Spring 2006

ANS 340 • History of Hindu Religious Traditions

Course Description

This course examines the principal themes of traditional Hinduism, the dominant religion of the Indian subcontinent. It gives special attention to the historical development of the tradition and relation to social and cultural life in India. To the extent possible, the course will explore Hinduism through different forms of religious expression created within India itself. These include written texts which have been significant in the Hindu and which reveal the distinctive elements of its religious thought. But they also include rituals that have been central to religious life, patterns of social action that embody Hindu values, and images and architecture that display the form and powers of the Hindu world.

Texts

U.R. Anantha Murthy, Samskara. C. Dimmitt and J.A.B. van Buitenen, Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hiduism R.K. Narayan, The Mahabharata Barbara Stoler Miller, The Bhagavad-Gita

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