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From the jacket

The Vedic Literature the most ancient product of the Aryan mind held in the highest esteem and regarded as the most sacred by the Hindus presents a panorama of the life of the ancient population of India in all its facets. The scared literature was subjected to analytical study for the first time in the recent centuries by European scholars mainly Germans the foremost among then being Herman Oldenberg His magnum opus-Die Religion des Veda first appeared in print in 1894 and in a revised edition in 1916. He made use of linguistic methods, ethnology and folklore in his exhaustive and penetrating study of the Vedic religion. This work has had a great impact on subsequent Vedic studies and has an abiding interest to the student of the Veda, as is amply evident from the fact that even after nearly a century of its first publication it continues to attract the attention of Vedic researchers and is very frequently sought for guidance and consultation by them, and here is the first ever English translation of this four classic

The work is complete in four chapter preceded by an introduction discussing in detail the source, viz, the Vedas Brahmanas and sutra. The first chapter deals with the Vedic gods and demons in general the second one with the individual gods such as Agni, Indra Vruna Mitra and others the evil demons the origin of the world and the divine and the moral worlds the third treats at length of the cult of sacrifice magic observances festivals prayer priests and the like and the fourth one of the dead, soul heaven and ell, ghosts fathers funeral rites and animism.

Author of the book

Hermann Oldenberg (1854-1920) is considered as one of the greatest Indologists of Germany. After studying classical and Indian philology in Gottingen ands Berlin he became university professor at Kiel and Berlin. He visited India in 1912-13. His contributions to Vedic and Buddhistic studies are vast. He translated the Dipavaqmsa rgveda and Grhyasutras into German.

Of his many books like Buddha sein Leben , sein Lehre, sein Gemeide, Die Lehre des Upanischadern und die Anfange des Buddhism Die Literature des alten Indiens among other Die Religion des Veda (1894) in most outstanding and oft-quoted work.

Shridhar B. Shrotri (b.1934) had his education at Pune. He was the first to have obtained a doctorate degree in Geman from an Indian University in 1965. He has also studies at Heideberg and Munich. He taught at rajaram college Kolhapur and M.E.S and fergusson colleges at pune before joining Karnatak University Dharwad in 1962 where he rose to the position of professor in the foreign languages Department in 1985. Dr. Shrotri has several research papers and translations to his credit.

From the Jacket:

Vimala Thakar gave a series of inspired talks on the Bhagavad Gita in three separate seminars, during 1992 and 1993 in Italy. To her Bhagavad Gita is very sacred because it deals with the organic wholeness of life; and the inbuilt complexity of life, It affirms the interplay between the micrecosm and macrocosm and persuadesus to remain united with the ultimate reality, not only to intellectual understanding, but through everything that we do, at every moment.

About the Author:

Vimala Thakar began her spiritual search at the tender age of five. As a young woman, she travelled and lectured for the Land Gifted Movement of Vinoba Bhave, an associate of Mahatma Gandhi. Her meetings with Krishnamurti, from 1956 to 1961, had a profound impact on her life. From the 1960s to the 1980s, she taught meditation retreats in thirty-five countries. She stopped travelling outside India in 1991, and now resides in Mount Abu, in Rajasthan.

Ganesa commands universal respect among the indigenous religious schools and sects of the Hindus, Jainas and Buddhists. He is a god who is unique in many ways--his peculiar physiognomy, his double character, as a vighnakarta (creator of obstacles) and as a vighnaharta (remover of obstacles). He is worshipped first to ensure success of all religious and secular functions and enterprieses. GAnesa is also the god of dance and music. The cult of Ganesa spread to various countries of Asia.

The rise of Ganesa to pre-eminence in the orthodox Hindu pantheon, as one of the panca devatas, is truly remarkable. it is an ancient version of mundane legend: from Log Cabin to White House.

There have been many studies of this god in recent years; this one is the most comprehensive, fully documented in original sources, textual and artistic, and profusely illustrated. It traces the origin and development of pauranika Ganesa, from pre-pauranika Vinayaka, a vighnakarta, into pauranika Ganesa, a vighnaharta analyses his distinctive features and studies his representation in art both in India and in the other countries of Asia. It seeks to unravel the enigma of a non-Vedic, non-epic and a non-Aryan god coming to occupy a place of honour in Hindu pantheon. The techniques adopted by the followers of Ganesa to promote his cult and status and the enduring results achieved make a fascinating study in 'PR' work.

