India: A Sacred Geography

الغلاف الأمامي
Harmony/Rodale, 27‏/03‏/2012 - 576 من الصفحات
In India: A Sacred Geography, renowned Harvard scholar Diana Eck offers an extraordinary spiritual journey through the pilgrimage places of the world's most religiously vibrant culture and reveals that it is, in fact, through these sacred pilgrimages that India’s very sense of nation has emerged.
 
No matter where one goes in India, one will find a landscape in which mountains, rivers, forests, and villages are elaborately linked to the stories of the gods and heroes of Indian culture. Every place in this vast landscape has its story, and conversely, every story of Hindu myth and legend has its place. Likewise, these places are inextricably tied to one another—not simply in the past, but in the present—through the local, regional, and transregional practices of pilgrimage.
 
India: A Sacred Geography tells the story of the pilgrim’s India. In these pages, Diana Eck takes the reader on an extraordinary spiritual journey through the living landscape of this fascinating country –its mountains, rivers, and seacoasts, its ancient and powerful temples and shrines.  Seeking to fully understand the sacred places of pilgrimage from the ground up, with their stories, connections and layers of meaning, she acutely examines Hindu religious ideas and narratives and shows how they have been deeply inscribed in the land itself.  Ultimately, Eck shows us that from these networks of pilgrimage places, India’s very sense of region and nation has emerged. This is the astonishing and fascinating picture of a land linked for centuries not by the power of kings and governments, but by the footsteps of pilgrims.
 
India: A Sacred Geography offers a unique perspective on India, both as a complex religious culture and as a nation. Based on her extensive knowledge and her many decades of wide-ranging travel and research, Eck's piercing insights and a sweeping grasp of history ensure that this work will be in demand for many years to come.
 

المحتوى

CHAPTERI A SACRED GEOGRAPHY AN IMAGINED LANDSCAPE
1
WHAT IS INDIA?
43
Rose APPLE ISLAND INDIA IN THE LOTUS OF THE WORLD
107
THE GANGĀ AND THE RIVERS OF INDIA
131
Shivas LIGHT IN THE LAND OF INDIA
189
SHAKTI THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE BODY OF THE GODDESS
257
VISHNU ENDLESS AND DESCENDING
301
THE LAND AND STORY OF KRISHNA
347
THE RĀMĀYANA ON THE LANDSCAPE OF INDIA
399
CHAPTERIO A PILGRIMS INDIA TODAY
441
Acknowledgments
457
Glossary
461
Bibliography
475
Notes
493
Index
541
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نبذة عن المؤلف (2012)

DIANA L. ECK is professor of comparative religion and Indian studies at Harvard University and is Master of Lowell House and Director of the Pluralism Project. Her book Banaras, City of Light, remains a classic in the field, and Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras won the prestigious Grawemeyer Book Award. In 1998, President Clinton awarded her the National Humanities Medal for the work of the Pluralism Project in the investigation of America's changing religious landscape.

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