Hindu Studies
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
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
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.
The Revelation of the Breath
Celebrates and instructs in the healing power of breath.
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.
Ritual Worship of the Great Goddess
A first-hand description of the Durga Puja, the Hinda celebration of the Great Goddess.
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 ...