Yogini In South Asia

Yogini In South Asia Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of Yogini In South Asia book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.

'Yogini' in South Asia

Author : István Keul
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2013-07-18
Category : History
ISBN : 9781135045838

Get Book

'Yogini' in South Asia by István Keul Pdf

In different stages in the history of South Asian religions, the term yoginī has been used in various contexts to designate various things: a female adept of yoga, a female tantric practitioner, a sorceress, a woman dedicated to a deity, or a certain category of female deities. This book brings together recent interdisciplinary perspectives on the medieval South Asian cults of the Yoginis, such as textual-philological, historical, art historical, indological, anthropological, ritual and terminological. The book discusses the medieval yoginī cult, as illustrated in early Śaiva tantric texts, and their representations in South Asian temple iconography. It looks at the roles and hypostases of yoginīs in contemporary religious traditions, as well as the transformations of yoginī-related ritual practices. In addition, this book systematizes the multiple meanings, and proposes definitions of the concept and models for integrating the semantic fields of ‘yoginī.’ Highlighting the importance of research from complementary disciplines for the exploration of complex themes in South Asian studies, this book is of interest to scholars of South Asian Studies and Religious Studies.

'Yoginī' in South Asia

Author : István Keul
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : History
ISBN : 020336192X

Get Book

'Yoginī' in South Asia by István Keul Pdf

In different stages in the history of South Asian religions, the term yoginī has been used in various contexts to designate various things: a female adept of yoga, a female tantric practitioner, a sorceress, a woman dedicated to a deity, or a certain category of female deities. This book brings together recent interdisciplinary perspectives on the medieval South Asian cults of the Yoginis, such as textual-philological, historical, art historical, indological, anthropological, ritual and terminological. The book discusses the medieval yoginī cult, as illustrated in early Śaiva tantric texts, and their representations in South Asian temple iconography. It looks at the roles and hypostases of yoginīs in contemporary religious traditions, as well as the transformations of yoginī-related ritual practices. In addition, this book systematizes the multiple meanings, and proposes definitions of the concept and models for integrating the semantic fields of 'yoginī.' Highlighting the importance of research from complementary disciplines for the exploration of complex themes in South Asian studies, this book is of interest to scholars of South Asian Studies and Religious Studies.

Kiss of the Yogini

Author : David Gordon White
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 393 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2006-07-07
Category : History
ISBN : 9780226027838

Get Book

Kiss of the Yogini by David Gordon White Pdf

For those who wonder what relation actual Tantric practices bear to the "Tantric sex" currently being marketed so successfully in the West, David Gordon White has a simple answer: there is none. Sweeping away centuries of misunderstandings and misrepresentations, White returns to original texts, images, and ritual practices to reconstruct the history of South Asian Tantra from the medieval period to the present day. Kiss of the Yogini focuses on what White identifies as the sole truly distinctive feature of South Asian Tantra: sexualized ritual practices, especially as expressed in the medieval Kaula rites. Such practices centered on the exchange of powerful, transformative sexual fluids between male practitioners and wild female bird and animal spirits known as Yoginis. It was only by "drinking" the sexual fluids of the Yoginis that men could enter the family of the supreme godhead and thereby obtain supernatural powers and transform themselves into gods. By focusing on sexual rituals, White resituates South Asian Tantra, in its precolonial form, at the center of religious, social, and political life, arguing that Tantra was the mainstream, and that in many ways it continues to influence contemporary Hinduism, even if reformist misunderstandings relegate it to a marginal position. Kiss of the Yogini contains White's own translations from over a dozen Tantras that have never before been translated into any European language. It will prove to be the definitive work for persons seeking to understand Tantra and the crucial role it has played in South Asian history, society, culture, and religion.

'Yogini' in South Asia

Author : István Keul
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 279 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2013-07-18
Category : History
ISBN : 9781135045821

Get Book

'Yogini' in South Asia by István Keul Pdf

In different stages in the history of South Asian religions, the term yoginī has been used in various contexts to designate various things: a female adept of yoga, a female tantric practitioner, a sorceress, a woman dedicated to a deity, or a certain category of female deities. This book brings together recent interdisciplinary perspectives on the medieval South Asian cults of the Yoginis, such as textual-philological, historical, art historical, indological, anthropological, ritual and terminological. The book discusses the medieval yoginī cult, as illustrated in early Śaiva tantric texts, and their representations in South Asian temple iconography. It looks at the roles and hypostases of yoginīs in contemporary religious traditions, as well as the transformations of yoginī-related ritual practices. In addition, this book systematizes the multiple meanings, and proposes definitions of the concept and models for integrating the semantic fields of ‘yoginī.’ Highlighting the importance of research from complementary disciplines for the exploration of complex themes in South Asian studies, this book is of interest to scholars of South Asian Studies and Religious Studies.

