Banaras: City of Light

by Diana L. Eck

Overview

This is the acclaimed study and interpretation of Banaras, the holy place of the Hindus.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231114479
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	08/11/1999
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Diana L. Eck is professor of comparative religion and Indian studies and director of The Pluralism Project at Harvard University. She is the author of many books, including Dar´san: Seeing the Divine Image in India and the editor of On Common Ground: World Religions in America, a multimedia CD-ROM, both published by Columbia.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Columbia Edition
Preface
Banaras: An Introduction
Banaras in Historical Perspective
The City of Shiva
The Sacred Circle of All the Gods
The River Ganges and the Great Ghats
Seasons and Times
City of All India
City of the Good Life
City of Death and Liberation
Appendix 1: Sanskrit Sources for the Study of Banaras
Appendix 2: The Zones of the Sacred City
Appendix 3: The Shiva Lingas of Kashi
Appendix 4: The Cycles of Kashi Goddesses
Appendix 5: Other Deities of Kashi
Appendix 6: The Year in Banaras: A Partial Calender
Note on Transliteration and Pronunciation
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Illustrations
Index

Editorial Reviews

Eck is a master of tone here. She begins as dry scholar, allows her personal voice to emerge and then, through judicious use of lyric quotations, advances to a striking level of exaltation and triumph.... To take us gently off this high, Eck buttresses us-and her arguments-with a truly amazing display of addenda; glossaries, calendars and appendices. One ends filled with admiration and awe, not just for the vision given us, but for the scholarship and dedication that made it possible.

|Los Angeles Times

In Banaras, Diana Eck... has written a notable book about this greatest of Indian pilgrimage sites.... Her brilliant, comprehensive book seems likely to remain for a long time the definitive work on this great Indian city.

Washington Post

A major event among studies of India.

Asia - John Stratton Hawley

The most beautiful book... on India.

Journal of the American Academy of Religion

Eck is a master of tone here. She begins as dry scholar, allows her personal voice to emerge and then, through judicious use of lyric quotations, advances to a striking level of exaltation and triumph.... To take us gently off this high, Eck buttresses us-and her arguments-with a truly amazing display of addenda; glossaries, calendars and appendices. One ends filled with admiration and awe, not just for the vision given us, but for the scholarship and dedication that made it possible.

Los Angeles Times

In Banaras, Diana Eck... has written a notable book about this greatest of Indian pilgrimage sites.... Her brilliant, comprehensive book seems likely to remain for a long time the definitive work on this great Indian city.

Washington Post

A major event among studies of India.

— John Stratton Hawley

Asia

Apart from its values to the specialist scholar, [Eck's] book will be at least equally rewarding to the student or general reader wishing to understand what Hinduism is about. . . . Admirable and lucid.

Times Literary Supplement

A major event among studies of India.

John Stratton Hawley