South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons^™

Hindu Poetry And The Project Of An Inter-Spiritual Catholic Theology, Francis X. Clooney

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article engages the work of the Indian south Indian Tamil-language Vaiṣṇava poet saints known as the Alvārs. The article specifically focuses the First HundredHoly Linked verses of Poykai Ālvār to argue for inter-spiritual learning between Catholics and Hindus. The article concludes with personal reflections on this encounter within the context of the global Catholic Church

Monstrous Girls And Celestial Lovers: Fantasy, Fear, And Female Adolescence In The Malayalam Films Ennu Swantham Janakikutty And Njan Gandharvan, Helena Reddington

Journal of Religion & Film

The Malayalam films Ennu Swantham Janakikutty and Njan Gandharvan reimagine figures from Kerala folklore, namely the Yakṣi and the Gandharva, within coming-of-age narratives. Both films position the characters of the Yakṣi and the Gandharva as fantastical figures who usher the young female protagonist into maturity. Rather than offering a pan-Hindu survey, this study focuses specifically on Kerala’s unique reimaginings of these celestial beings, where these figures carry distinct cultural meanings. This interpretive analysis is situated at the intersection of film studies, religious studies, as well as gender and sexuality studies, drawing particularly on feminist theory and critical approaches to vernacular …

Invoking Mirabai: Elision And Illumination In The Global Study Of Women Mystics, Nancy M. Martin

Religious Studies Faculty Books and Book Chapters

From the early nineteenth century, British scholar-officers readily compared Mirabai to European mystics as a way to come to terms with this intriguing and admired sixteenth-century woman as they attempted to order the dense weave of Indian culture and religion through the production of knowledge. And in the twentieth century she would increasingly be cited in comparative works on women’s voices, resistance, and religious lives and on global ethics and spirituality. This chapter will explore the place she comes to occupy, beginning by tracing the ways that Hindu bhakti or “devotion” maps (or does not map) onto European Christian and …

Mirabai: The Making Of A Saint, Nancy M. Martin

Religious Studies Faculty Books and Book Chapters

This book traces the narrative genealogy of the immensely popular Indian saint Mirabai from the earliest manuscript references to her through colonial and nationalist formations to scholarly and popular portrayals in the decades leading up to Indian independence. This iconic sixteenth-century woman is renowned for her unwavering love of God, her disregard for social hierarchies and gendered notions of honor and shame, and her challenge thereby to familial, feudal, and religious authorities. Though verifiable historical facts regarding her life are few, stories about her have multiplied across social, linguistic, regional, and religious boundaries. With attention to who is telling which …

Religious Affairs In British Indian Governance: 1857-1905, Vivek K. Rallabandi

Student Publications

This paper examines the British government’s approach to religious affairs in British India in the late nineteenth century, positing that religion was an important factor in understanding imperial governance in the period between 1857 and 1905. Beginning with a historiography containing the works of four authors, which is followed by a brief consideration of Queen Victoria’s 1858 proclamation, the paper proceeds to consider three distinct areas, namely personal law, caste, and interfaith interactions. Some of the specific elements examined include the role of English belief in Christianity in their dealings with religion and the British policy of “divide and rule,” …

Palm Leaf Manuscripts In South Asia, Emera Bridger Wilson, Jessica M. Rice

School of Information Studies - Post-doc and Student Scholarship

Many thousands of palm leaf manuscripts, in South Asia and elsewhere, are currently in danger of being lost due to physical deterioration. These manuscripts contain irreplaceable cultural, religious, scientific, and artistic works. Palm leaf manuscripts, which can be centuries old, are found in numerous private collections, temples, monasteries, libraries and museums. The sheer number and wide dispersal of palm leaf manuscripts provide significant challenges to conservation and preservation, including both ethical and technical considerations. A literature search and examination of palm leaf manuscripts shed light on the urgent need to proceed worldwide along two fronts simultaneously: rapid digitization of critical …

Balance And Imbalance: The Necessity Of Natural Disasters In Balinese Hinduism, Lorin Foster Demuth

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

No abstract provided.

Jewelry In Hinduism: A Mission Challenge, J. L. Samir

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"The issue of adornment and jewelry is a point of contention between Western and Eastern Christians. When Hindus accept Jesus Christ, they are expected to dispose of all adornment and jewelry before becoming members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. To Hindus, this is one of the confirmations that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is an agent of Western culture trying to replace their Eastern values and way of life. The Adventist position on adornment and jewelry is a challenge to many Hindus because of the different cultural ideals and meanings behind adornment within the South Asian context."

