scholarly journals THE PEACOCK IN SUFI COSMOLOGY AND POPULAR RELIGION

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (02) ◽  
pp. 177-219
Author(s):  
Martin Van Bruinessen
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
South India ◽  
Popular Religion ◽  
The South ◽  
Creation Myths ◽  
South Sulawesi ◽  
South Indian

In various cultural and religious contexts, from West Asia to Southeast Asia, we come across a number of quite similar creation myths in which a peacock, seated on a cosmic tree, plays a central part. For the Yezidis, a sect of Sufi origins that has moved away from Islam, the Peacock Angel, who is the most glorious of the angels, is the master of the created world. This belief may be related to early Muslim cosmologies involving the Muhammadan Light (Nur Muhammad), which in some narratives had the shape of a peacock and participated in creation. In a different set of myths, the peacock and the Tree of Certainty (shajarat al-yaqīn) play a role in Adam and Eve’s fall and expulsion from Paradise. The central myth of the South Indian Hindu cult of the god Murugan also involves a tree and a peacock. The myth is enacted in the annual ritual of Thaipusam, like the Nur Muhammad myth is still enacted annually in the Maulid festival of Cikoang in South Sulawesi. Images of the peacock, originating from South India, have moved across cultural and religious boundaries and have been adopted as representing the different communities’ peacock myths.

Epilogue

2020 ◽  
pp. 321-324
Author(s):  
Federico De Romanis
Keyword(s):  
Red Sea ◽  
South India ◽  
Second Century ◽  
The South ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Import And Export ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
The Ganges ◽  
Precious Stones

The epilogue summarizes what the two texts of the Muziris papyrus tell us about the pepper and ivory production of the ancient Cēra kingdom, South Indian commercial connections with the Ganges Valley, the logistics of the Red Sea–Alexandria transports, the complex relationships between the South India traders and the contractors of the Red Sea tax, and the assessment and payment of the import and export customs duties. It also looks at what the two texts do not mention—the part of pearls and precious stones in the South India trade of the mid-second century ad. Furthermore, a speculative estimate of the commercial venture final balance is attempted.

The South Indian Tradition of the Apostle Thomas

1924 ◽  
Vol 56 (S1) ◽  
pp. 213-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Thoma
Keyword(s):  
South India ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
Indian Tradition ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Christian Origins ◽  
Final Settlement

Although a great deal has been written concerning St. Thomas's connexion with India, it has so far resulted only in barren controversies and inchoate theories. The finding of the “Gondophares.” coins in the Cabul region raised great hopes of a final settlement of the problem; but apart from the (itself doubtful) identification of a single name in the Ada Thomae, it has shed little light on the mysteries of Christian origins in India. Nay, it has had positively injurious results, inasmuch as it diverted the attention of scholars into fields far remote from the familiar haunts of the Thomistic tradition. South India is the quarter from which we should expect fresh evidence: the north has no known claims to any connexion with the Apostle. In the south live the Christians of St. Thomas—the so-called “Syrians” who for more than a thousand years have upheld their descent from the Apostle's disciples. There also we have what has been believed from immemorial antiquity to be the tomb of St. Thomas, with various lithic remains of pre-Portuguese Christianity around Madras. South India has a remarkably ancient tradition of St. Thomas; and it is a living tradition, not a dead legend. It can be traced back at least to the sixth century a.d., and it still lives in popular memories, not only of Christians, but of others not recognizing the claims of Christianity. The existence of this tradition is known and recognized; but no organized attempt has yet been made to explore it.

The Indo-Roman Pepper Trade and the Muziris Papyrus

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico De Romanis
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
South India ◽  
The South ◽  
The West ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
South Indian ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Trade ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Commercial Relationships

This book offers an interpretation of the two fragmentary texts of the P. Vindobonensis G 40822, now widely referred to as the Muziris papyrus. Without these two texts, there would be no knowledge of the Indo-Roman trade practices. The book also compares and contrasts the texts of the Muziris papyrus with other documents pertinent to Indo-Mediterranean (or Indo-European) trade in ancient, medieval, and early modern times. These other documents reveal the commercial and political geography of ancient South India; the sailing schedule and the size of the ships plying the South India sea route; the commodities exchanged in the South Indian emporia; and the taxes imposed on the Indian commodities en route from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. When viewed against the twin backdrops of ancient sources on South Indian trade and of medieval and early modern documents on pepper commerce, the two texts become foundational resources for the history of commercial relationships between South India and the West.

“Sultan among Hindu Kings”: Dress, Titles, and the Islamicization of Hindu Culture at Vijayanagara

1996 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 851-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip B. Wagoner
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
South India ◽  
The State ◽  
The South ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Natural Result

When Robert Sewell inaugurated the modern study of the South Indian state of Vijayanagara with his classic A Forgotten Empire (1900), he characterized the state as “a Hindu bulwark against Muhammadan conquests” (Sewell [1900] 1962, 1), thereby formulating one of the enduring axioms of Vijayanagara historiography. From their capital on the banks of the Tungabhadra river, the kings of Vijayanagara ruled over a territory of more than 140,000 square miles, and their state survived three changes of dynasty to endure for a period of nearly three hundred years, from the mid-fourteenth through the mid-seventeenth centuries (Stein 1989, 1–2). According to Sewell, this achievement was to be understood as “the natural result of the persistent efforts made by the Muhammadans to conquer all India” ([1900] 1962, 1). Hindu kingdoms had exercised hegemony over South India for most of the previous millennium, but were divided among themselves when the Muslim forces of Muhammad bin Tughluq swept over the South in the early decades of the fourteenth century: “When these dreaded invaders reached the Krishna River the Hindus to their south, stricken with terror, combined, and gathered in haste to the new standard [of Vijayanagara] which alone seemed to offer some hope of protection. The decayed old states crumbled away into nothingness, and the fighting kings of Vijayanagar became the saviours of the south for two and a half centuries” (Sewell [1900] 1962, 1).

