Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bihani Sarkar
Keyword(s):  
Eastern India ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Royal Power ◽  
Central Object ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Secular Power

Fundamental in making the myth of civilization meaningful in Indian culture was the performance of the Navarātra, the festival of the Nine Nights, which was intertwined with Durgā's cult. This final chapter deals with how the cult functioned in creating the spectacle of ‘public religion’ through a reconstruction of this ritual in which the goddess was worshipped by a ruler in the month of Āśvina. A detailed exposition of the modus operandi of the Nine Nights shows us how the religion of the goddess was spectacularly brought to life in an event of grand theatre and solemnized before its participants, the king and the entire community. The development of the Nine Nights from a fringe, Vaiṣṇava ceremony in the month of Kṛṣṇa's birth under the Guptas, to a ritual supplanting the established autumnal Brahmanical ceremonies of kingship and finally into a crucial rite in Indian culture for consolidating royal power, formed a crucial motivation for the expansion of Durgā's cult. The chapter isolates and analyzes in depth the principal early traditions of the Navarātra in East India and in the Deccan by an assessment of the available ritual descriptions and prescriptions in Sanskrit and eye-witness sources from a later period, used to fill in the gaps in the earlier sources. The most elaborate description of a court-sponsored rite emerges from the Kārṇāṭa and Oinwar courts of Mithilā, which embody what appears to be a ritual that had matured a good few centuries earlier before it was recorded in official literature. Among these the account of the Oinwars by the Maithila paṇḍita Vidyāpati is the most extensive treatment of the goddess's autumnal worship by a king, and attained great renown among the learned at the time as an authoritative source. His description portrays a spectacular court ceremony, involving pomp and pageantry, in which horses and weapons were worshipped, the king was anointed, and the goddess propitiated as the central symbol of royal power in various substrates over the course of the Nine Nights. Vidyapati's work also reveals the marked impact of Tantricism on the character of the rite, which employed Śākta mantras and propitiated autonomous, ferocious forms of the goddess associated with the occult, particularly on the penultimate days. Maturing in eastern India, the goddess's Navarātra ceremony was proselytized by the smartas further to the west and percolated into the Deccan, where, from around the 12th century, it attained an independent southern character. Whereas the eastern rite focused on the goddess as the central object of devotion, the southern rite focused on the symbolism of the king, attaining its most distinctive and lavish manifestation in the kingdom of Vijayanagara. Throughout this development, the Navarātra remained intimately associated with the theme of dispelling calamities, thereby augmenting secular power in the world, sustaining the power of the ruler and granting political might and health to a community. It remained from its ancient core a ritual of dealing with and averting crises performed collectively by a polis. Such remains its character even today.

scholarly journals Papers of Islamic Thought Figures of Al-Farabi

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Makbul
Keyword(s):  
Western World ◽  
Islamic Philosophy ◽  
The West ◽  
Ibn Sina ◽  
Ibn Rushd ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
Differences Of Opinion ◽  
History Of

Islam with its culture has been running for approximately 15 centuries. In such a long journey there are 5 amazing journey centuries in philosophical thought, namely between the 7th century to the 12th century. During that time, the Islamic philosophers thought about how the position of humans with others, humans with nature and humans with God, using their minds. They think systematically, analytically and critically, thus giving birth to Islamic philosophers who have high abilities because of their wisdom. Islamic philosophy grows and develops in two different areas, namely philosophy in the Masyriqi region (east) and philosophy in the Maghreb region (West). After Islam came, the Arabs controlled the areas of Persia, Syria and Egypt. So that the center of government moved from Medina to Damascus. At that time, two major cities emerged that played an important role in the history of Islamic thought, namely Basra and Kufa.Islamic philosophy in the eastern part of the world is different from the philosophy of Islam in the western world. Among the Islamic philosophers in the two regions there were differences of opinion on various points of thought. In the East there are several prominent philosophers, such as al-Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. While in the West there are also some well-known philosophers, namely, Ibn Bajah, Ibn Thufail, and Ibn Rushd.

