This is Volume VIII in a series of ten on India: Religion and Philosophy. Originally published in 1879, work an endeavour has been made to supply the long-felt want of a Hindu Classical Dictionary. The main portion of this work consists of mythology, but religion is bound up with mythology, and in many points the two are quite inseparable.

This book offers a translation of the seven thousand verses of the second book of the medieval Hindu text, the Ganesa Purana, one of two Puranas dedicated to the important elephant-headed god. In this book the reader is given many narratives about Ganesas ascent to earth in order to kill demonic figures who threaten to overthrow the correct world order. In addition, these narratives contain myths about Ganesa's birth and family as well as some extended and quite humorous myths about ideal devotees of the god.The translation is preceded by a long introduction offering a geographical and historical context for the GanesaPurana. Following the translation are very extensive notes which bring our points of philological interest, but focus mainly on the literary structure of the text and the methods used to present the many myths and narratives in a coherent and fully integrated manner.

In Egypt Seb-the earth-is a goose, "the great cackler," who lays the gold egg-the sun. The goose was early tamed by Egyptians, though they had neither ducks nor fowls as domestic birds. In India Brahma rides the goose (see Hansa), and in mythology it is often confused with the swan, which is the great emblem of white, and snow, clouds. The goose is an emblem of Frey, and the swan of Freya, among the Norse. The swan was sacred to the sea god Niord. Russian folk-lore abounds with tales of geese, swans, and ducks. Wedding gifts always include geese, which are symbolic of conjugal fidelity. -from "Goose" This 1906 classic of comparative literature, hard to find in print today, was the first English-language project to approach the world's religions from an anthropological perspective. The work of thirty years for Scottish author JAMES G. R. FORLONG (1824-1904), it was originally published under the now-antiquated title A Cyclopedia of Religions and produced at the author's own expense, so strongly did he feel about the need for it despite the reluctance of the publishing houses of the day to produce it. A road engineer by trade, Forlong traveled the world, learning seven languages and becoming an avid amateur student of native culture-his labor of love was gathering, in this three-volume set, a comprehensive, academic knowledge of the totality of human religious belief. Volume II: E-M includes entries on such gods, peoples, places, practices, symbols, and concepts as: Easter Isle, eggs, fear, and fetish gipsies, gorgons, Helene, and horse incubi, inspiration, Jacob, and Japan Kadesh, Kant, lion, and logos Maia, Maimonides, and Mennonites and much more.