{"title":"Simon Brodbeck, Divine Descent and the Four World-Ages in the Mahābhārata—or, Why Does the Kṛṣṇa Avatāra Inaugurate the Worst Yuga?","authors":"Nathan McGovern","doi":"10.1007/s11407-024-09355-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-024-09355-8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53989,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Hindu Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141642074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Renny Thomas, Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment. Routledge Science and Religion Series. New York: Routledge, 2022. 214 pages.","authors":"Patrick J. D’Silva","doi":"10.1007/s11407-024-09376-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-024-09376-3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53989,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Hindu Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140979846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Non-dual Reality and Empirical Existence in Advaita Vedānta and Ghazālī’s Metaphysics of Unity","authors":"Patrick Laude","doi":"10.1007/s11407-024-09375-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-024-09375-4","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53989,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Hindu Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140657574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Fall of the House of Daśaratha: Kingship in the Raghuvaṃśa","authors":"Nabanjan Maitra","doi":"10.1007/s11407-024-09373-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-024-09373-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53989,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Hindu Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140654967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sex, Gender, and Devotional Desire: Refiguring Bodily Identities in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Discourse","authors":"Barbara A. Holdrege","doi":"10.1007/s11407-024-09361-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-024-09361-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Many of the debates among theorists of the body in feminist and gender studies center on the gendered body and its relation to the sexed body, with the validity of the sex/gender distinction itself a topic of contention. On the one hand, feminist advocates of social constructionism tend to distinguish between sex and gender, in which sex (male or female) is identified with the biological body as a “natural” datum and gender (masculine or feminine) is a second-order sociocultural construction that is superimposed as an ideological superstructure on this “natural” base. On the other hand, feminist advocates of sexual difference such as Judith Butler call into question the sex/gender distinction and insist that the sexed body, like gender, is socially constructed. This article brings these contemporary feminist interlocutors into conversation with sixteenth-century Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava authorities who developed a distinctive discourse of embodiment in which they frame the categories of sex and gender in relation to devotional desire in their ontological theories of bodily identities. The Gauḍīya discourse of embodiment explodes notions of the relationship between embodiment, personhood, materiality, and gender on both the human and divine planes and challenges prevailing body theories by positing bodies beyond matter, personhood beyond matter, and gender beyond sex.</p>","PeriodicalId":53989,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Hindu Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140155244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Divine Power and Fluid Bodies: Tirunaṅkais in Tamil Nadu","authors":"Elaine Craddock","doi":"10.1007/s11407-024-09362-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-024-09362-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article analyzes the complex ways in which religious practices influence the formation of identity and community among <i>tirunaṅkai</i>s, male-to-female transgender people in Tamil Nadu. I argue that <i>tirunaṅkai</i>s draw on longstanding religious resources to enact nonnormative identities that operate outside of the secular constructions of the modern subject that undergird governmental “uplift” efforts as well as the liberatory projects of Western feminist scholars such as Judith Butler. I focus in particular on three arenas in which <i>tirunaṅkai</i>s negotiate their identities in specific religious and social contexts: the kinship network, the annual Kūttāṇṭavar festival, and public rituals associated with Hindu goddesses in Tamil Nadu. The <i>tirunaṅkai</i> kinship network deploys multiple religious rituals while at the same time transcending boundaries of religion, caste, and class in its inclusivity. The enactment of marriage and widowhood at the annual festival to Kūttāṇṭavar foregrounds the divinity of the male-female form that <i>tirunaṅkai</i>s emulate. Serving as vehicles of the divine who embody particular goddesses through ritual possession in public temple spaces provides affirmation of their ritual efficacy and power to mediate between the human and divine worlds.</p>","PeriodicalId":53989,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Hindu Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140097843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Vedantam vs. Venus: Drag, Impersonation, and the Limitations of Gender Trouble","authors":"Harshita Mruthinti Kamath","doi":"10.1007/s11407-024-09363-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-024-09363-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Drawing on the seminal work of feminist and queer theorist Judith Butler, this article compares the practice of gender impersonation in the South Indian dance form of Kuchipudi with American drag performance. While impersonation in Kuchipudi and American drag performance arise from radically distinct gendered, cultural, and religious contexts, the juxtaposition of these two seemingly disparate spheres generates a useful framework for comparison that illuminates new ways of interpreting gender and caste in contemporary South India. Focusing on the Kuchipudi dancer Vedantam Satyanarayana Sarma and the drag ball performer Venus Xtravaganza, this article analyzes the gender and caste norms of Kuchipudi dance in Telugu-speaking South India while outlining the limitations of Butler’s theory of gender performativity.</p>","PeriodicalId":53989,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Hindu Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140107427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Slender Waists and Severed Breasts: The Construction of Female Bodies and Feminine Subjectivities in Vaiṣṇava Bhakti Poetry","authors":"Anya P. Foxen","doi":"10.1007/s11407-024-09360-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-024-09360-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article explores the ways in which the sexed body and its gendered subjectivity are constructed and expressed by Vaiṣṇava devotional poets of both sexes. In short, it is an experiment to see if a reading of <i>bhakti</i> poetry alongside gender theory can allow us to gain a better understanding of both fields. What happens when a <i>bhakti</i> poet chooses to speak as a man speaking as a woman, as opposed to a woman speaking as a woman? In the final analysis, neither the male poetic voice nor the female poetic voice necessarily offers a more direct or essential experience of <i>bhakti</i>, but rather both are expressions of the possible but inevitably contingent modes of experiencing oneself as a devotee. From a gender theory perspective, to choose to speak in a male poetic voice necessitates an imagining of the subjectivity of the Other, whereas the taking on of a female poetic voice forces the paradox of the Other becoming the Self.</p>","PeriodicalId":53989,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Hindu Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140055368","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Reciprocal Illumination” of Hinduism, Human Rights, and the Comparative Study of Religion: Arvind Sharma’s Contributions","authors":"Nancy M. Martin","doi":"10.1007/s11407-024-09369-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-024-09369-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Arvind Sharma has made immensely significant contributions in the fields of both comparative religion and the study of Hinduism through his methodology of “reciprocal illumination” and his prominent role in international conversations on women and religion, religion and human rights, freedom of religion, and religious tolerance and conflict. Aware of the power of religion and its negative valuation, especially post-September 11, he displays a deep commitment to fostering interreligious understanding, arguing for religion as an essential and positive partner in envisioning and actualizing human flourishing, upholding human dignity, and engaging in global ethical cooperation, and equally he demonstrates Hinduism’s potential contribution both to these endeavors and to moving the field of comparative studies beyond its Western, Christian, and colonialist origins and assumptions. This essay details these contributions and Sharma’s place as an interpreter of Hinduism for those inside and outside the tradition in our time.</p>","PeriodicalId":53989,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Hindu Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140032566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Responses","authors":"Arvind Sharma","doi":"10.1007/s11407-024-09371-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-024-09371-8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53989,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Hindu Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140080091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}