CONTENTS: Preface, Prologue: The Crisis of Reproduction and the Crisis of Political Power in the Mahabharata, PART l The Politics of Reproduction in the Mahabharata: A Feminist Reading of the Making anbd Unmaking of a Lineage. 1. The REGULATION AND Ritualization of Desire: Cohabitation, Marriage and Reproduction, 2. A Royal Hunt for a Lineage: Apsaras, Kshartiyas, and Gandharva Marriage, 3. Disrupting Amba's Right to Choose: Svayamvara and Rakshasa; Structural Antagonists and Tense Partners in Lineage Making, 4. The Peculiarities of Lineage Making: Ambika, Ambalika and the Sexual Agency of Women, 5. Madhavi: The Womb Reified. PART ll Of Sutas, Sutaputras, Queens, Dasis and Dasiputras, 6. The Kshatriya World of Power and its Margins, 7. The Queen, the Dasi, and Sexual Politics in the Mahabharata, Epilogue: Vidura, or the (Im)possibility of the Practice of Rajadharma in the Mahabharata, Bibliography, Index. 260pp,.