"John Stratton Hawley miraculously manages to braid the charged erotic and divine qualities of Krishna, the many-named god, while introducing us-with subtle occasional rhyme-to a vividly particularized world of prayers and crocodile earrings, spiritual longing and love-struck bees." -Forrest Gander, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry An award-winning translation of Hindi verses composed by one of India's treasured poets. The blind poet Surdas has been regarded as the epitome of artistry in Hindi verse from the end of the sixteenth century, when he lived, to the present day. His fame rests upon his remarkable refashioning of the widely known narrative of the Hindu deity Krishna and his lover Radha into lyrics that are at once elegant and approachable. Surdas's popularity led to the proliferation, through an energetic oral tradition, of poems ascribed to him, known collectively as the Sursagar. This award-winning translation reconstructs the early tradition of Surdas's verse-the poems that were known to the singers of Surdas's own time as his. Here Surdas stands out with a clarity never before achieved.

Bhakti, a term ubiquitous in the religious life of South Asia, has meanings that shift dramatically according to context and sentiment. Sometimes translated as "personal devotion," bhakti nonetheless implies and fosters public interaction. It is often associated with the marginalized voices of women and lower castes, yet it has also played a role in perpetuating injustice. Barriers have been torn down in the name of bhakti, while others have been built simultaneously. Bhakti and Power provides an accessible entry into key debates around issues such as these, presenting voices and vignettes from the sixth century to the present and from many parts of India's cultural landscape. Written by a wide range of engaged scholars, this volume showcases one of the most influential concepts in Indian history-still a major force in the present day.

No Hindu god is closer to the soul of poetry than Krishna, and in North India no poet ever sang of Krishna more famously than S=urdD=as-or S=ur, for short. He lived in the sixteenth century and became so influential that for centuries afterward aspiring Krishna poets signed their compositions orally with his name.
This book takes us back to the source, offering a selection of S=urd=as's poems that were known and sung in the sixteenth century itself. Here we have poems of war, poems to the great rivers, poems of wit and rage, poems where the poet spills out his disappointments. Most of all, though, we have thememory of love-poems that adopt the voices of the women of Krishna's natal Braj country and evoke the power of being pulled into his irresistible orbit. Following the lead of several old manuscripts, Jack Hawley arranges these poems in such a way that they tell us Krishna's life story from birth to full maturity.
These lyrics from S=ur's Ocean (the S=urs=agar) were composed in the very tongue Hindus believe Krishna himself must have spoken: Brajbh=as=a, the language of Braj, a variety of Hindi. Hawley prepares the way for his verse translations with an introduction that explains what we know of S=urd=as and describes the basic structure of his poems. For readers new to Krishna's world or to the subtleties of a poet like S=urd=as, Hawley also provides a substantial set of analytical notes. "S=ur is the sun," as a familiar saying has it, and we feel the warmth of his light in these pages.

Surdas has been regarded as the epitome of artistry in Old Hindi religious poetry from the end of the sixteenth century, when he lived, to the present day. His fame rests upon his remarkable refashioning of the widely known narrative of the cowherd deity Krishna and his lover Radha into lyrics that are at once elegant and approachable. Surdas s popularity led to the proliferation, through an energetic oral tradition, of poems ascribed to him, known as the "S rs gar."

Sur s Ocean: Poems from the Early Tradition," presents a dramatically new edition in Devanagari script and a lyrical English translation. This remarkable volume reconstructs the early tradition of Surdas s verse the 433 poems that were known to the singers of Surdas s own time as his. Here Surdas stands out with a clarity never before achieved.

The Murty Classical Library of India makes available original texts and modern English translations of the masterpieces of literature and thought from across the whole spectrum of Indic languages over the past two millennia in the most authoritative and accessible formats on offer anywhere."

Several years ago in Rajasthan, an eighteen-year-old woman was burned on her husband's funeral pyre and thus became sati. Before ascending the pyre, she was expected to deliver both blessings and curses: blessings to guard her family and clan for many generations, and curses to prevent anyone from thwarting her desire to die. Sati also means blessing and curse in a broader sense. To those who revere it, sati symbolizes ultimate loyalty and self-sacrifice. It often figures near the core of a Hindu identity that feels embattled in a modern world. Yet to those who deplore it, sati is a curse, a violation of every woman's womanhood. It is murder mystified, and as such, the symbol of precisely what Hinduism should not be.
In this volume a group of leading scholars consider the many meanings of sati in India and the West; in literature, art, and opera; in religion, psychology, economics, and politics. With contributors who are both Indian and American, this is a genuinely binational, postcolonial discussion. Contributors include Karen Brown, Paul Courtright, Vidya Dehejia, Ainslie Embree, Dorothy Figueira, Lindsey Harlan, John Hawley, Robin Lewis, Ashis Nandy, and Veena Talwar Oldenburg.

