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+{"text":"\n\n\n\nProduced by Wayne Hammond, Malcolm Farmer and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http:\/\/www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.\n\nVOL. 107.\n\nAUGUST 18, 1894.\n\n\n\n\nMORE ORNAMENTAL THAN USEFUL.\n\n(_A Legend of the Results of the School Board._)\n\nThe Committee sat waiting patiently for candidates. Although the papers\nhad been full of advertisements describing the appointments the\n_reclames_ had had no effect. There were certainly a number of persons\nin the waiting-room, but the usher had declared that they did not\npossess the elementary qualifications for the post that the Committee\nwere seeking to fill with a suitable official.\n\n\"Usher,\" cried the Chairman at length with some impatience; \"I am sure\nyou must be wrong. Let us see some of the occupants of the adjoining\noffice.\"\n\nThe usher bowed with a grace that had been acquired by several years\nstudy in deportment in the Board School, and replied that he fancied\nthat most of the applicants were too highly educated for the coveted\nposition.\n\n\"Too highly educated!\" exclaimed the representative of municipal\nprogress. \"It is impossible to be too highly educated! You don't know\nwhat you're talking about!\"\n\n\"Pardon me, Sir,\" returned the Usher, with another graceful inclination\nof the head, \"but would not 'imperfectly acquainted with the subject of\nyour discourse' be more polished? But, with your permission, I will obey\nyou.\"\n\nAnd then the official returned to usher in an aged man wearing\nspectacles. The veteran immediately fell upon his knees and began to\nimplore the Committee to appoint him to the vacant post.\n\n\"I can assure you, Gentlemen, that, thanks to the School Board, I am a\nfirst-rate Latin and Greek scholar. I am intimately acquainted with the\nHebrew language, and have the greatest possible respect for the Union\nJack. I know all that can be known about mathematics, and can play\nseveral musical instruments. I am also an accomplished waltzer; I know\nthe use of the globes, and can play the overture to _Zampa_ on the\nmusical-glasses. I know the works of SHAKSPEARE backwards, and----\"\n\n\"Stop, stop!\" interrupted the Chairman. \"You may do all this, and more;\nbut have you any knowledge of the _modus operandi_ of the labour\nrequired of you?\"\n\n\"Alas, no!\" returned the applicant; \"but if a man of education----\"\n\n\"Remove him, Usher!\" cried the Chairman; and the veteran was removed in\ntears.\n\nA second, a third, and a fourth made their appearance, and disappeared,\nand none of them would do. They were all singularly accomplished.\n\nAt length a rough man, who had been lounging down the street, walked\ninto the Council-chamber.\n\n\"What may you want, Sir?\" asked the Chairman, indignantly.\n\n\"What's that to you?\" was the prompt reply. \"I ain't a going to tell\neveryone my business--not me--you bet!\"\n\n\"Ungrammatical!\" said Committee Man No. One. \"Very promising.\"\n\n\"Uncouth and vulgar!\" murmured Committee Man No. Two.\n\n\"Where were you educated?\" queried the Chairman.\n\n\"Nowheres in particular. I was brought up in the wilds of Canada.\nThere's not much book learning over there,\" and the rough fellow\nindulged in a loud hoarse laugh.\n\n\"Ah! that accounts for your not having enjoyed the great advantages of\nthe School Board. Have you seen the circular--have you read the details\nof the proposed appointment?\"\n\n\"Me read!\" cried the uncouth one; \"oh, that is a game! Why I can't read\nnor yet write!\"\n\n\"Better and better,\" said Committee Man No. One.\n\n\"First rate,\" murmured Committee Man No. Two. \"I think we have at length\nfound our ideal.\"\n\nThen the usher read the advertisement.\n\n\"What! shake the hall mat!\" cried the candidate. \"Why I could do that\nlittle job on my head!\"\n\nSo there being no other applicant for the post, the backwoods' ignoramus\nwas appointed office-sweeper at a couple of hundred pounds a year.\n\n\"Rather high wages,\" said the Chairman to himself, as he went home on\nthe top of an omnibus; \"but what can one expect when we educate all the\nchildren at the cost of the rates. Last year there was an additional\nfarthing; this year we have to pay five shillings, and goodness only\nknows how much it will be hereafter!\"\n\nAnd as he thought this, the Chairman (in the names of the rest of the\nratepayers) heartily cursed the School Board.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration: RETURNED EMPTY.\n\n_Old Mayfly_ (_who had dropped his Flask further down stream, and has\njust had it returned to him by Honest Rustic_). \"DEAR ME! THANK YOU!\nTHANK YOU!\" (_Gives him a Shilling._) \"DON'T KNOW WHAT I SHOULD HA' DONE\nWITHOUT IT!\" (_Begins to unscrew top._) \"MAY I OFFER YOU A----\"\n\n_Honest Rustic._ \"WELL, THANK Y', SIR, BUT ME AND MY MATE, NOT SEEIN' A\nHOWNER ABOUT, WE'VE TA'EN WHAT THERE WERE INSIDE.\"]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nRE-DRESS REQUIRED.\n\n    [A writer in the _Lancet_ draws attention to the fact that the\n    regular hospital nurse's uniform is now worn as ordinary ladies'\n    attire.]\n\nThere's no doubt my new costume is _very_ becoming. I like the idea or\nthe cape, and the apron is just perfect, while the little bonnet suits\nme to a T. Met cousin FRED, who said it was \"fetching,\" and that \"they\nwanted some of my sort at the hospitals.\" I said I thought the patients\nhad good enough nurses at present; he replied \"he didn't mean the\npatients--he meant the doctors.\" Of course I couldn't stand the drudgery\nof a nurse's life; but that's no reason why I shouldn't appropriate the\nuniform, is it?\n\nWalking down street. Met another nurse--a real one, I suppose. She\nstared, turned red, and then looked horribly offended. I believe she\nmust have made some sign to me that I didn't understand. Are Nurses\nFreemasons, I wonder? Quite a secret society, it seems. Really that sort\nof thing oughtn't to be allowed. It makes things so awkward for the\nimpost--the imitators, I mean.\n\nJust got home after _dreadful_ incident! I was in a Bayswater Square,\nwhen suddenly a man driving round a corner in a cart got upset, and was\npitched on to the road close to me. A small crowd gathered immediately,\nand evidently expected _me_ to help. One man shouted \"Hi! Come and bind\nup his head, Miss!\" And his head was actually bleeding! I couldn't do\nanything, except feel awfully inclined to faint, and then the mob began\nto hiss and jeer! Somebody said I must know how to render \"first aid to\nthe injured,\" and if I didn't come quick the man would bleed to death. I\nwas so frightened I ran away, and the mob ran after me, and I had to\ntake shelter in a shop, and ask the shopman to explain to the crowd that\nI was not really a nurse at all. Then they used dreadful expressions,\nand I had to be got out by a back way. I don't think the costume is half\nas becoming as it seemed this morning; I'm going to sell it as a\n\"cast-off garment.\" Lucky for me it wasn't a torn-off garment!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nScott on the New Woman.\n\n(_As the Wizard of the North would have written now._)\n\n  New Woman! in our hours of ease\n  A smoking rival hard to please,\n  Wishing to put Man in the shade,\n  Collar his togs and take his trade;\n  When pain and anguish wring the brow,\n  A swaggering, \"spanking\" _Pipchin_ thou!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration: \"THE COW WAS THE STAMP TO IMPRESS SUPERIOR BUTTER.\"\n\n\"ARF A POUND ER MARGARINE, PLEASE; AN' MOTHER SAYS WILL YER PUT THE COW ON\nIT, 'COS SHE'S GOT COMPANY!\"]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHINT FOR THE ALPINE SEASON.\n\n(_Adapted freely from the Old Royal Repartee._)\n\n_Middle-aged would-be Mountaineer (loq.)._\n\n  Fain would I climb, but,--well, my belt's too small.\n\n            _Mr. Punch (in reply)._\n\n  If your girth grows, Sir, _do not climb at all_!\n  Your Alpen-stock put by, ere the world mock.\n  And you become an (Alpine) Laughing-stock.\n  Though Alps on Alps arise _you_ stop in bed,\n  And let a younger man yon glaciers tread.\n  The dangers of steep slides and deep crevasses\n  Are not for elderly donkeys, but young asses.\n  The Himalayas woo you still to pant on?\n  Well, treat 'em as you would an arch young wanton,\n  Think of your legs, the boys, the girls, the Missus,\n  And do not play the elderly Narcissus.\n  To witch the world with noble \"Icemanship\"\n  Is tempting, yes, but if you chance to slip,\n  Your bones a fathomless abyss may strew,\n  An Alpine death,--and they'll all pine for you.\n  Man after fifty fits not the sublime,\n  So stay at home nor seek a foreign climb.\n  The plague of guide, and chum, and wife and daughter,\n  Is Senex who will climb and didn't oughter.\n  Stick to your Alpine Club, but like old foodles,\n  Pay, stop at home, and play at whist at Boodles'.\n  Decline with the old mania to be bitten,\n  And you will own this tip is diamond-written\n  (Like good Queen Bess's repartee on glass),\n  And that you're saved from being an old ass!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLINES IN PLEASANT PLACES.\n\nVI.--KEW GARDENS.\n\n         In the gardens at Kew\n         It were certainly sweet\n         To be wand'ring with you,\n         Far from city and street;\n  'Twere the one thing, dear NELLIE, my joy and content to complete\n         In the gardens at Kew.\n\n         In the gardens at Kew,\n         If my way I might take\n         By the water with you,\n         Oh! how merry we'd make,--\n  I am sure you would dote on the dear little ducks in the lake\n         In the gardens at Kew.\n\n         In the gardens at Kew,\n         Having tea _a la fraises_,\n         We would cheerfully stew\n         'Neath the fierce solar rays,\n  And in \"eloquent silence\" you'd meet my affectionate gaze\n         In the gardens at Kew.\n\n         In the gardens at Kew\n         We would sit in the shade\n         For an hour or two,\n         Without chaperone's aid,\n  And your head on my shoulder (who knows?) might be lovingly laid\n         In the gardens at Kew.\n\n         In the gardens at Kew,\n         Far away from the crowd,\n         Though I'm longing for you,\n         To stern Fate I have bowed:\n  For it grieves me, dear NELLIE, to tell you, \"_No dogs are allowed_\"\n         In the gardens at Kew!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_NOT_ MASTER OF HIMSELF THOUGH CHINA FALL.\n\n    [\"The Emperor (of China) is still cursed with the violent temper of\n    his adolescence, and \"breaks things.\"--_\"Times\" Correspondent at\n    Pekin._]\n\n Oh! is this announcement plain truth?\n   Or is it mere genial mockery?\n And _what_ does this choleric youth\n   Of China thus break--is it crockery?\n It does seem unfitting, you know--\n   At least as we Westerners see things--\n That the lord of Souchong and Pekoe\n   Should be guilty of smashing up tea-things!\n Of course, if he had an idea\n   Of breaking the Japanese bondage,\n Or breaking their hold on Korea,--\n   Well, youth is a fiery and fond age,\n And old age _might_ find an excuse\n   For breaking the peace; but kind wishes\n Can hardly invent an excuse\n   For breaking the plates and the dishes.\n He is youthful, like little AH SID,\n   It would be very mean to malign a\n Mere boy; yet a true Chinese kid\n   Should not start with the smashing of China!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Cry of the (Literary) Croakers.\n\n Batrachians may doubt if King Stork or King Log\n   Be the Frog-pond's most suitable lord and controller;\n But Grub Street's unfortunate _un_lauded frog\n   Loathes the rule of the new King Log-Roller!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMEM. BY AN OVERWORKED ONE.\n\n With \"brain-fag\" our swift, feverish age is rife,\n And death is oft the mere \"fag-end\" of life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSOMETHING LIKE A \"PACKED MEETING.\"--The meeting of the various Arctic\nExpeditions in the Polar Ice Pack.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration: \"TO BE WELL SHAKEN BEFORE TAKEN!\"]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"JUSTICE AS SHE IS SPOKEN IN FRANCE.\"\n\nDEAR MR. PUNCH,--Now that we are close upon the silly season, when it is\nmost difficult to get interesting \"copy\" for the columns of the daily\npapers, may I be permitted to make a suggestion? No doubt you have seen\nan account of the examination of CASERIO SANTO by the President of the\nCourt on the occasion of his trial. Could not the idea be naturalised in\nLondon by the Metropolitan Police Magistrates? I would not, of course,\npropose to apply the method in cases of a serious character, but used in\nwhat are known as \"the night charges,\" the practice would become very\ninteresting. To better explain my meaning. I will imagine that a\nprisoner who has been arrested on a charge of being \"drunk and\nincapable\" is standing in front of his worship.\n\n_Magistrate_ (_with sarcasm_). You are sober now.\n\n_Prisoner_ (_in the same tone_). As a judge.\n\n_Magistrate_ (_indignantly_). Judges are always sober.\n\n_Prisoner_ (_with a laugh_). How should _you_ know?--you, who are only a\nmagistrate!\n\n    [_Murmurs._\n\n_Magistrate._ You insult me! But that will not serve you. Drink is the\ncurse of the country!\n\n_Prisoner._ You have tried it? It has been a curse to you!\n\n    [_Cries of disapproval._\n\n_Magistrate._ You are young to bandy words with one old enough to be\nyour father!\n\n_Prisoner._ My father! You my father! What an honour!\n\n_Magistrate._ I do not envy him! Nor your mother!\n\n_Prisoner_ (_excitedly_). You shall not speak of my mother. My mother is\nsacred. She shall not be referred to in the tainted atmosphere of a\nCourt of Justice.\n\n    [_Applause._\n\n_Magistrate._ This hypocrisy shall not serve you. You never loved your\nmother!\n\n    [_Prolonged sensation._\n\n_Prisoner._ Your worship, you are a liar!\n\n    [_Loud cheers._\n\n_Magistrate._ This to the Bench from the gutter! For you know\nyou were found drunk and incapable in the gutter. What were you\ndoing there?\n\n_Prisoner_ (_tearfully_). I was dreaming of my mother, my loved\nmother.\n\n    [_Sympathetic applause._\n\n_Magistrate._ You do not deserve to have a mother!\n\n    [_Prolonged sensation._\n\n_Prisoner_ (_scornfully_). Only a magistrate could make such a\ncold-blooded observation!\n\n    [_Cheers._\n\n_Magistrate._ For all that you are fined five shillings and costs!\nRemove the wretched prisoner!\n\n    [_The accused was then removed amidst expressions of sympathy from\n    the body of the Court._\n\nThere, Sir, would not that be far better reading than paragraphs\nabout gigantic gooseberries and leaders upon the sea serpent?\nPerhaps my suggestion may be adopted in the proper quarter.\nHoping that this may be the case, the police case,\n\n I remain,\n\n Yours respectfully,\n\n THE MAN IN THE REPORTER'S BOX.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNOBLESSE OBLIGE.\n\n(_New Version._)\n\n \"Let Art and Commerce, Laws and Learning die,\n But leave us still our Old Nobility!\"\n Without them, in our democratic day,\n Who will the part of princely patriot play?\n Who else will keep a splendid Family Seat,\n And claim--for its defence--a mighty Fleet?\n Who else will make Bank Holidays a joy\n To wandering workman and to wondering boy?\n Who else will rear big fortunes upon Rent,\n Or palaces on Unearned Increment?\n Monopolise art's treasures and life's pleasures,\n And throw out dangerous democratic measures?\n Who else will keep up England's glorious name?\n Who else preserve her prestige--and her game?\n Who else will wear the purple and the ermine,\n And proudly stamp out Socialistic vermin?\n Who else in one grand field-day, 'midst the Peers,\n Undo the labours of _ig_noble years?\n Who else in solemn ranks, like three-tailed Turks,\n Defend the power of Privilege and Perks?\n And 'tis these most magnanimous Mamelukes,\n Our patriot Earls and foe-defying Dukes,\n A traitorous Chancellor would dare to--_Tax_!!!\n Ah! where's the dungeon, and oh! where's the axe?\n _Noblesse oblige!_ But sure the obligation\n Cannot involve that horror, Graduation!\n Is't not enough to rule, and guide, and bless,\n And soar as shining samples of Success?\n While with our Nobles England's glory waxes,\n The Proletariat's proud to--pay the Taxes!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLYRE AND LANCET.\n\n(_A Story in Scenes._)\n\nPART VII.--IGNOTUM PRO MIRIFICO.\n\nSCENE XII.--_The Amber Boudoir at Wyvern--immediately after_ Lady\nCANTIRE _and her daughter have entered._\n\n_Lady Cantire_ (_in reply to_ Lady CULVERIN). Tea? oh yes, my dear;\nanything _warm_! I'm positively perished--that tedious cold journey and\nthe long drive afterwards! I always tell RUPERT he would see me _far_\noftener at Wyvern if he would only get the Company to bring the line\nround close to the Park Gates, but it has _no_ effect upon him! (_As_\nTREDWELL _announces_ SPURRELL, _who enters in trepidation_.) Mr. JAMES\nSPURRELL! Who's Mr.----? Oh, to be sure; _that_'s the name of my\ninteresting young poet--_Andromeda_, you know, my dear! Go and be\npleasant to him, ALBINIA, he wants reassuring.\n\n_Lady Culverin (a trifle nervous)._ How do you do, Mr.--ah--SPURRELL?\n(_To herself._) I _said_ he ended in \"'ell\"! (_Aloud._) So pleased to\nsee you! We think so much of your _Andromeda_ here, you know. Quite\ndelightful of you to find time to run down!\n\n_Spurrell (to himself)._ Why _she_'s chummy, too! Old Drummy pulls me\nthrough everything! (_Aloud._) Don't name it, my la--hum--Lady CULVERIN.\nNo trouble at all; only too proud to get your summons!\n\n_Lady Culv. (to herself)._ He doesn't seem very revolutionary!\n(_Aloud._) That's so sweet of you; when so many must be absolutely\nfighting to get you!\n\n_Spurr._ Oh, as for that, there _is_ rather a run on me just now, but I\nput everything else aside for _you_, of course!\n\n_Lady Culv. (to herself)._ He's soon _reassured_. (_Aloud, with a touch\nof frost._) I am sure we must consider ourselves most fortunate.\n(_Turning to the_ Countess.) You _did_ say cream, ROHESIA? Sugar, MAISIE\ndearest?\n\n_Spurr. (to himself)._ I'm all right up to now! I suppose I'd better say\nnothing about the horse till _they_ do. I feel rather out of it among\nthese nobs, though. I'll try and chum on to little Lady MAISIE again;\nshe may have got over her temper by this time, and she's the only one I\nknow. (_He approaches her._) Well, Lady MAISIE, here I _am_, you see.\nI'd really no idea your aunt would be so friendly! I say, you know, you\ndon't mind _speaking_ to a fellow, do you? I've no one else I can go\nto--and--and it's a bit strange at first, you know!\n\n_Lady Maisie (coloured with mingled apprehension, vexation, and pity)._\nIf I can be of any help to you, Mr. SPURRELL----!\n\n_Spurr._ Well, if you'd only tell me what I ought to _do_!\n\n[Illustration: \"My keys! Why, what do you want _them_ for?\"]\n\n_Lady Maisie._ Surely that's very simple; do _nothing_; just take\neverything quietly as it comes, and you _can't_ make any mistakes.\n\n_Spurr. (anxiously)._ And you don't think anybody'll see anything odd in\nmy being here like this?\n\n_Lady Maisie (to herself)._ I'm only too afraid they _will_! (_Aloud._)\nYou really _must_ have a little self-confidence. Just remember that no\none here could produce anything a millionth part as splendid as your\n_Andromeda_! It's _too_ distressing to see you so _appallingly_ humble!\n(_To herself._) There's Captain THICKNESSE over there--he MIGHT come and\nrescue me; but he doesn't seem to care to!\n\n_Spurr._ Well, you _do_ put some heart into me, Lady MAISIE. I feel\nequal to the lot of 'em now!\n\n_Pilliner_ (_to_ Miss SPELWANE). Is _that_ the Poet? Why, but I\nsay--he's a _fraud_! Where's his matted head? He's not a bit ragged, or\nrusty either. And why don't he dabble? Don't seem to know what to do\nwith his hands quite, though, _does_ he?\n\n_Miss Spelwane (coldly)._ He knows how to do some very exquisite poetry\nwith _one_ of them, at all events. I've been reading it, and _I_ think\nit perfectly marvellous!\n\n_Pill._ I see what it is, you're preparing to turn his matted head for\nhim? I warn you you'll only waste your sweetness. That pretty little\nLady MAISIE'S annexed _him_. Can't you content yourself with _one_\nvictim?\n\n_Miss Spelw._ Don't be so utterly idiotic! (_To herself._) If MAISIE\nimagines she's to be allowed to monopolise the only man in the room\nworth talking to!----\n\n_Captain Thicknesse_ (_to himself, as he watches_ Lady MAISIE). She is\nlookin' prettier than ever! Forgotten me. Used to be friendly enough\nonce, though, till her mother warned me off. Seems to have a good deal\nto say to that Poet fellow; saw her colour up from here the moment he\ncame near; he's _begun_ Petrarchin', hang him! I'd cross over and speak\nto her if I could catch her eye. Don't know, though; what's the use? She\nwouldn't thank me for interruptin'. She likes these clever chaps;\ndon't signify to her if they _are_ bounders, I suppose. _I_'m not\nintellectual. Gad, I wish I'd gone back to Aldershot!\n\n_Lady Cant. (by the tea-table)._ Why don't you make that woman of yours\nsend you up decent cakes, my dear? These are cinders. I'm afraid you let\nher have too much of her own way. Now, tell me--who are your party?\nVIVIEN SPELWANE! Never have that girl to meet me again, I can't _endure_\nher; and that affected little ape of a Mr. PILLINER--h'm! Do I see\nCaptain THICKNESSE? Now, I don't object to _him_. MAISIE and he used to\nbe great friends.... Ah, how do you _do_, Captain THICKNESSE? Quite\npleasant finding you here; such ages since we saw anything of you! Why\nhaven't you been near us all this time?... Oh, I may have been out once\nor twice when you called; but you might have tried again, _mightn't_\nyou? There, _I_ forgive you; you had better go and see if you can make\nyour peace with MAISIE!\n\n_Capt. Thick. (to himself, as he obeys)._ Doosid odd, the Countess\ncomin' round like this. Wish she'd thought of it before.\n\n_Lady Cant. (in a whisper)._ He's always been such a favourite of mine.\nThey tell me his uncle, poor dear Lord DUNDERHEAD, is _so_ ill--felt the\nloss of his only son so terribly. Of course it will make a great\ndifference--in many ways.\n\n_Capt. Thick._ (_constrainedly to_ Lady MAISIE). How do you do? Afraid\nyou've forgotten me.\n\n_Lady Maisie._ Oh no, indeed! (_Hurriedly._) You--you don't know Mr.\nSPURRELL, I think? (_Introducing them._) Captain THICKNESSE.\n\n_Capt. Thick._ How are you? Been hearin' a lot about you lately.\n_Andromeda_, don't you know; and that kind of thing.\n\n_Spurr._ It's wonderful what a hit she seems to have made--not that I'm\n_surprised_ at it, either; I always knew----\n\n_Lady Maisie (hastily)._ Oh, Mr. SPURRELL, you haven't had any tea! _Do_\ngo and get some before it's taken away.\n\n    [SPURRELL _goes_.\n\n_Capt. Thick._ Been tryin' to get you to notice me ever since you came;\nbut you were so awfully absorbed, you know!\n\n_Lady Maisie._ Was I? So absorbed as all that! What with?\n\n_Capt. Thick._ Well, it looked like it--with talkin' to your poetical\nfriend.\n\n_Lady Maisie (flushing)._ He is not _my_ friend in particular; I--I\nadmire his poetry, of course.\n\n_Capt. Thick. (to himself)._ Can't even speak of him without a change of\ncolour. Bad sign that! (_Aloud._) You always _were_ keen about poetry\nand literature and that in the old days, weren't you? Used to rag me for\nnot readin' enough. But I do now. I was readin' a book only last week.\nI'll tell you the name if you give me a minute to think--book\neverybody's readin' just now--no end of a clever book.\n\n    [Miss SPELWANE _rushes across to_ Lady MAISIE.\n\n_Miss Spelw._ MAISIE, dear, how are you? You look _so_ tired!\nThat's the journey, I suppose. (_Whispering._) Do tell me--is that\nreally the author of _Andromeda_ drinking tea close by? You're a\n_great_ friend of his, I know. Do be a dear, and introduce him to me!\nI declare the dogs have made friends with him already. Poets have\nsuch a wonderful attraction for animals, haven't they?\n\n    [Lady MAISIE _has to bring_ SPURRELL _up and introduce him:_ Captain\n    THICKNESSE _chooses to consider himself dismissed_.\n\n_Miss Spelw. (with shy adoration)._ Oh, Mr. SPURRELL, I feel as if I\n_must_ talk to you about _Andromeda_. I _did_ so admire it!\n\n_Spurr. (to himself)._ Another of 'em! They seem uncommonly sweet on\n\"bulls\" in this house! (_Aloud._) Very glad to hear you say so, I'm\nsure. I've seen nothing to touch her myself. I don't know if you noticed\nall her points----?\n\n_Miss Spelw._ Indeed, I believe none of them were lost upon me; but my\npoor little praise must seem so worthless and ignorant!\n\n_Spurr. (indulgently)._ Oh, I wouldn't say _that_. I find some ladies\nvery knowing about these things. I'm having a picture done of her.\n\n_Miss Spelw._ Are you really? _How_ delightful! As a frontispiece?\n\n_Spurr._ Eh? Oh no--full length, and sideways--so as to show her legs,\nyou know.\n\n_Miss Spelw._ Her legs? Oh, of _course_--with \"her roseal toes cramped.\"\nI thought that such a _wonderful_ touch!\n\n_Spurr._ They're not more cramped than they ought to be; she never\nturned them _in_, you know!\n\n_Miss Spelw. (mystified)._ I didn't mean that. And now tell me--if it's\nnot an indiscreet question--when do you expect there'll be another\nedition?\n\n_Spurr. (to himself)._ Another addition! _She_'s cadging for a pup now!\n(_Aloud._) Oh--er--really--couldn't say.\n\n_Miss Spelw._ I'm sure the first must be disposed of by this time. I\nshall look out for the next _so_ eagerly!\n\n_Spurr. (to himself)._ Time I \"off\"ed it. (_Aloud._) Afraid I can't say\nanything definite--and, excuse me leaving you, but I think Lady CULVERIN\nis looking my way.\n\n_Miss Spelw._ Oh, by all _means_! (_To herself._) I might as well praise\na pillar-post! And after spending quite half an hour reading him up,\ntoo! I wonder if BERTIE PILLINER was right; but I shall have him all to\nmyself at dinner.\n\n_Lady Cant._ And where is _Rupert_? too busy of _course_ to come and\nsay a word! Well, some day he may understand what a sister is--when it's\ntoo late. Ah, here's our nice unassuming young poet coming up to talk to\nyou. Don't _repel_ him, my dear!\n\n_Spurr. (to himself)._ Better give her the chance of telling me what's\nwrong with the horse, I suppose. (_Aloud._) Er--nice old-fashioned sort\nof house this, Lady CULVERIN. (_To himself._) I'll work round to the\nstabling presently.\n\n_Lady Culv. (coldly)._ I believe it dates from the Tudors--if that is\nwhat you mean.\n\n_Lady Cant._ My dear ALBINIA, I _quite_ understand him; \"old-fashioned\"\nis _exactly_ the epithet. And I was born and brought up here, so perhaps\nI should know.\n\n    [_A footman enters, and comes up to_ SPURRELL _mysteriously._\n\n_Footman._ Will you let me have your keys, if you please, Sir?\n\n_Spurr. (in some alarm)._ My keys! (_Suspiciously._) Why, what do you\nwant _them_ for?\n\n_Lady Cant. (in a whisper)._ Isn't he _deliciously_ unsophisticated?\nQuite a child of nature! (_Aloud._) My dear Mr. SPURRELL, he wants your\nkeys to unlock your portmanteau and put out your things; you'll be able\nto dress for dinner all the quicker.\n\n_Spurr._ Do you mean--am I to have the honour of sitting down with all\nof _you_?\n\n_Lady Culv. (to herself)._ Oh, my goodness, what _will_ RUPERT say?\n(_Aloud._) Why, of course, Mr. SPURRELL; how can you ask?\n\n_Spurr. (feebly)._ I--I didn't know, that was all. (_To_ Footman). Here\nyou are, then. (_To himself._) Put out my things? he'll find nothing to\nput out except a nightgown, sponge bag, and a couple of brushes! If I'd\nonly known I should be let in for this, I'd have brought dress-clothes.\nBut how _could_ I? I--I wonder if it would be any good telling 'em\nquietly how it is. I shouldn't like 'em to think I hadn't got any. (_He\nlooks at_ Lady CANTIRE _and her sister-in-law, who are talking in an\nundertone._) No, perhaps I'd better let it alone. I--I can allude to it\nin a joky sort of way when I come down!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTO MY BEEF TEA.\n\n(_By Our Dyspeptic Poet._)\n\n When the doctor's stern decree\n Rings the knell of libertee,\n   And dismisses from my sight\n   All the dishes that delight;\n When my temperature is high--\n When to pastry and to pie\n   Duty bids me say farewell,\n   Then I hail thy fragrant smell!\n\n When the doctor shakes his head,\n Banning wine or white or red,\n   And at all my well-loved joints\n   Disapproving finger points;\n When my poultry too he stops,\n Then, reduced to taking \"slops,\"\n   I, for solace and relief,\n   Fly to thee, O Tea of Beef!\n\n But--if simple truth I tell--\n I can brook thee none too well;\n   Thy delights, O Bovine Tea,\n   Have no special charm for me!\n Though thou comest piping hot,\n Oh, believe I love thee not!\n   Weary of thy gentle reign--\n   Give me oysters and champagne!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"CLUBS! CLUBS!\"\n\n    [\"FRY of Wadham,\" illustrious all-round athlete of Oxford, holds\n    that Golf is no better than \"glorified Croquet.\"]\n\n Oh, FRY of Wadham, you've opened your mouth,\n And \"put your foot in it!\" Here in the South,\n Talked to death by wild golfers, we're likely to cry\n Hooray, to see Link-lovers roasted by FRY.\n Golf-glorification's a terrible tax on\n The muscular Cricketing, Footballing Saxon,\n To whom the game seems just a little bit pokey.\n But FRY of Wadham, Sir, \"glorified Croquet\"!\n Champion of Champions, you're going to catch it!\n Each man loves his sport, swears no other can match it\n _Chacun a son gout!_ And he's rather to blame\n Who's prompt to make game of another man's Game!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"TO BE TAKEN AS READ.\"\n\nDEAR MR. PUNCH,--Thanks to the action of the Circulating Libraries, it\nseems that the old-fashioned three-volume novel is doomed to become a\nwork of the past. Most of the popular writers have abandoned it, and now\nthe publishers are beginning to fight shy of it. The principal argument,\nI believe, in favour of its retention is that it gives a chance to \"the\nlittle read.\" The Circulating Libraries are called upon to fill boxes\nintended for the edification of subscribers in the country, and in these\nreceptacles of light literature I believe the unpopular authors have\ntheir greatest chance. But as a matter of fact, although a romance may\nbe sent to a peruser, it is not within the scope of civilisation to\ncause that romance to be read. According to statistics I believe about\nsixty per cent of the second and third rate is only sampled by the\nrecipients of the aforesaid boxes. The last couple of pages of the third\nvolume are largely read, whilst the remainder of the work is saved from\nthe labours of the paper-knife. As this is so, would it not be as well\nto give a \"common form\" _finale_ to serve as a model for novels _in\nextremis_? To make my meaning plainer I will give an example.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nLet me suppose that the country subscriber has received a novel per\nparcels post called _The Deed in Drab_. Instead of having to cut some\nnine hundred pages, he finds gummed to the inside of the cover what I\nmay call\n\nTHE LAST CHAPTER.\n\nAnd so amidst the joy bells of the old church and the songs of the\nnightingales, and the pleasant laughter of the little children, EDWIN\nand ANGELINA were married. As they passed under the oaken porch the Duke\ngave them his blessing. Need it be said they lived happily--like a\nprince and a princess in fairy tale--for ever after?\n\nCaptain MONTMORENCY GUILT, kicked out of his club and warned off the\nTurf at Newmarket, left England with his ill-gotten gains for Cairo.\nArrived in Egypt, he disappeared into the Soudan. Those of the Arabs who\ncame from the desert declare that there is a white ruler in Khartoum.\nWhether it be he, who knows? Still, the stories of cruelty brought back\nby the swarthy traders are not unsuggestive of the man who brought poor\nPAULINE to her grave and broke the Bank at Monte Carlo.\n\nEDWARD WATTS _did_ marry MARY BEETLES, and they are now doing well at\nLittle Pannington. The village all-sorts shop has grown into a \"Stores,\"\nand those who are in the know say that at a near date it will be\nconverted into a \"Company, Limited.\" Be this as it may, EDWARD and MARY\ndrive to chapel in their own gig.\n\nAnd what became of PAUL PETERSON? Overwhelmed with the secret sorrow\nthat could never be shared by another, he went his way to the wilds of\nAustralia. And there, under the starlight influence of the Southern\nCross, and amidst the glorious glaciers of the Boomerang Mountains, he\ntries to forget the terrible and half-forgiven details of the \"Deed in\nDrab.\"\n\nTHE END.\n\nThere, Sir, you have the ending of ninety-nine novels out of\na possible hundred. In the hands of an experienced writer the\nsentences might be so adapted as to meet the requirements of the\nbook completing the century. Surely the suggestion is worthy of\nthe attention of a MUDIE, and the consideration of a W. H. SMITH.\n\n Yours faithfully,\n\n MULTUM IN PARVO.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration: SUPPRESSIO VERI.\n\n_Mr._ \"AND HOW OLD ARE YOU, DEAR CHILD?\"\n\n_Little Miss._ \"I SHOULD LIKE TO SAY I'M EIGHT--BUT MAMMA WON'T LET\nME!\"]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYE GENTLEMEN OF HOLLAND.\n\nAN ODE TO THE DUTCH CRICKETERS.\n\nAIR--\"_Ye Mariners of England._\"\n\nI.\n\n Ye Gentlemen of Holland\n   That guard your native stumps,\n Ye come to bat on wickets damp,\n   And block the ball that bumps.\n The \"glorious game\" you play amain,\n   And may you match the foe;\n And smite left and right,\n   While the balls for \"boundaries\" go;\n While your batsmen run 'em fast and long,\n   And the balls for \"boundaries\" go!\n\nII.\n\n The spirits of your fathers\n   Should watch you from the wave!--\n The brine, it was their field of fame;\n   On turf you're just as brave.\n As VAN TROMP'S and DE RUYTER'S did\n   Your manly breasts must glow\n As you smite left and right,\n   While the balls for \"boundaries\" go;\n Whilst the batsmen run 'em fast and long,\n   And the balls for \"boundaries\" go!\n\nIII.\n\n BRITANNIA loves to encounter\n   Her ancient foes--in peace.\n Our march is to the wickets green,\n   Our home is at the crease.\n With volleys from her native wood\n   She meets the friendly foe,\n As they smite left and right,\n   And the balls for \"boundaries\" go;\n While the batsmen run 'em fast and long,\n   And the balls for \"boundaries\" go!\n\nIV.\n\n The willows of old England,\n   Dutch willows shall not spurn!\n Your team we'll cheer when they depart,\n   We'll welcome their return!\n Then, then ye willow-warriors,\n   Our song and feast shall flow\n To the fame of your name,\n   When to Holland back ye go;\n When the shout \"How's that?\" is heard no more,\n   And to Dutchland back ye go!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPUTTING HIS FOOT IN IT;\n\n_Or, The Wilful Markee._\n\n    [\"The House of Lords, for some reason, always assumes special care\n    of Ireland, a fact which may account for a few of the curiosities of\n    Irish political and domestic economy.\"--_Mr. Punch's Essence of\n    Parliament, June 3, 1861._]\n\nAIR--\"_Widow Machree.\"_\n\n Wilful Markee, it's loike thunder ye frown,\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n Faith ye'd plase yer proud Parthy by kicking _me_ down,\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n How haughty your air,\n As you kick me down-stair!\n Faix, I wondher ye dare\n   In this oisle of the free!\n Och, ye autocrat churl,\n Me poor head's in a whirl.\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n\n Wilful Markee, Oireland's chance is now come,\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n Whin everything smoiles must the Tories look glum?\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n Sure the Commons, wid prayers,\n Have sint me upstairs;\n Who is it that dares\n   Wid me form disagree?\n _Don't_ haughtily pish\n At ould Oireland's last wish!\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n\n Wilful Markee, whin a Bill enters in.\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n To be kicking it out in this stoyle is a sin.\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n Surely hammer and tongs\n To bad ould days belongs;\n Far betther sing songs\n   Full of family glee.\n Oireland's bad bitter cup\n Do not harshly fill up,\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n\n And do ye not know wid yer bearing so bould,--\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n How ye're kaping the poor tinants out in the could?\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n Wid such sins on your head,\n Sure your peace will be fled;\n Could you slape in your bed\n   Widout thinking to see\n My ghost or my sprite\n That will wake ye each night\n     Groaning _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n\n Then take my advice haughty Wilful Markee,\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n And loike \"Compensation Bill\" do not trate _me_!\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n Of stroife we all tire,\n Then why stir the ould fire?\n Sure hope is no liar\n   In whisperin' to me,\n Hate's ould ghost will depart\n When you win Oireland's heart!\n     _Ochone! Wilful Markee!_\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration: \"PUTTING HIS FOOT IN IT.\"]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration: STROLL IN THE ZOO. SUNDAY AFTERNOON.]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTHE MESSAGE FROM MARS.\n\n(_Per favour of Mr. Punch._)\n\n_Mr. Punch._ So you've not been signalling to Mother Earth, after\nall, my noble Warrior?\n\n_Mars (with a wink)._ What do _you_ think? Why should I dig\ncanals 100 miles wide, and 2,000 miles long, or build bonfires as big\nas Scotland, when I can always communicate what I may have to say\nthrough you?\n\n Because Mars looks spotty or misty,\n Some dreamers, with intellects twisty,\n    Imagine, old horse,\n    Mars is playing at Morse!\n All bosh! You ask DYSON or CHRISTIE.\n\n_Mr. Punch._ Mr. MAUNDER \"has you under his special charge,\" hasn't he?\n\n_Mars._ Much obliged to Mr. MAUNDER, I'm sure! Wants to take my photo,\ndoesn't he? As if I were a mere politician, a popular comedian, or\n'ARRIET at the seaside on a Bank Holiday!\n\n_Mr. Punch._ Have you any Bank Holidays in your planet?\n\n_Mars._ Thank Sol, _Mr. Punch_, we have outlived the epoch of taking our\npleasure in spasms, like your cockney victims of the vulgar voluptuary's\nSt. Vitus's dance!\n\n_Mr. Punch._ Don't be uppish, old man! 'Tis an ill-bred age of Kodaks,\nand Interviews, and other phases of popular Paul Pryism. But you've had\nyour ignominious moments, Mars. If a \"snap-shot\" could have been taken\nat you when held prostrate, chained, and captive, at the feet of Otus\nand Ephialtes, or, still worse, when caught with Venus in the iron net\nof Vulcan:--\n\n All heaven beholds, imprison'd as they lie,\n And unextinguish'd laughter shakes the sky.\n\n_Mars._ Spare me, excellent _Punch_. Eugh! Thank heaven Olympus knew no\nKodaks then, or \"the gay Apollo\" would yet longer have had the laugh of\nme.\n\n_Mr. Punch._ Pardon me for awaking unpleasant memories! But even gods\nshould not be bumptious, especially when, like the _Second Mrs.\nTanqueray_, they \"have a past.\"\n\n_Mars._ Well, anyhow I've been able to baffle the camera-wielders up to\nnow. My ruddy countenance and \"bluish radiance\" have beaten Greenwich,\nand even licked the Lick! As they themselves admit, \"Mars up to the\npresent has defied cameral detection.\"\n\n_Mr. Punch._ But what about those \"bright spots\"?\n\n_Mars._ Have you no \"bright spots\" even on your dull and foggy old\nplanet? I have often noticed one at 85, Fleet Street. In June and\nDecember it emits thousands of brilliant sparks of a \"bluish radiance,\"\ntoo. But I don't jump to the conclusion that you are \"signalling\" to me.\nLook, the naked eye can see the Punchian \"_projection lumineuse_\" even\nfrom here!\n\n_Mr. Punch._ I do not have to \"signal\" my messages to \"Hellas\" or\n\"LOCKYER'S Land\" by canals or \"ten million arc lights of 100,000\ncandle-power apiece.\" Like the Sun, I am self-luminous, and do not, like\nthe finest planets, shine by reflected light.\n\n_Mars._ True for you. And from your own intellectual observatory, like\nTEUFELSDROECKH \"alone with the stars,\" you ofttimes scan the heavens\nwhen, as LONGFELLOW says:--\n\n \"----the first watch of night is given\n To the red planet Mars.\"\n\n_Mr. Punch._ Precisely!\n\n    [_Murmurs musingly._\n\n And earnest thoughts within me rise\n   When I behold afar,\n Suspended in the evening skies\n   The shield of that red star.\n\n A star of strength! I see thee stand\n   And smile upon my pain;\n Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,\n   And I am strong again.\n\n The star of the unconquered will\n   He rises in my breast.\n Serene, and resolute and still,\n   And calm, and self-possessed.\n\n_Mars._ Ah yes! that's all very pretty and poetical, and I'm much\nobliged to HENRY WADSWORTH and the other bards who have lyrically\nglorified me. But _Punch_, old man, _you and I know better_! Mother\nEarth has ever paid, and payeth still, far too much worship to Mars--the\nMars of her own militant fancy. To tell you the truth, _Punch_, I'm sick\nof my old _metier_, especially since Science stepped in and bedevilled\nit past bearing with her big guns, and dynamite-bombs, and treacherous\ntorpedoes; weapons more fit for grubby Vulcan's subterranean Cyclops\nthan a god, a gentleman and a soldier like me.\n\n_Mr. Punch._ Hoho! That's the way the (LOCKYER'S) land lies, eh?\n\n_Mars._ Exactly, _I_ wasn't signalling to your stupid, conservative,\nbellicose old world, which, like the Bourbons, learns nothing and\nforgets nothing. Could I write in plain Titanic capitals across a\nthousand square miles of my smoothest surface Mars's Straight Tip to\nMother Earth, viz.:--\n\n FIGHTING'S AN EXPENSIVE BORE,\n SO DISARM AND WAR NO MORE!\n\nwhat effect would it have on any of you, from civilised England, with\nyou to enlighten it, to the furious fighting dragons who are tearing\neach other in the eastern seas? None! But if any of your quidnuncs\nreally want to know what I _would_ say if I _did_ signal, tell them old\nMars, grown wiser, has turned up War; has nailed his raven to a\nbarn-door as a warning; has made a pet of Peace's soft-plumed dove; and\nstrongly advises the belligerent boobies on earth who take his old name\nin vain, and play his abandoned game still, to--_go and do likewise_!!!\n\n_Mr. Punch._ By the cestus of Venus, and so I will!!!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nODE TO IXION.\n\n(_By a Sympathetic, but Superficial Observer._)\n\n Oh! the hardest of hearts some compassion must feel\n For that modern Ixion, the Man on the Wheel!\n See him scouring the roads on his spindly-spoked spider,\n Dust-hid till you scarce tell the \"bike\" from its rider;\n His abdomen shrunken, his shoulders up-humped,\n With the gaping parched lips of one awfully pumped.\n _Could_ a camel condemned to the treadmill look worse?\n Sure those lips, could he close them, would shape to a curse\n On his horrible doom! As I gaze and stand by,\n With a pang at my heart, and a tear in my eye,\n I think of Ixion, the Wandering Jew,\n That Cork-legged Dutchman--the Flying One, too,\n And other poor victims of pitiless speed;\n And I own, while _their_ cases were frightful indeed,\n The Bicyclist's fate is the worser by far.\n Poor soul!!! The small \"pub,\" and a \"pull\" at the \"bar,\"\n Appear your best comfort. Imagine the cheer\n Of a slave of the \"bike\" whose sole solace is beer!\n You can't see the prospect; your eyes are cast down\n Like BUNYAN'S _Muck-raker_; your brows in a frown\n Of purposeless effort are woefully knit;\n Of Nature's best charms you perceive not a bit.\n The hedge your horizon, the long, dusty road\n Is your sole point of sight. Wretched victim, what goad\n Of Fate, or sheer folly, thus urges you on?\n Old torments--like poor Io's gadfly--are gone,\n And yet, like Orestes, the Fury-whipped, you\n Wheel on, as some comet wheels on through the blue\n In billion-leagued cycles less dreary than is\n The cycle on which round the wide world you whiz!\n Eh? _Cutting a record?_ You _like_ it? The goose!!!\n A task without pleasure, a toil without use!\n Poor soul! You are worse than Ixion, I feel,\n For _he_ was not tied _by himself_ to the wheel!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration: CONJUGAL EGOTISM.\n\n\"WHAT A STUPID PAPER THIS IS, ROBERT! NOT A WORD ABOUT _YOU_ IN IT!\"]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Plaint of the Unwilling Peer.\n\n From my M.P.'s seat I--oh, the pity!--must move.\n   I am one of Rank's sorrowful heirs;\n For the Commons Fate bids me dissemble my love,\n   But _why_ did she kick me upstairs?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nON TICK.--The Modern Novel is a blend of the Erotic, the Neurotic, and\nthe Tommy-rotic.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWHERE TO GO.\n\n _Antwerp_--if you are not tired of Exhibitions.\n _Boulogne_--if you don't mind the mud of the port.\n _Cologne_--if you are not particular about the comfort of your nose.\n _Dieppe_--if you like bathing in the foreign fashion.\n _Etretat_--if solitude has commanding charms.\n _Florence_--if you are partial to 100 deg. in the shade.\n _Genoa_--if you have no objection to mosquitoes.\n _Heidelberg_--if you are not tired of the everlasting castle.\n _Interlacken_--if the Jungfrau has the advantage of novelty.\n _Java_--if you wish to eat its jelly on the spot.\n _Kandahar_--if you are not afraid of Afghan treachery.\n _Lyons_--if you are fond of riots and _emeutes_.\n _Marseilles_--if you are determined to do the Chateau D'If.\n _Naples_--if you are anxious to perform an ante-mortem duty.\n _Ouchy_--if you like it better than Lausanne.\n _Paris_--if you have not been there for at least a fortnight.\n _Quebec_--if you are qualifying for admission to a lunatic asylum.\n _Rome_--if you have never had the local fever and want to try it.\n _Strasbourg_--if you are hard up for an appropriate destination.\n _Turin_--if it is the only town you have not seen in Italy.\n _Uig_--if you affect the Isle of Skye in a thunder-storm.\n _Venice_--if you scorn stings and evil odours.\n _Wiesbaden_--if you can enjoy scenery minus gambling.\n _Yokohama_--if you are willing to risk assault and battery.\n _Zurich_--if you can think of no other place to visit.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nN.B.--The above places are where to go on the keep-moving-tourist plan.\nBut when you want to know \"WHERE TO STAY,\"--we reply, \"AT HOME.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTHE INCONVENIENCED TRAVELLER'S PHRASE-BOOK.\n\n(_To be Translated as Required._)\n\nWhy have you thrown my boxes down with such violence that their contents\nhave become distributed on the platform?\n\nWhy is it necessary to strike me on the head with a stick because I am\ntaking my proper place at the ticket-office?\n\nWhy have you refused to give me change for a sovereign, minus the\neighteenpence you have the right to charge for my fare?\n\nWhy do you close the door of communication when I offer a remonstrance?\n\nWhy can I not obtain redress upon complaint to the station-master?\n\nWhy am I chased off the premises by a private policeman when I am\nanxious to catch the next train?\n\nWhy is my luggage being placarded with places that certainly do not\ncorrespond with my desired destination?\n\nWhy can I not have my tea cool enough to drink? and why I am hurried out\nof the refreshment-room before I can discuss my bread and butter?\n\n[Illustration]\n\nWhy must I pay half-a-crown for comestibles valued on the card at less\nthan a shilling?\n\nWhy am I forced into a carriage already overcrowded with aged females,\nsickly children, and snarling spaniels?\n\nWhy can I not have a seat, considering I have paid the full fare, and\namply tipped the guard?\n\nWhy can I not have a window open, considering that the glass stands at\nninety in the shade?\n\nWhy can I not smoke, having chosen a smoking carriage?\n\nWhy should I be dictated to by a disagreeable and elderly stranger, who\nsnores half the journey, and helps herself to ardent spirits in the\ntunnels?\n\nWhy should I be threatened with imprisonment, and be only pardoned by\nrepaying my fare because I have lost my ticket?\n\nAnd, lastly (for the present), why have I been carried to Little\nPeddlington-on-the-Ditch when I desired to reach the British Coast _en\nroute_ for Paris?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAIRS RESUMPTIVE.\n\nIII.--THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT SAWBATH-BREAKER.\n\n(_Being a Record of the 12th._)\n\n It was an ancient poacher-man,\n   Bronzed as a penny-bun;--\n \"By thy beady eye, now tell me why,\n   Thou offspring of a gun,\n\n O tell me why beneath thy\n   Exceeding hoary tuft\n Precisely half a brace of grouse chin's\n   Hangs, admirably stuffed?\"\n\n He blinked his beady eye; his voice\n   Was singularly clear;\n And as I listened to his tale\n   I could not choose but hear.\n\n \"Mon, ye mun ken I have not aye\n   Been sec a feckless loon;\n In me behold the wreck of what\n   Was once The MCAROON.\n\n Oft have I made a merrie bag\n   Across my native heath;\n Shot o'er my ain ancestral dawgs\n   Or aiblins underneath.\n\n Until lang syne, a monie year--\n   Ye couldna weel be born--\n The blessed twalfth of August fell\n   Upon a Sawbath morn.\n\n Braw were the birds, my gun was braw,\n   My bluid was pipin' hot;\n I thocht it crime to gie 'em time--\n   Allowance like a yacht.\n\n Scarce had I bagged but ane wee bird,\n   There was the de'il to pay:\n It's unco deadly skaith wi' Scots\n   To break the Sawbath day.\n\n The billies wha the nicht before\n   Were fou at my expense,\n They deaved the meenister aboot\n   My verra bad offence.\n\n An' a' the Kirk declared the work\n   Was perfect deevilrie,\n An' hung the bird by this absurd\n   Arrangement whilk ye see.\n\n Twal' month an' mair my shame I bear\n   Beneath the curse o' noon,\n A paltry wraith of what was once\n   The Laird o' MCAROON.\n\n An' aye when fa's the blessed twalfth\n   Upo' the Sawbath day,\n I bear the bird in this absurd\n   An' aggravatin' way.\"\n\n The ancient ceased his sorry tale,\n   And craved a trifling boon,\n To wet the whistle of what was once\n   The Laird o' MCAROON.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration: THE OBSTINACY OF THE PARENT.\n\n_Emily Jane._ \"YES, I'M ALWAYS A-SAYIN' TO FATHER AS 'E OUGHTER RETIRE\nFROM THE CROSSIN', BUT KEEP AT IT 'E WILL, THOUGH IT AIN'T JUST NO MORE\n'N THE BROOM AS 'OLDS 'IM UP!\"]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDitto to Mr. Courtney.\n\n As after jackdaw chatter and owl-hooting,\n Gratefully follows Philomel's dulcet fluting;\n So, after HANBURY'S gibes and HEALY'S jeers,\n COURTNEY'S cool reason gladdens patriot ears.\n _O, si sic omnes!_ But though his sole voice\n Sound \"in the wilderness,\" yet _some_ rejoice\n To hear, 'midst blare of venomed wrath and vanity,\n The moving tones of brave, sound-hearted sanity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTHE FLY ROUTE TO CASTLES IN THE AIR.\n\n(_By Our Imaginary Interviewer._)\n\nI found The great man surrounded by plans and models of any number of\nwonderful inventions. Here was a clever scheme for spending a week's\nholiday in the Mountains of the Moon, there a recipe for removing the\nspots from the face of the sun. It would take too long to give an\ninventory of all the marvels. Enough to say their name was legion.\n\n\"And so you have discovered the secret of aerial navigation?\" I asked,\nafter I was comfortably seated.\n\nThe great man smiled. He evidently had solved the difficult problem.\n\n\"I suppose that now you and all will be able to do without ships and\nrailways? I presume we shall be independent of cabs and omnibuses?\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\nOnce more there was a smile. I was answered. \"Of course,\" I continued,\n\"you will be able to take your aerial contrivances to all the countries\nof the earth? What is there to prevent you from starting flying-machines\nfrom London to Paris, or Berlin, or even Timbuctoo?\" Again there was a\npleasant smile. Evidently my guess was a good one.\n\n\"You will be able to travel thousands of miles without the assistance of\nrails? You will dispense with land and water? All you will require will\nbe the atmosphere, and that is always with us--always at our service.\"\n\nAgain my suggestions remained uncontradicted.\n\n\"It is truly marvellous,\" I remarked; \"truly marvellous! And you have\ncommenced? You have been able to float through the air for a dozen, a\nhundred feet?\" There was a smile once again.\n\n\"And yet, perhaps, as railways and steamships are still 'firm' on the\nStock Exchange, it may be just as well to allow our holdings in those\nsecurities to remain undisturbed? What do you think? It is scarcely time\nto speculate for a fall?\" Once more he smiled, and as smiling is\ninfectious, I joined him in his merriment.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTO A VETERAN CHAMPION.\n\n    [At Clifton, on Aug. 9, in Gloucestershire _v._ Middlesex, Dr. W. G.\n    GRACE completed his 1000 runs in first-class matches this summer.\n    The other players who share this distinction are ABEL, ALBERT WARD,\n    and BROCKWELL.]\n\n Well hit! _Mr. Punch_ chalks it up once more--\n   Your ten-hundredth run between the \"creases\"!\n   Why, this (at twenty-two yards apiece) is\n Twelve-miles-and-a half for this season's score!\n\n But stay! we've no business to \"notch\" each mile!\n   With your cuts and draws, and your drives and trick hits,\n   You've only to stand still before the wickets,\n And straight to the boundary \"fours\" compile!\n\n With ABEL, WARD, BROCKWELL, you hold your own,\n   As '94 cricket now nears its finish;\n   We'll hope your four figures will ne'er diminish--\n As \"Grand Old Bat\" you shall e'er be known!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nQUEER QUERIES.--THE LAW AND THE LADY.--Can it really\nbe true that at a place called Onehunga, in New Zealand, they have\na lady as Mayor? Surely this is altogether \"_ultra vires_,\" as well\nas being ultra-virile! My legal knowledge--which is considerable--convinces\nme that there is a fatal flaw in the so-called election of a\nwoman to the chief post in a municipality, even in New Sheland--I\nmean New Zealand. It's quite settled law that a _femme sole_ cannot\nbe a Corporation; then how, I should like to know, can she preside\nover a Corporation? Possibly some legal readers will say if their\nopinion coincides with mine.\n\n BARRISTER (UNCALLED FOR).\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.\n\nEXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.\n\n_House of Lords, Monday Night, August 6._--MARKISS expected to continue\nto-night that speech around the Budget he didn't commence on second\nreading of the Bill. Sat mysteriously quiet on that occasion.\nUnexpectedly broke out at following sitting, wanting to know what\nHERSCHELL meant by saying Judicial Committee of Privy Council had\narrived at conclusion that Lords had no power to amend a money bill.\n\"Where's your report?\" he asked. \"Produce it.\"\n\nLORD CHANCELLOR didn't happen to have it in his waistcoat pocket or\nsecreted in wig. MARKISS gave notice that he would to-night formally\nmove for production of report. Flutter of interest in House. Commons\nflocked in prepared for some fresh \"blazing indiscretion.\" Found the\nMARKISS sitting on woolsack chatting with LORD CHANCELLOR. Held book\nbetween them, as young persons about to marry are wont to do when\nattending morning or evening service. Vague idea that presently they\nwould rise and sing a hymn. LORD CHANCELLOR quite equal to it, being a\nbig gun at the Bar Musical Society and very fond of the Opera. Nothing\nhowever came of it, at least, not in that direction. When hour for\npublic business arrived MARKISS left woolsack carrying the tune book\nwith him. His motion for report of Judicial Committee stood half way\ndown Orders of the Day. When it was reached MARKISS said nothing.\nNaturally other peers were silent, and whilst commoners accustomed to\nother ways of transacting business were marvelling as to what had\nhappened, and what would follow, House adjourned, practically for a\nweek.\n\n\"Well,\" said SARK for once nonplussed; \"certainly if there is a place in\nthe world where 'e don't know where 'e are, it's the House of Lords.\nWhen a peer is expected to speak he sits dumb. When arrangements have\nbeen made for a quiet sitting, the MARKISS or some other big gun is sure\nto go off unexpectedly with alarming consequences.\"\n\n_Business done._--Irish Evicted Tenants Bill passed Report Stage in\nCommons.\n\n_Tuesday._--It is the unexpected that happens in the House of Commons.\nBefel to-night with dramatic suddenness. Third reading of Evicted\nTenants Bill moved. At eleven o'clock JOSEPH resumed his seat with\npleased consciousness of having cast some balm, in the shape of vitriol,\nover Irish Question. House crowded; DEVONSHIRE, in depression and dinner\ndress, looked down from Peers' Gallery. Over the clock sat SANDHURST,\npresently to move first reading of Bill in House of Lords. Arranged Bill\nshould finally leave Commons to-night. Only one hour in which PRINCE\nARTHUR might speak, and JOHN MORLEY reply. JOSEPH having despatched his\nfinal arrow at his old friends the Irish Members, the shaft being barbed\nwith points composing pleasing legend, \"Violence, Agitation,\nDishonesty,\" PRINCE ARTHUR rose, with evident intent of showing, as has\nhappened several times this Session, how the same sort of thing may be\nsaid with better effect in quite another way.\n\n[Illustration: The Macgregor proposes to \"toss the Caber\"--next\nSession!]\n\nSimultaneously from below gangway uprose the tall figure of JOHN DILLON.\nOpposition roared with despairing indignation. Everything settled, to\nlast button on the gaiter; JOSEPH had had his half-hour; Prince ARTHUR\nwould take his, honourably leaving JOHN MORLEY his thirty minutes. Then\nDivision called; Bill read third time; sent on to Lords; Commons\ncomfortably home by half-past twelve. And here was JOHN DILLON claiming\nthe right to reply to attacks and inuendos of the genial JOSEPH!\n\nTumult rose; DILLON folded his arms and faced it. A bad sign\nthat gesture. Remember it in years gone by, when all things were\ntopsy-turvey; when FORSTER was Chief Secretary, and, next to PARNELL,\nthe hope of the Irish Members fighting for Home Rule was JOSEPH\nCHAMBERLAIN.\n\nDILLON in that attitude evidently immoveable; various suggestions\noffered. Evade the Twelve o'Clock Rule, and sit till all was over;\nadjourn the Debate. Finally agreed that Debate should be adjourned till\nto-morrow--to-morrow, the day on which, at end of last real fight of\nSession, most Members were off on the delayed holiday.\n\nOut of this dilemma PRINCE ARTHUR delivered a grateful House. Had\nprepared his speech through long sitting; doubtless had many bright\nthings to say; but what was one speech among so many? Perish his speech,\nrather than the whole arrangements of Parliamentary week be upset. So\ngracefully stood aside; DILLON took his half hour; JOHN MORLEY followed\nin vigorous fighting form, marking fresh step in steady improvement as\nParliamentary debater; and before midnight all was over.\n\n_Business done._--Evicted Tenants Bill read third time by 199\nvotes against 167.\n\n_Wednesday._--M. de Londres--the Hangman, as blunt Britons put\nit--called to-day. House engaged on Committee of Equalisation of Rates\nBill; seat found for Monsieur under Gallery, where private secretaries\nof ministers and heads of public offices sit when Bills affecting their\ndepartments are under discussion.\n\n\"Monsieur has something to do with the Home Office, _n'est ce pas?_\" I\nasked SARK. \"Looked in, I suppose, to help ASQUITH?\"\n\n\"No,\" said the Member for SARK. \"It's not that. He's heard House intends\nto suspend the Standing Orders. Wants to see how _we_ go to work. Not\nabove taking a wrinkle even from amateurs.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said W. P. JACKSON, throwing up his hands with gesture of despair.\n\"Knew it would come to this under present Government. First the\nguillotine, then the gallows.\"\n\n_Business done._--Quite a lot.\n\n_Thursday._--Southerners long heard of pleasurable hours spent in\nCommittee-room upstairs, where Scotch Members been engaged for weeks in\nGrand Committee on their Local Government Bill. Such badinage! such\npersiflage! not omitting refreshing influences of another kind familiar\nin _Noctes Ambrosianae_. 'Tis said, when conversation flagged quite usual\nthing for J. B. BALFOUR and CHARLES PEARSON to strip off coats and\nwaistcoats, place two umbrellas crosswise on floor, and go through\nsword-dance, TREVELYAN in the chair leading off colourable imitation of\nbagpipe accompaniment, in which Committee joined in mad chorus.\n\nNot sure about that. Absolutely no doubt that on last day of meeting all\nthe members stood on chairs, with one foot on the table, and, holding\nhands, sang \"_Auld Lang Syne_.\" Bound to say they seem to have exhausted\nall their hilarity in Committee-room. PARKER SMITH still a good deal to\nsay; HOZIER not uncommunicative; and WALTER M'LAREN enjoys keen\nsatisfaction of insisting on Division that presents smallest minority of\nthe series. But, on the whole, House seems filled with what SARK tell me\nEdinburgh, occasionally suffering from the visitation, calls \"an\neasterly haar.\"\n\nThrough the cold, wet, white fog, comes one gleam of light. JOHN MORLEY\nbrings in a Bill making further provision with respect to Irish\nCongested Districts Board. SPEAKER puts customary question, \"Who is\nprepared to bring in this Bill?\" \"Mr. ARTHUR BALFOUR and myself,\"\nresponds the CHIEF SECRETARY; and the House gratefully goes off into a\nfit of laughter.\n\n\"Lovely in life,\" exclaims DAVID PLUNKET, looking with almost equal\naffection on his two right hon. friends, \"on the Congested Districts\nBoard (Ireland) Bill they are not divided.\"\n\n_Business done._--Scotch Local Government Bill.\n\n_Friday._--Another \"Nicht wi' BURNS.\" Sadder even than the last. But\nsooner over. By eleven o'clock report stage agreed to. \"Shall we take\nthird reading now, or would you like a third night with the Bill?\" asked\nTREVELYAN.\n\nA shudder ran through the House; when it was over Bill hurried past\nfinal stage.\n\n_Business done._--Winding-up rapidly.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTHE NEW NEWNESS.\n\n  \"There is nothing new under the sun.\"\n    So said the proverbial preacher.\n  But surely 'twas only his fun!\n    A modern and up-to-date teacher\n  Would tell him that Humour, and Art,\n    And Daughters, and Wives, and Morality,\n  All aim to make a fresh start\n    In novel (and nauseous) reality;\n  And the wail of the Wise Man will be, pretty soon,\n    \"There is nothing _old_ under the sun--or the moon!\"\n\n[Transcriber's Note:\n\nAlternative spellings retained.\n\nPunctuation normalized without comment.]\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume\n107, August 18, 1894, by Various\n\n*** ","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\n# Copyright\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2018 by Franchesca Ramsey\n\nCover design by Brian Lemus\n\nCover photography \u00a9 Erin Patrice OBrien\n\nCover copyright \u00a9 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.\n\nHachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.\n\nThe scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.\n\nGrand Central Publishing\n\nHachette Book Group\n\n1290 Avenue of the Americas\n\nNew York, NY 10104\n\ngrandcentralpublishing.com\n\ntwitter.com\/grandcentralpub\n\nFirst ebook edition: May 2018\n\nGrand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group Inc. The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.\n\nThe Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.\n\nThe publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.\n\nISBN 978-1-538-76104-5\n\nE3-20180404-JV-NF\n\n# CONTENTS\n\n  1. Cover\n  2. Title Page\n  3. Copyright\n  4. Dedication\n  5. **Introduction:** Girl Walks into the Comments Section\n  6. 1 Famous in Four Hours\n  7. 2 Black-lash\n  8. 3 My Reign as YouTube's Callout Queen\n  9. 4 Between a Loc and a Hard Place: The Chescalocs Story\n  10. 5 Lessons from Going Public, Part 1: If You Can't Stand the Heat, Get Out of the Spotlight\n  11. 6 Lessons from Going Public, Part 2: Objects on Social Media Are Not as Close as They Appear\n  12. 7 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (It's Lena Dunham.)\n  13. 8 Stop Hating and Start Studying\n  14. 9 Activist Lent\n  15. 10 Unfriended\n  16. 11 Last Name Basis\n  17. 12 Eulogies for Cringeworthy Comments\n  18. 13 Self-Care Is Not Selling Out (Unless It Is)\n  19. **Conclusion:** Activism Is Like Long Division\u2014You Have to Show Your Work\n  20. Franchesca's Simple Explanations of Not-So-Simple Concepts\n  21. Acknowledgments\n  22. Newsletters\n\n# Navigation\n\n  1. Begin Reading\n  2. Table of Contents\n\n_For my mother, the best friend, best blessing, and best role model a girl could ask for._\n\n# INTRODUCTION\n\n## GIRL WALKS INTO THE COMMENTS SECTION\n\nI know the exact date I went from being a nobody, minding my own business in my corporate retail job, to being \"internet famous\"\u2014and inadvertently making a lot of girls cry.\n\nI have a long and complicated history with the internet. I basically grew up online. I built my first website in middle school after spending the summer at computer camp learning how to code. My first boyfriend was a kid I met in an AOL chatroom. Smartphones and digital cameras didn't exist back then, so our late-'90s version of sexting was me taking a Polaroid of my nipple and scanning it. When I'm super famous and my long-lost internet boyfriend inevitably comes out of the woodwork and releases that photo to the press, I have a statement ready: \"That low-res mess of pixels is not recognizable as a human breast.\"\n\nIn high school I bought my own domain name, franchesca.net, and started blogging about my life before it was actually called blogging. I kept that up through college before making the leap to video in 2006, one year after YouTube was founded. I spent the next six years making YouTube videos in my spare time, just for fun; the topics spanned everything from hairstyle tutorials to informational discussions about safe sex to original songs about student loan debt. (A sample: \"Went off to school to get my education \/ Little did I know debt was part of the equation\"\u2014I know, I'm good.)\n\nI'd spend hours each week filming and editing videos after work\u2014and sometimes _during_ work, when no one was paying attention\u2014but I never had a very big audience. My comment section generally broke down into three categories:\n\n1. \"LOL\"\n\n2. \"Kill yourself.\"\n\n3. My mom scolding me about typos in graphics and inappropriate jokes\n\nThen, one day, it actually happened\u2014every YouTuber's not-so-secret dream: One of my videos went viral. And I don't mean _Huffington Post_ viral. I'm talking supermassive, mainstream-news viral\u2014an unstoppable contagion, if contagions also had some good side effects. It launched my career.\n\nYou could say it all happened because my high school's alumni Christmas party left me sick of white people's shit. I was frustrated by the same tired conversations I kept having with friends and acquaintances I had known for decades, the head patting, the hair yanking, and the gently racist observations that seem to just roll off the tongue after a few drinks. So I did the only thing I knew how to do moderately well: I put my frustrations into a video.\n\nAnd before I knew it, my life got turned upside down, _Fresh Prince_ style.\n\nThat video was \"Shit White Girls Say... to Black Girls,\" and it was right on brand for the kind of social commentary I'd been begging people to watch on my YouTube channel and would soon be known for. Within a couple of hours of uploading \"SWGSTBG,\" I was officially the new (sh)it girl. I soon quit my job to pursue acting and internetting full-time.\n\nIn the years since, a lot has changed. These days, most people know me as a fiercely passionate, outspoken social justice advocate, laying down truth on my MTV show _Decoded_ or popping up as a commentator on cable news. But while I am extremely proud of the conversations my work has sparked around the world, I'm still embarrassed to admit that none of this was expected. Before my career exploded, I was pretty comfortable pushing pixels at my desk job as a graphic designer.\n\nIn other words, I didn't set out to be an activist, and I've made a lot of mistakes along the way. And precisely because of that, I think I have a lot to teach folks who find themselves on this same journey, struggling to find their voice and stand up for what they believe in without screaming at some guy who calls himself LethalDUMPS22 on Twitter that he doesn't know your life! Of course he doesn't know your life\u2014he has chosen to go by the name LethalDUMPS22.\n\nWhile I've never rocked a war bonnet at Coachella, I have put my foot in my mouth more than a few times. Social media means we're all living our lives in public now, and many of us are learning how to be advocates, allies, and activists in public, too. And while there may be nothing that can prepare you for the perks and pitfalls of being elected the \"racism referee\" among your friends and family, there are some proven methods for coping when someone writes a 1,500-word Tumblr post about how you are obviously oblivious to your self-hating racism. (The social justice glossary at the end of this book\u2014\"Franchesca's Simple Explanations of Not-So-Simple Concepts\"\u2014may also come in handy.) I've been on the receiving end of more than a few of those missives\u2014and, I hate to admit it, have dished them out, too.\n\nAs the conversation about social justice broadens, I wish we could be more understanding of those who may be coming to it later than others. I was at a speaking gig at a university recently, and toward the end of the talk a girl in the audience asked me a question that made me really sad. She began by sharing that she felt guilty about how \"ignorant\" she had been in high school, where she'd been the only Asian student but had never thought about it much. Once she got to college, she started watching my videos, and now she couldn't get over all the times she hadn't objected to people's offensive comments, and times when she'd said disrespectful things herself. She ended by saying that she wanted to go back to her hometown and raise awareness at her high school, but she worried she would be hypocritical for doing so.\n\nIt can be really scary to admit that there are a lot of things you don't know. We live in a world where people are quick to pounce on you if you express confusion or ask a question, and many online activists aren't honest about the fact that they didn't always know what the gender binary was, either. Too often, people climb the ladder and say, \"Hell yeah, I climbed the ladder! And I beat you to the top!\" The thing about the ladder is that you never stop climbing, and if you think you have, you have a lot more work to do.\n\nI told the \"guilty\" college student standing in front of me that I didn't even start thinking about this stuff until way after college, when a mob of angry Tumblr users descended on my social media accounts to explain to me exactly why I was a hopeless person who had no idea what she was talking about. I may not have always had the vocabulary to explain what I was talking about, but I was certainly not hopeless. My wake-up call didn't come until my twenties, and I'm still learning, too.\n\nIt can be hard to remember this today, when the stakes for these kinds of conversations are higher than ever. Because much of this work is happening online, especially for young people, the crucial nuances of face-to-face interaction are almost nonexistent. What's more, we now have a record of everything. It used to be that if you made a crass joke, someone might call you out on it, you could learn, and you could move on. But now these offhand, often accidental comments can be used as an indictment of someone's character in perpetuity. There are experts in the field of Problematic Archaeology who will spend hours combing through your tweets and preteen blogging efforts to uncover the most offensive artifacts of your past. (I've been those people\u2014and I found what I was looking for.) Often, disagreements and misunderstandings escalate so quickly that there isn't time to reflect, understand where you went wrong (if you actually went wrong at all), and figure out how to fix it.\n\nThis book is an attempt to show you that mistakes are inevitable, and that what's actually important is how we use them to make a better world. For all the hate and abuse I get from all points on the political spectrum, I've been fortunate that many people have been compassionate about showing me where I messed up and helping me get back on track. I wanted to pay that generosity forward somehow, and I'm doing it the best way I can: by pulling my own receipts and dragging my former self.\n\n# CHAPTER ONE\n\n# FAMOUS IN FOUR HOURS\n\nIf I could do it all over again, I would have bought a better wig. The hair I wore to parody white girls was platinum blond, of course, and it hung a little past my shoulders in the kind of long layers beloved by women who star in reality TV shows set in California. In that way, it was perfect. But it also didn't really fit my head.\n\nThe morning before my life changed was like any other, except that I spent most of it looking at endless footage of myself in this bad wig. I'd set \"Shit White Girls Say... to Black Girls\" to upload to YouTube the night before; high-speed internet was a luxury I couldn't yet afford, and my connection was slow as hell. When I woke up, I saw that the upload had failed. Before I left for my job as a graphic designer at Ann Taylor, I started the upload again, thinking my hour-long commute would give it plenty of uninterrupted time to transfer and that I could finish the posting process from work. I looked at the still I'd chosen for the video: My eyebrows were halfway up my forehead, and my smile was cheesy. A few blond strands were caught on my hand, which was paused in the middle of raising the roof\u2014part of my imitation of a white girl singing Nicki Minaj's \"Super Bass.\" I didn't know it at the time, but millions of people were about to meet my freeze-frame face rocking this look.\n\nWhen I got to work, I saw that my janky internet had pulled through. Our office had an open floor plan, which, while gorgeous and modern, was not architecturally convenient for maintaining a side hustle. As I edited my video's description box, I switched back and forth between YouTube and the image of Demi Moore in business-casual that I was Photoshopping for our new ad campaign, constantly looking over my shoulder to watch out for someone about to catch me in the act. \"Ms. Ramsey... have you been producing humorous videos for the internet on company time?\" (I have since accepted that procrastination is a fundamental part of any job requiring a computer.) I created a prewritten \"Click to tweet\" link, added all my social media links, and made sure to note the royalty-free music site I used for the end credits per instructions from Patrick, my then-aspiring-lawyer boyfriend. (Getting sued is one of my major career phobias.)\n\nWith the description box finished, \"Shit White Girls Say... to Black Girls\" was ready for her close-up. I changed the setting from private to public, and then, a full hour after arriving at work, finally decided to give Ann Taylor my full attention. I spent the morning listening to my _Hunger Games_ audiobook and wielding my Magic Wand and Healing Brush on ladies in tasteful cardigans.\n\nBefore \"SWGSTBG,\" I was convinced I was going to go viral for a parody video I'd made a few months before, \"Student Loan Countdown.\" It was based on the criminally underrated Beyonc\u00e9 bop \"Countdown,\" and the idea for the parody came to me as soon as the original music video dropped. I worked around the clock to post mine in time to take advantage of the press already surrounding Bey. I stayed up all night writing lyrics; I went to American Apparel as soon as it opened to buy turtlenecks to match the ones she wears in the video; I spent hours tinkering with GarageBand to get my knockoff track to sound passable; and I exhausted myself learning Beyonc\u00e9's choreography and shooting multiple takes to get it exactly right. I got my parody up in twenty-four hours, which is some Beyonc\u00e9-level dedication, if I do say so myself. I'd worked hard writing and editing \"SWGSTBG,\" but it was nothing like what I did for \"Student Loan Countdown,\" which generated about 100,000 views and was my most popular video ever. So I'd lowered my expectations. I thought \"SWGSTBG\" would do well, but for me that meant a couple hundred thousand views, maybe.\n\nWhen lunch rolled around and I was able to pull myself away from the dual sagas of Katniss Everdeen and pleated slacks, I noticed my phone was buzzing a bit more than usual. My Gchats were blinking. My inbox was full of unread emails\u2014sprinkled in with the usual YouTube comments were messages from Fox, the _Village Voice_ , MSNBC, and the _Huffington Post_. Normally, when I made a video, I would spend an hour emailing blogs and media asking them to feature it. But I was at work, so I hadn't done any of that. Why were these people emailing me?\n\nI typed \"Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls\" into Google, and there, at the top of the search results, was me, cheesing in that platinum-blond wig, next to one million views. I took a screenshot and pasted it into an email to my mom, my best friend De'Lon, and Patrick. Then I burst into tears. This was not a poignant, cinematic, twinkle-in-my-eye moment, but a sloppy, snotty, _my first boyfriend dumped me and we were SUPPOSED TO GET MARRIED_ kind of cry. I don't know if it was the shock of it, or feeling overwhelmed because I had gone from no one watching my videos to, suddenly, everyone watching. It only took six long years and four incredibly fast hours. I was clutching my face, rocking back and forth, and mumbling, \"Oh my God, oh my God,\" when a coworker came over and put her hand on my shoulder. \"Is everything okay?\"\n\nI looked up at her. Where could I begin?\n\nWhen \"SWGSTBG\" hit, I had no idea what going viral would entail, which I guess is why I burst into tears. Though I was working full-time, I barely made enough money to cover rent, bills, and my student loans. Patrick and I were living above an out-of-work opera singer whose erratic yet rigorous practice schedule meant my filming was often interrupted midmonologue by a burst of muffled eighteenth-century baritone. Once, I had to go down there at three a.m. to ask if he could please stop working on his Italian arias. He responded, \"How did it sound, though?\" While I've always been more of a lover than a fighter, it took everything in me to not slap him across the face and say, \"It sounded like you need to shut the hell up.\" If he wasn't singing, he was fighting with his wife, who was upset that he was out of work. It was like my life was a sitcom about an aspiring actress in New York.\n\nBy that time, I had been making videos and posting them on YouTube for about six years. My first was a hair tutorial in which I explained how I put my hair up without a hair tie. The \"secret\" was taking two sections of locs and tying them into a bow. Very high-level stuff. The video was, to put it lightly, awful. To start, I was backlit, which is a total no-no. Always know where your light is, folks: in front of you. Then the tutorial hit a few snags when my narcissism got the best of me\u2014\"I'm trying to look at myself in the camera and I'm realizing it looks weird,\" I noted, aloud, about halfway through. But I persevered. I followed up that video with a blurry fifty-six-second clip of my dog Kaya jumping around on my bed to a heavy-metal soundtrack (chosen by Patrick). Soon I expanded my repertoire to making things people might actually want to watch, developed a little audience, and began devoting most of my free time (and much of my time on the clock at my day job) to YouTube.\n\nAlthough I never had a specific goal, exactly, I knew I wanted to \"work in entertainment\" in some way. I'd racked up a nice chunk of student loan debt for half of an acting degree from the University of Michigan; after a few semesters taking classes on clowning, stage combat, and rolling around on the ground like a baby, I still had no idea how to break into the business, so I transferred to the graphic design program at Miami International University of Art & Design.\n\nAfter graduating, I didn't necessarily think YouTube was going to get me into show business. Back then, there was no formula for YouTube success because there was no such thing as YouTube success, no webcam-to-riches tales of network executives discovering sensations and offering them development deals. In 2008 YouTube launched its Partner Program, which gave people the opportunity to make money off the ads that played before their videos. After being denied twice, I was finally approved to participate and managed to make a little money from ads\u2014I got a check for a hundred dollars every few months, if that. Though that's not to say I didn't see the potential. In 2008, right before I moved to New York in order to be close to auditions and agents, I won a contest to interview celebrities on the red carpet for the Emmys; this was the first of many times I was sure I was going to become famous and subsequently did not become famous. But really, YouTube was just a place to mess around, make stuff exactly how I wanted to make it, and meet people.\n\nEspecially after I moved to New York, posting videos on YouTube was a way to scratch my performer's itch without having to claw my way through the city's stand-up scene. I didn't like to go out or drink; open mics were always late at night, and they usually paid in alcohol, if they paid at all. Because I lived in Queens, far away from the clubs downtown, I'd end up getting home at one or two in the morning before having to wake up at seven thirty for work the next day. Unlike most of the other comics I met, I couldn't work as a bartender or waiter because I can't even carry a single glass of wine across my living room without becoming a danger to myself and others. So I took odd jobs, like handing out club flyers and stuffing envelopes, in between working retail and graphic design temp jobs. Nevertheless, it was cool to be able to reach thousands of people on YouTube, rather than the same seven white dudes who frequented comedy clubs, and I liked being able to film multiple takes, especially when I had to pause for my neighbor's nightly opera performances.\n\nIn 2011 I thought for sure I'd gotten my big entertainment break when I entered YouTube's NextUp contest and, after two excruciating rounds of voting, managed to win. Along with twenty-four other YouTubers from around the country, I spent a week at the Google offices in New York City learning the ins and outs of YouTube and being mentored by some of the platform's top creators. We also got grants to invest in our channels. I spent most of the money on video equipment, including a new camera, computer, editing software, and lights, before putting the rest into savings and toward my hefty student loans. I decided this was my chance to get serious and make something out of my channel.\n\nBut even as I got more and more invested in my fans and my videos, in the real world I kept quiet about my YouTube jobby.  In those days, most people thought of YouTube as a place to watch videos, not make videos. Whenever I told people I had been making hairstyle tutorials and comedy videos for years, they would look at me as if I had just said something ludicrous, like \"I dunno, I just don't think Lupita Nyong'o is THAT pretty.\" ( _Who_ would say this?!) YouTube was so new that many people didn't see the point in investing money and hours into a platform that was for movie trailers and cat videos. My friends from my performing arts high school didn't consider what I did \"real acting,\" and although my family supported me, they didn't get it, either. When I told my grandmother, who doesn't have internet, that I made videos in my bedroom and posted them online\u2014and that sometimes my boyfriend was in them\u2014her response was \"Do you have clothes on, Frannie?\"\n\nNevertheless, by the time the \"Shit Girls Say\" phenomenon hit in late 2011, I'd developed a voice and a dedicated audience of about ten thousand subscribers. If you somehow managed to not be one of the forty million people who watched the four-part \"Shit...\" series, I'll bring you up to speed. \"Shit Girls Say\" starred comedian Kyle Humphrey in drag, going through a series of quick scenes depicting stereotypical things \"girls\" say. When delivered in Humphrey's over-the-top upspeak and mashed together in a two-minute supercut, ordinary lines like \"Do you know anything about computers?\" and \"Go into my purse...\" and \"Shut _UP_ \" took on a universal relatability. It went viral thanks to a perfect combination of \"funny 'cause it's true,\" \"dude in a wig,\" and \"ha ha, girls are dumb.\"\n\nAs I watched the \"Shit...\" parodies pop up around the internet, I started to think about making my own. Then, about a week after the original video appeared, I got my inspiration from a video posted by stand-up comedian Billy Sorrells: \"Shit Black Girls Say.\"\n\nWell, sort of. As soon as the video began to play, Sorrells's portrayal of a stereotypical black girl named \"Peaches\" who liked blingy sunglasses and _Basketball Wives_ made me feel weird. While the idea of a man in drag imitating the harmless things women and girls say has undertones of misogyny, in general \"Shit Girls Say\" felt lighthearted, all in good fun. I'm sure every person on earth, regardless of gender, has said, \"Could you do me a favor?\" at one time or another, and that's partially what made it funny. But the Peaches character felt different. Sorrells's dramatic, obnoxious black woman character seemed more like the butt of the joke than someone who was laughing along with it. There were also a few casual quips about domestic violence, as if that could ever possibly be funny.\n\nToday, I know the vocabulary word to explain exactly why \"Shit Black Girls Say\" made me uncomfortable: _misogynoir_. The term, coined by activist Moya Bailey, describes the unique interplay of racism and sexism that black women face. Sorrells was drawing on an all-too-familiar trope: Black male comedians like Tyler Perry and Eddie Murphy donning drag and regurgitating the same racist stereotypes that white supremacy uses to oppress black women. These portrayals paint us as loud, angry, aggressive, hysterical, overly sexual, neck-swerving, gum-popping clich\u00e9s who scream, \"Oh, no, he didn't!\" on loop. While these tropes persist all over modern media like Instagram, YouTube, Vine (RIP), and film and television, they're not too different from the mammy and Jezebel stereotypes promoted by Jim Crow\u2013era advertisements and cartoons.\n\nBut at the time, I couldn't have explained any of this to you; all I knew was that I didn't relate. Like everyone else, I saw \"Shit Black Girls Say\" all over Facebook, and even a few of my coworkers were sending it around, laughing hysterically and exchanging _omg so true!_ 's. (As the only black woman on my team, I found this particularly alienating.) The whole point of the \"Shit...\" meme was for audiences to see themselves in the character. But that wasn't my version of blackness; Peaches was like a cross between my high school bullies and Martin Lawrence's Sheneneh character. The more I thought about it, the more angry I got that this video might make my white coworkers and friends believe stereotyping blackness\u2014and especially black womanhood\u2014in this way was acceptable. As long as it's done by a black person, with a dose of humor!\n\n_If that's not me_ , I thought, _then what \"shit\" do I say?_ I started to brainstorm ideas for my own take on the meme. I considered \"Shit Black Suburban Girls Say,\" since I grew up in the suburbs, but that was too clunky. I toyed with \"Shit Oreos Say,\" since that's what people used to say I was\u2014an Oreo.  But my fear of litigation stopped me there. What if Nabisco tried to come after me for trademark infringement? After racking my brain for days, I decided it was probably too late to make a spinoff of my own anyway.\n\nThat changed around Christmas. While home in Florida I went to my high school's annual holiday reunion. That year's party wasn't any different from those of years past, except that night I was driving, which meant I wasn't drinking. As the night went on, things got awkward, and I guess this was the first time I was sober enough to recognize just how much I put up with people treating me differently. I had shown up to the party with my locs (duh\u2014they're attached to my head), which I hadn't had in high school, and as everyone around me got drunker, they became bolder. The usual questions about my hair, including \"Is it real?\" and especially \"Can I touch it?\" started to come out. And like most white people I'd ever talked to about my hair, these sloppy drunks already had their hands out, en route to groping my head, when they \"asked.\"\n\nI'm embarrassed to say that I didn't exactly stand up for myself when my friends started acting this way. I did my best to bob and weave as hands flew at me left and right, but I didn't have the courage to say outright, \"Please keep your grubby fingers to yourself,\" or \"Notice I'm not asking if your breasts are real because that's none of my business.\" Dealing with white people faux pas as a black woman is tricky: If you get upset, you can quickly be labeled the \"angry black girl\"; if you're too passive, it seems like you're giving permission, or letting racism slide. I had always been the token black girl in the group, so I knew this struggle well. Before I went natural,  I hardly knew anyone in real life with natural hair, let alone with locs, so I can see how my hair seemed new and strange to some of my friends. But curiosity doesn't give you free rein to treat me like a baby goat at the petting zoo. I know I'm just as cute as a baby goat, but back off.\n\nThe combination of this party and \"Shit Black Girls Say\" made something click. While part of me cringed, another part knew that this could be the makings of an incredible video. I whipped out my phone and started making a list of all the \"Can I touch your hair?\"\u2013type comments I could think of. _You're not the same as other black people. He's so cute for a black guy! You can say the N-word, but I can't? You guys can do_ so much _with your hair. It kind of feels like Cheetos! Is that racist? Is_ that _racist? That's_ NOT _racist!_ An old friend, Megan, who was at the alumni party, provided the perfect inspiration for the nasal voice and the lazy way I waved that cigarette around in some of the scenes. As soon as I got back to New York, I called my friend with a fancy camera, Eric Walter, and got to work on what would become \"Shit White Girls Say... to Black Girls.\"\n\nThough many articles explaining \"Here's What It's Like to Be a Viral Video Star\" have been published over the last few years, in 2012 there was no handbook for what to do when you suddenly find yourself thrust into the spotlight. Sitting there in my cubicle, bawling my eyes out in front of my coworkers, I felt like the entire world was watching to see what I would do next. It was amazing to go viral for something I'd written and produced\u2014a friend of mine had his first viral hit with a video of his mom sleepwalking, which is funny but not exactly what you want to be known for as a comedian. Still, all the attention was overwhelming.\n\nThe first of many unsettling realizations was that I still had to finish the workday. Sadly, YouTube does not show up at your office with one of those giant Publishers Clearing House checks, and though you may feel pretty proud of yourself, you are not immediately infused with the confidence to give your boss the finger and leave the office in a blaze of upwardly mobile glory. I wouldn't have done that anyway\u2014I liked my job. Instead, I had to find some way to explain to the growing crowd of concerned coworkers gathering around me that I had been making YouTube videos for years, and finally one had gone viral. I felt like I was about to tell my spouse that I had a secret family, or confess that I liked to dress up in furry costumes and play with kitty litter in the bedroom.  My private hobby was about to become super public.\n\nI knew my coworkers had seen \"Shit Girls Say\" and \"Shit Black Girls Say,\" and although virality and internet fame were not the daily occurrences then that they are today, they were still concepts most people understood. _What's the worst that can happen?_ I thought. I hadn't studied the Ann Taylor code of conduct nearly as closely as I should have (to say I skimmed it would be an overstatement), but I was pretty sure satire wasn't a firing offense.\n\nI took a deep breath and said, \"I made a response to that 'Shit Girls Say' video, and now it's going viral.\"\n\nKate, the most sophisticated of the bunch, was visibly surprised. \" _You_ make YouTube videos?\"\n\nThen, to my own surprise, Richard chimed in with, \"What's that supposed to mean? I've made a few videos.\"\n\nJenna asked, \"Well, can we watch it?\"\n\nYou know how embarrassing it is when you show someone a video you think is really funny and they don't laugh? And you have to sit there as they watch the video on your phone, not laughing, waiting for the tense period of not-laughing to end?\n\nAs my coworkers crowded around my desk to watch \"SWGSTBG,\" I envisioned their faces falling one by one as they tried to assure me, \"Oh, yeah, it was really... something.\" After making hundreds of videos, I'd gotten over the discomfort and nervousness that came along with venturing into the comments, but seeing people I actually knew watch my work, in real time, was super uncomfortable.\n\nThe first thirty seconds felt like an eternity. Did they think it was funny? Did they think it was offensive? Jenna was a blonde\u2014did she think this was about her? None of them had ever said any of the phrases in the video to me, but I couldn't be certain they hadn't said those things to anyone else. Maybe this wasn't a good idea after all. Was I ready to talk about race with my coworkers?\n\nFinally, they started laughing. They got it! Maybe some of them would share it! (I stopped myself from chiming in with \"Don't forget to subscribe!\" when it was over\u2014too thirsty.) Throughout the day they morphed into my own personal cheerleading section, yelling out to the whole office when one of their friends posted the video on Facebook. When it was finally late enough in the day that I could go home, Richard hugged me and said, \"I can't wait to tell people we work together! Girlfriend!\" He'd never called me \"girlfriend\" before. Had I just unwittingly opened an annoying door I could never close, or was it a harmless callback? I decided it was the latter and sank into the hug. This felt good. Maybe \"Do I still have a job?\" was written all over my face as I packed up, or perhaps the universe was just telling me to calm down, but either way, my supervisor, Jonathan, leaned over my desk and cooed, \"Who knew we had a celebrity on our team?\"\n\nWhen I got home, my dogs, Fil (short for Filthy McNasty) and Kaya, hadn't gotten the memo that I was a star\u2014they just wanted to go on a walk. I tried to use it as an opportunity to relax, but I couldn't stop scrolling through my phone. My inbox was flooded, my Twitter mentions were a mess, and I may have paused mid\u2013poop scoop to check the view count on the video. It was a wonder we made it to the park and back without getting hit by a car. I can hear the news story now: \"Viral star struck and killed in Queens intersection while responding to 'y u so rassit?' tweet. More at eleven.\"\n\nBack in my apartment I finally had a moment to reflect. On one hand, I felt like I'd finished a marathon\u2014all the time I spent writing and editing my videos, tweaking them to perfection, staying up late, and waking up early was finally paying off in a way I could never have anticipated. On the other, it was like being bestowed a gift from the internet gods\u2014my career was about to change in a major way, and the opportunity seemed like it had dropped out of the sky. I knew the old saying \"There's no such thing as an overnight sensation,\" and I knew I had been building the foundation for this success for years. But like so many other viral videos, \"SWGSTBG\" went viral because of a precise combination of timing, hard work, and luck, and the luck part was trippy.\n\nBefore I could tackle my raging inbox, I had to take care of some family business. Though I still couldn't bring myself to say \"shit\" in front of her, I called my mom to fill her in on all the exciting emails and opportunities that were pouring in. She christened me \"Miss Viral.\" Then, Patrick's mom, Nancy, called to congratulate me\u2014and apologize.\n\nThe first time I met Nancy\u2014who is, like Patrick, white\u2014I had just spent the night with Patrick and was slipping out of the apartment they lived in together the next morning. Suddenly, I heard the front door open, and there was my boyfriend's mother, walking in from her night shift working as a nurse. Apparently Patrick had told her about me, because she said, \"You must be Fran!\" I'd recently added fire-engine red to my locs, which I thought was daring and cute but in retrospect probably made my hair actually look like Cheetos. After I'd sheepishly introduced myself, Nancy added, \"Oh, I love your hair!\" and extended her hand to give my locs a stroke. I was very clearly still wearing last night's makeup and rocking severe bed head  so there was no way to mistake what I'd been up to with her son the night before. I decided to not make the situation any worse, so I said thank you and made my exit.\n\nAfter praising my performance in \"SWGSTBG\" on the phone, Nancy got serious. \"Oh my God, Fran\u2014I feel so terrible about touching your hair.\" I hadn't made the video to call her out, but I'd inadvertently done just that. I told her not to worry about it, but the moment made me realize how often I didn't tell people how I was actually feeling, especially if there was a power dynamic at play. I'd been dodging head pats and holding my tongue around coworkers, friends, bosses, and teachers for my whole life. Instead of saying something about how uncomfortable their comments or behavior made me, I'd channeled those feelings into a parody video. \"SWGSTBG\" brought to the surface how silent I had been\u2014as a teenager growing up in West Palm Beach, as a young woman at college, and all throughout my early twenties.\n\nEven before I fully grasped what the success of the video would mean for my life and my career, I realized it wasn't just about my hair. It was about growing up in Florida, where tanning is practically an Olympic sport, and having white girlfriends joke, \"I'm blacker than you.\" It was about fielding comments that a certain man was \"pretty hot for a black guy.\" It was about realizing that \"I'm not into _______\" is really code for \"I see all _______ as the same.\" It was about not being \"like other black girls\" because I was \"so nice\" or \"one of the good ones.\" It was about all the seemingly benign comments and expressions of disregard that added up to a constant reminder that I was different from other people, and that my difference was, for some reason, important. In many ways, being called \"so nice\" or held up as \"one of the good ones\" becomes a kind of muzzle. Though I didn't know it at first, \"SWGSTBG\" was me taking off the muzzle. I'd found my voice.\n\nAs I scrolled through my inbox and social media accounts that night, it was really weird to see people from high school posting my video\u2014did they not remember saying those things to me? Maybe they did, and they felt ashamed, or maybe they didn't and just wanted to get credit for knowing me. Producing a viral video has the strange power of elevating acquaintances to the level of \"oldest and best of friends\"\u2014anyone who had direct access to me began reaching out. I got so many texts from random numbers saying, \"Everyone on my Facebook is sharing your video!\" that I was tempted to respond, \"Same phone. Who dis?\"\n\nMeanwhile, every white girl I'd ever met decided to reach out to ask which lines were about her. I've never felt closer to Carly Simon in my life. (\"You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you.\") When a girl I'd worked with in Miami, who eventually did become a friend, texted to ask, \"Tell me the truth. How many of those comments were from me?\" I was completely honest: \"I had to cut yours because it was so stupid I didn't think anyone would believe it.\" She responded with a string of cry-laughing emojis. The incident I was thinking of was the time she gave me a black shirt to wear to our company golf tournament because, \"You know, you're black.\" And now you see why her comment landed on the cutting-room floor.\n\nMore importantly, I knew that my message was resonating with people who'd had to deal with the same awkward, inappropriate situations I did. The positive comments and emails and friend requests I received the day I went viral came from girls, boys, women, men, and everyone in between who had grown up just like me. They were the only person of color in all their high school and company photos. Like me, they'd been treated to bizarre throwaway comments for their whole lives. And like me, they hadn't known how to respond, so they didn't.\n\nAs much as I wanted to reply to each and every one of my new supporters, I had some media requests to answer. In addition to the _Huffington Post_ , MSNBC, Fox, and the _Village Voice_ , I got messages from _Saturday Night Live_ and the team that would eventually become my talent agents. Producers from places like MTV, NPR, and _Anderson Live_ were asking if I would do interviews or appear on their shows.\n\nAnd they were asking if I would bring the wig. The principle of the wig still stood: It was an immediate signal about the theme of the video and the message I was trying to get across. Nevertheless, I always told them no. Though I still have that thing tangled up in a box in my closet somewhere, I knew I was destined to be more than the girl with the wig.\n\n# CHAPTER TWO\n\n# BLACK-LASH\n\nThe biggest audition I'd snagged in the first four years I'd been in New York was for the reality TV competition show _The Glee Project_ , where twelve singers competed for a chance at a guest-starring role on the Fox musical comedy show _Glee_. Very highbrow stuff. Needless to say, I did not book the job. Despite occasionally getting carded at bars and taking karaoke way too seriously, I guess I wasn't believable as a teenage singing sensation on a should've-been-canceled-after-one-season Fox show.\n\nBut following \"SWGSTBG,\" suddenly everyone wanted a piece of me\u2014after years of celebrating anytime a casting breakdown said \"open to all ethnicities,\" I had more interview requests, meetings with agents, and audition opportunities than I knew what to do with.\n\nI tried to respond to as many as possible, which translated to leaving early for lunch to take calls away from my desk. At one point I volunteered to \"help\" one of my coworkers by accompanying her on an office coffee run just so I could take a call with my soon-to-be agent in the Starbucks restroom.\n\nWhile radio and magazine interviews were exciting, nothing could prepare me for a message from _Anderson Live_ , Anderson Cooper's daytime talk show, where he covered trending stories that didn't quite fit into his news beat at CNN. A producer from the show emailed me a few days after \"SWGSTBG\" blew up. My cue to \"head to lunch.\"\n\nI'd spent the past few days reading tons of articles about the \"Shit Girls Say\" meme, so I felt more than prepared to handle the producer's pre-interview spiel. Besides your usual \"Where are you from? What inspired the video?\" type of questions, we talked at length about the negative response to my jokes. Was I surprised people thought the video was \"racist toward white people\"?\n\nI told her I wasn't surprised that people were upset or confused, but it was pretty revealing that no one had reacted negatively to the original video, \"Shit Girls Say,\" which portrayed women as obnoxious, dumb, and preoccupied with trivial things. Or to \"Shit Black Girls Say,\" which was basically just another rehash of the sassy black woman stereotype. Sure, they were supposed to be a bit over the top, but they didn't exactly present women, or more specifically black women, in a positive light. Apparently, I said, they had gotten a boys'-club pass. I'd seen little to no backlash against those videos. They certainly weren't being invited on national television to discuss the complicated politics of their two-minute satirical riffs on everyday interactions. I didn't quite have the language to express it at the time, but in retrospect I can see that the negative response to my video was a clear symptom of a racist and sexist culture that was viscerally offended by the idea of a black woman talking about her lived experience.\n\nThe _Anderson_ interview looked like it was going to be a go. Then, right before we got off the phone, the producer asked if I'd invite the old friend on whom I'd based my \"SWGSTBG\" voice and mannerisms, Megan, to come on the show. I told her I'd give it a shot, but realistically I wasn't so sure it was an option. There's just no easy way to say, \"Hey, would you be interested in going on national television to talk about all the dumb things you've said to me throughout our fifteen years of friendship?\" But I must have done an okay job of it, because I called her up and she agreed\u2014I'm sure the free flight from LA to New York, combined with Megan being an aspiring actress looking for screen time, didn't hurt. The night before the taping, I braided my hair, laid out the dress I planned to wear (it was from Target), and went to bed early. I was nervous but excited\u2014I saw _Anderson_ as a chance to put myself on the map.\n\nMy segment was only twelve minutes long, but the taping lasted more than half an hour. Anderson was warm, charming, and even more handsome in person. (For those wondering, yes, his eyes really are that blue. \"Silver fox\" is a total misnomer\u2014dude straight-up looks like a wolf.) He joked with me between takes and complimented my poise and professionalism, which made me blush. Did I already mention how handsome he was? As I studied the way he read from the teleprompter and bantered with the audience, I knew I wanted to be where he was someday.\n\nAside from one strained exchange with an audience member, the experience went well. Even Megan seemed to be having a good time when Anderson pulled her out of the audience and we all laughed together about her nasal voice. I felt like I'd nailed it\u2014which was good, because I had to run from the taping to a meeting uptown, where I officially snagged an agent.\n\nIn the week between taping _Anderson_ and the segment going up, I had also been invited to audition for _Saturday Night Live_. This was nearly a year before the conversation about why there wasn't a black woman on _SNL_ hit a fever pitch, but still: I knew there wasn't a black woman in the cast at the time, and I couldn't help thinking that maybe _I_ could be the black woman on _SNL_. The audition invite didn't provide many details\u2014just that those auditioning should prepare a character showcase\u2014and my new agent, Scott, told me to \"do four characters I loved.\"\n\nEager to support their brand-new client, Scott and a group of people from his team said they would come cheer me on. I had been watching the show for my entire life\u2014you can't claim to want to be a comedian without spending some amount of time proclaiming, \"Live from New York, it's Saturday night!\" alone to your bathroom mirror. The opportunity was a dream come true.\n\nMore precisely, it was one of those dreams where you're onstage, you suddenly realize you're naked, and everyone starts laughing at you. But in my case, not many people laughed.\n\nAlmost as soon as I walked into the club, I knew I was going to bomb. The audition invitation had been vague because everyone else trying out was a UCB -trained comic who had studied _SNL_ auditions, which require a very specific kind of comedy, for years. They didn't need instructions. It had never even occurred to me to ask my agent for sample audition tapes or to look for audition videos on YouTube\u2014you know, the very platform that had earned me an audition in the first place. (PSA: YouTube has tons of _SNL_ audition tapes and screen tests from talented comedians who did and didn't make the cut.) To top it all off, I'd been working on my characters for about a week, and instead of trying out my routine beforehand in front of an audience at a comedy club, I opted for the acclaimed \"Above the Opera Singer Theater,\" aka my living room. Patrick gave me some feedback, but getting one person's perspective is not the same as having an audience, especially when that one person is like Patrick and doesn't really know much about pop culture. As much as I love him, he once asked me if Selena was still alive, and I couldn't help but wonder, aloud, \"Who the hell did I marry?\" I hadn't performed stand-up since moving to New York, and YouTube comedy is completely different\u2014you can edit the hell out of yourself to make sure all your jokes hit.\n\nFor my character showcase, I had come up with the idea that I'd be at an awards show and play both the presenter and the winners: Tyra Banks was hosting, and Lil Wayne, Britney Spears, my grandma, and Megan from \"SWGSTBG\" would be accepting awards. Not the most original pitch by any stretch of the imagination, but I figured it would get the job done. This was nothing like what the other comics had prepared. Instead of a generic, predictable location for their impressions, they'd introduce each character with an oddly specific, bizarre scenario\u2014kind of like the premise of an SNL sketch: \"This is Tom Hanks, who has stubbed his toe because he's been helping someone move,\" or \"Here's Sof\u00eda Vergara as a real estate agent in New York.\" I can do a great Britney Spears impression, but I had no context for it. (Example: \"Here's Britney Spears babysitting for a Russian diplomat!\")\n\nOut of twelve _SNL_ hopefuls that night (including Sasheer Zamata, who did eventually join the cast), I was scheduled to go on eleventh, which made the whole thing more excruciating. Over and over, I watched people who were so prepared, so funny, and so on point that I wondered if my agent was going to drop me when I finally wandered onstage. Or if I should just get it over with and drop myself.\n\nWhen my turn came around, I decided I needed to get through my performance as fast as possible. I introduced each character as Tyra Banks, praying the audience would get my basic _America's Next Top Model_ references. \"I only have one photo in my hand, and it's of Franchesca's grandma\"; \"I was rooting for you, Britney Spears! We were all rooting for you!\" It was exactly as bad as I expected it would be. My performance was less professional comedy routine and more Twenty-Fifth Annual Dunder Mifflin Paper Company Talent Show. While I don't think I'll ever be right for _SNL_ , I would totally place at DMPC. I swear my Britney is that good.\n\nAfter the final comic finished, Scott and the rest of the group from the agency walked me to the subway. I was trying very hard to hold it together, but I was humiliated\u2014not just because of my performance, but because I worried they thought I was lazy and unprepared. I hadn't even met some of them before, and I hated that this was the first thing they'd seen me do. Somehow, they didn't fire me, but as I made the hour-long trek back up to Queens, humbled and embarrassed, I realized I had let all the attention from \"SWGSTBG\" go to my head. I had worked for years honing my specific skill set, but that didn't mean I was an expert.\n\nThough the _SNL_ audition was a bruise to my ego, I was able to bounce back for the airing of my _Anderson_ interview. \"SWGSTBG\" was well past six million views, and despite a Lil Wayne impression that consisted of nothing more than an aluminum foil grill, shades, and a backwards hat, I still officially had an agent. I was getting called for auditions left and right, and my very first national TV interview was about to debut. I was glowing.\n\nI didn't have access to a TV at work, so I was stuck reading tweets about the show as it aired instead of watching it live. I didn't have cable or DVR at home, either, so my friend Dominic recorded the episode and a group of us planned to watch it after work. I spent the entire day refreshing my timeline instead of Photoshopping statement blazers, and at five p.m. I sped out of the office like I had just been told there was an athleisure sample sale in the lobby. (What can I say? I love high-end sweatpants at almost affordable prices.)\n\nThat evening, I sat in Dom's tiny living room with Pat and our friends, drinking and eating snacks as if we were about to watch the Oscars. After Dom's grand introduction\u2014\"Tonight we're gathered to celebrate Fran because we love her and because we're all jealous she got to meet Anderson fucking Cooper!\"\u2014the segment began to play. My heart was pounding as suddenly I was on-screen in my platinum-blond wig, saying:\n\nNot to sound racist, but you can say the N-word, but I can't?\n\nMy best friend was black\u2014well, she's still black, but we're not really friends anymore.\n\nOh my God, I'm practically black! Twinsies!\n\nThis is so ghetto.\n\nSo cute for a black guy, right?\n\nCan I touch it? Okay. I'm already touching it a little. Is this real? Wait, it's not real? It is. So nappy.\n\nI think what I like the most about them is they're not, like, stereotypical, like, black people. You know what I mean?\n\nIt's almost like you're not black.\n\nWhen the clip from \"SWGSTBG\" was over, we were transported back to the studio, where Anderson and I were sitting down for a one-on-one. While I certainly remembered being there, I almost couldn't believe how comfortable and professional I looked. My little black dress looked damn good, my hair was piled high in my expertly braided updo, and my eyes sparkled like your grandmother's favorite holiday shawl. I heard myself explaining how I thought the \"Shit Girls Say\" videos were funny, but I couldn't really relate to them. \"Being a YouTuber,\" I was saying, \"I thought, _How can I jump on this and get tons of views?_ Because I want to get views, too\u2014I'm going to be honest.\"\n\nThe audience laughed, and so did our living room viewing party. Seeing myself on television instead of on my computer screen was surreal. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that all the talk about the camera adding ten pounds was clearly bullshit.\n\nThen Anderson got into the drama portion of the interview\u2014the backlash to my video. Slowly, I began to look less poised. \"Have you been surprised at the reaction?\" he asked, in that Scholarly Dad voice he has. \"Some of the comments online have said it's racist, what you've done.\"\n\nI knew this was coming, and I had practiced my answer before the taping. \"Well, I think to be fair, my intention was not to label anyone as a racist, because in all honesty, none of those comments are actually racist.\"\n\nIf you're thinking: _Wait a second, 2012 Franchesca. Those comments_ AREN'T _racist? They're as racist as a \"12 Reasons Obummer Is a Kenyan Muslim\" novelty calendar!_ \u2014well, so were a lot of people. I'll get to that in a second.\n\nI went on to explain that curiosity was totally understandable, but treating black women like they were animals at a petting zoo was not. \"I think a lot of times people are trying to relate to me and show me that we're cool and we can get along,\" I said. \"They're trying to be nice, but then the wrong thing slips out.\" It's almost funny to look back at how conciliatory and nonconfrontational I was being. How could anyone be offended by that?\n\nAnderson took a few comments from black women in the audience, and they said the video was a great icebreaker for racial dialogue with their friends and coworkers. They found it relatable and funny and were happy to share it with their friends. Awesome. But then, Anderson approached an older white woman in the audience. Back at Dom's apartment, I rolled my eyes\u2014I already knew how this exchange played out.\n\n**Salty Lady:** Hi. I was just wondering, if you say it had no racism or connotations, why do you use white and black girls? Why didn't you just say, you know, \"Funny Things Stupid People Say to Me\" rather than using the black and the white?\n\n**Me [visibly annoyed, to some laughter in the audience]:** Okay. Once again, the original video...\n\nAs I watched my eyebrows rise higher and higher into my perfectly sculpted updo, I felt like I was about to crawl out of my skin. _Let me not be the \"angry black girl\" on national TV!_ I thought. Even though I had every right to find this woman's comment infuriating\u2014had I not just explained the concept minutes before?\u2014I was projecting the stereotype onto myself.\n\nShe kept going:\n\n**Salty Lady:** Saying black and white is what I'm getting at.\n\n**Me:** I know. I'm going to answer your question. The original video that this is based off of is \"Stuff Girls Say.\" Then the most popular parody of that video was \"Stuff Black Girls Say.\" So my idea...\n\nAnderson cut in to ask if I had been offended by the previous \"Shit Girls Say\" videos. I assured him that no, I hadn't, and was about to explain further when my number one fan cut in again.\n\n**Salty Lady:** I feel like white people are the only people that can be racist.\n\n**Me [obviously exasperated]:** Nothing said in the video is racist. Honestly. I mean, asking about my hair, saying that you think someone is attractive despite being black\u2014I don't think any of those statements are racist. I do think that they are ignorant. I mean, I really am sorry if people are offended or they are upset about it, but I think that if you don't see anything of yourself in it, then I don't think it should be offensive.\n\nThough I did do an admirable job of replacing every single \"Shit\" with \"Stuff\" for daytime audiences, I was starting to feel bad about how I looked on TV. On top of the tense back-and-forth, the way the segment had been edited made me look bored and nervous as I sat listening to the audience's questions and comments. I'd been on TV before, but only local news (\"Florida girl wins contest to go to the Emmys\"), and the _Anderson_ segment involved more production than I could have expected. Now, having worked on TV, I don't think it was malicious\u2014you've gotta get that B-roll.  I learned an important show-biz lesson that day: As dubious as the name may be, \"resting bitch face\" is real, and it's the stuff of TV magic. But at the time, I felt a little manipulated. Patrick shot me a confused, angry look. Was this about to go south?\n\n\"Ugh!\" Dominic said. \"That lady was so obnoxious. More power to you\u2014I would've told her off. Seriously, sit down!\"\n\nI tried to go back to the segment, which had moved on to man-on-the-street interviews about the video. Most reactions were positive, with lots of black women agreeing they'd heard the statements before, and even a few white women agreeing that the comments were commonplace. Then the segment reached the last young woman.\n\n**Carnival Pretzel\u2013Level Salty Girl:** By doing it, she's being racist to me.\n\nIt was like I had been transported back to that exact moment and was reliving it in real time. How could she think that me talking about my (very benign) experiences as a black woman was racist? And how did I not scream in the studio the minute she pulled the reverse racism card?\n\n**Anderson:** It's interesting. Franchesca, you heard that last young woman saying that you were being racist to her.\n\n**Me:** I don't think that talking about ignorance is racist. Like I said, I'm not labeling anyone racist, because that would imply that the statements were saying that someone is better than another race, and that's not what any of the statements are doing.\n\nAfter the commercial break, we got to the portion with Megan, and my friends began laughing it off and chatting among themselves. But I couldn't stop going over my responses to Anderson's questions. Actually, maybe saying someone is \"so cute for a black guy\" _does_ imply racial superiority of some kind, right? Using \"It's almost like you're not black\" as a compliment lumps all black people together, and it suggests they're generally worse than white people. Working through the whole thing felt too complicated to explore in a twelve-minute TV segment, so I told myself to let it go. Even though I can see now where I messed up, I had done pretty well for a girl who'd had no publicist, no agent, no manager, and only a pep talk from her boyfriend and dogs to prepare.\n\nBut not everyone was willing to give me so much credit. Or any credit. At all.\n\nIf I could go back in time, I would say, with confidence, \"My video is not racist because I genuinely do not believe that racism against white people exists. Nothing I say or do could ever oppress white people, and my video certainly has not led to the oppression or mistreatment of white people. It might hurt some feelings, but this video isn't about hating white people. It's not about hating anyone. It's shining a light on the experiences black women and people of color face every single day in a world that says we're less than or 'weird' because we aren't white. And if that makes you uncomfortable, maybe you should consider whether the problem lies with you, not me.\"\n\nInstead of a time machine, I had Black Tumblr.\n\nIf I thought my inbox was bad when I first went viral, it was even worse after my _Anderson_ interview aired. A whole new wave of emails, messages, and comments crashed into every social media platform I was on. (Basically all of them.) As the days went on, the comments got more and more vitriolic\u2014it was like my haters were taking time to build the perfect nasty insult. People of all races\u2014or who claimed they were of all races\u2014were calling me names: the N-word, Uncle Tom, slur after slur after slur. I was devastated, and I couldn't understand it.\n\nBefore \"SWGSTBG\" went viral, I prided myself on being super engaged with my modest fan base, so my YouTube account was set to forward any comments on my videos to my email inbox; I wanted to be able to respond to comments in real time. Now that I was the new face of \"reverse racism,\" thousands of hateful comments came straight to me, unfiltered. Although I eventually turned off my email notifications, for months I answered angry comments regularly. I was just so surprised by the backlash that I thought I could reason with people.\n\nFrom one side, there was the conservative white supremacy stuff: I was a racist who hated white people and I should go back to Africa. Having grown up in a fairly diverse and liberal community, I'd never been called a racist before, and I was not prepared. I opted for the _kill them with kindness_ approach: \"I don't hate anyone, but I'd love to visit Africa someday! Thanks for the encouragement! ;)\"\n\nEventually I forced myself to ignore the barrage of racist ramblings\u2014a lesson I would return to over and over again in my career. But the criticism from the other side\u2014from the left\u2014was harder to disregard.\n\nI'd been on the microblogging site Tumblr for a few years, steadily building a loyal audience by posting my hair tutorials and comedy videos and by reblogging viral content and occasionally adding personal commentary or jokes. After keeping a journal throughout high school and college, and abandoning LiveJournal when it was taken over by tweens, moving to Tumblr was a logical next step for me. The site served as a collaborative digital scrapbook\u2014the community was just as much of a draw as the ease of publishing. It took all the work out of finding an audience of like-minded people with similar interests, and the site allowed microcommunities, ranging from fan fiction writers to conspiracy theorists to natural-hair bloggers, to proliferate.\n\nAmong these groups, Tumblr is probably best known for its active social justice community; it's a particularly good platform for marginalized folks to organize, vent, and boost news stories about race, gender, sexuality, mental health, and disability that would otherwise be ignored. When \"SWGSTBG\" went viral, I unwittingly attracted the attention of this community. They rallied behind me when Perez Hilton reuploaded the video without permission on his site (which lost me views, and money). They also used the video as a jumping-off point for lengthy discussions about the dangers of unchecked white privilege, power dynamics in majority-white spaces, respectability politics, and microaggressions. But as Tumblr users unpacked the issues, I was nowhere to be found\u2014I was busy imagining my life as a celebrity, complete with a late-night comedy show gig and an extensive new wardrobe.\n\nWhile I was riding high from my _Anderson_ segment, my newfound Tumblr audience wasn't impressed. Why hadn't I shut down the woman who accused me of being racist toward her? Why hadn't I explained that racism against white people doesn't exist because there's no social structure oppressing white people? Why didn't I explain the concept of white privilege? Why had I said none of the comments in my video were racist when they clearly were? Why had I not used my new national TV platform to define the term \"microaggression\" for the masses? How did I not know about microaggressions? How dare I express sympathy with some of the people who'd been hurt by my video? How dare I have a white boyfriend? How dare I be so stupid?\n\nI was used to white people saying they were upset by or didn't understand my video, but these messages were coming from black people, some of them even from academia. I was transported back to my middle and high school days, when my black peers would tell me I wasn't being black in the right way, that I \"sounded like a white girl\" or wished I were white. To hear Black Tumblr tell it, I had bombed _Anderson_ , and no amount of praise from my agents or parents\u2014or especially from my white boyfriend\u2014was going to change their minds. I knew I'd started a conversation, but only then did I realize I'd suddenly been handed a gigantic platform to talk about race. It was becoming painfully obvious that I was far from prepared. I hadn't understood how much \"SWGSTBG\" meant to the people who felt they needed it most, and to them, I had fumbled the opportunity to turn it into something bigger than just a viral video.\n\nThe backlash, or _black-lash_ , as I started to call it, came to a head when I posted a video sent to me by a white fan. Titled something like \"Why 'Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls' Isn't Racist,\" the clip consists of a twenty-something white guy explaining power dynamics, institutional racism, microaggressions, and the fallacy of \"reverse racism\"\u2014basically everything Black Tumblr had wanted me to say on my _Anderson_ appearance. I thought it was a perfect breakdown that, in a tight five minutes, gave voice to things I'd captured in the video but hadn't been able to quite put into words. So I posted the video on Tumblr, adding a \"disclaimer\": The video repeated things black people have been saying for ages, but the sad truth was that some people would only listen if they were coming from a white person.\n\nWow. This, too, was the wrong thing to do. More than a few people responded that a white \"translator\" shouldn't be necessary for people to understand the issue. I agreed, but did so while holding my ground. I wrote a response on my Tumblr: \"This shouldn't be an 'us vs. them' situation. The fact is that some people will refuse to digest the original message simply because it's coming from a person of color... Call me an idiot if you'd like, but I don't see how supporting someone (regardless of race) whose goal is to educate others deserves a side eye.\"\n\nI shared this and sat back to wait for cookies and agreement for my excellent points. Instead, I got called out, in posts like \"Chescaleigh, sit the fucking fuck down\":\n\nThis here is when I lay a big ass smack down on white-identifying wannabe cracker motherfucking ass... First, you ain't white. I know you wanna be chile, but you're not... You think whitey gonna see any different? HELL to the no. They see you as a N. I. G. G. E. R. PERIOD. Don't for a minute doubt that white people don't see your black ass as a straight up niggerrrrr... It's not \"unfortunate\" that some white people will refuse to take an anti-racist message from a person of color. IT'S RACIST, you racist apologist shitstain on the pants of fucking life... Seriously, what the fuck do you think happened on the Anderson show? White people set you up to be browbeat and shit on. And while I had no problem with you taking it because hey, it's a show, it's something, you actually ate their shit. In a fucking shit pie, served to you, and now you're vomiting it all over everyone, including your now EX-supporters.\n\nI was absolutely crushed. I cried for what felt like an eternity. But instead of logging off, I went down the rabbit hole, hoping to find a way out. As I read every message, comment, and reblog trying to figure out where I'd gone wrong, I felt like my computer was going to burst into flames. I'd fallen into \"callout culture\"\u2014as quickly as I'd become internet famous, I was in danger of losing the trust of the audience I'd built with those two minutes and thirty seconds of satire. I was ripped to shreds because I didn't know what I didn't know during my _Anderson_ appearance, and now I was being ripped to shreds because I didn't know how to respond to being ripped to shreds. I'd gone from confident viral-video-star Franchesca to the high school version of myself\u2014insecure, uncertain, and trying to balance my true self with the woman the world, and especially other black people, wanted me to be. I had just started to shake off the silly \"racist\" label from trolls and confused white people. But how could I shake off being a \"coon\" to the very black people who had, just days before, championed me for telling their stories?\n\nI thought I was hot shit for making a viral video, but it was becoming clear that I had a lot to learn if I wanted to get to Anderson Cooper status someday. This is not an arena where you want to wing it, but I was not ready to be thrust into the role of activist and spokesperson. Like at my _SNL_ audition, I hadn't even realized there was something to wing.\n\nThough many of the commenters were totally off base, some of them had a point. There was no reason to prioritize a white voice in a conversation about black experiences. And while sarcasm and passive aggression made me feel superior to the trolls who slung personal insults and racial slurs, there was no place for it when interacting with people who called themselves fans.\n\nOne of the only reasons I didn't collapse into a puddle of hopelessness after the one-two punch of my failed _SNL_ audition and incurring the wrath of Black Tumblr was that not everyone was calling for me to be permabanned from the cookout. A few black women reached out with some constructive criticism. They sent me reading lists and invites to private Facebook groups, and suddenly my Tumblr dashboard was filled with blogs like _Fuck-Yeah-Feminists!_ , _POC Creators_ , _Colorlines_ , _Racialicious_ , and _RacismSchool_ , which is basically exactly what it sounds like\u2014a primer on all the concepts I'd experienced all the time but had never heard of. My eyes were being opened to new ways to talk about race, the media, and politics. I was starting to feel like I was back in school again, but for a different reason: I was cramming. I wanted to learn as much as I could as fast as possible, not only for myself but because all of a sudden people were coming to me for advice, and asking me for answers I didn't have. Soon I realized that my great talent lay in what I'd been doing, accidentally, in \"SWGSTBG\" and for years on YouTube: I had a knack for explaining things with jokes and pop culture.\n\nSomehow, my agency didn't drop me after I bombed _SNL_ , and it was really cool to realize that the team believed in me and saw my potential. (It helped to remember that Scott had no interaction with Black Tumblr, so he had no idea there was a corner of the internet that believed I should be banned from speaking publicly ever again.) And while it was becoming painfully obvious that I needed to proceed with caution, I now had the support of new online friends and mentors I could vent to and ask for support.\n\nMeanwhile, at my day job, I was sneaking around so much that I felt like I was trying to hide an affair. Thankfully, my manager didn't really care that I was balancing my new life as an activist\/actress with my full-time job; I always managed to get my work done on time and had no problem staying late to finish projects. Nevertheless, I quickly realized that if I wanted to take advantage of all the opportunities in front of me, I would have to quit. My boss didn't seem surprised when I told him I needed to resign, but I couldn't help but cry\u2014I really liked the job, and I had just discovered the beauty of my employee discount. I'm not sure why, but people really sleep on Ann Taylor and their sister store, Loft. I'll admit I wasn't hip to it until I worked there myself, but now let me pass this totally not-sponsored good word on to you: Both brands have cute work and casual wear and bomb accessories, their shoes go up to size 11, and while most people know them as petite-friendly brands, they also carry tall sizes and go up to women's size 18. Now do you understand why I cried so hard?\n\nWhile I didn't have a job to fall back on, I was able to quit because, soon after this whirlwind of a month, YouTube sent me a huge check\u2014about $30,000 initially, and then $15,000 more after the popularity of \"SWGSTBG\" sent traffic to some of my other videos. I had no idea people were making that kind of money on YouTube\u2014and neither did my bank teller.\n\nWhen I went to deposit the first payment at my local branch, a little giddy, a little terrified that the check would somehow disintegrate in my hand between the front door and the counter, the man working asked, \"Whoa. Why is Google giving _you_ this much money?\" It didn't register at the time that I probably should have interpreted this as a backhanded compliment, if not outright racist\u2014I was wondering the same thing myself. Instead of asking to speak to the manager, or just getting a new teller, I asked him if he'd seen the viral YouTube video \"Shit White Girls Say... to Black Girls,\" and explained that my check was payment for the ad views my video had racked up. He admitted to somehow missing the \"Shit Girls Say\" craze. I whipped out my phone so we could watch right there at the counter.\n\nThankfully, he laughed. Although it was a small thing, it gave me some much-needed perspective. Since the nesting dolls of controversy had taken up residence on my desk, my life had felt like it was taking place in the computer, in angry blog posts and furious messages. Getting a chuckle out of this random guy reminded me that my audience wasn't just made up of the most vocal or most online people. Reaching local bank employees was just as important as reaching Tumblr influencers, and slowly but surely, I was developing the vocabulary and confidence to have important conversations with both.\n\n# CHAPTER THREE\n\n# MY REIGN AS YOUTUBE'S CALLOUT QUEEN\n\nIt's impossible to be part of the YouTube community and not be at least familiar with Jenna Mourey, the vlogger better known as Jenna Marbles. The OG \"queen of YouTube,\" she has more than seventeen million subscribers and a life-size wax figure at Madame Tussauds. One of her first videos, \"How to Trick People into Thinking You're Good Looking,\" got over five million views in the first week she posted it; you might also know \"How to Avoid Talking to People You Don't Want to Talk To\" or \"Drunk Makeup Tutorial.\" Her sense of humor is self-deprecating and punny, but she often mixes in a somewhat feminist message. (\"Trick People\" was a pretty biting\u2014if occasionally casually offensive\u2014commentary on the ridiculous beauty standards society holds for women.)\n\n\"Things I Don't Understand About Girls Part 2: Slut Edition,\" which Jenna posted in December 2012, was different. Off the bat, the tone was a little more bitter, a little more \"I'm about to _say some things_.\" Filming in her dining room, with her familiar Spider-Man poster behind her, she begins with a disclosure: The video \"isn't going to be that funny.\" Instead, she says, it's going to be \"questions that I have for sluts.\"\n\nShe tells her viewers they should feel free to disagree with her and sound off in the comments. Then, she proceeds to aggressively attack women who have \"a lot of casual sex.\" She goes on and on about one-night stands, which she does not understand because they put women at risk for getting \"murdered and herpes.\" She criticizes a subcategory of sluts that she calls \"stupid sluts\" and suggests that women who have a lot of casual sex don't deserve respect, making a particular note that sluts who fuck other people's boyfriends are just \"asking for it.\" Etc. It's almost ten minutes long.\n\nObviously, there are a lot of problems with this video. The whole premise, for starters. And are women in committed relationships somehow immune from violent crime or sexually transmitted infections? Several feminist YouTubers took Jenna to task for her textbook sex-negative slut-shaming. They did an awesome job of explaining the nuances of how the language Jenna used to denounce \"sluts\" was exactly the same as the language people use to silence sexual assault survivors and promote the centuries-old sexual double standard we all know and hate. They never attacked her, or said she was a despicable person for making the video. They just calmly explained where she'd gone wrong, why it was wrong, and what she could have done better.\n\nWhen I watched the video, I was disappointed, and I couldn't shake the overwhelming sense of dread that one of her very first comments\u2014about how engaging in \"risky behavior\" like one-night stands can lead to getting raped or murdered\u2014had made me feel. But when I saw what Jenna's followers were commenting on the video, my shock and sadness turned to anger: People were agreeing with her, and many of them seemed young or impressionable. They wrote that they knew women who had been raped and were indeed huge \"sluts.\" Others commented that they had been assaulted, and that this video had opened their eyes to what they should have done differently.\n\nI contemplated diving into the comments, but instead I decided to make a response video because I thought I could contribute something unique to the conversation\u2014a personal experience. In \"How Slut Shaming Becomes Victim Blaming,\" I told half a million people the story of how I \"lost\" my virginity. In reality, I did not misplace my virginity\u2014I know where it went. A girlfriend got me concert tickets for my eighteenth birthday, and I spent the day leading up to the show drinking, feeling pressured by the group of older guys we were with. By the time the concert was over, I was wasted, and I passed out. It wasn't until the next morning that I realized I'd been, in the words of my giggling girlfriend, \"soooo bad\"\u2014I'd \"had sex\" with one of the guys we were with, her boyfriend's older roommate. I remembered none of it, and I couldn't stop feeling guilty about how I could \"let\" myself be date-raped. I begged my friend, who was also my coworker at Blockbuster Video at the time, not to tell anyone we worked with about it. She immediately told everyone, including my manager, and they didn't handle it with discretion at all\u2014they let me know they thought I was a huge \"slut.\" On top of trying to deal with the trauma of being raped, I was totally humiliated. I couldn't afford to quit, so I asked to be moved to a different store and tried to put the whole thing behind me.\n\nI never thought I'd tell that story on the internet. For one thing, I had only ever told my husband, Patrick\u2014I had to call my mom before I posted the video to prepare her for it. Plus, I was still struggling to brand myself as an actress and comedian, and there is nothing funny about this story. I'd quit my graphic design job to focus on acting and writing full-time, but I was still living off my \"SWGSTBG\" money, since I wasn't booking many gigs. I worried about what my new agent would think.\n\nBut I knew that coming forward would be worth it if my story helped just one person. By the time Jenna released her video, I'd gone to therapy, worked through what happened to me, and finally recognized that it was not my fault, but the process had taken a long time. If I had seen Jenna's video soon after my rape, I don't know how I would have dealt with it. For many young women, Jenna is the pinnacle of coolness and success\u2014something to aspire to\u2014and I believed that if her thoughts on \"sluts\" were allowed to float around unchecked, they would cause harm.\n\nAny nerves I felt about calling out a YouTube celebrity\u2014the most famous woman on YouTube, really\u2014dissipated when I thought about all the women who might see my response and feel less alone. Though I was nowhere near Jenna's level of fame, people were starting to see me as someone who had it all figured out. And I was careful not to attack or blame her\u2014I just thought that talking about my experience could show people what it actually means to be a survivor of sexual assault. The truth is, it can happen to anyone.\n\nIn turn, I learned what it actually means to come out as a survivor of sexual assault. When \"Victim Blaming\" went viral, I got a lot of positive responses, and I never doubted my decision to tell my story\u2014people sent messages saying the video had helped them gather the courage to press charges against their rapist or talk to their children about consent. But I also saw firsthand how our culture shames survivors who tell their stories. Jenna's fans were brutal\u2014they said that I was just jealous of her and that I was racist (because of \"SWGSTBG\"), racial slurs were sprinkled throughout my comments, and folks argued that I had somehow ruined the life of the man I was \"accusing of rape\" even though I hadn't named him. (I don't even remember his name.)\n\nI'd hoped that after I spilled my guts, Jenna would see the light and apologize. Maybe my video\u2014combined with the other responses\u2014could be a teachable moment for her. Maybe she'd respond to the criticism with a \"Heal the World\"\u2013style musical apology starring various YouTube celebrities and donate the iTunes proceeds to RAINN.\n\nShe didn't do any of that. In the immediate aftermath, she silently removed the video from her channel and posted a condescending Facebook status about how people needed to learn to take a joke. She'd opened her video by encouraging differing opinions, but it was clear she wasn't interested in hearing anything other than \"lolol sluts.\" In a _New York Times_ interview about a year later, she said she'd been \"crucified\" for it.\n\nThat sucked, but whatever. I hadn't made my video for Jenna, anyway; I'd made it for her young fans. Though I had to endure a racist, sexist backlash (which, as you can tell, quickly became way too familiar to me), I knew I'd contributed something positive to the conversation. And it was a reminder that doing the right thing is hard and sometimes doesn't have the outcome you expect, or want.\n\nI thought that was that, and I moved on. Then, three years later, I got a suspicious email through the contact form on my website. I thought it was someone trolling me, which happens a lot, especially when it comes to my more controversial videos. But I asked around and figured out the email really did come from who the sender said she was. It was Jenna Marbles, writing to apologize for the way she handled the situation, and to thank me for having the courage to call her out and tell my story.\n\nI'd had a lot of experience with what we now know as callout culture after the _Anderson Live_ appearance. But the situation with Jenna Marbles was the first time I got attention for being the caller and not the unsuspecting person picking up the phone. Though strangers who can't spell send you vile, insulting messages no matter whose side you're on, it was obviously a very different experience to be the referee.\n\nInstead of shying away, I decided to dive in. Because I wasn't working regularly, I spent a lot of time on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and YouTube, and although I wouldn't say I went looking for stuff to get mad about, I was more likely to chime in on trending stories or wade into comment sections to tell someone why what they said was racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, or otherwise absolutely not okay. Eventually people started telling me I should comment on certain issues, sending me bigoted or prejudiced posts and asking if I'd heard about some awful thing so-and-so had said.\n\nWhenever I got involved\u2014which was often\u2014I felt like I had to. Because no one else was, or because no one with an audience was, and I wanted to use my newish success for good. It felt like an uphill battle, but one I genuinely thought was worth it. I developed such a reputation as a callout queen that people began acting like it was my job\u2014I became the go-to girl for defending marginalized people from bigotry, the final leg in the internet's racism relay. Posted a \"comedy\" sketch about slave rape? I was coming for you. An eight-minute video complaining about diversity and HIV testing? Please hold while I charge my camera batteries. In the habit of dropping the N-word and donning blackface and never seeing repercussions? Until now! I didn't care how many subscribers you had or how beloved you were, I was happy to put my SEO  skills to work and dig up your oldest, most racist videos, screencap them, and set them free like an injured bird I'd nursed back to health that was now ready to fly. It was cool to have an online identity and to be praised for it, and although the onslaught of abuse from my adversaries' fans often left me shaking and crying in front of my computer, I would always get an adrenaline rush out of it. I felt like I was changing the world\u2014or at least the internet\u2014for the better.\n\nThe first time I realized that I might have been misplacing my newfound social media power, if not using it for outright evil, came a few months after the Jenna Marbles incident. A man claiming to be named Andrew Moskowitz posted a Facebook comment on a _New York Times_ article about racist hiring practices; claiming to be a hiring manager, Moskowitz wrote that he threw away a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 if it had a name like Tamisha on it. On Twitter and Tumblr, people were enraged, and they took it upon themselves to get him fired from his job. But first, they had to find out where he worked.\n\nSomeone on Twitter started saying he worked at the Monroe Cotton Mills in Monroe, Georgia. The evidence? Well, Sherlock, he'd checked into the company on his Facebook page, so clearly they were mailing out his W-2. Not to mention that the idea of a racist working at a former cotton mill was almost poetic. With the company name in hand, everyone began bombarding the Monroe Cotton Mills with emails demanding action against Racist Andrew. Meanwhile, other users had confused the Monroe Cotton Mills with the nearby Cotton Warehouse and began sending _them_ similar messages, as well as posting negative reviews on the business's Yelp page. The managers of both companies were perplexed.\n\n\"I have NEVER heard that name until 11 AM this morning, when I started getting emails sent to me during church asking why I hired a racist,\" one manager told the _Daily Dot_. \"I have no idea where this guy works,\" the other manager said.\n\nThe Mills\/Warehouse confusion was quickly quashed, but no one was willing to believe that the vigilante anti-racism force we'd assembled was mistaken and Moskowitz didn't work at either place. I, too, thought something fishy was going on, so I called the Monroe Cotton Mills and, in my best Southern belle accent, asked to speak to Mr. Moskowitz. The receptionist told me that although he wasn't there when we called, Andrew Moskowitz did work for the company and would be in on Monday. Got him!\n\nWhen people suggested that maybe we should lay off until we had more information, I confidently replied that I had called the company and confirmed Moskowitz did work there. I continued: The manager of the Cotton Mills was probably just attempting to cover up their racist mistake by saying Moskowitz didn't work there, so we should call back on Monday, when he'd be in the office. After who knows how many people called his office and screamed at this receptionist for her duplicity, someone finally figured out that she worked for an answering service, not the Cotton Mills, and was required to answer any inquiry with \"He's not in right now, but he can get back to you some other day.\" We had wasted not only our time and energy, but the time and energy of a bunch of innocent small-business employees.\n\nI was embarrassed, but the drama was addicting. Even when it backfired, I thought it ultimately generated more awareness of important issues. At the end of the day, wasn't I doing this for the issues?\n\nIn retrospect, I'm pretty sure some of the people I spent hours calling out on Twitter were baiting me. Many YouTubers and \"internet personalities\" have made careers out of getting their audiences to join out-of-proportion controversy, and I fell for it more times than I'd like to admit. Last year, I found a post on the _Daily Stormer_ , the white supremacist message board that was instrumental in organizing the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, that detailed how easy it was to troll me. There were screenshots featuring me going back and forth with racists, trying to reason with them and getting madder and madder. It was a wake-up call. There are people whose Twitter feeds consist entirely of antagonistic @-replies that they send to random people until someone bites. This is a game to them. They want you to waste your time on them instead of having productive conversations with people who matter.\n\nI was always calm and reasonable when I presented my points, but it didn't matter\u2014each time, I was inundated with abuse, slurs, and death threats. People contacted my agent and suggested I should be dropped because of my \"anti-white\" tendencies. The trolls' responses were always totally disproportionate to the critique\u2014I'd argue it would be pretty cool if police could stop killing unarmed black people, and someone would respond \"I hope you become the next hashtag\"\u2014but it doesn't matter. Even if you know you're right, eventually you start to get tired.\n\nSocial media has always thrived on the kind of drama fueled by callout campaigns\u2014all you have to do is write a single tweet about why what Katy Perry did was #NotOK, and suddenly you've mobilized tens of thousands of people to... do what, exactly? The sense of deep moral righteousness each party feels in the heat of the moment, furiously typing out clapbacks and subtweets before members of the opposing #TeamWhoever can get their barbs in, gives the whole thing the illusion of importance when it's almost always infighting, or attention seeking. I used a track-and-field analogy earlier, but sometimes it feels more like the WWE\u2014laying the smack down with the perfect GIF.\n\nAfter a while, I still felt like I was changing the internet, but I wondered if it might be for the worse. I was letting these attacks consume my time, and more and more it started to feel like my career depended on other people saying stupid shit instead of me saying good shit. I was giving so much of my attention to people who were intentionally posting hateful things online instead of focusing on my own career and my own audience.\n\nIt all came to a head in early 2016, around the time I was hired to work on _The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore_. I was invited to the Sundance Film Festival to participate in a program the festival was cosponsoring with YouTube. It was my first time at Sundance, and I was excited to attend the premiere of _The Skinny_ , a new web series that was going to run on Refinery29. It was being billed as an unapologetically feminist project, and Jill Soloway,  the creator of _Transparent_ , was executive-producing it.\n\nSo I was pretty surprised when the series began to roll and it was racist. Not, like, a little bit racist, but like _Hot Asian women keep \"stealing\" men from the white protagonist and it's NOT FAIR_ racist. _Black guys are being objectified, but also portrayed as dangerous rapists_ racist. _A joke about police brutality in the first episode_ racist.\n\nI sat through all six episodes, feeling more and more defeated, and when the lights came on and the panel discussion began, I assumed someone was going to say something. But the praise was rapturous. _The Skinny_ was a feminist masterpiece! Its body-positivity was transformative! Jill Soloway and their team were really \"standing up to patriarchy\"!\n\nWhen the Q&A period rolled around, I stood up to ask a question. I didn't want to offend Jill, or make a scene\u2014I was invited to Sundance as an up-and-coming voice, I had just gotten my first job writing for TV, and honestly, the altitude was fucking with my head\u2014so I tried to be positive. \"There are lot of funny elements in this,\" I said, \"and I want it to succeed. But although Jill mentioned intersectionality, the only women of color in the series were being mocked and resented for their sexuality. The series also fetishized black men while implying that they're dangerous. Why did you go in that direction? Have you considered how to rectify the issue for the next season?\"\n\nJill and the moderator didn't know what to do. Jill went on the defensive; the moderator tried to talk her way out of it. \"How are black men being fetishized?\" the moderator asked. \"It's true! Black men love me, and I'm fat!\"\n\nIt was too much. After the panel, I just wanted to get out of there, but as soon as the crowd was dismissed, Jill Soloway and the moderator came over and asked to talk. I didn't really want to, and I told them so, but a crowd was forming, and from a career standpoint, I knew it probably wasn't wise to snub everyone's new favorite television director. But then Jill said something that made me downright sick to my stomach. \"You're right,\" they said. \"We need more women of color who write. Where are they?\"\n\nFor a second, I couldn't say anything. Where are they? I was a black woman who had been invited to Sundance because I was a promising TV writer. I was standing right in front of Jill, and it was like they couldn't see me. Or didn't want to.\n\nI began to feel backed into a corner, literally and figuratively. I heard Jill say, \"Next time you're in LA you need to come over.\" I told them I didn't want to come over and didn't want to be their friend, and that if they wanted more women of color to participate in their projects they would have to work to find them. Maybe start by looking at Sundance? They went back to saying it was actually not racist to produce a scene in which a white woman asks a bunch of black men if they would fuck her and then wonders if black men have lower standards than white guys.\n\nWhen I finally got back to my hotel room, I was nervous and fuming, and I took out my phone. This is probably not the best way to handle your anger, but it was what I did: I recorded a series of videos, talking about how fucking frustrating the whole thing was, even crying a little at the end, and posted it to my Snapchat.\n\nThe video was resonating with other women of color who'd had to deal with white-feminist doublespeak\u2014the \"I'm on your side\" that becomes \"I'm actually more on your side than you are.\" My fans started encouraging me to post the video on my blog so more people would be able to see it, since Snapchat videos disappear after twenty-four hours. I was still mad, so I slapped on a title\u2014\"Here's What Happens When You Call Out White Feminists\"\u2014and up it went.\n\nI should have known the post would take off\u2014I was cursing and crying and dropping pop-culture keywords like \"Jill Soloway\" and \"white feminists.\" I made it in the heat of the moment and didn't take enough time to process what had happened, which made it ideal content for the internet. Soon enough, bloggers began to blog, and angry commenters began to harass Jill, leaving comments on their Instagram calling them a racist bitch and saying the world would be better off if they killed themselves. Jill emailed me to let me know they were still on my side, not my enemy, and to again extend the invitation to come to their house. I told them not to email me again.\n\nWhen the furor died down a few days later, I felt gross on multiple levels. I still had a bad taste in my mouth from the original incident, but I also felt responsible for my fans, who had taken their harassment campaign to inappropriate levels. I worried the frenzy would jeopardize my job on _The Nightly Show_. Even though I'd never directly sic my followers on someone, I was starting to realize how much influence I had. I was not just a girl from South Florida making videos in her bedroom\u2014I had a following of all sorts of random people who could and would do things I don't agree with on my behalf.\n\nThere wasn't much I could do at that point\u2014the damage was done. But I was so embarrassed by the hysteria. A couple of weeks later, when Jill announced they would be directing a new Amazon series, I saw a comment from someone saying they weren't going to watch the show because of what Jill \"did to Franchesca Ramsey.\" Though it was by no means the strongest language ever used by an internet commenter, it was clear that I'd had a lasting impact on this person's reputation. My story had reached corners of the internet I hadn't anticipated, and I wasn't sure how to feel about it.\n\nI made a vague tweet and Tumblr post reminding my audience that my speaking publicly about an issue or person wasn't a call to arms. From then on, I knew I had to take this stuff more seriously\u2014for my own mental health, for my career, and in order to create the kind of online community I didn't dread participating in.\n\nThat's not to say I stopped getting into Twitter arguments, because I didn't. A queen doesn't give up her crown so easily. During my first year on TV, as my visibility increased, I couldn't help but try to defend myself against all the new people, both anonymous and public, coming for me. But I did it the old-fashioned way\u2014passive-aggressive shade. No naming names, and I always shared articles from trusted sources instead of random people whose worldview happened to align perfectly with mine. I realized that if I wanted to effect any actual change, my commentary had to focus on the systems, not individual scapegoats.\n\nI learned the hard way that callout culture is much more complicated than it seems\u2014it's not as simple as \"If you see something, say something.\" I used to treat social media like a tool; in reality, it's more like a double-edged sword. Just as I've developed a career and an audience on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, I've seen how easy it is for information, whether it's true or false, to spread quickly on these platforms, and I know it's almost impossible to take it back once it's out there. Motives are questionable and drama is real.\n\n_Okay_ , you're probably thinking, _but the internet is full of prejudice and bigotry. What should I do? How do I know if I should call someone out or take the conversation offline? And what am I even supposed to say? You know I'm addicted to Facebook, so don't even think about telling me to delete my account and spend more time with my family._\n\nI would never tell you to delete your account. (Though you probably should spend more time with your family.) Instead, I made a guide.\n\n# CALLING IN VS. CALLING OUT: THE GUIDE\n\n**CALL OUT (VERB): TO BRING ATTENTION PUBLICLY TO ANOTHER PERSON'S BIGOTED SPEECH, BEHAVIOR, SOUND BITE, JOKE, LYRIC, ARTICLE, FACEBOOK POST, TWEET, INSTAGRAM STORY, SNAPCHAT STORY, ROLE IN A TELEVISION SHOW OR FILM, OR PERFORMANCE, ESPECIALLY ON _SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE_ OR AT THE MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS**\n\n**GOAL: TO MAKE THE BIGOTED PERSON AWARE OF THEIR MISTAKE AND\/OR TO RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT A GIVEN ISSUE**\n\nCalling out shady behavior online has become many people's first response when they encounter prejudice, bigotry, or anything they think might possibly indicate prejudice or bigotry if you squint real hard and write a two-thousand-word essay about it. But in most cases, it should be reserved for taking large, powerful entities\u2014celebrities, brands, and media\u2014to task when they screw up. Which they inevitably do. This is because (1) they should know better, and (2) taking Emma \"Definitely White\" Stone out to coffee to discuss the history of whitewashing in Hollywood wasn't really an option for most of us after she was cast as a mixed-race tour guide in the film _Aloha_. (She was supposed to be a quarter Chinese and a quarter Pacific Islander.) On such a large scale, using social media to criticize the film industry's long tradition of ignoring Asian actresses\u2014and to question white actresses like Emma Stone and Scarlett Johansson for willingly participating in that erasure\u2014is the best and most effective action. These campaigns can snowball into progress; though _Aloha_ still came out as planned, both Stone and the director admitted they'd made a mistake, apologized, and said the controversy had opened their eyes. (And the fact that the movie flopped, as did ScarJo's _Ghost in the Shell_ , was a healthy serving of poetic justice.) Another example of a successful callout campaign is the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, created by Twitter user and badass organizer @ReignofApril to highlight the lack of diversity among the 2015 Oscar nominees. After it blew up the following year, the Academy took note and committed to diversifying its membership.\n\nBut callouts can happen between two-hundred-follower Joes, too. Say you're wasting your lunch break on Facebook one day when you see that your friend Eric has posted two strongly worded paragraphs dead-naming   the \"moronic Trump supporter\" Caitlyn Jenner and calling her a \"man in a dress.\" While unfriending Eric is certainly an option, maybe you don't want to unfriend him\u2014last time you two saw each other you had a surprisingly great conversation about buying window blinds. What if he just doesn't know any better? So you decide to call him out and let the rest of your Facebook friends know what will and won't fly on your page.\n\nAttention fam: Since Eric Peterson apparently thinks it's OK to post transphobic garbage about Caitlyn Jenner all over my timeline, I wanted to make something very clear: It's not OK! While I agree that Caitlyn \"SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS,\" her bad political opinions have nothing to do with her gender or her body. Please don't make the mistake Eric did and think that just because Caitlyn supports the orange toad in the White House, you can deny her the right to identify however she wants. My feminism extends to women I don't like, however misguided they may be, and so should yours.\n\nOn the plus side, you've gotten your point across to more than just \"Eric.\" You might feel pretty good about yourself for standing up for what's right. But by making the conversation public, and tagging Eric in the post, no less, you've also opened the door for drama\u2014not just for the unsuspecting Eric, who may be going through who knows what personal crisis in his own life right now, but also for yourself. It's going to be very hard to resist participating in the ninety-four-comment thread that is about to ensue on your timeline, and your lunch break is almost up. Maybe Eric will see the error of his ways, but I'm willing to bet he'd be more likely to do so if you didn't publicly humiliate him first.\n\nCalling out high-profile brands and celebrities can also backfire. In 2016 the internet was blowing up over a Chinese commercial featuring a \"dirty\" black man who is transformed into a \"clean\" Chinese man after a woman forces him into her washing machine. People rightfully deemed the ad \"super racist\" and \"the most racist TV commercial ever made\"; think pieces about anti-blackness in media around the world rolled in. But the attention also made the commercial go viral, racking up hundreds of millions of views and, presumably, revenue. While the conversation was necessary, the conspiracy theorist in me often wonders if brands and celebrities are sometimes purposefully \"screwing up\" in order to ride the viral outrage all the way to the bank. (Before the detergent company apologized and removed the ad from the internet\u2014to the best of their ability\u2014a representative told the _New York Times_ they had wanted the commercial to be \"sensational.\")\n\nCallouts are also risky because you can't unring a bell. If your message is directed at the wrong person\u2014or if any of the details are incorrect\u2014you can end up with a giant mess on your hands. I learned this with the Moskowitz\/Cotton Mills fiasco, but it was really driven home to me during one of my (infamous) Twitter rants. A video of an unconscious young girl being sexually assaulted had recently gone viral, and the internet was being predictably awful. My caps lock was unwavering as I batted down trolls left and right. \"IF YOU'RE UNCONSCIOUS. YOU! CANNOT! CONSENT! PERIOD! THAT'S RAPE FOLKS!\" But streams of nasty comments and memes continued to pour into my mentions as people from all walks of life did Cirque du Soleil\u2013level backflips to explain away this young girl's rape. In my flurry of replies, I noticed one that said something like \"Sometimes you get too drunk and stuff happens.\" After a quick glance at the attached profile, I fired back. \"As a woman you should know better. Take your victim-blaming bullshit elsewhere.\" Instead of replying directly, which would've kept our conversation off my main timeline, I made my reply public so it would be visible to my more than fifty thousand followers and added, \"Yet another lost girl upholding the patriarchy. *tear drop emoji*\" Soon enough, my followers\u2014as well as random users\u2014started chiming in to say she was a victim blamer and disgrace to women. No girl was safe around her.\n\nBut as the girl tried to defend herself it became painfully obvious that I'd made a terrible mistake. She wasn't victim blaming at all\u2014she was talking about her personal experience. As internet users around the world yelled at her, she tried to explain that she'd been in a similar situation and it wasn't a big deal because ultimately she felt it was her own fault. She wasn't trying to speak for the girl in the video.\n\nI immediately posted a public apology and deleted my original tweet, hoping I could undo some of the damage I'd caused, but it was too late. I sent the girl a private message, asking for forgiveness and trying to reassure her that she'd done nothing to deserve being assaulted. No response. I tried again and got an error message: \"This account no longer exists.\"\n\nI still feel horrible about the way the entire exchange went down. I thought I was doing the right thing, but my quick response was driven by the attention I was getting from my audience. I was being praised for \"keeping it real\" while disregarding who was on the end of that \"realness\"\u2014a young girl who needed compassion and support, not a dog pile.\n\nSo before you spring into action to take down the latest brand, celebrity, media outlet, or random college student with seventy-eight followers, ask yourself:\n\n1. **What's the issue?** A celebrity denying police brutality in an interview is not the same as a celebrity giving a bad tip at the bar where your friend works.\n\n2. **What's at stake?** Could someone lose friends\/their job over this? Or will they just feel really bad (assuming they have a soul and feelings)?\n\n3. **Do I have all the details?** Your bartender friend has always liked to embellish. Is it possible that Olivia Wilde tipped in cash and that's why she wrote \"0.00\" on the receipt?\n\n4. **Why are you doing this?** Do you want to raise awareness of a problem, or do you want to raise awareness of your Twitter account, which you believe is scandalously underfollowed?\n\n5. **What are the best-and worst-case scenarios following this callout?**\n\n6. **And finally: Would it be better to _call in_ instead?**\n\n**CALL IN (VERB): TO INITIATE A ONE-ON-ONE CONVERSATION TO MAKE ANOTHER PERSON AWARE OF THEIR OWN BIGOTED SPEECH, BEHAVIOR, ETC.**\n\n**GOAL: TO HELP AN INDIVIDUAL LEARN FROM THEIR MISTAKE AND MOVE FORWARD PRODUCTIVELY**\n\nWhereas callouts can leave you feeling like you successfully rallied a group to save fifty puppies from a burning animal shelter run by Cruella de Vil's competitive stepsister, calling in is more like doing extra-credit homework even though there's a chance it won't improve your grade. When someone you know says something incredibly ignorant, walking them through where they went wrong can be time consuming and emotionally draining. And there's no guarantee it'll even be worth it. Thinking she was just going to have a chill catch-up session with her long-lost college roommate, Problematic Angela could very well get defensive and tell you to get over [insert awful thing she said]. The only thing people hate more than being wrong is admitting they were wrong. Like going to the gynecologist, calling in is awkward at first, but it gets easier every time\u2014though unlike going to the gyno, you will not get a lollipop afterward, or peace of mind about your reproductive health.\n\nThe biggest difference between calling out and calling in is tone. While I wouldn't suggest coming out of the gate with social justice lingo, \"Hey, asshole! That was transphobic!\" feels very different from \"Heeeeey... I actually wanted to talk to you about that. It was kind of transphobic.\" The call-in voice is like the stupid airplane noises you make when you're feeding your nephew a spoonful of veggies. Holding little Brendan's mouth open while you shovel in the mushy peas is not going to make him eat, but the _vroom vroom_ sounds make those peas go down easier and might even set him on the path toward healthy eating habits for the future.\n\nThough call-ins work best in person and one-on-one, they can also happen online, and even publicly. When Kerry Washington described Kate Winslet as her \"spirit animal\" on Twitter, I wasn't the only one who cringed. The term gets thrown around a lot, but most people don't realize it's incredibly disrespectful to Native communities. While plenty of people criticized Kerry's choice of words, I was pleasantly surprised by how many did so by calling her in. Even though it's only 140 characters, @ RanaLaPine's tweet \"Please don't use the term 'spirit animal' like that. Disrespectful to indigenous beliefs and communities\" strikes the perfect balance: It informs without insulting or putting Kerry on blast. It's straightforward without being too blunt. And while it's no secret that Kerry Washington is the best, I like to believe that the fact that no one called her a shit-stain had something to do with her gracious response: \"So, I'd never been schooled to concept that using 'spirit animal' in the way I just did is cultural appropriation. I get it. I apologize. TY!\" What did we do to deserve someone so heavenly?\n\nAfter I became disillusioned with my role as YouTube's callout queen, I began toying with the idea of a softer approach. Soon, I had an opportunity to test it out at a tech conference when a woman came out of nowhere and uttered the five words every natural-haired girl dreads (no pun intended): \"Can I touch your hair?\"\n\nThe woman asking already had her hand outstretched, inches away from my perfectly coiled locs. We were all scarfing hors d'oeuvres, so when I think of this memory I always imagine her fingers covered in grease. I swerved out of the way just in time and tried to smile as I responded, \"I'd rather you not.\"\n\nWho knows why, but homegirl was not having it. You'd think I'd just spit in her tuna tartare and asked her to thank me. \"Are you serious?\" she asked. \"Why? Seriously, why not? You can touch my hair.\" Her voice trembled as she repositioned herself, planted her feet, and leaned her head toward me, as if most people walk around just desperate to tousle strangers' updos. In that moment I knew she wished she could ask to speak to the manager.\n\n\"Lemme ask you something,\" she continued. \"Do you always wear your hair that way?\" Was she trying to trick me? I hesitated for a second and then said no, I didn't normally wear my hair in curls. \"Right,\" she responded, seeming satisfied. \"So then you have to expect that people will want to touch your hair if it doesn't always look like that.\"\n\nIt made no sense. But instead of telling her she was being ridiculous and low-key racist, I decided to take the high road. \"Look,\" I said. \"There's a long history of black women's bodies and hair being constantly poked, prodded, and disrespected, so it's really not the same when you offer to let me touch your hair in exchange. I'm sure you didn't mean any harm, but I'm not a petting zoo.\"\n\nThe woman looked at me with a mix of confusion, embarrassment, and guilt, similar to the way my dog Filthy looks when I catch him pulling a pair of underwear out of my hamper. \"Here, let's start over,\" I added, feeling\u2014I'll be honest\u2014pretty smug. \"Hi, I'm Franchesca.\" She timidly shook my hand and introduced herself.\n\nI can't tell you what her name was, because by that point I'd moved on to my victory lap. I pretended like nothing had happened and introduced myself to the small group of eavesdroppers who had gathered around us. While I can't say for sure whether the woman learned something that day, on a personal level, I felt much better than I did after spending six hours in a Twitter-induced rage.\n\nCalling in is generous, because it shows you're not giving up on someone, but it can also be an act of self-care: You're saving yourself the emotional energy that comes with giving in to anger. I could've easily gotten angry with that woman at the party, and I'd have had every right to: She had been disrespectful at best and racist at worst. But I knew that calling her out and drawing attention to her racism would have done both of us more harm than good. I would have spent the rest of the conference feeling upset and guilty, and no one wants to network with someone who's distracted and angry. Plus, making a scene would have made me look really bad.\n\nSo: Let's say you want to call in your childhood best friend or cousin. How do you start? Let's go back to the Caitlyn Jenner rant, but now, instead of Eric Peterson, the random guy who convinced you to spring for the full blackout shades in your bedroom, the transphobic garbage is coming from your partner, your favorite uncle, or a close friend. Suddenly, cutting ties isn't a viable option.\n\nAn effective call-in is honest, informative, cautionary, and direct: HICD. Hic'd? Sorry there isn't a better acronym; believe me, I tried. You can remember this because... there will most likely be _hiccups_ throughout this difficult chat?\n\nHere's how it should go:\n\n**H** onest: There's no reason to dance around the subject, so let the person know what you want to talk about up front, and then clearly state how their comment made you feel. The goal is to drive home that this conversation is important to you and your relationship.\n\n\"Hey, Jude. Can we talk about that Caitlyn Jenner comment you made the other day? It made me uncomfortable, and I want us to get on the same page about it.\"\n\n**I** nformative: Next, go over exactly what happened as you saw it, and then dig into why the comment or behavior was hurtful. You don't need to go full TED Talk here\u2014you don't want this to feel like a lecture\u2014but if you've got personal anecdotes or historical context to strengthen your explanation, that could really help. It's also important to link the behavior to the broader societal issue that it reinforces\u2014it's not just about personal hurt feelings, but about supporting a culture of oppression and mistreatment.\n\n\"Look, there are plenty of things to criticize Caitlyn for. She's oblivious to her white privilege and her class privilege, and she uses her power as a celebrity recklessly. But her being trans has nothing to do with those privileges; her gender identity is separate from the fact that she is not very smart and voted for Cheetolini. Referring to her by her old name and gender is not only disrespectful to her\u2014it says to all trans people that their experiences can be invalidated as soon as they do something wrong.\"\n\n**C** autionary: At this point in the conversation, most people get defensive and try to steer you over the \"That's not what I meant\" bridge or the \"It wasn't my intention to offend you\" path. I told you this wouldn't be easy. Thankfully, that rickety bridge and dusty road both lead directly to the \"Intent doesn't absolve impact\" bush. That one's pretty thorny to wriggle out of. Help them out gently.\n\n\"I know it's hard to stand up for people who are shitty; I don't want to excuse the ignorant things Caitlyn has said and done. But bigotry is not a shortcut to criticism.\"\n\nWhile the \"It wasn't my intention\" nonapology often gets conversations off track, it can be worth indulging\u2014but only just a little. Drive home that intention doesn't take back the damage done, and make it clear that if they don't want to be misunderstood or misrepresented, they need to be more cautious.\n\n\"I'm sure you didn't mean it like that, but saying that sort of thing makes you sound transphobic. And I know that's not you.\"\n\nWhen people are inevitably hung up on their intentions, I once heard this analogy: If you accidentally step on someone's toe and break it, it doesn't matter that you didn't mean to break their toe. The toe is still broken, and you have to make up for that somehow.\n\n**D** irect: The entire conversation should be direct, but if they're feeling confused or mad or like the whole world is shifting around them, you can also steer them to some resources in case they want to learn more. If they seem receptive, send links to videos, articles, or other media that can offer additional perspective.\n\nNow it's time for some cold, hard truth. As admirable as calling in may be, sometimes... it doesn't work. It takes a certain level of empathy, maturity, and introspection to make it through these kinds of conversations, and not everyone is cut out for it. For some people, acknowledging their privilege and recognizing how their words or actions uphold oppression is too big of an ask. While I believe that anyone can grow and learn, I know that not everyone wants to. \"I'm sorry you feel that way\" will always be easier to say than \"I'm sorry I made you feel that way. I'll do better.\"\n\nEven more cold, hard truth: Whether you're calling someone out or in, your relationship to the person matters, both in how you decide how to act (are they worth the trouble?) and in how they'll take your message. Remember the white guy who made that video explaining why \"Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls\" wasn't racist? A lot of people were (rightfully) mad about the implications of that post\u2014the idea that no one will listen when black people tell their own stories, so white people have to speak for them.\n\nUnfortunately, that white guy was actually onto something. It's scientifically proven that people are more receptive to criticism when it comes from someone who looks like them. In 2016, Kevin Munger, a researcher at the NYU Social Media and Political Participation lab, decided he wanted to see if it was even possible to limit racist harassment on social media. Though they're getting better, social platforms themselves are really bad at stopping their users from spewing hot, bigoted bile into the world\u2014research shows that although banning users who harass other users works in the short term, in the long run it can actually fuel whatever behavior it attempted to curb. Getting punished\u2014whether by being called out or banned\u2014makes harassers feel victimized when they encounter the consequences of their own behavior. Some might call this kind of oversensitivity \"being a snowflake,\" but that would be petty and we don't want to do that. Armed with the understanding that punishment from \"the man\" had the potential to backfire, Munger wondered whether regular people might do a better job at fighting racist trolls.\n\nSo, as one does, he built some fake Twitter accounts. (He called them \"bots\" even though he controlled them.) One group of bots had a white guy in their profile pictures (and names like Greg), and the other group had a black person in their profile pictures (and names like Rasheed). Sounds plausible, right? Munger gave the bots varying numbers of followers, from a handful to around five hundred, suspecting that \"high status\" users who had more followers would be more persuasive than some guy named Steve with eleven friends.\n\nArmed with these catfish bros, Munger began to search particular racial slurs on Twitter. Switching off between Gregs and Rasheeds, he responded to users who had a history of racist harassment with the same message:\n\n@[racist person] Hey man, just remember that there are real people who are hurt when you harass them with that kind of language\n\nMunger chose to respond to users who presented as white men on Twitter or were completely anonymous. Then, he tracked their tweets for two months after he responded to them, to see whether they kept tweeting racist bullshit or reformed and turned into Maxine Waters fan accounts.\n\nThe results were surprising, but also not surprising. The only group that was able to significantly reduce the racists' use of slurs was\u2014can you guess?\u2014the white guys with five hundred followers. Obviously, this suggests that if you want a white guy to see the error in his racism, you should have a white guy point it out to him.\n\nBut it got more depressing: Turns out, when white guys are called out by black guys, it can actually make them _more_ racist. In certain cases, Munger found that Rasheed just made things worse, with users increasing their usage of slurs in the months following the reply. Unfortunately, \"sanctioning behaviors\" that highlight the difference between the two parties involved don't usually work. (Munger's research is published in the journal _Political Behavior_ , if you want to check it out in full.)\n\nThis principle\u2014that people in a given community have to be accountable for educating others in that community\u2014doesn't just apply to conversations about racism. Cis people need to step up and talk to other cis people about their casual transphobia, dude bros should talk to other dude bros about the importance of consent, and so on. And while there are no guarantees, finding common ground can often make things easier. When Jenna Marbles emailed me to apologize for the \"Things I Don't Understand\" video, I responded. But I didn't want to gloat or insult her, or overwhelm her with a rant about how her apology would never be able to erase the psychological damage she'd inflicted on innocent teenagers. I don't think that's true, and I don't think she's a bad person. However, I did encourage her to admit her mistake and apologize publicly. Her platform had only grown since the incident, and sexual assault within the YouTube community is becoming more and more of a visible problem. People are so bad at apologizing and taking responsibility for their mistakes, I wrote, that if she did it, so many people who look up to her might learn something.\n\nAs far as I know, she still hasn't come out about the incident. But sometimes people surprise you. A year after my Sundance back-and-forth with Jill Soloway, the _Los Angeles Times_ reported on a similar argument that broke out over a women-in-film lunch at the very same festival. Guests like Shirley MacLaine and Salma Hayek were discussing the recent election of Donald Trump and the importance of not feeling \"victimized\" when Jessica Williams, _The Daily Show_ 's former \"senior Beyonc\u00e9 correspondent\" and all-around black Renaissance woman, started to speak.\n\n\"What if you are a person of color, or a transgendered [sic] person who\u2014just from how you look\u2014you already are in a conflict?\" she asked the table.\n\nThe conversation began to get heated, and some of the guests, especially Salma Hayek, began objecting to Jessica's tone, or even to the idea that she should identify as a black woman at all. Ah, yes, the old notion that \"not seeing race\" makes racism go away. People were speaking over her. The conversation was beginning to slip away. And then Jill Soloway stepped in.\n\n\"With intersectional feminism, it's our responsibility as white women to recognize that when there are people of color or people who are queer\u2014we need to prioritize your voices and let you speak the loudest and learn from your experience, because we haven't been listening,\" Jill said to the table. \"So please, Jessica, finish your thoughts.\"\n\nWhen I read this story, my eyes were so wide I'm surprised they didn't fall out of my head. Jill had nailed it. Not only did they school the women at the table, they passed the mic back to Jessica like a seasoned backup singer assisting with the chorus before falling back for the next verse. Despite the tears, heated emails, and nasty Instagram comments of the previous year, I couldn't help but wonder: Had I, in some small way, helped Jill become the ally they were that day?\n\nIf there were some foolproof way to mend hearts and relationships when these kinds of awkward situations arise, you best believe I wouldn't put it in a book\u2014I'd patent it, sell it on QVC for four easy payments of $19.95, and put the rest of my lineage through college. But my kids will probably end up taking out loans like everyone else, because there is no magic solution for opening, or changing, people's minds. There will undoubtedly be times where there's no resolution, and you'll leave the conflict frustrated and drained. And then there will be other times, maybe a month or even a few years later, when it will all feel worth it.\n\n# CHAPTER FOUR\n\n# BETWEEN A LOC AND A HARD PLACE\n\n## The Chescalocs Story\n\nThe only thing worse than asking to touch a black woman's hair is \"asking\" while simultaneously stroking her luscious curls as if you were at a petting zoo. And while this is a particularly common experience for black women, in reality it often feels as if black and brown folks with any sort of kink or curl are forced to move through the world like they're guarding classified government files on their heads. Thankfully the politics surrounding black hair have become much more visible over the last few years. More people are accepting their natural textures and are less hesitant to lay the smack down when people start policing, ogling, fondling, yanking, and making rude comments about the \"omg so weird!\" texture of black hair.\n\nThese days, there's a booming natural hair community online, which has led more people to feel like \"going natural\" is a viable option\u2014politically, practically, and professionally. YouTube is filled with hair tutorials, product demos, and Q&A videos for every black hair texture and style imaginable. There are hundreds of forums and sites where women exchange salon recommendations and offer support to those tinkering with the idea of transitioning their hair. And it's not just on YouTube: In 2016, my friend Phoebe Robinson published an essay collection called _You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain_ ; the same year, Solange released the track \"Don't Touch My Hair.\"\n\nIn retrospect, going natural was the jumping-off point for my career as an activist and as an online performer. When I decided to go natural in 2003, the year after I graduated high school, conversations around natural hair were almost nonexistent in my world. There was no \"ethnic\" hair section in my local drugstore, and when I went looking for guidance for styling and maintaining my locs I quickly learned there wasn't much in the way of support. Little did I know the decision to start making hairstyle videos of my own would be the gateway to conversations about race and identity, along with the start of an amazing community and career.\n\nI've often found that nonblack people are perplexed by the ongoing conversations around black hair and the importance of going natural in our community. As many black thinkers and writers have pointed out, for us it's never \"just hair,\" but a symbol of hundreds of years of oppression and struggle. Throughout history, black people have been told their natural hair texture is unacceptable, dirty, and unprofessional. And while there's nothing inherently bad about the desire to straighten one's natural hair, resisting the subtle and sometimes overt messages in media that equate straight hair with success isn't always easy. Not to mention, going natural as an adult after rocking a perm for years is scary as hell. It's essentially like learning a language you spoke in childhood but haven't heard in over a decade. And then when you go natural, you're expected to be fluent in that language to get ready every morning.\n\nAs a kid, I begged my mother to let me relax my hair. In retrospect, I had no idea what I was asking for, nor did I grasp how backward it was to call chemically straightening one's hair \"relaxing\"\u2014as if Afro-textured hair needs to be tamed and calmed with chemicals. I've often joked that _The Relaxer_ sounds like a crappy horror movie in which a maniacal killer tortures natural-haired women with scorching-hot chemical ooze and then forces them to pay him money for it.\n\nWhile my mother had worn her hair long and straight for as long as I could remember, she was determined to make me wait until I was \"old enough\" to handle the responsibilities of maintaining my hair: biweekly deep-conditioning treatments, learning how to wrap my hair at night to help cut down on styling time in the morning, avoiding excessive heat, and of course rocking a swim cap at the pool. (The last thing you want to do is mix chlorine with your relaxed hair.) Remind me again why this process is called a \"relaxer\" when it takes so much work to maintain? When do I get to chill and not think about what's happening on my head?\n\nAlthough I was one of only a small handful of black students at my predominantly white Catholic elementary school, and part of an even smaller group of girls with natural hair, I didn't feel the pressure to straighten my hair at school. Instead, it was my relatives who treated chemical straightening as if it were inevitable, or required. When I'd visit my family in South Carolina, they would say things like \"When is your mother going to do something with that hair?\" Which really just means \"When are you finally getting a relaxer?\" One year, I got braids before heading to South Carolina for the summer, and my aunt promptly took them out and used a hot comb to straighten my hair. She knew better than to give me a relaxer without my mother's permission, but my mom was still livid. Not because my hair was straight, but because she had spent \"good money\" on the braids and they were cute as hell.\n\nWhen my mother finally gave in and let me relax my hair in fourth grade, the reality of my decision quickly set in. Sure, my hair was now shiny, silky, and straight, but it felt like it never grew\u2014it was always so damaged that I had to constantly trim and cut it off to keep it looking \"healthy.\" The chemicals were clearly too strong for my hair, and I was constantly shedding, so much that my stylist gave me an asymmetrical haircut to mask the damage. Thankfully my sideways mullet (short on the right and long on the left) was reminiscent of Salt-N-Pepa, who I later learned also rocked the style after singeing the hell out of their hair back in the day.\n\nWhen I think back to the years I wore my hair bone straight, I can't remember white people asking to touch it or fondling my head without permission. There's a sad irony in the fact that white people never tried to touch my hair until I went natural\u2014that I had to do something totally unnatural to my head in order to blend in, because my hair in its most natural state was deemed weird or different.\n\nIn my freshman year of high school, my super-cool and super-rebellious best friend Melissa convinced me to add highlights to my hair using an at-home dye kit. While I'd never dyed my hair before, Melissa (who was white) was an old pro. Only neither of us knew that the process wouldn't be so easy for me. I opted for a dark maroon, hoping a few streaks to my bangs would be subtle enough to be cool and to hide from my mom. The result was far from subtle.\n\nAt first, the streaks were barely visible. I hadn't realized that you need to bleach dark hair in order for any color to show up on it. Though I was disappointed, I found solace in the fact that I wouldn't have to deal with the possibility of my mother flipping out over my new highlights. But my punishment ended up being way worse. The next time I got my hair done, I didn't tell my stylist I'd colored my hair\u2014I didn't think there was a point, since you couldn't even see it. As she washed out the relaxer, she also washed away half my bangs. My hair began falling out in huge clumps, and I had only myself and a box of Clairol to blame.\n\nI was devastated, but I wasn't about to ditch my relaxer. Instead I spent the rest of high school with awful haircuts that tried and failed to hide my temples, where my hairline was patchy and uneven. You know those videos of the toddlers who cut their own hair when their parents leave the room? It looked kind of like that\u2014I'm sure a few people wondered who had left me alone with the grown-up scissors.\n\nMy love of bangs grew deeper as I figured they were the only things standing between me and total mortification. Little by little, the starting point of my bangs inched farther and farther back, toward the crown of my head, so they would cover my forehead as evenly as possible. When my bangs no longer cut it, I'd fill in my hairline with mascara, and if I ever got caught in the rain I'd make a mad dash, cupping my foam bra inserts in one hand and covering my edges with the other to keep Maybelline Great Lash from streaming down my face.\n\nDespite my hair woes, I took comfort in the beautiful images of black women, natural or not, in the pages of my mom's issues of _Essence_ , _Ebony_ , and _Jet._ I LIVED for _Jet_ 's Beauty of the Week feature, where the magazine would highlight an absolutely stunning black woman\u2014usually wearing a bikini and posed next to a waterfall, beach, or community pool\u2014who read the magazine. The girls were always very fit (which was intimidating), but they wore lots of different hairstyles, which I loved.\n\nAll the other magazines I read back then were dominated by white girls; any time I saw a black girl grace their pages it was like a brief portal into another reality. _Sassy_ was very feminist and progressive, but I wouldn't describe it as diverse. I liked that the models weren't super skinny, but I can't say I remember seeing anyone that looked like me. When _Sassy_ went out of print, I graduated to _Jane_ , which I loved for how snarky and raw it felt. I had no idea if it was accurate, since I'd never had sex, but _Jane_ writers really seemed like they were being honest and real about sex. (I can't say when the It Happened to Me column jumped the shark\u2014I know it was long before that notorious viral article \"My Gynecologist Found a Ball of Cat Hair in My Vagina\"\u2014but I loved to read it growing up. No shame.) I thought _Jane_ 's street-style pieces, which featured women of all different races and sizes, were so cool, and I got a lot of ideas from them. _NYLON_ was the opposite of relatable, but I loved the music features and magazine's design; I'd make poor copies of their illustrations in my sketchbook and tell myself that if I couldn't be a singer or an actress, maybe I could move to New York and work for _NYLON_ someday.\n\nWhen I left South Florida for my brief stint at acting school in Michigan, I struggled to take care of my hair. The nearest black salon was over an hour away, I had no car and limited funds, and the first few weeks of freshman year were doing a number on my already crunchy hair. The cool fall climate and drunken nights when I'd forget to wrap my hair didn't help. I decided to take the plunge and grow it out in hopes of going natural. A girl in my dorm agreed to braid my hair in exchange for twenty-five dollars and a few swipes on my meal card. And with that my journey was under way.\n\nAfter rocking cornrows and micro braids all year, I needed to figure out who I wanted to be when I was ready to set my natural hair free. So I decided to be Lauryn Hill. Like the rest of the world, I'd been obsessed with her debut album, _The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill_ , and I loved everything about her, especially her hair. Besides Whoopi Goldberg, she was the only celebrity I'd seen wearing locs, so I scoured the internet for pictures of her hair at every stage, hoping to get an idea of what I might look like. Maybe some part of me thought that if I had locs I would look like Lauryn. (Spoiler: Didn't happen.) But I also loved how Afrocentric, unique, and, most of all, confident her hair made her look. She was everything I wanted to be.\n\nToday my locs are nearing fifteen years old and hang just below my waist. I love piling them on top of my head into a giant messy bun mountain, wrapping them with bright colorful scarves, and braiding and pinning them into twisting and turning sculptures that resemble the fancy garden trees from _Alice in Wonderland_. I wear all 114 of my locs (yes, I've counted\u2014partially out of curiosity and partially because people kept asking how many I have) proudly.\n\nBut the journey from baby locs to black Rapunzel was a long and frustrating one. The summer after my freshman year of college, I decided to finally do the big chop, trimming off my relaxed ends to rock a teeny-weeny Afro (TWA). I assigned my mom the task of cutting my hair. While I was nervous to take the leap, my mom was even more so. \"Franchesca, there isn't much hair here,\" she kept saying, in Worried Mom voice. \"It's gonna be short. Are you sure?\"\n\nI was sure. I don't think my mother disliked my TWA, per se (I'm basically a rapper now), but she worried I hadn't really considered how difficult it might be to adjust to my natural-hair texture as an adult. She also remembered the countless nights I'd cried over my broken hair, lopsided boobs, giant feet, and admittedly horselike, gummy smile. She was probably worried that cutting my hair would send me into another puddle of tears, and that this time it would be her fault. But to both her surprise and mine, I loved my tiny fro and wore Bantu knots and twist-outs all summer long.\n\nA year later, my mom's friend Yevola, who'd had locs for more than fifteen years, started my baby locs for me when I moved back to Florida to go to school in Miami. She told me to retwist my hair every few weeks, showed me how to do it, gave me a jar of her favorite gel, and sent me on my way. After that, I was on my own.\n\nBaby locs are often referred to as being in the \"ugly stage,\" because they're short and you can't do much with them, which is... similar to a baby in many ways. But I never thought of them that way\u2014babies aren't ugly, they're cute. Sure, they try your patience, but you're made better for it. Or so I've heard.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of information available on how to style locs online, and you certainly couldn't buy natural-hair products at Walgreens, so I was stuck trying to figure out my hair on my own, on top of being at a new school in a new city. There were a lot of black-hair supply stores in Miami, but I had no clue what products to use, and I didn't really love my mom's friend's favorite gel, so I started buying random things and seeing what I liked.\n\nMuch like a baby, I wore lots of hats and scarves at first. My mom would occasionally send me scarves she'd found at discount stores or consignment shops, which was sweet, though she'd also ask if I had anything to add \"shine\" to my locs, which isn't a thing. (Sorry, Mom.) My extended family gave me a harder time. My uncle asked why I'd cut my hair off; I'd had \"such pretty hair.\" My aunts would say things like \"You're brave to go natural\u2014I don't think I could do it.\" And despite her being natural the entire time I've been on this earth, my grandmother still occasionally asks, \"Is that all yours, Frannie?\" even though I've told her a dozen times, \"Yes, this is my hair, Grandma, and please don't call me Frannie.\"\n\nFaced with these well-meaning but limited resources, I joined the only online dreadlock  community I could find: LiveJournal's Get Up Dread Up forum. If you Google this group today, you will notice that it is basically the same as it was in 2004: almost entirely made up of white people. (Shout out to Danielle Henderson, a badass writer and one of the only other black people on the site.) Most GUDU members were friendly, but one of the moderators and I butted heads a lot. She regularly discouraged me from twisting my hair or using product, which really pissed me off. I was far from an expert\u2014that's why I'd joined this ragtag group of hacky sack bongo players in the first place\u2014but she wouldn't admit that her hair was just fundamentally different from mine and required different care.\n\nAfter lurking around GUDU for a few months, watching my hair grow and change and becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of content geared toward black hair, I decided to make my first tutorial, which became my first YouTube video. Although I was still learning about my hair through trial and error, I knew there had to be other people who could benefit from my experiences.\n\nFor a while, I posted my hair tutorials alongside my music and comedy videos on the same channel, Chescaleigh, but as the demand for natural hair content grew (like my hair... sorry), I eventually started a dedicated hair channel, Chescalocs. Since there was no formula for beauty videos then like there is today, I got creative: I did updos inspired by Tilda Swinton in _The Chronicles of Narnia_ , Janelle Mon\u00e1e, the bow Lady Gaga wore in the \"Poker Face\" era, and Medusa. (The last one was for Halloween, but if you want to embody a powerful female monster from Greek mythology in your day-to-day, power to you.) I dispelled common misconceptions about locs (they're not dirty!), did product reviews, shared maintenance tips, and tried to convey what, to me, is one of the most beautiful aspects of black hair: You can sculpt it into a piece of art. As I forced myself to come up with new ideas for videos for my growing audience\u2014I was kind of hard on myself about posting regularly\u2014I got more and more excited about the natural hair movement that was developing around me. I was encouraging people to start their own locs as I challenged preconceptions about black hair. Our hair isn't smelly or unruly. It's regal\u2014it's the only texture on earth that extends to the sun like a crown!\n\nWhen _Paper_ magazine selected me for its annual Beautiful People list in 2012, I realized how my newfound activism and my long-running love of beauty could intersect. There I was, locs and all, alongside up-and-coming celebrities like David Oyelowo, Zosia Mamet, Rita Ora, John Mulaney, and Rebel Wilson. It was so surreal. Although I'd been publishing a beauty vlog for years, I never would have described myself as \"beautiful\" before. Cute? Sure. Attractive? Mildly. But not _beautiful_. It was my first professional photo shoot, and since I'd always felt really insecure about my looks, especially my body, I went into it worried about what they'd make me wear. (It ended up being a strapless Kenzo dress, which was cute but not exactly appropriate for the freezing January rain out there on the balcony. Especially when you consider that I wasn't wearing a bra.) I spent the whole shoot questioning the stylists' and photographer's choices: Bright magenta lipstick? But I never wore lip color! \"Sexy\" smoldering eye? But I'd rather smile! I was so trapped inside my own head at the time that I was shocked when I saw the feature in print: I looked awesome. Not only was I side by side with some gorgeous and talented people, but I kinda seemed like I belonged there.\n\nIn many ways, the _Paper_ shoot showed me what I'd been saying all along with my channel: Whether I knew it or not, Chescalocs had always been about embracing and celebrating black beauty in a world that, historically, has always said blackness is less desirable. One of the reasons I know my trolls are a waste of time: Whenever they discover my hair tutorials, they're confused\u2014they still hate me, but they don't see anything to be righteously angry about in those videos. They don't understand that my hair is just as much an expression of blackness as my social justice work.\n\nAlthough I haven't made hair videos in years\u2014they can take hours to film\u2014I still get tons of messages from people around the world saying that I inspired them to start locs, or taught them how to style their hair. When I had the chance to meet Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award\u2013winning director Ava DuVernay at a charity event a few years ago, I almost had a heart attack when she told me she'd watched my videos for styling tips. And while it's incredible to learn that celebs like Ava have enjoyed my videos, it's especially gratifying to now see young girls unapologetically wearing locs, and to see young loc'd celebrities like Willow Smith and Chloe x Halle that kids can look up to.\n\nThe proudest moment of my career came a few years ago, when I had the opportunity to meet Tiana Parker, a third grader who was sent home from her Oklahoma charter school in 2013 for wearing her hair in locs. Shortly after her story went viral, her parents contacted me on Facebook and shared that Tiana was a fan of my videos and had decided to loc her hair after seeing my tutorials. They were coming to New York for a long weekend and hoped I could make time to meet Tiana and possibly offer some words of encouragement. To know that a little girl found the confidence to love and embrace her natural hair because of me\u2014even as her own school had the nerve to tell her it was \"distracting\" and not \"presentable\"\u2014in some small way helped me get over the absolute rage I felt about this school's racist policy. (Afros and Mohawks were also forbidden.)\n\nI wish this were a shocking anecdote, but policing black hair in this way is disturbingly common. In 2017, two sixteen-year-old twin sisters at a charter school in Massachusetts were told their braided hair extensions were \"distracting\" and in violation of the dress code. When they refused to \"fix\" their hair, they were banned from extracurriculars and prom and threatened with suspension. In 2016, Durham's School for Creative Studies made a group of students remove the head wraps they were wearing to celebrate Black History Month. In 2013, a private school in Orlando threatened to expel twelve-year-old Vanessa VanDyke, whose voluminous natural look was so fierce that I'm kind of questioning my locs right now, if she didn't cut or shape her hair. Earlier that year, a twenty-four-year-old secretary in Saint Louis was forced to choose between her job and the locs she'd been growing out for ten years. In 2012, a meteorologist was fired from her local TV news station for defending her TWA against racist Facebook commenters. In 2014, the U.S. Army caused an uproar by briefly considering a ban on \"twists, dreadlocks, Afros, and braids\" for female soldiers, and servicewomen were permitted to wear dreadlocks and twists only in January 2017, after many had spent years getting relaxers despite the damage, cost, and danger. (After the restriction was lifted, Major Tennille Woods Scott told _Vogue_ that she used to relax her own hair while stationed in Iraq in 2007 and 2008. \"In the hour or so that it took,\" she said, \"I was nervous, thinking, _What if a rocket or mortar comes in?_ \") Meanwhile, with the support of her parents, Tiana Parker ended up transferring schools so she could keep wearing her hair the way she wanted to.\n\nI once saw a quote that said, \"Be who you needed when you were younger.\" This simple yet powerful sentence has since informed my work across comedy, social justice, and beauty. When I was Tiana's age, I was begging my mother to straighten my hair\u2014I didn't find the confidence to go natural until my early twenties. I can't imagine having that level of confidence and self-knowledge at just seven years old. While I wish it hadn't taken me so long to arrive at a place where I truly love myself, I now realize the process of going natural and learning how to style and take care of my hair on my own is tied up with my journey into adulthood and self-acceptance.\n\nAs my platform grows, I see how important it is for people to see a black woman wearing her natural hair proudly. I'm now becoming the woman I needed to see in media when I was Tiana's age, and that's pretty powerful stuff. The online beauty community has changed a lot since I was explaining how I put my hair in a ponytail in a dimly lit hair tutorial in 2006. What used to feel free and open\u2014a community for everyone\u2014has since been tainted by the growing desire to be famous and make money. Although Photoshop has long been a strategy of fashion magazines and ad campaigns\u2014when I briefly worked at Maybelline, I had the job of making the models' eyelashes even thicker and longer for mascara ads\u2014now everyone on social media or YouTube has the tools to alter themselves to blemish-free perfection. And the way brands have jumped on the opportunity to shape \"influencers\" has totally warped what \"beautiful\" means to many people. From waist trainers to hair gummies and flat-tummy tea, social media is filled with people pushing shady brands in exchange for a check, and their fans are none the wiser. \"USE MY PRODUCT CODE\" should be a warning that a supposedly \"real\" beauty blogger is being paid to recommend a certain product or service\u2014but so many girls and women fall for it anyway.\n\nIt's hard to be part of an industry that you realize is so damaging. But that's also part of why I continue to be vocal and visible about what goes into my style, and about when and if I choose to work with brands, even if I'm no longer making step-by-step tutorials every week. I know it's possible to be the change you want to see in your community\u2014and if my story helps just one person start down the path to loving who they are, all the better.\n\n# CHAPTER FIVE\n\n# LESSONS FROM GOING PUBLIC, PART 1\n\n## If You Can't Stand the Heat, Get Out of the Spotlight\n\nThe first time I felt the tingle of celebrity potential was in college, when I wrote and recorded an original song that was selected for the _Jane_ magazine reader CD. Along with its snarky takes on sex, relationships, pop culture, and fashion, _Jane_ would periodically send out mix CDs with the magazine. When the editors announced a special edition featuring reader-submitted jams, I saw my chance. I'd spent the entire summer working on a few songs with the huge loser I was sort of dating who liked to cut demos in his dad's home studio, and I submitted one of them to _Jane_ 's contest. When my funky, wannabe\u2013Ani DiFranco ditty \"I Know How the Story Goes\" was selected for the album, Columbia Records sent me a letter saying I had \"promise.\" All I'd have to do was shell out for a real demo and make something a little \"more commercial.\" I knew at that moment I was on the brink of stardom.\n\nOf course, I wasn't. I lost access to the recording studio when loser-guy-I-wasn't-even-dating dumped me\u2014it was for the best, trust me\u2014and it would be years before I gained a fraction of the recognition I thought my little achievement was 100 percent definitely about to usher in.\n\nI wish I could say the disappointment taught me not to count my Golden Globes before they hatch, but unfortunately this kind of wishful thinking became a pattern. A few years later, in 2008, I was living in Miami when I entered YouTube's RedCarpet Reporter contest on a whim. Although my entry was poorly lit, and I stumbled over my words more than a few times, apparently the judges were taken with my skills as I interviewed Pat and our dog Filthy for the imaginary Golden Pooch Awards; I made it to the second round. But this proved harder than I anticipated\u2014the contest was then opened up to a public vote. I busted my ass to promote my entry, sending out a press release to local newspapers and even throwing a party, complete with laptop-voting stations. My hustling paid off, and I was awarded the chance to report from the Emmys red carpet on behalf of YouTube and People.com. After an incredible weekend in LA, dancing with Niecy Nash, cracking jokes with Kathy Griffin, and singing on the red carpet with Josh Groban, I was certain I'd snag a job with _People_ and be forced to give my two weeks' notice to the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce, where I worked as the communications manager.\n\nSadly, I left with a \"don't call us, we'll call you\" before flying back to Florida and heading straight to the office. I was so devastated by my return to normal life that I gave away my giant bag of Emmy swag (filled with jewelry, makeup, gourmet snacks, and tech goodies) to my coworkers and pouted at my desk.\n\nIn 2011, I entered YouTube's NextUp contest, which promised to find YouTube's next big stars and give them the training and tools to hit it big. Once again I scrambled to submit an entry and get my friends and family to vote for me; I was selected as one of thirty-five creators to receive a hefty check and a week's worth of video production training at the Google offices. I spent the week listening to lectures from giant YouTubers like the Gregory Brothers and Michelle Phan and former executives from Nickelodeon and MTV. I hung on every word and took meticulous notes. YouTube believed I had what it took to become a star, and I was determined to prove them right.\n\nThe following year, \"SWGSTBG\" went viral, and once again, I was sure my big break had arrived. It was obvious that the video was a major turning point in my career, but again, it wasn't exactly the launch into stardom that I thought it would be. That's the thing about turning points: Facing a new direction doesn't mean there's not another long road in front of you.\n\nThe \"SWGSTBG\" numbers seemed like undeniable proof that I would be picking out Emmy dresses in no time. But after I quit my job, signed with my agent, and informed my friends and family that they could expect _much_ better Christmas presents in the coming years\u2014I planned on being very generous as a wealthy celebrity\u2014I didn't get any work. I went on audition after audition, but never booked anything bigger than a failed Oxygen pilot and a role as a sexy coworker in a Wendy's radio commercial I still haven't heard. I maintained my rigorous twice-a-week YouTube posting schedule, but the viral gods had moved on to Donna the Deer Lady and the German guy who did a cannonball onto a pool of ice. After about a year, I got a manager, and together we developed a show called _The Franchesca Feed_ , which would have been a sketch comedy show organized like an endlessly scrolling Facebook feed. We pitched it to twelve networks\u2014everyone from Bravo to Lifetime to MTV. No one wanted it.\n\nIn retrospect I'm glad this didn't work out, because an endlessly scrolling Facebook feed is my worst nightmare. It was also clear that I wasn't ready for my own show. Nevertheless, my YouTube money was seriously dwindling, so I took a job blogging about social justice at Upworthy, a viral content site known for popularizing the \"You Won't Believe What Happened Next\" style of headline. Working there would teach me a lot about how to engage\u2014or, okay, sometimes trick\u2014an audience online. And since I worked from home, I was able to enjoy the benefits of a regular check and health insurance and still squeeze in auditions and speaking engagements in my spare time.\n\nAlthough we didn't get a single offer to produce _The Franchesca Feed_ , MTV said they liked me and wanted to keep in touch. After I went on another series of failed auditions for shows like _Hey Girl_ (originally known as _Blogger Girls_ ) and _Girl Code_ , in 2014 they asked if I'd be interested in developing a web series. They'd had success with _Braless_ , which broke down feminist concepts in a fun, straightforward way by relating them to pop culture and current events, and they wondered if I could do a similar series about race. They hooked me up with the Kornhaber Brown production company (who also produced _Braless_ ), and together we began to develop what would, in over a year, become _Decoded_.\n\nFrom the get-go, it was exhausting to toggle back and forth between the production company, Upworthy, auditions, and any other gigs my agent snagged for me. But having my own show had always been my dream, and although _Decoded_ wasn't going to be on network television, it was one step closer to network television, so I did whatever I could to make it work. I would fly across the country for a college speaking gig, write Upworthy posts from my hotel room after my speech, spend the plane ride home researching and writing stories, and, between remote company meetings, run to my producer's offices to hammer out topics for _Decoded_. After two months, we had a pitch for MTV. They were into it\u2014but little did I know, we weren't anywhere close to being done. We spent another four months negotiating contracts, and another couple more ironing out the concept, fighting about the name (it was not always _Decoded_ ), building a new set (we hated the first one), and shooting and reshooting (I had no idea how to do my own makeup).\n\nThe entire time I was working on this, people would ask me what the hell had happened to me. Though I'm not ashamed to do a little self-promotion, I started to dread the inevitable question that would come up at parties or events: \"So... what are you doing now?\" I couldn't really talk about _Decoded_ yet, but it had been almost three years since \"SWGSTBG,\" so I worried people would think I'd been sitting on the couch watching _Say Yes to the Dress_ reruns and starting Twitter wars instead of working. The former... not true. The latter? Embarrassingly so.\n\nFinally, we shot the first three episodes. In many ways, _Decoded_ was a culmination of everything I'd been doing all along. Working at Upworthy had taught me valuable lessons about how to present serious concepts like police brutality, immigration, and racist stereotypes in ways that won't intimidate people.  And now, instead of writing in a void, I had feedback and a team. Whereas for my own YouTube videos I'd have to spend hours editing to get certain effects just right, now I could tell an editor, \"Make a watermelon pop up next to my head!\" and then a watermelon would pop up next to my head! I wasn't used to having someone else give me direction, but I ended up really liking that aspect, too. It was surprisingly nice to say, \"Do you think this works?\" and have my producer Andrew reply, \"No... not at all.\"\n\nThe only snag was that at first I did my own makeup, and it looked absolutely terrible\u2014my producers on _Decoded_ are awesome, but I now know to never ask them if I \"look all right,\" because \"all right\" is a relative term, especially when you're talking to guys who can't tell an eyeliner pencil from a stick in the ground. I acknowledged my limitations and hired Delina Medhin, a makeup artist I'd worked with on another web series, and we've been basically inseparable ever since. I was learning how to be a producer\u2014having hard conversations about contracts, scheduling, rates, and vision that I'd never had to have before. _Decoded_ launched in June 2015, and it was a huge success\u2014our first episode was featured on sites like the _Huffington Post_ and _Adweek_ with glowing reviews. The comments were so positive that I couldn't believe what was happening\u2014it was like when you go into a caf\u00e9 or bar and you find a door that leads to a back garden and you're like, \"Wow, why is no one back here? This is great!\" But I also couldn't help feeling that the positivity wouldn't last. Though this could have actually been considered my \"big break,\" it didn't give me those delusions of grandeur I'd experienced in the past\u2014I was too busy.\n\nA few weeks later, Comedy Central announced that it was making a new nightly comedy show starring Larry Wilmore, the legendary producer and comedian whose r\u00e9sum\u00e9 includes _The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air_ , _The Bernie Mac Show_ , _The Office_ , _Blackish_ , and _Insecure_. The show would be called _The Minority Report_ , and would focus on stories around race, class, and gender. I called my agent and begged him to get me an audition. I was so excited when I got word that I'd be given a shot... until I learned the audition was a character showcase, just like the _SNL_ audition. And just like at the _SNL_ audition, I totally bombed. Later there was a call for video submissions; I didn't get it then, either. Finally, when I had become resigned to the fact that the newly renamed _Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore_ was not going to be my next big break, my MTV producer, Brendan, said he'd submitted my name as a guest for a roundtable discussion on the show, and they wanted me to come on.\n\nIt seemed too perfect. I would get to promote _Decoded_ and have the chance to show Larry Wilmore and his team what they were missing without having to deal with the awkwardness of another audition. \"Great,\" I said to Brendan. \"What's the topic?\"\n\n\"The Republican debate.\"\n\nOh, no, no, no. No! Although I'd been writing about social justice for years, I'd never considered myself knowledgeable about politics. Even in those early days of the 2016 election season, being knowledgeable about politics was a full-time job. Especially Republican politics, with Ted Cruz questioning the need for Gay Pride parades and Ben Carson regularly sleepwalking through debates. I freaked out instantaneously. I cried\u2014messy, hiccupping, embarrassing tears, the worst kind of tears to cry in front of your impressive and successful coworkers. I told Brendan there was no way I could converse halfway intelligently about Republican politics on TV. They would have to find someone else.\n\nBut Brendan wouldn't take no, no, no, no for an answer. \"Listen,\" he said. \"You have to do this.\" He promised to help me workshop some jokes beforehand and said he'd come to the taping. When he pointed out that Shonda Rhimes would also be a guest that night, I knew he was right: There was no way I could pass on this.\n\nJust as I did in the days following my Anderson Cooper appearance, I started studying like a senior whose only hope of graduating on time is getting a perfect score on the Intro Stats exam. I read up on the candidates (all eight hundred of them), watched all the previous debates, and took pages and pages of notes. I picked out each candidate's most ridiculous platform and came up with ways to skewer them.\n\nWhen the show finally taped, it was a _Scandal_ how good I was. (Get it? Because... Shonda Rhimes was there...) During a break, I saw Larry lean over to Jordan Carlos, whom I'd done videos with before, and overheard him say, \"Who is that girl?\" And Jordan replied, \"She's good, right?\" I had to restrain myself from doing a celebratory dance in the studio.\n\nFeeling like a grandma who's finally won the lottery after playing the same number for years, I left for a much-needed vacation with Patrick and some of our couple friends in Costa Rica. You won't believe what happened next.\n\nThe producers at Larry Wilmore contacted my agent and asked if I would come back on as a guest, so I left vacation early and hightailed it back to New York! Soon after that, they offered me a job as a writer and correspondent. I'd never worked in a writers' room before, making me the least-experienced member of the team. At my meeting with Larry, he asked me what I ultimately wanted to do with my career. I told him I wanted to sit in his chair someday. He said, \"I think you could do it.