Download or read book The Elephant lore of the Hindus written by Nīlakaṇṭha (of Rajamangalam) and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 1985 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is intended to serve as an introduction to the elephant-lore of Hindus. It consists primarily of a translation of the Elephant-Sport (Matanga-Lila) of Nilakantha, with notes, introduction, and glossary. The Matanga-Lila is without doubt the best available Sanskrit work on elephantology. It is a brief and succinct treatise in 263 stanzas, divided into twelve chapters of uneven length. Nothing is known of the Nilakantha who is mentioned as its author. According to the editor, Ganapati Sastri, the three manuscripts he used are about two hundred years old. But the work is probably very much older. For aught we know it may go back a thousand years or even to a much earlier date. This, however, is purely conjectural; all we can say is that there is no positive trace of modernity in the work. The elephant-lore of our text is based on a genuine traditional knowledge which grew up among those whose business it was to deal with elephants, and that this tradition has persisted to modern times.
Download or read book Al Hind the Making of the Indo Islamic World written by André Wink and published by BRILL. This book was released on 1990 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the second of a projected series of five volumes dealing with the expansion of Islam in "al-Hind," or South and Southeast Asia. It analyses the conquest of the eleventh-thirteenth centuries, the migration of Muslim groups into the subcontinent, and maritime developments in the same period.
Download or read book Religion War and Ethics written by Gregory M. Reichberg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-26 with total page 755 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers a comprehensive selection of texts from the world's major religions on the ethical dimensions of war and armed conflict. Despite a considerable rise of interest in Eastern and Western religious teachings on issues of war and peace, the principal texts in which these teachings are expounded have in most cases remained inaccessible to all but a handful of specialists. This is especially true of traditions such as Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism, where the key authoritative treatments are often embedded in texts (e.g., Koranic jurisprudence, religious epics, or Talmudic commentary) that are not overtly about matters pertaining to the ethics of war, thus requiring a difficult process of interpretation and selection, and for which English translations frequently do not exist. Topical and timely for today's debates in the public arena and essential reading for students of religious ethics and the relationship between religion and politics, this book aims to give the reader a proper knowledge of the textual traditions that inform the key struggles over issues of peace and security, identity and land.
Download or read book East African Mammals written by Jonathan Kingdon and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1988-12-29 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed and coveted by both naturalists and lovers of wildlife illustration, Jonathan Kingdon's seven-volume East African Mammals has become a classic of modern natural history. This paperback edition makes Kingdon's remarkable artistic and scientific achievement—his hundreds of drawings and perceptive study of all the mammals in East Africa's species-rich fauna—available to the wide audience it deserves. Volume IIIB celebrates the large mammals for which the African plains are so famous—elephants, rhinos, zebras, bushpigs, and warthogs, hippopotamuses, camels, chevrotains, giraffes. Kingdon brings his artist's eye to such puzzles as the zebra's stripes and the giraffe's spots, making original observations throughout the seven volumes about the evolutionary and functional significance of coat color, facial expressions, and curious forms and markings. The beauty of the animals, so vivid in these incomparable drawings, is made more poignant by the acknowledgment of their increasingly endangered status. Kingdon discusses the inevitable problems posed by large mammal communities in a developing continent and includes numerous maps indicating their declining ranges and populations.
Download or read book Mughal Warfare written by Jos J. L. Gommans and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work offers a survey of the military history of Mughal India during the age of imperial splendour from 1500 to 1700.
Download or read book Tr bner s Bibliographical Catalogues written by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 1236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book General Catalogue of the Library of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Subjects written by Library of the Asiatic Society of Bombay and the Central Library and published by . This book was released on 1922 with total page 1266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Poaching and Militancy written by Binoy Kumar Behera and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Asian elephant is an endangered species due to its relentless poaching mainly for ivory. However, unlike the African elephant whose both males and females are tusk bearers, in Asian elephants only males bear tusk. This has resulted in their selective killing and has not only led to an alarming fall in their number but impacted the sex-ratio. This book critically examines this problem and addresses the issue of human-elephant conflict. It studies the four elephant zones of the country with specific focus on Odisha, which is home to a large population of elephants in the central Indian zone. It also ponders on the possibility of the existence of a well-developed network supporting organized poaching and armed militancy, which applies to the central African countries as well.
