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 Devotion and Knowledge: The Indo‐Muslim Centuries

Ariel Glucklich

in The Footsteps of Vishnu: A Historical Introduction to Hinduism

This chapter surveys some of the major religious and intellectual developments during the centuries in which Islamic rulers governed northern India. The devotional work of Shri Chaitanya is ... More

This chapter surveys some of the major religious and intellectual developments during the centuries in which Islamic rulers governed northern India. The devotional work of Shri Chaitanya is highlighted along with the songs of Kabir, Ravidas, the new Ramayana of Tulsidas, and others. The synthesis of Islam and Hinduism produced a rich tapestry of ideas, which translated a profound re‐examination of social reality and significant scientific developments.Less

Introduction

in The Bijak of Kabir

Part I gives a brief account of Kabir's life and work. Part II discusses his “rough rhetoric.”. Kabir's style is uniquely vivid, direct and hard‐hitting. This section demonstrates how it manages to ... More

Part I gives a brief account of Kabir's life and work. Part II discusses his “rough rhetoric.”. Kabir's style is uniquely vivid, direct and hard‐hitting. This section demonstrates how it manages to involve the reader/listener and why it is so potent and memorable. Part III, “The Untellable Story,” discusses how he uses language to hint at paradoxical or inexpressible experiences. Part IV recounts a meeting between Hess and a man she met in India, who, like Kabir, led to her to examine her own mind and to realize more deeply what Kabir's poetry is about.Less

Translations

in The Bijak of Kabir

The translations from the Bījak of Kabir are presented in three sections: Śabda (72 poems), Ramainī (20 poems), and Sākhī (232 short verses).

Jihad, Hijra, and Hajj in West Africa

David Robinson

in Just Wars, Holy Wars, and Jihads: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Encounters and Exchanges

This chapter examines the response of two Muslim states of West Africa to French and British imperialism. The first was the resistance to French expansion led by Ahmad al-Kabir in present-day Mali. ... More

This chapter examines the response of two Muslim states of West Africa to French and British imperialism. The first was the resistance to French expansion led by Ahmad al-Kabir in present-day Mali. The second was the movement led by ‘Abd al-Rahman in Hausaland (present-day Nigeria) against the advance northward of the British. ‘Abd al-Rahman, like Ahmad al-Kabir, ultimately opted for migration (hijra). The British were concerned about the size and impact of the migration, and forced the caliph to do battle at Burmi. They defeated the Muslim forces and killed the caliph, but many escaped and continued their movement to the east.Less

Bani Bhagat Kabir Ji Ki

Pashaura Singh

in The Bhagats of the Guru Granth Sahib: Sikh Self-Definition and the Bhagat Bani

This chapter focuses on the works of Kabir (ca. 1398-1448), representing the Sant tradition of north India. Kabir is the major Sant poet of the Adi Granth who has received direct comments from the ... More

This chapter focuses on the works of Kabir (ca. 1398-1448), representing the Sant tradition of north India. Kabir is the major Sant poet of the Adi Granth who has received direct comments from the Sikh Gurus. The Sants were individuals who did not have the sense of mission or the idea of an organized religious community. Indeed, the question of self-definition makes sense only with a community; the Sants who seemingly lacked communities and institutional settings did not engage in a quest for self-definition. The chapter examines how the comments on the works of Kabir made by the Sikh Gurus like Guru Amar Das and Guru Arjan sharpened the process of Sikh self-definition.Less

Caution! Masterful Male!: Talkative Man

Ranga Rao

in R.K. Narayan: The Novelist and His Art

As amusing as Narayan’s The Man-Eater of Malgudi, Narayan’s Talkative Man presents the career of a compulsive womanizer, Dr Rann. He is yet another rogue in Narayan’s post-Independence gallery. Dr ... More

