This is the first volume of a projected three-volume work on the little-known South Indian folk cult of the goddess Draupadi and on the classical epic, the Mahabharata, that the cult brings to life in mythic, ritual, and dramatic forms. Draupadi, the chief heroine of the Sanskrit Mahabharata, takes on many unexpected guises in her Tamil cult, but her dimensions as a folk goddess remain rooted in a rich interpretive vision of the great epic. By examining the ways that the cult of Draupadi commingles traditions about the goddess and the epic, Alf Hiltebeitel shows the cult to be singularly representative of the inner tensions and working dynamics of popular devotional Hinduism.
- ISBN10 0226340473
- ISBN13 9780226340470
- Publish Date 8 October 1991 (first published 21 March 1988)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Chicago Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 472
- Language English