LIT 116J Religions of India

Introduces students to religious cultures of premodern India—Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Tantrism, and Sikhism—from an interdisciplinary but primarily historical perspective. The focus is on those religious orders that took hold before or at the cusp of Islamic expansion into the Indian subcontinent. Major themes of the course are value, power, and sociality, including techniques of control (both of the self and the other). Emphasis is on historical change and the making and unmaking of inherited traditions in different eras from antiquity to the late medieval period. Questions regarding language, scripture, canons, spiritual practices, and religious boundaries are central, as are the possibilities of dialogue. Distribution requirements:Global, Poetry, Pre- 1750.