Jesus as Guru : the Image of Christ among Hindus and Christians in India.
:
People in India form images of Jesus Christ that link up with their own culture. Hindus have given Jesus a place among the teachers and gods of their own religion, seeing in his life something of the wisdom and mysticism that is so central to Hinduism. Christians in India also make use of the concepts provided by Hinduism when they wish to express the meaning of Christ. Thus, in any case, Jesus is-for Hindus and Christians-a guru, a teacher of wisdom who speaks with divine authority. But for many Hindu philosophers and Christian theologians there is much more that can be said about him within the Indian framework. He can be described as an avatara , a divine descent, or linked to the Brahman, the all-encompassing Reality. This study looks at both Hindu and Christian views of Christ, starting with that of the Hindu reformer Rammohan Roy at the beginning of the nineteenth century, as well as those of the first Christian theologians of India. The views of Mahatma Gandhi and the monks of the Ramakrishna Mission are discussed, and those of influential Christian schools such as the Ashram movement and dalit theology. Five intermezzos indicate how artists in India portray Jesus Christ.
:
1 online resource (323 pages) :
9789401206198 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Hindu gods in West Africa : Ghanaian devotees of Shiva and Krishna.
:
In Hindu Gods in West Africa , Wuaku offers an account of the histories, beliefs and practices of the Hindu Monastery of Africa and the Radha Govinda Temple, two Hindu Temples in Ghana. Using historical material and data from his field work in southern Ghana, Wuaku shows how these two Hindu Temples build their traditions on popular Ghanaian religious notions about the powerful magicality of India's Hindu gods. He explores how Ghanaian soldiers who served in the colonial armies in India, Sri Lanka, and Burma during World War II, Bollywood films, and local magicians, have contributed to the production and the spreading of these cultural ideas. He argues that while Ghanaian worshippers appropriated and deployed the alien Hindu religious world through their own cultural ideas,as they engage Hindu beliefs and rituals in negotiating challenges their own worldviews would change considerably.
:
1 online resource (346 pages) :
9789004255715 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Indian diaspora : socio-cultural and religious worlds /
:
The chapters presented in this volume represent a wide variety of Indian diasporic experiences. From indenture labour to the present day immigrations, Indian diasporic narrative is one that offers opportunities to evaluate afresh notions of ethnicity, race, caste, gender and religious diversity. From victim discourse to narratives of optimism and complexities of identity issues, the Indian diaspora has exhibited characteristics that enable us as scholars to construct theoretical views on the diaspora and migration. The cases included in this volume will illumine such theoretical ideas. The readers will certainly be able to appreciate the diversity and the depth of these narratives and gain insight into the social and cultural and religious world of the diaspora.
:
1 online resource (xiii, 361 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004288065 :
1573-4293 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
South Asians in the Diaspora, Histories and Religious Traditions.
:
This volume deals with a phenomenon of increasing global significance, the South Asian diaspora. In particular it deals with the role of religion. The diversity of religious life in South Asia is remarkable and much of this diversity is replicated in the diaspora communities around the world. The case studies in this book explore and analyse the social, religious and cultural reality of people in the diaspora belonging to Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism and originating from four of the South Asian nation states (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka). The book highlights the religious diversity that exists in the diaspora communities both across the traditions and within the particular religions.
:
1 online resource. :
9789047401407
Sins and sinners : perspectives from Asian religions /
:
Asian religious traditions have always been deeply concerned with \'sins\' and what to do about them. As the essays in this volume illustrate, what Buddhists in Tibet, India, China or Japan, what Jains, Daoists, Hindus or Sikhs considered to be a \'sin\' was neither one thing, nor exactly what the Abrahamic traditions meant by the term. \'Sins\'could be both undesireable behavior and unacceptable thoughts. In different contexts, at different times and places, a sin might be a ritual infraction or a violation of a rule of law; it could be a moral failing or a wrong belief. However defined, sins were considered so grave a hindrance to spiritual perfection, so profound a threat to the social order, that the search for their remedies through rituals of expiation, pilgrimage, confession, recitation of spells, or philosophical reflection, was one of the central quests of the religions studied here.
