行，我发过誓了，绝对不行。于是贞信就说，好吧，其实我之前和一位先知波罗奢罗有一个私生子。而这段关系是在她遇到福身王之前发生的。然后她说，后来这个孩子隐居山林成了一个先知。所以你要知道，我已经很久没见过他了，那我们就去找找他，看他愿不愿意帮帮我们吧。于是她就去找了，而这个人是谁呢？就是毗耶娑。我们《摩诃婆罗多》的编纂者，就是这个毗耶娑。

Nell Hawley: Vyasa comes in and there are these two Queens and Satyavati sends Viarsa to sleep with the first queen, the older queen. The older queen is not expecting Vyasa. She's expecting Bhishma. Bhishma, you know, was raised a prince. He smells nice. He looks good. The Vyasa has been living in the forest for God knows how long. He smells disgusting. His hair is like matted. You know, this is the in the book. This is how Vyasa paints the Vyasa. The imagined author of the text paints himself as this like smelly, totally repulsive, ascetic. And she the elder queen, is so terrified by what she sees that she closes her eyes while they're having sex. And the Vyasa then curses her saying, your child will be born blind because you shut your eyes. 

尼尔·霍利：毗耶娑来了，而现在有两个王后。贞信就让他去和第一个年长的王后生一个孩子。而这个年长的王后并不想要毗耶娑，她想要天誓。你要知道，天誓生下来就是王子。他英俊帅气，有着迷人的体香。而毗耶娑已经在山林里生活了不知道多久了。他浑身都是难闻的气味，头发都结成块儿了。你要知道，书里就是这么写的。毗耶娑就这么描述毗耶娑。这本书假想中的作者把自己描绘成一个难闻的、恶心的、苦行的家伙。而这个年长的王后，她与毗耶娑交合时吓得全程都闭着眼睛。于是毗耶娑就诅咒她说，你的孩子生下来就会是瞎的，谁叫你刚才把眼睛闭上了。

Zachary Davis: Vyasa then goes to have a child with the younger queen, but she is just as terrified and repulsed by Vyasa. When she sees him, all of her color drains and she goes completely pale.

扎卡里·戴维斯：毗耶娑接着又和那个年轻些的王后生了一个孩子。但她也被毗耶娑恶心得不行。当她看到毗耶娑时，脸色刷的一下就变了，变得十分地惨白。

Nell Hawley: And Vyasa doesn't like this either. And he curses her saying your child will be born pale. And then it comes time to go back around to the older wife and older wife is like, oh, no, I'm not doing this again. So she sends her servant girl instead. And so the third woman that Vyasa has a child with is a servant girl and the servant girl has then a servant child. So what comes of this completely, wonderfully bizarre alliance? Ah is a three three men, none of whom is actually able to rule the kingdom, someone blind, someone pale, and someone who's a servant. 

尼尔·霍利：而毗耶娑对这也很不满。于是他诅咒说你的孩子会生下来就肤色惨白。于是又轮到了年长一点的王后，而这个王后就吓得说，我可不想再遭一次罪了。于是她让一个女侍从去顶替她。而这第三个和毗耶娑生孩子的女人，这个侍女就生了一个仆人小孩。在这场非常奇怪的结合，产下了三个孩子，一个是瞎的，一个肤色惨白，另一个只是个仆人，他们中没有一个有能力管理这个国家。

Zachary Davis: When the blind son grows up, he marries a princess and they have 100 sons.   

扎卡里·戴维斯：当盲孩子长大以后，他娶了一位公主并生了一百个儿子。

Nell Hawley: These hundred sons and that whole side of the family is generally called the Kaurava. And they're the sort of antagonist side or the anti-hero side. 

尼尔·霍利：这一百个儿子和他们那边的家族就被称作俱卢族。他们在这个故事里就类似于反派或者反英雄角色。

Zachary Davis: The pale son named Pandu marries two women, but he can’t have a child. He got cursed by a sage so that if he has sex, he will die. 

扎卡里·戴维斯：而那个肤色惨白名叫般度的儿子娶了两个女人，但他却生不了孩子。一个先知诅咒了他，只要他一与女人结合就会丧命。

Nell Hawley: He thankfully married the right woman. So his elder, his elder wife Kunti, she, when she was an adolescent girl, got a boon from a really rather terrifying sage whom she once did a very good job of serving when he came to her house. And this boon that she was given was to be able to call upon any of the gods that she wants at any point, and the subtext is called upon them to be with her sexually and that she could then bear a child by any of these gods. 

