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This thesis reads the Adbhuta Rāmāyaṇa as a response to, and elaboration on, Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa. As I will show, the Adbhuta's main distinction from Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa is that it places Sītā at the centre of the story, both as its hero and as a superior deity to Rāma. I will therefore argue that the Adbhuta is an example of a Sītāyaṇa: a text that tells 'Rāma's story' but with a focus on Sītā's qualities, actions, and experiences. Although other tellings of the Rāmāyaṇa also focus on Sītā, I will show that the Adbhuta is a particularly innovative and unique Sītāyaṇa, both in the ways that it engages with Vālmīki's text and in the ways that it draws upon other texts and traditions. As I will suggest, the Adbhuta's unique portrayal of Sītā - particularly in associating her with the warrior goddess, Kālī - has been influential in the characterisation of Sītā in subsequent Sītāyaṇas. By reading the Adbhuta comparatively with Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa, I will show that the Adbhuta engages closely with Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa in a number of ways, including: invoking its authority; reconfiguring and recharacterising its scenes and characters; and incorporating its themes in new ways. By taking a comparative approach, this thesis also shows that the Adbhuta is highly intertextual more generally, introducing themes from the wider Indian literary tradition into its conversation with Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa. The implications of my argument will show the merit of this comparative approach, which acknowledges Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa as an authority in the Rāmāyaṇa tradition, but also pays attention to the unique characteristics of other tellings. As I will show, this comparative approach reveals the Adbhuta's innovation as a Sītāyaṇa, as well as inviting us to think about Sītā in new ways.

The little studied Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā is known to a small number of Sanskritists and historians as an encyclopaedic work on kingship from the Vijayanagara period. The work is, however, catalogued as a Tantric text, probably owing to its title (which includes the name of a Tantric goddess), literary form, colophon and the majority of the contents of the first half of the book, which includes a large portion on the elaborate Tantric rituals that must be conducted by the king at both private and state festivals - the foremost being the Navarātri, the 10-day festival exclusively dedicated to the worship of the Mother Goddess. The second half of the Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, nevertheless, focuses exclusively on kingship and statecraft in well-balanced proportion with its first part on Tantra. Thus, I propose to call the text a hybrid compilation (nibandha) of kingship and Tantric practices. The primary aim of this dissertation would, therefore, be to justify my argument on why I call the text "hybrid". Firstly, it will attempt to explain why the text is characterised and catalogued as a Tantric work and examine its relationship with the corpus of Tantric literature. Secondly, it will look into how the king, for whom the text was obviously written, might have used its material, particularly the chapters on coronation rituals, state festivals and statecraft given in the text to strengthen his grip on power. The dissertation, which contains a total of six chapters, is divided into two sections. The first section starts with the introduction to the work as a whole followed by a consideration of its dating and location, before it moves on to contextually explain the role of Goddess Sāmrājyalakṣmī in relation to different Sanskrit writings. The second section highlights the text's "hybrid" nature. In particular, chapter 4 covers the Tantric elements in the text and its relationship to Tantric literature of different periods. In a similar manner, chapter 5 demonstrates how the text is also a compilation on polity, and how it is connected to other texts of the same genre of different periods. Finally, through the survey of the Vijayanagara history, literature, material culture and archaeology, chapter 6 shows how the text fits in and reflects the society of the Vijayanagara period and how the Vijayanagara emperors, or the kingdom's vassal kings and feudatory chieftains, may have used the text to rule their subjects and to legitimise the overlordship of the vast south Indian empire by employing the concept of "Tantric Kingship", which the text implies is its main theme. The result suggests that Tantra had been an integral part of Indian kingship right down to the late medieval period when Vijayanagara, the last of the great Hindu empires, was eventually conquered by a coordinated attack by Muslim armies. The Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā strikingly reflects this integration of Tantra into royal ideology, as well as the 16th-century socio-political climate, much more pronouncedly than its predecessors of the same genre.

This thesis argues that women in contemporary Tantra engage with tactile practices in an ongoing effort to create an autonomous, empowered, and healthy sense of self. Focusing specifically on the sense of touch and how it is used in contemporary Tantra, I explore how and why touch techniques are used by participants – namely in inducing transformation, healing, and ecstatic experiences. By conducting interviews and fieldwork with Tantra teachers across Great Britain over the course of two years, this PhD shows how certain discourses around transgression, gender roles, and sexuality have become prominent within this context, and how touch is used to negotiate these themes. To date, Tantra in the West has rarely been studied ethnographically and as such, this thesis provides a much-needed contribution to knowledge on contemporary Tantric practices. Similarly, the sense of touch has received little academic attention; this thesis aims to expand understandings of how individuals engage with tactility within a social context that prioritises the visual. In the first part of the thesis – Chapters 2 and 3 – I focus primarily on the emergence of Tantra in the West and how perceptions of this have been consistently associated with orientalism and the holistic milieu. In Chapter 3, I also explore how certain notions of Tantra, so widespread in the West, are experienced on the ground both by the researcher (myself) and the informants. In this chapter I develop the idea of embodied ethnography more fully. I demonstrate the importance of touch as a research method, which has yet to be fully elaborated in the wider field of anthropology and Tantra studies. Using this approach, and particularly focusing on the tactile, this thesis explores the experiences of women engaging with these practices, while simultaneously developing new ethnographic approaches to include the body and senses of the researcher as instruments of knowledge. These two chapters set the scene in terms of the conceptual and methodological work, while in the next few chapters I explore the thematic resonance of Tantra and how its practices are fleshed out in everyday encounters of women in their social contexts. In Chapter 4, I focus on touch techniques used in Tantra groups and workshops to show how women use these practices as somatic modes of attention (Csordas, 1993). This enables women to reinterpret bodily experiences and social norms, thus legitimising certain feelings or behaviours and contributing to their projects of selfhood. In Chapter 5, I move on to focus on understandings of trauma and healing in contemporary Tantra. I explore the ideal of 'wellbeing', how trauma is understood, and how healing is a gradual and continual process, facilitated by the concept of sexual energy, that allows individuals to reconstruct a sense of self. Finally, in Chapter 6, I look at ecstasy in contemporary Tantra - how it is experienced, spoken about, and understood - as an experience that works to affirm these women's new sense of selfhood and alters their everyday experiences.

This research is an ethnographic study of the Bengal Vaishnava Sahajiya tradition, which is the tantric influenced tradition blended together with Bengali devotion. Esoteric ritual is the Vaishnava Sahajiya key religious practice which leads the practitioners to liberation as well as marginalisation. Through participant observation, I draw on the unconventional lives and renunciant experiences of Vaishnava Sahajiya female renouncers to highlight the diversity in the lives of third-world women and the variety of female renunciation in South Asia. Brahmanical renunciant themes of celibacy, solitude and social engagement appearing in the Vaishnava religious practices of brahmacharya, madhukari and sadhu seva, will respectively be taken into account in analysing female renouncers’ positions and how they exercise their agency within the Vaishnava context and in the broader context of South Asia. Female agency as seen in the Vaishnava tradition will demonstrate that third-world women, South Asian women in particular, do not adhere to the typical perceptions of them attributed by some Western Feminists, being powerless, subordinated and victims of a patriarchal system. Indeed, women in the context of Vaishnava are under patriarchal control where men either of this worldly (householder) or the other worldly (renouncer) are dominant actors. The women, however, make the most of their lives by utilising womanhood, motherhood and wifehood qualities in a male defined renunciant sphere. The extent to which Vaishnava female practitioners become autonomous actors and gain the most benefit from their marginalised situation is to conform to what has been prescribed to them; that is, being good Bengali women whose lives are valued by being dependent to either a male partner, gurus, disciples, or lay the community.