\"\n\nI quit my job at Upworthy and convinced my agents to work out a deal that allowed me to shoot _Decoded_ on the weekends. The prospect of starting a new job in television terrified me, but the thought of giving up my web series felt inconceivable. This was also the period when my biggest diva  moment took place: Picture me sitting perfectly still in the makeup chair arguing with my producers about how _Decoded_ wasn't going to suffer with my new job because \"I work my ASS off!\" while Delina is putting the finishing touches on my eyelashes. It's a little embarrassing to look back on it now, but it was one of the first times I had to put my foot down, which made me realize what it took to be a boss. Though this knowledge crystallized in a single moment, it was the culmination of years of mistakes, obstacles, successes, and Twitter beefs. I hadn't really had that kind of self-confidence before, and it felt good.\n\nI'd already started to reach a wider audience with the launch of _Decoded_. Although we didn't talk about politics in the Republican\/Democrat sense, we talked about identity and how institutions affect people. \"Obama's presidency didn't end racism\" isn't exactly a radical position, but the show where we discussed that topic in particular pissed people off nevertheless. And because people will always be nostalgic about MTV, connecting it to childhood and rebellion and edginess, fans resent any kind of change in programming like the one _Decoded_ represents. It was the first time I was being introduced to an audience who were not at all on my side but instead _really_ hated me\u2014to the point that they were obsessed with trying to take me down.\n\nI'd dealt with online harassment before (hello, chapter 2?), but this was a completely new level. Not only were viewers threatened by the concepts I was presenting, but they hated the idea that I was being paid and promoted by MTV. From outraged rhetorical questions like _Remember when MTV used to play music?_ to the suggestion that I could have nothing to say about injustice because I was a woman who went to private school, married a white guy, and had a \"cushy\" job with a TV network, people came at me from all sides. I was censoring them (how?) and to top it all off I was rich (I wish). I was a symbol of the corrupt corporate media. People started petitions trying to get me fired\u2014and to get me involuntarily committed to a mental institution (not kidding).\n\nBut it was all just a preview for what would happen when I started appearing on _The Nightly Show_. On top of the stress of producing and filming _Decoded_ , dealing with harassment every day, and starting a new job where I was the least-experienced person on the team, I realized that my previous impulse to avoid talking about politics on television was spot on. The election was ramping up, and we'd usually devote about half of each week's episodes to politics, which increasingly meant half of each week's episodes were devoted to Trump. The amount of background information required to even have a basic discussion of the issues was overwhelming.\n\nI'd endorsed Obama on my YouTube channel both times he ran, but I'd never followed the elections aggressively. Now, all of a sudden I'd become a prominent voice in politics, at a time when anything you said opened you up to vicious criticism from every other position you could imagine and a few you had no idea existed. I voted for Bernie, but I didn't really endorse a candidate in the Democratic primary because I knew I would get picked apart for it, and my stance was \"Whatever will keep Trump out of office is what we need to do.\" This seemed really reasonable to me. After Hillary got the nomination, I'd go on TV and say some version of: \"Look\u2014I know she's awkward and pandering and doesn't have the best record, and the _abuela_ thing was very weird, but someone has to be president so we should vote for her anyway.\"\n\nFinding your voice is one thing; using it is a whole 'nother animal. No matter what I said, viewers would become ENRAGED. I was SEXIST for suggesting that Hillary was not the heaven-sent conclusion of decades of feminist organizing and a perfect candidate for 2016! I was a COON for not condemning her husband's three-strikes crime bill and other atrocities against black people! I was RACIST for saying Donald Trump was unfit to be president\u2014clearly I had some unfair bias against orange people! Often viewers would get mad that I hadn't mentioned such-and-such policy from 2004 when I had actually mentioned it, but it had been edited out. (Though I'd experienced the evil power of editing on _Anderson Live_ , _The Nightly Show_ was much more intense, because each night the editors would have to cut a twenty-minute roundtable discussion down to just four minutes, and they'd have to do it on a tight deadline.) No matter what I did, I couldn't stop the onslaught of harassment and anger that followed every single one of my appearances.\n\nAll the criticism was funneled through social media, which I was using all the time, during breaks or in the dressing room. I knew I should just ignore the trolls\u2014you may notice that this is typical of me\u2014but often the comments were so vicious that I felt I had to defend myself, or I at least wanted the catharsis of having fully explained my position. Though I had great relationships with everyone I worked with, I secretly cried in the bathroom pretty much every day. No one else was particularly engaged on social media, so they weren't targeted like I was. I saw it as part of my job to respond to messages that used the _Nightly Show_ hashtag\u2014sometimes someone would say, \"I liked that new black girl, who is she?\" and I'd reply, \"Me!!!!! I'm the new black girl!!\" which I was sure strengthened my brand.\n\nWhen I went to the other writers for advice, they would say something like \"That sucks, don't let it get to you!\"\u2014but of course I couldn't not let it get to me. Had that ever worked for me in the past? I'd always wanted to demonstrate the importance of dialogue, but I was giving way too much to \"the conversation.\" It was like I was living in two worlds\u2014the one where I was stressed but thriving in my new job that I'd worked so hard for, and the one where literally everyone in the world thought I was a \"man-hating reverse racist Hillary Clinton shill.\"\n\nOne night, deep into the election, I cracked. Every time a staff member appeared on a panel or did a piece for the show, Larry would meet with us afterward to discuss our performance and where we thought we could improve. That night, I came off the taping feeling like I hadn't represented myself well\u2014I didn't get a chance to say something, or I'd fumbled a point, or something, I don't remember. When Larry asked me how I thought I did, I started crying. \"Please edit around me,\" I said, sniffling. \"Just\u2014can you cut me out of the panel completely?\"\n\nNaturally, Larry was pretty confused\u2014I may have stumbled over the phrase \"national security,\" but that's not the type of thing worth sobbing in front of your boss for. \"I'm just so tired,\" I said. \"Every time I go on the show, people attack me and say I'm the worst person ever and that they hate me and I'm the reason they're voting for Donald Trump.\" (Imagine me saying this in that crying voice you do when you're ashamed to be crying and don't want to have to stop for breath because you'll get snot everywhere if you do, so you say everything really fast.)\n\nHe said I had a voice and was on the show for a reason. I inspired people\u2014maybe I didn't always inspire them to be nice and good, but I inspired them to say something, and that was powerful.\n\nI knew what he was saying, but I also felt helpless\u2014there was nothing I could do to stop it. If I got off social media, I'd be giving the trolls what they wanted\u2014to drive me off the internet and away from my goals.\n\nAs I was sitting there looking pretty pathetic, Larry added, \"Sometimes you're really clever on Twitter, but you give these people way too much attention.\"\n\nIf I had been embarrassed to be looking like an unhinged baby in front of my boss, the realization that he had seen me look like an unhinged baby online made it that much worse. Of course Larry followed me on Twitter. (He'd retweeted me a couple of times\u2014NBD.) I felt stupid for not thinking of it before, but it wasn't until that moment that I became fully aware that he\u2014and anyone else who might want to hire me\u2014could see me going back and forth with assholes all day on social media. How many people had looked at my feed and thought, _Hmm... better not hire her\u2014she's a loose cannon online_?\n\nAnd then I thought, _Fuck\u2014I respond to tweets at work._\n\nBefore I took the job at _The Nightly Show_ , I felt like I was destined to be the show's social justice secret weapon. It needed me. But as soon as I got into the writers' room, I couldn't shake the sense that I was in way over my head\u2014the pace was so fast and everyone was so funny. Next to my coworkers, who had more traditional comedy backgrounds and would throw around references I couldn't place, I knew I was a risk; whenever other YouTube or internet celebrities would come on the show, if they didn't knock it out of the park, people on staff would make comments about how the internet was a cesspool of untalented wannabes.\n\nThese comments were never directed at me, and I'm sure the people making them weren't thinking about me when they made them, but it still made me feel even more like an imposter in their midst. \"You do one viral video and you think you're a star\" was a common annoyed refrain\u2014uttered whenever the news was focused on the next Vine sensation\u2014and I knew it described me perfectly. So when I realized Larry, and anyone else, could see me arguing with trolls on Twitter, I knew I must have seemed like a delusional viral star who couldn't hack it on \"real TV.\" From a pure workplace-conduct standpoint, I also must have looked like I was wasting a lot of time. I'd grown so accustomed to multitasking that it'd become part of my process to loop through email, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram while working, but to someone who's not active online, I knew I must have looked obsessed with social media. Sitting in Larry's office crying, I saw that I had brought this on myself.\n\n_The Nightly Show_ was canceled a couple of months before the election, and although I was spared the inevitable drama of covering the _Access Hollywood_ tape or the resurgence of Her Emails, I got really depressed. I felt like Trump had emboldened the kind of trolls and racists who made entire careers out of harassing me (and since then, research has proven me right), and I had spent almost my entire time on the show feeding their negative energy. After the election, I had to leave social media altogether for about a month. On top of constant trolling, people would say things like \"I hope you're happy\u2014I voted for Trump and became a racist because of you.\" As if racism were a restaurant they'd been thinking of trying.\n\nBoth _Decoded_ and _The Nightly Show_ were huge steps in my career, not least because they showed me what happens when marginalized voices insist on going public. Even if you come in this package\u2014a smiling, conventionally attractive black person who doesn't curse (at least not in her videos) or present \"radical\" viewpoints\u2014you can't convince people who are committed to upholding oppression that you are anything but their worst nightmare. I will always be a radical leftist, the most racist person on TV, a poisoner of our youth, and a \"black supremacist\" (whatever that means). If anything, these bizarre perceptions of me are the exact reason I need to keep using my voice. These trolls aren't the people I need to reach\u2014the people who could be influenced by that garbage are the ones I want to connect with.\n\nWhen Trevor Noah interviewed Tomi Lahren, I thought he went really light on her. (Okay, I know what you're thinking: _A little hypocritical from someone who just spent several paragraphs ranting about how she can't please anyone?_ But it's not like I tweeted at him and said he had betrayed all black people.) Still, when she started ranting about Black Lives Matter and Colin Kaepernick, he pulled an artfully subtle question out of his back pocket: \"What is the right way to protest?\"\n\nIt was perfect because she couldn't answer. You wear a T-shirt that says _BLM_ and people get mad. You refuse to move your seat on the bus and people get mad. You do a sit-in and people get mad. No matter what you do, people who are dedicated to seeing marginalized people as second-class citizens will be upset when marginalized people insist that they are not second-class citizens.\n\nWhile this is more than discouraging, the realization is also kind of liberating. It made me realize I should quit trying to please everyone and just say whatever the hell I want. Going public doesn't mean that the public gets to define you. Having an audience and a public platform has changed how I see the world\u2014how could it not?\u2014but I'm still the same person on TV as I am riding the subway, or waiting in line at the DMV, or locked out of my apartment in my bright orange muumuu\u2014just with better makeup.\n\n# CHAPTER SIX\n\n# LESSONS FROM GOING PUBLIC, PART 2\n\n## Objects on Social Media Are Not as Close as They Appear\n\nThere are many reasons to be jealous of Beyonc\u00e9. Her voice. Her career. The way she fills out a wide variety of leotards. But the biggest one, for me, is that there's so much we don't know about her life. And despite the illusions provided by gossip magazines and close textual analyses of her song lyrics, we'll likely never know more than the Queen wants us to.\n\nThe internet has given me a lot\u2014I would have a completely different career without it. Posting videos on YouTube allowed me to sidestep a lot of barriers to entry in the entertainment business and get where I am today. But even though we've never met, many of my fans feel like they have a personal connection to me, and that has come with some unforeseen consequences. Don't get me wrong\u2014I love my fans. They're great, funny, generous, smart, and engaged people. (Waves at beautiful person holding this book.) But I wish I'd known how the internet would change how we understand fame and success when I started posting videos back in 2006. I would have done some things differently. Or at least mentally prepared myself for the effects of going public.\n\nSome of my audience has been following me since I was living with three roommates in Miami. They watched along when I moved in with Pat, when I got engaged in Paris, when I moved to New York, when I changed jobs. I used to shoot a lot of YouTube videos in my bathroom, because the lighting was great, and apparently fans got attached to the floral shower curtain I had at the time. I have since moved on to a more subtle, less Target Back-to-College look, but I still occasionally get messages saying, \"I miss that floral shower curtain!\"\n\nThink about your friends, family members, and coworkers. Would you recognize their shower curtains in a lineup? Would you recognize their _former_ shower curtains in a lineup? I'm going to guess no. It's a little weird.\n\nBut it's also completely understandable. Social media has the opposite effect of that little warning on car side-view mirrors: Objects are not as close as they appear.\n\nAnother illustrative example: I once made a video with my flat-screen TV in the background, and trolls descended on the supposed hypocrisy of my being \"rich.\" How dare I comment on social justice issues? How could I know what I was talking about if I had such a nice TV? What the video didn't show was that Patrick had woken up at five a.m. on Black Friday to buy that TV on deep discount, and the reason it was visible in that shot was because I had no other place to film\u2014we were dealing with a relentless bedbug infestation at the time, and the rest of the apartment was covered in plastic.\n\nI have to remind myself that I engineered this: I wanted people to pay attention to me! I showed everyone my shower curtain! But I didn't think about the implications of the shower curtain until strangers started emailing me about it at four a.m. Even accidentally sharing the tiniest details makes people feel like they know you\u2014especially when \"What's in my bag?\" and closet tours are rites of YouTube passage.\n\nMeanwhile, I have no idea what Beyonc\u00e9's bathroom looks like, and no matter how many people leave pleading comments on her occasional Instagram posts, I don't think she'll ever tell us. On some level, it doesn't matter. _Lemonade_ would still be one of the most groundbreaking visual albums of all time if Beyonc\u00e9 posted selfies at a Kylie Jenner pace. But I'm sure our perception of her as an artist and person would be totally different.\n\nWhen I used to fantasize about becoming a star, I only thought about the luxurious hotel rooms and glamorous outfits and invitations to exclusive events. Whenever I envisioned the fans, they would be adoring me, of course, but only when and how I wanted. Our interactions would always be gracious and pleasant, never uncomfortable or threatening. I imagined that if being recognized in public was ever annoying, it would be the kind of annoying where you secretly felt really smug about it.\n\nThat may be what it's like for Beyonc\u00e9, who has to incorporate privacy into her life much more intensely than I do. The reality for an \"internet famous\" person like me, however, is much more awkward. Since I am currently kinda-sorta famous\u2014to some people, depending on their interests and media habits\u2014I have a good amount of privacy, but people also think they are entitled to me in some way. I recently joined a private gym because people kept trying to take pictures with me when I was sweaty and gross; once, I was topless in the locker room (which was already a big deal for me) when I heard a tentative voice echo from the showers: \"Excuse me... are you... Franchesca?\"\n\nOn one hand, it's totally inappropriate to try to strike up a conversation with any naked stranger in the gym locker room. Like, don't ever do that. There is no scenario in which that is okay. But on the other hand, I knew I had made myself seem open and approachable online, so people assume I'm always open and approachable. When I shared that I'd moved into a new place, fans asked me to give an apartment tour; I had to draw a line. I wasn't going to give strangers access to my personal space this time around. (I'm not trying to get robbed, and besides, I really hate the rug Patrick picked out.)\n\nSimilarly, I recently decided to quit Snapchat because an acquaintance came up to me at an event and said, \"Girl, I saw you crying on Snapchat, are you okay?\" Then someone sent me a message asking, \"Did you and Patrick break up? You haven't posted a picture of him in nine weeks!\" I'd find myself in the middle of a dinner, enjoying a robust conversation about the top five flavors of LaCroix or savoring a plate of fried chicken and mushroom-rosemary waffles (sounds weird, but I'm team sweet-and-meat 4EVA), and suddenly I'd think, _Shit\u2014I've got to capture this thing for the internet! Otherwise they won't know I did it!_ I was so accustomed to giving so much of myself to strangers that I was starting to feel like I owed them something.\n\nI think this is a symptom of a double standard for internet celebrities: The fans feel like they've given you your career\u2014maybe they've been watching your videos for years\u2014and so they expect something back. No matter that your work should be \"repayment\" enough\u2014I occasionally still get emails along the lines of \"I shared your video, so why won't you answer my thirty-paragraph email about how to make it as a YouTuber?\"\n\nI wish I could say I just wave all this off and move on, but I haven't been able to yet. I felt really guilty about quitting Snapchat, which is a pretty ridiculous sentence if you think about it for two seconds. I had a great connection with my audience there. But the vulnerability that made that connection so real and meaningful for me also opened me up to judgment and conspiracy theories I wasn't prepared for. Participating in social media had started to feel like I was putting myself in front of the paparazzi and telling the gossip magazines to have at it. Although I was ostensibly posting and commenting and checking my feeds on behalf of my fans, all the time I devoted there meant, paradoxically, that I had less energy for the creative projects those fans support me for. Having a huge following doesn't necessarily mean you have talent, or deserve your platform, and I let myself forget that for a little while. Maintaining a productive, rewarding relationship with fans doesn't require social media addiction\u2014it calls for doing good work that people respond to.\n\nBeyond social media, my ambiguous level of fame has led to some weird encounters in person as well. Occasionally I'll be walking down the street, my headphones blasting, and notice some guy staring at me. My instinct, of course, is to put on my active bitch face (as opposed to my resting bitch face) and shoot him a _Don't even think about it_ glare. Then he'll shyly approach and say, \"Are you Franchesca Ramsey? I loved you on _The Nightly Show_!\"\n\nI don't want to discount all the support\u2014both emotional and practical\u2014my viewers give me every day. From sharing articles and research studies, to pointing out where I may have missed the mark on something, to inspiring me to cover certain topics or issues or offering words of encouragement after my teary Snapchats, I really cherish my relationship with my audience. It's symbiotic. After the video I made about my sexual assault went viral, a fan came up to me on the subway and said, \"Oh my God, you're Franchesca Ramsey! I saw that video you made about when you were raped! Thank you so much for making it! You're so brave!\" Though I felt uncomfortable that the entire subway car now knew I was a survivor, I was happy my story had moved her, and I got off at my stop and went on with my day. People often stop me and say, \"You're like a big sister,\" or \"I feel like you're my friend,\" which, since I'm an only child who used to struggle in the friend department, warms my heart.\n\nThe speaking gigs I have at schools and universities also keep me grounded. My first was at a local career day in Miami when I was twenty-five, and although I didn't have an agent or a job in the entertainment industry yet\u2014I didn't even live in New York\u2014it was the first time I saw that I had advice and inspiration to offer other people nevertheless. I talked about making YouTube videos as a jobby and creative work more generally, and seeing how the kids responded to my PowerPoint jokes about homework and Miley Cyrus (this was before her 420\/twerking phase) made me realize my perspective was valuable even though I wasn't yet the household name I wanted to be.\n\nToday, I regularly crisscross the country for the same kind of speaking gigs, and though I sometimes grumble about seven a.m. flights to freezing Minnesota, I think these are some of the most important parts of my work, not least because they force me to get out of the house, experience the wonder of changing out of my beloved muumuus, and talk to real humans. While people will sometimes tweet about my speeches afterward\u2014in many ways, this feedback has inspired this book, because it's shown me what my audience cares about\u2014live presentations are centered on interacting with the audience in real time, gaining that precious IRL experience that's absent when I get absorbed in Instagram notifications.\n\nAnd thankfully, that IRL experience is almost always positive. Though I know some people have to imagine the audience in their underwear, I don't get nervous before public speaking like I do for auditions or even while making videos\u2014when you're giving a speech, the audience wants you to succeed. (Otherwise, they have to sit through an excruciating talk.) As great as YouTube is, the engagement there is totally different, and especially so for me since my comments have been overrun by racist trolls. People who like my videos don't even want to jump in; they get harassed for weeks, and even months, if they dare utter, \"Great vid!\" So talking to a room of five hundred people and getting honest reactions and questions during and after, even when those comments are critical, is gratifying. There's a certain amount of generosity people have in person that disappears online, and I've learned that through experience. For example: In addition to the occasional brain fart, I've also had one real fart during a talk. I genuinely can't remember what school I was at\u2014my brain has fuzzed the details in an effort to protect me from recurring humiliation\u2014but one of my jokes is about how \"Google is free twenty-four hours a day!\" During this particular talk, I thought it would be funny to spin around in a circle for dramatic effect. While I was spinning a fart slipped out. I'm not sure if people were laughing at the spin, the fart, or both, but I swear it felt like my ass had been handed a megaphone; it was not one of those dainty accidental squeaks. It was toward the end of my speech, so I didn't acknowledge it and neither did anyone else, for which I'm very grateful.\n\nSo like I said, this kind of thing keeps me grounded. For every diva moment, or time I'm recognized on the street, there's some other time I fall flat on my face, exposing myself to be a victim of the same celebrity culture that means I have to pay a hundred dollars more per month to go to the gym. (Yes\u2014New York is expensive.) The best example of this was when I met up with Tracee Ellis Ross\u2014okay, I'm name-dropping, but I promise there's a point!\u2014in LA to shoot a video for my channel with her. We were filming at a hotel, and when we wrapped up we went out for lunch. As we were leaving the restaurant, a handsome black guy with locs came up to us and gushed, \"I just wanna tell you: I'm such a fan.\"\n\nMaybe it was his locs, or maybe you can chalk up my smugness to being in LA and hanging with one of my favorite actresses, but instantly my face lit up. \"Oh, thank you so much!\" I said, going into my Gracious Celebrity mode. I may have flipped my hair over my shoulder. \"What's your name?\"\n\nHe stared at me for a second before angling his body away from the embarrassing moment I'd just created. \"Thanks so much,\" Tracee said. \"It was great to meet you!\" he said, and quickly walked off. He was\u2014obviously\u2014talking to the network television star standing next to me.\n\n# CHAPTER SEVEN\n\n# GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER? (IT'S LENA DUNHAM.)\n\nLike many viewers, when HBO's series _Girls_ debuted, I quickly began to treat Hannah Horvath and Lena Dunham, the actress who played her, as well as the show's creator, as one and the same. From her tone-deaf blunders to the way she was constantly disrobing onscreen, Hannah was ignorant, narcissistic, and just plain obnoxious, and she infuriated me. I responded by trashing the show in a series of TV recaps I made for YouTube with my best friend, De'Lon. _Does the world need yet another show about rich white girls in New York who don't take the subway, live in giant apartments, and have lots of sex? The answer is no. We already had_ Sex and the City _, which was infinitely better in terms of both writing and outfits._\n\nBecause Lena Dunham was the showrunner, creator, and star of _Girls_ \u2014and because she seemed unable to resist making dumb comments in interviews and all over social media\u2014a lot of my criticism focused on her. While many people were vocally annoyed by Dunham and her work on _Girls_ , I was _really_ annoyed. Of course, I could have spent the time and energy I wasted hate-watching and then panning this show doing productive or valuable things, but instead I tuned in every week so that I could make myself feel better about having a less successful acting career than Lena. Some people do really in-depth, nuanced TV recaps; this was not what De'Lon and I were making. Sure, we discussed the lack of diversity on the show, and dissected Lena's repeated missteps when it came to race beyond the series. But overall, our criticisms were snarky and mean. Although we never called Lena fat outright, we would happily skirt the line and say shaming things like, \"Why can't she keep her clothes on?\" and \"Girl, that dress does not fit, and you look like a mess.\"\n\nI didn't think about it at the time, but the old maxim about how there's no such thing as bad press really applies here: We were basically promoting the show. People would comment that they'd never heard of _Girls_ before they saw my videos, but our reviews were so hilarious and biting that their interests were piqued. Could the show really be as bad as we claimed? We assured them it was, but my subscribers set their DVRs to find out for themselves anyway. Still, we soldiered on, as if roasting a person that everyone else was already roasting were our civic duty.\n\nThe beginning of the second season of _Girls_ was when we really hit our stride, thanks to a little help from Lena's terrible PR responses. After a totally white season one, Lena and her co-showrunner, Jenni Konner, had responded to extensive criticism of the show's lack of diversity by plopping Donald Glover in as a walk-on love interest at the start of season two. Unfortunately, his character was a Republican who didn't think Hannah's writing was good, so she dumped him, meaning we saw him in all his shirtless handsome glory for only two measly episodes. I'll admit, I was jealous of those sex scenes, which resulted in me taking subtle digs at Lena with comments like, \"In what world would Donald Glover ever sleep with Lena Dunham?\" As if he would ever slide into _my_ DMs.\n\nLena's track record on discussing race wasn't stellar pre- _Girls_. She'd gotten flack for saying she had \"yellowish fever,\" along with making a number of infantilizing comments about Asian women, in a travel essay about Japan. She'd donned a fake burka on her Instagram and bragged about being considered \"thin in Detroit.\" (After we stopped doing recaps, she endured other controversies related to her book that I won't get into.) Suffice to say she was \"embattled\" in the media, which I thought gave me a free pass to say whatever I wanted about her. And while I didn't mince words, my rationale was \"The truth hurts, and it's funny as hell,\" so I failed to see a problem.\n\nAround this time, an internet friend I'd become close with told me she was coming to New York and invited me to a dinner she was having. We'd never met in person, so I excitedly agreed. There would be a group of people at the dinner, which meant it would probably be one of those ambiguous work\/friends things where you get to network without feeling (too) sleazy.\n\nUntil the day approached, I didn't think too much about it. But then, a few hours before we were supposed to meet, I got a text from my friend explaining that the restaurant was cash only\u2014and she added that it was \"Lena's favorite place.\" Her comment was so casual that I didn't want to out myself as clueless by asking, \"Lena who?\" Instead, I did some internet sleuthing (combing through Twitter mentions and tagged Instagram photos) and deduced she must have meant Lena Dunham. Which meant that Lena Dunham would be in attendance that evening. _Shit._\n\nI started to panic. Would my friend have told her who would be at the dinner in advance? Would Lena look me up? And if she did, was she the kind of person who would Google \"Franchesca Ramsey + Lena Dunham\" just to see if anything came back? I tried to tell myself that I was overstating my importance to Lena Dunham and that there was no way she would come into this dinner looking for a fight. _She's, like, an actual famous person_ , I reasoned. _She doesn't have time to Google random plebes she's having dinner with. Does she???_\n\nAt the restaurant, the scene was much more intimate than I expected\u2014not a huge group dinner like your most popular friend's birthday. We were all sitting in a booth. Naturally, because that's how the universe works, I ended up sitting next to Lena.\n\nI felt mortified, but she didn't seem to notice\u2014she didn't know who I was. She was so nice, encouraging, and curious; nothing about her was \"catty,\" or disengaged, or straight-up mean. She asked me what I did, and we got to talking about the internet. I had been dealing with a lot of harassment on social media at the time, and we bonded over how awful people can be\u2014you know, classic girl talk. She showed me her Twitter mentions, which were a whole 'nother level, like nothing I'd ever seen or experienced. A constant stream of \"I wish you'd get raped\" and \"I wish someone would murder you\"\u2014and she hadn't even said or done anything that day! Though there was some genuine, well-meaning critique mixed in, it was pretty much drowned out by the awful name-calling. Sometimes in the exact same tweet.\n\nI remembered vividly how I felt after my _Anderson Live_ appearance, when hordes of strangers descended on all my public accounts to attack me from every side. My stomach sank. If she had as good a time as I did, she would probably go home and look me up, and she would think I was a two-faced jerk. I couldn't leave without coming clean. \"Listen,\" I said, \"can I be totally honest with you?\" I took a deep breath. \"I've never been a fan of yours.\"\n\nThis is not usually the kind of thing you hear from someone you just met\u2014or, really, from anyone\u2014so I imagine she was a little confused, though maybe she gets it all the time. I went on. \"I mean, I've been pretty vocal about not liking you. But you seem cool, and I don't feel good about some of the things I've said, so I feel like I need to be honest with you. If you go online and look me up, you'll probably find me talking about how much _Girls_ sucks.\"\n\nShe was gracious\u2014I mean, as much as you could be in that situation. She thanked me for telling her and said she understood the criticisms, that she was really trying to expand her worldview and understand her privilege. We exchanged numbers and left on a good note.\n\nThen, later that night, she texted me something along the lines of \"Wow. So... you really hate me! You hate me a lot!\"\n\nI felt so bad. I explained that I didn't hate her, but I never thought I'd meet her, and when you don't have to think about the real human behind the celebrity gossip, it's easy to get caught up in the drama. Then, because I felt like I'd learned an important lesson that night, I asked Lena if she would be okay with me writing about the experience for my Tumblr, and she agreed.\n\nWriting about it forced me to ask myself why I had such deep problems with this woman. Though some of my issues with her work were valid, I had to admit that many of my critiques were rooted in my own insecurities about my career\u2014if I were being honest. I'd spent most of 2012 developing a pitch for HBO that was ultimately rejected as \"too network.\" I'd wondered if that meant \"not enough boobs.\" Personally, I had always been self-conscious about my body\u2014I no doubt would've sobbed my way through an on-screen second base, much less the scene where Adam pees on Hannah in the shower. (Ew.) It was easier to dismiss her work\u2014which has had positive effects, like hugely advancing the body-positivity movement and awareness of reproductive rights\u2014than to say I was intimidated and a little jealous.\n\nThe thesis of my Tumblr post boiled down to: If you participate in the shit-slinging contest, competing to come up with the most creative insult, you end up covered in shit. I didn't want to excuse the real problems Lena had, but I'd let bigotry get in the way of my criticisms, and it wasn't something I felt good about. I topped off my post with a photo of me and Lena at the restaurant and waited for everyone to appreciate how wise and mature I was being. Once again, I was wrong. \"This sounds like extreme white apologism and it kinda makes my stomach turn crazy,\" one Tumblr user responded. \"You're in with whites and now have some social capital and you're telling us how to approach it? I'm sorry this whole writing just made you look like a complete coward.\"\n\n\"Racist white person knows you don't like her so to seem less racist, she acts a little less pretentious because she knows you're going to blog about her. And we're supposed to give her and other racist celebrities the benefit of the doubt and speak nicely because??\" wrote another.\n\n\"Chescaleigh, girl... Like I know we all gotta play the game sometimes to get what we want but us regular Blacks don't have time or energy to speak or play nice.\"\n\nI had told an award\u2013winning actress, to her face, that I didn't like her, which I'm pretty sure is the exact opposite of cowardice. Not to mention I'd ordered the most inexpensive item on the menu at dinner at a fairly fancy restaurant, which felt very \"regular\" to me. Whatever that meant. It's not like I had written, \"Anyone who calls out Lena Dunham for anything is a despicable human who should feel ashamed. #TeamLena!\"\n\nYet I was accused of sucking up to her so I would get a part on _Girls_ , while other critics went more the \"Speak for yourself, I was _never_ jealous of Lena\" route. Never mind that I _was_ speaking for myself\u2014I thought the frequent use of the word \"I\" would signify that. Still others thought I had \"betrayed\" them\u2014but could they really be surprised, given that I went to Catholic school, had a white husband, and screwed up my appearance on _Anderson Live_? I was, in their eyes, \"canceled,\" never to be taken seriously again.\n\nI'll stand by it: I don't think I did anything wrong with my post. I absolutely think Lena\u2014like anyone else\u2014should continue to be called out for the ignorant things she says and does. (Remember when she put all kinds of sexist words in Odell Beckham Jr.'s mouth because he didn't hit on her at the Met Gala? Come on!) I get why people dislike Lena Dunham; her daily mantra should be, \"Did anyone ask for your opinion?\" She desperately needs a private journal. I even had some anxiety about telling this story because I don't want it to seem like I'm defending her. But her textbook white feminism doesn't mean I should sacrifice my morals to criticize her. There's no value in peppering critique with stigmatizing personal attacks. When you add, \"P.S. You're fat,\" to a criticism about the way a person has handled\u2014or ignored\u2014race on her television show, for example, you negate the power of the original idea. It's like adding vinegar to a perfectly good birthday cake. (Let's ignore for a minute that there's nothing wrong with being fat, because we all know the pain that postscript is meant to inflict.) The person on the receiving end will only hear the personal attack, and will probably write off the legitimate criticism as part of a cruel attempt to insult and humiliate. On top of that, anyone else in the world who may identify with the personal attack is going to feel bad.\n\nUltimately, this story isn't about Lena Dunham. It's about holding yourself to a high standard no matter how terrible the person you're calling out may be. I'm not saying that everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt\u2014not at all. Nor do I think callouts should revolve around the feelings of the person on the other end. But being held accountable for how your words or actions were intentionally or unintentionally oppressive is uncomfortable enough without devolving into a cheap Fashion Police aftershow. Bigotry has no place in our callouts, but we see it show up all the time. When someone makes a homophobic comment, some argue, \"I'm sure he's overcompensating because he's gay.\" When a woman has really bad politics, people will say, \"She looks like a man in a skirt.\" I'd rather focus my energy highlighting what someone said or what they did\u2014remembering, all the while, that there are consequences when your criticisms of horrible actions are draped in the bigotry you're trying to speak out against. (And I know all too well how it feels to discover an entire thread on a forum dedicated to debating whether or not you have an ass. I do squats!)\n\nIt's really hard to take the high road when you're calling out someone who's truly awful. A good example of this is Donald Trump's allegedly small penis, which many people liked to mock in the months leading up to the election, before he had the nuclear codes. Let me put it plainly: Fuck Donald Trump and his rampant racism, sexism, xenophobia, Nazi apologism, climate-change denial, and unending desire to send our country and the entire world straight to hell in a handbasket decorated with a Confederate-flag pattern. Seriously. But the possibility of him having a tiny penis has nothing to do with his bigotry. We already live in a world that constantly links penis size to wealth, success, and sexual prowess when none of those things are related.\n\nI once read an article that made the point that when you call out a racist family member over Thanksgiving dinner, your words aren't aimed solely at that family member. They're aimed at everyone else at the table, who may benefit from hearing what you have to say, as well. I'd say the same goes for all of us when we call someone out online. Who's at the table? Maybe someone who's struggling to accept the body they were given will stumble on your insensitive joke and miss the bigger message. And you never know who might be invited to dinner next.\n\n# CHAPTER EIGHT\n\n# STOP HATING AND START STUDYING\n\nI'm extremely flattered\/slightly embarrassed when people describe me as a \"super-woke black feminist queen.\" \u2020\u2021\u00a7 But as often as I'm praised for the conversations my content has sparked online, I'm far from everyone's cup of tea. A quick Google search of my name will bring up my YouTube channel, episodes of _Decoded_ , and clips from _The Nightly Show_ , but as you scroll farther and farther, the results get weirder and weirder. Petitions to get me fired or involuntarily committed. Supercuts of weird faces I've made in videos, video game walk-throughs in which players attempt to kill characters they think look like me, and shitty memes calling me some variation of a \"racist cunt.\" There are videos in which men\u2014it's usually men\u2014rant for nearly an hour about how I don't understand what \"political correctness\" means. Some of these videos have hundreds of thousands or even millions of views; since I've gone viral myself, I know that equals a nice paycheck. People have made entire careers out of hating me.\n\nWhen friends or colleagues stumble onto this treasure trove of hateful content, the first thing they ask is how I handle it. I don't tell them how often I cry to my husband or how I set up filters for racial slurs across my email and social media. Instead I give them the short answer: I remind myself that the types of people who invest time in hating me are largely fueled by racism and sexism, with a heaping dose of jealousy.\n\nThe racism and sexism are pretty obvious with the folks throwing \"black supremacist cunt\" around. But how am I so sure jealousy is to blame for the rest? Well, I used to be a hater myself. [ _Cue dramatic organ music._ ]\n\nNow, before you go chucking this book out a window, feeling a deep sense of betrayal and disappointment: Please don't litter, and please allow me to explain.\n\nLong before I moved to New York, I followed a Manhattan socialite and new-media personality whose career I not-so-secretly envied and whose personal life I found not-so-secretly fascinating. Let's call her Stephanie. Stephanie had rich parents, a cushy job at a gossip magazine, a marginally successful pop culture web series, a pilot in development, and a couples' blog with her boyfriend that was a total disaster. She went out a lot and wrote an advice column in which she'd tell people things like \"If you want to save money, stop going to the Hamptons!\" She inspired in me a precise combination of aspiration and disgust, and I was nothing short of obsessed with her. While some people flock to trashy reality shows for their judgmental voyeuristic kicks, I was refreshing Tumblr during work hours, wondering what Stephanie was up to.\n\nWhen I first discovered Stephanie, I was living in Miami, working as a graphic designer and only dabbling in the entertainment industry through my YouTube videos and cringeworthy stand-up sets\u2014let's just say my closer was a JonBen\u00e9t Ramsey joke... and it brought the house down every time. I had a lot of time to follow this woman's life. On her Tumblr, she'd amassed a moderate following, as well as an active commenting community filled with fans, spectators, and haters. I drifted among all three camps, but I skewed toward the hater category. I imagined she'd had everything handed to her, and it really irritated me. Why couldn't someone hand everything to me?\n\nAfter a few months of enduring the public's vicious analysis of her posts, Stephanie closed her comments section. This act of self-preservation galvanized us lovers\/haters to take our fixation to the next level. She had decided to prevent us from interacting with her directly... but that kind of felt like she had given us permission to go off into the wild frontier and drag her in ways we might have been hesitant about if we knew she was going to see it. We all packed up and started a new site dedicated to gossiping and theorizing about whatever Stephanie posted. Although I'd been living with my serious boyfriend for years, we affectionately called ourselves \"pathetic virgins\"\u2014because only lonely ladies who've never gotten laid would spend so much time gossiping about a complete stranger online. Look at us being all self-deprecating and totally not weird! Cool, huh?\n\nIn an effort to set ourselves apart from Stephanie's \"comment section dictatorship,\" we decided nothing in the way of snark was off-limits on our site. The only rule was \"Don't poke the beast,\" which meant that we agreed not to contact Stephanie or taunt her into reading our posts. (But it was totally acceptable to call her a beast. Sheesh.) The site was supposed to be our space\u2014and while no one held back with the insults, we agreed that flinging them directly at Stephanie was a line that shouldn't be crossed. It was entertaining at first, like we were a panel of judges on a reality TV show, and even though I never said anything quite as awful as some of the other members, I enjoyed watching it all unfold. It felt righteous and cathartic to shit-talk this rich media darling while I was struggling to get a job and pay rent.\n\nIf this sounds \"so high school,\" that's because high school is where you learn this kind of behavior. Around ninth grade, right when I started feeling insecure about my body and lack of popularity, I discovered I was funny, and I started using my humor as a shield. I was particularly self-conscious about my lopsided boobs (which I now know are totally normal), so I attempted to conceal them by wearing a thick orange foam bra insert. I stressed about it constantly. I assumed everyone could see the orange cutlet, and I would bolt indoors at the slightest sign of rain for fear that my foam boob would take on water like the _Titanic_ and reveal my secret. Cracking jokes at the expense of others became an easy way to gain friends and divert attention away from myself and my own insecurities. I remember once helping spread a rumor that a girl in my class had an extra toe, which resulted in an endless stream of bad foot puns and jokes about a supposed \"sixth sense.\" I went on the attack instead of showing compassion for a classmate who may or may not have had an extra digit; I distracted from my own body-image issues by starting rumors about someone else's. Although I had never met Stephanie and she had never done anything to me, I was responding to her in a similar way: I was insecure about my career, so I took it out on someone whose career reminded me of all the ways I wasn't succeeding. You could say I was using my powers for evil.\n\nWe spent so much time on the pathetic virgins forum that we soon began to discuss topics beyond Stephanie's awful New Year's Eve party outfit and whether her parents were still paying her rent. We had conversations about books, music, food, life. Soon our group started to feel like a dinner party filled with old friends. I had finally moved to New York, and while I was struggling to meet people and figure out how to pursue my dreams in real life, it felt good to have a place to vent and crack jokes among like-minded strangers.\n\nDuring one particularly depressing stretch, I found the nerve to share with the group that I was going through an especially hard time and struggling. I'd talked to my boyfriend and best friend about it at the time, but I didn't feel like I was getting the support I needed. (Then again, I didn't really know what I needed.) When I posted about my feelings on the site, members leaped into action, sharing their stories and offering encouragement. One woman messaged me privately and when we met up for coffee she didn't even blink when I cried on her shoulder. I even picked up freelance graphic design work from a few members after complaining about my degree collecting dust while I folded clothes at Anthropologie.\n\nSo it wasn't all bad. But mostly it was. It felt good to be part of a \"club\"\u2014I imagine a lot of online trolls feel this way, too\u2014so I excused any particularly egregious, offensive comments (about how Stephanie was fat or \"looked like a man\") in exchange for my membership. I tried to focus on the few and far-between positives. When the site moderators announced they would host a meetup in New York, I decided to go.\n\nMaking the leap from online to offline friendship is always risky, but with a few positive pathetic virgin encounters under my belt, I thought, _What's the worst that could happen?_ I made the hour-long trek from Queens to a dive bar in Brooklyn and discovered I'd joined a _Mean Girls_ \u2013style clique. If you've ever made a friend online, you understand the intensity of that kind of friendship\u2014it's no less \"real\" than a friendship with someone you met at school or work. I assumed that my fellow PVs would be less snarky in real life and more like the kinds of people I'd want to hang with on the regular.\n\nBut the whole thing felt blatantly uncool. I had assumed Stephanie would be the unspoken elephant\/beast in the room. We'd act as if we'd known each other for ages in between knowing winks and inside jokes. Instead, they wouldn't stop talking about Stephanie. Things got even stranger when one of the moderators\u2014let's call her xXJosieCatXx\u2014latched on to me as if we'd been friends forever. This wouldn't have been so strange\u2014we'd spent years palling around online together\u2014if JosieCat hadn't been so nasty to me in the months and years we'd spent on the site. When one of the other PVs discovered my YouTube channel, JosieCat had called me out as being \"just jealous\" of Stephanie. Which I was, but so was everyone else\u2014that was why we'd established an entire website to make fun of her? Naturally, I was a little nervous to meet JosieCat face-to-face, but instead of delivering cutting insults, she wouldn't stop fawning all over me. She paraded me around the bar, asking people if they'd met me or watched my hilllaaaaarious videos.\n\nThough now I'm more familiar with the ways people's personalities shift when they close their laptops and get out into the real world, it felt completely bizarre, and embarrassing at the time. It suddenly became very clear how much time I'd wasted with these people. Instead of working on videos, or taking an acting class, or doing literally anything valuable, I'd spent a significant portion of my life for the past two years coming up with mean conspiracy theories about a D-list New York media celebrity who was off partying and booking gigs while I made jokes about becoming an old spinster with no one to cuddle but her cats. And I really don't like cats.\n\nI wish I could say that this period of my life gave me the good sense to go easy on the haterade. But although it gave me perspective on how people who are unhappy offline can project their negative feelings onto someone else, I'm sorry to say it took another slap in the face to make me go cold turkey.\n\nAfter \"SWGSTBG,\" I used some of the money I earned to go to a fancy tech conference. I'd never been to anything like it before, and I was excited to meet many of my internet friends (and, okay, I was also excited to show off in the wake of my viral hit). While there, I met a really successful YouTuber whom I'd taken to casually trashing in my group texts between internet friends. I'd never really \"gotten\" her success\u2014I didn't think she was particularly funny or charismatic. I couldn't understand why she had all these fans and opportunities and I didn't. In other words, I was jealous.\n\nOne night, when we ended up at the same party, I was shocked when she introduced herself and said she was a fan of my work. She was so gracious, charming, and generous that my envy melted away. Eventually the conversation turned to dealing with anxiety, and I stood there puzzled by the thought that someone who appeared so happy and successful could possibly struggle with panic attacks and self-doubt, just like I did. I somehow got up the nerve to share that my anxiety was particularly bad before auditions; I'd find any excuse to put off learning my lines, and too many times I'd email my agent with some excuse about why I couldn't make the audition. I would also get really nervous about having to make videos regularly, which meant I would get into my own head and put things off till the last minute. Procrastination had become my coping mechanism. That way when I bombed the audition, or the video wasn't as good as it could have been, I had an excuse: I hadn't had enough time to try my best. So the failure wasn't my fault.\n\nShe told me something that has changed the way I think to this day: Look at your work as a contract you have with yourself. Getting auditions is work. Posting videos is work. Even if you don't book the gig or go viral, you've still met the conditions of your contract. As with any job, you don't just sit around achieving all day\u2014you have to put in hours. Until that point, whenever I saw someone doing something I wanted to do, I'd devote many of those hours to negative energy. I would try to convince myself that these strangers weren't worthy of the things I wanted instead of being honest with myself about how they got there. Even spoiled Stephanie had to put in some amount of work. Even if you have all the connections in the world, you still have to show up and do the work. More often than not, I couldn't even manage to show up.\n\nIn that moment, I realized I'd been going about my career all wrong. Instead of hating, I should've been studying.\n\nNow we're at the part of the chapter where I say the internet has made all this stuff worse. The internet has made all this stuff worse! Jealousy is human nature, and although every industry is built on competition, entertainment and media are particularly cutthroat. There's always been this idea that there are only so many fans to go around, only so many slots for people to fit into. The internet has only heightened this problem: From the perspective of a creator, social media allows us to present ourselves as much more successful and interesting than we really are. The illusion of our interesting success begets more fans, which then creates the illusion that we are _even more_ interesting and successful. From the perspective of a wannabe creator, social media is a great way to take the focus off what you need to work on and instead funnel all your energy into the pointless project of hating.\n\nAfter realizing my life as a hater was turning me into a resentful jerk, I decided to stop hating and start studying\u2014and I don't just mean studying my enemies' Instagram accounts, though I still go down the \"Tagged Photo\" rabbit hole occasionally. I started paying closer attention to the YouTubers, actors, and creators whom I envied\/admired, watching what they were doing, and what I wasn't. They took improv classes. They worked out. So I upped the gym time\u2014which had the bonus of helping with my anxiety\u2014got new head shots, took a hosting class, and stopped going out as much. Every day, I asked myself: How do I get the things in my career that I want but don't have? What do I do to get them?\n\nBut channeling the green-eyed monster into productivity is especially difficult when there are temptations every time you open your computer. There's that saying \"If you have haters, then you're doing something right,\" but I disagree\u2014at this point, if you have haters you're doing anything. I have a feeling that the caveman who discovered fire had a few cave folks rolling their eyes while happily huddled by the blaze. You can get a job\u2014any job\u2014and the sassiest member of your extended family will comment on your celebratory Facebook post with \"Uh-huh, I see you, you think you're hot stuff with your li'l job now.\" Point is, having haters doesn't mean you're \"winning.\" It doesn't mean you're doing something inherently abhorrent, either. It just means that you shouldn't put too much stock in them. I know that's easier said than done. (Hello! I've literally written a book about it.) With all the ways for people to invade your life via inbox, petty jealousies and snarky comments can feel really personal. But there are always going to be people who don't like you, and you can't be friends with everyone. Whatever you do, someone, somewhere, is going to disapprove.\n\nWhile I truly believe a little saltiness is natural (and at times amusing), it's what we do with that flavorful seasoning that matters. Setting aside the ease of contact that the internet allows, hating in itself is pretty harmless. Waste of time? Sure. Pathetic? Guilty. But in most cases (as it was in those heady days before the advent of Twitter mentions), the \"hatee\" isn't directly affected, because they have no idea their haters even exist. Once, I was riding home from church with my grandmother (who is hands down the most hilariously shady woman I know) when Vanessa Williams's \"Save the Best for Last\" came on the radio. Right as I was getting ready to belt, \"Sometimes the snow comes down in June,\" my grandmother growled, \"And sometimes you should stick to acting.\" Sick burn, Grandma, but damn\u2014she's no Whitney or Mariah, but I always thought Vanessa's voice was cute! Plus, she had some hits! Anyway, while I sat there dumbfounded, guess what Vanessa Williams did? Went about her business, losing not a single night of sleep over my grandma's shade.\n\nThese days, however, it's not enough for some people to deride your achievements and make fun of your questionable singing abilities from afar. No, now many haters will take it to the next level, because just as the internet allows you to present your life exactly how you want it to look, it also gives you easy, direct access to the people you're hating on\u2014from Anne Hathaway (what did she ever do?) to those twelve-year-old girls on _Dance Moms_. As my profile rises, the kind of negative attention I attract makes me realize what I could have become if I'd let my hatred get out of hand: a troll.\n\nThe natural extension of the hater, the troll is not satisfied with merely disliking you\u2014they want to keep you from doing anything but listening to their complaints. They want to distract you, suck up your time and energy, and then, having sapped you of your creative forces, drag you down to their lair, where they will make you watch _The Big Bang Theory_ until you start making jokes about how it's kinda fucked up that women won't sleep with nice guys. When you get a new car, trolls don't just say, \"Well, well, well\u2014Franchesca must think she's something with her new little car\"\u2014they email you and say, \"Hey bitch, your car is trash, and I know where you parked it.\"\n\nThe moment when I realized that the YouTuber I frequently shit-talked was just a normal person who worked very hard was a turning point, steering me away from the path that leads under the bridge, so to speak. Thinking about how lucky I was to have met her in person showed me how to deal with my jealousy in a constructive way, by channeling that energy into the things I wanted to improve about my career. I wish the same were true of my trolls, especially the men\u2014there's something about a black woman being successful and happy that infuriates white men in particular. They have all this privilege, but they still feel sad or lonely or frustrated or whatever\u2014so how dare _I_ not feel sad or lonely or frustrated?\n\nIf these guys invested half the time they spend trying to ruin my life and put it into their own careers, they might feel better. Why not take those twenty different vivid metaphors for how much they hate me and turn them into a novel? The detective work they expend looking up the contact information for my agent, my manager, the schools I'm speaking at, and my boss at MTV so they can tell them to fire me could be translated into a really promising career in PR. Signing my podcast-contact email up for porn newsletters and weird coupons for hemorrhoid cream are examples of creativity\u2014the kind of creativity they might put toward creating a writing sample for any number of late-night television shows or network comedies instead of wasting their lives responding to YouTube comments in a blind rage.\n\nUnfortunately, the trolls are too short-sighted, or too bitter, to channel their negative energy into something positive, so they let it seep out into the world instead.\n\nThe most impressive\/horrifying are the guys who make videos about me. It's not enough for them to just post a rant about how much they hate me\u2014they have to make a fifty-minute video about how much they hate me, email it to me, and ask me to watch it. For those who have never made forays into the YouTube world, a fifty-minute video takes a lot of time to make\u2014these aren't just webcam rants filmed in front of a white wall. They're often fully produced videos, with costumes and skits and graphics and multiple actors. I'll admit I've not only watched some of these horrid videos, but even found myself thinking, _That animation is actually not too bad?_\n\nOne guy in particular has made a number of videos about me. That number being around forty, including a musical. He's mocked my stances on topics that range from political correctness to voting rights and made crude jokes about my husband. His videos attempt to take down a wide variety of what he calls \"social justice warriors,\" but he seems to have a particular fascination with me. Usually his comments are stupid; sometimes they're scary. Every time he posts something about me, I get a barrage of hate from copycat fans who send me vile messages so they can screenshot them and impress all the other trolls.\n\nSo last year, naturally, I decided that I would meet him.\n\nIf you're familiar with the writer Lindy West's work, you may recognize this impulse from her _This American Life_ episode \"If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say, SAY IT IN ALL CAPS.\" I was listening to it while grocery shopping and burst into tears in the cereal aisle\u2014I hadn't realized how much my trolls were getting to me, and her experience really resonated. In the piece, Lindy describes a particularly cruel troll who created a fake Twitter account impersonating her dead father. Ignoring the online-woman's maxim to \"never feed the trolls,\" she wrote an article for _Jezebel_ explaining why the abuse hurt. Then the troll did the unthinkable: He emailed her to confess all the ways he'd trolled her, and he apologized. \"I don't know why or even when I started trolling you,\" he wrote. \"I think my anger towards you stems from your happiness with your own being. It offended me because it served to highlight my unhappiness with my own self.\" About a year later, hoping to learn more about the motivations of trolls, she reached out asking if he'd have a conversation with her for the radio show.\n\nThe results were illuminating, humanizing, and frankly incredible, and I wanted to replicate them with my own dedicated trolls\u2014at least those who never bothered to conceal their identities, making it easy for me to contact one of them. I knew we would both be at VidCon, the annual online video conference held in Southern California, that year, and after exchanging a few tweets, we agreed to sit down together.\n\nPatrick begged me not to do it, and in hindsight I should have listened to him. But in my heart, I wanted to believe that people aren't just all good or all bad. Because I'd spent years as a hater myself, I was willing to believe my troll was more than the nasty stuff he posted online. I knew he had a girlfriend, parents, and people in his life who think he's great. Maybe they think the troll-y YouTube videos don't represent who he is. Maybe they don't even watch them!\n\nI should have remembered that you can't reason with people whose whole purpose is to get your attention and distract you. When your adversary is someone who has serious issues to work through, it doesn't matter how smart your comeback is or how sympathetic and honest you are\u2014you just can't win.\n\nThe experience of meeting this troll at VidCon was not unlike what happened when I met JosieCat, the salty moderator from the pathetic virgin forum: Instead of looking me up and down like he was Meryl Streep in _The Devil Wears Prada_ , or asking me if I called my husband a racist in bed, or dumping a bucket of pig's blood on my head as I crossed the threshold, this guy basically groveled. He said he was so sorry for all the abuse he'd given me, that he respected me, and that he hoped we could move on from our differences and be friends. He also confessed a bunch of personal stuff that he used to explain where his anger came from.\n\nI was really taken aback. All I wanted to say was that he had misconstrued my work and put a bunch of words in my mouth, and to show him that I'm a real person and that his actions have consequences. I mentioned that whenever he made videos it would set off a ripple effect with his fans, who would attempt to contact me with even more aggressive messages than what this guy's video contained, and that it really upset me. I made it clear that I wasn't trying to be his therapist, or his friend, and that I appreciated his apology but really just wanted the harassment to stop.\n\nWe left on decent terms, and I thought it was possible things would get better. But of course the guy made a video about how we'd met and worked out all our problems and were now on our way to being closer than Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart. I should have known he'd do this; hating me was part of his career, and he couldn't resist the opportunity to cook this grade-A beef.\n\nI sort of understood his desire to say we'd become the best of friends, and I didn't really want to start another confrontation by shutting it down; plus, it made him look good, or at least like his behavior wasn't irredeemable. And it wasn't so different from the cinematic resolution to our entirely one-sided feud that I'd envisioned, though in my version I was more like a benevolent queen lording my power over him before saying it was behind us\u2014as long as he never trolled again.\n\nBut something about his suggestion that we were equals who had put our differences aside got to me. This guy made forty videos about how I'm the scum of the earth, and I'm supposed to forgive him because he said he was sorry? I'm supposed to consider him my friend? I would have a hard time forgiving my own mother if she did that to me. His new video made me realize he hadn't earned the benefit of the doubt.\n\nFuming, I went on _Last Name Basis_ , the podcast I host with Pat, and talked shit. I didn't name the troll, or say anything specific about our meeting, but I did say some nasty stuff that I'm not proud of, calling anti-feminists ugly and trotting out harmful stereotypes by saying that the guy and his fans probably needed to get laid. I don't know why I assumed he didn't listen to my podcast, but of course he did, and sure enough, another video appeared, about how \"Racist Franny\" was a duplicitous snake in the grass who had betrayed a man who thought they were friends. He then hosted a two-hour live stream dedicated to listening and reacting to the twelve-minute segment of my podcast and encouraging his fans to pile on with him. His fans used the incident to make him out to be a victim, and now we're back where we started. (His followers were sending me snake emojis long before Taylor Swift decided to embrace that as her brand.) Or actually even further behind where we started, because now he and his fans believe I attacked them.\n\nSo, to recap, here are all the mistakes I made in this situation: First, I tried to meet a troll and reason with him. Second, I thought some sense of closure would come out of this meeting based on one extraordinary news story that bore some similarities to my troll situation but actually, in retrospect, not very many. (My troll never reached out to me to apologize\u2014I reached out to him.) Third, I got mad about the guy's reaction to the meeting we shouldn't have had and \"fed the troll\" by ranting about it on my podcast. Fourth, I broke my own rule about criticism, venturing into bigotry rather than attacking what he'd said and done. I pushed myself to let go of the situation when I wasn't ready, and I made the whole thing worse.\n\nWhether you're the hater or the hated, the troll or the trolled, we could all be smarter about how we respond to natural feelings of jealousy and how they spill out on the internet. I sometimes wonder how much farther along in my career I'd be if I hadn't dedicated so much time and energy to these people. The loudest voices are distracting, but they're not necessarily the majority, and giving so much to them was doing my actual fans a disservice. (This is also why I've pulled back from social media lately: Not only has it made a huge difference for my productivity\u2014obviously\u2014but it's also allowed me to reframe my goals and priorities.)\n\nWhen you see someone doing something you wish you could do, or achieving success you wish you could achieve, don't sit around making memes about how your dog could paint better than this girl\u2014get your ass in the studio. (Hopefully one without internet access.) And when your work starts selling for hundreds of dollars, and then thousands of dollars, and someone starts making videos of his dog stepping in paint, walking on a canvas, and saying, \"Look\u2014my dog made a better painting than Kim Jenkins,\" just ignore it. His landlord is going to have a field day over the blue paw prints in the carpet.\n\n# HATERS VERSUS TROLLS: A GUIDE\n\nThere's a big difference between being a hater like sweet, young Franchesca and a full-blown Breitbart employee. Hating is not productive, but it's mostly harmless, especially if you're focused on a celebrity. They don't have time for you. Trolling helped elect Donald Trump, and contributes to thousands of women and marginalized people feeling unsafe every day. Now that you've learned all about what not to do when you encounter a hater or troll, I've made a handy chart to help you spot them.\n\n# CHAPTER NINE\n\n# ACTIVIST LENT\n\nAs a kid, I thought beets tasted like dirt. As an adult, I still think they taste like dirt, but now that's what I like about them. In middle school, I was obsessed with the TV show _Blossom_ , which is why I owned no less than ten different oversize floppy hats adorned with giant fake flowers. Today, I wouldn't be caught dead in a floppy sunflower hat, and the mere sight of Mayim Bialik (former _Blossom_ star, on-again, off-again anti-vaxxer) makes me roll my eyes.\n\nIt's equal parts weird and surprising to look back on the person you once were and see how time has changed the way you see and think. For me, this change has been extremely apparent\u2014and sometimes awkward\u2014as I've grown more socially conscious and aware of how different types of people move through the world. For starters, being a feminist makes it difficult to listen to a good majority of music. I've given up on skipping songs with the word \"bitch\" in them, because that would deplete most of my iTunes library, but singing along to the top forty is a challenge. It's also hard to watch a lot of TV shows, and to sit silently in the theater as misogynistic movies you paid fifteen dollars to see play out across the screen. Sometimes it's hard to even have a simple conversation.\n\nGrowing up under patriarchy and white supremacy and bigotry\u2014which everyone does, since those are the systems that govern the world\u2014means it can be hard to resist the less-than-obvious ways those forces creep into our speech, behavior, and superhero movies. Attempting to live a socially conscious life is a lot of work. As you become aware of all the ways our society is set up to put down marginalized people, from huge things like the prison system to small things like the words we use every day, you'll start seeing the world through completely new eyes.\n\nAt first, none of it will feel very fun. Actually, it never really feels very fun. Things you _want_ to enjoy are ruined when you can recognize the not-so-subtle nasty messages they contain about women, LGBTQ folks, and people of color. And every day there seems to be a new word or phrase that has harmful origins or an underlying meaning you never thought about before. Sometimes it feels like no matter how hard I try, I can't say anything without offending someone. And since I'm a person who loves to run her mouth, that can be pretty difficult.\n\nBut I still try, even though from time to time I get it wrong. I've found that the best way to avoid hurting others is to steer clear of endorsing, watching, listening to, or participating in media or conversations that exclude or harm marginalized people. The best way to do that is to make a mental list, or at least have firm policies on what you will and won't stand for. I call this \"Activist Lent,\" but instead of forty days, you give these things up for the rest of your life. A more accurate description might be \"Activist Recently Discovered Severe Gluten Allergy,\" but that doesn't have a very good ring to it. Here are just a few of the games, habits, performing artists, and expressions I've given up in recent years\u2014or at least believe I should have given up in recent years, even if I can't quite bring myself to cut the cord just yet.\n\n# GAME OF THRONES\n\nThis is many a feminist's guilty pleasure. The folks at HBO manage to lure so many of us back, even after giving us eighteen-month breaks between seasons to muster the will to quit. When my personal attempts to stop watching failed, I tried to turn off my feminist brain and just enjoy it; I've never managed that, either. Instead, I brace myself every time Tyrion enters a brothel, and complain about each episode for days after it airs. I'm hardly the first person to point this out, but despite being a badass, Khaleesi is a textbook white savior figure, with her glowing platinum hair and her posse of minions, all of whom are brown and constantly fawn over her. (I think I gasped during the scene when she crowd-surfed across a sea of brown nonspeaking extras as she celebrated her reign as their queen.) There's also the terrible story line of her relationship with Khal Drogo\u2014he rapes her after taking her as a child bride, and then she falls in love with him; to add insult to injury, the actor who plays Khal Drogo publicly joked that being able to \"rape beautiful women\" was one of the perks of his role. He's since apologized, but as more and more actresses come forward about sexual assault in Hollywood, I can't help but wonder if this impulse explains rape as a plot device in too many films and television shows.\n\nI digress. _Game of Thrones_ is also mercilessly violent, and as a severe empath I'm often reduced to squealing and covering my eyes when gruesome death seems imminent. I can say pretty confidently that I feel angry with the show more than I like it. Nevertheless, I'm going to stick with it till the likely bitter end. Janet Mock calls this being a \"critical fan\"\u2014I'm not going to give it up, but I don't gloss over the issues just because I enjoy immersing myself in the action. When people say they don't watch it, I respect that.\n\nSo why do I keep tuning in? For all the guilt I feel, there's no denying that it's an incredible show. It's one of the few that are truly unpredictable. Every time you like someone, they get killed off. (Though I pray Arya never sees this fate. I worry they're waiting for the series finale so it'll be too late for me to boycott the show in protest, like I did with _The Walking Dead_. RIP Glen.) I absolutely love the costumes, and since everyone and their brother watches the show, I enjoy participating in the collective water-cooler conversation it inspires. (Twitter is my water cooler.) But above all, I think what I find compelling about it is that, although the show is rife with horrible people with evil motives, they often get their comeuppance. We live in a world where too often bad people never see consequences. It's almost a relief to spend an hour each week in a place where they do.\n\n# THE SONG \"BLIND MAN\" BY XAVIER OM\u00c4R\n\nThis song is something of a deep cut. If you're not a fan of neo-soul or Afrofuturistic bops, chances are you've never heard Xavier Om\u00e4r's \"Blind Man,\" but I can assure you it's quite a smooth jam, despite the cringey lyrics.\n\nOn first listen, when you're sort of half paying attention and can make out only a third of the words, it sounds like it's presenting a feminist message. \"I can love you with my eyes closed \/ I don't lose sight of your beauty \/ 'Cause your heart is fine gold, baby \/ Imma take my time with your mind,\" Xavier croons. He praises his girl's ambition, her dreams, and her heart. While most men may just focus on this woman's \"body like a queen,\" he suggests, he is no sexist\u2014he cares about her mind.\n\nBut then we get into a dicey situation with some metaphors: \"A blind man could love you just for who you are \/ Got 20\/20 vision and I still don't see ya flaws \/ I said you make me feel good, and you ain't even touch me.\"\n\nIs he saying his girl is so _physically_ beautiful that a blind man could sense her beauty? Or is he saying that her inner beauty is strong enough that a blind person, who he believes would not care about physical appearance and therefore must be a connoisseur of inner beauty, would love her? The line \"A blind man could love you just for who you are\" suggests that a blind man somehow has more reason to judge a woman's inner beauty\u2014I guess because Xav thinks her physical beauty wouldn't be able to make up for a bad personality? He tops it all off with a throwaway line that vaguely suggests blind people have to touch things a lot.\n\nThis doesn't make much sense, but what meaning we can get from it is offensive. For one thing, tons of blind people are in happy relationships with people they love and think are attractive; the suggestion that blind people are somehow more discerning when judging personalities is bizarre and othering. Remember the second line of the song, too: \"I don't lose sight of your beauty\"\u2014a pretty sleazy pun that takes a cheap shot at blindness, especially when you consider that Xavier later insensitively brags about having twenty-twenty vision.\n\nFrom a feminist perspective, Xavier's insistence on inner beauty\u2014which we can only assume he's discussing because his girl is superhot in the first place\u2014veers dangerously close to some lines in Drake's \"Best I Ever Had\": \"Sweatpants, hair tied, chillin' with no makeup on \/ That's when you're the prettiest \/ I hope that you don't take it wrong.\" Drake, I do take it wrong, because sometimes I like to wear makeup, and I don't appreciate your ranking my styling choices because that's only going to make me self-conscious when I do decide to break out the MAC Ruby Woo. Though I don't forbid myself to listen to Drake, I do have him on notice for using that sensitive Auto-Tune to trick you into thinking his songs aren't all about policing women. \"You're a good girl and you know it\"\u2014so what if I am?\n\n# R. KELLY\n\nOne of the hardest things to cut out of your life is a musical artist you like. You can be doing well, and then your favorite jam from 1997 comes on. You learned to love it before you understood the lyrics, back in that carefree time of your life when you thought you could get pregnant by sitting on a boy's lap. You might pause and wonder, \"Maybe it's not so bad?\" and enjoy the rest of the song uncomfortably before forgetting about it.\n\nTo this day I shudder to think of the middle school dances where my girlfriends and I belted out the lyrics to \"Too Close\" by Next, which I now know is a song about a guy having a boner on the dance floor and warning his dance partner she might feel it if she gets too close. Of course, erections are totally natural, and it's kinda nice that the fellas of Next felt it was important to disclose what was happening, even if they couldn't be more discreet than \"You're making it hard for me.\"\n\nThis is not the case with R. Kelly, who has been accused of statutory rape, illegal marriage to a minor (Aaliyah), and, most recently, of brainwashing and holding women captive in a \"sex cult.\" He's already profited off his music\u2014there's nothing we can do about that. But we can refuse to play it, which I do. Not long ago, I was hanging out with my neighbors when they put on \"Bump N' Grind.\" I hated to be the Debbie Downer, but I did it anyway. \"I'm sorry, but you have to change this song. I don't see how you can listen to 'My mind's telling me no \/ But my body, my body's telling me yes' and not think, _Child predator_.\" My friends were understanding, but at first they tried to fight it. \"But it's such a good song!\" they cried, half dancing along as they objected.\n\nI had to be firm. These were not questionable lyrics about \"good girls\"\u2014R. Kelly is permanently and irrevocably tainted. \"Fuck this guy,\" I said. \"We will not pass go, we will not step in the name of love, we will not go to the hotel lobby, we will not take it to our rooms and freak somebody. We will stay right here and choose to listen to some other R&B singing sensation.\" And that is what we did.\n\n# CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY\n\nI must confess: I have experienced this purposefully offensive game firsthand. But I promise, I only played it once, and I can truly say I will never do it again. I didn't know what it was when my friend, with a naughty twinkle in her eye, brought it out, and I felt like I was going to have a heart attack the entire time we played. If you're not familiar with Cards Against Humanity, its official tagline is \"a party game for horrible people.\" It's basically group Mad Libs: Each player gets ten cards with words and phrases on them. The words and phrases range from questionable to terrible, and almost all of them have the potential to hit someone where it hurts. Here's a random selection of cards: _African children_ , _The gays_ , _An oversized lollipop_ , _Court-ordered rehab_ , and _Vehicular manslaughter_. If you're thinking these all sound like caricatures of what's considered \"politically incorrect,\" it's because I made it a point just now to leave out any that were truly upsetting. Trust me, they're in there.\n\nAfter everyone has been dealt their hand, you have to put your cards together in the middle to make a sentence based on a fill-in-the-blank prompt. The \"Card Czar\" picks the funniest\u2014or most horrible\u2014one, and the person who submitted it gets a point. It goes on this way until the most consistently offensive person is declared the winner. While I love a good game night, that evening felt like a _Game of Thrones_ \u2013style torture session. Instead of giving up, I tried my best to play along while sticking to my morals. This proved harder than expected; I lost a few rounds by playing it extra safe. But then I was able to turn it around. Maybe it was because I spend all day battling trolls, so I have perspective on how the worst minds of humanity work. Maybe it was that I wanted to get it over with. Maybe it was just beginner's luck. Maybe, deep down, I am a horrible person. Regardless, my friends said they were going to tell everyone, so I'm coming clean here: Somehow, some way, I won my first and last game of Cards Against Humanity.\n\n# RAP SONGS WITH TRUMP SHOUT-OUTS\n\nI was one of the millions of American citizens who weren't prepared for the results of the 2016 presidential election. But one surprising consequence was realizing just how many of my favorite gym tunes name-checked Donald Trump, and I'm not talking about the recent classic \"FDT (Fuck Donald Trump)\" by YG. Nay, all throughout the 1990s and 2000s, rappers were shouting out Trump and his hotels as if they were symbols of prestige and wealth rather than tacky products of craven exploitation. I'll admit that I haven't purged these songs from my phone, but I stage a mini silent protest for choice lines such as...\n\n# \"FLAWLESS (REMIX),\" BEYONC\u00c9 FEATURING NICKI MINAJ\n\nI told him, \"Meet me at the Trump, Ivanka.\"\n\n# \"I WANNA BE WITH YOU,\" DJ KHALED\n\nAt the Trump, you bitches at the Radisson.\n\n# \"DONALD TRUMP,\" MAC MILLER\n\nTake over the world when I'm on my Donald Trump shit.\n\n# \"WHAT MORE CAN I SAY,\" JAY-Z\n\nI'm at the Trump International, ask for me.\n\n# \"COUNTRY GRAMMAR (HOT SHIT),\" NELLY\n\nBill Gates, Donald Trump, let me in now.\n\n# \"IT'S GOIN' DOWN,\" YUNG JOC\n\nBoys from the hood call me black Donald Trump.\n\n# THE FOLLOWING WORDS AND SAYINGS\n\nThere's an idea commonly thrown around conservative spaces that liberals, by objecting to certain words or phrases, want to censor free speech. An extreme example of this is the N-word: Every time a celebrity\u2014or YouTube's most subscribed gamer\u2014is caught saying it, the conversation is dominated by the idea that \"It's not fair that you can say certain things and I can't.\" It should go without saying that anyone who wishes to say the N-word certainly _can_ , but the reception and social consequences will differ based on whether or not you're black.\n\nRegardless of how you feel about the word, the idea of words changing meaning between groups or individuals isn't a new concept, or one exclusive to black people. For example, my husband calls me \"baby,\" and I usually respond with something like, \"Aw. You still have to clean the bathroom.\" Meanwhile, if a dude on the corner calls me \"baby,\" I'm going to roll my eyes. Words are like chameleons that way.\n\nWhat these \"Why are you censoring me?\" people misunderstand is that no one is _forcing_ anyone to change the way they speak. You can say anything you want; you won't face legal action for calling someone the N-word. But it doesn't mean you can say it free of consequences. You can totally start your company emails to your boss with \"Dear ugly bitch\"\u2014you'll just get fired for it. By committing to march down the path of \"political incorrectness,\" you're saying you're willing to sacrifice relationships with anyone who finds your language unacceptable.\n\nObviously, I'm not walking around calling my bosses\u2014or anyone\u2014ugly bitches. But beyond egregiously hurtful language, there are tons of other words and phrases that exclude, upset, or otherwise offend marginalized people that still find their way into everyday conversation. I try to eliminate these terms from my speech to be more conscious and welcoming, both to strangers and to people I know. With some of these, I had to be called out for using them before I understood how messed up they were; they've become so ingrained in our conversation that most of us don't even think about them. There's nothing wrong with that; we all have to learn somehow. The key is to avoid getting defensive, to listen to what people are telling you, and to work to do better. There are countless ways to express an idea\u2014why would you want to use one that insults an entire group of people?\n\n**G  pped**\u2014I've definitely dropped this in a video without even thinking twice about it. It's such a colloquial, almost jokingly old-fashioned phrase that I was shocked when I learned its origins. So-called Gypsies\u2014the historically nomadic ethnic group more appropriately known as Romani or Roma people\u2014deal with horrific discrimination and oppression all over the world, and particularly in Europe, where certain businesses may still hang signs that read _No Gypsies_. Few companies will employ Roma people, so they are forced to beg, or worse, for money. They have been persecuted for centuries, at times forced into slavery, assimilation, and repatriation to their \"countries of origin\"; they have been treated as scapegoats for epidemics of disease and blamed for rising crime rates in several countries. Estimates of the number of Romani people killed during the Holocaust range from 200,000 to more than a million.\n\nToday people use \"g pped\" to suggest they've been swindled, which perpetuates the misconception that Romani people are untrustworthy or criminal. Saying your aunt \"g pped\" you on sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving is not acceptable, and I was happy someone called me out on it. And while Free People and any number of other fashion labels push \"Gypsy\" wear for music festivals, the word is still a slur in many parts of the world. Which is why I avoid it even when it's meant to represent something positive, like overpriced crop tops.\n\n**\"Hey, guys!\"** \u2014Unless you find yourself in a group comprised exclusively of male-identifying people, there's a better word than \"guys.\" For years, I began all my videos with a peppy \"Hey, guys!\" until someone gently pointed out that there's a more inclusive way to welcome my audience. Not every woman, female-identifying person, or nonbinary person feels uncomfortable with \"guys\"\u2014I personally don't mind if someone uses \"guys\" when I'm in mixed company. But I still switched to \"Hey, friends!\" or \"Hey, party people!\" because some people do feel uneasy about \"guys.\"\n\nWhen I explain this concept to people, they're often incensed. \"Ugh, you're so sensitive!\" they cry. \"I'm a woman and I don't care, so why should anyone else?\" But I'd argue that these people are actually the sensitive ones, because instead of switching one word, they throw a temper tantrum.\n\n**\"I feel fat\"** \u2014The Facebook memory feature, which pulls past posts you made on the same date in previous years, is equal parts nostalgia and embarrassment. For me, in addition to photos of old friends I've lost touch with and excited praise for the _Sex in the City_ movie, I was shocked to see how much I used to post about \"feeling\" or being fat.\n\n\"Bloated\" is a feeling. \"My stomach hates me because I ate an entire pizza\" is a feeling. But \"fat\" is not a feeling. Everyone, no matter their size, has phases when they don't feel the best about their body, but associating those negative feelings with fat people increases the already huge stigma they face, from the misconception that being fat means you can't be healthy to the idea that it means you're dirty or unattractive. People feel so comfortable saying horrible things about fat people, it's almost as if weight were some kind of moral issue.\n\nStatements like this also promote disordered eating, creating a tangled web of shame that touches the lives of so many people, regardless of their size. When I was younger, it seemed as if my mother was always on a diet, which meant I was always on a diet. When she eliminated carbs, I did, too; I drank SlimFast for breakfast and lunch even though it upset my stomach; I did my best to follow the makeshift Atkins diet by avoiding the foods on the list hanging on our fridge. I subscribed to the unfortunately common idea that being fat, or, really, anything other than thin, was the worst thing you could be, and that's where statements like \"I'm so fat today\" were coming from\u2014a fear of becoming what I had been led to believe was a fate worse than drinking gritty \"French Vanilla\"\u2013flavored \"milkshakes\" for two meals a day for the rest of my life.\n\nWhen I got to acting school, disordered eating felt like the norm, if not actively encouraged. I would work out three times a day and limit myself to canned tuna and protein shakes. If anyone questioned whether I might have a problem, I responded with \"Of course not! I'm eating!\" At least one girl in my class of thirty acting students was hospitalized for her eating disorder, as were a few others, but it was never discussed. Instead, we treated it as a necessary consequence of looking \"our best\" for roles.\n\nSince then, I've let go of the idea that one type of body is happy or healthy, and I've learned that the urge to put myself down about my weight is a direct consequence of the unrealistic beauty standards society has for women. And my impulse to acknowledge\u2014or even apologize for\u2014\"feeling fat\" has side effects that go far beyond my own self-esteem, too. It promotes bigoted attitudes toward fat people, from concern trolling (\"I'm just worried about your health\") to outright discrimination. When I worked at Anthropologie\u2014not a store known for its inclusive range of clothes\u2014racial profiling wasn't the only issue. Our loss-prevention team would flag customers over size 18 as potential shoplifters, because why else would they be there? Never mind that we sold shoes, home goods, and jewelry, which customers of any size could enjoy. And while I've had my own encounters with strangers who refuse to mind their business, I was shocked when one of my friends shared that random people will often congratulate her for ordering a salad because they assume someone of her size must be dieting.\n\nFrom wearing crop tops or indulging in a sweet snack to having an active sex life, people have all sorts of warped and outdated ideas about what people with larger bodies should and shouldn't do with those bodies. This kind of thinking is invasive and rude, and it needs to stop. People of all sizes are happy with the way they look, and they don't feel like their size or shape is a bad thing. It's none of anyone else's business either way.\n\n**\"I wanna kill myself\"** \u2014There's something about the current political situation that makes it particularly easy to drop this into casual conversation. Trump has caused many of us to feel like we're constantly on the brink. But we're not.\n\nI stopped saying this after a close friend lost a family member to suicide. I had accidentally erased my camera's memory card, losing a few hours' worth of work, and in a fit of frustration, I said, \"Ugh, just fucking kill me!\" My friend's immediate response was \"Nothing is worth losing your life over. Please don't say that.\" I realized immediately how careless it was to suggest that death would be better than dealing with an inconvenience as inconsequential as a couple of lost files. You should always take it seriously if someone says they want to kill themselves. If everyone is always saying \"I want to kill myself\" when they really mean \"I hate this situation\" or \"I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative,\" it becomes much more difficult to understand when people are serious and need help. Suicide is not a joke.\n\n**Lame** \u2014This is a hard one to quit, but pretty straightforward: The technical definition of \"lame,\" according to _Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary_ , is \"having a body part and especially a limb so disabled as to impair freedom of movement.\" Since we apply it as a slang term to things that are ineffectual, insubstantial, boring, uncool, or otherwise bad, we imply that disabled people are ineffectual, insubstantial, boring, uncool, or otherwise bad. They're not.\n\n**Spaz** \u2014When I was in eighth grade, there was a girl in one of my acting classes who would slip into a mentally disabled character she called Sylvia. A group of us would be out somewhere, at the mall or a restaurant, and suddenly she would become Sylvia, fully embodying this character, and it would be our job to keep her from doing something too embarrassing or harmful. Thank goodness YouTube didn't exist in those days, because there would no doubt be ample video evidence of our horrendous shenanigans. Instead, you'll just have to believe me when I say everything from Sylvia's voice to her mannerisms was painful.\n\nOnce, we were in a drugstore, and she picked up a box of pads, went up to an employee, and asked, \"Can I try these on?\" Which of course sent us into a fit of giggles. (Think of the most obnoxious theater-kid stereotype you can dream up, and that was us, times ten.) The employee, not knowing what to say but not wanting to upset her, said, \"Ummm... no... sorry... you can't.\" Sylvia, unperturbed, abandoned the interaction and knocked a row of adult diapers off a shelf in the next aisle, and we bolted out of the store.\n\nBeing kids, we were excited by the possibility of doing things we weren't supposed to do, on top of \"fooling\" people into thinking someone had tasked a group of eighth graders with taking care of a disabled child without an adult in sight. We thought the whole thing was just hilarious, but I don't think I really need to explain why it wasn't. For one thing, it was someone's job to clean up our mess, and I'm sure some underpaid employee was chewed out for letting us wreak havoc in the store. For another, creating a spectacle of Sylvia made it seem okay to stereotype or mock people with physical and mental challenges, people who have a huge range of abilities. Just like saying someone is being \"retarded,\" calling someone a \"spaz\"\u2014a derogatory term for people with \"spastic paralysis,\" which is known as cerebral palsy when it's congenital\u2014ignores the prejudices and difficulties disabled people face, and instead turns them into a punchline.\n\n**Spirit animal** \u2014This is another phrase I was rightfully called out for. It's not uncommon to hear people refer to everything from their favorite actress to the latest viral meme as their \"spirit animal.\" It's meant as a term of endearment, so what could be wrong about that?\n\nUntil the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, Native Americans were often prevented\u2014sometimes violently\u2014from accessing sacred sites, keeping ceremonial items that were illegal under U.S. law (such as eagle bones or peyote), and performing ceremonies or rituals without gawking onlookers or questioning from authorities. Keeping this in mind, \"spirit animal\" is actually a gross oversimplification of an important part of a culture that has long been actively oppressed, stifled, and ignored in racial justice discourse.\n\nThe ways that indigenous people have been forced into assimilation are so specific: They were moved off sacred lands, their names were changed, and their languages were purged so aggressively that colonizers would destroy cultural and religious artifacts that featured words. The message was clear: If you want to stay in this country, you have to be like us. So it probably hurts when non-Native people talk about cartoon characters and rainbow bagels as being their \"spirit animals.\" (Meanwhile, we live in a country where people, including the president, flip their shit when people say \"happy holidays\" instead of \"merry Christmas.\") \"Spirit animal\" is not an appropriate metaphor to explain that you identify with the snarky cat from _Sabrina the Teenage Witch_.\n\n**\"That's so crazy!\"** \u2014A whole cache of mental-health terms have migrated into casual use. Some act as slurs\u2014such as \"psycho\" or \"psychopath\"\u2014and others are things we might say to lightly make fun of ourselves: \"Oh, I'm just so OCD about my bathroom!\" Often, these words are used to explain away systemic racism, bigotry, and murder; any time a white man opens fire on a school, or a movie theater, or a concert, people, trying to understand the tragedy, say, \"He must have been crazy.\" The effect of this is twofold: People who have mental illnesses may feel ashamed to seek help, and the systemic problems at the root of the actions (lax gun-control laws, toxic masculinity, etc.) continue to go unacknowledged.\n\nMental health is so stigmatized that we barely talk about the original issues we're dealing with, much less about how it hurts when friends use \"insane\" to describe the objectively awful political situation. Not to mention the fact that labeling violent or bigoted people as \"crazy\" or \"mentally ill\" perpetuates two harmful ideas: that mentally ill people are dangerous, and that bigotry is something people can't control. I admit that I never even thought about how often I deemed the news \"crazy\" until someone called me out for it on Twitter. I still slip up now and then, but I try to replace \"crazy\/insane\" with \"wild\" or \"unbelievable\"\u2014it conveys exactly the same sense, without the harm.\n\nI could go on, but don't worry\u2014I won't go into the movie portion of my list, which would no doubt ruin any future Netflix and chill plans. It can feel like a lot to keep track of, I know, but once you get used to this kind of self-editing, it can be kind of fun. You're helping to make the world a better place for marginalized people, and by holding yourself accountable in everyday situations, you're also teaching by example. You know how, when you were a kid, you used to put all the pillows on the floor and hop from one to the other because if you touched the carpet it was lava? Think of your Activist Lent list as the lava. Just make sure to apologize gracefully if you fall in.\n\n# CHAPTER TEN\n\n# UNFRIENDED\n\nEnding a friendship used to be simple. Like when your best friend moved to Boston to live with her dad and stepmom, leaving you high and dry in South Florida. Bam. Friendship over. Sure, you breathlessly promised to KIT (keep in touch) and LYLAS (love ya like a sister), but you had no interest in _actually_ going to Boston because you imagined it resembled a town in Siberia where all the men wore Patriots jerseys and used \"wicked\" to mean the opposite of what it's supposed to mean. Or like in sixth grade, after your girlfriend confided in you that she'd gotten her first period, and you made a cheap Red Sea joke in geography class and she never forgave you. Even if you regretted it later, the friendship breakup was cut-and-dried: There was a clear cause and effect that both parties understood. Obviously you were just jealous, but that didn't erase the hurt or embarrassment. (Those were the days, right? When middle school girls longed for their periods, not in the \"But seriously, where the fuck is my period?!\" sort of way, but more of an \"I can't wait to run through a field dressed in all white celebrating my womanhood!!!\" kind of thing.) In the end, you were persona non grata at your former friend's coed pool party, but at least you knew where you stood.\n\nToday, Facebook is where friendships go to die. If you're somehow one of the last people left on earth who is not on Facebook, you are both worthy of envious admiration and hella suspect. How do you remember the birthdays of random people you interned with in college? How do you keep track of how often your mother-in-law plays\u2014and CRUSHES\u2014 _Bejeweled_? What about the bloody C-section photos of women you can't quite place because they've changed their last names and their profile photos are pictures of babies playing with puppies? Seriously, who the hell is that woman, and what did I do to deserve her afterbirth in my Facebook feed?\n\nDespite the wealth of information Facebook abstainers miss out on, they're also spared the gut-wrenching feeling that comes when you realize someone you once considered a friend believes America should be celebrating \"White History Month.\" It should be as simple as it was in sixth grade: Friendship over. Though the process seems easy\u2014you literally just have to click a button to officially unfriend someone\u2014it dredges up all kinds of difficult questions. The abandoned friend may have no idea what she did to deserve being purged from your timeline, and you may have no interest in dealing with her long enough to tell her. It couldn't have been the \"Leave Ivanka Alone!\" meme she posted at two thirty in the morning, could it? Are political differences really enough to destroy a friendship that may have survived multiple moves, fights, betrayals, and drunken confessions of \"I knew that dress you wore to prom ten years ago looked bad but I didn't say anything\"? The fact that you never have to see each other in person to hash it out means you can forget about closure.\n\nSomeone once told me that, for black folks, being friends with white people is like holding a bomb and not knowing when it'll go off. While there's probably some truth to this analogy, I've found that everyone, no matter their race, gender, sexuality, or number of pro-choice buttons on their organic hemp grocery bags, has the capacity to blow up on Facebook, leaving everyone they know confused and covered in shards of incoherent ramblings.\n\n\"Blowing up\" doesn't just mean spoiling the latest episode of _The Walking Dead_. (Though that falls under the General Asshole category and should also be avoided, unless you want me to give you the ice-queen eyebrow next time we see each other at a party. Also, why are you still watching _The Walking Dead_?) No, what I'm talking about are the people who choose to use their status updates to uphold systems of oppression, perpetuating misinformation, intolerance, prejudice, and, ultimately, white supremacy. That's kind of high-minded language to describe your high school guidance counselor's misspelled rants about illegal immigration, I know, but white supremacy works on every level, from the White House (duh) to your uncle Ron. And this is one of the few times I'm comfortable using the phrase \"not just white people\"\u2014too many of my skinfolk are all too happy to suck on the teat of the white sup. If you've ever caught Milwaukee sheriff David Clarke doing one of his Fox News appearances\u2014though I don't know why you'd have that on\u2014you know what I mean.\n\nCombine this layer cake of white supremacy expression with the ways social media turns us all into lab rats, trained to expect praise and attention every time we so much as comment on Jennifer Lopez's hair, and it's no wonder Facebook forces you to reckon with every single one of your relationships. Where else can your mom, mailman, boss, and Tinder date all hang out and shoot the shit, together? And they aren't talking about the weather. I'm not going to say that Facebook brings out the absolute worst in people\u2014that honor goes to Sunday afternoon at Trader Joe's\u2014but it does encourage people to be petty, competitive, arrogant, and gossipy, and to engage in WWE-style dramatics. Except this arena has no rules, referee, or ejection policy.\n\nWhich brings us back to friendship breakups. Sometimes you may want to forget you ever met these people (okay, maybe not your mom). As everyone knows, these days the first step to forgetting you ever met someone is purging them from your social media accounts. But how do you determine when a friendship can\u2014or should\u2014be mended and when it's time to pull the plug?\n\nLike your relationship status at age seventeen, it's complicated.\n\nIt's not possible for two people to agree on everything, no matter how well they get along. Hell, my husband and I have an argument almost every time we have to pick a movie to watch. (He always wants a gory horror flick; I'm more of an action\/thriller type.) But those are the type of agree-to-disagree moments every relationship is made of.\n\nPolitics is a different story. You may have passionate debates with your die-hard liberal friend who posts selfies in a #StillWithHer T-shirt, but you know at the end of the day the two of you are on the same team. But when it comes to basic human rights issues\u2014like trans bathroom laws, affordable health care, or same-sex marriage\u2014agreeing to disagree feels nearly impossible. An opinion stops being \"just an opinion\" when it supports the mistreatment or oppression of others, which is why political differences can tear families apart and _Troll II_ can't. This quote from @SonofBaldwin, also known as the writer Robert Jones Jr., says it best: \"We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.\"\n\nSo let's say one of your Facebook friends has crossed the line and posted a disgusting meme slut-shaming Melania Trump for taking nude photos back in the day. You're at a crossroads. Are you mad at this Facebook friend for slut-shaming a grown woman who can do whatever the hell she wants with her body? Or are you mad at her for making you defend a woman whose husband and politics are absolutely reprehensible (but who can still do whatever the hell she wants with her body)? For the purposes of this analogy, let's say it's both. Which, coincidentally, is the correct answer. What do you do? Leave a lengthy comment about bodily autonomy? Reply with an eye-roll GIF that's completely open to interpretation? (Are you rolling your eyes at the post, or at Melania's totally consensual adult nudes?) Or do you pull out the big guns and unfriend altogether?\n\nRelationships aren't exactly \"ride or die,\" no matter how many pinkie promises or drunken declarations one might make\u2014and that's where this gets tricky. For some friends, acquaintances, or coworkers, it may be easier for everyone if you silently end the virtual friendship instead of trying to reason with them in the comments. For others, unfriending will just make everything worse.\n\nTo help you figure out if it's worth it to delete and never look back, I've made a handy guide, outlining all the relationships you may have on Facebook and the potential drama they have bottled up inside them, waiting to destroy your Thanksgiving.\n\nIn case you're wondering, no, the little icons are not Iron Man helmets\u2014they're supposed to be old-school sad drama masks. But I suspect Iron Man would also hate stirring up unnecessary Facebook drama, so whatever the icons evoke for you is okay with me. Remember that in a past life I was a graphic designer.\n\n# OH, THE \"FRIENDS\" YOU'LL UNFRIEND\n\n## Family\n\nIdeally, we'd never be forced to accept our family members as friends on social media in the first place. Though you might appreciate being tagged in weekly ~ ~SHARE THIS IF YOU LOVE YOUR BEAUTIFUL, PERFECT DAUGHTER~ ~ posts, your life is probably not improved by knowing that your great-aunt has discovered anti-abortion memes. (Even if you would like to know how the hell she found that website\u2014the last you heard, she still used dial-up.) And you don't necessarily want the whole gang to see what you're posting, either.\n\nBut sometimes denying or ignoring a family member's friend request\u2014or going the full distance and unfriending them altogether\u2014is just asking for trouble when a cousin's wedding comes around. Not only that, but chances are they know where you live and have access to embarrassing photos of you from when you had braces and did a weird thing with your eyes whenever someone brought out a camera because you thought you'd mastered Tyra's \"smizing\" lesson on _America's Next Top Model_. Proceed with caution.\n\n## Current Classmates\n\nWhile I've never been to prison, I've marathoned enough episodes of MSNBC's _Lockup_ to realize that school is the closest most of us will ever come to the clink. (Unless you're like me and had to spend three hours in the juvenile assessment center for stealing tarot cards, but that's a different story.) Your school experience likely consisted of monotonous days spent trapped in an institutional facility for hours at a time with random people you wouldn't choose. Sentence: twelve to life.\n\nWhat I'm saying is, tensions are already high. One of the best and worst things about Facebook is that it means you never have to look someone in the eye when you tell them they suck. But if you're unfriending someone you could easily run into in the cafeteria or dining hall on fish stick day, that aspect goes out the window\u2014and the potential for in-person drama is huge.\n\n## Former Classmates\n\nAh, yes, the classic Facebook friend, the one everyone is talking about when they're like, \"Suddenly everyone I know has two kids and is running an ugly yoga pants pyramid scheme out of their spare bedroom!\" These are people you haven't seen in a few years\u2014maybe more\u2014but you have a good enough idea of who they are that you enjoy creeping through their profile, scrolling past eight hundred pics of their moderately cute children to see if they've somehow maintained their looks since high school. Ending these friendships is relatively low drama, unless you still live in the same small town you grew up in, or plan on going to your high school or college reunion (which, unless it has an open bar, you can probably skip). The only risk is the loss of old happy memories, which you've most likely embellished anyway.\n\nI've had to drop the Facebook ax on far too many former classmates over the years. One girl, whom I'll call Sophie, is particularly memorable. Sophie and I were never close in high school, but we had a few friends in common and hung out a handful of times. While perfectly pleasant, Sophie was far too wild for my tastes\u2014your classic \"poor little rich girl\" who had more money than she knew what to do with, so she spent it on drugs and getting her light blue vintage Mercedes detailed every weekend. Seriously\u2014no one needs their car cleaned that often.\n\nGiven Sophie's party-girl past, I was surprised to discover that just six years after we graduated, she'd transformed into an evangelical conspiracy theorist. She filled my Facebook feed with a stream of obnoxious anti-vaxxer memes, Bible quotes, and rants against birth control. Well, maybe not that surprising\u2014Catholic guilt is fucked up and real. While most of her posts were beyond eye-roll inducing, I kept her around for the \"I can't believe this is who she turned into\" factor. Don't judge\u2014you know you've got more than a few of those in your feed right now.\n\nBut Sophie made a swift exit from my virtual circle in November 2008, right after Obama won the presidential election. While most of my friends were celebrating, Sophie was having a full-blown meltdown. She announced that she and her husband would be making some staffing changes to their family business in honor of Obama's win. Something like: \"We're going to stroll through the parking lot, and anyone who has an Obama sticker on their bumper will be let go. Let's see if this was the 'change' they were hoping for.\" No. Just no.\n\nI should've pulled the plug on our internet pseudo-friendship right then and there, but instead I did what I almost always advise people _not to do_ : hopped into the comments to \"remind\" Sophie that it's super illegal to fire someone because of who they voted for. I tried my best to reason with her, but she wasn't having it. After she made a few thinly veiled racist comments about welfare and compared Obama to Hitler, I decided I'd had enough and happily hit the _Block_ button on our relationship.\n\nAfter the 2016 election went the way it did, a lot of people were saying this kind of unfriending was bad, that liberals were living in internet echo chambers separated from the concerns of \"the rest of the country.\" While I do think it's our responsibility to educate people in our own communities, you can't build bridges with someone who not only refuses to do the work but also fires anyone who might be willing to. If we stopped to have an educational conversation with every offensive or hurtful person we've ever met, it would consume our entire lives. As much as it sucks, Sophie's own bias was going to keep her from being receptive to what I, a black person she hung out with three times in 2000, was telling her.\n\nThe lesson here is that ironic online friending is tacky, so when it blows up in your face, admit you brought this particular bigot on yourself and unfriend ASAP.\n\n## Coworkers\n\nTake it from someone who's made this mistake too many times to count: Skip the inevitable drama by not friending or following coworkers online until you or they have quit. Similar to prison\/school, these are people you're forced to interact with every day\u2014they're not your real friends until they earn it.  Coworkers are best seen as undercover agents, able to turn on you at any moment and use your gossip\u2014and Facebook posts\u2014against you.\n\nBesides, any potential friending that happens while you work together could bring drama to the office, and office drama has the potential to morph into financial drama, as in your ass could end up fired.\u2020 When it comes to work and social media, it's best to heed that immortal reality show mantra: \"I'm not here to make friends.\"\n\n(If it's too late and you already friended a coworker who turned out to be an irredeemable jerk on Facebook, check your profile settings and make sure they're on limited profile so they don't have access to your drunken photos and embarrassing status updates.)\n\n## Exes\/People You've Slept With\n\nUnless you're one of those freaks who can legitimately stay friends with your ex, keeping people you've dated or slept with in your digital feed is just nosy, and probably not good for your mental health. Lucky for you, these people are easy to unfriend: As soon as they say something even remotely awful, or the moment you get sick of their excessive new boo-thang PDA, you have valid reason to say peace. After all, if you wanted to tolerate that, you wouldn't have dumped them in your car in the Dairy Queen parking lot. (Though I hope you had the courtesy to drive them home afterward.)\n\nThen there are the \"I can't believe I slept with you, what are you even doing here?\" moments. In college, I occasionally hooked up with an RA. He was my first semireal relationship, meaning sometimes we'd go out to dinner before ending up in his dorm room. He was handsome and funny enough that I overlooked some of his annoying qualities, including his insistence that my middle-class upbringing wasn't a \"real black experience\" in comparison to his rough Detroit childhood. Or how he'd tease me about the high-pitched squealing I was known to partake in whenever I hung out with my best friend, De'Lon. Since the RA and I kept things casual, there were no hurt feelings when things fizzled out, securing his spot in my feed and in the fuzzy part of my memory reserved for nostalgia about carefree youth. But one comment changed all that.\n\nAfter I posted a photo of me and De'Lon drunkenly cuddled up at a piano bar on De'Lon's birthday, my RA fling casually commented, \"I knew he wasn't gay.\" Like a caramel bacon jalape\u00f1o cookie that leaves you thinking, _Here's a combination of things I'd never put together_ , this guy managed to cram homophobia, slut-shaming, and jealousy into one tiny bite-size sentence. And he was happy to say it publicly, on the record! In what universe is that your business, guy-I-used-to-get-naked-with-but-don't-anymore? What I should've done was tell him to take his outdated notions of masculinity and sexuality and place them directly in his heterosexual anal sphincter, but instead I just ended our online friendship and texted De'Lon a big LOL. We are still besties, and he is still very gay.\n\n## IRL Friends\n\nMayday, mayday! Major drama alert! For our purposes, I'm defining IRL friends as people you text regularly and go out of your way to fit into your offline life. If you live in New York, this may only happen, like, once a month, but that once a month is cherished. These are people you have no business communicating with on Facebook because they're sitting across from you at brunch and that's rude as hell. Unfriending them could affect your entire circle and make hangouts really uncomfortable. Your other friends may have to _choose between you_ , which is so high school.\n\nIf you're seriously contemplating virtually ditching a real-life friend, you should consider talking privately, away from your Facebook audience, first. If possible, take the conversation offline entirely and chat in person or by phone; if not, email is infinitely better than Facebook chat. Maybe whatever they said that enraged you got lost in translation, and there's an opportunity for personal growth that one or both of you need.\n\nBut no matter how close you and the other person may be, even if you go into it with the gentlest and most understanding of mind-sets, it doesn't always work out. In 2013, after George Zimmerman was acquitted for the murder of Trayvon Martin, the last thing I expected was to get into a Facebook argument with one of my childhood friends\u2014let's call him Andy\u2014over whether my grief was valid. Although we'd known each other since we were kids, Andy and I couldn't have been raised in more different environments. The oldest of three boys, he is white and grew up in a trailer park with his mom and alcoholic stepdad. My parents were divorced, and my mom and I lived in a three-bedroom house just across the canal from Andy's trailer.\n\nWe were close friends. Though I was only a year and a half older, Andy began calling me his big sister during my sophomore year of high school. He would tell me about the girls he was interested in, and I would give him advice if I approved or a side eye when I didn't. The single time I was ever grounded, he happily snuck into my backyard so we could share a joint through my bedroom window.\n\nOur friendship was so obviously platonic, my super-conservative mother didn't even bat an eye when he showed up at our doorstep one night in tears looking for a place to stay. His stepfather had the kind of horrible temper that always seems to accompany a drinking habit, so Andy had stormed off, vowing to never go back. He slept in our guest room that night, and I promised he could stay as long as he liked, even though I had no business offering.\n\nIf he sometimes saw me as a spoiled little rich girl with no problems, he never mentioned it, and I never detected it. He was always kind, and we treated each other with admiration and respect. So it was pretty surprising when, years later, despite the fun times we'd shared catching up over Christmas breaks and reliving old inside jokes on each other's Facebook walls, he jumped into one of my posts about our nation's broken justice system. He tried to shame me for ignoring \"the overwhelming drug and gang violence that dwarfs 'vigilante, and police' shootings all over.\"\n\nI had to take a deep breath. And then I began to type.\n\nI should've taken the conversation offline. Instead, I replied to his comment. I was angry, I was sad, and I felt like he was willfully refusing to understand where I was coming from. I wrote that it's possible to care about more than one thing at a time and that it was rude to derail our conversation by suggesting there were \"more important things to talk about.\" The entire thread descended into a silent screaming match as friends of every race and creed tried to explain to Andy why the idea that \"racism is a distraction to divide us\" was among the top three things people of color are sick of hearing from white people.\n\nAndy hit all the defensive-white-guy classics. \"The Irish were slaves, too!\" \"Classism is the real issue!\" Sharing a Morgan Freeman meme about colorblindness! As we all know, if Morgan Freeman, professional spokesman for black people and voice of God, says we should \"stop talking about race,\" then the argument is settled.\n\nBy this point, the thread had gotten out of control. Every time I tried to finish a thought, three new comments would pop up and the conversation would burrow deeper and deeper into the ground. There was no turning back. I sent Andy a private message to try to save him (and myself) further embarrassment. Though I thought he was totally misguided, I focused on the way he'd presented his ideas and not the ideas themselves. I said it was condescending for him to tell grown adults that they're \"wasting\" their time by talking about whatever they're interested in instead of whatever he's interested in. I added that, as challenging as his upbringing may have been, it didn't give him the right to speak over me, a black woman, as I discussed my experiences with racism and my fears about living in a world where my skin color is seen as a threat. In addition to the profoundly ignorant things he'd said, he'd been talking down to me, as if I were incapable of managing my time, interests, and emotions.\n\nI ended my message by saying he didn't need to respond unless he was prepared to apologize. He sent back another Morgan Freeman meme. I clicked \"unfriend.\"\n\nCould the friendship have been salvaged if we'd talked over the phone? The fact that he thought a meme was the best way to respond tells me no, but who knows? People who seem like jerks online often just don't understand that their humor isn't carrying\u2014that what they think is a lighthearted joke actually reads as dismissive and cocky.\n\nAt the very least, a phone call would've saved me the time and energy I spent hunched over my laptop, furiously typing and backspacing to try to mediate between Andy and my friends. The internet is a great place to be exposed to certain conversations, but a terrible place to have conversations yourself, especially if a friendship is on the line. Choose your opponents (and your friends, duh) wisely.\n\n## Internet Friends\n\nInternet friends are people you've built a relationship with over a few months\u2014or even years\u2014but haven't actually met in person, or have met in person only a few times. While internet friendships are very legitimate relationships, they're usually a lot easier to end because people have this lingering idea that they aren't _real_. ( _Homo sapiens_ spent hundreds of thousands of years only interacting with each other face-to-face, and that whole \"human history\" thing is hard to shake, no matter how convenient ordering your dinner on an iPad is.) Plus, you don't risk running into internet friends at a party postbreakup, and you usually have few IRL friends in common, if any. (If this weren't true, you would probably see them more often!) It gets a little sticky if you're all in the same industry and do most of your work virtually, but even so, these kinds of connections are supposed to come and go. Don't lose sleep over it.\n\n## Randos\n\nOh, right, that guy. Who cares? These are people you probably shouldn't have linked up with online anyway, friends of friends of friends you meet at parties or the men who start talking to you about \"synergy\" at PR events and send you friend requests before you're in your Uber home. When they get out of line online, your first reaction is \"Who?\" You can't even remember where you met them or when you added them on Facebook.\n\nWhy did you add them in the first place? Maybe you thought they'd be a good business contact, or you liked a joke they made about airline food, and you imagined your friendship blossoming like cherry trees in the spring. This is the wrong attitude to have this late in the Facebook game. Hanging out with someone once is not enough to let them into your online circle. They can float in pending-request purgatory until you're confident they're worth the risk. They don't have to know you hit _Decline_. Maybe you're just so busy living an exciting and glamorous lifestyle that you forget to look at your Facebook friend requests. Odds are they'll quickly forget about you, too.\n\nNow that we've laid out the types of Facebook fools who could potentially meet your ban hammer, I've created a handy flowchart that will help you decide how to proceed when someone inevitably blows up your feed.\n\nWith all this drama lurking just beneath the _Comment_ button, you may be wondering why you're still on Facebook anyway. Some people thrive on the attention, on the constant stream of new information and ideas and infuriating arguments and incredible links you have to click to believe. Some people make it work. But everyone's social media experience is different. As with any social network, you have to decide why you're on Facebook, and what you want or need to get out of it. Just as most serious conversations about race, gender, and politics are better had offline, there's nothing healthy about Facebook stalking, even though that's essentially what the platform was built for. If you find yourself feeling guilty because you didn't post enough photos of your recent trip to Bermuda, or if the unfriending experience has left you feeling gross and petty (and also like you have no friends, at all), it's possible you need to log off for a while.\n\nI know this probably sounds a little hypocritical, coming from a former social media callout queen and oversharer. If I hadn't succumbed to my worst online tendencies, I probably wouldn't have my career, let alone a book deal. But even as I've made massive, viral mistakes, I've stuck with these platforms because I've seen the good things they have to offer. In addition to _loving_ my friends' dog photos, I'm in a private Facebook group of WOC comedians from around the country, where we share audition horror stories and offer advice on everything from on-camera makeup to getting a better agent to dealing with difficult coworkers. It's really cathartic, and I've made some great connections and friends there that I doubt I would have offline. So for all the nuclear devastation that can take place on Facebook, the site isn't a completely hopeless disaster.\n\nBut as long as people have air in their lungs and Wi-Fi in their pockets, there will always be someone who makes you second-guess the access they have to your time and timeline. If worse comes to worst and you can't unfriend, well\u2014do you think you could manage two accounts? Embrace your new identity, Helga von Schwenderlaufer.\n\n# CHAPTER ELEVEN\n\n# LAST NAME BASIS\n\nI never thought I'd marry a white guy. I also never thought I wouldn't marry a white guy. In reality I never thought much about who I'd marry at all, because for a long time I was certain marriage wasn't for me. My parents' divorce made me skeptical of the whole institution, and the idea that I should decide in advance which races are acceptable for life partnership struck me as, well, superficial. Yet many people treat my relationship with Patrick, the man I've been with for eleven years (who just so happens to be white), like it's evidence that I'd been plotting some kind of racial coup. It's almost like I have to admit to having a white husband in the hushed tones I'd usually reserve for the confessional booth\u2014too often, my followers discuss their shock\/confusion\/disappointment about the moment when they found out my husband was white. As if he were a terminal illness I'd been diagnosed with. (How do I know? Well, they have these conversations in my Instagram comments.)\n\nOthers assume Patrick's whiteness was the foundation on which we built our modest, two-bedroom relationship. If whiteness were the reason for my relationship with Patrick, I can assure you we would've broken up a long time ago. His race doesn't help when one of our dogs gets diarrhea all over the living room carpet; it sure as hell doesn't help when he destroys our bathroom or when I need to do my makeup but he's in there shaving. Patrick's whiteness doesn't take care of any of the demanding aspects of partnership. Like any relationship, ours requires work.\n\nOur story is like something out of an early-2000s fairy tale: We met at a house party I'd gone to because I wanted to hook up with someone else\u2014the guy who was throwing the party. It was around the holidays, and I hit it off with Pat because I assumed he was in a relationship. I'd never had a serious boyfriend before, having always kept relationships in that awesome purgatory stage when you insist, \"We're NOT dating\u2014we only hang out after eleven p.m.!\" After the party\u2014where I, fortunately, did not hook up with the host\u2014Pat told one of our mutual friends he liked me, and she set up a \"group date\" at Panera Bread. Very casual. She never showed up, so we dined on bread bowls alone and then shared our first kiss in his car after I mocked the mistletoe hanging from his rearview mirror. We've been together ever since.\n\nToday, he and I have a podcast\u2014 _Last Name Basis_ , download it on iTunes!!!\u2014so people are used to our dynamic: We make fun of each other, a lot, and talk a lot of shit. Pat's sense of humor was the first thing I noticed about him, and I loved that he didn't pull any punches when it came to razzing me. When we first moved to New York we bought a used Nintendo Wii off Craigslist, and our _Mario Kart_ battles would get so intense that I worried the neighbors would call the cops; we competed with the out-of-work opera singer downstairs by screaming things like \"You drive like a fucking retiree, and I am going to destroy you!\"\n\nBeautiful, right? Not everyone thinks so. The first time the internet gave me shit for my relationship with Patrick was when I decided to document our three-year (dating) anniversary on YouTube. I was twenty-six and getting really into making videos at the time; Patrick was waiting tables at Olive Garden to pay off his student loans. He didn't really get the YouTube thing, but he decided to go along with it anyway. I told him we could talk about how we met and that it would be really funny and adorable, but not so adorable that he'd come off as soft or uncool.\n\nBack on our three-year anniversary, we weren't really a \"public\" couple, so when we made our YouTube debut, I'm sure more than a few people were shocked to see the nice girl with the hair tutorials trading slurred profanities with her white boyfriend. On top of drinking a lot of wine, I'd also lost my voice, so I sounded like a Russian gangster.\n\nIn the grand scheme of provocative #content, we were being tame. We made some off-color jokes about the fact that Pat had named his new black hatchback \"the Black Fist,\" and we yelled at our dogs between sips of wine. But unlike my other posts, which were produced and planned, the video wasn't intended to be anything but a chance to be silly and mess around. As we drank more wine, we started play-fighting more, and the types of biting comments we always make started to flow. It was all in good fun. I didn't think too much about it when, the next day, I woke up with a headache and posted it.\n\nEven back in 2009, when callout culture was but a twinkle in Twitter CEO @jack's eye, I was foolish to think this video wouldn't get noticed. The jokes were inappropriate, and I had a big enough following that a sizable number of people would see it. Still, I was surprised when I checked my email and saw an inbox full of enraged comments. They weren't even really about all the \"not PC\" things we were saying; instead, they were from a group of very disgruntled black viewers who believed interracial relationships were a plot to destroy the black family. Any black woman who would willingly date a white man, they assured me, must be pathologically self-hating.\n\nThe video quickly racked up fifty thousand views, more than anything I'd ever posted at that time. As I combed through the comments, I started to notice a trend: The most aggressive posts came from avatars and usernames that recalled ancient Egyptian and Afrocentric themes. Who were these people?\n\nApparently my video had been shared by a popular \"hotep,\" which inspired a wave of commenters to attack me for \"disrespecting my blackness.\" I soon learned that hotep (which is an Egyptian word that roughly means \"to be at peace\") was the name adopted by black folks across the internet as both an insult and an identity. Hoteps often dabble in misogyny, homophobia, conspiracy theories, and fanciful African origin stories that link eating red meat to white supremacy; feminism to a plot to destroy the black family; and everything from hurricanes and headaches to slavery. According to my new hotep \"fans,\" I was so self-hating and superficial that I'd hopped into bed with the first white guy who would have me. And to make matters worse, he wasn't even a rich white guy!\n\nThis logic still confuses me to this day: It's superficial to date a white guy, but not superficial if you make sure he's got some money? The comments ranged from laughable\u2014\"I just think you should know: He's cheating on you. I can tell by his eyes\"\u2014to full-on misogynoir: \"Black women are so desperate for white acceptance they'll be with a white guy for three years even though he hasn't put on a ring on it.\" I was so shocked by the intensity of the comments coming from black people in particular\u2014and the fact that almost no one directed any of the vitriol at Pat\u2014that I took the video down.\n\nThen I got a text from a friend: \"hey girl... just wanted to let you guys know I saw an ad for an interracial porn site and it was you and pat? hope ur ok xoxo.\" I didn't bother asking what my friend was searching for when they stumbled across the ad (no judgment) and instead requested a link, ASAP. Yes, someone had spliced up our drunk anniversary home video so that lines like \"Are you nervous?\" and \"We've never made a video together before...\" took on a completely different meaning. The still image was a shot of me and Pat drunkenly clinking our glasses and toasting to our foray into amateur erotica. Awesome. Thankfully I was able to file a claim through YouTube to get it removed before someone tried to add it to my IMDb page.\n\nWhere did the idea that interracial relationships are incompatible with the fight for equality come from? My white husband doesn't make me any less black, or any less dedicated to the fight for racial justice\u2014just as being married to a man doesn't make me any less of a feminist or passionate about women's issues. Perhaps some forget that interracial marriage was at one time, not so long ago, a civil rights issue; it was illegal in many states until 1967, when the landmark Supreme Court case _Loving v. Virginia_ determined that anti-miscegenation laws  were unconstitutional. \"There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification,\" the court wrote in the _Loving_ decision. \"The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy.\" In other words, the idea that white people should not \"mix\" with other races upholds white supremacy. It's segregation. It's racist.\n\nTo be fair, I can see why some people of color assume the worst when it comes to folks with white partners. Perhaps they've been fetishized, or dealt with more blatant racism, in an interracial relationship themselves. Or maybe they've met POC who wave their white partners around like a badge of honor, or who use their white partners to put down members of their own race. So it's no wonder they look at me and my white husband with one eyebrow raised. But the same frustration I feel when white people make assumptions about who I am because of my blackness is echoed when black people assume I must be a certain kind of person because my partner is white. It often feels as if the whole world is placing expectations on me and pressuring me to limit my experience\u2014or to define it entirely\u2014based on my race.\n\nNeedless to say, Pat didn't show up in another video of mine for years\u2014I realized then that I didn't want to make my private life so public. But that hasn't stopped people from making bizarre assumptions about our relationship. Sometimes they're not so abusive, but they're no less rooted in racism. A few years ago I was at a conference when a black woman came up to me to commiserate about how much dating black men sucks. \"So happy to meet you!\" she said, breathlessly. \"We have so much in common\u2014my husband is white, too.\" (Note: This doesn't mean we have very much in common.) She continued: \"I gotta commend you, girl\u2014these niggas don't have their shit together. When I was single I said to myself, 'I need to get me a white man.'\"\n\nI was at the conference for work\u2014acting as the spokeswoman for a family planning site that encouraged women to use birth control\u2014so I tried to keep my jaw off the floor. Is this how people assumed I felt about my relationship? In my mind, I was screaming, _My dad is a black guy! The last dude I kinda-sorta dated was a black guy! My best friend is a black guy! I probably would've married him if he weren't gay, but that's not the point!_ Instead, I told her I didn't go looking for any certain type of guy\u2014Pat was just who I fell in love with\u2014and flashed her an obviously fake smile as I thanked her for saying hello.\n\nThis should go without saying, but there's nothing inherently special, progressive, or earth-shattering about dating or marrying someone of a different race. Sure, you and your partner may encounter nasty quips from strangers, pushback from friends and family, and weird fetishy comments about your unborn children, but bragging about having a [insert race here] spouse is just not a good look. While my blackness is part of who I am, it's just that. A part. It doesn't define me as a person, and I sure as hell wouldn't be okay with Patrick describing me as his \"black wife.\" I am his \"loudmouth wife who laughs like a witch and is too fond of puns, but who I love anyway.\"\n\nStrangers who won't mind their own business aren't the only people who have questioned my decision to shack up with a really nice lawyer who once took a seven-hour flight to Paris in dress shoes and a stuffy suit to surprise me with a wedding proposal. While many assume I was on the hunt for a \"white kang,\" in reality I'd dated (aka slept with\u2014sorry, Mom) all sorts of guys before Pat came along and became my first serious boyfriend.\n\nIntroducing him to my family was nerve-racking, and they didn't really make it easy. Right around the fateful anniversary video, I bought myself a new car after years driving a clunky old Volvo. My new Toyota Yaris was the first car I'd paid for entirely with my own money, and I was feeling very grown-up. My uncle, who'd lent me money a few times when I was in college and therefore got a kick out of teasing me about every adulthood milestone, called to congratulate me.\n\n\"Heard you got a new car. What color is it?\" he asked.\n\n\"Blue!\" I replied, beaming. I'd heard a weird statistic that red cars often had higher insurance rates, so I felt proud of myself for being responsible and picking something more sensible, even though I wasn't sure it mattered to Geico.\n\n\"I'm surprised it isn't white, to match your li'l boyfriend.\"\n\nYep, that's right\u2014my uncle called me up and pretended to congratulate me on an achievement so that he could comment on the fact that my boyfriend was white. Not even really because he wanted to say anything about the fact that he was white\u2014but it felt as if he wanted to make sure that I knew he was judging me. Even though he knew I wouldn't have been able to keep a white car clean to save my life.\n\nWorse was my dad's account of meeting Pat for the first time. We'd been together for a few years, so our love was not some illicit wrong-side-of-the-tracks romance\u2014we'd already moved to New York together and were in the \"Why the fuck is the bathroom so disgusting?!\" phase. I was visiting my father in South Carolina when I overheard him on the phone in his bedroom, saying something like \"... and she brought this li'l _white boy_ up in my house.\"\n\nDon't ask me why the male members of my family liked to refer to Patrick, who is six feet tall and a smooth two-hundred-plus pounds, as \"li'l,\" but to them that is what he was: insignificant, petty, silly. I stormed into my dad's bedroom and yelled at him to \"GET OFF THE PHONE RIGHT NOW.\"\n\n\"How dare you say that about him?\" I screamed like I was the lead actress in a drama about an interracial couple who were determined to fight for their love whatever the cost. \"You don't know him! I love him! I respect him! And you should like and respect him because I do! He treats me right!\"\n\nMy dad apologized immediately and said he was proud of me for \"standing up for my man.\" I knew he meant it, but I also couldn't help but wonder if I'd always have to defend my relationship to my family.\n\nWhen black people are questioning the validity of my relationship, it helps, of course, that I don't have to make any excuses for Pat. There's always an assumption that, because he's white, Pat and I must have awkward problems discussing the uh, you know, _ahem_ , political situation. Or assumptions that he mumbles racial slurs in his sleep as his subconscious fights to express how he really feels about the blacks. Sometimes people, thinking they've caught me, will ask, in a _gotcha!_ tone, \"Well... does he support Black Lives Matter?\" To which I say: \"Duh?\" Even if you put aside the basic fact of my existence as a black person, social justice is a huge part of my career. I suppose there are couples who keep their personal and professional lives separate\u2014if I were married to a physicist I doubt I'd be able to explain the intricacies of what he did every day\u2014but \"the police shouldn't kill black people\" is not exactly quantum mechanics.\n\nIt's a little absurd that I have to recite my husband's social justice credentials to prove he's worthy of me\u2014I'm a grown-ass woman who can make choices for herself. But more than a few people are willing to write me off as an activist because I'm married to a white guy, so here goes: Patrick is really empathetic, to the point that I can't even really complain to him about a woman cutting me off in line at the grocery store because his response is usually something like \"Maybe she was just having a bad day. I'm sure she didn't mean it.\" I wouldn't marry anyone who didn't care about people, but his compassion is next level. (I'd like to say \"I'd never even date anyone who didn't care about people,\" but my twenties were a dark time.) Early in our relationship, whenever I talked about the racism I dealt with in high school and college, he would always ask how he could support me. In law school, he interned at a public defender's office, and he's worked pro bono for survivors of domestic violence and people dealing with discrimination. When Mike Brown was killed in Ferguson, I would talk to Patrick about what was going on in the news, and he started using Twitter in earnest for the first time in order to follow live streams and other updates that mainstream news organizations weren't reporting on.\n\nOnce, he confided that one of his college friends had said I \"went too hard about racism.\" Immediately, I got mad and starting yelling. \"Well? So? What did you say?\"\n\n\"I told him that you're passionate about racism because it affects your life, and that there's no such thing as going 'too hard' about inequality.\" And that, reader, is one of the many reasons I married him.\n\nPat is no longer friends with that guy, but it did make me wonder if other white people Patrick knows\u2014or his family\u2014have questioned his choice to marry someone who's so vocal about social justice and fighting white supremacy. And while I should be used to it by now, I doubt I'll ever grow tired of watching racist trolls and \"men's rights activists\" shit themselves over my wedding photos. \"Who is this white man? Doesn't he know she HAAAAATES white men?!?!\" they scream. When I see this, I just laugh, and then imagine their heads exploding, leaving what little brain matter they had to begin with splattered across their dank basement walls. I've made up my mind to stop wasting time or energy on these sorts of comments, but inevitably one of my fans will leap to my defense with \"How can she hate white people when she has a white husband? Bloop!\" Which instantly turns my self-satisfied cackling into a full-blown _oh no_.\n\nWhile I appreciate followers having my back, the [insert race] partner defense deserves a swift retirement. Arguing \"But I have a white husband\" would make me no better than the proud bigots who trot out their \"black ex-girlfriend\" (who, let's be honest, probably doesn't exist) when someone calls them out on their racism. Of course I don't hate white people, but my husband isn't proof of that. If the ability to do the horizontal mambo automatically meant you shared a mutual understanding and respect for your \"dance partner,\" my college years would've been a lot less depressing. But at the end of the day, who you befriend, date, marry, or get naked with doesn't say shit about your morals or understanding of privilege, oppression, or social justice. That's like a serial killer proclaiming, \"I have plenty of friends who are alive!\"\n\nI often have to deal with people questioning the validity of my activism and blackness because of my marriage, but strangely enough, Patrick doesn't encounter nearly the same level of vitriol. (Try guessing why...) Occasionally he'll get online messages from anti\u2013\"social justice warriors\" to the tune of \"How can you be married to someone who hates the white race so much?\" along with the occasional \"cuck,\"  but in general the harassment gets funneled through me. People don't feel the need to criticize a white man for his choices, but they assume, paradoxically, both (1) that they need to \"warn\" me about white men because I can't fend for myself, and (2) that I'm trying to single-handedly destroy the black race because I share a refrigerator with a white man.\n\nAnother moment in our relationship that illustrates this perfectly took place shortly after we got engaged. Two things happened: A bunch of Patrick's extended family added me on Facebook, and Obama was reelected. The night of his win, I posted something celebratory on Facebook\u2014don't remember what. Suddenly, a photo I didn't really recognize popped up under my status update. A negative comment about Obama. I was deleting people left and right that night. I don't remember what was said; all I remember is hitting the trusty _Unfriend_. I realized she was Patrick's relative a minute later, when she messaged me: \"You don't know what you're marrying into.\" Then she blocked me.\n\nAdrenaline up from arguing with people all night, I asked Patrick what the FUCK that was supposed to mean. He admitted he was as confused as I was and said he'd talk to her, and I completely forgot about it.\n\nFast-forward to about five years later, Pat's family reunion in Tennessee. I'm admittedly not a fan of the great outdoors, but I ended up having an amazing time; we went whitewater rafting and hiking during the day and played card games and drank moonshine late into the night. Although I knew only a handful of people at the start of the week, by the end of the trip we were all sharing funny stories and proudly wearing our family reunion T-shirts. It was nothing at all like the stereotypically dramatic family reunions portrayed on TV. It was great.\n\nAs we were getting ready to leave on the last day, when everyone was saying their goodbyes and making plans for the next meetup, one of Patrick's family members came up to me. \"It was so great meeting you,\" she said. \"I had such a good time and... I'm really happy for you.\" And then she started crying.\n\nI was a little confused\u2014had we connected in such a moving way? I couldn't remember us exchanging more than a few words, because she had been awfully quiet all week. I tried to go with it. Then she added, \"I just want to apologize for everything. I feel so bad. The whole weekend I was thinking that you must hate me, and I'm just so sorry.\"\n\nNow totally confused, I replied that it was great to meet her, too, and that there was nothing to apologize for. What was she talking about?\n\nIt didn't hit me until we got in the car to go to the airport that she was the girl from my Obama Facebook post, and that she had been so quiet because what she'd said to me had been weighing on her mind. Though I don't want to dismiss the very real and very awful racism that people sling online, I can't help thinking that this is how a lot of casual online racists would react IRL\u2014ashamed and regretful. People are very bold on the internet; they are not bold in person.\n\nPat and I didn't start _Last Name Basis_ because we wanted to make a podcast \"about\" being in an interracial relationship\u2014sure, we talk about race and social issues, but we also gripe about our loud neighbors, tease each other relentlessly, argue over furniture, and share our funniest and most embarrassing New York adventures. In that way, it's a show about two people who love each other, even though they have different interests and don't always agree. If anything, the fact that he's white and I'm black should create more challenges\u2014but it's only ever been an issue for other people, never for us.\n\nI realize that we're more of an exception than the rule. Even couples who have everything in common have challenges and struggles; it's just not possible to always view everything through the same lens. Every week we field email questions from mixed-race couples struggling to communicate about race, privilege, politics, and not-so-secretly racist in-laws. Although our relationship is far from perfect, and although I don't believe in \"marriage experts,\" I'm flattered that people look up to us and seek our advice.\n\nHere's what I've learned: People will have opinions about your relationship no matter who you are or who you love. But it doesn't really matter if some guy in Oklahoma thinks your gay interracial relationship is a sign of the impending apocalypse, because you're not married to some guy in Oklahoma. As difficult as it may be, your energy is better served by focusing on the internal work: compromise, understanding, and growing together. That means giving your partner the grace to learn, just as you'd want them to do for you. Be honest about what you want and what your boundaries are. Don't put off the hard conversations; don't wait to talk about your morals, your politics, or your beliefs. Or your personal standards of bathroom cleanliness.\n\n# THE DEBATE\n\nThere's a lot of confusion on the internet about where my true allegiances lie. Am I racist against white people, or am I a traitor against black people? Am I \"anti-white,\" or am I a \"self-hating bed wench\"?  Who do I hate more: Myself? White men? Black men? Or all men?\n\nTo settle the score once and for all, I decided to stage a debate, live, in front of an audience. Below is the complete transcript from the event.\n\n**FRANCHESCA RAMSEY:** Good evening from the Reddit offices, located in the pits of hell. I'm Franchesca Ramsey, and I want to welcome you all to the first ever debate to determine my true essence. Am I a self-hater, a man-hater, or both? To help us answer this question, I've invited prominent leaders of two groups who've devoted countless hours to theorizing and speculating about the burning contents of my heart and loins. Please join me in welcoming noted men's rights activist (MRA) Colton Harris Gordon and a leading Twitter hotep, Dr. A. G. Stankofa.\n\n[ _Awkward applause. A hushed voice can be heard saying, \"I thought this was going to be a screening of_ Wonder Woman _?\"_ ]\n\n**MRA, COLTON HARRIS GORDON:** I welcome the opportunity to prove your commitment to white genocide.\n\n**RAMSEY:** Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down there, Colton\u2014we haven't started just yet!\n\n**HOTEP, DR. A. G. STANKOFA:** Of course the white man finishes before we've even begun. Premature ejaculation is just one side effect of a savage diet. But you'd know all about that, wouldn't you, Chesca?\n\n**RAMSEY:** I can't say I know anything about Colton's eating habits, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Tonight's debate will be divided into three segments. I will pose the same question to both of you, and you'll each have up to one minute to respond. We'll then close out the evening by taking questions from the audience before determining who has won the debate. And with that, let's get started!\n\nFirst question: My husband! He's white. Dr. Stankofa, you're up first.\n\n**HOTEP:** Unsurprising. Your melanin levels have clearly been depreciated because you share a bed with a white devil. These white demons age like milk, which is why they seek to drain the life-giving melanin from our queens. You hate yourself and your people so much that you abase yourself to be desecrated by the pasty curd sack you call a spouse.\n\n**RAMSEY:** Thank you. I appreciate that feedback. Colton, same question.\n\n**MRA:** I'd first like to say that the topic you've presented is not a question. Second, I'm in my mid-thirties, and people regularly assume I'm in my early thirties, so the milk-aging thing is patently false. Just one more example of black supremacist corporate media shills spreading lies about the white race\u2014\n\n**RAMSEY [interjecting slyly]:** I don't see age, so I wouldn't know.\n\n**MRA:** I'll admit I was shocked when I learned Franny was married, let alone married to a white man. But upon further research it became clear that this \"marriage\" is an inside job. Nothing more than an advanced plot to eradicate the white race and subjugate white men under the guise of matrimony.\n\n**RAMSEY:** So you're saying I'm smart, creative, and have excellent leadership skills? Duly noted.\n\nNext question: Complete the following sentence: \"Franchesca is a feminist because...\"\n\nColton?\n\n**MRA:** She hates men.\n\n**RAMSEY:** Dr. Stankofa?\n\n**HOTEP:** I'd have to agree with the alabaster bastard. But I'd add that Chesca hates men because she's never had the pleasurable fulfillment that can only be experienced when a female's brain is fertilized by a black man's royal obsidian.\n\n**RAMSEY:** Interesting. What do you make of the argument that it's possible to advocate for racial equality and be in an interracial relationship?\n\nDr. Stankofa?\n\n**HOTEP:** That sounds like some gay shit.\n\n**RAMSEY:** And you, Colton?\n\n**MRA:** I'm pretty sure I have a meme for that... give me a minute...\n\n**RAMSEY:** Oops, your minute's up! Looks like that concludes tonight's debate\u2014thanks to everyone for participating. I'm sure you'll all use the hashtag #WhiteGenobride on social media to let us know what you thought.\n\n**HOTEP:** Hey, wait a minute. I thought we were ending with audience questions? This event is clearly rigged in the chalky gargoyle's favor.\n\n**RAMSEY:** Oh, goodness! You're right! Let's go ahead and take one audience question to close out the evening.\n\n**AUDIENCE MEMBER:** Hello. First, I'd like to say thanks for hosting such an enlightening and intellectually stimulating discussion, Franchesca. It's truly been delightful. So, I guess my question is, \"Why can't either of you mind your own fucking business?\"\n\n[ _Audience applauds, then cues up their reaction GIFs._ ]\n\n# CHAPTER TWELVE\n\n# EULOGIES FOR CRINGEWORTHY COMMENTS\n\nWe are gathered here today to say goodbye to a list of comments that just won't accept that their time has come. If you've ever been brave enough to call out systems of oppression, whether in a one-on-one conversation or on a larger scale, you may have encountered some of these not-so-witty retorts. Born of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and\/or simple ignorance, these reactions tend to be passive-aggressive, microaggressive, and gaslighting; they downplay arguments against bigotry so that the person committing it can save face or look smart. In reality, they make you look the opposite. They've been languishing for a while, so let's put them out of their misery once and for all.\n\n# 1. COMMENT: \"SORRY IF YOU'RE OFFENDED.\"\n\n**Often heard when:** Someone has done something hurtful or offensive, and they don't understand (or care) why what they did was wrong. But they also don't want you to be mad at them.\n\n**Why it should be laid to rest:** When \"if\" sneaks its way into an apology, it corrupts the entire thing from the inside out. Much like the \"RE: URGENT DEAR SIR OR MADAM\" email that somehow managed to slip past your spam folder, \"sorry if\" is highly suspicious. Humans are proud, often obnoxious creatures by nature\u2014we hate apologizing, because apologizing means admitting we did something wrong. So we try to have our cake and eat it, too, by apologizing \"if\" we've offended anybody. That \"if\" is tricky\u2014it suggests the person in question might not be offended, when in actuality the person has already clearly conveyed that they are. \"Sorry if\" also fails to take responsibility for the offensive words or behavior by making the apology conditional. To make matters worse, what comes after the \"if\" is just as pathetic: \"Sorry if _you're offended_ \" is a cop-out because that comment \"apologizes\" for another person's feelings rather than owning up to what you did to cause those feelings. This is a non-apology masquerading as a real apology, and it's really condescending to boot.\n\n**Comeback:** \"There's no need for 'if'\u2014I am offended. So are you sorry?\"\n\n# 2. COMMENT: \"WHY ARE YOU SO ANGRY?\"\n\n**Often heard when:** You're angry. Which means you're dropping F-bombs and\/or harshly worded opinions about injustice, oppression, or prejudice. Or you're just passionate about something and expressing that.\n\n**Why it should be laid to rest:** \"Why are you so angry?\" and its bratty cousins \"You're making a scene,\" \"You're being hysterical,\" and \"You need to calm down\" are part of a broader phenomenon known as _tone policing_. Enacted by what's known as the Tone Police, tone policing is the offering of unsolicited advice on how to express one's feelings. The Tone Police claim expertise on topics they heard about on _The Wire_ or in informational brochures for NGOs they contemplated volunteering for, and they do this by questioning the intensity of others' reactions to these topics. In turn, the Tone Police derail the conversation, away from the systemic wrong you were discussing and toward the validity of your response to that wrong. Another way to put what they're saying is \"I feel uncomfortable when you feel comfortable feeling freely.\"\n\nWhy are they so uncomfortable with your feelings? Maybe it's because they feel complicit or guilty. Maybe it's because they really just don't get what it's like to connect with oppression in a personal way. They may need to be exposed to that anger to inspire and provoke action. Anger can bring awareness to the severity of an issue and be a meaningful part of one's education. Anger is a valid emotion, and it doesn't lessen or invalidate truth. Not to mention, emotional distance is not an option for many marginalized people, and telling them to calm down only increases the alienation they may feel in these moments.\n\n**Comeback:** \"I think people should be treated fairly. And when they're not, it makes me angry. Why aren't you angry at all?\"\n\n# 3. COMMENT: \"MAYBE IF YOU STOPPED TALKING ABOUT THIS ALL THE TIME, IT WOULDN'T BE SUCH A PROBLEM.\"\n\n**Often heard when:** A problem is being discussed.\n\n**Why it should be laid to rest:** Awareness, education, and discussion are essential to understanding a problem before working toward a solution. But... that isn't always the case. Here are some issues we have definitely made successfully go away after ignoring them:\n\n\u2022 Student loan debt\n\n\u2022 Algebra homework\n\n\u2022 The growing stack of dishes in the sink\n\n\u2022 The New York City subway system\n\n\u2022 That pesky burning sensation when you urinate\n\n\u2022 The fact that your favorite jeans don't fit anymore\n\n\u2022 Overdraft charges\n\n**Comeback:** \"Maybe if I ignore my taxes they'll go away? It worked for Wesley Snipes and Lauryn Hill!\"\n\n# 4. COMMENT: \"RACIST? I'M NOT RACIST! _Y OU'RE_ THE REAL RACIST!\"\n\n**Often heard when:** You call out racism.\n\n**Why it should be laid to rest:** \"I'm rubber and you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you\" hasn't been a valid line of defense since elementary school.\n\n**Comeback:** \"Just like talking about global warming doesn't make me a greenhouse gas, talking about racism doesn't make me a racist.\"\n\n# 5. COMMENT: \"STOP PLAYING THE VICTIM.\"\n\n**Often heard when:** You're expressing feelings of sadness, disappointment, or fear in response to injustice.\n\n**Why it should be laid to rest:** Unless you're performing in a community theater production of _Law & Order: SVU_, I'm not sure why anyone would willingly choose to play the victim. The word \"play\" implies a fun or enjoyable experience, but there's nothing fun about the very real pain associated with being mistreated. Only people who lack empathy would see victimhood as some kind of game or performance with ulterior motives.\n\nThere's also little to gain from \"pretending\" to be a victim. For example, survivors of sexual assault who come forward often face harassment and abuse from strangers and those close to them alike; they get blacklisted and lose their jobs, and their motives are often questioned to the point that they recant their story to avoid the continued abuse. \"Stop playing the victim\" is yet again an example of someone feeling uncomfortable or threatened by the feelings associated with your lived experience. Just as you're allowed to feel angry about oppression or injustice, it's natural to express feelings of sadness or fear, especially if you're exhausted by the prospect of trying to keep up a brave face.\n\n**Comeback:** \"Victimhood is not a game. I don't get a prize for talking about my experience.\"\n\n# 6. COMMENT: \"DON'T YOU HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO THINK ABOUT?\"\n\n**Often heard when:** You're talking about something that's important to you.\n\n**Why it should be laid to rest:** Humans have large brains. That is why it's possible to care about all different types of things simultaneously, and why everyone's priorities are different. You might think petitioning the Olympic committee to make camel wrestling an Olympic sport is really important. Meanwhile, I didn't even know camel wrestling was a real thing. (It is.) But whatever you do with camels on the weekend doesn't stop you from also volunteering at your local animal hospital or donating money to cancer research. Plus, if you cared about every single pressing, dire, and horrible issue on earth all the time, at the same time, you would have a breakdown. You don't go to a concert and yell, \"Hey! I know everyone's having fun at a concert, but climate change is happening!\" Besides, by going to the concert, you're sort of participating in the unimportant thing you're saying people shouldn't be participating in, because you're at the concert. No?\n\n**Comeback:** \"Don't you have more important things to think about than what I should be thinking about?\"\n\n# 7. COMMENT: \"IT'S JUST A JOKE.\"\n\n**Often heard when:** Someone is trying and failing to be funny, but succeeding at sounding like a bigot.\n\n**Why it should be laid to rest:** People feel like using the word \"joke\" removes responsibility for the hurt their words may cause. It doesn't; in fact, it may make things worse. In an early episode of _Decoded_ , \"How Do You Handle a Racist Joke?\" I talked about the difference between offensive jokes, which make people uncomfortable or mad or hurt their feelings, and oppressive jokes, which reinforce negative stereotypes about marginalized people, thus upholding the mistreatment of an entire group of people, not just an individual.\n\nA Western Carolina University study found that when prejudiced attitudes around a marginalized group are shifting, negative jokes about that group can suggest discrimination is justified to people who may be on the fence. \"Ironic\" stereotyping\u2014where the joker says something designed, allegedly, to mock sexists or racists or transphobes or homophobes\u2014counts, too, so if anyone ever serves you with, \"Political correctness is ruining comedy,\" the same stuff applies. It's just not funny to disrespect other people's beliefs, backgrounds, cultures, or identities when those are deeply rooted in longstanding oppression.\n\nMany behaviors and practices that were once considered harmless jokes have since been recognized as irredeemably bigoted. For example: Blackface. In the past, a white actor covering their face in shoe polish and trotting out the worst stereotypes about black people was seen as comedic genius. That's because, at the time, black people didn't just lack positive representations of themselves in media; we weren't even considered human.\n\nJokes that punch down on marginalized people require no creativity because they've existed since the beginning of time. It's like telling a knock-knock joke and believing you're Richard Pryor. That's why these \"jokes\" sound really old-fashioned and stale: They uphold the status quo by perpetuating harmful ideas about people who're already in vulnerable positions in society. Imagine what would happen if an elementary school principal went in front of the school and made fun of a seven-year-old. No matter how the student responded, the principal would automatically have the upper hand because they're older and in a position of power. Not only is this scenario completely unfair, it's also the plot of _Matilda_.\n\n**Comeback:** [crickets] \"Then why wasn't it funny? Maybe you can explain the joke to me.\"\n\n# 8. COMMENT: \"WELL, I DON'T SEE COLOR.\"\n\n**Often heard when:** You're describing your experience as a person of color.\n\n**Why it should be laid to rest:** People who say this usually mean well\u2014they're attempting to let you know they're sooo not racist that they can't even conceive of a reality in which racism exists! But what they're actually saying is that racial _identity_ is bad\u2014not that racial oppression is bad. If someone is talking about their experiences as a person of color, \"I don't see color\" suggests their experiences aren't valid\u2014or flat-out aren't real. If you wear glasses and I say, \"I don't even see your glasses,\" that doesn't mean you suddenly have twenty-twenty vision\u2014it just means I'm in denial. Or maybe that I need glasses myself.\n\nA person's racial identity doesn't define them, but it does play a part in who they are. For many, \"I don't see color\" is an attempt to say \"I don't see you as any different from me or anyone else,\" which is good in theory, but not realistic. People are different! And that's okay! Our differences aren't the issue. It's treating people as less than because of their differences that's the problem.\n\n**Comeback:** \"Well, even in black and white, I'm still a person of color.\"\n\n# 9. COMMENT: \"WHY DON'T THEY JUST COME HERE LEGALLY?\"\n\n**Often heard when:** You're talking about undocumented immigrants or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.\n\n**Why it should be laid to rest:** If this question is being asked in earnest, the person you're talking to clearly has no idea how the American immigration system works. It is expensive, confusing, and prohibitive even for people who speak English as their native language, and who aren't dealing with the trauma of repressive governments and persecution. Besides, do you remember how this country was founded? Did Christopher Columbus come here legally? Did the Pilgrims have to make sure they had their passports open to the photo page so the line would move quickly at Plymouth Rock? Yes, there are immigration laws in place, but laws are not perfect. Part of our work, as activists and as citizens, is to determine what laws need to be refined and what new laws need to be created, and then to pressure our elected officials to act on that.\n\n**Comeback:** \"Why don't we just fix our broken immigration system so the people who want to come here legally can do so?\"\n\n# 10. COMMENT: \"THE IRISH WERE SLAVES, TOO!\"\n\n**Often heard when:** You're discussing the repercussions of the transatlantic slave trade in today's modern world.\n\n**Why it should be laid to rest:** When nearly two million Irish people immigrated to America during the Great Famine of the nineteenth century, they were abused, harassed, oppressed, and portrayed as diseased, poor rapists looking to steal American jobs. They were not, however, forced into slavery. The radical historian Noel Ignatiev's book _How the Irish Became White_ describes how the population\u2014many of whom came to America as indentured servants, under a system which, unlike slavery, was a voluntary arrangement, even if it was exploitative\u2014were able to shed their nonwhite status and achieve equality by abusing black people and accepting racism. Let's agree that all persecution is bad, but not all persecution is equal.\n\n**Comeback:** \"No, they weren't!\"\n\n# 11. COMMENT: \"THAT'S TERRIBLE. BUT MAYBE SHE SHOULD'VE...\"\n\n**Often heard when:** You're discussing sexual harassment or sexual assault.\n\n**Why it should be laid to rest:** I'll never forget one particularly beautiful fall afternoon when a few of my female coworkers and I were sharing our best\/worst street harassment stories. Normally, these storytelling sessions would happen in one of our offices, where we could comfortably splay across a couch surrounded by a mountain of decorative pillows featuring ironic sayings and nostalgic cartoons. (I never watched _Jem and the Holograms_ , but I've always liked the artwork.) Anyway, on that crisp Wednesday, instead of gabbing in a private space, my lady friends and I were partaking in the ancient pastime of water-cooler talk in the kitchen for all to hear.\n\n\"Did you hear about the woman in Chicago?\" one friend began. \"Some guy asked for her phone number, and when she ignored him he stabbed her right there on the train. And then, instead of calling the police, everyone took out their phones and filmed it. It's terrifying. That's why I never take my headphones off.\"\n\nRight on cue, a guy we'll call High-Key Jerk swooped in to disabuse us of the naive notion that a woman who was stabbed\u2014with a knife\u2014for not giving a random guy her number had been wronged in some way.\n\n\"Don't get me wrong, that's fucked up. But I don't understand why more females don't just give dudes their number when they ask.\"\n\nOh man, that woman who got stabbed\u2014why did she have to be such a buzzkill? She didn't have to answer his calls! And if he tracked her down to get revenge on her for not answering his calls, well, maybe she should've answered his calls.\n\nWhile some of the details of that day are so clear\u2014the sesame-and-onion scooped bagel halves we grazed on while sipping burned lattes from the office Keurig\u2014the exact dialogue of our conversation escapes me. So I'm forced to paraphrase to the best of my ability here. I believe I said something along the lines of:\n\nWhat in the ever-loving fuck?\n\nInstead of asking why women can't be bothered to hand out their number to every dude with a fresh Cricket Wireless plan, why can't sensitive-ass man-babies learn how to take rejection without resorting to full-blown temper tantrums that end in physically harming women minding their gatdamb business?\n\nHigh-Key Jerk was taken aback. But he recovered, and quickly hit me with a \"Well, damn. See? This is what I mean. Clearly I caught you on your period.\" In that moment, he was like victim blaming: dead to me.\n\nUnless you have a time-travel device handy, there isn't much value in theorizing how someone could've avoided being the victim of an assault of any kind. Maybe if I had worn a blue shirt instead of a red shirt, a bird wouldn't have pooped on me. See how ridiculous that sounds? Of course, it's extremely easy to suggest how a terrible situation or experience could've been avoided when (a) you haven't been in the situation; (b) you already know the outcome of the situation; (c) assigning blame makes you feel morally superior; or (d) all of the above. If someone is the victim of a crime, the CRIMINAL is responsible for committing the crime. They CHOSE to commit a crime.\n\n**Comeback:** \"You're right. It is terrible. If that criminal hadn't assaulted her she wouldn't have been assaulted.\"\n\n# 12. COMMENT: \"ALL LIVES MATTER.\"\n\n**Often heard when:** Ugh (alternatively: any time someone even thinks about mentioning Black Lives Matter).\n\n**Why it should be laid to rest:** I've saved the best (by which I mean worst) for last. \"All lives matter\" is the racist version of \"I know you are but what am I\"\u2014an attempt to halt the conversation and engage in an endless back-and-forth. The Black Lives Matter movement was created in 2013 by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin's killer, George Zimmerman. The movement is about creating a world where all lives\u2014including black lives\u2014matter equally. That's not the world we live in now, especially when we look at police violence and how it disproportionately affects black people. \"All lives matter\" is an empty retort designed to shut down conversations about black people and the issues they face. I think the \"all lives matter\" folks know that\u2014they just refuse to admit it.\n\n**Comeback:** \"It's okay for a movement to be focused on a specific group or cause. 'Save the rainforest' doesn't mean 'Fuck all the other trees.\"\n\nThough we must say goodbye to these comments today, we realize that this will not be the last time we will be gathered here. As you go out into the world, you're bound to encounter any number of dismissive, ignorant, and hurtful statements that need to be peacefully laid to rest. With the understanding that a perfect eulogy is often hard to muster in the heat of the moment, we encourage you to set time aside to write a eulogy of your own so you'll be ready when you invariably usher other offensive quips onto the next plane in this circle we call life.\n\n# CHAPTER THIRTEEN\n\n# SELF-CARE IS NOT SELLING OUT (UNLESS IT IS)\n\nThe fact of their deaths, all at the hands of police officers, is heartbreaking. But it was the images and videos, which in the age of social media and the twenty-four-hour news cycle are all but unavoidable, that got to me. Trayvon Martin's body as the lede photo on a _Gawker_ article called, \"This, courtesy of MSNBC, is Trayvon Martin's dead body. Get angry.\" Philando Castile's blood splattered all over his car. Eric Garner being choked, tackled, and abused by police officers. Alton Sterling, in that red shirt, on the ground. All the beautiful shots of Sandra Bland smiling.\n\nI've tried one too many times to avoid watching videos of black bodies being tormented and killed, but when you have to be on Facebook for work, it's almost impossible. When another police shooting happens, everyone immediately begins to share the story and comment on how awful it is, and with Facebook desperate to inflate its streaming numbers, of course the videos are set to autoplay. I remember the moment I felt like it had gone too far: There had been a string of police killings, one after another, and because I was working for _The Nightly Show_ at the time I was required to watch the inevitable footage that followed so I could write about the news at work. But I began to find it hard to go on Facebook without breaking down. Since police brutality was being discussed more than ever, people began to post old videos of police shootings, too. I decided I didn't need to see any more black men bleeding out on my Facebook wall, so I went searching for instructions on how to disable autoplay.\n\nThey were surprisingly\u2014or not, since Facebook is a company that makes money off you getting sucked in\u2014hard to find. It was so hard that when I finally figured it out and could shield myself from watching Philando Castile bleed out next to ads for dog food and shoes, I typed up a quick post about how to disable autoplay on videos, thinking other people might need a break from the trauma like I did. It wasn't anything elaborate, just something along the lines of \"There's a lot of shit going on right now, and you're probably seeing really graphic videos on Facebook. If you don't want them to play automatically, here's how to turn it off.\"\n\nSomeone more famous than I am once told me that when you hit 200,000 fans on Facebook, it's like the company flips a switch and assigns the most ridiculous, hateful people to comment on every one of your posts. When I wrote what I thought would be a harmlessly helpful post, I had around 250,000 followers, and criticism was swift and relentless. How dare I \"sell out\" like this? I was \"ignoring the realities of police brutality.\" And worse\u2014I was encouraging my fans to do the same. I was, once again, \"canceled.\"\n\nIt's always strange to me when people start dictating what you must or must not do to be a good black person, a good feminist, a good advocate. Do I have to keep a tally of my activist points to prove I've earned a moment of rest? It feels gross to do so. I had just written a piece about Castile for _The Nightly Show_ that went viral. I did live broadcasts for Facebook discussing police brutality. About a year and a half before, I'd gone on Katie Couric's Yahoo show and screamed at former NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly when he claimed the number of people who were killed by police officers was \"infinitesimal.\" After the broadcast I was added to the show's \"do not call\" list, which is a nice way of saying I was banned from ever going on that show again. And yet commenters were saying I was betraying my people because I didn't want to watch graphic videos of them being senselessly murdered every hour of the day. I understand that some white people need to see the horrible visual evidence of police brutality to realize the gravity of the situation, and even that they need to see it over and over. But not everyone needs repeated, in-your-face confirmation to understand that something abhorrent is happening and that they need to do something about it.\n\nI consider what I was doing with that Facebook post an act of self-care, a practice that has been criticized a lot lately, and rightly so. (I'll get to that.) \"Self-care\" originated as a medical term that, before the civil rights and women's movements of the 1960s and '70s, was used in the context of mentally ill and elderly patients, who were advised to practice healthy living habits in addition to their outside treatment. Then it was applied to people who work high-stress, emotionally taxing jobs, like EMTs and social workers. It was only natural that this concept would appeal to activists who were fighting for social justice, especially since so much of that work dealt with the ways society restricted, commodified, and controlled marginalized bodies. In her 1988 essay collection, _A Burst of Light_ , Audre Lorde wrote, \"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.\"\n\nToday, the line has been quoted again and again by activists wrestling with a political situation that, in some ways, doesn't seem so different from the way it was thirty years ago. When it seems that so much of society would rather you not live at all, keeping yourself healthy is a revolutionary act. In the case of police violence in particular, research has shown that black people experience PTSD symptoms when they see brutal images of black death. (Monica Williams, the clinical psychologist and director of the Center for Mental Health Disparities at the University of Louisville, calls this \"vicarious trauma.\") Stories of racism passed down over generations mean trauma is passed down, too.\n\nCombined, these things take a toll, especially as it's so easy to see how black death has become fodder for gruesome entertainment. We don't parade victims of tragedies around when they aren't black. After the mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas in October 2017, videos were shared, but they quickly faded away, and they were never so horrifying as what has become typical after any police shooting. When the TV anchor Alison Parker was fatally shot at point-blank range on camera, it aired live, and after that news stations decided they weren't going to show the footage anymore. I agree with both of these decisions\u2014people were stressed and sad and angry after these incidents, and watching them replay over and over only exacerbates these feelings. But why can't we show the same care and consideration for black victims? (I think you know the answer.)\n\nTaking care of yourself doesn't mean that you're not also doing important work that advances the causes that are important to you; in fact, it's a critical part of doing that work. Without self-care, you burn out\u2014physically, but also through something known as \"compassion fatigue,\" which is basically just what it sounds like: When you focus too much time and energy on others in distress, you start to wear down, too. Which eventually means you have to stop doing work altogether.\n\nI get why people are skeptical of self-care. For a while there, it seemed like it had been stripped entirely of its meaning and existed only as a marketing tactic. As I've watched the YouTube beauty community change, I can see how \"self-care\" has become shorthand for \"buy these products.\" It's not uncommon to hear an influencer declare, apparently without shame, \"A big part of my self-care practice is doing a hydrating skin mask once a week. Which is why I wanted to start my own line of hydrating skin masks, starting at thirty dollars for two ounces.\" This is partially why it's become something to criticize people for: It's assumed that if you're posting about going to a movie, or getting your nails done, or buying a candle, you aren't doing anything else (except maybe shilling for some candle company).\n\nBut you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. (Or the pedicures out with the... dirty foot-bath water?) The rise of self-care as a marketing tool makes it difficult to discern between legitimate rest and performative activism, but that doesn't mean you have to stay plugged into the news and angry 24\/7. Haters will claim you're doing yourself and the movement a disservice by not staying ON all the time, but in fact you'd be doing yourself and the movement a disservice if you were.\n\nSo now I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat, wondering: _What does Franchesca do when she needs to chill out? I must know!_\n\nHere are a few of my favorite things to do when I need to relax:\n\n\u2022 **Hour-long foot massages.** I recently discovered that I love foot massages, which are not something I expected I would like, so I've been doing that. (Despite what my husband says, my feet aren't gross, but I still tip a lot.) If you factor in the minutes it takes you to get used to having your feet handled by a stranger and then the minutes it takes to clear your head of other stresses, you realize that's still a solid forty-three-minute rubdown.\n\n\u2022 **Journaling.** It's nice to have a moment to reflect on and process your day, and lately I've gotten into drawing in my journal\u2014trying to make the page pretty is soothing, both because pretty things are soothing and because it forces me to concentrate on one thing rather than letting my thoughts race. Fun markers and stickers aren't necessary, but I buy them anyway. I challenge myself to make every page different. Sometimes I take the traditional approach and reflect on what happened that day; other days I make a collage of words and quotes that inspire me, or make lists of things I'm thankful for or things that made me laugh that day. It's a nice way to unwind, and it's also nice to have a record of what you do every day. One warning: I would say that going back and reading your journals from high school is actually the opposite of self-care. I went through a few of my high school notebooks thinking it would be good to quote them in this book, but no. All I did was say I was fat and keep daily charts of how much weed I smoked.\n\n\u2022 Speaking of weed: I **quit smoking** it. This one might seem a little confusing, since I'm citing no longer doing something as a form of self-care, but I promise it makes sense. I started smoking weed with friends in high school and later graduated to smoking alone out my bedroom window, eventually becoming the self-crowned queen of wake-and-bake. Even though I spent 85 percent of my senior year of high school stoned, I managed to keep a high grade point average, so I didn't see any harm. When my mother would ask about the strange smell, I assured her it was a candle. (Sorry, Mom, Fresh Grass is not one of Bath and Body Works' signature scents.)\n\nThrough college and after graduation, weed continued to be my go-to way to unwind or fill the time when I was bored. In my mid-twenties, when I moved to New York and was struggling to figure out what I was doing with my life, it became a crutch. I'd feel sad about my career, so I'd smoke weed and waste my day online instead of writing, auditioning, or doing much of anything. Once my career started to take off, I'd smoke to temper my anxiety.\n\nBut as I got older, it stopped working, and eventually it started to make my moods worse. I went from being a chill, funny, and happy stoner who was always pretty productive while high to being oversensitive, paranoid, and extremely emotional, sometimes unable to do anything but sleep. I'd always loved cracking jokes and talking shit with Patrick, but suddenly when I was stoned, any little comment would set me off and I'd dissolve into tears. Patrick started to notice a pattern. \"Wait. Did you smoke?\" became his catchphrase the minute we'd start to argue or I'd take a joke too seriously. I realized that pot was transforming me into someone I didn't recognize and that I needed to cut back. Finally, as I was battling a cold during my 2015 Christmas vacation, I took a few hits at a party and almost instantly lost my voice. I couldn't talk for almost two weeks. I took it as a sign and decided to quit then and there.\n\nIt still feels weird to come home from a long day and not unwind with a joint. Sometimes I do miss it. Or maybe I just miss how getting high used to make me feel. Either way, recognizing that smoking pot doesn't make me feel good anymore was the first step toward letting it go as a way to take care of myself.\n\n\u2022 **Coloring.** The adult-coloring boom of 2014 came and went for many, but I've stuck with it and I'm so glad I have. I've generated a pretty big collection ranging from intricate celestial designs to impressively complicated abstract mazes. (One of my favorites is _I Love My Hair_ , which is illustrated by my dear friend Andrea Pippins.) One year, I brought my coloring books on a trip to Costa Rica with Patrick and a few of our couple friends. My plan was to spend every afternoon on the beach coloring while sipping a bright, fruity drink\u2014this is my vision of bliss. On the first day, I spread my books out on the dining room table, and all the husbands, including Patrick, snickered. What grown woman has ten different coloring books and more than a hundred colored pencils? And brings them on her beach vacation? This grown woman, 'cause she can do whatever she wants. By the end of the trip, I had to pry the animal-kingdom coloring book from Patrick's hands and promise to get him a copy of his own when we got back to the States.\n\n\u2022 **Working out.** Nothing is better at distracting you from your problems than sweat stinging your eyes as you try to get your ass up for two more burpees.\n\n\u2022 **Face masks.** Though face-mask selfies have become a warning sign of someone who may be selling face masks on Instagram, that doesn't mean they're worthless. Even if they don't have an effect on your skin\u2014and for some I'm seriously skeptical\u2014they force you to sit still and not do anything for ten to fifteen minutes. I especially enjoy those that you have to let dry before you peel them off. It's extremely satisfying to see how big of a piece you can pull off without ripping it.\n\nEveryone's version of self-care is different. But no matter your chill-out method of choice, it's important to make self-care a regular practice when things are going good, so that when things aren't so hot you can prioritize keeping yourself (relatively) calm because the practice will be a habit. It's similar to when you're like, \"Okay, I have to get up for work at eight a.m., which sucks because I like to stay up until two thirty reading Oh No They Didn't! (my longtime guilty-pleasure gossip community) on LiveJournal. I'm going to try to get up at eight a.m. on the weekends, too, so it'll be easier to pull myself away from the Taylor Swift walking posts [don't judge me] during the week.\"\n\n# CONCLUSION\n\n# ACTIVISM IS LIKE LONG DIVISION\u2014YOU HAVE TO SHOW YOUR WORK\n\nAs excited as I was for the opportunity to write a book, I was also really nervous. The prospect of reliving some of the embarrassing, ignorant, or even offensive things I've said and done was daunting, especially since I've made a career of, literally, decoding injustice. Some people\u2014fans and haters alike\u2014have a perception of me as some kind of all-knowing, holier-than-thou social justice oracle, making pronouncements on bigotry from my production studio atop a mountain. It's not an accurate perception, but the idea of disappointing people scared me shitless. And not in an \"Oh God, I really needed to shit and now I feel a lot better\" way\u2014more like \"Oh God, I think some of my intestines might have just slipped out.\"\n\nWriting was especially anxiety inducing because every time I sat down to work, I would get stuck thinking about how every word could be twisted or misinterpreted. These worries weren't unfounded, either; it's not like when you ask your friend, \"Hey, does this outfit make me look like a _Real World_ cast member circa 2004?\" even though you know it doesn't. The world is an unwieldy place these days, and my little corner of it\u2014the internet\u2014is particularly stressful. It allows people to make anonymous claims without any repercussions; many social media users seem dedicated to taking your words out of context to make you look stupid, or worse. Add the fact that we're often talking about life-and-death issues for people who haven't had the chance to advocate for themselves, and you have a ticking time bomb.\n\nI'm not sure I could call myself an expert in anything other than styling my hair and bad puns, but I truly believe that trying to get it right is worth something. So now that you've laughed at, consumed, and side-eyed all my mistakes, accomplishments, and hard-won lessons, what's next?\n\n# UNDERSTAND AND ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR PRIVILEGE\n\nAlthough I've used it myself, these days the phrase \"check your privilege\" makes me cringe. It's certainly worthwhile to reflect on how your privilege can get in the way of your understanding and empathy. But \"check your privilege\" is usually spit out as a contemptuous demand instead of a helpful suggestion, like when you go to a restaurant and they ask if you'd like to \"check your coat,\" and then you remember, _Oh, right, I have a coat on, and I would like to leave it here so that I may enjoy my dinner without it hanging off the back of my chair and collecting dust off the floor._ If a member of the waitstaff barked at me to check my coat, or _else_ , I would probably leave the restaurant, write a bad Yelp review, and tell all my friends never to eat there again, even if they served the best steak in the world.\n\nJust as being ordered to check my coat would put me off eating at Rude Kitchen, aggressive commands that people check their privilege can backfire, too. What if the person you're talking to has no idea what \"privilege\" means? Left to figure it out for themselves, they probably assume you think they're rich, or that they've never struggled or had to work hard. The conversation will veer off course because they'll feel the need to tell you about their parents getting divorced when they were in third grade and about the summer that they broke their leg and had to sit by the pool with their foot propped up while their brothers and sisters learned to tread water. I've never broken a bone, but my parents got divorced when I was six, so I can empathize. But broken bones and broken marriages don't erase the privileges of, say, an able-bodied straight person who just said something really ignorant and hurtful about same-sex marriage, or who slid their able-bodied ass into the only wheelchair-accessible bathroom stall because they wanted to use the \"better mirror.\"\n\nIn an effort to help others understand their privilege and how it shields them from certain experiences, I've found that talking about my own privilege can open up the conversation. How can I possibly support trans people if I'm unwilling to see how being cis impacts my daily life, from my access to things like health care services, safe housing, and public restrooms to the fear of being harassed or abused while walking down the street? How can I push for more accessible spaces if I don't understand how being able-bodied affects how I move through the world?\n\nIn my animated video \"Sometimes You're a Caterpillar\" (illustrated by the wonderful artist and activist Kat Blaque) I use a story about a caterpillar and a snail to explain privilege. The caterpillar and the snail are best friends who live in a garden together, and one day they decide to go to a party on the other side of the fence. But they quickly realize that there's a problem: While the caterpillar is able to crawl under the fence, the snail gets stuck because of her shell. It's not the caterpillar's fault that the snail gets stuck under the fence, but it would be rude as hell for him to say something like \"Hurry up! I don't even see your shell.\" And while the caterpillar can easily fit under the fence, he still has his own challenges, like having to find shoes for all sixteen of his feet. The bugs both live in the same garden, but they move through it very differently. When the snail patiently explains that she just can't fit under the fence, the caterpillar has to check his privilege\u2014and then they work together to figure out how to get to the party before the keg is tapped.\n\n# KEEP IT INTERSECTIONAL\n\nA few years ago, I made a video in which I dressed up as a drag queen and walked through the streets of New York City asking people to guess whether I was a man or a woman. It was meant to be a comedic \"social experiment\" that loosely touched on sexism and gender stereotypes. What it actually was\u2014though I didn't realize it at the time\u2014was pushing a transphobic narrative, implying that it's totally okay to ask invasive questions about a stranger's genitals. The idea that trans people are oddities for us to gawk at is an extremely harmful one, and it's a huge part of the reason trans people, and especially trans women, are at such a high risk for violence: People demand to know \"what's down there\" and then fly off the handle if they don't get an answer, or if they don't get the answer they want. I'd made an all-too-common mistake: I was unable to see my privilege as a cis person and had thrown my trans brothers and sisters under the bus. I was trying to make a funny, socially conscious video about gender stereotypes, but I had forgotten that those same stereotypes I was toying with affect trans people very differently.\n\nIntersectionality is the study of how different systems of oppression overlap. People are multidimensional, and race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability play different roles in how we move through the world. The sexism I deal with as a straight cis black woman is often intertwined with racism; my experiences are going to be different from those of a cis white lesbian woman who deals with sexism that's often intertwined with being fetishized or discriminated against based on her sexuality. So it's crucial that our activism isn't just about the people who look like us.\n\nUnfortunately, well-meaning, smart, socially conscious (or \"woke\") people often forget to make space for marginalized people whose experiences differ from their own. From gay men calling their female friends \"sluts\" or \"bitches,\" to white women claiming that their experience of sexism is equivalent to another person's experience of racism, to reproductive rights movements forgetting that cis women aren't the only people who use birth control, to protest venues lacking wheelchair accessibility, and to social justice videos posted without captions, intersectionality fails are everywhere. Avoiding them requires care, consciousness, and a dose of humility, but it's worth it to build the world you want to live in. Because if your activism isn't intersectional, it's not really activism.\n\n# DO YOUR HOMEWORK\n\nThere will always be things you don't know and experiences you don't understand. It's okay to ask questions. Sometimes you'll be lucky enough to have someone who's willing to answer your questions or point you in the right direction of a book, movie, or article that you should check out for more information. But at some point you have to take responsibility for your own education. It's exhausting to always hold others' hands until they learn how to not be terrible people, especially when you're not getting paid for it. If you were in high school and wanted the smartest kid in English class to write a paper for you, you wouldn't expect her to do it for free. Not only is that cheating, it's exploitative.\n\nIf you do have a friend who's been kind enough to help you through your social justice education, the very least you can do is to get them a glazed doughnut to show your appreciation. (Better yet, take them out to dinner\u2014though you should avoid Rude Kitchen.) But there are so many resources available if you actually want to learn, and at some point your racism tutor is going to be like, \"Actually, I need to wash my hair tonight,\" and you'll have to take responsibility for your own education. Don't hesitate to hit up Google\u2014and not just Wikipedia\u2014or your local library or bookstore.  Do your own research on the issues and communities you're looking to support. I'm calling it homework for a reason.\n\n# KNOW WHEN TO CALL OUT, AND MAKE SPACE TO CALL IN\n\nIf you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.\n\n\u2014Desmond Tutu\n\nYou know those ads in the subway that say \"If you see something, say something\"? The same applies to activism. It's critical that you use your voice to call attention to harmful or oppressive forces, including but not limited to celebrities, TV shows, movies, Halloween costumes, and cartoons with secret racist messages. You can't just sit back and remark quietly to your similarly liberal friend, \"My, that's just awful.\" When the offense is public, it usually deserves a public condemnation.\n\nBut just as often as we publicly speak out about what's important to us, we should also make an effort to pull individuals aside and lovingly guide them toward the right path when they mess up. We all have that one friend who's willing to keep it real with you when you get a bad haircut, who will discreetly make a tooth-picking motion at you when no one else has the guts to tell you about the piece of spinach stuck in your teeth. Sometimes you have to be that friend.\n\nIf you have a friend or family member who says something offensive, remember that there were times when you screwed up and someone in your life had the grace to pull you aside instead of embarrassing you in front of everyone. Remember that you, too, were once exposed to something that changed your thinking and made you a better person. Wouldn't it feel good to be that something for someone else?\n\n# SPEAK UP, NOT OVER\n\nUse your privilege to advocate for marginalized folks, especially when you're in spaces where marginalized folks aren't present. I wish it weren't the case, but people are more willing to listen to someone who has something in common with them. You probably have access to people whom I will never have access to, just as I have access to people you'll never have access to. By that same token, it's important to use your privilege to bring people who don't look like you into those spaces. How do we get more POC involved in this organization? Why aren't there any LGBTQ folks on our advisory board? Who can we hire to interpret for the event? What can we do to cultivate female leadership? Take a look at who's at the table, and then use your voice to offer a seat to someone who deserves to be there.\n\nWhen marginalized people _are_ around, resist the urge to center your voice and speak over them. Think of Destiny's Child. There are three members, wearing matching outfits, but Beyonc\u00e9's outfit is always the cutest. Everyone's doing the same choreography, but Bey is out front. Everyone gets a chance to sing a line or two, but... we know who the lead vocal is. In this analogy, you are Michelle or Kelly (pick your favorite), and the person whose humanity is being questioned or undermined or attacked, the one most qualified to give voice to their experience, is Beyonc\u00e9.\n\nThe first time I used this analogy I got some pushback: I was accused of being unfair to Michelle and Kelly, two very talented, beautiful women who no doubt have more success and higher credit scores than I could ever hope to. But I think the comparison works. When Michelle decided to pursue a career in gospel music, Kelly and Beyonc\u00e9 were featured on her single, \"Say Yes,\" and appeared in the song's music video; this time, Michelle took the lead\u2014she even got the cutest outfit\u2014and the others were there to support her. And when Kelly published her book of advice for new moms, Beyonc\u00e9 and Michelle were at her book launch\u2014not hogging the spotlight, but cheering Kelly on.\n\n# OWN YOUR MISTAKES, AND COMMIT TO CHANGE\n\nNo one is perfect, and I promise, you're going to screw up. But screwing up is an opportunity for you to be honest about your mistakes, learn from them, and move forward.\n\nOne thing that I've learned during my time in the trenches of content creation is that genuine apologies are very, very rare. If you can perfect the art of saying sorry, more often than not people will be willing to give you a second chance. A genuine apology is made up of two parts: (1) taking responsibility for what you've done, and (2) committing to change. Pretty simple, but most people tend to fall back on some version of \"I'm sorry if you were offended,\" or \"Well, I'm sorry you feel that way,\" or \"It wasn't my intention to offend you.\" Unless you're a dominatrix who insults and offends people for a living because that's what your clients pay you to do, you rarely intend to offend people. Just because you didn't mean to do something doesn't change the result of what you actually did. As I've said before, if I step on your foot and break your toe, I didn't mean to break your toe, but your toe is still broken, and I'm sure you'd like to go to the hospital instead of listening to me explain that I didn't mean to break your toe.\n\nWe did an episode of _Decoded_ about the excuses people make for slavery in response to Bill O'Reilly flipping out when Michelle Obama said the White House was built by slaves. Michelle was right, of course, but the incident inspired a great conversation about why people are so hesitant to acknowledge how slavery has played a role in our nation's history. In the episode, we mentioned the Holocaust and Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe as an example of a way a nation has paid tribute to and respected a horrific time in history. We then compared that to the way America tends to frame slavery as something that happened in the past and doesn't need to be discussed anymore.\n\nAt the time, it seemed like an appropriate comparison. But soon after the episode went live, a number of viewers contacted me to express their disappointment that we'd used the Holocaust as a rhetorical device. Of course, I didn't intend to offend anyone\u2014I didn't realize that it was actually anti-Semitic to use the Holocaust in this way, especially because people do it so often. But I realized that using this very painful piece of history as a way to prop up or give more importance to another cause\u2014while completely disregarding that there are living Holocaust survivors, and that there are still people affected by the Holocaust and rampant anti-Semitism\u2014suggests that anti-Semitism is a thing of the past. It also continues to push the idea that America was not complicit in the Holocaust in any way. After being called out and called in, we made an episode about the myths around the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, and we used the way I screwed up in the slavery episode as an example. People ended up really enjoying the segment\u2014not just because it was informative, but because I owned up to my mistake, took the steps to remedy it, and used the experience to help other people.\n\nAll that said, keep in mind that forgiveness takes time; offering an apology doesn't mean it's automatically going to be accepted or that the hurt will magically disappear. An apology has to be combined with action to make a real impact, so remember to give people space to see your follow-through.\n\n# BAKE YOUR OWN COOKIES\n\nRacism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it.\n\n\u2014Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, _Americanah_\n\nI love this quote, and I think it can be applied to all forms of social advocacy. Too often, people want credit for doing the right thing instead of just wanting to do the right thing. I don't want to be picky about acts of goodness, because the world needs more of them, but doing the right thing isn't always going to come with a badge or a pat on the back or a tray of warm cookies. Those invisible acts of advocacy are just as important, if not more so, than the hashtag campaigns and the epic racist takedowns. No one is going to be there to watch you explain to your uncle why football players are kneeling during the national anthem, but those conversations still need to happen.\n\nSometimes people will email me screenshots of terrible things their friends or family members have said\u2014not because they called them out or called them in, but because they want to demonstrate how superior they are for not holding those same bigoted or outdated beliefs. Instead of running to show someone else how progressive and forward-thinking you are, you should be doing the work. You have to bake your own cookies. On the bright side, you can put whatever you want in them\u2014no more gross white chocolate macadamia for you.\n\n# ACTIVISM IS LIKE LONG DIVISION\u2014YOU HAVE TO SHOW YOUR WORK\n\nUltimately, being an activist is going to require way more time and discomfort than it takes to change your Twitter profile pic to a rainbow or put a safety pin on your backpack. These can be great signs of solidarity and support\u2014well, maybe not the safety pin\u2014but they're the bare minimum. You have to take the next steps to get out of your comfort zone and commit to continuously working to be a better person and, in turn, making the world a better place. That means getting involved in local politics, supporting diverse businesses and companies, passing the mic to marginalized folks, and giving your time, knowledge, and resources to charitable causes and organizations.\n\nHere's where I'd insert a really clever calculus analogy, but truth be told, I never took calculus. It looked really hard and boring, and buying one of those TI-84 calculators seemed like a waste of money (especially when I could already play _Snake_ on my Nokia phone). Instead, I'll say that activism is like long division: It consists of multiple steps, it's easy to mess up, and when you inevitably do make a mistake, the only way to find it and fix it is to show your work.\n\nWhat does that mean, exactly? It's different for everyone. Because the internet has become a place where so many people feel comfortable talking about their identities, struggles, and personal experiences, people are very cynical about what it means to be an internet activist. But being vocal about issues you care about doesn't mean that's the only form your activism takes. Sure, some people use the internet as an easy way to perform \"wokeness.\" But at the same time, there are few better ways to get the word out about an issue than talking about it online.\n\nIt can be hard to tell the difference between performative social consciousness (known as \"slacktivism\") and legitimate activism. Often the categories overlap, and they can both involve getting the word out and expressing pride or outrage or sadness on social media. There are also some people who use the internet because they're not able to be vocal IRL. Maybe they live in a conservative community, or with conservative parents who will kick them out of the house if they come out as gay. Maybe they have a disability and can't join a march or sit-in. Maybe they have more than one job and can't afford to boycott certain companies.\n\nUltimately, showing your work is about being accountable to yourself, and about being able to demonstrate how you got where you are. You can't just write down a bunch of numbers and symbols and expect to solve a math problem\u2014just ask my high school algebra teacher\u2014and you can't just _say_ you're an activist. Telling people you support LGBTQ folks is good, but you have to be able to explain how and why you support LGBTQ folks, whether it's by initiating a difficult conversation when a family member uses a slur or by voting in your local election when there's an anti-trans bathroom law on the ballot. How did you arrive at your perspective? To use another sort of flimsy math metaphor, how do you solve for _x_? While it's as important as ever to hold each other accountable, we also have to remember that everyone's journey is different, and learning takes time. If we want to figure out how to solve this, we have to do it together.\n\n# FRANCHESCA'S SIMPLE EXPLANATIONS OF NOT-SO-SIMPLE CONCEPTS\n\nCongratulations! You've made it through all the stories about my life and internet drama without throwing the book across the room. I hope. Or maybe you got to here, didn't understand what the hell I was talking about, and came here for answers. Either way, I thought it would be helpful to clarify some of the terms and phrases I use in _Well, That Escalated Quickly_. I've seen firsthand that people can sometimes get a little (or a lot) judgy when it comes to not knowing certain tenets of social justice theory. But you have to learn sometime, and there should be no shame in confusion or asking for help. Having access to this kind of knowledge is a privilege in itself\u2014just as having the time to read a book is. Not everyone has been exposed to these ideas. You don't know what you don't know, and you don't know how much your experiences (or lack thereof) influence you. Think about all the totally wrong stuff you believed as a kid: When I went to Catholic school, I thought that being gay was a sin\u2014just like premarital sex. I also only listened to R&B because, as logic dictates, alternative rock was the devil's music, and it seemed very obvious to me that Green Day was corrupting our youth. Meanwhile, I blithely sang along to a song that goes \"Step back, you're dancing kinda close \/ I feel a little poke comin' through\" whenever it came on the radio. Life is full of realizations.\n\nThis is not intended as a comprehensive list of every term you'll need to know if you want to wade into activism, but it should work as a jumping-off point, especially if you want to talk to friends or family about these topics IRL. I'd encourage you to look up these concepts in actual books, at the actual library. The internet is an imperfect tool, and is often wrong; if you do go online for more info, you should read more than one source\u2014no \"just skimming.\" These concepts are serious, and important to a lot of people. It's worth it to do your due diligence.\n\n**Ableism** \u2014discrimination against people with disabilities, including through language.\n\n**Ally** \u2014someone who actively works to support the rights of marginalized groups they're not a part of.\n\n**Alt-right** \u2014framed as an \"alternative\" branch of conservatism, the alt-right is an internet-savvy rebranding of white supremacy. With prominent young figureheads like Richard Spencer and a penchant for memes, the movement paints its members as edgy, \"anti-establishment\" crusaders against \"political correctness\" and saviors of the white race.\n\n**Black Lives Matter** \u2014a black-centered activist movement started by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi after George Zimmerman was acquitted for the murder of Trayvon Martin in July 2013. Originally a hashtag, the movement gained steam as it raised awareness and organized protests around ending systemic violence against black people.\n\nPeople often misunderstand the purpose of Black Lives Matter by assuming it's an exclusionary movement; it's not. It's a movement that focuses on the needs of marginalized people, and it doesn't shy away from centering those needs. That's why it's called Black Lives Matter and not \"All Lives Matter\" (see here). It's not about taking value away from white lives; it's about making black lives as valuable as white lives. Think of it this way: The existence of gay bars doesn't mean there are no straight bars. It's just that most bars are straight bars, and gay folks deserve spaces where they can safely and freely do their thing, too.\n\n**Black supremacy** \u2014not a thing.\n\n**Body positivity** \u2014the movement to normalize and accept bodies of all different shapes, sizes, and abilities in a world that privileges people who are thin, gender-conforming, able-bodied, and conventionally attractive.\n\n**Call in** \u2014to initiate a one-on-one conversation, out of public view, in order to make another person aware of their bigoted speech, behavior, etc. (see here).\n\n**Call out** \u2014to publicly bring attention to another person's bigoted speech, behavior, etc. (see here).\n\n**Censorship** \u2014a lot of people don't seem to get this one, so pay attention. The First Amendment says it is unconstitutional for the government to suppress speech it deems offensive, unacceptable, or a moral danger. Private individuals or groups can censor speech, usually through pressure like boycotts; that is not illegal. It is not an infringement of your rights when:\n\n\u2022 I block you on Twitter.\n\n\u2022 A newspaper drops your opinion column.\n\n\u2022 You lose a book deal or yogurt sponsorship because you said something sexist or racist.\n\n**Centrist** \u2014a person or viewpoint that attempts to \"see both sides\" of a given issue or scenario, even when there is no comparison between both sides because one side is absolutely unacceptable. Often comes from a place of moral superiority or belief in pragmatism that is rarely borne out in reality. Example: After the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, which was held in protest of the city's plan to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, Donald Trump rejected violence on \"all sides,\" though only the far-right protesters were at fault.\n\n**Cisgender (Cis)** \u2014denotes a person who identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth. For example: You are cisgender if, when you were born, the doctor said, \"It's a girl!\" and you still agree with that assessment.\n\n**Classism** \u2014the overt or subtle discrimination against lower-class people, often promoted through the willful ignorance of the realities of capitalism and poverty. Examples of classism include statements like \"If you wanted health insurance, maybe you shouldn't have bought that iPhone\" and the practice of restricting which foods people who receive government assistance can buy.\n\n**Colorblindness** \u2014the imaginary condition of not being able to \"see race.\" While some people are literally unable to differentiate among certain colors, the comment \"I don't see color\" is often used figuratively to shut down or dismiss conversations about race and racism by suggesting the speaker sees everyone equally. But there's nothing wrong with seeing someone's race; it's part of who they are, and it shapes their experiences and worldview. The problem is treating someone _differently_ because of their race.\n\n**Consent** \u2014permission that you give another person to engage in behaviors that require your involvement. Though it's usually used in sexual situations, you may also be asked to give your consent to police to search your property if they do not have a warrant.\n\n**Cultural appropriation** \u2014lots of people have tried to define cultural appropriation, and they haven't done a very good job. It's the practice of majority groups taking cultural practices, imagery, clothing, or other things from marginalized people without attribution, often for profit, and without being respectful of the customs' cultural origins. Meanwhile, people from those marginalized groups are often stigmatized for or downright prohibited from engaging in their practices by society at large.\n\nAppreciation, which involves respect, is not the same as appropriation, which doesn't. Going to a Mexican restaurant and participating in that culture is good; wearing a sombrero and saying you're going as \"Mexican\" for Halloween is not. Another way to think about it: If someone came to your house, stole your grandma's favorite necklace, and then wore it to your birthday party, you'd be mad. If you decided you would mass-produce your grandma's favorite necklace, sell it, and use the profits to start a scholarship in your grandma's name, you probably wouldn't be mad when you saw girls at the mall wearing it.\n\nOften, people engaging in cultural appropriation have no idea that they're doing something wrong, because they're ignorant of the group they're appropriating from. It's totally possible for marginalized groups to engage in appropriation, too. Case in point: I was a really big No Doubt fan in high school. Once, when I was staying with my dad, I decided I wanted to wear a bindi just like Gwen Stefani. I couldn't find a bindi in small-town Ohio, where my dad lived, so I bought googly eyes, took the pupils out, and crafted a makeshift third eye. I was sporting my new bindi at the grocery store when I heard a little kid say, \"Mom, what's on that girl's forehead?\" The mom replied, \"She's of a different religion, honey.\" I wasn't of a different religion, honey, and I shouldn't have been wearing that bindi. (And neither should Gwen.)\n\n**Dragging** \u2014the process of publicly shaming someone who has done something embarrassing or downright offensive. Dragging often takes the form of humor, through jokes, subtweets, memes, etc.\n\n**Ethnicity** \u2014a social group that has shared traditions. Not to be confused with **race**. Example: Latinx is an ethnicity, but Latinx people can be of any race.\n\n**Feminist** \u2014as the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says, in a speech sampled in Beyonc\u00e9's song \"Flawless\": A feminist is a \"person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.\" Lots of people misunderstand this one.\n\n**Free speech** \u2014an often-misunderstood term derived from the First Amendment of the Constitution, which protects the right to freedom of speech, press, religion, and assembly. It establishes a citizen's right to speak freely without retribution from the government, though it does not include speech that incites harm to others, making or distributing \"obscene materials,\" and a couple of other very specific instances. It also does not extend to personal consequences for speech, which have nothing to do with the government. In other words, your mom grounding you for saying \"fuck\" at your grandma's seventy-fifth birthday party is not infringing on your right to freedom of speech.\n\n**Gaslighting** \u2014psychological manipulation that attempts to cause a person to question their reality or lived experience. Named after the 1944 film _Gaslight_ , in which a man attempts to convince his wife that she is losing her grip on reality so that he can commit her to a mental institution and get her out of his hair, this is a favorite tactic of dictators, abusers, and bigots. A few gaslighting techniques include lying, especially when there's blatant proof of the truth; denial; turning other people against you; questioning your sanity or mental health; and projection. Recommended reading: Lauren Duca's brilliant _Teen Vogue_ article \"Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America.\"\n\n**Gender binary** \u2014the (restrictive) idea that there are only two genders.\n\n**Gender expression** \u2014the way a person outwardly presents in terms of gender.\n\n**Hate speech** \u2014protected free speech that nevertheless disparages, bullies, harasses, or denounces marginalized groups. If you operate a hate site that promotes hate speech, you may not be committing a crime, but that doesn't mean you won't get kicked off your server.\n\n**Homophobia** \u2014anti-gay speech, behavior, or sentiment that may be suggestive or overt. Examples of homophobia range from a man's unwillingness to show other men affection for fear of being labeled gay, to media portrayals in which gay men are presented as stereotypes or as threatening\/contaminating the minds of children, to two women being denied the right to adopt, to bakeries refusing to make wedding cakes for gay couples. Not all anti-gay sentiments are rooted in fear, as the suffix \"-phobia\" suggests, but many are.\n\n**Humanist** \u2014the identity that \"devil's advocates\" choose when they don't want to say they are feminists, because they feel threatened by feminism or feel feminism is excluding men somehow. Technically, the term refers to someone who privileges the human reality over a spiritual or divine being.