As amusing as Narayan’s The Man-Eater of Malgudi, Narayan’s Talkative Man presents the career of a compulsive womanizer, Dr Rann. He is yet another rogue in Narayan’s post-Independence gallery. Dr Rann, a PhD, is the apotheosis of Narayan’s intellectuals and academics. From the havoc Rann creates, however, it is almost like the return of the man eater, in the avatar of a specialist woman eater. Towards the end, Rann delivers a talk on a topic he is best qualified for: a pest, the Giant Weed. Set against the ‘slippery’ Rann is his wife, a New Woman of Narayan’s post-Independence era. Ranga Rao notes that the latter period of Narayan’s post-Independence novels is the season of pests.Less

Guru and Chela: A Tiger for Malgudi

Ranga Rao

in R.K. Narayan: The Novelist and His Art

Narayan’s novellas belong to the late post-Independence period, the novelist’s final phase. In the first novella, the hero of this slender novella is a tiger. Trapped by a sadistic circus owner, the ... More

Narayan’s novellas belong to the late post-Independence period, the novelist’s final phase. In the first novella, the hero of this slender novella is a tiger. Trapped by a sadistic circus owner, the harassed beast kills him accidentally, and later escapes. Its presence terrifies Malgudi until a sage adopts him as his disciple. In this chapter Ranga Rao shows how this novella charts the extraordinary spiritual transformation of an unmitigated animal. While there is relatively little of it in Narayan’s pre-Independence phase, violence in the early post-Independence novels extends into the late phase, and grows virulent in this novella. The novella also presents a peep into the Kabir Street aristocracy in terminal decline.Less

Politics and Patronage: The Evolution of the Sara-ye Amir in the Bazaar of Tehran

Fatema Soudavar Farmanfarmaian

in The Bazaar in the Islamic City: Design, Culture, and History

The genesis and demise of the Sara-ye Amir is closely bound with the development of Tehran from a small town in the foothills of the Alborz mountains to Iran's main metropolis, and with the evolving ... More

The genesis and demise of the Sara-ye Amir is closely bound with the development of Tehran from a small town in the foothills of the Alborz mountains to Iran's main metropolis, and with the evolving role of the bazaar as Iran began to emerge from more than a century of economic stagnation. Commissioned by Amir Kabir the reforming prime minister of Nasser al-din Shah, the elegant and spacious caravanserai complex, built in 1851 by Aqa Mehdi Tabrizi Malek al-tojjar as part of the overall plan to boost trade and improve the capital's bazaar, was much admired by foreign observers and came to house major domestic and foreign companies. By the end of the century the Sara-ye Amir was suffering from neglect and ownership conflicts, significantly coinciding with the gradual move into the khiabans (avenues) as the requirements of trade and industry outgrew the obsolescent structure and mentality of the bazaar. With the original layout and many features extant though disjointed, it has avoided the recent garish trend that has befallen its neighboring patron saint, the Emamzade Zaid, the vulgar revamping of which may be indicative of a deeper malaise affecting the ideas that once informed refined good taste.Less

Jazz in China in the Twenty-First Century

Eugene Marlow

in Jazz in China: From Dance Hall Music to Individual Freedom of Expression

This chapter addresses the question of whether there is jazz in twenty-first century China. The answer is that there most certainly is, quite literally. And it seems reasonable to assert that once ... More

This chapter addresses the question of whether there is jazz in twenty-first century China. The answer is that there most certainly is, quite literally. And it seems reasonable to assert that once you open a society to the world at large, even though the motivation to do so is primarily economic, it may be difficult if not impossible to reverse course. In all likelihood, China will continue to emerge as a major economic player on the world stage, and, to re-reference Kabir Sehgal's Jazzocracy, perhaps what will evolve is more equity, more conversation, more negotiation, and more reconciliation within China itself, and between China and the world community.Less

Modernity’s Modernisms: Aesthetic Scale and Pre-1500 Modernisms

Susan Stanford Friedman

in Planetary Modernisms: Provocations on Modernity Across Time

The chapter argues that modernism is not a single style, movement or period; instead, modernism is best understood as the aesthetic dimension of any given modernity, interacting with other society ... More