尼尔·霍利：幸好他娶到了合适的女人。他年长一些的妻子贡蒂，在年少时得到了一个有些可怕的先知的恩泽，因为在这位先知拜访贡蒂家时，贡蒂盛情地款待了他。而这个恩泽就是她可以随时召唤她想要见到的神仙。而随后文中就暗示她召唤了这些神仙，并与他们生下了几个孩子。

Zachary Davis: She tried this out before she met Pandu and had a child with the Sun god. She didn’t really want to have a child, she was mostly just curious to see if it would work. So once she gave birth, she sent her son down the river. She then marries Pandu, and since he can’t procreate, she calls upon the gods and has five more sons.

扎卡里·戴维斯：她在见到般度前就和太阳神尝试了一番。她当时也并不想要孩子，只是好奇这样做会发生什么。所以当她生下这个孩子后就把他放在河里漂走了。之后她嫁给了般度。因为般度并不能生育，她就又召唤了几个神仙并再生了五个儿子。

Nell Hawley: And those five boys are called the Pandavas. And they are what we typically think, who we typically think of as the protagonists of the Mahābhārata, those five sons. So you'll remember that we have 100 the 100 sons on one side, the five sons of Pandu and Kunti and Madrid and the Vedic gods on the other. And then we have Karna, who is the first son of Kunti, who is a secret. And Karna finds his way into the family of the 100 Sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra and they don't know his origin story. He doesn't know his origin story. But he's adopted by a charioteer who works for that family of Dhṛtarāṣṭra and his one hundred sons. And so Karna, while he is technically the brother of the sixth and eldest brother of the five Pandavas, are protagonists, he grows up with, like with their cousins on the other side and becomes best friends with Duryodhana, the eldest of those 100 brothers. So those are two sets of cousins. 

尼尔·霍利：而这五个男孩被称作般度族。而他们就可以算是我们通常意义上《摩诃婆罗多》的五个主人公了。所以一边有一百个儿子，另一边有般度的五个儿子、贡蒂 、马德丽，以及吠陀众神，还有贡蒂不为人知的第一个儿子迦尔纳。而他之后加入了持国的一百个儿子组成的家族，而这些人并不知道他的身世。他自己也不知道自己的身世。他被持国家族麾下一位战车车夫收养了。伽尔纳实际上是主角般度五子中的第六个成员，也是他们的老大，却和另一边的表兄弟们一同长大，并和百子中的老大难敌结为挚友。这就是故事里的两大堂兄弟家族。

Zachary Davis: Eventually these two sets of cousins, the Kauravas, who are the 100 sons, and the Pandavas go to war with each other over who should rule the kingdom.

扎卡里·戴维斯：最终这两大堂兄弟家族，也就是俱卢百子和般度五子之间展开了争夺王位的大战。

Zachary Davis: Right before the battle, Arjuna, one of the five Pandavas, starts to feel bad about going to war with his family. He shares his feelings of hesitation with his guide and charioteer Krishna, who is really an avatar of Vishnu. The dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna is known as the Bhagavad Gita, which is probably the best known and influential Hindu text, especially in the West. 

扎卡里·戴维斯：在大战前，般度五子中的阿周那不愿意对同族兄弟开战。他把自己的心绪和踌躇倾诉给了他的向导兼车夫黑天，而这个人实际上是毗湿奴的化身。而阿周那和黑天之间的对话就被称为《薄伽梵歌》，而这可以算是印度典籍中最著名最具影响力的一部，尤其是在西方广为人知。

Nell Hawley: So Arjun and Krishna are best friends, very close and also related in these different ways biologically. And this is when Krishna says to him, this is your duty. Everything you think about life and death is, in fact an illusion. And this is what you must do as a warrior and man up. He says, don't be a eunuch, man up. There's a lot of gender stuff in the Mahābhārata. And it's not all about women. It's a lot about a sort of interrogation of masculinity as well. 

