Spirit Possession

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Publisher : Central European University Press
ISBN 13 : 9633864143
Total Pages : 556 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (338 download)

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Book Synopsis Spirit Possession by : Éva Pócs

Download or read book Spirit Possession written by Éva Pócs and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-31 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Possession, a seemingly irrational phenomenon, has posed challenges to generations of scholars rooted in Western notions of body-soul dualism, self and personhood, and a whole set of presuppositions inherited from Christian models of possession that was “good” or “bad.” The authors of the essays in this book present a new and more promising approach. They conceive spirit possession as a form of communication, of expressivity, of culturally defined behavior that should be understood in the context of local, vernacular theories and empiric reflections. With the aim of reformulating the comparative anthropology of spirit possession, the editors have opened corridors between previously separate areas of research. Together, anthropologists and historians working on several historical periods and in different European, African, South American, and Asian cultural areas attempt to redefine the very concept of possession, freeing it from the Western notion of the self and more clearly delineating it from related matters such as witchcraft, devotion, or mysticism. The book also provides an overview of new research directions, including novel methods of participant observation and approaches to spirit possession as indigenous historiography

Lines in Water

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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.

Tales of Justice and Rituals of Divine Embodiment

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019932509X
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (993 download)

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Book Synopsis Tales of Justice and Rituals of Divine Embodiment by : Aditya Malik

Download or read book Tales of Justice and Rituals of Divine Embodiment written by Aditya Malik and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Central Himalayan region of Kumaon, Tales of Justice and Rituals of Divine Embodiment draws on oral and written narratives, stories, testimonies, and rituals told and performed in relation to the "God of Justice," Goludev, and other regional deities. The book seeks to answer several questions: How is the concept of justice defined in South Asia? Why do devotees seek out Goludev for the resolution of matters of justice instead of using the secular courts? What are the sociological and political consequences of situating divine justice within a secular, democratic, modern context? Moreover, how do human beings locate themselves within the indeterminateness and struggles of their everyday existence? What is the place of language and ritual in creating intimacy and self? How is justice linked to intimacy, truth, and being human? The stories and narratives in this book revolve around Goludev's own story and deeds, as well as hundreds of petitions (manauti) written on paper that devotees hang on his temple walls, and rituals (jagar) that involve spirit possession and the embodiment of the deity through designated mediums. The jagars are powerful, extraordinary experiences, mesmerizing because of their intensity but also because of what they imply in terms of how we conceptualize being human with the seemingly limitless potential to shift, alter, and transform ourselves through language and ritual practice. The petitions, though silent and absent of the singing, drumming, and choreography that accompany jagars, are equally powerful because of their candid and intimate testimony to the aspirations, breakdowns, struggles, and breakthroughs that circumscribe human existence.

Sins and Sinners

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Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004229469
Total Pages : 396 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (42 download)

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Book Synopsis Sins and Sinners by : Phyllis Granoff

Download or read book Sins and Sinners written by Phyllis Granoff and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-08-17 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sins and Sinners: Asian Perspectives brings together essays by leading scholars of Asian religions to explore the diversity of beliefs about sin and its remedies.

'Yogini' in South Asia

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135045828
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (35 download)

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Book Synopsis 'Yogini' in South Asia by : István Keul

Download or read book 'Yogini' in South Asia written by István Keul and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In different stages in the history of South Asian religions, the term yoginī has been used in various contexts to designate various things: a female adept of yoga, a female tantric practitioner, a sorceress, a woman dedicated to a deity, or a certain category of female deities. This book brings together recent interdisciplinary perspectives on the medieval South Asian cults of the Yoginis, such as textual-philological, historical, art historical, indological, anthropological, ritual and terminological. The book discusses the medieval yoginī cult, as illustrated in early Śaiva tantric texts, and their representations in South Asian temple iconography. It looks at the roles and hypostases of yoginīs in contemporary religious traditions, as well as the transformations of yoginī-related ritual practices. In addition, this book systematizes the multiple meanings, and proposes definitions of the concept and models for integrating the semantic fields of ‘yoginī.’ Highlighting the importance of research from complementary disciplines for the exploration of complex themes in South Asian studies, this book is of interest to scholars of South Asian Studies and Religious Studies.

