Neo-Hindutva explores the recent proliferation and evolution of Hindu nationalism - the assertive majoritarian, right-wing ideology that is transforming contemporary India. This volume develops and expands on the idea of 'neo-Hindutva' -- Hindu nationalist ideology which is evolving and shifting in new, surprising, and significant ways, requiring a reassessment and reframing of prevailing understandings. The contributors identify and explain the ways in which Hindu nationalism increasingly permeates into new spaces: organisational, territorial, conceptual, rhetorical. The scope of the chapters reflect the diversity of contemporary Hindutva - both in India and beyond - which appears simultaneously brazen but concealed, nebulous and mainstreamed, militant yet normalised. They cover a wide range of topics and places in which one can locate new forms of Hindu nationalism: courts of law, the Northeast, the diaspora, Adivasi (tribal) communities, a powerful yoga guru, and the Internet. The volume also includes an in-depth interview with Christophe Jaffrelot and a postscript by Deepa Reddy. Helping readers to make sense of contemporary Hindutva, Neo-Hindutva is ideal for scholars of India, Hinduism, Nationalism, and Asian Studies more generally. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary South Asia.

'This is a deep and intense book, written with empathy for everything involved, and is of vital global, social significance.' - Revd Mary Sellers, Church Times

'Gosling's work is clearly and passionately written, betraying careful scholarship in science and religious studies. It should help to clarify the role of religious traditions in increasing ecological awareness, and, it is to be hoped, in promoting some resolution of the social and environmental problems our world faces' - THES

'The book is a must in any serious library dealing with ecology in India and Southeast Asia' - G. Gispert-Sauch, VJTR

'... a book which should allow Hinduism and Buddhism, and activists from India and Thailand, to challenge those of us from "religions of the book".' - Andrew Wingate, Theology

A detailed case study of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in Britain. The book studies the particular development of a new religious movement within the context of Britain, and issues relating to minority religions' place within a multicultural but still hegemonically Christian society.

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.

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.

Series Information:
RoutledgeCurzon Studies in Asian Religion

First Published in 2000. This is Volume III of ten of the Oriental series looking at Indian Religion and Philosophy. It was written around 1884 and includes the translation from Sanskrit of the 'Manava-dharma-castra' by the late Dr. Burnell which was completed by the editor.

Series Information:
Trübner's Oriental Series

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 2000. This is volume X of ten in the India: Religion and Philosophy series. It provides a manual of Hindu Pantheism, an accurate summary of the doctrines of the Vedanta: The Vedantasara.

Hinduism outside the Indian subcontinent represents a divergent diaspora. From Britain to the Caribbean, diasporic Hindus have substantially reformed their beliefs and practiced in accordance with their historical and social circumstances. In this analysis Steven Vertovec looks at why Hindu indentities have developed in such different ways in different contexts and in doing so questions the assumption that subcontinent Hinduism represents the authentic articulation of Hindu identity. Amongst the case studies Vertovec examines are: the historical construction of the category "Hinduism in India", the formation of a distinctive Caribbean Hindu culture during the nineteenth century, the role of youth groups in forging new identities during Trinidad's Hindu Renaissance, the reproduction of regionally based identities and frictions in Britain's Hindu communities and the differences in temple use across the diaspora. This book provides a detailed view of the Hindu diaspora in the past, present and its possible future.

Hinduism outside the Indian subcontinent represents a contrasting and scattered community. From Britain to the Caribbean, diasporic Hindus have substantially reformed their beliefs and practices in accordance with their historical and social circumstances. In this theoretically innovative analysis Steven Vertovec examines:
* the historical construction of the category 'Hinduism in India'
* the formation of a distinctive Caribbean Hindu culture during the nineteenth century
* the role of youth groups in forging new identities during Trinidad's Hindu Renaissance
* the reproduction of regionally based identities and frictions in Britain's Hindu communities
* the differences in temple use across the diaspora.
This book provides a rich and fascinating view of the Hindu diaspora in the past, present and its possible futures.

