The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya

The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya PDF Author: Steven E. Lindquist
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438495641
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this fascinating study, Steven E. Lindquist investigates the intersections between historical context and literary production in the "life" of Yājñavalkya, the most important ancient Indian literary figure prior to the Buddha. Known for his sharp tongue and deep thought, Yājñavalkya is associated with a number of "firsts" in Indian religious literary history: the first person to discuss brahman and ātman thoroughly; the first to put forth a theory of karma and reincarnation; the first to renounce his household life; and the first to dispute with women in religious debate. Throughout early Indian history, he was seen as a priestly bearer of ritual authority, a sage of mystical knowledge, and an innovative propagator of philosophical ideas and religious law. Drawing on history, literary studies, ritual studies, Sanskrit philology, narrative studies, and philosophy, Lindquist traces Yājñavalkya’s literary life—from his earliest mentions in ritual texts, through his developing biography in the Upaniṣads, and finally to his role as a hoary sage in narrative literature—offering the first detailed monograph on this central figure in early Indian religious and literary history.

The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya

The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya PDF Author: Steven E. Lindquist
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438495641
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this fascinating study, Steven E. Lindquist investigates the intersections between historical context and literary production in the "life" of Yājñavalkya, the most important ancient Indian literary figure prior to the Buddha. Known for his sharp tongue and deep thought, Yājñavalkya is associated with a number of "firsts" in Indian religious literary history: the first person to discuss brahman and ātman thoroughly; the first to put forth a theory of karma and reincarnation; the first to renounce his household life; and the first to dispute with women in religious debate. Throughout early Indian history, he was seen as a priestly bearer of ritual authority, a sage of mystical knowledge, and an innovative propagator of philosophical ideas and religious law. Drawing on history, literary studies, ritual studies, Sanskrit philology, narrative studies, and philosophy, Lindquist traces Yājñavalkya’s literary life—from his earliest mentions in ritual texts, through his developing biography in the Upaniṣads, and finally to his role as a hoary sage in narrative literature—offering the first detailed monograph on this central figure in early Indian religious and literary history.

The Hidden Lives of Brahman

The Hidden Lives of Brahman PDF Author: Joël André-Michel Dubois
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438448074
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 447

Get Book Here

Book Description
Finalist for the 2014 Best First Book in the History of Religions presented by the American Academy of Religion Śaṅkara's thought, advaita vedānta or non-dual vedānta, is a tradition focused on brahman, the ultimate reality transcending all particular manifestations, words, and ideas. It is generally considered that the transcendent brahman cannot be attained through any effort or activity. While this conception is technically correct, in The Hidden Lives of Brahman, Joël André-Michel Dubois contends that it is misleading. Hidden lives of brahman become visible when analysis of Śaṅkara's seminal commentaries is combined with ethnographic descriptions of contemporary Brāhmin students and teachers of vedānta, a group largely ignored in most studies of this tradition. Du bois demonstrates that for Śaṅkara, as for Brāhmin tradition in general, brahman is just as much an active force, fully connected to the dynamic power of words and imagination, as it is a transcendent ultimate.

Religion and Identity in South Asia and Beyond

Religion and Identity in South Asia and Beyond PDF Author: Steven E. Lindquist
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1783080671
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume brings together sixteen articles on the religions, literatures and histories of South and Central Asia in tribute to Patrick Olivelle, one of North America’s leading Sanskritists and historians of early India. Over the last four decades, the focus of his scholarship has been on the ascetic and legal traditions of India, but his work as both a researcher and a teacher extends beyond early Indian religion and literature. ‘Religion and Identity and South Asia and Beyond’ is a testament to that influence. The contributions in this volume, many by former students of Olivelle, are committed to linguistic and historical rigor, combined with sensitivity to how the study of Asia has been changing over the last several decades.

Men and Thought in Ancient India

Men and Thought in Ancient India PDF Author: Radhakumud Mookerji
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya

The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya PDF Author: Steven E Lindquist
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781438495620
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
A literary and historical investigation into an ancient Indian religious thinker, tracing his rise in importance in the Hindu tradition.

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

Get Book Here

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.

Religious Life of the Brahman

Religious Life of the Brahman PDF Author: Asim Maitra
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bihar (India)
Languages : en
Pages : 166

Get Book Here

Book Description
Nowhere else in the world have so many races and cultures met and got absorbed as in India. Nowhere else in the world has religion been made the object of such vast experimentation as village Hindu religion. The present book by Asim Maitra based on his field study using anthropological tools aims at providing a corect and scientific understanding of the religious issues of Maithil Brahmans in particular and the Mithila area (now comprising the present districts of Darbhanga, Saharsa, Madhywani, Samastipur, parts of Champaran, Muzzefarpur, Monghyr, Bhagalpur, Purnea and Tarai under Nepal lying betwen the districts and lower ranges of Himalaya) in general.

Language, Texts, and Society

Language, Texts, and Society PDF Author: Patrick Olivelle
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 0857284312
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 421

Get Book Here

Book Description
This collection brings together the research papers of Patrick Olivelle, published over a period of about ten years. The unifying theme of these studies is the search for historical context and developments hidden within words and texts. Words - and the cultural history represented by words - that scholars often take for granted as having a continuous and long history are often new and even neologisms, and thus provide important clues to cultural and religious innovations. Olivelle's book on the Asramas, as well as the short pieces included in this volume, such as those on ananda and dharma, seek to see cultural innovation and historical changes within the changing semantic fields of key terms. Closer examination of numerous Sanskrit terms taken for granted as central to 'Hinduism' provide similar results. Indian texts have often been studied in the past as disincarnate realities providing information on an ahistorical and unchanging culture. This volume is a small contribution towards correcting that method of textual study.

Life in the Upanishads

Life in the Upanishads PDF Author: Shubhra Sharma
Publisher: Abhinav Publications
ISBN: 8170172020
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Get Book Here

Book Description
-----------

When Does History Begin?

When Does History Begin? PDF Author: Harjot Oberoi
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438487363
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Get Book Here

Book Description
Focusing on important issues in Sikh religious identity and memory, Harjot Oberoi shows how premodern techniques of narrating the past and truth-telling in South Asia were deeply transformed by colonialism. Indian historiographical praxis has long been problematic. Al-Biruni, the eleventh-century polymath, was puzzled by how people in the subcontinent treated the protocols of history; it escaped his learning that Indian narrative constructions of the past were embedded in an intricate canon of poetical traditions and represented a radical departure from historical narratives in the Islamic, Sinic, and Greco-Roman worlds. Where others tended to search for "facts," people in South Asia looked for "affect." This alternative model for comprehending and evaluating the past—through aesthetics and gradients of taste—generated a crucially different variety of historical consciousness. Oberoi's examination of the Sikh tradition demonstrates what modern critical narrative achieves when it moves away from classical models, traversing significant moments in colonialism, coercion and protest in the Raj, the production of knowledge, the rise of secular nationalism, and modern notions of the self within and outside India.