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Books : Literature & Fiction : World Literature : Mythology : Indian
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The adventures of young Lord Krishna, enjoyed for centuries by Indian children, now available for Western children.
• Includes 40 detailed illustrations painted in authentic and classic Indian style.
• Stories are entertaining as well as instructive.
• A rich slice of popular Indian lore made accessible for Western children.
For centuries the children of India have grown up hearing the tales of Lord Krishna's adventures as a boy. Krishna has been the favorite of young and old alike because of his delightfully mischievous nature yet genuine and soulful heart. Now the entertaining and instructive tales of Krishna's youth are available for Western children, who will likewise be enamored of the magical journeys taken by young Krishna in a land full of mysterious gods and unusual animals.With a host of characters drawn from the rich breadth of Indian lore, Little Krishna will show children the value of kindness, the importance of preserving what you create, and the boundless nature of wisdom. Accompanied by the richly intricate color illustrations prepared following the traditional canon, each with prescribed geometric and artistic proportions, these stories will transport children to a magical world filled with ancient wisdom. In India children are taught that the stories of Krishna will help awaken and develop their own spiritual nature and that they should take to heart the lessons little Krishna learned from his adventures. But they also know this ancient lore provides some great storytelling.
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Growing from an oral tradition of ballads based on historic events in India, the Mahabharata was passed down and extended through the centuries, becoming the longest poem ever written. R. K. Narayan provides a superb rendition in an abbreviated and elegant retelling of this great epic.
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The magical story of how Ganesh, the son of Shiva and Parvati, was brought back to life with the head of an elephant
• The story of one of the most beloved characters in Indian lore, made accessible for Western children ages 6 to 9
• Illustrated throughout with paintings from the classic Indian tradition
Any Indian child can tell you how the beloved god Ganesh got his elephant’s head--now American children can know as well. For centuries Indian children have grown up hearing Ganesh’s story--how his mother, Parvati (an incarnation of the great mother goddess), created a small boy from sandalwood soap and commanded that he guard the palace against all intruders while she took her bath. How her husband, Shiva (the fearsome god of destruction), didn’t take kindly to being barred from his own home. How Shiva beheaded the boy during the cosmic war that followed, but then, when he realized that the balance of the entire universe was at stake, brought the boy back to life by grafting an elephant’s head onto his body and made him the people’s intercessor against the powers of destruction.
Ganesh’s timeless story teaches children about the steadfast power of dedication to duty, the awe-inspiring power of a mother’s love for her child, and the gentle power of compassion, which holds the world together. Accompanied by rich, color illustrations prepared according to the traditional Hindu canon, How Ganesh Got His Elephant Head will transport children to a magical world filled with ancient wisdom.
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This book interprets for the Western mind the key motifs of India's legend, myth, and folklore, taken directly from the Sanskrit, and illustrated with seventy plates of Indian art. It is primarily an introduction to image-thinking and picture-reading in Indian art and thought, and it seeks to make the profound Hindu and Buddhist intuitions of the riddles of life and death recognizable not merely as Oriental but as universal elements.
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Long accessible only to scholars, Western readers can at last experience the story of the sweeping, shifting conflict between two great ruling families for India's most precious lands.
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The magical story of how the princess Parvati opens the heart of her eternal husband Shiva
• The courtship story of one of the central couples in Indian lore, Parvati and Shiva, made accessible for Western children ages 6 to 9
• Illustrated throughout with paintings from the classic Indian tradition
In the Hindu pantheon the great mother goddess Adishakti is the heavenly wife of Shiva, Lord of All Gods. Whenever Shiva or Adishakti come to Earth in human form, they are fated to marry each other again--but that’s no guarantee that all will go smoothly with their courtship. In this story Adishakti comes to Earth as the mountain princess Parvati, who has her work cut out for her when she tries to win the affections of Shiva. Shiva spends all his time meditating on a remote mountainside in the Himalayas and has no interest in marriage. Parvati washes his feet, wipes his brow, and lays sixteen offerings before him, but he won’t even look at her. Sage Narada advises her to invoke Shiva’s name--Om Namah Shivaya--over and over again as a mantra. So in the heat of the sun, in the driving rain, in snow up to her neck Parvati sits and repeats her beloved’s name until the focused power of her intent opens his heart and persuades him to ask for her hand in marriage.
Parvati’s timeless story teaches children that with enough love and perseverance even the seemingly impossible can be achieved. Accompanied by rich, color illustrations prepared according to the traditional Hindu canon, How Parvati Won the Heart of Shiva will transport children to a magical world filled with ancient wisdom.
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43rd edn., Dimensions: 7.1x4.7x0.8 inches
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Originally published under the title Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva, this book traces the development of an Indian approach to an enduring human dilemma: the conflict between spiritual aspirations and human desires. The work examines hundreds of related myths and a wide range of Indian texts--Vedic, Puranic, classical, modern, and tribal--centering on the stories of the great ascetic, Siva, and his erotic alter ego, Kama.
