The Hindu World
The Hindu World

Author: Sushil Mittal

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-08-02

Total Pages: 910

ISBN-13: 1134608756

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The Hindu World is the most complete, authoritative and up-to-date one-volume guide to Hindu faith and culture available today. With twenty-four dedicated chapters written by the world's leading Hinduism scholars, it elucidates the history, philosophy and practice of one of the world's great religious traditions. The perfect reference for all students of Hinduism, it is ideal for both for introductory-level study and for use as a definitive reference source. Proving invaluable for its wealth of historical material, in addition, The Hindu World also offers new insights into all aspects of Hindu life, ranging from the devotional texts of the Vedas and Ramayana to current perspectives on dharma and kama, temple architecture, sacred food, ritual, caste, cosmic philosophy, history and modernization. The Hindu World emphasizes Hinduism's classical heritage and daily practice as well as contemporary approaches to Hindu scholarship. Exploring the enormous diversity of Hindu devotion whilst considering Hinduism's academic status as a category for analysis, the book achieves a distinctive creative balance between the beliefs and values of Hindus themselves, and scholarly 'outsider' perspectives.

Hindu Goddesses
Hindu Goddesses

Author: David Kinsley

Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 9788120803947

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Hindu Goddesses is a valuable sourcebook and reference work for students and scholars of Hindu goddesses and of Hinduism in general. Each goddess is dealt with as an independent deity with a coherent mythology, theology and, in some cases, cult of her own. Within the complex, diverse, and rich goddess traditions of Hinduism, one can find suggestions of nearly every important theme in the Hindu religion. In many ways, this book is as much a study of the Hindu tradition itself as it is a study of one aspect of that tradition. No other living religious tradition has displayed such an ancient, continuous, and diverse history of goddess worship.

The Origins & Development of Classical Hinduism
The Origins & Development of Classical Hinduism

Author: A.L. Basham

Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass

Published: 2016-01-01

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 8120840690

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Modelled on A.L. Bashamís monumental work The Wonder That Was India, this account of the Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism represents a lifetime of reflection on the subject and offers an intriguing introduction to one of the richest of all Asian traditions. The late A. L. Basham was one of the world s foremost authorities on ancient Indian culture and religion. Modelled on his monumental work ‘The Wonder That Was India’, this account of the origins and development of classical Hinduism represents a lifetime of reflection on the subject and offers an intriguing introduction to one of the richest of all Asian traditions. Synthesizing Basham s great knowledge of the art, architecture, literature, and religion of South Asia, this concise history traces the spiritual life of Indian from the time of the Indus Culture through the crystallization of classical Hinduism in the first centuries of the common era and includes a final chapter by the editor, Kenneth G. Zysk, on Hinduism after the classical period. Uniquely comprehensive, it chronicles as well the rise of other mystical and ascetic traditions, such as Buddhism and Jainism, and follows Hinduism s later incarnations in the West. With its vivid presentation of Hinduism s sources and its clearly written explanations and analyses of the major Hindu texts-among them the Rg-veda, the Brahmanas, Upanisads, and the Mahabharata and Ramayana-The Origins of Classical Hinduism clarifies much of Hinduism s enduring mystique. Offering an especially helpful bibliography, numerous illustrations of Hindu art never before published, and a lucid, accessible style, this book is must reading for anyone who has ever been intrigued by this fascinating religion. For more info, please log on to www.mlbd.co.in

The Oxford History of Hinduism
The Oxford History of Hinduism

Author: Gavin Flood

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 501

ISBN-13: 019873350X

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An authoritative collection on the history of Hindu religious practices. Hindu Practice considers traditions of asceticism, yoga, and devotion, including dance and music, developed in Hinduism over long periods of time.

Human Geography
Human Geography

Author: Erin H. Fouberg

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2009-01-27

Total Pages: 544

ISBN-13: 0470382589

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Taking us from our hominid ancestors to the megacities of today, 'Human Geography' brings a new emphasis to the political and economic issues of human geography.

