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Sanctum Books, 68 Medical Association Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi (2024)

25/06/2024

JUST PUBLISHED

The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet

Edited by Michael R. Sheehy and Klaus-Dieter Mathes

ABOUT THE BOOK

This book brings together perspectives of leading international Tibetan studies scholars on the subject of zhentong or "other-emptiness." Defined as the emptiness of everything other than the continuous luminous awareness that is one's own enlightened nature, this distinctive philosophical and contemplative presentation of emptiness is quite different from rangtong—emptiness that lacks independent existence, which has had a strong influence on the dissemination of Buddhist philosophy in the West. Important topics are addressed, including the history, literature, and philosophy of emptiness that have contributed to zhentong thinking in Tibet from the thirteenth century until today. The contributors examine a wide range of views on zhentong from each of the major orders of Tibetan Buddhism, highlighting the key Tibetan thinkers in the zhentong philosophical tradition. Also discussed are the early formulations of buddhanature, interpretations of cosmic time, polemical debates about emptiness in Tibet, the zhentong view of contemplation, and creative innovations of thought in Tibetan Buddhism. Highly accessible and informative, this book can be used as a scholarly resource as well as a textbook for teaching graduate and undergraduate courses on Buddhist philosophy.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Michael R. Sheehy is Director of Scholarship at the Contemplative Sciences Center and Research Assistant Professor in Tibetan Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia.

Klaus-Dieter Mathes is Professor of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. His books include A Direct Path to the Buddha Within: Gö Lotsāwa's Mahāmudrā Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga and A Fine Blend of Mahāmudrā and Madhyamaka: Maitrīpa's Collection of Texts on Non-conceptual Realization (Amanasikāra).

REVIEWS

"This anthology is commendable for providing a comprehensive insight into the rarely known alternative version of the Madhyamaka."
—Religious Studies Review

"Highly accessible and informative, this book can be used as a scholarly resource as well as a textbook for teaching graduate and undergraduate courses on Buddhist philosophy."
—New Books Network

"The book contains extremely interesting material and makes a valuable contribution to the study of Tibetan Buddhism. It will be appreciated by those interested in the development of one of the important and yet understudied of its traditions, the other emptiness tradition."
—Georges B. J. Dreyfus, coeditor of The Svātantrika-Prāsaṅgika Distinction: What Difference Does a Difference Make?

SPECIFICATIONS

ISBN: 978-81-952931-4-8
Number of pages: 400 with numerous tables
Size: 16 x 23.5 x 2.5 cm
Year of publication: 2024
Binding: Hardcover
Weight: 0.696 kg
Price: ₹ 2995

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15/06/2024

JUST PUBLISHED

The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows: Tibetan Thinkers Debate the Centrality of the Buddha-Nature Treatise

by Tsering Wangchuk

ABOUT THE BOOK

With its emphasis on the concept of buddha-nature, or the ultimate nature of mind, the Uttaratantra is a classical Buddhist treatise that lays out an early map of the Mahayana path to enlightenment. Tsering Wangchuk unravels the history of this important Indic text in Tibet by examining numerous Tibetan commentaries and other exegetical texts on the treatise that emerged between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. These commentaries explored such questions as: Is the buddha-nature teaching found in the Uttaratantra literally true, or does it have to be interpreted differently to understand its ultimate meaning? Does it explicate ultimate truth that is inherently enlightened or ultimate truth that is empty only of independent existence? Does the treatise teach ultimate nature of mind according to the Cittamatra or the Madhyamaka School of Mahayana? By focusing on the diverse interpretations that different textual communities employed to make sense of the Uttaratantra, Wangchuk provides a necessary historical context for the development of the text in Tibet.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tsering Wangchuk is Assistant Professor and Richard C. Blum Chair in Himalayan Studies at the University of San Francisco.

REVIEWS

"…[the] book is a welcome contribution to the field and contains a valuable intellectual journey driven by a solid methodology for those interested in Buddhist philosophy, what Buddhist philosophers are doing when they interpret and innovate, and the factors that motivate them."
—Reading Religion

"Well conceived and superbly researched, this book is an invaluable 'guidebook' to the arguments and counterarguments of five centuries' worth of Tibet's greatest thinkers. This type of philosophical overview is far too rare in Tibetan Buddhist studies these days, and Wangchuk has performed a great service to the field by undertaking it."
—Roger R. Jackson, translator of Ta***ic Treasures: Three Collections of Mystical Verse from Buddhist India

