01 March 2011, 05:30 am
The Valley of the Kauravas
Programme Type
Talks

Speaker: Prof. William S. Sax, Head, Department of Ethnology and Executive Director, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg

 

Chair: Ms Neeru Nanda, IAS (Retd)

 

The lecture focuses on a remote valley, the UpperTonsRiver in the Rawain region of the Western Himalayas, where an archaic political form exists in which the local gods, Karna and Duryodhana, "rule" their tiny kingdom through oracles.  and how this system is rapidly changing and adapting to mainstream Indian society today