The Brahmo Samaj and its Vaiṣṇava Milieus

The Brahmo Samaj and its Vaiṣṇava Milieus PDF Author: Ankur Barua
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004445382
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
In The Brahmo Samaj and its Vaiṣṇava Milieus: Intersections of Hindu Knowledge and Love in Nineteenth Century Bengal, Ankur Barua offers an intellectual history of the motif of religious universalism in the writings of some intellectuals associated with the Brahmo Samaj (founded in 1828). They constructed Hindu worldviews that were simultaneously rooted in some ancient Sanskritic materials and orientated towards contemporary universalist visions with western hues. These constructions were shaped by their dialectical engagements with three groups: members of the Bengali middle classes with sceptical standpoints (‘Young Bengal’), Christian missionaries, and Hindu Vaiṣṇava thinkers. In this genealogy of religious universalisms, Barua indicates how certain post-1900 formulations of the universalist compass of Hinduism were being enunciated across Brahmo circles from the 1820s.

The Brahmo Samaj and its Vaiṣṇava Milieus

The Brahmo Samaj and its Vaiṣṇava Milieus PDF Author: Ankur Barua
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004445382
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
In The Brahmo Samaj and its Vaiṣṇava Milieus: Intersections of Hindu Knowledge and Love in Nineteenth Century Bengal, Ankur Barua offers an intellectual history of the motif of religious universalism in the writings of some intellectuals associated with the Brahmo Samaj (founded in 1828). They constructed Hindu worldviews that were simultaneously rooted in some ancient Sanskritic materials and orientated towards contemporary universalist visions with western hues. These constructions were shaped by their dialectical engagements with three groups: members of the Bengali middle classes with sceptical standpoints (‘Young Bengal’), Christian missionaries, and Hindu Vaiṣṇava thinkers. In this genealogy of religious universalisms, Barua indicates how certain post-1900 formulations of the universalist compass of Hinduism were being enunciated across Brahmo circles from the 1820s.

The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind

The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind PDF Author: David Kopf
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400869897
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
As the forerunners of Indian modernization, the community of Bengali intellectuals known as the Brahmo Samaj played a crucial role in the genesis and development of every major religious, social, and political movement in India from 1820 to 1930. David Kopf launches a comprehensive generation- to-generation study of this group in order to understand the ideological foundations of the modern Indian mind. His book constitutes not only a biographical and a sociological study of the Brahmo Samaj, but also an intellectual history of modern India that ranges from the Unitarian social gospel of Rammohun Roy to Rabindranath Tagore's universal humanism and Jessie Bose's scientism. From a variety of biographical sources, many of them in Bengali and never before used in research, the author makes available much valuable information. In his analysis of the interplay between the ideas, the consciousness, and the lives of these early rebels against the Hindu tradition, Professor Kopf reveals the subtle and intricate problems and issues that gradually shaped contemporary Indian consciousness. What emerges from this group portrait is a legacy of innovation and reform that introduced a rationalist tradition of thought, liberal political consciousness, and Indian nationalism, in addition to changing theology and ritual, marriage laws and customs, and the status of women. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Hindu Encounter with Modernity

