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The
book, which is in three volumes, covers various subjects such as
scriptures, philosophy, mythology, religion, rituals and sacraments,
pilgrim centres, biographies of great Hindu leaders in various fields,
ancient arts and sciences, archaeology, basic information about Buddhism,
Jainism and Sikhism. It also
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In the
mid-19th century, two British engineers who were in charge of constructing
a railway line, got the mounds at Harappa (now in Pakistan)
dug for burnt bricks, to be used as ballast. Little did they know that
they were digging up a past and an unknown facet of the history of
India. Suspecting the existence
of the remnants of an ancient civilisation, systematic evacuations were
undertaken by the Archeological Department of India. These evacuations led
to detection of the proto-historic city Harappa.
This information is not from any history
literature. It is an excerpt from a book A Concise Encyclopedia of
Hinduism, authored by Swami Harshananda, Head of Ramakrishna Math at
Basavanagudi, Bangalore.
The book, which is in three volumes,
covers various subjects such as scriptures, philosophy, mythology,
religion, rituals and sacraments, pilgrim centres, biographies of great
Hindu leaders in various fields, ancient arts and sciences, archaeology,
basic information about Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. It also includes
details of Hindu festivals and their significance. The contents are
arranged in English alphabetical order, using the International system of
diacritical marks for Sanskrit.
Each volume of the book contains 700
pages, which include 200 line drawings and 100 coloured photographs. The
book also contains lives and works of people connected with Hindu religion
and culture. “It is written in such a simple style that even a PU student
can understand it,” said Swami Harshananda.
33
years!
It took nearly 33 years for Swami Harshananda to complete his
book and he claims it’s the first of its kind in English. “A British
couple had compiled a dictionary on Hinduism but it’s not exhaustive.
There is another book on Hinduism in Hindi, which is fairly good but it’s
restricted to one volume,” he said.
Swami Harshananda, who is in his
late 70s, has served 53 years in the Ramakrishna order. He was inspired by
the life of Swami Vivekananda and came in contact with the Ramakrishna
Ashram in 1948. As a student, he had several doubts on various
subjects including Hinduism. Though most of his questions were answered by
his guru and former president of the Ashram Tyagishananda, he soon
realised that there was not a single book available which covered the
diversity of Hinduism.
It was while working in the Ramakrishna
Institute of Moral and Spiritual Education at Mysore in 1973, that
he thought about writing an encyclopedia on Hinduism. “For one year, I
collected the subject titles and organised them. But the actual work
started in 1975,” he said.
He managed to take out some time from daily
activities and finished the book. The book, which was completed two months
ago, will hit the stands in April. The book is currently in English.
“There are requests for a Kannada version but it will take some time,” he
noted.
Those who
are interested to purchase the book can register at the book sales section
at Ramakrishna
Math in Basavanagudi. The pre-publication offer is Rs 1,000 (till March
31) and the publication offer is Rs 1,500. For details, call (080)
26616060, 26616161 or email: rkmblr...@vsnl.net
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