Female Ascetics

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Female Ascetics in Hinduism

Author : Lynn Teskey Denton
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 0791484629
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (914 download)

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Book Synopsis Female Ascetics in Hinduism by : Lynn Teskey Denton

Download or read book Female Ascetics in Hinduism written by Lynn Teskey Denton and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Female Ascetics in Hinduism provides a vivid account of the lives of women renouncers—women who renounce the world to live ascetic spiritual lives—in India. The author approaches the study of female asceticism by focusing on features of two dharmas, two religiously defined ways of life: that of woman-as-householder and that of the ascetic, who, for various reasons, falls outside the realm of householdership. The result of fieldwork conducted in Varanasi (Benares), the book explores renouncers' social and personal backgrounds, their institutions, and their ways of life. Offering a first-hand look at and an insightful analysis of this little-known world, this highly readable book will be indispensable to those interested in female asceticism in the Hindu tradition and women's spiritual lives around the world.

Female Ascetics

Author : Wendy Sinclair-Brull
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136789456
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (367 download)

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Book Synopsis Female Ascetics by : Wendy Sinclair-Brull

Download or read book Female Ascetics written by Wendy Sinclair-Brull and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines in rich detail the neglected topic of female ascetics. Based on field research, it documents the social forces which facilitated the establishment of an Order of Ascetics for women, defying tradition in many respects. It describes the subtle methods by which the individual is transformed into a full member of the Order, and how hierarchy and purity are indeed integral to the process.

Making Fields of Merit

Author : Monica Lindberg Falk
Publisher : NIAS Press
ISBN 13 : 8776940195
Total Pages : 302 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (769 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Fields of Merit by : Monica Lindberg Falk

Download or read book Making Fields of Merit written by Monica Lindberg Falk and published by NIAS Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This anthropological study addresses religion and gender relations through the lens of the lives, actions and role in Thai society of an order of Buddhist nuns (mae chii). It presents a unique ethnography of these Thai Buddhist nuns, examines what it implies to be a female ascetic in contemporary Thailand and analyses how the ordained state for women fits into the wider gender patterns found in Thai society. The study also deals with the nuns' agency in creating religious space and authority for women. In addition, it raises questions about how the position of Thai Buddhist nuns outside the Buddhist sanhga affects their religious legitimacy and describes recent moves to restore a Theravada order of female monks." -- BACK COVER.

`Virgins of God' : The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity

Author : Susanna Elm
Publisher : Clarendon Press
ISBN 13 : 0191591637
Total Pages : 466 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (915 download)

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Book Synopsis `Virgins of God' : The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity by : Susanna Elm

Download or read book `Virgins of God' : The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity written by Susanna Elm and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 1994-09-15 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of the institutions fundamental to the role of men and women in society today were formed in late antiquity. This path-breaking study offers a comprehensive look at how Christian women of this time initiated alternative, ascetic ways of living, both with and without men. The author studies how these practices were institutionalized, and why later they were either eliminated or transformed by a new Christian Roman elite of men we now think of as the founding fathers of monasticism. - ;Situated in a period that witnessed the genesis of institutions fundamental to this day, this path-breaking study offers a comprehensive look at how ancient Christian women initiated ascetic ways of living, and how these practices were then institutionalized. Using the organization of female asceticism in Asia Minor and Egypt as a lever, the author demonstrates that - in direct contrast to later conceptions - asceticism began primarly as an urban movement. Crucially, it also originated with men and women living together, varying the model of the family. The book then traces how, in the course of the fourth century, these early organizational forms underwent a transformation. Concurrent with the doctrinal struggles to redefine the Trinity, and with the formation of a new Christian --eacute--;lite, men such as Basil of Caesarea changed the institutional configuration of ascetic life in common: they emphasized the segregation of the sexes, and the supremacy of the rural over urban models. At the same time, ascetics became clerics, who increasingly used female saints as symbols for the role of the new ecclesiastical elite. Earlier, more varied models of ascetic life were either silenced or condemned as heretical; and those who had been in fact their reformers became known as the founding fathers of monasticism. -

Women Who Fly

Author : Serinity Young
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019065970X
Total Pages : 377 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis Women Who Fly by : Serinity Young

