Pastoralist traditions have long been extraordinarily important to the social, economic, political, and cultural life of the
region of western India called Maharashtra. The Marathi-language oral literature of the Dhangar shepherds of
Maharashtra is not only one of the most important elements of their own traditional cultural life, but also a treasure of
world literature. This volume presents two lively and well-crafted examples of the ovi, a genre typical of the oral literature of Dhangars. The two ovis in the volume narrate the stories of Biroba and Dhuloba, two of the most important gods of Dhangar shepherds. Each of the ovis tells an elaborate story of the birth of the god--a miraculous and complicated process in both cases--and of the struggles each one goes through in order to find and win his bride. The extensive introduction provides a literary analysis of the ovis and discusses what they reveal about the cosmology, geography, society, administrative structures, and economy of their performers' world, and about the performers views of pastoralistsand women.

The basic questions of Who Am I? Where Am I Going? What Is the Purpose of Life? are asked by every generation, and Patanjali's answers (given in the third century BC) form one of the oldest spiritual texts in the world. 'That which unites' is called 'Yoga' - and is thus much broader than the form of exercise so popular today. It is a way to restore our lost wholeness, our integrity as complete human beings, by unifying the personality around a centre that is silent and unbounded. Alistair Shearer's superb introduction and translation bring these ancient, vital teachings to life in the modern world and are for all those who seek the benefits of self-knowledge.

In this magisterial volume of essays, Wendy Doniger enhances our understanding of the ancient and complex religion to which she has devoted herself for half a century. This series of interconnected essays and lectures surveys the most critically important and hotly contested issues in Hinduism over 3,500 years, from the ancient time of the Vedas to the present day. The essays contemplate the nature of Hinduism; Hindu concepts of divinity; attitudes concerning gender, control, and desire; the question of reality and illusion; and the impermanent and the eternal in the two great Sanskrit epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Among the questions Doniger considers are: Are Hindus monotheists or polytheists? How can atheists be Hindu, and how can unrepentant Hindu sinners find salvation? Why have Hindus devoted so much attention to the psychology of addiction? What does the significance of dogs and cows tell us about Hinduism? How have Hindu concepts of death, rebirth, and karma changed over the course of history? How and why does a pluralistic faith, remarkable for its intellectual tolerance, foster religious intolerance? Doniger concludes with four concise autobiographical essays in which she reflects on her lifetime of scholarship, Hindu criticism of her work, and the influence of Hinduism on her own philosophy of life. On Hinduism is the culmination of over forty years of scholarship from a renowned expert on one of the world's great faiths.

Singing a Hindu Nation is a study of rags>riya kirtan, a western Indian performance medium that combines song, Hindu philosophical discourse, and nationalist storytelling. Beginning during the anti-colonial movement of the late nineteenth-century, performers of rags>riya kirtan led masses of Marathi-speaking people in temples and streets, and they have continued to preach and sing nationalism as devotion in the post-colonial era, and into the twenty-first century. In this book, author Anna Schultz demonstrates how, through this particular form of musical performance, the political becomes devotional, and explores why it motivates people to action and violence. Through both historical and ethnographic studies, Schultz shows that rags>riya kirtan has been especially successful in combining these two realms because kirtankars perform as representatives of the divine sage Narad, thereby infusing their nationalist messages with ritual weight. By speaking and singing in regional idioms with rich associations for Maharashtrian congregations, they use music to combine political and religious signs in ways that seem natural and desirable, promoting embodied experiences of nationalist devotion. As the first monograph on music and Hindu-nationalism, Singing a Hindu Nation presents a rare glimpse into the lives and performance worlds of nationalists on the margins of all-India political parties and cultural organizations, and is an essential resource for ethnomusicologists, as well as scholars of South Asian studies, religion, and political theory.

This book explores the relationship between ethics, aesthetics, and religion in classical Indian literature and literary theory by focusing on one of the most celebrated and enigmatic texts to emerge from the Sanskrit epic tradition, the Mahabharata. This text, which is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important sources for the study of South Asian religious, social, and political thought, is a foundational text of the Hindu tradition(s) and considered to be a major transmitter of dharma (moral, social, and religious duty), perhaps the single most important concept in the history of Indian religions. However, in spite of two centuries of Euro-American scholarship on the epic, basic questions concerning precisely how the epic is communicating its ideas about dharma and precisely what it is saying about it are still being explored. Disorienting Dharma brings to bear a variety of interpretive lenses (Sanskrit literary theory, reader-response theory, and narrative ethics) to examine these issues. One of the first book-length studies to explore the subject from the lens of Indian aesthetics, it argues that such a perspective yields startling new insights into the nature of the depiction of dharma in the epic through bringing to light one of the principle narrative tensions of the epic: the vexed relationship between dharma and suffering. In addition, it seeks to make the Mahabharata interesting and accessible to a wider audience by demonstrating how reading the Mahabharata, perhaps the most harrowing story in world literature, is a fascinating, disorienting, and ultimately transformative experience.

