Poetry as Prayer in the Sanskrit Hymns of Kashmir

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamsa Stainton
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Religious Expression ◽  
Close Link ◽  
Devotional Poetry ◽  
Unique Nature ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Comparative Study ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Popular Texts

This book investigates the history of a popular genre of Sanskrit devotional poetry in Kashmir: the stotra, or hymn of praise. Such hymns demonstrate and frequently reflect upon the close link between literary and religious expression in South Asia—the relationship between poetry and prayer. This study presents an overview and reassessment of the stotra genre, including its definition and history, focusing on literary hymns in Kashmir from the eighth to the twentieth century. Investigating these hymns as theological texts, it argues for their pedagogical potential and their particular appeal for non-dualistic authors. Analyzing such hymns as prayers, it unpacks the unique capabilities of the stotra form and challenges persistent assumptions in the study of Hindu prayer. The book argues for the literary ambition and creativity of many stotras across the centuries, and it complicates standard narratives about the vitality and so-called death of Sanskrit in the region. Śaiva poets also engaged with the rich discourse on aesthetics in Kashmir, and this study charts how they experiment with the idea of a devotional “taste” (bhaktirasa) long before Vaiṣṇava authors would make it well known in South Asia. Finally, it presents new perspectives on the historiography of bhakti traditions and “Kashmir Śaivism.” Overall, this book reveals the unique nature and history of stotra literature in Kashmir; demonstrates the diversity, flexibility, and persistent appeal of the stotra genre; and introduces new sources and ways of thinking about these popular texts and the comparative study of devotional poetry and prayer.

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.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marko Geslani
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Royal Power ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The Comparative Study ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Indian Religion

The introduction reviews the historiographic problem of the relation between fire sacrifice (yajña) and image worship (pūjā), which have traditionally been seen as opposing ritual structures serving to undergird the distinction of “Vedic” and “Hindu.” Against such an icono- and theocentric approach, it proposes a history of the priesthood in relation to royal power, centering on the relationship between the royal chaplain (purohita) and astrologer (sāṃvatsara) as a crucial, unexplored development in early Indian religion. In order to capture these historical developments, it outlines a method for the comparative study of ritual forms over time.

The Date and Circumstances of Olympiodorus of Thebes

Traditio ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Gillett
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Imperial Court ◽  
Political Narrative ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Western Half

Olympiodorus of Thebes is an important figure for the history of late antiquity. The few details of his life preserved as anecdotes in hisHistorygive glimpses of a career which embraced the skills of poet, philosopher, and diplomat. A native of Egypt, he had influence at the imperial court of Constantinople, among the sophists of Athens, and even outside the borders of the empire. HisHistory(more correctly, his “materials for history”) is lost, surviving only as fragments in the narratives of Zosimus, Sozomen, and Philostorgius, and in the rich summary given by the ninth-century Byzantine patriarch Photius. These remains comprise the most substantial narrative sources for events in the western Roman Empire in the early fifth century. Besides its value as a source, theHistoryis important as a monument to the vitality of the belief in the unity of the Roman Empire under the Theodosian dynasty. Olympiodorus wrote in Greek, and knowledge of his work is attested only in Constantinople, yet his political narrative, from 407 to 425, concerns only events in the western half of the empire. To understand the significance of these facts, it is necessary to set the composition of Olympiodorus's work in its proper context. Clarifying the date of publication is the first step toward this goal. Internal and external evidence suggests that the work was written in 440 or soon after, more than a decade later than the date of composition usually accepted. Taken with thematic emphases evident in the structure of theHistory, this revised dating explains why an eastern writer should have written a detailed account of western events in the early part of the century. Olympiodorus's account is a characteristic product of the highly literate class of eastern imperial civil servants, and of their genuine preoccupation with the relationship between the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire at a time when both were threatened by the rise of the new Carthaginian power of the Vandals.

scholarly journals Excavating awareness and power in data science: A manifesto for trustworthy pervasive data research

