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Zusatztext Siva's Saints is a ground-breaking and thought-provoking book that is innovative, well-researched, and well-written. Ben-Herut has established himself as a leader in the study of Indian devotional (bhakti) traditions with this remarkable scholarly contribution. This book will undoubtedly be part of ongoing scholarly discussions concerning Kannada-speaking religion and ought to become a mainstay in graduate courses about bhakti for years to come. Informationen zum Autor Dr. Gil Ben-Herut is an Assistant Professor in the Religious Studies Department, University of South Florida. His research interests include pre-modern religious literature in the Kannada language, South-Asian bhakti (devotional) traditions, and the vernacularization of Sanskrit poetics and courtly literature. Klappentext In Siva's Saints Gil Ben-Herut challenges common notions about the Virasaiva tradition in its nascent phases. By closely reading the saints' stories in this text, Siva's Saints takes a more nuanced historical view than commonly-held notions about the egalitarian and iconoclastic nature of the early tradition, arguing instead that early bhakti (devotionalism) in the Kannada-speaking region was less-radical and more accommodating toward traditionalreligious, social, and political institutions than thought of today. Zusammenfassung Today numbering more than twelve million people, the Virasaivas constitute a vibrant south-Indian community renowned for its bhakti (devotional) religiosity and for its entrenched resistance to traditional Brahminical values. For eight centuries this tradition produced a vast and original body of literature, composed mostly in the Kannada language. Siva's Saints introduces the Raga?ega?u, a foundational and previously unexplored work produced in the early thirteenth century. As the first written narrative about the traditions progenitors, this work inaugurated a new era of devotional narratives accessible to wide audiences in the Kannada-speaking region.By closely reading the saints stories in the Raga?ega?u, Gil Ben-Herut takes a more nuanced historical view than commonly-held notions about the egalitarian and iconoclastic nature of the early tradition. Instead, Ben-Herut argues that the early Siva-devotion movement in the region was less radical and more accommodating toward traditional religious, social, and political institutions than thought today. In contrast to the narrowly sectarian and exclusionary vision that shapes later accounts, the Raga?ega?u is characterized by an opposite impulse, offering an open invitation to people from all walks of life, whose stories illustrate the richness of their devotional lives. Analysis of this seminal text yields important insights into the role of literary representation of the social and political development of a religious community in a pre-modern and non-Western milieu. Inhaltsverzeichnis Introduction Chapter 1: The Poetics of Bhakti Chapter 2: Who is a Bhakta? Chapter 3: The Society of Devotees Chapter 4: A Bhakti Guide for the Perplexed Brahmin Chapter 5: The King's Fleeting Authority and His Menacing Vaisnava Brahmins Chapter 6: Jains as the Intimate, Wholly Other Conclusion ...
