Bücher
Flowers, Gods and Scholars
Der Puṣpacintāmaṇi ist ein nepalisches Kompendium (nibandha) aus dem 17. Jh., das autoritative Zitate zur Verwendung von Blüten in der hinduistischen Verehrung (pūjā) vereint. Dieses Buch enthält eine kritische Edition und Übersetzung des Sanskrittextes und seiner Wiedergabe in Newari, sowie botanische Identifikationen der erwähnten Blüten. Darüber hinaus analysiert es den historischen und kulturellen Kontext des Textes, u.a. seine Rolle in der Texttradition Nepals und seine Beziehungen zu anderen Vertretern seines Genres.
Es handelt sich um eine englische Version der Dissertationsschrift “Von Blüten, Göttern und Gelehrten: Die Behandlung von pūjā-Blüten im Puṣpacintāmaṇi” (http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa-102174).
Crafting Potency
Crafting Potency investigates the intricate interweaving of knowledge, practice, and materials through which potency is sculpted in Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine). Informed by Tibetan medical literature and extensive fieldwork with practitioners (amchis) from Ladakh, Dharamsala, and Kathmandu, the authors explore how potency is understood and manipulated in the making of multi-ingredient medicines. Taking inspiration from Tim Ingold’s ecologically attuned phenomenology and Pamela Smith’s concept of “artisanal epistemologies,” potency is presented as “efficacy-in-becoming”—a fluid capacity sculpted and layered through skilled artisanship, ritual, and environment, rather than a fixed property of stable substances. Highlighting the deep immersion of amchis in their social, ecological, technical, and spiritual lifeworlds—and exploring what changes when knowledge is transmitted through institutional rather than lineage-based training—the book contributes nuanced practice-based perspectives to the anthropology of craft and the history of science.
Bilaṃpau: The Narrative Art of Newar Scroll Paintings
Bilampau is the first-ever book on the long-format narrative scroll painting of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. The book traces the history of this art tradition and explores Buddhist and Hindu religious connections and artistic qualities through visual, textual and contextual analyses. It brings together the study of Bilampaus that were historically painted by Newar artists and presently scattered in world museums and collections in Europe and USA. The study includes field study in Berlin, Germany, and the various Newar Buddhist monasteries in the Kathmandu Valley where these narrative scrolls were painted.
Reframing Tradition in Early Modern India
The volume presents recent scholarly research on Early Modern India by focusing on shifts and challenges to established concepts and norms across various traditions (Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, Jain) and from different perspectives. Structured into four parts, it brings new materials and methods used by contributors to investigate transformational concepts and the variety of intentions involved in altering texts and the exchange of knowledge. The contributors examine Sikh encounters with Nāth, Sant, and Islamic traditions and literary texts, the vernacular connections with and diversions from Sanskrit models in Sufi, Jain, Vaishnava, and Shaiva traditions, interactions between texts and images in historical, political, and literary contexts, and bhakti traditions in Vaishnava and Dādūpanthī communities dealing with questions of authority and femininity in early modern texts.
विद्याराधनम् – Vidyārādhanam
Vidyārādhanam – „Verehrung des Wissens“ – so lautet der Titel dieser Festschrift für Professor Dr. Thomas Oberlies, einen Indologen, der ein überaus breites Spektrum an Themenfeldern bearbeitet und durch sein verdienstvolles Wirken in Forschung und Lehre einen unschätzbaren Beitrag zur Mehrung und Weitergabe von Wissen geleistet hat. Mit Vidyārādhanam kann auch die Gesamtheit der in diesem Band versammelten Aufsätze von Kolleginnen und Kollegen, Schülerinnen und Schülern sowie Weggefährten von Professor Oberlies bezeichnet werden, in denen sich seine vielfältigen Forschungsinteressen widerspiegeln und mit denen er für sein bisheriges akademisches Lebenswerk geehrt wird.
