<p>This Reader aims to help students start reading original Sanskrit literature. When we study ancient languages there often is quite a gap between introductory grammarbased classes and independent reading of origin­al texts. This Reader bridges that gap by offering complete grammar and vocabulary notes for 40 entertaining thoughtprovoking or simply beauti­ful passages from Sanskrit narrative and epic as well as over 130 subha?itas (epigrams). These readings are complemented by review sections on syntax word formation and compounding a 900word study vocabulary complete transliterations and literal translations of all read­ings as well as supplementary online resources. The Reader can be used for selfstudy and in a classroom both to accompany introductory Sanskrit courses and to succeed them. About the Author Since receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge Antonia M. Ruppel has taught Sanskrit at Cornell Oxford and the lmu Munich and also online for Yogic Studies. The recipient of several awards for her teaching she is the author of the 2017 Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit.</p>

<p>In Theologising with the Sacred ‘Prostitutes’ of South India Eve Rebecca Parker theologises with the Dalit women who from childhood have been dedicated to village goddesses and used as ‘sacred’ sex workers. Parker uses ethnographic anthropological theological her­meneutical and historical research and analysis in order to critically engage with the lived religiosity and daily struggles of the dedicated women known as devadasis. In doing so she works towards an Indecent Dalit Liberation Theology that challenges systems of oppres­sion and cultures of impunity including casteism sexism classism and a history of sociopolitical and religious marginalisation. The result is a profound theologising of struggle and resistance with the sexual narra­tives of the oppressed. About the Author Eve Rebecca Parker Ph.D. (2016) University of St Andrews is Postdoctoral Research Associate in Theological Education at Durham University. Her recent publications include The Virgin and the Whore – An Interreligious Challenge for Our Times The Ecumenical Review (2019).</p>

<p>In The Mughal Padshah Jorge Flores offers both a lucid English transla­tion and the Portuguese original of a previously unknown account of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir (r. 16051627). Probably penned by the Jesuit priest Jerónimo Xavier in 161011 the Treatise of the Court and Household of Jahangir Padshah King of the Mughals reads quite dif­ferently than the usual missionary report. Surviving in four different versions this text reveals intriguing insights on Jahangir and his family the Mughal court and its political rituals as well as the imperial elite and its military and economic strength. A comprehensive introduction situ­ates the Treatise in the ‘disputed’ landscape of European accounts on Mughal India as well as illuminates the actual conditions of production and readership of such a text between South Asia and the Iberian Peninsula. About the Author Jorge Flores (Ph.D. New University of Lisbon 2005) is Professor of Early Modern Global History at the European University Institute (Florence Italy). He has published extensively on the social and cultural history of the Portuguese Empire in South Asia 16th17th centuries.</p>

<p>In The Political Economy of Indigo in India 15801930: A Global Per­spective Ghulam A. Nadri explores the dynamics of the indigo industry and trade from a longterm perspective and examines the local and global forces that affected the potentialities of production in India and elsewhere and caused periods of boom and slump in the industry. Using the commodity chains conceptual framework he examines the stages in the trajectory of indigo from production to consumption. Nadri shows convincingly that the growth or decline in indigo produc­tion and trade in India was a part of the global processes of production trade and consumption and that indigo as a global commodity was embedded in the politics of empire and colonial expansion. About the Author Ghulam A. Nadri Ph.D. (2007) Leiden University is Associate Pro­fessor of History at Georgia State University. He has published a monograph EighteenthCentury Gujarat: The Dynamics of its Political Economy 17501800 (Brill 2009) and many journal articles and book chapters on early modern Gujarat and India.</p>

<p>In Clothing as Devotion in Contemporary Hinduism Urmila Mohan explores the materiality and visuality of cloth and clothing as devotional media in contemporary Hinduism. Drawing upon ethnographic research into the global missionizing group ‘International Society for Krishna Consciousness’ (ISKCON) she studies translocal spaces of worship service education and daily life in the group’s headquarters in Mayapur and other parts of India. Focusing on the actions and values of deity dressmaking devotee clothing and paraphernalia Mohan shows how activities such as embroidery and chanting can be understood as techniques of spirituality reverence allegiance – and she proposes the new term ‘efficacious intimacy’ to help understand these complex processes. The monograph brings theoretical advances in AngloEuropean material culture and material religion studies into a conversa­tion with South Asian anthropology sociology art history and religion. Ultimately it demonstrates how embodied interactions as well as re­presentations shape ISKCON’s practitioners as devout subjects while connecting them with the divine and the wider community. About the Author Urmila Mohan Ph.D. (2015 University College London) is an anthro­pologist of material culture. She authored Fabricating Power with Balinese Textiles (2018) and coedited ‘The Bodily and Material Cultures of Religious Subjectivation’ (Journal of Material Culture 2017) and The Material Subject: Rethinking Subjects Through Objects and Praxis (2020).</p>

<p>In Encounters on the Opposite Coast Markus Vink provides a narrative of the first half century of crosscultural interaction between the Dutch East India Company (VOC) one of the great northern European char­tered companies and Madurai one of the ‘great southern Nayakas’ and successorstates of the Vijayanagara empire in southeast India (c. 16451690). A shared interest in trade and at times converging political objectives formed the unstable foundations for a complex relationship fraught with tensions a mixture of conflict and coexistence typical of the ‘age of contained conflict’. Drawing extensively on archival materials Markus Vink covers a topic neglected by both Company historians and their Indian counter­parts and sheds important light on a ‘black hole in South Indian history’. About the Author Markus P.M. Vink Ph.D. (1998) University of Minnesota is Professor of History at The State University of New York at Fredonia. He has published monographs and numerous articles on the Indian Ocean World including The MerchantWarrior Pacified (OUP 1991) and Mission to Madurai (Manohar 2012).</p>

