Philology and Criticism

A Guide to Mah¿bh¿rata Textual Criticism

von Joydeep Bagchee, Vishwa Adluri

570 Seiten, Hardcover

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

Philology and Criticism contrasts the Mah¿bh¿rata's preservation and transmission within the Indian scribal and commentarial traditions with Sanskrit philology after 1900, as German Indologists proposed a critical edition of the Mah¿bh¿rata to validate their racial and nationalist views. Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee show how, in contrast to the Indologists' unscientific theories, V. S. Sukthankar assimilated the principles of neo-Lachmannian textual criticism to defend the transmitted text and its traditional reception as a work of law, philosophy and salvation. The authors demonstrate why, after the edition's completion, no justification exists for claiming that an earlier heroic epic existed, that the Brahmans redacted the heroic epic to produce the Mah¿bh¿rata or that they interpolated "sectarian" gods such as Vis.n.u and ¿iva into the work. By demonstrating how the Indologists committed technical errors, cited flawed and biased scholarship and used circular argumentation to validate their racist and anti-Semitic theories, Philology and Criticism frees readers to approach the Mah¿bh¿rata as "the principal monument of bhakti" (Madeleine Biardeau). The authoritative guide to the critical edition's correct use and interpretation, Philology and Criticism urges South Asianists to view Hinduism as a complex debate about ontology and ethics rather than through the lenses of "Brahmanism" and "sectarianism." It launches a new world philology-one that is plural and self-reflexive rather than Eurocentric and ahistorical.

• Reihe: Cultural, Historical and Textual Studies of South Asian Religions
• Themen: Biographie, Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft Geschichte und Kritik
• ISBN: 9781783085767
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 29.06.2018
• Größe: 235 x 157 mm
• Verlag: Anthem Press