Research Catalog

Mesocosm : Hinduism and the organization of a traditional Newar city in Nepal

Title: Mesocosm : Hinduism and the organization of a traditional Newar city in Nepal / Robert I. Levy with the collaboration of Kedar Rāj Rājopādhyāya.
Author: Levy, Robert I. (Robert Isaac), 1924-
Publication: Berkeley : University of California Press, ©1990.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	BL1215.S64 L48 1990	Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Rājopādhyāya, Kedar Rāj.

Description

xxii, 829 pages, [8] pages of of plates : illustrations (some color); 24 cm

Summary

Mesocosm is a study of Hinduism in its most fully realized form as a symbolic system for organizing the life of a particular kind of city - what the author terms an "archaic" city. The work is a detailed description and analysis of the symbolic world of Bhaktapur, a unicultural city in the Kathmandu Valley, a city which is perhaps the last surviving example of a type of organization once widespread in the ancient world. Robert Levy views Bhaktapur as a structured "mesocosm," mediating between the microcosm of individual self-conception and the macrocosm of the culturally conceived larger universe. The city is a bounded entity, grounded on a minutely divided and interrelated sacrilized space. It uses that space, roles assigned by an elaborate caste system, a semantically differentiated pantheon, and the tempos and forms of the festival year and rites of passage to construct a "civic dance," a web of communication and instruction which deeply affects the experience of Bhaktapur's citizens. Levy investigates the meaning of the community to the people who live there and suggests how the religious forms that have challenged Hinduism in South Asia - Christianity and, above all, Islam - are profoundly antithetical to Hinduism as the organizing principle for cities such as Bhaktapur. Mesocosm is a groundbreaking contribution to anthropology, social and religious history, and Indian and Nepalese studies--Publisher's description.

Series Statement

University of California Press eScholarship editions

Uniform Title

University of California Press eScholarship editions.

Subject

Note

Maps on lining papers.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 775-787) and index.

ISBN

0520069110
9780520069114

LCCN

90036857

OCLC

ocm21523417
21523417
SCSB-1966306

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library