Sonic Liminalities Of Faith In Sundanese Vocal Music, Sean Williams

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

As the Sundanese have come to lean on increasingly outward expressions of their Islamic faith – through the use of the Islamic headscarf and other fashion choices, as well as through musical means – it has been the women who have consistently provided the most obvious, outward expressions of West Java’s increasingly public Islamic cultural practices. The aristocratic sung poetry of tembang Sunda has its roots in the imagery and grandeur of the 14^th-century Sundanese Hindu kingdom, Pajajaran. Songs that celebrate Pajajaran – the Golden Age of local culture – feature characters not only from the Ramayana, but …

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Syncretic Souvenirs: An Investigation Of Two Modern Indian Manuscripts, Madeline Helland

Scripps Senior Theses

The objective of this project was to establish a provenance for two Indian manuscripts that were recently discovered in the collections at Scripps College. Based on their illuminations, script, and binding structure, I was able to conclude that these two manuscripts are Hindu religious texts created around the 19^th or 20^th century. To determine an approximate origin and the significance of these volumes, my research focused on the syncretism of religion, material history, and power dynamics in India. Their context was specifically framed within the history of manuscript construction and conservation.

Modern Mythologies: The Epic Imagination In Contemporary Indian Literature, Sucheta Kanjilal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project delineates a cultural history of modern Hinduism in conversation with contemporary Indian literature. Its central focus is literary adaptations of the Sanskrit epic the Mahābhārata, in English, Hindi, and Bengali. Among Hindu religious texts, this epic has been most persistently reproduced in literary and popular discourses because its scale matches the grandeur of the Indian national imagining. Further, many epic adaptations explicitly invite devotion to the nation, often emboldening conservative Hindu nationalism. This interdisciplinary project draws its methodology from literary theory, history, gender, and religious studies. Little scholarship has put Indian Anglophone literatures in conversation with other …

Shirdi Sai Baba As Guru And God: Narasimhaswami’S Vision Of The Samartha Sadguru, Karline Mclain

Faculty Journal Articles

B. V. Narasimhaswami (1874–1956) never met Shirdi Sai Baba face to face, for he arrived in Shirdi eighteen years after Sai Baba’s death in 1918. However, the overwhelming sense of loving union he experienced in Shirdi convinced him that Sai Baba was still accessible from beyond the grave. For the remaining years of his life he worked relentlessly to spread Sai Baba’s name throughout India. This article examines the tension between inclusion and exclusion in Narasimhaswami’s interpretation of Sai Baba. Narasimhaswami believed that Sai Baba was a divinized guru with two interconnected missions: The spiritual uplift of individuals and the …

Is Slumdog Millionaire A Retelling Of The Ramayana?, William L. Blizek, Michele M. Desmarais

Journal of Religion & Film

Is a banner with a picture of Rama and Sita on it and the word, “Ramayana,” the only link between the film Slumdog Millionaire and the great Hindu epic? In this paper we explore elements in the film that correspond to elements in theRamayana. There is no one-to-one correlation, and some relationships between the two are, in fact, mirror images. However, there are enough correlations and influences to suggest that the film might be considered a retelling of theRamayana. We also acknowledge though that there are also features of the film that some would …

Woman Becomes Goddess In Bollywood: Justice, Violence, And The Feminine In Popular Hindi Film, Kathleen M. Erndl

Journal of Religion & Film

What happens “when a woman becomes Chandika?” This essay contributes to an on-going discussion of the theme of “avenging women” in popular Indian cinema, with particular focus on the transformation of a woman into a fierce Goddess who avenges oppression and re-establishes justice. Analysis of the story line and selected song sequences from the Hindi language film Anjaam (“Outcome,” 1994) in light of themes from the Hindu Sanskrit text, the Devi-Mahatmya (“Greatness of the Goddess,” 5thc. C.E.) shows how traditional religious images and values are adapted and transformed in a modern context.

Mirabai Comes To America: The Translation And Transformation Of A Saint, Nancy M. Martin

Religious Studies Faculty Articles and Research

The story of the sixteenth-century Hindu saint Mirabai is told and performed in a multitude of genres in India across the centuries, and her songs generate a tradition of continuing composition in her name. Her popularity readily moves across boundaries of language, caste, class, religion, and culture not only within India but also beyond, taking root in American culture more broadly in the latter decades of the 20th century, as Americans begin looking for figures for inspiration and canonisation within an emerging non-institutionalised global spirituality and women around the world mine the past to find their spiritual foremothers. Her popularity …

Rajasthan: Mirabai And Her Poetry, Nancy M. Martin

Religious Studies Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"Mirabai (born c. 1500) is among the most well-known and loved of the Hindu women saints devoted to Krishna. Her devotion to her Lord is absolute, as her life and songs attest. Her story is a romantic tale of star-crossed lovers—one human, the other divine—marked by perseverance and triumph in the midst of great suffering. Songs sung in her name speak of the joys and trials of the devotional life and evoke the full range of romantic love, from the devastating longing that marks separated lovers and the blazing anger of a woman betrayed to the sweet and intoxicating pleasures …

Mirabai In The Academy And The Politics Of Identity, Nancy M. Martin

Religious Studies Faculty Books and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Music, The Media, And Communal Relations In North India, Past And Present, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.