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"Against High-Caste Polygamy offers a complete, annotated translation of Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar's first book arguing against the practice of high-caste Kulin marriage in Bengal. The translation is based on the text of the first edition of Bahuvivaha rahita haoya uchita ki na etadvishayaka vichara, published from the Sanskrit Press in 1871 (Samvat 1928); henceforth simply Bahuvivaha. I have relied on the version of the text as found in the second volume of Gopal Haldar's Vidyasagar-rachanasamgraha, as well as on a digitized version of the 1871 first edition available online"--
This book offers a new interpretation of the life and legacy of the Indian reformer and intellectual, Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar (1820–91). Drawing upon autobiography, biography, secondary criticism and a range of Vidyasagar’s original writings in Bengali, the book interrogates the role of history, memory and controversy, and emphasises the key challenge of pinning down the identity of an enigmatic and multi-faceted figure. By examining lesser-known works of Vidyasagar (including several pseudonymous and posthumous works) alongside the evidence of his public career, the author calls attention to the colonial transformation of intellectual and social life, the nature of life writing, the limits of standard biographies and the problem of modern Indian identity as such. Based on decades of research and an original perspective, this book will be especially useful to scholars of modern Indian history, biographical studies, comparative literature and those interested in Bengal.
A bold retelling of the origins of contemporary Hinduism, and an argument against the long-established notion of religious reform. By the early eighteenth century, the Mughal Empire was in decline, and the East India Company was making inroads into the subcontinent. A century later Christian missionaries, Hindu teachers, Muslim saints, and Sikh rebels formed the colorful religious fabric of colonial India. Focusing on two early nineteenth-century Hindu communities, the Brahmo Samaj and the Swaminarayan Sampraday, and their charismatic figureheads—the “cosmopolitan” Rammohun Roy and the “parochial” Swami Narayan—Brian Hatcher explores how urban and rural people thought about faith, ritual, and gods. Along the way he sketches a radical new view of the origins of contemporary Hinduism and overturns the idea of religious reform. Hinduism Before Reform challenges the rigid structure of revelation-schism-reform-sect prevalent in much history of religion. Reform, in particular, plays an important role in how we think about influential Hindu movements and religious history at large. Through the lens of reform, one doctrine is inevitably backward-looking while another represents modernity. From this comparison flows a host of simplistic conclusions. Instead of presuming a clear dichotomy between backward and modern, Hatcher is interested in how religious authority is acquired and projected. Hinduism Before Reform asks how religious history would look if we eschewed the obfuscating binary of progress and tradition. There is another way to conceptualize the origins and significance of these two Hindu movements, one that does not trap them within the teleology of a predetermined modernity.
Krishna's Mahabharatas: Devotional Retellings of an Epic Narrative is a comprehensive study of premodern regional Mahabharata retellings. This book argues that Vaishnavas (devotees of the Hindu god Vishnu and his various forms) throughout South Asia turned this epic about an apocalyptic, bloody war into works of ardent bhakti or "devotion" focused on the beloved Hindu deity Krishna. Examining over forty retellings in eleven different regional South Asian languages composed over a period of nine hundred years, it focuses on two particular Mahabharatas: Villiputturar's fifteenth-century Tamil Paratam and Sabalsingh Chauhan's seventeenth-century Bhasha (Old Hindi) Mahahbharat.
"Regardless of terminology, the use of padya and gadya in Telugu literary works is invariably linked to Nannaya (early to mid-11th century), traditionally considered the first poet of Telugu literature. The style that Nannaya inaugurated in his Telugu retelling of the Mahābhārata is regarded as the paradigm for later poets. His mixing of padya and gadya-an element not present in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata-became the preferred mode of poetic composition, even when translating a Sanskrit counterpart that used padya exclusively"--
Designed to help readers deepen their understanding of Hinduism, and reflecting themes central to the study of religion and culture, Jessica Frazier explores classical Hindu theories of self, the body, the cosmos, and human action. Case studies from Hindu texts provide readers with direct access to primary sources in translation, ranging from ancient cosmology to philosophical teachings and modern ritual practices. Hinduism is often depicted as being so diverse that it is the most difficult of all of the world religions to understand or explain. Hindu Worldviews explains core ideas about the human mind and body, showing how they fit into concepts of the Self, and practices of embodiment in Hinduism. It draws on western theoretical concepts as a point of entry, connecting contemporary Hindu culture directly with both western and classical Hindu theories. Through the theme of the Self in classical Hindu sources, the chapters provide an interpretative framework for understanding classical approaches to ethics, liberation, and views of the body and the mind. These provide a key to the rationale behind many forms of modern practice such as divinisation rituals, worship of deities, and theological reflection. Reflecting central themes in courses on Hinduism and Indian Philosophy, Hindu Worldviews provides an accessible new perspective on both Hinduism and modern theory in the study of religion.
In Material Acts in Everyday Hindu Worlds, Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger analyzes the agency of materiality—the ability of materials to have an effect on both humans and deities—beyond human intentions. Using materials from three regions where Flueckiger conducted extensive fieldwork, she begins with Indian understandings of the agency of ornaments that have the desired effects of protecting women and making them more auspicious. Subsequent chapters bring in examples of materiality that are agentive beyond human intentions, from a south Indian goddess tradition where female guising transforms the aggressive masculinity of men who wear saris, braids, and breasts to the presence of cement images of Ravana in Chhattisgarh, which perform alternative theologies and ideologies to those of dominant textual traditions of the Ramayana epic. Deeply ethnographic and accessibly written, Material Acts in Everyday Hindu Worlds expands our understanding of material agency as well as the parameters of religion more broadly. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships Open Book Program—a limited competition designed to make outstanding humanities books available to a wide audience. Learn more at the Fellowships Open Book Program at https://www.neh.gov/grants/odh/FOBP, and access the book online at the SUNY Open Access Repository at https://soar.suny.edu/handle/20.500.12648/8716.
Rites of the God-King offers a critical revision of mainstream Hinduism from the perspective of the life of a single ritual from medieval India. Drawing theoretical connections to modern ethnographies, it raises questions about the nature of kingship and priesthood, image-worship, and ritual change.
Bollywood Horrors is a multi-faceted and wide-ranging collection that examines cinematic representations of real-life horror, the religious aspects of horror imagery and themes, and the ways in which Hindi films have projected "cinematic fears" onto the screen. Part I, "Atrocity", deals with Bollywood's representation of the real horrors of communal violence, rape culture, and human trafficking. In Part II ("Religion") the role of myth, ritual, and colonial constructions in producing the generic conventions of Hindi horror are discussed. Contributors focus on the stereotype of the tantric magician found in Indian literature beginning in the medieval period; the myth of the fearsome goddess Durga's slaying of the Buffalo Demon; and the surprising role of religion in the importation of Gothic tropes into Indian films, told through the little-known story of Sir Devendra Prasad Varma. The final part - "Cinematic Fears" - explores three particular facets or exemplars of Bollywood horror: the 2002 film Raaz, the role of non-domestic haunted or uncanny spaces in Hindi cinema, and the aesthetics of film posters and song booklets advertising horror films.