This beguiling story is woven around the life of Fragrant Lotus, who has her feet bound in the supreme Golden Lotus style when she is six years old. Events in Fragrants Lotus’ life twist and unfold in a series of witty and often wicked ironies, obliterating easy distinctions between kindness and cruelty, history and fable, forgery and authentic work. The novel’s waggish narrator exists in the tension between judgement and description, wryly deflating his reader’s certainties along the way. Written in 1985, The Three-Inch Golden Lotus is a deeply affecting, thoroughly enjoyable literary revelation.

Millions of people practice some form of yoga, but they often do so without a clear understanding of its history, traditions, and purposes. This comprehensive bibliography, designed to assist researchers, practitioners, and general readers in navigating the extensive yoga literature, lists and comments upon English-language yoga texts published since 1981. It includes entries for more than 2,400 scholarly as well as popular works, manuals, original Sanskrit source text translations, conference proceedings, doctoral dissertations, and master's theses. Entries are arranged alphabetically by author for easy access, while thorough author, title, and subject indexes will help readers find books of interest.

"The greatest novel of physical love which China has produced." --Pearl S. Buck A saga of ruthless ambition, murder, and lust, The Golden Lotus (Jin Ping Mei) has been called the fifth Great Classical Novel in Chinese literature, joining the Four Great Classics: Journey to the West, The Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Dream of the Red Chamber (also known as The Story of the Stone), and is recognized as one of the Four Masterworks of the Ming novel. Golden Lotus tells the story of Ximen Qing, a wealthy, unscrupulous merchant who takes the beautiful and ambitious widow Pan Jinlian as his fifth wife. Jinlian is not content to accept her position and schemes to dominate her husband and improve her standing in society by using sex as her weapon. As the story unfolds, Ximen Qing embarks on a series sexual conquests and Pan Jinlian exploits her husband's lust, ultimately causing the downfall of the entire family. The story's dramatic climax vividly portrays the lengths to which ambitious people will go to gain influence. It also lays bare the rivalries within wealthy families of privilege while chronicling their rise and fall. Iconic in China, Golden Lotus has been alternately banned and lauded for centuries, all the while still avidly read as a popular page-turner. This new Tuttle edition, now available in a single unabridged volume, includes a superb introduction by Robert Hegel of Washington University, who explains the book's importance as the first novel in the Chinese tradition attributable to a single author.

The Plum in the Golden Vase (also known as The Golden Lotus) was published in the early seventeenth century and may be the first long work of Chinese fiction written by a single (though anonymous) author. Featuring both complex structural elements and psychological and emotional realism, the novel centers on the rich merchant Ximen Qing and his household and describes the physical surroundings and material objects of a Ming Dynasty city. In part a social, political, and moral critique, the novel reflects on hierarchical power relations of family and state and the materialism of life at the time. The essays in this volume provide ideas for teaching the novel using a variety of approaches, from questions of genre, intertextuality, and the novel's reception to material culture, family and social dynamics, and power structures in sexual relations. Insights into the novel's representation of Buddhism, Chinese folk religion, legal culture, class, slavery, and obscenity are offered throughout the volume.

Faced with overcoming fear of the unknown, Padma struggles to live her life as she always dreamed it should be. Then, with wisdom from her grandmother and inspiration from her family, she begins to find the strength and courage to take charge of her own life. In order to do this she must journey inward and unlock the doors that hold her spirit back. Through the power of yoga, Padma learns that not only are mind, body, and spirit connected, but when they are in harmony, the world is simply what she makes it. Padma and the Blue Castle provides inspiration and nourishment to the body, mind, and soul. It includes yoga poses (Asanas) and meditation that enhances imagination, well-being, and strength. It promotes the discipline and practice that is necessary to accomplish all of lifes goals, as well as the wisdom of listening to the heart in order to create more hope, love, and peace in oneself and in the world.