This thesis proceeds as an ethnographically informed study of two folk Śākta ('goddess-oriented') ritual performances in South Asia: Navadurgā performances of Bhaktapur, Nepal, and Teyyāṭṭam performances in Northern Kerala. Drawing, in part, upon fieldwork insights, I suggest that Teyyāṭṭam and Navadurgā performances are autonomous in regional style, yet concomitant as an overarching typology. Both rituals, though geographically distant, belong to a genealogically-related 'Śākta Tantric' tradition, which was in pan-Indic circulation along networks of householder ascetics (Nāth) circa 11th - 16th Centuries CE. Broadly speaking, Teyyāṭṭam and Navadurgā traditions are lower-caste or subaltern ritual performances - timed by post-monsoon agrarian cycles - embedded within web-networks of worldly power (śakti) represented by a region's royal goddess-clan. Throughout the mid-medieval period, these ritual performances were supported under the aegis of a local sovereign: the Malla dynasty of Bhaktapur and the Kolatirri dynasty of North Kerala. During this medieval ritual, the kingdom's corporeal power (śakti) was channelled into the bodies of low-birth deity-mediums, which, in effect, united a territory's various castes and lineages into a macro-clan or a web-like ritual network. These ritual performances, now reframed, are still practiced in contemporary South Asia, and I argue that Teyyāṭṭam and Navadurgā performances continue to manifest these web-like ritual networks by unifying heterogeneous families into territory-wide macro-clans. At the societal level, the performance negotiates a social dichotomy, articulated as (1) a vertical caste-hierarchy that segregates bodies according to Brahmanical rules of purity and distance pollution; and (2) a horizontal world of Tantric lineages that assemble members in empowered relationships of 'impure' bodily proximity. By apotheosizing lower-caste virtuosi via reciprocal exchanges of impure substances (food and blood sacrifice), Folk Śākta performances - like the warrior goddess-clan they honour - synthesize this pure-impure tension by spiralling across them, thereby uniting a territory's lineages into a macro-clan of ritual kin connections; a cohesion which is symbolized by the goddess-clan's 'menstrual synchrony'. Through a systematic analysis of four themes - history, lineages, sacrifice, and politics - I attest that the ritual's mechanism of spiralling dichotomies into web-like ritual networks operates on two further levels: metaphysical and political. Metaphysically, Folk Śākta performances cohere doctrinal or textual knowledge into body-centred bricolage webs of ritual knowledge which transcend bounded categories of religion; and politically, the ritual mobilizes collective agency and gift-distribution such that, in the 20th Century, it served as a correlate in the development of revolutionary ideology in Bhaktapur and Malabar. Taken together, I argue that the ritual synthesizes a series of dialectics, primarily purity-pollution and human-divine, into webbed networks at three levels: societal, metaphysical, and political. To date, no exploration of Śākta Tantric ritual in Nepal and South India has coordinated historical, ethnographic, and theoretical analysis effectively: in response, this study's scope will bridge academic boundaries to illuminate the relationships that enmesh Tantric goddesses, folk religion, ritual performance, kinship, and political movements in contemporary South Asia. My original contribution, then, will be a comparative fieldwork-informed account of these related ritual performances, which I network in renewed, mutual dialogue with social theory, a theoretical framework I call Neo-Durkheimian.

This thesis explores the teachings of the ancient Indian texts known as the Vedic Upaniṣads in relation to ultimate reality. Compiled into their quasi-canonical forms between approximately 700 BCE and the early years of the Common Era, the Vedic Upaniṣads were interpreted by a number of later Indian philosophical schools as promoting a single, consistent worldview with regard to the entity, power, or principle which creates, animates, supports and sustains all of existence (which I refer to in this thesis as the ‘ultimate principle’). However, those schools offer competing theories about what that worldview might be, what that ultimate principle might be called, and the nature of its relationship (if any) with the material world, on the one hand, and the divine, on the other. As has been widely acknowledged in more recent exegesis, the Vedic Upaniṣads in fact present a variety of teachings about this ultimate principle - in Signe Cohen’s words a ‘rich tapestry of complex and occasionally contradictory ideas’. The question which this presents, and which I address in this thesis, is whether, rather than either seeking an elusive and illusory consistency, or dismissing the teachings of the Vedic Upaniṣads as simply an inconsistent anthology, we can detect any patterns in the presentation of these complex and contradictory ideas. In this thesis, I will explore certain specific themes in the development of the Vedic Upaniṣads’ teachings about the ultimate principle, and will argue that, if we read the Vedic Upaniṣads closely with an eye to how teachings about the ultimate principle progress, both within individual Upaniṣads and by reading the Vedic Upaniṣads inter- textually, it is possible to identify certain important trends and directions of enquiry into the nature and identity of the ultimate principle. In many cases, these trends highlight the questions which the Vedic Upaniṣads ask about the ultimate principle more than the answers which they provide. In addition, I will suggest that, in places, the editorial processes which brought the Vedic Upaniṣads into their quasi-canonical forms may have been, at least in part, a deliberate attempt to highlight their strands of enquiry into the ultimate principle, so that, as a result, we can fairly say that, while the Vedic Upaniṣads undoubtedly do not present uniform dogma, they nevertheless show a degree of structure in their search for the ultimate principle.

Despite the prolific authorship within the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition, it had not produced a single text that addresses the theological basis for engagement with public or social systems, nor any that offer guidance or insight into how a practitioner might behave or integrate into such environments. Nor have they in any substantial way referred to politically orientated texts such as the Dharma-śāstras. The tradition's most prominent texts relate instead to philosophical expositions on themes such as bhakti rasa or devotional aesthetic sentiments. However, in the early-eighteenth century, we notice an intriguing phenomenon, suddenly a series of works are fashioned to rationalize and promote a system of integration with the socio-political circumstances of their time. This fascinating period within Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava history witnesses the production of specialized treatises that provide theological foundations to endorse and encourage responsible public conduct grounded on notions such as karma and varṇāśrama. This thesis adopts a two-fold approach, the close reading and examination of this new genre of Sanskrit based works, alongside reviewing the contemporary context these works emerge in. The political maneuverings of this historical era became a critical factor in invoking the production of these texts, and consequently these works reflect the interests and concerns of Jaisingh II, the ruler of a precolonial North Indian polity, the Kachvāhā dynasty. The texts were specific tools employed by the tradition to address the apparently contradictory mandate to reconcile responsible public engagement with the esoteric transcendent nature of bhakti practices, formulating a public theology which placed at its center bhakti practice. Through examining this innovation, I extract the perspectives from four critical figures in this period, king Jaisingh II, and Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava scholars Viśvanātha, Kṛṣṇadeva and Baladeva, enabling me to gain a comprehensive understanding of the exact nature of public theology for this tradition in this compelling era.

This thesis explores connections between spirituality, diet and system-wide Sustainability Transitions. The pivotal role of food in greenhouse gas emissions is widely acknowledged across disciplines, yet it is under-researched by Sustainability Transitions scholars. Likewise, while sustainable diets comprising of less meat are often associated with spiritual and ethical beliefs, the transitional agency of worldviews has not been conceptualised in the Sustainability Transitions literature. To address this gap, eco-spiritual practices are investigated to understand how vegetarianism is maintained in spiritual communities. Enabling and disabling factors are analysed for potentials of diffusion into broader levels of society. I present findings of qualitative research and fieldwork, which included participant observation and in-depth interviewing in Hare Krishna communities in Europe. Three eco-farms were selected to represent different features of spirituality and ecological commitment. Data collection and analysis were guided by Social Practice Theory which enables close-up scrutinising of eco-spiritual practices. Findings reveal a firm durability of food practices, which contributes to the longevity of Hare Krishna eco-farms. Motivated by their distinct worldview, believers advocate simplification over technological improvements to serve ecological sustainability. Extensive outreach via eco-tourism and food sharing programmes demonstrate a working alternative to development and lifestyles supported by an economics based on unlimited growth. While these attract visitors in high numbers, adherence to religious culture in the form of dress, gender roles and language use may slow the diffusion process into wider society. Lock-in mechanisms in the outside world also work against the up-scaling of less-meat dietary practices, making the work of vegetarian advocacy less effective. By exploring and analysing Krishna practices, this thesis makes two key contributions. First: the conception of agency for change in Sustainability Transitions frameworks is extended by the inclusion of spirituality, worldviews, and their corresponding lifestyle practices. Second: Hare Krishna communities are shown to illustrate a ‘new economics’ which posits demand-side simplifications as a precondition for systemic change.