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The profoundly moving story of Savitri, one of the best-loved of India, appears in the Hindu national epic, The Mahabharata. Shepherd's dramatic retelling is exquisitely illuminated by Rosenberry's artwork. The artist has painstakingly brought back to life a legendary world. Full color.
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The Lemurian Shastras, which make up the first half of these scrolls, unfold a remarkable story of how souls journeyed to Earth in their subtle bodies some four million years ago. The narrators of the ancient texts explain that civilization on their native planets had reached a point of such peacefulness that spiritual evolution had come to a standstill. They needed a "fire planet," such as Earth, to continue their unfoldment into the ultimate attainment--realization of the Self within. To persist in the lush atmosphere, genderless, organic bodies were formed through food-offering ceremonies. Later, through a slow process of mutation, the fleshy bodies we know today as human were established as vehicles for reincarnation. As the book progresses, a diminishing of the spiritual forces radiating from the Central Sun of the galaxy is described. As spiritual awareness wanes, the life force of man, kundalini, sleeps and instinctive desire manifests in abundance. These amazing chronicles of early man's life on Earth are told from within great, walled monasteries where narrators look back and forward at the same time, often reading from ancient texts, describing the daily life of those within and outside these sacred citadels. The theme throughout is to continue channeling the pristine spiritual vibration from the Central Sun as long as possible and to preserve the Lemurian culture, its wisdom and knowledge for generations far into the future. This, under the guidance of powerful gurus working closely with great Gods, was the spiritual mission of the dedicated monastics of these eras. Largely it was done by implanting sacred writings in the akasha by mystical means.The Dravidian Shastras, which make up the second half of Lemurian Scrolls, will interest you from the point of view of how humans lived at the end of the Dvapara Yuga, their society, internal and external government, the culture of those early years on the Earth and how some of it carried forth to this very day. Our narrators explain that it was in the far distant past that the people who formed societies realized they needed group spiritual guidance. This group guidance is, to this day, recognized as a viable form of community and leadership. Examples that come to mind are the Dalai Lama's Tibet, where something like one-third of the social order is a monastic group, serving the religious and political needs of the two-thirds family group. Thus their society was transparently stable for hundreds and hundreds of years. This and other societies, such as villages in Europe, where monks and nuns were valued, were settled with a certain percent of monastics who served the religious needs of the other residents. The division of lay community and monastic community results in a wealthy, highly productive, harmonious society. We learn in the Dravidian Shastras just how this was accomplished in the long, long ago. It is prophesied that sustainable societies will once again emerge when mankind returns to the wise protocols of these earlier times, where spiritual men and women, spiritual principles and spiritual sharing guided both individual and society, where religious leaders were valued and sought after, for the populace knew that if they could be engaged in the social effort, they would lend it a light and wisdom that would not otherwise be available or important. These last sixteen chapters of Lemurian Scrolls explain the procedures of management, their gurus and their protocol. We can see its wisdom really worked, and our monastic order endeavored to emulate it as much as was possible in this modern, diverse age where divisions are normally accepted as signs of an advancing civilization and religion is considered an interference with scientific points of view.
Migrating to this planet in their subtle bodies, many of our forebearers traveled through the Sun. The beginnings of mankind's mission on this planet came in a far-away time, when the atmosphere was dense with waters and gases. Flowers and animals were larger and more exotic than today. At first, the transformation from etheric to physical form was difficult, but ceremonies evolved which, using the fragrances of fruits and flowers, brought devotionally to special pedestals, assisted in bringing through beings who absorbed these organic essences to materialize a denser, earthly, fibrous body. These beings loved the many jewels and golden ornaments that were crafted to bedeck and help support their flexible forms. Human life did not evolve from lesser earthly species.
Yugas before mankind arrived on Earth, celestial beings in wingless spacecraft spread seeds from other planets. Souls arriving in the last Sat Yuga eventually formed monasteries in which experiments were conducted into the nature of life, designing forms it should take on this planet. Their flexible bodies were light and easily flew in the dense air. Occasionally, one would be devoured by an animal, thus capturing this soul in the incarnation cycle of that species. Through the long mutative process of repeatedly reentering these instinctive bodies, they finally cultivated a body similar to, yet cruder than, the first fibrous bodies. To release a soul caught in an animal reincarnation cycle into human birth, ceremonial sacrifice was conducted, with the knowledge and silent consent of the animal.
Fruits, honey, milk, nuts and seeds formed the basis of the pure and simple Lemurian diet. A most delectable dish called Lemurian prasadam was prepared daily in large vats, made of various combinations of fresh milk products such as yogurt, along with several fresh fruits, dates, nuts, seeds and honey from the bees, all gathered from the forests and fields in large baskets--mixed together and eaten from natural goards. It was a sattvic and invigorating meal, especially for those who deeply meditated. This was all they consumed day after day. To help keep the body flexible and easy to live in, exercises were performed at dawn, noon and sunset. Working with mental powers, they provided equilibrium for the planet, and nearly everything could be done with the mind, even moving and lifting things.
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Unlike many other ancient mythologies, Hinduism thrives in the modern world. One billion followers and countless others have been captivated by its symbolic representations of love, karma, and reincarnation.
