Feeding a Thousand Souls: Women, Ritual, and Ecology in India- An Exploration of the Kolam
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ISBN:
9780197761137
Publication date:
10/07/2023
Paperback
336 pages
We sell our titles through other companies
Disclaimer :You will be redirected to a third party website.The sole responsibility of supplies, condition of the product, availability of stock, date of delivery, mode of payment will be as promised by the said third party only. Prices and specifications may vary from the OUP India site.
ISBN:
9780197761137
Publication date:
10/07/2023
Paperback
336 pages
Vijaya Nagarajan
This is the first comprehensive study of the kōlam in the English language. It examines its significance in historical, mathematical, ecological, anthropological, and literary contexts. The culmination of Vijaya Nagarajan's many years of research and writing on this exacting ritual practice, Feeding a Thousand Souls celebrates the experiences, thoughts, and voices of the Tamil women who keep this tradition alive.
Rights: SOUTH ASIA RIGHTS (RESTRICTED)
Vijaya Nagarajan
Description
Every day millions of Tamil women in southeast India wake up before dawn to create a kōlam, an ephemeral ritual design made with rice flour, on the thresholds of homes, businesses and temples. This thousand-year-old ritual welcomes and honors Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and alertness, and Bhudevi, the goddess of the earth. Created by hand with great skill, artistry, and mathematical precision, the kolam disappears in a few hours, borne away by passing footsteps and hungry insects.
This is the first comprehensive study of the kōlam in the English language. It examines its significance in historical, mathematical, ecological, anthropological, and literary contexts. The culmination of Vijaya Nagarajan's many years of research and writing on this exacting ritual practice, Feeding a Thousand Souls celebrates the experiences, thoughts, and voices of the Tamil women who keep this tradition alive.
About the author:
Vijaya Nagarajan is an associate professor in the Department of Theology/Religious Studies and in the Program of Environmental Studies at the University of San Francisco and writes about Hinduism, gender, and ecology. She is active in the American Academy of Religion and in the environmental movements in the United States.
Vijaya Nagarajan
Table of contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Note on Diacritics and Transliterations
List of Figures
Introduction
Chapter 1- Beginnings
Chapter 2- Following Lines of Beauty
Chapter 3- Rituals
Chapter 4- Thresholds
Chapter 5- Antal
Chapter 6- Designs
Chapter 7- Embodied Mathematics
Chapter 8- Competitions: From Village to City
Chapter 9- Embedded Ecologies and the Earth Goddess
Chapter 10- Marrying Trees and Global Warming
Chapter 11- Feeding a Thousand Souls: A Ritual of Generosity
Chapter 12- Endings
Vijaya Nagarajan
Vijaya Nagarajan
Review
"Feeding a Thousand Souls is a beautifully written and richly illustrated book with an abundance of color photos befitting the book's visual subject, the kolam." - Serinity Young, American Museum of Natural History, Religion
"Feeding a Thousand Souls is at once a smart and sweet book. It is sweet because it winds around the author's own experiences and her scholarly journey back into her culture of origin. It is smart because it carries us along unexpectedly from her life through an ever-expanding Tamil Hindu worldview that is encapsulated but hardly contained in one art-ritual form. Through the exploration of thekolamwe are treated to a delightful series of thoughtful observations and reflections that reverberate far beyond the Tamil threshold." - Jack David Eller, Community College of Denver, Reading Religion
"Vijaya Nagarajan ... refers to the belief in Hindu mythology that Hindus have a "karmic obligation" to "feed a thousand souls," or offer food to those that live among us. By providing a meal of rice flour to bugs, ants, birds, and insects, she writes, the Hindu householder begins the day with "a ritual of generosity," with a dual offering to divinity and to nature." - Rohini Chaki, Gastro Obscura
Description
Every day millions of Tamil women in southeast India wake up before dawn to create a kōlam, an ephemeral ritual design made with rice flour, on the thresholds of homes, businesses and temples. This thousand-year-old ritual welcomes and honors Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and alertness, and Bhudevi, the goddess of the earth. Created by hand with great skill, artistry, and mathematical precision, the kolam disappears in a few hours, borne away by passing footsteps and hungry insects.
This is the first comprehensive study of the kōlam in the English language. It examines its significance in historical, mathematical, ecological, anthropological, and literary contexts. The culmination of Vijaya Nagarajan's many years of research and writing on this exacting ritual practice, Feeding a Thousand Souls celebrates the experiences, thoughts, and voices of the Tamil women who keep this tradition alive.
About the author:
Vijaya Nagarajan is an associate professor in the Department of Theology/Religious Studies and in the Program of Environmental Studies at the University of San Francisco and writes about Hinduism, gender, and ecology. She is active in the American Academy of Religion and in the environmental movements in the United States.
Read MoreReviews
"Feeding a Thousand Souls is a beautifully written and richly illustrated book with an abundance of color photos befitting the book's visual subject, the kolam." - Serinity Young, American Museum of Natural History, Religion
"Feeding a Thousand Souls is at once a smart and sweet book. It is sweet because it winds around the author's own experiences and her scholarly journey back into her culture of origin. It is smart because it carries us along unexpectedly from her life through an ever-expanding Tamil Hindu worldview that is encapsulated but hardly contained in one art-ritual form. Through the exploration of thekolamwe are treated to a delightful series of thoughtful observations and reflections that reverberate far beyond the Tamil threshold." - Jack David Eller, Community College of Denver, Reading Religion
"Vijaya Nagarajan ... refers to the belief in Hindu mythology that Hindus have a "karmic obligation" to "feed a thousand souls," or offer food to those that live among us. By providing a meal of rice flour to bugs, ants, birds, and insects, she writes, the Hindu householder begins the day with "a ritual of generosity," with a dual offering to divinity and to nature." - Rohini Chaki, Gastro Obscura
Read MoreTable of contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Note on Diacritics and Transliterations
List of Figures
Introduction
Chapter 1- Beginnings
Chapter 2- Following Lines of Beauty
Chapter 3- Rituals
Chapter 4- Thresholds
Chapter 5- Antal
Chapter 6- Designs
Chapter 7- Embodied Mathematics
Chapter 8- Competitions: From Village to City
Chapter 9- Embedded Ecologies and the Earth Goddess
Chapter 10- Marrying Trees and Global Warming
Chapter 11- Feeding a Thousand Souls: A Ritual of Generosity
Chapter 12- Endings
