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The living and the dead : social dimensions of death in South Asian religions / edited by Liz Wilson.
- Format:
- Book
- Series:
- SUNY Series in Hindu Studies
- SUNY series in Hindu studies
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Death--Religious aspects.
- Death.
- Funeral rites and ceremonies--South Asia.
- Funeral rites and ceremonies.
- South Asia--Religious life and customs.
- South Asia.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (226 p.)
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Place of Publication:
- Albany : State University of New York Press, c2003.
- Summary:
- This collection examines the social dimensions of death in South Asian religions, exploring the ritualized exchanges between the living and the dead performed by Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and other religious groups. Using ethnographic and historical tools associated with the comparative and historical study of religion, the contributors also record the voices and actions of marginalized groups—such as tribal peoples, women, and members of lower castes—who are often underrepresented in studies of South Asian deathways, which typically focus on the writings and practices of elite groups. For many religious people, death entails a journey leading to some new condition or place. As the ultimate experience of passage, it is highly ceremonial and ritualized, and those beliefs and practices associated with the moment of death itself—death-bed ceremonies, funerary rites, and rituals of mourning and of remembering—are examined here. The Living and the Dead offers historical depth, ethnographic detail, and conceptual clarity on a subject that is of immense importance in South Asian religious traditions.
- Contents:
- ""Deanimating and Reanimating the Dead in Rural Sri Lanka""""The Suppression of Nuns and the Ritual Murder of Their Special Dead in Two Buddhist Monastic Texts*""; ""A Funeral to Part with the Living: ATamil Countersorcery Ritual1""; ""Dead Healers and Living Identities: Narratives of a Hindu Ghost and a Muslim Sufi in a Shared Village*""; ""Contributors""; ""Index""
- Notes:
- Description based upon print version of record.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780791487013
- 0791487016
- OCLC:
- 923418077
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