{"title":"Suny Series In Hindu Studies","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"language-and-style-of-the-vedic-rsis-book-tatyana-j-elizarenkova-9780791416686","title":"Language and Style of the Vedic Rsis","description":"Elizarenkova, perhaps the greatest living scholar of the Rand certainly its greatest linguist, explains here the relationships between a very complicated grammatical system and the peculiarities of style of the archaic religious poetry. The laudatory hymn is treated as an act of verbal communication between the poet Rand the deity, with the hymn itself transmitting certain information from man to god. From this viewpoint, the hymn is used as a means to maintain a circular exchange of gifts between the Rand their gods.  Many peculiarities of the functioning of the grammatical system of the Rare interpreted in connection with the model of the universe of the Vedic Aryan. For example, the concept of time as a circular process bears closely on the use of the verbal grammatical categories of tense and mood; the personification of some abstract forces can explain some irregularities in the functioning of the nominal category of gender; and the idea of magical power attributed to the Sacred Speech in general, and to the name of a god in particular, underlies the magical grammar of this religious poetry.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49571826073873,"sku":"GOR013620703","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53145555829009,"sku":"NLS9780791416686","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53457868357905,"sku":"NIN9780791416686","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791416682.jpg?v=1777370311"},{"product_id":"encountering-the-goddess-book-thomas-b-coburn-9780791404461","title":"Encountering the Goddess","description":"Coburn provides a fresh and careful translation from the Sanskrit of this fifteen-hundred-year-old text. Drawing on field work and literary evidence, he illuminates the process by which the Devī-Māhātmya has attracted a vast number of commentaries and has become the best known Goddess-text in modern India, deeply embedded in the ritual of Goddess worship (especially in Tantra). Coburn answers the following questions among others: Is this document \"scripture?\" How is it that this text mediates the presence of the Goddess? What can we make of contemporary emphasis on oral recitation of the text rather than study of its written form?   One comes away from Coburn's work with a sense of the historical integrity or wholeness of an extremely important religious development centered on a \"text.\" The interaction between the text and later philosophical and religious developments such as those found in Advaita Vedanta and Tantra is quite illuminating.  Relevant here are the issues of the writtenness and orality\/aurality of 'scripture,' and the various ways by which a deposit of holy words such as the Devī-Māhātmya becomes effective, powerful, and inspirational in the lives of those who hold it sacred.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49772901761297,"sku":"CIN0791404463A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49777502945553,"sku":"CIN0791404463G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007238373649,"sku":"NIN9780791404461","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52125211722001,"sku":"NLS9780791404461","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53520741007633,"sku":"GOR003013709","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791404463.jpg?v=1751106899"},{"product_id":"authority-anxiety-and-canon-book-laurie-l-patton-9780791419380","title":"Authority, Anxiety, and Canon","description":"Authority, Anxiety, and Canon elucidates a principle fundamental to Hinduism's self-understanding—the Veda—while at the same time examining the methodological issues of the role of canon in religious tradition. 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Brown's book sets out to examine how the Purana pursues these ends. The Devī-Bhāgavata employs many ancient myths and motifs from older masculine theologies, incorporating them into a thoroughly \"feminized\" theological framework. The text also seeks to supplant older \"masculine\" canonical authorities. Part I of Brown's study explores these strategies by focusing on the Purana's self-conscious endeavor to supersede the famous VaisBhagavata Purana.  The Devī-Bhāgavata also re-envisions older mythological traditions about the Goddess, especially those in the first great Sanskritic glorification of the Goddess, the Devi-Mahatmya. Brown shows in Part II how this re-envisioning process transforms the Devī from a primarily martial and erotic goddess into the World-Mother of infinite compassion.  Part III examines the Devi Gita, the philosophical climax of the Purana modeled upon the Bhagavad Gita. The Devi Gita, while affirming that ultimate reality is the divine Mother, avows that her highest form as consciousness encompasses all gender, thereby suggesting the final triumph of the Goddess. It is not simply that She is superior to the male gods, but rather that She transcends Her own sexuality without denying it.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50113613594897,"sku":"CIN0791403645G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53213180592401,"sku":"NLS9780791403648","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791403645.jpg?v=1750979519"},{"product_id":"artful-universe-book-william-k-mahony-9780791435809","title":"The Artful Universe","description":"Provides an accessible introduction to the Vedic religious world by focusing on the role of divine and human imagination in sacred texts.  