This book focuses on the ritualized forms of mobility that constitute phenomena of pilgrimage in South Asia and establishes a new analytical framework for the study of ritual journeys. The book advances the conceptual scope of 'classical' Pilgrimage Studies and provides empirical depth through individual case studies. A key concern is the strategies of ritualization through which actors create, assemble and (re-)articulate certain modes of displacement to differentiate themselves from everyday forms of locomotion. Ritual journeys are understood as being both productive of and produced by South Asia's socio-economically uneven, politically charged and culturally variegated landscapes. From various disciplinary angles, each chapter explores how spaces and movements in space are continually created, contested and transformed through ritual journeys. By focusing on this co-production of space and mobility, the book delivers a conceptually driven and empirically grounded engagement with the diverse and changing traditions of ritual journeying in South Asia. Interdisciplinary in its approach, the book is a must-have reference work for academics interested in South Asian Studies, Religious Studies, Anthropology and Human Geography with a focus on pilgrimage and the socio-spatial ideas and practices of ritualized movements in South Asia.

Anantadas is the first "biographer" who, around 1600, wrote about the most popular bhakti poets of the 15th and 16th centuries in Northern India. This study of these manuscripts yields a broad spectrum of the linguistic and morphological variants. It also reveals the processes of oral and scribal transmission during this time when sectarian interests appropriated certain poets and changed their "biographies" accordingly. The main bulk of the book consists of a critical edition of the manuscripts (in Hindi), with an English translation of each of the "biographies", preceded by an analytical introduction in which the main ideas of the biographies are highlighted.

This text examines the role of the Hindu tradition in the ideology and methodology of the Indian Women's Movement. The book analyzes the relationship between the Hindu tradition and the Indian Women's Movement in order to demonstrate that members of the movement have advanced different interpretations of the tradition, and hence that they have had different reasons for and against appeal to Hindu beliefs and values. Through a review of speeches and writings of leading 19th- and 20th-century figures of the movement, the work identifies positive as well as negative representations of the tradition and its implications for women. Acordingly, it shows when and why the movement has chosen either to offer a traditional justification for its aims and activities or to eschew such a justification in favour of an alternative rationale. The study integrates an awareness of modern discourse about the position of women in the Hindu tradition with an account of the Indian Women's Movement. In so doing, it considers both how the Indian Women's Movement has conceptualized the position of women in the Hindu tradition and how the movement has challenged this position, concentrating on reference to t

This volume develops a historically informed phenomenology of caste and untouchability. It explores the idea of 'Brahmin' and the practice of untouchability by offering a scholarly reading of ancient and medieval texts. By going beyond the notions of purity and pollution, it presents a new framework of understanding relationships between social groups and social categories. An important intervention in the study of caste and untouchability, this book will be an essential read for the scholars and researchers of political studies, political philosophy, cultural studies, Dalit studies, Indology, sociology, social anthropology and Ambedkar studies.

This volume investigates the historic and ethnographic accounts of the ongoing religious contestations over the status of the Mahabodhi Temple complex in Bodhgaya (a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2002) and its surrounding landscape to critically analyse the working and construction of sacredness. It endeavours to make a ground-up assessment of ways in which human participants in the past and present respond to and interact with the Mahabodhi Temple and its surroundings. The volume argues that sacredness goes beyond scriptural texts and archaeological remains. The Mahabodhi Temple is complex and its surround ing landscape is a 'living' heritage, which has been produced socially and constitutes differential densities of human involvement, attachment, and experience. Its significance lies mainly in the active interaction between religious architecture within its dynamic ritual settings. This endless con testation of sacredness and its meaning should not be seen as the 'death' of the Mahabodhi Temple; on the contrary, it illustrates the vitality of the ongoing debate on the meaning, understanding, and use of the sacred in the Indian context. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

Mystical Science and Practical Religion examines the religious discourse employed by Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh applied science professionals and students, mainly engineers and Information Technology (IT) workers. Although applied scientists, especially immigrants to the United States, have shown high rates of religiosity, there have been few studies of this subject. Based on interviews with forty-five professionals and students, Cimino finds that although they are from different faiths, these applied scientists share a common discourse that blends religion and science. They each view their religions as the "most scientific." Their work and study reshapes how they practice and conceptualize their faiths, though not in the expected directions of secularization and fundamentalism. This book provides a unique look at how the much contested fields of science and religion interact in real life.

