Krishna: A Sourcebook » (New Edition)

Edwin F. Bryant is Associate Professor of Hinduism at Rutgers University. He is the translator of Krishna: The Beautiful Legend of God (2004); author of The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate (OUP, 2001); co-editor of: The Hare Krishna Movement: The Post-Charismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant (2004), and The Aryan Invasion: Evidence, Politics, History (2005), and has just completed a translation of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali with Notes from the Traditional Commentators (2007).

In the West Krishna is primarily known as the speaker of the Bhagavad Gita. But it is the stories of Krishna's childhood and his later exploits that have provided some of the most important and widespread sources of religious narrative in the Hindu religious landscape. This volume brings together new translations of representative samples of Krishna religious literature from a variety of genres — classical, popular, regional, sectarian, poetic, literary, and philosophical.

Contributors     ix
Introduction     3
Classical Source Material
Krishna in the Mahabharata: The Death of Karna   Alf Hiltebeitel     23
Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita   Robert N. Minor     77
The Harivamsa: The Dynasty of Krishna   Ekkehard Lorenz     95
Krishna in the Tenth Book of the Bhagavata Purana   Edwin F. Bryant     111
Regional Literary Expressions
Orissa: Shri Krishna Jagannatha: The Mushali-parva from Sarala's Mahabharata   Bijoy M. Misra     139
Assam: Shankaradeva's Parijata Harana Nata   William L. Smith     163
Tamil Nadu: Weaving Garlands in Tamil: The Poetry of the Alvars   Vasudha Narayanan     187
Maharashtra: Games with God: Sakhya-bhakti in Marathi Sant Poetry   Vidyut Aklujkar     205
Braj: Fishing in Sur's Ocean   John Stratton Hawley     223
Rajasthan: Mirabai and Her Poetry   Nancy M. Martin     241
Gujarat: Govinda's Glory: Krishna-Lila in the songs of Narasinha Mehta   Neelima Shukla-Bhatt     255
Sanskrit from Tamil Nadu: At Play in the Forests of the Lord: The Gopalavimshati of Vedantadeshika   Steven P. Hopkins     285
Philosophy and Theology
Krishna in Advaita Vedanta: The SupremeBrahman in Human Form   Lance E. Nelson     309
Ramanuja and the Meaning of Krishna's Descent and Embodiment on This Earth   Francis X. Clooney, S.J.     329
Madhva Vedanta and Krishna   Deepak Sarma     357
The Six Sandarbhas of Jiva Gosvami   Satyanarayana Dasa     373
A Selection from the Bhaktirasamritasindhu of Rupa Gosvamin: The Foundational Emotions (Sthayi-bhavas)   David L. Haberman     409
The Divine Feminine in the Theology of Krishna   Graham M. Schweig     441
Hagiography and Praxis
Kumbhandas: The Devotee as Salt of the Earth   Richard Barz     477
The Bade Shikshapatra: A Vallabhite Guide to the Worship of Krishna's Divine Images   Paul Arney     505
Vaishnava Pilgrimage: Select Puranic Texts   Paul H. Sherbow     537
Chaitanya Vaishnavism and the Holy Names   Neal Delmonico     549