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 The Temple Mandala and the Bottom‐floor Sanctum

D. Dennis Hudson

in The Body of God: An Emperor's Palace for Krishna in Eighth Century Kanchipuram

The chakrabja mandala is described as the foundation of the temple's plan and program. The three sanctums, atop one another, form a three‐dimensional mandala; each sanctum houses a black stone icon ... More

The chakrabja mandala is described as the foundation of the temple's plan and program. The three sanctums, atop one another, form a three‐dimensional mandala; each sanctum houses a black stone icon of Narayana as Supreme Vasudeva: bottom, sitting; middle, reclining; top, standing (though missing, a relief sculpture of it is on the prakara wall). At the very top is a closed, hollow cube representing Vasudeva as the nonempty brahman. On each side of the outer wall of the bottom sanctum is a representation of one of the vyuhas of Vasudeva: Samkarshana (the Plower), Pradyumna (the Pre‐eminently Mighty), Aniruddha (the Unobstructed). Each manifests a pair of Vasudeva's glorious excellences, and is embedded in an interlocking network of stories expressing theological teachings. The mandala's mapping of the two axes of directional space illuminates the structure of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and points to the structure of chronological time.Less

The Great Men of Jainism In Utero: A Survey

Eva De Clercq

in Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture

In “The Great Men of Jainism In Utero,” an overview is provided of the intrauterine lives of the sixty-three heroes of the “Universal History” of the Jains. A central motif in these accounts is a ... More

In “The Great Men of Jainism In Utero,” an overview is provided of the intrauterine lives of the sixty-three heroes of the “Universal History” of the Jains. A central motif in these accounts is a series of prophetic dreams that the mothers experience upon conception. In general, these dreams and other events surrounding the hero’s time in the womb parallel what happens to him in his life beyond the womb. The chapter further examines some similarities in Hinduism and Buddhism.Less

A Cloak of Clever Words: The Deconstruction of Deceit in the Mahābhārata

Jonardon Ganeri

in The Concealed Art of the Soul: Theories of Self and Practices of Truth in Indian Ethics and Epistemology

This chapter examines the discussion of truth-telling, sincerity, and deceit in the Mahābhārata. It explores classical Indian thinking about the value of truth, and the circumstances under which it ... More

This chapter examines the discussion of truth-telling, sincerity, and deceit in the Mahābhārata. It explores classical Indian thinking about the value of truth, and the circumstances under which it is morally permissible to tell a lie.Less

Mysticism and Islam in Javanese Rāmāyaṇa Tales

Mandakranta Bose

in The Ramayana Revisited

This chapter delves into the historical and evolutionary process of the movement of the Rāmāyana story in Indonesia and its religious and political implications. It argues that cross-cultural traffic ... More

This chapter delves into the historical and evolutionary process of the movement of the Rāmāyana story in Indonesia and its religious and political implications. It argues that cross-cultural traffic between Hindu-Javanese social and religious practices, on the one hand, and those of the Muslim immigrants who arrived in the 18th century, on the other, have resulted in a synthesis in which Javanese shadow puppeteers not only find audiences for Hindu myths across religious boundaries but also adapt Mahābhārata puppets to tell Rāmāyana stories. The process subverts the linearity of the Rāmāyana and builds a discourse in which the puppets serve as material objects that encode ideas of character, ethics, behavior, and morals.Less

The Dance of the Cowherd: Pāṇḍav Līlā as a Regional Tradition

William S. Sax

in Dancing the Self: Personhood and Performance in the Pandav Lila of Garhwal

Explores the Pandav Lila as a regional tradition. After a brief overview of the history and culture of Garhwal, the author discusses the ways in which pandav lila presents the self‐image of the ... More

Explores the Pandav Lila as a regional tradition. After a brief overview of the history and culture of Garhwal, the author discusses the ways in which pandav lila presents the self‐image of the region's farmers. An extensive discussion of one particular dance form – the dance of the cowherd – is also included.Less

