Download or read book Kashi the City Luminous written by K. Chandramouli and published by South Asia Books. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Luminous Kashi To Vibrant Varanasi written by K. Chandramouli and published by . This book was released on 2006-08-01 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kashi/Banaras/Varanasi is a world of its own, a veritable miniIndia, unique in almost all respects. Its contradictions can be seen inits blend of spirituality and darkness, sanctity and filth, purity anddeceipt, culture and grossness.Luminous Kashi to Vibrant Varanasi presents, as no other bookhas done before, all these aspects of this paradoxical and fascinatingcity, and gives an amazing quantity of information on the city, itshistory, culture and people; its temples and tirthas, mathas andinstitutions; its scholars, some of them the best in the country; itsfestivals and lilas; its literature, music, painting and culture; its silktrade and crafts; and its typical inhabitants: sadhus, pandits, pandas,babus, rais, thugs and gundas. More than all, the book finds out,with the help of mythology and metaphysics, the essence of Kashi its luminosity and its vibrancy! It finally says: walk not in the darkalleys, plunge not in the shallows, but move into the luminosity, anddive deep into the oceans of knowledge. The Kashi you find dependson how far you walk, how deep you dive!
Download or read book Banaras written by Diana L. Eck and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2013-06-05 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sacred city of Banāras on the River Ganges is one of the oldest living cities in the world—as old as Jerusalem, Athens, and Peking. It is the place where Shiva, the Lord of All, is said to have made his permanent home since the dawn of creation. There are few cities in India as traditionally Hindu and as symbolic of the whole of Hindu culture as Banāras. In this eloquent, finely observed study, Diana Eck shows how the city over the centuries has become a lens through which the Hindu vision of the world is precisely focused. She reveals the spiritual and historical resonance of this holy place where great sages such as the Buddha and Shankara were taught, where ashrams, palaces, and universities were built, where God has been imagined and imagined in a thousand ways. She describes the rites of its temples, the busy life of its riverfront, and the exuberance of its festivals. She tells how people travel from all over India to Banāras for the privilege of dying a good death here, for they believe that on the banks of the River Ganges where “the atmosphere of devotion is improbable in its strength,” it is possible to be released from the earthly round forever. In her account of the sacred history, geography, and art of the city, its elaborate and thriving rituals, its myths and literature, and its importance to pilgrims and seekers, Diana Eck uses her wealth of scholarship to make the Hindu tradition come powerfully alive so that we come to understand the meaning of this sacred city to the millions of believers who have been coming here for over 2,500 years.
Download or read book India written by Diana L Eck and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2012-03-27 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In India: A Sacred Geography, renowned Harvard scholar Diana Eck offers an extraordinary spiritual journey through the pilgrimage places of the world's most religiously vibrant culture and reveals that it is, in fact, through these sacred pilgrimages that India’s very sense of nation has emerged. No matter where one goes in India, one will find a landscape in which mountains, rivers, forests, and villages are elaborately linked to the stories of the gods and heroes of Indian culture. Every place in this vast landscape has its story, and conversely, every story of Hindu myth and legend has its place. Likewise, these places are inextricably tied to one another—not simply in the past, but in the present—through the local, regional, and transregional practices of pilgrimage. India: A Sacred Geography tells the story of the pilgrim’s India. In these pages, Diana Eck takes the reader on an extraordinary spiritual journey through the living landscape of this fascinating country –its mountains, rivers, and seacoasts, its ancient and powerful temples and shrines. Seeking to fully understand the sacred places of pilgrimage from the ground up, with their stories, connections and layers of meaning, she acutely examines Hindu religious ideas and narratives and shows how they have been deeply inscribed in the land itself. Ultimately, Eck shows us that from these networks of pilgrimage places, India’s very sense of region and nation has emerged. This is the astonishing and fascinating picture of a land linked for centuries not by the power of kings and governments, but by the footsteps of pilgrims. India: A Sacred Geography offers a unique perspective on India, both as a complex religious culture and as a nation. Based on her extensive knowledge and her many decades of wide-ranging travel and research, Eck's piercing insights and a sweeping grasp of history ensure that this work will be in demand for many years to come.
Download or read book Banaras written by Rana Singh and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009-10-02 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Narrating the making of the Hindus’ most sacred and heritage city of India (Banaras) this book will serve as lead reference and insightful reading for understanding the cultural complexities, archetypal connotations, ritualscapes and vivid heritagescapes that maintain India’s pride of history and culture.