The Modern Anthropology of India

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134061188
Total Pages : 546 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (34 download)

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Book Synopsis The Modern Anthropology of India by : Peter Berger

Download or read book The Modern Anthropology of India written by Peter Berger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-03 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Modern Anthropology of India is an accessible textbook providing a critical overview of the ethnographic work done in India since 1947. It assesses the history of research in each region and serves as a practical and comprehensive guide to the main themes dealt with by ethnographers. It highlights key analytical concepts and paradigms that came to be of relevance in particular regions in the recent history of research in India, and which possibly gained a pan-Indian or even trans-Indian significance. Structured according to the states of the Indian union, contributors raise several key questions, including: What themes were ethnographers interested in? What are the significant ethnographic contributions? How are peoples, communities and cultural areas represented? How has the ethnographic research in the area developed? Filling a significant gap in the literature, the book is an invaluable resource to students and researchers in the field of Indian anthropology/ethnography, regional anthropology and postcolonial studies. It is also of interest to students of South Asian studies in general as it provides an extensive and critical overview of regionally based ethnographic activity undertaken in India.

The Secret Life of Another Indian Nationalism

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108832571
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis The Secret Life of Another Indian Nationalism by : Shail Mayaram

Download or read book The Secret Life of Another Indian Nationalism written by Shail Mayaram and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-16 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It highlights shifts over two centuries as the geopolitical context has transitioned from the Pax Britannica to the Pax Americana.

Awakening a Living World on a Kūṭiyāṭṭam Stage

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Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438496931
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Awakening a Living World on a Kūṭiyāṭṭam Stage by : Einat Bar-On Cohen

Download or read book Awakening a Living World on a Kūṭiyāṭṭam Stage written by Einat Bar-On Cohen and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2024-03-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kūṭiyāṭṭam, an ancient form of Sanskrit theater from Kerala, was traditionally performed only in temples by members of two temple assistant castes. Today, however, it has spread to other castes and to venues outside temples. It is a fantastically complex, sophisticated, layered performance, toiling at amassing and perfecting ways of materializing a world where gods, demons, and mythical heroes live, bringing the audience into these other realities. Taking an anthropological approach, Awakening a Living World on a Kūṭiyāṭṭam Stage explores how Kūṭiyāṭṭam uses cultural dynamics, gleaned from temple ritual and theater, to remove the distinctions between mundane reality and the mediaeval plays being performed on stage. The unique features of Kūṭiyāṭṭam—makeup masks, enthralling drumming, delivering words in mudrā gestures, a shimmering lamp, male and female actors—all intertwine to animate stories from the great Indian eposes. Analyzing the cultural dynamics at work in Kūṭiyāṭṭam foregrounds a symbolic anthropology in which representation and symbols are shunned, while endless repetitions fill the stage with reverberating somatic intensities of profound depth. Thus, a new kind of living reality emerges that includes the protagonists of the play—gods, demons, humans, animals, and objects—together with the artist, the audience, and beyond.

Religious Transformation in Modern Asia

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Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004289712
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (42 download)

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Book Synopsis Religious Transformation in Modern Asia by :

Download or read book Religious Transformation in Modern Asia written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-02-24 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the religious transformation of each nation in modern Asia. When the Asian people, who were not only diverse in culture and history, but also active in performing local traditions and religions, experienced a socio-political change under the wave of Western colonialism, the religious climate was also altered from a transnational perspective. Part One explores the nationals of China (Taiwan), Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan, focusing on the manifestations of Japanese religion, Chinese foreign policy, the British educational system in Hong Kong in relation to Tibetan Buddhism, the Korean women of Catholicism, and the Scottish impact in late nineteenth century Korea. Part Two approaches South Asia through the topics of astrology, the works of a Gujarātī saint, and Himalayan Buddhism. The third part is focused on the conflicts between ‘indigenous religions and colonialism,’ ‘Buddhism and Christianity,’ ‘Islam and imperialism,’ and ‘Hinduism and Christianity’ in Southeast Asia.

God of Justice

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199714673
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis God of Justice by : William S Sax

Download or read book God of Justice written by William S Sax and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-02 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In God of Justice, anthropologist William S. Sax offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of cursing, black magic, and ritual healing in the Central Himalayas of North India. Based on ten years' ethnographic fieldwork, God of Justice shows how these practices are part of a moral system based on the principle of family unity.

