Emily Blanchard West (St. Catherine University)
Odysseus’ itinerary appropriates locations and themes from an Indo-European myth about dangerous giants who live in three communities at varying levels of civilization, enjoy year-round agricultural productivity, and face a prophesied destruction by the god who wields the trident. The Greek and Indo-Iranian branches of the Indo-European language family were the last to separate during their dispersal, and it is increasingly well-documented that in the compilation of their epic traditions, Greece and India drew from a shared reservoir of narratives concerning abductions (Doniger, Jamison 1994, 1999), combat (Garbutt, E. West 2006), and wandering heroes (Allen, E. West 2010, 2014). Intermingled with those primary themes, however, are indications that the Odyssey and the Mahābhārata share another Indo-European motif complex as well. The “Destruction of Tripura” is an embedded tale in the Mahābhārata (7.173.52-58, 8.24.1-124), and elaborated on in later literature (e.g. Matsya Purāṇa 129-188, Bhāgavata Purāṇa 7), but first appears in very early texts, including Taittirīya Saṃhitā 6.2.3.1: “The Asuras (demonic giants) had three citadels. The lowest was of iron, then there was one of silver, then one of gold.” Just as Odysseus visits three islands of dangerous, giants (Cyclopes, Laistrygones, Phaeacians), who live at three levels of civilization ranging from brutish to sophisticated, the asuras’ lifestyles range from rough barbarism and cannibalism to gracious nobility. The asuras also enjoy year-round agricultural productivity: “for even while the foremost (of the asuras) were still ploughing and sowing, those behind them were already engaged in reaping and threshing: indeed even without tilling the plants ripened forthwith for them” (Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 1.6.1.3), reminiscent of the Odyssey’s descriptions of the supernatural fruitfulness of the Cyclops’ island (Od. 9.105–112), or of Scheria (Od. 7.114–128), or Telepylos (Od. 10.81–86). Just as with the Odyssey’s Phaeacians and Poseidon, the destruction of Tripura at the hands of Śiva, the trident-bearing god (whose mood perpetually veers between pacific and enraged), has been foretold, but the inhabitants are largely unconcerned because they have always maintained cordial relations with the deity (cf. Od. 13.130). But a second god sets the destruction into motion by sending someone disguised as a wretched beggar inside the city to induce the asuras to perform actions which will incite the first deity’s anger. Finally, the trident-bearer, after consultation with another god, and with many misgivings, wreaks the threatened destruction; in the Odyssey, Poseidon confers with Zeus, wrestling with the decision of whether or not to destroy Scheria as its inhabitants seek to appease him (Od. 13.125-187). Indic literature preserved the Tripuravadha as a free-standing narrative, but just as the Odyssey is in dialogue with the Argonautica (M. West 2005), or Aeneas’ journey follows Odysseus’, the Odyssey incorporated the Tripura myth as a backdrop to Odysseus’ adventures, where it persisted even as its original form was otherwise lost in Greece.