The purpose of this thesis is to present various themes concerning women's mourning in the Striparvan of the Mahabharata. This paper is intended as a preliminary study upon which further work on death, grief and mourning in the Mahabharata may be built. Owing to this focus, it attempts to connect those themes found in the Sfripa1Van with similar themes found elsewhere in the Mahabharata. In this thesis, the mourning behaviour of the women is divided into three separate categories: the appearance of the women, the actions of the women, and the laments that the women utter. Each category is presented as it is found in the text, and analyzed accordingly. There is a strong emphasis on the symbolic and metaphorical connections between these women and other liminal beings, such as ascetics, menstruating women, gods, and animals. The meaning of these connections is subsequently explored. There are three significant findings within this thesis that stem from the analysis of the categories of mourning behaviour. Firstly, the symbolic and metaphorical links that mourning women have with the beings mentioned above lend the women an aura of power that is primarily used to hurt curses that destroy entire lineages. It is argued here that these curses are part of a background of women's curses that cause most of the suffering in the main plot of the Mahabharata. Mourning women also possess many erotic characteristics that are found both in their laments as well as through their metaphorical connections with other liminal beings. The main element of this eroticism is the expression of frustrated fertility. This frustrated fertility becomes destructive through symbolic connections with the doomsday mare. The longer the duration of the frustration, the more destructive the women become. Finally, the women's laments indicate that they firmly support the code of duty (ksatradharma) that warriors (ksatriyas) are supposed to adhere to. Just as the main villian Duryodhana does, the women place a priority on k~atradharma as a system of moral judgement. Owing to this priority, the women emphasize the responsibilty of humans for their own moral actions, which is directly opposed to the theological solution of Vaisniava bhakti (devotion) as it is presented in the text by the divine Krsna. The thesis concludes with some speculations as to the direction that further research on the same topic may take. An emphasis on men's grief and mourning is indicated. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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Ce travail prend appui sur une collecte des données inédites et difficiles, celles d’un corpus complexe du Mahabharata, les textes sacrés de l’Inde, et les corpus de la tradition orale du Barldon, chantés en société créole de La Réunion depuis les présences des migrants indiens dans l’île. Plusieurs corpus de nature différente ont été collectés pour être analysés en synchronie et en diachronie de manière dynamique. Durant les années de recherches, nous avons ouvert une étude dans trois champs disciplinaires conjoints. Nous avons effectué des recherches à Pondichéry et nous avons ramené des documents sur l’esclavage indien et un manuscrit tamoul chanté à La Réunion à l’occasion du rituel de la « marche sur le feu ». Nous avons mené des travaux sur l’histoire de la langue, des cultes, de la culture, et des migrations. Nous avons constitué un appareil critique composé de l’analyse des corpus, des index, des annexes dont l’outillage conceptuel est composé d’un centaine de documents : 8 cartes, 4 croquis, 36 graphiques, 32 tableaux, 5 textes dont une édition tamoule critique, deux textes tamouls et créoles inédits leur traduction, 25 images et une séquence filmique. Nous avons reconstitué des strates de langue et notre travail montre que le Réunionnais a conservé un état de langue bien particulier et exposé au processus de la créolisation linguistique et culturelle, la langue du Barldon, une langue ancestrale que nos prospections n’ont pas permis de retrouver en Inde du Sud. Peut-on parler d’une langue sacrée conservée à la Réunion mais exposée à la dynamique de la créolisation ? Notre questionnement reprend les interrogations formulées par Gillette Staudacher-Valliamee sur la difficulté qu’il y a à poser pour La Réunion une créolisation linguistique et culturelle sans pidginisation, en rappelant que la question de langue est centrale. Notre travail réexamine la place de l’Inde dans la formulation des hypothèses énoncées pour la genèse du créole de l’océan Indien (A.Bollée 2009, R.Chaudenson 2010). / This work is based on a collection of unpublished and difficult data, those of a complex corpus of Mahabharata, the sacred texts of India, and corpus of the oral tradition of Barldon, sung in Creole society of La Réunion ever since the Indian migrants settled in the island. Several corpuses of different types were collected for effective synchronic and diachronic analysis. During our research work, we introduced three new areas in the same research field. We carried out research at Pondichery and brought back documents on Indian slavery and a Tamil manuscript sung in Reunion at the time of the ritual of “walk on fire”. We also worked on the history of language, cults, culture and migration. We established a critical apparatus which includes the analysis of the corpuses, indices, appendices whose conceptual tool consists of over hundred documents: 8 maps, 4 sketches, 36 graphs, 32 paintings, 5 texts of which one is Tamil critical edition, two unpublished translated Tamil and Creole texts, 25 images and a cinematic sequence. We reconstructed layers of language and our work shows that the Réunionnais remained a very special language and exposed to the process of linguistic and cultural creolisation, the language of Barldon, an ancestral language that our surveys have failed to find a place in South India. Can one speak of a sacred language in Réunion but kept exposed to the dynamics of creolisation? Our inquiry shows the queries made by Gillette Staudacher-Valliamee the difficulty of asking for Reunion the linguistic and cultural creolisation without pidginisation, by reminding that the question of language is central. Our work re-examines the place of India in formulating assumptions for the genesis of Creole in the Indian Ocean (A. Bollée 2009, R. Chaudenson 2010).

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