|
|
Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Non-Christian religions > Religions of Indic & Oriental origin > Hinduism
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students,
researchers and practitioners in all of the social and
language-related sciences carefully selected book-length
publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings
and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in
its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary
field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical,
supplement and complement each other. The series invites the
attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests,
sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians
etc. to the development of the sociology of language.
Routledge is now re-issuing this prestigious series of 204 volumes
originally published between 1910 and 1965. The titles include
works by key figures such asC.G. Jung, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget,
Otto Rank, James Hillman, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney and Susan
Isaacs. Each volume is available on its own, as part of a themed
mini-set, or as part of a specially-priced 204-volume set. A
brochure listing each title in the "International Library of
Psychology" series is available upon request.
This title available in eBook format. Click here for more
information.
Visit our eBookstore at: www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk.
A celebrated Hindu pilgrimage site, Hardwar lies on the river
Ganges at the edge of the Himalayas. Its identity as a holy place
is inextricably tied to the mythology and reality of the Ganges,
and traditional sources overwhelmingly stress this connection.
Virtually nothing has been written about Hardwar's history and
development, although the historical record reveals striking
changes of the past few centuries. These changes have usually
reflected worldly forces such as shifting trade routes, improved
transportation, or political instability. Yet such mundane
influences have been ignored in the city's sacred narrative, which
presents a fixed, unchanging identity. The city's complex identity,
says Lochtefeld, lies in the tension between these differing
narratives. In this fieldwork-based study, Lochtefeld analyzes
modern Hardwar as a Hindu pilgrimage center. He looks first at
various groups of local residents -- businessmen, hereditary
priests, and ascetics -- and assesses their differing roles in
managing Hardwar as a holy place. He then examines the pilgrims and
the factors that bring them to Hardwar. None of these groups is as
pious as popularly depicted, but their interactions in upholding
their own interest create and maintain Hardwar's religious
environment. In conclusion, he addresses the wider context of
Indian pilgrimage and the forces shaping it in the present day. He
finds that many modern Hindus, like many modern Christians, feel
some dissonance between traditional religious symbols and their
21st-century world, and that they are reinterpreting their
traditional symbols to make them meaningful for their time.
Since its discovery and the initial efforts toward its critical
edition, the Paippaladasamhita of the Atharvaveda (PS) has
attracted the attention of Vedic scholars and Indologists for
several reasons. It constitutes a precious source for the study of
the development of the earliest language. The text contains
important information about various rites and magical practices,
and hints about the oldest Indo-Iranian and Indo-European myths.
All of this makes the PS a text of inestimable value for the study
of Indian language and culture.
In a small medieval palace on Kathmandu's Durbar Square lives
Nepal's famous Living Goddess - a child as young as three who is
chosen from a caste of Buddhist goldsmiths to watch over the
country and protect its people. To Nepalis she is the embodiment of
Devi (the universal goddess) and for centuries their Hindu kings
have sought her blessing to legitimize their rule. Legends swirl
about her, for the facts are shrouded in secrecy and closely
guarded by dynasties of priests and caretakers. How come a Buddhist
girl is worshipped by autocratic Hindu rulers? Are the initiation
rituals as macabre as they are rumoured to be? And what fate awaits
the Living Goddesses when they attain puberty and are dismissed
from their role? Weaving together myth, religious belief, modern
history and court gossip, Isabella Tree takes us on a compelling
and fascinating journey to the esoteric, hidden heart of Nepal.
Through her unprecedented access to the many layers of Nepalese
society, she is able to put the country's troubled modern history
in the context of the complex spiritual beliefs and practices that
inform the role of the little girl at its centre. Deeply felt,
emotionally engaged and written after over a decade of travel and
research, The Living Goddess is a compassionate and illuminating
enquiry into this reclusive Himalayan country - a revelation.
UPDATED FOR THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF PARTITION 'Puri does profound
and elegant work bringing forgotten narratives back to life. It's
hard to convey just how important this book is' Sathnam Sanghera
'The most humane account of partition I've read ... We need a
candid conversation about our past and this is an essential
starting point' Nikesh Shukla, Observer ________________________
Newly revised for the seventy-fifth anniversary of partition,
Kavita Puri conducts a vital reappraisal of empire, revisiting the
stories of those collected in the 2017 edition and reflecting on
recent developments in the lives of those affected by partition.
The division of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 into India and
Pakistan saw millions uprooted and resulted in unspeakable
violence. It happened far away, but it would shape modern Britain.
Dotted across homes in Britain are people who were witnesses to one
of the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century. But their
memory of partition has been shrouded in silence. In her
eye-opening and timely work, Kavita Puri uncovers remarkable
testimonies from former subjects of the Raj who are now British
citizens - including her own father. Weaving a tapestry of human
experience over seven decades, Puri reveals a secret history of
ruptured families and friendships, extraordinary journeys and
daring rescue missions that reverberates with compassion and loss.
It is a work that breaks the silence and confronts the difficult
truths at the heart of Britain's shared past with South Asia.
