Description
Motilal Banarsidass Publications Mahabharata And Greek Mythology by Fernando Wulff
After the arrival of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, India was in permanent relation with the Mediterranean world. When Rome conquered Egypt and took a special interest in the routes to India, the subcontinent and its inhabitants played a key role as an economic and cultural reference in a globalized world stretching from Western Europe and North Africa to China. In an Indian scenario full of ideological and religious pluralism, interactions, learning and creations, adaptation of new concepts and technological and artistic transfer were an essential part of the emerging cultural and social realities. This book, based on a previous publication in Spanish, defends that in the Mahabharata-one of the most profound, captivating and richest stories of human history and, without a doubt, the most vivid of the world's epics-Greek mythological and epic materials were systematically employed. The employment of these materials by no means takes away from the work's authenticity, instead quite the contrary. The work was no doubt original, new and loaded with significance for the society that gave it birth, for those societies which follow, and to those which, by no accident, the work helped to shape. The acceptance of the intelligent and creative use of Greek materials in the Mahabharata to cover specific artistic and ideological goals does not imply any demerit for their author or authors. On the contrary, it is merely the discovery of an unknown facet of its genius