Reconstructing Tradition: Advaita Acarya and Gaudiya Vaisnavism at the Cusp of the Twentieth Century

by Rebecca Manring

Overview

Fabricating Tradition explores the devotional Hindu Krishnaite revival of the 15th and 16th centuries and its persistence into modern times through an examination of one of its principal figures, Advaita Acharya. He was the subject of several texts, and Manring considers all of them in terms of changing historical, social, and sectarian contexts. The movement of which Advaita was a part advocated equal access to salvation by all, regardess of class; yet Advaita himself was a high-class Brahman. "Advaita" itself means "non-dual"; yet the movement was inherently dualistic. These conflicts are brought out in greater or lesser degrees in the various hagiographies and thus raise a number of issues for understanding this movement and Indian religion generally. A major revival of the tradition in the late nineteenth century was a response to polemical attacks by British rulers and Christian missionaries, and the book discusses how a tradition appropriates useful themes and images to recreate itself in a new socio-political climate. The postcolonial implications and changing social and historical contexts of the Advaita texts will make this work the text of choice for Hindu hagiography.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231129541
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	07/13/2005
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Rebecca Manring is associate professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. She is the author of Reconstructing Tradition: Advaita Acarya and Gaudiya Vaisnavism at the Cusp of the Twentieth Century (Columbia University Press, 2005).

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Birth of an Image
Advaita Acarya: A New Imminence
Variant Messages: Non-Hagiographical Texts Treating Advaita Acarya
Revival and Return
Another "Black Forgery," or Mere Play?
Advaita Prakasa
Sita Devi: Gateway to the Future
Advaita Acarya Today
Conclusions

What People are Saying About This

Daniel Gold

Given the historical depth of the book, its post-colonial implications, and the interesting place of Advaita Acarya in the Caitanya tradition, Reconstructing Tradition may well turn out to be the book of choice for studying Hindu hagiography.

— Daniel Gold, Cornell University, author of Aesthetics and Analysis in Writing on Religion

Rachel Fell McDermott

To write this book on Caitanya's elder companion, Advaita Acarya, Manring has done everything humanly possible: traveled throughout West Bengal and Bangladesh, consulted archives, unearthed manuscripts, and interviewed scholars and descendants. This is the final, conclusive word on Advaita Acarya.

— Rachel Fell McDermott, Barnard College, author of Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal

Editorial Reviews

[A] fine study of a vast body of literature.

Intl Journ of Hindu Studies

Thorough and authentic... highly recommended.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries - E. Findly

Thorough and authentic... highly recommended.

— E. Findly

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries

[A] fine study of a vast body of literature.

International Journal of Hindu Studies

Thorough and authentic... highly recommended.

— E. Findly

Choice