No description available.

No description available.

This study examines the history of the Parsi community from their arrival in India until the middle of the nineteenth century, giving special emphasis to the impact that other religious and social systems existing in India had on the formation of Parsi identity and also to the continuing influence of communication with co-religionists remaining in Iran. This study argues that Indian Zoroastrians, in attempting to formulate their identity in terms of the religious communities which surrounded them, have completely transformed those things that have generally been regarded as their religion's distinguishing features. The impact of modernity continued the transformations already in process. Hinduism primarily affected Parsi practices and social systems. Like Hindu castes, Parsis refused to interdine or intermarry with those outside their community and prohibited the conversion of outsiders. But caste never defined the Parsis' choice of vocation as it did those of other Indians. This versatility allowed Parsis to involve themselves in all phases of production and distribution and gave them an edge over other merchant groups. The impact of Islam was felt primarily in the area of theology. Parsis utilized Islamic terminologies and came to share Muslim monotheistic presuppositions. Zoroastrians down-played their veneration of the elements and even came to regard Ahriman, once seen as the malignant twin to God Himself, as a lesser being wholly dependent on God's sovereignty. Periods of economic prosperity created conflicts in which laymen sought to undermine priestly authority by appealing to Zoroastrian priests residing in Iran. When Iranian Zoroastrians proved unable to mediate these disputes any longer, the community began to turn towards other outsiders as final authorities, at first Islamic, and later European ones. Zoroastrianism's confrontation with Christianity, which coincided with the introduction of the printing press, brought further changes in Parsi beliefs. Parsis embraced Enlightenment thought, utilizing it to defend themselves against missionary attacks. Although rejecting Christian theology, they eventually adopted the methodologies of higher criticism by which Europeans studied Zoroastrianism and largely accepted their findings.

This submission for the PhD by Research Publications consists of two published books by Patrick French, The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul (2008) and India: A Portrait (2011). The portfolio is accompanied by a critical review summarising the aims, objectives, methodology, results and conclusions of the books, and showing how they form a coherent body of work and contribute significantly to the expansion of knowledge. The World Is What It Is (2008) is a biography of Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul, positioning him within a Caribbean and early postcolonial literary lineage, despite his ancestral connections to India and his “stateless” claims as a world novelist. India: A Portrait (2011) is a study of Indian politics, economics and society since 1947, told mainly through the stories of individuals from different sections of society, and using historical background to analyse rapid recent social change in the period after economic “liberalization”. The trajectory of the two publications is built around a conviction that individual experience can illuminate a larger period or civilization, and that our ideas of the unfamiliar, whether in the past or in different societies, can often be poorly grounded in the way people perceive themselves. In each case, the books challenge existing notions and use evidence based on detailed research and interviews in the field. In the case of The World Is What It Is, almost none of the archival material used had previously been studied, and in India: A Portrait, subjective one-to-one interviews were supplemented by new original data. For example, a survey was undertaken to determine what proportion of MPs in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, were hereditary: this involved double-sourcing information on the family background of all 545 Indian MPs – and revealed that nepotism was more deeply embedded than had previously been realised. Both books come out of a vision developed during two-and-a-half decades of research into colonial and postcolonial history. The guiding motivation has been to communicate a distinct historical view of the period before and after the end of the global British empire, in particular in South Asia and among its diaspora.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

Thesis (M.S.)—Boston University

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University

No description available.

El presente trabajo se enmarca en parte de la historia del sur de la India, indaga en aspectos de la política, religión y arte predominantes, y se enfoca en investigar el papel religoso y social de la danza en los templos de Tamilnadu bajo el reinado de la dinastía Chola (de fines del siglo IX a mediados del siglo XIII). El principal objetivo de ésta investigación es establecer el papel de las esculturas de danza en el espacio sagrado del templo Hindú de la dinastía Chola. Este tipo de templo se fue conformando como una institución, que a través del desarrollo del arte sagrado incluyó y sistematizó antiguas culturas locales, articulándolas dentro de la más amplia tradición del Hinduismo. En éste proceso jugaron un papel preponderante la especulación filosófica Hindú, que logró armonizar la multiplicidad de cultos, propia del sur de India, con el concepto de Absoluto desarrollado en los Upanishads. Esta especulación toma forma a través del movimiento devocional de santos Bhakti, que fue un importante agente en la conformación del Hinduismo de la zona meridional.