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Rasa and personhood in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa : the integration of aesthetic theory with VedāntaTheodor, Ithamar January 2005 (has links)
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa is one of Hinduism's most outstanding texts composed around the 9<sup>th</sup> c. CE in south India; it is superbly written, with aesthetic sensitivity and metaphysical subtlety. In his book The Advaitic Theism of The Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Daniel Sheridan has examined the Bhāgavata Purāṇa in order to understand its religious structure, both implicit as well as explicit. This thesis aims at taking current research of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa a step forward in deciphering its doctrine, structure, and meaning. The work first raises the question, "What are the Bhāgavata Purāṇa's literary components", and argues that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is composed of two such groups: "Knowledge" and "Aesthetics". Knowledge is associated with direct usage of language and the conception of Impersonal Brahman, whereas aesthetics are associated with indirect usage of language and the concept of Personal Brahman. The work proceeds to look closer at the status of emotions in Indian thought, and argues that in some Indian schools, emotions are taken to possess an ontological status, and therefore are considered to reveal reality rather than obscure it. The relations of Vaiṣṇavism and dramaturgy are examined, both historically as well as theologically, and it is argued that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa has clear dramatic elements. This thesis next proceeds to decipher the aesthetic theory underlying the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, and argues that it is Bharata's rasa theory. Two medieval positions on rasa are examined - Abhinavagupta's and Bhoja's - and it is argued that a position similar to Bhoja's underlies the text. As in Bhoja's theory it is śṛṅgāra rasa, (romantic emotions) which is considered the supreme rasa. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa's structure is highlighted, as presenting notions of personal divinity arranged in hierarchical order - from those evoking śānta rasa (tranquil emotion) to those evoking śṛṅgāra rasa. At last, four such notions are articulated; Impersonal Brahman, The Universal Person, The Person in the Heart, and the Avatāra.
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Where do I belong? : evolving reform and identity amongst the Zeme Heraka of North Cachar Hills, Assam, IndiaLongkumer, Arkotong January 2008 (has links)
The focus of this thesis is the Heraka movement and its impact on the Zeme, a ‘Naga tribe’, in the North Cachar Hills of Assam, India. The Heraka is a religious reform movement derived from the traditional practice known as Paupaise. It was organised from disparate groups of the early 1930s into a centralised and effective movement in 1974. This thesis examines the formation of the movement through to its present state. A pivotal concern is the evolution of Heraka identity, and its emergence into the arena of competing and often contested ideologies of ‘religion’ and ‘ethnicity’ in North East India. The processes by which the movement has evolved, exhibiting the contextualisation of an indigenous identity, grounded in custom and tradition, are also outlined. These factors, along with significant and complex relationships with Paupaise, ‘neo-Hindu’ organisations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Zeme Christians, and the larger ‘Naga’ Christian groups, have shaped pronounced yet fluctuating Heraka identities. This demonstrates the difficult transition the Heraka movement faces as it shifts from the local to the regional and even the national. The time period studied spans the anti-British Heraka period of the late 1930s, extensive Zeme village reorganisation and the renaissance of the reform during the 1950s, through to the present. A variety of sources is brought to bear on this investigation: imperial archives, the official Heraka Hingde Book, Heraka use of written documents, and fieldwork materials, including oral histories and case studies. The thesis begins by examining the symbol of the Bhuban cave, an important pilgrimage site for Hindus of various kinds, as well as the Heraka. The way the Heraka have come to negotiate their identity is considered. This occurs on two levels: on the one hand, they claim to be a ‘traditional’ group in their quest for ‘authenticity’ and ‘indigeneity’; on the other, they assert their ‘modernity’ and are hence reformist. This developing identity clearly derives from the agrarian reforms of the 1930s onwards, an initial response to what was a millenarian tendency, which in turn influenced these changes. Hence, a different cosmology developed, incorporating monotheistic principles, in order to accommodate the now changing village structure, and the increasing mobility and flexibility of the people. Contact with the outside world also brought about a nuanced and subtle reading of ‘tradition’ vis-à-vis other groups considered ‘traditional’, while similarly adapting to the pressures of other dominant religious traditions by distinguishing themselves as inherently ‘religious’. The introduction of ‘divine rules’, exemplified in the Hingde Book, and the establishment of a Kelumki (prayer house), as ‘sacred’ space, mandated and reflected the formation of this ‘religious community’. This construction of community entails a consideration of notions of boundaries in different contexts: Paupaise, Christian and ‘Hindu’. Boundary-making attitudes and behaviour largely determine group membership, legitimated by ‘primordial’ ethnic notions within the Zeme community itself. Since such notions are largely confined to the realm of perception, these boundaries are fluid; they fluctuate according to context. The leaders’ efforts to manage Heraka reforms give rise to visible tensions between rural and urban communities. Hangrum village has become the symbol for the rural community of a millenarian age, ritualised with its ‘king’s court’, while the urban community disputes such claims as ‘superstition’. The juxtaposition of these two views amplifies the struggle within the Heraka community, as they strive to maintain a balance between the past legitimising ‘tradition’, and the present and future legitimising ‘reform’. The attempt to construct a viable Heraka identity against other group identities has given rise to oscillating differences in the way the Heraka locate and re-locate themselves, both within and outside their community. These positional referents are vital for understanding the evolving nature of Heraka identity in relation to their reform.