Download or read book Women Who Fly written by Serinity Young and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beautiful apsaras of Hindu myth to the swan maidens of European fairy tales, stories of flying women-some carried by wings, others by clouds, rainbows, floating scarves, and flying horses-reveal the perennial fascination with and ambivalence about female power and sexuality. In Women Who Fly, Serinity Young examines the motif of the flying woman as it appears in a wide variety of cultures and historical periods, in legends, myths, rituals, sacred narratives, and artistic productions. She considers supernatural women like the Valkyries of Norse legend, who transport men to immortality; winged deities like the Greek goddesses Iris and Nike; figures of terror like the Furies, witches, and succubi; airborne Christian mystics; and wayward, dangerous women like Lilith and Morgan le Fay. Looking beyond the supernatural, Young examines the modern mythology surrounding twentieth-century female aviators like Amelia Earhart and Hanna Reitsch. Throughout, Young demonstrates that female power has always been inextricably linked with female sexuality and that the desire to control it is a pervasive theme in these stories. This is vividly depicted, for example, in the twelfth-century Niebelungenlied, in which the proud warrior-queen Brünnhilde loses her great physical strength when she is tricked into surrendering her virginity. Even in the twentieth-century the same idea is reflected in the exploits of the comic book and film character Wonder Woman who, Young suggests, retains her physical strength only because her love for fellow aviator Steve Trevor goes unrequited. The first book to systematically chronicle the figure of the flying woman in myth, literature, art, and pop culture, Women Who Fly offers a fresh look at the ways in which women have both influenced and been understood by society and religious traditions throughout the ages and around the world.

Jainism

Author : Natubhai Shah
Publisher : Motilal Banarsidass Publishe
ISBN 13 : 9788120819382
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (193 download)

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Book Synopsis Jainism by : Natubhai Shah

Download or read book Jainism written by Natubhai Shah and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishe. This book was released on 2004 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women

Author : Julia Leslie
Publisher : Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
ISBN 13 : 9788120810365
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women by : Julia Leslie

Download or read book Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women written by Julia Leslie and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 1992 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The considerable interest currently being expressed in women and religion has thrown down an important challenge; the need to see women not merely as the passive victims of an oppressive ideology but also perhaps primarily as the active agents of their own positive constructs. This book therefore aims to fill a notable gap in the literature. Twelve contributors study the role of women in Hindu religion by examining textual studies of the part played by women in a variety of religion rituals, both past and present, by exploring the socio-religious context of their various communites; and by using specialist material to draw on cross-cultural conclusions.

Medusa's Hair

Author : Gananath Obeyesekere
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022618921X
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Medusa's Hair by : Gananath Obeyesekere

Download or read book Medusa's Hair written by Gananath Obeyesekere and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-02-08 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The great pilgrimage center of southeastern Sri Lanka, Kataragama, has become in recent years the spiritual home of a new class of Hindu-Buddhist religious devotees. These ecstatic priests and priestesses invariably display long locks of matted hair, and they express their devotion to the gods through fire walking, tongue-piercing, hanging on hooks, and trance-induced prophesying. The increasing popularity of these ecstatics poses a challenge not only to orthodox Sinhala Buddhism (the official religion of Sri Lanka) but also, as Gananath Obeyesekere shows, to the traditional anthropological and psychoanalytic theories of symbolism. Focusing initially on one symbol, matted hair, Obeyesekere demonstrates that the conventional distinction between personal and cultural symbols is inadequate and naive. His detailed case studies of ecstatics show that there is always a reciprocity between the personal-psychological dimension of the symbol and its public, culturally sanctioned role. Medusa's Hair thus makes an important theoretical contribution both to the anthropology of individual experience and to the psychoanalytic understanding of culture. In its analyses of the symbolism of guilt, the adaptational and integrative significance of belief in spirits, and a host of related issues concerning possession states and religiosity, this book marks a provocative advance in psychological anthropology.

