Adam's Bridge : sacrality, performance, and heritage of an oceanic marvel / Arup K Chatterjee.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chatterjee, Arup K., author.

Contributor:

Rosengarten Family Fund.

Series:

Ocean and Island Studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Adam's Bridge (India and Sri Lanka).

Physical Description:

xix, 239 pages : illustrations (black & white), maps ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

[S.l.] : ROUTLEDGE, 2024.

London ; New York : Bloomsbury, 2024.

Summary:

Adam's Bridge offers the first comprehensive transdisciplinary study of the famous eponymous tombolo (also known as Ram Setu) combining its sacral, historical, geological, political, performative, and heritage aspects into one framework, viewed under the critical lenses of island studies and cultural theory. The book elucidates the entanglement of Adam's Bridge's discursive history with India's colonial history, contemporary geology, domestic politics, and the nation's emerging position in a complex geopolitical order in and around the Indian Ocean region, vis--vis increasing Sino-American involvement in Indo-Sri Lankan relations. Without foregrounding any absolute scientific claims on the location of the sandbars that inspired sage Valmiki's Ram Setu and the Ramayan legacy or hindering narratives of religious faiths and folklore revolving around the structure, this intellectual historiography traces the parallel evolution of traditions of compassionate questioning and devotion for Indic sacred beliefs among commentators across the millennia from both Indian and non-Indian spectra, seen in juxtaposition with the biotic and abiotic diversity of the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay. Looking beyond secular-versus-religious debates, this book will be of interest to scholars of ocean and island studies, coastal economies, archipelagic geographies, environmental history, heritage studies, colonial studies, and cultural theory. Adam's Bridge unifies a consortium of themes, ranging across ecological and livelihood sustainability, environmentalism, soteriology, economic and geostrategic history, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, in conceptualizing a compellingly nuanced chronicle for India's enchanted bridge.'

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

Other Format:

Electronic version: Chatterjee, Arup K. Adam's Bridge.

ISBN:

9781032335476

1032335475

9781032335599

1032335599

OCLC:

1399164644

Publisher Number:

99996040991