Journal of Vaishnava Studies — Mahabharata

I want to thank Steven Rosen and oth­ers of the Jour­nal of Vaish­nava Stud­ies (JVS) for their Spring 2011 issue, which focuses on the Crit­i­cal Edi­tion of the Mahab­harata. It presents arti­cles by seven schol­ars dis­cussing the impact of the Crit­i­cal Edi­tion on Mahab­harata schol­ar­ship. They expose the prej­u­dices of early Ori­en­tal­ists that influ­ence schol­ar­ship to the present. Syn­thetic and ana­lytic approaches to the epic are compared.

Here are some insights I come away with: The Mahab­harata was never meant to be a his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tion. Rather it deals in a non­lin­ear mythic way with the mor­tal prob­lem of how to live in time. It presents the wis­dom of of the Vedas in a man­ner acces­si­ble by non-brahmins. Krishna’s divin­ity, the Bha­gavad Gita, and the Hari­vamsa are orig­i­nal inte­gral parts of the ear­li­est com­plete man­u­scripts rather than later addi­tions. Pur­vashikaha Brah­mins from the Kuru-Panchala wrote the man­u­script ca. 3rd BCE, took it with them, and dis­sem­i­nated it when they migrated to the South. Var­i­ous man­u­script tra­di­tions branched off from the orig­i­nal and adapted to local lan­guages and tra­di­tions through addi­tions and changes.

I have sub­scribed to the JVS or sev­eral years and find it help­ful to keep up with cur­rent schol­arly thought about Vaish­nav­ism. I find that crit­i­cal schol­arly approaches to the teach­ings are essen­tial for clear their clear under­stand­ing and interpretation.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 at 23:20 and is filed under Jungle dispatch and tagged with Bhagavad Gita, brahmins, Harivamsa, Journal of Vaishnava Studies, Mahabharata, Steven Rosen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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2 Responses to “Journal of Vaishnava Studies — Mahabharata”

1. Steve Bohlert says:

   September 8, 2011 at 16:06

   I pur­chased Pen­guin Clas­sics _The Mahabharata_, abridged and trans­lated by John D. Smith. It is based on the crit­i­cal edi­tion, and it seems quite well done from what I read of the intro­duc­tion. It is low priced. At Ama­zon, I paid $13.60 for this 834 page book, which is about as much as I care to read and more afford­able than many editions.
2. Steve Bohlert says:

   September 22, 2011 at 19:41

   I’m enjoy­ing read­ing this. It makes me won­der how­ever. It is called the fifth Veda. It was writ­ten for non-brahmins who had no access to the Vedas and it focuses on tales of the war­rior caste. It is the basis for devo­tion to Krishna. Yet today, many Krishna devo­tees who are born in non-brahminical fam­i­lies and soci­eties aspire to be brah­mins. Krishna says in the Gita that one should fol­low one’s own path rather than that of another. Uni­ver­sal­ist Radha-Krishnaism avoids this and encour­ages the prac­tice of nat­ural devotion.