About the Author:

Y. Krishnan (born 1922) M.A., LL.B is a scholar in Indology- Indian History, Religion, Philosophy and Art. He has published over 150 research papers on these topics in Journals of standing in India and abroad. These also cover the partition of India.

He had a long and distinguished record of service under the Government of India-in the Railways, Indian Administrative Service and the Audit & Accounts Departments from where he retired as Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General of India in 1980. He was a member of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission from December 1988 to January 1995.

He has also published three books: Audit in India's Democracy; The Buddha Image: Its Origin and Development; The Doctrine of Karma: Its Origin and Development in Brahmanical, Buddhist and Jaina Traditions. At Present he is doing a book on India's partition.

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The Lord Krsna abandoned his earthly mistresses who then spent their days of separation pining for his return. This powerful theme found expression not only in myth, but also in the devotion and poetry of a religious culture which evolved in South India. From the fifth century A.D. the Tamils absorbed many elements from the classical traditions of the North, such as yoga, temple worship and Krsna myths, and the results were unique blends of the two civilizations. Viraha-bhakti, as the author styles this type of Krsna religion, imbued the theme of separation with erotic and ecstatic features and evolved as one of the highlights of Indian religion and culture. The present work is a detailed study of the multifarious origins of Viraha-bhakti in South India and its developments up to the point at which it entered the pan-Indian scene.

The study suggests a revision of the monolithic image of Indian religion implied in much scholarly literature. It differentiates a great variety of interacting traditions and milieux, and demonstrates the dynamism of Indian culture. By identifying a specific type of religion and reflecting on its significance, the author attempts, at the same time, to go beyond purely textual and historical considerations. Thus the book will be of interest to any student of Indian religion and culture.

About The Author

Friedhelm Hardy (1943-2004), was Professor of Indian Religions, teaching of King College, London. He was a linguist familiar with both classical and modern Indian languages. He was also the author of a prominent work The Religious Culture of India: Power, Love and Wisdom.

Foreword

The role of bhakti in India religion is well-known, and has been important from an early date onward. Bhakti manifests itself prominently in the Bhagavadgita, and scholars have debated whether it is already noticeable in even earlier texts. However, few readers had realized that there are different kinds of bhakti, that bhakti of the Bhagavadgita is not the same as the bhakti that finds expression in numerous more recent texts. This changed witht eh publication of Friedhelm Hardy’s Viraha-bhakti in 1983. Viraha-bhakti means “bhakti in sepration”, and this emotional form of bhakti is to be distinguished from the more intellectual bhakti that characterizes the Bhagavadgita. Hardy shows in this book how this emotional form of bhakti originated with the South Indian alvars, and only subsequently came to be adopted in the Sanskrit Bhagavata Purana and spread to North India.

Hardy’s Viraha-bhakti was landmark publication that has lost but little of its importance in the thirty years that have elapsed since its first publication. It is matter of pride and satisfaction that it is now included in the Hindu Tradition Series.

Although some aspects of the medieval bhakti movements are known or have been viewed by the historians from their own angles of vision, much remains to be known, understood and interpreted. The present volume, issued on the occasion of the Quincentenary of Mahaprabhu Sri Caitanya, is an attempt to understand a little more of the medieval bhakti movements of India. The contributors to the volume who have enthusiastically agreed to participate in this project are all specialists in their own fields and their valuable papers are expected to throw new light on many hitherto unknown or known features of the great historical movement, the far-reaching consequences of which are very much lively in the heart of the Indian masses even today. The contributors to this volume are Bimanbehari Majumdar, Niharranjan Ray, G.S. Chhabra, Manorama Kohli, G.V. Saroja, J.C. Jain, M.S. Ahluwalia, H.A. Qureshi, Manjula Bhattacharyya, Uma S. Deshpande, P.S. Mukharya, B.D. Gupta, Hafiz Md. Tahir Ali, N. Jagadesan, R. Champakalakshmi, S.K. Pathak, N. Subrahmanian, R. Meena, K.K. Kusuman, N.H. Kulkarnee, Prabhat Mukherjee, S.N. Sharma, Sarat Chandra Goswami, S. Dutta, N.N. Acharya, Bhaskar Chatterjee, Neal Delmonico, Sachin Majumdar, David Kopf and Pranabananda Jash. A detailed bibliography containing list of books and articles used by the contributors in preparing their papers and also other works pertaining to the bhakti concept has also been supplied. This handy volume has been edited by N.N. Bhattacharyya with an informative introduction. Printed Pages: 424.

