Dear Colleagues,

I am happy to announce the publication of my new book, Lord Siva's Song: The Isvara Gita, on SUNY Press. I hope it will not only be of interest to specialists, but also be of use in graduate and undergraduate classes on Hinduism, Saivism, and the history of yoga. My editor tells me that an affordable paperback edition will be available in January 2015.

A sample is available for download here: http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5850-lord-sivas-song.aspx

Best,
Andrew
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Andrew J. Nicholson
Associate Professor
SUNY Stony Brook
Stony Brook, NY 11794-5343
(631) 632-4030
http://philosophicalrasika.com/

Lord Siva's Song: The Isvara Gita

Translated with an introduction and notes by Andrew J. Nicholson

Summary

A translation of the Īśvara Gītā, a parallel text to the Bhagavad Gītā that promotes religious inclusion.

While the Bhagavad Gītā is an acknowledged treasure of world spiritual literature, few people know a parallel text, the Īśvara Gītā. This lesser-known work is also dedicated to a god, but in this case it is Śiva, rather than Kṛṣṇa, who is depicted as the omniscient creator of the world. Andrew J. Nicholson’s Lord Śiva’s Song makes this text available in English in an accessible new translation. A work of both poetry and philosophy, the Īśvara Gītā builds on the insights of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra and foreshadows later developments in tantric yoga. It deals with the pluralistic religious environment of early medieval India through an exploration of the relationship between the gods Śiva and Viṣṇu. The work condemns sectarianism and violence and provides a strategy for accommodating conflicting religious claims in its own day and in our own.

“This is an excellent introduction to, and a sound scholarly translation of, a foundational text. Andrew J. Nicholson is a first-rate scholar.” — Andrew O. Fort, author of Jīvanmukti in Transformation: Embodied Liberation in Advaita and Neo-Vedanta

Andrew J. Nicholson is Associate Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies at Stony Brook University, State University of New York. He is the author of Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Translation

1. The Arrival of the Gods

2. The Changeless Self

3. The Unmanifest Lord

4. The God of Gods

5. The Lord’s Dance

6. The Glory of Lord Śiva

7. The Master of Beasts

8. The Hidden Lord

9. Brahman’s Powers

10. Brahman and the Lord

11. The Highest Yoga

Commentarial Notes
Sanskrit Text
List of Concordances
Glossary of Sanskrit Names and Terms
Bibliography