René Daumal (b. 1908) is best known for his novel Mt. Analogue, unfinished at his death, in 1944 (other works in English include A Night of Serious Drinking and The Power of the Word). Daumal was an autodidact, ie. a non-academic, Sanskritist. Following youthful explorations, with poet Gilbert Le Conte (Black Mirror) and initial instruction in Sanskrit from René Guernon, he embarked on a solitary study, surpassed his teacher and eventually formulated his own Sanskrit dictionary. He translated essential texts on Sanskrit composition, poetry in Sanskrit, including the famous hymn concerning SOMA and the first chapter of the Bharatya Natya Sastra, the world's first treatise on the dramatic arts written circa 4th century. Writing numerous essays on Sanskrit poetics his deeply felt intention was to present these texts and the spiritual etymology of the sub-continent in a form accessible to the 'common man', the artists and new societies of the 20th century. As secretary to Uday Shankar, he wrote the first reviews of Indian music and dance in the West (Paris, circa 1935) and accompanied Uday Shankar's troupe, which included Ravi Shankar as a 12 year old dancer to NYC. During the 2nd. World War, exiled in the South of France, with his wife Vera who was Jewish, he furthered his literary work, completing essays, translations, reviews while maintaining, with others so exiled. a profound epistolary exchange (see Letters 1930-1944), until his death from tuberculosis, shortly before the alien landing. RASA, a 'cult classic' edited by Claudio Rugafori, secretary of the Daumal archives and translated by American poet and musician, Louise Landes Levi, has earned its reputation.This is its 3rd. edition, prior editions being New Directions, 1982 and Shivastan 2003 and 2006.

An examination of Hindu artistic theory and culture discusses Indian poetry, music and dance and is accompanied by translations from Sanskrit literature

This groundbreaking book underlines the primordial richness of language by focusing upon the spiritual qualities in poetry which serve to bridge the human and the Divine.

From the early years of the Common Era to 1700, Indian intellectuals explored with unparalleled subtlety the place of emotion in art. Their investigations led to the deconstruction of art's formal structures and broader inquiries into the pleasure of tragic tales. Rasa, or taste, was the word they chose to describe art's aesthetics, and their passionate effort to pin down these phenomena became its own remarkable act of creation. This book is the first in any language to follow the evolution of rasa from its origins in dramaturgical thought—a concept for the stage—to its flourishing in literary thought—a concept for the page. A Rasa Reader incorporates primary texts by every significant thinker on classical Indian aesthetics, many never translated before. The arrangement of the selections captures the intellectual dynamism that has powered this debate for centuries. Headnotes explain the meaning and significance of each text, a comprehensive introduction summarizes major threads in intellectual-historical terms, and critical endnotes and an extensive bibliography add further depth to the selections. The Sanskrit theory of emotion in art is one of the most sophisticated in the ancient world, a precursor of the work being done today by critics and philosophers of aesthetics. A Rasa Reader's conceptual detail, historical precision, and clarity will appeal to any scholar interested in a full portrait of global intellectual development. A Rasa Reader is the inaugural book in the Historical Sourcebooks in Classical Indian Thought series, edited by Sheldon Pollock. These text-based books guide readers through the most important forms of classical Indian thought, from epistemology, rhetoric, and hermeneutics to astral science, yoga, and medicine. Each volume provides fresh translations of key works, headnotes to contextualize selections, a comprehensive analysis of major lines of development within the discipline, and exegetical and text-critical endnotes, as well as a bibliography. Designed for comparativists and interested general readers, Historical Sourcebooks is also a great resource for advanced scholars seeking authoritative commentary on challenging works.

How can we improve our sense of wellbeing? What explains the current wellbeing boom? What does wellbeing mean to you? The Psychology of Wellbeing offers readers tools to navigate their own wellbeing and understand what makes a ‘good life’. Using self-reflection and storytelling, it explores how trust affects psychological and emotional wellbeing, considers how stress and inequality impact our psychological wellbeing, and how trends such as positive psychology influence our understanding of happiness. In a world where the ‘wellness economy’ is big business, The Psychology of Wellbeing shows how we can question and make sense of information sources, and sheds light on the wellness, self-care and self-help industry.

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art provides an extensive research resource to the burgeoning field of Asian aesthetics. Featuring leading international scholars and teachers whose work defines the field, this unique volume reflects the very best scholarship in creative, analytic, and comparative philosophy. Beginning with a philosophical reconstruction of the classical rasa aesthetics, chapters range from the nature of art-emotions, tones of thinking, and aesthetic education to issues in film-theory and problems of the past versus present. As well as discussing indigenous versus foreign in aesthetic practices, this volume covers North and South Indian performance practices and theories, alongside recent and new themes including the Gandhian aesthetics of surrender and self-control and the aesthetics of touch in the light of the politics of untouchability. With such unparalleled and authoritative coverage, The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art represents a dynamic map of comparative cross-cultural aesthetics. Bringing together original philosophical research from renowned thinkers, it makes a major contribution to both Eastern and Western contemporary aesthetics.

First published in 1983, Perception, Learning and the Self is a collection of essays demonstrating the incompleteness of the information-processing model in cognitive psychology and the connection between epistemic factors and social conditions in the making of the self. It is suggested that any framework employed to view cognition must be an essentially social one, in which knowers are seen as selves who are agents with feelings and attitudes. Professor Hamlyn argues that, by failing to acknowledge this social element, the information-processing model presents an overly simplistic view of the systems that underlie cognition, and thus is liable to distort what is at stake. Professor Hamlyn considers the contributions of a number of major psychologists to this area of study, including James Gibson, Jean Piaget and Sigmund Freud. This book will be of interest to students of philosophy and psychology.