In recent years, India's ''sacred groves,'' 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. Environmentalists disillusioned by the failures of massive state-sponsored solutions to ecological problems have hailed them as an exemplary form of traditional community resource management. For, in spite of pressures to utilize their trees for fodder, housing and firewood, the religious taboos surrounding sacred groves have led to the conservation of pockets of abundant flora in areas otherwise denuded by deforestation. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu over seven years, Eliza F. Kent offers a compelling examination of the religious and social context in which sacred groves take on meaning for the villagers who maintain them, and shows how they have become objects of fascination and hope for Indian environmentalists. Sacred Groves and Local Gods traces a journey through Tamil Nadu, exploring how the localized meanings attached to forested shrines are changing under the impact of globalization and economic liberalization. Confounding simplistic representations of sacred groves as sites of a primitive form of nature worship, the book shows how local practices and beliefs regarding sacred groves are at once more imaginative, dynamic, and pragmatic than previously thought. Kent argues that rather than being ancient in origin, as previously asserted by scholars, the religious beliefs, practices, and iconography found in sacred groves suggest origins in the politically de-centered eighteenth century, when the Tamil country was effectively ruled by local chieftains. She analyzes two projects undertaken by environmentalists that seek to harness the traditions surrounding sacred groves in the service of forest restoration and environmental education.

This is the first book-length study of the thought of Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007), who became well known during his lifetime as the exponent of a dynamic spirituality of integral transformation, which he set forth in an extensive body of writings in both prose and poetry, mostly in English but also in his native Bengali. He held that all fields of human endeavor can be venues of spiritual transformation when founded in aspiration and contemplative practice. He is noted not only as a spiritual teacher but also as an advocate of peace, a composer and musician, an artist and a sportsman who created innovative programs promoting self-transcendence and understanding between people of all cultures and walks of life. This study of Sri Chinmoy's philosophy refers to these diverse activities, especially in the biographical first chapter, but is mainly based on his written works. The book's aim is to give to the reader a straightforward and unembroidered account of Sri Chinmoy's philosophy. It makes every attempt to allow Sri Chinmoy to speak for himself in his own words, and thus provides ample quotation and draws on his poetic works as much as on his other writings.

Singing a Hindu Nation is a study of rags>riya kirtan, a western Indian performance medium that combines song, Hindu philosophical discourse, and nationalist storytelling. Beginning during the anti-colonial movement of the late nineteenth-century, performers of rags>riya kirtan led masses of Marathi-speaking people in temples and streets, and they have continued to preach and sing nationalism as devotion in the post-colonial era, and into the twenty-first century. In this book, author Anna Schultz demonstrates how, through this particular form of musical performance, the political becomes devotional, and explores why it motivates people to action and violence. Through both historical and ethnographic studies, Schultz shows that rags>riya kirtan has been especially successful in combining these two realms because kirtankars perform as representatives of the divine sage Narad, thereby infusing their nationalist messages with ritual weight. By speaking and singing in regional idioms with rich associations for Maharashtrian congregations, they use music to combine political and religious signs in ways that seem natural and desirable, promoting embodied experiences of nationalist devotion. As the first monograph on music and Hindu-nationalism, Singing a Hindu Nation presents a rare glimpse into the lives and performance worlds of nationalists on the margins of all-India political parties and cultural organizations, and is an essential resource for ethnomusicologists, as well as scholars of South Asian studies, religion, and political theory.

The main subjects of analysis in the present book are the stages of initiation in the grand scheme of Theosophical evolution. These initiatory steps are connected to an idea of evolutionary self-development by means of a set of virtues that are relative to the individual's position on the path of evolution. The central thesis is that these stages were translated from the "Hindu" tradition to the "Theosophical" tradition through multifaceted "hybridization processes" in which several Indian members of the Theosophical Society partook. Starting with Annie Besant's early Theosophy, the stages of initiation are traced through Blavatsky's work to Manilal Dvivedi and T. Subba Row, both Indian members of the Theosophical Society, and then on to the Sanatana Dharma Text Books. In 1898, the English Theosophist Annie Besant and the Indian Theosophist Bhagavan Das together founded the Central Hindu College, Benares, which became the nucleus around which the Benares Hindu University was instituted in 1915. In this context the Sanatana Dharma Text Books were published. Muhlematter shows that the stages of initiation were the blueprint for Annie Besant's pedagogy, which she implemented in the Central Hindu College in Benares. In doing so, he succeeds in making intelligible how "esoteric" knowledge was transferred to public institutions and how a broader public could be reached as a result. The dissertation has been awarded the ESSWE PhD Thesis prize 2022 by the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism.

