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When the Goddess was a Woman

Numen Book SeriesStudies in the History of ReligionsTexts and Sources in theHistory of ReligionsSeries EditorsSteven Engler (Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada)Richard King (University of Glasgow, Scotland)Kocku von Stuckrad (University of Groningen,The Netherlands)Gerard Wiegers (University of Amsterdam,The Netherlands)VOLUME 132

When the Goddess wasa WomanMahābhārata Ethnographies—Essays by Alf Hiltebeitel, Volume 2Edited byVishwa Adluri and Joydeep BagcheeLEIDEN • BOSTON2011

Madeleine Biardeau

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThese two volumes would not have been possible without the supportof many. We would also like to acknowledge the encouragement wereceived from many scholars, including Alf, of course, and Greg Bailey,Ashok and Vidyut Aklujkar, Jan Houben, Saraju Rath, T. P. Mahadevan,Graham Schweig and Satish Karandikar. Special thanks are due to JenyRuelo and to Roman Palitsky for their technical assistance. We thankMaarten Frieswijk for his tremendous support of this project and Saskiavan der Knaap for her work in laying out the volumes.Thanks are also due to our dear parents Dr. and Mrs. Adluri, andSandeep and Dr. Aruna Bagchee. We also thank Dr. Madhava Agusalafor his great support. A special thanks to all those who sustainedus with their love: Joachim Eichner, Thomas Komarek, and ElenaGarcès. Finally, we would like to thank colleagues who supported ourwork: Barbara Sproul, Arbogast Schmitt, Danielle Feller, and SimonBrodbeck.

CONTENTSAcknowledgements ............................................................................ viiIntroduction ........................................................................................ xiChronology of Works ....................................................................... xxxvi. millenial draupadīsChapter One Draupadī’s Hair ....................................................... 3Chapter Two Draupadī’s Garments ............................................. 33Chapter Three Śiva, the Goddess, and the Disguises of thePānḍ̣avas and Draupadī ................................................................ 53Chapter Four Purity and Auspiciousness in the SanskritEpics ................................................................................................. 83Chapter Five The Folklore of Draupadī: Sārīs and Hair .......... 101Chapter Six Orders of Diffusion in Indian Folk Religion ........ 125Chapter Seven Draupadī Cult Līlās ............................................. 147Chapter Eight Colonialist Lenses on the South IndianDraupadī Cult ................................................................................ 167Chapter Nine Review of Landscapes of Urban Memory ......... 191Chapter Ten Draupadī’s Question ................................................ 195ii. the sacrificial death of a co-wife’s sonChapter Eleven Dying Before the Mahābhārata War: Martialand Transsexual Body-Building for Aravān̠ .............................. 207Chapter Twelve Hair Like Snakes and Mustached Brides:Crossed Gender in an Indian Folk Cult .................................... 243Chapter Thirteen Kūttāṇtạvar: The Divine Lives of a SeveredHead ................................................................................................. 275Chapter Fourteen Kūttāṇtạvar’s Cross: Making That YoungBride, Whoever She Is, a Widow ................................................ 315

xcontentsiii. companion studiesChapter Fifteen The Indus Valley “Proto-Śiva”: Reexaminedthrough Reflections on the Goddess, the Buffalo,and the Symbolism of Vāhanas ................................................... 399Chapter Sixteen Fathers of the Bride, Fathers of Satī: Myths,Rites, and Scholarly Practices ...................................................... 433Chapter Seventeen Two Ways to Tell a Story: Ālhā in theBhavisỵa Purāṇa ............................................................................. 463Chapter Eighteen Boar and Twins: Comparing the Tulu Kōtị-Cennaya Pādḍana and the Tamil Elder Brothers Story ........... 487Chapter Nineteen On the Handling of the Meat and RelatedMatters: Two South Indian Buffalo Sacrifices ........................... 517Chapter Twenty Transmitting Mahābhāratas: Another Lookat Peter Brook ................................................................................ 547iv. apparatusBibliography ........................................................................................ 583Index .................................................................................................... 607

INTRODUCTIONThe second in a two-volume edition of Alf Hiltebeitel’s collected essays,When the Goddess Was a Woman presents twenty articles drawing mainlyon his fieldwork on the cult of Draupadī as south Indian goddess andthe related cult of Kūttāṇtạvar/Aravān̠. Published originally between 1978and 2005, these articles provide a comprehensive overview of Hiltebeitel’sdevelopment from his earliest textual studies on the symbolism associatedwith the goddess to his most recent pieces that discuss the reception andinterpretation of the Sanskrit epics in folk and other genres.However, rather than follow strict chronological order, we have chosento arrange the essays thematically: Part I under the heading “MillennialDraupadīs,” moves across ten chapters from treatments of Draupadī inthe Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata to portrayals of other Draupadīs in folkloresand literature; Part II, under the title “The Sacrificial Death of a Co-Wife’s Son,” contains four articles, the last newly written, about regionalvariations in the Tamil cult of Aravān̠/Kūttāṇtạvar; Part III, under the title“Companion Studies,” closes with six articles that compare Draupadī withgoddesses and heroines from other contexts in Indian mythology, oralepic, and local ritual, and one that discusses the ethnography behind PeterBrook’s relatively recent dramatization of the Mahābhārata.In contrast to Reading the Fifth Veda, the first of this two-volumeedition of Hiltebeitel’s selected works, which focuses mainly on theWestern academic reception of the Sanskrit epics, this volume mainlyseeks to address the relation between the classical Mahābhārata textand lived Mahābhāratas illuminated through ethnography. The volumeis organized around two complementary aspects of Hiltebeitel’swork: ethnographic and textual.From Indogermanisches Urepos to a Strī-Śūdra-VedaIn his article “Draupadī’s Hair” 1 from 1980, included here as the firstchapter in the volume, 2 one can see a preliminary culmination point1Alf Hiltebeitel, “Draupadī’s Hair,” Autour de la déesse hindoue, ed. MadeleineBiardeau, Puruṣārtha 5 (1981): 179–214.2Chapter 1 thus sets the stage for what might be called a bhakti re-reading of the

xiiintroductionof this process in the formulation of four “methodological workingassumptions.” As these assumptions are formative for the remainingarticles included in this volume, it is well worth considering themhere. Hiltebeitel writes:These [assumptions] are, first, that certain themes connected with a numberof the heroines of the Hindu epics can be illumined by looking to materialson the Hindu Goddess that often appear only later in post-epic literatureand folk traditions; second, that the epics themselves present a complextheological vision that gives pride of place not only to heroes and heroineswho represent aspects of Visṇ̣u, but also of Śiva and the Goddess; third, thatthe epics thus provide narrative reflections on (and of ) the cult and mythologyof the Goddess as it emerges into the literary light of day; and fourth,that the epic poets made selective use of oral traditions that probably hadsome affinities with oral and vernacular epic traditions still popular today. 3If one looks carefully at these four assumptions, one will see how theymap the future course of Hiltebeitel’s research. While the first assumptionleads Hiltebeitel to understand aspects of the epic retrospectively out ofritual traditions, 4 the second assumption’s influence can be clearly seen inthe two articles from 1980—“Draupadī’s Garments” (1980) 5 and “Śiva, theGoddess, and the Disguises of the Pāṇdạvas and Draupadī” (1980). 6 Next,a set of articles from the period 1985 to 1995 (reprinted as chapters 4–7 ofthis volume) are motivated in the attempt to understand something of thereciprocal relation between the textual and the ritual traditions; and “TwoWays to Tell a Story: Ālhā in the Bhavisỵa Purāṇa” (1999) 7 in particularundertakes a mapping of the classical epic onto oral and vernacular epics.epic, whose influence is not just limited to Hiltebeitel’s ethnographic studies, but canalso be seen in the article “The Two Krṣṇ̣as on One Chariot: Upanisạdic Imagery andEpic Mythology” from 1984; an article in which Hiltebeitel adopts as his “point of departure”the “assumption” “that the Mahābhārata in its classical form is a work of bhaktithrough and through.” “The Two Krṣṇ̣as on One Chariot: Upanisạdic Imagery and EpicMythology,” History of Religions 24 (1984): 1; reprinted in volume 1, pp. 485–512.3Hiltebeitel, “Draupadī’s Hair,” 181.4See especially the articles “Dying before the Mahābhārata War: Martial andTranssexual Body-Building for Aravān̠” (1995), “Hair Like Snakes and MustachedBrides: Crossed Gender in an Indian Folk Cult” (1998), and “Kūttāṇtạvar: The DivineLives of a Severed Head” (1999) published as chapters 11–13 of this volume and thenew article, unique to this volume, “Kūttāṇtạvar’s Cross: Making That Young Bride,Whoever She Is, a Widow” (chapter 14).5See n. 1 for the full citation.6Alf Hiltebeitel, “Śiva, the Goddess, and the Disguises of the Pāṇḍavas andDraupadī,” History of Religions, Twentieth Anniversary Issue 20 (1980): 147–74.7Alf Hiltebeitel, “Two Ways to Tell a Story: Ālhā in the Bhavisỵa Purāṇa,” inThe Resources of History: Tradition, Narration, and Nation in South Asia, ed. JackieAssayag, Institut Française de Pondichéry. Études thématiques, 8 (Pondicherry: ÉcoleFrançaise d’Extrême Orient, 1999), 96–112.

xivintroductionIn contrast, the reception and interpretation of the Mahābhārataamong audiences in India could only be of secondary concern—andthat too, only insofar as it could illuminate the text’s history andtransmission. In other words, if there was anything to learn from theŚūdra farmers, it could only be, paradoxically, what Western scholarscould tell them about where they stood in the hierarchy of the text’stransmission.Moreover, conventional scholarly wisdom held that they stood quitelow in this hierarchy. Present day Śūdra farmers of Tamilnadu, so ranthe implicit reasoning, were not only geographically and historicallyremote from the epic’s hypothesized origins among Āryan tribes orkingdoms in north India in the early first millennium BCE. 13 Rather,they were also cut off from the epic through distinctions of caste andreligious and social perspective. The epic, it was held, was the productof a heroic Āryan lineage and reflected its ethical and social norms.Śūdra farmers could not be further removed from the concerns of theKsạtriya kings and heroes immortalized in this supposedly originaloral bardic epic. 14 Nor could they claim, as the Brahmins could—who,it was asserted, had appropriated and refashioned the old Ksạtriyacentricpoem to their own socio-political ends 15 —to find their theolog-India. . . . in many ways the only window that we have on classical Indian society. . . .only through the creation of edited texts . . . can [we] begin to place these texts in theirproper context.“ Richard Lariviere, Protestants, Orientalists, and Brāhmaṇas: ReconstructingIndian Social History (Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts andSciences, 1995), 16–17.13Cf. n. 25 of the Introduction to volume 1.14Cf. Hermann Oldenberg, who makes a distinction between the “Hindu” and the“Aryan” and asserts that it is “given” to “the Germans philologists” to “know… theAryan of old India better than” the British “colleagues” who “live in his [the Hindu’s]country and breathe his air.” “Indische und klassiche Philologie,” Kleine Schriften, TeilII, ed. Klaus L. Janert (Wiesbaden: Fritz Steiner Verlag, 1967), 1517–1518; originallypublished in Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum, Geschichte und deutscheLiteratur und für Pädagogik 17 (1906): 1–9.15The thesis that the epic was originally the possession of the Ksạtriya- or warriorclassand only later taken over by Brahmins is a fundament of German epic scholarship.One finds the claim throughout 19th century literature, especially in the form that therewas an “older” epic (the so-called Urepos), to which the Brahmins later added massesof “didactic,” “theological,” and “devotional” material, ruining the simple noble linesof the former. Although the earliest references to a “Bhārata” as opposed to a “Mahā-”or “Great” “Bhārata” may be found in Lassen (1837), it is Goldstücker who gives thethesis its classic form: “The groundwork of the poem, as mentioned before, is the greatwar between two rival families of the same kin; it occupies the contents of about 24,000verses. This, however, was overlaid with episodical matter of the most heterogeneouskind…. Nor was this merely matter of accident in the sense in which such a term

