The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden

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Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141907932
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (419 download)

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Book Synopsis The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden by : Phyllis Granoff

Download or read book The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden written by Phyllis Granoff and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2006-10-26 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stories collected in this volume reflect the rich tradition of medieval Jain storytelling between the seventh and fifteenth centuries, from simple folk tales and lives of famous monks to sophisticated narratives of rebirth. They describe they ways in which a path to peace and bliss can be found, either by renouncing the world or by following Jain ethics of non-violence, honesty, moderation and fidelity. Here are stories depicting the painful consequences when a loved one chooses life as a monk, the triumph of Jain women who win over their husbands to their religion, or the rewards of a simple act of piety. The volume ends with an account of vice and virtue, which depict the thieving and destructive passions lurking in the forest of life, ready to rob the unsuspecting traveller of reason and virtue.

The Concept of Bharatavarsha and Other Essays

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Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438471769
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis The Concept of Bharatavarsha and Other Essays by : B. D. Chattopadhyaya

Download or read book The Concept of Bharatavarsha and Other Essays written by B. D. Chattopadhyaya and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This exploration of key terms related to social and political order, found in early Indian texts, challenges the idea of a unified ancient India and a unified national identity at that time. This collection explores what may be called the idea of India in ancient times. Its undeclared objective is to identify key concepts which show early Indian civilization as distinct and differently oriented from other formations. The essays focus on ancient Indian texts within a variety of genres. They identify certain key terms—such as janapada, desa, varṇa, dharma, bhāva—in their empirical contexts to suggest that neither the ideas embedded in these terms nor the idea of Bharatavarsha as a whole are “given entities,” but that they evolved historically. Professor Chattopadhyaya examines these texts to unveil historical processes. Without denying comparative history, he stresses that the internal dynamics of a society are best decoded via its own texts. His approach bears very effectively on understanding ongoing interactions between India’s “Great Tradition” and “Little Traditions.” As a whole, this book is critical of the notion of overarching Indian unity in the ancient period. It punctures the retrospective thrust of hegemonic nationalism as an ideology that has obscured the diverse textures of Indian civilization. Renowned for his scholarship on the ancient Indian past, Professor Chattopadhyaya’s latest collection only consolidates his high international reputation. B. D. Chattopadhyaya retired as Professor of History, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His work on ancient India has been widely acknowledged. His many books include The Oxford India Kosambi: Combined Methods in Indology and Other Writings; Studying Early India: Archaeology, Texts, and Historical Issues; and The Making of Early Medieval India.

Jainism and Ecology

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Publisher : Motilal Banarsidass Publishe
ISBN 13 : 9788120820456
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (24 download)

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Book Synopsis Jainism and Ecology by : Christopher Key Chapple

Download or read book Jainism and Ecology written by Christopher Key Chapple and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishe. This book was released on 2006 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

A Cultural History of Plants in the Post-Classical Era

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350259284
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis A Cultural History of Plants in the Post-Classical Era by : Alain Touwaide

Download or read book A Cultural History of Plants in the Post-Classical Era written by Alain Touwaide and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-12-14 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Cultural History of Plants in the Post-Classical Era covers the period from 500 to 1400, ranging across northern and central Europe to the Mediterranean, and from the Byzantine and Arabic Empires to the Persian World, India, and China. This was an age of empires and fluctuating borders, presenting a changing mosaic of environments, populations, and cultural practices. Many of the ancient uses and meanings of plants were preserved, but these were overlaid with new developments in agriculture, landscapes, medicine, eating habits, and art. The six-volume set of the Cultural History of Plants presents the first comprehensive history of the uses and meanings of plants from prehistory to today. The themes covered in each volume are plants as staple foods; plants as luxury foods; trade and exploration; plant technology and science; plants and medicine; plants in culture; plants as natural ornaments; the representation of plants. Alain Touwaide is Scientific Director at the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions, Washington, D.C., USA. A Cultural History of Plants in the Post-Classical Era is the second volume in the six-volume set, A Cultural History of Plants, also available online as part of Bloomsbury Cultural History, a fully-searchable digital library (see www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com). General Editors: Annette Giesecke, University of Delaware, USA, and David Mabberley, University of Oxford, UK.