尼尔·霍利：而阿周那和黑天是很好的朋友，而且在生理上很多方面也非常相近。而这时黑天就对他说，这就是你的使命，你对生死不管有什么看法都是虚幻的，所以你作为一个战士必须坚强起来。他说：“别像个懦夫一样，要像男子汉一样坚强起来。”而在《摩诃婆罗多》中其实有讨论很多性别方面的东西，而且不光是关于女人，还有很多这种对男子气概的审问。

Nell Hawley: And then proceeds to go on to deliver this really incredible lecture really about social theory, philosophy, metaphysics, the reconciliation of ritual practice with renunciation. The term yoga is used a lot, not always in the same way. The term karma is used a lot also not always in the same way. karma is another major key term here. And in the middle of all of this, Krishna reveals himself to be Krishna, the god, not just Krishna, your charioteer and best friend, but the God Krishna. And it's an incredible passage in the Gita when that happens. And this is the vision of Krishna and his sort of universal form, Vishvarupa. And Arjuna sees this and we, the reader, see it all through Arjuna's eyes. We are Arjuna in that moment. It's really amazing. And it's a rather terrifying vision. All, you know, he is he Krishna in his universal form. All the creatures are running into his giant mouth, which is just open and gaping. And he is he's time and he is death. He is everything in the universe. And Arjuna is terrified and says: I had no idea this was you. I am so sorry that I called you, you know, friend like I can't believe I would say like, Hey, buddy. Please forgive me. And would you please go back to being your normal four-armed self? And he does, thankfully. But it's a and then continues on and in and delivers the rest of the lecture known as the Bhagavad Gita. 

尼尔·霍利：之后黑天给阿周那继续他那不可思议的讲学，包括各种社会理论、哲学、形而上学、如何将仪式与放弃物质追求相协调等等。在这里瑜伽以不同方式被提到了很多次。因果报应也被以不同方式提到了很多次。而因果报应也是这里一个很重要的概念。在交谈中，黑天就显现了自己的真实身份其实是黑天神。我不仅仅是你的车夫兼好友黑天，还是黑天神。而这发生时也是《薄伽梵歌》里很不可思议的一段。而这也是黑天和他的宇宙化身无上我的形象。而阿周那看到了这一切，我们读者也透过阿周那的眼睛看到了这一切。这时我们变成了阿周那。这是一个很神奇，又有些恐怖的形象。你要知道，他是黑天神的宇宙化身。他的嘴就那样大张着，而一切生物都跑进他的大嘴。他既是时间又是死亡。他是宇宙中的一切。而阿周那吓坏了，说：“我以前完全没想到会是您。我很抱歉之前竟敢以兄弟朋友称呼您。请原谅我吧。而且能请您变回之前四只手臂的正常形态吗。”于是黑天就变了回去，然后继续他那段被称为《薄伽梵歌》的讲学。

Zachary Davis: What are the themes of this particular passage?

扎卡里·戴维斯：那么这一篇有哪些主题呢？

Nell Hawley: So some chapters talk more about Krishna speaking more about sort of like the metaphysical, like the nature of reality, the separation, for example, of sort of ultimate objective, like transcendent reality, Purusa from like the imminent reality of Prakriti, which is everything we can see, touch and think about. It's a dualist world view. It's not, it's not, it's not nonduel. He talks about social theory and about how different groups of people in society have different roles to play and how important it is that if you are in a particular role, that you play that role and not the role of someone else. Hence, Arjuna, as a warrior, you know, as the as a son of a queen, his role is to fight and to dominate and to exert his power outward. He speak he Krishna speaks of the, as I was saying, the sort of reconciliation of ritual action with renunciation. And this idea that if you do ritual action without attachment to the outcomes of those actions, then that is a sort of denunciatory way of still living in a ritually oriented and behaviour oriented, action oriented world. And that is what is called karma yoga. 

尼尔·霍利：有些章节里面更多的是黑天神在讲类似形而上学、现实的本质、它们之间的分离，比如终极目的和超越现实之间的分离等等，比如神我和现实的原质的分离，而原质就是我们所有能看得到、摸得到、想得到的东西。它是一种二元论的世界观，而不是一元论。他讲到了社会理论，讲到了为什么社会里的不同群体里的人有不同的职责，以及为什么处在这个职位上很重要，所以你必须尽自己的职责而不去侵占他人的职务。阿周那作为一个战士，作为王后的儿子，他的职责就是去战斗、去主宰、去向外投射力量。黑天神还谈到了，像我之前说的，如何将仪式和摒弃物质追求相调和。而这种观点认为，如果在举行祭祀仪式时，能不计这一行为的结果，那在一个仪式主导、行为主导、行动主导的世界里，这就是一种摒弃物质追求的生活方式。这就是所谓的“业瑜伽”。

Zachary Davis: Krishna is able to convince Arjuna to fight and the battle takes place. The Pandavas are victorious. The story continues on and eventually at the end, all of the Pandava brothers die except for one named Yudhishthira. He passes God’s judgement and ascends to heaven.   

