Fabulous Females And Peerless Pirs

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Fabulous Females and Peerless Pirs

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780198037019
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (37 download)

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Book Synopsis Fabulous Females and Peerless Pirs by :

Download or read book Fabulous Females and Peerless Pirs written by and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mythic figure Satya Pir has a wide following among Hindus and Muslims alike in the Bangla-speaking regions of South Asia. Believed to be an avatara of krsna, or a Sufi saint, or somehow both, he is worshiped for his ability to bring wealth and comfort to a family. At the heart of this worship is the simple proposition that human dignity and morality are dependent upon a proper livelihood-without wealth, people cannot be expected to live moral lives. Men have a special responsibility to create that stability, but sometimes fail miserably, making ill-advised decisions that compromise the women who are dependent upon them. At these threatening junctures, women must take matters into their own hands, and they call on Satya Pir to help them right the wrongs done by their husbands or fathers. In this book, Tony K. Stewart presents lively translations of eight closely related 18th- and 19th-century Bengali folk tales centered on Satya Pir and the people he helps. To extricate her husband and other family members from these predicaments, one heroine dresses in drag, dons armor to fight cutthroats, slays a raging rhino and hacks off its horn, and takes the prize of the king's daughter, to the consternation of all. In another tale, one woman's husband is magically transformed into a ram and kept by a witch as breeding stock, and another's is transformed into a popinjay parrot, the better to elude her jealous father, intent on protecting his good daughter's virtue. In each case the men are rescued and restored to normal by resourceful women. While the worship of Satya Pir is the ostensible motivation for the tales, they are really demonstrations of the Pir's miraculous powers, which authenticate him as a legitimate object of worship. The tales are also wickedly funny, parodying Brahmins and yogis and kings and sepoys. These surprising and entertaining stories fly in the face of conventional wisdom about the separation of Muslims and Hindus. Moreover, the stories happily stand alone, speaking with an easily recognized if not universal voice of exasperation and amazement at what life throws at us.

The Festival of Pirs

Author : Afsar Mohammad
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0199997594
Total Pages : 215 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (999 download)

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Book Synopsis The Festival of Pirs by : Afsar Mohammad

Download or read book The Festival of Pirs written by Afsar Mohammad and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-12 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study is about a popular manifestation of Islamic devotion that embraces a pluralist setting, keeping itself in a dynamic dialogue with non-Muslim practices. With evidence from various public devotional narratives and ritual practices, the author argues that even universal understanding of living Islam remains incomplete if we do not consider this locally produced pluralised devotional setting that surrounds it. He seeks to address various aspects of local and localised Islam through an examination of Gugudu's local and popular transformation of normative Islam, giving particular focus to the various devotional rituals that blend Muslim and Hindu practices in the public event of Muharram.

The Bloomsbury Companion to Hindu Studies

Author : Jessica Frazier
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 147256717X
Total Pages : 465 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (725 download)

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Book Synopsis The Bloomsbury Companion to Hindu Studies by : Jessica Frazier

Download or read book The Bloomsbury Companion to Hindu Studies written by Jessica Frazier and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-01-16 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published as The Continuum Companion to Hindu Studies, this Companion offers the definitive guide to Hinduism and study in this area. Now available in paperback, The Bloomsbury Companion to Hindu Studies covers all the most pressing and important themes and categories in the field - areas that have continued to attract interest historically as well as topics that have emerged more recently as active areas of research. Specially commissioned essays from an international team of experts reveal where important work continues to be done in the field and, valuably, how the various topics intersect through detailed reading paths. Featuring a series of indispensible research tools, including a detailed list of resources, chronology and diagrams summarizing content, this is the essential tool for anyone working in Hindu Studies.

Rethinking Islamic Studies

Author : Carl W. Ernst
Publisher : Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 1611172314
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (111 download)

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Book Synopsis Rethinking Islamic Studies by : Carl W. Ernst

