Robert R. Bianchi
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195171075
- eISBN:
- 9780199835102
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195171071.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
The hajj has always had far-reaching political ramifications, but today, after a half century of sponsorship and regulation by governments around the world, it is more politicized than ever. In most ...
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The hajj has always had far-reaching political ramifications, but today, after a half century of sponsorship and regulation by governments around the world, it is more politicized than ever. In most countries, hajj administration is tainted with favoritism and corruption. All the major pilgrimage programs are explicitly tailored to benefit voting blocks and businesses at home while cultivating prestige and influence abroad. Frequently, pilgrim management is so politicized it subverts the central values of the hajj. Instead of promoting unity and equality, it divides Muslims along every conceivable line–ethnicity, language, class, party, region, sect, gender, and age.Less
The hajj has always had far-reaching political ramifications, but today, after a half century of sponsorship and regulation by governments around the world, it is more politicized than ever. In most countries, hajj administration is tainted with favoritism and corruption. All the major pilgrimage programs are explicitly tailored to benefit voting blocks and businesses at home while cultivating prestige and influence abroad. Frequently, pilgrim management is so politicized it subverts the central values of the hajj. Instead of promoting unity and equality, it divides Muslims along every conceivable line–ethnicity, language, class, party, region, sect, gender, and age.
John Demos
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195128901
- eISBN:
- 9780199853960
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195128901.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
The year 2000 marked the 30th anniversary of the publication of this title. The study examines the family in the context of the colony founded by the Pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower. Basing ...
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The year 2000 marked the 30th anniversary of the publication of this title. The study examines the family in the context of the colony founded by the Pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower. Basing his work on physical artifacts, wills, estate inventories, and a variety of legal and official enactments, the author portrays the family as a structure of roles and relationships, emphasizing those of husband and wife, parent and child, and master and servant. The book's most startling insights come from a reconsideration of commonly held views of American Puritans and of the ways in which they dealt with one another. The author concludes that Puritan “repression” was not as strongly directed against sexuality as against the expression of hostile and aggressive impulses, and he shows how this pattern reflected prevalent modes of family life and child rearing. The result is an in-depth study of the ordinary life of a colonial community, located in the broader environment of seventeenth-century America. This second edition includes a new foreword and a list of further reading.Less
The year 2000 marked the 30th anniversary of the publication of this title. The study examines the family in the context of the colony founded by the Pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower. Basing his work on physical artifacts, wills, estate inventories, and a variety of legal and official enactments, the author portrays the family as a structure of roles and relationships, emphasizing those of husband and wife, parent and child, and master and servant. The book's most startling insights come from a reconsideration of commonly held views of American Puritans and of the ways in which they dealt with one another. The author concludes that Puritan “repression” was not as strongly directed against sexuality as against the expression of hostile and aggressive impulses, and he shows how this pattern reflected prevalent modes of family life and child rearing. The result is an in-depth study of the ordinary life of a colonial community, located in the broader environment of seventeenth-century America. This second edition includes a new foreword and a list of further reading.
Wes Williams
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159407
- eISBN:
- 9780191673610
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159407.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book studies the place and meaning of pilgrimage in European Renaissance culture. It makes new material available and also provides fresh perspectives on canonical writers such as Rabelais, ...
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This book studies the place and meaning of pilgrimage in European Renaissance culture. It makes new material available and also provides fresh perspectives on canonical writers such as Rabelais, Montaigne, Marguerite de Navarre, Erasmus, Petrarch, Augustine, and Gregory of Nyssa. The book undertakes a bold exploration of various interlinking themes in Renaissance pilgrimage: the location, representation, and politics of the sacred, together with the experience of the everyday, the extraordinary, the religious, and the represented. It also examines the literary formation of the subjective narrative voice in the texts examined, and its relationship to the rituals and practices the book reviews. This book aims both to gain a sense of the shapes of pilgrim experience in the Renaissance and to question the ways in which recent theoretical and historical research in the area has determined the differences between fictional worlds and the real.Less
This book studies the place and meaning of pilgrimage in European Renaissance culture. It makes new material available and also provides fresh perspectives on canonical writers such as Rabelais, Montaigne, Marguerite de Navarre, Erasmus, Petrarch, Augustine, and Gregory of Nyssa. The book undertakes a bold exploration of various interlinking themes in Renaissance pilgrimage: the location, representation, and politics of the sacred, together with the experience of the everyday, the extraordinary, the religious, and the represented. It also examines the literary formation of the subjective narrative voice in the texts examined, and its relationship to the rituals and practices the book reviews. This book aims both to gain a sense of the shapes of pilgrim experience in the Renaissance and to question the ways in which recent theoretical and historical research in the area has determined the differences between fictional worlds and the real.
Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151762
- eISBN:
- 9781400842599
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151762.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
In 2002, after an altercation between Muslim vendors and Hindu travelers at a railway station in the Indian state of Gujarat, fifty-nine Hindu pilgrims were burned to death. The ruling nationalist ...
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In 2002, after an altercation between Muslim vendors and Hindu travelers at a railway station in the Indian state of Gujarat, fifty-nine Hindu pilgrims were burned to death. The ruling nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party blamed Gujarat's entire Muslim minority for the tragedy and incited fellow Hindus to exact revenge. The resulting violence left more than one thousand people dead—most of them Muslims—and tens of thousands more displaced from their homes. The author witnessed the bloodshed up close. This book provides a riveting ethnographic account of collective violence in which the doctrine of ahimsa—or nonviolence—and the closely associated practices of vegetarianism became implicated by legitimating what they formally disavow. The book looks at how newspapers, movies, and other media helped to fuel the pogrom. It shows how the vegetarian sensibilities of Hindus and the language of sacrifice were manipulated to provoke disgust against Muslims and mobilize the aspiring middle classes across caste and class differences in the name of Hindu nationalism. Drawing on his intimate knowledge of Gujarat's culture and politics and the close ties he shared with some of the pogrom's sympathizers, the book offers a strikingly original interpretation of the different ways in which Hindu proponents of ahimsa became complicit in the very violence they claimed to renounce.Less
In 2002, after an altercation between Muslim vendors and Hindu travelers at a railway station in the Indian state of Gujarat, fifty-nine Hindu pilgrims were burned to death. The ruling nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party blamed Gujarat's entire Muslim minority for the tragedy and incited fellow Hindus to exact revenge. The resulting violence left more than one thousand people dead—most of them Muslims—and tens of thousands more displaced from their homes. The author witnessed the bloodshed up close. This book provides a riveting ethnographic account of collective violence in which the doctrine of ahimsa—or nonviolence—and the closely associated practices of vegetarianism became implicated by legitimating what they formally disavow. The book looks at how newspapers, movies, and other media helped to fuel the pogrom. It shows how the vegetarian sensibilities of Hindus and the language of sacrifice were manipulated to provoke disgust against Muslims and mobilize the aspiring middle classes across caste and class differences in the name of Hindu nationalism. Drawing on his intimate knowledge of Gujarat's culture and politics and the close ties he shared with some of the pogrom's sympathizers, the book offers a strikingly original interpretation of the different ways in which Hindu proponents of ahimsa became complicit in the very violence they claimed to renounce.
Cornelia B. Horn
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199277537
- eISBN:
- 9780191604171
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199277532.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
This chapter examines the role of the Holy Land as a singular setting for the Christological controversies in the 5th century. In the context of pilgrimage to the numerous holy places, Peter’s own ...
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This chapter examines the role of the Holy Land as a singular setting for the Christological controversies in the 5th century. In the context of pilgrimage to the numerous holy places, Peter’s own role as a pilgrim to the Holy Land comes into focus. The spiritual and political implications of his personal pilgrimage as well as the sensitivities of anti-Chalcedonians concerning the fact that the holy places were in the hands of ‘heretical’ Chalcedonians are crucial to understand both Peter’s role as well as the model held out for future generations by Rufus.Less
This chapter examines the role of the Holy Land as a singular setting for the Christological controversies in the 5th century. In the context of pilgrimage to the numerous holy places, Peter’s own role as a pilgrim to the Holy Land comes into focus. The spiritual and political implications of his personal pilgrimage as well as the sensitivities of anti-Chalcedonians concerning the fact that the holy places were in the hands of ‘heretical’ Chalcedonians are crucial to understand both Peter’s role as well as the model held out for future generations by Rufus.
Kama Maclean
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195338942
- eISBN:
- 9780199867110
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338942.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
This chapter draws attention to the fort of Allahabad, built by Akbar at the sangam next to the mela grounds, and charts the tensions that characterized the coexistence of these highly charged arenas ...
