The Mahābhārata

Undergraduate / Graduate

The Mahābhārata is conventionally said to be fifteen times the length of the Bible, or eight times the combined texts of the Homeric epics and, as Wendy Doniger once quipped, "a hundred times more interesting". No other work of the Indic narrative imagination is as capacious; arguably no work of the imagination anywhere, ever. The most important monument of early Indian civilization, it is an amalgam of heroic poetry, visionary speculation, hairsplitting philosophical analysis, austere legal disputation, animal fables, and dirty jokes. In this course, we will read (in translation) the monumental Sanskrit epic, as well as some of its many mediations-whether in vernacular literary renditions, centuries of sculptural and pictorial representations, or contemporary film and comic adaptations- with an eye to how we might consider this work as both a fundamental text for the understanding of South Asia and a vital part of the global cultural commons. No knowledge of South Asia or of any Indian language is presumed; the course will be a combination of lectures, small group discussions, and collective efforts at understanding this inexhaustible work.