Woman as Fire, Woman as Sage

Author : Arti Dhand
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 0791479889
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (914 download)

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Book Synopsis Woman as Fire, Woman as Sage by : Arti Dhand

Download or read book Woman as Fire, Woman as Sage written by Arti Dhand and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hindu tradition has held conflicting views on womanhood from its earliest texts—holding women aloft as goddesses to be worshipped on the one hand and remaining deeply suspicious about women's sexuality on the other. In Woman as Fire, Woman as Sage, Arti Dhand examines the religious premises upon which Hindu ideas of sexuality and women are constructed. The work focuses on the great Hindu epic, the Mahābhārata, a text that not only reflects the cogitations of a momentous period in Hindu history, but also was critical in shaping the future of Hinduism. Dhand proposes that the epic's understanding of womanhood cannot be isolated from the broader religious questions that were debated at the time, and that the formation of a sexual ideology is one element in crafting a coherent religious framework for Hinduism.

Early Christian Dress

Author : Kristi Upson-Saia
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136655417
Total Pages : 187 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (366 download)

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Book Synopsis Early Christian Dress by : Kristi Upson-Saia

Download or read book Early Christian Dress written by Kristi Upson-Saia and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-02-16 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early Christian Dress is the first full-length monograph on the subject of dress in early Christianity. It pays attention to the ways in which dress expressed and shaped Christian identity, the role dress played in Christians’ rivalries with pagan neighbours, and especially to the ways in which notions of gender were culled and revised in the process. Although many scholars have argued that gender in late antiquity was a performed and embodied category, few have paid attention to the ways in which dress and physical appearances were implicated in the understanding of femininity and masculinity. This study addresses that gap, revealing the amount of sartorial work necessary to secure stable gender categories in the worlds of early Imperial pagans and late ancient Christians. This study analyzes several vigorous discussions and debates that arose over Christian women’s dress. It examines how Christians interpreted their dress—especially the dress of female ascetics—as evidence of Christianity’s advanced morality and piety, a morality and piety that was coded "masculine." Yet even Christian leaders who championed ascetic women’s ability to achieve a degree of virility in terms of their virtue and spiritual status were troubled when ascetics’ dress threatened to materially dissolve gender categories, difference, and hierarchies. In the end, the study enables us to gain a broader view of how gender was constructed, perceived, and contested in early Christianity.

Christian Women in the Patristic World

Author : Lynn H. Cohick
Publisher : Baker Academic
ISBN 13 : 1493410210
Total Pages : 327 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (934 download)

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Book Synopsis Christian Women in the Patristic World by : Lynn H. Cohick

Download or read book Christian Women in the Patristic World written by Lynn H. Cohick and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From facing wild beasts in the arena to governing the Roman Empire, Christian women--as preachers and philosophers, martyrs and empresses, virgins and mothers--influenced the shape of the church in its formative centuries. This book provides in a single volume a nearly complete compendium of extant evidence about Christian women in the second through fifth centuries. It highlights the social and theological contributions they made to shaping early Christian beliefs and practices, integrating their influence into the history of the patristic church and showing how their achievements can be edifying for contemporary Christians.

Escaping the World

Author : Manisha Sethi
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000365786
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis Escaping the World by : Manisha Sethi

Download or read book Escaping the World written by Manisha Sethi and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2020-11-29 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book attends to a historical question — how to account for the high numbers of renouncers (sadhvis) mentioned in medieval and ancient texts — which has been acknowledged and raised, but left unaddressed within Jain studies. It does so through ethnographic data gathered through extensive fieldwork among the sadhvis in Delhi and Jaipur. The volume foregrounds the primacy of ‘choice’ and ‘agency’— upheld by the nuns themselves, who associate asceticism with autonomy, freedom, joy, spiritual well-being, self-worth and peace, and grihastha (household) with loss of independence, fettered existence, degradation, burdensome familial obligations and social responsibilities. It also examines whether it may be apt to term Jain nuns as practitioners of an ‘indigenous mode of feminism’. The book challenges the existing sociological theories of renunciation and tests the feminist concepts of agency and autonomy by investigating the culturally coded roles ascribed to women in Jainism, which are variegated, and examines how a fractured discourse and reality is resolved in the subjectivities and identities of female ascetics. The very legitimacy of the institution of female asceticism, and the way in which the society (samaj) upholds and sustains it, renders female asceticism into a socially approved alternative institution — albeit one that allows Jain nuns to create spaces of relative and autonomy and even prestige for themselves.

