FROM LAW TO DHARMA: STATE LAW AND SACRED DUTY IN ANCIENT INDIA

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 284-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark McClish
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Early History ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Law ◽  
Ancient India ◽  
Royal Courts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Origins ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThe legal treatises of ancient India, called Dharmaśāstras, are often read as records of the initial emergence of law from religion in South Asia. The Dharmaśāstras teach the dharma, or “sacred duty,” of different members of society. It is one of the dharmas of the king to adjudicate disputes that come before his courts, and it is widely accepted that a need to articulate the king's dharma led the composers of the Dharmaśāstras over time to fashion rules for state courts, a body of law called vyavahāra. Scholars such as Henry Sumner Maine and Max Weber saw in the Dharmaśāstras evidence of the disentanglement and rationalization of law, respectively. A close examination of our sources, however, shows that the law of royal courts emerged not within the Dharmaśāstra tradition, but within an adjacent and decidedly more secular tradition of statecraft. It was gradually absorbed into Dharmaśāstra texts, where it was reconfigured as sacred duty and its historical origins were obscured. This article argues that the early history of state law in India is best described, therefore, not as a transition from dharma to law, but as a transition from law to dharma.

Historical Representations and Recent Changes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Schaflechner
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Detailed History ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Representations ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Many Sources ◽  
Over Time

Chapter 3 introduces the tradition of ritual journeys and sacred geographies in South Asia, then hones in on a detailed history of the grueling and elaborate pilgrimage attached to the shrine of Hinglaj. Before the construction of the Makran Coastal Highway the journey to the Goddess’s remote abode in the desert of Balochistan frequently presented a lethally dangerous undertaking for her devotees, the hardships of which have been described by many sources in Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Sindhi, and Urdu. This chapter draws heavily from original sources, including travelogues and novels, which are supplanted with local oral histories in order to weave a historical tapestry that displays the rich array of practices and beliefs surrounding the pilgrimage and how they have changed over time. The comparative analysis demonstrates how certain motifs, such as austerity (Skt. tapasyā), remain important themes within the whole Hinglaj genre even in modern times while others have been lost in the contemporary era.

A History of Interprofessional Education and Assessment at WesternU

2020 ◽  
pp. 286-310
Author(s):  
David N. Dickter ◽  
Daniel C. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Interprofessional Education ◽  
Growth And Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
Early History ◽  
Patient Centered ◽  
Education Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Over Time

This chapter traces the early history and progress of a pioneering interprofessional practice and education (IPE) program at Western University of Health Sciences (WesternU), whose growth and development can be viewed in the context of the broader IPE field, that of a nascent movement within the United States to recognize and facilitate collaborative, patient-centered healthcare. This chapter provides some of the background and details from the early design years at WesternU. The IPE movement in the U.S. worked with general principles and broad conceptual outcomes such as safety and quality but it took time to delineate more specific guidelines and practices. Over the years, frameworks and standards for education, practice, and outcomes assessment have developed that have helped to guide the program. Similarly, WesternU has developed and refined its education and assessment methods over time.

scholarly journals Traditions of transgressive sacrality (against blasphemy) in Hinduism

1970 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 1-162
Author(s):  
Claus Peter Zoller
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Early History ◽  
Religious Violence ◽  
North India ◽  
Historical Contingency ◽  
The Core ◽  
Linguistic History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Core Areas ◽  
Abrahamic Religions

The following essay pursues the question whether a possible non-singular immigration-encounter-event between speakers of dialects of Indo-Aryan and (as maintained in this essay) speakers of dialects of Austro-Asiatic (mostly Munda) have not only left marks in the linguistic history of Indo-Aryan (analyzed in Zoller forthcoming), but also in the cultural and political history of North India. My argumentation will follow several lines of nested arguments, but the most general is this: Whereas in the Abrahamic religions of Christianity and Islam a combination of proclivity for expansionism plus proclivity for religious violence have led to a virtual eradication or at least a subjugation of infidel traditions in the core areas of their religious/political powers (i.e. Europe and Middle East), this venture was less successful in case of South Asia. Thus the most salient aspect of this historical contingency is the fact that cultural historians – but also historical linguists – can see much deeper and much more unimpeded into the prehistory and early history both of the Indo-Aryan and the non-Indo-Aryan (= mainly Austro-Asiatic) North Indian world. The opposition between Abrahamic monotheists and Hindu ‘infidels’ manifests also in the contrast between the topics of blasphemy and transgressive sacrality. The former is typically associated with Abrahamic religions, whereas there is an abundance and great variety of examples of transgressive sacrality in Hinduism.

