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Womens Renunciation In South Asia
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Book Synopsis Women's Renunciation in South Asia by : Ann Grodzins Gold
Download or read book Women's Renunciation in South Asia written by Ann Grodzins Gold and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2006-09-03 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together new ethnographic research on South Asian women who have abandoned worldly life for spiritual pursuits. All have renounced some combination of the following: marriage, sex, procreation, kin, financial security, concern with beauty, and sensual pleasures. Documenting contemporary women’s experiences with intimate ethnographic narratives, this book offers feminist insights into Jain, Buddhist, Hindu, and Baul ascetic traditions. This collection also considers the hardships endured by women committed to religious paths more commonly taken by men and offers a refreshing antidote to the relentless image of South Asian women as dependent on male kin and defined by their sexual and procreative roles.
Book Synopsis Nuns, Yoginis, Saints, and Singers by : Meena Khandelwal
Download or read book Nuns, Yoginis, Saints, and Singers written by Meena Khandelwal and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vividly Showcasing New Ethnographic Research On Extraordinary South Asian Women Who Have Abandoned Worldly Life For Spiritual Pursuits, The Contributors To This Collection Offer Feminist Insights Into Jain, Buddhist, Hindu, Baud, And Bon Ascetic Traditions. With Intimate Narratives Documenting Contemporary Women S Experience, Contributors Explore The Lives Of Women Who Have Renounced Involvements Such As Sex, Financial Security, Kin, And The Pursuit Of Beauty, In Favour Of Higher Religious And Spiritual Ideals. The Authors Consider The Hardships Endured By Women Committed To Religious Paths More Commonly Taken By Men And Warn Against Any Easy Romanticization Of These Women S Lives. At The Same Time, The Book Offers A Refreshing Antidote To The Relentless Image Of South Asian Women As Dependent On Male Kin And Defined By Their Sexual And Procreative Roles.
Book Synopsis Women's Renunciation in South Asia by : M. Khandelwal
Download or read book Women's Renunciation in South Asia written by M. Khandelwal and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-30 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together compelling new research on South Asian women who have renounced worldly life for spiritual pursuits. Documenting contemporary women's experiences with intimate ethnographic narratives, this book offers feminist insights into Jain, Buddhist, Hindu and Baul ascetic traditions.
Book Synopsis Women, Religion and the Body in South Asia by : Kristin Hanssen
Download or read book Women, Religion and the Body in South Asia written by Kristin Hanssen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Noted for their haunting melodies and enigmatic lyrics, Bauls have been portrayed as spiritually enlightened troubadours traveling around the countryside in West Bengal in India and in Bangladesh. As emblems of Bengali culture, Bauls have long been a subject of scholarly debates which center on their esoteric practices, and middle class imaginaries of the category Baul. Adding to this literature, the intimate ethnography presented in this book recounts the life stories of members from a single family, shining light on their past and present tribulations bound up with being poor and of a lowly caste. It shows that taking up the Baul path is a means of softening the stigma of their lower caste identity in that religious practice, where women play a key role, renders the body pure. The path is also a source of monetary income in that begging is considered part of their vocation. For women, the Baul path has the added implication of lessening constraints of gender. While the book describes a family of singers, it also portrays the wider society in which they live, showing how their lives connect and interlace with other villagers, a theme not previously explored in literature on Bauls. A novel approach to the study of women, the body and religion, this book will be of interest to undergraduates and graduates in the field of the anthropology. In addition, it will appeal to students of everyday religious lives as experienced by the poor, through case studies in South Asia. The book provides further evidence that renunciation in South Asia is not a uniform path, despite claims to the contrary. There is also a special interest in Bauls among those familiar with the Bengali speaking region. While this book speaks to that interest, its wider appeal lies in the light it sheds on religion, the body, life histories, and poverty.
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.
