Download or read book Seer of the Fifth Veda written by Bruce M. Sullivan and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 1999 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authorship of the great sanskrit language epic poem of India, the Mahabharat, is attributed to the sage krsna Dvaipayana Vyasa. This study focuseson the depictionof vyasa in the Mahabharata, where he is an important character in the tale he is credited, with composing. The interpretation of vyasa is enriched by the different perspectives provided by other literature, including dramas, Jataka tales, Arthasastra, and Puranas.
Download or read book The Literary Life of Y j avalkya written by Steven E. Lindquist and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2023-12-01 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating study, Steven E. Lindquist investigates the intersections between historical context and literary production in the "life" of Yājñavalkya, the most important ancient Indian literary figure prior to the Buddha. Known for his sharp tongue and deep thought, Yājñavalkya is associated with a number of "firsts" in Indian religious literary history: the first person to discuss brahman and ātman thoroughly; the first to put forth a theory of karma and reincarnation; the first to renounce his household life; and the first to dispute with women in religious debate. Throughout early Indian history, he was seen as a priestly bearer of ritual authority, a sage of mystical knowledge, and an innovative propagator of philosophical ideas and religious law. Drawing on history, literary studies, ritual studies, Sanskrit philology, narrative studies, and philosophy, Lindquist traces Yājñavalkya’s literary life—from his earliest mentions in ritual texts, through his developing biography in the Upaniṣads, and finally to his role as a hoary sage in narrative literature—offering the first detailed monograph on this central figure in early Indian religious and literary history.
Download or read book Ashtanga Yoga written by Gregor Maehle and published by New World Library. This book was released on 2011-02-09 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ashtanga Yoga: Practice and Philosophy is the first book of its kind, presenting a comprehensive guide to all eight limbs of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. Join author Gregor Maehle, a seasoned yogi and compassionate teacher, as he guides you through: • the history and lineage of yoga • the fundamentals of breath, bandhas (energy locks within the body), drishti (the focal point of the gaze), and vinyasa (sequential movement) • a detailed breakdown of the asanas of the Ashtanga Primary Series, following the traditional vinyasa count • a lively and authentic rendering of the complete Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, yoga's ancient sacred text • a glossary of yoga terminology In the asana section, Maehle describes each posture with clear, meticulous instructions, photographs, anatomical illustrations, and practical tips. Information on the mythological background and yogic context of specific postures brings further insight to the practice. In the philosophy section, Maehle illuminates the Yoga Sutra using the major ancient commentaries as well as his own insights. This volume makes the entire path of Ashtanga Yoga accessible to modern practitioners. Both practical guide and spiritual treatise, Ashtanga Yoga is an excellent introduction to the eight limbs of yoga and an invaluable resource for any yoga teacher or practitioner.
Download or read book Avatars of Brahma written by Kaudinya Arpan and published by Penguin Random House India Private Limited. This book was released on 2023-10-16 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the Puranas mention that Lord Brahma becomes an avatar whenever Lord Vishnu comes to Earth to establish dharma, it is in the Dasam Granth (one of the holy books of the Sikhs) that the avatars are actually listed. The common point in Hinduism and Sikhism regarding the avatars of Brahma is that they are seen as great thinkers and teachers. In this book, the authors, who run the popular website, Scientific Monk, delve into the lives of each avatar, their works and the philosophies presented by them. They explain how the avatars of Brahma help us understand the Indian thought process and India's intellectual heritage, and give readers a view of the works of India's greatest yogis from a twenty-first-century world view.
Download or read book The Past Before Us written by Romila Thapar and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-14 with total page 778 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The claim that India--uniquely among civilizations--lacks historical writing distracts us from a more pertinent question: how to recognize the historical sense of societies whose past is recorded in ways very different from European conventions. Romila Thapar, a distinguished scholar of ancient India, guides us through a panoramic survey of the historical traditions of North India, revealing a deep and sophisticated consciousness of history embedded in the diverse body of classical Indian literature. The history recorded in such texts as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata is less concerned with authenticating persons and events than with presenting a picture of traditions striving to retain legitimacy amid social change. Spanning an epoch from 1000 BCE to 1400 CE, Thapar delineates three strains of historical writing: an Itihasa-Purana tradition of Brahman authors; a tradition composed mainly by Buddhist and Jaina monks and scholars; and a popular bardic tradition. The Vedic corpus, the epics, the Buddhist canon and monastic chronicles, inscriptional evidence, regional accounts, and literary forms such as royal biographies and drama are all scrutinized afresh--not as sources to be mined for factual data but as genres that disclose how Indians of ancient times represented their own past to themselves.