SPECIFICATIONS

ISBN: 978-81-952931-8-6
Number of pages: 221
Size: 16 x 23.6 x 1.8 cm
Year of publication: 2024
Binding: Hardcover
Weight: 0.455 kg
Price: ₹ 1695

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04/06/2024

JUST PUBLISHED

Buddhisms in Asia: Traditions, Transmissions, and Transformations

Edited by Nicholas S. Brasovan and Micheline M. Soong

ABOUT THE BOOK

Over its long history, Buddhism has never been a simple monolithic phenomenon, but rather a complex living tradition—or better, a family of traditions—continually shaped by and shaping a vast array of social, economic, political, literary, and aesthetic contexts across East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Written by undergraduate educators, Buddhisms in Asia offers a guide to Buddhism's rich variety of traditions and cultural expressions for educators who would like to include Buddhism in their undergraduate courses. It introduces fundamental yet often underrepresented Buddhist texts, concepts, and material in their historical contexts; presents the major "ecologies" of Buddhist belief, practice, and cultural expression; and provides methodological insights regarding how best to infuse Buddhist content into undergraduate courses in the humanities and social sciences. The text aims to represent "Buddhisms" by approaching the subject from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives, including art history, anthropology, history, literature, philosophy, religious studies, and pedagogy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicholas S. Brasovan is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Central Arkansas and the author of Neo-Confucian Ecological Humanism: An Interpretive Engagement with Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692).

Micheline M. Soong is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Hawaiʻi Pacific University.

REVIEWS

"Buddhisms in Asia is both practical and thought-provoking in its comparison of pedagogies. The strength of the book is that it brings multiple authors together for a candid discussion of what needs to be changed within introductory material in the liberal arts classroom. The essays are pertinent for instructors asked to teach Buddhism in a survey of world religions. It provides a concrete approach to tackling decontextualized and ahistorical paradigms still in circulation in the study of Buddhist traditions, for nonspecialists and instructors seeking to revitalize their curriculum."
—H-Net Reviews (H-Asia)

"Most valuable are the essays that bring to the table areas that typical syllabi neglect, for example, Buddhism in Vietnam and Pure Land Buddhism."
—CHOICE

"I teach an introductory course on Buddhism on a regular basis, and every single chapter of this book gave me ideas for materials I could incorporate, new modules I might develop, and/or better ways I might organize and present existing content to students. I think that the book will be particularly useful to educators in Asian studies who are not themselves specialized in areas of Buddhism or religion. The collection gives them the information on Buddhist philosophy, doctrine, and practice that they would need to better incorporate the role of Buddhism into classes on Asian culture, history, society, and politics."
—Leah Kalmanson, coeditor of Buddhist Responses to Globalization

SPECIFICATIONS

ISBN: 978-81-952931-3-1
Number of pages: 210 with numerous b/w illustrations throughout the text
Size: 16 x 23.5 x 1.5 cm
Year of publication: 2024
Binding: Hardcover
Weight: 0.428 kg
Price: ₹ 1595

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30/05/2024

JUST PUBLISHED

Ambient Sufism: Ritual Niches and the Social Work of Musical Form

by Richard C. Jankowsky

ABOUT THE BOOK

Ambient Sufism is a study of the intertwined musical lives of several ritual communities in Tunisia that invoke the healing powers of long-deceased Muslim saints through music-driven trance rituals. Richard C. Jankowsky illuminates the virtually undocumented role of women and minorities in shaping the ritual musical landscape of the region, with case studies on men's and women's Sufi orders, Jewish and Black Tunisian healing musical troupes, and the popular music of hard-drinking laborers, as well as the cohorts involved in mass-mediated staged spectacles of ritual that continue to inject ritual sounds into the public sphere. He uses the term "ambient Sufism" to illuminate these adjacent ritual practices, each serving as a musical, social, and devotional-therapeutic niche while contributing to a larger, shared ecology of practices surrounding and invoking the figures of saints. And he argues that ritual musical form—that is, the large-scale structuring of ritual through musical organization—has agency; that is, form is revealing and constitutive of experience and encourages particular subjectivities. Ambient Sufism promises many useful ideas for ethnomusicology, anthropology, Islamic and religious studies, and North African studies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard C. Jankowsky is associate professor of music at Tufts University. He is the author of Stambeli: Music, Trance, and Alterity in Tunisia.

