The paper analyzes a series of legends from the Deccan region of India, which situate the Bahmani... more The paper analyzes a series of legends from the Deccan region of India, which situate the Bahmani Sultan in the position of a Brahmin servant. It starts with a discussion of the intense debates between historians about the origin of the sultan, which took place in the first half of the 20th century. Drawing on these debates, it argues that the legends, as available in Persian and Marathi primary sources, reveal the personal and contemporary goals of their Muslim and mostly Brahmin authors and are directly related to their authors’ contemporary ideal of the king (from a just king to a sacralized king), rather than contribute to the knowledge of his personal history as the 20th century historian would interpret them. The article, thus, both contrasts and connects early modern sensibilities and the modern search of the historical past, which bears the repercussions of the past divided into its modernly imagined Hindu and Muslim parts.
This special issue was born out of the international project Cultural Heritage and Identities of ... more This special issue was born out of the international project Cultural Heritage and Identities of Europe's Future (CHIEF) funded by the European Commission within the Horizon 2020 programme. The project focuses on youth's cultural socialisation in various educational settings through formal schooling, intergenerational interactions in the family, taking part in civic society activities, informal friendship groups and at heritage sites by conducting multi-method research in nine countries across Europe and beyond, including the UK,
Sai Baba of Shirdi is one of South Asia's most popular holy men. 1 Attesting are hagiographies, b... more Sai Baba of Shirdi is one of South Asia's most popular holy men. 1 Attesting are hagiographies, books, articles, poems, movies, and songs, as a product of and an impetus for the rising tide of pan-Indian piety and attention that the saint currently receives from his devotees. Baba's wide attraction can be traced to his personal charisma as a miracle-worker, helper, and guide. 2 He called for an intense devotion to one Lord as epitomized in his wellknown words "Sabka Malik Ek" (The Lord of All is One) accompanied by insistence on faith (shraddha) and patience (saburi). This chapter points out some determining factors that preceded and enabled Baba's popularity, also illustrating how the history of his genealogy is an ongoing subject of debates and narrative strategies. Sai Baba has been disengaged from both histories of monasticism and specific lineages in the Indian subcontinent as well as from religious categories such as Hindu or Muslim. Such disengagement, although allowing universalization of Baba, remains an unfinished process that reinvents monasticism and the lineages that it aims to overcome. Given that sacralization of holy men is a social process, I avoid discussing what Sai Baba allegedly said of his origins and focus instead on how he was treated by his followers and exponents. 3 One of the dominant categories of reference for Shirdi Sai Baba's hagiographers is religion, especially Hinduism and Islam. The early testimonies of G. R. Dabholkar (d. 1929) and G. D. Sahasrabuddhe alias Dasganu (d. 1963) disengage Sai Baba from historically known religious collectives and their practices to highlight his exclusivity (cf. Loar 2018; McLain 2016). Indeed, the hagiographer's goal is to attribute extraordinariness to the saint, sometimes with philosophical substance. Witness this assertion: The maharaj [literally, great king] whom all his devotees call Babasai auspiciously arrived in Shirdi village. Nobody understands his whereabouts, his mind is always joyous. When somebody enquired "tell us the name of your place and where you have come from," in that moment maharaj answered excitedly as if a storm roared from the heavens and BK-TandF-SRINIVAS_9781032135694-220140-Chp01.indd 28
This special issue was born out of the international project Cultural Heritage and Identities of ... more This special issue was born out of the international project Cultural Heritage and Identities of Europe's Future (CHIEF) funded by the European Commission within the Horizon 2020 programme. The project focuses on youth's cultural socialisation in various educational settings through formal schooling, intergenerational interactions in the family, taking part in civic society activities, informal friendship groups and at heritage sites by conducting multi-method research in nine countries across Europe and beyond, including the UK,
Résumé/Abstract Saint Eknath is one of the most popular saints of the Marathi speaking people of ... more Résumé/Abstract Saint Eknath is one of the most popular saints of the Marathi speaking people of Western India. His poetical works have been hitherto noted by many scholars of Marathi literature, as well as by historians. Based mainly on the analysis of the ...