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 205395172110407
Author(s):  
Katie Shilton ◽  
Emanuel Moss ◽  
Sarah A. Gilbert ◽  
Matthew J. Bietz ◽  
Casey Fiesler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Science ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Colonial Legacy ◽  
Research Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Rich Information ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Frequent public uproar over forms of data science that rely on information about people demonstrates the challenges of defining and demonstrating trustworthy digital data research practices. This paper reviews problems of trustworthiness in what we term pervasive data research: scholarship that relies on the rich information generated about people through digital interaction. We highlight the entwined problems of participant unawareness of such research and the relationship of pervasive data research to corporate datafication and surveillance. We suggest a way forward by drawing from the history of a different methodological approach in which researchers have struggled with trustworthy practice: ethnography. To grapple with the colonial legacy of their methods, ethnographers have developed analytic lenses and researcher practices that foreground relations of awareness and power. These lenses are inspiring but also challenging for pervasive data research, given the flattening of contexts inherent in digital data collection. We propose ways that pervasive data researchers can incorporate reflection on awareness and power within their research to support the development of trustworthy data science.

The King and the People

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhishek Kaicker
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
South Asia ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

An unprecedented exploration of the relationship between the Mughal emperor and his subjects in the space of the Mughal empire’s capital, The King and The People overturns an axiomatic assumption in the history of premodern South Asia: that the urban masses were merely passive objects of rule and remained unable to express collective political aspirations until the coming of colonialism. Set in the Mughal capital of Shahjahanabad (Delhi) from its founding to Nadir Shah’s devastating invasion of 1739, this book instead shows how the trends and events in the second half of the seventeenth century inadvertently set the stage for the emergence of the people as actors in a regime which saw them only as the ruled.

Are Public Commemorations in Contemporary Japan Post-secular?

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 136-152
Author(s):  
Akira Nishimura
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Religious Participation ◽  
Religious Expression ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religion And State ◽  
Yasukuni Shrine ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This paper asks whether public commemorations in contemporary Japan are post-secular or not. More precisely, it investigates the postwar history of the relationship between such commemorations and the principle of keeping religion and government separate, as embodied in the constitution. Referring to several contemporary cases, I provide an overview of the discourses and actual conditions of the separation of religion and state at Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery (Chidorigafuchi Kokuritsu Senbotsusha Boen 千鳥ヶ淵国立戦没者墓苑) and Yasukuni Shrine (Yasukuni Jinja 靖国神社). In conclusion, I point out on one hand that the non-denominational expressions seen in Chidorigafuchi and other facilities show a distinctive kind of religious expression. On the other hand, I underscore that the excessive avoidance of religious participation by government officials derives from the Yasukuni issue and related legal trials. I explain the relationship of those phenomena in terms of two types of secularization: natural secularization and artificial secularization.

scholarly journals Dyeing the Springtime: The Art and Poetry of Fleeting Textile Colors in Medieval and Early Modern South Asia

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 627
Author(s):  
Sylvia Houghteling
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Devotional Poetry ◽  
Literary Arts ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
South Asian Art ◽  
Regional Histories ◽  
Early Modern South Asia

This paper explores the metaphorical and material significance of short-lived fabric dyes in medieval and early modern South Asian art, literature, and religious practice. It explores dyers’ manuals, paintings, textiles, and popular and devotional poetry to demonstrate how the existence of ephemeral dyes opened up possibilities for mutability that cannot be found within more stable, mineral pigments, set down on paper in painting. While the relationship between the image and the word in South Asian art is most often mutually enhancing, the relationship between words and color, and particularly between poetry and dye color, operates on a much more slippery basis. In the visual and literary arts of South Asia, dye colors offered textile artists and poets alike a palette of vibrant hues and a way to capture shifts in emotions and modes of devotion that retained a sense of impermanence. More broadly, these fragile, fleeting dye materials reaffirm the importance of tracing the local and regional histories even of objects, like textiles, that circulated globally.

