Love stories in photos and life stories in words from celebrities like Joy Behar, Judy Collins, Jerry Stiller, Susie Essman, and Cat Cora. A celebration of love and commitment, these stories from renowned figures span the bridge from love at first sight to a reluctant proposal acceptance – sometimes in the same relationship. These are love stories of legend told in photos by Mort Hamburg and life stories of people destined to be with one another for the long haul, written (...) by Kashmir Hill. (shrink)

"This book analyses the contemporary global revival of Nondual âSaivism, a thousand-year-old medieval Hindu religious philosophy. Providing a historical overview of the seminal people and groups responsible for the revival, the book compares the tradition's medieval Indian origins to modern forms, which are situated within distinctively contemporary religious, economic, and technological contexts. The author bridges the current gap in the literature between "insider" and "outsider" perspectives by examining modern Nondual âSaivism from multiple standpoints as both a critical scholar (...) of religion and an empathetic participant-observer. The book explores modern Nondual âSaivism in relation to recent scholarly debates concerning the legitimacy of New Age consumptive spirituality, the global spiritual marketplace, and the contemporary culture of narcissism. It also analyses the dark side of the revived tradition, and investigates contemporary teachers accused of sexual abuse and illegal financial activities in relation to unique features of Nondual âSaivism's theosophy and modern scholarship on new religious movements and cults. This book shows that, although Kashmir âSaivism has been adopted by certain teachers and groups to market their own brand of "High Tantra," some contemporary practitioners have remained true to the system's fundamental tenets and teach authentic forms of Nondual âSaivism. This book will be of interest to academics in the fields of religion and Asian philosophies, especially South Asian, tantric, neo-tantric and yoga philosophies, alternative and New Age spiritualities, religion and consumerism, and new religious movements and cults"--. (shrink)

On understand the Tantrism in light of the Tantrāloka of Abhinavagupta.

A separatist conflict has been ongoing in India-administered Kashmir since 1989. Focusing on this region, this book critiques the existing normative theories of secession, and offers a comprehensive examination of the right of sub-groups to secede. The book looks at the different accounts of the moral right to secede, and assesses both the theories themselves as well as the claims of those who want to separate Kashmir from India. Included within this analysis are the three main types of (...) normative theory that ground the right of groups to secede in principles of national self: determination, consensual governance and rectificatory justice. Previous studies have discussed the causes behind the uprising in Kashmir against Indian authority and examined some of the legal and geo-political implications of the conflict for India and the wider region. This book provides a new way of looking at the Kashmir dispute, by asking what these theories tell us about Kashmir, and in turn what the example of Kashmir allows us to learn about these theories. It is of interest to students and scholars of South Asian Politics and International Relations. (shrink)

J. C. Chatterji’s book is a brief introduction to the nature of ultimate reality and the manifestation of the universe according to the Trika System. It also covers, briefly, the history of this advaita Shaiva philosophy of Kashmir. First published in 1914 as the first book in “The Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies,” it is still the clearest introduction to the Tattvas of the Trika. Since the lower twenty-five of the thirty-six Trika Tattvas represent the entire universe (...) from the Samkhya point of view, here also is a very clear exposition of the Samkhya Tattvas. The only difference is that, while the Purusha and the Prakriti are the final realities for Samkhya, they are but derivatives according to the Trika, which, carrying the analysis further, recognizes eleven additional Tattvas above the Purusha. (shrink)

J. C. Chatterji’s book is a brief introduction to the nature of ultimate reality and the manifestation of the universe according to the Trika System. It also covers, briefly, the history of this advaita Shaiva philosophy of Kashmir. First published in 1914 as the first book in “The Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies,” it is still the clearest introduction to the Tattvas of the Trika. Since the lower twenty-five of the thirty-six Trika Tattvas represent the entire universe (...) from the Samkhya point of view, here also is a very clear exposition of the Samkhya Tattvas. The only difference is that, while the Purusha and the Prakriti are the final realities for Samkhya, they are but derivatives according to the Trika, which, carrying the analysis further, recognizes eleven additional Tattvas above the Purusha. (shrink)

