Traditional South Asian Research Articles

Brian Black, In Dialogue with the Mahābhārata. Dialogues in South Asian Traditions: Religion, Philosophy, Literature and History series.

Brian Black, In Dialogue with the Mahābhārata. Dialogues in South Asian Traditions: Religion, Philosophy, Literature and History series.

The History of Person-Centred Medicine: A South Asian Perspective

In this communication, we explore the person-centred features of traditional South Asian schools of medicine and lifestyle. The Quadruple of Atreya, as mentioned in the ancient Ayurvedic text, Charaka Samhita, may be the first mention of a team-based approach to health and medicine. This is reinforced in the Tamil classic Thirukkural as the Quadruple of Thiruvalluvar. Yoga is a structured means of ensuring mind–body harmony and of optimising both physical and spiritual health. South Asian philosophy and practice aim to provide person-centred delivery of health in a community-oriented andcommunity-based manner. The target is to ensure benefits for all (sarvodaya) and benefits for the last in the queue (antyodaya). Responsible person-centred care is a South Asian construct in which the health care team takes on theresponsibility of sharing relevant information with persons to facilitate a shared decision-making process, keeping the biopsychosocial context in mind. South Asia’s rich tradition of person-centred medicine can be used to improvesatisfaction with modern medical services.

Exploring TESOL graduate students’ perceptions towards Global Englishes in Nepal

ABSTRACT With the global spread of English, an entrenched native speakerism ideology is problematized by the Global Englishes (GE) paradigm. GE scholars have called for actions to implement Global Englishes language teaching (GELT) to prepare learners to use English with diverse English users. Before implementing any classroom innovation like GELT, exploring learners’ perceptions of GE and GELT is essential since they provide valuable insights for instructional planning and material development tailored to learners’ needs. The present study examined the perceptions of 10 TESOL graduate students in Nepal, an under-researched population and context, toward standard English, regional South Asian English varieties, GE, and GELT. Using a volunteer sampling technique, the participants were recruited from two universities in Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal. The interview data revealed that the participants repudiated a standard language ideology associated with the Inner Circle contexts and opted to learn English to communicate with diverse English users. The participants also reported that South Asian Englishes have distinct features influenced by South Asian values, cultures, and traditions. Although participants acknowledged the affordances of implementing the GE paradigm, they were reluctant to use English varieties in their classrooms due to inadequate GE learning materials.

Book review: Diana Dimitrova (Ed), Rethinking the Body in South Asian Traditions

Diana Dimitrova (Ed), Rethinking the Body in South Asian Traditions (New Delhi: Routledge, 2021), xiv + 138 pp.

Acculturative stress while online dating: An exploration of the experiences of second generation Indian and Pakistani immigrants in the United Kingdom

AbstractThe aim of this qualitative study was to explore the acculturative stress experienced by second generation Indian and Pakistani young adults in the United Kingdom, who use online dating services—a practice common in Western cultures but unapproved in traditional South Asian cultures. Semi‐structured in‐depth interviews were conducted with six participants who were recruited through purposive sampling. Interview transcripts were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The findings indicate that while it is exposure to Western culture that influences participants to engage in online dating, it is their native cultural values that affect most of their online dating attitudes and behaviors such as preference for ethnically congruent partners, avoidance of casual sexual encounters, and expectations of slow‐paced and long‐term relationships. These findings are discussed as strategies used by participants to integrate different cultural orientations and manage their acculturative stress, based on Berry's (2003) Acculturation Model. This study contributes toward expanding literature in the field of cultural psychology and romantic relationships, by adding to an understanding of the pressures and challenges experienced by those navigating differing and often opposing sets of social and cultural norms, in the context of modern online dating.

Rethinking the Body in South Asian Traditions, edited by Diana Dimitrova

Rethinking the Body in South Asian Traditions, edited by Diana Dimitrova. New York: Routledge, 2021. vii + 138 pp., £104 (hb), £29.59 (ebook). ISBN 978-0-367-53618-3 (hb), 978-1-003-08958-2 (ebook).

