The Vivāha, the Hindu Marriage Saṁskāras


Book Description

Ceremonial rites and rituals occupy a place of utmost importance in the life of a devout Hindu. In fact, there are no vital actions- brith, initiation, marriage, death etc- which can be allowed to be performed without its appropriate rite or samskara. The number of samskaras has been fluctuating but was finally fixed at sixteen. Marriage is the most important and elaborate out of these sixteen samskaras. Manu enjoins that rituals should be performed in the case of virgin for legalizing the marriage, legitimatizing children and avoiding public scandal. The mantras used in the nuptial rites being in Sanskrit are beyond the comprehension of not only the average Hindu but even the common priests entrusted with the duty of conducting the rituals. To overcome this difficulty the present book was originally prepared in Hindu and is now translated into English with the mantras etc. Romanized for the benefit of those who do not have adequate knowledge of Hindi, for example especially those whose forefathers had migrated to remote countries during the last one hundred years or so.




Moral Knowing in a Hindu Sacred City


Book Description

Explores the interrelationship of mind, self, emotion and the development of moral consciousness in the Nepalese city of Bhaktapur. The author investigates how the citizens have developed moral awareness in the context of cultural life.




Pūjā and Saṃskāra


Book Description

This book treats two representative Hindu rituals of contemporary India, Puja (offering service) and Samskara (initiation rituals at important occasions of life). Samskara rites are performed at significant junctures of an individual`s life, from birth to death, by the individual`s family. Puja rites, rather than being performed in relation to the life cycle of an individual in a family, are more deeply related to the annual rituals of the cult to which an individual or the person`s family belongs. Persons may go to a temple and request priests to perform puja rites, or they may perform them themselves at home. For people living in India, Puja and Samskara are not at all uncommon. Puja rites are performed everywhere-at temples, in private homes, on street corners-and although in recent times families observing all the traditional Samskara rites have declined in number, almost all Hindu families still perform the major Samskaras. it is difficult, however, for those living outside India to know how these rites are performed. Hence, this book presents a large number of photographs that enable readers to gain an accurate grasp of them and indicates the place of ritual in the total structure of religion.




Hindu Saṃskāra


Book Description

On Hindu rituals.







T&T Clark Handbook of Sacraments and Sacramentality


Book Description

Introducing readers to the contemporary field of sacramental theology, this volume covers the biblical and historical foundations, a survey of the state of the discipline, and a collection of constructive essays representing major themes, practices and approaches to sacraments and sacramentality in the contemporary world. The volume starts with a set of foundational essays that offer broad introduction to the field of sacramental theology from contemporary scholars, analysing a number of historical figures in order to illumine and inform contemporary sacramental theology. The second part of the volume is dedicated to a series of essays on sacramentality, and includes attention to elements of space, time, ritual action, music, and word, all as aspects of what Christians have termed “sacramental” reality. The third set of essays includes attention to each of the seven practices that have most commonly been termed “sacraments” in Christian traditions: baptism; eucharist/Lord's Supper; confirmation; confession, forgiveness and reconciliation; marriage; ordination; and anointing. The final part of this volume features scholars who are working on sacraments in conversation with contemporary academic disciplines: critical race theory, queer theory, comparative theology, and disability studies.




How to Become a Hindu


Book Description

"A history-making manual,interreligious study and names list, with stories by Westerners who entered Hinduism and Hindus who deepened their faith"--Cove




Samskara


Book Description

Made into a powerful, award-winning film in 1970, this important Kannada novel of the sixties has received widespread acclaim from both critics and general readers since its first publication in 1965. As a religious novel about a decaying brahmin colony in the south Indian village of Karnataka, Samskara serves as an allegory rich in realistic detail, a contemporary reworking of ancient Hindu themes and myths, and a serious, poetic study of a religious man living in a community of priests gone to seed. A death which stands as the central event in the plot brings in its wake a plague, many more deaths, live questions with only dead answers, moral chaos, and the rebirth of one man. The volume provides a useful glossary of Hindu myths, customs, Indian names, flora, and other terms. Notes and an afterword enhance the self-contained, faithful, and yet readable translation.




The Hindu Diaspora


Book Description

Hinduism outside the Indian subcontinent represents a contrasting and scattered community. From Britain to the Caribbean, diasporic Hindus have substantially reformed their beliefs and practices in accordance with their historical and social circumstances. In this theoretically innovative analysis Steven Vertovec examines: * the historical construction of the category 'Hinduism in India' * the formation of a distinctive Caribbean Hindu culture during the nineteenth century * the role of youth groups in forging new identities during Trinidad's Hindu Renaissance * the reproduction of regionally based identities and frictions in Britain's Hindu communities * the differences in temple use across the diaspora. This book provides a rich and fascinating view of the Hindu diaspora in the past, present and its possible futures.




The Yogasutra of Patanjali


Book Description

The Indian system of philosophy is the store-house which has supplied spiritual food, through the ages, to all the nations of the world. Other teachings, whatever they be, are but the sauces and the spices, useful so long as this philosophy supplies the spiritual inspiration. Yogasutra of Patanjali is divided into four chapters. It comprises aphorisms on the system of yoga. The aphorisms relate to the subject of Spiritual Absorption (Samadhi), Means of Practice (Sadhana), Accomplishments (Vibhuti) and Emancipation (Kaivalya). To expound further: Ch. I explains the grades of Spiritual Action for the restraint of the exhibitive operations of the mind. Until that is done no yogic achievement is possible. Ch. II deals with the process of Material Action which can attenuate the gross impurities that have entered into the mind. Ch. III pertains to the Dissolutionary Change of the worldly life by means of Samyama. Ch. IV explains the working of threefold action— the present action, the stored-up action and the regulated fruitive action. It teaches how the individual soul, released from the bond of actions, realizes the Reality of the Supreme Being wherein the individual souls merge into Brahman as rivers do into the ocean. The entire system of Yoga, in all its categories, is nowhere better treated than in this book.