Religion and public memory : a cultural history of Saint Namdev in India / Christian Lee Novetzke.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Novetzke, Christian Lee, 1969- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

N{amacr}madeva, 1270-1350--Influence.

N{amacr}madeva.

Bhakti.

Hinduism and culture--India--Maharashtra.

Hinduism and culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxii, 309 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, 2008.

Summary:

Namdev is a central figure in the cultural history of India, especially within the field of bhakti, a devotional practice that has created publics of memory for over eight centuries. Born in the Marathi-speaking region of the Deccan in the late thirteenth century, Namdev is remembered as a simple, low-caste Hindu tailor whose innovative performances of devotional songs spread his fame widely. He is central to many religious traditions within Hinduism, as well as to Sikhism, and he is a key early literary figure in Maharashtra, northern India, and Punjab. In the modern period, Namdev appears throughout the public spheres of Marathi and Hindi and in India at large, where his identity fluctuates between regional associations and a quiet, pan-Indian, nationalist-secularist profile that champions the poor, oppressed, marginalized, and low caste. Christian Lee Novetzke considers the way social memory coheres around the figure of Namdev from the sixteenth century to the present, examining the practices that situate Namdev's memory in multiple historical publics. Focusing primarily on Maharashtra and drawing on ethnographies of devotional performance, archival materials, scholarly historiography, and popular media, especially film, Novetzke vividly illustrates how religious communities in India preserve their pasts and, in turn, create their own historical narratives.

Contents:

Intro

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface: The Shape of the Book

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Namdev, Bhakti, Public, and Memory

Part 1. Practices of Memory

1. A Sant Between Memory and History

2. Public Performance and Corporate Authorship

3. Orality and Literacy/Performance and Permanence

Part 2. Publics of Memory

4. Namdev and the Namas: Anamnetic Authorship from the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries

5. Memories of Suffering in the Eighteenth Century

6. A Sant for the Nation in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

7. The Idea of Namdev in Two Films in the Twentieth Century

Conclusion

Notes

Glossary

References

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [283]-295) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780231512565

0231512562

OCLC:

1011631152