Download or read book Religion and Identity in South Asia and Beyond written by Steven E. Lindquist and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together sixteen articles on the religions, literatures and histories of South and Central Asia in tribute to Patrick Olivelle, one of North America’s leading Sanskritists and historians of early India. Over the last four decades, the focus of his scholarship has been on the ascetic and legal traditions of India, but his work as both a researcher and a teacher extends beyond early Indian religion and literature. ‘Religion and Identity and South Asia and Beyond’ is a testament to that influence. The contributions in this volume, many by former students of Olivelle, are committed to linguistic and historical rigor, combined with sensitivity to how the study of Asia has been changing over the last several decades.
Download or read book King Governance and Law in Ancient India written by and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-01 with total page 800 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India presents an English translation of Kautilya's Arthasastra (AS.) along with detailed endnotes. When it was discovered around 1905, the AS. was described as perhaps the most precious work in the whole range of Sanskrit literature, an assessment that still rings true. Patrick Olivelle's new translation of this significant text, the first in close to half a century, takes into account a number of important advances in our knowledge of the texts, inscriptions, and archeological and art historical remains from the period in Indian history to which the AS. belongs. The AS. is what we would today call a scientific treatise. It codifies a body of knowledge handed down in expert traditions and is specifically interested in two things: first, how a king can expand his territory, keep enemies at bay, enhance his external power, and amass riches; second, how a king can best organize his state bureaucracy to consolidate his internal power, to suppress internal enemies, to expand the economy, to enhance his treasury through taxes, duties, and entrepreneurial activities, to keep law and order, and to settle disputes among his subjects. The AS. stands alone: there is nothing like it before and there is nothing like it after.
Download or read book Disorienting Dharma written by Emily T. Hudson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the relationship between ethics, aesthetics, and religion in classical Indian literature and literary theory by focusing on one of the most celebrated and enigmatic texts to emerge from the Sanskrit epic tradition, the Mahabharata. This text, which is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important sources for the study of South Asian religious, social, and political thought, is a foundational text of the Hindu tradition(s) and considered to be a major transmitter of dharma (moral, social, and religious duty), perhaps the single most important concept in the history of Indian religions. However, in spite of two centuries of Euro-American scholarship on the epic, basic questions concerning precisely how the epic is communicating its ideas about dharma and precisely what it is saying about it are still being explored. Disorienting Dharma brings to bear a variety of interpretive lenses (Sanskrit literary theory, reader-response theory, and narrative ethics) to examine these issues. One of the first book-length studies to explore the subject from the lens of Indian aesthetics, it argues that such a perspective yields startling new insights into the nature of the depiction of dharma in the epic through bringing to light one of the principle narrative tensions of the epic: the vexed relationship between dharma and suffering. In addition, it seeks to make the Mahabharata interesting and accessible to a wider audience by demonstrating how reading the Mahabharata, perhaps the most harrowing story in world literature, is a fascinating, disorienting, and ultimately transformative experience.
Download or read book The Life of a Text written by Philip Lutgendorf and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1991-07-23 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Life of a Text offers a vivid portrait of one community's interaction with its favorite text—the epic Ramcaritmanas—and the way in which performances of the epic function as a flexible and evolving medium for cultural expression. Anthropologists, historians of religion, and readers interested in the culture of North India and the performance arts will find breadth of subject, careful scholarship, and engaging presentation in this unique and beautifully illustrated examination of Hindi culture. The most popular and influential text of Hindi-speaking North India, the epic Ramcaritmanas is a sixteenth century retelling of the Ramayana story by the poet Tulsidas. This masterpiece of pre-modern Hindi literature has always reached its largely illiterate audiences primarily through oral performance including ceremonial recitation, folksinging, oral exegesis, and theatrical representation. Drawing on fieldwork in Banaras, Lutgendorf breaks new ground by capturing the range of performance techniques in vivid detail and tracing the impact of the epic in its contemporary cultural context.
