Myth and Mythmaking: Continuous Evolution in Indian Tradition

Leslie, Julia (Author)

ISBN 10: 0700703039 / ISBN 13: 9780700703036

Editore: Curzon Pr, 1996

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1st edition. 170 pages. 8.75x5.75x1.00 inches. In Stock. This item is printed on demand. Codice articolo __0700703039

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Titolo: Myth and Mythmaking: Continuous Evolution in...

Casa editrice: Curzon Pr

Data di pubblicazione: 1996

Legatura: Hardcover

Condizione: Brand New

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Riassunto:

Essays focusing on some of the ways in which myths have been made, and made to function, in the rich cultural history of India from the dawn of history through to the present day.

Product Description:

The starting point for this work is that myths are made and remade - on a variety of topics and in widely differing contexts - in a vast continuum stretching from the earliest periods of historical time to the present day. Each study in the collection focuses on one particular point in this continuum: "a stretch of narrative" in the Odyssey and the Mahabharata that suggests a common Proto-Indo-European origin (Allen); the tellings and re-tellings of the seduction of Ahalya by the god Indra in early Sanskrit texts (Soehnen-Thieme); the development of the Parasurama figure and his increasingly strange relationship to mythical time (Thomas). Other topics covered include: some of the mythologies surrounding menstruation and the way each fits the discourse that frames it (Leslie); Jiva Gosvamin's controversial rewriting of the myth of the Krsna and the gopis (Brzezinski); the evolving hagiographies of the untouchable saint Raidas (Friedlander); the ideal of the sannyasi in the progressive construction of an "alternative masculinity" in the nationalist discourse of 19th-century Bengal (Chowdhury-Sengupta). Finally the deliberate merging of the image of the European orientalist with the wisdom of the traditional pandit in the legendary figure of "Arthur Avalon" (Taylor) is discussed. The text argues that these are just some of the ways in which myths have been made, and made to function, in the rich cultural history of India.