India and Pakistan has fought four wars over Kashmir and hasheld rounds of talks without resolving the 72-year-old issue. The Indiangovernment’s revocation of the special status of Kashmir sets the stage for newclashes in the disputed region. Using documentary sources, surveys, and otherwritings, this study analyses the genesis of the conflict in Kashmir, bringingin historical facets together with discursive elements of the contemporarypolitical crisis in Kashmir. The study found that the Kashmir dispute hasmultiple causes the (...) major one being the religious difference, a conflict betweenIndia, a predominately Hindu state, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Inthe early phase, the conflict was between religion and secularism, embodiedin Pakistan and India, respectively both needing Muslim majority Kashmir toprove their basic political ideology right. Currently, the conflict has assumedpurely the religious colour: India aiming at integrating Kashmir into the Hindupolity and Pakistan claiming Kashmir for its having a Muslim majority. Thus,the unfinished agenda of partition continues. (shrink)

The member states of the United Nations General Assembly in 2005 unanimously adopted the resolution on Responsibility to Protect to save citizens from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. Since adoption, the norm has been invoked in Libya, South Sudan, Yemen, and Syria, nonetheless, the UN refrains to respond to the genocide committed in the Jammu & Kashmir and triggering a greater sense of anxiety. In this context, the present paper elucidates the factors behind the UN (...) failure. It asks why the UN failed to call R2P despite systematic crimes against humanity in Kashmir. What factors or forces preclude the UN to invoke R2P? The paper argues that the inability of the UN to invoke R2P is a consequence of systemic and domestic factors. The Indo-US strategic partnership, materialism, and New Delhi’s influence in the international system are obstructing the UN’s ability to play a decisive role. Meanwhile, the economic and military potential of India and its regional influence forbid the international community to dissuade India not to commit genocide in Jammu & Kashmir. So the high politics of materialism and national interests override the norm of human rights and humanity. (shrink)

This paper examines the concept of manifestation process in Kashmir Shaivism from Shiva tattva to Prithvi tattva and their transcendental and immanent predicates (Prakrti and Purusa).This paper also shows that the ultimate reality, Paramshiva, manifests itself into various forms which likely represent the theory of causation. This research paper also provides answer to two questions; First, how ultimate reality with its thirty-six principles or elements manifest in various forms and what types of forms ‘Descent’ attains from the ‘universal self’? (...) Second, how manifestation process takes place from the ‘cosmic self’ (universal consciousness) to a ‘limited self’ (Jiva)? Since, this paper is based on philosophical exploration of manifestation process and contains interpretation and argumentation of Pratyabhijna philosophy only; it excludes manifestation due to Yogas (Upayas) and Karmas. Moreover, it explains the Trika form of reality (Shiva/God, Shakti/World, and Nara/Man) and also the identity between ‘ascent’ and ‘descent’. Manifestation further investigates the union of Shiva and Shakti with Maya and displays its character (Prakashvimarshmaya). This work further tries to describe the contribution of Abhinavagupta in the concept of manifestation. (shrink)

India was under British colonial rule for a good number of years with her plural ethno-religious background and identity, which was to become the basis of an unending conflict. Several pre-colonial and post-colonial conditioning antecedents have been marshalled to buttress the premise leading to the conclusion that the British colonial era laid the time bomb along ethno-religious contours which exploded in 1947 thereby giving rise to the balkanisation of India into two separate states, that is India and Pakistan. Two major (...) religious groups that is Hindus and Muslims became the gladiators in India’s partition. The Kashmir region of India, a town of religious confluence, has a history of conflicts that is perceived by different people as politico-religious and socio-economic. This article focuses on religion as a core tenet of every cultural worldview and its significance to both Hindus and Muslims, and how it has become the progressively vital central marker of identity and a smouldering keg of gun powder for conflict in Kashmir. Furthermore, this article contends that religion plays a key role in the conflict between Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir because of its significance and influence on both religions. India that is known as a mother to various religions cannot relegate the primary role of religion in their political and socio-economic affairs. Therefore, it is right to acknowledge politico-religious and socio-economic factors in the Hindu–Muslim conflict in the state of Kashmir. And, it will not be wrong to affirm that religion plays a key role in the conflict between Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir.Contribution: The article is a contribution in religious issues in India. It reveals how political power and sociopolitical antecedents are mostly recognised by religious scholars and historians as the reason for the fracas between Hindus and Muslims. It explains the influence and implication of religion in the Hindu-Muslim relations in Kashmir region. (shrink)

