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  • Death in Banaras

    Death in Banaras by Parry, Jonathan P.;

    Series: Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures;

      • GET 20% OFF

      • The discount is only available for 'Alert of Favourite Topics' newsletter recipients.
      • Publisher's listprice GBP 56.00
      • The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.

        28 341 Ft (26 992 Ft + 5% VAT)
      • Discount 20% (cc. 5 668 Ft off)
      • Discounted price 22 673 Ft (21 594 Ft + 5% VAT)

    28 341 Ft

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    Availability

    Estimated delivery time: In stock at the publisher, but not at Prospero's office. Delivery time approx. 3-5 weeks.
    Not in stock at Prospero.

    Why don't you give exact delivery time?

    Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.

    Product details:

    • Publisher Cambridge University Press
    • Date of Publication 7 July 1994

    • ISBN 9780521466257
    • Binding Paperback
    • No. of pages344 pages
    • Size 229x152x20 mm
    • Weight 510 g
    • Language English
    • Illustrations 12 b/w illus. 6 maps 9 tables
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    Short description:

    A study of Hindu death rituals and the sacred specialists who perform them in the Indian city of Banaras.

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    Long description:

    As a place to die, to dispose of the physical remains of the deceased and to perform the rites which ensure that the departed attains a 'good state' after death, the north Indian city of Banaras attracts pilgrims and mourners from all over the Hindu world. This book is primarily about the priests and other kinds of 'sacred specialists' who serve them: about the way in which they organise their business, and about their representations of death and understanding of the rituals over which they preside. All three levels are informed by a common ideological preoccupation with controlling chaos and contingency. The anthropologist who writes about death inevitably writes about the world of the living, and Dr Parry is centrally concerned with concepts of the body and the person in contemporary Hinduism; with ideas about hierarchy, renunciation and sacrifice, and with the relationship between hierarchy and notions of complementarity and holism.

    "The author has done a superb job in combining description and analysis, his conclusions are both provocative and informative. There is no doubt that this work is a major contribution to the meager literature on the anthropology of symbolism of death and the sociology of specialists in the sacred. It is a 'must read' for those interested in topics such as death, death rituals, and pilgrimage." Choice

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    Table of Contents:

    Introduction; Part I. Death and the City: 1. Through 'divine eyes'; 2. A profane perspective; Part II. Death as a Living: 3. Shares and chicanery; 4. Giving, receiving and bargaining over gifts; Part III. Death into Birth: 5. The last sacrifice; 6. Ghosts into ancestors; 7. Spirit possession as 'superstition'; Part IV. The End of Death: 8. Asceticism and the conquest of death.

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