Hinduism: branches and groups Books

Book Synopsis Becoming Vaishnava in an Ideal Vedic City centers on a growing multinational community of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) devotees in Mayapur, West Bengal. While ISKCON’s history is often presented in terms of an Indian guru ‘transplanting’ Indian spirituality to the West, this book focusses on the efforts to bring ISKCON back to India. Paying particular attention to devotees’ failure to consistently live up to ISKCON’s ideals and the ongoing struggle to realize the utopian vision of an ‘ideal Vedic city’, this book argues that the anthropology of ethics must account for how moral systems accommodate the problem of moral failure.Trade Review “Overall, Fahy’s book is a valuable contribution to the ongoing study of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, and it illuminates several doxastic attitudes of contemporary ISKCON devotees that could not be attained through other methodological approaches such as theological or textual analyses.” • Journal of Dharma Studies “This book is an important contribution to the ethnographic and theoretical literature. It is very well written and deals with an intrinsically interesting ethnographic context. It is theoretically ambitious in its engagement with the literature on anthropology of ethics.” • Jonathan Mair, University of Kent “The book offers the first ethnography of the Mayapur phenomenon, presenting an account of its development, of the political and economic issues involved, the conflicts over building and so on, along with an account of the devotees who live there or visit, based on qualitative interviews and participant observation. The lives and aspirations of devotees are brought to life in this book.” • Gavin Flood, University of OxfordTable of Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on Names, Language and Transliteration Introduction: A Tale of Two Countercultures Chapter 1. Land of the Golden Avatar Chapter 2. Changing the Subject Chapter 3. Practices of Knowledge Chapter 4. Learning to Love Krishna Chapter 5. Simple Living, High Thinking Conclusion: Failing Well Glossary References Index

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Book SynopsisThe volume collects a series of contributions that help reconstruct the recent history of the Nath tradition, highlighting important moments of self.reinterpretation in the sampradaya’s interaction with different social milieus. The leitmotif tying together the selection of articles is the authors’ explorations of the overlap between religious authority and political power. For example, in which ways do the Naths’ hagiographical claim of possessing yogic charisma (often construed as supernatural powers, siddhis) translate into mundane expressions of socio-political power? And how does it morph into the authority to reinterpret and recreate particular traditions? The articles approach different aspects of the recent history of the Nath sampradaya, spanning from stories of yogis guiding kings in the petty principalities of the eighteenth century to gurus who sought prominence in the transnational environments of the twentieth century; examining some Nath lineages and institutions under the British Raj, in the history of Nepal, and in contemporary India.Table of ContentsForeword Note on Transliterations Introduction, by Daniela Bevilacqua and Eloisa Stuparich 1 Current Research on Nath Yogis: Further Directions, by Véronique Bouillier 2 Powerful Yogis: The Successful Quest for Siddhis and Power, by Adrián Munoz 3 Kingly Corruption and Ascetic Sovereignty in the Telugu Account of the Nine Naths, by Jamal Jones 4 In Siddhis and State: Transformations of Power in Twentieth-Century Gorakhpur Temple Publications, by Christine Marrewa-Karwoski 5 The Search for the Jugi Caste in Pre-Colonial Bengal, by Lubomír Ondracka 6 Back When We Were Brahmins: Historical and Caste Critique Among Bengali Householder Naths, by Joel Bordeaux 7 Shades of Power: The Nath Yogis in Nepal, by Christof Zotter 8 Yogi, Pandit, and Rastra-Bhakta: Some Reconstructions of Yogi Naraharinath’s Religious Career, by Eloisa Stuparich 9 The Evocative Partnerships of a Monastic Nath Temple in Contemporary Rajasthan, by Carter Hawthorne Higgins 10 Towards a Nath Re-Appropriation of Hatha-Yoga, by Daniela Bevilacqua Index

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