Preliminary Material /John A. Ramsaran -- Preface /John A. Ramsaran -- Introduction /John A. Ramsaran -- The European Background /John A. Ramsaran -- The Indian Background /John A. Ramsaran -- Religious Practice and Poetic Expression /John A. Ramsaran -- Middle English Lyrics and Saguṇa Bhakti /John A. Ramsaran -- The Baroque in English and Hindi Religious Poetry /John A. Ramsaran -- Divine Infatuation /John A. Ramsaran -- The Metaphysical Vision /John A. Ramsaran -- English Metrical Psalms, Donne's Holy Sonnets and Tulasī Dāsa's Vinaya Patrikā /John A. Ramsaran -- Allegory and the Religious Epic /John A. Ramsaran -- Conclusion /John A. Ramsaran -- Bibliography /John A. Ramsaran -- Index /John A. Ramsaran.
Thematically organised, this is an annotated anthology of translations from the Sanskrit, Tamil and Maharashtri Prakit devotional poetry of the South Indian Srivaisnava philosopher Venkatanatha.
For hundreds of years Tamil poets have been composing devotional texts in which they adopt the voice of a mother and address praises to an extraordinary child. The poems, called pillaittamil (literally "Tamil for a child"), form a major genre of Tamil literature. Since the twelfth century, when the first known pillaittamil was written in honor of a Chola king, many of these poems have been composed in praise of Murugan and South Indian goddesses, as well as saints and venerated monastic abbots. In recent times pillaittamils have been dedicated to the Prophet Muhammad, the Virgin Mary, and Baby Jesus, as well as notable political figures and moviestars. Extraordinary Child provides a sampler of translations from, and analysis of, seven pillaittamils of particular religious, aesthetic, or political significance.
Originally published in 1915, this collection features a selection of songs by the poet Kabir, one of the most interesting personalities in the history of Indian mysticism. Author: Rabindranath Tagore Language: English Keywords: Literature / Poetry / Hinduism Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Obscure Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. Contents Include: First Edition February 1915 THE poet Kabir, a selection from whose songs is here for the first time offered to English readers, is one of the most interesting personalities in the history of Indian mysticism. Born in or near Benares, of Mohammedan parents, and probably about the year 1440, he became in early life a disciple of the celebrated Hindu ascetic Rama nanda. Ramananda had brought to Northern India the religious revival which Ramanuja, the great twelfth century reformer of Brahmanism, had initiated in the South. This revival was in part a reaction against the increasing formalism of the orthodox cult, in part an assertion of the de mands of the heart as against the intense intellectualism of the Vedanta philosophy, the exaggerated monism which that philosophy proclaimed. It took in Ramanujas preaching the form of an ardent personal devotion to the God Vishnu, as representing the personal aspect of the Divine Nature : that mystical ct religion of love which everywhere makes its appearance at a certain level of spiritual culture, and which creeds and philosophies are powerless to kill. Though such a devotion is in digenous. in Hinduism, and finds expression in many passages of the Bhagavad Gita, there was in its mediaeval revival a large element of syncretism. Ramananda, through whom its spirit is said to have reached Kabir, appears to have been a man of wide religious culture, and full of rnissionary enthusiasm. Living at the moment in which the impassioned poetry and deep philosophy of the great Persian mystics, Attar, Sadi, Jalaluddin Rumi, and Hafiz, were exercising a powerful influence on the religious thought of India, he dreamed of reconciling this intense and personal Mohammedan mysticism with the traditional theology of Brah monism. Some have regarded both. these great religious leaders as in fluenced also by Christian thought and life : but as this is a point upon which. competent authorities hold widely divergent views, its discussion is not attempted here. We may safely assert, however, that in their teach ings, twoperhaps threeapparently antagonistic streams of intense spiritual culture met, as Jewish and IIcllemstic thought met in the early Christian Church : and it is one of the outstanding characteristics of Kabirs genius that he was able in his poems to fuse them into one. A great religious reformer, the founder of a sect to which nearly a million northern Hindus still belong,. it is yet supremely as a mystical poet that Kabir lives for us.
Poems to the Child-God is the first full-length study in English of the verse of Surdas, or Sur, traditionally ranked among the three greatest poets writing in Hindi. Combining introduction, critical study, and annotated translation in a single volume, this work introduces the general reader to a major sixteenth-century mystic poet, best known for his lyrics in praise of the child-god Krsna (Krishna), and proposes, to both specialists and general readers, a way of reading Sur's verse significantly different from that found in traditional critical approaches. A general introduction provides an overview of the poet’s life and time, the religious and literary milieu that informed his work, and the mythology associated with his chosen deity, Krsna. Part 1 looks closely at individual verses from the Sursagar, examining the ways in which the poet manipulates the structures of language, poetic convention, and mythology to develop a theme central to the literature of Krsna-worship: the irony of incarnation. It is, Bryant argues, the irony of a child who never stops growing, beyond manhood and into godhood, seldom glimpsing the still more awesome truth: that he is and has always been the source and substance of the universe. Part 2 presents an anthology of Sur’s verse in English translation. The poems have been arranged to portray the Krsna tale as Sur understood it. Sectional introductions provide the reader with the classical outlines of the tale and point out where the poet made alterations or embellishments of his own. A set of notes on the translations, and a glossary of potentially unfamiliar terms and characters, further assist the Western reader in approaching the work of a major figure in the religious and literary history of India. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1978.
In God and Elizabeth Bishop Cheryl Walker takes the bold step of looking at the work of Elizabeth Bishop as though it might have something fresh to say about religion and poetry. Going wholly against the tide of recent academic practice, especially as applied to Bishop, she delights in presenting herself as an engaged Christian who nevertheless believes that a skeptical modern poet might feed our spiritual hungers. This is a book that reminds us of the rich tradition of religious poetry written in English, at the same time taking delicious detours into realms of humour, social responsibility, and mysticism.