Muslim Cultures in the Indo-Iranian World during the Early-Modern and Modern Periods, 2010
This essay is an attempt to discuss the god Dattātreya clad in the garb of a Muslim fakir as he i... more This essay is an attempt to discuss the god Dattātreya clad in the garb of a Muslim fakir as he is represented in Marathi texts, old and new. It considers the figure of Dattātreya from the theoretical perspective of studies of holy men and studies of their impact on South Asian society. The essay develops an argument that the concept of fakir Dattātreya evolved gradually across the centuries of Dattātreya's worship, and that it reflects the socio-cultural changes in pre-modern and early modern South Asia that transformed the latter into the Indo-Islamic world. It also suggests that in some religious groups the acceptance of Dattātreya's fakir form may have evolved as sophisticated Sanskritization of Islamic holy men whereas other groups may have adopted this peculiar form of Indic god-sage for Islamization of the followers of holy men.
Miloš Hubina and Francis S. M. Chan, eds., Communicating the Sacred. Varieties of Religious Marketing. New York: Peter Lang, 2022, pp. 79-106., 2022
All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as micro lm, xero... more All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as micro lm, xerography, micro che, microcard, and o set strictly prohibited. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Control Number: 2021047203 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the "Deutsche Nationalbibliogra e"; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http:// dnb.d-nb.de/ .
This article explores the family as an educational environment and space for the intergenerationa... more This article explores the family as an educational environment and space for the intergenerational exchange of knowledge. Focusing on the process of cultural socialization as viewed against the currently popular “culture wars” it employs the concept of consociality, which is aimed at grasping the diversity and unpredictability of human interactions, and has been recently rejuvenated by Ulf Hannerz. Investigating the consocial character of learning and intergenerational exchange within the family educational environment, the article takes examples from Slovakia and Latvia and problematizes the relationship between formal and informal learning to demonstrate how it changes knowledge infused with cultural meanings and references. The article argues that this process depends on the consocial conditions in which it is created. It also suggests that viewing the family environment in consocial terms provides us with an opportunity to rethink the role of experiences shared within the family...
P ríbeh britského panstva v Indii je totiž nielen príbehom dravého ekonomického prenikania na Ind... more P ríbeh britského panstva v Indii je totiž nielen príbehom dravého ekonomického prenikania na Indický subkontinent, podporovaného kráľovskou mocou, ktorá z Indie vybudovala perlu svojho impéria, ale v širšom kontexte aj príbehom vzájomných interakcií a vzájomného spoznávania Európanov a Indov.
Recent studies discussing South Asian holy men share one important observation. It is the holy me... more Recent studies discussing South Asian holy men share one important observation. It is the holy men's devotees and a plethora of interpreters -from the local expounders of their glory up to academics -that to a considerable degree create who the holy men are understood to be. Holy men are credited with an active role in shaping people's religiosity, setting the moral principles of correct behaviour and forming examples of the ways that humans can pierce the layers of the experienced realities of life. Comprehending holy men thus takes a route that starts from them and leads to the forming of others. Yet the mechanics of the holy men's engaging with other people's worlds articulate through the observation of people's diverse engagements with the holy men rather than the other way round. For instance, Christian Novetzke, in a study of Namdev that placed his analysis under the umbrella rubric of public religion, showed us not one but several "Namdevs" depending on the materials that have produced Namdev's identity, be they texts attributed to (the most probably illiterate) Namdev, oral sources, hagiographies or movies. 1 Nile Green exposed the commercial rm-like character of people devoted to Bombay's Muslim saints, launching the branches of their devotional enterprises within, but also outside, South Asia across the territories of the Indian Ocean. 2 Richard Eaton emphasized Tukaram's role in laying the foundations of the social movement of the commoner Varkaris, triggered by the vernacular vehicle of social protest, 3 and recently Timothy Dobe unsettled the holy men from the constraints of the petrifying societal traditions of the sacred and identitarian in order to discuss the holy men's active re-production of shared religious visions. This is not mere engagement with social constructivism in academic praxis. It is giving credit to, recognizing and organizing the sources of our knowledge about people who may be invoked for social good as well as be seen as the backbone of social unrest, past or present. 5 For indeed, these people do appear as 'polivestiary' -many clothed, to borrow a term from Nile Green 6 ; because of this and in order to describe them at least with some erudition, several types of materials must inevitably be consulted. These may range from written evidence, as varied as land grants, histories, saint-poetry, hagiographies or academic writings, to orally transmitted narratives, if only
ABSTRACT This article considers young people’s socialization into mnemonic communities in 14 Euro... more ABSTRACT This article considers young people’s socialization into mnemonic communities in 14 European countries. It argues that such socialization is an intersubjective and selective process that, to a great degree, depends on the particular social environment that conditions the discourses on pasts available to young people. Drawing on memory studies, it recognizes memory as a valid alternative to the institutionalized past (history) but envisages the two as inextricably connected. Given this, it identifies several strategies adopted by young people in order to socialize understandings of the past. While these strategies vary, some reveal receptivity to populist and far right ideologies. Our study demonstrates how internalization of political heritage via mnemonic socialization within families is conditioned by both the national political agenda and socio-economic situation experienced across Europe.
