h o m e

r e c o m m e n d e d    b o o k s

c o n t e n t s

Here is a list of good books and publications to read on Hinduism.
 

• Philosophy of Hinduism - An Introduction - By T. C. Galav
• The Hindu Mind: Fundamentals of Hindu Religion and Philosophy for All Ages - By Bansi Pandit
• The Elements of Hinduism - By Stephen Cross
• Ancient Wisdom for Modern Ignorance - Swami B. V. Tripurari
• A Survey of Hinduism - By Klaus K. Klostermaier
• The Bhagvad Gita: A Scripture for the Future - Translation and Commentary by Sachindra K. Majumdar
• India - Living Wisdom - By Richard Waterstone
• Essays on Hinduism - By Karan Singh
• Hinduism Today (a monthly magazine published by the Kauai's Hindu Monastery) - 107 Kaholele Road. Kapaa, Hawaii, 96746. U.S.A.
•   The Sacred Thread - By J.L. Brockington
• Mantra - Hearing the Divine in India - By Harold Coward and David Goa
• Readings in Vedic Literature - By Satsvarupa dasa Goswami
• The Universal Gita - By Eric J.Sharpe
• Wisdom of the Ancient Seers - By David Frawley.
• In Search of The Cradle of Civilization - By George Feurstein, Subhash Kak and David Frawley
• The Philosophies of Asia - By Alan Watts
• The Hindu Tradition Readings in Oriental Thought - Edited by Ainslie T. Embree
• Darsan: Seeing the Divine in India - By Diana L. Eck
• The Hindu Temple - By George Michell
• Introduction to the Bhagavad Gita - By George Feuerstein
• The Epics of Hinduism: The Mahabharat,                                                        
  The Ramayana
  Other Scriptures: The Vedas (Rig, Artha, Sama, Yajur), The Upanishads, The Bhagvad Gita, The Puranas
• Vedanta: Heart of Hinduism - By Hans Torwesten
• The Wisdom of the Vedas - By J.C. Chatterji
• Commentaries on the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita - By Sri Chinmoy
• Virtue, Success, Pleasure, Liberation - By Alain Danielou
•  India's Rebirth - By Sri Aurobindo
• Veda and Torah - By Barbara Holdrege
• Arrow of the Blue Skinned God. Retracing the Ramayana through India - By Jonah Blank
• Am I a Hindu? - By Ed Viswanathan
• Sadhus - By Dof Hartsuiker
• Philosophies of India  - By Heinrich Zimmer
• Empire of the Soul: Some Journeys into India - By Paul Williams Robert
• Deep River (Fiction) -By Shusaku Endo
• The Hindu Awakening: Its Revelation, Its Symbols - By Swami Kriyananda (J Donald Walters)
• Missionaries in India - By Arun Shourie
• The World's Religions - By Huston Smith
• Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity and Belief - By Gauri Vishwnathan
• Banaras: City of Light - By Diana L.Eck
• Sacred River (Children's book) - By Ted Lewin
• Father India - By Jeffrey Paine
• Ganesha: Song of the Self - By John Grimes
• A Short Introduction to Hinduism - By Klaus Klstermaier
• The Upanishads - Translated by Eknath Easwaran
• The Missionary Position - By Christopher Hitchens
• The Wisdom of the Hindu Gurus - By Timothy Freke
• Indian Philosophy - By Daya Krishna
• Hymns From The Rig-Veda  - Translated by Jean Le Mee
• Hinduism: Its Historical Development - By Troy Wilson Organ
• Hindu Theology - Jose Pereira
• Krishna: Myths, Rites, and Attitudes - By Milton Singer
• Return of the Aryans  - By Bhagwan S. Gidwani
• God who Walked on Earth - by Rangaswami Parthasarathy
• Vimana Aircraft of Ancient Indian & Atlantis - By David Hatcher Childress
• From here to Nirvana - By Anne Cushman and Jerry Jones
• India and World Civilization  - By D.P. Singhal
• Aryans and British India - By Thomas R. Trautmann
• Travel Through Sacred India - By Roger Housden
• India - By James O'Reilly and Larry Habegger
• The Invasion That Never Was - By Michel Danino and Sujata Nahar
• Hinduism Reconsidered - Edited By Gunther-Dietz Sontheimer and Hermann Kulke
• Meeting God: Elements of Hindu Devotion - By Stephen P.Huyler
• Origins of Hindu Social System - By V. Nagarajan
• Huston Smith: Essays on World Religion. -  edited by M. Darrrol Bryant. 
• India Unveiled - By Robert Arnett 
• Principles and Practice of Hindu Religion - By Bala N. Aiyer, published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.
• Vedic Physics: Scientific Origins of Hinduism - By Raja Ram Mohan Roy 
• A Joseph Campbell Companion - Selected and Edited by Diane K.Osborne
• The Celestial Key To The Vedas: Discovering the Origins of the World's Oldest Civilization - By B.G. Sidharth