\n\n**Intersectionality** \u2014coined by civil rights activist Kimberl\u00e9 Williams Crenshaw, the idea that different identities and systems of oppression overlap and intersect. For example, a black woman experiences sexism that is often mixed with racism, while a lesbian woman experiences sexism that is often mixed with homophobia.\n\n**Latinx** \u2014a more inclusive, gender-neutral way to refer to people from Latin America. Pronounced \"La-TEEN-ex.\"\n\n**LGBTQ(IAA)** \u2014an acronym that stands for [ _clears throat_ ]: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, ally. The acronym was originally simply LGB, but as visibility of different identities and sexualities has increased, it has expanded to its current form\u2014I've chosen to use LGBTQ in my text, but you may also see LGBT, LGBTQI, LGBTQIA.\n\n**Male chauvinism** \u2014performative or aggressive masculinity that promotes the idea that men are superior to women. The word \"chauvinism\" on its own refers to explicit nationalist pride\/patriotism\/jingoism.\n\n**Male gaze** \u2014coined by the feminist film critic Laura Mulvey in 1975, a term from film or art criticism often used to denote an oversexualized or otherwise heavily male perspective on female subjects.\n\n**Marginalized** \u2014a term used to describe a person or group of people who are oppressed in some way(s). It has more or less replaced the term \"minority,\" which suggests the sense of being \"less than\" or small in number, which is not really accurate. (None of the following are small in number, for example, but they are all marginalized in various ways: low-income people, Latinx people, women.)\n\n**Meninist** \u2014a word I can't believe people really say. A troll-y ideological identity that dudes created to center conversations about gender equality around themselves. Related to **men's rights activists**.\n\n**Men's rights activist (MRA)** \u2014another thing I can't believe people really say. A reversal of the phrase \"women's rights activist,\" this is also a troll-y ideology that dudes created to center conversations about gender equality around themselves.\n\n**Microaggression** \u2014coined by Harvard professor Chester M. Pierce in 1970, a term for the daily, casual, and often unintentionally hurtful comments that marginalized people experience from people in positions of privilege. \"SWGSTBG\" was comprised of the microaggressions white girls frequently use to subtly degrade black girls. Other examples include: \"You're a big girl, but you have such a pretty face,\" \"You don't _sound_ Latino,\" and \"You're not like other girls.\"\n\n**Misandry** \u2014the hatred of men. Also not really a thing, except in certain feminist circles, where women will occasionally say they're misandrist ironically (or mostly ironically).\n\n**Misogynoir** \u2014coined by Moya Bailey in 2010, a term that describes misogyny aimed specifically at black women. It is an intersectional way to talk about misogyny. ( _Transmisogyny_ is the similar principle applied to trans women.)\n\n**Misogyny** \u2014the hatred of women.\n\n**Nonbinary** \u2014generally, the quality of being defined by more than two things. In social justice contexts, someone who identifies as nonbinary doesn't identify as a man or a woman.\n\n**Oppression** \u2014the myriad ways systemic forces exert power over groups of people.\n\n**Oppression Olympics** \u2014a term used to (disparagingly) describe the competitive language that crops up with marginalized groups when comparing privileges or disadvantages. This hierarchical attitude can exist within a marginalized group or between groups.\n\n**Passing (race and\/or gender)** \u2014a term most often used in the context of transgender people being identified as cisgender, and mixed-race people being identified as one race over another. Example: \"My friend Joel is mixed race, but he passes as white.\"\n\n**Patriarchy** \u2014a sweeping system of societal norms and behaviors that contribute to inequality between men and women. Evidence of patriarchy is present in everything from rape culture to the cost of women's toiletries as compared to men's. Though patriarchy oppresses women, it enforces strict roles for men, too.\n\n**Politically correct** \u2014a negative term referring, usually, to language that protects or refuses to offend marginalized groups, often used to deride activists or progressives and portray them as overly sensitive or beholden to an imaginary establishment status quo. In the 1970s and '80s, progressives used the term to mock the idea that we should accept the status quo, but since then it has totally reversed meaning, and has been weaponized against the same people who used to say it.\n\n**Privilege** \u2014the societal advantages possessed by a group of people based on their race, class, gender, sexuality, or physical ability. This word tends to freak people out because they assume having privilege means they're a bad person or are to blame for the mistreatment of others. In reality, everyone has some level of privilege, or rather a combination of privileges. Having privileges doesn't mean you're rich, have never worked hard, or never had to struggle. It just means that there are some things you'll never have to experience or think about because of who you are.\n\n**Problematic** \u2014an umbrella term and conversation-ender that expresses, generally, that someone or something is bigoted or microaggressive. If you want to keep from being critical in any meaningful way\u2014which you don't\u2014you can say something is problematic. Also used when people are too shy to say something was racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise bigoted.\n\n**Queer** \u2014an umbrella term for LGBT people that conveys, broadly, that someone (or something) is not heterosexual or expressing a heterosexual perspective. Since it has also been used as a slur, not everyone in the community is down with this term, so proceed with caution if you're straight.\n\n**Race** \u2014a social construct that is used to define and inhibit as well as to forge communities. Commonly, it refers to shared physical traits, culture, and especially skin color. Not to be confused with **ethnicity**.\n\n**Racism** \u2014a system of language, behaviors, and policies that oppress nonwhite people. Can be overt ( **white supremacy** ) or subtle and ingrained ( **microaggressions** ).\n\n**Rape culture** \u2014the prevailing customs and beliefs surrounding sexual assault that privilege perpetrators over victims. Mechanisms of rape culture include ideas about what types of people are rape victims, the shaming of sexual assault survivors, victim blaming, and the casual diminishment of the seriousness of the crime. It is intertwined with **patriarchy**.\n\n**Revenge porn** \u2014nude photos or media of sexual acts that are published or distributed without a featured party's **consent** , and with the express aim of harming the nonconsenting party. It's now officially illegal in many states, with more surely on the way.\n\n**Safe space** \u2014a place where visitors can be sure they will not experience **triggers** , and where their identities and experiences will be respected. (The idea of safe spaces is highly and unnecessarily controversial.) Most often used in the context of colleges and universities, but not exclusively. For example, an organization may provide a safe space for sexual assault survivors or LGBTQ students as a way to encourage those groups to share their experiences openly and comfortably.\n\n**Sexism** \u2014speech, behavior, or actions that imply or directly state that women are inferior to men, or that promote inequality.\n\n**Shaming** \u2014the act of mocking, moralizing, or insulting certain behaviors, traits, or identities. Common examples of shaming include fat-shaming, kink-shaming, and slut-shaming (see here).\n\n**Slacktivism** \u2014a disparaging term used to minimize someone's work\/identity as an activist, often associated with internet activism, hashtag activism, or \"clicktivism.\" Describes, basically, any kind of activism you can do while sitting on your couch, and actions that range from changing your Facebook profile photo, which is largely performative, to promoting important studies and articles or otherwise disseminating information. People use this term as a way to dismiss nontraditional forms of activism, which may or may not be effective.\n\n**Social justice warrior (SJW)** \u2014a pejorative term used to describe people who vocally advocate for social justice in order to paint them as an irrational, whiny army of crybabies who sit on social media all day. You rarely see a person self-identify as a social justice warrior. Some people may do so ironically, but I don't, because it allows critics to group activists together in order to insult or degrade them and their work.\n\n**TERF** \u2014an acronym that stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. The term originated in the second wave of feminism, and it describes a movement that aims to exclude trans women from feminist spaces on the grounds that they are not \"real women.\" This is fucked up.\n\n**Tone Police** \u2014a person or people who attempt to tell you the correct way to speak about your experience, usually in order to make them more comfortable. Examples of tone policing include: \"You're embarrassing me,\" \"You're making a scene,\" \"You're being hysterical,\" \"Why do you sound so angry?\" (see here).\n\n**Toxic masculinity** \u2014a term that describes how masculinity standards set for men lead to acts of aggression or violence, which may range from domestic violence to mass shootings. The harmful effects of unreachable goalposts established by the **patriarchy** inevitably seep into the world.\n\n**Transgender** \u2014a term used to describe someone who does not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.\n\n**Transphobia** \u2014anti-trans sentiment, often rooted in fear, ignorance, or lack of exposure. Examples of transphobia include anti-trans bathroom laws and common plots in shitty comedies wherein a (usually evil, duplicitous) character is exposed as trans ( _Ace Ventura: Pet Detective_ , _The Hangover Part II_ ). (Please don't judge me for having seen _The Hangover Part II_.)\n\n**Transracial** \u2014a term popularized by Rachel Dolezal to (incorrectly) refer to someone who has changed their race. You may hear people ask, \"Why can't she change her race if Caitlyn Jenner changed her gender?\" The answer is kind of academic, but basically: Because race is a social construct largely related to skin color, you can't change your race. When used correctly, \"transracial\" is an adoption term that refers to children adopted by parent(s) of a different race.\n\n**Trigger** \u2014something that brings back memories of a traumatic incident.\n\n**Trigger warning** \u2014a preemptive note about the content of a post, article, show, or speech that signals it may contain **triggers** for some people. Frequently used with material involving sexual assault, police brutality, or abuse, but can be applied to a wide range of triggers.\n\n**Victim blaming** \u2014a strategy for explaining tragedy that falls back on things said or done by the victim of that tragedy. People often engage in victim blaming out of judgment, fear, or the desire to come up with an explanation for bad things that happen to innocent people.\n\n**White feminism** \u2014a nonintersectional branch of feminism that excludes or ignores issues faced by women who are not white, straight, cis, able-bodied, or middle class or above. Rarely self-identified.\n\n**White supremacy** \u2014a holistic, racist ideology that promotes the idea that white people are superior to people of all other races, often justified through phony biological or evolutionary explanations. Like with **patriarchy** , evidence of white supremacy may be explicit\u2014expressions of white power or Nazism\u2014or subtle, through standards of beauty, media representation, or the justice system. White supremacy is not always obvious to the untrained eye, or to white people who are used to seeing themselves favorably represented. This is why it's important to, as they say, stay **woke**.\n\n**Woke** \u2014a term that refers to having had one's eyes opened to societal injustice, deriving from the idea that at one time you were \"asleep\" and now you're awake. In the past, it was used as a kind of friendly warning among marginalized people to \"Stay woke,\" but now people use it, inappropriately, to denote a kind of achievement or destination, ignoring the fact that there's always work to be done. \"Getting woke\" should be a moment on your journey, because we never stop having our eyes opened to experiences that we don't have because of our own privilege or biases.\n\n**Womanist** \u2014coined by the writer Alice Walker, a term to describe an alternative movement that seeks to broaden feminism to better cater to and include women of color.\n\nThat's all I have for now, though I'm sure I've missed something. As I said above, this is not intended as a comprehensive list of every word or phrase used in activist spaces. Language is constantly changing and evolving, and the internet only speeds up that process. Keeping track of it all may seem daunting, but it can also be rewarding. Words are linked to the power structures they represent, and using them carefully and correctly is a sign of respect, to marginalized people and to yourself. Besides, what else are you going to use when you want to speak your mind?\n\n# ACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nI know I've said this before, but writing a book is freaking scary. It's also hard and draining. More often than not, throughout this entire process, I was a complete nightmare of a person. (Seriously\u2014don't try to write a book and produce a TV pilot at the same time.) For that reason, I have a few people to thank.\n\nFirst, my incredible husband, podcast cohost, and part-time tear drier, Patrick, for reassuring me at every turn, and always keeping it real, offering encouragement, making me laugh until I cry, and showering me with love. I really don't know how you put up with my shit, but I'm so thankful that you do. My parents, who gave me life (duh) and who have always believed in me and pushed me to do my best. I owe Dad for my sense of humor and the stubbornness that made many of my hilarious fails possible. Mom, your grace, poise, patience, expert-level shade, and passion for nail art are sprinkled throughout these pages; thank you for modeling the kind of woman I've always wanted to be. My little cousins, who I wish were my sisters, Danielle and Ashley: You make me proud every single day and give me a reason to work for the better world that I know the two of you will run one day.\n\nMy amazing friends: De'Lon Grant, Dylan Marron, Shamika Martinez, Michelle Buteau, Delina Medhin, Annette Roche, Alex Leo, Ceci Fernandez, Laura Turner Garrison, Erica Williams Simon, Kimberly Luskey, Jordan Carlos, Danielle Young, Francheska Medina, Grace Edwards, Meghan Tonjes, Andrew Gunadie, and Oneika Raymond, for graciously responding to novel-length text messages, showering me with GIFs, and providing the late-night laughs that kept me going.\n\nThe people who made my very first book cover the cutest ever: My Glam Squad and two of the sweetest, most hardworking black women I know, Annette Roche and Delina Medhin, for keeping my edges laid, my face slayed, and my heart forever full. Superstar photographer Erin Patrice O'Brien and ultra-cool stylist Jocelyn Kaye, you're both so fun and easy to work with.\n\nThe amazing team that made this book happen and talked me off many a ledge: Brittany McInerney, your thoughtfulness, insight, and words of wisdom truly made this process fun, illuminating, and as painless as possible. Lauren Oyler, I'm convinced you're an actual superhero. You swooped in and saved my ass while never losing your cool and always being on time. Please teach me your ways. Brian Lemus, your eye and talent for design are unparalleled. My literary agent, Brandi Bowles, for never mincing words, which makes your praise that much sweeter. My manager, Kara Welker, for putting out every fire and being the ultimate gut check. My Gersh agents, Scott Yoselow and Rachel Zeidman, for always looking out for me and making me laugh.\n\nAnd finally, Filthy McNasty and Kaya, the best puppies\u2014and birth control\u2014possible. You're still not allowed on the couch.\n  Jobby = job\/hobby.\n\n  \"Black on the outside, white on the inside\"\u2014I shouldn't have to explain why this is messed up.\n\n  \"Going natural\" means transitioning one's hair to its natural texture after chemical straightening.\n\n  Neither of these is true of me, but no shame if you're a furry.\n\n  Tip: If you think the date will go well, stuff a night scarf in your purse before you leave the house.\n\n  UCB is the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, an improv theater and training program founded by Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh. There are a number of improv comedy programs in New York, but UCB is seen as one of the big dogs because it's churned out a number of _SNL_ cast members.\n\n  B-roll is the footage editors splice into the main shot in order to make a segment look more dynamic. Think static images of an interviewee's face, or shots of the scenery. I didn't know about B-roll, so when the focus was off me during taping, I let myself go into resting bitch face.\n\n  _SEO_ stands for \"search engine optimization,\" and it refers to strategies websites use to make their posts show up near the top of search results; reverse-engineering SEO can help you unearth articles and videos that may have been buried over time.\n\n  Jill Soloway identifies as genderqueer and nonbinary and prefers to use they\/them pronouns.\n\n  _Dead-naming_ is using a transgender person's birth name instead of their chosen name.\n\n  You'll notice I usually call my hair \"locs\" and not \"dreadlocks.\" There's nothing dreadful about my hair.\n\n  If you want to have an open conversation, start with a question. It's kind of hacky, but this way you capture people who are genuinely curious as well as people who are sure they know the answer and are mad you'd even ask. Our first episode was, \"Are Fried Chicken and Watermelon Racist?\"\n\n  In a Mariah Carey, ridiculous-but-I-earned-this way, not in a Naomi Campbell, throw-a-cell-phone way.\n\n  Yes, they do.\n\n\u2020 I'm serious, they do.\n\n\u2020\u2020 They do!\n\n\u00a7 Okay... maybe the \"queen\" part is optional.\n\n  Real coworker friendship requires repeated IRL hangouts that don't involve conversations about work or former coworkers.\n\n\u2020 And you definitely don't want to connect on social media with the person who could fire you, so do not friend your boss.\n\n  Anti-miscegenation laws referred to interracial marriage, but they also extended beyond it; in Virginia, where _Loving_ originated, interracial sex was also illegal.\n\n  Originating from the olde term \"cuckold,\" which refers to a man whose wife is having sex with another man, \"cuck\" is an alt-right insult lobbed at a man who's perceived as weak. It's rooted in sexist stereotypes and toxic masculinity, of course.\n\n  _Bed wench_ or _bed warmer_ was a term used to describe black slave women who were forced to sleep in the master's bed for the purpose of \"keeping it warm\"\u2014being used as a sex slave. Yeah, it's pretty gross.\n\n  Some of my favorite books to get you started: _A People's History of the United States_ by Howard Zinn; _The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness_ by Michelle Alexander; _Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism_ by bell hooks; _We Should All Be Feminists_ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; _Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love and So Much More_ by Janet Mock.\n\n### Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.\n\nTo receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest ebooks and apps, sign up for our newsletters.\n\nSign Up\n\nOr visit us at hachettebookgroup.com\/newsletters\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":" \n# Social Media for Writers\n\n## Marketing Strategies for Building Your Audience and Selling Books\n\n# Tee Morris & Pip Ballantine\n\nCincinnati, Ohio\nSocial Media for Writers. Copyright \u00a9 2015 by Tee Morris & Pip Ballantine. Manufactured in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published by Writer's Digest Books, an imprint of F+W Media, Inc., 10151 Carver Road, Suite # 200, Blue Ash, OH 45242. (800) 289-0963. First edition.\n\nFor more resources for writers, visit www.writersdigest.com\/.\n\nDistributed in Canada by Fraser Direct\n\n100 Armstrong Avenue\n\nGeorgetown, Ontario, Canada L7G 5S4\n\nTel: (905) 877-4411\n\nDistributed in the U.K. and Europe by F&W Media International\n\nBrunel House, Newton Abbot, Devon, TQ12 4PU, England\n\nTel: (+44) 1626-323200, Fax: (+44) 1626-323319\n\nE-mail: postmaster@davidandcharles.co.uk\n\nDistributed in Australia by Capricorn Link\n\nP.O. Box 704, Windsor, NSW 2756 Australia\n\nTel: (02) 4577-3555, Fax: (02)4577-5288\n\nE-mail: books@capricornlink.com.au\n\nISBN-13:9781599639284\n\nWritersDigest.com\n\nCincinnati, Ohio\n\n# Contents\n\n  * Title Page\n  * Copyright Page\n  * Dedication\n  * Acknowledgments\n  * About the Authors\n  * Foreword\n  * Introduction: Welcome to Your Social Media Survival Guide\n    * Understanding Social Media\n    * What You Need to Make This Book Work\n  * Chapter 1: WordPress\n    * Why WordPress?\n  * Chapter 2: Tumblr\n    * What Is the Difference Between WordPress and Tumblr?\n    * Expressing Yourself: Producing Content\n    * What to Expect from the Tumblr Community\n    * Sharing with the Class: Syndicating Media\n    * Tumblr Strategies\n  * Chapter 3: Podcasting\n    * Writers Gone Wild: Talk Shows\n    * Anthologies in Audio: Short Stories\n    * Going All In: Podcast Novels\n    * Why Should You Podcast?\n    * Why Shouldn't You Podcast?\n    * Why Do We Still Podcast?\n  * Chapter 4: Facebook\n    * Facebook for Writers\n    * Content Marketing: The Science of Promotion by Example\n  * Chapter 5: Twitter\n    * First Impressions at a Glance\n    * Mastering Tweet Speak: Composing Messages on Twitter\n    * Best Practices for Twitter\n    * You Did Not Just Tweet That: _Worst_ Practices for Twitter\n  * Chapter 6: Google+\n    * Google+ for Writers: The Account vs. The Page\n  * Chapter 7: YouTube\n    * Action Editing: Software for Video Editing\n    * Turning Authors on to YouTube\n    * Best Practices on YouTube\n  * Chapter 8: Pinterest\n    * Tools of the Trade: Pinterest Applications\n    * Game On: Pinterest Competitions\n    * It's Business Time: Pinterest Business\n    * Watch Where You Point That Pin: Pinterest Strategies\n  * Chapter 9: Instagram\n    * Platform Management: Connecting Instagram with Other Social Networks\n    * Beyond Instagram: Third-Party Apps\n    * Best Practices on Instagram\n  * Chapter 10: Additional Options\n    * Goodreads\n    * Reddit\n    * Storify\n    * A Social's Social: Untappd, Vivino, and Distiller\n    * Tsu.co\n  * Chapter 11: SEO\n    * Why SEO Doesn't Work (as the \"Gurus\" Claim It Does)\n    * How to Make SEO Work for You\n    * The SEO That Can Hurt You\n    * Best Practices of SEO\n  * Chapter 12: Content Marketing\n    * How Does Promoting Others Really Work for You?\n    * What Content to Look for in Content Marketing\n    * When Content Marketing Goes Bad\n  * Chapter 13: Best Practices in Social Media\n    * Create an Editorial Calendar\n    * Think Before You Post\n    * Participate in Blog Tours\n    * Create Quality Content\n    * Be Visual When Possible\n    * A New Use for the Pound Symbol: Hashtags\n    * Taking P!nk's Advice: Facebook Parties\n    * Planning Makes Perfect: Before That Social Media Event\n    * Attribution, Not Imitation, Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery\n    * Seek Out Your Audience\n    * Have a Plan\n    * Focus on Maintaining a Signal, Not Creating Noise\n    * Antisocial Media: What to Avoid in Online Promotion and Networking\n  * Appendix A: WordPress\n    * Setting up a WordPress Account\n    * Getting to Know WordPress\n    * Creating Content\n  * Appendix B: Tumblr\n    * Setting up a Tumblr Account\n    * Getting to Know Tumblr\n    * Posting to Tumblr\n    * Reblogging\n  * Appendix C: Podcasting\n    * An Introduction to Podcasting\n    * The Mixing Board: Bridging the Gap Between Microphone and Computer\n    * What's Next: Other Details for an Audio Studio\n  * Appendix D: Facebook\n    * Setting Up a Facebook Account\n    * Getting to Know Facebook\n    * The Left-Hand Sidebar\n  * Appendix E: Twitter\n    * Setting Up a Twitter Account\n    * Getting to Know Twitter\n    * Talking on Twitter\n    * Direct Messages\n  * Appendix F: Google+\n    * Setting Up a Google+ Account\n    * Getting to Know Google+\n  * Appendix G: YouTube\n    * Setting Up a YouTube Account\n    * Getting to Know YouTube\n    * Uploading Your Video on YouTube\n    * Embedding Your YouTube Video in a Blog\n  * Appendix H: Pinterest\n    * Setting Up a Pinterest Account\n    * Getting to Know Pinterest\n    * Working with Pinterest\n    * Making Your First Board\n  * Appendix I: Instagram\n    * Setting Up an Instagram Account\n    * Getting to Know Instagram\n    * Taking a Photo on Instagram\n\n# Dedication\n\nTo writers of all genres, of all backgrounds, everywhere. If you walk away from this book with a new idea for your social media strategy, mission accomplished.\n\n# Acknowledgments\n\nSocial media has made an astounding impact on our lives, and we are reminded of this every day through Likes, retweets, and voice mails we receive from the platforms covered here. The inspiration behind this guide comes from the many questions we have received at conventions, at workshops, and even over a cup of coffee (or tea, in Pip's case); but this book currently in your hands would have never happened had it not been for Laurie McLean of Fuse Literary and the talents of Alex Rixey and Cristopher Freese at Writer's Digest Books. Thank you all for making things happen. A huge thank you, as well, to Chuck Wendig for our Foreword and all the authors who offered their own opinions, strategies, and best practices, making this book more about the community of authors who all came together to offer their own opinions on what works in social media. Social media, we know, is more than just a new marketing platform for authors, but it is a foundation for writing communities. This book has only reinforced that opinion.\n\n# About the Authors\n\n**TEE MORRIS** has been writing science fiction, fantasy, horror, and nonfiction for over a decade. His first novel, _MOREVI: The Chronicles of Rafe & Askana_, was a nominee for the 2003 Eppie for Best Fantasy, and in 2005 the book became the first novel to be podcast in its entirety, ushering in a new age for authors. Following the podcast of _MOREVI_ , he co-founded the audio literature hub   \nPodiobooks.com with Evo Terra and Chris Miller, offering hours of original audio content from first-time writers and _New York Times_ bestsellers in a podcast format. He then went on with Evo Terra to write _Podcasting for Dummies_ (as well as the 2nd Edition alongside Chuck Tomasi). His expertise reached deeper into social media when he penned _All a Twitter_ and _Sams Teach Yourself Twitter in 10 Minutes_.\n\nIn 2011, Tee returned to fiction with _Phoenix Rising_ , the first novel in The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series, written alongside his wife, Pip Ballantine. The title went on to win the Airship Award for Best Steampunk Literature and become a finalist for Goodreads' Choice Awards for Best Science Fiction of 2011. Now on to their fourth book in the series, _The Diamond Conspiracy_ , and the fourth season of _Tales from the Archives_ , a podcast anthology featuring short stories set in their steampunk universe, the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series has won several awards including the Parsec Award for the best of science fiction podcasts and RT Reviews' Choice Awards.\n\nTee and Pip also host _The Shared Desk_ , a podcast covering collaboration and other aspects of a writer's lifestyle. He now runs the social media initiatives for Stratford University located in Maryland and Virginia. Explore the works of Tee Morris, and his occasional geek rants, at TeeMorris.com.\n\n**PIP BALLANTINE** started life in Wellington, New Zealand as a corporate librarian. Pip earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Political Science and then a Bachelor of Applied Science in Library and Information Science. Her first professional sale as a writer was a piece on the history of Wellington, written for _The Evening Post_ in 1997. Since then she has gone on to produce both novel-length and short-form fiction.\n\nIn 2006, she became New Zealand's first podcast novelist with her debut fantasy novel, _Weaver's Web_. She went on to podcast three other novels and host her own slice-of-life podcast, _Whispers at the Edge_. Her podcasts have won both a Parsec Award as well as the Sir Julius Vogel award for excellence. Pip's first byline in the United States was _Geist_ (Ace Books), launching the Books of the Order series. At the same time, she also wrote for Pyr Books Hunter, Fox and Kindred, and Wings, as well as co-writing _Phoenix Rising_ with Tee Morris, the first novel in the award-winning steampunk spy series The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences.\n\nWhen it comes to nonfiction, Pip has been seen in _A Taste of True Blood_ (Ben Bella Books) and worked behind the scenes as technical editor for _All a Twitter_. Pip's short stories have appeared in anthologies such as _Clockwork Fairy Tales_ (Roc Books) and _Steampunk World_ (Alliteration Ink).\n\nShe continues to co-author Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series with Tee, as well as produce their award-winning podcast, _Tales from the Archives_ , and co-host _The Shared Desk_. When not writing or podcasting, Philippa loves reading, gardening, and whenever possible, traveling. She is looked after by a mighty clowder of cats in Manassas, Virginia, with her husband Tee and their daughter.\n\n# Foreword\n\nYou're a writer over here. And over there is the wide world of social media.\n\nYou've got your Faceyspaces, your Circlesquares, your Tinders, your Grindrs, your Blinders, your SexyPalFinders, your Bloobs and Gloobs and Innertubes. Okay, so only a few of these Seussian techno-monstrosities exist, but if I said Facebook and Twitter and Ello and Tsu, in five years they might not exist, either.\n\nThe point is, you've got this world out there. This connected world. This web of bridging threads that connects you, me, our phones, our computers, and probably soon enough, our refrigerators. It moves fast. The ground shifts under our feet daily.\n\nOn the one hand, social media is easy, right?\n\nGet on it. Say hello. Say other stuff. Squawk into the void to see who's listening. (Spoiler: My refrigerator is listening and my refrigerator would very much like you to go pick up a six pack of beer. Dogfish 90-minute IPA, please.)\n\nBut then, what about that other side of it?\n\nThe _writerly_ side. The _authorial_ side.\n\nI'm a writer. So are you, I'm guessing.\n\nAnd you're wondering, how do I bridge those things? How do you tie together _you as a writer_ and _you as a person on the social media thingies_? Is there value for you as a writer? Is there _danger_ and _peril_ for you as a writer? Yes to the first, and _hell yes_ to the latter.\n\nCan you tell stories on Twitter? (Yes.) Can you find an audience on social media? (Sure.) Can you burn your audience on the Internet? (Most definitely.) Can you sell books this way? (Yes, to a point, but please don't get spammy.) Do you _have_ to sell books online and be all Author Person? (Nope.)\n\nBut how? How do you accomplish all of this? How do you keep up with what works and what doesn't? Don't different networks and services offer different ... well, networks and services? A value add here, a subtractive function there?\n\nYou need help.\n\nAnd so, I've written this book\u2014\n\n* is handed a note *\n\nAh. Okay. Sorry. Turns out, I did ... not write this book? I didn't. Okay. Sorry. I write a lot of books and it all kind of blurs together.\n\nI did not write this book.\n\nWhich is probably a good thing.\n\nBecause you need not just one Sherpa to lead you up this mountain of authorial social media enlightenment. You need, in fact, _two_.\n\nAnd so, I give you: Philippa Ballantine and Tee Morris. They are going to hold your hand and take you on a tour of all of the weirdness and wonder that social media has to offer\u2014and they're also going to helpfully point out the pitfalls, too.\n\nBecause boy howdy, are there pitfalls.\n\nYou wanna do this _I am an author on social media_ thing right?\n\nThen you need their help. You need this book.\n\nThough, before you read any further, I'll offer my one piece of social media advice. Take it or leave it\u2014hug it close like a dear friend, or discard it like an old sock.\n\nThat advice is: No matter what network you use, no matter whom you talk to, no matter the blog or the service or the size of your audience, be the best version of yourself online.\n\nDon't be somebody else.\n\nDon't be a sales machine.\n\nDon't be an asshole.\n\nBe a fountain, not a drain.\n\nBe you, with all the _best stuff_ dialed up to 11, and all the worst stuff shoved under the bed so that nobody can see it.\n\nSo endeth the lesson.\n\nNow: Reach out and take Tee's and Philippa's hands. It's time to take a walk. It's time to take the tour. It's time to buy the ticket and take the ride.\n\nSee you online.\n\n\u2014Chuck Wendig, Author, Blogger, General Wiseass\n\n# Welcome to Your Social Media Survival Guide\n\n\"So what's your platform?\"\n\nThis has become a common question that agents and editors ask writers, be they beginners or best-selling authors. Once upon a time\u2014let's say back in 2007, which is several _generations_ ago in Internet time\u2014social media was considered a distraction to up-and-coming writers and a fad to the established wordsmiths.\n\nWithin a decade, that attitude has changed. Dramatically.\n\nThe beautiful thing about social media is that it's easy to pick up. It's designed in such a way that anybody can set up an account and get started. The problem is that writers and social media suffer a disconnect. That is, plenty of writers hate the notion of promoting their work. They simply don't want to be _that_ snake oil\u2013selling writer. And while they may feel very strongly about that, the reason authors must self-promote is a simple one: _If you do not talk about your book, no one else will._\n\nWhat complicates matters for writers, social media, and the relationship between the two is what happens when self-proclaimed introverts pick up a megaphone and blindly go about promoting into a void. As you might imagine, things can and do go horribly, horribly wrong.\n\nThat's where we come in.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nThroughout this book you will find nuggets of information and helpful tips on getting the most out of the various platforms we cover. Our Bookmarks point to links to check out, quick tips to employ, pitfalls to avoid, and reliable third-party expansions\u2014like apps for mobile phones and plug-ins for blog engines. Keep an eye out for them.\n\nWe set out to write this book because we know lots of authors are struggling with the prominence of social media networks, managing posts, and their public image. Some are using social media in ways that make them look like a rank amateur. (Believe us, it's very easy to do.) You may read some of what we offer in this book and think, _Oh come on, that is common sense!_ But some of that common sense sadly isn't as common as you would imagine. If you are new to social media, we'll show you some of the basics and strategies that go well beyond them as well. If you're an old hand at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, you can count on discovering something new to apply to your own social media strategy.\n\nAll this sounds very exciting, but right about now you might be wondering who this mystical _we_ behind this book is. Who is leading you into this promised land of blog posts, podcasts, and status updates?\n\nTogether we are Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris, writers of the award-winning Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences __ steampunk series. Between the two of us, we offer more than two decades of experience as professional authors, published both independently and traditionally by New York publishers. In addition, Tee offers a decade of experience as a social media professional, having worked in corporate, government, higher and continuing education, and nonprofit positions. He also literally wrote the book, or in this case, _books_ , on social media: _Podcasting for Dummies_ and _All a Twitter_. Pip carries the distinction of being New Zealand's first podcasting author and has spoken on popular social media topics concerning authors both in her native country and the United States. She remains the only winner of New Zealand's prestigious Sir Julius Vogel award for a podcast. This is who we are, and where we began our social media journeys, in 2005\u20132006, on the cutting edge.\n\nConsidering we predate the hipsters by at least a decade, you might accurately say that we are social media pioneers. (And Tee was drinking Dogfish Head beer before it was cool, you young, bearded whippersnappers.)\n\n**Notes From the Margins**\n\nPip and Tee know a lot about social media, but it's always good to get several perspectives. Throughout this book you'll find notes, styled like this, highlighting professionals in the book business who have shared their thoughts on social media and their platforms.\n\nWe maintain blogs, produce podcasts, and work all the social media you will find here. Ours is a view from the trenches, and the strategies we offer for your consideration have won us critical acclaim and a variety of awards and accolades. What we hope you take away from this book is an understanding of and a strategy for social media.\n\nAgents are increasingly looking for authors who are not only great writers, but who also have a solid social media presence. It's essential that authors take a strong hand in marketing their own books. Personally, I check out at least the Twitter and Facebook brands of every potential client I am interested in representing. If these writers also have a blog, and Instagram, Tumblr, or Pinterest accounts, I am even more impressed by them.\n\n\u2014Laurie McLean, Founding Partner, Fuse Literary\n\nYou see, social media began innocently enough as a way for authors to extend their reach to readers on the Internet, and to connect on either a professional or personal level. Social media allowed authors to encourage others to write, or offered readers a peek behind the curtain at the creative process. This online outreach evolved into an essential part of a writer's life. Today, marketing via social media channels has become a necessary part of the author's skillset, as much as research, writing, and editing. However, since marketing or public relations is \"someone else's job\" in a writer's eyes, authors usually don't give it enough time and attention. When marketing and PR get moved to the back burner, authors make mistakes that negatively affect the book's audience and, possibly, their reputation. Most of these social media mishaps can be easily avoided. Others are stranger than fiction but are worth remembering and learning from.\n\nTapping into the potential of social media begins with understanding how all the tweets, updates, and posts began, and how authors should take the online environment seriously and maximize the tools available to them.\n\n## Understanding Social Media\n\nTo appreciate this weird and wonderful world of social media, it helps to step back to the early days of the Internet. If you don't remember that far back, here is a short refresher. Communication was one-sided; information was presented in a stationary, static format known as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML is the tagging system that is used to create Web pages to display text, images, and links. When you get to WordPress, you will be able to see this HTML code in the text viewing panel.\n\nHere's an example of what it will look like:\n\n_Lost in the sea of social media? Don't know how to blog? Befuddled by Twitter? Faceblocked rather than Facebooked? We can fix that for you. <\/em?_\n\nOur Talent\n\n_Tee Morris, along with being an accomplished, award-winning author, has ten years of experience as a social media professional. He is also the author of four titles in social media and has spoken on best practices coast-to-coast and around the world. Tee has worked for both nonprofits and corporations, and now his services can be yours._\n\nThe basics of HTML still apply to current online communications (and we've found them very useful for tweaking our various blogs), but _interaction_ with a site's topic or host is far different. That interaction is the primary difference between social media today and the very primitive forms of communication in the early days of the Internet.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nKnowledge of HTML is not a necessity for using social media, but it is extremely helpful in some instances. The best thing about HTML is that it is easy to figure out and easier still to find online resources that will identify tags that will allow you to format text. It's a good skill to have under your belt.\n\n### First Forums, Which Begat Blogging\n\nWith the development of more powerful programming languages more interactive websites called _forums_ appeared online. Forums granted their visitors the ability to interact with other visitors through threads of comments pertaining to topics started by the website's host or the site's community. Visitors to a forum subscribe to a site and then enter a username, profile, and any other personal details they wish to share with the community. Once subscribers find a discussion that piques their interest, they are offered an interface that allows them a voice in the conversation. Forum members can also introduce their own topics and subscribe to specific threads. They are notified through e-mail when new replies are posted. As they interact within the forum, they build a reputation within that site's community.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nBefore you attempt to create or customize your own forum, know that the programming languages behind this kind of system are far more complex than HTML. Active Server Pages (ASP) is a server-side script engine that makes dynamically-generated Web pages possible, and PHP:Hypertext Preprocesser is another language that works in conjunction with HTML to create frameworks. The invention of these scripting languages opened a whole new world of possibility, but you should know that these languages are not necessarily for beginners. Proceed with caution.\n\nIt was the programming language _RSS (Really Simple Syndication)_ that truly changed the way we communicate online. RSS served as the foundation for a new kind of website called \"Weblogs,\" or what people now commonly refer to as _blogs_. One difference is that a blog, as opposed to a forum, is hosted or written by one writer or a core group of writers. A blog's host is the only one allowed to post new topics of discussion. Subscribers and visitors can interact with the blog host via comments, but they cannot post new topics as they can in forums. Another major difference with blogs is that their content can be _syndicated_ through other blogs. In syndication, segments of a blog post are shared on other blogs with links leading back to the original. This increases traffic for all blogs involved in the process. Topics previously confined to a host forum could be distributed through a vast network of blogs, commonly known as the _blogosphere_.\n\nThe blogosphere offered a more interactive way to communicate on the Internet, with new and constantly up-to-date information, the ability to cross-reference material, and a way to build an online community around an author and his books or series.\n\n### Proceeding with Podcasting\n\nBlogging ascended to a higher form of communication in 2004 when RSS pioneer Dave Winer and former MTV VeeJay Adam Curry developed a new tag for the language\u2014the _enclosure_ tag\u2014to allow blogs to syndicate more than just text and images. With an enclosure tag, a blog was able to distribute more robust media, such as audio and video files. Put simply, the tag provided a website address where the user could find these different types of files. It looks something like this in the HTML markup:\n\nAnd thus _podcasting_ was born.\n\nPodcasting can be best described as \"DVR meets the Internet,\" where after you subscribe to a podcast, episodes are stored on your computer or portable media player until you listen to or view it. Podcast media provides subscribers with full control, unlike audio or video webisodes, which are generally only available if you are connected to the Internet or tune in at a specific time. Podcasting offers a variety of programming that is yours to keep when you subscribe. For writers, it can provide an outlet to show the world your fiction by recording and releasing short stories or even your whole novel. Another option is to do an interview or chat show. We do both with _Tales from the Archives_ 1www.ministryofpeculiaroccurrences.com\/category\/podcast\/ and _The Shared Desk_.2<http:\/\/www.theshareddesk.com>\n\n### The Rise of Social Networks\n\nWith the popularity of content delivered to computers via RSS, another form of data exchange emerged, offering subscribers a new, real-time method of connecting with others. No longer would writers have to attend a conference in order to \"meet with\" and learn from other writers and professionals in the business. Thanks to s _ocial networking,_ users control their communities and their connections. They can set up profiles in order to broaden professional contacts or even just to enjoy the company of fans and friends in the writing community.\n\nSocial networking sites exploded on the Internet, changing the way information is exchanged, how apps are developed, and how connections both of the professional and personal nature are made. With all the user-generated content available in text, audio, and video, social media has become the new wave of communications that everyone can use to their best benefit. It can be used strictly for purposes of free entertainment or it can be used as a powerful marking tool.\n\nThough social media is widely used, there are still authors that get online simply because someone told them to get online and others who refuse to get online because it's a \"diversion\" they don't need.\n\nWriting is a business. If you're a writer, it's time you take social media seriously and start seeing it as a business strategy for your work.\n\n### Book Marketing 101 (or Good Luck, You're on Your Own!)\n\nOne of the biggest myths people have about signing a book contract with a major publisher is that all you will need to do is write and that everything else\u2014editing, marketing, layout\u2014is someone else's job.\n\nNot quite.\n\nEditing and layout, most of the time, are handled by your publisher, but marketing usually falls on the author's to-do list. Occasionally publishers will spend some of the marketing dollars on new authors, but the majority is set aside for the major players: Patterson, Rowling, King, Steele. You know, the writers who don't need marketing.\n\nTrying to understand how marketing resources are distributed can be best described with a quote from Shakespeare: \"That way madness lies.\" No, it does not make sense, and as you should avoid Lovecraftian instanity, this means _you_ need to take control of your book marketing. No one else is going to care quite as much about your book's success as you do. This does not mean you turn down assistance from your publisher if it is offered, but marketing is not someone else's job. It's part of your writing career.\n\nAnd believe it or not, it's not as hard as you think.\n\n**Find out when your book is scheduled for release.** When you have a release date for your book, immediately go to a calendar and highlight that date. Then look at the month before and the month after. These two months are what we call your \"full-court press\" months for promotion. That's when you're going to want to focus your content on promotion. Too soon, and people will forget it by the time the book is available. Too long after the release, and people will get quickly bored with your platforms. It is possible to over-promote a title, so keep that in mind when you are planning out your heaviest promotions.\n\n**Begin building your social media channels** if you have none or rejuvenating ones that are quiet months ahead of your book launch. A social media plan doesn't just happen with a wave of a hand and snap of the fingers. You need to start talking, start sharing. What you put out there does not always have to be about your book\u2014it can be about you, the writer. What are you reading? How's your editing going? Blog posts, podcasts, and updates that relate to you, your writing, and related subjects matter to your community. Remember, it's about creating connections.\n\n\"A common mistake I see in submissions is the promise to create a social media platform once the book is published. In reality, this takes some time to do well and to pick up steam, and you can't rely on that happening within the initial shelf life of your book. I look for clients who already have a solid, brand-appropriate social media presence before I even pitch the book to publishers. With that in hand, they can hit their promotional stride at publication, rather than trying to scramble and play catch-up.\"\n\n\u2014Gordon Warnock, Partner, Fuse Literary Agency; Publisher, Short Fuse Publishing\n\n**Have a plan for social media and your book.** Now that you're building a network, start developing a strategy for your developing platform.\n\nWhen preparing blog posts, what are the topics you want to cover?\n\nWhat content is most relevant to your audience? Links on fashion? Steampunk? Science? Consider what you want to share with your audience.\n\nWhat blogs would be most interested in working with you on tours, syndication of content, and guest posts? What about Twitter and Facebook parties? (We will get to these topics in chapters 4 and .)\n\nAsking these kinds of questions helps you develop a plan around your book, making social media your outlet to reach out to your readers and fans.\n\n**Stay within your budget.** When you start receiving your advance, consider the words award-winning author Robert J. Sawyer extended to his fellow authors: \"Your advance is your marketing budget.\" This is where you're going to get funding for services like Mention or Sprout Social and giveaway items for Facebook and Twitter parties (which we will cover later in the book).\n\n### Bookmark\n\nA quick and easy\u2014but frowned upon\u2014way to build your community quickly is to _purchase_ Followers, Likes, Retweets, and Reposts through various third-party services. While doing so is a tempting way to build your numbers, it is never a good idea. Many of the \"purchased followers\" are nothing more than automated accounts called _bots_ that post nonsense, links to porn sites, and other accounts. These links lead back to _malware_ (applications that allow hackers full access to your networking platforms or your computer). Also, the statistics are misleading. On the surface, you will have impressive numbers, but as these purchased follows are not genuine connections, your community will offer little to no engagement or interaction. While you do want the numbers, quality in your community is much more important than quantity.\n\nWhen developing a marketing plan, it can be very helpful to talk to authors you meet at book events and conventions. Ask what platforms work best for them, what advantages and disadvantages they find for particular platforms, and how they manage their writing time versus time spent marketing via social media.\n\nIf authors you speak with talk about scheduling book signings as the best way to connect with readers, be gracious and give them your time. Then consider this reality check from us.\n\n### Old Dog: Why Book Signings Are No Longer Worthwhile\n\nBefore you assume that we don't like live appearances, let us say that this could not be further from the truth. We love attending book events, festivals, conferences, and, yes, book signings. We really do. They are a great chance to personally meet and shake the hands of people who are either new readers or longtime fans of our work. They are also great places to meet and network with our fellow authors\u2014after all, writing can be a solitary pursuit.\n\nBook signings, however, should never be your _entire_ marketing strategy.\n\nBookstore signings tend to be more profitable for the _New York Times_ best-selling heavy hitters, but for the average author it is a hit-or-miss venture, a roll of the dice that will either pay out or crap out. You have to consider the cost of your trip: Is this a local visit, or are you traveling out of town? Add to that the two hours you invest in actually sitting in the bookstore, hopefully signing books. If you are not moving books, then you are losing time. Calculate all these factors, and book signings get expensive in a different way.\n\nAgain, bookstore signings are not _bad_ , but bookstore signings should not be your only strategy.\n\n### New Tricks: The Wonderful World of Content Marketing\n\nWhen authors think about marketing, the overarching notion is that you need to \"push your brand\" because it is all about you. To a degree, yes: Marketing is about trumpeting your horn and talking about your worlds, words, and works. This is a very traditional approach to marketing, but in social media this kind of repetitive message gets old _very_ quickly. Think about it: If every time you met with an author online he was talking about his books and that was _all_ he talked about, how engaging would you find his conversations? In social media this is referred to as _signal-to-noise ratio,_ and it relates to the quality of your statuses and updates. If you are constantly advertising or promoting something in your feed, your audience may tune out your updates as \"noise.\" In doing so, readers may miss postings that they genuinely care about or can interact with, referred to as a _signal_. Signal is all about quality and what you deliver to your network. This is how a new method of marketing, called _content marketing,_ has evolved into an effective strategy for online marketing, as content marketing is all about the strength of your signal.\n\nIf you provide your readers and fans with quality content, turning your various platforms into go-to sources for reliable information and fantastic media, you will establish a connection between you, your audience, and your work. People find your work through content related to it, i.e., by sharing websites, blog posts, and other media that is not yours, but related to, in some way, your worlds. This is how you begin to build a reputation with other readers, book bloggers, and authors. An example of content marketing in action can be seen in our various _Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences_ platforms. You can find them on Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, and Facebook. For every one post we offer that directly talks about our books, we offer really cool steampunk posts from blogs, podcasts, and websites other than our own. Sometimes it will be the post about our book that will garner traffic. Other times it will be a post from elsewhere on the Internet that catches the eye. We also offer the chance for other steampunk authors, artists, and creatives to appear on \u00c6therFeature, a column that we run every Thursday about other writers and creatives in the steampunk world.\n\nIt may seem unusual to offer resources other than our own on our series' channels. Why are we offering these other resources time on our platform? After all, shouldn't we be marketing our books? Yes, the end result of marketing is promoting and selling our books, but by offering your platforms to others in your community (in the example of the _Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences_ , it's the steampunk and science fiction communities), you reach your audience, and the audience of your guest contributors. What matters the most with content marketing is the quality of your content: Does your content resonate with your audience, and does it establish you as a reliable resource in your genre? By making your social media channels a soundboard for topics of interest, visitors to your site may want to know more about your work. Content marketing is promotion by example, and by establishing yourself as a solid resource, you can easily reach your readers. We dive deeper into the mechanics of content marketing in chapter 12.\n\n## What You Need to Make This Book Work\n\n\"I really don't have the time for this.\"\n\nThis is probably the biggest excuse we hear from authors on why they are not giving social media a fair shot. Where is this coming from? Could it be the productivity lost when weeding through the variety of Friend Requests on Twitter, trying to figure out which profiles are truly legitimate people and how many are simply spammers? Is it the several hundred invitations to the latest and greatest Facebook game that you have to ignore? Or how about on the blog you recently joined\u2014is there a topic you feel compelled to write, and an hour later you are still working on that post? Whether it is approving others to follow you on Instagram or finding yourself drawn into a thread on Tumblr, the perceived investment of time in social media appears to be a common barrier.\n\nMost authors know enough about social media to be dangerous, while others tend to have the wrong idea on how to manage it. What you need to make this book valuable, and to make social media work for you, is an open mind, time, and patience. Instead of tackling all of these platforms at once, select three and begin developing your strategy. The magic will not happen overnight\u2014hence your need for time and patience. You will want to cultivate your online community, and eventually your audience will connect with you.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nThe most difficult part in writing any how-to book on technology is staying up to date with current events and developments after the book goes to press. This is why we are offering weekly articles and the occasional podcast (syndicated from TheSharedDesk.com) about social media for writers at our blog One-Stop Writer Shop,3<http:\/\/www.onestopwritershop.com\/blog\/> . Consider the blog and podcast your ongoing addendum to this book. Subscribe to the blog to stay in the know.\n\nWe want this book to be your trusted guide in navigating the various online platforms out there, and we want it to help you discover the best practices and strategies for you and how to make them work. We're here to help you, the writer, build a community around your readers and titles.\n\nSo let's begin.\n\n\u00ad\n\n1www.ministryofpeculiaroccurrences.com\/category\/podcast\/\n\n2<http:\/\/www.theshareddesk.com>\n\n3<http:\/\/www.onestopwritershop.com\/blog\/>\n\n# Chapter 1\n\n# WordPress\n\n# Building and Developing a Blog\n\nBlogging has completely changed the way we consume content on the Internet. To truly appreciate this, you need to step back (if you are forty or older) in your memory to the early 1990s when the Internet was very one-sided in how it delivered content in a stationary, static format. HTML, after all, was just text. Sure, the text could be granted attributes. Pictures could be included with the right code, and if you _really_ wanted to impress people, your website featured cute animated images or maybe an audio file that served as your website's soundtrack.\n\nWe call these years \"The Dark Times\" of website design. Younger generations call it \"MySpace.\"\n\nIt was also customary to incorporate links that would take you from one location to another. If you wanted to become an _active_ participant in a Web page's subject matter, you would find a Guestbook or a simple e-mail interface in a \"Contact Me\/Us\" section where your comment, feedback, or criticism might reach someone. This was still static in its delivery method, but it was an opportunity, nonetheless, to interact with the site's host.\n\nWith the emergence of more powerful, versatile computer languages such as Active Server Pages (ASP) and PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor Web developers began experimenting with more dynamic websites where visitors could leave comments pertaining to topics started by the host, interact with one another in these various threads, and _subscribe_ through e-mail to this online content, spreading the reach of the website. Around 2000, RSS took shape as the foundation for weblogs, commonly referred to as _blogs_. A blog is a platform made for a writer, usually written by one person or a core group of contributors, much like a website, but it can be not only subscribed to but also _syndicated_ from one blog to another.\n\nA blog provides the \"home station\" for writers. It's an author's website and a mechanism for broadcasting brand messages to \"satellites,\" the social networks. Additionally, publishing blog content often, consistently, and in a focused manner makes sites more discoverable in search engines. For these reasons, it's imperative for writers to develop blogs based on the subjects about which they plan to write, about the books they have coming, and about the books they may write.\n\n\u2014Nina Amir, best-selling author of _How to Blog a Book_ and _The_ _Author Training Manual_\n\nPerhaps the most useful innovation a blog offers is the way a website is updated instantaneously when new content is added. Instead of having to take a page off-line, edit it, test it, and then repost it, you either post or edit a page through a _GUI_ (pronounced \"gooey,\" and standing for _graphic user interface_ ) and make your changes. These updates are made live once you click the \"Publish\" or \"Update\" option. Instead of having to worry about how an update will affect the overall look of the page, the _template_ you are using on your blog makes everything fit.\n\nBlogs also offer their hosts the ability to notify their audiences of changes. Visitors to your blog are given the option to subscribe to your blog through an RSS reader like _CommaFeed_ 1http:\/\/commafeed.com or _Flipboard_.2http:\/\/flipboard.com Much like subscribing to a magazine, RSS delivers new content to readers' desktops, laptops, and portable media devices. The traffic is still counted and tracked, and your readership is kept informed while your site stays current and relevant.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nIf people are getting content delivered to them automatically, why have a website? Won't blogs detract from the current Web traffic? On the contrary, blogs can actually encourage traffic to Web pages by offering links at the end of posts that take readers directly to the website, to other pertinent or relevant locations of your blog (if your blog is your website), or directly to \"for more information\" pages or additional contacts. Blogs and blog readers do not replace websites but work with them in order to promote traffic and nurture the community around them.\n\nBlogging allows visitors the chance to interact with the blog's author, topic by topic, via the commenting function. Comments are open invitations to both guests and subscribers unless they are moderated. Moderators are useful to ward off spammers and to help \"keep the peace\" if the conversation gets too spirited. Blogs also offer the option to syndicate content by posting it on other blogs, thereby increasing traffic for both the host blog and blogs referencing the original content. Concepts, ideas, and resources previously confined to a single location can now be distributed through the _blogosphere_.\n\nBlogging also keeps you writing, and that is a very good thing. To make blogging happen, you need a _blog engine_ or a GUI that has been built for creating, posting, and managing content\u2014and that blog engine should be WordPress.\n\n## Why WordPress?\n\nA variety of blog engines can easily get you blogging in minutes. Just to name a few, you could use:\n\n  * LiveJournal\n  * Blogger\n  * MovableType\n\nEach of these services goes about providing you your own personal blog in its own way. Our choice option, _WordPress_ ,3<http:\/\/wordpress.com> or <http:\/\/wordpress.org> offers expandability in ways that other blog engines do not. First, there are a wide variety of _themes_ to choose from. Developed by users for other users, these themes are free and easy to implement into your own blog. A theme is a skin that defines all the design and layout for your blog. A fair number of them have the ability to be customized, but you are ultimately limited to what the creator allows you to do. You can also find custom-built themes\u2014for a price\u2014that will ensure your blog is a one-of-a-kind place. WordPress has earned a solid reputation within the blogosphere as a reliable and easy-to-implement platform for all of your blogging needs.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nThe difference between WordPress dot-com and Wordpress dot-org is expandability. WordPress.com is a fully contained package, offering a lot of plug-ins and options for free. However, you get more in the way of storage and options if you upgrade to WordPress's Premium services. WordPress.org offers thousands upon thousands of themes and impressive plug-ins, all designed and developed by WordPress users, that allow you to go beyond the basics. The trade-off with dot-org is that you download the WordPress software, install it, maintain it, and back up your blog _on your own._ To find out more about WordPress and working on it free of the dot-com restrictions, take a look at _Sams_ _Teach Yourself WordPress 3 in 10 Minutes_ by Chuck Tomasi and Kreg Steppe.\n\n### Producing Content\n\nUnderstanding the WordPress interface is easy. If you can work a word processor, you know the WordPress GUI. The hard part is sticking with an editorial calendar. A blog without regular, consistent content does not represent a writer in the best light. It gets even harder to produce content if you are working on a deadline. After all, instead of blogging about writing, shouldn't you be _writing_? This is the common argument writers of all genres, of all backgrounds, have against blogging and its value. Truth is that, yes, your priority should be your commissions\u2014those projects that come with editors, publishers, deadlines, and paychecks, and low on the priority list, along with other items pushed to the edge of your desk, sits your blog on the Internet, silently mocking you.\n\nBlogging shouldn't be a chore or hindrance from your writing career. It is your best introduction to potential readers and your direct connection to your audience. With the right strategy, keeping your content lively, relevant, and consistent on your blog can easily fall into your writing routine.\n\nWith your first blog posts, focus on introducing yourself to readers and beginning to establish yourself as someone with knowledge worth reading about and sharing. The actual promotion of your new blog, though, should not come until you have content within reach, polished, edited, and ready to schedule.\n\nHere are a few ideas on blog topics:\n\n  * When I'm Not Writing (travel, interests, hobbies, or how you unplug and unwind)\n  * Authors Who Inspire Me\n  * Favorite Books (different genres, all-time, repeat reads)\n  * What Inspires My Writing\n  * Creating Characters You Love or Hate\n  * Software\/Hardware for Writers (can also include productivity tips, research tools, etc.)\n\nThe above topics produce what is known as _evergreen content_. These blog posts can easily be rotated in and out of an editorial calendar in case something topical or breaking news (a new book contract, a news headline from the publishing industry) comes to your attention. Evergreen content can also be _repurposed_ , which means roughly 60 to 80 percent of the blog post is tweaked, rewritten, and edited for guest postings on other blogs. The more posts you have like this on hand, the more content you have in case you find yourself running tight on time and short on blog topics. Before launching your blog, schedule five evergreen posts from this list.\n\nAnother approach to content that's commonly used and great for staying organized entails creating themes for different days of the week. \"Monday Motivation\" features your favorite motivational quotes from your favorite authors while \"Tuesday Teasers\" are selections from your upcoming book release or perhaps a work-in-progress closing in on completion. Themed days are great for simple, quick blog posts that are easily syndicated on other blogs and publicized on various social networks.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nAnother option for themed days is using an image as your post. For example, if you designate your Fridays as \"Friday Funny,\" you can feature a humorous quote, either from a book or from an appearance, of an author you enjoy. With a graphic as a post, it can be easily featured on visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest. Make sure the image you post is:\n\n  * Formatted not as a portrait or landscape but in a perfect square. Instagram, in particular, features all pictures in equal ratios.\n  * Original photography or artwork created by you, or...\n  * A royalty-free image that you have purchased. Use of copyrighted material, including imagery, without proper permissions can land you in trouble if you're using it to promote your work.\n  * Branded with your website so when the image is shared others will know where it originates.\n\nThese images can be created in a variety of mobile and desktop applications such as InstaQuote or FontKiller 2. You will find out more about InstaQuote in Chapter 9.\n\nA \"sweet spot\" to strive for with blog posts is between 500 and 1,000 words. It's okay if you go over that limit; but if you want to keep your topics tight and concise, this is a good target. Shorter blog posts are easier to consume and easier to create. Authors argue that they don't have the time to blog, but 500 to 1,000 words equates to an hour's worth of time. Tightening up your thoughts, proofreading for typos, and linking to relevant material in your post is another hour at the most. Within that range you can say a lot, produce a conversation, and still have time to work on your latest novel or short story.\n\n### Posting Frequency\n\nSo now that you have five blog posts on hand and maybe even a few images for those themed days, you've got content. You've got a blog. You've got an audience out there, just waiting to find you. How often should you post?\n\nNew bloggers often think of themselves as baseball players coming out of the batter's circle swinging two bats\u2014only in the blogger's case it's two blog posts instead of two bats. Two posts a week that grab audiences with new content and fresh discussions potentially total 1,000 to 2,000 words a week. It sounds easy but is actually an ambitious plan when you break it down. First, this plan would burn through the evergreen content you created in the course of just one month. If you blink, you'll suddenly find yourself short on content.\n\nHow about we start with a less ambitious plan and just a few small steps?\n\n#### Posting Weekly\n\nWhen launching a blog, aim for weekly posts. Pick one day and make that your blog day. It can be difficult to maintain that schedule, and it could be a bit frustrating trying to build an audience when you are only posting once a week. The advantage, at least in the beginning, is you get a complete idea of what it is like to produce content for a blog on a regular basis. Weekly posting also allows you latitude to reschedule evergreen topics in light of topics you want to post in the moment.\n\nIf you choose to continue posting weekly, and provided you remain consistent and truly do post weekly\u2014even when you're on deadline or really, really busy\u2014you can cultivate an audience. So long as you can be patient with slow growth and development of your blog's audience, a weekly schedule may be the best way to establish a strong, confident foothold in the blogosphere.\n\n#### Posting Twice a Week\n\nYou have been posting once a week, diligently, for a month or two, and you are scheduling any extra content you've managed to produce in between posts. You find yourself with a healthy backlog, and you are still finding yourself inspired to write a few new posts or post some images featuring motivational quotes or teasers.\n\nMaybe it is time to think about upping your blog post frequency.\n\nAs stated earlier, posting twice a week translates into 1,000 to 2,000 words a week for your blog, an ambitious plan for a novice blogger. However, if you are inspired and you find yourself with a quickly growing backlog of content, two blog posts a week will work for you. An additional blog post a week can also help you build an audience faster, but keeping this audience means you must also keep the two-posts-a-week schedule running. Themed days can help in meeting your demand for content, as these posts, if visual, can be easily produced and quickly posted. Just as you did with your weekly posts, determine the two days of the week that work best for you.\n\nThe power of the blog was brought home to me when I had to go public about an unexpected delay on a highly anticipated book. I could have said, \"I'm going to miss my deadline and I'm sorry,\" but instead I chose to write honestly about why the delay occurred and my own creative struggles. Readers were so decent and kind and patient with me. Twitter is fun, it's my favorite place to connect with other writers, my water cooler, and the best procrastination tool. But the blog is my venue to really write, and that is, in the end, what I do.\n\n\u2014Gail Carriger _, New York Times_ Best-Selling Author of The Parasol Protectorate __ and The Custard Protocol __ Series\n\nCome up with five posts around your theme and then schedule them for a particular day. Provided the new posts are short enough (200 to 500 words), your turnaround on these themed posts can be even faster than for your official blogging day. With two posts a week, you should notice more engagement.\n\n#### Posting Daily\n\nSo your backlog of content is looking solid. Rock solid. So rock solid that you consider just how awesome it would be to turn your blog into a machine of daily content. That would mean posting something new about your works, about your genre, about the writing industry every day, Monday through Friday.\n\nDaily content for a writer's blog is bold, aspiring, and nothing less than impressive. Usually people who aim for daily content\u2014even the ones who take the weekends off\u2014tend to have staff on hand. Blogs with daily content also tend to have huge audiences, with readers who are ready and waiting for whatever news or trivia you have to share. This is why daily blogging is a commitment. A _big_ commitment. As in _Titanic_ -sized, Wagnerian-epic, Super-Size-That-Happy-Meal big commitment. Sure, there are shortcuts like the posting of original graphics and syndicating of other blog posts, but when you host a blog, your audience expects to receive content from you. If the majority of your content comes from elsewhere, you risk losing your audience to the sources you are syndicating. This is why syndication is terrific to have as an occasional treat. It's something new, something different. A blog entirely made up of syndicated content, though, is not what your audience wants. They want to hear your thoughts, your opinions, your voice. Your _original_ content. If you are a writer of books, whether nonfiction or fiction, you have to consider that a daily blog will take up much of your time. And with all this time dedicated to blogging, when will you have time to write?\n\nDaily blogging is a temptation, a temptation that tantalizes if you find yourself with plenty of content in your backlog. This posting frequency comes with many risks that you must consider before attempting such a schedule. Writing time is precious, especially when in the developing stages of a short story or novel. Dedicating yourself to a daily blogging schedule could cut into that precious time.\n\nWhether you eventually decide on a weekly, biweekly, or daily schedule for your blog, consider the maximum amount of time you want to dedicate to content creation before you launch. Once you have a reasonable schedule, stick with your plan. As tempting as it may be to go beyond that budget, don't. This way, you can protect the writing time reserved for your works-in-progress.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nOn occasion we are asked about the value of blogging monthly. Is there any benefit in doing that?\n\nHonestly, with bloggers of all backgrounds and professions dedicating themselves to weekly or biweekly schedules, people will probably pass on your monthly blog post in favor of the four blog posts found on another's site. Even twice monthly blog posts pale in comparison to an author's weekly blog.\n\nIf weekly is a schedule you cannot commit to, blogging may not be your thing. And that is okay. Better to meet the minimum commitment of a weekly blog post than to engage in an occasional blog post whenever you're moved by a whim. The time you could be blogging can always be dedicated to social media or another aspect of your career.\n\n### Taking That Tone: Finding Your Blog's Voice\n\nOnce you have your posting frequency decided, consider where your content will be coming from, as well as what \"voice\" you'll use for your blog. Blogging, after all, is not just an introduction of your work. Blogging provides a connection between you and your readers. What kind of connection do you want that to be? Professional to professional? Teacher to student? Person to person? Do you want to talk about what you write, how you write, how you live? Or perhaps all of the above? Blogs may look simple from the outside, but a lot of planning and preparation goes into them. This hard line of questions about what content you want to produce will serve as your foundation for the tone, feel, and voice. After that, it's your responsibility to create the content, keep up with the posting schedule, and provide a voice that will draw in new readers and keep faithful fans coming back to your website for more.\n\nWe have touched upon the importance of original content, but are you the last stop for content on your blog? You have been exposed to the idea of relying on the kindness of strangers, so let's take a deeper look at the content that comes from sources other than you.\n\n#### Guest Bloggers\n\nAfter blogging twice a week for some time, you will establish yourself as a source of regular, reliable content. Why not, then, reach out to other writers and offer them a place to share their thoughts? Invite other authors to write on topics you think your audience would enjoy, or let them take your blog for a day and speak their mind on topics they come up with but that you approve. Once a topic is agreed upon, schedule your guest or guests accordingly. Keep your guest posts within your word count parameters\u2014500 to 1,000 words\u2014and give them a day you don't normally post. Depending on how many people you want to offer a moment on your blog, you may have guest blog posts alternate with blogs of your own content. If you find yourself with _many_ volunteers, step up the frequency and aim for a weekly feature of a new voice from your corner of the Internet.\n\nWhy would you want to invite other authors to blog? Guest blogging benefits both you and your guests on several levels. For you, your blog gets fresh, new content, a completely different voice, and a touch of variety. You also get the opportunity to introduce your blog to a new audience\u2014your guest's. Your guests, on the other hand, are given the chance to introduce themselves and their work to your audience, so it's a win-win for everyone. It also allows guests to play the role of expert on whatever particular topic you have asked them to blog about. Finally, by appearing on a blog other than their own, guests increase their reach and in turn increase their search results, proving they are not exclusive to their own blog. You will learn more about improving search results in chapter 11, where we talk about search engine optimization, or SEO.\n\n#### Blog Tours\n\nAnother fantastic way of assuring content for your blog is to host a _blog tour_. Unlike a bookstore or convention tour, a blog tour takes place in the comfort of your own home. Your travel itinerary consists of various stops across the blogosphere. On a blog tour, you guest post on other blogs, talking about your book and its relevant topics, all the while inviting the blog hosts to appear on your blog. This pay-it-forward approach to blogging and publicity is a great way to get your words in front of potential readers and to spread the word about your works.\n\nYou can get a blog tour rolling in two ways: Pay for someone to organize it, or do the work of organizing it yourself.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nThere are two kinds of blog tours. One kind of tour is just you hopping from blog to blog, as if you were traveling from bookstore to bookstore on a standard promotional tour. The other approach is to schedule a book tour between several authors and build a round robin of visits so that everyone in the tour visits everyone else's site. For a first-time tour, make a round robin with no more than eight authors.\n\nBook bloggers who arrange blog tours for authors can earn a good amount of income. Price tags for these services vary, but one thing is certain: hiring a tour manager costs you the lowest in stress. Also, tour hosts usually know more bloggers and writers to approach than you do, making your investment a wise one.\n\nYou can put out the call to authors in your network, of course. This is probably the best approach for authors who have existing connections in the book industry. Using Google Docs or Microsoft Excel is the best way to keep track of participants and to schedule dates for your participants. Just remember: Whether hosting or participating, you are investing time and resources in keeping others and yourself on track. You do not want to miss an appearance or fail to produce a piece. People are relying on you for content, just as you are relying on others.\n\nWhen your next stop on a blog tour comes up, your host may have interview questions already lined up for you, but sometimes you may have to come up with your own topic for a blog stop. This can occasionally be hard, especially if you are on a long blog tour and feel as if you cannot come up with another idea. Here are some to get you started:\n\n  * Who would you cast in the movie based on your book?\n  * What is your inspiration for this book?\n  * What is it about the setting for this book that you find compelling?\n  * Did you go deep into the motivations of your favorite character?\n  * Do you plot your novel, or are you a \"pantser\"?\n  * What is your typical day as a writer?\n  * Who are your literary influences, and why?\n  * What lessons did you learn from working with an editor?\n  * Did you find your own voice and style in writing?\n  * What do you love about your cover?\n\nThese are reliable topics that hosts love to feature on blog tours. Pitch two or three of them to your upcoming stop and see what they want. If they say, \"It's up to you...,\" pick one and run with it. At the end of the tour, you will have a wider reach for your name and your work.\n\nYou will also have, at the end of the tour, new evergreen content ready for repurposing and posting on your own blog. Give your new content considerable time (at the very least, six months) from the end of the tour before you start posting it.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWhen you embark on a blog tour, do not write one post and then offer it as your entry for all the blogs where you intend to appear. Each stop is expecting unique content, and those readers following you while on tour will be sorely disappointed if you're saying the same thing over and over.\n\nFor the best practices to follow on a blog tour and other social media platforms, take a look at chapter 13.\n\n#### Syndicating Content\n\nIn the same way that podcasting is defined in a variety of ways chapter 3, bloggers tend to define _syndication_ in different ways. For this book, we define _syndication_ as taking the opening paragraph of another's blog post and featuring it on your own blog. You then add a link that reads, \"To read the entire blog post, follow this link...\" from your blog to the original blog post's origin. Syndicating a blog post provides your own blog content while directing traffic to another blog.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nThe optimal way to syndicate a blog post is to feature a post up to the point where the post's home blog breaks between two paragraphs using the \"Read More...\" attribute. The \"Read More...\" attribute creates a unique URL that picks up where the previous paragraph leaves off. Using this link you can have people start a blog post at one location and end at another.\n\nWhile syndicating blogs is a great source of content, and a terrific way to encourage community between blogs in the process of sharing, syndication should happen only on occasion. Blog syndication should not be your only source of secondary content, and it should _never_ be your sole source of content. As stated earlier, people are coming to your blog to hear _your_ voice. Offering the voice of others is a fantastic way of inviting different points of view, but if your idea of blogging is nothing more than collecting the thoughts of others, readers may find themselves asking why they are coming to your website for any reason beyond picking up blogging resources that produce original content.\n\nWordPress has a lot to offer for both the beginner and the experienced coder. With just a little investment of time to learn how it works you can create a strong foundation for all of your social media. In chapter 11, we're going to build on this when we look at search engine optimization, and in chapter 12 we're going to examine content marketing, which will give you ideas on how to populate your blog.\n\nIf this all seems too big for you, the good news is that there is another, smaller option! Consider the microblog of Tumblr.\n\n1http:\/\/commafeed.com\n\n2http:\/\/flipboard.com\n\n3<http:\/\/wordpress.com> or <http:\/\/wordpress.org>\n\n# Chapter 2\n\n# Tumblr\n\n# Drive-By Blogging\n\nThe founder and CEO of Tumblr, David Karp, set out to make something less verbose and easier to handle than WordPress or other blogging platforms like Blogger. Even though he said that Tumblr was made for \"those who don't like writing,\" that doesn't mean writers can't make the most out of this platform. In fact, it could be the most useful platform for those with limited time who still want to reach an engaged and youthful audience.\n\nTumblr might have started out as a way to do short-form blogging, but it has become huge itself\u2014and quite popular, with over 94 _billion_ posts.\n\nThe ease of use and the quickness with which users can share information make it attractive to a wide audience.\n\nOn Tumblr, users share all sorts of things they find interesting (such as images, audio, quotes, and short passages from books). They comment on posts, share, reblog, and build a community around their information.\n\nWhen you first look at the stream of constant Tumblr information, it can be a little daunting. It flows through your feed like Twitter (see chapter 5), but with more images, moving images, and videos. Your job is to put your information into the stream, but it has to be engaging and visually exciting to attract attention.\n\nSome authors blog only with Tumblr instead of WordPress, while some use both. It's up to each individual to decide how much time she has available.\n\nIf you are short on time or find long-form blogging hard to get into, then Tumblr could be a good platform for you.\n\n## What Is the Difference Between WordPress and Tumblr?\n\nIf using WordPress is writing a letter to the world, then Tumblr is the postcard version: Tumblr blogs have a pretty picture and contain generally shorter posts about how your day has gone. Tumblr is also easier and quicker to read, and someone who views a post often shows it to other people. If you are lucky, the recipient will pin it onto his refrigerator... which, in this case, is another Tumblr account.\n\nDeeper down there are other differences, too.\n\nWhile WordPress can either host your content or allow you to host it on your own site, Tumblr is more of a mash-up of a social network\u2014think of it as WordPress and Twitter joining forces. The advantage Tumblr has over Twitter is that with Tumblr you have more than 140 characters to work with. So Tumblr allows you to show more of your personality than Twitter does. Make good use of this feature, because personality means a lot to those on Tumblr, but remember to _keep it brief_. Tumblr readers like to _scan_ their feeds.\n\nThe other difference is that Tumblr is a stand-alone company, where as WordPress is open source. This means that a community of developers is free to work on WordPress, contribute to changes, and offer a variety of themes and plug-ins to broaden its capabilities. Tumblr allows the user some freedom, like personalizing his page, but it is not nearly as expansive as WordPress. This creates some restrictions in how you can organize and present content.\n\nTumblr offers a social aspect that WordPress does not. You can \"like\" and reblog posts, follow people who interest you, and make comments on posts, which is important in social media. _Interaction_ on any network means people are taking notice of you, and better still, sharing your words with their audience. Interaction is what makes social media so much fun, as well as so different from the early days of the Internet. Sharing is not just caring\u2014it brings more eyeballs to what you are saying and, in turn, to your books.\n\n### Why Tumblr?\n\nIf you are a writer with limited time, Tumblr is a quick and easy way to share a variety of content. If you have a beautiful image to share or a snippet of audio from your work, then this is the place to be. There are plenty of eager eyeballs just waiting for it. The social aspect of Tumblr means you can connect with other readers and writers who share your interests. Building networks is one of the strengths of this platform; it's not just about posting your work.\n\nIf you want to use Tumblr as your main Web presence for blogging, you can also add pages. You might consider adding pages that detail your appearances or your biography, for instance.\n\nIn short, Tumblr gives you more space to work with than Twitter, and it is quicker and easier to fit into your day than WordPress. If you are not comfortable operating all the bells and whistles you get with WordPress, yet you want to have some measure of customization, then Tumblr could be a good option for you.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nA great thing about social media is that you can enjoy the best of both worlds. There are WordPress plug-ins that will simultaneously create a post on Tumblr. The post is a selection of the opening paragraph, followed by the link that takes readers to the blog. It is not necessarily the same as posting original content on Tumblr, but it can assure you that content is reaching your Tumblr account.\n\nSo why not have your cake and eat it, too?\n\n#### Wider Audience\n\nWriters want to go where the readers are; and if you are looking for a young, engaged demographic, Tumblr is the place. According to Tumblr, 50 percent of its users are thirteen to thirty-four years old. So if your genre appeals to that demographic, it's time to jump into the Tumblr stream. Even if your readers are older, Tumbler has plenty of those users, too: 15 percent are over fifty-five. Tumblr is also different from most other social media sites in that it's pretty evenly divided between genders.1<http:\/\/www.digitalinformationworld.com\/2014\/10\/social-media-user-demographics-linkedin-tumblr-facebook-and-more-infographic.html>\n\nWhile it may not be the biggest social media platform, one thing is certain: Tumblr readers are interested. They spend an average of fourteen minutes on the site, which is more than Facebook or Twitter users. So while there may be fewer eyeballs on the site, those eyeballs are there for longer, which gives you a better chance to impress.\n\n#### Ease of Use\n\nThe Tumblr action bar makes it simple to use. Text, Photo, Quote, Link, Chat, Audio, and Video are options laid at your fingertips. You can upload your content directly from your website or another person's website, or you can just drag the image to upload it. Tumblr works hard to keep it easy.\n\nDon't forget your Tumblr page and profile says a lot about you, so get in there immediately and customize it. Make this corner of the Internet your own. You can tweak the colors of your page or go for a theme that you can adjust to your style. The more original and unique your Tumblr presence, the more people will want to follow your blog. Many of Tumblr's customizations are offered as free choices, but there are some that you can pay for as well.\n\nWith Tumblr, you can also create a _group blog_ where more than one person can post. You can assign members and then promote a few contributors (or all of them) to administrator ( _admin_ ) roles, granting them the ability to invite new users, remove current ones, delete posts, and reply to messages. Regular members can add their own posts, as well as edit or delete them. Group Tumblrs are good if you are co-writing a book with another author, or if you are writing an anthology. However only _secondary_ blogs (described in the next bookmark) can be group blogs.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWhen you set up your Tumblr account, you establish a profile and your _primary_ blog. The primary blog can be hosted only by the profile holder. Secondary blogs allow for multiple admins. Tumblr allows you to have as many secondary blogs as you desire, but your primary blog only allows for one administrator.\n\nAnother little time-saver is the bookmarklet.2<https:\/\/www.tumblr.com\/apps > Drag the bookmarklet into the toolbar of your browser, and whenever you see something interesting on a website, you can simply hit the bookmarklet. If you highlight accompanying text and then hit the button, that text will appear in a pop-up window without you having to do a thing. (Remember, Tumblr wants to make blogging as easy as possible.) You can then decide if you want it to appear as Text, Photo, Quote, Link, Chat, or Video. This nifty little device even grabs video and images. It also links back to the source but lets you add your own commentary.\n\nThe bookmarklet is a great time-saving device that allows you to quickly and easily share interesting items you find. And that's wonderful, because who doesn't love getting things done with less effort?\n\n### Bookmark\n\nReaders cannot comment on your Tumblr blog, but if you install the third-party expansion Disqus,3<https:\/\/disqus.com> then you can add that functionality. First, create a Disqus account, then click on the cog symbol on your Tumblr, and finally click on \"Edit Theme.\" Under \"Theme Options,\" enter the Disqus Shortname and click \"Save.\" Now your readers will have the option to comment, just like they do on WordPress.\n\n#### Mobile Possibilities\n\nTumblr's app is available for all your smartphones\u2014after all, Tumblr is about sharing and, in some instances, that means on the go. Readers love to see a slice of your life, especially if you are rubbing shoulders with other authors. The app offers all the features of the website optimized for your iPhone, Android, or tablet. Like all other social media platforms, it is up to you to decide how much you want to share. Rest assured, the Tumblr app is just as easy to use as its website sibling. If you want to take advantage of \"Tumbling\" while out in the wild, dive into the Tumblr app and keep your readers in the know.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWordPress is not the only platform that plays well with Tumblr. Many authors connect their Tumblr account to their Instagram account. You can easily sync your Tumblr from the Instagram app, just as you can for Twitter and Facebook. You will find out more about Instagram in chapter 9, and you can learn how to sync up accounts by reading the Appendix.\n\nWhat should you post to share with your readers?\n\n  * **Travel.** If you're going somewhere interesting\u2014even if it's just your morning walk\u2014snap a picture and upload it.\n  * **Food.** Pictures of tasty things make for great Tumblr posts.\n  * **Events.** Let people know you're accessible.\n  * **Artwork.** What inspires you? A steampunk fashion shoot? An iconic comic book panel? A classic piece from J.M.W. Turner or Georges Seurat? Post it!\n  * **Animated GIFs.** We dare you to search Tumblr for animated GIFs of Tom Hiddleston. Go on. (Just make sure you have a few hours.) For fun, you can also look for author-related GIFs, like famous authors writing and pages turning.\n  * **Pets.** The Internet wasn't invented for animals, but sometimes it sure feels that way. Posting pics of your pooch shows your softer side, plus it offers a bit of your personal life without using pictures of your children.\n\nYou might think these things don't apply to you, especially if you are just embarking on your writing career. But you'd be surprised how interested readers are in seeing inside a writer's life\u2014even if you're a \"new\" writer. No matter how long you've been at it, it is good to establish yourself as a real person, not just a writing machine.\n\n## Expressing Yourself: Producing Content\n\nPhoto and video content are the most reblogged and shared posts on Tumblr. They catch the eye and are more likely to stop readers who are scanning through posts. If you have posted something visual, you immediately have an advantage over the posts that are text only. Just be sure to link back to your website or other relevant material. Otherwise, you are wasting an opportunity.\n\nTumblr users also love _animated graphic interchange format_ images _,_ or _animated GIFs_. Love them or loathe them, refer to them using a hard or soft _g_ pronunciation, on this platform they rule, particularly if they feature pop culture. If you feel like spicing up your blog with GIFs, then you may want to check out the website Giphy.4<http:\/\/giphy.com\/categories> There are plenty of wonderful, funny GIFs related to writing, writers, and beloved books, and Tumblr has a very active and passionate reading community.\n\nHowever, unlike syndicating posts, Tumblr uses a feature called _Reblog_. Returning to the Twitter and WordPress analogy, the Reblog feature is the retweet of Tumblr. On a reblog, the post is re-created (with accreditation) on your Tumblr account and allows for likes and comments on your account. While reblogging is a wonderful feature of Tumblr and is highly encouraged, nothing beats original content. It's best to make your Tumblr a mix of both. For example, on our Tumblr blogs, we post original content with three reblogs in between. This strategy spreads out our own content while building that community feel.\n\nJohn Green,5<http:\/\/fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com\/> author of _The Fault in Our Stars_ , has a great combination of this. He posts information and insights about his books, but you also get a peek into his life, with pictures of what is happening in his world. You feel like you know this guy and you like him. Jami Attenberg6<http:\/\/jamiatt.tumblr.com\/> has a Tumblr that is mostly original content. It includes pictures of the world around her, snippets about what she is working on, daily observations of her life, and advice for writers. It is pretty dynamic. Kiera Cass,7<http:\/\/partylikeawordstar.tumblr.com\/ > author of the Selection series, posts all about boy bands and fun happenings with her series (lots of images, for example), and, best of all, answers questions from her fans. So if you hear other writers say writers aren't on Tumblr, that could not be further from the truth. Tumblr is a great place for writers to express and promote themselves, and have a bit of fun.\n\nI use Tumblr as a coffee machine in my virtual office, as if it were a place to go hang out with others. I engage with fans with \"Here's this cool thing I found...\" kind of posts.\n\n\u2014Elizabeth Bear, award-winning author of _Karen Memory_\n\nDon't forget to tag your original content, as this is the way others are going to find it. People search for particular tags that interest them in order to find new, interesting content. The Ministry podcasts we post to Tumblr, for example, are tagged with #steampunk #podcast #adventure #mystery. We can also add tags about any location in the podcast like #Berlin or #Ireland.\n\n_Blue Tags_ show posts that are being curated by someone in Tumblr itself.\n\nThese tags mean you are getting free promotion for your post. Bear in mind that you can't make this featured tag yourself. You can only post great content and hope that one of the Tag Editors likes what you are doing. Tag Editors are chosen by Tumblr from the community, and they can change. They start off with a term of sixty days, and though some are invited to continue doing this job, others are not. So keep an eye on the tags to see what the current editor is looking for, but don't bend yourself out of shape to produce what they like.\n\nUnique content is more likely to be picked by an editor, but a repost of other people's content can be as well\u2014but only if you have included the source information of where you got the image or post.\n\nFinally, be sure to include as many tags as possible. Hashtags are your friend on Tumblr, like many other social media platforms. Popular tags include topics on fashion, vintage, film, makeup, and animals. So if you have any relevant posts, don't forget to tag them!\n\nWhen producing content, you want to make use of Tumblr's best features: _Queue_ and _Schedule_. Schedule lets you pick the time and day you want your post to go out. Queue grants you the ability to add a post to a collection of posts that will go out at set times. For example, you can adjust your settings to drop a fresh post from your queue once, twice, or as many times a day as you want. Tumblr also lets you set the time parameters of when you want the posts to happen. You can choose how often each of these posts from the queue fires off. Twice a day is a popular choice, but you can post into your queue up to fifty times a day if you want to\u2014or are able to. We recommended two to five posts per day. Don't flood your feed, but don't leave it idle either.\n\n### Reblogging and Original Content: Which Is Best?\n\nThough it's generally simpler than blogging, using Tumblr still requires a time commitment. There are writers who cue up original content or sync up their blogs with Tumblr in order to share their most recent posts in a feed, while other authors reblog the content of others and are happy with producing a highlight reel of all the \"cool stuff\" they've found on their own.\n\nReblogging others' content is a great way to build a community and display interesting items in your own feed. However, you also need to add your own commentary, so readers see you interacting with the post rather than mindlessly reblogging. If the comment ties the content into your own work as well, bonus points.\n\nWe want to stress that original content is not merely a link to \"buy my book,\" though it can contain a link to buy.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nThere's an art to subtly advertising your book. You want to make it easy to find, but you don't want to hit people over the head with it either. Usually when we share images, we also include a short paragraph from the work, and below that a link to where people can buy it.\n\nOriginal content can be pictures of your day, or observations of things around you, conventions or conferences, and people you meet. It can also be snippets from your published book or one you are working on. Tumblr readers want to learn something interesting and insightful about you and your writing.\n\n## What to Expect from the Tumblr Community\n\nTo become part of the community, you need to make connections and participate. Standing on the sidelines simply doesn't make you friends. Don't be afraid to make the first move. When you first create your account, you need to find connections and start working on them immediately. Tumblr will suggest accounts for you to follow in the sidebar, basing its suggestions on the keywords you use to tag your content and the accounts you are currently following. Take a close look at what is suggested and start building your network right away.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nA great place to start building your network is with the spotlights that are curated by Tumblr. Spotlights show the most interesting and popular blogs in different categories. Finding fellow writers is important so that you can tap into them.8<https:\/\/www.tumblr.com\/spotlight\/writers> Make sure you branch out into other interests you have, as well.\n\nDon't worry. There are spotlights for all kinds of things: music, parenting, science, design, and many others.\n\nShow your personality by following people outside the writing community. In this way, you can display what a well-rounded person you are. Readers are interested in people who write and what they do beyond the typing. Insights make you interesting.\n\nSpotlights are not the only way to find the subject matters you're interested in. You can also look for blogs by doing a keyword search: travel, history, food. Tumblr features accounts on anything and everything. Tumblr lets you follow two hundred accounts a day, or five thousand different Tumblrs total for each Tumblr you manage. Don't be shy about following all you can. The more you follow, the more people will follow you in turn.\n\nDon't forget to _like_ (or _heart_ ) and reblog from your new connections\u2014that way you are spreading the love and encouraging them to like and reblog your posts as well. When you start to get comments on your posts, be sure to respond to them.\n\nRemember: Interaction is the key. You're cultivating a community.\n\n## Sharing with the Class: Syndicating Media\n\nSharing your information across various platforms makes for easy content. Since Tumblr has a different audience and community than other platforms, don't be afraid to repost content you are featuring on other locations, such as your blog, Instagram, or Facebook.\n\nAs you will find throughout this book and online, a variety of media, such as images and videos, will drive the most traffic to your content. If you are sharing something to look at or something to listen to, provided it is engaging, people will stop to watch or listen. The challenge is working within the limitations of Tumblr. Audio, for example, combined with a good cover image makes for great content. Our series The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences has an award-winning podcast anthology, _Tales from the Archives_ , and it gets coverage on Tumblr as well. However, in order to upload the content directly, the audio needs to be 10 MB maximum. Considering that the average short story we upload comes in at roughly 40 MB, it is not surprising that we have to remotely link such media. This material is said to be _syndicated_ (a slightly different take on how you syndicate a blog post) back to Tumblr. When it comes to media, syndication allows for sharing of media beyond just Tumblr.\n\nDifferent social media platforms have different demographics, and syndicating means you have the best chance of reaching all of them. It also can cut down on the amount of time you spend doing social media.\n\n### Avoiding a Potential Identity Crisis: Managing Accounts\n\nYou may have just one Tumblr account, but you are not limited to the number of secondary blogs. You can add up to ten Tumblr secondary accounts a day, but each additional account comes with limitations. Your secondary accounts cannot follow other blogs, create questions, like, or submit posts. However, secondary blogs can be great if you want to have a main author page and different Tumblrs for your different series (if you have them). For an author, having too many Tumblr blogs\u2014especially if you are spreading yourself over other social networks\u2014can be a way to (pardon the pun) tumble down the rabbit hole. Having a main author blog as your primary blog and then secondary blogs for a new series or characters from new titles is more manageable.\n\nIf you ever get confused as to which of your primary and secondary blogs you are working on, click on the head icon in the top bar, and it will show you.\n\n## Tumblr Strategies\n\nTumblr is all about sharing in the moment. Make the most of a mobile app and share images, quotes from your work, book trailers, and reviews\u2014this keeps your feed interesting and helps build your list of followers. Keep your smartphone handy and make those moments immediate. In doing so, you give your fans a peek behind the curtain. If you are at a convention or a book signing, then post those images, but try to keep them fun. Take pictures of your table, your readers and other writers out on the town, or anything peculiar you find at the event. If you find some interesting cosplay (costume play), see excited readers with your books, or meet excited readers, post photos of them!\n\nCreate a connection with your community by sharing memes and news of interest to your readers. This can be about you or what is happening in the world around you.\n\nAs we've already said, video is popular on Tumblr, so if you have the time and skill to do it, then jump in. However, bear in mind shorter is better, and funny is even more engaging. You can record book reviews and chatter about what is happening with your own writing and the challenges you are facing.\n\nRepurpose your blog posts from WordPress to reach the Tumblr audience. Keep them short and pithy, and don't forget to include an image to catch the eye.\n\nQuote sections from your book and books you are reading to build interest. When building an audience using book reviews, you will draw more viewers to your site by talking about books that are similar to yours. This is particularly useful when preparing to launch a book. Tease the heck out of your audience with riveting or intriguing snippets from your work. Make sure you don't reveal anything too important, though! The idea is to create cliffhanger-type situations.\n\nIn general, the Tumblr audience enjoys visuals, so create images, videos, and GIFs to use. A riveting image combined with a concise piece of text does a great job of gaining attention and interest.\n\nIf you're sharing audio or a podcast episode, be sure to include an attractive image that's associated with it. If you (or your publisher) are releasing an audiobook, use samples and post them online. Don't forget to include the links to where they can buy it.\n\nUse the Q&A function to engage with your audience. If no one asks you a question, post one yourself. It might be about inspiration for your writing, why a character acted in a certain way, or perhaps plans for more books.\n\nRemember: If you are using Tumblr as your secondary Web presence, include a link back to your website in each post so readers know where to go if they're looking for more content.\n\nBetween WordPress and Tumblr, you have the basics of blogging available at your fingertips. Try both and get a feel for what works for you and where you think you will thrive. In the next chapter, we'll concentrate on ways to get your words and thoughts into your readers' ears. It's an exciting platform that delivers audio (and in some cases, video) directly to computers and portable devices around the world, and it's a lot of fun!\n\n1<http:\/\/www.digitalinformationworld.com\/2014\/10\/social-media-user-demographics-linkedin-tumblr-facebook-and-more-infographic.html>\n\n2<https:\/\/www.tumblr.com\/apps >\n\n3<https:\/\/disqus.com>\n\n4<http:\/\/giphy.com\/categories>\n\n5<http:\/\/fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com\/>\n\n6<http:\/\/jamiatt.tumblr.com\/>\n\n7<http:\/\/partylikeawordstar.tumblr.com\/ >\n\n8<https:\/\/www.tumblr.com\/spotlight\/writers>\n\n# Chapter 3\n\n# Podcasting\n\n# Creating On-Demand Media Programs\n\nWith the many blogging sites, authors are able to get their words and inspirations out to readers. Instead of sharing those thoughts with written words, though, have you ever thought about sitting down and enjoying a fireside chat with your readers? That, in a nutshell, is what you're doing when you are _podcasting._ In 2004, programmers figured out how to use WordPress and other blog platforms to deliver dynamic content\u2014specifically audio and video\u2014to subscribers. Podcasters create their own media and syndicate it to listeners and viewers around the world. In doing so, they become a media production company, offering on-demand media content to subscribers via the Internet. These media files are consumed by subscribers through a host website, a computer's media player, or a preferred mobile device.\n\nThis is all well and good; however, many authors are not exactly dynamic in front of a microphone or a camera. Why would writers want to get into a media production platform when getting them to agree to public appearances of any kind is akin to moving mountains?\n\nPerhaps the most obvious reason a writer would want to host her own podcast is because she has something to say.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nJust because the FCC doesn't have jurisdiction over podcasts doesn't mean you're exempt from the law or immune to lawsuits. _You're personally responsible for anything you say, do, or condone on your show._ Additionally, the rules concerning airplay of licensed music, the distribution of copyrighted material, and the legalities of recording telephone conversations all apply. You still have control over the content you create, but make sure you obey the law.\n\n## Writers Gone Wild: Talk Shows\n\nA podcast talk show starts with an idea, something that the creator has the desire and knowledge to fuel with his own voice. Add to that a bit of passion and a do-it-yourself approach to audio or video production, and the end result is a platform for whatever the author wants to say to listeners.\n\nAnd writers can produce some wickedly fun content when the right people are in the room.\n\nPodcast talk shows are like those you might find on television or radio. They are informal, off the cuff, and sometimes even involve guests. The topics of conversation do not always have to be about _the craft_ , a topic _many_ writing podcasts start off. Podcasts we have produced in the past and that we have appeared on as guests have covered the following:\n\n  * Book Marketing ( _The Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy_ )\n  * World Building ( _Serving Worlds_ )\n  * Working in the Genre ( _Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing_ )\n  * A Look into the Writer's Lifestyle ( _The Shared Desk_ )\n\nThese podcasts cover a variety of topics and also display the chatty, informal nature of the format.\n\nThese podcasts are a bit like sitting around with your favorite authors, enjoying a cup of tea or coffee (or, if the discussion gets really informal, a glass of wine or a beer) while they talk about whatever is on their minds or answer questions on a certain topic. Talk shows can be very easy to produce. Sometimes all that is required is a recording device and a topic of discussion.\n\nThere are two advantages to creating a simple talk show podcast.\n\n  * **Minimal Editing:** It's just you and your guests, or just you on the mic, following a predetermined topic. You might have to edit the occasional stumble or tangent, but generally the talk show format is one of the easiest to produce. Without the need for heavy editing, it shouldn't take much time to clean up and produce an episode. You will want to review the recording for quality and flow, of course, but sometimes you can record, edit, review, and post all in one night.\n  * **Minimal Production:** Along with editing, quality concerns such as background noise (which can add to the spontaneity of the show, especially if you have cats) are taken lightly. The talk show is more about a slice of life or a casual sit-down with literary professionals. Your main priority should be that everyone is clearly heard. Preplanning for production can be a bullet list of talking points, while your post-production should be creating _show notes_ during the review process. Show notes accompanying the episode's blog post give listeners an idea of what happens during the show. It also helps if they want to skip ahead to a specific portion or find websites you might have mentioned. Links back to these sites are always appreciated by the websites' hosts.\n\nThe biggest benefit of the talk show format is allowing your readers to get to know you, see how your creative mind works, and enjoy a sit-down with you and your guests. Making that personal connection can go a long way in social media.\n\n## Anthologies in Audio: Short Stories\n\nThanks to podcasting and its pioneers, like Mur Lafferty and Patrick E. McLean, short stories are enjoying a renaissance. Shows like _Escape Pod, The Voice of Free Planet X,_ and _The Melting Potcast_ all feature short stories as part of their programming. Depending on your posting schedule, short fiction podcasts can be demanding, but they are a great way to introduce yourself, your work, and your world to a new audience.\n\nWe produce the Parsec-winning podcast _Tales from the Archives_ , in its fourth season at the time of this book's publication. The seasonal anthology, delivering new short story audio on a biweekly schedule, is set in the world of The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences _,_ our award-winning steampunk series. For this production, we have scaled down our production time considerably by approaching the podcast with this strategy:\n\n  * **Stories read by the author.** Each season of _Tales from the Archives_ offers ten to twelve stories, only two written by us. The remaining short stories are written and read by authors we invite to write in our universe. To do this, we offer guidelines, editorial passes on the manuscript, and post-production services on their audio. The lion's share of the work is in the writing, recording, and editing of the short story, all of which falls to the author.\n  * **Post-production process.** Once we receive an author's short story, we review the audio and then score the stories with a soundtrack and, if time allows, a few sound effects for key moments. These production elements bring an added dimension to the stories and are choices we make as content producers in an effort to do something different, something inspired.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nIt is totally up to you whether you want to do a straight read or go even further with sound effects and music. Any elements you add into your podcasting anthology\u2014sound effects, music, guest voices\u2014lengthens your production time. At the very least, if you are working with audio from other authors, you will want to teach yourself how to use audio filters to sweeten the clarity and quality of your guests' audio.\n\n  *  **Biweekly posting schedule.** As with blogging, a monthly schedule for podcasting tends not to be frequent enough to keep listeners engaged, while a weekly schedule consumes free time like children rummaging through their Halloween candy score. A biweekly schedule, however, serves as a comfortable compromise, allowing time to produce and edit another episode while also developing new material and keeping with present editorial commitments. For all podcasts, a biweekly schedule is the easiest to keep and maintain.\n\n## Going All In: Podcast Novels\n\nIn January 2005, Tee came up with a premise that\u2014at the time\u2014podcasters regarded as mighty ambitious: podcasting a novel from cover to cover. With _The Dragon Page_ podcast hosting, Tee's trailblazing was followed by young adult author Mark Jeffrey and science fiction and horror novelist Scott Sigler. In the decade that followed, writers like Mur Lafferty, P.G. Holyfield, P.C. Haring, and Starla Huchton undertook this challenge. When it comes to podcasting fiction, the novel remains the Mount Everest of audio projects to undertake, with some authors never reaching the summit. Be it time, effort, or resources needed, final chapters remain unrecorded. Podcasting novels is not a casual undertaking by any means.\n\nTogether we have produced six podcast novels\u2014or _podiobooks_ , a term coined by Evo Terra in 2005. Terra later created Podiobooks.com, the premier location for podcast fiction. Some of our books were previously published, while others were released as audio before they saw print. In the process of podcasting six novels we learned a few valuable lessons.\n\n  * **Do not launch the podcast novel until it is complete.** In the early days, it was suggested that a _buffer_ of episodes\u2014perhaps five to ten\u2014was good to have on hand. That way, if life happened to get in the way (and it usually would), you would still be able to keep a weekly or a biweekly delivery schedule. Now it is commonly recommended that before the first episode launches, the podcast should be completed in its entirety. Long-form podcasting is especially difficult when attempting to maintain a regular schedule while balancing real life, so consider having your novel recorded from beginning to end before going live.\n  * **Keep production at a minimum.** While indulging in various aspects of production\u2014sound effects, guest voices, and music\u2014is fun in short-form podcasting, long-form podcasting offers demands of its own. Such production elements only slow your progress. Keep the production in your podcast novel simple. If you want to add more elements, do so, but remember that you are increasing your workload.\n  * **With a complete podiobook, adhere to your posting schedule.** A complete podiobook means you can set your posting schedule: weekly, biweekly, twice a week, etc. In doing so, you are making a commitment and have no legitimate reason to shirk off responsibility\u2014so stick to your schedule.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nBe careful what you wish for, or, in the case of podcasting, be careful when you ask for feedback. You're most likely to get it\u2014and from places you may not expect. Since geography doesn't limit the distance your podcast can travel, unlike terrestrial radio, you may receive feedback from listeners coast to coast and around the world. And just like book reviews, feedback isn't guaranteed praise. Listeners will be _honest_ with you. Respect that.\n\n## Why Should You Podcast?\n\nIf it sounds like there is a lot of work involved in just planning and producing a podcast, it's because there is. There's no other way to put it. When an idea for a podcast comes to you, it is just like when an idea comes to you for a book. A lot of planning, effort, and resources go into a podcast, and when authors try to cut corners and run on the fly without a plan, the results can be disastrous.\n\nDon't believe us? Search the variety of podcasts about writing on iTunes. You might notice that some _podfade_ (a term for when a podcast starts strong, only to soon peter out) after a mere three episodes. When a podcast includes ten minutes of a writer typing, signing books at a bookstore (without any context, such as where he is, when it happened, or what book he was signing), or revealing the contents of a shoe closet, you can safely assume some planning was sorely needed but didn't occur.\n\nYes. A _shoe closet._ We've seen a lot of bad podcasts in our day, and the examples we give above are out there on iTunes to this day.\n\nPodcasts can be far more work intensive than blogging, but there are definite advantages to hosting either a show or an anthology.\n\n**Podcasting fiction is a great way to introduce yourself and your work to audiences.** Whether you decide to share an anthology of your backlogged short stories or your novel in its entirety, podcasts offer a \"try before you buy\" for potential fans all around the world. An anthology also doubles as great promotion for upcoming works, particularly a series, as the stories take nothing away from the novel you have coming; instead, these short stories introduce listeners to the world and offer glimpses at the novel's principal players. For a podiobook novel, your podcast could be a prequel or separate story running in time with the events of your main novel, offering listeners a low-risk, free introduction to your world, style, and work.\n\n**Podcasts offer audiences an intimate behind-the-scenes look at being a writer.** Many still believe the author's life to be all about ascots, smoking jackets, and enjoying snifters of cognac while the sun sets. If this is true, we have failed as professional authors.\n\nWell, we do own ascots\u2014we write steampunk\u2014so that's covered.\n\nPodcast talk shows not only dispel those lofty myths, they tear down the fourth wall between writer and reader, inviting the audience into the process. Sometimes authors express themselves with breakdowns of world building, character development, and plotting. Other times, the focus is not on work but on play: what they are currently reading, a live report from a conference or author event, or two authors talking about how they unwind. The podcast is your chance to sit down with your readers and allow them to get to know you beyond your pages.\n\n**Podcasting, whether it is fiction or a variety show, is just plain fun.** \"All work and no play makes Jack [Torrance] a dull boy,\" so why not fire up the microphones and let loose? Some of the best podcasts we have recorded have been in the studio with other authors, either talking about what we do when planning and plotting, or what we do when we are off the clock. Podcasts can be very therapeutic that way, helping you manage stress, deadlines, writer's block, and a variety of other speed bumps that life can unexpectedly throw your way. You can also find joy in taking someone's audio fiction and enhancing it with music and sounds to bring it to life. And then there is the accomplishment of finishing your own podiobook, releasing it to the public, and hearing someone say, \"I heard the podcast, so I really needed to read the book.\" Podcasting is a rewarding experience and, with the right plan and the right strategy, it can be as equally satisfying as the release date of your latest novel.\n\nPodcasting sounded like a neat hobby. I had always liked the idea of being on the radio, but I get tongue-tied, and recording and editing myself was easier. I'm not sure if I had gone into it with the focus of building a career, I wouldn't have chickened out. But since I was just doing it for fun, I wasn't afraid of failing, so I \"accidentally\" built an audience of people who were eager to hear my work, both nonfiction and fiction. I wouldn't have the career I have today if I hadn't started podcasting in 2004. So the lesson I learned was: Don't be afraid of failing.\n\n\u2014Mur Lafferty, Campbell and Parsec Award Winner and author of _Ghost Train to New Orleans_\n\n## Why Shouldn't You Podcast?\n\nThis may sound like a real stunner coming from two podcast novelists, but after success\u2014both creatively and critically\u2014with podcasting, we will never be podcasting long-form fiction again.\n\nMaybe right about now, you're thinking, \"Woah-woah-woah! You two are longtime podcasters, and you've just spent a section of this book telling me how great it is to podcast. Now you're saying not to?\"\n\nOne more time\u2014we will not be podcasting _long-form_ fiction any time soon.\n\nWe love podcasting, and we love to podcast fiction, but there are a few reasons we've made this call. Podcasting is a blast, but it is not for everyone, and podcasting a novel means less time for our writing. Along with talk shows and anthologies, we believe it is only fair to talk about how podcasting can work against the author, just so you know what you are facing when considering one.\n\n**Podcasting is a financial investment.** A podcast can't happen without a _microphone_ , and if you want your show to have a clean, quality sound, a mic built into your computer won't cut it. In addition, you're going to need _recording software_. There are free options out there, but professional packages, such as Audition and Logic Pro X, offer more features, better mixing capabilities, and export formats. To handle any outside noise, you may also want to invest in sound-dampening tiles, or something similar. The more you invest in a podcast, the better your production will sound, but it all depends on your budget. How much do you want to invest in a production that will earn you nothing directly? If you are not ready to make the investment, then you probably should reconsider podcasting as a promotional avenue for yourself.\n\n**Oversharing.** A podcast can be a challenge to produce, but without parameters or personal borders, it can become a therapist's couch if you're not careful. As mentioned before, podcasts provide an intimate connection between you and your readers, but unchecked, that intimacy can put you, your family, and your professional reputation at risk. Recording your thoughts or opinions after having a \"bad day\" at a book signing, with an editor, or at an agent meeting could descend into muckraking, and once a rant has gone live, it is distributed into the various media players of your subscribers, remaining there even when you remove it from your server. You should know, well before your first podcast, what you do and do not want to talk about.\n\n**Relying on content from others.** Even with money exchanging hands, waiting for content from others can be a disappointment, especially if deadlines are missed. Without the agreed-upon content, the time you were hoping to save by having someone else provide the podcast will be lost. Additionally, if someone writes you a story, but refuses to record it, no time is saved on your end. When audio comes from somewhere other than your own studio, it may not have the quality you strive for, and while you can't necessarily expect studio-quality audio, you may need to work some post-production audio engineering. That means you need more time to replace the content.\n\n**Podcasting is an investment in time.** We did some math on the time we spent on our podcast novels. For the amount of time we poured into one of our long-form podcast fiction titles, we could have easily written two novels. To be fair, we love production elements, including guest voices. But all those audio dimensions add time to producing a single episode; even if you keep it simple by using just a bit of stock music for scene changes, you will still need to edit out breaks, stammers, and places where the speaker trips up. Editing audio also requires review. Cut off too much from an audio take and the timing between the beginning and end of the edit may sound unnatural. Additionally, missed edits or repeats may sneak into the episode. Podcasting long-form fiction, even when kept to the basics, demands time. Are you ready to make that investment?\n\n## Why Do We Still Podcast?\n\nWe're sure it sounds like we are sending you mixed messages on podcasting, but it's more of a \"You need to know what you are getting yourselves into\" situation. Authors love the idea of getting behind the microphone and riffing away, but once you get beyond the newness of it, podcasting can be a real undertaking.\n\nThat said, we love podcasting and still podcast to this day. When you podcast short fiction\u2014original episodes set within the world of your novel\u2014these audio adventures can broaden the universe you're creating and enhance the reader's experience, provided you set a strategy. With the first season of our _Tales from the Archives_ podcast, we introduced potential readers to our cog-and-gear-enhanced world through lost cases of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences. These adventures predated events of our premier novel, _Phoenix Rising_. Initially, we planned for the podcast to be a glimpse into what we had created. However, when readers began asking if our audio anthology would reveal more of Wellington Books's past, the Ministry embarking on adventures in other parts of Her Majesty's empire, and whether or not there were other agencies similar to the Ministry investigating the unknown in other places in the world, we needed to change our strategy.\n\nThree of the stories from that first season\u2014\"The Evil That Befell Samson\" by Pip Ballantine, \"The Seven\" by P.C. Haring, and \"From Paris, With Regret\" by Starla Huchton\u2014went one step further and referenced events mentioned in _Phoenix Rising_. This, we discovered, was a real treat for readers as they felt the podcast offered an added dimension to the novel. Now, several Parsec Awards (an award bestowed to the best in speculative fiction podcasting), four seasons, and a \"change of strategy\" later, select characters, situations, and even artifacts from the podcast are making appearances in the novels, and vice versa. Some stories even carry an impact on future novels. These references (commonly known as _Easter eggs_ ) from the podcast expand a book's reach, granting you and your readers plenty of new avenues to explore. What was once a marketing tool, the _Tales from the Archives_ podcast now provides a \"Director's Cut\" approach to the series, offering additional scenes audiences delight in experiencing.\n\nAs for our talk show, _The Shared Desk_ , we employ a different strategy. There are other goals of promotion\u2014letting people know where we will be and what our upcoming projects are, and sharing writing topics that interest us\u2014but in the end, the aim of _The Shared Desk_ is to unwind a bit. We do, and we manage events of interest to the writer while doing so. We now have the podcast down to a system that allows us to record with little-to-no post-production (although we do sometimes come across a few things that should remain unsaid and therefore must be edited out), so all that we need is a topic and a chunk of time.\n\nAuthor, photographer, and artist J.R. Blackwell says _The Shared Desk_ is \"just like having a drink with Tee & Pip...\" and we take a lot of pride in that. We enjoy that connection with our readers, fans, and friends, but with deadlines, demands of family, and (of course) writing, there are occasional \"silent spells\" that one of our more passionate listeners, Gail Carriger, has chastised Tee for.\n\nAnd when you upset Gail Carriger, you can rest assured when having tea\u2014 _no scones for you, mate._\n\nPodcasts can be all about promotion, but they should also be fun. With the amount of effort and planning that go into them, they should always be fun. This is what drives us to keep going.\n\n### Bookmark\n\n_The Shared Desk_ , with the publication of this book, will be offering a special \"social media-centric\" episode once a month (the show posts on a biweekly schedule) on the OneStopWriterShop.com blog. If you want to subscribe to only the audio addendums for this book, subscribe to the One-Stop Writer Shop blog. If you want all the shenanigans that go on behind the mic, subscribe to _The Shared Desk_ through iTunes or TheSharedDesk.com.\n\nPodcasting can be quite an intimate, personal experience. But now we're going to dive right into the largest social media platform currently out there. Hold onto your headphones and warm up your \"Liking\" finger as we head into the wild open spaces of Mark Zuckerberg's world.\n\n# Chapter 4\n\n# Facebook\n\n# The King of Social Media\n\nIf social media began with blogging, then Facebook is what it has transformed into today. Running for just over a decade, and sporting a membership of over 1 billion users, Facebook is the force of nature in social media that people hate to love and love to hate.\n\nBut what is it that makes Facebook so appealing?\n\nBefore Facebook, social networking covered a wide variety of websites and applications. If you wanted to express an opinion and invite an audience to comment on your thoughts, you would blog. If you had photos you wanted to share, you would upload your photos to Flickr and share links or embed your images in blog posts. If you wanted to swap a quick note with friends, you would use either AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, or Skype. This meant hopping across multiple locations to share media, touch base, and keep people in the know.\n\nThat all changed when Facebook brought to the Internet a one-stop website where photos could be uploaded and shared, thoughts in both long and short form could be posted, comments on these thoughts could be responded to with links, images, or both, and private messages could be shared with others online. With everything offered in one location, it's easy to see how Facebook erupted in popularity and became the \"necessary evil\" in building your social media platform.\n\nWe will address the description of \"necessary evil\" for Facebook later in this chapter. Right now, let's take a closer look at Facebook and what it can do for writers.\n\n## Facebook for Writers\n\nSigning up on Facebook is only the first step. Perhaps the most important question of this social network is that of your intent. Do you want Facebook to be a means to communicate with friends and family? Or do you want to run Facebook as a professional platform?\n\nWhat's the difference? An audience of about five hundred as opposed to five thousand.\n\nChances are, without professional acquaintances, your Facebook friends would not extend beyond a few hundred, but as a writer using Facebook as a promotional platform, you may be approving friendships with people you know only from a meeting at a convention or the purchase of a book. This is where the line blurs between personal and professional relationships in social media. Along with various strategies on how to leverage Facebook in your favor, we will talk about this line and how best to define it.\n\nYou have to stay flexible, because you don't know where the \"next big thing\" is coming from. Right now, Facebook is ubiquitous. I get more interaction from Facebook than any other platform. It's easy to keep readers informed and easy for them to reach out to the author via comments on text and image posts. As Facebook ramps up video, I think it will create a great opportunity for authors to make fast, simple videos that help readers identify with the person behind the words.\n\n\u2014Scott Sigler, _New York Times_ best-selling author of _Alive_\n\nFacebook grants you two ways to work with an audience and, outside of your main account, keep a separation between the personal life and professional one: _Groups_ and _Pages_. Groups are a community built around a shared interest, while Pages are more of a central hub of information where a host controls the signal, frequency, and variety of content.\n\n### Where Everybody Knows Your Name: Groups\n\nFirst, let's take a look at _Groups_. Groups are communities built around a cause or commonalities like electric vehicle owners, cancer survivors, a reoccurring special event, or fans of science fiction and fantasy. The online club is a great way to encourage and build an active, enthusiastic community around your work and your worlds, as the content featured on Groups is completely community driven. Everyone shares a voice here, but since the discussion only happens when someone speaks up, it's a good idea to have a few topics ready for discussion before you invite readers and other authors to join. Having topics on hand also helps you avoid lulls in the Group's activity.\n\nThe most recent post made by a member will appear at the top of your Group. This is the case until someone leaves a comment, restoring that topic to the top of the feed. Interaction takes priority with all previous topics until a new topic is posted.\n\nAlong with general discussions, you can upload photos and videos, ask questions of your Group members with a poll, or add a file (PDF, Word document, etc.) to share with your membership. Provided the media falls under the guidelines of your group, this is a great way to share exclusive content with your community.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nIf you are a _moderator_ , or someone else in your Group is assigned as moderator, you are Judge Dredd: __ judge, jury, and executioner. If you make your Group _public_ , you decide who stays and who goes on account of bad behavior. With _private_ groups, you also decide who is invited. Moderators must not only keep an eye on the behavior of members and the approval of new ones, but they must also make certain members stay on topic. Gone unchecked, Groups can become havens for trolls (people who are deliberately provocative, just to get a reaction) and spambots. Moderation is paramount, just as it is for a blog, to keep your signal strong and the conversation of a high quality. Set ground rules for your Group, and adhere to them. Otherwise, a community can quickly fall apart.\n\nGroups are fantastic for creating a community, but if you are promoting a new release or even a short story in an upcoming anthology and someone in the community posts about seeing your book in a bookstore or promoting his own project, then your post concerning your latest release may be lost. With enough interaction, you can manage to keep your post at the top of a Group's feed, but only until someone leaves a comment on a previous post, once again burying your promotion under previous posts.\n\nInstead of using Groups as places to promote yourself and your works, use it to create a community around a cause, an event, or a passion. Perhaps you want to host a writer's group\u2014a safe place (provided you enforce your own guidelines) for writers of all skill levels and backgrounds to refine their storytelling talents. You would not use the same strategy you used to implement a _Page_ (more on that to come), but it would be a fantastic way to get your name out there in a spirit of goodwill. The focus with a Group like this should not be all on you, but you can easily claim your Group and its intent, a very subtle strategy of self-promotion if it becomes popular.\n\nSo if this is a Group, what is a Page?\n\n### My House, My Rules: Pages\n\nWhile a Group is a community that shares something in common and meets in one location to discuss it openly, a _Page_ is very different in two respects. First, Pages come with an _administrator's control panel_ (or _admin panel)_ that features built-in _analytics_ (measurements of traffic coming to and from your Page, demographics, and performance of ad campaigns), options for boosting posts (paid advertisements), and options to schedule posts (you can either post immediately or schedule a time for your message to appear in Facebook's _News Feeds)_. Another difference between Pages and Groups is that moderators for Pages post as the host, whether that's as a business, a celebrity, or an organization. People who Like a Page can interact with page updates, but they cannot post updates unless they are admins. These posts appear in the News Feed, regardless of whether you are following that page or not.\n\nPeople on Facebook know more about Pages than Groups simply because of the language and open promotion in the world outside of the Internet. (Yes, there is this magical place called \"Outside, _\"_ and it is where this thing called \"Life\" __ happens.) You rarely hear individuals, businesses, or people at events say \"Join our Group on Facebook.\" Instead, audiences, patrons, and fans of various venues\u2014restaurants, historical sites, and parks\u2014are told to \"Like Us on Facebook\" which remains the best, most efficient way to stay in the know.\n\nWhen creating a Facebook Page you want to make certain your Page is complete. Remember that just as with a blog and a podcast, a Facebook Page should have all its information complete in order to make the best first impression that you can.\n\n#### Your Page's Profile Picture\n\nWhile you have the option to rotate images in and out of visibility, this representation of you and your work should rarely change. If you are an author, this should be your current head shot or a custom logo designed for you and your books. If you create a Page for a series, it should be the most current cover or, as stated earlier, a custom logo that belongs to you. This is your _brand_ , and when people glance at it they should be able to easily connect this image with you or your business.\n\n#### Your Cover Photo\n\nUnlike a Profile Picture, your _Cover Photo_ should be rotated for variety. The cover photo can display a number of things:\n\n  * Upcoming Events\n  * New Releases\n  * Upcoming Releases\n\nYou should find an image that serves as a \"default\" image (pertaining to your brand), but take advantage of the Cover Photo as one of the promotion tools in your arsenal.\n\n#### The Like Option\n\nWhen accessing your Page, you can see whether you have Liked this Page or not. It's not vain to Like your own Page, as this is a way to monitor your own feed. Anything you share or post will appear on your personal feed, assuring you that the Page's posts are getting out.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nSince February 2014, Facebook has been changing its algorithms to make _organic reach_ (growth and signal coverage through people sharing your posts) much harder to cultivate on Pages. Now, for subscribers to your Page, there is no guarantee your posts will be seen without _boosting_ (paid promotion) posts.\n\nSomething you can do to increase the chances of your posts being seen is to tell Facebook you wish to _Get Notifications_ from a page you've liked. Move your cursor over the Liked icon and select from the drop-down menu that appears the Get Notifications and Following options. You will then receive alerts whenever posts go live on the page.\n\n#### The About Section\n\nHere is where you provide the details and contact information for your business and online connections. To edit this information, click anywhere in the About section and click the Edit button to set up and edit Preferences, shared information, and Administrator roles. This is where you provide links to your main site and your bibliography, and details about you or your works.\n\n#### The Post Section\n\nFrom this section of the Facebook Page, administrators can post status updates, links, announcements, photos and videos, and special events and milestones. These are the announcements that will appear on the _Updates Feed_ of the Page.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nFollowers of your Page are also given the option to post, but their posts do not appear in the Main Feed. Visitors will see the same _User Interface_ (UI) as Page Admins would see for making posts, but Visitor postings will appear under a \"Recent Posts by Others\" section found in the left-hand column of the Page.\n\nMaking a post on a Page is similar to making a post with a Group, with the exception of two points. First, your post\u2014if you are an Administrator\u2014will appear with the name of the Page, not _your_ name, unless you select an option other than the Page's name from a drop-down menu. (This posting option is available in the Comments section as well.) The other difference with posting on a Page is that updates will appear in the Page's Updates Feed in the order of posting, from the most recent at the top to older posts as you progress down the Page.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nIf your Page has more than one moderator, your posts should end with signatures. One-Stop Writer Shop is an authors network we moderate. When Tee makes a post he signs it with (TM), and Pip signs her updates with (PB). This way, posts can be easily managed and monitored. This means the reader knows who she is communicating with, adding that touch of personality we're always looking for in our social media.\n\n### Earning Likes from Your Fans\n\nYour Page is up and running. Congratulations! Now's the time to go hunting for the ever-elusive Likes.\n\nWhy do we use \"ever-elusive\" to describe earning Likes? According to TechCrunch, as of April 29, 2015, more than forty million Pages are active. Forty _million_. You might think \"Why bother?\" but then Facebook reports that out of the forty million Pages, only two million are active.\n\nWhat does _that_ mean?\n\nFor some businesses and organizations, Pages are built and then abandoned after giving social media a try. How that \"try\" is defined is nebulous. These active two million are not reliant on organic reach and viral content alone. They are building a presence, a personality, and a reputation on Facebook. Social media is not simply throwing a switch and welcoming adoring fans to your corner of a network. Time and strategy achieve success on Facebook.\n\nSo out of those two million active Pages, how do you get readers to Like your Page, provided they can find it?\n\n#### \"Go Like My Page\" Posts\n\nProbably the most common way to get your numbers up is by asking for Likes. Subtle ways of doing this include the use of print materials (business cards, postcards, etc.) that say to \"Like Us on Facebook.\" Restaurants, movies, bands, and all kinds of businesses employ this simple method. The more direct method is to compose a post that asks people to swing by your Page and Like it. Asking directly for Likes is not considered bad form, provided this approach does not dominate your feed. Repeated requests degrade the quality of your Page from signal to noise, and eventually from noise to spam.\n\nA once-a-week reminder, provided there is a variety of content in your feed, can serve as a polite, proactive approach to increasing your numbers.\n\n#### Embedding Page Links\n\nA more subtle way of promoting your Page is to link back to it through other posts. Provided you have Liked a Page, linking back to a Page is easy.\n\nWhen you click \"Share\" to circulate a Facebook post on another Page, your personal feed, or a friend's feed, a new window appears that displays the original post and a link back to the Facebook Page of origin, offering people a direct connection back to you.\n\nAnother way to embed a link into a post (whether the post is shared or original) is to begin typing a Page you have Liked in the Post field. You begin with the @ symbol and then type the name of the Page you wish to link to. A drop-down menu appears, offering options for pages that share similar titles. Continue typing the Page's name until your option appears. After selecting your desired Page, a highlighted link will appear in the post.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nIf you have Liked other Pages, sometimes you are offered options of names, places, and businesses that match up with what you are typing, even without adding the @ to your typed message.\n\nYour post is now live, sporting two ways for people to find your Page. This is a subtle, elegant way of promoting your work while sharing quality content.\n\n#### Print Materials\n\nWhen attending book events, you will see banners, flyers, postcards, and even business cards, all featuring an author's website, e-mail, and maybe even a Twitter account in lieu of a phone number. If you can find a place to promote your Page, either on the back cover or in the interior front matter of your books, make it happen. If you're going to promote a Facebook Page in print, it is paramount to have a URL that's easy for people to remember and easy to read in print, like facebook.com\/TheMinistryOfPeculiarOccurrences or facebook.com\/onestopwriter, both of which neatly fit on a business card.\n\n#### Boosting Posts and Pages\n\nAs we mentioned earlier in this chapter, Facebook periodically changes its algorithms for News Feeds so that previously Liked pages no longer appeared automatically in your feed. The official word from Facebook was \"We're getting to a place where because more people are sharing more things, the best way to get your stuff seen if you're a business is to pay for it.\"1<http:\/\/adage.com\/article\/digital\/facebook-admits-organic-reach-brand-posts-dipping\/245530\/> __ Across blogs like Mashable2<http:\/\/mashable.com\/2013\/12\/30\/marketers-facebook-rules\/> and BusinessesGrow,3<http:\/\/www.businessesgrow.com\/2014\/01\/29\/paying-for-reach\/> Pages have reported major hits on their Organic Reach for businesses, particularly for medium, small, and (in the case of authors) sole proprietor businesses. We personally know of some cases where organic reach plummeted by 90 percent.\n\nIn order to boost a Post or Page, you have to pay Facebook a fee. In turn, it promotes the signal of a single post or the entire Page. Doing so can make a huge difference in your reach, at least according to the analytics. But are people actually seeing your advertisements or simply scrolling past them in order to get to that cute kitten picture? Between boosting individual posts or Pages, we have found that boosting individual posts is a smarter tactic. Not every post, mind you, as that would smell a bit of spam. (And let's be honest, you don't want your page to reek of the scent of _spam_.) Promoted posts should cover key topics worth your money:\n\n  * new book releases\n  * exclusive events\n  * award announcements\n\nIt is up to you to decide if boosting a post is worth the financial investment, but be smart about where your money goes with Facebook. Most writers have a limited budget and therefore must be careful about where they invest. _Think_ about where you really want to direct your readers' eyeballs.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nThe video blog Veritasium is well known for featuring experiments, sharing interviews with leading minds of science, and showing demonstrations of chemistry and physics that will make you go \"Woah!\" But on February 10, 2014, its host Derek Muller released a fascinating study4<http:\/\/bit.ly\/fb-fraud> on how Facebook handles Likes that users purchase. Accumulating a staggering three million views (and still climbing), Muller goes deep into the slightly unethical business Facebook has started where \"engagement\" is the last thing Page hosts can expect. This video is a worthwhile watch when you're debating whether or not purchasing Likes for your Page is the right move.\n\n## Content Marketing: The Science of Promotion by Example\n\nLogic would tell you that investing in paid reach should be the easiest way to get the word out about you and your books. It would be logical, but in truth, you are more likely to win the lottery than to find a post that resonates across the board with _everyone_ online. Yes, having wildfire appeal similar to _The Fault in Our Stars_ or _The Hunger Games_ would be a beautiful thing to happen to your book, and you know better than anyone that your work has that potential, but trying to reach everyone through paid promotion on a limited budget is unrealistic.\n\nVisit our Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Page for a great example of how odd the search for viral content can be. You'll find a cross section of various posts we have boosted and others we have posted because we thought were really cool steampunk topics to post. You can see the dramatic difference between the traffic of all the posts, and how even \"throwing money\" at the posts did not necessarily equate reach or engagement compared to the posts that received no boost at all. The truth of Facebook is that there's no magic bullet, no sure-fire formula, and no foolproof way to gain traction. Sometimes it will be the post about your book that will garner you traffic and numbers; other times an eye-catching post from the Internet will boost your numbers.\n\nThat's why _content marketing_ is the cost-effective trend worth practicing. It's a promotional approach based not on the repetition of advertising, but on the reputation and quality of a subject matter.\n\nWhat matters in content marketing is _quality_ , not quantity, of your Page's posts. If you provide your Page followers with good material, turning your Page into a go-to source for reliable resources and fantastic media, you establish a connection with your audience. When people are searching on Facebook for that page with the best content on a subject\u2014news from the romance genre, the latest releases in science fiction, or what's happening in the steampunk community\u2014you want them to instantly think of you. That recognition, based on the reputation you are building through consistent and relevant content you are posting, will lead people to your Page. An additional boon to content marketing is the rapport you build with others in your business. As people find your work through content related to it, sharing websites, blog posts, and other media from your peers, you build a reputation with readers, book bloggers, and authors. You let them know that you are not just a writer, but also a passionate, encouraging supporter of your genre and the writing community as a whole.\n\n### When Content Marketing Goes Bad\n\nContent marketing can be a positive, community-building strategy for any individual or business, whether you're a writer, a publisher, or even a literary agency. However, some writers and social media mavericks regard the features of Facebook to be up for grabs and turn your content into instant viral content. One unethical approach to sharing content on Facebook takes advantage of the _photo tagging_ feature.\n\nIf you are unfamiliar with photo tagging, this feature is engaged when you upload a photograph or video to Facebook. You are given an option at the bottom of the photo to Tag Photo. With this option, you can identify someone in the photo, a live link is created to your account, and then the image appears on your Timeline.\n\nUnethical authors\u2014and, yes, this has happened to us on numerous occasions\u2014will grab a photograph promoting their book, be it subtle or straight up in your face, and then tag you in the picture. Suddenly a random picture that has nothing to do with an event you attended or anything remotely related to you appears on your Timeline, openly promoting another author's book. You have the option of removing your tag from any innocuous images, but remember that some authors will exercise the right to tag you in the image _again_.\n\nYes, this also has happened to us.\n\nIf you are tagging other authors in photos, be sure that they depict something relevant. By relevant, we mean an appearance at which the author is seen in the picture, the cover of an anthology where their work appears, or something that you know will appeal to their tastes. (Tee has lost count of the number of times the \"steampunk barbecue grill\" has appeared on his Timeline, but he doesn't mind. He loves both a good barbecue and good steampunk. That picture is the best of both.) Tagging photos to specifically promote yourself is nothing less than spam.\n\nAnother dark side of content marketing is establishing a Page with only one goal: collecting thousands upon thousands of Likes in order to eventually sell the Page to the highest bidder. Ways that some of these _Like Farms_ (as mentioned in the earlier Veritasium Bookmark) collect massive numbers include:\n\n  * Meme Generation\n  * Quizzes\n  * Content Scraping\n\nIn Chapters 12 and , which cover content marketing and best practices in depth, we will discuss conventions that are considered questionable or unethical, what to avoid not only on Facebook but also on all social media platforms, and how to best avoid these pitfalls.\n\nFacebook is attempting to crack down on these unethical approaches, but keeping tabs on over a billion users is a daunting task. When putting together your own Page, a good question to ask yourself is \"What am I going to do with all these Likes on my Page?\" While it is easy to lose yourself in the numbers game of social media, quality should always trump quantity. Aim not only to cultivate a strong support system on your Page, but also for essential, relevant content that will bring people to your Page and keep them coming back.\n\nSometimes Facebook can be very confusing when trying to find your readers among your friends, your family, and all these other folks with accounts, Groups, and Pages. We hope that in this chapter you have discovered some ways to clear the undergrowth from the depths of the forest of Facebook and perhaps learned how to best spend your marketing budget along the way.\n\nNext, you'll take things down a notch and learn how to communicate with readers in 140 characters. There is a myth that you can't say a lot within such limitations, that all you can do is promote your book by title and links, share what others are talking about, or post quick and pithy quotes from famous people. In reality, the 140 characters Twitter affords can provide a teaser for upcoming books, connect you with other fans, and help you do research for\u2014or even inspire\u2014your next novel.\n\n1<http:\/\/adage.com\/article\/digital\/facebook-admits-organic-reach-brand-posts-dipping\/245530\/>\n\n2<http:\/\/mashable.com\/2013\/12\/30\/marketers-facebook-rules\/>\n\n3<http:\/\/www.businessesgrow.com\/2014\/01\/29\/paying-for-reach\/>\n\n4<http:\/\/bit.ly\/fb-fraud>\n\n# Chapter 5\n\n# Twitter\n\n# Keeping It Brief\n\nWhen it comes to a user-friendly interface and a true plug-and-play spirit, it rarely comes as easy as Twitter. The service has gone through different stages of use, popularity, and application. In its early days, Twitter was a terrific tool to stay in touch and communicate with friends. But just a few years later, it became rife with self-appointed social media gurus who pass along inspirational quotes, needless spam of all varieties, and tweets from other accounts. Unfortunately, that's the price of popularity.\n\nTwitter still serves as a reliable, trusted mobile communication option and is regarded as one of the cornerstones in setting up a strong social media platform. It also now acts as an extension of other popular networks like LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram. Twitter is many different things to many people, and it serves various purposes for writers:\n\n  * A connection with other authors, both for professional networking and for finding new and unique resources for their work\n  * A promotional platform for works currently in print or digital formats, and for special offers concerning their works\n  * A direct line of communication to fans, making their day with a quick reply\n\nIt's hard not to have a love\/hate relationship with Twitter. Hate because it can be a time suck and can often make us crazy. But there's so much to love for those in publishing and for writers in particular: an opportunity to move outside our introverted selves and have direct conversations with the readers who love our books, the ability to interact with people who have the same love of the written word we do, and more than anything, the chance to discover our next great read. Twitter brings us together to celebrate books and that's worth loving!\n\n\u2014Angela James, editorial director of Harlequin's Carina Press and creator of the popular Before You Hit Send, a self-editing workshop for fiction writers\n\nTwitter is easy to get right, but it can be a nightmare for you and your followers if you get it wrong.\n\n## First Impressions at a Glance\n\nWhen people arrive on your Twitter profile page, what do they see? Do you have a profile picture that introduces you to potential followers? Does this profile picture represent how you want to be perceived? How about the header photo stretching across the top of the page? Is there something there that completes your profile page? What does your bio say about you? Is it complete? Is it snarky? All these details are part of the first impression that you and your Twitter account make.\n\n### An Author's Profile Photo: Worth a Thousand Tweets\n\nApproach a profile picture the same way you would an appearance at a bookstore, a convention, or a writing festival. The author who shows up to a panel discussion prepared for the topic at hand, presenting himself in a professional manner, will be regarded differently than the writer who has not bothered to prepare for the topic and looks as if she couldn't bother to brush her hair or find a better shirt to wear than an \"I Love Books\" T-shirt. The photo you assign to your Twitter account becomes your _personal brand_ , representing who you are and what you do.\n\nFor profile pictures, images should be:\n\n  * File size: 700 KB\n  * Dimensions: 400 x 400 pixels (Twitter offers you cropping options, but this is the recommended size.)\n  * Resolution: 72 ppi (pixels per inch)\n  * Format: JPEG or PNG file, using the RGB color scale\n\nBefore you start tweeting, your priority is to get away from Twitter's default image (an egg) and find a profile picture that best represents you. Does your current picture, or the one you're considering, make the professional impression you desire? Does your brand have a sense of humor, or is it more polished? Camera phones and simple photo editors make profile pictures a breeze, but what should you use and what should you avoid? What are your options?\n\n#### Option One: A Picture of You\n\nPerhaps the simplest and best way to introduce yourself to people is with a personal photo that puts a face to the Twitter handle\u2014a personal connection. Depending on your creativity, you can use this kind of profile picture to reflect your particular mood. Perhaps you're going to a special event and you snap a selfie on the way out the door. Maybe you have new haircut you're proud of. Perhaps a picture of you and your pet might cheer someone up on a Monday morning. You really never know what will strike the interest of your readers, but showing them a peek behind the curtain is a good way to start.\n\nBefore you use your smartphone of choice to take a quick selfie or run out to find that wicked-awesome photo of you in a tuxedo or evening dress, consider this approach:\n\n  * **Use pictures taken from the chest or neck up.** __ Remember that those using Twitter applications, especially people on smartphones, will be looking at profile pictures dramatically reduced in dimension. Full-body shots of you will be imperceptible. Keep your photo tightly cropped and close up.\n  * **Avoid images with busy backgrounds.** __ What is happening behind you is just as important as how you look. Too much detail or activity in the background (what some photographers refer to as \"noise\") can make profile pictures on Twitter difficult to make out. Keep what's happening behind you to the basics.\n  * **Avoid offensive imagery.** __ This could prove a challenge for horror and erotica authors, because what is deemed \"offensive\" differs from person to person. Use your best judgment. No nudity. Refrain from obscene gestures. Keep the gore level to the bare minimum.\n\n#### Option Two: A Personal Logo\n\n_Branding_ was associated in the past with business, public relations, and marketing strategies. Today, with modern authors shouldering the promotion of their books, this concept is no longer reserved for advertising agencies to pitch to corporate entities and charge top dollar. Authors are taking to heart principles of branding and applying them to their networking outlets, like Twitter.\n\nA simplified definition of branding is an approach to your business through association with a word, catchphrase, or image. You see it everywhere. Two golden arches usually mean a McDonald's is within sight. A stylized arrowhead worn just over the left breast might make you think of _Star Trek_. A bird against a certain shade of blue taking flight? That's Twitter. If you have a product or a service that people associate with a phrase, name, or some other identifier, then you have successful, effective branding.\n\nCreating a brand offers a unique set of challenges:\n\n  * **Make sure your logo is original, and your own.** You might think this is common sense, but individuals may be tempted to parody corporate giants or make a variation on another's theme. Don't do it. It's best to come up with something original. Make it your own. Make it unique.\n  * **Avoid text-heavy or busy images as personal logos. Keep it simple.** If your self-designed or professionally commissioned logo comes with tag lines, pen names, or URLs, accept that such things will be lost when rendered smaller than 75 x 75 pixels. For our multimedia studio, Imagine That!, our brand is a stylized double koru\u2014the fern frond that is a symbol of new life and growth. For One-Stop Writer Shop, the logo is a stop sign with a book at its center. Remember: The busier you make it, the harder it will be to recognize it at a glance. Logo designs are best when basic.\n  * **Branding does not happen overnight.** Use your logo beyond Twitter and give yourself time for brand recognition. When we release our books or book trailers under the Imagine That! banner, we make sure the logo is visible. Any materials produced from One-Stop Writer Shop bear the stop sign logo. Use your logo consistently and constantly in your promotional materials and you will build brand recognition for yourself.\n\n#### Option Three: Interests, Hobbies, or Something Out of the Ordinary\n\nFor the I-really-hate-to-be-photographed or the I-really-have-zero-artistic-ability authors, there is another option. From zombified George Washington to a variety of characters from video games (any from the eight-bit days to modern _Halo_ resolutions) to celebrities of various backgrounds, profile pictures that are not about you, but about your interests, may be used. However, ask yourself what these images do for you in the way of branding. The answer is absolutely nothing. Do they make a connection with your network? If individuals in your network are into whatever your profile picture depicts, sure, provided you continue to talk about that particular interest. The people following your network may not even know about your writing career unless you mention it in your profile.\n\nIf, however, you would rather keep a distance between your network and your own likeness\u2014and it's not uncommon for authors to want to do so\u2014then this option will work well for you. It maintains a sense of privacy for the concerned author and can even serve as a mood indicator, as this option does not commit you to one particular profile picture. When you use a picture of Animal in full __ rave out, a photo of Furiosa behind the wheel of her war rig, or Captain Kirk screaming into his communicator, people will know you're having a bad day.\n\nThe problem with swapping out avatars is the loss of brand recognition. As mentioned earlier, branding works only when an image is used repeatedly so that eventually consumers associate you or your company with it. If you want to take advantage of that recognition, keep your profile picture consistent.\n\nOf course, there are exceptions to this rule, and there are ways to continue branding while swapping out profile pictures. During the Christmas holidays, we usually post images of us wearing stocking caps. Be smart about how you swap out profile pictures. Decide on a strategy and try to find consistency with the image you are portraying.\n\nNow that you have a profile photo in place, let's take a closer look at the header photo for your profile page.\n\n### The Header Photo: Setting a Tone on Twitter\n\nTwitter has been refining its profile pages since the introduction of the header photo back in 2012. Similar to the Facebook cover photo, which also incorporates a banner-style photo option on both personal profiles and Pages, the header photo is a space where you can add a favorite horizontal photo as set dressing for your profile. If the profile photo is your first impression, the header photo is your stage, offering either an atmosphere or a tone for your Twitter account. Is your Twitter account going to be full of whimsy, or controversial? This can be inferred from your profile picture. Think of how an author head shot on the back of a book can give you a feeling of what is inside.\n\nHeader photos are much like their Profile counterparts, with a few differences here and there:\n\n  * File size: 5 MB (minimum)\n  * Dimensions: 1500 x 1500 pixels (Twitter offers you cropping and positioning options. This is the recommended size.)\n  * Resolution: 72 ppi (pixels per inch)\n  * Format: JPEG or PNG file, using RGB color scale\n\nSomething like the header photo may seem like a trivial detail, but it can bring a lot of pizzazz to your Twitter profile. Header photos can also change when you feel change is needed. It's at the author's discretion.\n\n  * **Make sure header photos are in landscape format.** __ In the case of Twitter's header photo, you need to think horizontally instead of vertically. Panoramic shots work best.\n  * **Be as creative and as expressive as you will.** __ The profile photo is how people identify you, but the header photo can be about you, your interests, and your passions. As a writer, this photo can showcase your favorite place to write, a stock photo of a library, or a (horizontal) portion of your book cover. You're setting a mood for your Twitter profile, so have some fun.\n  * **Design header photos using the rule of thirds.** __ Some header photos on Twitter appear jagged, out of focus, or distorted. This is Twitter's attempt to fill the header region with an image that's the wrong size or shape. Experiment with image sizes or design the image using horizontal thirds on a 1500 x 1500 canvas. You can check out the rule of thirds page on Wikipedia for a detailed explanation and design tips.1<http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rule_of_thirds>\n\nTake into account how the header photo will appear on both the computer screen and the mobile app. Templates are available online to help you put the important part of the image in the part of the screen that will be friendly for both computer and mobile users.\n\nWhat goes into a header photo is strictly up to you. As an author, it is not a bad idea to change your header photo to include a portion of your latest cover release, provided that the cover isn't too busy. For the more ambitious author who possesses a mastery of Adobe Photoshop, designing a banner to promote an upcoming event or release is a good idea. Unlike the profile photo, the header photo gives you a chance to express yourself, so use it to send a message. People will see this backdrop when they follow notifications directly to your profile, check out details on their smartphone, or visit other Twitter clients such as TweetDeck, a dashboard application used to manage Twitter accounts.\n\nNow that we have a look for the profile, let's perfect that final touch.\n\n### Making an Introduction: The Twitter Bio\n\nIt's astounding how many authors leave this blank, or simply use it as yet another place to slap a link to their books. The bio, even within the limitations of 160 characters, is your opportunity to introduce yourself, and as an author, you want to make the best first impression you can. The bio is part of that.\n\nMuch like with profile and header photos, authors employ several ways of introducing themselves in their bios.\n\n  * **The Professional Approach:**\n\n _New York Times_ best-selling author of the INFECTED trilogy, NOCTURNAL, ANCESTOR, the GFL series and upcoming ALIVE trilogy from Del Rey. Books!\n\nScott Sigler, @scottsigler\n\nCampbell award-winning author Mur Lafferty. Podcaster. Ghost Train to New Orleans out now!\n\nMur Lafferty, @mightymur\n\n  *  **The Snarky Approach:** __\n\nReeling and Writhing\n\nHarper Voyager author Mary Victoria, @MAdamsVictoria\n\nI enjoy pie.\n\nHugo-winning author John Scalzi, @scalz\n\nIf you're going to go the snarky route, then we recommend you tread carefully. The above examples can't be taken in the wrong way. Keep it light and as amusing as possible.\n\n  * **Somewhere In Between:** __\n\nAuthor of paranormal and sci-fi romance, steampunk and urban fantasy. Instigator of saucy hijinx and shenanigans.\n\nPJ Schnyder, @pjschnyder\n\nKiwi word herder, cat wrangler, and collaborating creative. Somewhat responsible for Books of the Order, Shifted World, and Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences.\n\nPhilippa Ballantine, @philippajane\n\n **Write a bio that is not overloaded with links.** Some authors use their bios as a way to get in Google+ links, Facebook links, and others, but you don't want to do that. Instead write a bio that means something. Leave the URL for the URL field underneath the bio and location field.\n\n**As with the header photo, be as creative as you like.** You can express your love of pie, use a quote that motivates you to write, or share your excitement about a debut novel coming soon to bookstores or e-readers. Your bio should be a sincere, succinct summary of what you are all about.\n\n**Make your location as close as you want.** Let people know where you are in the world. It can be as simple as the largest city closest to you, or which coast you are on. If you prefer, you can make your current location a state of mind.\n\n**Have your URL go to your main site or blog.** One social media strategy we want you to get from this guide is the goal of sending traffic from social networks to your website. The final destination of your network should _not_ be a platform like Twitter or Facebook. The destination should be your website, the corner of the Internet that has everything a reader needs to know about you, your works, and where you will be appearing next.\n\nFollowing this profile audit, your first impression should be polished and ready for welcoming and connecting with new readers, fans of your works, and other authors. But what do you say? Is anyone really listening? And how do you say anything intelligent with only 140 characters?\n\nIt's time to embrace your inner editor and get over the fear of brevity. As Shakespeare once said, \"Brevity is the soul of wit.\"\n\n## Mastering Tweet Speak: Composing Messages on Twitter\n\nAll communication on Twitter begins with the statement you type into the message field, or what Twitter refers to as a _tweet_. When first introduced to Twitter, beginners often furrow their brow or roll their eyes at the cutesy name used for Twitter's updates.\n\nYes, an update on Twitter is called a \"tweet.\" You're using an application on Twitter. Accept it, and move on.\n\nThe biggest pushback from authors continues to be the 140-characters-or-less limitation. You can't say a lot with that, right?\n\nActually, there is a lot you can say on Twitter. You just have to be smart and strategic about what you say, how you say it, and how you edit a detailed, in-depth post down to the essentials. Twitter requires an ability to understand and master an economy of words. You cannot necessarily speak your mind with the usual verbosity, which may surprise some users, but you can, _and must_ , boil down what you _want_ to say to what you _need_ to say.\n\nLet's say you want your first tweet to be the following:\n\nI'm awake this morning and waiting for the coffee to brew. I've got a big day ahead of me with edits, rewrites, and proposals all screaming for my attention. Oh yeah, and I've got an audiobook to get together for Audible. Yes, it looks a little overwhelming, but I'm feeling confident and ready to rock!\n\nThere are 304 characters (and that includes spaces) in this statement. While you could use apps that post tweets longer than 140-characters, most of these third-party services take people out of Twitter and to another website. Tweenjoy.com, for example, allows you write text beyond 140 characters, attaches an image with the text, and can even put in a header image as well. Another third-party app, Twinormous, breaks down your larger text into multiple tweets, which it will notate as one part of many parts. This might seem like a good idea, but if you have a lot of followers, your tweets might get separated in the stream and lose their context. Twitter users want to stay in Twitter, not hop over to another website to read a single tweet. They are also looking for a quick tweet where they can get what they need in that moment and then move on.\n\nSo presuming you're not going to go down either of those paths, let's break down the content of what you want to say. The main points of this 304-character tweet are:\n\n  * You're awake.\n  * The coffee is brewing.\n  * Your to-do list is very full for the day: \n    * edits\n    * rewrites\n    * proposals\n    * an audiobook for Audible\n  * You're feeling overwhelmed.\n  * Your confidence level is high, and you're ready to accomplish all these things!\n\nAll this needs to be one tweet. Take a look at this:\n\nCoffee brews as edits, rewrites, and proposals await. Kicking off the day with an @ACX_com submission. Let's make it happen. #determined\n\nThe original status of more than three hundred characters has been pruned down to 136 characters after making logical edits.\n\n  * You're tweeting, so no need to let us know you're awake.\n  * It's also clear you have a big day ahead as you have \"edits, rewrites, and proposals\" needing attention. So brew coffee while your projects wait for your attention.\n  * If you want to highlight the Audible project, tell your network you're \"Kicking off the day with an @ACX_com submission.\" Mentioning Audible by using its handle can attract its attention and maybe even start up an exchange or earn you a retweet.\n  * If you're feeling confident and ready to rock, sum it up in one affirmation: \"Let's make it happen.\"\n  * At this point you have fourteen characters remaining. Implement a simple _hashtag_ to track the conversation. Hashtags are tracking tools that allow you to identify tweets and other postings under a quick-to-find category in any search engine or platform-specific search. You can find out more about hashtags and what to do with them in Chapter 13, where we cover best practices.\n\nNow that we have completed an audit of our first impression and have taken a closer look at the anatomy of a tweet, where do we go from here?\n\nTwitter is my go-to social media platform because it's fast. I have connected with industry professionals as well as readers through short tweets, and being able to make different lists to sort the people I follow helps me to manage the stream of information. I appreciate being able to filter the information myself, rather than miss out on posts due to an algorithm like Facebook tends to do.\n\n\u2014Lisa Kessler, Amazon Best-Selling Author\n\n## Best Practices for Twitter\n\nEstablishing and evaluating a presence on Twitter is not simply based on the amount of followers or how often you tweet. There are a multitude of live Twitter accounts, and many, many authors populate their Twitter feeds with the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. What you should strive for is a Twitter feed that offers content relevant to you and your interests.\n\nThe first thing you should do _before your book comes out_ is to launch your Twitter account. Build your platform and become part of the community in advance of using it to market your book and your writing.\n\nRemember that Twitter is about community and interaction. Keep your feed interesting and lively by talking about things _other than your book._ Share images of places you travel to. Tweet a beneficial resource that you just discovered. Post a quick review of a movie you just watched. People want to get to know you, so little updates of your life are as important as your writing. It's your choice how much you want to share, and you should set boundaries for yourself, but talking about your book _and only your book_ will get very old very quickly. Aim for one \"buy my book\" tweet every five to ten tweets. Show people you want to connect and communicate with them, not just sell yourself and your books.\n\nWhile building your network and tweeting with others, seek out and follow other writers, publishers, and agents. Before following them, however, look at their feeds. See if they are actually having conversations with people or simply talking _at_ their networks. Avoid the \"Let me tweet to you how _awesome_ my books are\" feeds, and focus more on those who tweet about good writing mixed with tweets of a personal nature. Depending on the quality of his conversations, a professional author's Twitter feed serves as a great way to listen in on what is happening in the marketplace. Twitter can also keep you in the know concerning which agents are looking for new clients, what publishers are seeking from the slush pile, or the latest on publishing scams.\n\nScreening Twitter feeds is a great way to assure your network is built on quality as opposed to quantity. Sure, there are writers on Twitter who have tens of thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) of followers, but how well are they actually connecting with their networks? What is the worth of a Twitter feed that is nothing but constant retweets, posting of famous quotes, and incessant \"Buy My Book Now!!!\" links? Check out each person who follows you, and only follow back those who are actual people. You may find your numbers will climb much slower, but you will build a Twitter network that is responsive, receptive, and reliable.\n\nSpeaking of a responsive, receptive, and reliable network, make a note of this priority for your Twitter feed\u2014 _reply to mentions._ Watch your feed, and when a mention comes in, provided it comes from a real person and not a spambot (one of those pesky automated systems that spits out tweets), send a reply to that person. This is how communication begins, and you never know what will lead to a new reader.\n\nFor fans who tweet, you're guaranteed to make their day with a simple \"Thank you for reading my book\" tweet. Even writers like Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) will occasionally respond to followers.\n\nThese are, of course, the _best_ practices for Twitter. What about the worst? It stands to reason that if you have authors who are connecting with networks, making sales, closing deals, and moving forward in their careers, you have writers who are continuously making terrible decision after terrible decision on Twitter, not caring about the damage it does to their brand or their book.\n\n## You Did Not Just Tweet That: _Worst_ Practices for Twitter\n\nIt takes patience to build a quality network, but you can easily torpedo a Twitter account (not with the occasional slip-up\u2014no one is perfect, and Twitter is proof of that) with continuously bad behavior and thoughtless actions that can severely undermine whatever sense of community you're trying to establish.\n\n**The biggest, most common mistake** authors make on Twitter is turning their account into one giant infomercial about their book. Every tweet\u2014 _every single tweet_ \u2014is a tweet about their book, sometimes ten to twenty tweets in a day. They may be written in such a fashion that Twitter will not automatically flag them as spam, but a constant stream of links to a book and how scary-awesome it is fails to build a community around that author or his book.\n\n**The second most common mistake** authors make on Twitter is to beg for followers. You may receive a mention thanking you for the follow, immediately followed by a request for you to like the person's Facebook page. The worst is when you receive an automatic Direct Message asking you for a Like. Desperation isn't attractive in any situation and makes you look unprofessional. Get to know your network on Twitter. If they like what you have to say, they will find you on your blog, Facebook, or elsewhere. Trolling for followers is just tacky.\n\nEqually tacky tactics include:\n\n  * Misrepresenting yourself in your bio. We once had someone follow us who described himself in his bio as a \"best-selling author\" when his debut novel was to come out later that year.\n  * Filling your Twitter feed with inspirational quotes from other books and authors. People follow you to hear what you have to say, not to revel in the wisdom of others.\n  * Filling your Twitter feed with inspirational quotes from your books or yourself. Don't let success go to your head. You're not that important; keep yourself in check.\n  * Filling your Twitter feed with nothing but retweets. Retweeting is not participation or engagement. It can be part of it, but nothing but retweeting is regurgitation. Indulge in retweets, but don't make them your only source of content.\n  * Following people only to drop them later the same day. Many third-party applications and services that promise you more followers will follow other Twitter accounts. Once the followed reciprocates they are immediately dropped off your feed. It is not against Twitter's terms of service, but it is highly unethical. This is one way third-party developers turn social media into a pursuit of statistics, analytics, and numbers, something we will discuss more in detail in chapter 13 of this book.\n\nAuthors behave badly on Twitter in many ways, but it is a good idea to practice the same etiquette you would practice in the real world, such as when pitching ideas to agents and editors upon meeting them. At an event, would you walk up to an agent or editor and say, \"I have an idea you must look at!\" without introducing yourself or asking if they are accepting __ pitches? Probably not, but it happens often on Twitter. Get to know these individuals as both professionals and people. Find out who is looking and what they want. Never pitch to editors or agents online unless you've been invited to do so.\n\nI find Twitter absolutely indispensable for getting news fast and first. If you want to know who's looking for what when, who's been promoted or moved to another company, what line has closed or expanded... there's a good chance you'll hear of it on Twitter before anyone else. It's a great way to keep on top of what's current.\n\n\u2014Lucienne Diver, author of the Vamped and the Latter-Day Olympian series\n\nBy applying these basic approaches and strategies to your profile and the composition of your tweets, and working on what to do and what to avoid, you can make your Twitter account a very powerful platform. At this point, you should invest some time in Twitter. Get comfortable with the approaches we outlined in this chapter. Apply these methods and watch how the interaction between you and your network improves. All that remains now is building on your reputation and making your Twitter account a community, one that doubles as a team of promoters dedicated to the success of your works.\n\nFacebook and Twitter are often referred to as cornerstones of a strong social media presence, but as you can see in this book, there are plenty of other platforms out there to employ. Let's turn to a social media platform with, many consider, the greatest unrealized potential. This social network not only offers many features and potential reach of SEO (search engine optimization, covered in greater detail in chapter 11), but it also has without a doubt the biggest helicopter parent powering it. Yes, it's time to talk about Google+.\n\n1<http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rule_of_thirds>\n\n# Chapter 6\n\n# Google+\n\n# A Place for Discussions and Hangouts\n\nFacebook is the go-to place for posts, images, and video in social media, but not to be outdone, Google offered an alternative in 2011. Many online tech critics predicted it might be the \"Facebook Killer\" at its launch, with membership skyrocketing to half a billion active users before the end of 2013. However, _Google Plus_ (also known as _G+_ and _Google+_ ) has spent much of its existence attempting to develop an identity. Google spent the summer of 2015 reimagining the platform, but Google+, as is, still offers writers different ways to reach readers.\n\nGoogle+, on its arrival, promised it would be a one-stop service where updates and blog posts could be posted and syndicated; photos could be uploaded, displayed, and shared across networks; and discussions from inside and outside a person's network could be hosted over distributed links, images, and media. Google+ and Facebook seem to mirror one another, but Google+'s seamless integration with the world's most popular search engine grants the unassuming, underestimated network boundless potential, both as a contender against Facebook and an outlet for authors. Its demographics lean toward professional males, and these males tend to be interested in discussions rather than images, which dominate Tumblr and Pinterest. So if your genre and topic are of interest to this group, then Google+ could be the place to grow your brand.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nAs of the writing of this book, the future of Google+ is somewhat nebulous. Changes in Streams, Hangouts, Photos\u2014separating them into individual products\u2014have people trumpeting the death of the social media platform as a whole. Bradley Horowitz, the Google executive in charge of the product said at a press event, \"Google+ will be changing. There's a renaissance in the thinking of what Google+ is, and what it's for.\"1<http:\/\/www.cnet.com\/news\/google-plus-will-be-changing-says-its-chief\/> Just what all this will translate into down the line even we as writers of the fantastical cannot say. We will, however, continue to monitor the situation and blog about it on onestopwritershop.com.\n\n## Google+ for Writers: The Account vs. The Page\n\nIf you are one of over 500 million active users with a Gmail account, you already have a Google+ account waiting for you. All you need to do is post a suitable profile picture, a quick bio, and a few facts about who you are and where you live to complete your account\u2014all very much in line with social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter.\n\nThat is how you set up a personal account on Google+. When establishing a Google+ _Page_ , you must take a different approach.\n\nWhen you set up a Page, you are immediately treated as a business. Are you establishing a Page as a Google+ _Storefront_ , a _Service_ , or a _Brand_? (Authors would fall under the \"Brand\" distinction.) Creating your Page is a simple process, at first. Give a name to your Page, a website providing more information on your future content, and a Brand that describes what type of business you are. Details such as a Profile Photo, Cover Photo, and Story are all that are needed to complete your Google+ Page. You now have your platform up and running.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWhat about a _Google+ Community_ based around you and your works? Wouldn't that work as well as a Google+ Page?\n\nGo back and take a look at the Facebook chapter's section on _Groups_. A Google+ Community works the same way, built around a cause, a common interest or, in the case of writers, a genre or series. The content found in a community is completely driven by its members, and this would mean either you join a community similar to yours\u2014setting yourself up as a potential spammer if you come in hammering promotions about your material\u2014or you host a community, which will take some time to build, provided its membership contributes.\n\nAnd keep in mind, in a Google+ Community, everyone participates. Content is provided by the users and, even if the host of the community posts, other community participants can post and bury your promotional posts. Additionally, if it is your Community, you must serve as Moderator, adding to your responsibilities in managing Google+.\n\nOn Facebook, your followers\u2014whether on your Page or on your personal account\u2014tend to blur the lines between your personal and professional identity. Google+ takes a very different approach to followers. From any account you establish, Google+ grants you the ability to set up _Circles_ for those you are following and those who are following you. Circles can be labeled with any distinctive name you give them, and by organizing your followers into these Circles, you can then target your posts to the public feed, to your network (or Circles) only, or to specific Circles in your Google+ accounts. Organizing your followers into Circles allows you to target your posts as exclusive content or private content you wish to share only with certain people. In other words, you can control where your message goes and how wide your posts or media is distributed.\n\nCircles can also be established and managed in a Page similar to a personal Google+ account. Accounts are then run by anyone who has access to your Google+ account. If you are security conscious, you may not want to reveal your credentials to fans helping you out with your \"Street Team,\" which we will talk a bit about near the end of the book. Google+ allows you select the _Managers_ tab from the settings tab of your page to set your preferences.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nIf you followed the Appendices and created a Page, when you return to the Google+ main feed (the Stream), you are not liking, commenting, or sharing as yourself anymore. You are now interacting with the Google+ community as your Page. When creating your Page in Google+, much like in Facebook, you either do so as \"Tee Morris, author,\" \"The Writing Worlds of Philippa Ballantine,\" or \"The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences.\" Doing so creates a distinction between your personal account and your professional page, which allows readers to easily follow you.\n\nManagers, when posting and administering Pages, will have access to a _My Business_ panel option in their left-hand drop-down menu. My Business features not only a posting interface, but also _Insights_ (a breakdown of the activity on the page), direct access to _Google_ _Analytics_ (a measurement tool for traffic coming to and from websites, demographics, and overall online content performance), and the one-click option for starting a _Hangout,_ online gatherings that usually involve Google+'s ability to easily host video conferences (more on Hangouts later). From this dashboard, you can post content, consult with statistics on both your account and main website, and host Hangouts. This makes Google+ convenient and easy to add into your social media routine.\n\nSo far the capabilities of Google+ make the platform sound a lot like Facebook and, truth be told, it is. On its minimalistic surface, the Google+ graphic user interface looks a lot like Facebook in how it works and how you interact with it... at least on the surface.\n\nDig just a little deeper and you witness the firepower of this fully _armed_ and _operational_ social network!\n\n_Fire at will, Commander._\n\nOh, sorry about that. Geek moment. Let me try this again.\n\nDig a little deeper and you begin to tap into the full integration of Google which is kind of like a Death Star, just not with the whole \"blowing up planets\" thing.\n\n### The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship: Other Google+ Options\n\nIt could be very easy to dismiss your Google+ account as merely Facebook Lite, but now that you have set up a Page, you can easily go beyond what you have in front of you and start tapping into the potential of the world's largest search engine. Your Google+ account offers seamless integration that can provide your social media platform dynamic content and collaborative options.\n\n**YouTube.** A two-way street is a wonderful thing. When someone comments on your YouTube video, it posts automatically to your Google+ account. Then, when you reply (either as yourself or from your Page) with your Google+ account, it posts back to YouTube. It's the little things that make life easier.\n\n**Hangouts.** Perhaps one of the most appealing content-creation tools in Google+'s arsenal, and now in yours, is the _Hangout_ , which is seamlessly integrated with another Google property, YouTube. A Google Hangout is a video chat that can host ten different users, all of whom can join in on the topic at hand. The video signal remains on the person talking, so you will see the camera jump from participant to participant, especially when the conversation gets lively. The whole Hangout can then be recorded and uploaded to YouTube as a vlog entry. On YouTube, the video can be distributed either to private audiences (making the Hangout exclusive content) or to a wider, more public audience (making it new content for current and potential readers to consume).\n\nBefore diving headlong into hangouts, make sure you have a decent microphone (no problem if you are into podcasting as well) and, if you want to take advantage of the video option, a reliable camera. Make sure to set aside some time to host a test Hangout with a few friends so you know which buttons to push and how to switch from camera to desktop sharing if you want to make your Hangout even more interactive.\n\nThough the changes going on in Google+ are still unfolding, one thing is certain: Hangouts will remain. This feature is one of the most beloved of all of the integrated options in Google+. That means it is probably a safe bet for you as an author to investigate.\n\nThere are many ways to use Google Hangouts. Imagine getting nine dedicated readers in a Hangout for an hour and chatting with them about your book. Think about how you could do giveaways during that time. It also gives readers a chance to get to know you as more than just a name on the cover of a book. This kind of Hangout could be a great way of interacting with your most passionate readers or making a passing reader a committed fan. Those who do not actually get into the Hangout can still participate in a chat room forum. Find a time to suit your schedule, and try one out. If you find it enjoyable, then consider making it a regular thing. As your following grows, you can vary the participants in the Hangout so everyone gets a chance. Use a signup form for those who are interested.\n\nA launch party on Hangouts is a great way to get more face-to-face interaction with your readers, without having to jump on a plane. You could invite a select group into a Hangout, or if you have a network of writers, you could have them come to a Hangout and celebrate. Talk about your feelings, and, heck, even trepidations, as your book is launched into the world. Alcoholic beverages and finger food are optional.\n\nAnother option is to create a more general book group. For this group, you would contribute to book culture and promote authors other than yourself. A great example of this is a group led by author, actress, and all-around Internet entrepreneur Felicia Day. Vaginal Fantasy Book Club is a fun, monthly Hangout with a light \"sitting down for a chat with the girls\" feeling. During the Hangout, participants review, between sips of wine, romance genre books featuring female protagonists. However, they are not afraid to wander from the topic and get in a few laughs, either. Once the discussion is done, the Hangout is exported directly to YouTube, instant content for the VFBC's popular Goodreads Group that continues the chat until the next monthly Hangout. This Goodreads group is very popular, numbering fourteen thousand members all watching the current Hangout video.\n\nGoogle may have pulled Google+ in for some behind-the-scenes tinkering, but one of its products is still the big man on campus as far as video goes. Google bought YouTube back in 2006, and that seems to have been a wise move on the company's part.\n\n1<http:\/\/www.cnet.com\/news\/google-plus-will-be-changing-says-its-chief\/>\n\n# Chapter 7\n\n# YouTube\n\n# Introducing Video to Your Content\n\nThe platforms previously discussed in this book\u2014Facebook, Twitter, Google+, WordPress\u2014have mostly dealt with promoting content in text form. Yes, as an author, reading is the preferred format\u2014we create worlds with our words while the readers fill in the blanks with their imagination. So it really should not come as a surprise when authors, plotting and planning out their social media initiatives, do not necessarily take into account visual platforms, and when it comes to visual platforms, none stands taller than _YouTube_.\n\nWith over a billion people using YouTube, four billion views of YouTube daily, and 323 days worth of video viewed through Facebook every minute, it is a wonder that more authors are not taking advantage of the video platform. Sure, there are a number of how-to videos and (of course) cats and dogs doing deliriously cute stuff, but how does that reflect or even represent the business of books? How compelling would video clips of someone writing be? When you think about it from that perspective, it makes perfect sense that authors\u2014an introverted bunch, on the whole\u2014do not feel that YouTube is the place for them.\n\nAnd there are a few other factors that may deter authors from considering YouTube.\n\n### Camera Time\n\nIf you think authors look awkward or uncomfortable in still shots, try getting them in front of video cameras. Addressing a camera and talking to it in a casual, relaxed manner can be admittedly awkward, and that's coming from an author who used to be a card-carrying, dues-paying member of the Screen Actors Guild. There is a definitive personality who enjoys getting in front of a camera and talking in a conversational tone, and most authors do _not_ fall into that category.\n\n### Production Details\n\nYou may think \"A YouTube video? Piece of cake. Point. Shoot. Post. How hard can it be?\" When you take a look at authors who know how to make YouTube work for them (and, yes, we're looking at you, Vlog Brothers1<https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/vlogbrothers> ), consider what these video barons all have in common.\n\nTake note of the background. Chances are, it is a library or a neutral background. Listen to the sound quality. What you hear probably is not coming from the microphone on the camera, but a lavalier mic that you can't see and that has been synced with the video in post-production. What about the lighting? Is the video lit in an atmospheric manner, or is it shot _au naturel?_ You want to be able to be easily seen and at the very least convey a mood. What is the author wearing? How does her skin tone appear? Are the edits simple cuts or transitions, or are they peppered with bullet points that drive the intent of the episode home? All of these details when _not_ considered reflect in the tone of the video and reduce it to something akin to _The Blair Witch Project,_ or what is more commonly referred to as _guerrilla-style_ video. With guerilla-style video, the production elements are kept to the basics: enough light to see what you are recording, wardrobe goes with the moment, and if you happen to be wearing makeup, you're good. Guerilla style is totally unscripted, off-the-cuff, point-and-shoot video, so keep it brief. You can make a video-in-the-moment work, but you still need a plan. That kind of planning is essential to success on YouTube.\n\nThat brings us to another issue with authors entering the world of video.\n\n### Time\n\nAll of the following require time: Setting up a camera or multiple cameras; making sure the light is adequate; creating a slick, clever opening sequence; creating an end sequence where people can learn how to subscribe to your channel; and finally, editing. There are social media gurus who claim there are ways to cut corners that will save you some time. One of those corners is editing.\n\nBefore you agree with that sentiment, think about that\u2014no editing. Would you consider forgoing editing when it comes to your book? Think about the draft you completed prior to editing. Editing is an essential part of a book's life, and with video it is even more critical as you deal with outtakes, missed beats, and tangents, all of which need to be trimmed down to the core of your message.\n\nTime remains one of the biggest reasons authors stay off YouTube. You want your video to look good. No, it will not be the same quality as, say, a film from Marvel Studios; but you do want it to be a step above _America's Funniest Home Videos._\n\n### Bookmark\n\nHere's a formula that's pretty accurate: The time it takes to edit video is one hour for every finished minute of video. So if you have a ten-minute video, you will be looking at ten hours of editing, provided you do not have any additional filming, animation, or media to import into the project.\n\nIf you recall, in Chapter 3, we talked a bit about the commitment you make when podcasting. Video takes that commitment level to a much higher plane. Even with a twenty-year background in video editing, like Tee has, working in video can be a time-consuming and budget-consuming endeavor. While you can pick up a laptop computer for a drop in the bucket of what it takes to actually produce video footage, it is unlikely your machine will possess the processing power needed to render and output video on its own. (No, watching Netflix on your computer is not the same as creating your own production.) This is why computers are made bigger, stronger, faster\u2014because in order to handle creative opportunities like this, you need bigger, stronger, and faster. Video is costly on a lot of levels, and while we have both enjoyed what we have accomplished with video editing and YouTube, we still hesitate to encourage authors to give YouTube a go.\n\nStill want to do it?\n\nIt's not too late to turn back.\n\nOkay then.\n\nLights, camera...\n\n## Action Editing: Software for Video Editing\n\nIf you were to do a search on the Internet for programs on video editing, you would find yourself with an impressive list of options for Macs, PCs, and Linux for those writers who are truly passionate about their operating systems. We don't intend to go into every software package available for all platforms here, but we will spotlight the popular ones, as well as the editing suites that offer options and resources to reach out to and find answers to your questions in a timely manner. Each of these software packages has different interfaces, features, and add-ons, but all of them perform the basic function you need\u2014editing video{\n\n  * **iMovie (Mac).** If you are editing video on a Mac, you are already in a community of creative types, as Apple remains prevalent in the creative sectors. iMovie comes with a variety of built-in transitions and animations you can add to your video, and it easily interfaces with iPhoto and iTunes for those who want to incorporate photos or music into their production. iMovie is intuitive, but there are many online resources and print tutorials available for the higher functions available with its interface. iMovie is an amazing application for its $14.99 price tag\u2014if you buy a new Mac, you will get it for free.\n  * **Final Cut Pro X (Mac).** iMovie is an amazing application, but depending on what you want to accomplish, you may find yourself reaching its limits quickly. If so, you need to make the jump from iMovie to Final Cut Pro X. The cost is considerably higher, though it has been recently reduced to $299.99. The upgrade goes well beyond the basics, although it uses a similar GUI to iMovie. Final Cut will take your video to the next production level, offering you many more options in how many tracks of video you can edit, advanced control over audio and video filters, and output options. While iMovie is a terrific, intuitive program, Final Cut comes with a learning curve that's not too steep but definitely requires time with the how-to manual. You may want some of these advanced options for your YouTube channel. Others you may never need. It all depends on the demands of your video, whatever the project may be, and how deep you want to go with your post-production.\n  * **Movie Maker (Windows).** This editing suite is the iMovie for Windows. Some may argue that iMovie offers more, but that may not make much of a difference considering the end product of an author's video productions should be as simple and easy as possible. All you really need to do is edit, review, and post. Movie Maker offers AutoMovie Themes, which can give your video professional touches such as rolling credits, video effects, and even transitions. All of the above expedite the post-production process. As it is with iMovie, the program usually comes preinstalled with your computer.\n  * **Adobe Premiere (Windows, Mac).** You've met iMovie's counterpart. Now meet Final Cut's. Adobe Premiere comes in two flavors: Elements and Pro. If you have worked with Adobe Photoshop Elements, then you have a good idea of what Premiere Elements offers: the basics of video editing. You have just what you need, at an affordable price, contained in one software package, and you have many more options at your fingertips than you would have with Movie Maker in transitions, prepackaged video templates, and video effects. Similar to Final Cut Pro, the set of features you desire from your editing suite depends on the demands of your video and how much production is involved.\n  * **AVS Video Editor (Windows).** AVS Video Editor offers the basics of Movie Maker, but with a simple, elegant interface similar to iMovie. Video Editor also offers the option to capture video off your desktop (great for tutorials and software walk-throughs, discussed later in this chapter) and produce an interactive DVD, complete with menu interfaces provided by the application. Video Editor runs on Windows platforms only and can be found online,2www.avs4you.com alongside other media production software packages.\n  * **OpenShot (Linux).** OpenShot Video Editor is a free, open-source video editor for Linux first created in August 2008. OpenShot compiles videos, photos, and music with subtitles, transitions, and effects, just like its Windows and Mac equivalents. Similar to programs like Final Cut and Premiere, OpenShot allows you to create videos that can be loaded onto DVDs and online platforms like YouTube. What's different about OpenShot is its \"open source\" nature. As part of the Open Invention Network (OIN), OpenShot encourages developers to create their own add-ons and extensions that, after community testing, are offered to other editors. So if you are a writer and a developer, and you want to create a signature extension like a custom video effect or a template that can quickly make your videos uniform in some way for your fellow Linux users, OpenShot is your best option.\n  * **Kdenlive (Linux, Mac).** Free and safe to download, Kdenlive is another multitrack video editor for Linux and Macintosh. Kdenlive, much like OpenShot and other open-source software packages, encourages its community of editors and developers to create the best tools for video production. Kdenlive offers transitions and effects, and exports the final project to common formats for DVDs and Internet playback (such as DV, HDV, mpeg2, and h264). As Kdenlive and OpenShot are both free, the choice between the two comes down to which interface best suits you and your needs.\n  * **Camtasia (Windows and Mac).** Camtasia can serve as your video editor, but it is known more for its ability to create video captures from a computer. Camtasia turns your monitor (or one of your monitors, if you have multiple monitors for your computer) into the camera and records all your movements and commands or whatever activity is happening on your computer. This allows you to create _walk-throughs_ (animated screen tutorials) of favorite computer programs. Many gamers use Camtasia to create walk-throughs of popular video games, offering helping hands for trickier challenges. Camtasia is easy to master and outputs to a variety of resolutions and formats for final video projects. It can be your stand-alone video editor or a great addendum for your video projects.\n\nWhether you decide to go all in for a professional-grade video editor or keep your wallet happy and work with something that's cost-free, you will want to have one of these editing suites to make your video concise and as polished as possible.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWhen it comes to background music that you want to mix into your production, copyright laws are in effect. Your YouTube video is being used for promotional purposes, and your favorite song or soundtrack cut is not allowed. Even if you adopt the attitude of \"Well, not that many people are watching...,\" you are still violating copyright. (Think of it as someone using passages of your book to promote her own image, website, or business without your permission.) Apart from original music, your option is _royalty-free music_ , music that you pay for permission to use. The disadvantage is that multiple people can use the same royalty-free music, so you may hear your theme on another podcast or even a television commercial. The advantage? Royalty-free music, found on websites like Audiojungle.net, Beatsuite.com, and iStockphoto.com, is affordable and adds a touch of professionalism to your production. _Layered_ royalty-free music, such as the collections at SmartSound.com, offers the versatility of being able to edit the music, thereby creating endless combinations from one track.\n\nWhile there are plenty of successful vlogs that keep their details simple and basic, even the basics still take up time. Perhaps the most important detail to consider is why you are establishing a presence on YouTube. Without a direction, YouTube is no different than a story that plods along with no resolution or point in sight.\n\nTime to ask the hard question: What do authors bring to YouTube?\n\n## Turning Authors on to YouTube\n\nDespite all our warnings and precautions about venturing into YouTube, video production is also infinitely rewarding. An engaging video not only reflects positively on your brand, but it also provides book bloggers and enthusiastic fans content that livens up any blog post or Facebook status. What is paramount in establishing a YouTube presence is planning what you want to bring to your channel.\n\nBeyond working on a keyboard and the odd book signing or two, though, it's hard to picture what is \"visual\" in an author's lifestyle. However, similar to Instagram (which we will talk about in chapter 9), the potential for visual content might surprise you.\n\n### Book Trailers\n\nMention \"video\" to an author, and usually the first thing that comes to mind is _book trailer_. The purpose of a book trailer is no different than a movie trailer: You are promoting a book or a series. Making book trailers can be a daunting task, even if you keep it simple. There are challenges in finding stock video that fits your book's story. There are challenges in filming original content. The end results\u2014examples found on \"Being Kenneth Branagh: 11 Tips on Filming Book Trailers\"3<http:\/\/bit.ly\/filming-trailers> \u2014should feel cinematic, not like animated PowerPoint presentations. They provide terrific promotional content for your books, so long as the production does not become too involved, and are easy to share across blogs and social networks ... However, when you factor in actors, location shots, and crew, making a trailer can easily become a lot to manage.\n\n### Author Appearances\n\nThis does not necessarily mean \"book signings,\" as appearances can include conference appearances, panel discussions, and special events. You can offer a quick clip, or a series of clips, from a panel discussion. You can hold a quick commentary from the hallways of a writers conference or convention\u2014this can be your thoughts from the event, \"man on the street\"\u2013type interviews with attendees, or a bit of both. What if you host a book launch for your fantasy novel at a Renaissance faire? Capture moments of special guests, festivities, and (provided the turnout is there) book signings. Keep your mind open to special events and the content you can post. These moments serve as your invitation to others to enjoy the event alongside you.\n\n### Video Journaling\n\nThis is where an author takes a moment out of his day to get a thought or a moment recorded. If you are using YouTube, you should preserve these thoughts on video. It may be something completely writing related (\"Use the audio recorder on your smartphone to jot down ideas when you are behind the wheel.\") __ or it could be more about lifestyle (\"When was the last time you completely unplugged from your writing and just relaxed?\"). Journal entries can be some of the most honest, sincere moments you share with your community. When you journal, make sure you are working within your comfort zones. Don't share too much (YouTube is not your therapist's couch), but don't be afraid to let your audience into your head. You do it all the time with your books. Why not do it with your video entries? This is where your YouTube channel feels closest to _vlogging_.\n\nAs the second largest search engine on the Internet, YouTube is not to be ignored.\n\nI can get creative with my content on YouTube by posting in various forms: from personal vlogs on my writerly process (#PiperNotes) to cinematic book trailers to creating videos on topics that may be tangential to my writing (#PiperTravels) but that lead to plot bunnies!\n\nSuch a broad scope of possibilities allows me to continually create new kinds of videos that can be embedded anywhere, including in guest blogs and news articles, and in that way, they can help spread my brand to new readers without my needing to custom code or worry about having higher-end hosting with more capable bandwidth.\n\nIt allows me to look out at my readers and speak directly to them, overcoming the challenges of physical distance.\n\n\u2014PJ Schnyder, aka Piper J. Drake, author of the award-winning The London Undead series and _Hidden Impact: A Safeguard Novel_\n\n### How-To Videos and Walk-Throughs\n\nRecently, for our own vlog, we featured a video that wasn't necessarily a \"writerly topic,\" but more a DIY project. We turned a wall of our studio into a dry-erase board, and we felt this qualified as something we wanted (and needed) to share with our writing community. How-to videos provide a good portion of the content on YouTube and can cover any number of topics. The best how-to videos are projects that may seem hard to do on first consideration but wind up being easy and simple to see to completion. Suitable subjects include reorganizing and remodeling your office, and organization tips for your print resources. Any home improvements you're undertaking for your writing career is definitely YouTube worthy.\n\nWalk-throughs are like how-to videos, but they are staged and shot on your computer. Perhaps you want to host a quick walk-through of your favorite feature in your favorite word processor and project management tool, Scrivener. Or how about showing the tricks to making quick and easy promotional cards for upcoming signings or special appearances? With a program like the earlier mentioned Camtasia or AVS Video Editor, you can create a video to guide your viewers through software packages.\n\nNow that you have a good idea what authors could bring to YouTube, you have to take a serious look at how you want to film your production. Whether it is a full-blown, costumed spectacle or a vlog documenting your latest convention appearance, what you are creating is a production, and it should be approached as such. You, as producer and director, need to plan out your YouTube show before a single word is spoken in front of a camera.\n\n## Best Practices on YouTube\n\nThere is a method to creating video, and these strategies and approaches are designed to keep things simple. These strategies are also starting points for you as a filmmaker and videographer. You may want to go beyond what we recommend, and that's okay, but it's best to walk before you run.\n\n### Keep Your Video Brief\n\nWhen we say \"brief,\" we mean at or around five minutes. As we mentioned in an earlier Bookmark, it usually takes one hour of editing for every finished minute of video. So you could be looking at five hours of work for a five-minute video. This is five hours of work only if you have a lot of edits, transitions, and effects you're adding into your video, but regardless of how much work you are putting into the production, you want to aim for five minutes as the sweet spot for your video's running time.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nA free YouTube account gives users fifteen minutes for video clip length. Anything beyond that limit will not be approved for playback until you verify your account with Google for free. If you want your production to go longer than the YouTube limits, and you don't want to hassle with verification (which includes registering a mobile number with Google), a popular alternative for sharable video is _Vimeo_.4<http:\/\/vimeo.com> While it's not as widely used as YouTube, Vimeo offers a variety of plans\u2014including a free one\u2014that grant users space for multiple videos, ad-free playback, and expanded options and customization for its user interface. If you find yourself in need of options beyond YouTube, take a closer look at Vimeo.\n\n### Keep the Video Editing Simple\n\nIn an application like iMovie, it is tempting to add in wacky filters and effects for pizzazz, but all these touches add time to making your production. Additional effects mean more _rendering time_ \u2014this is where the application produces a final, self-contained file that doesn't need the video editing software for playback but plays in any media player. How can you keep the demands of video production down? Keep the editing simple: Use basic cuts, eliminate transitions when and where you can, and don't use visually intensive effects. Have an introduction video, a simple sequence of segments and cuts, and a snappy, polished end screen.