This classic work is a revised and abridged version, in a single volume, of the work which more than any other catapulted Pitirim Sorokin into being one of the most famed figures of twentieth-century sociology. Its original publication occurred before World War II. This revised version, written some twenty years later, reflects a postwar environment. Earlier than most, Sorokin took the consequences of the breakdown of colonialism into account in discussing the renaissance of the great cultures of African and Asian civilization. Other than perhaps F.S.C. Northrop, no individual better incorporated the new role of the Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic peoples in this postwar world. Sorokin came to view social and cultural dynamics in terms of three major processes: a major shift of mankind's creative center from Europe to the Pacific; a progressive disintegration of the sensate culture; and finally the first blush of the emergence and growth of a new idealistic sociocultural order. This volume is perhaps most famous for revealing Sorokin's remarkable efforts to understand the relationship of war and peace to the process of social and political change. Contrary to received wisdom, he shows that the magnitude and depth of war grows in periods of social, cultural, and territorial expansion by the nation. In short, war is just as often a function of development as it is of social decay. This long-unavailable volume remains one of the major touchstones by which we can judge efforts to create an international social science. There are few areas of social or cultural life that are not covered—from painting, art, and music, to the ethos of universalism and particularism. These are terms which Sorokin introduced into the literature long before the rise of functional doctrines. For all those interested in cultural and historical processes, this volume provides the essence of Sorokin's remarkably prescient effort to achieve sociological transcendence, by takin

Cinema in India is an entertainment medium that is interwoven into society and culture at large. It is clearly evident that continuous struggle and conflict at the personal as well as societal levels is depicted in cinema in India. It has become a reflection of society both in negative and positive ways. Hence, cinema has become an influential factor and one of the largest mass communication mediums in the nation. Social and Cultural Dynamics in Indian Cinema is an essential reference source that discusses cultural and societal issues including caste, gender, oppression, and social movements through cinema and particularly in specific language cinema and culture. Featuring research on topics such as Bollywood, film studies, and gender equality, this book is ideally designed for researchers, academicians, film studies students, and industry professionals seeking coverage on various aspects of regional cinema in India.

Throughout the history of Indian religions, the ascetic figure is most closely identified with power. A by-product of the ascetic path, power is displayed in the ability to fly, walk on water or through dense objects, read minds, discern the former lives of others, see into the future, harm others, or simply levitate one's body. These tales give rise to questions about how power and violence are related to the phenomenon of play. Indian Asceticism focuses on the powers exhibited by ascetics of India from ancient to modern time. Carl Olson discusses the erotic, the demonic, the comic, and the miraculous forms of play and their connections to power and violence. He focuses on Hinduism, but evidence is also presented from Buddhism and Jainism, suggesting that the subject matter of this book pervades India's major indigenous religious traditions. The book includes a look at the extent to which findings in cognitive science can add to our understanding of these various powers; Olson argues that violence is built into the practice of the ascetic. Indian Asceticism culminates with an attempt to rethink the nature of power in a way that does justice to the literary evidence from Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain sources.

The collection of papers in Ascetic Culture: Renunciation and Worldly Engagement was entirely conceived and developed by K. Ishwaran, who died in June 1998. The original concept was to focus on "Tradition and Innovation in Monastic Life in South Asia", a topic which combined two of Ishwaran’s major interests: comparative studies of the monastic systems of south Asia, and criticism of Western anthropological and sociological assumptions of tradition and modernity being antithetical, especially with regard to traditional religions. Ishwaran saw this collection of papers as reinforcing the "demise of universalistic projects, all encompassing grand master narratives and similar globally integrative, theoretical or empirical enterprises in social discourse" flowing from the post-structural and post-modernist revolutions in the social sciences. Later he conceived of broadening this topic to be more liberally comparative, to include major religious traditions around the world. The new title was to be "Tradition and Modernity in Monastic orders in Contemporary Societies". Finally, he broadened the theme to the present title of his collection. Taken together, the articles appearing in this book strongly support Ishwaran’s theses. First, is the obvious point that eremitism and asceticism are far more complex than commonly understood in the scholarly world. If ever a general understanding of these interrelated phenomena is developed, careful examination not only how they are found in these cultures and traditions but also study of their particular manifestations in individual movements, places, cultures, social groups etc. must take place. The second thesis is clearly established by the range of these papers: ascetic traditions are not only inimical to modernity, they may be found at the heart of certain contemporary social and cultural developments. K. Ishwaran has rendered the study of religion in particular and the social sciences in general an important service with this anthology. Contributers are John E. Cort, Alan Davies, Balkrishna G. Gokhale, Daniel Gold, Shaman Hatley, Sohail Inayatullah, Klaus K. Klostermaier, David Miller, S.A. Nigosian, Jordan Paper, and Earle H. Waugh.

​This volume situates Indians in the contemporary world and profiles the major facets of their thought and behaviour; then goes back to trace their roots to ancient thought to see how the past predisposes and the present guides Indians in their everyday life. The volume begins with a conceptual framework showing how the Indian worldview has encompassed and enveloped a variety of ideas and influences from divergent sources. As a result, Indians are both collectivists and individualists, hierarchically oriented while respecting merit and quality, religious as well as secular and sexually indulgent, spiritual as well as materialists, excessively dependent but remarkably entrepreneurial, non-violent in principle but violent in practice and comfortable in shifting between analytical, synthetic as well as intuitive approaches to reality. Such a coexistence of opposites often causes inaction, hesitation and perfunctory action, but also equips Indians to be innovative by continuously aligning their thought and behaviour to the demands of a milieu. The milieu has an inner layer consisting of desh (place), kaal (time) and paatra (person), which are embedded in the larger societal contexts of castes and classes, poverty, corruption, fragmenting politics, conflicts and violence and unfolding global opportunities and challenges. Cultural heritage permeates in all these. Indians function in this tiered, multifactorial, dynamic space. This volume draws evidence from ancient texts and the latest national and international research, many of which were conducted by the author and his associates. It does not, however, hesitate to indulge in anecdotal evidence, cases and speculative ideas in order to complete the picture. The author takes an in-depth view of the Indian mindset without getting the reader lost in either the intricacies of ancient philosophical abyss or the trivialities of present-day non-events.

This book presents an early modern Jesuit attitude towards Hindu and Ethiopian strains of asceticism. The Jesuits’ descriptions of both the yogis and the Ethiopian renunciates were marked by ambivalence. While critical of these ascetics, the missionaries also pointed out admirable facets of their comportment. In both the Society of Jesus’ positive and negative impressions, there are glaring ethnocentric views that shift the spotlight onto the other’s flaws. Like many historical cases, these perceptions evolved into a sort of inverted mirror image of the self that revealed differences between the European Catholic and the native renunciate.

‘Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions in South Asia’ explores the dynamic constructions and applications of the concept of ‘tradition’ that occurred within the South Asian context during the ancient and pre-colonial periods. This collection of essays features a significant selection of the specialized fields of knowledge that have shaped classical South Asian intellectual history, and the aim of this volume is to offer a stimulating anthology of papers on the different and complex processes employed during the ‘invention’, construction, preservation and renewal of a given tradition.

The conference volume of the Bochumer Kolleg “Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe” outlines the thesis that religion is not a homogeneous cultural phenomenon, but a dense network of diachronically and synchronically differing traditions.