Where Mortals And The Mountain Gods Meet Brings Together A Group Od Scholars From Different Disciplines Such As Art, Music, Religion, History, Economics And Pure Sciences To Present A Variety Of Approaches To The Study Of Mountain Societies. It Examines The Importance Of The Himalayan Snow For The Perennial Rivers; Its Rich And Diversified Plant Biodiversity And Forest Wealth; The Economy And Society Including The Pastoralist Communities; Architectural, Sculpture And Epigraphical Treasures; The Traditional System Of Knowledge And Its Celebrity At The Village Level And Many More Interesting Topics. It Includes Twenty-Four Contributions Covering A Large Span Of Himachal`S Cultural Past From Early Times To The Recent Period. It Will Interest Every Scholar Of Ancient, Medieval And Modern Himalayan Studies.
Tibet’s Mount Kailas is one of the world’s great pilgrimage centres, renowned as an ancient sacred site that embodies a universal sacrality. But Kailas Histories: Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred Geography demonstrates that this understanding is a recent construction by British colonial, Hindu modernist, and New Age interests. Using multiple sources, including fieldwork, Alex McKay describes how the early Indic vision of a heavenly mountain named Kailas became identified with actual mountains. He emphasises renunciate agency in demonstrating how local beliefs were subsumed as Kailas developed within Hindu, Buddhist, and Bön traditions, how five mountains in the Indian Himalayan are also named Kailas, and how Kailas sacred geography constructions and a sacred Ganges source region were related.
A rare look at the history of Himalayan peasant society and the relationship between culture and environment in the Himalayas. Himalayan Histories, by one of Indias most reputed historians of the Himalaya, is essential for a more complete understanding of Indian history. Because Indian historians have mainly studied riverine belts and life in the plains, sophisticated mountain histories are relatively rare. In this book, Chetan Singh identifies essential aspects of the material, mental, and spiritual world of western Himalayan peasant society. Human enterprise and mountainous terrain long existed in a precarious balance, occasionally disrupted by natural adversity, in this large and difficult region. Small peasant communities lived in scattered environmental niches and tenaciously extracted from their harsh surroundings a rudimentary but sustainable livelihood. These communities were integral constituents of larger political economies that asserted themselves through institutions of hegemonic control, the state being one such institution. This laboriously created life-world was enlivened by myth, folklore, legend, and religious tradition. When colonial rule was established in the region during the nineteenth century, it transformed the peasants relationship with their natural surroundings. While old political allegiances were weakened, resilient customary hierarchies retained their influence through religio-cultural practices.
What if mere mortals could meet their Gods and learn the answers to life's most mysterious questions? Now they can. Imagine a planet with two blazing suns. A world inhabited by mortals with flaming red hair, saffron colored skin, and violet eyes. A place where extreme and often violent weather conditions force the people underground where they will be safe...until the next furious storm strikes. This strange land is El Sod-A-Por, the ill-favored one, and in the far distance sits the Green Mountain, home of the Gods—Gods who have no mercy. But everything changes when a fearless young man, Far-Awn, defies his father's warnings and travels tirelessly, in search of a star-shaped opalescent flower. This miraculous plant becomes the source of never-ending food and can even be made into clear atmospheric domes, which enclose entire cities to ensure peace and protection. Years later El Sod-A-Por is known as El Dorriane, the ideal, and Ras-Far, grandson of the revered Far-Awn, is king. The people happily live a life of plenty—until an entire city is mysteriously wiped out. A civil war between the Upper and Lower Dorrianians ignites, forcing the king to send an entourage of the bravest and strongest men from each province to the Green Mountain to seek answers to this unexpected unrest. Ras-Far's only child, the beautiful and headstrong Sharita, demands to go with the men across the arid desert plains to meet the Gods. The handsome barbarian Dray-Gon, from Lower Dorriane, leads the expedition, but he sees the princess as an unnecessary burden. Now he will have to shield her from the ruthless sandstorms and evil outlaws who will attempt to enslave her at any opportunity. As the unprecedented journey begins, their love-hate relationship transforms into an enthralling passion, as the princess's icy exterior begins to thaw and Dray-Gon turns from a hard-edged savage into a gentle hero. But when they finally reach the Green Mountain, they are met with a shocking revelation that challenges everything they ever believed to be true...
Provides An Overview Of Himalayan Snow, Glaciers, Ice Ages, Glaciation, History Of Efforts For The Study Of Himalayan Glaciers. Information Relating To Extent Of Snow, Glacier Fields, Their Characteristics, Influence On The Climate, Perenimal Rivers, Soil Erosion And Sedment Transport, Environmetnal Problems, Modern Technologies Such A Remote Sensing Etc.
The book reflects on the discreet influence of Hindutva in situations/places outside or at the margins of its organisational and mobilisational arena, where people denying any commitment to the Sangh Parivar, incidentally, show affinities and parallelisms with its discourse and practice. This study looks at Hindutva’s entrenchment not so much as an orchestration from above but more as an outcome of a process that evolves in relation to specific social and cultural milieus. The contributors analyse Hindutva’s entrenchment, emphasising on the ethnography of the forms of mediation and/or convergence produced in certain contexts. The 11 case studies highlight three different dynamics of Hindutva’s cultural entrenchment. The first section gathers cases where RSS-affiliated organisations have set up specific cultural or artistic programmes at the regional level, involving the meditation of local people whose interest in these programmes does not necessarily mean that they endorse the Hindutva agenda completely. The next deals with convergence and refers to cases where the followers gather around a charismatic personality, whose precepts and practice may bring them towards a closer affinity with the Hindutva programme. The last section deals with the contexts of resistance, where social milieus engaged in opposing Hindutva may, in fact, paradoxically, and even inadvertently, imbibe some of its ideas and practices in order to contest its claims.
This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2015. Storytelling has always played a central role in the formation of cultures and communities. All cultures define themselves and their place in the world through their stories. Similarly, our identities are largely constructed as narratives, and it is with the aid of storytelling that we manage to conceive of ourselves – our selves – as meaningful wholes. Thus, storytelling is not ever absent: it is to be found in literature, social life, in the places we visit and the buildings we live in. This volume presents storytelling in various appearances: from ancient myths and oral history, to transmedia narratives and digital stories. Different forms of narrative are analysed, as is the use of storytelling as a method for e.g. counselling, education and research. Throughout twenty-five chapters, a compelling overview of recent research on the topic is provided, both stressing the omnipresence of storytelling and exploring what storytelling is and isn’t.