The Anthropology of Christianity

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Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822388154
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

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Book Synopsis The Anthropology of Christianity by : Fenella Cannell

Download or read book The Anthropology of Christianity written by Fenella Cannell and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2006-11-07 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection provides vivid ethnographic explorations of particular, local Christianities as they are experienced by different groups around the world. At the same time, the contributors, all anthropologists, rethink the vexed relationship between anthropology and Christianity. As Fenella Cannell contends in her powerful introduction, Christianity is the critical “repressed” of anthropology. To a great extent, anthropology first defined itself as a rational, empirically based enterprise quite different from theology. The theology it repudiated was, for the most part, Christian. Cannell asserts that anthropological theory carries within it ideas profoundly shaped by this rejection. Because of this, anthropology has been less successful in considering Christianity as an ethnographic object than it has in considering other religions. This collection is designed to advance a more subtle and less self-limiting anthropological study of Christianity. The contributors examine the contours of Christianity among diverse groups: Catholics in India, the Philippines, and Bolivia, and Seventh-Day Adventists in Madagascar; the Swedish branch of Word of Life, a charismatic church based in the United States; and Protestants in Amazonia, Melanesia, and Indonesia. Highlighting the wide variation in what it means to be Christian, the contributors reveal vastly different understandings and valuations of conversion, orthodoxy, Scripture, the inspired word, ritual, gifts, and the concept of heaven. In the process they bring to light how local Christian practices and beliefs are affected by encounters with colonialism and modernity, by the opposition between Catholicism and Protestantism, and by the proximity of other religions and belief systems. Together the contributors show that it not sufficient for anthropologists to assume that they know in advance what the Christian experience is; each local variation must be encountered on its own terms. Contributors. Cecilia Busby, Fenella Cannell, Simon Coleman, Peter Gow, Olivia Harris, Webb Keane, Eva Keller, David Mosse, Danilyn Rutherford, Christina Toren, Harvey Whitehouse

The Divine and the Demonic

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134431104
Total Pages : 207 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (344 download)

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Book Synopsis The Divine and the Demonic by : Dr Graham Dwyer

Download or read book The Divine and the Demonic written by Dr Graham Dwyer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-08-29 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focuses on supernatural affliction - illness and misfortune ascribed to demonic spirits or ghosts and to other mystical agents, such as sorcerers and witches.

Sinister Yogis

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226895157
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (268 download)

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Book Synopsis Sinister Yogis by : David Gordon White

Download or read book Sinister Yogis written by David Gordon White and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-07-15 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1960s, yoga has become a billion-dollar industry in the West, attracting housewives and hipsters, New Agers and the old-aged. But our modern conception of yoga derives much from nineteenth-century European spirituality, and the true story of yoga’s origins in South Asia is far richer, stranger, and more entertaining than most of us realize. To uncover this history, David Gordon White focuses on yoga’s practitioners. Combing through millennia of South Asia’s vast and diverse literature, he discovers that yogis are usually portrayed as wonder-workers or sorcerers who use their dangerous supernatural abilities—which can include raising the dead, possession, and levitation—to acquire power, wealth, and sexual gratification. As White shows, even those yogis who aren’t downright villainous bear little resemblance to Western assumptions about them. At turns rollicking and sophisticated, Sinister Yogis tears down the image of yogis as detached, contemplative teachers, finally placing them in their proper context.

Landscape, Ritual and Identity among the Hyolmo of Nepal

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317108159
Total Pages : 227 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (171 download)

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Book Synopsis Landscape, Ritual and Identity among the Hyolmo of Nepal by : Davide Torri

Download or read book Landscape, Ritual and Identity among the Hyolmo of Nepal written by Davide Torri and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-03-20 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses the social, political and religious life of the Hyolmo people of Nepal. Highlighting patterns of change and adaptation, it addresses the Shamanic-Buddhist interface that exists in the animated landscape of the Himalayas. Opening with an analysis of the ethnic revival of Nepal, the book first considers the Himalayan religious landscape and its people. Specific attention is then given to Helambu, home of the Hyolmo people, within the framework of Tibetan Buddhism. The discussion then turns to the persisting shamanic tradition of the region and the ritual dynamics of Hyolmo culture. The book concludes by considering broader questions of Hyolmo identity in the Nepalese context, as well as reflecting on the interconnection of landscape, ritual and identity. Offering a unique insight into a fascinating Himalayan culture and its formation, this book will be of great interest to scholars of indigenous peoples and religion across religious studies, Buddhist studies, cultural anthropology and South Asian studies.

