Primary Sources and Asian Pasts: Beyond the Boundaries of the “Gupta Period”

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter I
2. Preface V
3. Contents VII
4. Contributors IX
5. Primary Sources and Asian Pasts: Beyond the Boundaries of the “Gupta Period” 1
6. Part I: Narrative Form and Literary Legacies
7. Why So Many ‘Other’ Voices in the ‘Brahmin’ Mahābhārata? 21
8. After the Mahābhārata: On the Portrayal of Vyāsa in the Skandapurāṇa 44
9. The “Best Abode of Virtue”: Sattra Represented on a Gupta-Period Frieze from Gaṛhwa,̄ Uttar Pradesh 64
10. The Skandapurāṇa and Bāṇa’s Harṣacarita 106
11. Part II: Political Landscapes and Regional Identity
12. Describing the Own Other: Chinese Buddhist Travelogues Between Literary Tropes and Educational Narratives 129
13. Imperial Languages and Public Writings in Tamil South India: A Bird’s-Eye View in the Very Longue Durée 152
14. Landscapes, Linkages, and Luminescence: First-Millennium CE Environmental and Social Change in Mainland Southeast Asia 184
15. Sri Ksetra, 3^rd Century BCE to 6^th Century CE: Indianization, Synergies, Creation 220
16. Part III: Religion, Ritual, and Empowerment
17. The Meaning of the Word ārya in Two Gupta-Period Inscriptions 269
18. Four Syllables for Slaying and Repelling: A Tibetan Vajrabhairava Practice from Recently Recovered Manuscripts of the “Lost” Book of Rwa (Rwa pod) 278
19. Love, Unknowing, and Female Filth: The Buddhist Discourse of Birth as a Vector of Social Change for Monastic Women in Premodern South Asia 308
20. A Natural Wonder: From Liṅga Mountain to Prosperous Lord at Vat Phu 341
21. Index 385