introduction xvical or philosophical doctrines reflected in it. If the remaining Indiancastes saw anything at all of value in the text, this could only be due tothe fact that they were the dupes of Brahmin ideology—and it was upto a Western scholarly elite to “enlighten” them about their misconceptions.16 In other words, they needed to be taught how to read theirtexts “critically,” i.e., to be attentive both to historical differences in thetext (to the “layers,” “strata,” “rings,” “nodes,” “repetitions,” “interpolations,”and various other terms Western scholars had come up with)and to the vested interests (primarily religious, but also political andsocial) behind these historical changes to the text. 17might vaguely be used. A record of the greatest martial event of ancient India wouldhave emphatically been claimed as the property of the second or military caste, theKshattriyas…. But such an exaltation of kingly splendour and of the importance of themilitary caste, would as naturally threaten to depress that of the first or Brahmanicalcaste. Brahmans, therefore, would endeavour to become the arrangers of the nationalepos; and as the keepers of the ancestral lore, as the spiritual teachers and guides, aspriestly diplomatists, too, they would easily succeed in subjecting it to their censorship….It became thus the aim of the Brâhmanas to transform the original legend of thegreat war into a testimony to the superiority of their caste over that of the Kshattriyas.And this aim was effected not only by the manner in which the chief story was told,but also by adding to the narrative all such matter as would show that the positionand might of a Kshattriya depends on the divine nature and favour of the Brâhmanacaste…. Here and there an old legend or myth might be found in the epos, apparentlynot betraying such a set purpose.” Theodore Goldstücker, Literary Remains of the LateProfessor Goldstücker, vol. 2 (London: W. H. Allen, 1879), 97-99. For an analysis of thedeep Lutheran ressentiment this recurring Gestalt of German epic scholarship reveals,see our forthcoming The Nay Science: A History of German Indology.16The 19th century German scholar Albrecht Weber’s remark to the Prussian Ministerof Culture (Kultusminister) Karl Otto von Raumer is paradigmatic: “The studyof Indian antiquity has, in the last fifteen years, with the availability of the oldest holyscriptures of the Indians, the Vedas, gained unimaginably and increasingly in bothpractical and academic significance. The practical significance has affected England inparticular and has been acknowledged both there and in India, by the Christian missionsas well. The entire weight of the religious and cultural structure of contemporaryIndia appears to rest on the Vedas. As soon as they are unveiled from the mysteriousdarkness surrounding them till now [sobald nun diese nicht mehr in ihr bisherigesmysteriöses Dunkel gehüllt sind], and made accessible to all, all the untruths shall beautomatically revealed, and this shall, in time, put an end to the sorry plight of religiousdecadence [dem traurigen Zustande der religiöser Versumpfung] of India. Thecritical analysis and publication of Vedic texts shall assume a role among the Indians,similar to Luther’s translation of the Bible.” A. Weber, Letter to Karl Otto von Raumer,12.10.1855 (Humboldt University Archives, P. F. 1433); translated and cited in IndraSengupta, “State, University, and Indology: The Politics of the Chair of Indology atGerman Universities in the Nineteenth Century,” in Sanskrit and ‘Orientalism’: Indologyand Comparative Linguistics in Germany, 1750–1958, ed. Douglas T. McGetchin,Peter K. J. Park, Damodar Sardesai (Delhi: Manohar, 2004), 278–279.17To cite but two recent instances, Malinar, in her recent book on the BhagavadGītā, dismisses classical Indian philosophical commentaries on the Bhagavad Gītā as

xviintroductionAgainst the dominant prejudice, in an essay on the symbolism of thePāṇḍavas’ disguises written in 1980, 18 Hiltebeitel had already rejectedthe assumption that epic scholarship’s gaze had to be permanentlyturned backward, seeking to find traces of an Urepos beneath thedetritus of what later ages had added to the Mahābhārata. Rather thandistinguishing a Bhārata (original, oral, heroic, bardic, and historical)as opposed to the Mahābhārata (derivative, written, Brahmanic,and mythic), one could, he suggested, “observe” “instance[s]” of “epicthemes[s]” that could “only be understood from such ‘later’ sources.”One would thus have to, he writes,. . . interpret the Mahāhārata not only retrospectively but, in a sense, prospectively.Possibly the epic simply anticipates later forms. More likely,however, it evokes forms which we know of only (or largely) from latersources, but which are earlier than is commonly thought. One would thusneed to recognize the pliancy and selectivity of an oral tradition in itssymbolic articulation of some of the fundamental continuities of Hinduculture, for which the epic is not only the first great effort at synthesisbut a means to transmit this synthesis through the centuries, in Indiaand abroad. It is thus impossible to study the epic as a story frozen inits Sanskrit textual forms. For one thing, there are good grounds to suspectthat certain features of the story descend from an Indo-Iranian andIndo-European past. But more than this, one must assume that the epicpoets made selective use of oral traditions and popular cultural themes.Preposterous as it sounds, considering the immensity of the text, onewell as “modern Hindu interpretations of the text” on the grounds that “each authorestablishes his own hermeneutics on the basis of the religious or philosophical traditionhe adheres to.” Angelika Malinar, The Bhagavadgītā: Doctrines and Contexts(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 17. Are we to understand by thisstatement that German scholars have achieved perfect Standpunktfreiheit? Or are we tounderstand by it that their hermeneutics are acceptable, while “Indian” hermeneuticsare not? Or that every single Indian author does so, ignoring the important differencesbetween different schools, traditions, periods, philosophies, and standpoints? Surely,one of the contributions of the text-historical school has been its greater sensitivity tohistorical and textual variation, not to mention the subtle differences between differentschools and traditions? Yet von Stietencron, a scholar known for his contributionto the dialogue between India and Germany, voices near-identical sentiments in hisforeword to Malinar’s 1996 book: “The analytic thinking of Western interpreters whowere schooled in historico-philological methods stands in contrast to the traditionalIndian commentators, who not only harmonized and freely downplayed all breaks inthe text [i.e. the Bhagavad Gītā], but, above all, sought to read their own philosophical-theologicalconcepts out of individual textual passages, in order to secure Krṣṇ̣a’sdivine authority for them.” Angelika Malinar, Rājavidyā: Das königliche Wissen umHerrschaft und Verzicht (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1996), 1.18See n. 6 for the full citation.

introduction xviican pretty safely assume that the bards knew more about the main story,both in terms of variants and underlying symbolism, than they told. It isthus worth investigating whether what they left untold but implicit, orwhat they alluded to through symbols, is not still echoed in the vast oraland vernacular epic and epic-related traditions that perpetuate the storyto Indian culture to this day. I have come to suspect that living traditionsof and about the Mahāhārata are often in close touch with traditionalepic meanings that have escaped the classically based literary scholars. 19In rejecting the “old Indological prejudice” of “the older the moreauthentic” (Pollock), 20 Hiltebeitel was also calling attention to the waythe text had been transformed, interpreted, and disseminated withinthe Indian tradition: in Sanskrit dramas such as Bhatṭạ Nārāyaṇa’sVeṇisaṃ hāra (discussed in “Draupadī’s Hair”) 21 or in VilliputtūrĀl̠vār’s Tamil rendition of the Mahābhārata in Villi Pāratam (discussedin both “Orders of Diffusion in Indian Folk Religion” [1997] 22and in “Draupadī Cult Līlās” [1995]) 23 or the terukkūttu traditionof street-theatre (discussed in “The Folklore of Draupadi: Sārīs andHair” [1991] 24 and in “Transmitting Mahābhāratas: Another Look atPeter Brook” [1992] 25 ). In addition, Hiltebeitel proposed examiningthe breadth of the South Asian epic tradition as it had been transmittedin regional martial oral epics—the Pābūjī epic from Rajasthan, theTamil Elder Brothers Story, the Telugu Epic of Palnāḍu, and the Ālhāof the Hindi-speaking heartland of north India—for what it could tellus about the classical Sanskrit epics.But Hiltebeitel was not just drawing attention to oral and literaryre-creations or re-interpretations of the epic, but also to its place in theritual and sacrificial traditions of south India. In three ethnographicstudies written beteween 1995 and 1999, Hiltebeitel discusses a cult19Hiltebeitel, “Śiva, the Goddess, and the Disguises of the Pāṇḍavas,” 151–152.20See Sheldon Pollock, “Is There an Indian Intellectual History? Introduction to‘Theory and Method in Indian Intellectual History’,” Journal of Indian Philosophy36,5 (2008): 541.21See n. 1 for the full citation.22Alf Hiltebeitel, “Orders of Diffusion in Two Tamil Mahābhārata Folk Cults,”South Asian Folklorist 1 (1997): 9–36.23Alf Hiltebeitel, “Draupadī Cult Līlās,” The Gods at Play: Līlā in South Asia, ed.William Sax (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 204–24.24Alf Hiltebeitel, “The Folklore of Draupadi: Sārīs and Hair,” in Gender, Genre, andPower in South Asian Expressive Traditions, ed. Arjun Appadurai, Frank J. Korom,and Margaret A. Mills (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1991), 395–427.25Alf Hiltebeitel, “Transmitting Mahābhāratas: Another Look at Peter Brook,” TheDrama Review 36,3 (1992): 131–59.

xviiiintroductionthat exercises a remarkable fascination on him for its wealth of cluesto the interpretation of the Mahābhārata’s sacrificial, votive, and tragicmeanings: that of Kūttāṇtạvar/Aravān̠, the son of one of Draupadī’s cowives,the snake-princess Ulūpī. Aravān̠ is celebrated both at Draupadīfestivals and in a Tamil cult of his own for offering his body in sacrificeto the goddess Kālī and thus enabling Draupadī’s five husbands to winthe Mahābhārata war. In particular, the resonance that the cult enjoysamong the lower status Van̠n̠iyār (a Śūdra community whose membersregard themselves as Ksạtriyas, “as it were in a disguise forced uponthem by history”) 26 and the Alis (Tamil transsexuals or “eunuchs” whoshow up for the main festivities at Kūvākkam, “in large numbers—perhaps up to a thousand not only from throughout Tamilnadu butfrom Tamil Ali communities in cities all over India, and also fromSingapore”) 27 puts paid to the notion of the Mahābhārata as a Brahminimposition upon an unwitting lower-caste audience. The Alis areenthusiastic participants in Kūttāṇtạvar’s main procession, whom theymarry in a ritual ceremony prior to his sacrificial death and mourn,as Hiltebeitel notes, in scenes reminiscent of the Strīparvan’s heartrendingdepictions of the grieving Kaurava widows. More than theirunfolding of these hypotheses, however, Hiltebeitel’s ethnographicstudies are remarkable for illuminating an aspect of the Mahābhāratathat has been all too rarely taken into consideration in Western scholars’thematization of the epic: its analysis of war and sacrifice as “generaof becoming” with the intent of providing a soteriological responseto the problem of becoming. 28 Here Hiltebeitel’s description of theclimax of the Kūvākkam festivities is worth citing for its expressivequalities, which succeed in communicating something of the ecstaticrapture the audience experiences through participating in this ritualizedcycle of loss and renewal:The climax of the festival begins around 5:30 a.m. Awaiting the return ofthe keṭāyam procession, a vast crowd fills the open area among the villagetemples. On top of the Kūttāṇtạvar temple, cocks are offered: since26Hiltebeitel, “Śiva, the Goddess, and the Disguises of the Pāṇḍavas,” 169.27Alf Hiltebeitel, “Dying before the Mahābhārata War: Martial and TranssexualBody-Building for Arvān̠,” Journal of Asian Studies 54,2 (1995): 453–454.28For a discussion of the four “genera of becoming” (sacrifice, cosmology, genealogy,and war or agōn) and on what is meant by “becoming,” see Vishwa Adluri, SacrificialOntology and Human Destiny in the Mahābhārata (unpublished manuscript). The fourgenera are crucial to understanding the Mahābhārata as the entire epic is articulatedin terms of these four genera.

