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  • Stories of Shiva's Saints: Selections from Hariharas Ragales: Selections from Harihara's Ragales

    Stories of Shiva's Saints: Selections from Hariharas Ragales by Ben-Herut, Gil; Sundaram, R. V. S.;

    Selections from Harihara's Ragales

    Series: AAR Religion in Translation;

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    Product details:

    • Publisher OUP USA
    • Date of Publication 5 August 2025

    • ISBN 9780197782620
    • Binding Hardback
    • No. of pages488 pages
    • Size 235x156 mm
    • Language English
    • 700

    Categories

    Short description:

    The Kannada language boasts an ongoing literary tradition spanning more than a millennium, with a rich array of social positions and roles, religious traditions, and poetic styles that developed over the dramatic history of the region. Yet translations from premodern Kannada to English have been inconsistent, with only a handful of works that have endured. Stories of Shiva's Saints is the first English translation of selected stories from a thirteenth-century text by Hampeya Harihara that sheds light on the rapid spread of Shiva devotion in the region through edified biographies of figures who lived a few decades earlier, and the stories' historical significance is matched by their gripping plots and emotional expressivity.

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    Long description:

    Hampeya Harihara lived between the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries in Hampe (a.k.a. Hampi) and wrote in Kannada, a language of the south-Indian Dravidian family. With the aim of reaching large segments of the population, Harihara set out to develop a new style of narrative literature in Kannada, one that introduced straightforward plotting, quotidian characters, moderate use of literary ornamentation, simple prosody, and highly emotional expressivity. The work he composed in this style, the Shivasharanara Ragalegalu ("Stories of Shiva's Saints Written in the Ragale Meter") inaugurated a new era in Kannada literature. As the first English translation of eighteen stories from this work, this book serves as an invitation to contemporary readers to enjoy and appreciate a text that is rich with religious fervor, antinomian social agendas, raucous characters, and gripping drama-but also delicate poetry and significant historical importance.

    Stories of Shiva's Saints reveals Harihara's inclusive and flexible religious and social vision, according to which Shiva devotees from different backgrounds can share devotional practices and values while maintaining communal and personal commitments of different kinds. Harihara's work is of major historical significance as the first text to narrate the lives of important religious figures and vachana poets of the time, such as Allama Prabhu and Akka, and in particular Basava, the most well-known leader of the nascent tradition today identified with the Virashaivas/Lingayats.

    For decades, the study of South Indian Shaivism has been dominated by the foundational translations, A. K. Ramanujan's Speaking of Siva and Velcheru Narayana Rao and Gene Roghair's Siva's Warriors: The Basava Purana of Palkuriki Somanatha. Gil Ben-Herut and R. V. S. Sundaram's groundbreaking translation of Harihara's Ragalegalu is an important addition to this body of scholarship on Shaiva devotion. Spanning stories of well-known figures such as Basava and Mahadevi to lesser-known hagiographies of the goldsmith Kallayya and the potter Gundayya, Stories of Shiva's Saints presents a rich palette of religious experience that reorients our understandings of caste, gender, and Shaivism in the early second millennium.

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    Table of Contents:

