Four Testaments brings together four foundational texts from world religions--the Tao Te Ching, Dhammapada, Analects of Confucius, and Bhagavad Gita--inviting readers to experience them in full, to explore possible points of connection and divergence, and to better understand people who practice these traditions.

The philosophy of the Hindus -- The Veda and Puranas.

Explores the evolution of life and consciousness according to the cosmology and psychology of fire, viewing fire not only as a material but also as a spiritual principle.

On Hindu religious life and ethics; compilation from sacred texts with English translation.

Sacred Books of the Buddhists Series : Minor Anthologies III - Chronicle of Buddhas and Basket on Conduct. Tr. I. B. Horner. PP. lvi + 108; xvi + 52. £6.75. Minor Anthologies IV - Stories of the Mansions and Stories of the Departed. Tr. I. B. Horner and H. S. Gehman. PP. xxv + 159; xiv + 110. £4.50.

Gommatsara Jiva Kanda Is Based On The Discourses Of Shri Vardhaman, The 24Th Jain Tirthankara. The Treatise Is Compilation Of The Answers Given By The Author Shri Nemi Chandra Siddhanta Chakravarti, To The Questions Put To Him By Raja Chamunda Raya, Asking Him To Enumerate The Sub-Classes Of Bodymaking Karma, And To Explain Their Existence, Bondage Non-Bondage And Cessation Of Bondage, With Regard To The Spiritual Stages Of Souls In Various Conditions Of The Life From The Line Completely Undevelopable Vegetable (...) Bodied Soul, To The Fully Deveoped Rational Five Sensed Beings. (shrink)

It may be argued that since animals too have a mind, perhaps they may know the origin of things, if man cannot. But, says the Mimansa, so far as man is concerned, the highest mind according to him is the mind of man; and if that cannot?...

A delightfully straightforward and lyrical retelling of the ancient Indian epic of loyalty, betrayal, redemption, and insight into the true nature of life -- one of history's most sacred ethical works, rendered with completeness and sterling accuracy for the modern reader. Here is one of the world's most hallowed works of sacred literature, the grand, sweeping epic of the divine bowman and warrior Rama and his struggles with evil, power, duplicity, and avarice. The Ramayana is one of the (...) foundations of world literature and one of humanity's most ancient and treasured ethical and spiritual works. 'This new version is so simply and beautifully written -- it will stir the soul!' --David Lynch. (shrink)

This volume offers a critical analysis of one the most ambitious editorial projects of late Victorian Britain: the edition of the fifty substantial volumes of the Sacred Books of the East. The series was edited and conceptualized by Friedrich Max Müller, a world-famous German-born philologist, orientalist, and religious scholar. Müller and his influential Oxford colleagues secured financial support from the India Office of the British Empire and from Oxford University Press. Arie L. Molendijk documents how the series has become (...) a landmark in the development of the humanities-especially the study of religion and language-in the second half of the nineteenth century. The edition also contributed significantly to the Western perception of the 'religious' or even 'mystic' East, which was textually represented in English translations. The series was a token of the rise of 'big science' and textualized the East, by selecting their 'sacred books' and bringing them under the power of western scholarship. (shrink)

A new translation of the great classic--with wide-ranging, multi-traditional commentary that emphasizes its practical advice for living with integrity. 'All there is is Krishna.' Upon hearing this famous and enigmatic line from the Gita's seventh chapter when he was a boy, Ravi Ravindra embarked on a journey to understand its deep meaning. The search led him far beyond the tradition from which the text originally arose to an exploration of world mystical wisdom, including Zen, Christianity, Yoga, and particularly the teachings (...) of J. Krishnamurti and G. I. Gurdjieff. Dr. Ravindra's fresh prose translation with wide-ranging commentary, is the fruit of that lifelong process. It stands out from the many other versions with its assertion that the Bhagavad Gita is at heart a universal guide to navigating the battle of life required of each and every one of us. It is through that navigation, he shows, that we can discover and connect with the Krishna deep within ourselves: The Eternal Witness who is above the battle, and who is, ultimately and joyfully, all there is. (shrink)

