Between 300 and 200 BCE, the concept and practice of dharma attained prominence across India. Both Buddhist and Brahmanical authors sought to clarify and classify their central concerns, and dharma proved a means of thinking throughand articulating those concerns. Alf Hiltebeitel shows the different ways in which dharma is interpreted over time. His insightful study explores the diverse and changing signifcance of dharma in classical India in nine major dharma texts, as well as twopieces of writing that have traditionally been considered minor. Between 300 BCE and 200 CE, concepts and practices of dharma attained literary prominence throughout India. Both Buddhist and Brahmanical authors sought to clarify and classify their central concerns, and dharma proved a means of thinking throughand articulating those concerns.Alf Hiltebeitel shows the different ways in which dharma was interpreted during that formative period: from the grand cosmic chronometries of kalpas and yugas to narratives about divine plans, gendered nuances of genealogical time, royal biography (even autobiography, in the case of the emperor Asoka), and guidelines for daily life, including meditation. He reveals the vital role dharmahas played across political, religious, legal, literary, ethical, and philosophical domainsand discourses about what holds life together. Through dharma, these traditions have articulated their distinct visions of the good and well-rewarded life.This insightful study explores the diverse and changing significance of dharma in classical India in nine major dharma texts, as well some shorter ones. Dharma proves to be a term by which to make a fresh cut through these texts, andto reconsider their own chronology, their import, and their relation to each other. 1 Introduction2. Asoka Maurya3. A Vedic History of Dharma4. Early Buddhism: Three Baskets of Dharma5. Post-Vedic Brahmanical Dharma6. Dharma over Time, I: Big Time Dharma7. Dharma over Time, II: Prophesies of Disaster8. Women's Dharma: Sastric Norms and Epic Narratives9. Two Dharma Biographies? Yudhisthira and Rama10. Draupadi and Sita: Dharmapatnis of Two Different Kinds11. Dharma and the Bhagavad Gita12. Bhakti and Dharma13. Asvaghoa's Buddhacarita: A Buddhist Reading of the Sanskrit Epics and Their Treatments of Dharma14. Bibliography
- ISBN: 978-0-19-539423-8
- Editorial: Oxford University
- Encuadernacion: Cartoné
- Páginas: 768
- Fecha Publicación: 03/11/2011
- Nº Volúmenes: 1
- Idioma: Inglés