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 A Long and Winding Tail: Hanuman in History and Historiography

Philip Lutgendorf

in Hanuman's Tale: The Messages of a Divine Monkey

While surveying textual sources, iconography, and other historical evidence for the development of Hanuman's popular cult, this chapter also interrogates the explanatory narratives that have been ... More

While surveying textual sources, iconography, and other historical evidence for the development of Hanuman's popular cult, this chapter also interrogates the explanatory narratives that have been constructed around this evidence by earlier scholars. After examining attempts to locate Hanuman's origins in pre-Vedic religion or in the Rig Veda, and in the cult of yakshas or earth-spirits, it examines the role of the wind (Hanuman's legendary father) in Ayurveda, and Hanuman's additional kinship with Shiva and Shaivism. It then traces the development of Hanuman's persona over roughly two millennia from the Valmiki Ramayana to the Rama tales in the Puranas, in the literature of Jainism, and in vernacular language epics. Interrogating a recent and influential theory that Hanuman's cult reflects a Hindu response to the excesses of Muslim hegemony, the chapter reexamines three historical periods that often figure in this argument: the late Vijayanagara empire, the early Maratha kingdom, and the “warrior ascetics” of the Ramanandi sadhu order in the late Mughal Empire and early colonial periods. It is argued that the apparent efflorescence of devotion to Hanuman in each of these contexts reflects a more complex range of historical and social factors than has generally been recognized.Less

The Hanumāyana: Forty Tales of Hanuman

Philip Lutgendorf

in Hanuman's Tale: The Messages of a Divine Monkey

This chapter presents a representative selection of well-known tales and variants that emphasize Hanuman's heroic role both within and outside the conventional Ramayana narrative. Selections include ... More

This chapter presents a representative selection of well-known tales and variants that emphasize Hanuman's heroic role both within and outside the conventional Ramayana narrative. Selections include ancient tales adapted from the Puranas and regional Rama literature, as well as modern folktales and oral narratives. Collectively, these tales add a new installment to the Hindu mythology available in English translation.Less

 Maps and Myths in the Matsya Purana

Ariel Glucklich

in The Footsteps of Vishnu: A Historical Introduction to Hinduism

This chapter looks at the vast mythological texts called Puranas, with a special focus on the Matsya Purana. The vast cosmological periods (yugas) and the maps of the universe contained in these ... More

This chapter looks at the vast mythological texts called Puranas, with a special focus on the Matsya Purana. The vast cosmological periods (yugas) and the maps of the universe contained in these texts are explained. The chapter also looks at two major pilgrimage centers on the Ganges and explains their religious importance. The politically charged methods of interpreting Hindu mythology are discussed, particularly in reference to the narrative of the churning of the ocean.Less

The Authors

Romila Thapar

in Time as a Metaphor of History: Early India: The Krishna Bharadwaj Memorial Lecture

This chapter focuses on disagreements between astronomers regarding time calculations. One astronomer rejected the unequal length of the four yugas; Āryabhaṭa in the fifth century AD was singled out ... More

This chapter focuses on disagreements between astronomers regarding time calculations. One astronomer rejected the unequal length of the four yugas; Āryabhaṭa in the fifth century AD was singled out even in later times as having argued in favour of four ages of equal length of 1,080,000 years. A subsequent astronomer, Brahmagupta, disagreed with this and endorsed the alternative figures closer to the cosmological scheme. The cosmography of a flat earth was also rejected in favour of a sphere. In the mid-eighth century, the astronomer Lalla refuted what he found unacceptable in Purāṇic texts. Still later, Vaṭeśvara disagreed with Brahmagupta and supported Āryabhaṭa. There appears to have been some divergence among astronomers as also between them and the authors of the Purāṇas.Less

The Great Men of Jainism In Utero: A Survey

Eva De Clercq

in Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture

In “The Great Men of Jainism In Utero,” an overview is provided of the intrauterine lives of the sixty-three heroes of the “Universal History” of the Jains. A central motif in these accounts is a ... More

In “The Great Men of Jainism In Utero,” an overview is provided of the intrauterine lives of the sixty-three heroes of the “Universal History” of the Jains. A central motif in these accounts is a series of prophetic dreams that the mothers experience upon conception. In general, these dreams and other events surrounding the hero’s time in the womb parallel what happens to him in his life beyond the womb. The chapter further examines some similarities in Hinduism and Buddhism.Less

