Dance to Freedom uncovers the untold tales of tawaifs, unrecognized heroes in India's fight for independence. Highlighting their vital contribution to the freedom movement, this book showcases their artistic brilliance and resilience against British oppression. It celebrates their enduring influence on Indian culture and politics, serving as a poignant tribute to these forgotten heroes who, through dance and defiance, made an indelible impact on the struggle for freedom. A must-read, this book unveils the untold stories that shaped India's history.

Tawaifs - Pioneers of Dance and Freedom in India

Explore the unheard stories of tawaifs-- a group often overlooked in the narrative of India's struggle for independence. Delve into their art and how it influenced Indian society, their accepted social status, as well as their unjust treatment and marginalization. An insight into the political, socio-cultural, and historical context of India's independence struggle Highlights how tawaifs broke the boundaries of gender roles and used their art to support the freedom movement. A unique perspective on traditional historical narratives.

Critical discussions on Jhumpa Lahiri's works are rampant, but they are confined to her short stories and fictional writings. This book offers a fresh perspective by showing how she gradually shifts her identity from a fiction writer to a non-fiction writer. And, more importantly, her adherence to the 'Italian phase' in academia has not previously been the subject of such a thorough critical investigation. There is a sudden change in her writing and her choice of language; she prefers Italy and the Italian language to English and Bengali. Such spatial as well as linguistic dislocation leads her towards a new space in which she anticipates her freedom of choice, confronts difficulties, and often gets confused, too: to be in Italy or not to be.

What this book seeks to touch upon is how Lahiri's fictional as well as nonfictional writings bring out her and her fictional characters' translational and transnational existence reinforcing her literary motto 'I translate, therefore I am'.

It is of special interest to students as well as scholars of Diaspora and Migration studies.

The role of food and hunger in contemporary South African and Indian environmental writing

From GMOs to vegetarianism and veganism, questions of what we should (and shouldn't) eat can be frequent sources of debate and disagreement. In Precarious Eating, Ben Jamieson Stanley asks how recentering global South representations of food might shift understandings of environmental precarity.

Precarious Eating follows the lead of writers and thinkers in South Africa and India who are tracing the production and consumption of food, exploring ways to reconnect our narratives about climate change, global capitalism, and social justice. Taking up a diverse range of novels, films, scholar/activist writings, intellectual histories, and cookbooks, Stanley connects the ethics of eating to histories of empire and apartheid, uneven globalization, gender and sexuality, and global South experiences of climate change. They shift the lens of environmental humanities from climate-focused paradigms developed in the global North to food-focused environmental culture and activism in the South, addressing topics that range from foraging and farmer suicides to disordered eating and queer intimacy.

By highlighting authors, activists, and environments of the global South, Precarious Eating joins with scholarship from postcolonial, decolonial, Indigenous, and Black studies to underscore how capitalism and empire shape our planetary environmental crisis.

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This research intricately examines the reverberations of the Partition of India in 1947, with a focused exploration into the marginalisation endured by the Muslim community in its aftermath. Through a meticulous historical analysis, the study elucidates the socio-political and cultural forces at play during this pivotal period of Indian history. What sets this research apart is its innovative incorporation of Anita Desai's literary masterpieces, notably Clear Light of Day and In Custody, as a unique vantage point for understanding the Muslim experience post-Partition. Negotiating the complexities of historical and literary analysis presents a notable challenge, as does sensitively addressing the profound ramifications of marginalisation. Methodologically, the research employs a multidisciplinary approach, blending historical research methods with nuanced literary interpretation. The findings unearth the nuanced layers of Muslim marginalisation, shedding light on its subtle yet pervasive manifestations. The research's novelty lies in its interdisciplinary framework, seamlessly weaving together historical inquiry and literary exploration to offer a holistic understanding of the enduring impacts of Partition. Ultimately, this study bears significant implications for academia, fostering cross-disciplinary dialogue and enriching perspectives on the enduring legacy of Partition in India.

Though few translations have had as much impact as Edward Fitzgerald's Rub iy t of Omar Khayy m, anyone who wishes to truly appreciate Omar Khayy m needs to read more than one translation. This volume contains Edward Fitzgerald's classic translation with all its variations, Justin McCarthy's elegant and mystical literal translation and Richard Le Gallienne's sharp and poetic version. For the first time the reader can appreciate the range of Omar Khayy m and his interpreters in a single volume.

