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 ...

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 ...

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 most important discoveries of the 20th century exist not in the realm of science, medicine, or technology, but rather in the dawning awareness of the earth's limits and how those limits will affect ...

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 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 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, ...

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 ...

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

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 ...

Offers a detailed comparative analysis of two thinkers from different traditions.

Du Toit contributes to the study of the climacteric as an important phase of the life cycle among women of different cultures (the later reproductive and postreproductive years). Drawing upon perspectives ...

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 ...

This book explores in a comparative perspective two fundamentalist waves that have rolled over the Middle East during the last two decades. Jewish and Muslim extremism have had a profound impact on the ...

The authors of the Devī-Bhāgavata Purāna endeavored to demonstrate the superiority of the Devī over competing masculine deities, and to articulate in new ways the manifold nature of the Goddess. Brown's ...

(Chu) Tao-sheng stands out in history as a unique and preeminent thinker whose paradigmatic, original ideas paved the way for the advent of Chinese Buddhism. The universality of Buddha-nature, which Tao-sheng ...

This volume covers the years 700-715 A.D., a period that witnessed the last five years of the caliphate of the Umayyad 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwān and the whole of the caliphate of his son al-Walīd. In ...

This book is a translation and study of the poems of a ninth-century woman saint and mystic. The Introduction is designed to make the translations accessible to a non-specialist audience, while the Notes ...

The role of Confucianism in the development of East Asian Cultures has only recently begun to be fully appreciated. Even with this recognition, there is still little understanding of the tradition as ...

This book examines the highly politicized religious groups and movements that have surfaced since the late 1970s in the United States, Central America, South Africa, the Philippines, India, and the Middle ...

After presenting a general survey of spiritual practice in the different schools of Indian philosophy, the author focuses on the Trika School, popularly called Kashmir Shaivism. He deals clearly and exhaustively ...

This volume opens when the caliph al-Manṣūr has just defeated the rebellion of Muḥammad the Pure Soul in 145/762-3 and is now securely established in power. The main concerns of the remaining thirteen ...

The period covered in this volume is one of the most tumultuous periods of Islamic history. In it, al-Ṭabarī details with great success the intricate events that shaped real political power in Sāmarrā ...

By 735 an Arab empire stretched from Arles and Avignon in southern France to the Indus River and Central Asia, and a vital young civilization fostered by a new world religion was taking root. Yet the ...

The concluding pages of al-Ṭabarī's History cover the caliphates of al-Muʿtaḍid and al-Muktafī and the beginning of the reign of al-Muqtadir--altogether a period of 23 turbulent years in world history. ...

Liberation theologians either argue for the liberating character of popular religion or they vilify it as alienating and otherworldly. This book takes a comprehensive and in- depth look at the issues, ...

The history of women's spirituality and Christian mysticism demonstrates that women have been influential religious leaders even without benefit of priestly ordination and theological training. St. Catherine ...

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

"In this world there are some devoted people who are undeveloped in reflection and have not taken pains in studying difficult works, but who nevertheless aspire after the enlightenment that blossoms forth ...

Before the caliphate of the ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, the Muslim community had grown from strength to strength in spite of a series of major crises--the Hirah, the death of the Prophet, the Riddah wars, ...

Volume XXI of the History of al-Ṭabarī (from the second part of 66/685 to 73/693) covers the resolution of "the Second Civil War." This conflict, which has broken out in 64/683 after the death of the ...

This is an annotated English translation of the poetry of Han-shan (Cold Mountain), a 7th or 8th century Chinese Buddhist recluse who wrote many poems about his life alone in the hills. Many of his poems ...

The events described in this volume took place during al-Ṭabarī's own time. Al-Ṭabarī was thus writing "contemporary history," and his narrative, often based on first-hand reports, is drawn in vivid ...

The Hindu sacred order is guarded by the very gods who violate it and the demons who oppose it. This book is a who's who of such transgressive figures, both familiar and unfamiliar, showing their place ...

This is the first in-depth look at the political theoretical structure of liberation theology. Pottenger shows how liberation theologians, writing from the perspective of the poor and oppressed, denounce ...

This work brings together in a single volume the translated essays of Buddhadasā Bhikkhu, the major interpreter of Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia.

In this book, the author seeks access to Karma's origins by following several clues suggested by the doctrine's earliest formulation in the Upanistexts (circa 600-500 B.C.) These clues lead back to the ...

This volume deals with the aftermath of the decisive battle at al-Qādisiyyah described in the previous volume. First, the conquest of southern Iraq is consolidated; in rapid succession there follow the ...

This volume covers the vital early years of the second Muslim civil war, when the Umayyad caliphate seemed on the point of extinction. That it survived had much to do with the vigor of the Umayyad Marwān ...

This is a condensed version of a long Purana of 18,000 verses. By means of stories from the lives of avatars, sages, and kings, it popularized the teaching of the Vedas. To study it is the best of all ...

The years 738-745/121-127, which this volume covers, saw the outbreak in Syria of savage internecine struggles between prominent members of the Umayyad family, which had ruled the Islamic world since ...

In this volume, which covers the caliphates of Sulaymān, ʿUmar II, and Yazīd II, al-Ṭabarī provides vivid and detailed accounts of the events spanning the period from 97-105/715-724. We listen to ...

This volume of al-Ṭabarī's History covers nearly a quarter of a century, and after covering the very brief caliphate of al-Hādī, concentrates on that of Hārūn al-Rashīd. During these years, the ...

