Bøger udgivet af Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing

What role media content and technologies play in processes of change is an ongoing and multi-layered discussion. Therein, advertising and gender have an extraordinary position. In the context of advertising production in urban India, this book deals with the understanding of social change in the early 2010s. Through an inquiry of the production of advertising created for commercial and/or social purposes, the perceptions of advertising producers are highlighted. The analysis presents the realities of the producers as well as debates surrounding the creation processes. Thereby, the complexities and intertwining of advertising are uncovered, while dynamics of gender, media, and change are discussed.

In Tamil Nadu, the nine-night autumnal Navar¿tri festival can be viewed as a celebration of feminine powers in association with the goddess. This book explores Navar¿tri as it is celebrated in the South Indian temple town of Kanchipuram. It investigates the local mythologies of the goddess, two temple celebrations, and the domestic ritual practice known as kolu (doll displays). The author highlights three intersecting themes: namely the play of the goddess in myth and ritual, the religious agency and images of women and the divine feminine, and notions of playfulness in Navar¿tri rituals; as articulated in creativity, aesthetics, competition, and dramatic expressions.

Students of Sanskrit can choose among several good manuals. Whichever they may choose, learning Sanskrit is a daunting task. This book is not an alternative textbook for learning Sanskrit. Instead, it is to accompany these textbooks and written in the hope to make Sanskrit learning easier by explaining words and grammatical forms from an Indo-European point of view. Consider, for example Old Indian ad which means ¿to eat¿, but is also historically related to both English (abbreviated by E) eat and New High German (NHG) essen. There was an Indo-European (IE) root ed that branched out into all these words over some millennia. Even E tooth and NHG Zahn stem from IE ed.

Sowohl in der vedischen als auch in der klassischen Periode gab es eine besondere Elite von Menschen, die Brahmanen genannt wurden. Grob könnte man sagen, dass ihr materielles Wohlergehen in der vedischen Periode von dak¿i¿a und in der klassischen Periode von dana abhing. Dieses Buch erweitert die Perspektive über dak¿i¿a und dana hinaus und befasst sich mit allen Arten des Gebens im Kontext des vormodernen Indiens, wobei vedische, sanskritische, buddhistische und -- in weit geringerem Maße -- römische und christliche Quellen verwendet werden. Die brahmanische Theorie des Schenkens (d.h. die Theorie des pflichtgemäßen Schenkens, dharmadana) ist ein wichtiger Schwerpunkt und eine wichtige Motivation für diese Studie.

A thousand-year-old Ayurvedic manuscript containing the Compendium of Süruta was announced to the scholarly world in 2007. The Nepalese manuscript, since adopted by UNESCO as part of the Memory of the World, reveals the state of classical Indian medicine in the ninth century. It enables us to study the changes in this medical classic that have taken place from the ninth to the nineteenth century, when printed texts began to dominate the dissemination of the work. The present monograph describes the research project focussed on this manuscript and offers an edition, study and translation of the historically important chapter about the plastic surgery on the nose and ears.

The trajectory of the Dhari Devi Temple epitomises the idea of catastrophes as watersheds. In particular, flood disasters have accompanied transformation processes of the site located on Alaknanda River in the Indian Himalayas. As early as 1894, a flash flood had a significant impact on the site and the identity of the deity. Local flood legends gained new topicality with the planning of a hydroelectric power plant in the vicinity. They became part of debates surrounding the construction scheme that required the relocation of the sacred site. This case study explores flood discourses and lluminates their influence on a development project. It further demonstrates how previous controversies framed the public interpretation of two flood disasters in 2012 and specifically of the ¿Himalayan Tsunami¿ in 2013.

In this book the author describes the Ancestors Ceremonies as practiced in the Taiwanese Catholic Church. The author's point is to demonstrate how the Chinese symbolic universe made a deep translation of the "new" symbolic system represented by the Catholic doctrine. At the same time the effort of the Catholic Church in order to adapt the Gospel message to the local situation built up a particular phenomenon that the author defined as cultural dialogue. It is this dialogic relationship the process that the author defines as Culture.

This volume is dedicated to Maya Burger, professor emerita at the Faculty of Arts, University of Lausanne. It gathers contributions by friends, colleagues, and former students that echo the multiple dimensions of her work. Organised in four parts, Indology, History of Religions, History of Orientalism, and Hindi and Translation, these contributions explore different examples of encounters with ¿significant others¿. Analysing original historical and literary sources and reflecting on the methodological dimensions, the authors offer innovative perspectives on various processes of interaction and exchange between the Indian subcontinent and the wider world and within the subcontinent itself.

Yi Seong-gye (1335-1408) began life as an obscure warrior of Koreäs borderlands, but rose to overthrow the 500-year Goryeo dynasty and become King Taejo, who founded the 518-year Joseon dynasty, Koreäs final royal lineage and the longest lasting Confucian dynasty in history. King Taejös momentous life intersected with watershed East Asian developments: the collapse of the Mongol Empire in Korea, the rise of Chinäs brilliant Ming dynasty, the pacification of massive Japanese pirating operations, and the rise of Asiäs most thoroughly realized Confucian society in Joseon. This biography tells the tale, ending with the tragic descent of King Taejös own family into fratricide and grief.

In the early modern period, the Sants emerged in North India as devotees of a formless interior god. The volume introduces seven Sant authors living in Rajasthan in the period from the first half of the sixteenth to the eighties of the seventeenth century. It explores their complex cultural background, their literary conventions, and their sectarian network, and presents samples of their poetry in the original Hindi with English translations. By far the most of the compositions in this volume have not been translated before, and of one of these the original text is published also for the first time. Sant poetry has been transmitted in oral and written form. It owes its continuing vitality largely to congregational and private performance. This fact has been illustrated by a number of audio and video samples.

In the series Püpik¿. Tracing Ancient India through Texts and Traditions: Contributions to Current Research in Indology, the proceedings of the International Indology Graduate Research Symposium (IIGRS) are published. Püpik¿ is a peer-reviewed series that provides early-career scholars with a platform to share the results of their research on pre-modern South Asian cultures. This is the 6th volume in the series, containing thirteen articles based on the talks presented at the 12th IIGRS online and in Vienna, Austria on 22¿24 July 2021.

One of the leading proponents of the radical linguistic reforms in 20th century China, Wei Jiangong remains hardly known in the West. This book describes how Wei, who was rooted in traditional philology and conceptualizing language as a tool, helped to promulgate a standard language, led the compilation of the world¿s most popular dictionary, and helped to drive script reform. While these measures were characterized as violent intervention in the Chinese language sphere, Wei¿s careful negotiating of linguistic description and political prescription illustrates how they also may have been steps that helped to achieve linguistic self-determination.

It is impossible to imagine human history without emotions. But what is known about theoretical emotion knowledge in premodern South India? This volume offers a first systematic examination of emotion knowledge as found in Tamil treatises and commentaries written from the 11th to 17th century. By following different theoretical strands, it sheds light on the questions that were raised by various emotion theorists, as well as their agenda and theorising practices. It points out changes, linearity, and disruptions in their ideas, as well as historically marginal knowledge. Perhaps surprisingly, the only systematic works on emotion produced by medieval and early modern Tamil thinkers were on emotion in poetics.