Authorship, History, and Race in Three Contemporary Retellings of the Mahabharata
Authorship, History, and Race in Three Contemporary Retellings of the Mahabharata: The Palace of Illusions, The Great Indian Novel, and The Mahabharata (Television Mini Series) A dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Fine Arts of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Nandaka M. Kalugampitiya August 2016 © 2016 Nandaka M. Kalugampitiya. All Rights Reserved. 2 This dissertation titled Authorship, History, and Race in Three Contemporary Retellings of the Mahabharata: The Palace of Illusions, The Great Indian Novel, and The Mahabharata (Television Mini Series) by NANDAKA M. KALUGAMPITIYA has been approved for Interdisciplinary Arts and the College of Fine Arts by Vladimir Marchenkov Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts Elizabeth Sayrs Interim Dean, College of Fine Arts 3 Abstract KALUGAMPITIYA, NANDAKA M., Ph.D., August 2016, Interdisciplinary Arts Authorship, History, and Race in Three Contemporary Retellings of the Mahabharata: The Palace of Illusions, The Great Indian Novel, and The Mahabharata (Television Mini Series) Director of Dissertation: Vladimir Marchenkov In this study, I explore the manner in which contemporary artistic reimaginings of the Sanskrit epic the Mahabharata with a characteristically Western bent intervene in the dominant discourse on the epic. Through an analysis of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions (2008), Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel (1989), and Peter Brook’s theatrical production The Mahabharata (1989 television mini-series), I argue that these reimaginings represent a tendency to challenge the cultural authority of the Sanskrit epic in certain important ways. The study is premised on the recognition that the three works of art in question respond, some more consciously than others, to three established assumptions regarding the Mahabharata respectively: (1) the Sanskrit epic as a product of divine authorship; (2) the Sanskrit epic as history; and (3) the Sanskrit epic as the story of a particular race.
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