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Spirituality is the shining thread that runs through every motif of the rich and complex tapestry that is India. It is not only worship in temple, mosque or church, in gurudwara or agiary, that defines the faith of Indians - it is their ordinary, everyday kind of spirituality that serves as an axis, balancing the temporal with the eternal. The Sacred India Book seizes and distils this ephemeral quality often described as 'the Spirit of India'. Amit Pasricha seeks out meditative moments and momentous ones, exalted moments and exultant ones - the eternal quality of a weathered cross overlooking a windswept beach, the ecstatically outstretched hands of Holi celebrants at Vrindavan, the quiet faith of a women as she ties a piece of coloured thread on the latticed screen of a shrine. His photographs lay before the viewer the colourful, intricate mosaic of Indian religion, spirituality, ritual and tradition: images of religious art such as the living, writhing energy of unfinished idols in a potter's shed in Kolkata; the making of religious music a Buddhists chant from atop icy mountains; the richness of religious traditions in the pristine precision of a Parsi ritual. Amit Pasricha's masterful use of the panoramic format - in unintentional but fitting consonance with the wide, encompassing nature of the sacred in India - and Bharati Motwani's insightful text make The Sacred India Book a limited edition to be preserved and treasured.
A spiritual history of the world's most religiously complex and diverse society, from one of Harvard's most respected scholars. India: A Sacred Geography is the culmination of more than a decade's work from the renowned Harvard scholar Diana L. Eck. The book explores the sacred places of India, taking the reader on an extraordinary trip through the beliefs and history of this rich and profound place, as well as providing a basic introduction to Hindu religious ideas and how those ideas influence our understanding of the modern sense of "India" as a nation.
A guide to the beliefs and practices of India. The book introduces some of India's leading saints, sadhus and gurus, while chapters of Buddhist, Sufi and Christian India demonstrate the variety and complexity of religious traditions.
A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet - then spends the rest of his life trying to atone for the violence by hand printing the best prayer flags in India. A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her best friend ritually starve herself to death. Nine people, nine lives; each one taking a different religious path, each one an unforgettable story. William Dalrymple delves deep into the heart of a nation torn between the relentless onslaught of modernity and the ancient traditions that endure to this day. LONGLISTED FOR THE BBC SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE
Animals are worshipped in India in many ways: as deities—the elephant-god Ganesha and the monkey-god Hanuman; as avatars—like Vishnu’s fish, tortoise and boar forms; and as vahanas—the swan, bull, lion and tiger were all vehicles of major deities and are thus sacred by association. Some animals, like the snake, are worshipped out of fear. Birds such as the crow are associated with the abode of the dead, or the souls of ancestors, while the cow’s sanctity may derive from its economic value. There are also hero-animals, such as the vanaras, and animals which were totemic symbols of tribes that were assimilated into Vedic Hinduism. Sacred Animals of India draws on the ancient religious traditions of India—Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism—to explore the customs and practices that engendered the veneration of animals in India. This book also examines the traditions that gave animals in India protection, and is a reminder of the role of animal species in the earth’s biodiversity.
All rivers in India are sacred, and the Ganges most of all. Every year, more than one million Hindu pilgrims journey to Benares to renew themselves in its waters. Caldecott Honor medalist Ted Lewin joined the pilgrims at the river's edge for an experience he describes as one of the most unforgettable of his life. His luminous watercolors and simple, evocative text brilliantly capture the traditions, beliefs, and colorful pageantry of the devout and their ancient city.
Invading the Sacred by Krishnan Ramaswamy,Aditi Banerjee Pdf
India, once a major civilizational and economic power that suffered centuries of decline, is now newly resurgent in business, geopolitics and culture. However, a powerful counterforce within the American academy is systematically undermining core icons and ideals of Indic culture and thought. For instance, scholars of this counterforce have disparaged the Bhagavad Gita as a dishonest book ; declared Ganesha s trunk a limpphallus ; classified Devi as the mother with apenis and Shiva as a notorious womanizer who incites violence in India.
Plants personify the divine— The Rig Veda (X.97) Trees and plants have long been held sacred to communities the world over. In India, we have a whole variety of flora that feature in our myths, our epics, our rituals, our worship and our daily life. There is the pipal, under which the Buddha meditated on the path to enlightenment; the banyan, in whose branches hide spirits; the ashoka, in a grove of which Sita sheltered when she was Ravana’s prisoner; the tulsi, without which no Hindu house is considered complete; the bilva, with whose leaves it is possible to inadvertently worship Shiva. Before temples were constructed, trees were open-air shrines sheltering the deity, and many were symbolic of the Buddha himself. Sacred Plants of India systematically lays out the sociocultural roots of the various plants found in the Indian subcontinent, while also asserting their ecological importance to our survival. Informative, thought-provoking and meticulously researched, this book draws on mythology and botany and the ancient religious traditions of India to assemble a detailed and fascinating account of India’s flora.