This paper examines the neo-colonial project of Narendra Modi implemented in Kashmir after the revocation of special status on August 5, 2019. The neo-colonial infrastructure supported by the threads of re-classification of legal residents and land designations intends to significantly transform the demography of Muslim majority Kashmir into a Muslim minority, consequently destroying the Muslim identity of the state. The abrogation of Article 370 and enactment of new domicile law has extended the legal and administrative control of New (...) Delhi, making Kashmir indistinguishable from the Indian legal system and leaving no room for the local legislative assembly to make laws beneficial for the state residents. The paper asks how India is implementing the neo-colonial settler agenda in Kashmir. How and to what extent legal and military instruments are employed to disempower Kashmiris from territorial and cultural identity? The paper argues that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pursuing a neo-colonial settler agenda in Kashmir through ‘destroy and replace,’ which is supported by the neo-liberal agenda, including; new land management policy, new domicile law, spatial planning and development, new settlements of Hindus, authoritative central control, and massive militarization to carry out gross human rights abuses and repression. (shrink)

This article attempts to make sense of India's obsession with Kashmir by way of a gendered analysis. I begin by drawing attention to the historical and continuing failure of Indian democracy in Kashmir that results in the violent and multifaceted dehumanisation of Kashmiris and, in turn, domesticates dissent on the question of Kashmir within India. This scenario has been enabled by the persuasive appeal of a gendered masculinist nationalist neoliberal state currently enhanced in its Hindutva avatar. I (...) focus on understanding how the violence enacted upon Kashmiri bodies is connected to feminised understandings of the body of Kashmir in India's imagination of itself as a nation state. I argue that the gendered discourses of representation, cartography and possession are central to the way in which such nationalism works to legitimise and normalise the violence in Kashmir. I conclude with a few reflections on how Kashmir is a litmus test for the discourse on (anti-)nationalism in contemporary India. (shrink)

Trika philosophy or Kashmir Śaivism is one of the major nondual philosophical systems of India where both esoteric and exoteric practices are included systematically and scientifically. The two aspects of manifestation viśvamaya, the immanent and viśvottīrṇa the transcendental covers this entire philosophical system as a unique all-inclusive and very practical. In this process of manifestation in Trika philosophy ‘māyā’ plays an important role both from an ontological and epistemological point of view. Furthermore ‘māyā’ clearly stands as a foremost part (...) with the point of view of a knower (pramātā). So, māyā is a quite notable concept, unlike other Indian philosophical traditions. Apart from this, it gives utmost support to artistic creations, i.e. both artist and aesthete, and because of that reason Pratyabhijñā darśan has a strong influence on Indian literary theory. This paper is an attempt to expound the major dimensions of ‘māyā’ in different levels. (shrink)

The Kashmir issue, a principal reason for rivalry between India and Pakistan, has become the atomic flashpoint and a constant threat to the security of South Asia. The aim of this paper is to highlight the root causes of Kashmir disputes and the major events that contributed towards the Indo-Pak rivalry with respect to Kashmir. The paper highlights present political conditions in the Indian-held Kashmir also shows the role of India, Pakistan, and the United Nations in (...) Kashmir Dispute. In the end, a conclusion is presented for the devalued relations of India and Pakistan in the setting of Kashmir and its effects are analyzed. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs the history of the trigonometrical surveying of Kashmir from 1855 to 1865. It highlights the strategies through which surveyors had to justify the employment of high-precision instruments and methods in Himalayan terrain. Only by tediously manipulating their institutional environment in India and Britain did the staff of the Kashmir survey manage to complete its operations in light of constant financial and physical hardship. To sustain their measurements, surveyors aligned themselves with various political projects, entertaining and (...) shifting allegiances with local rulers, scientific societies, and colonial institutions. After suffering severe cuts to instruments and assistance staff, the party was entirely stripped of funds by the East India Company in 1857 and relied on the material support of Maharaja Gulab Singh. Subsequently, surveyors adopted an expansionist rhetoric to gather the support of the Royal Geographical Society. In doing so, they framed precision as an essential contribution to imperial expansion, effective colonial rule, and intervention in ‘backward’ Kashmiri society and infrastructure. The Kashmir survey illustrates that rendering precision valuable requires an ongoing performative effort of justification to align epistemic with political and institutional interests. (shrink)

