Embodying the Vedas : Traditional Vedic Schools of Contemporary Maharashtra / Borayin Larios.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Larios, Borayin, author.

Contributor:

Lubin, Timothy, Contributor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Brahmanism--India--Maharashtra.

Brahmanism.

Hinduism and education--India--Maharashtra.

Hinduism and education.

Hinduism, Vedic Schools, priestly education, Gurukula, Modern India, Ethno-Indology.

Local Subjects:

Hinduism, Vedic Schools, priestly education, Gurukula, Modern India, Ethno-Indology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Warsaw ; Berlin : De Gruyter Open Poland, [2017]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Popularly Hinduism is believed to be the world's oldest living religion. This claim is based on a continuous reverence to the oldest strata of religious authority within the Hindu traditions, the Vedic corpus, which began to be composed more than three thousand years ago, around 1750-1200 BCE. The Vedas have been considered by many as the philosophical cornerstone of the Brahmanical traditions (āstika); even previous to the colonial construction of the concept of "Hinduism." However, what can be pieced together from the Vedic texts is very different from contemporary Hindu religious practices, beliefs, social norms and political realities. This book presents the results of a study of the traditional education and training of Brahmins through the traditional system of education called gurukula as observed in 25 contemporary Vedic schools across the state of Maharasthra. This system of education aims to teach Brahmin males how to properly recite, memorize and ultimately embody the Veda. This book combines insights from ethnographic and textual analysis to unravel how the recitation of the Vedic texts and the Vedic traditions, as well as the identity of the traditional Brahmin in general, are transmitted from one generation to the next in contemporary India.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Foreword / Lubin, Timothy

Preface

Acknowledgements

Note on Sanskrit and Marathi Words

List of Abbreviations

1 Introduction

2 Framing the Veda: General Contexts

3 The Vedic Schools in Contemporary Maharashtra

4 Life in the Vedapāṭhaśālā

5 Mimesis, Habitus, and Embodiment: Becoming a Vedamūrti

6 Preservation or Innovation? Changes in the Transmission of Vedic Identity and Tradition

7 Conclusion

Appendix 1: The Vedic Schools

Appendix 2: The Vikṛti Permutations of the Saṃhitā

Appendix 3: Images and Short Film of the Vedic Schools

Glossary of Commonly Used Terms

Bibliography

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

Index

Notes:

This eBook is made available Open Access. Unless otherwise specified individually in the content, the work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0 https://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/open-access-policy

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 15. Jun 2019)

ISBN:

9783110517323

3110517329

OCLC:

984521232

Access Restriction:

Open access Unrestricted online access