Theoretical and historical foundations.
1. Theoretical foundations --
Is India different? --
The identificatory habitus --
What is Hinduism? --
Hinduism and Hindu-ness --
Religion and Dharma --
Hindu religions and Hindu religiosity --
Great and little Hinduism --
Continuity and change --
2. Historical foundations --
Epochs in the history of religions --
First epoch : Prevedic religions --
Second epoch : Vedic religion --
Third epoch : ascetic reformism --
Fourth epoch : classical Hinduism --
Fifth epoch : sects of Hinduism --
Sixth epoch : modern Hinduism --
Religious literature --
Vedic literature --
The literature of the ascetic reformation --
The literature of classical Hinduism --
The literatures of the Hindu sects --
Literatures of modern Hinduism. Religion and society. 3. Stages of life and rites of passage --
Initiation --
The salvational goal of initiation --
The second birth --
Pre-rites --
Tonsure --
Natural birth, ritual birth, new birth --
The sacred thread --
Consecration of the ascetic, consecration of the student, consecration of the man --
Childhood and socialization --
The early years --
Parentage and the "Oceanic feeling" --
Sacred fatherhood --
Wedding and matrimony --
The wedding --
The daughter as gift --
Kinship, alliance, and descent --
The situation of the woman --
Death and life after death --
The Brahmanic ritual of dying and death --
Ancestor worship --
Widow-burning and religiously motivated suicide --
The ban on killing and Ahiṃsā --
Karma and rebirth --
Mortality and immortality --
4. The social system --
Social stratification --
The caste society --
Segmentation --
Social contacts --
Greeting --
Touching --
Eating --
Purity and impurity --
Religious and social hierarchy --
Priests and the supremacy of the Brahmans --
Religious and economic centrality --
Hierarchies of the gift --
5. Religiosity --
The idea of god and the pantheon --
Equitheism and homotheism --
Viṣṇu, Kṛṣṇa and the centrality of the gods --
Śiva in the great and little traditions --
Gan̜eśa and the miracle --
Wild and mild goddesses --
Elements of religiosity --
Prayer --
Looks --
Ritual acts --
Ritualism --
The Brahmanic-Sanskritic morning ritual --
Divine worship (pūjā) --
Sacrifice --
Devotionalism and theistic traditions --
Bhakti movements --
The grace of the gods --
Spiritualism and mysticism --
The identification doctrine of the Upaniṣads --
The psycho-physical identifications of Sāṃkhya and yoga --
Śaṃkara's doctrine of nonduality --
Special features of Indian mysticism --
Heroism and kingship --
Ākhāṛās : religious centers of strength --
Power and authority of the king --
King and ascetic. From descent to transcendence. 6. Religious ideas of space and time --
Religious awareness of space --
Spaces and directions as sacred powers --
Pilgrimage sites and their hierarchy --
Astrology and the cosmic place of man --
Religious and scientific concepts of space --
Religious awareness of time --
Ancient Indian cosmogonies --
Creation in classical mythology --
The doctrine of the ages of the world --
Cyclical and linear time : the calendar --
Unity of space and time : festivals --
Religious and scientific ideas of time --
7. Immortality in life --
Asceticism : life in transcendence --
Ascetic practice and sects --
Asceticism and sacrifice --
The salvation of identifications --
The socioreligious function of norms of purity --
Descent and autonomy --
The logic of the identifications --
The "theology" of the Hindu religions : identity of god and man.