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This chapter draws attention to the fort of Allahabad, built by Akbar at the sangam next to the mela grounds, and charts the tensions that characterized the coexistence of these highly charged arenas of devotional expression and military security. Drawing on oral histories and Hindu traditions relating to the sangam site and the fort, the chapter describes how locals have understood and incorporated the presence of the fort, and the British, into their devotional landscape. It also delineates the changes in pilgrimage activity in the 18th century, as the East India Company inserted itself into key pilgrimage cities in north India, attempting to manage pilgrimage as a matter of diplomacy and limiting pilgrim access to a key shrine in the fort, while profiting handsomely from pilgrim taxes. This intervention was resented and resisted by pilgrimage priests in Allahabad, Prayagwals, who traditionally played an important role in the management of piety at the sangam in Allahabad. This reached its height when the Prayagwals lent their support to the rebellion in 1857, in which the fort of Allahabad, as the base of British military organization and refuge, was a key site.Less
This chapter draws attention to the fort of Allahabad, built by Akbar at the sangam next to the mela grounds, and charts the tensions that characterized the coexistence of these highly charged arenas of devotional expression and military security. Drawing on oral histories and Hindu traditions relating to the sangam site and the fort, the chapter describes how locals have understood and incorporated the presence of the fort, and the British, into their devotional landscape. It also delineates the changes in pilgrimage activity in the 18th century, as the East India Company inserted itself into key pilgrimage cities in north India, attempting to manage pilgrimage as a matter of diplomacy and limiting pilgrim access to a key shrine in the fort, while profiting handsomely from pilgrim taxes. This intervention was resented and resisted by pilgrimage priests in Allahabad, Prayagwals, who traditionally played an important role in the management of piety at the sangam in Allahabad. This reached its height when the Prayagwals lent their support to the rebellion in 1857, in which the fort of Allahabad, as the base of British military organization and refuge, was a key site.
Kama Maclean
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195338942
- eISBN:
- 9780199867110
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338942.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
The newly independent government took a prominent role in encouraging people to attend the first Kumbh after independence, which was held in a spirit of celebration. If critics of the British ...
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The newly independent government took a prominent role in encouraging people to attend the first Kumbh after independence, which was held in a spirit of celebration. If critics of the British administration of the festival had pointed to its heavy handedness and a sense of dismissiveness of the “heathen beliefs” that were enacted at the mela, the Indian administration of it was to be characterised by a more encouraging ethos. Sadly, hundreds of pilgrims died on the biggest bathing day, largely as a result of crowd mismanagement, which the subsequent inquiry blamed largely on the aggressive actions of a band of sadhus. The findings of the official inquiry were not well accepted, as attested to by a thriving oral tradition which maintains that there was a cover-up in the inquiry. This chapter examines closely the Kumbh Tragedy, examining a range of evidence, analysing the recriminations and debates and that attempted to reimagine the relationship between the state and religious events. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of government-mela interactions since independence.Less
The newly independent government took a prominent role in encouraging people to attend the first Kumbh after independence, which was held in a spirit of celebration. If critics of the British administration of the festival had pointed to its heavy handedness and a sense of dismissiveness of the “heathen beliefs” that were enacted at the mela, the Indian administration of it was to be characterised by a more encouraging ethos. Sadly, hundreds of pilgrims died on the biggest bathing day, largely as a result of crowd mismanagement, which the subsequent inquiry blamed largely on the aggressive actions of a band of sadhus. The findings of the official inquiry were not well accepted, as attested to by a thriving oral tradition which maintains that there was a cover-up in the inquiry. This chapter examines closely the Kumbh Tragedy, examining a range of evidence, analysing the recriminations and debates and that attempted to reimagine the relationship between the state and religious events. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of government-mela interactions since independence.
Margaret Bendroth
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469624006
- eISBN:
- 9781469624020
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624006.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
This chapter illustrates how the past had become something to purchase and own in the late nineteenth century. Like many Americans in the late nineteenth century, Congregationalists had begun to ...
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This chapter illustrates how the past had become something to purchase and own in the late nineteenth century. Like many Americans in the late nineteenth century, Congregationalists had begun to memorialize their past, uniting around symbolic objects like the Pilgrim jubilee coin and joining in corporate rituals honoring Forefathers' Day. The coin's more practical purpose, however, was to help with fundraising in order to meet the financial goals set by the Albany Convention and the Boston Council. While the coin itself did not sell well, it is still a useful metaphor for economic and cultural changes taking place among Congregationalists and in American society in the Gilded Age.Less
This chapter illustrates how the past had become something to purchase and own in the late nineteenth century. Like many Americans in the late nineteenth century, Congregationalists had begun to memorialize their past, uniting around symbolic objects like the Pilgrim jubilee coin and joining in corporate rituals honoring Forefathers' Day. The coin's more practical purpose, however, was to help with fundraising in order to meet the financial goals set by the Albany Convention and the Boston Council. While the coin itself did not sell well, it is still a useful metaphor for economic and cultural changes taking place among Congregationalists and in American society in the Gilded Age.
