Ascetic Culture: Renunciation and Worldly Engagement

The collection of papers in this volume was conceived and developed by K. Ishwaran who died in June 1998. Taken together, the articles support Ishwaran’s theses. First, is the point that eremitism and asceticism are far more complex than commonly understood in the scholarly world. If ever a general understanding of these interrelated phenomena is developed, careful examination not only how they are found in these cultures and traditions but also study of their particular manifestations in individual movements, places, cultures and social groups must take place. The range of these papers establishes the second thesis: ascetic traditions are not inimical to modernity, they may be found at the heart of certain contemporary and social cultural developments.