Download or read book Varanasi Rediscovered written by Brajamādhaba Bhaṭṭācārya and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illustrations: 40 B/w Illustrations and 12 Maps Description: Varanasi has been a subject of perennial interest eversince the days of Hiuen Tsang, Al-Biruni, Fitch, Coleman, Prinsep, etc. Interest in Varanasi has not in any way faded even in the modern days of electronics and computers. Travellers in India, and from the outside world have been equally keen about learning of this mysterious city, the oldest on earth, and yet the most vibrant for historians, scholars, antiquarians, travellers, sight-seers and pilgrims. In true and appropriate response to the theme hundreds of books in many languages do credit to the lore of Varanasi, a connoisseur's caravanserai. It takes courage to add to the vast literature existing on Varanasi, unless an author has something definitely new and a first time hit on the age-old fascinating subject. And this book, Varanasi Rediscovered, precisely proposes to hit a ground never before tried by scholars. It questions the very geography, topography, structural existence of the city so named, and accepted as a matter of fact, unchallenged, and unquestioned. Varanasi Rediscovered questions this. Does the present city really represent the Varanasi of the Buddha, or for the people even before him? For the Harappan encroachers, or for the later Aryans? Has the city changed its site? Where could have been the original real Varanasi, so much praised in the scriptures, held so dear by the millions of Hindu devotees? Who or what caused such catastrophic changes for a city which still draws travellers and devotees from all over the world? The author's submission is bound to be a fundamental addition to the vast Varanasiad, although the thesis proposed could understandably raise a volume of controversy.
Download or read book Buddhist India Rediscovered written by Aruna Deshpande and published by Jaico Publishing House. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LOSE YOURSELF IN THE BUDDHIST EXPERIENCE INDIA IS THE GUARDIAN OF a rich and ancient culture, and the seat of Buddhism. Mystic monasteries on Himalayan slopes, richly carved stupas amid lush gardens, cavernous dwellings with exquisite paintings –India is home to all these and more. In this, her seventh book, respected historian Aruna Deshpande travels the length and breadth of the country to track down the imprints of Buddhism. Never before has any historian presented every major Buddhist site located in India in one book. Here are the architectural gems of Lumbini, the lesser known Tawang Monastery of Arunachal Pradesh, the unparalleled Bodh Gaya and a reliable guide to visiting all these places. A boon to pilgrims, travelers and armchair explorers alike, Buddhist India Rediscovered will fire the imagination and carry you on a memorable journey. “A remarkably thorough catalogue of India’s Buddhist sites. Whether their interest is in history and culture or Buddhist pilgrimage, I am sure many readers will find this work of great value.” From the foreword by HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA
Download or read book SpaceDBodyDRitual written by Reena Tiwari and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2010-05-12 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set against the contemporary thinking of the city as a spectacle, SpaceDBodyDRitual: Performativity in the City establishes everyday life in the city as a ground for authentic experience. Reena Tiwari emphasizes the city as a space of lived experience-an intricately layered space giving people a poetic experience, responding to their memories and desires. She also explores the conflict between two ideas: the idea of thee 'city as text' to be read and understood from a distance, and the 'city as body,' where the body, after writing the text through its performance, achieves the capacity to read and understand it. SpaceDBodyDRitual demonstrates that the abstract 'seeing' embedded in the 'city as a text' is underwritten by the idea of power operating at deeper levels in the city. This hidden power is the power of the user's body in space. Furthermore, Tiwari proposes that an understanding of the 'city as body' through lived experience-through rhythmanalysis, where rhythms of everyday and extra everyday practices are understood-leads to the design of an environment that is evocative and is able to generate a bodily response from the user. To understand the rhythms, it becomes essential to know the way users inhabit, understand and map or present the city spaces by their bodies. SpaceDBodyDRitual will compel its readership to think of the parameters of spatial design as cultural generator.