David Manning
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195182392
- eISBN:
- 9780199851485
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195182392.003.0103
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Just as Johannes Brahms went to the Lutheran Bible to appeal to his fellow countrymen in one mood, so George Dyson in a very different mood goes to the great English classic Geoffrey Chaucer to help ...
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Just as Johannes Brahms went to the Lutheran Bible to appeal to his fellow countrymen in one mood, so George Dyson in a very different mood goes to the great English classic Geoffrey Chaucer to help him to suggest that side of England which is shrewd and gay. In Dyson's music the brilliant, witty, and sympathetic word pictures of Chaucer receive their musical counterpart, and just as certain phrases stand out in the poet and have become household words, so in Dyson's music in The Canterbury Pilgrims, the Monk, the Nun, the Scholar, the Merchant, the Shipman, the wife of Bath, the poor Parson, and the Host stand in musical notation until at last the procession fades away into silence with the opening words of the Knight's tale. This end is a real inspiration and the theme which accompanies it is of great originality for the very reason that it appears strangely familiar.Less
Just as Johannes Brahms went to the Lutheran Bible to appeal to his fellow countrymen in one mood, so George Dyson in a very different mood goes to the great English classic Geoffrey Chaucer to help him to suggest that side of England which is shrewd and gay. In Dyson's music the brilliant, witty, and sympathetic word pictures of Chaucer receive their musical counterpart, and just as certain phrases stand out in the poet and have become household words, so in Dyson's music in The Canterbury Pilgrims, the Monk, the Nun, the Scholar, the Merchant, the Shipman, the wife of Bath, the poor Parson, and the Host stand in musical notation until at last the procession fades away into silence with the opening words of the Knight's tale. This end is a real inspiration and the theme which accompanies it is of great originality for the very reason that it appears strangely familiar.
Hagith Sivan
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199284177
- eISBN:
- 9780191712555
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199284177.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE
This book offers an unconventional study of one corner of the Roman Empire in late antiquity, weaving around the theme of conflict strands of distinct histories, and of peoples and places, ...
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This book offers an unconventional study of one corner of the Roman Empire in late antiquity, weaving around the theme of conflict strands of distinct histories, and of peoples and places, highlighting Palestine's polyethnicity and cultural, topographical, architectural, and religious diversity. During the period 300–650 CE, the fortunes of the ‘east’ and the ‘west’ were intimately linked. Thousands of westerners in the guise of pilgrims, pious monks, soldiers, and civilians flocked to what became a Christian holy land. This is the era that witnessed the transformation of Jerusalem from a sleepy Roman town built on the ruins of spectacular Herodian Jerusalem into an international centre of Christianity, and ultimately into a centre of Islamic worship. It was also a period of unparalleled prosperity for the frontier zones, and a time when religious experts were actively engaged in guiding their communities while contesting each other's rights to the Bible and its interpretation.Less
This book offers an unconventional study of one corner of the Roman Empire in late antiquity, weaving around the theme of conflict strands of distinct histories, and of peoples and places, highlighting Palestine's polyethnicity and cultural, topographical, architectural, and religious diversity. During the period 300–650 CE, the fortunes of the ‘east’ and the ‘west’ were intimately linked. Thousands of westerners in the guise of pilgrims, pious monks, soldiers, and civilians flocked to what became a Christian holy land. This is the era that witnessed the transformation of Jerusalem from a sleepy Roman town built on the ruins of spectacular Herodian Jerusalem into an international centre of Christianity, and ultimately into a centre of Islamic worship. It was also a period of unparalleled prosperity for the frontier zones, and a time when religious experts were actively engaged in guiding their communities while contesting each other's rights to the Bible and its interpretation.
Hagith Sivan
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199284177
- eISBN:
- 9780191712555
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199284177.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE
To reflect on the formation of landscapes in late antiquity, it is useful to start with mindscapes — the terrain of dreams and of dialogues beyond the limits of time and space. This chapter argues ...
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To reflect on the formation of landscapes in late antiquity, it is useful to start with mindscapes — the terrain of dreams and of dialogues beyond the limits of time and space. This chapter argues that within a specific Christian context, these mental visions generated topographical discourses that elevated designated localities out of their present and into a biblical past. Dreams gave a prefiguration and a legitimacy to all territorial expansion. The rise of the southern Sinai and of the summit of Jebel Musa to the rank of a holy mountain created a locus of sanctity with two categories of citizens — monks and pilgrims — and a third of non-citizens, the ‘Saracens’. An intense religious life and a dynamic relationship with nature and nomads dominated a search for sanctity and a desire to experience the Bible in a manner unmediated by layers of more recent history.Less
To reflect on the formation of landscapes in late antiquity, it is useful to start with mindscapes — the terrain of dreams and of dialogues beyond the limits of time and space. This chapter argues that within a specific Christian context, these mental visions generated topographical discourses that elevated designated localities out of their present and into a biblical past. Dreams gave a prefiguration and a legitimacy to all territorial expansion. The rise of the southern Sinai and of the summit of Jebel Musa to the rank of a holy mountain created a locus of sanctity with two categories of citizens — monks and pilgrims — and a third of non-citizens, the ‘Saracens’. An intense religious life and a dynamic relationship with nature and nomads dominated a search for sanctity and a desire to experience the Bible in a manner unmediated by layers of more recent history.
