Books On Indian Languages & Literature

"One enters Nepal as a traveler, and leaves as a pilgrim... Nepal is the ideal place to rise above the theoretical... textbooks, and see the twin strands of Tantra and Shamanism... rooted in the eternal and faithful depths of Hinduism, and tempered by the sobering influence of Buddhism... the gods of Nepal do not represent a forgotten era of the past. The deities here are living, and participate in the ordinary existence of everyday life as much as we mere mortals do..."

"Senses delight all and have delighted always, but Indian theorists were perhaps the earliest to perceive the delight of senses as the essence of being - a phenomenon of mind sublimating spiritually... man's 'bhava-jagat'...(emotional world)...alone comprised the theme of poetry, drama, sculpture, or painting. The spectator - 'rasika', as he is called, witnesses a dramatic performance for the enjoyment of 'Rasa'... This 'Rasa'... - the delight which the spectator experienced when witnessing an emotion enacted on the stage, or represented into a medium, is the core of Indian aesthetic thought... As Bharat had it, a subject's instinctive nature comprising all sentiments and emotions - inherent and inborn, as well as concurrent and passing, alone could be the theme of arts... Bharat averred that arts were arts only when they excited the senses and aroused emotions, and created 'Rasa', in which the mind perpetually rejoiced. He prescribed ten conditions of good writing - 'gunas' as he called them; ten faults - 'doshas', a good writing should avoid; and, thirty-six characters of a literary writing. Bharat's perception was thus broad as well as minute and analytical..."

"...Islamic art conveys the spirituality and quintessential message of Islam through a timeless language which precisely because of its timelessness as well as its direct symbolism..."