The Myths and Gods of India: The Classic Work on Hindu Polytheism from the Princeton Bollingen Series

Description

The study of Hindu mythology explores the significance of the most prominent Hindu dieties as they are envisioned by the Hindus themselves. Referred to by its adherents as the "eternal religion," Hinduism recognises for each age and each country a new form of revelation - and for each person, according to his or her stage of development, a different path of realisation.

Alain Danielou was an intimate of Stravinsky, Cocteau, and Nabokov in his early years, then spent twenty years in India studying music and philosophy with eminent scholars of the Hindu tradition. He is the author of more than thirty books on the religion, history, and arts of India and the Mediterranean, including While the Gods Play, Gods of Love and Ecstasy, Yoga: Mastering the Secrets of Matter and the Universe, and The Complete Kama Sutra. Danielou was the founder and director of the International Institute for Comparative Musicology in Berlin, and was a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur, Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, and Officier du Merite National.

"A pleasure to behold and an invigorating experience to read." * American Anthropologist * "If you read only one book on Hinduism, it must be Danielou's Myths and Gods of India." * Tyr, August 2002 * " . . . sheds light on more than just Hindu philosophy and practices, but also on how the Western 'Orientalphiles' have been clearly selective in what they put forward as their vision of India." * Institute of Hermetic Studies, Sep 2008 *