Judith Gray
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195173048
- eISBN:
- 9780199872091
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195173048.003.0011
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Drawing upon the participatory worship and ethnography of its author, this chapter considers the frequent use of hymns that use singing as a text about the sacredness of singing in the hymnody of the ...
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Drawing upon the participatory worship and ethnography of its author, this chapter considers the frequent use of hymns that use singing as a text about the sacredness of singing in the hymnody of the United Church of Christ. In both text and context, the Pilgrim Hymnal of the Congregational Church and the choices of congregation members illustrate the ways in which personal choices about music express communal concepts and practices of faith and worship. Statistical comparison is employed to follow patterns of song choice of the course of five years (1989-93) in the First Congregational Church of Washington, DC, thus illustrating the rich texture of hymn singing during the life and liturgy of the church itself. The chapter concludes that hymns allow worshipers to express thoughts and sentiments they would otherwise not express.Less
Drawing upon the participatory worship and ethnography of its author, this chapter considers the frequent use of hymns that use singing as a text about the sacredness of singing in the hymnody of the United Church of Christ. In both text and context, the Pilgrim Hymnal of the Congregational Church and the choices of congregation members illustrate the ways in which personal choices about music express communal concepts and practices of faith and worship. Statistical comparison is employed to follow patterns of song choice of the course of five years (1989-93) in the First Congregational Church of Washington, DC, thus illustrating the rich texture of hymn singing during the life and liturgy of the church itself. The chapter concludes that hymns allow worshipers to express thoughts and sentiments they would otherwise not express.
James Lochtefeld
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195386141
- eISBN:
- 9780199866380
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195386141.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
This book examines how sacred meaning is created, reinforced, and maintained in Hardwar, an important Hindu pilgrimage site (tirtha). Hardwar’s religious identity is inextricably tied to the river ...
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This book examines how sacred meaning is created, reinforced, and maintained in Hardwar, an important Hindu pilgrimage site (tirtha). Hardwar’s religious identity is inextricably tied to the river Ganges, and the city’s sacred narratives (present and past) present its identity as fixed and unchanging—as for many Hindu pilgrimage sites. This perspective ignores mundane factors such as economic, social, or technological change, which have sharply affected Hardwar’s development in the past two centuries. Yet these two differing visions of Hardwar are both emphatically, simultaneously “real.” The work begins with a short introduction to orient the reader to Hardwar and to the author’s guiding principles. Chapters 2 and 3 then lay out these contrasting histories (sacred and secular), and Hardwar’s complex identity lies in the tension between these narratives. The book’s second part analyzes Hardwar as a contemporary Hindu pilgrimage center. Chapters 4 through 6 are devoted to differing resident elites—businessmen, pandas (hereditary pilgrim guides), and ascetics—and delineate their roles in managing Hardwar as a holy place. Chapter 7 focuses on Hardwar’s pilgrims and examines factors drawing them there. The interaction between these groups creates and maintains Hardwar’s religious environment, and these forces shaping Hardwar have strong parallels in other north Indian pilgrimage sites. The final chapter addresses this wider context by examining changes in contemporary Hindu pilgrimage, particularly how modern Hindus are reinterpreting traditional symbols to make them meaningful for their time.Less
This book examines how sacred meaning is created, reinforced, and maintained in Hardwar, an important Hindu pilgrimage site (tirtha). Hardwar’s religious identity is inextricably tied to the river Ganges, and the city’s sacred narratives (present and past) present its identity as fixed and unchanging—as for many Hindu pilgrimage sites. This perspective ignores mundane factors such as economic, social, or technological change, which have sharply affected Hardwar’s development in the past two centuries. Yet these two differing visions of Hardwar are both emphatically, simultaneously “real.” The work begins with a short introduction to orient the reader to Hardwar and to the author’s guiding principles. Chapters 2 and 3 then lay out these contrasting histories (sacred and secular), and Hardwar’s complex identity lies in the tension between these narratives. The book’s second part analyzes Hardwar as a contemporary Hindu pilgrimage center. Chapters 4 through 6 are devoted to differing resident elites—businessmen, pandas (hereditary pilgrim guides), and ascetics—and delineate their roles in managing Hardwar as a holy place. Chapter 7 focuses on Hardwar’s pilgrims and examines factors drawing them there. The interaction between these groups creates and maintains Hardwar’s religious environment, and these forces shaping Hardwar have strong parallels in other north Indian pilgrimage sites. The final chapter addresses this wider context by examining changes in contemporary Hindu pilgrimage, particularly how modern Hindus are reinterpreting traditional symbols to make them meaningful for their time.