Genome-sequence, annotation and phylogenetic insights of the lactic acid bacterium Limosilactobacillus fermentum strain LAB1 obtained from the dairy beverage borhani

Limosilactobacillus fermentum is a promising probiotic with several documented health benefits. LAB1 is an antagonistic L. fermentum strain isolated from borhani, a traditional South Asian beverage prepared from dairy and plant ingredients. Here, I present the genome sequence of the L. fermentum LAB1 strain, its annotation, and phylogenetic features. The 2.01 Mb genome with a G+C content of 51.9% was assembled into 221 contigs and predicted to have 1,913 protein-coding genes, 98 pseudo genes, 7 rRNAs, 60 tRNAs, and 1 CRISPR array. As much as 91.1% of the coding sequences could be assigned to known functional genes. Determination of average nucleotide identity (ANI) of the genome sequence revealed 99.37% identity to that of the type strain ATCC 14931. Its 16S rRNA gene sequence extracted from the genome sequence showed close phylogenetic association with several L. fermentum strains. The genome sequence is expected to provide useful insights with regard to the phenotypic, metabolic and beneficial aspects of this lactic acid bacterium.

Role strain and COVID‐era burden among South Asian caregivers of individuals with brain health conditions and disabilities

AbstractBackgroundThe COVID‐19 pandemic has renewed attention to the conflicting demands placed on caregivers worldwide. Nowhere is this more evident than in South Asia, where cultural norms and a scarcity of long‐term care facilities have made the home the locus of caregiving for individuals with brain health conditions and disabilities. A hidden cost of this informal arrangement is the burden experienced by the primary caregiver. This may be exacerbated when traditional caregiving expectations clash with personal aspirations outside the family.MethodThis paper investigates the determinants of burden among 494 informal caregivers in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The variables, obtained from the Coping with Loneliness, Isolation, and COVID‐19 (CLIC) Global Caregiver study, include caregiver demographic characteristics, features of the caregiving arrangement, and subjective measures of the caregiving experience. The dependent variable in our analysis, the perceived frequency of burden, is rated by respondents on a five‐level scale. Role strain is expected to be greatest among young, educated women living with the care recipient in their own homes. Therefore, burden should exhibit a positive association with female gender, education, and cohabitation, and a negative association with age.ResultOut of the 494 caregivers included in the study, 33.8% experienced increasing burden and 58% experienced loneliness some of the time during Covid‐19. The ordinal logistic marginal effects are consistent with all four hypotheses. Caregiver Burden is found to be positively correlated with female gender (OR,1.92; 95%CI, 0.35,1,03; P=<0.001), the 18‐39 age range (OR,1.71; 95%CI, 0.114, 0,963; P=0.01), poor finances (OR,2.192; 95%CI,0.22,1.34; P=0.006), poor physical health (OR, 2.24, 95%CI, 0.29,1.32, P=0.002), poor mental health (OR,1.86; 95%CI, 0.14,1.10, P=0.011), and care recipients with dementia/Alzheimer's (OR,2.76; 95%CI, 0.52,1.51, P=<0.001) and/or mental health conditions (OR,1.61; 95%CI, 0.02,0.94, P=0.039).ConclusionRole strain may be a significant driver of burden when the caretaker’s educational and professional potential collide with traditional South Asian family obligations. The burden reported by our respondents suggests that role strain may elevate stress among young, educated caregivers. Our results, therefore, provide indirect evidence concerning the changing economic and socio‐cultural context of caregiving in South Asian households.

Aquatic Mythologies: Divine, liminal and fantastic creatures in the Indian tradition

This article offers an overview of some of the most peculiar mythological creatures of the Hindu pantheon related to the watery element. Starting from the analysis of the concept of liminality, which is fundamental to Monster Theory, the symbolism and functions of water in ritualism, folklore and the traditions of South Asia will be explored. Indeed, destruction, metamorphosis, transition, purification and rebirth are all concepts that in Indian traditions are frequently sublimated into the dynamics of the circulation of waters. The monsoon phenomenon, the rushing rivers flowing down from the Himalayas and the depths of the Indian Ocean abysses therefore rise here to metaphysical and existential metaphors. Their hidden meaning has been represented in an allegorical key over the centuries by monstrous, bizarre and emblematic figures that have animated art, iconography and literature and popular legends. This essay tries to explore the issue through a religious and anthropological investigative approach, but with particular reference to Sanskrit literature and the sacred texts of Hinduism.