The Artful Universe introduces the Vedic religion, a rich and densely textured tradition that has influenced the religious sensibilities of India for 3500 years or more. Engagingly written and based on traditional as well as modern Vedic scholarship, the book introduces Vedic ideas regarding the nature of divinity, the structure of the sacred universe, the process of revelation, the function of ritual as hallowed activity, and the realizations lying behind the practice of meditation. As a way to link these diverse aspects of Vedic religion, Mahony identifies and highlights the important role of the divine and human imagination in the formation, revelation, and reformation of a meaningful world.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50185003073809,"sku":"CIN0791435806VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50250263626001,"sku":"GOR013898926","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007155536145,"sku":"NIN9780791435809","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51075936321809,"sku":"GOR013388108","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52124003238161,"sku":"NLS9780791435809","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53017427476753,"sku":"CIN0791435806G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791435806.jpg?v=1750817694"},{"product_id":"popular-christianity-in-india-book-selva-j-raj-9780791455203","title":"Popular Christianity in India","description":"Popular Christianity in India explores Indian Christianity as crafted and expressed through lived experience, providing an important balance to currently available, typically theological, studies. Drawing from many disciplines, this volume unearths the multifaceted terrain of festivals, rituals, saints, miracle workers, missionaries, and visionaries in Christian India, providing a wonderful glimpse of its richness and complexities. The contributors reveal the ways in which local Christian traditions deftly challenge assumed divisions and power imbalances between East and West, Hindu and Christian, foreign and indigenous, and elite and local expressions. 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While the largely male Hindu ascetic tradition of sannyasa renders its initiates ritually \"dead\" to their previous identities, the women portrayed here are very much alive. They struggle with, and joke about, the tensions and ironies of living in the world while trying not to be of it.  Khandelwal juxtaposes the common refrain that \"in renunciation there is no male and female\" with arguments that underscore the importance of gender. 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Relevant here are the issues of the writtenness and orality\/aurality of 'scripture,' and the various ways by which a deposit of holy words such as the Devī-Māhātmya becomes effective, powerful, and inspirational in the lives of those who hold it sacred.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50360149934353,"sku":"CIN0791404455G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791404455.jpg?v=1750946629"},{"product_id":"disguises-of-the-demon-book-gail-hinich-sutherland-9780791406229","title":"The Disguises of the Demon","description":"Among the most ancient deities of South Asia, the yaksha straddle the boundaries between popular and textual traditions in both Hinduism and Buddhism and both benevolent and malevolent facets. As a figure of material plenty, the yaksis epitomized as Kubera, god of wealth and king of the yaks In demonic guise, the yaksis related to a large family of demonic and quasi-demonic beings, such as nagas, gandharvas, raks, and the man-eating pisaacas.  Translating and interpreting texts and passages from the Vedic literature, the Hindu epics, the Puranas, Kālidāsa's Meghadūta, and the Buddhist Jātaka Tales, Sutherland traces the development and transformation of the elusive yaksfrom an early identification with the impersonal absolute itself to a progressively more demonic and diminished terrestrial characterization. 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Ram is the most-worshipped form of the divine in North India today and has long been particularly important to those of the lower castes throughout India. Lamb explores both the evolution of the tradition and the rise of lower caste religious movements devoted to Ram, specifically the Ramnami Samaj, an Untouchable religious movement in Central India.  Lamb's study of the Ramnamis has spanned nearly three decades, first on a personal level as a Hindu monk and later as both a friend and a researcher. He discusses the historical origins, as well as present-day forms and structure of the Samaj, including a description of its distinctive ritual dress and practices. Among the more innovative aspects of the sect is its adaptation of the story of Lord Ram that is uniquely woven into its devotional repetition of his name (Ramnam). In addition, Lamb shares biographical sketches of six Ramnamis, each of which reveals the freedom of individual exploration and expression that is integral to the sect. This is a fascinating account of religious life and adaptation on the periphery of society.