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In Raja Yudhi??hira, Kevin McGrath brings his literary, ethnographic, and analytical knowledge of the Mahabharata to bear on the representation of kingship in the epic. He shows how the Mahabharata depicts both archaic and classical models of kingly and premonetary polity and how the king becomes a ruler who is seen as ritually divine. McGrath then addresses the idea of heroic religion in antiquity and the present, for bronze-age heroes still receive great ...
Why should Arjuna, a late Bronze Age hero in the epic Mahabharata, be worshipped today and receive popular devotion, not just in India but throughout the world? Mahabharata scholar Kevin McGrath addresses this question through an examination of Arjuna s presence in the Pune Critical Edition of the epic. According to him, the heroic Arjuna, the perfect warrior, acquired such significance because of his dual nature he exists simultaneously in two worlds, the human ...
Stri is a study of bronze-age femininity as portrayed in the Mahabharata. It focuses on the roles of wife, daughter-in-law, and mother, and also on the kinship groups. McGrath examines marriage systems and patterns of courtship as well as showing how different stages in a woman's life are depicted by this epic. He carefully demonstrates that the voice of women during pre-classical times was crucial for sustaining and maintaining dharma in society and he shows how ...