The Indian System of Human Marks

The Indian System of Human Marks
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 970
Release: 2015-12-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004299823

In The Indian System of Human Marks, Zysk offers a literary history of the Indian system of knowledge, which details divination by means of the marks on the bodies of both men and women. In addition to a historical analysis, the work includes texts and translations of the earliest treatises in Sanskrit. This is followed by a detailed philological analysis of the texts and annotations to the translations. The history follows the Indian system’s evolution from its roots in ancient Mesopotamian collections of omen on the human body to modern-day practice in Rajasthan in the north and Tamilnadu in the south. A special feature of the book is Zysk’s edition and translation of the earliest textual collection of the system in the Gargīyajyotiṣa from the 1st century CE. The system of human marks is one of the few Indian textual sources that links ancient India with the antique cultures of Mesopotamia and Greece.

Visualizing the invisible with the human body

Visualizing the invisible with the human body
Author: J. Cale Johnson
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 504
Release: 2019-11-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110642689

Physiognomy and ekphrasis are two of the most important modes of description in antiquity and represent the necessary precursors of scientific description. The primary way of divining the characteristics and fate of an individual, whether inborn or acquired, was to observe the patient’s external characteristics and behaviour. This volume focuses initially on two types of descriptive literature in Mesopotamia: physiognomic omens and what we might call ekphrastic description. These modalities are traced through ancient India, Ugaritic and the Hebrew Bible, before arriving at the physiognomic features of famous historical figures such as Themistocles, Socrates or Augustus in the Graeco-Roman world, where physiognomic discussions become intertwined with typological analyses of human characters. The Arabic compendial culture absorbed and remade these different physiognomic and ekphrastic traditions, incorporating both Mesopotamian links between physiognomy and medicine and the interest in characterological ‘types’ that had emerged in the Hellenistic period. This volume offer the first wide-ranging picture of these modalities of description in antiquity.

Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies

Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies
Author: Sonja Brentjes
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 876
Release: 2023-01-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351692690

The Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies provides a comprehensive survey on science in the Islamic world from the 8th to the 19th century. Across six sections, a group of subject experts discuss and analyze scientific practices across a wide range of Islamicate societies. The authors take into consideration several contexts in which science was practiced, ranging from intellectual traditions and persuasions to institutions, such as courts, schools, hospitals, and observatories, to the materiality of scientific practices, including the arts and craftsmanship. Chapters also devote attention to scientific practices of minority communities in Muslim majority societies, and Muslim minority groups in societies outside the Islamicate world, thereby allowing readers to better understand the opportunities and constraints of scientific practices under varying local conditions. Through replacing Islam with Islamicate societies, the book opens up ways to explain similarities and differences between diverse societies ruled by Muslim dynasties. This handbook will be an invaluable resource for both established academics and students looking for an introduction to the field. It will appeal to those involved in the study of the history of science, the history of ideas, intellectual history, social or cultural history, Islamic studies, Middle East and African studies including history, and studies of Muslim communities in Europe and South and East Asia.

Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India

Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India
Author: Kenneth G. Zysk
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass
Total Pages: 288
Release: 1998-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 8120815076

The rich Indian medical tradition is usually traced back to Sanskrit sources, the earliest of which cannot much antedate the common era. In this book, Kenneth Zysk shows that Buddhist scriptures some centuries older than this contain abundant information about medical practice, and are our earliest evidence for a rational approach to medicine in India. He argues that Buddhism and the medical tradition were mutually supportive: that Buddhist monks and people associated with them contributed to the development of medicine, while their skills as physical, as well as spiritual healers, enhanced their reputation and popular support. Drawing on a wide range of textual, archaeological, and secondary sources, Zysk first presents an overview of the history of Indian Medicine in its religious context. He then examines primary literature from the Pali Buddhist Canon and from the Sanskrit treatises of Bhela, Caraka, and susruta. By a close comparison of these two bodies of literature Zysk convincingly shows how the theories delineated in the medical classics actually became a practice.

