István Keul Livres

In Banaras Revisited, scholars from various disciplines talk about their research in a city that has been described as a veritable microcosm of India: multifaceted, complex, vibrant, and full of contradictions. The themes range from the sensory aesthetics of everyday life to the history of the Marathas in Banaras; from Harishchandra, the “father” of modern Hindi, to the “tribals” of Nagwa; from the architecture of the gha? s to the works of the Austrian writers Zweig and Winkler; from ‘informative relationships’ with research assistants to the mediatization of goddesses; from reflections on public education to a contemporary literary chronicler of Assi; from “colonial ghosts” in the 1950s to present-day Western travelers. In addition to its thematic diversity, the volume benefits from another strong asset: the voices of its contributors, clearly audible in reflexive passages and personal vignettes that make the essays a useful reading also for undergraduates considering fieldwork in Banaras or elsewhere.

The essays in this volume, written by specialists working in the field of tantric studies, attempt to trace processes of transformation and transfer that occurred in the history of tantra from around the seventh century and up to the present. The volume gathers contributions on South Asia, Tibet, China, Mongolia, Japan, North America, and Western Europe by scholars from various academic disciplines, who present ongoing research and encourage discussion on significant themes in the growing field of tantric studies. In addition to the extensive geographical and temporal range, the chapters of the volume cover a wide thematic area, which includes modern Bengali tantric practitioners, tantric ritual in medieval China, the South Asian cults of the mother goddesses, the way of Buddhism into Mongolia, and countercultural echoes of contemporary tantric studies.

In einer sowohl historisch wie empirisch angelegten Studie werden Aufstieg und Bedeutung der im heutigen Indien überaus populären Gestalt des Affengottes Hanuman dargestellt. Erste Zeugnisse der Hanuman-Gestalt finden sich schon im Nationalepos Ramayana (ca. 300 v. Chr.–200 n. Chr.), doch erst in den letzten Jahrhunderten hat seine Verehrung stark zugenommen. Nach der Beschreibung eines dreitägigen Weiherituals für ein Hanuman-Kultbild in Benares wird die geschichtliche Entwicklung der Göttergestalt und ihrer Verehrung von den Anfängen bis heute entfaltet. Eine empirische Untersuchung erhellt schließlich das Gottesbild und die Motivationen heutiger Hanuman-Verehrer. Dem Band sind Abbildungen und im Anhang u. a. eine Liste von ca. 200 Hanumantempeln und -schreinen sowie ausgewählte Interviews beigegeben.