Oxford Centre for
Hindu Studies Online
Oxford Centre for
Hindu Studies Online
[wpv-autop]
The Mahabharata is possibly the longest poem ever composed and its scale is truly daunting. Not only does it relate an extensive narrative tale, with twists, turns and numerous sub-plots, but it also contains passages of direct religious teachings that are considerably longer than all the major Upanishads put together.
Join some of the world’s foremost Mahabharata scholars as we explore this fascinating text.
[/wpv-autop]
[wpv-autop]
[types field=’timings’][/types]
In Book Twelve – the longest in the Mahhabharata – everyone takes a break to talk out deeper truths behind the wild events that have taken place in the story. The conversation between Yudhisthira and the sages suddenly falls through to a rich collection of stories about ancient kings, magic, and fables full of wisdom. In many ways it is really a book about what happens when you’ve won the war and have a chance to choose your life. In this talk we explore the different kinds of mastery and liberation that it offers, drawing on elements of Yoga and Ayurveda along the way.
Tutor: Dr Jessica Frazier
The Mahabharata is usually known as the story of the Pandavas and Kauravas, but this talk focuses on the story of King Janamejaya, at whose snake sacrifice the story of the Pandavas and Kauravas is told. Janamejaya’s story has been poorly appreciated because much of it is told in the Harivamsha, the last part of the Mahabharata, which most modern Mahabharata commentators have ignored. Janamejaya’s story has a happy ending and demonstrates the transformative effect of Vyasa’s text. By implication, similar effects might be anticipated for other audience members.
Tutor: Dr Simon Brodbeck
Among the most striking episodes of India’s great epic are incidents in which visual arts are used for no good. This talk treats three such occurrences – in the buildup to, at the brink of, and during the bereavement after the poem’s central war. Seen in light of preceding events, these harmful artistic instances are the means that the Mahabharata employs to explore, both cognitively and emotionally, exceptions to classical Indian normative expectations for sovereignty, divinity, and family.
Tutor: Prof. Shubha Pathak
Notwithstanding that the Mahabharata is an old text representing patriarchal values, it features some famously assertive women. In this discussion, we take note of where we find women in the Mahabharata, and how they occupy themselves. In what ways is the Mahabharata a story about women, and how do women shape the direction of the tale?
Tutor: Prof. Arti Dhand
One of the challenges to understanding the Mahabharata is the identification of its principal theological frame of reference: does it have a single mythology? Is it a Vaishnava text? Krishna is among the most important characters of the epic and in many respects is its central deity. However, other structuring theologies of the text point back to a Vedic and Indo-European past, while yet others point forward to mythic structures characteristic of later Puranas. This lecture explores the place of Krishna in the Mahabharata and particularly the relationship of Vaishnava to other theologies of the epic.
Tutor: Prof. Christopher Austin
Dharma is certainly a central theme of the Mahabharata; it repeatedly explores the ways in which dharma can be understood and highlights the tensions that arise from differing interpretations of dharma. What is dharma? Is it the obligatory duties of one’s social class? Is it the pure virtue exemplified by Yudhisthira? Is it the rules laid down in the dharma-sastra passages of the Mahabharata? Is it the ritual acts of the Vedic tradition? Or is it the path to liberation from rebirth revealed in the teachings found in the later books of the Mahabharata? In this session, we will consider each of these understandings of dharma as they are presented in the Mahabharata, and try to highlight the reconciliations and contradictions revealed within its eighteen parvans.
Tutor: Dr Nick Sutton
In contemporary India the Mahabharata remains an extremely popular text which has been reworked into Bollywood and Doordarshan versions as well as many popular retellings in literary forms. But when did it become popular and what would popularity mean in this context? We find some awareness of its popularity in the clearly identifiable passages in Pali literature directly referring to the Mahabharata. The Jatakas were popular texts and these and other Buddhist texts such as the Lalitavistara can be used to determine some measure of the Mahabharata’s popularity in Early Historic India.
Tutor: Dr Greg Bailey
This talk will focus on the tale of the horse’s tour in Yudhisthira’s asvamedha (horse sacrifice) in book 14 of the Mahabharata, the first time such a literary project was attempted in Sanskrit literature. We look at how vedic ideas were reworked in the Mahabharata’s asvamedha. We also consider the actual journey the horse takes, which ultimately involves an approximate circumferencing of ‘India’. I shall suggest that while the Mahabharata makes use of the cosmology of the horse’s journey in the vedas, by giving the tour concrete geographic definition, the Mahabharata‘s horse sacrifice becomes a vehicle for a expressing the possibility of India as a potential sovereign unit. Again, this appears to be a peculiarly Mahabharata innovation that reflects the cultural ambitions of its authors.
Tutor: Dr Adam Bowles
This talk focuses on the Telugu Mahabharata by the eleventh-century poet Nannaya, who is revered as the very first poet of Telugu literature. While the Sanskrit Mahabharata is a dangerous text associated with the conflicts of kingship, the Telugu Mahabharata is an auspicious retelling. We discuss how Nannaya’s innovative use of vernacular meter, style, and form, helped to transform the Mahabharata from a cosmopolitan text to a regional one, giving deep local roots to an unstable epic, rendering it auspicious.
Tutor: Prof. Harshita M. Kamath & Prof. Ilanit Loewy Shacham
This talk will take up the structure, purpose and use of the Sanskrit Mahabharata in South Asia. It will explore aspects of the original Sanskrit texts, as well as related traditions from the deep past to the modern world. It will explore why people tell and re-tell religious stories across the generations. It will show how the Mahabharata is many voiced and multi-purpose by design, as well as a consequence of the ways in which it has been used by different individuals and groups of people over time. From ancient India to the colonial stage, via medieval Kashmir and Indian television broadcasts of the eighties and early nineties, we will see how the text has been lived with and lived through by numberless South Asians from every walk of life.
