The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism (2 Vol Set)

his activity, yet his face stays impassive and unmoved. One of his four hands holds the drum that beats the rhythm of creation, ...

competition with a dance contest. Shiva finally bests Kali by manifesting as Nataraja and doing an athletic (tandava) dance styl ...

of the subtle bodyas the means to final liberation of the soul. The Naths believe that liberation is physical immortality, rathe ...

characteristic of the Goddess; all female divinities are ultimately seen as manifestations of some single great Goddess. The nin ...

of these lunar months and concludes with a festival dedicated to the god Rama: Ram Navamiin Chaitra and Dussehrain Ashvin. Of th ...

nothing to begin with, whereas if it did, then the remaining connecting power would exist unconnected to anything, which was cle ...

used to denote the “evil eye,” a malefic influence that is put on people through sight, particularly eye-to-eye contact. The exi ...

excerpts on a particular theme from the Vedas, dharma literature, puranas, and other authoritative religious texts, and then com ...

out the regular passage of time that characterizes the cosmic order (rta). For further information on Night and all the goddesse ...

Nirakara (“without form”) Epithet of the divine reality in its ultimate aspect. According to many Hindu traditions, God is ulti- ...

Nirjala Ekadashi Religious observance on the eleventh day (ekadashi) in the bright, waxing half of the lunar monthof Jyeshth (Ma ...

alternate physiological system, existing on a different plane than gross matter, but corresponding to the material body. It is v ...

Nirvikalpaka In certain schools of Indian philosophy—among them certain Buddhists, the Nyayas, and the Prabhakara school of Mima ...

(1197–1276). Madhva’s fundamental belief was that God was utterly tran- scendent, above and beyond the world and human beings. T ...

Kalivarjya, or “forbidden in the Kali [Age].” Kalivarjya, which first appeared in the twelfth century, was a legal strategy used ...

married woman. The exception to this taboo on nudity is that some ascetics believe nakedness symbolizes the renunciation of all ...

pleasure, pain, happiness, sorrow, and so forth—to the Self. The philo- sophical difficulties with inherence— particularly the n ...

O Obscenity Traditional Hindu culture can be char- acterized as straightlaced, even prudish, with regard to sexuality; any publi ...

claimed to symbolize the entire uni- verse, according to the early specula- tive texts known as the Upanishads. Omkareshvar is o ...

a person’s ability to hold his breath. Whether or not these speculations have any merit, the most important feature in the origi ...