Banaras: City of Light

Diana L. Eck

September, 1998
Paper, 448 pages, 61 photos, 7 maps
ISBN: 978-0-231-11447-9
$28.50 / £17.00

"In Banaras, Diana Eck . . . has written a notable book about this greatest of Indian pilgrimage sites. . . . Her brilliant, comprehensive book seems likely to remain for a long time the definitive work on this great Indian city." — Washington Post

"Eck is a master of tone here. She begins as dry scholar, allows her personal voice to emerge and then, through judicious use of lyric quotations, advances to a striking level of exaltation and triumph. . . . To take us gently off this high, Eck buttresses us-and her arguments-with a truly amazing display of addenda; glossaries, calendars and appendices. One ends filled with admiration and awe, not just for the vision given us, but for the scholarship and dedication that made it possible." — Los Angeles Times

"A major event among studies of India." — John Stratton Hawley, Asia

"The most beautiful book . . . on India." — Journal of the American Academy of Religion

Related Subjects

• Asian Religion
• Asian Studies

About the Author

DIANA L. ECK is professor of comparative religion and Indian studies and director of The Pluralism Project at Harvard University. She is the author of many books, including Dar´san: Seeing the Divine Image in India and the editor of On Common Ground: World Religions in America, a multimedia CD-ROM, both published by Columbia.

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