The ascetic, devotional sect known as the Mahanubhavs - 'Those of the Great Experience' - arose in 13th century Maharashtra. The Mahanubhavs initially experienced a fairly rapid expansion, particularly across the northern and eastern regions of Maharashtra. However, by the end of the 14th century their movement went underground as they sought a defensive isolation from the larger Hindu context, and they withdrew to remote areas and villages. Although the prominent leaders of the early Mahanubhavs were Brahmans (often converts from the prevailing advaita vaisnavism), their followers were...

'Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions in South Asia' explores the dynamic constructions and applications of the concept of 'tradition' within the South Asian context during the ancient and precolonial periods. This collection of essays covers a significant selection of the specialized fields of knowledge that have shaped classical South Asian intellectual history, offering a stimulating array of papers on the different and complex processes employed during the 'invention', construction, preservation and renewal of a given tradition.

To that end, the contributors have...

This collection brings together the research papers of Patrick Olivelle, published over a period of about ten years. The unifying theme of these studies is the search for historical context and developments hidden within words and texts. Words - and the cultural history represented by words - that scholars often take for granted as having a continuous and long history are often new and even neologisms, and thus provide important clues to cultural and religious innovations. Olivelle's book on the Asramas, as well as the short pieces included in this volume, such as those on ananda and...

This volume brings together a variety of Patrick Olivelle's papers on Indian ascetical institutions and ideologies that have been published over the past thirty or so years. Asceticism represents a major strand in the religious and cultural history of India, providing some of the most creative elements within Indian religions and philosophies. Most of the major religions, such as Buddhism, Jainism, and the religious philosophies both within these new religions and in the Brahmanical tradition, were created by world-renouncing ascetics. Ascetical institutions and ideologies developed in a...

'Studies on the Carvaka/Lokayata' is the first attempt at a scientific study of the Carvaka/Lokayata, the materialist system of philosophy that flourished in ancient India between the eighth and twelfth centuries CE, and which has since disappeared. Despite the paucity of material relating to the Carvaka, a reconstruction of its basic tenets reveals it to be the lone contender standing against the perceived binary of pro-Vedic Brahminical schools on the one hand, and the non-Vedic Buddhist and Jain schools on the other.

This study seeks to disprove certain notions about the...

The volume is the first outcome of an international project aiming towards a complete critical edition of the Kasikavrtti (7th c. CE) of Jayaditya and Vamana, the oldest surviving complete commentary on the Astadhyayi of Panini (ca. 4th c. BCE). The first phase, culminating in the critical edition of the Kasika's initial section devoted to the Pratyaharasutras, the 'rules for abbreviations', was jointly coordinated by the editors together with Professor Saroja Bhate (Pune), a Paninian scholar of global renown. The first part of the volume presents the critical edition of the...

'The Anthropologist and the Native' is a collection of twenty essays by internationally known scholars of different persuasions, honouring the distinguished anthropologist Gananath Obeyesekere, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. Obeyesekere's writings include 'Land Tenure in Village Ceylon', 'Medusa's Hair', 'The Cult of the Goddess Pattini', 'Work of Culture', 'The Apotheosis of Captain Cook', 'Imagining Karma', 'Cannibal Talk', (with Richard Gombrich) 'Buddhism Transformed', and the forthcoming 'The Awakened Ones'. Professor Obeyesekere's contribution to South Asian studies and...

The essays presented in this volume constitute a progression from general considerations related to the 'etic' (in the geertzian sense of the word) approach to South Asian cultural productions, to peculiar and detailed investigations of them. Such a sequence is meant to develop a renovated and systemic approach, through which these specific cultural materials should be interpreted: materials not to be read in isolation, nor with an overemphasised concern for cultural relativity. Rather, they should be viewed as meaningful examples of sophisticated intellectual and cultural procedures to be...

This volume brings together sixteen articles on the religions, literatures and histories of South and Central Asia in tribute to Patrick Olivelle, one of North America's leading Sanskritists and historians of early India. An exceptionally prolific scholar, Olivelle's best-known works include 'Manu's Code of Law' (2005), 'The Early Upaniṣads' (1998) and 'The Āśrama System' (1993). Over the last four decades, the focus of his scholarship has been on the ascetic and legal traditions of India, but his work as both a researcher and a teacher extends beyond early Indian religion...

This volume brings together sixteen articles on the religions, literatures and histories of South and Central Asia in tribute to Patrick Olivelle, one of North America's leading Sanskritists and historians of early India. An exceptionally prolific scholar, Olivelle's best-known works include 'Manu's Code of Law' (2005), 'The Early Upaniṣads' (1998) and 'The Āśrama System' (1993). Over the last four decades, the focus of his scholarship has been on the ascetic and legal traditions of India, but his work as both a researcher and a teacher extends beyond early Indian religion...