Multidisciplinary Approach in Research Area (Volume-1)

Multidisciplinary Approach in Research Area (Volume-1)
Author: Chief Editor- Biplab Auddya, Editor- Prof Deepali Virmani, Shivam Kumar Upadhyay, Lalit Mohan, Pooja Singh, Dr Pallavi Arya, Dr R. Vijayalakshmi
Publisher: The Hill Publication
Total Pages: 74
Release: 2023-12-12
Genre: Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN: 8196679955

Encyclopedia of Hair

Encyclopedia of Hair
Author: Victoria Sherrow
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 560
Release: 2023-03-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

This popular volume on the culture of hair through human history and around the globe has been updated and revised to include even more entries and current information. How we style our hair has the ability to shape the way others perceive us. For example, in 2017, the singer Macklemore denounced his hipster undercut hairstyle, a style that is associated with Hitler Youth and alt-right men, and in 2015, actress Rose McGowan shaved her head in order to take a stance against the traditional Hollywood sex symbol stereotype. This volume examines how hair-or lack thereof-can be an important symbol of gender, class, and culture around the world and through history. Hairstyles have come to represent cultural heritage and memory, and even political leanings, social beliefs, and identity. This second edition builds upon the original volume, updating all entries that have evolved over the last decade, such as by discussing hipster culture in the entries on beards and mustaches and recent medical breakthroughs in hair loss. New entries have been added that look at specific world regions, hair coverings, political symbolism behind certain styles, and other topics.

Words of Destiny

Words of Destiny
Author: Caterina Guenzi
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2021-03-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1438482035

Astrologers play an important role in Indian society, but there are very few studies on their social identity and professional practices. Based on extensive fieldwork carried out in the city of Banaras, Words of Destiny shows how the Brahmanical scholarly tradition of astral sciences (jyotiḥśāstra) described in Sanskrit literature and taught at universities has been adapted and reformulated to meet the needs and questions of educated middle and upper classes in urban India: How to get a career promotion? How to choose the most suitable field of study for children? When is the best moment to move into a new house? The study of astrology challenges ready-made assumptions about the boundaries between "science" and "superstition," "rationality" and "magic." Rather than judging the validity of astrology as a knowledge system, Caterina Guenzi explores astrological counseling as a social practice and how it "works from within" for both astrologers and their clients. She examines the points of view of those who use astrology either as a way of earning their living or as a means through which to solve problems and make decisions, concluding that, because astrology combines mathematical calculations and astronomical observations with ritual practices, it provides educated urban families with an idiom through which modern science and devotional Hinduism can be subsumed.

Castalia: Studies in Indo-European Linguistics, Mythology, and Poetics

Castalia: Studies in Indo-European Linguistics, Mythology, and Poetics
Author: Laura Massetti
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2023-05-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004538283

Since the beginning of Indo-European Studies, linguists have attempted to reconstruct aspects of the Indo-European traditions that go beyond the ‘atomic’ dimensions of related languages, such as inherited aspects of Indo-European texts and traits shared by cognate pantheons and narratives. The chapters in this volume address these very aspects of cultural reconstruction. Interdisciplinary case-studies on poetic features, religion and mythology of several ancient Indo-European languages (Ancient Greek, Latin and Italic, Hittite, Phrygian, Sanskrit, Avestan, Old Norse, Old Irish and Old Russian) work at the intersection of linguistic reconstruction and philology. The results of these investigations shed new light on a variety of aspects, ranging from obscure etymologies to the reconstruction of the genetic link among entire Indo-European myths.

Methods in Buddhist Studies

Methods in Buddhist Studies
Author: Scott A. Mitchell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2019-06-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1350046884

Both a demonstration of and critical self-reflection on method, this book explores how methodologies shape our understanding of the diversity of Buddhist traditions in the past and the present. International contributors from the West and Asia explore case studies and reflect on methods in the study of Buddhism, united in their debt to Richard K. Payne, the influential Buddhist studies scholar. Methods in Buddhist Studies features new translations of Buddhist works as well as ethnographic studies on contemporary Buddhism in the United States and China. Topics discussed include Buddhist practices in relation to food, material culture, and imperial rituals; the development of modern Buddhist universities; the construction of the canon from the perspective of history, textual analysis, and ritual studies; and the ethical obligations of scholars toward the subject of Buddhism itself. Chapters are drawn from Payne's students and his colleagues, demonstrating the breadth of his intellectual interests. Payne's scholarship has left a remarkable impact on the field, making this volume essential reading for students and scholars of contemporary Buddhism and Buddhist studies.