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Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India
by William Dalrymple
- Used
- Very Good
- Paperback
- Condition
- Very Good
- ISBN 10
- 1408801248
- ISBN 13
- 9781408801246
- Seller
-
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
Three brothers from a remote village in the Himalayas are driven by poverty to become monks. One becomes a famous masked dancer; the second an accomplished player of the Tibetan temple trumpet; and the third a great Buddhist scholar. A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her best friend ritually starve herself to death. A woman leaves her middle class family in Calcutta and her job in a jute factory, only to find unexpected love and fulfillment living as a tantric in a skull-filled hut in remote a cremation ground. A prison warder from Kerala becomes for two months of the year a temple dancer and is worshipped as an incarnate deity; then, at the end of February each year, he returns to prison. An idol maker, the thirty-fifth of a long line of sculptors going back to the legendary Chola bronze makers, regards creating Gods as one of the holiest callings in India, but has to reconcile himself to his son who only wants to study computer engineering. An illiterate goat herd from Rajasthan keeps alive an ancient 200,000-stanza sacred epic that he, virtually alone, still knows by heart. A devadasi – or temple prostitute – initially resists her own initiation into sex work, yet pushes both her daughters into a trade she regards as a sacred calling. Nine people, nine lives. Each one taking a different religious path, each one an unforgettable story.Exquisite and mesmerizing, and told with an almost biblical simplicity, William Dalrymple's first travel book in a decade explores how traditional forms of religious life in South Asia have been transformed in the vortex of the region's rapid change. Nine Lives is a distillation of twenty-five years of exploring India and writing about its religious traditions, taking you deep into worlds that you would never have imagined even existed.
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Details
- Bookseller
- A Cappella Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 324819
- Title
- Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India
- Author
- William Dalrymple
- Format/Binding
- Trade Paperback
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN 10
- 1408801248
- ISBN 13
- 9781408801246
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury UK
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- January 1
- Pages
- 284
Terms of Sale
A Cappella Books
Books fully returnable up to ten days after purchase with prior notification.. All credit cards accepted. Postage: $4.00 for first book, $1.50 for each thereafter for USPS media mail. Postage for larger books, international orders and priority mail quoted individually. Shipping Terms: Shipping costs are based on books weighing 2.2 LB, or 1 KG. If your book order is heavy or oversized, we may contact you to let you know extra shipping is required.
About the Seller
A Cappella Books
About A Cappella Books
A Cappella Books is a full service used, new & out-of-print bookstore located in the heart of Atlanta's bohemian district, Little 5 Points, since 1989. We stock a general selection of some 20 to 30, 000 paperbacks & hardcovers, ranging from the common to the quite scarce. Our specialties reflect the personality of our neighborhood and, to varying degrees, our staff. But don't be fooled, we really have something for almost everybody who loves books. Come see us.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Trade Paperback
- Used to indicate any paperback book that is larger than a mass-market paperback and is often more similar in size to a hardcover...