[INDOLOGY] Brahmā’s Curse (freshly printed II)

[Walter Slaje]

Dear Colleagues,



since I was informed that my original post to this forum was not properly
delivered, I am resending it with my customary apologies for cross-posting:



Dear Fellow Indologists,



it is my pleasure to draw your attention to another recent publication:

Walter Slaje: Brahmā’s Curse. Facets of Political and Social Violence in
Premodern Kashmir. Halle: Universitätsverlag 2019. 62 pp. 48,00 €

ISBN 978-3-86977-199-1



[Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis. 13]

The present book deals with Kashmir and some of its largely neglected
social and political conditions of the past including the Islamization of
the Valley in the early modern period. In the last decades research on
Kashmir focussed essentially on textual sources of chiefly the religious
and philosophical genres. Social misery, disasters, violence, famines,
epidemics and wars, which perpetually ravaged the country during its long
and well-documented history, were largely, if not entirely, ignored by
academic studies of the above orientation. The resulting lopsided
representation of Kashmir increased the romantic image inherited from the
Mughals and contributed to the construction of the myth of an idyllic world
in a glorious Hindu past before the advent of Islam. The two chapters
making up this booklet try to put the picture of the premodern realities of
life in Kashmir somewhat into perspective. The first chapter focusses on
the centuries-old stereotype of Kashmir as a “Happy Valley”. Particular
attention is devoted to the prevailing cliché of the Brahmin class as
non-violent and pacifist. The second chapter deals with different notions
of an “idol” *(mūrti)* from the Hindu, Buddhist and Abrahamic religions’
view-points, as well as with the contrasting perceptions of the destruction
of an idol by an iconoclast and his victim. Historic evidence of idol
smashing in Kashmir in the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods will be analysed
and presented together with the rationale of iconoclasm as maintained and
debated by the Hindu and Muslim parties at the time. The chapter ends with
an exposition of the sophisticated methods of desecrating Hindu and
Buddhist sanctuaries in order to make them inoperative for all future. The
title of this book refers to an old and widespread belief among Hindu
Kashmiris that they had fallen under a curse by Brahmā, a curse, in which
they see all their sufferings rooted.


For extracts and details, cp.

https://uvhw.de/studia-indologica/product/190701_08-199-1.html



Orders can be placed by email:

bestellung at uvhw.de



or online:

https://uvhw.de/warenkorb.html



Kindly regarding,

Walter Slaje


-----------------------------
Prof. Dr. Walter Slaje
Hermann-Löns-Str. 1
D-99425 Weimar
Deutschland


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