The Mahabharata in Global Political and Social Thought

The ancient Indian epic Mahabharata was first composed in Sanskrit and then rendered into Indian vernaculars and other Asian and European languages. This book demonstrates how the epic has shaped the birth of modern politics and thought across India Europe Japan China Thailand Iran and the Arab world. It draws on methodologies of global intellectual and religious history. The contributing authors are specialists on various world-regions. They reveal how kings and peasants statesmen and revolutionaries intellectuals and activists have invoked the epic to forge their political visions over the past centuries. The epic has thus contributed to state formation nationalism as well as the decolonization and democratization of the modern world. This book helps us understand the non-Eurocentric roots of modern political and social ideas in India and across Asia and Europe. We thereby understand the global origins of contemporary politics society and democracy.