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50366497095953,"sku":"CIN0791453863G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52196206379281,"sku":"NLS9780791453865","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791453863.jpg?v=1750817709"},{"product_id":"demon-s-daughter-book-pingali-suranna-9780791466964","title":"The Demon's Daughter","description":"The Demon's Daughter (Prabhavati-pradyumnamu) is a sixteenth-century novel by the south Indian poet Pingali Suranna, originally written in Telugu, the language of present-day Andhra Pradesh. Suranna begins with a story from classical Hindu mythology in which a demon plans to overthrow the gods. Krishna's son Pradyumna is sent to foil the plot and must infiltrate the impregnable city of the demons; Krishna helps ensure his success by having a matchmaking goose cause Pradyumna to fall in love with the demon's daughter. The original story focuses on the ongoing war between gods and anti-gods, but Pingali Suranna makes it an exploration of the experience of being and falling in love. In this, the work evinces a modern sensibility, showing love as both an individualized emotion and the fullest realization of a person, transcending social and cultural barriers.  The translators include an afterword that explores the cultural setting of the work and its historical and literary contexts. Anyone interested in the literature and mythology of India will find this book compelling, but all readers who love a good story will enjoy this moving book. Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman have provided an elegant translation that will serve well the contemporary reader who wishes to encounter a masterwork of world literature largely unknown in the West.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50366715494673,"sku":"CIN0791466965A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50366717788433,"sku":"CIN0791466965G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53213410033937,"sku":"NLS9780791466964","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791466965.jpg?v=1779270254"},{"product_id":"god-of-desire-book-catherine-benton-9780791465660","title":"God of Desire","description":"God of Desire presents Sanskrit tales of the Indian deity Kamadeva as he battles the ascetic god Siva, assists the powerful goddess Devi, and incarnates as the charming son of Krsna. 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Tales of Kamadeva from the Hindu and Buddhist traditions present desire as a powerful force continually redefining the boundaries of chaos and order and gently pulling beyond the ephemeral lure of passionate longings.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50432541819153,"sku":"GOR013948808","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53213427892497,"sku":"NLS9780791465660","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791465667.jpg?v=1751297036"},{"product_id":"ritual-of-battle-book-alf-hiltebeitel-9780791402504","title":"The Ritual of Battle","description":"This book is a study of India's great epic, the Mahābhārata, against the background of Indo-European myth, epic, and ritual. It builds upon the pioneering studies in these areas by Georges Dumezil and Stig Wikander to work toward the goal of understanding how this epic's Indo-European heritage is interpreted and reshaped within the setting of bhakti or devotional Hinduism.  The book begins with a comparative typology of traditional classical epics, arguing that epic is a distinctive mythical genre, and that the Mahābhārata in particular should be studied as part of an Indo-European epic and (and not just mythical) continuum. The reshaping of Indo-European themes is then examined in relation to the Mahābhārata's central mystery: the figure of Krishna, hero and ally of the Panbrothers in their struggles against their cousins, the Kauravas, and incarnation of Vis.  The study argues that Krishna figures in the epic at the center of a coherent theological ensemble that builds upon continuities in Indo-European, Vedic, and particularly Brahmanic sacrificial idioms. Ultimately, Krishna guides the forces of dharma or righteousness through a great \"sacrifice of battle\" whose eschatological background recalls Indo-European and Vedic themes, while projecting them into the Hindu bhakti cosmology of universal dissolutions, recreations, and divine grace. 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The period between 1500 and 1800 was one of intense inter-imperial competition involving the Iberians, the Ottomans, the Mughals, the British, and other actors. Rather than understand these imperial entities separately, Sanjay Subrahmanyam reads their archives and texts together to show unexpected connections and refractions. He further proposes, in this set of closely argued studies, that these empires often borrowed from each other, or built their projects with knowledge of other competing visions of empire. The emphasis on connections is also crucial for an understanding of how a variety of genres of imperial and global history writing developed in the early modern world. The book moves creatively between political, economic, intellectual, and cultural themes to suggest a fresh geographical conception for the epoch.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51026106482961,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51026108416273,"sku":"NIN9781438474342","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53595386020113,"sku":"NLS9781438474342","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1438474342.jpg?v=1751146955"},{"product_id":"concept-of-bharatavarsha-and-other-essays-book-braja-dulal-chattopadhyaya-9781438471747","title":"The Concept of Bharatavarsha and Other Essays","description":"This collection explores what may be called the idea of India in ancient times. 