Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Arjuna-Odysseus provides a comprehensive view of the ideology and shared heritage between the great Indian Sanskrit epic, the Mahābhārata, and early Greek traditions presented in the texts of Homer and Hesiod. By bringing together Greek Classics and Indology within a common origin perspective, the volume not only generates new answers to old questions, but also raises issues about preliterate oral tradition among the Indo-Europeans. It discusses themes like Homer's simile, Vyāsa's story; Argos and Hanuman: Odysseus' dog in the light of the Mahābhārata; Athena and Durgā warrior goddesses in Greek and Sanskrit epic; Iliad and Mahābhārata: the quarrel among the victors. First of its kind, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of Indo-european comparative literature, literature, cultural studies, religion, post colonial studies, Indian and Greek epics.
Synopsis
Bringing together the study of the Greek classics and Indology, Arjuna-Odysseus provides a comparative analysis of the shared heritage of the Mahābhārata and early Greek traditions presented in the texts of Homer and Hesiod.
Building on the ethnographic theories of Durkheim, Mauss, and Dumont, the volume explores the convergences and rapprochements between the Mahābhārata and the Greek texts. In exploring the networks of similarities between the two epic traditions, it also reformulates the theory of Georges Dum zil regarding Indo-European cultural comparativism. It includes a detailed comparison between journeys undertaken by the two epic heroes - Odysseus and Arjuna - and more generally, it ranges across the philosophical ideas of these cultures, and the epic traditions, metaphors, and archetypes that define the cultural ideology of ancient Greece and India.
This book will be useful to scholars and researchers of Indo-European comparativism, social and cultural anthropology, classical literature, Indology, cultural and post-colonial studies, philosophy and religion, as well as to those who love the Indian and Greek epics.