Unusual Essays of an Unknown Sri Vaishnava : Volume 1

Book excerpt: This book is less about Sri Vaishnavism as a creed and far more about a modern Sri Vaishnava’s outlook on life. Understanding the ancient Indian spiritual and religious tradition of Sri Vaishnavism can never be complete without some acquaintance with its scriptural literature that is found written mostly in the Sanskrit and native vernacular. In India today, English-educated modern youth, as well as young Indian communities at large in the global diaspora, lacking mastery in either language, completely miss out being able to appreciate and experience life, and the world itself, in the many rare, brilliant and quite “unusual” ways in which their distant ancestors saw it all and recorded their experiences too as scriptural insight. This book is a collection of 18 delightful essays in truly felicitous English, each one of which enables and then vividly brings to life for readers a deep and fresh understanding of the ancestral verities of India.