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Rethinking the Mahabharata

A Reader's Guide to the Education of the Dharma King

Alf Hiltebeitel author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:The University of Chicago Press

Published:5th Nov '01

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Rethinking the Mahabharata cover

The ancient Indian Sanskrit tradition produced no text more intriguing, or more persistently misunderstood or underappreciated, than the Mahabharata. Its intricacies have waylaid generations of scholars and ignited dozens of unresolved debates. In this text, Alf Hiltebeitel offers a unique model for understanding the great epic. Employing a range of literary and narrative theories, he draws on historical and comparative research in an attempt to discern the spirit and techniques behind the epic's composition. The author focuses on the education of Yudhisthira, also known as the Dharma King, and shows how the relationship of this figure to others - especially his author-grandfather Vyasa and his wife Draupadi - provides a thread through the bewildering array of frames and stories embedded within stories. Hiltebeital also offers a revisionist theory regarding the dating and production of the original text and its relation to the Veda.

ISBN: 9780226340548

Dimensions: 23mm x 17mm x 2mm

Weight: 567g

375 pages