Hindu life and practice Books
University of California Press Impersonations The Artifice of Brahmin
Book SynopsisLearn more at www.luminosoa.org. Impersonations: The Artifice of Brahmin Masculinity in South Indian Dance centers on an insular community of Smarta Brahmin men from the Kuchipudi village in Telugu-speaking South India who are required to don stri-vesam (woman's guise) and impersonate female characters from Hindu religious narratives. Impersonation is not simply a gender performance circumscribed to the Kuchipudi stage, but a practice of power that enables the construction of hegemonic Brahmin masculinity in everyday village life. However, the power of the Brahmin male body instri-vesamis highly contingent, particularly on account of the expansion of Kuchipudi in the latter half of the twentieth century from a localized village performance to a transnational Indian dance form. This book analyzes the practice of impersonation across a series of boundariesvillage to urban, Brahmin to non-Brahmin, hegemonic to non-normativeto explore the artifice of Brahmin masculinity in contemporary South Indian dance.Trade Review"In her excellent analysis of the arrival of the Indian classical dance Kuchipudi on the transnational stage, Kamath charts transformations in Kuchipudi narrative and performance. . . .Kamath cogently articulates these subversive possibilities through ideas of impersonation. Her work adds to the growing body of scholarly work on classical Indian dances that re-examines the cultural and gender politics of classicism as these forms are nationalized and globalized, and, in the current climate, increasingly integrated with the politics of Hindutva." * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *
£27.00
University of California Press Burning the Dead Hindu Nationhood and the Global
Book SynopsisTable of ContentsList of Figures and Tables Preface Acknowledgments Part One. The Spectacle of Fire 1. Burning Issues 2. Colonial Necro-Politics and the Polysemic Corpse Part Two. Questing Fire 3. The City and Its Dead 4. Consuming Fire 5. The Global Dead Part Three. The Fire Triumphant 6. The Rebirth of Cremation 7. Cremation and the Nation Epilogue: Rethinking the Hindu Pyre A Note on Weights and Currency List of Abbreviations Glossary Notes Bibliography Index
£50.15
Harvard University Press A Treatise on Dharma
Book SynopsisA Treatise on Dharma, written in the fourth or fifth century, illuminates major innovations in religious, civil, and criminal law, and informed Indian life for a thousand years. This new critical edition, presented alongside the Sanskrit original in the Devanagari script, opens the classical age of ancient Indian law to modern readers.
£26.96
Duke University Press The Cow in the Elevator An Anthropology of
Book SynopsisTulasi Srinivas uses the concept of wonder—feelings of amazement at being overcome by the unexpected and sublime—to examine how residents of Banglore, India pursue wonder by practicing Hindu religious rituals as a way to accept and resist neoliberal capitalism.Trade Review"[The Cow in the Elevator] teased me into questioning what Srinivas has so beautifully and chillingly thought through for decades—wonder as an ethical practice." -- Dhruv Ramnath * The Citizen *"Srinivas provides a lively lesson in religious originality with applications and implications far beyond Bangalore or India." -- Jack David Eller * Reading Religion *"The central contribution of this book is its presentation of wonder as a new category of anthropological inquiry, and its interdisciplinary approach of parsing wonder from the vantage points of ritual and liturgical lives, socioeconomics, and aesthetic and creative spheres. Srinivas’s deployment of these specific categories by no means limits its readers; on the contrary, the book inspires readers to revisit their own field experiences, and look for the moments of wonder." -- Arthi Devarajan * Anthropology News *"Tulasi Srinivas does us a service in identifying important insights arising from her study of ritual practice that will help us to better understand wonder. Hopefully, her work will prompt other scholars to use an anthropological approach to better understand the dynamics of wonder from the perspective of the interlocutors they study." -- Steve Derné * Asian Anthropology *"The Cow in the Elevator captures in lovely detail and theory-rich rumination, the evolution and dynamism of Hindu ritualism in modern Bangalore, calling attention to the unstable and creative dimensions of ritual, and the ethical possibilities and challenges it opens up within this rapidly changing city. Scholars of Hinduism and South Asian urbanism will find much to ponder in this book, as will anthropologists interested in ritual theory and practice." -- Andrew C. Willford * Pacific Affairs *"I treasure The Cow in the Elevator for its sparkle and its positive news about hope and creativity in often bleak circumstances. Rich in original analytic insights, this book is not a tidy package but a cornucopia from which all kinds of sweet and bitter products may be extracted, tasted, consumed, and transformed: high-powered caloric fuel for interpretive intellectual energies. . . . Daring, insightful, and highly engaging, The