Abstract

"In analyzing myths glorifying the supremacy of the Sun, Sūrya, which mirror the myths glorifying the Indian Great Goddess, Durgā, found in the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, this book argues for an ideological ecosystem at work in the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa privileging worldly values, of which Indian kings, the Goddess, the Sun, Manu and Mārkaṇḍeya himself are paragons. This book features a salient discovery in Sanskrit narrative text: just as the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa houses the DevīMāhātmya glorifying the Indian Great Goddess, Durgā, it also houses a Sūrya Māhātmya, glorifying the supremacy of the Sun, Sūrya, in much the same manner. The author argues the māhātmyas of the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa were meaningfully and purposefully positioned there, while previous scholarship has considered this haphazard interpolation for sectarian aims. The book demonstrates that deliberate compositional strategies make up the Saura-Śākta symbiosis that can be found in these mirrored māhātmyas. Moreover, the author explores the 'dharmic double helix' of Brahmanism, most explicitly articulated by the structural opposition between pravṛtti and nivṛtti dharmas. The first narrative study of the Sūrya Māhātmya, along with the first study of the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, as a narrative whole, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of Religion, South Asian Studies, Goddess Studies, Narrative Theory and Comparative Mythology"--