Exploring Agency in the Mahabharata: Ethical and Political Dimensions of Dharma

ISBN-13: 9781138709201 / Angielski / Twarda / 2018 / 254 str.

Sibesh Chandra Bhattacharya; Vrinda Dalmiya; Gangeya Mukherji

Opis

The Mahabharata, one of the major epics of India, is a sourcebook complete by itself as well as an open text under construction. Located amid conversations between modern discourses and ancient vocabulary, this volume grapples with dharma or righteousness, 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.

Spis treści

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