Religions of Early India
A Cultural History
Seiten
2024
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-19926-9 (ISBN)
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-19926-9 (ISBN)
- Noch nicht erschienen (ca. November 2024)
- Versandkostenfrei
- Auch auf Rechnung
- Artikel merken
The extraordinary multiplicity of religions and religious cultures in India, chronicled over two thousand years
From its earliest recorded history, India was a place of remarkable and varied religious activity, ranging from elaborate sacrificial rituals and rigorous regimes of personal austerity to psycho-spiritual experimentation and utopian visions. In this ambitious and wide-ranging chronicle, Richard Davis offers a history of India’s myriad religious cultures that spans two thousand years, from 1300 BCE to 700 CE. India, Davis writes, was not only the birthplace of the religions we now know as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It was also the home of other, often unnamed religions that can be classified as “folk” or “popular” religions. Tracing these intertwined practices, Davis shows that the ardent and heterogeneous religious cultures of early India came to define and redefine themselves in relation to one another.
Davis recounts this history through voices—voices recorded in hymns, poems, songs, didactic stories, epic narratives, scientific treatises, and theological discourses, as well as voices that speak through material remains, whether monumental sculptures or tiny terracotta figurines of nameless goddesses. He focuses on the long millennium often designated as “classical India,” which stretches from the time of the founding figures of Buddhism and Jainism during the sixth century BCE through the seventh-century-CE dynasties of the Chalukyas and the Pallavas in southern India. Throughout, he emphasizes encounter, interaction, debate, critique, and borrowing among religious communities within a shared, changing social and political reality. The voices and visions of early India’s religions, Davis shows us, are fascinating in their multiplicity.
From its earliest recorded history, India was a place of remarkable and varied religious activity, ranging from elaborate sacrificial rituals and rigorous regimes of personal austerity to psycho-spiritual experimentation and utopian visions. In this ambitious and wide-ranging chronicle, Richard Davis offers a history of India’s myriad religious cultures that spans two thousand years, from 1300 BCE to 700 CE. India, Davis writes, was not only the birthplace of the religions we now know as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It was also the home of other, often unnamed religions that can be classified as “folk” or “popular” religions. Tracing these intertwined practices, Davis shows that the ardent and heterogeneous religious cultures of early India came to define and redefine themselves in relation to one another.
Davis recounts this history through voices—voices recorded in hymns, poems, songs, didactic stories, epic narratives, scientific treatises, and theological discourses, as well as voices that speak through material remains, whether monumental sculptures or tiny terracotta figurines of nameless goddesses. He focuses on the long millennium often designated as “classical India,” which stretches from the time of the founding figures of Buddhism and Jainism during the sixth century BCE through the seventh-century-CE dynasties of the Chalukyas and the Pallavas in southern India. Throughout, he emphasizes encounter, interaction, debate, critique, and borrowing among religious communities within a shared, changing social and political reality. The voices and visions of early India’s religions, Davis shows us, are fascinating in their multiplicity.
Richard H. Davis is research professor in the interdisciplinary study of religion program at Bard College. He previously taught at Yale University. He is the author of The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography, Lives of Indian Images (both Princeton), and other books.
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 26.11.2024 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 9 color + 60 b/w illus. 18 maps. |
| Verlagsort | New Jersey |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 156 x 235 mm |
| Themenwelt | Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Religionsgeschichte |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Buddhismus | |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Hinduismus | |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Weitere Religionen | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-691-19926-4 / 0691199264 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-691-19926-9 / 9780691199269 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
aus dem Bereich
Herkunft, Blüte, Weg nach Osten
Buch | Hardcover (2024)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
CHF 55,90
Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart
Buch | Hardcover (2022)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
CHF 47,60
von den Anfängen bis zu Konstantin dem Großen
Buch | Softcover (2024)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
CHF 16,80