REVIEWS

“It was a real delight to read Ambient Sufism: Ritual Niches and the Social
Work of Musical Form. This book is important. It brings a wealth of
ethnographic experience and expertise to bear on foundational questions in ethnomusicology and the anthropology of ritual.”
—Jeffers Engelhardt, Amherst College

“Stepping away from a focus on a single tradition, genre, or community, Jankowsky offers a fine-grained study of an entire complex field
of sonic practice rooted in the neighborhoods and shrines of postrevolutionary Tunis. In sensitively tracing how diverse micro-communities touch shoulders around a common pool of musical and
affective resources, Ambient Sufism is a signal contribution to the study
of North African music, popular religious practice, and the social
power of musical form.”
—Jonathan Glasser, William and Mary

SPECIFICATIONS

ISBN: 978-81-947830-3-9
Number of pages: 264 with numerous b/w illustrations, graphs, and tables throughout the text
Size: 16 x 23.5 x 2 cm
Year of publication: 2024
Binding: Hardcover
Weight: 0.525 kg
Price: ₹ 1495

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21/05/2024

JUST PUBLISHED

Word, Chant, and Song: Spiritual Transformation in Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Sikhism

by Harold Coward

ABOUT THE BOOK

In academic religious studies and musicology, little attention has been given to chanted word, hymns, and songs, yet these are often the key spiritual practices for lay devotees. To address this gap in knowledge, Harold Coward presents a thematic study of sacred sound as it functions in word, chant, and song for devotees in the Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, and Sikh traditions. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction of a particular tradition's word/scripture, followed by case studies showcasing the diversity of understanding and the range of chant and song in devotee practice, and concludes with a brief illustration of new trends in music and chant within the tradition. Written in a style that will appeal to both scholars and lay readers, technical terms are clearly explained and case studies explicitly include devotees' personal experiences of songs and chants in public and private religious ritual.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harold Coward is Professor Emeritus of History and Founding Director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria in Canada. He is the author of numerous books, including Yoga and Psychology; The Perfectibility of Human Nature in Eastern and Western Thought; The Philosophy of the Grammarians (volume five of The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, with K. Kunjunni Raja); Mantra (with David J. Goa); and Pluralism in the World Religions.

REVIEW

"Accessible, informative, and interesting, this is a fine contribution."
—Anantanand Rambachan, author of A Hindu Theology of Liberation: Not-Two Is Not One

SPECIFICATIONS

ISBN: 978-81-952931-9-3
Number of pages: 194
Size: 16 x 23.5 x 1.5 cm
Year of publication: 2024
Binding: Hardcover
Price: ₹ 1395

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09/05/2024

JUST PUBLISHED

Seeking Sakyamuni: South Asia in the Formation of Modern Japanese Buddhism

by Richard M. Jaffe

ABOUT THE BOOK

Though fascinated with the land of their tradition's birth, virtually no Japanese Buddhists visited the Indian subcontinent before the nineteenth century. In the richly illustrated Seeking Sakyamuni, Richard M. Jaffe reveals the experiences of the first Japanese Buddhists who traveled to South Asia in search of Buddhist knowledge beginning in 1873. Analyzing the impact of these voyages on Japanese conceptions of Buddhism, he argues that South Asia developed into a pivotal nexus for the development of twentieth-century Japanese Buddhism. Jaffe shows that Japan's growing economic ties to the subcontinent following World War I fostered even more Japanese pilgrimage and study at Buddhism's foundational sites. Tracking the Japanese travelers who returned home, as well as South Asians who visited Japan, Jaffe describes how the resulting flows of knowledge, personal connections, linguistic expertise, and material artifacts of South and Southeast Asian Buddhism instantiated the growing popular consciousness of Buddhism as a pan-Asian tradition—in the heart of Japan.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard M. Jaffe is associate professor of religious studies at Duke University. He is the author of Neither Monk nor Layman and editor of the Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki.

REVIEWS

“In this superb book of transnational history, Richard Jaffe uncovers the role that South Asia played in the shaping of modern Japanese Buddhism. Using a wide array of primary sources, he brings to light the forgotten stories of those scholars and seekers who make arduous journeys across the oceans, seeking the traces of the Buddha in the land of his birth. Seeking Sakyamuni is a landmark work of scholarship: rigorously researched, sharply analyzed, and beautifully written. It richly illuminates the religious and intellec- tual history of Asia, the world’s most populous and most prosperous continent.”
—Ramachandra Guha, author of India After Gandhi

