The Sanskrit Epics

Front Cover
BRILL, 1998 - Literary Criticism - 596 pages
Mah bh rata (including Harivam a) and R m yan a, the two great Sanskrit Epics central to the whole of Indian Culture, form the subject of this new work.The book begins by examining the relationship of the epics to the Vedas and the role of the bards who produced them. The core of the work, a study of the linguistic and stylistic features of the epics, precedes the examination of the material culture, the social, economic and political aspects, and the religious aspects. The final chapter presents the wider picture and in conclusion even looks into the future of epic studies.In this long overdue survey work the author synthesizes the results of previous scholarship in the field. Herewith a coherent view is built up of the nature and the significance of these two central epics, both in themselves, and in relation to Indian culture as a whole.
 

Contents

The History of Epic Studies
41
Editions
67
The Mahābhārata 1
82
The Mahabharata 2
159
The Harivamsa
313
The Rāmāyaṇa 1
345
The Rāmāyaṇa 2
398
The Rāmāyaṇa 3
441
Evolution
473
Bibliography
527
Indices
559
Copyright

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Page 548 - Valmiki, in the original Sungskrit, with a Prose Translation and explanatory notes, by William Carey and Joshua Marshman. Vol. i, containing the first book, Serampore, 1806, 4to, pp.

About the author (1998)

John Brockington, D.Phil. (1968), Oxford, is Reader and Head of the Department of Sanskrit at the University of Edinburgh. He has published widely on the epics and on the history of Hinduism (The Sacred Thread, Hinduism and Christianity).