For the first time, the work "Genealogy of the South Indian Deities" of the first Protestant missionary to India, Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg (1682-1719), is made accessible to an English readership. Originally published in 1713, the text reveals Ziegenbalg's ethos in the emerging European Enlightenment and his willingness to learn from the South Indians. The text contains the original voices of knowledgeable South Indians from various religious backgrounds and presents South India in a vivid, direct and unfiltered way. In this volume Daniel Jeyaraj edits and presents the German original in an English translation. This is followed by a detailed textual analysis, a glossary and an appendix. This book is invaluable for anyone interested in reliable information about the interactions of Europeans with Hindu and Tamil religion and culture.

Within the broad Hindu religious tradition, there have been for millennia many subtraditions generically called Vaisnava, who insist that the most appropriate mode of religious faith and experience is bhakti, or devotion, to the supreme personal deity, Visnu. Caitanya Vaisnavas are a community of Vaisnava devotees who coalesced around Krsna Caitanya (1486-1533), who taught devotion to the name and form of Krsna, especially in conjunction with his divine consort Radha and who also came to be looked upon by many as Krsna himself who had graciously chosen to be born in Bengal to exemplify the ideal mode of loving devotion (prema-bhakti). This book focusses on the relationship between the 'transcendent' intentionality of religious faith of human beings and their 'mundane' socio-cultural ways of living, through a detailed study of the social implications of the Caitanya Vaisnava devotional Hindu tradition in pre-colonial and colonial Bengal. Structured in two parts, the first analyzes the articulation of Krsna-bhakti within the broad Hindu sector of Bengali society. The second section examines Hindu-Muslim relationships in Bengal from the particular vantage point of the Caitanya Vaisnava tradition, and in which the subtle influence of Krsna-bhakti, it is argued, may be detected. In both sections, the bulk of attention is given to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Bengal was under independent Sultanate or emergent Mughal rule and thus free of the impact of British and European colonial influence. Arguing that the Caitanya Vaisnava devotion contributed to the softening of the potentially alienating socio-cultural divisions of class, caste, sect and religio-political community in Bengal, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of Asian Religion and Hinduism, in particular devotional Hinduism, both premodern and modern, as well as to scholars and students of South Asian social history, Hindu-Muslim relations, and Bengali religious culture.

Religion for a Secular Age provides a transnational history of modern Vedanta through a comparative study of two of its most important exponents, Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900) and Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902). This book explains why Vedanta's appeal spanned the ostensibly very different contexts of colonial India and Victorian Britain and America, and how this ancient form of thought was translated by Muller and Vivekananda into a modern form of philosophy or religion. These religiously-committed men attempted to reconcile religion with modernity by appealing to Advaita (literally, 'non-dualistic') Vedanta's monistic interpretation of reality. The 'scientific' study of religion allegedly demonstrated the evolutionary superiority of Vedanta and the possibility of religion's survival in 'the light of modern science'. They believed Vedanta could also provide the religious basis for moral engagement in this world, even as the hold of orthodox Christianity and traditional Hinduism appeared to be weakening. Vedanta thus served as a way of articulating a form of religion suitable for a secular age - religion which has embraced modern forms of thought while breaking away from creeds, scriptures and institutions to thrive in the spheres of public debate of London, Calcutta and New York.

The way people encounter ideas of Hinduism online is often shaped by global discourses of religion, pervasive Orientalism and (post)colonial scholarship. This book addresses a gap in the scholarly debate around defining Hinduism by demonstrating the role of online discourses in generating and projecting images of Hindu religion and culture. This study surveys a wide range of propaganda, websites and social media in which definitions of Hinduism are debated. In particular, it focuses on the role of Hindu nationalism in the presentation and management of Hinduism in the electronic public sphere. Hindu nationalist parties and individuals are highly invested in discussions and presentations of Hinduism online, and actively shape discourses through a variety of strategies. Analysing Hindu nationalist propaganda, cyber activist movements and social media presence, as well as exploring methodological strategies that are useful to the field of religion and media in general, the book concludes by showing how these discourses function in the wider Hindu diaspora. Building on religion and media research by highlighting mechanical and hermeneutic issues of the Internet and how it affects how we encounter Hinduism online, this book will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, Hindu studies and digital media.