“Seeking Sakyamuni will entice and reward readers working on many corners of the Buddhist world. Revealing a 19th- and 20th-century history of complex Buddhist, com- mercial, and political networks and entanglements within and beyond Asia, Jaffe teaches us much about the more recent history of Japanese Buddhism. Simultaneously, he reveals the central role of intra-Asian engagements in the creation of new modes of Buddhist organization and expression in Japan as well as India, Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand. Richard Jaffe’s longstanding interest in Buddhist objects and aesthetic forms greatly enriches this study, reminding scholars of modern Buddhism not to neglect the changing visual and spatial arguments that reflected and shaped Japanese Buddhist mo- bility in Asia.”
—Anne Blackburn, Cornell University

“Japanese Buddhism, like all religions, confronted a rapidly changing world in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and had to remake itself in order to survive. The prevailing view has been that it did so by appropriating European models of religious learning and practice. Seeking Sakyamuni offers an important corrective to this view, demonstrating that South Asia—India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia—loomed large in Japan’s new construction of Buddhism. Through thick description of Japanese scholar- priests residing long-term in South Asia, of wealthy Japanese tourists making “pilgrim- ages” to India’s Buddhist sites, of Japanese architectural innovations gesturing to Indian motifs, of South Asian monks participating in Japanese scholarly enterprises, and of much more, Jaffe shows that India left a visible imprint on Japan’s new Buddhism. This was not the result of a one-way transfer of religious culture in any particular direction. Rather, it was part of the creation of many modern Buddhisms out of cultural flows from East Asia, South Asia, and the West, which were ‘entangled, circulatory, and inter- crossing.’”
—James Dobbins, Oberlin College

“An exceptionally well-researched and insightfully presented account of Japanese Bud- dhist travelers to South Asia during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as the overall reception and impact of Indian Buddhism on the understanding and produc- tion of Japanese Buddhist temples, texts, and various aspects of intellectual and material culture in the modern period.”
—Steve Heine, Florida International University

“Richly documented, engagingly narrated, and methodologically innovative...”
—Journal of the American Academy of Religion

SPECIFICATIONS

ISBN: 978-81-947830-9-1
Number of pages: 326 with numerous b/w illustrations throughout the text
Size: 16 x 24 x 2 cm
Year of publication: 2024
Binding: Hardcover
Price: ₹ 1995

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13/04/2024

JUST PUBLISHED

Sinister Yogis

by David Gordon White

ABOUT THE BOOK

Since the 1960s, yoga has become a billion-dollar industry in the West, attracting housewives and hipsters, New Agers and the old-aged. But our modern conception of yoga derives much from nineteenth-century European spirituality, and the true story of yoga's origins in South Asia is far richer, stranger, and more entertaining than most of us realize.

To uncover this history, David Gordon White focuses on yoga's practitioners. Combing through millennia of South Asia's vast and diverse literature, he discovers that yogis are usually portrayed as wonder-workers or sorcerers who use their dangerous supernatural abilities—which can include raising the dead, possession, and levitation—to acquire power, wealth, and sexual gratification. As White shows, even those yogis who aren't downright villainous bear little resemblance to Western assumptions about them. At turns rollicking and sophisticated, Sinister Yogis tears down the image of yogis as detached, contemplative teachers, finally placing them in their proper context.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Gordon White is professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of several books, including The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India, Kiss of the Yogini: “Ta***ic Sex” in its South Asian Contexts and Yoga in Practice.

REVIEWS

“This is a riveting account of the early history of yoga and yogis in India that weighs the perspectives of both the yogis and the public culture of yoga. The history of yoga practice, and of yogis, is finally receiving the critical attention from scholars that will alter the views made popular by modern yoga teachers who believe their doctrines of mental and physical culture constitutes ‘classical yoga.’ David White’s entertaining and intelligent account of yogis drawn largely from Hindi and Sanskrit sources will contrib- ute enormously to this corrective project. White has a real gift for making difficult, opaque material comprehensible, and he does so in writing that is bright and lucid.”
—Frederick M. Smith, University of Iowa

“White swept us up with The Alchemical Body and blew us away with Kiss of the Yogini. Now along comes Sinister Yogis. Prepare to be taken over completely by this final installment in White’s ‘siddha’ trilogy. These are no ordinary yogis, at least not in the way yogis have been conceived for many a generation, and not simply by Western scholars and spiritual entrepreneurs. And they are not figures of a literary imagination. They are flesh and bone—when they want to be—and they have walked among us, making and remaking the world. White unravels a vast and interlacing literature on the theory and practice— and especially practitioners—of yoga, ranging from Harappa to the British Raj, and all points in between, and he demonstrates time and again that self projection and body possession, what he calls ‘omni-presencing,’ are the keys to South Asian religion.”
—William R. Pinch, Wesleyan University

