In this volume, leading American, European, and Indian scholars including John E. Cort, Friedhelm Hardy, Padmanabh S. Jaini, Laurie L. Patton, A. K. Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao, and David Shulman discuss the subject of the Purāṇas, focusing particularly on the relationship between the "Great Puran'as" of the Sanskrit tradition and the many other sorts of Purāṇas. The Puran'as are essentially collections of stories dealing with all aspects of myth, ritual, science, and history, and the authors of these essays are all superb storytellers.
In this volume, leading American, European, and Indian scholars including John E. Cort, Friedhelm Hardy, Padmanabh S. Jaini, Laurie L. Patton, A. K. Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao, and David Shulman discuss the subject of the Purāṇas, focusing particularly on the relationship between the "Great Puran'as" of the Sanskrit tradition and the many other sorts of Purāṇas. The Puran'as are essentially collections of stories dealing with all aspects of myth, ritual, science, and history, and the authors of these essays are all superb storytellers.
In this text, leading scholars from around the world take stock of two centuries of international intellectual investment in Hinduism. Since the early 19th century, when the scholarly investigation of Hinduism began to take shape as a modern academic discipline, Hindu studies has evolved from its concentration on description and analysis to an emphasis on understanding Hindu traditions in the context of the religion's own values, concepts and history. Offering an assessment of the current state of Hindu studies, the contributors to this volume identify past achievements and chart the course for what remains to be accomplished in the field.
When did categories such as a national space and economy acquire self-evident meaning and a global reach? Why do nationalist movements demand a territorial fix between a particular space, economy, culture, and people? Producing India mounts a formidable challenge to the entrenched practice of methodological nationalism that has accorded an exaggerated privilege to the nation-state as a dominant unit of historical and political analysis. Manu Goswami locates the origins and contradictions of Indian nationalism in the convergence of the lived experience of colonial space, the expansive logic of capital, and interstate dynamics. Building on and critically extending subaltern and postcolonial perspectives, her study shows how nineteenth-century conceptions of India as a bounded national space and economy bequeathed an enduring tension between a universalistic political economy of nationhood and a nativist project that continues to haunt the present moment. Elegantly conceived and judiciously argued, Producing India will be invaluable to students of history, political economy, geography, and Asian studies.
Dieser Band versammelt Beiträge von namhaften europäischen und amerikanischenAltertumswissenschaftlern und Religionswissenschaftlern, die einen repräsentativen Querschnitt der zeitgenössischen Erforschung des Mythos, seiner Erscheinungsformen und seiner Transformationen in unterschiedlichen Bereichen und Epochen darbieten.
Krishna—widely venerated and adored in the Hindu tradition—is a deity of many aspects. An ancient manifestation of the Supreme God Vishnu, or the Godhead itself, Krishna is the bringer of Yoga philosophy and the creator of the universe, the destroyer of evil tyrants, and the hero of the epic Mahabharata. He is also described in classical Sanskrit texts as having human characteristics and enjoying very human pursuits: Krishna is the butter thief, cowherd, philanderer, and flute player. Yet even these playful depictions are based upon descriptions found in the Sanskrit canon, and mostly reflect familiar, classical Pan-Indian images. In this book, contributors examine the alternative, or unconventional, Krishnas, offering examples from more localized Krishna traditions found in different regions among various ethnic groups, vernacular language traditions, and remote branches of Indian religions. These wide-ranging, alternative visions of Krishna include the Tantric Krishna of Bengal, Krishna in urban women's rituals, Krishna as monogamous husband and younger brother in Braj, Krishna in Jainism, Krishna in Marathi tradition, Krishna in South India, and the Krishna of nineteenth-century reformed Hinduism.
Rammohun Roy (c.1772-1833) is counted amongst the most influential intellectuals of Modern India. But even after a century of debate and enquiry, scholars are still not quite sure whether he was a consistent and articulate political thinker, or a man of intellectual compromise and paradox. This book argues that Rammohun was a consistent thinker who creatively responded to the political challenges of the East India Company's government in India by reading deeply into Sanskritic and Indo-Persian intellectual traditions to develop a political thought of his own. Rammohun's political thought was concerned with three distinct but related themes: i) the restructuring of the East India Company's administration from a distant and invisible government at London to Calcutta; ii) the importance of ethical practice in Bengali society; and iii) the legal and ethical obligation of the Company to be accountable to its subjects. Rammohun consistently stressed the importance of societal ethics and highlighted the consequences of the distance between London and Bengal on governmental accountability. A unity of thought can thus be identified in his work.
Formalized by the tenth century, the expansive Bhagavata Purana resists easy categorization. While the narrative holds together as a coherent literary work, its language and expression compete with the best of Sanskrit poetry. The text's theological message focuses on devotion to Krishna or Vishnu, and its philosophical outlook is grounded in the classical traditions of Vedanta and Samkhya. No other Purana has inspired so much commentary, imitation, and derivation. The work has grown in vibrancy through centuries of performance, interpretation, worship, and debate and has guided the actions and meditations of elite intellectuals and everyday worshippers alike. This annotated translation and detailed analysis shows how one text can have such enduring appeal. Key selections from the Bhagavata Purana are faithfully translated, while all remaining sections of the Purana are concisely summarized, providing the reader with a continuous and comprehensive narrative. Detailed endnotes explain unfamiliar concepts and several essays elucidate the rich philosophical and religious debates found in the Sanskrit commentaries. Together with the multidisciplinary readings contained in the companion volume The Bhagavata Purana: Sacred Text and Living Tradition (Columbia, 2013), this book makes a central Hindu masterpiece more accessible to English-speaking audiences and more meaningful to scholars of Hindu literature, philosophy, and religion.
In this magisterial volume of essays, Wendy Doniger enhances our understanding of the ancient and complex religion to which she has devoted herself for half a century. This series of interconnected essays and lectures surveys the most critically important and hotly contested issues in Hinduism over 3,500 years, from the ancient time of the Vedas to the present day. The essays contemplate the nature of Hinduism; Hindu concepts of divinity; attitudes concerning gender, control, and desire; the question of reality and illusion; and the impermanent and the eternal in the two great Sanskrit epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Among the questions Doniger considers are: Are Hindus monotheists or polytheists? How can atheists be Hindu, and how can unrepentant Hindu sinners find salvation? Why have Hindus devoted so much attention to the psychology of addiction? What does the significance of dogs and cows tell us about Hinduism? How have Hindu concepts of death, rebirth, and karma changed over the course of history? How and why does a pluralistic faith, remarkable for its intellectual tolerance, foster religious intolerance? Doniger concludes with four concise autobiographical essays in which she reflects on her lifetime of scholarship, Hindu criticism of her work, and the influence of Hinduism on her own philosophy of life. On Hinduism is the culmination of over forty years of scholarship from a renowned expert on one of the world's great faiths.
