Agonistic Scenes of the mahāvrata Rite. The Praiser-abhigara and the Reviler-apagara

The present paper focuses on one of the competitive scenes staged during the Vedic classical mahāvrata rite: a sort of “agonistic” play performed between someone defined as abhigara, basically translated as “praiser,” and someone who is called apagara, interpreted as “reviler.” They appear to take part only in a verbal and not a physical duel. In fact, scholars consider the scene an example of a verbal contest. However, given that abhi- gara and apagara are never mentioned in the Rigvedic and Atharvavedic collections and rarely occur in the Vedic corpus, appearing mostly in sec- tions concerning the peculiar mahāvrata ceremony, this dichotomous pair certainly sparks interest since they are associable with the Mahābhārata context. The analysis of the Vedic textual sources concerning the abhigara / apagara contest on the mahāvrata day, a survey of the terminology correlated to these two terms and their etymological reconstruction may offer a peculiar perspective on the relationship between violence, ritualism and narration in the Mahābhārata.