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Critical study, with English translation, of the works of Ravidasa, 15th century poet.
A FASCINATING AND RIGOROUS EXAMINATION OF KABIR’S LIFE AND POETRY AND HIS RELEVANCE TODAY, FOR BOTH THE SCHOLAR AND GENERAL READER As the right wing tries to claim Kabir for itself, while other conservatives disown him and yet others portray him as a secular idol beyond religion, the poet has never been so misunderstood. Coming from the Nirgun bhakti tradition, the words of this fifteenth-century poet have the power to reach beyond time and speak to us today. Was he a Hindu or Muslim or was he beyond religion? Did he try to cultivate a new faith or did he eschew organised religion altogether? Was his modernity an exception or a reflection of the times he lived in? What does Kabir’s life and poetry tell us about this nation’s past and present? In this rare appraisal of Kabir’s writings and his life, Purushottam Agarwal approaches this timeless poet-revolutionary with little preconceptions, presenting him the way the poet wanted to be seen, rather than what his followers and fans want to see in him.
Grand in its sweep, this survey of the sacred writings of the major religions of the world offers a thoughtful introduction to the ideas and beliefs upon which great faiths are built. Under the expert guidance of John Bowker, a religious scholar and author of international stature, readers explore the key texts of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi, Confucian, Daoist, and Shinto traditions. The author discusses some 400 books, among them such well-known sacred texts as the Bible and the Quran, but also spiritual writings by theologians, philosophers, poets, and others. Bowker provides clear and illuminating commentary on each text, describing the content and core tenets of the work and quoting pertinent passages. He also sets the writings in religious and historical contexts, showing how they have influenced—and in many cases continue to influence—artistic, musical, literary, and political traditions. The Message and the Book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the meaning and the deep significance of primary religious texts of civilizations around the globe.
Sikhs in Europe are neglected in the study of religions and migrant groups: previous studies have focused on the history, culture and religious practices of Sikhs in North America and the UK, but few have focused on Sikhs in continental Europe. This book fills this gap, presenting new data and analyses of Sikhs in eleven European countries; examining the broader European presence of Sikhs in new and old host countries. Focusing on patterns of migration, transmission of traditions, identity construction and cultural representations from the perspective of local Sikh communities, this book explores important patterns of settlement, institution building and cultural transmission among European Sikhs.
The religious landscape in Asia has long been diverse, with various forms of syncretic traditions and pragmatic practices continuously having been challenged by centrifugal forces of differentiation. This anthology explores representations and managements of religious diversity in Japan, China, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and diaspora religions originating in these countries, seen through the lenses of history, identity, state, ritual and geography. In addition to presenting empirical cases, the chapters also address theoretical and methodological reflections using Asia as a laboratory for further comparative research of the relevance and use of 'religious diversity'. Contributors are: Donald Baker, Ugo Dessi, Chung Van Hoang, Ayelet Harel-Shalev, Noa Levy, Gideon Elazar, Santosh K. Singh, Yu Tao, Ed Griffith, Satoko Fujiwara, Uwe Skoda, Tudor Silva, Martin Tsang, Marianne Q. Fibiger, Jørn Borup, and Lene Kühle. Religious Diversity in Asia was made possible by a framework grant from the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation allowing the grant holder (Jørn Borup) and two colleagues (Marianne Q. Fibiger and Lene Kühle) to host a workshop at Aarhus University and to co-arrange workshops in Delhi and Nagoya. We would like to thank professors Arshad Alam and Michiaki Okuyama for hosting these latter workshops at Jawaharlal Nehru University and Nanzan University, and we would like to thank Professor Chong-Suh Kim for the invitation for Jørn Borup to visit Seoul National University. We would also like to extend our gratitude to all the scholars who participated in the workshops and to all the authors we subsequently invited to contribute to our endeavor to create this academically relevant volume.