The Ramayana tells the tale of Rama and his beloved Sita, but its narratives and intent, as with all great literature, point to the grand themes of life, death and righteousness. Originally written in ancient Sanskrit, the elegant, epic work is a key part of the canon of both Hinduism and Buddhism. It continues to inspire art, theatre, poetry and temple architecture, dominating the spiritual landscape of the vast Indian sub-continent and the diaspora throughout the rest of the world. This deluxe new edition revives Ralph T. H. Griffith's evocative verse translation and abridges it for the modern reader - bringing the gripping narrative to the forefront. The Flame Tree Gothic Fantasy, Classic Stories and Epic Tales collections bring together the entire range of myth, folklore and modern short fiction. Highlighting the roots of suspense, supernatural, science fiction and mystery stories, the books in Flame Tree Collections series are beautifully presented, perfect as a gift and offer a lifetime of reading pleasure.

David Shulman and Velcheru Narayana Rao offer a groundbreaking cultural biography of Srinatha, arguably the most creative figure in the thousand-year history of Telugu literature. This fourteenth- and fifteenth-century poet revolutionized the classical tradition and effectively created the classical genre of sustained, thematically focused, coherent large-scale compositions. Some of his works are proto-novellas: self-consciously fictional, focused on the development of characters, and endowed with compelling, fast-paced plots. Though entirely rooted in the cultural world of medieval south India, Srinatha is a poet of universal resonance and relevance. Srinatha: The Poet who Made Gods and Kings provides extended translations of Srinatha's major works and shows how the poet bridged gaps between oral (improvised) poetry and fixed literary works; between Telugu and the classical, pan-Indian language of Sanskrit; and between local and trans-local cultural contexts. Srinatha is a protean figure whose biography served the later literary tradition as a model and emblem for primary themes of Telugu culture, including the complex relations between sensual and erotic excess and passionate devotion to the temple god. He established himself as an ''Emperor of Poets'' who could make or break a great king and who, by encompassing the entire, vast geographical range of Andhra and Telugu speech, invented the idea of a comprehensive south Indian political empire (realized after his death by the Vijayanagara kings). In this wide-ranging and perceptive study, Shulman and Rao show Srinatha's place in a great classical tradition in a moment of profound cultural transformation.

Mirigavati or The Magic Doe is the work of Shaikh Qutban Suhravardi, an Indian Sufi master who was also an expert poet and storyteller attached to the glittering court-in-exile of Sultan Husain Shah Sharqi of Jaunpur. Composed in 1503 as an introduction to mystical practice for disciples, this powerful Hindavi or early Hindi Sufi romance is a richly layered and sophisticated text, simultaneously a spiritual enigma and an exciting love-story full of adventures. The Mirigavati is both an excellent introduction to Sufism and one of the true literary classics of pre-modern India, a story that draws freely on the large pool of Indian, Islamic, and European narrative motifs in its distinctive telling of a mystical quest and its resolution. Adventures from the Odyssey and the voyages of Sindbad the Sailor-sea voyages, encounters with monstrous serpents, damsels in distress, flying demons and cannibals in caves, among others-surface in Suhravardi's rollicking tale, marking it as first-rate entertainment for its time and, in private sessions in Sufi shrines, a narrative that shaped the interior journey for novices. Before his untimely death in 2009, Aditya Behl had completed this complete blank verse translation of the critical edition of the Mirigavati, which reveals the precise mechanism and workings of spiritual signification and use in a major tradition of world and Indian literature.

This book offers a close-up view of the religious world of one of the most influential families in Vrinbadan, India's premier place of pilgrimage for worshipers of Krishna. This priestly family has arguably been the most creative force in this important town. Their influence also radiates well beyond India's borders both because of their tireless work in fostering scholarship and performance about Krishna and because the scion of the family, Shrivatsa Goswami, has become an international spokesman for Hindu ways and concerns. Case, who has been an occasional resident in the family ashram, gives the reader a real sense of the atmosphere of daily life there, and the complete devotion of the residents to the service and worship of Krishna.

