Reveals how the persona of India's most famous emperor was constantly reinvented in ancient times to suit a variety of social visions, political agendas, and moral purposes.

A richly scholarly yet accessible and imaginative account of society in the time of the Buddha.

Contextualizes Sabha Theatre historically, politically, and aesthetically, revealing how it expresses a Tamil Brahmin identity that is at once traditional and modern.

Examines the place of history in the political thought of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, one of the key architects of modern Hindu nationalism.

Chronicles the astonishing and counterintuitive spread of Christianity among a group of previously isolated tribes in a remote and hilly part of Northeastern India.

Documents how the premodern techniques of narrating the past in South Asia were deeply transformed by colonial modernity, resulting in newer forms of truth-telling within the Sikh community.

Explores the rich diversity of narratives, rituals, and participants connected with one of the most important celebrations for Hindus in South Asia and in the diaspora.

Explores how a folk ballad in southern India transforms the landscape and embeds the deities that are its subject within the social worlds of their devotees.

Examines the colonization of Goa in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the durability of Portuguese rule.

Rejects Hindu nationalism and pluralist secularism in favor of a revitalized politics of Indian federalism.

Examines English-language Indian newspapers from the mid-nineteenth century and their role in simultaneously sustaining and probing British colonial governance.

Examines the relationship between Mughal political culture and the two dominant strains of Islam's Sufi traditions in South Asia: one centered around orthodoxy, the other focusing on a more accommodating and mystical spirituality.

A major contribution to the study of South Asian literature, offering a landmark view of Mahābhārata studies.

Examines the key role of a hagiographer within a charismatic religious movement.

The first book to offer a detailed framework, a fine-grained history, and an analytically nuanced understanding of one of the rarest branches of Hindu worship.

A systematic analysis of the myth cycle of Paraśurāma (“Rāma with the Axe”), an avatára of Viṣṇu with a much darker reputation.

Critical essays on the transnational Kashmiri-American poet.

Sets out the challenges presented to Muslim societies by Western dominance over the past two hundred years, and explores Muslim responses, particularly in the context of South Asia.

Unique interdisciplinary analysis of gendered and racialized economies of care in South Asia and the Americas.

Broadens the parameters of religious studies by accounting for material acts that help shape religious worlds.

Essays on modern Indian history and the legacy of Partition.

Explains the Hindi novel’s role in anticipating and creating the story of middle-class modernity and modernization in North India.

Groundbreaking analysis of how colonialism created new conceptual categories and spatial forms that reshaped rural societies.

Explores the role of meditation on the five elements in the practice of Yoga.

A rare look at the history of Himalayan peasant society and the relationship between culture and environment in the Himalayas.

A distillation of the historian’s finest writings on modern Indian historical themes.

This exploration of key terms related to social and political order, found in early Indian texts, challenges the idea of a unified ancient India and a unified national identity at that time.

Explores the contemporary nature and the diverse narratives, rituals, and performances of the Navarātri Festival.

Presents rare biographies of traditional Indian scholars during the nineteenth century, a critical moment of transition for the Indian intellectual tradition.

Challenges the monolithic view of Hinduism in the nineteenth century, and instead offers a vision of India that contains a rich multiplicity of Hinduisms, women’s stories, and cultural histories.

Explores how religious travel in India is transforming religious identities and self-constructions.

Challenges prevailing conceptions of what religious ritual does and how it achieves its ends.

Captures how Indian Protestant Christians negotiate their religious and cultural identities within the Indian diaspora.

Essays on Telugu and South Indian literature and culture by distinguished Telugu scholar Narayana Rao.

Illuminates the contradictions that emerge within conscious capitalism initiatives that are designed to empower women.

Offers a fresh perspective on the Mahābhārata based on an exploration of its ending, the Svargārohaṇa parvan.

A collection of Raj’s groundbreaking ethnographic studies of “vernacular” Catholic traditions in Tamil Nadu, India.

Uses two case studies to demonstrate how neoliberal reforms in India have de-democratized labor politics.

Explores the activities and political personas of women activists in Shiv Sena, a militant Indian political party.

Creates a new space for hybrid feminist analysis of Asian Muslim women’s lives.

Argues that Indian cinema’s deep nineteenth-century past continues to play a vital role in its twenty-first-century present.

Thorough exploration of the distinct culture of the Mappila Muslims of Kerala, India.

Discusses Hindu Advaita Vedānta as a philosophy of social justice for the modern world.

Uses both textual and ethnographic sources to demonstrate that in Śaṅkara’s vedānta, brahman is an active force as well as a transcendent ultimate.

A translation of the Īśvara Gītā, a parallel text to the Bhagavad Gītā that promotes religious inclusion.

Exploring homegrown movements and figures, proclaims “American Hinduism” as a distinct religious tradition.

Explores the nonviolent philosophy and environmental activism of India’s Sunderlal Bahuguna.

A fascinating study of the gemstone industry of Jaipur with special emphasis on its ownership class.

Discusses Gandhi’s creative use of ascetic practice, particularly his practice of celibacy, for nonviolent activism.

Looks at narrative in the history of ayurvedic medical literature and the perspectives on illness and patienthood that emerge.

An exploration of the history, religion, and folklore of the Nāths, a Hindu lineage known for Hatha yoga practice.

Explores the transformation of Hindi poetry as it reflects a changing society during the period from 1885 to 1925.

Reconsiders whether Hinduism can be considered a missionary religion.

Examines transnational movement building through a focus on acid attacks and organizing against acid violence in Bangladesh.

A multi-faceted portrait of Lakshmi, Hindu goddess of wealth and prosperity. Includes translations of verses used to invoke this goddess.

