20 Questions
What was the central story of the Mahabharata?
The battle between two warring cousins
What does conformity with norms and deviations from them signify in the Mahabharata?
Social hierarchy and power dynamics
What was the most ambitious project of scholarship related to the Mahabharata?
Preparing a critical edition of the Mahabharata
What was one of the main challenges in preparing the critical edition of the Mahabharata?
Finding Sanskrit manuscripts from different regions
What do the regional variations in the transmission of the Mahabharata reflect?
Complex social histories and local ideas
What is one of the changes in economic and political life between c. 600 BCE and 600 CE mentioned in the text?
Transformation of forest dwellers' lives due to extension of agriculture
What do historians often use to understand the processes that influenced societies between c. 600 BCE and 600 CE?
Textual traditions
Why is it important to consider who composed the text and for whom it was composed?
To understand the perspective and bias of the text
Which epic is mentioned as a rich source for depictions of a wide range of social categories and situations?
Mahabharata
What do texts allow historians to piece together regarding social histories?
Attitudes and practices that shaped social histories
What was the main goal of the project led by V.S. Sukthankar?
To collect and compare Sanskrit manuscripts of the Mahabharata
What was the duration of the project to prepare the critical edition of the Mahabharata?
47 years
What did the team do initially in preparing the critical edition of the Mahabharata?
Collected Sanskrit manuscripts of the text from different parts of the country
What became evident about the Sanskrit versions of the Mahabharata?
They had several common elements evident in manuscripts found all over the subcontinent
What occupied more than half of the 13,000 pages in the critical edition of the Mahabharata?
The footnotes and appendices documenting regional variations
What do historians primarily use to understand the processes that shaped early social histories?
Texts written in Sanskrit by and for Brahmanas
What did scholars begin studying subsequent to taking Sanskrit texts at face value?
Pali, Prakrit, and Tamil traditions
What are some societies' views on familial ties?
Some regard cousins as blood relations, others do not
What is the Mahabharata a story about?
A feud over land and power between groups of cousins
What do historians retrieve information about easily in early societies?
Elite families
Test your knowledge about the changes in economic, political, and social life between c. 600 BCE and 600 CE. Explore the impact of agriculture expansion, emergence of craft specialists, and unequal wealth distribution on early societies.
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