Numismatics and History: The Maurya-Gupta Interlude in the Gangetic Plain

Shailendra Bhandare

in Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE

In the context of the chronological and geographic limits to which this chapter is confined, the main body of literary evidence utilized for historical reconstruction by the exponents of the textual ... More

In the context of the chronological and geographic limits to which this chapter is confined, the main body of literary evidence utilized for historical reconstruction by the exponents of the textual school is a group of semimythical texts called the Purāṇas. From a religious standpoint, they belong to a genre labeled Hindu or Brahmanic literature. There are eighteen Purāṇas traditionally known, but Matysa, Vāyu, Brahmāṇda, and Bhaviṣya Purāṇas are pertinent for a dynastic account of north India during the post-Mauryan period. What they contain is an essentially linear presentation of the historical course in the post-Mauryan period. They are largely unanimous about the succession to the imperial Mauryas—they state that they were succeeded first by the Śuṅgas, then by the Kaṇvas, and last by the Āndhras. As for the focus of the post-Mauryan polity, the Purāṇas name the city of Vidisha as the capital of the Śuṅgas.Less

Introduction

Veena Das

in Structure and Cognition: Aspects of Hindu Caste and Ritual

This introductory chapter discusses Hindu caste and ritual. It examines the religious texts in Sanskrit, which serve as relevant sources of information on Indian society. It takes a look at ... More

This introductory chapter discusses Hindu caste and ritual. It examines the religious texts in Sanskrit, which serve as relevant sources of information on Indian society. It takes a look at anthropological research and the formation of a positivist approach, as well as the consequences of defining social reality based on concreteness. It introduces Louis Dumont's writings, where he rejects the dichotomy between behaviour and thought, and insists that an explanatory model cannot be limited to copying observed reality. It then pinpoints the two Sanskrit texts that will be analyzed in detail, namely the Dharmaranya Purana and the Grihya Sutra of Gobhila. The chapter also studies the caste Puranas, who are defined as a class of Sanskrit language that is concerned with the five main themes of creation.Less

Cosmological Time

Romila Thapar

in Time as a Metaphor of History: Early India: The Krishna Bharadwaj Memorial Lecture

This chapter discusses constructions of cosmological time in early India. In what has been called the yuga astronomy of the fifth century AD, Indian astronomers calculated that a kalpa — the longest ... More

This chapter discusses constructions of cosmological time in early India. In what has been called the yuga astronomy of the fifth century AD, Indian astronomers calculated that a kalpa — the longest period of time — consisted of 4320 million years. Cosmological time is also described in Manu's Dharmaśāstra and in the Mahābhārata, and is further elaborated upon in the Purāṇas. Concepts of time, integrated with ideas on creation, go into the making of what might be called cosmological time.Less

Myth and History

Romila Thapar

in Time as a Metaphor of History: Early India: The Krishna Bharadwaj Memorial Lecture

This chapter discusses the relationship between myth and history. It has been argued that myths narrate events in primordial, atemporal moments which constitute sacred time, and differ from the ... More

This chapter discusses the relationship between myth and history. It has been argued that myths narrate events in primordial, atemporal moments which constitute sacred time, and differ from the continuous profane time of daily routines. Therefore, by narrating myths profane time is abolished. The question then is whether this was true of the treatment of time in the Purāṇas. Was there at least the suggestion that a differentiation was being perceived between different forms of time and the assessment of past events? Was cosmological time seen as mythic time? Was mythic time segregated from chronological time in narrating the past? Was this segregation seen as a mechanism for separating myth and history?Less

Yogi Gods

in Sinister Yogis

A yogi's powers of omniscience entail extensions of his person that radiate far beyond the contours of his physical body, into the furthest reaches of the cosmos. In effect, a yogi's mind-body (or ... More

A yogi's powers of omniscience entail extensions of his person that radiate far beyond the contours of his physical body, into the furthest reaches of the cosmos. In effect, a yogi's mind-body (or more properly speaking his consciousness-body) complex becomes virtually coterminus with the limits of the universe. This chapter follows the ways in which the implications of this extension of the person or self came to be applied to the theology, anthropology, cosmology, and soteriology of the Hindu Purānas and Tantras, as well as the scriptures of Buddhist Mahāyāna and Tantra. These new developments appear to follow parallel tracks, with the bodies and powers of yogis and gods being magnified in homologous ways in coeval sources. The four-verse “coda” of the Mahābhārata's yoga chapter offers a novel expansion on the theories of perception and the science of entering foreign bodies. This chapter also examines yogic displays by gods and Buddhas and the deification of yogis.Less

