Everyday Lives, Everyday Histories

Everyday Lives, Everyday Histories PDF Author: Uma Chakravarti
Publisher: Tulika Books
ISBN: 9788189487959
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This volume of essays moves the historiography of ancient India in the service of a history of the present. The cultural onslaught of a brahmanical saffron culture within popular discourse, and the fight against entrenched class and caste interests led by women, dalits, and other marginalized groups, frame this battle for 'ancient' India. Through an in-depth analysis of myths and original sources, the author provides novel grounds for contesting the foundations of such charged concepts as 'nation', 'civilization, ' and 'womanly honour'. Reading against the grain of canonical sources, she presents a distinctive reading of lesser known Buddhist Pali texts, the Jataka stories, and even contemporary texts like the TV serials Chanakya and Ramayana, to demonstrate the stratifications in early Indian society. The book brings to light several crucial concepts and categories that make possible a sensitive delineation of social alienation, class antagonism and gendered violence in ancient Indian society. The everyday histories of dasas, karmakaras, 'a'grihinis, bhaktins, and gahapatis provide an understanding of ancient India away from the clichéd invocations of ideal kings, brahmanas, and pativratas.

Everyday Lives, Everyday Histories

Everyday Lives, Everyday Histories PDF Author: Uma Chakravarti
Publisher: Tulika Books
ISBN: 9788189487959
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This volume of essays moves the historiography of ancient India in the service of a history of the present. The cultural onslaught of a brahmanical saffron culture within popular discourse, and the fight against entrenched class and caste interests led by women, dalits, and other marginalized groups, frame this battle for 'ancient' India. Through an in-depth analysis of myths and original sources, the author provides novel grounds for contesting the foundations of such charged concepts as 'nation', 'civilization, ' and 'womanly honour'. Reading against the grain of canonical sources, she presents a distinctive reading of lesser known Buddhist Pali texts, the Jataka stories, and even contemporary texts like the TV serials Chanakya and Ramayana, to demonstrate the stratifications in early Indian society. The book brings to light several crucial concepts and categories that make possible a sensitive delineation of social alienation, class antagonism and gendered violence in ancient Indian society. The everyday histories of dasas, karmakaras, 'a'grihinis, bhaktins, and gahapatis provide an understanding of ancient India away from the clichéd invocations of ideal kings, brahmanas, and pativratas.

The Snake and the Mongoose

The Snake and the Mongoose PDF Author: Nathan McGovern
Publisher: Paperbackshop UK Import
ISBN: 0190640790
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
In The Snake and The Mongoose, Nathan McGovern turns the commonly-accepted model of the origins of early Indian religions on its head. Instead of assuming a fundamental dichotomy between Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical in ancient India, McGovern shows that there were many different groups who all saw themselves as Brahmanical, and out of whose contestation with one another the distinction between Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical emerged.

Aitareya Brahmana

Aitareya Brahmana PDF Author: Theodor Aufrecht
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783337385422
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
Aitareya Brahmana is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1879. Hansebooks is editor of the literature on different topic areas such as research and science, travel and expeditions, cooking and nutrition, medicine, and other genres. As a publisher we focus on the preservation of historical literature. Many works of historical writers and scientists are available today as antiques only. Hansebooks newly publishes these books and contributes to the preservation of literature which has become rare and historical knowledge for the future.

Ancient Indian Historical Tradition

Ancient Indian Historical Tradition PDF Author: Frederick Eden Pargiter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description


Ancient India

Ancient India PDF Author: Upinder Singh
Publisher: Aleph Book Company
ISBN: 9789390652617
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Upinder Singh urges us to abandon simplistic stereotypes and instead think of ancient India in terms of the coexistence of five powerful contradictions-between social inequality and promises of universal salvation, the valorization of desire and detachment, goddess worship and misogyny, violence and non-violence, and religious debate and conflict. She does so using a vast array of sources including religious and philosophical texts, epics, poetry, plays, technical treatises, satire, biographies, and inscriptions, as well as the material and aesthetic evidence of archaeology and art from sites across the subcontinent. Singh's scholarly but highly accessible style, clear explanation, and balanced interpretations offer an understanding of the historian's craft and unravel the many threads of what we think of as ancient Indian culture. This is not a dead or forgotten past but one invoked in different contexts even today. Further, in spite of enormous historical changes over the centuries, the contradictions discussed here still remain.

