Category Archives: Hinduism

April 25, 2014 · 3:47 am

War Magic under scrutiny: Doug Farrer organises forays into the lesser known via SOCIAL ANALYSIS

ZELJKO and Shaman  shamanic rites in the Amazon – Zeljko Jokic

SOCIAL ANALYSIS   Volume 58 • Issue 1 • Spring 2014

SPECIAL ISSUE: WAR MAGIC AND WARRIOR RELIGION: SORCERY, COGNITION, AND EMBODIMENT
Edited by D. S. Farrer

ARTICLES

Introduction: Cross-Cultural Articulations of War Magic and Warrior Religion
D. S. Farrer

Tangki War Magic: The Virtuality of Spirit Warfare and the Actuality of Peace
Margaret Chan

Javanese Kanuragan for Invulnerability, Social Status, and Spiritual Improvement
Jean-Marc de Grave

Discourse of Decline: Local Perspectives on Magic in Highland Jambi, Indonesia
J. David Neidel

Encompassing Empowerment in Ritual, War, and Assassination: Tantric Principles in Tamil Tiger Instrumentalities
Michael Roberts

Shamanic Battleground: Magic, Sorcery, and Warrior Shamanism in Venezuela
Željko Jokić

Chants of Re-enchantment: Chamorro Spiritual Resistance to Colonial Domination
D. S. Farrer and James D. Sellmann

War Magic and Just War in Indian Tantric Buddhism
Iain Sinclair Continue reading →

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August 17, 2013 · 5:23 am

Shulman’s Exploration of the Imagination in the South Indian Cultural World

Steven P. Hopkins, … a longer version of a review in South Asian History and Culture, vol. 3, no. 4, July 2013, pp. 424-26 (see below)

Coming away from a close reading of this remarkable book one cannot help feeling much like the bemused lover in Ativīrarāmaṉ’s 16th century Tenkasi Tamil poem on the tale of Nala and Damayantī.  The goose messenger has just described in vivid imaginative detail the body of Nala’s beloved, almost placing her “before his very eyes,” when he wonders aloud: “Seeing through the mind [thought, imagination] of a true friend is really seeing (mēyt tuṇaiyār karunttiṉāṟ kāndale kāṇṭa)” (186). Seeing the histories of South Indian literatures through the singularly perceptive and creative mind of David Shulman is, indeed, “really seeing.”  And what we have before our eyes in Shulman’s seeing is an exhaustive and deeply nuanced work of scholarship on the nature of the “imagination” in India.

david_shulman_na_web David Shulman Continue reading →

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