Empire of Eloquence: The Classical Rhetorical Tradition in Colonial Latin America and the Iberian World

Empire of Eloquence: The Classical Rhetorical Tradition in Colonial Latin America and the Iberian World

The Muslim World in Modern South Asia: Power, Authority, Knowledge (By Francis Robinson)

Reviewed by: The Muslim World in Modern South Asia: Power, Authority, Knowledge by Francis Robinson Ali Altaf Mian (bio) The Muslim World in Modern South Asia: Power, Authority, Knowledge Francis Robinson Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2020. 419 Pages. This volume attests to British historian Francis Robinson's prolific contributions to the study of Muslim traditions in South Asia and the history of Islam more broadly. This collection of essays and book reviews serves as a companion to two earlier edited volumes of his previously published materials namely, Islam and Muslim History in South Asia, and Islam, South Asia, and the West (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007). Scholars and students of Islam in South Asia will also recall Robinson's three monographs: Separatism among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United Provinces' Muslims, 1860–1923 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974); The 'Ulama of Farangi Mahall and Islamic Culture in South Asia (London: C. Hurst & Co., 2001; New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001); and Jamal Mian: The Life of Maulana Jamaluddin Abdul Wahab of Farangi Mahall, 1919–2012 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2017). Other readers will be more familiar with Robinson's Atlas of the Islamic World since 1500 (New York: Facts on File, 1982) or The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996) or his volume titled, The Mughal Emperors and the Islamic Dynasties of India, Iran, and Central Asia, 1206–1925 (London: Thames & Hudson, 2007). This brief bibliographical summation of Robinson's multifaceted scholarship serves to highlight an important point that the reader of The Muslim World in Modern South Asia should bear in mind: the author analyzes some subjects as a generalist but others as a specialist. In the latter capacity, he has illuminated two facets of Islam in modern South Asia: (1) the predicaments faced by colonialera Muslim modernists in their struggles to create either a pluralist nationalist society or a separatist Muslim state; and (2) the cultural as well as intellectual world of Lucknow's Farangi Mahallis, a group of religious scholars or 'ulama' renowned for their mastery of subjects such as logic, theology, and legal theory. Robinson's assessments of certain Muslim institutions and figures from colonial and postcolonial South Asia are perceptive and I value the insights I have learned from Robinson the specialist. At the same time, I find problematic some of his reductive generalizations about religious authority and his narrow comparative apparatus, not to mention some historical simplifications (such as the idea that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk abolished in 1924 the same institution that had [End Page 142] embodied the Prophet Muhammad's religious authority since the early days of Islam! (p. 154). While Robinson seeks to situate Islam in South Asia in the broader framework of the history of Islam, his objects of specialization often overdetermine the gestalts he constructs in his capacity as a generalist. In other words, the life-worlds of elite modernist and traditionalist Muslim men mainly from colonial North India do not cover the full range of subject matters that need to be illuminated when dealing with such broad categories as "the Muslim world" and "modern South Asia" or wide-ranging themes such as power, authority, and knowledge. The issue is not just nomenclature, to opt for "Muslim-majority societies" instead of "the Muslim world," for example. The spatial, temporal, and conceptual categories we use and the comparisons we pursue need to be accompanied by a cautious ethical-political analytical sensibility that remains cognizant of the geopolitical implications of our categories and comparisons. Whose analytical objectives and political interests are served through the category, "the Muslim world," and the comparison between the Islamic Revival and the Protestant Reformation? Unfortunately, Robinson does not address such meta-analytical questions. Instead, he takes for granted civilizational blocs, even when trying to counter claims about the clash of civilizations. Let me now examine two problematic assumptions that undergird the substantial essays of The Muslim World in Modern South Asia. First is Robinson's idea that the religious authority of the 'ulama' has waned in modernity, and second is his analogical tying together of the Islamic Revival and the Protestant Reformation. Both...