A message of love, compassion and the spiritual unity of
humankind from one of India s visionary teachers

Vivekananda s message gives us hope for the future. His love for humanity gave him the mandate for his message, and his innate purity gave him an irresistible power that nobody could match. The same love that was born as Buddha, the Compassionate One, once again assumed human form as Vivekananda. from the Introduction

At the World s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, a young Hindu monk caused a sensation. At the utterance of his simple opening words Sisters and Brothers of America the audience broke into spontaneous applause for Swami Vivekananda. What followed was a stunning speech about the validity and unity of all religions. In just a little over a century, Vivekananda s message has spread throughout the world.

In this book for spiritual seekers of all faiths and backgrounds, and for all who yearn for solutions to the ideological conflicts that threaten our world, Swami Adiswarananda presents a selection of Vivekananda s most profound and inspiring lectures and an intimate glimpse of his life through newspaper reports from the time, personal reminiscences from disciples and others close to him, and impressions of his life and message from world leaders. A chapter by Swami Nikhilananda, founder of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, offers a fascinating view of Vivekananda s spiritual mission to America a mission that brought the ideals of spiritual freedom and spiritual democracy to the forefront of Western religious thought.

The philosophy of Yoga tells us that the root cause of our sorrows and suffering is loss of contact with our true Self. Our recovery is only possible by reestablishing contact with our innermost Self, the Reality of all realities, and by recognizing that knowledge of Self is our salvation. In this comprehensive guide, Swami Adiswarananda introduces the overall philosophy of Yoga and then delves deeply into each path: ? Karma-Yoga: the path of selfless action, for the active ? Bhakti-Yoga: the path of divine love, for the emotional ? Raja-Yoga: the path of meditation, for the contemplative ? Jnana-Yoga: the path of knowledge, for the rational Covering the message and practice of each of the yogas as well as philosophy and psychology, preparatory practices, common obstacles and ways to overcome them, this accessible book will prove invaluable to anyone wishing to follow a yoga practice in order to realize the goal of Self-knowledge.

Techniques explained by the masters for today s spiritual seeker

Meditation is designed to give you direct access to the spiritual. Whether it s through deep breathing during a busy day, listening to the quiet after turning off the car radio, chanting in prayer, or ten minutes of visualization exercises each morning, meditation takes many forms. But it is always a personal method of centering our spiritual self.

Meditation has long been practiced in the Jewish community as a powerful tool to transcend words, personality, and ego and to directly experience the divine. Inspiring yet practical, this introduction to meditation from a Jewish perspective approaches it in a new and illuminating way: As it is personally practiced by today s most experienced Jewish meditators from around the world.

A how to guide for both beginning and experienced meditators, Meditation from the Heart of Judaism will help you start meditating or help you enhance your practice. Meditation is a Jewish spiritual resource for today that can benefit people of all faiths and backgrounds and help us add spiritual energy to our lives. Contributors include:

Dharma is central to all the major religious traditions which originated on the Indian subcontinent. Such is its importance that these traditions cannot adequately be understood apart from it. Often translated as "ethics," "religion," "law," or "social order," dharma possesses elements of each of these but is not confined to any single category familiar to Western thought. Neither is it the straightforward equivalent of what many in the West might usually consider to be "a philosophy". This much-needed analysis of the history and heritage of dharma shows that it is instead a multi-faceted religious force, or paradigm, that has defined and that continues to shape the different cultures and civilizations of South Asia in a whole multitude of forms, organizing many aspects of life. Experts in the fields of Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh studies here bring fresh insights to dharma in terms both of its distinctiveness and its commonality as these are expressed across, and between, the several religions of the subcontinent. Exploring ethics, practice, history and social and gender issues, the contributors engage critically with some prevalent and often problematic interpretations of dharma, and point to new ways of appreciating these traditions in a manner that is appropriate to and thoroughly consistent with their varied internal debates, practices and self-representations.

The Mahabharata preserves powerful journeys of women recognized as the feminine divine and the feminine heroic in the larger culture of India. Each journey upholds the unique aspects of women's life. This book analytically examines the narratives of eleven women from the Mahabharata in the historical context as well as in association with religious and cultural practices. Lavanya Vemsani brings together history, myth, religion, and practice to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the history of Hindu women, as well as their significance within religious Indian culture. Additionally, Vemsani provides important perspective for understanding the enduring legacy of these women in popular culture and modern society.