Download or read book India Rediscovered written by Mahesh Vikram Singh and published by Northern Book Centre. This book was released on 2006 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: India Rediscovered in not just another title. India always needed to be rediscovered for the future making of the nation. It needed to be rediscovered in the context of interplay of its inherent spirit and changing material conditions althrough the past. It needed to be rediscovered in the cycles of rise and fall, revival and rejuvenation of all its civilizational and cultural ethos. It needed to be rediscovered for a better understanding of the causes of a number of misgivings and misconceptions with a view to find a more positive and rational path of its rebuilding and finally it needed to be rediscovered to listen to the call of the age. Salient Features: • The book falls in the line of some exceptional writings on India’s past to its present in a surveying manner and style. • Analyses the direction of Indian history on the basis of the inter-relationship of spirit and matter with regard to general will of the people. • Evaluates the progress of civilization and culture, state and society in India in terms of maximum and total efficiency during different eras of Indian history which is altogether a new vision of looking at India’s past. • Very well studded with references and an exhaustive theme-index at the end for the benefit of readers and researchers with a view to open new vistas of research in the field and hence a big contribution to the knowledge.
Download or read book Rediscovering the Hindu Temple written by Vinayak Bharne and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-09-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the multifarious dimensions that constitute the workings of the Hindu temple as an architectural and urban built form. Eleven chapters reflect on Hindu temples from multiple standpoints - tracing their elusive evolution from wayside shrines as well as canonization into classical objects; questioning the role of treatises containing their building rules; analyzing their prescribed proportions and orders; examining their presence in, and as, larger sacred habitats and ritua...
Download or read book Narratives Routes and Intersections in Pre Modern Asia written by Radhika Seshan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-10 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces connections in pre-modern Asia by looking at different worlds across geography, history and society. It examines how regions were connected by people, families, trade and politics as well as how they were maintained and remembered. The volume analyses these intersections of memory and narrative, of people and places and the routes that took people to these places, using a variety of sources. It also studies whether these intersections remain in later and present times, and their larger impact on our understanding of history. The narratives cover several journeys drawn from archaeology, texts and cultural imagination: trade routes, marts, fairs, forts, religious pilgrimages, inscriptions, calligraphy and coinages spanning diverse regions, including India–Tibet–British forays, India–Malay intersections, corporate enterprise in the Indian Ocean, impacts of slave trade in Southeast Asia shaped by the Dutch East India company, movements and migrations around Indo-Iranian borderlands and those in western and southern India. The book will greatly interest scholars and researchers of history and archaeology, cultural studies and literature.
Download or read book The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena written by J Gordon Melton and published by Visible Ink Press. This book was released on 2007-09-01 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inspiring and fascinating look at people’s religious experiences and beliefs. Visions of Mary and glimpses of God. Miraculous apparitions witnessed by hundreds in parking lots, along freeways, and at the world’s holiest sites. Weeping statues, exorcisms, near-death experiences, mystical labyrinths, and more than 250 other unusual and unexplained phenomena, apparitions, and extraordinary experiences rooted in religious beliefs are explored in The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena. J. Gordon Melton, the Distinguished Professor of American Religious History at the Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University, takes readers on a tour among angels, Marian apparitions, and religious figures such as Jesus, the Buddha, Muhammad, and Tao Tzu. Melton reports on dreams, feng shui, statues that bleed, snake handling, speaking in tongues, stigmata, relics—including the Spear of Longinus and the Shroud of Turin—and sacred locales such as Easter Island, the Glastonbury Tor, the Great Pyramids, Mecca, Sedona, and much more. Each entry includes a description of a particular phenomenon and the religious claims being made about it as well as a discussion of what scientists say about it. Transcending the mundane, the entries take no sides on who is right or wrong: the journey is the experience and the experience is the journey. This fascinating encyclopedia is illustrated with 100 pictures and includes a detailed index and additional reading recommendations. It lets you experience the marvels of weeping statues and icons; exorcisms and ecstasy; the grilled cheese sandwich kit for making your own Virgin Mary image; and so much more.
