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The Many Faces of Murukan
Author: Fred W. Clothey
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Published: 2019-05-20
Total Pages: 272
ISBN-13: 3110804107
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The series Religion and Society (RS) contributes to the exploration of religions as social systems - both in Western and non-Western societies; in particular, it examines religions in their differentiation from, and intersection with, other cultural systems, such as art, economy, law and politics. Due attention is given to paradigmatic case or comparative studies that exhibit a clear theoretical orientation with the empirical and historical data of religion and such aspects of religion as ritual, the religious imagination, constructions of tradition, iconography, or media. In addition, the formation of religious communities, their construction of identity, and their relation to society and the wider public are key issues of this series.
Thaipusam in Malaysia
Author: Carl Vadivella Belle
Publisher: Flipside Digital Content Company Inc.
Published: 2018-02-14
Total Pages: 472
ISBN-13: 9814786667
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book explores the festival of Thaipusam in terms of its own inner dynamics - the traditions and belief structures which ensure the festival's continuing relevance to Malaysian Hindus. It argues that Thaipusam reflects a growing sense of Hindu identity in Malaysia and an as yet inchoate unity. It contends that while the kavadi ritual provides profound meaning at the individual and group level, Thaipusam furnishes a public arena for and gives expression to a powerful Hindu resurgence, largely, though not exclusively, fuelled by Dravidian assertiveness. In situating the festival within the context of a Malaysia dominated by Malay and Islamic power brokers, a society in which both the Indian community and Hinduism are relegated to the margins, the book explores the festival of Thaipusam as a vehicle for mobilization of religious symbols and values which not only simultaneously articulate ethnicity and thus resist the forces which threaten cultural and religious integrity, but which also ultimately signal wider allegiances to the broader politico-cultural world of an imagined, immeasurably rich, and enduring Indo-Hindu civilization.
The Many Faces of Murukan
Author: Fred W. Clothey
Publisher: Munshirm Manoharlal Pub Pvt Limited
Published: 2005
Total Pages: 252
ISBN-13: 9788121511438
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book is a study of one of the most persistent and popular gods in south India and traces the history of the god, dwelling especially on four periods: The earliest known Tamil civilization as portrayed in classical Tamil literature and archaeology; The Northern Epic period as depicted in Epic mythology; the Medieval South as depicted in the iconography and literature of the period; and contemporary Tamil Nadu as expressed in the ritual life of the cultus. In each period, an attempt is made to explore the cultural dynamics and symbolic meanings of the deity's mythology and cultic life. The god's development includes stages in which he is a lord of hill and hunt in the Early South; a deity who serves as prototype for both Ksatriya and brahmana communities in the Epic North; a god who serves as purveyor of Saiva Siddhanta thought and inspiration of Tamil literature in the Medieval South; and a `high god' who epitomizes the fullness of regional pride and religious aspiration in contemporary Tamil India. As one of the most popular deities in Tamil India today, Murukan is a particularly apt portrait of how a contemporary people in Asia find identity and meaning through traditional symbols. Murukan's history and meaning combines themes which are classical and `popular,' `Sanskrit' and `Tamil,' traditional and `modern,' Vaisnava and Saiva. That people of differing walks of life have perceived him in varying, yet consistent, ways even into the present moment makes the cultus of Murukan a fascinating example of man's persisting quest for meaning and fulfillment.
Hayagrīva in South India
Author: Kamala Elizabeth Nayar
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2004-03-01
Total Pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9047413040
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book is about how mythology may be purposively adapted in the service of theology. It does so at the hand of Hayagrīva, since the 14th century C.E. revered as a full form of the Supreme Lord Viṣṇu in the local Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition of South India, but originally a relatively minor pan-Indian deity. Convincingly laying bare the complexity in respect of the pan-Indian images of Hayagrīva, it makes clear that there is no single unilinear history of this deity. It subsequently reconstructs the ‘Śrīnivaiṣṇava History’ of Hayagrīva, and brings out the selectivity involved in borrowing materials from the pan-Indian and local levels. Amidst the incredible complexity encountered here, this study exposes, however, that the emblems and functions of different images show continuity, although a god’s status may change according to the sect.