This guide to Sanskrit metrics and figures of speech can be used as a workbook for learning how to chant verses. It includes fully-worked examples of the most popular types of verse. The book has six sections: 1. Poetic elements in Sanskrit literature explains the extensive use of verse in Indian texts. 2. Introduction to Metrics gives a clear overview of Sanskrit prosody. 3. A Treasury of Common Meters includes fully-worked examples of verses drawn from many sources. 4. Figures of Speech explains similes, metaphors, and other poetic uses of language. 5. Figures of Sound explains techniques that affect sound, such as rhyme and alliteration. 6. A metrical analysis of the Hathapradipika, the best-known work on Hatha Yoga, is included. An Introduction to the Hathapradipika by Anthony Biduck summarizes key spiritual and philosophical ideas of Hatha Yoga. Includes a Foreword by Consulting Editor Ram Karan Sharma, References, Bibliography, Glossary, Index, and Appendices.

In an age of social media and reality television, reading and consumption habits in India now demand homegrown pulp fictions. Ulka Anjaria categorizes post-2000 Indian literature and popular culture as constituting the contemporary, a movement defined by new and experimental forms--where high- and low-brow meet, and genres break down.

Reading India Now studies the implications of this developing trend as both the right-wing resurges and marginalized voices find expression. Anjaria explores the fiction of Chetan Bhagat and Anuja Chauhan as well as Aamir Khan's television talk show, Satyamev Jayate, plus the work of documentarian Paromita Vohra, to argue how different kinds of texts are involved in imagining new political futures for an India in transition. Contemporary literature and popular culture in India might seem artless and capitalistic, but it is precisely its openness to the world outside that allows these new works to offer significant insight into the experiences and sensibilities of contemporary India.

Buddhism is an ancient tradition that remains highly relevant in today's world.

Buddhism Today provides a comprehensive introduction to Buddhist philosophy, meditation, ethics, and practices - and how to apply them to modern life.

Key topics covered include:

• Brief overview of Buddhism - The life of Buddha, traditions, and Buddha's Teachings.
• Understanding Buddhism - The Four Noble Truths, Eightfold Path, concepts of karma, rebirth, impermanence, and non-self.
• Applying Buddhism Today - Using Buddhist principles for modern challenges like relationships, work technology, environmentalism.
• Buddhist Ethics - Practical guidance for mindful, compassionate living.
• Meditation and Mindfulness - Instructions for building a regular practice.
• Enlightenment and Buddhist Goals - What is enlightenment and how to work towards Buddhist ideals in daily life.

Buddhism Today goes beyond theory to offer actionable ways to apply Buddhist wisdom to contemporary issues. Learn how Buddhist practices like meditation, ethical living and letting go of ego can positively impact your relationships, work, engagement with technology and approach to the environment.

Written in clear, friendly language, Buddhism Today shows how this ancient philosophy remains extremely relevant. It provides tools to reduce anger and anxiety, increase focus and mindfulness, communicate more skilfully, achieve goals rooted in compassion, find inner peace and happiness, and discover greater meaning in the journey of life.

For anyone seeking to understand Buddhism in a modern context and apply its profound wisdom to navigate the complexities of 21st century living, this is an invaluable guide.

During the two difficult decades immediately following the 1947 Indian Independence, a new, commercially successful print culture emerged that articulated alternatives to dominant national narratives. Through what Aakriti Mandhwani defines as middlebrow magazines--like Delhi Press's Saritā--and the first paperbacks in Hindi--Hind Pocket Books--North Indian middle classes cultivated new reading practices that allowed them to reimagine what it meant to be a citizen. Rather than focusing on individual sacrifices and contributions to national growth, this new print culture promoted personal pleasure and other narratives that enabled readers to carve roles outside of official prescriptions of nationalism, austerity, and religion.

Utilizing a wealth of previously unexamined print culture materials, as well as paying careful attention to the production of commercial publishing companies and the reception of ordinary reading practices--particularly those of women--Everyday Reading offers fresh perspectives into book history, South Asian literary studies, and South Asian gender studies.

Despite its popularity in Eastern cultures, and though Eastern and Western scholars alike recognize it as a literary masterpiece, the Ramayana is unknown to most in the West. This edition gives English-speaking readers the best opportunity yet to discover and enjoy this ancient classic.

The Ramayana, perhaps the world's oldest literature, is both a spellbinding adventure and a work of profound philosophy, offering answers to life's deepest questions. It tells of another time when gods and heroes walked among us, facing supernatural forces of evil and receiving guidance from powerful mystics and sages. Revered throughout the ages for its moral and spiritual wisdom, the beautiful and uplifting tale of romance and high adventure recounts the odyssey of Rama, a great king of ancient India. Rama, along with his virtuous, courageous wife Sita and faithful brother Lakshmana, is exiled to the forest for fourteen years. There, Sita is abducted by the powerful demon Ravana. With his brother and a fantastic army of supernatural creatures, Rama embarks on a perilous quest to find his beloved Sita.

