Wendy Doniger

Nel mondo della mitologia indu nessuna figura desta piu sconcerto di Siva, il "Benevolo", il quale gia nell''antifrasi del nome attribuitogli (e lui il dio che presiede alla distruzione dell''universo) si annuncia come luogo dell''ambiguita, delle contraddizioni, del paradosso. La sua inquietante presenza si manifesta fin dai tempi piu remoti, nei sigilli preistorici appartenenti alla civilta della valle dell''Indo che raffigurano un suo enigmatico precursore, un essere itifallico, seduto a gambe incrociate e circondato da animali. Il libro presenta questa mitica figura.

A causa di un antico abbaglio, propagato da illustri studiosi, si e a lungo sostenuto che la civilta indiana mancasse di un vero senso dell''etica, riservato all''Occidente. Nulla di piu falso. Sin dalle origine vediche, l''India rivela una sensibilita esacerbata nei confronti del male. Anzi, tutte le vicende degli dei possono essere raccontare come altrettanti episodi di un conflitto con le forze maligne. Questo libro non intende solo spazzare via una quantita di rappresentazioni erronee, ma soprattuto introdurci a uno sterminato ventaglio di miti, dove le piu remote possibilita del male vengono indagate.

The Kamasutra is the oldest extant textbook of erotic love. But it is more than a book about sex. It is about the art of living--about finding a partner, maintaining power in a marriage, committing adultery, living as or with a courtesan, using drugs--and also, of course, about the many and varied positions available to lovers in sexual intercourse and the pleasures to be derived from each. The Kamasutra was composed in Sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India, sometime in the third century, probably in North India. It combines an encyclopedic coverage of all imaginable aspects of sex with a closely observed sexual psychology and a dramatic, novelistic narrative of seduction, consummation, and disentanglement. Best known in English through the highly mannered, padded, and inaccurate nineteenth-century translation by Sir Richard Burton, the text is newly translated here into clear, vivid, sexually frank English. This edition also includes a section of vivid Indian color illustrations along with three uniquely important commentaries: translated excerpts from the earliest and most famous Sanskrit commentary (thirteenth century) and from a twentieth-century Hindi commentary, and explanatory notes by the two translators. The lively and entertaining introduction by translator Wendy Doniger, one of the world's foremost Sanskrit scholars, discusses the history of The Kamasutra and its reception in India and Europe, analyses its attitudes toward gender and sexual violence, and sets it in the context of ancient Indian social theory, scientific method, and sexual ethics. "[This] new translation is fascinating, thought-provoking and occasionally even amusing."--Salon.com

From one of the world?s foremost scholars on Hinduism, a vivid reinterpretation of its history An engrossing and definitive narrative account of history and myth that offers a new way of understanding one of the world?s oldest major religions, The Hindus elucidates the relationship between recorded history and imaginary worlds. Hinduism does not lend itself easily to a strictly chronological account: many of its central texts cannot be reliably dated even within a century; its central tenets?karma, dharma, to name just two?arise at particular moments in Indian history and differ in each era, between genders, and caste to caste; and what is shared among Hindus is overwhelmingly outnumbered by the things that are unique to one group or another. Yet the greatness of Hinduism?its vitality, its earthiness, its vividness?lies precisely in many of those idiosyncratic qualities that continue to inspire debate today. Wendy Doniger is one of the foremost scholars of Hinduism in the world. With her inimitable insight and expertise Doniger illuminates those moments within the tradition that resist forces that would standardize or establish a canon. Without reversing or misrepresenting the historical hierarchies, she reveals how Sanskrit and vernacular sources are rich in knowledge of and compassion toward women and lower castes; how they debate tensions surrounding religion, violence, and tolerance; and how animals are the key to important shifts in attitudes toward different social classes.The Hindus brings a fascinating multiplicity of actors and stories to the stage to show how brilliant and creative thinkers?many of them far removed from Brahmin authors of Sanskrit texts?have kept Hinduism alive in ways that other scholars have not fully explored. In this unique and authoritative account, debates about Hindu traditions become platforms from which to consider the ironies, and overlooked epiphanies, of history.