The 'Many Ramayanas' paradigm has argued for decentering the Sanskrit Ramayana, suggesting that the Sanskrit text(s) are rarely the first point of engagement with the narrative for large portions of the audience (A.K. Ramanujan, 1999). Drawing upon this paradigm, my thesis analyzes and compares the specific networks of production, circulation and influence that exist between different contemporary Mahabharata re-tellings and their cultural milieus. The thesis seeks to understand the re-tellings conjuncturally - the formal choices that each retelling makes and why, their articulation given the resources available and new demands, the relation of the re-tellings produced after liberalization to older ones, and the position of each in their respective cultural field. The thesis argues that to understand the ways and forms in which the Mahabahrata narrative circulates today, we must excavate and foreground the retellings, their multiple aesthetics, and their networks of production and circulation. In particular, the thesis focuses on specific fields - television, modern Indian theatre and poetry, and Hindi and English fiction and publishing. Chapter 1 argues that while there was a correlation between the rise of the Hindu Right and 1988 Mahabharata television serial (Arvind Rajagopal 2003), the serial drew extensively from already popular aesthetics of Hindi films and popular visual art, and created and instituted a mythological aesthetic for Indian television. Chapter 2 focuses on modern Indian theatre and poetry, which eschewed commercialism, took greater liberties to experiment, and carved out a cultural niche through official canonisation and historic and repeat performances. Chapter 3 deals with popular English abridged translations, arguing that these were specifically meant to 'teach' Indian culture to supposedly deracinated Indian readers and international readers. Deceptively simple, their narrative tends to iron out the problematic episodes from the epic. Chapter 4 charts the new wave of mythological fiction in Indian English literature that has followed the liberalisation of the economy and the growth of Indian English book publishing and market. Chapter 5 turns towards the mythological novel in Hindi, arguing that the pauranik upanyas carves a separate aesthetic niche for itself from Hindi mythological verse, drama and television by re-telling the mythological through psychological realism.

Parabrahman Puruṣottama Bhagavān Svāminārāyaṇa offered novel contributions to the Vedānta philosophical tradition by presenting the principles of the Akṣarapuruṣottama Siddhānta (doctrine) and establishing the Akṣarapuruṣottama Darśana, an independent Vedāntic school of thought. In addition to revealing the darśana’s (school of thought) princi-ples, he also presented distinct readings of sacred texts. Among these readings, in “Va-canāmṛta Gaḍhaḍā Madhya 9” he put forth a unique interpretation of ‘dharma’ as it appears in verse 2.40 of the Śrīmadbhagavadgītā. Based on this reading and the Svāminārāyaṇabhāṣyam’s corresponding exposition, this work offers an analysis of Bhagavān Svāminārāyaṇa’s interpre-tation of ‘dharma’ as it appears in the Gītā. Unlike the classical commentators, Bhagavān Svāminārāyaṇa interprets ‘dharma’ as conviction in the present form of God (pratyakṣaparamātmasvarūpaniṣṭhā). This interpretation is signifi-cant in terms of its distinct content, its associated philosophical and theological commitments, and the hermeneutical and exegetical insights it offers. By elucidating Svāminārāyaṇa’s inter-pretation and the Svāminārāyaṇabhāṣyam’s corresponding exposition, this work presents (1) an unoffered discussion of Svāminārāyaṇa’s understanding of the nature and content of con-viction in the present form of God, (2) Svāminārāyaṇa’s relevant philosophical, theological, and hermeneutical principles, (3) an alternative reading of the Gita in light of Svāminārāyaṇa’s interpretation, and (4) cross-disciplinary darśanic insights that are characteristic of Svāminārāyaṇa’s interpretive move.

This thesis theologises with the contemporary devadāsīs of South India, focusing in particular on the Dalit girls who from childhood have been dedicated to the goddess Mathamma and used as village sex workers. Firstly, chapters one and two situate the context for theologising by outlining the discriminatory practice of caste and the place of the Dalits, noting in particular the plight of Dalit women. From here it explores the socioreligious identities of the contemporary devadāsīs that have been transformed and degraded as a result of a multitude of hegemonies, to the extent that the existential narratives of the contemporary devadāsīs are shaped by sexual violence, caste and gender discrimination, local village religiosity and sex work. And it is based upon such narratives that this research contemplates God. Chapter three suggests that there exists a lacuna in Indian Christian Theology and Dalit Liberation Theology for the voices and experiences of the most marginalised of Dalit women, in particular those whose narratives would be deemed “indecent”. In response, inspired by the Indecent Theology of Marcella Althaus- Reid, it suggests that in order to be truly identity-specific and liberating to the most marginalised of Dalit women, Dalit Liberation Theology must be born out of the sexual narratives of the oppressed. Chapter four therefore uses an Indecent Dalit feminist hermeneutic to re-read the narratives of the “harlots,” “concubines,” and “whores” of Scripture alongside the lived experiences of the Dalit sacred “prostitutes.” It does so in the hope of challenging patriarchal hegemonic Dalit Christian theologising that portrays the ‘decent' woman as godly, to the detriment of those who transgress heteronormative sexual moral orders. The final chapter goes on to further challenge Dalit Theology to discover the Dalit Christ in the context of the dedicated women – where we encounter a lived religiosity, that is shaped by religious hybridity, goddess worship and the Christ who has become a Dalit devi.

The central aim of my thesis is to examine the processes by which individuals from a Western background enter the International Society for Krishna Consciousnes (ISKCON), a transnational religious movement with its roots in Chaitanya Vaishnavism, a Hindu tradition originating in India. The central argument of my research is that extant models of conversion do not do justice to the process by which individuals enter ISKCON and assimilate its values, beliefs, and practices. This thesis thus critically examines conversion models/theories and seeks to refine our understanding of conversion, especially in relation to groups in which everyday ritual practice plays a central role. My research is based on the analysis of in-depth interviews with ISKCON entrants and engagement with theories on ritual and literature on conversion. The tradition’s essential practices involve chanting God’s holy names: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare and making food offerings to the Hindu deity Krishna (these are referred to as prasadam rites). Ritual is both a doorway for coming in contact with ISKCON and a crucial practice for entrants to make progress from the status of neophyte to novice and to qualify for successive initiation rituals. I draw mainly upon Catherine Bell’s theory of ritualisation to explore entry into ISKCON in relation to ritual practices. Ritualisation, in the ISKCON context, is a strategy that facilitates the internalisation of ISKCON’s central values and worldviews. This is made possible through the entrant’s initial exposure to its rituals, his/her search for the meaning behind these rituals, gradual acceptance of ISKCON’s 5 schemes of ritualisation, and, over the long-term, acquisition of ritual mastery. From a sociological perspective, entry into ISKCON is a three-staged process involving separation, transition, and incorporation. The stage of separation is a phase of accepting sets of oppositions concerned with polarities of purity and pollution, causing alienation from previous social circles and encouraging group-integration within ISKCON. The transitional stage is characterized by the internalisation of beliefs, worldviews and values. The stage of incorporation is marked by successive stages of seekership (searching for, and finding, meaning using ISKCON frameworks) and commitment (not just to ISKCON’s values and ritual practices, but also to its missionary agenda). To determine how ritual practice constructs power relationships and creates boundaries for the development of active agency and passivity, I look at four dimensions of ritualisation. These are (following Bell): (1) the effects of ritual practice on socialisation and vice versa; (2) the role of ritual specialists; (3) the forms of misrecognition and blindness resulting from ritual practice; and (4) the influence of ritualisation on the agency of entrants. My work demonstrates that “conversion” in the ISKCON context is marked by three crucial features. First, it is a process of gradual “drifting” into ISKCON’s fold, not a sudden change. Second, conversion to ISKCON’s belief system is facilitated by the adoption of the ritual practices central to ISKCON. Hence belief and practice are closely intertwined in the conversion process, with ritual practice serving, in most cases, as the entry point. And finally, my work demonstrates that this “conversion” does not entail a radical break with previously held religious beliefs and values. Instead, “converts” to ISKCON continue to profess their former faith, but now filter this through the lens of ISKCON’s Vaishnava devotionalism.

