Revelry Rivalry And Longing For The Goddesses Of Bengal

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Revelry, Rivalry, and Longing for the Goddesses of Bengal

Author : Rachel Fell McDermott
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 023112919X
Total Pages : 392 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (311 download)

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Book Synopsis Revelry, Rivalry, and Longing for the Goddesses of Bengal by : Rachel Fell McDermott

Download or read book Revelry, Rivalry, and Longing for the Goddesses of Bengal written by Rachel Fell McDermott and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annually during the months of autumn, Bengal hosts three interlinked festivals to honor its most important goddesses: Durga, Kali, and Jagaddhatri. While each of these deities possesses a distinct iconography, myth, and character, they are all martial. Durga, Kali, and Jagaddhatri often demand blood sacrifice as part of their worship and offer material and spiritual benefits to their votaries. Richly represented in straw, clay, paint, and decoration, they are similarly displayed in elaborately festooned temples, thronged by thousands of admirers. The first book to recount the history of these festivals and their revelry, rivalry, and nostalgic power, this volume marks an unprecedented achievement in the mapping of a major public event. Rachel Fell McDermott describes the festivals' origins and growth under British rule. She identifies their iconographic conventions and carnivalesque qualities and their relationship to the fierce, Tantric sides of ritual practice. McDermott confronts controversies over the tradition of blood sacrifice and the status-seekers who compete for symbolic capital. Expanding her narrative, she takes readers beyond Bengal's borders to trace the transformation of the goddesses and their festivals across the world. McDermott's work underscores the role of holidays in cultural memory, specifically the Bengali evocation of an ideal, culturally rich past. Under the thrall of the goddess, the social, political, economic, and religious identity of Bengalis takes shape.

The Changing World of Caste and Hierarchy in Bengal

Author : Sudarshana Bhaumik
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000641430
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis The Changing World of Caste and Hierarchy in Bengal by : Sudarshana Bhaumik

Download or read book The Changing World of Caste and Hierarchy in Bengal written by Sudarshana Bhaumik and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-08-26 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book challenges the prevalent assumptions of caste, hierarchy and social mobility in pre-colonial and colonial Bengal. It studies the writings of colonial ethnographers, Orientalist scholars, Christian missionaries and pre-colonial literary texts like the Mangalkavyas to show how the concept of caste emerged and argues that the jati order in Bengal was far from being a rigidly reified structure, but one which had room for spatial and social mobility. The volume highlights the processes through which popular myths and beliefs of the lower caste orders of Bengal were Sanskritized. It delineates the linkages between sedantized peasant culture and the emergence of new agricultural castes in colonial Bengal. Moreover, the author discusses a wide spectrum of issues like marginality and hierarchy, the spread of Brahmanical hegemony, the creation of deities and the process of Sanskritization, popular Saivism, the cult of Manasa in Bengal and the revolt of 1857 and the caste question. Rich in archival sources, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of colonial history, Indian history, political sociology, caste studies, exclusion studies, cultural studies, social history, cultural history and South Asian studies, especially those interested in undivided Bengal.

The Making of Goddess Durga in Bengal: Art, Heritage and the Public

Author : Samir Kumar Das
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 9811602638
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (116 download)

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Book Synopsis The Making of Goddess Durga in Bengal: Art, Heritage and the Public by : Samir Kumar Das

Download or read book The Making of Goddess Durga in Bengal: Art, Heritage and the Public written by Samir Kumar Das and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-05-21 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the making of the Goddess Durga both as an art and as part of the intangible heritage of Bengal. As the ‘original site of production’ of unbaked clay idols of the Hindu Goddess Durga and other Gods and Goddesses, Kumartuli remains at the centre of such art and heritage. The art and heritage of Kumartuli have been facing challenges in a rapidly globalizing world that demands constant redefinition of ‘art’ with the invasion of market forces and migration of idol makers. As such, the book includes chapters on the evolution of idols, iconographic transformations, popular culture and how the public is constituted by the production and consumption of the works of art and heritage and finally the continuous shaping and reshaping of urban imaginaries and contestations over public space. It also investigates the caste group of Kumbhakars (Kumars or the idol makers), reflecting on the complex relation between inherited skill and artistry. Further, it explores how the social construction of art as ‘art’ introduces a tangled web of power asymmetries between ‘art’ and ‘craft’, between an ‘artist’ and an ‘artisan’, and between ‘appreciation’ and ‘consumption’, along with their implications for the articulation of market in particular and social relations in general. Since little has been written on this heritage hub beyond popular pamphlets, documents on town planning and travelogues, the book, written by authors from various fields, opens up cross-disciplinary conversations, situating itself at the interface between art history, sociology of aesthetics, politics and government, social history, cultural studies, social anthropology and archaeology. The book is aimed at a wide readership, including students, scholars, town planners, heritage preservationists, lawmakers and readers interested in heritage in general and Kumartuli in particular.

