Download or read book The Rig Veda Between Two Worlds written by Stephanie W. Jamison and published by Institut Civilisation Indienne. This book was released on 2007 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Rigveda written by Stephanie Jamison and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-23 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rigveda is a monumental text in both world religion and world literature, yet outside a small band of specialists it is little known. Composed in the latter half of the second millennium BCE, it stands as the foundational text of what would later be called Hinduism. The text consists of over a thousand hymns dedicated to various divinities, composed in sophisticated and often enigmatic verse. This concise guide from two of the Rigveda's leading English-language scholars introduces the text and breaks down its large range of topics--from meditations on cosmic enigmas to penetrating reflections on the ability of mortals to make contact with and affect the divine and cosmic realms through sacrifice and praise--for a wider audience.
Download or read book The Rigveda written by Stephanie W. Jamison and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 1725 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first complete English translation in over a century of the Rigveda, the oldest Sanskrit text. Its thousand hymns, of remarkable poetic complexity and religious sophistication, are crucial to the understanding of the Indo-Iranian oral tradition from which they emerged and the rich flowering of Indian religious and literary expressions that followed it.
Download or read book The Rigveda 3 Volume Set written by and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-23 with total page 1725 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rigveda is the oldest Sanskrit text, consisting of over one thousand hymns dedicated to various divinities of the Vedic tradition. Orally composed and orally transmitted for several millennia, the hymns display remarkable poetic complexity and religious sophistication. As the culmination of the long tradition of Indo-Iranian oral-formulaic praise poetry and the first monument of specifically Indian religiosity and literature, the Rigveda is crucial to the understanding both of Indo-European and Indo-Iranian cultural prehistory and of later Indian religious history and high literature. This new translation represents the first complete scholarly translation into English in over a century and utilizes the results of the intense research of the last century on the language and the ritual system of the text. The focus of this translation is on the poetic techniques and structures utilized by the bards and on the ways that the poetry intersects with and dynamically expresses the ritual underpinnings of the text.
Download or read book World of Wonders written by Alf Hiltebeitel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is the first book in over a thousand years to approach the Mahābhārata and the Harivaṃśa via rasa theory. It argues that both texts put adbhutarasa, the "mood of wonder," to work as their dominant rasa, in a way that takes readers from their heroes' rollicking adventures to the text's profoundest moments. Two Kashmiris, Ānandavardhana (9th century) and Abhinavagupta (10th century), launched such inquiry, claiming that the Mahābhārata's dominant rasa was śāntarasa, the "mood of peace." Both worked the Harivaṃśa as a related text into their argument, which emphasized peace along with dispassion and the quest for liberation. Although they used some textual highjinks to make their case, their argument prevailed, and has remained the only serious contestant for rasic interpretation. This book disputes their claim, and can expect controversy. Some may continue to favor śāntarasa. Some may cite the two Kashmiris' view that adbhuta cannot sustain a major work. This book contests that by putting "the work of adbhutarasa" into its title and arguing for the hard work it does. Some may also be uncomfortable with a temporal incongruity the book poses in that the Mahābhārata and Harivaṃśa are probably four or five centuries earlier than the first text to explore rasas, the Nāṭyaśātra. Śāntarasa faced the same problem but Ānandavardhana and Abhinavagupta, lacking a modern sense of the relative dates, overlooked it. The answer here goes to the heart of this book's argument: our texts deploy the "proper terms" adbhuta, "wonder" and vismaya, "surprise," to work adbhutarasa through rich and contrasting textual strategies. They must have worked out their program with these terms before the śāstra"--
Download or read book Sacred Sacrifice written by Rick F. Talbott and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2005-11-01 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Sacred Sacrifice' examines how analogous mythological ideas and the experience of sacred presence during the ritual act created similar ritual paradigms in two non-contiguous cultures. Vedic fire sacrifice, the Horse sacrifice in ancient India and the sacrificial development of the Christian Eucharist serve as examples. This book takes to task theories on sacrifice and ritual that emphasize the psycho-social and functionalist interpretation to the exclusion of the religious. The relationship between myth and ritual, and conscious and unconscious human behavior emerges from this analysis of universal religious structures.
Download or read book Time Tense and Aspect in Early Vedic Grammar written by Eystein Dahl and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-06-14 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on insights from formal semantics and linguistic typology, this book presents a comprehensive account of the tense/aspect/mood system in Early Vedic, the language of the Rigveda. It also outlines a theoretical framework for the study of semantics in dead languages.
Download or read book The Da va Cult in the G th s written by Amir Ahmadi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-04-10 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addressing the question of the origins of the Zoroastrian religion, this book argues that the intransigent opposition to the cult of the daēvas, the ancient Indo-Iranian gods, is the root of the development of the two central doctrines of Zoroastrianism: cosmic dualism and eschatology (fate of the soul after death and its passage to the other world). The daēva cult as it appears in the Gāthās, the oldest part of the Zoroastrian sacred text, the Avesta, had eschatological pretentions. The poet of the Gāthās condemns these as deception. The book critically examines various theories put forward since the 19th century to account for the condemnation of the daēvas. It then turns to the relevant Gāthic passages and analyzes them in detail in order to give a picture of the cult and the reasons for its repudiation. Finally, it examines materials from other sources, especially the Greek accounts of Iranian ritual lore (mainly) in the context of the mystery cults. Classical Greek writers consistently associate the nocturnal ceremony of the magi with the mysteries as belonging to the same religious-cultural category. This shows that Iranian religious lore included a nocturnal rite that aimed at ensuring the soul’s journey to the beyond and a desirable afterlife. Challenging the prevalent scholarship of the Greek interpretation of Iranian religious lore and proposing a new analysis of the formation of the Hellenistic concept of ‘magic,’ this book is an important resource for students and scholars of History, Religion and Iranian Studies.
