Kirjahaku

What is the Nature of the social order that unquestionably produced one of the greatest and longest lasting civilizations known to humankind? Alain Danielou, distinguished Orientalist, musicologist, and linguist, reveals the foundations of India's culture and the four aims of human life as they are viewed in the traditional Hindu society: virtue on a moral plane; success on the material and social planes; pleasure on a sensual plane; and liberation on a spiritual plane. Coexistent with these aims are the four stages of life: quest for knowledge, family life, retreat into the forest, and renunciation. A four-fold division can be found in all traditional societies throughout the world, symbolically representing the progression of creative consciousness into physical reality. In India, this division is reflected in the caste system, a social order that differs profoundly from those accepted in the contemporary Western world. Exploring he fundamental concepts of the caste system, the author addresses issues of race, individual rights, sexual mores, martial practices, and spiritual attainments. In this light, he exposes the inherent flaws and hypocrisies of our modern egalitarian governments and shows how the shadow side of the ancient caste system persists, disguised and unacknowledged, beneath contemporary economic regimes. Danielou explains how Hindu society has served as a model for the realization of human potential on many levels, addressing sociological and human problems that are both timeless and universal.

Based on original Sanskrit sources, this book gives an authentic account of the methods of yoga in its different forms, including the challenging "left-hand" paths, as well as practices best suited to Western students.

In classical India social ethics are based on each individual's functional role in society. These ethics vary according to caste in order to maximize the individual's effectiveness in the social context. This is the definition of caste ethics. The Indian caste system is not a hierarchy with some who are privileged and others who are despised: it is a natural ordering an organizing principle of a society wherein differences are embraced rather than ignored. In the caste system it is up to the individual to achieve perfection in the state to which he or she is born since to a certain extent that state also forms part of a person's nature. All people must accomplish their individual spiritual destinies while as members of a social group ensuring the continuity of the group and collaborating in creating a favourable framework for all human life - thereby fulfilling the collective destiny of the group. The notion of transmigration provides an equalizing effect on this prescribed system in that today's prince may be reborn as a woodcutter and the Brahman as a shoemaker.In INDIA: A CIVILIZATION OF DIFFERENCES Danielou explores this seldom-heard side of the caste debate and argues effectively in its favour. This rare collection of the late author's writings contains several never-before-published articles and offers an in-depth look at the structure of Indian society before and after Western colonialism.

Alain Danielou here unveils the religious impulse underlying art that at first glance seems to have no purpose beyond the erotic. Illustrated throughout with photographs and line drawings of European and Indian art, The Phallus celebrates the expression of the masculine in the religious traditions of East and West.

Danielou's masterpiece on the erotic nature of the sacred symbolism of the Hindu temple. - Includes stunning photographs from the major temple complexes of India. - By Alain Danielou, one of the greatest authorities on Hinduism. Ancient Indian architectural treatises state that a temple lacking erotic imagery would be ineffective and maleficent. The erotic statues and representations that cover the outer and inner walls of the Hindu temple serve both a magical and an instructional purpose. Through the power of the "yantras"--the magical diagrams created by the placement of the erotic imagery--the architect made the temple a faithful reflection of the divine. At the same time this imagery educated the faithful about the fundamental aspects of the Hindu religion, wherein the union of opposites in the sexual act is the perfect image of the creative principle, and erotic enjoyment is a reflection of divine bliss. Alain Danielou's masterpiece on the Hindu temple, now translated for the first time into English, provides a stunningly illustrated tour of the major temple complexes of India. The erotic sculptures that cover the walls of these temples are not merely symbolic portrayals of voluptuous acts but serve as profound reminders that man is closest to the divine during the instant of sexual transcendence.

This book reveals the influence of Shaivism on the Western world, discusses Shaivism's understanding of sacred sexuality and presents the connections between Vedic poetry and metaphysics. In "Shive and the Primordial Tradition", Alain Danielou explores the relationship between Shaivism and the Western world. Shaivite philosophy does not oppose theology, cosmology and science because it recognises that their common aim is to seek to understand and explain the nature of the world. In the Western world, the idea of bridging the divide between science and religion is just beginning to touch the edges of mainstream thought. This rare collection of the late author's writings contains several never-before-published articles and offers an in-depth look at the many facets of the Samkhya, the cosmologic doctrines of the Shaivite tradition. Danielou provides important revelations on subjects such as the science of dreams, the role of poetry and sexuality in the sacred, the personality of the great Shankara and the Shaivite influence on the Scythians and the Parthians (and by extension, the Hellenic world in general).Providing a convincing argument in favour of the polytheistic approach, he explains that monotheism is merely the deification of individualism - the separation of humanity from nature - and that, by acknowledging the sacred in everything, we can recognise the imprint of the primordial tradition.