Scattered Goddesses

Author : Padma Audrey Kaimal
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 283 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Art and society
ISBN : 0924304677

Get Book

Scattered Goddesses by Padma Audrey Kaimal Pdf

Scattered Goddesses: Travels with the Yoginis is a book about the lost home, the new homes, and the journeys in between of nineteen sculptures that now reside in at least twelve separate museums across North America, Western Europe, and South India. After piecing together what these goddesses and their former companions might have meant when they were together in tenth-century South India, Kaimal traces them into the hands of private collectors and public museums as these objects became more thoroughly separated from each other with each transaction. In the process of export and purchase, and in the hostile as well as loving receptions these sculptures received within South Asia, she fi nds that collecting and scattering were the same activity experienced from different points of view.

Women's Renunciation in South Asia

Author : M. Khandelwal,Sondra L. Hausner,A. Gold
Publisher : Springer
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2016-04-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781137104854

Get Book

Women's Renunciation in South Asia by M. Khandelwal,Sondra L. Hausner,A. Gold Pdf

This volume brings together compelling new research on South Asian women who have renounced worldly life for spiritual pursuits. Documenting contemporary women's experiences with intimate ethnographic narratives, this book offers feminist insights into Jain, Buddhist, Hindu and Baul ascetic traditions.

Sinister Yogis

Author : David Gordon White
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 376 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2010-07-15
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780226895154

Get Book

Sinister Yogis by David Gordon White Pdf

Since the 1960s, yoga has become a billion-dollar industry in the West, attracting housewives and hipsters, New Agers and the old-aged. But our modern conception of yoga derives much from nineteenth-century European spirituality, and the true story of yoga’s origins in South Asia is far richer, stranger, and more entertaining than most of us realize. To uncover this history, David Gordon White focuses on yoga’s practitioners. Combing through millennia of South Asia’s vast and diverse literature, he discovers that yogis are usually portrayed as wonder-workers or sorcerers who use their dangerous supernatural abilities—which can include raising the dead, possession, and levitation—to acquire power, wealth, and sexual gratification. As White shows, even those yogis who aren’t downright villainous bear little resemblance to Western assumptions about them. At turns rollicking and sophisticated, Sinister Yogis tears down the image of yogis as detached, contemplative teachers, finally placing them in their proper context.

Spirits and Ships

Author : Andrea Acri,Roger Blench,Alexandra Landmann
Publisher : ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute
Page : 577 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2017-03-10
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9789814762755

Get Book

Spirits and Ships by Andrea Acri,Roger Blench,Alexandra Landmann Pdf

This volume seeks to foreground a “borderless” history and geography of South, Southeast, and East Asian littoral zones that would be maritime-focused, and thereby explore the ancient connections and dynamics of interaction that favoured the encounters among the cultures found throughout the region stretching from the Indian Ocean littorals to the Western Pacific, from the early historical period to the present. Transcending the artificial boundaries of macro-regions and nation-states, and trying to bridge the arbitrary divide between (inherently cosmopolitan) “high” cultures (e.g. Sanskritic, Sinitic, or Islamicate) and “local” or “indigenous” cultures, this multidisciplinary volume explores the metaphor of Monsoon Asia as a vast geo-environmental area inhabited by speakers of numerous language phyla, which for millennia has formed an integrated system of littorals where crops, goods, ideas, cosmologies, and ritual practices circulated on the sea-routes governed by the seasonal monsoon winds. The collective body of work presented in the volume describes Monsoon Asia as an ideal theatre for circulatory dynamics of cultural transfer, interaction, acceptance, selection, and avoidance, and argues that, despite the rich ethnic, linguistic and sociocultural diversity, a shared pattern of values, norms, and cultural models is discernible throughout the region.

Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions [2 volumes]

Author : Susan de-Gaia
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 902 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2018-11-16
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9798216166979

Get Book

Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions [2 volumes] by Susan de-Gaia Pdf

This reference offers reliable knowledge about women's diverse faith practices throughout history and prehistory, and across cultures. Across the span of human history, women have participated in world-building and life-sustaining cultural creativity, making enormous contributions to religion and spirituality. In the contemporary period, women have achieved greater equality, with more educational opportunities, female role models in public life, and opportunities for religious expression than ever before. Contemporaneously with this increased visibility, women are actively and energetically engaging with religion for themselves and for their communities. Drawing on the expertise of a range of scholars, this reference chronicles the religious experiences of women across time and cultures. The book includes sections on major religions as well as on spirituality, African religions, prehistoric religions, and other broad topics. Each section begins with an introduction, followed by reference entries on specialized subjects along with excerpts from primary source documents. The entries provide numerous suggestions for further reading, and the book closes with a detailed bibliography.

Sixty-four Yoginis

Author : Anamika Roy
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Hindu sculpture
ISBN : 9384082120

Get Book

Sixty-four Yoginis by Anamika Roy Pdf

The Sixty-Four Yoginis are the lesser known forms of the Goddess Shakti in art and religion. Variously portrayed as malevolent goddesses, deities of tantric rituals, and yoginis of flesh and blood, they are seen as the sixty-four forms of the goddess and the sixty four embraces of Shiva and Shakti. Abandoned temples, stretching from Banda in Uttar Pradesh to Bolangir in Odisha, were once witness to the evolution of the mysterious cult of these goddesses. Shrouded in secrecy, knowledge about them is, till date, closely guarded by the tantric Acaryas. Sixty-Four Yoginis: Cult, Icons and Goddesses deciphers the complex forms of the Yoginis by engaging with the subject historically, aesthetically, theologically and anthropologically; identifies the Yoginis of the temple, of the Puranas, of the tantric texts, of folklore and finally of the Yogini Kaula; and examines the different layers of the complex phenomena based on rigorous fieldwork in the hitherto untraversed terrains where the Yoginis have their abode. The book offers valuable insights for researchers in the fields of religion, myth, culture, history and gender studies. The text of this handsomely produced volume is supplemented with a rich collection of photographs.

