Every day millions of Tamil women in southeast India wake up before dawn to create a kolam, an ephemeral ritual design made with rice flour, on the thresholds of homes, businesses and temples.
For scholars of ancient Indian religions, the wandering mendicants who left home and family for a celibate life and the search for liberation represent an enigma.
For scholars of ancient Indian religions, the wandering mendicants who left home and family for a celibate life and the search for liberation represent an enigma.
Carol Salomon dedicated over thirty years of her life to researching, translating, and annotating this compilation of songs by the Bengali poet and mystical philosopher Lalan Sai (popularly transliterated as Lalon) who lived in the village of Cheuriya in Bengal in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
With over four million copies in print, Paramahansa Yogananda's autobiography has served as a gateway into yoga and alternative spirituality for North American practitioners since 1946.
With over four million copies in print, Paramahansa Yogananda's autobiography has served as a gateway into yoga and alternative spirituality for North American practitioners since 1946.
Since the beginning of modern Indology in the 19th century, the relationship between the early Indian religions of Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism has been predicated on a perceived dichotomy between two meta-historical identities: "e;the Brahmans"e; (purveyors of the ancient Vedic texts and associated ritual system) and the newer "e;non-Brahmanical"e; sramana movements from which the Buddhists and Jains emerged.
Since the beginning of modern Indology in the 19th century, the relationship between the early Indian religions of Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism has been predicated on a perceived dichotomy between two meta-historical identities: "e;the Brahmans"e; (purveyors of the ancient Vedic texts and associated ritual system) and the newer "e;non-Brahmanical"e; sramana movements from which the Buddhists and Jains emerged.
Through in-depth analysis of musical theatre choreography and choreographers, Making Broadway Dance challenges long-held perceptions of Broadway dance as kitsch, disposable, a dance form created without artistic process.
Through in-depth analysis of musical theatre choreography and choreographers, Making Broadway Dance challenges long-held perceptions of Broadway dance as kitsch, disposable, a dance form created without artistic process.
The thousand-year-old Sanskrit classic the Bhagavatapurana, or "e;Stories of the Lord,"e; is the foundational source of narratives concerning the beloved Hindu deity Krishna.
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.
After a sleepless night spent longing for his absent wife Sita, Rama, god-prince and future king, surveyed his army camps on a clear autumn morning and spied a white goose playing in a pond of lotus flowers.
Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Central Himalayan region of Kumaon, Tales of Justice and Rituals of Divine Embodiment draws on oral and written narratives, stories, testimonies, and rituals told and performed in relation to the "e;God of Justice,"e; Goludev, and other regional deities.
The thousand-year-old Sanskrit classic the Bhagavatapurana, or "e;Stories of the Lord,"e; is the foundational source of narratives concerning the beloved Hindu deity Krishna.
After a sleepless night spent longing for his absent wife Sita, Rama, god-prince and future king, surveyed his army camps on a clear autumn morning and spied a white goose playing in a pond of lotus flowers.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the American missionary James Butler predicted that Christian conversion and British law together would eradicate Indian ascetics.
When the colonial slave trade, and then slavery itself, were abolished early in the 19th century, the British empire brazenly set up a new system of trade using Indian rather than African laborers.
This is the second in a trilogy of works by the famed Bengali novelist Bankimcandra Chatterji (1838-1894), and the second to be translated by Julius Lipner.
No Hindu god is closer to the soul of poetry than Krishna, and in North India no poet ever sang of Krishna more famously than SurdD^=as-or Sur, for short.
Although Buddhism is often depicted as a religion of meditators and philosophers, some of the earliest writings extant in India offer a very different portrait of the Buddhist practitioner.
The devotional poems of Annamayya (15th century) are perhaps the most accessible and universal achievement of classical Telugu literature, one of the major literatures of pre-modern India.