SYNOPSIS

SYNOPSIS



This is an account of the part time research on “Postmodernism and The Mahabharata: A Study in Socio-Political Ethics.” This research is undertaken to study the epic focusing on the Socio-Political Ethics in the text in the light of Postmodern Literary Theories.

Chapter 1 states the objectives and hypothesis of the investigation. The objective of the investigation is to show that The Mahabharata is readable in a Postmodern context. A brief description about Postmodernism is given here.It states that no one-dimensional reading of The Mahabharata is complete. Concept of Socio-political Ethics in The Mahabharata is also given in this chapter.

Chapter 2 is a detailed explanation of Postmodernism as a literary theory and Philosophical thought. Various concepts of Postmodernism applied in this investigation are explained in this chapter. It includes Postmodernism, Socio-political Ethics in Postmodernism, Postmodernist Representation, Postmodenism and the Study of a Text of the Past,Postmodern Philosophy of Relativism, Postmodernism and Totality,Postmodern Literary Theory and Anti-foundationalism,Poetics of Sublime and Hyperreality, and the Art of the Unrepresentable are explained.In this chapter Postmodernism and Socio-political ethics are explained

Chapter 3 explains how Postmodernism as a literary theory is applied in the study of The Mahabharata. Moral dilemmas and Socio-political Ethics in the epic are described here. Other aspects discussed in this chapter include the different types of conflicts, method of story telling and the structure of the epic.

Chapter 4 discusses the problems of representation in The Mahabharata and Postmodernism. In addition to this, it discusses the ideas of language games and hyperreality are applied in the investigation.

Chapter 5 analyses the Philosophy of ‘dharma’ in The Mahabharata in the light of Postmodern Philosophy of Relativism. There is a detailed discussion on the various aspects of ‘dharma’ in the epic. It is tried to establish that the Postmodern Philosophy of Relativism has a lot of commonalities withn the Philosophy of ‘Dharma’ in the epic.

Chapter 6 takes up the concept of the Poetics of Sublime in Postmodernism and the transcendental self in the Gita for a comparative study and it tried to establish that there is Poetics of Sublime in the Gita.