Hindu Encounter with Modernity PDF Author: Shukavak Das
Publisher: Sanskrit Religions Institute (S R I)
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
Bhaktivinode is presented from the perspective of his own times and in his own words. His writings, theology, and religious practices are thoroughly and systematically examined from a nonhagiographic viewpoint and the entire work is carefully annotated. Bhaktivinode's life straddled contemporary British society and ancestral Hindu culture. One was a modern, analytical world which demanded rational thought. The other was a traditional world of Hindu faith and piety, which seemingly allowed little room for critical analysis. Could he play a meaningful role in modern society and at the same time maintain integrity as a Hindu? This book systematically examines his reinterpretation and application of Hinduism in the context of rational thought. In this well-researched, comprehensive, and objective study Dr. Shukavak begins with a discussion of the "crisis of faith" many Hindus experienced during British rule in India. This is followed by a biographic narration of the life of Kedarnath Dutta concentrating primarily on his devotional development and struggle with the problems of tradition and modernity. Shukavak identifies the inner logic of Bhaktivinode's approach as it points backward to Caitanya and the Goswamis and forward to the challenges of rationalism and universalism. Kedarnath Dutta Bhaktivinode (1838-1914) was an English-educated member of the Bengali bhadralok in 19th century British India. He was an associate of such noteworthy men as: Kashiprasad Ghosh, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Keshub Chandra Sen, Michael Madhusudan Datta, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Sisir Kumar Ghosh and the Tagore family. In his late twenties he discovered his "Eastern Savior", Caitanya Mahaprabhu (1486-1533) and became a leader of the Caitanya Vaishnava movement in Bengal. He made a lifelong study of Vaishnava philosophy, theology, and literature; and he wrote or edited almost a hundred books in Bengali, Sanskrit, and English. Bhaktivinode's spiritual insights which divide religion into two constituent parts, the phenomenal and the transcendent allowed him to combine critical rational analysis with the best of Hindu mysticism, Krishna lila. This created a unique synthesis of tradition and modernity. Instead of relinquishing modernity, he utilized it in his writings; instead of rejecting the Hindu tradition in the presence of rational thought, he strengthened it.

Unforgetting Chaitanya

Unforgetting Chaitanya PDF Author: Varuni Bhatia
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019068626X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
What role do pre-modern religious traditions play in the formation of modern secular identities? In Unforgetting Chaitanya, Varuni Bhatia examines late-nineteenth-century transformations of Bengali Vaishnavism-a vibrant and multifaceted religious tradition that traces its origins to the fifteenth century Krishna devotee Chaitanya (1486-1533). Drawing on an extensive body of hitherto unexamined archival material, Bhatia finds that both religious modernizers and secular voices among the Bengali middle-class invoked Chaitanya, portraying him simultaneously as a local hero, a Hindu reformer, and as God almighty. She argues that these claims should be understood in relation to the recovery of a "pure" Bengali culture and history in a period of nascent, but rising, anti-colonialism in the region. Who is a true Vaishnava? In the late nineteenth century, this question assumed urgency as debates around questions of authenticity appeared prominently in the Bengali public sphere. These debates went on for years, even decades, causing unbridgeable rifts in personal friendships and tarnishing reputations of established scholars. Underlying these debates was the question of authoritative Bengali Vaishnavism and its role in the long-term constitution of Bengali culture and society. At stake, argues Bhatia, was the very nature and composition of an indigenously-derived modernity inscribed through the politics of authenticity, which allowed an influential section of Hindu, upper-caste Bengalis to excavate their own explicitly Hindu pasts in order to find a people's history, a religious reformer, a casteless Hindu sect, the richest examples of Bengali literature, and a sophisticated expression of monotheistic religion.

Unforgetting Chaitanya

Unforgetting Chaitanya PDF Author: Varuni Bhatia
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190686251
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
What role do pre-modern religious traditions play in the formation of modern secular identities? In Unforgetting Chaitanya, Varuni Bhatia examines late-nineteenth-century transformations of Bengali Vaishnavism-a vibrant and multifaceted religious tradition that traces its origins to the fifteenth century Krishna devotee Chaitanya (1486-1533). Drawing on an extensive body of hitherto unexamined archival material, Bhatia finds that both religious modernizers and secular voices among the Bengali middle-class invoked Chaitanya, portraying him simultaneously as a local hero, a Hindu reformer, and as God almighty. She argues that these claims should be understood in relation to the recovery of a "pure" Bengali culture and history in a period of nascent, but rising, anti-colonialism in the region. Who is a true Vaishnava? In the late nineteenth century, this question assumed urgency as debates around questions of authenticity appeared prominently in the Bengali public sphere. These debates went on for years, even decades, causing unbridgeable rifts in personal friendships and tarnishing reputations of established scholars. Underlying these debates was the question of authoritative Bengali Vaishnavism and its role in the long-term constitution of Bengali culture and society. At stake, argues Bhatia, was the very nature and composition of an indigenously-derived modernity inscribed through the politics of authenticity, which allowed an influential section of Hindu, upper-caste Bengalis to excavate their own explicitly Hindu pasts in order to find a people's history, a religious reformer, a casteless Hindu sect, the richest examples of Bengali literature, and a sophisticated expression of monotheistic religion.

