In this fascinating book, Richard Smoley examines the roles God has played for us and reconciles them with what we today know through science and reason. In the process, he shows that consciousness is the underlying reality beneath everything in the universe. In one of Hinduism’s great myths, Shiva plays a dice game with his consort, Parvati, and loses consistently. If he is the greatest god, why does he lose? Through this story, Richard Smoley explores the interplay between consciousness, represented by Shiva, and experience, exemplified by Parvati. He draws on numerous disciplines to offer an illuminating exploration of mind and matter and a provocative understanding of consciousness, the self, and the world.

This book offers a new exploration of the mythology of the Hindu god Siva, who spends his time playing dice with his wife, to whom he habitually loses. The result of the game is our world, which turns the god inside-out and changes his internal composition. Hindus maintain that Siva is perpetually absorbed in this game, which is recreated in innumerable stories, poems, paintings, and sculptural carvings. This notion of the god at play, arguee Handelman and Shulman, is one of the most central and expressive veins in the metaphysics elaborated through the centuries, in many idioms and modes, around the god. The book comprises three interlocking essays; the first presents the dice-game proper, in the light of the texts and visual depictions the authors have collected. The second and third chapters take up two mythic "sequels" to the game. Based on their analysis of these sequels, the authors argue that notions of "asceticism" so frequently associated with Siva, with Yoga, and with Hindu religion are, in fact, foreign to Hinduism's inherent logic as reflected in Siva's game of dice. They suggest an alternative reading of this set of practices and ideas, providing startling new insights into Hindu mythology and the major poetic texts from the classical Sanskrit tradition.

In this magisterial volume of essays, Wendy Doniger enhances our understanding of the ancient and complex religion to which she has devoted herself for half a century. This series of interconnected essays and lectures surveys the most critically important and hotly contested issues in Hinduism over 3,500 years, from the ancient time of the Vedas to the present day. The essays contemplate the nature of Hinduism; Hindu concepts of divinity; attitudes concerning gender, control, and desire; the question of reality and illusion; and the impermanent and the eternal in the two great Sanskrit epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Among the questions Doniger considers are: Are Hindus monotheists or polytheists? How can atheists be Hindu, and how can unrepentant Hindu sinners find salvation? Why have Hindus devoted so much attention to the psychology of addiction? What does the significance of dogs and cows tell us about Hinduism? How have Hindu concepts of death, rebirth, and karma changed over the course of history? How and why does a pluralistic faith, remarkable for its intellectual tolerance, foster religious intolerance? Doniger concludes with four concise autobiographical essays in which she reflects on her lifetime of scholarship, Hindu criticism of her work, and the influence of Hinduism on her own philosophy of life. On Hinduism is the culmination of over forty years of scholarship from a renowned expert on one of the world's great faiths.

The origin of world civilization can be traced to the Indus Valley cradle, where brilliant and original thinkers made groundbreaking discoveries. The history of these discoveries is recorded in the vast Sanskrit literature. In this study, author M. K. Agarwal explores the cultural and historical significance of the region. He explores Indus Valley culture, which encouraged creative thought as opposed to the Abrahamic faiths, which herded followers into dogmatic thinking. He holds that these religions prospered because of their unfettered hatred of the Vedic-Hindu-Buddhist peoples, who were demonized as pagans to be murdered, tortured, raped, enslaved, and robbed. He also considers the achievements of that culture, such as the creation of the most affluent, most scientifically advanced, and most spiritual of all societies, with archeological moorings that can be traced back to 8000 BC. No other region can even come close to transforming people and culture like the Indus Valley, but the world's Vedic roots have been ignored, shunned, and covered up. Uncover the history that has been lost and develop a deeper appreciation for the true cradle of human civilization with The Vedic Core of Human History.

Many contemporary discussions of religion take an absolute, intractable approach to belief and nonbelief that privileges faith and dogmatism while treating doubt as a threat to religious values. As Madhuri M. Yadlapati demonstrates, however, there is another way: a faith (or nonfaith) that embraces doubt and its potential for exploring both the depths and heights of spiritual reflection and speculation. Through three distinct discussions of faith, doubt, and hope, Yadlapati explores what it means to live creatively and responsibly in the everyday world as limited, imaginative, and questioning creatures. She begins with a perceptive survey of diverse faith experiences in Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Protestant Christianity and then narrows her focus to Protestant Christianity and Hinduism to explore how the great thinkers of those faiths have embraced doubt in the service of spiritual transcendence. Yadlapati traces religious perspectives on trust, humility, belonging, commitment, and lively skepticism as they relate to faith and doubt. Drawing on various doctrines, scriptures, and the writings of great religious thinkers such as C. S. Lewis, Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth, and Raimon Panikkar, Yadlapati demonstrates how doubt can serve to enhance faith, not hinder it. Defending the rich tapestry of faith and doubt against polarization, Against Dogmatism reveals an ecumenical middle way, a spiritual approach native to traditions in which faith and doubt are interwoven in constructive and dynamic ways.

In this second edition, the author opens with a discussion of important developments in the discipline. His closing chapter, 'Global and Intercultural Performance', is completely rewritten in light of the post-9/11 world. Fully revised chapters with new examples, biographies and source material provide a lively, easily accessible overview of the full range of performance for undergraduates at all levels in performance studies, theatre, performing arts and cultural studies. Among the topics discussed are the performing arts and popular entertainments, rituals, play and games as well as the performances of everyday life. Supporting examples and ideas are drawn from the social sciences, performing arts, post-structuralism, ritual theory, ethology, philosophy and aesthetics. User-friendly, with a special text design, Performance Studies: An Introduction also includes the following features: numerous extracts from primary sources giving alternative voices and viewpoints biographies of key thinkers student activities to stimulate fieldwork, classroom exercises and discussion key reading lists for each chapter twenty line drawings and 202 photographs drawn from private and public collections around the world.

The books brings out survey of Hindu festivals, explanation on birth of Hindu Festivals, relevance to Hindu practice of Untouchability. The belief and Reality between the two are highlighted. For Astrology enthusiasts the book explains the different terminologies and signs that are often committed to subterfuge in the course of writing.