Recommendations based on "Siddhartha: An Indian Tale (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)"

Hermann Hesse's moving and inspirational chronicle of spiritual evolution, Siddhartha, includes a new introduction by bestselling author Paulo Coehlo in Penguin Classics. Siddhartha is perhaps the most important and compelling moral allegory our troubled century has produced. Integrating Eastern and Western spiritual traditions with psychoanalysis and philosophy, this strangely simple tale, written with a deep and moving empathy for humanity, has touched the lives of millions since its original publication in 1922. Set in India, Siddhartha is the story of a young Brahmin's search for ultimate reality after meeting with the Buddha. His quest takes him from a life of decadence to asceticism, from the illusory joys of sensual love with a beautiful courtesan, and of wealth and fame, to the painful struggles with his son and the ultimate wisdom of renunciation. Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) suffered from depression, endured criticism for his pacifist views, and weathered series of personal crises which led him to undergo psychoanalysis with J. B. Lang; a process which resulted in Demian (1919), a novel whose main character is torn between the orderliness of bourgeois existence and the turbulent and enticing world of sensual experience. This dichotomy is prominent in Hesse's subsequent novels, including Siddhartha (1922), Steppenwolf (1927), Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) and his magnum opus, The Glass Bead Game (1943). Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. Paulo Coelho was born in Brazil and has become one of the most widely read authors in the world. Especially renowned for The Alchemist and Eleven Minutes, he has sold more than 100 million books worldwide and has been translated into 66 languages. If you enjoyed Siddhartha, you might like Hesse's Steppenwolf, also available in Penguin Classics.

Stephen Mitchell is widely known for his ability to make ancient masterpieces thrillingly new, to step in where many have tried before and create versions that are definitive for our time. His celebrated version of the Tao Te Ching is the most popular edition in print, and his translations of Jesus, Rilke, Genesis, and Job have won the hearts of readers and critics alike. Stephen Mitchell now brings to the Bhagavad Gita his gift for breathing new life into sacred texts.The Bhagavad Gita is universally acknowledged as one of the world's literary and spiritual masterpieces. It is the core text of the Hindu tradition and has been treasured by American writers from Emerson and Thoreau to T. S. Eliot, who called it the greatest philosophical poem after the Divine Comedy. There have been more than two hundred English translations of the Gita, including many competent literal versions, but not one of them is a superlative literary text in its own right.Now all that has changed. Stephen Mitchell's Bhagavad Gita sings with the clarity, the vigor, and the intensity of the original Sanskrit. It will, as William Arrowsmith said of Mitchell's translation of The Sonnets to Orpheus, "instantly make every other rendering obsolete."

One of the largest rivers in the world, the Indus rises in the Tibetan mountains, flows across northern India and then through Pakistan. For millennia it has been worshipped as a god, for centuries used as a tool of imperial expansion; today it is the cement of Pakistan's fractious union. This recounts a journey along the Indus, upstream and backwards in time, through two thousand miles of geography from the sea to the source; travelling back historically, from the moment that Pakistan first came into being in Karachi, to the time, millions of years ago in Tibet, when the river itself was born.

A restlessness born of guilt and despair leads Ravi to embark on a journey that ends in the remote village of Khasak in the picturesque Palghat countryside in Kerala. A land from the past, potent with dreams and legends, enfolds the traveller in a powerful and unsettling embrace. Ravi is bewitched and entranced as everything around him-the villagers; their children whom he teaches in a makeshift school; the elders who see him as a threat; the toddy-tappers; the shamans-takes on the quality of myth. And then reality, painful and threatening, begins to intrude on the sojourner's resting place and Ravi begins to understand that there is no escape from the relentless dictates of karma... Often poetic and dark, always complex and rich, The Legends of Khasak, O.V. Vijayan's much-acclaimed first novel, translated into English by the author, is an extraordinary achievement

This account describes the author's adventures during an 18-month journey beyond forbidden frontiers in Asia. With minimal equipment and disguised as an itinerant Muslim, he hitch-hiked and walked through southern Turkey, and the Iran of the Ayatollahs, entering Afghanistan illegally in the wake of a convoy of Chinese weapons and then spent months dodging Russian helicopter gunships with the rebel guerillas. He was the first foreigner to cross from Pakistan into the closed western province of China since the revolution on 1949.

Here are the chief riches of more than 3,000 years of Indian philosophical thought-the ancient Vedas, the Upanisads, the epics, the treatises of the heterodox and orthodox systems, the commentaries of the scholastic period, and the contemporary writings. Introductions and interpretive commentaries are provided.

The 18 chapters of "The Bhagavad-Gita" (c. 500 BC), encompass the whole spiritual struggle of a human soul, and the three central themes of this immortal poem - love, light and life - arise from the symphonic vision of God in all things and of all things in God.

It is significant that the only character in Hindu mythology, a king at that, to be given the title of ekam-patni-vrata, devoted to a single wife, is associated with the most unjust act of abandoning her in the forest to protect family reputation. This seems a deliberate souring of the narrative, made even more complex by Ram's refusal to remarry despite the pressure on royalty to produce an heir. The intention seems to be to provoke thought on notions of fidelity, property and self-image. And so mythologist and illustrator Devdutt Pattanaik narrates the Ramayan, drawing attention to the many oral, visual and written retellings composed in different times by different poets, each one trying to solve the puzzle in their own unique way. This book approaches Ram by speculating on Sita--her childhood with her father, Janak, who hosted sages mentioned in the Upanishads; her stay in the forest with her husband who had to be a celibate ascetic while she was in the prime of her youth; her interactions with the women of Lanka, recipes she exchanged, emotions they shared; her connection with the earth, her mother; her role as the Goddess, the untamed Kali as well as the demure Gauri, in transforming the stoic prince of Ayodhya into God.

The fifth and most popular book of the Ramáyana of Valmíki, Súndara recounts the adventures of the monkey hero Hánuman leaping across the ocean to the island citadel of Lanka. Once there, he scours the city for the abducted Princess Sita. The poet vividly describes the opulence of the court of the demon king, Rávana, the beauty of his harem, and the hideous deformity of Sita's wardresses. After witnessing Sita’s stern rejection of Rávana's blandishments, Hánuman reveals himself to the princess, shows her Rama's signet ring as proof of identity, and offers to carry her back to Rama.Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC FoundationFor more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

Rama goes to the monkey capital of Kishkíndha to seek help in finding Sita, and meets Hánuman, the greatest of the monkey heroes. There are two claimants for the monkey throne, Valin and Sugríva; Rama helps Sugríva win the throne, and in return Sugríva promises to help in the search for Sita. The monkey hordes set out in every direction to scour the world, but without success until an old vulture tells them she is in Lanka. Hánuman promises to leap over the ocean to Lanka to pursue the search.Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC FoundationFor more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org