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Supported by beautiful illustrations, the study reconstructs the glorious history of the Rajput house of Mewar, perhaps the worlds oldest ruling family. It recounts its heroic battlefield engagements and examines its artistic and literary achievements.
A Premier princely state of Rajsthan, the erstwhile Rajputana (northwest India), till its merger into the Union territory in 1948, Mewar has been celebrated in history and legend. In this far-famed region are best represented not only the Rajput chivalry and high sense of honour, but also their arts, architecture, and fabulous cultural traditions. Developed from the authors four-year long intensive research, the book tries to reconstruct the unparalleled, glorious history of (perhaps) the worlds oldest ruling family: the house of Mewar now called the clan of Sisodias, in earliest times Guhilots. Tracing chronologically the entire course of events since their first known ancestor, Guhil (ad 566), Irmgard Meininger here unfolds a compelling story of brave Rajput men and women, with an exaggerated sense of honour, pride and independence the story of their triumphs and tragedies, and simultaneously of palace intrigues and rivalries, and of supreme sacrifies and treacheries. And yet, in the main, it is an exciting story of Mewars heroic resistance: first to Afghan/Arab adventures and Delhi Sultans and, in the later days, to the Mughal imperialists. Weaving into her narrative the legendary episodes around Maharani Padminis fabulous beauty, the dread rite jauhar, Panna Dais unique loyalty, and Princess Miras bhakti, among others, the author also attempts to show how Mewar has been the repository not only of old Hindu traditions, but of the enchanting Rajput culture as well, and how Rajputs, notwithstanding their endless engagements in the battlefield, were great patrons of art, architecture, literature and music. Supported by numerous beautiful illustrations, bibliographic references and a glossary of non-English words, the book will fascinate anyone interested in India, particularly Rajasthan: whether as an inquisitive reader, tourist, hostorian, or a connoisseur of art.
Kolam is propitious threshold drawings by women defining religious and cultural space in South India. Integrating the entire Tamil community in kinship, ephemeral kolam structure is precise and beautiful prayer for protection and prosperity. Aesthetic experience of kolam is in its symmetrical composition that correlates with our concept of the cosmos.
Kolam is propitious threshold drawings by women defining religious and cultural space in South India. Integrating the entire Tamil community in kinship, ephemeral kolam structure is precise and beautiful prayer for protection and prosperity. Aesthetic experience of kolam is in its symmetrical composition that correlates with our concept of the cosmos. In the geometric grid of kolam the number of dots called pulli algorithmically guides the number of crossings that requires overall smoothening of edges in the design. Large number of infinite knot pattern follows a set of elegant mathematical rules that is at the same time artistic. According to Marcia Ascher, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Ithaca College, the Principles of Numbers in kolam is dynamics and motion in matter demonstrating multiplicity of the void. Kolam drawings trace unilinear path with singular regularity expressive of polyrhythmic music. Dancer Chandralekha observed that kolam is a kind of yoga. Kolam as an art form has entered computer graphics, ethnomathematics and ethnomusicology, textile industry, therapeutic applications and tactile spatial education for visually challenged. The pervasive threshold drawing of Tamil Nadu are unique but at the same time kolam is extendable to the tradition of tracing patterns in sand produced by several cultures in Africa and South Pacific islands as well as to the brilliant mosaics of ancient Rome.
This second volume of Krishna in the Harivamsha contends that the child and adult Krishnas are indeed one and the same. The initiation by guru Kashya Sandipani, the construction of the city of Dvaraka, and the fights involving Pradyumna and Aniruddha are among the best known episodes analysed in this volume.
This second volume of Krishna in the Harivamsha brings together texts written between 2000 and 2015, more than half of which are of more recent vintage than those included in Volume I. While Krishnas biography is clearly divided into two large units, childhood and adulthood the kshatriya (warrior) of the second period manifesting himself first as a gopa (cowherd) it is important to note that both sections of the biography are similarly structured and carry an identical message. This book contends that the child and adult Krishnas are indeed one and the same.
The initiation by guru Kashya Sandipani, the construction of the city of Dvaraka, and the fights involving Pradyumna and Aniruddha are among the best known episodes analysed in this volume. It is the oft-neglected Harivamsha version of these well-known stories that is studied here, version that has been passed over despite its early date of composition.
An unstated assumption still influences a great deal of Harivamsha research. Many scholars assume that an addition of this sort to the Mahabharata can be little more than a collection of ancient records bearing witness to the primitive mentality of a people unable to think logically. On this view, the Harivamsha becomes reduced to a pile of documents of diverse origins. The articles contained in this volume take the opposite view. Krishnas biography, which at first blush might appear to be an amalgam of various stories, proves in fact to be a skilful construction which conveys a clear message.