In this thesis I provide an additional perspective on the development of Rādhā- Kṛṣṇa who are regarded as the central divinity in many religious traditions in South Asia, by examining the primary sources of the Nimbārka Sampradāya. This school of the Hindu religious tradition of Vaiṣṇavism is unique in its identification of the ontological category of Brahman (the supreme being) solely with Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, where both are conjointly understood to be the eternal deity, not an avatāra (incarnation) or vyūha (emanation). Previous scholarship on the early phases of this sampradāya has focussed on issues of philosophy and doctrine, with a few attempts beset by demonstrably deficient reasoning at positing a chronology. Although the later tradition has been documented in detail, owing to the absence of a settled chronology, mechanisms of Nimbārkī inter-sectarian relations at this stage of development in early modern Vraja (Braj) have not been satisfactorily established. In Part One, I provide a survey of the current theories on the development of Kṛṣṇa (who has received wide scholarly treatment) and Rādhā, re-evaluating Sanskrit and Prakrit textual and epigraphic sources with focus on the divinity of these two figures, positing that although there exist allusions to the godhood of Kṛṣṇa antecedent to the common era, the same cannot be said of Rādhā. Part Two discusses the sources available for Nimbārka and with a view to bringing to light any noteworthy findings, on the basis of comparative studies of the Brahmasūtra commentarial tradition I provide a new chronology for Nimbārka and his immediate followers. Following on from this, I discuss Nimbārka’s works in which is presented his innovation: the deification of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa. I then examine the rationalisation of this doctrine by Puruṣottama (third successor to Nimbārka), whose exegetical efforts diminish the impact of this teaching in the wider Vaiṣṇava context. In Part Three, I turn to the legacy of Nimbārka and in an important revelation for Vaiṣṇava studies, I show that whilst the early tradition reserved the theological identity of Brahman for the most eligible initiates, in 15th century Vraja a renaissance of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa devotion was instigated by Keśava Kāśmīrin, Śrībhaṭṭa and Harivyāsa Deva who influenced the contemporary and later sects which, in the modern period, have transported the phenomenon of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa devotion across the globe.

In this thesis I provide a study of the distinct traditions within the Pāñcarātra, concentrating especially on the ways in which these traditions’ identities were formed by their textual allegiances. In Chapter One, I show that the so-called “three jewels” of the Pāñcarātra scriptural canon were actually only considered as such by a minority of Pāñcarātrikas, and that this tradition arose much later than is commonly supposed. In Chapter Two I undertake a historical survey of the different groups within the Pāñcarātra as they are presented in the textual sources. In Chapter Three I argue that the tradition of the “three jewels” emerged within one of these groups, and that its eventual acceptance by other Pāñcarātrikas coincided with a decline in the “sectarianism” which had characterised relations between two Pāñcarātra traditions in particular. One of the outcomes of this decline, I argue, was the integration of previously distinct Pāñcarātrika identities, and the formation of the Pāñcarātra scriptural canon. In Chapters Four and Five I undertake a closer historical analysis of these two major South Indian Pāñcarātra traditions, focussing especially on the ways in which they sought to establish their legitimacy through being connected with texts which were situated outside of the Pāñcarātra scriptural corpus. As I show in a comparative study in Chapter Six, such strategies were also used by other Pāñcarātrikas who appealed to the authority of the Nārāyaṇīya section of the Mahābhārata. In Chapter Seven, I study the emergence of a distinct ‘Pañcarātra’ identity in this text, and argue for its dependence on the appropriation and synthesis of other religious identities. In Chapters Eight and Nine, I address the merging of Pāñcarātrika identities in South India nearly a millennium later. Here I argue that we are now in a better position to explain the decline of the sectarian culture which had dominated certain South Indian Pāñcarātra contexts, and the question of why one of the two major South Indian Pāñcarātra traditions appears to have disappeared.

This thesis looks at the issues of religiou's leadership and succession in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a modern Vaishnava movement. Following the passing away of its founder, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, in 1977, the movement was led by a group of gurus in a 'zonal system' until their authority was challenged and reformed in the mid 1980s. The thesis examines the defining characteristics of leadership in ISKCON in this decade, and the developments that led to the transformation of the 'zonal acharya system' to a guru system not based on zonal divisions, in which the power and authority of the gurus was greatly reduced. The work of Louis Dumont and J. c. Heesterman have been used to illuminate the key themes of hierarchy, status, power and authority in ISKCON at this time, and Max Weber's concepts of authority and the routinisation of charisma have also been drawn on. They form the basis for the analysis of the interviews conducted with leaders and other members of ISKCON and the documentary evidence from the time (letters, minutes of meetings and position papers). The work of these theorists has been of value in navigating the confluence of Western and Indian concepts of power and authority in this modern institutionalised form of the Vaishnava tradition. On a broader level, this thesis provides an interesting case in the study of religion, since it represents the conjunction of a number of key issues -religious leadership, succession, tradition and modernity, power relations, institutional dynamics, and the coming together of Eastern traditions and Western culture. It calls on scholars to take the worldviews of such traditions seriously, rather than simply analysing them from the standpoint of Western intellectual paradigms.

Hindutva is a neo-Hindu stream within Hinduism which attempts to re-interpret Hinduism based on a constructed 'Hindu identity'. It represents the mission passion within Hinduism and complicates the relationship between religions by requiring an evaluation of the projections and actions of other religions in the Indian context. It evaluates Christianity as a yet to be corrected identity and points out the ways of correction which in turn encourages assimilation into 'the Hindu' stream. In this context this study evaluates the selected Christian missiological responses to Hindutva attempting to expose their adequacies and inadequacies. Selecting three segments from Indian Christian mission theological reflections - Sebastian Kappen, M.M. Thomas and the Dalit Christian theology, this study critically engages with them considering the criticism by Hindutva of Christian mission. Out of the engagement with Hindutva and Christian mission responses this study identifies the marginalization of subaltern voices within Hindu initiatives and weaknesses in the Christian missiological responses. Hence this study proceeds to incorporate marginal voices in a re-imagination of Christian mission following some evaluations and proposals of subaltern historiography. The study identifies three approaches of Christian mission in India linked to the key figures. above which are: a hybrid model for tackling religious identity; a secular model for dealing with state; and a prophetic model for expressing Christian public witness. These three proposals are critiqued to bring out their strengths and limitations in light of subaltern theory. Rejecting the hybridity proposal, this study proposes ' learn to live with differences', keeping negotiations as an inevitable part of life. Dealing with state-religion relationship, this study argues for a more democratic way of life where the Indian version of secularism is retained as a component for providing a common space where all religions. and communities interact. By identifying the domesticating elements within any public sphere this study proposes a 'sympatheticus' method for expressing Christian mission presence in the public sphere.

This thesis contains a critical edition and annotated translation of previously unpublished prdsddalaksana material contained in six early Saiva texts: the Brhatkdlottara Mahdtantra; the Nisvdse Mahdtantre Pratisthatantra, also titled the Devydmata; the Kirandgama; the Mohacurottara Pratisthdtantra; the Mayasamgraha; and the Brahmaydmala Jayadrathddhikdra Pingalamata. An edition of the commentary to the Mayasamgraha, the Bhdvaciiddmani is supplied, without translation. The introduction gives an account of the design and building procedures taught in the texts, to prepare the reader for the ensuing material, and concludes with an analysis of the ways in which the texts may be dated and placed from their building instructions. The introductory argument is accompanied by explanatory figures, tables and photographic plates. The six text editions and annotated translations then follow. Each text is introduced with a description of the sources consulted, a stemma and a list of contents. Finally, the appendices comprise a glossary, a complete list of bhiuasamkhyds used in the texts, and a bibliography.

There is considerable agreement that the publication of Edward W. Said's Orientalism in 1978 inaugurated the field known as "postcolonial studies." Building upon the work of Said and other historians and translation theorists, who have written on the social and cultural implications of European colonialism, this doctoral thesis attempts to place the English, Catalan and Spanish writings of the Mallorcan Orientalist and translator Juan Mascaro (1897-1987) - in particular- his translation of the Bhagavad Gita for the Penguin Classics series - in their proper context and thus provide a more comprehensive understanding of the Oriental- ist/Eurocentric premises underlying his work. Though best known for his translations from the Sanskrit and Pali, Mascaro was also a prolific letter-writer whose letters, manuscripts, diaries and notebooks are preserved in three different archives. The principal motivation for pm-suing this PhD project lies in the realization that Mascaro has never received any critical attention in England and that an assessment of his work can contribute to broaden the terms of the debate over the question of Orientalism and Western appropriations of non-European cultures. The thesis is divided into five chapters, preceded by a general introduction and followed by a short conclusion. The first chapter examines the period Mascaro spend as vice-principal of a Hindu college in the British colony of Ceylon; the second studies Mascaro's Orientalist conceptions of Indian culture; the third gives an overview of Western and Indian inteipretations of the Bhagavad Gita and analyses Mascaro's reading of the text within this larger hermeneutical enterprise; the fourth presents a theoretical and practical study of Mascaro's translation of the Gita; the fifth and last chapter covers several subjects, but is mainly concerned with Mascaro's religious viewpoint and his involvement in the inter-faith dialogue. Although the association of Orientalism with Western colonial aspirations does not seem evident in the case of a Catalan-speaking Orientalist, Mascaro's writings attest to the universalist tendencies of Orientalism and are pail of this hegemonic European movement.

