Centering on the first extant martyr story (2 Maccabees 7), this study explores the "autonomous value" of martyrdom. The story of a mother and her seven sons who die under the torture of the Greek king Antiochus displaces the long-problematic Temple sacrificial cult with new cultic practices, and presents a new family romance that encodes unconscious fantasies of child-bearing fathers and eternal mergers with mothers. This study places the martyr story in the historical context of the Hasmonean struggle for legitimacy in the face of Jewish civil wars, and uses psychoanalytic theories to analyze the unconscious meaning of the martyr-family story.

The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies innovatively combines the ways in which scholars from fields as diverse as philosophy, psychology, religious studies, literary studies, history, sociology, anthropology, political science, and economics have integrated the study of Sikhism within a wide range of critical and postcolonial perspectives on the nature of religion, violence, gender, ethno-nationalism, and revisionist historiography. A number of essays within this collection also provide a more practical dimension, written by artists and practitioners of the tradition. The Handbook is divided into eight thematic sections that explore different 'expressions' of Sikhism. Historical, literary, ideological, institutional, and artistic expressions are considered in turn, followed by discussion of Sikhs in the Diaspora, and of caste and gender in the Panth. Each section begins with an essay by a prominent scholar in the field, providing an overview of the topic. Further essays provide detail and further treat the fluid, multivocal nature of both the Sikh past and the present. The Handbook concludes with a section considering future directions in Sikh Studies.

Rama goes to the monkey capital of Kishkindha to seek help in finding Sita, and meets Hanuman, the greatest of the monkey heroes. There are two claimants for the monkey throne, Valin and Sugriva; Rama helps Sugriva win the throne, and in return Sugriva promises to help in the search for Sita. The monkey hordes set out in every direction to scour the world, but without success until an old vulture tells them she is in Lanka. Hanuman promises to leap over the ocean to Lanka to pursue the search.

Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation

For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http: //www.claysanskritlibrary.org

At last, an edition of the Bhagavad Gita that speaks with unprecedented fidelity and clarity. It contains an unusually informative introduction, the Sanskrit text of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute's critical edition, an accurate and accessible English translation, a comprehensive glossary of names and epithets, and a thorough index.

The Owner's Manual to the Soul is a summary of the spiritual service that God asks of us as described in traditional Jewish texts. By learning and applying the teachings in this book, one will then be ready for the "light" of Kabbalistic meditation.

The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature explores the growth, makeup, and transformation of Chan (Zen) Buddhist literature in late medieval China. The volume analyzes the earliest extant records about the life, teachings, and legacy of Mazu Daoyi (709-788), the famous leader of the Hongzhou School and one of the principal figures in Chan history. While some of the texts covered are well-known and form a central part of classical Chan (or more broadly Buddhist) literature in China, others have been largely ignored, forgotten, or glossed over until recently. Poceski presents a range of primary materials important for the historical study of Chan Buddhism, some translated for the first time into English or other Western language. He surveys the distinctive features and contents of particular types of texts, and analyzes the forces, milieus, and concerns that shaped key processes of textual production during this period. Although his main focus is on written sources associated with a celebrated Chan tradition that developed and rose to prominence during the Tang era (618-907), Poceski also explores the Five Dynasties (907-960) and Song (960-1279) periods, when many of the best-known Chan collections were compiled. Exploring the Chan School's creative adaptation of classical literary forms and experimentation with novel narrative styles, The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature traces the creation of several distinctive Chan genres that exerted notable influence on the subsequent development of Buddhism in China and the rest of East Asia.

This is not a standard translation of "Mulamadhyamakakarika." Translator Nishijima Roshi believes that the original translation from Chinese into Sanskrit by the Ven. Kumarajiva (circa 400 C.E.) was faulty and that Kumarajiva's interpretation has influenced every other translation since. Avoiding reference to any other translations or commentaries, Nishijima Roshi has translated the entire text anew. This edition is, therefore, like no other. An expert in the philosophical works of Dogen Zenji (1200-1254 CE), Nishijima says in his introduction, "My own thoughts regarding Buddhism rely solely upon what Master Dogen wrote about the philosophy. So when reading the "Mulamadhyamakakarika" it is impossible for me not to be influenced by Master Dogen's Buddhist ideas." Thus this book is heavily and unabashedly influenced by the work of Master Dogen. Working with Brad Warner, Nishijima has produced a highly readable and eminently practical translation and commentary intended to be most useful to those engaged in meditation practice.
The "Mulamadhyamakakarika" (MMK) was written by Master Nagarjuna, an Indian Buddhist philosopher of the second century. Mahayana Buddhism had arrived at its golden age and Nagarjuna was considered its highest authority. The MMK is revered as the most conclusive of his several Buddhist works. Its extraordinarily precise and simple expression suggests that it was written when Master Nagarjuna was mature in his Buddhist practice and research.

For legendary Talmud scholar and prolific author Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, the Lubavitcher Rebbe embodied a lifelong mission to better the world. Far surpassing the role of teacher, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was at once a scientific mind and faithful believer; educational innovator and social activist; spiritual guide and master network builder.

My Rebbe is Rabbi Steinsaltz's long-awaited personal testament to the man whose passion and vision transformed Chabad-Lubavitch from a tiny group of Chassidim into an educational and spiritual movement that spans the globe. With the admiration of a close disciple, the astute observation of a scholar and the spiritual depth of a mystic, Steinsaltz crafts an intimate portrait of a revolutionary religious leader whose dedication to intellectual, religious, and spiritual principles impacted generations of followers.