Tutor: Prof. James Hegarty
[wpv-view name=”weekend-team” ids=”25683,27200,27201,27202,27203,27204,27196,27198,27195,27197,19649″]
[/wpv-autop]
Course Tutor
[wpv-autop]
In Book Twelve – the longest in the Mahhabharata – everyone takes a break to talk out deeper truths behind the wild events that have taken place in the story. The conversation between Yudhisthira and the sages suddenly falls through to a rich collection of stories about ancient kings, magic, and fables full of wisdom. In many ways it is really a book about what happens when you’ve won the war and have a chance to choose your life. In this talk we explore the different kinds of mastery and liberation that it offers, drawing on elements of Yoga and Ayurveda along the way. The Mahabharata is usually known as the story of the Pandavas and Kauravas, but this talk focuses on the story of King Janamejaya, at whose snake sacrifice the story of the Pandavas and Kauravas is told. Janamejaya’s story has been poorly appreciated because much of it is told in the Harivamsha, the last part of the Mahabharata, which most modern Mahabharata commentators have ignored. Janamejaya’s story has a happy ending and demonstrates the transformative effect of Vyasa’s text. By implication, similar effects might be anticipated for other audience members. Among the most striking episodes of India’s great epic are incidents in which visual arts are used for no good. This talk treats three such occurrences – in the buildup to, at the brink of, and during the bereavement after the poem’s central war. Seen in light of preceding events, these harmful artistic instances are the means that the Mahabharata employs to explore, both cognitively and emotionally, exceptions to classical Indian normative expectations for sovereignty, divinity, and family. Notwithstanding that the Mahabharata is an old text representing patriarchal values, it features some famously assertive women. In this discussion, we take note of where we find women in the Mahabharata, and how they occupy themselves. In what ways is the Mahabharata a story about women, and how do women shape the direction of the tale? One of the challenges to understanding the Mahabharata is the identification of its principal theological frame of reference: does it have a single mythology? Is it a Vaishnava text? Krishna is among the most important characters of the epic and in many respects is its central deity. However, other structuring theologies of the text point back to a Vedic and Indo-European past, while yet others point forward to mythic structures characteristic of later Puranas. This lecture explores the place of Krishna in the Mahabharata and particularly the relationship of Vaishnava to other theologies of the epic. Dharma is certainly a central theme of the Mahabharata; it repeatedly explores the ways in which dharma can be understood and highlights the tensions that arise from differing interpretations of dharma. What is dharma? Is it the obligatory duties of one’s social class? Is it the pure virtue exemplified by Yudhisthira? Is it the rules laid down in the dharma-sastra passages of the Mahabharata? Is it the ritual acts of the Vedic tradition? Or is it the path to liberation from rebirth revealed in the teachings found in the later books of the Mahabharata? In this session, we will consider each of these understandings of dharma as they are presented in the Mahabharata, and try to highlight the reconciliations and contradictions revealed within its eighteen parvans. In contemporary India the Mahabharata remains an extremely popular text which has been reworked into Bollywood and Doordarshan versions as well as many popular retellings in literary forms. But when did it become popular and what would popularity mean in this context? We find some awareness of its popularity in the clearly identifiable passages in Pali literature directly referring to the Mahabharata. The Jatakas were popular texts and these and other Buddhist texts such as the Lalitavistara can be used to determine some measure of the Mahabharata’s popularity in Early Historic India. This talk will focus on the tale of the horse’s tour in Yudhisthira’s asvamedha (horse sacrifice) in book 14 of the Mahabharata, the first time such a literary project was attempted in Sanskrit literature. We look at how vedic ideas were reworked in the Mahabharata’s asvamedha. We also consider the actual journey the horse takes, which ultimately involves an approximate circumferencing of ‘India’. I shall suggest that while the Mahabharata makes use of the cosmology of the horse’s journey in the vedas, by giving the tour concrete geographic definition, the Mahabharata‘s horse sacrifice becomes a vehicle for a expressing the possibility of India as a potential sovereign unit. Again, this appears to be a peculiarly Mahabharata innovation that reflects the cultural ambitions of its authors. This talk focuses on the Telugu Mahabharata by the eleventh-century poet Nannaya, who is revered as the very first poet of Telugu literature. While the Sanskrit Mahabharata is a dangerous text associated with the conflicts of kingship, the Telugu Mahabharata is an auspicious retelling. We discuss how Nannaya’s innovative use of vernacular meter, style, and form, helped to transform the Mahabharata from a cosmopolitan text to a regional one, giving deep local roots to an unstable epic, rendering it auspicious. This talk will take up the structure, purpose and use of the Sanskrit Mahabharata in South Asia. It will explore aspects of the original Sanskrit texts, as well as related traditions from the deep past to the modern world. It will explore why people tell and re-tell religious stories across the generations. It will show how the Mahabharata is many voiced and multi-purpose by design, as well as a consequence of the ways in which it has been used by different individuals and groups of people over time. From ancient India to the colonial stage, via medieval Kashmir and Indian television broadcasts of the eighties and early nineties, we will see how the text has been lived with and lived through by numberless South Asians from every walk of life.[wpv-view name=”weekend-team” ids=”25683,27200,27201,27202,27203,27204,27196,27198,27195,27197,19649″]
[/wpv-autop]