Crisis in the Mahābhārata: Concepts on its causes, strategies against it

Description

In modern understanding, a crisis can be an event or a period of (or leading to) an unstable or dangerous situation. It can affect an individual, a group or the whole society. However, a crisis is not only a threat, it also implies the need for (and the chance for) change and improvement. Historically, the term was borrowed from Greek (κρίσις) via Latin in early modern times to initially describe the critical phase of a disease, in which the patient could either take the path towards recovery or towards death. Given this complex history and meaning of the term, it comes as no surprise that, while the Mahābhārata deals with an entire range of situations that would be considered crises by modern standards, the early Sanskrit vocabulary lacks a single equivalent of the term and its Greek and Latin predecessors. Nevertheless, the descriptions of personal and collective distress and conflict situations in the epic and in relevant related literature allow for a comprehensive examination of how crises were understood and dealt with. Besides the well-researched topic of āpad and āpaddharma, several other terms like īti, upanipāta or upadrava deserve an accurate investigation and will provide new insights into the intellectual history of the ever relevant topics of crisis and conflict management. To this end, I will present several exemplary narratives from the Mahā­bhārata and show how – depending on the context and the agenda of the authors – different concepts are developed, on the one hand to explain the causation of the crisis and, on the other, to provide strategies to overcome it.

Period	14 Aug 2023
Event title	Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epic and Purāṇas 10
Event type	Conference
Conference number	10
Location	Dubrovnik, CroatiaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International