Jonathan Bellman
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195338867
- eISBN:
- 9780199863723
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338867.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition, History, Western
Chopin's Second Ballade, op. 38, composed in the late 1830s and published in 1840, is a well‐known yet poorly understood work. Not only was the piece rumored to exist in an alternate version and to ...
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Chopin's Second Ballade, op. 38, composed in the late 1830s and published in 1840, is a well‐known yet poorly understood work. Not only was the piece rumored to exist in an alternate version and to derive—somehow—from the poetry of Adam Mickiewicz, there has even been disagreement on matters as basic as tonic key, form, and narrative content. The ballade is generally understood to relate in some way to Poland's increasingly precarious political status in the early nineteenth century and Russia's eradication of the last vestiges of Polish independence in 1831—turmoil that affected Chopin deeply on both the personal and the political levels. Discussions of the work's compositional strategies have tended to rely on the sonata‐allegro model and its contemporary variants, but these have not proven very fruitful. Instead, the formal and stylistic antecedents for the Second Ballade are to be found in the operatic repertoire, where a ballade tradition had been developing since the 1820s, and in the amateur piano repertoire, where narrative and depictive works had been a thriving genre for decades. A close examination of the Second Ballade reveals it to be a work more closely linked to the music of its time than has previously been realized: referencing well‐known operatic music and drawing on the repertoires and stock gestures of contemporary middlebrow music, it tells a story of Polish national martyrdom in a way understood by certain of Chopin's contemporaries but by virtually no one since. Reexamined in this light, the Second Ballade proves revelatory regarding both the composer's compositional aesthetic and the way his music engaged the wider culture.Less
Chopin's Second Ballade, op. 38, composed in the late 1830s and published in 1840, is a well‐known yet poorly understood work. Not only was the piece rumored to exist in an alternate version and to derive—somehow—from the poetry of Adam Mickiewicz, there has even been disagreement on matters as basic as tonic key, form, and narrative content. The ballade is generally understood to relate in some way to Poland's increasingly precarious political status in the early nineteenth century and Russia's eradication of the last vestiges of Polish independence in 1831—turmoil that affected Chopin deeply on both the personal and the political levels. Discussions of the work's compositional strategies have tended to rely on the sonata‐allegro model and its contemporary variants, but these have not proven very fruitful. Instead, the formal and stylistic antecedents for the Second Ballade are to be found in the operatic repertoire, where a ballade tradition had been developing since the 1820s, and in the amateur piano repertoire, where narrative and depictive works had been a thriving genre for decades. A close examination of the Second Ballade reveals it to be a work more closely linked to the music of its time than has previously been realized: referencing well‐known operatic music and drawing on the repertoires and stock gestures of contemporary middlebrow music, it tells a story of Polish national martyrdom in a way understood by certain of Chopin's contemporaries but by virtually no one since. Reexamined in this light, the Second Ballade proves revelatory regarding both the composer's compositional aesthetic and the way his music engaged the wider culture.
Kathryn M. Rudy
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197265048
- eISBN:
- 9780191754159
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265048.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
Few medieval pilgrims' guides were written in English; even fewer were illuminated. This chapter examines Oxford, Queen's College, MS 357, a manuscript made in England in the late fifteenth century, ...
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Few medieval pilgrims' guides were written in English; even fewer were illuminated. This chapter examines Oxford, Queen's College, MS 357, a manuscript made in England in the late fifteenth century, which possesses both qualities. The manuscript contains a variety of texts written in Latin and English including pilgrims' guides, prayers to be said at holy sites in Palestine, travellers' tales, and descriptions of miracles that have taken place at shrines. It is also exuberantly illuminated. The miniatures begin with an Annunciation and end with Christ in Judgment. These two images form the parentheses around the others in the manuscript, which depict sites in the Holy Land. The miniatures and decoration unite the disparate texts, turning them into a scale model of salvation history and providing a prompt to virtual pilgrimage.Less
Few medieval pilgrims' guides were written in English; even fewer were illuminated. This chapter examines Oxford, Queen's College, MS 357, a manuscript made in England in the late fifteenth century, which possesses both qualities. The manuscript contains a variety of texts written in Latin and English including pilgrims' guides, prayers to be said at holy sites in Palestine, travellers' tales, and descriptions of miracles that have taken place at shrines. It is also exuberantly illuminated. The miniatures begin with an Annunciation and end with Christ in Judgment. These two images form the parentheses around the others in the manuscript, which depict sites in the Holy Land. The miniatures and decoration unite the disparate texts, turning them into a scale model of salvation history and providing a prompt to virtual pilgrimage.
