Hindu gods in West Africa : Ghanaian devotees of Shiva and Krishna.
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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.
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1 online resource (346 pages) :
9789004255715 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Hindu-Buddhist Architecture in Southeast Asia /
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Hinduism and Buddhism have in Southeast Asia prompted impressive architecture, including Angkor Vat and the Borubodur, with a lasting influence on the architecture of the area. This book is the first stylistic history of Hindu-Buddhist architecture in the area from the beginning until today. The contrasts and similarities described between the religious structures of the different countries shed light on the religious history of the area.
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1 online resource (437 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004644960
One god, two goddesses, three studies of South Indian cosmology /
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One, God, Two Goddesses presents three studies, one of Tamil myths of the god Murugan and two of goddess rituals: Gangamma in Tirupati and Paiditalli in Vizianagaram, both in Andhra Pradesh. All three essays search for lineaments of the cosmos that these deities inhabit and shape. These cosmoi are characterised by the dynamism of their incessant interior movement. Should they become still, they would die. Deities activate and regenerate such a cosmos. The dynamism of Murugan's cosmos eliminates the chaotic. Through ritual, Gangamma regenerates her cosmos through feminising it. Through ritual, Paiditalli annually re-grows the historic little kingdom of Vizianagaram, regenerating its kingship. All three studies point to the need to rethink cosmology in South India.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004257399 :
1570-078X ;
Epic Narratives in the Hoysaḷa Temples : The Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata and Bhāgavata Purāṇa in Haḷebīd, Belūr and Amṛtapura /
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This volume is a detailed exposition of the visual retellings from the Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata and Bhāgavata Purāṇa on specific South Indian Hoysaḷa temples. The first part of the book deals with the Amṛteśvara temple, particularly its narrative panels depicting the Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata and Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The text is a résumé of episodes paired with photographs which illustrate and review the visual retellings and explore Indian techniques of visual narrative. Corollary material from other Hoysaḷa temples with narrative reliefs, including new sites, is presented in the second part. There are very few published contextual studies of Indian narrative sculptures, and so the book is a contribution to the documentation of Indian medieval art, examining visual narratives within the context of the Hindu temple. The book is illustrated with 150 photographs.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [265]-271) and index. :
9789004378964 :
0169-8834 ;
The secret Sankara : on multivocality and truth in Sankara's teaching /
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Sankaracharya of the 8th century A.D is considered the greatest philosopher of India up to this day. his teaching of the one and only self has become the most prestigeous expression of the Hindu spirit. Sankara is the author of the Brahmasutrabhasya, the most important text of the school known as Advaita-Vedanta. Sankara teaches of the self by dialogues between a winning exponent and a losing opponent. Up to this day, Sankara's teaching has been invariably identified with the exponent's doctrines. In this book a distinction between the invisible authon and his alleged exponent is offered. Sankara the author is a new intellectual hero different from his exponent. Thus, due to the aforementioned distinction, a new philosophy and theory of freedom emerges, the teaching of Sankara, the author distinguished from his apparent exponent.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004216334 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Yoga and Yantra : Their Interrelation and Their Significance for Indean Archeology /
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The author asks to what extent a knowledge of the concepts of yoga may prepare the way to a better understanding of Indian archaeology. The yoga at the basis of this study is that which forms the core of the Tantras . In the first chapter the author surveys the system of Tantrik yoga. He then continues with a discussion of the various forms of yantras , that is all the means employed by yogis in their meditational exercises as aids to the concentration of thought. The author provides in-depth studies of ritual objects of the Lamaistic cult in Tibet and Nepal, the sacred cemeteries of Nepal, and pantheons in Java and Bali. See Less
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Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004647138
The Brahmo Samaj and its Vaiṣṇava Milieus : Intersections of Hindu Knowledge and Love in Nineteenth Century Bengal /
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In The Brahmo Samaj and its Vaiṣṇava Milieus: Intersections of Hindu Knowledge and Love in Nineteenth Century Bengal , Ankur Barua offers an intellectual history of the motif of religious universalism in the writings of some intellectuals associated with the Brahmo Samaj (founded in 1828). They constructed Hindu worldviews that were simultaneously rooted in some ancient Sanskritic materials and orientated towards contemporary universalist visions with western hues. These constructions were shaped by their dialectical engagements with three groups: members of the Bengali middle classes with sceptical standpoints ('Young Bengal'), Christian missionaries, and Hindu Vaiṣṇava thinkers. In this genealogy of religious universalisms, Barua indicates how certain post-1900 formulations of the universalist compass of Hinduism were being enunciated across Brahmo circles from the 1820s.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004445383
9789004445246
Duty, language, and exegesis in Prabhākara Mīmāmsā : including an edition and translation of Rāmānujācārya's Tantrarahasya, Sāstraprameyapariccheda /
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The book is an introduction to key concepts of Indian Philosophy, seen from the perspective of one of its most influential schools, the Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā, which flourished from the 7th until the 20th c. AD. The book includes the critical edition and translation of Rāmānujācārya's Śāstraprameyapariccheda, which is part of his Tantrarahasya (written in South India, after the 14th c.). This text has never been translated before and it is one of the clearest elaboration of the Prābhākara thought. The book particularly aims at presenting the linguistic, deontic-ethic, hermeneutic and epistemo-logical thought of the Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā. Detailed glossary and indexes make it possible to use the book as a reference-tool for Indian philosophy and linguistics.