This new translation of The Upanishads is at once delightfully simple and rigorously learned, providing today's readers with an accurate, accessible rendering of the core work of ancient Indian philosophy. The Upanishads are often considered the most important literature from ancient India. Yet many academic translators fail to capture the work's philosophical and spiritual subtlety, while others convey its poetry at the cost of literal meaning. This new translation by Vernon Katz and Thomas Egenes fills the need for an Upanishads (...) that is clear, simple, and insightful - yet remains faithful to the original Sanskrit. As Western Sanskrit scholars who have spent their lives immersed in meditative practice, Katz and Egenes offer a unique perspective in penetrating the depths of Eastern wisdom and expressing these insights in modern yet poetic language. Their historical introduction is suited to newcomers and experienced readers alike, providing the perfect entry to this unparalleled work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Sacred Game: The Role of the Sacred in the Genesis of Modern Literary FictionAndrew J. McKennaThe Sacred Game: The Role of the Sacred in the Genesis of Modern Literary Fiction, by Cesareo Bandera; 318 pp. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994, $16.50.When we consider the early relations of philosophy and literature, we most often think of Republic X and about degrees of (...) separation between reality and its image. That is a mistake, according to Cesareo Bandera, who shows in his deft reading of Laws that Plato expelled the poets chiefly because of their threat to the difference between sacred and profane: their mournful harmoniae polluted sacred rites. In this Plato is closer to the religious world examined by Durkheim, where the absolute difference between sacred and profane alone guarantees all other differences. Aristotle is shown to be starkly misleading here, since his Poetics discuss tragedy as if it had nothing to do with the ritual practices in which it originates. His vaunted realism can only save poetry—and ontological appearances—by ignoring, by virtually expelling the sacred from its purview.This expulsion of the sacred from the horizon of our rationality is the thematic core of Bandera’s argument about modern literary fiction as it [End Page 189] emerges in the Renaissance. He does not bring the religious back to our attention to enthrall us with it anew, but to explain via formidable literary and historical scholarship how we stand with respect to it, and how we misunderstand our enlightened disrespect for it. Our modern scientific spirit, our really amazing freedom of inquiry, has a different genealogy than we commonly suppose.It is not primarily philosophy which grounds our humanist irreverence, but our Western religious tradition, which Bandera reads, along with René Girard, Roberto Calasso, and Marcel Gauchet, as a uniquely desacralizing agency in culture. His book’s central endeavor is to expand the implications of Girard’s sacrificial theory of social formation across close readings of ancient and Renaissance literature and criticism in order to show the constraints on rationality within a culture where the sacred veiled human violence. According to this view, that veil is rent irreparably with the revelation of the innocent victim as the vantage point from which to interpret the murderous fury of the crowd, however ritualized as awe for the god(s), or as art. A stunning analysis of Virgil (with an assist from Michel Serres’s reading of Lucretius) reveals a writer holding back from his appalled understanding of violent foundations. With the Renaissance, art is cannily deritualized; not pious Aeneas, born of a goddess, but Don Quixote, born in prison, sets the course for modern fiction.Bandera’s astute readings of Renaissance literature and criticism shed decisively new light on the significance of this axial period, poised at the fulcrum of his argument. His vast and probing research reminds us how modern literary fiction nourished its self-consciousness and freedom amidst lavish and vehement debate over mixing the human and divine. Stripped of the taboos limiting classical thought, the sacred’s monopoly on violence had eroded to reveal individual culpability—but also vast, new possibilities for thought and action. A clear ethical impulse accompanies these readings, in which Calderon and Cervantes are shown to deprive us of a sacred alibi for human violence, which is now a matter for me to resolve with my neighbor. Organically cultural imperatives lose ground to a sense of individual responsibility, which Bandera traces back to the historically documented ascendancy of devotio moderna in late medieval Europe.Despite and because of debates over its cultural role, Renaissance literature’s very marginality freed it to explore every dimension of human error. And we learn how those who unwittingly conspire to resacralize it, from Tasso and Shelley through Arnold and Frye, only continue to play the sacred game that caused shudders in Plato and inspires just plain silliness among our own critical anarchs and demystifyers.Bandera’s net is cast wide and deep, including a bracing debate with Milbank and Blumenberg, whose sweep he emulates successfully, and whose powerful analyses he corrects. Witty and adroit scrutiny of our “sacred allergy” extends... (shrink)

The purpose of One Heart is to illuminate the common sacred ground at the heart of seven faiths: Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Taoism. Its method is to identify 65 essential principles, among them: Feel what other people feel; Don't harm others; Lead with virtue and concern for others; Be honest ; Practice what you preach; Be content; Don't let anger take over; Choose your companions wisely; Accept the existence of spiritual beings; Seek and you will (...) find. Illustrating each principle are one, two, or three quotations from a wide variety of texts sacred to each of the seven faiths—including the Old and New Testaments, the Talmud, the Mahabarata, the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, the Analects of Confucius, and many other sacred sources. In addition, each chapter also provides guidance on a spiritual theme or practice—prayer beads, a home altar, labyrinth walking—to enhance our understanding of these wise words and universal principles. (shrink)

