Dharma Its Early History in Law, Religion, and Narrative

by Hiltebeitel, Alf

• ISBN13: 9780195394238
• ISBN10: 0195394232
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-08-17
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Between 300 and 200 BCE, the concept and practice of dharma attained prominence across India. Both Buddhist and Brahmanical authors sought to clarify and classify their central concerns, and dharma proved a means of thinking through and articulating those concerns. Hiltebeitel shows the different ways in which dharma is interpreted over time: from the grand cosmic chronometries of kalpas and yugas to narratives about divine plans, gendered nuances of genealogical time, royal biography (even autobiography in the case of the emperor Asoka), and guidelines for daily life, including meditation. He reveals the vital role dharma played across political, religious, legal, literary, ethical, and philosophical domains and discourses about what holds life together. Through dharma, these traditions articulated their distinct visions of the good and well-rewarded life. This insightful study explores the diverse and changing signifcance of dharma in classical India in nine major dharma texts, as well as two pieces of writing that have traditionally been considered minor.

Author Biography

Alf Hiltebeitel's publications and research have taken him back and forth between the Mahabharata and fieldwork on the south Indian Draupadi cult. From this tandem project, his work branches out into related texts, most notably the Ramayana; other cults, including other Tamil Mahabharata cults and ones related to other regional Indian oral epics similar to the Draupadi cult Mahabharata; and into an attempt to understand the Indian concept of dharma.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Asoka Maurya

A Vedic History of Dharma

Early Buddhism: Three Baskets of Dharma

Post-Vedic Brahmanical Dharma

Dharma over Time, I: Big Time Dharma

Dharma over Time, II: Prophesies of Disaster

Women's Dharma: Sastric Norms and Epic Narratives

Two Dharma Biographies? Yudhisthira and Rama

Draupadi and Sita: Dharmapatnis of Two Different Kinds

Dharma and the Bhagavad Gita

Bhakti and Dharma

Asvaghoa's Buddhacarita: A Buddhist Reading of the Sanskrit Epics and Their Treatments of Dharma

Bibliography

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