This translation of a twelfth-century Sanskrit text is the most comprehensive presentation of Hindu ascetic practices available in English. It is also the clearest.

This is an intellectual history of occult and esoteric currents in the English-speaking world from the early Romantic period to the early twentieth century. The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 by ...

This book contains programmatic essays that focus on broad-ranging proposals for re-envisioning a discipline of comparative philosophy of religions. It also contains a number of case studies focussing ...

In this book Chittick explains Ibn al-ʿArabī's concept of human perfection, his World of Imagination, and his teachings on why God's wisdom demands diversity of religious expression. He then suggests ...

The Imam, the Divine Guide, is the central point around which the Shi'ite religion turns. The power of Shi'ism comes from the actions of the Imam. This title is reserved exclusively for the sucessors ...

This book looks at Rumi’s insights into the meaning of the second half of the basic Muslim creed, namely, the nature and function of revelation through prophets.

This book explores the possibility of a "liberatory postmodern rhetoric" or, alternatively, a "postmodern liberation rhetoric. " The author turns to one of the most ancient disciplines, rhetoric, in order ...

This book sets forth an ontological Copernican revolution. By means of a critical phenomenology, it shifts the axis of reflection from the putatively bedrock dualisms in which philosophy was conceived, ...

The Qur'an constantly exhorts people to 'look at the signs of god,' signs that are hidden 'in the horizons and in themselves. ' This book examines the mysteries of Islam using a phenomenological method ...

What is it like to be a Buddha? Is there only one Buddha or are there many? What can Buddhas do and what do they know? Is there anything they cannot do and cannot know? These and associated questions ...

Simone Weil is one of the major religious writers of the twentieth century. Hers is a unique blend of spiritual experience, social concern, and philosophical theory. She had marvelous command of the Western ...

The Life of Shabkar has long been recognized by Tibetans as one of the master works of their religious heritage. Following his inspired youth and early training in his native province of Amdo under the ...

Does a Bodhisattva's initial direct cognition of emptiness differ from subsequent ones? Can one "improve" a nondualistic understanding of the unconditioned and, if so, what role might subtle states of ...

This book provides a new rationale for "religious criticism" in American society. First, Dean shows why today's academic intellectuals are relatively indifferent to questions of meaning in America, pointing ...

This book deals in narrative form with the theme of recovering lost wholeness—with the perennial question of beginnings and what role a human being must play in order to find meaning in his or her life. ...

Brown's theory of tradition stands on its own as a significant contribution to the academic study of religions, but it also provides the framework for a challenging critique of contemporary American theologies—conservative, ...

This book is the first work in English to present a view from Russia of Islamic mysticism. Ibn Arabi and Rumi are the main characters of the book. Their views reflect Sufi understanding of the Absolute ...

The Little Clay Cart is a Sanskrit play revolving around a romantic theme of the love of a high-born man for a courtesan. It contains dramatic developments involving a dynastic overthrow and contains ...

A ground-breaking book that shows that the prevailing sexual ethic is no longer useful.

Traces the use of powerful gnostic visionary techniques from Hellenistic Gnosticism and Jewish merkabah mysticism, through Muhammad, the Ismaeilis, and theosophical Sufism to medieval neoplatonism, and renaissance alchemy.

A rich and detailed autobiography of one Japanese woman’s journey through life.

Fundamentalism is widely feared and its influence is growing in many of the major world faiths. Arising in reaction against modernism, fundamentalism affirms a pre-Enlightenment paradigm in a post-Enlightenment ...

Paranormal Experience and Survival of Death amasses data and surveys from a century of research on the paranormal on four continents: Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Studying the tensions between religious ...

This book is of particular interest because it shows the presence of the Yogācāra (Mind Only) school in Tibet. It is well known that the Mādhyamaka school flourished in Tibet, but less well known that ...

Hadewijch, a thirteenth-century woman, describes her relationship with God as a mutual loving in which God and she affect each other personally and profoundly. This book presents in detail the account ...

The author interprets Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki's account of Zen practice from a Kantian perspective in order to explore the deep connection between Zen meditation, or zazen, and respect for universal ...

This lay-flat, pocket-sized paperback (3 1/2 x 6 inches), includes Sargeant's translation, the transliterated Sanskrit, and the Devanagari script.

This volume explores the relationship between religion and politics. It brings a varied sample of richly detailed comparative and case studies together with a set of analytical paradigms in an integrated ...

Volume X of al-Ṭabarī's massive chronicle is devoted to two main subjects. The first is the selection of Abū Bakr as the first caliph or successor to the Prophet Muh'ammad following the Prophet's ...

This book deals with the meaning of a science rooted in the sacred, the metaphysical foundation of such science, its contrast to modern science and its pertinence to some of the major issues facing humanity ...

An Ocean Without Shore is a study of Ibn Arabi, known in Islam as al-Shaykh al-Akbar, the Greatest Spiritual Master. In the introduction, Chodkiewicz provides a good deal of documentation for the often ...

