Overview

The Mahabharata, one of the major epics of India, is a sourcebook complete by itself as well as an open text constantly under construction. This volume looks at transactions between its modern discourses and ancient vocabulary. Located amid conversations between these two conceptual worlds, the volume grapples with the epic’s problematisation of dharma or righteousness, and consequently, of the ideal person and the good life through a cluster of issues surrounding the concept of agency and action. Drawing on several interdisciplinary approaches, the essays reflect on a range of issues in the Mahabharata, including those of duty, motivation, freedom, selfhood, choice, autonomy, and justice, both in the context of philosophical debates and their ethical and political ramifications for contemporary times. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers engaged with philosophy, literature, religion, history, politics, culture, gender, South Asian studies, and Indology. It will also appeal to the general reader interested in South Asian epics and the Mahabharata.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sibesh Chandra Bhattacharya ,  Vrinda Dalmiya ,  Gangeya Mukherji
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge India
Weight:   0.453kg
ISBN:  

9781138709201

ISBN 10:   1138709204
Pages:   254
Publication Date:   20 March 2018
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Contributors. Foreword. Acknowledgements. Introduction: To Do I: ACTION 1. Mahabharata. Itihasa. Agency 2. In Search of Genuine Agency: A Review of Action, Freedom and Karma in the Mahābhārata 3. The Theory of Karma in the Mahābhārata 4. Karmayoga and the Vexed Moral Agent II: ACTOR 5. Complexities in the Agency for Violence: A Look at the Mahabharata 6. Irresolution and Agency: The Case of Yudhishthira 7. Can the Subhuman Speak or Act? Agency of Sagacious Serpents, Benevolent Birds, Rational Rodents, and a Mocking Mongoose in the Mahābhārata 8. Textual–Sexual Transitions: The Reification of Women in the Mahabharata 9. Ekalavya and the Possibility of Learning III: EPIC AGENCY AND RETELLINGS 10. Tagore’s Readings of the Mahabharata 11. Answerability between Lived Life and Living Text: Chronotopicity in finding Agency in the Mahabharata 12. Drona in the Ekalavya Episode in Sāralā Mahābhārata. Index

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Author Information

Sibesh Chandra Bhattacharya is former Professor of Ancient History, Allahabad University, India. Vrinda Dalmiya is Professor, Philosophy Department, University of Hawai’i, Manoa, USA. Gangeya Mukherji is presently Visiting Professor, School of Arts and Sciences, Ahmedabad University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.

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