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In Divination in Exile , Alexander K. Smith offers the first comprehensive scholarly introduction to the performance of divination in Tibetan speaking communities, both past and present. While Smith surveys a variety of ritual practices, the volume focuses on divination and its associated rites in the contemporary Tibetan Bon tradition. Drawing from multi-site ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Himachal Pradesh and the translation of previously unpublished Tibetan language materials, Divination in Exile offers a valuable, social scientific contribution to our understanding of the perception and usage of ritual manuscripts in contemporary Tibetan cultural milieus.
Bon (Tibetan religion) --- Rituals. --- Himachal Pradesh (India) --- Himācala Pradeśa (India) --- Chamba (Princely State) --- Religious life and customs.
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Mahasu is the joint name of four gods whose influence is widespread throughout the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Like other deities in the Western Himalayas, they are regarded as royal gods who rule over territories and people. This book traces changes in faith and practices surrounding the Mahasu brothers, and shows how the locals understand these changes by emphasizing the dominant role of humans in the decisions of the gods. The locals are also constantly testing the authenticity of the human mediumship. Thus, the book presents the claim that the gap between local conceptions of divinity and the perceptions of anthropologists regarding gods may be narrower than we think. The Biography of a God: Mahasu in the Himalayas is based on ethnographic research, resulting in an important contribution to the study of Indian village deities, Himalayan Hinduism, lived Hinduism, and the anthropology of religion.
Anthropology. --- Deities, agency, Western Himalaya. --- Folk religion --- Hindu gods --- Hindu mythology --- Folklore --- Himachal Pradesh (India) --- Religious life and customs.
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While numerous studies exist on major South-Asian temples, surprisingly little is known about ‘minor shrines’ and ‘lesser states’. Here fifty-five new documents, in a western-Himalayan script and language, and belonging to a small Siddha shrine, redress this remarkable gap in our knowledge. The documents cover a wide spectrum—from revenue grants to those dealing with ritual, pilgrimage, legality and temple-economy—thus building a picture of the relationship between state and shrine, and particularly so for the minor centres: their popularity and relationship with major temples; mundane matters; notices, petitions, and law-suits. It becomes clear how ‘lesser states’, despite their limited resources, patronized numerous small shrines, along with major temples; and the role played by the Nath-Siddha-ascetics in creating consent-to-rule, acculturation, and constructing hybridity between the Hindu and Tibetan-Buddhist traditions.
Hinduism and state --- Nātha sect --- Hindu sects --- State and Hinduism --- State, The --- History --- Sources. --- Charpatnath (Shrine : Chamba, India) --- Chamba (Princely State) --- Chamba, India (State) --- Chamba (India : District) --- Himachal Pradesh (India) --- Natha sect
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Religion is often viewed as a universally ancient element of the human inheritance, but in the Western Himalayas the community of Himachal Pradesh discovered its religion only after India became an independent secular state. Based on extensive ethnographic and archival work, Becoming Religious in a Secular Age tells the story of this discovery and how it transformed a community's relations to its past and to its members, as well as to those outside the community. And, as Mark Elmore demonstrates, Himachali religion offers a unique opportunity to reimagine relations between religion and secularity. Elmore shows that modern secularity is not so much the eradication of religion as the very condition for its development. Showing us that to become a modern, ethical subject is to become religious, this book creatively augments our understanding of both religion and modernity.
RELIGION / Religion, Politics & State. --- Himachal Pradesh (India) --- Himācala Pradeśa (India) --- Chamba (Princely State) --- Religion --- academic. --- archival. --- colonialism. --- colony. --- community. --- conversion. --- development. --- eastern religion. --- eastern world. --- ethics. --- ethnography. --- himachal pradesh. --- himalayas. --- independence. --- india. --- indian independence. --- modern world. --- modernity. --- religion. --- religious awakening. --- religious convert. --- religious studies. --- research. --- scholarly. --- secular world. --- secular. --- self discovery. --- social studies. --- transformation. --- world history. --- world religion.
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