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For more than half a century, T.N. Madan has been a towering influence on the sociological and anthropological studies of family and kinship, cultural dimensions of development, religion, secularism, and Hindu society and tradition. This Omnibus brings together his seminal writings on marriage, kinship, family, and the household in Hindu society. Family and Kinship: A Study of the Pandits of Rural Kashmir, first published in 1965, remains a pioneering ethnographic study of the Kashmiri Pandits, and is considered a classic in the field of world anthropology. The book presents a social history of a people and culture which is currently virtually non-existent in the Kashmir Valley. Drawing upon new theoretical and methodological perspectives, Non-renunciation: Themes and Interpretations of Hindu Culture provides a nuanced understanding of Hinduism as a lived tradition. It explores aspects of auspiciousness, purity, asceticism, eroticism, altruism, and death while focussing on the householder's life in Hindu society. The Omnibus also includes additional essays on the Brahmanic gotra, and the Hindu family and development, along with a short piece on aspects of traditional household culture. It features an autobiographical essay—the author's recollection of growing up in a Pandit home in Srinagar, Kashmir. In the Prologue, T.N. Madan engages with the 'householder tradition' across the cultural regions of India, analysing themes of householdership and renunciation in religious philosophy and ethnography.
This Omnibus brings together two of distinguished sociologist T.N. Madan's books on the concept of the householder in Hinduism. A common thread running through the Omnibus is the focus on life and society amongst the Hindu Kashmiri Pandit community. One of the books discussed in this Omnibus is Family and Kinship: A Study of the Pandits of Rural Kashmir, a pioneering and ethnographically rich account of the Indian family. It is considered to be a classic kinship study and is probably the only study of its kind of traditional Pandit life in the Kashmir Valley. The second book is Non-renunciation: Themes and Interpretations of Hindu Culture, which draws attention away from the ideas of caste and renunciation and focuses instead on the 'householder' in Hindu society. Beginning with an analysis of the ideology of the householder among Kashmiri Pandits the author deals with asceticism, eroticism, altruism and death as elaborations of the householder tradition. The Omnibus also includes a new Preface; a Prologue which introduces the reader to the concept of the householder tradition in Hinduism; an Epilogue-the author's memories of growing up in a Kashmiri Pandit household in Srinagar; and three appendices on related themes.
For scholars of ancient Indian religions, the wandering mendicants who left home and family for a celibate life and the search for liberation represent an enigma. The Vedic religion, centered on the married household, had no place for such a figure. Much has been written about the Indian ascetic but hardly any scholarly attention has been paid to the married householder with wife and children, generally referred to in Sanskrit as grhastha: "the stay-at-home." The institution of the householder is viewed implicitly as posing little historical problems with regard to its origin or meaning. This volume problematizes the figure of the householder within ancient Indian culture and religion. It shows that the term grhastha is a neologism and is understandable only in its opposition to the ascetic who goes away from home (pravrajita). Through a thorough and comprehensive analysis of a wide range of inscriptions and texts, ranging from the Vedas, Dharmasastras, Epics, and belle lettres to Buddhist and Jain texts and texts on governance and erotics, this volume analyses the meanings, functions, and roles of the householder from the earliest times unti about the fifth century CE. The central finding of these studies is that the householder bearing the name grhastha is not simply a married man with a family but someone dedicated to the same or similar goals as an ascetic while remaining at home and performing the economic and ritual duties incumbent on him. The grhastha is thus not a generic householder, for whom there are many other Sanskrit terms, but a religiously charged concept that is intended as a full-fledged and even superior alternative to the concept of a religious renouncer.
Focusing on the householder in Hindu society, this Omnibus brings together distinguished sociologist T.N. Madan's writings on the theme. With a new preface, prologue, epilogue, and three new appendices, the omnibus sheds light on life and society of Pandits in the Kashmir Valley.
"The foundation of Hindu law is the voluminous textual tradition called Dharmaśāstra, the expert tradition on dharma. This book seeks to delineate the historical development of Dharmaśāstra, even though the tradition presented dharma as timeless and ahistorical. The volume establishes the importance of law for the history and study of Hinduism by providing interpretive descriptions of all the major topics of Hindu dharma according to this tradition. First, two broad introductions to the historical development of the textual sources of Hindu law suggest new ways to understand both the original texts (smṛti) and the later commentaries and digests. Next, groundbreaking research into the origin of the householder (gṛhastha), who is at the center of the Dharmaśāstric enterprise, provides new insights into both the origin of this genre and many of its topics, such as the āśrama system and married household life. The book devotes its central chapters to each of the major topics of Dharmaśāstra: epistemology of dharma, caste and social class, orders of life, rites of passage, Vedic student and graduate, marriage, children, inheritance, women, daily duties, food, gifting, funeral and ancestral offerings, impurity and purification, ascetic modes of life, dharma during emergencies, king, punishment, legal procedure, titles of law, penances, vows, pilgrimage, images, and temples. The final chapters then explore both the reception of Dharmaśāstra in other religious traditions, both Hindu and Buddhist, and the relevance of Dharmaśāstra to studies of critical concepts in religious studies—the body, emotions, material culture, subjectivity, animal studies, and vernacular culture."--
An authoritative collection on the history of Hindu religious practices. Hindu Practice considers traditions of asceticism, yoga, and devotion, including dance and music, developed in Hinduism over long periods of time.
Naresh Kumar, PA to Shri R.K. Asthana, IAS, is his boss' doorkeeper. There is a share for Naresh in the bounties that flow in through that door, and there has been for years. But he is a man besieged. His married daughter is having trouble conceiving, his son's call centre job might be a cover for something murkier, and his wife expects him to solve these problems. Then there is Pinki Kaur, a colleague and his friend's widow, whose presence in the office stirs responses in him that he can neither submit to nor suppress. Distracted by personal crises, he misses the signs of political trouble brewing at work, and so it is that Naresh finds himself suspended from his job. Unseated from the desk that has been the source of his power and well-being, he must still struggle to make things right for his family: Naresh is, after all, a householder. With uncommon acuity, Amitabha Bagchi writes of a world where favours are currency, where access to power sometimes feels like a prerequisite for survival, where power can be both total and ephemeral. The Householder is a view from within this world, an examination of the moral condition of our times.
Female Ascetics in Hinduism provides a vivid account of the lives of women renouncers—women who renounce the world to live ascetic spiritual lives—in India. The author approaches the study of female asceticism by focusing on features of two dharmas, two religiously defined ways of life: that of woman-as-householder and that of the ascetic, who, for various reasons, falls outside the realm of householdership. The result of fieldwork conducted in Varanasi (Benares), the book explores renouncers' social and personal backgrounds, their institutions, and their ways of life. Offering a first-hand look at and an insightful analysis of this little-known world, this highly readable book will be indispensable to those interested in female asceticism in the Hindu tradition and women's spiritual lives around the world.