of three books and numerous articles and other publications, he holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.Phil. from the University of Oxford, an M.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and a B.A. from the University of Rochester. He was an India Fulbright Scholar in 2002-2003, Directeur d'études invité at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in 2016, and the Khaitan Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies in 2023.
Nemec applied the “Page 99 Test” to his latest book, Brahmins and Kings: Royal Counsel in the Sanskrit Narrative Literatures, and reported the following:
Brahmins and Kings examines the advice given to political leaders. It does so by reading the most well-known and widely circulated of Hindu stories from India's antiquity.Learn more about Brahmins and Kings at the Oxford University Press website.
On page 99 of the book, the subject-matter is the famed Hindu epic, the Rāmāyaṇa. It points out that there is something going on in the text. The hero of the epic, Rāma, kills a wayward king, who was an effective but evil political leader. He does so because this enemy king, a half-demon named Rāvaṇa, lacked the kind of personal restraint required to govern wisely. In fact, Rāvaṇa was sexually deviant, and he had kidnapped Rāma's wife for this reason.
The wrinkle in the story that is examined on page 99 is this: Rāvaṇa's family actually has roots in the most well-placed people of society, the Brahmins. These are the ones who are said to be best able to give good advice to political leaders, because they are (supposed) to live it and breathe it.
Simply, on page 99 it is pointed out that the moral of the story is that everyone in society has to take care of their own self-restraint. Each of us must cultivate a measured approach to life—an inner life—, what I refer to in the book as the Virtue Ethic of the narratives. With this ethic comes the self-restraint that allows kings and other political leaders (and all of us) to act in the greater interest, to see the world for what it really is instead of what they want it to be, to act with wisdom and care, and also to succeed in one's goals in life thereby.
If you read page 99, you'll get a good sense of this book. This is a book about learning how to be a just and upright person in the world. The book argues that being "good" in this way leads one to do well in the world—to succeed at one's goals in life. The goals pursued are not just proper action and morality and adherence to the law. They also include the pursuit of power, wealth, and fame, as well as the pursuit of pleasure—that is, pleasure in art, but also personal enjoyment of every kind, so long as engaged properly (example: not in adultery). And, finally, the virtue ethic even helps cultivate spiritual emancipation, heaven or liberation after this life.
The book examines this advice as told in stories, because stories are really good at making their audiences directly feel and imbibe the ideas they embody. Stories can transform their audiences because the medium of storytelling is so engaging.
This is the message of the book in a nutshell. It is, I argue, what the authors of these stories wished to say. So for those who have read or might want to read some of the most fascinating and exciting of any stories ever written—including epic tales, historical accounts of kings in Kashmir, fantasy stories about flying magical beings and the like, animal fables that give parable-like advice, and Sanskrit dramas and poetry that address the good life of the king and his beautiful life in the court—this book can serve as a guide and companion.
--Marshal Zeringue
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