• The Heart of India - By Mark Tully 
• The Secret Teachings of the Vedas: The Eastern Answers to the Mysteries of Life. Volume One - By Stephen Knapp
• The Universal Path To Enlightenment: The Eastern Answers to the Mysteries of Life. Volume Two - By Stephen Knap
• Conversion to Christianity: Aggression in India - By Dr. M.S. Srinivasan
• Asia and Western Dominance - By K.M. Panikkar
• India Once Ruled The Americas! - By Gene D. Matlock 
• The Hindu Phenomenon - By Girilal Jain
• Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam - By Koenraad Elst
• Vedic "Aryans" and the Origins of Civilization - By Navaratna S. Rajaram & David Frawley
• India Discovered - By John Keay
• Proof of Vedic Culture's Global Existence - By Stephen Knapp 
• Late Victorian Holocausts - By Mark Davis 
• Glimpses of World History - By Jawaharlal Nehru 
• Imagining India - By Ronald B. Inden
• Wisdom of China and India - By Lin Yutang
• Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients - By David Hatcher Childress
• The Discovery of India - By Jawaharlal Nehru Oxford University Press. 1995.
• The Boddhisattva Warriors: The Origin, Inner Philosophy, History and Symbolism of the Buddhist Martial Art Within India and China  - By Terence Dukes/ Shifu Nagaboshi Tomio 
• Eastern Religions and Western Thought by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan
• Arise, O India - By Francois Gautier ISBN 81-241-0518-9 Har-Anand Publications 2000. 
• German Indologists: Biographies of Scholars in Indian Studies writing in German - By Valentine Stache-Rosen.
• The Spirit of India - By W. J. Grant London published by B. T. Batsford Ltd. 1933
• Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India - By D. C. Sircar
• Religion and Society - By S. Radhakrishnan
• Hinduism and Scientific Quest - By T R. R. Iyengar
• The Genius of India - By Guy Sorman
• The Wonder That Was India - By A. L. Basham
• Gods and Goddesses of India - By Kailash Nath Seth and B.K. Chaturvedi
• War in Ancient India - By V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar
• The Art of War in Ancient India - By P. C. Chakravarti
• Indian Art - By Roy C. Craven
• The Raj Syndrome: A Study in Imperial Perceptions - By Suhash Chakravarty. Penguin Books.1991
• Is India Civilized: Essays on Indian Culture - By Sir John Woodroffe
• The Foundations of Indian Culture - By Aurobindo
• Crises in Modern Thought: The Crises of Reason - By Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters)
• Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History - By Veer Vinayak Damador Savarkar - (Veer Savarkar Prakashan, Mumbai 400 028).
• The Dance of Shiva - By Ananda K Coomaraswamy
• The Soul of India - By Amaury de Riencourt 
• India and Europe - By Wilhelm Halbfass
• On Hinduism Reviews and Reflections - By Ram Swarup
• The Eye of Shiva - By Amaury de Riencourt
• Much Maligned Monsters: A History of European Reactions to Indian Art - By Partha Mitter
• Pseudo-Seclarism, Christian Missions and Hindu Resistance - By Sita Ram Goel
• India: Mother of Us All - By Chaman Lal
• History of Hindu-Christian Encounters - By Sita Ram Goel
• India's Priceless Heritage - By N. A. Palkhivala
• Hindu View of Christianity and Islam - Ram Swarup 
• Om: An Indian Pilgrimage - By Geoffrey Moorhouse
• Jesus Christ: An Artifice for Aggression - By Sita Ram Goel
• The Religion We Need - By S. Radhakrishnan
• Kalki or The Future of Civilization - By S. Radhakrishnan
• Hinduism: Essence and Consequence - By Arun Shourie
• Hindu America: revealing the story of the romance of the Surya Vanshi Hindus and depicting the imprints of Hindu culture on the two Americas - By Chaman Lal with foreword by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan. 3d ed. (LC History-America-E) 1966).
• Essays on National Idealism - By Ananda K. Coomraswamy
• Cultural Heritage of Ancient India - By Sachindra Kumar Maity
• The Arts and Crafts of India and Ceylon - By Ananda K. Coomaraswamy 
• The Art Heritage of India - By Ernest Binfield Havell
• Civilizations of the East - By Rene Grousset
• The Indian Empire - By Sir William Wilson Hunter
• Annals & Antiquities of Rajas'than - Col. James Tod Volume I and II.
• Advanced History of India - By Nilakanta Sastri and G. Srinivasachari
• Indian Heritage and Culture - By P. R. Rao