Sur's Ocean: Poems from the Early Tradition was published in 2015 as the fifth volume of the Murty Classical Library of India. That book contains Kenneth Bryant's critical reconstructions of 433 poems of Surdas that circulated in the sixteenth century, when this great Hindi poet lived, and it includes facing-page, English verse translations by John Stratton Hawley. The name traditionally assigned to these poems is Sursagar, meaning Sur's Ocean. Into Sur's Ocean: Poetry, Context, and Commentary picks up many threads from that volume, and provides a substantial introduction to the poet, his medium, and his oeuvre; an overview of editions, including Bryant's; an analysis of the challenges Hawley faced as translator; and poem-by-poem commentary. Each commentary is a brief, independent essay. This book offers a deep-and rewarding-dive into Sur's Ocean.

Fundamentalism, as the word implies, is about getting back to basics, and for Americans this has meant getting back to God's word as proclaimed in the Bible. Yet the issues that American fundamentalists have most hotly contested--abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment--have little to do with scripture per se. Why are these so central? Perhaps it is because the real fundamentals of fundamentalism are social, not textual. Fundamentalism often seems to be about "family values" and restoring women to their "proper place"--not just in America, but wherever the corrosive effects of secular modernity are felt.
The purpose of this book is to examine the connection between fundamentalism and gender. In their introduction, John Hawley and Wayne Proudfoot plot the intellectual terrain. Then four specialists--Randall Balmer, Peter Awn, John Hawley, and Helen Hardacre--present case studies from Islam, Hinduism, the New Religions of Japan, and American Christianity. In response, Jay Harris and Karen McCarthy Brown come forth with diametrically opposite conclusions. Harris, working from a Jewish perspective, argues that fundamentalism makes no sense as a comparative category, especially in relation to gender. Brown on the contrary turns to depth psychology to show why fundamentalism is necessarily tied to a conservative ideology of gender.
Here readers interested in women's issues, comparative religion, and global fundamentalism are given fresh perspectives on one of the most pressing debates of our time.

The author traces the development of the theme of Krishna as butter thief from its earliest appearance in literature and art until the present. He focuses on the dramas (ras lilas) of Krishna's native Braj and on the Sur Sagar, a collection of verse attributed to the sixteenth-century poet Sur Das that is as familiar to Hindi speakers as Mother Goose is to us.

Originally published in 1983.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Every year thousands of pilgrims travel to Brindavan, the village where Krishna is said to have lived as a child. There, they witness a series of religious dramas called ras lilas, whose central roles are performed by children. By translating four plays that collectively span this cycle, John Hawley provides a lively perspective on the mythology of Krishna as Hindus experience it today.

Originally published in 1985.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Every year thousands of pilgrims travel to Brindavan, the village where Krishna is said to have lived as a child. There, they witness a series of religious dramas called ras lilas, whose central roles are performed by children. By translating four plays that collectively span this cycle, John Hawley provides a lively perspective on the mythology of Krishna as Hindus experience it today. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The author traces the development of the theme of Krishna as butter thief from its earliest appearance in literature and art until the present. He focuses on the dramas (ras lilas) of Krishna's native Braj and on the Sur Sagar, a collection of verse attributed to the sixteenth-century poet Sur Das that is as familiar to Hindi speakers as Mother Goose is to us. Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have severely limited the portrayal of the divine as feminine. But in Hinduism "God" very often means "Goddess". This extraordinary collection explores twelve different Hindu goddesses, all of whom are in some way related to Devi, the Great Goddess. They range from the liquid goddess - energy of the River Ganges to the possessing, entrancing heat of Bhagavati and Seranvali. They are local, like Vindhyavasini, and global, like Kali; ancient, like Saranyu, and modern, like "Mother India". The collection combines analysis of texts with intensive fieldwork, allowing the reader to see how goddesses are worshiped in everyday life. In these compelling essays, the divine feminine in Hinduism is revealed as never before - fascinating, contradictory, powerful.

Early modern India-a period extending from the fifteenth to the late eighteenth century-saw dramatic cultural, religious, and political changes as it went from Sultanate to Mughal to early colonial rule. Witness to the rise of multiple literary and devotional traditions, this period was characterized by immense political energy and cultural vibrancy. Text and Tradition in Early Modern North India brings together recent scholarship on the languages, literatures, and religious traditions of northern India. It focuses on the rise of vernacular languages as vehicles for literary expression and historical and religious self-assertion, and particularly attends to ways in which these regional spoken languages connect with each other and their cosmopolitan counterparts. Hindu, Muslim, and Jain idioms emerge in new ways, and the effect of the volume as a whole is to show that they belong to a single complex cultural conversation.

What religion does not serve as a theater of tears? "Holy Tears" addresses this all but universal phenomenon with passion and precision, ranging from Mycenaean Greece up through the tragedy of 9/11. Sixteen authors, including many leading voices in the study of religion, offer essays on specific topics in religious weeping while also considering broader issues such as gender, memory, physiology, and spontaneity. A comprehensive, elegantly written introduction offers a key to these topics. Given the pervasiveness of its theme, it is remarkable that this book is the first of its kind--and it is long overdue.

