{"title":"South Asia Research","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"indian-epigraphy-book-richard-salomon-9780195099843","title":"Indian Epigraphy","description":"Salomon surveys all the inscriptional material - documents written in ink on various surfaces, or carved into stone and metal, as well as seals - in the Indo-Aryan languages. He presents the entire corpus of these inscriptions in a way accessible to specialists in the field as well as non-specialists. This book is intended for scholars of South Asia, Epigraphy.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49578499735825,"sku":"GOR013607441","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52134616006929,"sku":"NLS9780195099843","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0195099842.jpg?v=1751069925"},{"product_id":"rigveda-book-stephanie-w-jamison-9780199370184","title":"The Rigveda","description":"The Rigveda is the oldest Sanskrit text, consisting of over one thousand hymns dedicated to various divinities of the Vedic tradition. Orally composed and orally transmitted for several millennia, the hymns display remarkable poetic complexity and religious sophistication. As the culmination of the long tradition of Indo-Iranian oral-formulaic praise poetry and the first monument of specifically Indian religiousity and literature, the Rigveda is crucial to the understanding both of Indo-European and Indo-Iranian intellectual and aesthetic prehistory and of the rich flowering of Indic religious expression and Indic high literature that were to follow.  This new translation represents the first complete scholarly translation into English in over a century and utilizes the results of the intense research of the last century on the language and the ritual system of the text. The focus of this translation is on the poetic techniques and structures utilized by the bards and on the ways that the poetry intersects with and dynamically expresses the ritual underpinnings of the text.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50022733906193,"sku":"CIN0199370184VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52629764243729,"sku":"NIN9780199370184","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0199370184.jpg?v=1751037739"},{"product_id":"early-upanisads-book-patrick-olivelle-9780195124354","title":"The Early Upanisads","description":"This is the full edition of the early Upanisads, the central scriptures of Hinduism. Featuring Patrick Olivelle's acclaimed new English translation (Oxford, 1996), it also includes the complete Sanskrit text, as well as variant readings, scholarly emendations, and explanations of Olivelle's choices of particular readings. The volume also contains a concordance of the two recensions of the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, and an extensive bibliography.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345417703697,"sku":"CIN0195124359VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52402031165713,"sku":"NLS9780195124354","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0195124359.jpg?v=1751132558"},{"product_id":"innovations-and-turning-points-book-yigal-bronner-9780199453559","title":"Innovations and Turning Points","description":"This volume is the first attempt to offer a panoramic historical overview of South Asian classical poetry, especially in Sanskrit. Many of the essays in this volume are the first serious studies of the great masterpieces of South Asian literature. Moreover, the book as a whole captures the millennium-long developmental logic of kavya literature by identifying a series of critical moments of breakthrough and innovation-that is, moments when the basic rules of composition and the aesthetic and poetic goals underwent dramatic change, allowing the tradition to reinvent itself. Individual sections thus focus on the beginnings of kavya literature and Kalidasa's creation of what came to be its classical form; the new poetic model that emerged from the intense competition and conversation of Bharavi and Magha in the middle of the first millennium; the extended revolutionary period in Kanauj, where Bana and his successors reconceived the meaning and practice of Sanskrit poetry; and the no less transformative period at the beginning of the second millennium, when poets of genius such as Sriharsa were active in the context of India's nascent vernacularization. The scope of the volume extends beyond Sanskrit to early modern Hindi, and beyond the subcontinent and the Himalayas to Java and Tibet, where kavya found a new home and continued to evolve. A general introduction proposes a theoretical framework for the study of this immense literary tradition in terms of its continuous self-reinvention.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345609167121,"sku":"CIN0199453551G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0199453551.jpg?v=1750908290"},{"product_id":"donors-devotees-and-the-daughters-of-god-book-leslie-c-orr-9780195099621","title":"Donors, Devotees, and the Daughters of God","description":"Through the use of epigraphical evidence, Leslie C. Orr brings into focus the activities and identities of the temple women (devadasis) of medieval South India, and suggests new ways of understanding the character of the temple woman -- and of the role of women in Indian religion and society. This book shows how the temple woman's economic authonomy, independence and initiative allowed her to negotiate medieval temple politics and establish a role for herself with its own peculiar social and religious significance.