For decades, Edward W. Said's Orientalism has been at the forefront of the study of East-West cultural encounter. Said draws mostly on novels, travel accounts, anthropological documents and similar writings to explore the discursive consolidation of texts that acquire power to represent the Orient. Translation, which is the primal site of exchange between Western Orientalists and the East, is rather treated as a given concept, and no substantial theoretical consideration is developed in Said's work to explain the critical role of translation in Orientalism. A number of studies on translation and its relations to Orientalism have tackled the issue from different angles, mostly showing a degree of skepticism towards the political overtone of postcolonial discourse; for example, Figueira (1991) and Cannon (1990). The political and ideological implication of Orientalism in the practice of translation tends to be interpreted in terms of Lawrence Venuti's polarising paradigm of `domestication' in which the original's features are `distorted' due to the translator's appropriation of the original, or `foreignisation' in which translator makes the text appear alien and remote. The absence of critical studies of the concept of Orientalism in translation, or for that matter of the relationship between Edward Said's notion of Orientalism and translation, means there is a lack of clarity regarding Orientalist translation. Furthermore, while postcolonial translation theory may provide a useful paradigm for reading power relations in the translations between hegemonic and subordinate cultures, it has largely overlooked an important issue raised by Said in Orientalism, namely the notion of the institutionalisation of knowledge, a significant factor to why the discursive representation of the Orient acquires power through institutionally certified knowledge. The present thesis proposes a new concept called `Virtuality' to explain the phenomenon of Orientalist translation in the late eighteenth to nineteenth century. `Virtuality' is a concept that entails the notion of potentiality, or virtual reality, virtue and power. Drawing on the notion of `sufficiency', it throws light on translation in Orientalism as a process that seeks to produce a version that has sufficient virtue to represent, or even replace, the original. Virtuality means there is no need for direct contact with the East, as the mediation by Orientalists proves them to be adequate proxies. In this thesis, virtuality is applied to the study of English and French translations of two well-known Sanskrit literary works - the Bhagavad-Gitä and Sakuntalä - from 1784 to 1884. The methodological tools deployed in this thesis to highlight the virtuality of translation in Orientalism are taken from Pierre Bourdieu's sociological concepts namely symbolic capital, symbolic power, distinction and misrecognition (meconnaissance), M. A. K. Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), Gerard Genette's paratextuality and Allan Bell's audience design. This set of methodological tools taken from sociology, linguistics, intertextuality and sociolinguistics, provides a new reading of Orientalist translation which emphasises the process whereby Orientalists struggle for legitimacy in representing the Orient in their translations.

The focus of this thesis is the Heraka movement and its impact on the Zeme, a ‘Naga tribe’, in the North Cachar Hills of Assam, India. The Heraka is a religious reform movement derived from the traditional practice known as Paupaise. It was organised from disparate groups of the early 1930s into a centralised and effective movement in 1974. This thesis examines the formation of the movement through to its present state. A pivotal concern is the evolution of Heraka identity, and its emergence into the arena of competing and often contested ideologies of ‘religion’ and ‘ethnicity’ in North East India. The processes by which the movement has evolved, exhibiting the contextualisation of an indigenous identity, grounded in custom and tradition, are also outlined. These factors, along with significant and complex relationships with Paupaise, ‘neo-Hindu’ organisations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Zeme Christians, and the larger ‘Naga’ Christian groups, have shaped pronounced yet fluctuating Heraka identities. This demonstrates the difficult transition the Heraka movement faces as it shifts from the local to the regional and even the national. The time period studied spans the anti-British Heraka period of the late 1930s, extensive Zeme village reorganisation and the renaissance of the reform during the 1950s, through to the present. A variety of sources is brought to bear on this investigation: imperial archives, the official Heraka Hingde Book, Heraka use of written documents, and fieldwork materials, including oral histories and case studies. The thesis begins by examining the symbol of the Bhuban cave, an important pilgrimage site for Hindus of various kinds, as well as the Heraka. The way the Heraka have come to negotiate their identity is considered. This occurs on two levels: on the one hand, they claim to be a ‘traditional’ group in their quest for ‘authenticity’ and ‘indigeneity’; on the other, they assert their ‘modernity’ and are hence reformist. This developing identity clearly derives from the agrarian reforms of the 1930s onwards, an initial response to what was a millenarian tendency, which in turn influenced these changes. Hence, a different cosmology developed, incorporating monotheistic principles, in order to accommodate the now changing village structure, and the increasing mobility and flexibility of the people. Contact with the outside world also brought about a nuanced and subtle reading of ‘tradition’ vis-à-vis other groups considered ‘traditional’, while similarly adapting to the pressures of other dominant religious traditions by distinguishing themselves as inherently ‘religious’. The introduction of ‘divine rules’, exemplified in the Hingde Book, and the establishment of a Kelumki (prayer house), as ‘sacred’ space, mandated and reflected the formation of this ‘religious community’. This construction of community entails a consideration of notions of boundaries in different contexts: Paupaise, Christian and ‘Hindu’. Boundary-making attitudes and behaviour largely determine group membership, legitimated by ‘primordial’ ethnic notions within the Zeme community itself. Since such notions are largely confined to the realm of perception, these boundaries are fluid; they fluctuate according to context. The leaders’ efforts to manage Heraka reforms give rise to visible tensions between rural and urban communities. Hangrum village has become the symbol for the rural community of a millenarian age, ritualised with its ‘king’s court’, while the urban community disputes such claims as ‘superstition’. The juxtaposition of these two views amplifies the struggle within the Heraka community, as they strive to maintain a balance between the past legitimising ‘tradition’, and the present and future legitimising ‘reform’. The attempt to construct a viable Heraka identity against other group identities has given rise to oscillating differences in the way the Heraka locate and re-locate themselves, both within and outside their community. These positional referents are vital for understanding the evolving nature of Heraka identity in relation to their reform.

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa is one of Hinduism's most outstanding texts composed around the 9th c. CE in south India; it is superbly written, with aesthetic sensitivity and metaphysical subtlety. In his book The Advaitic Theism of The Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Daniel Sheridan has examined the Bhāgavata Purāṇa in order to understand its religious structure, both implicit as well as explicit. This thesis aims at taking current research of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa a step forward in deciphering its doctrine, structure, and meaning. The work first raises the question, "What are the Bhāgavata Purāṇa's literary components", and argues that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is composed of two such groups: "Knowledge" and "Aesthetics". Knowledge is associated with direct usage of language and the conception of Impersonal Brahman, whereas aesthetics are associated with indirect usage of language and the concept of Personal Brahman. The work proceeds to look closer at the status of emotions in Indian thought, and argues that in some Indian schools, emotions are taken to possess an ontological status, and therefore are considered to reveal reality rather than obscure it. The relations of Vaiṣṇavism and dramaturgy are examined, both historically as well as theologically, and it is argued that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa has clear dramatic elements. This thesis next proceeds to decipher the aesthetic theory underlying the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, and argues that it is Bharata's rasa theory. Two medieval positions on rasa are examined - Abhinavagupta's and Bhoja's - and it is argued that a position similar to Bhoja's underlies the text. As in Bhoja's theory it is śṛṅgāra rasa, (romantic emotions) which is considered the supreme rasa. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa's structure is highlighted, as presenting notions of personal divinity arranged in hierarchical order - from those evoking śānta rasa (tranquil emotion) to those evoking śṛṅgāra rasa. At last, four such notions are articulated; Impersonal Brahman, The Universal Person, The Person in the Heart, and the Avatāra.