Download or read book Ancient Varanasi written by Vidula Jayaswal and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Varanasi is not only one of the oldest living cities of the world, but is also a model reflecting a comprehensive picture of our rich cultural heritage. The undisrupted occupation of Kashi region since ancient times till this date, played a vital role in the make up of modern Varanasi. The unique qualities of this settlements raise a number of questions, like, how old is Varanasi? What are the factors which helped this city to continue till today, particularly when other old cities on the banks of the Ganga died out? Also, why did Lord Buddha select peripheral region of Varanasi, Sarnath, for delivering his first sermon, particularly when he attained enlightenment in Bodh Gaya? It is on record that he was well conversant with Rajgriha, Pataliputra and other places of Bihar. And since when Saivism became an integral part of the Varanasi culture? All these questions are deeply rooted in the history of this holy city, which are attempted in this book on account of the archaeological findings. Ancient remains of Varanasi which were unearthed at Kashi-Rajghat about four decades ago, could demonstrate that this holy city was inhabited around ninth century BC, Sarnath, the place of the first sermon of Gautam Buddha, retains archaeological remains from the time of the Maurya king Asoka. But, excavations at Aktha reveal that this settlement had greater antiquity than has been obtained at Kashi-Rajghat. It also reveal the factors which helped make up of Sarnath as the first place for preaching the teachings of Lord Buddha. The first colonization of Kashi region, on account of the excavated findings could be pushed back to about four/five hundred years. this bridged the gap between the antiquity ascertained by ancient texts and earlier archaeological records of Varanasi. Besides the Risipattana concept attached with Sarnath in the Buddhist literature is also corroborated by Aktha. This book adds new chapter to the early history of Varanasi city and Sarnath.
Download or read book Varanasi at the Crossroads written by Swami Medhasananda and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 1168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History of Vārānasi, Uttar Pradesh, India between 1781-1857 B.C.
Download or read book Girmitiyas and the Global Indian Diaspora written by Ashutosh Kumar and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-04-30 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Indians journeyed out of India to supplant the loss of slave labour in the former European plantation colonies of Mauritius, South Africa, Fiji, and the Caribbean from the early nineteenth century onwards. This book aims to highlight the careers of these migrants who served as vital agents in building the global society of the twenty-first century. It explores the transformative experiences of those who migrated, and the memories of those who did not return after expiration of their contracts but chose instead to stay in their respective host countries. It describes the many challenges they faced — ageing in a society far from home, the loss of their formal Indian identity after Indian independence, their efforts to preserve a sense of community in the post-independence societies of South Africa and the Caribbean, and their adapting to the new political and social realities they faced as minorities in the countries in which their ancestors had adventurously determined to settle and live.
Download or read book Varanasi Down the Ages written by Kuber Nath Sukul and published by Patna : Kameshwar Nath Sukul. This book was released on 1974 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the history and religious importance of the city of Varanasi.
Download or read book The Sacred Waters of Varanasi written by Mahesh Gogate and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-06-16 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book on urban water bodies, catchment areas and drainage pattern is set against the backdrop of the unprecedented heavy rainfall that severely deluged metropolitan cities and other parts of India in recent years. The recurring natural catastrophes in water-stressed cities of India and alarming rate of diminishing water bodies, wetlads and catchment areas needs a re-visit to an entire urban water-cycle. This book, thus, discusses how the processes and implementation of colonial urban development policies and projects have radically transformed the water bodies and their catchment areas – traditional water holding systems of Varanasi city. In this imperative colonial process, through the case study of Varanasi, the book mainly engages with the reasons behind the elimination of the temple tanks and ponds after the annexation of Varanasi by the British from 1775 till 1947. The book investigates the colonial notion of ‘dry city’, and how this notion crafted the process of separating land and water bodies, which arguably resulted in the reclamation and draining of water bodies, and also gave rise to water pollution. Additionally, the book analyzes the elimination of water bodies and loss of catchment areas through the ongoing processes of restoring the ancient city’s natural and cultural heritage. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)
Download or read book The Immortal s Curse written by Ajay Kumar Tiwari and published by Notion Press. This book was released on 2024-05-15 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the ancient city of Varanasi, where the sacred Ganges River flows with the currents of time, an age-old curse casts a shadow over the land. "The Immortal's Curse" weaves a tale of mystery, mythology, and redemption set against the backdrop of one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. When Rajan Kapoor, a young scholar with a thirst for knowledge, stumbles upon a cryptic symbol etched into the walls of an ancient temple, he unwittingly unlocks a doorway to a world of ancient secrets and forbidden knowledge. Joined by Inspector Anjaneya Kumar, a determined investigator with a keen eye for detail, and Vikram Kumar, a loyal friend with a thirst for adventure, Rajan embarks on a journey that will test his courage, challenge his beliefs, and unravel the mysteries of his own destiny. "The Immortal's Curse" is a journey into the heart of darkness, a testament to the enduring power of hope, and a tribute to the timeless spirit of Varanasi—a city where the past meets the present, and the echoes of eternity linger in the air. Join Rajan, Anjaneya, and Vikram as they embark on an adventure that will take them to the very brink of existence and beyond—a journey where the threads of fate are woven and the immortal's curse is both a burden and a blessing.
