Download or read book Religion and Rajput Women written by Lindsey Harlan and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2024-06-21 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the relationship between caste and gender in the narratives of Rajput woman? During a year and a half of fieldwork in Rajasthan, a parched land dominated by the great Indian Desert, Lindsey Harlan interviewed more than a hundred women from all levels of Rajput society. She wanted to understand why certain religious practices were so important to Rajput women, and how they justified these to themselves. During the course of her interviews, the women described their religious practices—chief among them the worship of the family kuldevi (the goddess who exemplifies the ideal wife by staving off sickness, poverty, and infertility) and the veneration of satimatas (women who have immolated themselves on their husband's funeral pyre). As the women discussed these rituals, many of them also told Harlan religious myths and stories, drawing parallels between their behavior and that of various Indian heroines. These narratives and the role they play in the women's self-perception are the fascinating and enlightening subject of this book. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.
Download or read book Religion and Rajput Women written by Lindsey Harlan and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2018-10-23 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the relationship between caste and gender in the narratives of Rajput woman? During a year and a half of fieldwork in Rajasthan, a parched land dominated by the great Indian Desert, Lindsey Harlan interviewed more than a hundred women from all levels of Rajput society. She wanted to understand why certain religious practices were so important to Rajput women, and how they justified these to themselves. During the course of her interviews, the women described their religious practices—chief among them the worship of the family kuldevi (the goddess who exemplifies the ideal wife by staving off sickness, poverty, and infertility) and the veneration of satimatas (women who have immolated themselves on their husband's funeral pyre). As the women discussed these rituals, many of them also told Harlan religious myths and stories, drawing parallels between their behavior and that of various Indian heroines. These narratives and the role they play in the women's self-perception are the fascinating and enlightening subject of this book. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.
Download or read book Women of India written by Arun R. Kumbhare and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2009-07 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A systematic presentation of the status of women of India throughout the long history of about 6000 years has been presented starting from the Vedic times to the post-independence period. A detailed description of the status of women during the Vedic times, which is rarely available in any of the existing literature, and in the following periods is very significant to the study of this subject. The author has discussed how the political and religious conditions over the periods have affected the conditions of women. The age-old evils, which had got firmly entrenched in the Indian society, such as the tradition of Sati, illiteracy, child marriages, and deplorable treatment of widows and so on, still persist and some new ones have joined the list. These are: bride burning, dowry, female feticide, domestic violence, to name a few. Short biographies of some outstanding women have been included to illustrate that in spite of adversities some women had achieved eminence. To the credit of the Indian Government, legislative measures have been taken to protect and improve the status of women after independence and just prior to it. These have been outlined. Unfortunately, these measures have not been able to achieve their intended results on account of wide spread corruption and lack of education and awareness among women, especially in the rural areas. A snapshot of the present conditions is given along with concluding remarks and recommendations for improvement. Improvement of the status of women is extremely improvement for India if it wishes to become a developed and progressive country and a world leader in culture and ideology.
Download or read book The Many Lives of a Rajput Queen written by Ramya Sreenivasan and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2009 Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize, sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies The medieval Rajput queen Padmini - believed to have been pursued by Alauddin Khalji, the Sultan of Delhi - has been the focus of numerous South Asian narratives, ranging from a Sufi mystical romance in the sixteenth century to nationalist histories in the late nineteenth century. The Many Lives of a Rajput Queen explores how early modern regional elites, caste groups, and mystical and monastic communities shaped their distinctive versions of the past through the repeated refashioning of the legend of Padmini. Ramya Sreenivasan investigates these legends and traces their subsequent appropriation by colonial administrators and nationalist intellectuals, for varying different political ends. Using Padmini as a means of illustrating the power of gender norms in constructing heroic memory, she shows how such narratives about virtuous women changed as they circulated across particular communities in South Asia between the sixteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book will interest historians of memory, gender, community, culture, and historywriting in South Asia. Illustrating how enduring legends emerged out of particular precolonial repositories of "tradition," the book also addresses the nature of colonial transitions and precolonial historical consciousness.
