Table of Contents

1 Introduction
2. Asoka Maurya
3. A Vedic History of Dharma
4. Early Buddhism: Three Baskets of Dharma
5. Post-Vedic Brahmanical Dharma
6. Dharma over Time, I: Big Time Dharma
7. Dharma over Time, II: Prophesies of Disaster
8. Women's Dharma: Sastric Norms and Epic Narratives
9. Two Dharma Biographies? Yudhisthira and Rama
10. Draupadi and Sita: Dharmapatnis of Two Different Kinds
11. Dharma and the Bhagavad Gita
12. Bhakti and Dharma
13. Asvaghoa's Buddhacarita: A Buddhist Reading of the Sanskrit Epics and Their Treatments of Dharma
14. Bibliography

About the Author

Alf Hiltebeitel's publications and research have taken him back and forth between the Mahabharata and fieldwork on the south Indian Draupadi cult. From this tandem project, his work branches out into related texts, most notably the Ramayana; other cults, including other Tamil Mahabharata cults and ones related to other regional Indian oral epics similar to the Draupadi cult Mahabharata; and into an attempt to
understand the Indian concept of dharma.

Reviews

"This rich book must become essential reading for everyone with an interest in Indic religion, history, and culture."--Religious Studies Review