About the Author:

Prof. Narendra Nath Bhattacharyya teaches in the Department of Ancient Indian History and Culture, University of Calcutta. Thought religious history in his forte he works at ease in diverse branches of ancient Indian history and civilization.

Foreword

It is owing to the grace of Mahaprabhu Sri Caitanya that we have been able to bring out the present volume on the occasion of his quincentenary commemoration in our humble capacity. We express our sincere gratitude to the scholars-all eminent in their own fields -who contributed their learned articles to this volume at our request, to the editor who devoted all his time and energy to make the project a grand success, to Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, New Delhi who came forward to publish the work on our behalf and to those who helped us in many ways. At the same time we place on record our deep sorrow at the death of two of the contri- butors-Prof. Prabhat Mukherjee of Bhuvaneswar and Prof. Sarat Chandra Goswami of Guwahati-and our appreciation of the services rendered by them to the cause of this volume.

From the Back of the Book

Maharsi Vedavyasa was staying in his hermitage at Badarikasrama. One day the celestical hermit Narada turned up there in the course of his usual wanton rambles.the great Vyasa welcomed him with due rities and on his taking seat asked: "Prophet of Gods! The soul of man seeks to get free from the hold of pleasure and pain and craves for deliverance from the bondage of the world. But the path of Action does not leaddirectly to the goal. Knowledge of course does nevertheless without the leaven of Devotion it can achievevery little in substances. Devotion is the only way of attaining salvation; all the others have importance only insofar as they are auxiliary to it. Therefore I humbly ask you to explain to me the doctrine of Devotion." The divine Naradaat once surveyed the mind of Vyasa and replied, "Great sage! You have come down on earth for the redemption of mankind. Your present enquiry has been prompted by that desire alone. By your disciple Jaimini, you have already in the Purvamimamsa discoursed upon the problem of Action, and you have yourself completed the enquiry into the prpblem of knowledgein the Uttaramimamsa. And now you have taken up the problem of Devotion. I am going to explain it. But its full explanation will be given by you in your Srimadbhagavatam which will be a nature of a commentary upon your Brahmasutras. My sutras will be read as such an explanation of your very short description of Devotion given in the Uttaramimamsa."

So saying Narada delivered a dissourse on Devotion in eighty-four aphorisms, the collection of which forms this short treatise, known as Narada Bhaktisutram( Bhaktisutras of Narada).

In the Brahma Sutras of Badarayana, we find what is perhaps the most influential work in the history of Hindu Theology, given that the Brahma Sutras served as the basis for the theologies of all major Hindu theologians, including Sankara, Ramanuja, Nimbarka,Vallabha, and Madhva. In this work Dr. Adams examines the first of the Brahma Sutras four sections in an attempt to identify their original meaning and the theology that Badarayana attempted to express.

About the Author

George C. Adams, Jr. was born in Danville, Pennsylvania in 1953. Dr. Adams holds a B.A. degree in Sociology from Susquehanna University, and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Theology from Fordham University, where he studied History of Religions and Hindu Theology under Dr. Jose Pereira. Currently Dr. Adams is an Instructor in the Evening Program at Susquehanna University, where he teaches courses in Religion and Philosophy. Dr. Adams' interests include Hindu Theology, comparative studies, and the relationship between religion and psychology.

