Myth, Cult and Symbols in Sakta Hinduism PDF Download

Author: Beane
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004642862
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Author: Wendell Charles Beane
Publisher: Munshirm Manoharlal Pub Pvt Limited
ISBN: 9788121510400
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Description: Significantly this book shows, by using a triangulation of methods (historical, phenomenological, and structural), what it is to live in a universe of meaning centered by the idea that the ultimate reality is grounded in a female principle. It provides a framework for uniting Hindu goddess-worship in all its sacred manifestations. The work uses the name Durga-Kali (via Mircea Eliade) as a vital focus for linking together tribal, popular (bhakti) and Brahmanic (Tantric) traditions. The author's approach also allows for the integration of the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of human life into a whole, - indeed - a unique type of balance. Though many subsequent highly specialized studies have enlarged upon aspects of its basic theme, this is the work that by and large launched a host of recent studies in the west aimed at helping those outside of the world of Sakta Hinduism to appreciate the wonder of its mythic cosmologies, cultic practices, and symbolic expressions.

Author: Wendell Charles Beane
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Author: Klaus K. Klostermaier
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1780746725
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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From the classical to the contemporary, this is a comprehensive, systematic and accessible encyclopedia of the phenomenon known as 'Hinduism'. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of the religion and its texts, Klostermaier presents the theoretical and practical aspects of Hinduism that render this most ancient of religions a living faith. The encyclopedia features the major systems of Hindu thought, covers figures from Manu to Gandhi and includes locations from Ramesvaram, on the southernmost tip of India, to the Himalayas in the north. Written with assurance, learning, sympathy and insight, this is an invaluable reference for students, adherents of the religion and those unfamiliar with this diverse world faith.

Author: John Stratton Hawley
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
ISBN: 9788120814912
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have severely limited the portrayal of the divine as feminine. But in Hinduism "God" very often means "Goddess." This extraordinary collection explores twelve different Hindu goddesses, all of whom are in some way related to Devi, the Great Goddess. They range from the liquid goddess-energy of the River Ganges to the possessing, entrancing heat of Bhagavati and Seranvali. They are local, like Vindhyavasini, and global, like Kali; ancient, like Saranyu, and modern, like "Mother India." The collection combines analysis of texts with intensive fieldwork, allowing the reader to see how goddesses are worshiped in everyday life. In these compelling essays, the divine feminine in Hinduism is revealed as never before--fascinating, contradictory, powerful.

Author: C. Mackenzie Brown
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791403648
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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The authors of the Devī-Bhāgavata Purāna endeavored to demonstrate the superiority of the Devī over competing masculine deities, and to articulate in new ways the manifold nature of the Goddess. Brown's book sets out to examine how the Purana pursues these ends. The Devī-Bhāgavata employs many ancient myths and motifs from older masculine theologies, incorporating them into a thoroughly "feminized" theological framework. The text also seeks to supplant older "masculine" canonical authorities. Part I of Brown's study explores these strategies by focusing on the Purana's self-conscious endeavor to supersede the famous VaisBhagavata Purana. The Devī-Bhāgavata also re-envisions older mythological traditions about the Goddess, especially those in the first great Sanskritic glorification of the Goddess, the Devi-Mahatmya. Brown shows in Part II how this re-envisioning process transforms the Devī from a primarily martial and erotic goddess into the World-Mother of infinite compassion. Part III examines the Devi Gita, the philosophical climax of the Purana modeled upon the Bhagavad Gita. The Devi Gita, while affirming that ultimate reality is the divine Mother, avows that her highest form as consciousness encompasses all gender, thereby suggesting the final triumph of the Goddess. It is not simply that She is superior to the male gods, but rather that She transcends Her own sexuality without denying it.

Author: Rachel Fell McDermott
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520232396
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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"The editors have assembled a South Asian/History of Religions dream team, and the result is a book that captures the sexy, gory power of the dark goddess who is the most exciting of all Hindu deities-and perhaps the most controversial and notorious of all deities. Academically profound and theoretically subtle, these essays are also vivid and juicy."--Wendy Doniger, author of The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade "If any subject ever called for a book of many parts, it is Kali. These original and provocative essays, well chosen and thoughtfully organized, point to all sides of the Goddess's character. The result is a sharp and challenging book-the essential starting point for a new century of encountering Kali."--John Stratton Hawley, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Religion, Columbia University and co-editor of Devi: Goddesses of India

Author: Ariel Glucklich
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198024487
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Addressing one of the most difficult conceptual topics in the study of classical Hinduism, Ariel Glucklich presents a rigorous phenomenology of dharma, or order. The work moves away from the usual emphasis on symbols and theoretical formulations of dharma as a religious and moral norm. Instead, it focuses on images that emerge from the basic experiential interaction of the body in its spatial and temporal contexts, such as the sensation of water on the skin during the morning purification, or the physical manipulation of the bride during the marriage ritual. Images of dharma are examined in myths, rituals, art, and even the physical landscape of the Hindu world. The varied and contingent experiences of dharma infuse it with a meaning that transcends a false analytical distinction from adharma, or chaos. Glucklich shows that when dharma is experienced by means of living images, it becomes inescapably temporal, and therefore inseparable from adharma.

Author: Mircea Eliade
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022602735X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 581

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Book Description
In volume 2 of this monumental work, Mircea Eliade continues his magisterial progress through the history of religious ideas. The religions of ancient China, Brahmanism and Hinduism, Buddha and his contemporaries, Roman religion, Celtic and German religions, Judaism, the Hellenistic period, the Iranian syntheses, and the birth of Christianity—all are encompassed in this volume.

Author: Hugh B. Urban
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publishe
ISBN: 9788120829329
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Bhadriraju Krishnamurti (1928) is Professor and Head of the department of Linguistics at Osmania University, Hyderabad. He received a B.A. (Hons.) Degree (1948) in Telugu language and literature at Andhra University Waltair and an M.A. (1955) and Ph.D. (1957) in linguistics from the university of Pennsylvania U.S.A.