How to become a Brahman: The construction of varṇa as social place in the Mahābhārata's legends of Viśvāmitra.
This article investigates varna as an embodied and spatialized social practice in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata, with a focus on the epic subnarratives of Viśvāmitra, the legendary king who became a Brahman. Adopting a post-Dumontian position that the articulation of social status is always a political a...
| Publicado en: | Acta Orientalia Vilnensia Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 41 - 68 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Vilnius University
2007
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=36124741&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 36124741 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 16482662 3FNM jtl: Acta Orientalia Vilnensia issn: 16482662 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: 2007 vid: 8 iid: 1 pid: 16037 pub: Vilnius University artinfo: ui: 36124741 10.15388/aov.2007.1.3751 ppf: 41 ppct: 27 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 1.1MB tig: atl: How to become a Brahman: The construction of varṇa as social place in the Mahābhārata's legends of Viśvāmitra. aug: au: Sathaye, Adheesh affil: Assistant Professor, Department of Asian studies, University of British Columbia. su: Brahmans Mahābhārata Kings & rulers Brahmanism Literature Legendary characters Social groups Indic castes India sug: subj: India Brahmans Mahābhārata Kings & rulers Brahmanism Literature Legendary characters Social groups Indic castes ab: This article investigates varna as an embodied and spatialized social practice in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata, with a focus on the epic subnarratives of Viśvāmitra, the legendary king who became a Brahman. Adopting a post-Dumontian position that the articulation of social status is always a political act, the Mahābhārata's treatment of Viśvāmitra is analyzed as a literary attempt to secure the social place of Brahmanhood in post-Mauryan India. Two specific narratives are taken up for comparative study: first the kāmadhenu legend—the squabble with Vasistha that led to Viśvāmitra's Brahmanhood—and then an altogether different story in which a mixup by Viśvāmitra's sister Satyavatī meant that he had always been a Brahman by birth. Two distinct interpretive voices are heard in the same epic—one extolling Viśvāmitra's extraordinary ascetic power, and another, louder one minimizing his realworld impact by insisting that his varna change never actually happened. Developing the concept of 'textual performance' to explain how fluid legendary material was embedded into the fixed epic corpus, this article argues that the Mahābhārata utilized counter-normative figures like Viśvāmitra to articulate alternative voices and possibilities, but within a carefully regulated epic storyworld that naturalized varna as an everyday social practice. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Acta Orientalia Vilnensia is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Acta Orientalia Vilnensia holder: Vilnius University dt: @attributes: year: 2007 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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