Download or read book Exploring Culture and Heritage Through Experience Tourism written by Rawal, Yashwant Singh and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2023-10-24 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The impact of disasters and crises on culture, heritage, and religious tourism, have been realized in recent years, creating a need for solutions to heal and prevent future damage to these aspects of tourist regions. There is a need for strategies in mitigating these challenges and preserving cultural sites for the future. An emphasis on the importance of sustainability in cultural and heritage tourism, discussions on digitalization, stakeholder participation, and socio-economic livelihoods must be made to properly address this intricate issue. This book explores the development, marketing, and societal implications of cultural and heritage tourism enterprises, showcasing best practices and innovative business models. Exploring Culture and Heritage Through Experience Tourism is an academic research book that delves into the intricate relationship between tourism, culture, and heritage. It offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary exploration of this evolving field. Drawing on the latest research and international frameworks, this volume identifies new areas of culture and heritage tourism, understand its scope and challenges, and highlight its interlinkages with various sectors of the industry and the broader economy. Designed for undergraduate and postgraduate students of travel and tourism management, this book serves as a valuable resource. It also meets the needs of universities with cultural and heritage tourism in their curricula, and offers insights for industry leaders, policymakers, and researchers interested in multidisciplinary studies.
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 Kaleidoscope City written by Piers Moore Ede and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-04-21 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Situated on the left bank of the Ganges, in the state of Uttar Pradash, Varanasi is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. For Hindus there is nowhere more sacred; for Buddhists, it is revered as a place where the Buddha preached his first sermon; for Jains it is the birthplace of their two patriarchs. Over the last four thousand years, perhaps no city in the world has stood witness to such a flux of history, from the development of Aryan culture along the Ganges, to invasions that would leave the city in Muslim hands for three centuries, to an independent Brahmin kingdom, British colonial rule, and ultimately independence. But what is the city like today? Home to 2.5 million people, it is visited by twice that number every year. Polluted, overpopulated, religiously divided, but utterly sublime, Varanasi is a living expression of Indian life like no other. Each day 60,000 people bathe in the Ganges. Elderly people come to die here. Widows pushed out by their families arrive to find livelihood. In the city center, the silk trade remains the most important industry, along with textiles and the processing of betel leaf. Behind this facade lurk more sinister industries. Varanasi is a major player in the international drug scene. There's a thriving flesh trade, and a corrupt police force that turns a blind eye. As with Suketu Mehta's Maximimum City Piers Moore Ede tells the city's story by allowing inhabitants to relate their own tales. Whether portraying a Dom Raja whose role it is to cremate bodies by the Ganghes or a khoa maker, who carefully converts cow's milk into the ricotta like substance that forms the base of most sweets, Ede explores the city's most important themes through its people, creating a vibrant portrait of modern, multicultural India.
Download or read book The Buddhist Landscape of Varanasi written by Vidula Jayaswal and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