ABSTRACT This article considers young people’s socialization into mnemonic communities in 14 Euro... more ABSTRACT This article considers young people’s socialization into mnemonic communities in 14 European countries. It argues that such socialization is an intersubjective and selective process that, to a great degree, depends on the particular social environment that conditions the discourses on pasts available to young people. Drawing on memory studies, it recognizes memory as a valid alternative to the institutionalized past (history) but envisages the two as inextricably connected. Given this, it identifies several strategies adopted by young people in order to socialize understandings of the past. While these strategies vary, some reveal receptivity to populist and far right ideologies. Our study demonstrates how internalization of political heritage via mnemonic socialization within families is conditioned by both the national political agenda and socio-economic situation experienced across Europe.
ABSTRACT This article considers young people’s socialization into mnemonic communities in 14 Euro... more ABSTRACT This article considers young people’s socialization into mnemonic communities in 14 European countries. It argues that such socialization is an intersubjective and selective process that, to a great degree, depends on the particular social environment that conditions the discourses on pasts available to young people. Drawing on memory studies, it recognizes memory as a valid alternative to the institutionalized past (history) but envisages the two as inextricably connected. Given this, it identifies several strategies adopted by young people in order to socialize understandings of the past. While these strategies vary, some reveal receptivity to populist and far right ideologies. Our study demonstrates how internalization of political heritage via mnemonic socialization within families is conditioned by both the national political agenda and socio-economic situation experienced across Europe.
The paper analyzes a series of legends from the Deccan region of India, which situate the Bahmani... more The paper analyzes a series of legends from the Deccan region of India, which situate the Bahmani Sultan in the position of a Brahmin servant. It starts with a discussion of the intense debates between historians about the origin of the sultan, which took place in the first half of the 20th century. Drawing on these debates, it argues that the legends, as available in Persian and Marathi primary sources, reveal the personal and contemporary goals of their Muslim and mostly Brahmin authors and are directly related to their authors’ contemporary ideal of the king (from a just king to a sacralized king), rather than contribute to the knowledge of his personal history as the 20th century historian would interpret them. The article, thus, both contrasts and connects early modern sensibilities and the modern search of the historical past, which bears the repercussions of the past divided into its modernly imagined Hindu and Muslim parts.
This special issue was born out of the international project Cultural Heritage and Identities of ... more This special issue was born out of the international project Cultural Heritage and Identities of Europe's Future (CHIEF) funded by the European Commission within the Horizon 2020 programme. The project focuses on youth's cultural socialisation in various educational settings through formal schooling, intergenerational interactions in the family, taking part in civic society activities, informal friendship groups and at heritage sites by conducting multi-method research in nine countries across Europe and beyond, including the UK,
Sai Baba of Shirdi is one of South Asia's most popular holy men. 1 Attesting are hagiographies, b... more Sai Baba of Shirdi is one of South Asia's most popular holy men. 1 Attesting are hagiographies, books, articles, poems, movies, and songs, as a product of and an impetus for the rising tide of pan-Indian piety and attention that the saint currently receives from his devotees. Baba's wide attraction can be traced to his personal charisma as a miracle-worker, helper, and guide. 2 He called for an intense devotion to one Lord as epitomized in his wellknown words "Sabka Malik Ek" (The Lord of All is One) accompanied by insistence on faith (shraddha) and patience (saburi). This chapter points out some determining factors that preceded and enabled Baba's popularity, also illustrating how the history of his genealogy is an ongoing subject of debates and narrative strategies. Sai Baba has been disengaged from both histories of monasticism and specific lineages in the Indian subcontinent as well as from religious categories such as Hindu or Muslim. Such disengagement, although allowing universalization of Baba, remains an unfinished process that reinvents monasticism and the lineages that it aims to overcome. Given that sacralization of holy men is a social process, I avoid discussing what Sai Baba allegedly said of his origins and focus instead on how he was treated by his followers and exponents. 