Promising Rituals

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Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000059227
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Promising Rituals by : Beatrix Hauser

Download or read book Promising Rituals written by Beatrix Hauser and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2020-11-29 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how the performance of rituals influences the understanding that Hindu women form of their own selves, their sense of femininity, identity as well as their role and position in the lived-in world, and vice versa. Drawn from an intensive ethnographic fieldwork in southern Orissa, each section of the book takes a close look at a specific ritual practice, in exploring concepts such as purity/pollution, religious observances (such as fasting), deity possession, associated beliefs and attitudes, as also celebrated traditions such as Thākurānī Yātrā, local processions, and the role of female ritual specialists. The study uses the premise that religious practices in themselves are neither restricting nor liberating; rather rituals provide a perceptual context with the ability to affect the self-understanding of participants, as also their conception of agency, in a way that spills across non-ritual spheres. Conceptualizing gender identity as resulting from seen, but mostly unnoticed, everyday activities and approaching cultural performances as sites of collectively defining the self, the author offers a telling and vivid account of how women perceive, realize and reflect on religious ideas, while engaging in rituals and, by doing so, negotiate complex gender norms. The book also examines the assumptions of recent theories on the social construction of identities, often-debated impact of religion on women, performativity, self-identity, and ritual agency in considering ‘doing’ gender in a traditional, non-Western context. This book will serve as essential reading for scholars of sociology, anthropology, gender studies, cultural studies, history, religion, performance, and folklore studies.

Modernity and Spirit Worship in India

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000740919
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Modernity and Spirit Worship in India by : Miho Ishii

Download or read book Modernity and Spirit Worship in India written by Miho Ishii and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-06 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the entangled relations between people’s daily worship practices and their umwelt in South India. Focusing on the practices of spirit (būta) worship in the coastal area of Karnataka, it examines the relationship between people and deities. Based on extensive fieldwork, this book links important anthropological theories on personhood, perspectives, transactions, and gift-exchanges together with the Gestaltkreis theory of Viktor von Weizsäcker. First, it examines the relations between būta worship and land tenure, matriliny, and hierarchy in the society. It then explores the reflexive relationship between modern law and current practices based on conventional law, before examining new developments in būta worship with the rise of mega-industries and environmental movements. Furthermore, this book sheds light on the struggles and endeavours of the people who create and recreate their relations with the realm of sacred wildness, as well as the formations and transformations of the umwelt in perpetual social-political transition. Modernity and Spirit Worship in India will be of interest to academics in the field of anthropology, religious studies and the dynamics of religion, and South Asian Culture and Society.

Engendering the Buddhist State

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317218205
Total Pages : 221 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (172 download)

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Book Synopsis Engendering the Buddhist State by : Ashley Thompson

Download or read book Engendering the Buddhist State written by Ashley Thompson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing from more than a decade of field and archival research, this monograph concerns Cambodian cultural history and historiography, with an ultimate aim of broadening and deepening bases for understanding the Cambodian Theravadin politico-cultural complex. The book takes the form of an interdisciplinary analysis of performative and representational strategies for constituting social collectivities, largely developed at Angkor. The analysis involves extended close readings of a wide range of cultural artefacts including epigraphic and manuscript texts, sculpture and ritual practices. The author proposes a critical re-evaluation of dominant paradigms of Cambodian historiography in view of engendering new histories, or hybrid histories, which make room for previously absent perspectives and voices, while developing new theoretical tools engaging with and partially derived from "indigenous" narrative practices in the broadest sense. In this history-making process the historical event is shown to never be entirely separable from its aesthetic representation. Particular attention is paid to the roles of sexual difference in such (re)constructions of history. The book presents a theory of power capable of accounting for the historical phenomena by which vernacular cultures appropriate, subvert and submit to cosmopolitan forces. It charts out a novel approach to the study of classical Southeast Asian materials, and is of interest to students and scholars of Asian Art, Religion and Philosophy, Buddhism and Southeast Asian History.