Biogeographische Beziehungen zwischen den Alpen, dem Kaukasus und den asiatischen Hochgebirgen

Hintergrund: Biogeographische Verbindungen der Alpen nach Asien wurden schon im 19. Jahrhundert durch floristische Vergleiche entdeckt. Ziele: In den vorliegenden drei Artikeln wird untersucht, ob diese Verbindung entlang einer nördlichen, arktisch-borealen Route oder entlang einer südlichen Route über dazwischen liegende Gebirge wie den Kaukasus bestand. Methoden: Molekulare Phylogenien von Epimedium (Berberidaceae) und der Tribus der Hyoscyameae (Solanaceae), deren Vertreter disjunkt in den Alpen, dem Kaukasus und in asiatischen Gebirgen vorkommen, wurden mit nukleären und plastidären Markern erstellt und bio¬geographisch ausgewertet. Zur Datierung der Diversifizierungsereignisse und Arealbil¬dung diente eine molekulare Uhr. Ein aktueller floristischer Vergleich von Gattungen, die in den Alpen, den asiatischen Gebirgen und in Gebieten entlang der potentiellen Routen vor¬kom¬men, wurde unternommen und ausgewertet. Daran anschließend wurde nach molekular-phylogenetischer Literatur für interessante Gruppen aus diesem Ver¬gleich recherchiert, um diese biogeogra¬phisch bezüglich der Fragestellung zu interpretieren. Ergebnisse: Von 429 Gattungen, die in den Alpen und im Himalaya vorkommen, wachsen 218 entlang der nördlichen und der südlichen Route. 203 kommen nur entlang der süd¬lichen und drei nur entlang der nördlichen Route vor. Fünf kommen nur in den Alpen und im Himalaya vor. Epimedium, Scopolia/Physochlaina aus den Hyoscyameae und Primula sect. Auricula sind Beispiele für eine nördliche biogeographische Verbindung zwischen den Alpen und Asien. Diese bestand zumindest in den ersten beiden Fällen wahrscheinlich aus einem durchgängigen Laubwaldgürtel, der durch das abkühlende und trockener werdende Klima im Pliozän und Pleistozän fragmentiert wurde und heute nicht mehr besteht. Es handelt sich also um ein Vikarianzmuster und weniger um eine Migrationsroute. Die größere Diver¬sität dieser Guppen, die in Asien beobachtet werden kann ist sekundär entstanden. Atropa aus den Hyoscyameae, Brachypodium, die Subtribus Loliinae aus den Poaceae, Bupleurum und Doronicum sind Beispiele für eine südliche Verbindung. Hier liegen die Diversitätszentren im Mediterraneum und die Vorkommen im Osten sind abgeleitet. Schlussfolgerungen: Die Datengrundlage aus der Literaturrecherche ist nicht sehr breit und die meisten Phylogenien waren für die Fragestellung nicht aussagekräftig. Die histori¬schen Erkenntnisse und die Ideen über den Zusammenhang der Alpenflora mit der asiatischer Gebirge werden grundsätzlich bestärkt. Die Flora der Alpen enthält ein Element das über eine nördliche Verbindung noch lange mit asiatischen Gebirgen in Kontakt stand und ein südliches Element, das aus dem Mittelmeer¬raum bzw. aus SW Asien stammt. Die Beispiele für eine nördliche Verbindung sprechen allerdings nicht für eine Migration von Asien nach Europa sondern zeigen ein Vikarianzmuster auf.

Le stelle di Beatrice. Astronomia e astrologia nella "Vita Nova"

Ci sono due luoghi astronomici nella Vita Nova con i quali Dante calcola il tempo in cui si verificano gli episodi principali della storia narrata. Queste nozioni scientifiche contengono implicito un significato astrologico, connesso all’influsso del segno zodiacale dei Gemelli, configurazione astrologica che torna ad ogni anniversario. I Gemelli è il segno zodiacale di Dante, come il poeta afferma nella Commedia: l’invocazione del pellegrino alla costellazione omonima, alla cui influenza egli deve il suo ingegno (Par. XXII, 112-123), riconosce all’astrologia, attraverso il motivo delle qualità personali instillate dagli astri, il compito di esaltare il suo ruolo di poeta divinamente ispirato. L’importanza di questo segno è evidente nella Vita Nova: I Gemelli è probabilmente il segno zodiacale di Beatrice, come il poeta sembra suggerire in VN 1, 3 [II, 2], se si considera il fatto che, al verificarsi del primo incontro tra Dante e Beatrice, la fanciulla non aveva ancora iniziato il suo nono anno di vita («quasi»). Il colore dell’abito di Beatrice, «sanguigno» (VN 1, 4; II, 3), può riferirsi al temperamento della donna, e confermare così la sua appartenenza a quel segno. In seguito, la buona influenza del segno torna in VN 19, 4 [XXIX, 1], il capitolo dedicato alla morte di Beatrice. La donna muore l’8 giugno 1290, così anche la sua morte accade in Gemelli. Tutti gli eventi della Vita Nova sono garantiti dalle stelle, e Dante nel «libello» non fa che esaltare l’importanza dell’azione dei cieli influenti sulla vita umana.