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A comparative study of the fundamentals of Christian and Hindu ethicsThakur, Shivesh Chndra January 1966 (has links)
No description available.
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Textual traditions and religious identities in the PāñcarātraLeach, Robert Alexander Chapman January 2013 (has links)
In this thesis I provide a study of the distinct traditions within the Pāñcarātra, concentrating especially on the ways in which these traditions’ identities were formed by their textual allegiances. In Chapter One, I show that the so-called “three jewels” of the Pāñcarātra scriptural canon were actually only considered as such by a minority of Pāñcarātrikas, and that this tradition arose much later than is commonly supposed. In Chapter Two I undertake a historical survey of the different groups within the Pāñcarātra as they are presented in the textual sources. In Chapter Three I argue that the tradition of the “three jewels” emerged within one of these groups, and that its eventual acceptance by other Pāñcarātrikas coincided with a decline in the “sectarianism” which had characterised relations between two Pāñcarātra traditions in particular. One of the outcomes of this decline, I argue, was the integration of previously distinct Pāñcarātrika identities, and the formation of the Pāñcarātra scriptural canon. In Chapters Four and Five I undertake a closer historical analysis of these two major South Indian Pāñcarātra traditions, focussing especially on the ways in which they sought to establish their legitimacy through being connected with texts which were situated outside of the Pāñcarātra scriptural corpus. As I show in a comparative study in Chapter Six, such strategies were also used by other Pāñcarātrikas who appealed to the authority of the Nārāyaṇīya section of the Mahābhārata. In Chapter Seven, I study the emergence of a distinct ‘Pañcarātra’ identity in this text, and argue for its dependence on the appropriation and synthesis of other religious identities. In Chapters Eight and Nine, I address the merging of Pāñcarātrika identities in South India nearly a millennium later. Here I argue that we are now in a better position to explain the decline of the sectarian culture which had dominated certain South Indian Pāñcarātra contexts, and the question of why one of the two major South Indian Pāñcarātra traditions appears to have disappeared.
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Reflections on the thought of ŚaṃkarācāryaHingert, Herbert January 1961 (has links)
No description available.
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Doctrine and experience in the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita : a study of the possible relationship between doctrine or statements about supreme reality and man's experience of any such beingLongfield-Jones, E. January 1973 (has links)
The purpose of this enquiry is to determine what relation might exist between Doctrine, or statement about Supreme Reality, and Experience of It. To this end, teachings about deity, the claimed sources of knowledge of It and the content of such experience have been examined, prior to considering what relation might exist between the two. The thesis is, therefore, considered that knowledge of Supreme Reality is derived from the experiences of the self, whether objective or subjective, empirical or mystical, and especially from an increasing self-knowledge and the accompanying moral, social and spiritual awareness. The underlying assumption is that Doctrine is primarily an assertion and summary of such Experience and that, if it is to possess any degree of authority, it must clearly be related to experience. Doctrine is, therefore, considered to be centrally-initiated and involving the whole self, and, as knowledge of the self increases , so the Ood-concept grows and develops, from a philosophical Absolute, with basically metaphysical attributes, to a Personal God rooted in man's affective and volitional nature, as Creator perhaps, but more especially as Father, Helper and Friend. In his self-understanding, in particular, then, man discovers and comes to know the Reality which is immanent but yet transcendent, in a synthesis of experience and a progressive articulation of life as an orientation towards that which ultimately transcends* Doctrine, then, is subject to change and development but also to limitations necessarily imposed by a certain conceptual ambience and religious milieu; by the significance end relevance of an earlier or later illative process and by the standpoints and culture of the age in which any experient lives.
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The doctrine of bhakti according to Śaiva SiddhāntaDhavamony, Mariasusai January 1967 (has links)
No description available.