Reciting the Goddess

Author : Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190844558
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (98 download)

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Book Synopsis Reciting the Goddess by : Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz

Download or read book Reciting the Goddess written by Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reciting the Goddess presents the first critical study of the Svasthanivratakatha (SVK), a sixteenth-century Hindu narrative textual tradition. The extensive SVK manuscript tradition offers a rare opportunity to observe the making of a specific, distinct Hindu religious tradition. Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz argues that the SVK serves as a lens through which we can observe the creation of modern 'Hinduism' in the Himalayas, as the text both mirrored and informed key moments in the self-conscious creation of Nepal as the 'world's only Hindu kingdom' in the late medieval and early modern period. Birkenholtz mines the literary historiography that is contained within the SVK text itself, chronicling the text's literary and narrative development as well as the development of the Svasthani goddess tradition. She outlines the process whereby the SVK gradually transformed into a Purana text, and became a critical source for Nepali Hindu belief and identity. She also examines the elusive character of the goddess Svasthani whose identity is tied to the pan-Hindu goddess tradition, and the representation of women in the SVK and the ways in which the text influenced local and regional debates on the ideal of Hindu womanhood. Reciting the Goddess presents Nepal's celebrated SVK as a micro-level illustration of the powerful ways in which people, place, and literature intersect to produce new ideas and concepts of identity and place, even in a historically non-literate culture.

Historical Dictionary of the Bengalis

Author : Kunal Chakrabarti
Publisher : Scarecrow Press
ISBN 13 : 0810880245
Total Pages : 604 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 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Nine Nights of the Goddess

Author : Caleb Simmons
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 143847069X
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Nine Nights of the Goddess by : Caleb Simmons

Download or read book Nine Nights of the Goddess written by Caleb Simmons and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the contemporary nature and the diverse narratives, rituals, and performances of the Navar?tri festival. Nine Nights of the Goddess explores the festival of Navarātri—alternatively called Navarātra, Mahānavamī, Durgā Pūjā, Dasarā, and/or Dassain—which lasts for nine nights and ends with a celebration called Vijayadaśamī, or "the tenth (day) of victory." Celebrated in both massive public venues and in small, private domestic spaces, Navarātri is one of the most important and ubiquitous festivals in South Asia and wherever South Asians have settled. These festivals share many elements, including the goddess, royal power, the killing of demons, and the worship of young girls and married women, but their interpretation and performance vary widely. This interdisciplinary collection of essays investigates Navarātri in its many manifestations and across historical periods, including celebrations in West Bengal, Odisha, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Nepal. Collectively, the essays consider the role of the festival's contextual specificity and continental ubiquity as a central component for understanding South Asian religious life, as well as how it shapes and is shaped by political patronage, economic development, and social status.

The Many Faces of a Himalayan Goddess

Author : Ehud Halperin
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0190913584
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (99 download)

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Book Synopsis The Many Faces of a Himalayan Goddess by : Ehud Halperin

Download or read book The Many Faces of a Himalayan Goddess written by Ehud Halperin and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book offers a portrait of Haḍimbā, a primary village goddess in the Kullu Valley of the West Indian Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh, a rural area known as the Land of God. Drawing on diverse ethnographic and textual materials The Many Faces of a Himalayan Goddess is rich with myths and tales, accounts of dramatic rituals and festivals, and descriptions of everyday life in the celebrated but remote Kullu Valley. The book portrays the goddess in varying contexts that radiate outward from her temple to local, regional, national, and indeed global spheres. The result is an important contribution to the study of Indian village goddesses, lived Hinduism, Himalayan Hinduism, and the rapidly growing field of religion and ecology"--

Nine Nights of Power

Author : Ute Hüsken
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438484089
Total Pages : 293 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Nine Nights of Power by : Ute Hüsken

Download or read book Nine Nights of Power written by Ute Hüsken and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2021-10-01 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The autumnal Navarātri festival—also called Durgā Pūjā, Dassehra, or Dasain—is the most important Hindu festival in South Asia and wherever Hindus settle. A nine-night-long celebration in honor of the goddess Durgā, it ends on the tenth day with a celebration called "the victorious tenth" (vijayadaśamī). The rituals that take place in domestic, royal, and public spaces are closely connected with one's station in life and dependent on social status, economic class, caste, and gender issues. Exploring different aspects of the festival as celebrated in diverse regions of South Asia and in the South Asian diaspora, this book addresses the following common questions: What does this festival do? What does it achieve, and how? Why and in what way does it sometimes fail? How do mass communication and social media increase participation in and contribute to the changing nature of the festival? The contributors address these questions from multiple perspectives and discuss issues of agency, authority, ritual efficacy, change, appropriation, and adaptation. Because of the festival's reach beyond its diverse celebrations in South Asia, its influence can be seen in the rituals and dances in many parts of Western Europe and North America.

