God Inside Out

Don Handelman (u. a.)

ISBN 10: 0195108442 / ISBN 13: 9780195108446

Published by Oxford University Press, 1997

About this Item

God Inside Out | Don Handelman (u. a.) | Buch | Gebunden | Englisch | 1997 | Oxford University Press | EAN 9780195108446 | Verantwortliche Person für die EU: Libri GmbH, Europaallee 1, 36244 Bad Hersfeld, gpsr[at]libri[dot]de | Anbieter: preigu Print on Demand.

Seller Inventory # 120656484

Bibliographic Details

• Title: God Inside Out
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195108442
• ISBN 13: 9780195108446
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 222W x 145H x 17D millimeters 222 millimeters width by 145 millimeters height by 17 millimeters depth
• Weight: 464 grams
• Seller catalogs:
  • Bücher

About this title

Synopsis

This book offers a new exploration of the mythology of the Hindu god Siva, who spends his time playing dice with his wife, to whom he habitually loses. The result of the game is our world, which turns the god inside-out and changes his internal composition. Hindus maintain that Siva is perpetually absorbed in this game, which is recreated in innumerable stories, poems, paintings, and sculptural carvings. This notion of the god at play, arguee Handelman and Shulman, is one of the most central and expressive veins in the metaphysics elaborated through the centuries, in many idioms and modes, around the god.
The book comprises three interlocking essays; the first presents the dice-game proper, in the light of the texts and visual depictions the authors have collected. The second and third chapters take up two mythic "sequels" to the game. Based on their analysis of these sequels, the authors argue that notions of "asceticism" so frequently associated with Siva, with Yoga, and with Hindu religion are, in fact, foreign to Hinduism's inherent logic as reflected in Siva's game of dice. They suggest an alternative reading of this set of practices and ideas, providing startling new insights into Hindu mythology and the major poetic texts from the classical Sanskrit tradition.

About the Author

David Shulman is at Hebrew University.