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.

Forming the final part of the Sanskrit Mahabharata, the Harivamsha's main business is to supply narrative details about the great god Vishnu's avatar Krishna Vasudeva, who has been a comparatively minor character in the previous parts of the Mahabharata, despite having taken centre stage in the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna is born in Mathura (some 85 miles south of present-day Delhi). As an infant he is smuggled out of Mathura for his own safety. He and his brother Baladeva grow up among cowherds in the forest, where between them they perform many miraculous deeds and kill many dangerous demons, before returning to Mathura where they kill the evil King Kamsa and his cronies. Thereafter, Krishna is the hero and unofficial leader of his people the Yadava-Vrishnis. When Mathura is besieged by enemies, Krishna leads his people to abandon the town and migrate west, founding the dazzling new city of Dvaraka by the sea. Krishna then repeatedly travels away from that base repeatedly to perform heroic deeds benefitting those in need - including his own people, his more immediate family, and the gods. After narrating the stories of Krishna, the Harivamsha ends by finishing the story of Janamejaya with which the Mahabharata began. The Harivamsha is a powerhouse of Hindu mythology and a classic of world literature. It begins by contextualising Vishnu's appearance as Krishna in several ways, in the process presenting a variety of cosmogonical, cosmological, genealogical, mythological, theological, and karmalogical materials. It then narrates Krishna's birth and adventures in detail. Presenting a wide variety of exciting stories in a poetic register that makes extensive use of natural imagery, the Harivamsha is a neglected literary gem and an ideal starting-point for readers new to Indian literature.

The aim of this book is to discover in what light the religious and literary tradition of India appears where caste is concerned; including discussions on the present system, the past, and its origins.

'Defining Hinduism' focuses on what Hinduism is, what it has been, and what some have argued it should be. The oldest of the world religions, Hinduism presents a complex pantheon and system of beliefs. Far from being unchanging, Hinduism has, like any faith of duration, evolved in response to changing cultural, political and ideological demands. The book brings together some of the leading scholars working on South Asian religions today.

Jung's seminar on Kundalini Yoga, presented to the Psychology Club was an important event in the psychological understanding of Eastern thought and the symbolic transformations of inner experience. With sensitivity toward a new generation's interest in alternative religion and psychological exploration, Sonu Shamdasani has brought together the lectures and discussions from this seminar. In this volume, he re-creates for today's reader the fascination with which many intellectuals of pre-war Europe regarded Eastern spirituality as they discovered more and more of its resources, from yoga to tantric texts. In particular, Shamdasani guides his audience toward an appreciation of the questions that stirred the minds of Jung and his group: What is the relation between Eastern schools of liberation and Western psychotherapy? What connection is there between esoteric religious traditions and spontaneous individual experience? What light do the symbols of Kundalinia Yoga shed on conditions diagnosed as psychotic? In his introduction, Shamdasani reconstrcts the seminar through new documentation.

This study examines the process in Hinduism of reinterpreting classical texts and imbuing them with new inspiration. An example is Hariram Vras's "Ras-pancadhyayi", the earliest known Braj Bhasa version of the five chapters of "Bhagavatapurana" on Krsna's Dance with the Gopis. Hariram Vyas, a non-sectarian North Indian Krsna devotee (bkakta), lived around the middle of the 16th centiry in Vrindavan in the Braj area, the newly "discovered" centre of Krsna devotion. Vyas composed many devotional songs in praise of the love of Radha and Krsna but his "Ras-pancadhyayi" is the only longer work (it consists of 30 couplets) and the only one formally based on "Bhagavatapurana". This study consists of an English translation and scholarly edition which takes into account manuscript material. On the basis of the studies text, a comparison with the source text in "Bhagavatapurana" is undertaken. References are also made to the Sanskrit commentary of the theologian Vallabha and to another, slightly later Braj Bhasa recreation by the poet Nanddas. In contrast to the latter, Vyas takes more liberties in creating "Bhagavatapurana" which results in a different portrayal of the Gopis and Krsna, and,

This is a study of some 150 families (and about 1000 persons) of Hindus living in Edinburgh, and particularly about the fact that two associations exist among them, one of which is based on activities at a temple. This is thus a micro-study of an anthropological kind, which is linked to the wider world of the city as well as the South Asian population in the UK and the worldwide migration of South Asians.

Religious identity constitutes a key element in the formation, development and sustenance of South Asian diasporic communities. Through studies of South Asian communities situated in multiple locales, this book explores the role of religious identity in the social and political organization of the diaspora. It accounts for the factors that underlie the modification of ritual practice in the process of resettlement, and considers how multicultural policies in the adopted state, trans-generational changes and the proliferation of transnational media has impacted the development of these identities in the diaspora. Also crucial is the gender dimension, in terms of how religion and caste affect women's roles in the South Asian diaspora. What emerges then from the way separate communities in the diaspora negotiate religion are diverse patterns that are strategic and contingent. Yet, paradoxically, the dynamic and evolving relationship between religion and diaspora becomes necessary, even imperative, for sustaining a cohesive collective identity in these communities. This bookw as published as a special issue of South Asian Diaspora.

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.