scholarly journals An Intellectual History of the Concepts of Premier-Presidentialism and President-Parliamentarism

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Elgie
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Academic Work ◽  
Early History ◽  
Future Application ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Over Time

Shugart and Carey introduced the twin concepts of premier-presidentialism and president-parliamentarism in their 1992 volume, Presidents and Assemblies. Based on a meta-analysis of journal articles and book publications, this article distinguishes between an early and a contemporary history of the two concepts. The period of early history runs from 1992 to around 2009. This was the time when the two concepts were entering the academic consciousness and when there was also some typological and classificatory ambiguity. The period of contemporary history begins in 2010. This era is marked by conceptual and classificatory clarity and by an increasing reference to the two concepts in academic work. In the article, we show how the concepts have been applied over time, noting a number of changes across the two periods under consideration. We conclude by pointing out some challenges to the future application of the two concepts.

The evolution of Harry Harlow: from the nature to the nurture of love

2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marga Vicedo
Keyword(s):  
Peer Relationships ◽  
Early History ◽  
Evolutionary Significance ◽  
John Bowlby ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mary Ainsworth ◽  
Evolutionary Psychiatry ◽  
Over Time

Harlow deserves a place in the early history of evolutionary psychiatry but not, as he is commonly presented, because of his belief in the instinctual nature of the mother-infant dyad. Harlow’s work on the significance of peer relationships led him to appreciate the evolutionary significance of separate affectional systems. Over time, Harlow distanced himself from the ideas of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth as well as from Konrad Lorenz’s views about imprinting and instincts. Harlow’s work did not lend support to Bowlby’s belief in an innate need for mother love and his thesis that the mother was the child’s psychic organizer. Nor did Harlow agree with Lorenz’s view of instincts as biological, unmodifiable innate needs, unaffected by learning.

scholarly journals Conjugality, Colonialism and the ‘Criminal Tribes’ in North India

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-46
Author(s):  
Jessica Hinchy
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
North India ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
Over Time

The Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) of 1871 was a project to geographically redistribute and immobilize criminalized populations on the basis of family units. Family ties were a key site of contestation between criminalized people and the colonial state, as well as cooperation, or at least, situationally coinciding interests. This article’s focus on the family goes against the grain of existing literature, which has primarily debated the historical causes of the CTA and the colonial construction of the ‘criminal tribe’. This article explores a particular type of family tie—marriage—to provide a new vantage point on the minutiae of everyday life under the CTA, while also shedding light on the history of conjugality in modern South Asia. In 1891, the colonial government in north India launched a matchmaking campaign in which district Magistrates became marriage brokers. Colonial governments showed an uneven concern with marriage practices, which varied between criminalized communities and over time. In the case of ‘nomadic’ criminalized groups, colonial governments were more concerned with conjugality, since they attempted more significant transformations in the relationships between individuals, families, social groupings and space. Moreover, criminalized peoples’ strategies and demands propelled colonial involvement into marital matters. Yet the colonial government could not sustain a highly interventionist management of intimate relationships.

32. The Early History of Sonship in Ancient India

Man ◽  
1924 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Nares C. Sen-Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Early History ◽  
Ancient India ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals ETYMOLOGY AND MAGIC: YĀSKA'S NIRUKTA, PLATO'S CRATYLUS, AND THE RIDDLE OF SEMANTIC ETYMOLOGIES

Numen ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Bronkhorst
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Early History ◽  
Ancient India ◽  
History Of

AbstractSemantic etymologies are to be distinguished from historical etymologies. A historical etymology presents the origin or early history of a word. Semantic etymologies do something completely different. They connect one word with one or more others which are believed to elucidate its meaning. Semantic etymologies are practically universal in pre-modern cultures, and there are treatises in some cultures - such as Yāska's Nirukta in ancient India, Plato's Cratylus in ancient Greece - that specifically deal with them. This article addresses the question how modern scholarship should try to understand semantic etymologizing. It is argued that, being a universal phenomenon, semantic etymologizing is in need of a universal explanation. Drawing inspiration from certain pre-modern philosophies, it is proposed to study this phenomenon in the light of another category of phenomena that is often called "magical".

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