Download or read book Light written by Bruce Watson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-02-02 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Light begins at Stonehenge, where crowds cheer a solstice sunrise. After sampling myths explaining First Light, the story moves on to early philosophers' queries, then through the centuries, from Buddhist temples to Biblical scripture, when light was the soul of the divine. Battling darkness and despair, Gothic architects crafted radiant cathedrals while Dante dreamed a "heaven of pure light." Later, following Leonardo's advice, Renaissance artists learned to capture light on canvas. During the Scientific Revolution, Galileo gathered light in his telescope, Descartes measured the rainbow, and Newton used prisms to solidify the science of optics. But even after Newton, light was an enigma. Particle or wave? Did it flow through an invisible "ether"? Through the age of Edison and into the age of lasers, Light reveals how light sparked new wonders--relativity, quantum electrodynamics, fiber optics, and more. Although lasers now perform everyday miracles, light retains its eternal allure. "For the rest of my life," Einstein said, "I will reflect on what light is." Light explores and celebrates such curiosity.
Download or read book Banaras written by Vertul Singh and published by Penguin Random House India Private Limited. This book was released on 2024-05-30 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Banaras has been home to sages, artists, poets, musicians and seekers from all parts of India. The ancient canon of texts passed down orally by the sages was written and transcribed in the lanes and by-lanes of this city. Over the centuries, the art of grafting and subsuming the religious and cultural ethos became the hallmark of Banaras. In this book, Vertul Singh presents a kaleidoscopic view of Banaras that charts a narrative spanning from the present-day city and its origins as Kashi to the fin de siècle of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which witnessed the city’s inclusionary development as a cultural and pilgrimage centre, an opulent trading hub and a basilica of political power. Weaving facts, interesting anecdotes and untold stories to make a rich tapestry, this book is an insider’s account and an unparalleled portrait of the city.
Download or read book Across the Mystic Shore written by Suroopa Mukherjee and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-10-18 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The arrival of the young boy in an upper middle class Bengali household triggers a gripping story of love, desire and renunciation. Set in two different cities, New Delhi and Varanasi, Across The Mystic Shore explores the entwining lives of four women forced to confront their past decisions in order to understand their present delusions and insecurities. Questions arise throughout the story and family truths are unveiled. Central to the story is a dark and shocking secret that manifests itself and demands expiation from those entangled in it, having lurked in the past for twenty years. The narratives and memories of the four women enable the characters to grow over a period of twenty years, exploring the link between childhood and growing up and the theme of motherhood. Written with humour and compassion, Across The Mystic Shore is full of the sights, sounds and scents of India and delivers both an exploration of conflicts peculiar to Indian society and a universal underlying message about the strength of love and how it can be both selfish and selfless.
Download or read book Encountering God written by Diana L. Eck and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A clarion call for interfaith dialogue in the U.S., this “splendid exposition of non-Christian approaches to God . . . encourages an increased religious literacy that . . . will contribute richness and diversity to our national identity” (Publishers Weekly) In this tenth-anniversary edition of Encountering God, religious scholar Diana Eck shows why dialogue with people of other faiths remains crucial in today’s interdependent world—globally, nationally, and even locally. As the director of the Pluralism Project—which seeks to map the new religious diversity of the United States, from Hinduism and Buddhism to Islam—she reveals how her own encounters with other religions have shaped and enlarged her Christian faith toward a bold new Christian pluralism.
Download or read book Myths and Places written by Shonaleeka Kaul and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-06-23 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the dialogic relationship between myths and places in the historically, geographically, and culturally diverse context of India. Given its ambiguous relationship with ‘facts’ and empirical reality, myth has suffered an uncertain status in the field of professional history, with the latter’s preference for scientifism over more creative orders of representation. Myths and Places rehabilitates myth, not as history’s primeval ‘Other’, nor as an instrument of socio-religious propagation, but as communitarian mechanisms by which societies made sense of themselves and their world. It argues that myths helped communities fashion their identities and their habitat/habitus, and were fashioned by these in turn. This book explores diverse forms of territorial becoming and belonging in a grassroots approach from across India, studying them in culturally sensitive ways to recover local life-worlds and their self-understanding. Further, challenging the stereotypical bracketing of the mythical with the sacred and the material with the historical, the multidisciplinary essays in the book examine myth in relation to not only religion but other historical phenomena such as ecology, ethnicity, urbanism, mercantilism, migration, politics, tourism, art, philosophy, performance, and the everyday. This book will be of interest to scholars and general readers of Indian history, regional studies, cultural geography, mythology, religious studies, and anthropology.