Hunting the Rhinoceros: Pāṇḍav Līlā as a Man's Sport

William S. Sax

in Dancing the Self: Personhood and Performance in the Pandav Lila of Garhwal

One of the most important dances in the pandav lila culminates with the killing of Arjuna by his son, Nagarjuna. Such parricides are extremely rare in Hindu myth and literature. In this chapter, the ... More

One of the most important dances in the pandav lila culminates with the killing of Arjuna by his son, Nagarjuna. Such parricides are extremely rare in Hindu myth and literature. In this chapter, the author describes the episode at length, along with its equivalent in the Sanskrit Mahabharata. He also reviews the extensive literature regarding the question of whether or not there is an ”Oedipus Complex” in Hindu culture.Less

Violent Women: Draupadi and Kunti in the Pāṇḍav Līlā

William S. Sax

in Dancing the Self: Personhood and Performance in the Pandav Lila of Garhwal

Investigates the way in which pandav lilas create gendered persons. The focus is on Draupadi, common wife of the five Pandava brothers, the protagonists of the epic, and their mother Kunti. The ... More

Investigates the way in which pandav lilas create gendered persons. The focus is on Draupadi, common wife of the five Pandava brothers, the protagonists of the epic, and their mother Kunti. The chapter concludes that these womens’ identities as Rajputs are more strongly emphasized in Pandav Lila than their identities as women, and that this accounts for the extreme violence with which they are associated.Less

A Divine King in the Western Himalayas

William S. Sax

in Dancing the Self: Personhood and Performance in the Pandav Lila of Garhwal

Focuses on a valley in Western Garhwal that is ”ruled” by the divine king Karna, a figure from the Mahabharata. Nearby are other similar ”divine kingdoms,” ruled by Duryodhana and the demon Mahasu. ... More

Focuses on a valley in Western Garhwal that is ”ruled” by the divine king Karna, a figure from the Mahabharata. Nearby are other similar ”divine kingdoms,” ruled by Duryodhana and the demon Mahasu. The chapter argues that Karna incorporates the figures of king, brahman, and renouncer into his personality, and that he embodies the collective agency of the realm over which he rules.Less

Down the Ages: Sport in Ancient and Medieval India

Ronojoy Sen

in Nation at Play: A History of Sport in India

A summary of sport in ancient and medieval India including referenes to the great Indian epics.

Changing Perspectives in the Sanskrit Grammatical Tradition and the Changing Political Configurations in Ancient India

Madhav M. Deshpande

in Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE

This chapter discusses the role played by the kings of the Kuru Dynasty in facilitating, if not sponsoring, the process of preparation of the Saṁhitās of the Vedic texts. This process may have ... More

This chapter discusses the role played by the kings of the Kuru Dynasty in facilitating, if not sponsoring, the process of preparation of the Saṁhitās of the Vedic texts. This process may have stabilized the oral texts of the Vedas, essentially in a north-central dialect of Sanskrit, partly effacing the previous dialectal variation, and leading to the standardization of some sort, at least in phonetic terms. Such linguistic and textual standardization may have political correlates in stable and uniform administration over a reasonably large territory. Very little is known of the historical facts of the Kuru polity beyond the cursory references in the Vedic texts and the legendary material in the Mahābhārata. The chapter also discusses that the globalized view of Sanskrit presupposed by Pāṇini and his successors in the tradition of Sanskrit grammar includes all temporal varieties from the Vedic texts to the current dialects.Less

The Nārāyaṇīya and the Early Reading Communities of the Mahābhārata

Alf Hiltebeitel

in Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE

This chapter discusses a unit of the twelfth book of the Mahābhārata, the Nārāyaṇīya, for its bearing on the textual and religious history of post-Vedic and classical India. Although no portion of ... More

This chapter discusses a unit of the twelfth book of the Mahābhārata, the Nārāyaṇīya, for its bearing on the textual and religious history of post-Vedic and classical India. Although no portion of the Mahābhārata has been considered so axiomatically “Gupta” as the Nārāyaṇīya, the evidence for such dating-furthered most recently in the collaborative volume Nārāyaṇīya Studien and in subsequent essays by two of its authors is far from convincing. Likewise, it has been argued in that volume and by others before it that no unit of the Mahābhārata is so at odds with the rest of the text. It has become the axiomatic interpolation, and would have to be considered the ultimate test for any argument that the archetype recovered by the Poona Critical Edition, in which the Nārāyaṇīya is included, could provide access to the work as it was originally conceived.Less

