no information available
<p>Exciting celebrations in special time religious festivals are more than colorful public spectacles. They are mirrors and windows in and through which a full range of human values and concerns – whether religious aesthetic social economic and political – can be seen. In this volume twelve scholars explore various dimensions of meaning in some of the many festivals that are vigorously conducted in South India and Sri Lanka. Approaching their subjects from several interdisciplinary perspectives the authors base their descriptions and interpretations on primary sources: literary documents their own first-hand observations and frequently a productive combination of textual and contextual data. The essays included to unravel the technical intricacies and symbolisms of festival calendars; analyze representative festival cycles; and vividly describe and comment on individual festival performances – from the spectacular Citra Festivals in Madurai Mahasivaratri Asa_la Perahäras at Kataragama and Kandy to less familiar instances of village festivals temple festival drama and festive ritual art forms. Collectively these essays document some of the richness of festival performances in certain parts of South Asia. Further through the questions that are posed and the answers that are given in them they suggest fruitful ways of reconsidering the significance of religious festivals wherever they are observed. About the Author Guy R. Welbon is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies and of South Asia Regional Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Author of The Buddhist Nirvana and its Western Interpreters he has also published several articles and critical reviews on the study of religion in South Asia. Having begun his studies of agamic traditions and the Hindu temple in 1963 the first of his four year long research tours in India he is currently completing a monograph on the Vaikhanasas hereditary arcakas in many of South India’s Vi?nu temples. Glenn E. Yocum is an Associate Professor of Religion at Whittier College Whittier California. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Tracing his interest in Tamil religious literature to a year spent at Jaffna College in 1967-8 he has published several articles on Tamil bhakti and is co-editor of a volume of essays entitled Structural Approaches to South Indian Studies. His book Hymns to the Dancing Siva: A Study of Manikkavacakar’s Tiruvacakam is his latest publication.</p>