Echoes of Ancient Indian Wisdom

Echoes of Ancient Indian Wisdom PDF Author: Shantha N. Nair
Publisher: Pustak Mahal
ISBN: 8122310206
Category : Hindu philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
The echoes of ancient Indian wisdom can be heard from the oldest of scriptures that existed many years ago. Even thousands of years before they were written down on palm leaves, the teachings were passed on from generations to generations, from the teachers to the disciples in their oral form. These works are amongst the oldest of humanity. They laid the foundation of one of the most tolerant and diverse religions in the world, the Sanatan Dharma or Hinduism, which is marked by a wide range of ethos and philosophical approaches. Covering the vastness and immensity of the ancient Indian scriptures is akin to capturing a gigantic ocean in a small pitcher. Thus, in this book, the author has tried to catch a few 'echoes' resonating with age-old wisdom and has presented them to the readers. the book unravels the knowledge hidden inside the Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads of the Shruti that form the Vedas, and in the Smriti like Agamas, Dharma Shastras and so on. In short, it provides a glimpse, or rather a macro view of the ancient treasure of India.

A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature

A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature PDF Author: Friedrich Max Müller
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Brahmanism
Languages : en
Pages : 698

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Book Description


The Character of the Self in Ancient India

The Character of the Self in Ancient India PDF Author: Brian Black
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791480526
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This groundbreaking book is an elegant exploration of the Upanisads, often considered the fountainhead of the rich, varied philosophical tradition in India. The Upaniṣads, in addition to their philosophical content, have a number of sections that contain narratives and dialogues—a literary dimension largely ignored by the Indian philosophical tradition, as well as by modern scholars. Brian Black draws attention to these literary elements and demonstrates that they are fundamental to understanding the philosophical claims of the text. Focusing on the Upanisadic notion of the self (ātman), the book is organized into four main sections that feature a lesson taught by a brahmin teacher to a brahmin student, debates between brahmins, discussions between brahmins and kings, and conversations between brahmins and women. These dialogical situations feature dramatic elements that bring attention to both the participants and the social contexts of Upanisadic philosophy, characterizing philosophy as something achieved through discussion and debate. In addition to making a number of innovative arguments, the author also guides the reader through these profound and engaging texts, offering ways of reading the Upaniṣads that make them more understandable and accessible.

Brahman and Dao

Brahman and Dao PDF Author: Ithamar Theodor
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739188143
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
The present geopolitical rise of India and China evokes much interest in the comparative study of these two ancient Asian cultures. There are various studies comparing Western and Indian philosophies and religions, and there are similar works comparing Chinese and Western philosophy and religion. However, so far there is no systemic comparative study of Chinese and Indian philosophies and religions. Therefore there is a need to fill this gap. As such, Brahman and Dao: Comparative Studies of Indian and Chinese Philosophy and Religion is a pioneering volume in that it highlights possible bridges between these two great cultures and complex systems of thought, with seventeen chapters on various Indo-Chinese comparative topics. The book focuses on four themes: metaphysics and soteriology; ethics; body, health and spirituality; and language and culture.

Aryans, Jews, Brahmins

Aryans, Jews, Brahmins PDF Author: Dorothy M. Figueira
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791487830
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
In Aryans, Jews, Brahmins, Dorothy M. Figueira provides a fascinating account of the construction of the Aryan myth and its uses in both India and Europe from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century. The myth concerns a race that inhabits a utopian past and gives rise first to Brahmin Indian culture and then to European culture. In India, notions of the Aryan were used to develop a national identity under colonialism, one that allowed Indian elites to identify with their British rulers. It also allowed non-elites to set up a counter identity critical of their position in the caste system. In Europe, the Aryan myth provided certain thinkers with an origin story that could compete with the Biblical one and could be used to diminish the importance of the West's Jewish heritage. European racial hygienists made much of the myth of a pure Aryan race, and the Nazis later looked at India as a cautionary tale of what could happen if a nation did not remain "pure." As Figueira demonstrates, the history of the Aryan myth is also a history of reading, interpretation, and imaginative construction. Initially, the ideology of the Aryan was imposed upon absent or false texts. Over time, it involved strategies of constructing, evoking, or distorting the canon. Each construction of racial identity was concerned with key issues of reading: canonicity, textual accessibility, interpretive strategies of reading, and ideal readers. The book's cross-cultural investigation demonstrates how identities can be and are created from texts and illuminates an engrossing, often disturbing history that arose from these creations.