Mesocosm Hinduism And The Organization – Robert I. Levy

Mesocosm Hinduism and the Organization of a Traditional Newar City in Nepal – Robert I. Levy | Excerpts from reviews : ?The book contains relatively little-known material : it is based on the author’s own extensive field work… The analysis is organized in an innovative and illuminating manner… [it shows how] the city which mediated between the individual and the universe leads from dangerous chaos to sacred order through the use of multiple sets of symbols in their various enactments… There is no question about the superior quality of the work…it represents a welcome departure from stereotyped forms of anthropological and Ideological Interpretations and takes this Newar town and seeks to define its role for the individual as well as for the society it is based upon… Historical and comparative points of view are not neglected at all… This ultimately leads to a new understanding of the role of a Hindu city… I have no doubt that this work will become a classic in South Asian anthropology and Indology, leaving aside (its) implications for our understanding of other traditional cities in ancient European and Middle Eastern as well as more recent Oriental civilizations. That will be due to Levy’s unparalleled faculty of observing and analysing a multitude of facts ranging from individual psychology to the structure of society and its religion.?
MICHAEL WITZEL Prof. of Sanskrit and Indian Studies
Harvard University ?It is a first-rate anthropological study of Hinduism. Its publication will be welcomed by specialists in anthropology as well as in South Asian studies…the scholarship…is clearly of superior quality… there is no study with the kind of comprehensive breadth and treatment…Robert Levy and [his collaborator] Kedar Rajopadhyaya show us how to do anthropology at this time in our history.”
TRILOKI N. PANDEY Prof. of Anthropology, University of California