Remembering The Forefathers

Dr. Umesh Chandra Samanta (1880-1934) was the founder of the Samanta family. In the present days, the family is spread all over the world. The book has been written by one of the family’s descendant, Arjya Sarkar. Dr. Umesh Chandra Samanta was a renowned doctor and social reformer of the early 20th century. Dr. Umesh Chandra Samanta, although was born in a small poor family became famous for his social activities and acquired great fame as a doctor. He and his family is often regarded for their numerous charitable work in the society and their contribution to the freedom struggle of India. The book describes the rise of Dr. Umesh Chandra Samanta and the story of his family after his death. Most of the descendants of Dr. Umesh Chandra Samanta are associated with charitable works throughout the world. The book gives a very symbolic message – we should not be afraid of adversities. They come to create golden opportunities for us.

This monograph breaks new ground by weaving stories of fathers and children into the history of gender, family and nation in colonial India. Focusing on the reformist Bengali Hindu and Brahmo communities, the author contends that fatherhood assumed new meaning and significance in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century India. During this time of social and political change, fathers extended their roles beyond breadwinning to take an active part in rearing their children. Utilizing pedagogic literature, articles in scientific journals, autobiographies, correspondence, and published essays, Fathers in a Motherland documents the different ways the authority and power of the father was invoked and constituted both metaphorically and in everyday experiences. Exploring specific moments when educated men—as biological fathers, literary activists, and educators—assumed guardianship and became crucial agents of change, Banerjee interrogates the connections between fatherhood and masculinity. The last chapter of the book moves beyond Bengal and draws on the lives of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru to provide a broader salience to its argument. Reclaiming two missing links in Indian history-fathers and children-the book argues that biological and imaginary "fathers" assumed the moral guardianship of an incipient nation and rested their hopes and dreams on the future generation.

The biblical motif of a land divinely-promised and given to Abraham and his descendants is argued to be an ideological reflex of post-monarchic, territorial disputes between competing socio-religious groups. The important biblical motif of a Promised Land is founded upon the ancient Near Eastern concept of ancestral land: hereditary space upon which families lived, worked, died and were buried. An essential element of concept of ancestral land was the belief in the post-mortem existence of the ancestors, who were venerated with grave offerings, mortuary feasts, bone rituals and standing stones. The Hebrew Bible is littered with stories concerning these practices and beliefs, yet the specific correlation of ancestor veneration and certain biblical land claims has gone unrecognized. The book remedies this in presenting evidence for the vital and persistent impact of ancestor veneration upon land claims. It proposes that ancestor veneration, which formed a common ground in the experiences of various socio-religious groups in ancient Israel, became in the Hebrew Bible an ideological battlefield upon which claims to the land were won and lost.

Explore the tensions and tenderness between fathers and sons in this masterpiece of narrative psychology! “We live in a story-shaped world,” as the editors say, and Between Fathers and Sons: Critical Incident Narratives in the Development of Men's Lives shows how the stories we construct come to shape our perceptions of the world and of ourselves. The incidents recounted here are more than just moving, funny, or painful stories of fathers and sons. Each is a myth that helped form the authors’social and moral identity. This blend of feeling and intellect, story and analysis makes Between Fathers and Sons a work of art as well as a work of psychology. The contributors--many of them pioneers of narrative therapy--bring unique insight to bear on their own stories. Using a broad array of narrative forms, from the soliliquy to the multiple narrator, they explore and analyze themes of silence, mystery, respect, sports, self-reliance, and longing for continuity. In the stories you will find in Between Fathers and Sons: a father's disappointed silence is transformed as it resonates through four generations a Korean immigrant faces the differences between his ideals of fatherhood and his son's American view a father-son fishing trip ends with the biggest fish ever--or no fish at all betrayed by his stepfather, a boy seeks guidance from stories of his dead father a Baptist preacher helps his son make an agonizing choice a grown man's memory of a childhood event gives him new insight into his father's identity and their relationship Between Fathers and Sons is a landmark volume in father-son relationships and in narrative therapy. It is destined to become a classic in the field.

This volume of previously uncollected studies makes a notable contribution to Merton's extensive and influential legacy. This volume includes pieces on eleventh- and twelfth-century mo­nastics by Thomas Merton, perhaps the most significant American Catholic spiritual writer of the twentieth century. The essays are difficult to locate elsewhere, the conference transcriptions are available only here.

'Discernment in the Desert Fathers' is a study of discernment (Diakrisis) in the life and thought of the fourth- and fifth-century Egyptian Desert Fathers. Rich argues that their understanding of Diakrisis was based upon a practical application of biblical Diakrisis in general and not, as has been argued, primarily a development of the gift of discernment of spirits. He begins with an examination of Scripture and goes on to consider the philosophical and theological background of the period as represented by Plotinus and Origen respectively. An examination of the works of the first theologians of the desert, Evagrius and Cassian, who lived among these first Christian monks and nuns, provides an early interpretation of the sayings of the Desert Fathers or Apophthegmata Patrum. The Greek, Latin, and Coptic sayings that survive are then examined in detail, some of them translated into English for the first time. This indepth analysis (including the comprehensive list of crossÐreferences which will be a valuable resource for scholars researching the subject in the future) provides many insights into the lives of these early Christians and demonstrates how Diakrisis touched every aspect of their inward and outward lives. Rich concludes that Diakrisis was a critical faculty and charism central to the spiritual and practical life of these early monks and nuns in their mystical search for God, for purity of life, and knowledge of him.

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