Jain Rāmāyaṇa Narratives

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000584143
Total Pages : 196 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Jain Rāmāyaṇa Narratives by : Gregory M. Clines

Download or read book Jain Rāmāyaṇa Narratives written by Gregory M. Clines and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-04-28 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jain Rāmāyaṇa Narratives: Moral Vision and Literary Innovation traces how and why Jain authors at different points in history rewrote the story of Rāma and situates these texts within larger frameworks of South Asian religious history and literature. The book argues that the plot, characters, and the very history of Jain Rāma composition itself served as a continual font of inspiration for authors to create and express novel visions of moral personhood. In making this argument, the book examines three versions of the Rāma story composed by two authors, separated in time and space by over 800 years and thousands of miles. The first is Raviṣeṇa, who composed the Sanskrit Padmapurāṇa (“The Deeds of Padma”), and the second is Brahma Jinadāsa, author of both a Sanskrit Padmapurāṇa and a vernacular (bhāṣā) version of the story titled Rām Rās (“The Story of Rām”). While the three compositions narrate the same basic story and work to shape ethical subjects, they do so in different ways and with different visions of what a moral person actually is. A close comparative reading focused on the differences between these three texts reveals the diverse visions of moral personhood held by Jains in premodernity and demonstrates the innovative narrative strategies authors utilized in order to actualize those visions. The book is thus a valuable contribution to the fields of Jain studies and religion and literature in premodern South Asia.

Cities, and Thrones, and Powers

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Publisher : Angelico Press
ISBN 13 : 1621388557
Total Pages : 309 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (213 download)

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Book Synopsis Cities, and Thrones, and Powers by : Stephen R. L. Clark

Download or read book Cities, and Thrones, and Powers written by Stephen R. L. Clark and published by Angelico Press. This book was released on 2022-06-29 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would a "reappeared" Plotinus answer today if asked how we might build a divinely-ordered city? That is the question at the core of this unique book, and Stephen Clark takes us on a wide-ranging deep dive to uncover possible answers. To do so, he first gives an account of the Plotinian philosophy of mind and metaphysics, showing how Plotinus nicely balances the entanglement of soul-body composites (our immediate identities) with the workings of the World Soul and the eternal soul that animates "from within." Drawing on later Christian and Islamic interpretations of the Neoplatonic tradition, and parallel developments in Hindu thought, he then describes the various social forms that seem to be the inevitable context of our lives here and now. Furthermore, we discover that the form a Plotinian religion adopts depends on taking seriously the thought of reincarnating souls and wandering hermits, but now with the difference in our time that, although some sages may be content to consider themselves simple wanderers in a world without borders or settled communities, some will follow the same path as Buddhists, Epicureans, and Christians: forming communities of friends loyal to their founder and to the fellowship of the Sangha. We learn as well that in due course even those among the hermits who prefer to go, almost literally, "alone to the Alone" will become part of dispersed, unhierarchical communities. Finally, Clark offers cautious thoughts about our likely futures, dependent both on current technological advances and on the realistic suspicion (shared by our predecessors) that catastrophes and wholly unexpected turns are always to be expected.

Indian Asceticism

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0190225327
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis Indian Asceticism by : Carl Olson

Download or read book Indian Asceticism written by Carl Olson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the history of Indian religions, the ascetic figure is most closely identified with power. A by-product of the ascetic path, power is displayed in the ability to fly, walk on water or through dense objects, read minds, discern the former lives of others, see into the future, harm others, or simply levitate one's body. These tales give rise to questions about how power and violence are related to the phenomenon of play. Indian Asceticism focuses on the powers exhibited by ascetics of India from ancient to modern time. Carl Olson discusses the erotic, the demonic, the comic, and the miraculous forms of play and their connections to power and violence. He focuses on Hinduism, but evidence is also presented from Buddhism and Jainism, suggesting that the subject matter of this book pervades India's major indigenous religious traditions. The book includes a look at the extent to which findings in cognitive science can add to our understanding of these various powers; Olson argues that violence is built into the practice of the ascetic.Indian Asceticism culminates with an attempt to rethink the nature of power in a way that does justice to the literary evidence from Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain sources.