Shyamji Krishnavarma

Shyamji Krishnavarma PDF Author: Harald Fischer-Tine
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317562488
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
This book is the first critical biography on Shyamji Krishnavarma — scholar, journalist and national revolutionary who lived in exile outside India from 1897 to 1930. His ideas were crucial in the creation of an extremist wing of anti-imperial nationalism. The work delves into a fascinating range of issues such as colonialism and knowledge, political violence, cosmopolitanism, and diaspora. Lucidly written, and with an insightful analysis of Krishnavarma’s life and times, this will greatly interest scholars and researchers of modern Indian history, politics, the nationalist movement, as well as the informed lay reader.

Akshaykumar Dutta

Akshaykumar Dutta PDF Author: Asitakumāra Bhaṭṭācārya
Publisher: Sahitya Akademi
ISBN: 9788126000814
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
On the works of Akshaẏakumāra Datta, 1820-1886, Bengali litterateur.

Religious Authority in South Asia

Religious Authority in South Asia PDF Author: István Keul
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000654923
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
This book focuses on genealogies of religious authority in South Asia, examining the figure of the guru in narrative texts, polemical tracts, hagiographies, histories, in contemporary devotional communities, New Age spiritual movements and global guru organizations. Experts in the field present reflections on historically specific contexts in which a guru comes into being, becomes part of a community, is venerated, challenged or repudiated, generates a new canon, remains unique with no clear succession or establishes a succession in which charisma is routinized. The guru emerges and is sustained and routinized from the nexus of guruship, narratives, performances and community. The contributors to the book examine this nexus at specific historical moments with all their elements of change and contingency. The book will be of interest to scholars in the field of South Asian studies, the study of religions and cultural studies.

Multiculturalism and Minority Religions in Britain

Multiculturalism and Minority Religions in Britain PDF Author: Malory Nye
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 0700713921
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
This book studies issues relating to minority religions' place within a multicultural society. Analyzing the particular case study of the Bhaktivedanta Manor campaign by ISKCON (the 'Hare Krishnas') alongside wider debates, it makes an important contribution to our understanding of the politics of cultural diversity and religious freedom.

Arya Dharma

Arya Dharma PDF Author: Dhyan Appachu Bollachettira
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781647647445
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 608

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Book Description
A publication on the Arya Dharma (Noble Dharma) - A better way of living, spirituality, wellbeing, government, finance, economics, law and democracy by going back to the future.Bharata has the greatest history, heritage and culture ever possessed by any civilization in the history of the Universe.It is a real shame of what we have become today because we blindly try to ape and emulate the fraud FUKUS (France, UK, USA) systems which are totally unsuitable not only to us, but to any country on this planet, and especially harmful to Nature, the supreme embodiment of Brahman (God).It really makes you wonder about the state of this world, when the priceless Amazon rain forest is valued at $20 million, and the Amazon online shopping website is valued at almost a trillion dollars.It really makes you wonder about the state of this world, when the top 1% possesses more than 47% percent of the global wealth, while the bottom half still worries about scrounging for their next meal.If Bharat must have any hope of restoring its past glory, it must abandon all the fraud FUKUS systems and return to Dharma and SEVA (Selfless Sacrifice), which were our eternal guiding principles ever since Ram Rajya.