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Krishna's Mahabharatas: Devotional Retellings of an Epic Narrative is a comprehensive study of premodern regional Mahabharata retellings. This book argues that Vaishnavas (devotees of the Hindu god Vishnu and his various forms) throughout South Asia turned this epic about an apocalyptic, bloody war into works of ardent
bhakti or "devotion" focused on the beloved Hindu deity Krishna. Examining over forty retellings in eleven different regional South Asian languages composed over a period of nine hundred years, it focuses on two particular Mahabharatas: Villiputturar's fifteenth-century Tamil
Paratam and Sabalsingh Chauhan's seventeenth-century Bhasha (Old Hindi)
Mahahbharat.
List of contents
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Terms and Transliteration
- Introduction
- Part I
- 1. Setting the Scene: Interpretations of Krishna in the Sanskrit Mahabharata
- 2. Many (Krishna-Centric) Mahabharatas: An Overview of Premodern Regional Retellings
- Part II
- 3. Commencing and Concluding the Carita of Krishna: The First and Final Books of Villi's Paratam and Chauhan's Mahabharat
- 4. Prayers and Protection: Draupadi's Disrobing and the Book of Effort in Villi's Paratam and Chauhan's Mahabharat
- Part III
- 5. Beginning with Bhakti: Invocations and the Shrivaishnava Tradition in Villi's Paratam
- 6. Remembering Rama: The Role of Tulsidas's Ramayanas in Chauhan's Mahabharat
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Glossary of Characters
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Sohini Sarah Pillai is Assistant Professor of Religion and Director of Film and Media Studies at Kalamazoo College. Her co-edited volume (with Nell Shapiro Hawley), Many Mahabharatas, was published in 2021 by State University of New York Press.
Summary
Krishna's Mahabharatas: Devotional Retellings of an Epic Narrative is a comprehensive study of premodern regional Mahabharata retellings. This book argues that Vaishnavas (devotees of the Hindu god Vishnu and his various forms) throughout South Asia turned this epic about an apocalyptic, bloody war into works of ardent bhakti or
Additional text
Scholars of Sanskrit epics and devotional literature will welcome Sohini Pillai's insightful book which illuminates the epic's richness by analyzing Villiputturar's Tamil Paratam and Chauhan's Bhasha Mahabharat. She breaks down the rigid boundaries that separate south and north Indian bhakti texts by documenting the mythological, episodic, and rhetorical strategies that both poets deployed to transform a gruesome tale of war into a celebration of Krishna.
