Hindu Images in the Global Age explores changes in perception of Hindu icons in the United States where second and third generation Hindu Americans have increasingly adopted American attitudes toward sacred objects. Viewing them as symbolic, rather than as actual presence of the deity, this change marks an important transition in Hindu attitudes. The text describes the traditional path in India where Hindu images have been cast for millennia through the lost wax process and brought to life by priests. It also explores the origins of western attitudes toward sacred objects as symbolic. Both perceptions now co-exist in a western globalized world in the United States in a complex layering of attitudes.

Seeing Krishna in America describes the Hindu sect, the Vallabha Sampradaya, in India and its movement to the United States. Founded in the fifteenth century by a devotional saint, Vallabhacharya, the tradition worships a variety of forms of Krishna as a seven year old child. Following U.S. immigration reforms in 1965, members of the sect established a spiritual headquarters for the faith in Pennsylvania and began to construct temples in a number of states. Since then, the growth has continued as this 500 year old faith becomes an American religion.