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Drawing from topics of religion in India such as bhakti, puja rituals, and spirit posessions, these essays offer a close study of the physical representations of god as the central feature of Hinduism. A valuable tool for students of anthroplogy and the philosophy and history of religion.
Two men from disparate worlds search for what constitutes a meaningful life in a searing portrait of honor and masculinity, sport and celebrity, marriage and parenthood in this “rough, tough, and thoughtful” (Phil Mushnick, New York Post) debut from Pulitzer Prize finalist and front-page columnist Mark Di Ionno. Joe Grudeck is a living legend—a first-ballot Hall of Famer beloved by Boston Red Sox fans who once played for millions under the bright Fenway lights. Now, he finds himself haunted by his own history, searching for connection in a world that’s alienated his true self beneath his celebrity persona. Soon, he’ll step back into the spotlight once more with a very risky Cooperstown acceptance speech that has the power to change everything—except the darkness in his past. Horace Mueller is a different type altogether—working in darkness at a museum blacksmith shop and living in a rundown farmhouse on the outskirts of Cooperstown, New York. He clings to an antiquated lifestyle, fueled by nostalgia for simpler times and a rebellion against the sport-celebrity lifestyle of Cooperstown. His baseball prodigy son, however, veers towards everything Horace has spent his life railing against. Gods of Wood and Stone is the story of these two men—a timeless, but strikingly singular tale of the responsibilities of manhood and the pitfalls of glory in a painful and exhilarating novel that’s distinctly American. “Delivered with a fan’s passion, a journalist’s eye for detail, and the unblinking courage of a storyteller, Mark Di Ionno knocks it out of the park with this piercing literary thriller” (Bryan Gruley, award-winning author of the Starvation Lake trilogy).
This book explores the festival of Thaipusam in terms of its own inner dynamics - the traditions and belief structures which ensure the festival's continuing relevance to Malaysian Hindus. It argues that Thaipusam reflects a growing sense of Hindu identity in Malaysia and an as yet inchoate unity. It contends that while the kavadi ritual provides profound meaning at the individual and group level, Thaipusam furnishes a public arena for and gives expression to a powerful Hindu resurgence, largely, though not exclusively, fuelled by Dravidian assertiveness. In situating the festival within the context of a Malaysia dominated by Malay and Islamic power brokers, a society in which both the Indian community and Hinduism are relegated to the margins, the book explores the festival of Thaipusam as a vehicle for mobilization of religious symbols and values which not only simultaneously articulate ethnicity and thus resist the forces which threaten cultural and religious integrity, but which also ultimately signal wider allegiances to the broader politico-cultural world of an imagined, immeasurably rich, and enduring Indo-Hindu civilization.
The Life of Hinduism brings together a series of essays—many recognized as classics in the field—that present Hinduism as a vibrant, truly "lived" religion. Celebrating the diversity for which Hinduism is known, this volume begins its journey in the "new India" of Bangalore, India’s Silicon Valley, where global connections and local traditions rub shoulders daily. Readers are then offered a glimpse into the multifaceted world of Hindu worship, life-cycle rites, festivals, performances, gurus, and castes. The book’s final sections deal with the Hinduism that is emerging in diasporic North America and with issues of identity that face Hindus in India and around the world: militancy versus tolerance and the struggle between owning one’s own religion and sharing it with others. Contributors: Andrew Abbott, Michael Burawoy, Patricia Hill Collins, Barbara Ehrenreich, Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Sharon Hays, Douglas Massey, Joya Misra, Orlando Patterson, Frances Fox Piven, Lynn Smith-Lovin, Judith Stacey, Arthur Stinchcombe, Alain Touraine, Immanuel Wallerstein, William Julius Wilson, Robert Zussman
1. Introduction. 2. The Life Story of Anandamayi Ma. 3. Woman. 4. Saint. 5. Guru. 6. Avatara and Divine Mother. 7. Anandamayi Ma and Gender. Bibliography. Index.
Loving Stones is a study of devotees' conceptions of and worshipful interactions with Mount Govardhan, a sacred mountain located in the Braj region of north-central India that has for centuries been considered an embodied form of Krishna. It is often said that worship of Mount Govardhan "makes the impossible possible." In this book, David L. Haberman examines the perplexing paradox of an infinite god embodied in finite form, wherein each particular form is non-different from the unlimited. He takes on the task of interpreting the worship of a mountain and its stones for a culture in which this practice is quite alien. This challenge involves exploring the interpretive strategies that may explain what seems un-understandable, and calls for theoretical considerations of incongruity, inconceivability, and other realms of the impossible. This aspect of the book includes critical consideration of the place and history of the pejorative concept of idolatry (and its twin, anthropomorphism) in the comparative study of religions. Loving Stones uses the worship of Mount Govardhan as a site to explore ways in which scholars engaged in the difficult work of representing other cultures struggle to make "the impossible possible."
Shared ritual practices, multi-faith celebrations, and interreligious prayers are becoming increasingly common in the USA and Europe as more people experience religious diversity first hand. While ritual participation can be seen as a powerful expression of interreligious solidarity, it also carries with it challenges of a particularly sensitive nature. Though celebrating and worshiping together can enhance interreligious relations, cross-riting may also lead some believers to question whether it is appropriate to engage in the rituals of another faith community. Some believers may consider cross-ritual participation as inappropriate transgressive behaviour. Bringing together leading international contributors and voices from a number of religious traditions, Ritual Participation and Interreligious Dialogue delves into the complexities and intricacies of the phenomenon. They ask: what are the promises and perils of celebrating and praying together? What are the limits of ritual participation? How can we make sense of feelings of discomfort when entering the sacred space of another faith community? The first book to focus on the lived dimensions of interreligious dialogue through ritual participation rather than textual or doctrinal issues, this innovative volume opens an entirely new perspective.
The book, the third volume to emerge from the enterprise known as 'The Backwaters Collective on Metaphysics and Politics', attempts to further the collective's ambition to put into question the certitudes of conventional social science discourse, decolonize the dominant knowledge frameworks, and understand how the intellectual and cultural resources of Indian civilization may be deployed to think both, about some problems in contemporary politics and culture, and to introduce greater plurality into the world of modern knowledge systems. Some of the collective's members remain deeply committed to reinitiating metaphysics into politics, and similarly, the collective's enduring interest in Narayana Guru is reflected in at least three chapters. Although engagement with Gandhi and Ambedkar is a familiar part of the Indian intellectual landscape, other chapters on offer pivot around histories of power, performative traditions, and modes of worship. Unlike the scholarship that is now the norm, organized around a distinct theme, this volume exhibits a more daring approach to India's intellectual traditions, traversing the world of Kannada intellectuals, the Kashmir Shaiva tradition, a Marathi Bhakti poet, and a contemporary Indian philosopher, as much as conceptual ideas drawn from a wide array of Indian texts and experiences.
This book focuses on Hindu images and their worship with special reference to Vaiṣṇavism, a major strand of Hinduism. Concentrating largely, but not exclusively, on Sanskritic source material, the author shows in the course of the book that Hindu image-worship may be understood via three levels of interpretation: the metaphysical/theological, the narratival or mythic, and the performative or ritual.