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.

Focusing on the idea of genealogical affiliation (sampradaya), Kiyokazu Okita explores the interactions between the royal power and the priestly authority in eighteenth-century north India. He examines how the religious policies of Jaisingh II (1688-1743) of Jaipur influenced the self-representation of Gaudiya Vaisnavism, as articulated by Baladeva Vidyabhusana (ca. 1700-1793). Gaudiya Vaisnavism centred around God Krsna was inaugurated by Caitanya (1486-1533) and quickly became one of the most influential Hindu devotional movements in early modern South Asia. In the increasingly volatile late Mughal period, Jaisingh II tried to establish the legitimacy of his kingship by resorting to a moral discourse. As part of this discourse, he demanded that religious traditions in his kingdom conform to what he conceived of as Brahmanicaly normative. In this context the Gaudiya school was forced to deal with their lack of clear genealogical affiliation, lack of an independent commentary on the Brahmasutras, and their worship of Goddess Radha and Krsna, who, according to the Gaudiyas, were not married. Based on a study of Baladeva's Brahmasutra commentary, Kiyokazu Okita analyses how the Gaudiyas responded to the king's demand.

We spend our lives protecting an elusive self - but does the self actually exist? Drawing on literature from Western philosophy, neuroscience and Buddhism (interpreted), the author argues that there is no self. The self - as unified owner and thinker of thoughts - is an illusion created by two tiers. A tier of naturally unified consciousness (notably absent in standard bundle-theory accounts) merges with a tier of desire-driven thoughts and emotions to yield the impression of a self. So while the self, if real, would think up the thoughts, the thoughts, in reality, think up the self.

The Classic of Changes (Yi jing) is one of the most ancient texts known to human civilization, always given pride of place in the Chinese classical tradition. And yet the powerful fascination exerted by the Classic of Changes has preserved the archaic text, widely attracting readers with a continuing interest in trying to understand it as a source of reflection and guide to ordinary circumstances of human life. Its monumental influence over Chinese thought makes the text an indispensable element in any informed approach to Chinese culture.Accordingly, the book focuses on the archaic core of the Classic of Changes and proposes a structural anthropological analysis for two main reasons. First, unlike many treatments of the Yi jing, there is a concern to place the text carefully in the context of the ancient culture

This work introduces the reader to the central issues and theories in Western environmental ethics, and against this background develops a Buddhist environmental philosophy and ethics. Drawing material from original sources, there is a lucid exposition of Buddhist environmentalism, its ethics, economics and Buddhist perspectives for environmental education. The work is focused on a diagnosis of the contemporary environmental crisis and a Buddhist contribution for positive solutions. Replete with stories and illustrations from original Buddhist sources, it is both informative and engaging.

This book comprehensively discusses the topics in Buddhism that are crucial for promoting lay people's welfare-from mundane bliss in this life, i.e., wealth and good interpersonal relationships, to prosperity in the future, i.e., a good rebirth and less time spent in Samsara. This book presents some moral guidelines and a spiritual training path designed for householders and lay Buddhists, helping them secure the welfare. The guidelines and the training path presented in the book are based on the Pali Nikayas and the Chinese Agamas in Early Buddhism and an influential Chinese Mahayana scripture-the Upasakasila Sutra

This book examines the use of Buddhist ideas, particularly mindfulness, to manage a broad spectrum of emotions and to address social and economic issues impacting the world, such as climate change. Beginning with a brief history of emotion studies, it highlights how recent developments in neuroscience and cognitive science have paved the way for exploring the utility of Buddhist concepts in addressing various psychological and social problems in the world. It profiles a wide range of emotions from Western and Buddhist perspectives including anger, sadness, depression, pride, and compassion, and analyses the integration of Buddhist ideas into modern clinical practice. Finally, the author demonstrates the utility of mindfulness in the regulation of emotions in various settings, including psychiatric clinics, schools, and businesses. Anchored in the Buddhist tradition this book this book provides a unique resource for students and scholars of counselling, psychotherapy, clinical psychology and philosophy.

The Kalacakratantra is the latest and most comprehensive Buddhist Tantra that is available in its original Sanskrit. This will be the first thorough academic work to be published on this Tantra. The Kalacakratantra's five chapters are classified into three categories: Outer, Inner, and Other Kalacakratantra. The present work concentrates on the Inner Kalacakratantra, which deals with the nature of a human being.

En esta obra los Seres de Luz intentaran lograr que un Alma que vive un 95% del tiempo en su Reino de Oscuridad, logre reintegrar todas las formas de su Alma en los 7 Niveles de Conciencia, para que de esta manera alcance la iluminacion, ya que si esta Alma logra alcanzar la iluminacion, La Conciencia de la Humanidad se expandira mas rapidamente. Hoy, aproximadamente el 5% de todas las Almas ya estan viviendo en la 4ta Dimension, el otro 95% continua viviendo en su mente tridimensional.

