Tamil Brahmans

Author : C. J. Fuller
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022615274X
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Tamil Brahmans written by C. J. Fuller and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-10-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tamil Brahmans were a traditional, mainly rural, high-caste elite who have been transformed into a modern, urban, middle-class community since the late nineteenth century. Many Tamil Brahmans today are in professional and managerial occupations, such as engineering and information technology; most of them live in Chennai and other Tamilnadu towns, but others have migrated to the rest of India and overseas. This book, which is mainly based on the authors ethnographic research, describes and analyses this transformation. It is also a study of how and why the Tamil Brahmans privileged status within a hierarchical society has been perpetuated in the face of both a strong anti-Brahman movement in Tamilnadu, and a series of wider social, cultural, economic, political, and ideological changes that might have been expected to undermine their position completely. The major topics discussed include Brahman rural society, urban migration and urban ways of life, education and employment, the position of women, and religion and culture. The Tamil Brahmans class position, including the internal division into the upper- and lower-middle classes, and the process of class reproduction, are examined closely to analyze the congruence between Tamil Brahmanhood and middle classness, which as comparison with other Brahman and non-Brahman groups shows is highly unusual in contemporary India."

Author : C. J. Fuller
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022615288X
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Tamil Brahmans written by C. J. Fuller and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-11-11 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An impressive biography. . . . [A] standard reference in the scholarship of Tamil Nadu and the conundrum of caste and class.” —American Anthropologist A cruise along the streets of Chennai—or Silicon Valley—filled with professional young Indian men and women, reveals the new face of India. In the twenty-first century, Indians have acquired a global visibility of rapid economic advancement and prowess in the information technology industry. C. J. Fuller and Haripriya Narasimhan examine one group who have taken part in this development: Tamil Brahmans—a formerly traditional, rural, high-caste elite who have transformed themselves into a new middle-class caste in India, the United States, and elsewhere. Fuller and Narasimhan offer the most comprehensive look at Tamil Brahmans to date, examining Brahman migration to urban areas, transnational migration, and how the Brahman way of life has translated to both Indian cities and American suburbs. They look at modern education and the new employment opportunities afforded by engineering and IT. They examine how Sanskritic Hinduism and traditional music and dance have shaped Tamil Brahmans’ middle-class sensibilities and how middle-class status is related to the changing position of women. Above all, they explore the complex relationship between class and caste systems and the ways in which hierarchy has persisted in modernized India. “An essential read.” —Radhika Santhanam, The Hindu “An indispensible read not just for all those who wish to understand caste formation . . . but for Tamil Brahmans themselves. It will help them rethink the notion that their professional achievements are somehow . . . rooted in their caste and see them instead as a product of the opportunities provided by the colonial and postcolonial state.” —Nandini Sundar, Delhi University

Author : Isabelle Clark-Decès
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1405198923
Total Pages : 580 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Companion to the Anthropology of India written by Isabelle Clark-Decès and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-02-28 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to the Anthropology of India offers a broad overview of the rapidly evolving scholarship on Indian society from the earliest area studies to views of India’s globalization in the twenty-first century. Provides readers with an important new introduction to the anthropology of India Explores the larger global issues that have transformed India since the end of colonization, including demographic, economic, social, cultural, political, and religious issues Contributions by leading experts present up-to-date, comprehensive coverage of key topics such as population and life expectancy, civil society, social-moral relationships, caste and communalism, youth and consumerism, the new urban middle class, environment and health, tourism, public and religious cultures, politics and law Represents an authoritative guide for professional social and cultural anthropologists, and South Asian specialists, and an accessible reference work for students engaged in the analysis of India’s modern transformation

Author : William C. McCormack
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 3110806487
Total Pages : 788 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Language and Society written by William C. McCormack and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-06-15 with total page 788 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Regina E. Holloman
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 311080770X
Total Pages : 477 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Perspectives on Ethnicity written by Regina E. Holloman and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-06-15 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : India. Census Commissioner
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Census of India, 1911 ... written by India. Census Commissioner and published by . This book was released on 1912 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Mytheli Sreenivas
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253351189
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Wives, Widows, and Concubines written by Mytheli Sreenivas and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debates about family, property, and nation in Tamil India

Author : Andrew Wyatt
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000891410
Total Pages : 152 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Decentring the Indian Nation written by Andrew Wyatt and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-03-31 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2003, Decentring the Indian Nation examines the various centrifugal forces apparent in recent Indian politics. After achieving independence in 1947 India’s elite opted to build a modern nation-state. This idea was carefully nurtured during the fight for freedom from British rule by the dominant Congress movement. In recent years, the idea of a centralised state has been challenged from a number of directions. Strong regional political movements have questioned the assumption that India’s federal system requires a dominant centre. The related trend of identity-based mobilisation has challenged settled notions of Indian national identity. The authors discuss the idea that as a nation, India is becoming ‘decentred’, and consider the implications of this idea for the development of the Indian polity. This book will be of interest to students of politics, geography and development.

Author : Richard S Weiss
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780199715008
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Recipes for Immortality written by Richard S Weiss and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-19 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the global spread of Western medical practice, traditional doctors still thrive in the modern world. In Recipes for Immortality, Richard Weiss illuminates their continued success by examining the ways in which siddha medical practitioners in Tamil South India win the trust and patronage of patients. While biomedicine might alleviate a patient's physical distress, siddha doctors offer their clientele much more: affiliation to a timeless and pure community, the fantasy of a Tamil utopia, and even the prospect of immortality. They speak of a golden age of Tamil civilization and of traditional medicine, drawing on broader revivalist formulations of a pure and ancient Tamil community. Weiss analyzes the success of siddha doctors, focusing on how they have successfully garnered authority and credibility. While shedding light on their lives, vocations, and aspirations, Weiss also documents the challenges that siddha doctors face in the modern world, both from a biomedical system that claims universal efficacy, and also from the rival traditional medicine, ayurveda, which is promoted as the national medicine of an autonomous Indian state. Drawing on ethnographic data; premodern Tamil texts on medicine, alchemy, and yoga; government archival resources; college textbooks; and popular literature on siddha medicine and on the siddhar yogis, he presents an in-depth study of this traditional system of knowledge, which serves the medical needs of millions of Indians. Weiss concludes with a look at traditional medicine at large, and demonstrates that siddha doctors, despite resent trends toward globalization and biomedicine, reflect the wider political and religious dimensions of medical discourse in our modern world. Recipes for Immortality proves that medical authority is based not only on physical effectiveness, but also on imaginative processes that relate to personal and social identities, conceptions of history, secrecy, loss, and utopian promise.

Author : Keith E. Yandell Keith E. Yandell
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136818014
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Religion and Public Culture written by Keith E. Yandell Keith E. Yandell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last two centuries have witnessed profound changes in the nature of public consciousness. Nowhere has this been more true than in India, especially in relation to changing cultures of public life and religious tradition in South India. Essays in this collection attempt to explore the intricacies of what is perhaps the single most complex socio-religious environment in the world. The essays consider the evolution of the notion of Hinduism as a distinct and singular separate religion; the relationship between this kind of formulation and various European or western influences in India; and differences which the formation of this idea and its acceptance have made upon wider public consciousness. Each essay also considers certain general issues - such as the passing along of religious authority from one generation to the next, and the rise of disputes over matters both ideological (or doctrinal) and institutional, disputes that are fundamental to the traditions concerned and yet have unmistakable cross-cultural references.