Epic Lives and Forest People: Ekalavya in the Mahabharata and in Modern India

The classical Sanskrit epic Mahabharata continues to lead a vivid and contentious life in modern Indian discourse. This talk will explore the troubling story of Ekalavya, an ambitious archer from the Nishada forest community. We will examine how his tale is told in the epic, and how modern observers retell his story from various perspectives, including upper-class, Dalit, and Nishada ones.

Richard H. Davis is Professor of Religion and Asian Studies Programs at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Formerly he taught as assistant and associate professor at Yale University. His most recent publication is The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography (Princeton University Press, 2014). He is author of four other books: Ritual in an Oscillating Universe: Worshiping Siva in Medieval India (Princeton, 1991), Lives of Indian Images (Princeton, 1997), Global India, circa 100 CE: South Asia in Early World History (AAS, 2010), and A Priest’s Guide for the Great Festival (Oxford, 2010). He has edited two volumes, and also wrote the text for a catalog of Indian religious prints, Gods in Print: Masterpieces of India’s Mythological Art (Mandala, 2012). Currently he is continuing work on the reception history of the Bhagavad Gita, and on a history of religions in early South Asia.

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