Battle, Bards and Brahmins

by Ed. John Brockington

This volume, the second in the Proceedings of the 13th World Sanskrit Conference (Edinburgh, July 2006), reflects the continued increase in interest in the Sanskrit epics seen in recent years, containing no less than 19 articles (a larger number than in the corresponding volume from the 12th WSC at Helsinki) by a number of distinguished scholars in the section devoted to the Sanskrit epics. The great majority of the articles focus on the Mahabharata but several focus on the Ramayana, as well as one on the Harivamua. The variety of approaches adopted by their authors underlines the vitality of this area of research and collectively these articles make a major contribution to our understanding of the history of these massive works, their relationship to each other and their place in the total field of Sanskrit literature and indeed of Indian literature and culture as a whole. 

John Brockington is emeritus Prof. of Sanskrit at the Univ. of Edinburg, U.K., Secretary General (2000-2012) and now a Vice President  of the International Association of Sanskrit Studies, and the author or editor of several books and numerous articles, mainly on the Sanskrit epics and the history of Hinduism. His published books include Righteous Rama: the evolution of an epic (1985), The Sanskrit Epics (1998) and Epic Threads : John Brockington on the Sanskrit Epics (2000); he is the translator with Mary Brockington of Rama the Steadfast: An Early Form of the Ramayana (2006) and a major contributor to Epic and Puranic Bibliography (up to 1985) (1992 and now online).