Sandalwood and Carrion

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199996245
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (999 download)

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Book Synopsis Sandalwood and Carrion by : James McHugh

Download or read book Sandalwood and Carrion written by James McHugh and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-16 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James McHugh offers the first comprehensive examination of the concepts and practices related to smell in pre-modern India. Drawing on a wide range of textual sources, from poetry to medical texts, he shows the significant religious and cultural role of smell in India throughout the first millennium CE. McHugh describes the arts of perfumery developed in royal courts, temples, and monasteries, which were connected to a trade in exotic aromatics. Through their transformative nature, perfumes played an important part in every aspect of Indian life from seduction to diplomacy and religion. The aesthetics of smell dictated many of the materials, practices, and ceremonies associated with India's religious culture. McHugh shows how religious discourses on the purpose of life emphasized the pleasures of the senses, including olfactory experience, as valid ends in themselves. Fragrances and stenches were analogous to certain values, aesthetic or ethical, and in a system where karmic results often had a sensory impact-where evil literally stank-the ethical and aesthetic became difficult to distinguish. Through the study of smell, McHugh strengthens our understanding of the vital connection between the theological and the physical world. Sandalwood and Carrion explores smell in pre-modern India from many perspectives, covering such topics as philosophical accounts of smell perception, odors in literature, the history of perfumery in India, the significance of sandalwood in Buddhism, and the divine offering of perfume to the gods.

The Penguin Classics Book

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Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0141990937
Total Pages : 1904 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (419 download)

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Book Synopsis The Penguin Classics Book by : Henry Eliot

Download or read book The Penguin Classics Book written by Henry Eliot and published by Random House. This book was released on 2019-02-21 with total page 1904 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Penguin Classics is the largest and best-known classics imprint in the world. From The Epic of Gilgamesh to the poetry of the First World War, and covering all the greatest works of fiction, poetry, drama, history and philosophy in between, this reader's companion encompasses 500 authors, 1,200 books and 4,000 years of world literature. Stuffed full of stories, author biographies, book summaries and recommendations, and illustrated with thousands of historic Penguin Classic covers, this is an exhilarating and comprehensive guide for anyone who wants to explore and discover the best books ever written.

Pradyumna

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Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0190054115
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Pradyumna by : Christopher R. Austin

Download or read book Pradyumna written by Christopher R. Austin and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides the first full-scale English-language study of Pradyumna, the son of the Hindu god Krsna. Often represented as a young man in mid-adolescence, Pradyumna is both a handsome double of his demon-slaying father and the rebirth of Kamadeva, the God of Love. Sanskrit epic, puranic, and kavya narratives of the 300-1300 CE period celebrate Pradyumna's sexual potency, mastery of illusory subterfuges, and military prowess in supporting the work of his avatara father. These materials reflect the values of an evolving Brahminical and Vaisnava tradition that was deeply invested in the imperatives of family, patrilines, the violent but necessary defense of the social and cosmic order, and the celebration of beauty and desire as a means to the divine. Pradyumna's evolving narratives, almost completely absent from existing studies of Hindu mythology, provide a point of access to the development of Krsna bhakti and Vaisnava theism more broadly. Conversely, Jain sources cast Pradyumna as an exemplary figure through whom a pointed rejection of these values can be articulated, even while sharing certain of their elementary premises. Pradyumna: Lover, Magician, and Scion of the Avatara assembles these narratives, presents key Sanskrit materials in translation and summary form, and articulates the social, gender, and religious values encoded in them. Most importantly, the study argues that Pradyumna's signature two-handed maneuver--the audacious appropriation of a feminine partner, enabled by the emasculating destruction of her demonic male protector--communicates a persistent fantasy of male power expressed in the language of a mutually implicating sex and violence.

Jainism

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0857713922
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (577 download)

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Book Synopsis Jainism by : Jeffery D. Long

Download or read book Jainism written by Jeffery D. Long and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-03-22 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jainism evokes images of monks wearing face-masks to protect insects and mico-organisms from being inhaled. Or of Jains sweeping the ground in front of them to ensure that living creatures are not inadvertently crushed: a practice of non-violence so radical as to defy easy comprehension. Yet for all its apparent exoticism, Jainism is still little understood in the West. What is this mysterious philosophy which originated in the 6th century BCE, whose absolute requirement is vegetarianism, and which now commands a following of four million adherents both in its native India and diaspora communities across the globe?In his welcome new treatment of the Jain religion, Long makes an ancient tradition fully intelligible to the modern reader. Plunging back more than two and a half millennia, to the plains of northern India and the life of a prince who - much like the Buddha - gave up a life of luxury to pursue enlightenment, Long traces the history of the Jain community from founding sage Mahavira to the present day. He explores asceticism, worship, the life of the Jain layperson, relations between Jainism and other Indic traditions, the Jain philosophy of relativity, and the implications of Jain ideals for the contemporary world. The book presents Jainism in a way that is authentic and engaging to specialists and non-specialists alike.