Loving Stones

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Haberman
Keyword(s):  
Central India ◽  
North Central ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Sacred Mountain ◽  
Interpretive Strategies ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Comparative Study ◽  
Textual Research ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

Loving Stones: Making the Impossible Possible in the Worship of Mount Govardhan is based on ethnographic and textual research with two major objectives. First, it is a study of the conceptions of and worshipful interactions with Mount Govardhan, a sacred mountain located in the Braj region of north-central India that has for centuries been considered an embodied form of Krishna. In this capacity it provides detailed information about the rich religious world associated with Mount Govardhan, much of which has not been available in previous scholarly literature. It is often said in that Mount Govardhan “makes the impossible possible” for devoted worshipers. This investigation includes an examination of the perplexing paradox of an infinite god embodied in finite form, wherein each particular form is non-different from the unlimited. Second, it aims to address the challenge of interpreting something as radically different as the worship of a mountain and its stones for a culture in which this practice is quite alien. This challenge involves exploration of interpretive strategies that aspire to make the incomprehensible understandable, and engages in theoretical considerations of incongruity, inconceivability, and like realms of the impossible. This aspect of the book includes critical consideration of the place and history of the pejorative concept of idolatry (and secondarily, its twin, anthropomorphism) in the comparative study of religions. Accordingly, the second aim aspires to use the worship of Mount Govardhan as a site to explore ways in which scholars engaged in the difficult work of representing other cultures struggle to “make the impossible possible.”

КОНСТИТУЦІОНАЛІЗМ XIX – ПОЧАТКУ XX СТ. У ВИКЛАДАННІ «ІСТОРІЇ ДЕРЖАВИ І ПРАВА УКРАЇНИ»

2019 ◽  
pp. 72-88
Author(s):  
Г. Ю. Каніщев
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Public Authority ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Training Course ◽  
Teaching History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Relationship

History of State and law of Ukraine can be considered as one of the leading academic disciplines to modern lawyers. Its purpose is to familiarize professionals with the historical experience of the development of statehood on the territory of modern Ukraine that directly or indirectly impacts the current status and the quality of the public authority in our country, the relationship between the State and citizens, the situation in Ukraine in the international arena, its image in the world, etc.The role of history of State and law of Ukraine here is mapping the processes of historical evolution of human relationships and the State of modern Ukrainian territory. This includes compliance with State rights, in particular political ones, struggle of people for their rights through both peaceful and violent way (through armed revolt against the authorities) etc. In this connection, we think that the evolution of public authority as a result of the struggle of people for their rights should be displayed in training courses and researches on history of State and law.The purpose of the article: coverage of the history of constitutionalism on the territory of modern Ukraine in XIX – early XX centuries.The task: disclosure of the relationship between the history of State and law and constitutional law of Ukraine through the analysis of the content of the constitutions for the then population of Ukrainian lands in various states.Findings from this research and prospects for further research in this field: 1. Teaching history of constitutionalism in the training course «History of State and law of Ukraine» must conform to the Constitution of Ukraine as the Main Law of the State and the benchmark for social activities. 2. Teaching History of constitutionalism in the training course «History of State and law of Ukraine» gives an opportunity to examine the historical evolution of the idea of limit and self-restriction of State power in favor of its citizens rights. This is not just about the rich historical tradition of constitutionalism on the territory of modern Ukraine, but about the ability of our ancestors to live in conditions of observing the rules of the law and maintenance of order in society and the State in civilized ways.3. The prospects of further scientific researches, to our opinion, are the following: a) research of history of constitutionalism is separate states on the territory of modern Ukraine; b) research of separate problems and periods of history of constitutionalism in Ukraine.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamsa Stainton
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Religious Expression ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Praise Poetry

This chapter frames the present study of Sanskrit hymns of praise from Kashmir in terms of the relationship between poetic and religious expression in South Asia. It introduces and discusses six key elements that weave throughout the book: the genre known as the stotra (hymn of praise); poetry (kāvya); poetics (alaṅkāraśāstra); prayer; bhakti (devotion); and the region of Kashmir, including the major contours of its religious and literary history. In doing so, the chapter summarizes the central themes of the book and establishes the context for analyzing poetry as prayer. It concludes by reviewing the contents and organization of the book.

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