James G. Lochtefeld
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195386141
- eISBN:
- 9780199866380
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195386141.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
This chapter endeavors to present the idea of “place”—as an abstract set of ideas associated with a geographic “space”—as it applies to Hindu ideas both about pilgrimage sites (tirthas) in general ...
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This chapter endeavors to present the idea of “place”—as an abstract set of ideas associated with a geographic “space”—as it applies to Hindu ideas both about pilgrimage sites (tirthas) in general and more specifically Hardwar, judged to be where the Ganges leaves the Himalayas and enters the north Indian plain. The chapter’s latter sections describe Hardwar and its most important religious sites, notably Har-Ki-Pairi and the Daksha Mahadev temple. They also detail the author’s assumptions and method of study, especially the need to balance differing types of textual sources (the sacred history in the mahatmya tests with other sorts of textual sources) and the need to examine the religious and mundane interactions between Hardwar’s residents and the pilgrims.Less
This chapter endeavors to present the idea of “place”—as an abstract set of ideas associated with a geographic “space”—as it applies to Hindu ideas both about pilgrimage sites (tirthas) in general and more specifically Hardwar, judged to be where the Ganges leaves the Himalayas and enters the north Indian plain. The chapter’s latter sections describe Hardwar and its most important religious sites, notably Har-Ki-Pairi and the Daksha Mahadev temple. They also detail the author’s assumptions and method of study, especially the need to balance differing types of textual sources (the sacred history in the mahatmya tests with other sorts of textual sources) and the need to examine the religious and mundane interactions between Hardwar’s residents and the pilgrims.
James G. Lochtefeld
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195386141
- eISBN:
- 9780199866380
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195386141.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
Pandas are local brahmins who serve as hereditary pilgrim guides. Each panda family has the rights to pilgrims from a particular Indian region, and pandas protect these rights ...
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Pandas are local brahmins who serve as hereditary pilgrim guides. Each panda family has the rights to pilgrims from a particular Indian region, and pandas protect these rights through written records (bahi) of previous pilgrim visits. Pandas formerly provided for a client’s every need, including food, lodging, travel arrangements, lending money, or religious rituals, for which pandas received fees and gifts. Better infrastructure and wider social changes have eroded panda status from “family members” to ritual contractors, but the pandas’ control over the final death rite, asthivisarjana, provides a secure if marginal economic niche. Pandas have responded to social pressures by forming local associations—both to promote their collective interests and to safeguard Hardwar’s sanctity. The most significant association is the Ganga Sabha (“Ganges Assembly”), which arose during the 1914–17 protest against damming the Ganges.Less
Pandas are local brahmins who serve as hereditary pilgrim guides. Each panda family has the rights to pilgrims from a particular Indian region, and pandas protect these rights through written records (bahi) of previous pilgrim visits. Pandas formerly provided for a client’s every need, including food, lodging, travel arrangements, lending money, or religious rituals, for which pandas received fees and gifts. Better infrastructure and wider social changes have eroded panda status from “family members” to ritual contractors, but the pandas’ control over the final death rite, asthivisarjana, provides a secure if marginal economic niche. Pandas have responded to social pressures by forming local associations—both to promote their collective interests and to safeguard Hardwar’s sanctity. The most significant association is the Ganga Sabha (“Ganges Assembly”), which arose during the 1914–17 protest against damming the Ganges.
James G. Lochtefeld
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195386141
- eISBN:
- 9780199866380
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195386141.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
Pilgrims are Hardwar’s religious consumers, whose money sustains the city economically and whose reverence and piety help to sustain it religiously. Pilgrims come to Hardwar for many different ...
