The Original Gita, which predates the Bhagavad Gita, focuses on the basic philosophical and practical essentials of life and living. Here dualism is addressed and shown to be illusionary, since every pair of opposites implies a third element: the notion...

This volume strikes a new note in the study of Indian epics-the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. In it, for the first time, mythology is dissociated from the running threads of both the epic texts. The mythology of the two epics...

The theistic belief in God as an omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent creator of this universe has been an age-old belief of mankind which has had its staunch supporters as well as formidable opponents. The problem of evil has been a...

An eminent anthropologist examines the findings of the first celibate Buddhist monasteries among the Sherpas of Nepal in the early twentieth century, a religious development that was a major departure from "folk" or "popular" Buddhism. Sherry Ortner is the first...

Of the sixteen samskaras which encompass a Hindu life the last one is performed for the dead by their sons or grandsons or relatives. Many passages in the Puranas and Dharmasastras extol the role of the son in the life...

The Bhadramayakaravyakarana is part of the great collection entitled Ratnakuta, "Multitude of Jewels", a collection much revered in the Buddhist Mahayana traditions of Tibet and China. The work possesses rather a literary value than a doctrinal one. It is one...

Buddhism in Central Asia is a saga of peaceful pursuit by Buddhist scholars from Kashmir and Kabul to propagate the message of the Buddha. This vast region between the Tien-Shan and the Kunlun ranges was the centre of activities of...

Second of three-volume set of Canonical texts of Theravada Buddhism outlining monastic rules; this volume -- the Mahavagga V-X, and the Cullavagga I-III.

The book contains fourteen lessons in which the original yoga science emerges in a of its gory-a proven system for realizing one`s spiritual destiny. This is the most comprehensive course on yoga and meditation available today, giving you a profound...

This book comprises fifteen research articles primarily based on the discipline of Indian and Buddhist Studies. The collection is designed to propose a Buddhist philosophy of religion--that the insight of Prajna and Sunyata initiates a future religion which is freed...

The subject of Comparative Religion as a scientific study of the various features of the different religions of the world in a comparative perspective is relatively a late development. It is hardly for a hundred years or so that the...

The Nyayavatara is one of the first serious Jaina treatises on epistemology. It has been for long erroneously ascribed by tradition to Siddhasens Divakara, but now it seems certain that its author is a certain Siddhasens Mahamati, who lived circa...