introduction xixthe recent prohibition on animal sacrifice, no longer cut but thrown upto the temple roof. Finally, the post or kampam on Kūttāṇtạvar’s tērstands ready for the building of the god’s body. Already in place are thehorses, forearms, feet, bells, and two flags (kotịccīlai) from Nāttan̠ hamlet,and straw to fill out the frame. The tiruvācci and umbrella (kutại),removed from the keṭāyam, are danced toward the tēr and raised to asupport atop the kampam, followed in similar fashion by the umbrella,from Cevaliyaṅkulạm village, and the winged half-tubular epaulets,raised to shoulder position. While the head is danced around the tēr,the god’s shoulders, beneath the epaulets, are filled with flowers: stringsof jasmine thrown up to the devotees assembling the deity on the bodyscaffold.Penultimately, the mār patạkkam is raised to the chest. Last,the head is raised and set on the pole’s top. A great boom of firecrackersgoes off; 200 kilograms of smoky camphor is lit in front (east) of thedeity; the entire concourse flings strings of jasmine, spectacularly fillingthe air before the flowers land on the god’s body as “two lakhs” worthof garlands (200,000 rupees). The Alis fling garlands removed from theirhair (Nārullā 1990: 40). Devotees on the god’s frame gather the flowersonto and into his body.Aravān̠ thus goes forth in heroic pose, ready to fight, his frame-andstrawbody complete, decorated, draped and filled with flowers. Thegiant image is drawn forth as a vīran̠ to repeat the march around thevillage streets. Now, however, he is said to begin looking sad: happy asa head, he is sad as embodied. Exhibiting tears and sweat, he is “likeNala,” as one informant put it. As he prepares for the rites that recall hiskalạppali and eighth-day fight, his embodied state registers his readinessfor sacrificial suffering and death. While his tēr goes around the village,he takes on an increasingly “dead look,” and when he reaches the southernstreet where the Alis rent, the Alis have a married man with themwho provides them with a white saree for their collective widowhood.Here they begin to ritualize Aravān̠’s death, undeterred by the additionaldeaths to follow. 29Certainly, the scholars who had posited Indo-European epic as the primaryframework for understanding the Mahābhārata were barely, if atall, aware of the existence of this parallel tradition of transmission andongoing interpretation. But even making room for some awareness ofearly reports, how was one to decide in favor of one tradition or theother? Aside from circular argumentation, where everything that wasthought not to belong to the original Indo-European or Āryan epic wasexcised as “late,” what evidence was there for an original “Bhārata”?In particular, could one account for the Mahābhārata in terms of an29Hiltebeitel, “Dying before the Mahābhārata War,” 459–460.

xxintroductionepic “core” plus “accretions,” or were such attempts hopelessly reductive?And, more immediately, what was the evidence for consideringthe south Indian folk and vernacular traditions as non-epic and asderiving, at least in part, from an alternative source than the Vedicand Āryan sources posited for the Mahābhārata? In the third of histhree ethnographic studies of the Kūttānṭạvar cult, Hiltebeitel offerssome conclusions that not only demonstrate how problematic thishypothesis is, but also how limited scholars’ interpretive frameworkswere in attempting to account for the Mahabharata tradition in all itsplurality:Kūttāṇtạvar’s recurrent lives, deaths, and reanimations, in fact, seem tospill into and out of all conventional boundaries, including those Hinduones that normatively define death, reanimation (the law of karma),and the rites of ‘establishment’ (pratisṭḥā) and ‘dismissal’ (visarjana)whereby deities are invited to enter into icons, enliven them with theirbreath (prāṇa) or Self (ātman), and depart from them. But there is littleif anything in the Kūttāṇtạvar cult that one can ascribe to tribal or other‘un-Hinduized’ influences, and much—beginning with the Vedic conundrumof the severed head and the dismemberment of Purusạ—that tapsdeep Hindu sources. 30Hiltebeitel’s ethnographic studies of the Draupadī and Aravān̠ cultswere also to lead to a broadening of the definition of the “epic tradition.”V. S. Sukthankar, the editor and initiator of the Critical Editionof the Mahābhārata, had already remarked in 1933 that “theMahābhārata is the whole of the epic tradition: the entire CriticalApparatus.” 31 Hiltebeitel, however, was now proposing to broadenthe definition of “epic tradition” to include ritual and performancein addition to the manuscript tradition. One would thus, he suggested,have to posit an “underground Mahābhārata” 32 in addition30Alf Hiltebeitel, “Kūttānṭạvar: The Divine Lives of a Severed Head,” in Ways ofDying: Death and its Meaning in South Asia, ed. Elizabeth Schömbucher and Claus PeterZoller (Delhi: Manohar, 1999), 309–310.31Vishnu S. Sukthankar, The Mahābhārata for the First Time Critically Edited,vol. 1: Ādiparvan (Pune: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1933 [1997]), cii.32Cf. Hiltebeitel, “The Folklore of Draupadi: Sārīs and Hair,” 395: “In this chapterI would like to address some folkloric material bearing on the same twin subjects[folklore of sarees and hair] and discuss it toward some additional ends, taking upthe wider issue of pan-Indian Mahābhārata folklores, and raising the question of therelation between the distinctly Tamil folklore about Draupadī that is found in hercult and wider pan-Indian themes. Are Tamil and other south Indian Mahābhāratafolklores (some of which are almost certainly older than the Draupadī cult) a sourceof diffusion for similar themes found elsewhere in India? Or does the classical epic justsuggest common folk responses? Is there a sort of ‘underground’ Mahābhārata, one

introduction xxito and alongside the text recovered in the Critical Edition, and thisunderground tradition was of no less significance in determining theepic’s meaning than scholarly theories on the literary Mahābhārata. 33Indeed, one could not, ultimately, separate the two, for, as Hiltebeitelremarks in the conclusion to the article where he first introduced theidea of an “underground Mahābhārata,”. . . there may well be an underground folk Mahābhārata. But it cannotbe monolithic. It has no prototype outside the Sanskrit text (which cannever be assumed to have fallen out of the “folk epic” frame of reference).If such a folk Mahābhārata exists, however, it would seem tobe centered on images of the goddess and the control of the land. Itslines of transmission and adaptation are too vast to ever trace fully. Butthose lines that do emerge suggest the crossing of many geographicaland linguistic boundaries, and symbols and motifs that recur in a widespectrum of “reflexive” and interpenetrating genres: from Mahābhāratavernaculars to folk dramas, from folk dramas to ritual idioms, fromritual idioms to temple tales, from temple tales to sisters’ tales, from sisters’tales to regional folk epics, from regional folk epics to Mahābhāratavernacularizations. 34In the present volume itself, one can see how the cross-fertilizationof ethnographic and textual approaches leads to complementary outcomes.Indeed, not all of Hiltebeitel’s essays in the volume are, as thesubtitle might lead one to expect, examples of ethnography, strictlyspeaking. Only those at the center of the book, in the section titled“The Sacrificial Death of a Co-wife’s Son,” are fully ethnographies inthe everyday anthropological sense of “writing about culture,” basedimmediately on the author’s fieldwork. 35 Yet, all the other essays in thisthat is perhaps even reflected in the Sanskrit epic itself but also different from it in certainbasic accentuations concerning the goddess? What are some of the features thatdistinguish Mahābhārata folklores from other Indian folklores? And how are folkloricthemes concerning the Mahābhārata related to distinctive modes of transmission andperformance? How and why is the Mahābhārata linked with certain regional folkepic traditions and not with others? And in such regional folk epic traditions wherethere is a connection, how do we understand their portrayals of virgin heroines at thecenter of conflicts over land? Draupadī’s sarees and hair provide a fitting entrée intothe problematics of such questions.” (This article has been reprinted as chapter 5 ofthe present volume.)33“Literary” here being meant in the limited sense of the narrative and not, as Hiltebeitelhas been arguing since the early 90s, in the broader sense that the Mahābhāratais a work of conscious literary and artistic design.34Hiltebeitel, “The Folklore of Draupadi,” 421.35Section 2 includes three previously published articles and one new one onKūttānṭạvar. These four articles together form a little book within this larger one and

xxiiintroductionbook are ethnographic in wider senses. Minimally, they draw on Hiltebeitel’sfieldwork on the Draupadī cult, with which the Kūttāṇtạvarcult, as he demonstrates, shares a history and terrain. In that regard,those in Parts I and III are essays that “surround” his strictly ethnographicwork, and open paths to and from Hiltebeitel’s Draupadī cultand Kūttāṇtạvar cult ethnographies into mainly (but not exclusively)wider South Asian terrains with which they can be profitably compared.In The Cult of Draupadī, vol. 1, which first established his fieldworkproject, Hiltebeitel wrote of “convergences” that “further widenthe scope of our inquiry into other topics with which the Draupadīcult intertwines,” including “the mythologies of local ‘village’ goddesses,the Hindu mythology of the goddess in its greatest extent, andthe Mahābhārata.” There he went on to mention a hypothesis that hehad begun to investigate in the essays that now provide chapters 1 to 4of this book: “despite the fact that the classical Mahābhārata makeslittle direct reference to the goddess, the epic narrative would seem tobe informed by the goddess’s mythology. If this is so, it means that afolk interpretation of the Mahābhārata that places the goddess at itscenter has every chance of revealing much to us about the classical epicitself. And that is what the South Indian Draupadī cult is: an adroitand compelling multileveled interpretation of a living Mahābhārata.” 36We may now say, with regard to the subtitle of this book, that Hiltebeitelwas beginning to envision the project of writing an ethnographynot only of the Draupadī cult, but of the classical epic itself and theculture (or cultures) that can be hypothesized to have produced anddisseminated it. We see some of the outcomes of such intentions inthis volume and in volume 1. In this volume, moreover, we can alsosee inklings of ethnographies of more modern communities of interpretation:from those of British colonial administrators to schools ofinterpretation found in Western and Indian academia, from those whostage Mahābhārata pageants in downtown Bangalore to those who putthe epic on the international stage.round off Hiltebeitel’s longstanding wish to produce a balanced interregional study ofthe cult of the god Kūttānṭạvar.36Alf Hiltebeitel, The Cult of Draupadī, vol. 1: Mythologies: From Gingee toKuruksẹtra (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 135.