This bibliography signals a monumental event in philosophical research and for the future of comparative philosophy, East and West. It is in effect the first volume of the proposed multi-volumed Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies which has been inaugurated with this research tool. The outline of the bibliography will constitute the table of contents for the subsequent volumes of the forthcoming encyclopedia, now being written by an international team of scholars. The entire enterprise is sponsored by the American Institute of Indian (...) Studies and is under their general supervision. The bibliography, which has taken five years to complete and consists of 9222 entries, will be revised periodically as more material is compiled from the Indian languages and as contemporary work continues. Since Indian thought systems do not clearly differentiate between religious and philosophical expression, the compiler limited his selections to the Indian darsanas and vyakaranas. Indian literature is included if it is philosophical throughout, theoretical in function, and expository in content. This excludes the more didactic literature such as religious scriptures and classics. Three general sections divide the work: Sanskrit texts with authors known; Sanskrit texts with authors unknown; secondary literature arranged according to the various philosophical schools. General sections on Jainism, the traditions of Buddhism, and Hinduism offer philosophical sources for the major Indian religions. The listings are chronological within a particular subject. This not only facilitates additions to the bibliography but also gives a focus to scholarly discussion on a particular point. The work ends with three indices: Index of Names of Persons; Index of Titles ; Index of Books and Articles. The final index should prove the most useful to the researcher and general scholar. The publishing of the bibliography, done in India and according to Indian standards, is inferior in binding and paper stock. The price, Rs.80., has been listed in American bookstores at various prices from $18.00 to $24.00 for those who do not wish to order directly from the Indian publisher. The American Institute of Indian Studies should be commended for directing this work and every effort should be made for the completion of the entire encyclopedia. In terms of Asian studies it is the most significant publishing venture since the appearance of Max Mueller’s Sacred Books of the East over a century ago. Mueller opened the world of Asian religions to Western investigation while this bibliography should expose the breadth of Indian philosophy both in its intrinsic value and its effect upon world philosophy.—W. C. C. (shrink)

True Hinduism has a power and beauty that no one acquainted with it can regard with anything but the deepest respect. This book contains a range of scriptures, an array of ritualistic procedures and traditions of brahminical orthodoxy, varied interpretations coupled with multiple views. True Hinduism has a power and beauty that no one acquainted with it can regard with anything but the deepest respect. You have to approach it as you approach poetry, with a willing suspension of (...) disbelief. Above all the peripheral myths, customs, beliefs and rites, rises the great. (shrink)

Some postcolonial theorists argue that the idea of a single system of belief known as "Hinduism" is a creation of nineteenth-century British imperialists. Andrew J. Nicholson introduces another perspective: although a unified Hindu identity is not as ancient as some Hindus claim, it has its roots in innovations within South Asian philosophy from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. During this time, thinkers treated the philosophies of Vedanta, Samkhya, and Yoga, along with the worshippers of Visnu, Siva, and Sakti, as (...) belonging to a single system of belief and practice. Instead of seeing such groups as separate and contradictory, they re-envisioned them as separate rivers leading to the ocean of Brahman, the ultimate reality. Drawing on the writings of philosophers from late medieval and early modern traditions, including Vijnanabhiksu, Madhava, and Madhusudana Sarasvati, Nicholson shows how influential thinkers portrayed Vedanta philosophy as the ultimate unifier of diverse belief systems. This project paved the way for the work of later Hindu reformers, such as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Gandhi, whose teachings promoted the notion that all world religions belong to a single spiritual unity. In his study, Nicholson also critiques the way in which Eurocentric concepts—like monism and dualism, idealism and realism, theism and atheism, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy—have come to dominate modern discourses on Indian philosophy. (shrink)

Consisting of fewer than two hundred verses written in an obscure if not impenetrable language and style, Patanjali's Yoga Sutra is today extolled by the yoga establishment as a perennial classic and guide to yoga practice. As David Gordon White demonstrates in this groundbreaking study, both of these assumptions are incorrect. Virtually forgotten in India for hundreds of years and maligned when it was first discovered in the West, the Yoga Sutra has been elevated to its present iconic status--and translated (...) into more than forty languages--only in the course of the past forty years. White retraces the strange and circuitous journey of this confounding work from its ancient origins down through its heyday in the seventh through eleventh centuries, its gradual fall into obscurity, and its modern resurgence since the nineteenth century. First introduced to the West by the British Orientalist Henry Thomas Colebrooke, the Yoga Sutra was revived largely in Europe and America, and predominantly in English. White brings to life the improbable cast of characters whose interpretations--and misappropriations--of the Yoga Sutra led to its revered place in popular culture today. Tracing the remarkable trajectory of this enigmatic work, White's exhaustively researched book also demonstrates why the yoga of India's past bears little resemblance to the yoga practiced today. (shrink)

A book review of Richard Kearney and Jens Zimmerman, eds., Reimagining the Sacred: Richard Kearney Debates God.

For many of us, the great scientific discoveries of the modern age--the Big Bang, evolution, quantum physics, relativity--point to an existence that is bleak, devoid of meaning, pointless. But in The Sacred Depths of Nature, eminent biologist Ursula Goodenough shows us that the scientific world view need not be a source of despair. Indeed, it can be a wellspring of solace and hope. This eloquent volume reconciles the modern scientific understanding of reality with our timeless spiritual yearnings for reverence (...) and continuity. Looking at topics such as evolution, emotions, sexuality, and death, Goodenough writes with rich, uncluttered detail about the workings of nature in general and of living creatures in particular. Her luminous clarity makes it possible for even non-scientists to appreciate that the origins of life and the universe are no less meaningful because of our increasingly scientific understanding of them. At the end of each chapter, Goodenough's spiritual reflections respond to the complexity of nature with vibrant emotional intensity and a sense of reverent wonder. A beautifully written celebration of molecular biology with meditations on the spiritual and religious meaning that can be found at the heart of science, this volume makes an important contribution to the ongoing dialog between science and religion. This book will engage anyone who was ever mesmerized--or terrified--by the mysteries of existence. (shrink)