Download or read book In Dialogue with the Mah bh rata written by Brian Black and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mahābhārata has been explored extensively as a work of mythology, epic poetry, and religious literature, but the text’s philosophical dimensions have largely been under-appreciated by Western scholars. This book explores the philosophical implications of the Mahābhārata by paying attention to the centrality of dialogue, both as the text’s prevailing literary expression and its organising structure. Focusing on five sets of dialogues about controversial moral problems in the central story, this book shows that philosophical deliberation is an integral part of the narrative. Black argues that by paying attention to how characters make arguments and how dialogues unfold, we can better appreciate the Mahābhārata’s philosophical significance and its potential contribution to debates in comparative philosophy today. This is a fresh perspective on the Mahābhārata that will be of great interest to any scholar working in religious studies, Indian/South Asian religions, comparative philosophy, and world literature.
Download or read book King Governance and Law in Ancient India written by Kauṭalya and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 784 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India presents an English translation of Kautilya's Arthasastra (AS.) along with detailed endnotes. When it was discovered around 1905, the AS. was described as perhaps the most precious work in the whole range of Sanskrit literature, an assessment that still rings true. Patrick Olivelle's new translation of this significant text, the first in close to half a century, takes into account a number of important advances in our knowledge of the texts, inscriptions, and archeological and art historical remains from the period in Indian history to which the AS. belongs. The AS. is what we would today call a scientific treatise. It codifies a body of knowledge handed down in expert traditions and is specifically interested in two things: first, how a king can expand his territory, keep enemies at bay, enhance his external power, and amass riches; second, how a king can best organize his state bureaucracy to consolidate his internal power, to suppress internal enemies, to expand the economy, to enhance his treasury through taxes, duties, and entrepreneurial activities, to keep law and order, and to settle disputes among his subjects. The AS. stands alone: there is nothing like it before and there is nothing like it after.
Download or read book Gender and Narrative in the Mahabharata written by Simon Brodbeck and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-08-09 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sanskrit Mahabharata is one of the most important texts to emerge from the Indian cultural tradition. At almost 75,000 verses it is the longest poem in the world, and throughout Indian history it has been hugely influential in shaping gender and social norms. In the context of ancient India, it is the definitive cultural narrative in the construction of masculine, feminine and alternative gender roles. This book brings together many of the most respected scholars in the field of Mahabharata studies, as well as some of its most promising young scholars. By focusing specifically on gender constructions, some of the most innovative aspects of the Mahabharata are highlighted. Whilst taking account of feminist scholarship, the contributors see the Mahabharata as providing an opportunity to frame discussion of gender in literature not just in terms of the socio-historical roles of men and women. Instead they analyze the text in terms of the wider poetic and philosophical possibilities thrown up by the semiotics of gendering. Consequently, the book bridges a gap in text-critical methodology between the traditional philological approach and more recent trends in gender and literary theory. Gender and Narrative in the Mahabharata will be appreciated by readers interested in South Asian studies, Hinduism, religious studies and gender studies.
Download or read book Argument and Design The Unity of the Mah bh rata written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argument and Design features fifteen essays by leading scholars of the Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, discussing the Mahābhārata’s upākhyānas, subtales that branch off from the central storyline and provide vantage points for reflecting on it. Contributors include: Vishwa Adluri, Joydeep Bagchee, Greg Bailey, Adam Bowles, Simon Brodbeck, Nicolas Dejenne, Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, Robert P. Goldman, Alf Hiltebeitel, Thennilapuram Mahadevan, Adheesh Sathaye, Bruce M. Sullivan, and Fernando Wulff Alonso.