This thesis is an examination of the local goddesses and their worship in two contrasting field sites. The settlement of Khurdapur consists of five small villages situated a short distance outside Bhubaneswar in Orissa. Cholavandan, on the other hand, is a small town located near to Madurai in southern Tamilnadu. While this study seeks to provide a comprehensive view of local goddess worship in differing environments it also addresses three questions. 1) Is the goddess-centred literature, written at the beginning of the century, still applicable to contemporary goddesses? 2) Do local goddesses really warrant the negative labels ascribed to them by some scholars, such as "malevolent" or "ambivalent"? 3) Is there uniformity or divergence between the goddesses and their worship at the two field sites? In order to address these concerns the research is concerned with three general areas of investigation 1) the temples and shrines 2) the character of the goddesses 3) the ritual worship of the goddesses. These three areas are analysed thematically in terms of the opposites, sacred and profane, order and chaos and the pairs, power and purity, anger and unpredictability. Maps of Khurdapur and Cholavandan are included, as are tables, plans, and photographic evidence, supporting and clarifying the findings in each section. The temples and shrines of Khurdapur and Cholavandan are examined in relation to standard temple configuration, with the conclusion that the temple and shrine structures do not necessarily conform to the patterns given in written sources. An analysis is made of the spatial and symbolic layout of the temples and shrines, in particular as it relates to conceptions of sacred and profane in the two local settlements. An analysis of the character and nature of the goddesses of Khurdapur and Cholavandan is the pivotal section of the thesis. The pairs, anger and unpredictability, and power and purity are examined closely in relation to the character of the goddesses of Khurdapur and Cholavandan, addressing such questions as, are the most pure goddesses really the most powerful in a local setting? In many cases, it is apparent that impurity accompanies an abundance of power. The final section details the main ritual practices and festival rites in Khurdapur and Cholavandan, comparing practices at the two sites and making a distinction between the rituals that take place inside and outside the sacred precinct of the temple. In conclusion, I have provided evidence to suggest that local goddesses have been erroneously generalised as "malevolent" according to previous research. Although many goddesses have a dualistic nature, generally they more readily heal than afflict. The goddesses of Khurdapur and Cholavandan do not adhere to the characterization outlined in previous research. I have shown, by examining a wider range of goddesses than previous studies, and at sites in different parts of India, that a three or two-way categorisation is too narrow, since the majority of goddesses straddle former classifications. The evidence collected has also provided various suggestions about general trends of local worship across India.

The two important temples at Munnesvaram, on the west coast of Sri Lanka, are Hindu and are run by Tamil priests. Their patronage is largely Sinhalese Buddhist. They are the context for an examination of the relations between Hinduism and Buddhism in modern Sri Lanka in a period of violent ethnic tension between Tamils and Sinhalese. The thesis falls in two parts. The first deals with the history of the temples in the colonial and post-colonial eras, the history of religious difference, and with a social analysis of the two groups of priests and of the worshippers. This establishes grounds for a consideration of current anthropological debates on hierarchy and on historicity. The second extends the consideration through a detailed analysis of temple design, ritual and worship. The growing popularity of Munnesvaram as a centre for sorcery, where female Hindu deities predominate, is analysed in the context of ethnic hostility, in order to interpret the changing nature of Munnesvaram's religious significance in a labile social environment.

The thesis considers the eternal problem of fate and free-will as it applies in the Mahabharata, the longest epic in any literature. In the Indian tradition the problem is explored in terms of whether human beings have any control over their own destiny and the world around them; or whether they are under the control of powers and forces beyond them. Chapter 1 examines the Epic doctrine of karma, which in theory represents the ideal compromise solution for it accepts the importance of both determinism and free-will in the lot of the individual, viewed as an entity transmigrating through time. The chapter finds that it is not a solution which finds much favour with the pravrtti or 'this worldly' side of Hinduism, which predominates in the Mahabharata. From their standpoint, karma can all too easily seem just another term for the workings of inscrutable fate. Chapter 2 examines the Mahabharata's views on predestination, the idea that the destiny of the individual is controlled from the beyond by a god or gods. After establishing the structure and nature of the Epic cosmos, the chapter considers the part played by gods and goddesses in the affairs of mortals and finds that three great Gods alone, Brahma, Civa, and Visnu, can be considered to play a predetermining role in the triple-world, for they must for ever try to make good the deficiencies in their own creation. However, the degree of their predetermining intervention differs according to how they are conceived. In the theological sections the great Gods are conceived of as indeterminate essences that predetermine all actions; in the mythology and the legends, they are conceived of as thoroughly anthropomorphic beings who predetermine only the essential events in their desire to preserve the order of the triple-world. The freedom of mortals is thus restricted, instead of negated. Finally, the chapter examines the position of such personalised abstractions as the Placer, the Ordainer, and the Ruler, which play a very prominent part in the proceedings of the Mahabharata. Whether, in any particular context, they are considered to be an independent force, an epithet of a great God, or impersonal fate thinly veiled, they invariably play a much more thorough predetermining role in the affairs of the triple-world. Chapter 3 considers the Mahabharata's views on how the destiny of the individual is controlled from the beyond by the impersonal forces of fate and Time. After examining the difficulties of clearly distinguishing between personal and impersonal forces of control, the chapter considers the range of circumstances in which impersonal fate is cited as the causative force. It also emerges that fate is conceived in quite different ways. In some contexts it is inscrutable and purposeless, and in other contexts it assumes a moral dimension. Equally, in some contexts it is considered to be all-powerful and ineluctable, predetermining all events and actions; but elsewhere fate is a force that can be overcome or made favourable. Chapter 4 considers the Mahabharata 's views pertaining to human free-will. The chapter examines; various 'compromise' answers offered, in which outside forces of control and individual freedom all play a part; the considerable importance attached to human effort and exertion; the means by which individuals can control their own destiny (sacrifice, tapas, knowledge and devotion); and the problem of individual responsibility. Chapter 5 analyses the problem of fate and free-will in the most famous single component of the Epic, the Bhagavadgita. The chapter argues that efforts to find the Gita's answer to the problem are misguided for the Gita offers various answers. The chapter does suggest what was the the favoured view of the Gita's author, but argues that he effectively undermined this solution out of a desire to build up the position of his personal God, a vital component in the Gita's answer to the contemporary crisis in the orthodox tradition. The conclusion points to the great variety of solutions the Mahabharata offers to this eternal problem, but emphasises that despite the fatalistic image of Hinduism, the Mahabharata - for various important reasons - has as much. if not more, to say about the efficacy of human action and free-will.

The bhakti sect of Vallabhacarya, founded by the preceptor-saint of that name in the last decade of the fifteenth century AD, otherwise known as Pustimarga or the Path of Grace, continues to attract an enthusiastic following in northern and western India, To the outsider, Pustimarga is manifestly 'this-worldly' in its orientation. For one thing, there are no ascetics; the gurus are hereditary descendants of Vallabhacarya by virtue of which they are highly revered by their disciples. For another, the bhakti ideals of detachment, disinterestedness and dedication receive palpable expression in the lavish and energetic worship of temple deities which are regarded as actual manifestations of the infant Krishna. This thesis, based largely on fieldwork conducted among devotees in Ujjain city, central India, gives a detailed account of routine temple life and worship. At the same time it explores the nature of the correspondence between the spiritual and phenomenal worlds epitomised in the temple as the celestial abode of Krishna and in its paraphernalia as embodiments of the exuberant emotions experienced by participants in the divine lila. Of pairticular significance in this respect is the special emphasis which devotees place on sacred food and feasting. The temple is geared to a redistributive economy in which the circulation of ritual commodities, including sacred food, becomes an elaborate expression for the sharing of divine sentiments. But as many devotees point out, this altruistic system of worship is always open to abuse from those persons who would exploit it for selfish ends.

The purpose of the thesis is to examine the relationship between social structure and ritual. It is based on data collected in a peasant village in Visakhapatnam District, Andhra Pradesh, South India, over a period of twenty-three months 1970-1972). In this village, in which Gavara farmers are the dominant caste, the formal organizing principles of the society are hierarchy and interdependence. A detailed statistical survey of the realities of the society reveals that these principles, while on the whole upheld, are constantly under challenge. Women constantly challenge male dominance in domestic economic affairs and disputes and also play a major role in the high degree of marital instability and divorce. Brothers pursue their own households' interests to the detriment of their interdependent co-operation with each other. Between castes, economic relations do not always conform to a strictly hierarchical pattern. The caste hierarchy itself is a mass of discrepant unreciprocated claims. In the face of these violations and contradictory pressures it is ritual activity and its symbolism which define and uphold the formal conventions of social hierarchy and interdependence. This is achieved through the constant repetition of symbols of respect and in the principal ritual act, puja. This symbolic acting out of hierarchy is thus presented through rituals as the epitome of morality itself. The subordinate role of women is similarly defined by ritual concepts. The woman who is subordinated to her husband is virtuous and auspicious. A woman who becomes a widow is no longer subordinate to an elder male and is inauspicious. Performances of rituals of the major agricultural festivals foster ideal models of inter-caste cooperation by activating responsibilities for castes to participate interdependently. They are, however, also occasions through which numerous political and economic rivalries find expression.