The chapter argues that modernism is not a single style, movement or period; instead, modernism is best understood as the aesthetic dimension of any given modernity, interacting with other society domains such as politics, economics, military, culture, etc. It tests the usefulness of this approach to modernism with a reading of three pre-1500 modernisms: Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu in the context of the An Lushan Rebellion; north Indian poet-singer Kabir (15th century) in the context of Tammerlane’s conquest and mass conversion campaign; and the story of the innovative cobalt blue and luster glazes of Basra potters during the Abbasid Caliphate.Less

Bhojpuri Diasporic Music and the Encounter with India

Peter Manuel

in Tales, Tunes, and Tassa Drums: Retention and Invention in Indo-Caribbean Music

This chapter is devoted to the more general topic of the Indo-Caribbean Bhojpuri legacy's confrontation with music flowing from North India itself in the postindenture period, in the form of ... More

This chapter is devoted to the more general topic of the Indo-Caribbean Bhojpuri legacy's confrontation with music flowing from North India itself in the postindenture period, in the form of mass-mediated film music and other pop, including panregional Hindi devotional songs. Of particular relevance is the influence of these imported sounds on wedding songs, Kabir-panthi music, and Ramayan singing. It argues that most Indo-Caribbeans do not regard imported Indian music as a stultifying hegemon; they see it, rather, as an inexhaustible potential resource that can provide a cultural depth and continuity unavailable to Afro-creoles, alienated as they are from the traditions of their African forebears.Less

Diatribes against Śāktas in Banarasi Bazaars and Rural Rajasthan: Kabīr and His Rāmānandī Hagiographers

Heidi Pauwels

in Religious Interactions in Mughal India

This chapter investigates how bhakti identifies itself in distinction to a Hindu “other.” There are many “bhaktis”, some more inclusive than others. A phenomenon that has been little noticed is ... More

This chapter investigates how bhakti identifies itself in distinction to a Hindu “other.” There are many “bhaktis”, some more inclusive than others. A phenomenon that has been little noticed is bhakti’s self-definion in contradistinction to śāktas. Anti-śākta diatribes are widespread throughout north Indian bhakti texts, both saguṇa and nirguṇa. The chapter focuses on the “pivotal” Sant Kabῑr (15th century) and his Rāmānandῑ hagiographers (16th century). In his poetry, Kabῑr frequently warns against śāktas. Who are these śāktas, and why is Kabῑr so opposed to them? This chapter first looks at how śāktas are depicted in the earliest identifiable poems attributed to Kabῑr, who preached in the bazaars and on the ghāts of the major pilgrimage center of Benares. Then it highlights the way his antagonism with śāktas is portrayed by the earliest of his hagiographers, Rāmānandῑs, who preached in rural Rajasthan about a century later.Less

The Exemplary Citizen–Devotee and the Other: Negotiating History and Religious Difference in the Saint Film

Uma Maheswari Bhrugubanda

in Deities and Devotees: Cinema, Religion, and Politics in South India

Chapter 2 begins with a theoretical discussion of majorities and minorities within a secular liberal nation. Later it examines two saint films, Bhakta Ramadasu (1964) and Sri Ramadasu (2006) in which ... More

Chapter 2 begins with a theoretical discussion of majorities and minorities within a secular liberal nation. Later it examines two saint films, Bhakta Ramadasu (1964) and Sri Ramadasu (2006) in which the story of a seventeenth century devotee-poet who was an administrative official under the Muslim Qutub Shahi rulers of Golconda, is mobilized at different moments in Indian history to deal with the question of difference both within Hinduism and outside it. More specifically it demonstrates the ways in which Muslims and the Urdu language are ‘made minor’ in mainstream cinema and thereby in the Telugu cultural imaginary. The first film is representative of the syncretic approach to the Muslim presence while the later film reflects the majoritarian Hindutva logic. Despite this crucial difference, both films are unable to imagine modes of toleration that overcome the limitations of liberal secularism.Less

Mettle Fatigue: The World of Nagaraj1

Ranga Rao

in R.K. Narayan: The Novelist and His Art

In this chapter Ranga Rao explores Narayan’s The World of Nagaraj. Jagan had experienced it earlier: Nagaraj’s world is changing and this is the late post-Independence period. Nagaraj is childless. ... More