The Jains

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 113450165X
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (345 download)

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Book Synopsis The Jains by : Paul Dundas

Download or read book The Jains written by Paul Dundas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Indian religion of Jainism, whose central tenet involves non-violence to all creatures, is one of the world's oldest and least-understood faiths. Dundas looks at Jainism in its social and doctrinal context, explaining its history, sects, scriptures and ritual, and describing how the Jains have, over 2500 years, defined themselves as a unique religious community. This revised and expanded edition takes account of new research into Jainism.

Parables in Changing Contexts

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004417524
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (44 download)

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Book Synopsis Parables in Changing Contexts by : Marcel Poorthuis

Download or read book Parables in Changing Contexts written by Marcel Poorthuis and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-12-30 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Parables in Changing Contexts, new venues in the comparative study of parables are addressed by scholars of Judaism, New Testament, Buddhism and Islam. Essays cover parables in the synoptic Gospels, Rabbinic midrash, and parabolic tales and fables in the Babylonian Talmud.

Yoga Powers

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004214313
Total Pages : 532 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (42 download)

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Book Synopsis Yoga Powers by : Knut A. Jacobsen

Download or read book Yoga Powers written by Knut A. Jacobsen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-10-06 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book offers a number of new insights in the history of yoga powers in the South Asian religious traditions, analyzes the position of the powers in the salvific process and in conceptions of divinity, and explores the rational explanations of the powers provided by the traditions.

The Self Possessed

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Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231510659
Total Pages : 732 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis The Self Possessed by : Frederick M. Smith

Download or read book The Self Possessed written by Frederick M. Smith and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2006-12-05 with total page 732 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Self Possessed is a multifaceted, diachronic study reconsidering the very nature of religion in South Asia, the culmination of years of intensive research. Frederick M. Smith proposes that positive oracular or ecstatic possession is the most common form of spiritual expression in India, and that it has been linguistically distinguished from negative, disease-producing possession for thousands of years. In South Asia possession has always been broader and more diverse than in the West, where it has been almost entirely characterized as "demonic." At best, spirit possession has been regarded as a medically treatable psychological ailment and at worst, as a condition that requires exorcism or punishment. In South (and East) Asia, ecstatic or oracular possession has been widely practiced throughout history, occupying a position of respect in early and recent Hinduism and in certain forms of Buddhism. Smith analyzes Indic literature from all ages-the earliest Vedic texts; the Mahabharata; Buddhist, Jain, Yogic, Ayurvedic, and Tantric texts; Hindu devotional literature; Sanskrit drama and narrative literature; and more than a hundred ethnographies. He identifies several forms of possession, including festival, initiatory, oracular, and devotional, and demonstrates their multivocality within a wide range of sects and religious identities. Possession is common among both men and women and is practiced by members of all social and caste strata. Smith theorizes on notions of embodiment, disembodiment, selfhood, personal identity, and other key issues through the prism of possession, redefining the relationship between Sanskritic and vernacular culture and between elite and popular religion. Smith's study is also comparative, introducing considerable material from Tibet, classical China, modern America, and elsewhere. Brilliant and persuasive, The Self Possessed provides careful new translations of rare material and is the most comprehensive study in any language on this subject.

Nagabharana: Recent Trends in Jainism Studies

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Author :
Publisher : Blue Rose Publishers
ISBN 13 : 9356114463
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (561 download)

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Book Synopsis Nagabharana: Recent Trends in Jainism Studies by : Prof.Dr.PEDARAPU CHENNA REDDY

Download or read book Nagabharana: Recent Trends in Jainism Studies written by Prof.Dr.PEDARAPU CHENNA REDDY and published by Blue Rose Publishers. This book was released on 2022-02-24 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Historical Dictionary of Jainism

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Author :
Publisher : Scarecrow Press
ISBN 13 : 0810865580
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (18 download)

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Book Synopsis Historical Dictionary of Jainism by : Kristi L. Wiley

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Jainism written by Kristi L. Wiley and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2004-07-08 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the history of Jainism that spans a period of more than 2,500 years. The history, values, concepts and scriptures, eminent mendicant and lay leaders and scholars, places, institutions, and social and cultural factors are covered in over 600 dictionary entries. This comprehensive reference work also includes an introductory essay, explanation of the Jain scriptures, chronology, appendices, bibliography, and an 8-page black-and-white photo spread.