Chai as a Colonial Creation: The British Empire’s Cultivation of Tea as a Popular Taste and Habit Among South Asians

For Indians, chai, or spiced black tea, is a sign of hospitality, served within families, workplaces, and at train stations. While most Indians now perceive chai to be an essential and unquestionable part of daily life, this was not the case until the early twentieth century. While today, masala tea (or masala chai) is seen as a traditional South Asian custom, my findings suggest that the habit of drinking tea was actually thrust upon Indians through a colonial apparatus of the British Raj that utilized indentured labor, plantations, and exploitative trade practices. In this research, I deconstruct the misunderstanding that tea is native to India by gathering records of the first tea plantations and advertisements designed to popularize tea in India. I also present evidence of British establishment of tea and sugar plantations, which preceded the mass production and distribution of chai for export and internal use. Lastly, I analyze advertisements that were used in the British campaign to popularize chai in India. The tea trade exemplifies the short and long-term inequalities that resulted from British occupation in South Asia, as it was a key factor in motivating and funding colonial expansion and in solidifying colonial control. Beyond colonizing land and bodies through tea, the British succeeded in colonizing Indians’ aesthetics and taste.

An Ethnographic Turn in Comparative Theology?

Abstract This review essay analyses three books of comparative theology between Christian and Hindu traditions in South Asia in order to address two interrelated questions: 1) do they hint at an ‘ethnographic turn’ in comparative theology? And 2) if so, what might that mean for both ethnographic theology and comparative theology as they continue to develop as disciplines? Through an interpretive, exegetical review of these works, the article observes how an evolving appreciation for ethnography in comparative theology – and an attendant and analogous turn toward comparison in ethnographic theology – could bring more texture and critical reflection to the comparison of theologies across religious traditions, a more expansive capacity to ethnographic theology, and bring both fields into more fruitful dialogue. It argues that such developments are needed in a world where the lived navigation of hyper-diversity and multiplying difference are increasingly the norm.

Truck Art in Retrospect: The Ascension of Religious, Political and Cultural Visuals

Truck art has a long and illustrious tradition in South Asia. It is, above all, one of Pakistan's most popular and globally recognized art forms. The visual representation of the cultures of Pakistan's four regions is the cause for this art form's appeal. As a result, truck art has evolved into a means of expressing many cultural ideas via the appealing quality of its images. Such images emphasize the significance of the location or place from where the vehicle comes. Furthermore, the truck's graphics are not only appealing but also effective communicators. It’s a qualitative study based on rhetorical analysis, with the goal of understanding the culturally impacted images displayed on trucks. The study of the chosen truck images is based on topic categories that investigate various cultural connections of visuals. According to the findings, these truck images are rhetorical visuals that may interact with viewers. It delivers more strong information in the form of images and displays greater aesthetical beauty that draws the audience as a cultural representative of the region or location. This study, on the other hand, uses exemplification to show that vehicle pictures have a larger impact on the audience and convey ideas more successfully by beautifying aesthetical, religious, or cultural themes. As a consequence of such visual interpretations, one may become a detective who investigates cultural concepts, values, and traditions.

Abstract MP57: A South Asian Mediterranean-style Diet Pattern Is Associated With Favorable Measures Of Adiposity And A Lower Risk Of Incident Diabetes: Findings From The Masala Study