The essays ask such questions as: Is religious weeping primal or culturally constructed? Is it universal? Is it spontaneous? Does God ever cry? Is religious weeping altered by sexual or social roles? Is it, perhaps, at once scripted and spontaneous, private and communal? Is it, indeed, divine?

The grief occasioned by 9/11 and violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, and elsewhere offers a poignant context for this fascinating and richly detailed book. "Holy Tears" concludes with a compelling meditation on the theology of weeping that emerged from pastoral responses to 9/11, as described in the editors' interview with Reverend Betsee Parker, who became head chaplain for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City and leader of the multifaith chaplaincy team at Ground Zero.

The contributors are Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Amy Bard, Herbert Basser, Santha Bhattacharji, William Chittick, Gary Ebersole, M. David Eckel, John Hawley, Gay Lynch, Jacob Olupqna (with Sola Ajibade), Betsee Parker, Kimberley Patton, Nehemia Polen, Kay Read, and Kallistos Ware."

"The Life of Hinduism" brings together a series of essays - many recognized as classics in the field - that present Hinduism as a vibrant, truly 'lived' religion. Celebrating the diversity for which Hinduism is known, this volume begins its journey in the 'new India' of Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, where global connections and local traditions rub shoulders daily. Readers are then offered a glimpse into the multifaceted world of Hindu worship, life-cycle rites, festivals, performances, gurus, and castes. The book's final sections deal with the Hinduism that is emerging in diasporic North America and with issues of identity that face Hindus in India and around the world: militancy versus tolerance and the struggle between owning one's own religion and sharing it with others. Contributors of this title include: Andrew Abbott, Michael Burawoy, Patricia Hill Collins, Barbara Ehrenreich, Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Sharon Hays, Douglas Massey, Joya Misra, Orlando Patterson, Frances Fox Piven, Lynn Smith-Lovin, Judith Stacey, Arthur Stinchcombe, Alain Touraine, Immanuel Wallerstein, William Julius Wilson, and Robert Zussman.

Bhakti, a term ubiquitous in the religious life of South Asia, has meanings that shift dramatically according to context and sentiment. Sometimes translated as "personal devotion," bhakti nonetheless implies and fosters public interaction. It is often associated with the marginalized voices of women and lower castes, yet it has also played a role in perpetuating injustice. Barriers have been torn down in the name of bhakti, while others have been built simultaneously. Bhakti and Power provides an accessible entry into key debates around issues such as these, presenting voices and vignettes from the sixth century to the present and from many parts of India's cultural landscape. Written by a wide range of engaged scholars, this volume showcases one of the most influential concepts in Indian history-still a major force in the present day.

India celebrates itself as a nation of unity in diversity, but where does that sense of unity come from? One important source is a widely-accepted narrative called the "bhakti movement." Bhakti is the religion of the heart, of song, of common participation, of inner peace, of anguished protest. The idea known as the bhakti movement asserts that between 600 and 1600 CE, poet-saints sang bhakti from India's southernmost tip to its northern Himalayan heights, laying the religious bedrock upon which the modern state of India would be built. Challenging this canonical narrative, John Stratton Hawley clarifies the historical and political contingencies that gave birth to the concept of the bhakti movement. Starting with the Mughals and their Kachvaha allies, North Indian groups looked to the Hindu South as a resource that would give religious and linguistic depth to their own collective history. Only in the early twentieth century did the idea of a bhakti "movement" crystallize-in the intellectual circle surrounding Rabindranath Tagore in Bengal. Interactions between Hindus and Muslims, between the sexes, between proud regional cultures, and between upper castes and Dalits are crucially embedded in the narrative, making it a powerful political resource. A Storm of Songs ponders the destiny of the idea of the bhakti movement in a globalizing India. If bhakti is the beating heart of India, this is the story of how it was implanted there-and whether it can survive.

The landscape of North Indian religion was dramatically transformed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by a remarkable family of poet-saints. Among the most famous and beloved of these figures-in India and throughout the world-are Mirabai, Surdas, and Kabir. In this book, John Stratton Hawley takes a probing look at all three, finding that many of the beliefs and legends surrounding them-even central motifs-emerged long after their deaths. This volume probes the lives, works, beliefs, and legends of three Bhakti poets-Mirabai, Surdas, and Kabir. Analysing the oldest manuscripts across North India, Hawley describes how these poets were heard and perceived in their own day and reveals startling facts about them. Hawley shows that these poets are, surprisingly, creations of those who have loved them through the centuries. Weaving in some sixty-five English verse translations, most of them based on early manuscripts, Hawley tells this fascinating story of change and transmission. The new preface updates the research on the field.
This book will interest students and scholars of religious studies, medieval Indian history, and informed general readers.

This book explores a far-flung family of saints--those celebrated not just by Christianity but by other religious traditions of the world: Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Confucian, African, And Caribbean. The contributors of these dozen essays address this worldwide spectrum of 'Lives of the Saints' with a particular eye to discerning how saints serve as moral exemplars in the communities that venerate them. On the whole, they discover a persistent tension between what counts as morality in the ordinary world and what makes a saint saintly; many intriguing family resemblances between saints of different traditions also appear.