扎卡里·戴维斯：黑天神说服了阿周那去参加战斗，战斗开始后般度五子占了上风。在故事的最后，般度五子只有一个叫艰战的活了下来。他通过了神的考验，并升入天堂。

Zachary Davis: The Mahābhārata is one of two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. The other is called the Ramayana. 

扎卡里·戴维斯：《摩诃婆罗多》是古印度两大梵语史诗中的一部。另一部叫做《罗摩衍那》

Nell Hawley: In terms of the two texts, what can be said is, first of all, they're beautifully inter textual. So the story of the Rama, the Ramayana is told in the Mahābhārata there's an entire section of the Mahābhārata that is a retelling of the Ramayana. And the parallels are quite real. Themes of being needing to spend a lot of time in the forest instead of being at the top of the kingdom where you should be. That happens to both the protagonists of the Mahābhārataand the Ramayana, 

尼尔·霍利：关于这两部史诗，他们相交辉映。《罗摩衍那》这一关于罗摩的故事，在《摩诃婆罗多》里被用一整节来重新讲述。而且它们有很多相似之处。比如角色花很多时间在山林里修行，而不是在他们应该在的位置上去掌管国家。《摩诃婆罗多》和《罗摩衍那》的主角都碰上了这种情况。

Nell Hawley: And in neither epic is all quite happily ever after. But there are there are many distinctions between the two texts, both on a literary level and on a plot level, obviously, but one that I want to highlight is there's a huge difference between in the Ramayana, the sort of antagonists being non-human, and even though they have many human and quite sympathetic qualities. But the Rakasa are, you know, explicitly framed as like Ravana is explicitly framed as like other. Whereas in the Mahābhārata, the war is at home, you are fighting against your own cousins and literally your own, in one case, your own brother. 

尼尔·霍利：而两部史诗最后都没有圆满的大结局。但它们之间也有很多显而易见的区别，不止是在文字上和情节上。我最想说的很大一个不同就是《罗摩衍那》中的反派都是非人类角色，尽管他们有很多人类特征，并且很有同情心。但里面的罗刹人，比如罗波那，都很明确地被描述为非人类。然而在《摩诃婆罗多》中，这是一场家族内的纷争，你打的是自己的堂兄弟，甚至其中有一个就是你的亲兄弟。

Nell Hawley: And so the Ramayana sort of explicitly works toward, I think, a sense of like integration, whereas the Mahābhāratais really quite the opposite. I think it explores these themes of disintegration and decay throughout.

尼尔·霍利：《罗摩衍那》很明显是致力于一种融合，而《摩诃婆罗多》则完全相反。它里里外外更多的探讨了分崩离析和衰亡。

Zachary Davis: Since their initial composition, the stories in the Mahābhārata have gone through many retellings and adaptations. Each era redefines the Mahābhārata, but the original Sanskrit story remains the foundation. 

扎卡里·戴维斯：自诞生以来，《摩诃婆罗多》中的故事已经被重述了多次，经历了各种改编。每一个时代都重新定义了《摩诃婆罗多》，但最初的梵语故事依然是它的根基。

Nell Hawley: Because the Mahābhārata is any instantiation of this story and and it's all of them together. 

尼尔·霍利：因为《摩诃婆罗多》就是这种故事的一个范例，是它们所有的一个集合。

Nell Hawley: When I say the Mahābhārata, I am talking about the Sanskrit epic, which in itself has many forms, many, many manuscripts, many recensions, you know, like that in itself is a multiplicity, but, the Mahābhārata is, it could be argued, much more than the text and really much more like a tradition, and it is the many retellings of the Mahābhārata that have made the biggest impact on like South Asian life and the culture today. 

尼尔·霍利：当我说到《摩诃婆罗多》的时候，我说的是这部梵语史诗，而它本身有许多种形态，许多种手稿，许多种修改版，它本身就有多样性。但同时也可以说，《摩诃婆罗多》不仅仅局限于它的文字，而是更多的已经成为了一种传统。而《摩诃婆罗多》的各种重述版本对今天的南亚文化和生活产生的影响才是最大的。

Nell Hawley: So even though, like, when you and I are having a conversation about the Mahābhārata, but really we should we should be saying this is a conversation about a Mahābhārata in Sanskrit from this period, there are many, many, many more Mahābhārata, those in almost every other Indian language written, both written, both sort of in writing and orally composed, both orally and in writing since the end of the first millennium, at least.

