Hindu God Research Articles

Figurative and Inscribed Carpets from Shanpula, Khotan: Unexpected Representations of the Hindu God Krishna. A Preliminary Study

Figurative and Inscribed Carpets from Shanpula, Khotan: Unexpected Representations of the Hindu God Krishna. A Preliminary Study

Hayagr?va in South India: Complexity and Selectivity of a Pan‐Indian Hindu Deity – By Kamala Elizabeth Nayar

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 35, Issue 4 p. 303-303 Hayagr?va in South India: Complexity and Selectivity of a Pan-Indian Hindu Deity – By Kamala Elizabeth Nayar Caleb Simmons, Caleb Simmons University of FloridaSearch for more papers by this author Caleb Simmons, Caleb Simmons University of FloridaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 26 November 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-0922.2009.01391_9.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume35, Issue4December 2009Pages 303-303 RelatedInformation

From Khmer treasures to Chinese antiquities: The ongoing plunder and trafficking in South East Asia

In June of this year, in a ceremony associated with much pomp and political significance, the Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva handed over to Cambodian officials in Phnom Penh a number of Khmer treasures seized by Thai authorities from smugglers in 1999. The treasures included six massive stone heads of the Hindu God Shiva, dating from the 12th Century Angkorian era (Associated Press, 2009).

TheJagannath Temple and OnlineDarshan

Darshan—the act of seeing the divine in an image—is an important form of worship for most Hindus. Darshan is now available via the Internet. In this article I consider the possible significance of online darshan for the important Jagannath Temple in Puri in the Indian State of Orissa and for devotees of the Hindu god Jagannath who resides there. From this case study I conclude that online darshan does not necessarily bring about a decline in the importance of temples and their deities. This challenges those globalisation theorists who claim that local sites decline in importance as a result of advanced communications technologies and instead supports Roland Robertson's theory of ‘glocalization’. I further conclude that despite this, online darshan is an important development for devotees of Jagannath, because it allows access to the deity which may previously have been difficult or even impossible for most of the year. I also consider online darshan in general and suggest that the glocalization processes that it is giving rise to are worthy of future research.

The Form and Formlessness of Śiva: TheLingain Indian Art, Mythology, and Pilgrimage1

AbstractThelingais well‐known as the dominant emblem of the Hindu god Śiva. This article seeks to provide an accessible survey of the mythology and iconography of thelinga, and the scholarly discussion about them. It considers some of the ancient objects that scholars have identified aslingas, reflecting on the methodological challenges involved in their interpretation. It also considers major narrative, theological, and pilgrimage traditions surroundinglingas, as preserved in the Pur?ṇas, and some of the prescriptions for their construction and installation, as outlined in ?gamas and reflected in current practice. The author suggests, moreover, thatlingaworship may have played an important role in the trans‐regional spread and consolidation of Śaivism as we know it.

I Love You, I Hate You: Toward a Psychology of the Hindu Deus Absconditus

pathology (Carstairs 1961; Spratt 1966; Masson 1980; Kakar 1981) or normative developments relative to each culture (Roland 1988; Kurtz 1992), the seemingly uncontested consensus is that Hindu India nurtures a collective Though generally finding many of these studies quite fascinating and often persuasive, I wish to draw attention to a dimension that is routinely overlooked. In an effort to paint with broad strokes a culture preoccupied with psychological mergers and integrations, many authors fail to take note of particular forms of bhakti, or devotion, that appear to contest such a preoccupation. The structural features of viraha bhakti (love-in-separation) and virodha bhakti (love-manifest-as-enmity) in particular reflect and influence a psychological construction of self that is not merged in or integrated with the other: viraha bhakti and virodha bhakti present Hindu god images that model a separated-individuated self. Because any one religious tradition is clearly overdetermined, definitive psychological interpretations remain elusive. This is certainly the case with viraha bhakti and virodha bhakti. While maintaining that the two devotional models similarly reflect a separated-individuated self, I nevertheless present competing interpretations. The competition issues from the difference between interpreting god imagery as either corresponding with or compensating for the realities of childhood (Kirkpatrick 2005). In the former case, the religious model repeats culturally normative developments; in the latter, the religious model deviates from culturally normative developments. Whether or not the compensation is psychologically deviant is an altogether different issue. The two interpretations I present here share a common point of departure in what the psychoanalytic anthropologist Stanley N. Kurtz calls the psychology of Hinduism (1992: 6). Kurtz's new psychology is based upon what many contemporary ethnographers consider to be a more accurate portrait of Hindu childrearing practices. Where the classical account addresses the Hindu mother's wholesale indulgence of her child, the new account stresses physical indulgence accompanied