Download or read book Conversations with the Animate Other written by Aloka Parasher-Sen and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-09-30 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human interventions with living entities have had to be in a constant state of negotiating space necessary for co-habitation with animals, birds, trees, plants, grasslands, forests, hills, water bodies in the creation of villages and other settlements. The book argues that negotiating this space meant sharing, which impacted economic strategies, religious experiences, cultural interactions and oral performances that humans have strategized and preserved. This intersectional theme, through individual case studies, ultimately provides us the civilizational ethos of the Indian sub-continent on how human non-human relations informed it. The book provides a window on how this relationship was represented in a variety of material and literary texts, visual representations, archival records, folklore and oral testimonies. It brings to the fore these narratives over the longue durée to explicate the complex and delicate relationships in region specific ecological settings and thus give readers a perspective that crosses disciplinary and conceptual boundaries.
Download or read book Alexander the Great from Britain to Southeast Asia written by Su Fang Ng and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No figure has had a more global impact than Alexander the Great, whose legends have encircled the globe and been translated into a dizzying multitude of languages, from Indo-European and Semitic to Turkic and Austronesian. Alexander the Great from Britain to Southeast Asia examines parallel traditions of the Alexander Romance in Britain and Southeast Asia, demonstrating how rival Alexanders - one Christian, the other Islamic - became central figures in their respective literatures. In the early modern age of exploration, both Britain and Southeast Asia turned to literary imitations of Alexander to imagine their own empires and international relations, defining themselves as peripheries against the Ottoman Empire's imperial center: this shared classical inheritance became part of an intensifying cross-cultural engagement in the encounter between the two, allowing a revealing examination of their cultural convergences and imperial rivalries and a remapping of the global literary networks of the early modern world. Rather than absolute alterity or strangeness, the narrative of these parallel traditions is one of contact - familiarity and proximity, unexpected affinity and intimate strangers.
Download or read book The Journal of the Bihar Research Society written by Bihar Research Society and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 752 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book History of Classical Sanskrit Literature written by Madabhushi Krishnamachariar and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishe. This book was released on 1989 with total page 1294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present work is an analytical account of classical Sanskrit literature in its historical perspective. It is divided into six books, containing several chapters, each dealing with a particular branch of Sanskrit learning. The work is full of references; the footnotes refer to a variety of sources, legendary, inscriptional, numismatic, architectural and literary. The writer has exploited all the relevant material of the journals, catalogues, annals, reports and other documents in discussing the vexed problems of the date, place, genealogy of the authors and the literary tendencies of their compositions. His methodology of literary criticism is rationalistic and bears the stamp of the modern scientific age. The elaborate index, the critical introduction, the exhaustive bibliography, the list of abbreviations, the table of transliteration and a supplement are the most useful additions to this interesting and instructive work of literary history.
Download or read book Medieval Indian Armies 1 written by David Nicolle and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-05-26 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fully illustrated study explores the armies of the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain states within what are now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal during the period AD 500–1500, as well as Afghanistan until the early 13th century AD. Following the emergence of a distinct 'medieval Indian' civilization in the Late Classical and Early Medieval periods, there was a prolonged struggle between this civilization and that of the eastern Islamic world, concluding with the rise of the Mughal Empire at the start of the 16th century. In this fully illustrated study, David Nicolle investigates the traditions and enduring conservatism of non-Islamic medieval Indian warfare, notably evident in recruitment patterns and the significance of archery and cavalry. The role and impact of war-elephants, both positive and negative, are also considered, as well as the influence of climate and weather (notably the seasonal monsoon) on warfare in this region. As well as assessing arms and armour – contrasting the advanced technology and high status of Indian weapons (especially swords) with the remarkable lack of metallic armour in the region during this period – the author also explores siege warfare and riverine and naval warfare in South Asia. This book assesses the contributing factors identified by those who have sought to explain why the huge wealth and substantial populations of the traditional non-Islamic Indian states did not prevent their persistent failure in the face of Islamic invasion and conquest.