Around Abhinavagupta: Aspects of the Intellectual History of Kashmir from the Ninth to the Eleventh Century. Edited by Eli Franco and Isabelle Ratié. Leipziger Studien zu Kultur und Geschichte Süd- und Zentralasiens, vol. 6. Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2016. Pp. xx + 682. €89.90.

As a population is subject to necropolitics, what are the ways in which they resist the exposure to this systematic, deliberately inflicted death? Encompassing the case of India-administered Kashmir region, this article seeks to understand and examine this question. As the Indian state continues to enact insidious and expansive forms of necropolitics in Kashmir, the population has also turned death into a form of counter-conduct – a necroresistance to subvert the state’s necropolitics. Exploring this enactment of necroresistance, this (...) article seeks to reveal the forms that it takes in India-administered Kashmir as well as the transformations that it brings to the socio-political milieu. Conversely, it also looks at how necroresistance in Kashmir acquires a contextual sacred dimension. (shrink)

This article identifies the colonial imperative of ‘we must develop them, with or without their consent’, which is used by the Indian state in order to dominate Kashmiri Muslims, and argues that this notion of development combines patriarchal silencing of the subjugated as well as a gendered fantasy of liberating oppressed Kashmiri women and minorities. While the colonial nature of Indian rule over Kashmir has been a long-term phenomenon, the focus in this article will primarily be on a specific (...) political transformation imposed by the Indian state since August 2019, when even the pretence of autonomy and recognition was given up, and all phenomena constituting coloniality became conspicuous and acute. Adopting a feminist lens, I highlight nine features of contemporary Indian coloniality in Kashmir: denial of consent, paternalism, violence, enforced silencing, lack of accountability, arbitrariness, divide and rule, humiliation and a specious idea of development. I further argue that such a notion of coloniality as development is better understood as ‘econonationalism’ (akin to homonationalism and femonationalism), where the supposed liberatory ideas are rhetorically deployed to mask a dehumanising subjugation. (shrink)

Goosen, Gideon Review(s) of: Towards a Christian Tantra: the interplay of Christianity and Kashmir Shaivinism, by John Dupuche, (Melbourne: David Lovell Publishing, 2009), pp.152, $24.95.

Abstract: The Bakar Wal community, along with the Gujar community was listed as Scheduled Tribes, in Jammu and Kashmir in the year 1991. These people mostly live as nomads and enjoy the status of being a Tribe. They are spread over a large area starting from Pir-Panjal range to Hindukush to Ladakh, located in the Himalayan mountains of South Asia. Bakerwals are mostly goat herders and shepherds, and for a cause they migrate from one place to another with their (...) herds of goat and sheep to different seasonal pasture lands, across the valley. They are found in the entire of Kashmir region across the borders of India and Pakistan. They have a very unique lifestyle and are known for preserving their rich culture for ages together. Gujjars are Bakerwals are the two sub ethnic groups that are mostly goat herders and shepherds, but at the very same time, there are administrative officers in the Government, Doctors, Professors, Teachers, and Police officers, etc. that come from these communities. They are known for their noble and truthful nature and are mostly considered sympathetic towards the fellow beings. These tribal communities are a part of the rich culture of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Keywords: Nomadic life, Gujjar, Bakarwals, Upliftment, livestock, pasture lands, grazing, Jammu and Kashmir . (shrink)

bk. 1. Historical -- bk. 2. Metaphysical.