    Stories of Shiva's Saints
    Acknowledgements
    PART I: AN INTRODUCTION
    Of Saints and Gods
    Shiva Devotion, South India, and the Kannada-Speaking Region
    Meter, Style, and Language
    About the Translation
    PART II: TRANSLATIONS
    The Divine Lord Basava: Leader, Saint, and Poet
    Chapter 1: In Shiva's Heavenly Realm
    Chapter 2: A Human Child
    Chapter 3: At Kappadi
    Chapter 4: Sent on a Mission
    Chapter 5: Arriving at Mangalavada
    Chapter 6: At Bijjala's Court
    Chapter 7: Serving the Devotees
    Chapter 8: A Charge of Embezzlement
    Chapter 9: Devotees and Miracles
    Chapter 10: Vaishnava Brahmins and a Newborn Child
    Chapter 11: The Onion Festival
    Chapter 12: Shiva's Trials for Basava
    Chapter 13: A Cobbled-together Epilogue
    Revered Mahadevi, Who Left Her Husband for Shiva
    Chapter 1: In Shiva's Heavenly Realm
    Chapter 2: Earthly Birth and Childhood
    Chapter 3: King Kaushika Falls Head over Heels for Mahadevi
    Chapter 4: The Wedding
    Chapter 5: Worshiping Shiva
    Chapter 6: Walking Out on Marriage
    Chapter 7: Srisailam the Holy Mountain
    Allama the Master: Lover Turned Ascetic
    Lord Revanasiddha: Wild and Powerful Itinerant
    Chapter 1: Birth from a Linga
    Chapter 2: Vibhishana and Thirty Million Lingas in Lanke
    Chapter 3: King Bijjala, Gorakshaka, and a Sword
    Chapter 4: A Water Reservoir and a Preterm Birth
    Chapter 5: Rudramunideva, Kallayya, Chamaladevi, and Returning to Kailasa
    Chief Minister Keshiraja: Brahmin and Devotee
    Chapter 1: The Chief Minister
    Chapter 2: Renunciation
    Chapter 3: Meeting Jommayya and Recovering the Linga
    Jommayya: Hunter and Zealot
    Chapter 1: The Killing of a Vaishnava Storyteller
    Chapter 2: Jommayya Confronts King Permadi
    Chapter 3: Heaps of Flesh and a Brahmin's Visit
    Kallayya, The Goldsmith Whose Dog Mastered the Vedas
    Bhoganna and the Lingas that Followed Him
    Gundayya, the Pot Maker Who Made the Lord Dance
    Nimbavve, Who Used Her Body to Serve Shiva
    Chavundaraya of Musute: Reviver of Bulls
    Bommatande of Bahuru: Devotee of Miraculous Feats
    Chapter 1: The Grain and the Jain
    Chapter 2: King Permadi and His Elephant
    Chapter 3: The Temple Dancer and the Bull
    Chavundaraya of the Suragi Flower: Devotee of Murderous Faith
    Shankara Dasimayya, Who Got a Fiery Eye from Shiva
    Chapter 1: Govinda Acquires a Fiery Eye
    Chapter 2: Teaching a Devotee and a King a Lesson
    Chapter 3: Becoming a Leader
    Bommatande of Kovuru, Who Sailed on a Wave of Mutilation
    Chapter 1: A Shaiva King among Jains
    Chapter 2: Killing the Jains
    Chapter 3: Self Sacrifice
    Adayya, Who Wreaked Vengeance on the Jains
    Chapter 1: Adayya and Padmavati Take on Human Birth
    Chapter 2: Marriage and the Incident with the Ascetics
    Chapter 3: Shiva and the Temple Conversion at Puligere
    Vaijakavve, Who Converted Her Jain Husband
    Ramayya the Recluse, Who Offered Shiva His Own Head
    APPENDIX I: SUMMARIES
    The Divine Lord Basava: Leader, Saint, and Poet
    Revered Mahadevi, Who Left Her Husband for Shiva
    Allama the Master: Lover Turned Ascetic
    Lord Revanasiddha: Wild and Powerful Itinerant
    Chief Minister Keshiraja: Brahmin and Devotee
    Jommayya: Hunter and Zealot
    Kallayya, The Goldsmith Whose Dog Mastered the Vedas
    Bhoganna and the Lingas that Followed Him
    Gundayya, the Pot Maker Who Made the Lord Dance
    Nimbavve, Who Used Her Body to Serve Shiva
    Chavundaraya of Musute: Reviver of Bulls
    Bommatande of Bahuru: Devotee of Miraculous Feats
    Chavundaraya of the Suragi Flower: Devotee of Murderous Faith
    Shankara Dasimayya, Who Got a Fiery Eye from Shiva
    Bommatande of Kovuru, Who Sailed on a Wave of Mutilation
    Adayya, Who Wreaked Vengeance on the Jains
    Vaijakavve, Who Converted Her Jain Husband
    Ramayya the Recluse, Who Offered Shiva His Own Head

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