Negotiating the Shape of “Scripture”: New Perspectives on the Development and Growth of the Mahābhārata between the Empires

James L. Fitzgerald

in Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE

This chapter examines the development and growth of the Mahābhārata (MBh) between the empires. The four anthologies of Bhīṣma's anuśāsana came into existence as one side of a complex process of ... More

This chapter examines the development and growth of the Mahābhārata (MBh) between the empires. The four anthologies of Bhīṣma's anuśāsana came into existence as one side of a complex process of negotiation between some members of the brahmin elite of northern India and the putative new brāhmaṇya kṣatra whom those brahmins wished to coax into a mutually beneficial existence through invoking the “Great” Bhārata. According to this hypothesis, the more fundamental juxtaposition is between the regulating theme of the Rājadharmaparvan (RDhP), on the one hand, and the consummation of that theme in the Dānadharmaparvan (DDhP), on the other. The core of the RDhP promulgates a fundamental charter of brāhmaṇya kingship. The Āpaddharmaparvan (ĀDhP) and the Mokṣadharmaparvan (MDhP) play critically important auxiliary roles in establishing and clarifying the proper relationships among brahmins, their royal clients, and the larger society in which both the brahman and the kṣatra must exist and survive.Less

Narrative Techniques in Irish and Welsh, II: The Riddling ‘Watchman Device’

Patrick Sims‐Williams

in Irish Influence on Medieval Welsh Literature

With particular reference to Togail Bruidne Da Derga and Branwen this chapter discusses the narrative technique called the ‘Watchman Device’. It is illustrated from Homer, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, ... More

With particular reference to Togail Bruidne Da Derga and Branwen this chapter discusses the narrative technique called the ‘Watchman Device’. It is illustrated from Homer, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, the Shahnama, the Mahabharata, Laxdœla saga, Thithreks saga, the Bórama, Táin Bó Cúailnge, Serbian and Scottish Gaelic ballads, and even Kenneth Grahame. The Irish and Welsh examples have undergone the influence, perhaps independently, of the ‘Slavic Antithesis’ of Chapter 4 and of international landscape riddles. Riddles from around the world are compared and the relationship beween riddle, metaphor, kenning, and myth is discussed.Less

Dharma and the Bhagavad Gītā

Alf Hiltebeitel

in Dharma: Its Early History in Law, Religion, and Narrative

What, taking an implausible time out in the middle of the battlefield just before the outbreak of war, did God (Kṛṣṇa) say to the world's greatest warrior, who, for a moment, thought better of being ... More

What, taking an implausible time out in the middle of the battlefield just before the outbreak of war, did God (Kṛṣṇa) say to the world's greatest warrior, who, for a moment, thought better of being a killer? This chapter explores how the Bhagavad Gītā, which from many angles may be considered to lie at the center of the Mahābhārata, puts dharma at the center of a vast vision of the workings of time. It distinguishes what the Gītā has to say about svadharma from what the rest of the epic says about it along with ksatriyadharma or warrior's dharma, and treats the Gītā's teaching of karmayoga as virtually a unique teaching for Arjuna, comparing it with the treatment of karmayoga in The Laws of Manu. It then approaches the Gītā through what the larger epic shows are its ripple effects in the way dharma is depicted inward and outward from the Gītā itself in the formulaic “Where, … then” or yatas … tatas maxims, “Where dharma is, there is victory” and “Where Kṛṣṇa is, there is victory.” The chapter then takes the Gītā itself to present dharma through a ring structure, taking up Kṛṣṇa's disclosures about yugas, kalpas, and Time (Kāla) itself and the divine plan to his instructions on living dharma over ordinary time experientially, allowing that Arjuna will need time to digest what he has to say about fulfilling has svadharma in a supremely difficult time in a way that allows one to transcends it.Less