The book deals with aspects of everyday life of the Vedic people seers and the elite as well as that of the common people their housing, mode of production and occupations, social organisation, education, food and drink, entertainment, dress and cosmetics, etc.
Based on a deep analysis of the Vedic literature, the book deals with aspects of everyday life of the Vedic people: their housing, mode of production and occupations, social organisation, education, food and drink, entertainment, dress and cosmetics, etc. Tracing the influence of Vedic learning on Upanishads and Såtra literature which have also been referred to here for details on the Vedic people and their traditions, this study focuses on the lifestyle of seers and the elite as well as that of the common people and stresses the importance of the ritualistic context in discussing aspects of daily life like preparing of food and food-eating habits, style of dressing, building of houses and so on. It deals with the Vedic peoples approach to life, covering points such as their attitude towards knowledge and their quest for Brahman, their view of death and their yearning for heaven. This publication also examines the growth of the Vedic tradition from one based on the minimum requirements of life to a tradition involving refinement of things a system of writing and a complex religion based on deep philosophical study and explanations of cosmology. The book will be useful to all students and scholars of ancient Indian religion and culture.
The book unravels the glorious past of Kashmir, discussing its importance as the centre of Sanskrit learning in the bygone eras. It highlights the regions achievements in music, dance, drama, sculpture, language and literature, and philosophy marked by the artistic and literary contributions of Jayaditta, Bhatta, Jayadhara, Pingala and Abhinavagupta, and many others.
The Land of Kashmir, celebrated as paradise on earth for its scenic beauty, has an equally enchanting historical and cultural past: this is the place symbolising Indias cultural unity, where different cultures have prospered at different times, where scholars from all over India and the distant lands of Mesopotamia, Persia and China converged to imbibe learning in ancient times. The author, S. Sapru here unravels the glorious past of Kashmir; he discusses its importance as the centre of Sanskrit learning in the bygone eras; its achievements in music, dance, drama, sculpture, language and literature, and philosophy marked by the artistic and literary contributions of eminent men like Jayaditta, Bhatta, Jayadhara, Pingala and Abhinavagupta. Referring to various historical works and combining facts with legend, folklore and impressions from oral traditions, he presents a graphic picture of life and times in the valley in the past that deals with a range of themes like the lands mythology, statecraft, trade links, urban centres, tax system, system of crime and punishment and an ancient tourists impressions of the valley. Through a smooth?flowing narrative that makes the book extremely readable, the author points out that there is more to Kashmir than the present?day spate of violence; the land and its people have an essential Indianness common to other people of India and Kashmirs links with the rest of India cannot be severed.
India’s association with the South-East Asian countries, especially those on either side of the Mekong River, is well known. It analyses India’s past and present relationship in the domains of architecture, religious engagements, interculturality, syncretism of cultures, interliterariness, composite literary cultures, religious arts, trade associations, among others.
India has a fascinating history of cultural relationship with South-East Asia, spanning across more than the last two millennia, mainly with the spread of Buddhism and Hinduism, deeply impacting the cultural, religious and social lives of people in countries such as Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. The Hindu-Buddhist monuments in South-East Asia stand testimony of this peaceful and mutually beneficial interaction. The contents of this book Mekong-Ganga Axis centre around India’s association with most of the countries of the region, especially those on either side of the Mekong River.
Most of the South-East Asian countries were influenced by more than two foreign cultures, though they have an indigenous culture. The Chinese and Indian cultures had impacted them the most, in addition to the European influence. However, only Indias impact was peaceful and, to a great extent, non-political. This paved the way for many developments in architecture, religious engagements, interculturality, syncretism of cultures, inter-literariness, composite literary cultures, religious arts, trade relations and so on.
This book thus critically engages one to all these topics and more, and recalls India’s glorious relationship of the forgone era with these countries, showcasing somewhat a similar kind of cultural/religious affinity from South China to India. And two great rivers, Mekong and Ganga, are witness to it. It also reinstates the criticality of India to be engaged with these countries at present because of the compulsions of a globalized world.
The crisis of the age inheres in this, that notwithstanding the century’s mind-numbing disasters, it persists in subscribing to propositions which have logically led to the atomization of the whole cloth of human experiencing, and being. Great indeed is the value which is placed on the procedure of analytic dismemberment. While the method has certainly been result-producing, materially, in its wake it has brought immense suffering – both physical and spiritual. The price paid for a lopsided advance is thirty major wars – with their toll of one hundred and thirty million lives, and the irreparable destruction of the natural environment. The time demands a reappraisal of the basic paradigms of human existence, but the hegemony of well-entrenched vested interests – material or intellectual – would seem to preclude this.