尼尔·霍利：尽管你和我在讨论《摩诃婆罗多》，但实际上更应该说我们讨论的是那个特定年代的梵语版《摩诃婆罗多》。在过去的至少一千年里，几乎每种印度语言都在反复地书写、讲述这部史诗。

Zachary Davis: So tell us about the role of this text in Indian culture and life, and to the extent you know any of its wider global influence that you're, you know, you're aware of.

扎卡里·戴维斯：所以给我们讲讲这部巨著在印度文化和生活中的地位吧，以及它在全世界范围内产生的影响。

Nell Hawley: In terms of the Epic's broader influence, it's hard to pinpoint any aspect of south Asian literary culture truly in any South Asian language, in any genre or in any period of time in history, like when the Mahābhārata has not touched it is simply everywhere. And that is that speaks to the absolute expansiveness and meaning of this text. 

尼尔·霍利：说到这部史诗的广泛影响，很难把它局限到南亚的任何一种文学文化，任何一种南亚语言，或是任何时期的任何一种体裁。《摩诃婆罗多》可以说是无所不在，无处不及。这就体现出它的文本具有绝对的延展性与内涵。

Nell Hawley: Isn't it amazing that this that the Mahābhārata, which has, as we've talked about, a bit of a dangerous aspect to it. It's about this catastrophic fratricidal war that enters in and like an extremely decay oriented era of like cosmic life and everybody dies. And it's so dangerous that you really don't want to even keep it in your house, and yet this is the text that everyone is recreating. This is it. This dangerous story, this dark story, this story full of violence. A story about warriors who fight to get their kingdom back and then don't even enjoy it when they get there. That this is like I mean, I think it takes a real like if I may like civilisational intelligence to, like, be so introspective about how about just how difficult and violent and violent human life and society is and to and really to commit to exploring that because, you know, not every you know, we in America have had more idealistic stories to tell. But the idea that the Mahābhārata would be the text that were for every destructive bents in the story itself, it's countered with a recreation in whenever you retell it, in whatever genre, in whatever language, that is just marvelous.

尼尔·霍利：这难道不是很神奇吗，就像我们之前说到的，它有透着危险的那一面。它讲述了这种毁灭性的自相残杀的战争，发生于那样一个日薄西山的时代，就好像宇宙中的所有生命所有人都会死亡一样。所以它显得如此危险以至于你都不想把它放在家里。然而就是这样一部作品，大家却都还在不断地重新演绎它。它就是这样一部作品，一部危险的，黑暗的，充满暴力的故事。一个关于战士们如何为了争权夺利而互相残杀，最终的结果甚至连胜者也笑不出来的故事。要写出这样一部作品真的需要穷尽一个文明的智慧，才能如此深入的反思并探索人生和人类社会充满了如此多的艰难险阻与暴力。因为在美国，人们讲的都是一些更理想化的故事。但《摩诃婆罗多》传达出的思想就是它的故事包含了一切可能的破坏，在各种体裁各种语言的二次创作下被抵消掉了。这实在是太神奇了。 

Zachary Davis: That's beautiful I mean, I, I agree with you. There's a deep wisdom about the provisionality of happiness, the provision of peace and a recognition of. Just the danger that lurks in every human heart and the way that that danger gets expressed into history, into life, the way, you know, family spills over and sucks you into vortices of, you know, of evil and danger and death. And yet, we maintain hope.

扎卡里·戴维斯：这实在是很瑰丽，我同意你的观点。它里面包含了很深的智慧，关于快乐与和平都是何等短暂，而危险则在每一个人心中生根发芽。而这种危险被体现在历史中，体现在人生中，亲人相残，将你卷入邪恶、危险与死亡的漩涡。然而即使这样，我们也心存希望。

Nell Hawley: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. This idea that I mean, these protagonists are such beautifully flawed heroes and the antagonists are such sympathetic figures, everyone is deliberately painted in shades of grey.

尼尔·霍利：没错。主角都是很美好又存在缺憾的英雄，而反派们又是何等的具有同情心的角色，所有人都被有意笼罩上了一层灰暗的阴影。

Nell Hawley: Even though these heroes are looked up to in some ways as like characters to emulate in the Mahābhārata itself, they are painted as like in varying shades of grey and really struggle to live up to their own ideals and their own sort of mythologies at times. 

