The preeminent scholar of comparative studies of Indo-European society, Georges Dumezil theorized that ancient and prehistoric Indo-European culture and literature revolved around three major functions: sovereignty, force, and fertility. This work treats these functions as they are articulated through "first king" legends found in Indian, Iranian, and Celtic epics, particularly the "Mahabharata." Dumezil, drawing on an extraordinarily broad range of Indo-European sources from Scandinavia to India and offering an original and provocative analytic method, set a new agenda for studies in...
The preeminent scholar of comparative studies of Indo-European society, Georges Dumezil theorized that ancient and prehistoric Indo-European culture a...
Throughout India and Southeast Asia, ancient classical epics the "Mahabharata" and the "Ramayana" continue to exert considerable cultural influence. "Rethinking India's Oral and Classical Epics" offers an unprecedented exploration into South Asia's regional epic traditions. Using his own fieldwork as a starting point, Alf Hiltebeitel analyzes how the oral tradition of the south Indian cult of the goddess Draupadi and five regional martial oral epics compare with one another and tie in with the Sanskrit epics. Drawing on literary theory and cultural studies, he reveals the shared subtexts...
Throughout India and Southeast Asia, ancient classical epics the "Mahabharata" and the "Ramayana" continue to exert considerable cultural influence. "...
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 Rethinking the Mahabharata," Alf Hiltebeitel offers a unique model for understanding the great epic. Employing a wide range of literary and narrative theory, Hiltebeitel draws on historical and comparative research in an attempt to discern the spirit and techniques behind the epic's composition. He focuses on the education of Yudhisthira, also...
The ancient Indian Sanskrit tradition produced no text more intriguing, or more persistently misunderstood or underappreciated, than the Mahabharata. ...
In India, God can be female. The goddesses of Hinduism and Buddhism represent the largest extant collection of living goddesses anywhere on the planet. Feminists in the West often draw upon South Asian goddesses as theological resources in the contemporary rediscovery of the Goddess. Yet, these goddesses are products of a male supremacist society.
What is the impact of powerful female deities--their images, projections, textuality, and history--on the social standing and psychological health of women? Do they empower women, or serve the interests of patriarchal culture? Is the...
In India, God can be female. The goddesses of Hinduism and Buddhism represent the largest extant collection of living goddesses anywhere on the pla...
In India, God can be female. The goddesses of Hinduism and Buddhism represent the largest extant collection of living goddesses anywhere on the planet. Feminists in the West often draw upon South Asian goddesses as theological resources in the contemporary rediscovery of the Goddess. Yet, these goddesses are products of a male supremacist society.
What is the impact of powerful female deities--their images, projections, textuality, and history--on the social standing and psychological health of women? Do they empower women, or serve the interests of patriarchal culture? Is the Goddess a...
In India, God can be female. The goddesses of Hinduism and Buddhism represent the largest extant collection of living goddesses anywhere on the pla...
This book is a study of India's great epic, the Mahabharata, against the background of Indo-European myth, epic, and ritual. It builds upon the pioneering studies in these areas by Georges Dumezil and Stig Wikander to work toward the goal of understanding how this epic's Indo-European heritage is interpreted and reshaped within the setting of bhakti or devotional Hinduism. The book begins with a comparative typology of traditional classical epics, arguing that epic is a distinctive mythical genre, and that the Mahabharata in particular should be studied as part of an Indo-European epic...
This book is a study of India's great epic, the Mahabharata, against the background of Indo-European myth, epic, and ritual. It builds upon the pionee...
This introductory work proposes a fresh take on the ancient Indian concept dharma. By unfolding how, even in its developments as law and custom, dharma participates in nuanced and multifarious understandings of the term that play out in India's great spiritual traditions, the book offers insights into the innovative character of both Hindu and Buddhist usages of the concept. Alf Hiltebeitel, in an original approach to early Buddhist usages, explores how the Buddhist canon brought out different meanings of dharma. This is followed by an exposition of the hypothesis that most, if not all, of...
This introductory work proposes a fresh take on the ancient Indian concept dharma. By unfolding how, even in its developments as law and custom, dh...
Often spoken of as the 'Fifth Veda', i.e., as a text in continuity with the four Vedas and outweighing them all in size and import, the Mahābhārata presents a complex mythological and narrative landscape, incorporating fundamental ethical, social, philosophic, and pedagogic issues. In a series of position pieces and essays written over a span of 30 years, Alf Hiltebeitel, Columbian Professor of Religion, History, and Human Sciences at The George Washington University, articulates a compelling new approach to the epic: as a literary work of fundamental theological and philosophical...
Often spoken of as the 'Fifth Veda', i.e., as a text in continuity with the four Vedas and outweighing them all in size and import, the Mahābh...
Explicitly acknowledging its status as a strī-śūdra-veda (a Veda for women and the downtrodden), the Mahābhārata articulates a promise to bring knowledge of right conduct, fundamental ethical, philosophical, and soteriological teachings, and its own grand narrative to all classes of people and all beings. Hiltebeitel shows how the Mahābhārata has more than lived up to this promise at least on the ground in Indian folk traditions. In this three-part volume, he journeys over the overlapping terrains of the south Indian cults of Draupadī (part I) and...
Explicitly acknowledging its status as a strī-śūdra-veda (a Veda for women and the downtrodden), the Mahābhārata articulates ...
In Indian mythological texts like the Mah bh rata and R m ya a, there are recurrent tales about gleaners. The practice of "gleaning" in India had more to do with the house-less forest life than with residential village or urban life or with gathering residual post-harvest grains from cultivated fields. Gleaning can be seen a metaphor for the Mah bh rata poets art: an art that could have included their manner of gleaning what they made the leftovers (what they found useful) from many preexistent texts into Vy sa s entire thought including oral texts and possibly written ones, such as...
In Indian mythological texts like the Mah bh rata and R m ya a, there are recurrent tales about gleaners. The practice of "gleaning" in India had m...