Durgā and the Making of Early Indian Civilization

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bihani Sarkar
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
Old Order ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Single Identity ◽  
Heaven And Earth

This chapter provides a conclusion to the book. The historical phases and their inner tensions described in the previous chapters reveal that Durgā's representation of the civilizational process and the problem of chaos remained fundamental throughout her longue durée. In a wider sense, the goddess was an intimate part of the making of early Indian civilization. Each of the three political orders within which the story, and stories, of Durgā unfolded signalled a different period in Indian culture. Whatever the principal idea-maps about people, society and power latent in the air, they became imbued in the goddess. Under the Central Asian Kuṣāṇas, whose empire was a symbiosis of Hellenistic and Iranian cultures, Durgā's personality interwove elements from those traditions, and the extent to which she was indebted to percolations from far-away Bactria may be much greater than we now assume. Under the more parochial, Brahmanical Guptas, Durga's form articulated the Vaiṣṇava ‘classical’; under both empires her single identity as a Vaiṣṇava goddess resonated with the centralized imperial structure. When the atavika New World took over, and classicism began to be reformulated, the form of the goddess became heterogeneous, and harmonious with indigenous belief systems belonging to smaller kingdoms on the rise. Heroic Śāktism offered an idea of power that was in the world, not removed from it. It gave a sense of the divine that hovered close above the ocean of saṃsāra (an image often evoked in Sanskrit poems to Durga), ready to bridge the distance between heaven and earth in order to intervene when the duress of civilizational reformation grew debilitating for its agents. In this way, the goddess's cult represented nothing less than the civilizational transmutations of the classical period from the 3rd to the 12th century. At every stage, it allowed the inclusion of the liminal into articulations concerning civilization, and through this a radical reforming of the old order.

scholarly journals DINAMIKA HISTORIS BARAT-ISLAM: MISPERSEPSI, PRASANGKA, DAN KONFLIK

2020 ◽  
pp. 33-44
Author(s):  
Syahirul Alim
Keyword(s):  
Western Society ◽  
Western World ◽  
The West ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Historical Dynamics ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Islamic Civilization ◽  
And Control

Absract. The historical dynamics of the West-Islam always depicted as a phenomenon of misperception, antipathy, and conflicts that have been going on since the 12th century. The events of the Crusades and the spirit of reconquest of areas once occupied by Islam, leaving a bad-trail imprint in almost all perspectives of Western society towards Islam. Western antipathy was shown through negative sentiments, such as the term "saracen" to Muslim troops and the title of "Moor" which is still used by Western elites when they invaded and control various Muslim-majority areas. The heritage of Islamic civilization for the progress of the Western World is only valued to the extent of the "threat" about the revival of the glory of Islamic civilization that had ruled the world for about 7 centuries. The efforts of some Western scholars who are more objective perceived in understanding Islam, apparently are not so influential and Islam was still misunderstood by the West, even Islamophobia was becoming a phenomenon that strengthens as a form of Western fear of Islam. This paper seeks to portray the historical dynamics of West-Islam from various perspectives descriptively-analysis through a historical approach. Historical awareness is needed, so that too excessive and baseless assessments of anything should be avoided, because history was a series of past events that can provide information in the present, functioning as a frame of knowledge in placing a reality in a fitting and objective manner. Abstrak. Dinamika historis Barat-Islam selalu menggambarkan fenomena mispersepsi, antipati, bahkan konflik yang telah berjalan sejak abad ke-12. Peristiwa Perang Salib dan semangat penaklukan kembali wilayah-wilayah yang pernah dikuasai Islam oleh pasukan Salib, meninggalkan jejak buruk dalam hampir seluruh perspektif masyarakat Barat terhadap Islam. Antipati Barat ditunjukkan melalui sentimen negatif, seperti sebutan “saracen” kepada pasukan Muslim dan gelar orang “Moor” yang tetap dipakai kalangan elit Barat ketika mereka melakukan invasi dan penguasaan atas berbagai wilayah berpenduduk mayoritas Muslim. Warisan peradaban Islam bagi kemajuan Dunia Barat hanya dihargai sebatas “ancaman” tentang kebangkitan kembali kejayaan peradaban Islam yang pernah menguasai dunia selama kurang lebih 7 abad. Upaya beberapa sarjana Barat yang lebih objektif dalam memahami Islam, ternyata tidak begitu berpengaruh dan Islam tetap disalahpahami oleh Barat, bahkan Islamofobia menjadi fenomena yang menguat sebagai bentuk ketakutan Barat terhadap Islam. Tulisan ini berupaya memotret dinamika historis Barat-Islam dari berbagai perspektif secara deskriptif-analisis melalui pendekatan historis. Kesadaran historis diperlukan, sehingga penilaian yang terlampau berlebihan dan tanpa dasar terhadap hal apapun seharusnya dapat dihindari, sebab sejarah merupakan rangkaian peristiwa masa lalu yang dapat memberikan informasi pada masa kini, berfungs sebagai bingkai pengetahuan dalam menempatkan sebuah realitas secara pas dan objektif.