Details the transformation of Tamil literary culture that came with colonialism and the encounter with Western modernity.

Addresses not only the basic theme of phenomenology, but its aesthetic, social, psychological, scientific, and technological aspects as well.

An exploration and translation of the work of Hindu poet-saint Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār.

A study and translation of a tantric contemplative manual and the commentary on it.

An interlinear edition of the spiritual classic that provides devanagari, transliterated Sanskrit, and English versions of the Gītā.

The oldest surviving anthology of lyric poems from India, the Sattasai presents the many aspects of love and provides a realistic counterpart to the Kāmasūtra.

How perceptions of land and space influence social and aesthetic conditions in the Tamil region of India.

A fresh look at Yoga philosophy.

A comprehensive overview of Ayurveda.

A translation and analysis of Guru Nanak’s description of the Sikh path to spiritual liberation.

The third edition of this well-regarded introduction to Hinduism adds new material on the religion’s origins, on its relations with rival traditions, and on Hindu science.

This sixteenth-century work has a modern sensibility, presenting characters' inner worlds and understanding love as the fullest realization of the individual.

Documents the lifelong journey of faith—full of challenges along the way—that made Gandhi the enlightened spiritual leader we revere.

Looks at the ideals of masculine Hinduism—and the corresponding feminine ideals—that have built the Indian nation, and explores their consequences.

Examines female infanticide in colonial and postcolonial India.

Explores contemporary controversies in bioethics from a Hindu perspective.

An exploration of Hindu women’s folk religion focusing on goddess worship and women’s rituals.

Addresses the psycho-physical dualism of the Nyaya school of Indian philosophy with references to both Indian and Western philosophy.

Examines the contemporary workings of property law in India through the lives and thoughts of middle-class and poor women.

This translation and commentary on an important Hindu text on the Great Goddess envisions a universe created and protected by a compassionate female deity.

This examination of Sri Lanka's ethnic and religious minorities links the past with the present through a treatment of Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalist development in the late nineteenth century and its hegemony in the late twentieth.

The last work of the eminent philosopher Bimal Krishna Matilal, this book traces the origins of logical theory in India.

Presents the multi-faceted Hindu deity Dattatreya from his Puranic emergence to modern times.

Examines the legendary life and poetic works of Ramprasad, the eighteenth-century Bengali devotee of the Goddess, whose songs were influential in his own time and remain popular today.

Examines texts and commentaries in the Tamil-language SArivastradition of South India; about the general issues of text, vision, and narrative that such texts raise, and about the implications of these for a particular style of comparative theology.

Investigates the complex social processes involved in the introduction and institutionalization of Western science in colonial India.

The essays investigate the images of women and femininity found in the traditions of the Marathi language region of India, Maharashtra, and how these images contradict the actualities of women's lives. ...

Lee, former South Korean government Minister of Labor for the South Korean government, discusses the country's economic development from 1945-1994 and the public policies that shaped it, arguing that if South Korea is to become a major economic power, the government should withdraw from the economic front line.

Written by one of the most highly regarded monk-scholars in Southeast Asia, this book is a modern distillation of the pivotal doctrines found in the Pali Buddhist canon.

This is a survey of the Ismaili Muslim traditions and a translation of many Santpanth Ismaili Ginans (hymns.)

Elizarenkova, perhaps the greatest living scholar of the Rand certainly its greatest linguist, explains here the relationships between a very complicated grammatical system and the peculiarities of style ...

This book explores the rise of the Great Goddess by focusing on the development of saakti (creative energy), maya (objective illusion), and prakr(materiality) from Vedic times to the late Puranic period, ...

Authority, Anxiety, and Canon elucidates a principle fundamental to Hinduism's self-understanding—the Veda—while at the same time examining the methodological issues of the role of canon in religious ...

Three centuries after Jnaneshwar, devotional poetry had another full flowering in Western India. Tukaram Maharaj was a merchant and householder who seemed to fail at everything. Bankruptcy, the death ...

Thirteenth-century India saw a huge revival of religious devotion among the common folk, similar to the waves of religious fervor that swept over late medieval Europe. One of the pillars of this revival ...

The Bhagavad Gita contains a vision that is not Hindu or oriental but essentially human. It's no wonder that Emerson and Thoreau and Ghandi loved this text and were so deeply influenced by it. Now the ...

A vast and diversified religious movement originating from Sai Baba of Shirdi, is often referred to as "the Sai Baba movement. " Through the chronological presentation of Sai Baba's life, light is shed ...

The recipes, information, and philosophy of food contained in this book are based on the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. Although the recipes are intended to support a yogic lifestyle, they are not for ...

Reveals the mystical teachings and practices of the Chishti Sufi order as taught by the ecstatic Shaykh Burhan al-Din Gharib (d. 1337) and his disciples.

This book opens the doors to a social and cultural sphere beyond the limited world of the English-speaking elite and provides the basis for an understanding of religious controversy and internal reform. ...

The major religious traditions of South Asia are 'religions of the book'. All accept basic arrays of texts of scriptures, often seen as sacred reservoirs of meaning and power. The West has viewed these ...

This book examines, above all, the relationship between reason and Vedic revelation, and the philosophical responses to the idea of the Veda. It deals with such topics as dharma, karma and rebirth, the ...

This book presents a critical and comprehensive biography of Radhakrishnan. The authors explain how Radhakrishnan, who had a British knighthood and an Oxford Professorship, and who did not participate ...

This book is a study of India's great epic, the Mahabharata, against the background of Indo-European myth, epic, and ritual. It builds upon the pioneering studies in these areas by Georges Dumezil and ...