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Copyright: Centre for Women's Development Studies, New Delhi--t.p. verso.
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This is the first book-length study that explores the history and nature of vrats—votive fasting rites—the role these rites play in the religious lives of Hindu women in North India, and the meanings these women attribute to them. By placing vrats within the context of various Hindu religious categories such as concepts of time; types of religious activities; goals; notions of purity and pollution; auspiciousness and inauspiciousness, the book demonstrates how the concept of vrat provides a lens to the Hindu worldview. Accordingly, it offers insight into the nature of Hindu popular religion in general and women's religion in particular. Drawing extensively on the personal narratives of i...
Politicisation of Caste Relations in a Princely State: Communal Politics in Modern Travencore (1891-1947) Among the various factors that contributed for the progressive transformation of Kerala into a modern democratic society, politicization of caste played a very crucial role. Travancore which formed part of present day Kerala before integration witnessed socio-political movements in the modern period initiated by the principal communities. The net result of these movements was the transformation of pyramidal social structure into pillar social structure. It was achieved through incessant conflicts and assertions and from the position of caste victims some communities could elevate themsel...
Louis E. Fenech offers a compelling new examination of one of the only Persian compositions attributed to the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708): the Zafar-namah or 'Epistle of Victory.' Written as a masnavi, a Persian poem, this letter was originally sent to the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (d. 1707) rebuking his most unbecoming conduct. Incredibly, Guru Gobind Singh's letter is included today within the Sikh canon, one of only a very small handful of Persian-language texts granted the status of Sikh scripture. As such, its contents are sung on special Sikh occasions. Perhaps equally surprising is the fact that the letter appears in the tenth Guru's book or the Dasam Granth in the s...
"[I]t is extremely salubrious to see the ways Islam works in the lives of ordinary people who are not politicized in their religious lives. . . . No other book on South Asia has material like this." —Ann Grodzins Gold In Amma's Healing Room is a compelling study of the life and thought of a female Muslim spiritual healer in Hyderabad, South India. Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger describes Amma's practice as a form of vernacular Islam arising in a particular locality, one in which the boundaries between Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity are fluid. In the "healing room," Amma meets a diverse clientele that includes men and women, Muslim, Hindu, and Christian, of varied social backgrounds, who bring a wide range of physical, social, and psychological afflictions. Flueckiger collaborated closely with Amma and relates to her at different moments as daughter, disciple, and researcher. The result is a work of insight and compassion that challenges widely held views of religion and gender in India and reveals the creativity of a tradition often portrayed by Muslims and non-Muslims alike as singular and monolithic.
This book is the first attempt to analyse the uslamics in its totality. The quantification technique used here is called Bibliometrics. And the work in hand is also the first attempt to apply the Bibliometric method to the study of islamic literature. It is on this basis that the author hopes his book to be of some significance to those concerned with Area studies, Orientalism, History, culture, comparative Religion and Islam.
Using local language sources and every important archive, this major history of the formation of Kashmir shows precisely how the Kashmir Valley assumed the position it has come to occupy in postcolonial South Asia."--Jacket.