• The Civilization of India - By R. C. Dutt
• The India I Love - By Marie-Simone Renou
• The Foundations of Indian Art - By Sri Aurobindo
• Eminent Historians - By Arun Shourie
• Presence of Shiva - By Stella Krimrisch
• Larousse World Mythology – Edited by Pierre Grimal, 
• The Tao of Physics - By Fritjof Capra 
• Sanskrit Vistas - By J. R. Josyner
• Hinduism  - By Swami Vivekananda
• Eminent Orientalists: Indian European American - Asian Educational Services
• Ancient Indian History and Culture - By Chidambara Kulkarni
• The Early Hindu Civilization - By Romesh Chunder Dutt 
• Traditional India - edited by O. L. Chavarria-Aguilar chapter on Practical Morality - By Franklin Edgerton
• Hindu Destiny in Nostradamus - By G.S. Hiranyappa.
• Facets of Indian Culture - By R. Srinivasan
• Indianization - By Paramesh Chowdhury 
• Hindu Culture and The Modern Age - By Dewan Bahadur K. S. Ramaswami Sastri
• Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God: Retracing the Ramayana Through India - By Jonah Blank 
• Sita's Story - By Jacqueline Suthren Hirst
• Ramayana: A Journey - By Ranchor Prime 
• Indian Culture: Its Triumphs and Tragedies - By H. L. Sharma
• Ancient Indian Culture at a Glance - By Swami Tattwananda
• Indigenous Indians: Agastya to Ambedkar - By Koenraad Elst
• Indian Shipping: A History of the Sea-Borne Trade and Maritime Activity of the Indians From the Earliest Times - By R. K. Mookerjee
• Foreign Trade and Commerce in Ancient India - By Prakash Charan Prasad
• Bias in Indian Historiogarphy - Edited By Devahuti
• The Indians And The Amerindians - By Dr. S. Chakravarti
• The Ayar-Incas - By Miles Poindexter 
• History of India - By Mounstuart Elphinstone
• India Through The Ages - By K. M. Panikkar
• Hinduism and Buddhism - By Sir Charles Eliot 
• Ayodhya and After - By Koenraad Elst
• Hindu Raj in the World - By K. L. Jain
• Early History of India - By Vincent Smith
• India in the American Mind - By B. G. Gokhale
• India in Bondage: Her Right to Freedom - By Rev. Jabez Sunderland
• A Case For India - By Will Durant
• Gita Rahasya - By Bal Gangadhar Tilak 
• Katherine Mayo and India - By Manorangan Jha
• Harvesting Our Souls - By Arun Shourie
• Perennial Hindu Culture and The Twin Myths - By M. Vaitialingam
• The Saffron Swastika - By Koenraad Elst Voice of India ISBN 8185990697
• A Secular Agenda: For saving our country, For welding it - By Arun Shourie
• Bias in Indian Historiography - By S. R. Goyal 
• Bhagavad-Gita As It Is - By A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
• Srimad-Bhagavatam: Bhagavata Purana By A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
• India Through The Ages  - By Sir Jadunath Sarkar
• The Great Secret - By Count Maurice Maeterlinck 
• Science and Vedanta - By H. M. Ganesh Rao 
• Decolonising The Hindu Mind - Ideological Development of Hindu Revivalism - By Koenraad Elst
• India in Bondage: Her Right to Freedom - By Rev. Jabez T. Sunderland 
• The Genius of India - By Guy Sorman 
• Ancient Indian Culture At A Glance - By Swami Tattwananda 
• India at Century's End: Essays on History and Politics - By Subhask Kak
• Astronomical Code of the Rig Veda - By Subhash Kak
• The Lost City of Dvaraka - S. R. Rao
• The Story of Oriental Philosophy - By L. Adams Beck
• Hinduism and the Clash of Civilizations - By David Frawley
• The Legacy of India - Edited by G. T. Garrett
• The Heritage of Asia - By Kenneth Saunders
• Arise O' India - By Francois Gautier
• The Theogony of the Hindoos with their systems of Philosophy and Cosmogony - Count Magnus Fredrik Ferdinand Bjornstjerna
• Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda
• The Vision of India - By Sisirkumar Mitra
• The Soul of India - By Satyavrata R Patel
• The Power of India - By Michael Pym
• Creative India - By Benoy Kumar Sarkar
• Ancient Indian Education - By Radha Kumud Mookerji
• Diamonds, Mechanisms Weapons of War Yoga Sutras - By G. R. Josyer
• The Music of India - By Herbert A Popley
• North Indian Music - By Alain Danielou v 1- 2
• Nada Brahma: The World is Sound - By Joachim-Ernst Berendt
• The Music of India - By Peggy Holroyde
• Yoga and The Teaching of Krishna - by Ravi Ravindra
• Yoga As Philosophy  And Religion - By Surendranath Dasgupta
• Yoga and Indian Philosophy - by Karel Werner
• Yoga and The Bhagavad Gita - By Tom McArthur