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50524080832785,"sku":"CIN0813339022VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50611077972241,"sku":"CIN0813339022G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52402699862289,"sku":"NLS9780195099621","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0195099621.jpg?v=1750812239"},{"product_id":"east-of-delhi-book-francesca-orsini-9780197658291","title":"East of Delhi","description":"Like many societies across the world, the region of Awadh in North India has been bilingual throughout its history. But literary histories of the region often indicate otherwise. In the early twentieth century, colonists recodified literary histories separately according to language, detached written literature from oral literature, and reimagined the entangled literary past according to their own ideas about language, literature, and Indian history. At the same time, multilingualism remained resilient and acquired new uses.   East of Delhi: Multilingual Literary Culture and World Literature examines literature produced, practiced, and circulated in and out of North India, focusing on the region of Awadh, from the beginning of recorded vernacular literature in the late fourteenth century to the colonial era of the early twentieth century. This book considers texts in a wide range of genres-courtly, devotional, and popular-composed in the main languages of the region: Hindavi, Persian, Brajbhasha, Urdu. Individual chapters focus on narratives, devotional song-poems and didactic works, local courtly literary practices, and multilingual education as recorded in biographical dictionaries-anthologies. Author Francesca Orsini suggests that this multilingual and multi-genre approach is better suited to capturing the texture, complexity, and dynamics of literature in the world, and of literary history, than approaches that focus only on global circulation or models that draw centers and peripheries on a single global map.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50780218720529,"sku":"NGR9780197658291","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999899390225,"sku":"NIN9780197658291","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0197658296.jpg?v=1751290991"},{"product_id":"minor-majesties-book-valrie-gillet-9780197757710","title":"Minor Majesties","description":"Minor Majesties studies the small ancient kingdom of Paluvūr, a town located on the northern bank of the Kāvēri river, about 30 kilometers north of Tanjavur. Between the ninth and the eleventh centuries C.E., Paluvūr was the capital of the dynasty of the Paluvēṭṭaraiyars, a minor dynasty of \"little kings\" who swore allegiance to the Cōla dynasty. Today, Paluvūr is divided in two distinct villages, Kīlappaluvūr and Mēlappaluvūr, and four temples dedicated to the god Śiva built during the reign of the little kings remain standing. In Minor Majesties, author Valérie Gillet surveys, translates, and analyzes 136 Tamil transcriptions spread across these temples, scrutinizing in depth each one's materiality, location, and epigraphy for the first time.   Through these analyses, Gillet brings forth a better understanding of the functioning of the minor dynasty of the Paluvēṭṭaraiyars whose little kings often appear in the inscriptions of the temples, as well as the interactions between the temples and their patronizing communities. The small size of Paluvūr with its hub of still-standing monuments permits an exceptionally clear overview of the possible relations between distinct temples, allowing readers to unpick complexities related to temple sponsorship, organisation, and functioning. The study of Paluvūr also reveals how these religious monuments-accruing wealth but, in exchange, enabling donors to accrue merit and power-became a place for the fabrication of political discourses and powers, specific social configurations, and religious practices.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50999853547793,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999856660753,"sku":"NIN9780197757710","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0197757715.jpg?v=1776939418"},{"product_id":"jimutavahana-s-dayabhaga-book-ludo-rocher-9780195138177","title":"Jimutavahana's Dayabhaga","description":"This is a translation of a 12th-century Sanskrit legal text, with the original text. The Dayabhaga was one of the most important texts in the history of Indian law. The text, fairly late and inspiring little attention, is important because the British elevated it to such prominence in their new colony in the early 19th century. It was known as the authority on inheritance and significant aspects of family law for the eastern Indian region. The case law and scholarship that surround this text have shaped Indian personal law right up to the present day.