Dharma and Bhakti

Alf Hiltebeitel

in Dharma: Its Early History in Law, Religion, and Narrative

This chapter attempts to “map” dharma in relation to bhakti, proposing that such a map must begin with the divine plan or plans one has been hearing about. It becomes a project of mapping the ... More

This chapter attempts to “map” dharma in relation to bhakti, proposing that such a map must begin with the divine plan or plans one has been hearing about. It becomes a project of mapping the Mahābhārata in relation to three other texts—not only the Rāmāyaṇa and the Harivaṃśa, but Manu as a text that “resists” bhakti. Such a map involves locating implicit bhakti usages of the names Dhātṛ and Vidhātṛ, the Placer and the Ordainer, and tracing the emergence of notions of avataraṇa. This complex concept takes in not only themes of divine “descent,” including Kṛṣṇa and Rāma as “avatāras” of Viṣṇu, along with Kalki, who in the Mahābhārata is prophesied to end the Kali yuga, but descents of the goddess Gaṅgā. With Gaṅgā, it also takes in dynastic descent through generations into a carefully targeted dharmic geography of madhyadeśa, the Middle Land. By attending further to how dharma and bhakti interrelate in the lives of Rāma and Kṛṣṇa on this terrain, it maps dharma and bhakti in relation to what the Mahābhārata calls Rṣidharma (the dharma of Ṛṣis), which is illustrated through the practice of gleaning, and through the interpersonal themes friendship, hospitality, and separation.Less

Aśvaghoṣa's Buddhacarita: A Buddhist Reading of the Sanskrit Epics and Their Treatments of Dharma

Alf Hiltebeitel

in Dharma: Its Early History in Law, Religion, and Narrative

This chapter on Aśvaghoṣa's Buddhacarita returns to the question of biography, and takes up the centrality of dharma in this text. Aśvaghoṣa, a Brahmin convert to Buddhism and a versatile ... More

This chapter on Aśvaghoṣa's Buddhacarita returns to the question of biography, and takes up the centrality of dharma in this text. Aśvaghoṣa, a Brahmin convert to Buddhism and a versatile poet‐scholar, tells the Buddha's life story from earlier Buddhist sources while taking cognizance of precedents from the Sanskrit epics. Most crucial in showing the uniqueness of the Buddhist dharma and of the Buddha's discovery of it is the repeated insistence that “there is no wrong time for dharma,” which provides opportunities for Prince Siddhārtha to trump Brahmanical concerns for the inherent timeliness of āśramadharma. It is argued that Aśvaghoṣa tells the episode of the Buddha‐to‐be entering Magadha during the reign of King Bimbisāra as a counter‐story to the Mahābhārata's narrative of Kṛṣṇa and two Pāṇḍavas entering Magadha to overthrow the tyrant Jarāsaṃdha, who is interpreted as a crypto‐Buddhist. Discussion then turns to Aśvaghoṣa's usage of the anomalous term mokṣadharma, which he seems to get from the Mahābhārata, raising questions about the treatments of mokṣa and mokṣadharma in the Mahābhārata, Manu, and the Buddhacarita. The chapter ends with a postscript on Aśvaghoṣa's closing tribute to Aśoka Maurya.Less

Introduction

Alf Hiltebeitel

in Dharma: Its Early History in Law, Religion, and Narrative

This chapter introduces the book's usage of “dharma texts,”, and proposes a chronology of the eleven discussed. It then takes up the three main texts used, the two Sanskrit epics and Manu, offering ... More

This chapter introduces the book's usage of “dharma texts,”, and proposes a chronology of the eleven discussed. It then takes up the three main texts used, the two Sanskrit epics and Manu, offering arguments in their favor of their Critical Editions. After discussing B. M. Matilial's notion of a paradigm shift around Kṛṣṇa as offering a way of thinking about the Mahābhārata in particular as introducing change over time with regard to dharma in the handling of moral dilemmas, it concludes by outlining the book in relation to this theme.Less