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Conversion and ritualisation : an analysis of how westerners enter the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and assimilate its values and practicesBacker, Luc de January 2016 (has links)
The central aim of my thesis is to examine the processes by which individuals from a Western background enter the International Society for Krishna Consciousnes (ISKCON), a transnational religious movement with its roots in Chaitanya Vaishnavism, a Hindu tradition originating in India. The central argument of my research is that extant models of conversion do not do justice to the process by which individuals enter ISKCON and assimilate its values, beliefs, and practices. This thesis thus critically examines conversion models/theories and seeks to refine our understanding of conversion, especially in relation to groups in which everyday ritual practice plays a central role. My research is based on the analysis of in-depth interviews with ISKCON entrants and engagement with theories on ritual and literature on conversion. The tradition’s essential practices involve chanting God’s holy names: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare and making food offerings to the Hindu deity Krishna (these are referred to as prasadam rites). Ritual is both a doorway for coming in contact with ISKCON and a crucial practice for entrants to make progress from the status of neophyte to novice and to qualify for successive initiation rituals. I draw mainly upon Catherine Bell’s theory of ritualisation to explore entry into ISKCON in relation to ritual practices. Ritualisation, in the ISKCON context, is a strategy that facilitates the internalisation of ISKCON’s central values and worldviews. This is made possible through the entrant’s initial exposure to its rituals, his/her search for the meaning behind these rituals, gradual acceptance of ISKCON’s 5 schemes of ritualisation, and, over the long-term, acquisition of ritual mastery. From a sociological perspective, entry into ISKCON is a three-staged process involving separation, transition, and incorporation. The stage of separation is a phase of accepting sets of oppositions concerned with polarities of purity and pollution, causing alienation from previous social circles and encouraging group-integration within ISKCON. The transitional stage is characterized by the internalisation of beliefs, worldviews and values. The stage of incorporation is marked by successive stages of seekership (searching for, and finding, meaning using ISKCON frameworks) and commitment (not just to ISKCON’s values and ritual practices, but also to its missionary agenda). To determine how ritual practice constructs power relationships and creates boundaries for the development of active agency and passivity, I look at four dimensions of ritualisation. These are (following Bell): (1) the effects of ritual practice on socialisation and vice versa; (2) the role of ritual specialists; (3) the forms of misrecognition and blindness resulting from ritual practice; and (4) the influence of ritualisation on the agency of entrants. My work demonstrates that “conversion” in the ISKCON context is marked by three crucial features. First, it is a process of gradual “drifting” into ISKCON’s fold, not a sudden change. Second, conversion to ISKCON’s belief system is facilitated by the adoption of the ritual practices central to ISKCON. Hence belief and practice are closely intertwined in the conversion process, with ritual practice serving, in most cases, as the entry point. And finally, my work demonstrates that this “conversion” does not entail a radical break with previously held religious beliefs and values. Instead, “converts” to ISKCON continue to profess their former faith, but now filter this through the lens of ISKCON’s Vaishnava devotionalism.
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Three paths to salvation in Indian philosophy : with special reference to the Bhagavad GītāKatz, Werner January 1957 (has links)
No description available.
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Temple organisation and worship among the Puṣṭimārgīya-Vaiṣṇavas of UjjainBennett, Peter John January 1983 (has links)
The bhakti sect of Vallabhacarya, founded by the preceptor-saint of that name in the last decade of the fifteenth century AD, otherwise known as Pustimarga or the Path of Grace, continues to attract an enthusiastic following in northern and western India, To the outsider, Pustimarga is manifestly 'this-worldly' in its orientation. For one thing, there are no ascetics; the gurus are hereditary descendants of Vallabhacarya by virtue of which they are highly revered by their disciples. For another, the bhakti ideals of detachment, disinterestedness and dedication receive palpable expression in the lavish and energetic worship of temple deities which are regarded as actual manifestations of the infant Krishna. This thesis, based largely on fieldwork conducted among devotees in Ujjain city, central India, gives a detailed account of routine temple life and worship. At the same time it explores the nature of the correspondence between the spiritual and phenomenal worlds epitomised in the temple as the celestial abode of Krishna and in its paraphernalia as embodiments of the exuberant emotions experienced by participants in the divine lila. Of pairticular significance in this respect is the special emphasis which devotees place on sacred food and feasting. The temple is geared to a redistributive economy in which the circulation of ritual commodities, including sacred food, becomes an elaborate expression for the sharing of divine sentiments. But as many devotees point out, this altruistic system of worship is always open to abuse from those persons who would exploit it for selfish ends.
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