Tirumantiram, a Tamil Scriptural Classic

Tirumantiram, a Tamil Scriptural Classic PDF Author: திருமூலர்
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
Translation of a Tamil canonical work of the Saiva Siddhanta school in Hindu philosophy, with interpretive notes.

Tirumantiram, a Tamil Scriptural Classic

Tirumantiram, a Tamil Scriptural Classic PDF Author: திருமூலர்
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
Translation of a Tamil canonical work of the Saiva Siddhanta school in Hindu philosophy, with interpretive notes.

The Roots of Tantra

The Roots of Tantra PDF Author: Katherine Anne Harper
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 079148890X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Among the many spiritual traditions born and developed in India, Tantra has been the most difficult to define. Almost everything about it—its major characteristics, its sources, its relationships to other religions, even its practices—are debated among scholars. In addition, Tantrism is not confined to any particular religion, but is a set of beliefs and practices that appears in a variety of religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism. This book explores one of the most controversial aspects of Tantra, its sources or roots, specifically in regard to Hinduism. The essays focus on the history and development of Tantra, the art history and archaeology of Tantra, the Vedas and Tantra, and texts and Tantra. Using various disciplinary and methodological approaches, from history to art history and religious studies to textual studies, scholars provide both broad overviews of the beginnings of Tantra and detailed analyses of specific texts, authors, art works, and rituals.

Healing across Boundaries

Healing across Boundaries PDF Author: Makarand R. Paranjape
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317324722
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
This unique volume initiates a dialogue between bio-medicine and alternative therapeutics. Undertaking a multidisciplinary exploration of the science and spirituality of healing and wellness, it offers varied perspectives from doctors, medical researchers, Ayurvedic practitioners, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and cultural critics. It expands the horizons of health sciences in engaging with diverse traditions — bio-medicine, Ayurveda, Siddha, and Jaina bio-ethics. The book will interest scholars and researchers in social and community medicine, biological sciences, sociology and social anthropology, as well as cultural studies.

Auspicious Wisdom

Auspicious Wisdom PDF Author: Douglas Renfrew Brooks
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791411469
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Rooting itself in Kashmir Shaivism, Śrividyā became a force in South India no later than the seventh century, and eventually supplanted the Trika as the dominant Tantric tradition in Kashmir. This is the first comprehensive study of the texts and traditions of this influential school of goddess-centered, Śākta, Tantrism. Centering on the goddess's three manifestations—the beneficent deity Lalita Tripurasundari, her mantra, and the visually striking sricakra—Śrividyā creates a systematic esoteric discipline that combines elements of the yogas of knowledge, of devotion, and of ritual. Utilizing canonical works, historical commentaires, and the interpretive insights of living practitioners, this book explores the theological and ritual theories that form the basis for Śrividyā practice and offers new methods for critical and comparative studies of esoteric Hinduism.

Recipes for Immortality

Recipes for Immortality PDF Author: Richard S Weiss
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199715009
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Despite the global spread of Western medical practice, traditional doctors still thrive in the modern world. In Recipes for Immortality, Richard Weiss illuminates their continued success by examining the ways in which siddha medical practitioners in Tamil South India win the trust and patronage of patients. While biomedicine might alleviate a patient's physical distress, siddha doctors offer their clientele much more: affiliation to a timeless and pure community, the fantasy of a Tamil utopia, and even the prospect of immortality. They speak of a golden age of Tamil civilization and of traditional medicine, drawing on broader revivalist formulations of a pure and ancient Tamil community. Weiss analyzes the success of siddha doctors, focusing on how they have successfully garnered authority and credibility. While shedding light on their lives, vocations, and aspirations, Weiss also documents the challenges that siddha doctors face in the modern world, both from a biomedical system that claims universal efficacy, and also from the rival traditional medicine, ayurveda, which is promoted as the national medicine of an autonomous Indian state. Drawing on ethnographic data; premodern Tamil texts on medicine, alchemy, and yoga; government archival resources; college textbooks; and popular literature on siddha medicine and on the siddhar yogis, he presents an in-depth study of this traditional system of knowledge, which serves the medical needs of millions of Indians. Weiss concludes with a look at traditional medicine at large, and demonstrates that siddha doctors, despite resent trends toward globalization and biomedicine, reflect the wider political and religious dimensions of medical discourse in our modern world. Recipes for Immortality proves that medical authority is based not only on physical effectiveness, but also on imaginative processes that relate to personal and social identities, conceptions of history, secrecy, loss, and utopian promise.