Be United, Be Virtuous: Composite Culture and the Growth of Shirdi Sai Baba Devotion

In one popular devotional poster the Indian god-man Shirdi Sai Baba (d. 1918) gazes out at the viewer, his right hand raised in blessing. Behind him are a Hindu temple, a Muslim mosque, a Sikh gurdwara, and a Christian church; above him is the slogan, “Be United, Be Virtuous.” In his lifetime, Shirdi Sai Baba acquired a handful of Hindu and Muslim devotees in western India. Over the past several decades, he has been transformed from a regional figure into a revered persona of pan-Indian significance. While much scholarship on religion in modern India has focused on Hindu nationalist groups, new religious movements seeking to challenge sectarianism have received far less attention. Drawing upon primary devotional materials and ethnographic research, this article argues that one significant reason for the rapid growth of this movement is Shirdi Sai Baba’s composite vision of spiritual unity in diversity, construed by many devotees as a needed corrective to rigid sectarian ideologies.

Im/possible Lives: Gender, Class, Self-Fashioning, and Affinal Solidarity in Modern South Asia

Drawing on ethnographic research and employing a micro-historical approach that recognizes not only the transnational but also the culturally specific manifestations of modernity, this article centers on the efforts of a young woman to negotiate shifting and conflicting discourses about what a good life might consist of for a highly educated and high caste Hindu woman living at the margins of a nonetheless globalized world. Newly imaginable worlds in contemporary Mithila,South Asia, structure feeling and action in particularly gendered and classed ways, even as the capacity of individuals to actualize those worlds and the “modern” selves envisioned within them are constrained by both overt and subtle means. In the context of shifting cultural anchors, new practices of silence, literacy, and even behaviors interpreted as “mental illness” may become tactics in an individual’s negotiation of conflicting self-representations. The confluence of forces at play in contemporary Mithila, moreover, is creating new structures of feeling that may begin to reverse long-standing locally held assumptions about strong solidarities between natal families and daughters, on the one hand, and weak solidarities between affinal families and new daughters-in-law, on the other.

'Listen, Rama’s Wife!’: Maithil Women’s Perspectives and Practices in the Festival of Sāmā-Cakevā

As a female-only festival in a significantly gender-segregated society, sāmā cakevā provides a window into Maithil women’s understandings of their society and the sacred, cultural subjectivities, moral frameworks, and projects of self-construction. The festival reminds us that to read male-female relations under patriarchal social formations as a dichotomy between the empowered and the disempowered ignores the porous boundaries between the two in which negotiations and tradeoffs create a symbiotic reliance. Specifically, the festival names two oppositional camps—the male world of law and the female world of relationships—and then creates a male character, the brother, who moves between the two, loyal to each, betraying, in a sense, each, but demonstrating, by his movements, the currents and avenues of power. This article makes available to other scholars of South Asian culture and society an extended description and analysis of this distinctive festival, while also contributing to the scholarly discussion of women’s expressive traditions.

Conserving indigenous animal genetic resources as a coping strategy to adapt to climate change: the Azikheli Buffalo in Northern Mountains of Pakistan

There are clear signs that the agro-pastoralists in the Himalayan and Hindu-Kush mountain ranges will have less cropping opportunities due to reduced possibilities for irrigated agriculture as a result of climate change. The importance of extensive livestock production based on well adapted livestock species may once again increase. This calls for a better documentation and understanding of the adaptation capabilities of indigenous breeds considering a changing environment. The current study investigates the adaptive traits of the Azikheli buffalo to mountain environments through calculating mean, standard error and percentages for different variables. Results from this study suggest that the brown coat color, the small body size and the high fertility are adaptive traits of the Azikheli buffalo that may well suit harsh mountainous environment conditions with greater climate variability. Local farmers find it hard to sustain the Azikheli buffalo’s key adaptive traits because of a low bull to buffalo ratio, possibility of insemination with semen from imported breeds and a lack of institutional support to conserve the Azikheli breed. The breed is crucial for sustaining custodian communities in these mountains and thus needs to be conserved.