A Survey of Hinduism
Author: Klaus K. Klostermaier
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2010-03-10
Total Pages: 720
ISBN-13: 0791480119
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This third edition of the classic text updates the information contained in the earlier editions, and includes new chapters on the origins of Hinduism; its history of relations with Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam; Hindu science; and Hindu measures of time. The chronology and the bibliography have been updated as well. A comprehensive survey of the Hindu tradition, the book deals with the history of Hinduism, the sacred writings of the Hindus, the Hindu worldview, and the specifics of the major branches of Hinduism—Vaisnavism, Saivism, and Saktism. It also focuses on the geographical ties of Hinduism with the land of India, the social order created by Hinduism, and the various systems of Hindu thought. Klaus K. Klostermaier describes the development of Hinduism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including present-day political Hinduism and the efforts to turn Hinduism into a modern world religion. A unique feature of the book is its treatment of Hinduism in a topical fashion, rather than by chronological description of the development of Hinduism or by summary of the literature. The complexities of Hindu life and thought are thus made real to the reader, and Hindus will recognize it as their own tradition.
Palkhi
Author: D. B. Mokashi
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 1987-07-01
Total Pages: 314
ISBN-13: 1438413416
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Mokashi is a Marathi novelist of the post-independence generation of "Realists." This is a vivid account of his day-by-day experience on the Warkari pilgrimage from Alandi to Pandharpur on foot. Pilgrimage is one of the most visible and pervasive features of Hinduism. Every year the Warkaris carry palanquins, called palkhis, bearing sandals representing the feet of their saints from various towns to Pandharpur in Maharashtra—to the Temple of Vitoba. Mokashi accompanied the oldest and most revered of the palanquin processions, the palkhi of Jnaneshwar Maharaj, on its two-week journey. His account is the only sustained view of the pilgrimage in any language.
Hindu Ritual at the Margins
Author: Linda Penkower
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
Published: 2014-10-09
Total Pages: 249
ISBN-13: 1611173906
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Hindu Ritual at the Margins explores Hindu forms of ritual activity in a variety of "marginal" contexts. The contributors collectively examine ritual practices in diaspora; across gender, ethnic, social, and political groups; in film, text, and art; in settings where ritual itself or direct discussion of ritual is absent; in contexts that create new opportunities for traditionally marginalized participants or challenge the received tradition; and via theoretical perspectives that have been undervalued in the academy. In the first of three sections, contributors explore the ways in which Hindu ritual performed in Indian contexts intersects with historical, contextual, and social change. They examine the changing significance and understanding of particular deities, the identity and agency of ritual actors, and the instrumentality of ritual in new media. Essays in the second section examine ritual practices outside of India, focusing on evolving ritual claims to authority in mixed cultures (such as Malaysia), the reshaping of gender dynamics of ritual at an American temple, and the democratic reshaping of ritual forms in Canadian Hindu communities. The final section considers the implications for ritual studies of the efficacy of bodily acts divorced from intention, contemporary spiritual practice as opposed to religious-bound ritual, and the notion of dharma. Based on a conference on Hindu ritual held in 2006 at the University of Pittsburgh, Hindu Ritual at the Margins seeks to elucidate the ways ritual actors come to shape ritual practices or conceptions pertaining to ritual and how studying ritual in marginal contexts—at points of dynamic tension—requires scholars to reshape their understanding of ritual activity.
Sacred Space
Author: John Matthews
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Published: 2009-03-26
Total Pages: 224
ISBN-13: 1443806420
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The identification and positioning of sacred space within contemporary contexts has, to date, received scant attention. In reflecting upon a broad spectrum of conceptions of what constitutes sacred space, this collection of interdisciplinary essays presents a new perspective on an area that is developing into an important theological and philosophical concept.
Encyclopedia of Hinduism
Author: Denise Cush
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-08-21
Total Pages: 1129
ISBN-13: 113518979X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Covering all aspects of Hinduism, this encyclopedia includes more ethnographic and contemporary material in contrast to the exclusively textual and historical approach of earlier works.
