🎉   Please check out our new website over at books-etc.com.

Seller
Your price
£120.00
Out of Stock

Provincial Hinduism

Religion and Community in Gwalior City

By (author) Daniel Gold
Format: Hardback
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc, New York, United States
Published: 5th Mar 2015
Dimensions: w 156mm h 239mm d 24mm
Weight: 632g
ISBN-10: 0190212489
ISBN-13: 9780190212483
Barcode No: 9780190212483
Trade or Institutional customer? Contact us about large order quotes.
Synopsis
Provincial Hinduism explores intersecting religious worlds in an ordinary Indian city that remains close to its traditional roots, while bearing witness to the impact of globalization. Daniel Gold looks at modern religious life in Gwalior, in the state of Mahdya Pradesh, drawing attention to the often complex religious sensibilities behind ordinary Hindu practice. Turning his attention to public places of worship, Gold describes temples of different types in the city, their legendary histories, and the people who patronize them. Issues of community and identity are discussed throughout the book, but particularly in the context of caste and class. Gold also explores concepts of community among Gwalior's Maharashtrians and Sindhis, groups with roots in other parts of the subcontinent that have settled in the city for generations. Functioning as internal diasporas, they organize in different ways and make distinctive contributions to local religious life. The book concludes by exploring characteristically modern religious institutions. Gold considers three religious service organizations inspired by the nineteenth-century reformer Swami Vivekenanda, as well as two groups that stem from the nineteenth-century Radhasoami tradition but have developed in different ways: the very large and populist North Indian movement around the late Baba Jaigurudev (d. 2012); and the devotees of Sant Kripal, a regional guru based in Gwalior who has a much smaller, middle-class following. As the first book to analyze religious life in an ordinary, midsized Indian city, Provincial Hinduism will be an invaluable resource for scholars of contemporary Indian religion, culture, and society.

New & Used

Seller Information Condition Price
-New
Out of Stock

What Reviewers Are Saying

Submit your review
Newspapers & Magazines
Lucid and accessible, this important book on religion in Gwalior makes a major contribution to the study of urban religion. Daniel Gold's long history of academic and personal engagement with religious people, shrines, and organizations in this city, with its historically important migrations and diverse religious identities, is, quite simply, stellar. Gold's lively style and careful definition of terms renders this work inviting to undergraduates as well as graduate
and postgraduate scholars. It is sure to be helpful to and heralded by scholars of religion, anthropology, sociology, and history. * Lindsey Harlan, Professor of Religious Studies, Connecticut College *