MYTH AND IDEOLOGY OF THE IMPERIAL KSATRIYA: VIEWING THE MAHÅBHÅRATA FROM HERE AND NOW: Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Abstract

In this paper, which was first presented in London at the Gender, Myth and Mythmaking conference (SOAS, December 2004), I explore some aspects of kßatriya myth and ideology as portrayed in the Sanskrit Mahåbhårata. In doing so I acknowledge that my exploration comprises another text, that is, this paper, which embodies other myths and ideologies within itself. When I create this paper, textualizing my thinking about the Mahåbhårata, I set up two texts in a non-reversible dependence relation: the paper depends on the Mahåbhårata, but not the other way around. Yet what is said in the paper depends on the context of the paper, not on the context of the Mahåbhårata (which is largely inaccessible); so if my thinking has been about the myth and ideology of the Mahåbhårata, then the paper must be expected to be mythical and ideological. Myth and ideology here are treated as self-referential: to call something a myth is to make a myth about it, and to call something an ideology is to make an ideology about it (see Piatigorsky 1993, esp. pp. 1-3). I use the words as a doublet, in what I hope is a common sense; I do not seek to define them.