About 16 centuries ago, an unknown Indian author or authors gathered together the diverse threads of already ancient traditions and wove them into a verbal tapestry that today is still the central text for worshippers of the Hindu Devi, the Divine Mother. This spiritual classic, the Devimahatmya, addresses the perennial questions of the nature of the universe, humankind, and divinity. How are they related, how do we live in a world torn between good and evil, and how do we find lasting satisfaction and inner peace? These questions and their answers form the substance of the Devimahatmya. Its narrative of a dispossessed king, a merchant betrayed by the family he loves, and a seer whose teaching leads beyond existential suffering sets the stage for a trilogy of myths concerning the all-powerful Divine Mother, Durga, and the fierce battles she wages against throngs of demonic foes. In these allegories, her adversaries represent our all-too-human impulses toward power, possessions, and pleasure. The battlefields symbolize the field of human consciousness on which our lives' dramas play out in joy and sorrow, in wisdom and folly. The Devimahatmya speaks to us across the ages of the experiences and beliefs of our ancient ancestors. We sense their enchantment at nature's bounty and their terror before its destructive fury, their recognition of the good and evil in the human heart, and their understanding that everything in our experience is the expression of a greater reality, personified as the Divine Mother.

Esoteric rituals and hymn to glorifying Durgā (Hindu deity), with Sanskrit text and English translation.

"This study in comparative mysticism (originally given as lectures at the Sorbonne) explores the relationship between Hindu mystics (notably Shankara and Sri Ramakrishna) and Christian Carmelite mystics (notably St. John of the Cross), using jnana, bhakti, and raja yogas as a basis for comparison as well as the sacred scriptures of both traditions."-- Publisher.

This book is a captivating narration of the various legends and folktales that surround the revered goddesses of India. The goddesses not only epitomize the forces of good fighting over evil, but also the source of worldly wellbeing. Ramananda Bandapadhyay s illustrations are symbolically rich and they in themselves constitute a storehouse of information on mythological iconography.

"An initiate of the late Swami Venkatesananda, Durga Rahasya builds on the insights vouchsafed by him. It brings out the cosmological, anthropological and existential meaning of the text via the three tales. The Introduction unravels the stories syntactically together with the lauds in a relaxed semiotic rhythm, supplementing with a commentary cultural and trans-cultural in five brief chapters enabling insights on the Eternal Feminine to the contemporary reader. The transcreation in a class by itself done by a poet steeped in Durga symbology as a sahridaya reader rounds off the Durga Rahasya. The book should interest any intelligent reader in addition to indologists and psychologists and the initiates. It is a handmade book, free from needless jargon."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved