Download or read book A Vaisnava Poet in Early Modern Bengal written by Rembert Lutjeharms and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-17 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the practice of poetry in the devotional Vaiṣṇava tradition inspired by Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya (1486-1533), through a detailed study of the Sanskrit poetic works of Kavikarṇapūra, one of the most significant sixteenth-century Caitanya Vaiṣṇava poets and theologians. It places his ideas in the context both of Sanskrit literary theory (by exploring his use of earlier works of Sanskrit criticism) and of Vaiṣṇava theology (by tracing the origins of his theological ideas to earlier Vaiṣṇava teachers, especially his guru Śrīnātha). Both Kavikarṇapūra's poetics as well as the style of his poetry is in many ways at odds with those of his time, particularly with respect to the place of phonetic ornamentation and rasa. Like later early modern theorists, Kavikarṇapūra reaches back to the earliest Sanskrit poeticians whom he attempts to harmonise with the theories current in his time, to develop a new poetics that values both literary ornamentation and the suggestion of emotion through rasa. This book argues that the reasons of and purposes for Kavikarṇapūra's literary innovations are firmly rooted in his unique Vaiṣṇava theology, and exemplifies this through a careful reading of select passages from the Ānanda-vṛndāvana, his poetic retelling of Kṛṣṇa's play in Vṛndāvana.
Download or read book The Legacy of Vai avism in Colonial Bengal written by Ferdinando Sardella and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-25 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a focused examination of the Bengali Vaiṣṇava tradition in its manifold forms in the pivotal context of British colonialism in South Asia. Bringing together scholars from across the disciplines of social and intellectual history, philology, theology, and anthropology to systematically investigate Vaiṣṇavism in colonial Bengal, this book highlights the significant roles—religious, social, and cultural—that a prominent Hindu devotional current played in the lives of wide and diverse sections of colonial Bengali society. Not only does the book thereby enrich our understanding of the history and development of Bengali Vaiṣṇavism, but it also sheds valuable new light on the texture and dynamics of colonial Hinduism beyond the discursive and social-historical parameters of an entrenched Hindu "Renaissance" paradigm. A landmark in the burgeoning field of Bengali Vaiṣṇava studies, this book will be of interest to scholars of modern Hinduism, religion, and colonial South Asian social and intellectual history.
Download or read book The Building of V nd vana written by Kiyokazu Okita and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-12-28 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The small town of Vṛndāvana is today one of the most vibrant places of pilgrimage in northern India. Throngs of pilgrims travel there each year to honour the sacred land of Kṛṣṇa’s youth and to visit many of its temples. The Building of Vṛndāvana explores the complex history of this town’s early modern origins. Bringing together scholars from various disciplines to examine history, architecture, art, ritual, theology, and literature in this pivotal period, the book examines how these various disciplines were used to create, develop, and map Vṛndāvana as the most prominent place of pilgrimage for devotees of Kṛṣṇa. Contributors are: Guy L. Beck, Måns Broo, David Buchta, John Stratton Hawley, Barbara A. Holdrege, Rembert Lutjeharms, Cynthia D. Packert, and Heidi Pauwels.
Download or read book A Time of Novelty written by Samuel Wright and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-14 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A Time of Novelty, Samuel Wright re-envisions the relationship between philosophy and history in premodern India. This relationship is studied through the tradition of Sanskrit logic between 1500 and 1700 CE -- the period in Indian history that witnessed the ascendency of the Mughal Empire. During this period, Sanskrit logicians would refer to themselves and their arguments as 'new,' indicating that the concept of novelty was at the center of their philosophical project. By retaining space for emotion when studying intellectual thought,this book recovers both what it means to "think" novelty and to "feel" novelty for these thinkers. Focusing on a number of little-known essays by early modern Sanskrit logicians, Wright argues that the concept of novelty is used to forge a new philosophical community in this period where novelty is both an intellectual and affective category. This perspective allows the book to raise questions that have never been asked when studying Sanskrit logic -- questions concerning critical thought, mood, imagination, and manuscript culture. Wright expands the ways in which we study philosophical thought by considering philosophy as deeply immersed in the felt experiences of one's life, at the confluence of thinking and feeling.
Download or read book Love in the Time of Scholarship written by Anand Venkatkrishnan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-12-03 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Love in the Time of Scholarship concerns the history of scholarly life in precolonial India, revealing the ways that popular religious movements from the wider world infiltrated and shaped scholarship produced in elite traditions of learning. Author Anand Venkatkrishnan shows how specific religious traditions, in their very local, regional incarnations, influenced scholarly work in unexpected ways.
Download or read book Bringing Krishna Back to India written by Claire C. Robison and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing Krishna Back to India examines the place of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), in Mumbai, India's business and entertainment capital, where ISKCON draws Indians from diverse regional and religious backgrounds and devotees adopt a conservative religious identity amidst a neoliberal urban context. By inhabiting a Hindu revivalist role, ISKCON educates Hindus and Jains into a new vision of their own traditions and promotes greater religiosity in Indian public life. This contradicts notions that societies are moving towards secularism and highlights how new religious identities are fashioned amidst industrialized urban spaces, such as college campuses, corporate wellness retreats, and Bollywood celebrity events.
Download or read book Krishna s Playground written by John Stratton Hawley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-30 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about a deeply beloved place—many call it the spiritual capital of India. Located at a dramatic bend in the River Yamuna, a hundred miles from the center of Delhi, Vrindavan is the spot where the god Krishna is believed to have spent his childhood and youth. For Hindus it has always stood for youth writ large—a realm of love and beauty that enables one to retreat from the weight and harshness of the world. Now, though, the world is gobbling up Vrindavan. Delhi’s megalopolitan sprawl inches closer day by day—half the town is a vast real-estate development—and the waters of the Yamuna are too polluted to drink or even bathe in. Temples now style themselves as theme parks, and the world’s tallest religious building is under construction in Krishna’s pastoral paradise. What happens when the Anthropocene Age makes everything virtual? What happens when heaven gets plowed under? Like our age as a whole, Vrindavan throbs with feisty energy, but is it the religious canary in our collective coal mine?
Download or read book Origen and Prophecy written by Claire Hall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-24 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Origen is frequently hailed as the most important Christian writer of his period (c.185-c.255 AD), and the first systematic theologian. Origen and Prophecy: Fate, Authority, Allegory, and the Structure of Scripture examines whether there was a system to Origen's thinking about prophecy. How were all of these quite different topics - future-telling, moral leadership, mystical revelation - contained in the single word 'prophecy'? Origen and Prophecy presents a new account of Origen's concept of prophecy which takes its cue from the structure of Origen's thinking about scripture. He claims that scripture can be read in three different senses: the straightforward, or 'somatic' (bodily) sense; the moral, or 'psychic' (soul-ish) sense; and the mystical, or 'pneumatic' (spiritual) sense. This threefold structure, says Origen, underpins all of scripture and is intimately linked through Christ with the structure of the Holy Trinity. This book illustrates how Origen thought about prophecy using the same threefold structure, with somatic (future-telling), psychic (moral), and pneumatic (mystical revelatory) senses. The chapters weave through several centuries of Greek pagan, Jewish, and Christian thinking about prophecy, divination, time, human nature, autonomy and freedom, allegory and metaphor, and the role of the divine in the order and structure of the cosmos.
Download or read book Quakers Christ and the Enlightenment written by Madeleine Pennington and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Quakers were by far the most successful of the radical religious groups to emerge from the turbulence of the mid-seventeenth century—and their survival into the present day was largely facilitated by the transformation of the movement during its first fifty years. What began as a loose network of charismatic travelling preachers was, by the start of the eighteenth century, a well-organised and international religious machine. This shift is usually explained in terms of a desire to avoid persecution, but Quakers, Christ, and the Enlightenment argues instead for the importance of theological factors as the major impetus for change. In the first sustained account of the theological changes guiding the development of seventeenth-century Quakerism, Madeleine Pennington explores the Quakers' positive intellectual engagement with those outside the movement to offer a significant reassessment of the causal factors determining the development of early Quakerism. Considering the Quakers' engagement with such luminaries as Baruch Spinoza, Henry More, John Locke, and John Norris, Pennington unveils the Quakers' concerted attempts to bolster their theological reputation through the refinement of their central belief in the 'inward Christ', or 'the Light within'. In doing so, she further challenges stereotypes of early modern radicalism as anti-intellectual and ill-educated. Rather, the theological concerns of the Quakers and their interlocutors point to a crisis of Christology weaving through the intellectual milieu of the seventeenth century, which has long been under-estimated as significant fuel for the emerging Enlightenment.
Download or read book M y in the Bh gavata Pur a written by Gopal K. Gupta and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-21 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of Māyā pervades Indian philosophy. It is enigmatic, multivalent, and foundational, with its oldest referents found in the Rig Veda. This book explores Māyā's rich conceptual history, and then focuses on the highly developed theology of Māyā found in the Sanskrit Bhāgavata Purāṇa, one of the most important Hindu sacred texts. Gopal K. Gupta examines Māyā's role in the Bhāgavata's narratives, paying special attention to its relationship with other key concepts in the text, such as human suffering (duḥkha), devotion (bhakti), and divine play (līlā). In the Bhāgavata, Māyā is often identified as the divine feminine, and has a far-reaching influence. For example, Māyā is both the world and the means by which God creates the world, as well as the facilitator of God's play, paradoxically revealing him to his devotees by concealing his majesty. While Vedānta philosophy typically sees Māyā as a negative force, the Bhāgavata affirms that Māyā also has a positive role, as Māyā is ultimately meant to draw living beings toward Krishna and intensify their devotion to him.
Download or read book Preaching and Popular Christianity written by James Daniel Cook and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-23 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The vast homiletic corpus of John Chrysostom has received renewed attention in recent years as a source for the wider cultural and historical context within which his sermons were preached. Scholars have demonstrated the exciting potential his sermons have to shed light on aspects of daily life, popular attitudes, and practices of lay piety. In short, Chrysostom's sermons have been recognised as a valuable source for the study of 'popular Christianity' at the end of the fourth century. This study, however, questions the validity of some recent conclusions. James Daniel Cook illustrates that Chrysostom is often seen as at odds with the congregations to whom he preached. On this view, the Christianity of élites such as Chrysostom had made little inroads into popular thought beyond the fairly superficial, and congregations were still living with older, more culturally traditional views about religious beliefs which preachers were doing their utmost to overcome. Cook argues that such a portrayal is based on a misreading of Chrysostom's sermons and fails to explain satisfactorily the apparent popularity that Chrysostom enjoyed as a preacher. Preaching and Popular Christianity: Reading the Sermons of John Chrysostom reassesses how we read Chrysostom's sermons, with a particular focus on the stern language which permeated his preaching, and on which the image of the contrary congregation is largely based. In doing this, Cook recovers a neglected portrayal of Chrysostom as a pastor and of preaching as a pastoral and liturgical activity, and it becomes clear that his use of critical language says more about how he understood his role as preacher than about the nature of popular Christianity in late-antique society. Thus, a very different picture of late-antique Christianity emerges, in which Chrysostom's congregations are more willing to listen and learn from their preacher than is often assumed.
Download or read book Anti Methodism and Theological Controversy in Eighteenth Century England written by Simon Lewis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-27 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Wesley and George Whitefield are remembered as founders of Methodism, one of the most influential movements in the history of modern Christianity. Characterized by open-air and itinerant preaching, eighteenth-century Methodism was a divisive phenomenon, which attracted a torrent of printed opposition, especially from Anglican clergymen. Yet, most of these opponents have been virtually forgotten. Anti-Methodism and Theological Controversy in Eighteenth-Century England is the first large-scale examination of the theological ideas of early anti-Methodist authors. By illuminating a very different perspective on Methodism, Simon Lewis provides a fundamental reappraisal of the eighteenth-century Church of England and its doctrinal priorities. For anti-Methodist authors, attacking Wesley and Whitefield was part of a wider defence of 'true religion', which demonstrates the theological vitality of the much-derided Georgian Church. This book, therefore, places Methodism firmly in its contemporary theological context, as part of the Church of England's continuing struggle to define itself theologically.