Book Synopsis Everyday Life in South Asia by : Diane P. Mines
Download or read book Everyday Life in South Asia written by Diane P. Mines and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 581 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the peoples and cultures of South Asia
Book Synopsis Women in Ochre Robes by : Meena Khandelwal
Download or read book Women in Ochre Robes written by Meena Khandelwal and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focuses on the lives of female Hindu ascetics and the significance of gender to the tradition of renunciation. Meena Khandelwal offers an engaging and intimate portrait of extraordinary Hindu women in India who wear "ochre robes," signifying their renunciation of marriage and family for lives of celibacy, asceticism, and spiritual discipline. While the largely male Hindu ascetic tradition of sannyasa renders its initiates ritually "dead" to their previous identities, the women portrayed here are very much alive. They struggle with, and joke about, the tensions and ironies of living in the world while trying not to be of it. Khandelwal juxtaposes the common refrain that "in renunciation there is no male and female" with arguments that underscore the importance of gender. In exploring these apparent contradictions, she brings together worldly and otherworldly values within renunciation and argues that these create tensions that are at once emotional, social, and philosophical. Women in Ochre Robes is a fascinating travelogue of a pilgrimage into the women-centered ashrams of the hoary pilgrim town of Haridwar Unlike similar academic studies, it locates the researcher squarely in the midst of her subjects. This methodology is refreshing. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute a delightful book compelling and revealing. Religious Studies Review "This book provides richly detailed accounts of the author's many months living with, observing, and interacting with sannyasinis, their followers, and fellow ascetics. Descriptions of daily life at the ashrams; reports of long conversations; attention to the details of place, dress, food and its preparation; and the descriptions of visitors all help create vivid pictures of the lives of the sannyasinis." Anne Mackenzie Pearson, author of Because It Gives Me Peace of Mind: Ritual Fasts in the Religious Lives of Hindu Women "This is a delightfully readable, thoroughly original, and wonderfully insightful work. Not only does it offer invaluable new visions of the under-studied topic of female renouncers in Hindu traditions, but it also illuminates South Asian gender constructs in general, as well as the broader relationship between householders and renouncers that has long fascinated observers of Indian society." Ann Grodzins Gold, author of A Carnival of Parting
Book Synopsis The Guru in South Asia by : Jacob Copeman
Download or read book The Guru in South Asia written by Jacob Copeman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a set of fresh and compelling interdisciplinary approaches to the enduring phenomenon of the guru in South Asia. Moving across different gurus and kinds of gurus, and between past and present, the chapters call attention to the extraordinary scope and richness of the social lives and roles of South Asian gurus. Prevailing scholarship has rightly considered the guru to be a source of religious and philosophical knowledge and mystical bodily practices. This book goes further and considers the social engagements and entanglements of these spiritual leaders, not just on their own (narrowly denominational) terms, but in terms of their diverse, complex, rapidly evolving engagements with ‘society’ broadly conceived. The book explores and illuminates the significance of female gurus, gurus from the perspective of Islam, imbrications of guru-ship and slavery in pre-modern India, connections between gurus and power, governance and economic liberalization in modern and contemporary India, vexed questions of sexuality and guru-ship, gurus’ charitable endeavours, the cosmopolitanism of gurus in contexts of spiritual tourism, and the mediation of gurus via technologies of electronic communication. Bringing together internationally renowned scholars from religious studies, political science, history, sociology and anthropology, The Guru in South Asia provides exciting and original new insights into South Asian guru-ship. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
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 240 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.
Book Synopsis Women of South Asia by : Carol Sakala
Download or read book Women of South Asia written by Carol Sakala and published by Millwood, N.Y. : Kraus International Publications. This book was released on 1980 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotated bibliography and guide to librarys, archives and other information sources on women of South East Asia - covers relationships between women and religious practice, traditional culture, family, employment (woman workers), historical social role, social movements, women's rights, etc. References.
Book Synopsis South Asian Religions by : Karen Pechilis
Download or read book South Asian Religions written by Karen Pechilis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This valuable resource explores the important role which the minority traditions play in the religious life of the subcontinent.
Book Synopsis Encyclopaedia of Women in South Asia by : Sangh Mittra
Download or read book Encyclopaedia of Women in South Asia written by Sangh Mittra and published by Gyan Publishing House. This book was released on 2004 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopaedia of Women in South Asia is a detailed study of eight countries including India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldive. Inhabited mostly in the rural areas, they had been the crippling handicaps of illiteracy, constant motherhood and poor health. This effected their self-confidence, limited their access to information and skills. However women s legal and social status has changed throughout these countries political history on account of their own consistent efforts. The theme has been weaved into eight comprehensive Chapters having deep bearing on historical background, geography and people, social status of women, including their education and employment, discrimination against women, women s role in government, the national policy, and women in politics. The Bibliography is attached at the end of each volume. These volumes are useful for women, social scientists, teachers and students, not only in these countries but also all over the world.