尼尔·霍利：尽管这些角色在某些方面被当作模范来敬仰，但它们还是在不同程度上被笼罩了一层灰暗的阴影，并为他们的理想，为他们当时的信仰而奋斗。

Nell Hawley: It speaks to, I think, to a certain fearlessness and in confronting and confronting some of the worst parts of and most challenging parts of being human and asking really, really hard questions. Nothing, No idea, Taurama Karma like no idea in the Mahābhārata goes undebated. Everything is subject to debate like a long, long, long books on, you know, what is the nature of X? Every ideal is deconstructed and to jump into that I think is really exciting. And it also takes some courage. 

尼尔·霍利：它表达了一种特定的英勇无畏的精神，直面作为人会遇到的一些最糟糕、最具挑战性的事情，并抛出一些发人深省的问题。任何事物，任何观点，包括因果都在《摩诃婆罗多》中经历了激烈辩论。任何事物都在这部长书中经受了辩论，比如，某个事物的本质究竟是什么？任何一种观念都被解构了，而我觉得这点实在是令人激动。这样做是需要一定勇气的。

Zachary Davis: These themes have resonated with readers and audiences for hundreds of years and still do!

扎卡里·戴维斯：这些主题在过去几百年间，直到今天还依然和读者听众产生共鸣。

Nell Hawley: So, I mean, if you go on Netflix, you will find Mahābhārat. There are like,we are making Mahābhāra is constantly today. There are Mahabharat those in. Oh my God. I don't even know where to begin. Just just from the earliest period. You get literally in the first millennium, you have other Mahabharat as being written in Sanskrit plays and poems in Sanskrit that are based on I and I think within the same language you can truly say based on but that that retell these stories from the epic. But in totally new ways. Different characters come in. They do different things. They have different adventures. You get to other languages, regional classical languages of India, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi. I mean, every major language of India has its own many Mahabharata 

尼尔·霍利：所以，比方说，如果你去浏览视频网站，你也能找到《摩诃婆罗多》。我们今天都还在重新演绎《摩诃婆罗多》。从更早一些的时期开始，在第一个千年之交，就有《摩诃婆罗多》中的故事以梵语戏剧和诗歌的形式流传和重述，但是呈现方式却完全不同。新的角色加入其中，他们做不同的事，经历不同的冒险。你会看到各种语言。这一地区的古代印度语言，泰米尔语、特卢固语、卡纳达语、印地语等等，每一种主流的印度语言都有许多相应版本的《摩诃婆罗多》。

Zachary Davis: The Mahābhārata is an ancient text that has been foundational for Hindu culture. But it continues to live on today because the story is never really finished. It raises more questions about existence than it gives definitive answers. And as we engage with these stories, we, through our imagination and attention, provide them with new life.

扎卡里·戴维斯：《摩诃婆罗多》这部古代典籍构成了印度文化的根基。它在今天依然生生不息，因为它的故事从未结束。相比给出确定的答案，它抛出了更多关于存在的问题。随着我们深入这些故事，我们通过自己的想象力、感知力，也赋予了它们全新的生命。

Nell Hawley: Really for the last two thousand years, the classic response to the Mahābhārata is not to read it, but to recreate it. That is what it means to engage with this work, is to tell it again, because, as we say, there is something dangerous about a finished Mahābhārata. You can't cap it. You have to keep it going. And that's sort of one of the ways you can escape the curse.

尼尔·霍利：在过去两千年中，对《摩诃婆罗多》的通常反应都是“不要去读它，而是再次创作它”。与这部作品建立联系就是去重述它。就像我们所说的，一部完整的《摩诃婆罗多》是危险的，你不能限制它的情节走向结束，你必须要让它一直持续下去。这也是逃脱诅咒的一种方法。

Zachary Davis: Writ Large is a production of Ximalaya. Writ Large is produced by Jack Pombriant, Liza French, and me, Zachary Davis. Script editing is by Galen Beebe. We get help from Feiran Du, Ariel Liu, and Monica Zhang. Our theme song is by Ian Coss. Don’t miss an episode. Subscribe today in the Ximalaya app. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

扎卡里·戴维斯：本节目由喜马拉雅独家制作播出。感谢您的收听，我们下期再见！