Krishna's Lineage
The Harivamsha of Vyasa's Mahabharata
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ISBN:
9780197508039
Publication date:
21/10/2019
Hardback
456 pages
235x156mm
Price: 1295.00 INR
We sell our titles through other companies
Disclaimer :You will be redirected to a third party website.The sole responsibility of supplies, condition of the product, availability of stock, date of delivery, mode of payment will be as promised by the said third party only. Prices and specifications may vary from the OUP India site.
ISBN:
9780197508039
Publication date:
21/10/2019
Hardback
456 pages
Edited and translated by Simon Brodbeck
- Presents the complete Harivamsha in engaging, modern English
- Follows the critical edition - published in Poona in 1969, which is a reconstructed ancient version of the text.
- Provides an introduction (placing the text in its literary context), brief explanatory footnotes below the translation, and a series of detailed family trees and a complete index of names.
- Is accessible to the general reading public as well as useful for specialists
Rights: OUP USA (INDIAN TERRITORY)
Edited and translated by Simon Brodbeck
Description
Forming the final part of the Sanskrit Mahabharata, the Harivamsha's main business is to supply narrative details about the great god Vishnu's avatar Krishna Vasudeva, who has been a comparatively minor character in the previous parts of the Mahabharata, despite having taken centre stage in the Bhagavad Gita.
Krishna is born in Mathura (some 85 miles south of present-day Delhi). As an infant he is smuggled out of Mathura for his own safety. He and his brother Baladeva grow up among cowherds in the forest, where between them they perform many miraculous deeds and kill many dangerous demons, before returning to Mathura where they kill the evil King Kamsa and his cronies. Thereafter, Krishna is the hero and unofficial leader of his people the Yadava-Vrishnis. When Mathura is besieged by enemies, Krishna leads his people to abandon the town and migrate west, founding the dazzling new city of Dvaraka by the sea. Krishna then repeatedly travels away from that base repeatedly to perform heroic deeds benefitting those in need - including his own people, his more immediate family, and the gods. After narrating the stories of Krishna, the Harivamsha ends by finishing the story of Janamejaya with which the Mahabharata began.
The Harivamsha is a powerhouse of Hindu mythology and a classic of world literature. It begins by contextualising Vishnu's appearance as Krishna in several ways, in the process presenting a variety of cosmogonical, cosmological, genealogical, mythological, theological, and karmalogical materials. It then narrates Krishna's birth and adventures in detail. Presenting a wide variety of exciting stories in a poetic register that makes extensive use of natural imagery, the Harivamsha is a neglected literary gem and an ideal starting-point for readers new to Indian literature.
About the author
Simon Brodbeck was born in the north-west of England and educated at the universities of Cambridge and London. He has worked at the universities of Edinburgh, London, and Cardiff (the latter since 2008), and also for the Clay Sanskrit Library. His research career has focused on the Sanskrit Mahabharata and its component parts, using philological, philosophical, and gender-studies approaches.
Edited and translated by Simon Brodbeck
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Ancient Indian Scene
The Framework of Characters
Krishna in the Pandava Story
Overview of the Harivamsha
The Text and the Translation
Further Reading
Map
THE BOOK OF KRISHNA'S LINEAGE
Creation and Cosmology
The Solar Lineage
The Duties to the Ancestors
The Lunar Lineage
The Gods and the Demons
The Divine Plan
THE BOOK OF VISHNU
The Killing of Kamsa
The Move to Dvaraka
Adventures in the South
The Naraka Episode
The Greatness of Krishna
The Battle against Bana
THE BOOK OF THE FUTURE
Genealogical Appendix
Index of Names
Edited and translated by Simon Brodbeck
Review
"I prefer to praise the work for what it is: a full translation of the Hariva??a for the general public that makes the earliest stories of K???a widely available to scholars and devotees alike, for their edification and their reading pleasure simultaneously." - Tracy Coleman, Journal of the American Oriental Society
Edited and translated by Simon Brodbeck
Description
Forming the final part of the Sanskrit Mahabharata, the Harivamsha's main business is to supply narrative details about the great god Vishnu's avatar Krishna Vasudeva, who has been a comparatively minor character in the previous parts of the Mahabharata, despite having taken centre stage in the Bhagavad Gita.
Krishna is born in Mathura (some 85 miles south of present-day Delhi). As an infant he is smuggled out of Mathura for his own safety. He and his brother Baladeva grow up among cowherds in the forest, where between them they perform many miraculous deeds and kill many dangerous demons, before returning to Mathura where they kill the evil King Kamsa and his cronies. Thereafter, Krishna is the hero and unofficial leader of his people the Yadava-Vrishnis. When Mathura is besieged by enemies, Krishna leads his people to abandon the town and migrate west, founding the dazzling new city of Dvaraka by the sea. Krishna then repeatedly travels away from that base repeatedly to perform heroic deeds benefitting those in need - including his own people, his more immediate family, and the gods. After narrating the stories of Krishna, the Harivamsha ends by finishing the story of Janamejaya with which the Mahabharata began.
The Harivamsha is a powerhouse of Hindu mythology and a classic of world literature. It begins by contextualising Vishnu's appearance as Krishna in several ways, in the process presenting a variety of cosmogonical, cosmological, genealogical, mythological, theological, and karmalogical materials. It then narrates Krishna's birth and adventures in detail. Presenting a wide variety of exciting stories in a poetic register that makes extensive use of natural imagery, the Harivamsha is a neglected literary gem and an ideal starting-point for readers new to Indian literature.
About the author
Simon Brodbeck was born in the north-west of England and educated at the universities of Cambridge and London. He has worked at the universities of Edinburgh, London, and Cardiff (the latter since 2008), and also for the Clay Sanskrit Library. His research career has focused on the Sanskrit Mahabharata and its component parts, using philological, philosophical, and gender-studies approaches.
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Ancient Indian Scene
The Framework of Characters
Krishna in the Pandava Story
Overview of the Harivamsha
The Text and the Translation
Further Reading
Map
THE BOOK OF KRISHNA'S LINEAGE
Creation and Cosmology
The Solar Lineage
The Duties to the Ancestors
The Lunar Lineage
The Gods and the Demons
The Divine Plan
THE BOOK OF VISHNU
The Killing of Kamsa
The Move to Dvaraka
Adventures in the South
The Naraka Episode
The Greatness of Krishna
The Battle against Bana
THE BOOK OF THE FUTURE
Genealogical Appendix
Index of Names
M. A. S. Abdel Haleem
St. Anselm, Brian Davies, G. R. Evans
Adam J. Silverstein
John Stratton Hawley
Michael Cook
Patrick Olivelle
Malise Ruthven
Jason Brennan
The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Practice
Gavin Flood
Fergus Kerr