Yoga is divided into several branches, ranging from that which teaches the control of the body, to that which teaches the attainment of the highest spiritual development. This work will not go into the higher phases of the subject, except when the "Science of Breath" touches upon the same. The "Science of Breath" touches Yoga at many points, and although chiefly concerned with the development and control of the physical, has also its psychic side, and even enters the field of spiritual development. The Hindu Yogis have always paid great attention to the Science of Breath, for reasons which will be apparent to the student who reads this book. Many Western writers have touched upon this phase of the Yogi teachings, but we believe that it has been reserved for the writer of this work to give to the student, in concise form and simple language, the underlying principles of the Yogi Science of Breath, together with many of the favorite Yogi breathing exercises and methods. We have given the Western idea as well as the Oriental, showing how one dovetails into the other. We have used the ordinary English terms, almost entirely, avoiding the Sanscrit terms, so confusing to the average Western reader. The first part of the book is devoted to the physical phase of the Science of Breath; then the psychic and mental sides are considered, and finally the spiritual side is touched upon.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

This book treats two representative Hindu rituals of contemporary India, Puja (offering service) and Samskara (initiation rituals at important occasions of life). amskara rites are performed at significant junctures of an individual`s life, from birth to death, by the individual`s family. Puja rites, rather than being performed in relation to the life cycle of an individual in a family, are more deeply related to the annual rituals of the cult to which an individual or the person`s family belongs. Persons may go to a temple and request priests to perform puja rites, or they may perform them themselves at home.

For people living in India, Puja and Samskara are not at all uncommon. Puja rites are performed everywhere-at temples, in private homes, on street corners-and although in recent times families observing all the traditional Samskara rites have declined in number, almost all Hindu families still perform the major Samskaras. it is difficult, however, for those living outside India to know how these rites are performed. Hence, this book presents a large number of photographs that enable readers to gain an accurate grasp of them and indicates the place of ritual in the total structure of religion.

The purpose of this book is to throw some light on the originality of the Concept of Samskara in which ritual, psychological, and philosophical aspects are intermingled. Keeping in mind the various implications of the word in the Hindu Darsanas as well as in Buddhist thought, some relevant comparisons are drawn with Western Philosophy and Psychoanalysis.

A review of texts and contexts shows that in domains as different as Rituals, Anthropology, Logic, Epistemology, Psychology, Ethics, Soteriological Philosophy, the concept of Samskara works like a universal key in the mind of Indian authors. The enquiry in this book based on Sanskrit and Pali texts helps to discern its denotation, connotation, evaluations.

The word Samskara applies not only to the Hindu Life-cycle perfective rites which imprint the psyche, but also to all sorts of "psycho-physical compositions", dynamic traces and tendencies, predispositions, habits, traits of character. These morally qualified residuelle impressions: bodily, vocal, mental, cause of memory and dreams, condition and encumber the psyche or subtle body. Although beneficial on the pragmatic level, present in instincts till refined intelligence, samskaras are considered to be obstacles in the path of deliverance (moksa), specially when, appearing as blind urges or unconscious drives. Hence the role played by samskaras, (explaining the inexplicable), in the enigmatic psycho-cosmological register of the Law of karman and the doctrine of samsara. Yoga born anti-samskaras, traceless indeed, help in de-conditioning and dis-encumbering the psyche. The book concludes that samskaras are factors of cohesion, liaison, intelligibility, mediation and continuity in space and time, mainly, factors of bondage and release.

About the Author

Mr. Lakshmi Kapani Docteur es lettres et science humaines (Parissorbonne 1987) is (Emeritus) professor of Indian and comparative philosophy at the paris X-Nanterre university.

About the Book:

Manu is variously referred to as the father of human race, as one of the ancient sages, as having established fire, as a semi-divine being who received from God Himself the laws and regulations, as a king in the Krta-yuga, as the author of a work on Arthasastra. In the Manu Smrti Manu is referred to as a king.

Manu's work has been held in high esteem. The work of Manu is an epitome of the ancient culture of India.

Comprising twelve chapters, the Manu Smrti deals with the usual Smrti topics which can be divided into four classes, viz. Acara, Prayascitta, Vyavahara and Rajadharma.

Kulluka's commentary combines the merits of brevity and lucidity. It is by far the most well-known and most widely read.

About the Book:

The Grhya sutras contain rules for customs, ceremonies and sacrifices through which the life of an Indian attains purification. They record a number of popular customs and manners connected with conception, birth, name-giving, first-outing, first-eating, by the child. They include rules for tonsure, initiation, completion of studies, custom of courting, engagement, wedding etc. They are important for the student of comparative history inasmuch as they contain parallels in the manners and customs of Indo-European folks.