Scientific Bases of Hindu Beliefs
Scientific Bases of Hindu Beliefs

Author: Dr. Bhojraj Dwivedi

Publisher: Diamond Pocket Books Pvt Ltd

Published: 2016-05-02

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 9352610474

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Sanatan Hindu Dharma is like a huge tree. Different kinds of assumptions have, merged into it from time immemorial. As human population grew and time changed, beliefs and faiths changed as a result of continuous thinking of scholars and growing maturity in their ideas. As a consequence,? the branches and sub-branches of Hindu religion also grew. Is there any scientific basis of beliefs and faiths propagated in Hinduism? This question agitates the minds of intellectual readers again and again. Now, that time has come to an end, when you cited from the religious scriptures and said, ?Babaÿvakyaÿpramanam? (here is the statement from the author as evidence). Comprehensive thinking about religious beliefs has become the most essential call of the age today. First of all, the average reader has to understand what is science. The word ?vigyan (science) is formed by prefixing ?vi to ?gyan? (knowledge). ?Vishishta gyanam iti vigyanam, ?Vishesh gyanam iti vigyanam?, ?Vishuddha gyanam iti vigyanam (Specific knowledge is science, Special knowledge is science, Pure knowledge is science), these definitions are clear in themselves. Science, in fact, is based upon cause and effect relationship. ?Karya karan sarnbandh iti vigyanam?, ?punah punah parikshanam prayoganch kritam? (Science is cause and effect relationship. Experiment is made again and again). Where we come to know the cause and effect relationship, then that knowledge automatically passes into the category of science. True knowledge of an object, based on facts, is a part of science itself. ?Punah punah nirikshit gyanam iti vigyanam,? When the results are the same on repeated observations, then those facts become science. Ancient Rishis-Munis (seers and saints) formed some rules and principles under the cover of religion to civilize humanity. They offered the charms of heaven and fears of hell, so that, men adopted them in their conduct. Today, in the age of computer, no one accepts heaven or hell, piety or sin, religion or irreligion. It is a transition period. Innumerable questions are cropping up in the minds of the intellectuals. To clarify the scientific basis of Hindu beliefs has become a need of the day.

Homa Variations
Homa Variations

Author: Richard K. Payne

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 0199351589

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Throughout human history, and across many religious cultures, offerings are made into fire. The essays collected in Homa Variations provide detailed studies of this practice, known in the tantric world as the "homa," from its inception up to the present.

The Geography of Religion
The Geography of Religion

Author: Roger W. Stump

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2008-04-04

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 0742581497

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The only book of its kind, this balanced and accessibly written text explores the geographical study of religion. Roger W. Stump presents a clear and meticulous examination of the intersection of religious belief and practice with the concepts of place and space. He begins by analyzing the factors that have shaped the spatial distributions of religious groups, including the seminal events that have fostered the organization of religions in diverse hearths and the subsequent processes of migration and conversion that have spread religious beliefs. The author then assesses how major religions have diversified as they have become established in disparate places, producing a variety of religious systems from a common tradition. Stump explores the efforts of religious groups to control secular space at various scales, relating their own uses of particular spaces and the meanings they attribute to space beyond the boundaries of their own communities. Examining sacred space as a diverse but recurring theme in religious belief, the book considers its role in religious forms of spatial behavior and as a source of conflict within and between religious groups. Refreshingly jargon-free and impartial, this text provides a broad, comparative view of religion as a focus of geographical inquiry.

Demystifying Brahminism and Re-Inventing Hinduism
Demystifying Brahminism and Re-Inventing Hinduism

Author: Satya Shri

Publisher: Notion Press

Published: 2017-01-23

Total Pages: 547

ISBN-13: 194651554X

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‘Religion is a tool in the hands of the oppressor against the oppressed solely because he frames the commandments and calls them the God’s’, is an apt description of the Hindu social order. The book rips open the raw nerve of Hinduism—its invidious castes, positioned as a ‘God-ordained’ institution, commandeered by its freebooter priestly class while clandestinely establishing its religious, social and political hegemony through interpolation of its pristine and effulgent scriptures. The author boldly analyses this imbroglio through a microscopic analysis of these and more related issues: • How priests controlled the Hindu religious, social, educational and political apparatus? • How the dominant priestly class fractured the society into mutually antagonistic subordinated hierarchical segments, and ruled it by reserving all elite jobs for itself? • How the fiendish priesthood emasculated shudras by depriving them of the ‘shaastra and shastra’ (education and arms) and made them permanent ‘village servant classes’? • How the pretensions of attaining siddhis through 'meditation and penances' established priests as the ‘gods on earth’ for their assertions of ‘purity and effulgence’? • How ‘karma’, ‘reincarnation’ and ‘84-lakhs births’ theories were devised to justify fatalism and hierarchical gradation of varnas? • Can India be rightfully called the ‘vishvaguru’ and the mother of all civilisations? • How Buddhism effeminated Hindus and made them the doormats for the ruthless? • Why Hindus had to abandon their own, to adop foreign institutions of governance? • Why Hinduism should become a universal and proselytising faith and fight demographic challenges posed by Islam and Christianity?