For countless generations families have lived in isolated communities in the Godavari Delta of coastal Andhra Pradesh, learning and reciting their legacy of Vedas, performing daily offerings and occasional sacrifices. They are the virtually unrecognized survivors of a 3,700-year-old heritage, the last in India who perform the ancient animal and soma sacrifices according to Vedic tradition. In Vedic Voices, David M. Knipe offers for the first time, an opportunity for them to speak about their lives, ancestral lineages, personal choices as pandits, wives, children, and ways of coping with an avalanche of changes in modern India. He presents a study of four generations of ten families, from those born at the outset of the twentieth century down to their great-grandsons who are just beginning, at the age of seven, the task of memorizing their Veda, the Taittiriya Samhita, a feat that will require eight to twelve years of daily recitations. After successful examinations these young men will reside with the Veda family girls they married as children years before, take their places in the oral transmission of a three-thousand-year Vedic heritage, teach the Taittiriya collection of texts to their own sons, and undertake with their wives the major and minor sacrifices performed by their ancestors for some three millennia. Coastal Andhra, famed for bountiful rice and coconut plantations, has received scant attention from historians of religion and anthropologists despite a wealth of cultural traditions. Vedic Voices describes in captivating prose the geography, cultural history, pilgrimage traditions, and celebrated persons of the region. Here unfolds a remarkable story of Vedic pandits and their wives, one scarcely known in India and not at all to the outside world.

For the first time in human history, the Zohar, the sacred 2,000-year old guide to the books of the Bible, appears in English! With an unabridged translation and general commentary written for the layperson, this powerful text brings serenity, wisdom and hope, giving order and harmony to the chaos of modern life!

A word conventionally imbued with melancholy meanings, "diaspora" has been used variously to describe the cataclysmic historical event of displacement, the subsequent geographical scattering of peoples, or the conditions of alienation abroad and yearning for an ancestral home. But as Daniel Boyarin writes, diaspora may be more constructively construed as a form of cultural hybridity or a mode of analysis. In A Traveling Homeland, he makes the case that a shared homeland or past and traumatic dissociation are not necessary conditions for diaspora and that Jews carry their homeland with them in diaspora, in the form of textual, interpretive communities built around talmudic study. For Boyarin, the Babylonian Talmud is a diasporist manifesto, a text that produces and defines the practices that constitute Jewish diasporic identity. Boyarin examines the ways the Babylonian Talmud imagines its own community and sense of homeland, and he shows how talmudic commentaries from the medieval and early modern periods also produce a doubled cultural identity. He links the ongoing productivity of this bifocal cultural vision to the nature of the book: as the physical text moved between different times and places, the methods of its study developed through contact with surrounding cultures. Ultimately, A Traveling Homeland envisions talmudic study as the center of a shared Jewish identity and a distinctive feature of the Jewish diaspora that defines it as a thing apart from other cultural migrations.

Luminous Essence is a complete introduction to the world of tantric thought and practice. Composed by the renowned Tibetan master Jamgon Mipham (1846-1912), the text provides an overview of the theory and experiential assimilation of a seminal tantric scripture, the Tantra of the Secret Essence (Guhyagarbha Tantra). Embodying the essence of tantric practice, this text has been a central scripture in Tibetan Buddhism for well over a thousand years. Mipham's explanation of this text, here translated for the first time, is one of the most celebrated commentaries on the Tantra of the Secret Essence, which today occupies an important place in the tantric curriculum of Tibetan monastic colleges. Luminous Essence is a specialized guide meant for initiated tantric practitioners. To fully appreciate and assimilate its message, it should be studied under the guidance of a qualified teacher by those who have received the appropriate empowerments, reading transmissions, and oral instructions.

Neelima Shukla-Bhatt offers an illuminating study of Narsinha Mehta, one of the most renowned saint-poets of medieval India and the most celebrated bhakti (devotion) poet from Gujarat, whose songs and sacred biography formed a vital source of moral inspiration for Gandhi. Exploring manuscripts, medieval texts, Gandhi's more obscure writings, and performances in multiple religious and non-religious contexts, including modern popular media, Shukla-Bhatt shows that the songs and sacred narratives associated with the saint-poet have been sculpted by performers and audiences into a popular source of moral inspiration.
Drawing on the Indian concept of bhakti-rasa (devotion as nectar), Narasinha Mehta of Gujarat reveals that the sustained popularity of the songs and narratives over five centuries, often across religious boundaries and now beyond devotional contexts in modern media, is the result of their combination of inclusive religious messages and aesthetic appeal in performance. Taking as an example Gandhi's perception of the songs and stories as vital cultural resources for social reconstruction, the book suggests that when religion acquires the form of popular culture, it becomes a widely accessible platform for communication among diverse groups. Shukla-Bhatt expands upon the scholarship on the embodied and public dimension of bhakti through detailed analysis of multiple public venues of performance and commentary, including YouTube videos.
This study provides a vivid picture of the Narasinha tradition, and will be a crucial resource for anyone seeking to understand the power of religious performative traditions in popular media.

This book deals with the theology of the Church of Smyrna from its foundation up to the Council of Nicaea in 325. The author provides a critical historical evaluation of the documentary sources and certain aspects particularly deserving of discussion. He makes a meticulous study of the history of the city, its gods and institutions, the set-up of the Jewish and Christian communities and the response of the latter to the imperial cult. Finally, he undertakes a detailed analysis both of the reception of the Hebrew Scriptures and the apostolic traditions, as well as examining the gradual historical process of the shaping of orthodoxy and the identity of the community in the light of the organisation of its ecclesial ministries, its sacramental life and the cult of its martyrs.