
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Divine Descent and the Four World-Ages in the Mahābhārata reflects on the theology of time in this early Hindu text and poses the key question: why does the Krishna avatāra inaugurate the worst yuga? The Sanskrit Mahābhārata describes a massive war facilitated by God and the gods. That war took place between the third and the last ages of a 12,000-year cycle; within the cycle, moral behaviour and human lifespan always decrease in steps before being rebooted for the next cycle (initial lifespan 400 years). Divine Descent and the Four World-Ages in the Mahābhārata-Or, Why Does the Krsna Avatāra Inaugurate the Worst Yuga? (Cardiff UP, 2022) describes and discusses this cycle and tries to explain why God and the gods are said to have descended and acted at that particular point within it. The trigger was the complaint of the Earth, who was suffering on account of the human beings upon her.
This book is available open access here.
Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
By New Books Network4.3
1616 ratings
Divine Descent and the Four World-Ages in the Mahābhārata reflects on the theology of time in this early Hindu text and poses the key question: why does the Krishna avatāra inaugurate the worst yuga? The Sanskrit Mahābhārata describes a massive war facilitated by God and the gods. That war took place between the third and the last ages of a 12,000-year cycle; within the cycle, moral behaviour and human lifespan always decrease in steps before being rebooted for the next cycle (initial lifespan 400 years). Divine Descent and the Four World-Ages in the Mahābhārata-Or, Why Does the Krsna Avatāra Inaugurate the Worst Yuga? (Cardiff UP, 2022) describes and discusses this cycle and tries to explain why God and the gods are said to have descended and acted at that particular point within it. The trigger was the complaint of the Earth, who was suffering on account of the human beings upon her.
This book is available open access here.
Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

294 Listeners

5,444 Listeners

3,191 Listeners

1,836 Listeners

1,852 Listeners

1,423 Listeners

493 Listeners

6,309 Listeners

456 Listeners

3,235 Listeners

14,606 Listeners

219 Listeners

652 Listeners

212 Listeners

20 Listeners