Thus Have I Seen
Thus Have I Seen

Author: Andy Rotman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0195366158

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This book offers a new approach to understanding Buddhist lay and monastic practice by recognizing the crucial role that visual practices played in Indian Buddhism in the early centuries of the Common Era. In the genre of Indian Buddhist narratives known as avadana, most lay religious practice consists not of reading, praying, or meditating, but of visually engaging with certain kinds of objects. The key for understanding the Buddhist conceptualization about the world and the ways it should be navigated is found, in these stories, in ways of seeing and the results of seeing.

The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism
The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism

Author: Gavin Flood

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2008-04-15

Total Pages: 616

ISBN-13: 0470998687

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An ideal resource for courses on Hinduism or world religions, this accessible volume spans the entire field of Hindu studies. It provides a forum for the best scholars in the world to make their views and research available to a wider audience. Comprehensively covers the textual traditions of Hinduism Features four coherent sections covering theoretical issues, textual traditions, science and philosophy, and Hindu society and politics Reflects the trend away from essentialist understandings of Hinduism towards tradition and regional-specific studies Includes material on Hindu folk religions and stresses the importance of region in analyzing Hinduism Ideal for use on university courses.

Gandhi's Ascetic Activism
Gandhi's Ascetic Activism

Author: Veena R. Howard

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2013-03-18

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1438445571

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Discusses Gandhi’s creative use of ascetic practice, particularly his practice of celibacy, for nonviolent activism.

Charming Cadavers
Charming Cadavers

Author: Liz Wilson

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1996-12

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780226900537

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In this highly original study of sexuality, desire, the body, and women, Liz Wilson investigates first-millennium Buddhist notions of spirituality. She argues that despite the marginal role women played in monastic life, they occupied a very conspicuous place in Buddhist hagiographic literature. In narratives used for the edification of Buddhist monks, women's bodies in decay (diseased, dying, and after death) served as a central object for meditation, inspiring spiritual growth through sexual abstention and repulsion in the immediate world. Taking up a set of universal concerns connected with the representation of women, Wilson displays the pervasiveness of androcentrism in Buddhist literature and practice. She also makes persuasive use of recent historical work on the religious lives of women in medieval Christianity, finding common ground in the role of miraculous afflictions. This lively and readable study brings provocative new tools and insights to the study of women in religious life.

Jains in the World
Jains in the World

Author: John E. Cort

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2001-03-22

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780198030379

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"There is no doubt that the wealth of new data and ideas offered in this exquisite book provides the deepest insights yet into the contemporary religious world of Jain laity. It will serve for some time as a paradigmatic monograph for future empirical studies of Jain religious life." --Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies "Jains in the World is a significant and welcome ethnography of contemporary Jains in western India by the most prominent scholar of Jainism in North America. This book is a must for scholars of South Asian religions and will provide scholars of Hindu traditions fine grounding both in a central dialectic of Jain thought and in contemporary Jain praxis." --International Journal of Hindu Studies "A valuable addition to the literature on Jainism as a living faith. Since it has the additional merits of being clearly written, attractively illustrated, and free of unnecessary theoretical baggage, it should serve as a good introduction to this tradition for college students." --Journal of the American Oriental Society "A must-read for understanding, by and large, the ritual world of the Jains. He has succeeded in proving that the concept of well-being is as central to the Jains' moral universe as their more entrenched pursuit of the goal of liberation of soul from karmic bondage."--History of Religions "An essential read for students and scholars of Jainism. . . . it identifies and defines a realm of value in Jainism strongly alluded to by recent scholarship, but which, until now, had not been explicitly stated. For this reason Jains in the World will doubtless prove to be a fundamental turning point in the development of Jaina studies."-- The Journal of Religion This book presents a detailed fieldwork-based study of the ancient Indian religion of Jainism. Drawing on field research in northern Gujarat and on the study of both ancient Sanskrit and Prakrit and modern vernacular Jain religious literature, John Cort provides a rounded portrait of the religion as it is practiced today.

Challenge to Mars
Challenge to Mars

Author: Peter Brock

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 1999-01-01

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13: 9780802043719

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The fourteen essays in Part I look at the interwar years, which gave rise to an array of pacifist organizations, both religious and humanist, throughout Europe and North America. Twelve essays in Part II deal with the brutal challenge to pacifist ideals posed by the Second World War and include a look at the fate of those courageous Germans who refused to fight for Hitler.