\n\nSpeaking of your introduction and end screen...\n\n### Dedicate time for the Introduction and End Screen\n\nCreate \"bookends\" for your production. Your video's Introduction should be the most \"complicated\" aspect of your production, maybe some animated titles (or still shots) and the title of your show. Create it as an individual project and output it as a video. There are several ways to create an end screen (and YouTube has many tutorials, some that involve Camtasia). Once you have an introduction and an end screen, you have your two \"bookends.\" In between, keep your production simple. With the complicated segments produced and any remaining segments lacking effects or animations, the rendering time should be quick.\n\n### Rehearsal Is Always a Good Thing\n\nSo are multiple takes. When the camera goes live, you may stumble on your words. Give yourself a beat, then start the thought again. This is why you edit\u2014to remove the flubs and trips in your recording session. Before you even turn on the camera, speak your thoughts out loud. Hear yourself putting thoughts to speech. Think about how your tone or intent comes across. Then refine it before hitting record. The more comfortable you are with your thoughts, the smoother your words will sound and the more confident you will appear on screen; with video, confidence is key. Between rehearsing your thoughts and refining your final video with editing to remove stammers, pauses, and misfired thoughts, your final video will be an engaging production that promotes your brand.\n\n### Have Material Ready\n\nBefore launching your YouTube platform, produce five to ten episodes. If you want to get a better idea of the time commitment you are facing, produce five episodes, at the minimum. If you are feeling bold, produce ten episodes. When you are done, you'll have a buffer of episodes that you can post every other week (up to four months of material) or monthly (up to ten months). Don't go live with the YouTube platform just yet, but note the time and effort it has taken to create these episodes. Can you handle the time commitment? Are you ready to step into the YouTube arena? Knowing what goes into not just one episode, but a series of episodes, will help you allocate time for your channel.\n\nYouTube remains mostly uncharted territory for authors, mainly because of the time commitment and financial investment. With the right strategy and creative thinking, though, YouTube can provide your audience with engaging, entertaining content that they'll want to share across multiple networks. Video editing is difficult but also very rewarding. Devise a plan and strategy for your YouTube channel, and see what happens. You may be surprised how much fun being in front of a camera can be.\n\nNext you'll get away from the moving image and head over to Pinterest, where the long, vertical image is king.\n\n1<https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/vlogbrothers>\n\n2www.avs4you.com\n\n3<http:\/\/bit.ly\/filming-trailers>\n\n4<http:\/\/vimeo.com>\n\n# Chapter 8\n\n# Pinterest\n\n# Your Online Bulletin Board\n\nThink of all the corkboards in kitchens around the world, and all the postcards, recipes, and notes pinned onto them. Now wouldn't it be nice if you had an infinite corkboard for the Internet, where you could keep all those important, pretty, and interesting items? Wouldn't it be great if you could share your corkboard with your friends, and you could see all the fascinating things they found?\n\nThe creators of _Pinterest_ must have thought so, too. They created Pinterest as a visual bookmarking site, where people collect and collate projects and ideas, and share them with others. Each user can have multiple boards where they post things that interest them.\n\nWhen it was created in March 2010, Pinterest quickly became the hot topic among its target demographic, which is women. Everyone was talking about the inspiration that evolved from sharing items with their friends. They were getting ideas for birthday parties, delicious drinks, holiday decor. In a matter of months, Pinterest.com became a very busy, very active Web domain.\n\nThink of Pinterest as a huge online bulletin corkboard, where users Pin images, websites, and videos to their \"boards\" for others to look at and gather inspiration. Users put together as many boards as they want, based on hobbies, vacations, fashion, books, or whatever topics interest them. It is a great way for users to keep track of items they want to return to all over the Internet. These Pins act as visual bookmarks\u2014clicking on the image links to the original content or display original content from the board owner.\n\nCollages scare me. What with the cutting, gluing, hot mess vomiting all over a board and maybe, _likely_ , smeared with glitter. But the _idea_ of collages has always intrigued me. Wouldn't it be great if I could gather inspirational art without, you know, the scissors and the paper cuts and the glue sniffing?\n\nEnter Pinterest! Inspired by a bit of art? Pin it! That thing looks like the zombies I'm writing about? Click, saved! Love that guy's... let's go with _smile_? Added! Now I can collage _forever_ , and I get unlimited boards full of ideas and inspiration. Finally! Doing it freaking right.\n\n\u2014Karina Cooper, award-winning author of the St. Croix Chronicles\n\nOut of all of the social media platforms, Pinterest's demographics are very unique, leaning heavily towards females in the thirty-five to forty-four age group. And the average household income of an average Pinterest user is over $100,000. Pinners are not afraid of spending money, which is always a great demographic for markets. By 2013, Pinterest had become so popular that it was estimated that one-third of all women in America have used the site. So if you know your target audience is women, Pinterest is a social media platform you will need to have in your online arsenal. According to a recent study from the National Endowment for the Arts, 55 percent of women read fiction.\n\nThat is not to say men are not on Pinterest as well. The same study found that men are more likely to read _nonfiction_ books. Having a Pinterest board of DIY projects related to your how-to manual could provide a terrific resource for those already reading your book, earn you new readers from men searching Pinterest for new ideas, and keep your book relevant by providing online addendums and new ideas.\n\nPinterest also sports a widely spread age demographic. However, as far as global reach goes, it is most popular in America\u2014something that writers should keep in mind when deciding whether to add it to their marketing strategy. If your book is unavailable in the United States, then Pinterest is going to be of limited use to you. However, for independent authors taking advantage of a global reach, America is still a vital market.\n\nWhile Pinterest may be one of the smaller social networks, with 70 million users worldwide in 2014, it does boast passionate \"pinners\" who spend a good amount of time on the site\u201415.8 minutes _per day_ \u2014sharing information with each other and discussing their latest interesting discovery.\n\nAnother vital demographic trend about pinners is that they tend to take recommendations and buy from Pinterest; at last count, 47 percent of online shoppers have bought an item after a recommendation from Pinterest. Those are great statistics for selling books; other social media platforms would be excited to have stats that good.\n\nIn summary, Pinterest is the social media platform where well-off women of all ages seek out interesting content and are happy to purchase items of interest. This is why large brand names are flocking to Pinterest. Writers can take advantage of the site in the same way.\n\nIt's time to dive into the world of Pinterest and become part of its thriving community.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nThe best time to Pin is when the majority of your audience has time to relax with Pinterest. Analytics vary from category to category, but generally speaking, the best times are in the evening and on Saturday mornings. These, of course, need to happen in the standard North American time zones.\n\n## Tools of the Trade: Pinterest Applications\n\nPinterest is best described as a virtual bulletin board, which elicits an unassuming image, but don't be fooled. There's a lot happening there. Once you establish your profile and get all your details online, it is best to explore and (subsequently) master the nuts and bolts of your Pinterest account. While there are a few features and options worth mentioning, the good news is they are extremely user-friendly.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nAs we are eight chapters deep into this book, you may see a pattern when it comes to your profiles and accounts. You want your usernames, profiles, and profile pictures to all follow the same look and feel so that when you tell people __ \"You can find me online at...,\" __ you only have to give one screen name. If you do find yourself in need of creating new profile names for yourself, the reoccurring profile picture and simple bio will let people know they have found you. When it comes to profiles, adhere to the two Cs: _completion_ and _consistency_.\n\n### The Bookmarklet\n\nThere is one piece of useful equipment you should have before you begin pinning in the wilds of the Internet. Go to the website1http:\/\/about.pinterest.com\/goodies\/#browsers and then click on \"Install Now.\" The Pin button goes in your browser and makes pinning things on the Web much easier. Now when you click on the \"Pin It\" button, you will find a selection of the images that you can Pin. Choose the best one, click to Pin, then add a description.\n\n### The Widget\n\nIn order to spread the word about your pinning activity, the site offers a widget that can be placed on your blog. It comes in a square, header, or sidebar, or can even be customized to fit your particular situation. It is a great way to let people know that you are on Pinterest. On our websites, we usually have it right in the header so it is immediately apparent.\n\nTo find this widget, you can simply go to Pinterest.2<https:\/\/business.pinterest.com\/en\/widget-builder>\n\n### The Mobile App\n\nPinterest has a great app for on-the-go pinning from your smartphone. The app is available for both Android and OSX. You can find it in their stores or download it.3<https:\/\/about.pinterest.com\/en\/goodies> Anything you can do on the Pinterest website, you can do on your smartphone. The only negative is that it's hard to zoom in on images, but that is a minor problem. You get the full stream of the boards you are following, and after clicking on any of them, you can repin straight to your boards\u2014including any secret ones (which we'll discuss later in this chapter). You also have the \"heart\" functionality to like it, send it, and post it to other networks. In addition, you get the choice of saving the picture to your phone or simply copying the link. This is useful if you are writing a blog post on the subject while you're out and about. You also get access to the Pin logo, search, the bubble icon for chatting and news, and access to all your boards under the human head and shoulders icon. For more about what these features offer, go to the Pinterest appendix.\n\nWith these basic tools under your belt, you can accomplish a lot with Pinterest, but how? Sure, you can Pin your book cover, inspirational artwork, and images from your various events, but what will bring people to your boards and keep them there\u2014preferably for longer than 15.8 minutes a day?\n\n## Game On: Pinterest Competitions\n\nPinterest has become one of the go-to sites for winning items, since the Pinterest terms of service are actually more flexible than a lot of other social media networks\u2014and they don't try and charge you for the privilege of promotion. Pinterest is happy for pinners to use their boards for promotion, as long as the pinners don't say Pinterest is running the competition. However, you must be strategic with competitions\u2014don't run them all the time. Use pinning contests for marking important events, like book releases or holidays, or for making bestseller lists! You might do a Pin\/repin to win a copy of your new title when it is released or a book in the wild competition for when you hit a bestseller list.\n\nCalculate how much money you can afford to spend on a contest. The larger the prize, the more entries and reach you are likely to have. Keep in mind the interests of Pinterest users, and keep what you are asking them to do relatively simple. Nothing is more frustrating for a reader than jumping through hoops.\n\nBefore deciding what sort of contest you want to run, settle on your goal. Are you trying to get more people to your website? Do you want to get more subscribers to your e-mail list? Or are you just trying to increase book sales?\n\n### Pin\/Repin to Win Competitions\n\nThese competitions are a good idea if you want to increase your number of Pinterest followers.\n\nFirst, create a bright, attractive image of what your pinners are going to win. The image should contain your cover image if you are giving away something like a Kindle Fire. It should also say \"repin to win\" and use some variation of the word _competition_ to draw attention and let visitors know they can get something for free. It's important to include a tempting description with keywords, as well as the value of the prize that is up for grabs, and a call to action like \"post this,\" \"repin this,\" or \"take a picture of your own copy.\" In the description, make sure to say how a winner will be chosen, and the date the winner will be announced. Also keep an eye on Pinterest's terms and conditions (which are constantly being updated), just so you don't break any rules.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nA lot of marketing suggests using the tag \"Pin it to win it,\" but Pinterest rules specifically ask you not to. Why remains a mystery, but it is best to stick with other wording to remain compliant with your fine hosts.\n\n### Create a Wish List Board\n\nRun a competition asking pinners to create a \"wish list\" board with your book on it, along with other books of a similar genre. Ask them to include a hashtag so you can find who has created the lists. This is especially good as it encourages friends and family of the pinner to purchase the book for them. At the end of the promotion, give away something of a decent dollar value, like a Kindle. You can choose a winner randomly, or judge the boards and pick a winner.\n\n### Books in the Wild\n\nBuild buzz for your book release by asking pinners to post pictures of the book in the wild, out in bookstores or with the readers themselves. All those Pins appear in their friends' feeds, hopefully resulting in more followers and greater awareness of your book. Again, post simple rules and create a hashtag so you can find the entries.\n\nThese are just some ideas for competitions. If you can dream up a contest, and it fits within the Pinterest terms of service, you should roll it out on a small scale and see what kind of response you get.\n\n## It's Business Time: Pinterest Business\n\nAs an author, you are a business, and Pinterest Business offers layers of depth that go above and beyond individual accounts. It is probably a good idea that you become familiar with the basics of the individual site before you jump into converting to a business account, but once you do, the options are thrilling.\n\nThe first step you must take is to go to Pinterest's business website4<https:\/\/business.pinterest.com\/en> and convert your account. You need to have your own website to be verified. In order to do this you need to insert the code Pinterest gives you into the header <head> section of the HTML or where your blog template allows you to access that section of code. Pinterest shows you how to do this,5<https:\/\/business.pinterest.com\/en\/confirm-your-website> and it isn't difficult even if you don't know HTML. In exchange for a little bit of work, you will get some large advantages.\n\nThe first of these is undoubtedly Pinterest analytics. Pinterest supplies you with graphics about your Pinterest profile, your audience, and even activity that came from your website.\n\n### Pinterest Profile\n\nHere you can see your daily impressions (how often your page is loaded) and viewers for a whole year. It's always nice to be able to see trends and to observe how well your strategy is working. It will also give you the top Pin impressions and top boards with Pin impressions from the last thirty days, so you can see what images and videos are attracting pinners. Look for trends. Try to find what it is about your popular Pins that brings people to your boards. You can also access the same data on repins and clicks.\n\nYou can even break it down by the devices that people are using. Are your people Android users? You can easily find out, and it is useful for working out which sort of Pins are getting the most engagement.\n\n#### Your Audience\n\nOnce you've seen information about your Pins, you can find out more about those who viewed them, such as how engaged they are, which country they live in, their gender, their language, their metro area, and even what subjects they are interested in. The online trends and behaviors of Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences pinners, for example, have indicated that they are fond of recipes, fashion, art, and DIY home decor.\n\n#### Activity from Your Site\n\nHow many viewers go to your website, and which Pins and boards are taking them there? Study those successful Pins and boards, and see what you can do to make your other Pins and boards equally as successful.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nAnalytics will have you register a site and verify it. Once that's done, it will track how many views you are getting from blog posts pinned to your boards. Then you will be able to see which are your top blog post Pins. Those Pins should give you some idea of what your board followers find most interesting. Take note of those posts' images and keywords, and use them in future posts to get the most views.\n\n#### Other Business Tools\n\nPinterest Business accounts offer advantages outside of analytics as well.\n\n  * **Pin It Button.** This is useful if your website host doesn't have the button integrated into posts. Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, and Wix all should, however. This button provides a quick and simple way for readers to Pin your post.\n  * **Promoted Pins.** Pinterest is working on a way to pay to promote your Pins. Initially, it will offer this service to U.S.-based businesses only.\n  * **Widgets.** Pinterest gives you a good selection of widgets. Follow buttons, Pin It buttons, and widgets to show off your profile or your boards all come prepackaged (or can be custom-sized) and ready for your blog or website.\n  * **Pinterest Logo.** All different sizes and shapes are available for you to use on your marketing materials, both online and off.\n  * **Business Pinterest newsletter.** This comes out weekly. Sign up for it.\n  * **Rich Pins.** This new innovation is still being developed. Currently there are five different types of Rich Pins: Article, Place, Recipe, Movie, and Product. All Rich Pins contain extra information about the Pin, but product Pins probably offer the most to a writer, since they can include pricing, where to buy, and availability. Pinners may also get notifications when the price drops more than 10 percent. Rich Pins require a little more technical skill since they must be meta tagged and tested, so authors may want help from a site developer. They also need to be approved by Pinterest. Still, it will be interesting to see how these develop. To keep an eye on them for use in the future, go to Pinterest's developer website.6<https:\/\/developers.pinterest.com\/rich_pins_overview\/>\n\n## Watch Where You Point That Pin: Pinterest Strategies\n\nPinterest strategies are all about making the most of the visual medium and the community. As a writer, you might think you don't have many visual resources to mine, but with a little creative thinking and the Internet at your disposal, you'll soon find it is easier than you think to fill up a board with some Pin-worthy pieces.\n\nReaders love to crawl inside the mind of their favorite\u2014or newly discovered\u2014writer. So let them in!\n\n### Now Boarding: Book, Series, and Character Boards\n\nCreate a board for each of your books or series, and display your inspiration. Think of it as the bonus features to the book. Pin photos of locations that inspired the stories, costumes that you imagine the characters wearing, historical images (if your book is history based), reviews, podcasts, fan art, and book covers.\n\nIf you want to start pinning before your book comes out, make the board a secret one. When you are ready to announce the publication of your book, you will simply edit the board to be public and, _voila_ , you have instant content for your readers! Check out the Appendix on Pinterest if you need help creating a secret board.\n\nIf you want to go further, you can create boards for individual characters. Fill these boards with insights into who the characters are, including books they might want to read, fashions they'd wear, or even decor they would have in their apartment.\n\nReaders also love a sneak peek behind the curtain: Traditional publishers might not let you reveal unfinished or draft cover images, but if you are self-publishing, you get to make these decisions. Consider pinning cover image ideas, drafts, or a list of movie stars you'd hire to play the characters in a movie of your novel. You can even ask readers to comment on what they think.\n\nAs with any social media, you should make your boards attractive and reflective of yourself. Have one for characters, one for settings, and one for series, but also make boards dedicated to your other interests: fashion, cooking, travel, or something connected with your writing, like costuming or history. Different boards are a great way to show how diverse a person you are\u2014don't be afraid to let your personality shine through.\n\nIn conjunction with making it look good, always ensure you only Pin quality material. Readers will know that you care about your content and will return for more. Make sure you use your Pinterest account for more than mere marketing. You'll also need content that you find on other boards. Content curating (dealt with in chapter 12 of this book) is the latest strong trend, and it can help make your boards a go-to location for your readers.\n\n### From Literal to Figurative: Mood Boards\n\nOther popular boards\u2014like mood or color boards\u2014can also be used to market your book. It is surprising how many pinners are looking for boards that have themes on feelings, rather than subjects. It is something a little out of the ordinary, appealing to different senses. For example, you might make a mood board for your horror novel and call it \"Creepy.\" Then you'd fill it with things that frighten you. If your book is a romance novel, you might make a board called \"Joy\" and populate it with fun and beautiful images. Color boards are popular with designers, but they will only work for you if you create something that fits in with your book. If your words were colors, what would they be? These boards will attract DIY and fashion enthusiasts, and those people read, too.\n\nIn the case of mood or color boards, don't forget a good, strong description, with that all-important website URL in it. People looking for inspiration might be curious enough to follow it.\n\n### Secret Pins: Keep It Secret ... Keep It Safe...\n\nWhen you Pin, make sure it isn't a dump of content all at once. Don't simply log on once a week and Pin fifty posts in one go. This will be overwhelming for your followers. Some of your more important Pins may drift past them in all the clutter. Instead, spread your pinning activities over the course of the week.\n\nUnfortunately, unlike other social media networks such as Facebook and Tumblr, there is no queuing or scheduling a set time to post pins. This leaves the writer with a bit of a challenge, but there is a work-around to make things a little easier. To avoid the dreaded Pin dump, create a secret Pin board. It's just like making any other board.\n\nWhen you drop into Pinterest, you can gather all the Pins you want to use, or even create your own, and Pin them to this secret board. Then, later on in the week, simply go to your secret board, click on the Pin, and then click on the pencil icon. Now you can move the Pin from your secret board to your public ones. The Pin will now appear only on the public boards. Spend a couple of minutes every day\u2014we like to tick this task off using our mobile app while on the train\u2014shifting a few over to public.\n\n### Tell Me About It: The Importance of Descriptions\n\nNo matter how pretty your image is, if your audience admires it and keeps going, you haven't sold a book. Make sure you offer a strong description to go with the relevant, original content you post. You can use snippets from your book, character sketches, or behind-the-scenes glimpses. Long descriptions are more engaging, and Pinterest allows you five hundred characters. So make the most of them, and don't forget to include a link in that description!\n\n### Bookmark\n\nImages and infographics that make the best impression are vertical, tall, and boldly colored. When users are scanning down, the longer your image stays in their stream, the more likely they are to click on it.\n\n### Directing Traffic: Blogging for Pinning\n\nPinterest is a great place to do cover reveals, contests, and promotions. So don't forget to Pin your blog post about these\u2014just make sure there is an image for Pinterest to find. When you Pin directly from the Pinterest website, or with the Bookmarklet, Pinterest will detect an image available and put it on your board.\n\nIf you are really stuck for ideas on what to post, a great tool is the InstaQuote app. You can take a pull quote from your post and quickly turn it into an image. It may seem a little strange to quote yourself at first, but it is an eye-catching option, especially on Pinterest.\n\nSo, from now on, make sure each blog post you write contains an image. Practice good Pinterest etiquette, even when not on Pinterest.\n\n### Group Boards\n\nHere's a good one if you want to share information with a publicist, co-writer, or perhaps a personal assistant. Boards can be shared! When creating or editing, simply go to your board, click \"Edit,\" and add the e-mail of that person. Once she has accepted your invitation, she will be able to Pin to your board. A good example of this kind of board used for marketing is the Alliance of Indie Authors: Members Books. Here, all members have a chance to post their book links.\n\nA similar shared page would work well for local writers groups or authors who share a genre. It's a fabulous way to build a sense of community.\n\nPinterest combines visual delight with information in a way that few other social networks do. It can be a great benefit for you as a writer and a marketer. So get pinning, but be warned: Once you get started, it can be quite addictive.\n\nIn the next chapter, we explore another visual platform\u2014one that captures moments as they happen. Instagram is a smartphone photography app that allows you to post on its own network alongside other heavy hitters like Facebook and Twitter. Instagram generates a new image for its own network and you can easily post this altered photograph to Pinterest, supplying personal memories to your board.\n\nBut how does Instagram alter your images? We'll see you in the next chapter and let you in on this visual platform's power and appeal.\n\n1http:\/\/about.pinterest.com\/goodies\/#browsers\n\n2<https:\/\/business.pinterest.com\/en\/widget-builder>\n\n3<https:\/\/about.pinterest.com\/en\/goodies>\n\n4<https:\/\/business.pinterest.com\/en>\n\n5<https:\/\/business.pinterest.com\/en\/confirm-your-website>\n\n6<https:\/\/developers.pinterest.com\/rich_pins_overview\/>\n\n# Chapter 9\n\n# Instagram\n\n# Adding Photography to Your Arsenal\n\nFacebook, Twitter, and Google+ all offer the ability to post photos along with your updates, and this is an option that authors take advantage of. In the past two years or so, you might have noticed that your social networks\u2014particularly in their mobile versions\u2014have been offering a variety of filters for your photographs. One filter makes your photo appear as if it were taken in the nineteenth century while another gives it the look of a Polaroid One-Step.\n\nThese creative options for photographs came about because of an unassuming app that took images from a smartphone's camera and allowed the user to give them a nostalgic look. Launched in October 2010 and now sporting a membership of 150 million members, _Instagram_ took online photography in a _backwards_ direction, granting its users the ability to take pristine, megapixel photos and turn them into 1970s-looking, antique, or cinematic photographs. You can add slick borders, quirky angles, and a variety of color effects to your photos, tag the location (using a process commonly known as _geotagging_ ) and even tag other Instagram members into your images.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nYou may have heard of _Vine_. This is a _video_ -sharing service that focuses on the short form\u2014the very short form. The length of Vines clock in at six seconds, less than half the length of Instagram's videos. It is a very popular app and has been used for everything from music events to newsworthy happenings to stop-motion animated advertisements. It makes sense that in 2012 Twitter bought the company, since Vines are very popular to tweet out. Twitter and Vines fit together perfectly. Instagram, in response to the popularity of Vine, now offers similar video features. You can make it a single, continuous shot or put together a series of segments into one clip. The final fifteen seconds of an Instagram video has the added advantage of offering filters, just as if it were a still photo.\n\nWhat makes Instagram popular, though, does not end with the really neat special effects available to your smartphone's camera. Instagram grants you the ability to take advantage of networks outside of its own, taking one post and distributing it automatically across other networks.\n\n## Platform Management: Connecting Instagram with Other Social Networks\n\nBack in our blogging chapter, we told you that certain plug-ins in WordPress and Tumblr allow your new blog post to instantly appear on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking platforms. Instagram also offers this service. It's a great example of how mobile apps make the most of popular online platforms by maximizing the reach of various networks using one image, one post.\n\nThere are six social networks you can connect to your Instagram. The first three networks are covered in-depth this book, so you should know what they are and how they fit into your social media strategy.\n\n  * **Facebook**\n  * **Twitter**\n  * **Tumblr**\n  * **Flickr:** Flickr, available as a smartphone app, a stand-alone desktop app, an option for photograph management tools, and as a website, offers digital scrapbooks for family and friends, for networks you build, or for everyone on the Internet. Instagram plugs in directly to the photography network and creates a photo stream that posts your images and accompanying comment on your Flickr account.\n  * **Foursquare:** With a membership of over forty-five million, the popular geotagging network Foursquare allows its members to share locations. Wherever you are, Foursquare lets your network\u2014or anyone on the Internet\u2014know where you are. While you can still use the Foursquare-powered Location option on Instagram without being an active member of the network, connecting your Foursquare to Instagram allows your posts to count as official \"check-ins\" for that location.\n  * **Mixi:** Based in Japan, this network offers many of the same services as Facebook, only with expanded options to keep your content private.\n\nIf you have not connected your networks to Instagram yet, the app will walk you through a log-in process. You'll have to make this connection only once unless you are switching from account to account. After you sync your social media networks to Instagram, you can share your posts across multiple networks with a single tap.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nNote above where we say, \"You'll have to make this connection only once unless you are switching from account to account.\" Tee, on working with other clients and their Instagram accounts, has discovered a limitation: There is no easy way to float from one account to another. You must log off and then log back on to Instagram. Also, when you have logged back on to Instagram under a different account, it is a good idea to check the additional platforms to make sure they are accessing the right account. Otherwise, you may be cross-posting personal photos onto accounts that are not your own. Always make sure your message is heading out on the intended channel.\n\nFor a smartphone app, Instagram offers a lot of choices: different filters, various networks, and still or moving images, all allowing you to tell a story of that specific moment. Writers thrive on Instagram. They post poetry, teasers of upcoming releases, and moments from book events. Instagram is a powerful app just by itself, but other developers are now offering their own apps to help writers tell their stories through this photographic platform.\n\n## Beyond Instagram: Third-Party Apps\n\nThroughout this book, we suggest avoiding third-party applications that simply copy-and-paste your message into other platforms. Automation is a good thing in moderation, but it should not be the only way you appear on other platforms. You want your network to know there is a real person at the end of these updates, tweets, and posts, someone who is accessible and open for engagement.\n\nInstagram is an exception to this rule. There are many third-party apps available geared specifically for Instagram or for the photographs and video on your smartphone to make them like and comment magnets for other Instagrammers.\n\n### PhotoGrid\n\nIt's one thing to post a truly breathtaking picture on Instagram, but what if you are in the middle of a book event and can't take a break to post it? Or what if you reach the end of a weekend convention or writers retreat during which you snapped photographs all weekend, and suddenly you remember at the end of the event that you have Instagram on your phone? Here is where you can impress your network with a snappy collage of images. _PhotoGrid_ is the app that can help you create and prep your collection of images for Instagram.\n\nLaunching PhotoGrid, you are given a variety of options: a _Grid_ that is a collection of frames ranging from symmetrical to creative, a _PinBoard_ that creates a digital bulletin board for you, and _Video Slides_ that turn your selected photos into a miniature slide show. (Additional modes, like the _Magazine Cover_ option found across the bottom of PhotoGrid's introduction screen, works only with one photograph.) Once you've designed your collage, PhotoGrid lets you export to Instagram (as well as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Flickr, and Tumblr). You can compose your message (including hashtags) in PhotoGrid and export your image directly into Instagram for final touches.\n\nCollages are eye-catching and fun to put together. They also tend to bring in more likes and comments.\n\n### Vidstitch\n\nPhotoGrid takes your Instagram photos to the next level by creating sharp, slick collages. _Vidstitch_ is a step above PhotoGrid because it allows you to incorporate a small video clip into one frame of your collage. With an in-app purchase (Vidstitch is available to buy through Instagram), you can expand your gallery of frames to include widescreen images, allowing for more still shots to accompany your video, or you can upgrade Vidstitch to the Pro version, allowing you to create a collage of videos. The interface and workflows for Vidstitch are a touch more complicated than PhotoGrid; but with a bit of practice, you can create some eye-catching, engaging content for Instagram.\n\n### Repost\n\nWith the ability to share postings on Facebook, to retweet on Twitter, and to reblog on Tumblr, you would think Instagram would offer this function in its own app, but presently it does not. This is a shame, as some Instagram photos you may come across are nothing less than stunning and others capture a mood that you want to share with your network.\n\nThe app Repost allows you to easily share images from other Instagram accounts, working as a retweet function. In the spirit of proper accreditation, Repost watermarks the image with its original Instagram account and populates your Post window with the original accompanying post. You can edit the post, or clear it completely, but the image will always name the originating Instagram account. Repost is a great option for sharing the work of others and providing engaging content of your own.\n\nThe app also allows you the ability to like images in your Instagram feed, and even create an index of Favorites in case you want to repost or reference another image later. Repost offers account management beyond Instagram's basic functions, making it a must-have in your third-party applications for Instagram.\n\n### InstaQuote\n\nThis app, of all the third-party apps featured in this chapter, has proven itself to be a fantastic tool for promotion. How? InstaQuote, on a basic level, allows you to make square images with simple, artistic backgrounds, the focus of the art being text of various styles. The GUI gives you two areas to type text, the fields divided by a single line. The larger area, which asks, \"What was said?\" is where your quote goes, while the smaller area, which asks, \"Who said it?\" __ is where you type the source of the quote. Then, by tapping key words in your quote, you can add emphasis by changing the base color of the words.\n\nUpgrading to the pro level not only removes the InstaQuote watermark, but it also imports a wide variety of backgrounds\u2014textures, abstracts, airbrushes\u2014and allows you to import your own photographs for the purpose of creating your own backgrounds. InstaQuote makes pull quotes from blog posts, teasers from your books or works-in-progress, and inspirational quotes that keep you motivated extremely easy to create and post on Instagram, as well as on Facebook and Twitter.\n\n### Iconosquare\n\nWhile Iconosquare is not available as a mobile application, it's still worth looking at from an analytics perspective. This app offers a deep look into your feed, who you are following, and how other Instagrammers are reacting to your content. Under the _Statistics_ menu and the submenu _Rolling Month Details_ , analytical data is collected on Followers you have picked up, followers who have dropped you, how your most recent post compares to previous ones, and which images are seeing the most engagement. Iconosquare also allows users outside of the Instagram app to fully manage their account. You can like photos from your feed, follow and unfollow other Instagrammers, reply to comments, and even perform a _repost_ function similar to the Repost app. All of these are things the Instagram app does not allow you to do. Iconosquare can also post your images on a variety of social media platforms.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nIconosquare offers an analytics section called _Tag Impact_ under the _Optimization_ menu of your account. This is an essential section to watch: Tag Impact tracks all the hashtags you use with your media over a ninety-day period. On the left-hand side you'll find your tags\u2014your most frequent hashtags are larger and in bold. On the right-hand side are the top hashtags used across all of Instagram. If you want traffic and network growth, you will want to find tags that fit your media.\n\nWhile Iconosquare may look like a one-stop solution, the downside of this website is that it is not portable. At the time of this chapter's publishing, there is no smartphone app for Iconosquare, making it less versatile than the other third-party apps covered here. Still, Iconosquare is an essential tool for success with Instagram.\n\nWith so many options and so many capabilities, it is easy to see not only why Instagram is as popular as it is, but also how powerful a platform it can be in conjunction with third-party applications. Instagram has a lot of potential, so take your strategy one step at a time and consider which of its many options will work best for you.\n\nI do love Instagram. The artistic aspect of sharing our general lifestyle through pictures is so easy through the app. So many people are visual. It's a unique outlet for an author.\n\n\u2014Dr. Stacia Kelly, holistic health coach and author of _Reduce You_ and _Slim, Fit, Happy You_\n\n## Best Practices on Instagram\n\nWhen you hear about networking platforms or building a presence on social media, hear authors generally talk about Facebook, Twitter, and blogging straight away. Sometimes podcasting and Google+ are mentioned.\n\nInstagram?\n\nOn our own networks, while writing this chapter, we asked our community of writers what questions they had about Instagram. Writer, podcaster, and photographer J.R. Blackwell said point-blank \"Should I even bother?\" __ She went on to say she didn't think Instagram was a bad platform (and as she is a professional photographer, we would have been surprised if she thought it was), but the question was how would it be a good platform for authors?\n\nWhat a great question.\n\nInstagram is a social media outlet writers in general do not seriously consider a viable promotion platform. They may try it out for a brief spell, have a bit of fun, and then forget they have the app on their smartphone. With the right approach and application, though, Instagram can provide a treasure trove of visual content for a writer. Now, before you think that \"visual content\" for a writer consists of nothing more than a picture of a laptop with a work-in-progress on the screen (which we've found that followers on Instagram and elsewhere do respond to!), think again. It's possible to cast a more imaginative net by including character inspirations, behind-the-scenes research or travel, or even a quick link back to your blog. You must go beyond a writer's desk or book signings. The key is how you approach your content.\n\n### Author Appearances\n\nBook signings can only be so interesting. A snapshot of you with pen at the ready and books arranged neatly is fine, but then what? Depending on the appearance and the location, quite a bit. If you are appearing with other authors on a panel discussion, you can take a photo of the discussion. After the panel, why not snap a candid shot with the other authors or editors attending? (Ask if they are on Instagram so you can tag them accordingly, but make sure you spell their names right!) You can also post Instagrams that document your travel to various conventions and conferences where you will be presenting. Geotag where each of these moments is taking place and invite readers within driving distance to join you there. You can also repost images or video from other authors' feeds to boost the signal, provided you know of other Instagram-using writers who are attending the event with you.\n\n### Upcoming Releases, Special Events, and Cover Reveals\n\nDo you have a date for your next novel or approval from your publisher to reveal your next book cover? Instagram allows you to easily share artwork pertaining to your upcoming launch. Whether it is an original graphic cooked up in the image editor or a cropped section of your cover, Instagram\u2014with Iconosquare added into the mix\u2014gives you the ability to send out a single post across seven social networks. This post can point back to one central location, whether it's your blog, a link to pre-order your book, or another place on the Internet. You can also create original artwork publicizing special events\u2014a crowdfunding event, a charity anthology, or an upcoming appearance\u2014where you will be participating. The image you create for Instagram can also serve as your own branded artwork for the event in question.\n\n### Bookmark\n\n_Crowdfunding_ is a business model many authors are taking advantage of. Authors ask audiences to invest in a project, namely a book, a series, or other form of media\u2014games, Web series, graphic novels. The investments go toward a final goal that will bring the project to fruition. Of all the various crowdfunding services, _Kickstarter_ is the best known. Authors have made the most of Kickstarter's ability to raise money for their works\u2014usually dedicated funds for editing and cover design. In return for the backers' money, they offer \"rewards\" like print and audio copies of the books, exclusive short stories, or other items that might incentivize people to lay down their money for their project.\n\n### Insta-Competitions\n\nCompetitions are a proven way to increase your number of followers on Instagram, but don't go this route until you have at least a small following. It's hard to make a splash if only a few people are following you.\n\nRight off the bat, Instagram is nice enough to spell out rules for promotional guidelines. You are responsible for the lawful operation of your contest\u2014this makes sure Instagram isn't in trouble if you fail to obey local laws. You cannot ask your readers to inaccurately tag content or people in their entries. All promotions must have a note from Instagram that releases the company of responsibility, and all entrants must point out that Instagram is not endorsing, sponsoring, or administering the contest. Instagram will not help out with your promotion nor give you any advice pertaining to it. Finally, you must agree that you are running the contest at your own risk. Keep those guidelines in mind while you design your giveaway. User-generated content competitions are popular on Instagram and a great way to encourage creativity among your followers. They also have the advantage of not running afoul of any local laws governing sweepstakes.\n\nIn order to fit in all the rules, prizes, and directions for entrants, you should create a post or page on your blog or website. You then put this URL in your Instagram post. The hashtag that you are using to keep track of entrants will be included as well.\n\nSo what do you ask people to do? Keep it simple, and make sure it involves nothing dangerous or too outrageous. A picture of a participant with your book (\"book selfies\"), dressed up like a character, or posing with something significant to the book (an artifact or some related item) are all good choices. Or you could go with something related to your genre that is more open to interpretation.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWhether on Instagram or any social network, when hosting competitions, make sure the prize is enticing enough. It doesn't have to be expensive. Advanced Reading Copies make great prizes, or you can offer a selection of items related to your book. Writer Starla Huchton has written books about superheroes and often gives away well-thought-out prize packs of items with superhero themes.\n\nBefore launching the competition, make your own competition graphic to post on Instagram, and make sure it is attention grabbing and contains the hashtag you have come up with.\n\nDon't forget to spread the word about your competition via your other social networks.\n\n### Teasers and Motivationals\n\nSelections from your upcoming release are always great teases to get readers excited, but in the social media arena, authors need to grab a reader's attention. In the same way graphic designers use pull quotes from a magazine article to grab a reader's attention, authors are now using teasers, juicy character quotes, and small chunks of narrative to tantalize readers with what is to come in their next work. Teasers work here the same way Hollywood entices rabid fans with iconic imagery in a movie poster\u2014you give your readers just a hint of what is coming.\n\n_Motivationals_ are similar to teasers, but they come from your blog. While you might ask, \"Isn't it a little arrogant to offer up my writing advice as sharable quotes alongside Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and Mark Twain?\" Consider the motivational you create less of a \"Bask in my brilliance!\" graphic and more of a \"This is what I want you to take away\" graphic\u2014a visual representation of a blog post bestowing writerly advice, if you will. On Instagram, motivationals and teasers are terrific promotions for your novels and short stories.\n\nIn accompanying posts, links are not active on Instagram, but when posted on Facebook and Tumblr with the _http:\/\/_ lead-in, URLs can take readers from your cross-posting to wherever you want them to go.\n\n### The Writer's Life\n\nPhotos of what you're reading, what's on your computer screen, print resources on the corner of your desk, or where you are drawing inspiration from make for interesting visual content. It's a peek behind the curtain, a delightful look at what inspires you and what words are filling the page. Depending on how much you want to share, you can also post the sunrise from a morning walk or your view from a writer's retreat. There's a lot that goes into writing a book\u2014share it on Instagram.\n\n### Writers off the Clock\n\nAre you heading out to the movies? Are you hosting a cookout with other creative types? Maybe you're in the conference's hotel bar or restaurant with other authors. Little moments in life can be fun to share with your community. If those in the picture are comfortable sharing these candid memories with your network, do it. Posting your adventures away from your keyboard is a great way to connect.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nA lot of writers use Instagram, and you know what? We need an identifying hashtag. So if you are a \"storyteller on Instagram\" posting a photo about your creative process, a successful appearance, or something that inspires you, be sure to use #stoig. This will show that you are a writer taking advantage of this visual social media platform.\n\nAs you can see, there are lots of great ways to crack open the door for your readers or potential readers, and to let them get a visual of what it is like to be a writer.\n\nNext we're going to look at some of the smaller, less well-known platforms that might suit you and your writing. Let's take the path less traveled and see what we can find in the undergrowth.\n\n# Chapter 10\n\n# Additional Options\n\n# Platforms that Break the Convention\n\nThe social media space is always evolving, and new platforms are constantly springing up to demand the attention of readers and writers alike.\n\nSome platforms generate wild interest for a few days or weeks before being cast aside; some new ones offer features or conveniences that the old ones do not and are taken into the fold.\n\nAuthors should always keep their eyes on the social media horizon to see what is newly available, but before they sign up at any site, they must evaluate it. Does the site offer new audiences? Is it reaching more people than an already established sites? Is there some new aspect of marketing that can be achieved with it that others do not offer? In particular, are readers gathering in this new place?\n\nThe platforms we cover here are not as mainstream as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, but these are networks that are popular with authors, where writers are found frequently, and where they can sometimes find a new and unique angle to promote their work or just be themselves.\n\n## Goodreads\n\nAround since 2007, Goodreads.com grew into one of the largest gathering spots for readers, which makes the site hard to ignore as a writer. In 2013, Amazon announced it was buying Goodreads, and when the giant of the book business is interested in a corner of the Internet, you should be, too.\n\nIn that very same year, the site had twenty million users. Now, that number may be small compared to other social media networks, but those twenty million are all passionate readers, who interact and are committed to book culture. Users log books they have read, or want to read, then review these books, gather in groups to talk about them, and make lists like \"best steampunk\" or \"books with amazing female characters.\" It's safe to say Goodreads is the world's largest book group.\n\nWith all that going on, you might want to jump in with both feet, but here are a few words of caution.\n\nGoodreads can be a great place for authors to connect with readers, but authors should tread carefully. Readers are very protective of their space and do not welcome solicitation in it. Any interaction you have with them must be well thought out.\n\nNone of this means that authors should not go into this arena, mind you. You just need to be careful. For example, Lists\u2014a collection of books showcased around a theme like \"Essential Fantasy\" or \"Classic Science Fiction\"\u2014that you create do not always belong to you once they go live. When receiving reviews of your titles or titles you are affiliated with, defending your work from readers is not the best course of action. Goodreads does offer ways to promote and interact with readers, however, such as having your blog posts appear in your own profile and offering various giveaway opportunities that they will assist you in planning. If you want to interact with your readers, stick to those outlets.\n\nWhen it comes to the reviews posted, as we mentioned earlier, it's important to remember one rule: You're not going to please everyone. If you see any of those dreaded one-star reviews or even reviewers who make personal comments about you, do not engage.\n\nWe repeat: _Do not_ engage.\n\nOf course there have been cases in which authors and readers have exchanged heated words. Some of them have been fairly managed, but most work their way through other social media networks, becoming cautionary tales shared between authors and would-be professional writers looking for ways to avoid making mistakes in their careers.\n\nStay on the marked path, and you will have another fine venue to market your book.\n\n### Getting Started\n\nCreating a Goodreads account comes first. Make sure you have a good profile, description, and links back to your website. Next, go find yourself on Amazon, Smashwords, BarnesandNoble.com, and elsewhere. If you are published, you are likely on Goodreads, or at least a public profile is linked to your books. Click your name. You are now on your public author profile, different from the profile you created, but not for long.\n\nAt the bottom of the page click on Is this you? This will result in a request to join the author program. It may take a day or two to be approved, but once you receive the confirmation e-mail, your two profiles will be merged.\n\nIn your profile, link back to your blog so newly published posts immediately appear on your Goodreads profile. Then fill in the rest of the details of your writing career.\n\nYou can open yourself up to questions, which is a fun way to interact with your readers. Don't forget to add events and your favorite authors.\n\n### Goodreads Giveaways\n\nLike the other platforms, giveaways are an excellent way to get your name out to readers. Some restrictions do exist, however. Goodreads has (as of now) decided not to allow e-book giveaways, but we understand they are working behind the scenes with publishers to change that. Presently, giveaways are for print books only.\n\nYou can run more than one giveaway. In fact, Goodreads suggests running one before your book becomes available and one after. To get started, check out the Giveaways page. Fill in all the details, then submit it for review. Goodreads runs a tight ship, so it has to clear every giveaway before allowing it out into the wild.\n\n### Selling Books on Goodreads\n\nUntil about a year ago, Goodreads let authors sell their books directly. However, since Amazon purchased it in 2013, that service went away. Amazon is continuing to integrate its services, and that means Amazon wants you to sell your book through its website. In your author profile settings, under _book links_ , you can set the order or hide links to booksellers. When readers visit each individual book page, they will be presented with a set of links so they can buy copies.\n\n## Reddit\n\n_Reddit_ is described as a social networking service where users can submit content which is then voted up or down (in terms of popularity, usefulness, insightfulness, etc.) by a network of users. If you are old enough to remember online bulletin boards, then you are going to be right at home on reddit. Unlike those boards in the 1990s, however, reddit is massive and divided into an impossible-to-count number of _subreddits_ \u2014topics any user can create. With so much content, it can feel a little daunting at first.\n\nAs an author venturing into reddit, you should stick to the books subreddit at first. This is our familiar area after all. This is a moderated subreddit, so look on the right-hand sidebar to take note of the rules for participating in this community. The books subreddit is one of the most populated places readers can go to discuss books. Forty thousand new subscribers come on board every week. Books even has its own book group, which must be the largest anywhere (outside of Goodreads) at twelve thousand members. Just imagine trying to get that many folks into a room at once.\n\nFrom this subreddit, you can drill down if you like, but since we are concentrating on the social aspect of these other platforms, let's check out one of the more popular and allowable ways for authors to use reddit.\n\n### Ask Me Anything (AMA)\n\nAMAs are quickly becoming the go-to way for authors to spread the word about their books and to connect with readers who may have already read them. AMAs are not restricted to authors\u2014even Barack Obama has done one\u2014but they can be fun and informative. You are basically creating a worldwide chance for readers, both potential and otherwise, to ask you questions.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nCarefully read over the AMA FAQs1<http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/IAmA\/wiki\/index> to make sure you know the procedure for both requesting an AMA and creating one.\n\n## Storify\n\nWhen you first sit before its interface, you may think \"This is just another blog engine,\" but _Storify_ is unlike any other blog engine you may come across.\n\nFirst, Storify wants to help you tell a story, which is why it offers a search engine that scans blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and a host of other social networks in its interface. You can search by user, by keywords, or by a regular search string, and you will get a window of results for whatever social platform you want to tap into.\n\nStorify then offers you the ability to click and drag featured images with opening lines of a blog post, multiple Twitter posts, and updates from whatever platforms you are searching and feature them in the post you are putting together. The end result is very similar to posts you may see on Mashable, BBC News, CNN, io9, and other news services where instead of simply screen captures, you have captures of the updates that take you to the source material in one click.\n\nFinally, once you have created your Storify post, you can access the HTML code behind this advanced blog post design, copy it, and paste the raw code into your WordPress blog. Doing so brings instant, dynamic content to wherever you send your audience on a regular basis. Storify is a growing trend with authors, good for referencing things that are happening online or on other networks. It provides updates in context to your own thoughts, a once-difficult task accomplished with random URLs and screen captures now made interactive on your own blog.\n\nTwitter moves fast, which means impactful tweets can miss their audience. That's why I love Storify, especially for compiling writing advice. It allows you to capture tweets\u2014both your own and those of other Twitter users\u2014arrange them in the order of your choice, and embed the full package onto your blog, along with comments on the overall theme. Whether you're imparting knowledge, participating in a discussion, or capturing a hashtag, it's a great boon to assemble all those 140-character bursts into a complete story that will endure long after your tweets have fallen off the page.\n\n\u2014Delilah S. Dawson, author of the Blud series, _Servants of the Storm, HIT_ , and _Wake of Vultures_ (written as Lila Bowen)\n\nStorify is a new platform that you, as a writer, should spend some time getting to know. If you like it, you can work it into your platform, especially if posts are inspired by activity on other social networks.\n\nYou know, all this talk about social media, its capabilities, and what an author can do with it has certainly left us parched. We could use a drink...\n\n## A Social's Social: Untappd, Vivino, and Distiller\n\nAuthors can close deals, create new contacts, and expand leads for future writing gigs just about anywhere, but perhaps the best wheeling-and-dealing happens at the bar. Occasionally dubbed \"BarCon,\" a lot of networking happens in a conference hotel's bar. Social media comes into play when you are off the clock at a convention, expo, or conference. Its innovative ways connect you with other writers, readers, and the world. But these networks exist simply to provide writers a place to share a frosty beverage or a celebratory round once a contract is signed or a day of book signings are done.\n\n### Untappd\n\n_Untappd_ is a network built for those who love beer. Whether you enjoy a porter, a pilsner, or an IPA, Untappd connects you with ice-cold brewskis and the breweries behind them. The network is operated either on a website or a mobile application, and offers you access to Untappd's beer database comprised of mainstream breweries, up-and-coming microbreweries, and home brewers you may meet on your travels. At the core of the app are the reviews. When your first round arrives, you search for your beer in the Search bar across the top. Once you tap your beer from the list of offered brews, you select Check-In and are offered a field where you can:\n\n  * Type in a brief review (best at around 150 characters);\n  * Add a photo of what you are drinking (or who you are drinking with, as we once did with award-winning author Elizabeth Bear);\n  * Rate your brew;\n  * Add your location.\n\nBut what if beer isn't your thing? That's okay, as Untappd also includes ciders and meads in its database.\n\n### Vivino\n\nFor wine lovers, _Vivino_ is the app of choice. Much like its ale-driven counterpart, Vivino allows you to rate and review wines, but it's how you find a wine in the Vivino network that is particularly clever. Point your camera at the wine bottle's label and take a photo. Vivino will scan its database and find the wine you currently have in front of you, or allow you to enter all of the information about this wine (vineyard, category, vintage, country of origin), along with your own comments. This wine lover's network also scans wine lists, offering reviews and notes about the glasses and bottles featured, price lists for wines you may want to stock your own cellar with, a \"location search\" that shows you what wines are near you, and your own statistics\u2014what you've tried, what you've liked, and what you didn't.\n\nNow that we have our beer snobs and wine connoisseurs covered, we will turn to an app that would have sparked the interest of rogues and rascals like Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Chandler, and Hunter S. Thompson.\n\n### Distiller\n\n_Distiller_ covers scotch, bourbon, rye, and other kinds of whiskey. The app and website grant members access to both trending and recent whiskey rated by the network and the Tasting Table, which is Distiller's own inner circle of experts and enthusiasts who come together to offer recommendations for what you should be enjoying by the fire pit or after dinner. Wish lists can be built alongside your Collection and your Top Shelf, all of which are shared on your profile.\n\n### Building Your Brand\n\nThese are clever apps, sure, but this book is about social media for writers. How can authors take advantage of these uncommon networks? It's a worthwhile question, as these networks don't necessarily lend themselves to promotion of your books.\n\nYour _brand_ , however, is a different matter.\n\nIf you visit TeeMorris.com, you will see in the site's title \"Unbelievable Beer Snob,\" a self-proclamation that Tee is proud of. With many check-ins from Untappd, Tee has made his love and appreciation of microbrews a part of his brand.\n\nBut when it comes to posting on these networks, authors can add a casual flavor to their social media platforms.\n\n  * I **nstant content for other social networks.** Untappd, Vivino, and Distiller all offer integration with larger networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. With the incorporation of photos, these apps offer your networks dynamic content that can easily spark discussions and other recommendations that you can explore at social events. These platforms can also offer you a new way to connect with potential interests that your readers may have\u2014remember, your readers want to get to know _you_. Untappd, Vivino, and Distiller provide new and varied content to your various platforms, and variety is essential to success.\n  * **Dining recommendations for your area or areas new to you.** Whether you want to offer an impromptu meeting place for fans or are looking for a place to try on the road, these barfly apps can automatically access your location to see what people are saying about featured labels\u2014be they local, international, or just new to you. These apps also work as a kind of _Urbanspoon_ or _OpenTable_ (both apps designed to recommend dining options in your immediate area) for various restaurants, brewpubs, or even vineyards, cideries, and distilleries.\n  * **Getting to know your fellow authors.** We originally met the earlier mentioned (and quoted) Elizabeth Bear at a steampunk event in 2013. But it was 2014 when Tee connected with her on Untappd. Since then, he has shared quite a few toasts and notes with the acclaimed science fiction and fantasy author. Appreciators and aficionados of beer, wine, and spirits love to exchange notes on what they are drinking and where they are drinking it. It's fun to do, and you get to know the tastes of your friends who are dedicated to their literary pursuits. With Distiller's ability to share wish lists across other networks, a bottle of a desired or favorite label makes for a wonderful gift.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWe already mentioned Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Chandler, and Hunter S. Thompson in the pool of writers who enjoyed a good drink, but it's worthy to note Jean Stafford, Dorothy Parker, and Edna St. Vincent Millay as well. Some of them may have loved their drink a little too much.\n\nYou may hear authors joke about BarCon, about partying like rock stars, but not everyone enjoys a good scotch, wine, or beer. If you mention these apps in conversation and authors prefer not to share on any of them, or simply don't drink, you can always get to know them via other channels.\n\nAnd when offering to buy a round, don't make a big deal if someone chooses an iced tea _not_ from Long Island. Respect your fellow authors' choices, and enjoy the social time regardless.\n\n  *  **Sharing a celebration or a quiet moment with fans.** Readers love to feel a connection with their favorite author. The limits of how much you want to share, as we have said before, are up to you, but fans do appreciate when authors share images of toasts and celebrations. You can be sitting by a fire pit with a single malt in hand or toasting with other authors to a recent award, accomplishment, or appearance\u2014sharing the round through these apps can create a \"bonding\" moment with your readers.\n\nA dear friend of ours, social media professional Megan Enole, has been known to say, \"Never forget the _social_ in social media.\" If these are words to live by (and they are), then the thing that makes these three unique networks so much fun is also the thing that's so good for writers and their platforms\u2014Untappd, Vivino, and Distiller are all about being social. When you want to celebrate, when you want to unwind, or when you want to suggest a favorite drink, why not invite the world to enjoy a round with you? Untappd, Vivino, and Distiller, when used _responsibly_ , offer a lot in the way of developing your brand.\n\n## Tsu.co\n\nThe first thing you need to know about _Tsu_ is that this platform is pronounced \"Sue.\" The second thing you need to know is that it still has the new car smell on it. Tsu only launched in October 2014, but it has already generated a bit of buzz. Comparatively speaking, it is Facebook before it got big and Twitter with more words to work with.\n\nSomething that Tsu is doing differently than Facebook is paying its contributors for content. Tsu makes ad revenue, and after keeping 10 percent for operational costs, it pays the rest back to users. It divides users into two pools: one for content creators and one for those who click on the links. Don't get too excited at the moment, since Tsu is still pretty small, but it is something to consider going forward.\n\nTsu also has developed a vigorous antispam policy in response to its initially being a beacon for spamming in its early days.\n\nThere are two kinds of contacts you can have: Friends or Follows. Friends share information with each other, while Follows have only a one-way connection.\n\nUnlike Facebook, which has been throttling down on organic reach, Tsu lets it loose, hence the \"before Facebook got big\" descriptor. But like Facebook, it does have analytics that will help authors determine which posts are working for them. Advertising on Tsu is still in development stages\u2014if you want to advertise, you have to contact Tsu directly\u2014but that is bound to change in the near future.\n\nSo while it is brand-new, authors are already moving into the space. Romance authors, including Piper J. Drake, seem to be the groundbreakers on this fresh social media platform. Along with its main website, Tsu has an app for Android and Apple devices, so you can try it out on the go if you like.\n\nOn the Internet not everything succeeds, and Tsu may disappear or it may flourish. It totally depends on how many users it can attract. Tsu is still in its toddler stage, but it sports a clean interface, a shallow learning curve, and some interesting concepts in generating revenue and maintaining a level of quality in shared content. As a writer, you should keep this site in mind as a potential platform. If you have some time to dabble, you might want to consider what it can offer you.\n\nAs you can see, there is not a lack of social media for an author to take advantage of. Once again, it is all about finding out where _your_ audience is and making yourself available there. Next we're going to explore how to increase your chances of being found online, the thing you really want to achieve with your social media platform. Yes, it's time for us to have that all-important talk about search engine optimization, or SEO.\n\n1<http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/IAmA\/wiki\/index>\n\n# Chapter 11\n\n# SEO\n\n# Dark Arts of Search Engine Optimization\n\nYou cannot work your way through online marketing and public relations without having to contend with three letters that strike terror into the hearts of business owners, Internet novices, and transmedia storytelling professionals everywhere: _search engine optimization_ (more commonly known as SEO). If you ask digital-savvy authors, \"What is SEO?\" you will get a wide variety of answers:\n\n  * It's a shell game soaked in snake oil and served on a deed ownership to the Brooklyn Bridge.\n  * It's essential to success on the Internet; namely, being _found_ on the Internet.\n  * It's magic that's so black it makes Voldemort turn to Darth Vader with arms wide open as he implores, \"Hold me closer, Tiny Dancer.\" __\n  * It's a detail that needs to be seen to in (almost) everything you do in social media.\n\nSEO constitutes all of these things and so much more, and in this chapter you are about to get a crash course in how it works, why it is important, and, more vitally, why you should remain wary of any \"foolproof strategy\" that guarantees you'll dominate the Top Ten of any search. Before applying the basics of SEO to your social media plan, though, it helps to know why SEO is not the \"be all, end all\" of social media strategies.\n\n## Why SEO Doesn't Work (as the \"Gurus\" Claim It Does)\n\nIf you sense that we are unconvinced of the effectiveness of search engine optimization, it is because we are. We have watched authors invest time and money into self-proclaimed SEO \"experts\" (who we call \"gurus\") that convince them that no one will _ever_ find them on the vast wasteland of the Internet\u2014unless they hire gurus like themselves to SEO their website.\n\nSEO does matter and it can make a difference\u2014on a somewhat basic level\u2014but there are several reasons behind our skepticism. Our attitude towards SEO comes from information from experts online and elsewhere. We think these experts have disproven this strategy.\n\n### The Math Behind SEO Just Doesn't Add Up\n\nPicture a room full of thirty authors, all of whom write science fiction set in a dystopian world where dinosaurs have re-emerged and gasoline is the precious resource that all factions\u2014peaceful and warlike\u2014need in order to survive. These thirty authors have gathered to hear an SEO guru's advice on how to meet their search engine optimization needs. This guru says, \"I can guarantee you a place in the top ten list of search results for 'dystopian dinosaur science fiction with gladiator cars' provided you follow my strategy.\" __ Sounds great, but remember the head count? There are thirty people in the room, and there are ten slots in that coveted top ten. What if these authors were just science fiction authors? Or what if these authors have books in all genres? Would this expert's strategy still work?\n\n### Trying to Read a Reader's Mind Is Impossible\n\nContinuing with this room full of thirty authors and the idea of all of them writing in the same niche (science fiction), the SEO guru claims, \"You need to make sure 'dystopian dinosaur science fiction with gladiator cars' is in your meta keywords, descriptions, and content, phrased exactly like that.\" Why, you ask? \"Because that is how Google finds you and how Google will list you in search engine results.\" So, in theory, if people surfing the Web use \"dystopian dinosaur science fiction with gladiator cars,\" they will see these authors' names in the search results. What happens, though, if the search string is \"apocalypse dinosaur sci-fi with modified automobiles\" instead? How will the results differ? An aspect of SEO hinges on what keywords people use for a search, and if you select the wrong keywords in a search, there is no guarantee to the end results\u2014and this is for our niche authors. The chances of these people being found on generic searches for \"science fiction\" and \"author\" become less and less, even when \"science fiction\" and \"author\" are used in meta tags.\n\n### Trying to Read Google's Mind Also Helps Your Results\n\nAs if reading the minds of Web users who are (supposedly) searching for you at random isn't stressful enough, SEO relies heavily on Google's algorithms, which Google reserves the right to change at any time. _Algorithms_ are rules Google sets for search strings to follow and properly display results. Violate any of the algorithms and either your website appears low in the rankings or Google red flags as malicious, pushing it even lower in the search rankings.\n\nWhy would Google do this?\n\n### SEO Can Be Very Easy to Game as a System\n\nWhile some experts try to remain ethical, many unethical gurus take great delight in beating the system. Whether that means using an abnormally large amount of keywords in meta tags, using keywords in page content that changes the entire flow and voice of the page, or placing keywords in URLs that only yield lengthy and hard-to-remember website pages, gurus go crazy with SEO (and charge you for it). If Google changes algorithms again, the gurus come back with a whole new set of SEO rule benders and overhaul your website with them. And charge you for it. Again.\n\n### Organic Search Results Always Yield to Paid Search Results\n\nIf you were to go to a search engine\u2014be it Google, Bing, or Yahoo!\u2014and type in the search string \"What really happened to the dinosaurs,\" __ you would get search results promoting a Christian children's book series (of the same title) written by creationists Ken Ham and Dr. John D. Morris. Even removing the word \"really\" from the search string brings similar results\u2014an \"interpretation\" of paleontology topping the search results. Many of the top results are paying for those prime slots, and the price tags for these slots may be well out of your budget.\n\n### SEO Does Not Apply to All Social Media Platforms\n\nGoogle+ and YouTube do take advantage of SEO, but Instagram? Not so much. Twitter? Not really. Facebook? Inconsistently. Podcasts? Not at all. Yes, SEO is essential for your blog when it comes to the meta tags that only search engines and browsers see, and also when it comes to the content featured on your blog, but SEO only goes so far in social media. SEO is important, but nothing to lose sleep over.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nSo where does SEO matter in social media?\n\n  * Blogging\n  * Google+\n  * YouTube\n\nNotice anything about those three platforms? Two of them are Google owned. If you're blogging with Blogger, then you have a triple play because Google owns that blog engine, as well. While you may not need to concern yourself with SEO on Facebook and Instagram, you will want to think about it for these three platforms, particularly YouTube. Keywords and descriptions play heavily in search results on YouTube, just as they would in a Google search string. SEO also matters with blogging engines, except for Tumblr, where SEO is important only if you crack into templates and apply meta tags.\n\n### Google Changes Its Algorithms Often\n\nAs mentioned earlier, gurus love trying to beat the system. They still game the system to this day with some truly ridiculous tactics. This is one reason why Google changes its algorithms frequently, and while that does make life difficult for gurus, it also makes life more complicated for the rest of us. We now have to make sure our SEO meets with the new standards. Not knowing what Google will or will not change makes it difficult to gauge how much work is ahead of you once a change occurs. It's back to reading minds, and changes from the mother ship can happen without warning.\n\nNow that you know exactly what SEO is not, and why we are somewhat leery of it, let's talk a bit about how SEO _does_ work for you, your website, other social media, and author platforms.\n\n## How to Make SEO Work for You\n\nWhat this chapter will do is create a basic strategy for you to apply. What we're offering are the nuts and bolts of SEO, setting aside past skepticism and bad experiences we have encountered with gurus.\n\nWhat you need to know, before we go any further, is exactly what _meta tags_ are. Meta tags are keywords and descriptions that appear in the header of your blogs, as well as in your YouTube posts and in the titles you may list on Amazon, Smashwords, and elsewhere, if you are an independent publisher or hybrid author. Many kinds of keywords can be implemented, but for our (writers') purposes, we'll focus on the following:\n\n  * **Titles.** These are the titles of your Web pages, whether for your blog, your website, or both. When people are on your website, the title appears in the browser window or tab, as well as in the Recently Visited drop-down menu.\n  * **Descriptions.** Descriptions are brief summaries of what content is featured on a specific page. You can use the same description for an entire website, but it is advised to make each description original.\n  * **Keywords.** Keywords are the most common search terms people would likely use to find your site.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nOther places where keywords matter include:\n\n  * **Content:** The actual videos, images, and text visible to people visiting your website\n  * **Image file names:** Tags given to images you use for blog posts and other online content you are sharing\n\nThere is a working theory that optimizing URLs is essential in good SEO, but speaking from past experience, we can tell you that keywords in URLs are useless, and they can inadvertently red flag your site on Google and make it hard for people to find you.\n\nThe current trend in SEO is that meta keywords are secondary to meta descriptions in priority. This trend can easily change, however. It is prudent for you, when laying down the groundwork for SEO on your website, to follow these limits:\n\n  * **Page Title:** No more than 70 characters\n  * **Meta Description:** No more than 160 characters\n  * **Meta Keywords:** No more than ten keyword phrases, separated by commas, all in one set of quotes, not individual terms\n\nWith these guidelines, you can start developing your own SEO strategy. So, let's focus on that niche fiction of \"dystopian dinosaur science fiction with gladiator cars,\" which sounds more interesting the more we type it. Let's set up a strategy for the home page of your blog or website under the parameters covered here:\n\n  * **Page Title:** _Dino Demolition | Science Fiction from Tee Morris_ (49 characters with spaces)\n  * **Meta Description:** _From author Tee Morris comes a new adventure where the Past becomes Present, and the fate of the world comes in Regular or Premium Unleaded._ (140 characters with spaces)\n  * **Meta Keywords:** _dystopian, apocalypse, future, road warrior, Jurassic, dinosaur, science fiction, Tee Morris_\n\nWith the basics of SEO in place, you can now look deeper into the content of your pages. Are there enough keywords present in your pages' content to catch the eye of search engines everywhere?\n\nSocial media is the most effective and cost-efficient way to set your work apart, and it's essential in today's marketplace. Gone are the days of the ivory tower where a writer could hide out. Today's readers want to see, hear, touch, and interact with fans, and they smell \"fake\" or auto-generated a mile away. Choose a persona, be it spiritual, ironic, comical, artistic, etc., and then generate interesting content and conversations across social media platforms in a way that best expresses your personality and brand.\n\n\u2014Toby Neal, author of the million-copy-selling Lei Crime series\n\n## The SEO That Can Hurt You\n\nOptimizing your Web page, whether with keywords or with content, can truly be an epic undertaking, depending on how much work you want to do. SEO shares a few things in common with a process authors are very familiar with: worldbuilding. You can spend hours, days, or even months worldbuilding for a story or novel, and never type out one word. The same thing can happen with SEO. You can apply keywords every place you can think of and inadvertently destroy your website, if not from the inside, then from the outside. SEO can work against you if you remain oblivious to the following traps that, inexplicably, those gurus still practice today.\n\n### Hidden Keywords\n\nWith some CSS coding, you can actually place images on top of bodies of text. With some extra coding you can easily make a small paragraph of keywords blend into the background and then hide the \"blank\" space by placing an image over it. This sleight-of-hand is an instant red flag from search engines and can penalize search results for your website.\n\n### Stuffing\n\nWhen we talk about SEO, those new to the Internet usually ask, \"Why don't I just load up my keywords tag with a text version of my book?\" (No, really, we get asked that.) This is an example of _stuffing_ , which is exactly what it sounds like: attempting to come up with every permutation of what people would enter into a search engine. Instead of your keywords looking like this:\n\ndystopian, apocalypse, future, road warriors, Jurassic, dinosaur, science fiction, Tee Morris\n\nStuffing turns your keywords into this:\n\ndystopian, distopian, apocalypse, future, road warriors, road, warriors, Jurassic, dinosaur, dinos, Tyrannosaurus Rex, T-Rex, science, fiction, science fiction, speculative fiction, spec fic, sci fi, specfic, sci-fi, Tee Morris, Tee, Morris\n\nAvoid stuffing in your titles, headings, descriptions, and page content. Not only does this tactic not make any difference whatsoever, search engines regard this as characteristics of spam-related sites.\n\n### Forcing Keywords\n\nThis is a variation on stuffing, one that deals more with your content and how keywords can affect your posts or pages. Forcing keywords where they do not belong contextually cannot only be risky in how search engines regard your page, but they also can alter the voice of your content. For example, let's say you write up a summary of your genre-mashing novel for your blog's About page:\n\nFrom the ashes of society, a hero rises. Mac McKlintock is a loner, driving the highways of a post-apocalyptic world where dinosaurs walk amongst humans. Both prehistoric creatures and survivors of civilization's fall hunt. They hunt for the weak. They hunt for the frightened. For Mac, he survives, and stands for those too tired to fight.\n\nNow, let's say a guru claims to be able to make this summary SEO ready. The guru comes back with your summary looking like this:\n\nFrom apocalyptic ashes, a hero rises. Mac McKlintock is a lone road warrior, cruising the desolate highways of the apocalypse, a new Jurassic world where science has brought dinosaurs back from extinction to walk amongst the human survivors. Both prehistoric dinosaurs and what is left of civilization hunt. They hunt for weak humans. They hunt for frightened humans. For Mac, he survives, and in this science fiction adventure he stands for those too tired to fight.\n\nSee how stilted, not to mention redundant, the second description is? Ranking high in Google search strings does not necessarily mean more keywords everywhere, but more keywords with _relevance, reputation,_ and _popularity._ SEO should not dramatically change the voice of your website.\n\nYou can also force keywords into URLs. We have seen for example, simple URLs like this:\n\nhttp:\/\/ministryofpeculiaroccurrences.com\/what-is-steampunk\/\n\n... turned into URLs \"optimized\" for search engines:\n\nhttp:\/\/ministryofpeculiaroccurrences.com\/novels\/series\/genre\/science_fiction\/what_is_steampunk_explained_by_author_Tee_Morris.html\n\nSound ridiculous? Look ridiculous? Guess what? It _is_ ridiculous.\n\nWhen you try too hard in SEO, it does nothing to improve your analytics. Instead, it frustrates people who want to find you quickly and easily online, and more than likely alerts search engines about questionable activity. There is no reason to force square pegs into round holes when working with SEO. Keep it simple, keep it clean, and take advantage of the basics that SEO offers you.\n\n## Best Practices of SEO\n\nOver the years, SEO gurus have made the skill and art of search engine optimization this murky, mysterious approach to online marketing. SEO does not have to be like this. Much of what is needed to achieve success involves intelligent, educated application of keywords in your website's meta tags and content. There are also plenty of free tools available to keep you in the know, especially if there are any sudden changes in Google's algorithms.\n\n### Use Google Keyword Planner\n\nPart of the Google AdWords tool, the _Keyword Planner_ provides a user-friendly ability to consult the almighty search oracle Google and get an idea\u2014based on the parameters of your product and services\u2014of the most popular keywords used in search strings. You can then take the keywords generated, export them into a spreadsheet, and begin narrowing down the terms you want to use and apply throughout your website.\n\n### Use Google Webmaster Tools\n\nThis collection of online resources from Google can help you understand how optimized your website is. Offering in-depth looks at your site's _search traffic_ , keywords and pages documented by _Google Index_ , and additional statistics, along with possible errors from _Crawl_ , the _Webmaster Tools_ dive into your website's analytics and performance. Here Google lets you know what keywords are showing up in your content most often, along with variants and relevance to your site. Webmaster Tools also tracks what search strings people are using to find you. Using the Keyword Planner and Webmaster Tools together can help you optimize your website easily.\n\n### Write Your Meta Descriptions with Cliffhangers\n\nWhen writing up meta descriptions, cliffhangers are a clever and enticing approach to encourage viewers to click through. Instead of the original description for our dino-dystopian adventure that currently reads:\n\nFrom author Tee Morris comes a new adventure where the Past becomes Present, and the fate of the world comes in Regular or Premium Unleaded.\n\n... we could make the description more enticing:\n\nIn a future where Past becomes Present, will lone survivor Mac McKlintock remain standing when facing impossible odds, a pack of T-Rexes, and half a tank of gas?\n\nYou want to give people a reason to click through to your site, so invite them to enter your world.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWhen encouraging click-throughs with cliffhangers, you should avoid phrases like \"Click here\" or \"Find out more...,\" as these are associated with link farms and other spam sites. Be creative in your meta descriptions without being obvious.\n\n### Use Meta Keywords That Are Original to Your Site\n\nIn developing your keywords, you should create them with one question in mind: \"Would I follow this link?\" Your tags\u2014descriptions, titles, and so on\u2014should invite and beckon others to follow your URL. This might mean rewriting descriptions and content, and reorganizing the order of your keywords. The keywords and content you develop for your website should be unique to you but not unique to each other.\n\nWhat follows are two examples of meta descriptions and content from the home page. The first pair shows what not to do. The second is the keeper.\n\n#### Bad\n\n**Meta description:** In a future where Past becomes Present, will lone survivor Mac McKlintock remain standing when facing impossible odds, a pack of T-Rexes, and half a tank of gas?\n\n**From the home page:** __ In a future where Past becomes Present, Mac McKlintock is a lone survivor, driving the highways of a post-apocalyptic world where dinosaurs walk amongst humans. Both prehistoric creatures and survivors of civilization's fall hunt. They hunt for the weak. They hunt for the frightened. For Mac, he survives, and stands for those too tired to fight, but what are Mac's chances when facing impossible odds, a pack of T-Rexes, and half a tank of gas?\n\n#### Good\n\n**Meta description:** In a future where Past becomes Present, will lone survivor Mac McKlintock remain standing when facing impossible odds, a pack of T-Rexes, and half a tank of gas?\n\n**From the home page:** From the ashes of society, a hero rises. Mac McKlintock is a loner, driving the highways of a post-apocalyptic world where dinosaurs walk amongst humans. Both prehistoric creatures and survivors of civilization's fall hunt. They hunt for the weak. They hunt for the frightened. But for Mac, he takes a stand for those too tired to fight.\n\nYou want your keywords and content to not only be unique to your work, but also to work together. When keywords and content work independently of one another, search rankings are affected. Your keywords should be the answer to the question people are asking online.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWe have been spending a lot of time on Google. The reason, of course, is that Google remains the most accessed of all search engines. Google, at the time of this writing, gives priority to meta descriptions and uses them in search results snippets, provided keywords appear in them. Microsoft's Google-challenger, Bing, follows similar algorithms but does not pay close attention to keywords in the meta description if they are not within the content. (This affects the site's relevance in Bing's search results.) Yahoo! pays close attention to meta descriptions, more so than Google or Bing.\n\n### Keep Track of News on Google\n\nGoogle continues to keep algorithms in flux.1<http:\/\/blog.hubspot.com\/marketing\/google-algorithm-visual-history-infographic> We have gurus to thank for this. The real question is how do we keep up with these changes?\n\n  * Google's Webmaster Central2http:\/\/googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com\n  * HubSpot3http:\/\/blog.hubspot.com\n  * Moz4<https:\/\/moz.com\/blog>\n\nUsually when big news occurs back at the mother ship of search engines, other major news outlets like CNN, _Wired_ , and _Computerworld_ will cover the changes, but the three sources above tend to be reporting both big and small changes, and reporting them faster. While \"keywords no longer matter, but descriptions are better\" may not seem like a big change to the mainstream media resources, details like this can dramatically affect your site's rankings. When you can, make time for these online resources, as they can keep you ahead of the curve.\n\nSearch engine optimization carries a lot of baggage with it, but SEO can make a difference in where your website lands in search results, as well as in how people will find you. Reviewing your website's pages for proper SEO is a good idea, but keep it simple. With any strategy to improve your online presence, you can go too deep and begin to litter your website with ridiculous redundancy, or completely alter the tone and voice of your site to where it just sounds odd. Search engine optimization is important, but it should not come at the cost of quality content or clarity in voice. Practice wisely.\n\nNow with the tools in reach, your social media platform needs your attention. However, without developing a voice and providing your networks with content, there is no platform to develop. After all, you want to give people a reason to stick around. Sure, your works are interesting, but they can remain so only for so long before people wander off to another corner of the Internet. You want your website, your platforms, and your voice to be more than just a voice for your work. You want your corner of the Internet to be a one-stop location for news on your work, on your genre, and on works that are related to your genre.\n\nThere is no hard-and-fast rule that you have to share everything. In fact, there are no hard-and-fast rules in social media, but there is a need for content. And content is king. Without it, there is no online success. You want to be a voice and a positive, reliable resource for what you write, your genre, your interests, and your industry. Focus on developing the strongest voice possible, and your networks will provide you and your work the strongest of support.\n\nWelcome to the wonderful world of content marketing, where people come to you to stay in the know.\n\n1<http:\/\/blog.hubspot.com\/marketing\/google-algorithm-visual-history-infographic>\n\n2http:\/\/googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com\n\n3http:\/\/blog.hubspot.com\n\n4<https:\/\/moz.com\/blog>\n\n# Chapter 12\n\n# Content Marketing\n\n# Promoting with and Through Others\n\nLogic would tell you that investing in some kind of online advertising, whether you pay to show up on other blogs, boost Pages and posts on Facebook, or engage with other social media platforms, would be the easiest way to get the word out about you and your books. This is traditional marking at its core: Pay for the platform in order to reach your audience. This is how marketing has worked since its inception, and if you hear the story behind those who inspired the TV show _Mad Men_ , you'll find that marketing is a funny and slightly sneaky business of manipulation, public relations, and showmanship. You have to convince your audience, be they loyal fans or potential readers, that _your book_ is _the book_ to read, that your series is the next big thing, and that you are a writer to watch. This is how marketing works and has worked for decades.\n\nFollow that same logic with social media, though, and you are more likely to win the lottery than to propel your book up the rankings of Amazon and the bestseller lists at _The_ _New York Times_.\n\nSocial media, and those who have mastered it, never forget what is at its core: real people. So many authors forget the _social_ aspect of social media. You need to make a connection with your audience and establish yourself not only as a skilled storyteller but also as an expert on what you are writing about. You need to establish trust with your audience, which, to an extent, traditional marketing does, but what traditional marketing fails to understand is that social media is not for bombarding an audience with the same message over and over again (as we have seen numerous times with authors on Twitter saying some version of \"Buy my book. It's awesome!\" in their feed). Doing so simply drives a social media audience away.\n\nYou might notice that those same authors who continuously promote their books have an astounding number of followers\u2014some even reach the tens of thousands. Experience has shown us that most of those followers are purchased. Again, it's a sign of traditional marketing mishandling social media, as it's all about the numbers in traditional marketing.\n\nMarketing and social media, though, have found a happy medium, and there is a good possibility that you have been practicing it already, provided you are online trying out the different platforms. _Content marketing_ takes a very different approach in that it promotes through the content of others. In a sense, you are promoting your own works by showcasing someone else's related work.\n\nPerhaps now you may be thinking \"Wait a minute. I'm promoting myself by promoting others? That doesn't make sense!\" Content marketing follows a different strategy. Instead of your platform centering only on your book, it centers on your interests.\n\nOn our own Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Facebook Page, we feature links about our books, special events where we will be appearing, and links to our newsletter. Our Page (as well as our other platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram) also offers news on those who write for _Tales from the Archives_ , promotes other steampunk events across the country and around the world, and shares links about steampunk music, fashion, and entertainment. We even feature other authors and their works, especially if the authors are part of our _Tales from the Archives_ podcast.\n\nThis may seem backwards, especially when we promote other authors' books, but in content marketing you are establishing your blog and your social networks as reliable resources for your subject matter. In the case of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, our expertise is steampunk. What kind of content do our various platforms cover?\n\n  * Steampunk\n  * Dieselpunk\n  * Atompunk (sometimes called retropunk)\n  * Victorian history\n  * Science fiction, fantasy, and horror\n\nThat covers a lot of ground when you think about it, but one of the challenges (and joys) of content marketing is asking, \"What can I talk about with authority?\" Our One-Stop Writer Shop platforms include:\n\n  * Publishing news\n  * Self-publishing news\n  * Writing tips\n  * Self-publishing tips\n  * Marketing and promotion tips\n\nIt is incredible how many different topics can directly tie in with your work.\n\nContent marketing allows you to find other voices in your profession who share your interests. You can then share with your readers, fans, and fellow writers terrific resources that inspire you to work harder and write better. You will want to read and research whatever you share or syndicate on your website to be sure the article you're sharing is coming from a credible, reliable source. We consider the \"work\" in content marketing to be making sure we stand by the resources we share. That may take some time reviewing what's out there, but when you see traffic coming to your blog or your Google+ page, it is a rewarding sight indeed. You're establishing trust with your audience and building a reputation as a reliable resource in a shared interest.\n\n## How Does Promoting Others Really Work for You?\n\nHow exactly content marketing works as a promotion tool is still difficult for some authors to grasp. Traditional marketing is all about repetition. It becomes a bombardment of advertising, and an increase in Twitter followers is perceived as successful. But is it? Are people interacting with you on your networks? Are you talking with your virtual street team, or are you merely broadcasting the same message over and over again, eventually turning your signal into noise?\n\nWith content marketing, you establish your name and your works as part of a larger brand, and your website is _the place online_ to get the latest news on your interests. Content marketing begins when you discover an article that speaks to you and you know sharing it would resonate with your audience. Once you share it, your audience receives new content. In turn, the origin of the resource\u2014maybe a blog like Boing Boing, a DeviantArt Web page, or the Instagram of an author like Piper J. Drake or Bill Blume\u2014receives traffic from your audience. This sharing benefits both sides, and the person receiving the new traffic, if savvy, will drive traffic to you in return. This reciprocal approach to marketing builds audiences and communities; the more you share, the stronger your reputation within these circles.\n\nA great example of content marketing at work is Tor.com. A science fiction publisher, Tor delves into far more than just books and its latest releases. Tor.com features columns from authors (even those outside of its catalog) talking about the genre, writing, and media of past and present. The blog also has sections dedicated to upcoming special events (including conventions and expos), art from content creators of all backgrounds, and various discussion threads by readers and writers from around the world. Tor.com has established itself as a go-to resource for relevant content in science fiction, fantasy, and horror, all the while promoting its own brand.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWe talk a bit about _attribution_ throughout the book and in more detail in the Best Practices chapter, but considering how many people completely forget (or ignore) this little detail, it bears repeating: Just because you find something on the Internet doesn't mean it's yours. If you see a post\u2014be it from another author or just a friend\u2014don't turn it into a shareable meme and claim it for yourself. We once caught an author duplicating another's video content, nearly shot for shot. You're a writer and more than capable of coming up with your own ideas. When someone provides content relevant to you (and your audience), make sure you give credit where it is due. A lack of attribution only hurts your online reputation. Avoid violating this rule at all costs.\n\n## What Content to Look for in Content Marketing\n\nWhen heading out into the wide expanse of the Internet for content, it is a real challenge to find exactly what you are looking for. What is content that makes you think \"Oh yeah, this would be great for my audience!\" It may sound easy\u2014just find some good articles on a blog here or a Facebook Page\u2014but you actually need a strategy if you want to provide the best content for your audience.\n\n### Reliable Sources\n\nYou've heard it said again and again, but before you repost anything, it is always a good idea to dig deep into a Web page, blog, or social media link. Resources like Tor.com, io9.com, _The Washington Post,_ _Mashable_ , and _Huffington Post_ tend to be rock solid in their research and reliability (but no, they are not perfect). It's when you go to personal blogs or websites that you'll need verification, particularly if you're not familiar with them. You really want to be certain that the news and commentary offered is something that you can stand behind and say, \"Yes, I agree.\" Take a moment to check the resources you're not acquainted with and assure that proper attribution is given.\n\n### Current Sources\n\nTry to syndicate and share advice and tips that are relevant. Think of how much publishing has changed over the past five years alone. How relevant would advice on formatting books for e-readers be right now if it was published in 2010 or earlier? Tech news, in particular, has an extremely limited shelf life. You want to find stories, advice, and reviews that date back no more than a year or two, unless it is evergreen content or content that shows \"how some things never change\" (or \"how things have changed since...\"). The more up-to-date your resources, the more relevant your site or platform becomes.\n\n### Creative Sources\n\nThe content you can share, be it your own or content from another source, should stimulate or motivate your creativity. Inspirational quotes or nuggets of advice that inspire you would also make for great content to share. If you are sharing another resource, check its origin just to be sure it is not a site that promotes ideas or agendas contrary to your own. You will also want to check the validity of quotes. Sometimes quotes are paraphrased or can't clearly be attributed to one person. Sharing comical images, such as memes, can be great for your Web traffic.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nAnother note concerning attribution and memes: Some less-than-scrupulous authors take memes from other sites and apply Photoshop to remove the original attribution (usually a website in a lower corner), or they simply crop out the URL of a meme's origins. Even reproducing a meme seen elsewhere is a questionable practice. In other words, it is never wise to scrape another's content\u2014and that includes re-creating it.\n\n### Appropriate Sources\n\nThis tip tends to be rather tricky to define because everyone's idea of what is appropriate is different. If you are engaging in content marketing for edgy or sensational titles, then your content may reflect that. You define \"appropriate\" content for your blog or site, but remember the content you share reflects you, your brand, and your titles. There is no consistency between when readers \"give a pass\" to authors and their opinions and when readers hold authors accountable. Therefore, when you post content outside of your brand, your series, or your title, and that content expresses political, religious, sensitive, or edgy humor or topics, keep in mind that the content reflects on you\u2014possibly in ways that you may not like. Set boundaries for yourself, and remember that your boundaries may still be out of bounds for some. Be ready to face pushback if you stray out of your brand's comfort zone.\n\nWhen working with content marketing, you will want to be patient and consistent. There is no magic bullet, no surefire formula, and no foolproof way to gain traction overnight, so you have to find a schedule and a pattern, and stick with it in order to build your platform.\n\nFiguring out what works with your audience can be frustrating. Sometimes it will be the post about your book that will result in traffic and numbers, and sometimes a post from another source that caught your eye will drive traffic. What matters in the end is the quality of your content. If you provide your Page, your Instagram, or your blog followers with quality content, and you turn your platform into a go-to source for reliable resources and fantastic media, you will establish a connection between you, your audience, and your work. When you've established yourself as an authority on a topic, people will find your work.\n\n## When Content Marketing Goes Bad\n\nContent marketing can be a positive, community-building strategy for any business, whether you're a writer, editor, publisher, or even a literary agent. However, some writers and social media mavericks regard any online content as free for use, free of responsibility or credit. This unethical approach to sharing content, as we have mentioned before, is known as _scraping_. Similar to when blog content is syndicated without attribution, scraping occurs when the origins of the content are removed and posters tag the accompanying content with their own page, giving the appearance that the shared content is original.\n\nAnother dark side of content marketing is establishing a social media platform with only one goal: collecting thousands upon thousands of Likes, Favorites, and other statistics in order to eventually sell the account to the highest bidder. Along with scraping content, the following is a list of ways some of these bogus accounts collect massive numbers:\n\n  * Meme generation\n  * Quizzes\n  * Photographs and artwork (posted without attribution)\n  * \"Follow-for-follow\" campaigns\n\nSocial networks attempt to crack down on these unethical accounts, usually through the diligence of their users. Keeping tabs on billions of users, however, can be a daunting task. When putting together your brand's platform, strategy remains key in a successful social media campaign, but it is good to remain aware of what bad content marketing looks like. It is easy to lose yourself in social media's numbers game, and while it may appear that these questionable tactics work in building up your following, quality should always trump quantity. Aim to provide essential, relevant content that will bring people to your Page and keep them coming back, and you will make a strong support system of your platform.\n\nContent marketing that's carried out with the right strategy and execution can prove to be a better way of promoting your book. By building your brand around a community comprised of more than just readers, you have the potential to build a network of artists, musicians, and other writers, all of whom offer their own platforms as sources of promotion. Be patient and consistent, and make sure you use all of your networks to build a community around your quality content.\n\n# Chapter 13\n\n# Best Practices in Social Media\n\nSocial media, in the past decade, has evolved into this great machine of communication and innovation. Today it's hard to envision a business or an individual without some sort of social networking strategy, but in the early days of Facebook and Twitter, it was hard to imagine people conducting business and promotion using social networking. Those skeptical of social media platforms regard them as something their teenage cousins do __ or stuff they tell their kids not to do at the dinner table. Skeptics view social media as hardly worth serious time and attention.\n\nPerhaps this lack of respect for social media is why so many social media plans fail. Sure, teenagers and twenty-somethings use social media. However, they also wield credit cards, use the Internet, and drive cars. Does this mean we shouldn't take credit cards, the Internet, or cars seriously? Of course not, and yet the mistakes people make in social media can be easily avoided if they take social media\u2014and its potential\u2014seriously.\n\nHere's something to keep in mind when approaching social media: Everything shared between these various networks has _potential._ There is no easy way to handle promotion of any kind, and that includes this brave new world of social media. The self-proclaimed social media \"gurus,\" who claim they know the secret of this new media, which they hope to sell to you for a pretty penny, are the reason that this frontier is so hard to cross. We are writers who actively practice and promote social media, and we want to pass along to you an honest, practical look at it.\n\nThe only \"sure things\" in social media are hard work, respect, and knowledge of the medium, and that you need to have a solid, strategic plan if you want to achieve success.\n\n## Create an Editorial Calendar\n\nRemember: Content is king. From the early days of the Internet to today, this remains true. People want quality content from a blog, a podcast, or a social network.\n\nHowever, content must be in partnership with _consistency_. There needs to be a rhythm or set schedule to your online updates. A writer cannot simply slap content\u2014even good content\u2014on his blog, Facebook, or elsewhere, and then walk away from it for months on end. One or two, or even a smattering of posts of excellent content will not make much of a splash if they don't come at regular intervals that the consumer can rely on. It's about consistency in posting.\n\nSet a schedule for specific days or post frequently. The best way to manage all of your content, whether blogging, Facebook posting, tweeting, or anything in between, is to set up an editorial calendar that lists when and where you will be posting new content.\n\nYour calendar should list topics or reoccurring columns you are posting on your blog, as well as where you are posting and on which days. For example, your calendar should show that you're posting on blogs and Facebook on Mondays and Wednesdays, while Tuesday and Friday are dedicated to Twitter and Pinterest. Once you have a realistic editorial calendar set up, make sure you stick with it and fulfill the schedule. Map out how many posts will be original content that markets your work, and how many will be informational content.\n\nBut don't become a slave to your original plan. Your schedule shouldn't be forever set in stone. Allow your editorial calendar flexibility for when fresh topics and news crop up. You want to be able to take advantage of them, not necessarily for the sake of traffic (although some people do that), but for when you really have something to say about a current topic or trend. People will be looking for keywords, so make SEO work for you by keeping up on what is going on in publishing, writing, and your area of expertise.\n\nContent managed in an organized fashion is much less intimidating for an author than a slapdash approach. With a proper editorial calendar and different outlets featuring daily postings, it will soon become habit rather than a rushed afterthought.\n\n## Think Before You Post\n\nWhen you build a platform in social media, you are building a brand. Your brand reflects what you produce, broadcasting your reliability as an author to your audience. It takes a long time to create a solid brand, but just one ill-thought-out blog post, one impulsive tweet, or one snarky caption on Pinterest can inflict a lot of damage. Snarky statements and other attempts at comedy can backfire in a big way, so it is a good idea to look over an update before it goes live and try to see it objectively. Ask yourself, \"Could this be taken the wrong way?\" __ If you aren't sure, then the chances __ are it could be, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't post it. Just mentally prepare for any blowback. Comedy can be hard on social media.\n\nWhat is not difficult to find, on the other hand, is controversy. You may be impassioned by something in the headlines, an exchange on Twitter, or an image on Instagram, but before you let your passionate support for a cause fly, ask yourself, \"Is this argument worth undertaking?\" __ Do you really understand both sides of the debate? Is the time you spend replying and addressing opposing viewpoints affordable? Or are you on a deadline and want to stay focused? If you do step into the middle of a heated debate, are you prepared to face a negative reaction?\n\n### Bookmark\n\nYou may have heard the term thrown around, but what exactly is a _troll_ on the Internet? Not far from their literary counterparts who lurk under bridges to snatch travelers unexpectedly, trolls lurk in the darkest corners of the Internet either looking for arguments to kick up or insults to let fly. Trolls care very little about making a point on either side of an argument. They care more about how much they can rattle people, especially the host of a blog, podcast, or platform. This means the insults can go from juvenile to sensational to deeply personal.\n\nRemember that you have the final say for who says what on your platform. Make sure to take advantage of blocking features, and above all\u2014 _don't feed the trolls_. There is a reason you have block functions in many of the social networking tools covered in this book. The best way to handle a troll: block, and walk away.\n\nIn fact, any time you look at a post that you've written, stop and ask yourself, \"Would I be okay sharing this with a roomful of strangers?\" __ Even though your network comprises friends or followers, the truth is your network does not know you as well as you think. Consider consequences with any update you are about to make before it becomes necessary to break glass and push the red button in case of emergencies.\n\n### Finding the Positive\n\nGoing along with thinking before posting, here's another good rule before hitting send: Be _positive_.\n\nAs a professional using social media, you really don't have the luxury of being able to whine, complain, or go on rants. (Granted the _occasional_ rant can be fun, depending on the topic. Pip got good traction on her blog when she raved tongue-in-cheek on the trend in book covers that had lead characters with their heads cropped out.) Many authors have built a community around their reinforcing, positive message, be it in writing advice or lessons learned while on the road with their books. People have enough cynicism and negativity in their regular lives. They may not want to hear it from authors\u2014especially ones they want to enjoy the company of social media with.\n\nSo focus on lessons learned and what you want to share. Be charming, funny, witty, and caring. Such qualities will take you far with readers.\n\nDo social media because you like it, not because it's some kind of obligation. Nobody wants to read the blog of someone who is being forced to do it. Just like we don't want to read a book written by someone who hated writing it. Tweet because Twitter is fun for you, not because it's on your checklist. Social media is a great place to meet other people doing what you want to do, and it's also a great place to talk to your audience. Note I said _talk to_ , not _yell at_.\n\nYou know how we use the phrase \"In Real Life\" (IRL) to differentiate between what's happening in reality and what's happening on the Internet and on social media? Newsflash: Social media is reality. It's not illusion. We need to treat what happens online like it's real because it is. It's not _A_ _Game of Thrones_. And when you're online, the same rules apply as when you're off-line:\n\nBe awesome.\n\n\u2014Chuck Wendig, author of the Miriam Black trilogy, the Heartland trilogy, and _Zeroes_ , and host of the TerribleMinds.com blog\n\n## Participate in Blog Tours\n\nThese are events that, if managed properly, can be a fantastic way to introduce your words to new readers and, in a reciprocal manner, introduce new bloggers to your readership. These events also give you a good backlist of evergreen content. Blog posts such as these can be easily overhauled, updated, and then repurposed for your own blog. If you are repurposing blog posts, you should wait roughly six months in order to give the original column some exclusivity where it first appeared. It's the friendliest thing to do to maintain good relationships with other bloggers.\n\nThe way blog tours work is that you appear as a guest blogger across a network of blogs\u2014blogs that cover a variety of topics or perhaps share a common theme. Other bloggers, once or twice a week, in turn, appear on your blog, sharing topics they would like to cover or ones you have previously suggested. To make tours a success for everyone involved, the content bloggers deliver to one another should be:\n\n  * original\n  * unique from blog to blog\n  * fall within 500 to 1,000 words\n\nSome bloggers may fail to promptly post others' contributions, but if all participants contribute on schedule, your evergreen content will grow substantially. This gives you many options for posts that can later be repurposed for your own blog or for future guest postings.\n\nWhen you are on a blog tour, you are expected to generate original posts for each stop. Do not create one blog post and offer it as your sole contribution. When embarking on a blog tour, you are committing to your tour hosts new, original, unique content. Make sure you meet that commitment.\n\n## Create Quality Content\n\nContent can come from a variety of sources, but your content should always be quality. What defines quality content? It's subjective, but quality content should be clear, concise, edited, and well researched. There is a popular opinion that posting content for content's sake is what matters, not the actual worth of your content, but all of your posts are important because they are a reflection of your work.\n\nSo what do people look for in quality content?\n\n### Timeliness\n\nWhen news pertaining to your business hits the headlines, you have roughly twenty-four to forty-eight hours to write, edit, and deliver a blog post. At the latest, you have within a week (roughly five days) to blog your own commentary on a topic. At the time of breaking news, people are specifically searching out articles and angles on this topic. By tapping into the timeliness of a news story, you increase your chances of other blogs picking up and syndicating your blog post. Wait too long, and the opportunity to take advantage of the story and drive traffic will be lost.\n\n### Cross Promotion\n\nOnce a blog post goes live, Facebook and Twitter should be the beginning of your promotion. While there are automated posting tools like the WordPress plug-in Social that broadcast updates on your blog, these postings feel rather cold. Following a flowchart (similar to the editorial calendar), you should compose an original, accompanying post or tweet and then add it to your latest blog post. This lets your various networks know that while there is crossover between your channels, you are handling each account and keeping content fresh.\n\n### Cross-Referencing\n\nRemember that your words reflect directly on you, so it is a good idea to link your references back to your blog posts. Sharing resources and linking back to them is a terrific discussion starter, as commenters will ask more about the sources or spark debates on the resources cited. Sharing links may also encourage traffic to your own website, depending on the generosity and the respect of the referred website. Either way, cross-referencing is a terrific tactic for generating traffic around your blog.\n\n## Be Visual When Possible\n\nNothing attracts attention like a good image. Users consistently interact with images more than text-only posts, across all platforms. Some platforms are particularly focused on images\u2014Pinterest and Tumblr\u2014but posts and tweets will get more eyeballs on your content with the addition of an image. Don't forget: Images in blog posts rule!\n\nUsing other people's images can backfire on you, however. Sure, when you are just operating as a social media individual, you might enjoy posting Tom Hiddleston memes, but as a professional trying to keep a good online reputation, you should think twice about it.\n\nAnd don't forget\u2014as we have mentioned in earlier chapters\u2014that stealing another's meme and slapping your website URL on it is definitely out. Similar to when blog content is syndicated without attribution, \"scraping\" occurs when the origins of the content are removed and posters tag the accompanying content with their own page, giving the appearance that the shared content is their original content. Turning someone else's content into your own can come back to haunt you.\n\nThe safest thing to do when creating your own image is to stick to one you took yourself, or you can find stock photography at sites like depositphotos.com. For a small investment, you will be on safe ground to use these photos, and if you are making your own cover, you can repurpose stock images for that, too.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nDon't forget to tweak the images for different platforms. Remember, tall images work great on Pinterest and Tumblr. Square ones work best for Instagram and Twitter.\n\n## A New Use for the Pound Symbol: Hashtags\n\nTwitter was the first social media platform to take advantage of this feature, but now Instagram, Facebook, and even Pinterest are all tapping into the SEO and trending capabilities of hashtags _._\n\nHashtags (#) are tracking tools that allow you to identify updates and postings under a quick-to-find category in any search engine or platform-specific search. The hashtag first appeared on Twitter on August 23, 2007, when Chris Messina tweeted \"How do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?\"\n\nYes, the first update to use a hashtag _was about hashtags._\n\nHashtags can be used in a variety of ways, ranging from emphasizing a mood to commemorating a special event to stating a punch line in a joke. For authors, hashtags are best employed in the following ways:\n\n  * **When developing a new title or project:** _#amwriting, #amediting, #WIP, #teaser_\n  * **When working within a genre:** _#steampunk, #UF, #YAFantasy_\n  * Wi **th tweets pertaining to a book or series:** _#MoPO, #LondonUndead, #Redshirts_\n  * **When identifying promotions or digital appearances:** _#blogtour, #podcast, #interview_\n  * **At special events, like book festivals and conventions:** _#BEA2015, #balticon_\n\nHashtags are the best way to track discussions and trending topics across a social media platform; you'll even hear opinions from people you are not following. Whether you are using tracking options offered through the official Twitter app, reviewing all Instagram images using a tag, or clicking a tag in a Facebook or Google+ update, hashtags allow you to follow or join in a conversation, provided participants consistently use the same hashtag in conversations and posts.\n\nNot all posts need hashtags, but there are times, current events, and special moments when hashtags are essential.\n\n### Book Events and Engagements __\n\nWhen attending book festivals, it is always a good idea to use a hashtag for people to track you and other authors attending the event. Before arriving, try to find out if the event has an official hashtag (most events should have one as they will want metrics to show potential sponsors for the following year's event) and encourage your fellow authors and your network to use it. When creating an official hashtag, keep it easy to remember and as short as possible. For example, the official hashtag for the \"HallowRead\" event of 2014 wasn't #HallowRead or #HallowRead2014, but #HR2014.\n\n### Topics of Discussion\n\nIf you are composing updates on Instagram, Facebook, or Google+, you can turn key words in your update into hashtags, making your status easily found in a hashtag search. So if you are talking about \"a new steampunk short story\" you have just written, you should post the status as \"a new #steampunk short story\" instead. Why use _steampunk_ as your hashtag? Steampunk is the term or topic of discussion you want people to find you under. Find those keywords\u2014no more than five, at the most\u2014and let them work for you.\n\n### Twitter Chats __\n\nThere are several writing chats happening on Twitter. As of the writing of this book you can find:\n\n  * **#scifichat:** Sometimes featuring special guests, this weekly chat covers topics of writing science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Hosted by @DavidRozansky and @scifichat on Fridays, 2\u20134 P.M. EST\n  * **#YALitChat:** This chat doubles as a celebration and networking opportunity for readers and writers of young adult fiction. Hosted by @Georgia_McBride and @YALitChat on Wednesdays, 9 P.M. EST\n  * **#litchat:** An open networking session between readers with books and authors. Hosted by @litchat on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 4\u20135 P.M. EST\n\nWhen participating in or simply observing a chat, all your tweets should follow one of the hashtags used. Using the primary hashtag (#scifichat, #YALitChat, etc.) is enough to track with the discussion. If you are mentioning Twitter Chats on other platforms, you should use corresponding hashtags for tracking purposes.\n\n### Twitter Parties\n\nHosted by the author or a third party, with everyone using an agreed-upon hashtag, Twitter parties are similar to Twitter chats. The difference is that Twitter parties tend to double with the use of contests: participants (people who actively tweet or retweet content under the official hashtag) are entered into giveaways. Instead of happening on a weekly basis, these online events tend to happen before or after recent book releases, special events hosted by authors, and topics specific to the author who is hosting the Twitter party. If you are mentioning Twitter parties on other platforms, you should use corresponding hashtags for tracking purposes.\n\nThe most effective hashtags for parties are compact and easy to remember. Instead of a Twitter party hosted by #MinistryOfPeculiarOccurrences, it's hosted by #MoPO.\n\n#### Proper Use of Hashtags\n\nAccurate and consistent hashtagging of your content is good practice across a number of networks. The hashtag symbol has become a way to facilitate searching and indexing on social media platforms. People who are searching for a particular topic find them useful. When a hashtag is _trending_ , it means it is being searched a lot and used often. Hashtags do come with some simple rules. Don't string too many words together, unless it is for comedy. For example, #mybookisawesomeandyoushouldbuyit is not going to get you anywhere, but it will make fans chuckle a bit.\n\nHashtags need to be accurate and to sensibly describe your content. Hijacking a popular or trending topic that doesn't accurately describe what you are doing (another form of \"trolling\") is a terrible idea. Such tactics inevitably backfire.\n\nHow so?\n\nWhen popular brand name pizza DiGiorno used the hashtag #whyIstayed (which was about women and domestic violence) to advertise its pizza, the backlash was horrible. They had to respond with \"A million apologies. Did not read what the hashtag was about before posting,\" __ which, in admitting DiGiorno was oblivious to the hashtag's intent, makes a bad situation worse.\n\nUnderstanding what a hashtag is referencing before posting or contributing is always a good idea. If you have no idea, or just want to be sure you're not using someone else's hashtag, then visit tagdef.com. There you can find out what certain hashtags mean, or even define your own. Just check out one we created earlier.1<https:\/\/tagdef.com\/mopo>\n\nHowever, as useful as hashtags are, you can go overboard with them and lose the message you are trying to communicate. Stick to five hashtags in one post at the most. On Twitter, keep it to two.\n\nHere are some good writerly tags for connecting with your readers: #FridayReads, #BookGiveaway, #MustRead, #StoryFriday, #LitChat, #FreeBook, #Kindle, and #Nook. And don't forget you can also hashtag your genre (#YA). If you are looking to network with other authors, try one of the following: #AmWriting, #AmEditing, #WriterWednesday, #AskAuthor, #IAN1, or #AuthorAlliance.\n\n## Taking P!nk's Advice: Facebook Parties\n\nI'm comin' up so you better get this party started\n\nGet this party started on a Saturday night\n\nEverybody's waiting for me to arrive...\n\nYou know, that sassy rock star P!nk is absolutely right\u2014people love a party, even an online one, so it's not surprising that advertisers have picked up on the chance to rally people online for a Facebook party. Direct marketers such as Avon and Jamberry were the first to catch onto the possibilities, but that doesn't mean that writers can't get in on the fun and create some visibility for their book titles in the process.\n\nBefore announcing your party, ask yourself first, what you are celebrating? No one celebrates an ordinary day of the week; they celebrate _milestone_ events. As a writer, the biggest event of the season should be your book birthday, but you could also host an event for bundling your books together, a Kickstarter campaign for an anthology, or a cover reveal. Be careful you don't tire out your guests with too many parties in the course of one year.\n\nAs with a party that you would throw in your off-line life, the planning of an online party is important. Here are some questions you need to ask yourself before you announce your next bash to the world.\n\n### What Date?\n\nYou want to find one that doesn't clash with major holidays like Black Friday, Veteran's Day, or anything that could annoy or prevent your guests from attending. That doesn't mean that you can't plan your party around major days; for instance, the weeks before Christmas would be a great time to have a party to celebrate your holiday-themed book.\n\nIf you're doing a book release, you can decide to either build up excitement the week before the book comes out, or try and generate sales during the week after.\n\n### What Time?\n\nThink about your readers, the location of your target audience, and if time zones come into play. The most recent _Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences_ event was timed to be late in an evening and ran for four hours, until midnight EST. That way our readers on the West Coast could still join in, too. You are never going to be able to find an optimal time for everyone all over the world, but you can adjust it so that there is at least a chance for your international readers to find the party.\n\n### What Sort of Decorations?\n\nSet up your event from your author page. Under More\/Event\/Create Event, input the date and time, and make it look pretty with a header image.\n\n### What Do I Serve?\n\nYou can't have food, but you can still have goodies to attract the guests. No one in the neighborhood is going to come unless you give them a reason, so consider things to give away. Be creative. Give away signed books or items related to your book. Steampunk writers give away tea. Fairytale urban fantasy writers give away apple-related items for Snow White, or hair products for Rapunzel. Romance writers give away jewelry. Think about your book, its theme, and your target audience. Keep it fun!\n\n### Whom Do You Invite?\n\nGuests are important, but author guests can bring a crowd. If you are just starting off in the author space (think of it as being new to your neighborhood), then you might not have met many fellow writers. Obviously, if you've been to a few conferences, have made contacts online, or have a writers group, you are starting off with an advantage\u2014if you want to include author guests. That doesn't mean you can't invite people if you're new; just be aware that a stranger asking is not the same as someone guests feel a connection with. However, politely asking people in a similar genre who are also starting off can't hurt. Bear in mind that you are also offering them a way to promote their own books.\n\nOnce author guests have said yes, find a good time for them to be on. You'll want ten- to fifteen-minute slots for guests to promote and interact, but also allow some buffer time so you can circulate and talk about your work.\n\n### The Big Night: Party Time!\n\nAs the date of the event approaches, there is still some work to do to make sure your event goes off with a bang.\n\n#### Promotion\n\nSpread the word, not just on Facebook, but on all your social media networks. Reach out to your author guests to help get the word out, and make sure you give them enough time to do so. Promotion should be around two weeks to a month out\u2014any further out risks people forgetting, but if you promote too close to the event, then people can't plan to be there at your party. The more the merrier, after all.\n\n#### Preparation\n\nBefore the event, make sure you have your timetable sorted out, as well as some prepared activities and information to keep the party flowing. For your author guests, make sure you have introductions ready to go. Be personable and welcoming. For the interludes where you plan to talk, have some prepared quotes from the books, questions, and, best of all, images. That way if things should start to flag or go quiet, you are only a cut-and-paste away from keeping people entertained.\n\n#### Kick Off\n\nWhen the night begins, you might want to make sure you are comfortable with virtual refreshments (or real ones) at hand, because a good Facebook party can fly by. Stay close to your computer or tablet, make sure you are there to answer questions, welcome people who arrive, and keep the conversation flowing.\n\nLimber up your fingers, too, as you will be typing fast and hard. Hey, no one ever said being a host was easy!\n\nHaving chosen the prizes for the party, you can run contests in several ways: randomly picking people in the party room, perhaps a quiz based on your book (or something related, if it isn't out yet), or rewarding the guest who comes up with the best casting of your book's dream movie. Keep your questions and trivia simple, though. Nothing is more awkward than a competition where no one wins!\n\n#### The End\n\nDon't forget to say \"thank you\" to your guests and author guests. Before the party is over, remind people of the essential information: where to find your book, relevant dates and times concerning its release, and your website location, so if they have more questions, they know how to find you.\n\n## Planning Makes Perfect: Before That Social Media Event\n\nBefore attending Facebook or Twitter parties, or appearing as a \"featured guest\" at these events, have on hand precrafted posts. Concentrate on questions or topics that might get the conversation started again, and if tweets allow for space, have images ready to upload. Anticipate some of the questions readers might ask you:\n\n  * If your book were made into a movie, who would play ____?\n  * Where do you get your inspiration?\n  * Who are your favorite authors?\n  * Why do you write [your genre]?\n\nMake certain you publicize when and where special online events will be taking place. Publicize your chats and parties across your blog, your podcast, and other platforms. People do not randomly appear for these events\u2014they wait to hear from you.\n\nFinally, especially if you are the special guest or are hosting a social media event, make certain you have all you need at arm's length. Have a drink close by. Make sure you've gone to the bathroom before go time. Once the event starts, don't leave your chair. The conversation will fly fast and furious.\n\n## Attribution, Not Imitation, Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery\n\nBeing a good participant in social media means sometimes going the extra mile. If you do end up reposting pictures of cosplay (where people dress up as their favorite comic book, video game, or book characters), or someone else's travel adventures, retain any attribution the image came with. People who create things\u2014and authors are part of that tribe\u2014like to be credited for their work.\n\nIf there is an awesome image you really want to post, but it has been stripped of attribution, then you can go the extra mile. Put on your deerstalker hat and seek out the missing information.\n\nIt's actually easier than you think. Google is once again your friend. Go to Google's Search by Image feature.2<http:\/\/www.google.com\/insidesearch\/features\/images\/searchbyimage.html > Click on Try it Now, then click on the camera image in the right-hand corner, and either paste the URL of the image or upload an image. Click Search, and Google will do its best to help you find the original owner.\n\nIt may seem like a bother, but it's the way you will cultivate a professional image.\n\nThe same goes for memes and motivationals\u2014check the source. No one likes to have a reader say \"Einstein did not actually say that.\"\n\nIf this kind of research seems like too much, just stick to posting links and images you bought or made yourself.\n\n## Seek Out Your Audience\n\nEvery book has a target audience, but it won't come beating on your door. The truth is you have to find out where your people are, and go to them. Think about yourself and your book; where do you best fit?\n\nIf you still don't have an idea, look at where authors in your genre are concentrating. Do they appear to be having success on these platforms? Start building your community of readers in those places.\n\n## Have a Plan\n\nThe leading cause of failure on social media is jumping on platforms without any idea of what to do. Social media is not something you do because \"everyone else is doing it.\" You do it because you have something to accomplish.\n\nWhen you set up a blog, ask yourself how often you intend to blog. Will you use Facebook to promote your blog? How often will you post on Facebook or Twitter? Will you go beyond these three sites and work with Tumblr? Google+? What will your voice be? Will you be all business, or will you pepper in personal thoughts? The more you map out your plan, the more focused your online platform will be.\n\nThese tips provide a great foundation for social media initiatives. Applying them to your networks can make your platform easier to develop and build, and make your signal strong and reliable. When you use social media to its full potential, you are actually building and developing your _brand_. Social media can help to define your brand.\n\nThe scary thing about brands, though, is that they are fragile and easily damaged. As important as it is to know what to do with social media, it is equally important to know what not to do. When you have the right strategy, most, if not all, of the missteps can easily be avoided.\n\n## Focus on Maintaining a Signal, Not Creating Noise\n\nWhen talking about social media and social networking, you may hear the term _signal-to-noise ratio_. Signal-to-noise refers to the quality of your statuses and updates. If you are constantly advertising or promoting something in your feed, your audience may tune out your updates, and so they are considered \"noise.\" Updates that your audience genuinely cares about or interacts with are referred to as your \"signal.\" When it comes to social media, it is easy to slip into noise mode. Signal is all about quality and what you deliver to your network.\n\nSo how do you avoid becoming _that_ author?\n\nMake a connection with your fan base through articles that capture the imagination. Share what you do when you are not writing. Do you have a passion for classical theater, B movies, or fashion? Tap into one of those topics. Post images, video, and your own blog articles on what it is that captures your attention or helps you unwind. Post this kind of content alongside interesting news articles rooted in your genre. On your fifth post, go ahead and do a quick promotion for your book. When a new review appears for it, share it on Facebook and Twitter. Celebrate with the community. You want to aim for a ratio of one promotional post to every five, or three promos out of every ten. People who follow you on networks will know that while you are there to promote your book, you are not there to do only that. You're a real person with real interests and passions outside of writing.\n\nThese are all practices that we have seen writers carry out across networks, many of them finding success in creating strong _street teams_ (fans who love to talk to others about your books and who help you make the sale) for their works out in the world, and coming soon to both brick-and-mortar and online bookstores. Sadly, though, the success stories of social media are not what drove us to write this book. This particular social media guide is born out of our frustration, anger, and outright surprise when authors get online and make a mess of things. Our inspiration comes from the writers who don't know when to quit pitching their books, when to walk away from an argument, and when not to say a damn thing.\n\nTo the overly aggressive author on the Internet, this one's for you.\n\n## Antisocial Media: What to Avoid in Online Promotion and Networking\n\nThere are a lot of things that you can get right in social media, but it is easy to get things wrong if you don't know what you are doing. Even if you do know what you are doing, you can still make mistakes. There's a difference between stumbling (which you can easily recover from) and hitting the ground hard, face first.\n\n### Forgetting the \"Social\" Aspect of Social Media\n\nMany writers in social media tend to accept the bad advice of gurus who say that every tweet, Facebook, blog post, and post on Tumblr should be an advertisement for their next book. It is not uncommon to see this, and this is not how you build a platform or broaden a network. This is merely adding noise to your signal (as we defined above), so much noise that your followers will essentially tune you out. Keep your promotional posts under control. They should not become the sole voice and purpose of your social platforms.\n\nAnother rule of thumb in social media is to establish yourself as an individual and to invest time in building your network. The key is to do so in a smart and diplomatic manner. The best way to break this rule is to make your first communication on Twitter a direct message (DM) that encourages others to join your Facebook Page.\n\nSocial media is about you, but it should not be _all_ about you.\n\n### Scraping: The Fastest Way to Get Yourself Kicked Out of the Pool\n\nYes, we are going to talk about scraping again. Why? Because it happens so frequently, and because it's so bad for your professional reputation.\n\nThe lure of the Dark Side is strong. Maybe you have one week when you simply feel like you have nothing interesting to say. But, hey, that wacky Chuck Wendig just wrote a brilliant post on most frequently asked writing questions. It's out there on the Internet, so it's fair game. You might be thinking, _I comment on Chuck's blog, so we're pals. He won't mind. I'll just cut and paste the post into my blog and ..._\n\n_No!_\n\nSeriously\u2014scraping will give you a bad name and make you enemies in the writing world. However, scraping should not be confused with its kinder, more community-minded cousin, syndication. Scraping is taking the whole post and dropping it onto your page complete.\n\nHere's a word that's synonymous with scraping: _plagiarism_. That is what scraping is, essentially.\n\nYou might even mention the original author's name or include his link, but that is not a pass in this instance. You have just stolen content, and eyeballs, from the creator of that content. The link back is worthless, since viewers just got all the good juice from your page. Remember that _syndication_ is when a _portion_ of the blog post (the first paragraph, or two, at the most) is pasted with proper attribution and the link back to the original blogger. That makes for happy content creators. Scraping will get you a bad reputation, and no invitations to the author's next birthday party.\n\nAnd if you think authors and content creators don't notice these things, well, you're wrong there, too.\n\n### Friends at Wholesale: The Perils of Purchasing Likes or Followers\n\nMany social media gurus encourage \"investing\" in your platforms, usually followed by the line \"I can help you triple your Twitter followers for the low, low price of...\"\n\nInflated numbers on platforms look impressive, but it costs a lot for tens of thousands of Likes on Facebook and nameless, faceless Followers on Twitter. Purchased Likes originate from _Like farms,_ companies that pay their employees to Like hundreds upon hundreds of pages of various products, personalities, and services featured on social networks. These Like farms fill your statistics with numbers but do not take any active role or have interaction with your community. While you suddenly appear to have those \"rock star\" statistics, these inflated numbers burn through your advertising budget on Facebook and cost you more when it comes time to boost posts. Concerning Twitter, these bulk Followers are nothing more than automated \"bots\" that tweet nonsense, junking up your incoming tweets and making it harder and harder for you to track your main Twitter feed. Other popular Twitter accounts purchased in bulk include pornography sources and malware carriers. Follower purchases on Instagram will spam your feed with a sudden dumping of images, many of them random, innocuous posts of what that company is selling, turning your Instagram feed into a Sears catalog.\n\nNot only do these accounts distance you from your network, limiting your interaction with to only who directly mention you, but they can damage your online brand, as these bots will find unsuspecting targets from your own networks. Be wary with these paid services, as they lead to nothing but noise.\n\n### Focusing on the Quality, not the Quantity: The Statistics Game\n\nYou will be told time and time again (most of the time from the people selling the above-mentioned Likes and Followers) how important it is to have the numbers on your platforms. There are plenty of authors who love touting their five- and six-figure numbers. Simply ask these social media hoarders exactly what they do with these numbers. __ Or, if you want to be more to the point, ask them, \"Exactly how do you communicate with 100,000 people?\"\n\nYou don't. You talk _at_ them.\n\nIt is always a good idea to check people who are requesting to follow you on networks. When a user starts to follow you on Instagram, for instance, check the account to see if it is an actual person with a story or a product to sell. Look at the accounts, evaluate the feed, and see if this is someone you want to connect with.\n\nYou should also check Facebook accounts when people send a Friend Request to your personal account or Group. When the request arrives, click on the account. Here's what you want to look for in a phony account:\n\n  * Activity on the Timeline: When did this account go live? What is being shared on the feed? Is she sharing pictures?\n  * How many Groups does this person like? If he is a member of more than fifty groups, consider it a red flag.\n  * What is she Liking on Facebook? Many of the spammers will Like the same game and\/or products they promote.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nOn Instagram, a telltale sign of a bogus or malicious account is the follow that happens in response to images that are weeks or even years old on your feed. Following the Like back to where it originated will either reveal an old friend or recent follower you've met and want to reconnect with, or a spammer with something to sell. Be cautious when older images in your feed are suddenly getting some love.\n\nThe social media gurus will encourage you to follow and follow blindly, but it is always good to check out the source first. What will this person bring to your network? Is this someone who will participate or simply promote, using your network?\n\n### Message Garbled, Say Again: Avoid Nonsense in Your Feed\n\nInspirational quotes. Retweets. Promotions of your latest book.\n\nIf these are occasionally in your feed, that's one thing. If any of these _are_ your feed, you are missing the point of Twitter. Or Instagram. Or Tumblr.\n\nPeople follow you on social networks to find out more about you, not about who you follow or what other people have said. Whether you are filling your Instagram with an endless parade of products or having your Facebook and Google+ echo your Twitter account, make your content original and understandable.\n\n### A Garden Gone to Seed: Leaving Accounts Unattended\n\nFrom his time in the information security field, Tee can tell you that many InfoSec professionals are opposed to a lot of the networks covered in this book, as security tends to be overlooked when these services are developed and brought online. The vulnerabilities present on Facebook, Tumblr, and other social media platforms are a genuine concern, as social networks are easily commandeered by hackers, especially when accounts are left unattended and underutilized. Keep your account active with daily postings, and watch for any odd activity or suspicious postings appearing under your name. If you find that a platform is not for you, it is best to delete the account completely rather than to leave it live. Lack of activity on any social media platform opens your brand to damage.\n\n### Suspicious Minds: Responding to Peculiar Messages\n\nThere is another method hackers use to gain control of social media contacts. It is a method of infiltration called \"social engineering _._ \" You see this most often in e-mails supposedly from PayPal and banks informing you that your account will be shut down in twenty-four hours if you do not visit a link provided in the e-mail. On Facebook and Twitter, social engineering most commonly happens in direct messaging. Usually the messages will say something along the lines of \"LOL Have u seen this vid?\" followed by a link. On rare occasions, these messages appear from accounts you recognize (possibly someone who has been hacked), but they mostly come from strangers (bots). Anytime you receive messages that appear to be sent by people who don't have time to spell out words, chances are the account has been compromised. Contact that user (on a public channel) and inform the person (politely) that you received a strange direct message.\n\n### Come On Feel the Noise: Oversharing\n\nHave you come across images that read \"You are [insert iconic character]\" in your Facebook feeds lately? These are images produced by Livingly Media (formerly known as Zimbio, Inc.), a digital media company that manages lifestyle sites for desktop and mobile audiences. The quizzes, sponsored by Livingly, ask a variety of question about your location, your lifestyle, and your interests, and from this information, the quiz names you as Captain Kirk, Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen, Princess Leia, or some other favorite character of literature or film.\n\nDid you ever stop to ask what permissions were granted for these images? Whether the actors and actresses used in these images have been compensated? And how do these questions result in your being named an iconic character?\n\nThey don't. This is called _data mining_.\n\nIt's not quite the same as social engineering, but it is a bait-and-switch approach to getting people to take market surveys and for building mailing lists that are sold to other parties. Social media is about sharing, and it's more than okay to share, but there is a point where you can share too much online, opening yourself to a variety of annoyances ranging from spam to identity theft.\n\nWhen it comes to sharing, you must decide where you draw the line in what you will share and what you won't. Social media is your platform for your works and for you as an author. It is not your therapist's couch. _Oversharing,_ that sudden outpour of emotion and in-your-face position-taking, can not only alienate your online network of contacts, both personal and professional, but can also reflect poorly on you.\n\nOversharing is nothing new in social networking, but it is far too easy a trap to fall into. Do you want to become known as \"that guy\" or \"that girl\"? To help prevent taking a misstep, the first and foremost question to ask yourself every single time you are ready to post is: \"Should I be sharing this?\" It would be great to say that people think before they post, but sadly, some are more about sending out a snappy, witty update or sharing with the world than considering who's watching their feeds.3<http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/twitter-fired-2011-5?op=1>\n\nSocial networking has become a way that we communicate with people, both one-on-one and around the world, but there are limits. To sharing. To connecting. To communicating. These limits are set by you. Social media platforms serve as fantastic outlets, so long as you approach them responsibly and reasonably. Remember that your brand and your reputation are at stake, therefore your social media activity warrants your _full_ attention. Social networking is an _investment_ in your career and should be cared for and cultivated. Go beyond networking and build a community around your work. This community can become your street team for future book releases and events you will be attending, increasing your profile both in the online world and the real one.\n\nGood luck, and good hunting!\n\n1<https:\/\/tagdef.com\/mopo>\n\n2<http:\/\/www.google.com\/insidesearch\/features\/images\/searchbyimage.html >\n\n3<http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/twitter-fired-2011-5?op=1>\n\n# Appendix A\n\n# WordPress\n\n## Setting up a WordPress Account\n\n### Bookmark\n\nSecurity starts with you. Always create passwords that are alphanumeric: made up of a mix of numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and symbols. The longer the password, the more difficult it is to hack. So if the site lets you have fifteen characters, you should make your password fifteen characters. Keep these passwords in an encrypted file on a flash drive, and keep the drive in a safe place.\n\n1. Go to WordPress.com and click on the Create Website button.\n\n2. Give your site a name.\n\n3. Enter your email address, your username, and a password. When coming up with a password, you want to pick something easy to remember but tricky to figure out so no one can hack into your account. A mix of letters, numbers, and characters is always good. For example, instead of _Richmond Writer_ for your password, you could use _r!chm0nDwr1t3r_ , making it memorable but difficult to crack.\n\n4. Now WordPress will ask you if you want a custom address. You can always set up a simple, easy-to-remember URL through 1and1.com, GoDaddy.com, or a similar registrar service, and then have that URL reroute your visitors to this location. You can also have WordPress.com take care of this URL for $18 per year. Decide if you want your username to be your name, a keyword, or an acronym.\n\n5. Next you can choose one of WordPress' themes.\n\n6. You can then either select Create Blog or give WordPress Business or WordPress Premium a test run. For this exercise, click on Create Blog, but know that you can upgrade at any time. Compare plans and consider your options if your blog begins to gain traction.\n\n7. Once the blog is created, click on the Dashboard link. The Dashboard is a one-stop interface that can give you a rundown of what is happening on your blog, as well as tell you what is happening with other WordPress.com users. Statistics, Activity, and even a Quick Draft interface are offered for your blogging needs.\n\n8. Go to the top-right of your Dashboard GUI. You will see a blank profile icon. Click on the blank profile, which looks like a picture of a person. The WordPress Profile is necessary for when you want to post across the WordPress network and the Internet. The more you can tell people about yourself, the easier it will be for people to connect with you.\n\n9. Review your Account Options. Under Settings, you can edit your Account Options, your Password, and the like. Here you can review the various options and little touches that make a complete profile.\n\n10. In the Web address field, enter your website address and click on the Gravatar Profile link offered. A _gravatar_ is a globally recognized avatar, an image that people use to represent themselves online. It is a little picture that appears next to a person's name when interacting with websites. You create this profile only once, and your gravatar image will automatically appear when you participate in any gravatar-enabled site.\n\n11. Click on the Sign In icon to authorize Gravatar.\n\n12. Complete your Gravatar and WordPress profile. The best images are usually square, no larger than 600 x 600 pixels, RGB, and either saved as a PNG or a JPEG file. The images can be cropped online using the Gravatar interface. Upload your image and click on My Profile to return to your Settings and select Public Profile to fill in the details.\n\n### Up and Running\n\nCongratulations! You have an account with WordPress. Your blog is still up and running, but you have no blog posts and no content online. You're going to want to make a post introducing yourself and your future blog. This inaugural post can be as detailed and as informative as you like, but the more people who know about you and what your blog is about, the more likely you will pick up subscribers. This blog will serve as your foundation for your social media platform.\n\n## Getting to Know WordPress\n\n### Writing Your First Blog Post\n\n  1. From your Dashboard, go to Posts > Add New or simply select the New Post option from the top-right of your browser. You will notice that your Dashboard offers a few shortcuts to creating and editing posts. Use the methods that work best for you.\n  2. Single-click in the Title field and type, Welcome to My Writer's Blog.\n  3. Select the text in the Post field and replace it with the following: _This is my first blog entry. I am now officially getting my hands dirty in social media, learning how initiatives like blogging work, but I will be getting into Facebook, Twitter, and other networks as well. It's going to be a long day, but I can see now just how easy it is to write for a blog. How cool is that?_\n  4. On the left-hand side you will see an option called Categories. Click on Add New Category and create a Writing category. Go on and create three more categories: What I'm Reading, Out in the World, and Fun Facts for the Day.\n  5. Single-click on the drop-down menu for Parent Category and select the Writing category. Now create Fiction and Nonfiction categories. _Subcategories_ can be listed with parent categories in your blog posts. Categories and subcategories help search filters work more efficiently. So if you tell the WordPress search engine on your blog to show only the Writing or Fiction posts, other posts are temporarily hidden.\n  6. Select Writing and Fun Facts of the Day as categories for the post you just created.\n  7. Scroll down to Tags, and in the provided field, type in the following keywords: _blog, introduction, social media, nonfiction, what I'm doing, Facebook, Twitter_\n  8. Click the Add button. _Tags_ not only help out search filters, but they also work with search engines to find your posts easily. Use between ten to twenty tags to increase your likelihood of found (and found easily) by those searching for specific topics.\n  9. Single-click the Publish button.\n\nAnd you are blogging. Just like that. Now, a few housekeeping duties await.\n\n### Working with Pages\n\nYou have successfully created your first post. Before you move forward, we need to take care of some odds and ends that bloggers new to WordPress tend to overlook. These little touches are simple to employ and should be taken care of right away, just to avoid clutter and confusion.\n\n  1. Return to your Dashboard. If you are logged into WordPress, you will be able to access your Dashboard while viewing your blog.\n  2. In the Settings section, select the General option. In Settings, you edit your blog title, set time zones (important for scheduling), and address other details that may seem nit-picky but are important to keeping your blog efficient and reliable.\n  3. Edit your Tagline to read: _The Official Blog of Author [Your Name Here]_\n  4. Set your time zone and post formats.\n  5. Click the Save Changes button.\n  6. Select the Pages option. Click on the About title or select the Edit option, and replace the text found in the Post field with the following: _This blog is the official website of author [Insert Your Name Here]. Here you'll find my musings and occasional rants about a writer's life. You can also find me on various social networks, such as xxx._\n  7. In the title field, change the current title to: _Who Am I?_\n  8. Click on the Update button, then select the All Pages option from the Pages menu.\n  9. Click the Quick Edit option for the Who Am I? page and disable the Comments option by single-clicking the checkboxes.\n  10. Single-click the Update button.\n\n#### Post vs. Page\n\nThe difference between a _Post_ and a _Page_ is that a Post is more dynamic and lets you update your blog. Depending on your Preferences, your Posts appear on the main page of your website, categorized, and get syndicated across other RSS feeds. A Page, while still dynamic in how it is updated, is more static. It should display such information as who you are, what you or your organization is known for, how to contact you, and the like. A Page is a permanent part of your blog where information rarely changes, but it can be edited and updated, just like a regular blog post, and while you want interaction with your Posts, it is best not to have Comments active for Pages.\n\n## Creating Content\n\nNow that your blog is currently void of some outstanding \"Beginner's Blog\" traits, you can focus on letting people know a little bit about who you are in the blogosphere.\n\n### Making a Good First Impression\n\nNow that you have successfully made your first post, edited your About Page, and removed some of the other default settings to make this blog manageable, let's dive deeper into the amazing features of blogging.\n\n### Scheduling Blog Posts\n\nWordPress offers users the ability to post news and events even when they are unable to get to their computers. Blog posts, composed ahead of time, can be scheduled for automatic posting. This is a terrific feature to take advantage of when weighing busy schedules against the weekly demands of a blog.\n\n  1. Single-click the My Dashboard tab. If you are logged into WordPress, you will still be able to access your Dashboard while viewing your blog.\n  2. In the left-hand toolbar, roll over the Posts option and select the Add New option.\n  3. For the title of this blog post, type in the following: _Scheduling Blog Posts_.\n  4. In the Post field, type in the following (or something like it _): I'm not able to get to WordPress right now. Tea time, you know. So I am actually scheduling this post for a later time. This means that while I am away from the computer, my blog will automatically update. Pretty freakin' cool, huh?_\n  5. To the right-hand side of the blog interface, you see the Publish Immediately option. Single-click on Edit to access the scheduling interface.\n  6. Set the various drop-down menus to today's date, but set the time stamp thirty minutes from the current time.\n  7. Click OK to exit the timing options and then click on Schedule.\n\nYou can check back fifteen minutes later, but you will see if you click on the All Posts option that your blog post is now scheduled and waiting to go. Keep this option in mind if you are working with reoccurring features on your blog or welcoming guest bloggers to create content. You can \"collect\" posts ahead of time and schedule a week's worth of content while organizing articles for the following week.\n\n### Incorporating Images and Links\n\nWith all the details in place on the back end, let's add some details to what visitors to your blog will see. Dropping images into your blog is easy and adds a nice touch to your posts. You can use a variety of formats for images, but the preferred formats are:\n\n  * JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)\n  * PNG (Portable Network Graphics)\n\nYou can incorporate images from your computer or link to images located on other websites. And speaking of other websites, let's create a link from your blog to another website.\n\n  1. Single-click the My Dashboard tab at the top-left of your browser. If you are logged into WordPress, you will still be able to access your Dashboard while viewing your blog.\n  2. In the left-hand toolbar, roll over the Posts option of your browser and single-click on the All Posts option.\n  3. Single-click the Scheduling Blog Posts post.\n  4. Place your cursor at the beginning of the post and single-click the Add Media button.\n  5. Single-click the Insert from URL option and enter in the following options:\n  6. **Image URL:** http:\/\/teemorris.com\/images\/wordpress.jpg\n  7. **Alt Text:** Tea Time with WordPress\n  8. **Alignment:** Left\n  9. Single-click the Insert into Post option.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWhen you link your blog post to an image located on a server other than your own, a preview of the image will appear in this WordPress window. This is an indication that the image link is good.\n\n  1. Once the image appears in the blog post, single-click the image and then click the Edit Image icon at the top-left corner of the image.\n  2. In this interface, click on the Advanced Settings tab. Enter 10 (pixels) in both the Horizontal and Vertical Space, and then click the Update option.\n  3. Highlight WordPress in your blog entry.\n  4. Single-click the chain link icon. In the URL field, enter: http:\/\/wordpress.com.\n  5. Click Update to accept the URL for the link.\n  6. Click Update to make changes to your blog post live.\n\nYou can now add visual media to your words. Visuals assist in getting your message across. Keep in mind that media of any kind should help, not hinder, the message of your blog. Adding an array of unrelated images might steer your audiences off target, so be certain that any accompanying photos and media relate directly to the intent of your post.\n\n# Appendix B\n\n# Tumblr\n\n## Setting up a Tumblr Account\n\nTumblr is one of the easiest social media platforms to work with. To set up an account, follow these instructions:\n\n1. Go to www.tumblr.com, enter a valid e-mail address, and make a username\u2014keep it simple, using your author name is a good idea\u2014and create a password.\n\n2. Once you tell Tumblr how old you are, accept the terms of service, and prove you are not a robot, it will create an account for you.\n\n3. Tumblr will then ask you what you are interested in and prompt you to start following five blogs. You can follow some of the suggested blogs or search for others using terms such as \"writing\" and \"authors,\" or type in your genre. The more you follow, the more you'll feel a part of the community, so feel free to select more than five.\n\n4. You will have to confirm your e-mail address in order to customize your account.\n\n5. Click on the head icon in the top-left corner and then click on Edit Appearance.\n\n6. Let's make your Tumblr look more like you want it to. Use an avatar, and then tweak the color scheme. Title and description are optional but useful.\n\n7. Next you can download the Tumblr app for IOS, Android, or a Windows Phone. You don't have to do it now, but it is a great app to have at your fingertips.\n\nAnd _voila_ , there you are in your Dashboard. Don't panic: This is not how the viewing public will see your Tumblr, but it is where you will be spending some time managing and sprucing up your account and blog.\n\nThough this initial setup generates your primary blog, you can in fact have multiple blogs in the form of secondary accounts, and\/or add pages to any of these blogs. You might want to consider using your primary blog as your writer account, with different pages for your series. Or you might want to have secondary blogs for your series, especially if you are co-writing them. Again, you may be splitting your brand too much, so decide how fractured you want your Tumblr content to be.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nThough you can have many of these secondary accounts, remember that they can't follow other blogs, like posts, ask questions, or submit to other blogs. For this reason, make sure your primary account represents the right brand.\n\n## Getting to Know Tumblr\n\nLet's go ahead and get familiar with the Tumblr controls. There are several key areas.\n\n### The Top Bar\n\n  * **Home.** This will take you back to the main dashboard and your stream.\n  * **Explore.** This will bring you to the browse section of Tumblr. Here you can see trending topics, categories, and staff picks. It is a great place to find blogs to follow.\n  * **Mail.** This is where you will get messages, questions, submissions, and fan mail from your Tumblr followers. Keep an eye on this icon to alert you to these valuable interactions.\n  * **Lightning Bolt.** This will take you to your activity page, where you can see how engaged people are with what you are posting, your biggest fans (people who engage or repost your posts the most), and the latest comments on your posts. It's fun to watch the graphs here.\n  * **Head Icon.** This is the home base for all of your content. This shows you how many posts you have made, how many followers you have, what activity has occurred since you last checked (along with a neat chart of how your posts are doing), and how many items you have lined up in your queue. Most important, it offers the ability to customize your page. Clicking on the head icon will allow you to change the appearance of your page. Much like WordPress, Tumblr has themes\u2014there are frameworks for the pages so you can easily set up the look of your blog. Some are free, and some are available to purchase, but there are so many themes that finding something for yourself and your genre is a definitely possibility. In the Customize menu, you will see what your Tumblr looks like to the public. On the left, you will see your options. These will vary according to the theme you have selected. You can use this to add static pages to your Tumblr. You might, for example, want to have a separate page for an About page or perhaps a list of events you are attending.\n  * **The Pen.** Click this for all the options you need to post content. The next bar is our favorite.\n\n### The Content Bar\n\nThis is where you get to do the fun stuff (post your own content to Tumblr!). The tools here are fairly self-explanatory: Text, Photo, Quote (great for dropping samples of your work into your feed), Link, Chat (so you can ask your followers questions, a great way to encourage engagement), Audio, and Video.\n\nEach of these offers different advanced options, but the most useful ones are Schedule and Add to Queue. These are some of Tumblr's best features for you as an author, since they allow you to target a post to go live at an important moment\u2014say on a book launch date\u2014or pop a post in a feed to be delivered on a regular schedule. Remember your readers like consistency with their content!\n\nNow that you have your Tumblr up and running the way you want it, let's fill it with some content.\n\n## Posting to Tumblr\n\nAdding your own content to your Tumblr stream is always the preferable option, so let's take a quick look at the ways you can do it:\n\n  * **Text.** Give it a title, and write your content in the field at the bottom. You can also format your text in a variety of ways, including making those all-important links back to your site or where to buy your book.\n  * **Photo.** Here you can upload up to ten photos, or take one directly with the camera in your computer. Remember: Images are your best friend on Tumblr.\n  * **Quote.** Use this to add little teasers from your work-in-progress or novel that's about to release. Make sure they are punchy quotes that express the content of your book or main character.\n  * **URL.** This is where you link to your WordPress site or to reviews of your books. Unfortunately, you can't use an image with this option, so you might want to use it sparingly.\n  * **Chat.** Use this to solicit commentary and that important engagement. It can also be used to chat with your readers and ask them their opinions or about favorite characters, etc.\n  * **Audio.** This is where you would post podcasts, or recordings of your story. Samples of your audiobook would be an excellent choice to upload\u2014just remember to keep them up to 10 MB and in MP3 format. You can search for a track to post, upload directly, or share from a URL. Do be sure to fill in all the fields and to have a good cover image for maximum impact.\n  * **Video.** If you have a book trailer, this is where you can upload it directly (if it's 100 MB or less), or you can put in the code (say from YouTube) or the URL where the video can be found. The same rules for filling all the fields apply.\n\nNo matter what you upload, do not forget to supply the relevant hashtags to draw attention to your post.\n\n## Reblogging\n\nSometimes you just don't have enough original content to feed the hunger of Tumblr, or you want to spread out what you do have. In our Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Tumblr, we do three reblogs to one original post. Using this ratio, you will avoid constantly shouting \"buy my book\" into the void.\n\nReblogging also offers the advantage of building a following. Everyone whose post you reblog sees that you've reblogged their post, after all.\n\nSo let's have a go at reblogging some content.\n\nThe blogs you are following are now showing up in your dashboard in a stream, with the newest at the top. Find something useful and relevant to your audience.\n\nAt the bottom of the post are a few icons. The three dots on the left allow you to share the post on other social media networks, flag it, e-mail it, embed it, or get the Permalink (a permanent link to the post). On the far right is the Heart icon, which is how you Favorite the post. It's a nice way to show a sense of community and will help your account get noticed, but reposting is even better.\n\nThe icon that we are really interested in is the middle one, which has two circling arrows. This is the icon that will post the item into your Tumblr feed. Clicking on it will bring the post you want to reblog up in full. Here you can add your own tags, put the post into your queue, schedule it, or post it right away. We would urge you to add your own commentary to the item before you post, just to let people know that you are not some robot mindlessly reposting items. For our steampunk series we usually try to say something that will link the item back to the series. If we see a vehicle the Ministry might use, we point that out. The point is to bring it back to your brand without hijacking the content. Always remember to leave whatever attribution there is on the post intact.\n\n# Appendix C\n\n# Podcasting\n\n## An Introduction to Podcasting\n\nUnlike most other social media outlets, podcasting requires specific hardware and software, which can be a daunting prospect for people, especially those who have never shopped for audio equipment. Where does one begin?\n\nNothing to worry about: We'll walk you through it.\n\nFirst of all, an audio studio can come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and price tags. Your own setup can be kept economical and remain within a modest budget, or you can invest in something worthy of Audible.com. Whatever setup you envision for your podcasting endeavors, there are plenty of affordable options out there.\n\nLet's begin with what kind of microphone is capturing your words. Microphones come in various shapes, sizes, and makes, all with varying benefits. Then you should determine the following:\n\n  * **How much can you afford to spend?** Like everything in life, you get out what you put in, so the more money you spend, the better sound quality you can get out of your microphone. Consider the quality you need, before you put down your dollars on a microphone.\n  * **Are you planning to use the microphone in your studio or out on location?** A fancy, high-end shock-mounted model isn't going to cut it if you are doing an on-the-street or off-the-cuff podcast. Trying to make do with a lapel mic will not give you the quality of sound expected in an Audible-quality recording. Consider your strategy and where you want to take your podcast\u2014indoors or out.\n  * **What exactly do you want this mic to do?** Are you recording fiction, conducting interviews, or just kicking back with a fireside chat? Your choice of microphone rests on what you want to accomplish, so consider how you want to use your microphone.\n\nWith the answers to these three questions, your options at Amazon, BSW, and Guitar Center narrow a bit, but you still face many variations of microphones to choose from.\n\nWhat are you looking for?\n\n### Affordable Microphones\n\nMost affordable mics are Universal Serial Bus (USB) powered, and designed to plug into your computer and start recording moments after unboxing them. USB mics are available where electronics are sold.\n\nSome USB microphones that are popular with podcasters include:\n\n  * **Blue Snowball.** This microphone can be found just about everywhere, ranging in price between $50 to $100. The quality of audio from the various models of Snowball is good. These are great starter microphones for authors entering the podcasting realm.\n  * **Blue Yeti.** From the makers of Snowball, the Yeti is a step up, usually listed in the $150 range. The Yeti offers a built-in headphone amplifier and controls on the device for headphone volume, pattern selection, mute, and microphone gain. A THX Certified Microphone, the Yeti captures a wider range of audio and vocal subtleties.\n  * **Marshall MXL 990 USB.** We use the MXL 990 condenser microphone for both desktop and remote recordings, so we can vouch for its abilities. The USB cousin works without mixers, preamps, or special studio gear. Simply plug the microphone into your computer, and you can create pro-quality recordings. With a gold-sputtered diaphragm and a high-quality FET preamp, the MXL 990 USB comes in around $150. Guitar Center's MXL 990 USB kit, which includes a tripod, headphones, mic stand, and proper cables, sells for about $250. It's everything you need in just one purchase.\n\n### Bookmark\n\n\"Portable podcasting\" faced many limits once upon a time, as small, built-in condenser mics struggled to offer quality of any kind. Now podcasters can take all their recording solutions on the go without fail with the Zoom H2n and H4n. These are lightweight, unobtrusive, all-in-one solutions for portable-podcast recording. Ranging in price from $150 to $200, both the H2n and H4n record audio directly to SD cards or can plug directly into your computer. With their built-in microphone through USB, they can record directly to MP3 format (in a variety of bit rate compressions) and to WAV format (also in a variety of bit rate settings). H4n goes even further, allowing for multitrack recording.\n\nThe H2n and H4n are fantastic solutions for professional audio producers, as well as for beginning podcasters who need a complete startup package.\n\n### Investing in High-End Microphones\n\nFor a cleaner sound for your podcast and the potential of breaking into professional-quality audiobook production, $50 to $100 mics will not deliver what you need. What truly makes a microphone is how you sound in it and how it reproduces the sound coming in. Based on the technology of the microphone itself, and how well it reproduces your voice, prices vary, but as you can see from our recommendations, plenty of high-quality microphones, able to pick up nuances in the human voice, fall into the range of affordability.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWhen you consider the cost of a microphone, keep in mind that it likely does not come with the cables you need to hook it up, a jack to fit into your computer, or a mic stand.\n\nWelcome to the world of professional equipment.\n\nWhen budgeting for audio equipment, remember to keep in mind all the accessories you will need to pick up along with it.\n\n  *  **Shure SM58.** When it comes to signature microphones\u2014ones like you see everywhere\u2014if you want that professional sound without the professional price tag, look no further than the Shure SM58. For nearly fifty years, this mic has been an industry favorite because of its durability and reliability. The SM58 works like a charm, recording on the street or in a studio. Podcasters love it for its affordability (it's available for $100.\n  * **Shure SM7B.** Another industry standard that's found in many radio stations across the United States and around the world is the Shure SM7B. For $350, it is nothing less than an investment. This particular mic is optimized for in-studio recording, which is why it is used in so many radio stations and recording studios, but the SM7B, like the SM58 and most USB mics (not the MXL 990USB), is a _dynamic_ microphone. These types of microphones do not need any power from whatever mixer or preamps they are using in order to connect with the computer or recording device. They also record audio differently than other mics (which we are about to cover), and therefore capture different vocal nuances. Of the various microphones covered so far, the SM7B is the best of the bunch, offering you Audible-quality audio.\n\nSo far we have looked at dynamic microphones\u2014durable, reliable microphones of varying cost and quality. Recording in the studio, though, is all about the details, and when you want that detail, it's time to shop for a _studio_ _condenser_ microphone. Condenser mics work very differently than dynamic ones. First, they are _phantom powered,_ which means they receive an extra little electrical kick that helps them take in audio at their full potential. Phantom power comes from the mic's connection to the mixer, which supplies a constant boost to the condenser's sensitive diaphragm in order to catch details that dynamic mics miss. Condenser mics are also different because their delicate internal design makes them best for a stationary setup. If jostled around, plates inside the mic's housing can be knocked out of whack or damaged, causing problems in the pickup of the audio. The advantage to condenser microphones is that they pick up a wider spectrum of audio.\n\n  * **Marshall MXL 990.** As mentioned earlier, the 990 USB was the exception of those other USB models due to its being a studio condenser model. Not only is it available as a USB, but it also comes as a standard studio condenser microphone, a favorite of ours. Featuring the same gold-sputtered diaphragm as its USB counterpart, the standard MXL 990 comes in at around $100, complete with shock mount and carrying case. It's an inexpensive microphone with a bright sound, and it's worth every penny.\n  * **AKG Perception 120 and 220.** We are big fans of the AKG Perception line and use it to this day in our _Shared Desk_ podcast. The Perception 120 is a fantastic investment for just under $100, while the 220 comes in at $150. Both mics offer superior pickups and brilliant, rich audio quality. What make the Perceptions terrific investments are their built-in switchable attenuation pads and low-cut filter, which dampen any background noise in your home studio.\n\n## The Mixing Board: Bridging the Gap Between Microphone and Computer\n\nIf you're looking to have guests in the studio, or want to work with multiple inputs of audio or take advantage of phantom-powered studio condenser microphones, you will want to invest in a _mixing board_. What a mixing board (or mixer) does for your podcast is open up recording options such as using multiple microphones, recording acoustic instruments, and balancing sound to emphasize one voice over another or to balance both seamlessly.\n\nThe easiest way to look at a mixing board is as if you're partitioning your computer into different recording studios. But instead of calling them _studios,_ these partitions are called _tracks_ , __ and you can use any of those tracks for input _or_ output of audio.\n\nThe easiest USB mixers to set up and get running on your computer cost $70 and go up from there. The cost increases with each additional track. The real advantage of a mixer is the ability to adjust various audio levels of multiple inputs independently in order to make the final signal sound even. Mixers also offer you the option of working with multiple mic,s so if you have more than one speaker, you won't have to huddle around the same microphone or slide it back and forth as you take turns speaking.\n\nMixers can look a little intimidating with all those wacky knobs running up and down the interface. Some of the knobs deal with various frequencies in a voice and can deepen, sharpen, or soften the qualities of a voice. The knobs that are your primary concern are the ones that control your volume or _levels,_ as the board labels them. The higher the level, the more input signal a voice gains when recording.\n\n### Hooking Up a Mixer to Your Computer\n\nOnce you have a section of your desk cleared off and reserved for your mixer, open the box containing your new mixer and make sure everything that should be there is there:\n\n  * USB mixer\n  * Power supply\n  * USB cable\n  * Instructions\n\nBefore hooking up anything, check the manufacturer's website for downloads (new drivers, upgrades to firmware, patches, and so on) needed for your digital board to work at its optimum level. USB mixers are so simple to set up that we can give these steps for both Mac and Windows machines:\n\n  1. Shut down your computer.\n  2. Connect the power supply to the back of the mixer and to an available wall socket or power strip.\n  3. Find an available USB port and plug your mixer into the computer. If your computer's ports are maxed out, we recommend setting up a USB hub for your other devices in order to free up one port. We do not recommend running your mixer through a hub, as doing so might affect the quality of the audio.\n  4. Plug the USB cable into the back of your mixer.\n  5. Connect your input devices (microphones, headphones, and the like) to the mixer.\n  6. Power up your mixer by turning on the Main Power and the Phantom Power switches.\n  7. Start your computer.\n\nAnd that's it! You're ready to record with your USB or FireWire mixer. Now, with headphones on your head and some toying around, you will be able to set levels on your mixer that are good for recording.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nThe earlier mentioned H4n and the recent Zoom creation H6n, when hooked up to your computer, also double as _preamps_. The preamp works as a basic connection between your mics and your computer, and it provides phantom power to your condenser microphones. If you don't feel the need for a mixer or you just want to keep it simple, you may want to consider the all-in-one approach with the Zoom H4n or H6n.\n\n## What's Next: Other Details for an Audio Studio\n\nA microphone and mixing board are the necessities in building a home audio suite, but there are a few more items you'll want to complete your recording studio. These add-ons are not essential to audio recording but can help you in producing a rock-solid audio production:\n\n  * **Headphones:** Headphones help you monitor yourself as you record. By hearing your voice, you can catch any odd slip ups, slurred words, or mispronunciations before playback. The best kind of headphones are _closed-ear_ headphones, and the _Sennheiser HD202_ closed-ear headphones for around $20 offer everything you need for clean, clear audio monitoring.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWe have been asked often about Bose Noise Cancelling stereo headphones for recording purposes. Bose makes an excellent pair of headphones, offering the highest quality for audio listening. Note, we say _listening._ Not _recording_ and _editing._ Any headphones you see listed as \"noise-cancelling\" are going to be terrific for listening, but they aren't the best to use for recording and editing. You want to be able to hear the noise that these headphones cancel out so that you can eliminate it before a word is recorded. The best noise reduction and elimination happens before and during recording, not afterward. For podcast production, stick with closed-ear headphones sans noise-cancelling features.\n\n  *  **Cables:** As mentioned earlier, high-end microphones may arrive without cables. Check with a sales representative or the mic's documentation to find what cables you need before you buy. Many of the microphones suggested here use a _3-pin XLR-to-XLR male-to-female_ cable. The female end connects to the mic, and the male end, to the mixer. These cables begin at $9 and go up from there, depending on the length of the cord and quality of the input.\n  * **Microphone Stands:** If you invest in the Marshall MXL 990 (USB or XLR), you will receive a shock mount and an attachment for a mic stand, but no microphone stand. Believe us when we say that a good mic stand is worth the investment. A basic _desktop mic stand_ can run you around $10, while a _boom mic stand_ starts at around $100. The type of mic stand you invest in depends on how you want to work around it. With the simple stand, you're all set and ready to go without the extra hassle of positioning and securing a boom stand to your desk. The boom stand, though, frees up space on your desk, allowing for show notes and extra space for you to record and mix. Consult your budget to see which models are within your range.\n\nYou have the basics in place and the strategy to move forward. Now it is time to record, edit, and podcast.\n\n# Appendix D\n\n# Facebook\n\n## Setting Up a Facebook Account\n\nIf you're not on Facebook, it's time to get on it. There are over 864 million active users. As an author, you need to use the platform to promote your work. So let's get you set up.\n\n1. Go to Facebook.com and fill in all the fields to set up an account. Make sure you use your proper _author name_ so people can find you. Be aware that Facebook's official rules say you should use your \"authentic name.\" This has proved to be problematic with authors who use pen names or multiple names for different genres. Some authors choose to operate two profiles: one for their personal contacts and one for their professional contacts. Others have a personal account from which they operate a Page as a professional author.\n\n2. After you've filled in these fields, Facebook will try to find your friends. It will use Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo!, and other e-mail services to do so. You can skip this step if you are not comfortable doing this. You can always search for more friends later on.\n\n3. Upload a profile picture.\n\n4. Confirm your account. You are a new member of the Facebook family!\n\n## Getting to Know Facebook\n\nFacebook has many parts. It is, after all, one of the biggest and oldest social media platforms available. As you join and make Groups and Pages, it will get deeper. For now, let's look around this new platform.\n\nOn the top blue navigation bar, you will find all the information you inputted about yourself.\n\n  * **Facebook Icon.** This will bring you back to your main page.\n  * **Search Bar and Icon.** Here you can look up people and Pages you might be interested in.\n  * **Avatar.** Clicking on this will take you to your profile. Here you can make changes and add your Likes.\n  * **Home.** Much like the Facebook icon, this button will take you back to your main feed and Page.\n  * **Find Friends.** Facebook wants you to make friends. Here you can search through your other social media contacts or look for friends by where you worked and went to school. Facebook will try its best to suggest people you might know.\n  * **Two People Icon.** This is where you will find friend requests.\n  * **The Speech Bubble.** Here you can read and send messages to other users.\n  * **The World Icon.** This is where all of your notifications will pop up. For instance, if someone mentions your name in a post, you will be notified. You will also find replies to your messages and posts, posts from Groups you are following, and Likes you got for your posts\n  * **Padlock Icon.** Here is where you can set who can see your posts and who you'll allow to contact you. This is where you will also find ways to stop people if they are bothering you.\n  * **Down Arrow Icon.** Here is where you go to set up new Pages and Groups, as well as to choose other settings.\n\n## The Left-Hand Sidebar\n\nHere you will find some of the same links that are in the blue top bar. You will also find Events and your Pages and Groups here. Let's set up a Group now.\n\n### Setting Up a Group\n\nNow that you have your account set up, let's look at _Groups_. Groups are communities built around a cause or common Like. Groups can be built for anything that people might have in common\u2014including a genre such as science fiction or fantasy. The content appearing in Groups is community driven, and everyone shares a voice here.\n\n1. Log into Facebook and go to your News Feed. You do this by clicking on the Facebook logo in the top-left corner or by clicking on News Feed under Favorites. This is located in the top-left corner of your Facebook Page.\n\n2. Look for the Groups section in the left-hand bar of the News Feed and then find the Create Group option.\n\n3. Name your group.\n\n4. Invite Facebook members to join your group. (This is optional, of course.)\n\nWhen you are establishing your Group, Facebook encourages you to draw from your own personal network. Before inviting people to your Group or a Page, let them know ahead of time, as a courtesy. Send them a private message and ask. Most people take offense when added without permission.\n\n  1. Choose the Privacy option you want your Group to have:\n  2. **Open.** Anyone can see this Group, who's in it, and what members post.\n  3. **Closed.** Anyone can see the Group and who's in it, but only members see posts.\n  4. **Secret.** Only members see the Group, who's in it, and what members post.\n  5. Click on Create to establish your Group.\n  6. Choose an icon to represent your Group.\n\nAnd your Group is now online. Just a few finishing touches, and you'll be ready to invite and welcome people to this new community.\n\n### Completing Your Group's Profile __\n\n1. You will be taken to the Group's Page straight away, but in case you aren't, you can type in the name of your Group in the search bar. In the Group's Main Page, find the three periods (...) icon at the right-hand side of the Group's menu and click.\n\n2. Select from the drop-down menu the Edit Group Settings option.\n\n3. Complete the set up your Group:\n\n  1. **Group Name.** A custom icon can be assigned to your Group. Your name can be changed, but it is set once your Group grows to more than 250 members.\n  2. **Privacy Settings.** Available only for larger Groups\n  3. **Member Approval.** Used for moderation of new Group members\n  4. **Group Address.** An option for establishing a Group e-mail and URL for Facebook\n  5. **Description.** Where you offer a greeting and brief description for your group, its aims, its policies, and its dos and don'ts\n  6. **Tags.** A great way for Facebook members to easily find you\n  7. **Posting Permissions.** Another moderation option when it comes to the method of posting on the Group board\n  8. **Post Approval.** Another moderation option when it comes to the method of posting on the Group board\n\n4. Click the Save button.\n\n5. Return to the top of your Group and set an appropriate Group Photo for your welcome banner.\n\nYour Group is now complete, and up and running. All you need are members. On your next few posts that cross the line into business, mention that you have a Group and encourage people to join. Even before members join, have a few topics online and ready for discussion.\n\n### Starting a Group Topic Discussion\n\n  1. Go to your Facebook Group. At the top of your page, just under the introduction banner, you should see this inviting field: Write Post.\n  2. Click in this field and write the following status message: _Welcome to my Facebook Group. This is where you will find all news and updates of my upcoming appearances and developments. The rules here are simple: Don't spam, and be excellent to one another. If you cannot do this, one of our moderators will promptly block you from the group. We hope you contribute and adhere to the positive spirit of this Facebook Group._\n  3. Click on the icon of the camera if you wish to upload an accompanying photo. (If you want to upload a different photo with your message or no photo at all, roll over the image and single-click the X in the top-right corner of the image.)\n  4. Click the Post button.\n\nThe most recent post in your group will appear at the top of your Group. This will always be the case until someone in the Group leaves a comment. The topic with the most recent comment will jump to the top of the posts, taking priority until a new topic is posted or another comment is left elsewhere in the various threads available here.\n\nNote that you can upload photos and videos, ask questions of your Group members in poll fashion, or add a file (PDF, Word document, etc.) to share with your membership. Your content does not need to be just general discussions. As moderator, you can also decide which posts stay and which posts are deleted, and approve or dismiss members.\n\nTherein you have the basics of a Group. Now, what about a Page?\n\n### Setting up a Facebook Page\n\n1. Go to your Facebook News Feed or to your Personal Page.\n\n2. Single-click on the downward arrow icon in the upper-right corner and select from the drop-down menu the Create Page option.\n\n3. From the Create a Page introduction page, select the kind of Page you wish to create.\n\n  * The features for each of these options may differ slightly, but the basics\u2014the Admin Panel, Recent Posts by Others, posting options, etc.\u2014are all the same. The options offered by Facebook include Local Business or Place; Company, Organization, or Institution; Brand or Product; Artist, Band, or Public Figure; Entertainment; and Cause or Community.\n  * These options help Facebook categorize what kind of Page you are managing for search purposes.\n\n4. Based on your selection, fill in the appropriate information for your Page. This is a professional page, so share as much information as you deem necessary for conducting business. If this is a home business, do you really want to post your home address? Many authors maintain a private mailbox for this reason.\n\n5. Click the checkbox for Facebook's Terms of Service. Perhaps it is not the most engaging read online, but review Facebook's Terms of Service in order to be clear on what is and isn't allowed, and how your content can (and cannot) be used by Facebook.\n\n6. Click the Get Started button to launch your Page.\n\n7. You will receive an e-mail welcoming you to Pages while you are rerouted to a new website that will walk you through the process of completing a Page's profile. Some of these details can be edited after the Page is live, but complete the options here in order to get the basics up and running.\n\nAt any time, you can delete a Page by going onto the Page itself. Click on Settings, and at the bottom of the list of settings you will find Remove Page. Click there. Facebook will ask if you really want to remove it. If you click again, there is no way back, so be sure that's what you want to do.\n\nNow, your new Page is live and running. No one yet knows it's out there, mind you, but we will get into building your Page Following in a moment.\n\nLet's break down a complete page and discuss how to create a unique look, as well as what a quality page looks like.\n\n#### Posting on a Page **Bookmark**\n\nIf you have more than one moderator for your Page, it is not a bad idea to end your post with initial signatures. As I do with One-Stop Writer Shop, I moderate this Page with Pip. Therefore, when I make a posting, I will sign it with (TM) so that the reader knows who is posting the item.\n\nHere is an example of how to create a simple post to Facebook:\n\n  1. Go to your Facebook Page. At the top of your page, just under the header, you should see a field that says: \"What have you been up to?\"\n  2. Click in this field and write the following status message: _Not all Kickstarter accounts succeed, as Kickstarter is more than just crowdfunding. It is also a place for market testing and hard business lessons. (TM)_\n  3. Hold down the Shift button and then, with the Shift button still down, hit Return twice.\n  4. In this space, type the following link: http:\/\/teemorris.com\/2014\/03\/16\/lessons-learned-kickstarter\/.\n  5. Once the link preview appears in the post, select the link and empty space underneath your post, and remove it. This is just a nice way to clean up posts appearing on your Page in order to avoid double posting a URL. By entering Shift+Return, you do not prematurely make the post live on your Page or in your Feed.\n  6. Click the \"Post\" button.\n\n### Bookmark\n\n**NOTE:** If you have liked other Pages, sometimes you are offered options of names, places, and businesses that match up with what you are typing, even without adding the @ to what you are typing.\n\n#### Sharing a Post\n\n  1. On your Page, click on the Share option for a post. When you Share a post on a Facebook Page or in a friend's feed, not only will the post appear in its entirety on your friend's Facebook feed, but a link back to the page of origin will also appear on that feed, offering people a direct connection to your Page.\n  2. Click in the Post field and begin writing the following status message: _Here's a reminder that @One_. You should see a drop-down menu appear options for One-Stop pages. From the drop-down menu, select One-Stop Writer Shop from the offered Pages. In the field where you are composing your accompanying post, you will see a highlighted One-Stop Writer Shop link in the field.\n  3. Finish writing the status message: _...will be appearing in Richmond two nights after the release of DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT. Pick up your copy, attend the James River Writers_ __ _' WRITING SHOW, and get it signed!_\n  4. Single-click Share Link to make your post live.\n\n# Appendix E\n\n# Twitter\n\n## Setting Up a Twitter Account\n\nWelcome to the first step in building your Twitter network. Twitter developers want to help you through this process, as you will see when you set up your account.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nWhen coming up with a username for your Twitter account, it is a good idea to think _compact_ and _easy to type_. Replies on Twitter tend to be shorter for those with longer usernames (defined here as anything over ten characters), as the 140-character limitation does include the username.\n\n1. Go to http:\/\/twitter.com using your browser.\n\n2. Just underneath the New to Twitter? question, click Sign up.\n\n3. Enter your name, an e-mail, and a password. Once the fields are complete, single-click the \"Sign Up for Twitter\" button.\n\n4. Review what is listed for your Twitter credentials and single-click the \"Create My Account\" button.\n\n5. You will be asked to supply a phone number, which you can skip if you like.\n\n6. You will be taken through a process in which Twitter tries to learn more about you by asking you what you are interested in. Then it will try to find followers for you.\n\n7. After this, you will customize your profile, or you can skip this step and come back to it later. But you don't want to remain a Twitter egg for long.\n\n8. Next, Twitter will ask you to find people you know, which you can do using your e-mail contacts. You can also skip this step.\n\n9. Now you will be taken to your home page, with a pop-up prompting you to confirm your e-mail. Do it.\n\n10. If you have followed people in the previous steps, you will see their recent tweets pop up in your feed. A _tweet_ is a message shared on the public Twitter stream. The _Twitter stream_ shows the incoming messages from your network, and it appears on your public Timeline.\n\n11. Click on the camera icon on your profile and upload a snappy shot of yourself.\n\n12. Your Twitter account is now live and ready to go.\n\n## Getting to Know Twitter\n\nWelcome to Twitter! You could just head out from here, but there are other little touches that you can add to your Twitter account on your own time, and the following are recommended:\n\n  1. To access details in the previous image, go to your Twitter page by clicking on your profile in the top-left corner.\n  2. Now click on Edit Profile on the left. Here is where you spice up you profile. You should fill in your bio, location (something as simple as your state is fine), and, most important, your website. You can also tweak the theme's color.\n  3. Don't forget to add a header photo for the space behind your profile picture. This area can be easily customized. Whatever image you place here will be seen by all who pull up your profile, in all Twitter apps.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nIf you have difficulty uploading an image for Twitter, the photo's size or resolution may need to be reduced, or it could be the wrong format. Profile pics must be no larger than 700K and no larger than 600 x 600 pixels in dimension. Header images should be 1252 \u00d7 626 and no larger than 5 MB. Backgrounds can vary, but as they tend to be tiled when smaller than the screen resolution, we recommend using images that are 2000 x 2400. All of these images should be 72 pixels per inch (ppi), saved as either a JPEG or PNG, and use the RGB scale.\n\n## Talking on Twitter\n\nSo, if you haven't used Twitter before, you're probably thinking \"What about that whole 140-characters-or-less limitation? You really can't say a lot, can you?\"\n\nThis segment is less about unleashing your inner social media geek and more about embracing your inner editor.\n\n### Posting Your Tweet\n\nWhen you have the perfect tweet, what do you do with it? Well, you go on and you release it into the world, of course.\n\n  1. Go to Twitter using your Internet browser. If you are logged in and you told Twitter to remember you, you should still be logged in. (If not, go ahead and log in.) Depending on where you are in your Twitter account, you have two places where you can compose your tweet. You can click on the Home icon of your Twitter home page and use the Compose window offered in the left-hand sidebar or click on the quill icon in the upper right of the menu bar to access a separate Compose window.\n  2. In the Compose New Tweet window, enter in something like the following: _This is my first tweet. Thanks for the help on this, @1SWShop and @JamesRvrWriters. #rva #masterclass_\n  3. When you have your tweet composed and you checked for typos and grammar errors, you are one click away from communicating with your community and with the Twitter network.\n  4. Single-click the Tweet button. Your screen automatically refreshes, and your message appears at the top of your visible Timeline.\n\nYour message is now out in the Twitterverse for those in your network and (depending on the security you have in place) the Public Timeline to see.\n\nType. Proof. Post. That's all there is to it!\n\nNow that you are effectively tweeting, the next step is to respond to your first tweet and understand how to talk to another person on Twitter.\n\n### Replying to a Tweet\n\nAfter you post your tweet, someone might tweet back, \"Who is Tee Morris, and what does he have to do with Twitter?\" but the tweet will appear in your Timeline like this:\n\nTee Morris @TeeMonster\n\nYou're taking a master class in Richmond? Where? And who is @1SWShop and @JamesRvrWriters?\n\nThis is a reply or a _Notification_ on Twitter. A notification begins with a user's avatar, the replier's username, your username preceded by an @ symbol, and finally the tweet. By adding in the @ symbol and username, the mention is recognized by the Twitter home page (and other third-party applications) as a reply to you.\n\n  1. Whether you are in the Notifications mode or your Timeline window, find your mention. Single-click on the arrow labeled Reply to open a tweet field.\n  2. Enter your reply by clicking to the right of the Twitter handles. If you want to mention the other Twitter accounts in your reply, reposition them accordingly. Your reply, after editing, should look like this: _@TeeMonster Tee Morris is one of the @1SWShop founders and @JamesRvrWriters is hosting a Social Media master class._\n  3. Single-click on the Tweet button.\n\nYou'll be notified that your reply was sent. Notifications provide a quick connection to those following you, and you can give an @Mention to anyone on Twitter, even those outside your network.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nUnder Notifications, you will see two available options: _Interactions_ and _Mentions_. While Mentions reveals all of the replies your tweets are receiving, _Interactions_ is a more thorough look at the activity your Twitter account is experiencing in the network. This mode will also give you indications of who has started following you and when your tweets are _retweeted_ across the network. (An explanation of the retweet is coming next.)\n\nAnother form of replying is called the retweet. With a single click, you copy another Twitter account's tweet or reply. This kind of response is either preceded by an _RT_ : or it appears in your Timeline a second time with the title \"Retweeted by [Twitter Handle]\" above the original tweet.\n\n  1. In your Home Timeline window, find a tweet you want to share in your network. Single-click on the looping arrows labeled Retweet to open a Retweet window.\n  2. Single-click the Retweet button.\n\nYou should notice the Retweet option is now green and reads as retweeted in your Timeline.\n\nSome applications, both desktop and mobile, will offer a second option to _quote_ a tweet. This option allows you to add your own commentary into a retweet, if there are available characters remaining. Here's an example:\n\n@1SWShop \"@TeeMonster Tee Morris is the writer of All a Twitter and the teacher of the Social Media Mainline.\" He knows his stuff!\n\n **OR**\n\n@1SWShop RT: @TeeMonster Tee Morris is the writer of All a Twitter and the teacher of the Social Media Mainline. (He knows his stuff!)\n\nBy using quotes around what you are retweeting, or parentheses around what you are adding, you make sure to add your own spin on what is being said. Retweets are used to spread a message, a link, or just something really cool throughout the Twitter network.\n\n## Direct Messages\n\nA feature that has landed a few people in trouble (in that they didn't understand how Twitter operates), and that Twitter has worked hard to make foolproof (although fools still rush in), is the _Direct Message_ , or _DM_ as it is referred to in the Twitterverse. When you receive @Mentions, you catch them either in your network's Timeline or in your Notifications. Direct Messages are different. DMs are seen by you and only you (unless someone is looking over your shoulder, of course), and are found under _Messages_.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nUnlike @Mentions, which can be made to anyone in the Twitter network, Direct Message replies can be sent only to people who are following you.\n\n### Composing a Direct Message\n\n  1. On your Twitter home page, single-click the Messages option, the envelope\/speech bubble icon located after the Home and the Notifications icons.\n  2. Type in the Twitter name of the person you want to send a message to and click Next.\n  3. In the field at the bottom of the DM window, type in your message: _Hi there. Thank you for the follow. I love the class so far._\n  4. Single-click the Send Message button.\n\nThe DM you sent appears when you click on the envelope\/speech bubble icon. Now, the sender has been notified and you simply await a reply. To reply to a DM, the process is even easier.\n\n### Replying to a Direct Message\n\n  1. On your Twitter home page, check the envelope\/speech bubble icon. If a number appears, it means you have unread DMs. Single-click the icon.\n  2. The conversation will appear. Single-click the unread DM to view the conversation in its entirety.\n  3. In the field at the bottom of the DM window, type in a reply.\n  4. Single-click the Send Message button.\n\nAlthough this is a private means of communication on Twitter, keep in mind that there will be a delay between DMs, as tweets need to find their way through the network. If you need a quicker reply time, it would be a better idea to move the talk to Skype, AIM, or some other chat application. DMs are the best way to have private conversations with someone on Twitter. The messages remain between you and the recipient unless you move out of the DM section and into the public stream.\n\nAlso beware of accidentally typing a DM into the public stream. This kind of mistake is often called \"DM FAIL.\" The results can range from the embarrassing to the career breaking, so it never hurts to double-check that you are in fact sending a DM. Many celebrities and politicians have fallen victim to this faux pas, and we want to help writers avoid it.\n\n# Appendix F\n\n# Google+\n\n## Setting Up a Google+ Account\n\nGoogle does its best to make things as simple and integrated as possible for its users. Once you have a Google account, you can use it to access Google, Gmail, Chrome, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Play, and, best of all, Google+.\n\n  1. Go to https:\/\/accounts.google.com\/SignUp.\n  2. Enter the information required. It will let you know if the username you have chosen is already taken.\n  3. Agree to the terms and service, and click next.\n  4. You will have to verify your account with an e-mail, text message, or phone call.\n  5. Enter the verification number.\n  6. Set up your profile.\n  7. Click on the blue person icon in the top right-hand corner.\n  8. You'll be prompted to find people to connect with. You can search for them on Google+ or find friends on Yahoo! or even Hotmail.\n  9. Google will then ask you to follow things you love; you can either do this now or follow up later.\n  10. Fill in your profile, giving as much information as you are comfortable sharing\u2014don't forget to mention that you are an author! Use a good, representative picture of yourself, or if you are feeling brave, snap one from your camera.\n\nYour profile is now done, but let's take a tour of the place.\n\n## Getting to Know Google+\n\nOnce you have added people to your Circles, you will begin seeing their content on the Google+ home page. In the top bar, you will see you can filter this stream of content by Circles of friends, family, and others you have set up. It's a nice idea to make Circles for your professional interests: book bloggers, publishers, agents, and such.\n\nOn the left, directly below the Google+ logo, is the home icon with a downwards arrow. Hovering over this will bring up a menu of what you can access from here.\n\n### Profile\n\nThis lets you see your profile how others will see it. It's a good opportunity to consider the public face you are presenting. Click on View Profile As: and change from Public to Yourself. Here is where you can change your cover image, change which Circles you have people in, and add posts. You can share text, pictures, a link, a video, an event, or even run a poll.\n\n### People\n\nThis page will offer people Suggestions that are based on shared friends or interests that you have in common. Check under Added You below that. Google+ doesn't send you e-mail alerts when someone adds you, only messages under the bell icon in the top right corner, so these adds can pile up. Be sure to get around to sorting people into Circles, if you accept them, or you may ignore them as necessary. Gmail contacts will run through your Gmail in search of people you already are connected to. Google+ will also try to find more contacts for you, depending on your profession, where you went to school, or where you work. (It is frighteningly accurate with these things.) Finally, you can allow it to connect to your other e-mail accounts so it can hunt for contacts there.\n\n### Photos\n\nHere is where you will find, and can upload, all those images you want. It is also where you can find images that you are tagged in.\n\n### Collections\n\nHere is where you can group your posts by topic. It makes it easier for your followers who share a particular interest with you to find posts you've made about that interest. Once you've made your first collection, there will be a new tab available where you can access them.\n\n### Communities\n\nLike Facebook Groups, Google+ communities are built around shared interests. Google+ will try its best to figure out what communities you might be interested in. It wouldn't hurt to join a few writing-based ones, or you might even create one of your own.\n\n### Events\n\nGoogle+ will search out events from your circles and place them here. This is also where you can create your own event, such as a book launch, a reading, or a celebration Hangout.\n\n### Hangouts\n\nOne of the standout features of Google+, Hangouts is where it is happening. Clicking on this link will show you who in your Circles is having a Hangout. It is also the place where you can start a Hangout yourself. Time to get that book group or beta reader session going. Simply click on \"Start a Hangout on Air\" under \"Hangouts on Air,\" give it a name, and tell people what it is about. You can choose to start one immediately or schedule one for a later date or time. Also, you can select which of your Circles you would like to include. Consider your audience and whether you want to make the Hangout exclusive or for a wider audience.\n\n### Pages\n\nHere is where you find the Pages that you've created, and where you can manage them. Click on the Page if you have created one. Now you can add content, get insights into how your Page is doing, and start a Hangout for the Page. This is where you can also start a brand-new Page for a new series.\n\n### Settings\n\nHere is where you can alter all the setting for your account. Look particularly at the Notifications section and decide how much, and for what, you want Google to notify you about.\n\n### Top-Right Bar\n\nThe + icon, and\/or the home icon, will take you to the stream of information that all of your circles have produced, and you can post information there as well.\n\nThe grid of squares will bring up all the additional Google offerings, like Youtube.com, News, Calendar, Drive, Search, Maps, Play, and Gmail. Ain't integration great?\n\n  * The bell icon will show you all the notifications, including when you get mentioned and when people have added you to a circle.\n  * The plus sign in a box is another opportunity for you to post.\n  * The circle with your avatar is another way to get to your profile and your Pages, and to log out.\n\nBelow these icons are two final icons. The two people icon brings up suggestions of people to add, because Google+ needs you to create Circles as soon as possible. The quotation marks in a bubble will bring up recent Hangout information. There you'll see all your previous Hangouts and whether you missed a video call. Remember, by clicking on the down arrow to the right of Hangouts, you can set your mood, status, and notifications for Hangouts. It also lets those in your Circles see when you are online.\n\n# Appendix G\n\n# YouTube\n\n## Setting Up a YouTube Account\n\nIf you have a Google Account, you will be presented with a chance to use that account for YouTube. If you do not have one, you will be prompted to create one. Google is trying to integrate all of its different services under one umbrella.\n\nIn the realm of social networking, you will be asked a lot of personal information. Rarely will a social networking site ask for details and refuse access if you do not answer all of the data fields. However, the more you can offer potential contacts, the more success you will achieve in building strong communities. Give only as much information as you feel comfortable giving, but make sure you cover the basics: an avatar, your name, where you are, and what you are all about.\n\nOnce you have created your Google account, you will have access to all the features YouTube offers.\n\n## Getting to Know YouTube\n\nAll you need to do now is upload your video. Before reaching for just any media creation you have on hand, you should know something about what works (and what doesn't) on this video-sharing service. Videos appearing on YouTube must fit certain technical criteria. They must be:\n\n  * less than 10 minutes in length\n  * smaller than 100 MB\n  * in the format of AVI, MOV, MPG, or WMV\n\nIf your video fits this criteria, then you can begin the uploading process.\n\nA site similar to YouTube is _BlipTV_ (http:\/\/blip.tv). Like YouTube, BlipTV is also free and offers the same ability to share video from blog to blog. The downside is that its compression is much harder than YouTube, meaning the video quality will vary. The upside: There are no limitations. Your videos can be as long as you like.\n\n## Uploading Your Video on YouTube\n\nOnce you have the video criteria met, you can upload your video. You are only a few clicks away from uploading your media to the world's most popular video-sharing service.\n\n  1. Click on the Upload button located in the upper-right corner of YouTube's interface.\n  2. Click on Select File to Upload, and browse your computer to find the video file you want to upload. Select the video file and then single-click on Select to advance to the details page.\n  3. While the progress bar shows the uploading process, fill in details about the clip that will display on the video's page. Click on the Save Changes button to accept these details.\n  4. Click the Upload Video button located underneath the current video uploading to place a second video in your uploading queue.\n\nDepending on your connection and YouTube's traffic, the uploading process of your video will wrap up within minutes.