The Epic Hero: Between Brahmin and Warrior.

In this paper, I propose to examine the figure of the hero in the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata (MBh) and the Rāmāyaṇa (Rm). In the context of ancient India, one would naturally expect the prototypical hero of an epic text to belong to the kṣatriya or warrior class. Nevertheless, I will argue that the real heroes of the epics are not the warriors but the Brahmins - in the sense that the Brahmins are consistently declared to be more powerful, more intelligent, more indispensable than all the other classes