Part animal and part intellectual, an image found in virtually every Indian home, Ganesa, the elephant-headed god, is one of the most important and popular gods throughout India and Hindu Southeast Asia. In this, the first comprehensive, full-length study of Ganesa, Courtright covers not merely the mythology but also the ritual, the political uses, and the modern as well as the Vedic manifestations of the god. The book begins with a consideration of the various myths of Ganesa, stories of his birth, his beheading by his father Siva, and his subsequent restoration as the lord who gives, or...

This collection of essays explores the meanings of marriage in South Asian Hindu culture. Through the perspective of gender, it describes local practices, attitudes, ritual symbols and religious sensibilities as they impact on religion, gender and social life in the Hindu world.

Providing a unique and intimate view of Hindu marriage, the essays in this collection explore points at which the margins of marriage are traversed or transgressed. Rather than focus on normative expectations within marriage, they examine times in which norms are tested or rejected. Using stories, songs, and narrated accounts, the essays treat such topics as widowhood, adultery, levirate, divorce, and suttee, as well as the subversion of marriage by devotion to deities and by alternative constructions of conjugal duty and marital experience.

This reference guide is intended for health and paramedical workers involved in the primary eye-care of leprosy patients. It is designed to be used as a companion volume to "Training Health Workers to Recognize, Treat, Refer and Educate Patients about Ocular Leprosy".