\n\nOnce the video is online, your content is offered on your YouTube channel. The video will remain embedded on this page until you or YouTube removes it from the server.\n\nYouTube usually removes content from its server when the content violates its terms of service or if it violates copyright. In all other instances, the user will remove content from a YouTube channel.\n\nNow that you have your YouTube account set up and your first video online, let's share this video...\n\n## Embedding Your YouTube Video in a Blog\n\n  1. On the video's host page, look for the Embed field located to the right of the YouTube page.\n  2. Select Share and then Embed. Copy the code below into your clipboard either with CTRL + C (PC) or Command + C (Mac).\n  3. Go to your WordPress account, then to Posts > Add New, and compose a post that introduces your video clip.\n  4. After composing a brief introduction, switch composition modes from Visual to HTML and paste into your entry the embed code copies you took care of back in Step 2. When embedding your video, you cannot use the Visual editor, so you'll need to use the Code editor.\n  5. Click either Save Draft to save the draft for later or Publish to make the post live.\n\nNow you have video incorporated with a blog post, providing other bloggers the ability to distribute your video by sharing the embed code from blog to blog. While the traffic comes from many different locations, all your hits are recorded on YouTube, increasing your visibility for casual YouTube visitors. The site remains the most popular one for online video content and is regarded as the go-to for media sharing sites.\n\n# Appendix H\n\n# Pinterest\n\n## Setting Up a Pinterest Account\n\nYou can log into Pinterest with your Facebook account, but if you don't want to do that, follow these instructions:\n\n  1. Supply your e-mail address and create a password.\n  2. Provide your name, age, and gender.\n  3. In order to discover your interests, Pinterest has you pick at least five interests to begin with, but you can always add more later on. Click on Follow.\n  4. Pinterest will now gather Pins it thinks you will be interested in based on those initial choices.\n  5. Don't forget to confirm your e-mail address.\n\n### Settings\n\nGo to your profile. Clicking on the gear icon will bring up your account setting. Here is where you can personalize your Pinterest account. You can set your privacy settings so Google doesn't search your Pins. However, as a writer who's trying to get noticed, you probably don't want to do that\u2014the more ways people can find you, the better. You can decide if you want Pinterest to send you e-mail notifications when someone repins one of your Pins or a selection of other activities. You can also choose to set up your other social media accounts to post when you Pin. Pinterest can post directly to your Facebook Timeline, your Twitter Stream, and your Google+ Page. These settings should be used with caution, however, as you don't want to flood all of your feeds with the same information and risk driving people away.\n\n## Getting to Know Pinterest\n\nWhen you first log into Pinterest, you won't see much. Only a few boards will be available, originating from your suggestions as a new pinner, but soon enough you'll be pinning from all over the place. Let's look over the layout.\n\nOn the left is the small Pinterest logo. Clicking on this will always bring you back to the home page. Next to the logo is the search bar where you can input keywords to look for items of interest pinned by others. Right next to it is a three-line icon. This will bring up categories you can use to find interesting items.\n\nTo the right of that should be your name. Clicking on this will bring you to your boards.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nIf you want to share a board (for instance with a publicist, co-writer, or your personal assistant) then simply go to your board, click Edit Board, and add the e-mail of that person under collaborators. Once she has accepted your invitation, she will be able to pin to your board, and you can set about making magic together ... or at least an interesting board.\n\nOn the right now should be your Edit Profile button. Use this if you want to tweak your profile in any way after the initial setup.\n\nNext to that, the gear icon is your account settings if you want to change your original setup. If you have converted your personal account into a business one (see Chapter 8), then this is where you will access your analytics information. It's also the place to create widget code to place into your own Web page. Finally, you can also log out here, but that's not something you have to do unless you have multiple accounts.\n\nBack in the main page, the last icon next to your name is a double-pin icon. This is where you access News (what other people are doing), You (what other people are doing with your information, repinning, liking, and also anyone you know through other networks who has just joined Pinterest), and Messages. Unlike some other media platforms, you're not likely to get too many messages, but do keep an eye on it.\n\nFinally, and most important, on the bottom left of the page is a plus symbol. This is where you can upload images directly, or from the Web, and create another board. Remember, while a Pin is an image or video, a board is a collection of Pins. Keep that kitchen corkboard in mind and it'll be easy to remember.\n\nNow that we've had a quick tour of the Pinterest neighborhood, let's see what we can do with it.\n\n## Working with Pinterest\n\nLike all of the social networks, the key is community. Luckily, Pinterest makes it very easy to go out and find your community.\n\nFirst of all, search \"authors,\" \"writers,\" or \"[insert your genre here] books.\" You can choose to follow the boards you find, but if you check a little deeper into the owner of the board, you might find other common interests. You can chose to follow all or just some of their boards.\n\nAs we said in earlier chapters, don't just stick with your colleagues. Broaden those horizons! Find people who share other interests with you as well. The most popular pins on the site are cooking and dining, DIY and crafting, health, funny stories, beauty and fashion, and technology.\n\nFind some boards and pinners that you find interesting and follow away. If you do so, your Pin stream will be full of interesting pictures and videos. These are great resources for repinning.\n\nWhen you click on a Pin, it will become much larger, and if you click again, if there is a link, you will be taken to that site. Or you can simply click on the Visit Site button for the same effect.\n\nIt's a good idea to check links, because some less moral pinners might try a bait-and-switch\u2014or the link might have been removed or moved. Remember, you want to provide your audience with great content, so it's worth it to take a moment to examine what you are repinning.\n\nRepinning is a great way to enhance your feed and the community, and to pad how often you are marketing those books of yours.\n\nIt really is very simple. When you hover over other people's Pins, you hit the Pin It button. Then you have a choice of which board you want to Pin to and whether you want to add a description.\n\nAs on other social media platforms, commentary is a good idea here. You can put the original information in some square brackets and then put your comment before or after that. In this way, you preserve the original pinner's words, which makes you a good community member. Your comments can be as simple as \"I'm going to try and make these muffins!\" or \"This looks like a dress my heroine in [insert my title] would wear.\"\n\n### Bookmark\n\nIt is always good Pinterest etiquette to credit your sources if you can. Also, using other people's images but linking to your blog or Web page is an underhanded practice and can inspire people to leave negative comments. Don't do it if you want to develop a good Pinterest reputation.\n\nIf you have a contact on Pinterest who you think would really appreciate a particular Pin, you can send it directly to that person. Use this feature with caution, and never try and spam people with your Pins!\n\nFinally, there is the Heart button, which is similar to the Like button on Facebook. Commentary and repinning is the nicest way to show appreciation, but if it doesn't fit in with any of your boards, this is a way to give the original pinner a thumbs up.\n\n## Making Your First Board\n\nCreating boards on Pinterest is easy, and don't be afraid of making too many. The more boards, the more interests, and the more views. From your profile, click on the large gray plus sign with Create a board. From here give your board a name and a description, and find a category it fits into. Map will create a map, which will link to Pins\u2014this is a great idea if your board is travel themed. You can also choose to make the board secret or not. Secret boards, as we talked about in Chapter 8, are great for saving items to Pin later, or for boards about projects you're not quite ready to talk about yet. You can also add collaborators and choose if they can add new members to this board themselves.\n\n### Uploading a Pin of Your Own\n\nNow to the exciting stuff. Let's add some content of your own. Book covers, fan art, images of people you'd like to see play your characters, places where you have set your stories\u2014all of these make excellent uploads.\n\n  1. Click on the plus icon and chose the image from your computer. It can be a GIF, JPEG, or PNG file. Choose the board you want to add it to, or create a new board for this image ... but only if it fits in with your interests. Too many boards with only a few images are not enticing.\n  2. The important part of this Pin is the description. Keep in mind what your readers might be looking for. Include a substantial description about what this image means to you.\n  3. Don't forget a couple of hashtags, and if it is relevant, now is the time to insert a link. The link should, at the very least, lead back to your website; if not, link to a location where the all-important impulse buy can be made.\n\nFinally, if you have connected other social networks, you can choose to post it there.\n\nThere\u2014you've done it. You have your first original Pins!\n\n# Appendix I\n\n# Instagram\n\n## Setting Up an Instagram Account\n\nGetting an account together on Instagram is quite easy, provided you have the app loaded onto your smartphone. Instagram is available on iOS (iPhone), Android, and Windows, and runs on all varieties of smartphones.\n\nFirst, download and install Instagram onto your smartphone from the App Store for your device.\n\n  1. Launch Instagram on your phone. Your options for establishing an Instagram account include using your Facebook credentials or your e-mail. Use whichever method works best for you. The steps we outline here apply to using an e-mail to register your Instagram account.\n  2. Tap Register with E-mail, and on the next screen, enter the following:\n  3. a username (the nickname you want to go by on Instagram)\n  4. a password\n  5. a valid e-mail address\n  6. Tap the Photo icon in the center of the screen and select a photo (or take a new one) for your profile picture. Choose one that best represents you as an author.\n  7. Tap the arrow pointing right to follow validation steps (which requires you to reply via e-mail) to finish your profile.\n\nThe _profile_ , like other profiles you will find online, is the place where you can introduce yourself. You can edit this content at any time from your account or from the app by tapping on the profile icon on the far right of the menu bar and then tapping the Edit Your Profile option.\n\n## Getting to Know Instagram\n\nNow your account is ready to go, so let's check out some of the features.\n\nFirst off, you will see immediately that Instagram is not designed as a desktop app but more for \"capturing it instantly\" through your smartphone. (Now the name makes sense, right?) In fact, you cannot upload photos or video from your computer\u2014all your Instagram posting has to be done through your phone.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nAnother terrific way to track popular tags on Instagram is by allowing the website Statigram1http:\/\/statigr.am access to your Timeline. Statigram allows you to look up photos through hashtags in a gallery-style format, unlike Instagram, which allows you to look up hashtags one account at a time. Other options that Statigram offers include account statistics, enhanced comment postings, and network maintenance.\n\nTake a look at the menu bar running along the bottom of Instagram. These five icons are all the options you need to get around the Instagram app, build your Instagram network, and interact with others. From left to right, your icons are as follows:\n\n  * **Home:** The _Home_ icon takes you to your Timeline of Instagram users. Their posts will appear here. You will also see an inbox icon, which is where you can send and receive direct messages.\n  * **Explore:** If you want to check out and follow popular accounts on Instagram, search for users you might know, or look up hashtags people are attaching to their images, you can do all this in the _Explore_ option by tapping on the compass rose icon.\n  * **Camera:** When you are ready to take a photograph with Instagram, tap the camera icon. Depending on your preferences, your screen will be divided into thirds (a photographer's trick for framing up your subject), or it will provide just a clear view from the lens. Tapping on the screen will establish what you want the focus point of the photo to be. You can also flip the camera around for _selfies_ (self-portraits), choose a _flash mode_ , and switch to _video mode_ (the icon to the right) or back to _still camera mode_ (the icon to the left). The center button can take photos (when blue) or shoot video (when red).\n  * **Notifications:** The speech bubble with the heart is where you go to receive and track _Notifications_. There are two modes here: _Following_ and _News_. Keep your Notifications on News in order to see who's following you and to track who Likes your photos.\n  * **Profile:** This final icon is where you can edit your profile. Once in your profile, edit your Preferences by tapping the gear icon in the top-right corner of your smartphone. This option also lets you find out what photos you've been tagged in.\n\nLet's jump right in and start taking photos with Instagram. More important, let's look at how we can take a photograph with the app and then share the photo across a number of social networks.\n\n## Taking a Photo on Instagram\n\nTap on the Camera icon and take a photo.\n\n  1. You can now apply some of the various filters Instagram offers. There are quite a few of them, and you can have a lot of fun trying to find the best one for your image. Instagram lets you see exactly how the photo will look with the filter applied before you commit to it.\n  2. Tap the far-left icon, the Straighten tool. Place and hold your finger on the Adjustment wheel and rotate the image either right or left. Then tap Done to return to the Edit mode.\n  3. With the Border option, you can determine whether you want your image to have a border (blue) or no border (white).\n  4. The Blur option offers three modes:\n  5. None (white),\n  6. Circle (blue drop with circle), and\n  7. Bar (blue drop with bar).\n  8. Tap each mode to decide where you want the blur and which design works best for your image.\n  9. Lux allows you to adjust the contrast in the photo. Tap to make adjustments, and then tap Done to return to the original image.\n  10. Tap Next to enter the Share mode, or tap the left arrow at the top of the screen to return to Photo Edit mode.\n\nThe appeal of Instagram is taking a simple image and getting creative with it. After applying filters and effects on this image, you can then post on Instagram, and on Facebook and Twitter as well. It gives amateurs the chance to have some fun with photographs.\n\nNow we have to share this image through our social networks.\n\n  1. In Instagram's Share to mode, compose a caption for the photo. Don't forget that there are two kinds of sharing in Instagram: _Followers_ and _Direct_. Followers are open posts on your network. Direct messages are similar to DMs on Twitter. Images and video shared in Direct mode allow you to share with select members of your network.\n  2. Add two hashtags related to your photo, then tap OK in the upper-right corner of the screen. The _Tag People_ option is best used only after your network is up and running. This is how you can tag friends who appear in the image. Notification of tagging appears under your _Profile_ option.\n  3. Now tap Name This Location to tag your location.\n  4. If you are tagging your location, leave Add to Photo Map turned on. Some people do not like others to know where they are or where they have been. Use your own discretion on this.\n  5. There are eight social networks you can connect to your Instagram:\n  6. Facebook\n  7. Twitter\n  8. Tumblr\n  9. Flickr\n  10. Foursquare\n  11. Mixi (Japan)\n  12. Weibo (China)\n  13. NKontakte (Russia)\n  14. Tap each network where you want to share this image.   \nIf you have not connected your networks to Instagram, you will be walked through a log-in process. You will only have to make this connection once.\n  15. Tap Share to post your image.\n\nThere you go! You will see your image appear instantly on your Instagram Timeline; if you also tapped _Facebook_ and _Twitter_ before tapping the Share feature, you have effectively shared your image across three networks in one post.\n\nMany popular applications\u2014Pinterest, YouTube, Yelp, Starbucks, Vivino, and Untappd, for example\u2014allow for multiplatform posting like this. The networks offered may differ from app to app, but Facebook and Twitter are often offered as posting platforms.\n\nInstagram is one such app that is popular among apps for its artistic capabilities, its ease of use, and its engaging content generated for Facebook and Twitter.\n\n### Bookmark\n\nInstagram can post on Facebook accounts but not on Pages accounts. To put Instagram postings on Pages, you will need to share them from your personal account to your Page.\n\n1http:\/\/statigr.am\n\n# Contents\n\n  1. Title Page\n  2. Copyright Page\n  3. Dedication\n  4. Acknowledgments\n  5. About the Authors\n  6. Foreword\n  7. Introduction: Welcome to Your Social Media Survival Guide\n    1. Understanding Social Media\n    2. What You Need to Make This Book Work\n  8. Chapter 1: WordPress\n    1. Why WordPress?\n  9. Chapter 2: Tumblr\n    1. What Is the Difference Between WordPress and Tumblr?\n    2. Expressing Yourself: Producing Content\n    3. What to Expect from the Tumblr Community\n    4. Sharing with the Class: Syndicating Media\n    5. Tumblr Strategies\n  10. Chapter 3: Podcasting\n    1. Writers Gone Wild: Talk Shows\n    2. Anthologies in Audio: Short Stories\n    3. Going All In: Podcast Novels\n    4. Why Should You Podcast?\n    5. Why Shouldn't You Podcast?\n    6. Why Do We Still Podcast?\n  11. Chapter 4: Facebook\n    1. Facebook for Writers\n    2. Content Marketing: The Science of Promotion by Example\n  12. Chapter 5: Twitter\n    1. First Impressions at a Glance\n    2. Mastering Tweet Speak: Composing Messages on Twitter\n    3. Best Practices for Twitter\n    4. You Did Not Just Tweet That: _Worst_ Practices for Twitter\n  13. Chapter 6: Google+\n    1. Google+ for Writers: The Account vs. The Page\n  14. Chapter 7: YouTube\n    1. Action Editing: Software for Video Editing\n    2. Turning Authors on to YouTube\n    3. Best Practices on YouTube\n  15. Chapter 8: Pinterest\n    1. Tools of the Trade: Pinterest Applications\n    2. Game On: Pinterest Competitions\n    3. It's Business Time: Pinterest Business\n    4. Watch Where You Point That Pin: Pinterest Strategies\n  16. Chapter 9: Instagram\n    1. Platform Management: Connecting Instagram with Other Social Networks\n    2. Beyond Instagram: Third-Party Apps\n    3. Best Practices on Instagram\n  17. Chapter 10: Additional Options\n    1. Goodreads\n    2. Reddit\n    3. Storify\n    4. A Social's Social: Untappd, Vivino, and Distiller\n    5. Tsu.co\n  18. Chapter 11: SEO\n    1. Why SEO Doesn't Work (as the \"Gurus\" Claim It Does)\n    2. How to Make SEO Work for You\n    3. The SEO That Can Hurt You\n    4. Best Practices of SEO\n  19. Chapter 12: Content Marketing\n    1. How Does Promoting Others Really Work for You?\n    2. What Content to Look for in Content Marketing\n    3. When Content Marketing Goes Bad\n  20. Chapter 13: Best Practices in Social Media\n    1. Create an Editorial Calendar\n    2. Think Before You Post\n    3. Participate in Blog Tours\n    4. Create Quality Content\n    5. Be Visual When Possible\n    6. A New Use for the Pound Symbol: Hashtags\n    7. Taking P!nk's Advice: Facebook Parties\n    8. Planning Makes Perfect: Before That Social Media Event\n    9. Attribution, Not Imitation, Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery\n    10. Seek Out Your Audience\n    11. Have a Plan\n    12. Focus on Maintaining a Signal, Not Creating Noise\n    13. Antisocial Media: What to Avoid in Online Promotion and Networking\n  21. Appendix A: WordPress\n    1. Setting up a WordPress Account\n    2. Getting to Know WordPress\n    3. Creating Content\n  22. Appendix B: Tumblr\n    1. Setting up a Tumblr Account\n    2. Getting to Know Tumblr\n    3. Posting to Tumblr\n    4. Reblogging\n  23. Appendix C: Podcasting\n    1. An Introduction to Podcasting\n    2. The Mixing Board: Bridging the Gap Between Microphone and Computer\n    3. What's Next: Other Details for an Audio Studio\n  24. Appendix D: Facebook\n    1. Setting Up a Facebook Account\n    2. Getting to Know Facebook\n    3. The Left-Hand Sidebar\n  25. Appendix E: Twitter\n    1. Setting Up a Twitter Account\n    2. Getting to Know Twitter\n    3. Talking on Twitter\n    4. Direct Messages\n  26. Appendix F: Google+\n    1. Setting Up a Google+ Account\n    2. Getting to Know Google+\n  27. Appendix G: YouTube\n    1. Setting Up a YouTube Account\n    2. Getting to Know YouTube\n    3. Uploading Your Video on YouTube\n    4. Embedding Your YouTube Video in a Blog\n  28. Appendix H: Pinterest\n    1. Setting Up a Pinterest Account\n    2. Getting to Know Pinterest\n    3. Working with Pinterest\n    4. Making Your First Board\n  29. Appendix I: Instagram\n    1. Setting Up an Instagram Account\n    2. Getting to Know Instagram\n    3. Taking a Photo on Instagram\n\n# Guide\n\n  1. Cover\n  2. Contents\n  3. Start of content\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":" \nHISTORICAL DICTIONARIES OF RELIGIONS, PHILOSOPHIES, AND MOVEMENTS\n\nJon Woronoff, Series Editor\n\n_Orthodox Church_ , by Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, and Michael D. Peterson, 1996\n\n_Civil Rights Movement_ , by Ralph E. Luker, 1997\n\n_Catholicism_ , by William J. Collinge, 1997\n\n_North American Environmentalism_ , by Edward R. Wells and Alan M. Schwartz, 1997\n\n_Taoism_ , by Julian F. Pas in cooperation with Man Kam Leung, 1998\n\n_Gay Liberation Movement_ , by Ronald J. Hunt, 1999\n\n_Islamic Fundamentalist Movements in the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey_ , by Ahmad S. Moussalli, 1999\n\n_Cooperative Movement_ , by Jack Shaffer, 1999\n\n_Kierkegaard's Philosophy_ , by Julia Watkin, 2001\n\n_Slavery and Abolition_ , by Martin A. Klein, 2002\n\n_New Religious Movements_ , by George D. Chryssides, 2001\n\n_Prophets in Islam and Judaism_ , by Scott B. Noegel and Brannon M. Wheeler, 2002\n\n_Lesbian Liberation Movement: Still the Rage_ , by JoAnne Myers, 2003\n\n_Descartes and Cartesian Philosophy_ , by Roger Ariew, Dennis Des Chene, Douglas M. Jesseph, Tad M. Schmaltz, and Theo Verbeek, 2003\n\n_Witchcraft_ , by Michael D. Bailey, 2003\n\n_Unitarian Universalism_ , by Mark W. Harris, 2004\n\n_New Age Movements_ , by Michael York, 2004\n\n_Organized Labor_ , _Second Edition_ , by James C. Docherty, 2004\n\n_Utopianism_ , by James M. Morris and Andrea L. Kross, 2004\n\n_Feminism_ , _Second Edition_ , by Janet K. Boles and Diane Long Hoeveler, 2004\n\n_Jainism_ , by Kristi L. Wiley, 2004\n\n_Wittgenstein's Philosophy_ , by Duncan Richter, 2004\n\n_Schopenhauer's Philosophy_ , by David E. Cartwright, 2005\n\n_Seventh-day Adventists_ , by Gary Land, 2005\n\n_Methodism_ , _Second Edition_ , by Charles Yrigoyen Jr. and Susan E. Warrick, 2005\n\n_Sufism_ , by John Renard, 2005\n\n_Sikhism_ , _Second Edition_ , by W. H. McLeod, 2005\n\n_Kant and Kantianism_ , by Helmut Holzhey and Vilem Mudroch, 2005\n\n_Olympic Movement_ , _Third Edition_ , by Bill Mallon with Ian Buchanan, 2006\n\n_Anglicanism_ , by Colin Buchanan, 2006\n\n_Welfare State_ , _Second Edition_ , by Bent Greve, 2006\n\n_Feminist Philosophy_ , by Catherine Villanueva Gardner, 2006\n\n_Logic_ , by Harry J. Gensler, 2006\n\n_Leibniz's Philosophy_ , by Stuart Brown and Nicholas J. Fox, 2006\n\n_Non-Aligned Movement and Third World_ , by Guy Arnold, 2006\n\n_Salvation Army_ , by Major John G. Merritt, 2006\n\n_Judaism_ , _Second Edition_ , by Norman Solomon, 2006\n\n_Epistemology_ , by Ralph Baergen, 2006\n\n_Bah\u00e1'\u00ed Faith_ , _Second Edition_ , by Hugh C. Adamson, 2006\n\n_Aesthetics_ , by Dabney Townsend, 2006\n\n_Socialism_ , _Second Edition_ , by Peter Lamb and James C. Docherty, 2007\n\n_Marxism_ , by David M. Walker and Daniel Gray, 2007\n\n_Nietzscheanism_ , _Second Edition_ , by Carol Diethe, 2007\n\n_Medieval Philosophy and Theology_ , by Stephen F. Brown and Juan Carlos Flores, 2007\n\n_Shamanism_ , by Graham Harvey and Robert Wallis, 2007\n\n_Ancient Greek Philosophy_ , by Anthony Preus, 2007\n\n_Puritans_ , by Charles Pastoor and Galen K. Johnson, 2007\n\n_Green Movement_ , _Second Edition_ , by Miranda Schreurs and Elim Papadakis, 2007\n\n_Husserl's Philosophy_ , by John J. Drummond, 2008\n\n_Existentialism_ , by Stephen Michelman, 2008\n\n_Zionism_ , _Second Edition_ , by Rafael Medoff and Chaim I. Waxman, 2008\n\n_Coptic Church_ , by Gawdat Gabra, 2008\n\n_Jehovah's Witnesses_ , by George D. Chryssides, 2008\n\n_Hume's Philosophy_ , by Kenneth R. Merrill, 2008\n\n_Shakers_ , by Stephen J. Paterwic, 2008\n\n_Native American Movements_ , by Todd Leahy and Raymond Wilson, 2008\n\n_Mormonism_ , _Third Edition_ , by Davis Bitton and Thomas G. Alexander, 2008\n\n_Hegelian Philosophy_ , _Second Edition_ , by John W. Burbidge, 2008\n\n_Ethics_ , by Harry J. Gensler and Earl W. Spurgin, 2008\n\n_Environmentalism_ , by Peter Dauvergne, 2009\n\n_Bertrand Russell's Philosophy_ , by Rosalind Carey and John Ongley, 2009\n\n_Baptists_ , _Second Edition_ , by William H. Brackney, 2009\n\n_Islam_ , _Second Edition_ , by Ludwig W. Adamec, 2009\n\n_Homosexuality_ , by Brent L. Pickett, 2009\n\n_Buddhism_ , by Carl Olson, 2009\n\n_Holiness Movement_ , _Second Edition_ , edited by William Kostlevy, 2009\n\n_Reformed Churches_ , _Second Edition_ , by Robert Benedetto and Donald K. McKim, 2010\n\n_The Reformation and Counter-Reformation_ , by Michael Mullett, 2010\n\n_Heidegger's Philosophy_ , _Second Edition_ , by Frank Schalow and Alfred Denker, 2010\n\n_Jesus_ , by Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., 2010\n\n_Metaphysics_ , by Gary Rosenkrantz and Joshua Hoffman, 2011\n\n_Shinto_ , _Second Edition_ , by Stuart D. B. Picken, 2011\n\n_The Friends (Quakers)_ , _Second Edition_ , by Margery Post Abbott, Mary Ellen Chijioke, Pink Dandelion, and John William Oliver Jr., 2011\n\n_Lutheranism, Second Edition_ , by G\u00fcnther Gassmann with Duanne H. Larson, and Mark W. Oldenburg, 2011\n\n_Hinduism, New Edition_ , by Jeffery D. Long, 2011\n\n# Historical Dictionary of Hinduism\n\nNew Edition\n\nJeffery D. Long\n\nThe Scarecrow Press, Inc.\n\nLanham \u2022 Toronto \u2022 Plymouth, UK  \n2011\nPublished by Scarecrow Press, Inc.\n\nA wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.\n\n4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200\n\nLanham, Maryland 20706\n\n<http:\/\/www.scarecrowpress.com>\n\nEstover Road\n\nPlymouth PL6 7PY\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2011 by Jeffery D. Long\n\n_All rights reserved_. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.\n\nBritish Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\np. iv\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\nLong, Jeffrey D.\n\nHistorical dictionary of Hinduism \/ Jeffrey D. Long. -- New ed.\n\np. cm. -- (Historical dictionaries of religions, philosophies, and movements)\n\nUpdated and revised ed. of: The A to Z of Hinduism \/ Bruce M. Sullivan.\n\nIncludes bibliographical references.\n\nISBN 978-0-8108-6764-2 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-8108-7960-7 (ebook)\n\n1. Hinduism--Dictionaries. I. Sullivan, Bruce M., 1951- A to Z of Hinduism. II. Title.\n\nBL1105.S847 2011\n\n294.503--dc222011013053\n\n  The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences\u2014Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI\/NISO Z39.48-1992.\n\nPrinted in the United States of America\nFor Billy\n\n# Contents\n\nEditor's Foreword _Jon Woronoff_\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nReader's Note\n\nAcronyms and Abbreviations\n\nChronology\n\nIntroduction\n\nTHE DICTIONARY\n\nBibliography\n\nAbout the Author\n\n# Editor's Foreword\n\nHinduism is the world's third-largest religion and still growing, with about 900,000,000 adherents at present. It is also the oldest major religion, with a tradition reaching back not just centuries but millennia, with many notable peaks and periods of glory. It has influenced and been affected by other world religions, including Islam and Buddhism as well as Christianity. Yet, despite repeated attempts to contain it, it has maintained an exceptional vigor and boasts a rich spiritual culture with celebrated thinkers and teachers and an extensive literature. Nonetheless, it is rather poorly known outside of India and the surrounding region, and the fascination in the West with some aspects has perhaps been less enlightening than mystifying. We are familiar with things like caste, guru, karma, meditation, ashram (\u0101\u015brama), and even the sacred cow. But we know pitifully little about its basic writings and principal beliefs and practices. Gradually, as more Hindus move to the West, that is changing, but the change is slow because, among other things, Hinduism is not particularly easy to understand, especially when coming from another horizon.\n\nThis _Historical Dictionary of Hinduism_ should contribute to a greater understanding\u2014or at least less misunderstanding\u2014by presenting the religion in very comprehensible terms. This means, among other things, providing biographical sketches of particularly significant persons as well as further information on the movements, schools, and communities they founded. Other entries deal with the basic writings, doctrines, and practices. But inevitably many more have to clearly explain the basic concepts, some of these best conveyed by the Sanskrit term and others, more or less effectively, by an English translation. This is embedded in a chronology reaching back four and a half millennia that then focuses on an impressively active past century or so. The introduction covers this long period as well, showing how Hinduism has evolved and grown, emphasizing many highlights and turning points. Although this volume already contains an amazing amount of information, quite enough for those who are casually interested, specialists and those with more precise interests can find ample additional reading in the bibliography.\n\nThis completely new edition of the _Historical Dictionary of Hinduism_ is particularly useful for various reasons. Certainly one is that its author, Jeffery D. Long, himself originally came from another horizon, Catholicism, so he first saw Hinduism from outside before getting to know it better from inside. Moreover, he has spent the past decade explaining it to students at the Department of Religious Studies at Elizabethtown College, where he has been working as an associate professor and as department chair. Over the years, he has written substantially on Hinduism, starting with his doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago's Divinity School and continuing with several dozen articles and reviews as well as two recent books, _A Vision for Hinduism: Beyond Hindu Nationalism_ and, on a related religious current, _Jainism: An Introduction_. In addition, he has served as chair of the steering committee of the Dharma Academy of North America and is currently cochair of the North American Hinduism Consultation of the American Academy of Religion. This permits him to present Hinduism to a broad public, including both initiates and those who are curious but have found it hard to get comprehensible answers to their questions elsewhere.\n\nJon Woronoff\n\nSeries Editor\n\n# Acknowledgments\n\nI thank the following persons who have made it possible for me to complete this project.\n\nFirst, Jon Woronoff, the editor of the Scarecrow Press series of Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements, who invited me to write this book. I found Jon to be very kind and generous in regard to deadlines, and also most helpful and prompt in responding to my questions and concerns and in giving editorial suggestions.\n\nI also thank my department colleagues and the administration of Elizabeth-town College for granting me a one-year sabbatical (consisting of a reduced teaching load and a bare minimum of department chair\u2013related duties) in order to help me complete this project.\n\nI thank all of my teachers, colleagues, and fellow Hindus who, over the years, have added to my knowledge base and put me in a position to even contemplate taking on a project such as this. I hope this book is useful to you and to future generations of scholars in the field of Hindu studies.\n\nA special word of gratitude goes to my wife and best friend, Mahua Bhattacharya, who has been, as always, encouraging and patient. I am sorry for all of the times we have had to forego seeing a movie or taking a drive because \"I need to work on my _Historical Dictionary of Hinduism_!\"\n\nReaders of my previous two books, _A Vision for Hinduism_ and _Jainism: An Introduction_ , may recall my mentioning in the acknowledgments of those books my orange tabby cat, Billy, who was constantly at my feet during the writing of those books and was always a dear and supportive presence. During the writing of this book, Billy was diagnosed with, and eventually succumbed to, a very aggressive lymphoma. The _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ and the Ved\u0101nta tradition that I practice tell me that the soul continues on, and I believe this to be true. But there is an empty space at my feet and sorrow in my heart as I share this news with my readers. I dedicate this book to Billy.\n\n# Reader's Note\n\nThe bulk of the terminology in this dictionary is in Sanskrit and other Indic languages. The scripts (\"alphabets\") of these languages are phonetic in nature\u2014that is, each of the characters stands for exactly one sound, and there is a character for each sound. As a result, the Indic scripts have far more characters than the mere 26 of the Roman alphabet used in English and most western European languages\u2014about 50, to be precise. In order to render words from Indic languages in the Roman script in an exact way that does not lend itself to mispronunciation, scholars have developed a system of diacritical marks in order to distinguish between, for example, the short \"a\" of Sanskrit (pronounced like the \"u\" in \"bud\") and the Sanskrit long \"\u0101\" (which is pronounced like the \"a\" in the English word \"father\"). The correct pronunciation of the Indic sounds, as depicted using the standard system, is as follows:\n\na This is pronounced \"uh,\" as in \"bud.\"\n\n\u0101 This is pronounced \"ah,\" as in \"father.\"\n\ni This is pronounced like the \"i\" in \"bit.\"\n\n\u012b This is pronounced like the \"ee\" in \"beet.\"\n\nu This is pronounced like the \"oo\" in \"book.\"\n\n\u016b This is pronounced like the \"oo\" in \"boot.\"\n\n\u1e5b This is pronounced like the \"ri\" in \"rig,\" with a slight roll of the tongue, though not as hard a roll as in Spanish \"r.\"\n\ne This is pronounced like \"ay\" in \"say.\"\n\nai This is pronounced like \"aye\" or \"eye.\"\n\no This is pronounced \"oh,\" as in \"Ohio.\"\n\nau This is pronounced like \"ow\" in \"how.\"\n\nConsonants are pronounced as in English, but retroflex consonants (consonants with a dot under them, such as \"\u1e6d\") are pronounced with the tongue touching the roof of the mouth.\n\nAspirated consonants are immediately followed by an \"h\" (for example, \"th,\" \"dh\") and include an exhalation\u2014that is the \"h\" is pronounced, producing somewhat of a softening of the sound of the consonant. The \"h\" is _not_ a separate syllable. So \"dha\" is pronounced \"dha,\" and not \"daha.\"\n\nThe \"\u015b\" and \"\u1e63\" sounds are almost indistinguishable and are sometimes confused even by native speakers. The \"\u1e63\" sound is pronounced with the tongue at the roof of the mouth, but \"\u015b\" is not. They both sound like the \"sh\" in \"she.\"\n\nThe sound \"\u1e25,\" which is always preceded by a vowel, produces a slight echoing of that vowel. So \"a\u1e25\" is pronounced \"aha.\" The sound \"\u1e43\" is a slightly nasalized \"m\" which sounds almost like an \"n\" and bears some resemblance to the nasalized French \"n.\"\n\nI have used this system for most terms in this dictionary, except for most modern proper names that have a popular spelling (such as \"Ramakrishna\"). For the sake of consistency I have also tended to use Sanskrit terminology, even when the corresponding Hindi term is better known (so \"avat\u0101ra\" instead of \"avatar\").\n\nThis book is extensively cross-referenced. In the dictionary section, if there is an entry on a specific topic, this is shown by bolding it the first time it appears (with the exception of \"Hindu\" and \"Hinduism\"). Other related entries are listed as _See also_. If a topic does not have an entry of its own, but it appears under another heading or is amply discussed there, it is indicated by a _See_.\n\n# Acronyms and Abbreviations\n\nBAPS Boc\u0101sanv\u0101s\u012b Ak\u1e63ar Puru\u1e63ottam Sw\u0101m\u012bn\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47 Sansth\u0101\n\nBJP Bh\u0101rat\u012bya Janat\u0101 Party\n\nD\u0100NAM Dharma Academy of North America\n\nHAF Hindu American Foundation\n\nISKCON International Society for Krishna Consciousness\n\nRKM Ramakrishna Mission\n\nRSS R\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dr\u012bya Svayamsevak Sa\u1e45gh\n\nSRF Self-Realization Fellowship\n\nTM Transcendental Meditation\n\nVHP Vi\u015bva Hindu Pari\u1e63ad\n\n# Chronology\n\nAll dates are CE (Common Era; AD) unless otherwise indicated. Most pre-modern dates are approximations, especially for the composition of texts. Most Hindu chronologies traditionally locate texts far earlier than does modern scholarship. The dates given here generally reflect the modern scholarly consensus. It should be noted, however, that texts were often transmitted orally for many generations before taking their current form. So it may be that the beginning of this process of composition and transmission extends back considerably further than modern scholarship, which focuses on the texts in their extant form, suggests.\n\n**c. 50,000 BCE** Stone Age cultures arise in the Indian subcontinent.\n\n**c. 30,000 BCE** Bhimbetka cave paintings drawn, including depictions of horses.\n\n**7000\u20135000 BCE** Mixed pastoral and agricultural settlements, centered on Mehrgarh, emerge in what is today western Pakistan.\n\n**4000\u20133000 BCE** Proto-Indo-European language breaks up into distinct languages.\n\n**c. 3000 BCE** Pastoral nomadic societies are prominent in northern India.\n\n**c. 2700 BCE** Large-scale urban societies emerge along the Indus and Sarasvat\u012b Rivers, in continuity with the culture of Mehrgarh.\n\n**2600\u20131900 BCE** Indus Valley\/Indus-Sarasvat\u012b Civilization, advanced urban phase.\n\n**2300\u20132000 BCE** Indo-European speakers in the Ural region of Russia are the first to invent chariots with light spokes, as described in the _\u1e5ag Veda_.\n\n**c. 2200 BCE** Sumerian texts mention trade with the land of _Meluhha_ , possible reference to the Indus Valley Civilization.\n\n**c. 2100 BCE** Indo-European speakers are living in Persia and Afghanistan.\n\n**1900\u20131800 BCE** The Sarasvat\u012b River dries up and the Indus River changes course, leading to massive disruption of the economy of the Indus-Sarasvat\u012b Civilization, with most of its cities being abandoned. A slow but major migration begins from the Indus-Sarasvat\u012b region to the Ganges River Valley.\n\n**1900\u20131700 BCE** Indo-European speakers are living in Northwestern India.\n\n**1900\u20131200 BCE** Indus Valley Civilization gradually declines.\n\n**1700\u20131500 BCE** Composition of _\u1e5ag Veda_. Horses and light-spoked chariots present in Northwestern India.\n\n**c. 1500 BCE** Submergence of the stone port city of Dv\u0101rak\u0101, on the coast of Gujarat, site associated with K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, suggesting a possible date for the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ war.\n\n**c. 1300 BCE** Hittite inscriptions contain references to Vedic deities.\n\n**1200\u20131000 BCE** Composition of _Yajur Veda_ and _S\u0101ma Veda_.\n\n**c. 1000 BCE** The city of Kau\u015b\u0101mbi in Vatsa, in central India, is founded.\n\n**c. 950 BCE** Date for the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ battle preferred by most scholars.\n\n**c. 900 BCE** Composition of _Atharva Veda_. Vedic peoples move more deeply into the Ganges Valley. City of K\u0101\u015bi (Banaras) is founded.\n\n**850\u2013750 BCE** Life of P\u0101r\u015bvan\u0101tha, 23rd T\u012brtha\u1e45kara of Jainism.\n\n**800\u2013600 BCE** Composition of the _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ , early priestly commentaries on the _Vedas_.\n\n**600\u2013500 BCE** Composition of the _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_ , or \"forest texts.\"\n\n**518 BCE** Persians invade Northwest India, under Emperor Darius I.\n\n**c. 500 BCE** _\u015arauta S\u016btras_ , _Ved\u0101\u1e45gas_ , and _B\u1e5bhaddevat\u0101_ (Sanskrit commentaries upon Vedic rituals and deities) are composed. City of Pataliputra founded. Vedic peoples go south.\n\n**500\u2013400 BCE** _B\u1e5bhad\u0101ra\u1e47yaka_ , _Ch\u0101ndogya_ , _Taittir\u012bya_ , and _Kau\u1e63\u012btaki Upani\u1e63ads_ are composed.\n\n**499\u2013427 BCE** Life of Vardham\u0101na Mah\u0101v\u012bra, 24th T\u012brtha\u1e45kara of Jainism.\n\n**490\u2013410 BCE** Life of Siddh\u0101rtha Gautama, the Buddha.\n\n**c. 400 BCE** P\u0101\u1e47ini's _A\u1e63\u1e6dadhy\u0101y\u012b_ , major work on Sanskrit grammar, composed.\n\n**400\u2013300 BCE** _Ka\u1e6dha_ , _\u015avet\u0101\u015bvat\u0101ra_ , and _Mu\u1e47\u1e0daka Upani\u1e63ads_ are composed.\n\n**350\u2013283 BCE** Life of Kau\u1e6dilya (Canakya), advisor to Candragupta Maurya, to whom the _Artha \u015a\u0101stra_ , a work of political science, is attributed.\n\n**327\u2013325 BCE** Alexander of Macedon invades Northwest South Asia.\n\n**320\u2013293 BCE** Reign of Candragupta Maurya, founder of the Mauryan Dynasty.\n\n**c. 300 BCE** Greek ambassador Megasthenes travels to India.\n\n**300\u2013200 BCE** Composition of _G\u1e5bhya S\u016btras_ (outlines of rituals for householders), Gautama's _Ny\u0101ya S\u016btra_ , Ka\u1e47\u0101da's _Vai\u015be\u1e63ika S\u016btra_ , Jaimini's _P\u016brvam\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 S\u016btra_ (the foundational documents, respectively, of the Ny\u0101ya, Vai\u015be\u1e63ika, and P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 _dar\u015banas_ , or systems of philosophy), and Kau\u1e6dilya's _Artha \u015a\u0101stra_.\n\n**300 BCE\u2013100 CE** Composition of major _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ , or legal texts.\n\n**300 BCE\u2013300 CE** Composition of _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_.\n\n**268\u2013233 BCE** Reign of A\u015boka, Mauryan emperor and renowned convert to Buddhism.\n\n**c. 250** **BCE** Third Buddhist Council takes place at Pataliputra, under A\u015boka's auspices.\n\n**c. 200 BCE** B\u0101dar\u0101ya\u1e47a's _Ved\u0101nta S\u016btras_ composed, which summarize the philosophy of the _Upani\u1e63ads_.\n\n**200 BCE\u2013200 CE** _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ composed.\n\n**184 BCE** Mauryan Dynasty ends. Hindu general Pu\u015byamitra \u015au\u1e45ga founds \u015au\u1e45ga Dynasty.\n\n**166 BCE\u201378 CE** Greeks, Scythians, Bactrians, and Parthians enter India.\n\n**c. 150 BCE** Buddhist monuments of Bharhut and Sanchi are built during \u015au\u1e45ga Dynasty.\n\n**150 BCE\u2013100 CE** Pata\u00f1jali's _Mah\u0101bh\u0101\u1e63ya_ , a work of Sanskrit grammar, composed.\n\n**100 BCE\u2013100 CE** _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ composed.\n\n**100 BCE\u2013200 CE** _Tirukkural_ composed in southern India.\n\n**100 BCE\u2013500 CE** Pata\u00f1jali's _Yoga S\u016btra_ composed.\n\n**73 BCE** Hindu \u015au\u1e45ga Dynasty ends, replaced by the Buddhist Ku\u1e63\u0101na Dynasty.\n\n**78\u2013140 CE** Central Asian Ku\u1e63\u0101na king Kani\u1e63ka reigns and promotes Buddhism.\n\n**c. 100** Composition of _Manusm\u1e5bti_. Composition of Sangham poetry in southern India.\n\n**100\u2013500** Expansion of Hinduism and Buddhism into Southeast Asia through trade.\n\n**250\u20131200** Major _P\u016br\u0101\u1e47as_ composed, texts consisting largely of tales of the deeds of Hindu deities, forming the basis of much of the theological writing of the Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava, \u015aaiva, and \u015a\u0101kta theistic traditions, which all become highly prominent during this period.\n\n**c. 300** V\u0101tsy\u0101yana composes the _K\u0101ma S\u016btra_.\n\n**320\u2013550** Gupta Dynasty reigns over northern India from P\u0101\u1e6daliputra, does much to promote Hinduism in period sometimes called \"Hindu Renaissance.\"\n\n**375** Pallava Dynasty is founded in southern India.\n\n**c. 400** K\u0101lid\u0101sa writes Sanskrit plays and long poems; also the period of astronomer and mathematician \u0100ryabha\u1e6d\u1e6da.\n\n**405\u2013411** Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Faxian visits India.\n\n**c. 450** _Hariva\u1e43\u015ba_ composed.\n\n**455\u2013467** The Huns attack northern India.\n\n**460\u2013477** The Vakataka Dynasty completes the caves at Ajanta in central India.\n\n**500\u2013900** Period of the N\u0101yan\u0101r \u015aaiva Tamil poets.\n\n**550\u2013575** Kalachuris create the cave of \u015aiva at Elephanta.\n\n**550\u2013880** C\u0101lukya Dynasty, based in Bad\u0101mi, Karnataka, thrives, controlling much of southern and central India.\n\n**570\u2013632** Life of Prophet Muhammad, founder of Islam, in the Arabian Peninsula.\n\n**600\u2013900** Period of the \u0100\u1e37v\u0101r Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava Tamil poets.\n\n**606\u2013647** Reign of Har\u1e63a of Kanauj over much of northern India.\n\n**630\u2013644** Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang visits India.\n\n**650** Arab armies reach the Indus after conquering Persia.\n\n**650\u2013800** Early Tantras are composed.\n\n**711\u2013715** Arabs invade Northwestern India.\n\n**765\u2013773** R\u0101ja K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a I creates the Kail\u0101sa temple to \u015aiva at Ellora in central India.\n\n**788\u2013820** Life of \u015aa\u1e45kara (\u0100di \u015aa\u1e45kar\u0101c\u0101rya), major exponent of Advaita Ved\u0101nta and founder of the Da\u015ban\u0101mi order of monks; born in Kerala, though he travels throughout India.\n\n**c. 800** M\u0101\u1e47ikkav\u0101cakar composes the _Tiruv\u0101cakam_ in southern India.\n\n**880\u20131200** Co\u1e37a Empire dominates South India.\n\n**900\u20131150** The Chandellas build the temples at Khajuraho.\n\n**973\u20131048** Life of al-B\u012brun\u012b, Arab traveler, documents Hindu beliefs and customs.\n\n**950\u20131020** Life of \u015aaiva philosopher Abhinavagupta, in Kashmir.\n\n**1001** Mahmud of Ghazni (979\u20131030) raids north India.\n\n**1021** Ghaznavid (Turkish) Muslim capital established at Lahore.\n\n**1077\u20131157** Life of R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja, \u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava theologian and founder of the Vi\u015bi\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101dvaita system of Ved\u0101nta, in Tamil Nadu.\n\n**1120\u20131145** Building of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, a major Hindu and Buddhist temple complex.\n\n**1192\u20131206** Muhammad of Ghor establishes Ghorid Muslim capital at Delhi.\n\n**c. 1200** Early orders of Sufis thrive in north India, V\u012bra\u015baivas (Basava) in the south. Jayadeva's _G\u012bt\u0101govinda_ , a major Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava devotional work is composed in Bengal.\n\n**1210\u20131526** The Delhi Sultanate is in power.\n\n**1238\u20131258** Narasi\u1e43hadeva I builds the sun temple of Kon\u0101rak in Orissa.\n\n**1238\u20131317** Life of Madhva, Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava theologian and founder of the Dvaita system of Ved\u0101nta, in Karnataka.\n\n**c. 1300** \u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47avas split into Te\u1e45kalai and Va\u1e6dakalai sects.\n\n**1325\u20131351** Muhammad bin Tughluq reigns from Delhi.\n\n**1336\u20131565** Vijay\u0101nagara Empire is in its prime.\n\n**1440\u20131518** Life of Kab\u012br, major figure of the S\u0101nt movement, which draws upon both Hinduism and Islam for inspiration.\n\n**1399** Timur, ruler of Central Asia, destroys Delhi.\n\n**1469\u20131539** Life of Guru N\u0101nak, founder and first guru of Sikhism, in the Punjab.\n\n**1486\u20131533** Life of Caitanya, Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava saint and founder of Acintya Bhed\u0101bheda Ved\u0101nta, in Bengal; major inspiration for the Bengali Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava tradition (and, in the modern period, for both Ramakrishna and ISKCON).\n\n**1498\u20131547** Life of Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava saint M\u012br\u0101 Bai in R\u0101jasth\u0101n.\n\n**1526** Babur founds the Mughal Empire.\n\n**1530\u20131556** Reign of Mughal Emperor Humayun.\n\n**1532\u20131623** Life of Tuls\u012bd\u0101s, author of the _R\u0101mcaritm\u0101nas_.\n\n**1556\u20131605** Reign of Mughal Emperor Akbar.\n\n**1600** Queen Elizabeth I charters the British East India Company.\n\n**1605\u20131627** Reign of Mughal Emperor Jahangir.\n\n**1608\u20131649** Life of Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava saint Tuk\u0101r\u0101m.\n\n**1627\u20131658** Reign of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal.\n\n**1658\u20131707** Reign of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.\n\n**1713\u20131719** Reign of Mughal Emperor Farrukhsiyar.\n\n**1757** British defeat Muslim rulers in Bengal. First wave of British R\u0101j begins under the British East India Company.\n\n**1758\u20131828** Life of Charles \"Hindoo\" Stuart, first \"white\" Hindu of the modern period.\n\n**1772\u20131833** Life of R\u0101m Mohan Roy, founder of the Brahmo Sam\u0101j.\n\n**1803\u20131882** Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher and a leading figure of the Transcendentalist movement, heavily influenced by early English translations of Hindu texts such as the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ and the _Upani\u1e63ads_.\n\n**1824\u20131883** Life of Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b, founder of the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j.\n\n**1828** Founding of Brahmo Sam\u0101j by R\u0101m Mohan Roy.\n\n**1831\u20131891** Life of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society.\n\n**1836\u20131886** Life of Sri Ramakrishna, guru of Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda, in Bengal.\n\n**1838\u20131894** Life of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, major Bengali literary figure.\n\n**1847\u20131933** Life of Annie Besant, leader of the Theosophical Society and of the Indian National Congress.\n\n**1857\u20131858** The Rebellion, or War of Independence, known in British histories as the Sepoy Mutiny.\n\n**1858** Final phase of the British R\u0101j begins when the British viceroy officially replaces both Mughal rule and the East India Company.\n\n**1861\u20131941** Life of Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel laureate and Bengali cultural hero.\n\n**1863\u20131902** Life of Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda, founder of the Ramakrishna Order, Ved\u0101nta Society, and Ramakrishna Mission.\n\n**1869\u20131948** Life of Mohand\u0101s K. (Mah\u0101tma) G\u0101ndh\u012b, leader of the nonviolent movement for Indian independence.\n\n**1872\u20131950** Life of Aurobindo Ghose, Hindu nationalist leader (in his early years) and Hindu sage and founder of Integral Yoga (in his later years).\n\n**1875** Founding of \u0100rya Sam\u0101j and Theosophical Society.\n\n**1879\u20131950** Life of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Hindu sage of southern India.\n\n**1888\u20131975** Life of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, philosopher and statesman.\n\n**1891\u20131956** Life of Bh\u012bmrao Ambedkar, Dalit leader and author of the constitution of India.\n\n**1893** Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda speaks at the Parliament of World Religions, in Chicago.\n\n**1893\u20131952** Life of Paramah\u0101\u1e43sa Yog\u0101nanda, founder of Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF).\n\n**1893\u20131976** Life of Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhav\u0101nanda, prominent monk of the Ramakrishna Order and founder of the Ved\u0101nta Society of Southern California whose disciples included Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley.\n\n**1895\u20131983** Life of Vinoba Bhave, Gandhian activist.\n\n**1896\u20131977** Life of A. C. Bhaktived\u0101nta Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhup\u0101da, founder and _\u0101c\u0101rya_ of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).\n\n**1896\u20131982** Life of \u0100nandam\u0101y\u012b M\u0101, female guru and Hindu saint.\n\n**1897** Founding of Ved\u0101nta Society in America by Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda.\n\n**1916\u20131993** Life of Sw\u0101m\u012b Chinmay\u0101nanda.\n\n**1918\u20132008** Life of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation.\n\n**1919** Amritsar massacre takes place, helping turn the tide of world opinion against British rule of India.\n\n**1927\u20132001** Life of Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, founder of _Hinduism Today_.\n\n**1931\u20131990** Life of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho), controversial Tantric guru.\n\n**1935** Birth of Sw\u0101m\u012b Agnive\u015ba, founder of the World Council of the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j.\n\n**1947** Independence and partition of India on 15 August.\n\n**1948** Assassination of Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b by Nathuram Godse on 30 January.\n\n**1951** Bh\u012bmrao Ambedkar leads mass conversion of Dalits to Buddhism.\n\n**1953** Birth of Amma (M\u0101t\u0101 Amrit\u0101nandamay\u012b), the \"Hugging Saint.\"\n\n**1966** Founding of ISKCON in New York City.\n\n**1968** The Beatles travel to Rishikesh, India, to study Transcendental Meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.\n\n**1970** Hindus in Europe, the United States, and Canada start building temples on a large scale.\n\n**1984** Massive Hindu\u2013Sikh riots sparked by Indian army attack on the Golden Temple of Amritsar and assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Many Sikhs immigrate to the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.\n\n**1992** Demolition of Babr\u012b Masj\u012bd in Ayodhy\u0101, followed by Hindu\u2013Muslim riots.\n\n**2002** Hindu\u2013Muslim riots in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, claim hundreds of lives.\n\n**2004** Manmohan Singh elected first Sikh prime minister of India.\n\n**2009** President Barack Obama acknowledges Hinduism as a significant part of religious life in America in his inaugural address; later in the year, he sends Diwali greeting to Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs.\n\n**2010** Indian high court resolves Babr\u012b Masj\u012bd issue by dividing the land between Hindu and Muslim organizations. Though there are objections to the decision, the responses of both sides are nonviolent.\n\n# Introduction\n\n_Hinduism_ \u2014the name evokes a topic so vast that one despairs of being able to cover it in an adequate fashion in a single volume. At the same time, this term does point to something distinctive\u2014a tradition, or rather a family of traditions, that today commands the loyalty of over 900,000,000 human beings, making it the third-largest religion in the world, in terms of the numbers of its adherents, after Christianity and Islam. It is the fourth largest if one considers the category variously described as \"nonreligious,\" \"secular,\" \"agnostic,\" or \"atheist\" to be something akin to a religion (or at least a distinct worldview and value system), which ranks third. It nearly ties with Islam, however, if one regards Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism\u2014as many Hindus do\u2014as part of the same family of traditions that is called _Hinduism_. (The reactions of Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs to being perceived by at least some Hindus as, in some sense, fellow Hindus, vary greatly, ranging from a sharp rejection to indifference to acceptance.)\n\nThe Hindu community is today a global one, though the vast majority of Hindus reside in India and in countries immediately adjacent to it, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Contrary to one popular understanding, however, Hinduism is not limited only to people with an Indian or South Asian ethnic identity. There have been Hindus in Southeast Asia\u2014that is, Hindus indigenous to Southeast Asia\u2014for over a millennium and a half, and Bali, in Indonesia, continues to be home to a thriving Hindu community today. There is also a growing number of converts to Hinduism from Europe, North and South America, Australia, and Africa, as well as practitioners of traditions with a clear Hindu provenance\u2014such as Siddha Yoga, Ved\u0101nta, and Transcendental Meditation\u2014that do not necessarily identify themselves as _Hindu_. And there are those non-Hindus who observe Hindu practices and hold Hindu beliefs without necessarily realizing that this is what they are doing: vegetarians, practitioners of yoga, believers in reincarnation, and those who believe that there are many paths to salvation. Enough such people exist in the Western world to lead a recent commentator on religion to remark, \"We're all Hindus now.\"1\n\nBut what is Hinduism? What is the history of this vast and internally varied tradition? It has become something of a truism among scholars of religion to say that \"Hinduism does not exist.\" Although offensive to many Hindus (since no one likes to be told the tradition they practice and hold dear does not exist), the truth to which this claim, rather clumsily, points is that the term _Hinduism_ has, historically, been imposed upon what are now called Hindu traditions by outsiders, many of whom were invested in the colonial exploitation of the Indian subcontinent. The terms _Hindu_ and _Hinduism_ were utterly foreign to most Hindus for most of history\u2014a fact that can be expressed far less paradoxically in the form \"There was no Hinduism for most of history, until 19th-century scholars created it.\" But this is also highly unsatisfactory, because those who do regard themselves as Hindus also see themselves and their traditions as being in continuity with a very ancient set of practices and beliefs that is as old as civilization itself.2 In many works by Hindu authors, one frequently encounters the claim that Hinduism is the oldest of the world's religions.\n\nThe term _Hindu_ \u2014derived from a Persian mispronunciation of _Sindhu_ , the river known to the Greeks as the _Indus_ \u2014was originally used by Persian and Arab travelers to refer to the people who lived beyond the Indus River. In other words, _Hindu_ , originally just meant _Indian_. This usage continued into the period of the British R\u0101j, whose colonial scholars coined the term _Hinduism_ to refer to the religious beliefs and practices native to India, in contrast with such non-indigenous Indian religions as Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism\u2014all of which have been practiced in India for centuries, alongside the native Indian traditions. Over the course of time, as Western knowledge of the Indian traditions increased, a distinction was made between those traditions that professed the sanctity of an ancient set of religious texts called the _Vedas_ and those that did not. _Hinduism_ came to refer, then, to the subset of indigenous Indic traditions that observed the sanctity of the _Vedas_. The non-Vedic traditions\u2014Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism\u2014came to be defined as distinct and separate religions.\n\n_Hinduism_ , defined as the collective term for the Vedic traditions, is a term with a number of flaws and limitations. On the one hand, it obscures the many differences among these traditions\u2014including the degree to which the _Vedas_ are even relevant to their day-to-day practice. The daily rituals of a Sm\u0101rta Brahmin, for example, are quite heavily shaped by Vedic injunctions and additional injunctions that are contained in a set of texts based on the _Vedas_ \u2014the _Sm\u1e5btis_ \u2014that this community takes to be authoritative. But such injunctions are altogether irrelevant to the spiritual life of a V\u012bra\u015baiva. And a member of the Aghor\u012b sect will even deliberately invert them. On the other hand, the definition of _Hindu_ as _Vedic_ can also downplay the many close similarities between Vedic traditions and non-Vedic ones. The basic worldviews of a Ved\u0101ntin, a Buddhist, and a Jain, for example, are not all that different from each other on a host of religiously important topics. And if one goes to Sanjusangendo, a famous Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan, which enshrines 1,001 forms of the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokite\u015bvara, one will find that these forms are guarded by images of all of the major Vedic deities. Not far from Kyoto, the Buddhist monks of the Shingon sect regularly perform a fire ceremony that is called _goma_ and is clearly modeled on the Vedic _homa_ ritual at their monastery on Mount Koya. The Jain community in India celebrates the holiday D\u012bwali by worshiping the goddess Lak\u1e63m\u012b. Numerous other examples of shared practices, deities, symbols, and concepts could be cited as well, not least being the cosmology of karma and rebirth and a soteriology centered on liberation from this process.\n\nThe understanding of _Hinduism_ , however, as Vedic religion, with whatever inadequacies this understanding may have, is the one that is deployed by most mainstream scholarship on Hindu traditions. One must always remember that terms and categories are scholarly tools. They do not necessarily correspond precisely to what is \"there\" in terms of ground realities. Rather, they seek to clarify for us what is \"there.\" Sometimes they are useful in doing this, and at other times they may need to be set aside in favor of other categories that may be more illuminating in particular situations.\n\nWith the understanding, therefore, that the terms _Hindu_ and _Hinduism_ are relatively new arrivals on the scene of world history and that our use of them to refer to ancient realities is an anachronism\u2014referring actually to practices and beliefs with which those who today call themselves _Hindu_ see their own traditions to be in historical continuity\u2014we can turn to an overview of the history of Hinduism.\n\n## THE QUESTION OF ORIGINS: HINDUISM AND EARLY INDIAN CIVILIZATION\n\nUnlike most of the world's religions, Hinduism does not originate from the teachings of a single founding figure. There is no equivalent, for all of Hinduism, to a Jesus, a Buddha, or a Prophet Muhammad. There are, instead, many such figures\u2014founders of particular lineages or \"subtraditions\" that collectively make up what we now call Hinduism. And there are innumerable local traditions that have emerged in conversation with one another over the course of many centuries. Hinduism, one could say, is the ethos of a civilization. Presentations of the history of Hinduism, therefore, usually begin with a look at the earliest phases of civilization in the Indian subcontinent.\n\nHuman beings have been present in the Indian subcontinent almost as long as there have been human beings. One of the first waves of human migration out of Africa carried a group of early humans to southern Asia, and various groups of migrants have passed both in and out of the subcontinent ever since. Indian Stone Age culture is in evidence starting around 50,000 BCE. The Bhimbetka cave paintings, traced to around 30,000 BCE and discovered in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, depict human beings engaged in warfare, riding on horses and elephants, and deploying technologies such as spears and tents (probably made from the hides of animals).3 The first settled, non-nomadic cultures began to appear in the region of Mehrgarh (a town in what is now Pakistan) around 7000 BCE. The people of Mehrgarh practiced a mix of pastoralism and agriculture.4\n\nThere is close continuity\u2014a claim based on the artwork depicted on pottery\u2014between this early community and the very highly developed Indus Valley Civilization, which was at its technological height from roughly 2600 to 1900 BCE. With planned cities and a very advanced knowledge of sanitation and irrigation, the people of the Indus Valley achieved one of the highest standards of living in the ancient world.5\n\nUnfortunately, the writing system of this civilization has not yet been deciphered. This makes all claims about its religious beliefs and practices a matter of conjecture, based on interpretation of artifacts rather than on the direct statements of the Indus people. A good deal of evidence has been discovered, however, that indicates a number of continuities\u2014though not necessarily a perfect correspondence\u2014between beliefs and practices in the Indus Valley and those of later Hinduism. Examples include figures that appear to be practicing some form of yoga, figures with features in common with the Hindu deities \u015aiva and \u015aakti, large public baths and a broader cultural preoccupation with cleanliness and sanitation and a reverence for water that all resonate with Hindu practice, and figures making the traditional Hindu gesture of respect\u2014or _a\u00f1jali_ \u2014that consists of the palms of the hands being placed together. Other practices of the Indus civilization, not of a religious nature, that persist in later Indian culture include its highly developed system of weights and measures and a system of social organization based on occupation that has some resemblance to the later caste system. It is not clear if the occupational groups in the Indus civilization were arranged in a hierarchy. The different groups appear to have had segregated living arrangements, which suggests that they were endogamous, like the castes of later Indian society. But there is no discernible difference in the quality of their living arrangements, which suggests an egalitarian, rather than hierarchical, relationship. Interestingly, some contemporary Hindus do claim that the castes were originally on an equal footing.6\n\nThe Indus Valley Civilization entered a rather drastic period of decline around 1900 BCE due primarily to geological factors. A series of devastating earthquakes resulted not only in the destruction of many Indus cities but also in the Indus River changing its course, as a result of which some cities were flooded and others that had been prosperous trading ports were left high and dry.\n\nRecent studies have also revealed that the Indus had a companion, the Sarasvat\u012b\u2014a river that, judging by the sheer number of settlements found along what used to be its banks, may have been more central to the life of the civilization than the Indus itself. Because of this, some scholars have argued that the civilization should be called not the Indus Valley Civilization, but the Indus-Sarasvat\u012b Civilization (or even the Sarasvat\u012b Civilization). The Sarasvat\u012b River dried up completely in some places due to the same tectonic shifts that changed the course of the Indus, and in some places it went underground. What little of it that remains on the surface is a periodic stream\u2014that is, a stream that is dry during part of the year and has running water during the rainy season\u2014called the Gaggar-Hakra.\n\n## THE EARLY VEDIC PERIOD\n\nAccording to mainstream scholarship, the next phase of Indian civilization, and so of the history of Hinduism, begins with the arrival in India of small waves of migrants from the area of Central Asia. Filtering gradually into the northwestern region of the subcontinent beginning around 1900 BCE, these migrants spoke an Indo-European language and used small, light chariots of a kind developed in southern Russia between 2300 and 2000 BCE. Settling in India and gradually blending into the indigenous population, the language and cultural practices of this community are preserved in the _Vedas_ , the oldest extant texts of Hinduism. These texts were gradually compiled into four collections called the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , _S\u0101ma Veda_ , _Yajur Veda_ , and _Atharva Veda_. These texts date from roughly 1700 BCE (in the case of the oldest parts of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , the oldest of the Vedic texts) to 900 BCE (the approximate date of the _Atharva Veda_ , the last of the Vedic collections, or _Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s_ , to be compiled).\n\nGeographic points of reference in the _Vedas_ suggest that the texts were composed in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, showing greatest familiarity with the area now known as Punjab. They also suggest that the community that composed them did not see themselves as newcomers to the region, there being no overt references to another homeland or to migration from such a homeland to India. Vedic Sanskrit, the language in which these texts were composed, also shows evidence of a non-Indo-European substrate, suggesting that this community was multilingual, or at least that it had already had a good deal of interaction with persons of another language group, adopting words and ways of speaking different from those of their Indo-European-speaking ancestors.\n\nThe _Vedas_ and the religious practices and beliefs that they represent were not, therefore, imported _in toto_ to the subcontinent from outside. They are, rather, the product of a long process of cultural hybridization of Indo-European and non-Indo-European elements that had already been underway for some time\u2014at least two centuries, if current scholarship is correct\u2014prior to the composition of these texts.\n\nIt was long believed by many scholars that Indo-European culture was brought to India in a sudden and violent invasion and that this invasion was the cause of the fall of the Indus Valley Civilization. But it is now known that this was not the case. The evidence points instead to the geological changes mentioned above as the chief culprit in the decline of the Indus culture. The Indo-European migrants did not cause the fall of, but rather filled a vacuum created by the already declining, Indus Valley Civilization.\n\nIt is also likely that the descendants of the Indo-European migrants helped to preserve the Indus culture. Vedic references, for example, to the Sarasvat\u012b River in the present tense, as a wide, flowing river with many settlements on its banks, suggest that the _Vedas_ are a repository not only of Indo-European culture but of indigenous Indus Valley Civilization cultural elements and other indigenous Indian elements as well\u2014an idea that is consistent with the thesis that these texts are the product of centuries of cultural hybridization.\n\nThis picture of the past is a point of contention among some scholars today. An alternate view, according to which the _Vedas_ predate the Indus Valley Civilization, being written at the time of the mixed pastoral and agricultural society that existed between 7000 BCE and the advanced urban phase of the Indus Valley that began around 2600 BCE, has been defended by a number of scholars\u2014particularly Hindu scholars\u2014who argue that this view is more consistent with traditional Hindu accounts of ancient Indian history and point to the highly conjectural nature of the dates assigned to the Vedic texts, as well as political misuses of early, racially tinged versions of the \"\u0100ryan Invasion Theory.\" This \"Out of India\" theory suggests that northwestern India, not Central Asia, is the Indo-European homeland and that Indo-European language and culture spread from India to Ireland (the extreme eastern and western ends of the Indo-European cultural sphere), rather than out of Central Asia in both directions.7\n\nMainstream scholarship tends to reject this view, based on such factors as the non-Indo-European substrate elements in Vedic Sanskrit\u2014the most ancient Indo-European language found in India\u2014and various discontinuities between the culture of the Indus Valley and that described in the _Vedas_ \u2014such as the nearly total absence of the horse in the Indus Valley culture and its ubiquity in Vedic writings. The Indo-European homeland would show evidence of a \"pure\" Indo-European language, not an Indo-European language that has been transposed onto an older set of indigenous languages, as Vedic Sanskrit is. And if the Indus Valley culture is in direct continuity with Vedic culture\u2014rather than being one element among many that constitute it\u2014one would expect stronger continuities than those that have been discovered.\n\nAt the same time, it is fair to say that there remain a good many unknown factors at play in this issue\u2014not the least of which are the language and the meaning of the small pieces of text that are available in the Indus Valley script. Therefore a full, comprehensive, and uncontested picture of the ancient history\u2014or prehistory\u2014of Hinduism remains elusive.8\n\n## THE LATER VEDIC PERIOD: THE EMERGENCE OF THE FOUR YOGAS\n\nOur picture of Hinduism becomes much clearer, and less contested, as we move beyond the early Vedic collections and into the later Vedic texts of the first millennium BCE\u2014like the _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ (\"Priestly Texts\"), _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_ (\"Forest Texts\"), and _Upani\u1e63ads_ (\"Esoteric Teachings\"). Through these successive \"layers\" of text, one can trace the development of Vedic thought from a series of reflections on the nature of ritual to a grand cosmological vision of the oneness of existence.\n\nLater Hindu tradition conceives of spiritual practice as consisting of three, and sometimes four, distinct disciplines ( _yogas_ ) or paths: the _karma yoga_ , or the way of action; the _j\u00f1\u0101na yoga_ , or the way of wisdom; and the _bhakti yoga_ , or way of devotion. _Dhy\u0101na yoga_ , or meditation, (also known as _r\u0101ja yoga_ , the royal path) is sometimes added to these as a fourth.9 Each of these four types of Hindu practice can be seen as representing a distinct historical trend, or movement, within the history of the tradition.\n\nKarma yoga, the way of action, originated as the practice of Vedic ritual as outlined in the early Vedic collections of hymns and the _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ , or \"Priestly Texts,\" which date from roughly 800 to 600 BCE. The main emphasis of early Vedic religion was correct performance of the ritual of sacrifice, or _yaj\u00f1a_ , which was seen as essential to upholding and maintaining the world. The oldest Vedic sacrifices were modeled on and conceived as repetitions of the original sacrifice by which the gods (or _devas_ ) created the world from the body of a primordial being\u2014the Cosmic Man, or _puru\u1e63a_. These sacrificial rituals tapped into the power of creation itself\u2014an energy field known as Brahman (literally, \"that which is expansive\"). The Vedic priest, or Brahmin, was one who had the knowledge of the correct performance of the sacrifice and was thus able to tap into and deploy this creative power for ends such as ensuring the health and prosperity of the community.\n\nIn the _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_ , or \"Forest Texts\" (composed from around 600 to 500 BCE) and even more fully in the _Upani\u1e63ads_ (secret or esoteric doctrine\u2014composed from around 500 BCE up to the first century of the Common Era), the emphasis shifted from the performance of ritual action to the transformative power of the knowledge that made such ritual action effective. This knowledge came to be seen as the true and final purpose, or \"end,\" of the Veda ( _Ved\u0101nta_ ), of which the ritual was merely an outward expression or manifestation. It was a knowledge that consisted of the realization that Brahman, the ground of being, and one's innermost self, or _\u0101tman_ , were one and the same.\n\nWith this emphasis on the way of wisdom\u2014what later came to be known as j\u00f1\u0101na yoga\u2014there emerged a distinctive worldview in which the ritual of the sacrifice was extended to encompass all of life. A ritual act, or _karma_ , which in the early Vedic literature was said to lead to a desired effect if performed well and to its opposite if performed poorly, came to refer to all action. Karma began to take on a distinctly ethical tone, as referring to any morally good or evil action, along with the inevitable effects of such actions\u2014an effect of the unity of existence as constituting a single, internally connected cosmic ritual arena.\n\nBecause one did not experience all the good and bad effects of one's actions in a single lifetime, it was deduced that one would eventually be reborn to experience these effects in a future lifetime. Similarly, the unequal circumstances of the births of all living beings came to be explained as being the result of actions performed in previous lives. The goal of the way of wisdom is to become free from this cycle of action and reaction: to achieve a true and lasting peace rather than the merely temporary goods and to escape from the inevitable loss and suffering that characterize life in the rebirth cycle.\n\nThe way of wisdom was seen as difficult, requiring one to separate oneself from the day-to-day activities and ritual responsibilities characterizing the way of action\u2014actions that could draw one back into the cycle of rebirth. Renunciation\u2014or _sanny\u0101sa_ \u2014is the way of life of the Upani\u1e63adic sage who has withdrawn from society to seek spiritual wisdom, a way of life still pursued by Hindu ascetics today.\n\nIn the later _Upani\u1e63ads_ , such as the _\u015avet\u0101\u015bvat\u0101ra Upani\u1e63ad_ (composed between about 400 and 300 BCE), but even more so in the post-Vedic _sm\u1e5bti_ literature of the first millennium of the Common Era, another path emerged that made the goal of liberation from rebirth available to a wider cross section of society\u2014one that did not rely on Brahmanic priestly ritual or the wisdom of ascetic renouncers. This was the way of devotion, or bhakti yoga, the basic premise of which is that the supreme Brahman that is the ultimate object of all spiritual aspiration is not merely an impersonal energy or a pure state of consciousness but is also a loving personal deity who desires the salvation of all beings. One opens oneself to the saving power of the divine by cultivating a personal relationship with this supreme reality\u2014a relationship of loving devotion, or bhakti.\n\nThe precise form that this devotion takes varies within distinct Hindu traditions, which orient themselves toward Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, \u015aiva, the Mother Goddess or universal energy (\u015aakti), or any of a number of other personae of the supreme reality. These distinct theistic Hindu traditions\u2014Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism, \u015aaivism, \u015a\u0101ktism, and other theistic traditions centered on other forms of the divine\u2014have been the dominant forms of Hinduism from the first millennium of the Common Era to the present.\n\nThe fourth yoga\u2014dhy\u0101na or r\u0101ja yoga, the discipline of meditation\u2014is another current of Hindu practice that has coexisted and interacted with the other disciplines\u2014Vedic ritual, Ved\u0101ntic contemplation, and theistic devotion\u2014for millennia. It is a practice that could be an inheritance of the Indus Valley Civilization. It was cultivated primarily by renouncer traditions, both Vedic and non-Vedic (like the Jain and Buddhist traditions), in the first millennium before the Common Era\u2014and is also a prominent theme of the _Upani\u1e63ads_. It finds its classic form of expression in the _Yoga S\u016btra_ of Pata\u00f1jali (which may have been composed, in its current form, anywhere from 100 BCE to 500 CE). Its goal is the direct realization of Brahman not as an object of knowledge or devotion, but experientially, through the absorption of consciousness in Brahman to such a degree that the distinction between subject and object that characterizes most experience disappears\u2014an experience known as _sam\u0101dhi_.\n\n## THE CLASSICAL PERIOD: FROM ELITE BRAHMANISM TO POPULAR HINDUISM\n\nThe distinct cultural threads represented by the four yogas have rarely been practiced in isolation from one another throughout the history of Hinduism. Rather, these threads are like the threads of a tapestry, interweaving and interconnecting to make up the total way of life and the civilizational ethos that is Hinduism.\n\nThe path of action\u2014which originated in the ritual practices enjoined in the _Vedas_ \u2014came to encompass all of society and all of life in the form of _dharma_ , or duty. The _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ , or legal texts, which were composed from approximately 300 BCE to 100 CE, set out a comprehensive vision of both society and the life of the individual\u2014the former being encompassed by the system of castes, or _var\u1e47as_ , the latter being encompassed by a series of four _\u0101\u015bramas_ , or stages of life. The path of wisdom found its expression in the _s\u016btra_ literature of the six systems of philosophy, or _dar\u015banas_ (\"views\"). Both of these are elite literatures, composed in Sanskrit by Brahmins, and tend to orient themselves in terms of the authority of the _Vedas_ , with the Vedic systems being regarded as \"orthodox\" ( _\u0101stika_ ) and the non-Vedic systems (Jainism, Buddhism, and materialism) being regarded as \"unorthodox\" ( _n\u0101stika_ ).\n\nThe path of devotion, however, found expression not only in elite literatures, such as the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ of the various theistic schools of thought, but also in the ecstatic poetry of devotees hailing from all the stations of society\u2014including many women\u2014composed in vernacular languages, such as Tamil, Bengali, and Hindi. The bhakti movement, starting early in the first millennium of the Common Era and gaining momentum in the second, did not so much overturn the Brahmanical social order as render it irrelevant to the spiritual path, offering liberation from the rebirth cycle to all sincere devotees, regardless of caste or gender. This movement was so popular that it had a significant impact upon the formal religion of the Brahmins, which itself came to emphasize theistic devotion, while at the same time maintaining its earlier emphasis on ritual purity. The tension between these two continues to characterize Hinduism today, with \"orthodox\" Brahmins emphasizing formal ritual\u2014denying entry into temples, for example, to persons regarded as impure\u2014and others, both Brahmin and non-Brahmin (and even non-Indian), emphasizing sincerity of devotion as evidenced in one's character and personal qualities as being a more important measure of spiritual attainment than caste or social status.\n\nThe tension between popular spiritual aspiration and formal Brahmanical injunctions can be traced back to the first millennium BCE, when the sages of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ downplayed the performance of Vedic ritual and emphasized ascetic practice and moral qualities such as honesty, which were seen as a barometer of spiritual realization. Even more radical than the sages of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ were the ascetics of the _\u015brama\u1e47a_ , or \"striver\" movement, who did not merely de-emphasize but actively rejected the Vedic ritual of sacrifice\u2014especially the practice of animal sacrifice, which came to be seen as an inherently violent karma that could only lead to a bad rebirth, rather than as an offering that pleasing to the gods.\n\nDue to their rejection of Vedic authority, the \u015brama\u1e47a traditions are seen by most scholars as distinct traditions from Hinduism\u2014which, the reader will recall, has come to be defined as the family of Vedic traditions. The two surviving \u015brama\u1e47a traditions that are practiced today are Buddhism and Jainism. But though seen as different religions according to the current scholarly conventions, these traditions had an enormous impact on the practice of what has come to be regarded as Hinduism, with the practice of animal sacrifice being largely abandoned by even the most orthodox of Brahmins and replaced, in most parts of India, by vegetarian substitutes. The bhakti movement takes the \u015brama\u1e47ic critique of the Brahmanical tradition, in one sense, even further. Though maintaining at least a nominal reverence for the _Vedas_ , it makes liberation available to all\u2014even the householder.\n\nAt the furthest remove from Brahmanical orthodoxy\u2014or, more accurately, \"orthopraxy,\" given that the conservative Brahmanical emphasis is on right behavior and allows for a good deal of variety in the area of belief (such as six systems of philosophy)\u2014is Tantra. A system of yoga, or spiritual practice, that inverts the traditional yogic emphasis on turning away from the senses and bodily impulses, such as sexuality, Tantra, like bhakti, is in its origins a popular movement that makes advanced spiritual attainment available to anyone regardless of caste, gender, or social status. Tantric practice is based on the premise that one can utilize the senses in order to transcend the senses. At its most extreme, the \"Left-Handed\" or _V\u0101m\u0101c\u0101ra_ practice of Tantra deliberately transgresses Brahmanical norms of purity, the aim being to demonstrate the nondualistic realization that all is Brahman. If all is Brahman, then purity and impurity are effects of a false, dualistic consciousness that seeks to divide the fundamental unity of existence. Practitioners meditate in cremation grounds\u2014traditionally regarded as a highly impure, not to mention frightening, space\u2014and utilize human skulls as begging bowls. Other rituals are of an overtly sexual nature. Less extreme, but based on the same fundamental philosophy of using the senses in order to transcend the senses, are practices such as the chanting of mantras and the use of very beautiful visual images such as _m\u016brtis_ (images of deities), _yantras_ (abstract geometric forms of a deity), and _ma\u1e47\u1e0dalas_ (diagrams of the universe) as objects of contemplation.\n\nAs with bhakti, the Brahmanical tradition has been open to assimilating and appropriating these popular forms of worship. Though few Hindus today would describe themselves as practitioners of Tantra, the entire structure of Hindu temple ritual is based upon Tantric principles, and the use of mantras and yantras is part of the training of even conservative Brahmins. Like bhakti, Tantric practice emerged in the latter half of the first millennium of the Common Era. Both bhakti and Tantra may be much older than these dates suggest, but it is to this period that the texts that articulate the principles of these traditions can be traced, with bhakti texts emerging somewhat earlier than Tantric writings.\n\n## HINDUISM AND ISLAM\n\nAs the first millennium ended and the second began, India began to experience incursions from outside powers, such as the Arabs, the Turks, and the Mughals. With the coming of Islam\u2014at first brought peacefully, through trade, and then through successive waves of Arab, Turkish, and Mughal military incursion\u2014Hinduism entered a period characterized, on the one hand, by great insecurity, and on the other, by equally great creativity. There is some evidence that the caste system, at this point, became more rigid in practice than ancient texts suggest had been the case in earlier periods\u2014a process that intensified later, under the British R\u0101j.10 Brahmanical texts of this period indicate a sharply pronounced preoccupation with the preservation of society coupled with an almost apocalyptic sense of impending doom. Due to the foreign invasions, many temples and monastic institutions were destroyed at this time, and major blows dealt to the Indic traditions. Buddhism died out almost completely in India during this period, surviving as a tradition only because it had already spread across Asia. It had effectively ceased to exist in India by the year 1300. Hindu traditions survived this period because the practices, stories, and beliefs that make up the Hindu civilizational ethos pervaded the lives of the common people and were not dependent on vulnerable monastic institutions, making them difficult to uproot. The decentralized nature of Hinduism essentially spared it the fate of Buddhism, as did the peripatetic nature of most of Hindu monasticism. Powerful Hindu dynasties, such as the sizeable empire of Vijayan\u0101gara, thrived in the southern half of the subcontinent until the 16th century but eventually succumbed to repeated invasion and attack.\n\nAs the initial shock of invasion subsided, however, and Islam became a part of the Indic religious landscape, Hindus and Muslims began to respond in very creative ways to one another. Adherents of Hindu bhakti movements and the Sufis of Islam, especially, began to see one another's traditions as potential repositories of deep spiritual wisdom and of practices that each could appropriate for the attainment of greater nearness to the divine. Hindus began to adopt Sufi spiritual guides, or _p\u012brs_ , as _gurus_ , or teachers, and Muslims were similarly drawn toward Hindu spiritual figures. Kab\u012br, for example, who lived from 1440 to 1518, is even today claimed by both Hindus and Muslims as a revered teacher of sacred wisdom.\n\nThis interreligious cooperation and cross-fertilization is remarkable given the fact that it is hard to conceive of two religions more different from one another than Hinduism and Islam. Islam is emphatically monotheistic, regarding even the Christian trinity as a pagan remnant and a corruption of the original monotheism taught by the Prophet Jesus (as he is seen by Muslims). It is equally emphatically aniconic, associating images of the divine with the corrupt social order of pre-Islamic Arabia, in which a wealthy priesthood could determine who got to see the gods and who did not, charging exorbitant rates to devotees for a glimpse of their deities. The diversity of the forms of the divine in Hinduism and its celebration of imagery are seen even today by many Muslims as blasphemous\u2014a holdover from a pagan era.\n\nSimilarly, Islam is generally insistent that there is one way to salvation: through obeying the injunctions of God as conveyed by God's messenger, the Prophet Muhammad. This is a stark contrast with the pluralism of yogas and forms of the divine available as objects of devotion in Hinduism (though there are Hindu traditions that are equally insistent upon the unique efficacy of particular practices and the unique divinity of specific figures, such as the Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava Dvaita Ved\u0101nta of Madhva, which sees devotion to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a alone as being efficacious for salvation, though such exclusivism is more the exception than the rule for Hindu traditions). Islam, consequently, is an actively proselytizing tradition, while most Hindu traditions are not.\n\nIn the popular piety of medieval India, however, one sees members of both communities\u2014Hindus and Muslims\u2014shaking off the formal distinctions that their respective religious leaders would prefer to maintain between the two traditions. Rather than focusing upon their differences, however, Hindu and Muslim figures of this time emphasized a shared sense of the ubiquity of the divine presence and its availability to all who approach it with true devotion and a sincere and humble heart. Sufi saints began to incorporate the names of Hindu deities into their litanies of the many names of \u0100ll\u0101h, and Hindu devotees began to chant verses from the Qur'an and to make pilgrimages to the tombs of Sufi saints. The sharing of one another's holy days and holy places remains a characteristic of Hindu and Islamic practice in many parts of South Asia even today.11\n\nThis mutual accommodation was made possible by the strong presence in both traditions of movements that were generally uncomfortable with\u2014and often rejected in the strongest terms\u2014any emphasis on rigid formality, which was seen as interfering with the sincere and spontaneous quest of the individual devotee for the experience of the divine presence. Sufism\u2014viewed in some quarters of the Islamic world with suspicion as a movement of dubious orthodoxy\u2014found a highly receptive welcome in South Asia. And in Hinduism, the bhakti movement, with its rejection of Brahmanical formality and caste distinctions, was open to sincere devotion in any form\u2014even forms that at first appeared foreign. Sufi and bhakti leaders clearly saw in one another kindred spirits in the search for authentic experience as opposed to the dry formality of the \"official\" exponents of their respective traditions.\n\nThis process of popular mutual assimilation was eventually facilitated at the level of the state. The Mughal emperor Akbar, who reigned from 1556 to 1605, formally adopted a policy of toleration toward all religions\u2014including the Christianity taught by the European missionaries arriving with Portuguese merchant ships on the southwest coast of India in his time. Allowing his Hindu wife to build a temple to her deity, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, in his palace and even developing his own religion, a synthesis of all of the religions of India of which he knew, Akbar consistently ran afoul of the exponents of Islamic orthodoxy in his imperial court. His policy of toleration both mirrored and accelerated what was already happening at the popular, village level between Hindus and Muslims in his realm.\n\nThe _Sant_ \u2014or \"saint\"\u2014movement of this period consisted of figures of Hindu and Islamic origins, such as the aforementioned Kab\u012br, who claimed and were claimed by both religions, seeing sincere devotion as having far greater importance than formal sectarian affiliation or religious identity. This movement culminated in the figure of Guru N\u0101nak, who lived from 1469 to 1539. In his famous teaching that \"there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim,\" N\u0101nak captured the spirit of this era. Rather than leading to a unification of the two traditions, however, N\u0101nak's teaching led to the emergence of a third, new tradition\u2014Sikhism\u2014a religion distinct from both Hinduism and Islam, while yet containing elements of both in its practices and doctrines.\n\nAt the same time, however, there were reactions against this widespread spirit of mutual synthesis and accommodation. The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, who reigned from 1658 to 1707, aggressively sought the forcible conversion of both Hindus and Sikhs to Islam, returning to the earlier policy of destroying temples and torturing and slaughtering any intransigent religious leaders who refused to convert. The memory of the wounds of this period still runs sufficiently deep to lead to a situation in which later leaders\u2014including the British and the political parties of independent India and Pakistan\u2014have been able to exploit the fears of both communities for the sake of political gain. And yet such division and mutual suspicion occurs against a wider backdrop of toleration, mutual respect, and assimilation established in the period of the more enlightened interreligious relations that characterized the Sant movement and the rise of Sikhism. But this larger environment of tolerance and pluralism is endangered by militancy and a hardening of negative attitudes on both sides\u2014a militancy driven at least as much by the aspirations of Hindu and Islamic political organizations as by what one might call authentically religious concerns.\n\n## HINDUISM AND THE WEST\n\nThe European\u2014and especially the British\u2014colonization of India, which began in earnest in the 18th century, marks another occasion for great insecurity and also great creativity for the Hindu traditions. The twin challenges of Western science and Christianity led to a crisis for many Hindus, especially in Bengal, in eastern India, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, due to the fact that Bengal was the first region to experience a large-scale British presence, Calcutta being the main administrative center of the British East India Company. Hindu responses to British culture ranged from, on the one hand, complete indifference\u2014particularly from those orthodox Brahmins who saw the foreigners as mere barbarians, with nothing of great interest to say religiously or philosophically\u2014to a total capitulation on the part of those Hindus who found European civilization superior to their own. The most creative response, however, came from those Hindus who found much to admire in British culture\u2014accepting the validity of many criticisms of Hinduism launched by Christian missionaries\u2014but who were also critical of what they perceived as Western materialism and a lack of spiritual depth that they found in their ancient texts and systems of thought.\n\nThe first of the Hindu reformers, often called the \"father of modern Hinduism,\" was R\u0101m Mohan Roy, who lived from 1772 to 1833 and founded a reform organization called the Brahmo Sam\u0101j, or \"Community of Brahman.\" Translating the _Upani\u1e63ads_ into vernacular languages and successfully lobbying the British administration to ban the practice of _sat\u012b_ , or widow immolation, Roy interpreted Hinduism in monotheistic and Unitarian terms, as a wisdom tradition centered on the worship of a formless divinity. He was critical of all aspects of both Hinduism and Christianity that he regarded as nonrational.\n\nSimilarly critical of the _Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ -based Hinduism of this period was Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b, who lived from 1824 to 1883 and established the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j\u2014northern India's answer to the Brahmo Sam\u0101j. Rather than the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , Day\u0101nanda focused upon the early Vedic _Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s_ as the wellspring of authentic Hindu practice. He both revived and popularized the practice of worship centered on the sacred fire, as opposed to the use of images, which he viewed as a later accretion upon \"pure\" Vedic worship.\n\nThese movements, however, failed to capture the imagination of the Hindu community as a whole, primarily due to their rejection of the use of images in worship, or _m\u016brtip\u016bj\u0101_ , a practice that had been central to Hindu religious expression for centuries. True success in the area of Hindu reform came with the Ved\u0101nta movement inspired by Sri Ramakrishna (1836\u20131886) and led by his chief disciple, Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda (1863\u20131902).\n\nRamakrishna himself was not a Hindu reformer but a highly traditional Hindu spiritual figure in the mold of the great bhakti saints of the classical and medieval periods. Known for his powerful ecstatic visions, he claimed to have experienced _sam\u0101dhi_ , or absorption in the divine, by practicing all of the major Hindu spiritual paths, as well as Christianity and Islam. He concluded, on this basis, that all religions are paths to the divine. Though barely literate, he could discuss the finer points of Hindu philosophy with highly learned scholars on the basis of his direct experience of spiritual realities. The Western-educated elites of Bengali society\u2014including many members of the Brahmo Sam\u0101j\u2014were captivated by his teaching and personality. Because he based his teaching on direct experience and not on the interpretation of scripture, Ramakrishna's path was seen as open to scientific verification, and so more in keeping with a modern sensibility than traditions based upon ancient texts alone. And yet his path involved a wholehearted embrace of many practices and a sensibility that the reformers had rejected\u2014such as the use of images and a highly emotionally charged spirituality of devotion. It was a heady mix for those Hindus who wanted to embrace the social reforms and rationalistic approach of the reformers but who also felt nostalgic for the traditions of their upbringing. Under the leadership of Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda, the Ramakrishna Mission and the wider movement it inspired had a broader impact than the Brahmo and \u0100rya Sam\u0101j.\n\n## GLOBAL HINDUISM\n\nVivek\u0101nanda had the further effect of transforming Hinduism from a family of traditions confined largely to the Indian subcontinent and almost exclusively to persons of South Asian ethnic origin to a world religion, open to non-Indian as well as Indian adherents. It was already the case in Vivek\u0101nanda's time that many Westerners were drawn to Hindu traditions, such as the Transcendentalists of New England and the Theosophists, who had come to South Asia as \"reverse missionaries\" to instill pride among both Hindus in India and Buddhists in Sri Lanka in their religious heritage. But Vivek\u0101nanda took the step of initiating Westerners into a Hindu monastic order for the very first time, beginning with Margaret E. Noble (better known to Hindus by her monastic name, Sister Nivedita). His celebrated speech to the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893 is seen by many Hindus as marking the arrival of Hinduism on the world stage.\n\nBy initiating Westerners into Ved\u0101nta, Vivek\u0101nanda opened the proverbial floodgates to a range of Hindu spiritual masters who visited the West\u2014many settling permanently\u2014and taught their paths and practices to audiences eager for an alternative to what many saw, and continue to see, as the narrow, dogmatic provincialism of Christianity and the equally narrow\u2014and spiritually stultifying\u2014worldview of scientistic materialism. The first master to follow in Vivek\u0101nanda's footsteps was another Bengali, Paramah\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 Yog\u0101nanda (1893\u20131952), whose Self-Realization Fellowship, established in California in 1920, was designed to promote the practice of Kriya Yoga, the form of meditation that was taught to Yog\u0101nanda by his guru, Sri Yukte\u015bwar Giri. The acceptance of Yog\u0101nanda's teachings by Westerners was facilitated by his emphasis on Jesus as an enlightened master and an exemplar of yogic wisdom. Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895\u20131986), emerging from the shadow of the Theosophical movement, which had groomed and hailed him as the next \"World Teacher,\" a messianic figure known as Maitreya, broke away from the Theosophists and taught a path of radical self-inquiry, finding a ready audience in the counter-culture of the 1960s. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1918\u20132008) similarly appealed to the counterculture via its heroes, the Beatles, who aided him in his promotion of Transcendental Meditation by very publicly attending his seminars in England and Wales, and following him to India in the summer of 1968 for a retreat at his Rishikesh ashram in India, in the foothills of the Him\u0101layas.\n\nA. C. Bhaktived\u0101nta Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhup\u0101da (1896\u20131977), in a dramatic contrast with his contemporaries, who carefully tailored their traditions to the tastes and concerns of their Western audiences, brought a very traditional form of Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava devotionalism to North America in 1966, establishing the Hare Krishna movement. However, like the Maharishi, Bhaktived\u0101nta also found endorsement from the royalty of the counterculture, with the _Mah\u0101mantra_ of Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism being included as the refrain of George Harrison's 1970 hit song, \"My Sweet Lord.\"\n\nIn addition to the j\u00f1\u0101na and dhy\u0101na yogas taught by Vivek\u0101nanda, Krishnamurti, and the Maharishi and Yog\u0101nanda, respectively, and the bhakti emphasis of Bhaktived\u0101nta, the Tantric traditions of Hinduism also found representatives among the Hindu teachers who came to the West in the 20th century. Sw\u0101m\u012b Mukt\u0101nanda (1908\u20131982) brought the Siddha Yoga tradition of his master, Sw\u0101m\u012b Nity\u0101nanda. He was also succeeded by a prominent female guru, Sw\u0101m\u012b Chidvil\u0101s\u0101nanda, or Gurumay\u012b, who presides over this tradition to the present day. And most controversial of all was Bhagwan Rajneesh, later known as Osho (1931\u20131990), whose endorsement of left-handed Tantric practice, with its accompanying emphasis on sexual freedom, dovetailed better with the sexual revolution of this period than with the traditionally conservative sexual morality of Indian Hindus.\n\nMeanwhile, as these and other Hindu teachers brought their varied teachings and forms of practice to the West, Vivek\u0101nanda's original Ved\u0101nta Society continued to be active. A steady stream of monks of the Ramakrishna Order came to North America, establishing and nurturing Ved\u0101nta centers in cities such as New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco. California, especially\u2014both prior to and during the period of the counterculture\u2014was a major center for Hindu activities that appealed primarily to a Western audience. Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhav\u0101nanda (1893\u20131976), a highly active monk of the Ramakrishna Order and founder of the Ved\u0101nta Society of Southern California in 1930, initiated literary luminaries such as Aldous Huxley and Christopher Isherwood, who in turn did much to promote the Ved\u0101nta tradition among their readers.\n\nA skeptic could of course question the extent to which any of the movements based on the teachings of spiritual teachers from India have become\u2014or will become\u2014deep-rooted and authentically \"Western\" forms of religiosity. Like Western Buddhism, however, the Western Hindu traditions have begun to produce their own leaders, raised with a Western cultural ethos, and are not simply depending upon Indian teachers for their spiritual and organizational sustenance. With Satguru \u015aiv\u0101ya Subramuniyasw\u0101m\u012b (1927\u20132001), who was born Robert Hansen and inherited the mantle of a \u015aaiva Siddh\u0101nta sa\u1e43prad\u0101ya, or teaching lineage, from his master, Yogasw\u0101m\u012b, Western Hinduism produced a spiritual master who was acknowledged as such not only by his devotees but also by Hindus globally\u2014including quite conservative Hindus, such as the founders of the Hindu \u0100c\u0101rya Sabh\u0101, of which Subramuniyasw\u0101m\u012b was a member. The journal that Subramuniyasw\u0101m\u012b founded, _Hinduism Today_ , presents itself as \"the voice of the global Hindu community\"\u2014a claim that the community on the whole appears to endorse. The phenomenon of high-profile, celebrity adherents endorsing Hinduism or specific Hindu practices\u2014such as the Beatles' endorsement of Transcendental Meditation and former Beatle George Harrison's close and lifelong affiliation with the Hare Krishna movement\u2014continues, with the most recent example being the actress Julia Roberts, whose film version of Elizabeth Gilbert's autobiographical memoir, _Eat, Pray, Love_ , includes a representation of life in the Siddha Yoga ashram in Ganeshpuri, India.12 Though it is far from being a mass movement, Hinduism does seem to have found a home in the West.13\n\n## TWO CONTRARY IMPULSES: UNIVERSALISM AND NATIONALISM\n\nIf Vivek\u0101nanda articulated a vision for Hinduism as a tradition of rationality, tolerance, and a world-embracing spirituality, Mohandas K. G\u0101ndh\u012b (1869\u2013 1948) translated this vision into an ambitious program for comprehensive political and social reform. Tapping into ancient Hindu ideals such as _ahi\u1e43s\u0101_ (nonviolence), the inherent power of truth ( _saty\u0101graha_ ), and the divinity of all beings, G\u0101ndh\u012b\u2014known to his admirers by the ancient title of _mah\u0101tma_ , or \"great soul\"\u2014led a movement of nonviolent resistance to British rule that has inspired movements for social justice around the world, including the movement for African American civil rights led by Martin Luther King Jr. and the South African antiapartheid movement of Nelson Mandela.\n\nAt the same time, G\u0101ndh\u012b's successes\u2014particularly in the areas of the reform of the caste system and Hindu\u2013Muslim relations\u2014unleashed reactionary forces that ultimately resulted in his assassination. His attempts to abolish the practice of untouchability met with both the resistance of conservative Hindus and the scorn of leaders within the Dalit, or lower caste, community, such as B. R. Ambedkar, who believed that he did not go far enough. His attempts to effect a reconciliation of the divisions between Hindus and Muslims were unable to prevent the partition of India and Pakistan when independence was achieved on 15 August 1947. Many Hindus blamed\u2014and continue to blame\u2014G\u0101ndh\u012b for the deaths that resulted from the partition, when riots broke out across the subcontinent as Hindus fled Pakistan and Muslims fled India out of fear of being persecuted in a place where they would constitute a religious minority. G\u0101ndh\u012b was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, an adherent of Hindu Nationalism, on 30 January 1948.\n\nThe subsequent history of Hinduism is characterized by the tension between the forces of Hindu Nationalism, which see Hinduism and India as under constant attack by opposing movements, such as Islam, Christianity, and secularism, and the visionary Hinduism of G\u0101ndh\u012b and Ramakrishna, which sees all religions as part of a greater harmony that India can embody as an inspiration for the rest of the world to follow. It is a history that has been punctuated by outbursts of dramatic violence\u2014such as the Hindu\u2013Sikh riots of 1984 and the Hindu\u2013Muslim riots of 1992 and 2002\u2014standing out against a routine background of relative peace and harmony, in which the members of different religious communities celebrate each other's holidays, make pilgrimages to one another's places of worship, and elect members of minority communities to high public office, including the presidency and the prime ministership of India. It is also a history of expansion, as more non-Indians adopt Hindu practices\u2014even to the point of formal conversion\u2014and as Indian Hindus also continue to immigrate across the globe to Europe, North America, Africa, Australia, and other parts of the world as well.\n\n## WHAT HOLDS HINDUISM TOGETHER?\n\nAs mentioned previously, there are those scholars who will argue that \"Hinduism does not exist.\" I have also described Hinduism on a number of occasions, and only half-jokingly, as \"the world's least organized religion.\" What gives this tradition, or family of traditions, cohesion? It has no founder and no central administrative institution\u2014no pope or Vatican. There is no test of orthodoxy or creed upon which all Hindus must agree to adhere in order to be regarded as Hindu. There is even some disagreement about who is a Hindu. Must one be born as a Hindu, or are non-Indian practitioners of Hindu-inspired paths such as those described earlier\u2014Ved\u0101nta, Transcendental Meditation, Siddha Yoga, the Hare Krishna movement, and so on\u2014authentic Hindus? Are the Jains, the Buddhists, and the Sikhs\u2014practitioners of originally Indian, and therefore, in the sense of _Hindu_ as _Indian_ , \"Hindu\" traditions\u2014to be regarded as Hindus? Why has Hinduism not fragmented into nonexistence? Why does it seem, on the contrary, to be in a period of resurgence and renaissance?\n\nIt is tempting to say that Hinduism survives and perseveres because of the inherent appeal of its teachings and practices\u2014that it survives because it is true, because it holds insight and wisdom that are highly relevant to the lives of its adherents. But satisfying though it may be to Hindus, such an answer is not what an outside observer\u2014still less a historian\u2014has in mind when asking the question, \"What holds Hinduism together?\" What is it that gives whatever cohesion it has to this vast collection of varied beliefs and practices?\n\nThe answer, as with the answers to most questions about Hinduism, is complex and is not capable of being boiled down to one single factor that constitutes _the_ answer. Two primary factors, however, spring to mind.\n\nFirst, regarding founding figures and organizational structures\u2014it is not that such figures and structures are absent. It is that there is no _single_ figure or structure upon which all Hindus agree or to which all Hindu belief and practice can be traced or on which it can be said to be centered. On the contrary, there are many founding figures who have started organizational structures that have thrived and persisted for many centuries. This book documents a host of such figures, structures, and movements: enlightened sages, monks, inspired poets, and the communities that emerged around them\u2014sometimes spontaneously but sometimes cultivated in a highly organized and systematic manner. None of these is, however, identical to Hinduism as a whole. At least some part of what holds Hinduism together is the fact that Hindu adherence to particular traditions and organizations has a certain fluidity that allows for the phenomenon of multiple religious belonging. It is rare for a specific Hindu tradition to demand exclusive allegiance of its followers. If one were to add up the total number of Hindus engaged in some degree of some participation in all of the world's Hindu organizations, this number would be considerably larger than the total number of Hindus. This fluidity and ease of multiple membership is, in turn, made possible by the fact that the many Hindu traditions, despite their various differences in the areas of doctrine and practice, also share a good deal in these areas as well. Belief in karma and rebirth, a soteriological aspiration for liberation from the rebirth cycle, as well as a concern with more immediate goods, such as prosperity and good fortune both in this life and the next, cut a wide swath across most Hindu schools of thought and systems of practice. Similarly, a core of ethical practice, enshrined in ideals such as nonviolence, honesty, sexual restraint, and nonpossessiveness, is widely shared. These core ideas and practices are \"portable,\" in the sense that one can move fairly easily among Hindu groups without finding them sharply questioned or turned into points of contention.\n\nSecondly, and pertaining especially to the realm of practice, there is the caste system. In many ways controversial, particularly in the modern period, due to the inequities that it enshrines, this hereditary system of occupations has also served as a major acculturating force, for it is not only occupations that are passed on to one through one's family. It is also narratives and practices related to correct ritual conduct that become second nature even to Hindus who, later in life, completely reject, at a cognitive level, the specifically religious dimensions of their traditions. Much as there are people who are \"culturally Jewish,\" scrupulously observing the high holy days, for example, but perhaps professing atheism, in terms of their personal beliefs about the nature of reality, there are, similarly, \"cultural Hindus,\" who may or may not hold \"Hindu\" views but who have thoroughly absorbed the civilizational ethos of Hinduism. It has been noted that caste has become more rigid during periods of colonial domination than at other times in Hindu history, when the more fluid and easygoing attitude toward boundaries that characterizes Hindu religious organizations can also be found in regard to caste boundaries and restrictions. This is evidence that, for most Hindus, Hinduism has at least as much to do with family loyalty and the preservation of tradition as with specifically religious preoccupations such as salvation and contemplating the nature of existence. To the degree that the Hinduism of non-Indian practitioners is called into question, it is to the same extent that the practice of these adherents is rooted in voluntary religious considerations alone and has not been absorbed from childhood as part of a cultural ethos. But one must bear in mind that, as was stated at the outset of this introduction, the authenticity or inauthenticity of any given expression of Hinduism\u2014whether a given person, practice, movement, or philosophy is \"really\" Hindu\u2014is really a question about how these terms\u2014 _Hindu_ and _Hinduism_ \u2014are to be defined and deployed, rather than a question of how well these phenomena correlate with some eternal or unchanging essence. Hinduism, like all _isms_ , is a construct.\n\n## CONCLUSION\n\nThe future of Hinduism, as of all religions, is impossible to forecast with any reliability. Challenges to the tradition include the aforementioned Hindu Nationalism and casteism\u2014or caste prejudice\u2014and issues relating to patriarchy and the full participation of women as equal members of the Hindu community.\n\nIf the past can be used to predict the future, one can expect Hindus to address these issues much as they have previous challenges\u2014with creativity and flexibility tempered by a deep commitment to the principle that the wisdom of the ancient past always has a continuing relevance to the present.\n\n## NOTES\n\n1. Lisa Miller, \"We're All Hindus Now,\" _Newsweek_ , 15 August 2009.\n\n2. The question of the ancientness of Hinduism versus its status as a relatively recent construct of colonial scholarship is explored in D. N. Jha's _Rethinking Hindu Identity_ (London: Equinox, 2009) and by a variety of authors in J. E. Llewellyn's edited volume _Defining Hinduism: A Reader_ (New York: Routledge, 2005).\n\n3. Wendy Doniger, _The Hindus: An Alternative History_ (New York: Penguin, 2009), 65\u201366.\n\n4. Klaus K. Klostermaier, _A Survey of Hinduism_ , 3rd ed. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 25.\n\n5. See Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, _Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), Dilip K. Chakrabarti, _India: An Archaeo-logical History_ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), Gregory L. Possehl, _The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective_ (Walnut Creek, Calif.: Altamira Press, 2002), and Jane R. McIntosh, _A Peaceful Realm: The Rise and Fall of the Indus Civilization_ (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2002).\n\n6. Such claims are common in modern Hindu reform movements, such as the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j, which condemn the hierarchical and hereditary nature of caste but do not reject the basic concept.\n\n7. For a defense of this revisionist version of the standard model, see Klostermaier, _A Survey of Hinduism_ , 18\u201329.\n\n8. The most authoritative and even-handed study of the scholarly debate over ancient India\u2014acknowledged as such by persons on both sides of the conversation\u2014is Edwin Bryant's _The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).\n\n9. A formal and systematic understanding of Hindu practice as consisting of four yogas, as described here, is a very recent one indeed\u2014first articulated in this precise way by Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda during the modern period. But the systems of practice and the accompanying soteriological paradigms that these four yogas represent are ancient and do date back to at least the later Vedic period. I find them a useful heuristic tool for presenting the historical phases of Hindu practice. But this should not be confused with the claim that a _system_ of four yogas, as this is understood today, was present during the later Vedic period. I am certainly _not_ making this claim.\n\n10. See Nicholas Dirks, _Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India_ (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001) and Bernard S. Cohn, _India: The Social Anthropology of a Civilization_ (Englewood Cliffs, N.Y.: Prentice Hall, 1971).\n\n11. See Peter Gottschalk, _Beyond Hindu and Muslim: Multiple Identity in Narratives from Village India_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).\n\n12. Hindu Press International, 8 August 2010, <http:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/modules\/xpress\/category\/hindu-press-international>.\n\n13. See Phil Goldberg, _American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation\u2014How Indian Spirituality Changed the West_ (Bourgon, Ind.: Harmony, 2010) and Lola Williamson, _Transcendent in America: Hindu-Inspired Meditation Movements as New Religion_ (New York: New York University Press, 2010).\n\n#\n\n## A\n\n**ABHAYA-MUDR\u0100.** **Mudr\u0101** , or hand gesture, which means, \"Do not be afraid.\" Hindu deities are frequently depicted with this gesture, which consists of the right hand (or one of the right hands, given that Hindu deities are frequently depicted with more than one pair of arms and hands) in an upright and slightly bent back position, with an empty palm facing outward, toward the viewer of the image. _See also_ M\u016aRTI.\n\n**ABHIMANYU.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ; son of **Arjuna** , tragically slain in the battle of **Kuruk\u1e63etra** , but not before fathering **Parik\u1e63it** , the heir who would inherit the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** ' kingdom.\n\n**ABHINAVAGUPTA (950\u20131020).** Philosopher known for systematizing the teachings of the **Kaula Tantra** sect of **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaivism**. A remarkably learned scholar with a wide-ranging intellect, Abhinavagupta studied under an unusual variety of teachers, mastering **music** , **poetry** , and drama, as well as **philosophy** and logic. His writings encompass such diverse topics as aesthetic experience, levels of consciousness, and the ultimate nature of reality. He synthesized traditional **Brahmanism** and Tantric thought, which before this time had been perceived as being in conflict. In keeping with a Tantric understanding of the role of the senses in the path to **liberation** , Abhinavagupta emphasized not so much the suppression of the senses as the cultivation of aesthetic enjoyment in an anticipation of the bliss of ultimate union with **\u015aiva**. Abhinavagupta did not reject rival systems of thought as false but viewed them in an inclusive fashion as steps toward his position. His spiritual journey was sparked by an early childhood tragedy\u2014the death of his mother, Vimal\u0101. His system of philosophy has affinities to both **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** and **Tantra** , inasmuch as it is monistic (like Advaita) and affirms sensory experience (like Tantra). A prolific writer, his best-known works are the encyclopedic _T\u0101ntraloka_ and his **bh\u0101\u1e63ya** , or commentary, on the _N\u0101\u1e6dya \u015a\u0101stra_. _See also_ \u015aAIVISM.\n\n**ABHI\u1e62EKA.** Anointing, consecration, ritual bathing; ceremony of bathing an image of a deity ( **m\u016brti** ) with sacred substances such as water, milk, **ghee** , yogurt, saffron, etc.\n\n**\u0100C\u0100RYA.** Sanskrit term meaning _teacher_ , but most commonly referring to a teacher of particularly high rank, such as the leader of a teaching lineage or sect ( **sa\u1e43prad\u0101ya** ), or the head of a monastic institution ( **ma\u1e6dha** ). The term is sometimes used as a synonym for **guru** , but the term _guru_ more often refers to a teacher with whom one has developed a personal relationship as a student or disciple ( **\u015bi\u1e63ya** ), whereas an \u0101c\u0101rya is a more public figure\u2014the teacher of an entire community. The title of \u0101c\u0101rya is usually given through **d\u012bk\u1e63\u0101** , or initiation, and ordination as the successor to the leadership of a spiritual lineage. A **Christian** equivalent to _\u0101c\u0101rya_ might be either \"abbot\" or \"bishop,\" the former being the head of a monastery and the latter implying religious authority over a specific geographic region, both of which can characterize the duties of an \u0101c\u0101rya.\n\n**ACTION.** Action, or **karma** , is an issue of central concern to Hindu traditions. There is the regulation of action\u2014the enjoining of right action, or **dharma** , and the avoidance of its opposite, which is a characteristic of most religious traditions\u2014and then there is the effort to transcend action and its effects, a concern more distinctive of the Indic religions, such as Hinduism, **Buddhism** , **Jainism** , and **Sikhism**. Action is widely understood to follow a principle of cause and effect, also widely termed _karma_ , according to which all actions produce results of the same moral character as themselves\u2014good actions leading to good results ( **pu\u1e47ya** karma), and evil actions to evil results ( **p\u0101pa** karma).\n\nThe reciprocal process of intentional moral actions producing like effects fuels the perpetual cycle of **rebirth** ( **sa\u1e43s\u0101ra** ), release from which ( **mok\u1e63a** ) requires one to in some way negate or transcend the principle of cause and effect. The various Indic traditions often present themselves as strategies for achieving this negation or transcendence. The _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , for example, presents a **yoga** of action ( **karma yoga** ) that aims at mok\u1e63a through engaging in action without attachment to the results. On this understanding, it is not action itself but the **desire** that motivates it that brings about karmic effects.\n\n**ADHARMA.** Lack or opposite of **dharma** , not dharma, evil, lack of virtue. Adharma also refers to chaos or anything that goes against the order of nature. Adharma is often embodied in Hindu **literature** by demonic beings, such as **asuras** and **r\u0101k\u1e63asas** , who are defeated in battle by a **god** or **goddess** , usually either an **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** or a form of the **Mother Goddess**. In the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** cites the destruction of adharma and the protection of dharma as the chief reason for his repeated incarnations or avat\u0101ras ( _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ 4.7). Adharmic behavior results in misfortune, both for its immediate victims and for its perpetrators. This misfortune can occur quickly or it can be deferred, being experienced in this lifetime or in a future **rebirth**. _See also_ KARMA; P\u0100PA.\n\n**ADHIK\u0100RA.** Authority; the right to acquire higher spiritual knowledge. According to **Brahmanism** , only a male **Brahmin** is eligible to study the _Vedas_ , which are the source of spiritual knowledge. This concept is challenged, however, by many Hindu traditions, as well as by modern Hindu reformers such as **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda**.\n\n**ADHVARYU.** **Brahmin** priest whose role in the **Vedic** sacrifice, or **yaj\u00f1a** , is to oversee the physical details of the ritual, such as measuring out the sacred space, building the fire altar, lighting the fire, and so forth. While performing these **actions** , the Adhvaryu recites relevant portions of the _Yajur Veda_ that describe what is to be done. In ancient times, when **animal sacrifices** were more widely performed, the task of the Adhvaryu included the slaughter, cooking, and offering of the bodies of sacrificial victims.\n\n**ADITI. Goddess** whose name means _infinity_. Wife of the sage **Ka\u015byapa** and mother of 12 **devas** , or deities, called the **\u0100dityas** : **Indra** , **Dh\u0101t\u1e5b** , **Aryaman** , **Mitra** , **Varu\u1e47a** , **A\u1e43\u015ba** , **Bhaga** , **Vivasvat** , **P\u016b\u1e63an** , **Savit\u1e5b** , **Tva\u1e63\u1e6d\u1e5b** , and **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. Aditi is also the mother of the eight **Vasus** and the 11 **Rudras**.\n\n**\u0100DITYAS.** The 12 major **Vedic** deities, or **devas**. They are the sons of the goddess **Aditi** and the sage **Ka\u015byapa**. Their names are **Indra** , **Dh\u0101t\u1e5b** , **Aryaman** , **Mitra** , **Varu\u1e47a** , **A\u1e43\u015ba** , **Bhaga** , **Vivasvat** , **P\u016b\u1e63an** , **Savit\u1e5b** , **Tva\u1e63\u1e6d\u1e5b** , and **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**.\n\n**\u0100DIV\u0100S\u012aS.** First dwellers; aboriginal tribal peoples of the Indian subcontinent, many of whose religious traditions have become part of Hinduism over the centuries. Tribal peoples have tended to live on the margins of Hindu society.\n\n**ADVAITA VED\u0100NTA.** The **nondualistic** system of **Ved\u0101nta philosophy** , prominently associated with its chief exponent and systematizer of the classical period, **\u015aa\u1e45kara** (788\u2013820), though having roots in more ancient texts like the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , the _Brahma S\u016btras_ , and the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. According to Advaita Ved\u0101nta, these ancient texts (collectively called the **prasth\u0101na traya** ) all teach the view of Advaita, although this interpretation of these texts is of course not shared by other systems of Ved\u0101nta.\n\nAdvaita Ved\u0101nta is a deeply monistic system and teaches that **Brahman** is the sole reality. The existence of multiple entities, such as those that make up the world\u2014and even the distinction between the world, the self, and **God** \u2014is a mere appearance, or **m\u0101y\u0101**. M\u0101y\u0101, in turn, is an effect of **avidy\u0101** , or primordial ignorance of the true nature of reality.\n\nAccording to Advaita Ved\u0101nta, Brahman as such has no limiting qualities. It is **nirgu\u1e47a**. Brahman does not possess, but rather, it _is_ infinite being ( **sat** ), consciousness ( **cit** ), and bliss ( **\u0101nanda** ). As the only truly real entity, Brahman is identical to the self ( **\u0101tman** ), the self\u2013other distinction being an effect of m\u0101y\u0101. Realization of the identity of Brahman and \u0101tman gives rise to **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the **rebirth** process. The basis of this realization, according to \u015aa\u1e45kara, is the **Vedic** scriptures\u2014primarily the _Upani\u1e63ads_. Good works, **devotion** , and **meditation** can only prepare one for this **knowledge**. Hearing the **truth** that Brahman and \u0101tman are one ( **\u015brava\u1e47a** ), reflecting upon it ( **manas\u0101** ), and contemplatively realizing it (nidhidhy\u0101sana) are the three necessary steps that produce the awakening required for liberation. This classical understanding of Advaita is distinct from **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** , which emphasizes direct experience ( **anubh\u0101va** ) over **scripture**.\n\nIt is possible to achieve liberation while still alive, an attainment that is known in the Advaita system as **j\u012bvanmukti**. After death, one who has attained liberation while alive\u2014a j\u012bvanmukta\u2014is no longer subject to rebirth, being absorbed in Brahman (though it is more correct to say that this \"absorption\" is apparent, the reality being that one has never actually been separate from Brahman).\n\nAdvaita Ved\u0101nta has traditionally been most influential in southern India, but it has also exerted a strong influence on Neo-Ved\u0101nta, particularly as expressed by modern exponents such as **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** and **Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan**.\n\n**\u0100GAMA.** Tradition, that which comes down or is handed down from past generations. A set of **scriptures** associated preeminently with one of the three major theistic Hindu sects\u2014the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** , **\u015aaiva** , and **\u015a\u0101kta** traditions. Largely \"how to\" manuals, these texts are mainly concerned with the correct performance of ritual, particularly **p\u016bj\u0101** devoted to the respective deities of these three traditions ( **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , **\u015aiva** , and the **Mother Goddess** ), and with yogic practice and **temple** construction and consecration. Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava \u0100gamas are often called **Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s** , and \u015a\u0101kta \u0100gamas are usually referred to as **Tantras**. The \u015aaiva \u0100gamas, however, are generally called \u0100gamas. The **Jain** scriptures are also known as \u0100gamas.\n\n**AGASTYA.** **Vedic** sage attributed with transmitting the _Vedas_ to southern India and inventing the **Tamil** language. One of the hymns of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ is attributed to him. He is said to have forced the Vindhya Mountains, in central India, to submit to him. **R\u0101ma** visited the sage Agastya during the period of his exile in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_.\n\n**AGEH\u0100NANDA BH\u0100RAT\u012a, SW\u0100M\u012a (1923\u20131991).** Born **Leopold Fischer** , Sw\u0101m\u012b Ageh\u0101nanda Bh\u0101rat\u012b was one of the first scholar-practitioners to teach Hindu traditions in a Western academic context, teaching at Syracuse University for more than 30 years.\n\n**AGHOR\u012a.** Free from terror; member of a **\u015aaiva** tradition that split from the **K\u0101p\u0101likas** , another \u015aaiva sect, in the 14th century. A **Tantric** sect, Aghor\u012b practice is designed both to express and cultivate a state beyond fear. Condemned by many Hindus for being too extreme, Aghor\u012bs **meditate** in cremation grounds and even eat the corpses of the dead. The begging bowl of an Aghor\u012b monk is a human skull.\n\n**AGNI.** Fire. Agni is the **Vedic** deity, or **deva** , who personifies fire, particularly the fire of the Vedic **yaj\u00f1a** , or sacrifice. Because all Vedic sacrifices are offered into the fire, Agni is seen as the intermediary between human beings and all of the Vedic deities. As such, he is also viewed as the prototypical Vedic priest and is proclaimed as such in _\u1e5ag Veda_ 1.1. The first offering in any sacrifice is made to Agni, who would otherwise consume the offerings intended for the other deities. As the intermediary between the divine and the human worlds, Agni is of great importance in Vedic religion. The number of hymns of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ devoted to Agni is second only to those devoted to **Indra** , lord of the Vedic deities. Eight of the 10 books, or **ma\u1e47\u1e0dalas** , of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ begin with hymns to Agni (the exceptions being the eighth and ninth books).\n\nUnlike other Vedic deities, whose realms are confined to one of the three regions of Earth, the upper atmosphere, and the heavens, Agni operates in all three realms (in the forms, respectively, of fire, lighting, and the sun).\n\n**AGNIHOTRA.** A relatively brief and simple sacrifice or **yaj\u00f1a** that is offered to **Agni**. Orthodox **Brahmins** perform this ritual daily. The Agnihotra, although an ancient ritual mentioned in both the _Atharva Veda_ and the _G\u1e5bhya S\u016btras_ , has been revived and promoted for wider use in the modern period, primarily by the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j** , as a rite of purification. _See also_ HAVAN; HOMA; _VEDAS_.\n\n**AGNI\u1e62\u1e6cOMA.** A five-day sacrifice or **yaj\u00f1a** offered to **Agni** , **Indra** , and other **Vedic** deities. A fairly elaborate ritual, the Agni\u1e63\u1e6doma involves 15 priests. Traditionally offered by a **Brahmin** **householder** , its goal is **rebirth** in heaven ( **svarga** ).\n\n**AGNIVE\u015aA, SW\u0100M\u012a (1939\u2013 ).** Founder and president of the **World Council of the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j** , an organization distinct from the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j** , a Hindu reform organization established in 1875 by **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b (1824\u20131883)**. Sw\u0101m\u012b Agnive\u015ba is best known for his social and political activism, taking up such issues as alcohol abuse, **women** 's rights, peace, interreligious dialogue, female infanticide, and **casteism**.\n\nAgnive\u015ba became a monk, or **sanny\u0101sin** , in 1970, under the auspices of the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j. In 1987, he led a large protest against a **sati** that occurred in Deorala, Rajasthan. Due to a variety of internal controversies, Sw\u0101m\u012b Agnive\u015ba was expelled from the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j in 1992, but he continues to claim fidelity to the original ideals of the organization and its founder.\n\n**AGRAHAYA\u1e46A.** Month of the **Hindu calendar** that corresponds roughly to the period from mid-November to mid-December.\n\n**AHA\u1e42K\u0100RA.** Ego; literally the \"I-maker\"; one of the basic elements that constitute existence, or **tanm\u0101tras** , of the **S\u0101\u1e43khya** system of **philosophy**. In the **Yoga** system of **Pata\u00f1jali** , aha\u1e43kara, in combination with **buddhi** (intellect) and the **indriyas** (senses), constitutes **citta** (the **mind** ).\n\n**\u0100HAVAN\u012aYA.** One of the three types of fire altar used in **Vedic** rituals of sacrifice, or **yaj\u00f1as**. The \u0101havan\u012bya altar has a square shape. The four sides of this square represent the four major directions of space: north, south, east, and west. The \u0101havan\u012bya altar is located in the eastern portion of the larger Vedic sacrificial arena. Specifications for the construction, location, and use of the \u0101havan\u012bya are found in the _Yajur Veda_.\n\n**AHI\u1e42S\u0100.** Nonviolence in thought, word, and deed; absence of even the desire to do harm to any living being. Ahi\u1e43s\u0101 is the first of the five **yamas** or moral restraints taught in the _Yoga S\u016btras_ of **Pata\u00f1jali** (composed between 100 BCE and 500 CE), and making up the first of the eight \"limbs\" of the eight-limbed ( **a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** ) system of **yoga**. Though it is phrased in negative terms, as the absence of violent impulses, ahi\u1e43s\u0101 is understood in those traditions that practice it as entailing positive compassion toward all beings. In the modern **Ved\u0101nta** of **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** , nonviolence is seen as being entailed by the oneness of all beings as manifestations of **God** , or **Brahman**.\n\nThe virtue of nonviolence gradually increases in both prominence and importance in Brahmanical texts from the period of the principal _Upani\u1e63ads_ (c. 500\u2013100 BCE) to the Common Era. The _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ contains the statement \"Ahi\u1e43s\u0101 is the highest virtue\" (13.125.25), and in the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ (16.2), ahi\u1e43s\u0101 is listed as one characteristic of an **enlightened** person (despite the setting of this text on a battlefield and its endorsement, in an earlier chapter, of violence for a **k\u1e63atriya** fighting in a just war).\n\nAhi\u1e43s\u0101 is a central virtue of **\u015brama\u1e47a** traditions such as **Jainism** and **Buddhism** , which include it in their respective sets of five moral precepts, and which are both close in content to Pata\u00f1jali's **yamas** (the Jain set, in fact, being identical to Pata\u00f1jali's). The gradually increasing emphasis on ahi\u1e43s\u0101 in Hindu texts from shortly before and in the early centuries of the Common Era is sometimes attributed to the influence of these two \u015brama\u1e47a traditions, though grounds for ahi\u1e43s\u0101 can certainly be found in the _Upani\u1e63ads_.\n\nThe practice of **vegetarianism** in all three traditions\u2014Jain, Buddhist, and Hindu\u2014is a result of their emphasis on the practice of ahi\u1e43s\u0101 toward all living beings. Indeed, it is in the area of dietary practice that the increased emphasis on ahi\u1e43s\u0101 in Hinduism is most prominent, with the **Brahmins** , who in ancient times offered **animal sacrifices** , being generally expected in later centuries to practice vegetarianism.\n\nIn the 20th century, **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** made ahi\u1e43s\u0101\u2014originally conceived as a purely personal virtue developed in the pursuit of individual spiritual realization\u2014into a cornerstone of his strategy for attaining Indian independence from the British Empire, insisting\u2014in keeping with the idea of **karma** \u2014that only pure means could bring about a pure end. _See also_ COW, SACRED.\n\n**AHURA MAZDA.** The Wise Lord; the supreme **God** of **Zoroastrianism** , a religion of ancient Iran that today claims a small but devout following in India. Zoroastrianism is, in its origins, closely related to **Vedic** religion. The word _ahura_ is the Iranian equivalent of the Sanskrit **asura**. In early Vedic texts, the term _asura_ simply means _powerful_ and is used to describe several Vedic deities, particularly **Varu\u1e47a**. It is only in later Vedic texts that asuras become the demonic enemies of the **devas**.\n\nIn Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda is not one god among many, but God\u2014the one, supreme deity in a monotheistic sense\u2014and the creator of the world. Through the cultural influence of the Persian Empire, Zoroastrian **monotheism** helped to shape the Abrahamic religions. Via Judaism, it was the source of such **Christian** and **Islamic** concepts as the existence of an evil adversary of God (the devil), one lifetime (as opposed to **rebirth** ), and a final judgment, as well as the idea of a recurring series of divine messengers, which may also have shaped the Hindu **avat\u0101ra** concept. _See also_ ZARATHUSTRA.\n\n**AIHOLE.** Pronounced \"Eye-ho-l\u00e9\"; village in northern **Karnataka** that, from the fourth to the sixth centuries CE, was a major city: the capital of the **C\u0101lukya** dynasty. The site is noteworthy for the numerous Hindu **temples** , in a variety of architectural styles, which the C\u0101lukyas built there.\n\n**AIR\u0100VATA.** Celestial elephant; vehicle of **Indra**. Air\u0101vata was one of the treasured items to emerge from the cosmic ocean when it was churned by the **devas** and **asuras**. In one account of the life of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** , Ga\u1e47e\u015ba's father, **\u015aiva** , after unknowingly decapitating his son, seeks to atone for this mis-deed by replacing Ga\u1e47e\u015ba's head with that of Air\u0101vata, thus explaining why Ga\u1e47e\u015ba has the head of an elephant.\n\n**AI\u015aV\u0100RYA.** Blessing; in some contexts, a superhuman power; to be blessed by **God** ; derived from **\u012a\u015bvara**.\n\n**AIYANAR.** Deity who protects villages in southern India from evil spirits.\n\n**AJANTA.** Site in central India with numerous Hindu, **Buddhist** , and **Jain** **temples** and monasteries. Numerous caves dot the region, many of which have been used as sites for **meditation** through the centuries, being at various times extended and connected for the use of whole communities of monks. The site is particularly famous for bright frescoes depicting the life story of the **Buddha**.\n\n**\u0100J\u012aVIKAS.** Extinct **\u015brama\u1e47a** sect attributed with a strong doctrine of **n\u012byati** , or fate, according to which no **action** can facilitate one's attainment of **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from **rebirth**. Mok\u1e63a will simply occur when it is destined to occur. This, at least, is how the doctrine of the \u0100j\u012bvikas is presented in the **scriptures** of the two surviving \u015brama\u1e47a sects, **Jainism** and **Buddhism**. The sect's founder, **Makkhali Gos\u0101la** , was a contemporary of both **Mah\u0101v\u012bra** and the **Buddha** , who represent his teaching as inimical to the practice of **asceticism**. Yet the \u0100j\u012bvikas are also represented as strict ascetics.\n\nRecent scholarship suggests that Jain and Buddhist representations of the \u0100j\u012bvika doctrine likely involve polemically motivated distortion. The actual \u0100j\u012bvika doctrine was probably that one can do nothing about one's already actualizing **karma** \u2014called in later Hindu texts **prarabdha karma** \u2014but that one can avoid the taking on of additional karma through adherence to ascetic practice (tapasya).\n\n**\u0100J\u00d1\u0100 CAKRA. Cakra** , or energy center, located in the subtle body ( **suk\u1e63ma \u015bar\u012bra** ) in the space corresponding to the center of the forehead, just above the eyebrows. It is sometimes called the \"third eye.\" The practice of locating a **tilak** or bindi in the center of the forehead may be related to this concept. _See also_ TANTRA.\n\n**\u0100K\u0100\u015aA.** Space, the medium of sound, one of the five **elements** or states of being that constitute the physical world ( **mah\u0101bh\u016btas)**. The five elements are earth ( **p\u1e5bthvi** ), air ( **v\u0101yu** ), fire ( **agni** ), water ( **ap** ), and space (\u0101k\u0101\u015ba). In esoteric Hindu thought, the \u0101k\u0101\u015ba also refers to a mental or spiritual space, a kind of collective **mind** in which all events are stored in a universal memory that can be read by persons who have developed the **siddhi** , or paranormal ability, of doing so.\n\n**AKBAR (1542\u20131605).** **Mughal** emperor who reigned from 1556 to 1605; known for his policy of religious tolerance and appreciation for India's religious diversity. Beginning his rule at the young age of 13, the early years of Akbar's reign were preoccupied with the conquest and consolidation of his empire. His opponents during this period included both Hindu and Muslim kings. He formed alliances with the Hindu **Rajputs** and married Rajput princesses. It was during this period that his interest in and tolerant views about religion emerged. He included Hindus in his administration and sponsored debates in which intellectuals from varied religious communities\u2014including Muslims, Hindus, **Jains** , Sikhs, skeptics, Jews, and Jesuit missionaries\u2014would discuss various issues for Akbar's edification. He tried to start his own religion, _Din-i-Ilahi_ or \"the Divine Faith,\" made up of teachings from all the traditions of which he was aware. But this new tradition did not survive his **death**. Under Akbar's reign, a hybrid Hindu\u2013 **Islamic** culture began to emerge in India, leading to a good deal of creative activity in the visual **arts** , **music** , architecture, and religion itself. _See also_ KAB\u012aR; N\u0100NAK, GURU; SANT; SIKHISM.\n\n**AKKA MAH\u0100DEV\u012a.** _See_ MAH\u0100DEVIYAKKA.\n\n**AK\u1e62AM\u0100L\u0100.** Garland of beads, often worn by Hindu deities. Typically, the garland is usually made up of 50 beads, symbolizing the sounds of the **Sanskrit** alphabet. One also finds garlands of 81 or 108 beads, the latter type often being used in the practice of **japa** ( **meditation** on a **mantra** ), in which case it is also referred to as a **japam\u0101l\u0101**.\n\n**AL-B\u012aR\u016aN\u012a (973\u20131048).** _See_ B\u012aR\u016aN\u012a, AL-.\n\n**ALLAHABAD.** Modern name of the city at the sacred confluence of the **Ga\u1e45g\u0101** (or Ganges) and Yamuna Rivers, traditionally called **Pray\u0101ga** ; one of the traditional locations of the **Kumbha Mel\u0101**.\n\n**\u0100\u1e36V\u0100RS.** Literally, \"those who are immersed deeply in **God**.\" The \u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs were 12 early medieval devotees of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , and exponents of **bhakti** , or devotion, as the supreme path to **mok\u1e63a**. The teachings of the \u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs are expressed in the form of **Tamil** **poetry**.\n\nAccording to the **philosophy** of bhakti, **caste** and gender are irrelevant to the level of devotion of which one is capable\u2014and thus to the attainment of mok\u1e63a. This is in clear contrast with more conservative Brahmanical traditions, according to which **rebirth** as a male **Brahmin** is a prerequisite for the practices needed for the attainment of mok\u1e63a. The \u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs illustrate this spiritual egalitarianism, coming from a wide range of backgrounds. They include a woman ( **\u0100\u1e47\u1e0d\u0101l** ) and members of the humblest strata of Indian society.\n\nThe collected poetry of the \u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs, called the _N\u0101l\u0101yirap Pirapantam_ (or _N\u0101l\u0101yira Prabandham_ in Sanskrit) is held in such high regard that it is sometimes referred to as the Tamil **Veda**. The **Ved\u0101nta** teacher **R\u0101m\u0101nuja** , founder of the **Vi\u015bi\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101dvaita** system of Ved\u0101nta, regarded it as the fifth Veda. The \u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs are therefore particularly revered in the **\u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition that R\u0101m\u0101nuja also established, and their poems are frequently recited in \u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava **temples** and homes.\n\nThe \u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs composed roughly 4,000 poems in all, most of which are attributed to **Namm\u0101\u1e37v\u0101r** and **Tirumankai**. The \u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs flourished from approximately 600 to 900 CE.\n\n**AMAVASYA.** New moon; day marking the end of the **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a Pak\u1e63a** , or \"dark half\" of a month, in which the **moon** is waning, and the beginning of the **\u015aukla Pak\u1e63a** , or \"bright half,\" in which the moon is waxing. In the **\u015a\u0101kta** traditions of **Bengal** , it is customary to perform a **p\u016bj\u0101** to **K\u0101l\u012b** on this day. Amavasya is the last day of the Hindu month, the following day being the first day of the bright half of the next month.\n\n**AMB\u0100.** Literally \"mother\" or \"good woman\"; epithet of the **goddess** **Durg\u0101**. In Hindu iconography, Durg\u0101 in her form as Amb\u0101 is depicted riding a tiger and having eight arms, whereas Durg\u0101 proper is depicted riding a lion and having 10 arms. Amb\u0101 is also known as Ambik\u0101, Amb\u0101lik\u0101, and Jagaddh\u0101tr\u012b. She is one of several forms\u2014along with **P\u0101rvat\u012b** and **K\u0101l\u012b** \u2014of the **Mother Goddess** worshiped in the **\u015a\u0101kta** tradition. Amb\u0101, Ambik\u0101, and Amb\u0101lik\u0101, respectively, symbolize the characters A, U, and \u1e42, that make up the syllable **O\u1e43**.\n\nAmb\u0101 is also the name of a character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , the daughter of a king of **K\u0101\u015b\u012b** (with sisters named Ambik\u0101 and Amb\u0101lik\u0101). Amb\u0101 and her sisters were captured by **Bh\u012b\u1e63ma**. Amb\u0101's sisters were married to Bh\u012b\u1e63ma's brothers, but Amb\u0101 was betrothed to another warrior who refused to marry her after her capture by Bh\u012b\u1e63ma. Bh\u012b\u1e63ma also would not marry her, due to his vow of celibacy. Abandoned, shamed, and homeless, Amb\u0101 vowed to destroy Bh\u012b\u1e63ma, whom she blamed for her misfortunes. By the power of her **asceticism** she was reborn as the male warrior \u015aikhandin, who slew Bh\u012b\u1e63ma in battle.\n\n**AMBEDKAR, BH\u012aMRAO (1891\u20131956).** **Dalit** leader and primary author of the Indian constitution. Born in a village in Mah\u0101r\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dra, Ambedkar received financial support from the Mah\u0101r\u0101ja of Baroda to pursue his higher education. In 1912, he became the first Dalit to receive a bachelor's degree at Elphinstone College in Bombay. He earned his doctoral degree at Columbia University in New York in 1927. He also studied at the London School of Economics and, like his contemporary **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** , earned his law degree in London as well.\n\nAmbedkar made the upliftment and empowerment of the lower **castes** the central cause of his life. Advocating the complete abolition of the caste system, Ambedkar was highly critical of reformist Hindus, such as G\u0101ndh\u012b, who believed that this system could be rehabilitated if the practice of **Untouchability** were to be eradicated.\n\nConvinced, by 1951, that caste prejudice, or **casteism** , was inherent to Hinduism, Ambedkar led a mass conversion of thousands of Dalits to **Buddhism**. In addition to its implied critique of Hinduism, this move also led to a reinvigoration of Indian Buddhism, which had largely vanished by the 14th century of the Common Era.\n\n**Ambedkarite Buddhism** , as this movement is called, has many continuities with traditional Buddhism and has led to a reinvigoration of interest in Buddhism in India. But it is distinguished by its strong political dimension as a critique of the caste system. Ambedkarite Buddhists usually have a home shrine that includes an image of Ambedkar, who is regarded as a _bodhisattva_ , or **enlightened** being. _See also_ HARIJAN.\n\n**AMBEDKARITE BUDDHISM.** Movement established by Dr. **Bh\u012bmrao Ambedkar** in 1951. Ambedkar led a mass conversion of thousands of his fellow **Dalits** to **Buddhism** as a protest against the **caste** system of Hinduism. Ambedkar had come to see **casteism** as inherent to Hinduism, thus requiring not reform but a break with the entire tradition.\n\nThough having many continuities with traditional Buddhism\u2014the study of which this movement has reinvigorated in India\u2014this movement is distinguished by its strongly political dimension as a critique of **casteism** and the caste system more generally. Many Indian Buddhists today worship Ambedkar as a _bodhisattva_ , or **enlightened** being, a ritual practice unique to this form of Buddhism.\n\n**AMMA (1953\u2013 ).** Literally \"mother\"; an epithet of the contemporary female **guru** **M\u0101t\u0101 Amrit\u0101nandamay\u012b** , also called the \"Hugging Saint.\"\n\n**AMRIT\u0100NANDAMAY\u012a, M\u0100T\u0100 (1953\u2013 ).** \"Mother who is permeated with the bliss of **immortality** ,\" also widely known as **Amma** , Ammachi, and the \"Hugging Saint.\" Born Sudhamani Idamannel in a poor village in **Kerala** , in her childhood she began to show generosity to those who were even less fortunate than herself, and also began the practice of spontaneously embracing those in sorrow. Spiritual seekers began to gravitate to her and in 1981 her organization, the M\u0101t\u0101 Amrit\u0101nandamay\u012b Ma\u1e6dha, was founded.\n\n**AM\u1e5aTA.** \" **Immortality**.\" Elixir of life churned from the cosmic ocean by the **devas** and **asuras**. This event, depicted frequently in Hindu **art** and **literature** , involved the devas and asuras in a rare act of cooperation, since neither group alone had the strength to churn the ocean of milk. This venture was the occasion for the appearance of **K\u016brma** , the second **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , which had the form of a giant tortoise. K\u016brma permitted the devas and asuras to place **Mount Mandara** on his back to use as the axis of a great churn, the rope of which was formed by the giant serpent **V\u0101suk\u012b** , king of the **N\u0101gas**.\n\nWhen the elixir emerged from the ocean, the asuras stole it from the devas, who in turn recovered it from the asuras through trickery. From drinking the am\u1e5bta, the devas became immortal. In Hindu thought, however, the concept of immortality does not imply that one never dies, but only that one has a full and lengthy life span; even the devas die at the end of a **kalpa** , or a cosmic cycle. In some **Vedic** texts in which am\u1e5bta is an object of human aspiration, it is described as a life span of a hundred years.\n\nIt is said that at the time of the churning of the cosmic ocean of milk, four drops of am\u1e5bta fell to the Earth at the locations of the holy cities **Haridwar** , **N\u0101sik** , **Ujjain** , and **Pray\u0101ga**. A great festival of pilgrimage, or **Kumbha Mel\u0101** , is therefore held at each of these cities on a rotating basis every three years.\n\nIn esoteric Hindu thought, am\u1e5bta refers to a vital energy within the body that one can control through **yoga** in order to promote physical health and well-being. The earliest references in Hindu texts to an elixir of immortality are to the **soma** of the _Vedas_. In the Vedic literature, the devas and asuras fight over the soma, a possible precursor to the story of the am\u1e5bta being churned from the cosmic ocean.\n\n**A\u1e42\u015aA.** Early **Vedic** deity, one of the 12 **\u0100dityas** \u2014sons of the **goddess** **Aditi** and the sage **Ka\u015byapa**. The term also refers to the portion of the Vedic sacrifice that goes to the **gods** \u2014the invisible portion of the food offered to the gods that they receive before this food is consumed by human beings.\n\nThe word _a\u1e43\u015ba_ literally means _portion_ and is a technical **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** term referring to an **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , the concept being that an avat\u0101ra is a manifestation of a portion of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u's total existence, with some avat\u0101ras manifesting a relatively small portion of the divine, and others, such as **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , being full manifestations, with others in between.\n\n**AN\u0100HATA CAKRA. Cakra** , or energy center, which is located in the subtle body (or **suk\u1e63ma \u015bar\u012bra** ) in the space corresponding to the heart. _See also_ TANTRA.\n\n**\u0100NANDA.** Bliss, joy, having no limitations. Along with infinite being ( **sat** ) and pure consciousness ( **cit** ), one of three inherent attributes of **Brahman** according to **Ved\u0101nta**. Etymologically related to the **Sanskrit** word _ananta_ , meaning infinite, or without limits. The names of many Hindu monks contain the word _\u0101nanda_ as a suffix, meaning \"one whose bliss is\" whatever quality is signified by the word to which \u0101nanda is added. As an attribute of Brahman, \u0101nanda is sometimes used as a synonym for **mok\u1e63a**.\n\n**\u0100NANDA M\u0100RGA.** \"Way of Bliss.\" Modern Hindu religious movement established in 1955 in **West Bengal** by Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, better known as **\u0100nandam\u016brti**. The movement spread to the United States in 1969. In the early 1970s it was a center of controversy due to the political activism of its members on behalf of Sarkar, who was imprisoned by the government of India. Some of his followers immolated themselves in protest. Sarkar was eventually released and spent the rest of his life pursuing his mission of \"self-realization and service to all.\"\n\n**\u0100NANDA-MAYA-KO\u015aA.** Layer made up of bliss. One of the five layers or \"sheaths\" ( **ko\u015bas** ) surrounding the self ( **\u0101tman** ). The \u0101nanda-maya-ko\u015ba is the inmost layer, closest to the self. _See also_ \u0100NANDA.\n\n**\u0100NANDAM\u0100Y\u012a M\u0100 (1896\u20131982).** \"Mother who is permeated with bliss.\" Spiritual teacher from **Bengal**. Born into a devout **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** family, her given name was Nirmala Sundar\u012b Dev\u012b. Her title of \u0100nandam\u0101y\u012b M\u0101 was conferred upon her by her disciples in the 1920s due to her blissful, God-absorbed nature. From an early age, she would often go into a very deep **meditative** state. In 1922, at the age of 26, she gave herself spiritual initiation, or **d\u012bk\u1e63a**. Breaking with the tradition of going to a **guru** for such initiation, she acted as her own guru. Five months later, she initiated her husband as well. She began to develop a large following of disciples. In 1932, she moved from Bengal to Dehradun, in the foothills of the **Him\u0101layas** , but traveled frequently throughout India for the rest of her life, teaching and establishing **\u0101\u015bramas** and hospitals. Her disciples, most of whom were **women** , included Kamala Nehru, the wife of the first prime minister of India, **Jawaharlal Nehru**. She also met both **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** and **Paramah\u0101\u1e43sa Yog\u0101nanda** \u2014the latter meeting being recounted in a chapter of Yog\u0101nanda's famous _Autobiography of a Yogi_. \u0100nandam\u0101y\u012b M\u0101 taught that \"The supreme calling of every human being is to aspire to self-realization. All other obligations are secondary.\" Though having followers from all over India, her following is particularly large in her native Bengal.\n\n**\u0100NANDAM\u016aRTI (1921\u20131990).** Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar; founder in 1955 of the **\u0100nanda M\u0101rga** , a modern Hindu religious movement.\n\n**ANA\u1e44GA.** Having no limbs, or no body; epithet of **K\u0101madeva** , the Cupid-like **god** of love. K\u0101madeva is called Ana\u1e45ga because **\u015aiva** destroyed his body with a blast of energy from his **third eye** when K\u0101madeva once tried to distract \u015aiva during his **meditation** by shooting one of his arrows into \u015aiva's heart.\n\n**ANANTA.** \"Infinite, unlimited\"; one of the attributes of **Brahman**. Also the name of the giant serpent with a thousand heads on whom **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** reclines on the cosmic ocean, dreaming the cosmos into existence. Ananta is also called **\u015ae\u1e63a** , or remainder, because he is all that remains after the universe has been absorbed back into Vi\u1e63\u1e47u at the time of the **mah\u0101pralaya** , or great dissolution at the end of a **kalpa** , or cosmic cycle. \u015ae\u1e63a is said to have incarnated as **Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a** and **B\u0101lar\u0101ma** , the brothers, respectively, of **R\u0101ma** and **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , the two most prominent **avat\u0101ras** or incarnations of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u.\n\n**ANCESTRAL RITES.** Two Hindu rituals dedicated to honoring one's ancestors are the funeral, or **antye\u1e63\u1e6di** , which occurs as soon as possible after **death** , and the **\u015br\u0101ddha** , which occurs periodically and consists of offering food and water. If one does not offer \u015br\u0101ddha to one's ancestors\u2014typically in the form of balls of rice called **pi\u1e47\u1e0da** \u2014one may run the risk that they will wander through the world as **pretas** , or hungry ghosts. The food offered in the \u015br\u0101ddha is also said to become the food of one's ancestors in their next **rebirth**.\n\n**\u0100\u1e46\u1e0c\u0100L (fl. 9th century CE).** One of the **\u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs** , or 12 **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** **poets** of south India. She composed approximately 107 of the roughly 4,000 **Tamil** poems that make up the _N\u0101l\u0101yirap Pirapantam_ , the collected works of the \u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs, which **\u015arivai\u1e63\u1e47avas** regard as inspired **scriptures** on the same level of authority as the _Vedas_. \u0100\u1e47\u1e0d\u0101l's revered position as a woman in this tradition is significant, being illustrative of the **philosophy** of **bhakti** , or devotion, according to which social categories such as gender and **caste** are irrelevant to one's spiritual status or proximity to salvation. _See also_ WOMEN.\n\n**A\u1e44GIRASA.** According to some lists, one of the Seven Sages ( **Saptar\u1e63i** ) presiding over the cosmos. The term is also sometimes used to refer to the ancestors of humanity, who are descendants of the sage A\u1e45girasa. Portions of the _Atharva Veda_ are attributed to the authorship of A\u1e45girasa.\n\n**ANGKOR WAT.** Magnificent **temple** complex built in Cambodia in the 12th century CE by the Khmer king S\u016bryavarman II. A striking example of Hindu influence on the culture of **Southeast Asia** , Angkor Wat is one of the largest temples in the world. It is modeled on the Hindu cosmos, centered on **Mount Meru** , and includes representations of numerous events from Hindu sacred **literature** and from the past lives of the **Buddha**. This complex includes temples dedicated to the Buddha, **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , and **\u015aiva**. It can thus be seen as an architectural embodiment of the **syncretism** frequently encountered among the South Asian religions.\n\n**ANIMAL SACRIFICE.** The ritual offering of the life of an animal as a way to seek the favor of a deity or deities. The practice is controversial in Hinduism, being a part of the ancient **Vedic** rite of **yaj\u00f1a** , and even today practiced in some corners of the Hindu world such as the **K\u0101l\u012bgh\u0101t** , a **temple** to the **Mother Goddess** in her fierce form as **K\u0101l\u012b** , in the city of **Calcutta** (Kolkata), as well as in **Nepal**. But the mainstream Hindu tradition has abandoned animal sacrifice, adopting the view of the **\u015brama\u1e47a** traditions that the killing of animals is a source of bad **karma** , and not at all meritorious.\n\nWhen animal sacrifices were more widely performed, in the early Vedic period, the task of the **Adhvaryu** priest\u2014a type of **Brahmin** \u2014included the slaughter, cooking, and offering of the bodies of sacrificial victims. But starting in the period of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , a growing number of Brahmins deemphasized\u2014and the \u015brama\u1e47a movement even actively rejected\u2014the Vedic ritual of sacrifice, especially the practice of animal sacrifice, which came to be seen as an inherently violent karma that could only lead to a bad **rebirth** , rather than as an offering that was pleasing to the gods. By the middle of the first millennium of the Common Era, the practice of animal sacrifice had been largely abandoned by even orthodox Brahmins and replaced, in most parts of India, by vegetable substitutes. The embrace of the ideal of **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** , or nonviolence, on the part of the Brahmins led to this development, as well as to the expectation that Brahmins should practice **vegetarianism**.\n\nEvidence that the abandonment by most Hindus of the practice of animal sacrifice was due at least in part to the influence of \u015brama\u1e47a traditions, such as **Buddhism** and **Jainism** , exists in the form of the story of the **Buddha avat\u0101ra** , who is presented in some accounts as a Vedic reformer who ended the practice of animal sacrifice to promote the ideal of compassion.\n\nAnimals offered in ancient Vedic animal sacrifices included bulls and goats. The sacrifices still carried out at the K\u0101l\u012bgh\u0101t and in Nepal are primarily of goats. _See also_ COW, SACRED; G\u0100NDH\u012a, MOHAND\u0100S K.\n\n**A\u00d1JALI.** Gesture of reverence and respect consisting of the placing of the palms of the hands together. The a\u00f1jali is typically offered during **dar\u015bana** , when one encounters an image, or **m\u016brti** , of a deity, as well as when wants to offer respect to another person. In the latter case, the a\u00f1jali is often accompanied by the utterance \" **Namaste** ,\" which means \"I offer reverence to the divinity within you.\"\n\n**A\u00d1JANEYA.** Son of A\u00f1jan\u012b, epithet of **Hanuman** , whose mother is named **A\u00f1jan\u012b** and whose father is **V\u0101yu** , the **Vedic** deity of the wind.\n\n**A\u00d1JAN\u012a.** Mother of **Hanuman** , who for this reason is also known as A\u00f1janeya.\n\n**ANNA-MAYA-KO\u015aA.** Food layer; layer made of food; outermost of the five **ko\u015bas** , or layers, surrounding the self ( **\u0101tman** ) according to **Ved\u0101nta** ; the physical body ( **sth\u016bla \u015bar\u012bra** ).\n\n**ANTYE\u1e62\u1e6cI.** The **Vedic** funeral ritual of Hinduism; one of the major Hindu **sa\u1e43sk\u0101ras** or sacraments. This ceremony is conducted as soon as possible after **death** and includes the **cremation** of the deceased. The particulars of the funeral ritual vary a great deal, depending upon region and **caste** , but often extend over the course of several days.\n\nTraditionally, the son of the deceased plays a major role in this ritual, which is often seen as essential to the transition of the **soul** of the deceased peacefully to its next life. This is one of the reasons that sons are highly prized in traditional Hindu families. _See also_ ANCESTRAL RITES; \u015aR\u0100DDHA.\n\n**ANUBH\u0100VA.** Experience; the direct experience of reality; the most authoritative source of **knowledge** according to **Neo-Ved\u0101nta**.\n\n_ANUG\u012aT\u0100_ **.** \"Little _G\u012bt\u0101_ ,\" part of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , a brief summary and restatement by **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** to **Arjuna** , after the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ war, of the teachings contained in the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. It is in the 14th book of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_.\n\n**ANUM\u0100NA.** Inference; a **pram\u0101\u1e47a** , or valid source of **knowledge** in Indian **philosophy** ; reasoning from a set of premises and\/or observations to a conclusion.\n\n**AP.** Water; the medium of taste ( **rasa** ); one of the five elements or states of being that constitute the physical world ( **mah\u0101bh\u016btas)**. The five elements are earth ( **p\u1e5bthv\u012b** ), air ( **v\u0101yu** ), fire ( **agni** ), water (ap), and space ( **\u0101k\u0101\u015ba** ).\n\n**APARIGRAHA.** Nonattachment; nonpossessiveness; the fifth **yama** or restraint that is enjoined in the _Yoga S\u016btra_ ; also included among the moral precepts of **Jainism**.\n\n**APSARAS.** Nymph; celestial maiden. _See also_ URVA\u015a\u012a.\n\n_\u0100RA\u1e46YAKAS_ **.** \"Forest texts.\" The third of the four sections contained within each of the four _Vedas_. This collection of Vedic writings was composed during the period roughly between the composition of the _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ and the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , approximately 600 to 500 BCE according to most contemporary scholarship. They are called \"forest texts\" because the teaching within them is considered sufficiently esoteric that it should be conveyed in the forest, away from society, where it might be overheard. The term also evokes the forest academies, or _\u0101\u015bramas_ , in which **Vedic** sages pursued contemplative activities away from society and taught their wisdom to their students.\n\nThe _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_ are known as the **Up\u0101sana Kanda** , or \"contemplative portion\" of the _Vedas_ , in contrast with the earlier **Karma Kanda** , or **action** portion, consisting of the more ritualistic Vedic hymns and the _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ , and the **J\u00f1\u0101na Kanda** , or \"wisdom portion,\" consisting of the _Upani\u1e63ads_.\n\nIn terms of their style and content, the _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_ can be seen as transitional texts, marking a shift from the more ritualistic concerns of the earlier portions of the Vedic **literature** to the more philosophical and speculative interests reflected in the _Upani\u1e63ads_.\n\nThe boundaries between the genres of _Br\u0101hma\u1e47a_ , _\u0100ra\u1e47yaka_ , and _Upani\u1e63ad_ being somewhat fluid, one of the later _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_ , the _B\u1e5bhad\u0101ranyaka_ , is also known as one of the oldest _Upani\u1e63ads_. The content of the _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_ is chiefly concerned with the inner meaning of the Vedic rituals.\n\n**\u0100RAT\u012a.** Brief ceremony, typically performed daily in **temples** , as well as at home by individual devotees. \u0100rat\u012b involves the waving of a flame\u2014either a lit oil lamp ( **d\u012by\u0101** ) fed by **ghee** , **camphor** , or oil, or a lit candle or set of lit candles placed on a plate\u2014in front of an image ( **m\u016brti** ) of a deity or in front of a living, revered person, such as a **guru**. The flame is typically waved in a clockwise circular motion or the devotee might also trace out the syllable **O\u1e43** in the air with the flame. The \u0101rat\u012b is accompanied by the ringing of a bell, and usually with either the chanting of **mantras** or singing. A particularly popular song that is sung to accompany \u0101rat\u012b in the modern period is **O\u1e43 jaya Jagadi\u015ba Hare** , as recorded by the popular **Hindi** singer Lata Mangeshkar.\n\n**ARDHANAR\u012a\u015aVARA.** Half-female lord; a representation of the divine couple, **\u015aiva** and **\u015aakti** as one being. Typically, the right half of the image has the form of the male deity, \u015aiva, and the left half of the image has the form of his wife, the **Mother Goddess** , \u015aakti. Symbolically, this image communicates the idea that the divine includes attributes that are both masculine and feminine, ultimately transcending both. It also represents the inclusion of all opposites within the divine, the fact that the divine reality incorporates and transcends all limiting qualities. This image is especially popular in **Tantric** forms of Hinduism, and the **philosophy** that underlies it reflects a Tantric sensibility. _See also_ WOMEN.\n\n**ARDHAPADM\u0100SANA.** The half-lotus posture of **Ha\u1e6dha Yoga** , formed by placing the right foot on the left thigh. _See also_ \u0100SANA; YOGA.\n\n**ARJUNA.** One of the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dava** brothers, hero of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , and interlocutor of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** in the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. Among the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas, Arjuna is regarded as the greatest warrior, his favored weapon being the bow and arrow. It was Arjuna who won the hand of **Draupad\u012b** in marriage by winning the contest of arms at her **svaya\u1e43vara**. Though his legal father was **Pa\u1e47\u1e0du** , Arjuna also had a divine father, **Indra** , who was invoked by his mother, **Kunt\u012b** , when Pa\u1e47\u1e0du became unable to conceive heirs due to a curse. When the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas were required to live incognito for a year, Arjuna disguised himself as a female dance instructor.\n\nArjuna was the father of the boy warrior Abhimanyu, who was tragically slain in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ war. Arjuna's greatest rival was **Kar\u1e47a** , whom he slew in the battle of **Kuruk\u1e63etra** , along with his teacher, **Dro\u1e47a**.\n\n**\u0100ROGYA.** Freedom from disease; one of the main goals of traditional Hindu medical science, or **\u0100yur Veda**.\n\n**AR\u1e62A VIDY\u0100 GURUKULAM.** **\u0100\u015brama** and Hindu educational center built by **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b** in 1986 and located in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. Its purpose is to promote Hindu thought and practice in the United States. The \u0101\u015brama offers courses in Sanskrit and Indian **philosophy** , with a strong emphasis on **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** philosophy.\n\n**ART.** Art, in all its varied forms\u2014the visual arts, **dance** , **literature** , **music** , and **poetry** \u2014plays a major role in Hindu practice. Two particular currents of Hindu thought\u2014the **philosophy** of **bhakti** , or devotion, and the movement known as **Tantra** \u2014endorse the idea that sense experience can point beyond itself to the realm of the transcendent, and that the aesthetic impulse toward beauty, rather than being a distraction from spiritual pursuits, is a force that can be channeled toward the divine, which is its ultimate proper object. Hindu art is not, therefore, traditionally seen as \"art for art's sake\" but as a form of what scholar of religion Huston Smith calls \"spiritual technology\"\u2014a way of inspiring the aesthetic sense and directing it toward spiritual ends.\n\nThe aesthetic sense\u2014 **rasa** , or \"taste\" in **Sanskrit** \u2014has been theorized extensively by Hindu thinkers, particularly in the _N\u0101\u1e6dya \u015a\u0101stra_ of **Bharata** , a text of the early first millennium of the Common Era, by the 10th\u201311th century **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaiva** philosopher **Abhinavagupta** and by the **Gosv\u0101mins** , or **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** theologians of the late medieval period. Abhinavagupta saw rasa, or aesthetic experience, as being akin to the experience of **mok\u1e63a** , and as itself a potentially liberating phenomenon. The Gosv\u0101mins applied this Tantric insight to their devotional practice, arguing that listening to and visualizing oneself as a participant in the stories of the deity **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** and his earthly activities can evoke an aesthetic experience that, by K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's grace, can lead to the state of **liberation**.\n\nIn terms of visual art, one of the most striking features of Hindu ritual practice is its deployment of **m\u016brtis** , or sculptured images of deities in worship. The basic worship ritual, or **p\u016bj\u0101** , involves evoking the presence of the divine within the image\u2014which, in effect, and for the duration of the ritual, \"becomes\" the deity, who is then treated just as an honored human guest would be treated when visiting a home. P\u016bj\u0101 is one of the most common expressions of bhakti and is carried out both in the home and in the **temple**. A temple is also, itself, a work of art and is designed both to express and evoke devotion.\n\nOn the more Tantric side, other works of visual art used to cultivation experience of the divine are the **yantra** and the **ma\u1e47\u1e0dala** \u2014abstract diagrams that are used as objects of **meditation**.\n\nBoth p\u016bj\u0101 and meditation are accompanied and aided by music. Sacred chanting is one of the most ancient of Hindu practices. The correct practice of chanting the _Vedas_ is laid out in the _S\u0101ma Veda_ , a text dating from roughly 1200 to 1000 BCE that forms the basis for later Indian classical music. A wide range of musical genres have emerged in subsequent periods, designed to evoke either a meditative state or devotional feelings.\n\nDance, too, which combines the visual sense with music, has been developed to a high degree of sophistication, with a variety of styles emerging in different periods and in different parts of the Indian subcontinent\u2014a process that continues today, in the era of global Hinduism. In classical Indian dance, every move\u2014even the facial expressions\u2014of a dancer carry a meaning and form a vocabulary through which a story is told or a lesson is taught.\n\nFinally, literature, including poetry, plays a foundational role in Hindu practice. The preferred medium for communicating philosophical concepts is storytelling. Ancient Hindu bards, known as **sutas** , memorized vast narratives, such as the epic _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , and the **Brahmins** , or priestly community, committed vast portions of the Vedic literature to memory as well. In the first millennium of the Common Era, the practice of writing became more widespread\u2014though the earlier tradition of memorization also persisted\u2014and a profusion of texts resulted, with genres spanning a range including drama, poetry, legal writing, and philosophical speculation. Poetry, in particular, was the preferred medium by which the saints of the bhakti movement expressed their devotional feelings\u2014often in vernacular languages, rather than the more formal Sanskrit of the Vedic tradition. These poems, set to music, became the popular hymns or **bhajanas** sung in the setting of Hindu temples and religious gatherings even today.\n\n**ARTHA.** Wealth, power, worldly success, the ability to fulfill one's desires. Along with sensory pleasure ( **k\u0101ma** ), virtue ( **dharma** ), and **liberation** ( **mok\u1e63a** ), one of the four goals of humanity ( **puru\u1e63\u0101rthas** ). This term also refers to goals in general, as well as to the meaning of a word\u2014the \"object\" or purpose to which a word points beyond itself.\n\n_ARTHA \u015a\u0100STRA_ **.** Sanskrit text of political science traditionally attributed to **Kau\u1e6dilya** (350\u2013283 BCE, also known as Canakya), a **Brahmin** and the chief political advisor to Candragupta **Maurya**. The oldest parts of the text were likely composed around 300 BCE, with additions made by various authors over the course of the next few centuries.\n\nThe **philosophy** of kingly rule outlined in the text was widely followed by Hindu kings for centuries, particularly its **ma\u1e47\u1e0dala** theory of interstate relations, according to which a king should see himself as being in the middle of a series of concentric circles of alternating enemies and allies. The text covers such topics as diplomacy, administrative structures, military organization, **laws** , and punishments for specific crimes.\n\nThe _Artha \u015a\u0101stra_ is frequently compared to the later work of Niccol\u00f2 Machiavelli, with its sometimes shockingly frank approach to topics such as the deployment of espionage and subterfuge as legitimate tools for the advancement of state interests. At the same time, the text does contain ethical reflections and sets forth the criteria by which an ideal king should strive to live. But its approach to the issues a king might face is best characterized as _realpolitik_.\n\n**\u0100RYA SAM\u0100J.** Hindu reform organization that was established by **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b** (1824\u20131883) in 1875 and devoted to the practice and promulgation of what it regards as a pure, **Vedic** Hinduism. The \u0100rya Sam\u0101j does not utilize **m\u016brtis** , or images of deities. It regards the _P\u016br\u0101\u1e47as_ and the customs associated with P\u016br\u0101\u1e47ic Hinduism as later additions to the original Vedic tradition. \u0100rya Sam\u0101j rituals consist of adaptations of Vedic rituals centered on a sacred fire, such as the **havan** , or fire offering accompanied by Vedic prayers.\n\nIn the late 19th century, the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j initiated a ritual enabling non-Hindus to convert to Hinduism. Although this ritual is available to non-Indians, its main historical emphasis has been upon \"reconversion\"\u2014or rather, conversion of non-Hindus of Indian descent whose ancestors had converted to non-Indic traditions such as **Christianity** and **Islam**.\n\nThe \u0100rya Sam\u0101j does not completely reject the concept of **caste** , because the four **var\u1e47as** are mentioned in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ and therefore have Vedic sanction. But it does reject the idea of **j\u0101ti** , or birth caste, maintaining that one's caste should be a matter of individual merit. Its conversion ceremony has sometimes been utilized to ritually raise the caste status of low-caste persons, a version of the process of acculturation to Vedic norms known as **Sanskritization**. In 1893, a division arose between those within the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j who advocated **vegetarianism** , long an upper-caste custom, and those who opposed dietary restrictions as a later, non-Vedic development due to **\u015brama\u1e47a** influence.\n\nThe \u0100rya Sam\u0101j has been actively involved in political and social issues since its inception, particularly the Indian independence movement. Since independence and the partition of India and Pakistan, it has also been associated with the **Hindu Nationalist** movement, promoting the growth of such Hindu nationalist organizations as the **Hindu Mah\u0101sabh\u0101** and **Bh\u0101rat\u012bya Janata Party**.\n\nIn 1992, **Sw\u0101m\u012b Agnive\u015ba** was expelled from the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j, forming the **World Council of the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j** , a distinct organization from the original \u0100rya Sam\u0101j, that sees itself as maintaining fidelity to the original ideals of Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b.\n\n**ARYAMAN.** Literally \"companion.\" Early Vedic **deva** , or deity; one of the 12 **\u0100dityas** , sons of the **goddess** **Aditi** and the sage **Ka\u015byapa**. Aryaman is closely associated with the sun and the Milky Way, and is said to be the eye of the **Puru\u1e63a** , or \"cosmic man,\" from whose sacrificed body the universe was fashioned according to the _Puru\u1e63a S\u016bkta_ of the _\u1e5ag Veda_. He is in charge of honor, chivalry, and nobility\u2014the qualities of an **\u0101ryan** \u2014and the rules of society.\n\n**\u0100RYAN.** Noble, cultured, \"gentleman,\" a term by which ancient **Vedic** peoples referred to themselves and to their cultural and religious practices (in contrast with a **mleccha** , or \"barbarian\"). The term _\u0101rya_ had no ethnic or racial connotations until 19th-century European scholarship thus interpreted it, on the false assumption of a correlation between culture and ethnicity. The term refers not to ethnic characteristics but to cultural and spiritual ones. It is pervasive in Indic traditions, including **Buddhism** , where it is used in such contexts as the \"Four Noble **Truths** \" and the \"Noble Eightfold Path\" to refer to that which confers the dignity of spiritual realization. Its range of connotations is comparable to the English word \"civilized.\" Based on the assumption that the practitioners of ancient Vedic cultures formed a single ethnic group, the term _Aryan_ was coined in the 19th century to refer to a primordial \"white\" European race, a concept foundational to racist political ideologies such as Nazism. _See also_ \u0100RYAN INVASION THEORY; INDO-\u0100RYAN; INDO-EUROPEAN.\n\n**\u0100RYAN INVASION THEORY.** **Indological** theory developed by 19th-century scholars, and most prominently associated with **Friedrich Max M\u00fcller** (1823\u20131900), to account for the many strong resemblances between **Vedic** language and culture and the other languages and cultures of the **Indo-European** linguistic family. The theory is controversial. Having subsequently been modified into the **\u0100ryan Migration Theory** in order to better account for the available data, it is still contested by some scholars who prefer a model that locates the Indo-European homeland in India.\n\nAccording to the \u0100ryan Invasion Theory, Indo-European languages and cultures were brought into India shortly before 1500 BCE through a massive invasion of light-skinned, **chariot** -riding, Indo-European warriors who then conquered the darker-skinned indigenous population. These invaders, according to this theory, then settled in India and imposed their language and culture, including the **caste** system, upon the native Indians. The discovery of the **Indus Valley civilization** was initially thought to lend credence to this theory, being thought to consist of the remains of the civilization destroyed by the \u0100ryans. But it has since been confirmed that this civilization never suffered an invasion.\n\nThe \u0100ryan Invasion Theory has proven controversial for a variety of reasons, both scholarly and ideological. As knowledge of ancient India has improved, the theory has been gradually modified over time, and its contemporary form is more accurately known as the \u0100ryan Migration Theory, which postulates not a massive, violent invasion but a gradual acculturation process that very likely involved a relatively small number of actual migrants from Central Asia.\n\nPartly in reaction to the implication of this theory in racist ideologies, and partly on the basis of **Hindu Nationalist** assumptions, some Hindu scholars have proposed the **Out of India** **Theory** as an alternative model of Vedic origins.\n\n**\u0100RYAN MIGRATION THEORY.** **Indological** theory that has superseded the **\u0100ryan Invasion Theory** as the mainstream scholarly model of ancient Indian history\u2014and in particular, of **Vedic** origins. The \u0100ryan Migration Theory could be regarded either as a new theory or as a revised form of the old invasion theory. It preserves, from the earlier theory, the postulate that **Indo-European** linguistic and cultural forms were brought to India by migrants from Central Asia. Unlike the earlier invasion theory, however, the newer migration theory suggests that this process was gradual, at least largely peaceful, and that it involved a relatively small number of actual human migrants.\n\nImportantly, this theory also rejects the earlier theory's conflation of culture and ethnicity that helped to fuel racist ideologies in the first half of the 20th century. It essentially seeks to balance the linguistic evidence, which strongly suggests that Indo-European language and culture had a point of origin outside of India, with the lack of any evidence for a massive invasion of the kind postulated in the original invasion theory: no devastated cities, no large influx of genetic material significantly different from the types already found in India, and no clear or unambiguous record of an invasion having ever occurred (though sections of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ had long been interpreted by European scholars as providing such an account).\n\nThe \u0100ryan Migration Theory is contested by the proponents of the **Out of India Theory**. This theory postulates India as the homeland of Indo-European culture, which then spread to Central Asia and Europe, and (usually) Vedic **Sanskrit** as the Proto-Indo-European language. This model is largely rejected by mainstream scholars due to the presence of non-Indo-European substrate elements in Vedic Sanskrit, indicating that this language cannot be identical to Proto-Indo-European (as proponents of this theory often claim), as well as deep discomfort with the **Hindu Nationalist** ideological bias perceived to motivate at least some versions of this model, which leads to a selective reading of the evidence driven by the foregone conclusion that India _must_ be the Indo-European point of origin. The academic conversation surrounding the issue of Vedic origins remains very highly politically charged.\n\n**\u0100\u1e62\u0100\u1e0cHA.** Month of the **Hindu calendar** that corresponds roughly to the period from mid-June to mid-July.\n\n**\u0100SANA.** Yogic posture, literally \"seat.\" In **Ha\u1e6dha Yoga** , the branch of yoga concerned with the physical postures most conducive to **meditative** practice ( **dhy\u0101na** ), a complex system of postures and exercises has been developed. A couple of the most well known are the lotus posture ( **padm\u0101sana** ) and the half-lotus posture ( **ardhapadm\u0101sana** ), but there are a great many others as well. Indeed, new \u0101sanas continue to be developed even today.\n\nMost \u0101sanas share the characteristic of keeping the back straight and the head and neck in alignment in order to facilitate deep breathing exercises ( **pr\u0101\u1e47ay\u0101ma** ). \u0100sana is one of the limbs of the **a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** or \"eight-limbed\" system of **yoga** set forth in the _Yoga S\u016btras_ of **Pata\u00f1jali**. But, contrary to popular belief, the elaborate system of postures that is associated with Ha\u1e6dha Yoga cannot be found in this text, which simply states that one's yogic posture should be \"stable\" and \"comfortable.\"\n\n**ASCETICISM.** The sacrifice of specific comforts or pleasures or the taking on of extra discomfort in order to discipline oneself and to attain spiritual goals. Derived from the Greek _askesis_ , a term that originally refers to athletic and military training, \"asceticism\" is the most common translation of the **Sanskrit** term _tapasya_. An ethos of asceticism is a strong element of many Hindu traditions, which teach renunciation as a means to **mok\u1e63a**.\n\nIn ancient Hindu literary works, such as the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , and the _P\u016br\u0101\u1e47as_ , one finds a widespread view that the rigorous practice of asceticism can lead to paranormal powers for the practitioner. Ascetics are frequently depicted as receiving special boons from the **gods** as a reward for their practices. In later **Vedic** **literature** , ascetic practice takes on a role similar to that of Vedic sacrifice in its ability to evoke divine favors. Ascetics are widely viewed as powerful, and sometimes dangerous, figures. _See also_ BRAHMACARYA; SANNY\u0100SA.\n\n**\u0100\u015a\u012aRV\u0100DA.** Blessing; benediction.\n\n**\u0100\u015aRAMA.** One of the stages of life. Also a hermitage or place of spiritual retreat where one resides for a period of time, usually with one's **guru**.\n\nThe stages of life are the student stage ( **brahmacarya** ), the householder stage ( **g\u0101rhasthya** ), the retirement\u2014or literally, the \"forest dweller\"\u2014stage ( **vanaprastha** ), and renunciation ( **sanny\u0101sa** ). The brahmac\u0101rya stage traditionally lasts from roughly the age of 12 to 24, g\u0101rhasthya from 24 to 48, and vanaprastha from 48 to 72 (until either **death** or renunciation). Sanny\u0101sa can be undertaken at any point along the process, but it is a drastic step, being permanent and involving the complete renunciation of one's previous social identity and family connections. The _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ recommend that one should undertake sanny\u0101sa only after going through the other three stages, so only around the age of 72 or later. The first two stages, those of the student and householder, make up the _prav\u1e5btti m\u0101rga_ , the path of engagement with the world, in which one pursues the first three of the four goals of life ( **puru\u1e63\u0101rthas** ): pleasure ( **k\u0101ma** ), wealth ( **artha** ), and virtue ( **dharma** ). The latter two stages, retirement and renunciation, make up the _niv\u1e5btti m\u0101rga_ , the path of **asceticism** and disengagement from the world in the pursuit of **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth** , the fourth goal of life.\n\nSome scholars have speculated that the inclusion of sanny\u0101sa as the fourth stage of life is a late development\u2014a reaction to ascetic traditions like **Jainism** and **Buddhism**.\n\nThe \u0101\u015bramas can be seen as defining the horizontal axis of a grid on which the traditional Hindu way of life, or dharma, could be comprehensively mapped out, with **var\u1e47a** or **caste** making up the vertical axis. At any given time, a human being is located somewhere on this grid, though sanny\u0101sa could be seen as stepping off of it for the sake of liberation.\n\n**A\u1e62\u1e6c\u0100\u1e44GA YOGA.** The eight-step, or literally \"eight-limbed\" **yoga** system presented in the _Yoga S\u016btras_ of **Pata\u00f1jali**. The eight steps consist, first, of five moral precepts or \"restraints\" ( **yama** ), five observances or good habits ( **niyama** ), the mastery of a posture ( **\u0101sana** ), control of the breath ( **pr\u0101\u1e47\u0101y\u0101ma** ), the control of reactions to sensory stimuli ( **praty\u0101h\u0101ra** ), concentration on a single object ( **dh\u0101ra\u1e47\u0101** ), **meditative** absorption into that object ( **dhy\u0101na** ), and contemplative union with that object ( **sam\u0101dhi** ).\n\nLater traditions that utilize the _Yoga S\u016btras_ distinguish between sam\u0101dhi in which there remains a sense of subjectivity ( **savikalpa sam\u0101dhi** ) and sam\u0101dhi without subject\u2013object duality ( **nirvikalpa sam\u0101dhi** ). This distinction is most prominent in **Buddhism** , **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaivism** , and the **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** tradition of **Ramakrishna**.\n\nThe moral precepts of Pata\u00f1jali's system are identical to the vows or **vratas** of **Jainism** and four of them are identical to four of the Five Precepts of Buddhism. This suggests a shared origin of Pata\u00f1jali's system in the **\u015brama\u1e47a** **philosophy** that gave rise to both the Buddhist and Jain traditions. In the _Yoga S\u016btras_ , the complex system of \u0101sanas associated with **Ha\u1e6dha Yoga** is not present. It is simply said that one's posture must be \"firm and comfortable.\"\n\n_A\u1e62\u1e6c\u0100VAKRA G\u012aT\u0100_ **.** **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** text composed in the first millennium CE, very likely before **\u015aa\u1e45kara** (788\u2013820), but after the composition of the _Brahma S\u016btras_ (first or second century CE). It recounts a dialogue between the sage A\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101vakra, for whom the text is named, and the enlightened king, **Janaka** (who is also mentioned in the _Upani\u1e63ads_ and represented as the father of **S\u012bt\u0101** in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ ).\n\n**ASTEYA.** Nonstealing. The third of the five **yamas** or moral restraints enjoined in the _Yoga S\u016btras_ of **Pata\u00f1jali**. Also included among the moral precepts of both **Jainism** and **Buddhism**.\n\n**\u0100STIKA.** Literally \"one who says 'it is'\"; orthodox. In classical Hinduism, the test of orthodoxy is acknowledgment of the authority of the _Vedas_. Systems of philosophy ( **dar\u015banas** ) that affirm **Vedic** authority ( **Ny\u0101ya** , **Vai\u015be\u1e63ika** , **M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** , and **Ved\u0101nta** ) or that do not reject it outright ( **S\u0101\u1e43khya** and **Yoga** ) are \u0101stika, or orthodox, and those that reject Vedic authority ( **C\u0101rv\u0101ka** , **Jainism** , and **Buddhism** ) are heterodox, or **n\u0101stika**. In contemporary Hinduism, the terms _\u0101stika_ and _n\u0101stika_ sometimes refer to theism and atheism, respectively, but this is not their original sense.\n\n**ASTROLOGY.** There is a strong emphasis in Hinduism on determining the most auspicious time to undertake any important venture. Astrology\u2014the determination of auspicious occasions through the observation of the relative motions of the stars and planets\u2014is an ancient and mathematically sophisticated system in Hinduism. The moment of a child's birth will often be used to choose a name for the child, and the astrological charts of a prospective bride and groom will be used to determine if they are a suitable match, and also to determine the most auspicious date and time for their wedding. _See also_ CALENDAR, HINDU; NAVAGRAHAS.\n\n**ASURA.** Powerful one, titan, anti-god, demonic, a demonic being. A species of being usually depicted as in perpetual conflict with the **devas**. Interestingly, not all Hindu texts that depict the conflict of the asuras and the devas present the asuras as uniformly evil or the devas as uniformly good, though over time these two classes of being did come to be viewed in this way.\n\nIn its original meaning, the word _asura_ simply means a powerful being. In fact, it is a frequently used title for the deva **Varu\u1e47a** in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , who might have been the supreme deity early in the development of the Vedic religion. Over time, an etymology developed that defined these beings as \"not sura,\" that is, non-devas, or anti- **gods**.\n\nProminent asuras in later Hindu sacred **literature** \u2014the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ \u2014are **Hira\u1e47yak\u1e63a** , who is slain by the **Var\u0101ha** (boar) **avat\u0101ra** of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u; **Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu** , who is slain by the **Narasi\u1e43ha** (man-lion) **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ; and the **Mahi\u1e63\u0101sura** , or Buffalo Demon, who is slain by the **goddess** **Durg\u0101**. Symbolically, the slaying of asuras by Vi\u1e63\u1e47u or Durg\u0101 is said to represent the lower impulses\u2014greed, selfishness, hatred\u2014being overcome by one's divine inner self. In **Tantric** thought, it is said that all the devas and asuras are contained within oneself and that the conflict between them represents an inner struggle among the various aspects of **self**. In the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , the fabulous palace of the **Pa\u1e47\u1e0davas** in **Indraprastha** is designed by an asura architect named **M\u0101ya**. In both the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ , it is said that the devas and asuras once cooperated in order to churn the elixir of **immortality** , **am\u1e5bta** , from the cosmic ocean.\n\nIn chapter 16 of the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , divine and demonic, or devic and asuric, qualities are contrasted. The asuric personality is described as egotistical, atheistic, and selfish, whereas the devic personality is benevolent, devout, and generous.\n\nIt is possible that the opposition between the devas and asuras reflects an ancient ideological conflict among the ancient **Indo-Europeans**. It is noteworthy in this regard that these two terms take opposite meanings in the Indo-European culture of Iran, where **Ahura Mazda** \u2014the Great Asura\u2014becomes the supreme deity of **Zoroastrianism** , whereas the devas come to be depicted as demonic beings, and later influence the etymology of the English word \"devil\" (as well as the Latin \"deus,\" the Greek \"theos,\" and the English \"divine,\" which comport better with the Indic valuation of a deva as a deity). Similarly, the _Aesir_ of ancient Norse religion seem to be related to the asuras.\n\n**A\u015aVAMEDHA.** Horse sacrifice. **Vedic** ritual intended to ensure the success of a king. _See also_ ANIMAL SACRIFICE; YAJ\u00d1A.\n\n**A\u015aVATTH\u0100MA.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ; son of **Dro\u1e47a**. A\u015bvatth\u0101ma avenged his father's **death** by cutting the throats of many **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dava** warriors in their sleep. Dro\u1e47a had been killed through deception, laying down his arms when hearing that A\u015bvatth\u0101ma, who was still alive, had been slain.\n\n**A\u015aVINA.** Month of the **Hindu calendar** that corresponds roughly to the period from mid-September to mid-October.\n\n**A\u015aVINS.** \"Horsemen\"; twin **Vedic** deities, sometimes said to have the heads of horses. Their father is **Vivasvat** , the solar deity, and one of the 12 **\u0100dityas**. The A\u015bvins have healing powers, due to their great **knowledge** of plants and herbs, and are associated with the offering of **soma**. As well as being divine physicians, they are also associated with agriculture. In the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , they are the fathers of the twin **Pa\u1e47\u1e0dava** brothers, **Nakula** and Sahadeva.\n\n_ATHARVA VEDA_ **.** The fourth of the original four _Vedas_ to be written. It consists of prayers and brief rituals (in contrast with the more elaborate rituals of the _Yajur Veda_ ), as well as philosophical reflections that anticipate those of the _Upani\u1e63ads_. Due to the many differences in style and content between the _Atharva Veda_ and the other three _Vedas_ , as well as early references to \"the three _Vedas_ ,\" scholars have concluded that this text was compiled at least a century or two later than the other _Vedas_.\n\n**\u0100TMAN.** Self, soul, or principle of identity. In its earliest uses, this term refers to the physical body, or to the breath. But fairly early, in the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , it comes to refer both to a universal Self that is ultimately identical with **Brahman** , the ultimate reality, and to the individual self or soul that undergoes **rebirth** , or reincarnation, remaining essentially the same through the various changes of form in which it is embodied. In the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , it is stated that the individual, reincarnating \u0101tman is ultimately identical to the universal Self. According to the **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** interpretation of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , the realization of the fundamental identity of the individual self and the universal Self is constitutive of **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of rebirth.\n\nIn later forms of **Ved\u0101nta** , a distinction is made between individual reincarnating souls, or **j\u012bv\u0101tman** , and **God** , the Supreme Soul that resides in all souls: the \"oversoul\" or **param\u0101tman**. Advaita Ved\u0101nta teaches that the \u0101tman is the basis of all experience, the transcendental condition for any experience whatsoever. Though its existence cannot be proven, it can be experienced directly as awareness and as one's very self.\n\nAdvaita Ved\u0101nta, as well as **S\u0101\u1e43khya** and **Yoga** **philosophy** , identify the \u0101tman with consciousness and view it as all pervasive. But Advaita sees the \u0101tman as ultimately singular, with the differences among **j\u012bvas** being an illusion. S\u0101\u1e43khya, Yoga, **Jainism** , **Ny\u0101ya** , **Vai\u015be\u1e63ika** , and the other forms of Ved\u0101nta, on the other hand, affirm the plurality and the numerical distinctness of souls and do not affirm a singular \u0101tman.\n\nNy\u0101ya, Vai\u015be\u1e63ika, and **Dvaita** and **Vi\u015bi\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101dvaita Ved\u0101nta** say that the \u0101tman is atomic in size. These two traditions also maintain that the \u0101tman is ontologically distinct from **God** , the supreme \u0101tman. The _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ emphasizes its imperishability and its self-identity through many births. A central teaching of most forms of Hinduism is that we are all, in reality, the \u0101tman, not the physical body. The physical body is merely the temporary vehicle of the \u0101tman.\n\nAlthough the term _\u0101tman_ can be, and often is, loosely translated as soul, as pure consciousness, it is distinct from the **mind** , and so different from the soul as traditionally conceived in the Abrahamic traditions, where the soul is often seen as a rational principle. Mind, on a Hindu understanding (such as in Advaita Ved\u0101nta, S\u0101\u1e43khya, and Yoga), is a part of the material continuum\u2014 **m\u0101y\u0101** or **prak\u1e5bti** \u2014and so distinct from the \u0101tman. In the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , it is taught that the \u0101tman is surrounded by a series of progressively more material sheaths or **ko\u015bas**. The innermost, and closest to the \u0101tman, is the sheath of bliss ( **\u0101nanda-maya-ko\u015ba** ), followed by the sheath of intellect ( **vij\u00f1\u0101na-maya-ko\u015ba** ), the sheath of mind ( **mano-maya-ko\u015ba** ), the sheath of life force or breath ( **pr\u0101\u1e47a-maya-ko\u015ba** ), and the gross, physical sheath ( **anna-maya-ko\u015ba** ).\n\n**ATRI.** According to some lists, one of the Seven Sages ( **Saptar\u1e63i** ) presiding over the cosmos; father of the sage **Durv\u0101sa**.\n\n**AUM.** _See_ O\u1e42.\n\n**AUROBINDO, SRI (1872\u20131950).** _See_ GHOSE, AUROBINDO.\n\n**AVAT\u0100RA.** Divine incarnation, manifestation of a deity, usually **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , in a physical, sometimes human, form. Several lists of avat\u0101ras exist, but the most common lists name 10 such incarnations of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u: **Matsya** the fish avat\u0101ra, **K\u016brma** the tortoise avat\u0101ra, **Var\u0101ha** the boar avat\u0101ra, **Narasi\u1e43ha** the man-lion avat\u0101ra, **Vamana** the dwarf avat\u0101ra, **Para\u015bur\u0101ma** , **R\u0101ma** , **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , **Balar\u0101ma** (who is replaced in later versions of this list by **Buddha** ), and **K\u0101lkin** the future **avat\u0101ra**. **Aurobindo Ghose** interprets this list in light of modern theories regarding evolution. Other lists of avat\u0101ras include as many as 22, or even 108, incarnations, including such figures as the sage **K\u0101pila** , the founder of **S\u0101\u1e43khya** **philosophy** , and **\u1e5a\u1e63abha** , the first **T\u012brtha\u1e45kara** of **Jainism**.\n\nAccording to some **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** traditions, the ape deity **Hanuman** is an avat\u0101ra of **\u015aiva** who came to Earth to assist R\u0101ma in his mission to destroy **R\u0101va\u1e47a**. There is also a **Sm\u0101rta** tradition according to which **\u015aa\u1e45kara** , the chief exponent of **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , is an incarnation of \u015aiva. But most **\u015aaiva** traditions do not accept the avat\u0101ra doctrine, holding that \u015aiva, as pure consciousness, does not take on a physical form.\n\nOver the centuries, a number of teachers and spiritual figures have been regarded as avat\u0101ras, including in the modern period. The 15th-century **\u0101c\u0101rya** and Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava saint **Caitanya** is sometimes called the **Golden Avat\u0101ra**. It is also held by some in the Ved\u0101nta tradition of **Ramakrishna** that Ramakrishna is a divine incarnation. In both **Bengal** and **Nepal** , it is not uncommon for a young girl to be viewed as a divine incarnation of the **Mother Goddess**. On some interpretations of **Ved\u0101nta** , all beings are, in a sense, avat\u0101ras, because all beings are in fact **Brahman**.\n\n**AVIDY\u0100.** Primordial ignorance. Avidy\u0101 is ignorance, not merely in a cognitive sense but a profound lack of awareness of one's true nature as **Brahman** \u2014infinite and unlimited being ( **sat** ), consciousness ( **cit** ), and bliss ( **\u0101nanda** ). According to **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , avidy\u0101 is the root cause of one's bondage to **sa\u1e43s\u0101ra** , the beginningless cycle of birth, **death** , and **rebirth**. Avidy\u0101 can only be removed by awakening to one's true nature. An awakening of this kind requires one to learn the **truth** that the self ( **\u0101tman** ) is identical to Brahman\u2014 **knowledge** found only in the **Vedic** scriptures (specifically, in the _Upani\u1e63ads_ ). Hearing this truth ( **\u015brava\u1e47a** ), reflecting upon it ( **manas\u0101** ), and contemplative realizing of it (nidhidhy\u0101sana) produces the required awakening.\n\n**AYODHY\u0100.** Town in northern India, located in what is now the state of Uttar Pradesh, believed to be the birthplace of **R\u0101ma** and the capital city of his ancient kingdom. In the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , Ayodhy\u0101 is ruled by R\u0101ma's father, **Da\u015baratha** , who wishes to pass its reign on to R\u0101ma. Before R\u0101ma can be made king, however, Da\u015baratha is forced by his wife, Kaikey\u012b, to send R\u0101ma into exile. R\u0101ma returns from exile and rules Ayodhy\u0101 only after slaying the demonic **R\u0101va\u1e47a**. R\u0101ma's rule is said to be highly just and becomes the ideal of Hindu kingship ( _R\u0101ma r\u0101jya_ ). In the modern period, the concept of _R\u0101ma r\u0101jya_ has become central to the ideology of **Hindu Nationalism** , in which this concept of an ideal Hindu society ruled by **dharma** is contrasted with contemporary political corruption.\n\nIn December 1992, Ayodhy\u0101 became a center of controversy when a group of Hindu Nationalists demolished a mosque called the **Babr\u012b Masj\u012bd** (Babur's Mosque), which they believed had been built from the remains of a **temple** on the same location marking the exact spot of R\u0101ma's birth ( _R\u0101ma-janma-bh\u016bm\u012b_ ). This demolition sparked riots in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh between Hindus and Muslims, in which many members of both communities were killed, and a number of Hindu temples destroyed in retaliation. In September 2010, an Indian high court ruled that the property should be divided among Hindu and Muslim organizations, a compromise that appears to have defused the issue, at least for the time being.\n\n**\u0100YU.** A long life; one of the central goals of **\u0100yur Veda**.\n\n**\u0100YUR VEDA.** Science of long life, traditional system of Hindu medicine. Among the figures who were responsible for developing this ancient system were **Caraka** , Su\u015bruta, and V\u0101gbhata. It is a holistic system of medicine, focused on balancing bodily energies, or humors (do\u015bas). Its chief aims are long life ( **\u0101yu** ) and freedom from disease ( **\u0101rogya** ). It utilizes herbs and minerals to treat disease and maintain good health.\n\n**AYYAPPAN.** Deity believed to reside at the top of **Sabarimalai** , a hill in **Kerala** that is sacred to Ayyappan's sect. Ayyappan is regarded as the son of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and **\u015aiva** , from a time when Vi\u1e63\u1e47u appeared to \u015aiva as a beautiful **woman** called **Mohin\u012b**. According to one version of the story of Ayyappan, Vi\u1e63\u1e47u took the form of Mohin\u012b so a deity could be born from the union of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u and \u015aiva that would have their combined power in order to defeat the **asura** Princess Mahi\u1e63\u012b, sister of the **Mahi\u1e63\u0101sura** or Buffalo Demon.\n\nDevotion to Ayyappan is a relatively recent development in Hinduism and is most popular in southern India.\n\n## B\n\n**BABR\u012a MASJ\u012aD.** Babur's mosque; mosque demolished in 1992 by **Hindu Nationalists** who believed it to have been built from the remains of a **temple** on the location marking the exact spot of R\u0101ma's birth, in the town of **Ayodhy\u0101**. This demolition sparked riots in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh between Hindus and Muslims, in which many members of both communities were killed, and a number of Hindu temples destroyed in retaliation. In September 2010, an Indian high court ruled that the property should be divided among Hindu and Muslim organizations, a compromise that appears to have defused the issue, at least for the time being.\n\n_BACK TO GODHEAD_ **.** Magazine published by the **International Society for Krishna Consciousness** **(** ISKCON **)**. First published in India in 1944 by **Abhay Charan De** , who is better known by his monastic name of **Bhaktived\u0101nta Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhup\u0101da**.\n\nPublication of the magazine was interrupted in 1965 when Prabhup\u0101da traveled to the United States to spread the **Gau\u1e0diya Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition. After founding ISKCON, Prabhup\u0101da resumed publication of _Back to Godhead_ in the United States, where it has remained in print continuously since 1967.\n\n**B\u0100D\u0100M\u012a.** Site located in northern **Karnataka** , capital of the **C\u0101lukya** dynasty from the sixth to the eighth centuries CE. B\u0101d\u0101m\u012b is the site of numerous royal inscriptions and a variety of **temples** \u2014 **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** , **\u015aaiva** , **Buddhist** , and **Jain** \u2014all of which received C\u0101lukya patronage.\n\n**B\u0100DAR\u0100YA\u1e46A.** Author of the _Brahm\u0101 S\u016btras_. B\u0101dar\u0101ya\u1e47a is sometimes identified with **Vy\u0101sa** , traditional author of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and compiler of the _Vedas_. Along with the _Upani\u1e63ads_ and _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , the _Brahma S\u016btras_ (or _Ved\u0101nta S\u016btras_ ) form the _Prasth\u0101na Traya_ , or threefold foundation of **Ved\u0101nta** , on which all Ved\u0101ntic **\u0101c\u0101ryas** are expected to write commentaries ( **bh\u0101\u1e63yas** ).\n\n**BADR\u012aN\u0100TH.** Popular site for **pilgrimage** located in the **Him\u0101layas**. It is home to one of the four monasteries or **ma\u1e6dhas** of the **Da\u015ban\u0101mi Order** of Hindu monks founded by **\u015aa\u1e45kara**.\n\n**BALAR\u0100MA.** Brother of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , the ninth in the traditional list of 10 **avat\u0101ras** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , according to earlier versions of this list. In later versions, Balar\u0101ma is replaced by the **Buddha** , with Balar\u0101ma becoming seen as an incarnation of **\u015ae\u1e63a** , the cosmic serpent upon whose belly Vi\u1e63\u1e47u reclines. Balar\u0101ma's original presence on the list of the avat\u0101ras of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, alongside K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, shows that, according to the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** avat\u0101ra concept, it is possible for Vi\u1e63\u1e47u to assume more than one form at the same time (given that Balar\u0101ma and K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a were contemporaries).\n\n**BALI.** Island in Indonesia where a Hindu culture is predominant. Also an **asura** that was defeated by **V\u0101mana** , dwarf **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. _See also_ SOUTHEAST ASIA.\n\n**BANARAS.** Holy city along the river **G\u0101\u1e45g\u0101** , or Ganges, revered as sacred to **\u015aiva** , and the location of the **Vi\u015bvan\u0101tha** **Mandir** , a **\u015aaiva** **temple** that is a popular pilgrimage site, as are the bathing **ghats** along the edge of the river. In ancient times, the city was called **K\u0101\u015b\u012b** and was the center of the one of the 16 city-states or Mah\u0101janapadas of the first millennium BCE. The **Buddha** is believed to have preached his first sermon here.\n\n**BANARAS HINDU UNIVERSITY.** University established in 1915 by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya with the assistance of **Annie Besant** , and one of the most prominent research universities in India. Though it is called a \"Hindu University\" and was founded, in part, with the mission of promoting **knowledge** of Hinduism, students of all religious communities are accepted, and Banaras Hindu University offers degrees in a wide array of secular disciplines, such as agriculture, medicine, business, and **law**.\n\n**BASAVA (1134\u20131196).** **\u015aaiva** **bhakti** **poet** and founder of the **Li\u1e45g\u0101yat** or **V\u012bra\u015baiva** sect. Though born a **Brahmin** , Basava was opposed to **casteism** and taught the equality of all human beings. He was also opposed to sacrifice, pilgrimage, and the use of images in worship. The only image used in the V\u012bra\u015baiva tradition is the abstract form of **\u015aiva** , the **li\u1e45ga** (hence the alternative name, Li\u1e45g\u0101yat, for this tradition). \u015aiva is regarded in the tradition of Basava as **God** in a **monotheistic** sense\u2014the one supreme deity. Basava was from **Karnataka** , where his Li\u1e45g\u0101yat movement has continued to be most prominent since his time. He held high government office as a minister in the court of the **C\u0101lukya** King Bijjala and used this position to advance his progressive social and religious ideals.\n\n**BASHAM, ARTHUR LEWELLYN (1914\u20131986).** Renowned **Indologist** and historian. He completed all of his degrees at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and taught there as well. In 1965, he accepted a professorship at the Australian National University in Canberra. His most famous book, _The Wonder That Was India_ , has been reprinted numerous times and is a popular as well as a scholarly work, which has been responsible for sparking the interest of numerous scholars in India and Hinduism. He had a particular appreciation for **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** , whom he regarded as a major figure of the modern world. Basham's students included **Romila Thapar**.\n\n**BAULS.** **Bengali** traveling singers and mystical **poets**. Known for intense devotion and unconventional behavior, the Bauls have a generally Tantric orientation and can be identified with the **Sahajiy\u0101** form of **Tantra** , a style of religiosity known for its emphasis on spontaneity and general rejection of concern for worldly conventions. The religious orientation of the Bauls can be described as a mix of **bhakti** and Tantra. The **music** of the Bauls was tremendously influential upon the music and poetry of the modern Bengali **artist** **Rabindran\u0101th Tagore**.\n\n**BELUR.** Site located in southern **Karnataka** ; home to a variety of **temples** dating to the 11th and 12th centuries CE. The temples, built by the Hoysala dynasty, are among the most elaborately carved Hindu temples in India, with walls and pillars that appear to be almost alive with motion, due to practically every space upon them being carved with realistic figures of deities enacting scenes from the Hindu **scriptures**.\n\n**BELUR MA\u1e6cH.** Home monastery and main administrative center of the **Ramakrishna Order** , located in **Calcutta**.\n\n**BENARES.** Alternative spelling of **Banaras**.\n\n**BENGAL.** Region in northeastern India, home of a number of prominent Hindu reform figures of the early modern period, such as **R\u0101m Mohan Roy** , **Ramakrishna** , **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** , and **Aurobindo Ghose** , and literary figures such as **Bankim Chandra Chatterjee** and **Rabindran\u0101th Tagore**. Bengal was the first part of India to experience extensive interaction with the British, being home to **Calcutta** (Kolkata), the location of the headquarters of the **British East India Company**. This interaction was among the main catalysts for the Hindu reform movement, often called the \"Bengal Renaissance.\"\n\n**Buddhism** was prominent in Bengal in the first millennium CE, as were Buddhist and Hindu forms of **Tantra** , and Tantric practices associated with the **Goddess-** oriented **\u015a\u0101kta** traditions continue to be relatively popular in contemporary Bengal. **Durg\u0101 P\u016bj\u0101** is the largest holiday in Bengal, and Bengalis traditionally perform **K\u0101l\u012b** P\u016bj\u0101 on the night celebrated by most other Hindus as **D\u012bwali**. Bengal is also home to the **Bauls** , wandering minstrels whose spirituality and famous folk songs reflect currents of both **Tantra** and **bhakti**.\n\nIn the late first and early second millennia of the Common Era, highly devotional **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** traditions, such as **Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism** , became a major element of Bengali Hinduism, with Bengal being the home, in the medieval period, to **Caitanya** , and in the modern period, to **Bhaktived\u0101nta Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhup\u0101da**.\n\n**BESANT, ANNIE (1847\u20131933).** Social and political reformer and prominent member of both the **Theosophical Society** and the Indian National Congress. Besant was an early advocate of freedom of thought, secularism, and socialism. Of Irish origin, she supported independence for both Ireland and India.