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52126919655697,"sku":"NLS9780195138177","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780195138177.jpg?v=1757481214"},{"product_id":"manu-s-code-of-law-book-patrick-olivelle-9780195171464","title":"Manu's Code of Law","description":"Manu's Code of Law is one of the most important texts in the Sanskrit canon, indeed one of the most important surviving texts from any classical civilization. It paints an astoundingly detailed picture of ancient Indian life-covering everything from the constitution of the king's cabinet to the price of a ferry trip for a pregnant woman-and its doctrines have been central to Indian thought and practice for 2000 years. Despite its importance, however, until now no one has produced a critical edition of this text. As a result, for centuries scholars have been forced to accept clearly inferior editions of Sanskrit texts and to use those unreliable editions as the basis for constructing the history of classical India. In this volume, Patrick Olivelle has assembled the critical text of Manu, including a critical apparatus containing all the significant manuscript variants, along with a reliable and readable translation, copious explanatory notes, and a comprehensive introduction on the structure, content, and socio-political context of the treatise. The result is an outstanding scholarly achievement that will be an essential tool for any serious student of India.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52148461666577,"sku":"NLS9780195171464","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780195171464.jpg?v=1757603652"},{"product_id":"nectar-gaze-and-poison-breath-book-aditya-malik-9780195150193","title":"Nectar Gaze and Poison Breath","description":"This book offers a detailed study of the Devnarayan ki par, along with the first English translation of this well-known Rajasthani oral narrative. The tale of the god Devnarayan is performed by itinerant singer-priests during night-wakes in front of a very large painted scroll depicting characters and scenes from the story. It is the focus of one of the most popular folk cults of the Rajasthan region of India. Aditya Malik uses the narrative to explore a range of questions relevant to the study of Indian folk culture and Hinduism as a whole: How is orality conceptualized and practiced? What is the relationship between spoken and visual signs? How are ideas about religion, society, and history envisioned within the framework of the narrative? Malik argues that to understand ideas of history in Indian cultural contexts we must go to oral narratives, epics, regional tellings, and local knowledge. By making the Narrative of Devnarayan available in English, he provides an important resource for that task.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52353052147985,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52353052803345,"sku":"NLS9780195150193","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780195150193.jpg?v=1758182545"},{"product_id":"say-to-the-sun-don-t-rise-and-to-the-moon-don-t-set-book-anne-feldhaus-9780199357642","title":"Say to the Sun, \"Don't Rise,\" and to the Moon, \"Don't Set\"","description":"Pastoralist traditions have long been extraordinarily important to the social, economic, political, and cultural life of western India. The Marathi-language oral literature of the Dhangar shepherds is not only one of the most important elements of the traditional cultural life of its region, but also a treasure of world literature. This volume presents translations of two lively and well-crafted examples of the ov?, a genre typical of the oral literature of Dhangars. The two ov?s in the volume narrate the stories of Biroba and Dhu?oba, two of these shepherds most important gods. Each of the ov?s tells an elaborate story of the birth of the goda miraculous and complicated process in both casesand of the struggles each one goes through in order to find and win his bride. The extensive introduction provides a literary analysis of the ov?s and discusses what they reveal about the cosmology, geography, society, and political arrangements of their performers world, as well as about the performers views of pastoralists and women.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52433258381585,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52433259430161,"sku":"NLS9780199357642","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780199357642.jpg?v=1759177436"},{"product_id":"between-the-empires-book-patrick-olivelle-9780195305326","title":"Between the Empires","description":"This volume is the result of an international conference organized by the South Asia Institute at the University of Texas. Patrick Olivelle has collected and edited the best papers to emerge from the conference. Part I of the book looks at what can be construed from archeological evidence. Part II concerns itself with the textual evidence for the period. Taken together, these essays offer an unprecedented look at Indian culture and society in this distant epoch.