The thesis describes the ritual states women are in at different stages in their lives and examines these states in terms of their significance as expressions of gender ideology. It is based on the findings of fieldwork conducted in a village in the Malwa region of Central India, and supplemented with references to other work on the region and to studies of other regions of the sub-continent. The varying ritual states looked at together with statements from informants and observations of female behaviour express the social construction of what it is to be female. The way in which female sexuality is represented is discussed. An analysis of the material suggests that sexuality is separated into two aspects: one which can be called 'social' and which is positively evaluated and one which is called 'physical' which is negatively evaluated. These aspects are expressed in different ritual states but the links between them lead to an understanding of the alterations in a woman's ritual states and to an overall view of woman's powers in relation to the sacred. Women's ritual states are also closely associated with their position in the kinship system. Positive aspects of their femaleness are usually expressed unequivocally with regard to their natal kin but their ritual states with regard to their conjugal kin are more ambiguous. On occasion the negative aspects of femaleness are expressed ritually by a woman being regarded as polluting and dangerous.

Journeying to sacred places is an ancient yet contemporarily popular tradition in the Hindu society of India. At the outset of this thesis, the philosophical foundations and general patterns of pilgrimage practice in West Bengal, India, where fieldwork was conducted, are discussed. Case studies of three West Bengali pilgrimage centres — Tarakeswar, Navadvip and Tarapith, which are Śaiva, Vaiṣṇava and Śākta sacred places, respectively — reveal the considerable diversity in the regional pilgrimage tradition. In analysing each of these centres, ethnographic data on the social and economic organisation of specialised religious places, roles of sacred specialists, beliefs regarding the deities, patterns of ritual, and social characteristics and behaviour of pilgrims are presented. The literature on pilgrimage is reviewed in search of theoretical tools for the task of generalising about pilgrimage, inclusive of the evident diversity. Analysis and criticism of existing theories indicates that analysts have focused on limited aspects of pilgrimage practice which conform to disciplinary boundaries rather than seeking the patterned consistencies which define the full institution. Comparison of the three case studies reveals that the variation in religious patterns in the centres relates to wider traditions of religious culture in Bengal: the several strands of pilgrimage tradition generally replicate the sub-traditions of Bengali Hinduism and patterns of belief and practice in any sacred place are closely associated with the religious tradition of the regional cult which dominates that centre. It is possible, however, to identify two levels at which the diversity of the pilgrimage institution is founded in systematic conceptual unity. Both levels concern the meaning of pilgrimage within prevalent patterns of Bengali Hinduism. The explicit meaning of pilgrimage in the conscious thought of participants emphasises the journey to the deity's terrestrial abode in search of interaction with the divine. Implicit within this patterned behaviour are important Hindu metaphysical concepts — the implicit ideology of pilgrimage — which invest pilgrimage with meaning derived from abstract Hindu religious thought.

The object of thesis is to enquire into various aspects of the doctrine of 'tainted' debts in Hindu law, as found in the dharmasastras, and in the light of their interpretations by the commentators, digest-writers (nibandhakaras) and modern scholars; and to explain its present position obtained at the hands of the modern courts of with an eye on remedies, if any, to rectify the ambiguity which presently surrounds the doctrine. The first chapter begins with a brief survey of the sources of our information. Then, it explains the institution of the Mitaksara joint family, the father-son relationship, the function of the Pious Obligation, and ends with the introduction of the doctrine of 'tainted' debts. The first part of the thesis --- chapters two to four --- enquires into the nature, scope and possible reasons for the exclusion of these debts, except the surety debts, from the son's liability mainly from the point of view of the sastras as expounded by the commentators, digest-writers and modern scholars. In view of their peculiar nature as compared to rest of the enumerated debts, as well as their exceptional treatment in the sastras, the surety debts are discussed separately in Appendix I. In the second part, the fifth chapter is devoted to explaining certain similar but foreign legal concepts already known to the British judges, which seem to have influenced the judical opinion significantly while administering justice in respect of the doctrine of 'tainted' debts. Having this information as a background, the sixth chapter proceeds with the enquiry concerning the case-law on the subject, as developed by the modern courts of law. This, in turn, leads us to the question of 'notice of taint'. The significance of the doctrine of 'notice of taint', and its place in the modern Hindu law of debts is, therefore, discussed in the seventh chapter. The final chapter contains the concluding remarks in respect of the future of the 'Pious Obligation' and the doctrine of 'tainted' debts in modern Hindu law. Throughout the thesis an attempt is made to throw further light on the controversial points of law on the subject.

The Caurasi pada (CP), often entitled Hita caurasi in modern sources, is a Krsnaite text in Braj bhasa attributed to the 16th century poet Hita Harivamsa, Since Hita Harivamsa is regarded as the 'founder' of the Vrindaban-based Radhavallabha sampradaya (a bhakti sect whose allegiance is directed nominally to Krsna, but essentially to Radha), the CP has a canonical status and is the subject of many commentaries; it is also widely imitated in the later sectarian literature. The purpose of the thesis is to illuminate the transmission of the text. An introductory chapter discusses the sectarian background to the CP and the hagiography of Hita Harivamsa, and discusses other texts attributed to the poet. Then follows an assessment of the sources which form the basis for the edition of the CP, and a survey of the language of the text. The critically edited text is based on 13 sources, comprising 11 manuscripts (with and without tika) and two printed editions; it is accompanied by a full apparatus criticus, and followed by a literal English translation. Annotations to the translation assess textual variants, discuss semantic and syntactic points, and seek to show how interpretations of the text have developed along sectarian lines through tikas of the 17th, 18th and 20th centuries. Discussion of prosody follows in a separate chapter, where antecedents for metrical forms appearing on the text are sought in Apabhramsa metrics, and correspondences of metrical structure with musical tala are analysed on the basis of recordings of samaja (the temple hymnody). The final chapter discusses the authorship of the text (of which various stanzas are also attributed to other poets), and analyses its composition, raga allocations and sectarian interpretation. Appendices include extracts from the early CP commentaries, and a select glossary.

Hindu religious and philosophical activity is as complex as the European. The ideas underlying the karma notion are manifold and buried in ceremonial and sometimes obscure terminology. Nevertheless, several concepts appear to be forerunners of karma: rta (in the Rig-Veda), Yajna and re-death in the Brahmanas; devayana and pitryana are corollaries of the foregoing conecpts. Dharma is not probably of identical meaning with karma. Upanishadie thought already contains the karma doctraine but not elaborated. Buddhism definitely introduces karma as the groundplan of its teaching, the latter idea being based on causation it gives a definite and central place to indian thought. In later writings of the Indians, karma is modified, due to the inrush of new ideas, but substantlally it preserves its original meaning. From among the five chief commentators of the Brahmasutra, Sankara and Ramanija have made an attempt to give it a metaphysical background. The former succeeded in including karma in his system, but had to split knowlwdge into metaphysical and empirical. The latter was in some senses a complement to sankara. The surya-gita deals with the problem of karma as an accepted fact. Nevertheless, trying to solve the relation between Erahma, Isvara and jiva on a logical ground, implies difficulties. The possibility of conceiving the karma doctrine as an universal law of causation, as understood by the Hindus, in connection with the idea of heredity, environment, fate etc. several aspects of understanding karma in its bearing on life- biological, psychological, ethical and metaphysical.

The Kapisthala-Katha-Samhita, a Vedic text of the Black Yajurveda, is presented here for the first time. All the differences between this and the Kathaka- Samhita have been noted, and a comparison made with allied ritual literature ranging from Rgveda to the Srautasutras. A large number of corrections and emendations in Schroeder's text of kath have also been suggested. The introduction deals with the ms. material, its grammatical peculiarities, the original home of the followers of this school, the relative date of the composition of the text, the additions and omissions as compared with Kath. And the relation to Rgveda. of the existence of a Kapisthala version of the Kath. Brahmana Preserved by the Taittiriyas, nothing was known till now. The fragment, as found in our ms, is given on pages 30-32.

