RS 160A: Religious Traditions of India

Preliminary Review Sheet for Exam 2 (IN CLASS)

What follows is not an exhaustive list of terms or questions you are responsible for, but a “conversation-starter” in your test preparation.

Terms you will be assumed to know:

Adharma

Ahl al-Kitab

Akbar

Avatar

Chudel

Delhi Sultanate

Hajj

Hanuman

Ishq

Itihasa

Jibreel

Ka’bah

Khanqah

Lakshamana

Legitimation

Makka

Mughal

Najar

Puja

Qur’an

Ravana

Saguna Bhakti

Shahada

Sharia

Smarta Brahmin

Smriti

Tariqah

Ulamah

Ummah

Vacana

Vaishnavism

Valmiki

How to study for “Text Identification”?

Actively read all of the texts you’ve been assign for this class.  Who are the main characters, if any?  What are the definitive passages?  What is the general message of each text that has been selected in the reader?  How does that message play into the larger message of the religious tradition it represents, and the larger themes of the course?

Questons to Review:

During the period when the oral, Sanskrit Ramayana was reaching its final form, what socio-political realities might have influenced the text’s understanding of the “forest”?  In the text, who lives in the forest, and who lived in the forest during those times?  What historical meanings might be stuffed into Rama’s goal to destroy forest-dwelling demons?

Why do champions of the Mahabharata refer to it as the Fifth Veda, and on what bases do they make their case?

Compare the notion of self in the Bhagavadgita with the Jain “jiva” and the Vedantic “atman”.

From what Vedic sources do India’s Goddess traditions derive?

In what ways is Vedic Brahmanism just like Tantra?

What are some of the differences between the “Great” and “Little” traditions?  Please give examples.

In what ways are the two examples of Itahasa we have read similar?

When we say “The Goddess,” to what are we referring, and what are some of the distinctive ways that “she” is portrayed in Indian religions?

What is “folk religion”?

Makka and the Ka’bah are far from India.  Name and explain two ways that Sufi traditions help Indian Muslims negotiate this distance?

How do the Mughal Emperors, Ulama, and Sufi Shaykhs legitimate their power? Or, in other words, what kind of authority do they have, and from where is it derived?

Who goes on the pilgrimage to Ajmer?  Why?  What do those people do there?

In what ways are the goals of the “Ocean of Mercury” text and the “Piligrimage to Ajmer” similar?  What differences lie in the respective methods of realizing these goals?

Why is the issue of “Darshan” so important in Surdas’s poetry?  What does he reveal about how to “see” God?

Do you think the writers of the Bhagavad Gita could have ever anticipated Mirabai’s poetry?  Please explain.

Using Tulsidas’s own poetry, how can we justify John Stratton Hawley’s claim that Tulsidas “was a theological bridge builder”?

Identify the texts from which each of the following two excerpts come, and compare their respective messages:

1)             “Eternal youth, immortality of the body, and the attainment of an identity of nature with Siva—that is, liberation in the body (jivanmukti)—is difficult even for the gods to attain.  The liberation that occurs when one drops dead, that liberation is worthless.  For in that case, a donkey would also be liberated when he dropped dead.”

2)             “What do the living know of the dead?  Only they know who die.

The grave has neither food nor water, one must bring supplies from home.

Leaving one’s mother, father, and brothers, then the torments of the grave…

How fortunate are they, Bahu, who die while still living!”

What are the two most similar traditions between the following two columns?

What are the two least similar traditions between the following two columns?