Religions of South Asia

Editorial

Simon Brodbeck — 2022-01-27

The Bhagavad Gita and Beyond

Raj Balkaran — 2022-01-27

Paying particular attention to narrative frames, this paper explores five avenues of hermeneutic import availed by the interlocking structure of such texts: inception import, association import, exposition import, framing import and impetus import. It demonstrates the utility of this methodology by applying it to shed new light on the Bhagavad Gita’s place within the Mahabharata.

The Indian Hair-Wringing Apsaras and her Discriminating Goose

Simona Cohen — 2022-01-27

The present study investigates depictions of the Indian apsaras wringing water from her hair in monumental religious iconography. It demonstrates the migration of iconography and transformations of meaning from the northern sources to other areas of India and ultimately to parts of southeast Asia. I examine ancient literary and visual sources of the hair-wringing apsaras, mediator of the life-giving celestial waters, and the goose that drinks her hair-water in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain artistic contexts, demonstrating expressions of abstruse theological concepts. The salient virtue of the mythic hamsa (migrating goose) was its ability to separate milk from water (nira-ksira-viveka). This discrimination, already mentioned in Vedic and later sources, was appropriated as a metaphoric image in moral, didactic, theological and philosophical contexts. Connotations implicit in the myth of the potent water that passes through the apsaras’s hair are compared to those of the rejuvenating waters that flowed through Siva’s ascetic locks in the myth of Gangadhara.

Promoting ‘Yogi Art’

Adrián Muñoz — 2022-01-27

Yoga studies have inaugurated a vast amount of possible research areas that transcend the regional and the disciplinary. This paper probes into the history and reception of yoga in Latin America. In particular, it discusses the ways in which a post-revolutionary Mexican intellectual, José Vasconcelos, understood yoga in the 1920s. This early understanding of yoga was a combination of both socio-political discourses worldwide and the nationalist enterprise of building a modern nation, where notions of race, identity, and cleanliness were paramount. Through different writings, Vasconcelos interpreted both South Asian religions and the Americas as beneficial influences for the betterment of humanity. By noting the influence of different ideologies popular in Latin America (such as nationalisms, Social Darwinism, or Theosophy), this paper analyses the cultural context against which Vasconcelos outlined his understanding of yoga, India, national culture and progress.

In Dialogue with the Mahabharata, by Brian Black

Simon Brodbeck — 2022-01-27

In Dialogue with the Mahabharata, by Brian Black. Abingdon: Routledge, 2021. xii + 216pp. £120 (hb), £33.29 (ebook). ISBN 978-0-367-43600-1 (hb), 978-0-367-43814-2 (ebook).

Everyday Shi'ism in South Asia, by Karen G. Ruffle

Fizza Joffrey — 2022-01-27

Everyday Shi'ism in South Asia, by Karen G. Ruffle. Chichester: Wiley, 2021. xvii + 344 pp. $45 (pb). ISBN 978-1-119-35714-8

Phanigiri: Interpreting an Ancient Buddhist Site in Telangana, edited by Naman P. Ahuja

Archishman Sarker — 2022-01-27

Phanigiri: Interpreting an Ancient Buddhist Site in Telangana, edited by Naman P. Ahuja. Mumbai: The Marg Foundation, 2021. 228pp. £17.48. ISBN 978-9-383243-32-7.