Download or read book Rethinking Islamic Studies written by Carl W. Ernst and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking response to the challenges of interpreting Islamic religion in the post-9/11 and post-Orientalist era Rethinking Islamic Studies upends scholarly roadblocks in post-Orientalist discourse within contemporary Islamic studies and carves fresh inroads toward a robust new understanding of the discipline, one that includes religious studies and other politically infused fields of inquiry. Editors Carl W. Ernst and Richard C. Martin, along with a distinguished group of scholars, map the trajectory of the study of Islam and offer innovative approaches to the theoretical and methodological frameworks that have traditionally dominated the field. In the volume's first section the contributors reexamine the underlying notions of modernity in the East and West and allow for the possibility of multiple and incongruent modernities. This opens a discussion of fundamentalism as a manifestation of the tensions of modernity in Muslim cultures. The second section addresses the volatile character of Islamic religious identity as expressed in religious and political movements at national and local levels. In the third section, contributors focus on Muslim communities in Asia and examine the formation of religious models and concepts as they appear in this region. This study concludes with an afterword by accomplished Islamic studies scholar Bruce B. Lawrence reflecting on the evolution of this post-Orientalist approach to Islam and placing the volume within existing and emerging scholarship. Rethinking Islamic Studies offers original perspectives for the discipline, each utilizing the tools of modern academic inquiry, to help illuminate contemporary incarnations of Islam for a growing audience of those invested in a sharper understanding of the Muslim world.

Folklore, Religion and the Songs of a Bengali Madman

Author : Carola Lorea
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004324712
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis Folklore, Religion and the Songs of a Bengali Madman by : Carola Lorea

Download or read book Folklore, Religion and the Songs of a Bengali Madman written by Carola Lorea and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-08-01 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Islam in South Asia:

Author : Amit Dey
Publisher : Parul Prakashani Private Limited
ISBN 13 : 9385555677
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (855 download)

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Book Synopsis Islam in South Asia: by : Amit Dey

Download or read book Islam in South Asia: written by Amit Dey and published by Parul Prakashani Private Limited. This book was released on 2016 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholarly, insightful and, at the same time, written in an exceptionally lucid style, this book challenges certain stereotypes relating to Islam, Sufism, folk songs and inter community relations in the South Asian context. By consulting Persian, Urdu, Bengali and English sources, this book suggests that Sufism is more heterogeneous and complex than what is commonly taken to be.

The Cultures of History in Early Modern India

Author : Kumkum Chatterjee
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199088012
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (99 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cultures of History in Early Modern India by : Kumkum Chatterjee

Download or read book The Cultures of History in Early Modern India written by Kumkum Chatterjee and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-11 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the nature and function of history-writing in India by focusing on early modern traditions of historiography with particular reference to Bengal. Situating distinctive cultures of history vis-à-vis their relevant political and cultural contexts, it highlights the richness, variety and politically sensitive character of a range of oral and textual narratives. Kumkum Chatterjee also makes a significant contribution to the intellectual and cultural history of early modern India by exploring interactions between regional, vernacular cultures on the one hand and the Islamicate, Persianized culture of the Mughal Empire on the other. Strongly grounded in primary sources, The Cultures of History in Early Modern India re-examines the concepts of authority, evidence and method in early modern historiography. It also discusses the debates surrounding the culture of history writing in India.

Surprising Bedfellows

Author : Sushil Mittal
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 9780739106730
Total Pages : 142 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (67 download)

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Book Synopsis Surprising Bedfellows by : Sushil Mittal

Download or read book Surprising Bedfellows written by Sushil Mittal and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surprising Bedfellows: Hindus and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern India argues that religious and cultural identities in medieval and early modern India were marked by fluid and constantly shifting relationships rather than by the binary model of opposition that is assumed in so much scholarship. Building on the pioneering work of scholars such as Cynthia Talbot and Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya, these chapters seek to understand identity perception through romances, historical documents, ballads and historical epics, inscriptions and even architecture. The chapters in this volume urge readers to reconsider the simple and rigid application of categories such as Hindu and Muslim when studying South Asia's medieval and early modern past. It is only by doing this that we can understand the past and, perhaps, help prevent the dangerous rewriting of Indian history.

The Triumph of the Snake Goddess

Author : Kaiser Haq
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674915119
Total Pages : 342 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (749 download)

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Book Synopsis The Triumph of the Snake Goddess by : Kaiser Haq