Download or read book Pentecostalism and Religious Conflict in Contemporary India written by Sarbeswar Sahoo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conversion and the shifting discourse of violence -- Spreading like fire: the growth of Pentecostalism among tribals -- Taking refuge in Christ: four narratives on religious conversion -- Becoming believers: Adivasi women and the Pentecostal church -- Encountering the alien: Hindutva politics and anti-Christian violence -- Beyond the competing projects of conversion
Download or read book The Emergence of Modern Hinduism written by Richard S. Weiss and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. The Emergence of Modern Hinduism argues for the importance of regional, vernacular innovation in processes of Hindu modernization. Scholars usually trace the emergence of modern Hinduism to cosmopolitan reform movements, producing accounts that overemphasize the centrality of elite religion and the influence of Western ideas and models. In this study, the author considers religious change on the margins of colonialism by looking at an important local figure, the Tamil Shaiva poet and mystic Ramalinga Swami (1823–1874). Weiss narrates a history of Hindu modernization that demonstrates the transformative role of Hindu ideas, models, and institutions, making this text essential for scholarly audiences of South Asian history, religious studies, Hindu studies, and South Asian studies.
Download or read book Hindu Goddesses written by David Kinsley and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 1998 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hindu Goddesses is a valuable sourcebook and reference work for students and scholars of Hindu goddesses and of Hinduism in general. Each goddess is dealt with as an independent deity with a coherent mythology, theology and, in some cases, cult of her own. Within the complex, diverse, and rich goddess traditions of Hinduism, one can find suggestions of nearly every important theme in the Hindu religion. In many ways, this book is as much a study of the Hindu tradition itself as it is a study of one aspect of that tradition. No other living religious tradition has displayed such an ancient, continuous, and diverse history of goddess worship.
Download or read book The Politics of Marriage in Medieval India written by Sabita Singh and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019-07-04 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the study of the various aspects of marriage, this book highlights the cultural diversity of India. An account has been given of the changing political and social structure of the entire medieval period and how that affected the cultural sub-structure, which is observed through the prism of the institution of marriage in Rajasthan. Marriage customs and rituals have been situated in the changing social and political structure and a study has been made of polygamy, dowry, concubinage, and the age of marriage. The shifting motivations for marriage alliances in that period, be they political or economic, have also been analysed. Two prominent themes in this book are Sati and widowhood, which are seen as forms of women's oppression. The conventional narrative behind these practices are challenged, and the complex motives behind committing Sati are appraised. Widow remarriage was prevalent, not only among all castes but even among the upper caste Rajputs, so it was not the lack of widow remarriage that compelled the women to become Sati. The book touches on martial and sexual morality of the time. This includes recording instances of infidelity and the State response thereof. The book approaches this topic from a historical perspective, based on archival and literary evidence.
Download or read book Encountering Kali written by Rachel Fell McDermott and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishe. This book was released on 2005 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encountering Kali explores one of the most ramarkable divinities the world has seen. The Hindu goddess Kali is simultaneously understood as a blood thirsty warrior a deity of ritual possession a tantric sexual partner and an all loving compassionate mothe. Popular and scholarly interest in her has been on the rise in the west in recent years. Responding to this phenomenon McDermott and Kripal`s volume focuses on the complexities involved in interpreting Kali in both her indigenous south Asian settings and her more recent Western incarnation. Through the shifting lenses of scriptural history temple architecture political reflection and the goddess`s recent guises on the Internet the contributors pose questions that illuminate our understanding of Kali while addressing the problems and promises inherent in every act of cross cultural interpretation.
Download or read book Impersonations written by Harshita Mruthinti Kamath and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2019-06-27 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At publication date, a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Impersonations: The Artifice of Brahmin Masculinity in South Indian Dance centers on an insular community of Smarta Brahmin men from the Kuchipudi village in Telugu-speaking South India who are required to don stri-vesam (woman’s guise) and impersonate female characters from Hindu religious narratives. Impersonation is not simply a gender performance circumscribed to the Kuchipudi stage, but a practice of power that enables the construction of hegemonic Brahmin masculinity in everyday village life. However, the power of the Brahmin male body in stri-vesam is highly contingent, particularly on account of the expansion of Kuchipudi in the latter half of the twentieth century from a localized village performance to a transnational Indian dance form. This book analyzes the practice of impersonation across a series of boundaries—village to urban, Brahmin to non-Brahmin, hegemonic to non-normative—to explore the artifice of Brahmin masculinity in contemporary South Indian dance.