This review is from: Sudden Awakening: Into Direct Realization
(Paperback) Amazon: For anyone who sincerely wants to have the
truth laid out clearly, and concisely, leaving no traps of the mind
unexposed, and who wants to receive a transmission of silence that
your heart will recognize from every page - this book will be
deeply satisfying. Eli Jaxon-Bear is able to transmit the truth in
person and by the written word. Reading this book is being with
your own self, not in any kind of New Age dream of enlightenment
that just pleases the ego with a spiritual story, but in a real,
tangible way that can give you the taste of what is actually
possible for humanity, here and now. It is a very timely book,
because when we look around and see that so many people are fed up
with the results of business as usual, this book offers a real
alternative, a radical shift of consciousness, that is so needed. I
am very grateful that this book was written, and that it's so
freely available.
This is a collection of previously unpublished essays exploring the
meanings of marriage in South Asian Hindu culture: its practices,
assumption, sensibilities and discontents. The authors use new
understandings of gender to study local practices, attitudes, folk
narratives, ritual symbols, and religious sensibilities as they
bear on religion, gender, and social life in the Hindu world.
The spiritual classic, the Devimahatmya, is a central text for
worshippers of the Hindu Goddess Devi. Written about 16 centuries
ago, it addresses the perennial questions of the nature of the
universe, humankind, and divinity. This is the first translation of
the Devimahatmya to combine sound scholarship, the language skills
of a native English speaker, and an insider's perspective based on
35 years of spiritual practice within the Hindu tradition.
The Samkhyayoga institution of Kapil Math is a religious
organisation with a small tradition of followers which emerged in
the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decades of
the twentieth century in Bengal in India around the renunciant and
yogin Hariharananda Aranya. This tradition developed during the
same period in which modern yoga was born and forms a chapter in
the expansion of yoga traditions in modern Hinduism. The book
analyses the yoga teaching of Hariharananda Aranya (1869-1947) and
the Kapil Math tradition, its origin, history and contemporary
manifestations, and this tradition's connection to the expansion of
yoga and the Yogasutra in modern Hinduism. The Samkhyayoga of the
Kapil Math tradition is based on the Patanjalayogasastra, on a
number of texts in Sanskrit and Bengali written by their gurus, and
on the lifestyle of the renunciant yogin living isolated in a cave.
The book investigates Hariharananda Aranya's connection to
pre-modern yoga traditions and the impact of modern production and
transmission of knowledge on his interpretations of yoga. The book
connects the Kapil Math tradition to the nineteenth century
transformations of Bengali religious culture of the educated upper
class that led to the production of a new type of yogin. The book
analyses Samkhyayoga as a living tradition, its current teachings
and practices, and looks at what Samkhyayogins do and what
Samkhyayoga is as a yoga practice. A valuable contribution to
recent and ongoing debates, this book will be of interest to
academics in the fields of Religious Studies, Anthropology, Asian
Studies, Indology, Indian philosophy, Hindu Studies and Yoga
Studies.
How does the soul relate to the body? Through the ages, innumerable
religious and intellectual movements have proposed answers to this
question. Many have gravitated to the notion of the "subtle body,"
positing some sort of subtle entity that is neither soul nor body,
but some mixture of the two. Simon Cox traces the history of this
idea from the late Roman Empire to the present day, touching on how
philosophers, wizards, scholars, occultists, psychologists, and
mystics have engaged with the idea over the past two thousand
years. This study is an intellectual history of the subtle body
concept from its origins in late antiquity through the Renaissance
into the Euro-American counterculture of the 1960's and 70's. It
begins with a prehistory of the idea, rooted as it is in
third-century Neoplatonism. It then proceeds to the signifier
"subtle body" in its earliest English uses amongst the Cambridge
Platonists. After that, it looks forward to those Orientalist
fathers of Indology, who, in their earliest translations of
Sanskrit philosophy relied heavily on the Cambridge Platonist
lexicon, and thereby brought Indian philosophy into what had
hitherto been a distinctly platonic discourse. At this point, the
story takes a little reflexive stroll into the source of the
author's own interest in this strange concept, looking at Helena
Blavatsky and the Theosophical import, expression, and
popularization of the concept. Cox then zeroes in on Aleister
Crowley, focusing on the subtle body in fin de siecle occultism.
Finally, he turns to Carl Jung, his colleague Frederic Spiegelberg,
and the popularization of the idea of the subtle body in the
Euro-American counterculture. This book is for anyone interested in
yogic, somatic, or energetic practices, and will be very useful to
scholars and area specialists who rely on this term in dealing with
Hindu, Daoist, and Buddhist texts.