Download or read book The Triumph of the Snake Goddess written by Kaiser Haq and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-12 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Snakes exist in the myths of most societies, often embodying magical, mysterious forces. Snake cults were especially important in eastern India and Bangladesh, where for centuries worshippers of the indigenous snake goddess Manasa resisted the competing religious influences of Indo-Europeans and Muslims. The result was a corpus of verse texts narrating Manasa’s struggle to win universal adoration. The Triumph of the Snake Goddess is the first comprehensive retelling of this epic tale in modern English. Scholar and poet Kaiser Haq offers a composite prose translation of Manasa’s story, based on five extant versions. Following the tradition of mangalkavyas—Bengali verse narratives celebrating the deeds of deities in order to win their blessings—the tale opens with a creation myth and a synopsis of Indian mythology, zooming in on Manasa, the miraculous child of the god Shiva. Manasa easily wins the allegiance of everyone except the wealthy merchant Chand, who holds fast in his devotion to Shiva despite seeing his sons massacred. A celestial couple is incarnated on earth to fulfill Manasa’s design: Behula, wife to one of Chand’s slain sons, undertakes a harrowing odyssey to restore him to life with Manasa’s help, ultimately persuading Chand to bow to the snake goddess. A prologue by Haq explores the Bengali oral, poetic, and manuscript traditions behind this Hindu folk epic—a vibrant part of popular Bengali culture, Hindu and Muslim, to this day—and an introduction by Wendy Doniger examines the history and significance of snake worship in classical Sanskrit texts.

The Powerful Ephemeral

Author : Carla Bellamy
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520262808
Total Pages : 307 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)

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Book Synopsis The Powerful Ephemeral by : Carla Bellamy

Download or read book The Powerful Ephemeral written by Carla Bellamy and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2011-08-05 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carla Bellamy traces the long-term healing processes of Muslim and Hindu devotees of a complex in Northwestern India.

Resounding Transcendence

Author : Jeffers Engelhardt
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199737657
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis Resounding Transcendence by : Jeffers Engelhardt

Download or read book Resounding Transcendence written by Jeffers Engelhardt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Resounding Transcendence is a pathbreaking volume exploring how sacred music effects religious and social transitions. It covers Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist practices in Asia, North America, Africa, and Europe. Rich in ethnographic and historical detail and theoretically ambitious, Resounding Transcendence is essential to the study of music and religion.

Historical Dictionary of the Bengalis

Author : Kunal Chakrabarti
Publisher : Scarecrow Press
ISBN 13 : 0810880245
Total Pages : 605 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (18 download)

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Book Synopsis Historical Dictionary of the Bengalis by : Kunal Chakrabarti

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of the Bengalis written by Kunal Chakrabarti and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2013-08-22 with total page 605 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bengali (Bangla) speaking people are located in the northeastern part of South Asia, particularly in Bangladesh and two states of India – West Bengal and Tripura. There are almost 246 million Bengalis at present, which makes them the fifth largest speech community in the world. Despite political and social divisions, they share a common literary and musical culture and several habits of daily existence which impart to them a distinct identity. The Bengalis are known for their political consciousness and cultural accomplishments The Historical Dictionary of the Bengalis provides an overview of the Bengalis across the world from the earliest Chalcolithic cultures to the present. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 750 cross-referenced dictionary entries on politicians, educators and entrepreneurs, leaders of religious and secular institutions, writers, painters, actors and other cultural figures, and more generally, on the economy, education, political parties, religions, women and minorities, literature, art and architecture, music, cinema and other major sectors. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Bengalis.

Beyond the Secular West

Author : Akeel Bilgrami
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231541015
Total Pages : 395 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Beyond the Secular West by : Akeel Bilgrami

Download or read book Beyond the Secular West written by Akeel Bilgrami and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the character of secularism in countries that were not pervaded by Christianity, such as China, India, and the nations of the Middle East? To what extent is the secular an imposition of colonial rule? How does secularism comport with local religious cultures in Africa, and how does it work with local forms of power and governance in Latin America? Has modern secularism evolved organically, or is it even necessary, and has it always meant progress? A vital extension of Charles Taylor's A Secular Age, in which he exhaustively chronicled the emergence of secularism in Latin Christendom, this anthology applies Taylor's findings to secularism's global migration. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Rajeev Bhargava, Akeel Bilgrami, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Sudipta Kaviraj, Claudio Lomnitz, Alfred Stepan, Charles Taylor, and Peter van der Veer each explore the transformation of Western secularism beyond Europe, and the collection closes with Taylor's response to each essay. What began as a modern reaction to—as well as a stubborn extension of—Latin Christendom has become a complex export shaped by the world's religious and political systems. Brilliantly alternating between intellectual and methodological approaches, this volume fosters a greater engagement with the phenomenon across disciplines.