Prevalence of Suicidal Ideation in Sri Lanka

Crisis ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudath Samaraweera ◽  
Athula Sumathipala ◽  
Sisira Siribaddana ◽  
S. Sivayogan ◽  
Dinesh Bhugra
Keyword(s):  
Suicidal Ideation ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
General Population ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
National Average ◽  
The West ◽  
Suicide Methods ◽  
Suicide Rates ◽  
Completed Suicide ◽  
The World

Background: Suicidal ideation can often lead to suicide attempts and completed suicide. Studies have shown that Sri Lanka has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world but so far no studies have looked at prevalence of suicidal ideation in a general population in Sri Lanka. Aims: We wanted to determine the prevalence of suicidal ideation by randomly selecting six Divisional Secretariats (Dss) out of 17 in one district. This district is known to have higher than national average rates of suicide. Methods: 808 participants were interviewed using Sinhala versions of GHQ-30 and Beck’s Scale for Suicidal Ideation. Of these, 387 (48%) were males, and 421 (52%) were female. Results: On Beck’s Scale for Suicidal Ideation, 29 individuals (4%) had active suicidal ideation and 23 (3%) had passive suicidal ideation. The active suicidal ideators were young, physically ill and had higher levels of helplessness and hopelessness. Conclusions: The prevalence of suicidal ideation in Sri Lanka is lower than reported from the West and yet suicide rates are higher. Further work must explore cultural and religious factors.

Psychology from Egyptian, Arab, and Islamic Perspectives

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fouad A-L.H. Abou-Hatab
Keyword(s):  
Professional Identity ◽  
21St Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic Perspective ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
Western Psychology ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

This paper presents the case of psychology from a perspective not widely recognized by the West, namely, the Egyptian, Arab, and Islamic perspective. It discusses the introduction and development of psychology in this part of the world. Whenever such efforts are evaluated, six problems become apparent: (1) the one-way interaction with Western psychology; (2) the intellectual dependency; (3) the remote relationship with national heritage; (4) its irrelevance to cultural and social realities; (5) the inhibition of creativity; and (6) the loss of professional identity. Nevertheless, some major achievements are emphasized, and a four-facet look into the 21st century is proposed.

Searching for new Sources of growth. Are the Developing Countries Catching up with the Developed ones?

2015 ◽  
pp. 30-53
Author(s):  
V. Popov
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Gdp Per Capita ◽  
The West ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Divergence ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Relative Standing

This paper examines the trajectory of growth in the Global South. Before the 1500s all countries were roughly at the same level of development, but from the 1500s Western countries started to grow faster than the rest of the world and PPP GDP per capita by 1950 in the US, the richest Western nation, was nearly 5 times higher than the world average and 2 times higher than in Western Europe. Since 1950 this ratio stabilized - not only Western Europe and Japan improved their relative standing in per capita income versus the US, but also East Asia, South Asia and some developing countries in other regions started to bridge the gap with the West. After nearly half of the millennium of growing economic divergence, the world seems to have entered the era of convergence. The factors behind these trends are analyzed; implications for the future and possible scenarios are considered.

