Explores the cultural dynamics of this ancient form of Sanskrit theater.

Argues that ancient yantra (robot) tales reveal how their Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain authors thought about the nature of humanity and our role in a cosmos filled with divine and natural forces.

A literary and historical investigation into an ancient Indian religious thinker, tracing his rise in importance in the Hindu tradition.

A comparative study of wonder in South Asian religions.

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

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

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

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 key role of a hagiographer within a charismatic religious movement.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

A study of comparative metaphysics that explores the concepts of Reality and Appearance and their relevance to contemporary religious consciousness.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Celebrates and instructs in the healing power of breath.

Traces the roots of logos in different cultural milieux.

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

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.

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

A comprehensive overview of Ayurveda.

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

Understanding Mantras explores the origin, nature, function, and significance of mantras within the bounds of the Hindu tradition. It analyzes the use of mantras in the Vedic age, in the great theistic ...

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.

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.

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

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

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.

A reader-friendly translation of the medieval Indian text, which presents a powerful, compassionate goddess as ruler of the universe.

Explores the experience of yoga in the Yogasutra of Patanjali.

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.

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

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

Explores the history and nature of vrats (ritual fasts) in text and practice, and the roles these rites play in the lives of Hindu women in North India.

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.

By examining how Hindu men talk about marriage and family, this book shows how culture reinforces male dominance in Hindu society.

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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

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 ...

In this volume, leading American, European, and Indian scholars including John E. Cort, Friedhelm Hardy, Padmanabh S. Jaini, Laurie L. Patton, A. K. Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao, and David Shulman ...

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 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 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 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 ...

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 ...

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.

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 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 ...