Tantra has formed an integral part of Asian religious history for
centuries, but since "Arthur Avalon" introduced the concept to a
global readership in the early twentieth century, Tantric
traditions have exploded in popularity. While it was long believed
that Sir John Woodroffe stood behind Avalon, it was in fact mainly
a collaboration between learned South Asians. Julian Strube
considers Tantra from the Indian perspective, offering rare insight
into the active roles that Indians have played in its globalization
and re-negotiation in local Indian contexts. In the early twentieth
century, Avalon's publications were crucial to Tantra's visibility
in academia and the recognition of Tantra's vital role in South
Asian culture. South Asian religious, social, and political life is
inexorably intertwined with various Tantric scriptures and
traditions, especially in Shaiva and Shakta contexts. In Bengal,
Tantra was central to cultural dynamics including Vaishnava and
Muslim currents, as well as universalist tendencies incorporating
Christianity and esoteric movements such as New Thought,
Spiritualism, and Theosophy. Global Tantra contextualizes struggles
about orthodoxy and reform in Bengal, and explores the global
connections that shaped them. The study elides boundaries between
academic disciplines as well as historical and regional contexts,
providing insights into global debates about religion, science,
esotericism, race, and national identity.
Hinduism has two major roots. The more familiar is the religion
brought to South Asia in the second millennium BCE by speakers of
Aryan or Indo-Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European
language family. Another, more enigmatic, root is the Indus
civilization of the third millennium BCE, which left behind
thousands of short inscriptions in a forgotten pictographic script.
Discovered in the valley of the Indus River in the early 1920s, the
Indus civilization had a population estimated at one million
people, in more than 1000 settlements, several of which were cities
of some 50,000 inhabitants. With an area of nearly a million square
kilometers, the Indus civilization was more extensive than the
other key urban cultures of the time, in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Yet, after almost a century of excavation and research the Indus
civilization remains little understood. What language did the Indus
people speak? How might we decipher the exquisitely carved Indus
inscriptions? What deities did they worship? Are the roots of
contemporary Hinduism to be found in the religion of the Indus
civilization as well as in the Vedic religion? Since the rise of
Hindu nationalist politics in the 1980s, these questions have been
debated with increasing animosity, colored by the history of modern
colonialism in India. This is especially true of the enigmatic
Indus script, which is at the hub of the debates, and a particular
focus of this book. Asko Parpola has spent fifty years researching
the roots of Hinduism to answer these fundamental questions. In
this pioneering book, he traces the Indo-Iranian speakers from the
Aryan homeland north of the Black Sea through the Eurasian steppes
to Central, West, and South Asia. Among many other things, he
discusses the profound impact of the invention of the horse-drawn
chariot on Indo-Aryan religion, and presents new ideas on the
origin and formation of the Vedic literature and rites, and the
great Hindu epics.
This book examines historical changes in the grammar of the
Indo-Aryan languages from the period of their earliest attestations
in Vedic Sanskrit (around 1000 bc) to contemporary Hindi. Uta
Reinoehl focuses specifically on the rise of configurational
structure as a by-product of the grammaticalization of
postpositions: while Vedic Sanskrit lacks function words that
constrain nominal expressions into phrasal units - one of the
characteristics of a non-configurational language - New Indo-Aryan
languages have postpositions which organize nominal expressions
into postpositional phrases. The grammaticalization of
postpositions and the concomitant syntactic changes are traced
through the three millennia of Indo-Aryan attested history with a
focus on Vedic Sanskrit, Middle Indic Pali and Apabhramsha, Early
New Indic Old Awadhi, and finally Hindi. Among the topics discussed
are the constructions in which the postpositions grammaticalize,
the origins of the postpositional template, and the
paradigmatization of the various elements involved into a single
functional class of postpositions. The book outlines how it is
semantic and pragmatic changes that induce changes on the
expression side, ultimately resulting in the establishment of
phrasal, and thus low-level configurational, syntax.
Karen Prentiss offers an interpretive history of bhakti, an
influential religious perspective in Hinduism. She argues that
although bhakti is mentioned in every contemporary sourcebook on
Indian religions, it still lacks an agreed-upon definition.
"Devotion" is found to be the most commonly used synonym. Prentiss
seeks a new perspective on this elusive concept. Her analysis of
Tamil (south Indian) materials leads her to suggest that bhakti be
understood as a doctrine of embodiment. Bhakti, she says, urges
people towards active engagement in the worship of God. She
proposes that the term "devotion" be replaced by "participation,"
emphasizing bhakti's call for engagement in worship and the
necessity of embodiment to fulfill that obligation. The book ends
with two appendices presenting translations of hymns and an
important philosophical text.
Pastoralist traditions have long been extraordinarily important to
the social, economic, political, and cultural life of the
region of western India called Maharashtra. The Marathi-language
oral literature of the Dhangar shepherds of
Maharashtra is not only one of the most important elements of their
own traditional cultural life, but also a treasure of
world literature. This volume presents two lively and well-crafted
examples of the ovi, a genre typical of the oral literature of
Dhangars. The two ovis in the volume narrate the stories of Biroba
and Dhuloba, two of the most important gods of Dhangar shepherds.
Each of the ovis tells an elaborate story of the birth of the
god--a miraculous and complicated process in both cases--and of the
struggles each one goes through in order to find and win his bride.
The extensive introduction provides a literary analysis of the ovis
and discusses what they reveal about the cosmology, geography,
society, administrative structures, and economy of their
performers' world, and about the performers views of
pastoralistsand women.
|
You may like...
Law@Work
A. Van Niekerk, N. Smit
Paperback
R1,367
R1,248
Discovery Miles 12 480
|