Mumbādevī and the Other Mother Goddesses in Mumbai

AbstractMumbādevī is the patron Goddess of the city of Mumbai, one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities of Asia. Local traditions say that Mumbādevī was a Koḷī Goddess and worshipped by the indigenous Koḷī fisher community for centuries. However, since the turn of the twentieth century the temple of Mumbādevī and the rituals surrounding the Goddess have gradually been Sanskritised. Today, Mumbādevī is more closely associated with the Gujarati community. This paper examines this transformation and in doing so reflects on the survival of Mumbādevī, the ongoing popularity of Goddess worship in Mumbai and the failure of Hindu fundamentalists to subordinate the Mother Goddesses of Mumbai to a more limited range of Hindu Gods.

The Clay Cart (review)

Reviewed by: The Clay Cart Eleanor Owicki The Clay Cart. By Śūdraka. Directed by Bill Rauch. Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Angus Bowmer Theatre, Ashland. 15 August 2008. When Bill Rauch, a founding member of the Cornerstone Theatre Company, took over the artistic directorship of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2007, he instituted (not surprisingly) several changes in order to strengthen the festival’s connection with local communities. For many seasons, evening performances had been preceded by free Green Shows performed by a company of dancers and musicians on the open space near the theatres. Rauch reinvented this tradition for the 2008 season by inviting many groups from surrounding communities to perform, thus creating a diverse showcase of artists working in many forms. When I attended the festival, I saw a vaudeville-inspired performance as well as an improv group. This emphasis on community was also central to Rauch’s production of The Clay Cart, the Sanskrit classic thought to have been written between the second and fifth centuries by the monarch Śūdraka. Although the plot revolves around a love affair between the noble but poor Chārudatta (Christofer Jean) and the beautiful courtesan Vasantasenā (Miram Laube), these two characters do not exist in isolation. They prove their goodness by the generosity they show to the play’s many secondary characters, including a poor worker, a thief, and a gambler. Through this large ensemble, the spatial arrangement and design elements, and his choices with both actors and text, Rauch stressed the play’s themes of compassion, community, and shared responsibility. The production began with a benediction: cast members entered individually, touched the ground in a moment of silent reverence, and stepped onto the circular platform that filled most of the stage. They then invoked the protection of several Hindu gods for themselves and the audience. The houselights remained up for this moment, and the customary sound cue asking the audience to silence their cell phones was held until it was over. By separating the benediction from the play’s action, Rauch encouraged the audience to view it as a moment of sincere well-wishing, thus establishing a tone of compassion that would continue throughout the performance. Next, ensemble members not required for the first scene arranged themselves casually on pillows around the back of the platform to watch the play. Although they remained focused on the action, they also were relaxed, laughing and quietly commenting to one another. Because of the set design and the architecture of the theatre, these “spectactors” and the audience together created a complete circle around the central platform. Similarly, the many ornate lamps hanging over both the stage and the auditorium blurred the distinction between the spectators’ and the performers’ space. These design choices, as well as several moments when characters directed comments to specific audience members, encouraged us to consider ourselves as part of the community the actors had created onstage. Click for larger view View full resolution Christofer Jean (Chārudatta) and Miriam A. Laube (Vasantasenā) in The Clay Cart. Photo: David Cooper. Śūdraka’s play is fairly ambivalent about India’s caste system. Several times, individual characters make comments that question the importance of birth in determining a person’s inherent moral value. In the second act, Chārudatta is accused of murdering Vasantasenā (in reality, the king’s wicked brother-in-law Samsthānaka strangled her and left her for dead). At Chārudatta’s trial, the judge dismisses Samsthānaka’s attempts to bully him, asking: “[W]hy boast of family? It is character that counts here” (52). Although the play admits that the caste [End Page 120] system may not work in individual cases, Śūdraka does not ask for it to be dismantled. The untouchable executioners who show Chārudatta kindness are rewarded by becoming leaders of their caste, not by being freed from its stigma. Click for larger view View full resolution Tyrone Wilson (Libertine), Miriam A. Laube (Vasantasenā), and Eileen DeSandre (Madanikā) in The Clay Cart. Photo: David Cooper. Rauch’s use of the ensemble helped to offer a more complete critique of this system. During the benediction, before the action of the play began and characters were introduced...

