As is often the case with conference papers, many of the sixteen papers included here represent ongoing research. All, however, stand on their own even if are parts of larger projects that have been published in the intervening years. Of these sixteen papers, eleve n address the Mahābhārata (including the Harivaṃśa), three address the Rāmāyaṇa, and two deal with overlapping issues. This distribution is characteristic of modern studies of the Sanskrit epics, in which the Mahābhārata's wealth of thematic issues, moral and identity ambiguities, sociopolitical concerns, diverse mythology, lineage questions, and uncertainties of resolution, are much more attractive to the scholarly mind than are the more consistent certainties, themes, and symmetries of the Rāmāyana.
Horst Brinkhaus begins with speculations that the Pitṛkalpa, within the Harivaṃśa, has parallels in some of the Purāṇas and confers on the archetypal ancestor Manu Vaivasvata the designation śrāddhadeva, “the deity of ancestral rites.” John Brockington describes some of the attributes of Hanumān provided in Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa, focusing on how certain epithets and similes reveal parts of his personality. Mary Brockington defends Yudhiṣṭhira in his ambiguous role as the hero of the MBh. She contends that his loss in the dice match, which humiliated Draupadī and led to the enslavement and exile of the Pāṇḍavas, was necessary in order to allow the Pāṇḍavas to return to Kurukṣetra.
Simon Brodbeck describes some of the leading female characters in the MBh as “husbands of earth,” pointing out some of the gendered qualities of soteriological ideas in the epic, especially as they relate to the warrior ethos. Nicolas Dejenne addresses the significance of the number “thrice-seven” (triḥ saptakṛtvaḥ) in the MBh myth of Rāma Jāmadagnya. This number is significant because it is emblematic of the warrior class, notably because of the destruction of twenty-one generations of kṣatriyas by the brahman Paraśurāma. Danielle Feller, well-known for her studies of Vedic and epic mythology, explores the story of two sages, Asita Devala and Jaigīṣavya (MBh 9.49), a householder and a wandering mendicant, respectively, and the polarities they represent, including the paths of action and renunciation, and sacrificial and meditative liberation. Through this story the MBh attempts to impose its authority as both the fifth Veda and all the Vedas put together. James Fitzgerald presents a quantitative study of passages from the MBh in irregular triṣṭubh meter. Fitzgerald suggests that these verses are placed in the mouths of certain characters, notably Draupadī in the Sabhāparvan.
The articles by Robert Goldman and Sally Sutherland Goldman, on Vālmīki's account(s) of Kumbhakarṇa, the somnolent gargantuan demon prince, and the lamentations of Sītā and her narrative role as the voice of the feminine, respectively, are drawn from the Yuddhakāṇḍa, the sixth book of the Rāmāyaṇa. These studies reflect on the genesis and cultural reception of these aspects of the Rāmāyaṇa, including, in Sally Goldman's article, reflections on Vālmīki's devaluation of the feminine.
Alf Hiltebeitel examines the relative chronology of the two epics. Through the use of words for “path” (padavī, mārga, etc.) in the forest books of the two epics, especially comparing the Rāmopākhyāna section of book 3 of the MBh with the Rāmāyaṇa, he concludes, in agreement with Madeleine Biardeau, that there exists sufficient evidence that the Rāmopākhyāna and the MBh are earlier than the Rāmāyaṇa, and that the latter was able to produce a charter myth in large part based on the former. Mislav Ježić compares parallel passages between the Bhagavad-Gītā and the early Upaniṣads particularly addressing their intertextuality. He examines the use of tropes (e.g., the chariot, the tree), their uses of Sāṃkhya and Yoga, and notions of brahman, to conclude that the Gītā is intimately related to the Kaṭha and Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣads.
Paolo Magnone writes on the polarities and complementarities between tejas (creative energy, luminosity) and kṣamā (patience, creative and discerning passivity) as primary attributes of brahmans, kṣatriyas, and kings in both epics. Ram Karan Sharma examines the personality of Bhīṣma in the MBh as a lifelong celibate, concluding that Bhīṣma could never have been married. Georg von Simson explores the relation between the MBh and Viśākhadatta's fourth century drama Mudrārākṣasa. The drama's plot includes the fall of the Nanda dynasty and the coming to power of the Mauryas. Von Simson is convinced of the drama's affiliation with the MBh, but sees the use of astronomical and astrological symbolism in the drama as evidence that this too was borrowed from the MBh and that the MBh can also be interpreted along these lines. Renate Söhnen-Thieme explores the personality and role of Indra in the Harivaṃśa through a study of the deity's epithets, of rhetorical and grammatical forms, and of myths in which Kṛṣṇa bests Indra on several occasions. Finally, Muneo Tokunaga discusses the development of the didactic material that was placed in Bhīṣma's mouth as he lay dying on the bed of arrows in the Śānti and Anuśāsana parvans of the MBh.
This useful volume deserves to be consulted by classicists and scholars of modern Hinduism alike. The impact of the Sanskrit epics on modern India cannot be understated, and these studies assist greatly in our understanding of how this came about.
