Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices - Couverture rigide

Lipner, Julius

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0415051819 ISBN 13 : 9780415051811

Editeur : Routledge, 1994

Synopsis

'Hinduism' is a vastly complex phenomenon, a world religion with a history of over 3000 years. It has produced men and women who have made outstanding contributions across the range of civilised human behaviour, and played a crucial part in the rise of two other great religions - Buddhism and Sikhism. Julius Lipner was born and raised in India and is able to draw on his own experience of Hindu beliefs and practices to explain what it means to be Hindu in a changing world. Hindus examines the religion as a plural phenomenon - that is, as a family of religions, rather than a monolithic entity. The approach is thematic, and the author considers various topics - such as the status of women - in more than one place and from more than one angle. He also tells and sometimes analyses Hindu stories, stressing the narrative quality of Hindu religion and giving us an insight into the nature of the Hindu phenomenon itself. Hindus will be valuable on more than one level: as a source of instruction, as a basis for discussion, seminars amd further study, even as a challenge for further research. It provides a new perspective on what it means to live as a Hindu and enables readers to appreciate this great and marvellous religious phenomenon, its extraordinary richness, and the way it encompasses human experience from the sublime to the ridiculous.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Julius Lipner’s Hindus is widely recognised as essential reading for everyone wishing to understand one of the world’s great religious traditions. Hinduism comprises the religion and culture of the great majority of the people of India, a country tipped to become a world superpower politically, economically and culturally in the course of the present century. The vast array of diverse beliefs and practices usually described as ‘Hindu’ has been notoriously difficult to corral under a single regulating theme. Julius Lipner provides not only a wide-ranging introduction to Hindu religious and cultural diversity but also suggests a way to characterize Hinduism as a distinct tradition that has survived and adapted to changing circumstances from ancient times to the present day. Lipner is a recognised authority on Hinduism's polycentric emphasis, and his book is based on a lifetime of research and personal experience of his subject.

In this thoroughly revised and substantially enlarged second edition, students of Hinduism will find more coverage of the debate about Hindu origins, the nature and practice of Hindu worship, the role of women, the scope of dharma and morality, Hindu philosophical thought and the use of reason, and the way caste functions.

Biographie de l'auteur

Julius Lipner is Professor in Hinduism and the Comparative Study of Religion at the University of Cambridge. He was born and brought up in India where he experienced and learned about Hinduism at first hand. Among his books are The Face of Truth (on Ramanuja), Hindu Ethics: Purity, Abortion and Euthanasia; and Brahmabandhab Upadhyay: the Life and Thought of a Revolutionary. He is the author of the keynote article in The Hindu World (Routledge 2004), ‘On Hinduism and Hinduisms’.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Date d'édition: 1994
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0415051819
• ISBN 13: 9780415051811
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 392
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible