Exchanges in the Flow of Time

In the grand itihas (history of ideas) that this epic embodies, no individual – however noble their deeds might be, and no idea, despite its seeming idealism, is perfect and pure. This grand text of Indian civilization, even as it appears to be outmeasuring space and outlasting time, invites every generation living within the confines of its culture and facing the forces of history, to the semantic field of uncertainties and ambiguities. The act of reading is the meeting point of multiple histories, those of the individual, the recent cultural and the ancient. During the interpretive encounter, the boundaries between here and now and what lies beyond in time and space, shift. This book is about the exchanges that occur in the flow of time.

The nature of the exchange is varied; some enter the flow to discover dimensions about self, text and history, while others evade the flow to make sense of the text in a detached manner. The narratives convincingly demonstrate the limitations of monologic voices and the productivity of dialogic consciousness in every domain of development.