"I have prepared a trident of Wisdom in order to cut asunder their bondage. " — Abhinavagupta

This is a long commentary on a short Tantra. One of the most authoritative and venerated texts in Kashmir ...

Advice on the Art of Governance portrays the political thinking of the Mughals and exemplifies Indo-Islamic political subtlety. Written by a high-ranking Mughal noble in the early seventeenth century, ...

This book provides a detailed examination of the central philosophical and theological themes of liberation theology. It covers the role of history and praxis, the dialectics of salvation and liberation, the concept of social and personal sin, Marxism, and the anthropology of concrete totality as the basis of theology.

This volume chronicles the history of the Islamic state in the years A. H. 74-81 (A. D. 693-701), after the final defeat of Ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca put an end to twelve years of civil war and reunited ...

Ibn al-'Arabi is still known as "the Great Sheik" among the surviving Sufi orders. Born in Muslim Spain, he has become famous in the West as the greatest mystical thinker of Islamic civilization. He was ...

This volume deals with the part of Ṭabarī's great History covering the first fifteen years of the caliphate of the Umayyad Hishām ibn 'Abd al-Malik, which represents almost the last period of universal ...

This is an anthology on the history, politics, and social aspects of Shi'ism including translations of original sources. It examines the historical development of Shi'ism, Shi'i political thought, the ...

Volume I of the thirty-eight volume translation of Ṭabarī's great History begins with the creation of the world and ends with the time of Noah and the Flood. It not only brings a vast amount of speculation ...

In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy brings into a single volume J. Baird Callicott's decade-long effort to articulate, defend, and extend the seminal environmental philosophy ...

The sixth volume of the translation of al-Ṭabarī's History deals with the ancestors of Muḥammad, with his own early life, and then with his prophetic mission up to the time of his Hijrah or emigration ...

Sounds of Valley Streams is a study of Zen Buddhist enlightenment in nine chapters of Shōbōgenzō Dōgen. Francis H. Cook has translated the nine chapters and has preceded them with four chapters of ...

Addressed to readers who have found liberal theology empty or who believe that one cannot be religious and fully rational and empirical at the same time.

Exploring its vigorous hold on believers and its influence on American public life, Boone approaches the authority of fundamentalism through its discourse. She uses literary theory to explain how the ...

This book explores one of the most explicit and sophisticated theoretical formulations of tantric yoga. It explains Abhinavagupta's teaching about the nature of ultimate reality, about the methods for ...

In this book, you can see how the divine has been perceived in feminine form. Here are ten of the best known goddesses from a variety of cultures -- East and West, past and present. A wide range is presented, ...

Kundalini's power lies dormant in humans until it is awakened. The awakened Kundalini expresses the primal divine impulse and ultimately joins the individual with the divine. The development of the book ...

This book takes a genuinely new spiritual stance reflecting the emergence of a post-modern science and differing from the relativistic nihilism that calls itself postmodern but is really modernism extended ...

This book explicates the origin, nature, function, and significance of mantras within the bounds of the Hindu tradition. It explores the use of mantras in the Vedic age, in Saivism and Vaisnavism, in ...

Evelyn Underhill was a pioneer in revitalizing interest in mysticism and in the spiritual life as lived by ordinary people. Here are some of her articles that demonstrate the variety and development of ...

This book is a unique study of Shi'a Islam as it lives in the minds and hearts of people in a Southwest Iranian village. The central segment of the text is presented in the form of edited interviews conducted ...

This book presents important topics regarding the more mystical trend of Kabbalah—the ecstatic Kabbalah. It includes the mystical union, the world of imagination, and concentration as a spiritual technique. ...

The major theme of this book is authority in Shi`ism with special emphasis on its institutionalization in different historic periods from the beginning of Shi`ism in the Middle Ages to the present.

Part ...

This is a condensed version of a long epic, written between 750 and 500 B. C., consisting of 50,000 lines of Sanskrit verse. Divided into seven Kanor books, it tells the story of Rama from his birth to ...

This book presents multi-faceted images of religious experience in the Marathi-speaking region of India. In addition to Irawati Karve's classic, "On the Road," about her pilgrimage to Pandharpur, there ...

This book examines the specific circumstances that nurture fundamentalist beliefs and practices. It studies contemporary fundamentalist developments in several continents, involving groups associated ...

This book examines biblical and rabbinic law as a coherent, continuing legal tradition. It explains the relationship between religion and law and the interaction between law and morality. Abundant selections ...

Renowned for its terse declaration of the perfection of wisdom, the Heart Sutra is the most famous of Buddhist scriptures. The author draws on previously unexamined commentaries, preserved only in Tibetan, ...

The first wide-scale presentation of a major Jewish mystic, the founder of the ecstatic Kabbalah.

This book serves as an introductory study of Tantric Śaivism in its original scriptural sources. It traces the features and content of the canon of the Śaiva Tantras, making use of many unpublished ...

Cutting across distinctions of schools and types, the author explains the central feature of Kashmir Shaivism: the creative pulse of the all pervasive Consciousness called SAiva. This is also the central theme of the Hindu Tantras, and Dyczkowski provides new insight into the most literate and extensive interpretations of the Tantras.

Titus Burckhardt was Swiss and an eminent member of the traditionalist school. He is perhaps best known to the English-speaking public as the author of the following books: Sacred Art in East and West; ...

It is the thought of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan that is most often presented in the West as "Hinduism. " He was a remarkable man. In addition to having been President of India while Nehru was Prime Minister, ...