<p>There are few books that can equal [this book] in providing readers with an appreciation of the variety of interconnections between different regions of the world before the nineteenth century. Cloth it clearly demonstrates is an invaluable entry point into global economic history. – Douglas Haynes Dartmouth College in HNet How India Clothed the World is an ambitious book which takes a comprehensive look at South Asian textiles from the minutiae of technology and procurement to the global movement of products and ‘invisible cargoes’. – Anand V. Swamy William College in Journal of Economic History Until recently the production and exchange of textiles were understood as purely economic activities in which production technology weavers merchants companies and markets played a prominent role. This volume instead invokes consumer choice fashion gender social hierarchy aesthetics and the dissemination of knowledge as playing important roles in determining the consumption and production of textiles in both Asia and Europe. – Ghulam Nadri Georgia State University in Economic History Review. Cloth has always been the most global of all traded commodities. It is an illuminating example of the circulation of goods skills knowledge and capital across wide geographic spaces. South Asia has been central to the making of these global exchanges over time. This volume presents innovative research that explores the dynamic ways in which diverse textile production and trade regions generated the ‘first globalization’. A series of experts connect this global commodity with the dramatic political and economic transformations that characterised the Indian Ocean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Collectively the essays transform our understanding of the contribution of South Asian cloth to the making of the modern world economy. About the Author Giorgio Riello Ph.D. (2002) in History University College London is Professor of Global History and Culture at the University of Warwick. He has published on early modern textiles dress and fashion in Europe and Asia. Tirthankar Roy Ph.D. (1989) in Economics Jawaharlal Nehru University is Professor of Economic History at London School of Economics. He has published extensively on the economic and social history of modern and early modern South Asia and has contributed to the textile history of the region in particular.</p>

<p>Comparing the variant ideologies of the representations of India in seventeenthcentury European travelogues India in Early Modern Travel Writings: Protestantism Enlightenment and Toleration focuses on a relatively neglected area of study and often overlooked writers. Relating the narratives to contemporary ideas and beliefs Rita Banerjee argues that the travel writers many of them avid Protestants seek to negativize India by constructing her in opposition to Europe the supposed norm by deliberately erasing affinities and indulging in the politics of disavowal. However some travelogues show a neutral stance by dispassionate ethnographic reporting indicating a growing empirical trend. Yet others influenced by the Enlightenment ideas of diversity demonstrate tolerance of alien practices and occasionally acceptance of the superior rationality of the other’s customs. About the Author Rita Banerjee Ph.D. (1997) Northern Illinois University formerly Associate Professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University Delhi is currently research scholar at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta. She has published articles bookchapters and a monograph on early modern literature and recently edited a book Cultural Histories of India (Routledge 2020).</p>

<p>The European Encounter with Hinduism in India is a masterful reflection on Western visitors to India from Marco Polo on and then too on the colonial era missionary encounters with Hindu texts practices and believers.’ – Francis X. Clooney SJ Professor of Comparative Theology Harvard University ‘As an expert in Hinduism and Christian theology Jan Peter Schouten is the perfect author to write about the confrontation between Europe and India.’ – Dr Marcel Poorthuis Professor of Interreligious Dialogue Tilburg University In The European Encounter with Hinduism in India Jan Peter Schouten offers an account of European travellers coming into contact with the Hindu religion in India. From the thirteenth century on both traders and missionaries visited India and encountered the exotic world of Hindus and Hinduism. Their travel reports reveal how Europeans gradually increased their knowledge of Hinduism and how they evaluated this foreign religion. Later on although officials of the colonial adminis­tration also studied the languages and culture of India it was – contrary to what is usually assumed – particularly the many missionaries who made the greatest contribution to the mapping of Hinduism. About the Author Dr. Jan Peter Schouten (1949) studied theology and sociology in Amsterdam and Utrecht. He is a retired minister of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands. He has published monographs and articles on Hinduism including Jesus as Guru (Brill/Rodopi 2008).</p>

<p>The interdisciplinary volume Transfer of Buddhism Across Central Asian Networks (7th to 13th Centuries) edited by Carmen Meinert offers a new transregional and transcultural vision for religious transfer processes in Central Asian history. It looks at the region as an integrated (religious) whole rather than from the perspective of fragmented subdisciplines and analyses the spread of Buddhism as a driving force in a societal and cultural change of panAsian importance. One particular dimension of this ‘Buddhist globalisation’ was the rise of local forms of Buddhism. This volume explores Buddhist localisations through manuscripts and material culture in the multiethnic oases of the Tarim basin the Transhimalyan region of Zangskar Ladakh and Kashmir and the Western Tibetan Kingdom of PurangGuge. About the Author Carmen Meinert D.Phil. (2001) Bonn University is Professor of Central Asian Religions at Bochum University. She has published on Buddhism in Central Asia on TibetanChinese relations and mono­graphs including Buddha in the Yurt – Buddhist Art from Mongolia (Hirmer 2011).</p>