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Author: Brian K. Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195060546
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408
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Book Description
This is a comprehensive examination of the 'varna' system - a classificatory scheme laid out in the classical Hindu Vedic literature and thought to underlie the concept of caste, which continues to exert a powerful and pervasive influence over Indian life.
Author: Brian K. Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195060546
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408
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Book Description
This is a comprehensive examination of the 'varna' system - a classificatory scheme laid out in the classical Hindu Vedic literature and thought to underlie the concept of caste, which continues to exert a powerful and pervasive influence over Indian life.
Author: Āhuti
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789937837286
Category : Dalits
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
Author: Ali Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 9780195084986
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408
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Book Description
The first book to analyze why India's caste system has authoritatively endured for so long, this path-breaking text provides, for the first time anywhere, an exhaustive analysis of the historical predecessor to caste: the ancient Indian varna system as it was laid out in the Vedic literature. Presenting a revisionist overview of the way the religion of the Veda is to be understood, Classifying the Universe demonstrates that social classes were systematically reduplicated in taxonomies that organized the universe as a whole. The classification of society, in which some groups were accorded rights and privileges withheld from others, could thus be represented as part of a primordial and universally applicable order of things. Social hierarchy, argues the author, was in this way subtly but powerfully justified by recourse to other realms of the cosmos that were similarly ordered, and this essentially religious understanding of varna is the key to comprehending the Vedic world-view in all its complexity, and the persistence of its power in the social realm.
Author: B. R. Ambedkar
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789354991028
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 298
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Book Description
The general proposition that the social organization of the Indo-Aryans was based on the theory of Chaturvarnya and that Chaturvarnya means division of society into four classes-Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (soldiers), Vaishyas (traders) and Shudras (menials) does not convey any idea of the real nature of the problem of the Shudras nor of its magnitude. Chaturvarnya would have been a very innocent principle if it meant no more than mere division of society into four classes. Unfortunately, more than this is involved in the theory of Chaturvarnya. Besides dividing society into four orders, the theory goes further and makes the principle of graded inequality. Under the system of Chaturvarnya, the Shudra is not only placed at the bottom of the gradation but he is subjected to innumerable ignominies and disabilities so as to prevent him from rising above the condition fixed for him by law. Indeed until the fifth Varna of the Untouchables came into being, the Shudras were in the eyes of the Hindus the lowest of the low. This shows the nature of what might be called the problem of the Shudras. If people have no idea of the magnitude of the problem it is because they have not cared to know what the population of the Shudras is.
Author: Jeffery D. Long
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9789402411874
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 1822
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Book Description
This volume offers an overview of Hinduism as found in India and the diaspora. Exploring Hinduism in India in dynamic interaction, rather than in isolation, the volume discusses the relation of Hinduism with other religions of Indian origin and with religions which did not originate in India but have been a major feature of its religious landscape. These latter religions include Islam and Christianity and, to a lesser extent, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. The volume also covers Hinduism’s close association with Tribal Religions, sometimes called Primal Religions. As its second main theme, the volume examines the phenomenon of Hinduism in the diaspora. The Indian diaspora is now beginning to make its presence felt, both in India and abroad. In India, the Indian government annually hosts a diaspora event called Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD), in recognition of the growing importance of the twenty-million-strong diaspora. Although not all Indians are Hindus, most are, both in India and abroad, and a strong sense of Hindu identity is emerging among diasporic Hindus. This volume fills the need felt by Hindus both in India and the diaspora for more knowledge about modern-day Hinduism, Hindu history and traditions. It takes into account three main aspects of Hinduism: that the active pan-Indian and diasporic language of the Hindus is English; that modern Hindus need a rational rather than a devotional or traditional exposition of the religion; and that they need information about and arguments to address the stereotypes which characterize the presentation of Hinduism in academia and the media, especially in the West.
Author: Louis Dumont
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226169634
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 542
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Book Description
Louis Dumont's modern classic, here presented in an enlarged, revised, and corrected second edition, simultaneously supplies that reader with the most cogent statement on the Indian caste system and its organizing principles and a provocative advance in the comparison of societies on the basis of their underlying ideologies. Dumont moves gracefully from the ethnographic data to the level of the hierarchical ideology encrusted in ancient religious texts which are revealed as the governing conception of the contemporary caste structure. On yet another plane of analysis, homo hierarchicus is contrasted with his modern Western antithesis, homo aequalis. This edition includes a lengthy new Preface in which Dumont reviews the academic discussion inspired by Homo Hierarchicus and answers his critics. A new Postface, which sketches the theoretical and comparative aspects of the concept of hierarchy, and three significant Appendixes previously omitted from the English translation complete this innovative and influential work.
Author: Bharat Jhunjhunwala
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
The book analyzes the varna vyavastha from the standpoint of governance. It shows that varna vyavastha reconciles the conflicting claims of evolution of individual and good governance in a synergetic manner. Besides, the thoughts of notable historians like D.D. Kosambi and G.S. Ghurys, political leaders like B.R. Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi and Ram Manohar Lohia, and western philosophers like John Locke and Karl Marx have been examined to show how these affirm the concept of Varna Vyavastha.
Author: Nicholas B. Dirks
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400840945
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
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.
Author: Kalavai Venkat
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781505873429
Category : Christian life
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
WHAT EVERY HINDU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CHRISTIANITY leverages cutting-edge scholarly researches in textual criticism and cognitive sciences to arrive at a reasonable understanding of Christian beliefs. The findings it presents reveal a hitherto unknown face of Christianity to the rational Hindu. It concludes that Christianity originated in a psychotic milieu, Christian beliefs are self-contradictory, and theology invalidates the need to believe. It explores the provocative question of whether Jesus is a myth. It systematically argues that Christianity lacks an ethical framework, 'Herem warfare' is the Christian code of holy extermination, Christian beliefs and practices may cause harm to both Hindus and Christians, and concludes that Hinduism and Christianity cannot coexist. It offers a prescription on and how to engage Christianity and why mutual respect cannot be the precondition for Hindu-Christian engagement.
Author: Sanjay Sonawani
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781973131359
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 56
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Book Description
The riddle of the origins of Indian caste system and its true nature remained unsolved because erroneously the scholars tried to find its source in Vedic system. The theories so far proposed mostly are descriptive in nature without touching the socio-economic aspects in genesis and development of the castes. They failed to understand that the Caste and Varna systems are independent concepts belonging to the distinct religions thus created a great confusion. Hindu and Vedic religions are independent bodies those have very little or nothing in common. The Author explains diligently what circumstances forced changing an occupation-oriented flexible system into a rigid, compartmentalized unjust caste system during the medieval era. Mr. Sonawani in this book throws a glaring light on the historical facts of the castes extensively using the social, religious and political history of India. This book will provide a new insight on the enigmatic caste system!
