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Framing Intellectual and Lived Spaces in Early South Asia
The contributions to this book address a series of ‘confrontations’—debates between intellectual communities, the interplay of texts and images, and the intersection of monumental architecture and physical terrain—and explore the ways in which the legacy of these encounters, and the human responses to them, conditioned cultural production in early South Asia (c. 4th-7th centuries CE). Rather than an agonistic term, the book uses ‘confrontation’ as a heuristic to examine historical moments within this pivotal period in which individuals and communities were confronted with new ideas and material expressions. The first half of the volume addresses the intersections of textual, material, and visual forms of cultural production by focusing on three primary modes of confrontation: the relation of inscribed texts to material media, the visual articulation of literary images and, finally, the literary interpretation and reception of built landscapes. The second part of the volume focuses on confrontations both within and between intellectual communities. The articles address the dynamics between peripheral and dominant movements in the history of Indian philosophy.
Crossing the Lines of Caste
What does it mean to be a Brahmin, and what could it mean to become one? Over the years, intellectuals and dogmatists have offered plenty of answers to the first question, but the latter presents a cultural puzzle, since normative Brahminical ideology deems it impossible for an ordinary individual to change caste without first undergoing death and rebirth. There is, however, one notable figure in the Hindu mythological tradition who is said to have transformed himself from a king into a Brahmin by amassing great ascetic power, or tapas the ornery sage Visvamitra. Through texts composed in Sanskrit and vernacular languages, oral performances, and visual media, Crossing the Lines of Caste exam...
Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies
Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies analyses the role of religion in past and present understandings of Asia. Religion, and the history of its study in the modern academy, has exercised massive influence over Asian Studies fields in the past century. Asian Studies has in turn affected, and is increasingly shaping, the study of religion. Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies looks into this symbiotic relationship – both in current practice, and in the modern histories of both Orientalism and Area Studies. Each chapter of the book deals with one regional sub-discipline in Asian Studies, covering Chinese Studies, Japanese Studies, Korean Studies, South Asian Studies, Southeast Asian...
Primary Sources and Asian Pasts
This conference volume unites a wide range of scholars working in the fields of history, archaeology, religion, art, and philology in an effort to explore new perspectives and methods in the study of primary sources from premodern South and Southeast Asia. The contributions engage with primary sources (including texts, images, material artefacts, monuments, as well as archaeological sites and landscapes) and draw needed attention to highly adaptable, innovative, and dynamic modes of cultural production within traditional idioms. The volume works to develop categories of historical analysis that cross disciplinary boundaries and represent a wide variety of methodological concerns. By revisiti...
Reading Śiva
Reading Śiva is an illustrated bibliography on the Hindu god Śiva in the arts, crafts, coins, seals and inscriptions from South and Southeast Asia. It results from a century of ABIA bibliographic work and covers over 1500 academic publications since 1672. This scholarly and multi-disciplinary volume offers keyword-indexed annotations. The detailed indices on authors, geographic terms and subjects enable an easy search through the data. Links with the entries to resource repositories (such as JSTOR, Persée, Project MUSE, Academia.edu, ResearchGate and the Internet Archive) and links added to the sumptuous illustrations immediately take you to these resource sites.
Universal Śaivism
In Universal Śaivism Peter Bisschop provides a critical edition and annotated translation of the sixth chapter of the Śivadharmaśāstra `Treatise on the Religion of Śiva’, the so-called Śāntyadhyāya 'Chapter on Appeasement’. The Sanskrit text is preceded by an extensive introduction on its composition, transmission and edition. The Śivadharmaśāstra has arguably played a crucial role in the formation, development and institutionalisation of Śaivism. Through a detailed study of its extensive śānti mantra, Peter Bisschop shows how the text advocates a system in which all worldly and cosmic power is ultimately dependent upon Śiva. The mantra itself is a mine of information on the evolving pantheon of early Brahmanical Hinduism. Thanks to generous support of the J. Gonda Fund Foundation, the e-book version of this volume is available in Open Access.
Liberating the Liberated
This volume examines the formation and development of Saiva tantric funerary practices and rituals of post-mortem ancestor worship (sraddha) as preserved in the earliest extant strata of textual sources. These tantric scriptures and ritual manuals of the Saiva Siddhanta cover a period from about the 5th to the 12th century CE. A close analysis of individual texts shows how the incorporation of death rites into the tantric repertoire was directly linked to the tradition's development from once focused on private worship and limited to ascetics living outside society to a dominant religion throughout the Indic world. A focal point of the study is how, in this process, Saiva ritual specialists ...
The Skandapurāṇa Volume V
Skandapurāṇa V presents a critical edition of Adhyāyas 92-112 from the Skandapurāṇa, with an introduction and annotated English synopsis. The text edited in this volume includes the extensive myth of Viṣṇu’s manifestation as the Boar (Varāha), who conquers Hiraṇyākṣa and wins back the Earth for the gods; its aftermath, which involves the birth of Varāha’s son Vṛka and Skanda’s finishing of Viṣṇu’s Boar manifestation; Devī’s instructions to the goddesses about donations, fasts and penances; and the continuation of the Andhaka cycle. The introduction addresses the incorporation of Vaiṣṇava mythology in the text, the composition and revision of Adhyāya 112 in the different recensions, and the Dharmanibandha citations of Devī’s teachings.