Tree Worship in India

David L. Haberman

in People Trees: Worship of Trees in Northern India

This chapter begins with a consideration of tree worship as a worldwide phenomenon, exploring the sentience of trees in such practices as the worship of oak trees in Europe. The specific worldview ... More

This chapter begins with a consideration of tree worship as a worldwide phenomenon, exploring the sentience of trees in such practices as the worship of oak trees in Europe. The specific worldview that informs much tree worship and makes it so widespread in India is taken up next. The extensive history of Indian thought expresses a major tenet of Hindu religious philosophy: the interconnectedness and sacred nature of all life. The whole world in its myriad of forms springs from and participates in a unified reality, often called Brahman in the Upanishads and Puranas. Importantly, the great variety of embodied forms of divinity include trees. This chapter concludes with an examination of the long history of tree worship (puja) in India. Virtually all sacred trees in India have been considered a kalpa-vriksha, the famous mythological “Wishing-Tree” that yields many kinds of favorable results, both material and spiritual.Less

The Conquest of the World as Globe

Sumathi Ramaswamy

in Terrestrial Lessons: The Conquest of the World as Globe

The dissemination of a modern planetary consciousness with the help of the terrestrial globe unleashed complicated processes of adopting, accommodating, deflecting, or rejecting Modern Earth across ... More

The dissemination of a modern planetary consciousness with the help of the terrestrial globe unleashed complicated processes of adopting, accommodating, deflecting, or rejecting Modern Earth across British India. In other words, there was no easy passage of this master object of modernity from Europe to India. Even as late as the 1990s, as key governmental surveys showed, a large number of Indians still claimed that the earth was flat. On the other hand, as the colorful god posters of street art demonstrate, the terrestrial globe is incorporated into the iconography of Hindu gods. Ironically, the ancestral knowledge of the ancient Puranas helps disseminate pedagogic modernity’s planetary consciousness. Yet the Empire of Geography does flourish in its Indian province, although like all empires, it is a messy affair indeed, riven by many counter-flows and insubordinations, and populated by a variety of subjects ranging from diehard foot soldiers to adherents who feign obedience even while harboring many a contrary belief, and outright rebels. The life stories of Serfoji, Anand Masih, and others show there is no single track to the formation of planetary consciousness centered on Modern Earth materialized through an enlightened engagement with its miniaturized and portable proxy, the terrestrial globe.Less

Stories of the Prophets

Samia Khatun

in Australianama: The South Asian Odyssey in Australia

Approaching the 1895 edition of the Bengali Kasasol Ambia that remains in a Broken Hill mosque as a history book, this chapter examines the historical storytelling techniques that this Sufi text ... More

Approaching the 1895 edition of the Bengali Kasasol Ambia that remains in a Broken Hill mosque as a history book, this chapter examines the historical storytelling techniques that this Sufi text employs. I argue that this particular non-modern history book was underpinned by a relationship between humans and knowledge – an epistemology - quite distinct to colonial modern methods of truth production. The chapter makes a methodological argument for animating and reinvigorating non-modern strategies for producing truths about the past and claims continuity to non-modern historiographical traditions.Less

Introduction

Mandakranta Bose

in The Oxford History of Hinduism: The Goddess

Beginning by recognizing that the idea of female divinity in Hinduism has been a mystery from the inception of Hindu theology, this Introduction proceeds to an overview of the contents of this ... More

Beginning by recognizing that the idea of female divinity in Hinduism has been a mystery from the inception of Hindu theology, this Introduction proceeds to an overview of the contents of this volume. Presenting the chapters, arranged thematically and historically into four related parts, this Introduction shows how Hindu philosophy and worship practices have expounded the idea of the divine feminine by conceptualizing it as a personified goddess at once singular and manifested in multiple forms. Drawing upon a variety of Hindu philosophical traditions, the authors relate the goddess as an abstraction to belief systems that render the goddess as humanized figures. In both formal theology and popular belief, this conception has resulted in an emotional and spiritual closeness to goddesses that continues deeply to influence Hindu social life and its cultural expressions, especially in its impact on the lives of women.Less

Cosmological, Devotional, and Social Perspectives on the Hindu Goddess

Tracy Pintchman

in The Oxford History of Hinduism: The Goddess

Although Hindus recognize and revere a variety of different, discrete goddesses, they also tend to speak of “The Goddess” as a singular and unifying deity. This chapter focuses on three dimensions of ... More