introduction xxiiiMillennial Draupadīs: Part I of volume 2Like volume 1, volume 2 opens with chapters—the first five—that formulatedand set the stage for a program of research: in this case, one thatcarries through (not without some reconsiderations and reservations)through all the chapters that make up this book. The first three chaptersexplore working assumptions 37 that opened up new positions forHiltebeitel’s research in the late 1970s to early 80s.Unlike the “literary turn” that shaped a new direction for his workon the Mahābhārata in circa 1992 38 and provides the backbone for volume1, the essays in volume 2 developed these working assumptionsaround two main topics. One was the study of “The Goddess in Indiaand Beyond” (the title of a course Hiltebeitel created, and often givesat George Washington University). 39 The other topic was the study ofsymbolism, particularly that of women’s hair, sārīs, and jewels, alongwith the theme of disguises, as seen in chapters 1–5. Through thesestudies and convergences, Hiltebeitel was attempting to work outthe relationship between ethnographic findings, principally in Tamilculture (and more extensively, south Indian cultures with Dravidianlanguages), and the classical Sanskrit Mahābhārata text. That relationshipbegan to be well formulated in the three studies of chapters1–3. These formulations sought to focus on the goddess through theepic, and the question of what light Mahābhārata ethnography andthe Sanskrit epic can mutually shed on each other: a matter in whichthe goddess turned out to be pivotal. In effect, it could be suggestedthat it was the study of the goddess that would force open the literaryturn that followed, by calling attention to the literary artistrythrough which Draupadī and other heroines of the Sanskrit epics were37See pp. vii–viii above.38See now the Introduction to volume 1 of Collected Essays by Alf Hiltebeitel; cf.especially pp. vii–xxxii.39Hiltebeitel’s “The Indus Valley ‘Proto-Śiva’: Reexamined through Reflections onthe Goddess, the Buffalo, and the Symbolism of vāhanas” (chapter 15) looks to thecult of the goddess Durgā and her combat with the Buffalo Demon Mahiṣāsura to seeif it might shed some light on a well-known figure on an Indus Valley seal. Other goddesses,including especially Satī (chapter 16) and Kālī (chapter 11–14, 17), also figureprominently in this book, as does a close look at two south Indian buffalo sacrificesin chapter 19.

xxivintroductionportrayed. 40 Whereas chapters 1 (1981) 41 and 2 (1980) 42 are pieces thatbegan a search to look at Draupadī in the epic more or less on herown, chapter 3 (1980) 43 is an investigation into the Virātạparvan andtakes up the idea that not only her disguise shows her relation to thegoddess, but likewise her husbands’ disguises show how each one ofthem is capable of reminding us of Śiva. All three of these articleshad behind them the beginning years of Hiltebeitel’s ethnographicresearch on the south Indian Draupadī cult. Chapter 4, “Purity andAuspiciousness in the Sanskrit Epics” (1985), 44 begins to register thatthe same questions and formulations can be productive in studyingthe Rāṃ āyaṇa. Chapter 5 (1991) 45 then marks a rounding off of theseworking assumptions by arriving at some tentative conclusions formedby the late 1980s. The conclusion of chapter 5 then points furthertoward Hiltebeitel’s literary turn 46 where it says, “there may well be anunderground folk Mahābhārata. . . . [But] It has no prototype outsidethe Sanskrit text. . . .” 47Chapters in this book from the early 90s on begin to reflect Hiltebeitel’sgrowing involvement in the George Washington UniversityHuman Sciences Program, which he was to direct from 1997to 2002. Many subsequent chapters reflect the widening of interdisciplinaryquestions that interested Hiltebeitel in that period, includingpost-colonial studies (chapter 8; 1992), 48 gender studies (chapter40For a demonstration of the validity of this suggestion now in his most recentwork, see Alf Hiltebeitel, Dharma: Its Early History in Law, Religion, and Literature(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), chapter 8.41See n. 1 for the full citation.42Alf Hiltebeitel, “Draupadī’s Garments,” Indo-Iranian Journal 22 (1980): 97–112.43See n. 6 for the full citation.44Alf Hiltebeitel, “Purity and Auspiciousness in the Sanskrit Epics,” Purity andAuspiciousness in India, ed. Frédérique Apffel Marglin and John Carman, Journal ofDeveloping Societies 1 (1985): 41–54.45See n. 24 for the full citation.46“Although my own work on the Mahābhārata has taken various turns andgrounded itself in changing scholarly approaches—Indo-European studies, history ofreligions, anthropology, history—I believe that the largest inadequacy in Mahābhāratascholarship, including my own up to 1991, is simply the failure to appreciate the epicas a work of literature.” Alf Hiltebeitel, “Reconsidering Bhṛguization,” in Composinga Tradition: Concepts, Techniques, and Relationships, ed. Mary Brockington and PeterSchreiner (Zagreb: Croatian Academy of Sciences and the Arts, 1999), 156.47Chapter 5, 124. These concerns were further and more extensively explored inHiltebeitel’s Rethinking India’s Oral and Classical Epics (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1999), of which chapters 17 and 18 can be called spin-offs, and in theessays that make up chapters 11–14, all focused on the Kūttāṇtạvar cult.48See n. 10 above for the full citation.

introduction xxv10; 2000), 49 and psychoanalysis (chapters 12 [1998] 50 and 16 [1999]). 51Running through several chapters is also a basic determination tocontextualize both ethnographic and textual scholarship historically,and to resist ahistorical formulations about either the goddess orthe Mahābhārata, whether in local, regional, or pan-Indian forms. 52“Orders of Diffusion in Indian Folk Religion” (chapter 6; 1997) 53raises wider questions about the problem of diffusion in thinkingabout the goddess, both as played out on the local level with differentaspects of the Draupadī cult and investigating likewise the problemof thinking about wider questions of diffusion from sources outsideIndia (ancient Near East, etc.). “Draupadī Cult Līlās” (chapter 7;1995) 54 is a comparison of drama performances at Draupadī festivalsand at Rām- and Ras Līlās in north India, which are focused on Rāmaand Krṣṇ̣a. “Colonialist Lenses on the South Indian Draupadī Cult”(chapter 8) is an examination of how early reports on the Draupadīcult and other south Indian goddesses set an early agenda that laterscholars have had to consider in looking at the cult. “Review of Landscapesof Urban Memory” (chapter 9; 2003) 55 is a discussion of how amodern interpreter of a very different kind of Draupadī festival foundin Bangalore, but still part of the same tradition, has raised questionsthat still call for further discussion of some of the deeper traditionsof Draupadī worship. Finally, “Draupadī’s Question” (chapter 10), 56which is addressed on a textual level in Hiltebeitel’s Rethinking theMahābhārata: A Reader’s Guide to the Education of the Dharma King, 5749Alf Hiltebeitel, “Draupadī’s Question,” in Is the Goddess a Feminist? ed. KathleenErndl and Alf Hiltebeitel (London: Sheffield, 2000), 113–22.50Alf Hiltebeitel, “Hair Like Snakes and Mustached Brides: Crossed Gender in anIndian Folk Cult,” in Hair: Its Meaning and Power in Asian Cultures, ed. Alf Hiltebeiteland Barbara D. Miller (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 143–76.51Alf Hiltebeitel, “Fathers of the Bride, Fathers of Satī: Myths, Rites, and ScholarlyPractices,” Thamyris: Mythmaking from Past to Present 6,1 (1999): 65–94.52Chapters 11 and 14 on eastern and western wings of the Kuttāṇtạvar cult, andchapter 16 on satī, in particular, are insistent on formulating historical hypotheses onthe background of cults and myths.53See n. 22 for the full citation.54See n. 23 above for the full citation.55Alf Hiltebeitel, Review of Landscapes of Urban Memory; the Sacred and the Civicin India’s High-Tech City, by Smriti Srinivas, Journal of Asian Studies 62,1 (2003):319–22.56See n. 49 above for the full citation.57Alf Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahābhārata: A Reader’s Guide to the Educationof the Dharma King (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).

xxviintroductiontakes up not only a brief discussion of Draupadī’s humiliation in theKuru court, but a modern fictional relocation of that story into tribaland Marxist confrontations with the government in Bihar.These four articles form a kind of subset within this first section andgive support to Hiltebeitel’s sense that Draupadī is actually central tothe Sanskrit epic; in his words, one of the epic’s primary foci is “thequestion of who Draupadī is as a figure—a rebel, a figure who is independent,vigorous, challenging, a principled woman, a very differentkind of woman, intellectually shrewd, on top of things to the extent itis possible to be on top of such things.” 58The Sacrificial Death of a Co-Wife’s Son and Companion Studies:Parts II and IIIAt the center of this book are four chapters on a cult that cross-sectionswith the Draupadī cult: that of Kūttāṇtạvar/Aravān̠. These are ethnographicpieces, so the literary turn is not as major an influence here asstudying the distinctive and much less accessible cult and temples ofKūttāṇtạvar, which Hiltebeitel sought to map in the mid to late 1990s.Although it is doubtful that he found them all, he was able to find 44through mainly oral sources. Hiltebeitel’s main interest in these piecesis in figuring out how Aravān̠/Kūttāṇtạvar becomes central to a cult ofhis own outside the Draupadī cult, and why this cult is so very differentin its stories and rituals in different parts of northern Tamilnadu.In this section, one of the questions that is important is the relationbetween these two cults—Draupadī’s and Kūttāṇtạvar’s. The first threeessays, written in the 1990s, 59 were all concerned mainly with differentfacets of the most publicized and exuberant festival for Kūttāṇtạvar—found in the village of Kūvākkam. There and at some other nearbyvillages, it is a cult which features very prominently the role of transvestites,and this raises major gender-related questions across the cultin other areas as well, especially around the question of who it is thatmarries Aravān̠, since in Kūvākkam it is none other than Krṣṇ̣a who58Personal communication.59Hiltebeitel, “Dying before the Mahābhārata War”; “Hair Like Snakes and MustachedBrides”; “The Divine Lives of a Severed Head.”