Leadership and Individuality in South Asia: The Case of the South Indian Big-man

1990 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 761-786 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattison Mines ◽  
Vijayalakshmi Gourishankar
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
South India ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
The South ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
Indian History ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Perceptions Of Leadership ◽  
The Individual

Although there has been great interest in how properly to conceptualize the person in Indian culture, few have explored Indian perceptions of leadership, achievement, and agency as valued features of individuality (Singer 1972; Mines 1988; Fox 1989). Indeed, since Dumont (1970a,b) forcefully argued that the values of equality and liberty that support the Western notion of the individual were absent from Indian society, the important roles that personal uniqueness, volition, and achievement play in Indian history have been largely overlooked or understated. This paper reconsiders an Indian sense of these roles by examining the south Indian concept of the “big-man” (periyar, periyavar), a notion of individuality and instrumentality that is central to the politics of south India and crucial to an understanding of the dynamic relationship that exists between action and organization in Indian society (cf., Fox 1989).

IX. Between Empire Building and State Formation. Official Elites in Java and Mughal India

Itinerario ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-194
Author(s):  
V.J.H. Houben ◽  
D.H.A. Kolff
Keyword(s):  
South India ◽  
Core Region ◽  
The South ◽  
Indian States ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
The Core ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

The reason to compare the recent histories of India and Indonesia was that they were the scenes of the two most extensive and populous colonial empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The decision to push back the comparison to the pre-colonial era meant loosing track of the vital focus of the enterprise. Moreover, pre-colonial India presents a unity in only some respects whereas Indonesia as a territorial concept did not even exist then. The tendency of Indonesianists to focus, for convenience's sake, on the island of Java seems to become inescapable. This confronts those on the Indian wing of the comparison with the dilemma to what extent they are entitled to give up Indian unity and if they do, what part of India compares best with insular Java. Especially fit for comparison seem the regional states of South India: Vijayanagar, Madurai etc. Both the rice-based economies of the South Indian states and their size suggests this. Although Java became the core region of one of the colonial empires, whereas the South Indian states would stay at the periphery of the other, such a comparison could well be fruitful.

Trade and Political Dominion in South India, 1750–1790: Changing British—Indian Relationships

1979 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Arasaratnam
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
South India ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Great Success ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
Nodal Points ◽  
Trade And Investment

The English East India Company's Coromandel trade provided a spectacle of steady, if unspectacular, growth from its first inauguration early in the seventeenth century. It was not subject to the violent ups and downs, or the extremes of great success and utter failure that characterized the Company's trade in some other regions of India and Southeast Asia. An expanding trade on this coast was matched by an expanding presence. By the end of the century it was well-founded in two substantial Forts (St George and St David) and a number of residencies in important ports of outlet from Vizagapatnam in the north to Cuddalore in the south. By investment and enterprise, by diplomacy and force, English interests and influence on the coast grew and their settlements became nodal points of Indo-British exchange and interaction. The timely demonstration of controlled power, both when faced with threats from the ‘country’ powers of the hinterland and from European rivals on the seafront, helped in the growth of these settlements beyond mere centres of trade. Providing, as they did, not merely trade and investment, but also security of person and property, they were naturally an attraction to many groups in Indian society in the hinterland.

scholarly journals “Ginger is a gamble”

Focaal ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (71) ◽  
pp. 100-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Münster
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
South India ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Farming Practices ◽  
The South ◽  
Cash Crop ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Agrarian Crisis ◽  
Ethnographic Analysis ◽  
At Home

Responding to agrarian crisis at home, cash crop cultivators hailing from the South Indian district of Wayanad increasingly engage in the seasonal production of ginger in other states of India. This is a purely profit-based and unsustainable crop boom that takes a toll on both labor and the environment. This ethnographic analysis of speculative ginger cultivation situates this emerging economic complex in the regional political ecology, farming practices, individual farmers' hopes and aspirations, and in relation to the qualities of ginger as a cultivar. It argues that ginger is a special kind of boom crop and that its cultivation on large tracts of leased land is the manifestation of a moment of agrarian uncertainty and the neoliberalization of agriculture in South India coproduced by the properties of ginger. As a neoliberal boom crop, ginger exemplifies a regime of flexibilization of agrarian accumulation that has proved a profitable move for some, but has brought financial ruin and debt traps for many others.

scholarly journals Rock art and rock music: Petroglyphs of the south Indian Neolithic

Antiquity ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 78 (299) ◽  
pp. 38-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Boivin
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Rock Music ◽  
South India ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
The South ◽  
South Indian

The rock art of Kupgal, south India, represents an archive of images amassed over five millennia. The author works out a first sequence and shows how the Neolithic petroglyph site may have functioned in its landscape – as a ritual locality at which not only images but sound, performance and social relationships were all prominent.

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