Author: Hugh B. Urban
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publishe
Published: 2012
Total Pages: 392
ISBN-13: 9788120829329
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Bhadriraju Krishnamurti (1928) is Professor and Head of the department of Linguistics at Osmania University, Hyderabad. He received a B.A. (Hons.) Degree (1948) in Telugu language and literature at Andhra University Waltair and an M.A. (1955) and Ph.D. (1957) in linguistics from the university of Pennsylvania U.S.A.
Author: George Weston Briggs
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
Published: 1989
Total Pages: 416
ISBN-13: 9788120805644
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The cult of the Kanphata Yogis is a definite unit within Hinduism, and its study is essential for understanding this phase of the religious life of India. In analysing the different aspects of this cult the author has drawn upon various sources, such as the legends, folk-lore and the formulated texts of this sect. The book is divided into three sections. The first two sections comprising chapters 1-13 deal with the cult and history of this sect. The third section containing chapters 14-16 opens with the Sanskrit Text Goraksasataka and its English rendering and annotations. It proceeds with the analysis of physiological concepts, chief aims and methods and then comes to conclusion. The subject matter of this study has been so arranged that the first two sections serve to illustrate the third. The book is fully documented. It has a Preface, Glossary, Bibliography, Plates and General Index.
Author: Tobias Churton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2019-12-03
Total Pages: 512
ISBN-13: 1620557975
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Follow Aleister Crowley through his mystical travels in India, which profoundly influenced his magical system as well as the larger occult world • Shares excerpts from Crowley’s unpublished diaries and details his travels in India, Burma, and Sri Lanka from 1901 to 1906 • Reveals how Crowley incorporated what he learned in India--jnana yoga, Vedantist, Tantric, and Buddhist philosophy--into his own school of Magick • Explores the world of Theosophy, yogis, Hindu traditions, and the first Buddhist sangha to the West as well as the first pioneering expeditions to K2 and Kangchenjunga in 1901 and 1905 Early in life, Aleister Crowley’s dissociation from fundamentalist Christianity led him toward esoteric and magical spirituality. In 1901, he made the first of three voyages to the Indian subcontinent, searching for deeper knowledge and experience. His religious and magical system, Thelema, shows clear influence of his thorough experimental absorption in Indian mystical practices. Sharing excerpts from Crowley’s unpublished diaries, Tobias Churton tells the true story of Crowley’s adventures in India from 1901 to 1906, culminating in his first experience of the supreme trance of jnana (“gnostic”) yoga, Samadhi: divine union. Churton shows how Vedantist and Advaitist philosophies, Hindu religious practices, yoga, and Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism informed Crowley’s spiritual system and reveals how he built on Madame Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott’s prior work in India. Churton illuminates links between these beliefs and ancient Gnostic systems and shows how they informed the O.T.O. system through Franz Hartmann and Theodor Reuss. Churton explores Crowley’s early breakthrough in consciousness research with a Dhyana trance in Sri Lanka, becoming a devotee of Shiva and Bhavani, fierce avatar of the goddess Parvati. Recounting Crowley’s travels to the temples of Madurai, Anuradhapura, and Benares, Churton looks at the gurus of yoga and astrology Crowley met, while revealing his adventures with British architect, Edward Thornton. Churton also details Crowley’s mountaineering feats in India, including the record-breaking attempt on Chogo Ri (K2) in 1902 and the Kangchenjunga disaster of 1905. Revealing how Crowley incorporated what he learned in India into his own school of Magick, including an extensive look at his theory of correspondences, the symbology of 777, and the Thelemic synthesis, Churton sheds light on one of the most profoundly mystical periods in Crowley’s life as well as how it influenced the larger occult world.
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2021-09-27
Total Pages: 384
ISBN-13: 9004466002
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Tying on case studies from late antiquity to the 21st century, this is the first volume that systematically explores the inter-relationship between fictional narratives about magic and the real-world ritual art of practicing magicians.
Author: V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
Published: 1999
Total Pages: 116
ISBN-13: 9788120814981
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Lalita Cult has figured and still figures prominently among the countless cults of ancient India. Lalita is looked upon by the Hindus as a divine manifestation of the goddess Durga. The cult of Lalita is intimately associated with the Sakti cult or the worship of the Divine as Energy in the feminine form. The present book studies the cult of Lalita from a historical point of view. Though this study is mainly based on the Lalitopakhayana section of the Brahmanda Purana, an endeavour is made to review other phases of the Sakti cult and its place in Vedic literature, and particularly to examine its philosophical basis. The study also aims to remove certain misconceptions and improved theories which have obscured the true import and value of the Sakti cult.
Author: Hugh B. Urban
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2024-03-21
Total Pages: 281
ISBN-13: 0226831116
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A provocative study of contemporary Tantra as a dynamic living tradition. Tantra, one of the most important religious currents in South Asia, is often misrepresented as little more than ritualized sex. Through a mixture of ethnography and history, Hugh B. Urban reveals a dynamic living tradition behind the sensationalist stories. Urban shows that Tantric desire goes beyond the erotic, encompassing such quotidian experiences as childbearing and healing. He traces these holistic desires through a series of unique practices: institutional Tantra centered on gurus and esoteric rituals; public Tantra marked by performance and festival; folk Tantra focused on magic and personal well-being; and popular Tantra imagined in fiction, film, and digital media. The result is a provocative new description of Hindu Tantra that challenges us to approach religion as something always entwined with politics and culture, thoroughly entangled with ordinary needs and desires.
Author: Brian Collins
Publisher: MSU Press
Published: 2014-01-01
Total Pages: 396
ISBN-13: 1628950129
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In the beginning, says the ancient Hindu text the Rg Veda, was man. And from man’s sacrifice and dismemberment came the entire world, including the hierarchical ordering of human society. The Head Beneath the Altar is the first book to present a wide-ranging study of Hindu texts read through the lens of René Girard’s mimetic theory of the sacrificial origin of religion and culture. For those interested in Girard and comparative religion, the book also performs a careful reading of Girard’s work, drawing connections between his thought and the work of theorists like Georges Dumézil and Giorgio Agamben. Brian Collins examines the idea of sacrifice from the earliest recorded rituals through the flowering of classical mythology and the ancient Indian institutions of the duel, the oath, and the secret warrior society. He also uncovers implicit and explicit critiques in the tradition, confirming Girard’s intuition that Hinduism offers an alternative anti-sacrificial worldview to the one contained in the gospels.