The fertile land of the five rivers (punj+ab in Persian) has persistently stirred the imagination of its peoples. Its story is the story of invasion. In 326 BCE Alexander the Great marched through the Hindu Kush, conquered the verdant plains now divided between India and Pakistan, and stamped Greek cultural and linguistic influence on the region. Over the centuries the lure of the Punjab attracted further waves of outsiders: Scythians, Sassanians, Huns, Afghans, Turks, Mughals and - closer to our own times - the British. Many savage battles were fought. But at the same time, as different ethnic and religious groups came together and melded, the collective psyche of the Punjab was coloured by vibrant new patterns, new worldviews and new languages. Punjabi poetry is the dynamic result of these cross-cultural encounters. In her rich and diverse anthology, Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh makes a major contribution to interfaith dialogue and comparative literary studies. Covering the entire spectrum of writers, from the artistic patterns of the first Punjabi poet (Baba Farid, 1173-1265) to feminist author Amrita Pritam (d.
2005), the volume serves as an ideal introduction to the three faiths of Sikhism, Islam and Hinduism. Whether focusing on Sikh gurus or Sufi saints, it boldly illuminates the area's unique character, linguistic rhythms and celebrations, and will have strong appeal to undergraduate students of religion, literature and South Asian studies, as well as general readers.

The Law Code of Manu is the most authoritative and the best-known legal text of ancient India. Famous for fifteen centuries it still generates controversy, with Manu's verses being cited in support of the oppression of women and members of the lower castes. A seminal Hindu text, the Law Code is important for its classic description of so many social institutions that have come to be identified with Indian society. It deals with the relationships between social and ethnic groups, between men and women, the organization of the state and the judicial system, reincarnation, the workings of karma, and all aspects of the law.
Patrick Olivelle's lucid translation is the first to be based on his critically edited text, and it incorporates the most recent scholarship on ancient Indian history, law, society, and religion.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This volume is the first attempt to offer a panoramic historical overview of South Asian classical poetry, especially in Sanskrit. Many of the essays in this volume are the first serious studies of the great masterpieces of South Asian literature. Moreover, the book as a whole captures the millennium-long developmental logic of kavya literature by identifying a series of critical moments of breakthrough and innovation-that is, moments when the basic rules of composition and the aesthetic and poetic goals underwent dramatic change, allowing the tradition to reinvent itself. Individual sections thus focus on the beginnings of kavya literature and Kalidasa's creation of what came to be its classical form; the new poetic model that emerged from the intense competition and conversation of Bharavi and Magha in the middle of the first millennium; the extended revolutionary period in Kanauj, where Bana and his successors reconceived the meaning and practice of Sanskrit poetry; and the no less transformative period at the beginning of the second millennium, when poets of genius such as Sriharsa were active in the context of India's nascent vernacularization. The scope of the volume extends beyond Sanskrit to early modern Hindi, and beyond the subcontinent and the Himalayas to Java and Tibet, where kavya found a new home and continued to evolve. A general introduction proposes a theoretical framework for the study of this immense literary tradition in terms of its continuous self-reinvention.

This comprehensive body of work illuminates the new ways to remember caste and comprehend the enduring anguish it has imposed upon individuals across generations, thereby paving the way for a more informed understanding of its profound impact on Dalit lives throughout the annals of time. This work not only adds depth to the existing discourse but also serves as a catalyst for broader understanding and appreciation of the complexities inherent in Dalit experiences and their representation or (mis)representation. In doing so, the volume challenges the traditional social order's ability to address caste-based discrimination effectively and also makes an attempt to find alternative ways to understand the conundrum of caste. It delves into the necessity of alternative discourse, particularly the significance of Dalit discourse, and hence the imperative need for diverse and inclusive discourses. The volume represents the individual voices of the editors and contributors, who are eminent academics, and provides a more holistic approach to the examination of the socio-economic, cultural and political landscape of the Dalit community in contemporary India. Their contribution enriches the current body of literature on Dalit Studies, with a specific focus on the evolving dynamics within politics, academia, popular culture, digital culture, political economy, ideological perspectives, and representation or (mis)representation, among others. The chapters also demonstrate the profound impact of various modern influences on the lives of the younger generation of Dalits. In doing so, it sheds light on how access to information technology, the pervasive use of social media- digital media, the influential role of music and cinema in cultural resistance, and the discourse of protest politics collectively shape the experiences and perspectives of the young Dalit community. This literary work presents an invaluable opportunity for scholars, researchers, and students, and a methodological aid for classroom adoption for discerning readers to immerse themselves in an exploration of a significant community in India and its multifaceted presence within contemporary literature and culture.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

Language of the Snakes traces the history of the Prakrit language as a literary phenomenon, starting from its cultivation in courts of the Deccan in the first centuries of the common era. Although little studied today, Prakrit was an important vector of the kavya movement and once joined Sanskrit at the apex of classical Indian literary culture. The opposition between Prakrit and Sanskrit was at the center of an enduring language order in India, a set of ways of thinking about, naming, classifying, representing, and ultimately using languages. As a language of classical literature that nevertheless retained its associations with more demotic language practices, Prakrit both embodies major cultural tensions--between high and low, transregional and regional, cosmopolitan and vernacular--and provides a unique perspective onto the history of literature and culture in South Asia.

