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Though Freud never overtly refers to the Mahabharata, many of the Sanskrit epic's themes are illuminated by Freud's thought and, conversely, many incidents in the epic can be used to illustrate Freud's theories. In Freud's Mahabharata, Alf Hiltebeitel offers what he calls a "pointillist introduction" to a new theory about the Mahabharata based on Freud.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- List of Figures
- 1. Introduction: The Mahabharata and Freud's "The 'Uncanny"
- 2. A Short Introduction to Freud's Mahabharata through the Pandavas' Mother Kunti
- 3. Two Times Three Dead Mother Texts: Dead Mothers and Nascent Goddesses
- 4. Uncanny Domesticities: Nascent Goddesses in the Baseline Mahabharata
- 5. Kali and Aravan-Kuttantavar: Rethinking Bose's Oedipus Mother
- 6. Moses and Monotheism and the Mahabharata: Trauma, Loss of
- Memory, and the Return of the Repressed
- Bibliography
About the author
Alf Hiltebeitel is Professor Religion at George Washington University. He works mainly on the two Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and Ramayana, and on the south Indian Draupadi cult, which worships the Mahabharata's leading heroine as the Goddess. He is a historian of religions who studies Hinduism with longstanding interests in Sigmund Freud and in the comparative study of Judaism.
Summary
Though Freud never overtly refers to the Mahabharata, many of the Sanskrit epic's themes are illuminated by Freud's thought and, conversely, many incidents in the epic can be used to illustrate Freud's theories. In Freud's Mahabharata, Alf Hiltebeitel offers what he calls a "pointillist introduction" to a new theory about the Mahabharata based on Freud.
Additional text
At a time when scholarship in both religion and psychoanalysis seeks to recover a repressed or marginalized anti-colonial past, Hiltebeitel's manuscript offers a wealth of information which scholars of both religion and psychoanalysis will find fascinating and stimulating. This is the kind of research that stimulates more research.
