Damayanti and Nala: The Many Lives of a Story

Contents: 1. Nala: The Life of a Story/Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman. 2. The Story of Nala/David Shulman and Velcheru Narayana Rao. 3. An Indo-Persian Retelling of Nala and Damayanti/Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. 4. Nal and Damayantis Reversals of Fortune: Perspectives on When a Woman Should Know Better/Lindsey Harlan. 5. Damayantis String: Epic Threads in Womens Ritual Stories/Ann Grodzins Gold. 6. Pandvani Heroines, Chhattisgarhi Daughters/Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger. 7. Raja Nals Purana and the Jat Kingdoms of Braj/Susan S. Wadley. 8. The Performative Context of Nala in Late Medieval Kerala/Rich Freeman. 9. Nalas Weakness and Damayantis Powers: Jain Tellings of the Great Love Story/M. Whitney Kelting. 10. Leaving Damayanti Again (and Again): Jain Retellings of the Nala Story/Phyllis Granoff. Nala Unhinged: Pukalentippulavars Nalavenpa/David Shulman.

This volume of essays with papers/anthropologists, Sanskritists, scholars of religion, historians, literary scholars and folklorists, explores the many tellings of the story of Damayanti and Nala, giving us new understandings of this well-known story.