The “advanced” people among the mankind of the day become suicidally specialized. For, if the mechanical model of thought has been of advantage in man’s preceding unfolding, the same, what may be called the “survival” paradigm, now creates dangerous dualities, binary oppositions (you–me, body–mind, East–West, etc). The model has outlived its usefulness merely enforcing dormancy on a major part of the human brain.
It behoves mankind to choose wisely right now – since parallel to the socio-economic, scientific and technological revolutions there has got to be the overdue radical psychic transformation. The first step towards clearing the fateful crisis would therefore be to be aware and end the hold of the linear, causal, mechanical thought orientation over the intellectual culture of the times.
Delving deep into the epistemological cum ontological causation of the emergency confronting the being and becoming of man, this volume provokes the thoughtful lay reader to a serious engagement with his or her self.
This well-illustrated volume seeks to explain an enigmatic and paradoxical symbolism common to many of the world religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic that of the cavernous maw of a great monster. Drawing on a broad array of comparative evidence, including examples from Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions, it delves on the cross-cultural points of contact that may have contributed to the spread of such zoomorphic hybrids from Turkey, the Caucasus and Iran to the Indian Subcontinent.
This well-illustrated volume seeks to explain an enigmatic and paradoxical symbolism common to many of the world religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic that of the cavernous maw of a great monster. Drawing on a broad array of comparative evidence, including examples from Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions, it delves on the cross-cultural points of contact that may have contributed to the spread of such zoomorphic hybrids from Turkey, the Caucasus and Iran to the Indian Subcontinent.
Straddling the boundaries between popular and textual traditions the gaping jaws of a great monster is a mythical paradigm of the bivalence of a deep-seated historic force: the yawning orifice of all-consuming death can as well symbolize the power of life or generative power. This dual force can also be reflected in an abbreviated conceptualization visualized on opposite sides of a common axis. The outcome of the symbolic synthesis, which axiomatically unifies such vast, inexorably linked, seemingly irresistible potent forces, thus may suggest different shades of meaning daunting, and yet again singularly attracting, humbling and at the same time exalting.
This book should arouse keen interest among all those interested in the comparative perspective of religious, cultural and artistic history.
This book proposes to lay a foundation for construction of a theory of meaning in relation to the action that is obtained in the progress of earliest narratives Pancatantra, Hitopadesha, Jatakakathavali, Kathasaritsagara, Baital Paccisi, Simhasana Battisi, Aesop’s Fables, The Canterbury Tales, Legends of King Arthur, The Decameron and The Pilgrim’s Progress at large.
In the narratives of the Indian and Western traditions, both the construction of the character and the configuration of an action have remarkably the idealized perspectives. In them the nature of action is very realistic, hence it commutes itself through its orientation in the cause and the effect. The dimension of this dichotomy acquires various meanings and internalizations. While in the Indian tradition, the action is almost reversible and foresees the growth of cumulative assortment of events, in the European narratives, the organization of an action is obtained in an event that is by and large irreversible in nature. To drive this point home, Pancatantra, Hitopadesha, Jatakakathavali, Kathasaritsagara, Baital Paccisi and Simhasana Battisi from the Indian tradition, and Aesop’s Fables, The Canterbury Tales, Legends of King Arthur, The Decameron and The Pilgrim’s Progress from the Western side are well explored in this volume.
The pursuit of meaning in Indian and European earliest narratives is to convey the action by certain instruments of transformation of which conjunction, injunction, conception and inception are the most important. The book makes a serious discussion about resolution and convergence between Pancatantra and The Canterbury Tales, and Jatakakathavali and The Pilgrim’s Progress, offering certain conceptual structures, which would determine the propriety of a new theoretical effort.
This book therefore proposes to lay a foundation for construction of a theory of meaning in relation to the action that is obtained in the progress of earliest narratives at large.
Many learned people, from various sects, have written about death and soul. Ceremonies, after death, for honouring the dead, especially in Hindu religion have been dealt chronologically. Also the importance of cloning after death and its resultant impact on society has been discussed.
Many learned people, from various sects, have written about death and soul. Ceremonies, after death, for honouring the dead, especially in Hindu religion have been dealt chronologically. Also the importance of cloning after death and its resultant impact on society has been discussed.
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