Open Boundaries: Jain Communities and Cultures in Indian History

by John E. Cort (Editor)

Overview

Open Boundaries provides a new perspective on Jainism, one of the oldest yet least-studied of the world's living religions. Ten closely-focused studies investigate the interactions between Jains and non-Jains in South Asian society, with detailed studies of yoga, tantra, aesthetic theory, erotic poetry, theories of kingship, goddess worship, temple ritual, polemical poetry, religious women, and historiography. Viewing the Jains within a South Asian context results in a strikingly different portrait from the standard models represented in both traditional Western and Indian scholarship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780791437858
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	07/10/1998
Series:	SUNY series in Hindu Studies
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

John E. Cort is Associate Professor of Religion at Denison University.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	vii
1.	Introduction: Contested Jain Identities of Self and Other	1
2.	Haribhadra's Analysis of Patanjala and Kula Yoga in the Yogadrstisamuccaya	15
3.	Becoming Gautama: Mantra and History in Svetambara Jainism	31
4.	Hemacandra and Sanskrit Poetics	53
5.	Erotic Excess and Sexual Danger in the Civakacintamani	67
6.	Who Is a King? Jain Narratives of Kingship in Medieval Western India	85
7.	Sweetmeats or Corpses? Community, Conversion, and Sacred Places	111
8.	Ritual Culture and the Distinctiveness of Jainism	139
9.	Sramanas Against the Tamil Way: Jains as Others in Tamil Saiva Literature	163
10.	Jain and Hindu "Religious Women" in Early Medieval Tamilnadu	187
11.	The Story of the Disappearing Jains: Retelling the Saiva-Jain Encounter in Medieval South India	213
	References	225
	Contributors	257
	Index	259

Editorial Reviews

Ten chapters<-->originally workshop presentations (Amherst College, 1993)<-->provide a new perspective on one of the oldest yet least studied of the world's living religions. The editor notes that contributors were asked to provide "thick description" (in ethnographic parlance) studies of this group in the Hindu/Buddhist cultural context of South Asia. The Jain philosophy of itself predicates a multilayered perspective in relation to such themes explored here as: Tantric yoga, Sanskrit poetics, eroticism, kingship, community, ritual culture, and religious women. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

"What I like most about this book is that it makes a tremendous advance on the research for the Jain identity. It examines the ways in which Jains identify themselves in relation to other communities, whether religious or political, from the ancient to the modern period, and the manner in which the others relate to them. No other South Asian religious community, whether the ancient Buddhists or the medieval Sikhs, has been studied in such a comprehensive manner. An indispensable reference work for the study of South Asia." — Padmanabh S. Jaini, University of California, Berkeley

"There is no question that Jainism is an important topic, and this collection has something in it for everyone including solid papers on philosophy, sociology and anthropology, art history, religious studies, and literature." — Phyllis Granoff, McMaster University

From the Publisher