The Mahabharata: What is not here is nowhere else (Yannehasti na Tadkvacit)

The Mahabharata is an Itihasa which holds fascination for scholars of different disciplines. There is material here, in this vast text, for anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, scholars of religious studies, astrophysicists and many more. While earlier scholarship has mainly been in the fields of religion and philosophy and in the dating of the Itihasa, since the publication of the critical edition, scholars have been engaged in researching its contents both critically and comparatively in very much areas and in novel ways.

This book, which is a collection of essays by scholars reputed in the area of Mahabharata studies, belongs to this new genre. There are chapter, here, that explore the hermeneutics of dharma, other which try to analyze different characters from many perspectives, one which revisits the dating of the Kuruksetra war using latest computer technology, another one which discusses the birth of the Pandavas and the Kauravas in modern bioethical terms, and many other topics as well. This book is thus an addition to the ongoing scholarship is understanding the inexhaustible material available to us is this unique Mahabharata text that represents in many ways, the cultural history of India. Though ancient, the Mahabharata is modern in the challenges it presents to scholars of all ages. It is a book which also caters to the general reader interested in the Itihasa tradition.

About the Author:

Dr. T.S. Rukmani is currently Professor and Chair in Hindu Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Before joining the present assignment she had the distinction of being the first Chair in Hindu Studies and Indian Philosophy at the University of Durban-Westville, South Africa. She has had a distinguished academic career at the University of Delhi where her last assignment was Principal, Miranda House. She is the author of twelve books which include the Yogavarttika of Vijnanabhiksu in 4 vols. (1981-89), the Yogasutra-bhasyavivarana of Sankara in 2 vols. (2001), and Hindu Diaspora: Global Perspectives (2001). She has many research papers to her credit and publishes regularly in academic journals both in India and abroad. Besides her research in areas of Indian philosophy, Rukmani had had an abiding interest in Itihasa and Purana studies. This book is a result of her ongoing engagement with the Mahabharata material.

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