This book locates the origins of the modern humanities in the philological practices of late 18th-century British scholars in colonial India, offering a radical reappraisal of a range of disciplines and excavating hidden pre-colonial practices that might well help the humanities move beyond their current methodological and political impasses.

Explores the construction of the Aryan myth and its uses in both India and Europe.

In Aryans, Jews, Brahmins, Dorothy M. Figueira provides a fascinating account of the construction of the Aryan myth and its uses in both India and Europe from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century. The myth concerns a race that inhabits a utopian past and gives rise first to Brahmin Indian culture and then to European culture. In India, notions of the Aryan were used to develop a national identity under colonialism, one that allowed Indian elites to identify with their British rulers. It also allowed non-elites to set up a counter identity critical of their position in the caste system. In Europe, the Aryan myth provided certain thinkers with an origin story that could compete with the Biblical one and could be used to diminish the importance of the West's Jewish heritage. European racial hygienists made much of the myth of a pure Aryan race, and the Nazis later looked at India as a cautionary tale of what could happen if a nation did not remain pure.

As Figueira demonstrates, the history of the Aryan myth is also a history of reading, interpretation, and imaginative construction. Initially, the ideology of the Aryan was imposed upon absent or false texts. Over time, it involved strategies of constructing, evoking, or distorting the canon. Each construction of racial identity was concerned with key issues of reading: canonicity, textual accessibility, interpretive strategies of reading, and ideal readers. The book's cross-cultural investigation demonstrates how identities can be and are created from texts and illuminates an engrossing, often disturbing history that arose from these creations.

From the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the major cultures of southern India underwent a revolution in sensibility reminiscent of what had occurred in Renaissance Italy. During this time, the imagination came to be recognized as the defining feature of human beings. More than Real draws our attention to a period in Indian history that signified major civilizational change and the emergence of a new, proto-modern vision.

In general, India conceived of the imagination as a causative agent: things we perceive are real because we imagine them. David Shulman illuminates this distinctiveness and shows how it differed radically from Western notions of reality and models of the mind. Shulman's explication offers insightful points of comparison with ancient Greek, medieval Islamic, and early modern European theories of mind, and returns Indology to its rightful position of intellectual relevance in the humanities.

At a time when contemporary ideologies and language wars threaten to segregate the study of pre-modern India into linguistic silos, Shulman demonstrates through his virtuoso readings of important literary works--works translated lyrically by the author from Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam--that Sanskrit and the classical languages of southern India have been intimately interwoven for centuries.

A major contribution to the study of South Asian literature, offering a landmark view of Mahābhārata studies.

Many Mahābhāratas is an introduction to the spectacular and long-lived diversity of Mahābhārata literature in South Asia. This diversity begins with the Sanskrit Mahābhārata, an early epic poem that narrates the events of a catastrophic fratricidal war. Along the way, it draws in nearly everything else in Hindu mythology, philosophy, and story literature. The magnitude of its scope and the relentless complexity of its worldview primed the Mahābhārata for uncountable tellings in South Asia and beyond. For two thousand years, the instinctive approach to the Mahābhārata has been not to consume it but to create it anew.

The many Mahābhāratas of this book come from the first century to the twenty-first. They are composed in nine different languages-Apabhramsha, Bengali, English, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu. Early chapters illuminate themes of retelling within the Sanskrit Mahābhārata itself, demonstrating that the story's propensity for regeneration emerges from within. The majority of the book, however, reaches far beyond the Sanskrit epic. Readers dive into classical dramas, premodern vernacular poems, regional performance traditions, commentaries, graphic novels, political essays, novels, and contemporary theater productions-all of them Mahābhāratas.

Because of its historical and linguistic breadth, its commitment to primary sources, and its exploration of multiplicity and diversity as essential features of the Mahābhārata's long life in South Asia, Many Mahābhāratas constitutes a major contribution to the study of South Asian literature and offers a landmark view of the field of Mahābhārata studies.

This is a transnational and bilingual investigation of the cross-fertilisation of mystical religiosity and modern poetical imagination in the works of the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore and the Irish poet W. B. Yeats. The book demonstrates how their commitments to transnational mysticism deeply form and inform the modernist literary projects of these poets as well as their understanding of cultural modernity. Although its primary interest lies in their poetry and poetics, the monograph also includes some of their relevant prose works. This study begins with a close look at and around the phase of 1912-1913, when Yeats and Tagore met over the collection of the latter's English translations of his spiritual verses, Gitanjali, and took mutual interests in each other's works and cultural significances. The monograph then expands on both sides of that phase, selectively covering the whole career of the poets in its exploration of their parallel mystic-modern cultural-poetical projects.