Describes the historical background and religious significance of temples, shrines, palaces, and pilgrimage sites, and includes information on their art, architecture and legends

Traveler's Key Northern India

Shearer, Alistair

Religion & Spirituality

KNOPF

A celebrated photographer of Asia celebrates his favorite subject--the East--in luminous collection of images from some of the most sacred sites on the continent.

The Spirit of Asia: Journeys to the Sacred Places of the East

Arts & Photography

FREEMAN, MICHAEL

Photography & Video

Thames&Hudson

Introduces the essential teachings of Buddha and shows how these teachings ha been expressed in the art, architecture, rituals, symbols, and festivals of various cultures.

Buddha: The Intelligent Heart (Art & Imagination)

Buddhism

To the Hindu, the entire universe is a living being, and through the visual arts - ritualistic, compelling, often stunningly beautiful - that holistic awareness is made available to all. Long rejected by the West as alien and bizarre, Hindu imagery speaks a language that is at last beginning to be understood. Its extraordinary symbolism - elephant-headed and multi-armed deities, fierce demons and fabulous creatures - is a sophisticated iconography conveying universal religious truths. Uniting sensuousness and spirituality, passion and detachment, Hinduism celebrates the fullness of life, and teaches the indivisibility of body and soul, time and eternity. Alistair Shearer is a teacher of meditation and a historian of oriental art, who writes and lectures on the sacred function of art and architecture. His other books include "Buddha: The Intelligent Heart" (1992).

The Hindu Vision: Forms of the Formless (Art and Imagination)

History & Criticism

Effortless Being

Lannoy, Richard

Wildwood House, London

Traveller's Key to Northern India

Travel

Asia

Chambers Harrap Publishers

Everywhere one looks in India, time-honored tradition meets twenty-first century head-on in a dizzying cocktail of intense impressions. India is a paradise for the curious, for the reverent, for the adventuresome, and this is beautifully captured in India: Land of Living Traditions.

India: Land of Living Traditions

Periplus Editions

Adi Shankara was a South Indian sage and the foremost teacher of Advaita Vedanta, the perennial philosophy that lies at the heart of all religions. Such is his stature that even Ramana Maharshi, probably the best-known modern exponent of Advaita, referred to him simply as Acharya – ‘The Teacher’ – and translated some of his works from Sanskrit for his own devotees.
Advaita offers a vision of life as the manifestation of an absolute, non-dual consciousness transcending all time, space and causation, and it provides the direct means to experience this divine ground of all being as our own Self. <ol>
<li>from being some dry and dusty ‘Indian philosophy’, Advaita is a system of practical psychology, based on meditation and insight, that draws the practitioner into the deepest consideration of their own status and what it means to be a human being. As such, it is of immediate relevance to us today, torn as we are by questions of identity and purpose, and the struggle to resolve the age-old problems of ignorance, suffering and inequality.</li> </ol>
This book presents the teachings of Adi Shankara in a highly approachable form through modern translations of his original writings, set in the lively context of his life and mission. The author, Alistair Shearer, is well-known for his translations of Sanskrit classics: Selections from the Upanishads and The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. He is a long-time teacher of meditation in the lineage of Shankara. Previous critical acclaim: The Upanishads: ‘A lovely decanting of this very old wine into a sparkling new bottle.’ John Updike ‘This is the kind of text that one keeps close at hand like an old, wise and compassionate friend.’ Ram Dass ‘An elegant and valuable contribution to the growing corpus of Upanishadic texts in English.’ Dr. Karan Singh The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: ‘A wonderful translation, full of contemporary insight yet luminous with eternal truth.’ Jacob Needleman

In the Light of the Self: Adi Shankara and the Yoga of Non-dualism

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Exercise & Fitness

White Crow Books

The Upanishads are key texts of the ageless wisdom known as the Perennial Philosophy. 
This lucid new translation presents selections from the eleven traditionally considered the most important: the Māṇḍūkya, Kena, Chāndogya, Īsha, Brihadāranyaka, Taittirīya, Mundaka, Kaushītaki, Maitrī, Katha and Shvetāshvatara.\nEach selection is preceded by an incisive introduction that explains simply and clearly Sanskrit terms and yogic concepts that might otherwise be obscure. What emerges is that these writings, composed in the forest retreats of India some twenty-five centuries ago, address still vital questions about the nature and destiny of humankind and the consequences of disregarding the natural order and the greater whole.\nThis vibrant revisioning of long-established classics offers both insight and inspiration to anyone who seeks the truth, whatever their chosen path.

The Upanishads

Politics & Social Sciences

Russell, Peter

Philosophy

How did an ancient Indian spiritual discipline turn into a $20+ billion-a-year mainstay of the global wellness industry? What happened along yoga's winding path from the caves and forests of the sages to the gyms, hospitals and village halls of the modern West? This comprehensive history sets yoga in its global cultural context for the first time. It leads us on a fascinating journey across the world, from arcane religious rituals and medieval body-magic, through muscular Christianity and the British Raj, to the Indian nationalist movement and the arrival of yoga in the twentieth-century West. We discover how the practice reached its present-day ubiquity and how it became embedded in powerful social currents shaping the world's future, such as feminism, digital media, celebrity culture, the stress pandemic and the quest for an authentic identity in the face of unprecedented change. Shearer's revealing history boasts a colorful cast of characters past and present, who tell an engaging tale of scholars and scandal, science and spirit, wisdom and waywardness. This is the untold story of yoga, warts and all.

The Story of Yoga: From Ancient India to the Modern West

Hurst

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Books by Shearer, Alistair