DISCUSSION 71 crown land Uemenos in Greek) was adopted by Rama. The climaxing conflict between Rama and Ravana denotes the adoption of the crown land institution by the advanced non-Aryan tribal monarchies. The exit of Sita into the nether world ruled by her Earth Mother signifies the final triumph of patriarchy over matriarchy. Marching on to Mahabharata Mahabharata is the continuation and culmination of this epoch. The main adversaries of the epic were born as cousins in the royal clan of the Kuru tribe. With the marriage of the Pandavas with Draupadi and their resulting alliance with the Pancala tribe, the Pandavas became a separate tribe and established a separate tribal kingdom at Indraprastha. The Kauravas were fierce patriarchs. While Gandhari was a living corpse, the wives of Duryodhana and Kama were but shadows. In contrast to this Kunti and Draupadi were full-blooded and imperious women who dominate the epic to the end. The Gandharva Ghitraratha addressed Arjuna as Tapatya, a descendant of Tapati, a form of Surya Savitri or Earth Mother. The river Tapti was called Tapati in Sanskrit. The dialect of Khandesh still pronounces her as mother Tapati. It seems that the original home of the Pandavas was in the Tapti valley. When the final duel between Kama and Arjuna,the mightiest heroes of the warring sides, took place, the poet says that the patriarchal Aditya deities ranged themselves on the side of Kama while the Earth Mother stood on the side of Arjuna. Thus it was again a strife between a patriarchal slave monarchy and a matrilineal slave monarchy. But a totally new factor had entered into this strife. It was the first ever and nascent non-monarchical slave republic or oligarchy of the Tadavas which had arisen on the corpse of the priest-kingly slave monarchy of Kamsa. Krishna, the architect and and leader of this highest form of slave society in India which came to be called sangha-gana in Buddha's time, played off the tribal monarchies—deadly enemies of the new social formation—against each other in order to weaken them. It is through this poineering role and his consummate statecraft that he was able to guide, with prowess that seemed superhuman, the main developments of the titanic conflict successfully without embroiling his oligarchy in it. The decimating war resulted in decisively weakening the monarchical slave system all over north India, enabling the rise of non-monarchical slave oligarchies. Buddha, the supreme product of this sangha-gana system, described it as consisting of only two varnas^the Kshatriyas and the Dasa-karmakaras ("Tona-Kambojesu annesu ca paccantimesu janapadesu dveva vanna-ayyo ceva daso' caV) The class system of masters and slaves at last coincided with the varna system. But the Kshatriya masters lived among themselves a life of equality and collectivity instead of the hypergamous equality of the higher three varnas of the priest?-kingly tribal stages, a life which they denied, as of old, to their slaves (^Jatya can sadrisah sarve kulena sadrisas ^^^(Santi-parva, 107.30). Krishna the poineer of this sangha-gana system