Texts in Context
Texts in Context

Author: Jeffrey R. Timm

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1992-01-01

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9780791407967

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The major religious traditions of South Asia are ‘religions of the book’. All accept basic arrays of texts of scriptures, often seen as sacred reservoirs of meaning and power. The West has viewed these texts as ‘bibles’ of their respective traditions, projecting onto them Western values and concerns. This book challenges such misconceptions by revealing the complex character of scripture and its interpretation in South Asian religions. Texts in Context explores the hermeneutical traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, and Sikhism. The question of how we should understand the diversity of text-traditions is approached by asking “How have traditional thinkers — the exegetes within these traditions —understood and utilized scripture?” The answers, though remarkably diverse, do reveal important similarities and take the discussion of scripture in India to a deeper level. This book makes accessible to the non-specialist sensibilities and approaches that have previously received little attention in the West, but have formed the basis for traditional efforts to understand and utilize scripture. It is a collaboration between contemporary thinkers and their traditional counterparts, whose voices emerge as they consider the sacred words of the religious traditions of South Asia.

"Studies In Akkamahadevi's Vacanas"

Author: Dr. Ramappa B. Naik

Publisher: Ashok Yakkaldevi

Published: 2023-02-04

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1387236911

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Mahadeviyakka, or Akkamahadevi was bom at Udutadi a village not far from Shimoga, which was then the capital ofking Kausika. Her parents were named Sumati and Nirmalay' Akkamahadevi herself seems to have had her initiation in early childhood and the impress of the seal of Grace must have been strong on her, for she was from that moment a dedicated child. Beautiful as she was in person (traditional biographers, in their charming old way, describe her as a Rudrakannike). She was more beautiful in mind and heart. So firm was her conviction of being already wedded to her lord Mallikaijuna, that at the age of eighteen, in a country, at a time noted for early marriages, she was still single. The turning-point in her life came when king Kausika, returning from a hunt, saw her among the crowd that had been drawn by the din and splendour ofthe cavalcade, and on the instant fell captive to her beauty.

Tales for the Dying
Tales for the Dying

Author: E. H. Rick Jarow

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 0791487458

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Tales for the Dying explores the centrality of death and dying in the narrative of the Bhāgavata-Purāna, India's great text of devotional theism, canonized as an integral part of the Vaisnava bhakti tradition. The text grapples with death through an imaginative meditation, one that works through the presence and power of narrative. The story of the Bhāgavata-Purāna is spoken to a king who is about to die, and it enables him to come to terms with his own passing. The work does not isolate dying as an issue; it treats it on many levels. This book discusses how images of dying in the Bhāgavata-Purāna relate to issues of language and love in the religious imagination of India. Drawing on insights from studies in myth, literary semiotics, and depth psychology, as well as from Indian commentarial and aesthetic traditions, the author examines the power of myth and narrative (storytelling or hari katha) and shows how a detailed awareness of the Puranic imagination may lead to a revisioning of some long-held presuppositions around Indian religious attitudes toward dying. By casting Vaisnava bhakti traditions and Puranic narrative in a fresh light, the mythic imagination of the Purānas takes its place on the stage of contemporary discourse on comparative mythology and literature.

Christians and Missionaries in India
Christians and Missionaries in India

Author: Robert Eric Frykenberg

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 9780802839565

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The subtle complexities of Christian missionary activity in India from the 16th through the 20th centuries are discussed in 16 articles by scholars of religion, history, and anthropology in Denmark, Sweden, the UK, France, Australia, India, and the US. An introduction and an overview to the diverse Christian groups in India are provided by Frykenberg (emeritus, history, U. of Wisconsin-Madison). Other topics include the first European missionaries on Sanskrit grammar, the Tranquebar mission, the German missionary education of two 19th- century Indian intellectuals, two articles on the Santals, and several papers that describe missionary interference in traditions of caste.--From publisher's description.