Religious Therapeutics: Body and Health in Yoga, Ayurveda, and Tantra
Religious Therapeutics explores the relationship between psychophysical health and spiritual health and presents a model for interpreting connections between religion and medicine in world traditions. This model emerges from the work's investigation of health and religiousness in classical Yoga, Ayurveda, and Tantra-three Hindu traditions noteworthy for the central role they accord the body. Author Gregory P. Fields compares Anglo-European and Indian philosophies of body and health and uses...
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Religious Therapeutics explores the relationship between psychophysical health and spiritual health and presents a model for interpreting connections between religion and medicine in world traditions. This model emerges from the work's investigation of health and religiousness in classical Yoga, Ayurveda, and Tantra-three Hindu traditions noteworthy for the central role they accord the body. Author Gregory P. Fields compares Anglo-European and Indian philosophies of body and health and uses fifteen determinants of health excavated from texts of ancient Hindu medicine to show that health concerns the person, not the body or body/mind alone. This book elucidates multifaceted views of health, and-in the context of spirituality and healing-explores themes such as mental health, meditation, and music. Booknews After an overview of ideas connecting religion and medicine, Fields (philosophy, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville) offers a model of religious therapeutics and consideration of Western philosophies of healing (including a detailed look at Descartes on the subject), and traditional Indian views of person and body. The scholarly investigation that follows details three Indian traditions, examining the meanings of health in Ayurvedaincluding biological, ecological, socio-cultural, metaphysical, and religious determinants; classical yogaits meanings and forms; and tantra and aesthetic therapeutics, including, among other topics, sacred music as a religious therapeutic. Open-minded physicians might find food for thought, but the primary audience is probably scholars involved in religious studies, philosophy, and alternative medicine. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
List of Figures and TablesAcknowledgmentsSymbols and Notes on SourcesAbbreviationsIntroduction: The Idea of Religious Therapeutics1Ch. 1Body and Philosophies of Healing11Body in Western Philosophy of Medicine11Iconoclastic Concepts of Body in Yoga, Tantra, and Ayurveda21Ch. 2Meanings of Health in Ayurveda45Inquiry into Health47Determinants of Health50Ayurvedic Religious Therapeutics78Ch. 3Classical Yoga as a Religious Therapeutic83Meanings and Forms of Yoga85A Matrix of Classical Yoga as a Religious Therapeutic94Liberation as Healing in Classical Yoga131Ch. 4Tantra and Aesthetic Therapeutics139Body and Tantric Yogas140Aesthetic Therapeutics in Tantra153Sacred Music as a Religious Therapeutic157Conclusion: Community: Relationality in Religious Therapeutics167Notes175Sources191Subject Index201Sanskrit Terms211Index of Names217Sanskrit Texts221
\ BooknewsAfter an overview of ideas connecting religion and medicine, Fields (philosophy, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville) offers a model of religious therapeutics and consideration of Western philosophies of healing (including a detailed look at Descartes on the subject), and traditional Indian views of person and body. The scholarly investigation that follows details three Indian traditions, examining the meanings of health in Ayurveda<-->including biological, ecological, socio-cultural, metaphysical, and religious determinants; classical yoga<-->its meanings and forms; and tantra and aesthetic therapeutics, including, among other topics, sacred music as a religious therapeutic. Open-minded physicians might find food for thought, but the primary audience is probably scholars involved in religious studies, philosophy, and alternative medicine. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)\ \