Book Synopsis Modern Hinduism in Text and Context by : Lavanya Vemsani
Download or read book Modern Hinduism in Text and Context written by Lavanya Vemsani and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-07-26 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern Hinduism in Text and Context brings together textual and contextual approaches to provide a holistic understanding of modern Hinduism. It examines new sources - including regional Saiva texts, Odissi dance and biographies of Nationalists - and discusses topics such as yoga, dance, visual art and festivals in tandem with questions of spirituality and ritual. The book addresses themes and issues yet to receive in-depth attention in the study of Hinduism. It shows that Hinduism endures not only in texts, but also in the context of festivals and devotion, and that contemporary practice, devotional literature, creative traditions and ethics inform the intricacies of a religion in context. Lavanya Vemsani draws on social scientific methodologies as well as history, ethnography and textual analysis, demonstrating that they are all part of the toolkit for understanding the larger framework of religion in the context of emerging nationhood, transnational and transcultural interactions.
Book Synopsis Everyday Life in South Asia by : Diane P. Mines
Download or read book Everyday Life in South Asia written by Diane P. Mines and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-16 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now updated: An “eminently readable, highly engaging” anthology about the lives of ordinary citizens in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka (Margaret Mills, Ohio State University). For the second edition of this popular textbook, readings have been updated and new essays added. The result is a timely collection that explores key themes in understanding the region, including gender, caste, class, religion, globalization, economic liberalization, nationalism, and emerging modernities. New readings focus attention on the experiences of the middle classes, migrant workers, and IT professionals, and on media, consumerism, and youth culture. Clear and engaging writing makes this text particularly valuable for general and student readers, while the range of new and classic scholarship provides a useful resource for specialists.
Book Synopsis Gender in South Asia by : Subhadra Channa
Download or read book Gender in South Asia written by Subhadra Channa and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-05 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book theorizes gender in terms of models generalizing upon historical sources and lived realities.
Book Synopsis Women and Asian Religions by : Zayn R. Kassam
Download or read book Women and Asian Religions written by Zayn R. Kassam and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-06-22 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering eclectic topics ranging from South Asian religion to motherhood to world dance to ethnomusicology, this book focuses on contemporary selected experiences of women and how their lives interface with religion. Religion has often been perceived as the source of constriction for women's roles in society. This volume explores how modern women across Asia are mobilizing their faith traditions to address existential issues encountered in both the public and private realms, relating to economics, public participation, politics, and culture. As such, it is revealed that religion can be a powerful force for social change and ameliorating women's lives, despite use of religious doctrine in the past to limit women. Editor Zayn R. Kassam, PhD, and the contributors cover not only the commonly considered "Asian" traditions of Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism but also Christianity, Judaism, Bahai, and indigenous traditions. The book reveals that the challenges and opportunities Asian women face arise both from within and outside, whether in terms of developments within their countries or in relation to international political and economic regimes. The chapters explore how the issues Asian women face have as much to do with cultural and religious codes as they do with politics, economics, education, and the law; consider the varying ways in which family and motherhood are affected by the state's construction of the gendered citizen, by social constructs of motherhood, and by policies regarding women and children's access to health care; and identify the roles played by religion and spirituality in these circumstances.
Book Synopsis Women and Monastic Buddhism in Early South Asia by : Garima Kaushik
Download or read book Women and Monastic Buddhism in Early South Asia written by Garima Kaushik and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-12 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uses gender as a framework to offer unique insights into the socio-cultural foundations of Buddhism. Moving away from dominant discourses that discuss women as a single monolithic, homogenous category—thus rendering them invisible within the broader religious discourse—this monograph examines their sustained role in the larger context of South Asian Buddhism and reaffirms their agency. It highlights the multiple roles played by women as patrons, practitioners, lay and monastic members, etc. within Buddhism. The volume also investigates the individual experiences of the members, and their equations and relationships at different levels—with the Samgha at large, with their own respective Bhikşu or Bhikşunī Sangha, with the laity, and with members of the same gender (both lay and monastic). It rereads, reconfigures and reassesses historical data in order to arrive at a new understanding of Buddhism and the social matrix within which it developed and flourished. Bringing together archaeological, epigraphic, art historical, literary as well as ethnographic data, this volume will be of interest to researchers and scholars of Buddhism, gender studies, ancient Indian history, religion, and South Asian studies.
