Theory and Practice of Yoga : Essays in Honour of Gerald James Larson

Leiden: Brill, 2005. First edition. Hardcover. near fine. Octavo. vii, (3), 478pp. Index. Plus (5)pp. publisher's catalog. Pictorial buckram, lavender spine lettered in white & black. Frontispiece portrait. Head of spine and lower corner of front cover slightly bumped. A near fine, but ex-library copy with a minimal rubber library stamp on title page and at bottom edge of text block.

This collection of original essays provides fascinating insights into yoga as a historical and pluralistic phenomenon flourishing in a variety of religious and philosophical contexts. They cover a wide variety of traditions and topics related to Yoga: Classical Yoga, Sāṃkhya, Tantric Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, the Guru, Indic Islamic traditions of Yoga, Yoga and asceticism in contemporary India, and the reception of Yoga in the West. The essays are written by eighteen professors in the field of the history of religions, most of them former graduate students of Gerald James Larson, Larson is Rabindranath Tagore Professor Emeritus, Indiana University, Bloomington, Professor Emeritus, Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, an internationally acclaimed scholar on the history of religions and philosophies of India, and one of the world's foremost authorities on the Samkhya and Yoga traditions. The publication is in honour of him. (Publisher)

Contents: Introduction : yoga traditions /; Knut A. Jacobsen --; Person, purity, and power in the Yogasutra /; Lloyd W. Pfleuger --; Revisiting the Jivanmukti question in Samkhya in the context of the Samkhyasutra /; T.S. Rukmani --; Being a witness : cross-examining the notion of self in Sankara's Upadesasahasri, Isvarakrsna's Samkhyakarika, and Patanjali's Yogasutra /; Richa Pauranik Clements --; 'It ain't necessarily so' /; Nandini Iyer --; The Samkhya-yoga influence on Srivaisnava philosophy with special reference to the Pancaratra system /; P. Pratap Kumar --; Interpreting across mystical boundaries : an analysis of Samadhi in the Trika-Kaula tradition /; Jeffrey S. Lidke.

Volume 110 of Brill's "Numen Book Series: Studies in the History of Religions."