Comparing Comparisons: Political Implications of Different Notions of Difference

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-26
Author(s):  
Glenn Odom
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
World Literature ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
David Damrosch ◽  
Location Point

With the rise of the American world literature movement, questions surrounding the politics of comparative practice have become an object of critical attention. Taking China, Japan and the West as examples, the substantially different ideas of what comparison ought to do – as exhibited in comparative literary and cultural studies in each location – point to three distinct notions of the possible interactions between a given nation and the rest of the world. These contrasting ideas can be used to reread political debates over concrete juridical matters, thereby highlighting possible resolutions. This work follows the calls of Ming Xie and David Damrosch for a contextualization of different comparative practices around the globe.

Squatting: The Fight for Decent Shelter, 1970s–1980s

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-50
Author(s):  
John Marsland
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Housing Policies ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
Housing Needs ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

During the twenty years after the Second World War, housing began to be seen as a basic right among many in the west, and the British welfare state included many policies and provisions to provide decent shelter for its citizens. This article focuses on the period circa 1968–85, because this was a time in England when the lack of affordable, secure-tenured housing reached a crisis level at the same time that central and local governmental housing policies received wider scrutiny for their ineffectiveness. My argument is that despite post-war laws and rhetoric, many Britons lived through a housing disaster and for many the most rational way they could solve their housing needs was to exploit loopholes in the law (as well as to break them out right). While the main focus of the article is on young British squatters, there is scope for transnational comparison. Squatters in other parts of the world looked to their example to address the housing needs in their own countries, especially as privatization of public services spread globally in the 1980s and 1990s. Dutch, Spanish, German and American squatters were involved in a symbiotic exchange of ideas and sometimes people with the British squatters and each other, and practices and rhetoric from one place were quickly adopted or rejected based on the success or failure in each place.

Slavery and the Trumpocene: It's Not the End of the World

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-50
Author(s):  
Claire Colebrook
Keyword(s):  
Living System ◽  
Racial Violence ◽  
First Century ◽  
The West ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Geological Period

There is something more catastrophic than the end of the world, especially when ‘world’ is understood as the horizon of meaning and expectation that has composed the West. If the Anthropocene is the geological period marking the point at which the earth as a living system has been altered by ‘anthropos,’ the Trumpocene marks the twenty-first-century recognition that the destruction of the planet has occurred by way of racial violence, slavery and annihilation. Rather than saving the world, recognizing the Trumpocene demands that we think about destroying the barbarism that has marked the earth.

A4. UNRWA, IMPACT OF THE FIRST PHASE OF THE SECURITY BARRIER ON THE QALQILYA, TULKARM, AND JENIN DISTRICTS, GAZA CITY, JULY 2003 (EXCERPTS).

2003 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-160
Keyword(s):  
Civil Engineering ◽  
West Bank ◽  
The West ◽  
Full Report ◽  
The World ◽  
Aid Coordination ◽  
President Bush ◽  
Engineering Projects ◽  
The U.S

The separation wall, one of the largest civil engineering projects in Israel's history, has been criticized even by the U.S. administration, with Condoleezza Rice stating at the end of June 2003 that it ““arouses our [U.S.] deep concern”” and President Bush on 25 July calling it ““a problem”” and noting that ““it is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank.”” A number of reports have already been issued concerning the wall, including reports by B'Tselem (available at www.btselem.org), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (available at www.palestinianaid.info), and the World Bank's Local Aid Coordination Committee (LACC; also available at www.palestinianaid.info). UNRWA's report focuses on the segment of the wall already completed and is based on field visits to the areas affected by the barriers, with a special emphasis on localities with registered refugees. Notes have been omitted due to space constraints. The full report is available online at www.un.org/unrwa.

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