Few works in world literature have inspired so vast an audience, in nations with radically different languages and cultures, as the "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata", two Sanskrit verse epics written some 2,000 years ago. In "Ramayana" (written by a poet known to us as Valmiki), William Buck has retold the story of Prince Rama - with all its nobility of spirit, courtly intrigue, heroic renunciation, fierce battles, and triumph of good over evil - in a length and manner that will make the great Indian epics accessible to the contemporary reader. The same is true for the "Mahabharata" - in its original Sanskrit, probably the longest Indian epic ever composed. It is the story of a dynastic struggle, between the Kurus and Pandavas, for land. In his introduction, Sanskritist B. A. van Nooten notes, "Apart from William Buck's rendition [no other English version has] been able to capture the blend of religion and martial spirit that pervades the original epic". Presented accessibly for the general reader without compromising the spirit and lyricism of the originals, William Buck's "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata" capture the essence of the Indian cultural heritage.

Drawing on both textual and archaeological evidence, this study offers an integrated approach to scholarly debates on monasteries and guru relics in South India between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. This study analyzes the role of the guru in the development of Hindu monastic orders, from centers of education to institutions of traditional authority. Focusing on the complex socio-religious context of the whole-body icon, the author analyzes the relic as a nexus of contradictions surrounding sacredness and death.

Here is a storybook for everyone - with lions and kings, rogues and saints, a boy who can stop an elephant, and a milkmaid who can walk on water! Filled with wisdom, adventure and surprises, these timeless tales remind us of what is important as we enter the twenty-first century. At once entertaining and instructive, these simple, practical stories have been related by Sri Swami Satchidananda, who is well-known and well-loved for his deep spiritual insight, as well as his sense of humor. Some of the stories that he tells have been drawn from nature; others have been passed on from generation to generation. Some come from ancient scriptures, others from folklore of India. They enlighten us about how to lead easeful, peaceful, useful lives and, ultimately, attain spiritual realization.

'I have heard the supreme mystery, yoga, from Krishna, from the lord of yoga himself.' Thus ends the Bhagavad Gita, the most famous episode from the great Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata. In its eighteen short chapters Krishna's teaching leads the warrior Arjuna from perplexity to understanding and correct action, in the process raising and developing many key themes from the history of Indian religions. The Bhagavad Gita is the best known and most widely read Hindu religious text in the Western world. It considers social and religious duty, the nature of sacrifice, the nature of action, the means to liberation, and the relationship of human beings to God. It culminates in an awe-inspiring vision of Krishna as God omnipotent, disposer and destroyer of the universe. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The first book to put the sacred and sensuous bronze statues from India's Chola dynasty in social context From the ninth through the thirteenth century, the Chola dynasty of southern India produced thousands of statues of Hindu deities, whose physical perfection was meant to reflect spiritual beauty and divine transcendence. During festivals, these bronze sculptures-including Shiva, referred to in a saintly vision as "the thief who stole my heart"-were adorned with jewels and flowers and paraded through towns as active participants in Chola worship. In this richly illustrated book, leading art historian Vidya Dehejia introduces the bronzes within the full context of Chola history, culture, and religion. In doing so, she brings the bronzes and Chola society to life before our very eyes. Dehejia presents the bronzes as material objects that interacted in meaningful ways with the people and practices of their era. Describing the role of the statues in everyday activities, she reveals not only the importance of the bronzes for the empire, but also little-known facets of Chola life. She considers the source of the copper and jewels used for the deities, proposing that the need for such resources may have influenced the Chola empire's political engagement with Sri Lanka. She also investigates the role of women patrons in bronze commissions and discusses the vast public records, many appearing here in translation for the first time, inscribed on temple walls. From the Cholas' religious customs to their agriculture, politics, and even food, The Thief Who Stole My Heart offers an expansive and complete immersion in a community still accessible to us through its exquisite sacred art. Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