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Pilgrims are Hardwar’s religious consumers, whose money sustains the city economically and whose reverence and piety help to sustain it religiously. Pilgrims come to Hardwar for many different reasons, such as the desire to bathe in the Ganges and gain religious merit (punya); the desire to perform life-cycle rites (samskaras) for birth (mundan), marriage (suhag-pithari), or death (asthivisarjana); the desire to come in contact with resident powers (both human and divine); or the desire to find peace in Hardwar’s beautiful natural environment. The chapter’s latter part does case studies on two particular pilgrimages: the Kanvar Mela, in which pilgrims take Ganges water from Hardwar to their homes as an offering to Shiva, and a twelve-day package tour to the four most important Himalayan pilgrimage sites (char dham): Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath.Less
Pilgrims are Hardwar’s religious consumers, whose money sustains the city economically and whose reverence and piety help to sustain it religiously. Pilgrims come to Hardwar for many different reasons, such as the desire to bathe in the Ganges and gain religious merit (punya); the desire to perform life-cycle rites (samskaras) for birth (mundan), marriage (suhag-pithari), or death (asthivisarjana); the desire to come in contact with resident powers (both human and divine); or the desire to find peace in Hardwar’s beautiful natural environment. The chapter’s latter part does case studies on two particular pilgrimages: the Kanvar Mela, in which pilgrims take Ganges water from Hardwar to their homes as an offering to Shiva, and a twelve-day package tour to the four most important Himalayan pilgrimage sites (char dham): Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath.
James G. Lochtefeld
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195386141
- eISBN:
- 9780199866380
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195386141.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
The concluding chapter examines how Hindu pilgrimage—and ideas about pilgrimage—have been affected by social change. One such change is the promotion of tourism, which has brought significant ...
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The concluding chapter examines how Hindu pilgrimage—and ideas about pilgrimage—have been affected by social change. One such change is the promotion of tourism, which has brought significant economic benefits and pernicious social effects, among them attracting a clientele seeking ease and entertainment. Another is greater literacy and scientific education, which have generated greater skepticism about the literal reality of religious merit (punya). A final factor has been the rise of Hindu nationalism (Hindutva), in which pilgrim crowds can send a political message. These changes have prompted a variety of Hindu responses. Some simply lament how such changes have disrupted traditional religious patterns, and others completely reject these patterns. The most sophisticated and productive responses have sought to reinterpret traditional ideas into a religious paradigm appropriate for contemporary times.Less
The concluding chapter examines how Hindu pilgrimage—and ideas about pilgrimage—have been affected by social change. One such change is the promotion of tourism, which has brought significant economic benefits and pernicious social effects, among them attracting a clientele seeking ease and entertainment. Another is greater literacy and scientific education, which have generated greater skepticism about the literal reality of religious merit (punya). A final factor has been the rise of Hindu nationalism (Hindutva), in which pilgrim crowds can send a political message. These changes have prompted a variety of Hindu responses. Some simply lament how such changes have disrupted traditional religious patterns, and others completely reject these patterns. The most sophisticated and productive responses have sought to reinterpret traditional ideas into a religious paradigm appropriate for contemporary times.
Robert R. Bianchi
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195171075
- eISBN:
- 9780199835102
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195171071.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
Each year, more than two million pilgrims from over 100 countries converge on the holy city of Mecca to reenact the ritual dramas that Muslims have been performing for centuries. While it is first ...
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Each year, more than two million pilgrims from over 100 countries converge on the holy city of Mecca to reenact the ritual dramas that Muslims have been performing for centuries. While it is first and foremost a religious festival, the hajj is also a major political event. The Muslim world's leading multinational organization, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, has established the first international regime explicitly devoted to pilgrimage. Every large Muslim nation has developed a comprehensive hajj policy and a powerful bureaucracy to enforce it. Yet no authority–secular or religious, national or international–can really control the hajj. Pilgrims believe that they are entitled to travel freely to Mecca as "Guests of God"–not as guests of any nation or organization that might wish to restrict or profit from their efforts to fulfill a fundamental religious obligation. Blending social science with the humanities and international law,Guests of God tells the stories of hajjis and hajj managers from Nigeria, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia exploring one of the greatest human experiences of our time.Less
Each year, more than two million pilgrims from over 100 countries converge on the holy city of Mecca to reenact the ritual dramas that Muslims have been performing for centuries. While it is first and foremost a religious festival, the hajj is also a major political event. The Muslim world's leading multinational organization, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, has established the first international regime explicitly devoted to pilgrimage. Every large Muslim nation has developed a comprehensive hajj policy and a powerful bureaucracy to enforce it. Yet no authority–secular or religious, national or international–can really control the hajj. Pilgrims believe that they are entitled to travel freely to Mecca as "Guests of God"–not as guests of any nation or organization that might wish to restrict or profit from their efforts to fulfill a fundamental religious obligation. Blending social science with the humanities and international law,Guests of God tells the stories of hajjis and hajj managers from Nigeria, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia exploring one of the greatest human experiences of our time.
