Nine lives

in search of the sacred in modern India

284 pages

English language

Published Dec. 19, 2009 by Bloomsbury.

ISBN:
978-1-4088-0061-4
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OCLC Number:
407008118

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5 stars (2 reviews)

From the Dust Jacket: A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet-then spends the rest of his life trying to atone for the violence by hand printing the best prayer flags in India. A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her best friend ritually starve to death. A woman leaves her middle-class family in Calcutta, and her job in a jute factory, only to find unexpected love and fulfillment living as a Tantric skull feeder in a remote cremation ground. A prison warden from Kerala becomes, for two months of the year, a temple dancer and is worshipped as an incarnate deity; then, at the end of February each year, he returns to prison. An illiterate goat herd from Rajasthan keeps alive an ancient 4,000-line sacred epic that he, virtually alone, still knows by heart. A devadasi-or temple prostitute-initially resists her …

1 edition

Subjects

  • Religious life and customs
  • Social conditions

Places

  • India