Transnational Marriage: Modern Imaginings, Relational Realignments, and Persistent Inequalities

In the context of shifting cultural anchors as well as unstable global economic conditions, new practices of intimacy and sexuality may become tactics in an individual’s negotiation of conflicting desires and potentials. This article offers reflection on the interface between global forces, powerful transcultural narratives, and state policies, on the one hand, and local, even individual, constructions and tactics in regard to sexuality, marriage, migration, and work, on the other. The article focuses on the life trajectory of Gudiya, an ambitious young Hindu woman who started out life with little social capital and few economic resources in a dusty corner of what was then the tiny kingdom of Nepal. Gudiya’s story highlights the ways in which she has engaged in relational realignments aimed at bringing her closer to the life she imagines, even as she has encountered new and persistent forms of inequality both local and transnational in scale.

The Social Dynamics of Communal Violence in India

Contrasting strands of explanation of the motives underlying collective action, as either culturally determined, as an attempt at compensation, point towards an understanding of identity politics as a reaction to given conditions. They pay little attention to the social dynamics that evolve in relation to the conflict within a group, and the possible motivation that can ensue from these. This article analyses the mobilisation among Hindu-nationalist organisations. Rather than seeking their attraction in their discursive outputs and the possible answers they might give in times of change, the contention is that they are to be sought in the specific internal dynamics and the possibilities they create within their historical context. These specific opportunities for action are inherent firstly in the mode of operation relying on participation and involvement, on their direct intervention, their localness and accessibility. Moreover, the dichotomisation inherent in violence makes possible the integration of different interests and different discontents under one banner and therefore contributes to the project of unification undertaken by Hindu-nationalism.

Connecting and Educating Hindus: Hinduism Today and the Mediatization of a Global Hinduism

Hinduism Today is a quarterly magazine that appears in roughly 15.000 copies, shipped to nearly 60 countries worldwide. The majority of readers are Hindus in diverse diaspora countries, mainly Singapur, Malaysia, Mauritius, Trinidad und the USA. Its editors are monks of Kauai Adheenam, belonging to the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, situated in Kauai, Hawai’i, USA. One of the magazine’s declared goals is to foster global Hindu solidarity and educate Hindus worldwide about their religion. In this paper, I want to take a look at the history of this magazine in connection with the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, and at the development of the expressed aims behind its publication. For this, I draw on fieldwork done in Kauai in January, 2014. After a brief introduction to some theoretical and methodological preliminaries of my work, I shall, give an overview of the history of the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, founded by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Following this, I will deal in more detail with the origins and development of the magazine and the websites connected with it. I will focus especially on the role the magazine was intended to play for global Hindu diasporas. A fourth chapter will analyze the modes of definition employed in order to depict Hinduism as a unified global religion. In conclusion, I shall briefly reflect upon the specific agenda of “Global Hinduism” and the strategies of positioning as followed by the publishers of Hinduism Today.

From Connecting Hindus to Uniting Global Hinduism: History and Guiding Principles of Hinduism Today

Hinduism Today is a quarterly magazine that appears in roughly 15.000 copies, shipped to nearly 60 countries worldwide. The majority of readers are Hindus in diverse diaspora countries, mainly Singapur, Malaysia, Mauritius, Trinidad und the USA. Its editors are monks of Kauai Adheenam, belonging to the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, situated in Kauai, Hawai’i, USA. One of the magazine’s declared goals is to foster global Hindu solidarity and educate Hindus worldwide about their religion. In this paper, I want to take a look at the history of this magazine in connection with the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, and at the development of the expressed aims behind its publication. For this, I draw on fieldwork done in Kauai in January, 2014. After a brief introduction to some theoretical and methodological preliminaries of my work, I shall, give an overview of the history of the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, founded by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Following this, I will deal in more detail with the origins and development of the magazine and the websites connected with it. I will focus especially on the role the magazine was intended to play for global Hindu diasporas. A fourth chapter will analyze the modes of definition employed in order to depict Hinduism as a unified global religion. In conclusion, I shall briefly reflect upon the specific agenda of “Global Hinduism” and the strategies of positioning as followed by the publishers of Hinduism Today.

Astronomía, astrología y política en Marco Tulio Cicerón S.I A.C y en Marco Manilio S.I D.C.