The Sanskrit narrative text Devi Mahatmya, "The Greatness of The Goddess," extols the triumphs of an all-powerful Goddess, Durga, over universe-imperiling demons. These exploits are embedded in an intriguing frame narrative: a deposed king solicits the counsel of a forest-dwelling ascetic, who narrates the tripartite acts of Durga which comprise the main body of the text. It is a centrally important early text about the Great Goddess, which has significance to the broader field of Puranic Studies. This book analyzes the Devi Mahatmya and argues that its frame narrative cleverly engages a dichotomy at the heart of Hinduism: the opposing ideals of asceticism and kingship. These ideals comprise two strands of what is referred to herein as the dharmic double helix. It decodes the symbolism of encounters between forest hermits and exiled kings through the lens of the dharmic double helix, demonstrating the extent to which this common narrative trope masterfully encodes the ambivalence of brahmanic ideology. Engaging the tension between the moral necessity for nonviolence and the sociopolitical necessity for violence, the book deconstructs the ideological ambivalence throughout the Devi Mahatmya to demonstrate that its frame narrative invariably sheds light on its core content. Its very structure serves to emphasize a theme that prevails throughout the text, one inalienable to the rubric of the episodes themselves: sovereignty on both cosmic and mundane scales. The book sheds new light on the content of the Devi Mahatmya and contextualizes it within the framework of important debates within early Hinduism. It will be of interest to academics in the fields of Asian Religion, Hindu Studies, Goddess Studies, South Asian Studies, Narrative Studies and comparative literature.

Advaita Vedanta is one of the most important and widely studied schools of thought in Hindu religion and the Vivekacudamani is one of the most important texts in the Advaita tradition and the most popular philosophical work ascribed to the great Indian philosopher, Sankara. Sankara (c.650-700) is considered to be a giant among giants and probably the most venerated philosopher in India's long history. The Vivekacudamani is in the form of a dialogue between a preceptor (guru) and a pupil (sisya) expounding the quintessence of Advaita in which the pupil humbly approaches the preceptor and, having served the teacher selflessly, implores to be rescued from worldly existence (samsara). The guru promises to teach the way to liberation (moksa) which culminates in the ecstatic experience of one's own Self. This book presents an accessible translation of the entire text and also includes Upanisadic cross-referencing to most of its 580 verses, extensive notes, a lengthy Introduction, list of variant readings, an extensive bibliography, and an index to the verses. All those interested in Indian religion and philosophy, Hindu studies, or Sanskrit, will find this readable English translation of an Indian philosophical classic invaluable.

Explores contemporary controversies in bioethics from a Hindu perspective. S. Cromwell Crawford breaks new ground in this provocative study of Hindu bioethics in a Western setting. He provides a new moral and philosophical perspective on fascinating and controversial bioethical issues that are routinely in the news: cloning, genetic engineering, the human genome project, reproductive technologies, the end of life, and many more. This Hindu perspective is particularly noteworthy because of India's own indigenous medical system, which is stronger than ever and drawing continued interest from the West. The Hindu bioethics presented in this book are philosophically pluralistic and ethically contextual, giving them that conceptual flexibility which is often missing in Western religions, but which is demanded by the twenty-first century's complex moral problems. Comprehensive in scope and passionate in nature, Crawford's study is an important resource for analyses of practical ethics, bioethics, and health care.

Imagining Hinduism examines how Hinduism has been defined, interpreted and manufactured through Western categorizations, from the foreign interventions of eighteenth and nineteenth century Orientalists and missionaries to the present day. Sugirtharajah argues that ever since early Orientalists 'discovered' the ancient Sanskrit texts and the Hindu 'golden age', the West has nurtured a complex and ambivalent fascination with Hinduism, ranging from romantic admiration to ridicule. At the same time, Hindu discourse has drawn upon Orientalist representations in order to redefine Hindu identity.
As the first comprehensive work to bring postcolonial critique to the study of Hinduism, this is essential reading for a full understanding of Hinduism.

Imagining Hinduism examines how Hinduism has been defined, interpreted and manufactured through Western categorizations, from the foreign interventions of eighteenth and nineteenth century Orientalists and missionaries to the present day. Sugirtharajah argues that ever since early Orientalists 'discovered' the ancient Sanskrit texts and the Hindu 'golden age', the West has nurtured a complex and ambivalent fascination with Hinduism, ranging from romantic admiration to ridicule. At the same time, Hindu discourse has drawn upon Orientalist representations in order to redefine Hindu identity.
As the first comprehensive work to bring postcolonial critique to the study of Hinduism, this is essential reading for a full understanding of Hinduism.

Use your mantram when you're ill or anxious, tired or restless, and it will guide you and comfort you like a true friend. The Mantram, or mantra, is a short, powerful, spiritual formula from the world's great traditions, repeated silently in the mind, anytime, anywhere. Easwaran, the author of Passage Meditation and the best-selling translations of The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads and The Dhammapada, taught the use of the mantram for forty years as part of his passage meditation program.The mantram can help you to steady your mind and free it from anxiety, anger or resentment. Easwaran explains how the mantram works, and gives practical guidelines for using it to focus your thoughts and access deeper resources of strength, patience, and love.