introduction xxviitakes the form of Mohinī. Chapters 11 to 13 have undergone the mostrevision of any chapters for this book so as to avoid overlap and buildup three separate arguments centered on the spectacular worship ofKūttāṇtạvar at Kūvākkam village, located at the eastern end of the beltof Kūttāṇtạvar cult diffusion.The last chapter of this section, “Kūttāṇtạvar’s Cross: Making ThatYoung Bride, Whoever She Is, a Widow,” is an entirely new article,written just for this book, which filled an obligation to round thisresearch out. It focuses on the festival at a temple and stories of Aravān̠at the other end of the map as far as Kūttāṇtạvar worship goes: inCoimbatore in southwestern Tamilnadu, where Kūttāṇtạvar’s body ismade of a cross. Here, what we learn about Kūttāṇtạvar from othertemples, including Kūvākkam, is very germane as is the case in reverse.There seems to be history here and a way in which we can identify thishistory around the different brides who marry him. In Coimbatore, hemarries a totally different woman from Mohinī. This essay begins withthe question of what it means for Draupadī herself to be relying uponthe death of a co-wife’s son to bring about the death she seeks, andconcludes with a consideration of the possibilities of familiarity withJesuit missions in the 16th century. The Kūttāṇtạvar cult findings offera virtual laboratory on the relation between Mahābhārata cults, andon the goddess and the epic in local and regional variations.Finally, Part III of this book features six essays on broader themesrelating to the epic under the title “Companion Studies.” These areessays which were all written in conjunction with larger questionsraised by Hiltebeitel’s research on the Draupadī cult and the goddess.The Draupadī cult is in the background of these essays, but it is not atthe center of what they are about. The section begins with a 1970s articlethat focused on the as-yet-unresolved question of the figure on theIndus Valley seal, that many have called the Indus Valley Proto-Śiva(chapter 15; 1978). 60 This is a landmine area for anyone, but this articledoes state a position that still has attractions for scholars interested inthis discussion. 61 “Fathers of the Bride, Fathers of Satī: Myths, Rites,60Alf Hiltebeitel, “The Indus Valley ‘Proto-Śiva’: Reexamined through Reflections onthe Goddess, the Buffalo, and the Symbolism of vāhanas,” Anthropos 73 (1978): 767–97.61“An interesting and provocative has been published by A. Hiltebeitel, who drewheavily on the work of B. Volchok, one of the Russian scholars who worked on their

xxviiiintroductionand Scholarly Practices” (chapter 16; 1999) 62 brings Draupadī’s incarnationas Belā in the Hindi Ālhā epic into a discussion of women whobecome Satīs and what their relations are with their fathers—one of theproblematic tensions in Satī mythology, if not also in practice. “TwoWays to Tell a Story: Ālhā in the Bhavisỵa Purāṇa” (chapter 17; 1999) 63is in the best tradition of the way that an oral epic is, as it were, literallySanskritized by being retold in a Purāṇic setting. Draupadī figuresin this story, reborn as Belā. “Boar and Twins: Comparing the TuluKōtị-Cennaya Pāḍdana and the Tamil Elder Brothers Story” (chapter18; 2005) 64 takes up the question of whether south Indian Mahābhāratafolklores enter into a Tulu (South Kanara) version of a story also foundin Tamilnadu, about twin brothers’ combat with a giant boar. “On theHandling of the Meat, and Related Matters: Two South Indian BuffaloSacrifices” (chapter 19; 1985) 65 compares a buffalo sacrifice in the fort atthe south Indian capital where Draupadī has her original temple withvivid archival documentation of a 19th century buffalo sacrifice fromKarnataka. Finally, in chapter 20 (1992), 66 Peter Brook is the subject of adiscussion of the way Indian theatrical representations of Mahābhāratawere looked at by Brook, what he got from them, and what he missed—in particular, by snubbing the performances of the terukkūttu in Tamilnadu,which Hiltebeitel arranged for him to see.The title of this book is meant to guide the reader through these threeparts: first through two millennia of varied representations of Draupadī;then into a companion cult of the Tamil Draupadī cult, on which Hiltebeitelhas centered much of his Mahābhārata ethnography; and then onto companion pieces that follow up trails opened up by this ethnographyfrom the Indus Valley civilization to the 20th century internationalattempted decipherment of the Indus script. Hiltebeitel’s critique is much like Srinivasan’s,but he makes much of the fact that the horns on the central figure are thoseof a buffalo . . . but not proved.” Gregory L. Possehl, The Indus Civilization: A ContemporaryPerspective (New Delhi: Vistaar Publications, fifth printing 2009; first pub. 2002by AltaMira Press), 142.62See n. 51 above for the full citation.63See n. 7 above for the citation.64Alf Hiltebeitel, “Boar and Twins: Comparing the Tulu Kōtị-Cennaya Pāḍdanaand the Tamil Elder Brothers Story,” in In the Company of Gods: Essays in Memory ofGunther Dietz Sontheimer, ed. A. Malik, A. Feldhaus, and H. Brückner (Delhi: IGNCAand Manohar, 2005), 141–75.65Alf Hiltebeitel, “On the Handling of the Meat, and Related Matters: Two SouthIndian Buffalo Sacrifices,” Divisione delle Carne: Dinamica Sociale e Organizzazionedel Cosmo, ed. Christiano Grottanelli L’Uomo 9 (1985): 171–99.66See n. 25 above for the full citation.

introduction xxixstage of Peter Brook. The title points to an especially salient feature ofDraupadī: that she is an incarnation of a goddess named Śrī. It would bea bit incautious to say that “When the Goddess Was a Woman” is a titlethat could only apply to Draupadī. The Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīkigives some hints that it could also apply to that epic’s heroine Sītā, andin some later versions of the Rāmāyaṇa it certainly does. But in theMahābhārata, the goddess having become a woman is a more salientand complex matter than it ever is for Sītā. And as Hiltebeitel found,it is also one that is more open to theoretical, historical, ethnographic,and literary questions. Together with the unfolding implications of thetitle, the three-part structure is one through which theoretical, historical,ethnographic, and literary threads can be traced through the book, tyingtogether themes from the three different sections.Exegesis: Mythic and RitualAs we have laid out the two volumes in this series, we have made a distinctionbetween the more theoretical studies of the Sanskrit epics involume 1 and the ethnographic and topical treatments of the goddessand her related cults in volume 2. In spite of their differing thematicfoci, however, we see the two volumes as complementary. One cannotfully grasp Alf Hiltebeitel’s contribution to the study of the epicwithout also reading volume 2. Nor can one hope to understand thesignificance of Hiltebeitel’s turn to the reception of the Mahābhārataamong Śūdra communities in south India in the late 70s and early80s without first having some understanding of the prejudices of epicscholarship against such a move until that point in time. Hiltebeitelcan rightly be called the first scholar to have taken the Mahābhārata’sclaim to being a Veda for all classes and beings—a strī-śūdra-veda—seriously. 67 As Hiltebeitel shows in his studies of the cult of Aravān̠,67On the epic’s popular title as a strī-śūdra-veda or a “Veda for women andśūdras,” Black’s discussion in a forthcoming article is especially useful. Black notesthat “Although the Critical Edition does not contain the well known description ofthe epic as a text ‘for women and śūdras’, the Mahābhārata does seem to regard itselfas delivering a universal message. In addition to the numerous phalaśrutis throughoutthe text that address audiences beyond those who are male and of the twicebornclasses, Vyāsa himself, in the Śāntiparvan, instructs his disciples to teach his storyto members of all four varnạs (12.314.45). In light of the author’s own instructionto his students, what better way to reach a diverse and inclusive audience than tohave Brahmanical knowledge communicated by someone of lower birth. Indeed, withoutmaking any claims about the ‘real’ history of the text, this scenario seems to be

xxxintroductionit becomes increasingly difficult to sustain the fiction of the epic as“religious rhetoric” or as an “ideological vehicle” in light of the concreteevidence of the reception of the text among non-Brahmanicalcommunities in India. 68Such an approach need not imply a refusal to take the epic seriouslyas a work of history. Rather, it requires a willingness to suspend totalizingconstructions of history such as the Āryan hypothesis (Holtzmann,Oldenberg, Jakob Wilhelm Hauer) 69 or the racial hypothesis of“white Aryans [die weissen Arier]” versus “black natives [schwarzenthe one that the Mahābhārata tells about its own transmission: originating amongbrahmins, but learned by sūtas such as Ugraśravas who, implicitly, share such talesand legends with a wide audience, particularly when they frequent popular pilgrimagesites, such as the ones Ugraśravas visited before arriving in the Naimisạ Forest.”Brian Black, “Transitions and Transmissions in the Mahābhārata: Revisiting theUgraśravas/Śaunaka Frame Dialogue,” in Revisiting Transitions in Indian History, ed.Ranabir Chakravarti and Kumkum Roy (Delhi: Oxford University Press, forthcoming),11. On the term strī-śūdra-veda itself, Black notes that the description “appearsin the Bhāgavata Purānạ (1.4.25), which says that Vyāsa composed his story out ofcompassion for women, śūdras, and uneducated twice-borns. Nonetheless, there area number of individual phalaśrutis throughout the text that offer rewards for śūdrasand women.” Ibid., n. 16. (This note repeats a discussion found in Vishwa Adluri,“Frame Narratives and Forked Beginnings: Or, How to Read the Adiparvan,” Journalof Vaishnava Studies 19,2 [Spring 2011]: 192, n. 7.)68See especially Raf Gelders and Willem Derde, “Mantras of Anti-Brahmanism:Colonial Experience of Indian Intellectuals,” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 38,no. 43 (Oct. 25–31, 2003): 4611–4617. As the authors, both social scientists, demonstrate,there is little to suggest the kind of hierarchical top-down imposition of Brahmanic“ideology” that has been a central trope of German scholarship on the epic untilnow. As Hiltebeitel’s field studies of the Aravān̠ cult demonstrate, the epics’ textualporosity has allowed a number of communities either to find themselves reflected insome aspect of it or to positively appropriate and retell the narrative in a way moregermane to their specific context.69Jakob Wilhelm Hauer was a founder the “Aryan Seminar” (das Arische Seminar)at the University of Tübingen and a member of the SS and SA. Interned after thewar and found guilty of collaboration with the Nazis, Hauer was banned from teachinguntil 1950. On Hauer’s life and work, see Šā’ûl Bauman, Die Deutsche Glaubensbewegungund ihr Gründer Jakob Wilhelm Hauer (1881–1962), trans. Alma Lessing(Marburg: Diagonal Verlag, 2005). The classic Hauer biography is Margarete Dierks’Jakob Wilhelm Hauer: 1881–1962. Leben, Werk, Wirkung, mit einer Personalbibliographie(Heidelberg: Schneider, 1986), but it is almost entirely inaccurate; Dierks herselfwas a member and sympathizer of the NSDAP and her Hauer biography a patentattempt at rehabilitating him; see her dissertation Die preußischen Altkonservativenund die Judenfrage 1810/1847 (Ph.D. Diss., University of Rostock, 1939). On theAryan Seminar, see Horst Junginger, “Das ‘Arische Seminar’ der Universität Tübingen1940–1945,” in Indienforschung im Zeitenwandel: Analysen und Dokumente zurIndologie und Religionswissenschaft in Tübingen, ed. Heidrun Brückner and AngelikaMalinar (Tübingen: Attempto Verlag, 2003), 177–207.