Review: Alternative Krishnas: Regional and Vernacular Variations on a Hindu Deity, by Guy L. Beck

Review: <i>Alternative Krishnas: Regional and Vernacular Variations on a Hindu Deity</i>, by Guy L. Beck

Hinduizing from the Top, Indigenizing from Below: Localizing Krishna Rituals in Southern Ghana

AbstractThis essay reports on an aspect of Ghana's emerging Hindu religious experience; the localizing of the worship of Krishna, a Hindu deity and a globally circulating emblem of spirituality, in the context of the Radha-Govinda temple community in Accra, Ghana's capital. Representing the Ghanaian portion of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), this community seeks to perpetuate the Caitanyite Vaisnava heritage in this African worshipping society by implementing its policy of 'Hinduizing' local communities. Local worshippers are receptive to this new religion but do not succumb to the pressure to become Hindus in ISKCON's sense. They are resilient and invest this cultural import with local religious meanings, pressing its rituals into service as spiritual ammunition as they respond to pre-existing challenges and the new limitations that contemporary social transformations have imposed on them. The essay demonstrates how the meanings of lay practitioners who we often assume to be powerless, rather than ISKCON and its powerful local elite agents, largely shape the trajectory of the worship of Krishna in Ghana.

Dancing the boDy of goD: Rituals of embodiment from the Central Himalayas

One of the important and wide-spread ways in which divinity is manifested in South Asia is through the enactment of religious rituals described in schol- arly studies as inducing ‘possession’ through deities who then speak through the medium of ‘possessed’ devotees. My intention in this paper is to begin to create a shift in scholarly discourse that describes religious rituals that are conducted in order to invoke the presence of a deity, in terms of the categories of spirit ‘possession’ or trance, to a notion of embodiment or rather embodied consciousness. In my attempt to create a hermeneutics of embodiment for reli- gious rituals that are commonly analysed in terms of possession, I draw on the Hindu deity Shiva’s ‘dance of rapture’, as well as on the notion of embodiment as being the existential ground of possibility for culture and self. My arguments are based on materials gathered from recent preliminary field research into the narratives and rituals of the Central Himalayan deity Goludev.

Holy superheroine: a comic book interpretation of the Hindu Devī Māhātmya scripture

AbstractAmar Chitra Katha (Immortal Picture Stories) is India's leading comic book series, featuring hundreds of mythological titles about the Hindu gods. Founder Anant Pai initially eliminated all miracles, believing them to be unscientific interpolations. But while producing Tales of Durga (no. 176, 1978), he declared that the comic must be an “authentic” recreation of the Devī Māhātmya scripture, and that all miracles in the classical Sanskrit text must be faithfully rendered in the comic. This article examines the discourse of authenticity that surrounds the production of Tales of Durga in particular and this comic book series more generally. Through a careful reading of the Devī Māhātmya, content analysis of Tales of Durga, a consideration of the unique characteristics of the comic book medium, and interviews with comic book producers, this study provides insight into modern interpretations of the Devī Māhātmya and evolving Hindu attitudes towards the martial goddess Durga.

Smiling with Blood on the Tongue: Acceptable Sacrifices and the Annihilating Feminine in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine

The paper is a somewhat contrary defense against a chorus of critical attacks on the novel from scholars usually noted for their insightful criticism. The novel is faulted for defects in its literary elements, and stands accused of embedded messages of assimilation and muted resistance, essentialism, sexism and racism, and many other attacks that this article takes issue with. A widening gulf between current critical reaction and readers’ reactions is discussed. The novel’s elaborate, comic, at times grotesque character modeling upon Hindu deities is found to be one reason for Jasmine’s continued resonance with the reading public.

Fossil Folklore from India: The Siwalik Hills and the Mahâbhârata

All over the world, from antiquity to the present, people have often explained fossil discoveries as proof of the historical truth of legends and myths, or used them as a basis for a new legend. Most often, large vertebrate fossils have been explained as bones and teeth of giant humans, dragons and monsters, saints and heroes. Smaller invertebrate fossils were often interpreted as sacred or curious relics based on their resemblance to familiar or sacred objects. India is no exception to this practice. Fossil ammonites (salagramas), for example, are worshipped as the disc (chakra) of the Hindu god Vishnu. The Siwalik Hills, below the Himalayas, are strewn with impressive Plio-Pleistocene vertebrate fossils. This paper suggests that the region was seen as the historical stage for the legendary battle as described in the Indian epic Mahâbhârata, during which hundreds of mighty, and sometimes gigantic, heroes, horses, and war elephants are said to have died. Their remains are seen in the fossil bones, skulls, jaws, and tusks of hippopotamuses (Hexaprotodon), proboscideans (Stegodon, Archidiskodon), four-horned giraffes (Sivatherium, Giraffokeryx), giant tortoises (Geochelone), sabre-toothed cats (Paramachairodus), camels (Camelus), and other species found on the surface of the Siwalik Hills. Moreover, thousands of ancient bronze javelins and spears are also found there after rains. These archaeological artefacts, along with the paleontological remains, appear to have influenced the setting and context of the great battle in the Indian epic.