Sri Aurobindo was an Indian nationalist, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. This book is an enquiry into the integral philosophy of Aurobindo and its contemporary relevance. It offers a reading of Aurobindo's key texts by bringing them into conversation with religious studies and the hermeneutical traditions. The central argument is that Aurobindo's integral philosophy is best understood as a hermeneutical philosophy of religion. Such an understanding of Aurobindo's philosophy, offering both substantive and methodological insights for the academic study of religion, subdivides into three interrelated aims. The first is to demonstrate that the power of the Aurobindonian vision lies in its self-conception as a traditionary-hermeneutical enquiry into religion; the second, to draw substantive insights from Aurobindo's enquiry to envision a way beyond the impasse within the current religious-secular debate in the academic study of religion. Working out of the condition of secularism, the dominant secularists demand the abandonment of the category 'religion' and the dismantling of the academic discipline of religious studies. Aurobindo's integral work on 'religion', arising out of the Vedanta tradition, critiques the condition of secularity that undergirds the religious-secular debate. Finally, informed by the hermeneutical tradition and building on the methodological insights from Aurobindo's integral method, the book explores a hermeneutical approach for the study of religion which is dialogical in nature. This book will be of interest to academics studying Religious Studies, Philosophy of Religion, Continental Hermeneutics, Modern India, Modern Hinduism as well as South Asian Studies.

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.

In the twenty-first century, there has been a seismic shift in Indian political, religious and social life. The country's guiding spirit was formerly a fusion of the anti-caste worldview of B.R. Ambedkar; the inclusive Hinduism of Mahatma Gandhi; and the agnostic secularism of Jawaharlal Nehru. Today, that fusion has given way to Hindutva. This now-dominant version of Hinduism blends the militant nationalism of V.D. Savarkar; the Brahmanical anti-minorityism of M.S. Golwalkar; and the global Islamophobia of India's ruling regime. It requires deep cultural analysis and historical understanding, as only the sharpest and most profoundly informed historian can provide. For two decades, Tanika Sarkar has forged a path through the alleys and byways of Hindutva. She has trawled through the writing and iconography of its organisations and institutions, including RSS schools and VHP temples. She has visited the offices and homes of Hindutva's votaries, interviewing men and women who believe fervently in their mission of Hinduising India. And she has contextualised this new ferment on the ground with her formidable archival knowledge of Hindutva's origins and development over 150 years, from Bankimchandra to the Babri mosque and beyond. This riveting book connects Hindu religious nationalism with the cultural politics of everyday India.

"Dr. Bhardwaj's in-depth study of the various aspects of the institution of pilgrimage shows that instead of being a simple practice it has been a gigantic phenomenon affecting all aspects of Indian life...integrating diverse forces, various cults, and numerous traditions over the ages."--Asian Student "This is the best general survey of a major religion's total pilgrimage system and the best intensive investigation of one of its subsystems...Dr. Bhardwaj's book is an important step towards the recognition of a social phenomenon which has for millennia played a crucial role in the integration of religions, nationalities, and international communities. And, not least importantly, it is highly readable."--Journal of the American Academy of Religion "Detailed, accurate, and generally informative; he has succeeded in tracing, for the first time, the relationship of the rank-order or 'level' of a sacred place...to its degree of sanctity, type of deity, and caste and motivation of the pilgrim...The implications of Mr. Bhardwaj's study are profound and necessary to the understanding of Indian religion...it is fascinating." --Times Literary Supplement "Here is a fine example of what the geographic study of India needs: disciplined work that shows full awareness of Indian cultural meanings...it sets a worth standard."--Professional Geographer

The aim of this book is to discover in what light the religious and literary tradition of India appears where caste is concerned; including discussions on the present system, the past, and its origins.

The marriage of Bhagavad Gita's profound wisdom and India's premier artists culminates in The Gita Deck: Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita. Sixty-eight jewel-like verses of spiritual understanding adorn beautiful art cards depicting India's rich spiritual heritage. Each card showcases a verse from the Gita under headings including Individuality, True Leaders, Winds of Desire, Maintaining Balance, Determination, Eternal Soul, and Fall from Grace. The cards are unique and inspirational-a contemporary gateway for accessing the guidance and wisdom of the Gita. A portable, easily referenced box set.

An account of some of the achievements of Sathya Sai Baba, one of the most impressive men of miracles to appear for centuries.

The Samkhyayoga institution of Kapil Math is a religious organisation with a small tradition of followers which emerged in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century in Bengal in India around the renunciant and yogin Hariharananda Aranya. This tradition developed during the same period in which modern yoga was born and forms a chapter in the expansion of yoga traditions in modern Hinduism. The book analyses the yoga teaching of Hariharananda Aranya (1869-1947) and the Kapil Math tradition, its origin, history and contemporary manifestations, and this tradition's connection to the expansion of yoga and the Yogasutra in modern Hinduism. The Samkhyayoga of the Kapil Math tradition is based on the Patanjalayogasastra, on a number of texts in Sanskrit and Bengali written by their gurus, and on the lifestyle of the renunciant yogin living isolated in a cave. The book investigates Hariharananda Aranya's connection to pre-modern yoga traditions and the impact of modern production and transmission of knowledge on his interpretations of yoga. The book connects the Kapil Math tradition to the nineteenth century transformations of Bengali religious culture of the educated upper class that led to the production of a new type of yogin. The book analyses Samkhyayoga as a living tradition, its current teachings and practices, and looks at what Samkhyayogins do and what Samkhyayoga is as a yoga practice. A valuable contribution to recent and ongoing debates, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Religious Studies, Anthropology, Asian Studies, Indology, Indian philosophy, Hindu Studies and Yoga Studies.

Recent studies of South India in the 19th- and 20th-centuries concentrate primarily on political and social issues. Studies of specifically religious developments, of religious encounter, institutions and movements, particularly of the 19th-century, have been few in number. The prupose of this study is to examine religious institutions, trends and developments in parts of South-east India, focusing on the Tanjore and Trichonopoly districts - areas famous for cultural and religious activity. It is recalled that neither Hinduism and Christianity were totally static forms of religious organization, ritual or belief, but were living traditions always in the process of change and adaptation. Thus, one of the major concerns of this book deals with continuities, conversion and change.