Mysticism presents a challenge to anyone who is interested in fundamental questions about the nature of reality, knowledge, and how we should live. In this book the author examines questions posed by ...

This is a book on Rumi's life, his poetry, his thought, and his influence. Rumi's work forms one of the pillars of the Sufi orders, particularly the Mevlevi order, better known in the West as the Whirling ...

Carter unfolds the cumulative traditions of Theravāda Buddhism by showing how one "looks at the world through Buddhist eyes." Presenting evidence from the Buddhist heritage in Sri Lanka, he develops ...

In this book, Linell Cady analyzes the role of religion and theology in American public life.

Although this volume deals with the part of al-Ṭabarī's History covering the years 12 and 13 (633-35), in the caliphates of Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq and ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, the narratives contained ...

Explores the journey beyond union, beyond self and God, into the silent and still regions of the Unknown.

This book deals with the "Book of Splendor" (Sefer ha-Zohar), the greatest achievement of Kabbalah and one of the most influential sources of Western mysticism. This book offers a new interpretation of ...

According to Advaita-Vedanta, God or Brahman is identical with the inner self (the Atman) of each person, while the rest of the world is nothing but objective illusion (maya). Shankara maintains that ...

Presenting eleven of Soroush’s essays, available in English for the first time.

This book deals with the nature and development of Jewish myth from the Talmudic period through Kabbalah to Hasidism. It describes the changes in this myth in its various stages and the external influences ...

This book surveys both the part women have played in Buddhism historically and what Buddhism might become in its post-patriarchal future. The author completes the Buddhist historical record by discussing ...

This section of the History of al-Ṭabarī covers the caliphate of Muḥammad al-Amīn, who succeeded his father, Hārūn al-Rashīd on March 24, 809, and was killed on September 25, 813.

The focus of ...

Protestantism has undergone a shift in its relationship with American culture and politics. This book analyzes and evaluates that shift. The author shows how Protestantism began in America as a vibrant ...

This book studies the diverse array of species of memory in Buddhism. Contributors focus on a particular school, group of texts, terms, or practices and identify a considerable range of types of mnemonic ...

In his Doctrine of Vibration, the author presents a synthesis of Kashmir Shaivism—an overview with Spanda as the central theme. Spanda is the vibratory dynamism of the absolute consciousness. In this ...

Rooting itself in Kashmir Shaivism, Śrividyā became a force in South India no later than the seventh century, and eventually supplanted the Trika as the dominant Tantric tradition in Kashmir. This is ...

The interdisciplinary approaches presented here investigate food in India and Sri Lanka for its wide ranging cultural meaning and uses. The authors examine food in religious and literary contexts, where ...

In this book al-Jami examines questions that Islamic theologians, philosophers, and Sufis had long debated. On each question al-Jami first presents the views of the philosphers and theologians. He then ...

This volume consists of eight studies, each one bringing to light new material of use to comparative religionists and historians of religion, as well as to students of Tibetan Buddhism. These studies ...

This book is an annotated translation of one of the great Tibetan classics of Mahayana Buddhist thought, mKhas grub rje's sTong thun chen mo. The text is a detailed critical exposition of the theory and ...

Explores the history of Muslim women and debates over gender, which have developed since the golden age of Islam.

This book illustrates the extent to which we can understand the writings of the leading tantricas whose views regarding the universe and enlightenment developed from ritual practice and yoga. Contributors ...

A comprehensive introduction to Islam.

The Shiva Sutra was revealed to Vasugupta by Shiva in order to counter the effects of dualism. This revelation initiated the hermeneutics of syntheses and exegesis climaxed by the great Abhinavagupta. ...

The Tao of Islam is a rich and diverse anthology of Islamic teachings on the nature of the relationships between God and the world, the world and the human being, and the human being and God. Focusing ...

Saint John of the Cross is one of the greatest figures in the history of Western mysticism and one of the greatest poets of the Spanish language. This book examines his thought and then applies it to ...

God the Creator provides a detailed exposition of a conception of God as the creator of everything determinate. It does not defend an established conception such as the Thomist, the Calvinist, or the ...

For this study of American religion, the author surveyed over 2000 Catholic high school seniors during a fourteen-year period, exploring changes in religiosity and attitudes toward the recent teachings ...

This book explores historical, textual, and social questions relating to the position and experience of women and gay people in the Buddhist world from India and Tibet to Sri Lanka, China, and Japan. ...

This book develops a theoretical framework for understanding the popularity of religion in its particular social contexts. The author provides analyses of examples of "religious renaissance," such as ...

The present volume of the History of al-Ṭabarī deals with the years 14 and 15 of the Islamic era, which correspond to A.D. 635-637. The nascent Islamic state had just emerged victorious from the crisis ...

Spanda is the vibratory dynamism of the absolute consciousness. In the first section of his commentary, Ksja presents spanda as identical with the essential self of each person. The second section presents ...