• The serpent power: being the Sat-cakra-nir¯upana and P¯aduk¯a-pañcaka, two works on Laya yoga, translated from the Sanskrit, with introd. and commentary - by Sir John Woodroffe aka Arthur Avalon 

• Yoga: The Technology of Ecstasy - By Georg Feuerstein
• Yoga and the Hindu Tradition - By Jean Varenne
• Hinduism - By Solange Lemaitre
• Yoga in Hindu Scriptures - By H. Kumar Kaul
• The Indian War of Independence - Vinayak Damodhar Savarkar
• Divya Chakshu Yoga - By Bhim Sen Gupta
• Yoga and Ayurveda - By Satyendra Prasad Mishra
• The Pageant of India's History - By Gertrude Emerson Sen
• Popular Hinduism - By L S S O'Malley
• Yoga: Immortality and Freedom - By Mircea Eliade
• The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice - By Georg Feuerstein
• Yoga: A Vision of its Future - By Gopi Krishna
• Yoga Samhita - by Swami Sivananda
• Caste and Outcast - by Dhan Gopal Mukerji
• Coalition Conundrum - By Ramesh N Rao
• Our Heritage and Its Significance - by S R Sharma
• Hinduism in the Space Age - By E Vedavyas
• The Aryan Hoax (That Dupes the Indians) - By P. Choudhury
• Hinduism The Eternal Religion - By M. D Chaturvedi
• The Yoga and Its Objects - By Sri Aurobindo
• Bharata Shakti - Sir John Woodroffe 
• Geometry in Ancient India - By Svami Satya Prakash Sarasvati 
• The Complete Idiot's Guide to Hinduism - By Linda Johnsen
• India's Culture Through the Ages - Mohan Lal Vidyarthi
• History of Science and Technology in Ancient India - BY Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya
• Main Currents in Indian Culture - By S. Natarajan
• India and The World - By Buddha Prakash
• Nostradamus and Beyond – N S Rajaram
• The Universal History of Numbers - By Georges Ifrah
• Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image - By Anne Sebba
• The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice - By Christopher Hitchens
• Mother Teresa, The Final Verdict - By Aroup Chatterjee
• The True History and the Religion of India: A Concise Encycloedia of Authentic Hinduism - By Swami Prakashanand Saraswati 
• The Heathen in His Blindness...: Asia, the West and the Dynamic of Religion - By S. Balagangadhara
• A Brief History of India - By Alain Danielou
• Raja Rammohan Ray: The Father of Modern India - By Bruce Carlisle Robertson (* book has not been reviewed by webmaster).
• The Essential Writings of Raja Rammohan Ray - By Bruce Carlisle Robertson (* book has not been reviewed by webmaster).
• Adi Deo Arya Devata. A Panoramic View of Tribal-Hindu Cultural Interface - By Sandhya Jain
• The Missionaries: God Against the Indians – By Norman Lewis
• Searching for Vedic India – By Devamrita Swami  
• The Wishing Tree - By Subhash Kak
• The Art of Southeast Asia - By Philip Rawson
• Insight Guides – Bali – created by Hans Hofer
• Vedic Ecology: Practical Wisdom for Surviving the 21st century - By Ranchor Prime
• Arrogance of Faith - By Forrrest G Wood 
• The Goa Inquisition - By Anant Kakba Priolkar 
• Impressing the Whites: The New International Slavery - by Richard Crasta
• Recovery of Faith  - By Dr. S Radhakrishnan
• The Present Crisis of Faith - By S Radhakrishnan
• The Hindu - By Krishna Vallabh Paliwal and Brahm Datt Bharti
• Brahma in the West – By David We
• We Are Not The First: Riddles of Ancient Science - By Andrew Tomas 
• Hindu-Buddhist Art of Vietnam: Treasures from Champa - By Emmanuel Guillon
• Eight Eurocentric Historians - By J M Blaut
• Lost Civilizations - By Austen Atkinson
• Greater India - By Arun Bhattacharjee
• Sanskrit Wisdom – By G R Josyer 
• Secular Politics Communal Agenda: A History of Politics in India from 1860 to 1953 - By Prof Makkhan Lal