”introduction xxxiUrbewohner]” 70 (Lassen) or the theory of a Brahmanic “Counter-Reformation” 71 (Holtzmann) against the reformatory impulse ofIndian Buddhism. As a passage from Hiltebeitel’s 1980 article on thedisguises of the Pāṇḍavas demonstrates, the question of the “place ofthe Mahābhārata in the history of Hinduism” is a crucial one, but onethat can only be answered through a sensitive and nuanced appreciationof how this text evolves in concert with this history. Such aninquiry requires us to take seriously all the available evidence: historical,textual, ritual, social, and mythic.First, I regard the Mahābhārata as a text which attempts a great synthesisof Indian civilization in the name of Hinduism. By synthesis,however, something different is meant from the confluence of “Epos”and “Rechtsbuch” stressed in the last century by Joseph Dahlmann. Therecent work leading to an understanding of this synthesis has been carriedout by scholars who have stressed the “transpositions” or “connections”worked out by the epic poets in relating the story to para-Vedic (insome cases Indo-European), Vedic, Brāhmaṇical, and Upanisạdic symbols,myths, and rituals, and also to the mythic material fully developedfor the first time in the “background myths” told in the course of thenarrative itself. But it becomes increasingly clear that a full understandingof this synthesis—and thus of the place of the Mahābhārata in thehistory of Hinduism—requires a recognition that the epic also evokes,through its symbolism, certain cultural themes, myths, ritual practices,70“Since the Pânkậla assuredly belonged to the Aryan races, we may not interpretthe relationship between them and the Pândava as though these ought to be describedas belonging to the black aborigines [Urbewohnern] of India on the basis of the blackcolor that is attributed to Krishṇâ, these [others] as the white Aryans [weisse Arier].Nonetheless, the distinction according to color must have a significance and thiscan only be that the Pânkậla, like the Jâdava, who are represented by Krishṇa, bothbelonged to the Aryan races who entered [India] earlier, [and] became darker throughthe influence of the climate as the youngest entrants from the north, and in contrast tothese are called the black.” C. Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde (Leipzig: Verlag vonL. A. Kittler, 1867), 791; editors’ translation.71Adolf Holtzmann, Zur Geschichte und Kritik des Mahābhārata (Kiel: C. F. Haeseler,1892), 98. The entire passage is of interest for its evocation of the horrors of thissupposed conservative reaction: “Around the time of the beginning of our calendar,the hard and bloody battle [hart und blutige Kampf ] seems to have gotten underway,in whose course the resurrected Brahmanism finally became master over its dangerousfoe…. Incidentally, the course of the gigantic battle [Riesenkampfes] can be amatter of indifference to us here, its result at any rate remains firm. Buddhism wasviolently exterminated in those areas where it had blossomed for centuries. The causesare clear: . . . a violent effort, an energetic Counter-Reformation [Gegenreformation] ofthe Brahmins, which, through its adoption of the people’s gods especially the belovedVishṇu-Krṣhṇa, and of the entire folk-superstition [Volksaberglauben], had won overthe masses for itself. . . .. (editors’ translation).

xxxiiintroductionand social norms that are not fully attested historically until “post-epic”times, sometimes in later texts, sometimes even in contemporary folkcults and practices. 72In other words, one cannot simply examine “texts” as though they weremere marks upon paper. A text grows out of and reciprocally influencesa culture: hence, if our aim is to truly appreciate that text, wemust evolve an analysis along both vectors: textual and ethnographic,or, as Hiltebeitel terms it in his earliest reflections upon the subject,mythic and ritual. Yet, as Hiltebeitel argues in a critique of Dumézilin his 1976 book, to do so requires the ability to suspend our massivehistoricist prejudice against other levels of meaning, such as metonymy,myth, religious practice, and philosophical and cosmologicalunderstanding. 73 As Hiltebeitel demonstrates, a reductive system of“transpositions,” however “ingenious,” fails to account for the complexity,not just of the Mahābhārata, but any narrative and any culturalphenomenon. 74 Hence, “transpositions cannot be regarded as the72Hiltebeitel, “Śiva, the Goddess, and the Disguises of the Pāṇḍavas,” 151.73Goldstücker’s 1879 review of the Mahābhārata provides us what is perhaps thelocus classicus for this historicizing view and, in particular, provides an understandingof the interpretive framework of much early Orientalist writing on the Indian epics.“When, by priestcraft and ignorance, a nation has lost itself so far as to look uponwritings like these as divinely inspired, there is but one conclusion to be drawn: ithas arrived at the turning-point of its destinies. Hinduism stands at this point, andwe anxiously pause to see which way it will direct its steps. . . . All barriers to religiousimposition having been broken down since the Purânas were received by the masses asthe source of their faith, sects have sprung up which not merely endanger religion, butsociety itself; tenets have been propounded, which are an insult to the human mind;practices have been introduced, which must fill every true Hindu with confusion andshame. There is no necessity for examining them in detail . . . nor need we be at painsof convincing the intelligent portion of the Hindu community; for, the excellent workswhich it sent forth from Calcutta, Benares, and Bombay, and the enlightened viewswhich it propagates through its periodical press, fully prove that, equal in mentalaccomplishments to the European mind, it requires no evidence of the gulf whichseparates the present state of the nation from its remote past. . . . The cause of thegradual degeneracy of Hinduism, are, indeed, not different from those to which otherreligions are subject, when allowed to grow in the dark. In Europe, religious depravityreceived its check when the art of printing allowed the light of publicity to enter intothe book whence her nations derive their faith; and no other means will check it inIndia than the admission of the masses to that original book which is always on theirlips, but which now is the monopoly of the infinitesimal fraction of the Brahminicalcaste able to understand its sense; and admission, also, to that other and importantliterature which has at all periods of Hinduism striven to prove to the people thattheir real faith is neither founded on the Brâhmana portion of the Vedas, nor on thePurânas, but on the Rigveda hymns.” Theodore Goldstücker, Literary Remains of theLate Professor Goldstücker, vol. 2 (London: W. H. Allen, 1879), 77–78.74“Yet there is a point where I would disagree with Dumézil over the nature of

introduction xxxiiionly key to the ‘mythical exegesis.’ ” “More fundamental is what I call amethod of correlation or correspondence . . .” These correspondences,as Hiltebeitel demonstrates, cannot be limited to those between thebare historical event and its mythic encrustation, nor can the scholarlytask be restricted to mapping equivalences between historical “facts”and mythic retellings. Rather, we must look at these correspondencesas occurring “between two levels of continually changing and growingtradition: myth and epic.” In that case . . .The epic poets . . . emerge not so much as programmers, transposing oneset of information into another form, but as rṣịs, in this case the rṣịs ofthe “Fifth Veda” whose “school” is covered by the name of the elusive butever-available rṣị Vyāsa. By calling attention to this term for visionariesand poets, I refer in particular to the rṣịs’ faculty of “seeing connections,”“equivalences,” “homologies,” and “correspondences” discussed by JanGonda. This faculty of “seeing connections” would have involved theepic poets not only with correlations between myth and epic, but alsobetween epic and ritual—especially that of the Brāhmaṇic sacrifice. Thusthe “mythic exegesis” must coexist with a “ritual exegesis.” Moreover, ifthis was the procedure and orientation of the poets, it helps to explainwhy they have told certain myths at key points in the epic narrative.In some cases, they seem to have perceived correlations between mythsand adjacent portions of the epic plot, correlations which were meant todeepen one’s awareness of the meanings of the both the myth and the epicplanes, and ultimately, perhaps, to afford a glimpse of broader unities. 75the relation between myth and epic in the Mahābhārata. First, with regard to thequestion of individual transpositions, Dumézil speaks of a ‘veritable pantheon’which has been transposed into ‘human personages by an operation as meticulousas it was ingenious.’ These transpositions attest to ‘an “author’s” will,’ and thepoets themselves emerge as ‘erudite, skillful, loyal to a design,’ perhaps an academyof priests or several generations of a single school who would have composed thework ‘before writing, at the time of the four Vedas and the fifth.’ All this makesit possible for Dumézil to speak of the heroes as inflexible ‘copies’ of their mythicalprototypes. To me, this seems too mechanical and too short-term a process.”Hiltebeitel, The Ritual of Battle, 356–357.75Ibid., 359–360.

CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS*1. Books1976 The Ritual of Battle: Krishna in the Mahābhārata, “SymbolMyth Ritual” Series, Victor Turner, ed. Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress. (Reprinted Albany: State University of New YorkPress, 1990; Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1991.)1988 The Cult of Draupadī, vol. 1. Mythologies: From Gingee toKuruksẹtra. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (ReprintedDelhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992.)1991 The Cult of Draupadī, vol. 2. On Hindu Ritual and the Goddess.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.1999 Rethinking India’s Oral and Classical Epics: Draupadī amongRajputs, Muslims, and Dalits. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress. (Reprinted Delhi: Oxford, 2001.)2001 Rethinking the Mahābhārata: A Reader’s Guide to the Educationof the Dharma King. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.(Reprinted Delhi: Oxford, 2002.)2010 Dharma. South Asian Spirituality Series, Henry Rosemont ed.Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.2011 Dharma: Its Early History in Law, Religion, and Narrative.South Asia Research. Series ed. Patrick Olivelle. New York:Oxford University Press.2. Edited books1989 Criminal Gods and Demon Devotees: Essays on the Guardiansof Popular Hinduism. Albany: State University of New YorkPress.* Except for a few articles that were newly written, the articles in these two volumesrepresent material previously published elsewhere. The editors would like to take theopportunity here to thank the many publishers & journals for granting us permissionto reuse this material. Below we also explicitly acknowledge the original source of eachof these contributions

xxxvichronology of works1998 Hair: Its Meaning and Power in Asian Cultures. Co-editedwith Barbara D. Miller. Albany: State University of New YorkPress.2000 Is the Goddess a Feminist? The Politics of South Asian Goddesses.Co-edited with Kathleen M. Erndl. New York andLondon: New York University Press and Sheffield.3. Translations ( from French)1969 Georges Dumézil, The Destiny of the Warrior. Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press.1973 Georges Dumézil, The Destiny of a King. Chicago: University ofChicago Press. (Paperback reprint 1988.)1985 Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas, vol. 3: FromMuhammad to the Age of Reforms. Co-translated with DianeApostolos-Cappadona. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress.2004 Madeleine Biardeau, Stories about Posts: Vedic Variations on theHindu Goddess. Co-translator with James Walker and Marie-Louise Reiniche; co-edited with Reiniche. Chicago: UniversityChicago Press.4. Selected Articles, Including Long Review Articles[Articles included in this volume are denoted either with an asterisk(if in volume 1) or a double asterisk (if in volume 2)]1972 “The Mahābhārata and Hindu Eschatology.” History of Religions12: 93–115.1974 “Dumézil and Indian Studies.” Journal of Asian Studies 34:129–37.1975 “Comparing Indo-European ‘Epics’,” review of Mythe etepopee, vols. 2 and 3, by Georges Dumézil. History of Religions15: 90–100.1976 “The Burning of the Forest Myth.” Hinduism: New Essays inthe History of Religions. Ed. Bardwell L. Smith. Leiden: Brill.208–24.1977* “Nahusạ in the Skies: A Human King of Heaven.” History ofReligions 16: 329–50.

chronology of works xxxvii1977 Review Mahābhārata: Das Geschehen und seine Bedeutung,by Heino Gehrts. Erasmus 29, columns 86–92.1978** “The Indus Valley ‘Proto-Śiva’: Reexamined through Reflectionson the Goddess, the Buffalo, and the Symbolism ofvāhanas.” Anthropos 73: 767–97.1979 “Krṣṇạ in the Mahābhārata: A Bibliographical Essay.” Annalsof the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 60: 66–110.1979 “Hindu Mythology and its Evils,” review of The Origins ofEvil in Hindu Mythology, by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty.History of Religions 19: 269–75.1980 “Rāma and Gilgamesh: The Sacrifices of the Water Buffaloand the Bull of Heaven.” History of Religions 19: 197–223.1980** “Draupadi’s Garments.” Indo-Iranian Journal 22: 97–112.1980** “Śiva, the Goddess, and the Disguises of the Pānḍạvas andDraupadī.” History of Religions, Twentieth AnniversaryIssue 20: 147–74.1980–81 “Sītā vibhūṣītā: The Jewels for Her Journey.” IndologicalTaurinensia, Ludwik Sternbach Commemoration Volume8–9: 193–200.1981** “Draupadī’s Hair.” Autour de la déesse hindoue. Ed. MadeleineBiardeau. Puruṣārtha 5: 179–214.1982 “Sexuality and Sacrifice: Convergent Subcurrents in theFirewalking Cult of Draupadi.” Images of Man: Religionand Historical Process in South Asia. Ed. Fred W. Clothey.Madras: New Era Publications, 1982. 72–111.1982* “Brothers, Friends, and Charioteers: Parallel Episodes inthe Irish and Indian Epics.” Homage to Georges Dumézil.Ed. Edgar C. Polomé. Journal of Indo-European StudiesMonograph, no. 13: 85–112.1982 “Firewalking through the Mahābhārata: The Cult ofDraupadī and the Great Indian Epic.” The India Magazine2,4: 18–27.1983 “Toward a Coherent Study of Hinduism,” review article onthe studies of Madeleine Biardeau. Religious Studies Review9: 206–12.1983 “Die Glühende Axt: Symbolik, Struktur und Dynamik inChāndogya Upanisạd 6.” Trans. M. K. Ramaswamy. Sehnsuchtnach dem Ursprung: Zu Mircea Eliade. Ed. Hans PeterDuerr. Frankfurt am Main: Syndikat, 1983. 394–405.