Devotional Visualities

Author : Karen Pechilis
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350214205
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Devotional Visualities by : Karen Pechilis

Download or read book Devotional Visualities written by Karen Pechilis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-09-21 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first to focus on material visualities of bhakti imagery that inspire, shape, convey, and expand both the visual practices of devotional communities, as well as possibilities for extending the reach of devotion in society in new and often unexpected ways. Communities of interpreters of bhakti images discussed in this book include not only a number of distinctive Hindu bhakti groups, but also artisans, diaspora women, South Asian Sufis, businessmen, dancers, and filmmakers. This book's identification of devotional practices of looking, such as materializing memory, mirroring and immaterializing portraits, and shaping the return look, connect material and visual cultures as well as illustrate modes of established and experimental image usage. Bhakti is one of the most-studied aspects of Indic devotionalism on account of its expression through emotive poetry, song, and vivid hagiographies of saints. The diverse devotional visualities analyzed in this book meaningfully circulate bhakti images in past and present, generating their renewed relationship to contemporary concerns.

Making Kantha, Making Home

Author : Pika Ghosh
Publisher : University of Washington Press
ISBN 13 : 0295747005
Total Pages : 275 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (957 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Kantha, Making Home by : Pika Ghosh

Download or read book Making Kantha, Making Home written by Pika Ghosh and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2020-07-15 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Bengal, mothers swaddle their infants and cover their beds in colorful textiles that are passed down through generations. They create these kantha from layers of soft, recycled fabric strengthened with running stitches and use them as shawls, covers, and seating mats. Making Kantha, Making Home explores the social worlds shaped by the Bengali kantha that survive from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the first study of colonial-period women’s embroidery that situates these objects historically and socially, Pika Ghosh brings technique and aesthetic choices into discussion with iconography and regional culture. Ghosh uses ethnographic and archival research, inscriptions, and images to locate embroiderers’ work within domestic networks and to show how imagery from poetry, drama, prints, and watercolors expresses kantha artists’ visual literacy. Affinities with older textile practices include the region’s lucrative maritime trade in embroideries with Europe, Africa, and China. This appraisal of individual objects alongside the people and stories behind the objects’ creation elevates kantha beyond consideration as mere handcraft to recognition as art.

How Secular is Art?

Author : Tapati Guha-Thakurta
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1009215272
Total Pages : 444 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis How Secular is Art? by : Tapati Guha-Thakurta

Download or read book How Secular is Art? written by Tapati Guha-Thakurta and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-31 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As an invitation to interrogate the secular modality of art, the book unsettles both the categories of 'art' and 'secular' in their theoretical and historical implications. It questions the temporal, spatial and cultural binaries between the 'sacred' and the 'secular' that have shaped art historical scholarship as well as artistic practice. All the essays here are anchored in a conception of a region, whether we call it South Asia or the Indian subcontinent - one, fissured by histories of partition, state formations and religious nationalisms, but still offering a collective site from which to speak to the disciplines of art and the knowledge worlds in which they are embedded. The book asks: How do we complicate the religious designations of pre-modern art and architecture and the new forms of their resurgence in contemporary iconographies and monuments? How do we re-conceptualize the public and the political, as fiery contestations and new curatorial practices reconfigure the meaning of art in the proliferating spaces of museums, galleries, biennales and festivals? How do we understand South Asian art's deep entanglements with the politics of the present?ing spaces of museums, galleries, biennales and festivals? How do we understand South Asian art's deep entanglements with the politics of the present?ing spaces of museums, galleries, biennales and festivals? How do we understand South Asian art's deep entanglements with the politics of the present?ing spaces of museums, galleries, biennales and festivals? How do we understand South Asian art's deep entanglements with the politics of the present?

Religious Diversity in Asia

Author : Jørn Borup
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004415815
Total Pages : 347 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (44 download)

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Book Synopsis Religious Diversity in Asia by : Jørn Borup

Download or read book Religious Diversity in Asia written by Jørn Borup and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology explores religious diversity in Asia seen through the lenses of history, identity, state, ritual and geography. The chapters furthermore address theoretical and methodological reflections using Asia as a laboratory for broader comparative research of 'religious diversity'.

