1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910959008103321

Autore

Jarow Rick

Titolo

Tales for the dying : the death narrative of the Bhagavata-Purana / / E.H. Rick Jarow

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Albany, : State University of New York Press, c2003

ISBN

9780791487457

0791487458

9781417506811

1417506814

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (215 p.)

Collana

SUNY series in Hindu studies

Disciplina

294.5/92

Soggetti

Death - Religious aspects - Hinduism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-189) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front Matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- A Note On Translation And Transliteration -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Examinations of the Past -- The Semiotics Of Separation -- Narratives Of Absence -- The Dominion Of Death -- StrĪ Naraka DvaĀRa— Woman As The Gateway To Hell -- The RĀSa Dance And The Gateway To Heaven -- Final Partings -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Tales for the Dying explores the centrality of death and dying in the narrative of the Bhāgavata-Purāna, India's great text of devotional theism, canonized as an integral part of the Vaisnava bhakti tradition. The text grapples with death through an imaginative meditation, one that works through the presence and power of narrative. The story of the Bhāgavata-Purāna is spoken to a king who is about to die, and it enables him to come to terms with his own passing. The work does not isolate dying as an issue; it treats it on many levels.This book discusses how images of dying in the Bhāgavata-Purāna relate to issues of language and love in the religious imagination of India. Drawing on insights from studies in myth, literary semiotics, and depth psychology, as well as from Indian commentarial and aesthetic traditions, the author examines the power of myth and narrative (storytelling or hari katha) and shows how a detailed awareness of the Puranic imagination



may lead to a revisioning of some long-held presuppositions around Indian religious attitudes toward dying. By casting Vaisnava bhakti traditions and Puranic narrative in a fresh light, the mythic imagination of the Purānas takes its place on the stage of contemporary discourse on comparative mythology and literature.