Speakers: Dr. Vishwa Adluri, Associate Adjunct Professor, Hunter College, The City University of New York; Dr. Joydeep Bagchee, PhD in Philosophy, New School of Social Studies, New York; and co-authors of the forthcoming book The Nay Science: A History of German Indology

The speakers will address the question of the Mahabharata's historicity. Through a critical examination of the formation of early Mahabharata scholarship, they will discuss how theories of the epic's origins in heroic Aryan circles were used as a vehicle of scientific, evangelical, and racial propaganda by Orientalist academics