Outrage

Author : Paul Rollier
Publisher : UCL Press
ISBN 13 : 1787355284
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (873 download)

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Book Synopsis Outrage by : Paul Rollier

Download or read book Outrage written by Paul Rollier and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2019-10 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether spurred by religious images or academic history books, hardly a day goes by in South Asia without an incident or court case occurring as a result of hurt religious feelings. The sharp rise in blasphemy accusations over the past few decades calls for an investigation into why offence politics has become so pronounced, and why it is observable across religious and political differences. Outrage offers an interdisciplinary study of this growing trend. Bringing together researchers in Anthropology, Religious Studies, Languages, South Asia Studies and History, all with rich experience in the variegated ways in which religion and politics intersect in this region, the volume presents a fine-grained analysis that navigates and unpacks the religious sensitivities and political concerns under discussion. Each chapter focuses on a recent case or context of alleged blasphemy or desecration in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, collectively exploring common denominators across national and religious differences. Among the common features are the rapid introduction of social media and smartphones, the possible political gains of initiating blasphemy accusations, and the growing self-assertion of marginal communities. These features are turning South Asia into a veritable flash point for offence controversies in the world today, and will be of interest to researchers exploring the intersection of religion and politics in South Asia and beyond.

A Hindu-Jewish Conversation

Author : Rachel Fell McDermott
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 1793646554
Total Pages : 331 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (936 download)

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Book Synopsis A Hindu-Jewish Conversation by : Rachel Fell McDermott

Download or read book A Hindu-Jewish Conversation written by Rachel Fell McDermott and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2024-02-15 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book engages historically and theologically with the Hindu and Jewish traditions, covering conceptions of the divine, religious heroes, women, devotional literature, theodicy, land, and nationalist claims on it, and social differentiation and oppression. Scholarly considerations are enriched with actual conversations between Hindus and Jews.

The Path of Desire

Author : Hugh B. Urban
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226831124
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (268 download)

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Book Synopsis The Path of Desire by : Hugh B. Urban

Download or read book The Path of Desire written by Hugh B. Urban and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the Western popular imagination, there is a singular association between Tantra and sex. But behind sensationalist stories of Tantric lovemaking lies a rich spiritual and textual tradition of which sexual union is only a small, and fiercely debated, part. In The Path of Desire, Hugh B. Urban takes us on an ethnographic journey to Assam, the heartland of Tantric practice in contemporary India, revealing the vibrant, dynamic lived tradition of Hindu Tantra. The Path of Desire expands our definition of kāma, a central concept of Tantra generally translated as "desire," to focus on mundane and worldly desires such as healing and childbearing. This more holistic notion of desire manifests itself in popular folk practice, which Urban categorizes in four forms: institutional Tantra, comprised of gurus, disciples, and esoteric rituals; public Tantra, involving offerings and temple celebrations; folk Tantra, focusing on practices of healing, protection, material wellbeing, and desire fulfillment; and pop Tantra, or how Tantra is portrayed in popular media such as paperbacks, comic books, and movies. The result is a nuanced understanding of Tantra as a diverse lived tradition"--

Dharma and Halacha

Author : Ithamar Theodor
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1498512801
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis Dharma and Halacha by : Ithamar Theodor

Download or read book Dharma and Halacha written by Ithamar Theodor and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-08-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work provides an anthology of close textual readings and examinations of a wide range of topics by leading scholars in interreligious scholarship and Hindu-Jewish dialogue, offering innovative approaches to categories such as ritual, sacrifice, ethics, and theology while underscoring affinities between Hindu and Jewish philosophy and religion

Hindu Approaches to Spiritual Care

Author : Lucinda Mosher
Publisher : Jessica Kingsley Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1785926063
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (859 download)

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Book Synopsis Hindu Approaches to Spiritual Care by : Lucinda Mosher

Download or read book Hindu Approaches to Spiritual Care written by Lucinda Mosher and published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. This book was released on 2019-10-21 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Showing how spiritual care is practiced in a variety of different contexts such as healthcare, detention and higher education, as well as settings that may not have formal chaplaincy arrangements, this book offers an original and unique resource for Hindu chaplains to understand and practice spiritual care in a way that is authentic to their own tradition and that meets the needs of Hindus. It offers a Hindu perspective for all chaplains to inform their caregiving to Hindus. The book explores the theological and metaphysical roots of Hindu chaplaincy and puts forward the case for Hindu chaplaincy as a valuable spiritual practice. It covers the issues that arise in specific locations, such as college, healthcare, prison, military and the corporate sector. Chapters also examine Hindu pastoral care offered in other, 'non-chaplaincy' settings, such as LGBT centres, social justice work and environmental activism. Made up of some 30 essays by chaplains, scholars and other important voices in the field, Hindu Approaches to Spiritual Care provides spiritual caregivers with a comprehensive theoretical and practical approach to the relationship of Hinduism and chaplaincy.