Book Reviews

Abstract

This review synthesizes two recent scholarly works—Eben Graves's The Politics of Musical Time and Simon Brodbeck's Divine Descent and the Four World-Ages in the Mahābhārata—both of which engage deeply with the temporal dimensions of South Asian religious expression, though in markedly different domains. Graves explores the transformation of padabali kirtan, a Bengali devotional music tradition, through archival, ethnographic, and musicological lenses, examining how commercial pressures and changing audience demands have reshaped its tempo, aesthetics, and narrative scope. His study links the genre’s medieval devotional roots with its contemporary manifestations across media platforms, while also gesturing toward the impact of sectarian politics and linguistic hegemony on devotional publics.

In parallel, Brodbeck addresses a theological and cosmological conundrum in classical Sanskrit literature: why does the avatāra of Kṛṣṇa, a divine intervention intended to restore dharma, inaugurate the Kaliyuga, the darkest of the four world-ages? Through meticulous literary analysis of the Mahābhārata and Harivaṃśa, Brodbeck probes the intersections of myth, cosmology, and narrative structure, offering new perspectives on cyclical time and the narrative logic of decline. Both works interrogate the politics of time—whether through musical performance shaped by modern markets or mythological time shaped by divine descent—while suggesting fertile grounds for broader engagements with sectarianism, mythopoesis, and historiography in South Asian traditions.