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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Non-Christian religions > Religions of Indic & Oriental origin > Hinduism
This work contains almost everything written by Bhagavan Sri Ramana
Maharshi, his inspired compositions, and a number of translations
from ancient Advaitic texts, representing the essence of his
teachings. They fall into two categories-those which exemplify the
path of surrender through love and devotion to the Divine, and
those which are more doctrinal. The first group included the Five
Hymns to Sri Arunachala, of which the first poem, The Marital
Garland of Letters, "is among the most profound and moving poems in
any language" and expressses the attitude of the soul aspiring for
union with God. Sri Bhagavan has affirmed that seekers who study
these works are certain to attain the Bliss of Liberation.
The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have
severely limited the portrayal of the divine as feminine. But in
Hinduism "God" very often means "Goddess". This extraordinary
collection explores twelve different Hindu goddesses, all of whom
are in some way related to Devi, the Great Goddess. They range from
the liquid goddess - energy of the River Ganges to the possessing,
entrancing heat of Bhagavati and Seranvali. They are local, like
Vindhyavasini, and global, like Kali; ancient, like Saranyu, and
modern, like "Mother India". The collection combines analysis of
texts with intensive fieldwork, allowing the reader to see how
goddesses are worshiped in everyday life. In these compelling
essays, the divine feminine in Hinduism is revealed as never before
- fascinating, contradictory, powerful.
Drawing from original texts on self-mastery, Evola discusses two
Hindu movements--Tantrism and Shaktism--which emphasize a path of
action to gain power over energies latent within the body.
The Wisdom of the Hindu Mystics
The principal texts selected and translated from the original
Sanskrit, "Upanishad" means "sitting near devotedly," which
conjures images of the contemplating student listening with rapt
attention to the teachings of a spiritual master. These are widely
considered to be philosophical and spiritual meditations of the
highest order.
Leonard Orr, one of the originators--along with Ram Dass, Fritz
Perls, and Timothy Leary--of the New Age movement, has spent a
lifetime in his own quest for physical immortality, and he claims
to have achieved it. In this easy-to-read book, he shows readers
how they can, too, laying out the fundamental elements of
transcending the physical in order to obtain everlasting life.
Illustrations.
Practicing Caste attempts a fundamental break from the tradition of
caste studies, showing the limits of the historical, sociological,
political, and moral categories through which it has usually been
discussed. Engaging with the resources phenomenology,
structuralism, and poststructuralism offer to our thinking of the
body, Jaaware helps to illuminate the ethical relations that caste
entails, especially around its injunctions concerning touching. The
resulting insights offer new ways of thinking about sociality that
are pertinent not only to India but also to thinking the common on
a planetary basis.
Here is the first translation into English of the Basava Purana, a
fascinating collection of tales that sums up and characterizes one
of the most important and most radical religious groups of South
India. The ideas of the Virasaivas, or militant Saivas, are
represented in those tales by an intriguing mix of outrageous
excess and traditional conservatism. Written in Telugu in the
thirteenth century, the Basava Purana is an anthology of legends of
Virasaivas saints and a hagiography of Basavesvara, the
twelfth-century Virasaiva leader. This translation makes accessible
a completely new perspective on this significant religious group.
Although Telugu is one of the major cultural traditions of India,
with a classical literature reaching back to the eleventh century,
until now there has been no translation or exposition of any of the
Telugu Virasaiva works in English. The introduction orients the
reader to the text and helps in an understanding of the poet's
point of view. The author of the Basava Purana, Palkuriki
Somanatha, is revered as a saint by Virasaivas in Andhra and
Karnataka. His books are regarded as sacred texts, and he is also
considered to be a major poet in Telugu and Kannada. Originally
published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest
print-on-demand technology to again make available previously
out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton
University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of
these important books while presenting them in durable paperback
and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is
to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in
the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press
since its founding in 1905.
In World of Wonders, Alf Hiltebeitel addresses the Mahabharata and
its supplement, the Harivamsa, as a single literary composition.
Looking at the work through the critical lens of the Indian
aesthetic theory of rasa, "juice, essence, or taste," he argues
that the dominant rasa of these two texts is adbhutarasa, the "mood
of wonder." While the Mahabharata signposts whole units of the text
as "wondrous" in its table of contents, the Harivamsa foregrounds a
stepped-up term for wonder (ascarya) that drives home the point
that Vishnu and Krishna are one. Two scholars of the 9th and 10th
centuries, Anandavardhana and Abhinavagupta, identified the
Mahabharata's dominant rasa as santarasa, the "mood of peace." This
has traditionally been received as the only serious contestant for
a rasic interpretation of the epic. Hiltebeitel disputes both the
positive claim that the santarasa interpretation is correct and the
negative claim that adbhutarasa is a frivolous rasa that cannot
sustain a major work. The heart of his argument is that the
Mahabharata and Harivamsa both deploy the terms for "wonder" and
"surprise" (vismaya) in significant numbers that extend into every
facet of these heterogeneous texts, showing how adbhutarasa is at
work in the rich and contrasting textual strategies which are
integral to the structure of the two texts.
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