Lawrence A. Babb – författare

What does it mean to worship beings that one believes are completely indifferent to, and entirely beyond the reach of, any form of worship whatsoever? How would such a relationship with sacred beings affect the religious life of a community? Using these questions as his point of departure, Lawrence A. Babb explores the ritual culture of image-worshipping Svetambar Jains of the western Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Jainism traces its lineages back to the ninth century B.C.E. and is, along with Buddhism, the only surviving example of India's ancient non-Vedic religious traditions. It is known and celebrated for its systematic practice of non-violence and for the intense rigor of the asceticism it promotes. A unique aspect of Babb's study is his linking of the Jain tradition to the social identity of existing Jain communities. Babb concludes by showing that Jain ritual culture can be seen as a variation on pan-Indian ritual patterns. In illuminating this little-known religious tradition, he demonstrates that divine "absence" can be as rich as divine "presence" in its possibilities for informing a religious response to the cosmos.

This volume explores the effects of the religious transformation taking place in India as sacred symbols assume the shapes of media images. Lifted from their traditional forms and contexts, many religious symbols, beliefs, and practices are increasingly refracted through such media as god posters, comic books, audio recordings, and video programs. The ten original essays here examine the impact on India's traditional social and cultural structures of printed images, audio recordings, film, and video.Contributors: Lawrence A. Babb, Steve DernÉ, John Stratton Hawley, Stephen R. Inglis, John T. Little, Philip Lutgendorf, Scott L. Marcus, Frances W. Pritchett, Regula Burckhardt Qureshi, H. Daniel Smith, and Susan S. Wadley.

A fascinating study of the gemstone industry of Jaipur with special emphasis on its ownership class.Lawrence A. Babb's Emerald City provides an intriguing portrait of the gemstone cutting industry of the North Indian city of Jaipur. It focuses on the ownership class consisting mainly of Jains and members of northern India's traditional trading communities. Based on oral-historical investigations of family firms, along with ethnographic observations and interviews, the book describes how the industry is organized, when and how it developed its characteristic features, and its evolving relationship with its social context. Babb pays special attention to the impact of culture on the business, with particular emphasis on the role of religion, specifically Jainism. He also offers a systematic comparison between Jaipur's gemstone business and New York City's famed diamond industry. In its application of ethnographic methodology to the study of an indigenous Indian industry, Emerald City delivers a unique perspective on business life in a non-Western setting.

The religious map of India is notoriously complex; not only are there indigenous traditions in great variety, but imported faiths such as Islam and Christianity have been added to the mix. Lawrence A. Babb helps the non-specialist navigate this variety. He provides an account of the subcontinent’s principal religions, focusing on how they began, what they teach, what they have become, and how religion fits in modern India’s national life. The book assumes no previous knowledge of Indian institutions or history, and is designed to give readers a big picture, leaving the fine points to the more specialized books. The perspective of the book is historical, tracing India’s religious evolution from the Indus-Valley period (c. 2600-1900 BCE) to the present. With the Indus Valley civilization as its starting point, the author covers the development of Vedic religion, the emergence of dissenting traditions, Buddhism and Jainism, the development of Hinduism and the coming of Islam to the subcontinent. The book’s concluding chapters deal with the impact of colonialism on Indian religions, the role of religion in the independence struggle, and the riddle of religion’s place in the Republic of India’s national identity. This textbook is designed to be used in university-level courses dealing with India and South Asian studies. It will also appeal to a general readership interested in South Asia and to travellers visiting the region.