Notwithstanding its renowned comprehensive narrative encapsulation of the Indic culture, the Mahabharata keeps on posing a challenge to its contemporary readers: how do we relate to something over two-millennia old in today’s context without freezing it in time? This volume looks at the problem from diverse periods and standpoints and shows us that this challenge is, in fact, a legacy of the Mahabharata and the responses to this challenge are what makes the text ever-contemporary to different readers of different times and positions. It traces the evolution of the Mahabharata from its inception in the fifth century BCE to twenty-first century, spanning classical Sanskrit tradition, Persian and Bengali adaptations, the Mahabharata as a serialized TV show to more recent graphic narratives. By attempting to analyse this diversity, this volume further delves into how the issues in the Mahabharata resonate across time, from the world of ancient sages to contemporary struggles of women. The essays in this book adopt a dual perspective to appreciate both the Mahabharata’s historical context, its exploration of war, heroes and heroines, gender, psychology, philosophy, and its implications for the future. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of Indian literature, ancient literature and philosophy, English literature, cultural studies, visual studies, gender studies, and translation studies.

The Sanskrit Mahabharata is one of the most important texts to emerge from the Indian cultural tradition. At almost 75,000 verses it is the longest poem in the world, and throughout Indian history it has been hugely influential in shaping gender and social norms. In the context of ancient India, it is the definitive cultural narrative in the construction of masculine, feminine and alternative gender roles. This book brings together many of the most respected scholars in the field of Mahabharata studies, as well as some of its most promising young scholars. By focusing specifically on gender constructions, some of the most innovative aspects of the Mahabharata are highlighted. Whilst taking account of feminist scholarship, the contributors see the Mahabharata as providing an opportunity to frame discussion of gender in literature not just in terms of the socio-historical roles of men and women. Instead they analyze the text in terms of the wider poetic and philosophical possibilities thrown up by the semiotics of gendering. Consequently, the book bridges a gap in text-critical methodology between the traditional philological approach and more recent trends in gender and literary theory. Gender and Narrative in the Mahabharata will be appreciated by readers interested in South Asian studies, Hinduism, religious studies and gender studies.

The Mahabharata is at once an archive and a living text, a sourcebook complete by itself and an open text perennially under construction. Driving home this striking contemporary relevance of the famous Indian epic, Mahabharata Now focuses on the issues of narration, aesthetics and ethics, as also their interlinkages. The cross-disciplinary essays in the volume imaginatively re-interpret the ‘timeless’ classic in the light of the pre-modern Indian narrative styles, poetics, aesthetic codes, and moral puzzles; the Western theories on modern ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, psychoanalysis, and philosophy of science; and the contemporary social, ethical and political concerns. The essays are all united in their effort to situate the Mahabharata in the context of here and now without violating the sanctity of the ‘written text’ as we have it today. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of Indian and comparative philosophy, Indian and comparative literature, cultural studies, and history.

Ever wanted to read the Mahabharata but never ended up finishing the epic due to the sheer size of the story or the numerous characters that simply overwhelm? Have you always been curious of who the Pandavas actually were and why the Kauravas hated them so much until they resorted to deception and deceit to get rid of their cousins? Was Arjuna actually the greatest archer of all time? Or was it only because of favourable circumstances that Arjuna became known as such? Have you ever wondered how divinity himself, Krishna ended up as Arjuna’s charioteer? And what actually transpired during the battle on the holy lands of Kurukshetra that resulted in us still talking about the Mahabharata more than 5000 years later? This book will answer all these questions and more. Enjoy the greatest epic of our time, the Mahabharata, in a compact and easy-to-read version that is suitable for all ages.

Culture of Memory in South Asia reconfigures European representations of India as a paradigmatic extension of a classical reading, which posits the relation between text and context in a determined way. It explores the South Asian cultural response to European “textual” inheritances. The main argument of this work is that the reflective and generative nodes of Indian cultural formations are located in the configurations of memory, the body and idiom (verbal and visual), where the body or the body complex becomes the performative effect and medium of articulated memories. This work advances its arguments by engaging with mnemocultures-cultures of memory that survive and proliferate in speech and gesture. Drawing on Sanskrit and Telugu reflective sources, this work emphasizes the need to engage with cultural memory and the compositional modes of Indian reflective traditions. This important and original work focuses on the ruptured and stigmatised resources of heterogeneous Indian traditions and calls for critical humanities that move beyond the colonially configured received traditions. Cultures of Memory suggests the possibilities of transcultural critical humanities research and teaching initiatives from the Indian context in today’s academy.

It was in 1942 that the late Dr. V.S. Sukthankar was engaged to deliver four lectures on the 'Meaning of the Mahabharata' under the auspices of the University of Bombay. However, the fourth and last lecture was not delivered on account of his sad sudden demise on the morning of the day fixed for it. The Manuscript (Ms.) of these lectures-a veritable treasure to cherish had remained lost to the world of scholars for the long period of fifteen years. It bore the title "Four Lectures on the Meaning of the Mahabharata." This rather heavy-looking title has been abridged here in publication into the substantial title "On the Meaning of the Mahabharata." In a great many places, sentences or paragraphs have been placed in rectangular brackets in pencil. This bracketed material has been retained in the body of this book. Secondly, an alternative word or phrase is occasionally found written with a pencil in the margin along with an underscoring of the relevant word or words in the text. It is thought advisable to retain the text of the script as it stands, leaving such marginal alternatives alone. However, there is one exception: Dr. Sukthankar had rewritten in pencil almost a whole para at the end of the third lecture. This pencil-script is incorporated in the body of the book. A facsimile of this page is reproduced as the frontispiece. An English rendering of the German quotation from OLDENBURG is given in an Appendix for the convenience of the general reader. In Index, I Sanskrit quotations are printed in Devanagari for the benefit of those not quite conversant with the transliteration.

Krishna stood alone after everybody left the burning pyre. He smiled, the all-knowing smile, at the retreating figures of Gandhari and Kunti. He had been cursed! He cannot and will not be a God of salvation in Kali Yuga. He has been made the Lord of Adharma, only to create wealth and power. Now, He could be redeemed only if the hidden secrets of Mahabharata were revealed to the world. The secrets, locked in for four millenniums, are out! To save Sri Krishna and therefore, the world!

"The war rages on, and readers are given a taste of what unchecked violence can lead to, even between kith and kin. Ask yourself: Is murder for the sake of honor or duty still occuring today? Have we learned nothing since this was written thousands of years ago?" - The Author

The Mahabharata, one of the most popular epics, has had a remarkable impact on literary and cultural thought in India through the centuries. It is also of immense religious and philosophical importance and is considered itihasa, literally 'that which happened', or sacred history. Though the setting of the Mahabharata is distant in time, something of its indefatigable, insistent formulation of the pivotal dilemmas of our shared human moral imagination remains insistent and inextinguishable even today. The Moral Imagination of the Mahabharata closely reads the conceptual and narrative intricacies of the epic through the four foundational terms of dharma (law), artha (worldliness), kama (desire) and moksha (freedom), offering riveting insights on the moral psychology of Indic civilization. Drawing from scholarly forays in philology, history, religious studies and pre-modern Asian traditions, this critical attention by a literary scholar to the Mahabharata's narrative impulses and the internal vigour of select episodes brings to fore the gripping dilemmas that animate the epic. The book travels through an atmospheric and exuberant pre-modern milieu to provoke prescient metaphysical and ethical questions that are only accumulating in relevance in the contemporary world.