Introduction: South Asians are at a disproportionately high risk for cardiometabolic disease. The Mediterranean diet is associated with reduced risks of type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cardiovascular disease in certain populations, although data among South Asians are lacking. Therefore, we evaluated the association between a novel South Asian Mediterranean style (SAM) diet pattern and a broad panel of cardiometabolic markers from the MASALA study, an ongoing prospective cohort of South Asians in the US. Methods: We included 891 participants who completed the baseline visit (2010-13) with reliable responses to a validated ethnic-specific food frequency questionnaire (mean age 55 y; 47% female). We created the SAM score by grouping foods including those specific to this population’s cuisine into 9 pre-defined categories (vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, red/processed meats, fish, alcohol, and monounsaturated to saturated fat ratio). Participants above the median intake received 1 point per category; red/processed meats were reverse scored and those with alcohol intake 5-25 g/d received 1 point. We summed these for a score from 0-9, with higher scores reflecting greater adherence to a Mediterranean style diet. Participants underwent a clinical exam, carotid ultrasound, cardiac and abdominal CT, and fasting blood tests. We used multivariable linear and logistic regression to examine cross-sectional associations between the SAM score and cardiometabolic risk, adjusting for age, sex, calories, physical activity, smoking status, medical history, income, education level, and cultural beliefs. We additionally adjusted for body mass index (BMI) in the full model. Finally, we examined the association between the SAM score and incident T2D at follow-up (~5 y later). Results: Participants with higher SAM scores tended to be older, more likely to have a bachelor’s degree, less likely to report experiences of discrimination, and less likely to be smokers. At baseline, the SAM score was inversely associated with pericardial fat volume (-1.22 ± 0.55 cm 3 per 1-unit increase in SAM score; p value=0.03) in the fully adjusted model. We observed an inverse association between the SAM score and visceral fat, but it was attenuated after additionally adjusting for BMI. There were no associations with subclinical atherosclerosis, glycemia measures, lipids, inflammatory markers, or uric acid. The SAM score was associated with a lower likelihood of obesity (odds ratio [OR] 0.88, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.79 to 0.98) and fatty liver (OR 0.82, 95% CI 0.68 to 0.98), but not with hypertension. Finally, the SAM score was associated with lower odds of incident T2D (OR 0.75, 95% CI 0.59 to 0.95) at follow-up. Conclusion: A greater intake of a Mediterranean style diet that incorporates traditional South Asian foods was associated with favorable measures of adiposity and a lower likelihood of incident T2D.

Sufi-Vedāntic Interactions and Literary Interconnections in the Gulzār-i ḥāl by Banwālīdās

Abstract This paper focuses on the Gulzār-i ḥāl by Banwālīdās (1662–3), a Persian adaptation of the Sanskrit allegorical drama Prabodhacandrodaya composed by Kṛṣṇamiśra (not long after 1065). It is also hypothesised that Banwālīdās may have used a Braj Bhāṣā version of the same text – by the poet Nanddās entitled Prabodhacandrodaya Nāṭaka (c. 1570) –, as intermediary with the original Sanskrit. Regardless of the source that our author used to realise his Gulzār-i ḥāl, the filter used to adapt Advaitic elements to the Islamic mystical context was the Waḥdat al-Wujūd (“Unity of Being”), or the tradition of mysticism that was heavily inspiring Sufi traditions of South Asia at that time. Moreover, a codicological analysis of the Gulzār-i ḥāl’s manuscript tradition has brought to light that both Hindu and Muslim readership received the text. In this paper, I will show that the interpretative engagement of Banwālīdās carried on a tradition of philosophical studies that did not consider Sufi and Vedāntic metaphysics as separated entities but as elements that – in dialogue with each other – searched for a common answer to the ultimate truth.

Kinship as fiction: exploring the dynamism of intimate relationships in South Asia

ABSTRACT This special issue brings together emerging studies on kinship in South Asia and explores the idea of kinship as ‘fiction’ through ethnographic analysis of intimate relationships. Anthropology had long considered kinship as ‘natural’ or ‘biological’, thereby rendering other relations as ‘real’ or ‘fictive’. However, the recent ever-expanding scope of the ‘new kinship studies’, through the mapping of socio-technological changes, including the development of new reproductive technologies, the expansion of a diverse marriage system, and the global reconfiguration of care work, has brought a new dynamism to the discipline. Drawing both on traditional South Asian kinship studies and on more recent theories in anthropology, care work, medicine and science and technology studies, Kinship as Fiction offers insights on how ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ are related, translated, and regenerate each other by changing their meanings and forms. Fiction plays an important role in shaping reality, by making emerging worlds comprehensible, and helping us to imagine relations differently. This special issue investigates how particular ‘fictions’ are narrated and enacted within the constraints of reality, and how reality is, in turn, generated by fiction in the context of kin and other intimate relationships.

Yoga, Meditation, and Neoliberal Penality: Compliance or Resistance?