Intended as a methodological and theoretical contribution to the study of religion and society, this book examines Buddhist monasticism in Myanmar. The book focuses on the Shwegyin, one of the most important but least understood monastic groups in the country. Analyzing the group as a tradition constructed around ideas of continuity and disruption/rupture, the study illuminates key aspects of monastic and wider Burmese Buddhist thought and practice, and ultimately argues for the distinctiveness of elements of that thought and practice in comparison to the Buddhist cultures of Sri Lanka and Laos. After situating the Shwegyin within the history of Buddhist monasticism more generally, and within the vicissitudes of modern Burmese political history, the book proceeds along two scholarly avenues. It adopts an interdisciplinary method with attention to biographical, administrative, doctrinal, and ethnographic evidence. Theoretically, the book engages scholarly discussion about "traditions" and their "traditionalisms" and advances a specific type of interpretive approach built on bringing the viewpoints and practices of the Shwegyin into conversation with the enterprise of understanding larger historical and cultural patterns in the Buddhist societies of South and Southeast Asia.

This book is about a sacred place called Balkh, known to the ancient Greeks as Bactra. Located in the north of today's Afghanistan, along the silk road, Balkh was holy to many. The Prophet Zoroaster is rumoured to have died here, and during late antiquity, Balkh was the home of the Naw Bahar, a famed Buddhist temple and monastery. By the tenth century, Balkh had become a critical centre of Islamic learning and early poetry in the New Persian language that grew after the Islamic conquests and continues to be spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia today. In this book, Arezou Azad provides the first in-depth study of the sacred sites and landscape of medieval Balkh, which continues to exemplify age-old sanctity in the Persian-speaking world and the eastern lands of Islam generally. Azad focuses on the five centuries from the Islamic conquests in the eighth century to just before the arrival of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, the crucial period in the emergence of Perso-Islamic historiography and Islamic legal thought. The book traces the development of 'sacred landscape', the notion that a place has a sensory meaning, as distinct from a purely topographical space. This opens up new possibilities for our understanding of Islamisation in the eastern Islamic lands, and specifically the transition from Buddhism to Islam. Azad offers a new look at the medieval local history of Balkh, the Fada"il-i Balkh, and analyses its creation of a sacred landscape for Balkh. In doing so, she provides a compelling example of how the sacredness of a place is perpetuated through narratives, irrespective of the dominant religion or religious strand of the time.

The "Upanishads" are the sacred writings of Hinduism. They are perhaps the greatest of all the books in the history of world religions. Their origins predate recorded history, being revealed to the Rishis of the Vedic civilization some 5000 to 10,000 years ago. Many see them as the kernel of the mystical, philosophical truths that are the basis of the Higher World religion of Hinduism, their cradle, of which Buddhism is a successor and Judaism is an offshoot. With Islam and Christianity being offshoots of Judaism, this makes them the foundational documents for understanding and practising religion today. Much of the original text of the "Upanishads" is archaic and occasionally corrupted, but it does convey a moral and ethical thrust that is abundantly clear. Alan Jacobs uses modern free verse to convey the essential meaning and part of the original text. He omits Sanskrit words as far as possible and the commentary provided is contemporary rather than ancient.

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.

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.

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.

Buddhist and Taoist Systems Thinking explores a radical new conception of business and management. It is grounded on the reconnection of humans with nature as the new competitive advantage for living organizations and entrepreneurs that aspire to regenerate the economy and drive a positive impact on the planet, in the context of the Anthropocene. Organizations today struggle in finding a balance between maximizing profits and generating value for their stakeholders, the environment and the society at large. This happens in a paradigm shift characterized by unprecedented levels of exponential change and the emergence of disruptive technologies. Adaptability, thus, is becoming the new business imperative. How can, then, entrepreneurs and organizations constantly adapt and, at the same time, design the sustainable futures they'd like? This book uniquely explores the benefits of applying Buddhist and Taoist Systems Thinking to sustainable management. Grounded in Taoist and Zen Buddhist philosophies, it offers a modern scientific perspective fundamentally based on the concepts of bio-logical adaptability and lifefulness amidst complexity and constant change. The book introduces the new concept of the Gaia organization as a living organism that consciously helps perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet. It is subject to the natural laws of transformation and the principles of oneness, emptiness, impermanence, balance, self-regulation and harmonization. Readers will find applied Eastern systems theories such as the Yin-Yang and the Five Elements operationalized through practical methodologies and tools such as T-Qualia and the Zen Business model. They are aimed at guiding Gaia organizations and entrepreneurs in leading sustainable transformations and qualifying economic growth. The book offers a vital toolkit for purpose-driven practitioners, management researchers, students, social entrepreneurs, evaluators and change-makers to reinvent, create and mindfully manage sustainable and agile organizations that drive systemic transformation.