\n\nIn her youth, Besant was committed largely to political activism and had a strong leaning toward Marxism. But after reading **Helena Petrovna Blavatsky** 's _The Secret Doctrine_ in 1889, she joined the **Theosophical Society** , of which she became president in 1908. Though never rejecting her progressive political commitments, for the rest of her life she would contextualize these within a Theosophical worldview.\n\nA prolific author, Besant wrote numerous books and tracts on various aspects of theosophical thought, as well as a translation of the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. Wanting to promote Hindu ideals and culture through education, in 1915 she assisted Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya in establishing **Banaras Hindu University**. She also served as the president of the Indian National Congress in 1917. She was arrested by the British government for her political activities during that same year. Her commitment to Indian independence was profound, and she corresponded with **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b**.\n\nThe latter part of Besant's career was devoted to promoting the idea that **Jiddu Krishnamurti** was the \"World Teacher\"\u2014the next **Buddha** , Maitreya\u2014a messianic being whose coming is predicted in the **scriptures** of **Buddhism**. Krishnamurti himself did not endorse this idea, and famously left the Theosophical Society to teach a path of radical questioning of all forms of authority. Besant and Krishnamurti, however, remained on good terms until Besant's death in 1933.\n\n**BHADRA.** Month of the **Hindu calendar** that corresponds roughly to the period from mid-August to mid-September.\n\n**BHAGA.** Literally \"fortunate,\" or \"dispenser of wealth.\" Early Vedic deity, one of the 12 **\u0100dityas** , sons of the **goddess** **Aditi** and the sage **Ka\u015byapa**. Bhaga is sometimes pared with **A\u1e43\u015ba** , the **gods** ' share of the sacrifice. Bhaga is the human beings' share.\n\nWhen suffixed with the syllable \"-vant,\" meaning \"possessed of,\" the term _bhaga_ becomes the basis of the word **Bhagav\u0101n** , or \"blessed,\" often used as an epithet of such figures as **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** and the **Buddha** , and, in contemporary Hinduism, a term for **God**.\n\n_BHAGAVAD G\u012aT\u0100_ **.** Song of the Blessed One, Song of the Lord, Song of **God** ; likely composed between 100 BCE and 100 CE. This 18-chapter segment of the sixth book of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ has come to be viewed as an authoritative **scripture** in its own right, particularly in the modern period, though numerous premodern commentaries ( **bh\u0101\u1e63yas** ) were written upon it as well. Many Hindus see this text as a comprehensive summary of Hindu **philosophy**. As a scripture, it serves a function in contemporary Hinduism closer to that of the Bible in **Christianity** than do the venerable, but less popular, _Vedas_.\n\nOccurring at the point in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ 's narrative when the climactic battle of **Kuruk\u1e63etra** is about to take place, the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ consists of a dialogue between the **Pa\u1e47\u1e0dava** hero **Arjuna** and his best friend and cousin, **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , who has agreed to act as Arjuna's charioteer in the battle and who is also an **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. Deeply troubled by the moral dilemma that he faces, having to fight in a just war that will require him to slay such revered persons as his grandsire **Bhi\u1e63ma** and his teacher **Dro\u1e47a** , Arjuna falls into despair. K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's counsel to Arjuna at this point takes the form of a conversation that ranges over a great variety of topics and views current in Indian philosophy at the time of the text's composition (c. 100 BCE\u2013100 CE by most scholarly estimates). Currents of thought that can be discerned in the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ include **S\u0101\u1e43khya** , **Yoga** , **Ved\u0101nta** , **Buddhism** , and **Jainism** , as well as an early articulation of the theistic philosophy of the **bhakti** movement, which became highly popular in the centuries to follow.\n\nLater Hindu tradition gives the text an increasingly privileged status as a summary of all Hindu thought. It is often called simply \"the _G\u012bt\u0101_ ,\" despite there being many texts in the g\u012bt\u0101 genre. Along with the _Upani\u1e63ads_ and the _Brahm\u0101 S\u016btras_ , the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ forms part of the _Prasth\u0101na Traya_ , or threefold foundation of Ved\u0101nta philosophy, upon which all the major Ved\u0101ntic **\u0101c\u0101ryas** , such as **\u015aa\u1e45kara** , **R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja** , and **Madhva** , have commented. **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** referred to this text as his \"dictionary of daily reference\" and cited it as a major influence on his philosophy of active engagement with the world as an important part of the spiritual path. **Aurobindo Ghose** also commented upon it in a work entitled _Essays on the G\u012bt\u0101_ , which focuses on the text's philosophy of yoga.\n\nThe most controversial aspect of the text is its location on a battlefield, coupled with the fact that K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a encourages Arjuna to fight in battle, rather than taking a path of nonviolence\u2014although K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, somewhat paradoxically, does commend **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** to Arjuna as one of the virtues of an **enlightened** person (16.2).\n\nCommentators have responded to the question of violence and nonviolence in the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ in a variety of ways: ignoring it, frankly accepting the violence entailed as a part of life in ancient India or of life in general, viewing the entire episode in terms of the symbolism that the text itself suggests (13.1)\u2014with the body as the field of battle and the real enemies being negative qualities such as ignorance, desire, and egotism\u2014or, in the case of G\u0101ndh\u012b, seeing the violence of the epic context as irrelevant to and even incompatible with the deeper spiritual message of the text, which becomes abstracted from its literary context. A related issue on which scholars disagree is whether the _G\u012bt\u0101_ is a later interpolation, inserted into the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ at a later date\u2014and in disagreement with it on the issue of violence\u2014versus whether it should be seen as integral to the epic.\n\nThe Ved\u0101ntic \u0101c\u0101ryas do not agree amongst themselves on the relative roles of **j\u00f1\u0101na** , or wisdom, and bhakti, or devotion, as paths to **mok\u1e63a** in K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's teaching. The **Advaita** tradition, following \u015aa\u1e45kara, sees this text as commending j\u00f1\u0101na yoga, whereas the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** \u0101c\u0101ryas, such as R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja, Madhva, and **Caitanya** , see it as primarily a text of bhakti. **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** sees the text as commending **four yogas** \u2014the paths of **action** , wisdom, devotion, and **meditation** \u2014as being equally efficacious. G\u0101ndh\u012b also follows Vivek\u0101nanda in this regard, though giving primary attention to the way of action.\n\n**BHAGAV\u0100N (BHAGAVAT).** Lord, Blessed One, **God**. Usually an epithet associated with **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , though also used in the literary works of various traditions to refer to a deity or founding figure. The **Buddha** , for example, is called Bhagav\u0101n in many **Buddhist** texts. In contemporary Hinduism it is not uncommon to hear this term being used as an exclamation with essentially the same semantic range as the English, \"Oh my God!\"\n\n_BH\u0100GAVATA PUR\u0100\u1e46A_ **.** One of the 18 major _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ , or texts of ancient lore focused on the lives and deeds of the Hindu deities. The _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ is concerned chiefly with the life of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a**. It is a text particularly revered by **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas** , most especially those whose devotion is centered chiefly upon K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a. This text is a major locus for the development of the **philosophy** of **bhakti** , or devotion as the preeminent means for the attainment of **mok\u1e63a**.\n\nThe main focus of the narrative is the early life of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, prior to the events of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. Shortly after his birth, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's parents need to hide him from his wicked uncle, a king named **K\u0101\u1e43sa** , who wants to slay him because of a prediction that K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a would one day slay him and take control of his kingdom. On a number of occasions in his infancy and childhood, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a displays paranormal powers.\n\nA major theme of the text is the relationship between K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and the **gop\u012bs** , or milkmaids of **V\u1e5bnd\u0101vana** , who are represented as his ideal devotees. Foremost among the gop\u012bs is **R\u0101dh\u0101** , whose loving relationship with K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is the ultimate model of devotion. This relationship is further explored in the _G\u012bt\u0101govinda_ of **Jayadeva**. The _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ was composed from roughly 800 to 950 CE.\n\n**BH\u0100GAVATA SECT.** Very early **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** sect focused on **bhakti** toward **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** as the best path to **mok\u1e63a**. The name of the sect arises from their use of the title **Bhagav\u0101n** to refer to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a. The earliest textual evidence for the existence of this sect can be found in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , including the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , which advocates devotion to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a.\n\n**BHAJANA.** Devotional song. Bhajanas are often sung during group worship in a call-and-response fashion, in which the lead singer sings the refrain\u2014typically a **mantra** \u2014that is then repeated by the congregation. The tempo of a bhajana usually starts out slow, and then picks up speed as the bhajana is sung, usually becoming quite fast near the end. But on the final call-and-response, the tempo returns to its original pace. _See also_ BHAKTI.\n\n**BHAKTI.** Devotion, one of the **four** **yogas** or spiritual disciplines that Hindu traditions present as a path to **liberation** \u2014or **mok\u1e63a** \u2014from the cycle of **re-birth** , along with **karma yoga** , **j\u00f1\u0101na yoga** , and **dhy\u0101na** or r\u0101ja yoga.\n\nBhakti as a path to liberation is first developed in later **Vedic** texts such as the _\u015avet\u0101\u015bvat\u0101ra Upani\u1e63ad_ , as well as the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. It is also mentioned in the _Yoga S\u016btras_ of **Pata\u00f1jali** under the name of **\u012a\u015bvara-pra\u1e47idh\u0101na** , or \"surrender to the Lord.\" Bhakti is typically focused upon a specific, personal form of the divine\u2014such as **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , **\u015aiva** , or **Dev\u012b** \u2014in contrast with j\u00f1\u0101na, which is a more abstract, impersonal realization.\n\nBhakti is emphasized most prominently in the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** traditions of Hinduism, although it is an important component of most forms of Hinduism. It is a major theme of such texts as the _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ , as well as the Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava-oriented **Ved\u0101nta** systems of **R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja** , **Madhva** , and **Caitanya** , all of whom see bhakti as the preeminent path to mok\u1e63a, for which the other three yogas are preparatory (unlike **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , where j\u00f1\u0101na, or knowledge, is primary). Bhakti is not merely an emotion but involves a real metaphysical connection and mutual participation between the devotee and the divine.\n\nThe deep, intense spiritual longing associated with bhakti is famously expressed in the poems and songs of devotees of the bhakti movement, such as the **\u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs** , **Basava** , **M\u012bra Bai** , and **Tuls\u012bd\u0101s** , to name only a few. An important characteristic of bhakti in the works of these **poet-** saints\u2014who came from all walks of life and included many **women** \u2014is its spiritual egalitarianism. Bhakti can be cultivated by any person, regardless of **caste** or gender, thus making liberation available to all.\n\nBhakti is usually cultivated and expressed through the practice of worship or **p\u016bj\u0101** directed to a personal form of the divine and the singing of **bhajanas**. **Ramakrishna** was intensely devoted to **K\u0101l\u012b**. His chief disciple, **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** , places bhakti on the same level as all the other yogas, the equality of which is a distinctive teaching of the modern or **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** tradition that Ramakrishna and Vivek\u0101nanda initiated.\n\n**BHAKTIVED\u0100NTA SW\u0100M\u012a PRABHUP\u0100DA (1896\u20131977).** Founder and **\u0101c\u0101rya** of the **International Society for Krishna Consciousness (** ISKCON **)**. Bhaktived\u0101nta (born **Abhay Charan De** ) brought the **Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition to North America in 1965, establishing ISKCON and beginning the **Hare Krishna movement**. Bhaktived\u0101nta first arrived in New York and found a home with a group of young people who were part of the countercultural movement of that period. It was largely from this movement that the following of ISKCON was first drawn, though it has since become somewhat more of a mainstream group.\n\n**BHARADV\u0100JA.** According to some lists, one of the Seven Sages ( **Saptar\u1e63i** ) presiding over the cosmos.\n\n**BHARATA.** Legendary king of ancient India and founder of the **Bh\u0101rata** dynasty. The major characters of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ are members of this dynasty, and the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ itself is the tale of Bharata's descendants. In **Jainism** , Bharata is represented as the son of **\u1e5a\u1e63abha** , the first **T\u012brtha\u1e45kara** of the Jain tradition. Bharata is also one of the brothers of **R\u0101ma** in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ (not to be confused with the first Bharata).\n\nA later, historical figure from the first millennium CE named Bharata is the author of the _N\u0101\u1e6dya \u015a\u0101stra_ , the authoritative guide to Indian classical theater and **dance**.\n\n**BH\u0100RATA.** The ancient royal dynasty descended from King **Bharata** and whose adventures are depicted in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. Also a name for India, Bharata's kingdom, which is also used in official documents of the contemporary Republic of India.\n\n**BHARATA-N\u0100\u1e6cYAM.** Popular form of Indian classical **dance** originating in southern India and inspired by the depictions of **\u015aiva N\u0101\u1e6dar\u0101ja** (Lord of the Cosmic Dance) at the famous **\u015aaiva** **temple** at **Cidambaram**. Its complex gestures convey symbolic meaning, allowing the dancer to tell stories from Hindu **literature** in dance form. It is one of the four traditional schools of Indian classical dance.\n\n**BH\u0100RATI.** One of the ten subsets of the **Da\u015ban\u0101m\u012b Order** of monks established by **\u015aa\u1e45kara**. _See also_ BH\u0100SKARAR\u0100YA MAKHIN.\n\n**BH\u0100RAT\u012aYA JANAT\u0100 PARTY (BJP).** \"Indian People's Party,\" popular **Hindu Nationalist** political party established in 1980. Within the Indian political spectrum, this party is seen as right wing, perhaps analogous to the Republican Party in the United States, with a strong advocacy of traditional values with clear religious\u2014in this case, Hindu\u2014overtones.\n\nMore widely known as the BJP, this political party governed India from 1998 to 2004. With close ties to organizations like the **R\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dr\u012bya Svayamsevak Sa\u1e45gh** and the **Vi\u015bva Hindu Pari\u1e63ad** , its Hindu nationalist leanings have been a source of controversy for this party, as was its decision to test nuclear weapons in 1998 in response to similar nuclear tests undertaken by the government of Pakistan. The BJP has also advocated the building of a **temple** to **R\u0101ma** at the disputed site of the **Babr\u012b Masj\u012bd** in **Ayodhy\u0101** and the implementation of a uniform civil code, doing away with the different systems of personal **law** for various religious communities currently in place. It has also expressed concern about the proselytizing activities of **Christian** missionaries and, in some states, has sought to curb these through \"conversion **laws** ,\" which have been controversial due to concerns regarding religious freedom.\n\nThe party characterizes its ideology as \"integral humanism\" and describes its aim as making India a progressive, modern state in a way that draws upon and is in keeping with its ancient heritage. Its opponents, however, see it as advancing the ideal of a Hindu state or _R\u0101ma r\u0101jya_ in opposition to the secular ideals on which the Indian constitution is based. For its part, the BJP criticizes what some of its members refer to as the \"pseudo secularism\" of other Indian political parties, advocating an American model of separation of religion and government as opposed to what Hindu Nationalists regard as preferential treatment for religious minority communities.\n\n**BH\u0100RAT\u012aYA VIDY\u0100 BHAVAN.** \"Palace of Indian Wisdom\"; Indian educational trust established in 1938 by K. M. Munshi. The Bh\u0101rat\u012bya Vidy\u0101 Bhavan has a large number of affiliated Indian educational institutions, as well as a handful of institutions outside India. Its chief purpose is to promote the study of **Sanskrit** and Hindu culture and has engaged in a good deal of publishing, since its inception, on topics related to traditional Indian and Hindu culture.\n\n**BH\u0100RGAVA.** Descendant of **Bh\u1e5bgu** , one of the Seven Sages ( **Saptar\u1e63i** ) presiding over the cosmos; a group of **Brahmins** claiming descent from the sage Bh\u1e5bgu and involved in the oral transmission of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_.\n\n**BHART\u1e5aHARI (fl. 6th\u20137th centuries CE).** **Sanskrit** grammarian and **poet** who developed the **spho\u1e6da** theory of Sanskrit grammar, according to which the letters or sounds that make up a word have a special power to manifest the meaning of that word. This power to make meaning is the true essence of a word. The letters and sounds that make up the word are merely the means by which this true essence is revealed.\n\n**BH\u0100SKARAR\u0100YA MAKHIN (1690\u20131785).** Tantric theologian who systematized the **\u015ar\u012bvidy\u0101** system of **Tantra** , which is focused upon the **Mother Goddess** as the supreme form of divinity. Bh\u0101skarar\u0101ya Makhin was born in Maharashtra, coming from a very scholarly family, and was highly skilled in philosophical debate. His major works are the _Setubandha_ (a detailed technical guide to Tantric practice), the _Varivasya Rahasya_ , and a commentary, or **bh\u0101\u1e63ya** , on the _Lalit\u0101sahasran\u0101ma_ , a text dedicated to the worship of the **Divine Mother**. Contemporary worship of the Mother Goddess largely follows the system outlined in Bh\u0101skarar\u0101ya Makhin's texts. As a systematizer of a Tantric practice, he has played a role similar to that played by **Abhinavagupta** in relation to the **Kaula Tantra** system of **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaivism**.\n\n**BH\u0100\u1e62YA.** Commentary; interpretation of an earlier text that is regarded as authoritative. This is the primary literary genre through which a philosophical system is developed in classical Hindu thought. Rather than valuing novelty, Hindu traditions have tended to see all important **truth** as having been revealed in the distant past. The task of the thinker is therefore not to develop new ideas but to unpack, unfold, and re-present the deep truths embedded in the words of the ancients as appropriate to new historical situations. _See also_ DAR\u015aANA.\n\n**BHAV\u0100N\u012a.** Epithet of **P\u0101rvat\u012b** , the **Mother Goddess** in her peaceful, benevolent form, as the wife of **\u015aiva**.\n\n**BHAVE, VINOBHA (1885\u20131982).** Close associate and disciple of **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** , freedom fighter, and postindependence Indian political and social activist. His thought closely followed that of G\u0101ndh\u012b, with a strong emphasis on **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** (nonviolence) and the inseparability of political and social activism from spirituality. He is best known for his **Sarvod\u0101ya** (\"Uplifting of All\") movement, as well as his Bh\u016bd\u0101n, or \"Gift of the Earth\" campaign, which was aimed at the redistribution of land to the poor. Bhave's **death** was somewhat controversial, as he undertook _sallekhan\u0101_ , the traditional **Jain** fast to the death.\n\n**BH\u012aMA.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , second of the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dava** brothers, fathered by **V\u0101yu** , the **Vedic god** of the wind. Bh\u012bma, like his divine father, is known for his great strength and quick temper. He frequently engages in physical combat with **asuras** and other enemies. It is Bh\u012bma who delivers the final killing blow to **Duryodhana** , the main villain of the epic. This blow is controversial, because Bh\u012bma violates the rules of battle and strikes Duryodhana on the thigh with his club.\n\n**BH\u012a\u1e62MA.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , son of King \u015aantanu and the goddess **Ga\u1e45g\u0101**. The name \"Bh\u012b\u1e63ma\" is actually an epithet meaning \"terrible,\" the character's birth name being Devavrata. Bh\u012b\u1e63ma received this epithet due to the terrible, unnatural vow that he took to remain celibate and renounce his claim to his father's throne in order to allow his father to remarry after the departure of Ga\u1e45g\u0101 back to the heavens. This would enable his father's descendants through his new wife, Satyavat\u012b, to inherit the kingdom\u2014a condition imposed by Satyavat\u012b's father before he would permit his daughter to marry \u015aantanu.\n\nBh\u012b\u1e63ma became a mighty warrior and lived to a great age. He was slain in battle at **Kuruk\u1e63etra** by \u015aikhandin, a reincarnation of **Amb\u0101** , a woman who had vowed to take revenge on Bhi\u1e63ma many years previously, after having been abandoned by him. Bh\u012b\u1e63ma had the ability to choose the time of his own **death** , however, and lay on the battlefield for many days, passing on his wisdom to the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** , who had gathered around him. The words of Bh\u012b\u1e63ma on his deathbed are contained in a book of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ known as the _Bh\u012b\u1e63ma Parvan_ , a collections of aphorisms on Hindu **philosophy** , politics, and ethics.\n\n**BH\u1e5aGU.** According to some lists, one of the Seven Sages ( **Saptar\u1e63i** ) presiding over the cosmos; ancestor of a group of **Brahmins** called the **Bh\u0101rgavas**. A work on **astrology** , the _Bh\u1e5bgu Sa\u1e43hit\u0101_ , is attributed to him.\n\n**BH\u016a.** The Earth. One of the \"three worlds\" of **Vedic** thought, including the Earth, the upper atmosphere, and the heavens, and invoked in the first line of the **G\u0101yatr\u012b** **mantra** : _O\u1e43 bh\u016br bhuva\u1e25 sva\u1e25_. _See also_ BH\u016aDEV\u012a; TRILOKA.\n\n**BH\u016aDEV\u012a.** **Goddess** of the Earth; \"Mother Nature\"; a personification of the Earth in the form of a **divine mother**. In his incarnation as a boar ( **Var\u0101ha** ), **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** rescues Bh\u016bdev\u012b from the demonic **Hiranyak\u1e63a**. In the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , Bh\u016bdev\u012b again calls out to Vi\u1e63\u1e47u to relieve the weight of proliferating humanity on her surface. He accedes to this request, taking on the form of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** and overseeing the events of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ war.\n\n**BH\u016aTA.** Literally \"being,\" entity. Element; fundamental component of existence. Five such elements are delineated in most Hindu systems of **philosophy** : earth, air, water, fire, and space ( **\u0101k\u0101\u015ba** ).\n\nAlso, a ghost or unquiet spirit that has not yet moved on to its next **re-birth** , usually due either to tragic circumstances surrounding its **death** in its previous incarnation or to unfinished business from that lifetime. _See also_ MAH\u0100BH\u016aTAS; PRETA.\n\n**BHUVANE\u015aVARA (BHUBANESHWAR).** Capital of the Indian state of **Orissa** , site of many **temples** constructed during the classical and early medieval periods. Prominent among these are Li\u1e45gar\u0101ja, which is dedicated to **\u015aiva** (Tribhuvane\u015bvara, or \"Lord of the Three Worlds\") and was constructed in the 12th century CE; Vaital **Mandira** , dedicated to **K\u0101l\u012b** ( **C\u0101mu\u1e47\u1e0d\u0101** ) and constructed in the eighth century CE; and Brahme\u015bvara, dedicated to \u015aiva and constructed in the ninth century CE.\n\n**B\u012aJA MANTRA.** Seed **mantra** ; monosyllabic mantra held to contain the essence of the deity that it evokes, particularly prominent in the practice of **Tantra**. B\u012bja mantras are seen as being especially powerful. They are often embedded in longer mantras. The best known and most frequently used b\u012bja mantra is **O\u1e43** , seen as containing the essence of all mantras, and indeed of all sound and the cosmos itself. Other commonly found examples include _hu\u1e43_ , _hr\u012b\u1e43_ , _\u015br\u012b\u1e43_ , _ga\u1e43_ , _kl\u012b\u1e43_ , and _ai\u1e43_. B\u012bja mantras do not have a literal meaning, in the sense of a specific denotation by which they can translated. Their power is more evocative than denotative. They make present, in auditory form, the deity or power that they symbolize.\n\n**B\u012aR\u016aN\u012a, AL- (973\u20131048).** Arab Muslim scholar who traveled in India and wrote about Indian customs, particularly religious practices. His _Kitab al-Hind_ (\"Book of India\") and his Arabic translation of the _Yoga S\u016btras_ of **Pata\u00f1jali** presented a relatively accurate and sympathetic portrayal of Hinduism to the **Islamic** world.\n\n**BISHNOIS.** Small **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** community based primarily in R\u0101jasth\u0101n, known for their commitment to the protection of the environment. They have been a central inspiration to the **Chipko movement**. The founder of the Bishnois, a 15th-century figure, Guru Mah\u0101r\u0101j Jambaj\u012b, established 29 rules for his community, including a ban on the cutting of green trees and the killing of animals. In the region of the largely arid state of R\u0101jasth\u0101n where the Bishnois resided, the Bishnoi practice of not cutting green trees is said to have led to the growth of a lush forest, which was targeted by the Mah\u0101r\u0101ja of Jhodpur, who wished to use the wood from the trees to build a palace for himself. The Bishnois sought to protect the trees by encircling them and chaining themselves to the tree trunks. The Mah\u0101r\u0101ja was moved by this act and ordered his servants not to harass the Bishnois. In 1973, the founders of the Chipko movement, based in what is now the state of Uttarakhand, followed the lead of the Bishnois, protecting forests from being cut down by loggers by forming a human chain encircling the trees and by hugging the trees\u2014a practice which led to the name \"Chipko\" and, beyond India, to the term \"tree hugger\" for anyone concerned about the protection of the environment.\n\n**BLAVATSKY, HELENA PETROVNA (1831\u20131891).** Cofounder of the **Theosophical Society** ; Russian heiress. In her youth she traveled widely, claiming to have visited Tibet and studied under **enlightened** masters. Having a profound interest in spiritualism and the occult, Blavatsky arrived in the United States in 1873. Along with **Henry Steele Olcott** , she established the Theosophical Society in 1875. The objectives of the society were \"to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, **caste** , or color,\" \"to encourage the study of comparative religion, **philosophy** , and science,\" and \"to investigate the unexplained **laws** of nature and the powers latent in man.\"\n\nA prolific author, Blavatsky's two major works are _Isis Unveiled_ , published in 1877, and _The Secret Doctrine_ , published in 1888. The latter book reflects the gradually increasing influence of Hinduism and **Buddhism** on Blavatsky's thought. Much of the conceptual content of theosophy is drawn from these two religious traditions, as well as from Western esoteric traditions.\n\nNo stranger to controversy, Blavatsky faced numerous accusations throughout her career of engaging in fraudulent displays of spiritual powers. After she and Olcott moved to India in 1879, the British government suspected her of being a Russian spy. Members of the Theosophical Society played prominent roles in the movement for Indian political independence. Theosophists promoted pride and interest among Hindus and Buddhists in their religious and cultural heritage, acting as \"reverse missionaries,\" articulating the idea that Hinduism and Buddhism preserve an ancient global wisdom tradition, or **perennial philosophy**. At one point a strategic alliance began to form between the Theosophical Society and the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j**. But **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b** fell out with Blavatsky and Olcott in 1880, when they announced their conversions to Buddhism in **Sri Lanka**. Blavatsky later returned to Europe and died in London in 1891.\n\n**BOAR AVAT\u0100RA.** _See_ VAR\u0100HA.\n\n**BOC\u0100SANV\u0100S\u012a AK\u1e62AR PURU\u1e62OTTAM SW\u0100M\u012aN\u0100R\u0100YA\u1e46 SANSTH\u0100 (BAPS).** _See_ SW\u0100M\u012aN\u0100R\u0100YA\u1e46 MOVEMENT.\n\n**BRAHM\u0100.** Creator deity; member, along with **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and **\u015aiva** , of the **Trim\u016brti**. When a new cosmic cycle begins, it is Brahm\u0101 who brings about the **creation** of the world. He is therefore not a creator _ex nihilo_ (from nothing), but the re-creator of the world at the beginning of each cosmic cycle ( **kalpa** ). The cosmos is then preserved for many eons by Vi\u1e63\u1e47u before being destroyed\u2014in order to be renewed and re-created\u2014by \u015aiva. Brahm\u0101 is often identified with the **Vedic** creator deity, **Praj\u0101pati**. He was worshiped as a major deity in ancient India (from roughly 500 BCE to 500 CE) but has not been a prominent object of **devotion** among most Hindus for many centuries, having been overshadowed by Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, \u015aiva, and the **Mother Goddess**. He is usually paired with the **goddess** **Sarasvat\u012b** as her husband.\n\n**BRAHM\u0100 KUM\u0100R\u012aS.** Daughters of Brahm\u0101. Hindu-based religious movement that was established in 1937 by **D\u0101da Lekhr\u0101j** (also known as **Praj\u0101pitar Brahm\u0101** ) and is now based at the Brahm\u0101 Kum\u0101r\u012b Spiritual University on Mount Abu, in the Indian state of **Rajasthan**. Lekhr\u0101j passed the leadership of the organization to his female followers, with whom it has remained. The Brahm\u0101 Kum\u0101r\u012bs teach a path of **asceticism** with special emphasis on abstention from alcohol. They also hold a belief\u2014unusual for a Hindu sect\u2014in the imminent end of the current world order and the coming of a new Golden Age. _See also_ WOMEN.\n\n_BRAHMA S\u016aTRAS_ **.** Aphoristic root text of the various **Ved\u0101nta** systems of **philosophy** that, along with the _Upani\u1e63ads_ and the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , forms the _Prasth\u0101na Traya_ or \"threefold foundation\" of Ved\u0101nta\u2014the three authoritative texts on which every **\u0101c\u0101rya** , or founder of a Ved\u0101ntic tradition, has written a **bh\u0101\u1e63ya** , or commentary.\n\nEstimates of the date of composition of the _Brahma S\u016btras_ vary. An approximate date of 200 BCE is possible, though it is also very likely that the compilation process was gradual, extending into the Common Era. In terms of relative chronology, the text must have been compiled after the composition of the major _Upani\u1e63ads_ , which it summarizes, but prior to the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , which mentions it (though this reference may or may not be to this specific text, perhaps referring generically to wisdom **literature** on **Brahman** ). The _Brahma S\u016btras_ are traditionally attributed to **B\u0101dar\u0101ya\u1e47a** , who is identified with **Veda Vy\u0101sa** , the traditional author of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and the compiler of the _Vedas_. As the root text of the Ved\u0101nta systems of **philosophy** , its verses are also known as the _Ved\u0101nta S\u016btras_.\n\nThe _Brahma S\u016btras_ present an inquiry into the nature of Brahman and collect the major threads of thought on this topic found in the _Upani\u1e63ads_. This text also presents criticisms of other major systems of thought, such as **S\u0101\u1e43khya** , **Yoga** , **Jainism** , and both realist and idealist forms of **Buddhism**.\n\n**BRAHMACARIN.** A person in the state of **brahmacarya**. A celibate student, usually a young Brahmin male.\n\n**BRAHMACARYA.** The first of the four **\u0101\u015bramas** , or stages of life. It also refers to a state of celibacy or the vow by which one enters such a state. As the first stage of life, the brahmacarya \u0101\u015brama refers to the \"student stage.\" This typically begins around the age of 12 (sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later) when an upper-caste male (usually a Brahmin male) is invested with a **sacred thread** through the **upanayana sa\u1e43sk\u0101ra**.\n\nTraditionally, after the investiture with the sacred thread, the **brahmacarin** leaves home to live with his **guru** , or teacher, where he receives instruction in the _Vedas_ and in various other relevant forms of **knowledge** , like grammar, mathematics, and **astrology**. In modernity, the brahmacarin typically remains at home, though a ceremonial \"departure\" is sometimes enacted. Ritually speaking, the brahmacarin is now considered an adult. The upanayana sa\u1e43sk\u0101ra is therefore analogous to such coming-of-age rituals as the Bar Mitzvah of Judaism or the sacrament of Confirmation in **Christianity**. The stage of the brahmacarya ends with the ritual of marriage, which begins the second, **householder** ( **g\u0101rhasthya** ) \u0101\u015brama.\n\nThe connection of the term \"brahmacarya\" with celibacy is due to the fact that the student stage is a celibate state, although an adult can also become a brahmacarin in the sense of taking a vow of celibacy, even after having lived the life of a sexually active **householder**. **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** , for example, became a brahmacarin after he and his wife had had four sons. This kind of brahmacarya, undertaken later in life, is a form of **asceticism** , typically practiced for spiritual reasons.\n\n**BR\u0100HMA-MUH\u016aRTA.** Period from roughly 4:30 a.m. to 6 a.m., and regarded as the best time to do one's morning worship and practice **meditation**. A **muh\u016brta** is approximately an hour and a half in length and each day is divided into 16 muh\u016brtas.\n\n**BRAHMAN.** The absolute, ultimate reality, the infinite, literally \"the expansive.\" In the early **Vedic** **literature** , Brahman is the power that makes the Vedic sacrifice or **yaj\u00f1a** work, the energy of **creation**. In the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , Brahman is understood to be an all-encompassing reality, that from which all things have emerged and to which they will return. Anticipations of this concept can be found as early as the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , in hymns that describe the universe as emerging from the body of a single cosmic being, often seen as having been offered up in sacrifice in order to create the universe. In the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , the concept becomes more abstract: the underlying consciousness that makes any experience possible, or the deep mystery of existence, knowing which all things can be known. To realize the identity of Brahman and **\u0101tman** , the self, is to become liberated from **rebirth**.\n\nIn some sections of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , Brahman seems to be an impersonal reality, the substance of consciousness. In other parts of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , Brahman is a personal deity\u2014 **God** , or **\u012a\u015bvara** , the Supreme Being. In **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , Brahman is perceived to have impersonal and personal aspects. The impersonal aspect\u2014 **Nirgu\u1e47a Brahman** \u2014is Brahman without any limiting qualities. In this aspect, which is preeminent, Brahman is infinite being ( **sat** ), pure or **non-dual** consciousness ( **cit** ), and unlimited bliss ( **\u0101nanda** ). The personal aspect is **Sagu\u1e47a Brahman** , or Brahman with qualities, who is identical with God (\u012a\u015bvara) and the world, acting as both the material and efficient cause of the universe. Theistic systems of **Ved\u0101nta** deny that Brahman is the material cause of the universe, identifying Brahman entirely with God (though **Vi\u015bi\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101dvaita Ved\u0101nta** sees Brahman as both God and world in a relationship not of identity but of organic unity).\n\n**BRAHM\u00c1N.** Chief priest in the **Vedic** ritual of sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ), whose duty is to know the duties of all the other priests and correct any errors that may occur.\n\n**BR\u0100HMA\u1e46A.** Priestly text. The second of the four sections contained within each of the four _Vedas_. The _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ were composed primarily during the period between the composition of the original four _Vedas_ , or _Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s_ , and the _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_ , approximately 800 to 600 BCE according to most contemporary scholarship. They form a commentary on the _Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s_. Being concerned chiefly with the correct performance of Vedic rituals, they form, along with the original _Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s_ , the **Karma Kanda** , or \" **action** portion,\" of the Vedic **literature**.\n\n**BRAHMANISM.** The ideology associated with the culture that produced and continued to propagate the _Vedas_. Brahmanism is not identical to Hinduism, which has assimilated and produced many other ideological and cultural currents through the centuries, some of which have been in explicit tension with Brahmanism. But Brahmanism is the locus of many of the guiding concepts and principles that have become central to Hindu thought and practice. Two central principles of Brahmanism are the sanctity and eternal authority of the _Vedas_ and the system of **castes** (or **var\u1e47as** ) and stages of life ( **\u0101\u015bramas** ) by which persons are categorized.\n\nThese two principles were strongly rejected by the **\u015brama\u1e47a** traditions of ancient India (such as **Jainism** and **Buddhism** ), and questioned, ignored, or otherwise rendered problematic by subsequent Hindu movements, such as **bhakti** and **Tantra**. Concepts that Brahmanism shares with the other Indic systems of thought include **karma** , **rebirth** , and **mok\u1e63a** , though it may have adopted these fairly late (c. 6th century BCE).\n\n**BRAHMIN.** Member of the priestly **caste** (or **var\u1e47a** ), the highest of the traditional four castes into which Brahmanical society is divided. According to **Brahmanism** , birth as a Brahmin is a prerequisite for higher spiritual knowledge, which can only be acquired by studying the _Vedas_. Some late Vedic and post-Vedic texts, however, challenge this idea, as do the Hindu reformers of the modern period.\n\n**BRAHMO SAM\u0100J.** Hindu reform organization first established in **Calcutta** in 1828, under the name _Brahmo Sabh\u0101_ , by **R\u0101m Mohan Roy** (1772\u20131833). The Brahmo Sam\u0101j was most popular among middle-class Bengali intellectuals who had received significant exposure to European culture and education, due to the work of Christian missionaries, but who also had a strong sense of identification with Hinduism and Indian culture. The effort of these intellectuals was to reform Hinduism, opposing practices such as **sat\u012b** and the use of images ( **m\u016brtis** ) in worship, which they saw as later additions to an originally monotheistic Hinduism taught in the _Upani\u1e63ads_. Roy, a prolific author and energetic activist, translated some of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ into Bengali, and wrote many pamphlets as well, decrying what he saw as the evils of certain Hindu practices, and **Christianity** as well. Brahmo Sam\u0101j worship was modeled on Protestant worship services, with hymns and sermons drawing upon the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , rather than the Bible.\n\nTheologically, the teachings of the Brahmo Sam\u0101j display a strong leaning toward Unitarianism, and a number of Brahmo Sam\u0101j members traveled to England in the 19th century to study at the Unitarian seminary at Harris-Manchester College in Oxford. With its emphasis on an original, \"pure\" **Vedic** **monotheism** later corrupted into popular Hindu **polytheism** , Brahmo Sam\u0101j teaching in many ways anticipates that of the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j** of **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b**.\n\nMany prominent Bengali Hindu thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries were connected with the Brahmo Sam\u0101j, including Roy's successors to the leadership of the organization, **Debendran\u0101th Tagore** (1817\u20131905) and **Keshub Chunder Sen** (1838\u20131884); Tagore's grandson, the renowned **poet** , playwright, composer, and Nobel laureate **Rabindran\u0101th Tagore** (1861\u2013 1941); and **Narendran\u0101th Datta** (1863\u20131902), who is better known by his monastic name, **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** , and who was a member of the Brahmo Sam\u0101j until he became a disciple of **Ramakrishna**.\n\nThough highly influential in the 19th century, the Brahmo Sam\u0101j maintains a relatively small but devoted following today, largely confined to **Bengal**.\n\n**BRAJ.** **Hindi** pronunciation of **Vraja**.\n\n_B\u1e5aHAD\u0100RA\u1e46YAKA UPANI\u1e62AD_ **.** Great \u0100ra\u1e47yaka Upani\u1e63ad; oldest and longest of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ (or, alternatively, the latest of the _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_ ), it is contained as the conclusion of the _\u015aatapatha Br\u0101hma\u1e47a_ , which is, in turn, contained within the _\u015aukla_ (White) _Yajur Veda_. Its length and antiquity have made it a major authoritative source for the **Ved\u0101nta** systems of **philosophy**. Probably compiled around 500 BCE (though from oral sources a good deal older), the centerpiece of this text is the teaching of the sage **Y\u0101j\u00f1avalkya** , the likely originator of the traditions that this _Upani\u1e63ad_ preserves. Two different recensions of the text exist\u2014the _K\u0101\u1e47va_ and the _M\u0101dhyandina_ \u2014though their philosophical content is not substantially different.\n\nThis text contains the first unambiguous Hindu scriptural reference to the process of **rebirth** , the idea that the nature of one's rebirth is determined by one's **actions** ( **karma** ), and the idea that one can attain freedom from rebirth ( **mok\u1e63a** ) by giving up **desire** and merging with **Brahman** (4.4.5\u20137).\n\n_B\u1e5aHAD-DEVAT\u0100_ **.** \"Great Text on Deities\"; systematic presentation of the attributes and deeds of the **Vedic** deities ( **devas** ); attributed to **\u015aaunaka** and likely composed between 500 and 400 BCE. This text has continued to be an authoritative source for a mainstream Hindu understanding of the Vedic deities.\n\n**B\u1e5aHASPATI.** \"Great Father\"; **Vedic** deity; god of wisdom and teacher, or **guru** , of the **gods**. B\u1e5bhaspati is the presiding deity of the planet Jupiter and the guru referred to in the name **Guruv\u0101ra** , the Hindu name for Thursday, the day of the week governed by Jupiter in Hindu **astrology**. He embodies the intellect and the power of speech of the cosmic man ( **puru\u1e63a** ) from whose body the universe was formed according to Vedic cosmology.\n\nIntriguingly, B\u1e5bhaspati is attributed with developing the **C\u0101rv\u0101ka** , or **materialist** system of **philosophy** , which denies the validity of the _Vedas_. The lost root texts of this system are called the _B\u0101rhaspatya S\u016btras_ , or \"Root Texts Attributed to B\u1e5bhaspati.\"\n\n**BRIGHT HALF.** _See_ \u015aUKLA PAK\u1e62A.\n\n**BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY.** British trade organization established in 1600. It was given a monopoly on British trade with Asia and granted vast resources, including ships, by Queen Elizabeth I for the purpose of expanding the British commercial presence in India and Indonesia. The company established trading posts on the Indian coast that became the basis for large modern cities such as **Calcutta** , Bombay, and **Madras**.\n\nIn order to protect company holdings, ever-increasing numbers of British soldiers were sent to India. The company also hired Indian mercenaries (known as _sepoys_ ) and entered into alliances with local rulers, often becoming embroiled in complex rivalries and conflicts among Indian kings. This ever-expanding military and political presence\u2014combined with the marked disunity among the various Indian polities, which prevented the formation of any serious Indian resistance\u2014eventually led the company to become the dominant force in Indian political and economic life.\n\nDiscontent among many Indians with the growing British domination of India and the exploitation and denigration of Indian culture\u2014including Hinduism and **Islam** \u2014that it involved eventually led to an armed revolt by sepoys in 1857. This event continues to be referred to by British historians as the Sepoy Mutiny and by Indian historians as the War of Independence. Alarmed by this rebellion, Queen Victoria dissolved the company in 1858 and put India under the direct rule of the British government.\n\n**BROWN, W. NORMAN (1892\u20131975). Indologist** and **Sanskritist** who held the chair in Sanskrit at the University of Pennsylvania from 1926 to 1966 and was curator of Indian **art** at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He organized the American Oriental Society in 1926 and edited its journal for many years.\n\n**BUDDHA (c. 490\u2013410 BCE).** The \"Awakened One\"; Siddh\u0101rtha Gautama, founder of **Buddhism** and, in some Hindu accounts, the ninth **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. According to the traditional accounts of his life, the Buddha was a prince, the son of the ruler of the \u015aakya clan, whose territory was located in what is now southern **Nepal**. Becoming a **renouncer** at the age of 30, he attained **nirv\u0101\u1e47a** six years later and began teaching, establishing an order of monks and nuns and lay followers. He died at the age of 80.\n\nA member of the **\u015brama\u1e47a** movement, the Buddha, like **Mah\u0101v\u012bra** and others, did not accept the claims of **Brahmanism** that one's birth **caste** is a reflection of one's level of spiritual attainment, that a birth in the **Brahmin** caste is a mark of spiritual authority, and that the _Vedas_ and the ceremonies they enjoin are divinely inspired. He found the sacrifice of animals in the Vedic **yaj\u00f1a** to be particularly objectionable. He shared with Brahmanism\u2014particularly the teaching of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ \u2014the concepts of **karma** , **rebirth** , and **liberation** ( **mok\u1e63a** ) from the cycle of rebirth. His teaching on the renunciation of desire as necessary to liberation is quite close to that of the _B\u1e5bhad\u0101ra\u1e47yaka Upani\u1e63ad_.\n\nBuddhism subsequently became a major ideological rival of Brahmanism, both of which shaped what eventually emerged as Hinduism. The concept of the Buddha as an avat\u0101ra of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u is a Brahmanical attempt to cope with the popularity of Buddhism, and the changes that this concept undergoes reflect the changing relationship of Buddhism to Hindu identity: from fierce rival to assimilated cultural resource. Some early accounts of the Buddha avat\u0101ra are of an anti-Buddhist nature, claiming that Vi\u1e63\u1e47u took the form of the Buddha for the purpose of deluding demonic persons and persuading them not to perform the sacrifice (or **yaj\u00f1a** ) enjoined in the _Veda_. But later accounts of the Buddha avat\u0101ra are more positive, presenting the Buddha as a Vedic reformer who ended the practice of **animal sacrifice** to promote the ideal of compassion. The concept of the Buddha avat\u0101ra, both in its critical and in its more appreciative forms, is a Hindu interpretation of the life and teaching of the Buddha, and is generally not accepted by Buddhists.\n\n**BUDDHI.** Intellect; one of the basic elements that constitute existence, or **tanm\u0101tras** , of the **S\u0101\u1e43khya** system of **philosophy**. In the **Yoga** of **Pata\u00f1jali** , buddhi, in combination with **aha\u1e43kara** (ego) and the **indriyas** (senses) constitutes **citta** (the **mind** ).\n\nAlso, along with **Siddhi** (\"Success\"), Buddhi is the name of one of the two wives of **Gane\u015ba**.\n\n**BUDDHISM.** **\u015arama\u1e47a** tradition established by the **Buddha** (c. 490\u2013410 BCE). By the end of the 13th century CE, this tradition had largely died out in India but had spread beyond India, throughout Southeast and Central Asia and into China, Korea, and Japan to become a major world religion. The major forms of Buddhism are Therav\u0101da (Teaching of the Elders), which is predominant in both **Sri Lanka** and **Southeast Asia** ; Mah\u0101y\u0101na (Great Vehicle), which is practiced mainly in China, Korea, and Japan; and Vajray\u0101na ( **Tantric** Buddhism), which has traditionally been prominent in **Nepal** , Tibet, and Mongolia.\n\nLike other \u015brama\u1e47a traditions, such as **Jainism** , Buddhism shares many core ideas of Hinduism, such as the doctrines of **karma** and **rebirth** and the aspiration for **liberation** ( **mok\u1e63a** ) from the cycle of rebirth as a central salvific goal. Buddhism shares with other \u015brama\u1e47a traditions a rejection of the claims of **Brahmanism** with regard to **caste** and the authority of the _Vedas_. Specifically, it rejects the idea that birth caste is a reflection of one's spiritual attainment (with its implication that the **Brahmins** are the most advanced of human beings) and Vedic injunctions to perform **animal sacrifice**. Buddhism was the main ideological rival of Brahmanism for many centuries. As Hinduism coalesced from many Indic traditions, however, many Buddhist concepts were assimilated into it. For example, although nominal affirmation of the authority of the _Vedas_ continues, practices such as animal sacrifice gradually fell by the wayside, being replaced by **vegetarianism**. Though the caste system continues to be practiced, movements that affirm the irrelevance of caste to the spiritual path, such as **bhakti** and **Tantra** , have many Hindu followers.\n\nBuddhism died out in India due to a combination of foreign invasions, resulting in a mass destruction of monasteries and **temples** , and Hindu assimilation. In the 20th century, **Bh\u012bmrao Ambedkar** revived Indian Buddhism, leading a mass conversion of **Dalits** to Buddhism as a protest against the ongoing Hindu practice of caste. An influx of Tibetan Buddhist refugees, led by the Dalai Lama, has also led to a reinfusion of life into Buddhism in India. _See also_ AMBEDKARITE BUDDHISM.\n\n**BUDDHISM, AMBEDKARITE.** _See_ AMBEDKARITE BUDDHISM.\n\n**BU\u1e0cHA.** The planet Mercury; son of the deity **Soma** and the **goddess T\u0101ra**. _See also_ ASTROLOGY; NAVAGRAHAS.\n\n**BU\u1e0cHAV\u0100RA.** Wednesday, the day of the week that is governed by Bu\u1e0dha, the planet Mercury. _See also_ CALENDAR, HINDU.\n\n**BUFFALO DEMON.** _See_ MAHI\u1e62\u0100SURA.\n\n**BUITENEN, JOHANNES ADRIANUS BERNARDUS VAN (1928\u2013 1979).** Dutch-born **Indologist** and **Sanskritist** who founded and chaired the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. A prolific scholar, his best-known achievement is the translation of the first five books of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_.\n\n## C\n\n**CAITANYA (1486\u20131533).** **Bengali** **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** saint and devotee of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** ; major figure of the **bhakti** movement and founder of the **Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition, with which the **International Society for Krishna Consciousness** (ISKCON) is in close continuity. At the age of 22 he met a **sanny\u0101s\u012b** of **Madhva** 's theistic **Dvaita Ved\u0101nta** tradition, whose outlook greatly influenced him. He then traveled to and spent most of his life in **Puri** , in what is now the Indian state of **Orissa** , at the **temple** of **Jagann\u0101tha**. Much like the **Bauls** , by whom he may also have been influenced, Caitanya promoted ecstatic devotional singing as a way to express and evoke bhakti and give worship to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a. He made several pilgrimages to **Vraja** , the area of **Mathura** and **V\u1e5bnd\u0101vana** , where K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a spent most of his early life according to the _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. He reinvigorated K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a devotion in the region, making it a major pilgrimage center. Caitanya also established the **Gosv\u0101min** theological tradition. According to Caitanya's teaching, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is the supreme deity\u2014 **God** in a **monotheistic** sense\u2014of whom all other deities are either manifestations or subordinates. Caitanya's followers view him as an **avat\u0101ra**.\n\n**CAKRA.** Literally, a wheel. In **Tantra** , a cakra is an energy center located in the **subtle body** ( **suk\u1e63ma \u015bar\u012bra** ). According to Tantric thought, subtle energy bodies exist in the same space as, but on a different vibrational wavelength from, the physical, gross body ( **sth\u016bla \u015bar\u012bra** ). These subtle bodies are made up of the **ko\u015bas** , or sheaths, in which the soul or **\u0101tman** resides (specifically, the four ko\u015bas other than the **anna-maya-ko\u015ba** , which is identical to the gross body). In the space that corresponds to the base of the spine, a subtle energy, or **\u015bakti** , resides. While it is residing in this space, it is also referred to as the **ku\u1e47\u1e0dalini** , or coiled energy, because it is said to resemble a coiled serpent in this state. In Tantric **yoga** , one of the goals of practice is to raise this energy from the base of the spine to the crown of the head, which are linked by a subtle nerve channel called the su\u1e63umna n\u0101d\u012b, and which occupies roughly the same space as the spinal cord.\n\nAlong the su\u1e63umna n\u0101d\u012b are the seven cakras. These energy centers are activated as the \u015bakti or ku\u1e47\u1e0dalini rises through the su\u1e63umna n\u0101d\u012b. The bottom-most of the cakras, the **m\u016bladh\u0101ra cakra** , is located at the base of the spine. The rest of the cakras are the **sv\u0101dhi\u1e63\u1e6dh\u0101na cakra** , which is aligned with the navel; the **ma\u1e47ip\u016bra cakra** , which is aligned with the solar plexus; the **an\u0101hata cakra** , which is centered in the heart; the **vi\u015buddha cakra** , which is in the throat; the **\u0101j\u00f1\u0101 cakra** or third eye, which is just above the space between the eyebrows; and, at the crown of the head, the **sah\u0101srara cakra** or \"thousand-petaled lotus,\" which, when energized by the rising \u015bakti, produces a blissful state that, according to Tantra, advances one quickly toward **enlightenment**.\n\nAccording to the tradition of **Siddha Yoga** , a contemporary **\u015aaiva** movement with a strongly Tantric dimension, an enlightened teacher, or **guru** , can raise one's \u015bakti from the base of the spine to the crown of the head\u2014activating all of the cakras in the process\u2014with a thought, word, or touch. This experience is called **\u015baktipat**.\n\n**CALCUTTA.** City established by the **British East India Company** in 1696 near the village of K\u0101l\u012bkata and the **K\u0101l\u012bgh\u0101\u1e6d** **temple**. Now known as Kolkata, it is one of the largest cities in India and the capital of the state of **West** **Bengal**. Calcutta served as the administrative capital of British India until 1911, when the administration shifted to **New Delhi** , which remains the capital of the Republic of India today.\n\nCalcutta has a rich intellectual and cultural history, being the center of much of the Hindu reform that occurred in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Major figures of this period who resided at some point in Calcutta include **R\u0101m Mohan Roy** , **Debendran\u0101th Tagore** , **Keshub Chunder Sen** , **Ramakrishna** , **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** , **Aurobindo Ghose** , and **Rabindran\u0101th Tagore**. The city remains the main center of activity for the **Brahmo Sam\u0101j** , and it also houses the administrative headquarters of the **Ramakrishna Order**. _See also_ BENGAL.\n\n**CALENDAR, HINDU.** The traditional Hindu calendar is a lunar calendar on the basis of which the dates of Hindu holidays are determined and astrological calculations carried out. The calendar is made up of 12 lunar months, each of which is further divided into a **bright half** ( **\u015bukla pak\u1e63a** ), during which the **moon** is waxing, and a **dark half** ( **k\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a pak\u1e63a** ), during which it is waning. Distinct from these two halves are **P\u016br\u1e47im\u0101** (full-moon day) and **Amavasya** (new-moon day), which mark, respectively, the transition from the bright half to the dark half and from the dark half to the bright half. The Hindu lunar months are called **Chaitra** (March\u2013April), **Vai\u015b\u0101kha** (April\u2013May), **Jyai\u1e63\u1e6dha** (May\u2013June), **\u0100\u1e63\u0101\u1e0dha** (June\u2013July), **\u015arava\u1e47a** (July\u2013August), **Bhadra** (August\u2013September), **A\u015bvina** (September\u2013October), **K\u0101rtika** (October\u2013November), **Agrahaya\u1e47a** (November\u2013December), **Pau\u1e63a** (December\u2013January), **Magha** (January\u2013February), and **Phalguna** (February\u2013March). Each month begins the day after the new-moon day (Amavasya) of the month just before it. Amavasya marks the end of a month, and P\u016br\u1e47im\u0101 its midpoint. Whenever a **p\u016bj\u0101** , or worship ceremony, is conducted, it is customary near the beginning of the ceremony to announce the date: for example, \"the third day of the bright half of the month of Phalguna,\" or \"the fifth day of the dark half of Vai\u015b\u0101kha,\" and so forth.\n\nThe Hindu week consists of seven days: **Raviv\u0101ra** (Sunday), **Somav\u0101ra** (Monday), **Ma\u00f1galv\u0101ra** (Tuesday), **Bu\u1e0dhav\u0101ra** (Wednesday), **Guruv\u0101ra** (Thursday), **\u015aukrav\u0101ra** (Friday), and **\u015a\u0101niv\u0101ra** (Saturday). Astrologically, each day of the week is governed by a different planet. The \" **planets** \" consist of the five planets that are visible to the naked eye (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, although not in that order) plus the sun and the moon. There are numerous local variations on this basic calendrical model. _See also_ ASTROLOGY.\n\n**C\u0100LUKYA.** Hindu dynasty that ruled a large kingdom encompassing much of central and southern India from the sixth to the 12th centuries of the Common Era. At its height, during the seventh and eighth centuries, this kingdom encompassed what are now the states of Maharashtra and **Karnataka** , and much of Andhra Pradesh. The C\u0101lukyas constructed major **temple** complexes at the towns of **Aihole** , **B\u0101d\u0101m\u012b** , and **Pa\u1e6d\u1e6dadakal**.\n\n**CAMPHOR.** Holy substance used during worship ( **p\u016bj\u0101** ). A small amount is typically set aflame. The smoke and flame from the camphor are regarded as having a purifying effect. The lit camphor is held in a small lamp or **d\u012by\u0101** and waved in front of an image ( **m\u016brti** ) of a deity\u2014a variation of the ceremony known as **\u0101rat\u012b**. _See also_ P\u016aJ\u0100.\n\n**C\u0100MU\u1e46\u1e0c\u0100.** Destroyer of demons; fierce from of the **Mother Goddess** who emanates from the forehead of the goddess **Durg\u0101** in order to destroy evil. Having a frightening appearance, C\u0101mu\u1e47\u1e0d\u0101 has four arms and hands and carries a sword, a noose, and a club. Resembling **K\u0101l\u012b** , she wears a garland of corpses and the hide of an elephant. She is also known as C\u0101mu\u1e47\u1e0d\u012b.\n\n**CANAKYA.** _See_ KAU\u1e6cILYA.\n\n**CA\u1e46\u1e0c\u0100LA.** A member of the lowest **caste** \u2014an **Untouchable** or **Dalit** community. This caste is traditionally responsible for the cremation of corpses, which is regarded as a very polluting activity, given that dead bodies are considered the most impure of substances. Due to their untouchable status, Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u0101las are often expected to live far from the rest of the community. **Rabindran\u0101th Tagore** composed a widely acclaimed opera critical of the caste system entitled _Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u0101lik\u0101_ , about a female Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u0101la. As a female member of the lowest of the castes, a Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u0101lik\u0101 would be regarded as being at the very bottom of Hindu society. In the opera, the main character, accustomed to being shunned by others, is approached by a **Buddhist** monk who, having no regard for caste restrictions, asks her for a drink of water. This is a transformative moment for the main character, who discovers her human dignity and becomes a Buddhist nun.\n\n**CA\u1e46\u1e0c\u012a (CA\u1e46\u1e0cIK\u0100).** \"Wrath,\" \"wrathful\"; any fierce form of the **Mother Goddess** , often with either 18 or 20 hands. A wrathful form of this kind is assumed so the goddess can destroy evil. The worship of fierce **goddesses** is especially popular in **Bengal** and is often associated with **Tantra**. The _Dev\u012b Mah\u0101tmya_ , a text that narrates the deeds of the fierce forms of the goddess, is also known as the _Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u012b Pa\u1e6dh_ (\"Reading on Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u012b\"). _See also_ DURG\u0100; K\u0100L\u012a.\n\n**CA\u1e46\u1e0c\u012aD\u0100S (fl. 15th century CE, born 1408). Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** saint of **Bengal** and member of the **Sahajiya** movement, which emphasized highly spontaneous and ecstatic expressions of devotion and shared the **Tantric** sensibility of using the senses to transcend the senses. The **bhakti** **poetry** of Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u012bd\u0101s makes extensive use of the imagery of the love between **R\u0101dh\u0101** and **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** to evoke the loving relationship between the devotee and the divine. His songs exerted a strong influence on **Caitanya**. His most famous work is the _\u015arik\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a K\u012brtana_ (\"Glory of Lord K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\"), which narrates the romance of R\u0101dh\u0101 and K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a over the course of 412 songs. Altogether, 1,250 songs are attributed to Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u012bd\u0101s, although it is likely that there was more than one author by this name, perhaps in a shared lineage.\n\nThough he was a devotee of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, the name _Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u012bd\u0101s_ means \"servant of **Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u012b** \" (the **Mother Goddess** in her fierce form).\n\n**CANDRA.** The **moon** ; often identified with the **Vedic** deity **Soma** , who also represents the hallucinogenic plant whose juice, mixed with milk, was used by ancient **Brahmins** to evoke an experience of the divine. The phases of the moon represent this substance being consumed by the **devas** (during the dark half of the month, or **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a Pak\u1e63a** , when the moon is waning) and replenished (during the bright half, or **\u015aukla Pak\u1e63a** , when the moon is waxing).\n\n**CANDRASEKHARA SARASVAT\u012a, \u015aR\u012a (1894\u20131994).** The 68th **\u015aa\u1e45kar\u0101c\u0101rya** of the K\u0101\u00f1c\u012b K\u0101makoti P\u012b\u1e6da, or **ma\u1e6dha** , at **K\u0101\u00f1c\u012bpuram** in Tamil Nadu, a role that he held for a record 87 years. He assumed his responsibilities at the unusually young age of 13 when his cousin, the 67th head of the ma\u1e6dha, died prematurely of a fever.\n\n**CARAKA (c. 3rd century BCE).** Presumed author of the _Caraka Sa\u1e43hit\u0101_ , a work of **\u0100yur Veda** , or traditional Hindu medicine.\n\n**C\u0100RV\u0100KA (c. 3rd century BCE).** Founder of the **materialist** system of Indian philosophy ( **dar\u015bana** ); also a name for the philosophical system itself, which is also known as the **Lok\u0101yata** system. C\u0101rv\u0101ka's system is, like **Jainism** and **Buddhism** , a **n\u0101stika** or nonorthodox system of thought that denies the authority of the _Vedas_ and of the **Brahmin** caste. Unlike all other systems of Indian philosophy, C\u0101rv\u0101ka's system denies the reality of **karma** and **rebirth** and sees religion as a fundamentally deluded activity, developed in order to satisfy the greed of those who promulgate it (both Brahmin and **\u015brama\u1e47a** ). This system affirms that sensory perception is the only valid basis for knowledge ( **pram\u0101\u1e47a** ), thereby denying the validity both of the _Vedas_ and of the extrasensory **yogic** knowledge affirmed by Jains and Buddhists. It claims that the sole aim of life is sensory enjoyment.\n\nThe original writings of this system survive only in fragmentary form, as quoted in texts of other systems aiming to refute it. The authoritative **s\u016btras** or root texts of this system are the _B\u0101rhaspatya S\u016btras_ (that is, texts claiming to derive from the teaching of the sage **B\u1e5bhaspati** ), but the full text has not yet been recovered.\n\n**CASTE.** System of hereditary occupational groups arranged in a hierarchy. The word _caste_ is derived from the Portuguese word _casta_ , which means \"color\" and seems to be a translation of the **Sanskrit** term _var\u1e47a_. Contrary to popular belief, var\u1e47a does not refer to skin color but to a set of colors assigned to the four main subgroups of Hindu society based on the mixture of the three **gu\u1e47as** , or essential qualities, that each group is held to possess.\n\nThe only reference to the caste system in the earliest **Vedic** texts is in the _Puru\u1e63a_ _Sukta_ of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , where the four main var\u1e47as\u2014 **Brahmins** (priests and intellectuals), **K\u1e63atriyas** (warriors and administrators), **Vai\u015byas** (common people, economic producers), and **\u015a\u016bdras** (servants)\u2014are described as emerging from various parts of the body of the cosmic man from whom the entire universe was formed, according to Vedic cosmology. No reference is made in the Vedic _Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s_ to a hereditary system, and indeed the idea of a hereditary system is contradicted by some Vedic hymns in which the speaker and his parents are referred to as practicing different trades.\n\nIn later Vedic **literature** , the story of **Satyak\u0101ma** in the _Ch\u0101ndogya Upani\u1e63ad_ is suggestive of the possibility that one might come by one's caste purely through the possession of the appropriate personal qualities ( _gu\u1e47as_ ) rather than through birth, an idea found most prominently in **\u015brama\u1e47a** traditions, such as **Jainism** and **Buddhism** , and reasserted in the modern period by the founder of the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j** , **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b** , as well as by **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b**.\n\nBut by the period of the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ (c. 300 BCE), the idea of castes based on birth ( **j\u0101ti** ) had become predominant in Hindu society. Although the system of four var\u1e47as is the version of caste most commonly mentioned in the Hindu **scriptures** , the effective living unit in actual practice is the j\u0101ti, which could be described as a subset or \"subcaste\" within one of the four main var\u1e47as. Each var\u1e47a contains dozens of j\u0101tis, which represent more specialized tasks under the larger rubric of one of the categories of priesthood, political authority, economic production, or servitude.\n\nThough it has typically been the case that caste, seen largely as a matter of birth, has not allowed for social mobility, that has not been a uniform practice. Entire groups have managed to advance in the caste hierarchy through a process of adopting practices associated with higher castes. Scholars have labeled this process **Sanskritization**.\n\nWhile caste has proved to be highly effective and resilient as a method for both ordering and preserving Indian society, it has also been the target of much internal and external criticism throughout the centuries. So Jains and Buddhists, though continuing to practice caste as a way of organizing society, rejected the notion that one's birth caste was in any way a reflection of one's spiritual advancement, or that caste was a function of one's **karma** \u2014the dominant view of **Brahmanism**. Renunciation came to be seen, even within Brahmanism, as a way of removing oneself from the restrictions of caste, although the most conservative Brahmanical traditions insist that one must be born as a male Brahmin to be eligible for renunciation. **Tantra** and the **bhakti** movements both share the Jain and Buddhist insistence that one's birth caste is irrelevant to one's ability to make progress toward **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth**. At the same time, though, none of these movements has ever led to a major breakdown of caste in practice. Even Abrahamic traditions such as **Christianity** and **Islam** , which reject the notion of caste and affirm human equality and initially held great appeal for members of the lowest castes\u2014particularly the **Dalits** , or **Untouchables** , whose hereditary professions excluded them from most interaction with the rest of society\u2014did not have a significant impact on the caste system. Many Indian Christians and Muslims are members of castes today, choosing professions and marriage partners accordingly. Caste is deeply rooted in Indian society but is neither limited to nor unambiguously justified by Hinduism.\n\nOnly in the modern period have serious efforts begun either to eradicate prejudice based on caste (while preserving the basic concept of the caste system) or to eradicate the caste system altogether. The leading figure in the movement to abolish caste has been Dr. **Bh\u012bmrao Ambedkar** , the primary author of the Indian constitution. **Arvind Sharma** has argued that all Hindus should see themselves as sharing the duties of all four of the var\u1e47as.\n\nIt remains debated today whether caste is intrinsic to Hinduism as a religion or is an Indian social system that has been justified on the basis of Hinduism but that may be fundamentally incompatible with some aspects of Hindu **philosophy** , such as its emphasis on the unity of existence and seeing the divine in all beings.\n\n**CASTEISM.** Prejudice or bigotry based on **caste** , which is illegal under the constitution of India but which nevertheless persists in many parts of India, particularly in rural areas.\n\n**CHAITRA.** Month of the **Hindu calendar** that corresponds roughly to the period from mid-March to mid-April.\n\n_CH\u0100NDOGYA UPANI\u1e62AD_ **.** One of the earliest _Upani\u1e63ads_ , likely composed between 500 and 400 BCE. It is part of the _Ch\u0101ndogya Br\u0101hma\u1e47a_ , which, in turn, is part of the _S\u0101ma Veda_. A relatively lengthy Upani\u1e63ad, particularly well-known portions of this text include the sage Udd\u0101laka's teaching to this son, \u015avetaketu, on the identity of the self, or **\u0101tman** , and **Brahman** , using the refrain \"You are that\" ( _tat-tvam asi_ ); early reflections on the esoteric meaning of the **mantra** **O\u1e43** ; the story of **Satyak\u0101ma** , who is initiated into the study of the _Vedas_ on the basis of his honesty, despite the fact that his mother is of low caste and the identity of his father is unknown; and the teaching of **Praj\u0101pati** to the **devas** and **asuras** , which establishes **materialism** as the doctrine of the asuras. _See also_ VED\u0100NTA.\n\n**CHARIOT.** The image of the chariot is an ancient one in Hindu thought and culture, being found as early as the _\u1e5ag Veda_. The technology of chariot making also has great significance for the question of Hindu origins and the issue of the relationship between **Vedic** culture and other **Indo-European** societies. The early Vedic deities, the **devas** , are frequently depicted as riding in chariots, and the image of the sun god riding a chariot daily through the sky is common to many Indo-European belief systems, including Vedic thought. The metaphor of the chariot as a symbol for the physical body, with the **soul** as the rider, the **mind** as the driver, and the senses as the horses, is utilized in the _Ka\u1e6dha Upani\u1e63ad_ (c. 400\u2013300 BCE) and, one could argue, alluded to implicitly as the setting of the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. The same image is utilized by the Greek philosopher Plato in the _Phaedrus_ , who was either influenced by Indian thought (perhaps indirectly, through the influence of Pythagoras) or was tapping into the same Indo-European cultural heritage as the authors of the _Upani\u1e63ads_.\n\nIn terms of Hindu origins, the appearance of light chariots and chariot technology in India between 1900 and 1700 BCE, but already present in Central Asia between 2300 and 2000 BCE, supports the **\u0100ryan Migration Theory**. Though, as opponents of this theory have pointed out, crossing into India through Afghanistan on such chariots is a practical impossibility, persons with knowledge of this technology crossing into India by other means (such as on foot) is not at all impossible. _See also_ JAGANN\u0100THA; KON\u0100RAK; VIM\u0100NA.\n\n**CHATTERJEE, BANKIM CHANDRA (1838\u20131894).** **Bengali** novelist, **poet** , political activist, and the author of the national song of India, \"Vande Mataram.\" Chatterjee was a major literary figure, pioneering the genre of the novel in Bengali, as well an inspiration to the emerging Indian independence movement. An early **Hindu Nationalist** , the India that Chatterjee envisioned was a Hindu one, independent of both British and **Islamic** rule.\n\n**CHATTOPADHYAY, BANKIM CHANDRA.** _See_ CHATTERJEE, BANKIM CHANDRA.\n\n**CHENNAI.** Contemporary name for **Madras**.\n\n**CHIDVIL\u0100S\u0100NANDA, SW\u0100M\u012a (1955\u2013 ).** _See_ GURUMAY\u012a.\n\n**CHIPKO MOVEMENT.** An Indian environmental movement that emerged in 1973 in opposition to logging in the **Himalayan** foothills of what is now the state of Uttarakhand. Inspired by the **Bishnois** and the nonviolent methods of **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** , the activists of the Chipko movement protected their sacred forest from being cut down by loggers by forming a human chain encircling the trees and by hugging the trees\u2014a practice that led to the name \"Chipko\" and, beyond India, to the term \"tree hugger\" for anyone concerned about the protection of the environment.\n\n**CHRISTIANITY.** The world's largest religion, in terms of numbers of adherents, and a member, along with Judaism and **Islam** , of the Abrahamic family of traditions, sharing a common worldview that includes **monotheism** , divine revelation and divine intervention in human history, a single lifetime, a day of judgment, and an everlasting afterlife either in a heavenly paradise or a hellish state of punishment (though exceptions and variations in regard to this basic worldview can be found across all three of these traditions).\n\nIn terms of interactions with Hinduism, Christianity has been present in India for many centuries, the most ancient Indian Christian communities being located in the state of **Kerala** , on the southwest coast of the subcontinent, which is still home to the majority of Indian Christians. According to one Indian Christian tradition, the religion was first brought to India by the Apostle Thomas, and so dates to the first century of the Common Era, and the most ancient group of Christians in India are often referred to as \"St. Thomas Christians.\" Reliable historical data, however, cannot place Christians in India before the fifth century of the Common Era. These early Indian Christians, known as the _Nasranis_ , seem largely to have been Jewish converts who fled the Roman Empire after the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Their churches are modeled closely on synagogues. Today, these Christians are largely affiliated with the Syrian Orthodox Church.\n\nReligiously significant interaction between these Christians and Hindus seems to have been fairly minimal, though some have argued that Christian influence is discernible in the emergence and popularity of **bhakti** traditions in southern India in the middle of the first millennium of the Common Era. But for all intents and purposes, the Jewish and Christian communities in the southwestern coastal regions of India in ancient times seem to have been largely self-contained, endogamous **castes**.\n\nExtensive Christian proselytizing activity did not occur in India until the 16th century, at the onset of the period of European colonization. The first European Christian missionaries in India were Roman Catholics\u2014mainly Jesuits\u2014operating in southern India, particularly in areas where Portuguese colonies were established, such as Goa. The older indigenous St. Thomas Christians experienced extensive persecution at the hands of the Portuguese government. Protestant missionaries arrived a couple of centuries later, with British colonization. Hindu reactions to Christian missionary activities have ranged from conversion, to indifference, to dialogue and engagement, to hostility.\n\nConversions have largely been among **Dalits** and tribal peoples ( **\u0101div\u0101s\u012bs** ), many of whom have seen the Christian teaching of the equality of all people before **God** as a means to escape the **caste** system (although converts have often continued to engage in caste-based practices even after adopting Christianity).\n\nIndifference has been the predominant reaction of most traditional Hindu religious authorities, such as those **Brahmins** and **sanny\u0101sins** who operate in a largely **Sanskritic** intellectual milieu and who have not seen Christianity as presenting a serious challenge to the worldviews of their particular traditions, or **sa\u1e43prad\u0101yas**.\n\nDialogue and engagement has largely been on the part of those Hindus who have had an extensive exposure to Western education, starting with the Hindu reformers of the 19th century, like **R\u0101m Mohan Roy** , **Debendran\u0101th Tagore** , **Keshub Chunder Sen** , and **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** , and continuing into the 20th century with **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b**. A significant result of such engagement for Hinduism has been the rise of **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** , which accepts the validity of many Christian criticisms of Hinduism\u2014such as missionary criticisms of the injustices of the caste system\u2014but which reformulates Hindu thought and practice rather than abandoning it in favor of Christianity (and often turns a critical eye back upon Christianity itself). The attitudes of Hindus toward Christianity who have engaged with it in this way are complex, often being articulated in terms of a profound appreciation for Christ and his teachings\u2014as found, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount\u2014combined with strong criticisms of institutional Christianity and Christian doctrine. The doctrine that salvation is available only through Christ is considered to be particularly objectionable and is frequently contrasted with Hindu religious pluralism.\n\nHostility to Christianity has largely been articulated by **Hindu Nationalists** , who connect Christian missionary activity with colonialism and neo-colonialism, seeing it as a form of aggressive and predatory cultural imperialism.\n\n**CIDAMBARAM.** One of the most important **\u015aaiva** **temples** , built in southern India in the 10th century of the Common Era by the **Co\u1e37a** dynasty. It houses 108 images of **\u015aiva** in his form as Lord of the Cosmic **Dance** , or **N\u0101\u1e6dar\u0101ja** , as well as shrines to the members of \u015aiva's family: his wife, **P\u0101rvat\u012b** (the **Mother Goddess** ), and his sons, **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** and **Skanda** (also called **K\u0101rttikeya** , **Subrama\u1e47ya** , **Murugan** , **Kum\u0101ra** , and **\u1e62a\u1e47mukha** ).\n\n**CIRCUMAMBULATION.** Way of honoring an image, or **m\u016brti** , of a deity, by walking around the image in a clockwise direction, keeping the image to one's right side. _See also_ PRADAK\u1e62INA.\n\n**CIT.** Consciousness. In **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , cit is distinguished from **vij\u00f1\u0101na** , which is our ordinary, dualistic consciousness, which is characterized by the distinction between subject and object and is an effect of **m\u0101y\u0101** , or the cosmic illusion produced by **avidy\u0101** , or primordial ignorance of the true nature of reality as **Brahman**. Brahman, according to Advaita Ved\u0101nta, is pure consciousness, or cit: that is, consciousness free from the duality of subject and object. It is the simple reality of awareness, without the idea of a subject or object. Cit is all-pervasive and free from limiting factors. In addition to cit, Brahman is also said to be infinite being ( **sat** ) and unlimited bliss ( **\u0101nanda** ).\n\n**CITTA.** Consciousness; **mind** ; thought; \"mind-stuff,\" that is, consciousness not in the sense of pure awareness ( **cit** ), but the medium of consciousness, or that through which consciousness manifests in and as the world of phenomenal experience. In **Pata\u00f1jali** 's system of **yoga** , citta is made up of intellect ( **buddhi** ), ego ( **aha\u1e43k\u0101ra** ), and the senses ( **indriyas** ) working in concert. It is the fluctuations of citta that yoga is intended to still. In **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaivism** , citta is the individual consciousness\u2014that is, universal consciousness (cit) as limited by and manifested in and as an individual mind.\n\n**CIVAV\u0100KKIYAR (fl. 9th century CE).** One of the **N\u0101yan\u0101r \u015aaiva Tamil** **bhakti** **poets**. Like many of the poet-saints of the bhakti movement, Civav\u0101kkiyar extols the personal encounter with the divine over external worship and ritual. He was particularly critical of **caste** prejudice and the use of **images** **in worship**.\n\n**COCONUT.** This fruit is an extremely important and widely used part of Hindu rituals. A coconut placed in a pot and surrounded by leaves is a symbol of both **Lak\u1e63m\u012b** , **goddess** of wealth, and of fertility. In **p\u016bj\u0101** , or worship, a coconut stands in for the deity. Though a representation of the deity may also be present, it is the coconut that is actually utilized in the ritual. A coconut is often broken before some rituals to ensure divine blessings.\n\n**CO\u1e36A.** Important **Tamil** dynasty that, at its height in the 11th century, ruled all of southern India and **Sri Lanka** , with vassal states in **Southeast Asia** as well. The dynasty rose to ascendancy in the ninth century and was disestablished in the 13th century. This dynasty had a profound impact on Hindu culture in southern India, sponsoring the construction of many prominent **temples**. The bronze sculptures of Hindu deities made in this period are especially prized. Religiously speaking, the Co\u1e37a kings generally favored **\u015aaivism** , though the construction of **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** temples was sometimes sponsored under Co\u1e37a rule. Relations with **Jains** and **Buddhists** tended to be strained.\n\n**COMMONER.** Translation of the term _Vai\u015bya_ , which refers to the third of the three **var\u1e47as** or **castes**. In terms of traditional occupation, this caste is made up of trades that involve economically productive activity, such as **arts** and crafts and farming, as well as trade. In the _Puru\u1e63a_ _Sukta_ of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ this caste is said to have been formed from the stomach of the cosmic person. The word _vai\u015bya_ , or \"commoner,\" for this caste also suggests its membership to be relatively large in ancient India.\n\n**CONSCIOUSNESS, STATES OF.** As enumerated in the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , there are four primary states of consciousness: the waking state, the dream state, the state of dreamless sleep, and the state of transcendence. The _M\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dukya Upani\u1e63ad_ , in particular, contains a reflection on these states, connecting them with the various elements that make up **O\u1e43** , the most sacred of **b\u012bja mantras**.\n\nThe significance of states of consciousness in Hindu thought is considerable. In the _Upani\u1e63ads_ and the philosophical **literature** and spiritual practices arising from them, the understanding is that the realization of the identity of the self ( **\u0101tman** ) and **Brahman** (the highest reality) is essential to one's achieving **liberation** (or **mok\u1e63a** ) from the cycle of **rebirth**. This realization is not simply a philosophical doctrine being comprehended in a cognitive sense but a direct awareness arising from reflection on the **scriptures** and from meditative practice that confirms what the scriptures teach: that \u0101tman and Brahman are one. **Meditation** , as outlined in the _Yoga S\u016btras_ of **Pata\u00f1jali** , involves the stilling of the waking, conscious mind so deeper levels of consciousness can be experienced. Beyond the ordinary waking state, which is characterized by phenomena generated by the senses ( **indriyas** ) is the dream state, which is characterized by similar phenomena generated by the mind ( **manas** or **citta** ).\n\nWhen these dream phenomena are also brought into a state of quiescence, one experiences the state of dreamless sleep, where there is only awareness having no object, and the distinction between subject and object does not exist. But one who is asleep does not remember this blissful ( **\u0101nanda** ) and limitless ( **ananta** ) state. Through meditation, one can arrive at this state while awake. Because the distinction between subject and object does not exist in this state, there is no differentiation between Brahman and self. Self (\u0101tman) and Brahman are experienced as being one and the same. This is the fourth state of consciousness ( **tur\u012bya** )\u2014transcendence. One who experiences this state becomes liberated while still alive ( **j\u012bvanmukta** ) and need not experience rebirth after death.\n\n**CONVERSION.** To change one's religious affiliation or identity. Conversion is a topic that generates considerable controversy in contemporary Hinduism, having connotations of the religious exclusivism that many Hindus associate with Abrahamic religions, such as **Christianity** and **Islam**. According to one widespread understanding, Hinduism is not a religion that encourages or requires conversion, either due to the belief that one must be born a Hindu, or because all religions are seen as paths that lead to the ultimate goals of **liberation** and **God-realization** , or a combination of the two. **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** , for example, is known to have actively discouraged conversions both to and from Hinduism, believing the religion to which each person was born was the most appropriate for that person. Because Christians and Muslims do frequently engage in proselytizing, Hindus\u2014particularly **Hindu Nationalist** authors\u2014sometimes express the fear that Hindu traditions will diminish over time as other religions aggressively expand. Proselytizing\u2014the seeking of converts\u2014has been condemned by many contemporary Hindu leaders, such as **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b** , as a form of cultural violence. (The reference here is to the founder of **Ar\u1e63a Vidy\u0101 Gurukulam** and the **Hindu Dharma \u0100c\u0101rya Sabh\u0101** , and not the 19th-century founder of the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j.** )\n\nHistorically, however, it is not the case that Hindus have never sought or accepted converts from other traditions. Conversions between what are now regarded as \"Hindu\" traditions (such as from **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism** to **\u015aaivism** , or vice versa) are attested, though these would today be seen, with the rise and the increasing use of the category of Hinduism, as intra-Hindu conversions. Conversions in both directions involving other Indic religions, however, such as conversions to and from **Jainism** and **Buddhism** , are also attested very widely in ancient sources, as well as active proselytizing\u2014such as that directed by \u015aaiva enthusiasts at Jains in southern India during the period of the **Co\u1e37a** dynasty.\n\nContrary to the widely held belief that one must be born Hindu, there was no bar, traditionally, to non-Indians being accepted into Hinduism in ancient times, with entire immigrant communities being incorporated _en masse_ into the **caste** system, or to whole kingdoms in **Southeast Asia** systematically adopting Hindu practices and beliefs. And in the modern period, there is the conversion ceremony instituted by the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j by which any person may be inducted into Hindu **dharma**. This last ritual is controversial, however, given how deeply a self-understanding of Hinduism as a nonproselytizing faith has become embedded in the contemporary Hindu consciousness.\n\n**COOMARASWAMY, ANANTA KETISH (1877\u20131947).** Born in **Sri Lanka** , A. K. Coomaraswamy was a renowned **art** historian and scholar of South Asian cultures. From 1917 until his death in 1947 he was a research fellow at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He advocated the idea of a **perennial philosophy** expressed by traditional Indic culture.\n\n**COSMOGONY.** Account of the origin and nature of the cosmos. _See also_ CREATION.\n\n**COW, SACRED.** From a non-Hindu perspective, one of the most distinctive of Hindu practices is the veneration of cows. Philosophically, the basis for this veneration is the principle of **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** \u2014harmlessness or nonviolence toward all beings\u2014which, in turn, is based on the idea that divinity is present in all beings: that all beings are manifestations of **Brahman**. From this metaphysical standpoint, there is nothing particularly special about the cow. The gentle reverence displayed toward the cow is simply an example of a universal reverence for life in all its forms.\n\nHistorically, however, Hindus have regarded the cow as a special animal since ancient times. Cows and bulls are both frequently depicted in the **art** of the **Indus Valley civilization** , though the specific significance these animals had is unknown. The **\u0100ryans** , whose culture is recorded in the _Vedas_ , prized cattle greatly and used them as a medium of exchange. The cow was utilized not only for providing milk and milk products (such as butter, **ghee** , and yogurt) but also for its dung (which was used as fuel), its urine (which has medicinal uses), its leather, and\u2014controversially in light of the subsequent adoption of **vegetarianism** by many Hindus\u2014its meat. Bulls were offered in sacrifice to the **Vedic** deities and the meat from these sacrifices was, according to some texts, consumed by the **Brahmins** (although this claim is disputed by some Hindus, who argue, on the basis of subsequent practice, that this is a misreading of these texts).\n\nAs philosophies that emphasized the virtue of nonviolence increasingly informed Hindu practice around the beginning of the Common Era, **animal sacrifice** began to be practiced less and less, gradually being replaced by vegetarian alternatives, such as **p\u016bj\u0101**. The ancient regard in which the cow was held, however, did not diminish. As a mother, the cow symbolizes and embodies the benevolence and the abundance of the Earth. Cows are, in this sense, a manifestation of the **Mother Goddess**. By the period of the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ , or legal texts (c. 300 BCE to 100 CE), deliberately killing a cow was regarded as a grave infraction, punishable by **death**.\n\nCows and bulls play major roles in Hindu religious imagery. **K\u0101madhenu** , the wish-fulfilling cow, is venerated, as is **Nandi** , the bull who is **\u015aiva** 's vehicle.\n\nThe veneration of the cow was given new emphasis in the modern period by Hindu reformers such as **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** , who saw the practice of nonviolence toward cows as emblematic of a broader Hindu ethos of nonviolence and respect for all life and for the Earth itself. Simultaneously, cow veneration has emerged as a source of tension between Hindus and beef-eating non-Hindu communities.\n\n**CREATION.** There is no single doctrine of creation in Hinduism. Many creation stories are presented in the _Vedas_ and _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_. The predominant worldview is that there is no absolute beginning to existence. There always has been and always will be a universe. It is the case, however, that the universe goes through cycles of emergence, endurance, and dissolution. In Hindu theological discourse, creation stories such as those found in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ are typically read through the lens of this understanding, though it is not clear that these stories were composed with this worldview in mind. Such stories can thus be seen as pertaining to the beginning of a cosmic cycle ( **kalpa** ), or as reflecting an eternal, ongoing process that is occurring at each moment.\n\nProminent **Vedic** creation stories include **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** 's taking three strides, which form the Earth, the upper atmosphere, and the heavens; the primordial sacrifice of the cosmic man ( **puru\u1e63a** ), from whose body the universe is formed; the more abstract account of **the One** bringing order ( **\u1e5bta** ) out of chaos; and the emergence of the cosmos from the Golden Embryo ( **Hira\u1e47yagarbha** ). Some of these accounts have affinities with **Indo-European** creation stories, such as those found in ancient Greek, Celtic, and Norse mythologies.\n\nThe _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ elaborate on these Vedic themes and integrate them into a complex picture of creation that is centered on the activities of the creator deity, **Brahm\u0101** \u2014though Brahm\u0101 is frequently subordinated to Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, **\u015aiva** , or the **Mother Goddess** , depending upon the sectarian affiliation of the Pur\u0101\u1e47ic text in question ( **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** , **\u015aaiva** , or **\u015a\u0101kta** ). The vast cycles of cosmic emergence, endurance, and dissolution are conceived in this schema as Brahm\u0101's days and nights. _See also_ WORLD AGES.\n\n**CREMATION.** Traditional Hindu method of disposing of corpses. The body is seen as the temporary vehicle of the soul. Once the body can no longer serve its purpose, it is to be discarded. Traditionally, the body is burned on a wooden pyre. But in the modern period, electric crematoriums have also come into common use. _See also_ ANCESTRAL RITES; ANTYE\u1e62\u1e6cI; FUNERAL.\n\n## D\n\n**DAITYA.** Children of **Diti** and the sage **Ka\u015byapa** , and antagonists of their half siblings, the **\u0100dityas** ; a class of demonic beings. _See also_ ASURA.\n\n**DAKHINI.** Demonic female; witch. Dakhinis are powerful beings. They are described as meat-eaters and as attendants of the **Goddess K\u0101l\u012b**.\n\n**DAK\u1e62A.** Ram-headed deity closely associated with the ritual of sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ); one of the sages or **\u1e5b\u1e63is**. He had 50 daughters, including **Aditi** , **Diti** , and **Sat\u012b**. Both Aditi and Diti were married to the sage **Ka\u015byapa** , making Dak\u1e63a the grandfather of the **\u0100dityas** and the **Daityas**. Sat\u012b was married to **\u015aiva** , whom Dak\u1e63a insulted by failing to invite him to a massive sacrifice to which he had invited all the other sages and deities. Feeling very deeply hurt by this insult to her husband, Sat\u012b immolated herself in the sacrificial fire. It was this, and not the previous snub, that enraged \u015aiva, who destroyed Dak\u1e63a's sacrifice and beheaded him. Later repenting of this act, \u015aiva resurrected Dak\u1e63a and gave him the head of a ram\u2014an act similar to \u015aiva's granting of an elephant head to his son **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** after beheading him, in one version of the story of Ga\u1e47e\u015ba. _See also_ P\u0100RVAT\u012a.\n\n**DAK\u1e62INA.** South; also the name of the southern altar in a **Vedic** sacrificial space; also the fee paid to a **Brahmin** for performing a ritual; also the right side, as opposed to the left side. When one practices **circumambulation** or **pradak\u1e63ina** , reverently walking in a circle around a sacred image, one keeps the image to one's right. One also gives and receives **pras\u0101dam** , the food offered to a deity in **p\u016bj\u0101** , with one's right hand.\n\n**DAK\u1e62INAM\u016aRTI.** \"South image\"; an image of **\u015aiva** facing to the south, very popular in southern India. The Dak\u1e63inam\u016brti is an image of \u015aiva seated and in a teaching posture, often beneath a tree and surrounded by an adoring audience of sages and animals who are listening to his words.\n\n**DALITS.** \"The oppressed\"; the name by which many **Untouchables** and other persons of low **caste** prefer to refer to themselves. Another term, coined by **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** , is **Harijan** , or \"Children of God.\" The term _Dalit_ emphasizes the suffering that this group has endured as a result of **casteism**. Both of these terms\u2014Dalit and Harijan\u2014have their own political implications, and use of one or the other seems to map onto the attitude of the person employing it toward Hinduism and the degree to which it is seen to be in need of either reform or complete rejection. This, however, is difficult to verify in a scientific fashion, and one does find persons who use the two terms interchangeably. The formal term used by the government of India is **Scheduled Castes**.\n\n**D\u0100NA.** \"Gift\"; can refer either to a specific act of charitable donation or, more broadly, to the virtue of generosity.\n\n**D\u0100NA-MUDR\u0100.** \"Gesture of generosity\"; **mudr\u0101** , or hand gesture, which symbolizes divine generosity. Hindu deities are frequently depicted with this gesture, which consists of the left hand (or one of the left hands, given that Hindu deities are frequently depicted with more than one pair of arms and hands) being held out with the palm upward and the fingers pointing downward. It is almost the reverse of the **abhaya-mudr\u0101** , or gesture of fearlessness, which consists of a right hand being held out with the palm downward and the fingers pointing upward. The d\u0101na-mudr\u0101 can be seen as representing a deity giving a gift, or reaching out to rescue a drowning devotee from the ocean of misfortune. _See also_ M\u016aRTI.\n\n**D\u0100NAVA.** \"Children of **D\u0101nu**.\" D\u0101nu is a daughter of **Diti**. Much like the **Daityas** \u2014the children of Diti\u2014the D\u0101navas are demonic beings, opposed to the **devas**.\n\n**DANCE.** Dance is an ancient and highly refined **art** form in India, and a popular way of expressing religious devotion. The authoritative guide to Indian classical theater and dance is the _N\u0101\u1e6dya \u015a\u0101stra_ , a **Sanskrit** text ascribed to the sage **Bharata** and composed in the first millennium of the Common Era\n\nFour main systems of classical dance arose early in the Common Era, each one of which constitutes a distinct symbolic vocabulary, in the form of postures, gestures, and facial expressions, for communicating stories from Hindu sacred **literature** and concepts from Hindu **philosophy**. Each of the four systems developed in a different part of India: **Bharata N\u0101\u1e6dyam** in **Tamil** Nadu, **Kathak** in Uttar Pradesh, **Kathakali** in **Kerala** , and **Manipuri** in Manipur.\n\nThough dance has traditionally been highly regarded as a skill, the dancers\u2014who have usually been **women** \u2014unfortunately held a very low status in the centuries between the classical and modern periods. They were often employed as **Devad\u0101s\u012bs**. Although the name means \"Handmaidens of **God** (or of the **Gods** ),\" over time, they were forced, in addition to their other duties, to practice prostitution. As an effect of this development, dance gradually ceased to be seen as a respectable occupation.\n\nThere has been a revival of Indian classical dance in the modern period, though, largely through the efforts of **E. Krishna Iyer**. It is now very common for young Hindu women and girls to study at least one form of dance and to perform in cultural programs held in **temples** or community centers\u2014a pursuit seen not only as respectable but also a mark of pride in the Hindu community. In addition to the four classical forms, a modern style from **Orissa** called **Odissi** is very popular, as are Westernized forms popularized through the **Hindi** film industry.\n\nFinally, there have always been numerous regional folk dance styles that do not require the degree of technical training demanded by the classical styles and which have traditionally accompanied festivals and other community events, such as weddings. Folk dances, too, such as **Garbha** , are highly popular today and are often part of the mixed repertoire of dance styles that can be seen in contemporary Hindu cultural programs. _See also_ GWALIOR; K\u016a\u1e6cIY\u0100\u1e6c\u1e6cAM.\n\n**DANDEKAR, R. N. (1909\u20132001).** **Indologist** and Sanskritist. He was educated first at Deccan College in Pune, India, and then at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He was a professor of **Sanskrit** from 1933 to 1950 at Fergusson College in Pune, and then at Pune University until 1969, after which he became director of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.\n\n**DA\u1e46\u1e0cIN (fl. 6th\u20137th centuries CE).** **Sanskrit** author who lived in **K\u0101\u00f1c\u012bpuram** , in southern India. Da\u1e47\u1e0din is known to have written two major works: a collection of short stories entitled the \"Adventures of the Ten Princes\" ( _Da\u015bakum\u0101racarita_ ) and a work on **poetics** , or _k\u0101vya_ , called \"A Look at Poetics\" ( _K\u0101vyadar\u015ba_ ).\n\n**D\u0100NU.** Daughter of **Diti** and **Dak\u1e63a** ; mother of the **D\u0101navas** , a group of demonic beings opposed to the **devas** , or **Vedic** deities.\n\n**DARBHA.** Sacred grass used in **Vedic** rituals and said to have come from the hair of the boar **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ( **Var\u0101ha** ). Sometimes identified with **ku\u015ba** grass, but sometimes distinguished from it. _See also_ YAJ\u00d1A.\n\n**DARK HALF.** _See_ K\u1e5a\u1e62\u1e46A PAK\u1e62A.\n\n**DAR\u015aANA.** Literally \"view,\" \"vision.\" As a sacred act, dar\u015bana refers to viewing the sacred image ( **m\u016brti** ) of a deity, usually in the context of a **tem** **ple** ( **mandira** ). This act also involves being seen _by_ the image, understood to embody the presence of the deity it represents. To receive dar\u015bana is therefore to receive a blessing from the deity one sees and by whom one is seen.\n\nDar\u015bana also means \"view\" in the sense of \"worldview,\" and in this context refers to a system of philosophy. The Indian dar\u015banas are traditionally divided into two basic categories: **\u0101stika** , or \"orthodox,\" and **n\u0101stika** , or \"heterodox.\" The orthodox dar\u015banas are those who affirm (or at least do not explicitly reject) the authority of the _Vedas_ (and are therefore, by one common definition, \"Hindu\" systems). The nonorthodox dar\u015banas are those who reject the authority of the _Vedas_.\n\nThere are six \u0101stika dar\u015banas, which are often organized into three pairs, due to certain basic affinities that members of each pair have for the other. First, there are the **S\u0101\u1e43khya** and **Yoga** dar\u015banas, which share the same basic worldview, with the notable exception being that S\u0101\u1e43khya is nontheistic and Yoga is not. But the S\u0101\u1e43khya system can be seen as more purely theoretical, whereas Yoga utilizes the main concepts of the S\u0101\u1e43khya system to develop a contemplative practice aimed at the attainment of **mok\u1e63a** ( **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth** ). Then there are the **Ny\u0101ya** and **Vai\u015be\u1e63ika** systems. Ny\u0101ya is concerned primarily with logic and the valid means of **knowledge**. Vai\u015be\u1e63ika, much like Yoga in relation to S\u0101\u1e43khya, applies the logic of Ny\u0101ya to the analysis of the phenomenal world. **P\u016brva** (or prior) **M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** and **Uttara** (or later) **M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** \u2014also known as **Ved\u0101nta** \u2014focus upon the interpretation, respectively, of the earlier and later Vedic texts.\n\nThe n\u0101stika dar\u015banas are **Jainism** , **Buddhism** , and the **materialist Lok\u0101yata** (or **C\u0101rv\u0101ka** ) system. Although the term _n\u0101stika_ gradually comes to refer to an atheist, this is not its original sense, since some of the \u0101stika dar\u015banas are also nontheistic, or at least not explicitly theistic\u2014namely, S\u0101\u1e43khya and P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101. All three of the classical n\u0101stika dar\u015banas are also nontheistic, but only the Lok\u0101yata system denies the concepts of **karma** and rebirth.\n\nEach dar\u015bana is based on a collection of root texts, or **s\u016btras** , which summarize the teaching of the sage believed to be the founder of the system in question. According to the traditions of the various dar\u015banas, most of their founding figures lived around the fifth century BCE, though some (such as **K\u0101pila** , the founder of the **S\u0101\u1e43khya** system) lived before that time, while others (such as **Pata\u00f1jali** , the founder of the **Yoga** system) almost certainly lived later. In most cases, the extant s\u016btras are likely the result of many generations of compilation, rather than the work of a single author. Philosophical writing in a dar\u015bana tradition largely occurs through the genre of the **bh\u0101\u1e63ya** , or commentary on the root text, the understanding being that all relevant knowledge is already present in at least an implicit form in the root text. What is required, then, is not innovation, in the sense of discovery of completely new ideas, but an unpacking of the deep **truths** contained in the words of the sages of the past.\n\n**D\u0100SA, DASYU.** Barbarian; also slave, servant; terms used for non- **\u0100ryan** tribes in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ who are regarded as opponents of the \u0100ryans; sometimes used interchangeably with the term **asura** , or demonic being. **Indra** is described as destroying the forts of the Dasyus. They are described as city-builders and as having magical powers (like the asura **Maya** in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ). During the 19th and 20th centuries, **Indologists** interpreted the D\u0101sas and Dasyus as indigenous Indians being invaded by the \u0100ryans.\n\n**DA\u015aAHR\u0100 (DUSSEHRA).** Ten-day festival celebrated in the **bright** **half** of the month of **\u0100\u015bvina**. In northern India, this festival celebrates **R\u0101ma** 's victory over **R\u0101va\u1e47a** and it culminates in **D\u012bp\u0101vali** (or D\u012bwali), the festival of lights in honor of the **goddess Lak\u1e63\u1e43\u012b**. In **Bengal** and southern India, this festival celebrates **Durg\u0101** 's victory over the Buffalo Demon ( **Mahi\u1e63\u0101sura** ). In Bengal, it culminates in **K\u0101l\u012b p\u016bj\u0101**.\n\n**DA\u015aAN\u0100MI ORDER.** Order of the 10 Names; order of Hindu monks established by **\u015aa\u1e45kara** (788\u2013820 CE). \u015aa\u1e45kara established four monasteries. **\u015a\u1e5b\u1e45ger\u012b** , in the south, is the head monastery. **Puri** is in **Orissa** , in the east. **Badr\u012bn\u0101th** is in the foothills of the **Him\u0101layas** , in the north. **Dv\u0101rak\u0101** is in Gujarat, in the west. \u015aa\u1e45kara's monasteries are therefore located in the four corners of India corresponding to each of the four points of the compass. The head of each of these monasteries, or **ma\u1e6dhas** , is called **\u015aa\u1e45kar\u0101c\u0101rya**. \u015aa\u1e45kara is often called _\u0100di \u015aa\u1e45kar\u0101c\u0101rya_ , or \"First \u015aa\u1e45kar\u0101c\u0101rya\" in order to distinguish him from subsequent holders of this title. Anyone, regardless of **caste** or gender, may join the Da\u015ban\u0101mi Order. The order is generally associated with the **Sm\u0101rta** tradition of Hinduism and the **Advaita** interpretation of **Ved\u0101nta** , though neither of these is rigidly upheld in practice, with members having considerable freedom in regard to theological issues. The ascetics of the **Ramakrishna Order** are members of the Da\u015ban\u0101mi Order.\n\n**DA\u015aARATHA.** Character in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ ; father of **R\u0101ma** ; king of **Ayodhy\u0101**. When hunting in the forest, Da\u015baratha accidentally slays the son of a **Brahmin** and is cursed to also lose his son. This occurs when Da\u015baratha is forced to send R\u0101ma into exile, an event that causes Da\u015baratha to die of sorrow.\n\n**DASGUPTA, SURENDRAN\u0100TH (1887\u20131952).** **Bengali** philosopher and **Indologist** ; lecturer in **philosophy** at Cambridge University in 1922 and professor of philosophy at Calcutta University until 1945. He is best known for his five-volume history of Indian philosophy.\n\n**DATTA, NARENDRAN\u0100TH (1863\u20131902).** The birth name of **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda**.\n\n**DAYAL, HAR (1884\u20131939).** Founder of the **Ghad\u1e5b movement** , which advocated for the violent overthrow of British rule in India. A **Hindu Nationalist** , Dayal was a scholar who served on the faculty of Stanford University in California from 1911 until 1914, at which time he was arrested by U.S. immigration authorities due to his political activities. While on bail, he fled to Germany, where he resided from 1914 to 1918. After the end of World War I, he returned to India and joined **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** 's nonviolent campaign for Indian independence. He completed his doctoral degree at the University of London in 1930 and died in Philadelphia in 1939.\n\n**DAY\u0100NANDA SARASVAT\u012a, SW\u0100M\u012a (1824\u20131883).** Founder of the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j** , an important Hindu reform organization of the modern period. Born in Gujarat, in western India, to a **\u015aaiva** family. It is said that he began to question the use of images ( **m\u016brtis** ) in worship when, as a child, he kept a night vigil in a **\u015aiva** **temple** and saw mice eating the food offered to the deity. He left home to undertake renunciation ( **sanny\u0101sa** ) at the age of 22, when his parents wanted to arrange a marriage for him. Wandering eventually to **Mathura** , Day\u0101nanda studied the _Vedas_ under his **guru** , Sw\u0101m\u012b Virj\u0101nanda.\n\nDay\u0101nanda interpreted the _Vedas_ as teaching a **monotheistic** doctrine and, much like **Ram Mohan Roy** , he did not find any Vedic warrant for later Hindu practices in texts such as the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ and sought to eliminate these later practices. He established the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j in order to promote a \"purified\" Vedic Hinduism with no use of images in worship and no **caste** prejudice. A **Hindu Nationalist** , Day\u0101nanda was highly critical of **Christianity** and **Islam** , especially for the proselytizing activities of both Christian and Islamic missionaries in India. In addition to reforming Hinduism, another purpose of the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j was to neutralize missionary activities by these traditions, and a ritual of **conversion** was established to enable those who wished to become Hindu to do so. He found common cause with **Helena Petrovna Blavatsky** and **Henry Steele Olcott** of the **Theosophical Society** , who shared his vision of reviving ancient Indian traditions for the modern era. But he parted company with Blavatsky and Olcott when he heard that they had both undertaken a formal conversion to **Buddhism** in **Sri Lanka**.\n\n**DAY\u0100NANDA SARASVAT\u012a, SW\u0100M\u012a (1930\u2013 ).** Not to be confused with the founder of the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j** , the contemporary Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b is the founder and the current head of the **Hindu Dharma \u0100c\u0101rya Sabh\u0101** (or \"Assembly of Hindu Religious Leaders\") and the founder of the **Ar\u1e63a Vidy\u0101 Gurukulam** in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. He is an adherent of the **Advaita** system of **Ved\u0101nta** in the tradition of **\u015aa\u1e45kara**.\n\nThe Hindu Dharma \u0100c\u0101rya Sabh\u0101 has a membership of over 100 **\u0101c\u0101ryas** , or leaders of **sa\u1e43prad\u0101yas** (Hindu religious traditions) and is an attempt to bring greater institutional cohesion to Hinduism in order to advance a number of interests and concerns shared across many sa\u1e43prad\u0101yas. Particularly noteworthy **actions** of the Hindu Dharma \u0100c\u0101rya Sabh\u0101 include a 2008 summit between the Sabh\u0101 and the chief rabbis of Israel in order to facilitate dialogue between Hinduism and Judaism and numerous proclamations that condemn proselytizing as a form of cultural violence against indigenous religions.\n\nAr\u1e63a Vidy\u0101 Gurukulam is an educational organization dedicated to the teaching of **Sanskrit** and Advaita **philosophy**.\n\n**DE, ABHAY CHARAN (1896\u20131977).** The birth name of A. C. **Bhaktived\u0101nta Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhup\u0101da**.\n\n**DE, S. K. (1890\u20131968).** **Indologist** ; born in **Calcutta** ; professor of English, **Sanskrit** , and Sanskrit **literature** at Calcutta University.\n\n**DEATH.** In most Hindu traditions, death is seen as a transition from one lifetime to the next in the beginningless cycle of **rebirth** (a cycle known as **sa\u1e43s\u0101ra** ). The _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ (2:22) compares the transition from one body to another to the discarding of old, worn-out clothes for a new set of clothes, and **Ramakrishna** , in a vision to his wife, **Sarad\u0101 Dev\u012b** , is said to have proclaimed that, in dying, he had merely moved \"from one room to another.\" **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** described birth and death as two different sides of the same door. The nature of one's next life is determined by the quality of one's **karma** , the accumulated effects of one's moral **actions** , at the time of one's death. The ultimate goal of most Hindu systems is to achieve **liberation** from rebirth ( **mok\u1e63a** ).\n\nReassuring though such a concept may be, however, Hindus, like the adherents of all other religions, experience profound grief at the passing of a loved one, and a variety of rituals exist for the purpose of assuaging this grief. The **antye\u1e63\u1e6di** , or **Vedic** funeral, is conducted as soon as possible after death, and includes the **cremation** of the body of the deceased. The particulars of the ritual vary a great deal, depending on region and **caste** , but it often extends over the course of several days. There are also **ancestral rites** , such as the **\u015br\u0101ddha** , which occurs periodically and consists of making offerings of food and water to one's departed ancestors. These offerings are believed to become the food that one's ancestors consume in their next life.\n\nIt is not known precisely when or how the doctrine of rebirth arose in Hinduism. The first unambiguous reference to this process is found in the _B\u1e5bhad\u0101ra\u1e47yaka Upani\u1e63ad_ (4.4.5\u20137), which was probably compiled around 500 BCE but likely contains material that had been handed down orally for many generations before that time. References to the afterlife in earlier Vedic texts suggest a shadowy afterworld, not unlike the ancient Greek Hades, and other **Indo-European** conceptions of the afterlife (though other Indo-European cultures, such as the that of the Celts, also developed a rebirth concept like that of Hinduism).\n\nA distinction is also drawn between two afterlife destinations called the \"Realm of the Fathers\" ( **pit\u1e5bloka** ) and the \"Realm of the Gods\" ( **devaloka** ). As the idea of rebirth develops in the later Vedic **literature** , the realm of the fathers comes to be identified with eventual rebirth in the physical world, whereas the realm of the gods is interpreted as a path leading to eventual freedom from rebirth. Some scholars speculate that the origins of the ideas of karma and rebirth can be found in Vedic rituals, such as the **Agni\u1e63\u1e6doma** , which has the goal of leading to a rebirth in heaven ( **svarga** ). If the ritual actions, or _karmans_ , are performed correctly, they lead to the desired goal; but if they are performed incorrectly, they can fail to bear fruit, or even bring about the opposite of the desired goal.\n\nThe theory is that this concept of correctly or incorrectly performed ritual action\u2014\"good\" or \"bad\" karmans leading to a correspondingly good or bad result\u2014develops into the idea of ethically good or bad actions in life leading to similar, corresponding results in the world. The Vedic sacrificial arena essentially becomes extended to encompass all of life. Another theory is that the idea of rebirth was foreign to the Vedic traditions and was introduced through interaction with **\u015brama\u1e47a** traditions, such as **Buddhism** and **Jainism** , which either arose from other Indo-European traditions, distinct from the Vedic, or represent an ancient indigenous Indian tradition, perhaps an ideology of the **Indus Valley civilization**. But this is all quite speculative.\n\n**DELHI, NEW DELHI.** Capital of the modern Republic of India. The region has been settled since ancient times and is believed to be the site of the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** ' ancient city of **Indraprastha**. The city was the capital of the Turkish Delhi sultanate, which ruled most of northern India from 1206 to 1526, after which it was incorporated into the **Mughal Empire**. Delhi served as the Mughal capital from 1649 to 1857, after which the empire was formally dissolved and India came under the direct control of the British crown. The British administration was based in **Calcutta** until 1911, when it was moved to Delhi. New Delhi, the southern part of the greater metropolitan area, was mostly built in the 1920s. When India became independent in 1947, New Delhi remained its capital.\n\n**DEMON, DEMONIC.** Word frequently used to translate the terms _asura_ and _r\u0101k\u1e63asa_. The term is both accurate and inaccurate. It is accurate in the basic sense that asuras and r\u0101k\u1e63asas are generally seen in Hindu sacred **literature** as evil beings, and as opponents of the **gods** ( **devas** ). But there is no figure of ultimate evil in Hinduism comparable to Satan and his demonic minions. Asuras and r\u0101k\u1e63asas are sometimes encountered in Hindu texts that behave in a good and noble fashion, such as the good r\u0101k\u1e63asa **Vibh\u012b\u1e63ana** , from the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , who is a devotee of **R\u0101ma** and joins him in his war against **R\u0101va\u1e47a**. There are also times when the devas do not behave virtuously in relation to the asuras, such as when the devas trick the asuras out of their share of the elixir of life ( **am\u1e5bta** ) after getting their cooperation in the churning of the ocean. At the same time, there are resonances between the war in heaven between angels and demons depicted in Abrahamic religions such as **Christianity** and **Islam** and the conflict between the devas and asuras, the likely historical connection between the two being **Zoroastrianism**.\n\n**DESIRE.** According to the _B\u1e5bhad\u0101ra\u1e47yaka Upani\u1e63ad_ (4.4.5\u20137) and subsequent systems of Hindu **philosophy** \u2014particularly **Ved\u0101nta** \u2014desire is a primary cause of bondage to the cycle of **rebirth** , which must be relinquished in order for **liberation** ( **mok\u1e63a** ) to occur. The idea is that it is not merely **action** , or **karma** , as such that leads one to be reborn, but rather action that has been invested with desire. This is why the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ (3:4\u20138) recommends detachment from the fruits of action as a path to liberation (the idea being that a life of complete inaction is impossible). Desire as the fundamental cause of the cycle of rebirth, and thus of suffering, is also a major theme of **Buddhism** and the basis for the emphasis on **asceticism** in many Hindu traditions.\n\nBecause the **Vedic** ritual of sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ) is enjoined precisely so that one may fulfill one's desires, such rituals are rejected by the **\u015brama\u1e47a** traditions and by Ved\u0101ntic texts such as the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ (2:42\u201344) as conducive to karmic bondage (as well as for the fact that such rituals, especially if they involve **animal sacrifice** , violate the principle of **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** , or nonviolence).\n\n**DEVA.** Deity, god, literally \"shining one.\" The earliest extant references to devas are from the _\u1e5ag Veda_. The **Vedic** devas are usually associated with natural phenomena, such as **S\u016brya** the sun god, **U\u015b\u0101** the goddess of the dawn, **Soma** the god of the **moon** and the hallucinogenic plant of the same name, **V\u0101yu** the god of the wind, **Yama** the god of **death** , and so on. The lord of the Vedic devas is **Indra** , who is associated with thunder and is analogous to the Greek Zeus and the Norse Thor. Also of particular importance is **Agni** , the god of fire. Agni's special importance derives from his role as an intermediary between the human and divine worlds, due to the fact that all offerings to the devas are made through the medium of the sacred fire, which Agni personifies. Indra and Agni, respectively, are the most and second-most frequent objects of adoration in the hymns of the _\u1e5ag Veda_. Also of considerable importance is **Praj\u0101pati** , whose name literally means the \"father of offspring\" and who is regarded as the creator of the universe\u2014later known as **Brahm\u0101**. The two chief deities of later Hinduism, **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and **\u015aiva** , receive relatively little mention in the _Vedas_ (the latter typically under the name **Rudra** ).\n\nEarly in the Common Era, as the various systems of Hindu theology develop in a **monotheistic** direction (primarily centered on Vi\u1e63\u1e47u or \u015aiva as the supreme deity\u2014though **\u015aakti** and **Gane\u015ba** also have their followings in this regard), the Vedic devas come to be seen as lesser deities, analogous to the angels or angelic forces found in the Abrahamic religions, or as aspects, emanations, or powers of \"higher\" deities. Perpetually opposed to the devas are the demonic forces\u2014the **asuras** , who are depicted as being in a state of constant warfare with the devas.\n\nIn addition to this meaning, though, the term _deva_ also becomes a generic term for any deity, including the supreme deity. So \u015aiva, for example, is known by the epithet **Mah\u0101deva** or \"Great Deva,\" even by **\u015aaiva** traditions that regard him monotheistically as the Supreme Being, and not as a \"mere\" deva or demigod. Similarly, the feminine **Dev\u012b** , a term that refers originally to any female deva, becomes a proper name for the supreme **goddess** of the **\u015a\u0101kta** traditions, as does **Mah\u0101dev\u012b** (Great Goddess).\n\n**DEVAD\u0100S\u012a.** \"Handmaiden of **God** (or of the **Gods** )\"; **woman** employed as a dancer in a **temple** and is technically married to the deity of that temple. In the medieval period, Devad\u0101s\u012bs began to be exploited as prostitutes, bringing disrepute upon the **art** of **dance** , in which they were quite skilled. Indian classical dance has seen a revival in the modern period as the practice of forced prostitution has ceased to receive either religious or legal sanction.\n\n**DEVAK\u012a.** Mother of **B\u0101lar\u0101ma** and **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a**.\n\n**DEVALOKA.** Realm of the **gods** ; one of two possible afterlife destinations according to early **Vedic** thought, the other being the **Pit\u1e5bloka** , or realm of the ancestors. _See also_ DEATH.\n\n**DEV\u012a.** **Goddess** ; common epithet of the **Mother Goddess**.\n\n_DEV\u012a MAH\u0100TMYA_ **.** \"Glorification of the Great **Goddess** \"; portion of the _Marka\u1e47\u1e0deya Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ (composed c. 250\u2013550 CE) that describes the victories of the **Mother Goddess** over various **asuras**. Also known as the _Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u012bpa\u1e6dha_ , it is recited during **Durg\u0101 P\u016bj\u0101**.\n\n**DEVOTION.** _See_ BHAKTI.\n\n**DHARMA.** Literally, \"support.\" However, this important term has a range of meanings that include the order of the universe, the order of society, natural law, justice, religion, and personal duty. Contemporary Hindus often refer to Hinduism as _Hindu Dharma_ or **San\u0101tana Dharma**. In this context, _dharma_ refers to the Hindu way of life in its entirety and is often presented as a deliberate contrast with _religion_ , dharma being seen as a more holistic and all-encompassing concept than religion, which has become a more privatized in modernity than it was in earlier periods of history. _San\u0101tana_ means \"eternal,\" and the implication of calling Hinduism _San\u0101tana Dharma_ is that it reflects an unchanging and universal order of existence\u2014in contrast with the Abrahamic religions, which are seen as being more localized and tied to history.\n\nIn the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , the preferred term for the universal order to which _dharma_ refers is _\u1e5bta_ , and regular performance of **Vedic** ritual is seen as essential to its maintenance. In the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ and the epics (the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ and _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , composed around the beginning of the Common Era), the term _dharma_ becomes preferred. With this shift in terminology, there is also a shift in emphasis from maintaining the cosmos through right ritual **action** to maintaining it by fulfilling social obligations. This idea of dharma as _duty_ remains prevalent today.\n\nIn the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ , dharma is largely identified with the duties connected to the system of **var\u1e47as** (or **castes** ) and **\u0101\u015bramas** (stages of life). Each var\u1e47a (and the **j\u0101tis** that make up each var\u1e47a) and each \u0101\u015brama, of course, has its own distinct duties attached to it. Closely tied, therefore, with dharma is the concept of **svadharma** , or one's own dharma, which is a function of one's location in the caste system and the stage of life that one currently occupies.\n\nThe idea of svadharma adds a layer of complexity to dharma, as an ethical ideal, that does not necessarily obtain in more universalist, less particularized ethical systems. Understanding dharma is not simply a matter of learning a set of abstract rules that apply to everyone but of knowing the duties that apply to one's own specific circumstances. The _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ consist largely of an enumeration of duties associated with each caste and stage of life.\n\nUniversal moral norms, however, are also an important part of dharma, and are invoked in the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_. These norms correlate closely with the **yamas** , or moral restraints, enumerated in the _Yoga S\u016btras_ of **Pata\u00f1jali** : **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** (nonviolence), **satya** (truthfulness), **asteya** (nonstealing), **brahmacarya** (sexual restraint, chastity), and **aparigraha** (nonattachment). These same norms are shared by the **\u015brama\u1e47a** traditions, **Jainism** and **Buddhism**. The _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ invoke these norms in dealing with moral dilemmas and difficult questions that arise in the course of applying the idea of dharma to concrete situations, such as conflicts between competing duties.\n\nAs the caste system has come under increasing critical scrutiny during the modern period, even being rejected by many Hindu thinkers, the concept of dharma has continued to evolve. Reflection on dharma in contemporary Hinduism conceives of dharma less as a matter of inheritance\u2014of birth caste\u2014and more as a kind of personal destiny or calling in life that one must discern over the course of one's lifetime. As the discourse of human rights has entered Hinduism, dharma has also been rethought in terms of a responsibility that all human beings have both to one another and to the larger environment.\n\nFinally, dharma is one of the four goals of humanity, or **puru\u1e63\u0101rthas** of classical Hindu thought, along with **k\u0101ma** (pleasure), **\u0101rtha** (wealth), and **mok\u1e63a** ( **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth** ).\n\n_DHARMA \u015a\u0100STRAS_ **.** Authoritative texts on **dharma** ; Hindu law books. Many of these texts exist, including the _Manusm\u1e5bti_ , the _Apastamba Dharma \u015a\u0101stra_ , the _Y\u0101j\u00f1avalkya Dharma \u015a\u0101stra_ , and others. They were composed roughly between 300 and 100 BCE.\n\n**DH\u0100T\u1e5a.** Early **Vedic** deity, one of the 12 **\u0100dityas** \u2014sons of the goddess **Aditi** and the sage **Ka\u015byapa**. His name means both \"order\" and \"sustainer,\" both of which connect him with the concept of **dharma**.\n\n**DH\u1e5aTAR\u0100\u1e62\u1e6cRA.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ; blind king; brother of **Pa\u1e47\u1e0du** ; father of **Duryodhana** , the chief villain of the epic, and the other 99 **Kauravas** ; uncle of the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** ; husband of **G\u0101ndh\u0101r\u012b**. Dh\u1e5btar\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dra is often criticized by commentators for being an overindulgent father and failing to reprimand Duryodhana's excessive hatred for and many plots against the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas.\n\nDh\u1e5btar\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dra speaks the first verse of the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ when he asks **Sa\u00f1jaya** , his clairvoyant minister, to describe for him the events of the battle of **Kuruk\u1e63etra**. He is also mentioned briefly in the _B\u1e5bhad\u0101ra\u1e47yaka Upani\u1e63ad_ , an independent reference to this character suggestive of his possible historicity.\n\n**DHY\u0100NA.** **Meditation** ; seventh of the eight stages or \"limbs\" of **Pata\u00f1jali** 's eight-limbed ( **a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** ) system of **yoga**. The sixth limb, **dhara\u1e47\u0101** , is concentration on a single object. **Dhy\u0101na** is absorption in that object, with no awareness of any other phenomena.\n\nDhy\u0101na involves the stilling of the waking, conscious **mind** so that deeper levels of consciousness can be experienced. The goal of dhy\u0101na is **sam\u0101dhi** \u2014the eighth limb of Pata\u00f1jali's system\u2014which is complete absorption in the object of concentration, in which the distinction between subject and object vanishes.\n\nThe practice of dhy\u0101na is shared by many of the Indic traditions and is especially prominent in **Buddhism**. In early Buddhism, the term _dhy\u0101na_ also refers to the **states of consciousness** to which the practice of dhy\u0101na can lead. Interestingly, when Buddhism was transmitted to China, the term dhy\u0101na was rendered as _ch'an_. When the tradition was transmitted to Japan, the term _ch'an_ was transformed into _zen_.\n\n**D\u012aK\u1e62\u0100.** Formal initiation into a spiritual discipline; performed by one's spiritual teacher or **guru**. D\u012bk\u1e63\u0101 often involves the transmission of a secret **mantra** that the practitioner will use in **meditation** and not disclose to any other person. The mantra will possess the **guru-\u015bakti** , or power of the spiritual lineage through which it has been transmitted.\n\n**D\u012aP\u0100VALI (D\u012aWALI).** Festival of Lights; this holiday commemorates **R\u0101ma** 's victory over **R\u0101va\u1e47a**. It is also a day that is especially sacred to **Lak\u1e63m\u012b** , wife of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and **goddess** of wealth and prosperity. The holiday is celebrated with the lighting of **d\u012by\u0101s** , or oil lamps, as well as, in the modern period, fireworks and strings of colored electric lights similar to Christmas lights. The festival occurs on the **Amavasya** , or new-moon day, of the month of **K\u0101rtika** (late October to early November). In northern India, this date also marks the last day of the year. Those who wish to have Lak\u1e63m\u012b's blessings for the New Year leave a lamp burning outside of their home all night long (or an electric light). In **Bengal** , **K\u0101l\u012b p\u016bj\u0101** is celebrated on the night of D\u012bwali. In October 2007, after lobbying by the **Hindu American Foundation** , the U.S. Congress passed a resolution in recognition of the religious and historical significance of D\u012bwali.\n\nIn **Jainism** , D\u012bwali is celebrated as **Mah\u0101v\u012bra** Nirv\u0101\u1e47a Div\u0101sa, the date on which the sage **Mah\u0101v\u012bra** attained his final **nirv\u0101\u1e47a** and left his body. It is said that the king of the region where Mah\u0101v\u012bra died proclaimed that lamps should be lit on that night because such a great light had gone out of the world.\n\n**DITI.** Sister of **Aditi** , daughter of **Dak\u1e63a** , and mother of the **Daityas** , a group of beings opposed to the **Vedic** **devas** (deities) and generally regarded as demonic.\n\n**DIVINE LIGHT MISSION.** Hindu organization established by Sri H\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 Mah\u0101r\u0101j Ji in the early 1960s and taken over after his death in 1966 by his son, **Guru Mah\u0101r\u0101j Ji** , who was only nine years old. Its basic theology is derived from the **Vallabha Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition. It was renamed \"Elan Vital\" in 1983.\n\n**DIVINE MOTHER.** An alternative designation for the **Mother Goddess**.\n\n**D\u012aWALI.** _See_ D\u012aP\u0100VALI.\n\n**D\u012aY\u0100.** Oil lamp used in many Hindu rituals, such as **p\u016bj\u0101** and **\u0101rat\u012b** , and on a very large scale during **D\u012bp\u0101vali** , the festival of lights.\n\n**DOMESTIC RITUALS.** A variety of Hindu rituals can be performed at home, and in fact it is probably accurate to say that the home is a more central location than the **temple** for Hindu religious activity. The typical Hindu home will have a room, or at least a small space, dedicated exclusively to religious activity: a shrine or altar before which the daily **p\u016bj\u0101** and **meditation** can be performed. The most common domestic ritual is a morning p\u016bj\u0101 performed as soon as one has risen from bed and bathed. The ideal time for such a p\u016bj\u0101 is early in the morning, just before dawn, during the **Br\u0101hma-muhurta**. **Brahmins** will often recite the **G\u0101yatr\u012b mantra** at this time or as the sun is rising. Some Hindus also perform an evening p\u016bj\u0101, at sundown. Other p\u016bj\u0101s frequently held at home include the **Satyanar\u0101ya\u1e47a P\u016bj\u0101** , performed every full-moon day ( **pur\u1e47ima** ), and a weekly p\u016bj\u0101 to **Lak\u1e63m\u012b** , which is usually performed by the **women** in the home. More elaborate and large-scale rituals performed at home typically require one to employ a priest\u2014such as the **G\u1e5bha-prave\u015ba** , or \"entering the home,\" a ceremony for blessing a new house. Detailed instructions for the performance of domestic rituals are contained in a set of late **Vedic** texts called the _G\u1e5bhya S\u016btras_ , which were likely composed around 300 BCE.\n\n**DONIGER, WENDY (1940\u2013 ). Indologist** and Sanskritist who has been a professor at the University of Chicago since 1978. Doniger's title is **Mircea Eliade** Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions. She is located jointly in the University of Chicago's Divinity School, its Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, and its Committee on Social Thought. She has two doctoral degrees\u2014one from Harvard University (1968) and one from Oxford University (1973). Much of Doniger's work has focused upon the interpretation of Hindu sacred **literature** , though she has also done a good deal of translation of **Sanskrit** texts\u2014most notably of selected hymns from the _\u1e5ag Veda_ and of the _Manusm\u1e5bti_. Her interpretations of Hindu texts have proven controversial due to her application of Freudian psychoanalytic theories. Many in the Hindu community have found her work and that of her students who have followed a similar line of interpretation to be objectionable\u2014most notably **Rajiv Malhotra** , who has accused Doniger and her students of neocolonialism. However, much of this same work has met with great scholarly acclaim, making Doniger a polarizing figure.\n\n**DRAUPAD\u012a.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ; wife of the five **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dava** brothers. In one of the more unusual scenes in the epic, though it is **Arjuna** who wins Draupad\u012b's hand in marriage, his mother, **Kunt\u012b** , requires him to share Draupad\u012b with his four brothers. (She had told him, \"Whatever you have won, you must share with your brothers,\" before she had seen that Arjuna had won a bride, and a mother's word must be obeyed.) In another account, Draupad\u012b's situation is depicted as the result of a wish she made in a past life, in which she prayed five times for a husband.\n\nDraupad\u012b is central to the main plotline of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. When **Yudhi\u1e63\u1e6dhira** gambles away his own freedom and that of his brothers, losing all of his belongings to **Duryodhana** , he stakes Draupad\u012b to win everything back, losing her in the process as well. Draupad\u012b challenges this outcome, arguing that Yudhi\u1e63\u1e6dhira had no right to gamble away his wife, as though she were a material possession, particularly given that he had already lost himself when he staked her. When none of the assembled elders will rise to her defense, due to their loyalty to Duryodhana's father, who is presiding over the entire proceedings, Duryodhana, his brothers\u2014the **Kauravas** \u2014and **Kar\u1e47a** try to molest her. When Duryodhana's brother Du\u1e25\u015b\u0101sana tries to strip off her clothing, Draupad\u012b takes refuge in **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , who performs a miracle that consists of covering her with an infinite cloth that cannot be removed. This supernatural event frightens the Kauravas; their father **Dh\u1e5btar\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dra** , who has been silent up to this point, grants her any boon that she wishes to request. She asks for the freedom of her husbands and that all their belongings be returned. Dh\u1e5btar\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dra grants this and Draupad\u012b's own freedom as well. She thus saves her husbands when they were helpless to save either her or themselves. The insult that she suffers at the hands of the Kauravas, however, heightens the tensions between the two families, and both Draupad\u012b and **Bh\u012bma** swear vengeance. This vengeance is achieved at the battle of **Kuruk\u1e63etra** , at which all of the Kauravas are killed. Du\u1e25\u015b\u0101sana is killed by Bh\u012bma and Draupad\u012b washes her hair in his blood. Duryodhana dies by Bh\u012bma's hand as well.\n\nIn southern India, Draupad\u012b is regarded as an incarnation of the **Mother Goddess** and is worshiped as such. The famous image of Hindus walking across hot coals is part of her worship, where devotees vow to perform this act if she will answer their prayers.\n\nCommentators often contrast the strong, fierce, and outspoken Draupad\u012b with the relatively meek and submissive **S\u012bt\u0101** , the analogous chief female protagonist of the other major Hindu epic, the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_. Some contemporary interpreters see in Draupad\u012b a critique of traditional Hindu patriarchy and as expressing the possibility of an indigenous Hindu feminism based on the concept of **dharma**. Her successful invocation of K\u1e5b\u1e63na also represents the power of **bhakti**. _See also_ WOMEN.\n\n**DRAVIDIAN.** Language family predominant in the southern half of India that includes Kannada, Malayalam, **Tamil** , and Telugu; distinct from the **Indo-European** languages that predominate in northern India (such as **Hindi** and **Bengali)** , all of which are closely related to **Sanskrit**. In keeping with the conflation of culture and ethnicity introduced by 19th-century **Indologists** \u2014who spoke not only of Indo-European culture but also of an Indo-European or **\u0100ryan** \"race\"\u2014the term _Dravidian_ has come to refer not only to the languages of southern India but to the people who speak those languages as well. This has led to a northern and southern political division that is based on the **\u0100ryan Invasion Theory** , with its implication that northern Indian languages (and the people who spoke them) invaded and ousted an indigenous Dravidian population some time prior to 1500 BCE. This division has most often been played out in the form of controversies over the Indian government's promotion of Hindi in southern India. Indeed, English is preferred in southern India over Hindi as a medium of communication.\n\n**DREAM.** The dream state is the second of the four **states of consciousness** enumerated in the _Upani\u1e63ads_ and in **Ved\u0101nta** **philosophy**. The dream state ( _taijas\u0101_ , or \"brilliant\") is differentiated from the waking state ( _vai\u015bv\u0101nara_ , or \"omnipresent\") by the fact that the objects that appear in it are generated by the mind ( **manas** ) rather than by one's sensory organs ( **indriyas** ). These objects, however, are often of the same kind as those that one experiences in the waking state and can be just as convincing while one is in the dream state. Particularly in **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** and **Buddhism** , waking consciousness is said to be dreamlike in the sense that its objects are not ultimately real\u2014being merely conceptual constructs\u2014in contrast with pure, **non-dual** awareness.\n\n**DRO\u1e46A.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ; a highly gifted warrior, and **guru** of both the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** and the **Kauravas**. Although born a **Brahmin** , Dro\u1e47a performed the duties of a **k\u1e63atriya**. Despite this violation of the principle of **svadharma** on his own part, Dro\u1e47a did not allow **Ekalavya** , a lower-caste man who wanted to be his student, to similarly do the duty of a **caste** to which he was not born. It is said that this was because Dro\u1e47a did not want his favorite pupil, **Arjuna** , to have any rival. Though fond of the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas, and of Arjuna in particular, Dro\u1e47a was required by his oath of loyalty to the Kaurava throne to fight in the battle of **Kuruk\u1e63etra** on the Kaurava side. As Arjuna's guru, Dro\u1e47a was one of the persons whom Arjuna was hesitant to fight at the start of the battle, as narrated in the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. Dro\u1e47a's slaying occurred in a dishonorable fashion. An elephant was slain whose name was **A\u015bvatth\u0101ma** , which was also the name of Dro\u1e47a's beloved son. Hearing that \"A\u015bvatth\u0101ma has been slain,\" Dro\u1e47a laid down his arms in mourning and was struck down. Even though the statement \"A\u015bvatth\u0101ma has been slain,\" was technically true, it was said with the intent and effect of creating deception, and was thus dishonorable\u2014as was striking Dro\u1e47a after he had laid down his arms. In reference to this episode of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , the phrase \"A\u015bvatth\u0101ma has been slain,\" has entered Hindu parlance as a reference to any statement that, while technically true, is nevertheless said with deceptive intent.\n\n**DUM\u00c9ZIL, GEORGES (1898\u20131986).** Scholar of **Indo-European** language and culture; developed the theory of a tripartite division of Indo-European societies that is reflected in the area of religion. This division is present in traditional Hindu society in the form of the top three **castes** , or **var\u1e47as** , which are regarded as **twice born** \u2014 **Brahmins** , **K\u1e63atriyas** , and **Vai\u015byas** \u2014all of which have parallels in other Indo-European cultures. In regard to **Indology** , Dum\u00e9zil's most famous work is his study of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_.\n\n**DURG\u0100.** Literally, \"She who is difficult to approach,\" or alternatively, \"She who makes evil go away\"; popular form of the **Mother Goddess** , particularly in **Bengal**. According to the _Dev\u012b Mah\u0101tmya_ , when the seemingly invincible Buffalo Demon (or **Mah\u012b\u1e63\u0101sura** ) had conquered the world, the **gods** , who could not defeat him, approached **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** for help. On Vi\u1e63\u1e47u's advice, the gods combined their energies, and Durg\u0101 emerged.\n\nDurg\u0101 thus represents the combined power, or **\u015bakti** , of all of the other deities. In the **\u015a\u0101kta** tradition, she is a manifestation of the supreme deity\u2014the Mother Goddess in a fierce form to save the world from evil. She is depicted riding upon a lion and having 10 arms and hands, with a different weapon in each hand\u2014each weapon representing one of the deities whose powers went into making her up. She is spearing the Buffalo Demon in the side and her lion is attacking the water buffalo that is the Buffalo Demon's vehicle. In many representations, especially those used during **Durg\u0101 P\u016bj\u0101** , she is accompanied by her children, the deities **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** , **Lak\u1e63\u1e43\u012b** , **Sarasvat\u012b** , and **K\u0101rttikeya**.\n\n**DURG\u0100 P\u016aJ\u0100.** Ten-day festival in honor of the **Goddess Durg\u0101** and commemorating the various fierce manifestations of the **Mother Goddess** who appear on Earth to destroy the forces of evil; especially popular in **Bengal**. It corresponds to **Da\u015bahra** , the 10-day festival celebrated in the **bright** **half** of the month of **\u0100\u015bvina** that, in northern India, is celebrated in honor of **R\u0101ma** 's defeat of **R\u0101va\u1e47a**.\n\n**DURV\u0100SA.** Sage; son of the sage **Atri** and his wife, Anasuya. In the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , he gave **Kunt\u012b** a **mantra** that enabled her to bear semi-divine children. Durv\u0101sa also cursed **\u015aakuntal\u0101** to be forgotten by her lover. _See also_ K\u0100LID\u0100SA.\n\n**DURYODHANA.** Main villain of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , eldest of the 100 sons of King **Dh\u1e5btar\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dra** and Queen **G\u0101ndh\u0101r\u012b**.\n\n**DUSSEHRA.** Popular alternate spelling of **Da\u015bahra**. _See also_ DURG\u0100 P\u016aJ\u0100.\n\n**DVAITA VED\u0100NTA.** Dualistic **Ved\u0101nta** ; system of Ved\u0101nta **philosophy** developed by the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** **\u0101c\u0101rya Madhva** (1238\u20131317). Born near **Udipi** in **Karnataka** , where he spent most of his life, Madhva is believed by his devotees to be the third incarnation or **avat\u0101ra** of **V\u0101yu** , the **Vedic** **god** of the wind (the first two incarnations being **Hanuman** and **Bh\u012bma** ). A devout **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** , Madhva was highly critical of the **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** of **\u015aa\u1e45kara** , seeing it as diminishing the significance of **bhakti** and as relegating **God** to a role subordinate to an impersonal reality ( **Nirgu\u1e47a Brahman** ). Madhva sees Brahman as identical to **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , the supreme deity, and the **j\u012bva** , or individual soul of a living being, as an eternally existing reality distinct from Vi\u1e63\u1e47u. **Liberation** , or **mok\u1e63a** , therefore does not involve an actual metaphysical union between the devotee and the divine (or, as in Advaita Ved\u0101nta, a realization that the distinction between the devotee and the divine is an illusion). The devotee and the divine are forever distinct. \"Union\" with the divine is a union of wills, of complete subordination of the will of the individual soul to the will of God ( **\u012a\u015bvara-pra\u1e47idh\u0101na** ). The individuality of one who attains liberation is not effaced. Liberation, rather, consists of residing for eternity in **Vaikun\u1e6dha** , or heaven, with God, a place of infinite bliss. Unusually for a Hindu tradition, Dvaita Ved\u0101nta teaches that it is possible that some souls may never reach liberation and remain eternally separated from God. Madhva's thought was highly influential within the bhakti movement, particularly upon such later thinkers as **Caitanya** and, in the modern period, **Bhaktived\u0101nta Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhup\u0101da**. The **Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition of **Bengal** bears the stamp of Madhva's thought, as does the **International Society for Krishna Consciousness** (ISKCON).\n\n**DV\u0100RAK\u0100.** Site in Gujarat, on the western coast of India; believed to be the capital of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** 's kingdom and a major site of pilgrimage for this reason. One of the four **ma\u1e6dhas** or monasteries established by **\u015aa\u1e45kara** is located in Dv\u0101rak\u0101. A considerable number of ruins are present on the ocean floor just off the coast of Dv\u0101rak\u0101. Interestingly, according to the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , Dv\u0101rak\u0101 sank into the ocean after the accidental death of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** at the hands of a hunter, with **Arjuna** leading a group of refugees away from the doomed city. Archaeologists estimate that the submerged portion of the city likely sank into the ocean around 1500 BCE. If this site can, indeed, be identified with K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's Dv\u0101rak\u0101, this suggests a likely date for whatever historical events form the basis of the main narrative of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_.\n\n**DVIJA. Twice born** ; term for the top three **castes** , or **var\u1e47as** , of the caste system due to their employment of the **upanayana** , or **sacred thread** ceremony\u2014a coming-of-age ritual that is likened to a \"second birth\" and marks one's entry into the first of the four stages of life or **\u0101\u015bramas**. Although all three of the upper castes are eligible to undergo this ritual according to the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ , it became increasingly common over the centuries for only **Brahmins** to undergo this ritual, the term _twice-born_ became virtually synonymous with _Brahmin_.\n\n**DWARF AVAT\u0100RA.** _See_ V\u0100MANA.\n\n**DYAU\u1e24 PIT\u1e5a.** \"Heavenly Father\"; a **Vedic** deity whose name is cognate with those of other **Indo-European** father deities, such as Zeus and Jupiter, and with the Latin _deus_ , a generic term meaning \" **god**.\" Dyau\u1e25 Pit\u1e5b seems to have many of the attributes of these other Indo-European father deities (and of others, such as the Norse Odin). A relatively obscure deity in the _Vedas_ , he is mentioned infrequently. He is the husband of **P\u1e5bthv\u012b** (also known as **Bh\u016bdev\u012b** ), the **goddess** of the **Earth** , and father of **Indra** , **Agni** , and **U\u1e63\u0101** , the gods and goddess, respectively, of the sky, fire, and the dawn. _See also_ DEVAS.\n\n## E\n\n**EARTH.** One of the elements ( **mah\u0101bh\u016btas** ) making up the physical universe according to **Ved\u0101nta** **philosophy** ; also the **goddess** of the earth, wife of **Dyau\u1e25 Pit\u1e5b** , the heavenly father. _See also_ BH\u016a; BH\u016aDEV\u012a; P\u1e5aTHV\u012a.\n\n**EKA.** One; \" **the One** \"; the supreme reality or absolute that underlies all existence. In the _\u1e5ag Veda_ it is said that the One is the reality behind the appearance of diversity that gives rise to the world of phenomena. It is also said that the many **devas** or deities are all names for the One ( _\u1e5ag Veda_ 1.164.46)\u2014\"Reality is one, but the wise speak of it in many ways.\" In the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , the ultimate reality\u2014 **Brahman** \u2014is frequently said to be \"One alone, without a second.\" Such Vedic references to the One are the basis for the view that an ancient thread of **monotheism** underlies the Hindu practice of **polytheism** , the idea being that what appear to be many deities are forms, aspects, or manifestations of the One. Though this view is certainly ancient in Hinduism, it has been reemphasized in the modern period in response to the criticisms of **Christian** and **Islamic** missionaries.\n\n**EKADANTA.** One-toothed. Epithet of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** , who is given this name due to the fact that he is typically depicted as missing one tusk (or more commonly, with a broken tusk). According to one account, Ga\u1e47e\u015ba lost this tusk during a conflict with **Para\u015bur\u0101ma**. According to another account, he broke off the tusk to use it as a writing implement when **Vy\u0101sa** was dictating the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ to him. According to yet another account, he broke it off and flung it at the **moon** in anger when the moon laughed at him for falling off of his **vahana** , or vehicle, the mouse.\n\n**EK\u0100DA\u015a\u012a.** Eleventh; the 11th day of either the **bright half** or **dark half** of a month (that is, the 11th day after either **Amavasya** \u2014the new-moon day\u2014or **Pur\u1e47ima** \u2014the full-moon day). Many **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas** fast or hold a special **p\u016bj\u0101** (or worship ceremony) on this day. _See also_ CALENDAR, HINDU.\n\n**EKALAVYA.** Character from the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. Ekalavya was a boy from one of the lower castes who wished to study with the great martial arts teacher **Dro\u1e47a** in order to become a warrior. Dro\u1e47a rejected Ekalavya because of Ekalavya's low **caste** status. Undaunted, Ekalavya fashioned an image or **m\u016brti** of Dro\u1e47a and took it as his teacher, training before the image and showing it the devotion that one would normally show to one's teacher, or **guru**. Ekalavya progressed quickly in this fashion and his fame began to spread. Dro\u1e47a, hearing of Ekalavya's prowess, confronted him and demanded the customary payment that a student would give to a teacher, given that Ekalavya claimed Dro\u1e47a as his teacher. After Ekalavya promised to pay Dro\u1e47a in any way he requested, Dro\u1e47a demanded Ekalavya's thumb in payment, which Ekalavya cut off and surrendered to Dro\u1e47a without hesitation. This of course prevented Ekalavya from living as a warrior, for without a thumb he would be unable to perform the basic duties of a warrior, such as stringing a bow, holding a sword, and so on. In the modern period, Ekalavya has become a symbol of protest for the **Dalit** movement, who perceive the cruel behavior of Dro\u1e47a as emblematic of their suffering under the caste system. To compound Dro\u1e47a's behavior, it is also pointed out that Dro\u1e47a was not only engaging in **casteism** , or caste prejudice in the way he treated Ekalavya, but that he was behaving hypocritically as well, since Dro\u1e47a himself was a **Brahmin** , not a **k\u1e63atriya** , or warrior, although he had adopted a vocation as a warrior.\n\n**EKN\u0100TH (1533\u20131599).** Author and devotee of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** from Maharashtra; widely known in Maharashtra as _Sant Eknath_. Like other adherents of the **bhakti** movement, Eknath, a **Brahmin** by birth, was opposed to **casteism** and once saved the life of a drowning **Dalit** child. A prolific writer, his best-known work is his _Ekn\u0101thi Bh\u0101gavata_ , a commentary on the _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_.\n\n**ELEMENTS.** The five elements are earth ( **p\u1e5bthv\u012b** ), air ( **v\u0101yu** ), fire ( **agni** ), water ( **ap** ), and space ( **\u0101k\u0101\u015ba** ). According to the **Vai\u015be\u1e63ika** system of philosophy ( **dar\u015bana** ), the first four of these elements are atomic and compounded in nature\u2014unlike the self ( **\u0101tman** ), which is atomic but not compounded, and space (\u0101k\u0101\u015ba), which is neither atomic nor compounded. _See also_ MAH\u0100BH\u016aTAS.\n\n**ELEPHANTA.** Island near Mumbai (Bombay) with a large **temple** dedicated to **\u015aiva**. Its most famous image is of the **Trim\u016brti** , or three forms of the supreme deity\u2014 **Brahm\u0101** , **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , and **\u015aiva**. The temple dates to the period between the fifth and eighth centuries of the Common Era. Portuguese colonists named it after a large stone elephant that is one of the first features of the temple complex that one sees when landing on the island.\n\n**ELIADE, MIRCEA (1907\u20131986).** Renowned Romanian historian of religions. Eliade studied **Sanskrit** and Indian **philosophy** at **Calcutta** University from 1928 to 1931 under the tutelage of **Surendran\u0101th Dasgupta**. After teaching at the University of Bucharest and at the Sorbonne in Paris, he became a professor of the University of Chicago, where he established himself as a major figure in the study of the history of religions. He taught at the University of Chicago's Divinity School from 1957 to 1985. A prolific author not only in the area of religious studies but also of philosophy and fiction, his most famous works include _The Sacred and the Profane_ and _Yoga:_ _Immortality and Freedom_. **Wendy Doniger** currently holds the chair endowed in his name. _See also_ INDOLOGY.\n\n**ELLORA (EL\u016aR\u0100).** Extensive site of numerous Hindu, **Buddhist** , and **Jain** **temples** and monasteries. Numerous caves dot the region, many of which have been used as sites for **meditation** through the centuries, being at various times extended and connected for the use of whole communities of monks. Among the more famous Hindu temples located at this complex is the **Kail\u0101sa** temple, which is twice the size of the Parthenon in Greece and was carved from a single piece of rock. It was carved in the eighth century CE and is named after the mountain on which **\u015aiva** is believed to reside in the **Him\u0101layas**.\n\n**EMERSON, RALPH WALDO (1803\u20131882).** American author, philosopher, Unitarian minister, and a founding figure of the **transcendentalist** movement, which could be seen as the first wave of interest in Hindu thought in North America. Through his familiarity with early English translations of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ and the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , Emerson was deeply influenced by **Ved\u0101nta philosophy**. This influence is most pronounced in some of his **poetic** works, such as \"Brahma,\" which includes direct quotations from the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. _See also_ THOREAU, HENRY DAVID.\n\n**ENLIGHTENMENT.** Common English term for the state of heightened awareness that, in many Indic religious traditions, is a necessary precondition for **liberation** from **rebirth** (or **mok\u1e63a** ) and that is frequently used as a synonym for such liberation. Also known in contemporary Hindu traditions as **God-realization** , enlightenment consists of the direct awareness that **Brahman** and **\u0101tman** are one and the same: that the fundamental basis of one's identity is the same as the ultimate reality that is the basis of all existence. It is the experiential discovery of the ground of all being as the basis of one's own being. It is not merely a cognitive awareness of this unity\u2014an act of mental assent to the proposition that such unity is the case\u2014but a direct, experiential awareness ( **anubh\u0101va** ).\n\nAccording to the **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** tradition, assent to the proposition of the unity of Brahman and \u0101tman is a condition for the direct awareness that follows it, and the source of this proposition, is the Hindu **scriptures**. In **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** , the awareness itself is emphasized more than its scriptural source. Although Advaita Ved\u0101nta, **Jainism** , and **Buddhism** tend to conceive of enlightenment in impersonal terms, as the realization of an abstract **truth** , the more **bhakti** -oriented, theistic Ved\u0101nta traditions see it as coming to know **God**. _See also_ VED\u0100NTA.\n\n**ETA\u015aA.** **Vedic** sage whose life was saved by **Indra** ; also the name of one of the horses that pull the flying **chariot** ( **vim\u0101na** ) of the sun **god** , **S\u016brya**.\n\n## F\n\n**FASTING.** A common form of **ascetic** practice, especially popular among laywomen, and often practiced to fulfill a specific wish. _See also_ VRATA.\n\n**FIRE SACRIFICE.** _See_ AGNI\u1e62\u1e6cOMA.\n\n**FISCHER, LEOPOLD.** _See_ AGEH\u0100NANDA BH\u0100RAT\u012a, SW\u0100M\u012a.\n\n**FISH AVAT\u0100RA.** _See_ MATSYA.\n\n**FIVE M'S.** Five substances consumed or activities performed in the ceremonies of the V\u0101m\u0101c\u0101ra or **Left-Handed** tradition of **Tantra** that are normally regarded as impure. This tradition involves participation in activities normally considered impure in the name of demonstrating the principle of nonduality ( **advaita** ): that both purity and impurity are illusory constructs, the reality being that all is **Brahman**. The substances or activities in question are called the \"five M's\" because the words for them all begin with the letter m: madya (alcohol), m\u0101\u1e43sa (meat), **matsya** (fish), **mudr\u0101** (grain), and maithun\u0101 (sexual intercourse\u2014although in this context, it refers specifically to sexual intercourse with a partner who is not one's spouse, because sexual intercourse is otherwise not regarded as inherently impure, being a natural and normal activity for non **ascetics** ).\n\nMudr\u0101 (grain) is an unusual member of this set of items, since it is not normally regarded as impure, though it is forbidden by some religious fasts ( **vratas** ). It is possible that this term refers to specific symbolic gestures performed in the context of the ritual (as when it refers to the hand gestures of deities when depicted in **m\u016brti** form or when employed in specific forms of **meditation** ).\n\n**FOUR GOALS OF HUMANITY.** Physical pleasure ( **k\u0101ma** ), wealth ( **artha** ), virtue ( **dharma** ), and **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth** ( **mok\u1e63a** ). _See also_ PURU\u1e62\u0100RTHA.\n\n**FOUR STAGES OF LIFE.** The student stage ( **brahmacarya** ), the householder stage ( **g\u0101rhasthya** ), the stage of withdrawal or retirement ( **vanaprastha** ), and renunciation ( **sanny\u0101sa** ). _See also_ \u0100\u015aRAMA.\n\n**FOUR YOGAS.** Four spiritual disciplines that can be practiced either individually or jointly in the pursuit of **mok\u1e63a**. Although developed in a variety of Hindu texts through the centuries, the yogas were first codified and theorized as four distinct disciplines in the modern period by **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda**. They are the yogas of action ( **karma yoga** ), of wisdom ( **j\u00f1\u0101na yoga** ), of devotion ( **bhakti yoga** ), and of **meditation** ( **dhy\u0101na** or r\u0101ja yoga). As conceived by Vivek\u0101nanda, each **yoga** (or combination of yogas) is suited to a different personality type. Karma yoga is working selflessly for the good of others with no thought of personal reward and is suited to an activist temperament. J\u00f1\u0101na yoga is for the intellectual, the philosopher, and consists of discerning and differentiating between what is real and what is unreal. Bhakti yoga is intense love and longing for a personal form of the divine and manifests in a relationship with **God** , as a servant, friend, spouse, parent, or child. Dhy\u0101na yoga is the practice of meditation. The subsequent tradition of **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** tends to emphasize the idea of practicing all four yogas as aspects of a total, holistic approach to the spiritual life.\n\n**FUNERAL.** _See_ ANCESTRAL RITES; ANTYE\u1e62\u1e6cI.\n\n## G\n\n**GADAR MOVEMENT.** _See_ GHAD\u1e5a MOVEMENT.\n\n**GA\u1e46APATI.** Lord of hosts, an epithet of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba**. The ga\u1e47as, or hosts, refer to groups of demigods under Ga\u1e47e\u015ba's command.\n\n**G\u0100\u1e46APATYA.** Branch of Hinduism devoted to the worship of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** as the supreme form of the divine, analogous to **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** worship of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , **\u015aaiva** worship of **\u015aiva** , and **\u015a\u0101kta** worship of the **Mother Goddess**. Though not as widespread as these movements, the G\u0101\u1e47apatya tradition has made its presence felt in the universal popularity of Ga\u1e47e\u015ba.\n\nThe worship of Ga\u1e47e\u015ba probably began as a \u015aaiva practice\u2014a logical development, given that Ga\u1e47e\u015ba is the son of \u015aiva and **\u015aakt\u012b** (or **P\u0101rvat\u012b** , as the Mother Goddess is also known). In the ninth century, **\u015aa\u1e45kara** declared Ga\u1e47e\u015ba to be one of five possible deities of choice, or **i\u1e63\u1e6dadevat\u0101s** , in his system of five objects of worship ( **pa\u00f1cay\u0101tana p\u016bj\u0101** ), alongside \u015aiva, \u015aakti, Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, and **S\u016brya**. The inclusion of Ga\u1e47e\u015ba in this system as an equal to such \"high\" deities as \u015aiva, \u015aakti, and Vi\u1e63\u1e47u suggests the G\u0101\u1e47apatya sect already existed in some form in \u015aa\u1e45kara's time.\n\nIn the modern period, largely due to **Bal Gangadhar Tilak** 's promotion during the movement for Indian independence of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba p\u016bj\u0101** as a symbol of national unity, the worship of Ga\u1e47e\u015ba has become a pan-Hindu phenomenon, with members of all the major sects honoring Ga\u1e47e\u015ba as the remover of obstacles at the outset of any large undertaking.\n\n**GANDHA.** Scent; the sense of smell; attribute of the **earth element** ( **p\u1e5bthv\u012b** ) according to **Vai\u015be\u1e63ika** **philosophy**. _See also_ MAH\u0100BH\u016aTAS.\n\n**G\u0100NDH\u0100R\u012a.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ; wife of **Dh\u1e5btar\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dra** and mother of the **Kauravas**. After the climactic battle of the epic, in which all of her sons are slain by the army of the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** , G\u0101ndh\u0101r\u012b curses **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** for his role in the battle as advisor to the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas. G\u0101ndh\u0101r\u012b's curse eventually results in K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's accidental **death** in the forest at the hands of a hunter.\n\n**GANDHARVAS.** Celestial musicians, a category of divine being said to possess great physical strength. The word is cognate with the Greek _centaur_.\n\n**G\u0100NDH\u012a, MAH\u0100TMA.** _See_ G\u0100NDH\u012a, MOHAND\u0100S K.\n\n**G\u0100NDH\u012a, MOHAND\u0100S K. (1869\u20131948).** Hindu reformer and leader of the nonviolent movement for Indian independence; often called **Mah\u0101tma** (Great Soul). He was born to a **Vai\u015bya** family in Gujarat, on the western coast of India. His family religious tradition was **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** , though he had a strong exposure in his early years to **Jainism** as well. At the age of 13 he entered into an arranged **marriage** with the equally young Kasturba Kapadia. At 18, he traveled to London to study law, against the wishes of his **caste** elders. With an intense interest in religion and **philosophy** , he had many conversations in England with both Christians and **Theosophists**. Through a translation of the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ given to him by a British Theosophist, he rediscovered his Hindu roots. He moved to South Africa in 1891, where he experienced intense racial prejudice for the first time, leading to his political awakening. While in South Africa, he agitated for equal treatment of Indians as citizens of the British Empire.\n\nOnly after returning to India in 1914 did G\u0101ndh\u012b begin to see imperialism itself as the root of the problems facing Indians. After touring the country extensively in order to learn firsthand about the concerns of his countrymen, he joined the movement for Indian independence.\n\nAdvocating **nonviolent** methods of protest and also adopting the lifestyle of a **sanny\u0101s\u012b** (taking a **brahmacarya** vow, though he was still married to Kasturba), G\u0101ndh\u012b began to have a wide following among the common people of India, especially in rural areas and villages. Unlike other independence leaders, whose English educations made them culturally Westernized, and so remote from common people, G\u0101ndh\u012b embraced and practiced village traditions. At the same time, though, many of the stands he took on a variety of issues were controversial, even among Indians, and several attempts were made on his life. For his activism he was jailed a number of times by the British authorities. G\u0101ndh\u012b was also a leading figure of the Indian National Congress, the main party that was working for Indian political independence.\n\nG\u0101ndh\u012b called his philosophy **saty\u0101graha** , or \"soul force,\" although the literal meaning of this term is \"holding fast to the **truth**.\" Having some resonance with the epic concept of the vow of truth\u2014in which the truth of a character's words give his or her vow particular effectiveness\u2014the idea behind saty\u0101graha is that the truth always prevails, and that one who is faithful to truth will also prevail, despite adversity and opposition. The nonviolent activist who adheres to methods that are in harmony with the ends he pursues is behaving in a manner consistent with truth. The inherent power of truth will therefore ensure the ultimate success of the activist's cause. The idea of the harmony of ends and means is also connected with the idea of **karma** , that like **actions** produce like effects. Therefore only just means can produce just results.\n\nG\u0101ndh\u012b viewed the pursuit of truth and the practice of nonviolence ( **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** ) as inseparable from one another, seeing truth and nonviolence as different sides of the same coin, truth being the interconnected and ultimately unified nature of all beings (his interpretation of **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** ) and non-violence being the implication of this truth in practice. He also underwent a shift in his thinking over the course of his lifetime from the idea that \" **God** is truth\" to the idea that \"Truth is God.\" The significance of this shift is that, whereas by holding that \"God is truth\" one might identify one's own idea of God with the truth, by holding that \"Truth is God\" one is committed to pursuing the truth wherever it may lead.\n\nIn terms of Indian independence, G\u0101ndh\u012b's methods were in one sense effective, creating global sympathy for his movement. Utilizing boycotts and marches, G\u0101ndh\u012b was able to put the brutality of imperialism on display, with peaceful demonstrators facing the harsh blows of the British police in front of the world media. On the other hand, it is still debated today whether the eventual withdrawal of the British from India was due more to the independence movement or to other circumstances, such as World War II and the gradual realization among the European powers that far-flung colonial empires, in the end, were more of an economic drain than a boon.\n\nG\u0101ndh\u012b's understanding of Indian independence, or self-rule ( _swar\u0101j_ ), was holistic and informed by Hindu traditions, as well as by Jainism, **transcendentalism** , and **Christianity**. He saw political **liberation** as one component of the liberation of the whole person\u2014like liberation in the classical Hindu sense, as **mok\u1e63a** , with a collective dimension distinct from the individualism of traditional **yoga** philosophies. He therefore placed a great deal of emphasis on purification and the moral perfection of the Indian community.\n\nIn addition to working for Indian independence, G\u0101ndh\u012b sought to end the practice of **Untouchability** \u2014though he did not advocate the total abolition of caste, which led to a rift between himself and **Bh\u012bmrao Ambedkar**. G\u0101ndh\u012b also advocated interreligious harmony, particularly between Hindus and Muslims, the many divisions between these two religious communities having been successfully exploited by British divide-and-rule policies, ultimately leading to the partition of India and Pakistan. These are two areas in which G\u0101ndh\u012b received, and continues to receive, considerable criticism; his actions on behalf of **Dalits** and Hindu\u2013Muslim unity ultimately failed to resolve these issues.\n\nOn a number of occasions G\u0101ndh\u012b undertook **fasting** \u2014in effect, going on a hunger strike\u2014to persuade his followers to behave as he wished: to renounce violence against the British, to treat people of the lower castes as equals, or to renounce the Hindu\u2013Muslim conflict.\n\nIndia became independent on 15 August 1947, an event that was widely seen as a triumph for G\u0101ndh\u012b and his methods. Many, however\u2014including G\u0101ndh\u012b himself\u2014did not view it this way, the euphoria of independence being overshadowed by the violence of partition. On 30 August 1948, G\u0101ndh\u012b was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a **Hindu Nationalist** who blamed G\u0101ndh\u012b for the violence suffered by Hindus during the partition.\n\nThough widely revered globally today, G\u0101ndh\u012b has also been subject to criticism, some of it during his lifetime. In addition to the criticisms already mentioned\u2014that his denunciation of **casteism** was insufficiently radical and that he did not do enough to stop the partition of India and Pakistan\u2014he was heavily criticized for testing his commitment to celibacy by sleeping next to naked young women (a test he did pass, by all accounts). At the same time, even some of his harshest critics acknowledge G\u0101ndh\u012b's transformative leadership and the power of his vision of peace and justice.\n\n**GA\u1e46E\u015aA.** Popular Hindu deity; elephant-headed remover of obstacles. As one of the sons of **\u015aiva** and **P\u0101rvat\u012b** (the other being **Karttikeya** ), Ga\u1e47e\u015ba has long been an object of devotion in **\u015aaiva** traditions. In modern Hinduism, however, he has become a popular pan-Hindu deity. As the remover of obstacles, he is traditionally evoked at the beginning of any new venture, including at the commencement of a **p\u016bj\u0101** , or worship ceremony, for any deity. There is also a **G\u0101\u1e47apatya** tradition that is centered on the worship of Ga\u1e47e\u015ba as the supreme deity, just as the \u015aaiva traditions are centered on \u015aiva and **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism** is centered on **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**.\n\nThere are many differing accounts of how Ga\u1e47e\u015ba came to have an elephant head. In one account, P\u0101rvat\u012b creates Ga\u1e47e\u015ba from the residue left behind after her bath. This occurs while \u015aiva is away from home. P\u0101rvat\u012b assigns her newly formed son the task of guarding the door to her chamber while she is bathing, ordering him not to allow anyone to come in, but neglecting to make an exception in the case of her husband, \u015aiva. When \u015aiva returns, he is angered to find this creature, Ga\u1e47e\u015ba, forbidding him from entering his wife's room. He therefore beheads Ga\u1e47e\u015ba. P\u0101rvat\u012b, greatly distressed at this, tells \u015aiva that he has killed his son. The repentant \u015aiva then searches for the best head he can find for Ga\u1e47e\u015ba, and takes the head of **Air\u0101vata** , the elephant mount of **Indra** , the lord of the **devas** , placing it upon Ga\u1e47e\u015ba's neck and bringing him back to life.\n\nIn another account, Ga\u1e47e\u015ba loses his original head when his mother, P\u0101rvat\u012b, is insistent that all the other **gods** look at her beautiful new baby. Unfortunately, **\u015a\u0101ni** , the presiding deity of the planet Saturn, is cursed with an evil eye. \u015a\u0101ni's gaze causes the infant deity's head to fall off, requiring it to be replaced with the head of an elephant (dutifully supplied this time not by \u015aiva, but by **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ). Finally, there is another account in which Ga\u1e47e\u015ba is simply born with the head of an elephant, with no particular reason being given. Ga\u1e47e\u015ba's vehicle is **M\u016b\u015baka** , the mouse.\n\nSymbolically, Ga\u1e47e\u015ba's elephant head represents both divine wisdom (because the elephant is a wise animal, with a long memory) and strength (given the great strength of elephants). He also has a pot belly, which is said to represent divine expansiveness, and is fond of sweets, which are the favored offering to present during his p\u016bj\u0101.\n\nThe worship of Ga\u1e47e\u015ba was popularized in the modern period by **Bal Gangadhar Tilak** (1856\u20131920) in Maharashtra to promote Hindu pride and unity. The annual Ga\u1e47e\u015ba P\u016bj\u0101 that he instituted is a very popular event in the city of Mumbai (Bombay).\n\n**GA\u1e46E\u015aAPURI \u0100\u015aRAMA.** Indian center of the **Siddha Yoga** movement; established in the village of Ga\u1e47e\u015bapuri, on the outskirts of Mumbai (Bombay) in 1949 by a **sanny\u0101s\u012b** named **Sw\u0101m\u012b Nity\u0101nanda** (1897\u20131961), founder of the Siddha Yoga **sa\u1e43prad\u0101ya** and **guru** of **Sw\u0101m\u012b Mukt\u0101nanda** (1908\u20131982), who brought the practice to the West. The lineage is now led by **Sw\u0101m\u012b Chidvil\u0101s\u0101nanda** ( **Gurumay\u012b** ).\n\n**GA\u1e44G\u0100.** The most sacred river in Hinduism; also the name of the **goddess** who is the personification of this river. Flowing from the northwestern reaches of the **Him\u0101layas** , where it is fed by melting glaciers, and emptying into the Bay of **Bengal** in the east, many sacred pilgrimage sites are located along the course of this river, including **Haridw\u0101r** , **Rishikesh** , **Pray\u0101ga** ( **Allahabad** ), and **Banaras** , two of which (Haridwar and Pray\u0101ga) are traditional locations for the **Kumbha Mel\u0101** festival. Many devout Hindus believe a prayerful bath in the Ga\u1e45g\u0101 (or Ganges) can be both physically and spiritually purifying. It is customary, if possible, to have one's ashes immersed in the Ga\u1e45g\u0101 after **cremation** , and many cremation grounds are located near the **gh\u0101\u1e6ds** , or stairs leading into the river at various sites, in order to facilitate this custom.\n\nAccording to Hindu sacred **literature** , the Ga\u1e45g\u0101 is an extension of a celestial river that corresponds to the Milky Way. The river was brought to the Earth by the **asceticism** of Bhagiratha, a king whose ancestors had been cursed by a sage. Bhagiratha wanted to find a way to cleanse his ancestors of this curse, and so prayed for the Ga\u1e45g\u0101's descent. Fearing that the force of the river's descent to the Earth might destroy the world, **\u015aiva** agreed to catch the river on his head, letting it then flow gently down his matted hair and onto the Earth. \u015aiva, in this image, represents the Him\u0101layas, from where the river flows and where \u015aiva is also believed to reside, on Mount **Kail\u0101sa**.\n\nIn the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , King \u015aantanu of the **Bh\u0101rata** dynasty falls in love with the goddess Ga\u1e45g\u0101 when he encounters her in the forest while on a hunting expedition. She agrees to marry him on the condition that he must not question anything she does, or she will leave him. Unbeknownst to \u015aantanu, however, a set of **Vedic** deities, the eight **Vasus** , have been cursed to be reborn as human beings by the sage **Vasi\u1e63\u1e6dha** because they stole his cows. Ga\u1e45g\u0101 agrees to help the Vasus escape the limits of the human form by giving birth to them and then drowning them in her waters. One by one, Ga\u1e45g\u0101 gives birth to healthy baby sons, and then, to \u015aantanu's horror, drowns them immediately after birth. But he remembers his promise not to question his wife's **actions** and remains silent. The eighth time, however, he intercedes and asks Ga\u1e45g\u0101 to spare their child. She agrees but then leaves him because he has broken his promise. This child grows up to be **Bh\u012b\u1e63ma** , the wise elder of the Bh\u0101rata dynasty throughout most of the epic. In terms of **karma** , it is said that Bh\u012b\u1e63ma lived such a long life and witnessed as much suffering as he did due to the fact that, among the Vasus, he was the one who instigated the theft of the cows.\n\nIn the contemporary period, the excessive pollution suffered by the sacred Ga\u1e45g\u0101 has become a major issue and a source of much controversy, with calls by both religious and secular organizations for the government of India to address the ecological crisis. On top of the pollution issue, recent studies have also suggested that global warming may be melting the glaciers on which the river depends at such a rate that the river itself may one day dry up completely. This would be a major disaster, not only from a religious point of view but also because millions of people depend upon the Ga\u1e45g\u0101 as their main source of drinking water.\n\n**GANGES RIVER.** _See_ GA\u1e44G\u0100.\n\n**GARBHA.** Literally \"womb\" or \"embryo\"; a folk **dance** especially popular in Gujarat. The dancers, who are usually (but not always) **women** , form a circle and make sweeping gestures. Each gesture ends with either the clapping of the hands or the striking together of two sticks. It is a joyful, celebra-tory dance, performed on festive occasions.\n\n**GARBHA-G\u1e5aHA.** Innermost chamber of a **temple** , where the main image ( **m\u016brti** ) of its central deity is enshrined. Typically only the temple priests are permitted to enter this chamber, although devotees may look inside when the doors are open for **dar\u015bana** (viewing of the image). Not all temples have a garbha-g\u1e5bha with closing doors. In these temples, the main m\u016brti is either always on display or is covered with a curtain.\n\n**G\u0100RHASTHYA.** The **householder** stage of life; the second of the four stages of life or **\u0101\u015bramas**. This stage of life is characterized by marriage, child-rearing, and economically productive activity. One formally enters this stage by means of one's wedding ceremony.\n\n**GARU\u1e0cA.** \"Devourer\" (of serpents); the divine eagle; servant and vehicle of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , and a popular subject of Hindu **temple** **art**. Symbolically, Garu\u1e0da is represented in **p\u016bj\u0101** , or ritualistic worship, by a bell. Through his symbolic presence, Garu\u1e0da serves to protect the worship ceremony from evil influences.\n\n**GAU\u1e0cAP\u0100DA (fl. 8th century CE).** **Guru** of **Govinda** , who was the guru of **\u015aa\u1e45kara** , thus making Gau\u1e0dap\u0101da \u015aa\u1e45kara's \"grand-guru\"; early exponent of **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , whose best-known work is his commentary ( **bh\u0101\u1e63ya** ) on the _Ma\u1e47\u1e0dukya Upani\u1e63ad_. Of particular note is Gau\u1e0dap\u0101da's extensive use of **Buddhist** terminology and styles of argumentation in this text, albeit in the service of a thoroughly **Ved\u0101ntic** thesis\u2014 _aj\u0101tiv\u0101da_ , the doctrine of nonorigination, according to which all change is an illusion, the sole reality being the eternal and changeless **Brahman** , identical to the self ( **\u0101tman** ). His name suggests that Gau\u1e0dap\u0101da was from **Bengal** , a major Buddhist center.\n\n**GAU\u1e0c\u012aYA VAI\u1e62\u1e46AVA.** **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition of **Bengal**. **Caitanya** (1486\u2013 1533) started this branch of Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism. Though sharing with the **Dvaita Ved\u0101nta** of **Madhva** a very strong emphasis on **bhakti** and the belief that **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** is the supreme reality, the Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava tradition, following the theology of the **Gosv\u0101mins** , claims the relationship of the world to the divine is _acintya-bhed\u0101bheda_ , or \"inconceivable difference and identity,\" rather than a pure difference, as Madhva affirms (much less a pure identity, as **\u015aa\u1e45kara** 's **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** claims). The **International Society for Krishna Consciousness** of **Bhaktived\u0101nta Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhup\u0101da** is a continuation of this tradition.\n\n**GAUR\u012a.** Benevolent rain **goddess** , associated with agriculture and human flourishing in general; usually depicted as a form of the **Mother Goddess** and wife of **\u015aiva** , but also as the wife of **Varu\u1e47a** , the **Vedic** ocean deity.\n\n**GAUTAMA.** One of the Seven Sages ( **Saptar\u1e63i** ) presiding over the cosmos. _Gautama_ is also the **gotra** name of the **Buddha** , Siddh\u0101rtha Gautama (c. 490\u2013410 BCE), but the two figures should not be confused with one another.\n\nHaridrumata Gautama is also the name of the sage in the _Chandogya Upani\u1e63ad_ who accepts the boy **Satyak\u0101ma** as his student, despite the boy's low birth **caste** status, because the boy is honest about his background, and honesty is a trait of an ideal **Brahmin**.\n\n**GAY\u0100.** Town in the northeastern Indian state of Bihar; sacred place of pilgrimage that is especially dedicated to the making of offerings to one's ancestors ( **\u015br\u0101ddha** ). Gay\u0101 is near Bodh Gay\u0101, a sacred place of pilgrimage for **Buddhists** for being the location where the **Buddha** attained **enlightenment** ( **nirv\u0101\u1e47a** ) under a banyan tree. Interestingly, the site of the offerings to the dead at nearby Gay\u0101 is also under a sacred banyan tree. Which sacred location came first is a subject of some contention and speculation among scholars.\n\n**G\u0100YATR\u012a.** \"Song of protection\"; name of a famous **mantra** of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ (3.62.10), as well as the **poetic** meter in which it was composed; later personified as a **goddess** with five heads who is a wife of **Brahm\u0101**. The mantra is a hymn to the solar deity **Savit\u1e5b** and is traditionally recited by **Brahmins** at dawn. The chanting of the G\u0101yatr\u012b mantra as a daily practice for all people is also promoted by the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j**.\n\nThe mantra reads: _O\u1e43 bh\u016br bhuva\u1e25 sva\u1e25_ , _Tat savitur vare\u1e47yam, Bhargo devasya dh\u012bmahi_ , _dhiyo yo na\u1e25 pracoday\u0101t_. It means, \"Om. Oh, earth! Oh, sky! Oh, heavens! Let us reflect upon the beautiful light of the god Savit\u1e5b. May he guide our thoughts.\"\n\nThe five-headed goddess who personifies this mantra became the wife of Brahm\u0101 when Brahm\u0101 was holding a sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ). A **householder** who performs a sacrifice must be accompanied by his wife. But Brahm\u0101's wife, **Sarasvat\u012b** , was late for the ritual, which also had to be performed at the astrologically correct time. **Indra** then presented Brahm\u0101 with G\u0101yatr\u012b, who served as Brahm\u0101's wife for the purpose of the sacrifice. The deeper symbolism of the story seems to be that the G\u0101yatr\u012b mantra is just as indispensable to the ritual of sacrifice as is the presence of one's spouse.\n\n**G\u0100YATR\u012a MANTRA.** _See_ G\u0100YATR\u012a.\n\n**GHAD\u1e5a MOVEMENT.** Early 20th-century movement among Indian immigrants in North America to support the violent overthrow of the British government in India. It sought to foment rebellion among Indians serving in the British army and to gain support from the United States in the cause of Indian independence. The movement, which was led by **Har Dayal** (1884\u2013 1939), suffered major setbacks when the United States entered World War I as an ally of Great Britain. Dayal was arrested and then fled to Germany. Many of the Indian immigrants in the United States and Canada returned to India to help with the revolution, but the British government was aware of their plans and arrested them. At the end of World War I, Dayal returned to India, where he renounced violence and joined **Mohand\u0101s K.** **G\u0101ndh\u012b** 's nonviolent independence movement. The Ghad\u1e5b movement ceased to be a major force at this point and dissolved when independence was achieved in 1947.\n\n**GH\u0100\u1e6c.** ( **Sanskrit** : gha\u1e6d\u1e6da.) Set of stairs leading into a sacred river, such as the **Ga\u1e45g\u0101** , to facilitate bathing for pilgrims.\n\n**GHEE.** Clarified butter; substance frequently offered in a **Vedic yaj\u00f1a** and also in **p\u016bj\u0101** , or worship. In the latter case, it is usually mixed with other sacred items, such as honey, milk, and yogurt. When offered as part of a Vedic ritual, such as a **homa** or **havan** , it is not mixed with anything else and is placed directly in the sacred fire with special spoons designed for that purpose.\n\n**GHOSE, AUROBINDO (1872\u20131950).** Better known as Sri Aurobindo; freedom fighter for Indian independence and later a major philosopher, Hindu reformer, and advocate of a system of **yoga** known as \"integral yoga.\" Trained in Western philosophy, Aurobindo's writings seek to unite and integrate both Western and Indian metaphysical themes.\n\nBorn into a wealthy **Bengali Brahmin** family, Aurobindo was sent to England for his education in 1879, where he studied in Cambridge University. In 1893, he returned to India where he served as a minister for the Mah\u0101r\u0101ja of Baroda, Gujarat. But wanting to strengthen his ties to his Bengali heritage, he moved to **Calcutta** in 1906.\n\nBoth during his service in Baroda and subsequently, in Calcutta, Aurobindo was drawn to the cause of Indian independence. Aligning himself with the militant **Hindu Nationalists** , such as **Bal Gangadhar Tilak** , Aurobindo advocated violent revolution. As a result of his political activities, the British government arrested Aurobindo in 1908 on the suspicion that he was connected with an antigovernment bombing. Although he was acquitted in the bombing case, he was imprisoned for a year for sedition. During the period of his imprisonment, he practiced yoga extensively and wrote of experiencing a number of powerful spiritual visions at this time, including visions of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** and **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** , who had died just a few years earlier (in 1902). In 1910, after his release from prison, he announced his retirement from politics. Moving to the French colony of Pondicherry, he dedicated himself to spiritual practice and philosophical writing, developing his system of integral yoga. A prolific author, his writings include _Integral Yoga_ , _The Synthesis of Yoga_ , _The Secret of the Veda_ , _Essays on the Gita_ , _Rebirth and Karma_ , and the monumental _The Life Divine_.\n\nOne of the major themes of Aurobindo's writing is the integration of Western thought, with its emphasis on the **material** world and the evolution of **mind** from matter, and Indian thought, with its emphasis on pure consciousness and what Aurobindo calls the \"involution\" of mind into matter. These two complementary processes are really one process viewed from different perspectives, according to Aurobindo's account. The term \"involution\" is drawn from the writings of Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda, and Aurobindo says several times that he sees himself as building on and continuing the work that was begun by Vivek\u0101nanda and his master, **Ramakrishna** , both of whom sought to reconcile the concepts of the absolute realm of spirit and the relative realm of time, space, matter, and change. In _Rebirth and Karma_ , he also articulates the idea\u2014which is now common among Westerners who believe in **rebirth** \u2014that reincarnation is a learning process for the soul. Aurobindo dedicated his life to bringing divine awareness or \"supermind\" into the realm of concrete, physical expression through the practice of yoga. Before his death, he claimed to have achieved this manifestation within himself.\n\nAurobindo also popularized an approach to the _Vedas_ that was a striking contrast with the dominant **Indological** paradigm of his time. Rather than seeing the early **Vedic literature** as the relatively primitive nature **poetry** of a nomadic society that gradually develops into the more sophisticated **Ved\u0101nta** philosophy of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , he suggests that the early Vedic poems already presuppose the fully developed **philosophy** , presenting it in a symbolic form. It is only as the key to this ancient symbolic code is forgotten that Vedic philosophy needs to be articulated more explicitly in the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , which are thus seen as an unpacking of what was already present in the early Vedic texts, rather than as an evolutionary development from them.\n\nAurobindo attracted many followers, including Westerners, the most famous of whom was a French woman named Mira Richard, to whom Aurobindo and his followers referred as \"the Mother.\" Aurobindo saw Richard as an incarnation of **\u015aakti** , the **Mother** **Goddess** and feminine energy of **creation**. Richard took over Aurobindo's community after his death in 1950.\n\n_G\u012aTAGOVINDA_. \"Song of the Cowherd.\" This highly **bhakti** -infused 12th-century **Sanskrit poem** by the **Bengali** **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** author **Jayadeva** uses the love affair between **R\u0101dh\u0101** and **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** to depict the bond of love between the soul of the **devotee** and **God**. The text is highly erotically charged and has been compared by some with the biblical _Song of Solomon_. It is based on the _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_.\n\n**GOBIND SINGH, GURU (1666\u20131708).** Tenth and final **guru** in the lineage of gurus of **Sikhism**. In response to the fierce persecution suffered by the Sikh community under the **Mughal** emperor Aurangzeb, Gobind Singh established the _khalsa_ , or community of Sikh warriors, marked by the \"Five K's,\" or five items whose names, in Punjabi, start with the letter K: _ke\u015b_ , or long hair; _kangha_ , a special comb with which the hair is tied on top of the head; _kara_ , a circular steel bracelet; _kacha_ , an undergarment ensuring preparedness for battle; and the _kirpan_ , a sword or dagger. Gobind Singh's father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, had been beheaded by Aurangzeb, and Gobind Singh himself had to spend much of his time in hiding. Knowing that he might not survive in the ongoing conflict, he designated the sacred text of the Sikhs, the _\u0100di Granth_ , the perpetual guru of the community after his **death**. _See also_ N\u0100NAK, GURU.\n\n**GOD.** The concepts of divinity in the various Hindu traditions vary greatly. Hindu texts express positions ranging from atheism, to **monotheism** , to **polytheism** , to panentheism (the idea that God is present within all beings, and that all beings, in turn, dwell in God), to pantheism (the idea that God simply _is_ all beings). Translating Hindu concepts of God into English is further complicated by the fact that there are a variety of **Sanskrit** terms that can be translated as \"God\" that all have quite distinct meanings in their original Hindu contexts. A **deva** , for example, is a powerful and long-lived being in charge of a particular aspect of the universe: such as **Agni** , the god of fire; or **S\u016brya** , the god of the sun; or **Yama** , the god of **death**.\n\nBecause there are many devas, corresponding to many different aspects of reality, translating _deva_ as \"god\" communicates a polytheistic view of Hinduism. If one speaks of \"the **gods** \" in the plural in a Hindu context, one is typically referring to the devas. If, however, one translates _deva_ as \"angel\" (which may be a more appropriate analogue), then one gets a picture of Hinduism as a tradition with a view of divinity closer to those of the monotheistic Abrahamic traditions. God, in the singular, in a monotheistic sense, corresponds to the Sanskrit terms **\u012a\u015bvara** or **Bhagav\u0101n**. Some of the Hindu traditions, such as **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism** and **\u015aaivism** , do conceive of God in this way (with the one supreme deity being identified with either **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** or **\u015aiva** , and other deities, the devas, playing a role similar to that of angels in the Abrahamic traditions). But there is also the idea in Hinduism of panentheism\u2014of divinity as an all-pervasive presence that corresponds to the **Ved\u0101ntic** concept of **Brahman**. God, as Brahman, is an omnipresent energy and consciousness that can be approached and experienced either as the supreme deity, in a monotheistic sense, or through various manifestations that correspond to the many devas. One could call this a monotheistic polymorphism\u2014the idea of one supreme divine reality that takes many forms.\n\nBecause Brahman is present in _all_ beings, then all beings\u2014including ourselves\u2014are at least potentially divine, or divine in our true, inner nature that will only be fully realized when we become **enlightened**.\n\nOn the other hand, because most Hindu traditions see the universe as eternal, with no specific beginning in time but rather as undergoing an ongoing process of emergence, existence, and dissolution, there is no creator God in an absolute sense, as there is in the Abrahamic traditions, who creates the universe _ex nihilo_. So in this sense, Hinduism can even be seen as atheistic. _See also_ GODDESS.\n\n**GODDESS.** In Hindu traditions, far from being limited to the male form, divinity also manifests in a great variety of female forms. As with Hindu **gods** , one can conceive of the goddesses of Hinduism in **polytheistic** , **monotheistic** , or panentheistic senses. **Dev\u012b** , the feminine form of the **Sanskrit** word **deva** , can simply refer to a female deva\u2014one of many goddesses in a polytheistic sense. **Vedic** goddesses, like their male counterparts, are largely identified with or preside over natural phenomena, such as **U\u1e63\u0101** , the goddess of the dawn, and **Sarasvat\u012b** , the goddess of the river of the same name (who is identified in later Hindu traditions as the goddess of wisdom). In the **\u015a\u0101kta** tradition, though, _Dev\u012b_ is a proper name for the Goddess in the singular, in a monotheistic sense, as the supreme deity of the entire universe: the **Mother Goddess**. Dev\u012b, or **Mah\u0101dev\u012b** (Great Goddess) is identified in many Hindu traditions as the wife of **\u015aiva**. She has many forms, such as the docile wife and mother, **P\u0101rvat\u012b** ; the warrior goddess, **Durg\u0101** , who defeats **demonic** beings and drives away evil; and the fierce, demon-slaying **K\u0101l\u012b**.\n\nIn her role as **\u015aakti** , the power of **creation** , the Goddess can also be identified with all of the many goddesses of the Hindu pantheon, who are seen as her various forms or manifestations. Goddesses such as **Lak\u1e63m\u012b** and Sarasvat\u012b are also called _\u015baktis_ , or power centers, of the deities that are their husbands\u2014 **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and **Brahm\u0101** , respectively. In this role, the Goddess and her various personae are seen as the energizing principle, in the absence of which their corresponding male gods would be incapable of effective activity. The divine pairing of \u015aiva and \u015aakti, in particular, is often presented, especially in \u015a\u0101kta texts, as a composite being, with the **God** and Goddess ultimately inseparable from one another as parts of an internally differentiated, but finally unitary, godhead. In its affirmation of internal relations within the godhead, this concept is not unlike the **Christian** idea of the trinity.\n\nFinally, the supreme Mother Goddess is identified, in **Tantric** traditions (and in **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** , which is strongly informed by the Tantric background and sensibility of **Ramakrishna** ), with **Brahman** , the absolute, as it appears from the perspective of **m\u0101y\u0101** , the universe of time and space. Ramakrishna states that \"K\u0101l\u012b is verily Brahman, and Brahman is verily K\u0101l\u012b. It is one and the same Reality. When we think of It as inactive . . . then we call it Brahman. But when It engages in . . . activities, then we call It K\u0101l\u012b or \u015aakti.\" This statement implies a pantheistic or panentheistic understanding of the Goddess as being manifested within all beings. This understanding is also present in the ancient \u015a\u0101kta scripture, the _Dev\u012b Mah\u0101tmya_ or _Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u012b Pa\u1e6dh_ , with its refrain of **mantras** that refer to \"The Goddess who dwells within all beings.\"\n\nSomewhat ironically, there is no clear relationship between the worship of female deities, to the point of identifying the supreme reality as the Goddess, and the treatment of actual Hindu **women** historically. Patriarchy has coexisted with Goddess-worship in Hindu practice and the worship of the Goddess (and various goddesses) has not been seen as the basis for a feminist critique of patriarchy until the modern period. It is also not at all clear that Goddess-worship has been in any way harmful to women. Rather, the two phenomena\u2014Goddess-worship and patriarchy\u2014seem to be independent variables. Again, this situation has begun to change in the modern period, with Hindu feminists utilizing the discourse of Goddess-worship as a starting point for a critique of patriarchy. But this is a relatively recent development.\n\n**GODS.** Deities; divine beings. When referring to \"gods\" in the plural, in a **polytheistic** sense, one is typically referring, in a Hindu context, to the **devas**. These deities can be seen as distinct beings\u2014superpowerful entities in charge of some aspect or other of the natural world, such as **Agni** , the god of fire; or **S\u016brya** , the god of the sun; or **Yama** , the god of **death**. But they can also be seen as forms or aspects of one supreme deity\u2014 **God** in a **monotheistic** sense, performing various roles and taking on various personalities for the purpose of maintaining the universe. This understanding most commonly applies to what one could call the \"high gods\"\u2014deities like **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , **\u015aiva** , and the **Mother Goddess** , who are widely seen as the one God, of whom all the other gods are either forms or aspects. The gods can also be seen as subordinate demigods or angels, ultimately answering to the **One**. It is also possible, finally, to see all personal forms of divinity as manifestations of a higher energy or consciousness\u2014 **Brahman** \u2014that is ultimately impersonal.\n\n**GOD-REALIZATION.** Brahma- **nirv\u0101\u1e47a** ; the state of ultimate realization that liberates one from the cycle of **death** and **rebirth**. In **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , this realization consists of the direct awareness that **Brahman** and **\u0101tman** are one: that the individual self and the ultimate reality at the basis of all existence are not separate entities.\n\nAccording to Advaita Ved\u0101nta, the differentiation between Brahman and \u0101tman is a mere appearance, or **m\u0101y\u0101**. One therefore does not \"become\" one with the divine so much as realize that one was never separate from the divine in the first place. But in more dualistic, theistic forms of **Ved\u0101nta** , there is a real metaphysical distinction between the individual and the divine. God-realization in these traditions is therefore conceived as a loving union or harmonizing of wills between the individual devotee and **God** in the form of **bhakti** \u2014a relationship of devotion and of absolute dependence of the devotee upon the divine\u2014not a realization of a literal metaphysical unity. _See also_ MOK\u1e62A.\n\n**GOLDEN AVAT\u0100RA.** Epithet of **Caitanya**.\n\n**GOLDEN EMBRYO.** _See_ HIRA\u1e46YAGARBHA.\n\n**GOLOKA.** \"Cow world\"; name for **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** 's celestial realm, also known as **Vaiku\u1e47\u1e6dha**.\n\n**GONDA, JAN (1905\u20131991).** Dutch **Indologist** ; professor of **Sanskrit** from 1932 to 1970 at the University of Utrecht. A prolific author, Gonda published a wide variety of articles throughout his lifetime on many Indological subjects.\n\n**GOP\u012a.** \"Cowherdess\"; \"milkmaid\"; literally \"cowgirl,\" though the cultural connotations of this word in English make it an odd fit as a translation. It refers specifically to a group of women in the **Vraja** region who, according to the _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ , were the lovers and playmates of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** in his youth. **R\u0101dh\u0101** was the foremost among the gop\u012bs and the special beloved of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a. Their relationship is detailed in the _G\u012btagovinda_ , a work by the 12th-century **bhakti** **poet** **Jayadeva**. In **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** theology, the deep mutual affection between K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and the gop\u012bs is an ideal model of bhakti, or devotion, being seen as very spontaneous and free from concern for social conventions. Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava practice is aimed at cultivating a devotion to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a like that of the gop\u012bs. The practitioners\u2014men and women alike\u2014are encouraged to visualize themselves as the gop\u012bs. This can be done mentally or, in some cases, through an actual enactment of female roles.\n\n**GORAKHN\u0100TH (fl. 12th century CE).** **\u015aaiva** sage and second **guru** in the lineage of the **N\u0101th Yog\u012bs** ; founder of the **K\u0101\u1e47pha\u1e6da** sect of ascetics; also credited with the creation of **Ha\u1e6dha Yoga**. Gorakhn\u0101th is regarded as a **siddha** , or a perfected, **enlightened** being.\n\n**GOSV\u0100MINS (fl. 16th century CE).** Literally \"cow masters\"; **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** theologians. The Gosv\u0101mins were six of the immediate disciples of **Caitanya** , at whose command they all settled in the **Vraja** region, in **V\u1e5bnd\u0101vana** , where **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** is said to have resided during his youth. The theology of the Gosv\u0101mins is foundational for the **Gau\u1e0d\u012bya** tradition of **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism** and the theology of the **International Society for Krishna Consciousness** (ISKCON).\n\nLike the **Tantric \u015aaiva** philosopher **Abhinavagupta** , the Gosv\u0101mins see **rasa** , or aesthetic experience, as being akin to the experience of **mok\u1e63a** , and as itself a potentially liberating phenomenon. The Gosv\u0101mins applied this basic Tantric insight to the practice of **bhakti** , arguing that listening to and visualizing oneself as a participant in the stories of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and his earthly activities can evoke an aesthetic experience that, by K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's grace, can lead to the state of **liberation**. One can visualize oneself as K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's servant, parent, friend, or lover. All four relationships are commended, though the last is often seen as the highest and best, being modeled on the relationship between K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and the **gop\u012bs** (and K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and **R\u0101dh\u0101** in particular).\n\n**GOTRA.** A name identifying one as a descendant of one of the Seven Sages ( **Saptar\u1e63i** ) presiding over the cosmos. Traditionally, persons with the same gotra cannot marry one another, being regarded as blood relatives. A large number of gotra names (49 according to some accounts) have been generated from the original seven, each of which is believed to trace back to an ancient sage. Gotra names are largely, but not exclusively, applied to **Brahmins**.\n\nIf one does not know one's gotra name (or have a gotra name), one uses the gotra of **Ka\u015byapa** , who is held to be the father of all of humanity. Gotras are traditionally used in ritual contexts in order to identify the participants.\n\n**GOVARDHANA, MOUNT.** Mountain near **Mathur\u0101** , in the **Vraja** region of northern India, that is sacred to **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas** for its association with the youth of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a**. K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is said to have lifted the mountain singlehandedly and used it to shelter the local residents from a rainstorm that had been sent by **Indra**. This event is a popular **artistic** subject, the mountain often shown being held up by K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a with only his little finger. The mountain is a popular pilgrimage site, being an essential stop on the larger tour of sacred sites in the Vraja region.\n\n**GOVINDA.** \"Cow-finder\"; \"cowherd\"; epithet of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , who performed this particular duty in his youth. The image of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a gently caring for his herds is a popular symbol for divine benevolence, analogous to the **Christian** image of Jesus as the \"Good Shepherd.\"\n\n**GR\u0100MA-DEVAT\u0100.** Town or village deity; the presiding deity of a town or a village.\n\n**G\u1e5aHA-PRAVE\u015aA.** Entry into the house; a **Vedic** ritual held to bless a new home, drive away negative forces, and ensure the health, happiness, and prosperity of all who dwell in it.\n\n**G\u1e5aHASTHA-\u0100\u015aRAMA.** The **householder** stage of life; the second of the four stages of life, or **\u0101\u015bramas**. The G\u1e5bhastha-\u0101\u015brama is characterized by marriage, child-rearing, and economically productive activity.\n\n_G\u1e5aHYA S\u016aTRAS_ **.** A set of texts that explain how to perform **Vedic** **domestic rituals** ; probably composed around 300 BCE.\n\n**GU\u1e46A.** Quality. According to the **S\u0101\u1e43khya** and **Yoga** systems of **philosophy** , as well as the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , all natural phenomena are made up of a combination of three basic gu\u1e47as: **sattva** (clarity, luminosity), **rajas** (dynamism), and **tamas** (inertia). In some texts, the term _gu\u1e47a_ refers to any good quality. **God** is therefore referred to as _gu\u1e47\u0101\u015braya_ , or \"abode of good qualities.\" As such, both God and the world are regarded in **Ved\u0101nta** as making up **Sagu\u1e47a Brahman** , or \" **Brahman** with qualities.\" **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** contrasts Sagu\u1e47a Brahman with **Nirgu\u1e47a Brahman** , or \"Brahman without qualities.\"\n\n**GUPTA.** Hindu royal dynasty that ruled much of northern India from 320 to 550 CE; the second of the three premodern Indian empires that controlled a substantial portion of the subcontinent, the first being the **Maurya** Empire and the third being that of the **Mughals**. In contrast with many dynasties that preceded them\u2014most notably that of the Mauryas\u2014which gave heavy patronage to **\u015brama\u1e47a** traditions such as **Buddhism** and **Jainism** , the Guptas were patrons chiefly of the **Brahmins**.\n\nThe Gupta period saw a massive burst of creativity in the areas of **artistic** and textual production. Many classic Hindu texts, like the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ and the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ , date to this era, as do the plays and poems of **K\u0101l\u012bd\u0101sa** , who is sometimes called the \"Shakespeare of **Sanskrit**.\"\n\n**GURU.** Teacher, spiritual teacher; literally, one who is \"heavy\" or \"weighty,\" important. Traditionally, a **brahmacarin** or **sanny\u0101sin** lives for a period of time in his guru's **\u0101\u015brama** , or place of spiritual retreat, which is typically in a remote location, away from the distractions of society. A guru will often be affiliated with a particular teaching lineage, or **sa\u1e43prad\u0101ya**. The disciples or students of a guru are called **\u015bi\u1e63yas**. A guru who is the leader, or **\u0101c\u0101rya** , of a sa\u1e43prad\u0101ya will choose one of his \u015bi\u1e63yas to succeed him as guru after his physical **death**. The tradition of succession from guru to \u015bi\u1e63ya is called the **guru-\u015bi\u1e63ya-para\u1e43para**. This idea of a teaching lineage is roughly analogous to the concept of apostolic succession in the Roman Catholic Church. In **Tantric** traditions and in **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** , the guru\u2013\u015bi\u1e63ya relationship is fairly formalized. One formally enters into this relationship, taking a particular teacher as one's guru and being accepted by that teacher as that teacher's \u015bi\u1e63ya, by taking **d\u012bk\u1e63a** , or initiation, from that person. Initiation typically involves the guru giving the new \u015bi\u1e63ya a **mantra** for the \u015bi\u1e63ya to use for the purpose of **meditation**. In many traditions, this mantra is secret\u2014not to be revealed by the \u015bi\u1e63ya to anyone, under any circumstances. A secret mantra given by one's guru is said to be particularly potent\u2014to possess **guru-\u015bakti** , the power of the entire teaching lineage.\n\n**GURU P\u016aR\u1e46IM\u0100.** Full-moon day of the Hindu month of **\u0100\u1e63\u0101\u1e0dha** (which corresponds roughly to the period from mid-June to mid-July); holiday devoted especially to paying respect to one's **guru** , or spiritual teacher.\n\n**GURU-\u015aAKTI.** The collective spiritual power of a **sa\u1e43prad\u0101ya** , or lineage of teachers and students, which is passed down from **guru** to disciple through the act of **d\u012bk\u1e63\u0101** , or initiation.\n\n**GURU-\u015aI\u1e62YA-PARA\u1e42PAR\u0100.** Literally, \"teacher-disciple from one to the other\"; the teacher\u2013disciple lineage; tradition; the unbroken succession of a spiritual tradition from teacher (or **guru** ) to student ( **\u015bi\u1e63ya** ). The student, in time, becomes the teacher to another group of students to whom the lineage is then passed. Those students themselves become teachers to other students, and so on.\n\n**GURUMAY\u012a (1955\u2013 ).** **Sw\u0101m\u012b Chidvilas\u0101nanda** , the current **guru** of the **Siddha Yoga** lineage, which was established by **Sw\u0101m\u012b Nity\u0101nanda** (1897\u20131961) and was perpetuated and popularized by **Sw\u0101m\u012b Mukt\u0101nanda** (1908\u20131982). Born Malti Shetty, Gurumay\u012b's parents were devotees of Sw\u0101m\u012b Mukt\u0101nanda during her childhood and frequent visitors to Mukt\u0101nanda's **Ga\u1e47e\u015bapuri** **\u0100\u015brama**. Initiated into the tradition through the ritual of **\u015baktipat** at the age of 14, she became Mukt\u0101nanda's English translator and accompanied him on three world tours.\n\nIn 1982, Shetty took her ascetic vows and joined the **Sarasvat\u012b** branch of the **Da\u015ban\u0101mi Order** , taking the name Sw\u0101m\u012b Chidvilas\u0101nanda (\"Bliss of the Play of Consciousness\"). Before he died in 1982, Sw\u0101m\u012b Mukt\u0101nanda designated both Gurumay\u012b and her brother, Sw\u0101m\u012b Nity\u0101nanda (Subhash Shetty), as his co-successors in leading the Siddha Yoga movement and organization. However, in 1985, Gurumay\u012b became the sole head of Siddha Yoga after a controversial falling out with her brother. Theologically, Siddha Yoga draws on both **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaivism** and **Ved\u0101nta**. Having a heavily **Tantric** emphasis, the practice centers around the experience of the **ku\u1e47\u1e0dalini** energy through the mediation of the guru, who is a major object of **devotion**.\n\n**GURUV\u0100RA.** Thursday, the day of the week that is governed by the planet Jupiter. The presiding deity of the planet Jupiter is the sage **B\u1e5bhaspati** , the **guru** of the **Vedic** deities, or **devas** \u2014hence the name _Guruv\u0101ra_ for this day. _See also_ CALENDAR, HINDU.\n\n**GURUVAY\u016aR.** Town in the coastal state of **Kerala** , in southern India; a pilgrimage center famous for its **temple** to **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** in his infant form. Every year a series of eight **dance** dramas is performed in the **K\u016b\u1e6diy\u0101\u1e6d\u1e6dam** style that depicts events from K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's life.\n\n**GWALIOR.** Town located in the northern part of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Historically it has been a site of great military importance and the capital city of several Indian kingdoms from the 15th century to the modern period.\n\n## H\n\n**HALEBID.** Site located in southern **Karnataka** ; home to a variety of **temples** dating to the 11th and 12th centuries CE. The temples, built by the Hoysala dynasty, are among the most elaborately carved Hindu temples in India, with walls and pillars that appear to be almost alive with motion, due to practically every space upon them being carved with realistic figures of deities enacting scenes from the Hindu scriptures.\n\n**HANUMAN.