From Dāśarājña to Kurukṣetra

Making of a Historical Tradition

Dr Kanad Sinha (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

576 Seiten

2022
OUP India (Verlag)
978-0-19-013069-5 (ISBN)

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Is it true that the ancient Indians had no sense of History? The book begins with this question, and points out how the ways of perceiving the past could be culture-specific and how the concept of historical traditions can be useful in studying the various ways of memorising and representing the past, even if those ways do not necessarily correspond to the methodology of the Occidental discipline called 'History'. Ancient India had several historical traditions, and the book focuses on one of them, the itihasa. It also shows how the Mahabharata is the best illustration of this tradition, and how a historical study of the contents of the text, with comparison with and corroboration from other contemporary sources and traditions, may help us restore the text in its original context in the bardic historical tradition about the Later Vedic Kurus. Is the Mahabharata then an authentic history? This book does not claim so. However, it shows how the text had originated as a critical reflection on a great period of transition, how it dealt with the conflicting philosophies of the transitional period, how it propounded its thesis by creating new kinds of heroes such as Yudhisthira and Krsna, and how the text was reworked when it was canonized by the brahmanas

Kanad Sinha is the Head of the Department of Ancient Indian and World History, The Sanskrit College and University.

Erscheinungsdatum	26.11.2021
Verlagsort	New Delhi
Sprache	englisch
Maße	154 x 223 mm
Gewicht	664 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Geschichtstheorie / Historik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
ISBN-10	0-19-013069-5 / 0190130695
ISBN-13	978-0-19-013069-5 / 9780190130695
Zustand	Neuware