Cow in the Elevator offers so much that its capacity to provoke unanswered questions in no way detracts from its invaluable qualities. Certainly, no other book on religion in urban India so effectively conveys the ways that ritual excess works wonders." -- Ann Grodzins Gold * American Ethnologist *"In this intriguing and richly-textured book, Tulasi Srinivas immerses us in the world of contemporary Hindu ritual practice in Malleshwaram, a suburb of the South Indian city of Bangalore. . . . The Cow in the Elevator is a deeply insightful work that offers us a glimpse of the creativity and wonder that sustain Hindu ritual life in the concrete jungles of modern, neoliberal India." -- Tracy Pintchman * Anthropos *"I found much of value in this book. . . . The writing displays a lively sense of wonder. The autoethnography is deft, and the homage to M. N. Srinivas, as father and anthropologist, very moving." -- Soumhya Venkatesan * Anthropological Quarterly *"A stunning and provocative book.… Srinivas's experienced and eloquent prose gives this book a rare combination of provocativeness and accessibility.… The Cow in the Elevator provides an intensely real and nuanced account of urban life in the twenty-first century." -- Deonni Moodie * The Revealer *Table of ContentsA Note on Translation xi Acknowledgments xiii O Wonderful! xix Introduction. Wonder, Creativity, and Ethical Life in Bangalore 1 Cranes in the Sky 1 Wondering about Wonder 6 Modern Fractures 9 Of Bangalore's Boomtown Bourgeoisie 13 My Guides into Wonder 16 Going Forward 31 1. Adventures in Modern Dwelling 34 A Cow in an Elevator 34 Grounded Wonder 37 And Ungrounded Wonder 39 Back to Earth 41 Memorialized Cartography 43 "Dead-Endu" Ganesha 45 Earthen Prayers and Black Money 48 Moving Marble 51 Building Wonder 56 Interlude: Into the Abyss 58 2. Passionate Journeys: From Aesthetics to Ethics 60 The Wandering Gods 60 Waiting . . . 65 Moral Mobility 69 Gliding Swans and Bucking Horses 70 The Pain of Cleaving 74 And the Angry God 80 Full Tension! 84 Adjustments 86 Life and . . . 91 Ethical Wonders 92 Interlude. Up in the Skyye 95 3. In God We Trust: Economies of Wonder and Philosophies of Debt 99 A Treasure Trove 99 Twinkling Excess 107 The Golden Calf 111 A Promise of Plenitude 114 "Mintingu" and "Minchingu" 119 "Cash-a-carda?" Philosophies of Debt 128 Soiled Money and the Makings of Distrust 131 The Limits of Wonder 133 4. Technologies of Wonder 138 Animatronic Devi 138 Deus Ex Machina 140 The New in Bangalore 142 The Mythical Garuda-Helicopter 143 Drums of Contention 152 Capturing Divine Biometrics 157 Archiving the Divine 159 Technologies of Capture 162 FaceTiming God 164 Wonder of Wonders 169 5. Timeless Imperatives, Obsolescence, and Salvage 172 "Times have Changed" 172 The Untimeliness of Modernity 175 Avelle and Ritu 178 Slipping Away 181 When Wonder Falls 183 Time Lords 187 Dripping Time 188 The Future, The Past, and the Immortal Present 204 Conclusion. A Place for Radical Hope 206 Radical Hope 206 Amazement in Turmeric 210 The Need for Wonder 213 Afterword. The Tenacity of Hope 216 Notes 219 References 247 Index 265
£98.60
Fordham University Press Practicing Caste
Book SynopsisPracticing Caste attempts a break from the tradition of caste studies, using versions of phenomenology, structuralism and post-structuralism; and gives a description of touchability and untouchability in terms of a rhetoric and semantics of touch.Table of ContentsForeword by Anupama Rao vii Introduction 1 1. Touch and Its Elements and Kinds 11 2. Touch—An A Priori Approach 37 3. Touch in Its Social and Historical Aspects I 61 4. Touch in Its Social and Historical Aspects II 93 5. Touch and Texts: Ancient and Modern 119 6. (Un)touchability of Things and People 148 7. Society, Sociality, Sociability 170 8. Recapitulation with Variations 190 Coda 205 Notes 209 Bibliography 223 Index 233
£102.60
NIAS Press The Bodo of Assam: Revisiting a Classical Study
Book SynopsisThe Bodo (or Boros) are one of the indigenous tribal peoples of Assam. During colonial times they resisted Christianization and in recent decades they have been involved both in interethnic violence and separatist insurgencies. Much research has gone into understanding the Boros and their aspirations but an issue has been that earlier accounts of this once-animist people are meagre and date from the colonial period. The rediscovery and publication of the ethnographic material based on fieldwork carried out by Halfdan Siiger among the Boros in 1949-50 is thus hugely important. Siiger's manuscript is unique, offering detailed descriptions of the social and ritual life of the Boros and new insights into the traditions and myths as they were told in the village he studied before the transformation of religious life in recent decades. Thanks to Siiger's diligent translation and interpretation, the manuscript also preserves a number of ritual formulas and songs in the Boro language. Siiger's manuscript is given even greater relevance by the inclusion of more recent material contributed by the editors and other contemporary scholars. In addition, his original photos are augmented by new photos from the village and by rare images from the collections of the National Museum of Denmark.