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52452520263953,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52452520722705,"sku":"NLS9780195305326","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780195305326.jpg?v=1776940813"},{"product_id":"dharma-book-alf-hiltebeitel-9780195394238","title":"Dharma","description":"Between 300 BCE and 200 CE, concepts and practices of dharma attained literary prominence throughout India. Both Buddhist and Brahmanical authors sought to clarify and classify their central concerns, and dharma proved a means of thinking through and articulating those concerns.   Alf Hiltebeitel shows the different ways in which dharma was interpreted during that formative period: from the grand cosmic chronometries of kalpas and yugas to narratives about divine plans, gendered nuances of genealogical time, royal biography (even autobiography, in the case of the emperor Asoka), and guidelines for daily life, including meditation. He reveals the vital role dharma has played across political, religious, legal, literary, ethical, and philosophical domains and discourses about what holds life together. Through dharma, these traditions have articulated their distinct visions of the good and well-rewarded life.   This insightful study explores the diverse and changing significance of dharma in classical India in nine major dharma texts, as well some shorter ones. Dharma proves to be a term by which to make a fresh cut through these texts, and to reconsider their own chronology, their import, and their relation to each other.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52453456707857,"sku":"NLS9780195394238","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780195394238.jpg?v=1759367999"},{"product_id":"managing-monks-book-jonathan-a-silk-9780195326840","title":"Managing Monks","description":"The paradigmatic Buddhist is the monk. It is well known that ideally Buddhist monks are expected to meditate and study-to engage in religious practice. The institutional structure which makes this concentration on spiritual cultivation possible is the monastery. But as a bureaucratic institution, the monastery requires administrators to organize and manage its functions, to prepare quiet spots for meditation, arrange audiences for sermons, or simply to make sure food is available, and rooms and bedding provided. The valuations placed on such organizational roles were, however, a subject of considerable controversy among Indian Buddhist writers, with some considering them significantly less praiseworthy than meditative concentration or teaching and study, while others more highly appreciated their importance. Managing Monks, as the first major study of the administrative offices of Indian Buddhist monasticism and of those who hold them, explores literary sources, inscriptions and other materials in Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan and Chinese in order to explore this tension and paint a picture of the internal workings of the Buddhist monastic institution in India, highlighting the ambivalent and sometimes contradictory attitudes toward administrators revealed in various sources.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52453504844049,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52453505302801,"sku":"NLS9780195326840","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780195326840.jpg?v=1759368166"},{"product_id":"siva-in-trouble-book-axel-michaels-9780195343021","title":"Siva in Trouble","description":"The town of Deopatan, three kilometers northeast of Kathmandu, is above all famous for its main sanctum, the temple of Paśupati, the 'lord of the animals,' a form of Śiva and the tutelary deity of the kings of Nepal since ancient times. By its name alone, the temple attracts thousands of pilgrims each year and has made itself known far beyond the Kathamndu Valley. However, for the dominant Newar population the town is by no means merely the seat of Śiva or Paśupati. It is also a city of wild goddesses and other deities.   Due to this tension between two strands of Hinduism - the pure, vegetarian Smarta Hinduism and the Newar Hinduism which implies alcohol and blood sacrifices - Śiva\/Paśupati has more than once been in trouble, as the many festivals and rituals descripbed and analyzed in this book reveal. Deopatan is a contested field. Different deities, agents social groups, ritual specialists, and institutions are constantly seeking dominance, challenging and even fighting each other, thus contributing to social and political dynamics and tensions that are indeed distinct in South Asia. It is these aspects on which Axel Michaels concentrates in this book.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52482645328145,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52482646966545,"sku":"NLS9780195343021","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780195343021.jpg?v=1759853535"},{"product_id":"city-of-mirrors-book-carol-salomon-9780190680220","title":"City of Mirrors","description":"Carol Salomon dedicated over thirty years of her life to researching, translating, and annotating this compilation of songs by the Bengali poet and mystical philosopher Lalan Sai (popularly transliterated as Lalon) who lived in the village of Cheuriya in Bengal in the latter half of the nineteenth century. One major objective of his lyrical riddles was to challenge the restrictions of cultural, political, and sexual identity, and his songs accordingly express a longing to understand humanity, its duties, and its ultimate destiny. His songs also contain thinly veiled references to esoteric yogic practices (sadhana), including body-centered Hathayogic techniques that are related to those found in Buddhist, Kaula, Natha, and Sufi medieval tantric literature.  