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For 30 years the author, a French missionary, lived among the Hindus, adopting their dress and customs and studying their social and religious institutions. The English government found this account of the results of his observations valuable enough to translate and publish it for the use of officials and oriental students.
Rites, rituals and customs play a major role in the life of every person, irrespective of religious affiliations.Right from the time of birth, till a person's passing away and even after it, rites and rituals follow a Hindu, much like a shadow. This book outlines all these practices from the sunrise to the sunset years. It makes for an enlightening reading for Hindus as well as non-Hindus.
When thinking of India, it is hard not to think of caste. In academic and common parlance alike, caste has become a central symbol for India, marking it as fundamentally different from other places while expressing its essence. Nicholas Dirks argues that caste is, in fact, neither an unchanged survival of ancient India nor a single system that reflects a core cultural value. Rather than a basic expression of Indian tradition, caste is a modern phenomenon--the product of a concrete historical encounter between India and British colonial rule. Dirks does not contend that caste was invented by the British. But under British domination caste did become a single term capable of naming and above all subsuming India's diverse forms of social identity and organization. Dirks traces the career of caste from the medieval kingdoms of southern India to the textual traces of early colonial archives; from the commentaries of an eighteenth-century Jesuit to the enumerative obsessions of the late-nineteenth-century census; from the ethnographic writings of colonial administrators to those of twentieth-century Indian scholars seeking to rescue ethnography from its colonial legacy. The book also surveys the rise of caste politics in the twentieth century, focusing in particular on the emergence of caste-based movements that have threatened nationalist consensus. Castes of Mind is an ambitious book, written by an accomplished scholar with a rare mastery of centuries of Indian history and anthropology. It uses the idea of caste as the basis for a magisterial history of modern India. And in making a powerful case that the colonial past continues to haunt the Indian present, it makes an important contribution to current postcolonial theory and scholarship on contemporary Indian politics.
This is a valuable resourse book through the Bible, explaining many customs practiced in Bible times. Not only is it easy to understand, but it is also filled with many helpful illustrations.
First Published in 2005. This work is an impressive eye-witness account of life in India at the tum of the century. It combines descriptions of the Hindu religion and Hindu sociology with masterful portraits of the intimate lives of the people among whom the author lived. Many important issues are explored, including the caste system, poverty, the mythical origin of the Brahmins, Hindu sects, ceremonies, religious fasting, morality, the position of women, and Hindu literature.
Hinduism is practised by about 80% of India's population, and by about 30,000,000 people outside India. But how is Hinduism defined, and what basis does the religion have? This work gives concise insights into the central preoccupations of Hinduism.
Why is the tulsi considered sacred? What is the significance of namaste? Why do Hindus light a lamp before performing a ritual? Why is it forbidden to sleep facing the south? Why do Hindus chant 'shanti' three times after performing a rite? Millions of Hindus the world over grow up observing rites, rituals and religious practices that lie at the heart of Hinduism, but which they don't know the significance of. Often the age-old customs, whose relevance is lost to modern times, are dismissed as meaningless superstitions. The truth, however, is that these practices reveal the philosophical and scientific approach to life that has characterized Hindu thought since ancient times; it is important to revive their original meanings today. This handy book tells the fascinating stories and explains the science behind the Hindu rites and rituals that we sometimes follow blindly. It is essential reading for anyone interested in India's cultural tradition.
Once known as "Pariahs," Dalits are primarily descendants of unfree agrarian laborers. They belong to India's most subordinated castes, face overwhelming poverty and discrimination, and provoke public anxiety. Drawing on a wealth of previously untapped sources, this book follows the conception and evolution of the "Pariah Problem" in public consciousness in the 1890s. It shows how high-caste landlords, state officials, and well-intentioned missionaries conceived of Dalit oppression, and effectively foreclosed the emergence of substantive solutions to the "Problem"—with consequences that continue to be felt today. Rupa Viswanath begins with a description of the everyday lives of Dalit laborers in the 1890s and highlights the systematic efforts made by the state and Indian elites to protect Indian slavery from public scrutiny. Protestant missionaries were the first non-Dalits to draw attention to their plight. The missionaries' vision of the Pariahs' suffering as being a result of Hindu religious prejudice, however, obscured the fact that the entire agrarian political–economic system depended on unfree Pariah labor. Both the Indian public and colonial officials came to share a view compatible with missionary explanations, which meant all subsequent welfare efforts directed at Dalits focused on religious and social transformation rather than on structural reform. Methodologically, theoretically, and empirically, this book breaks new ground to demonstrate how events in the early decades of state-sponsored welfare directed at Dalits laid the groundwork for the present day, where the postcolonial state and well-meaning social and religious reformers continue to downplay Dalits' landlessness, violent suppression, and political subordination.
Based on an 1815 manuscript by a French missionary, this comprehensive work offers a unique panorama of early-19th-century Indian life. Caste system, ceremonial procedures, rules and etiquette, marriage, fasting, widowhood, funerary rites, literature, religion, much more. Index. 6 Appendices. Black-and-white illustration.