• Invading the Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America - By Krishnan Ramaswamy, Antonio de Nicolas and Aditi Banerjee
• A Tribute to Hinduism - By Sushama Londhe
• Indian Miniature Painting - By Anjan Chakraverty
• Indian Painting: The Great Mural Tradition - By Mira Seth
• Karma-Yoga and Bhakti-Yoga - By Swami Vivekananda
• Vedanta for Modern Man - By Christopher Isherwood
• A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar - By Robert Sewell
• The Prajna-Sutras: Aphorisms of Intuition - By Subhash Kak
• Temples of India: Circles of Stone - By Kaumudi Marathe
• Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia - By Deepak Shimkhada and Phyllis K. Herman
• Gods and Spacemen in the Ancient East - By Walter Raymond Drake
• The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination - By Daniel J Boorstin
• The Discoverers - By Daniel Joseph Boornstin
• India a cultural decline or revival? - By Bharat Gupt
• The Bhagavad-Gita in Black and White: From Mulatto Pride to Krishna Consciousness - By Charles Michael Byrd
• Hindus Under Siege: The Way Out - By Dr. Subramanium Swamy
• According to the Evidence - By Erich von Daniken
• Hindu Philosophy - By Theos Casimir Bernard
• More Equal Than Others: Study of the Indian Left – by Ravi Shanker Kapoor
• How India's Intellectuals spread lies - By Ravi Shanker Kapoor.
• History of Ancient India: Portraits of a Nation – By Kamlesh Kapur
• Lies with long legs – By Prodosh Aich
• The Saraswati Flows: The continuity of Indian Culture – By B B Lal
• The plunder of Art - By Hamendar Bhisham Pal
• Bhagavad Gita and the English Romantic Movement: A study in Influence – By Krishna Gopal Srivastava
• Rama, His Historicity, Mandir and Setu: Evidence of Literature, Archaeology and Other Stories - By B B Lal
• Death of History - By Narendar Piplani
• Hindu Culture - By K Guru Dutt
• Lost River: On The Trail of the Sarasvati – by Michel Danino
• How Deep Are the Roots of Indian Civilzation? - Archaeology Answers – by B B Lal
• Breaking India: Western Inventions and Dalit Faultlines - By Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan
• The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple - By Ishwar Sharan
• Evangelical Intrusions - By Sandhya Jain
• The Plunder of Art - By Hamendar Bhisham Pal
• Worshipping Siva and Buddha - By Ann R Kinney
• The Mystics, Ascetics, and Saints of India - By John Campbell Oman
• The Great Indian Epics: the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata - By John Campbell Oman
• Hinduism: Triumphs and Tribulations - By S K Kulkarni
• The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple – By Ishwar Sharan

• Sciences of the Ancient Hindus: Unlocking Nature in the Pursuit of Salvation – By Alok Kumar

• Forbidden History– Edited By J Douglas Kenyon

Top of Page

Did You Know?

Sri Krishnaprem Vairagi (1898-1965) was a Foreign Guru:    

It is rare to find a foreigner accepted as a guru by native Hindus. First of these was the man who became known as Krishnaprem. Born Ronald Nixon in 1898 in Cheltenham, UK, he studied classics and science at Cambridge and served as a fighter-pilot in World War I. He later came in contact with the Theosophical Society. He became the disciple of Yashoda Ma, and began to lead the very austere life of a Vaisnava vairagi (renunciant). He studied Sanskrit and Pali and wrote several book, appreciated by scholars and seekers alike. He died in 1965. Hundreds came to carry his body to the burial grounds.

He used to say 'I have won Him, my Krsna!'.

Top of Page

h o m e

r e c o m m e n d e d    b o o k s

c o n t e n t s

Guest Book

Updated -  October 28, 2008