Epic & Argument in Sanskrit Literary History

Epic and Argument in Sanskrit Literary History celebrates the distinguished career of the American Indologist Robert P. Goldman. The essays on Sanskrit literary history, which range from the danastuti in the Rgveda (Romila Thapar) to the transformation of literary theory in ninth century Kashmir (Sheldon Pollock) to the practice of philology in seventeenth-century Varanasi (Christopher Minkowski), reflect the wide range of interests of Professor Goldman himself, and the wide influence he has exerted on the field. Eight of the essays (by such leading scholars as Greg Bailey, John Brokington, James Fitzgerald, luis Gonzalez-Reimann, Phyllis Granoff, Alf Hiltebeitel, Adheesh Sathaye, and Sally Sutherland Goldman), concentrate on the epics and Puranas, and as an ensemble make for essential reading on the genre of Sanskrit literature to which Goldman, as editor-in-chief of the Ramayana Translation Project, has devoted the greater part of his career. The scholarly essays are bookended by the survey of Professor Goldman's scholarly contributions (Deven Patel) and a lively personal reminiscence (Jeffrey Moussaieff Mason).