3 One of the dominant categories of reference for Shirdi Sai Baba's hagiographers is religion, especially Hinduism and Islam. The early testimonies of G. R. Dabholkar (d. 1929) and G. D. Sahasrabuddhe alias Dasganu (d. 1963) disengage Sai Baba from historically known religious collectives and their practices to highlight his exclusivity (cf. Loar 2018; McLain 2016). Indeed, the hagiographer's goal is to attribute extraordinariness to the saint, sometimes with philosophical substance. Witness this assertion: The maharaj [literally, great king] whom all his devotees call Babasai auspiciously arrived in Shirdi village. Nobody understands his whereabouts, his mind is always joyous. When somebody enquired "tell us the name of your place and where you have come from," in that moment maharaj answered excitedly as if a storm roared from the heavens and BK-TandF-SRINIVAS_9781032135694-220140-Chp01.indd 28
This special issue was born out of the international project Cultural Heritage and Identities of ... more This special issue was born out of the international project Cultural Heritage and Identities of Europe's Future (CHIEF) funded by the European Commission within the Horizon 2020 programme. The project focuses on youth's cultural socialisation in various educational settings through formal schooling, intergenerational interactions in the family, taking part in civic society activities, informal friendship groups and at heritage sites by conducting multi-method research in nine countries across Europe and beyond, including the UK,
Résumé/Abstract Saint Eknath is one of the most popular saints of the Marathi speaking people of ... more Résumé/Abstract Saint Eknath is one of the most popular saints of the Marathi speaking people of Western India. His poetical works have been hitherto noted by many scholars of Marathi literature, as well as by historians. Based mainly on the analysis of the ...
Muslim Cultures in the Indo-Iranian World during the Early-Modern and Modern Periods, 2010
This essay is an attempt to discuss the god Dattātreya clad in the garb of a Muslim fakir as he i... more This essay is an attempt to discuss the god Dattātreya clad in the garb of a Muslim fakir as he is represented in Marathi texts, old and new. It considers the figure of Dattātreya from the theoretical perspective of studies of holy men and studies of their impact on South Asian society. The essay develops an argument that the concept of fakir Dattātreya evolved gradually across the centuries of Dattātreya's worship, and that it reflects the socio-cultural changes in pre-modern and early modern South Asia that transformed the latter into the Indo-Islamic world. It also suggests that in some religious groups the acceptance of Dattātreya's fakir form may have evolved as sophisticated Sanskritization of Islamic holy men whereas other groups may have adopted this peculiar form of Indic god-sage for Islamization of the followers of holy men.
Miloš Hubina and Francis S. M. Chan, eds., Communicating the Sacred. Varieties of Religious Marketing. New York: Peter Lang, 2022, pp. 79-106., 2022
All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as micro lm, xero... more All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as micro lm, xerography, micro che, microcard, and o set strictly prohibited. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Control Number: 2021047203 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the "Deutsche Nationalbibliogra e"; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http:// dnb.d-nb.de/ .
This article explores the family as an educational environment and space for the intergenerationa... more This article explores the family as an educational environment and space for the intergenerational exchange of knowledge. Focusing on the process of cultural socialization as viewed against the currently popular “culture wars” it employs the concept of consociality, which is aimed at grasping the diversity and unpredictability of human interactions, and has been recently rejuvenated by Ulf Hannerz. Investigating the consocial character of learning and intergenerational exchange within the family educational environment, the article takes examples from Slovakia and Latvia and problematizes the relationship between formal and informal learning to demonstrate how it changes knowledge infused with cultural meanings and references. The article argues that this process depends on the consocial conditions in which it is created. It also suggests that viewing the family environment in consocial terms provides us with an opportunity to rethink the role of experiences shared within the family...
P ríbeh britského panstva v Indii je totiž nielen príbehom dravého ekonomického prenikania na Ind... more P ríbeh britského panstva v Indii je totiž nielen príbehom dravého ekonomického prenikania na Indický subkontinent, podporovaného kráľovskou mocou, ktorá z Indie vybudovala perlu svojho impéria, ale v širšom kontexte aj príbehom vzájomných interakcií a vzájomného spoznávania Európanov a Indov.
