The gods at play: lila in south asia

By:

Sax, William S. (editor)

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: Oxford Oxford University Press 1995Description: viii, 239pISBN:

9780195091021 (hb.)

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

294.52 SAX

Summary: "God is playful. Like a child building sand castles on the beach, God creates the world and destroys it again. God plays with his (or her) devotees, sometimes like a lover, sometimes like a mother with her children, sometimes like an actor in a play. The idea of God's playfulness has been elaborated in Hinduism more, perhaps, than any other religion, providing one of the most distinctive and charming aspects of Indian religious life. Lila or ""divine play"" can refer to many things: to God's playful creation of the world and to religious dramas or ""plays,"" as well as to various motifs in Hindu art. But despite the importance of lila in the cultural history of South Asia, few comprehensive studies of it are available, partly because scholars have tended to emphasize only one dimension of lila--either the theological or the performative--at the expense of the other. The Gods at Play fills this gap by bringing together scholarly essays on all aspects of this important Hindu idea, providing students with a broader understanding of popular Hindu culture and religion."

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Book	Plaksha University Library	Religion	294.52 SAX (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		003963

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Previous	294.513 STI Hindu myth, hindu history : religion, art, and politics	294.52 MAX The Gods at play: lila in south Asia	294.52 OFL The origins of evil in hindu mythology	294.52 SAX The gods at play: lila in south asia	294.521095 SON Pastoral deities in Western India	294.5210954 DWY The divine and the demonic: supernatural affliction and its treatment in North India	294.5211 AGR Golu devata the god of justice of kumaun himalayas	Next

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"God is playful. Like a child building sand castles on the beach, God creates the world and destroys it again. God plays with his (or her) devotees, sometimes like a lover, sometimes like a mother with her children, sometimes like an actor in a play.
The idea of God's playfulness has been elaborated in Hinduism more, perhaps, than any other religion, providing one of the most distinctive and charming aspects of Indian religious life. Lila or ""divine play"" can refer to many things: to God's playful creation of the world and to religious dramas or ""plays,"" as well as to various motifs in Hindu art. But despite the importance of lila in the cultural history of South Asia, few comprehensive studies of it are available, partly because scholars have tended to emphasize only one dimension of lila--either the theological or the performative--at the expense of the other. The Gods at Play fills this gap by bringing together scholarly essays on all aspects of this important Hindu idea, providing students with a broader understanding of popular Hindu culture and religion."

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