Download or read book Divine Descent and the Four World Ages in the Mah bh rata or Why Does the K a Avat ra Inaugurate the Worst Yuga written by Simon Brodbeck and published by Cardiff University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-12 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph approaches the Mahābhārata as a single work of literature, and the method is that of close textual study. Key verses are quoted in the original Sanskrit and in English translation. The title problem has been recognised before, but no detailed solution has been forthcoming. The monograph’s objective is to try to articulate a Mahābhārata theology of time. In Chapter 1, the monograph’s argument and synchronic methodology are summarised. In Chapter 2, the cycle of four yugas (world-ages) is outlined and discussed on the basis of the textual evidence. Each yuga is shorter and less moral than the last, and between them they constitute a repeating 12,000-year cycle. In Chapter 3, the Mahābhārata war is shown to be located at the junction between the third and fourth yugas. The idea of God Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa descending to improve the world is introduced, and the title question is properly posed: Why does God’s descent as Kṛṣṇa (to make the Mahābhārata war happen) inaugurate the worst yuga? In Chapter 4, the various descents (avatāras, ‘crossings-down’) of God Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa are discussed. Also discussed is a theory suggesting that the passage between yugas always requires a divine descent to effect it. The limitations of this theory are described and an alternative sketched. In Chapter 5, two general functions of divine descent are identified: to improve the world morally by killing demons, and to help the personified Earth by reducing the human weight upon her. These two functions are correlated with the two extremities of the four-yuga cycle, between which time oscillates. But the Mahābhārata war is not located at either extremity. Central to the monograph is a survey and discussion of the reasons given for this particular descent. These passages combine the two functions of divine descent, neither of which is entirely appropriate to this moment. It is argued that the descent here represents what happens over the course of the whole cycle. The discussion draws on Vedic literature, touches on gender issues, and shows how the two functions play out in the story of the war. In Chapter 6, the progress of the fourth yuga is tracked through the Mahābhārata’s various characters and then the ancient audience, who would anticipate the start of the next cycle. It is hypothesised that this was to occur through the long-term action of the Mahābhārata, as more and more people would put into practice the teachings presented by Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavadgītā. The Kṛṣṇa avatāra would thus inaugurate the worst yuga because the seed planted there takes time to ripen. Chapter 7 reflects summarily upon the monograph’s explorations, the theory of divine descent, and the text’s theology of time. By employing a resolutely synchronic methodology the monograph makes a significant contribution on an important and latterly overlooked issue.
Download or read book Evil in the Mahabharata written by Meena Arora Nayak and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-19 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Good and evil, loyalty and treachery, faith and doubt, honour and ignominy—the Mahabharata has served as a primer for codes of conduct to generations of Hindus. Over time, the epic has also fascinated those who love a tale well told. In its telling, however, the story has lost much of its richness and nuance, and the characters have become one-dimensional cut-outs—either starkly good or irredeemably evil. In this reinterpretation, Meena Arora Nayak analyses how the values espoused in the Mahabharata came to be distorted into meagre archetypes, creating customary laws that injure society even today.
Download or read book The Ramayana Revisited written by Mandakranta Bose and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-09-30 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 14 leading 'Ramayana' scholars examine the epic in its myriad contexts throughout South and Southeast Asia. They explore the role the narrative plays in societies as varied as India Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia. The essays also expand the understanding of the 'text' to include non-verbal renditions of the epic.
Download or read book The Bhagavad Gita written by Richard H. Davis and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-26 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life and times of India's most famous spiritual and literary masterpiece The Bhagavad Gita, perhaps the most famous of all Indian scriptures, is universally regarded as one of the world's spiritual and literary masterpieces. Richard Davis tells the story of this venerable and enduring book, from its origins in ancient India to its reception today as a spiritual classic that has been translated into more than seventy-five languages. The Gita opens on the eve of a mighty battle, when the warrior Arjuna is overwhelmed by despair and refuses to fight. He turns to his charioteer, Krishna, who counsels him on why he must. In the dialogue that follows, Arjuna comes to realize that the true battle is for his own soul. Davis highlights the place of this legendary dialogue in classical Indian culture, and then examines how it has lived on in diverse settings and contexts. He looks at the medieval devotional traditions surrounding the divine character of Krishna and traces how the Gita traveled from India to the West, where it found admirers in such figures as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Aldous Huxley. Davis explores how Indian nationalists like Mahatma Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda used the Gita in their fight against colonial rule, and how contemporary interpreters reanimate and perform this classical work for audiences today. An essential biography of a timeless masterpiece, this book is an ideal introduction to the Gita and its insights into the struggle for self-mastery that we all must wage.