How do writing and literacy reshape the ways a language and its literature are imagined? If All the World Were Paper explores this question in the context of Hindi, the most widely spoken language in Southern Asia and the fourth most widely spoken language in the world today. Emerging onto the literary scene of India in the mid-fourteenth century, the vernacular of Hindi quickly acquired a place alongside “classical” languages like Sanskrit and Persian as a medium of literature and scholarship. The material and social processes through which it came to be written down and the particular form that it took—as illustrated storybooks, loose-leaf textbooks, personal notebooks, and holy scriptures—played a critical role in establishing Hindi as a language capable of transmitting poetry, erudition, and even revelation. If All the World Were Paper combines close readings of literary and scholastic works with an examination of hundreds of handwritten books from precolonial India to tell the story of Hindi literature’s development and reveal the relationships among ideologies of writing, material practices, and literary genres. Tyler W. Williams forcefully argues for a new approach to the literary archive, demonstrating how the ways books were inscribed, organized, and used can tell us as much about their meaning and significance as the texts within them. This book sets out a novel program for engaging with the archive of Hindi and of South Asian languages more broadly at a moment when much of that archive faces existential threats.
An accessible translation of the songs of the saints from the Adi Granth, the Sikh holy book.
Sikhism traces its beginnings to Guru Nanak, who was born in 1469 and died in 1538 or 1539. With the life of Guru Nanak the account of the Sikh faith begins, all Sikhs acknowledging him as their founder. Sikhism has long been a little-understood religion and until recently they resided almost exclusively in northwest India. Today the total number of Sikhs is approximately twenty million worldwide. About a million live outside India, constituting a significant minority in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Many of them are highly visible, particularly the men, who wear beards and turbans, and they naturally attract attention in their new countries of domicile. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Sikhism covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1000 cross-referenced entries on key persons, organizations, the principles, precepts and practices of the religion as well as the history, culture and social arrangements. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Sikhism.
This book examines three closely related questions in the process of canon formation in the Sikh tradition: how the text of the Adi Granth came into being, the meaning of gurbani, and how the Adi Granth became the Guru Granth Sahib. The censure of scholarly research on the Adi Granth was closely related to the complex political situation of Punjab and brought the whole issue of academic freedom into sharper focus. This book addresses some of these issues from an academic perspective. The Adi Granth, the sacred scripture of the Sikhs, means ‘first religious book’ (from the word ‘adi’ which means ‘first’ and ‘granth’ which means ‘religious book’). Sikhs normally refer to the Adi Granth as the Guru Granth Sahib to indicate a confession of faith in the scripture as Guru. The contents of the Adi Granth are commonly known as bani (utterance) or gurbani (the utterance of the Guru). The transcendental origin (or ontological status) of the hymns of the Adi Granth is termed dhur ki bani (utterance from the beginning). This particular understanding of revelation is based upon the doctrine of the sabad, or divine word, defined by Guru Nanak and the succeeding Gurus. This book also explores the revelation of the bani and its verbal expression, devotional music in the Sikh tradition, the role of the scripture in Sikh ceremonies, and the hymns of Guru Nanak and Guru Arjan.
A cross-cultural encyclopedia of the most significant holy people in history, examining why people in a wide range of religious traditions throughout the world have been regarded as divinely inspired. The first reference on the subject to span all the world's major religions, Holy People of the World: A Cross-Cultural Encyclopedia examines the impact of individuals who, through personal charisma and inspirational deeds, served both as glorious examples of human potential and as envoys for the divine. Holy People of the World contains nearly 1,100 biographical sketches of venerated men and women. Written by religious studies experts and historians, each article focuses on the basic question: How did this person come to be regarded as holy? In addition, the encyclopedia features 20 survey articles on views of holy people in the major religious traditions such as Islam, Buddhism, and African religions, as well as 64 comparative articles on aspects of holiness and veneration across cultures such as awakening and conversion experiences, heredity, gender, asceticism, and persecution. Whether exploring by religion, culture, or historic period, this extensively cross-referenced resource offers a wealth of insights into one of the most revealing—and least explored—common denominators of spiritual traditions.