Burning the Dead (eBook)

Hindu Nationhood and the Global Construction of Indian Tradition

David Arnold (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021
268 Seiten
University of California Press (Verlag)
9780520976641 (ISBN)

Infos

Burning the Dead traces the evolution of cremation in India and the South Asian diaspora across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through interconnected histories of movement, space, identity, and affect, it examines how the so-called traditional practice of Hindu cremation on an open-air funeral pyre was culturally transformed and materially refashioned under British rule, following intense Western hostility, colonial sanitary acceptance, and Indian adaptation. David Arnold examines the critical reception of Hindu cremation abroad, particularly in Britain, where India formed a primary reference point for the cremation debates of the late nineteenth century, and explores the struggle for official recognition of cremation among Hindu and Sikh communities around the globe. Above all, Arnold foregrounds the growing public presence and assertive political use made of Hindu cremation, its increasing social inclusivity, and its close identification with Hindu reform movements and modern Indian nationhood.

Inhalt

List of Figures and Tables
Preface
Acknowledgments

Part One. The Spectacle of Fire
1. Burning Issues 
2. Colonial Necro-Politics and the Polysemic Corpse

Part Two. Questing Fire
3. The City and Its Dead
4. Consuming Fire
5. The Global Dead

Part Three. The Fire Triumphant
6. The Rebirth of Cremation
7. Cremation and the Nation
Epilogue: Rethinking the Hindu Pyre

A Note on Weights and Currency
List of Abbreviations
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 2.2.2021
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Religionsgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Hinduismus
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• ISBN-13: 9780520976641 / 9780520976641