This Grhya-sutra belongs to the Jaimini School of Samaveda. It is divided into 2 parts. Part I opens with details of regular sacrifices in which cooked food is offered to the deities. The work proceeds with the description of a ceremony to secure the birth of a male child, description of the Nadimukha Sraddha preceding every sacrament, of parting the hair, ceremony for the new-born child, ceremony of giving name, the first feeding of the babe with solid food, the tonsure of child's head, initiation of the student to the study, twilight devotion, opening of the annual course of study, ending of the term f study, observance of vows, his return home after finishing the course of study, ceremony of marriage, evening and morning sacrifices and the sacrifice of first fruits.

Part II opens with the rite of Sraddha and proceeds with the description of astakas, funeral ceremonies, libations of water, and the collection of bones. It is followed by the detailed account of rites of the house, allaying of prodigies, recitation of the Veda during a fast. It ends with the appeasing of planets malefic to the householder.

After their father is mysteriously abducted by strangers, Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis move with their mother from their comfortable city home to ‘Three Chimney’s, a tiny cottage in the countryside, next to a railway station. Soon the children find enough to amuse themselves with at the station, befriending everybody from the porter and the stationmaster to an old gentleman who waves at them from the 9.15 each day. But the mystery of their father’s disappearance looms large over them. Where is Father? And how does the old gentleman hold the key to the mystery?

Told in simple, lucid prose, Nesbit’s classic is one of the most endearing coming-of-age stories ever written.

Back of the Book

Ceremonial rites and rituals occupy a place of utmost importance in the life of a devout Hindu. In fact, there are no vital actions-birth, initiation, marriage, death etc.-which can be allowed to be performed without its appropriate rite or samskara. The number of samskaras has been fluctuating but was finally fixed at sixteen.

Marriage is the most important and elaborate out of these sixteen samskaras. Manu enjoins that rituals should be performed in the case of a virgin for legalizing the marriage, legitimatizing children and avoiding public scandal.

The mantras used in the nuptial rites being in Sanskrit are beyond the comprehension of not only the average Hindu but even the common priest entrusted with the duty of conducting the rituals. To overcome this difficulty the present book was originally prepared in Hindi and is now translated into English with the mantras etc. Romanized for the benefit of those who do not have adequate knowledge of Hindi, for example especially those whose forefathers had migrated to remote countries during the last one hundred years or so.

Dr. R.C. Prasad, taught English Literature at Patna University for over forty years, during which he wrote scores of books, including biographies and translations, the most outstanding of which was his prose rendering of the Ramacharitamanasa.

About the Book

In all religions of the world which maintain sacrificial rituals and in which the portion offered to Gods is given to fire, that portion is normally offered raw except in Vedic India, where its previous cooking is necessary. The reasons for such a treatment forms the subject matter of this book.

The author, through an exhaustive examination of Vedic, Brahmanic and Srauta Sutric texts, traces the beginning and development of the idea of cooking as transforming energy, from early Vedic hymns to the classical and fully complete sacrifices of the later Brahmanic times.

The work is divided into two major parts: The first, comprising four chapters, follows the emergence and development of the first intuition the rishis had of their use of fire as God of energy; the second part, consisting of the remaining four chapters takes into account four emblematic rituals where heat is especially prominent, discussing, how the presence of heat has worked in shaping those rituals and the spirituality that has arisen from them. An introduction has cast the problem in its human, temporal and geographical conditions, while a conclusion has brought the entire matter to its heavenly accomplishment.

About the Author:

Born in Roma (Italia), Uma Marina Vesci received her education in Roma itself, graduating in Ancient History and Archaeology with a thesis on: " the use of Musical Instruments in the religious Life of Ancient Greece". Further, she specialized in History of Religions with a thesis on: "God, Man and Salvation in the Spiritual change in the VI century B.C. from China to Greece". At the end of 1963 she won a scholarship to India where she continued her studies centered on Hinduism and especially on Vedic texts. Since then she has continuously lived in India to the present with support from various scholarships and fellowships in B.H.U. (Varanasi), Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Simla, at center of Advanced study in Philosophy, Visva Bharati(Shantiniketan), and in the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre in Delhi and Varanasi. In this last capacity she has taught comparative religions for a short while in Patiala at the Dept. of Religious Studies. Dr. Vesci has contributed many articles on Indological subjects to numerous international journals and has lectured widely.

