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<p>In Bangalore, my hometown, women tell Hindu myths repeatedly, often in unexpected spaces like beauty parlors and cafés, emphasizing the nuance and fluid ethical power of these enduring stories. This article explores these powerful tellings of narrative through three well-known myths from the ancient epic of war, the <i>Mahābhārata</i>—that of the <i>apsara</i> Menakā and the queens Śakuntalā and Draupadī. I argue that these myths and their tellings offer a contemporary female mythopoesis, conjuring up ontologies that preclude certain actions and provoke others. Focusing on the embodied ethics within the narrative and beyond, the article considers how female recognition and misrecognition work in the contemporary Hindu world to promote, suppress, and critique particular ethical directives. The article explore these women’s tellings of myth, their form and narrative structure, as well as how these Hindu stories build unexpected contemporary ethical worlds.</p>

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The Endless Story: Myth as Ethics, Ethics as Myth

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年7月26日

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  • Tulasi Srinivas

摘要

In Bangalore, my hometown, women tell Hindu myths repeatedly, often in unexpected spaces like beauty parlors and cafés, emphasizing the nuance and fluid ethical power of these enduring stories. This article explores these powerful tellings of narrative through three well-known myths from the ancient epic of war, the Mahābhārata—that of the apsara Menakā and the queens Śakuntalā and Draupadī. I argue that these myths and their tellings offer a contemporary female mythopoesis, conjuring up ontologies that preclude certain actions and provoke others. Focusing on the embodied ethics within the narrative and beyond, the article considers how female recognition and misrecognition work in the contemporary Hindu world to promote, suppress, and critique particular ethical directives. The article explore these women’s tellings of myth, their form and narrative structure, as well as how these Hindu stories build unexpected contemporary ethical worlds.