Religion in India: A Historical Introduction

Festivals in other religious communities Muslims, Christians, Jains, and other religious communities similarly participate in fe ...

are performed in honor of the Virgin who was believed to have appeared at this spot. Within Jainism, laypersons of all the sects ...

Religion in Contemporary India 207 Figure 10“Folk” religion is classicized: a shrine to goddess Mutalayamma, near Hyderabad, And ...

the temple. The tower is known as a vima ̄n ̄ ain the south or s ́ikharain the north. The tower represents Mt. Meru, the center ...

Ritual in other religious communities Some Jains, especially the Murti Pujak Jains (of the S ́veta ̄mbara sect), have an active ...

together a diverse assortment of people, sometimes acting out distinct social identities, sometimes transcending them. Attempts ...

imaging of deities often reflects their cultural history – hunting gods reflecting hunting motifs, etc. It is not surprising, th ...

sacrifices must be performed elsewhere on the hill; not least of all the goddess has been given the name S ́rı ̄ Jagadamba. Thos ...

While this incident is increasingly uncommon there have been cases of people, especially from the lower echelons of society, con ...

witnessed a more puritan form of Islam, especially in Saudi Arabia, return to India seeking to purge Islamic practice of “non-Is ...

period.^21 It was founded by a Sindhı ̄ businessman, Dada Lekhraj, who died in 1969. It was founded, in part, from a sense of di ...

While many of these ideas are clearly derived from classical Indian speculations (the importance of cosmology, the need for prop ...

The demands on devotees are considerably less rigorous than for such a movement as the Brahma ̄kumarı ̄s. These activities range ...

celebrates Ra ̄ma’s victory over Ra ̄van.a. Indeed, the corps’ favored deity is Ra ̄ma, who is particularly popular amongst Hind ...

Many of these groups support the Bharata Janata Party (BJP – the party for the victory of India), which was founded in 1980 as a ...

While the 1990 procession ended in Advani’s arrest by the government of Uttar Pradesh, yet another procession in 1992 led to des ...

Yet, India has had a remarkable history of hosting an enormous spectrum of religious expressions. The present moment has become ...

Shils, E. A. The Intellectual Between Tradition and Modernity: The Indian Situation. The Hague: Mouton, 1961. Singer, M. ed. Tra ...

Sax, W. S. Mountain Goddess: Gender and Politics in a Himalayan Pilgrimage. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Shrivistava ...

10 India’s Global Reach Greater India in Asia The westward impetus Early contacts The colonial period The modern era The emigrat ...