Download or read book Interactive Dramaturgies written by Heide Hagebölling and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using numerous illustrations and case studies, the author maps out the creative process involved in producing interactive media, such as CD-ROM productions and network applications. Looking at concrete outstanding examples, various contributions by international multimedia authors, designers, and artists shed light on the role and function of interactive media in the context of exhibitions, museums, cultural learning, entertainment, film, and television. The publication explores methods and strategies of interactive dramaturgy that go beyond interactive storytelling. The emphasis is on new modes of dramaturgy, where the user is actively involved, cooperation among users is supported, and repeated visits are motivated.
Download or read book Performed Imaginaries written by Richard Schechner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-11-27 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of essays, performance studies scholar and artist Richard Schechner brings his unique perspective to bear upon some of the key themes of society in the 21st century. Schechner connects the avantgarde and terror, the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s/70s and the Occupy movement; self-wounding art, popular culture, and ritual; the Ramlila cycle play of India and the way imagination structures reality; the corporate world and conservative artists. Schechner asks artists to redeploy Nehru's Third World as a movement not of nations but of like-minded culture workers who must propose counter-performances to war, violence, and the globalized corporate empire. With characteristic brio, Schechner urges us to play for keeps. "Playing deeply is a way of finding and embodying new knowledge", he writes. Performed Imaginaries ranges through some of the key moves within Schechner’s oeuvre, and challenges today’s experimental artists, activists, and scholars to generate a new, third world of performance.
Download or read book Make The Most Of Your Time On Earth 3 written by Rough Guides and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 708 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1,000 travel adventures across all seven continents, gorgeous full-bleed images throughout, and short summaries of each adventure: With more than 500,000 copies sold, Make the Most of Your Time on Earth is truly the ultimate inspirational guide for world travelers and those who dream of hitting the road. The third edition has been fully revised, with stunning, brand-new color photos throughout and a wealth of new writing and new adventures, from sleeping in a baobab tree in Senegal to breakfasting in a Burmese teahouse. Entries are divided into regions, so it's easy to go straight to the part of the world you're interested in, and all the nitty-gritty practical information you'll need to find out more is contained in the "Need to Know" sections at the end of each chapter. Make the Most of Your Time on Earth is the product of the combined travel experience of Rough Guides' authors over the last 30 years, each an expert in his or her own territory. Our authors have chosen their favorite experiences from their travels to inspire yours - making this the perfect book for planning your next big adventure, or just dreaming of future travels.
Download or read book Banaras written by Diana L. Eck and published by Prhi. This book was released on 2000-10-14 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A luminous work, as befits this City of Light. I know of few books that capture the soul of a sacred city to the degree that this one does'-Huston Smith, Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion, Syracuse University One of the oldest living cities in the world, Banaras is also where Shiva, the Lord of All, is believed to have made his home since the dawn of creation. There are few places in India as traditionally Hindu and as symbolic of the whole of Hindu culture as this city where God is imagined and imaged in a thousand ways. Through her account of the history, geography and art of the city, its elaborate and thriving rituals, its myths and literature, Diana Eck brings out the significance Banaras holds for the millions of pilgrims and seekers who have been coming here for over 2500 years.
Download or read book Good Earth Varanasi City Guide written by Eicher Goodearth Limited and published by Eicher Goodearth Limited. This book was released on 2002 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Varanasi City Guide has been widely appreciated because It captures the tone and spirit of Varanasi from the Indian perspective while remaining highly interesting for the visitor to India. (The Hindustan Times, New Delhi).
Download or read book Kamandalu written by Shrikala Warrier and published by MAYUR University. This book was released on 2014 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hindu theology views rivers as goddesses who confer blessings and spiritual purification and their release from the grip of the demon of drought is a recurring theme in the mythology. India is a country blessed with many rivers, but of these, seven are considered to be particularly important. Known collectively as Saptaganga, Sapta Sindhu or Saptapunyanadi, the Ganges, Yamuna, Sindhu, Sarasvati, Godavari, Narmada and Kaveri rivers are invoked at the start of every ritual. They weave through sacred narratives about gods, sages and heroes and define the physical, spiritual and cultural landscape of Bharatavarsha.
Download or read book The Grace of Four Moons written by Pravina Shukla and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-16 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Because clothing, food, and shelter are basic human needs, they provide excellent entries to cultural values and individual aesthetics. Everyone gets dressed every day, but body art has not received the attention it deserves as the most common and universal of material expressions of culture. The Grace of Four Moons aims to document the clothing decisions made by ordinary people in their everyday lives. Based on fieldwork conducted primarily in the city of Banaras, India, Pravina Shukla conceptualizes and realizes a total model for the study of body art—understood as all aesthetic modifications and supplementations to the body. Shukla urges the study of the entire process of body art, from the assembly of raw materials and the manufacture of objects, through their sale and the interactions between merchants and consumers, to the consumer's use of objects in creating personal decoration.