Recent studies discussing South Asian holy men share one important observation. It is the holy me... more Recent studies discussing South Asian holy men share one important observation. It is the holy men's devotees and a plethora of interpreters -from the local expounders of their glory up to academics -that to a considerable degree create who the holy men are understood to be. Holy men are credited with an active role in shaping people's religiosity, setting the moral principles of correct behaviour and forming examples of the ways that humans can pierce the layers of the experienced realities of life. Comprehending holy men thus takes a route that starts from them and leads to the forming of others. Yet the mechanics of the holy men's engaging with other people's worlds articulate through the observation of people's diverse engagements with the holy men rather than the other way round. For instance, Christian Novetzke, in a study of Namdev that placed his analysis under the umbrella rubric of public religion, showed us not one but several "Namdevs" depending on the materials that have produced Namdev's identity, be they texts attributed to (the most probably illiterate) Namdev, oral sources, hagiographies or movies. 1 Nile Green exposed the commercial rm-like character of people devoted to Bombay's Muslim saints, launching the branches of their devotional enterprises within, but also outside, South Asia across the territories of the Indian Ocean. 2 Richard Eaton emphasized Tukaram's role in laying the foundations of the social movement of the commoner Varkaris, triggered by the vernacular vehicle of social protest, 3 and recently Timothy Dobe unsettled the holy men from the constraints of the petrifying societal traditions of the sacred and identitarian in order to discuss the holy men's active re-production of shared religious visions. This is not mere engagement with social constructivism in academic praxis. It is giving credit to, recognizing and organizing the sources of our knowledge about people who may be invoked for social good as well as be seen as the backbone of social unrest, past or present. 5 For indeed, these people do appear as 'polivestiary' -many clothed, to borrow a term from Nile Green 6 ; because of this and in order to describe them at least with some erudition, several types of materials must inevitably be consulted. These may range from written evidence, as varied as land grants, histories, saint-poetry, hagiographies or academic writings, to orally transmitted narratives, if only
ABSTRACT This article considers young people’s socialization into mnemonic communities in 14 Euro... more ABSTRACT This article considers young people’s socialization into mnemonic communities in 14 European countries. It argues that such socialization is an intersubjective and selective process that, to a great degree, depends on the particular social environment that conditions the discourses on pasts available to young people. Drawing on memory studies, it recognizes memory as a valid alternative to the institutionalized past (history) but envisages the two as inextricably connected. Given this, it identifies several strategies adopted by young people in order to socialize understandings of the past. While these strategies vary, some reveal receptivity to populist and far right ideologies. Our study demonstrates how internalization of political heritage via mnemonic socialization within families is conditioned by both the national political agenda and socio-economic situation experienced across Europe.
ABSTRACT This article considers young people’s socialization into mnemonic communities in 14 Euro... more ABSTRACT This article considers young people’s socialization into mnemonic communities in 14 European countries. It argues that such socialization is an intersubjective and selective process that, to a great degree, depends on the particular social environment that conditions the discourses on pasts available to young people. Drawing on memory studies, it recognizes memory as a valid alternative to the institutionalized past (history) but envisages the two as inextricably connected. Given this, it identifies several strategies adopted by young people in order to socialize understandings of the past. While these strategies vary, some reveal receptivity to populist and far right ideologies. Our study demonstrates how internalization of political heritage via mnemonic socialization within families is conditioned by both the national political agenda and socio-economic situation experienced across Europe.
ABSTRACT This article considers young people’s socialization into mnemonic communities in 14 Euro... more ABSTRACT This article considers young people’s socialization into mnemonic communities in 14 European countries. It argues that such socialization is an intersubjective and selective process that, to a great degree, depends on the particular social environment that conditions the discourses on pasts available to young people. Drawing on memory studies, it recognizes memory as a valid alternative to the institutionalized past (history) but envisages the two as inextricably connected. Given this, it identifies several strategies adopted by young people in order to socialize understandings of the past. While these strategies vary, some reveal receptivity to populist and far right ideologies. Our study demonstrates how internalization of political heritage via mnemonic socialization within families is conditioned by both the national political agenda and socio-economic situation experienced across Europe.
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