Hindu thought has undergone a major reconfiguration in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, in response to its encounter with the forces of modernity.
This is the first systematic study of Mohandas Gandhi's conception of religion and of his personal religious practices to be based on the ninety volumes of his Collected Works.
The book compares modern Jewish and Hindu thought through discussing selected writers with reference to common issues treated by them, issues which are still relevant today.
Offering multilayered explorations of Hindu understandings of the Feminine, both human and divine, this book emphasizes theological and activist methods and aims over historical, anthropological, and literary ones.
Through analysis of an impressive array of 'low' and 'high' Hindu literatures, particularly pamphlets, tracts, newspapers, and archival data, Gupta explores the emerging discourse of gender and sexuality, which was essential to the development of notions of Hindu communitality and nationalism in the colonial period.
Unfinished Gestures presents the social and cultural history of courtesans in South India who are generally called devadasis, focusing on their encounters with colonial modernity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
A richly illustrated tapestry of interwoven studies spanning some six thousand years of history, Daemons Are Forever is at once a record of archaic contacts and transactions between humans and protean spirit beings-daemons-and an account of exchanges, among human populations, of the science of spirit beings: daemonology.
Few topics in South Asian history are as contentious as that of the Turkic conquest of the Indian subcontinent that began in the twelfth century and led to a long period of Muslim rule.
The Mahabharata, an ancient and vast Sanskrit poem, is a remarkable collection of epics, legends, romances, theology, and ethical and metaphysical doctrine.
The Mahabharata, an ancient and vast Sanskrit poem, is a remarkable collection of epics, legends, romances, theology, and ethical and metaphysical doctrine.
The Mahabharata, an ancient and vast Sanskrit poem, is a remarkable collection of epics, legends, romances, theology, and ethical and metaphysical doctrine.
For those who wonder what relation actual Tantric practices bear to the "e;Tantric sex"e; currently being marketed so successfully in the West, David Gordon White has a simple answer: there is none.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the American missionary James Butler predicted that Christian conversion and British law together would eradicate Indian ascetics.
Though many practitioners of yoga and meditation are familiar with the Shri Chakra, a sacred diagram, few fully understand the depth of meaning in this representation of the cosmos.
Sayings of Gorakhnath presents a translation of late-medieval texts in Old Hindi, traditionally attributed to one of the founders of the Order of Nath Yogis.
Exploring medieval manuscripts, Gandhi's writings, and performances in multiple religious and non-religious contexts, Narasinha Mehta of Gujarat demonstrates how over five centuries, performers and audiences of devotional songs and hagiographic narratives associated with the saint-poet Narasinha Mehta have sculpted them into popular sources of moral inspiration.
Drawing on ethnographic research spanning ten years, Antoinette Elizabeth DeNapoli offers a new perspective on the practice of asceticism in India today.
Led by Buddhists and the yoga traditions of Hinduism and Jainism, Indian thinkers have long engaged in a rigorous analysis and reconceptualization of our common notion of self.
Feeding the Dead outlines the early history of ancestor worship in South Asia, from the earliest sources available, the Vedas, up to the descriptions found in the Dharmshastra tradition.
John Nemec examines the beginnings of the non-dual tantric philosophy of the famed Pratyabhijna or "e;Recognition [of God]"e; School of tenth-century Kashmir, the tradition most closely associated with Kashmiri Shaivism.
Tantric traditions in both Buddhism and Hinduism are thriving throughout Asia and in Asian diasporic communities around the world, yet they have been largely ignored by Western scholars until now.
Peter Gottschalk offers a compelling study of how, through the British implementation of scientific taxonomy in the subcontinent, Britons and Indians identified an inherent divide between mutually antagonistic religious communities.
In recent years, India's "e;sacred groves,"e; small forests or stands of trees set aside for a deity's exclusive use, have attracted the attention of NGOs, botanists, specialists in traditional medicine, and anthropologists.
This fascinating book explores the concept of slow living, offering a philosophical and psychological exploration of the need for a slower pace of life.
