Scapegoat, Sacrifice, Or Saviour: an Examination of the Outsider in The
Scapegoat, Sacrifice, or Saviour: An Examination of the Outsider in the Mahābhārata by © Micheline Hughes A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Religious Studies Memorial University of Newfoundland May 2014 St. John’s Newfoundland and Labrador Abstract This thesis examines part of the cultural history of social exclusions through a study of the portrayal of the Niṣādas, a tribal group, in the Hindu epic, the Mahābhārata. Three factors contribute to the social exclusion of the Niṣādas in the epic: social construction of identity, caste and dharma, and geography and liminality. The three Mahābhārata narratives that are the focus of the thesis’s analysis (the narratives of Ekalavya, the House of Lac, and Nala and Damayantī) portray six Niṣādas, and one king, Nala, who undergoes a period of social exclusion. Outsiders are portrayed as scapegoat, sacrifice, and/or savior for the epic’s heroes. However, when Niṣādas fulfill these roles, they are either exterminated or mutliated as a result of acts of those very heroes. The thesis argues that the factors of social exclusion work together to accomplish marginalization, and that violence facilitates the process of social exclusion in the epic. ii Acknowledgements I would like to express my very great appreciation to Dr. Patricia Dold, my thesis supervisor. Her invaluable guidance, immense patience, unfailing support, kindness, and sense of humour were extremely helpful to me as I researched, wrote, and edited this thesis. I have learned a great deal from her and will carry these lessons with me into my future academic work.
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