Hardy and the Rasa Theory

Hardy and the Rasa Theory
Author: Rama Kant Sharma
Publisher: Sarup & Sons
Total Pages: 142
Release: 2003
Genre: Aesthetics, Indic
ISBN: 9788176253772

Thomas Hardy, 1840-1928, English novelist and poet.

Modern Indian Literature as Cosmopolis

Modern Indian Literature as Cosmopolis
Author: Didier Coste
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2024-10-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1040130429

This book redefines modern Indian literature from a cosmopolitan comparative perspective inclusive of literature in English from India and the diaspora, in native languages, and works by non-Indians. It shows how, since the mid-19th century, Indian literary modernity pursued the conjunction of the sensuous and ethical/spiritual that characterized its three traditions (Sanskritik, Persian, and folk culture) while the encounter, both receptive and oppositional, with “the West” vastly expanded the Indian literary sphere. Aesthetics and ethics are not antithetical in the Indian cultural space, but the quest for an exclusive Indian identity versus universalist approaches offsets concerns for social justice as well as enjoyable embodied communication. The literary constellation, in many languages, now formed in and around India can be better apprehended as a virtual Cosmopolis, a commonwealth of elaborate emotions. The versatile figure of Hanuman metaphorically flies across this Ocean of Stories to make us discover new worlds of experience.

Rasa Theory in Shakespearian Tragedies

Rasa Theory in Shakespearian Tragedies
Author: Swapna Koshy
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2020-11-25
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1000245411

This book adds a unique eastern perspective to the ever growing corpus of Shakespeare criticism. The ancient Sanskrit theory of Rasa – the aesthete’s emotional response to performing arts – is explicated in detail and applied to Shakespeare’s tragic masterpieces. Bharata, who wrote about Rasa in the Natyasastra, developed detailed guidelines for the communication of emotion from author to actor and then to the audience culminating in a sublime aesthetic experience. Though chronologically Bharata is as ancient as Aristotle, thematically, his ideas are as relevant today as Aristotle’s is and often echo those of the Greek master. This cross–cultural study on the communication of emotions in art establishes that emotions are universal and their communication follows similar patterns in all climes. The Rasa theory is today applied to modern media like film and has found a place among audience centric communication theories. This volume extends the East-West dialogue in aesthetic theory by identifying parallels and points of deviation and delights both aesthete and critic alike.

Caitanya Vaisnava Philosophy

Caitanya Vaisnava Philosophy
Author: Ravi M. Gupta
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2016-04-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317170172

In the sixteenth century, the saint and scholar Sri Caitanya set in motion a wave of devotion to Krishna that began in eastern India and has now found its way around the world. Caitanya taught that the highest aim of life is to develop selfless love for God Krishna, the blue-hued cowherd boy who spoke the Bhagavad Gita. Although only a handful of poetry is attributed to Caitanya, his devotional theology was expounded and systematized by his followers in a vast array of poetical, philosophical, and ritual literature. This book provides a thematic study of Caitanya Vaishnava philosophy, introducing key thinkers and ideas in the early tradition, using Sanskrit and Bengali sources that have seldom been studied in English. The book addresses major areas of the tradition, including epistemology, ontology, aesthetics, ethics, and history, and every chapter includes relevant readings from primary sources.

Krishna's Musicians

Krishna's Musicians
Author: Anne-Marie Gaston
Publisher:
Total Pages: 368
Release: 1997
Genre: Music
ISBN:

Many Arts In Traditional India Were The Preserve Of Hereditary Practitioners, Some Of Whom Are Still Supported By Hindu Temples. An Example Is The Community Of Hereditary Musicans (Kirtankars), Who Still Serve In The Temples Of The Vallabha Sampraday, A Vaishnava Sect With Its Main Centre In Nathdvara, Rajasthan. This Book Deals With The Role Of Music In The Sampraday And With The Lives Of The Musicians. It Is Concerned With The Living Tradition, And What It Can Tell Us About The Past. By Revealing The Context In Which Music Was Created In Nathdvara, It Provides New Insights Into The Functioning Of Traditional Artist Communities And Their Response To The Challenges Of A Changing World.

The Devotional Poetry of Svāmī Haridās

The Devotional Poetry of Svāmī Haridās
Author: Lucy L. Rosenstein
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2023-07-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004646655

The 16th-century North Indian religious devotee, poet and musician, Svāmī Haridās, composed lyrics in Braj Bhāṣā, dedicated to the divine couple Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. One hundred twenty-eight of them were later compiled in two anthologies: the didactic Aṣṭādaś siddhānta and the rapturous Kelimāl, and became the theological basis of the Haridāsī sampradāya, a sect which still flourishes in Vrindaban, U.P. Neither of these important works has hitherto been edited, properly translated or studied academically. The focus of this book is the text of Haridās’s poetry: its transmission, edition and interpretation. Sixteen 18th-19th century manuscripts are collated for the edition and classified with the help of computer programmes originally employed in taxonomy. The apparatus criticus is followed by an annotated English translation in which readings are assessed and points of linguistic interest discussed. The language of Haridās’s text is thoroughly examined, and a comprehensive etymological glossary is included to enhance our knowledge of Braj. Going beyond textual criticism, the book sets Haridās’s verses in a broader context. The introductory chapter discusses the theological views of the Haridāsī tradition against the background of bhakti, analyses the sources of information about Haridās, and attempts to reconstruct his life. Since Haridās’s lyrics were composed to be sung some of their musical features are analysed. The text of the Kelimāl is also examined through the sectarian concerns of its main commentaries. This study will be an important source of information to all scholars of Braj language and Kṛṣṇa devotionalism.

Bhakti Ethics, Emotions, and Love in Gau?iya Vai??ava Metaethics

Bhakti Ethics, Emotions, and Love in Gau?iya Vai??ava Metaethics
Author: Cogen Bohanec
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2024-07-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1666943355

Bhakti Ethics, Emotions, and Love in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Metaethics explores the broader implications of understanding bhakti, “devotional love to the divine,” as an ethical theory based on a “realist” account of emotions, where emotions are sensory perceptions of the real ethical qualities of classes of actions. The book spotlights one complex articulation of an Indian epistemology and ontology of ethics based on the metaphysics of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava psychology of emotions in dialogue with a variety of academic fields, including the philosophy of religion and related methodologies such as virtue ethics, theological voluntarism, and ecofeminist and feminist care ethics. The work discusses how emotions are understood metaphysically as extra-mental, objectively real qualities, what Cogen Bohanec refers to as “affective realism.” This follows from a cosmogenic model where the universe emanates from the loving relationship between the divine feminine, Rādhā, and her intense loving relationship with her masculine counterpart, Kṛṣṇa. Since the origin of all of reality emanates from the ultimacy of an affective relationship, then the fabric of reality can be described as having objectively real affective qualities and that is the basis for grounding this ethical system.

Thomas Hardy's Novel Universe

Thomas Hardy's Novel Universe
Author: Pamela Gossin
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2007
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780754603368

In the first book-length study of astronomy in Hardy's writing, historian of science and literary scholar Pamela Gossin offers complex and inspired readings of seven novels that enrich previous Darwinian, feminist and formalist perspectives on his work. S