Recently I listened to the recorded version of a talamaddale held in Bangalore last year. The episode was Karnavasana. A famous artiste was Karna. He portrayed the role pretty well but I was thoroughly amused when he referred to the Malthusian Theory of Population in his what seemed a little irrelevant prologue.
This was what he said:
An economist had said that the population of the world would double every 25 years. In the absence of human efforts to check this, the nature itself would bring disasters to reduce population. (Listen to it here)
How could Karna of the Mahabharatha times refer to Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus of the 18th/19th Century? Of course, our artiste did not mention Malthus's name but it was obvious. We know for sure that no other economist had given such a theory of population, certainly not before the Mahabharatha battle in any case.
The artiste's reasoning went like this: According to the theory, the nature would control population by causing drought, disease, famine and floods. However, this was never possible under the rule of Duryodhana for he was an able administrator and was capable of taking effective relief measures. The only way possible then to reduce population was a war. Hence the battle of Kurukshetra. He linked this to a song in Krishna Sandhana episode in which Duryodhana says to Krishna:
danujuaripu nee ileya bhaaravaniluhalu
avatarisida maaya manujanoo...
Let us appreciate the artiste's knowledge but in his eagerness to display it he made a mess of the time line. Where was the Mahabharatha battle believed to have been fought some 7000 years ago and where was the Malthusian Theory of Population first published in 1798?
Picture: Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834)
