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God Inside Out: Śiva's Game of Dice
Contributor(s): Handelman, Don (Author), Shulman, David (Author), Berkson, Carmel (Photographer)
ISBN: 0195108450     ISBN-13: 9780195108453
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
OUR PRICE:   $128.70  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: June 1997
Qty:
Annotation: This book offers a new exploration of the mythology of the Hindu god Siva, who spends his time playing dice with his wife, to whom he habitually loses. The result of the game is our world, which turns the god inside-out and changes his internal composition. The notion of the god at play, argue Handelman and Shulman, is one of the most central and expressive veins in the metaphysics elaborated through the centuries, in many idioms and modes, around the god.
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Religion | Hinduism - General
Dewey: 294.521
LCCN: 96-21214
Lexile Measure: 1260
Physical Information: 0.67" H x 5.46" W x 8.11" (0.65 lbs) 232 pages
Themes:
- Religious Orientation - Hindu
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
This book offers a new exploration of the mythology of the Hindu god Siva, who spends his time playing dice with his wife, to whom he habitually loses. The result of the game is our world, which turns the god inside-out and changes his internal composition. Hindus maintain that Siva is
perpetually absorbed in this game, which is recreated in innumerable stories, poems, paintings, and sculptural carvings. This notion of the god at play, argue Handelman and Shulman, is one of the most central and expressive veins in the metaphysics elaborated through the centuries, in many idioms
and modes, around the god.
The book comprises three interlocking essays; the first presents the dice-game proper, in the light of the texts and visual depictions the authors have collected. The second and third chapters take up two mythic sequels to the game. Based on their analysis of these sequels, the authors argue that
notions of asceticism so frequently associated with Siva, with Yoga, and with Hindu religion are, in fact, foreign to Hinduism's inherent logic as reflected in Siva's game of dice. They suggest an alternative reading of this set of practices and ideas, providing startling new insights into Hindu
mythology and the major poetic texts from the classical Sanskrit tradition.