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1 online resource (xxiii, 407 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 389-400) and index. :
9789004230248 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Al-Muqniʿ fi ʼl-ḥisāb al-Hindī /
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Abu ʼl-Ḥasan Nasawī was a mathematician and geometer of the 5th/11th century. He was a contemporary of Bīrūnī (d. 440/1048) and a student of Avicenna (d. 428/1037). Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) mentions him in his works and so do others. Nasawī became known in the west through the publications of Franz Woepcke in the nineteenth century. Born in Rayy, Nasawī worked for the Buyid ruler Majd al-Dawla (d. 420/1029) and later for Sharaf al-Dawla, vizier to the Buyid ruler of Baghdad, Jalāl al-Dawla (d. 435/1044). In Nasawī's time, there were three types of arithmetic: finger-counting as used in business, a sexagesimal sytem with numbers denoted by letters of the Arabic alphabet, and an Indian system of numerals and fractions with decimal notation. The present work is about the Indian system and treats of four classes of numbers in four separate sections. This is Nasawī's own Arabic reworking of the Persian original, now lost.
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"Mīrās̲-i Maktūb (Series), 241"--P. facing title page. :
1 online resource. :
9789004406094
9786002030368
Religion and conflict attribution : an empirical study of the religious meaning system of Christian, Muslim and Hindu students in Tamil Nadu, India /
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Religion can play a dual role with regard to conflict. It can promote either violence or peace. Religion and Conflict Attribution seeks to clarify the causes of religious conflict as perceived by Christian, Muslim and Hindu college students in Tamil Nadu, India. These students in varying degrees attribute conflict to force-driven causes, namely to coercive power as a means of achieving the economic, political or socio-cultural goals of religious groups. The study reveals how force-driven religious conflict is influenced by prescriptive beliefs like religious practice and mystical experience, and descriptive beliefs such as the interpretation of religious plurality and religiocentrism. It also elaborates on the practical consequences of the salient findings for the educational process.
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1 online resource (xii, 287 pages) : illustrations, color map. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004270862 :
2213-9729 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Tantra, Ritual Performance, and Politics in Nepal and Kerala : Embodying the Goddess-clan /
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In previous studies of South Asian Tantric ritual, scholars tend to focus on one region or context. For the first time, Tantra, Ritual Performance and Politics in Nepal and Kerala: Embodying the Goddess-clan offers a comparative approach to Tantric mediumship as observed in two locales: Navadurgā rituals in Bhaktapur, Nepal, and Teyyāṭṭam in North Kerala. In this book, Matthew Martin advances a new theory of ritual, which spotlights the way dancer-mediums embody medieval goddess-clans and ancestor deities, through offerings of food and sacrifice, that synchronize their denizens with the land in spiralling web-like ritual networks. Uniquely interdisciplinary in style, this study synthesizes cultural history, ethnography, and theory to explore the continuities - historical, societal, and political - that characterize these ritual traditions across the subcontinent.
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Revision of author's PhD dissertation. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004439023
9789004438996
South Asians in the Diaspora, Histories and Religious Traditions.
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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.
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1 online resource. :
9789047401407
Religion and Time.
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The essays in this volume, all freshly written for this purpose, focus on the concept of time in the major religious traditions. Two essays prepare the methodological grounds - by elaborating the phenomenological and existential conceptions of time and their religious significance. The theme of time, so central to the religious point of view, offers a focal point for fruitful interreligious dialogue. The essays also demonstrate that the complexities of the understanding of time in any religious tradition no longer permit the use of familiar but outdated clichés.
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1 online resource. :
9789004378773
The birth of indology as an Islamic science : Al-Biruni's treatise on yoga psychology /
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In The Birth of Indology as an Islamic Science Mario Kozah closely examines the pioneering contribution by Bīrūnī (d. circa 1048) to the study of comparative religion in his major work on India. Kozah concludes that a process of Islamisation is employed through a meticulous systematization of Hindu beliefs into one "Indian religion", preceding by almost a millennium the earliest definitions of Hinduism by nineteenth-century European Orientalists. This formulation of Hinduism draws on Bīrūnī's interpretation of Yoga psychology articulated in the Kitāb Bātanjal , his Arabic translation of the Yoga-Sūtra of Patañjali. Bīrūnī's Islamic reading of Hinduism relies on certain common denominators that he identifies as being of fundamental importance. In the case of Hinduism he identifies metempsychosis as its unifying banner.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004305540 :
0169-8729 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Re-imagining South Asian religions : essays in honour of professors Harold G. Coward and Ronald W. Neufeldt /
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Re-imagining South Asian Religions is a collection of essays offering new ways of understanding aspects of Hindu, Tibetan Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Theosophical, and Indian Christian experiences. Moving away from canonical texts, established authorities, and received historiography, the essays in this volume draw from a range of methodological perspectives including philosophy, history, hermeneutics, migration and diaspora studies, ethnography, performance studies, lived religion approaches, and aesthetics. Reflecting a balance of theory and substantive content, the papers in this volume call into question key critical terms, challenge established frames of reference, and offer innovative and alternative interpretations of South Asian ways of knowing and being.
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1 online resource (xxv, 302 pages) : illustrations (some color) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004242371 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The founder of the Hare Krishnas as seen by devotees : a cognitive study of religious charisma /
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The Hare Krishna movement is one of the most well-known new religious movements in the Western societies. It was founded in New York in 1966 by the Indian monk A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda (1896-1977). The fact that it emerged during the heyday of the countercultural protests is often invoked in the explanations of its success. This book offers a completely new account for the rise and growth of the Hare Krishna movement by analysing it from the viewpoint of cognitive science of religion. It focuses on the charisma of the founder-guru through the writings of his earliest disciples and also takes a close look at the theology and ritual practices of the movement.
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Based on the author's dissertation (doctoral--University of Helsinki, 2002). :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [215]-225) and indexes. :
9789047433262 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Indian diaspora : socio-cultural and religious worlds /
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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.
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1 online resource (xiii, 361 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004288065 :
1573-4293 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.