This book focuses on genealogies of religious authority in South Asia, examining the figure of the guru in narrative texts, polemical tracts, hagiographies, histories, in contemporary devotional communities, New Age spiritual movements and global guru organizations.
Experts in the field present reflections on historically specific contexts in which a guru comes into being, becomes part of a community, is venerated, challenged or repudiated, generates a new canon, remains unique with no clear succession or establishes a succession in which charisma is routinized. The guru emerges and is sustained and routinized from the nexus of guruship, narratives, performances and community. The contributors to the book examine this nexus at specific historical moments with all their elements of change and contingency.
The book will be of interest to scholars in the field of South Asian studies, the study of religions and cultural studies.
Author(s): István Keul, Srilata Raman
Series: Routledge South Asian Religion Series
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 292
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
List of contributors
1. Gurus and Their Contexts in South Asia: An Introduction
2. How the Guru Lost His Power: Public Anxieties of Tantric Knowledge in the Sanskrit Vetāla Tales
3. The Guru Function in the Emergence of Marathi Literature in Thirteenth-Century India
4. Guru Dādu- in the Perception of His Direct Disciples
5. Canonization of Bhakti Gurus: A Missing Link between Jai Singh II and Haris´candra
6. The Emergence of the Social in the Service of the Guru
7. Between Sagacity and Scandal: Celibacy, Sexuality and a Guru in Nineteenth-Century Punjab
8. The Occluded Guru or the Guru as Gardener: C. Jinarajadasa’s Theosophical Universe
9. Inversions of Kim: The Victorian Childhood of J. Krishnamurti
10. The Vaidika’s Limits: Candras´ekharendra Sarasvatī Svāmī (1894– 1994) and Tamil Brahmin Guruship
11. The Fiction of Ecumenical Universalism: Where Gurus Do Not Matter
12. Between the Letter and the Spirit: Gandhi’s Orbit
13. Guru Sex: Charisma, Proxemic Desire, and the Haptic Logics of the Guru-Disciple Relationship
14. Manufacturing Charisma in the Metropolis
15. Narrating the Spiritualized Life
16. The Gurus of a Post-Colonial Education: An Autobiographical Note
Selected Publications by Vasudha Dalmia
Index