Download or read book Thirty Three Ways of Looking at an Elephant written by Dale Peterson and published by Trinity University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elephants have captivated the human imagination for as long as they have roamed the earth, appearing in writings and cultures from thousands of years ago and still much discussed today. In Thirty-Three Ways of Looking at an Elephant, veteran scientific writer Dale Peterson has collected thirty-three essential writings about elephants from across history, with geographical perspectives ranging from Africa and Southeast Asia to Europe and the United States. An introductory headnote for each selection provides additional context and insights from Peterson’s substantial knowledge of elephants and natural history. The first section of the anthology, “Cultural and Classical Elephants,” explores the earliest mentions of elephants in African mythology, Hindu theology, and Aristotle and other ancient Greek texts. “Colonial and Industrial Elephants” finds elephants in the crosshairs of colonial exploitation in accounts pulled from memoirs commoditizing African elephants as a source of ivory, novel targets for bloodsport, and occasional export for circuses and zoos. “Working and Performing Elephants” gives firsthand accounts of the often cruel training methods and treatment inflicted on elephants to achieve submission and obedience. As elephants became an object of scientific curiosity in the mid-twentieth century, wildlife biologists explored elephant families and kinship, behaviors around sex and love, language and self-awareness, and enhanced communications with sound and smell. The pieces featured in “Scientific and Social Elephants” give readers a glimpse into major discoveries in elephant behaviors. “Endangered Elephants” points to the future of the elephant, whose numbers continue to be ravaged by ivory poachers. Peterson concludes with a section on fictional and literary elephants and ends on a hopeful note with the 1967 essay “Dear Elephant, Sir,” which argues for the moral imperative to save elephants as an act of redemption for their systematic abuse and mistreatment at human hands. Essential to understanding the history and experience of this beloved and misunderstood creature, Thirty-Three Ways of Looking at an Elephant is a must for any elephant lover or armchair environmentalist.
Download or read book An Unholy Brew written by James McHugh and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-17 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive book on alcohol in pre-modern India, An Unholy Brew: Alcohol in Indian History and Religions uses a wide range of sources from the Vedas to the Kamasutra to explore drinks and styles of drinking, as well as rationales for abstinence from the earliest Sanskrit written records through the second millennium CE. Books about the global history of alcohol almost never give attention to India. But a wide range of texts provide plenty of evidence that there was a thriving culture of drinking in ancient and medieval India, from public carousing at the brewery and drinking house to imbibing at festivals and weddings. There was also an elite drinking culture depicted in poetic texts (often in an erotic mode), and medical texts explain how to balance drink and health. By no means everyone drank, however, and there were many sophisticated religious arguments for abstinence. McHugh begins by surveying the intoxicating drinks that were available, including grain beers, palm toddy, and imported wine, detailing the ways people used grains, sugars, fruits, and herbs over the centuries to produce an impressive array of liquors. He presents myths that explain how drink came into being and how it was assigned the ritual and legal status it has in our time. The book also explores Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain moral and legal texts on drink and abstinence, as well as how drink is used in some Tantric rituals, and translates in full a detailed description of the goddess Liquor, Suradevi. Cannabis, betel, soma, and opium are also considered. Finally, McHugh investigates what has happened to these drinks, stories, and theories in the last few centuries. An Unholy Brew brings to life the overlooked, complex world of brewing, drinking, and abstaining in pre-modern India, and offers illuminating case studies on topics such as law and medicine, even providing recipes for some drinks.
Download or read book The Presence of Elephants written by Paul G. Keil and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-10-14 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to dwell in a forest alongside giants, avoid disturbing a living god, assist an animal with their manners, and help an elephant cross the road. The Presence of Elephants is an anthropological consideration of coexistence, grounded in people’s everyday interactions with Asian elephants. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork in Assam, Northeast India, this book examines human–elephant copresence and how minds, tasks, identities, and places are shared between the two species. Sharing lives and landscapes with such formidable beings is a continuously shifting and negotiated exchange inherently composed of tensions, asymmetries, and uncertainties – especially in the Anthropocene when breakdowns in communication increasingly have a violent effect. Developing a multifaceted picture of human–elephant relations in a postcolonial setting, each chapter focuses on a different dimension of encounter, where elephants adapt to human norms, people are subject to elephant projects, and novel interspecies possibilities emerge at the threshold of nature and society. Vulnerability is a common experience intensified in contemporary human–elephant relations, felt through the elephant’s power to disrupt and transform human lives, as well as the risks these endangered animals are exposed to. This book will be of interest to scholars of multispecies ethnography and human–animal relations, environmental humanities, conservation, and South Asian studies.
Download or read book Environment Chronicles II written by The Energy and Resources Institute and published by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). This book was released on 2018-05-18 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers, in a panoramic sweep, all the formidable environmental challenges that we face. It is a grim reminder of our disquieting environmental reality; yet the stories here inspire hope and provide examples of the building blocks for a sustainable world. Environment Chronicles II is the go-to resource for readers who want to know, in holistic terms, about what's ailing the environment as well as the solutions for a greener future. Backing up its claims with several unassailable facts, this book reinforces the urgency for sustainable development, particularly for conservation, resource-use efficiency, and waste minimization—all ideas that are now picking up the much-needed momentum.