The Āśrama System

Author : Patrick Olivelle
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 019508327X
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (95 download)

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Book Synopsis The Āśrama System by : Patrick Olivelle

Download or read book The Āśrama System written by Patrick Olivelle and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1993 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The lesser known and explored of the two pillars of Hinduism--Ä Å›rama and vará1‡a--Ä Å›rama is the name given to a system of four distinct and legitimate ways of leading a religious life: as a celibate student, a married householder, a forest hermit, and a world renouncer. In this, the first full-length study of the Ä Å›rama system, Olivelle uncovers its origin and traces its subsequent history. He examines in depth its relationship to other institutional and doctrinal aspects of the Brahmanical world and its position within Brahmanical theology, and assesses its significance within the history of Indian religion. Throughout, he argues that the Ä Å›rama system is primarily a theological construct and that the system and its history should be carefully distinguished from the socio-religious institutions comprehended by the system and from their respective histories.

Ideals, Images, and Real Lives

Author : Alice Thorner
Publisher : Orient Blackswan
ISBN 13 : 9788125008439
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis Ideals, Images, and Real Lives by : Alice Thorner

Download or read book Ideals, Images, and Real Lives written by Alice Thorner and published by Orient Blackswan. This book was released on 2000 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women studies as a distinct field emerged in India in the mid-seventies. But preoccupation with the position of women dates back to more than a century and a half. By the use of methods of history, literary criticism and analysis of discourse, this volume seeks not only to illustrate the broadening of the sphere of women studies in India in recent years, but also to point to the need for relating ideas about women and gender relations to the social and economic forces that shape history.

Ascetics of Kashi

Author : Surajit Sinha
Publisher : Varanasi : N.K. Bose Memorial Foundation
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Ascetics of Kashi by : Surajit Sinha

Download or read book Ascetics of Kashi written by Surajit Sinha and published by Varanasi : N.K. Bose Memorial Foundation. This book was released on 1978 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropological study of the Hindu ascetics of Varanasi.

Early Christian Dress

Author : Kristi Upson-Saia
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136655409
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (366 download)

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Book Synopsis Early Christian Dress by : Kristi Upson-Saia

Download or read book Early Christian Dress written by Kristi Upson-Saia and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-02-16 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early Christian Dress is the first full-length monograph on the subject of dress in early Christianity. It pays attention to the ways in which dress expressed and shaped Christian identity, the role dress played in Christians’ rivalries with pagan neighbours, and especially to the ways in which notions of gender were culled and revised in the process. Although many scholars have argued that gender in late antiquity was a performed and embodied category, few have paid attention to the ways in which dress and physical appearances were implicated in the understanding of femininity and masculinity. This study addresses that gap, revealing the amount of sartorial work necessary to secure stable gender categories in the worlds of early Imperial pagans and late ancient Christians. This study analyzes several vigorous discussions and debates that arose over Christian women’s dress. It examines how Christians interpreted their dress—especially the dress of female ascetics—as evidence of Christianity’s advanced morality and piety, a morality and piety that was coded "masculine." Yet even Christian leaders who championed ascetic women’s ability to achieve a degree of virility in terms of their virtue and spiritual status were troubled when ascetics’ dress threatened to materially dissolve gender categories, difference, and hierarchies. In the end, the study enables us to gain a broader view of how gender was constructed, perceived, and contested in early Christianity.

Introduction to Swaminarayan Hinduism

Author : Raymond Brady Williams
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108421148
Total Pages : 293 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis Introduction to Swaminarayan Hinduism by : Raymond Brady Williams

Download or read book Introduction to Swaminarayan Hinduism written by Raymond Brady Williams and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Introduction to Swaminarayan Hinduism, third edition, offers a comprehensive study of a contemporary form of Hinduism. Begun as a revival and reform movement in India 200 years ago, it has now become one of the fastest growing and most prominent forms of Hinduism. The Swaminarayan Hindu transnational network of temples and institutions is expanding in India, East Africa, the UK, USA, Australasia, and in other African and Asian cities. The devotion, rituals, and discipline taught by its founder, Sahajanand Swami (1781-1830) and elaborated by current leaders in major festivals, diverse media, and over the Internet, help preserve ethnic and religious identity in many modern cultural and political contexts. Swaminarayan Hinduism, here described through its history, divisions, leaders, theology and practices, provides valuable case studies of contemporary Hinduism, religion, migrants, and transnationalism. This new edition includes up-to-date information about growth, geographic expansion, leadership transitions, and impact of Swaminarayan institutions in India and abroad.