“David Gordon White’s Sinister Yogis is brilliant, digressive, non-linear, and likely to be criticized by readers who find fault with specific interpretive and translational choices that he makes. Writing a book such as this one takes courage. It is safest in the modern academy to burrow into the minutiae of a single era or philosophical school and to write only for a small group of initiates. Sinister Yogis is the most comprehensive work to date in a movement that is fundamentally re-shaping our understanding of what yoga is.”—Andrew J. Nicholson, Journal of the American Oriental Society

“Sinister Yogis...successfully provides a fuller, more contextualized history of yoga, open- ing up some of the elisions that come when a tradition goes cross-cultural.”
—Times Literary Supplement

“Huge fun, fascinating and beautifully written.”
—Fortean Times

“This wondrously captivating, richly detailed book is a must for anyone interested in conceptions of the Indian yogi and of yogic practice.”
—Choice

“White offers a surprising, counterintuitive take on the roots of an extraordinary, some- times mystical discipline.”
—Barnes & Noble Review

SPECIFICATIONS

ISBN: 978-81-947830-4-6
Number of pages: 374 with numerous b/w illustrations throughout the text
Size: 16 x 24 x 2.5 cm
Year of publication: 2024
Binding: Hardcover
Price: ₹ 2395

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04/04/2024

JUST PUBLISHED

Inward: Vipassana Meditation and the Embodiment of the Self

by Michal Pagis

ABOUT THE BOOK

Western society has never been more interested in interiority. Indeed, it seems more and more people are deliberately looking inward—toward the mind, the body, or both. Michal Pagis's Inward focuses on one increasingly popular channel for the introverted gaze: vipassana meditation, which has spread from Burma to more than forty countries and counting. Lacing her account with vivid anecdotes and personal stories, Pagis turns our attention not only to the practice of vipassana but to the communities that have sprung up around it. Inward is also a social history of the westward diffusion of Eastern religious practices spurred on by the lingering effects of the British colonial presence in India. At the same time Pagis asks knotty questions about what happens when we continually turn inward, as she investigates the complex relations between physical selves, emotional selves, and our larger social worlds. Her book sheds new light on evergreen topics such as globalization, social psychology, and the place of the human body in the enduring process of self-awareness.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michal Pagis is assistant professor of sociology at Bar-Ilan University.

REVIEWS

“Pagis deftly draws readers into the world of contemporary vipassana meditation, and in so doing shows us how fruitful—and important—sociological attention to the varied social practices that retool the relations of self and other, private and public, visible and invisible, can be. Inward is a beautifully rendered ethnography with important implications for the study of the body and self-making.”
—Courtney Bender, Columbia University

“This striking ethnography sticks in one’s mind: rooms full of silent meditators, coordinating their body rhythms on a tacit channel, observing sensations over every inch of their bodies, and washing away pains not by seeking their causes but by detached attention. Pagis depicts meditation in a secular age, not as religion but as bodies among
bodies giving each other space to repair the inroads of too much social self.”
—Randall Collins, University of Pennsylvania

“Pagis’s beautifully written, brilliantly argued ethnography of meditation makes three major contributions: it shows how some of our most private experiences are socially enabled; it demonstrates how our selves are not only linguistically but sensuously mediated; and it reveals how attention is not merely a faculty but a practice. All three have
profound consequences for understanding the sociality of human beings.”
—Andreas Glaeser, University of Chicago

“Pagis’s monograph supplies a valuable and accurate description, as well as a highly sensitive analysis of the happenings in the Goenka Vipassana centers. It weaves together personal experience, theory, and interviews with others to create an elegantly persuasive account that contributes a unique and important exposition to the growing literature of
the new cultural field of Buddhist meditation outside Buddhist Asia and also to the sociology of secularity and religion in postmodern times. In addition, it contributes a sensitive phenomenological account of meditation practice that is all the more important now, considering the current flood of quantitative studies on the effects of mindfulness.”
—Journal of Buddhist Ethics

“Pagis’s book is a tour de force for those interested in social constructivist theories of self-development; sociologists of religion, spirituality, and Buddhism; and meditators. The book would provide excellent contributions to sociology courses on these topics.
The book is not only carefully constructed, painstakingly grounded in various historical and sociological literatures, but written in an interesting and accessible manner, which students either at the undergraduate or graduate level would enjoy.”
—American Journal of Sociology

