V.S. Sukthankar
Topic: Society in Early India: Kinship, Varna-Jati, Women · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 3 "Kinship, Caste and Class - Early Societies"
Meaning
V.S. Sukthankar was an Indian Sanskrit scholar. He led the team that began the Critical Edition of the Mahabharata in 1919. The team compared manuscripts of the epic from across the subcontinent to work out which verses were common to most versions. He did not live to see the project completed. It took 47 years and produced more than 13,000 pages. His method helped historians see the Mahabharata as a text that changed over time and from region to region.
Example
Under the project Sukthankar started, scholars collected Sanskrit manuscripts in many scripts. They found a common core from Kashmir to Kerala, along with huge regional differences. More than half of the published pages record these variants. He also wrote On the Meaning of the Mahabharata.
Related concepts
- Dharmasutras
- Dharmashastras
- Manusmriti
- Narada Smriti
- Yajnavalkya Smriti
- Mahabharata
- Critical Edition of the Mahabharata
- Dharma