Snakes in the Mahābhārata

Snakes in the Mahābhārata

Audio recording of a lecture given by tutor Patricia Greer on June 28, 2023 as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. The Graduate Institute has provided this description of the event: “’When all this was without light and unillumined, and on all its sides covered by darkness, there arose one large Egg, the inexhaustible seed of all creatures. They say that this was the great divine cause, in the beginning of the Eon…’ (I(I)26-27) So begins the bard who will recite the entire Mahābhārata as he himself heard it recited at a twelve-year Snake Sacrifice in which black-garbed brahmins chanted hymns to lure all snakes into the flames of their sacrificial fire. Thus the world’s longest poem starts with the enigma of a great egg that lies below the cosmic waters in the kingdom of divine/demonic oviparous Snakes.”
The lecture begins about 12 minutes into the recording.

Santa Fe, NM

2023-06-28

Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.

sound

mp3

English

SF_GreerP_Snakes_in_the_Mahabharata_2023-06-28

MP4

00:57:42