Recorded in sacred Sanskrit texts, including the Rig Veda and the Mahabharata, Hindu Myths are thought to date back as far as the tenth century BCE. Here in these seventy-five seminal myths are the many incarnations of Vishnu, who saves mankind from destruction, and the mischievous child Krishna, alongside stories of the minor gods, demons, rivers and animals including boars, buffalo, serpents and monkeys. Immensely varied and bursting with colour and life, they demonstrate the Hindu belief in the limitless possibilities of the world - from the teeming miracles of creation to the origins of the incarnation of Death who eventually touches them all.

The earliest of the four Hindu religious scriptures known as the Vedas, and the first extensive composition to survive in any Indo-European language, the Rig Veda (c. 1200-900 BC) is a collection of over 1,000 individual Sanskrit hymns. A work of intricate beauty, it provides a unique insight into early Indian mythology, religion and culture. This selection of 108 of the hymns, chosen for their eloquence and wisdom, focuses on the enduring themes of creation, sacrifice, death, women, the sacred plant soma and the gods. Inspirational and profound, it provides a fascinating introduction to one of the founding texts of Hindu scripture - an awesome and venerable ancient work of Vedic ritual, prayer, philosophy, legend and faith.

¿Que ocurre cuando entramos en contacto con historias y mitos de otros pueblos? ¿Que enriquecimiento y que peligros se perfilan cada vez que encontramos al otro? El mito fundamenta la relación del ser humano con su estructura social, con el cosmos y con lo sagrado. Como tal, el mito hace posible "organizar" el mundo, transformar el caos en orden y dotar de sentido a la existencia. El predominio en nuestra area cultural del pensamiento logico no ha supuesto, sin embargo, la desaparicion del mito. Su profundo anclaje en la conciencia hace que resurja en las realidades mas diversas. Puesto que no podemos ignorar el mito, Wendy Doniger nos estimula a afrontarlo, a "utilizarlo" en un sentido consciente y creativo para nuestra existencia. En un recorrido universal que va desde las parabolas biblicas, los mitos griegos o las epopeyas hindues hasta las modernas "mitologias" de Woody Allen, la autora analiza los diferentes usos que las distintas culturas hacen de sus tradiciones y nos muestra como los mitos de otros pueblos nos pueden ayudar a comprender los nuestros.

Buena parte de los manuscritos del Kamasutra, el tratado sobre el arte erótico compuesto en India en torno al siglo III d.C., estaban miniados; desgraciadamente, ninguno de los ejemplares antiguos ha sobrevivido. Para resarcirnos de esa perdida fueron ejecutadas las admirables miniaturas realizadas en Bikaner (India septentrional) a finales del siglo VII, probablemente gracias a la mano de un artista conocido con el nombre de Ruknuddin. Estas miniaturas muestran una notable influencia de la tecnica persa introducida por los moghules, pero se distinguen por el incomparable estilo propio de Bikaner. En este resaltan elementos como las espectaculares formaciones de nubes, los panoramas de exuberante vegetacion al claro de luna y la perspectiva a veces incoherente creada por la pura linealidad geometrica de las formas arquitectonicas. Transcurren ante nuestros ojos parejas empeñadas en actos eroticos dulcemente violentos o en caprichosas variaciones de las posiciones fundamentales contenidas en el Kamasutra: el ataque del burro, el salto del gato, el brinco del tigre, el aplastamiento del elefante, el frotamiento del jabali y la monta del semental -y el lazo de la yegua, en el que la mujer, como una yegua, aferra al hombre tan fuertemente que este no se pude mover. Denominaciones que podrian parecer al lector moderno como expresiones primitivas y naturalistas, y que pertenecen sin embargo al Kamasutra, ciencia del placer articulada, vasta y rigidamente normativa. Las ilustraciones de este libro -una coedicion de Adelphi, Anagrama y Gallimard- vienen precedidas de un comentario de Wendy Doniger, eminente hinduista y estudiosa de historia de las religiones, que acompaña al lector en este galeria de cuadros conduciendolo poco a poco, con sabiduria, a los textos que las ilustran.