Hinduism is a concise and readable survey of the history of Hinduism, from its origins in the Indus Valley to its increasing popularity in today's Western world. Focusing particularly on the modern period, it provides a valuable introduction to contemporary Hindu beliefs and practices and looks at the ways in which this religion is meeting the challenges of the modern world.

This work, first published in 1968, presents the fabulous world of Hinduism in its entirety in two volumes. It is the first general encyclopedia of Hinduism covering every major aspect of Hindu life and thought, embodying the results of modern scholarship yet not ignoring the traditional point of view. It contains over 700 articles, each of which gives a comprehensive account of the subject, and by a system of cross references interlinks all topics related to it, so that a single theme may be traced in all its ramifications through the whole book. An index of over 8,000 items, which in itself forms a veritable treasury of Sanskrit terms and names, will further assist the researcher finding their way among the lesser topics treated in the work.

This collection comprises ten important volumes in the study of Hinduism. Written by leading authors, these works gather together Hindu religious practice, ethics and art to form an in-depth overview of the Hindu world. A Dictionary of Hinduism is a key work, as is the two-volume Hindu World. As a whole, they form an invaluable reference collection.

This book presents the multi-faceted Hindu deity Dattatreya from his Puranic emergence up to modern times. Dattatreya's Brahmanical portrayal, as well as his even more archaic characterization as a Tantric antinomian figure, combines both Vaisnava and Saiva motifs. Over the course of time, Dattatreya has come to embody the roles of the immortal guru, yogin and avatara in a paradigmatic manner. From the sixteenth century Dattatreya's glorious characterization emerged as the incarnation of the trimurti of Brahma, Visnu, and Siva. Although Maharastra is the heartland of Dattatreya devotion, his presence is attested to throughout India and extends beyond the boundaries of Hinduism, being met with in Sufi circles and even in Buddhism and Jainism via Nathism.

The scarce attention which most Western scholars of Indian religions have paid to this deity contrasts with its ubiquitousness and social permeability. Devotion to Dattatreya cuts through all social and religious strata of Indian society: among his adepts we find yogis, Brahmans, faqirs, Devi worshippers, untouchables, thieves, and prostitutes. This book explores all primary religious dimensions: myth, doctrine, ritual, philosophy, mysticism, and iconography. The comprehensive result offers a rich fresco of Hindu religion as well as an understanding of Marathi integrative spirituality: precisely this complexity of themes constitutes Dattatreya's uniqueness.

RELIGION / HINDUISM Shakti is synonymous with the Devi, the Divine Mother or divine power that manifests, sustains, and transforms the universe. She is the womb of all creatures, and it is through her that the One becomes the many. Our first and primary relationship to the world is through the mother, the source of love, security, and nourishment. Extending this relationship to worship of a cosmic being as mother was a natural step found not only in the Shakti cult of Hinduism but also in ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Babylonian cultures. Shakti presents more than 30 goddess incarnations of the Divine Mother that represent both the beneficial and malefic aspects of the Shakti force. From Lakshmi, Parvati, and Saraswati to Durga, Chandika, and Kali--each of the different functions of the female goddesses in the Hindu pantheon is revealed, accompanied by traditional Sanskrit hymns, classic verses by Sri Auribindo, and discussions of tantric philosophy. The author draws from the Devi Bhagavatham, which describes all the stories of Shakti, and the Devi Mahatmyam, the most powerful scriptural text that glorifies Shakti in her form as Durga. Using these texts she shows that through the power and grace of the Divine Mother we may be released from the darkness of ignorance and taken to the abode of knowledge, immortality, and bliss--the source from which we have come. MATAJI DEVI VANAMALI has written six books on the gods of the Hindu pantheon, including The Play of God and The Song of Rama, as well as translating the Bhagavad Gita. She is the founder and president of Vanamali Gita Yogashram, dedicated to sharing the wisdom of Sanatana Dharma and charitable service to children. She lives at theVanamali ashram at Rishikesh in northern India.