For those who wonder what relation actual Tantric practices bear to the "Tantric sex" currently being marketed so successfully in the West, David Gordon White has a simple answer: there is none. Sweeping away centuries of misunderstandings and misrepresentations, White returns to original texts, images, and ritual practices to reconstruct the history of South Asian Tantra from the medieval period to the present day.
"Kiss of the Yogini" focuses on what White identifies as the sole truly distinctive feature of South Asian Tantra: sexualized ritual practices, especially as expressed in the medieval Kaula rites. Such practices centered on the exchange of powerful, transformative sexual fluids between male practitioners and wild female bird and animal spirits known as Yoginis. It was only by "drinking" the sexual fluids of the Yoginis that men could enter the family of the supreme godhead and thereby obtain supernatural powers and transform themselves into gods. By focusing on sexual rituals, White resituates South Asian Tantra, in its precolonial form, at the center of religious, social, and political life, arguing that Tantra was the mainstream, and that in many ways it continues to influence contemporary Hinduism, even if reformist misunderstandings relegate it to a marginal position.
"Kiss of the Yogini" contains White's own translations from over a dozen Tantras that have never before been translated into any European language. It will prove to be the definitive work for persons seeking to understand Tantra and the crucial role it has played in South Asian history, society, culture, and religion.

For roughly two thousand years, the veneration of sacred fossil ammonites, called Shaligrams, has been an important part of Hindu and Buddhist ritual practice throughout South Asia and among the global Diaspora. Originating from a single remote region of Himalayan Nepal, called Mustang, Shaligrams are all at once fossils, divine beings, and intimate kin with families and worshippers. Through their lives, movements, and materiality, Shaligrams then reveal fascinating new dimensions of religious practice, pilgrimage, and politics. But as social, environmental, and national conflicts in the politically-contentious region of Mustang continue to escalate, the geologic, mythic, and religious movements of Shaligrams have come to act as parallels to the mobility of people through both space and time. Shaligram mobility therefore traverses through multiple social worlds, multiple religions, and multiple nations revealing Shaligram practitioners as a distinct, alternative, community struggling for a place in a world on the edge.

According to traditions going back to pre-Vedic times, Kali sprang from the third eye of the Goddess Durga as a destructive and terrifying manifestation of feminine power sent to lay waste to the forces of evil. Throughout India to this day, Kali is worshipped as the destroyer of bondage, capable of liberating her devotee from all rules and subjugation. In The Tantric Kali, Daniel Odier presents the mythology, practices, and rituals of Kali worship in the Tantric Kaula tradition within Kashmiri Shaivism. He reveals the practices of Vamachara, commonly known as the Left-hand Path but more accurately translated as the Path of Shakti. In this tradition the body itself is Kali's temple, and it is therefore unnecessary to reject or deny the body to know union with the divine. Instead, nothing is regarded as pure or impure and there is complete freedom from rules. Focused on working directly with forbidden emotions and behaviors, this path allows the seeker to transcend obstacles to liberation through sexual union. According to the Kaula Upanishad, "In your behavior do the opposite to what the norms dictate but remain in consciousness." This is the essence of Tantra. Kali is absolute reality: manifested as woman intoxicated by desire, she frees the tantric practitioner from all desire except union with the divine.

In The Cow in the Elevator Tulasi Srinivas explores a wonderful world where deities jump fences and priests ride in helicopters to present a joyful, imaginative, yet critical reading of modern religious life. Drawing on nearly two decades of fieldwork with priests, residents, and devotees, and her own experience of living in the high-tech city of Bangalore, Srinivas finds moments where ritual enmeshes with global modernity to create wonder-a feeling of amazement at being overcome by the unexpected and sublime. Offering a nuanced account of how the ruptures of modernity can be made normal, enrapturing, and even comical in a city swept up in globalization's tumult, Srinivas brings the visceral richness of wonder-apparent in creative ritual in and around Hindu temples-into the anthropological gaze. Broaching provocative philosophical themes like desire, complicity, loss, time, money, technology, and the imagination, Srinivas pursues an interrogation of wonder and the adventure of writing true to its experience. The Cow in the Elevator rethinks the study of ritual while reshaping our appreciation of wonder's transformative potential for scholarship and for life.

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