Krishna: A Sourcebook.

• Author: Couture, Andre
• Position: Book review

Krishna: A Sourcebook. Edited by EDWIN F. BRYANT. NEW YORK: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2007. Pp. xiv + 575.

This impressive book contains twenty-two chapters divided into four sections organized under the following headings: "Classical Source Material" (chs. 1-4, pp. 21-136), "Regional Literary Expressions'" (chs. 5-12, pp. 136-306), "Philosophy and Theology" (chs. 13-18, pp. 307-474), and "Hagoigraphy and Praxis" (chs. 19-22, pp. 475-575). The introduction by the editor provides a useful review of the various representations of what Indian tradition has always considered to be one and the same deity. Given that this collection of texts uses transliteration without diacritics, I have adopted the practice here.

In the first chapter Alf Hiltebeitel focuses on "Krishna in the Mahabharata: The Death of Karna." At first glance, the angle chosen by the author might appear to be too limited. Nevertheless, the overall thrust of the paper is to offer a convincing argument against the position of ancient ephemerist by demonstrating that "Krishna's divinity is not a literary after-affect" (p. 24). This deity must be taken into account if the Mahabharata is to be correctly understood. Quoting and building upon the work of Georges Dumezil and Madeleine Biardeau, this study is one of the few that demonstrates an awareness of research done in a language other than English. In chapter two Robert N. Minor accompanies his short but effective introduction to "Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita" with a number of well-chosen excerpts from the text. Chapter three deals with "The Harivamsa: The Dynasty of Krishna" (Ekkehard Lorenz). The passages quoted have been selected with care. Nevertheless, the references are often outdated; John Brockington's recent book, The Sanskrit Epics (Brill, 1998), which includes references to a great deal of current research in the area, is not even mentioned. No explanation on the Harivamsha as a khila, a supplement to the Mahabharata, is given; nor are the implications of the term or possible dates for the composition of the Harivamsha discussed. Chapter four deals with "Krishna in the Tenth Book of the Bhagavata Purana" (Edwin F. Bryant). Eight excerpts from eight different chapters are translated here. In these texts, I do not see any reason not to translate the word vraja (also gokula) by 'camp' as in the preceding chapter; I will return to this question below. I am unsure what to make of the reference to "three different French translations [of the Bhagavata Purana which] were completed between 1840 and 1857," "followed, in turn, by a translation of the Panchadhyaya ... in 1867" (p. 112). Mariedas Poullee de Pondichery published a French adaptation of a Tamil adaptation of the Sanskrit text as early as 1788. Colonel de Polier gave a summary of several Hindu texts, one of the most important being the Bhagavata Purana. Published in 1809 under the...