Kabir turns round, it s hard to see Is the holy place bigger, or the devotee?  More people have embarked on a quest for the sacred in India than anywhere else. An exceptionally rich religious tradition and an abundance of minor and major pilgrim sites have given seekers ample motivation to pack their bags and go on a search.  Pilgrim s India is about all journeys impelled by the idea of the sacred. It brings together essays and poems from the Katha Upanishad, Fa-Hien, Basavanna and Kabir to Paul Brunton, Richard Lannoy, Amit Chaudhuri, Arun Kolatkar and others about various aspects of trips undertaken in the name of God. Readers will encounter the watchful reserve of a British journalist in southern India, the vigorous prose of a contemporary Sikh pilgrim, a French author-adventurer s appraisal of the Ellora caves, a modern-day Zoroastrian s reflections on Udvada and a woman s impression of what it means to be Muslim in India.  Mystics, witnesses and wanderers write about the Supreme Being, about journeys and destinations, false starts, bottlenecks and blind alleys, about humour, rage and revelation all of which make this anthology a deeply absorbing and idiosyncratic take on pilgrims and pilgrim trails in India.

Pilgrim's India: An Anthology

Travel

Arundhathi Subramaniam (Ed.)

Asia

Penguin Ananda

The seeker s impassioned yearning for the Divine, unmediated here and now is the essence of bhakti. As old as time, its spirit suffused the outpourings of mystic poets across India from the eighth century onward. Their compositions passionate, sensuous, intimate, often articulated in regional languages and dialects spoke to cobbler and priest alike, and have embedded themselves in our collective unconscious. The two-hundred-odd poems in this volume remind us of this rich palette of human longing: from the trenchant irony of Kabir and audacious sensuality of Annamayya and Chandidas to the earthy mysticism of Tukaram and fierce lyricism of Mira and Akka Mahadevi. We travel the emotional arc of bhakti, from wild longing to liberation, through these utterances and many more. Featuring classic translations by A.K. Ramanujan and Dilip Chitre, among others, as well as new and unpublished ones by acclaimed poets, Eating God is a fabulous treat for seekers and poetry lovers alike.

Eating God: A Book of Bhakti Poetry

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Arundhathi Subramaniam (Ed.). BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Arundhathi Subramaniam (Ed.)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Arundhathi Subramaniam (Ed.). BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Pilgrim's India: An Anthology

Eating God: A Book of Bhakti Poetry