About the Book:

Vasubandhu, one of the most famous Mahayana Buddhist Philosophers, wrote works on a vast variety of subjects. This collection of translations includes the Vada-Vidhi, a work on logic; the Panca-skandhaka-prakarana, which deals with the 'aggregates' making up 'personality'; the Karmasiddhi-prakarana, which in explaining psychic continuity, also attacks many features of earlier Buddhist Psychology; the famous Vimsatika and Trimsika, which take Buddhist psychology into hitherto unexplored areas; the Madhyanta-Vibhaga-bhasya, one of the most profound books for Mahayana realization; and the Tri-svabhava-nirdesa which shows a way for ridding consciousness of ensnaring mental constructions. A glossary of key words is included, as are the texts of those works which survive in Sanskrit. Each translation is prefaced by an explanatory introduction and is followed by notes. These include also references to other Indian philosophical systems and occasional comparisons with modern Western psychology systems, particularly where the latter seem inadequate in comparison with Vasubandhu's Yogacara.

About the Author:

Stefan Anacker, born in the USA of Swiss parents, received his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin (Madison, Wis., USA) in Buddhist Studies. He has also studied Sanskrit and Old Kannada at the University of Mysore. At present he is a research scholar living in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Since 1948 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), upon the recommendation of the General Assembly of the United Nations, has been concerned with facilitating the translation of the works most representative of the culture of certain of its Member States, and, in particular, those of Asia.

One of the major difficulties confronting this programmer is the lack of translators having both the qualifications and the time to undertake translations of the many outstanding books meriting publication. To help overcome this difficulty in part, UNESCO’s advisers in this field (a panel of experts convened every other year by the International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies), have recommended that many worthwhile translations published during the 19th century, and now impossible to find except in a limited number of libraries, should be brought back into print in low-priced editions, for the use of students and of the general public. The experts also pointed out that in certain cases, even though there might be in existence more recent and more accurate translations endowed with a more modern apparatus of scholarship, a number of pioneer works of the greatest value and interest to students of Eastern religions also merited republication.

This point of view was warmly endorsed by the Indian National Academy of Letters (Sahitya Akademi), and the Indian National Commission for UNESCO.It is in the spirit of these recommendations that this work from the famous series “Sacred Books of the East” is now once again being made available to the general public as part of the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works.

From the Jacket:

In this book the author discusses the place of science in rituals and mantras. Using structural analysis he show that rituals in general, whether religious, political, social or otherwise have common structural patterns. These patterns are shared by poetry, music, dance and gymnastics, but not by language. Consideration of animal rituals and pathological (compulsive) rituals leads him to propose a general theory which unifies all ritual-like activities. He also introduces the concept of ritual instinct which can be make the theory simpler and more elegant. He shows how knowledge can divided into science, non-science and pseudo-science to understand the true status of such strange phenomena as miracles, supernatural powers, siddhis, samadhi, rebirth and ESP.

About the Author:

Jayant Burde received his M.Sc. degree in mathematics from Bombay University and a law degree from Bangalore University. He is also a Certificated Associated of the Indian Institute of Bankers. He was in business before he joined a bank where he worked for nearly 20 years. His published papers contain mathematical models in finance, costing and organizational structure.

Prapathaka 5 of the Taittiriya Aranyaka in the Andhra recension is an ancient commentary on the Pravargya ritual. This commentary, the Pravargya Brahmanaí, is here translated and annotated. The Introduction contains a study of the Pravargya ritual, which is 'One of the few rituals that has been explicitly referred to in the Rgveda (usually under the name "Gharma"). "The abstract and spiritual nature of what is probably the main purpose of the ritual - the participants should acquire the lustre of the sun ñ the simple means by which it can be performed and the way the main implement, the pot which is heated red-hot, is worshipped, give it a special place in the vast assortment of Vedic rites. The Sanskrit text of the Pravargya Brahmana of the Taittiriyas has been given along with the translation. The present work was prepared under the guidance of Professor Dr. H.W. Bodewitz (Utrecht), and is an elaboration of an essay written by the author in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of 'doctorandus' at the University of Utrecht, 1987.

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About the Book:

Devotion is dedication of the self to the All Serene. To Rabindranath Tagore, it is more than mere dedication. It is a vrata to be I perfect unison with the Vratapati, the Lord of askance in sincerity, purity and poignance.

