Pradyumna

Lover, Magician, and Scion of the Avatara

Christopher R. Austin

Traces the evolution of Pradyumna's persona across more than 1000 years of Brahminical and Jain storytelling
Offers an unprecedented study of a literary and mythic figure almost completely unknown to scholars of South Asia
Contributes to ongoing research on the relationship between Brahminical and Jain traditions in South Asia
Articulates the social and gender values informing the construction of Pradyumna's character

Pradyumna

Lover, Magician, and Scion of the Avatara

Christopher R. Austin

Description

This book provides the first full-scale English-language study of Pradyumna, the son of the Hindu god Krsna. Often represented as a young man in mid-adolescence, Pradyumna is both a handsome double of his demon-slaying father and the rebirth of Kamadeva, the God of Love. Sanskrit epic, puranic, and kavya narratives of the 300-1300 CE period celebrate Pradyumna's sexual potency, mastery of illusory subterfuges, and military prowess in supporting the work of his avatara father. These materials reflect the values of an evolving Brahminical and Vaisnava tradition that was deeply invested in the imperatives of family, patrilines, the violent but necessary defense of the social and cosmic order, and the celebration of beauty and desire as a means to the divine. Pradyumna's evolving narratives, almost completely absent from existing studies of Hindu mythology, provide a point of access to the development of Krsna bhakti and Vaisnava theism more broadly. Conversely, Jain sources cast Pradyumna as an exemplary figure through whom a pointed rejection of these values can be articulated, even while sharing certain of their elementary premises.
Pradyumna: Lover, Magician, and Scion of the Avatara assembles these narratives, presents key Sanskrit materials in translation and summary form, and articulates the social, gender, and religious values encoded in them. Most importantly, the study argues that Pradyumna's signature two-handed maneuver—the audacious appropriation of a feminine partner, enabled by the emasculating destruction of her demonic male protector—communicates a persistent fantasy of male power expressed in the language of a mutually implicating sex and violence.

Pradyumna

Lover, Magician, and Scion of the Avatara

Christopher R. Austin

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
List of Figures
Introduction
Chapter One: Pradyumna, the Vrishnis and the Bhagavatas
Chapter Two: Pradyumna in the Mahabharata: Epic Episodes and Ideologies
Chapter Three: Pradyumna and his Foundation Narrative in the Critical Text Harivamsa
Chapter Four: Pradyumna-Kamadeva in the Major Vaisnava Puranas
Chapter Five: The Jain Pradyumnacarita
Chapter Six: Late Developments of the Harivamsa and the Prabhavati Episode
Chapter Seven: A Kavya Casting for Pradyumna: The Pradyumnabhyudaya of Ravivarman
Conclusion
Appendix: The Pradyumna-Prabhavati Legend (HV App. I 29F)
References
Notes
Index

Pradyumna

Lover, Magician, and Scion of the Avatara

Christopher R. Austin

Author Information

Christopher R. Austin, Associate Professor, Dalhousie University

Christopher R. Austin completed his BA and MA degrees in Religious Studies at Concordia University in Montreal and PhD at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He is presently Associate Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Classics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he teaches widely across all major religious traditions of South and East Asia, as well as Sanskrit and South Asian History. His principal areas of research are in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata and particularly its supplement the Harivamsa, the biographical traditions of Krishna's life and his son Pradyumna, and early Vaisnavism.

Pradyumna

Lover, Magician, and Scion of the Avatara

Christopher R. Austin

Reviews and Awards

"This is a beautiful book on the mythology of Krsna, written from the point of view of Pradyumna, Krsna's oft neglected son. In stories from classical India that have rarely been studied, Pradyumna focuses on the dimension of desire or kama, providing a rich understanding of masculinity, femininity and sexuality in general." - André Couture, Professor Emeritus, Faculté de théologie et de sciences religieuses, Université Laval

"The Sanskrit archive is an inexhaustible mine of treasures, but we need outstanding scholarship to bring these treasures to light. Christopher Austin has crafted a multi-dimensional biography of Pradyumna, a fascinating but little-known character glimpsed in many sources. The author's frame-questions of power and desire, divinity and humanity have implications that reach far beyond the texts, and even have something to tell us about ourselves. An outstanding book." - McComas Taylor, author of Seven Days of Nectar: Contemporary Oral Performance of the Bhagavatapurana

"In his seamless combination of close textual study and gender analysis, Austin has given us an outstanding methodological blueprint for studying early Indic texts. Drawing from archeological and early textual sources, he convincingly demonstrates that the narratives of Pradyumna articulate ways to resolve 'deep-seated anxieties and conflicts attending the sexual maturation of males.' A fascinating and informative read, Austin's study is a must for scholars of the Indian epic, literary, and religious traditions." - Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, Senior Lecturer in Sanskrit, University of California at Berkeley