Download or read book Reflections of Amma written by Amanda J. Lucia and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2014-03-14 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma) is the face of religion in the a new global age. Born in 1953 to a low-caste family in a southern Indian fishing village, she has catapulted to international prominence in recent decades through her travels, humanitarian programs, and the ever-increasing explosion of new centers in and outside of India, including the US, Canada, Europe, East Asia, Africa, and South America. Today 8-10 million people around the world identify as Amma devotees. Known throughout the world as the "hugging saint," she is famous for her elaborate darshan ceremonies, where as many as 50,000 people are embraced by the guru one at a time -- an event that can take up to three days and nights nonstop. This book is an in-depth examination of the Amma phenomenon and her American devotees. Amanda J. Huffer suggests that standard dichotomies within American religious studies are being broken down as notions of self and other, Asia and the West, goddess and human, become unsettled by way of Amma's highly performative darshan events. Huffer argues that an unprecedented egalitarian impulse is taking shape within the community, one that challenges long-held interpretations of Hindu religiosity and goddess worship. Through an in-depth ethnographic encounter with Amma devotees, she skillfully examines the new face of this fast-growing global religious movement"--
Download or read book A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses written by Michael Slouber and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2020-12-22 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagining the divine as female is rare—even controversial—in most religions. Hinduism, by contrast, preserves a rich and continuous tradition of goddess worship. A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses conveys the diversity of this tradition by bringing together a fresh array of captivating and largely overlooked Hindu goddess tales from different regions. As the first such anthology of goddess narratives in translation, this collection highlights a range of sources from ancient myths to modern lore. The goddesses featured here battle demons, perform miracles, and grant rare Tantric visions to their devotees. Each translation is paired with a short essay that explains the goddess’s historical and social context, elucidating the ways religion adapts to changing times.
Download or read book The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology written by Wendy Doniger and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 1988 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work deals at length with various theories about relgion prevalent at the time when Megasthenes visited India very interesting and scholarly views have been put forth regarding investigations of Megasthenes their reliability and the reliability of his reporters.
Download or read book Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine written by David Kinsley and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-07-28 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hindu pantheon is rich in images of the divine feminine—deities representing a wide range of symbolic, social, and meditative meanings. David Kinsley's new book documents a highly unusual group of ten Hindu tantric goddesses, the Mahavidyas, many of whom are strongly associated with sexuality and violence. What is one to make of a goddess who cuts her own head off, or one who prefers sex with a corpse? The Mahavidyas embody habits, attributes, or identities usually considered repulsive or socially subversive and can be viewed as "antimodels" for women. Yet it is within the context of tantric worship that devotees seek to identify themselves with these forbidding goddesses. The Mahavidyas seem to function as "awakeners"—symbols which help to project one's consciousness beyond the socially acceptable or predictable. Drawing on a broad range of Sanskrit and vernacular texts as well as extensive research in India, including written and oral interpretations of contemporary Hindu practitioners, Kinsley describes the unusual qualities of each of the Mahavidyas and traces the parallels between their underlying themes. Especially valuable are the many rare and fascinating images he presents—each important to grasping the significance of the goddesses. Written in an accessible, engaging style, Kinsley's book provides a comprehensive understanding of the Mahavidyas and is also an overview of Hindu tantric practice.
Download or read book From the Margins of Hindu Marriage written by Lindsey Harlan and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1995 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a unique and intimate view of Hindu marriage, the essays in this collection explore points at which the margins of marriage are traversed or transgressed. Rather than focus on normative expectations within marriage, they examine times in which norms are tested or rejected. Using stories, songs, and narrated accounts, the essays treat such topics as widowhood, adultery, levirate, divorce, and suttee, as well as the subversion of marriage by devotion to deities and by alternative constructions of conjugal duty and marital experience.
Download or read book Hindu Places of Pilgrimage in India written by Surinder M. Bhardwaj and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1983-07-08 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Dr. Bhardwaj's in-depth study of the various aspects of the institution of pilgrimage shows that instead of being a simple practice it has been a gigantic phenomenon affecting all aspects of Indian life. . . integrating diverse forces, various cults, and numerous traditions over the ages."--Asian Student "This is the best general survey of a major religion's total pilgrimage system and the best intensive investigation of one of its subsystems. . . . Dr. Bhardwaj's book is an important step towards the recognition of a social phenomenon which has for millennia played a crucial role in the integration of religions, nationalities, and international communities. And, not least importantly, it is highly readable."--Journal of the American Academy of Religion "Detailed, accurate, and generally informative; he has succeeded in tracing, for the first time, the relationship of the rank-order or 'level' of a sacred place. . . to its degree of sanctity, type of deity, and caste and motivation of the pilgrim. . . .The implications of Mr. Bhardwaj's study are profound and necessary to the understanding of Indian religion. . . it is fascinating."--Times Literary Supplement "Here is a fine example of what the geographic study of India needs: disciplined work that shows full awareness of Indian cultural meanings. . . .it sets a worth standard."--Professional Geographer
Download or read book Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan written by James Tod and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 694 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