The High-Caste Hindu Woman (1887) is a work of political nonfiction by Pandita Ramabai. Written for an American audience, The High-Caste Hindu Woman was published in Philadelphia while Ramabai was living in the United States as a lecturer for the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Born and raised in India, Ramabai converted to Christianity and dedicated her life to advocating on behalf of impoverished women and children. A fiery orator and true iconoclast, Ramabai's activism led to important educational and social reforms in her native country. Arguing for the need to offer education to women, Ramabai examines the nature of life for Hindu women born into the Brahman caste in nineteenth century India. Despite their position in Indian society, these women remained subjected to the control of their husbands, who limited their freedom and social mobility. Ramabai examines the traditions and customs of Hinduism in order to show how women are made ignorant by their oppression and taught to accept their conditions, thereby prolonging the suffering of lower caste and impoverished Hindus. Through education alone, Ramabai shows, are women able to alter their oppressed condition. Both a portrait of Indian life and a moving political treatise, The High-Caste Hindu Woman showcases Ramabai's foresight as an activist and reformer who sought to radically improve the lives of her people. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Pandita Ramabai The High-Caste Hindu Woman is a classic work of Indian political nonfiction reimagined for modern readers.

These never before published teaching stories of the yoga master Swami Kripalu are at once down-to-earth and transcendent. The Swami was fond of telling stories as a way of making his often subtle and surprising points. For example, in a parable about mind control, "The Demanding Daughter," we learn of a young spoiled woman who will only marry on the condition that she can find a husband who will allow her to strike him on the head seven times a day with her shoe. Each story is set off by a particular yoga principle that the Swami illustrates through the story.

During a nine-day period every autumn, Hindus in India and throughout the world worship the Great Goddess, Durga -- the formidable deity who is loved like a mother. One of the most dramatic and popular of these celebrations is the Durga Puja, a rite noted for its visual pageantry, ritual complexity, and communal participation. In this book, Hillary Peter Rodrigues describes the Bengali style of Durga Puja practiced in the sacred city of Banaras from beginning to end. A romanization of the Sanskrit litany is included along with an English translation.

In addition to the liturgical description, Rodrigues provides information on the rite's component elements and mythic aspects. There are interpretive sections on puja, the Great Goddess, women's roles in the ritual, and the socio-cultural functions of the ritual.

This book is a thematic study of the poet-thinker Rabindranath Tagore's conceptual project of harmonizing the one and its many. Tagore's writings, in Bengali and in English, on religious and social themes are held together by the leitmotif of a "harmony" which operates across several existential, religious, and social polarities - the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, and the individual and the universal. Tagore creatively appropriated materials from diverse sources such as the classical Hindu Vedantic systems, the folk piety of Bengal, and others, to configure a dialectic which shapes his writings on both religious and social themes. On the one hand, each individual is irreducibly distinct from everyone else, and, on the other hand, each individual gains their spiritual depth precisely by being placed within the dynamic matrices of an interrelated whole. Thus, we find Tagore rejecting certain monastic forms of Hindu world-renunciation and also certain ecstatic dimensions of devotional worship - the former because they efface individuality and the latter because they can generate self-absorbed styles of living. Again, Tagore is as sharply opposed to Bengali imitativeness of English modes of being in the world as he is to Bengali forms of insularity - the former because it dilutes the concrete richness of indigenous lifeforms and the latter because it confines individuals to parochial enclosures. Tagore's life-long endeavor was to configure a "third way" by rejecting both the blank homogeneity of an undifferentiated one and the particularistic insularities of a multitude without a deeper center of coherence.

Exploring the folk religion of India and the role of girls and women within it, author June McDaniel focuses on the brata (vrata) ritual in which moral lessons are taught and goddesses are revealed. Bratas are performed to gain such goals as a healthy family, a good husband, and a happy life. They are also performed so that the performers (bratinis) develop such virtues as devotion, humility, and compassion.

This book presents data from fieldwork, along with brata stories, songs, poems, and ritual activities. It discusses Bengali folk religion, offers an example of ritual worship in folk Hinduism, and surveys a variety of bratas. The author analyzes the similarities and differences among these rituals in low-caste village life and in high-caste Hindu tradition, and notes that the development of these rituals involves a form of continuing divine revelation with women as the primary transmitters.

Harold Coward explores how the psychological aspects of Yoga philosophy have been important to intellectual developments both East and West. Foundational for Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist thought and spiritual practice, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, the classical statement of Eastern Yoga, are unique in their emphasis on the nature and importance of psychological processes. Yoga's influence is explored in the work of both the seminal Indian thinker Bhartrhari (c. 600 C.E.) and among key figures in Western psychology: founders Freud and Jung, as well as contemporary transpersonalists such as Washburn, Tart, and Ornstein.

