The Alchemical Body
Author: David Gordon White
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press Ltd., London,
1996
ISBN: 0-226-89497-5 (cloth)
The Alchemical Body excavates and centres within its Indian
context the lost tradition of the medieval Siddhas. Working
from a body of previously unexplored alchemical sources,
David Gordon White demonstrates for the first time that
the medieval disciplines of Hindu alchemy and hatha-yoga
were practised by the same people, and that they can only
be understood when viewed together. White opens the
way to a new and more comprehensive understanding of medieval
Indian mysticism, within the broader context of South Asian
Hinduism, Jainism and Islam.
Themes and
Issues in Hinduism
(A volume in the World Religions:
Themes and Issues series)
edited by Paul Bowen
Publisher: Cassel (London and Washington)
First published 1998
ISBN 0-304-33850-8 hardback
ISBN 0-304-33851-6 paperback
This book offers useful insights into the complex and internally
diverse realm of Hinduism. It is intended to acquaint the
reader with themes and issues that, while of relevance to
all religious traditions and systems, contribute to an understanding
of the abstract nature of Hinduism as a whole. Beginning
with Hindu religious understandings of the human condition,
the chapters are arranged so as to form a thematic survey
and overview of Hindu religious beliefs and practices. The
themes of morality and ethics, the role of women in Hinduism,
the Hindu religious construction of nature, and issues such
as mythology, the status of texts, forms of worship, and
sacred time and place can be systematically considered;
or, alternatively, focus can fall upon those topics that
are of particular personal interest. Readers should find
this book a wide-ranging and balanced introduction to Hinduism's
inner diversity.
Written for students of comparative religion and the general
reader, and drawing on the chapters originally edited by
Jean Holm and John Bowker in the Themes in Religious Studies
series, the volumes in World Religions: Themes and Issues
explore core themes from the perspective of the particular
religious tradition under study.
Tantric Visions
of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahavidyas
Author: David Kinsley
Publisher: University of California Press Ltd., London,
1997
ISBN: 0-52020498-0 (cloth)
ISBN: 0-520-20499-9 (pbk)
What is one to make of a group of goddesses that includes
a goddess who cuts her own head off, a goddess who sits
on a corpse while pulling the tongue of a demon, or a goddess
who prefers sex with corpses? Tantric Visions of the Divine
Feminine deals with a group of ten Hindu Mahavidyas, who
embody habits, attributes or identities usually considered
repulsive or socially subversive. It is within the
context of tantric worship that devotees seek to identify
themselves with these forbidding goddesses. The Mahavidyas
seem to function as 'awakeners' - symbols that help to project
one's consciousness beyond the socially acceptable or predictable.
Kinsley not only describes the eccentric qualities of each
of these goddesses but seeks to interpret the Mahavidyas
as a group and to explain their importance for understanding
Tantra and the Hindu tradition.
Hinduism for Our
Times
Author: Arvind Sharma
Publisher: Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1996
ISBN: 0-195-63749-6
No religion ever remains static: it affects and is in turn
affected by material reality. It is the creative tension
embodied in this dynamic which makes the world of religion,
rich with possibilities.
This book examines the contours of this creative tension
in the context of Hinduism in our own times. For Hinduism,
a religion of unknown antiquity is also, in several ways,
surprisingly modern. Hinduism for Our Times is an attempt
to raise this dimension of Hinduism to an unprecedented
level of self-awareness. Thus the choices that Hindus
must make in the context of modernisation and globalisation
become conscious as opposed to random choices, choices which
will place Hinduism at the cutting edge of the contemporary
world instead of consigning it to the periphery. This
book will appeal to all those interested in giving religion
a modern agenda.
A Hare Krishna
at Southern Methodist University
Author: Tamala Krsna Goswami
Publisher: Pundits Press, Dallas
ISBN 0-9643485-2-7
A Hare Krishna at Southern Methodist University is a collection
of award-winning essays mapping the convergence of East
and West by Hare Krsna leader Tamala Krsna Goswami. Readers
are invited to enter the world of a unique spiritual pioneer,
who in reality is the seeker in all of us.