£23.76
Editorial Kairos El Árbol del Yoga
Book Synopsis
£14.63
Oxford University Press Inhaling Spirit
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£93.10
Oxford University Press, USA Contradictory Lives Baul Women In India And Bangladesh
Book SynopsisIn literature and popular imagination, the Bauls of India and Bangladesh are characterized as musical mystics: orange-clad nomads of both Hindu and Muslim backgrounds who wander the countryside and entertain with their passionate singing and unusual behavior. Although Bauls claim to value women over men, little is known about the individual views and experiences of Baul women. Based on ethnographic research, this book explores the everyday lives of Baul women. Knight demonstrates that Baul women respond to the conflicting expectations imposed on them in various ways, sometimes adopting and other times subverting local gendered norms to craft meaningful lives. More so than their male counterparts, Baul women feel encumbered by norms. But rather than seeing Baul women''s normative behavior as indicative of their conformity to gendered roles (and, therefore, failures as Bauls), Knight argues that these women creatively draw on societal expectations to transcend their social limits and create new paths.Trade ReviewThe dominant tropes imagined for the Baul tradition of eastern India and Bangladesh are constructed around male models: the wandering mistrel carrying his ektara instrument who engages in esoteric ritual practices. Lisa Knight's sensitive ethnography, however, fills in the significant lacunae of the lives and practices of Baul women. She artfully analyzes the ways in which these women bridge the contradictory expectations of Baul traditions as 'wanderers' and those of the non-Baul communities as respectable, settled Bengali householders. This study will significantly impact the ways in which readers understand Baul traditions, asceticism, boundaries of religious identities, and women's agency and performance in South Asia. * Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger, author of In Amma's Healing Room: Gender & Vernacular Islam in South India. *Table of ContentsNote on Diacritics, Transliteration, and Names ; List of Maps and Figures ; Part 1: Multiple Sites ; 1. Finding Baul Women ; 2. "Real Bauls Live under Trees:" Imaginings and the Marginalization of Baul Women ; 3. "I've Done Nothing Wrong:" Feminine Respectibility and Baul Expectations ; Part 2: Negotiations ; 4. Negotiating between Paradigms of the Good Baul and the Good Woman ; 5. "Do Not Neglect This Golden Body of Yours:" Personal and Social Transformation through Baul Songs ; 6. Renouncing Expectations ; Concluding Thoughts ; Glossry ; Notes ; Bibliography ; Index
£35.49
Taylor & Francis Hinduism
Book SynopsisThe study of Hinduism is fragmented among many disciplines. Early academic study of Hinduism was overwhelmingly a study of texts, and while a strong philological tradition continues to characterise much work on Hinduism (in particular in Indology), very different materials and questions animate debates among anthropologists, sociologists, historians, philosophers, and others. The result is that Hindu institutions such as temples are understood quite differently by those who focus on their political, economic, religious, or aesthetic dimensions. Valuable contributions are also beginning to appear in emergent fields as diverse as cognitive science and constructive Hindu theology. While many works in these fields are published in Europe or North America, significant work appears in journals and books published in India which remain hard to access elsewhere. The collection is fully indexed and supplemented with a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the gathered materials in their historical and intellectual context.