xxxviiichronology of works1984 “Two South Indian Oral Epics.” History of Religions 24:164–73.1984* “The Two Krṣṇạs on One Chariot: Upanisạdic Imagery andEpic Mythology.” History of Religions 24: 1–26.1985 “Two Krṣṇạs, Three Krṣṇạs, Four Krṣṇạs, More Krṣṇạs:Dark Interactions in the Mahābhārata.” Essays in theMahābhārata. Ed. Arvind Sharma. Journal of SouthAsian Literature 20: 71–77. (Reprinted in Essays on theMahābhārata. Ed. Arvind Sharma. Brill’s IndologicalLibrary, vol. 1. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991. 101–9.)1985** “Purity and Auspiciousness in the Sanskrit Epics.” Papersfrom 1980 Conference on Religion in South India on Purityand Auspiciousness. Ed. Frédérique Apffel Marglin and JohnCarman. Journal of Developing Societies 1: 41–54.1985** “On the Handling of the Meat, and Related Matters, inTwo South Indian Buffalo Sacrifices.” Divisione delle Carne:Dinamica Sociale e Organizzazione del Cosmo. Ed. ChristianoGrottanelli. L’Uomo 9: 171–99.1988* “Krṣṇạ at Mathura.” Mathura: A Cultural Heritage. Ed.Doris Srinivasan. New Delhi: Manohar and American Instituteof Indian Studies. 93–102.1988 “South Indian Gardens of Adonis Revisited.” Essais sur lerituel, vol. 1. Ed. Kristofer Schipper and A. M. Blondeau.Colloque du Centenaire de la Section des Sciences Religieusesde l’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Bibliothèque del’EPHE Sciences Religieuses, vol. 92. Louvain and Paris:Peeters. 65–91.1988 “The South Indian Draupadi Cult.” Journal of Asian Studies(Madras) 6,1: 31–37.1989 “Introduction,” “Draupadī’s Two Guardians: the BuffaloKing and the Muslim Devotee,” and “Selected Bibliography.”Criminal Gods and Demon Devotees: Essays on the Guardiansof Popular Hinduism. Ed. Alf Hiltebeitel. Albany: StateUnniversity of New York Press. 1–18, 339–71, 463–72.1991 “Of Camphor and Coconuts.” The Wilson Quarterly 15,3:26–28.1991** “The Folklore of Draupadi: Sārīs and Hair.” Gender, Genre,and Power in South Asian Expressive Traditions. 395–427.Ed. Arjun Appadurai, Frank J. Korom, and Margaret A.Mills. South Asia Seminar Series. Philadelphia: Universityof Pennsylvania.

chronology of works xxxix1991–92 “South Indian Mahābhārata Folk Cults.” Conférence deM. Alfred Hiltebeitel, Directeur d’études associé. Annuaire:Résumé des conférences et travaux. Paris: École Pratique desHautes Études, Section des Sciences Religieuses. 135–39.1992** “Colonialist Lenses on the South Indian Draupadī Cult.”Ritual, State and History. Festschrift for Jan C. Heesterman.Ed. A. W. van den Hoek, D. H. A. Kolff, and L. M. S. Oort.Leiden: E. J. Brill. 507–31.1992** “Transmitting Mahābhāratas: Another Look at PeterBrook.” The Drama Review 36,3: 131–59.1994 “Epic Studies: Classical Hinduism in the Mahābhārata andthe Rāmāyanạ.” Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental ResearchInstitute 74: 1–62.1994 “Are Mantras Meaningful?,” review of Understanding Mantras,edited by Harvey P. Alper. Journal of Ritual Studies 8:125–30.1995** “Draupadī Cult Līlās.” The Gods at Play: Lila in South Asia.Ed. William Sax. New York: Oxford University Press. 204–24.1995 “Religious Studies and Indian Epic Texts.” Religious StudiesReview 21,1: 26–32.1995** “Dying Before the Mahābhārata War: Martial and TranssexualBody-Building for Arvān̠.” Journal of Asian Studies54,2: 447–73.1995 “Folk Religion and the Human Sciences in South India: ASummer Workshop.” Human Sciences Review 2: 2–5.1997** “Orders of Diffusion in Two Tamil Mahābhārata FolkCults.” South Asian Folklorist 1: 9–36.1998 “Introduction: Hair Tropes,” and **“Hair Like Snakes andMustached Brides: Crossed Gender in an Indian Folk Cult.”Hair: Its Meaning and Power in Asian Cultures. Ed. AlfHiltebeitel and Barbara D. Miller. Albany: State Universityof New York Press. 1–9, 143–76.1998* “Empire, Invasion, and India’s National Epics.” InternationalJournal of Hindu Studies 2,3: 387–421.1998 “Conventions of the Naimisạ Forest.” Journal of Indian Philosophy23: 69–79.1999** “Kūttānṭạvar: The Divine Lives of a Severed Head.” Waysof Dying: Death and its Meaning in South Asia. Ed. ElizabethSchömbucher and Claus Peter Zoller. Delhi: Manohar.276–310. + Plates 9–14.2

xlchronology of works1999** “Fathers of the Bride, Fathers of Satī: Myths, Rites, and ScholarlyPractices.” Thamyris: Mythmaking from Past to Present6,1: 65–94.1999 “Reconsidering Bhṛguization.” Composing a Tradition: Concepts,Techniques and Relationships. Proceedings of the 1stDubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epicsand Purānạs (DISCEP). Ed. Mary Brockington and PeterSchreiner. Zagreb: Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.155–68.1999** “Two Ways to Tell a Story: Ālhā in the Bhavisỵa Purānạ.”The Resources of History: Tradition, Narration, and Nation inSouth Asia. Ed. Jackie Assayag. Institut Française de Pondicherry.Etudes thématiques, 8. Pondicherry: Ecole Françaised’Extrême Orient. 96–112.2000 “Introduction” (co-authored), and **“Draupadī’s Question.”Is the Goddess a Feminist? Ed. Kathleen Erndl and Alf Hiltebeitel.London: Sheffield. 11–23, 113–22.2000 Review of The Sanskrit Epics, by John Brockington. Indo-Iranian Journal 43: 161–69.2001* “Bhīsṃa’s Sources.” Vidyārnạvavandanam: Essays in Honorof Asko Parpola. Ed. Klaus Karttunen and Petteri Koskikallio.Studia Orientalia. Finnish Oriental Society, No. 94. Helsinki.261–78.2002 “Allusion and Explication in the Gītā’s Epic World.” Journalof Vaishnava Studies. Issue in honor of Dennis Hudson. 11,1:131–40.2000* “The Primary Process of the Hindu Epics.” InternationalJournal of Hindu Studies 4,3: 269–88.2003 “India’s Epics: Writing, Orality, and Divinity.” The Study ofHinduism. Ed. Arvind Sharma Columbia, SC: University ofSouth Carolina Press. 114–38.2003** Review of Landscapes of Urban Memory; the Sacred and theCivic in India’s High-Tech City, by Smriti Srinivas.” Journalof Asian Studies 62,1: 319–22.2004* “More Rethinking the Mahābhārata: Toward a Politics ofBhakti.” Indo-Iranian Journal 47: 203—27.2004* “Role, Role Model, and Function: The Sanskrit Epic Warrior inComparison and Theory.” Playing for Real: Hindu Role Models,Religion, and Gender. Ed. Jacqueline Suthren Hirst and LynnThomas. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 27–50.

chronology of works xli2004 “Kāla” [= “Time”].” Co-authored with Randy Kloetzli. TheHindu World. Ed. Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby. London:Routledge. 553–86.2004 “Some Preliminary Notes on Women Worshiping Draupadī.”Festschrift for Dr. S. D. Lourdu, South Asian Folklorist 7: 145–56.2005* “Buddhism and the Mahābhārata.” Boundaries, Dynamics,and the Construction of Traditions in South Asia. Ed. FedericoSquarcini. Florence: University of Florence Press. 107–31.2005* “On Reading Fitzgerald’s Vyāsa,” review of The Mahābhārata,vol. 7, trans. by James L. Fitzgerald. Journal of the AmericanOriental Society 125,2: 241–61.2005* “Not Without Subtales: Telling Laws and Truths in the SanskritEpics.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 33: 455–511.2005 Review of Dancing the Self, by William S. Sax. Journal of RitualStudies 19,1: 138–40.2005* “Weighting Orality and Writing in the Sanskrit Epics.” Epics,Khilas, and Purānạs: Continuities and Ruptures. Proceedingsof the 3rd Dubrovnik International Conference on the SanskritEpics and Purānạs, Sept. 2002. Ed. Petteri Koskikallio.Zagreb: Croatian Acedemy of Sciences and Arts. 81–111.2005** “Boar and Twins; Comparing the Tulu Kōtị-Cennaya Pādḍanaand the Tamil Elder Brothers Story. In the Company of Gods:Essays in Memory of Gunther Dietz Sontheimer. Ed. A. Malik,A Feldhaus, and H. Brückner. Delhi; IGNCA and Manohar.141–75.2006 “Aśvaghosạ’s Buddhacarita: The First Known Close and CriticalReading of the Brahmanical Sanskrit Epics.” Journal ofIndian Philosophy 34: 229–86.2006* “The Nārāyaṇīya and the Early Reading Communities of theMahābhārata.” Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCEto 400 CE. 227–55. Ed. Patrick Olivelle. New York: OxfordUniversity Press.2006 “Looking for the Kaurava Widows.” Incompatible Visions:South Asian Religions in History and Culture. Essays in Honorof David M. Knipe. Ed. James Blumenthal. Madison, WI: Universityof Wisconsin-Madison, South Asia Center. 205–16.2007* “Krṣṇạ in the Mahābhārata: The Death of Karnạ.” Krishna: ASourcebook. Ed. Edwin F. Bryant. New York: Oxford UniversityPress. 23–76.

