{"title":"Historical Context of Early Asceticism","authors":"J. Bronkhorst","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Ascetics have impressed foreign visitors to India from an early time onward. The Greek Megasthenes, who spent time in eastern India around the year 300 BCE, described ascetics that remained motionless for a whole day in one single position. More than a thousand years later, Arab travellers marvelled at men in India who remained motionless for years on end. After almost another millennium, in the seventeenth century CE, the Frenchman François Bernier saw ascetics who remained standing seven days and nights, without sitting or lying down, leaning against ropes while asleep. Today Indian ascetics still impress foreigners, but the latter no longer have to leave their armchairs and can observe the sādhus, yogis, or fakirs on their television or computer screens. This chapter will briefly present what we know about asceticism in early India. It will present the evidence schematically, because this is the only way in which an understanding of complicated historical processes can be conveyed.","PeriodicalId":227629,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford History of Hinduism","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115069438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Later Institution of Renunciation","authors":"Sondra L. Hausner","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Renunciation plays a particular cultural role in the social worlds of both historical and contemporary South Asia. As the practical manifestation of a philosophical legacy that in its many schools emphasizes the importance of cosmic unity and transcendental knowledge—the capacity to overcome human emotion and physical shortcomings—as the way to achieve it, the rejection of worldly pursuits through renunciation has become a core tactical and symbolic solution to religious attainment. The person who embodies that goal—he (or, more rarely, she) who ably renounces the otherwise assumed life course of marriage, parenthood, ritual action, and community involvement—thus occupies a special place in the religious life of the sub-continent. A textual renouncer lives the philosophical dictum to renounce society, pursuing full-time the religious attempt to transcend earthly limitations, in a worldly body all the while. This chapter examines these developments.","PeriodicalId":227629,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford History of Hinduism","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131029841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gurus in Contemporary Hindu Practice","authors":"D. Gold","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0018","url":null,"abstract":"Gurus as authoritative teachers have long played important roles in Hindu traditions, but in an increasingly globalized world these roles have taken some new turns. Modern transport and communications have let some gurus gain very large followings in India and abroad, which necessarily affects their relationships with individual disciples. Even while adapting to new situations, however, most still draw on specific religious traditions, which give them distinct identities and differentiate the teachings and practices they offer. Although they all tend to use a language of truth and knowledge to refer to spiritual reality, the quality of the reality to which each points seems to vary, coloured by different experiences of divine love and power. The guru’s often powerful presence, moreover, may be given different roles in any practical techniques they offer. This chapter examines three contemporary traditions of practice that highlight the figure of the guru in different ways.","PeriodicalId":227629,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford History of Hinduism","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130188193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Haṭhayoga’s Early History","authors":"J. Mallinson","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"In India physical methods have been used for religious ends since at least 1000 bce. For two millennia these methods were simple techniques of privation in which the body was mortified, usually by holding a particular posture for long periods, in order to acquire tapas, ascetic power. The details of their performance were not transmitted in texts but, we must assume, passed on orally within lineages of renouncer ascetics. In the early part of the second millennium ce, a somatic soteriology whose physical methods are body-affirming appears in textual sources; some of its practices are depicted soon after in the material record. In certain Sanskrit texts these methods of yoga were classified as haṭha, which means “force”; haṭhayoga means “yoga by means of force”. In this chapter I shall analyse the history of the codification of haṭhayoga techniques up to the composition of the c. 1400 ce Haṭhapradīpikā, which became haṭhayoga’s locus classicus.","PeriodicalId":227629,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford History of Hinduism","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126617979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sounding Out the Divine","authors":"Richard Williams","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0013","url":null,"abstract":"From Vedic sacrifices to kīrtan podcasts, sound art and music shape how Hindu religions are experienced. Nonetheless, the social and discursive value of music is easily underemphasized in accounts of religious practice and thought: frequently, music is either viewed as a technical field—best left alone by non-specialists—or taken for granted and dismissed as part of the ‘background’ in rituals and texts. However, the auditory dimensions of religion have very real consequences: historically, musical transmission has been crucial in the dissemination of ideas and texts, while soundscapes and performance genres continue to cultivate identities and moral positions. There is more to music than decoration or mediation: in some contexts, it is possible to consider music and sonic practices as the substance of a theological system, the centre of gravity for doctrine, behaviour, and soteriology.","PeriodicalId":227629,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford History of Hinduism","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116550521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Modern Spirit of Yoga","authors":"E. Michelis","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0017","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter presents a brief re-examination of the modern yoga phenomenon and field of studies. Based on the author’s previous publications on the topic, it aims to improve and expand earlier observations, to integrate some new and older