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Summary
Enlarges our understanding of Jainism, one of the oldest yet least-studied of the world's living religions, by challenging the standard scholarly portraits of both Jains and South Asian religion and culture.
Open Boundaries provides a new perspective on Jainism, one of the oldest yet least-studied of the world's living religions. Ten closely-focused studies investigate the interactions between Jains and non-Jains in South Asian society, with detailed studies of yoga, tantra, aesthetic theory, erotic poetry, theories of kingship, goddess worship, temple ritual, polemical poetry, religious women, and historiography. Viewing the Jains within a South Asian context results in a strikingly different portrait from the standard models represented in both traditional Western and Indian scholarship.
"What I like most about this book is that it makes a tremendous advance on the research for the Jain identity. It examines the ways in which Jains identify themselves in relation to other communities, whether religious or political, from the ancient to the modern period, and the manner in which the others relate to them. No other South Asian religious community, whether the ancient Buddhists or the medieval Sikhs, has been studied in such a comprehensive manner. An indispensable reference work for the study of South Asia." -- Padmanabh S. Jaini, University of California, Berkeley
"There is no question that Jainism is an important topic, and this collection has something in it for everyone including solid papers on philosophy, sociology and anthropology, art history, religious studies, and literature." -- Phyllis Granoff, McMaster University
John E. Cort is Associate Professor of Religion at Denison University.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: Contested Jain Identities of Self and Other
John E. Cort
2. Haribhadra's Analysis of Patanjala and Kula Yoga in the Yogadrstisamuccaya
Christopher Key Chapple
3. Becoming Gautama: Mantra and History in Svetambara Jainism
Paul Dundas
4. Hemacandra and Sanskrit Poetics
Gary A. Tubb
5. Erotic Excess and Sexual Danger in the Civakacintamani
James Ryan
6. Who is a King? Jain Narratives of Kingship in Medieval Western India
John E. Cort
7. Sweetmeats Or Corpses? Community, Conversion, and Sacred Places
Michael W. Meister
8. Ritual Culture and the Distinctiveness of Jainism
Lawrence A. Babb
9. Sramanas against the Tamil Way: Jains As Others in Tamil Saiva Literature
Indira Viswanathan Peterson
10. Jain and Hindu "Religious Women" in Early Medieval Tamilnadu
Leslie C. Orr
11. The Story of the Disappearing Jains: Retelling the Saiva-Jain Encounter in Medieval South India