xliichronology of works2007* “Among Friends: Marriage, Women, and Some Little Birds.”Gender and Narrative in the Mahābhārata. Ed. Simon Brodbeckand Brian Black. London: Routledge. 110–43.2007 Review of The Self-Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession inSouth Asian Literatures and Civilization, by Frederick M. Smith.Journal of the American Oriental Society 127,3: 631–34.2009 “Recontextualizing Satire of Dharmaśāstra in the AggaññaSutta.” Religions of South Asia 3.1: 77–92.2010* “Authorial Paths through the Two Sanskrit Epics: Via theRāmopākhyāna.” Epic Undertakings: Papers of the 12th WorldSanskrit Conference, vol. 2. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. 169–214.2010 “Mapping Bhakti through Friendship in the Sanskrit Epics.” Epicand Argument in Sanskrit Literary History. Festschrift for RobertP. Goldman. Ed. Sheldon I. Pollock. Delhi: Manohar. 91–116.2011 “On Sukthankar’s ‘S’ and Some Shortsighted Assessments andUses of the Pune Critical Edition (CE).” Journal of VaishnavaStudies 19,2 (Spring): 87–126.2011 “Just My Imagination? Puzzling through a Duryodhana Festivalnear Dharmapuri, Tamilnadu.” In Hinduism in Practice.Ed. Hilary Rodriguez. 87–103. London: Routledge.2011 “ ‘You Have to Read the Whole Thing’: Some Reflections onMadeleine Biardeau’s Mahabharata.” Du texte au terrain,du terrain au texte: dialogues disciplinaires autour de l’ouvrede Madeleine Biardeau, Journée du Centre d’Étude de l’Indeet de l’Asie du Sud. To appear on the website of the Centred’études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du sud; http://ceias.ehess.fr/.5. Interviews and Profiles1992 “Mahābhārata,” interview by Steven J. Rosen. Vaishnavism.Contemporary Scholars Discuss the Gaudiya Tradi tion. Ed.Steven J. Rosen. New York: Folk Books. 49–59.2001 “What I Wanted to Avoid Was an Easy Equation . . .,” interviewby Venu. Folklife: A Quarterly Newsletter from NationalFolklore Support Centre (Chennai), vol. 1, issue 1 (July): 5–8.2007 “Professor Profile.” The Asian Connection. Issue 2, Fall 2007, 4.

chronology of works xliii6. In PressN.d.N.d.*N.d.*N.d.N.d.*N.d.N.d.N.d.N.d.N.d.“Dialogue and Apostrophe: A Move by Valmīkī?” In Dialoguein South Asian Religious Texts. Ed. Brian Black and Laurie Patton.London: Ashgate.“Mapping Bhakti through Hospitality and Friendship in theSanskrit Epics.” Battles, Bards, Brāhmans: Papers from theEpics Section of the 13th World Sanskrit Conference, vol. 2. Ed.John Brockington. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. 113–38.“Epic Aśvamedhas.” Papers from the Fourth InternationalVedic Workshop: The Vedas in Culture and History. Ed. JoelBrereton. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.“Ritual as Dharma: The Narrowing and Widening of a KeyTerm.” Festschrift for Fred Clothey. Ed. Linda Penkower andTracy Pintchman.“The Archetypal Design of the Two Sanskrit Epics.” Proceedingsof the 5th Dubrovnik International Conference on the SanskritEpics and Purānạs. Ed. Petteri Koskikallio. Zagreb: CroatianAcademy of Sciences and Arts.“Why Itihāsa? New Possibilities and Limits in Consideringthe Mahābhārata as History.” Ways and Reasons for Thinkingabout the Mahābhārata as a Whole. Ed. Vishwa Adluri. Pune:Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.“The Southern Recension Reading of the Śakuntalā Story as ItsFirst Reading: What It Can Tell Us about the Original and theSecond Reading by Kālidāsa.” Revisiting Kālidāsa’s Abhijñānaśākuntalam:Land, Love, Languages: Forms of Exchange inAncient India. Ed. Deepika Tandon and Saswati Sengupta. NewDelhi: Orient Blackswan.“Just My Imagination? Puzzling through a Duryodhana Festivalnear Dharmapuri, Tamilnadu.” Hinduism in Practice. Ed.Hillary Rodrigues. London: Routledge.“Moksạ and Dharma in the Moksạdharma.” Paper presentedat the Brown University Conference on Early Indian Philosophyin the Mahābhārata, Providence RI, April 9, 2010. Inpreparation for a conference volume. Ed. James L. Fitzgerald.“Between History and Divine Plan: The Mahābhārata’s RoyalPatriline in Context.” Paper presented at the Cardiff UniversityWorkshop: Genealogy in South Asia, May 26–28, 2010. Inpreparation for a conference volume. Ed. Simon Brodbeck andJames Hegarty.

xlivchronology of works7. Book Reviews1969 “Dumézil: Epic in the Balance,” review of Mythe et épopée,vol. 1, by Georges Dumézil. History of Religions: 90–93.1975 “On Reading van Buitenen’s Vyāsa,” review of TheMahābhārata, vol. 1, trans. by J. A. B. van Buite nen. Historyof Religions 15: 230–232.1978 Review of The Bhṛgus and the Mahābhārata: Gods, Priests,and Warriors, by Robert P. Goldman. American Academyof Religion Journal 46: 76–78.1980 “Indo-European Marriages,” review of Mariages indoeuropéens,by Georges Dumézil. History of Religions 19,4:837–38.1981 Review of Les dieux et les hommes: Etude des cultes d’un villagedu Tirunelveli Inde du Sud, by Marie-Louise Reiniche.Journal of Asian Studies 40,4: 184–85.1984 Review of Les Fêtes dans le monde hindoue, ed. by Gérard Toffin.Special issue of L’Homme: Revue française d’anthropologie22,3; reprinted in History of Religions 24 (1984): 89.1986 Review of Discourses on Śiva, ed. by Michael W. Meister.Religious Studies Review 12,2: 184–85.1986–87 Review of Wives of the God-King, by Frédérique ApffelMarglin and Devi and the Spouse Goddess, by Lynn Gattwood.Pacific Affairs 59,4: 713–15.1987 “Folklore and Hinduism,” review of Another Harmony:Essays on the Folklore of India, ed. by Stuart H. Blackburnand A. K. Ramanujan. History of Religions 27,2: 216–18.1987 Review of L’Espace du temple II: Les Sanctuaires dans leroyaume, ed. by Jean-Claude Galey. Religious Studies Review13,4: 364.1987 Review of Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Femininein the Hindu Religious Tradition, by David Kinsley. PacificAffairs 60,2: 350-51.1990 Review of Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-EuropeanRepresentations of Sovereignty, by Georges Dumézil, trans.by Derek Coltman. Journal of Religion 70,2: 295–96.1990 Review of Oral Epics of India, ed. by Peter J. Claus, StuartH. Blackburn, Joyce B. Flueckinger, and Susan Wadley.Folklore Newsletter 7,2: 3–4.

chronology of works xlv1990 Review of The Theatre of the Mahābhārata: Terukkuttu Performancesin South India, by Richard A. Frasca. Reli gious StudiesReview 17,3: 280.1990 Review of Visions of God: Narratives of Theophany in theMahābhārata, by James W. Laine. Religious Studies Review17,4: 374.1990 Review of The Mahābhārata: A Play Based upon the ClassicalIndian Epic, trans. by Jean-Claude Carrière with Peter Brook.Religious Studies Review 17,4: 280.1991 Review of Encountering the Goddess: A Translation of theDevī-Māhātmya and a Study of its Interpre tation, by ThomasB. Coburn. Religious Studies Review 18,2: 164.1991 Review of The Rāmāyanạ of Vālmīki: An Epic of Ancient India,Volume III, Aranyakanda, trans. by Sheldon I. Pollock. in ReligiousStudies Review 18,2: 164.1991 Review of Mountain Goddess: Gender and Politics in a HimalayanPilgrimage, by William S. Sax. Committee on Women inAsian Studies (CWAS) Newsletter: 11,1.1991 Review of Many Rāmāyanạs: The Diversity of a Narrative Traditionin South Asia, ed. by Paula Richman. Religious StudiesReview 18,4: 355.1992 Review of Rāmāyanạ and Rāmāyanạs, by Monika Thiel-Horstmann.Religious Studies Review 19,4: 373.1993 Review of Purānạ Perennis: Reciprocity and Transformationin Hindu and Jaina Texts, ed. by Wendy Doniger. Journal ofAsian Studies 53,2: 587–89.1994 Review of Mythologies du XXe siècle (Dumézil, Lévi-Strauss, Eliade),by Daniel Dubuisson. Journal of Asian Studies 54,2: 494–96.1995 Review of From the Margins of Hindu Marriage, ed. by LindseyHarlan and Paul Courtright. Religious Studies Review 22,3(1995): 265–66.1998 Review of Cooking the World: Ritual and Thought in AncientIndia, by Charles Malamoud. Religious Studies Review 24,4: 445.1998 Review of Conversions and Shifting Identities: Ramdev Pir andthe Ismailis in Rajasthan, by Dominque-Sila Khan. ReligiousStudies Review 24,4: 446.1998 Review of Gods and Temples in South India, by Winand M.Callewaert. Religious Studies Review 24,4: 446–47.2003 Review of Religious Doctrines in the Mahābhārata, by NicholasSutton. in Journal of Asian Studies 63,2: 243–45.

xlvichronology of works2003 Review of Questioning Rāmāyanạs: A South Asian Tradition,ed. by Paula Richmond. Religion 34: 88–92.2004 Review of Destiny and Human Initiative in the Mahābhārata,by Julian Woods. Journal of the American Oriental Society124,1: 184–86.8. Encyclopedia and Dictionary Articles and Editing1982 “Mahābhārata” and ten short entries on Mahābhārata characters.In Abingdon Dictionary of World Religions. Ed. Larry D.Shinn et al. Nashville: Abingdon.1987 “Hinduism,” “Gambling,” “Mahābhārata,” “Kurukshetra,”“Arjuna,” and “Indus Valley Religion” (co-authored withThomas Hopkins). In The Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. MirceaEliade et al. New York: Macmillan Free Press.1995 Area Editor. Religions of India. In The Harper Collins Dictionaryof Religion. Ed. Jonathan Z. Smith. San Francisco: Harper-San Francisco.1995 “Hinduism,” “Sacrifice, Hinduism,” and about ten other shortentries. In The Harper Collins Dictionary of Religion. Ed. JonathanZ. Smith. San Francisco: Harper-San Francisco. 424–40,949–51.2001 Board of Editorial Consultants. South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia.Ed. Margaret A. Mills, Peter J. Claus, and Sarah Diamond.New York and London: Routledge.2001 “Aravān̠,” “Draupadī,” “Gods and Goddesses,” “Sacrifice,”“Śamī (tree).” In South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia. Ed.Margaret A. Mills, Peter J. Claus, and Sarah Diamond. NewYork and London: Routledge. 21–22, 165–66, 262–65, 529–30,536–37.2006 “Mahābhārata” and “Rāmāyanạ.” In Encyclopedia of India,vol. 3. Ed. Stanley Wolpert. Detroit: Thomson Gale. 82–93;390–99.2009 “Draupadī and Sītā.” Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism. Ed. KnutA. Jacobsen, Angelika Malinar, Helene Basu, and VasudhaNarayanan. Leiden: Brill. 517–33.

chronology of works xlvii9. Work in ProgressN.d.N.d.Conversations with Murugan: The Mahābhārata World of aPriest of Draupadī and Duryodhana. University of ChicagoPress. Co-author with Perundevi Srinivasan.Translator, Śalya and Sauptika Parvans. The University of ChicagoPress Translation of The Mahābhārata. Gen. ed. James L.Fitzgerald. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.