The Mahābhārata patriline : gender, culture, and the royal hereditary / Simon Pearse Brodbeck.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [281]-310) and index.

Contents: Preface; Part 1 A Royal Patrilineal Model: Analogical deceptions; Wide shots; The Mahabharata patriline; Sraddha in the Mahabharata; Marriage and the heir; The royal hunt. Part 2 The Distant Ancestry: Female links; Yayati; The Paurava stretch; Duhsanta, Sakuntala and the Bharatas; Samvarana; Kuru. Part 3 The Pandavas and their Proximate Ancestry: Samtanu and Bhisma; Dhritarastra and Pandu; The Pandavas. Part 4 Janamejaya and the Sarpasatra: Pariksit; Janamejaya; Conclusion. Appendices; Glossary; Bibliography; Index..

"This book is a chronological survey of the Sanskrit Mahabharata's central royal patriline - a family tree that is also a list of kings. Brodbeck explores the importance and implications of patrilineal maintenance within the royal culture depicted by the text, and shows how patrilineal memory comes up against the fact that in every generation a wife must be involved, with the consequent danger that the children might not sustain the memorial tradition of their paternal family." "The Mahabharata Patriline bridges a gap in text-critical methodology between the traditional philological approach and more recent trends in gender and literacy theory. Studying the Mahabharata as an integral literary unit and as a story stretched over dozens of generations, this book casts particular light on the events of the more recent generations and suggests that the text's internal narrators are members of the family whose story they tell."--BOOK JACKET