Nationalism and postcolonialism in Indian science fiction: Bollywood's Koi Mil Gaya (2003)

Koi Mil Gaya (2003), a Hindi-language Bollywood musical set in the near future and concerning a scientist who contacts extraterrestrials, is Hindi cinema's first big-budget attempt at science fiction. It is worthy of note for several reasons. The film, which is filled with references to Hindu gods and mythologies, aligns itself with, borrows from, and reshapes the traditions of science fiction (Batty and Markley 2002), using strategies associated with postcolonial cultural production. It also subverts many of the conventions of Hollywood science fiction cinema, using similar aspects of film form for different purposes. However, Koi Mil Gaya occupies a contested postcolonial space, as its alignment with the recent rise of Hindu nationalism in India creates a kind of colonial order in itself; one which in the end re-inscribes the hierarchical systems of oppression that are associated with colonialism.

Skanda in Epic and Puranic Literature: An Examination of the Origins and Development of a Hindu Deity in North India

AbstractThis article explores the origins and development of the Hindu deity Skanda in North India from approximately the fourth century bce to the seventh century ce. The author suggests that previous scholarship on this deity has located his origins in two sources: the Indus Valley and in an amalgamation of related deities. The article questions the Indus Valley hypothesis and develops the amalgamation hypothesis by examining a variety of textual and non‐textual sources. The author also argues that a shift occurs in the representation of Skanda and in his cult base over time. The article suggests that his cult begins in propitiation cults for Grahas and warrior deities in the north of India and shifts to one based in royal propaganda and military emblems. The cult of Skanda is also absorbed into the broader Śaivite cult during this time. These shifts, the author argues, result in the diminished popularity of Skanda in North India by the seventh century ce.

Mixture of composite-boson molecules and the Pauli exclusion principle

Molecules made of two fermionic atoms are ``cobosons''---a contraction for ``composite bosons.'' These molecules ``feel'' each other not only through interactions between atoms, but also through the Pauli exclusion between their fermionic components. In order to point out the importance of this Pauli exclusion in cold atom physics, we have calculated here the energy change of $N$ identical cobosonic molecules when a similar molecule, made of atoms having possibly different spin states, is added. Due to the difference in the number of fermion exchanges with a molecule having zero, one, or two atoms identical to the ones already present in the system, we may think that this energy change can take three different values, even for spin-independent interatomic interactions. We actually find that the energy change, in the Born approximation, is exactly the same at all orders in density, when the added molecule has two or just one atom identical to the ones already there. In other words, the scattering length is predicted to be the same if the added molecule can have exchanges with one set of fermionic components or with two sets. This unexpected equality, which of course holds for spin-independent interactions only, results from a subtle balance in the fermion exchanges. To prove it, we make use of a recent extension of the composite-exciton many-body theory we have constructed, to any type of cobosons, the physical understanding of the various exchange processes being enlightened by the Shiva diagram representation (so named because of the multiarm structure reminiscent of the Hindu god Shiva) of this many-body theory.

Beck, Guy L. [Ed.], Alternative Krishnas. Regional and Vernacular Variations on a Hindu Deity

Beck, Guy L. [Ed.], Alternative Krishnas. Regional and Vernacular Variations on a Hindu Deity

Can medicine really learn anything from aviation? Or are patients and their disease processes too complex?

Much has been written in the medical and human factors literature in recent years about the similarities between aviation and medicine (especially anesthesiology). In this discussion, we ask whether medicine really can learn lessons from aviation and what those lessons are. In particular we will focus on error management, the root causes of adverse events, including fatigue, barriers for safety, and the personality traits that may contribute to adverse outcomes (for which we have coined the term “Shiva factor”—named for the Hindu god who can be both the preserver of life and the destroyer).

Periodontal treatment considerations for cell transplant and organ transplant patients

Organ replacement has been prevalent in the mythology of medicine and surgery for several hundred years. An Indian legend from the 12th century BC recounts the powers of the Hindu god, Shiva, who transplanted the head of an elephant to his child, Lord Ganesha, the god of wisdom and health (84). One of the major medical and scientific accomplishments in the latter half of the 20th century was the replacement of failing kidneys, livers, hearts or lungs through transplantation with a healthy organ (68). Over the last 30 years, this treatment modality has changed from being a last-ditch desperate effort to prolong life to being an option for treating and managing a variety of diseases and conditions (120). The improved prognosis following organ transplant is a result of superior methods of obtaining donor‐ patient tissue matches, proper methods of transportation, understanding the immune system, and the discovery of potent immunosuppressive drugs that could delay or prevent the rejection of the transplanted organs (63).