This latest addition to Sankara literature is totally different in concept.It`s based solidly in tradition, and it is at the same time just the kind of presentation that makes the postmodern reader sit up and take notice. It is philosophical, yet never forbiddingly so. It reads more like a story. The prose is simple, smooth, and meditative. Padmapada, Sankara`s senior disciple, narrates the story in very human terms. His intent is not to glorify his master`s life and work--for that is hardly necessary--but to present him as a friend of humankind, someone who is needed generation after generation, millennium after millennium. Humans have not changed in terms of their strengths or their weaknesses since the race first evolved on the planet, nor are they likely to morph into saints any time soon. The prophets help us cope with the trials and tribulations of our daily lives and remind us of our divine roots if we care to listen. This book answers some of your serious questions about life if you have them read. If you don`t, it will help you formulate them. Coming up with the right questions, after all, is the first step toward finding the right solutions.INDUSEKHARA SASTRI MADUGULA taught English Language and Literature at Andhra University, Waltair, Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad, India, and California State University, Bakersfield, California. He is currently head of the Reference Department in Palm Springs Public Library, Palm Springs, California.

Drawing on both textual and archaeological evidence, this study offers an integrated approach to scholarly debates on monasteries and guru relics in South India between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. This study analyzes the role of the guru in the development of Hindu monastic orders, from centers of education to institutions of traditional authority. Focusing on the complex socio-religious context of the whole-body icon, the author analyzes the relic as a nexus of contradictions surrounding sacredness and death.

About the Book A COMPREHENSIVELY RESEARCHED BOOK ON THE LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY OF ADI SHANKARACHARYA What is Brahman? What is its relationship to Atman? What is an individual’s place in the cosmos? Is a personalised god and ritualistic worship the only path to attain moksha? Does caste matter when a human is engaging with the metaphysical world? The answers to these perennial questions sparkle with clarity in this seminal account of a man and a saint, who revived Hinduism and gave to Upanishadic insights a rigorously structured and sublimely appealing philosophy. Jagad Guru Adi Shankaracharya (788–820 CE) was born in Kerala and died in Kedarnath, traversing the length of India in his search for the ultimate truth. In a short life of thirty-two years, Shankaracharya not only revived Hinduism, but also created the organisational structure for its perpetuation through the mathas he established in Sringeri, Dwaraka, Puri and Joshimatha. Adi Shankaracharaya: Hinduism’s Greatest Thinker is a meticulously researched and comprehensive account of his life and philosophy. Highly readable, and including a select anthology of Shankaracharya’s seminal writing, the book also examines the startling endorsement that contemporary science is giving to his ideas today. A must-read for people across the ideological spectrum, this book reminds readers about the remarkable philosophical underpinning of Hinduism, making it one of the most vibrant religions in the world.

Presentation of the thesis that the Bhagavadgītā is a non- ethical work.