A SEARCH IN SECRET(SACRED)HINDUISM by t.s.viswanathan Pdf
An Introduction: The purpose of writing the book is to provide a brief idea and knowledge about the various Vedic religious, rituals, practices,science, mathematics, beliefs prevalent in Hinduism. In short, to reveal the secrets of Hinduism. In India one should know that there were the intellectuals like rishis and saints and also tribals. The rishis and seers gave the written form of Vedas, Vedangas, languages, sciences, and all forms of knowledge. Sages and seers developed all faculties for Human knowledge, right from medicine to maths, philosophy, physics, astronomy and so on. The concept of re incarnation was one of the highest secrets of Hinduism and followed subsequently by other eastern religions.Though all were in pure Sanskrit it formed the base for the entire world to accelerate their development in all spheres of life. These were all introduced by seers in India through spirituality obtained from incessant meditation. The core practice is meditation. Since tribals living in India were accepted into the Hindu fold their practice still continues though reforms by Shankaracharya had its impact. These tribal practices were commonly criticized as a practice of Hinduism by westerners and other foreigners which is not true. Hinduism allowed their system also to flourish without much intervention. This book shall serve as an eye opener to all especially the younger generation who in the midst of their busy work may not have sufficient time to go deep into the Vedas and realize them. In whatever permissible context I have quoted the relevant portions of the Vedas and other texts to substantiate the authority of the writing. This book has also been written keeping in mind the innumerable NRI families and other foreigners belonging to various religions and cultures, across the globe, who would like to know about Hinduism and its secrets , and who at the same time have not been much exposed to its vast culture. Attempt has been made to analyse every topic to its semantics and explain to the reader for his understanding. Though India is divided by its language it is united by its culture which is Hinduism. However it must be noted that all Indian languages have their base in Sanskrit.The culture of religion was introduced by those ancient seers through epics, puranas emanating from the Vedas. Thus this culture is being experienced by the people in India called as Hindus. Hinduism has been a very tolerant society and over a period of civilizations has assimilated and welcomed many diverse cultures. Hinduism is not a religion in the strict modern sense, but is a composite culture. People living on the other side of river Sindhu were called as Hindus by the Persians (modern Iran) as they shared a common border with the ancient India (now in the region of West Pakistan). In the ancient Persian language they did not have phonetics or syllable for “sa or saa”, hence instead of being called as Sindhus they called as Hindus. “The swastika the early symbol of Hinduism has been widely found in Neolithic European ruins during the past two centuries of archaeological excavations. This has convinced scholars during Past and present that prehistoric Europeans practiced an early form of Hinduism with high spiritual concepts of eternal soul, transmigration, karma, yoga, the third eye and the Nirvana” says Richard Cassaro, Journalist and speaker. Most of us living in the modern age, especially the younger generation , would not have a holistic idea of the practices, science and technology prevalent in this culture especially from vedic times, and therefore this book is an attempt to impart and reveal in a nutshell of the wide beneficial practices prevalent in this ancient culture for the welfare of Humanity.
Rediscovering the Hindu Temple by Vinayak Bharne,Krupali Krusche Pdf
This volume examines the multifarious dimensions that constitute the workings of the Hindu temple as an architectural and urban built form. Eleven chapters reflect on Hindu temples from multiple standpoints - tracing their elusive evolution from wayside shrines as well as canonization into classical objects; questioning the role of treatises containing their building rules; analyzing their prescribed proportions and orders; examining their presence in, and as, larger sacred habitats and ritua...
Belief in the sanctity of animals originated from ideas of karma and the transmigration of souls - thus an ant or a tiger could be one's past or future identity.
The Little Book of Hindu Deities by Sanjay Patel Pdf
Pixar animator and Academy Award–nominated director Sanjay Patel (Sanjay’s Super Team) brings to life Hinduism’s most important gods and goddesses—and one sacred stone—in fun, full-color illustrations, each accompanied by a short, lively profile. The Little Book of Hindu Deities is chock-full of monsters, demons, noble warriors, and divine divas. Find out why Ganesha has an elephant’s head (his father cut his off!); why Kali, the goddess of time, is known as the “Black One” (she’s a bit goth); and what “Hare Krishna” really means. “Throw another ingredient in the American spirituality blender. Pop culture is veering into Hinduism.”—USA Today
'Sacred India' explores the presence of the divine in the mundane, through breathtaking photography and the equally intriguing stories of the people involved. The birthplace of both Hinduism and Buddhism, India also boasts the world's largest Islamic population and one of the world's oldest Jewish communities. Tribal religions, Jainism and the esoterica of Zoroastrianism add to the seemingly bewildering array of faiths jostling for space. That India has mostly been able to contain the inevitable frictions is a miracle in itself.
