The sacred in the Indian tradition is more an experience than a concept and goes much beyond the narrow confines of an organized temple or even a shrine. The gods of this tradition, as well as those who hold them sacred, are simple and unpretentious yet dignified and self-assured. Whether it is a tree that is held sacred or a naturally occurring stone that is revered, a river that is the embodiment of divinity itself, an ancestor that is worshipped, a fabric that is simply draped, a road side shrine on a busy street or a votive terracotta horse that is lovingly made and offered, a narrative scroll that holds its audience spell-bound; here is religion at work that is as spontaneous as it is intense, charged with faith, fervor and commitment; now private and now shared, that forms an integral part of the lived lives of these common people, be they rural or urban, tribal or traditional. The rituals and practices for these deities are neither scripted nor canonized, but what they may lack in grandeur, erudition and ceremony they more than make up in the faith and feeling that they generate. In a civilization which has encountered majestic truths and erected grand temples, these sacred manifestations and expressions of the ordinary people tend to be sidelined or dismissed by scholars as well as the world at large, as minor or lesser gods worthy of curiousity but not of serious study, but it is important to remember that they have a beauty and presence of their own in the pluralistic Indian tradition. What the contributors of this study have tried to do is to examine and present such representative objects that can be understood under the rubric of gods beyond temples.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Harsha V Dehejia
Harsha V. Dehejia has a double doctorate, one in Medicine and the other in Ancient Indian Culture, both from Mumbai University. He is also a Member of the Royal College of Physicians of London and Glasgow and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada, all by examination. He is a practising Physician in Ottawa and also Adjunct Professor in the College of Humanities of Carleton University in Ottawa. His special interest is in Indian Aesthetics. His publications include: Advaita of Art, Parvatidarpana, Despair and Modernity, Gods Beyond Temples and Leaves of a Pipal Tree (all by Motilal Banarasidass, Delhi); Parvati: Goddess of Love, The Flute and The Lotus: Romantic Moments in Poetry and Painting and Celebrating Krishna: Sensuous Images, Sacred Words (all by Mapin, Ahmedabad); A Celebration of Love: The Romantic Heroine in the Indian Arts and A Festival of Krishna (both by Roli, Delhi).
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Bibliographic information
Title
Gods Beyond Temples
Author
Edition
1st ed.
Publisher
ISBN
8120829638
Length
271p., Plates; Figures; 23cm.
Subjects
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