An Unreal Estate

Author : Lucinda Carspecken
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253356814
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (533 download)

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Book Synopsis An Unreal Estate by : Lucinda Carspecken

Download or read book An Unreal Estate written by Lucinda Carspecken and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In An Unreal Estate, Lucinda Carspecken takes an in-depth look at Lothlorien, a Southern Indiana nature sanctuary, sustainable camping ground, festival site, collective residence, and experiment in ecological building, stewardship, and organization. Carspecken notes the way fiction and reality intertwine on this piece of land and argues that examples such as Lothlorien have the power to be a force for social change. Lothlorien's organization and social norms are in sharp contrast with its surrounding communities. As a unique enclave within a larger society, it offers to the latter both an implicit critique and a cluster of alternative values and lifestyles. In addition, it has created a niche where some participants change, grow, and find empowerment in an environment that is accepting of difference—particularly in areas of religion and sexual orientation.

The Poet’s Song

Author : Priyanka Basu
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000960889
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis The Poet’s Song by : Priyanka Basu

Download or read book The Poet’s Song written by Priyanka Basu and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-08-27 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the ‘folk’ performance genre of Kobigaan, a dialogic song-theatre form in which performers verse-duel, in contemporary West Bengal in India and Bangladesh. Thought to be a nearly extinct form, the book shows how the genre is still prevalent in the region. The author shows how like many other ‘folk’ practices in South and South-East Asia, the content and format of this genre has undergone vital changes thus raising questions of authenticity, patronage and cultural politics. She captures live performances of Kobigaan through ethnographies spread across borders — from village rituals to urban festivals, and from Bengali cinema to television and new media. While understanding Kobigaan from the practitioners’ points-of-view, this book also explores the crucial issues of gender, marginalization and representation that is true of any performance genre. Drawing on case studies, it underlines the issues of artistic agency, empowerment, cultural labour and heritage, ritual, authenticity, creative industries, media, gender, and identity politics. Part of the ‘South Asian History and Culture’ series, this book is a major intervention in South Asian folklore and performance studies. It also expands into the larger disciplines of literature, social and cultural movements in South Asia, ethnomusicology and the politics of performance.

The Many Lives of a Rajput Queen

Author : Ramya Sreenivasan
Publisher : University of Washington Press
ISBN 13 : 0295997850
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (959 download)

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Book Synopsis The Many Lives of a Rajput Queen by : Ramya Sreenivasan

Download or read book The Many Lives of a Rajput Queen written by Ramya Sreenivasan and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2015-08-03 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2009 Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize, sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies The medieval Rajput queen Padmini - believed to have been pursued by Alauddin Khalji, the Sultan of Delhi - has been the focus of numerous South Asian narratives, ranging from a Sufi mystical romance in the sixteenth century to nationalist histories in the late nineteenth century. The Many Lives of a Rajput Queen explores how early modern regional elites, caste groups, and mystical and monastic communities shaped their distinctive versions of the past through the repeated refashioning of the legend of Padmini. Ramya Sreenivasan investigates these legends and traces their subsequent appropriation by colonial administrators and nationalist intellectuals, for varying different political ends. Using Padmini as a means of illustrating the power of gender norms in constructing heroic memory, she shows how such narratives about virtuous women changed as they circulated across particular communities in South Asia between the sixteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book will interest historians of memory, gender, community, culture, and historywriting in South Asia. Illustrating how enduring legends emerged out of particular precolonial repositories of "tradition," the book also addresses the nature of colonial transitions and precolonial historical consciousness.

Lines in Water

Author : Eliza F. Kent
Publisher : Syracuse University Press
ISBN 13 : 0815652259
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (156 download)

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Book Synopsis Lines in Water by : Eliza F. Kent

Download or read book Lines in Water written by Eliza F. Kent and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-12 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When asked to distinguish between different faiths, Mughal prince Dara Shikoh is said to have replied, “How do you draw a line in water?” Inspired by this question, the essays in this volume illustrate how ordinary people in South Asia and the diaspora negotiate their religious identities and encounters in creative, complex, and diverse ways. Taking the approach that narratives “from below” provide the richest insight into the dynamics of religious pluralism, the authors examine life histories, oral traditions, cartographic practices, pilgrimage rites, and devotional music and songs. Drawing on both ethnographic and historical data, they illuminate how, like lines in water, religious boundaries are dynamic, fluid, flexible, and permeable rather than permanently fixed, frozen, and inviolable. A distinct feature of the volume is its proposition of a fresh and innovative typology of boundary dynamics. Boundaries may be attractive or porous, firmly drawn or transcended. Attractive boundaries invite confluence while affirming the differences between self and other, whereas permeable boundaries facilitate exchanges that create new identities and in turn form new lines. Although people may recognize the significance of religious borders, they can choose to transcend them. Throughout this volume, the authors highlight the fascinating range of South Asian religious and cultural traditions.