The present volume of al-Ṭabarī's monumental history covers the years 255-265/869-878, the first half of the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Muʿtamid in Sāmarrā. Although the decade was one of relative ...

The Sanskrit Puranas and epics are replete with stories of the avatars, incarnations of the god Visnu in various forms to rid the universe of malevolent forces and to restore the proper cosmic balance. ...

This complete translation of Masao Abe's essays on Dogen probes the core of the Zen master's philosophy and religion. This work analyzes Dogen's formative doubt concerning the notion of original awakening ...

This book shows how, once we have adjusted to the unitive state, the spiritual journey moves on to yet another more final ending.

In our major religious traditions, the outstanding milestone in the spiritual ...

This book looks at religion from a global perspective and examines how religion is shaped by the larger set of political and economic relationships that make up today's world. Focusing mainly on Western ...

This section of al-Ṭabarī's History covers the eight-year reign of al-Muʿtaṣim (833-42), immediately following the reign of his elder brother al-Ma'mun, when the Islamic caliphate was once more united ...

One of the great contributions of Tibetan Buddhism to the Buddhist tradition as a whole, and one of the things that distinguishes it from the Mahayana traditions that developed via China, has been the ...

When the charismatic founder/leader of a religious movement dies, the popular belief is that the movement usually disintegrates. However, many new religions not only survive but prosper, despite leadership ...

Maimonides on Judaism and the Jewish People explores Maimonides' philosophical psychology, his ethics, his views on prophecy, providence, and immortality, his understanding of the place of gentiles in ...

This volume continues the stories of the Israelite patriarchs and prophets who figured in Volume II, as well as of the semi-mythical rulers of ancient Iran. In addition to biblical, Qur'anic, and legendary ...

This book intends to systematically overcome the received practice of treating religion and politics as wholly separate and independent domains. It studies power and meaning in their "antagonistic interdependencies" ...

This book examines the complete Ganesh for the first time. Here is the God in his multiple forms from the different geographical areas in Asia. Particularly important are chapters that deal with his Buddhist ...

This book offers 112 dharanas -- 112 meditations or techniques -- for experiencing the extraordinary and paradoxical reality of unbounded consciousness called Bhairava. In her initial question to Bhairava, ...

Knights of Faith and Resignation brings out the richness of Kierkegaard's creative invention, the contemporary relevance of his contrasts between resignation and faith, and his probing conceptual analysis ...

This book brings important new dimensions to the interface between contemporary Western science and ancient Eastern wisdom. Here for the first time the concepts and insights of general systems theory ...

Here is a rhetorical treatment of Karl Barth's early theology. Although scholars have long noted the rhetorical power of Barth's work, calling it volcanic and explosive, this book uses rhetoric to illuminate ...

Griffin responds to critiques of his earlier work God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy.

Among the most ancient deities of South Asia, the yaksha straddle the boundaries between popular and textual traditions in both Hinduism and Buddhism and both benevolent and malevolent facets. As a figure ...

This book represents the first systematic collection and analysis of the principal legends about Kabir Das, a fifteenth-century poet-saint. It focuses on the ways in which the legends embody and reflect ...

Tathagatagarbha — Buddha Nature — is a central concept of Mahayana Buddhism crucial to all the living practice traditions of Tibetan and Zen Buddhism. Its relationship to the concept of emptiness ...

Coburn provides a fresh and careful translation from the Sanskrit of this fifteen-hundred-year-old text. Drawing on field work and literary evidence, he illuminates the process by which the Devī-Māhātmya ...

Explores the relationship between theology and the modern university.

This volume presents the first book-length study in English of the concept of Buddha nature as discussed in the Buddha Nature Treatise (Fo Xing Lun), attributed to Vasubandhu and translated into Chinese ...

This book goes to the very heart of the passionate debate over the true character of Christian faith and practice. The advance of liberation theology in the Latin American church has caused international ...

This volume deals with the caliphate of Yazīd. Yazīd was not accepted as a legitimate caliph by many of the leading Muslims of the time, and, therefore, al-Ṭabarī has concentrated his account of ...

This is a translation of the first fifteen stories of the thirteenth century Sinhala work, the Saddharma Ratnāvaliya written by the monk Dharmasēna. The Saddharma Ratnāvaliya is in turn an expanded ...

Nagao invariably focuses on the core of Mahāyāna Buddhism--the path of the Bodhisattva, the doctrine of śūnyatā, and the system of Trisvabhāva are explained.

Important technical terms used in the ...

This book offers a systematic analysis of one of the most important concepts characterizing the Yogācāra School of Buddhism (the last creative stage of Indian Buddhism) as outlined and explained in ...

This volume deals with the last two and a half years of the Prophet's life. In addition to the three major expeditions to Ḥunanyn, Tā'if, and Tabūk, it describes in detail the circumstances surrounding ...