Hindu Studies

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Wonder in South Asia

A comparative study of wonder in South Asian religions.

The Festival of Indra

Details the textual and performative history of the South Asian festival of Indra and its role in the development of classical Hinduism.

The Truths and Lies of Nationalism as Narrated by Charvak

Edited by Partha Chatterjee
Notes by Partha Chatterjee
Subjects: Asian Studies

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

Hindutva and Violence

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

Nine Nights of Power

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.

Singing the Goddess into Place

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.

The Hagiographer and the Avatar

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

Many Mahābhāratas

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

Words of Destiny

Investigates the professional practices of astrologers in urban India and their popularity among the educated middle and upper classes.

Material Acts in Everyday Hindu Worlds

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

Till Kingdom Come

By Lokesh Ohri
Subjects: Asian Studies

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.

The Other Rāma

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

The Science of Satyug

The first in-depth study of the All World Gayatri Pariwar, a modern Indian religious movement.

Tracing the Path of Yoga

A comprehensive and theory-rich investigation of the history and philosophy of yoga, from its Indian origins to the contemporary context.

Word, Chant, and Song

An accessible introduction to the centrality of word, chant, and song in the Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, and Sikh traditions.

Fiction as History

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

Essays of a Lifetime

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

Nine Nights of the Goddess

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

Ritual Innovation

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

Hindu Pasts

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.

Re-ending the Mahābhārata

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

Engaged Emancipation

A wide-ranging analysis of the Mokṣopāya, the Indian literary classic that teaches through storytelling how to enjoy an active, successful, worldly life in a spiritually enlightened way.

A Hindu Theology of Liberation

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

The Hidden Lives of Brahman

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

Lord Śiva's Song

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

Homegrown Gurus

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

Gandhi's Ascetic Activism

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

Somatic Lessons

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

Kāma's Flowers

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

Yogi Heroes and Poets

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

Hinduism as a Missionary Religion

Reconsiders whether Hinduism can be considered a missionary religion.

Engaging South Asian Religions

Looks at Western understandings of South Asian religions and indigenous responses from pre-colonial to contemporary times.

Invoking Lakshmi

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

Colonizing the Realm of Words

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

Śiva's Demon Devotee

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

Miracle as Modern Conundrum in South Asian Religious Traditions

Looks at perceptions of the miraculous in a variety of contemporary South Asian religious traditions-Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity.

Meditations of Global First Philosophy

Traces the roots of logos in different cultural milieux.

The Teachings of the Odd-Eyed One

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

The Bhagavad Gītā

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

Poems on Life and Love in Ancient India

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.

Woman as Fire, Woman as Sage

Explores ideas on women and sexuality presented in the great Hindu epic, the Mahabharata.

Modern and Global Ayurveda

A comprehensive overview of Ayurveda.

The Socially Involved Renunciate

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

Samādhi

Explores yoga and meditation in Eastern religions, incorporating psychological and social aspects of these practices.

Alternative Krishnas

Going beyond the standard depictions of Krishna in the epics, this book uses regional and vernacular sources to present a wide range of Krishna traditions.

Gandhi's Pilgrimage of Faith

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

Make Me a Man!

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

Sleep as a State of Consciousness in Advaita Vedānta

Explores deep sleep (susupti), one of the three states of consciousness in Advaita Vedanta, and the major role it plays in this philosophy.

Female Ascetics in Hinduism

Provides both a first-hand look at and an insightful analysis of a little-known world—that of female ascetics in India.

Women in Ochre Robes

Focuses on the lives of female Hindu ascetics and the significance of gender to the tradition of renunciation.

Tales for the Dying

Explores death and dying in the Bhagavata-Purana and in the Indian religious imagination using insights from myth, semiotics, and depth psychology as well as the Indian commentarial tradition.

The Lord Who Is Half Woman

A fascinating study from a modern feminist perspective of an androgynous Hindu god in Indian culture.

She Comes to Take Her Rights

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

The Integrity of the Yoga Darśana

Maintains that the Yoga-Sutras do not advocate abandonment of the world, but rather support a stance that enables one to live more fully in the world without being enslaved by worldly identification.

Purifying the Earthly Body of God

An interdisciplinary exploration of the relationship between religion and environment in Hinduism.

The Artful Universe

Provides an accessible introduction to the Vedic religious world by focusing on the role of divine and human imagination in sacred texts.

Living Liberation in Hindu Thought

This book is about the state of embodied perfection often called enlightenment, self-realization, or liberation. It examines the types, degrees, and stages of liberation that are possible, with and without a body.

Rules and Regulations of Brahmanical Asceticism

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.

The Little Clay Cart

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 ...

Shrī Bhagavad Gītā

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

Shankara and Indian Philosophy

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 ...

Ritual and Speculation in Early Tantrism

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 ...

The The Myths of Narasiṁha and Vāmana

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. ...

Kabir Legends and Ananta-Das's Kabir Parachai

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 ...

Encountering the Goddess

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 ...

The Triumph of the Goddess

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 ...

Āṇṭāḷ and Her Path of Love

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 ...

Criminal Gods and Demon Devotees

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 ...

The Vedic Origins of Karma

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 ...

The Concise Srimad Bhagavatam

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 Experience of Hinduism

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 ...

The Doctrine of Vibration

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 provi

Radhakrishnan

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, ...

Shaiva Devotional Songs of Kashmir

Utpaladeva was considered a siddha, a "perfected being," one of the masters of the tantric tradition in Kashmir, and he is best known for his philosophical treatises. The Shivastotravali reflects Utpaladeva's ...

Palkhi

Mokashi is a Marathi novelist of the post-independence generation of "Realists." This is a vivid account of his day-by-day experience on the Warkari pilgrimage from Alandi to Pandharpur on foot.

Pilgrimage ...

Jnāneshvari

Jnaneshvari is a commentary on The Bhagavad Gita completed in 1290 AD by the poet-saint Jnaneshvar. It is a title in the Indian translation series of the United National Educational, Scientific, and Cultural ...

Karma and Creativity

The conception of karma in the religious traditions of India has prompted numerous interpretations, many of which equate karma with notions of fate. Karma and Creativity presents a perspective on karma ...

The Face of Truth

The Face of Truth examines in depth the Vedantic theology of Rāmānuja, the most important and well-known of the classical Hindu theologians. Julius Lipner clearly analyzes Rāmānuja's theory of sacred ...