** Ape deity, helper of **R\u0101ma** , and general of the animal army that assists R\u0101ma in his siege upon **La\u1e45ka** in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_. Hanuman is said to represent the ideal of **bhakti**. His profound devotion to R\u0101ma enables him to perform great feats of strength that include leaping across the ocean from India to La\u1e45ka to discover the fate of **S\u012bt\u0101** and lifting an entire mountain in order to bring a healing herb to **Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a** , who has been wounded in battle. Though a devotee of R\u0101ma, and often represented iconographically with R\u0101ma, S\u012bt\u0101, and Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a as a loyal servant bowing or kneeling at their feet, for many Hindus, Hanuman is a deity in his own right. According to one **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition, Hanuman is an **avat\u0101ra** of **\u015aiva** who came to Earth to assist R\u0101ma in his struggle with the wicked **R\u0101va\u1e47a**. Hanuman's great physical strength is also attributed to the fact that he is the son of the wind god, **V\u0101yu**.\n\n**HARA.** Destroyer. Also the destroyer of evil, or the destroyer of the universe at the end of a cosmic cycle, in order that a new universe might emerge to take its place. Epithet of **\u015aiva**.\n\n**HARAPPA.** Location in modern Pakistan and site of one of the two largest cities of the Harappan, or **Indus Valley** , or **Indus-Sarasvat\u012b civilization** , the other major site being **Mohenjo-Daro**. _See also_ HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION.\n\n**HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION.** Also known as the **Indus Valley** or **Indus-Sarasvat\u012b** **civilization**. The largest Harappan site is located at **Mohenjo-Daro**. Both Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro had populations ranging from 40,000 to 50,000, making them by far the largest cities of the ancient world. The civilization as a whole had a massive population, for its time, of over 5,000,000.\n\nThe Harappan civilization was at the height of its technological development from 2600 to 1900 BCE, although it displays archaeological continuity with other sites in the region, such as Mehrgarh, that date from as early as 7000 BCE. There is a great deal of fascination with this civilization because of its high level of technological advancement, the fact that its **script** has not yet been deciphered, and the fact that certain practices\u2014and perhaps corresponding concepts\u2014of Hinduism may have originated with this civilization.\n\nIt was believed at one time that this civilization had been destroyed in the **\u0100ryan** **invasion** , but this idea has since been discredited, the dominant theory now being that the civilization declined due to earthquakes and floods.\n\n**HARDW\u0100R (HARIDV\u0100RA).** \"Door to **Hari** ( **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** )\"; \"Vi\u1e63\u1e47u's Gate\"; popular and very holy pilgrimage site on the river **Ga\u1e45g\u0101**. Hardw\u0101r is one of the sites of the **Kumbha Mel\u0101**. The sage **K\u0101pila** is believed to have practiced **asceticism** here. It also has a Vi\u1e63\u1e47u **temple** featuring a stone bearing his footprints. **Dak\u1e63a** 's sacrifice, which was destroyed by **\u015aiva** after **Sat\u012b** immolated herself, is also said to have occurred on the site of Hardw\u0101r. Finally, Hardw\u0101r is one of several sites on the Ga\u1e45g\u0101 where it is believed to be especially auspicious to deposit the ashes of one's departed loved ones and perform the **\u015br\u0101ddha** rite in honor of one's ancestors. _See also_ ANCESTRAL RITES.\n\n**HARE KRISHNA MOVEMENT.** Popular name for the **Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition brought to the West by **Bhaktived\u0101nta Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhup\u0101da**. _See also_ INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS.\n\n**HARI.** \"Remover of sins\"; also \"yellowish green\"; epithet of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**.\n\n**HARIHARA.** Composite deity made up of both **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ( **Hari** ) and **\u015aiva** ( **Hara** ). The right half of the deity depicts \u015aiva and the left half depicts Vi\u1e63\u1e47u. Harihara symbolizes the ultimate unity of the two deities and the religious traditions centered upon them. \u015aiva represents the forces of entropy and chaos in the universe and Vi\u1e63\u1e47u represents the forces of order. In these terms, Harihara represents a state of balance between the two.\n\nOne of the oldest representations of Harihara dates from the sixth century of the Common Era and is located at **B\u0101d\u0101m\u012b** , in the southern Indian state of **Karnataka**.\n\n**HARIJAN.** \"Children of God\"; a term that was coined by **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** for the **Untouchables** and other persons of low **caste**. This term was rejected by **Bh\u012bmrao Ambedkar** as patronizing. The term _Dalit_ \u2014\"the oppressed\"\u2014also employed by members of these castes, emphasizes the suffering this group has endured as a result of **casteism**. Both terms\u2014 _Harijan_ and _Dalit_ \u2014have their own political implications, and use of one or the other seems to map onto the attitude of the person employing it toward Hinduism and the degree to which it is seen to be in need of either reform or complete rejection. This, however, is difficult to verify in a scientific fashion, and one does find persons who use the two terms interchangeably. The formal term preferred by the government of India is **Scheduled Castes**.\n\n_HARIVA\u1e42\u015aA_ **.** \"Lineage (or genealogy) of Hari ( **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** )\"; a three-part **Sanskrit** text that is often appended to the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and is sometimes regarded, because of its subject matter, as one of the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_. The first section of this work presents the history of the **Yadava** clan, of which **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** was a member. The second section focuses specifically on the life of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, particularly the episodes of his youth that are not covered in depth in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. The third section consists of prophecies regarding the rest of the current era, or **Kali Yuga** , which begins with K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's **death**.\n\n**HARRISON, GEORGE** **(1943\u20132001).** Member of the Beatles who was known for his deep interest in Hinduism and particularly for his roles in promoting both the **Hare Krishna movement** and the practice of **Transcendental Meditation** among his fans in Europe and North America, as well as his promotion of Indian classical **music** , notably the sitar. He was associated, along with the other Beatles, with the **Maharishi Mahesh Yogi** , but his more enduring relationship was with **Bhaktived\u0101nta Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhup\u0101da**.\n\nHarrison's interest in Hinduism was sparked by an interest in Indian music, which prompted him to befriend **Ravi Shankar** , from whom he learned to play the sitar. Hindu themes were a prominent part of Harrison's song lyrics from 1967 until his death in 2001, his most famous Hindu-influenced song being his 1970 hit, \"My Sweet Lord.\"\n\n**HAR\u1e62A (590\u2013647 CE).** Har\u1e63a is regarded, along with A\u015boka and **Akbar** , as one of the great emperors of Indian history. After the decline of the **Gupta** dynasty, the second great empire after that of the Maurya to unite much of the Indian subcontinent, Har\u1e63a succeeded in developing a large and prosperous kingdom, in which education and culture could thrive. The period of Har\u1e63a's reign is one of the best documented in ancient Indian history, being covered in great detail in two texts composed during his time: the _Har\u1e63a Carita_ , or biography of Har\u1e63a, written by the **Sanskrit** **poet** B\u0101\u1e47a, and the travelogue of Xuanzang, a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled extensively in India during Har\u1e63a's reign, writing in vivid detail about India's natural features, society, and forms of political administration.\n\nOne reason for Har\u1e63a's success was his longevity. A talented administrator, he was able to oversee his kingdom for 41 years, ruling from 606 to 647 CE. He died without an heir, however, and did not leave a strong administrative structure to succeed him, relying on his own talents and the force of his personality to rule his kingdom. It therefore suffered the same fate of other Indian empires and disintegrated into a number of small kingdoms after his **death**.\n\nHarsha hailed from what is now the state of Haryana, in northwestern India, from the city of Thanesar, though he later moved his capital to the city of Kanyakubja, now known as Kannauj, in what is now the state of Uttar Pradesh, on the banks of the **Ga\u1e45g\u0101**. The early years of his reign were preoccupied with warfare with \u015aa\u015ba\u1e45kha, king of Gau\u1e0da, in what is now **Bengal**.\n\nLike A\u015boka before him and Akbar to follow, Har\u1e63a practiced a policy of tolerance toward all the religions practiced in his realm, giving patronage to **Buddhism** , **Jainism** , and the various Hindu sects. Har\u1e63a himself came from a **\u015aaiva** family. But he was also a generous patron of Buddhism, particularly Mah\u0101y\u0101na Buddhism. In Xuanzang's account, Har\u1e63a's conflict with \u015aa\u015ba\u1e45kha is cast as a religious war between Buddhism and **\u015aaivism** , with \u015aa\u015ba\u1e45kha being depicted as an archpersecutor of the Buddhists and Har\u1e63a as their champion. Scholars suspect, however, that this is a biased account, given the prevalence of mixed religious allegiances in ancient India. Har\u1e63a continued to support \u015aaivism while also supporting Buddhism, and some of the most prominent Buddhist educational institutions in India, such as the great monastic university of Nalanda, were in \u015aa\u015ba\u1e45kha's kingdom.\n\nA play written by Har\u1e63a, _N\u0101g\u0101nanda_ , reflects Har\u1e63a's mixed religious allegiance. The play is essentially a Buddhist one, being a retelling of a _J\u0101taka_ tale, or story of one of the Buddha's past lives. But Har\u1e63a makes the goddess **Gaur\u012b** , the wife of \u015aiva, a prominent figure in his play\u2014an incorporation that is his own innovation.\n\n**HA\u1e6cHA YOGA.** Literally \"the **Yoga** of Force\"; system of physical postures, stretches, and breathing exercises attributed to the 12th-century **N\u0101th Yog\u012b** ascetic **Gorakhn\u0101th**. When most Westerners use or hear the term **yoga** , they usually have this system in mind. The original purpose of this system is not, however, the pursuit of physical health as an end in itself but to prepare the physical body for higher yogic disciplines like **meditation** and the **Tantric** practice of raising the **Ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b**.\n\nStarting in the early 20th century and continuing to the present day, many innovations have been made in Ha\u1e6dha Yoga. A number of the stretches and **\u0101sanas** used in contemporary Ha\u1e6dha Yoga are not part of Gorakhn\u0101th's original system, and many of these innovations have come from the West. _See also_ A\u1e62\u1e6c\u0100\u1e44GA YOGA.\n\n**HAVAN.** Literally \"offering\"; a **Vedic** ritual of sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ) of **ghee** and aromatic powders into the sacred fire ( **Agni** ). This ritual, intended for purification, is a variant of the ancient **Agnihotra** yaj\u00f1a. Traditionally the preserve of orthodox **Brahmins** , popular and widespread practice of this ritual on a regular basis has been heavily promoted in the modern period, particularly by the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j**.\n\n**HEAVEN.** _See_ SVARGA; VAIKU\u1e46\u1e6cHA.\n\n**HELL.** _See_ NARAKA; P\u0100T\u0100LA.\n\n**HIM\u0100LAYA.** Abode of snow; the Him\u0101layan mountain range that forms the northern boundary of the Indian subcontinent. The Him\u0101layas are religiously significant to Hindus for several reasons. The home of **\u015aiva** and **P\u0101rvat\u012b** , Mount **Kail\u0101sa** , is located in this mountain range. The melting snows of the Him\u0101layas are also the source of many sacred rivers, including the **Ga\u1e45g\u0101**. These mountains have been a popular destination for **sanny\u0101sins** who dwell and practice **meditation** within Him\u0101layan caves.\n\n**HINDI.** One of India's many official languages; mother tongue to roughly 40 percent of the people of India and medium of a popular film and **music** industry. It should not be confused with the term _Hindu_.\n\n**HINDU.** _See_ HINDUISM.\n\n**HINDU AMERICAN FOUNDATION (HAF).** Organization established in 2004 in order to advocate for the Hindu community in the United States and globally. Modeling itself on such minority advocacy groups as the Anti-Defamation League, the Hindu American Foundation has published reports on violations of the rights of Hindus around the world, as well as a report on anti-Hindu hate speech on the Internet. It has also produced and circulated **literature** , aimed primarily at journalists, that is intended to correct common misconceptions about Hinduism. Most controversially, the HAF was party to a legal dispute over the representation of Hinduism in high school textbooks in the California school system. This, in turn, led to accusations by some scholars that members of the foundation had **Hindu Nationalist** leanings. The stated goals of the Hindu American Foundation, though, emphasize this organization's strong commitment to the shared Hindu and American ideals of tolerance and pluralism, which would seem to be incompatible with such a political orientation.\n\n**HINDU CALENDAR.** _See_ CALENDAR, HINDU.\n\n**HINDU DHARMA \u0100C\u0100RYA SABH\u0100.** Organization of **\u0101c\u0101ryas** , or leaders of Hindu **sa\u1e43prad\u0101yas** , or denominations, established in 2002 by **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b (1930\u2013 )**. The Hindu Dharma \u0100c\u0101rya Sabh\u0101 has a membership of over 100 \u0101c\u0101ryas and is an attempt to bring greater institutional cohesion to Hinduism in order to advance a number of interests and concerns shared across many sa\u1e43prad\u0101yas. Noteworthy **actions** of the Hindu Dharma \u0100c\u0101rya Sabh\u0101 include a 2008 summit between the Sabh\u0101 and the chief rabbis of Israel in order to facilitate dialogue between Hinduism and Judaism, as well as many proclamations that condemn religious proselytizing as a form of cultural violence against indigenous religions.\n\n**HINDU MAH\u0100SABH\u0100.** **Hindu Nationalist** organization established in 1909 by Pandit Mohan Malaviya with the assistance of other members of the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j**. During the struggle for Indian independence, the Hindu Mah\u0101sabh\u0101 advocated violent revolution. It subsequently became a political party, but it has recently been eclipsed by the **Bharat\u012bya Janat\u0101 Party** (BJP) as the primary voice of Hindu Nationalism in India. It has close ties to other Hindu Nationalist groups, such as the **R\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dr\u012bya Svayamsevak Sa\u1e45gh** (RSS) and the **Vi\u015bva Hindu Pari\u1e63ad** (VHP).\n\n**HINDU NATIONALISM.** Also known as **Hindutva** ; political ideology loosely united around the concept of India as a Hindu state. Hindutva, or \"Hinduness,\" as defined by **Vinayak Damodhar Savarkar (1883\u20131966)** in an essay of the same name, is a conception of Hindu identity that conflates it with Indian identity. According to Savarkar, a Hindu is one who is of Indian descent, who claims India as his or her homeland, and who adheres to a religion of Indian origin. Indians who do not practice a religion of Indian origin are often seen by Hindu Nationalists as less Indian than self-identified Hindus. But though Savarkar's definition would seem to preclude the possibility of non-Indians being Hindu, non-Indian Hindus are generally welcomed as Hindus by Hindu Nationalists as persons sympathetic to Hinduism.\n\nHindu Nationalism has been widely criticized both by political opponents within India and by scholars globally. As an ideology that advocates an identification of Indian-ness with Hinduness, Hindu Nationalism is at cross-purposes with the ideal of secularism on which the Indian constitution is based, according to which all religions are welcome in India and all Indians are free to practice whichever religion they choose. Some within the Hindu Nationalist movement, however, openly advocate a Hindu state.\n\nThere is also a close association of militant Hindu Nationalist rhetoric with actual violence against religious minority communities in India, especially Muslims. **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu Nationalist who felt G\u0101ndh\u012b had betrayed the Hindu community by allowing the partition of India and Pakistan. Hindu Nationalists, for their part, criticize what some call the \"pseudo-secularism\" of the Indian government, whose protection of minority communities the Hindu Nationalists regard as appeasement carried out at the expense of the Hindu majority. The Hindu Nationalist organizations, forming a loose coalition known as the **Sa\u1e45gh Parivar** , include such groups as the **R\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dr\u012bya Svayamsevak Sa\u1e45gh** (RSS), the **Vi\u015bva Hindu Pari\u1e63ad** (VHP), and the **Bharat\u012bya Janat\u0101 Party** (BJP).\n\n**HINDUISM.** The religion practiced by Hindus is a highly internally diversified family of traditions that were generally not, until the modern period, seen as forming one unified whole. The word _Hindu_ itself is derived from the Persian pronunciation of _Sindhu_ , the **Sanskrit** name for the river known to the Greeks as the **Indus**. This was the term for the people of India among non-Indians for many centuries. The word simply meant \"Indian\" and had no specifically religious connotations until the time of **Al-B\u012br\u016bn\u012b** (973\u20131048), an Arab Muslim scholar who traveled in India and wrote extensively about Indian religious customs in his _Kitab al-Hind_ (\"Book of India\"). Al-B\u012br\u016bn\u012b's account of the \"religion of the Hindus\" remained an authoritative source outside India for many centuries, until more detailed studies were made by Christian missionaries and other European scholars during the period of British colonial rule.\n\nBut as more detailed knowledge of Indian religiosity emerged, it became clear that not all Indians practiced the same religion, and a great deal of religious variety was present in the subcontinent. Some Indians practiced religions brought to India from outside\u2014traditions such as **Islam** , **Christianity** , Judaism, and **Zorastrianism**. The religions native to India included some traditions that affirmed the sanctity of the _Vedas_ ( **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** , **\u015aaiva** , **\u015a\u0101kta** , and **Sm\u0101rta** traditions) and some that did not ( **Jainism, Buddhism** , and **Sikhism** ). Over time, scholarly and popular usage has come to define _Hinduism_ as Vedic religion, although **Hindu Nationalists** continue to use the term _Hindu_ to refer to all traditions of Indic origin (despite the objections of many Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs). In 1995, the Supreme Court of India defined Hinduism as \"Acceptance of the _Vedas_ with reverence; recognition of the fact that the means or ways to salvation are diverse; and the realization of the **truth** that the number of gods to be worshiped is large, that indeed is the distinguishing feature of Hindu religion.\" Whether one must be born a Hindu or can \"convert,\" becoming Hindu despite being born in another tradition, remains a disputed question.\n\nThe foreign origins of the terms _Hindu_ and _Hinduism_ , combined with the fact that the definitions of these terms was largely a function of a colonial scholarly discourse, has led some scholars to argue that these terms are not appropriate. Some Hindus have come to the same conclusion, preferring to refer to their traditions collectively not as _Hinduism_ but as _San\u0101tana Dharma_.\n\n**HINDUPHOBIA.** Aversion to Hindus or to Hinduism; cultural bias, possibly ethnically motivated, against Hindus, Hinduism, or both. This term was first coined by independent scholar **Rajiv Malhotra** in response to what he perceived as anti-Hindu bias in academic writing on Hinduism. The term has also been used by the **Hindu American Foundation** to describe the anti-Hindu rhetoric of **Christian** fundamentalist organizations as found on the Internet. The term is controversial, with academic scholars of Hinduism and religious groups that have been accused of Hinduphobia objecting that legitimate disagreements or differences of interpretation have been placed by Hindu critics on the same level as racist hate speech. At the same time, some writing on Hinduism, particularly on the Internet, clearly exhibits an anti-Hindu bias. It seems that Hinduphobia can sometimes be in the eye of the beholder and can sometimes be a genuine phenomenon.\n\n**HINDUST\u0100N.** \"Land of the Hindus\" or \"Land beyond the Hindu (the **Sindhu** or **Indus** ) River\"; Persian name for India, still frequently in use among speakers of **Hindi** and Urdu.\n\n**HINDUTVA.** _See_ HINDU NATIONALISM.\n\n**HIRA\u1e46YAGARBHA.** \"Golden Embryo.\" According to several **creation** stories in the **Vedic** **literature** , the cosmos emerged from a golden egg floating on an infinite ocean of nonexistence. According to some accounts, **Brahm\u0101** emerged from this egg and began the process of creation.\n\n**HIRA\u1e46YAKA\u015aIPU.** \"Golden-robed\"; one of the **Daityas** (sons of **Diti** ). Personifying ignorance, he is said to have ruled over the entire Earth. He held a deep hatred for **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. Annoyed by his son **Prahl\u0101da** 's equally deep devotion to Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu taunted Prahl\u0101da. Once, asking Prahl\u0101da where Vi\u1e63\u1e47u could be found, Prahl\u0101da answered that Vi\u1e63\u1e47u (whose name means \"all-pervasive\") was everywhere, even inside a nearby stone pillar. On hearing this, Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu kicked the pillar. The pillar then broke open and Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, in the form of the **Narasi\u1e43ha** , or man-lion **avat\u0101ra** , came forth. The man-lion grabbed Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu, placed him on his lap, and slew him. This event occurred at dusk. The circumstances surrounding the **death** of Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu were a result of the fact that he was magically protected from any attack by man or beast (the Narasi\u1e43ha was neither), on the ground or in the air (which is why Narasi\u1e43ha held him in his lap), and by day or night (making dusk and dawn times of vulnerability for him).\n\n**HIRA\u1e46YAK\u1e62A.** \"Golden-eyed\"; one of the **Daityas** (sons of **Diti** ). Personifying, like his brother **Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu** , ignorance that is overcome by divine wisdom, Hira\u1e47yak\u1e63a is said to have cast the Earth into the cosmic ocean, from which it was rescued by the boar **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** \u2014 **Var\u0101ha** \u2014who then slew Hira\u1e47yak\u1e63a (thereby evoking Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu's enmity).\n\n**HIRIYANNA, M. (1871\u20131950). Indologist**. Based in Mysore, **Karnataka** , Hiriyanna authored numerous works on Indian **philosophy** , particularly **Ved\u0101nta**. His most famous work is probably his _Outlines of Indian Philosophy_.\n\n**HOL\u012a (HOLIK\u0100).** Spring festival held on the **P\u016br\u1e47im\u0101** (full-moon day) of the lunar month of **Phalguna** (February\u2013March), celebrated by both Hindus and **Sikhs**. This playful festival is celebrated by throwing brightly colored powders and liquids on friends, family members, and passersby. It is a celebration of the renewal of life at springtime.\n\nThe name of the festival comes from the name of a female demon, the sister of **Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu** , who sought to burn her nephew **Prahl\u0101da** , a devotee of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , to **death**. Prahl\u0101da was spared, and it was Holik\u0101 who ended up burning to death\u2014an event that this holiday commemorates.\n\n**HOLY MOTHER.** Epithet of **Sarad\u0101 Dev\u012b**.\n\n**HOMA.** A very basic **Vedic** sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ) that consists of the ritual offering of **ghee** (clarified butter) to **Agni** (the sacred fire); part of the daily **Agnihotra** ritual traditionally performed by orthodox **Brahmins** and promoted for widespread practice in the modern period by the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j**. _See also_ HAVAN.\n\n**HOPKINS, E. WASHBURN (1857\u20131932).** **Indologist** ; author of a number of works on the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and professor of **Sanskrit** at Yale University from 1895 to 1926. By his own account, Hopkins had a decidedly negative view of **Jainism** , which he once infamously said \"has indeed no right to exist.\"\n\n**HORSE SACRIFICE.** _See_ A\u015aVAMEDHA.\n\n**HOT\u1e5a.** **Brahmin** priest whose role in the **Vedic** sacrifice, or **yaj\u00f1a** , is to chant selected verses from the _\u1e5ag Veda_ as appropriate to the ritual context.\n\n**HOUSEHOLDER.** _See_ \u0100\u015aRAMA; G\u0100RHASTHYA.\n\n**HUXLEY, ALDOUS (1894\u20131963).** English author and adherent of **Ved\u0101nta**. Huxley's best-known works include _The Perennial Philosophy_ , _Brave New World_ , and _The Doors of Perception_. Huxley immigrated to the United States in 1937. His close association with Ved\u0101nta\u2014specifically, the **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** tradition of **Ramakrishna** and **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** \u2014began in 1939, when he met **Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhav\u0101nanda** , the founder and head of the **Ved\u0101nta Society** of Southern California. Huxley received **d\u012bk\u1e63\u0101** , or formal initiation into the Ved\u0101nta tradition, from Prabhav\u0101nanda and began a regular practice of **meditation**.\n\nVed\u0101ntic themes pervade Huxley's writings\u2014sometimes in a very obvious way, at other times more subtly. He was fascinated, even before his practice of Ved\u0101nta, with the hidden potentials of the human **mind** and had a deep interest in psychic research. He was among the early advocates of using psychedelic drugs to expand consciousness and one of the heroes of the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s.\n\nHuxley is at his most Ved\u0101ntic in _The Perennial Philosophy_ , where he advocates the idea of a universal wisdom present in the teachings of the mystics of all the world's great religious and philosophical traditions\u2014\"the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the **knowledge** of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being.\" This idea of a **perennial philosophy** is close to the Neo-Ved\u0101nta tradition's teaching of religious pluralism, which is based upon the multireligious practices of Sri Ramakrishna, according to which many traditions contain deep **truths** and can serve as vehicles toward **God-realization**. Critics, however, argue that the many quotations from various traditions that Huxley cites have been taken out of their original contexts.\n\n## I\n\n**ICONOGRAPHY.** _See_ DAR\u015aANA; IMAGES IN WORSHIP; M\u016aRTI.\n\n**IL\u0100.** The **goddess** of the **Earth** , the wife of **Dyau\u1e25 Pit\u1e5b** , the heavenly father. _See also_ BH\u016a; BH\u016aDEV\u012a; P\u1e5aTHV\u012a.\n\n**IMAGES IN WORSHIP.** Images, or **m\u016brtis** , have been an integral part of Hindu ritual for millennia. The specific ritual significance of the apparently religious images of the **Indus Valley civilization** is not clear. But resemblances to later imagery are suggestive of some continuity between that ancient culture and later Hindu practice. Though there is occasional mention of the physical appearance of some of the **devas** or deities of **Vedic** religion, physical evidence suggests that Vedic religious practice was centered not on concrete images but on the sacred fire. By the Common Era, though, images of the Hindu deities constructed from a wide array of materials\u2014stone, clay, wood, marble, and metal\u2014are very much in evidence, and continue to play an important role to the present time.\n\nThe theology behind **m\u016brti-p\u016bj\u0101** , or image worship, is developed most fully by the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava Ved\u0101ntic** **\u0101c\u0101rya** **R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja**. According to R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja's thought, as in the Abrahamic monotheistic traditions, **God** is all-pervasive. But in order to accommodate human devotees, God is willing to take on a physical form, becoming embodied in such a form in order to facilitate **bhakti** (devotion). When an image in a **temple** is consecrated, it becomes the \"seat\" or \"abode\" of the deity it represents. Devotees can then approach the deity as they would a respected human guest, offering gifts of food, flowers, water for drinking and bathing, clothing, incense, and so on. It is not that the image itself is divine, any more (or less) than any other object is divine, divinity being omnipresent. But such a practice allows human beings to express their devotion and to increase that devotion by the process of worship ( **p\u016bj\u0101** ). Because the use of images in worship is forbidden in the Abrahamic traditions, this Hindu practice has historically evoked very negative reactions from **Christians** and Muslims who have encountered it. The prevention of \"idolatry\" has been used as an ideological justification for the destruction of Hindu temples, and the association of the religious use of images with superstition has been used as a rhetorical device to denigrate Hinduism as less rational than \"pure\" Abrahamic **monotheism**.\n\nIn the modern period, many Hindu reformers, such as **R\u0101m Mohan Roy** (1772\u20131833) and **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b** (1824\u20131883), have absorbed these criticisms of the use of images in worship. When combined with the fact that the Vedic **literature** does not appear to endorse (nor even to be aware of) such practices, these reformers have shown a kind of Protestant zeal to put an end to Hindu \"idolatry\" in the name of \"purifying\" the tradition. But the organizations established by Roy and Day\u0101nanda\u2014the **Brahmo Sam\u0101j** and **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j** , respectively\u2014have been outliers in this regard, with mainstream Hindus continuing to practice m\u016brti-p\u016bj\u0101, though this practice is frequently accompanied by a defensive effort to explain its significance in monotheistic terms.\n\n**IMMORTALITY. Am\u1e5bta** ; elixir of life churned from the cosmic ocean by the **devas** and **asuras**. As an objection of religious aspiration, immortality is characterized in some **Vedic** texts not as literal deathlessness, but as a long, full, and healthy life span, perhaps of a hundred years. Even the **gods** of Hinduism are not literally deathless but live only for the length of a **kalpa** , or cosmic epoch, merging back with the rest of the universe in the great dissolution that ends one of these vast periods.\n\nThe doctrines of **karma** , **rebirth** , and **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from rebirth, require one to approach the topic of immortality in different terms when looking at Hinduism and other Indic traditions than one might normally expect from a conventional Western point of view. An unending existence in a physical body is not seen, in most Hindu traditions, as a particularly desirable thing. The goal, rather, is being free from **death** by being free from rebirth. Immortality is therefore conceived, such as in the famous prayer from the _Upani\u1e63ads_ that asks, \"Lead from the unreal to the real; lead me from darkness to light; lead me from death to immortality,\" not as a state of unending physical existence but as freedom from rebirth. Only the soul ( **\u0101tman** , **j\u012bv\u0101tman** ) is truly immortal in the sense of being completely free from death. It is the temporary, periodic identification of the soul with a body that makes it experience death. If the soul ceases to identify with a body, it is free from this experience.\n\n**INDO-\u0100RYAN.** Subset of the **Indo-European** language family consisting of **Sanskrit** and the other northern Indian languages related to it. Early Indo-\u0100ryan includes **Vedic** and classical **Sanskrit**. Middle Indo-\u0100ryan consists of the various **Pr\u0101krit** vernacular languages commonly used in ancient and early medieval India\u2014including the P\u0101l\u012b and Ardha-M\u0101gadh\u012b languages of the **Buddhist** and **Jain** scriptures, respectively. Late Indo-\u0100ryan includes modern northern Indian languages such as **Hindi** , Bengali, Mar\u0101thi, and Gujarati, among others. The term _Indo-\u0100ryan_ does not refer to an ethnic group but only to language and culture. _See also_ \u0100RYAN.\n\n**INDO-EUROPEAN.** Language family that includes **Sanskrit** and the other languages of northern India that are related to it, as well as a host of languages spoken in other parts of Eurasia, including ancient and modern Iranian and Persian, Armenian, Hittite, Greek, Latin (and the Romance languages derived from it), and the Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic languages. The close affinities between these languages and the cultures in which they are spoken form the basis for their being regarded as a \"family.\" Speculation regarding the origins of this family and close studies of the extent of the affinities between them and of non-Indo-European \"substrate\" elements contained within them have led to the theory that all of these languages are derived from a common source dubbed \"Proto-Indo-European\" by linguists. The explanation given for the dispersal of Proto-Indo-European linguistic and cultural elements across Eurasia is an actual movement of peoples from a presumed homeland. Though an undisputed consensus has not yet been reached, scholars generally maintain that this homeland was located somewhere in the vicinity of the Black and Caspian Seas, in Central Asia.\n\nThe location of the Indo-European homeland is a matter of contention in the study of India, due to the belief among some Hindu scholars that the Indo-European homeland must have been India, and that Sanskrit is the oldest Indo-European language (possibly Proto-Indo-European). The latter claim is unlikely to be true, given the presence of non-Indo-European substrate elements in Sanskrit. But critics of a Central Asian homeland point to ambiguities in the evidence that could support either an east-to-west or a west-to-east migration pattern. The entire conversation is highly politically charged, in part due to the fact that the idea of an Indo-European homeland became bound in the early part of the 20th century with Nazi ideology and the concept of a \"pure, white race.\" _See also_ \u0100RYAN; \u0100RYAN INVASION THEORY; \u0100RYAN MIGRATION THEORY; INDO-\u0100RYAN; OUT OF INDIA THEORY.\n\n**INDOLOGISTS, INDOLOGY.** Indology is the academic study of India and of Indian culture, with an Indologist being a scholar who pursues Indology. This term has largely been superseded in North America by the term \"South Asian Studies\" (due to the fact that the modern-day Republic of India does not exhaust the region still widely known as the Indian subcontinent). Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, history, linguistics, **philosophy** , and religious studies, Indology was one of the first \"area studies\" to develop in Western universities.\n\nOne of the first Indologists was **Sir William Jones** (1746\u20131794 **)** , who founded the **Royal Asiatic Society** in **Calcutta** in 1784. A brilliant linguist, Jones was one of several scholars who discovered the **Indo-European** language family, discerning the similarities between **Sanskrit** and both ancient and modern European languages. Early Indologists focus much of their work on the translation of ancient Indian texts, such as the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ (translated in 1785 by Charles Wilkins) and the _\u1e5ag Veda_ (translated between 1850 and 1888 by **Horace Hayman Wilson** ).\n\n**Friedrich Max M\u00fcller** (1823\u20131900), a giant in the field of Indology, oversaw the translation of numerous Sanskrit texts through his _Sacred Books of the East_ series. He is also known for developing the **\u0100ryan Invasion** \u2014later modified to the **\u0100ryan Migration** \u2014theory of **Vedic** origins. M\u00fcller was also the first Western scholar to become aware of **Ramakrishna** , writing one of the first works in a European language on the life and teachings of this Hindu saint.\n\nA multitude of other scholars\u2014American, European, and Indian\u2014have contributed to the field of Indology through the years. Prominent names include, but are by no means limited to, **A. L. Basham** , **Norman Brown** , **R. N. Dandekar** , **S. N. Dasgupta** , **S. K. De** , **Wendy Doniger** , **Georges Dum\u00e9zil** , **Mircea Eliade** , **M. Hiriyanna** , **S. Radhakrishnan** , **Romila Thapar** , **J. A. B. Van Buitenen** , and **Robert Charles Zaehner**.\n\nIn its earliest stages, Indology was closely tied to the colonial enterprise, and area studies in general remain heavily funded by government interests, including the Departments of Defense and State. This historical inheritance has led, in recent decades, to a good deal of self-critical scholarship and reflection on the ideological assumptions and effects of Indological scholarship\u2014a conversation recently joined by independent Hindu scholars such as **Rajiv Malhotra** who have questioned the validity of much academic scholarship on Hinduism, a topic that has become highly politically charged. _See also_ GONDA, JAN; HOPKINS, E. WASHBURN; KANE, P. V.; INGALLS, DANIEL H. H.; MAJUMDAR, R. C.; RAGHAVAN, V.; RAMANUJAN, A. K.; SUKTHANKAR, V. S.\n\n**INDRA.** Lord of the **devas** , or **Vedic** deities; god of thunder and lightning who rides a **chariot** through the sky, destroying monsters with his thunderbolt weapon; one of the 12 **\u0100dityas** (sons of **Aditi** ). Indra is mentioned more frequently than any other deity in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , indicating his importance in ancient Vedic religion, though he is a figure of less importance in later Hinduism (playing relatively minor roles in the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ , _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , and _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ). Along with his fellow deities **Agni** , **Varu\u1e47a** , and **Yama** , Indra is one of the four **Lokap\u0101las** , or \"World Guardians.\" Apart from guarding the realms of fire, the ocean, the underworld, and the sky, respectively, these four deities are frequently invoked early in ritualistic worship, or **p\u016bj\u0101** , in order to help ensure that the ritual will be completed without mishap.\n\nIn the _Vedas_ , Indra is most famous for destroying the demon **V\u1e5btra** , who had trapped the world's waters and its cows inside his mountain cave. Indra destroys V\u1e5btra and sets the waters and cows free, allowing the Earth to flourish. He is in many ways comparable to other **Indo-European** sky deities, such as the Greek Zeus and the Norse Thor. The latter's slaying of the Midgard serpent strongly resembles the battle between Indra and V\u1e5btra. _See also_ INDRA-DHVAJA FESTIVAL; JARJARA.\n\n**INDRA-DHVAJA FESTIVAL.** Festival celebrating **Indra** 's victory over the forces of evil and chaos. A _dhvaja_ is a banner or flag, and the celebration of this festival includes the setting up of a large pole representing Indra's flagpole. The festival is held on the full-moon day or **P\u016br\u1e47im\u0101** of the lunar month of **K\u0101rtika** (October\u2013November).\n\n**INDRAPRASTHA.** Ancient capital of the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** ' kingdom in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , located in the general vicinity of **New Delhi**.\n\n**INDRIYAS.** The senses; in most forms of **yoga** , the senses need to be restrained\u2014that is, brought under the control of the **mind**. In **Tantra** , the senses can be used as a medium to experience divine realities, and thus to transcend themselves.\n\n**INDUS RIVER.** _Indus_ , from which India gets its name, is the Greek name for the river **Sindhu** , which flows from the **Him\u0101layas** to the Arabian Sea through the middle of what is now Pakistan. The **Indus Valley civilization** was centered on this river.\n\n**INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION.** Also known as the **Indus Valley** , the **Harappan** , or the **Indus-Sarasvat\u012b** **civilization**. The largest and longest-known sites connected with this civilization are located at **Mohenjo-Daro** and **Harappa** in the Indus River valley in contemporary Pakistan. Both of these cities had populations, at the height of the Indus civilization, ranging from 40,000 to 50,000, making them by far the largest cities of the ancient world. Comparable cities in the ancient Near East had populations of, on the high side, 10,000. The civilization as a whole had a massive population for its time, over 5,000,000. The cities were planned in advance, rather than growing organically from a smaller habitation, and indicate a high degree of engineering ability.\n\nThe Indus Valley civilization was at the height of its technological development from 2600 to 1900 BCE, although it displays archaeological continuity with other sites in the region, such as Mehrgarh, that date from as early as 7000 BCE, and with later sites that extend into the first millennium before the Common Era. There is much fascination with this civilization because of its high level of technological advancement, the fact that its **script** has not yet been deciphered, and the fact that certain practices\u2014and perhaps corresponding concepts\u2014of Hinduism may have originated with this civilization. Figures that appear to be seated in **yoga** postures are represented on clay seals from this culture, as well as figures evocative of both **\u015aiva** and the **Mother Goddess** , though the precise meaning of these images is a matter of some dispute and will likely remain so until the Indus script is deciphered. Ritual bathing and cleanliness also seem to have been a major preoccupation of this civilization, with a good deal of engineering activity being devoted to the building of public baths, sanitation, and irrigation.\n\nCompared to other ancient civilizations of the same period, the Indus civilization extended over a vast area and engaged in overseas trade extending to Mesopotamia and the Arabian Peninsula, as well as into Central Asia. Indus-manufactured items have been discovered in all of these regions. The civilization's center of gravity, though, was the fertile valley formed by the Indus and the Gaggar-Hakra, or **Sarasvat\u012b** , rivers.\n\nIt was believed at one time that this civilization had been destroyed in an **\u0100ryan** **invasion** , but this idea has since been discredited, the dominant theory now being that the civilization declined due to earthquakes and floods that led the Indus to change its course and the Sarasvat\u012b to go underground and, in some areas, dry up completely. Any **\u0100ryan** migrants into the region after 1900 BCE would have encountered a civilization already very much on the decline.\n\n**INDUS-SARASVAT\u012a CIVILIZATION.** Alternative designation for the **Indus Valley civilization** that emphasizes the fact that many of this civilization's settlements were centered not only on the **Indus** but also on another river, the Gaggar-Hakra, which once flowed adjacent to it and is identified by many scholars with the **Sarasvat\u012b** River of the **Vedic** scriptures. Due to dramatic geological and meteorological changes, this river dried up around 1900 BCE, a development that was likely a major factor in the decline of the civilization.\n\n**INGALLS, DANIEL H. H. (1916\u20131999). Indologist**. Taught **Sanskrit** at Harvard from 1956 to 1979, authoring many works on Indian **literature** and **philosophy**.\n\n**INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS (ISKCON).** **Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** organization established by **Bhaktived\u0101nta Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhup\u0101da** in 1965. Bhaktived\u0101nta first arrived in New York and found a home with a group of young people who were part of the countercultural movement of that period. It was largely from this movement that the following of ISKCON, the **Hare Krishna movement** , was first drawn, though it has since become somewhat more of a mainstream group, particularly as more Indian families have joined it, and a generation has grown up within the movement.\n\nISKCON is one of the first Hindu organizations, after the **Ved\u0101nta Society** , to have a large non-Indian following. Unlike other largely non-Indian Hindu organizations, ISKCON, in its early days, insisted that its adherents adopt Indian cultural norms\u2014modes of dress, hairstyles, names, and so on. This has been emphasized less in recent years, as leaders of ISKCON have sought to increase the appeal of the tradition, working against common stereotypes of robed and bald-headed devotees chanting **mantras** in airports and on street corners. The organization has put a good deal of emphasis on charitable work and taking effective **action** to address cases of abuse that occurred after the time of Bhaktived\u0101nta, but before the contemporary period. _See also_ BHAKTI; HARRISON, GEORGE; K\u1e5a\u1e62\u1e46A.\n\n**\u012a\u015aA.** Lord, ruler, master, **God**. Epithet of **\u015aiva**.\n\n_\u012a\u015aA UPANI\u1e62AD_. Also known as the _\u012a\u015bavasya Upani\u1e63ad_ , this brief text is traditionally listed first among the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , although most scholars agree that it is not the oldest of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ (that distinction belonging to the _B\u1e5bhad\u0101ra\u1e47yaka Upani\u1e63ad_ ). The _\u012a\u015ba Upani\u1e63ad_ contains some of the basic concepts that would later become central to the various systems of **Ved\u0101nta** **philosophy**. It is theistic, referring to the all-pervasive Lord ( **\u012a\u015ba** , from whom the text takes its title). It also contains a possible allusion to the idea of **karma yoga** and affirms the idea of **Brahman** as a reality beyond all dualistic logical conceptions.\n\n**ISHERWOOD, CHRISTOPHER (1904\u20131986).** English author, adherent of **Ved\u0101nta**. Better known in literary circles for his novels, Isherwood's writings on Ved\u0101nta include a biography of **Ramakrishna** entitled _Ramakrishna and His Disciples_ , _My Guru and His Disciple_ , and, in collaboration with **Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhav\u0101nanda** , translations of Hindu texts, (including the principle _Upani\u1e63ads_ , the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , and the _Yoga S\u016btras_ of **Pata\u00f1jali** ). Isherwood immigrated to the United States in 1939. His close association with Ved\u0101nta\u2014and specifically, the **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** tradition of Ramakrishna and **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** \u2014began that same year when he met Sw\u0101m\u012b Prabhav\u0101nanda, the founder and head of the **Ved\u0101nta Society** of Southern California. Isherwood received **d\u012bk\u1e63\u0101** , or formal initiation into the Ved\u0101nta tradition, from Prabhav\u0101nanda, who became his **guru**.\n\n**ISLAM.** The world's second-largest religion, in terms of the number of its adherents, and a member, along with Judaism and **Christianity** , of the Abrahamic family of traditions, sharing a common worldview that includes **monotheism** , divine revelation and divine intervention in human history, a single lifetime, a day of judgment, and an everlasting afterlife either in a heavenly paradise or a hellish state of punishment (though exceptions and variations in regard to this basic worldview can be found across all three of these traditions).\n\nHistorically, relations between Hindus and Muslims (practitioners of Islam) have oscillated between periods of peaceful coexistence and periods of communal violence. Initial contacts between Muslims and Hindus were peaceful, being largely a function of trade with Arab merchants along the coasts of India. During this period, in the latter half of the first millennium of the Common Era, some Hindus from the lower **castes** became converts to Islam in order to escape the inequities of the caste system\u2014though the practice of caste is so pervasive in India that, within a few generations, these Muslim converts had again organized themselves into castes, as Christians had done previously and continue to do even today. Much like the initial coming of Christianity to India, these conversions did not have a major impact on the dominant Hindu community.\n\nIn succeeding centuries, however, waves of invasion\u2014first by Arabs, then Turks, and finally the **Mughals** , often using Islam as an ideological justification for destruction of **temples** and monastic institutions and displacement of Hindu kings\u2014created a situation of deep distrust between the two communities.\n\nUnder Mughal rule, though\u2014particularly the reign of **Akbar** , which lasted from 1556 to 1605\u2014the situation began to change. The Mughal policy of tolerance created the conditions for a hybrid Hindu\u2013Islamic culture to emerge, leading to an amazing burst of creative activity in the visual **arts** , **music** , architecture, and religion itself. Specifically in regard to religion, the **Sant** movement\u2014a fusion of Islamic **Sufi** mysticism with Hindu **bhakti** traditions\u2014emerged, emphasizing the common thread of devotion and longing for the divine uniting the otherwise dramatically different religions of Hindus and Muslims. Mystics like **Kab\u012br** taught the unity of \u0100ll\u0101h (the one **God** of Islam) and **R\u0101ma**. A third tradition, **Sikhism** , arose from this movement, with the teaching of **Guru N\u0101nak** that, in the eyes of God, \"There is no Hindu and there is no Muslim.\" **Syncretism** occurred on a massive scale, as Hindus and Muslims celebrated one another's holy days and borrowed one another's practices and concepts. The only substantial interruption of this period of relative harmony came during the reign of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, which lasted from 1658 to 1707. Aurangzeb favored the forcible conversion of Hindus to Islam and engaged in fierce campaign of persecution of both Hindus and Sikhs.\n\nThe colonial period and the British \"divide and rule\" policy that set members of different communities against each other reinforced the sense of separate communal identities and mutual suspicion between Hindus and Muslims. Both Islamic and **Hindu Nationalism** emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fueling hostile feelings between the two communities. These hostilities culminated with the partition of India and Pakistan when British rule ended in 1947.\n\nRelations between Hindus and Muslims continue to be highly fraught today. Both Hindu minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh and the Muslim minority in India have, at different times, experienced persecution. India and Pakistan have fought three wars and both have had nuclear weapons since 1998. Particularly low points in Hindu\u2013Muslim relations have been 1992, when the **Babr\u012b Masj\u012bd** was demolished in **Ayodhy\u0101** by Hindu Nationalists, and 2002, when horrific riots broke out between Hindus and Muslims in the state of Gujarat. At the same time, one may observe that these outbreaks of violence take place against a background of largely peaceful coexistence.\n\n**I\u1e62\u1e6cADEVAT\u0100.** Chosen deity, preferred deity, chosen ideal. Based on the idea that **Brahman** , being infinite, is beyond human conception, the **Sm\u0101rta** and **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** traditions of Hinduism teach that Brahman can be approached through a personal form to which it is easier for human beings to relate. The form will vary according to the needs of the **devotee** , but typically takes the shape of one of the Hindu deities, though the deity can also be a saintly historical personage\u2014or even, in more liberal forms of Hinduism, a non-Hindu figure, such as Jesus or the **Buddha**. **Ramakrishna** compares the i\u1e63\u1e6dadevat\u0101 to a hole in a high wall that surrounds a beautiful garden. People who wish to see the garden have to peek through the holes in this wall. The holes will be located at varying heights, to suit the needs of the various people looking in, but the beautiful garden to which these various holes grant them access is one and the same. In the same way, the one universal Brahman is accessed by different types of devotee by means of the various i\u1e63\u1e6dadevat\u0101s. _See also_ GOD; GODS.\n\n**\u012a\u015aVARA.** The Lord, **God**. This is the term by which the Supreme Being is generally designated in Hindu philosophical writings when God in the abstract is under discussion. Both **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and **\u015aiva** are frequently designated by this term in the sectarian writings of their respective devotees in the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** and **\u015aaiva** traditions. The other term frequently used for God in the generic sense is **Bhagav\u0101n** , the Blessed One.\n\n**\u012a\u015aVARA-PRA\u1e46IDH\u0100NA.** Contemplation of the Lord; fifth of the **niyamas** ; a major component of the **yoga** system developed by **Pata\u00f1jali**. _See also_ A\u1e62\u1e6c\u0100\u1e44GA YOGA; _YOGA S\u016aTRAS_.\n\n**ITIH\u0100SA.** History, literally \"thus it was.\" This term usually refers to the two primary epics of Hindu **literature** \u2014the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ and the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_.\n\n**IYER, E. KRISHNA (1897\u20131968).** **Artist** chiefly responsible for reinvigo-rating Indian classical **dance** \u2014specifically **Bharata-n\u0101\u1e6dyam**. A **Brahmin** from **Tamil** Nadu, Iyer first trained in and practiced **law** and participated in the Indian independence movement prior to devoting himself to the revival of classical dance. Through his efforts and those of a variety of dedicated artists who have come since, Indian classical dance has emerged as a highly respected art form after centuries of disrepute.\n\n## J\n\n**JAGADDH\u0100TR\u012a.** Form of **Durg\u0101**. _See also_ AMB\u0100.\n\n**JAGANN\u0100THA.** Lord of the Universe, **God** , epithet of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. The particular **m\u016brti** or image to which this term refers is located at a famous **mandir** , or **temple** , in the city of **Puri** in the state of **Orissa**. Controversially, the administration of this temple does not permit entry by non-Hindus. Non-Indian **devotees** , whom the administration does not regard as truly Hindu, have frequently objected to this practice. The central image of the temple is carried out in procession once a year on a very large cart modeled on a **chariot** or **ratha**. The massive size of this cart, and the inherent difficulty of controlling it once it is in motion, gave rise to the English word \"juggernaut.\"\n\n**JAGAT.** Literally, \"flow\" or \"process\"; the universe and the entities constituting it, in contrast with **God** , or **\u012a\u015bvara** , its lord and controller. According to the **Vi\u015bi\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101dvaita** of the **Ved\u0101ntic** **\u0101c\u0101rya R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja** , God and the world together make up a greater unity\u2014 **Brahman**. If one were to draw an analogy between Brahman and a person, God could be said to be the person's **soul** , and the world (jagat) the person's body.\n\n**JAIMINI.** Author to whom the _P\u016brvam\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 S\u016btra_ is attributed and founder of the **P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** system of classical Indian **philosophy**. P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101, or \"earlier exegesis\" is a continuation of the ancient, orthodox system of Vedic **Brahmanism** , with a very strong emphasis on the correct performance of **Vedic** ritual and a corresponding emphasis on the correct pronunciation of the **Sanskrit** verses of the _Vedas_ during a ritual performance. This emphasis on Sanskrit led to the development of an elaborate linguistic philosophy on the part of the M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43sakas. The term _P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101_ contrasts this school of thought with later, or **Ut-tara M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** \u2014more widely known as **Ved\u0101nta**. The system of Jaimini emphasizes the earlier, ritualistic portion of the _Vedas_ , while Ved\u0101nta emphasizes the later Vedic **literature** , the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , and their teaching of **Brahman**.\n\n**JAINISM. \u015arama\u1e47a** tradition that is traced, in its current form, to **Mah\u0101v\u012bra** (c. 499\u2013427 BCE), though according to Jain tradition Mah\u0101v\u012bra is the 24th in a series of **enlightened** beings, or **T\u012brtha\u1e45karas** , who have been teaching the same **truths** for millennia, and there is some evidence that Mah\u0101v\u012bra's teaching is a continuation of an earlier, proto-Jain tradition. Along with **Buddhism** , Jainism is one of the only two surviving \u015brama\u1e47a traditions that thrived in northern India in the first millennium before the Common Era. Other \u015brama\u1e47a groups, such as the **\u0100j\u012bvikas** , had died out by the 13th century CE, as had Buddhism in India (though it had already spread across Asia by this time).\n\nThe Jains are known primarily for their profound commitment to nonviolence, or **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** , which Jain ascetics practice to the greatest extent humanly possible, sometimes wearing a face mask, or _muhpatt\u012b_ , to avoid accidentally inhaling or ingesting insects or microorganisms, and sweeping the ground in front of them as they walk to avoid doing even accidental harm to small living things. Another central Jain value is **aparigraha** , or nonpossessiveness, which some Jain ascetics\u2014the monks of the \"sky-clad\" or _Digambara_ sect, practice to the extent of giving up even the wearing of clothing. Finally, the third \"pillar\" of Jainism is _anek\u0101nta-v\u0101da_ , or \"non-one-sidedness,\" which consists of the view that there is some truth in all perspectives. No tradition is completely wrong (though the teachings of the T\u012brtha\u1e45karas are held to be absolutely true).\n\nJainism shares many core ideas of Hinduism, such as the doctrines of **karma** and **rebirth** and the aspiration for **liberation** ( **mok\u1e63a** ) from the cycle of rebirth as a central salvific goal. Jainism is distinctive in seeing karma as a material substance that adheres to the soul ( **j\u012bva** ) and in the relentless logic it applies to the questions of karmic merit and demerit, with very specific conceptions of which **actions** produce particular effects.\n\nJainism shares with other \u015brama\u1e47a traditions, such as Buddhism, a rejection of the claims of **Brahmanism** regarding the sanctity of **caste** and the authority of the _Vedas_. Specifically, it rejects the idea that birth caste is a reflection of one's spiritual attainment (with its implication that the **Brahmins** are the most evolved of human beings) and **Vedic** injunctions to perform **animal** **sacrifice**. Jainism was an ideological rival of Brahmanism for many centuries. But as Hinduism coalesced from many Indic traditions, some Jain concepts and practices were assimilated into it. For example, though nominal affirmation of the authority of the _Vedas_ continues, practices such as animal sacrifice gradually fell by the wayside, being replaced by **vegetarianism** under the influence of the concept of ahi\u1e43s\u0101. Jain practice in regard to nonattachment has influenced Hindu practices, such as fasting, and there are Hindu orders of naked monks not unlike the Digambaras of Jainism. Though the caste system continues to be practiced, movements that affirm the irrelevance of caste to the spiritual path, such as **bhakti** and **Tantra** , have many Hindu followers. And the Jain teaching of the relativity of perspectives finds an echo in the **Neo-Ved\u0101ntic** teaching that truth can be found in many religions.\n\nJainism was especially influential on the life and teachings of **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** , who grew up in a region of India (Gujarat) with a strong Jain presence. The central Jain ethical principle of nonviolence can be found not only in the teachings of G\u0101ndh\u012b but also in Hindu texts such as the _Yoga S\u016btras_ of **Pata\u00f1jali** and the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_. Even though the Jain community is, numerically, relatively small (there being roughly four and a half million Jains in the world today), the Jains have had a disproportionate influence on the dominant Hindu culture that has surrounded them. This influence is probably a result of several factors, including the relative wealth of this largely mercantile community and the respect evoked by the rigorous **asceticism** and profound commitment to nonviolence exhibited by Jain monks and nuns. _See also_ VRATA; YAMAS.\n\n**JAMADAGNI.** Father of **Para\u015bur\u0101ma** , a wrathful **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** who is said to have slain the entire **k\u1e63atriya** (or warrior) **caste** in vengeance for Jamadagni having been killed by a k\u1e63atriya, Arjuna K\u0101rtav\u012brya (not the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dava** hero **Arjuna** of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ). It is said that Jamadagni and Para\u015bur\u0101ma were **Brahmins** of the **Bh\u0101rgava** clan. After all the k\u1e63atriyas were slain by Para\u015bur\u0101ma, they had to be replaced by Brahmins. It is thus believed that all living k\u1e63atriyas are actually descended from Brahmins.\n\n**JANAKA.** Ancient king of Mithil\u0101, in northeastern India; represented in the _Upani\u1e63ads_ as engaging in frequent discourse with wise sages such as **Yaj\u00f1av\u0101lkya** ; represented in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ as the father of **S\u012bt\u0101** and father-in-law of **R\u0101ma**. In the **Ved\u0101nta** tradition, Janaka is said to have been liberated while still alive ( **j\u012bvanmukta** ). His attainment of this goal while remaining a **householder** involved with kingly duties is used to illustrate the point that it is not necessary to practice renunciation in a formal sense ( **sanny\u0101sa** ) in order to be liberated. What is essential is _inner_ renunciation, an attitude of detachment from the fruits of **action**. At the same time, it is emphasized that Janaka is unusual in this regard and likely practiced sanny\u0101sa in previous lifetimes.\n\n**JANM\u0100\u1e62\u1e6cAMI.** Also known as **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a Janm\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dami** , the birthday of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a. It is the eighth (a\u1e63\u1e6dami) day of the **dark half** ( **k\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a pak\u1e63a** ) of the month of **Bh\u0101dra** in the Hindu lunar calendar, which corresponds roughly with the month of August in the solar calendar.\n\n**JAPA.** The practice of repeating a **mantra** \u2014either aloud but quietly, or purely mentally and silently\u2014while keeping track of the number of repetitions on a string of beads known as a **m\u0101la** , or sometimes as a japa m\u0101la. In most traditions, it is recommended that the practitioner repeat the mantra in units of 108, thus giving rise to the need for a method of keeping track of the number of repetitions. In addition to the m\u0101la, there are also ways of keeping track of one's mantra repetitions using one's fingers.\n\n**JARJARA.** Flagpole of **Indra** , brought onto the stage in traditional Indian theater as a way of invoking Indra's protection. This practice is prescribed by the _N\u0101\u1e6dya \u015a\u0101stra_ , the authoritative textual guide to traditional Indian theater and **dance**.\n\n**JATAYU.** Character in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ ; eagle who attempts to rescue **S\u012bt\u0101** from **R\u0101va\u1e47a** in the course of her abduction. As R\u0101va\u1e47a abducts S\u012bt\u0101 in his flying **chariot** ( **vim\u0101na** ), Jatayu attacks and tries to pull her away.\n\n**J\u0100TI.** Birth **caste** ; hereditary occupational group to which one is born. The j\u0101tis are the \"subcastes\" into which the four main castes, or **var\u1e47as** , are divided. Far more than one's var\u1e47a, it is one's j\u0101ti that forms the actual, living communal unit that determines one's caste identity. Relative to j\u0101ti, var\u1e47a is more or less an abstraction. In contrast with the four var\u1e47as, there are dozens of j\u0101tis. The location of each j\u0101ti within the larger caste hierarchy varies a great deal in different regions of India.\n\n**JAYADEVA (fl. 1200 CE). Bengali** author of the _G\u012btagovinda_ , a **bhakti** text that uses the love affair between **R\u0101dh\u0101** and **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** to depict the bond of love between the soul of the **devotee** and **God**. The text is highly erotically charged and has been compared by some with the biblical _Song of Solomon_.\n\n**J\u012aVA.** Literally \"life force.\" The individual, reincarnating soul, contrasted, in **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , with the **param\u0101tman** , or supreme soul, with which all the individual souls are ultimately one. Non-Advaita systems of **Ved\u0101nta** , with their greater emphasis on theistic realism and a strong distinction between the individual **devotee** and **God** , claim that the j\u012bvas always remain numerically distinct from **God** , or **\u012a\u015bvara** , their union being one of love and a harmonizing of wills, rather than an actual obliteration of difference. **Jainism** distinguishes between the j\u012bva in its mundane state, polluted by obscuring **karma** , and the soul in its inherent, perfected state, which it realizes upon **enlightenment** , which consists of infinite **knowledge** , bliss, and freedom. Jains also use the term _param\u0101tman_ to refer to the enlightened j\u012bva. _See also_ \u0100TMAN.\n\n**J\u012aVANMUKTA.** An **enlightened** being. One who is in the state of **j\u012bvanmukti**.\n\n**J\u012aVANMUKTI.** The state of being liberated while still alive, prior to the **death** of the body. The possibility of attaining **mok\u1e63a** while still alive is denied by many Hindu schools of thought\u2014those more theistically and devotionally oriented traditions that think of **liberation** as residing eternally in **heaven** with **God** (usually conceived as residing in **Vaiku\u1e47\u1e6dha** with **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** ). Clearly this is a conception of mok\u1e63a as a postmortem state. In **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , however, where mok\u1e63a consists of the realization of the identity of the **\u0101tman** and **Brahman** , such a realization is seen as being possible while one is still alive. The body of a **j\u012bvanmukta** continues to survive after mok\u1e63a due to **prarabdha karma** of a kind that does not interfere with a correct perception of reality. Such a being appears to others who are not **enlightened** as a human being engaged in the usual activities of life, such as eating, drinking, sleeping, and so forth. Such a being can even be physically injured or become ill. But from the perspective of that being, all is Brahman, and there is no distinction to be made between self and other, or among various karmic states. The activities of such a being are therefore entirely spontaneous and reflective of the nature of Brahman. In many respects, this conception is like that of an enlightened being in the **Buddhist** tradition.\n\n**J\u012aV\u0100TMAN.** _See_ J\u012aVA.\n\n**J\u00d1\u0100NA.** \"Knowledge\"; \"wisdom\"; cognate with the Greek _gnosis_. **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** teaches that knowledge is constitutive of **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth** \u2014specifically, the knowledge that the individual self, or **\u0101tman** , and the universal reality, or **Brahman** , are one and the same. The **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** of **Ramakrishna** and **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** teaches that wisdom is one of four possible **yogas** or **m\u0101rgas** (paths) that can lead to liberation (along with devotion, or **bhakti** ; work, or **karma** ; and **meditation** , or **dhy\u0101na** ). Support for both views, as well as endorsements of the sole efficacy of the other paths, can be found in the Hindu **scriptures**. _See also_ FOUR YOGAS; YOGA.\n\n**J\u00d1\u0100NA KANDA.** Literally \"wisdom portion\"; the _Upani\u1e63ads_ ; the final portion of the _Vedas_ , devoted to knowledge of **Brahman** , as distinct from the earlier \" **action** portion\" or **Karma Kanda** , consisting of ritualistic texts focused on sacrificial performance. _See also_ VED\u0100NTA.\n\n**J\u00d1\u0100NA M\u0100RGA, J\u00d1\u0100NA YOGA.** \"Path or way of knowledge\"; \"spiritual discipline of knowledge.\" _See_ J\u00d1\u0100NA.\n\n**J\u00d1\u0100NASAMBANDAR (639\u2013655).** A precocious **Tamil \u015aaiva** devotee who is said to have sung songs of devotion to **\u015aiva** at the young age of three. His father carried him to various \u015aaiva **temples** , where the boy gave sermons and is also said to have performed miracles. J\u00f1\u0101nasambandar dismissed traditional concerns regarding **astrology** , claiming that faith in \u015aiva could override negative astrological influences.\n\n**J\u00d1\u0100NE\u015aVARA (1275\u20131296).** **Bhakti** **poet** from Maharashtra; a **Brahmin** ; best known for his exposition of the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. Drawing upon the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** , **\u015aaiva** , and **\u015a\u0101kta** traditions, he commented upon the _G\u012bt\u0101_ but also wrote of the essential unity of **\u015aiva** and **\u015aakti** , asserting that, \"Without the **God** there is no **Goddess** , and without the Goddess there is no God.\"\n\n**JONES, SIR WILLIAM (1746\u20131794).** One of the first **Indologists**. Jones discovered the **Indo-European** family of languages and cultures, being the first to recognize the strong similarities between **Sanskrit** and European languages such as Greek and Latin. He established the **Royal Asiatic Society** in **Calcutta** in 1784, thus formally initiating the study of Indology as an academic discipline. He translated the _Manusm\u1e5bti_ (\"Laws of Manu\"), the _G\u012btagovinda_ of **Jayadeva** , and **K\u0101lid\u0101sa** 's play, the _Abhij\u0101na\u015bakuntala_ or \"Recognition of **\u015aakuntal\u0101**.\"\n\n**JYAI\u1e62\u1e6cHA.** Month of the **Hindu calendar** that corresponds roughly to the period from mid-May to mid-June.\n\n**JYOTI\u1e62A.** _See_ ASTROLOGY.\n\n## K\n\n**KAB\u012aR (1440\u20131518).** **Sant** **poet** who is revered by both Hindus and Muslims. Born into a **caste** of weavers in **Banaras** , his name is Muslim. It is likely that his entire caste converted as a group to **Islam** prior to his birth. Although he uses Islamic terminology, Kab\u012br's writings show a greater familiarity with the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ than with Islam. Kab\u012br himself did not hold exclusive religious identity in high regard, ridiculing institutional features of both Hinduism and Islam that kept their followers apart. He advocated devotion ( **bhakti** ) to a formless divinity, beyond limiting qualities and attributes. In emphasizing the formless ( **nirgu\u1e47a** ) nature of the divine, his teaching is like **Advaita Ved\u0101nta**. But his emphasis on personal devotion places him closer to theistic bhakti traditions and to Islam. A major influence on the broader Sant movement, and on **Sikhism** , many of Kab\u012br's writings are preserved in the sacred scripture of the Sikhs, the _\u0100di Granth_. His belief in the oneness of \u0100ll\u0101h and **R\u0101ma** and emphasis on personal devotion over institutional affiliation and formal ritual anticipate modern Hindu teachers like **Ramakrishna**.\n\n**KAIL\u0100SA, MOUNT.** Mountain in the central **Him\u0101layas** , located within the modern boundaries of Tibet, and traditionally believed to be the home of **\u015aiva** and **\u015aakti**. It is a popular, if difficult to reach, pilgrimage site. It is near Lake **Manosarovar** , also a sacred site.\n\n**KAIVALYA.** Literally \"isolation\"; a term used in the **S\u0101\u1e43khya** and **Yoga** systems, as well as in **Jainism** , for the state of **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth** , a state characterized in these traditions as the separation of the soul ( **puru\u1e63a** , **j\u012bva** , or **\u0101tman** ) from matter, or the phenomena of nature (aj\u012bva, **prak\u1e5bti** ) with which it has come to be identified. According to S\u0101\u1e43khya and Yoga, the identification of the soul with matter is merely apparent, to be overcome (in the S\u0101\u1e43khya system) by right understanding of the nature of the soul as pure consciousness, or (in the Yoga system) through the experience of **sam\u0101dhi** , or **meditative** absorption in this consciousness. This is in contrast with the Jain tradition, which sees the soul as having become actually entangled with matter, from which it needs to separate itself through **ascetic** practice\u2014though the Digambara **\u0101c\u0101rya** Kundakunda (from the middle of the first millennium of the Common Era) holds a view that is closer to that of S\u0101\u1e43khya and Yoga.\n\n**K\u0100L\u0100MUKHA.** \"Black face\"; a south Indian **Tantric \u015aaiva** **ascetic** lineage; a subset of the **Pa\u015bupata** tradition of **\u015aaivism**. Their name comes from the black **tilak** , or sectarian mark, that they wear on their foreheads.\n\n**K\u0100L\u012a.** \"Black **Goddess** \"; fierce form of the **Mother Goddess** in her role as slayer of the demonic. She is traditionally depicted as having four arms. Her right hands are shown in the **abhaya-mudr\u0101** and **d\u0101na-mudr\u0101** \u2014the gestures of fearlessness and generosity. This is her benevolent aspect. Her left hands are shown carrying a ferocious-looking sword and the head of a demon. Her skin is black and her tongue, red with blood, is sticking out of her mouth. She is wearing a garland of skulls and a skirt of arms and heads of demons she has slain. She is standing on the prone and apparently unconscious body of **\u015aiva** , her husband. Despite her fierce appearance\u2014evocative, to many non-Hindus, of the demonic\u2014K\u0101l\u012b is seen as a benevolent deity who is fierce in order to protect her devotees from evil. Her iconography depicts a moment from a battle depicted in the _Dev\u012b Mah\u0101tmya_ during which she was fighting a demon known as Raktab\u012bja, or \"blood seed.\" Each drop of Raktab\u012bja's blood that spilled on the ground would transform itself into a completely new Raktab\u012bja. Spilling this demon's blood in battle therefore served only to create an entire army of Raktab\u012bjas. It is for this reason that K\u0101l\u012b used her tongue to catch or lick up every drop of the blood of this demon that was spilled in the course of her battle with him. This is why she is depicted with a long, bloody tongue sticking out of her mouth. It is also said that her husband, \u015aiva, fearing that in her blood frenzy she would destroy the world, laid down on the battlefield as if dead. In her **dance** of destruction, K\u0101l\u012b stepped on top of him. Realizing, abruptly, that she was standing on her (possibly dead) husband, K\u0101l\u012b ceases her destruction and transforms back into the gentle **P\u0101rvat\u012b**. This moment is captured in her **m\u016brti** , or iconographic representation.\n\nK\u0101l\u012b is especially popular in **Bengal** where **Tantric** and **\u015a\u0101kta** traditions are quite strong. She was the preferred deity ( **i\u1e63\u1e6dadevat\u0101** ) of the Bengali saint **Ramakrishna** , who was intensely devoted to her. Her **p\u016bj\u0101** is traditionally performed at midnight on the **Amavasya** , or new-moon day, of the month of **K\u0101rtika** (which corresponds to the period from late October to early November). This is the same night on which most Hindus in northern India celebrate **D\u012bp\u0101vali** , or D\u012bwali.\n\nThe **K\u0101l\u012bgh\u0101\u1e6d** , in **Calcutta** (Kolkata), is one of the few remaining places in India where **animal sacrifice** still occurs, with goats being offered to K\u0101l\u012b. But these sacrifices are controversial, and in many places (especially outside of India), the sacrificial goat has been replaced with a gourd, banana, cucumber, or other **vegetarian** offering. The **\u1e6chags** , or Thugs, used to offer human sacrifices to K\u0101l\u012b. These were usually unwitting travelers who would hire the \u1e6chags as tour guides. The \u1e6chags would then take them to an isolated place and strangle them. Although the basis of the film _Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom_ , the actual \u1e6chag cult consisted of a small group of men, not the elaborate **temple** community depicted in the sensationalist film. Human sacrifice is not condoned in any mainstream Hindu sect, or even in mainstream Tantric or \u015a\u0101kta thought.\n\nRamakrishna identified K\u0101l\u012b with **Brahman** in its active form, as the energy of **creation**. \"K\u0101l\u012b is verily Brahman, and Brahman is verily K\u0101l\u012b. It is one and the same Reality. When we think of It as inactive . . . then we call it Brahman. But when It engages in . . . activities, then we call It K\u0101l\u012b or \u015aakti.\"\n\n**KALI YUGA.** The fourth, last, and worst of the progressively more unfortunate ages or **yugas** into which a cosmic epoch, or **kalpa** , is divided. We are presently experiencing the Kali Yuga of our current cosmic epoch. According to Hindu traditions, the Kali Yuga began with the death of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , shortly after the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ war. Hindu texts date the death of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a around 3021 BCE, in terms of the predominant global dating system. But mainstream scholarship on Hinduism regards this date as too early for the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ war, which tends to be placed at either 1500 BCE (the approximate date of the sinking of **Dv\u0101rak\u0101** ) or 950 BCE (based on archaeology in northern India, where most of the epic's main narrative occurs).\n\n**K\u0100L\u012aB\u0100R\u012a.** \"House of **K\u0101l\u012b** \"; **Bengali** generic term for a temple to the **goddess** K\u0101l\u012b.\n\n**K\u0100LID\u0100SA (fl. 4th\u20135th centuries CE).** \"Servant of K\u0101l\u012b\"; **poet** and playwright regarded by many as the \"Shakespeare of **Sanskrit**.\" Flourishing during the reign of the **Gupta** dynasty and the \"Hindu Renaissance\" that the Gupta emperors helped to facilitate, little is known of K\u0101lid\u0101sa's life. Religiously, his work reflects an eclectic sensibility, drawing on both **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** and **\u015aaiva** narratives from the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , and the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_. His most famous work is the _Abhij\u00f1\u0101na\u015bakuntala_ (\"The Recognition of **\u015aakuntal\u0101** \"), a play based on an episode from the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. K\u0101lid\u0101sa's Sanskrit is highly refined and distinctive in style, making extensive use of puns, nature imagery, and references to traditional Hindu **literature**. _See also N\u0100\u1e6cYA \u015a\u0100STRA_.\n\n**K\u0100L\u012aGH\u0100\u1e6c.** Famous **K\u0101l\u012b** **temple** in **Calcutta** (Kolkata), for which the city is named. One of the few places where **animal sacrifice** is still practiced.\n\n**KALKIN.** Tenth **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and the last to appear in the current cosmic epoch. Kalkin will appear at the end of the **Kali Yuga** and fight in a final cataclysmic battle of good against evil. Destroying the forces of chaos ( **adharma** ), he will reestablish order ( **dharma** ) and a new series of **yugas** will begin. Kalkin is usually depicted as a warrior riding on a white horse and carrying a sword.\n\n**KALPA.** _See_ WORLD AGES; YUGA.\n\n**K\u0100MA.** Desire; sensory enjoyment; erotic love. Along with wealth and power ( **artha** ), virtue ( **dharma** ), and **liberation** ( **mok\u1e63a** ), k\u0101ma is one of the four goals of humanity, or **puru\u1e63\u0101rthas**.\n\n**K\u0100MADEVA.** \"God of (erotic) love\"; Cupid-like deity who shoots flower arrows into the hearts of human beings, causing them to fall in love. K\u0101madeva once sought to shoot **\u015aiva** in the heart while he was **meditating** , but before he could do so, \u015aiva opened up his \" **third eye** ,\" burning K\u0101madeva to a crisp with the heat of his accumulated tapas, or ascetic power. K\u0101madeva therefore no longer has a body and is for this reason known as **Ana\u1e45ga** (\"he who has no limbs, or body\"). This episode illustrates the conflict between **k\u0101ma** and **asceticism** , since one who wishes to pursue **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth** , must renounce attachment to sensory pleasure.\n\n**K\u0100MADHENU.** \"Wish-fulfilling cow\"; daughter of **Dak\u1e63a** and the wife of **Ka\u015byapa** ; one of the treasures to emerge from the ocean when it was churned by the **devas** and the **asuras** in their search for the elixir of life ( **am\u1e5bta** ). The K\u0101madhenu can grant any wish to her owner. _See also_ COW, SACRED.\n\n_K\u0100MA S\u016aTRA_ **.** **Sanskrit** text composed around 300 CE by **V\u0101tsy\u0101yana** Mallanaga; a scholarly treatise on **k\u0101ma** , a term whose meaning encompasses the concepts of sensory pleasure\u2014especially sexual pleasure\u2014desire, and erotic love. Like Sanskrit treatises on the other four goals of humanity ( **puru\u1e63\u0101rthas** ), such as the _Artha \u015a\u0101stra_ and the various _Dharmas \u015a\u0101stras_ , the _K\u0101ma S\u016btra_ approaches its topic in a detailed, systematic fashion.\n\nAlthough long considered scandalous\u2014then later, fashionable\u2014in the West, due to its explicit and frank discussions of sexuality and various ways of both experiencing and heightening sexual pleasure, the traditional Hindu attitude toward sexuality that this text reveals is notable for its nonjudgmental understanding that sexuality is a natural part of the human condition. Although the **ascetic** traditions of Hinduism focus on transcending sexual desire as a way of attaining **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth** , there is no assumption that an ascetic orientation can or should be expected of all people. For those who are still \"in the world\" and not focused on mok\u1e63a, worldly pursuits like k\u0101ma, **artha** (wealth), and **dharma** (virtue) are perfectly appropriate, and indeed recommended. The _K\u0101ma S\u016btra_ is also of interest to historians for the considerable light that it sheds on ancient Indian society\u2014particularly the wealthy class, who appear to have spent a good deal of time in leisure and social activities.\n\n**K\u0100\u1e42SA.** Character in the _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ ; king and wicked uncle of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** who wanted to slay K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a just after his birth because of a prediction that K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a would one day slay him and take control of his kingdom. K\u0101\u1e43sa was not the legitimate son of his father, King Ugrasena of **Mathur\u0101** , but rather the son of an **asura** who had taken Ugrasena's shape and slept with his wife. Having his father's demonic nature, K\u0101\u1e43sa overthrew the king, imprisoning him and usurping the kingship. K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, true to the prophecy, did slay K\u0101\u1e43sa when he reached adulthood. Like King Herod, as depicted in the New Testament, K\u0101\u1e43sa sought to prevent his eventual slaying by K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a by having all the male children in his kingdom slain.\n\n**KA\u1e46\u0100DA.** Sage to whom the **Vai\u015be\u1e63ika dar\u015bana** , or system of Indian **philosophy** , is attributed. Ka\u1e47\u0101da probably lived around 300 BCE.\n\n**K\u0100\u00d1C\u012aPURAM.** City in **Tamil** Nadu; sacred site of pilgrimage; known for its many **temples** , such as the **\u015aaiva** Kail\u0101san\u0101tha temple and the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** **Vaiku\u1e47\u1e6dha** Perumal. It is also the location of one of the monastic centers, or **ma\u1e6dhas** , established by **\u015aa\u1e45kara** \u2014the K\u0101\u00f1c\u012b K\u0101makoti P\u012b\u1e6da.\n\n**KANE, P. V. (1880\u20131972). Indologist** ; professor of **law** and vice-chancellor of Bombay University; author of the five-volume _History of Dharma\u015b\u0101stra_.\n\n**KANNAPPA (fl. 6th\u201311th centuries CE).** One of the 63 **N\u0101yan\u0101rs** \u2014saints and **bhakti** **poets** revered in the **Tamil \u015aaiva** tradition. It is said that Kannappa (which means \"he who gave his eyes\") offered his eyes to **\u015aiva** , plucking them out upon noticing that the eyes in an image of the deity appeared to be bleeding, his intention being to replace the image's eyes with his own. \u015aiva, being pleased with this profound devotion, restored his sight. It is also said that Kannappa was a hunter by **caste** \u2014an example of the widespread appeal of the bhakti movement, which emphasized personal devotion over birth caste as a measure of one's spiritual advancement.\n\n**K\u0100\u1e46PHA\u1e6cA.** \"Split-ear\"; alternative name for the **N\u0101th Yog\u012bs** , a **Tantric \u015aaiva** lineage of **ascetics**. The name _K\u0101\u1e47phata_ refers to the large earrings that these ascetics wear. The second leader of the lineage, **Gorakhn\u0101th** , is attributed with inventing **Ha\u1e6dha Yoga**.\n\n**KANY\u0100KUM\u0100R\u012a (CAPE COMORIN).** The southernmost tip of India. It derives its name (\"Place of the Young Maiden\") from the belief that it was here that the **Mother Goddess** , as a young girl, performed **ascetic** practice in order to win the hand of **\u015aiva** in marriage. The Kum\u0101r\u012b Amman **temple** , located here, commemorates these practices.\n\nThere are also memorials to more recent Hindu sacred figures at Kany\u0101kum\u0101r\u012b. There is a shrine to **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** near the shore, where his ashes were kept prior to being immersed in the Indian Ocean. Just off the coast is Vivek\u0101nanda Rock, to which **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** is said to have swum and where he practiced **meditation** in 1892, before setting off on his first major speaking tour. A small shrine to Vivek\u0101nanda is now located on the rock, to which regular boat rides are available for pilgrims and tourists.\n\n**K\u0100P\u0100LIKA.** \"Skull bearer\"; a south Indian **Tantric \u015aaiva** **ascetic** lineage; a subset of the **Pa\u015bupata** tradition of **\u015aaivism**. Their name comes from their unusual begging bowls, which are made from the hollowed out tops of human skulls. This is in keeping with the **philosophy** of non-dualism that they seek to embody, which perceives traditional ideas of purity and impurity as part of the realm of duality, and so ultimately delusory.\n\n**K\u0100PILA.** Highly revered sage attributed with creating the **S\u0101\u1e43khya** system of Indian **philosophy**. K\u0101pila is mentioned prominently in the _Bhagavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ , where he is said to be an **avat\u0101ra** , or incarnation, of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , and is attributed with a theistic version of the S\u0101\u1e43khya system (though historically most S\u0101\u1e43khya texts are nontheistic, presenting a worldview close to that of **Jainism** ). He is also mentioned in the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ as the best of sages (10:26). K\u0101pila is associated with the northeastern Greater M\u0101gadha region of India, where Jainism and **Buddhism** were both prominent in ancient times. The city where the **Buddha** grew up\u2014K\u0101pilavastu\u2014is named in honor of this sage.\n\n**KARMA.** \" **Action** \"; \"work\"; principle of cause and effect, by which actions of a certain moral character produce effects of a corresponding nature within the agent who performs them\u2014with benevolent, kind actions leading to happiness for the one who performs them and harmful, violent actions similarly leading to suffering; also, the effects themselves\u2014as in \"good\" karma ( **pu\u1e47ya** karma) and \"bad\" karma ( **p\u0101pa** karma).\n\nThe reciprocal process of intentional moral actions producing like effects fuels the perpetual cycle of **rebirth** ( **sa\u1e43s\u0101ra** ), release from which ( **mok\u1e63a** ) requires one to in some way negate or transcend the principle of cause and effect. The various Indic traditions often present themselves as strategies for achieving this negation or transcendence. The _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , for example, presents a **yoga** of action ( **karma yoga** ) that aims at mok\u1e63a through engaging in action without attachment to the results. On this understanding, it is not action itself, but the **desire** that motivates it, which brings about karmic effects.\n\n**KARMA KANDA.** Literally \" **action** portion\"; the _Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s_ and _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ ; the early portion of the _Vedas_ , consisting of ritualistic texts focused on sacrificial performance, as distinct from the later \"wisdom portion\" or **J\u00f1\u0101na Kanda** , devoted to knowledge of **Brahman** and consisting of the _Upani\u1e63ads_. _See also_ M\u012aM\u0100\u1e42S\u0100.\n\n**KARMA M\u0100RGA, KARMA YOGA.** \"Path or way of **action** \"; \"spiritual discipline of action.\" As explained by the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , the path of action aims at **mok\u1e63a** (freedom from the cycle of **rebirth** ) through engaging in virtuous action without attachment to the results. On this understanding, it is not action itself but the **desire** that motivates action that brings about karmic effects. The **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** of **Ramakrishna** and **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** teaches that the way of action is one of the **four yogas** or **m\u0101rgas** (paths) that can lead to **liberation** (along with devotion, or **bhakti** , wisdom, or **j\u00f1\u0101na** , and **meditation** , or **dhy\u0101na** ). _See also_ YOGA.\n\n**KAR\u1e46A.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. Kar\u1e47a is a particularly tragic character. His mother, **Kunt\u012b** , gave birth to him secretly, having tested the secret **mantra** given to her by the sage **Durv\u0101sa** , by which she could call upon any deity of her choosing and bear a child by that deity. Calling the sun **god** , **S\u016brya** , Kunt\u012b gave birth to Kar\u1e47a, who had the characteristics of his divine father. As a young, unmarried mother, Kunt\u012b, in shame, sent the infant Kar\u1e47a down a river in a basket, where he was found by a childless charioteer and his wife, who raised the child lovingly as their own. As an adult, Kar\u1e47a was rejected by the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** on the basis of **caste** prejudice, since they believed he was the son of a lowly charioteer. **Duryodhana** , however, perceiving Kar\u1e47a's power, made him a king, thus securing him as a perpetual ally. Though the eldest brother of the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas, Kar\u1e47a gave his loyalty to Duryodhana, thus obligating him to face his brothers in battle and die in combat at the hands of **Arjuna**. The P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas, though, were unaware of his identity until after his **death**.\n\n**KARNATAKA.** State in southern India, just north of **Kerala** and **Tamil** Nadu and west of Andhra Pradesh, on the western coast of the Deccan peninsula; location of a number of important Hindu kingdoms of ancient times, including the **C\u0101lukyas** (c. 550\u2013880 CE), the Hoysalas (950\u20131343), and the Vijayan\u0101gara empire (1336\u20131646). All of these kingdoms were patrons of the **arts** , sponsoring the construction of some of the most beautiful and elaborate Hindu **temples** ever built, including the temple complexes of **Belur** , **Halebid** , and **B\u0101d\u0101m\u012b** , among others. Karnataka has also been a home to **Jainism** , particularly the Digambara sect, whose monastery at \u015arava\u1e47a Be\u1e37gola houses a massive stone monument of the Jain saint B\u0101hubali, a product of the Hoysala era. Karnataka's contributions to the **bhakti** movement include the **\u015aaiva** bhakti **poet** **Basava (** 1134\u20131196), the founder of the **V\u012bra\u015baiva** or **Li\u1e45g\u0101yat** tradition, and the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava \u0101c\u0101rya Madhva** (1238\u20131317). The author and **Indologist** **A. K. Ramanujan** (1921\u20131993) hailed from Karnataka as well.\n\n**K\u0100RTIKA.** Month of the **Hindu calendar** that corresponds roughly to the period from mid-October to mid-November.\n\n**K\u0100RTTIKEYA.** \"Of the K\u1e5bttik\u0101s (the Pleiades)\"; son of **\u015aiva** and **P\u0101rvati** and brother of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** ; also known as **Skanda** , **Subrama\u1e47ya** , **Murugan** , **Kum\u0101ra** , and **\u1e62a\u1e47mukha**. The last name, which means \"having six faces,\" is due to his having been born with six heads and 12 arms, though he is not always depicted in this way. In fact, he is widely regarded as a very handsome deity, often appearing as a young boy (the meaning of the name _Kum\u0101ra_ ). According to one tradition, he was raised by the six goddesses who are the main stars making up the Pleiades, hence the name _K\u0101rttikeya_. A warrior deity, he is associated with the planet Mars and is regarded as a divine general, analogous to Michael in the **Christian** tradition, who leads the armies of heaven in battle against their demonic enemies, the **asuras**. K\u0101rttikeya's vehicle is the peacock ( **m\u0101yur\u012b** ). For this reason, he is known in Mah\u0101y\u0101na **Buddhism** as _Mah\u0101m\u0101yur\u012b_ , \"the Great Peacock,\" and is a guardian of Buddhism and Buddhist holy sites.\n\n**K\u0100\u015a\u012a.** Alternative name for **Banaras** ; the name for this city most often used in ancient sources.\n\n**KASHMIR, KA\u015aM\u012aR.** Region in the extreme north of India; currently an area disputed by India and Pakistan, as well as by a movement for independence from both countries. Known for its breathtaking beauty, Kashmir is located in the **Him\u0101layas** and has a large number of lakes and forests. The region is named for the sage **Ka\u015byapa** , who is believed to have lived there. The dominant religion in the region has historically been **\u015aaivism** \u2014specifically the **Tantric Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaiva** tradition. Kashmir was the birthplace of one of the greatest theologians and systematizers of \u015aaiva thought, **Abhinavagupta**. **Buddhism** was also prominent in Kashmir for many centuries, from which it spread to Central Asia. Since the Middle Ages, it has been a major center for **Islam** as well\u2014particularly **Sufism** \u2014and, until recently, was famous for peaceful coexistence between Hindus and Muslims.\n\n**KA\u015aM\u012aR \u015aAIVISM.** Collective term for a variety of **Tantric \u015aaiva** systems of thought and practice either originating or traditionally prominent in **Ka\u015bm\u012br**. Prominent among these are the **Kaula Tantra** system of **Abhinavagupta** (950\u20131020), the Trika system, and the Krama system. The Trika, or \"triadic,\" system focuses on a trio of **goddesses** who are all manifestations of **K\u0101l\u012b** or **\u015aakti** , the divine energy of **\u015aiva**. The rituals of this system include offerings of the **Five M's** , or traditionally impure substances utilized to embody the **truth** of nonduality: that there is truly nothing impure in the world if all is one. One of Abhinavagupta's innovations was to develop a system of contemplative visualization of these practices, so they did not have to actually be physically practiced in order for one to experience their spiritual benefits. The Krama, or \"Steps,\" system similarly utilized practices such as the Five M's, which were also transformed into visualization exercises by Abhinavagupta. One of the results of Abhinavagupta's work was that Kaula Tantra eventually superseded and absorbed the other two systems.\n\n**KA\u015aYAPA.** Literally, \"tortoise\"; **Vedic** sage believed to be the father of all humanity, as well as many of the deities, or **devas** , of the _Vedas_. He was married to 13 of the daughters of **Dak\u1e63a** , including **Aditi** , with whom he fathered the 12 **\u0100dityas** , and both **Diti** and **D\u0101nu** , with whom he fathered the **Daityas** and **D\u0101navas** , respectively. He is mentioned frequently in the _Ath\u0101rva Veda_. Because of his role as father of all human beings, whenever one is not aware of one's **gotra** name (a name that connects a person as a descendant to a Vedic sage, or **\u1e5b\u1e63i** ), one uses the name _Ka\u015byapa_.\n\n_KA\u1e6cHA UPANI\u1e62AD_ **.** One of the principle _Upani\u1e63ads_ , probably composed between 400 and 300 BCE. The text consists primarily of a dialogue between a boy named **N\u0101ciketa** and **Yama** , the **god** of **death**. Seeking to know the secret of **immortality** and what occurs after death, Yama reveals to him the **Ved\u0101ntic** doctrine of death, **rebirth** , and **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from rebirth. The text dwells at length on the nature of the soul ( **\u0101tman** ) and contains a famous metaphor of the body as a **chariot** , with the horses that pull the chariot being the senses, the driver being the **mind** , and the self being the rider within the chariot.\n\n**KATHAK.** Style of classical Indian **dance** developed in Uttar Pradesh, northern India. Kathak is known especially for the complex hand motions that it involves.\n\n**KATHAKALI.** Style of classical Indian **dance** developed in **Kerala**. This dance style is traditionally performed only by men. It is well known for the very elaborate makeup and costumes that its performers wear.\n\n**KAULA TANTRA.** System of **Tantric** practice aimed at realizing one's unity with **\u015aiva** through the elevation of the **Ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b** energy from the **m\u016bladh\u0101ra cakra** at the base of the spine to the **sah\u0101srara cakra** or \"thousand-petaled lotus,\" which, when energized by the rising energy, produces a blissful state that, according to this system, advances one quickly toward **en** **lightenment**. In the pursuit of this goal, V\u0101m\u0101c\u0101ra or **Left-Handed Tantric** practices such as the **Five M's** are employed.\n\n**Abhinavagupta** (950\u20131020), the most prominent theologian of this tradition of **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaivism** , reinterpreted its Left-Handed practices as contemplative visualization exercises, making their spiritual benefits available without requiring aspirants to actually physically practice them.\n\n**KAURAVA.** \"Descendant of Kuru\"; member of the **Kuru-Pa\u00f1c\u0101la** dynasty, the royal family whose misadventures are recounted in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. Though both branches of this family whose conflict is presented in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ are technically Kauravas, in order to distinguish the two groups, the sons of **Pa\u1e47\u1e0du** are referred to as the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** and their opponents as the Kauravas.\n\n_KAU\u1e62\u012aTAKI UPANI\u1e62AD_ **.** One of the principle _Upani\u1e63ads_ , and a relatively early one, likely composed, in its current form, in the fifth century before the Common Era, around the same time as the _B\u1e5bhad\u0101ra\u1e47yaka Upani\u1e63ad_ and _Ch\u0101ndogya Upani\u1e63ad_.\n\n**KAU\u1e6cILYA (c. 350\u2013283).** Author to whom the _Artha \u015a\u0101stra_ , an ancient **Sanskrit** text of political science, is attributed; a **Brahmin** and chief political advisor to Candragupta **Maurya** ; also known as Canakya. In later Sanskrit **literature** and in the Hindu popular imagination, Kau\u1e6dilya is depicted as a clever, wily figure\u2014an ancient Indian Machiavelli. Following Kau\u1e6dilya's advice, the warrior Candragupta conquered most of northern India and established the first imperial dynasty to unite much of the subcontinent under a single government. Candragupta's grandson, A\u015boka\u2014known for his conversion to **Buddhism** \u2014expanded the Mauryan Empire to its greatest geographic extent.\n\n**K\u0100VYA.** **Sanskrit** poetics. _See also_ POETRY.\n\n**KERALA.** State on the southwestern coast of India; home to the majority of **Christians** in India. Kerala was the birthplace of **\u015aa\u1e45kara** (788\u2013820), the primary exponent of the **nondualistic** or **Advaita** form of **Ved\u0101nta** and founder of the **Da\u015ban\u0101mi Order** of Hindu monks. It is also the location of **Sabarimalai** hill, which is sacred to the followers of the deity **Ayyappan**. Kerala is believed to be the birthplace of **Para\u015bur\u0101ma** , the sixth out of the traditional list of 10 **avat\u0101ras** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. The **guru** **Amrit\u0101nandamay\u012b M\u0101t\u0101** also hails from Kerala.\n\n**KETU.** One of the **navagrahas** ; companion of **R\u0101hu**. R\u0101hu was an **asura** who managed to steal a drop of the **am\u1e5bta** , or elixir of **immortality** , when the **devas** and asuras churned it from the cosmic ocean. Alerted to this fact by the sun and the **moon** , **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** beheaded R\u0101hu and placed his head in the sky. The rest of R\u0101hu's body became a separate entity, Ketu, also placed in the sky. The two of them periodically take their vengeance on the sun and the moon by swallowing them, causing solar and lunar eclipses. Ketu appears as a man with the head of a serpent. Both are considered inauspicious in Hindu **astrology**.\n\n**KHAJURAHO.** **Temple** complex in north-central India located in the state of Madhya Pradesh; famous for the erotic imagery, modeled on the sexual positions described in the _K\u0101ma S\u016btra_ , that adorn the outer walls of many of the temples. The complex includes temples dedicated to **\u015aiva** and **Hanuman** , as well as several **Jain** temples.\n\n**KNOWLEDGE.** _See_ J\u00d1\u0100NA.\n\n**KOLKATA.** **Bengali** name for **Calcutta**.\n\n**KON\u0100RAK.** Site in **Orissa** known for its **temple** to **S\u016brya** , the sun **god**. The temple is designed in the shape of a massive 24-wheeled **chariot** representing the chariot in which S\u016brya flies across the sky every day. This magnificent structure includes seven stone horses, supposed to be pulling the chariot, and three images of S\u016brya positioned so as to receive direct sunlight at dawn, noon, and sunset.\n\n**KO\u015aA.** \"Layer, sheath.\" Five layers that surround the self ( **\u0101tman** ). The outermost layer, the **anna-maya-ko\u015ba** , or \"sheath made of food,\" is the gross, physical body. Next is the **pr\u0101\u1e47a-maya-ko\u015ba** , or \"sheath made of breath,\" which consists of the **pr\u0101\u1e47a** or life force. Next is the **mano-maya-ko\u015ba** , or \"sheath made of **mind** ,\" which consists of a subtle organ of cognition (distinct from the human brain, which would be part of the anna-maya-ko\u015ba). Next is the **vij\u00f1\u0101na-maya-ko\u015ba** , or \"sheath made of consciousness.\" Finally, there is the **\u0101nanda-maya-ko\u015ba** , or \"sheath made of bliss.\"\n\n**KRISHNA.** _See_ K\u1e5a\u1e62\u1e46A.\n\n**KRISHNAMURTI, JIDDU (1895\u20131986).** Philosopher and spiritual teacher. Born into a **Brahmin** family in Andhra Pradesh, in southern India, Krishnamurti was raised by members of the **Theosophical Society** who believed he was destined to be the \"World Teacher\"\u2014the next **Buddha** , Maitreya\u2014a messianic being whose coming is predicted in the **Buddhist** scriptures. In 1922, while staying in Ojai, California, Krishnamurti experienced a profound spiritual transformation to which he referred as \"the process.\" In 1925, **An** **nie Besant** publicly announced Krishnamurti's messiahship. Krishnamurti himself did not endorse this idea, however, and famously left the Theosophical Society in 1927 in order to teach a radical questioning of all forms of authority.\n\nAlthough Krishnamurti publicly rejected the Theosophical Society and its plans for him, and subsequently distanced himself from all organized religion, Besant and Krishnamurti remained on good terms until Besant's death in 1933.\n\nIn California, Krishnamurti became acquainted with literary figures like **Aldous Huxley** and **Christopher Isherwood** who were adherents of **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** and had an intense interest of expanding the boundaries of human consciousness. He was a hero of the countercultural movement of the 1960s. His lectures were heavily attended by young spiritual seekers of that era. In his later years, he returned to India where he set up a system of schools based on the idea of encouraging the curiosity of children in a spirit of free inquiry.\n\nTo the degree that it is possible to categorize Krishnamurti's teaching, it can be said to have affinities to both **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** and the thought of the second-century CE Mah\u0101y\u0101na Buddhist philosopher N\u0101g\u0101rjuna.\n\n**K\u1e5a\u1e62\u1e46A.** \"Dark one\"; also \"attractive one\"; along with **R\u0101ma** , one of the most popular incarnations or **avat\u0101ras** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** in Hindu devotional practice. For some **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas** , particularly the **Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is not merely an avat\u0101ra, but is **God** in a monotheistic sense\u2014the \"Supreme Personality of Godhead,\" to cite the terminology of the **Hare Krishna movement** (a subset of Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism). The textual sources on K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's life consist mainly of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , the _Hariva\u1e43\u015ba_ , and the _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. There is also a very early, albeit brief, reference to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, son of **Devak\u012b** , in the _B\u1e5bhad\u0101ra\u1e47yaka Upani\u1e63ad_. Though it is the earliest of these texts, the portions of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ dealing with K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a (including the famous _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ **)** relate the latter parts of this figure's life story, as king of **Dv\u0101raka**. The _Bhagavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ , composed later, deals with the earlier portions of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's life, including narratives of his infancy and adolescence. It is this text that is by far the most popular within Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava traditions. K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's loving relations with the **gop\u012bs** , or cowherd women of **V\u1e5bnd\u0101vana** , in particular, are a very popular subject of **art** , song, **dance** , **poetry** , and philosophical and theological reflection. The _G\u012btagovinda_ of **Jayadeva** (c. 1200), often likened to the biblical \"Song of Songs,\" focuses on the love affair between K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and **R\u0101dh\u0101** , a relationship that the tradition utilizes as an image for the relationship of the individual devotee to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a\u2014a saving bond known as **bhakti** , or devotion.\n\nMajor episodes from K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's life include his peaceful youth in idyllic V\u1e5bnd\u0101van; his eventual slaying of his wicked uncle, **K\u0101\u1e43sa** ; his friendship with **Arjuna** and the other **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dava** brothers; and the tragic brawl among K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's kinsmen, the **Y\u0101davas** , which foreshadowed the fall of their kingdom, Dv\u0101rak\u0101.\n\n**K\u1e5a\u1e62\u1e46A JANM\u0100\u1e62\u1e6cAMI.** Birthday of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** ; major Hindu holiday. K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a Janm\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dami occurs on the eighth day of the dark half (or **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a Pak\u1e63a** ) of the month of **\u015arava\u1e47a**. Literally meaning, \"Birthday of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, the Eighth,\" the number eight alludes to the fact that K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a was the eighth child of **Devak\u012b** , his mother, and the eighth **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** according to the list of 10 avat\u0101ras.\n\n**K\u1e5a\u1e62\u1e46A PAK\u1e62A.** The dark half of a Hindu month; the fortnight of a Hindu lunar month during which the **moon** is waning; the period between **P\u016br\u1e47ima** , or full-moon day, and **Amavasya** , or new-moon day (which is also the last day of the Hindu month). The dark half of the month is generally considered a less auspicious time for undertaking any new ventures. _See also_ CALENDAR, HINDU.\n\n**K\u1e62ATRIYA.** Warrior; ruler; the second of the four **var\u1e47as** or main **castes**. In terms of traditional occupation, this caste is responsible for maintaining **dharma** in the sense of law and order and the smooth running of society.\n\n**KUBERA.** God of wealth; a very ancient deity associated with nature and assimilated into Hinduism, **Buddhism** , and **Jainism** as a **yak\u1e63a** , or earth spirit. He was the lord of the yak\u1e63as and **r\u0101k\u1e63asas** until being overthrown by **R\u0101va\u1e47a**. For this reason, Kubera is an ally of **R\u0101ma**. He is the guardian of the north and is usually depicted as a pot-bellied man with a large bag of coins and jewels.\n\n_KUL\u0100R\u1e46AVA TANTRA_ **.** Main **scripture** of the **Kaula Tantra** sect.\n\n**KUM\u0100RA.** \"Youth\"; name for **K\u0101rttikeya** , son of **\u015aiva** and **P\u0101rvat\u012b**.\n\n**KUM\u0100RILA BHA\u1e6c\u1e6cA (fl. 700 CE).** Philosopher; prominent adherent of the **P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** or **M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** system of Hindu **philosophy**. Kum\u0101rila spent much of his life in **Pray\u0101ga** ( **Allahabad** ). P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101, or \"earlier exegesis,\" the philosophy on which Kum\u0101rila expounded, is a continuation of the ancient, orthodox system of Vedic **Brahmanism** , with a very strong emphasis on the correct performance of **Vedic** ritual and the correct pronunciation of the **Sanskrit** verses of the _Vedas_ during a ritual performance. This emphasis on the correct Sanskrit usage led to the development of an elaborate linguistic philosophy by the M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43sakas. The term _P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101_ contrasts this school of thought with later, or **Uttara M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** \u2014more widely known as **Ved\u0101nta**. It emphasizes the earlier, ritualistic portion of the _Vedas_ , while Ved\u0101nta emphasizes the later Vedic **literature** , the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , and their teaching of **Brahman**.\n\nKum\u0101rila's contributions to M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 include his theory of language, which, in contrast to the holistic **spho\u1e6da** theory of **Bhart\u1e5bhari** , affirms that a sentence can only be understood when each of its words is comprehended correctly. Sharply critical of the **Buddhists** and **Jains** , Kum\u0101rila argues that the Buddhist and Jain **scriptures** cannot be true because they contain numerous grammatical errors and are not written in Sanskrit. In defense of the authority of the _Vedas_ , he argued that they are _apauru\u1e63eya_ \u2014that is, they have no author and are thus eternal. Kum\u0101rila's position on the _Vedas_ is akin to _fideism_ , the antifoundationalist notion of taking a particular tradition or set of claims on faith as axiomatically true. His critiques of Buddhism reveal a close acquaintance with Buddhist claims and arguments, and some accounts of his life claim that he studied at the famous Buddhist university at Nalanda.\n\n**KUMBHA MEL\u0100.** \"Festival of the Pot\"; a massive pilgrimage and festival held on a rotating basis every three years at **Hardwar** , **N\u0101sik** , **Ujjain** , and **Pray\u0101ga**. It is said that at the time of the churning of the cosmic ocean of milk, four drops of **am\u1e5bta** \u2014the elixir of **immortality** \u2014fell to Earth at the locations of these holy cities. The pot to which the name of the festival refers is the one from which the drops of am\u1e5bta spilled. Pilgrims, including a massive number of renouncers, or **sanny\u0101sins** , gather at each site every 12 years. The 144th Kumbha Mel\u0101 of a cycle is known as the _Mah\u0101_ or \"great\" _Kumbha Mel\u0101_. The last Mah\u0101 Kumbha Mel\u0101, held in the year 2001, attracted 60,000,000 pilgrims, making this festival the largest gathering of human beings for a single purpose in history. The crowds at this gathering were visible to orbiting satellites.\n\nThe earliest written account of the Kumbha Mel\u0101 is that of the Chinese **Buddhist** pilgrim Xuanzang, who traveled to India in the seventh century of the Common Era, during the reign of **Har\u1e63a**. According to Xuanzang's account, Har\u1e63a accompanied him to this gathering. It is likely, however, that the Kumbha Mel\u0101 dates back many centuries before Xuanzang.\n\nThe Kumbha Mel\u0101 begins on the **P\u016br\u1e47im\u0101** , or full-moon day, of the month of **Pau\u1e63a** (December\u2013January) and ends on the P\u016br\u1e47im\u0101 of **Magha** (January\u2013February).\n\n**KU\u1e46\u1e0cALIN\u012a.** \"Coiled one\"; serpent. According to **Tantric yoga** , in the space that corresponds to the base of the spine, a subtle energy or **\u015bakti** , resides. While it is residing in this space, it is also referred to as the ku\u1e47\u1e0dalini, or coiled energy, because it is said to resemble a coiled serpent in this state. One of the goals of Tantric yoga practice is to raise this energy from the base of the spine to the crown of the head, which are linked by a subtle nerve channel called the su\u1e63umna n\u0101d\u012b, and which occupies roughly the same space as the spinal cord. Along the su\u1e63umna n\u0101d\u012b are the seven **cakras**. These energy centers are activated as the \u015bakti or ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b rises through the su\u1e63umna n\u0101d\u012b to the **sah\u0101srara cakra** or \"thousand-petaled lotus,\" in the crown of the head, which, when energized by the rising \u015bakti, produces a blissful state that, according to Tantra, advances one quickly toward **enlightenment**.\n\nAccording to the tradition of **Siddha Yoga** , a contemporary **\u015aaiva** movement with a strongly Tantric dimension, an enlightened teacher, or **guru** , can raise one's \u015bakti from the base of the spine to the crown of the head\u2014activating all of the cakras in the process\u2014with a thought, word, or touch. This experience is called **\u015baktipat**. _See also_ KAULA TANTRA.\n\n**KUNT\u012a.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ; wife of **Pa\u1e47\u1e0du** and mother of **Kar\u1e47a** and three of the five **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dava** brothers\u2014 **Yudhi\u1e63\u1e6dhira** , **Bh\u012bma** , and **Arjuna**. In her youth, **Durv\u0101sa** , a sage, paid a visit to her father's palace. Impressed by the polite young woman, the sage gave her a secret **mantra** that she could use to summon any deity of her choosing for the purpose of bearing a child by that deity. Not fully comprehending the implications of the use of this mantra, the curious girl used it to call upon the sun **god** , **S\u016brya** , who then impregnated her. Soon, Kunt\u012b gave birth to a magnificent son from this union, Kar\u1e47a, who had the characteristics of his divine father.\n\nBut because she was unmarried and ashamed to have given birth, she hid the child, putting him in a basket and sending him down a river, from where he would later be rescued by a childless charioteer and his wife, who would take the boy in and lovingly raise him as their own.\n\nLater in life, when she was married to the **Kaurava** king, **Pa\u1e47\u1e0du** , Kunt\u012b used her mantra again when the king was cursed to die if he approached either of his two wives for the purpose of lovemaking. Pa\u1e47\u1e0du had not yet fathered an heir at this point, so Kunt\u012b used her mantra to bear semidivine children who would legally be Pa\u1e47\u1e0du's. This was the origin of the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dava brothers, three of whom were Kunt\u012b's sons and two of whom\u2014the twins, **Nakula** and Sahadeva\u2014were the sons of Pa\u1e47\u1e0du's younger wife, **M\u0101dr\u012b** , with whom Kunt\u012b shared her mantra.\n\nWhen the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas rejected Kar\u1e47a as unworthy to share the assembly of **k\u1e63atriya** warriors, being (as they thought) the son of a humble charioteer, **Duryodhana** , seizing an opportunity to gain a powerful ally, made Kar\u1e47a a king, thus winning his enduring loyalty and ensuring that Kar\u1e47a would fight on Duryodhana's side against his brothers. On the eve of the climactic battle between the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas and the Kauravas, Kunt\u012b tells Kar\u1e47a the **truth** about his identity, hoping to win him over to the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas' side. But Kar\u1e47a does not waver in his loyalty to Duryodhana. Kar\u1e47a later dies in the battle at Arjuna's hand, though Arjuna does not yet know at that point that Kar\u1e47a is really his eldest brother. _See also_ WOMEN.\n\n**K\u016aRMA.** The tortoise **avat\u0101ra** or incarnation of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and the second in the traditional list of 10 such avat\u0101ras. Vi\u1e63\u1e47u assumes this form to act as the pivot for the churning of the ocean when the **devas** and **asuras** churn the cosmic ocean in their search for **am\u1e5bta** , the elixir of **immortality**.\n\n**KURU-PA\u00d1C\u0100LA.** Ancient **Vedic** polity located in northwestern India, roughly in the vicinity of the modern state of Haryana and **New Delhi**. The Kurus and Pa\u00f1c\u0101las were two distinct groups that formed a union. A historical kingdom (and later a republic), archaeologists believe the Kurus were a people who lived in the Delhi area between the 12th and ninth centuries before the Common Era and whose deeds and struggles formed the basis for the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. The _\u1e5ag Veda_ may reflect their ideology.\n\n**KURUK\u1e62ETRA.** \"Field of the Kurus.\" Field in northern India on which the climactic battle of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ takes place. This is the same battle that is the occasion for the dialogue between **Arjuna** and **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** that constitutes the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. In interpreting the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , it is sometimes asserted (on the basis of _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ 13:1) that the field of Kuruk\u1e63etra symbolizes the physical body as the location where the battle against spiritual enemies such as greed, hatred, and lust is waged\u2014a battle symbolized, in turn, by the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ war. **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** favored this interpretation as a way to negate K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's apparent endorsement of violence in the first two chapters of this text, making it more compatible with G\u0101ndh\u012b's **philosophy** of nonviolence ( **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** ).\n\n**KU\u015aA.** A type of sacred grass used in **Vedic** ceremonies.\n\n**K\u016a\u1e6cIY\u0100\u1e6c\u1e6cAM (KOODIY\u0100\u1e6c\u1e6cAM).** \"Acting together\"; classical Indian **dance** style. Every year a series of eight dance dramas is performed at **Guruvay\u016br** , a town in **Kerala** , in the K\u016b\u1e6diy\u0101\u1e6d\u1e6dam style that depicts events from K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's life. This is the one Indian style of classical dance that has continued to be performed without interruption since ancient times. Others fell into disuse at different points and have been revived in modern times.\n\n## L\n\n**LAK\u1e62MA\u1e46A.** Character in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ ; brother and close friend of **R\u0101ma** who often takes on the role of R\u0101ma's protector. Just as R\u0101ma is regarded as an **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , and **S\u012bt\u0101** , R\u0101ma's wife, as an incarnation of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u's wife, **Lak\u1e63m\u012b** , Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a is often seen as an incarnation of **Se\u015ba** , the cosmic serpent on whom Vi\u1e63\u1e47u reclines on the cosmic ocean, and who rears up his many heads to protect Vi\u1e63\u1e47u. Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a accompanies R\u0101ma into exile and is his constant companion in his struggle with the demonic **R\u0101va\u1e47a**.\n\n**LAKSHMAN JOO, SW\u0100M\u012a (1907\u20131991).** Scholar, mystic, revered modern exponent of **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaivism**.\n\n**LAK\u1e62M\u012a.** \"Mark\"; \"sign\"; **goddess** of good fortune and prosperity; wife of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. She emerged from the cosmic ocean when it was churned by the **devas** and **asuras** to retrieve the **am\u1e5bta** , or elixir of **immortality**. When **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** appears on the Earth as an **avat\u0101ra** he is accompanied by Lak\u1e63m\u012b, who manifests as **R\u0101ma** 's wife, **S\u012bt\u0101** , and later as **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** 's wife, **Rukmi\u1e47\u012b**. In **\u015arivai\u1e63\u1e47ava** theology, Lak\u1e63m\u012b and Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, rather like **\u015aiva** and **\u015aakti** , are said to be two parts, aspects, or dimensions of one, undivided godhead. Analogously to the way in which \u015aakti is viewed as the power of \u015aiva, without which he can do nothing, it is said that Vi\u1e63\u1e47u never does anything without Lak\u1e63m\u012b's approval and that he takes her advice. For this reason, Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava devotees sometimes approach Vi\u1e63\u1e47u through Lak\u1e63m\u012b as a kind of intercessor. It is said that Lak\u1e63m\u012b represents the more gentle and benevolent aspect of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, who is sometimes represented as a rather stern and righteous deity. She is also a symbol of divine grace. In her origins, it is likely that she was first worshiped as a goddess of abundance and fertility. _See also_ \u015aR\u012a.\n\n**LAKUL\u012a\u015aA (fl. 2nd century CE).** **Yogi** ; founder of the **Pa\u015bupata** tradition of **\u015aaivism**.\n\n**LALL\u0100 (fl. 1300 CE).** Female mystic, **bhakti** **poet** , and saint of the **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaiva** tradition, also known as Lalle\u015bwar\u012b. The collection of her poems is entitled the _Lalla V\u0101ky\u0101ni_ (\"Sayings of Lall\u0101\"). _See also_ WOMEN.\n\n**LALLE\u015aWAR\u012a.** _See_ LALL\u0100.\n\n**LAMBODARA. \"** Pot belly\"; epithet of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba**.\n\n**LA\u1e44KA.** In the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , La\u1e45ka is the island kingdom of **R\u0101va\u1e47a** , demonic lord of the **r\u0101k\u1e63asas**. Subsequent tradition has come to identify this island with **Sri Lanka** , the large island off the southeastern coast of India, near **Tamil** Nadu.\n\n**LAW.** _See_ DHARMA.\n\n_LAWS OF MANU_ **.** _See MANUSM\u1e5aTI_.\n\n**LEFT-HANDED TANTRA.** **Tantric** practices that include **actions** and items, such as the **Five M's** , which are normally regarded as impure, so called because the left hand is traditionally seen in Hindu culture as unclean. The purpose of such practices is to show that one has transcended the realm of duality\u2014that if everything is one with the divine, the belief that certain actions, persons, or things can be impure is without foundation and is a part of the illusion to which those who are trapped in the cycle of **rebirth** have become enthralled. Such practices are traditionally shrouded in secrecy, both because they might be an occasion for scandal for the practitioner, but also because it is believed that such practices are only effective for those who truly are cultivating a nondual awareness. If pursued merely for pleasure or other unworthy purposes (like the cultivation of **siddhis** , or paranormal powers) they can be destructive and lead to rebirth in hell. Because of the perilous nature of such practices, the **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaiva** theologian **Abhinavagupta** (950\u20131020) recommended that one should practice them through contemplative visualization, rather than with literal, physical performance. The **Sanskrit** term for Left-Handed Tantra is V\u0101m\u0101c\u0101ra.\n\n**LEKHR\u0100J, D\u0100DA (1876\u20131969).** Founder of the **Brahm\u0101 Kum\u0101r\u012b** movement; better known by his religious name of **Praj\u0101pitar Brahm\u0101**.\n\n**LIBERATION.** **Mok\u1e63a** ; release from **sa\u1e43s\u0101ra** , the **karma** -fueled cycle of birth, **death** , and **rebirth** , and the ultimate goal of many systems of Hindu thought and practice.\n\n**L\u012aL\u0100.** \"Play,\" the divine play. According to some theistic Hindu theologies, the world of time and space in which souls reside is a divine play, an exuberant and spontaneous burst of creativity in which **God** delights in infinite possibility. The concept of l\u012bl\u0101 is an attempt to answer the question of why God, who is self-sufficient and free from desire, engages in the act of **creation** , which implies a desire to create. According to the idea of l\u012bl\u0101, creation is a spontaneous act pursued as an end in itself, rather than an **action** that is undertaken for some further, desired end.\n\n**LI\u1e44GA (LI\u1e44GAM).** Symbolic form of **\u015aiva** ; an abstract representation, in contrast to the more anthropomorphic **m\u016brtis** that represent \u015aiva as a human being, emphasizing his **nirgu\u1e47a** , or formless, nature.\n\nSome, though not all, li\u1e45gas have a phallic appearance, prompting speculation that the li\u1e45ga may originally have been a fertility symbol, and \u015aiva a deity connected with fertility. While this is certainly the case in some contexts\u2014shrines or images; such as Gudimallam in Andhra Pradesh, where the phallic nature of the li\u1e45ga is quite obvious\u2014the preeminent view of the li\u1e45ga in general among contemporary Hindus is that it is an abstract, aniconic representation of a deity who is ultimately beyond form. The most commonly cited textual reference to the meaning and origin of the li\u1e45ga is not overtly phallic but refers to \u015aiva's appearance to **Brahm\u0101** and **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** as an infinite pillar of fire whose full extent neither deity is able to comprehend (not unlike biblical apparitions of the divine as a pillar of fire). The li\u1e45ga, on this understanding, is an attempt to represent this pillar of fire in the form of a stone. _See also_ YONI.\n\n**LI\u1e44G\u0100YAT. \u015aaiva** tradition based in **Karnataka** and established by the **bhakti** **poet** and social reformer **Basava** (1134\u20131196). Also known as the **V\u012bra\u015baivas** , the Li\u1e45g\u0101yats oppose **casteism** and teach the equality of all human beings as manifestations of **\u015aiva**. Believing in holding ritualism to a bare minimum, the only image the Li\u1e45g\u0101yats use is the abstract form of \u015aiva, the **li\u1e45ga** (hence the name _Li\u1e45g\u0101yat_ for this tradition), which they traditionally wear on a necklace. The Li\u1e45g\u0101yats regard \u015aiva as **God** in the **monotheistic** sense\u2014as the one supreme deity.\n\n**LITERATURE.** Literature is a vital component of Hinduism, from the ancient **Vedic** **scriptures** to the writings of contemporary Hindu spiritual teachers ( **gurus** ). The range of Hindu literary genres is vast, encompassing very large epic narratives (the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ being the primary examples); the lyrical **poetry** of the **bhakti** saints; the terse didactic writings or **s\u016btras** of the various philosophical systems (or **dar\u015banas** ); the pragmatic \"how-to\" manuals of political science ( _Artha \u015a\u0101stra_ ), **law** ( _Dharma \u015a\u0101stra_ ), and sensory enjoyment (the _K\u0101ma S\u016btra_ ); the dramas of playwrights such as **K\u0101lid\u0101sa** ; and in the modern period, the novels of **Bankim Chandra Chatterjee** and the poems, plays, songs, and essays of **Rabindranath Tagore**.\n\nThe oldest extant Hindu literature is composed in **Sanskrit**. The _Vedas_ , the oldest and most sacred collection of Hindu scriptural literature, is regarded as **\u015br\u016bti** , or divinely revealed. The Vedic literature includes both poetry and prose and was passed on orally for centuries by the community of **Brahmins** before being committed to writing in the modern period. Even larger (and more popularly known) than the _Vedas_ is the collection of **sm\u1e5bti** , or secondary scriptures, which includes the two main Sanskrit epics and many other sets of authoritative texts, such as the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ , or ancient tales of the **gods** , and the s\u016btra and \u015b\u0101stra literature just mentioned.\n\nIn the first millennium of the Common Era, devotional poetry in the vernacular languages of India became increasingly popular. Some of this poetry, such as the **Tamil** works of the **\u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs** and **N\u0101yan\u0101rs** , came to be regarded as scripture in its own right by the South Indian **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** and **\u015aaiva** traditions, respectively, that inherited it. As bhakti became a mass movement, translations of earlier Sanskrit works into spoken vernacular languages also increased in number, such as the **Hindi** rendering of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , the _R\u0101m Carit M\u0101nas_ of **Tuls\u012bd\u0101s** (1532\u20131623), which is better known among Hindus in the northern part of India today than the original _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ of **V\u0101lm\u012bki**.\n\nWith the coming of the British to India and the institution of English education, many Hindu thinkers began to express themselves through the medium of English essays, including some of the major figures of the modern Hindu reform movement, like **R\u0101m Mohan Roy** , **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** , **Aurobindo Ghose** , and **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** , to name only a few. European genres, such as the novel, also became popular in the modern period, often being written in Indian vernacular languages, such as the **Bengali** novels of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee.\n\nWith the internationalization of Hinduism, the creation and adaptation of Hindu forms of literary expression continues today\u2014including, for example, the science fiction adaptation of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ in Ashok Banker's _Prince of Ayodhya_ series of novels, and the American-produced graphic novel _Ramayana Reloaded_ \u2014as well as the maintaining of earlier literary forms, such as devotional songs, or **bhajanas** \u2014the lyrics of all of which are bhakti poems\u2014which have been incorporated into popular Indian cinema. And the Indian diaspora is producing a great variety of English novelists reflecting upon the relatively recent experience of being Hindu in predominantly non-Hindu cultures.\n\n**LOKA.** World; realm; abode of a deity; also the human world; society.\n\n**LOKAP\u0100LA.** The four leading **Vedic** deities, **Indra** , **Agni** , **Varu\u1e47a** , and **Yama**. These deities are frequently invoked early in ritualistic worship, or **p\u016bj\u0101** , in order to ensure that the ritual will be completed without mishap.\n\n**LOK\u0100YATA.** **Materialism** , doctrine of the **C\u0101rv\u0101ka** system of philosophy, one of the heterodox or **n\u0101stika** schools of Indian philosophy, or **dar\u015bana**. According to this view, the only valid **pram\u0101\u1e47a** or basis of **knowledge** is sensory perception. The adherents of this view reject such widely held doctrines of Indian philosophy as **karma** and **rebirth** or belief in anything that is not verifiable through sensory perception. This system was widely criticized by adherents of other schools of thought, both orthodox (the **Vedic** or **Brahmanical** systems) and heterodox ( **Buddhism** and **Jainism** ).\n\n**LOMAHAR\u1e62A\u1e46A S\u016aTA.** Disciple of **Vy\u0101sa** who memorized the epics and _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_.\n\n**LOTUS.** Flower frequently used in Hindu iconography to symbolize the state of spiritual **enlightenment**. The lotus typically grows in muddy water. The lotus blossom, sprouting from a stalk that rises out of the mud in which it is rooted to bloom above the surface of the water, represents spiritual enlightenment arising from the mud of worldly life, with its various forms of suffering and limitation. In recent decades, the lotus has also become a symbol of Hinduism, and is used as the logo of some **Hindu Nationalist** organizations such as the **Bharat\u012bya Janata Party** (BJP).\n\n**LOTUS POSTURE. Padm\u0101sana** ; **Ha\u1e6dha Yoga** posture formed by placing the right foot on the left thigh and the left foot on the right thigh. This is the \"full lotus.\" There is also a half-lotus posture ( **ardhapadm\u0101sana** ), formed by placing the right foot on the left thigh and the left foot underneath the right leg. _See also_ \u0100SANA.\n\n**LOVE.** Love has a wide range of meanings in Hinduism, some of which are denoted by distinct **Sanskrit** terms, including **bhakti** (absolute devotion to **God** in a personal form), **prema** (platonic love, affection, friendship), and **k\u0101ma** (erotic or romantic love, sexual desire). Love is theorized in Hindu thought as not a mere sentiment but rather as the felt experience of the interconnectedness of one being to another, and ultimately of all beings to one another and to God.\n\n## M\n\n**M\u0100.** Mother. Intimate form of address frequently used to call upon **Dev\u012b** , the **Mother Goddess** , especially popular in **Bengal**.\n\n**MADHVA (1238\u20131317). Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava \u0101c\u0101rya** ; founder of the dualistic or **Dvaita** system of **Ved\u0101nta**. Born near **Udipi** in **Karnataka** , where he spent most of his life, Madhva is believed by his devotees to be the third incarnation or **avat\u0101ra** of **V\u0101yu** , the **Vedic** **god** of the wind (the first two incarnations being **Hanuman** and **Bh\u012bma** ). A devout **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** , Madhva was highly critical of the **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** of **\u015aa\u1e45kara** , seeing it as diminishing the significance of **bhakti** and as relegating **God** to a role subordinate to an impersonal reality ( **Nirgu\u1e47a Brahman** ). Madhva sees Brahman as identical to **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , the supreme deity, and the **j\u012bva** , or individual soul of a living being, as an eternally existing reality distinct from Vi\u1e63\u1e47u. **Liberation** , or **mok\u1e63a** , therefore does not involve a real metaphysical union between the devotee and the divine (or, as in Advaita Ved\u0101nta, a realization that the distinction between the devotee and the divine is an illusion). The devotee and the divine are forever distinct. \"Union\" with the divine is a union of wills, of complete subordination of the will of the individual soul to the will of God ( **\u012a\u015bvara-pra\u1e47idh\u0101na** ). The individuality of one who attains liberation is not effaced. Liberation, rather, consists of residing for eternity in **Vaikun\u1e6dha** , or heaven, with God, a place of infinite bliss. Unusually for a Hindu tradition, Dvaita Ved\u0101nta teaches that it is possible that some souls may never reach liberation and remain eternally separated from God.\n\n**MADRAS.** Also known as Chennai; fourth-largest city in India and capital of the state of **Tamil** Nadu, on the southeast coast of the Deccan peninsula. It was the first city to be established by the **British East India Company** , growing up around Fort Saint George, which was built in 1644. The city contains several major **temples** and also houses the world headquarters of the **Theosophical Society** , in a neighborhood known as Ady\u0101r. Its major temples include K\u0101p\u0101l\u012b\u015bvarar (a **\u015aiva** temple) and \u015ar\u012b Parthasarathy (dedicated to **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** ).\n\n**M\u0100DR\u012a.** Younger wife of **Pa\u1e47\u1e0du** and mother of the twins **N\u0101kula** and Sahadeva, the youngest of the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dava** brothers in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. When Pa\u1e47\u1e0du was cursed to die if he attempted to make love to either of his wives, his elder wife, **Kunt\u012b** , utilized a secret **mantra** that gave her the power to summon any deity and bear a child by that deity. At Pa\u1e47\u1e0du's request, Kunt\u012b evoked the devas **Yama** , **V\u0101yu** , and **Indra** in order to give birth to **Yudhi\u1e63\u1e6dhira** , **Bh\u012bma** , and **Arjuna** , respectively. M\u0101dr\u012b, also desiring to bear divine children for Pa\u1e47\u1e0du, asked Kunt\u012b to share her mantra, which M\u0101dr\u012b then used to evoke the **A\u015bvins** , twin deities who then fathered N\u0101kula and Sahadeva. _See also_ WOMEN.\n\n**MADURAI.** Site in **Tamil** Nadu, in southern India, which houses a major complex of **temples** dedicated to the **goddess** **M\u012bn\u0101k\u1e63\u012b** and **\u015aiva** ; an important pilgrimage site. The annual festival celebrating the wedding of M\u012bn\u0101k\u1e63\u012b and \u015aiva (in his form as **Sundare\u015bvara** , or \"Lord of Beauty\") is very popular and an occasion for great displays of **devotion**.\n\n**MAGHA.** Month of the **Hindu calendar** that corresponds roughly to the period from mid-January to mid-February.\n\n**MAH\u0100BALIPURAM.** _See_ M\u0100MALLAPURAM.\n\n_MAH\u0100BH\u0100RATA_ **.** \"Great Epic of the **Bharatas** \"; along with the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , one of the two great epic poems of Hinduism. Together, these two texts make up the **Itih\u0101sa** (\"thus it was\") or historical **literature** of Hinduism. In its current form, the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ was probably composed over the course of several centuries, from about 300 BCE to 300 CE. According to Hindu tradition, the epic is the work of the sage **Vy\u0101sa** , who is also credited with compiling the _Vedas_ and the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_. The events that make up the main narrative of the text may be based on a battle that took place among various **\u0100ryan** tribes around 950 BCE. However, the text also refers to the sinking of the coastal city of **Dv\u0101rak\u0101** , which took place around 1500 BCE, and at least one Hindu tradition locates the date of the battle as 3102 BCE\u2014also regarded as the point at which the **Kali Yuga** began. In any case, the original narrative expanded substantially over the centuries, as a great variety of folk tales, philosophical writings, and even legal texts were incorporated into the epic through the process of telling and retelling. Consisting, in its finished form, of approximately 180,000 lines, the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ is roughly four times the length of the Bible.\n\nThe basic narrative of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ is focused on the power struggle between two sets of cousins\u2014the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** and the **Kauravas** \u2014who are competing for control of the kingdom of the Kurus. The succession to the throne has been rendered problematic by the vow of **Bh\u012b\u1e63ma** , who renounces his claim to the throne at the request of his father, \u015aantanu, so \u015aantanu can marry a **woman** whose father wants her heirs to inherit the kingdom, and not Bh\u012b\u1e63ma. Subsequently, \u015aantanu's heirs by this woman die without any heirs. The **poet** Vy\u0101sa, the queen's son from a previous relationship, is brought in to father children with the wives of the deceased heirs. One of these sons is blind and the other suffers from albinism, rendering neither fully fit to be king. Their sons, in turn\u2014the Kauravas and the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas\u2014end up fighting for control of the kingdom.\n\nCommentators frequently contrast the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ with its companion epic, the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , particularly in regard to its tragic tone. Whereas the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ is an uplifting classic rescue tale, in which the heroes and the villains are clearly delineated from one another, the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ is far more ambiguous, with the putative heroes (the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas) and their supporters not always behaving in an admirable, or even ethical, fashion, and the villains and their supporters (especially the tragic **Kar\u1e47a** ) sometimes behaving with great nobility.\n\nReligiously, the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ has become especially significant to the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** traditions of Hinduism because of the prominent role of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** in the story\u2014the eighth of the 10 **avat\u0101ras** , or incarnations, of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is a close friend and advisor to the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas, especially the warrior **Arjuna**. K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's counsel to Arjuna on the eve of the climactic battle of the epic is an especially beloved portion of this text and has become a sacred scripture in its own right: the famous \"Song of the Blessed One,\" or _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_.\n\nThe _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ has been a major subject of Hindu **art** and literature throughout the centuries. Plays, such as the renowned poet **K\u0101l\u012bd\u0101sa** 's _Abhij\u00f1\u0101na\u015bakuntala_ (\"The Recognition of **\u015aakuntal\u0101** \"), have been based upon it or upon select episodes within it. Depictions of scenes from the text adorn **temple** walls throughout India and **Southeast Asia**. In the modern period, it has become a popular **Hindi** television series and has been presented as an English stage play by Peter Brook.\n\n**MAH\u0100BH\u016aTAS.** The five elements or states of being that constitute the physical world (mah\u0101bh\u016btas). The five elements are earth ( **p\u1e5bthvi** ), air ( **v\u0101yu** ), fire ( **agni** ), water ( **ap** ), and space ( **\u0101k\u0101\u015ba** ). Each element is the medium of a different type of experience on the subtle level (smell, touch, sight, taste, and sound, respectively).\n\n**MAH\u0100DEVA.** Great **God** ; epithet of **\u015aiva**.\n\n**MAH\u0100DEV\u012a.** Great **Goddess** ; epithet of the **Mother Goddess** , who is known variously as **Um\u0101** , **Dev\u012b** , **\u015aakti** , **P\u0101rvat\u012b** , **Durg\u0101** , and **K\u0101l\u012b** , as well as other names.\n\n**MAH\u0100DEVIYAKKA (fl. 12th century CE).** Female **\u015aaiva** saint and **bhakti** poet who gave up a royal marriage to wander as a naked renouncer, or **sanny\u0101sin\u012b** , devoted completely to **\u015aiva** , whom she regarded as her true husband. She refers to \u015aiva in her devotional **poetry** as her \"Lord white as jasmine,\" saying, \"O lord white as jasmine, if my head falls from my shoulders I shall think it your offering.\" The **V\u012bra\u015baivas** hold Mah\u0101deviyakka in high esteem, revering her devotion. _See also_ WOMEN.\n\n**MAH\u0100K\u0100LA.** \"Great time\"; epithet of **\u015aiva** that refers to his role as time, the destroyer of all. _See also_ N\u0100\u1e6cAR\u0100JA.\n\n**MAH\u0100R\u0100J JI, GURU (1957\u2013 ).** Born Prem Rawat; son of Sri H\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 Mah\u0101r\u0101j Ji. He succeeded his father as head of the **Divine Light Mission** in 1966, when was only nine years old. In 1974, he married an American woman against his mother's wishes. This led to a rift in the Divine Light Mission, which was renamed _El\u00e1n Vital_ in 1983.\n\n**MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI (MAHAR\u1e62I MAHE\u015aA YOG\u012a) (1918\u2013 2008).** **Guru** of the **Transcendental Meditation** tradition, which he began teaching in the Western world in 1958, his most famous students being the Beatles, who visited his **\u0101\u015brama** in **Rishikesh** in 1968. Born **Mahesh Pras\u0101d Varma** , he first earned a degree in physics from **Allahabad** University in 1942 and then studied **meditation** under the tutelage of his guru, Sw\u0101m\u012b Brahm\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b (1869\u20131953), known to the Maharishi's disciples as \"Guru Dev,\" or \"Divine Teacher.\" Like the **Hare Krishna movement** , Transcendental Meditation was a popular component of the countercultural movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. Unlike the Hare Krishna movement, which (until fairly recently) reveled in its \"Indianness,\" with followers dressed like medieval **bhakti** saints chanting **mantras** in public places, Transcendental Meditation has presented itself as a scientific and universal practice, promoted for health and peace of **mind** , rather than as a religious tradition with strong Hindu (specifically **\u015aaiva** ) roots. In 1973, the Maharishi established the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, to advance the study and promotion of his meditation practice. _See also_ HARRISON, GEORGE.\n\n**MAH\u0100SABH\u0100.** \"Great assembly\"; epithet of the **Hindu Mah\u0101sabh\u0101**.\n\n**MAH\u0100\u015aIVAR\u0100TRI.** \"Great night of \u015aiva\"; a festival that is held in honor of **\u015aiva** on the 13th night and 14th day of the **dark half** of **Phalguna** (February\u2013 March). It is observed by devotees through fasting and staying up all night to engage in worship ( **p\u016bj\u0101** ) and listen to stories and sing songs relating to \u015aiva. Also known simply as **\u015aivar\u0101tri** (\"Night of \u015aiva\").\n\n**MAH\u0100TMA.** \"Great soul\"; \"one whose soul is great\"; a saintly person.\n\n**MAH\u0100TMA G\u0100NDH\u012a.** _See_ G\u0100NDH\u012a, MOHAND\u0100S K. (1869\u20131948).\n\n**MAH\u0100V\u012aRA (c. 499\u2013427 BCE).** \"Great Hero\"; 24th **T\u012brtha\u1e45kara** of **Jainism**. According to Jain tradition, 24 \"ford builders,\" or **enlightened** beings, appear in a cosmic epoch to build a _t\u012brtha_ , or ford, across the waters of **re-birth** to the further shore of **mok\u1e63a** or **liberation**. As the 24th T\u012brtha\u1e45kara of our current cosmic epoch, Mah\u0101v\u012bra is therefore the last such being to appear until the next cosmic epoch begins.\n\nMah\u0101v\u012bra is not, strictly speaking, the founder of Jainism, since, from a Jain point of view, he is the latest in a series of enlightened teachers. And there is at least some historical evidence for the existence of a couple of the previous T\u012brtha\u1e45karas. Living at the same time as the **Buddha** , Mah\u0101v\u012bra's life story follows a similar pattern: the son of a king who renounces his king-ship to pursue spiritual freedom.\n\nAccording to Jain tradition, Mah\u0101v\u012bra practiced strict **asceticism** for 12 years prior to achieving **kaivalya** , a state in which he was able to separate his soul ( **j\u012bva** ) from its entanglement with the material world of **karma**. He spent the rest of his life teaching the Jain path to others, establishing a fourfold community of monks, nuns, and male and female laypersons, and finally leaving his body at the age of 72. Jains celebrate **D\u012bwali** as Mah\u0101v\u012bra Nirv\u0101\u1e47a Divas in commemoration of Mah\u0101v\u012bra's final entry into the realm of enlightened beings.\n\n**MAH\u0100V\u012aRA.** \"Great Hero\"; epithet of **Hanuman**.\n\n**MAHENDRA.** \"Great **Indra** \"; epithet of Indra.\n\n**MAHENDRAVIKRAMA VARMAN (571\u2013630 CE).** A king of the **Pallava** dynasty of southern India, based in the capital city of **K\u0101\u00f1cipuram**. A scholar and playwright as well as a king, he authored a satirical play entitled the _Mattavil\u0101sa Prahasana_ (\"Comedy of Drunken Play\") that ridicules various religious sects of the period, including several **\u015aaiva** sects and **Buddhism**.\n\n**MAHE\u015aA.** Great Lord; epithet of **\u015aiva**. _See also_ MAHE\u015aVARA.\n\n**MAHE\u015aVARA.** Great Lord; epithet of **\u015aiva**.\n\n**MAHI\u1e62A, MAHI\u1e62\u0100SURA.** Buffalo Demon; creature slain by the **goddess** **Durg\u0101** , an event commemorated in the 10-day festival of **Durg\u0101 P\u016bj\u0101**.\n\n**MAJUMDAR, R. C. (1888\u20131980).** **Indologist** and historian. His major scholarly work was the massive _History and Culture of the Indian People_.\n\n**MAKARA.** Sea monster with a fairly strong resemblance to the Gangetic dolphin; also often compared to a crocodile; sometimes depicted as a fish with the head of an elephant. The makara is the **vahana** or animal vehicle of two Hindu deities related to water bodies: **Varu\u1e47a** , the **Vedic** **god** of the ocean, and **Ga\u1e45g\u0101** , the **goddess** who personifies the River Ganges.\n\n**MAKARA SA\u1e42KR\u0100NTI.** A Hindu festival that marks the transition of the sun from Sagittarius to Capricorn. Being based on the position of the sun, the date of this festival is fixed as January 14th, unlike most Hindu holidays, whose dates are determined by the dominant lunar calendar of Hinduism. However, it does occur consistently during the lunar month of **Magha** (January\u2013February) and corresponds to the **Tamil** harvest festival of **Pongal**. It is regarded as a highly auspicious day. _See also_ CALENDAR, HINDU.\n\n**MAKKHALI GOS\u0100LA (fl. 5th century BCE).** Sage; a contemporary of **Mah\u0101v\u012bra** and the **Buddha** ; founder of the **\u0100j\u012bvikas** , a **\u015brama\u1e47a** sect that was a major rival of early **Jainism** and **Buddhism**. He is attributed with a doctrine of fatalism, which was likely a claim that, while one could avoid the accumulation of new **karma** , one could do nothing to speed up the fruition or \"burning off\" of already present karma.\n\n**M\u0100LA.** Rosary; string of beads, usually 108 in number, which is used to keep track of the number of times one has recited one's **mantra**. _See also_ JAPA.\n\n**MALHOTRA, RAJIV.** Independent Hindu scholar who has engaged in a critique of the academic study of Hinduism, questioning many of the assumptions that underlie current scholarship as continuations of older colonial assumptions or as reflecting a **Christian** missionary agenda. A good deal of his work that has appeared on the Internet seems to be aimed at exposing **Hinduphobia** \u2014a term he coined to refer to anti-Hindu bias. A controversial figure, reaction to his work among academic scholars has been mixed.\n\n**M\u0100MALLAPURAM.** Site on the beach south of **Madras** in **Tamil** Nadu that houses a variety of **temples** , including one with a sculpture of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** holding Mount **Govardhana** in his hand to shelter his devotees from a thunderstorm. One temple\u2014the Shore Temple\u2014has been declared a World Heritage protected site to help with its preservation. It is an unusual temple for its period in having similar shrines to both **\u015aiva** and **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , rather than being devoted exclusively to one or the other deity. This site was built by the **Pallava** dynasty.\n\n**MAMMATA (fl. 12th century CE).** Scholar from **Kashmir** ; author of a work on **poetics** and aesthetics entitled the _K\u0101vya Prak\u0101\u015ba_ (\"Illumination of Poetry\").\n\n**MAN-LION AVAT\u0100RA.** _See_ NARASI\u1e42HA.\n\n**MANAS.** Mind. According to **Dvaita Ved\u0101nta** , **S\u0101\u1e43khya** , and **Buddhism** , mind is one of the sense organs, its objects being thoughts and emotional states. It is the intermediary between the realm of the senses and the self ( **\u0101tman** ). All the various systems of Hindu **philosophy** agree that the mind is part of the material continuum and not intrinsic to the self, which is pure **consciousness**. The mind is the vehicle of consciousness, the organ by which it interacts with the sensory realm.\n\n**MANAS\u0100.** A **goddess** of snakes and poisons worshiped in the northeastern part of India. Not unlike the snake-handlers of Appalachia, the devotees of this goddess honor her by handling cobras and allowing themselves to be bitten by them in order to show their faith and reliance on their deity. The word _manas\u0101_ also refers to contemplative reflection.\n\n_M\u0100NAVA DHARMA \u015a\u0100STRA_. \"Authoritative Text on the Duties of Human Beings\"; alternative title for the _Manusm\u1e5bti_.\n\n**MA\u1e46\u1e0cALA.** Literally, \"circle\"; a sacred diagram of the cosmos viewed from a spiritual perspective\u2014as a series of concentric circles whose central point represents the state of **enlightenment** \u2014which is used as an object of contemplative visualization. The ma\u1e47\u1e0dala is also a political theory of interstate relations that was first articulated in the _Artha \u015a\u0101stra_ of **Kau\u1e6dilya** , according to which a king should see himself as being in the middle of a series of concentric circles of alternating enemies and allies. It is possible that the political concept gave rise to the artistic one, in which a spiritual practitioner visualizes himself or herself passing through the circles of the ma\u1e47\u1e0dala, from the outermost to the innermost, symbolizing and facilitating the inner **meditative** journey to the divine core of one's being. _See also_ TANTRA; YANTRA.\n\n**MANDARA, MOUNT.** Mountain that **K\u016brma** , the tortoise **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , allowed the **devas** and **asuras** to place on his back to use as the axis of a great churn\u2014the rope of which was formed by the giant serpent **V\u0101suk\u012b** , king of the **N\u0101gas** \u2014in their joint effort to churn the cosmic ocean in search of the lost **am\u1e5bta** , or elixir of **immortality**.\n\n**MANDIRA.** Literally \"dwelling place\"; a Hindu **temple**.\n\n_M\u0100\u1e46\u1e0cUKYA UPANI\u1e62AD_ **.** One of the principle _Upani\u1e63ads_ , probably composed some time between 200 BCE and 200 CE. This brief text is a **meditation** on the meaning of the syllable **O\u1e43** , which it analyzes in terms of a correlation between the four elements of that make up O\u1e43\u2014the sounds \"A,\" \"U,\" and \"M\"\u2014and the four **states of consciousness**. One of the prominent commentaries or **bh\u0101\u1e63yas** on this _Upani\u1e63ad_ was written by **Gau\u1e0dap\u0101da** , the **guru** of the guru of **\u015aa\u1e45kara**.\n\n**MA\u00d1GAL.** The planet Mars. _See also_ ASTROLOGY; NAVAGRAHAS.\n\n**MA\u00d1GALV\u0100RA.** Tuesday, the day of the week governed by the planet Mars. _See also_ CALENDAR, HINDU.\n\n**M\u0100\u1e46IKKAV\u0100CAKAR (fl. 9th century CE).** One of the 63 **N\u0101yan\u0101rs** \u2014saints and **bhakti** poets revered in the **Tamil \u015aaiva** tradition. M\u0101\u1e47ikkav\u0101cakar was a **Brahmin**. He composed the _Tiruv\u0101cakam_ , or \"Blessed Utterance,\" a work of **poetry** that has conceptual similarities to the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , though it is a \u015aaiva, rather than a **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** , text.\n\n**MA\u1e46IP\u016aRA CAKRA.** **Cakra** aligned with the solar plexus. _See also_ TANTRA.\n\n**MANIPURI.** Style of classical Indian **dance** developed in Manipur, in the northeastern part of India.\n\n**MANO-MAYA-KO\u015aA. Mind** layer; the third of the five **ko\u015bas** , or layers, surrounding the self ( **\u0101tman** ) according to **Ved\u0101nta**.\n\n**MANOSAROVAR.** Holy lake in the **Him\u0101layas** at the base of Mount **Kail\u0101sa** ; sacred to **\u015aiva**. Manosarovar is located in Tibet.\n\n**MANTRA.** A collection of sounds or words, sometimes in the form of a prayer, which is used to focus the **mind** in **meditation** or as part of a religious ritual. Some mantras have a literal meaning that is fairly easy to discern, such as _O\u1e43 Nama\u1e25 \u015aiv\u0101ya_ (\"I pay homage to **\u015aiva**.\"), whereas others\u2014particularly **b\u012bja** or \"seed\" mantras, which consist of only one syllable\u2014are more evocative than denotative, connecting one with a deity or concept that the mantra symbolizes rather than communicating meaning in the fashion of sentences.\n\nThe oldest known mantras are those found in the **Vedic** hymns, or _Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s_ , such as the **G\u0101yatr\u012b Mantra**. Some mantras are connected with particular Hindu traditions, being shared by all practitioners, whose use of them constitutes, among other things, a badge of sectarian identity. An example would be the just-cited _O\u1e43 Nama\u1e25 \u015aiv\u0101ya_ , a mantra that is universal among the adherents of **\u015aaivism**. Another would be _Hare K\u1e5b\u1e63na Hare K\u1e5b\u1e63na_ , _K\u1e5b\u1e63na K\u1e5b\u1e63na Hare Hare, Hare R\u0101ma Hare R\u0101ma, R\u0101ma R\u0101ma Hare Hare_ , which consists of three names of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** uttered in the order indicated in the vocative case, and which is used by the **Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas**. There are also secret mantras\u2014mantras that one receives from one's **guru** upon receiving initiation, or **d\u012bk\u1e63\u0101** , into a particular Hindu tradition. It is believed that the power of such mantras would be diluted were they to be shared publicly. The most powerful mantra of all is the primordial b\u012bja mantra **O\u1e43**.\n\nIn the _Ma\u1e47\u1e0dukya Upani\u1e63ad_ , O\u1e43 is described as encompassing all of existence. Each of its parts (A, U, M, and the totality of these three) is associated with one of the four **states of consciousness**.\n\n**MANU.** If one were to compare Manu to figures from biblical **literature** , he could well be described as combining the roles of Adam, Noah, Jonah, and Moses. Manu is, first of all, the progenitor of humanity\u2014the first human being. When a deluge was threatening to flood the world, Manu and his family were saved from it by **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** in the form of a giant fish\u2014the **Matsya** or fish **avat\u0101ra** , the first of the traditional 10 avat\u0101ras, or incarnations, of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u. And he is attributing with writing an important legal text, or _Dharma \u015a\u0101stra_ \u2014the _Manusm\u1e5bti_.\n\n_MANUSM\u1e5aTI_ **.** An important _Dharma \u015a\u0101stra_ , or authoritative legal text, that was likely composed around 100 CE attributed to **Manu** , the father of humanity. The text has been controversial in the modern era, particularly for its affirmation of the **caste** system and its sanctioning of abuses against **women** and people of lower castes. Its more controversial aspects include the fact that it suggests a higher penalty for the killing of a person of a higher caste than for the killing of a person of a lower caste, as well as higher penalties against people of a lower caste for committing infractions for which people of a higher caste receive lesser penalties. **B. R. Ambedkar** famously burned a copy of the _Manusm\u1e5bti_ in public as a protest against the mistreatment of **Dalits**.\n\nThe text was first translated into English by **Sir William Jones** , who sought to apply it to the administration of India on the understanding that the British Empire should govern its territories using local **laws** and customs as much as possible. Scholars have suggested that this application of texts like the _Manusm\u1e5bti_ as legal reference works was not in keeping with their original intent, leading to a more rigid practice of caste than had actually been the case in ancient times.\n\n**MANVANTARA.** _See_ WORLD AGES.\n\n**MAR\u0100\u1e6cHAS.** A warrior people of Maharashtra, in central India (the current location of Bombay, or Mumbai), who successfully fought against the **Mughal Empire** in the late 17th century, during the period of Emperor Aurangzeb. Led by **\u015aiv\u0101ji** (1627\u20131680), who even today remains a hero in Maharashtra, the Mar\u0101\u1e6dhas utilized guerilla tactics against the numerically superior and better equipped Mughal army. Stunningly successful in their campaign, the Mar\u0101\u1e6dhas eventually controlled most of central India's Deccan plateau. After \u015aiv\u0101ji's **death** , the Mar\u0101\u1e6dhas continued their expansion until being defeated in 1761 at the battle of Panipat.\n\n**M\u0100RGA.** Road, path, way; a spiritual path; sometimes synonymous with one of the **four** **yogas** delineated by **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** : the way of **action** (the **karma yoga** or karma m\u0101rga), **knowledge** , **devotion** , and **meditation**. _See also_ YOGA.\n\n**M\u0100R\u012aCA.** Character in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ ; a **r\u0101k\u1e63asa** , or demonic creature, and uncle of the main villain of the text, **R\u0101va\u1e47a**. R\u0101va\u1e47a persuaded M\u0101r\u012bca to assist him in his plot to abduct **S\u012bt\u0101**. He had M\u0101r\u012bca disguise himself as a beautiful golden deer. S\u012bt\u0101, on seeing the golden deer, asked **R\u0101ma** and his brother, **Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a** , to capture it for her. With R\u0101ma and his brother thus lured away, R\u0101va\u1e47a was able to approach S\u012bt\u0101 and abduct her.\n\n**M\u0100RKA\u1e46\u1e0cEYA.** A **Brahmin** sage of the **Bh\u0101rgava** clan to whom the _M\u0101rka\u1e47\u1e0deya Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ is attributed. M\u0101rka\u1e47\u1e0deya had a vision of the ongoing process of cosmic **creation** and dissolution in the form of an infant\u2014 **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** \u2014who was constantly inhaling and exhaling the universe. _See also_ WORLD AGES.\n\n_M\u0100RKA\u1e46\u1e0cEYA PUR\u0100\u1e46A_ **.** One of the 18 major _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ , probably composed between 250 and 550 CE. The text includes the sage **M\u0101rka\u1e47\u1e0deya** 's vision of **creation** as a series of inhalations and exhalations by an infant **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and a series of passages recounting the deeds of the **Mother Goddess**. _See also DEV\u012a MAH\u0100TMYA_.\n\n**MARRIAGE.** One of the Hindu sacraments, or **sa\u1e43sk\u0101ras** ; the ritual by which a person moves from the first **\u0101\u015brama** or stage of life\u2014the **brahmacarya** , or student stage\u2014and into the **householder** stage. Traditional Hindu marriages are arranged by the families of the bride and groom based on considerations such as **caste** and **astrological** compatibility. In the modern period these traditions are being adapted to a more individualistic ethos. For example, at least in middle-class families, young men and **women** are allowed to reject a prospective spouse whom they find unacceptable; and in recent years some amount of (usually chaperoned) dating has become permissible to ensure personal compatibility. Increasingly, class and professional considerations outweigh such traditional concerns as caste. In rural areas, though, where caste traditions are much stronger, the older model remains the norm.\n\n**MARUTS.** **Vedic** storm deities; sons of **Rudra**. The Maruts are depicted as a group of young warriors and are invoked to bring protection and timely rain. _See also_ DEVAS.\n\n**M\u0100T\u0100 AMRIT\u0100NANDAMAY\u012a (1953\u2013 ).** _See_ AMRIT\u0100NANDAMAY\u012a, M\u0100T\u0100.\n\n**MATERIALISM.** Doctrine of the **C\u0101rv\u0101ka** or **Lok\u0101yata** system of philosophy, one of the heterodox or **n\u0101stika** schools of Indian philosophy, or **dar\u015banas**. According to this view, the only valid **pram\u0101\u1e47a** or basis for **knowledge** is sensory perception. Adherents of this view reject such widely held doctrines of Indic thought as **karma** and **rebirth** or belief in anything that is not verifiable by sensory perception. This system is heavily criticized by adherents of other schools of thought, both orthodox (that is, the **Vedic** or **Brahmanical** systems) and heterodox ( **Buddhism** and **Jainism** ). The central critique is that the rejection of all pram\u0101\u1e47as other than sensory perception\u2014including inference, or **anum\u0101na** \u2014would lead to a \"solipsism of the present moment,\" in which one would not be able to make any judgments based on memory or past knowledge.\n\nThe materialist critique of the other systems alleges, much like modern critiques of religion, that unverifiable doctrines such as the existence of **God** , a **soul** , or karma and rebirth are propounded to deceive the ignorant into giving material support to the priests and monks who propound them. Only fragments of the original texts, or **s\u016btras** , of this system have survived since ancient times. According to tradition, this system was first developed by the sage **B\u1e5bhaspati** \u2014who is, ironically, the **guru** of the **gods**.\n\n**MA\u1e6cHA.** Monastic institution, monastery. This term can refer to the community of **ascetics** who belong to such an institution, to an administrative unit, or to the building or complex of buildings where that unit is based. In this way it is analogous to the term _church_.\n\n**MATHUR\u0100.** Ancient city in northern India, in what is now the state of Uttar Pradesh; birthplace of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** ; located in the **Vraja** region, near **V\u1e5bnd\u0101vana** , where K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a spent his youth. Mathur\u0101 also has associations with **Buddhism** and **Jainism**. The **Buddha** is said to have visited this city during his lifetime (though this is doubtful, Mathur\u0101 being rather far west of the region where the Buddha lived). A Jain st\u016bpa, or burial monument, was discovered in Mathur\u0101, which suggests that there was a fairly large and thriving Jain community in this city at the beginning of the Common Era.\n\n**MATSYA.** \"Fish\"; the fish **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ; the first of the 10 avat\u0101ras or incarnations of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u according to one popular list. The fish avat\u0101ra appeared to **Manu** to warn him of the coming of a great flood that would deluge the entire world. Manu caught the fish, who then spoke to Manu and promised that if Manu would release him, he would return to save Manu and his family from the flood. Manu agreed and released the fish. When the flood came, Manu had built a large boat, as the fish had instructed him. When the fish arrived, he was considerably larger than when Manu had first caught him and had also grown an enormous horn from his nose. Manu lashed his boat to the fish's horn with a rope and the fish carried Manu and his family to safety.\n\n**MATSYENDRAN\u0100TH (fl. 11th century CE).** Founder of the **N\u0101th Yog\u012bs** , a **Tantric \u015aaiva** **ascetic** lineage. Matsyendran\u0101th's successor, **Gorakhn\u0101th** , invented **Ha\u1e6dha Yoga**.\n\nAccording to tradition, Matsyendran\u0101th, whose name means \"fish lord,\" was in the form of a fish when he overheard **\u015aiva** teaching his wife, the **goddess P\u0101rvat\u012b**. These teachings became the basis of the doctrines of the N\u0101th Yog\u012bs.\n\n_MATTAVIL\u0100SA PRAHASANA_ **.** \"Comedy of Drunken Play\"; a satirical play written by **Mahendravikrama Varman** (571\u2013630 CE), a king of the **Pallava** dynasty of southern India. The play ridicules various religious sects of the period, including several different **\u015aaiva** sects and **Buddhism**. Some have argued that the play may reflect a **Lok\u0101yata** or **C\u0101rvaka materialist** perspective, though it is also possible that its perspective is simply a more general cynicism regarding those who make a living off of the religious beliefs of others. It sheds an interesting light on how the various sects were perceived in ancient India, particularly by laypersons. _See also_ LITERATURE.\n\n**MAURYA.** First dynasty of ancient India to form an empire of considerable size. The dynasty lasted from approximately 320 to 184 BCE. It was founded by Candragupta Maurya shortly after Alexander of Macedon had weakened the polities of the northwest. Emerging from the northeastern Magadha region, Candragupta took advantage of the power vacuum left in the northwest after Alexander's campaign. The empire reached its height under the reign of Candragupta's grandson, A\u015boka, which lasted from 268 to 233 BCE. After A\u015boka's reign, the empire went into a period of gradual decline and was later succeeded by the \u015au\u1e45ga dynasty in 184 BCE (which was founded by Pu\u015byamitra \u015au\u1e45ga, a rebel Maurya general who essentially staged a coup).\n\nReligiously, the Mauryas practiced a policy of tolerance toward all sects, but gave preference to **\u015brama\u1e47a** traditions. Candragupta himself is said to have had a leaning to **Jainism** , and his son, Bindus\u0101ra, supported the **\u0100j\u012bvikas**. Most famously, A\u015boka became a **Buddhist** after the final battle that led to the consolidation of his empire. Repenting of violence and warfare, he promoted a policy of **dharma** , which included respecting life and supporting Buddhist institutions. The emphasis on **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** , or nonviolence, in this policy led to a decline in the practice of **animal sacrifice** on the part of the **Brahmins** \u2014a practice banned by A\u015boka, at least on certain holy days. Brahmanical ascendancy only returned with the rise of the **Gupta** dynasty in 320 CE\u2014albeit a transformed **Brahminism** , influenced by \u015brama\u1e47ic thought, which would become the basis of the Hinduism of the epics and _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_.\n\n**M\u0100YA.** **Asura** architect credited with the building of the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** fantastic palace of **Indraprastha**.\n\n**M\u0100Y\u0100.** Illusion; magic; **creative** power; the power of a **god** to create. In the **philosophy** of **Ved\u0101nta** , m\u0101y\u0101 is the way the universe appears to us due to ignorance, or **avidy\u0101**. In **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , there is, in **truth** , no universe at all, the universe itself being an effect of ignorance, the reality being that **Brahman** alone is real. In theistic forms of Ved\u0101nta, m\u0101y\u0101 is the creative power of **God** that brings the world into being.\n\n**M\u0100Y\u0100PUR.** Town in **Bengal** ; location of a major **temple** that is operated by the **International Society for Krishna Consciousness** (ISKCON). The town also houses an ISKCON-run school and press.\n\n**M\u0100Y\u016aR\u012a.** The peacock; vehicle of **K\u0101rttikeya**.\n\n**MEDITATION.** Though in its Latin origins this word refers to reflective contemplation of a philosophical or religious topic, in regard to Hinduism, it typically refers to **dhy\u0101na** , the seventh of the eight stages or \"limbs\" of **Pata\u00f1jali** 's eight-limbed ( **a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** ) system of **yoga**. The sixth limb, **dhara\u1e47\u0101** , is concentration on a single object. Dhy\u0101na, the next step, is absorption in that object, with no awareness of any other phenomena. Meditation thus involves the stilling of the waking, conscious **mind** so deeper levels of consciousness can be experienced. The goal of meditation is **sam\u0101dhi** \u2014the eighth limb of Pata\u00f1jali's system\u2014which is complete absorption in the object of concentration, a state in which the distinction between subject and object vanishes.\n\nIn **Tantric** meditation, the imagination is actively utilized as a tool to bring about sam\u0101dhi. Rather than suppressing the senses, as in Pata\u00f1jali's system, they are actively engaged and channeled toward the goal of raising the **ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b** energy from the base of the spine to the crown of the head, bringing about a heightened state of consciousness.\n\nThe practice of meditation is shared by many Indic traditions, and is especially prominent in **Buddhism**. In early Buddhism, the term _dhy\u0101na_ also refers to the **states of consciousness** to which the practice of meditation can lead. When Buddhism was first transmitted to China, the term _dhy\u0101na_ was rendered as _ch'an_. When the tradition was transmitted to Japan, the term _ch'an_ was transformed into _zen_.\n\n**MEHTA, NARSI (1414\u20131481).** **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava bhakti** **poet** and saint from Gujarat. Known for his universalist attitude toward religion, Mehta's most famous song is his _Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava Jana to tene kahiya_ , which states that a true Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava is one \"who feels for the suffering of another and forgets the good he does to another, taking no pride in it.\"\n\n**MELA.** Festival; fair; celebration.\n\n**MERIT.** The result of a good deed; \"good **karma**.\" _See also_ PU\u1e46YA KARMA.\n\n**MERU, MOUNT.** In traditional Hindu cosmology, the world is depicted as a series of ringed continents interspersed with oceans and extending over a vast region of space. At the center of these concentric circles of land and sea rests Mount Meru, the _axis mundi_ and center of cosmic space. This conception of the universe is essentially a **ma\u1e47\u1e0dala** , or a spiritual representation of existence. In this sense, Mount Meru is not a literal mountain so much as a symbol of the highest spiritual attainment. When this model has been taken literally, though, Mount Meru has generally been understood to be located just beyond the **Him\u0101layas**.\n\n**M\u012aM\u0100\u1e42S\u0100.** Also known as **P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** , or \"earlier exegesis,\" this **philosophy** is a continuation of the ancient, orthodox system of Vedic **Brahmanism** , with a very strong emphasis on the correct performance of **Vedic** ritual and the correct pronunciation of the **Sanskrit** verses of the _Vedas_ during a ritual performance. This emphasis on the correct Sanskrit usage led to the development of an elaborate linguistic philosophy on the part of the M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43sakas. The term _P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101_ contrasts this school of thought with the later, or **Uttara M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** \u2014more widely known as **Ved\u0101nta**. P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 focuses on the earlier, ritualistic portion of the _Vedas_ , while Ved\u0101nta interprets the later Vedic texts\u2014the _Upani\u1e63ads_ \u2014and their teaching of **Brahman**. _See also_ JAIMINI; KUM\u0100RILA BHA\u1e6c\u1e6cA.\n\n**M\u012aN\u0100K\u1e62\u012a.** \"Fish-eyed **Goddess** \"; the main goddess enshrined at the M\u012bn\u0101k\u1e63\u012b **temple** for which the town of **Madurai** , in **Tamil** Nadu, is famous. She is said to have been born with fish-shaped eyes, a fishy odor, and three breasts. Her father raised her as a son and she became a great warrior. According to a prophecy, she would lose her odor, her third breast, and her warlike nature when she met her true husband, **\u015aiva** , also enshrined at the temple complex at Madurai in his form as **Sundare\u015bvara** (\"Beautiful Lord\"). M\u012bn\u0101k\u1e63\u012b's uncle is **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , who showed up late to her wedding with \u015aiva. The wedding is re-enacted every year in the month of **Caitra** (March\u2013April).\n\n**MIND.** _See_ MANAS.\n\n**M\u012aR\u0100 BAI (1498\u20131547).** Female **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** saint and **bhakti** **poet** from Rajasthan. She was born a **Rajput** princess and married to a prince who was killed in battle while still a young man. Deeply devoted to **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** since her childhood, she became more immersed in devotion after her husband's **death** , declaring that K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a was her only true husband. Her in-laws disapproved of her deep piety, going so far as to make attempts upon her life. Renowned for her devotion, M\u012br\u0101 Bai's life has been the subject of several **Hindi** movies. Her poetry, which remains popular today, proclaims the depth of her bhakti: \"O K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, charmer of hearts, lifter of mountains, I hear your flute calling me\u2014Shall I come by the secret path through the tall grass? O Lord of Heavenly Blue, my heart cannot rest until we are together, until we walk along the banks of the **Yamun\u0101** deep into the night.\" _See also_ WOMEN.\n\n**MITRA.** \"Friend\"; **Vedic** deity; one of the **\u0100dityas** ; often paired with **Varu\u1e47a**. His cult was popular in ancient Iran and spread to the Roman Empire as Mithraism.\n\n**MLECCHA.** \"Barbarian\"; a person who does not know **Sanskrit** or who lacks cultural **knowledge** and etiquette; a derogatory term for non-Hindus. This term may be cognate originally with _Meluhha_ , the name by which the people of the **Indus Valley civilization** possibly referred to themselves and their region. In its first uses, it does not seem to have a derogatory meaning but simply refers to persons from the region of the Indus Valley or to their customs. Over time, however, the view developed that the people of this region were uncouth and did not observe **Vedic** practices in the correct way (or at all). It later came to refer to anyone from outside the fold of mainstream **Brahmanical** culture, and in particular to foreigners (Greeks, Arabs, and so on).\n\n**MOHENJO-DARO.** Largest city of the **Indus Valley civilization**.\n\n**MOHIN\u012a.** Female form of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ; Vi\u1e63\u1e47u took the form of Mohin\u012b so a deity could be born from the union of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u and \u015aiva that would have their combined power in order to defeat the **asura** Princess Mahi\u1e63\u012b, sister of the **Mahi\u1e63\u0101sura** or Buffalo Demon. The deity born from this union of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u and \u015aiva was **Ayyappan**.\n\n**MOK\u1e62A.** **Liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth** ; the ultimate goal of most Hindu paths, though a good deal of religious activity is also devoted to penultimate goals, like a better rebirth, or more immediate this-worldly goods. Mok\u1e63a is the fourth of the four goals of humanity or **puru\u1e63\u0101rthas**. Different Hindu traditions present different strategies for the attainment of mok\u1e63a, such as selfless work ( **karma** ), wisdom ( **j\u00f1\u0101na** ), devotion ( **bhakti** ), **meditation** ( **dhy\u0101na** ), or some combination of these.\n\n**MONK.** A male renouncer; a man who has taken up the life of **sanny\u0101sa**.\n\n**MONOTHEISM.** Belief in one supreme **God**. Many Hindus see the many deities of the Hindu tradition as different aspects or manifestations of one Supreme Being. Others see a particular deity as preeminent (usually **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** or **\u015aiva** ) and the others as subordinate, in the way that angels are subordinate to God in the Abrahamic religions. _See also_ GODS.\n\n**MOON.** One of the **Navagrahas** , the nine **planets** of Hindu **astrology** ( **jyoti\u1e63a** ); often identified with the **Vedic** deity **Soma** , who also represents the hallucinogenic plant whose juice, mixed with milk, was used by ancient **Brahmins** to experience an altered **state of consciousness**. The phases of the moon represent this substance being consumed by the **devas** (during the **dark half** of the month, when the moon is waning) and replenished (during the **bright half** , when the moon is waxing).\n\n**MOTHER GODDESS. Dev\u012b** , or **Mah\u0101dev\u012b** (the Great Goddess) is identified in many Hindu traditions as the wife of **\u015aiva**. She has many forms, such as the docile wife and mother, **P\u0101rvat\u012b** ; the warrior goddess, **Durg\u0101** , who defeats **demonic** beings and drives away evil; and the fierce, demon-slaying **K\u0101l\u012b**. Also known as **\u015aakti** , the power of **creation** , the Goddess can also be identified with the many **goddesses** of the Hindu pantheon, who are seen as her various forms or manifestations. Goddesses such as **Lak\u1e63m\u012b** and Sarasvat\u012b are therefore also called the _\u015baktis_ or power centers of the deities that are their husbands\u2014 **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and **Brahm\u0101** , respectively. In this role, the Goddess and her various personae are seen as the energizing principle, in the absence of which their corresponding male gods would be incapable of effective activity. The divine pairing of \u015aiva and \u015aakti, in particular, is often presented, especially in \u015a\u0101kta texts, as a composite being, with the God and Goddess being ultimately inseparable from one another as parts of an internally differentiated, but finally unitary, godhead. In its affirmation of internal relations within the godhead, this concept is not unlike the **Christian** idea of the trinity.\n\nFinally, the supreme Mother Goddess is identified, in **Tantric** traditions (and in **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** , which is strongly informed by the Tantric background and sensibility of **Ramakrishna** ), with **Brahman** , the absolute, as it appears from the perspective of **m\u0101y\u0101** , the universe of time and space. Ramakrishna states that \"K\u0101l\u012b is verily Brahman, and Brahman is verily K\u0101l\u012b. It is one and the same Reality. When we think of It as inactive . . . then we call it Brahman. But when It engages in . . . activities, then we call It K\u0101l\u012b or \u015aakti.\" This statement implies a pantheistic or panentheistic understanding of the Goddess as being manifested within all beings. This understanding is also present in the ancient **\u015a\u0101kta** scripture, the _Dev\u012b Mah\u0101tmya_ or _Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u012b Pa\u1e6dh_ , with its refrain of **mantras** that refer to \"The Goddess who dwells within all beings.\"\n\n**MUDR\u0100.** Hand gesture that conveys a symbolic meaning. Hindu deities are depicted holding their hands in various positions, all of which communicate specific concepts to those who view their images. Human practitioners also utilize mudr\u0101s in certain types of worship and **meditative** practice. **Tantra** , in particular, makes extensive use of mudr\u0101s, often replicating the mudr\u0101s with which specific deities are depicted in order to facilitate a sense of identification with those deities.\n\nMudr\u0101 is also one of the **Five M's** , or traditionally impure substances of which practitioners of **Left-Handed Tantra** partake. It is said to refer, in that context, to puffed rice, although this is not generally seen as an impure substance (though it is forbidden in certain fasts where one abstains only from particular foods). This may be a confusion, with the mudr\u0101 in question actually referring to secret gestures only practiced in a ritual context. _See also_ ABHAYA-MUDR\u0100; D\u0100NA-MUDR\u0100; IMAGES IN WORSHIP; M\u016aRTI.\n\n**MUGHAL EMPIRE.** The last of the three major empires to encompass a substantial portion of the Indian subcontinent prior to British rule and independence, the first two being those of the **Maurya** and **Gupta** dynasties. The Mughals came from Central Asia and were related to the Mongols. Mughal rule in India lasted from 1526 until 1858, when control of India formally passed to Queen Victoria and direct British rule in the wake of the First War of Independence (or Sepoy Mutiny) of 1857. The religious affiliation of the Mughals was to **Islam** , though the religious attitudes and beliefs of the Mughal emperors varied a great deal, ranging from the tolerance and pluralism of **Akbar** , who displayed a good deal of appreciation for indigenous Indian traditions, to the nearly rabid persecution of non-Muslims by Aurangzeb, which led him into conflict with both the **Mar\u0101\u1e6dhas** and the **Sikhs** , among others. On the whole, the Mughal period was characterized by a good deal of creativity and interreligious innovation on the part of Hindus and Muslims. New architectural styles and forms of **art** and **music** that drew upon the traditional cultures of both Hinduism and Islam emerged, as well as direct religious interaction in the form of the **Sant** movement and the rise of Sikhism. _See also_ GOBIND SINGH, GURU; KAB\u012aR; N\u0100NAK, GURU; SUFISM.\n\n**MUH\u016aRTA.** Unit of time; a **muh\u016brta** is approximately an hour and a half in length and each day is divided into 16 muh\u016brtas. The best time of day for **meditation** and worship is the **Brahm\u0101-muhurt\u0101** , from roughly 4:30 a.m. to 6 a.m.\n\n**MUKT\u0100NANDA, SW\u0100M\u012a (1908\u20131982).** Monk and spiritual teacher who brought the **Siddha Yoga** tradition to the Western world. Part of the broader phenomenon of Hindu teachers who began bringing their traditions to North America and Europe and tailoring them to a Western audience\u2014starting with **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** and continuing with the **Maharishi Mahesh Yogi** and **Bhaktived\u0101nta Swam\u012b Prabhup\u0101da** , among others. The distinct emphasis of Mukt\u0101nanda's tradition was **Tantric** , focused on the experience of the **Ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b \u015aakti** , or energy coiled at the base of the spine. In Siddha Yoga, it is said that this experience can be evoked by the grace of the **guru** through a thought, word, or gesture\u2014a process known as **\u015baktipat**.\n\nMukt\u0101nanda received \u015baktipat from his guru, **Sw\u0101m\u012b Nity\u0101nanda** (1897\u20131961), a solitary monk who resided in a cave in **Ga\u1e47e\u015bapuri** , near Bombay. Before his death in 1982, Mukt\u0101nanda designated his young female translator, **Malti Shetty** , and her brother to be his successors. After a falling out between the brother and sister team in 1985, the sister, Sw\u0101m\u012b Chidvil\u0101s\u0101nanda (more widely known as **Gurumay\u012b** ) became the leader of the lineage.\n\n**MUKTI.** **Liberation** ; freedom; synonym for **mok\u1e63a**.\n\n**M\u016aLADH\u0100RA CAKRA.** The bottommost of the seven **cakras** , located at the base of the spine. _See also_ TANTRA.\n\n**M\u00dcLLER, FRIEDRICH MAX (1823\u20131900).** A giant in the field of **Indology** , M\u00fcller oversaw the translation of numerous **Sanskrit** texts through his _Sacred Books of the East_ series, making many Hindu, **Buddhist** , and **Jain** writings available in English for the first time. He is also known for developing the **\u0100ryan Invasion** \u2014later modified to the **\u0100ryan Migration** \u2014theory of **Vedic** origins. M\u00fcller was the first Western scholar to be aware of **Ramakrishna** , writing one of the first works in a European language on the life and teachings of this Hindu saint in direct consultation with Ramakrishna's disciple, **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda**. Born in Germany, M\u00fcller studied Sanskrit at Leipzig and Berlin, and then in Paris. In 1847 the **British East India Company** hired him to edit and publish the _\u1e5ag Veda_. In 1854 he began teaching at Oxford University where he remained until his **death** in 1900.\n\n_MU\u1e46\u1e0cAKA UPANI\u1e62AD_ **.** One of the principal _Upani\u1e63ads_ ; probably composed between 400 and 300 BCE. This _Upani\u1e63ad_ places a special emphasis on the value of **renunciation** and the transitory nature of the fruits of **Vedic** sacrifices, recommending that the spiritual aspirant live in the forest with an **enlightened** teacher, or **guru**.\n\n**MUNI.** Literally, \"one who has taken a vow of silence\"; a sage or monk who practices **asceticism**.\n\n**M\u016aRTI.** A physical image of a deity that enables a worshiper to interact with that deity as though it had a material body. _See also_ IMAGES IN WORSHIP.\n\n**M\u016aRTI-P\u016aJ\u0100.** Worship that utilizes a physical image of a deity in order to facilitate a concrete sense of interaction with that deity. _See also_ IMAGES IN WORSHIP; P\u016aJ\u0100.\n\n**MURUGAN (MURUKAN).** **Tamil** name for **K\u0101rttikeya** , son of **\u015aiva** and **P\u0101rvat\u012b** and brother of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba**.\n\n**M\u016a\u015aAKA.** The mouse; vehicle of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba**.\n\n**MUSIC.** Music has been an integral part of Hindu worship since ancient times. The _S\u0101ma Veda_ , one of the original four **Vedic** _Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s_ , sets the Vedic **mantras** to music. The rhythmic chanting of mantras and the singing (k\u012brtana) of religiously themed songs ( **bhajanas** ) to evoke **bhakti** , or devotion, have been practiced continuously and have a widespread appeal that cuts across boundaries of gender, **caste** , and sect. The works of the bhakti poets were always intended to be sung, rather than read or recited as **poetry**. Classical Indian **dance** , which is also religiously themed, has always been accompanied by music as well. _See also_ ART; LITERATURE.\n\n## N\n\n**N\u0100CIKETA.** Character in the _Ka\u1e6dha Upani\u1e63ad_ ; a young **Brahmin** who journeys to the underworld in order to ask **Yama** , the **god** of **death** , the secret of **immortality**.\n\n**N\u0100GA.** Serpent; in Hindu and **Buddhist** **literature** , they are often magical beings with a serpentine form. The dangerous nature of snakes, especially cobras, in India makes them creatures to be respected and feared, so a certain degree of awe surrounding snakes is not at all surprising. **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** is often depicted resting on the belly of **\u015ae\u1e63a** , the cosmic serpent who is the deity's protector. **\u015aiva** is also depicted with snakes crawling on his body both to show his transcendent state of fearlessness and also to depict the coiled energy of the **Ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b \u015bakti** , a manifestation of the **Mother Goddess**. The **Buddha** and P\u0101r\u015bvan\u0101th, the 23rd **T\u012brtha\u1e45kara** of **Jainism** , are both depicted as being protected in their practice of **meditation** by the lord of the N\u0101gas. **Manas\u0101** , a protector **goddess** revered in **Bengal** , has a serpentine form. It is said that the N\u0101gas reside in a portion of the underworld known as **P\u0101t\u0101la** , presided over by the giant serpent **V\u0101suki**.\n\n_N\u0101ga_ is also the name of an order of naked **\u015aaiva** warrior monks affiliated with the **Da\u015ban\u0101mi Order** charged with protecting **Brahmins** from physical attack, since the Brahmins are expected to practice **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** (nonviolence) and may not use weapons. The N\u0101gas have fought in battle both with Muslim forces and rival Hindu warrior monks.\n\n_N\u0101ga_ is also the name of an **\u0100div\u0101s\u012b** , or aboriginal, group of tribes based in the extreme northeast of India, in the state of Nagaland, on the border with Burma.\n\n**NAIMI\u1e62A.** Forest mentioned in Hindu **literature** , renowned as a place of pilgrimage for **ascetics**. It was in the Naimi\u1e63a forest, or _Naimi\u1e63\u0101ra\u1e47ya_ , that a 12-year-long sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ) was held by the sage **\u015aaunaka** at which the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ was first recited by a pupil of **Lomahar\u1e63ana S\u016bta** , who had in turn heard it from a direct pupil of **Vy\u0101sa** , the author of the text.\n\n**NAKULA.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ; one of the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dava** brothers; twin brother of Sahadeva. These twins were the sons of the **A\u015bvins** and **M\u0101dr\u012b**.\n\n**NAMASTE.** \"I pay homage to the divine within you\"; traditional Hindu greeting, often accompanied by the **a\u00f1jali** , or gesture of respect with folded hands.\n\n**NAMB\u016aTIRI (NAMBOODIRI) BRAHMINS.** Lineage of **Brahmins** based primarily in the state of **Kerala** , on the southwest coast of India. They are unusual in recognizing the validity of only the first three _Vedas_ , not the _Atharva Veda_ , and for the style of **Vedic** recitation they employ, which utilizes hand gestures ( **mudr\u0101s** ) and head movements as an aid to memorization. _See also_ TRAY\u012a VIDY\u0100.\n\n**N\u0100MDEV (fl. 13th century CE).** **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava bhakti** **poet** and saint of Maharashtra. He was especially devoted to **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** in his form as **Vi\u1e6d\u1e6dhala** (literally \"standing on a brick\"). He writes, \"As a bee's heart might be set upon the fragrance of a flower, or as a fly might take resort to honey, similarly does my mind cling to **God**.\" N\u0101mdev was a disciple of **J\u00f1\u0101ne\u015bvara**.\n\n**NAMM\u0100\u1e36V\u0100R (880\u2013930).** One of the **\u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs** , 12 **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** **poets** of south India. Born a **\u015a\u016bdra** or member of the servant **caste** , he composed numerous devotional poems in the **Tamil** language that were later collected in a volume called the _Tiruv\u0101ymo\u1e37i_. This text is revered in the **\u015arivai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition as being no less sacred than the _Vedas_ and continues to be used in **temple** rituals to the present day. Namm\u0101\u1e37v\u0101r's revered position as a person of low caste in this tradition is significant, being illustrative of the **philosophy** of **bhakti** , or devotion, according to which social categories like gender and caste are irrelevant to one's spiritual status or proximity to salvation.\n\n**NAMUCI.** Demon slain by **Indra**. Namuci could be killed neither by day or night, nor by anything either wet or dry. Indra circumvented this difficulty by killing Namuci at dusk with sea foam. This story, mentioned in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , is echoed in later **literature** by the story of the slaying of **Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu** by the **Narasi\u1e43ha** **avat\u0101ra**.\n\n**N\u0100NAK, GURU (1469\u20131539).** The founder of **Sikhism** ; a contemporary of **Kab\u012br** and a fellow member of the **Sant** movement. Born a Hindu in the Punjab, N\u0101nak claimed to have received a revelation from **God** while **meditating** in a forest. N\u0101nak's message was: \"There is no Muslim and there is no Hindu.\" Those who accepted his teaching of Hindu\u2013Muslim unity came to be known as _Sikh_ , a Punjabi word which means \"disciple,\" and they took N\u0101nak as their **guru**. Guru N\u0101nak and his followers sought to harmonize the teachings of **Islam** and Hinduism, taking from Islam its strong emphasis on the unity of God. Guru N\u0101nak called **the One** God, known by Hindus under many names and forms, _Sat N\u0101m_ , or the \"True Name,\" or _Ek Onkar_ , the One God. The One God is the **creator** of the entire universe, according to Sikhism, and humans are the highest of God's creations. From Hinduism, N\u0101nak took the doctrines of **karma** and **rebirth** and the emphasis on the importance of the guru, or living teacher. **Liberation** from rebirth is given by God, much as in devotionally oriented forms of Hinduism. The community Guru N\u0101nak established accepted all, regardless of religion, gender, or **caste**.\n\n**NANDA GOPA.** The adoptive father of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** who raised him after his wicked uncle, **K\u0101\u1e43sa** , had imprisoned his parents and sought to have the infant K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a killed. Nanda Gopa was a cowherd, and it was for this reason that K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a spent his youth among the **gop\u012bs** of **V\u1e5bnd\u0101vana**.\n\n**NANDANAR (fl. 7th century CE).** One of the 63 **N\u0101yan\u0101rs** \u2014saints and **bhakti** **poets** revered in the **Tamil \u015aaiva** tradition. Nandanar was born in the **\u015a\u016bdra** or servant **caste**. He was intensely devoted to **\u015aiva** and wanted to see the images of \u015aiva as **N\u0101\u1e6dar\u0101ja** , or \"Lord of the Cosmic **Dance** ,\" at the **temple** of **Cidambaram** , for the purpose of having **dar\u015bana** , or sacred visual communion. Because of his low caste, however, he was denied entry to the temple. Standing outside the temple, his view of the main image was blocked by an image of the bull, **Nandi** , who serves as \u015aiva's vehicle. It is said that in order to let Nandanar have his dar\u015bana, \u015aiva commanded Nandi to move aside, which he did. To this day, the image of Nandi outside the temple at Cidambaram is offset from the main door so as not to obstruct the view of the deity from outside. The name _Nandanar_ comes from this incident, meaning the one whose devotion could make even Nandi move aside.\n\n**NANDI.** The bull who serves as the vehicle of **\u015aiva**.\n\n**NARA.** \"Man\"; the first man, the progenitor of mankind. _See also_ N\u0100R\u0100YA\u1e46A.\n\n**N\u0100RADA.** One of the Seven Sages ( **Saptar\u1e63i** ) presiding over the cosmos; a wandering minstrel and messenger of the **gods** , N\u0101rada is frequently depicted in both the _Vedas_ and the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ as a seeker of wisdom who goes to various deities and wise persons in order to receive instruction. From a literary perspective, he is often a stand-in for the reader or listener, who is also receiving instruction from the deity or wise person in question while N\u0101rada is being instructed in the text. N\u0101rada is also depicted as something of a troublemaker by passing on messages or news that may not be welcome or sharing information that should not be shared. He is a son of the sage **Ka\u015byapa** and some of the hymns of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ are attributed to him. His first appearance as a literary character, though, is in the _Ch\u0101ndogya Upani\u1e63ad_ , where he is inquiring into the nature of the self ( **\u0101tman** ). He is the lord of the **gandharvas** , or celestial musicians, and plays a **v\u012b\u1e47\u0101** , or lute.\n\n**NARAKA.** Hell. There are actually seven Hindu hells\u2014layers or dimensions of existence that are highly unpleasant and in which beings are born who have extremely bad **karma** ( **p\u0101pa** ). The Hindu hells might better be described as purgatories; for unlike the hells of **Christianity** and **Islam** , the denizens of the Hindu hells do not reside there forever, but only as long as they have bad karma for which they need to atone. Once their bad karma has been exhausted, such beings are reborn, usually in human form. This can take a very long time, however\u2014in some cases, until the end of a cosmic cycle ( **kalpa** ), which may be billions of years. In other cases, though, one's period of residence in one of the hells can be of a relatively short duration. Hell is also known as **P\u0101t\u0101la**. _See also_ REBIRTH.\n\n**NARASI\u1e42HA.** \"Man-lion.\" The Narasi\u1e43ha is the fourth on the traditional list of 10 **avat\u0101ras** , or incarnations, of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. The demonic **Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu** , who is symbolic of ignorance, held a deep hatred for Vi\u1e63\u1e47u. Annoyed by his son **Prahl\u0101da** 's equally deep devotion to Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu taunted Prahl\u0101da. Once, asking Prahl\u0101da where Vi\u1e63\u1e47u could be found, Prahl\u0101da replied that Vi\u1e63\u1e47u (whose name means \"all-pervasive\") was everywhere, even within a nearby stone pillar. On hearing this, Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu kicked the pillar. The pillar then broke asunder and Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, in the form of the Narasi\u1e43ha, came forth. The man-lion grabbed Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu, placed him on his lap, and slew him. This event occurred at dusk. The circumstances surrounding the **death** of Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu were a result of the fact that he was magically protected from any attack by man or beast (the Narasi\u1e43ha was neither), on the ground or in the air (which is why Narasi\u1e43ha held him in his lap), and by day or night (making dusk and dawn times of vulnerability for him).\n\n**N\u0100R\u0100YA\u1e46A.** \"Son of **Nara** (the primordial man).\" Nara and N\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a are associated with one another from the _\u1e5ag Veda_ onward. These two are a pair of deities or sages who share a close bond of friendship. It is said in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ that **Arjuna** is Nara and **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** is N\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a. N\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a is identified with **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** from the _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_ onward. But in some sources, the names _Nara_ and _N\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a_ are used interchangeably as dual epithets of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u. _See also_ SATYAN\u0100R\u0100YA\u1e46A.\n\n**N\u0100SATYA.** \"Helpful, kindly\"; epithet of the **A\u015bvins**.\n\n**N\u0100SIK.** One of the four cities where the **Kumbha Mel\u0101** is held every 12 years. It is in Maharashtra, on the bank of the God\u0101var\u012b River.\n\n**N\u0100STIKA.** Literally a \"nay-sayer,\" one who says, \"It is not.\" Traditionally, this term refers to those who deny the authority of the _Vedas_ \u2014specifically, the followers of the **C\u0101rv\u0101ka** or **Lok\u0101yata** **materialist** **philosophy** , the **Jains** , and the **Buddhists**. In modern Hinduism this term is also used to refer to an atheist\u2014though again, this is not the ancient understanding, and some schools of thought regarded as **\u0101stika** , or orthodox, affirmed the authority of the _Vedas_ while being nontheistic, such as the early **S\u0101\u1e43khya** system and the **P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** system.\n\n**N\u0100\u1e6cAR\u0100JA.** \"Lord of the **Dance** \"; epithet of **\u015aiva** in his role as creator, destroyer, and re-creator of the world as it passes through its ongoing cosmic cycle. The image of \u015aiva as lord of the cosmic dance, particularly as it is captured in the **artistic** style of the **Co\u1e37a** dynasty, has become emblematic of Hinduism. The image depicts the ascetic \u015aiva, with his matted hair flying behind him, in an ecstatic dance. One of his four hands holds the drum with which he keeps the beat of his dance. One holds a flame, which he is spinning rapidly around, an **action** depicted with a ring of fire that frames the entire image, like a stop-action photo of someone swirling a lit torch, creating a ring of light. One hand is held up in the **abhaya-mudr\u0101** , and the fourth hand points toward his upraised foot.\n\nThe symbolism of the image is profound. The rapid movement that it depicts, if juxtaposed with the stillness of the image itself, represents a coming together of time and eternity\u2014the realm of change over which the deity presides and the deity himself, who is beyond time and change. The abhaya-mudr\u0101 means \"do not be afraid,\" advising devotees not to fear the awe-inspiring power of **creation** and destruction that the deity embodies. The flame represents the power of both creation and destruction, having both capacities. The deity dances upon a dwarf, representing the ego, which must be overcome in order for one to realize one's inner divinity.\n\nThe overall message is that creation and destruction are part of the same process and that one need not fear change, knowing that everything is finally one with the divine.\n\n**N\u0100TH YOG\u012aS.** **Tantric \u015aaiva** sect of **ascetics** established by **Matsyendran\u0101th** (fl. 11th century CE) and his successor, **Gorakhn\u0101th** (fl. 12th century CE). Gorakhn\u0101th is credited with the invention of **Ha\u1e6dha Yoga** , the system of yogic postures designed to prepare the body for the rigors of **meditation**. Membership in the N\u0101th Yog\u012b tradition is open to members of all **castes** and has been especially prominent in northern India.\n\n**N\u0100THDW\u0100RA.** Site in Rajasthan that houses a black stone image of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** known as \u015ar\u012b N\u0101thji. It is a popular pilgrimage site, with large crowds gathering for the opening of the **garbha-g\u1e5bha** , or inner sanctum, to have **dar\u015bana** , or sacred visual communion with the image.\n\n_N\u0100\u1e6cYA \u015a\u0100STRA_ **.** \"Authoritative Text on Drama\"; ascribed to the sage **Bharata**. This **Sanskrit** text from the first millennium of the Common Era is the authoritative guide to Indian classical theater and **dance**. A lengthy and detailed work, the _N\u0101\u1e6dya \u015a\u0101stra_ gives a thorough account of not only the practicalities of staging a play or dance drama but also the religious dimensions of such performances, plus a theory of aesthetics. _See also_ LITERATURE; POETRY; RASA.\n\n**NAVAGRAHAS.** The nine planets. These do not refer to the nine planets of the solar system of modern astronomy (now eight, with the recent demotion of Pluto), but to the five planets that are visible to the naked eye (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), the **moon** , the sun, and **R\u0101hu** and **Ketu** , the latter two being postulated to account for the phenomena of solar and lunar eclipses, respectively. **P\u016bj\u0101** , or ritualistic worship of deities, often includes the paying of respects to the nine planets to maximize the benefits and to minimize the inauspicious effects of their various astrological influences. The planet Mercury is called **Bu\u1e0dha**. Venus is **\u015aukra**. Mars is **Ma\u00f1gal** , Jupiter **B\u1e5bhaspati** , and Saturn **\u015a\u0101ni**. Each of the planets\u2014except for R\u0101hu and Ketu\u2014presides over a day of the week in the **Hindu calendar**. The sun presides over Sunday ( **Raviv\u0101ra** ), the moon over Monday ( **Somav\u0101ra** ), Mars over Tuesday ( **Ma\u00f1galv\u0101ra** ), Mercury over Wednesday ( **Bu\u1e0dhav\u0101ra** ), Jupiter over Thursday ( **Guruv\u0101ra** ), Venus over Friday ( **\u015aukrav\u0101ra** ), and Saturn over Saturday ( **\u015a\u0101niv\u0101ra** ). _See also_ ASTROLOGY.\n\n**NAVAR\u0100TR\u012a P\u016aJ\u0100.** \"Nine-Night Worship\"; festival of devotion to **Durg\u0101** and **R\u0101ma**. The nine nights of the worship correspond to the 10 days of the festival of **Da\u015bahr\u0101**. This festival is celebrated in the **bright** **half** of the month of **\u0100\u015bvina**. In northern India, this festival celebrates **R\u0101ma** 's victory over **R\u0101va\u1e47a** and it culminates in **D\u012bp\u0101vali** (or D\u012bwali), the festival of lights in honor of the **goddess Lak\u1e63\u1e43\u012b**. In Gujarat, the **Garbha** dance is frequently used to celebrate this festival. In **Bengal** and southern India, this festival celebrates **Durg\u0101** 's victory over the Buffalo Demon ( **Mahi\u1e63\u0101sura** ). In Bengal, it culminates in **K\u0101l\u012b p\u016bj\u0101**.\n\n**NAVYA NY\u0100YA.** \"New logic\"; system of philosophy ( **dar\u015bana** ) that is in continuity with the older **Ny\u0101ya** system of logic, but with important revisions and clarifications that were the result of centuries of reflection and debate among Indian logicians; established in the 13th century by the philosopher Ga\u1e45ge\u015ba Up\u0101dhy\u0101ya and incorporating some concepts from earlier philosophers, like **V\u0101caspati Mi\u015bra** and **Udayana** (both of whom lived in the 10th century of the Common Era). Navya Ny\u0101ya is largely a response to the criticisms of the **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** tradition of the Naiy\u0101yikas' realist ontology. Advaita Ved\u0101nta teaches that the universe is ultimately a delusory appearance, or **m\u0101y\u0101** , the only true reality being **Nirgu\u1e47a Brahman** , or Brahman without differentiating **qualities**. The Ny\u0101ya system, on the other hand, teaches that the world is both real and knowable. The Navya Ny\u0101ya system appealed not only to Hindus but also to Jain thinkers, who also hold a realist ontology. One of the most revered of Jain philosophers, Ya\u015bovijaya (1624\u20131688), was a student of Navya Ny\u0101ya and incorporated its categories and arguments into his defense of **Jainism**.\n\n**NAVYA \u015a\u0100STRA.** \"New **Scripture** \"; Hindu organization dedicated to the eradication of **casteism** and, ideally, of the **caste** system itself from Hinduism. Navya \u015a\u0101stra, unlike some **Dalit** organizations, is avowedly Hindu and argues that the caste prejudice is not intrinsic to Hinduism and is contradicted by important currents of Hindu **philosophy** , such as **Ved\u0101nta**. The organization has offered a public apology on behalf of the Hindu tradition to Dalits for the centuries of abuse they have experienced.\n\n**N\u0100YAN\u0100RS.** A group of 63 saints and **bhakti** **poets** revered in the **Tamil** \u015aaiva tradition. Their life stories are contained in a text called the _Periya Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ , a scriptural text of the **\u015aaiva Siddh\u0101nta** tradition of **\u015aaivism**. According to the **philosophy** of bhakti, **caste** and gender are irrelevant to the level of devotion of which one is capable\u2014and thus to the attainment of **mok\u1e63a**. This is in clear contrast with the more conservative tradition of **Brahmanism** , according to which **rebirth** as a male **Brahmin** is a prerequisite for the attainment of mok\u1e63a. The N\u0101yan\u0101rs illustrate this spiritual egalitarianism, coming from a wide range of backgrounds, including members of the humblest strata of Indian society.\n\n**NEHRU, JAWAHARLAL (1889\u20131964).** First prime minister of India. Though a close confidant of **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** , Nehru did not share G\u0101ndh\u012b's radical vision of returning India to its ancient traditions, preferring a model of rapid industrialization and modernization. Under Nehru's leadership, independent India embraced secularism and a \"mixed economy,\" consisting of aspects of both capitalism and socialism. He also helped to start the movement of nonaligned countries and sought a position of neutrality between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War.\n\n**NEO-VED\u0100NTA.** Modern **Ved\u0101nta**. It is distinguished from traditional Ved\u0101nta by its commitment to the authority of direct experience ( **anubh\u0101va** ) over that of **scripture** and its universalism. That is, Neo-Ved\u0101ntins see Ved\u0101nta not so much as an interpretation of the _Vedas_ \u2014the traditional preserve of the **Brahmins** \u2014but as a universal **knowledge** that is available, in principle, to all\u2014a **perennial philosophy**. In the words of one of its leading exponents, **Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan** , Ved\u0101nta is \"not a religion, but religion itself in its most universal and deepest significance.\" All religions, according to Neo-Ved\u0101nta, are paths to **God-realization** , if properly understood.\n\nThe historical origins of Neo-Ved\u0101nta can be found in the **Bengal** Renaissance of the 19th century, when **R\u0101m Mohan Roy** and other Hindu reformers began to rethink Hinduism in modern, rationalist terms. Roy's **Brahmo Sam\u0101j** sought to purge the Hindu tradition of all elements that it regarded as irrational, such as the use of **images in worship** , **sat\u012b** , and **casteism**. **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b** 's **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j** had a very similar agenda, and both reform movements saw in the _Vedas_ a primordial **monotheism**. The two differed, however, inasmuch as Roy saw the culmination of **Vedic** wisdom being in the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , whereas Day\u0101nanda emphasized the early Vedic _Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s_. The \u0100rya Sam\u0101j therefore defined itself as distinct from Neo-Ved\u0101nta.\n\nNeo-Ved\u0101nta, however, did not capture the imaginations of many Hindus beyond the relatively small circle of middle- and upper-class, English-educated Indians until the coming of **Ramakrishna** and **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda**. Ramakrishna, who was in many ways a thoroughly traditional figure\u2014a passionate devotee in the mold of the **bhakti** movement\u2014adhered to practices and beliefs antithetical to those of the Brahmo Sam\u0101j and rooted his teachings in his direct experiences rather than scriptural study. In this way, he was thoroughly traditional and thoroughly modern. Partaking of both of these worlds, Ramakrishna embodied an approach that could be appreciated by the rationalists and the traditionalists alike.\n\nRamakrishna's disciple, Vivek\u0101nanda, went on to become an articulate voice for this movement and transformed it into an international phenomenon by traveling to the West and initiating non-Indians into Ved\u0101ntic practice, and even into the **Ramakrishna Order** of **renouncers**. Inspiring many Hindus with the idea that their ancient traditions had universal significance, he helped to fuel national pride and the movement for Indian independence (although he was himself steadfastly apolitical).\n\n**NEPAL.** Largely Hindu country located between India and Tibet. Until 2006, when its parliament declared it to be a secular state, Nepal was the only officially Hindu nation in the world. Nepal also has the highest percentage of Hindus in its population of any other country. The other major religion of Nepal is **Buddhism** , and the **Buddha** is believed to have been born and to have grown up within what are now the borders of Nepal. Hindu traditions in Nepal have blended in many ways with those of Buddhism. Both religions have a strong **Tantric** orientation in Nepal. Nepali Hinduism has also preserved many traditions that have largely been superseded in India, including **animal sacrifice** and a variety of rituals associated with having a Hindu monarchy.\n\n**NETI NETI.** \"Not this, not that\"; an approach to **Brahman** recommended in some parts of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ that consists of realizing that Brahman is unlimited. It therefore cannot be identified with any one thing that can be grasped by the senses or the mind. Akin to a **Buddhist** approach to **enlightenment** \u2014which consists of realizing that no one thing is the **self** \u2014the path of distinguishing Brahman from any limiting **quality** is a form of the **j\u00f1\u0101na yoga** , or yoga of wisdom, whereby one realizes that Brahman alone is real, that all things are limited and transitory, and therefore not Brahman, and not fully real. Brahman is thus \"Not this, not that.\" _See also_ VED\u0100NTA.\n\n**NEW DELHI.** _See_ DELHI.\n\n**NIMB\u0100RKA (c. 12th\u201314th centuries CE).** **\u0100c\u0101rya** of the _Bhed\u0101bheda_ system of **Ved\u0101nta**. In this system, both difference ( _bheda_ ) and nondifference ( _abheda_ ) are affirmed. In other words, if one thinks of the various systems of Ved\u0101nta as existing on a continuum, with **Advaita** at one extreme end (affirming the unreality of genuine difference and the reality of **Brahman** alone) and **Dvaita** at the other end (affirming the reality of difference and denying an underlying unity), then Nimb\u0101rka's system can be seen as a \"middle path\" that tries to bring these two ideas together, affirming that both difference and unity are real.\n\nIn some ways an anticipation of the **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** of **Ramakrishna** , Nimb\u0101rka's teaching sees difference and nondifference simply as different approaches to an ultimate reality that cannot finally be categorized or conceptualized. Religiously, Nimb\u0101rka's tradition is a **bhakti** -oriented **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** path focused on **R\u0101dh\u0101** and **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a**.\n\nThe dates of Nimb\u0101rka's life are highly uncertain, although most scholars locate him somewhere between the early 12th and 14th centuries. He was from Andhra Pradesh, in southern India.\n\n**NIRGU\u1e46A BRAHMAN.** \" **Brahman** without **qualities** \"; Brahman, the ultimate reality, free from limiting qualities; infinite being ( **sat** ), consciousness ( **cit** ), and bliss ( **\u0101nanda** ); the eternal and unchanging absolute. According to **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , Nirgu\u1e47a Brahman alone is real. All other entities that can be perceived are in various ways limited, and so deficiently real. The universe of limited entities is a mere appearance, or **m\u0101y\u0101**. M\u0101y\u0101 is projected onto the true reality of Brahman by the **mind** as an effect of ignorance ( **avidy\u0101** ).\n\n**NIR\u1e5aTI.** **Vedic goddess** of misfortunate and destruction. A portion of the **sacrifice** (or **yaj\u00f1a** ) is offered to Nir\u1e5bti to ensure that she stays away from the ritual and does not cause problems.\n\n**NIRV\u0100\u1e46A.** \"Absorption\"; term used primarily by **Buddhists** (but by **Jains** and Hindus as well) for the highest state of spiritual attainment in which one is free from bondage to the cycle of **death** and **rebirth**. Buddhist traditions tend to describe this state in negative terms, as not characterized by suffering, rebirth, or limitation of any kind. Hindu texts, such as the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , speak of _brahma-nirv\u0101\u1e47a_ , or absorption in **God**. _See also_ MOK\u1e62A.\n\n**NIRVIKALPA SAM\u0100DHI.** State of meditative absorption that is completely free from any sense of the duality of subject and object; a state without dichotomizing conceptual constructions. **Sam\u0101dhi** \u2014absorption in the object of one's **meditation** \u2014is the eighth and final \"limb\" of **Pata\u00f1jali** 's eight-limbed ( **\u0101\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** ) system of **yoga**. Later traditions that utilize Pata\u00f1jali's system distinguish between sam\u0101dhi in which there remains a sense of subjectivity ( **savikalpa sam\u0101dhi** ) and sam\u0101dhi with no subject\u2013object duality (nirvikalpa sam\u0101dhi). This distinction is most prominent in **Buddhism** , **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaivism** , and the **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** tradition of **Ramakrishna**.\n\n**NITY\u0100NANDA, SW\u0100M\u012a (1897\u20131961). Guru** of **Sw\u0101m\u012b Mukt\u0101nanda** ; founder of the **Siddha Yoga** lineage. Nity\u0101nanda, a mysterious figure, spent much of his life in a cave in **Ga\u1e47e\u015bapuri** , near Bombay, where the Siddha Yoga tradition's main **\u0101\u015brama** is located today. Speaking little, he communicated mainly through gestures and inarticulate sounds, though he was capable of speech, and sometimes spoke in great depth. An interview with one of his disciples that contains his teachings was published as the _Cid\u0101k\u0101\u015ba G\u012bt\u0101_. Born in **Kerala** , he is said to have lived in a state of constant bliss throughout his childhood and is believed by his devotees to have been born **enlightened**. He became a **sanny\u0101sin** , or renouncer, before the age of 20, eventually wandering to Ga\u1e47e\u015bapuri.