Women, Religion and the Body in South Asia

Author : Kristin Hanssen
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 214 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2018-04-19
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781351357593

Get Book

Women, Religion and the Body in South Asia by Kristin Hanssen Pdf

Noted for their haunting melodies and enigmatic lyrics, Bauls have been portrayed as spiritually enlightened troubadours traveling around the countryside in West Bengal in India and in Bangladesh. As emblems of Bengali culture, Bauls have long been a subject of scholarly debates which center on their esoteric practices, and middle class imaginaries of the category Baul. Adding to this literature, the intimate ethnography presented in this book recounts the life stories of members from a single family, shining light on their past and present tribulations bound up with being poor and of a lowly caste. It shows that taking up the Baul path is a means of softening the stigma of their lower caste identity in that religious practice, where women play a key role, renders the body pure. The path is also a source of monetary income in that begging is considered part of their vocation. For women, the Baul path has the added implication of lessening constraints of gender. While the book describes a family of singers, it also portrays the wider society in which they live, showing how their lives connect and interlace with other villagers, a theme not previously explored in literature on Bauls. A novel approach to the study of women, the body and religion, this book will be of interest to undergraduates and graduates in the field of the anthropology. In addition, it will appeal to students of everyday religious lives as experienced by the poor, through case studies in South Asia. The book provides further evidence that renunciation in South Asia is not a uniform path, despite claims to the contrary. There is also a special interest in Bauls among those familiar with the Bengali speaking region. While this book speaks to that interest, its wider appeal lies in the light it sheds on religion, the body, life histories, and poverty.

Conversations with the Animate ‘Other’

Author : Aloka Parasher-Sen
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 452 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2023-09-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9789356406902

Get Book

Conversations with the Animate ‘Other’ by Aloka Parasher-Sen Pdf

Human interventions with living entities have had to be in a constant state of negotiating space necessary for co-habitation with animals, birds, trees, plants, grasslands, forests, hills, water bodies in the creation of villages and other settlements. The book argues that negotiating this space meant sharing, which impacted economic strategies, religious experiences, cultural interactions and oral performances that humans have strategized and preserved. This intersectional theme, through individual case studies, ultimately provides us the civilizational ethos of the Indian sub-continent on how human non-human relations informed it. The book provides a window on how this relationship was represented in a variety of material and literary texts, visual representations, archival records, folklore and oral testimonies. It brings to the fore these narratives over the longue durée to explicate the complex and delicate relationships in region specific ecological settings and thus give readers a perspective that crosses disciplinary and conceptual boundaries.

Shi'ism In South East Asia

Author : Chiara Formichi,Michael Feener
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 416 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2015-01-11
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780190613433

Get Book

Shi'ism In South East Asia by Chiara Formichi,Michael Feener Pdf

This is the first work available in any language to extensively document and critically discuss traditions of 'Alid piety and their modern contestations in the region. The concept of 'Alid piety allows for a reframing of our views on the widespread reverence for 'Ali, Fatima and their progeny that emphasizes how such sentiments and associated practices are seen as part of broad traditions shared by many Muslims, which might or might not have their origins in a specifically Shi'a identity. In doing so, it facilitates the movement of academic discussions out from under the shadow of polemical sectarian discourses on 'Shi'ism' in Southeast Asia. The chapters include presentations of new material from previously unpublished early manuscript sources from Muslim vernacular literatures in the Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, Acehnese and Bugis languages, as well as rich new ethnography from across the region. These studies engage with cultural, intellectual, and performative traditions, as well as the ways in which 'Alid piety has been transformed in relation to more strictly sectarian identifications since the Iranian revolution in 1979.

The Super Natural

Author : Whitley Strieber,Jeffrey J. Kripal
Publisher : Jeremy P. Tarcher-Penguin
Page : 386 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2016
Category : Occultism
ISBN : 9781101982327

Get Book

The Super Natural by Whitley Strieber,Jeffrey J. Kripal Pdf

Two leading authors on the alien abduction and the religious anomalous experience present an intellectual analysis of why paranormal phenomena are a real, however fantastical, part of the natural world that can be authenticated through key changes in perspective. --Publisher's description.

Yoga

Author : Debra Diamond,Molly Emma Aitken
Publisher : Smithsonian Books
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781588344595

Get Book

Yoga by Debra Diamond,Molly Emma Aitken Pdf

"Published by the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition Yoga: The Art of Transformation, October 19, 2013 - January 26, 2014. Organized by the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the exhibition travels to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, February 22-May 18, 2014, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, June 22-September 7, 2014."