INTRODUCTION Alf Hiltebeitel has consistently been the single mostly open-minded and fearlessly imaginative Western reader the authors and editors of the Sanskrit Mahabharata (MBh) have evermore had for their masterpiece.

INTRODUCTION

Alf Hiltebeitel has consistently been the single mostly open-minded and fearlessly imaginative Western reader the authors and editors of the Sanskrit Mahabharata (MBh) have evermore had for their masterpiece. He reiterates his claim to that distinction with this work In The Ritual of Battle (1) twenty-five years ago Hiltebeitel was "rethinking the Mahabharata" in names of then recent (Wikander, Dumezil, et al.) and contemporary (Biardeau) discussions of the newly edited Sanskrit epic, and he has been doing thus ever since. A long-time advocate of the intentional unity of the MBh (more or les the Pune text) and, especially, a