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Learn about India's fascinating religions, history, and folklore from Ganesh to Gandhi in this illuminating text.
A selection of Gandhiji s articles drawn mainly from his contributions to young india, the Harijan and the Navjivan on Hinduism. Written on different occassions, these articles present a picture of hindu dharma I all its richness, comprehensiveness and sensitivity to the existential delimmas of human existence.
Learn about the folklore and beliefs associated with natural rites around the world in this richly illustrated text.
Find a path to the future as you discover the great traditions of fortune telling of the past.
Learn about the beliefs and folklore of death, the apocalypse, and the afterlife of societies around the globe, including articles on heaven and hell, our fascination with the dead, the quest for immortality, and so much more.
Illustrations: Numerous B/w Illustrations Description: Symbols have great significance for understanding early Indian religion, beliefs, art and culture. Of these symbols, some were widely current and continued to be in use for several centuries and are found delineated in sculpture, architecture, pottery, coins, paintings, etc. Rai Govind Chandra in his Indian Symbolism: Symbols as Sources of Our Customs and Beliefs has taken up for study twelve symbols, the Purna Kumbha or Purna Ghata, Svastika, Srivatsa, Nandipada, Cakra, Vardhamanaka, Matsya or Matsyayugma, Bhadrasana, Caturbhuja Cinha, Triratna, Vaijayanti, and the Kalpataru and the Kalpalata. Each of these symbols is important particularly from the point of view of art and iconoraphy. Rai Govind Chandra has discussed in great detail about the origin, meaning and diffusion of all these symbols. Having traced their occurrence in different periods and cultures as well as in different mediums, both in India and outside, the author has been able to demonstrate their primitive and naturalistic beginnings. Rai Govind Chandra's Indian Symbolism is an extremely important contribution and is an indispensable work for scholars and researchers of Indian art, culture and religion.
Who or what is God? In this Very Short Introduction John Bowker considers questions like these. Exploring how the major religions interpret the idea of God, and have established their own distinctive beliefs about his existence, Bowker shows how and why our understanding of God continues to evolve.
This study examines an indigenous phenomenon of the Hindu devotees of Jesus Christ and their response to the gospel through an empirical case study conducted in Varanasi, India. It analyzes their religious beliefs and social belonging and addresses the ensuing questions from a historical, theological, and missiological perspective. The data reveals that the respondents profess faith in Jesus Christ; however, most remain unbaptized and insist on their Hindu identity. Hence, a heuristic model for a contextualized baptism as Guru-diksha is proposed. The emergent church among Hindu devotees should be considered, from the perspective of world Christianity, as a disparate form of belonging while remaining within one's community of birth. The insistence on a visible church and a distinct community of Christ's followers is contested because the devotees should construct their contextual ecclesiology, since it is an indigenous discovery of the Christian faith. Thus, the "Christian" label for the adherents is dispensable while retaining their socio-ethnic Hindu identity. Christian mission should discontinue extraction and assimilation; instead, missional praxis should be within the given sociocultural structures, recognizing their idiosyncrasies as legitimate in God's eyes and in need of transformation, like any human culture.
Religion has long been a powerful cultural, social, and political force in the Himalaya. Increased economic and cultural flows, growth in tourism, and new forms of governance and media, however, have brought significant changes to the religious traditions of the region in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book presents detailed case studies of lived religion in the Himalaya in this context of rapid change to offer intra-regional perspectives on the ways in which lived religions are being re-configured or re-imagined. Based on original fieldwork, this book documents understudied forms of religion in the region and presents unique perspectives on the phenomenon and experience of religion, discussing why, when, and where practices, discourses, and the category of religion itself, are engaged by varying communities in the region. It yields fruitful insights into both the religious traditions and lived human experiences of Himalayan peoples in the modern era. Presenting new research and perspectives on the Himalayan region, this book should be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian Studies, Religious Studies, and Modernity.
An exploration of 99 classic myths of India from an entirely non-Western paradigm that provides a fresh understanding of the Hindu spiritual landscape • Compares and contrasts Indian mythology with the stories of the Bible, ancient Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia, and Mesopotamia • Looks at the evolution of Indian narratives and their interpretations over the millennia • Demonstrates how the mythology, rituals, and art of ancient India are still vibrant today and inform the contemporary generation From the blood-letting Kali to the mysterious Ganesha, the Hindu spiritual landscape is populated by characters that find no parallel in the Western spiritual world. Indian Mythology explores the rich tapestry of these characters within 99 classic myths, showing that the mythological world of India can be best understood when we move away from a Western, monotheistic mindset and into the polytheistic world of Hindu traditions. Featuring 48 artistic renderings of important mythological figures from across India, the author unlocks the mysteries of the narratives, rituals, and artwork of ancient India to reveal the tension between world-affirming and world-rejecting ideas, between conformism and contradiction, between Shiva and Vishnu, Krishna and Rama, Gauri and Kali. This groundbreaking book opens the door to the unknown and exotic, providing a glimpse into the rich mythic tradition that has empowered millions of human beings for centuries.