Although Hindus recognize and revere a variety of different, discrete goddesses, they also tend to speak of “The Goddess” as a singular and unifying deity. This chapter focuses on three dimensions of the Goddess in Hindu traditions, grounding all observations in specific texts and contexts. First, the chapter examines the nature of the Goddess as a cosmogonic/cosmological creative force that creates, sustains, and permeates the universe. Second, it explores the Goddess as a being worthy of devotion who is also manifest as individual goddesses. Finally, it probes the nature of the Goddess as potential role model for human women, who in many contexts are viewed as special manifestations of the Goddess. The chapter looks at major themes in each category and the critical issues that these themes raise.Less

The Elusive Sarasvatī: A Goddess, a River, and the Search for the Universal in the Particular

Elizabeth Mary Rohlman

in The Oxford History of Hinduism: The Goddess

The goddess Sarasvatī is no less elusive or powerful than the river Sarasvatī, and it is through her compound role as river, speech, and goddess that she develops into a perplexing deity. Indologists ... More

The goddess Sarasvatī is no less elusive or powerful than the river Sarasvatī, and it is through her compound role as river, speech, and goddess that she develops into a perplexing deity. Indologists have traced the evolution of Sarasvatī through Sanskrit literature, from the river of the Vedas, through her association with the Vedic goddess of speech, Vāc, to her emergence as a deity who is both a river goddess and the goddess of knowledge. Yet, as a figure who is both omnipresent and liminal, determining her place in extra-canonical aspects of Hindu life is a challenging task. Using as a metaphor the river that bears her name, this chapter examines the elusive and sometimes paradoxical position of Sarasvati in the history of Hinduism through the lens of one regional textual tradition devoted to the goddess—the Sarasvatī Purāṇa, a regional Sanskrit sthāla-Purāṇa from medieval Gujarat.Less

Vows and Observances: vrata

Donald R. Davis Jr.

in The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmaśāstra

This chapter traces the semantic and practical evolution of Hindu religious vows and observances called vrata. The general historical trajectory moves from vratas as the ascetic regimens in Vedic ... More

This chapter traces the semantic and practical evolution of Hindu religious vows and observances called vrata. The general historical trajectory moves from vratas as the ascetic regimens in Vedic texts (especially observed by students), to vratas as the devotional vows of women in favor of a deity. The standard elements of a classical vow in medieval Dharmaśāstra are described, with a focus on the correct intention, procedures, times, and rewards for taking vows. The topic of vows reveals a common interplay within Dharmaśāstra among customary religious and legal practices, external textual traditions (Purāṇas in this case), and existing Dharmaśāstra norms. The history of vows thus provides helpful insight into intellectual, theological, and historical changes within Hindu law, and Hinduism, more generally.Less

History of the Reception of Dharmaśāstra

Donald R. Davis

in The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmaśāstra

Dharmaśāstra has been received into many Hindu traditions as an influential source of authoritative norms and a touchstone for orthodox or classical Hinduism. This chapter traces points of connection ... More

Dharmaśāstra has been received into many Hindu traditions as an influential source of authoritative norms and a touchstone for orthodox or classical Hinduism. This chapter traces points of connection and difference between Dharmaśāstra and other major Hindu textual traditions, including the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata, the Purāṇas, and narrative literature such as the Kathāsaritsāgara and Pañcatantra. The influence of Dharmaśāstra in epigraphical sources and sectarian Hindu traditions is also surveyed. Finally, the reception and use of Dharmaśāstra in both colonial and modern Hindu law is examined in order to understand its diminishing relevance as a direct source of Hindu knowledge and practice.Less

Social and Literary History of Dharmaśāstra: Commentaries and Legal Digests

Donald R. Davis Jr. and David Brick

in The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmaśāstra

This chapter examines the development of the Dharmaśāstra tradition in medieval and early modern India and focuses on two genres or styles of textual production: commentaries and digests. The ... More

This chapter examines the development of the Dharmaśāstra tradition in medieval and early modern India and focuses on two genres or styles of textual production: commentaries and digests. The historical factors leading to the creation of each genre are described, along with their nature and purpose. The two genres negotiated a tension between changing sociohistorical conditions and institutions and internal commitments to preserve Hindu law in its ancient form. Commentaries stayed close to their original root-texts and sought to resolve conflicts between them, even as their interpretations also created new norms and justified customary laws. Digests radically expanded the textual scope of Dharmaśāstra by drawing on the huge corpus of Purāṇas, compendia of myth, history, and ritual, in the Hindu tradition.Less