Author Description

About the Author Richard Burghart was Professor of Ethnography at Heidelberg University till his death in 1994; C.J. Fuller is Professor of Anthropology, London School of Economics; Jonathan Spencer is Professor of the Anthropology of South Asia, University of Edinburgh. Product Description This volume is a collection of essays by the late Richard Burghart. It makes an important contribution to the study of religion, politics, and society in South Asia through a combination of ethnographic finesse, meticulous historical research, and the sustained working out of an originaltheoretical position. The essays are grouped into three sections: the first contains Burghart's theoretical papers on the interpretation of Hindu society, which introduce his crucial idea of 'intercultural' and intracultural translation', together with three examples of his empirical work onRamanandi renouncers. The second section concentrates on Burghart's work on political culture and the historical development of the nation-state of Nepal. The third section illustrates Burghart's sociology of 'complex agency'.