The experience of wonder—encompassing awe, bewilderment, curiosity, excitement, fear, dread, mystery, perplexity, reverence, surprise, and supplication—and the ineffable quality of that which is wondrous have been entwined in religion and human experience. Yet strangely, wonder in non-western societies, including South Asia, has rarely been acknowledged or understood. This groundbreaking volume brings together historians and ethnographers of South Asia, including leading and emerging scholars, to consider the place and meaning of wonder in such varied joyful, tense, and creative sites and moments as Sufi music performances in Gujarat, Tamil graveyard processions, trans women's charitable practices, Kipling's Orientalist tales, village Kuchipudi dance performances, and Rajasthani healing shrines. Offering a synthetic and scholarly reading of wonder that speaks to the political, aesthetic, and ethical worlds of South Asia, these essays redefine the nature and meaning of wonder and its worlds. Taken together, they provide an invaluable research tool for those in the fields of Asian religion, religion in context, and South Asian religions in particular.

Wonder has been celebrated as the quintessential passion of childhood. From the earliest stages of our intellectual history, it has been acclaimed as the driving force of inquiry and the prime passion of thought. Yet for an emotion acknowledged so widely for the multiple roles it plays in our lives, wonder has led a singularly shadowy existence in recent reflections. Philosophers have largely passed it over in silence; emotion theorists have shunned it as a case that sits awkwardly within their analytical frameworks. So what is wonder, and why does it matter? In this book, Sophia Vasalou sketches a "grammar" of wonder that pursues the complexities of wonder as an emotional experience that has carved colorful tracks through our language and our intellectual history, not only in philosophy and science but also in art and religious experience. A richer grammar of wonder and broader window into its past can give us the tools we need for thinking more insightfully about wonder, and for reflecting on the place it should occupy within our emotional lives.

Travel, Art and Collecting in South Asia questions what are ideas of vertiginous collecting, art-making and museums as expanded fields, including wonder houses and missionary museums (or museobuses) in Britain and South Asia. If the historiography of British India has privileged photography and the 'Imperial Picturesque', the emphasis here is on the formation of a creole modernity, one that considers the relationship between art and labour, including pearlescence and pearl fishing in Sri Lanka, and the iconoclastic/fetish debates and forms of collecting amongst missionaries. Eaton explores these themes alongside the genealogies and modernities of white(ness) in contemporary curating and amateur female practice, and how the museobus or museum as a unique object has informed the work of contemporary artist group Raqs Media Collective. This book will be of interest to scholars in art history, Asian history, and imperial and colonial history.

Wonder-Tales of South Asia contains translations that Simon Digby has made over the years of tales of wonder, with miraculous or fantastic elements, from four different Asian languages.

A comparative study of wonder in South Asian religions.

Dialogue between characters is an important feature of South Asian religious literature: entire narratives are often presented as a dialogue between two or more individuals, or the narrative or discourse is presented as a series of embedded conversations from different times and places. Including some of the most established scholars of South Asian religious texts, this book examines the use of dialogue in early South Asian texts with an interdisciplinary approach that crosses traditional boundaries between religious traditions. The contributors shed new light on the cultural ideas and practices within religious traditions, as well presenting an understanding of a range of dynamics - from hostile and competitive to engaged and collaborative. This book is the first to explore the literary dimensions of dialogue in South Asian religious sources, helping to reframe the study of other literary traditions around the world.

The South Asian Health Solution is the first book to provide an ancestral health-based wellness plan culturally tailored for those of South Asian ancestry living in India, the United States and across the world – a population identified as being at the highest risk for heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and related conditions. Dr. Ronesh Sinha, an internal medicine specialist in California’s Silicon Valley, sees high risk South Asian patients and runs education and wellness programs for corporate clients. He has taken many South Asians out of the high risk, high body mass category and helped them reverse disease risk factors without medications. His comprehensive lifestyle modification approach has been validated by cutting edge medical science and the real-life success stories he profiles throughout the book.