reflections and variations on the mahabharata

by T.R.S. Sharma, R.N. Dandekar

This volume is a collection of essays that attempts to exemplify the protean nature of Vyasa’s Mahabharata. Vyasa, apart from his being both a character and a virtual narrator who manages his narrations through several voices, had seemingly many strongly-felt moral concerns close to his heart. The essays presented here explore many a vexing question, the ethical and the epistemic concerns, issues of gender, ‘caste’ and metaphysical ‘evil’ that the epic raises.The volume also addresses the question of how each regional language looks upon the epic as a contested site and works out its own form of appropriation, its variations in theme, plot, and character. The essays trace the interpretive changes made in different versions of the epic in other Indian languages and attempt to contribute to our sense of the epic as something composite, made up of multiple texts/contexts, and put together under multiple perspectives.The well-focused, learned articles of this volume project some of the recent reflections and variations on the ever enigmatic, ever-haunting Mahabharata that is deeply interwoven into the culture of the land.

389 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2009