Religion : Hinduism

You’re no idiot, of course. You know Hinduism is a religion practiced worldwide, with philosophies that can offer enlightenment even to nonbelievers. However, its belief system is neither as simple nor as complex as many people think. The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Hinduism will show you exactly how this religion is practiced and its relationship to Hindu culture. In this Complete Idiot’s Guide®, you get:. *. The principles behind basic Hindu beliefs, including karma, reincarnation, nonviolence, vegetarianism, and multiple manifestations of God. *. The stories of such Hindu gods and goddesses as Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Sarasvati, and Kali. *. Paths to enlightenment including karma yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, raja yoga, and tantra yoga. *. The Hindu caste system, and the customary importance of women in its society. more...

Price: $18.95

Encountering Kalõ explores one of the most remarkable divinities the world has seen--the Hindu goddess Kalõ. She is simultaneously understood as a blood-thirsty warrior, a goddess of ritual possession, a Tantric sexual partner, and an all-loving, compassionate Mother. more...

Price: $15.95

Explaining Mantras explores the intersection of poetry and magic in the mantras or verbal formulas of Hindu Tantra and combines the study of ancient Tantric rituals with the latest theories in the human sciences. more...

Price: $100.00

The Rajputs ruled the vast majority of the kingdoms that were joined together after Indian independence to form the state of Rajasthan, "Land of Kings." An important part of Rajput religion is the worship of "heroes" who have died in battle. This practice has attained new significance in recent years, as right-wing Hindu activists have deployed narratives about heroism in Rajput wars with Muslim emperors. In this book, Lindsey Harlan explores the idea of the Rajput hero. She is particularly interested in the role played by gender in stories about heroes and in their worship. She looks at the differences between female and male storytellers, the relationships of the hero to the women in his tale, and the relationship of the hero to the goddess for whom he is both sacrifice and henchman. She obtains her materials from interviews with Rajput families and their servants, from songfests, from bystanders at shrines, from ritual specialists. Ultimately she shows how heroic traditions encapsulate and express ideals of perfection and masculinity, defined most visibly against the backdrop of domesticity and femininity. More broadly she argues that heroes reflect ever-changing valuations of history, and serve as sources of inspiration for facing contemporary challenges (domestic, communal, national) and concerns about the future. more...

Price: $50.00

The advent of Hindu Studies coincides with the emergence of modern hermeneutics. Despite this co-emergence and rich possibilities inherent in dialectical encounters between theories of modern and post-modern hermeneutics, and those of Hindu hermeneutical traditions, such an enterprise has not been widely endeavored. The aim of this volume is to initiate such an interface. Essays in this volume reflect one or more of the following categories: (1) Examination of challenges and possibilities inherent in applying Western hermeneutics to Hindu traditions. (2) Critiques of certain heuristics used, historically, to a oeunderstanda Hindu traditions. (3) Elicitation of new hermeneutical paradigms from Hindu thought, to develop cross-cultural or dialogical hermeneutics. Applications of interpretive methodologies conditioned by Western culture to classify Indian thought have had important impacts. Essays by Sharma, Bilimoria, Sugirtharajah, and Tilak examine these impacts, offering alternate interpretive models for understanding Hindu concepts in particular and the Indian religious context in general. Several essays offer original insights regarding potential applications of traditional Hindu philosophical principles to cross-cultural hermeneutics (Long, Bilimoria, Klostermaier, Adarkar, and Taneja). Others engage Hindu texts philosophically to elicit deeper interpretations (Phillips, and Rukmani). In presenting essays that are both critical and constructive, we seek to uncover intellectual space for creative dialectical engagement that, we hope, will catalyze a reciprocal hermeneutics. more...

Price: $149.00