Download or read book Vedica written by Georges-Jean Pinault and published by BoD - Books on Demand. This book was released on 2019-12-02 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is the first in a series dedicated to the important contributions of Prof. Georges-Jean Pinault to Indo-Aryan studies. The book gathers over twenty of his significant publications on Vedic linguistics and etymological problems, both in French and English. It includes complex issues and detailed discussions about phonetics and morphology of both Old Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian languages and deals with the etymology of prominent theonyms. It will be of utmost interest to anyone interested in the history of Indo-Aryan languages, Vedic poetics, Indian culture and Proto-Indo-European comparative linguistics.
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 Beyond Hatti written by Billie Jean Collins and published by Lockwood Press. This book was released on 2014-06-23 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays honors the life and work of Gary Beckman, Professor of Hittite and Mesopotamian Studies at the University of Michigan. The essays were contributed by his colleagues, students, and friends, and their breadth-traversing ancient Anatolia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and beyond-are a measure of the range of his influence as a scholar. His interest in the reception and adaptation of Syro-Mesopotamian culture by the Hittites in particular inspired this offering.
Download or read book The Adventure of the Human Intellect written by Kurt A. Raaflaub and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-04-27 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Adventure of the Human Intellect presents the latest scholarship on the beginnings of intellectual history on a broad scope, encompassing ten eminent ancient or early civilizations from both the Old and New Worlds. Borrows themes from The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (1946), updating an old topic with a new approach and up-to-date theoretical underpinning, evidence, and scholarship Provides a broad scope of studies, including discussion of highly developed ancient or early civilizations in China, India, West Asia, the Mediterranean, and the Americas Examines the world view of ten ancient or early societies, reconstructed from their own texts, concerning the place of human beings in society and state, in nature and cosmos, in space and time, in life and death, and in relation to those in power and the world of the divine Considers a diversity of sources representing a wide array of particular responses to differing environments, circumstances, and intellectual challenges Reflects a more inclusive and nuanced historiographical attitude with respect to non-elites, gender, and local variations Brings together leading specialists in the field, and is edited by an internationally renowned scholar
Download or read book Sacred Scriptures of the World Religions written by Joan Price and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2010-02-17 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Price examines religions across the world, offering an insight into each tradition's views of the world, through their scriptural texts and spiritual practices.
Download or read book The Head Beneath the Altar written by Brian Collins and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the beginning, says the ancient Hindu text the Rg Veda, was man. And from man’s sacrifice and dismemberment came the entire world, including the hierarchical ordering of human society. The Head Beneath the Altar is the first book to present a wide-ranging study of Hindu texts read through the lens of René Girard’s mimetic theory of the sacrificial origin of religion and culture. For those interested in Girard and comparative religion, the book also performs a careful reading of Girard’s work, drawing connections between his thought and the work of theorists like Georges Dumézil and Giorgio Agamben. Brian Collins examines the idea of sacrifice from the earliest recorded rituals through the flowering of classical mythology and the ancient Indian institutions of the duel, the oath, and the secret warrior society. He also uncovers implicit and explicit critiques in the tradition, confirming Girard’s intuition that Hinduism offers an alternative anti-sacrificial worldview to the one contained in the gospels.
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.
Download or read book Vysa Redux written by Kevin McGrath and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2019-06-20 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vyāsa is the primary creative poet of the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata and 'Vyāsa Redux' examines the many paradoxical dimensions of his narrative virtuosity in the poem where the poet is both the creator of the work and a character within it. The book also studies elements in the poem which have been received by the late Bronze Age poets who composed the figure of Vyāsa, elements that reflect kinship, polity and modes of mnemonic inspiration. Three paired concepts function within the poem’s narrative process: first, the central approach of the book is founded upon the distinction between plot and story, that is, the causal relation of events as opposed to the temporal relation of events. Second, much of the argument then engages with how this distinction relates to the difference between the preliterate and literate phases of our present text. Third, the nature of how inspiration functions and how edition operates becomes another vital component in our analytic process explaining how Vyāsa becomes a dramatic, causal and at times prophetic character in the poem’s narration as well as its originator.
Download or read book Dharma written by Alf Hiltebeitel and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2011-08-17 with total page 766 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 300 and 200 BCE, the concept and practice of dharma attained prominence across India. Both Buddhist and Brahmanical authors sought to clarify and classify their central concerns, and dharma proved a means of thinking through and articulating those concerns. Alf Hiltebeitel shows the different ways in which dharma is interpreted over time. His insightful study explores the diverse and changing signifcance of dharma in classical India in nine major dharma texts, as well as two pieces of writing that have traditionally been considered minor.
