Translated from the Marathi and annotated by Anne Feldhaus. Introductory essays by Anne Feldhaus and Eleanor Zelliot.

The Deeds of God in Rddhipur

Science & Math

Feldhaus, Anne

Physics

Oxford University Press

This translation of a groundbreaking book by the internationally renowned German ethonographer Günther-Dietz Sontheimer describes the religious system of a pastoralist area which includes parts of three linguistic regions: Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. Making use of oral narratives collected from this area, the book critically examines its gods and their worshippers: not only pastoralists, but also ferrymen, merchants, robbers, and wandering holy men. Sontheimer places the oral material in its social, cultural, and ecological context, showing how myths and ritual cycles give shape to the people's collective identity and attitudes toward other communities. The result of hundreds of interviews, the book not only presents an unprecedented look at a virtually unstudied and fast disappearing way of life but makes a significant contribution to the understanding of Hindu tradition.

Pastoral Deities in Western India

Sontheimer, Gunther-Dietz

Religion & Spirituality

Water and Womanhood: Religious Meanings of Rivers in Maharashtra

Feldhaus examines the role of certain 'domestic' values in the religious meanings of rivers in Maharashtra, a large region of western India. Feldhaus draws both on written religious texts and on a wide range of oral, iconographic, and ritual materials gathered in the course of field work in India.

Rivers in India are commonly associated with certain worldly religious values: wealth, beauty, long life, good health, food, love, and the birth of children. However, these "domestic" values have been relatively neglected by Indologists, who have tended to view India and Hinduism through the prism of poverty, misery, asceticism, and themes of purity or pollution. Following recent scholarship by arguing that the earthly pursuits are equally vital to an understanding of popular Hinduism, Feldhaus examines the role of these ideals in the religious meanings of rivers in Maharashtra, a large region of western India. Drawing both on written religious texts and on a wide range of oral, iconographic, and ritual materials gathered in the course of field work in India, she shows that these values, which are usually associated with women or represented by goddesses, are an important motif in popular religious practices and oral traditions associated with the rivers of Maharashtra, and she presents the many different ways in which rivers are imagined, enshrined, worshipped, and feared.

Arts & Photography

Music

Marathi is the official language of Maharashtra state in India. Old Marathi is the "classical" written form of the language as it appears in the abundant literature and inscriptions dating from around 1000 to 1350 B.C.E. This dictionary, the only one of its kind, is based on all known inscriptions and literary sources from the Old Marathi period. For each word, it offers a transliteration, an abbreviation indicating the grammatical category, an indication of etymology (where known), the attested meaning (with variants), and a citation or citations illustrating the use of the word in Old Marathi sources.

A Dictionary of Old Marathi (South Asia Research)

History

Tulpule, the late S. G.

Asia

Focusing on caste, this volume investigates the dynamics of hierarchies, exploring how they are constructed, how they work, and how they are resisted.

Speaking Truth to Power: Religion Caste, and the Subaltern Question in India

Bhagavan, Manu

Vitthal, also called Vithoba, is the most popular Hindu god in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, and the best-known god of that region outside India. His temple at Pandharpur is the goal of an annual pilgrimage that is one of the largest and most elaborate in the world. This book is the foremost study of the history of Vitthal, his worship, and his worshippers. First published in Marathi in 1984, the book remains the most thorough and insightful work on Vitthal and his cult in any language, and provides an exemplary model for understanding the history and morphology of lived Hinduism. The author, Ramchandra Chintaman Dhere, is the leading scholar of religious traditions in Maharashtra and throughout the Deccan, the plateau that covers most of central India.Vitthal exemplifies the synthesis of Vaishnava and Shaiva elements that not only typifies Maharashtrian Hindu religious life but also marks Vitthal's resemblance to another prominent South Indian god, Venkatesh of Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. Dhere's analysis highlights Vitthal's connection with pastoralist hero cults, and demonstrates the god's development from a god of shepherds to a god of the majority of the population. In addition, Dhere also explores the connections of Vitthal with Buddhist and Jain traditions. In the book's final chapter, Dhere presents a culminating stage in the evolution of the worship of Vitthal: the interpretation in spiritual terms of the god, his temple, the town of Pandharpur, and the river that flows past the town. Dhere received India's highest literary award, the Sahitya Akademi prize, for this book.

Rise of a Folk God: Vitthal of Pandharpur (South Asia Research)

Dhere, Ramchandra Chintaman

Hinduism

The fourteenth-century Marathi text entitled Smrtisthal is an account of the development of the Mahanubhav sect of western India in the first generation after the death of its founder, the divine incarnation Cakradhar. It records events in the period of leadership of Nagdev, Cakradhar's appointed successor. Written by members of the group, for members of the group, shortly after Nagdev's death, Smrtisthal provides an exceptionally detailed and delightfully unembarrassed portrait of a religious movement seeking to perpetuate the inspiration of its founder. Cakradhar taught an exclusive devotion to a single god and rejected, devalued, or ignored many of the social and religious forms of orthodox Hinduism. He included among his followers people of all castes and of both sexes; he used the regional language, Marathi, instead of Sanskrit; and he opposed polytheism, image worship, and pilgrimage to Hindu holy places. Instead, he prescribed for his disciples a life of constant, solitary wandering. The teachings of the divine incarnation would have been difficult enough to follow during his lifetime, but they were all the more difficult after his death. Smrtisthal shows Cakradhar's disciples attempting to apply his teachings in his absence. It shows the beginnings of a cult of relics and a tradition of pilgrimage to places where Cakradhar had been; it tells of the composition of early scriptures; and it depicts the attempt to create the forms - the rituals and rules - by which to perpetuate a teaching that had originally opposed such forms. In this volume, two of the foremost scholars of Maharashtrian religion not only provide readers with the first complete translation of Smrtisthal but also offer an extensive introduction and three indexes, illuminating a series of features important both to the history of this particular sect and to the general history of religions. Anne Feldhaus and Shankar Gopal Tulpule show that in its detailed depiction of the formation of the Mahanubhav sect, Smrtisthal contributes in an especially significant way to understanding the manner in which various branches of thc Hindu bhakti movement became established. In doing so, they also speak to more universal questions concerning how religious traditions begin and become established, particularly those that trace their origins to a movement away from the accepted canons and conventions of the day.

In the Absence of God: The Early Years of an Indian Sect

Tulpule, Shankar Gopal

Univ of Hawaii Pr

The Religious System of the Mahanubhava Sect: The Mahanubhava Sutrapatha

Manohar Books

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Books by Feldhaus, Anne

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Feldhaus, Anne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Deeds of God in Rddhipur

Pastoral Deities in Western India

Water and Womanhood: Religious Meanings of Rivers in Maharashtra

Water and Womanhood: Religious Meanings of Rivers in Maharashtra

A Dictionary of Old Marathi (South Asia Research)

Speaking Truth to Power: Religion Caste, and the Subaltern Question in India

Rise of a Folk God: Vitthal of Pandharpur (South Asia Research)

In the Absence of God: The Early Years of an Indian Sect

The Religious System of the Mahanubhava Sect: The Mahanubhava Sutrapatha