Download or read book In the Shade of the Golden Palace written by Thibaut d'Hubert and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Shade of the Golden Palace explores the work of the prolific Bengali poet Alaol (fl. 1651-71), who translated five narrative poems and one versified treatise from medieval Hindi and Persian into Bengali. The book maps the genres, structures, and themes of Alaol's works, paying special attention to his discourse on poetics and his literary genealogy, which included Sanskrit, Avadhi, Maithili, Persian, and Bengali authors. D'Hubert focuses on courtly speech in Alaol's poetry, his revisiting of classical categories in a vernacular context, and the prominent role of performing arts in his conceptualization of the poetics of the written word. The foregrounding of this audacious theory of meaning in Alaol's poetry is a crucial contribution of the book, both in terms of general conceptual analysis and for its significance in the history of Bengali poetry. This book shows how multilingual literacy fostered a variety of literary experiments in the remote kingdom of Arakan, which lay between present-day southeastern Bangladesh and Myanmar, in the mid-17th century. D'Hubert also presents a detailed analysis of Middle Bengali narrative poems, as well as translations of Old Maithili, Brajabuli, and Middle Bengali lyric poems that illustrate the major poetic styles in the regional courts of eastern South Asia. In the Shade of the Golden Palace therefore fulfills three functions: it is a unique guide for readers of Middle Bengali poetry, a detailed study of the cultural history of the frontier region of Arakan, and an original contribution to the poetics of South Asian literatures.
Download or read book An Earthly Paradise written by Raziuddin Aquil and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of articles on varied facets of early modern Bengal showcases cutting edge work in the field and hopes to encourage new research. The essays explore the trading networks, religious traditions, artistic and literary patronage, and politico-cultural practices that emerged in roughly sixteenth-eighteenth centuries. Using a wide array of sources, the contributors to this volume, coming from diverse academic affiliations,and including many young researchers, have attempted to address various historiographical ‘black holes’ bringing in new material and interpretations. Early modern Bengal’s history tends to get overshadowed by the later developments of the nineteenth century. What this assortment of articles highlights is that this period needs to be studied afresh, and in depth. The region underwent rapid transformations as it got politically integrated with Northern India and its empires and economically with extensive global economic networks. Combined with its unique geography, the trajectory of this region in all spheres manifest an almost constant interplay of local and extra-local forces – be it in literature, art, economic domain, political and religious cultures – and considerable enterprise and ingenuity. Thus, a variety of themes – including travel accounts, Portuguese and Arakanese presence, early Dutch, French, Ostend companies’ forays into the region, artistic production in the Nizamat and later collections of art and missionaries, the English company state’s intrusions in local economy in salt and raw silk production and indigenous reactions and rebellions, consumption practices related to religious activities, circulation and translation of texts, representation of women in vernacular writings, and organization of religious traditions – have been analysed in this volume, with a wide ranging introduction tying up the themes to the broader historiographical issues and contexts. The collection will be an invaluable reference tool for students and scholars of history, especially of early modern India. Please note: This title is co-published with Manohar Publishers, New Delhi. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Download or read book Tales of God s Friends written by John Renard and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-05-13 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The works of Islamic mysticism are a crucial genre of Islamic piety, and the lives of the awliya (friends of God) have been and continue to be a crucial way in which the theoretical insights of Sufism are embodied and communicated to a wider audience. Traditionally, these genres would be deciphered by a living Sufi master. Here John Renard acts as our Sufi guide, transporting us to the marvelous world of Islamic piety."—Omid Safi, Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Northern Carolina
Download or read book The Lost Age of Reason written by Jonardon Ganeri and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-10 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonardon Ganeri tells the story of a fascinating period in intellectual history, when Indian philosophy moved into the modern era. Philosophers no longer defer to ancient authorities, but draw upon their insights to seek a true understanding of knowledge, self, and reality. This missing chapter in the development of modernity can at last be read.
Download or read book Indian Culture Ancient and Modern written by Shashi Bhushan Dasgupta and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