“Pagis weaves theory, participant interviews, and her own personal experiences seamlessly together, resulting in a reading experience that continually surprises, engages, and persuades. Inwards is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on the secular and religious study of meditation and should be considered essential reading for those
interested in the transformative powers of interiority.”
—Tyler Carter, H-Net

SPECIFICATIONS

ISBN: 978-81-947830-2-2
Number of pages: 226 with numerous b/w illustrations throughout the text
Size: 16 x 24 x 1.5 cm
Year of publication: 2024
Binding: Hardcover
Price: ₹ 1195

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23/03/2024

JUST PUBLISHED

The Ethics of Oneness: Emerson, Whitman, and the Bhagavad Gita

by Jeremy David Engels

ABOUT THE BOOK

We live in an era defined by a sense of separation, even in the midst of networked connectivity. As cultural climates sour and divisive political structures spread, we are left wondering about our ties to each other. Consequently, there is no better time than now to reconsider ideas of unity.

In The Ethics of Oneness, Jeremy David Engels reads the Bhagavad Gita alongside the works of American thinkers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman. Drawing on this rich combination of traditions, Engels advances the notion that individuals are fundamentally interconnected in their shared divinity. In other words, everything is one. If the ethical lessons and challenges of oneness are taken to heart, particularly as they were expressed and celebrated by Whitman, it is possible, Engels argues, to counter the pervasive and problematic American ideals of hierarchy, exclusion, violence, and domination.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeremy David Engels is professor of communication arts and sciences and the Barry Director of the Honors Program in the College of the Liberal Arts at Pennsylvania State University. He is also a recipient of the Karl R. Wallace Memorial Award, given by the National Communication Association, and the author of many books, including The Art of Gratitude.

REVIEWS

“I learned something new and exciting on virtually every page of The Ethics of Oneness. Engels doesn’t just reveal and analyze the India-Emerson-Whitman connections, he situates them where they matter the most: in everyday life at a time when the revelation of Oneness is desperately needed. At a time when diversity is celebrated by some and weaponized by others, apprehending the Unity within and beyond that diversity is an essential task for humanity. By demonstrating that Oneness is as American as it is East- ern—and profoundly democratic at that—this book makes a contribution more valuable than the currency on which E pluribus unum is engraved.”
—Philip Goldberg, author of American Veda and Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times

“The appeal to ‘oneness’ is regularly and dangerously mistaken for an appeal to absolute order, to strict unity, to lockstep cohesion. The Ethics of Oneness disabuses us of this confusion. Engels shows his readers how nineteenth-century American thinkers re- sponded to the fracturing of their political world and the tearing of the country’s social fabric by developing a philosophy of oneness—fluid, transcendent, and spiritual—that stood against the forces of exclusion and domination which jeopardized modern life. This is a philosophy that is all but forgotten today, which is to say that Engels has written an essential book for our time. We stand in need of his reminder.”
—John Kaag, author of Hiking with Nietzsche and Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life

“There is much to love about this book, particularly the fact that it has a lot to offer a number of audiences, both academic and non-academic. Its greatest contribution to academic and public discourse is its account of communication as yoga, a uniquely U.S. American form of yoga. It enriches our understanding of yoga and its history in the U.S., it enriches our understanding of Emerson’s and Whitman’s philosophies by offering a new mode of approach to them, and it develops two ethical worldviews that have remained somewhat underdeveloped. This, of course, merely scratches the surface. Overall, I think Engels’s book is a masterclass in public-facing academic philosophy.”
—Philosophy East and West

“Engels does a masterful job of showing us how these two great nineteenth-century philosophers—one a mystical poet, the other a prolific essayist—created new ways of looking at early American life from the point of view of Eastern spiritual traditions.”
—Quest

“The Ethics of Oneness is a fascinating book about the early reception of yoga in the United States and its significance for contemporary democratic practice. Written by a scholar of rhetoric, the book is an extended analysis of the place of the Bhagavad Gita in the ethical thought of nineteenth-century US authors Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman....I welcome Engels’s invitation to pay deeper attention to the cross-national influences coursing through the social practice of democracy in all its contexts.”
—American Religion

SPECIFICATIONS

ISBN: 978-81-952931-1-7
Number of pages: 273 with numerous b/w illustrations throughout the text
Size: 16 x 24 x 2 cm
Year of publication: 2024
Binding: Hardcover
Price: ₹ 1495

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