The subject has been divided into five chapters. In the Introduction we have indicated three different phases in the evolution of Pancaratra Philosophy, corresponding to an identical number of stages in the historic career of Pancaratra. In the second chapter Krsna-Vasudeva has been shown to be a real historical figure, and not a vegetation deity nor a solar one. Then, the fortunes of Bhagavatisim, in the light of literary and epigraphic records, have been traced. Incidentally, a bird's-eye view of the philosophy of the four-principal Sampradayas, into wich Bhagavatism at a later stage split up, viz:, Sri-Sampradaya, Sanakadi-Sampradaya, Brahma-Sampradaya, and Rudra-Sampradaya, has been taken to explain the continuity of theistic currents in India. Next we have analysed the various ingredients of Visnu, the Vedic God, leading to his subsequent elevation to the rank of a supreme spirit. The cult of Narayana has been attended to by a similar analytical study, justifying his claim to the position of a cosmic deity. The third chapter contains the philosophy of the semi-Brahmaised Bhagavatas from the Narayaniya episode. As we have no systematic religious literature for the first period, we have entirely to rely for it upon certain stray materials pieced together by Dr. Bhandarkar, Professor Garbe, and Dr. Grierson. In the fourth chapter, an attempt has been made to portray the philosophy of the Pancaratras from their traditional text-books, e.g., the Samhitas. In our treatment of philosophy during the successive stages, we have not allowed ourselves to be disturbed by the question of indebtedness of Pancaratra to pantheism of the Midland. The subject, on account of its immense importance, has received special attention in the concluding chapter on the philosophy of the Upanisads.

The study is concerned in the first place with an investigation of evidence for clan exogamy during the period of the Brahmanas, an the allied question of relationship-terminology. In the second place it deals with an elucidation of the complex problem of the Vratyas. An intermediary chapter is devoted to a description of the social and functional groups. Finally, a discussion of the available evidence for 'sapinda' restrictions is added. With regard to clan exogamy the word 'Aril in the Rgveda is of particular significance. 'Jana' and 'jami in the Brahmanas have also been found to be of similar importance in as such as the former signifies the marriage- able exogamous group and the latter the non-marriageable group. In the context of relationship-terminology the words 'agredidhisu' (the woman wooed before) 'didhistrpatil (the husband of 'agredidhisu') 'parivitta' (the unmarried elder brother) 'parivividana' (the younger brother married while the elder brother remains a bachelor) 'anujavara' (the posthumous son, or the younger brother of inferior status) 'bhrarvya' (the brother-in-law) and 'sajata' (fellow-clansman), are analysed. Amon the social and functional groups the distinction between those of the 'Taksan' and the 'Rathakgra' has be-n noticed. In dealing with the problem of the 'Vratyast', firstly former contributions in this field have be n reviewed in detail. Secondly, previous suggestions in connection with the etymologioal explanation of the word Vratyal have been considered. Thirdly, it has been pointed out that the 'Viatya' book of the Atharvaveda is, in all probability, compiled from fragments of a lost Brahmana text. Fourthly, the references to the 'Vratyas' in the Tandya and Jaiminiya have been duly noted and inter-pretations hitherto proposed, scrutinised. Lastly, the conolusion is arrived at, that the 'Vratyas were non-Brahmanical Aryans, possibly similar to the Ksatriyas, and having alien ritual practices. In conclusion it has been conjectured that the passage in the Satapatha bearing on 'Sapiada' restrictions ex-presses diapproval of the marriage-practice to which it refers.

This thesis rejects the current definition of bhakti and seeks a reorientation of the present academic opinion about bhakti and the Bhakti Movement. It questions the basic assumptions responsible for the existing views, and points out the error of treating bhakti as a cult and a doctrine, and of its identification with Vaishnavism. The present study suggests that bhakti cannot be confined to Vaishnavism and that a personal concept of God, a dualistic view of Reality, and an antagonism to jnana are not its necessary concomitants. It brings forth evidence to show that the concept of an impersonal God, a non-dualistic view of Reality, and an emphasis on jnana can also be the legitimate constituents of a bhakti tradition. Taking this position it prepares the ground for a re-evaluation of the Bhakti Movement and suggests a new approach to the study of Kabir and his nirguna school. Chapter I examines the existing opinion on the subject. Tracing its origin, growth, and perpetuation it shows the western bias which shaped It. Pointing out the inapplicability of the western standards of judgement in the Hindu context, the nature of Hindu Theism and Monotheism has been reassessed and a new approach to bhakti is suggested. Chapter II is a study of the classical texts which are invariably cited to substantiate the current theories. It shows that the bhakti of the Bhagavad-Gita, the Bhagavata-Purana and the Bhakti-Sutras of Narada and Sandliya is in fact incompatible with the present definition of bhakti. Chapter III shows that the difference between Sankara and the Vaishnava acharyas does not rest on bhakti, but is caused by Sankara's challenge to Vaishnavism and the Vaishnava loyalties of the Vaishnava acharyas. Chapter IV re-evaluates Kabir and attempts to trace his antecedents. The conclusion sums up the main arguments advanced in this thesis.

This study traces the evolution of the Brahmans as a sacerdotal caste during the Vedic period. An alternative view is offered to the generally accepted ideas about the Brahmans based on the Smrtis. By presenting a semantic study of certain keywords for priest-poets in the Rgveda and by relying on a functional approach we hope to offer a more consistent interpretation of the development of the notion of Brahmanism. The factors that contributed to the development of the Vedic priesthood into the Brahman class are traced to the fusion of the pre-Vedic Aryan and indigenous culture patterns and religious ideas. Chapter I deals with the notion of caste and surveys certain historical approaches to it, in so far as they have influenced social studies of the Vedic period, and puts forward the need for a new approach on this subject. The literary sources for the Vedic period, the method of their interpretation and their chronology are discussed in chapter II. The third chapter outlines the pre-Vedic indiganous culture streams and deals with the migration of the Indo-Aryans into India. In addition it surveys the Aryan and the non-Aryan elements of the ensuing composite Vedic society. The four succeeding chapters analyse the words vipra, rsi, purohita and brahman. The conclusion sets out the issues involved in this study.

Section I. (a) Brief survey of the Agama literature. It was once very influential and succeeded greatly in abolishing the Vedic ritualism and substituting in its place the temple ritualism. (b) A brief survey of the Saivagana literature. It was once very vast and is now almost extinct and unknown. About 258 Saivagamas are noticed, (c) Probable age: The Saivagamas were current in the 6th century A.D. (d) A brief survey of the contents of the four Padas,. vis. Kriya, Carya,Yoga and Jnana. The section is concluded with the observation of some of the important points on which the Saivagamas disagree with the Vedic literature. Section II. Pt.l. (a) As early as the 7th century A.D. the Saiva Siddhanta is seen existing in Kashmir, Central and Southern India. On epigraphic grounds some Saiva institutions existing in Northern, Central, and Southern India, and the line of teachers presiding over them are traced. Some of these teachers explicitly call themselves in their books the teachers of the doctrines of the Saiva Siddhanta. (b) The accounts of some prominent Sanskrit writers on the Saiva Siddhanta are sketched, (c) An attempt is made to review the accounts of the pre and post Meykandan (Tamil) writers. Part 2. Three Padarthas (topics): vis. Pati, Pasu and Pasa. Pati-padartha comprises (l) the conception, nature, functions etc. of the Supreme God, and (2) the treatment of the pure region, its residents their functions etc. Pasu-padartha deals with souls which are grouped into three classes vis. Vijnanakala, Pralayakala and Sakala, their nature etc. Pasa-padartha includes the treatment of the matter, the origin and development of the universe, and the entanglements such as Maya, Karma and Anava. In this section an attempt is made to present the Saiva Siddhanta views regarding God, Soul and Matter, the three eternal entities. The Saiva Tattvas are occasionally compared and contrasted with the Sankhya Tattvas. Section III. Pt. I. Virasaiviam does not seem to hare been originated with Basava, the minister of the Kalacuri King Bijjala (1156-1167 A.D.). It seems to be an ancient Saiva sect. A brief sketch of the works and accounts of the Virasaiva writers from 11th century to 18th century is attempted. Pt. 2. Sub-pt.l. A brief account of eight fold coverings (Astavarana) initiation, marriage and funeral in supplied. Sub-pt.2. The conception of God, the interpretation of the Linga, the nature and functions of Sakti are investigated from the Virasaiva point of view. The Virasaiva metaphysics based on the Karana-hasuge is reviewed. The doctrines of six and 101 Sthalas, stages in the soul's upward journey are investigated. At the end an abstract of the Siddhanta Sikhamani which treats 101 Sthalas is appended.