:
Proceedings of a conference held in the fall of 2010 at Yale University. :
1 online resource (vi, 387 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004232006 :
0169-8834 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Eastspirit : transnational spirituality and religious circulation in east and west /
:
Mindfulness, yoga, Tantra, Zen, martial arts, karma, feng shui , Ayurveda. Eastern ideas and practices associated with Asian religions and spirituality have been accommodated to a global setting as both a spiritual/religious and a broader cultural phenomenon. 'Eastern spirituality' is present in organized religions, the spiritual New Age market, arts, literature, media, therapy, and health care but also in public institutions such as schools and prisons. Eastspirit: Transnational Spirituality and Religious Circulation in East and West describes and analyses such concepts, practices and traditions in their new 'Western' and global contexts as well as in their transformed expressions and reappropriations in religious traditions and individualized spiritualities 'back in the East' within the framework of mutual interaction and circulation, regionally and globally.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004350717 :
1573-4293 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Crossroad discourses between Christianity and culture /
:
Christianity exists in relation to and interacts with its cultural environment in a number of ways. In this volume authors from a wide variety of backgrounds explore various facets of the relationship and interaction of Christianity with its cultural environment: politics, society, esthetics, religion and spirituality, and with itself. Divided into three main sections, Crossroad Discourses between Christianity and Culture looks at the interaction of Christianity with culture in the first section, with other religions and spiritualities in the second, and finally with itself in the third. The contributions engage in a critical examination of not only the culture in which Christianity finds itself but also in a critical examination of Christianity itself and its interaction with that culture. The editors hope that teachers, students, and readers in general will profit greatly from the critical articles contained in this book.
:
1 online resource (641 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789042028647 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Pluralism and Identity, Studies in Ritual Behaviour.
:
The subject of this book is ritual behaviour, in particular of groups with a distinctive religious, ethnic or other identity which use rituals to pursue strategic ends ad intra and ad extra . Five essays offer theoretical perspectives on ritual in plural and pluralist societies, on similarity and demarcation, on the negative case of the Australian Aboriginals, on Brazilian religious pluralism, and on Ghanaian churches in the Netherlands. Three essays describe the ritualization of the encounter, or confrontation, between religions in India (between Buddhists and Hindus, and between Hindus and Muslims), and in Yemen between Muslims and Jews. Four essays study the responses to internal religious plurality, in early Israel, on Java, in Indonesia, and in Spain and North Africa. One essay explores responses to external religious plurality. In the epilogue, the social nature of pluralism and identity is highlighted.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004378896
The European encounter with Hinduism in India /
:
"In The European Encounter with Hinduism Jan Peter Schouten offers an account of European travellers coming into contact with the Hindu religion in India. From the thirteenth century on, both traders and missionaries visited India and encountered the exotic world of Hindus and Hinduism. Their travel reports reveal how Europeans gradually increased their knowledge of Hinduism and how they evaluated this foreign religion. Later on, although officials of the colonial administration also studied the languages and culture of India, it was - contrary to what is usually assumed - particularly the many missionaries who made the greatest contribution to the mapping of Hinduism".
:
"Originally published in Dutch as Aangenaam kennis te maken : De ontmoeting van Europeanen met het hindoeïsme in India by Uitgeverij Damon, Eindhoven." :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004420076
Folklore, religion and the songs of a Bengali madman : a journey between performance and the politics of cultural representation /
:
This book explores historical and cultural aspects of modern and contemporary Bengal through the performance-centred study of a particular repertoire: the songs of the saint-composer Bhaba Pagla (1902-1984), who is particularly revered among Baul and Fakir singers. The author shows how songs, if examined as 'sacred scriptures', represent multi-dimensional texts for the study of South Asian religions. Revealing how previous studies about Bauls mirror the history of folkloristics in Bengal, this book presents sacred songs as a precious symbolic capital for a marginalized community of dislocated and unorthodox Hindus, who consider the practice of singing in itself an integral part of the path towards self-realization.
:
1 online resource (xvi, 332 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 284-324) and indexes. :
9789004324718 :
1570-078x ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.