Stories of the Hindus

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ASIAN STUDIES/RELIGION THE STORIES AND POPULAR WISDOM THAT SHAPE THE CONTEMPORARY HINDU "This volume provides an approaeh to the Great Tradition that enriches and supplements the usual approaeh based solely on such 'classics' as the Vedas, Upanishads and Gita. Dr. Kirk is to be commended not only for gathering together these stories from various furtive sources difficult of access to the ordinary student, but alsó for presenting them with a liveliness that reflects something of the animation which has kept them alive in the hearts of millions for countless generations." -Professor H. Dániel Smith, Syracuse University James A. Kirk introduces Hindu traditions to Western readers in much the same way an Indián family introduces them to its children: through the folk tales, ceremonies, and popular wisdom of Hindu culture. These stories, writes Kirk, "are not primarily important religious texts, but they employ many of the assumptions, attitudes, and unsophisticated forms of the Hindu... Tovább

Fülszöveg

ASIAN STUDIES/RELIGION THE STORIES AND POPULAR WISDOM THAT SHAPE THE CONTEMPORARY HINDU "This volume provides an approaeh to the Great Tradition that enriches and supplements the usual approaeh based solely on such 'classics' as the Vedas, Upanishads and Gita. Dr. Kirk is to be commended not only for gathering together these stories from various furtive sources difficult of access to the ordinary student, but alsó for presenting them with a liveliness that reflects something of the animation which has kept them alive in the hearts of millions for countless generations." -Professor H. Dániel Smith, Syracuse University James A. Kirk introduces Hindu traditions to Western readers in much the same way an Indián family introduces them to its children: through the folk tales, ceremonies, and popular wisdom of Hindu culture. These stories, writes Kirk, "are not primarily important religious texts, but they employ many of the assumptions, attitudes, and unsophisticated forms of the Hindu Religion." For the reader who wishes a more sensitive initiation into the texture of Hindu faith, or for the student who wishes to enrich his knowledge of the Hindu elassics, these tales- the myths, legends, popular dramas, and meditations which form the religious education of the Hindu and shape his spiritual universe from infancy through the aduit years-offer entertaining, enlightening, and thought-provoking glimpses of an approaeh to spirituality that is only now coming to be appreciated in the West. JAMES A. KIRK is Associate Professor of the history of religions at the University of Denver, Colorado. Vissza