In this chapter Ranga Rao explores Narayan’s The World of Nagaraj. Jagan had experienced it earlier: Nagaraj’s world is changing and this is the late post-Independence period. Nagaraj is childless. His brother’s son rebels, quits his parents and home in the village and comes to Malgudi and lives with Nagaraj. This guardian, however, can neither guard nor guide his newfound ward and his wife. Here Narayan presents Kaibir Street community microcosmically: in the plight of one family. The focus is on Kabir Street residents as those who were considered aristocratic inheritors of vast rice fields in the village. Marked by supreme contentment, the mirasidars or the landowners, show that their degeneration is more patent now than ever.Less

History and Allegory: Affinities between the Puranas and Kabir

Milind Wakankar

in India and Civilizational Futures: Backwaters Collective on Metaphysics and Politics II

The first half of the chapter uses the case of Prahlada to make the point that the Puranic understanding of history implies a transition from a dark prehistory into the historicity of the Puranic ... More

The first half of the chapter uses the case of Prahlada to make the point that the Puranic understanding of history implies a transition from a dark prehistory into the historicity of the Puranic present. The second part of the chapter suggests that this Puranic notion of a prehistory has affinities with the interiorized physiognomy of the soul typical of Kabir, which in turn has ties with Indo-Persian dastan literature. The key argument is that both the Puranas and Kabir speak to an ‘I’ that is yet to come, so that our standard account of Kabir’s seemingly proto-‘secular’ disregard for religious distinctions would have to be revised. Instead, one could argue that what is at stake for Kabir’s nirgun (hence its lure for subaltern communities) is an original embrace of difference as negativity, and only secondarily an understanding of what is ‘non-in-different’ in faith.Less

Gujarati Socio-religious Context of Swaminarayan Devotion and Doctrine

Françoise Mallison

in Swaminarayan Hinduism: Tradition, Adaptation, and Identity

This chapter is a study of the predominant religious currents and religious literature that influenced the thought and practice of Sahajanand Swami when he arrived in Gujarat at the beginning of the ... More

This chapter is a study of the predominant religious currents and religious literature that influenced the thought and practice of Sahajanand Swami when he arrived in Gujarat at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Pushtimarg and other established Krishna traditions were influential, as were other devotional groups, for instance, the Mahapanthis, Nathpantis, Satpanthis, and the Kabir movement. In spite of rather unsettled political conditions, Gujarat witnessed economic improvements leading to a relative social progress of mainly peasant lower castes and of women. Religious monuments were built or rebuilt; manuscripts became numerous as aide memoires for the use of the ordinary person. Education and religious culture spread in the vernacular, no longer exclusively in Sanskrit, and became more accessible to the humble. Swaminarayan found in Gujarat among the peasants and craftsmen an audience ready to participate actively in his philosophical sermons. We know about this through the collection of the Vachanamrut.Less

Poetry in Ragas or Ragas in Poetry?: Studies in the Concept of Poetic Communication

Raman P. Sinha

in Text and Tradition in Early Modern North India

In this chapter Raman P. Sinha makes a bold effort to uncover broad correlations between the verbal content of poetry that is typically set to music and the ragas in which these poems are ... More

In this chapter Raman P. Sinha makes a bold effort to uncover broad correlations between the verbal content of poetry that is typically set to music and the ragas in which these poems are performed—not at the level of specific compositions but in regard to a poet’s entire oeuvre. Using standard editions as his base, he deals with padas attributed to four leading Hindi poets of the early modern period: Kabir, Surdas, Mirabai, and Tulsidas. Correlating the life stories of these poets with the musical dimensions of their poetic output, Sinha comes to a number of thought-provoking conclusions. Chief among them is his observation of a reverse relationship between the variety of ragas used and the variety of life situations out of which they arise. In music as in life, finds Sinha, Mirabai and Kabir stand at opposite ends of the spectrum.Less