In this essay, I argue that a normative commitment to dismantling mass incarceration requires us to examine the effects of self-care and self-disciplinary practices within carceral spaces. I take up the specific case of the South Asian traditions of yoga and meditation. Many critics have suggested that their practices can produce pacifying, politically neutering effects through their emphases on non-judgment and non-reaction. They can teach acceptance of an unjust, immiserating reality, seen as the result of individual responsibility or pathology, rather than of structural factors. But others insist that yogic and meditative traditions can be interpreted to generate attention and resistance to social injustice. I explore the conditions under which the therapeutic, rehabilitative forms of self-discipline taught by these traditions reproduce neoliberal penality, encouraging the targets of mass incarceration to accept their own responsibility for structurally unjust outcomes. I also explore conditions under which they may undermine such penal logic by teaching attention and resistance to systemic inequity. Ultimately, the political meaning and effects of these practices are ambiguous: they can render the carceral apparatus more habitable and acceptable, or ensure that the tools of neoliberal penality are turned against the system itself.

Introduction

Abstract This opening piece introduces the eight articles in this special issue of Asian Medicine, all of which emerged out of the daylong Science, Technology, and Medicine in South Asia Symposium: Medicine and Memory, at the 2018 Annual Conference on South Asia in Madison, Wisconsin. These articles are concerned with the ways in which time and healing entangle across regions and healing traditions in South Asia, including Unani, Ayurveda, Naturopathy, and biomedicine. Linking the findings from these articles with recent scholarship, our conversation in the symposium moved beyond the notion of medical pluralisms to a notion of dynamic plurals, through historicizing regional and local diversities in practices and philosophies, often grouped under a single name by communities and practitioners. In an increasingly communalist and politically fractured modern South Asia, we suggest that the discussions in this special issue make a critical contribution to understanding how cultural institutions of knowledge function in society.

Soil disturbance levels, soil water content and the establishment of rainfed chickpea: Mechanised seeding options for smallholder farms in north‐west Bangladesh

AbstractOptimum soil physical conditions for crop establishment are more likely to occur with mechanised row‐sowing using metered seeding and controlled depth placement of seeds than with broadcast sowing, that is common in many traditional South Asian cropping practices. Establishment success is a limitation for post‐rice crops in medium to heavy textured soils in the Eastern Gangetic Plain because sowing coincides with rapid topsoil drying and increases in soil strength. In addition, due to lack of rainfall in the post‐rice season the crop relies on access to stored soil water during vegetative and reproductive growth to achieve adequate yields. Our aim was to determine whether decreased soil disturbance (from full tillage to zero tillage (ZT) to undisturbed soil (Fallow)) and direct seeding (using small‐scale seeders) could 1) enhance chickpea crop establishment by conserving seedbed soil water and 2) alter crop water use of the water stored in the soil profile. The silt loam soil has an estimated volumetric soil water content (θv) of 34% at field capacity. At sowing, θv in the seedbed was between 25% to 29%. This was adequate for successful chickpea crop establishment, but slightly wetter than optimum for tillage. In the wet soil at sowing, there was evidence of smeared furrow walls and poor soil covering of the seed in the seedbed in strip planting (SP; rotating blades in front of tine) and ZT. Uncovered furrows (in ZT; using a tine opener) and the fallow soil lost more surface soil water (9%, 23 days after sowing) than the seedbeds created with greater levels of soil disturbance. In 2008, grain yield of single‐pass shallow tillage (SPST) was greater than SP but in 2009, grain yields of all one‐pass tillage techniques (ZT, SP, SPST) were greater than in the broadcast seeding in fully tilled soils. The improvement in chickpea yields was attributed to greater plant numbers, early plant vigour and root growth. Chickpea roots were found to 60 cm depth in the soil profile, and soil water content was less than the θv of wilting point to this depth at podding. There is evidence that root growth and plant water uptake occur deeper in these soil profiles to achieve the grain yields > 1,000 kg/ha recorded in this study. Mechanised sowing in rows with small‐scale seeders has the capability to overcome establishment and yield limitations for chickpea on medium to heavy soils in the post‐rice season.