Overview

Many Mahābhāratas is an introduction to the spectacular and long-lived diversity of Mahābhārata literature in South Asia. This diversity begins with the Sanskrit Mahābhārata, an early epic poem that narrates the events of a catastrophic fratricidal war. Along the way, it draws in nearly everything else in Hindu mythology, philosophy, and story literature. The magnitude of its scope and the relentless complexity of its worldview primed the Mahābhārata for uncountable tellings in South Asia and beyond. For two thousand years, the instinctive approach to the Mahābhārata has been not to consume it but to create it anew. The many Mahābhāratas of this book come from the first century to the twenty-first. They are composed in nine different languages—Apabhramsha, Bengali, English, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu. Early chapters illuminate themes of retelling within the Sanskrit Mahābhārata itself, demonstrating that the story's propensity for regeneration emerges from within. The majority of the book, however, reaches far beyond the Sanskrit epic. Readers dive into classical dramas, premodern vernacular poems, regional performance traditions, commentaries, graphic novels, political essays, novels, and contemporary theater productions—all of them Mahābhāratas. Because of its historical and linguistic breadth, its commitment to primary sources, and its exploration of multiplicity and diversity as essential features of the Mahābhārata's long life in South Asia, Many Mahābhāratas constitutes a major contribution to the study of South Asian literature and offers a landmark view of the field of Mahābhārata studies.

Full Product Details

Author:   Nell Shapiro Hawley ,  Sohini Sarah Pillai
Publisher:   State University of New York Press
Imprint:   State University of New York Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.227kg
ISBN:  

9781438482408

ISBN 10:   143848240
Pages:   462
Publication Date:   02 January 2022
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration Foreword Paula Richman 1. An Introduction to the Literature of the Mahābhārata Nell Shapiro Hawley and Sohini Sarah Pillai Part I: The Manyness of the Sanskrit Mahābhārata 2. Ā Garbhāt: Murderous Rage and Collective Punishment as Thematic Elements in Vyāsa's Mahābhārata Robert Goldman 3. The Invention of Irāvān David Gitomer 4. Bodies That Don't Matter: Gender, Body, and Discourse in the Narrative of Sulabhā Sally J. Sutherland Goldman Part II: Sanskrit Mahābhāratas in Poetry and Performance 5. The Remembered Self: Arjuna as Bṛhannalā in the Pañcarātra Nell Shapiro Hawley 6. The Lord of Glory and the Lord of Men: Power and Partiality in Māgha's Śiśupālavadha Lawrence McCrea 7. What Are the Goals of Life? The Vidūṣaka's Interpretation of the Puruṣārthas in Kulaśekhara's Subhadrādhanañjaya Sudha Gopalakrishnan 8. How Do We Remember Śakuntalā? The Mahābhārata and Kālidāsa's Drama on the Contemporary Indian Stage Amanda Culp Part III: Regional and Vernacular Mahābhāratas from Premodern South Asia 9. An Old Dharma in a New Age: Duryodhana and the Reframing of Epic Ethics in Ranna's Sāhasabhīmavijaya Timothy Lorndale 10. Three Poets, Two Languages, One Translation: The Evolution of the Telugu Mahābhāratamu Harshita Mruthinti Kamath 11. The Fate of Kīcaka in Two Jain Apabhramsha Mahābhāratas Eva De Clercq and Simon Winant 12. The Power-Politics of Desire and Revenge: A Classical Hindi Kīcakavadha Performance at the Tomar Court of Gwalior Heidi Pauwels 13. Blessed Beginnings: Invoking Viṣṇu, Kṛṣṇa, and Rāma in Two Regional Mahābhāratas Sohini Sarah Pillai Part IV: Mahābhāratas of Modern South Asia 14. How to Be Political without Being Polemical: The Debate between Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and Rabindranath Tagore over the Kṛṣṇacaritra Ahona Panda 15. The Epic and the Novel: Buddhadev Bose's Modern Reading of the Mahābhārata Sudipta Kaviraj 16. Draupadī, Yājñasenī, Pāñcālī, Kṛṣṇ ā: Representations of an Epic Heroine in Three Novels Pamela Lothspeich 17. From Excluded to Exceptional: Caste in Contemporary Mahābhāratas Sucheta Kanjilal 18. A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: The Mahābhārata as Dystopian Future Philip Lutgendorf Bibliography List of Contributors Index

Reviews

"""Overall, the anthology is an excellent read. It thoroughly enriches and updates the field of Mahābhārata Studies. This is a groundbreaking volume assembling a range of eminent scholarship."" — Religious Studies Review"

Author Information

Nell Shapiro Hawley is Preceptor in Sanskrit at Harvard University. Sohini Sarah Pillai is a PhD candidate in South and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

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