Himalayan Histories

Himalayan Histories
Author: Chetan Singh
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2018-12-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1438475233

Himalayan Histories, by one of India's most reputed historians of the Himalaya, is essential for a more complete understanding of Indian history. Because Indian historians have mainly studied riverine belts and life in the plains, sophisticated mountain histories are relatively rare. In this book, Chetan Singh identifies essential aspects of the material, mental, and spiritual world of western Himalayan peasant society. Human enterprise and mountainous terrain long existed in a precarious balance, occasionally disrupted by natural adversity, in this large and difficult region. Small peasant communities lived in scattered environmental niches and tenaciously extracted from their harsh surroundings a rudimentary but sustainable livelihood. These communities were integral constituents of larger political economies that asserted themselves through institutions of hegemonic control, the state being one such institution. This laboriously created life-world was enlivened by myth, folklore, legend, and religious tradition. When colonial rule was established in the region during the nineteenth century, it transformed the peasants' relationship with their natural surroundings. While old political allegiances were weakened, resilient customary hierarchies retained their influence through religio-cultural practices.

Himalayan Histories

Himalayan Histories
Author: Chetan Singh
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2018-12-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1438475217

A rare look at the history of Himalayan peasant society and the relationship between culture and environment in the Himalayas. Himalayan Histories, by one of India’s most reputed historians of the Himalaya, is essential for a more complete understanding of Indian history. Because Indian historians have mainly studied riverine belts and life in the plains, sophisticated mountain histories are relatively rare. In this book, Chetan Singh identifies essential aspects of the material, mental, and spiritual world of western Himalayan peasant society. Human enterprise and mountainous terrain long existed in a precarious balance, occasionally disrupted by natural adversity, in this large and difficult region. Small peasant communities lived in scattered environmental niches and tenaciously extracted from their harsh surroundings a rudimentary but sustainable livelihood. These communities were integral constituents of larger political economies that asserted themselves through institutions of hegemonic control, the state being one such institution. This laboriously created life-world was enlivened by myth, folklore, legend, and religious tradition. When colonial rule was established in the region during the nineteenth century, it transformed the peasants’ relationship with their natural surroundings. While old political allegiances were weakened, resilient customary hierarchies retained their influence through religio-cultural practices.

Himalaya

Himalaya
Author: Ed Douglas
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2020-08-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1473546141

'Magnificent ... this book is unlikely to be surpassed' Telegraph This is the first major history of the Himalaya: an epic story of peoples, cultures and adventures among the world's highest mountains. SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 DUFF COOPER PRIZE An epic story of peoples, cultures and adventures among the world's highest mountains: here Jesuit missionaries exchanged technologies with Tibetan Lamas, Mongol Khans employed Nepali craftsmen, Armenian merchants exchanged musk and gold with Mughals. Featuring scholars and tyrants, bandits and CIA agents, go-betweens and revolutionaries, Himalaya is a panoramic, character-driven history on the grandest but also the most human scale, by far the most comprehensive yet written, encompassing geology and genetics, botany and art, and bursting with stories of courage and resourcefulness. 'Magisterial' The Times 'His observations are sharp...his writing glows' New York Review of Books SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2021 BOARDMAN TASKER AWARD FOR MOUNTAIN LITERATURE

Himalaya

Himalaya
Author: Richard C. Blum
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780792261926

Both a magnificent celebration and a call for compassion, Himalaya is a panorama of the unique history and uncertain future of the world's highest region and its colorful inhabitants. The awesome beauty of these lofty peaks, including Everest, Kanchenjunga, and Annapurna, is brought to life by gifted photographers like Steve McCurry, Art Wolfe, and many more, while such notable contributors as Jimmy Carter, the Dalai Lama, Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay, and over two dozen others share vivid personal tales of Himalayan life, recount their efforts to encourage hope and opportunity, and emphasize the urgent need to preserve the vibrant variety of these ancient landscapes and cultures as they face the mixed blessings of the modern world. The book begins by introducing the region: its astonishing biodiversity, its mountaineering history, its rich ethnic heritage, and the interplay between two major religions, Hinduism and Buddhism. Himalaya addresses challenges to these mountainous domains: political turmoil, population growth, touristic demands, and ecological stresses. Finally, a compelling conclusion comes in the stories of doctors, conservationists, environmentalists, and volunteers of every kind, whose efforts provide a global model for practical results and lasting relief, still respecting, honoring, and protecting the magic of a place unlike any other on Earth.