Handbook of Hindu Mythology offers an informative introduction to this dauntingly complex mythology of multifaceted deities, lengthy heroic tales, and arcane philosophies-all with a 3,000-year history of reinterpretations and adaptations. Williams offers a number of pathways by which to approach Hinduism's ever-changing gods and goddesses (e.g., Brahma, Vishnu, Siva), spiritual verses (such as the vedas), secular epics (including the Ramayana and the Mahabharata), myths within myths, devotional and esoteric traditions, psychic and yogic disciplines, and magical practices. With this handbook, readers can explore the history of Hindu mythology, follow a detailed timeline of key episodes and historical events, and look up specific elements of historical or contemporary Hinduism in a beautifully illustrated reference work. It is the ideal introduction to the origins of Hinduism, the culture that shaped it from antiquity to the present, and the age-old stories, ideas, and traditions that speak to the human condition as eloquently today as ever.
Including annotated bibliographies, a glossary of cultural and mythological terms, and numerous illustrations, here is a gold mine of information on Hindu mythology.
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From the formless mass of chaos appeared the Great Trinity of Hinduism: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. But they were not invulnerable, and when their world was threatened by demons the gods turned not to their own power but to that of the Mother Goddess, in the fierce and vengeful form of Kali, the merciless destroyer. The Eternal Cycle recounts this and other tales form Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain mythology.
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Stories of the goddess, illustrations and over 200 images, symbols, discussion of rituals, temples, text of religious documents. much color, very attractive overview.
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"An important, provocative and original work, of great interest to Indian scholars, historians of religions, psychologists and historians of ideas, but accessible also to the cultivated reader. Even if one does not always agree with the author's interpretation, one cannot but admire her vast and precise learning, her splendid translations and exegesis of so many, and so different, Sanskrit texts, and her uninhibited, brilliant, and witty prose."—Mircea Eliade, University of Chicago
"This is . . . a book which is as rich in detail as the carvings of the great Hindu temples. It shares with them a delight in the interplay of myth and mundane experience, and above all an empathy with the Hindu preoccupation with the meaning of human existence in all its complexity."—G. M. Carstairs, Times Literary Supplement
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Tells the adventures of the magical monkey Hanuman, beloved in India as the devoted helper of Ram, hero of the Hindu epic tale the Ramayana
• Introduces Western children to one of the most playful and beloved characters of Hindu mythology
• Illustrated throughout with full-color paintings in the traditional Indian style
• For children ages 6-9
Son of the monkey princess Anjana and the wind god Pavan, Hanuman is born on Earth to be a helper for Ram, the hero of the Hindu epic the Ramayana. Hanuman is no ordinary monkey. He has the ability to leap higher than the sun and move faster than the wind. When the demon king Ravana kidnaps Ram’s wife, Sita, and carries her off to his island home, the army that goes to rescue her is left discouraged on the beach--stopped by the wide expanse of water between them and the island of Lanka. But magical Hanuman is able to jump over the ocean in one amazing bound. He finds the captive Sita and helps her to take heart and remain strong and confident that Ram will find a way to save her.
And indeed Ram does, but only with the devoted assistance of his mercurial monkey helper. Hanuman shrinks to the size of a fly; grows large enough to uproot a huge tree as though it were a turnip; soars through the sky, setting the city of Lanka on fire with the tip of his tail; and digs up an entire mountain in order to deliver its healing herbs to Ram’s stricken army. This beautifully illustrated retelling of Hanuman’s story makes accessible to Western children and their parents one of the most playful and beloved characters of the Hindu tradition.
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A collection of traditional tales about gods and heroes in Hindu mythology, aranged in sequence as they might be told at religious festivals during the course of a Hindu calendar year.
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Collection of traditional tales about gods and heroes in Hindu mythology, arranged in sequence as they might be told at religious festivals during the course of a Hindu calendar year.
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An exploration of 99 classic myths of India from an entirely non-Western paradigm that provides a fresh understanding of the Hindu spiritual landscape
• Compares and contrasts Indian mythology with the stories of the Bible, ancient Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia, and Mesopotamia
• Looks at the evolution of Indian narratives and their interpretations over the millennia
• Demonstrates how the mythology, rituals, and art of ancient India are still vibrant today and inform the contemporary generation
From the blood-letting Kali to the mysterious Ganesha, the Hindu spiritual landscape is populated by characters that find no parallel in the Western spiritual world. Indian Mythology explores the rich tapestry of these characters within 99 classic myths, showing that the mythological world of India can be best understood when we move away from a Western, monotheistic mindset and into the polytheistic world of Hindu traditions.
Featuring 48 artistic renderings of important mythological figures from across India, the author unlocks the mysteries of the narratives, rituals, and artwork of ancient India to reveal the tension between world-affirming and world-rejecting ideas, between conformism and contradiction, between Shiva and Vishnu, Krishna and Rama, Gauri and Kali. This groundbreaking book opens the door to the unknown and exotic, providing a glimpse into the rich mythic tradition that has empowered millions of human beings for centuries.