scholarship, and to comment on more recent modern yoga developments. It starts with the briefest historical summary of the emergence of modern yoga, now fairly well mapped in various academic studies. It then goes on to argue that, developing in the wider ideological context of modern spirituality and mirroring different socio-cultural milieus, modern yoga gave rise to five main yoga idioms or discourses: the revivalist, from which emerged the nationalist, and the transnational (in its monastic and non-monastic variants), from which emerged the globalized. Last but not least, we find the pervasive healthist idiom.","PeriodicalId":227629,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford History of Hinduism","volume":"63 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116931456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Practice in the Tantric Religion of Śiva","authors":"G. Flood","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"By the early medieval period the religion focused on Śiva was on the rise politically, socially, and culturally, coming to dominate the South Asian context and beyond to South East Asia. The origins of Śaivism, the religion of Śiva, are ancient and certainly those of devotion to Śiva, whose early form is Rudra, stretch back to the Vedic period. With the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad he becomes elevated to the supreme deity. But it is with the tantric revelation that Śiva comes into his own and it is this tradition that will be the focus of the chapter. The practices of the tantric revelation vary from fairly standard temple worship for those in mainstream society to fringe groups that performed unconventional and polluting practices (such as ritualized sex outside of caste restrictions) to go against orthodoxy in pursuit of power. The chapter examines these developments.","PeriodicalId":227629,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford History of Hinduism","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131266167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Religious Practices in the Sanskrit Epics","authors":"J. Brockington","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Both the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, the two texts usually designated jointly as the Sanskrit Epics, are major sources for the history of religious and social ideas. Because their authors tend to present ideals and practices in a living situation, this material is potentially even more valuable, although the specific nature of the episodes raises greater difficulties and uncertainties in their interpretation. We must also guard against too readily reading into various terms their later technical meanings, even in the didactic parts of the Mahābhārata to which scholars most often refer. Moreover, a given word’s spread of meaning may well encompass both religious and more secular meanings; an excellent example of this is the term mantra, which not only designates the Vedic utterances used in connection with sacrifice and similar rituals but quite as frequently denotes the kind of consultation, counsel, or advice exchanged between kings and their counsellors (commonly mantrin). This issue is made all the more complex by the long period (perhaps fifth century BC to fourth century AD) over which both the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa have reached their present form, during which both society and religion undoubtedly changed appreciably. This chapter discusses these developments.","PeriodicalId":227629,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford History of Hinduism","volume":"233 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115107843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Vaiṣṇava Practice","authors":"Rembert Lutjeharms","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0011","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter attempts to offer not a historical overview of Vaiṣṇava practice, but an overview of the ways Vaiṣṇavas have viewed their own practice. Given the enormous variety of Vaiṣṇava traditions and their very regional nature, any overview of Vaiṣṇava practice is necessarily selective. The chapter draws upon the writings of Vaiṣṇavas from most major traditions, and on a wide range of scriptural texts. After an analysis of the Vaiṣṇava understanding of bhakti, I discuss just four distinct Vaiṣṇava practices, which Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas proclaim to be the principal practices for the four cosmic ages (yuga): Vedic ritual, image worship, praising God, and meditation. Examining the various practices indicated by just these four, while not exhaustive, does demonstrate the great diversity of Vaiṣṇava practice, and also brings to light how these practices, despite their apparent differences, are all interconnected and, in the Vaiṣṇava mind, all have the same aim: constant remembrance of God.","PeriodicalId":227629,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford History of Hinduism","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114272970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ritual, Ascetic, and Meditative Practice in the Veda and Upaniṣads","authors":"Cezary Galewicz","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733508.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines ascetic and meditation practices as borne witness to in the ancient scriptures of Hinduism, the Vedas and Upaniṣads. Close to the appearance of Buddhism towards the sixth or fifth century BCE, the already rich textual heritage of the Veda emerged as a canonical collection rearranged for ritual use. Most of its texts had been composed centuries earlier, beginning in the north-west areas of the Greater Punjab, and continued to grow while transmitted orally over a period of several centuries. All that accompanied a slow movement towards east and south of the Vedic tribes and clans. They fought and formed alliances among themselves and with others in the process of growing cultural synthesis. The complex Vedic canon represents a religion which modern scholarship chose to name either Vedism or Vedic Hinduism as preceding that of Brahmanism and later traditions of Hinduism. It also bears witness to a marked emphasis on ritual practice of a decidedly elite character. The late phase of its oral canonization has been recently considered as redefinition in the face either of the universal call of Buddhism or the challenge of the written media of the neighbouring Persian Empire. This chapter examines these developments.","PeriodicalId":227629,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford History of Hinduism","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125773441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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