The Transformation of Tamil Religion

The Transformation of Tamil Religion PDF Author: Srilata Raman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131774473X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
This book analyses the religious ideology of a Tamil reformer and saint, Ramalinga Swamigal of the 19th century and his posthumous reception in the Tamil country and sheds light on the transformation of Tamil religion that both his works and the understanding of him brought about. The book traces the hagiographical and biographical process by which Ramalinga Swamigal is shifted from being considered an exemplary poet-saint of the Tamil Śaivite bhakti tradition to a Dravidian nationalist social reformer. Taking as a starting point Ramalinga’s own writing, the book presents him as inhabiting a border zone between early modernity and modernity, between Hinduism and Christianity, between colonialism and regional nationalism, highlighting the influence of his teachings on politics, particularly within Dravidian cultural and political nationalism. Simultaneously, the book considers the implication of such an hagiographical process for the transformation of Tamil religion in the period between the 19th –mid-20th centuries. The author demonstrates that Ramalinga Swamigal’s ideology of compassion, cīvakāruṇyam, had not only a long genealogy in pre-modern Tamil Śaivism but also that it functioned as a potentially emancipatory ethics of salvation and caste critique not just for him but also for other Tamil and Dalit intellectuals of the 19th century. This book is a path-breaking study that also traces the common grounds between the religious visions of two of the most prominent subaltern figures of Tamil modernity – Iyothee Thass and Ramalingar. It argues that these transformations are one meaningful way for a religious tradition to cope with and come to terms with the implications of historicization and the demands of colonial modernity. It is, therefore, a valuable contribution to the field of religion, South Asian history and literature and Subaltern studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315794518 has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Hindu Scriptures and Their Profound Teachings

Hindu Scriptures and Their Profound Teachings PDF Author: Amrahs Hseham
Publisher: Mahesh Dutt Sharma
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
The purpose of this book, "Hindu Scriptures and Their Profound Teachings," is to provide readers with an overview of the most important Hindu scriptures and the teachings contained within them. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific text or philosophical system and offers a concise yet comprehensive summary of its key ideas and teachings.

Yoga's Forgotten Foundation

Yoga's Forgotten Foundation PDF Author: Subramuniya (Master.)
Publisher: Himalayan Academy Publications
ISBN: 0945497911
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
"Ancient secrets from the yoga tradition for building good character and self-discipline, the seldom-taught but essential first steps for knowing God within."--Cover.

Like a Tree Universally Spread

Like a Tree Universally Spread PDF Author: Keith Edward Cantú
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197665470
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 497

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Book Description
"This book reconstructs the tantalizing tale of Sri Sabhapati Swami (ca. 1828-1923/4), today a little-known swami who was originally from Tamil Nadu in southern India, and historically contextualizes a fascinating type of yoga that Sabhapati claimed would lead to an experience of being "like a tree universally spread." The practical method of having this experience, in technical terms called the samadhi or "composure" of sivarajayoga or the "Royal yoga for siva," was published in English and multiple Indic languages and lavishly illustrated in diagrams on subtle and physical bodies. This book is the first book-length treatment on Sabhapati Swami, scholarly or otherwise, and uses critically-edited sources printed in Tamil, Devanagari, and Bengali scripts to reveal the expansion of his literature across South Asia and globally, the vast majority of which has never before been considered in any scholarly work to date. The book shows how intertwined Sabhapati's yoga is with historical Tamil saiva and Siddha movements, including the mythos of the rishi Agastya, and also with Hathayoga and mantra-based ritual. It also takes into account his and his followers' wrestling with the Victorian scientific worldview and their rationalization of Hindu philosophical discourses in the colonial period. Finally, the book demonstrates the extent to which Sabhapati's teachings were integrated into esoteric religious movements such as the Theosophical Society, the Thelema of Aleister Crowley, and New Thought, and suggests that a reappraisal of scholarship on the roots of yoga in these movements is long overdue"--

Holy Orders of Sannyas

Holy Orders of Sannyas PDF Author: Saiva Siddhanta Church
Publisher: Himalayan Academy Publications
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 89

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Book Description
A Saiva Swami’s Diksha And Lifetime Vows Of Renunciation A religious covenant between a sannyasin—one who has renounced the world in service to God Siva—and the divine beings of all three worlds. In the fulfillment of these holy orders of sannyas, the sannyasin, of his own volition, irrevocably and eternally binds himself to his religion—the Saiva Samayam—to the timeless traditions of the sanatana dharma, to his fellow Hindus, to his brother renunciates and, most especially, to the Siva Yogaswami Guru Parampara. Sannyas may be simply defined as Saivite Hindu monasticism, and a sannyasin is one who has renounced the world in search of God Realization and has been formally initiated by a guru who is himself a sannyasin. In Sanskrit the word sannyas literally means “to throw down” or “to abandon.” Thus, sannyas is the giving up or abandonment of the world, and the sannyasin is one who has so renounced. True sannyas is not a denial of life but life’s highest fulfillment. It is unmitigated selflessness. It is the relinquishment of the transient and illusory in favor of a permanent Reality, the eschewing of a worldly life that one may, by gradual stages of purification, draw inward toward Parasiva, Truth Absolute. It is a break with the mundane and a binding unto the Divine. It is the repudiation of the dharma, including the obligations and duties, of the householder and the acceptance of the even more demanding dharma of the renunciate.