Living Banaras PDF Download

Author: Bradley R. Hertel
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791413319
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
By focusing on contemporary popular religious traditions, the book represents a substantial contribution to the study of modern religious practices in Banaras, holy city of India. This book offers in-depth, ethnographic views of many contemporary popular religious practices that have, for the most part, received little attention by scholars. Topics covered include the Ramlila celebrations, devotion to Hanuman, and goddess worship, and the way that Banarsi Boli, the local dialect of Banaras, supports its users in their identification with the sacred city.

Author: Diana L. Eck
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231114479
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
"In BANARAS, Diana Eck . . . has written a notable book about this greatest of Indian pilgrimage sites. . . . Her brilliant, comprehensive book seems likely to remain for a long time the definitive work on this great Indian city".--WASHINGTON POST. 61 photos. 7 maps.

Author: Diana L. Eck
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307832953
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
The sacred city of Banāras on the River Ganges is one of the oldest living cities in the world—as old as Jerusalem, Athens, and Peking. It is the place where Shiva, the Lord of All, is said to have made his permanent home since the dawn of creation. There are few cities in India as traditionally Hindu and as symbolic of the whole of Hindu culture as Banāras. In this eloquent, finely observed study, Diana Eck shows how the city over the centuries has become a lens through which the Hindu vision of the world is precisely focused. She reveals the spiritual and historical resonance of this holy place where great sages such as the Buddha and Shankara were taught, where ashrams, palaces, and universities were built, where God has been imagined and imagined in a thousand ways. She describes the rites of its temples, the busy life of its riverfront, and the exuberance of its festivals. She tells how people travel from all over India to Banāras for the privilege of dying a good death here, for they believe that on the banks of the River Ganges where “the atmosphere of devotion is improbable in its strength,” it is possible to be released from the earthly round forever. In her account of the sacred history, geography, and art of the city, its elaborate and thriving rituals, its myths and literature, and its importance to pilgrims and seekers, Diana Eck uses her wealth of scholarship to make the Hindu tradition come powerfully alive so that we come to understand the meaning of this sacred city to the millions of believers who have been coming here for over 2,500 years.

Author: John Stratton Hawley
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520249143
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
'The Life of Hinduism' collects a series of essays that present Hinduism as a vibrant, truly 'lived' religion. The text offers a glimpse into the multifaceted world of Hindu worship, life-cycle rites, festivals, performances, gurus, and castes.

Author: Aran MacKinnon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429972954
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
Places of Encounter provides a place-based approach to world history, focusing on specific locations at critical moments when human history was transformed as a result of encounters-physical, political, cultural, intellectual, and religious. Original, contributed essays by leading academics in the field explore places from Hadar to Xi'an, Salvador to New York, and numerous other locations that have produced historical shockwaves and significant global impact throughout history. With a chronologically organized table of contents, each chapter dissects a particular moment in history, with personal commentary from each contributor, a narrative of the location's historical significance at the time, and a section on significant global connections. Primary sources and discussion questions at the end of each chapter allow students a view into the lives of individuals of the time. Students will experience the narrative of historic individuals as well as modern scholars looking back over documentation to offer their own views of the past, providing students with the perfect opportunity to see how scholars form their own views about history.

Author: Heide Hagebölling
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9783540442066
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Interactive media require new forms of dramaturgy. Heide Hagebölling develops a new understanding of dramaturgy, "Interactive Dramaturgy", which goes beyond interactive storytelling. Contributions by international multimedia authors, designers, and artists outline concepts and strategies for multimedia productions. These outstanding example projects cover various genres: culture, museum, TV, and education. Interactive media are complex and have multiple dimensions. A linear dramaturgy, therefore, no longer holds. The global connection via Internet fosters further dimensions of exchange and competition. Interactive dramaturgies define rules, transition points, and dimensions of multi-user environments. Multimedia, real and virtual elements must be carefully integrated within applications or installations. Interactive dramaturgies help design and create environments and content that lead to immersion, active exploration, and knowledge acquisition, and that motivate users to repeated visits.

Author: Christopher Francis Roche
Publisher: Prestel Publishing
ISBN: 9783791382241
Category : Portrait photography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The acclaimed photographer Christopher Roche offers a stunning panoramic portrait of Banaras, the spiritual capital of India. Banaras, or "Varanasi" in Hindi, is a Northern Indian city on the banks of the Ganges in Uttar Pradesh. One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, it is also one of the holiest in Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist cultures. In this large-format book, the landscape and spiritualism of this beautiful city come to life through the lens of award-winning photographer Christopher Roche. Spending two years covering the city's daily events, Roche turned his lens toward its holy men, temples, shrines, and religious ceremonies. He depicts the ubiquitous lingams and yonis, as well as the city's fabled burning Ghats--a series of long, wide steps leading to the Ganges. Rarely photographed due to cultural restrictions, Banaras teems with life, color, and emotion. In his large, brilliantly hued images, Roche manages to capture the throbbing vitality of this important city as no one ever has before.

Author: R. W. McColl
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 0816072299
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1182

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Book Description
Presents a comprehensive guide to the geography of the world, with world maps and articles on cartography, notable explorers, climate and more.

Author: Ronald L. Barrett
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520252195
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Ron Barett examines a range of Aghor therapies from ritual bathing to modified Ayurveda and biomedicines while clarifying any misconceptions about this little studied group and its unorthodox ideas about illness and healing.

Author: Michael Dumper
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231545665
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Conflicts in cities that have particular religious significance often become intense, protracted, and violent. Why are holy cities so frequently contested, and how can these conflicts be mediated and resolved? In Power, Piety, and People, Michael Dumper explores the causes and consequences of contemporary conflicts in holy cities. He explains how common features of holy cities, such as powerful and autonomous religious hierarchies, income from religious endowments, the presence of sacred sites, and the performance of ritual activities that affect other communities, can combine to create tension. Power, Piety, and People offers five case studies of important disputes, beginning with Jerusalem, often seen as the paradigmatic example of a holy city in conflict. Dumper also discusses Córdoba, where the Islamic history of its Mosque-Cathedral poses challenges to the control exercised by the Roman Catholic Church; Banaras, where competing Muslim and Hindu claims to sacred sites threaten the fragile equilibrium that exists in the city; Lhasa, where the Communist Party of China severely restricts the ancient practice of Tibetan Buddhism; and George Town in Malaysia, a rare example of a city with many different religious communities whose leaders have successfully managed intergroup conflicts. Applying the lessons drawn from these cities to a broader global urban landscape, this book offers scholars and policy makers new insights into a pervasive category of conflict that often appears intractable.