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It punctures the retrospective thrust of hegemonic nationalism as an ideology that has obscured the diverse textures of Indian civilization.  Renowned for his scholarship on the ancient Indian past, Professor Chattopadhyaya's latest collection only consolidates his high international reputation.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51026108645649,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51026111463697,"sku":"NIN9781438471747","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52407376380177,"sku":"NLS9781438471747","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1438471742.jpg?v=1751370647"},{"product_id":"festival-of-indra-book-michael-baltutis-9781438493329","title":"The Festival of Indra","description":"The Festival of Indra details the textual and performative history of an important South Asian festival and its role in the development of classical Hinduism. Drawing on various genres of Sanskrit textual sources—especially the epic Mahābhārata—the book highlights the innovative ways that this annual public festival has supported the stable royal power responsible for the sponsorship of these texts. More than just a textual project, however, the book devotes significant ethnographic attention to the only contemporary performance of this festival that adheres to the classical Sanskrit record: the Indrajatra of Kathmandu, Nepal. Here, Indra's tall pole remains the festival's focal point, though its addition of the royal blessing by Kumari, the \"living goddess\" of Nepal, and the regular presence of the fierce god Bhairav show several significant ways that ritual agents have re-constructed this festival over the past two thousand years.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51026120409361,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51026122047761,"sku":"NIN9781438493329","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53592916099345,"sku":"NLS9781438493329","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1438493320.jpg?v=1751272296"},{"product_id":"festival-of-indra-book-michael-baltutis-9781438493336","title":"The Festival of Indra","description":"The Festival of Indra details the textual and performative history of an important South Asian festival and its role in the development of classical Hinduism. 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Readers dive into classical dramas, premodern vernacular poems, regional performance traditions, commentaries, graphic novels, political essays, novels, and contemporary theater productions—all of them Mahābhāratas.  Because of its historical and linguistic breadth, its commitment to primary sources, and its exploration of multiplicity and diversity as essential features of the Mahābhārata's long life in South Asia, Many Mahābhāratas constitutes a major contribution to the study of South Asian literature and offers a landmark view of the field of Mahābhārata studies.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51026149605649,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51026151506193,"sku":"NIN9781438482415","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53506356936977,"sku":"NLS9781438482415","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1438482418.jpg?v=1751305848"},{"product_id":"many-maha-bha-ratas-book-nell-shapiro-hawley-9781438482408","title":"Many Maha bha ratas","description":"A major contribution to the study of South Asian literature, offering a landmark view of Mahābhārata studies.  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Because of its historical and linguistic breadth, its commitment to primary sources, and its exploration of multiplicity and diversity as essential features of the Mahābhārata's long life in South Asia, Many Mahābhāratas constitutes a major contribution to the study of South Asian literature and offers a landmark view of the field of Mahābhārata studies.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51026149867793,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51026152063249,"sku":"NIN9781438482408","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53587673579793,"sku":"NLS9781438482408","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/143848240X.jpg?v=1751052609"},{"product_id":"nine-nights-of-power-book-ute-hsken-9781438484068","title":"Nine Nights of Power","description":"Explores the rich diversity of narratives, rituals, and participants connected with one of the most important celebrations for Hindus in South Asia and in the diaspora.  The autumnal Navarātri festival-also called Durgā Pūjā, Dassehra, or Dasain-is the most important Hindu festival in South Asia and wherever Hindus settle. A nine-night-long celebration in honor of the goddess Durgā, it ends on the tenth day with a celebration called \"the victorious tenth\" (vijayadaśamī). The rituals that take place in domestic, royal, and public spaces are closely connected with one's station in life and dependent on social status, economic class, caste, and gender issues. Exploring different aspects of the festival as celebrated in diverse regions of South Asia and in the South Asian diaspora, this book addresses the following common questions: What does this festival do? What does it achieve, and how? Why and in what way does it sometimes fail? How do mass communication and social media increase participation in and contribute to the changing nature of the festival? 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