Includes brief biographies of Aghoris.
Hindu Ritual at the Margins explores Hindu forms of ritual activity in a variety of "marginal" contexts. The contributors collectively examine ritual practices in diaspora; across gender, ethnic, social, and political groups; in film, text, and art; in settings where ritual itself or direct discussion of ritual is absent; in contexts that create new opportunities for traditionally marginalized participants or challenge the received tradition; and via theoretical perspectives that have been under...
Nama-Ramayanam Legacy Book - Endowment of Devotion (Legacy Book - Endowment of Devotion)
by Sushma
In this book, Mary Hancock challenges readers to rethink the notions of tradition and modernity that have figured centrally in anthropological discussions of social change in South Asia. She shows tradition and modernity to be categories created, deployed, and objectified by Tamil Brahmans as they produce their own class, gender, national, and sectarian identities. This highly original ethnographic analysis of Brahman women's ritualized practice demonstrates how tradition and modernity—and the s...
Belonging and Believing: My Hindu Family (Belonging and Believing:)
by Gill Vaisey
Re-envisioning Siva Nataraja
Re-envisioning Siva Nataraja. A Multidisciplinary Perspective offers new insights into the dancing Siva as icon and concept. Each of the seven essays in this volume addresses an aspect of the Nataraja (a specific form of the dancing Siva) that has been until now untouched by scholars, or one for which the research is here moved substantially forward. Through the use of hitherto unexplored materials - murals, prints, icons, Sanskrit iconographic and ritual texts, Tamil inscriptions, and the analy...
Durga Puja, Lakshmi Puja, Saraswati Puja, Navratri Puja
by Santhi Sivakumar
The Power of the Sacred Name (Library of Perennial Philosophy)
by V. Raghavan
Throughout the world, and encompassing all of the great religious traditions, repeating or singing a sacred name is a fundamental spiritual practice. For millions of people, whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu, invoking a sacred name is an integral part of prayer and daily life. This collection of writings by renowned Indian scholar, V. Raghavan, examines the lives and contributions of the main exponents of the tradition in India, including Mahatma Gandhi, and Guru Nanak, the founde...