The Snake and the Mongoose
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-064079-8 (ISBN)
In The Snake and The Mongoose, Nathan McGovern turns this commonly-accepted model of the origins of the early Indian religions on its head. His book seeks to de-center the Hindu Brahman from our understanding of Indian religion by "taming the snake and the mongoose"--that is, by abandoning the anachronistic distinction between "Brahmanical" and "non-Brahmanical." Instead, McGovern allows the earliest articulations of identity in Indian religion to speak for themselves through a comparative reading of texts preserved by the three major groups that emerged from the social, political, cultural, and religious foment of the late first millennium BCE: the Buddhists and Jains as they represented themselves in their earliest sutras, and the Vedic Brahmans as they represented themselves in their Dharma Sutras. The picture that emerges is not of a fundamental dichotomy between Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical, but rather of many different groups who all saw themselves as Brahmanical. Thus, McGovern argues, it was through the contestation between these groups that the distinction between Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical--the snake and the mongoose--emerged.
Nathan McGovern is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He received his PhD in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has taught at Franklin and Marshall College and Dalhousie University. His research interests include early Indian religions and religion in Thailand, especially exploring the boundary between Buddhism and Hinduism.
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. The Snake and the Mongoose at the Horizon of Indian History
3. Taming the Snake and the Mongoose of Indian History
4. The Brahman as a Celibate Renunciant
5. The Brahman as a Head of a Household
6. The Emergence of the Snake and the Mongoose
7. Losing an Argument by Focusing on Being Right
8. Conclusion
Bibliography
Erscheinungsdatum | 09.11.2018 |
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Verlagsort | New York |
Sprache | englisch |
Maße | 236 x 157 mm |
Gewicht | 567 g |
Themenwelt | Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Hinduismus |
ISBN-10 | 0-19-064079-0 / 0190640790 |
ISBN-13 | 978-0-19-064079-8 / 9780190640798 |
Zustand | Neuware |
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