Kailas Histories

Kailas Histories
Author: Alex McKay
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 550
Release: 2015-10-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004306188

Tibet’s Mount Kailas is one of the world’s great pilgrimage centres, renowned as an ancient sacred site that embodies a universal sacrality. But Kailas Histories: Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred Geography demonstrates that this understanding is a recent construction by British colonial, Hindu modernist, and New Age interests. Using multiple sources, including fieldwork, Alex McKay describes how the early Indic vision of a heavenly mountain named Kailas became identified with actual mountains. He emphasises renunciate agency in demonstrating how local beliefs were subsumed as Kailas developed within Hindu, Buddhist, and Bön traditions, how five mountains in the Indian Himalayan are also named Kailas, and how Kailas sacred geography constructions and a sacred Ganges source region were related.

Fallen Giants

Fallen Giants
Author: Maurice Isserman
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 592
Release: 2010-01-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0300164203

In the first comprehensive history of Himalayan mountaineering in 50 years, the authors offer detailed, original accounts of the most significant climbs since the 1890s, and they compellingly evoke the social and cultural worlds that gave rise to those expeditions.

Hidden Lands in Himalayan Myth and History

Hidden Lands in Himalayan Myth and History
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2020-11-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004437681

Hidden Lands in Himalayan Myth and History showcases recent scholarship, photo essays, maps, and translations about hidden lands (sbas yul) across the Himalaya, from historical and contemporary perspectives.

On the Himalayan Trail

On the Himalayan Trail
Author: Romy Gill
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
Total Pages: 598
Release: 2022-04-14
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 1784885088

Winner of the 2023 International Association of Culinary Professionals Award for best Culinary Travel Cookbook 'The heart and soul of beautiful Kashmir is in every single recipe. Simply stunning.' – Gordon Ramsay In On The Himalayan Trail Indian food writer and chef, Romy Gill, tells the story of Kashmir and Ladakh’s unique and tantalising cuisine sharing over 80 extraordinary recipes that can be recreated in your own home kitchen. With everything from Shammi Kebabs (minced lamb patties) to Wagen Pakora (deep fried aubergine in gram flour) for Nashta (starters) succulent meat curries like the Kashmiri Rogan Josh or Gustaba (lamb meatballs cooked in a yoghurt gravy); to aromatic vegetable dishes such as the Kanguch yakhni (morels cooked in spicy gravy): these recipes shines a light on the magnificent, little-known cuisine of Kashmir and Leh, celebrating its land, its ingredients and its heritage. Kashmiri cuisine is one of the most delectable cuisines in India. Heavily influenced by Mughal, Persian, Afghan and Central Asian styles of cooking, it offers up a diverse range of dishes, displaying and revelling in a fusion of flavours and influences. Increasingly difficult to access due to the political uncertainty in the region, it’s more important than ever to share and preserve Kashmir’s secrets and traditional methods of cooking. Set to the backdrop of the snow-capped Himalayas, with stunning travel photography throughout, this first-of-its-kind book, offers an intimate window into the life and the history of the Kashmiri and Ladakhi people, and why food is at the heart of this incredible place.

Of Myths and Movements

Of Myths and Movements
Author: Haripriya Rangan
Publisher: Verso
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781859843055

Rangan appraises the grassroots social resistance within its cultural context to scrutinize the myths surrounding indigenous 'tree huggers'.

Among Tibetan Texts

Among Tibetan Texts
Author: E. Gene Smith
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2001-06-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0861711793

For three decades, E. Gene Smith ran the Library of Congress's Tibetan Text Publication Project of the United States Public Law 480 (PL480) - an effort to salvage and reprint the Tibetan literature that had been collected by the exile community or by members of the Bhotia communities of Sikkim, Bhutan, India, and Nepal. Smith wrote prefaces to these reprinted books to help clarify and contextualize the particular Tibetan texts: the prefaces served as rough orientations to a poorly understood body of foreign literature. Originally produced in print quantities of twenty, these prefaces quickly became legendary, and soon photocopied collections were handed from scholar to scholar, achieving an almost cult status. These essays are collected here for the first time. The impact of Smith's research on the academic study of Tibetan literature has been tremendous, both for his remarkable ability to synthesize diverse materials into coherent accounts of Tibetan literature, history, and religious thought, and for the exemplary critical scholarship he brought to this field.