India

India

Author: Diana L Eck

Publisher: Harmony

Published: 2012-03-27

Total Pages: 578

ISBN-13: 0385531915

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In India: A Sacred Geography, renowned Harvard scholar Diana Eck offers an extraordinary spiritual journey through the pilgrimage places of the world's most religiously vibrant culture and reveals that it is, in fact, through these sacred pilgrimages that India’s very sense of nation has emerged. No matter where one goes in India, one will find a landscape in which mountains, rivers, forests, and villages are elaborately linked to the stories of the gods and heroes of Indian culture. Every place in this vast landscape has its story, and conversely, every story of Hindu myth and legend has its place. Likewise, these places are inextricably tied to one another—not simply in the past, but in the present—through the local, regional, and transregional practices of pilgrimage. India: A Sacred Geography tells the story of the pilgrim’s India. In these pages, Diana Eck takes the reader on an extraordinary spiritual journey through the living landscape of this fascinating country –its mountains, rivers, and seacoasts, its ancient and powerful temples and shrines. Seeking to fully understand the sacred places of pilgrimage from the ground up, with their stories, connections and layers of meaning, she acutely examines Hindu religious ideas and narratives and shows how they have been deeply inscribed in the land itself. Ultimately, Eck shows us that from these networks of pilgrimage places, India’s very sense of region and nation has emerged. This is the astonishing and fascinating picture of a land linked for centuries not by the power of kings and governments, but by the footsteps of pilgrims. India: A Sacred Geography offers a unique perspective on India, both as a complex religious culture and as a nation. Based on her extensive knowledge and her many decades of wide-ranging travel and research, Eck's piercing insights and a sweeping grasp of history ensure that this work will be in demand for many years to come.


The Holy Land Reborn

The Holy Land Reborn

Author: Toni Huber

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-09-15

Total Pages: 520

ISBN-13: 0226356507

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The Dalai Lama has said that Tibetans consider themselves “the child of Indian civilization” and that India is the “holy land” from whose sources the Tibetans have built their own civilization. What explains this powerful allegiance to India? In The Holy Land Reborn ̧ Toni Huber investigates how Tibetans have maintained a ritual relationship to India, particularly by way of pilgrimage, and what it means for them to consider India as their holy land. Focusing on the Tibetan creation and recreation of India as a destination, a landscape, and a kind of other, in both real and idealized terms, Huber explores how Tibetans have used the idea of India as a religious territory and a sacred geography in the development of their own religion and society. In a timely closing chapter, Huber also takes up the meaning of India for the Tibetans who live in exile in their Buddhist holy land. A major contribution to the study of Buddhism, The Holy Land Reborn describes changes in Tibetan constructs of India over the centuries, ultimately challenging largely static views of the sacred geography of Buddhism in India.


How I Became a Hindu

How I Became a Hindu

Author: Sita Ram Goel

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 124

ISBN-13:

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Reminiscences of an Indian sociopolitical activist and former Marxist.


Changing Homelands

Changing Homelands

Author: Neeti Nair

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-04-01

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 0674061152

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Changing Homelands offers a startling new perspective on what was and was not politically possible in late colonial India. In this highly readable account of the partition in the Punjab, Neeti Nair rejects the idea that essential differences between the Hindu and Muslim communities made political settlement impossible. Far from being an inevitable solution, the idea of partition was a very late, stunning surprise to the majority of Hindus in the region. In tracing the political and social history of the Punjab from the early years of the twentieth century, Nair overturns the entrenched view that Muslims were responsible for the partition of India. Some powerful Punjabi Hindus also preferred partition and contributed to its adoption. Almost no one, however, foresaw the deaths and devastation that would follow in its wake. Though much has been written on the politics of the Muslim and Sikh communities in the Punjab, Nair is the first historian to focus on the Hindu minority, both before and long after the divide of 1947. She engages with politics in post-Partition India by drawing from oral histories that reveal the complex relationship between memory and history—a relationship that continues to inform politics between India and Pakistan.


Hindus

Hindus

Author: Julius Lipner

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0415051827

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Hinduism has been a major religious faith for well over 3000 years, and Hindus today account for over 600 million people. Lipner's book is a highly readable study of its evolution, its multidimensional nature, and influence.


Recasting India

Recasting India

Author: Hindol Sengupta

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2014-11-18

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1137279613

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The senior editor for Fortune India explains how the world's largest democracy is at risk of falling apart and what's holding it together


From Time Immemorial

From Time Immemorial

Author: Joan Peters

Publisher: Michael Joseph

Published: 1985

Total Pages: 652

ISBN-13:

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Dispels the myth that Arabs and Jews lived together peacefully in former days in the Arab countries and examines Jewish and Arab immigration patterns.


The Hindu Nation

The Hindu Nation

Author: MK Raghvendra

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-03-18

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 9390358388

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The Hindu Nation begins with an introduction examining nationhood in India and then traces the political conflict to Nehruvian cultural policy after 1947. In today's world, no religion can claim to be superior to any other. But in pursuing 'modernity' and inculcating the 'scientific' and 'secular' outlook, Nehruvian rationalism created an elite liberal class that was sceptical about the majority religion, but this was not extended to other religions because of a misunderstanding of secularism. In promoting Westernised education, the preservation of local knowledge was neglected and Hinduism lost respect among the educated elite born into it. The elite class became the intermediary with the West, which now dominates the academic study of India. Further, prompted by the sceptical attitude of many liberal Indians, Western academics and intellectuals accord Hinduism less respect compared to other religions and treat it as 'superstition'. Traditional Indians who revere Hinduism but are products of the same lopsided system respond by attributing false value to India's prehistory and its past. Hinduism is not a religion but a collection of practices associated with the space now called India. Author M.K. Raghavendra examines what being a Hindu means and asks whether its practices are reconcilable with global modernity and compatible with justice and egalitarianism. While examining the obstacles a modern Hindu nation faces, including the fixed ways of a large public, this extensively researched book also suggests measures to make India successful as a global power and Hinduism widely respected.


Dictionary of Hindu Lore and Legend

Dictionary of Hindu Lore and Legend

Author: Anna L. Dallapiccola

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Published: 2002-11-17

Total Pages: 492

ISBN-13: 0500770670

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Provides over 1,000 accessible, informative and authoritative entries that answer any major question about Hinduism, it's mythology, practices, customs and laws India is so vast that each of its regions is a land in its own right, with diverse languages, customs, and cultural traditions. Yet shared social systems, firmly grounded in religious beliefs, provide the cohesive force that unites over a billion people of different backgrounds. Hinduism is the main religion of India, and this new dictionary provides an unrivaled insight to all aspects of Hindu life, past and present. Some thousand illustrated entries elucidate the history of Hinduism, its mythology, art, architecture, religion, laws, and folklore. The development of Hinduism is presented from its ancient manifestations in local cults and epic poems to modern-day festivals and customs worldwide. The complex relationship between the multitude of gods, goddesses, and semi-divine beings is brought to light in the articles on religion and mythology, while its rich imagery is revealed in the entries on architecture, sculpture, painting, dance, and theater, including works of art illustrated here for the first time. Food and etiquette, the caste system, Ayurvedic medicine, love and marriage, and contemporary practices are just a few of the topics explored. Maps and entries on the major cities and places of pilgrimage in India, as well as a concise chronology and a list of principal dynasties, provide a clear overview of the geography, history, languages, and vibrant religious and cultural traditions of Hinduism. This volume will serve as a lively and indispensable guide for those preparing a visit to India, for Indians living in the West, for students, or for anyone interested in the subcontinent. 275 b/w illustrations.