Realizamos un estudio de la "simpatía cósmica": la visión filosófica unificada y armónica del universo propia del Estoicismo Medio de Panecio y Posidonio y su influencia en estos dos autores. Analizamos la relación de la astronomía y de la astrología vinculada al aspecto político-filosófico en De Republica de Cicerón, y en las Astronomica de Manilio: planteamos interrogantes acerca de la causa de esta vinculación, e indagamos en la posible necesidad, en el caso de Manilio, de enmascarar políticamente una posición filosófica. Las referencias a Augusto en la obra de Manilio, a los grandes héroes de Roma en la de Cicerón, o el hecho de "mostrar" la grandeza de Roma, o la buena estrella de sus gobernantes son algunas de las estrategias argumentativas utilizadas: el empleo de recursos retóricos como la "escenificación" y la "analogía", entre otros, "ayudarían" a sostener una determinada postura ideológica política y filosófica en los mencionados autores

Savitri y Orfeo : La argumentación en la lógica india y en la retórica clásica

Los mitos de Savitri (Mahabharata 3.293-299) y Orfeo (Ovidio. Metamorfosis 10.1-85), pertenecientes al ámbito cultural indoeur opeo, presentan algunos puntos en común: narran la historia del amante que rescata a su ser amado de la muerte, y combinan el encuentro con los dioses de la muerte y el discurso mediante el poder de la palabra. En esta propuesta, se analizan los discursos de los protagonistas a partir de las convenciones propias de cada contexto de enunciación. Para el caso indio, se sigue el modelo lógico de la escuela Nyaya; para el greco-latino, el de la retórica clásica. De este modo, sobre la base de la estructura argumentativa del silogismo aristotélico, se plantean dos variaciones, respectivamente, el silogismo hindú y el silogismo retórico. Se trata de dos aproximaciones argumentativas con métodos distintos pero con un mismo fin: (con)vencer al oponente

Astronomía, astrología y política en Marco Tulio Cicerón S.I A.C y en Marco Manilio S.I D.C.

Realizamos un estudio de la "simpatía cósmica": la visión filosófica unificada y armónica del universo propia del Estoicismo Medio de Panecio y Posidonio y su influencia en estos dos autores. Analizamos la relación de la astronomía y de la astrología vinculada al aspecto político-filosófico en De Republica de Cicerón, y en las Astronomica de Manilio: planteamos interrogantes acerca de la causa de esta vinculación, e indagamos en la posible necesidad, en el caso de Manilio, de enmascarar políticamente una posición filosófica. Las referencias a Augusto en la obra de Manilio, a los grandes héroes de Roma en la de Cicerón, o el hecho de "mostrar" la grandeza de Roma, o la buena estrella de sus gobernantes son algunas de las estrategias argumentativas utilizadas: el empleo de recursos retóricos como la "escenificación" y la "analogía", entre otros, "ayudarían" a sostener una determinada postura ideológica política y filosófica en los mencionados autores

Savitri y Orfeo : La argumentación en la lógica india y en la retórica clásica

Los mitos de Savitri (Mahabharata 3.293-299) y Orfeo (Ovidio. Metamorfosis 10.1-85), pertenecientes al ámbito cultural indoeur opeo, presentan algunos puntos en común: narran la historia del amante que rescata a su ser amado de la muerte, y combinan el encuentro con los dioses de la muerte y el discurso mediante el poder de la palabra. En esta propuesta, se analizan los discursos de los protagonistas a partir de las convenciones propias de cada contexto de enunciación. Para el caso indio, se sigue el modelo lógico de la escuela Nyaya; para el greco-latino, el de la retórica clásica. De este modo, sobre la base de la estructura argumentativa del silogismo aristotélico, se plantean dos variaciones, respectivamente, el silogismo hindú y el silogismo retórico. Se trata de dos aproximaciones argumentativas con métodos distintos pero con un mismo fin: (con)vencer al oponente

Astronomía, astrología y política en Marco Tulio Cicerón S.I A.C y en Marco Manilio S.I D.C.

Realizamos un estudio de la "simpatía cósmica": la visión filosófica unificada y armónica del universo propia del Estoicismo Medio de Panecio y Posidonio y su influencia en estos dos autores. Analizamos la relación de la astronomía y de la astrología vinculada al aspecto político-filosófico en De Republica de Cicerón, y en las Astronomica de Manilio: planteamos interrogantes acerca de la causa de esta vinculación, e indagamos en la posible necesidad, en el caso de Manilio, de enmascarar políticamente una posición filosófica. Las referencias a Augusto en la obra de Manilio, a los grandes héroes de Roma en la de Cicerón, o el hecho de "mostrar" la grandeza de Roma, o la buena estrella de sus gobernantes son algunas de las estrategias argumentativas utilizadas: el empleo de recursos retóricos como la "escenificación" y la "analogía", entre otros, "ayudarían" a sostener una determinada postura ideológica política y filosófica en los mencionados autores