Festivals In India (Trilogy: Ancient Indian Powers And Festivals Of Vegetation) (Set of 3 Volumes)

This book deals with three important festivals of India: Holi (Colour festival), Dipavali (Light festival) and the Indradhvaja festival. These three festivals are closely connected with three Indian divine beings viz. Kama, Bali and Indra. These are supernatural fertility-powers. While discussing these festivals and these powers, Meyer has discussed many rituals and festivals in Vedic and later literature including Vedic sacrifices like Vajapeya, Asvamedha and the Vedic god Varu?a and Pongal-festival in South India. In addition to this, Meyer has discussed numerous customs, practices, rituals and mythological details. Thus in short this book is an encyclopeadia of religion in general. His approach is comparative; therefore there are numerous references to the religious practices in other countries also. Since this book is written in German and the original is also not available casily, it is not accessible to many modern scholars in India. The present English translation will be helpful to all students of Indology in general.

Johann Jacob Meyer (1870-1930) was a reader in Chicago University. He studied Indian Dharmasastra, Arthasastra and Kamasastra thoroughly. His Ph.D. thesis was on Da??in's Dasakumaracarita. He translated Dasakumaracaritam in German. He also translated K?mendra's Samayamat?ka, Damodaragupta's Ku??animatam, and Kau?ilya's Arthasastra into German. He also wrote a book on the women in ancient Indian Epics. His major work is on Indian festivals. In the last years of life he was staying in Chur, Switzerland.