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.

Pamela D. Winfield offers a fascinating juxtaposition and comparison of the thoughts of two pre-modern Japanese Buddhist masters on the role of imagery in the enlightenment experience. Kukai (774-835) believed that real and imagined forms were indispensable to his new esoteric Mikkyo method for ''becoming a Buddha in this very body'' (sokushin jobutsu), yet he deconstructed the significance of such imagery in his poetic and doctrinal works. Conversely, Dogen (1200-1253) believed that ''just sitting'' in Zen meditation without any visual props or mental elaborations could lead one to realize that ''this very mind is Buddha'' (sokushin zebutsu), but he too privileged select Zen icons as worthy of veneration. In considering the nuanced views of Kukai and Dogen, Icons and Iconoclasm in Japanese Buddhism updates previous comparisons of their oeuvres and engages their texts and images together for the first time in two decades. Winfield liberates them from sectarian scholarship, which has long pigeon-holed them into iconographic/ritual vs. philological/philosophical categories, and restores the historical symbiosis between religious thought and artistic expression that was lost in the nineteenth-century disciplinary distinction between religious studies and art history. Winfield breaks new methodological ground by proposing space and time as organizing principles for analyzing both meditative experience as well as visual/material culture and presents a wider vision of how Japanese Buddhists themselves understood the role of imagery before, during, and after awakening.

There is an intense love of freedom evident in the "Xing zi mingchu," a text last seen when it was buried in a Chinese tomb in 300 B.C.E. It tells us that both joy and sadness are the ecstatic zenith of what the text terms "qing." Combining emotions into qing allows them to serve as a stepping stone to the Dao, the transcendent source of morality for the world. There is a process one must follow to prepare qing: it must be beautified by learning from the classics written by ancient sages. What is absent from the process is any indication that the emotions themselves need to be suppressed or regulated, as is found in most other texts from this time. The Confucian principles of humanity and righteousness are not rejected, but they are seen as needing our qing and the Dao. Holloway argues that the Dao here is the same Dao of Laozi's Daode jing. As a missing link between what came to be called Confucianism and Daoism, the "Xing zi mingchu" is changing the way we look at the history of religion in early China.

Following the fall of the Tibetan empire and the ensuing "period of fragmentation," the twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw tremendous religious efflorescence in Tibet. Although the Tibetan scholars and adepts of this period continued to draw from the texts and practices of Indian Buddhism, they also began to craft distinctly Tibetan intellectual and spiritual traditions. Hundreds of important masters lived and worked during this time, some of whom founded institutions that still exist today. Equally important were the scholars who lived on the margins of institutionalized Buddhism, teachers and meditators whose works, despite their great creativity, have been largely forgotten.
Jose Cabezon offers a study of the life and most important extant work of one such figure, Rog Bande Sherab, also known as Rogben (1166-1244). Rogben studied under some of the greatest teachers of his day. An itinerant scholar and yogi, he devoted his life to collecting important textual cycles and meditation techniques. Rogben's most important work, The Lamp of the Teachings, cuts across the genres of history, doctrinal studies, and doxography. It is one of the earliest philosophically robust explanations of the "nine vehicle" system of the Ancient or Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. TheBuddha's Doctrine and the Nine Vehicles is the first scholarly study of Rog Bande Sherab, a pivotal figure in both the Pacification (Zhiche) and Ancient traditions of Tibet, and one of the most original thinkers in Tibetan intellectual history."

From His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Mutt's cartoonist and award-winning author Patrick McDonnell comes a powerful and timely gem of a book on how to heal our relationship with the planet and each other. At the Dalai Lama's residence in Dharamsala, India, an unusual visitor has arrived. His Holiness interrupts his morning meditation to greet a troubled Giant Panda who has travelled many miles to see him. Welcoming him as a friend, His Holiness invites the Panda on a walk through a cedar forest. There in the shadow of the Himalayas, surrounded by beauty, they discuss matters great and small . . . With a galvanizing message about the future of our planet-text by His Holiness accompanied by McDonnell's masterful illustrations-Heart to Heart calls for a Compassionate Revolution, reminding us that "we are indeed all members of a single family, sharing one little house." Told with whimsy, wisdom, and warmth, this beautiful book is deceptively simple in its approach and all the more powerful for it, as it elegantly and decisively conveys a message of joy, hope and change. "There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday, and one is called Tomorrow."

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.