£1,140.00
Self-Realization Fellowship,U.S. Whispers From Eternity
Book Synopsis
£15.75
Red Wheel/Weiser Eternal Dharma: How to Find Spiritual Evolution
Book SynopsisWe often feel powerless in our lives. We have many desires, but are limited in our ability to transform those wishes into tangible results. We are confused about our desires and unsure of what will really make us happy. ETERNAL DHARMA distils the essence of 5,000 years of spiritual wisdom, teaching us about the very nature of reality and how we can live powerful, effective and fulfilled lives. It teaches and inspires us to take powerful action and reach enlightenment and pure, transcendental love. Vishnu Swami, who became the youngest Swami in Vedic monasticism at the extraordinary age of 23, takes the ancient Eastern knowledge of Veda and guides you through a journey of understanding, empowering you to maximise your power and effectiveness and manifest your fullest spiritual potential in everything you do. ETERNAL DHARMA clearly shows you how to align yourself with the natural flow of existence and gives you powerful ways to:Gain clarity on all spiritual and religious pathsAccess Universal Power for maximum effectivenessLearn about the subtle and physical domains to achieve a totally new relationship with realityLearn to become enlightened - free from all the pain and suffering of this world
£13.29
Equinox Publishing Ltd Thinking in Āsana: Movement and Philosophy in
Book SynopsisThinking in Asana is an exploration of three popular lineages of modern postural yoga - Viniyoga, Iyengar Yoga, and Ashtanga Yoga. The book describes in detail the different styles of yoga practice advocated within the three lineages, and traces the influence of this practice on the corresponding yoga philosophies. While Viniyoga, Iyengar Yoga, and Ashtanga Yoga name the yoga of Patanjali as the source of their teachings, the interpretations of Patanjali's system differ significantly between the three lineages. A careful examination suggests that these differences can be accounted for by referring to the differences in the kinds of movement experienced during yoga practice. Linguistic theories of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson provide methodological groundwork for such examination. By deconstructing the experience of movement specific to modern postural yoga practice, and by juxtaposing it to a linguistic analysis of a textual corpus, Thinking in Asana argues that there is a systematic relation between how yoga is practiced and how yoga philosophy is understood. In doing so, the book not only gives a detailed, insightful look at modern postural yoga in practice and theory, but it also emphasises the role of movement in human meaning-making activity.
£49.78
Archaeopress Light of Devotion: Oil Lamps of Kerala
Book SynopsisLight of Devotion: Oil Lamps of Kerala, an in-depth study of the medieval oil lamps of Kerala and beyond, contributes a new chapter to the history of Indian art. These art objects are primary sources for a broader discussion of the ritual use of Hindu oil lamps, their related and unique cultural history, their motifs, style and subject matter. From an understudied region, they include miniature masterpieces in bronze of figural and mythic representations. Many of the pieces presented are previously unpublished. Hindu traditions and the underlying philosophy of these votive offerings to temple deities represented by the flaming oil lamps will interest those who study history of religions, art history and South Asian studies. The author has included oil lamps found not only in Kerala but also examples discovered in an international array of museums and collections. These lamps and their inscriptions offer a key to unlock the problem of the dating of Keralan bronze sculpture.Table of ContentsList of Figures ; Acknowledgements ; Note on names of towns ; Art of Devotion ; Collections ; Festivals ; Bibliography ; Inscriptions ; Dating difficulties ; Classification ; Names of Some Oil Lamps ; Suspension Lamps ; Stationary Lamps ; Portable Lamps ; Suspension Lamps ; Gaja/elephant-shaped lamps ; Archaeological Museum, Dadigama, Sri Lanka, elephant-shaped oil lamp ; CSMVS, Mumbai, elephant-shaped lamp found at Jogeshvari, Maharashtra ; Thrissur State Museum elephant-shaped oil lamp from Thripunithura, Kerala ; Kuthira Maliga Museum, Thiruvananthapuram, elephant-shaped oil lamp ; Vimana vilakku/ Temple model-shaped lamps ; Gaja Lakshmi ; Mythic Depictions ; Non-mythic suspension lamps ; Stationary Lamps ; Mada vilakku/wall niche lamps ; Vriksha vilakku or Tree-shaped lamps ; Kavara vilakku, branching lamp ; Nila or Kuthu vilakku or stambha ; Lakshmi Deepa/Fortune Lamp ; Kindi, ritual water pot lamp ; Portable Lamps ; Arti/prayer ; Changalavatta ; Vanchi vilakku, boat-shaped processional torch ; Extra Parts ; Conclusion ; Characteristics ; South Indian bronze imagery ; Production features of style ; Iconography ; Dynastic arts ; Bibliography ; Index
£33.25
Fingerprint! Publishing Dakshinamurti Stotra
Book Synopsis
£8.48
Urim Publications IndoJudaic Parallels
£21.15
