Bringing the Gods to Mind: Mantra and Ritual in Early Indian Sacrifice

Patton, Laurie L.

ISBN 10: 0520240871 / ISBN 13: 9780520240872

Published by University of California Press, Berkeley, 2005

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 045118

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Bringing the Gods to Mind: Mantra and Ritual in Early Indian Sacrifice
• Publisher: University of California Press, Berkeley
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520240871
• ISBN 13: 9780520240872
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

This elegantly written book introduces a new perspective on Indic religious history by rethinking the role of mantra in Vedic ritual. In Bringing the Gods to Mind, Laurie Patton takes a new look at mantra as "performed poetry" and in five case studies draws a portrait of early Indian sacrifice that moves beyond the well-worn categories of "magic" and "magico-religious" thought in Vedic sacrifice. Treating Vedic mantra as a sophisticated form of artistic composition, she develops the idea of metonymy, or associational thought, as a major motivator for the use of mantra in sacrificial performance. Filling a long-standing gap in our understanding, her book provides a history of the Indian interpretive imagination and a study of the mental creativity and hermeneutic sophistication of Vedic religion.

About the Author

Laurie L. Patton is Winship Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Early Indian Religion at Emory University. She is author of Myth as Argument: The Brhaddevata as Canonical Commentary (1996), editor of Jewels of Authority: Women and Text in the Hindu Tradition (2002), and author of Fire's Goal: Poems from a Hindu Year (2003), among other books.