To be christened with the spirituality of Tagore in the most intrinsic and poignant pattern is to muse and re-muse his devotional songs, and in doing so, one cannot but discover within oneself the lotus-land of spiritual excellence. Indeed, somewhere in the heartland of everyone lurks the unending beckoning of the All Beautiful.

Here are a hundred devotional songs of Rabindranath representing prayer and worship with diverse dimensions of joy, sorrow, awakening, introspection, aspiration, resolution and so on to encounter the All Beautiful.

Hitherto unknown to the national and the global lovers appreciators of Tagore due to language-constraints, A Hundred Devotional Songs of Tagore, the first of its kind in India and abroad, might be a resourceful and thrilling companion to the study of and quest for devotion.

About the Author:

MOHIT CHAKRABARTI, D. Litt., is a teacher of English at Visva-Bharti University, Santiniketan. He has participated in so many national and international conferences and has been a regular contributor in a number of journals of repute. Besides being a contributor to children's literature in English and Bengali he is a regular contributor to the studies and researches being to the studies and researches being held on Rabindranath Tagor, Mahatama Gandhi and Swami Vivekanand. He has a number of books to his credit and has also got National Award.

About the Translation:

Translating the songs of Rabindranath Tagore is undeniably a very challenging but thrilling task. Care is taken to be justified to the original as far and as best as possible. One cannot but admit the constraints related to translating a few typical words, phrases and idiomatic expressions, where a judicious approach to retain the nuances called forth is undertaken. At the same time, the imagery patterns of Tagore in each song have been given due importance in the task of translation.

About the Book

Many thousands of people throughout the world claim to practise some from of yoga, but the philosophical background of this ancient discipline is frequently either neglected or subjected to oversimplification and misrepresentation. This has been especially true of hatha-yoga (literally, the 'forceful yoga'), the tradition most performance of posture (asanas), cleansing practices (karmani or kriyas) and techniques that involve altering the breathing rhythm and flow of 'vital energy' (pranayama). In this study, philosopher and hatha practitioner Mikel Burley places the soteriological system of hatha-yoga within its proper context, drawing attention to its continuity with Vedic religion, its initiatory pedagogical structure, and to the theoretical underpinnings of hatha practice. In particular, he examines the complex notion of a 'subtle bodily matrix' - comprising vital channels (nadis), centres (cakras) and forces (prana)-which is so crucial to the discipline, this matrix being held to form, as it were, a bridge between the gross physical and mental spheres.

Use in made of a wide range of source materials, including seminal texts in the hatha tradition such as the Hatha-Yoga-Pradipika and Gheranda-Samhita, as well as primary and secondary works from related streams of Indian thought. The author's approach is both scholarly and accessible, making the study suitable for specialists, practitioners and general readers alike.

Hatha-yoga is concerned with the most fundamental of matters: the development of an ethical and spiritually-oriented appreciation of humanity, the cultivation of maximal health and perceptual acuity, and the quest for Self-realization. Absorbing and penetrating, Hatha-Yoga: Its Context, Theory and Practice makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of this subject.

About the Author

Mikel Burley was born in Leicestershire, England, in 1972. He has studied philosophy, both Eastern and Western, at the University of Essex and Western, at the University of Essex and the University of Nottingham, and has travelled widely in India and Nepal. He currently teaches hatha-yoga and Indian philosophy for the Devon School of Yoga, and has had articles published in several magazines and journals, including introductory series on Indian philosophy and Patanjali's Yoga-Sutra in Yoga and Health magazine.

About the Book :This essay describes the 'Asvamedha' rite and its symbolism to explain distinctive aspects of the Vedic sacrifice system. Several questions related to the Asvamedha are posed and answered in the context of Vedic epistemology. This rite has three important functions: (i) it presents an equivalence of the naksatra year to the heaven, implying that it is a rite that celebrates the rebirth of the Sun; (ii) it is symbolic of the conquest of Time by the king, in whose name the rite is performed; and (iii) it is a celebration of social harmony achieved by the transcendence of the fundamental conflicts between various sources of power. Numbers from another Vedic rite, the Agnicayana; help in the understanding of several of its details.

About the Author : SUBHASH KAK is an acclaimed scientist, historian and Vedic scholar, Currently a professor at Louisiana State University, he has authored thirteen books and more than 200 research papers in the fields of information theory, neural networks and Indic studies.