Recipes for Immortality: Healing, Religion, and Community in South India
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.87 (647 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0195335236 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 272 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-07-16 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
"This book is a skillful study of Siddha medicine, the least understood of the medical 'systems' of India. This is required reading for anyone interested in Tamil culture and its unique expressions of concern with the legitimacy of its traditions."-- Martha Ann Selby, Associate Professor of South Asian Studies, The University of Texas at Austin"Richard Weiss's Recipes for Immortality is an original and timely contribution to contemporary debates on the discourses of tradition, science, and rationality in modern South Asia. Based on a pioneering study and interpretation of primary texts, and on fieldwork among practitioners, the book offers illuminating insights, not only into the 19th- and 20th-century reformulation of the influential knowledge system and healing practices of Tamil siddha medicine, but into the ways in which this reformulation has shaped and tapped in
Healing, Culture & Nationhood in Tamil society: A Book About the Siddha Medicine of Tamil Nadu Richard S. Weiss is a Senior Lecturer in South Asian religions at Victoria University (Wellington, New Zealand). In his "Recipes for Immortality," Weiss illuminates the continuing success of traditional healers in the face of Western medicine's global spread by examining the ways in which practitioners of traditional Siddha medicine in Tamil Nadu enlist the confidence, support and patronage of their patients. This is a book about the inter
In Recipes for Immortality, Richard Weiss illuminates their continued success by examining the ways in which siddha medical practitioners in Tamil South India win the trust and patronage of patients. While biomedicine might alleviate a patient's physical distress, siddha doctors offer their clientele much more: affiliation to a timeless and pure community, the fantasy of a Tamil utopia, and even the prospect of immortality. Weiss analyzes the success of siddha doctors, focusing on how th
Richard S. Weiss is Senior Lecturer of South Asian Religions at Victoria University.