Coward shows how the yogic notion of psychological processes makes Bhartrhari's philosophy of language and his theology of revelation possible. He goes on to explore how Western psychology has been influenced by incorporating or rejecting Patanjali's Yoga. The implications of these trends in Western thought for mysticism and memory are examined as well.

This book is a study of the changing relationship over time (1856-1994) between the Rishi, an ex-Untouchable jati of Bengal/South-West Bangladesh, and various groups of Catholic missionaries. The book's originality and importance lies in its multi-disciplinary approach, which combines anthropological fieldwork, historical research, philosophical enquiry and contemporary missiological debates. Moreover, it addresses issues of great current relevance in its discussions of Orientalism, Neo-colonialism and Otherness.

In India, statues of Ganesh are placed at the inner gates of many temples, symbolizing his role as keeper of sacred spaces. Here, pilgrims and passersby pay homage and seek his blessings. It is this symbolic presence at the entrance of our most holy places that makes Ganesh such a vital figure in our lives.
Stationed at the threshold of sacredness and awareness, mediating between the possibility of the profound and our often habitual, mundane perception of the world, Ganesh is the guiding force behind this very moment of experience - where desire meets possibility. "Ganesh: Removing the Obstacles" offers practical and meaningful interpretations of folk narratives and sacred texts concerning the larger-than-life elephant-headed god, Ganesh.

Contents:
List of illustrations. Introduction. 1. The Daughters of Hariti Today Geoffrey Samuel Part 1: South Asia. 2. "We Know How to Do These Things": Birth in a Newar Village 3. Knowing All the Gods: Grandmothers, God Families, and Women Healers in Nepal Linda Iltis 4. Contaminating States: Midwifery, Childbearing and the State in Rural North India Patricia Jeffrey, Roger Jeffrey and Andrew Lyon 5. Midwives and Other Women; Agency, Emotions and the Politics of Healing in Rajasthan, North West India Maya Unnithan-Kumar 6. The Healer on the Margins: The Dai in Rural Bangladesh Santi Rozario 7. Hawa, Gola and Mother-in-Law's Big Toe: On Understanding Dais' Imagery of the Female Body Janet Chawlan 8. "Baby-Friendly" Hospitals and Bad Mothers: Maneuvring Development in the Post-Partum Period in Tamilnadu, South India Cecilia Van Hollen 9. Tibetan and Indian Ideas of Birth Pollution: Similarities and Contrasts Santi Rozario and Geoffrey Samuel Part 2: Southeast Asia. 10. Birth Attendants in Northeast Thailand: Embodying Tradition in Modern Times Andrea Whitaker 11. Childbirth and Traditional Healing in an Iban Longhouse Amanda Harris 12. Of Paraji and Bidan: Hierarchies of Knowledge among Sudanese Midwives Lynda Newland 13. Adat and Modernity: Confinement in a Sasak Government Clinic Cynthia Hunter Index. About the Editors and Contributors

This is the first attempt to understand Ramanuja in the context of his religious and philosophical tradition. It is the only work which establishes his indebtedness to his immediate predecessor Yamuna and which identifies his actual opponents. It is accordingly a contribution to the wider history of classical Indian thought and not just a consideration of a single individual and his tradition.

The Life Divine explores for the Modern mind the great streams of Indian metaphysical thought, reconciling the truths behind each and from this synthesis extends in terms of consciousness the concept of evolution. The unfolding of Earth's and man's spiritual destiny is illuminated, pointing the way to a Divine Life on Earth. Index.

"A god transforms into a nymph and enchants another god.A king becomes pregnant.A prince discovers on his wedding night that he is not a man."Another king has children who call him both father and mother. A hero turns into a eunuch and wears female apparel. A princess has to turn into a man before she can avenge her humiliation. Widows of a king make love to conceive his child. Friends of the same sex end up marrying each other after one of them metamorphoses into a woman. These are some of the tales from Hindu lore that this unique book examines. The Man Who Was a Woman and Other Queer Tales from Hindu Lore is a compilation of traditional Hindu stories with a common thread: sexual transformation and gender metamorphosis. In addition to the thought-provoking stories in The Man Who Was a Woman and Other Queer Tales from Hindu Lore, you'll also find: an examination of the universality of queer narratives with examples from Greek lore and Irish folklore a comparison of the Hindu paradigm to the biblical paradigm a look at how Hindu society and Hindu scripture responds to queer sexuality a discussion of the Hijras, popularly believed to be the "third gender" in India--their probable origin, and how they fit into Hindu societyWith the telling of each of these tales, you will also learn how the author came upon each of them and how they relate to the context of dominant Hindu attitudes toward sex, gender, pleasure, fertility, and celibacy.