Ascetics of Kashi
Author: Surajit Sinha
Publisher: Varanasi : N.K. Bose Memorial Foundation
Published: 1978
Total Pages: 306
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAnthropological study of the Hindu ascetics of Varanasi.
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The Sacred Complex of Kashi
Author: Lalita Prasad Vidyarthi
Publisher: Concept Publishing Company
Published: 1979
Total Pages: 340
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKStudy of the importance of Varanasi as a centre for Hindu pilgrimage and the traditional priestcraft of the place.
Indian Asceticism
Author: Carl Olson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2015-03-03
Total Pages: 305
ISBN-13: 0190266406
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThroughout the history of Indian religions, the ascetic figure is most closely identified with power. A by-product of the ascetic path, power is displayed in the ability to fly, walk on water or through dense objects, read minds, discern the former lives of others, see into the future, harm others, or simply levitate one's body. These tales give rise to questions about how power and violence are related to the phenomenon of play. Indian Asceticism focuses on the powers exhibited by ascetics of India from ancient to modern time. Carl Olson discusses the erotic, the demonic, the comic, and the miraculous forms of play and their connections to power and violence. He focuses on Hinduism, but evidence is also presented from Buddhism and Jainism, suggesting that the subject matter of this book pervades India's major indigenous religious traditions. The book includes a look at the extent to which findings in cognitive science can add to our understanding of these various powers; Olson argues that violence is built into the practice of the ascetic. Indian Asceticism culminates with an attempt to rethink the nature of power in a way that does justice to the literary evidence from Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain sources.
Female Ascetics in Hinduism
Author: Lynn Teskey Denton
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2012-02-01
Total Pages: 229
ISBN-13: 0791484629
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFemale Ascetics in Hinduism provides a vivid account of the lives of women renouncers—women who renounce the world to live ascetic spiritual lives—in India. The author approaches the study of female asceticism by focusing on features of two dharmas, two religiously defined ways of life: that of woman-as-householder and that of the ascetic, who, for various reasons, falls outside the realm of householdership. The result of fieldwork conducted in Varanasi (Benares), the book explores renouncers' social and personal backgrounds, their institutions, and their ways of life. Offering a first-hand look at and an insightful analysis of this little-known world, this highly readable book will be indispensable to those interested in female asceticism in the Hindu tradition and women's spiritual lives around the world.
Banaras: Urban Forms and Cultural Histories
Author: Michael S. Dodson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-01-31
Total Pages: 305
ISBN-13: 1000365646
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe book presents a rich and surprising account of the recent history of the north Indian city of Banaras. Supplementing traditional accounts, which have focused upon the city’s religious imaginary, this volume brings together essays written by acknowledged experts in north Indian culture and history to examine the construction of diverse urban identities in, and after, the British colonial period. Drawing on fields such as archaeology, literature, history, and architecture, these accounts of Banaras understand the narratives which inscribe the city as having been forged substantially in the experiences of British rule. But while British rule transformed the city in many respects, the essays also emphasize the importance of Indian agency in these processes. The book also examines the essential ambiguity of modernization schemes in the city as well as the contingency of elements of religious narrative. The introduction, moreover, attempts to resituate Banaras into a wider tradition of urban studies in South Asia. The book will be of interest to not only scholars and students of north Indian culture and urban history, but also anyone looking to gain a deeper appreciation of this remarkable, and complex, city.
The Legacy of G.S. Ghurye
Author: A. R. Momin
Publisher: Popular Prakashan
Published: 1996
Total Pages: 242
ISBN-13: 9788171548316
DOWNLOAD EBOOKComprises contributed articles on the life and thought of Govind Sadashiv Ghurye, b. 1893, and on Indian sociology and anthropology.
The Spectrum of the Sacred
Author: Baidyanath Saraswati
Publisher: Concept Publishing Company
Published: 1984
Total Pages: 214
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Artisans of Banaras
Author: Nita Kumar
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2017-03-14
Total Pages: 307
ISBN-13: 1400886996
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNita Kumar offers an evocative and sensitive portrayal of rarely explored aspects of Hindu culture through her analysis of the way leisure time is used by Hindu and Muslim artisans of Banaras--the weavers, metalworkers, and woodworkers. Music, festivals, the place of physical culture, and the importance of going "to the outer side" all are examined as Kumar looks at changes that have occurred in leisure-time activities over the last century. The discussion raises questions of the cultural and conceptual aspects of working-class life, the role of fun and play in Indian thought, the importance of public activities in terms of personal identity, and the meaning of an Indian city to its residents. This analysis turns away from the usual models of Hindu-Muslim conflict by seeing divisions based on occupation, income level, education, and urban neighborhood as more relevant for the construction of identity than those based on religion or community. Kumar draws her information from police station records, Hindi newspapers and periodicals, publications of local individuals and organizations, oral history, and ethnographic data. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Banaras
Author: Diana L. Eck
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2013-06-05
Total Pages: 382
ISBN-13: 0307832953
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe sacred city of Banāras on the River Ganges is one of the oldest living cities in the world—as old as Jerusalem, Athens, and Peking. It is the place where Shiva, the Lord of All, is said to have made his permanent home since the dawn of creation. There are few cities in India as traditionally Hindu and as symbolic of the whole of Hindu culture as Banāras. In this eloquent, finely observed study, Diana Eck shows how the city over the centuries has become a lens through which the Hindu vision of the world is precisely focused. She reveals the spiritual and historical resonance of this holy place where great sages such as the Buddha and Shankara were taught, where ashrams, palaces, and universities were built, where God has been imagined and imagined in a thousand ways. She describes the rites of its temples, the busy life of its riverfront, and the exuberance of its festivals. She tells how people travel from all over India to Banāras for the privilege of dying a good death here, for they believe that on the banks of the River Ganges where “the atmosphere of devotion is improbable in its strength,” it is possible to be released from the earthly round forever. In her account of the sacred history, geography, and art of the city, its elaborate and thriving rituals, its myths and literature, and its importance to pilgrims and seekers, Diana Eck uses her wealth of scholarship to make the Hindu tradition come powerfully alive so that we come to understand the meaning of this sacred city to the millions of believers who have been coming here for over 2,500 years.
Criminal Gods and Demon Devotees
Author: Alf Hiltebeitel
Publisher: SUNY Press
Published: 1989-01-01
Total Pages: 512
ISBN-13: 9780887069819
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Hindu sacred order is guarded by the very gods who violate it and the demons who oppose it. This book is a who's who of such transgressive figures, both familiar and unfamiliar, showing their place within the Hindu order that they violate. It is also a reflection of the serious scholarly debate over the nature and composition of this Hindu order. The chapters range from pan-Hindu deities such as Bhairava and Virabhadra to guardian gods of specific regions and lineages and of different goddess cults. Chapters cover violent themes in SAaivite hagiography, the position of Brahmans in relation to cultic carnivorism, guardian heroes in folk epic, the deified dead, the royal mythology of a "criminal caste," and a wide-ranging overview of transgressive sacrality.