Dr. Salomon's translation of the work is the first dedicated English translation of Lalan's songs to closely follow the Bangla text, with all of its dialectical variations, and is here produced alongside the original text. Although her untimely death left her work unpublished, the editors have worked diligently to reconstruct her translations from her surviving printed and handwritten manuscripts. The result is a finished product that can finally share her groundbreaking scholarship on Baul traditions with the world.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52488671756561,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52488672510225,"sku":"NLS9780190680220","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780190680220.jpg?v=1759875364"},{"product_id":"in-the-shade-of-the-golden-palace-book-thibaut-d-hubert-9780190860332","title":"In the Shade of the Golden Palace","description":"In the Shade of the Golden Palace explores the work of the prolific Bengali poet Alaol (fl. 1651-71), who translated five narrative poems and one versified treatise from medieval Hindi and Persian into Bengali. The book maps the genres, structures, and themes of Alaol's works, paying special attention to his discourse on poetics and his literary genealogy, which included Sanskrit, Avadhi, Maithili, Persian, and Bengali authors. D'Hubert focuses on courtly speech in Alaol's poetry, his revisiting of classical categories in a vernacular context, and the prominent role of performing arts in his conceptualization of the poetics of the written word. The foregrounding of this audacious theory of meaning in Alaol's poetry is a crucial contribution of the book, both in terms of general conceptual analysis and for its significance in the history of Bengali poetry. This book shows how multilingual literacy fostered a variety of literary experiments in the remote kingdom of Arakan, which lay between present-day southeastern Bangladesh and Myanmar, in the 14th and 17th centuries. D'Hubert also presents a detailed analysis of Middle Bengali narrative poems, as well as translations of Old Maithili, Brajabuli, and Middle Bengali lyric poems that illustrate the major poetic styles in the regional courts of eastern South Asia. In the Shade of the Golden Palace therefore fulfills three functions: it is a unique guide for readers of Middle Bengali poetry, a detailed study of the cultural history of the frontier region of Arakan, and an original contribution to the poetics of South Asian literatures.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52488795095313,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52488795652369,"sku":"NLS9780190860332","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780190860332.jpg?v=1759876557"},{"product_id":"rise-of-a-folk-god-book-ramchandra-chintaman-dhere-9780199777594","title":"Rise of a Folk God","description":"Vitthal, also called Vithoba, is the most popular Hindu god in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, and the best-known god of that region outside India. His temple at Pandharpur is the goal of an annual pilgrimage that is one of the largest and most elaborate in the world.  This book is the foremost study of the history of Vitthal, his worship, and his worshippers. First published in Marathi in 1984, the book remains the most thorough and insightful work on Vitthal and his cult in any language, and provides an exemplary model for understanding the history and morphology of lived Hinduism. The author, Ramachandra Chintaman Dhere, is the leading scholar of religious traditions in Maharashtra and throughout the Deccan, the plateau that covers most of central India.  Vitthal exemplifies the synthesis of Vaisnava and Saiva elements that not only typifies Maharashtrian Hindu religious life but also marks Vitthal's resemblance to another prominent South Indian god, Venkates of Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. Dhere's analysis highlights Vitthal's connection with pastoralist hero cults, and demonstrates the god's development from a god of shepherds to a god of the majority of the population, including Brahmans. In addition, Dhere also explores the connections of Vitthal with Buddhist and Jain traditions. In the book's final chapter, Dhere presents a culminating stage in the evolution of the worship of Vitthal: the interpretation in spiritual terms of the god, his temple, the town of Pandharpur, and the river that flows past the town.  Dhere received India's highest literary award, the Sahitya Akademi prize, for this book.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52627047907601,"sku":"NLS9780199777594","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52734604542225,"sku":"NIN9780199777594","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780199777594.jpg?v=1761819031"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/south-asia-research-book-series.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}