Hindu Studies

Review by Re'em Stern https://www.academia.edu/35394327/JVS_Fifth_Veda_Book_Review_by_Reem_Stern

Review of “Exploring the Bhagavad gita” by Carl Olson https://www.academia.edu/11300631/Review_of_Exploring_the_Bhagavad_gita_by_Carl_Olson Review of “Exploring the Bhagavad gita” by Hamsa Stainton https://www.academia.edu/11303957/Review_of_Exploring_the_Bhagavad_gita_by_Hamsa_Stainton Review of “Exploring the Bhagavad gita” by Arvind Sharma https://www.academia.edu/11304339/Review_of_Exploring_the_Bhagavad_gita_by_Arvind_Sharma

"The influence of the Bhagavata Purana on what has come to be known as Hinduism is paralleled only by the epic Ramayana. Yet it is, at first glance, a thematically complicated and stylistically unusual text. Building on his work analyzing the narrative structure of the Bhagavad Gita, Ithamar Theodor expertly argues that the combining of all the elements contained in the Bhagavata was a conscious harmonizing of two distinct orthodox scholastic traditions: the philosophical one stemming from the Upanishads, and the literary aesthetical one drawing from the rasa theory of kavya poetics. This is a fascinating and groundbreaking work". [...]

   "This is potentially one of the most significant books to emerge in recent times on how to read the Gita, for it provides a clear way forward to make coherent sense of one of the most important yet methodologically intractable texts of religious Hinduism. I found this book an illumining experience." Julius Lipner FBA, Professor of Hinduism and the Comparative Study of Religion and Fellow of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge    "A fascinating book which throws new light on the Gita, and should help to make it more accessible to those who wish to read this great [...]