Alf Hiltebeitel

Alf Hiltebeitel is a professor of religion, history, and human sciences at the George Washington University. He received his Ph.D. in the history of religions at the University of Chicago. He teaches courses on Hinduism, Buddhism, Indian and comparative mythologies, the Goddess, and recently on Dharma in Hinduism and Buddhism. His main research interests are in the Sanskrit epics the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa, and in ethnography on the south Indian Tamil cult of Draupadī, the Mahābhārata’s chief heroine. In addition to authoring many articles, he has edited or coedited three books, and translated or cotranslated four books from French: two by Georges Dumézil and one each by Mircea Eliade and Madeleine Biardeau. His own books are The Ritual of Battle: Krishna in the Mahābhārata (1976/1991); The Cult of Draupadī, vol. 1, Mythologies: From Gingee to Kurukṣetra (1988/1992); The Cult of Draupadī, vol. 2, On Hindu Ritual and the Goddess (1991); Rethinking India’s Oral and Classical Epics: Draupadī among Rajputs, Muslims, and Dalits (1999/2001); and Rethinking the Mahābhārata: A Reader’s Guide to the Education of the Dharma King (2001/2002).