\n\n**NIVEDIT\u0100, SISTER (1867\u20131911).** Born in Ireland as Margaret Elizabeth Noble, the first Westerner to take monastic vows in a Hindu religious order, becoming a **sanny\u0101sin\u012b** or nun in the **Ramakrishna Order**. Noble's **guru** was **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** , the first Hindu spiritual teacher to bring his tradition successfully to the West. Moving to **Bengal** , she established a school for girls in 1898, open to people of all **castes**. She befriended a number of prominent Bengali Hindus of the period, including **Rabindran\u0101th Tagore** and **Aurobindo Ghose**. She was also very close to **Sarad\u0101 Dev\u012b** , the wife of **Ramakrishna** \u2014known to his followers as the **Holy Mother** \u2014who referred to Noble as \"Baby.\" Wanting to work for the cause of Indian independence, Noble formally left the Ramakrishna Order so it would experience no negative repercussions from her political activities.\n\n**NIV\u1e5aTTI M\u0100RGA.** \"Path of negation\"; \"path of turning away from activity.\" If one is interested in attaining **mok\u1e63a** , or release from the cycle of **rebirth** , some Hindu traditions claim that it is necessary to renounce life in society and practice **asceticism**. This is the path of negation, of turning away from activity. The basic idea is that a worldly life, in which one does one's duty ( **dharma** ) and pursues pleasure ( **k\u0101ma** ) and wealth ( **artha** ) is not compatible with the attainment of mok\u1e63a. In terms of the four goals of humanity or **puru\u1e63\u0101rthas** of classical Hindu thought, the pursuit of k\u0101ma, artha, and dharma make up the **prav\u1e5btti m\u0101rga** \u2014the path of activity, of turning toward the world. Pursuit of the goal of mok\u1e63a, the fourth of the puru\u1e63\u0101rthas, requires one to follow the path of niv\u1e5btti. And in terms of the four stages of life, or **\u0101\u015bramas** , the first three stages\u2014the stages of student, householder, and retiree\u2014make up the prav\u1e5btti m\u0101rga and the fourth stage\u2014renunciation, or **sanny\u0101sa** \u2014makes up the niv\u1e5bttii m\u0101rga.\n\n**NIYAMA.** \"Observance\"; \"discipline\"; the second \"limb\" of **Pata\u00f1jali** 's eight-limbed ( **a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** ) system of **yoga**. The niyamas consist of five virtues: _\u015bauca_ (purity), _santo\u1e63a_ (contentment), _tapas_ ( **asceticism** ), _sv\u0101dhy\u0101ya_ (study), and surrender to the Lord ( _\u012a\u015bvara-pra\u1e47idh\u0101na_ ).\n\n**NOBLE, MARGARET ELIZABETH (1867\u20131911).** _See_ NIVEDIT\u0100, SISTER.\n\n**NONDUALITY, PRINCIPLE OF.** _See_ TANTRA.\n\n**NY\u0100YA.** Logic; one of the six systems of Hindu philosophy, or **dar\u015banas** ; often paired with the **Vai\u015be\u1e63ika** system, with which it shares a basic world-view and a realist ontology. The chief concern of Ny\u0101ya is epistemology, or the theory of **knowledge**. According to the Naiy\u0101yikas (adherents of Ny\u0101ya), there are four **pram\u0101\u1e47as** , or valid foundations of knowledge: **pratyak\u1e63a** , or sensory perception; **anum\u0101na** , or inference; **upam\u0101na** , or verbal comparison\u2014in other words, recognizing a perceived entity to be a member of an already known category; and \u015babda, the verbal testimony of a knowledgeable person. Ny\u0101ya, as an **\u0101stika** or \"orthodox\" system of philosophy, identifies the Vedic **scriptures** as the preeminent example of the \u015babda pram\u0101\u1e47a.\n\nThe root text of this system of thought\u2014the _Ny\u0101ya S\u016btra_ \u2014is attributed to a sage by the name of **Gautama** (not the **Buddha** or the **Vedic** sage of the same name). This text was probably composed around 300 BCE. The Naiy\u0101yikas debated extensively with the **Buddhists** until Buddhism had largely vanished from India (by 1300 CE) and with other systems of Indian philosophy, particularly **Advaita Ved\u0101nta**. Major figures of the Ny\u0101ya tradition include **V\u0101caspati Mi\u015bra** (900\u2013980 CE)\u2014who was also an adherent of Advaita\u2014and **Udayana** (fl. 10th century CE). In the 13th century, largely in response to Advaitic critiques, a Naiy\u0101yika philosopher named Ga\u1e45ge\u015ba established the **Navya Ny\u0101ya** , or New Ny\u0101ya system, a refined version of the older system of Ny\u0101ya.\n\n## O\n\n**OLCOTT, HENRY STEELE (1832\u20131907).** Cofounder\u2014along with the Russian heiress **Helena Petrovna Blavatsky** \u2014and first president of the **Theosophical Society**. Formally established in 1875, the objectives of the Theosophical Society were (and remain) \"to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, **caste** , or color,\" \"to encourage the study of comparative religion, **philosophy** , and science,\" and \"to investigate the unexplained **laws** of nature and the powers latent in man.\" Influenced deeply by Hinduism and **Buddhism** , Olcott and Blavatsky moved to India in 1879, where the global headquarters of the society are located today (in Ady\u0101r, **Madras** ). Members of the Theosophical Society began to play prominent roles in the movement for Indian political independence, arousing the suspicion of the British government.\n\nTheosophists promoted pride and interest among Hindus and Buddhists in their religious and cultural heritage, acting as \"reverse missionaries,\" and articulating the idea that Hinduism and Buddhism preserve an ancient global wisdom tradition, or **perennial philosophy**. At one point, a strategic alliance began to form between the Theosophical Society and the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j**. But **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b** fell out with Blavatsky and Olcott in 1880, when they announced their conversions to Buddhism in **Sri Lanka**. Olcott remained in Sri Lanka for a number of years, promoting Buddhism and writing a Buddhist catechism that continues to be in use among Therav\u0101da Buddhists in Sri Lanka today.\n\n**O\u1e42.** Also spelled AUM, the most sacred sound and **b\u012bja mantra** of Hinduism. In the _Ma\u1e47\u1e0dukya Upani\u1e63ad_ , O\u1e43 is described as encompassing all of existence. Each of its parts (A, U, M, and the totality of these three) is associated with one of the four **states of consciousness**. It figures prominently in Hindu prayer and **meditation** and is frequently incorporated into more lengthy **mantras** as their first syllable, such as _O\u1e43 nama\u1e25 \u015aiv\u0101ya_ , or _O\u1e43 namo bhagavate Vasudev\u0101ya_.\n\n**O\u1e42 JAYA JAGAD\u012a\u015aA HARE.** Devotional song popularized in the 20th century by the Hindi singer Lata Mangeshkar (1929\u2013 ). Frequently sung during **\u0101rat\u012b** in modern Hindu **temples** in North America and Europe.\n\n**ONAM.** Harvest festival that is celebrated in the state of **Kerala** , on the southwest coast of India. It occurs in the month of **Bhadra** (August\u2013September).\n\n**ONE, THE.** The supreme reality or absolute that underlies all existence. In the _\u1e5ag Veda_ it is said that the One is the reality behind the appearance of diversity that gives rise to the world of phenomena. It is also said that the many **devas** or deities are all names for the One ( _\u1e5ag Veda_ 1.164.46)\u2014\"Reality is one, but the wise speak of it in many ways.\" In the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , the ultimate reality\u2014 **Brahman** \u2014is frequently said to be \"One alone, without a second.\" Such **Vedic** references to the One are the basis for the view that an ancient thread of **monotheism** underlies the Hindu practice of **polytheism** , the idea being that what appear to be many deities are forms, aspects, or manifestations of the One. Though this view is certainly ancient in Hindu traditions, it has been reemphasized in the modern period in response to the criticisms of **Christian** and **Islamic** missionaries.\n\n**ORISSA.** State on the eastern coast of India, between **West Bengal** in the northeast and Andhra Pradesh in the south; location of several prominent Hindu **temples** , including the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** temple of **Jagann\u0101tha** in the city of **Puri** , where the Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava **bhakti** saint and **\u0101c\u0101rya** , **Caitanya** , resided for much of his life. Orissa is also home to **Bhuvane\u015bvara** , with its prominent temples to **\u015aiva** and **K\u0101l\u012b** , and **Kon\u0101rak** , with its massive temple in the shape of a **chariot** to **S\u016brya** , the sun **god**. One of the four **ma\u1e6dhas** , or monasteries that were established by **\u015aa\u1e45kara** in the four corners of India, is also located in Puri.\n\n**OSHO.** _See_ RAJNEESH, BHAGWAN.\n\n**OUT OF INDIA THEORY.** Alternative theory of **Vedic** origins, presented as a critique of the more widely accepted **\u0100ryan Migration Theory**. According to this theory (which has many subvarieties that differ on a number of issues), **Indo-European** languages and cultures originated in India, rather than being brought to India through migration or trade. Mainstream scholarship regards this scenario as unlikely, given the existence of older, non-Indo-European substrate elements in **Sanskrit**. Concern is also raised by the **Hindu Nationalist** assumptions and agenda that clearly fuel at least some versions of this theory. Much of the evidence presented in its favor consists of mathematical calculations based on references to **astrological** phenomena mentioned in Vedic texts (which suggest a much greater age for these texts than the dominant model proposes) and on the absence of any explicit reference to a major migration from Central Asia in Indic textual sources.\n\nWhile mainstream scholars have not ultimately found it persuasive, advocates of this theory have raised important critical questions about the dominant model\u2014especially its older variant, the **\u0100ryan Invasion Theory** , which was used in the 20th century to advance an agenda of European superiority. The debate remains very politically charged.\n\nAmong scholars with less obviously political motivations, the debate over \u0100ryan migration tends to pit archaeology against linguistics. The linguistic evidence suggests that some kind of migration has to have occurred, while the archaeological evidence is more ambiguous (and does not support the older idea of a massive invasion).\n\n**OUTCASTE.** One who has no **caste** ; an **Untouchable**. _See also_ DALIT; HARIJAN.\n\n## P\n\n**PADMA.** Lotus flower, often used to symbolize spiritual attainment. The growth of the beautiful lotus flower out of mud and muck represents the process of **enlightenment** , in which the spiritual aspirant starts out in the \"mud and muck\" of mundane existence, with all of its various worries and forms of suffering, and progresses to a state of higher awareness. Hindu deities are often depicted as being seated upon large lotus flowers, and the **cakras** of **Tantric yoga** are also depicted as lotus flowers with varying numbers of petals that symbolically blossom when activated by the rising **ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b \u015bakti** , the latent energy at the base of the spine. As a prominent Hindu symbol, it is also used as a symbol of the **Hindu Nationalist Bharat\u012bya Janat\u0101 Party** (BJP).\n\n**PADMAN\u0100BHI.** \"Lotus-navel\"; image of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** reclining on the cosmic serpent, **\u015ae\u1e63a** , with a lotus stalk emerging from his navel. At the end of the stalk is a **lotus** blossom on which **Brahm\u0101** , the creator deity, sits. Vi\u1e63\u1e47u's feet are lovingly massaged by his wife, the **goddess Lak\u1e63m\u012b**. This image captures the moment of Brahm\u0101's emergence from the body of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, just before Brahm\u0101 begins the process of **creating** a new universe. A large version of this image is housed at Padman\u0101bhasw\u0101mi **temple** in **Kerala**.\n\n**PADM\u0100SANA. Lotus posture** ; **Ha\u1e6dha Yoga** posture formed by placing the right foot on the left thigh and the left foot on the right thigh. This is the \"full lotus.\" There is also a half-lotus posture ( **ardhapadm\u0101sana** ), formed by placing the right foot on the left thigh and the left foot underneath the right leg.\n\nThe **goddess Lak\u1e63\u1e43\u012b** is also sometimes referred to as _Padm\u0101san\u0101_ because she is seated upon a lotus flower. Other deities are also sometimes represented as _padm\u0101sana_ in this sense. _See also_ \u0100SANA.\n\n**PAILA.** One of the five **Brahmin** students of **Vy\u0101sa** , also known as **Veda Vy\u0101sa** , who is attributed not only with authoring the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ but also with organizing the _Vedas_ into their current distribution of four texts: the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , _Yajur Veda_ , _S\u0101ma Veda_ , and _Atharva Veda_. According to the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ , each of Vy\u0101sa's students was responsible for memorizing and passing on a separate **Vedic** text\u2014one for each of the four _Vedas_ and one for the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. Paila was the student responsible for transmitting the _\u1e5ag Veda_.\n\n**PALLAVA.** Dynasty that ruled southern India from **K\u0101\u00f1c\u012bpuram** from the sixth to the eighth centuries of the Common Era. Its first king was **Mahendravikrama Varman** (571\u2013630), who, in addition to being the successful founder of a powerful dynasty, was a scholar and a playwright, authoring the _Mattavil\u0101sa Prahasana_ (\"Comedy of Drunken Play\"), which ridicules various religious sects of the period. The Pallavas were overthrown in the eighth century by the **Co\u1e37a** dynasty.\n\n**PA\u00d1CA-MAK\u0100RA.** The **Five M's**. Pa\u00f1ca (\"five\") \"ma-k\u0101ra\" (the letter \"m,\" or \"ma\").\n\n**PA\u00d1CAR\u0100TRA** , **P\u0100\u00d1CAR\u0100TRA.** \"Five nights\"; early **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** sect, whose name may be derived from a five-night **yaj\u00f1a** , or sacrifice, performed by **N\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a** ( **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ) in the _\u015aatapatha_ _Br\u0101hma\u1e47a_. The _\u0100gamas_ , or **scriptures** of this tradition, are largely \"how to\" manuals concerned with correct ritual performance, **yoga** practice, the construction of **temples** , and the consecration of sacred images ( **m\u016brtis** ). By the 10th century of the Common Era, other devotional, **bhakti** -oriented sects had largely absorbed the Pa\u00f1car\u0101tra tradition, continuing to utilize its **mantras** and ritual manuals.\n\n**PA\u00d1CAY\u0100TANA P\u016aJ\u0100.** \"Worship of Five Objects\"; system of worship developed by **\u015aa\u1e45kara** (788\u2013820) according to which one could cultivate **bhakti** , or devotion, toward one of five possible chosen deities or **i\u1e63\u1e6dadevat\u0101s** as a practice of purifying the **mind** to prepare it for the liberating knowledge ( **j\u00f1\u0101na** ) of the unity of the self ( **\u0101tman** ) and the supreme reality ( **Brahman** ).\n\nThe five deities that \u015aa\u1e45kara recommends for this devotional practice are **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** , **\u015aiva** , **\u015aakti** , **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , and **S\u016brya**. This practice may be the source of the **Neo-Ved\u0101ntic** practice of seeing any sacred figure as a potential i\u1e63\u1e6dadevat\u0101 and way to **God-realization** , including figures from outside the Hindu tradition, such as Jesus Christ, the **Buddha** , the Prophet Muhammad, and various **Christian** and Muslim saints.\n\n**P\u0100\u1e46\u1e0cAVA.** Son of **Pa\u1e47\u1e0du**. The five P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dava brothers\u2014 **Yudhi\u1e63\u1e6dhira** , **Bh\u012bma** , **Arjuna** , **Nakula** , and Sahadeva\u2014are the heroes and main characters of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_.\n\n**PA\u1e46\u1e0cIT.** Wise person; scholar; usually, though not necessarily, a **Brahmin**.\n\n**PA\u1e46\u1e0cU.** \"Pale\"; character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , so named because of his extremely pale complexion (possibly referring to albinism); father of the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** , the main heroes of the epic; husband of **Kunt\u012b** and **M\u0101dr\u012b** ; brother of the blind **Dh\u1e5btar\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dra**.\n\n**P\u0100\u1e46INI (c. 5th\u20134th centuries BCE).** **Sanskrit** grammarian; author of an authoritative work on grammar called the _A\u1e63\u1e6dadhy\u0101yi_ , which defines the rules of classical Sanskrit usage.\n\n**P\u0100PA.** Evil; sin; a wicked deed; also demerit, the negative aftereffects of an evil deed upon the **soul** \u2014that is, \"bad **karma**.\" Some Hindu traditions claim that p\u0101pa can be expiated through **pr\u0101ya\u015bcitta** , thus eliminating the need to experience a negative result at some point in the future, which would be the normal result of evil **action**.\n\n**PARAMAH\u0100\u1e42SA.** \"Great swan\"; literally, \"great goose.\" However, the word _goose_ has connotations of silliness not culturally appropriate to the **Sanskrit** term _h\u0101\u1e43sa_ , which conveys a sense of gracefulness and transcendence better matched by the English _swan_. The actual animal, _h\u0101\u1e43sa_ , though, is a type of goose. _Paramah\u0101\u1e43sa_ is a title given to a Hindu saint held to be especially holy, having achieved a state transcending mundane consciousness even while still alive, in the physical body.\n\n**PARAMAH\u0100\u1e42SA YOG\u0100NANDA (1893\u20131952).** _See_ YOG\u0100NANDA, PARAMAH\u0100\u1e42SA.\n\n**PARAM\u0100\u1e46U.** \"Supremely small\"; an atom, not in the sense in which this term is used in contemporary physics, but the smallest possible unit into which any material substance can be broken down. _See also_ VAI\u015aE\u1e62IKA.\n\n**PARAM\u0100TMAN.** \"Supreme self\"; supreme **\u0101tman** ; **God** , understood as an indwelling presence that resides in every individual soul ( **j\u012bv\u0101tman** ); the world-soul; the **soul** of the universe.\n\n**PARA\u1e42PAR\u0100.** \"From one to another\"; teaching lineage or tradition that is passed from teacher ( **guru** ) to disciple ( **\u015bi\u1e63ya** ) through the ritual of initiation ( **d\u012bk\u1e63\u0101** ). The student, or disciple, in time becomes the teacher to another group of students to whom the lineage is then passed. Those students themselves become teachers to other students, and so on. A possible analogy from **Christianity** would be the apostolic succession traced through the popes back to Peter and ultimately to Christ. _See also_ GURU-\u015aI\u1e62YAPARA\u1e42PAR\u0100.\n\n**PAR\u0100\u015aARA.** **Vedic** sage attributed with the composition of several hymns of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ in praise of **Agni**. Par\u0101\u015bara is also a character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , where he is the father of **Vy\u0101sa** by the daughter of the fisher-king, Satyavat\u012b. Vy\u0101sa is both the author of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and the biological father of the kings **Dh\u1e5btar\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dra** and **Pa\u1e47\u1e0du** , making Par\u0101\u015bara an ancestor of the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** ' royal lineage.\n\n**PARA\u015aUR\u0100MA.** Sixth out of the traditional list of 10 **avat\u0101ras** , or incarnations, of the deity **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ; a wrathful avat\u0101ra who is said to have slain the entire **k\u1e63atriya** (or warrior) **caste** in vengeance for his father, **Jamadagni** , having been killed by a k\u1e63atriya, Arjuna K\u0101rtav\u012brya (not the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dava** hero **Arjuna** of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ). Para\u015bur\u0101ma was a **Brahmin** of the **Bh\u0101rgava** clan. After all the k\u1e63atriyas had been slain by Para\u015bur\u0101ma, they had to be replaced by Brahmins. It is therefore believed that all living k\u1e63atriyas are actually descended from Brahmins.\n\n**PARIK\u1e62IT.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ; son of **Abhimanyu** , grandson of **Arjuna**. After **Yudhi\u1e63\u1e6dhira** and the other **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0dava** brothers stepped down from the rule of their kingdom, it was Parik\u1e63it who inherited the throne and continued the family lineage.\n\n**PARIVR\u0100JAKA.** \"Wanderer\"; a Hindu **ascetic** who has renounced home life and does not normally remain in the same place for more than one day at a time; a **sanny\u0101s\u012b**.\n\n**P\u0100RVAT\u012a.** \"Daughter of the Mountain\"; the **Mother Goddess** ; the wife of **\u015aiva** in her most gentle, domestic form (in contrast with her fierce, warrior forms, such as **Durg\u0101** and **K\u0101l\u012b** ); mother of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** and **K\u0101rttikeya**. Her father is the **god** of the **Him\u0101layas** , hence her name. P\u0101rvat\u012b dwells with \u015aiva in the Him\u0101layas, on Mount **Kail\u0101sa**.\n\n**PA\u015aUPATA.** A **Tantric \u015aaiva** lineage of **ascetics** known for their antinomian behavior, seeking to break down traditional distinctions between the pure and the impure as rooted in deluded, dualistic thinking, the reality being that all is **\u015aiva** ( **Brahman** ).\n\n**PA\u015aUPATI.** \"Lord of the animals\"; epithet of **\u015aiva** that, in **\u015aaiva** theology, represents the relationship of \u015aiva to the **j\u012bvas** , or souls of living beings, who are analogized with the animals for which \u015aiva cares. A similar image in **Christianity** is of Jesus as the \"Good Shepherd.\"\n\n**P\u0100T\u0100LA.** Hell. There are actually seven Hindu hells\u2014layers or dimensions of existence that are highly unpleasant and in which beings are born who have extremely bad **karma** ( **p\u0101pa** ). The Hindu hells might better be described as purgatories; unlike the hells of **Christianity** and **Islam** , the denizens of the Hindu hells do not reside there forever but only as long as they have bad karma for which they need to atone. Once their bad karma has been exhausted, such beings are reborn, usually in human form. This can take a very long time, however\u2014in some cases, until the end of a cosmic cycle ( **kalpa** ), which may be billions of years. In other cases, though, one's period of residence in one of the hells can be of a relatively short duration.\n\nP\u0101t\u0101la is also the realm of the **N\u0101gas** , presided over by the giant serpent, **V\u0101suki**. _See also_ REBIRTH.\n\n**P\u0100\u1e6cALIPUTRA.** Ancient capital of the **Maurya** dynasty; located on the site of what is now the city of Patna, capital of the modern Indian state of Bihar.\n\n**PATA\u00d1JALI.** Author to whom the _Yoga S\u016btra_ is attributed (the root text of the **Yoga dar\u015bana** , or philosophical system); the inventor of the eight-limbed ( **a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** ) system of yoga that the _Yoga S\u016btra_ describes. Pata\u00f1jali probably lived between 100 BCE and 500 CE. Someone named Pata\u00f1jali is also attributed with a work on **Sanskrit** grammar\u2014the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101\u1e63ya_ , a commentary on the _A\u1e63\u1e6dadhy\u0101yi_ of **P\u0101\u1e47ini** \u2014though it is not clear that these two Pata\u00f1jalis are the same person.\n\n**PATH OF ACTION.** _See_ FOUR YOGAS; KARMA-M\u0100RGA, KARMAYOGA; YOGA.\n\n**PATH OF DEVOTION.** _See_ BHAKTI; FOUR YOGAS; YOGA.\n\n**PATH OF KNOWLEDGE.** _See_ FOUR YOGAS; J\u00d1\u0100NA; J\u00d1\u0100NAM\u0100RGA, J\u00d1\u0100NA-YOGA; YOGA.\n\n**PATH OF MEDITATION.** _See_ A\u1e62\u1e6c\u0100\u1e44GA YOGA; DHY\u0100NA; FOUR YOGAS; **R\u0100JA-YOGA** ; YOGA.\n\n**PA\u1e6c\u1e6cADAKAL.** Site in **Karnataka** that houses several **temples** built by the **C\u0101lukya** dynasty between the sixth and 12th centuries of the Common Era, including a temple with statues depicting **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** instructing **Arjuna** in the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ and another with sculptures depicting episodes from the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_.\n\n**PAU\u1e62A.** Month of the **Hindu calendar** that corresponds roughly to the period from mid-December to mid-January.\n\n**PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY.** The idea of a common thread of **truth** shared by all (or most) of the world's religions; in the words of **Aldous Huxley** , \"the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and **minds** ; the psychology that finds in the **soul** something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the **knowledge** of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being.\" Modern Hindu thinkers, especially **Neo-Ved\u0101ntins** , endorse this idea, identifying this underlying truth with **Ved\u0101nta** **philosophy** , such as when **Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan** writes that Ved\u0101nta is \"not a religion, but religion itself in its most universal and deepest significance.\" If they are properly understood, all religions, according to Neo-Ved\u0101nta, are paths to **God-realization**.\n\n**PHALGUNA.** Month of the **Hindu calendar** that corresponds roughly to the period from mid-February to mid-March.\n\n**PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS.** _See_ DAR\u015aANA.\n\n**PHILOSOPHY.** _See_ DAR\u015aANA.\n\n**PILGRIMAGE.** A journey to a sacred place. Such a journey is a form of meritorious **action** , or **pu\u1e47ya karma**. _See_ YATRA.\n\n**PI\u1e46\u1e0cA.** A ball of rice offered to one's ancestors as part of the **\u015br\u0101ddha** ritual. _See also_ ANCESTRAL RITES.\n\n**PIT\u1e5a.** Literally \"father,\" but also refers to one's ancestors in general.\n\n**PIT\u1e5aLOKA.** Realm of the ancestors; one of the possible afterlife destinations in **Vedic** thought, the other being the **Devaloka** , or realm of the **gods**.\n\n**PLANETS.** _See_ NAVAGRAHAS.\n\n**POETRY.** Popular genre for conveying Hindu religious themes. **K\u0101l\u012bd\u0101sa** (fl. 400 CE) is the most renowned **Sanskrit** poet, whose elegant verse is frequently analogized with the work of Shakespeare as a major contribution to world **literature**. Many of the saints of the **bhakti** or devotional traditions of Hinduism have communicated their devotion in the form of poems and songs. The study of Sanskrit poetics, or _k\u0101vya_ , is connected with the **philosophy** of **rasa** , or the aesthetic sensibility, which many Hindu theologians tie to the spiritual path, seeing the beauty of poetry and of poetic imagery as a way to evoke the experience of devotion and draw the devotee ever nearer to the divine. _See also_ ABHINAVAGUPTA; \u0100\u1e36V\u0100RS; \u0100\u1e46\u1e0c\u0100L; BASAVA; BAULS; BHART\u1e5aHARI; CA\u1e46\u1e0c\u012aD\u0100S; CHATTERJEE, BANKIM CHANDRA; CIVAV\u0100KKIYAR; DA\u1e46\u1e0cIN; GOSV\u0100MINS; JAYADEVA; J\u00d1\u0100NE\u015aVARA; KAB\u012aR; K\u0100LID\u0100SA; KANNAPPA; LALL\u0100; MAH\u0100DEVIYAKKA; MAMMATA; M\u0100\u1e46IKKAV\u0100CAKAR; MEHTA, NARSI; M\u012aRA BAI; N\u0100MDEV; NAMM\u0100\u1e36V\u0100R; NANDANAR; N\u0100YAN\u0100RS; R\u0100MPRAS\u0100D; RAVID\u0100S; SURD\u0100S; TAGORE, RABINDRAN\u0100TH; _TIRUV\u0100YMO\u1e36I_ ; TUK\u0100R\u0100M; TULS\u012aD\u0100S.\n\n**POLYTHEISM.** Affirmation of the existence of and reverence for multiple deities, or **gods**. Most, though not all, Hindu traditions are polytheistic in practice. Many of these systems, however, affirm a deeper **monotheism** that underlies their polytheistic practices, according to which the **One** **God** manifests in many forms that correspond to the many gods of Hinduism\u2014and even to the deities of other religions. The issue of polytheism and monotheism in Hinduism is further complicated by the fact that there are many **Sanskrit** terms that can be translated as \" **God** ,\" some of which have polytheistic connotations and some of which have monotheistic, or even pantheistic or panentheistic, connotations. Not all Hindu traditions agree, furthermore, in regard to which understanding is correct.\n\n**Devas** are many in number and correspond closely to a polytheistic conception of divinity\u2014many divine beings personifying natural phenomena, like **Agni** , the deva of fire; **S\u016brya** , the deva of the sun; **V\u0101yu** , the deva of the wind; and so on. **\u012a\u015bvara** or **Bhagav\u0101n** correspond to God in more of a monotheistic sense\u2014the Supreme Being or overlord of the cosmos. **Brahman** , the eternal and absolute reality that is ultimately one with all things, conveys a pantheistic or panentheistic sense of the divine as present in all beings.\n\n**PONGAL.** Four-day harvest festival that is celebrated in the state of **Tamil** Nadu, on the southern tip and southeastern coast of India. It occurs on the last day of the lunar month of **Pau\u1e63a** (December\u2013January) and the first three days of the month of **Magha** (January\u2013February).\n\n**POONA (PUNE).** _See_ PUNE.\n\n**POONJAJI (POONJA, HARILAL W.) (1910\u20131997).** Punjab-based **guru** who had a number of Western followers. Poonjaji is said to have attained **sam\u0101dhi** at the young age of nine. He met **Rama\u1e47a Mahar\u1e63i** in 1944, becoming his disciple and teaching a form of **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** mixed with **bhakti** for the rest of his life. His most famous disciple was the Catholic monk Sw\u0101m\u012b Abhi\u1e63ikt\u0101nanda (Henri Le Saux), who delved very deeply into the experience of Hinduism, seeking common ground between Advaita Ved\u0101nta and **Christianity**.\n\n**POTANA (1400\u20131470).** **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** scholar and saint; translated the _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ into Telugu to make this text more widely available to the common people. Though born a **\u015aaiva** , Potana took initiation from a Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava **guru**. He is said to have seen both \u015aaiva and Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava traditions as equally valid.\n\n**PRABHAV\u0100NANDA, SW\u0100M\u012a (1893\u20131976).** Scholar and monk of the **Ramakrishna Order** who did a good deal to promote **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** in North America. Prabhav\u0101nanda founded the **Ved\u0101nta Society** of Southern California in 1930 and ran it until his death in 1976. Under his leadership, this organization became the largest Ved\u0101nta Society in the Western world. Prominent disciples of Prabhav\u0101nanda include **Christopher Isherwood** and **Aldous Huxley**. Isher-wood's relationship with Prabhav\u0101nanda is chronicled in his autobiography, _My Guru and His Disciple_. The two of them collaborated on a number of scholarly projects, including popular translations of the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ and **Pata\u00f1jali** 's _Yoga S\u016btra_. Prabhav\u0101nanda also wrote a Ved\u0101ntic commentary on **Christianity** entitled _The Sermon on the Mount According to Vedanta_.\n\n**PRADAK\u1e62INA.** **Circumambulation** ; to walk in a circle around a sacred image ( **m\u016brti** ) in a clockwise direction, keeping the image to one's right side, as a way of paying respect to the deity that the image represents. _See also_ IMAGES IN WORSHIP.\n\n**PRAHL\u0100DA.** Son of the demonic **Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu** and ardent devotee of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ; often held up in **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** traditions as a model of **bhakti**. Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu held deep hatred for **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. Annoyed by Prahl\u0101da's equally deep devotion for his archenemy, Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu taunted Prahl\u0101da. Once, asking Prahl\u0101da where Vi\u1e63\u1e47u could be found, Prahl\u0101da replied that Vi\u1e63\u1e47u (whose name means \"all-pervasive\") was everywhere, even within a nearby stone pillar. On hearing this, Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu kicked the pillar. The pillar then broke open and Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, in the form of the **Narasi\u1e43ha** or man-lion **avat\u0101ra** , came forth. The man-lion grabbed Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu, placed him on his lap, and slew him. This event occurred at dusk. The circumstances surrounding the **death** of Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu were a result of the fact that he was magically protected from any attack by man or beast (the Narasi\u1e43ha was neither), on the ground or in the air (which is why Narasi\u1e43ha held him in his lap), and by day or night (making dusk and dawn times of vulnerability for him).\n\n**PRAJ\u0100PATI.** \"Father of Offspring\"; \"progenitor\"; **Vedic** creator deity, often identified with **Brahm\u0101**. _See also_ CREATION.\n\n**PRAJ\u0100PITAR BRAHM\u0100 (1876\u20131969).** Founder of the **Brahm\u0101 Kum\u0101r\u012b** movement; born **D\u0101da Lekhr\u0101j**.\n\n**PRAKRIT (PR\u0100K\u1e5aTA).** \"Natural\"; the natural languages of northern India in ancient times, in contrast with the \"artificial\" or \"cultured\" **Sanskrit** language. This term refers to the Middle **Indo-\u0100ryan** languages spoken across northern India from ancient times up to the medieval and modern periods, when these languages evolved into the contemporary north Indian languages, such as **Hindi** , **Bengali** , Gujarati, and Marathi. There are many Prakrits, including P\u0101li (the language of the earliest extant canonical texts of **Buddhism** ) and Ardha-M\u0101gadhi (the language of the canonical texts of **Jainism** ).\n\n**PRAK\u1e5aTI.** \"Nature\"; \"matter.\" In **S\u0101\u1e43khya** **philosophy** , one of two main categories into which reality is divided, the other being **puru\u1e63a** , or pure spirit. Whereas puru\u1e63a is pure consciousness, both **mind** and matter\u2014all phenomena\u2014are manifestations of prak\u1e5bti. Prak\u1e5bti manifests as three **gu\u1e47as** , or qualities\u2014 **sattva** (clarity, luminosity), **rajas** ( **action** or dynamism), and **tamas** (inertia). The universe of changing phenomena is an effect of the constant interplay of these three gu\u1e47as. The goal of S\u0101\u1e43khya and the related system of **Yoga** is for puru\u1e63a to realize its nature as pure spirit and disentangle itself from prak\u1e5bti, with which it has become falsely identified.\n\n**PRALAYA.** Dissolution. The end of a cosmic cycle or century of **Brahm\u0101**. At the end of a cycle, the forces of chaos and entropy overcome the forces of order, or **dharma** , and the universe dissolves, returning to a potential state. There follows the great sleep, or _mah\u0101pralaya_ , after which a new **creation** will emerge and a new century of Brahm\u0101, lasting for trillions of years, will begin. The karmic states of the beings in the universe at the time of the pralaya will determine their character in the new cycle. _See also_ WORLD AGES.\n\n**PRAM\u0100\u1e46A.** In Indian philosophy, a valid basis for making a judgment. The most basic pram\u0101\u1e47a, accepted by all **dar\u015banas** , or systems of Indian philosophy, is **pratyak\u1e63a** , or sensory perception. After pratyak\u1e63a are **anum\u0101na** , or inference, and **upam\u0101na** , or verbal comparison\u2014in other words, recognizing a perceived entity to be a member of an already known category. Finally, there is \u015babda, or the verbal testimony of a trustworthy and knowledgeable person. The **\u0101stika** or \"orthodox\" Hindu systems of philosophy identify the **Vedic** **scriptures** as the preeminent example of the \u015babda pram\u0101\u1e47a. The **materialist C\u0101rv\u0101ka** or **Lok\u0101yata** system accepts only pratyak\u1e63a as valid. **Buddhism** accepts only pratyak\u1e63a and anum\u0101na. The orthodox Hindu systems generally accept all four pram\u0101\u1e47as.\n\n**PR\u0100\u1e46A.** Breath. Vital energy. The second most \"gross\" or physical of the five sheaths or **ko\u015bas** surrounding the **\u0101tman** \u2014the **pr\u0101\u1e47a-maya-ko\u015ba**. In some _Upani\u1e63ads_ it is speculated that the pr\u0101\u1e47a might be the \u0101tman\u2014that the \u0101tman is the primal life force that manifests as the power of breath in the physical body.\n\n**PR\u0100\u1e46A-MAYA-KO\u015aA.** Breath layer; vital energy layer; the second of the five **ko\u015bas** , or layers, surrounding the self ( **\u0101tman** ) according to **Ved\u0101nta**. This ko\u015ba is \"between\" the physical or \"food\" layer ( **anna-maya-ko\u015ba** ) and the **mind** layer ( **mano-maya-ko\u015ba** ).\n\n**PR\u0100\u1e46\u0100Y\u0100MA.** Breath control, fourth of the eight stages or \"limbs\" of **Pata\u00f1jali** 's eight-limbed ( **a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** ) **yoga** , as outlined in the _Yoga S\u016btras_. Such control helps to bring the **mind** under control.\n\n**PR\u0100RABDHA KARMA.** The effects of past **actions** , or **karma** , which have gone into the **creation** of one's current physical body and which cannot be eliminated. It is due to pr\u0101rabdha karma that even an **enlightened** being\u2014one who has attained **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth** , or **mok\u1e63a** , in this lifetime (a **j\u012bvanmukta** )\u2014continues to stay alive and is subject to bodily experiences such as injury, sickness, old age, and **death**. Even while the **soul** is free, the body experiences the effects of this ripening past karma.\n\n**PRAS\u0100DAM.** Divine grace, gift from **God**. In its most common usage, this term refers to food offerings made during **p\u016bj\u0101** and then distributed back to the worshiper and, often, to other members of the community as well. The basic concept operating is transactional in nature. The worshiper makes an offering of **devotion** to God (in a specific form, such as one of the personal deities of Hinduism), which is symbolized by food items, and the deity, in turn, bestows blessings upon the devotee, which are symbolized by the devotee's consumption of the food. Any food that has been thus offered is pras\u0101dam, even if the one who eventually consumes it was not present at the p\u016bj\u0101 but has been given the pras\u0101dam later by a friend or family member. It is widely regarded as bad luck to refuse pras\u0101dam that has been offered in this way, as fortunate to receive it, and as good act\u2014an act of **pu\u1e47ya karma** \u2014to offer it.\n\n_PRASTH\u0100NA TRAYA_ **.** \"Threefold foundation,\" three textual sources foundational to all of the systems of **Ved\u0101nta** philosophy: the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , the _Brahm\u0101 S\u016btras_ , and the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. Every Ved\u0101ntic **\u0101c\u0101rya** , or founder of a formal system of Ved\u0101nta, has written commentaries upon the three texts of the _Prasth\u0101na Traya_. It is largely through the medium of these commentaries, or **bh\u0101\u1e63yas** , that the various \u0101c\u0101ryas have established the point of view of their particular school of thought\u2014with **\u015aa\u1e45kara** , for example, providing an interpretation of these texts supportive of **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , **R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja** providing an interpretation supportive of **Vi\u015bi\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101dvaita Ved\u0101nta** , and so on. The internal diversity of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ and the terseness of the _Brahm\u0101 S\u016btras_ , in particular, have lent themselves to these varying interpretations.\n\n**PRATYAK\u1e62A.** Perception; sensory perception; one of the valid sources of **knowledge** , or **pram\u0101\u1e47as** , of Indian philosophy; the only pram\u0101\u1e47a that all of the systems of Indian philosophy ( **dar\u015banas** ) accept as valid.\n\n**PRAV\u1e5aTTI M\u0100RGA.** \"Path of inclination toward **action** \"; way of life of a **householder** who has not renounced **action** ; the way of life of persons in the first three of the **\u0101\u015bramas** or four stages of life. These persons are dedicated to pursuing **k\u0101ma** (sensory pleasure), **artha** (wealth), and **dharma** (moral virtue) by following the Prav\u1e5btti M\u0101rga. This is in contrast with the **Niv\u1e5btti M\u0101rga** , the path of the renouncer ( **sanny\u0101sin** ), who pursues the fourth goal of life: **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth**.\n\n**PRAY\u0100GA (ALLAHABAD).** Holy city at the confluence of the rivers **Yamun\u0101** and **Ga\u1e45g\u0101**.\n\n**PR\u0100YA\u015aCITTA.** Atonement for bad past acts\u2014 **p\u0101pa** or \"bad **karma** \"\u2014through **actions** prescribed by a priest or by one's **guru**. These can include practicing special **asceticism** , performing a special **p\u016bj\u0101** , or giving charity ( **d\u0101na** ) to worthy persons or institutions.\n\n**PREMA.** Love; affection; close friendship.\n\n**PRETA.** Ghost; one of the types of creature against which one prays for protection; an unquiet spirit, often because the proper funeral rites were not performed. _See also_ ANCESTRAL RITES; ANTYE\u1e62\u1e6cI.\n\n**P\u1e5aTHV\u012a.** Earth; the medium of smell ( **gandha** ); one of the five elements or states of being that constitute the physical world ( **mah\u0101bh\u016btas)**. The five elements are earth (p\u1e5bthvi), air ( **v\u0101yu** ), fire ( **agni** ), water ( **ap** ), and space ( **\u0101k\u0101\u015ba** ).\n\n**P\u016aJ\u0100.** Worship; chief ritual by which deities are honored. The basic structure of p\u016bj\u0101 is modeled on the favors that one would bestow upon an honored guest, such as offerings of food, a bath, and clean clothing.\n\n**PUNARJANMA. Rebirth** , reincarnation.\n\n**PUNDIT.** A wise or **knowledgeable** person; a common English spelling of **pa\u1e47\u1e0dit**. This word has entered English usage to refer to an expert or a commentator in any discipline.\n\n**PUNE (POONA).** City in Maharashtra, in central India; birthplace of **\u015aiv\u0101ji** , renowned leader of the **Mar\u0101\u1e6dhas** in the 17th century. Pune is also home to many universities and a major center of **Indology** and **Sanskrit** scholarship. The **\u0101\u015brama** or commune of **Osho** ( **Bhagwan Rajneesh** ) is located here as well.\n\n**PU\u1e46YA.** Merit, good **karma**.\n\n_PUR\u0100\u1e46AS_ **.** Ancient lore; a collection of 18 texts dedicated to the deeds of deities such as **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , **\u015aiva** , and **Dev\u012b**. These texts were composed in their current form during the first millennium of the Common Era (although they likely contain material from an earlier period). Along with the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , these texts largely define the worldview and mythology of contemporary Hinduism. The material contained within them is much better known to the average Hindu than the contents of the _Vedas_. Rituals such as **p\u016bj\u0101** and the representations of deities in the forms in which they are depicted in **m\u016brtis** are based on accounts given in these texts. Whereas the deities of the _Vedas_ are not as prominent in contemporary Hinduism as they were in ancient times, the deities that are the focus of the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ have been central to Hindu traditions for over 2,000 years. The 18 major _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ are divided into three collections that are made up of six texts each. Each collection is dedicated primarily to one of the three main deities at the basis of the three main theistic traditions\u2014Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, \u015aiva, and Dev\u012b, or **\u015aakti**. There are a variety of minor _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ in addition to the major ones. The _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ include many genealogical lists that connect royal families and **Brahmanical** lineages to heroes and sages of the ancient past. The _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ form a substantial part of the **sm\u1e5bti** **literature** , the category of Hindu **scripture** whose sanctity is derivative from that of the **\u015br\u016bti** \u2014the _Vedas_.\n\n**PURI.** City on the coast of the eastern Indian state of **Orissa**. Location of the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** **temple** of **Jagann\u0101tha**.\n\n**PUROHITA.** Priest; traditionally a **Brahmin** ; the main officiating priest of any Hindu ritual.\n\n**PUR\u016aRAVAS.** Ancient king; character of a story, first mentioned in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ and later elaborated upon in the _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ and the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , and finally in a famous play by the renowned **Sanskrit** **poet** and playwright **K\u0101l\u012bd\u0101sa** (the _Vikramorva\u015b\u012b_ ). In the story, Pur\u016bravas falls in love with a celestial maiden ( **apsaras** ) named **Urva\u015b\u012b** and asks to marry her. She agrees, on the condition that he protect her rams from being stolen and he never lets her see him naked. They live together happily for many years until a group of mischievous **gandharvas** steals one of Urva\u015b\u012b's rams in the middle of the night. Hearing the commotion, Pur\u016bravas leaps naked out of bed to save the ram. The gandharvas flash a bright light on him, revealing his naked form to Urva\u015b\u012b, and make off with the ram. At this, Urva\u015b\u012b returns to the heavens.\n\n**PURU\u1e62A.** \"The person\"; \"the man\"; the primordial being whose body is dismembered in a famous chapter of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ \u2014the _Puru\u1e63a S\u016bkta_ , or \"Hymn of the Cosmic Man\"\u2014in order to form the universe. The various parts of this being's body become the various phenomena that make up the cosmos\u2014his eye becoming the sun, his **mind** becoming the **moon** , and so on. The **var\u1e47as** , or four main **castes** , are also formed from various parts of his body. He is identified in later **Vedic** **literature** with **N\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a** , who is subsequently identified with **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , whose body is identified with the cosmos in the **Vi\u015bi\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101dvaita Ved\u0101nta** of **R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja**. In fact, the idea of the universe as coming from the body of a single cosmic being anticipates the later Ved\u0101ntic themes of the unity of all existence and of **God** dwelling within all beings.\n\nAlso, in **S\u0101\u1e43khya** **philosophy** , puru\u1e63a is the term used for the **soul** , understood as pure consciousness, and contrasted with the realm of matter, or **prak\u1e5bti**. The goal of S\u0101\u1e43khya and the related system of **Yoga** is for puru\u1e63a to realize its nature as pure spirit and disentangle itself from prak\u1e5bti, with which it has become falsely identified.\n\n_PURU\u1e62A S\u016aKTA_ **.** Chapter of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ that depicts the **creation** of the universe by means of the primordial self-sacrifice of a being\u2014the **puru\u1e63a** , or cosmic man\u2014whose body becomes the basis of all that exists. According to this text, only one fourth of the body of the cosmic man become the visible, physical universe. The other three fourths become the spiritual world. The text establishes a set of correspondences between various parts of the body of the cosmic man and elements of the physical world. This text is probably best known for drawing correspondences between parts of the cosmic man and the four main **var\u1e47as** or **castes** : the **Brahmin** caste corresponds to the head of the cosmic man, the **K\u1e63atriya** or warrior caste to the cosmic man's arms, the **Vai\u015byas** or common people to his stomach, and the **\u015a\u016bdra** or servant caste to his feet. This is the earliest reference to the var\u1e47a system in the **Vedic** **literature**.\n\n**PURU\u1e62\u0100RTHA.** The four goals of humanity; physical or sensory pleasure ( **k\u0101ma** ), wealth ( **artha** ), virtue ( **dharma** ), and **liberation** from the cycle of rebirth ( **mok\u1e63a** ). Each successive goal is regarded as superior to (because it is more enduring than) the one prior to it. The first three are regarded as \"worldly\" ( _laukika_ ) goals and mok\u1e63a is regarded as a transcendental or \"otherworldly\" ( _alaukika_ ) goal. The worldly goals are appropriate to people in the first three of the four stages of life or **\u0101\u015bramas** \u2014that is, the celibate student ( **brahmacarya** ), the householder ( **g\u0101rhasthya** ), and the retired, \"forest-dwelling\" ( **vanaprastha** ) stage. The fourth goal is pursued by renouncers ( **sanny\u0101sins** ). This, at least, is the classical Hindu model of society, as found in the legal texts, or _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_. In **Tantric** and **bhakti** -oriented Hindu traditions, a householder can also aspire to mok\u1e63a by performing the correct rituals and **meditations** (the Tantric path) or cultivating devotion to **God** (bhakti).\n\n**PURU\u1e62OTTAMA.** Supreme person; **God** ; the Supreme Being; an epithet of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** in the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ and in subsequent **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** traditions; God, or **\u012a\u015bvara** , in the _Yoga S\u016btra_ of **Pata\u00f1jali** , not identified with any specific Hindu deity.\n\n**P\u016aRVA M\u012aM\u0100\u1e42S\u0100.** The \"earlier exegesis.\" The term _P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101_ contrasts this system of thought with the later, or **Uttara M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** \u2014more widely known as **Ved\u0101nta**. P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 focuses upon the earlier, ritual-istic portion of the _Vedas_ , while Ved\u0101nta interprets the later **Vedic** texts\u2014the _Upani\u1e63ads_ \u2014and their teaching of **Brahman**. _See also_ M\u012aM\u0100\u1e42S\u0100.\n\n_P\u016aRVAM\u012aM\u0100\u1e42S\u0100 S\u016aTRA_ **.** Root text of the **M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** or **Uttara M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 dar\u015bana** , or system of philosophy; attributed to **Jaimini** and likely composed around 300 BCE.\n\n**P\u016aRVAPAK\u1e62A.** \"Prior view,\" the point of view of the opponent in classical Indian philosophical texts. After this view is refuted, the final or \"perfected view\" ( **siddh\u0101nta** ) of the author is presented.\n\n**P\u016a\u1e62AN.** \"Nourisher\"; **Vedic** deity; one of the 12 **\u0100dityas** ; guardian of animals and human beings and ensurer of prosperity; identified in some sources as an earth **god**.\n\n**PU\u1e62KARA.** \"Blue Lotus\"; site in **Rajasthan** of one of the handful of **temples** in India devoted to **Brahm\u0101** ; believed to be a highly meritorious site of **pilgrimage**.\n\n## Q\n\n**QUALIFIED NONDUALISM.** Metaphysical teaching of the **Vi\u015bi\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101dvaita** system of **Ved\u0101nta** developed by the Ved\u0101ntic **\u0101c\u0101rya R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja**. According to this view, all of reality is, as **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** teaches, one with **Brahman**. But unlike in the Advaitic concept of Brahman, Brahman is here conceived as having internal differences. The idea of Brahman with which this system operates is one of organic unity, rather than the pure, undifferentiated unity taught by Advaita Ved\u0101nta. Brahman, in this system, is the totality of being, including within itself differentiated beings such as **God** , souls ( **j\u012bvas** ), and the world ( **jagat** ).\n\n**QUALITIES.** _See_ GU\u1e46AS.\n\n## R\n\n**R\u0100DH\u0100.** Foremost of the **gop\u012bs** , or cowherdesses with whom **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** spent his youth, as recounted in the _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. The intense love between K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and R\u0101dh\u0101 is the ideal of **bhakti** , or devotion. The fact that R\u0101dh\u0101, who was married to another man, still loves K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a against all social conventions and norms, rather than being condemned in the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** traditions, is upheld as a model of devotion to **God** \u2014a love that is spontaneous and dismissive of all other concerns. The longing of R\u0101dh\u0101 for K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a during his absence is also a model for the longing of the soul for God until the dawning of **God-realization** and God-consciousness. In Hindu iconography, R\u0101dh\u0101 and K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a are frequently paired as a divine couple, symbolizing the loving bond between God and the **soul**. The story of the love affair of R\u0101dh\u0101 and K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is narrated in the vivid, erotically charged **poetry** of **Jayadeva** in his _G\u012btagovinda_ , or \"Song of the Cowherd.\"\n\n**RADHAKRISHNAN, SIR SARVEPALLI (1888\u20131975).** Indian philosopher; diplomat; vice president of India from 1952 to 1962 and president from 1962 to 1967; translator of many **Sanskrit** texts and major exponent of **Neo-Ved\u0101nta**.\n\n**R\u0100DH\u0100SO\u0100M\u012a SATSANG.** \"Holy Fellowship of R\u0101dh\u0101's Master\"; Hindu movement started in 1861 by **Sw\u0101m\u012b Shiv Dayal Singh** (1818\u20131878). This movement currently has both Indian and Western adherents. Having a close continuity with the teachings of the **Sant** movement and **Sikhism** , the central emphasis is the relationship between disciple and **guru** , who is the intermediary of the liberating love of **God**. There is also a strong emphasis on morality, **vegetarianism** , and the practice of **meditation**.\n\n**RAGHAVAN, V. (1908\u20131990).** **Indologist** ; born in **Tamil** Nadu and professor for many years of **Sanskrit** at **Madras** University; author of many works on Sanskrit **literature** and drama.\n\n**R\u0100HU.** One of the **navagrahas** ; companion of **Ketu**. R\u0101hu was an **asura** who managed to steal a drop of the **am\u1e5bta** , or elixir of **immortality** , when the **devas** and asuras churned it from the cosmic ocean. Alerted to this fact by the sun and the **moon** , **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** beheaded R\u0101hu and placed his head in the sky. The rest of R\u0101hu's body became a separate entity, Ketu, also placed in the sky. The two of them periodically take their vengeance on the sun and the moon by swallowing them, causing solar and lunar eclipses. R\u0101hu appears as a demonic, decapitated head floating in the sky. Both are considered inauspicious in Hindu **astrology**.\n\n**RAI, LALA LAJPAT (1865\u20131928).** Martyr of the Indian independence movement; born in the Punjab. Rai founded the pro-independence journal _Young India_ in 1915 and was its editor and its publisher until 1919, when **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** assumed these roles. Rai died in 1928 due to injuries suffered during a protest march in Lahore.\n\n**R\u0100J.** \"Reign\"; popular term for the period of British rule of India, which began around the middle of the 18th century, with the increasing ascendancy of the **British East India Company** , and ended with the official independence of India and Pakistan on the 15 August 1947. The British presence in India began as early as 1600, initially for the purpose of trade. This presence was gradually expanded until, by the mid-1800s, the British controlled most of India's coasts. After the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, known in India as the First War of Independence, the British crown assumed direct control of the British East India Company's holdings and most of India came under the rule of Queen Victoria. At this time, opposition to British domination of India began to spread among English-educated, middle-class Indians, encouraged by Western members of the **Theosophical Society**. This led to the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885. In the early 20th century, the independence movement greatly expanded in popularity under the leadership of **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** , finally achieving its goal in 1947. G\u0101ndh\u012b's strategy of nonviolent noncooperation made it possible for ordinary Indians to participate in a movement that had been limited to political leaders or those willing to take up arms. The movement was not able to prevent the partition of India and Pakistan along religious lines when British rule ended.\n\n**RAJAS.** Dynamism; the second of the three **gu\u1e47as** or qualities of phenomenal existence as delineated in the **philosophies** of **S\u0101\u1e43khya** and **Yoga** as well as in the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_.\n\n**RAJASTHAN.** Largely desert state in northwestern India; home to such famous Hindu pilgrimage sites as **N\u0101thdw\u0101ra** , which is dedicated to **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , and **Pu\u1e63kara** , dedicated to **Brahm\u0101** ; also the location of many Jain **temples** and home to a relatively large number of Jains. One of the most prominent **Jain** temples is located in this state, on Mount Abu. Mount Abu is also home to the world headquarters of the **Brahm\u0101 Kum\u0101r\u012bs**. Known for its martial culture, Rajasthan is probably most famous as the home of the **Rajputs**. The 16th-century **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** saint and **bhakti poet** **M\u012br\u0101 Bai** hailed from Rajasthan.\n\n**R\u0100JAS\u016aYA.** **Vedic** sacrifice or **yaj\u00f1a** that ensures the future success of a king. The r\u0101jas\u016bya of **Yudhi\u1e63\u1e6dhira** is depicted in the second book of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , the _Sabh\u0101 Parvan_ (\"Book of the Meeting Hall\").\n\n**RAJNEESH, BHAGWAN (R\u0100JAN\u012a\u1e62A, BHAGAV\u0100N) (1931\u20131990).** **Guru** who led a modern Hindu movement with a mainly Western following. His eclectic teachings drew upon a variety of traditions, Hindu and non-Hindu, particularly **Tantra**. Having a strong emphasis on sexual freedom as a way to spiritual **liberation** , the movement's practices are quite close to the V\u0101m\u0101c\u0101ra or **Left-Handed** Tantric practice, which seeks to embody the ideal of nondualism ( **advaita** ) by overcoming traditional taboos regarding impurity and purity on the understanding that all is **One**. Such taboos are therefore arbitrary. In the early 1980s, Rajneesh and many of his disciples settled in the United States near the town of Antelope, Oregon. But in 1985, Rajneesh was deported back to India for immigration fraud. Returning to his home in **Pune** , Rajneesh reestablished his community there. In 1989, he changed his name to **Osho** , a Japanese term for a high-ranking **Buddhist** priest. Rajneesh was born Candra Mohan **Jain**.\n\n**RAJPUTS.** Large community of **k\u1e63atriya** or warrior clans based in **Rajasthan**. Arising around the sixth century of the Common Era, Rajput kingdoms were prominent in many parts of northwestern India, but primarily in the region now known as Rajasthan. Their name\u2014 _Rajput_ \u2014is derived from the **Sanskrit** _r\u0101japutra_ , or \"sons of kings.\" Many Rajput clans fought quite ferociously against Turkish and **Mughal** invaders in the early medieval period, but some allied with the Mughal Empire. It is likely that the practice of **sat\u012b** , in which a widow immolates herself on the funeral pyre of her deceased husband, began in this community. According to the Rajputs' own lore, on hearing that their husbands had fallen in battle against invaders, many of the Rajput women immolated themselves rather than be captured or raped by the enemy. Eventually, this became an expected display of **devotion** in Rajput families. The practice was transmitted to **Bengal** when a number of Rajput clans transplanted themselves to that region. It was banned by the British in 1829 due to the efforts of the Bengali Hindu reformer **R\u0101m Mohan Roy** and soon ceased to be practiced on a large scale (and had, in any case, been largely confined to the upper **castes** in Bengal and Rajasthan). But occasional exceptions have occurred in subsequent history, the last sat\u012b having taken place at Deorala, in Rajasthan, in 1987. This event was protested by many Hindus, including **Sw\u0101m\u012b Agnive\u015ba**.\n\n**RAKHI, RAK\u1e62ABANDHAN.** Hindu and **Sikh** festival held on the **P\u016br\u1e47im\u0101** (or full- **moon** day) of the month of **\u015arava\u1e47a** (July\u2013August). Celebrated mainly in northern India, the observance of the festival involves **women** tying a **sacred thread** on the right wrists of their brothers. A woman can also perform this ritual on a man who is not her relative in order to make him her brother in a formal sense. This ritual can thus sanctify the platonic friendship between a man and a woman.\n\n**R\u0100K\u1e62ASA.** Monster; demonic creature, often depicted as having a semi-human, semi-bestial form and as being of great size and strength. R\u0101k\u1e63asas can also change their shape for a limited period of time in order to deceive human beings. They are represented in Hindu texts as creatures of chaos, delighting in disrupting the **yaj\u00f1as** , or sacrifices, of the sages who have withdrawn to the forest. They also have a taste for human flesh. They are the primary enemies of **R\u0101ma** in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_. Their king, **R\u0101va\u1e47a** , abducts **S\u012bt\u0101** , R\u0101ma's wife, whom R\u0101ma must then rescue. There are also, however, \"good\" r\u0101k\u1e63asas, such as R\u0101va\u1e47a's cousin **Vibh\u012b\u1e63ana** , who is a devotee of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and betrays R\u0101va\u1e47a after failing to persuade him to release S\u012bt\u0101, joining R\u0101ma's army as a military advisor against his fellow r\u0101k\u1e63asas. In the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , **Bh\u012bma** has an affair with a female r\u0101k\u1e63asa and fathers the massive human-r\u0101k\u1e63asa hybrid Gha\u1e6dotkaca, who assists the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** in their battle with the **Kauravas**.\n\n**RAKTAB\u012aJA**. \"Blood seed\"; demon slain by **K\u0101l\u012b**. Each drop of Raktab\u012bja's blood that spilled on the ground would transform into a completely new Raktab\u012bja. Spilling this demon's blood in battle therefore served only to create an entire army of Raktab\u012bjas. It is for this reason that K\u0101l\u012b used her tongue to catch or lick up every drop of blood of this demon that was spilled in the course of her battle with him. This is why this **goddess** is depicted with a long, bloody tongue sticking out of her mouth.\n\n**R\u0100M.** **Hindi** pronunciation of **R\u0101ma**. _See_ R\u0100MA.\n\n_R\u0100M CARIT M\u0100NAS_ **.** \"Lake of the Deeds of R\u0101ma\"; highly popular rendering of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ in medieval **Hindi** ; composed by the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** devotee and **bhakti poet** **Tuls\u012bd\u0101s** (1532\u20131623). The text is so popular, even being frequently quoted by ordinary devotees, that it is safe to say that it is this version of the text, rather than the **Sanskrit** original, that is better known by most Hindus, particularly in northern India. The popular Hindi television serialization of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ (\" _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47_ \") is based upon the _R\u0101m Carit M\u0101nas_. During the festival of **R\u0101mnavam\u012b** , it is not uncommon for 24-hour nonstop readings of this text to be held in Hindu **temples** , with devotees taking turns reciting the verses in a call-and-response fashion.\n\n**R\u0100MA.** Along with **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , one of the most popular of the **avat\u0101ras** , or incarnations, of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ; the seventh such incarnation, according to the traditional list of 10; prince of the kingdom of **Ayodhy\u0101** and son of its king, Da\u015baratha. R\u0101ma's biography forms the central narrative of one of the two Hindu epics, or **itih\u0101sas** \u2014the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ (the other epic being the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ). At the beginning of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , the **gods** approach Vi\u1e63\u1e47u for help because the Earth has fallen under the oppression of **R\u0101va\u1e47a** , the powerful lord of the **r\u0101k\u1e63asas**. Due to a boon that he has received, R\u0101va\u1e47a cannot be harmed by any type of creature except one: a human being. Vi\u1e63\u1e47u therefore takes the form of R\u0101ma in order to bring about R\u0101va\u1e47a's destruction. In his human form as R\u0101ma, however, Vi\u1e63\u1e47u remains unaware of his true divine nature and mission. Both of these are only gradually revealed in the course of the narrative. R\u0101ma is trained in the arts of combat against r\u0101k\u1e63asas by the sage **Vi\u015bvamitra**. He also wins the hand in marriage of Princess **S\u012bt\u0101** , daughter of the wise sage King **Janaka**. Prepared to inherit his father's throne, R\u0101ma is abruptly sent into exile by his father at the instigation of Kaikey\u012b. Kaikey\u012b, one of the three wives of Da\u015baratha (and not R\u0101ma's mother), fearing that her own son, **Bharata** , will be in danger as a potential rival under R\u0101ma's rule, forces Da\u015baratha to order R\u0101ma's exile and her own son's installation as king by invoking a promise of any two boons that Da\u015baratha had made to her in the past, when she had saved his life on the field of battle. R\u0101ma accepts his father's command and willingly goes into exile, accompanied by S\u012bt\u0101 (who is really an incarnation of the **goddess Lak\u1e63m\u012b** ) and his brother **Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a** (an incarnation of the cosmic serpent, **\u015ae\u1e63a** ). Da\u015baratha dies of sorrow at having to exile his beloved son to the forest, and Bharata, R\u0101ma's half-brother, curses his mother for causing so much distress in the family (there actually being no rivalry between Bharata and R\u0101ma). While in exile, R\u0101ma, S\u012bt\u0101, and Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a live as **ascetics** in the forest. During this period, R\u0101va\u1e47a takes S\u012bt\u0101 captive and imprisons her in his island kingdom of **La\u1e45ka**. R\u0101ma and Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a, with the assistance of **Hanuman** and a great army of monkeys, eagles, and other assorted animals, build a bridge to La\u1e45ka and successfully rescue S\u012bt\u0101, slaying R\u0101va\u1e47a and many other r\u0101k\u1e63asas in the process. R\u0101ma rules Ayodhy\u0101 for many years afterward, a period of peace and prosperity known as the _R\u0101ma R\u0101jya_ , or kingship of R\u0101ma. The ideal of the R\u0101ma R\u0101jya is invoked even today by many Hindus\u2014particularly **Hindu Nationalists** \u2014as an image of the ideal society.\n\nIn December 1992, Ayodhy\u0101\u2014which is an actual town in northern India\u2014became a center of controversy when a group of Hindu Nationalists demolished a mosque called the **Babr\u012b Masj\u012bd** (Babur's Mosque), which they believed had been built from the remains of a **temple** on the location marking the exact spot of R\u0101ma's birth ( _R\u0101ma-janma-bh\u016bm\u012b_ )\u2014a claim contested by some historians and archaeologists. This demolition sparked riots in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh between Hindus and Muslims, in which many members of both communities were killed, and a number of Hindu temples destroyed in retaliation. In September 2010, an Indian high court ruled that the property should be divided among Hindu and Muslim organizations, a compromise that appears to have defused the issue, at least for the time being.\n\nPolitics aside, R\u0101ma is one of the most popular of Hindu deities, and was in fact the **i\u1e63\u1e6dadevat\u0101** , or favorite deity, of **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** , who invoked the name of R\u0101ma at the moment of his **death** at the hands of an assassin. According to traditional **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** belief, one who calls upon Vi\u1e63\u1e47u at the time of death is guaranteed salvation.\n\n**RAMAKRISHNA (R\u0100MAK\u1e5a\u1e62\u1e46A) (1836\u20131886).** **Bengali** spiritual teacher and chief inspiration behind the **Ramakrishna Mission** and **Ramakrishna Order** , as well as the **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** interpretation of Hinduism. Born Gangadhar Chattopadhyay, Ramakrishna would very likely, in an earlier period of Hindu history, have been regarded as a **bhakti** saint in the tradition of the **Mother Goddess**. His spiritual eclecticism, however, which coincided with the intellectual crisis and subsequent reforms of Hinduism in 19th-century Bengal, became the catalyst for a radical reinterpretation and rein-vigoration of Hindu thought and practice, particularly through the activities of his prominent disciple **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** (1863\u20131902).\n\nRamakrishna was born and raised in a poor **Brahmin** family in Kamarpukur, a village in rural Bengal. From an early age, he was prone to ecstatic visions and states of trance, which he identified with the experience of **sam\u0101dhi** , or **meditative** absorption. At times, these states were induced by songs or spiritual conversation. But sometimes they would be brought on by natural phenomena, such as his first recorded sam\u0101dhi when, as a small boy, he saw a flight of white geese against the background of a dark storm cloud, the beauty of which overwhelmed him.\n\nWhen Ramakrishna was 19 years old, his older brother, R\u0101mkumar, became the priest at a **temple** to the **goddess K\u0101l\u012b** in Dak\u1e63ine\u015bwar, near **Calcutta**. Ramakrishna replaced R\u0101mkumar in this role the following year, due to R\u0101mkumar's premature **death**. Soon, Ramakrishna became deeply immersed in devotion to K\u0101l\u012b, claiming to have had a powerful vision of this goddess in the process of performing her worship. Subsequently, he similarly immersed himself in worship of various deities, such as **\u015aiva** , **R\u0101ma** , and **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , eventually reaching a state of complete absorption in each deity in succession.\n\nHaving experienced the height of spiritual attainment in the various theistic forms of Hinduism, he devoted himself with the same intensity to the realization of impersonal, or formless ( **Nirgu\u1e47a** ) **Brahman** , having this experience under the guidance of a monk of the **Da\u015ban\u0101m\u012b Order** named To\u1e6dapuri. He then practiced both **Islam** and **Christianity** , devoting himself to each practice until it culminated in sam\u0101dhi. Because of all of these experiences, Ramakrishna concluded that all the religions are paths to **God-realization** , a view that has become a cornerstone of **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** philosophy.\n\nAt the age of 23, Ramakrishna married Saradama\u1e47i Mukhopadhy\u0101ya, later known as **Sarad\u0101 Dev\u012b** and the **Holy Mother** to Ramakrishna's disciples. Ramakrishna believed his wife to be a manifestation of the **Mother Goddess**. After his death, she became the informal leader of the movement based on his teachings.\n\nIn his later years, Ramakrishna attracted the attention of the middle-class, English-educated intelligentsia of Calcutta, including prominent members of the **Brahmo Sam\u0101j** , such as **Keshub Chunder Sen** (1838\u20131884). Many young men were also drawn to his teaching and personality, becoming **sanny\u0101sins** in the Da\u015ban\u0101m\u012b Order after his death in 1886 and establishing the **Ramakrishna Order**.\n\nA part of the fascination that Ramakrishna held for educated Bengalis was his insistence on direct experience as the foundation of all spiritual teaching\u2014a teaching very much in keeping with the modern focus upon experience and reason over blind faith in **scripture**. This experimental approach to religion was combined, paradoxically, with his endorsement, on the basis of his experience, of very traditional Hindu beliefs and styles of worship, a good deal of which had been condemned by the Brahmo Sam\u0101j as anti-rational and idolatrous. He thus allowed English-educated Hindus to reappropriate their older traditions, but with a new rationale.\n\n**RAMAKRISHNA MISSION.** Organization devoted primarily to education and charity; known outside of India as the **Ved\u0101nta Society** ; the religious institution built upon the teachings of **Ramakrishna** by his disciples\u2014including his wife, **Sarad\u0101 Dev\u012b** , and their successors. The Ramakrishna Mission was established by **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** in 1897. _See also_ NEOVED\u0100NTA; VED\u0100NTA.\n\n**RAMAKRISHNA ORDER.** Order of monks established by **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** after the **death** of **Ramakrishna** in 1886. The first generation of monks was made up of immediate disciples of Ramakrishna. Vivek\u0101nanda and his fellow monks took their monastic vows within the **Da\u015ban\u0101m\u012b Order** , established by **\u015aa\u1e45kara** in the ninth century of the Common Era. The monks of the new order quickly differentiated themselves from more traditional Hindu **sanny\u0101sins** , or renouncers, by engaging in relief work among the poor\u2014an activity which, along with education, constitutes a large portion of the activity of the order. Derided by traditionalists as \"scavenger monks,\" the monks persisted in their work, following Vivek\u0101nanda's philosophy that the **yoga** of good works ( **karma yoga** ) is as valid a part of the path to **God-realization** as the more traditional paths (for monks) of study ( **j\u00f1\u0101na yoga** ) and **meditation** ( **dhy\u0101na yoga** ). This order was also the first Hindu monastic order to accept Western members when Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda initiated an Irish **woman** , Margaret E. Noble ( **Sister Nivedit\u0101** ) as a nun. There are now many Westerners in the Ramakrishna Order, though the order remains predominantly Indian. _See also_ NEO-VED\u0100NTA; VED\u0100NTA.\n\n**RAMAKRISHNA VED\u0100NTA.** That branch of the otherwise unstructured and informal **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** movement that explicitly sees itself to be in continuity with the teachings and **Ramakrishna** , **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** , **Holy Mother Sarad\u0101 Dev\u012b** , and the monks of the **Ramakrishna Order**.\n\n**RAMA\u1e46A MAHAR\u1e62I (1879\u20131950).** Modern Hindu spiritual teacher. He was born near **Madurai** in **Tamil** Nadu. His father died when he was 12 years old, after which his family moved to Madurai and enrolled him in an English-medium missionary school. At the age of 17, he had a powerful spiritual experience that prompted him to adopt the life of a **sanny\u0101sin**. He eventually settled at the mountain **temple** of Aru\u1e47\u0101cala, in the northern part of Tamil Nadu, where he remained until his **death** in 1950. His reputation for holiness and profound wisdom spread rapidly and many pilgrims visited him at his Aru\u1e47\u0101cala retreat, which continues to be regarded as a holy site, due to his presence there. He is best known for asking many of his visitors, \"Who are you?\" thereby directing them to a process of self-enquiry intended to lead to the realization of the true nature of the self or **\u0101tman**. Though not **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** in a formal sense, Rama\u1e47a's teaching can well be characterized as a modern form of Advaita, based not so much on **scriptural** enquiry (like the classical Advaita of **\u015aa\u1e45kara** ) as on direct enquiry into the self. It is therefore akin to **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** in taking direct experience as its basis. There are also affinities between Rama\u1e47a's method and that of **Jiddu Krishnamurti**.\n\n**R\u0100M\u0100NANDA (fl. c. 14th\u201315th centuries CE).** **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** saint and **ascetic** ; born in **Pray\u0101ga** ( **Allahabad** ). R\u0101m\u0101nanda was first affiliated to the **\u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition, holding a high position in its institutional hierarchy, but left this tradition in protest against its concern for **caste** -related practices and restrictions. He established the **R\u0101m\u0101nandi sa\u1e43prad\u0101ya** , which teaches that all are equal before **God**. Winning a large following among common people of his time, he is believed to have influenced such major figures of the **bhakti** and **Sant** movements as **M\u012br\u0101 Bai** (who claimed to be his disciple), **Kab\u012br** , and **Guru N\u0101nak**.\n\n**R\u0100M\u0100NANDI SA\u1e42PRAD\u0100YA.** The \"sect or denomination of those whose bliss is R\u0101ma.\" **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition focused on **bhakti** , or devotion, to **R\u0101ma** and established by **R\u0101m\u0101nanda** for the common person, as a protest against the **casteism** practiced in his time by the **\u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition from which he came. R\u0101m\u0101nanda deliberately taught in **Hindi** , the vernacular language of northern India, rather than the more elite **Sanskrit** , developing a large following in the process and influencing many other figures, such as **M\u012br\u0101 Bai** , **Kab\u012br** , and **Guru N\u0101nak** with his spiritual egalitarianism. Membership in the R\u0101m\u0101nandi sa\u1e43prad\u0101ya is open to all, regardless of caste. The primary **scripture** of this movement is the _R\u0101m Carit Manas_ of **Tuls\u012bd\u0101s** \u2014a popular version of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ that is better known among the masses than the original Sanskrit version by **V\u0101lm\u012bki**.\n\n**R\u0100M\u0100\u1e46UJA (1077\u20131157).** Ved\u0101ntic **\u0101c\u0101rya** and theologian of the **\u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava** system of **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism** ; from **Tamil** Nadu. The dominant form of **Ved\u0101nta** in southern India at the time of R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja was the **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** of **\u015aa\u1e45kara** , which affirms that the true nature of **Brahman** is ultimately impersonal and formless ( **nirgu\u1e47a** ). **Bhakti** \u2014devotion to a personal form of divinity\u2014while commended as a purifying practice that diminishes the hold of the ego through the process of worship, is seen as a preparatory discipline that readies one for **j\u00f1\u0101na** , the liberating knowledge that the self ( **\u0101tman** ) and Brahman are **One**. The personal deity ( **\u012a\u015bvara** ) is ultimately an illusion, a product of the same **m\u0101y\u0101** that creates the differentiation between the self and the absolute.\n\nTroubled by this teaching in part due to the undermining of devotion and spiritual arrogance that he felt it could evoke if not understood properly, R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja dedicated his life to the reinstatement of bhakti as the central mode of relating to the divine. He took the informal **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** devotional tradition of the **\u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs** and organized it into a system of worship and theological reflection. This system\u2014the \u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava system\u2014continues to be highly popular among Hindus today, particularly in the southern part of India, where Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava **temples** and their images ( **m\u016brtis** ) are constructed, consecrated, and utilized by R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja's precise specifications. It is a system that integrates \"high\" **Sanskrit** culture with the popular devotionalism of the bhakti **poets** , with the vernacular songs and prayers of the \u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs regarded as a \"fifth **Veda** \" and recited in \u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava temples and services.\n\n\u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava theology places high importance on **\u015ar\u012b** , or **Lak\u1e63m\u012b** , the consort of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , who is regarded as his **\u015bakti** and a personification of his divine grace. The divine pair of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u and Lak\u1e63m\u012b is regarded as one deity, similar to **\u015aiva** and \u015aakti.\n\nIn terms of Ved\u0101nta, R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja characterizes his philosophy as **Vi\u015bi\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101dvaita** , or **Qualified Nondualism**. According to this view, all of reality is, as the Advaita Ved\u0101nta of \u015aa\u1e45kara teaches, one with **Brahman**. But unlike in the Advaitic concept of Brahman, Brahman is conceived as having internal differences. The idea of Brahman with which this system operates is one of organic unity, rather than the pure, undifferentiated unity taught by Advaita Ved\u0101nta. Brahman, in this system, is the totality of being, including within itself differentiated beings such as God, souls ( **j\u012bvas** ), and the world ( **jagat** ), and bhakti is seen as the one true path to **God-realization**.\n\n**RAMANUJAN, A. K. (1929\u20131993).** Scholar and author; born in **Karnataka** , in the city of Mysore. Ramanujan was a person of many talents\u2014a **poet** , playwright, translator, and collector of folklore. Among his better-known works in the field of **Indology** are his translations of the **bhakti** poetry of **Basava** (entitled _Speaking of \u015aiva_ **)** and **Namm\u0101\u1e37v\u0101r** (entitled _Hymns for the Drowning_ ) and his collection of Indian folk tales ( _Folk Tales of India_ ). Ramanujan taught at the University of Chicago from 1983 until his **death** in 1993.\n\n_R\u0100M\u0100YA\u1e46A_ **.** \"Life of **R\u0101ma** \"; along with the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , one of the two main epics or **itih\u0101sas** (historical tales) of Hinduism; attributed to the sage **V\u0101lm\u012bki** but very likely a result of many centuries of compilation and refinement by many different hands. In its current form, the text can be traced to the period between 200 BCE and 200 CE. Though the events in the text precede those of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ in Hindu tradition, most scholars suspect that the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ is the older of the two texts, at least in their current forms.\n\nAt the beginning of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , the **gods** approach **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** for help because the Earth has fallen under the oppression of **R\u0101va\u1e47a** , the powerful lord of the **r\u0101k\u1e63asas**. Due to a boon that he has received, R\u0101va\u1e47a cannot be harmed by any type of creature except one: a human being. Vi\u1e63\u1e47u therefore takes the form of R\u0101ma\u2014prince of **Ayodhy\u0101** and son of the king, **Da\u015baratha** \u2014to bring about R\u0101va\u1e47a's destruction. While in his human form as R\u0101ma, however, Vi\u1e63\u1e47u remains unaware of his true divine nature and mission. Both of these are only gradually revealed in the course of the narrative. Later interpretations suggest that this is a metaphor for the gradual process by which all beings realize the presence of the divine within them.\n\nIn his youth\u2014and over his father's objections\u2014R\u0101ma is trained in the art of combat against r\u0101k\u1e63asas by the sage **Vi\u015bvamitra**. At the end of a lengthy stay in the wilderness with his **guru** , R\u0101ma wins the hand in marriage of Princess **S\u012bt\u0101** , daughter of the wise sage King **Janaka**. He does this through a contest of arms in which the challenge is to string the bow of **\u015aiva** \u2014a nearly impossible task that only R\u0101ma can complete.\n\nLater, having returned to Ayodhy\u0101 prepared to inherit his father's throne, R\u0101ma is abruptly sent into exile by his father at the instigation of Kaikey\u012b. Kaikey\u012b, one of the three wives of Da\u015baratha (and not R\u0101ma's mother)\u2014fearing that her own son, **Bharata** , will be in danger as a potential rival under R\u0101ma's rule\u2014forces Da\u015baratha to order R\u0101ma's exile and her own son's installation as king by invoking a promise of any two boons that Da\u015baratha had made to her in the past, when she had saved his life on the field of battle by taking his unconscious body to safety.\n\nR\u0101ma dutifully accepts his father's order and goes into exile, accompanied by S\u012bt\u0101 (who is really an incarnation of the **goddess Lak\u1e63m\u012b** ) and his brother **Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a** (an incarnation of the cosmic serpent, **\u015ae\u1e63a** ). Da\u015baratha dies of sorrow at having to exile his beloved son to the forest, and Bharata, R\u0101ma's half-brother, curses his mother for causing so much distress in the family (there actually being no rivalry between Bharata and R\u0101ma).\n\nWhile in exile, R\u0101ma, S\u012bt\u0101, and Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a live as **ascetics** in the forest. During this period, R\u0101va\u1e47a takes S\u012bt\u0101 captive and imprisons her in his island kingdom of **La\u1e45ka**. R\u0101ma and Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a, with the assistance of **Hanuman** and an army of monkeys, eagles, and other assorted animals, build a bridge to La\u1e45ka and successfully rescue S\u012bt\u0101, slaying R\u0101va\u1e47a and many other r\u0101k\u1e63asas in the process. In one of the more controversial scenes in the epic, R\u0101ma does not immediately accept S\u012bt\u0101 back as his wife, insisting that she first prove that she did not betray him with R\u0101va\u1e47a by forcing her to undergo a test of fire (which she passes). (The justification given for this is that, as king, R\u0101ma must maintain an appearance of propriety for his subjects.) R\u0101ma rules Ayodhy\u0101 for many years, in a period of peace and prosperity known as the _R\u0101ma R\u0101jya_ , or kingship of R\u0101ma.\n\nReligiously, the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ has become especially significant to the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** traditions of Hinduism, particularly in its popular **Hindi** rendition, the _R\u0101m Carit Manas_ , by the medieval **bhakti** **poet** **Tuls\u012bd\u0101s** (1532\u20131623).\n\nLike the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ has been a major subject of Hindu **art** and **literature** throughout the centuries. Plays are based on it, or on select episodes within it. Depictions of the scenes from the text adorn **temple** walls throughout India and Southeast Asia. In the modern period, it has become a popular Hindi television series.\n\n**RAME\u015aVARAM (RAMESHWARAM).** Site in **Tamil** Nadu where R\u0101man\u0101thasw\u0101my **temple** is housed. The temple is sacred to both **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas** and **\u015aaivas** , marking the spot where **R\u0101ma** worshiped **\u015aiva** in gratitude after defeating **R\u0101va\u1e47a** and rescuing **S\u012bt\u0101**. _See also R\u0100M\u0100YA\u1e46A_.\n\n**R\u0100ML\u012aL\u0100.** \"Play of **R\u0101ma** \"; a northern Indian tradition of reenacting the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ during the 10-day festival of **Da\u015bahr\u0101** (or Dussehra), which is celebrated in the **bright** **half** of the month of **\u0100\u015bvina**. In northern India, this festival celebrates **R\u0101ma** 's victory over **R\u0101va\u1e47a** and it culminates in **D\u012bp\u0101vali** (or D\u012bwali), the festival of lights in honor of the **goddess Lak\u1e63\u1e43\u012b**. The R\u0101ml\u012bl\u0101 is an extremely popular part of the observance of this festival. Enactments range from purely local productions, put together by neighborhood associations, to massive, lavish programs with sophisticated lighting and special effects. The climactic moment is the defeat of R\u0101va\u1e47a, which is often accompanied by fireworks and other pyrotechnics.\n\n**R\u0100MN\u0100MI SAM\u0100J.** **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** devotional tradition based in the rural central Indian state of Chattisgarh and made up almost entirely of persons from lower **castes** ( **Harijans** or **Dalits** ). The group's scripture is the _R\u0101m Carit Manas_ of **Tuls\u012bd\u0101s**.\n\n**R\u0100M NAVAM\u012a.** Festival of **R\u0101ma** 's birth; held on the ninth day of the **bright half** of the month of **Chaitra** (March\u2013April). During this festival, it is not uncommon for 24-hour nonstop readings of the _R\u0101m Carit Manas_ of **Tuls\u012bd\u0101s** to be held in Hindu **temples** , with devotees taking turns reciting the verses in a call-and-response fashion. To have **dar\u015bana** of a **m\u016brti** (a sight of an image, usually in a temple) of R\u0101ma is particularly auspicious on this day.\n\n**R\u0100MPRAS\u0100D (1718\u20131775).** \"Grace of **R\u0101ma**.\" Despite his name, R\u0101mpras\u0101d was a **bhakti poet** devoted completely to the **Divine Mother** or **Mother Goddess**. He is best known for composing many passionate hymns in her honor in which he presents himself as her ungrateful and petulant child. These deeply personal hymns were particularly dear to **Ramakrishna** , another famous devotee of the Divine Mother, who popularized them. _See also_ \u015a\u0100KTA.\n\n**RASA.** Taste, flavor, the sense of taste; also, aesthetic experience of any kind. Rasa has been theorized extensively by Hindu philosophers, most prominently in the _N\u0101\u1e6dya \u015a\u0101stra_ of **Bharata** \u2014the authoritative manual of classical Hindu drama and **dance** \u2014as well as by the 10th-century **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaiva** philosopher **Abhinavagupta** and the medieval **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** **Gosv\u0101mins**. Abhinavagupta, reflecting a **Tantric** sensibility, likens aesthetic experience to the experience of **God-realization** , seeing it as a foretaste of the bliss of realizing unity with **\u015aiva**. The Gosv\u0101mins\u2014the Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava theologians established by **Caitanya** in the 16th century\u2014take this a step further, claiming that the rasa experienced specifically when one is enjoying the stories of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** and his love for the **gop\u012bs** of **V\u1e5bnd\u0101vana** as narrated in the _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ could evoke the saving experience of **bhakti**.\n\n**R\u0100\u1e62\u1e6cR\u012aYA SVAYAMSEVAK SA\u1e44GH (RSS).** \"National Volunteer Association\"; a **Hindu Nationalist** organization that was started in 1925, during the Indian independence movement, by K. V. Hedgewar (1890\u20131940). A controversial organization due to its anti-Muslim rhetoric, the RSS violently opposed the partition of India and Pakistan, blaming **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** for allowing it to occur. G\u0101ndh\u012b's assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a member of this organization. The RSS has advocated transforming India into a Hindu state and denying Indian citizenship to Muslims, **Christians** , and communists. As one of the more radical Hindu Nationalist organizations, its ties to the **BJP** or **Bharat\u012bya Janata Party** have drawn criticism to that political party.\n\n**R\u0100VA\u1e46A.** Chief villain of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ ; lord of the chaotic evil **r\u0101k\u1e63asas** and king of **La\u1e45ka**. R\u0101va\u1e47a achieved, through **ascetic** practice, the boon of not being harmed by any kind of creature except one: a human being. Achieving total dominance over the Earth, R\u0101va\u1e47a oppresses many beings, including the **gods** , who go to **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** for assistance. In order to vanquish R\u0101va\u1e47a, Vi\u1e63\u1e47u takes human form as **R\u0101ma** , prince of **Ayodhy\u0101**. In the course of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , R\u0101va\u1e47a abducts R\u0101ma's beautiful wife, **S\u012bt\u0101** (who is an **avat\u0101ra** of the **goddess Lak\u1e63m\u012b** ). R\u0101ma rescues S\u012bt\u0101, killing R\u0101va\u1e47a in battle in the process. It is said that R\u0101va\u1e47a is exceedingly strong and has 10 heads.\n\n**RAVI.** Alternative name for **S\u016brya** , the sun.\n\n**RAVIV\u0100RA.** Sunday, day of the week governed by the sun. _See also_ CALENDAR, HINDU.\n\n**RAVID\u0100S (fl. 15th century CE).** Mystic and **bhakti** **poet** of the medieval period; born in a cobbler **caste** (a low caste or **Dalit** community) in **Banaras**. Part of the **Sant** movement, Ravid\u0101s had no regard for caste distinctions, nor for formal differences between religions, such as Hinduism and **Islam**. Many of his poems are included in the **Sikh** **scripture** \u2014the _\u0100di Granth_ or _Guru Granth Sahib_. His teachings have close affinities to those of **Kab\u012br** and **Guru N\u0101nak**. Starting in the 19th century, a new tradition emerged based on his teachings and devoting itself to him as Guru Ravid\u0101s.\n\n**REBIRTH.** One thread that ties together the highly internally diversified traditions that make up Hinduism is the widespread\u2014indeed, nearly universal\u2014affirmation of the concept of rebirth, or reincarnation, that these traditions share. Among the various philosophical systems ( **dar\u015banas** ) and religious denominations ( **sa\u1e43prad\u0101yas** ) of Hinduism, only the **materialist C\u0101rv\u0101ka** or **Lok\u0101yata** dar\u015bana explicitly rejects the concept of rebirth. The **P\u016brva** **M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** dar\u015bana, whose focus is the exegesis of the earliest **Vedic** texts\u2014where the concept of rebirth is either implicit or altogether absent\u2014does not emphasize rebirth but also does not explicitly reject it. For the remainder of Hindu systems, reincarnation is affirmed and release from the cycle of reincarnation\u2014 **mok\u1e63a** \u2014is the ultimate aspiration, each tradition presenting itself as a different set of strategies for achieving this goal.\n\nThe concept of rebirth is a corollary of the concept of **karma** , the universal **law** of **action** that draws morally appropriate effects to the agent who commits an act in thought, word, or deed. The fact of physical **death** does not necessarily imply that one has already exhausted one's karma, and the unequal circumstances of the births of the entities in the world also have to be accounted for in terms of karma. This requires the idea of rebirth, in order to explain how the effects of unaccounted-for good and bad deeds are going to be experienced after one dies, and why beings are born in unequal circumstances. One also meets with the claims of those who say they can remember past lives\u2014a phenomenon that is consistent with the deduction that rebirth must occur if there is such a thing as karma.\n\nThe **Sanskrit** term for rebirth is punarjanma (literally, rebirth). The term for the entire cycle of birth, death, and rebirth from which one aspires to escape is **sa\u1e43s\u0101ra**. The desire to achieve **liberation** from rebirth\u2014which, at first glance, can be an appealing idea, implying virtual **immortality** \u2014is a function of the fact that the karmically produced goods experienced within sa\u1e43s\u0101ra are, at best, impermanent. The desire for such goods and the actions that yield them are the fuel that drives the rebirth cycle. The pursuit of ephemeral goods is ultimately a source of suffering. The soul, or **j\u012bva** , can be likened to a hamster running on a wheel and never getting anywhere. The soul eventually desires permanent peace and bliss without limitation, which can only be achieved through the realization of **Brahman** , understood as a purely impersonal being, consciousness, and bliss at the basis of one's self ( **\u0101tman** ), or theistically, as a loving **God** with whom one attains a mystical union.\n\n**REINCARNATION.** _See_ REBIRTH.\n\n**RENOUNCER.** _See_ SANNY\u0100SA.\n\n**RENUNCIATION.** _See_ SANNY\u0100SA.\n\n_\u1e5aG VEDA_ **.** The most ancient extant **Vedic** text and the earliest extant Hindu **scripture**. Conventional dating of the text, based on both linguistic evidence and the technological references within the text that can be correlated with archaeology, places it somewhere between 1700 and 1200 BCE. Critics of the **\u0100ryan Migration Theory** have argued that the text is much older, based on **astrological** references within the text and references to the **Sarasvat\u012b** River, which had dried up or gone underground by 1900 BCE. Although these arguments have not been persuasive to mainstream scholarship, they do suggest that at least some elements of the text\u2014which all agree is a compilation undertaken over many generations\u2014may predate the conventional dating, which could be taken as the dating of the text in its present form.\n\nRather than a continuous narrative, the text consists of 1,028 hymns\u2014or **mantras** \u2014which are organized thematically into 10 books, called **ma\u1e47\u1e0dalas**. Most of these hymns are in praise of deities called **devas** (literally, \"shining ones\"), the most popular of whom are **Indra** , Lord of the Devas, and **Agni** , the deity of fire, which is the central element of the Vedic ritual of sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ). The Vedic devas are usually associated with natural phenomena, such as **S\u016brya** the sun god, **U\u015b\u0101** the goddess of the dawn, **Soma** the god of the **moon** and of the hallucinogenic plant of the same name, **V\u0101yu** the god of the wind, **Yama** the god of **death** , and so on. The lord of the Vedic devas, Indra, who is associated with thunder, is analogous to the Greek Zeus and the Norse Thor. Also of considerable importance is **Praj\u0101pati** , whose name literally means the \"father of offspring,\" and who is regarded as the creator of the universe\u2014later known as **Brahm\u0101**. The two chief deities of later Hinduism, **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and **\u015aiva** , receive relatively little mention in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ (the latter typically under the name **Rudra** ).\n\nThe _\u1e5ag Veda_ also contains references to kings and battles and alludes to stories that are presented more fully in later **literature** , such as the _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ and the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_. Some of the references remain mysterious today, having already been forgotten by the period of the 14th-century Vedic scholar **S\u0101ya\u1e47a**. Some of the later Vedic hymns contain philosophical reflections that anticipate many elements of **Ved\u0101nta**. _See also PURU\u1e62A S\u016aKTA_.\n\n**RIGHT-HAND TANTRA.** **Tantric** practice that does not make use of the antinomian practices that characterize **Left-Handed** or V\u0101m\u0101c\u0101ra Tantra. Right-Hand Tantra either does not utilize these practices or projects them into a realm of symbolic visualization, on the assumption that their actual practice is perilous, leading to **rebirth** in hell if performed out of an impure motive and not for the cultivation of a nondualistic consciousness. The vast majority of Tantric practice is of the Right-Handed variety, not violating social norms regarding purity and impurity. A major innovator in the development of this system was the 10th\u201311th-century **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaiva** theologian **Abhinavagupta**.\n\n**RISHIKESH (\u1e5a\u1e62IKE\u015aA, H\u1e5a\u1e62\u012aKE\u015aA).** Popular place of pilgrimage in the foothills of the **Him\u0101layas**. The **Ga\u1e45g\u0101** or Ganges River flows through Rishikesh and many places of spiritual retreat, or **\u0101\u015bramas** , are located upon its banks here. One was once that of the **Maharishi Mahesh Yogi** , with whom the Beatles studied **Transcendental Meditation** in Rishikesh in the summer of 1968.\n\n**ROY, R\u0100M MOHAN (1772\u20131833).** First major Hindu reformer of the modern period; often called the \"Father of Modern Hinduism.\" Roy established the **Brahmo Sam\u0101j** in **Calcutta** in 1828. The Brahmo Sam\u0101j was mainly popular among middle-class **Bengali** intellectuals who had received significant exposure to European culture and education, often through the efforts of Christian missionaries, but who also had a strong sense of identification with Hinduism and Indian culture. Led by Roy, these intellectuals sought to reform Hinduism, opposing practices such as **sat\u012b** and the use of images ( **m\u016brtis** ) in worship, which they held to be later additions to an originally **monotheistic** Hinduism taught in the _Upani\u1e63ads_. Roy, a prolific author and energetic activist, translated some of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ into Bengali and wrote a good many pamphlets as well, decrying what he perceived to be the evils of certain Hindu practices, and of **Christianity** as well. Brahmo Sam\u0101j worship was modeled upon Protestant worship services, with hymns and sermons drawing upon the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , rather than the Bible. Roy successfully campaigned to get the practice of sat\u012b\u2014the immolation of **widows** \u2014banned in Bengal in 1829.\n\nTheologically, the teachings of the Brahmo Sam\u0101j display a strong leaning toward Unitarianism, and a number of Brahmo Sam\u0101j members traveled to England in the 19th century to study at the Unitarian seminary at Harris-Manchester College in Oxford. With its emphasis on an original, \"pure\" **Vedic** monotheism later corrupted into popular Hindu **polytheism** , Brahmo Sam\u0101j teaching in many ways anticipates that of the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j** of **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b**.\n\n**ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY.** The first scholarly society wholly devoted to the study of **Indology** ; established by **Sir William Jones** in **Calcutta** in 1784.\n\n**\u1e5a\u1e62ABHA.** Literally \"the bull\"; the best or foremost; epithet of **\u015aiva** (whose **vahana** , or animal vehicle, is also a bull named **Nandi** ); also the first **T\u012brtha\u1e45kara** of **Jainism** , who is sometimes listed as an **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. A \u1e5a\u1e63abha is mentioned in the _\u1e5ag Veda_. The large number of representations of bulls in the artifacts of the **Indus Valley civilization** suggests that the bull was sacred from an early period of Indian cultural history. It has also been suggested that there is a link between the figure of \u015aiva and the **Jain** \u1e5a\u1e63abha, who is sometimes depicted, like \u015aiva, as a naked **ascetic** with long, matted hair.\n\n**\u1e5a\u1e62I.** Sage; seer; wise person; one of the sages who composed or transmitted the _Vedas_ ; one of the Seven Sages ( **Saptar\u1e63i** ) who preside over the cosmos.\n\n**\u1e5aTA.** Sacred order; **truth**. In the _Vedas_ , _\u1e5bta_ refers to the cosmic order upheld by the act of sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ). In later Hindu **literature** , the term _\u1e5bta_ is gradually superseded by the term **dharma** and takes on an explicitly moral, less ritually oriented tone.\n\n**RUDRA.** \"Roarer\"; awe-inspiring and fearsome **Vedic** deity better known in later Hindu traditions as **\u015aiva** ; a **god** of the wilderness, whose offerings are traditionally placed on the outside of the sacrificial arena so he will not enter and disrupt the sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ). In the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , Rudra is associated with the fearsome power of the thunderstorm. Rudra has 11 forms. _See also_ ADITI; \u0100DITYAS; DEVAS.\n\n**RUDR\u0100K\u1e62A.** \"Eye of **Rudra** \"; seeds used as beads in **m\u0101las** or rosaries used in **japa** , the practice of repeating a **mantra** \u2014either aloud or mentally and silently\u2014while keeping track of the number of repetitions on a string of beads. Especially sacred to the devotees of **\u015aiva** , the use of rudr\u0101k\u1e63a m\u0101las is now prevalent in all forms of Hinduism, not only the **\u015aaiva** traditions.\n\n**RUKMI\u1e46\u012a.** Wife of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** ; **avat\u0101ra** , or incarnation, of **Lak\u1e63\u1e43\u012b**. _See also_ VI\u1e62\u1e46U.\n\n## S\n\n**\u015aABARA.** Author of a major commentary, or **bh\u0101\u1e63ya** , on the root text of the **M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** system of philosophy ( **dar\u015bana** )\u2014the _P\u016brvam\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 S\u016btra_ of **Jaimini**. Simply entitled \"\u015aabara's Commentary\" ( _\u015aabara-bh\u0101\u1e63ya_ ), the text was likely composed during the first century before the Common Era.\n\n**\u015aABAR\u012a.** Character in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ ; a woman who was deeply devoted to **R\u0101ma**. She tested the fruits she offered to R\u0101ma by taking a bite of them first, which is technically a taboo act. But because she did it out of **bhakti** , R\u0101ma found no fault with her. It is said that her devotion was so great that she was reborn as **R\u0101dh\u0101**.\n\n**SABARIMALAI.** Hill in **Kerala** sacred to **Ayyappan** 's sect.\n\n**SACRED THREAD.** Thread given to a young person, usually a **Brahmin** male, at his **upanayana** , the ceremony marking the passage from childhood into the student stage of life, an initiation into adulthood that is comparable to the Bar Mitzvah of Judaism or the sacrament of Confirmation in **Christianity**. _See also_ \u0100\u015aRAMA.\n\n**SACRIFICE.** _See_ YAJ\u00d1A.\n\n**S\u0100DHANA.** Spiritual practice or discipline. The term refers primarily to ritual worship and **meditation**. Roughly equivalent, in general usage, to **yoga**.\n\n**S\u0100DHU.** Literally, \"excellent, wonderful, well done\"; exclamation of praise at a thing well done, especially in a religious context; also, a holy man, usually a **sanny\u0101s\u012b**. For a holy woman, the feminine version of the word is **s\u0101dhv\u012b**.\n\n**S\u0100DHV\u012a.** A Hindu or **Jain** nun. _See also_ S\u0100DHU; SANNY\u0100SIN\u012a; WOMEN.\n\n**SAGU\u1e46A BRAHMAN.** **Brahman** with **qualities** , in contrast with **Nirgu\u1e47a Brahman** , or Brahman without qualities or attributes. In **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , the distinction between the two is the distinction between Brahman perceived as it truly is\u2014without limiting qualities or attributes\u2014and Brahman as perceived through the veil of **m\u0101y\u0101** , or delusory ignorance, as having qualities. As such, Sagu\u1e47a Brahman is coextensive with the entire universe of phenomena, including the personal **God** ( **\u012a\u015bvara** ). In the more theistic forms of **Ved\u0101nta** , in which the realm of phenomena is not illusory, Sagu\u1e47a Brahman refers specifically to God as the abode of all _good_ qualities ( _gu\u1e47\u0101\u015braya_ ).\n\n**SAHAJA.** \"Born with\"; innate; natural; spontaneous; **Tantric** term for human impulses that are generally regarded as being in need of restraint in most Hindu spiritual traditions but that are seen as potential sources of divine realization in Tantra. These tendencies are the special focus of the **Sahaj\u012bya** tradition of Tantra.\n\n**SAHAJIY\u0100.** **Tantric** movement particularly prevalent in **Bengal**. The original Sahaj\u012bya movement, which probably emerged around the eighth century of the Common Era, crossed a number of sectarian boundaries, having **\u015a\u0101kta** , **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** , and **Buddhist** forms. Sahaj\u012bya Tantra emphasizes **sahaja** , or innate, human tendencies, such as the sex drive, which it regards as an expression or manifestation of ultimate reality. Rather than suppressing the innate tendencies, as most classical **yoga** traditions seek to do, Sahaj\u012bya Tantra cultivates spontaneity in the belief that this will lead to **mok\u1e63a** \u2014 **liberation** from **rebirth**. Elements of Sahaj\u012bya Tantra can be found in the beliefs and practices of the **Bauls**.\n\n**SAH\u0100SRARA CAKRA.** \"Thousand-petaled lotus\"; **cakra** at the crown of the head that, when energized by the rising **Ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b \u015aakti** , produces a blissful state that, according to **Tantra** , advances one quickly toward **enlightenment**.\n\n**SAI BABA.** _See_ SATHYA SAI BABA; SHIRDI SAI BABA.\n\n**\u015aAIVA.** Devotee of **\u015aiva** ; adherent of **\u015aaivism**.\n\n**\u015aAIVA SIDDH\u0100NTA.** \"Final, perfect **truth** about **\u015aiva** \"; **\u015aaiva** tradition predominant in **Tamil** Nadu, in southern India, though drawing upon \u015aaiva traditions of other regions as well, such as **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaivism**. Inspired largely by the **N\u0101yan\u0101r** **bhakti** **poets** , of whose thought this tradition is a systematization, \u015aaiva Siddh\u0101nta emerged as a widespread form of \u015aaiva thought and practice around the 13th century of the Common Era, superseding and absorbing the earlier **Pa\u015bupata** tradition. This tradition has experienced a recent revival due to the efforts of **Satguru \u015aiv\u0101ya Subramuniyasw\u0101m\u012b** , an American convert who has promoted it extensively.\n\n**\u015aAIVISM.** In terms of adherents, the second largest (after **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism** ) of the four main sectarian subdivisions that make up Hinduism. The various subtraditions that constitute \u015aaivism share the common trait of being oriented toward **\u015aiva** as the supreme deity\u2014 **God** in something like a **monotheistic** sense. Like Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism, most forms of \u015aaivism focus on **bhakti** , or devotion to the supreme deity, as the preeminent\u2014or even exclusive\u2014path to **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth**. Although there is internal theological diversity among \u015aaiva denominations ( **sa\u1e43prad\u0101yas** ), it can broadly be said that \u015aaivas are less inclined than Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas to insist upon a strong metaphysical distinction between God and the individual soul ( **j\u012bva** ). **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaivism** , for example, tends to affirm, in a fashion closely akin to **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , the ultimate unity of existence, claiming that at the highest level of awareness, \"All is \u015aiva.\" **\u015aa\u1e45kara** is believed to have been \u015aaiva (as his name indicates) and is attributed with a devotional poem in which he proclaims, at the height of his **meditation** , \"I am \u015aiva! I am \u015aiva!\" ( _\u015aivo 'ham! \u015aivo 'ham!_ ). The **\u015aaiva Siddh\u0101nta** tradition, on the other hand, does insist on the metaphysical distinctness of the soul and God as a precondition of bhakti, and is in this way much closer to Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism.\n\n**\u015aakti** , the **Mother Goddess** and wife of \u015aiva, plays a prominent role in much of \u015aaiva thought and practice, with some texts affirming that these two are inseparable, even forming a single, composite deity. **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** and **Karttikeya** , the sons of \u015aiva and \u015aakti, are also popular objects of devotion in these traditions. Both \u015aaiva and **\u015a\u0101kta** traditions tend to have a **Tantric** orientation. _See also_ N\u0100YAN\u0100RS; PA\u015aUPATA; RUDRA.\n\n**\u015a\u0100KTA.** Devotee of **\u015aakti** ; adherent of **\u015a\u0101ktism**.\n\n**\u015aAKTI.** Power; creative energy; name of the **Mother Goddess** that emphasizes her role as the creative power of the universe. \u015aakti is also identified with the many goddesses of the Hindu pantheon, who are seen as her various forms or manifestations. **Goddesses** such as **Lak\u1e63m\u012b** and Sarasvat\u012b are therefore also called the _\u015baktis_ or power centers of the deities that are their husbands\u2014 **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and **Brahm\u0101** , respectively. In this role, the Mother Goddess and her various personae are seen as the energizing principle, in the absence of which their corresponding male gods would be incapable of effective activity. The divine pairing of \u015aiva and \u015aakti, in particular, is often presented, especially in \u015a\u0101kta texts, as a composite being, with the God and Goddess being ultimately inseparable from each other as parts of an internally differentiated, but finally unitary, godhead. In **Tantric yoga** , the **ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b** energy at the base of the spine is also called \u015bakti and is regarded as a form of this Goddess. _See also_ DEV\u012a; DURG\u0100; K\u0100L\u012a; MAH\u0100DEV\u012a; P\u0100RVAT\u012a; UM\u0100.\n\n**\u015a\u0100KTISM.** In terms of adherents, the third largest (after **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism** and **\u015aaivism** ) of the four main sectarian subdivisions that make up Hinduism. The various subtraditions constituting \u015a\u0101ktism share the common trait of being oriented toward **\u015aakti** , the **Mother Goddess** as the supreme deity\u2014 **God** in something like a **monotheistic** sense. As husband of \u015aakti, **\u015aiva** plays a prominent role in \u015a\u0101kta thought and practice, which, like \u015aaivism, tends to have a strong **Tantric** orientation. \u015a\u0101ktism is especially prominent in **Bengal**.\n\nTheologically, \u015a\u0101ktism tends to have a more **syncretistic** and pluralistic tendency than either Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism or \u015aaivism, frequently affirming that the various deities of other traditions are forms or manifestations of \u015aakti. This tradition is thus one possible source for the emphasis on religious pluralism in **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** , given that **Ramakrishna** , one of the major figures for this modern interpretation of Hinduism, was a priest and ardent devotee of **K\u0101l\u012b** , one form of the Mother Goddess.\n\n**\u015aAKTIPAT.** Practice in **Siddha Yoga** whereby the **guru** raises the **\u015bakti** or **ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b** energy from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. This can be done through the medium of a touch, a word, or even a thought. The guru can be physically present for the process or\u2014in the case of \u015baktipat performed through thought\u2014not. \u015aaktipat is the ritual of initiation, or **d\u012bk\u1e63\u0101** , of the Siddha Yoga tradition.\n\n**\u015aAKUNI.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ; wicked maternal uncle of **Duryodhana** who devises a scheme by which Duryodhana is able to rob the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** of their wealth, their kingdom, and their personal freedom through an unfair gambling match. \u015aakuni is also the brother of **G\u0101ndh\u0101r\u012b**. _See also_ YUDHI\u1e62\u1e6cHIRA.\n\n**\u015aAKUNTAL\u0100.** Character in a minor episode of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ later adapted into the most famous play in **Sanskrit** **literature** \u2014the _Abhij\u00f1\u0101na\u015bakuntala_ , or \"Recognition of \u015aakuntal\u0101,\" by **K\u0101lid\u0101sa** , the \"Shakespeare of Sanskrit.\" In the story and the play, the sage **Durv\u0101sa** , angered by her inattentiveness, curses \u015aakuntal\u0101 to be forgotten by her beloved, a king named Du\u015byanta, until Du\u015byanta sees his ring (which he once gave to her as a token of their love). Eventually, Du\u015byanta does see the ring and remembers his love for \u015aakuntal\u0101. The two marry and become the parents of **Bharata** , first emperor of all India according to Hindu literature.\n\n_S\u0100MA VEDA_ **.** One of the four _Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s_ or collections of **Vedic** hymns; a compilation of hymns of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ set to **music** , with instructions for chanting in particular ritual settings. It is one of the foundations of Indian classical music.\n\n**SAM\u0100DHI.** Contemplative absorption in the object of one's **meditation** ; the eighth and final stage or \"limb\" of the \"eight-limbed\" ( **a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** ) **yoga** system of **Pata\u00f1jali** , outlined in his _Yoga S\u016btra_ and believed to lead to **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth**. As later traditions elaborate, sam\u0101dhi is of two kinds\u2014 **savikalpa sam\u0101dhi** , in which there is a faint trace of the distinction of subject and object, and **nirvikalpa sam\u0101dhi** , in which this distinction vanishes completely.\n\n**S\u0100MAGR\u012a.** \"Complete collection\"; an assemblage of the items needed for a religious ritual.\n\n_SA\u1e42HIT\u0100_ **.** A collection of **Vedic** hymns, or **mantras**. There are four Vedic sa\u1e43hit\u0101s: the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , _Yajur Veda_ , _S\u0101ma Veda_ , and _Atharva Veda_. These sa\u1e43hit\u0101s constitute the first historical \"layer\" of the Vedic literary corpus, the others being, in order, the \"priestly texts,\" or _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ , the \"forest texts,\" or _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_ , and the \"secret teaching,\" or the _Upani\u1e63ads_.\n\n**SA\u1e42KALPA.** Resolve, resolution. Most Hindu rituals, such as **p\u016bj\u0101s** and **sa\u1e43sk\u0101ras** , begin with a _sa\u1e43kalpa_ , in which one announces oneself, the purpose for which one seeks to perform the ritual, and the precise date and time in terms of the traditional Hindu time measurement system of **muh\u016brtas** and the **Hindu calendar**.\n\n**S\u0100\u1e42KHYA.** \"Enumeration\"; one of the six **\u0101stika** or \"orthodox\" **dar\u015banas** , or systems of **Vedic** philosophy; frequently paired with the **Yoga** dar\u015bana of **Pata\u00f1jali** and attributed to the sage **K\u0101pila**. S\u0101\u1e43khya philosophy posits a strong dualism between the **soul** , called the **puru\u1e63a** , and matter, or nature, which is known as **prak\u1e5bti**. The goal of S\u0101\u1e43khya and the related system of **Yoga** is for puru\u1e63a to realize its nature as pure spirit and disentangle itself from prak\u1e5bti, with which it has become falsely identified. Whereas puru\u1e63a consists of pure consciousness alone, all phenomena, or contents of consciousness\u2014including both **mind** and matter\u2014are manifestations of prak\u1e5bti. Prak\u1e5bti manifests as the three **gu\u1e47as** , or qualities\u2014 **sattva** (clarity, luminosity), **rajas** ( **action** or dynamism), and **tamas** (inertia). The universe of changing phenomena is an effect of the constant interplay of these three gu\u1e47as.\n\n**SA\u1e42PRAD\u0100YA.** Sect, denomination, teaching lineage. The four major divisions of Hinduism\u2014 **Sm\u0101rta** , **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** , **\u015aaiva** , and **\u015a\u0101kta** \u2014are themselves further subdivided into sa\u1e43prad\u0101yas. It is often noted that Hinduism is not an \"organized religion,\" in the sense of having a central institution or creed, but rather a loose collection or family consisting of many overlapping and criss-crossing traditions. The sa\u1e43prad\u0101yas are more cohesive, individually, than is Hinduism as a whole. They are closer to a conventional idea of what constitutes a religion, having specific founders, doctrines, distinct rites of initiation, and so forth.\n\n**SA\u1e42S\u0100RA.** Literally \"wandering about,\" the cycle of birth, **death** , and **rebirth**. This term also refers to the realm of karmically determined spatio-temporal phenomena in which the rebirth process occurs. It is therefore also equivalent to \"the world.\" Finally, it also refers to human society\u2014that which the renouncer ( **sanny\u0101sin** ) abandons in order to seek **liberation** ( **mok\u1e63a** ). Sa\u1e43s\u0101ra refers to the sphere in which death and rebirth occur, or to the entire process. The term for rebirth itself, though, is punarjanma.\n\n**SA\u1e42SK\u0100RA.** This term has two related meanings. First, it is an impression made upon the **soul** (technically, on one of its **subtle bodies** or **suk\u1e63ma \u015bar\u012bra** ) through repeated acts of the same kind. A sa\u1e43sk\u0101ra, in other words, is a habit. Collectively, one's sa\u1e43sk\u0101ras constitute one's character, thereby determining, among other things, the kind of form one will take in one's next **rebirth**. On the spiritual path, one wishes to cultivate wholesome sa\u1e43sk\u0101ras\u2014sa\u1e43sk\u0101ras conducive to good **karma** , and ultimately to **liberation** \u2014and get rid of unwholesome ones.\n\n_Sa\u1e43sk\u0101ra_ is also the term for a Hindu sacramental ritual, such as giving a name to a newborn baby (the _n\u0101makara\u1e47a-sa\u1e43sk\u0101ra_ ), the investiture with the **sacred thread** of an adolescent (the _upanayana_ _-sa\u1e43sk\u0101ra_ ), or the rites of **marriage** ( _viv\u0101ha_ _-sa\u1e43sk\u0101ra_ ).\n\nThe two meanings are related because a sacramental ritual is supposed to make a deep impression upon one's soul, transforming one on a spiritual level.\n\n**SAN\u0100TANA DHARMA.** \"Eternal religion\"; a Hindu term for Hinduism, typically used to distinguish the ancient **Vedic** mainstream of the tradition from the particular sectarian movements that have proliferated within it, especially modern reform movements such as the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j**.\n\n**SANDALWOOD.** An aromatic wood that is often ground into a paste and utilized in Hindu rituals; believed to be a purifying and cooling substance. The **Sanskrit** term for it is _candana_.\n\n**SA\u1e44GH PARIV\u0100R.** \"Family of Associations\"; a loose collection of **Hindu Nationalist** organizations that share the agenda of advancing the cause of either a Hindu or a Hindu-dominated nation of India. The particular aims of these organizations and the degree to which each might be characterized as \"extreme\" or \"moderate\" vary a great deal. But they tend to be regarded as constituting the \"Hindu right\" in the Indian political spectrum. The Sa\u1e45gh Pariv\u0101r includes many organizations, the most prominent being the **R\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dr\u012bya Svayamsevak Sa\u1e45gh** (RSS), **Vi\u015bva Hindu Pari\u1e63ad** (VHP), and the **Bharat\u012bya Janat\u0101 Party** (BJP).\n\n**\u015a\u0100NI.** The deity who personifies the planet Saturn. His gaze is said to be unfortunate and his presence in one's **astrological** chart is generally inauspicious. According to one version of the story of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** , it is \u015a\u0101ni's gaze that causes the infant deity's head to fall off, requiring it to be replaced with the head of an elephant.\n\n**\u015a\u0100NIV\u0100RA.** Saturday, the day of the week that is governed by the planet Saturn. _See also_ CALENDAR, HINDU.\n\n**SA\u00d1JAYA.** Character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ ; clairvoyant minister of King **Dh\u1e5btar\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dra**. When Dh\u1e5btar\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dra asks Sa\u00f1jaya to describe for him the events of the battle of **Kuruk\u1e63etra** , Sa\u00f1jaya narrates the dialogue of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** and **Arjuna** that becomes the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_.\n\n**\u015aA\u1e44KARA (788\u2013820).** Philosopher and religious leader; the **\u0101c\u0101rya** and founder of four **ma\u1e6dhas** , or monastic institutions, located at the four corners of India; the founder of the **Da\u015ban\u0101m\u012b Order** of Hindu ascetics; systematizer and renowned exponent of the **Advaita** system of **Ved\u0101nta**. \u015aa\u1e45kara has been one of the most influential intellectual figures in all of Hinduism. A child prodigy, \u015aa\u1e45kara is said to have bested major intellectual rivals in debate at an early age. His commentaries on the _Brahma S\u016btra_ , _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , and the principle _Upani\u1e63ads_ established Advaita Ved\u0101nta as a major philosophical system to be reckoned with in classical Hindu thought\u2014a status it retains even today. Born in what is now the state of **Kerala** , on the southwest coast of India, into the **Namb\u016btiri Brahmin** community, \u015aa\u1e45kara undertook **sanny\u0101sa** , or renunciation, at a young age and moved to the city of **Banaras**. He spent much of the rest of his short life in Banaras, but traveled extensively throughout the rest of India as well. He established the Da\u015ban\u0101m\u012b Order and the four ma\u1e6dhas of **Puri** , **Badr\u012bn\u0101th** , **Dv\u0101rak\u0101** , and **\u015a\u1e5b\u1e45ger\u012b** , as well as organizing Hindu worship into the system of five objects of worship ( **pa\u00f1cay\u0101tana p\u016bj\u0101** ) in part as a way of combating the highly successful and well-organized tradition of **Buddhism**. His later critics, however, from the more theistically and devotionally oriented systems of Ved\u0101nta, found his system too much like Buddhism.\n\n**\u015aA\u1e44KAR\u0100C\u0100RYA.** The head monk, or **\u0101c\u0101rya** , of one of the four **ma\u1e6dhas** or monastic institutions started by **\u015aa\u1e45kara** \u2014 **Puri** , **Badr\u012bn\u0101th** , **Dv\u0101rak\u0101** , and **\u015a\u1e5b\u1e45ger\u012b**. The original \u015aa\u1e45kara is often called the \"First \u015aa\u1e45kar\u0101c\u0101rya\"\u2014 _\u0100di \u015aa\u1e45kar\u0101c\u0101rya_ \u2014to distinguish him from the subsequent heads of the four monasteries that he established.\n\n**\u015aA\u1e44KHA.** A conch shell; item often used in Hindu rituals. The conch shell is hollowed out and blown like a horn. The sound of the \u015ba\u1e45kha is believed to be auspicious and to dispel negative forces from the area of the ritual. Hollowed out conch shells have been found in India dating back to the **Indus Valley civilization** , where it is possible that they had a similar ritual purpose (though this is not known with any certainty).\n\n**\u1e62A\u1e46MUKHA.** \"Having six faces\"; epithet of **K\u0101rttikeya** , so called because of his six heads and 12 arms.\n\n**SANNY\u0100SA.** Renunciation; the fourth of the four stages of life, or **\u0101\u015bramas** , outlined in the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ ; the **niv\u1e5btti m\u0101rga** , or \"path of negation\" of the person seeking **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth**. This path is in contrast with the **prav\u1e5btti m\u0101rga** , or \"path of inclination toward **action** ,\" which characterizes the first three stages of life, which are focused on worldly attainments (including a better rebirth). Sanny\u0101sa is an **ascetic** way of life chosen on the basis of the idea that engagement with the affairs of this world is incompatible with the quest for liberation. A male renouncer is referred to as a monk, and a female renouncer as a nun. A renouncer, or **sanny\u0101sin** , thus abandons his or her former identity\u2014including **caste** \u2014in order to be free from obligations that can bind one to the cycle of rebirth. All action, even good action, produces **karmic** results. The idea of renunciation is to withdraw from action in order to become free from the effects of karma. According to the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ and the later texts of the **bhakti** movement, total freedom from action is impossible and undesirable. These texts instead recommend an inner attitude of renunciation called \"renunciation of the fruits of action\"\u2014engaging in virtuous\u2014or dharmic\u2014action, but with detachment from the results. But the ancient practice of actually withdrawing from society and joining an ascetic order is still quite common in Hindu traditions.\n\nMany Hindu ascetic orders are peripatetic\u2014having no fixed abode and traveling from place to place as a form of ascetic practice, in order to avoid developing attachment for one particular place. This trait is shared by both Hindu and **Jain** ascetics, and is one of the reasons these traditions survived the invasions of the early medieval period and the mass destruction of settled monastic institutions that led to the demise of **Buddhism**. At the same time, many Hindu ascetic orders do dwell in monasteries, or **ma\u1e6dhas** , in many ways similar to the **Christian** monasteries of medieval Europe. _See also_ \u0100C\u0100RYA.\n\n**SANNY\u0100SIN.** A Hindu monk; a male renouncer; a man who has taken up the life of **sanny\u0101sa**.\n\n**SANNY\u0100SIN\u012a.** A Hindu nun; a female renouncer; a **woman** who has taken up the life of **sanny\u0101sa**.\n\n**SANSKRIT.** Literally, \"cultured\"; the actual word being _sa\u1e43sk\u1e5bta_. The language of the _Vedas_ and the majority of \"classical\" Hindu **literature** , in contrast with more localized, vernacular Hindu literatures (which are highly important and central to those Hindus who utilize them\u2014sometimes more so than Sanskrit texts, which relatively few persons can read). Sanskrit is the language of **Brahmanism** , the **Vedic** tradition that, in conjunction with a host of other Indic traditions, forms Hinduism.\n\nSanskrit is sometimes referred to as an \"artificial language.\" There probably was a spoken Sanskrit at one point in time that was the language of daily use of a people in the Punjab region of northern India. The Sanskrit of the _Vedas_ may be an approximation of this language. Classical Sanskrit\u2014utilized in all post-Vedic Sanskrit literature\u2014is not in every respect identical to Vedic Sanskrit, but differs from it in a number of ways. In the fifth or fourth century BCE, a Sanskrit grammarian\u2014a **Brahmin** named **P\u0101\u1e47ini** \u2014authored the _A\u1e63\u1e6dadhy\u0101yi_ , an authoritative work on grammar that has defined the rules of classical Sanskrit usage ever since. Because of the influence of P\u0101\u1e47ini's grammar, Sanskrit has, in effect, become frozen in the form in which it was spoken in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. It has not continued to develop in the way that natural languages typically do as a result of frequent use. This is why it is called an \"artificial language.\" A highly formal language, it has traditionally been used primarily for writing authoritative texts on a wide variety of subject and in liturgical settings, performing a role in Indian culture analogous to that which Latin has played in the intellectual and religious history of Europe.\n\nIn linguistic terms, Sanskrit is identified with Early **Indo-\u0100ryan**. The languages of daily use in ancient India were the **Prakrits** , or \"natural\" languages (in contrast with the \"cultured\" and artificial Sanskrit). The Prakrits are sometimes thought of as dialects of Sanskrit, but it is more accurate to refer to them as Middle Indo-\u0100ryan. They evolved into the Late Indo-\u0100ryan modern languages of northern India, such as **Hindi** , **Bengali** , Gujarati, Marathi, and so on. _See also_ SANSKRITIZATION.\n\n**SANSKRITIZATION.** The **Sanskrit** language has long been identified with the \"high\" culture of India\u2014specifically, the **Vedic** culture of **Brahmanism** \u2014which has dominated a Hindu self-understanding for millennia. This is in contrast with the popular local cultures that are more often expressed in vernacular languages. Within the **caste** system, when a particular group has decided to raise its status in the larger caste hierarchy, this has often been accomplished through a process of adopting certain high-caste cultural and religious practices, modes of speech, and so on. This process is known as \"Sanskritization,\" a term coined by sociologist M. N. Srinivas (1916\u20131999). It can include such practices as the wearing of the **sacred thread** \u2014traditionally a practice reserved for **Brahmins** or members of the three **twice-born** castes. Sanskritization can also include the incorporation into the Brahmanical or Vedic tradition of practices, ideas, and even deities that are of non-Vedic origins. It is likely that this process can be traced back even to the period of the _Vedas_ , in which certain indigenous deities and practices came to be incorporated into the originally **Indo-European** Vedic worldview. This practice still continues today, with many of the concepts and practices of **Islam** , **Christianity** , and modern science being assimilated to a Hindu worldview and self-understanding.\n\n**SANT.** Saint; holy person; a movement among prominent religious figures in northern India in the 15th and 16th centuries who were disdainful of sectarian boundaries, teaching that personal devotion, or **bhakti** , is of greater significance than ritual, **caste** , or sectarian affiliation. Including **R\u0101m\u0101nanda** , **Kab\u012br** , and **N\u0101nak** , the Sants typically saw the divine as personal but formless. In this way, their teaching reflects the influence of **Islam**.\n\n**\u015a\u0100NTI.** Peace; especially peace of **mind** ; a sense of calm equanimity; a mental state that is widely associated with **meditation**.\n\n**SANTOSHI (SA\u1e42TO\u015a\u012a) M\u0100.** \"Mother who brings satisfaction or contentment\"; recent **goddess** whose worship emerged in the 1970s; daughter of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** who was created to relieve the sufferings of human beings. Santoshi M\u0101 is particularly popular among Hindu **women**. Her devotees perform a **vrata** , or sacred vow, on Fridays that consists of fasting and offering a very simple **p\u016bj\u0101** to the goddess. The story of this goddess was the subject of a popular **Hindi** film in 1975 entitled _Jai Santoshi M\u0101_ (\"Victory to Santoshi Ma\"). In appearance, she is depicted in a way that is evocative of the goddess **Durg\u0101** \u2014youthful and beautiful but also holding weapons for destroying evil and worldly obstacles. Prayers to Santoshi M\u0101 are traditionally for this-worldly goals and wishes rather than transcendence.\n\n**SAPTAR\u1e62I.** \"Seven Sages\"; seven wise beings who preside over the cosmos; born from the mind of **Brahm\u0101** ; founders of the **gotras** , or **Brahmanical** lineages. **Astrologically** , they are identified with the seven stars of the Great Bear (or \"Big Dipper\"). A different set of seven sages appears from the **mind** of Brahm\u0101 in every cosmic cycle\u2014which is a way of explaining the fact that there are different lists of these sages in different textual sources. According to most texts, the seven sages of the current cosmic cycle are **Atri** , **Bharadv\u0101ja** , **Gautama** , **Jamadagni** , **Ka\u015byapa** , **Vasi\u1e63\u1e6dha** , and **Vi\u015bvamitra**.\n\n**SARAD\u0100 DEV\u012a (1853\u20131920).** Born Saradama\u1e47i Mukhopadhy\u0101ya, the wife and spiritual companion of **Ramakrishna** , one of the founding figures of the **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** movement and the revival of modern Hinduism. During Ramakrishna's lifetime, although greatly revered by his disciples, she was largely a behind-the-scenes figure. After Ramakrishna's **death** , in 1886, she began to play a more prominent role in the movement that he began, advising his disciples in their organizing of the **Ramakrishna Order** and **Ramakrishna Mission** , as well as initiating many disciples of her own. Even at this point, though, she remained relatively secluded and did not seek out a large public role for herself.\n\nBorn in the village of Jayrambati, in **West Bengal** , she was formally betrothed to Ramakrishna at the age of five, going to live with him in Dak\u1e63ine\u015bwar, where he was the priest at a **temple** of the **goddess K\u0101l\u012b** , only in her late teens. (Such arrangements were not unusual among rural Hindus at that time, and their abandonment was championed by many Hindu social reformers of the 19th century.) Ramakrishna is said to have worshiped her as an incarnation of the **Mother Goddess**. She continues to be regarded as such by many devotees in the **Ramakrishna Ved\u0101nta** tradition today.\n\n**SARASVAT\u012a.** **Goddess** of wisdom; sometimes depicted as the wife of **Brahm\u0101** and the daughter of **\u015aiva**. Her vehicle ( **vahana** ) is a white swan. Iconographically, she usually has four arms. In two of her hands she holds a stringed **musical** instrument called a **v\u012b\u1e47\u0101**. In one of her right hands she holds a **m\u0101la** , or string of prayer beads, and in one of her left hands she holds a book. All of the items in her hands represent different aspects of wisdom: the v\u012b\u1e47\u0101 symbolizing the **arts** , the m\u0101la symbolizing spirituality, and the book representing **knowledge** derived from study. She was originally a river goddess presiding over the Sarasvat\u012b River, which is believed to have disappeared around 1900 BCE. Her festival, Sarasvat\u012b P\u016bj\u0101, is held on the fifth day of the bright half ( **\u015aukla Pak\u1e63a** ) of the Hindu month of **Magha** (January\u2013February). As the goddess of wisdom, she is especially popular with students, who often celebrate her p\u016bj\u0101 by placing their books at the feet of her **m\u016brti** , or image, for the duration of the holiday. She is also especially popular in **Bengal**.\n\n**SARASVAT\u012a, DAY\u0100NANDA.** _See_ DAY\u0100NANDA SARASVAT\u012a.\n\n**\u015aAR\u012aRA.** Body. This term can refer to the gross, physical body ( **sth\u016bla \u015bar\u012bra** ) or one of several \"subtle\" bodies ( **suk\u1e63ma \u015bar\u012bra** ). These bodies correspond to the **ko\u015bas** , or \"layers,\" that cover the self or **\u0101tman**. The physical body corresponds to the \"food layer\" ( **anna-maya-ko\u015ba** ) and the other layers being nonmaterial or \"subtle\" bodies.\n\n**SARVODAYA.** \"Uplifting of all\"; movement for empowerment of the poor based on **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** 's **philosophy** of **saty\u0101graha** and promoted by his close associate and disciple **Vinobha Bhave**.\n\n**\u015a\u0100STRA.** **Scripture** ; science; authoritative text on a particular topic; authoritative body of **knowledge**.\n\n**SAT.** Being, existence. Along with pure consciousness ( **cit** ) and infinite bliss ( **\u0101nanda** ), sat is one of the three inherent attributes of **Brahman** according to **Ved\u0101nta**. The word for truth ( **satya** ) is derived from sat, as referring \"that which is the case.\"\n\n**SATGURU.** True **guru** ; spiritual teacher of particularly high authority; a teacher who presides over an entire tradition; roughly equivalent to an **\u0101c\u0101rya**.\n\n**SATHYA SAI BABA (1926\u2013 ).** Contemporary **guru** based in Andhra Pradesh, southern India; believed by his devotees to be a reincarnation of **Shirdi Sai Baba** ; famous for the miracles he is believed to have performed, including spontaneous appearances of sacred ash from his hands. In 1940, when he was 14 years old, it is said that he was bitten by a scorpion. The poison sent him into a delirium from which it is said he awoke with a realization of his true, **enlightened** nature as a great Hindu sage. He began to develop a following that today is global in extent. His teachings emphasize **bhakti** , the study of **scripture** , personal self-discipline, and **vegetarianism**.\n\n**SAT\u012a.** Good **woman** ; virtuous woman; name of the **Mother Goddess** , **P\u0101rvat\u012b** , in her previous incarnation as a daughter of the deity **Dak\u1e63a**. Sat\u012b was deeply in love with **\u015aiva** and married him, but Dak\u1e63a never fully approved of \u015aiva. Dak\u1e63a insulted \u015aiva by failing to invite him to a massive sacrifice to which he had invited all the other sages and deities. Feeling deeply hurt by this insult to her husband, Sat\u012b immolated herself in the sacrificial fire. It was this, and not the previous snub, that enraged \u015aiva, who destroyed Dak\u1e63a's sacrifice and beheaded him. (Later repenting of this act, \u015aiva resurrected Dak\u1e63a and gave him the head of a ram.) \u015aiva was inconsolable in Sat\u012b's absence. Sat\u012b's love for \u015aiva, though, caused her to be reborn as P\u0101rvat\u012b, and the couple was reunited.\n\nThe name of this **goddess** was later applied to **widows** who immolated themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands. According to **Rajput** lore, upon hearing that their husbands had fallen in battle against foreign invaders, many Rajput women immolated themselves rather than be captured or raped by the enemy. Eventually, this became an expected display of **devotion** in Rajput families. The practice was transmitted to **Bengal** when a number of Rajput clans transplanted themselves to that region. It was banned by the British in 1829 due to the efforts of the Bengali Hindu reformer **R\u0101m Mohan Roy** and soon ceased to occur on a large scale (and had, in any case, been largely confined to the upper **castes** in Bengal and Rajasthan). But occasional exceptions have occurred in subsequent history, the last known sat\u012b having taken place at Deorala, in **Rajasthan** , in 1987. This event was protested by many Hindus, including **Sw\u0101m\u012b Agnive\u015ba**.\n\n**SATTVA.** Clarity, luminosity; the first of the three **gu\u1e47as** or qualities of phenomenal existence as delineated in the **philosophies** of **S\u0101\u1e43khya** and **Yoga** and in the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_.\n\n**SATYA.** Truth. The motto of the modern Republic of India is the **Sanskrit** phrase \"Truth alone triumphs\" ( _Satyam eva jayate_ ). **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** viewed the pursuit of truth and the practice of nonviolence ( **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** ) as inseparable, seeing truth and nonviolence as different sides of the same coin, the truth being the interconnected and ultimately unified nature of all beings (his interpretation of **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** ) and nonviolence being the implication of this truth in practice. G\u0101ndh\u012b also underwent a shift in his thinking over the course of his lifetime from the idea that \" **God** is truth\" to the idea that \"Truth is God.\" The significance of this shift is that, whereas by holding that \"God is truth\" one might identify one's own idea of God with the truth, by holding that \"Truth is God\" one is committed to pursuing the truth wherever it may lead. The motto of the **Theosophical Society** is also \"There is no religion higher than truth\" ( _Satyam paramo dharma\u1e25_ ).\n\n**SATY\u0100GRAHA.** Holding fast to truth, **soul** force. Saty\u0101graha, or \"soul force,\" is **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** 's term for his method of nonviolent resistance to evil. Having some resonance with the epic concept of the vow of truth, the idea behind saty\u0101graha is that the truth always prevails, and that one who is faithful to the truth will also prevail, despite adversity and opposition. The nonviolent activist who adheres to methods that are in harmony with the ends that he pursues is behaving in a manner consistent with truth. The inherent power of truth will ensure the ultimate success of the activist's cause. _See also_ SATYA.\n\n**SATYAK\u0100MA.** \"One who desires **truth** \"; **Vedic** sage whose early career is presented in the _Ch\u0101ndogya Upani\u1e63ad_. Satyak\u0101ma's **guru** was the sage Haridrumata **Gautama**. As a boy, Satyak\u0101ma was keenly interested in studying the _Vedas_. To do this, it was necessary to approach a qualified teacher and recite one's lineage in order to prove that one was a **Brahmin** and thus worthy of being taught. Satyak\u0101ma did not know his father, so asked his mother, Jab\u0101la, a servant woman, his lineage. She told him that she was not sure who his father was, since she had been with many men (possibly having been sexually abused as a servant woman in many homes, although the text does not say this explicitly). She tells her son to refer to himself by her name, calling himself Satyak\u0101ma Jabal\u0101, because his paternal lineage is unknown. When he approaches Haridrumata Gautama, Satyak\u0101ma is asked to recite his lineage, according to Brahmanical custom. Satyak\u0101ma repeats to the teacher what his mother told him. Rather than reject Satyak\u0101ma\u2014the illegitimate son of a servant woman\u2014as unworthy of being taught, Haridrumata Gautama exclaims, \"Who but a Brahmin could speak thus!\" and promptly initiates Satyak\u0101ma as his student. The idea of the story seems to be that personal characteristics such as truthfulness are of greater importance than birth status. _See also_ ADHIK\u0100RA; CASTE.\n\n**SATYAN\u0100R\u0100YA\u1e46A.** \"True Lord,\" an epithet and form of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , typically depicted as Vi\u1e63\u1e47u in his conventional four-armed form, holding a conch shell, discus, **lotus** , and club, but surrounded by a group of worshipers who are performing **Satyan\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a P\u016bj\u0101**.\n\n**SATYAN\u0100R\u0100YA\u1e46A P\u016aJ\u0100.** A **p\u016bj\u0101** that is devoted to **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** in his manifestation as **Satyan\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a**. This p\u016bj\u0101 is traditionally held on a full-moon day ( **p\u016br\u1e47im\u0101** ), but can also be held by a **householder** in order to celebrate and give thanks for any major event or to invoke blessings for a major undertaking, such as the building of a new house, the starting of a new business, the marriage of a son or daughter, and so on. Like most p\u016bj\u0101s, the Satyan\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a p\u016bj\u0101 involves the offering of fruits, flowers, rice, and a mixture of milk, **ghee** , honey, wheat flour, and yogurt, to the deity, and its distribution afterward as **pras\u0101d**. It also involves the worshipers listening to, and sometimes participating in, a recitation of the Satyan\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a **Vrata Kath\u0101** , or Story of the Satyan\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a Vow. The kath\u0101 narrates the stories of devotees who have enjoyed good fortune or have averted misfortune through the performance of the Satyan\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a p\u016bj\u0101, or who have brought misfortune upon themselves by failing to perform the p\u016bj\u0101 after having vowed to do so, or by failing to take the pras\u0101d after having participated in the p\u016bj\u0101.\n\n**\u015aAUNAKA (fl. 5th century BCE).** Sage and scholar attributed with authoring the _B\u1e5bhad-devat\u0101_ , or the \"Great Text on Deities\"\u2014a systematic presentation of the attributes and the deeds of the **Vedic** deities ( **devas** )\u2014and a work on correct pronunciation of the verses of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ called the _\u1e5ag Veda Pr\u0101ti\u015b\u0101khya_. Both texts were likely composed between 500 and 400 BCE.\n\n**SAVARKAR, VINAYAK DAMODHAR (\"VEER\") (1883\u20131966). Hindu Nationalist** leader and author of the essay _Hindutva_ (\"Hinduness\"). Hindutva is a concept of Hindu identity that conflates it with Indian identity. According to Savarkar, a Hindu is one who is of Indian descent, who claims India as his or her \"fatherland,\" and who adheres to a religion of Indian origin. Indians who do not practice a religion of Indian origin are, on this understanding, less \"Indian\" than are self-identified Hindus. Similarly, non-Indians who practice a Hindu religion are not, according to this understanding, truly Hindu.\n\nSavarkar participated in the Indian independence movement, being jailed by the British from 1910 to 1937 for his revolutionary activities. It was during the period of his imprisonment that he authored _Hindutva_ , as well as other essays and **poems**. After being released from prison, he resumed his political activities, opposing **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** 's strictly nonviolent strategy and joining the **Hindu Mah\u0101sabh\u0101** , of which he served as president from 1937 to 1943. Savarkar was strongly opposed to the partition of India. Greatly revered by Hindu Nationalists, Savarkar is seen by many as the founding father of the Hindu Nationalist movement.\n\n**SAVIKALPA SAM\u0100DHI.** State of meditative absorption with a residual sense of the duality of subject and object. **Sam\u0101dhi** \u2014absorption in the object of one's **meditation** \u2014is the eighth and final \"limb\" of **Pata\u00f1jali** 's eight-limbed ( **\u0101\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** ) system of **yoga**. Later traditions that utilize Pata\u00f1jali's system distinguish between that sam\u0101dhi in which there remains a sense of subjectivity (savikalpa sam\u0101dhi) and a sam\u0101dhi with no subject\u2013object duality ( **nirvikalpa sam\u0101dhi** ).\n\n**SAVIT\u1e5a.** \"Giver of life\"; **Vedic** solar deity; one of the 12 **\u0100dityas**. The **G\u0101yatr\u012b mantra** is dedicated to this deity. It is not always clear if Savit\u1e5b is identical to **S\u016brya** , the more commonly invoked Vedic sun **god**. According to the authoritative commentator, **S\u0101ya\u1e47a** , the name _Savit\u1e5b_ refers to the sun before and just as it rises and _S\u016brya_ is the name of the sun once it has risen fully.\n\n**S\u0100VITR\u012a.** An alternative name for the **G\u0101yatr\u012b mantra**. As a **goddess** , S\u0101vitr\u012b is the daughter of **Savit\u1e5b** and wife of **Brahm\u0101**.\n\n**S\u0100YA\u1e46A (fl. 14th century CE).** Highly respected and authoritative commentator upon the _Vedas_ ; author of the _Ved\u0101rtha Prak\u0101\u015ba_ , or \"Illumination of the Meaning of the _Vedas_ ,\" as well as numerous other works on **Vedic** ritual. S\u0101ya\u1e47a lived within the **Vijayan\u0101gara** Empire.\n\n**SCHEDULED CASTES.** Official Indian government term for the lower **castes** \u2014that is, the **Dalits** , **Harijans** , or **Untouchables** , as these communities are variously known. This term refers to the fact that these castes have been included in an official list or _schedule_ indicating that they are eligible for specific government benefits and privileges due to their traditionally oppressed status.\n\n**SCRIPT.** Writing system; \"alphabet.\" Writing has existed in India since the period of the **Indus Valley civilization** , which was at its height from roughly 2600 to 1900 BCE. The script of this civilization, however, remains undecipherable today. The next script to emerge, called _Br\u0101hm\u012b_ , can be found on inscriptions from as early as the seventh century BCE. The famous edicts of the **Maurya** emperor A\u015boka are carved in Br\u0101hm\u012b script and date from the third century BCE. Around the fifth century BCE, the _Kharo\u1e63\u1e6dh\u012b_ script also comes into use. Early versions of _Devan\u0101gar\u012b_ , the script used today in **Sanskrit** , **Hindi** , Marathi, and some other northern Indian languages, come into use by the fourth century of the Common Era, and are clearly based on the earlier Kharo\u1e63\u1e6dh\u012b and Br\u0101hm\u012b scripts.\n\n**SCRIPTURES.** Hindu sacred **literature** consists of a vast collection of texts. There is no single authoritative work that all Hindus regard as divinely inspired, equivalent to the Bible for **Christianity** or the Qur'an for **Islam**. There are, instead, many such works, whose relations to one another are quite complex and that are regarded in a variety of ways by different groups of Hindus. The most basic division of Hindu scripture is that between **\u015br\u016bti** and **sm\u1e5bti**. These terms refer, respectively, to \"that which is heard\" and \"that which is remembered.\" The \"heard\" texts\u2014the \u015br\u016bti\u2014are believed to be direct, divine revelations perceived by the ancient **Vedic** sages, or **\u1e5b\u1e63is**. They are _apauru\u1e63eya_ or \"non-man-made.\" The \"remembered\" texts\u2014or sm\u1e5bti\u2014are not directly revealed but are made up of traditional **knowledge** passed down from the ancient past. Their authority is derivative from that of the \u015br\u016bti, whose basic teachings they communicate through popular narrative. The \u015br\u016bti is the Vedic literature, while the sm\u1e5bti consists of all subsequent Hindu texts.\n\n**SELF.** _See_ \u0100TMAN.\n\n**SELF-REALIZATION FELLOWSHIP (SRF).** Religious organization established by **Paramah\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 Yog\u0101nanda** in 1920 to disseminate the practice of _Kriya_ _Yoga_ , into which he had been initiated by his **guru** , **Sri Yukte\u015bwar Giri**. In 1952, after Yog\u0101nanda's death, Sw\u0101m\u012b Janak\u0101nanda (formerly James Lynn) took over the leadership of the organization. He was succeeded in 1955 by \u015ar\u012b Day\u0101 M\u0101t\u0101, who continues to head the organization. Among the distinctive aspects of the Self-Realization Fellowship (or SRF, as it is widely known) is its emphasis on devotion to Jesus as an enlightened master and its teaching of the unity of science and religion. Its membership consists primarily of Westerners. It resembles the **Ved\u0101nta Society** and **Siddha Yoga** in its inclusion of Western initiates as monks and nuns. Its main headquarters are located in Los Angeles, California.\n\n**SEN, KESHUB CHUNDER (KE\u015aAVA CANDRA) (1838\u20131884).** Nineteenth-century **Bengali** Hindu reformer; member of the **Brahmo Sam\u0101j** ; known for his open admiration of **Christianity** and his concept of a \"New Dispensation\" that would involve a synthesis of Christian and Hindu elements, and ultimately elements of all religions. Sen's ideas led him to split with the Brahmo Sam\u0101j, starting a new organization called the Brahmo Sam\u0101j of India in 1866. As Sen's thought continued to evolve, he began to take his organization in a more traditionally Hindu direction\u2014very likely under the influence of **Ramakrishna** , whom he met in 1876. A number of his followers, unhappy with his perceived deviations from the original ideals of the Brahmo Sam\u0101j, split away from the Brahmo Sam\u0101j of India to form the Sadharan Brahmo Sam\u0101j in 1878. Sen played an important role in bringing Ramakrishna to the attention of a wider audience of Bengali intellectuals.\n\n**\u015aE\u1e62A.** The cosmic serpent on whose belly **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** rests. When Vi\u1e63\u1e47u becomes incarnate as an **avat\u0101ra** , \u015ae\u1e63a frequently becomes incarnate as well, to act as Vi\u1e63\u1e47u's protector. So when Vi\u1e63\u1e47u was born as **R\u0101ma** , \u015ae\u1e63a became his brother **Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a**. Similarly, when Vi\u1e63\u1e47u was born as **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , \u015ae\u1e63a, according to some accounts, was born as **B\u0101lar\u0101ma** , his brother.\n\n**SEVEN SAGES.** _See_ SAPTAR\u1e62I.\n\n**SHANKAR, RAVI (1920\u2013 ).** Indian classical musician instrumental in popularizing the **musical** traditions of India\u2014especially the sitar\u2014to the attention of the Western world. In his youth, he traveled frequently to North America and Europe as part of a **dance** troupe run by his brother, Uday Shankar. In 1938, he gave up dancing to learn the sitar, which is the instrument for which he is best known. Though Indian **music** had long been enjoyed by a small segment of the Western public, Shankar's association with **George Harrison** of the Beatles, starting in 1966, brought him, and Indian classical music more generally, to a much wider audience.\n\n**SHARMA, ARVIND.** Prolific scholar of Hinduism and professor of religious studies at McGill University, in Montreal, Canada. Though not referring to himself explicitly as a Hindu theologian, much of Sharma's work has a constructive theological character that seeks to reinterpret Hindu thought in an effort to show its relevance to the contemporary world. His notable efforts in this regard include his work on Hinduism and human rights and his reinterpretation of the **caste** system, which argues that all Hindus have a duty to study their **scriptures** and **philosophies** (the traditional work of a **Brahmin** ), to stand up for what is right (the traditional work of a **K\u1e63atriya** ), to be economically productive (the traditional work of a **Vai\u015bya** ), and to serve humanity (the traditional work of a **\u015a\u016bdra** ).\n\n**SHETTY, MALTI (1955\u2013 ).** _See_ GURUMAY\u012a.\n\n**SHIRDI SAI BABA (?\u20131918).** Also known as Sai Baba of Shirdi, Shirdi Sai Baba was a spiritual teacher of the 19th and early 20th centuries with a large following of both Hindus and Muslims. His teaching is evocative of that of the **Sant** movement, with elements of both **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** and **Sufism**. The contemporary teacher, **Sathya Sai Baba** , claims to be a reincarnation of Shirdi Sai Baba\u2014a claim not accepted by all Shirdi Sai Baba devotees.\n\n**SIDDHA.** Perfected being; one who has attained perfection; a person who has achieved **liberation** from **rebirth** ( **mok\u1e63a** ) in this lifetime; a **j\u012bvanmukta**. Though used in many Indic traditions, this term is associated most prominently with **Tantra** and **Jainism**.\n\n**SIDDHA YOGA.** Contemporary **Tantric** tradition with roots in **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaivism**. The practice of Siddha Yoga focuses primarily upon **meditation** and the relationship between the **guru** and the disciple. Initiation ( **d\u012bk\u1e63\u0101** ) into Siddha Yoga occurs through the process of **\u015baktipat** , whereby the guru raises the **\u015bakti** or **ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b** energy residing at the base of the spine of the aspirant through the various **cakras** to the **sah\u0101srara cakra** at the top of the head. It is believed that the guru can do this through a touch, word, or thought. In the Siddha Yoga tradition, it is believed that \u015baktipat can accelerate the aspirant's journey to **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth**.\n\nThough having more ancient roots, the modern Siddha Yoga tradition begins with the figure of **Sw\u0101m\u012b Nity\u0101nanda** (1897\u20131961), the guru of **Sw\u0101m\u012b Mukt\u0101nanda** (1908\u20131982), who brought the tradition to the West, where it continues to have a large following today. The current head of the lineage, **Sw\u0101m\u012b Chidvil\u0101s\u0101nanda** , more popularly known as **Gurumay\u012b** , is notable for being one of only a handful of female gurus who head large Hindu-inspired global organizations. Siddha Yoga is based at **Ga\u1e47e\u015bapuri \u0100\u015brama** , near Bombay (Mumbai), the site of Nity\u0101nanda's spiritual retreat in his later years. There is a large Siddha Yoga **\u0101\u015brama** near South Fallsburg, New York, as well.\n\n**SIDDH\u0100NTA.** Perfect teaching; final goal; settled opinion; term by which most systems of Indian philosophy ( **dar\u015bana** ) refer to themselves in the context of debate.\n\n**SIDDHI.** \"Perfection,\" \"success,\" \"accomplishment\"; paranormal power cultivated as a result of spiritual practice such as **asceticism** and **meditation**. Hindu traditions are, on the whole, ambivalent toward such powers, with some texts and teachers explicitly endorsing specific practices aimed at producing particular siddhis and others dissuading practitioners from being distracted by such powers from the ultimate goal of **mok\u1e63a**.\n\nAlso, along with **Buddhi** (\"Intellect\"), Siddhi (\"Success\") is the name of one of the two wives of **Gane\u015ba**. _See also_ TANTRA; YOGA.\n\n**SIKHISM.** Highly egalitarian religious tradition that emerged from the **Sant** movement and the interplay between Hinduism and **Islam** during the **Mughal** period; founded by **N\u0101nak** (1469\u20131539), better known by his disciples as Guru N\u0101nak. Born a Hindu in the Punjab, N\u0101nak claimed to have received a revelation from **God** while **meditating** in a forest. N\u0101nak's message was: \"There is no Muslim and there is no Hindu.\" Those who accepted his teaching of Hindu\u2013Muslim unity came to be known as _Sikh_ , a Punjabi word that means \"disciple,\" and they took N\u0101nak as their **guru**.\n\nGuru N\u0101nak and his followers sought to harmonize the teachings of Islam and Hinduism, taking from Islam its strong emphasis on the unity of God. Guru N\u0101nak called **the One** God, known by Hindus under many names and forms, _Sat N\u0101m_ , or the \"True Name,\" or _Ek Onkar_ , the One God. The One God is the creator of the entire universe, according to Sikhism, and humans are the highest of God's creations. From Hinduism, N\u0101nak took the doctrines of **karma** and **rebirth** and the emphasis on the importance of the guru, or living teacher. **Liberation** from rebirth is given by God, much as in **bhakti-** based, devotional forms of Hinduism. The community Guru N\u0101nak established accepted all, regardless of religion, gender, or **caste** , a teaching that is illustrated in the Sikh practice of the _langar_ , a meal in which all participate and dine together (inter-dining being prohibited in N\u0101nak's time between members of the various castes and religious communities).\n\nN\u0101nak was succeeded by a series of nine gurus. Under each guru, suspicion of the new movement grew within the Mughal state, culminating in fierce persecution by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. The 10th and final Sikh guru, **Gobind Singh** (1666\u20131708), responded to this persecution by militarizing the Sikh community, establishing the _khalsa_ , or order of Sikh warriors, marked by the \"Five K's,\" or five items whose names, in Punjabi, start with the letter K: _ke\u015b_ , or long hair; _kangha_ , a special comb with which the hair is tied on top of the head; _kara_ , a circular steel bracelet; _kacha_ , an undergarment ensuring preparedness for battle; and the _kirpan_ , a sword or dagger. Gobind Singh's father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, had been beheaded by Aurangzeb, and Gobind Singh himself had to spend much of his time in hiding. Knowing that he might not survive in the ongoing conflict, he designated the sacred text of the Sikhs, the _\u0100di Granth_ , the perpetual guru of the community after his **death**.\n\nIn the post-independence period, some Sikhs began to agitate for a Sikh state that would be known as _Khalistan_. This agitation escalated into violence throughout the late 1970s, culminating in an Indian army attack in 1984 on the Golden Temple of Amritsar, where the original _\u0100di Granth_ is housed. This, in turn, provoked the assassination of Prime Minister Indira G\u0101ndh\u012b by her Sikh bodyguards, which provoked anti-Sikh riots.\n\nSince 1984, relations between Sikhs and the Hindu majority of India have been improving, with Manmohan Singh\u2014a Sikh\u2014being elected to the office of prime minister of India in 2004.\n\nWorldwide, there are approximately 23,000,000 Sikhs today. Roughly 80 percent of Sikhs live in India\u2014and specifically, in the Punjab. The other 20 percent live both in other parts of India and throughout the rest of the world, with relatively large populations in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada.\n\n**SINDHU.** **Sanskrit** name of the **Indus** River that flows through what is now Pakistan, and around which the **Indus Valley civilization** flourished from approximately 2600 to 1900 BCE. The Persian pronunciation of this word is the source of the term _Hindu_.\n\n**SINGH, SW\u0100M\u012a SHIV DAYAL (1818\u20131878).** Founder of the **R\u0101dh\u0101so\u0101m\u012b Satsang**.\n\n**\u015aI\u1e62YA.** Student; disciple or follower of a **guru** , or spiritual teacher.\n\n**S\u012aT\u0100.** Character in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ ; wife of **R\u0101ma** and human incarnation, or **avat\u0101ra** , of the **goddess Lak\u1e63m\u012b** ; daughter of the sage King **Janaka**. R\u0101ma wins the right to marry S\u012bt\u0101 by completing a nearly impossible task set by her father\u2014the stringing of **\u015aiva** 's bow, which R\u0101ma not only strings successfully but actually breaks. Happily marrying R\u0101ma and returning with him to **Ayodhy\u0101** , she later suffers exile with him when he is sent into the wilderness at the command of his father, **Da\u015baratha** , who is forced into sending his son away by one of his wives, Kaikey\u012b, who fears that her own son\u2014R\u0101ma's half-brother, **Bharata** \u2014will be marginalized if R\u0101ma becomes king. While in exile with R\u0101ma and his brother **Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a** , S\u012bt\u0101 is abducted by the **r\u0101k\u1e63asa** lord, **R\u0101va\u1e47a** , who takes her to his capital on the island of **La\u1e45ka**. During her imprisonment, R\u0101va\u1e47a seeks to woo her, but she remains steadfastly loyal to R\u0101ma. When R\u0101ma and his allies finally free her, R\u0101ma does not immediately embrace her but forces her to pass a test of fire in order to prove that she did not betray him while in captivity. This distressing episode is explained by the fact that R\u0101ma is concerned that, as king, he and his family must be above reproach in the eyes of the public. At a later point in the story\u2014after the family has returned and ruled in Ayodhy\u0101 for many years\u2014members of the public begin to question her fidelity and S\u012bt\u0101 again has to pass through the fire test. At this point, she leaves the city and goes to the wilderness, raising her two sons, Lava and **Ku\u015ba** , in seclusion.\n\nThe ill treatment of S\u012bt\u0101 after her **liberation** from R\u0101va\u1e47a has been a source of a good deal of controversy within the Hindu tradition. On the one hand, S\u012bt\u0101 is held up as a model Hindu wife, ever faithful and obedient to her husband even in the worst of times. At the same time, the repeated demands that she prove her fidelity are clearly demeaning. Alternative versions of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ vary a good deal in their approaches to this issue. The most popular variant\u2014the **Hindi** _R\u0101m Carit M\u0101nas_ of **Tuls\u012bd\u0101s** \u2014claims that the scene never really occurred: that the real S\u012bt\u0101 was never captured by R\u0101va\u1e47a and that only an etheric double appeared to undergo the fire test. _See also_ WOMEN.\n\n**\u015a\u012aTALA.** \"Cold **goddess** \"; goddess associated with smallpox; sometimes believed to be a form of **K\u0101l\u012b** ; especially popular in **Bengal**.\n\n**\u015aIVA.** \"Good, benevolent\"; alongside **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** and **\u015aakti** , one of the most popular deities of Hinduism; regarded by many of his devotees, known as **\u015aaivas** , as **God** in something like a **monotheistic** sense\u2014the supreme deity. \u015aiva is an ancient deity whom some argue was worshiped, alongside the **Mother Goddess** , in the **Indus Valley civilization**. This argument is based on the resemblance of a deity depicted in some Indus Valley carvings to \u015aiva in his forms as **Pa\u015bupati** , or Lord of the Animals, and **Yoge\u015bvara** , Lord of **Yoga**. This identification cannot be verified, however, until the **script** of the Indus Valley is deciphered. \u015aiva is also identified with the **Vedic** storm deity, **Rudra**. Rudra, a fierce deity of the wilderness, shares with \u015aiva the attribute of living far from society. Rudra is also depicted as a hunter, and another epithet of \u015aiva is\u2014as just mentioned\u2014the Lord of the Animals. And \u015aiva, like Rudra, can have a fierce temper when roused to anger. Many of the prayers in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ devoted to Rudra entreat him to keep his temper in check and to keep his destructive activities far from the area of human activity. _\u015aiva_ likely became an epithet of Rudra due to prayers that refer to him in this way\u2014\"good, gentle, kind\"\u2014in an effort to pacify the deity and keep him in a calm and gentle mood.\n\nBy the time of the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ , in the first millennium of the Common Era, \u015aiva is generally depicted in a way that lives up to his name\u2014as a gentle, kind, and generally \"laid back\" deity. But he can still be roused to fierce anger, such as when he destroys the sacrifice of **Dak\u1e63a** or when he burns **K\u0101madeva** to a crisp with a blast of energy from his **third eye**. He is typically remorseful after such outbursts, however, such as when he gives Dak\u1e63a the head of a ram after beheading him in anger, and when he gives his son **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** the head of the elephant **Air\u0101vata** after beheading him. As these last two examples indicate, \u015aiva is a destroyer and a creator\u2014destroying old forms to make way for new ones. This process, and \u015aiva's role as both destroyer and re-creator of the universe in an ongoing cycle, is illustrated in the popular image of \u015aiva dancing the cosmic **dance** of **creation** and destruction\u2014\u015aiva as \"Lord of the Dance\" ( **N\u0101\u1e6dar\u0101ja** ).\n\n\u015aiva and his wife, \u015aakti, the Mother Goddess, form a composite deity, with \u015aakti being the power of creation and \u015aiva the pure consciousness that underlies it. Their two children, Ga\u1e47e\u015ba and **Karttikeya** , are popular deities in their own right but are also often worshiped in conjunction with their parents. Both \u015aaiva and \u015a\u0101kta worship often have a **Tantric** character.\n\n**\u015aIV\u0100J\u012a (1627\u20131680).** Leader of the **Mar\u0101\u1e6dhas** , a warrior people of Maharashtra, in central India (the current location of Bombay, or Mumbai), who successfully fought against the **Mughal Empire** in the late 17th century, during the period of Emperor Aurangzeb. Led by \u015aiv\u0101ji, who even today remains a folk hero in Maharashtra, the Mar\u0101\u1e6dhas utilized guerilla tactics against the numerically superior and better equipped Mughals. Stunningly successful in their campaign, the Mar\u0101\u1e6dhas eventually controlled most of central India's Deccan plateau.\n\n**\u015aIVAR\u0100TRI.** \" **\u015aiva** 's night\"; the 13th night and 14th day of each month of the **Hindu calendar** is sacred to the deity \u015aiva and is therefore known as \"\u015aiva's night,\" observed by devotees through fasting. The \u015aivar\u0101tri of the month of **Phalguna** is especially sacred and is also known as \"\u015aiva's great night\" ( **Mah\u0101\u015bivar\u0101tri** ).\n\n**SKANDA.** Alternative name for **K\u0101rttikeya** , the son of **\u015aiva** and **P\u0101rvat\u012b** and brother of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba**.\n\n**SM\u0100RTA.** Along with the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** , **\u015aaiva** , and **\u015a\u0101kta** traditions, one of the four major streams of tradition that make up Hinduism. The Sm\u0101rta tradition, whose name means \"derived from the **sm\u1e5bti** ,\" is a continuation of the ancient tradition of **Brahmanism**. It sees itself as nonsectarian, in contrast with the often exclusive adherence of other Hindu traditions to a single deity, such as **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , **\u015aiva** , or **\u015aakti**. The Sm\u0101rta **Brahmins** follow the directives of **\u015aa\u1e45kara** , worshiping by means of the **Pa\u00f1cay\u0101tana P\u016bj\u0101** , or \"fivefold worship\" dedicated to **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** , \u015aiva, \u015aakti, Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, and **S\u016brya** , the sun **god**. Otherwise, they adhere closely to **Vedic** customs as understood by the **P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** system of philosophy ( **dar\u015bana** ). They are orthodox Brahmins, whose lifestyle follows the Hindu **\u015b\u0101stras** quite closely, but whose nonsectarian outlook has also been a major influence on **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** , with its emphasis on religious pluralism and many effective paths to **God-realization**.\n\n**SM\u1e5aTI.** \"Remembered\"; along with **\u015br\u016bti** (\"that which is heard\"), one of the two main categories of Hindu **scripture**. Sm\u1e5bti is sacred tradition. Although not directly revealed by **God** or heard by the **\u1e5b\u1e63is** or sages of the distant past while deep in **meditation** , it has a derivative authority, being based upon such authoritative sources and attempting to make their **knowledge** available to the wider Hindu society. The sm\u1e5bti **literature** consists of a vast collection of texts\u2014essentially, all authoritative Hindu literature other than the **Vedic** corpus, which constitutes the \u015br\u016bti. As such, the sm\u1e5bti includes the historical epics\u2014that is, the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ and _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ \u2014the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ , the various **s\u016btras** of the **dar\u015banas** , or philosophical systems, the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ , and the whole range of \u015b\u0101stra literature on a whole host of topics, such as medicine, **astrology** , economics, political science, grammar, aesthetics, sexuality, the construction of **temples** and sacred images, and so on. Most of this literature is composed in **Sanskrit** , but some of it, such as the devotional **poetry** of the **bhakti** movement, is in vernacular languages.\n\n**SOMA.** **Vedic** deity of the **moon** , who also represents the hallucinogenic plant whose juice, mixed with milk, was used by ancient **Brahmins** to evoke an experience of the divine. The phases of the moon represent this substance being consumed by the **devas** (during the **dark half** of the month, when the moon is waning) and replenished (during the **bright half** , when the moon is waxing). There has been a great deal of speculation on the actual plant that was pressed and whose juice was used to produce the soma drink. It has been suggested by some that it was a mushroom grown in what is now Afghanistan. Others suggest a leafy plant that has either become extinct or whose properties have been forgotten. **Indra** is depicted as being particularly fond of consuming this drink. Many hymns in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ are devoted to this deity.\n\n**SOMAV\u0100RA.** Monday, the day of the week that is governed by the **moon**. _See also_ CALENDAR, HINDU.\n\n**SOMN\u0100TH (SOMAN\u0100THA).** Lord of the **Moon** ; epithet of **\u015aiva** , so called in part due to the fact that he is often depicted wearing a crescent moon on his forehead. A large and exceedingly wealthy **temple** dedicated to \u015aiva in this form was located in Gujarat in the first millennium of the Common Era. It was destroyed by the invading army of Mahmud of Ghazni in 1026, who made its seven-foot stone **Li\u1e45ga** , or abstract image of \u015aiva, part of the threshold of a mosque, to be stepped upon by Muslim worshipers, in a gesture of contempt for Hinduism. For this reason, the temple has become a symbol to Hindus\u2014and especially to **Hindu Nationalists** \u2014of insults suffered under medieval **Islamic** rule. The temple was repeatedly rebuilt and destroyed by Muslim rulers throughout its history\u2014in 1297, 1394, and 1706. Its most recent rebuilding was in 1950.\n\n**SOUL.** _See_ J\u012aVA; \u0100TMAN.\n\n**SOUTHEAST ASIA.** The region today made up of such nation states as Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. This area was heavily influenced by both Hinduism and **Buddhism** during the first millennium of the Common Era. The influence was largely peaceful, with Indian culture being viewed as prestigious and therefore consciously imitated by the royal families of the region. Examples of this influence include the popularity of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ and _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ in this region, the adoption of **Sanskrit** names and royal titles, Hindu and Buddhist **temples** (which often take the form of composite Hindu\u2013Buddhist temples) like **Angkor Wat** in Cambodia, the continuing practice of Hinduism as the predominant religious tradition of **Bali** , Indonesia, today, and the heavy influence of **Sanskrit** and P\u0101li on the languages of these countries. The Indic cultural influence on this region has been so great that some scholars refer to it as \"Greater India.\"\n\n**SPANDA.** Vibration. According to **\u015aaiva** thought, vibration is the means by which the cosmos emerges from **\u015aiva** 's pure consciousness. The various elements that make up the physical universe ( **mah\u0101bh\u016btas** ), such as **earth** , **water** , **air** , **fire** , and the etheric element, **\u0101k\u0101\u015ba** , can all be seen as different \"wavelengths\" of the primordial vibration. _See also_ O\u1e42.\n\n**SPHO\u1e6cA.** A theory of **Sanskrit** grammar developed by **Bhart\u1e5bhari** (6th\u20137th century CE). According to this theory, the letters or sounds that make up a word have a special power to manifest the meaning of that word. This power to make meaning is the true essence of a word. The letters and sounds that make up the word are merely the means by which this true essence is revealed.\n\n**\u015aRADDH\u0100.** Faith; according to the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , \u015braddh\u0101 is a basic commitment that could be said to constitute a person.\n\n**\u015aR\u0100DDHA.** Periodic **ancestral rite** that consists of offering food and water to the dead. If one does not offer \u015br\u0101ddha to one's ancestors\u2014typically in the form of balls of rice called **pi\u1e47\u1e0da** \u2014one may run the risk that they will wander through the world as **pretas** , or hungry ghosts. The food offered in the \u015br\u0101ddha is also said to become the food of one's ancestors in their next **rebirth**.\n\n**\u015aRAMA\u1e46A.** Striver; member of a **renouncer** movement that distinguishes itself from the **Brahmins** by its belief that one's spiritual status is a function of one's personal effort, to which birth **caste** , or **j\u0101ti** , is irrelevant. The \u015brama\u1e47a movement likely emerged during the first millennium BCE, but may be even older than this, or based on older antecedents. This movement consisted of many distinct groups, each of which was centered on a spiritual teacher believed to have attained **enlightenment** and **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth**. The only two \u015brama\u1e47a traditions to survive to the present day are **Buddhism** and **Jainism** , though other \u015brama\u1e47a groups, such as the **\u0100j\u012bvikas** , existed in the ancient period. Though initially antagonistic to **Brahmanism** and to aspects of **Vedic** thought and practice\u2014particularly **animal sacrifice** and the belief that birth caste is a measure of spiritual evolution\u2014the \u015brama\u1e47a traditions exerted considerable influence upon Hinduism, especially in regard to the practice of **vegetarianism** and later critiques of birth caste.\n\n_\u015aRAUTA S\u016aTRAS_ **.** **Sanskrit** texts, likely composed around 500 BCE, that describe in detail the correct way to perform a **Vedic** ritual of sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ).\n\n**\u015aRAVA\u1e46A.** Month of the **Hindu calendar** that corresponds roughly to the period from mid-July to mid-August. The word _\u015brava\u1e47a_ also refers to \"listening\" or \"hearing.\"\n\nAlso the name of the son of a **Brahmin** in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ who is accidentally shot and killed by **R\u0101ma** 's father, King **Da\u015baratha**. Da\u015baratha, hunting in the forest, mistakes \u015arava\u1e47a for a deer. The boy's father, enraged, curses Da\u015baratha to suffer the loss of his son as well\u2014a curse brought to fulfillment when Da\u015baratha is forced to disinherit R\u0101ma and banish him to 14 years of exile. Da\u015baratha dies from sorrow as a result of this event\u2014and ultimately, as a result of the angry Brahmin's curse.\n\n**\u015aR\u012a.** Prosperity; that which is auspicious. Name of an ancient **Vedic goddess** mentioned once in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ and many times in the _Atharva Veda_ and the _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_. She is the embodiment of success of any kind. By the time of the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ (the first millennium of the Common Era), she is identified with **Lak\u1e63m\u012b** , wife of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , though some sources suggest these two were, at one point, two distinct goddesses.\n\n**SRI AUROBINDO.** _See_ GHOSE, AUROBINDO.\n\n**SRI CHINMOY (1831\u20132007).** Modern **Bengali** Hindu spiritual teacher with a following in the West. In 1964, he immigrated to New York City, where he remained based for the rest of his life. His teaching is very much in line with **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** , emphasizing social service, the practice of **meditation** , and respect for all religions as \"essentially divine.\" Sri Chinmoy was deeply influenced by the teaching of **Aurobindo Ghose** , whom he cited frequently in his own teaching.\n\n**SRI LANKA.** Island country off the southeast coast of India, near **Tamil** Nadu; widely identified with the **La\u1e45ka** of **R\u0101va\u1e47a** in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ ; home to what is likely the most ancient continuously existing **Buddhist** community in the world. The Buddhist majority of Sri Lanka speaks Si\u1e45hala, or Sinhalese. From 1983 to 2009, a fierce civil war raged between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil-speaking Hindu minority, which sought to have an independent state in the northern part of the island. This tragic and destructive conflict, often cast in religious terms, appears to have been more of an ethnic struggle.\n\n**SRI RAMAKRISHNA.** _See_ RAMAKRISHNA.\n\n**\u015aR\u012aRA\u1e44GAM.** Massive **temple** complex in **Tamil** Nadu and center of the **\u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition.\n\n**\u015aR\u012aVAI\u1e62\u1e46AVA.** Of or pertaining to **\u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47avism**.\n\n**\u015aR\u012aVAI\u1e62\u1e46AVISM.** Highly popular **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition found mainly in southern India and traced to the devotional **poetry** of the **\u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs** , or **Tamil-** speaking **bhakti** poets of the period from approximately 600 to 900 CE. A **Brahmin** scholar named N\u0101thamuni introduced the poetry of the \u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs into the ritual of formal **temple** worship in the 10th century. His grandson, **Y\u0101muna** , translated many of the poems into **Sanskrit** and continued the process of formalizing and systematizing the tradition. This process was completed by Y\u0101muna's student **R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja** (1077\u20131157). The name of the tradition is an expression of the fact that the **goddess \u015ar\u012b** , or **Lak\u1e63m\u012b** , is regarded in this tradition as inseparable from **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , with whom she forms a composite deity (not unlike **\u015aiva** and **\u015aakti** in **\u015aaivism** and **\u015a\u0101ktism** ).\n\nAfter R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja, this tradition experienced a division over an issue analogous to the issue of the relationship of faith and works in **Christianity**. The Va\u1e6dakalai school holds that some human effort is involved in the process of achieving **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth**. This school likens the human aspirant for mok\u1e63a in relation to **God** as similar to a baby monkey in relation to its mother. The mother carries the baby, but the baby must also exert effort by clinging to its mother. The Te\u1e45kalai school, on the other hand, likens the human aspirant to a baby kitten, whose mother carries it without any effort being made by the kitten. (Theologically, then, the Va\u1e6dakalai school could be likened to Roman Catholicism and the Te\u1e45kalai school to Protestantism.)\n\n**\u015aR\u012aVIDY\u0100 TANTRA.** System of Tantric worship focused on the **Mother Goddess**. It was systematized by **Bh\u0101skarar\u0101ya Makhin** (1690\u20131785), a **\u015a\u0101kta** theologian from the region of Maharashtra, in central India. Unlike other \u015a\u0101kta systems of Tantric worship, \u015ar\u012bvidy\u0101 Tantra focuses on the Goddess's benign and beautiful aspects, rather than on her terrifying ones. It is predominantly a **Right-Handed** system of **Tantra**.\n\n**\u015a\u1e5a\u1e44GER\u012a.** Site of one of the four **ma\u1e6dhas** , or monasteries established by **\u015aa\u1e45kara** (788\u2013820) at the four corners of India. \u015a\u1e5b\u1e45ger\u012b, in **Tamil** Nadu, is in the southern part of the country.\n\n**\u015aR\u016aTI.** \"That which is heard\"; along with **sm\u1e5bti** (\"that which is remembered\"), one of the two main categories of Hindu **scripture**. \u015ar\u016bti is believed to be directly revealed by **God** (in theistic systems of Hinduism), or to simply be the sound of the cosmos heard by the **\u1e5b\u1e63is** or sages of the distant past while deep in **meditation**. It is _apauru\u1e63eya_ (non-man-made) and consists of the **Vedic** literary corpus.\n\n**STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS.** _See_ CONCIOUSNESS, STATES OF.\n\n**STAGES OF LIFE.** _See_ \u0100\u015aRAMA.\n\n**STH\u016aLA \u015aAR\u012aRA.** Gross body; the physical body. _See also_ ANNA-MAYA-KO\u015aA; \u015aAR\u012aRA.\n\n**SUBRAMA\u1e46YA**. An alternative name for **K\u0101rttikeya** , the son of **\u015aiva** and **P\u0101rvat\u012b** and brother of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba**.\n\n**SUBRAMUNIYASW\u0100M\u012a, SATGURU \u015aIV\u0100YA (1927\u20132001).** Born Robert Hansen in California, Subramuniyasw\u0101m\u012b is one of a handful of Western initiates into Hindu **ascetic** orders to have attained a high level of authority and respect in the broader community of Hindus. Trained in both Western and Indian **dance** , Subramuniyasw\u0101m\u012b was drawn to Hindu thought at an early age. He was particularly inspired by the writings of **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda**. In 1947 he traveled to **Sri Lanka** where he met his **guru** , a Hindu monk named Yogasw\u0101m\u012b, who initiated him into his **\u015aaiva Siddh\u0101nta** lineage. He returned to the United States to spread Hindu teachings and established a **temple** in San Francisco 1957. In 1970, he relocated to the island of Kauai, in Hawaii, where he established an **\u0101\u015brama** and later a monastery and temple. He began to publish a journal in 1979 called _Hinduism Today_ , which continues to be a highly regarded source of information on Hinduism in the increasingly global Hindu community. By the time of his **death** , Subramuniyasw\u0101m\u012b had initiated several monks into his order. He has been succeeded by Satguru Bodhin\u0101tha Veylansw\u0101m\u012b.\n\n**SUBTLE BODY.** _See_ SUK\u1e62MA \u015aAR\u012aRA.\n\n**SUD\u0100M\u0100.** Boyhood friend of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a**. When K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a leaves his boyhood home to become king of **Dv\u0101rak\u0101** , the two lose contact. When Sud\u0101m\u0101, a poor man, falls upon especially hard economic times, his wife reminds him of his friendship with K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and suggests he go to K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a for help. Traveling to Dv\u0101rak\u0101, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a immediately recognizes him and treats him with great kindness, letting him stay in his palace. Sud\u0101m\u0101 is so overwhelmed by all of this that he forgets the purpose of his journey. K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a, however, understands Sud\u0101m\u0101's situation. By the grace of his wife, **Rukmi\u1e47\u012b** , who is an incarnation of **Lak\u1e63\u1e43\u012b** , **goddess** of wealth and good fortune, K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is able to save Sud\u0101m\u0101 miraculously from his poverty. Returning home, he unexpectedly finds that his house has been transformed into a palace and his family is dressed in the finest clothes and has abundant food.\n\n**\u015a\u016aDRA.** The fourth of the four **var\u1e47as** or **castes**. In terms of traditional occupation, this caste is made up of trades that involve menial labor and servitude. In the _Puru\u1e63a_ _Sukta_ of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , this caste is said to have been formed from the feet of the cosmic person ( **puru\u1e63a** ). The practice of **Untouchability** arose from the fact that some of the duties of this caste are regarded as polluting, particularly those involved with the cremation of the dead or the cleaning of human waste. On some interpretations, the **Untouchables** (also called **Dalits** or **Harijans** ) are even beneath the **\u015a\u016bdras** in the caste hierarchy.\n\n**SUFI, SUFISM.** Mystical movement within **Islam**. The Sufi traditions often interpret the Qur'an allegorically, and sometimes skirt (or even violate) the boundaries of Islamic orthodoxy, particularly in regard to the question of mystical union with **God**. An ecstatic tradition of devotion, there are many affinities between the sensibilities of Sufism and the **bhakti** movement of Hinduism. Both find expression in songs and **poetry**. Both focus on a sense of exquisite longing for God as an essential religious emotion. And both tend to see the cultivation and presence of such longing as being of vastly greater importance than the niceties of either correct ritual practice or orthodoxy. As a consequence of these shared sensibilities\u2014and in the process, reinforcing them\u2014Sufis and practitioners of bhakti in medieval India frequently interacted quite closely, crossing religious boundaries with relative ease, with Sufi practitioners taking Hindus as their spiritual teachers, and Hindus also taking Sufi masters as their **gurus**. The interaction between Sufism and bhakti was a major catalyst in the gradual synthesis of Hindu and Islamic cultures during the **Mughal** period. This synthesis produced the **Sant** movement and **Sikhism**. _See also_ KAB\u012aR; N\u0100NAK, GURU.\n\n**\u015aUKA.** Son of the sage **Vy\u0101sa**. \u015auka was a great **ascetic** who attained **mok\u1e63a** ( **liberation** form the cycle of **rebirth** ) quite quickly, vanishing into the sun. (The path of the sun is presented in some sources as the route to liberation after **death** , with the alternative path, the path of the **moon** , leading to rebirth.) Vy\u0101sa missed his son greatly and was consoled by **\u015aiva** with the gift of an etheric double of his son to keep him company.\n\n**\u015aUKLA PAK\u1e62A.** The **bright half** of a Hindu month; the fortnight of a Hindu lunar month during which the **moon** is waxing; the period between **Amavasya** , or new-moon day (which is also the last day of the Hindu month) and **P\u016br\u1e47ima** , or full-moon day. The bright half of the month is generally considered a more auspicious time to undertake new ventures. _See also_ CALENDAR, HINDU.\n\n**\u015aUKRA.** The planet Venus. _See also_ ASTROLOGY; NAVAGRAHAS.\n\n**\u015aUKRAV\u0100RA.** Friday, the day of the week that is governed by the planet Venus. _See also_ CALENDAR, HINDU.\n\n**SUK\u1e62MA \u015aAR\u012aRA.** Subtle body. Subtle bodies occupy roughly the same space as the \"gross\" or physical body, but at a different energetic or spiritual wavelength. The subtle bodies correspond approximately to the **ko\u015bas** (layers or \"sheaths\") that cover the **\u0101tman** , or self: the **\u0101nanda-maya-ko\u015ba** (the layer of bliss), the **vij\u00f1\u0101na-maya-ko\u015ba** (the layer of consciousness), the **mano-maya-ko\u015ba** (the layer of mind), and the **pr\u0101\u1e47a-maya-ko\u015ba** (the layer of \"breath,\" or vital energy).\n\n**SUKTHANKAR, V. S. (1887\u20131943).** **Indologist** ; he served as the general editor of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute's critical edition of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , which has been the authoritative version for scholars ever since.\n\n**SUMANTU.** One of the five **Brahmin** students of **Vy\u0101sa** , also known as **Veda Vy\u0101sa** , who is attributed not only with authoring the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ but also with organizing the _Vedas_ into their current distribution of four texts: the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , _Yajur Veda_ , _S\u0101ma Veda_ , and _Atharva Veda_. According to the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ , each of Vy\u0101sa's students was responsible for memorizing and passing on a separate **Vedic** text\u2014one for each of the four _Vedas_ and one for the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. Sumantu was the student who was responsible for transmitting the _Atharva Veda_.\n\n**SUN.** _See_ S\u016aRYA.\n\n**SUNDARE\u015aVARA.** \"Beautiful Lord\"; form of **\u015aiva** enshrined at the **temple** complex in **Madurai**. In this form, \u015aiva is the husband of **M\u012bn\u0101k\u1e63\u012b** , the \"fish-eyed **goddess**.\"\n\n**SURABH\u012a.** \"Good flavor\"; an epithet of **K\u0101madhenu** , the wish-fulfilling cow.\n\n**SURD\u0100S (c. 1479\u20131584).** Blind **bhakti** **poet** of the **Mughal** period; a devotee of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** and **R\u0101dh\u0101**. His songs reflect the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** teachings of **Vallabha** (1479\u20131531), which emphasize complete surrender to the grace of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a. _See also_ POETRY.\n\n**S\u016aRYA. Vedic** deity or **deva** who is the personification of the sun. As in other **Indo-European** religious systems, the Vedic sun god rides a flying **chariot** through the sky, representing the sun's daily passage from east to west. In the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , S\u016brya is the father of the character **Kar\u1e47a**. He is the object of prayer in the **G\u0101yatr\u012b mantra**. A massive **temple** to S\u016brya is located at **Konarak** , in the eastern Indian state of **Orissa**. S\u016brya is also one of five deities recommended by **\u015aa\u1e45kara** as an **i\u1e63\u1e6dadevat\u0101** , or chosen deity, in his system of **Pa\u00f1cay\u0101tana P\u016bj\u0101** , or \"five objects of worship\" (the other four deities being **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** , **\u015aiva** , **\u015aakti** , and **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ).\n\n**S\u016aTA.** Charioteer; also a bard. Charioteers in ancient India also recited **poetry** , passing on stories such as those making up the epics.\n\n**S\u016aTRA.** Literally, \"thread\" (and cognate with the English word \"suture\"); the root text of a system of Indian philosophy ( **dar\u015bana** ). Traditionally, a s\u016btra is written in a style so terse as to require a commentary (or **bh\u0101\u1e63ya** ) in order to be comprehensible. It is likely that s\u016btras originated as mnemonic devices developed to preserve the oral teachings of the founding figure who established the system of thought to which a s\u016btra belonged. The intent would have been for students to memorize the s\u016btra and then have it explained by their teacher, who would \"unpack\" its meaning through a process of question and answer that became more formal and ritualized through the centuries. _See also_ LITERATURE.\n\n**SUTTEE.** Alternative spelling of **Sat\u012b** generally used by the British in the 19th century.\n\n**SV\u0100DHI\u1e62\u1e6cH\u0100NA CAKRA.** **Cakra** aligned with the navel. _See also_ TANTRA.\n\n**SVARGA.** Heaven; heavenly realm. Svarga is not an eternal everlasting paradise\u2014as in the Abrahamic religions, or the **Vaiku\u1e47\u1e6dha** of the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** traditions of Hinduism. It is a temporary abode (though one in which a **soul** may reside for many eons) into which one is reborn as a consequence of meritorious **action** ( **pu\u1e47ya karma** ). One eventually dies in this realm and is reborn as a human being. _See also_ DEVALOKA.\n\n**SVAYA\u1e42VARA.** \"Own choice,\" ancient ceremony in which a **k\u1e63atriya** woman would choose her husband based on athletic prowess as demonstrated in a contest of arms. This ceremony figures prominently in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ and the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , whose respective heroes win their brides by performing extremely difficult feats of strength and skill that no other warrior can master. _See also_ ARJUNA; DRAUPADI; R\u0100MA; S\u012aT\u0100.\n\n_\u015aVET\u0100\u015aVAT\u0100RA UPANI\u1e62AD_ **.** One of the principal _Upani\u1e63ads_ ; probably composed in the fourth century before the Common Era. The **philosophy** expressed in this text is close to that of the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. But unlike the _G\u012bt\u0101_ , this text displays a **\u015aaiva** rather than a **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** orientation. More than most of the other principal _Upani\u1e63ads_ , the _\u015avet\u0101\u015bvat\u0101ra Upani\u1e63ad_ promotes devotion ( **bhakti** ) and reliance on the grace of **God** ( **\u012a\u015bvara** , **Rudra** , or **\u015aiva** , in this text) as the path to **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth**. The name of the text comes from its purported author, whose name means, \"the man with a white mule.\"\n\n**SWADHYAYA PARIVAR.** Contemporary Hindu movement based mainly in Gujarat and Maharashtra. The movement was established in 1954 by Pandu-rang Shastri Athavale (1920\u20132003), popularly known as \"Dadaji,\" or \"elder brother\" within the movement. The primary focus of the movement is social service, study, and self-empowerment, based on Athavale's interpretation of the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_.\n\n**SW\u0100M\u012a (SV\u0100M\u012a, SV\u0100MIN).** \"Master\"; traditional title of a monk or **sanny\u0101sin**. _See also_ SANNY\u0100SA.\n\n**SW\u0100M\u012aN\u0100R\u0100YA\u1e46 (1781\u20131830).** An early modern Hindu teacher, also known as \u015ar\u012b Sahaj\u0101nand Sw\u0101m\u012b. After undertaking **sanny\u0101sa** or renunciation as a small boy, it is said that he traveled to the **Him\u0101layas** where he practiced **meditation** and **yoga**. He traveled extensively throughout India, eventually settling in Gujarat, where the movement based on his teachings continues to be most popular. This teaching is close to the **Vi\u015bi\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101dvaita** or **Qualified Non-Dualism** of **R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja** , combined with a strong emphasis on **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** , or nonviolence. Sw\u0101m\u012bnarayan's devotees believe him to be an **avat\u0101ra** of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a**. _See also_ SW\u0100M\u012aN\u0100R\u0100YA\u1e46 MOVEMENT.\n\n**SW\u0100M\u012aN\u0100R\u0100YA\u1e46 MOVEMENT.** Movement based on **devotion** to and the practice of the teachings of **Sw\u0101m\u012bn\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47** (1781\u20131830). The movement is especially popular in Gujarat, but has become global due to extensive emigration of Gujaratis out of India to various parts of the world. The movement, broadly speaking, is not a formally organized one. But an organization does exist, internal to the movement\u2014the Boc\u0101sanv\u0101s\u012b Ak\u1e63ar Puru\u1e63ottam Sw\u0101m\u012bn\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47 Sansth\u0101 (BAPS).\n\n**SWASTIKA (SVASTIKA).** \"That which is auspicious\"; auspicious four-armed symbol of the **goddess Lak\u1e63\u1e43\u012b** , also sacred in both **Jainism** and **Buddhism** as a symbol of the fourfold communities of monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen in those two traditions. In the popular imagination of the West, this symbol is associated with Nazism. This is due to the misappropriation by the Nazis and other white supremacist movements of the early 20th century of the **\u0100ryan Invasion Theory** , with its assumption of a correlation of culture and ethnicity. The **Indo-European** roots of **Vedic** culture were assumed to be the product of a \"pure\" white race from Central Asia or Eastern Europe, and Vedic culture, as the most ancient living Indo-European culture, to represent an early form of that race's culture. The Nazis therefore appropriated Vedic symbols such as the swastika based on the belief that their occult power could grant the Nazis victory in battle, connecting them with their ancient \"Aryan\" ancestors. _See also_ \u0100RYAN.\n\n**SYNCRETISM.** The tendency to combine elements of several different religions. It has often been remarked that syncretism is widespread among Hindus. Such syncretism can be intra-Hindu, consisting of combining elements from distinct Hindu traditions, such as **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism** , **\u015aaivism** , and **\u015a\u0101ktism** , or it can draw from traditions other than Hinduism, such as when Hindus include images of Christ or **Christian** saints in their home altars, or pray at the tombs of **Sufi** saints. Syncretism can be practiced as a matter of principle, as an expression of a belief that all or many traditions are divinely revealed and can lead to salvation, or it can be more \"accidental,\" a function of ignorance of the original meaning of particular symbols or practices in the traditions from which they emerge historically, combined with a vague sense that these symbols or practices are holy and good. Both types of syncretism can be observed in Hindu practice.\n\n## T\n\n**TAGORE, DEBENDRAN\u0100TH (1817\u20131905).** Leader of the **Brahmo Sam\u0101j** starting in 1843. Technically Tagore was the founder of this organization, on the basis of the earlier _Brahmo Sabh\u0101_ of **R\u0101m Mohan Roy** , though Roy is widely credited with being the father of the Brahmo movement as a whole and with defining its basically Unitarian orientation. Tagore was deeply devout and put considerable energy into promoting his organization and its ideals. Under his leadership, the Brahmo Sam\u0101j widened its following and began to influence other, similar movements across India. His youngest son, **Rabindran\u0101th** , is widely revered, particularly in **Bengal** , for his considerable literary and **musical** talents.\n\n**TAGORE, RABINDRAN\u0100TH (1861\u20131941).** Nobel laureate; son of **Brahmo Sam\u0101j** leader **Debendran\u0101th Tagore**. The multitalented Rabindran\u0101th distinguished himself as a **poet** , novelist, songwriter, dramatist, essayist, and philosopher. He won the Nobel Prize for **literature** in 1913, making him the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize. He was knighted in 1915, but returned his knighthood in 1919 after British soldiers massacred hundreds of Indian independence activists\u2014including dozens of **women** and children\u2014at Amritsar in the Punjab. In 1916 and 1917 he undertook a world tour, visiting Japan and the United States. Controversially, he denounced nationalism of all kinds as inherently violent. He taught what he called the **philosophy** of \"universal man,\" arguing for the inherent unity of all beings\u2014an ancient Hindu theme. On this basis, he also wrote many plays and musical works that questioned the **caste** system, such as the opera _Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u0101lik\u0101_ , which tells the story of a low-caste woman who becomes a **Buddhist** nun to escape the cruelty of caste. In the area of religion, he was long a skeptic, but adopted a view akin to **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** after he had a number of mystical experiences. He was drawn to religious figures like the **Bauls** and the **bhakti** poets who rebelled against social conventions. The **music** of these groups was highly influential upon his songwriting.\n\nIn 1901 Tagore established an **\u0101\u015brama** at a town called \u015aantiniketan. This \u0101\u015brama would later develop into a famous school. Tagore was deeply dedicated to the education and self-empowerment of the poor. He met **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** \u2014with the two being captured together in a famous photograph. Their relationship was cordial, but Tagore was critical of what he saw as the narrowness of G\u0101ndh\u012b's vision versus the universality to which he himself aspired. Today, Tagore is a universally beloved cultural hero in his native **Bengal** , as well as a globally respected literary figure.\n\n**TAMAS.** Inertia; the third of the three **gu\u1e47as** or qualities of phenomenal existence as delineated in the **philosophies** of **S\u0101\u1e43khya** and **Yoga** as well as in the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_.\n\n**TAMIL.** Southern Indian language of the **Dravidian** family; a particularly rich language in regard to Hinduism. Tamil is the language of the **bhakti** **poetry** of both the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava \u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs** and the **\u015aaiva N\u0101yan\u0101rs** and of such wisdom **literature** as the _Tirukku\u1e5ba\u1e37_. The region where the Tamil language is predominant\u2014the modern Indian state of Tamil Nadu\u2014is the site of numerous elaborate Hindu **temples** and was home to such major dynasties as the **Pallava** and **Co\u1e37a** \u2014both significant patrons of Hinduism.\n\n**TANJORE.** _See_ THA\u1e44JAV\u016aR.\n\n**TANM\u0100TRAS.** In **S\u0101\u1e43khya** **philosophy** and **Ved\u0101nta** , the subtle elements that give rise to the gross elements ( **mah\u0101bh\u016btas** ) that make up physical phenomena. Each tanm\u0101tra is equivalent to a mental state or sensation\u2014smell, touch, sight, taste, and sound. Each one of the tanm\u0101tras corresponds to a specific mah\u0101bh\u016bta: smell to earth ( **p\u1e5bthvi** ), touch to air ( **v\u0101yu** ), sight to fire ( **agni** ), taste to water ( **ap** ), and sound to space ( **\u0101k\u0101\u015ba** ).\n\n**TANTRA.** System of spiritual practice based on the principle that the senses, rather than being restrained, as in other forms of **yoga** , can be used to transcend themselves. Many forms of Tantra exist. Tantric practice became a prominent feature of Hindu practice in the eighth century of the Common Era, though its roots may be much more ancient than this date would indicate. Tantric forms of **Buddhism** also became prominent at this time.\n\nThere are two basic types of Tantric practice: **Right-Handed** and **Left-Handed** , or V\u0101m\u0101c\u0101ra. Right-Handed Tantra is relatively uncontroversial, its practices consisting of **meditation** and visualization exercises, the use of geometric diagrams such as **ma\u1e47\u1e0dalas** and **yantras** , the chanting of **mantras** , and **p\u016bj\u0101**. Left-Handed Tantra, on the other hand (pun intended), is widely regarded as perilous and tends to be viewed negatively in the mainstream Hindu traditions. In an effort to embody the realization of non-duality, Left-Handed Tantric practitioners perform rituals that consciously violate the traditional norms of purity and impurity, such as partaking of the **Five M's** \u2014substances like wine, meat, and fish, and activities such as sexual intercourse with someone other than one's spouse, the terms for all of which start with the letter \"m\" in **Sanskrit**. Some Tantric sects, like the **\u015aaiva Aghor\u012bs** , meditate at night in cremation grounds and use human skulls as begging bowls.\n\nSome scholars have argued that Right-Handed Tantra was developed to make the spiritual powers that Left-Handed Tantra is believed to yield available to a wider group of adherents, but without the attendant peril\u2014the danger of Left-Handed Tantra being that a practitioner who engages in it out of the wrong motive, in the absence of a non-dualistic awareness, will experience the bad **karma** normally associated with the activities that it involves, including possible **rebirth** in one of the hells. Right-Handed Tantra transforms the more antinomian practices of Left-Handed Tantra into visualization exercises that are performed not literally but mentally. Well-known theologians who developed the Right-Handed practice of Tantra include the **Abhinavagupta** (950\u20131020), who systematized the **Ka\u015bm\u012br \u015aaiva Kaula Tantra** , and **Bh\u0101skarar\u0101ya Makhin** (1690\u20131785), who similarly systematized the **\u015a\u0101kta \u015ar\u012bvidy\u0101** school of Tantra. Most Hindu systems of Tantra either have a **\u015aaiva** or **\u015a\u0101kta** orientation. The relationship between **guru** and disciple is of great importance in Tantra. Both Left-Handed and Right-Handed practices are passed on with a good deal of secrecy, due to the power that they are believed to evoke. Only one who has received initiation ( **d\u012bk\u1e63\u0101** ) from a Tantric guru is eligible to utilize a Tantric practice.\n\nA shared goal of all Tantric systems is the arousal of the **ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b** energy at the base of the spine and its elevation through the various **cakras** to the **sahasr\u0101ra cakra** at the crown of the head. This experience is believed to give the practitioner great spiritual power that can be channeled toward the attainment of **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of rebirth. **Gorakhn\u0101th** , the second guru of the Tantric \u015aaiva **N\u0101th Yoga** tradition, is credited with inventing **Ha\u1e6dha Yoga** as a way to prepare the Tantric practitioner for the ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b forces and their movement throughout the body.\n\n**TAPAS.** _See_ ASCETICISM.\n\n**TAPASYA.** **Asceticism** , either in general or in reference to particular ascetic practices.\n\n**T\u0100RA.** Literally \"star\"; mother of Bu\u1e0dha (the planet Mercury), whose father is **Soma**. A **goddess** widely revered in **Tantric Buddhism**.\n\n**TEJAS.** Splendor, brilliance, glory; one of the qualities of a **deva** , or deity.\n\n**TEMPLE.** Though communal worship is not mandated in Hinduism as it is in many other religions, such as **Christianity** or **Islam** , temple worship is believed to facilitate the inner journey to communion with the divine. The experience of **dar\u015bana** , for example\u2014seeing and being seen by an image of a deity\u2014is an occasion for forming a direct connection with divinity.\n\nTemples traditionally have an outer chamber, where a variety of different **m\u016brtis** , or images, may be housed, and an inner sanctum, or **garbhag\u1e5bha** , where an image of the central deity of the temple is housed. The images in the temple are treated as respected persons, and the temple is their house. Following this metaphor, the priests of the temple are the servants of the **gods**. The images are regularly bathed, clothed, and offered food. The food is later distributed to the community as **pras\u0101dam**. _See also_ AIHOLE; AJANTA; ANGKOR WAT; \u0100RAT\u012a; AYODHY\u0100; B\u0100D\u0100M\u012a; BANARAS; BELUR; BHAJANA; BHUVANE\u015aVARA (BHUBANESHWAR); CIDAMBARAM; ELEPHANTA; ELLORA (EL\u016aR\u0100); GURUVAY\u016aR; HALEBID; JAGANN\u0100THA; K\u0100L\u012aB\u0100R\u012a; K\u0100L\u012aGH\u0100\u1e6c; K\u0100\u00d1C\u012aPURAM; KANY\u0100KUM\u0100R\u012a (CAPE COMORIN); KHAJURAHO; KON\u0100RAK; MADURAI; M\u0100MALLAPURAM; M\u0100Y\u0100PUR; PADMAN\u0100BHI; PA\u1e6c\u1e6cADAKAL; P\u016aJ\u0100; RAME\u015aVARAM (RAMESHWARAM); SOMN\u0100TH (SOMAN\u0100THA); \u015aR\u012aRA\u1e44GAM; THA\u1e44JAV\u016aR (TANJORE); THIRUVANANTHAPURAM (TRIVANDRUM); THRISSUR (TRICHUR); TIRUPATHI; UDAIGIRI; _VASTU \u015a\u0100STRA_ ; VI\u1e62\u1e46UPUR (BISHNUPUR); VI\u015aVAN\u0100THA MANDIR.\n\n**TE\u1e44KALAI.** Subdivision of **\u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47avism**.\n\n**\u1e6cHAGS.** A 19th-century criminal sect that offered human sacrifices to the **goddess K\u0101l\u012b**. Their victims were usually unwitting travelers who would hire the \u1e6chags as tour guides. The \u1e6chags would then take them to an isolated place and strangle them. Although the basis of the film _Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom_ , the actual \u1e6chag cult consisted of a small group of men, not the elaborate and well-organized **temple** community depicted in the sensationalist film. Human sacrifice is not condoned in mainstream Hinduism, nor even in mainstream **Tantric** or **\u015a\u0101kta** thought. The \u1e6chag cult could perhaps be seen as a particularly extreme example of **Left-Handed** or V\u0101m\u0101c\u0101ra Tantra, which advocates the performance of traditionally impure acts as a way to affirm the non-duality of being. The \u1e6chag cult was eliminated by the British in the 1830s, with the last known \u1e6chag being hanged in 1882. _\u1e6chag_ is the origin of the English word \"thug.\" It was during filming of the Beatles' movie _Help!_ \u2014a parody of the \u1e6chag cult\u2014that **George Harrison** first heard the sitar and became interested in Hinduism.\n\n**THA\u1e44JAV\u016aR (TANJORE).** Site in **Tamil** Nadu, in southern India, which is home to a massive **\u015aiva** **temple** , with a 63-meter-high tower and a sculpture of **Nandi** the bull that is one of the largest in India. Tha\u1e45jav\u016br was the capital of the **Co\u1e37a** Empire.\n\n**THAPAR, ROMILA (1931\u2013 ).** Historian and **Indologist** ; student of **A. L. Basham** and author of _Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300_. She is currently professor emerita from Jawaharlal Nehru University, in **New Delhi** , where she taught for most of her career in the Centre for Historical Studies. Thapar has been outspoken on the topic of **Ayodhy\u0101** and the **Babr\u012b Masj\u012bd** controversy, arguing there is insufficient evidence to support the claims of **Hindu Nationalists** that a **temple** to **R\u0101ma** existed in ancient times on the site of the demolished mosque.\n\n**THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.** Organization established in 1875 by **Helena Petrovna Blavatsky** and **Henry Steele Olcott**. The stated objectives of the society are \"to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, **caste** , or color,\" \"to encourage the study of comparative religion, **philosophy** , and science,\" and \"to investigate the unexplained **laws** of nature and the powers latent in man.\" Holding very positive views of Hinduism and **Buddhism** and believing that both traditions preserve a primordial universal wisdom religion, or **perennial philosophy** , Blavatsky, Olcott, and other Theosophists promoted pride and interest among Hindus and Buddhists in their religious and cultural heritage, acting as \"reverse missionaries,\" and also played prominent roles in the movement for Indian independence.\n\nAt one point a strategic alliance began to form between the Theosophical Society and the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j**. But **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b** fell out with Blavatsky and Olcott in 1880, when they announced their conversions to Buddhism in **Sri Lanka**. Under the leadership of **Annie Besant** , the society contributed to the founding of **Banaras Hindu University** , as well as promoting **Jiddu Krishnamurti** as \"Maitreya,\" a long-awaited messianic figure. Today, the society continues to promote education and an esoteric interpretation of the world's religions.\n\n**THIRD EYE.** _See_ AJ\u00d1\u0100 CAKRA.\n\n**THIRUVANANTHAPURAM (TRIVANDRUM).** Capital of **Kerala** , on the southwest coast of India, and site of \u015ar\u012b Padman\u0101bhasw\u0101my **temple** , which houses a massive image of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** as **Padman\u0101bh\u012b** (having a **lotus** , on which the creator deity **Brahm\u0101** is seated, emerging from his navel).\n\n**THOREAU, HENRY DAVID (1817\u20131862).** American **Transcendentalist** ; associate of **Ralph Waldo Emerson** ; author of _Walden_ and _Civil Disobedience_. Thoreau was deeply inspired by Hindu thought, particularly the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , from which he read regularly during his experiment of living as an American **sanny\u0101sin** in a cabin at Walden Pond. A pacifist, Thoreau was jailed for his opposition to the Mexican\u2013American War and slavery, which he expressed by refusing to pay taxes. His essay, _Civil Disobedience_ , influenced **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b**.\n\n**THRISSUR (TRICHUR).** City in **Kerala** ; site of Va\u1e0dakkun\u0101than, a large **\u015aiva** **temple**. The **K\u016b\u1e6diy\u0101\u1e6d\u1e6dam** classical Indian **dance** style is performed at this **temple** , as well as in the nearby town of **Guruvay\u016br**. This is the one Indian style of classical dance that has continued to be performed without interruption since ancient times. Other styles fell into disuse at different points and have been revived in modern times.\n\n**THUGS.** _See_ \u1e6cHAGS.\n\n**TILAK.** A mark, usually made of a mix of vermillion and **sandalwood** paste, placed on the forehead as a symbol of divine blessing, often at the end of a **p\u016bj\u0101**. A simple tilak is typically in the shape of a small circle or vertical line in the center of the forehead in the location of the \"third eye\" or **aj\u00f1\u0101 cakra**. More complex tilaks are an indicator of one's sectarian affiliation. A **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tilak, in its simplest form, consists of two vertical lines down the middle of the forehead. A simple **\u015aaiva** tilak, on the other hand, is made up of three horizontal lines across the forehead. Further detail indicates the particular Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava or \u015aaiva **sa\u1e43prad\u0101ya** , or denomination, of which one is a member.\n\n**TILAK, BAL GANGADHAR (1856\u20131920).** Major leader in the movement for Indian political independence and early inspiration to the **Hindu Nationalist** movement. Tilak advocated violent revolution against the British in a commentary on the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. He encouraged the public performance of **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba P\u016bj\u0101** in his native Maharashtra as a way of promoting Hindu pride and raising political consciousness.\n\n**T\u012aRTHA.** \"Ford\"; a shallow point in a river allowing one to cross over. Metaphorically, a t\u012brtha refers to any sacred place of pilgrimage ( **yatra** ) that provides the devotee with an opportunity to advance across the \"river\" of **rebirth** to the further shore of **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation**. In **Jainism** , a t\u012brtha refers to the fourfold community of Jain monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen who preserve and perpetuate the teachings of **enlightened** beings. _See also_ T\u012aRTHA\u1e44KARA.\n\n**T\u012aRTHA\u1e44KARA.** \"Ford maker\"; in **Jainism** , an **enlightened** being who creates a **t\u012brtha** or ford across the river of **rebirth** for others to cross to the further shore of **mok\u1e63a** ( **liberation** from the rebirth cycle). In Jain traditions, this t\u012brtha consists of the fourfold community of Jain monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen who preserve and perpetuate the teachings of the T\u012brtha\u1e45kara. Twenty-four T\u012brtha\u1e45karas appear on the Earth in the course of a single cosmic cycle. The 24th T\u012brtha\u1e45kara of our current cosmic cycle, **Mah\u0101v\u012bra** , appeared around the fifth century BCE and established the contemporary Jain community.\n\n_TIRUKKU\u1e5aA\u1e36_. **Tamil** book of wise sayings, greatly revered in Tamil cultural tradition, attributed to **Tiruvalluvar** and likely composed between 100 BCE and 100 CE.\n\n**TIRUMANKAI (fl. 9th century CE).** Last of the **\u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs** \u201412 early medieval devotees of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** , and exponents of **bhakti** , or devotion, as the supreme path to **mok\u1e63a**. The teachings of the \u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs are expressed in the form of **poetry** in **Tamil**.\n\n**TIRUPATHI.** An enormous and wealthy **temple** in Andhra Pradesh, in southern India, dedicated to **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** in his form as **Ve\u1e45ka\u1e6de\u015bvara**.\n\n**TIRUVALLUVAR (c. 1st century BCE\/1st century CE).** **Tamil** author (or perhaps compiler) of the _Tirukku\u1e5ba\u1e37_ , a book of wise sayings greatly revered in the Tamil cultural tradition. **Buddhists** , **Jains** , **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas** , and **\u015aaivas** all claim him as one of their own.\n\n_TIRUV\u0100YMO\u1e36I_ **.** The collected **Tamil** **bhakti** **poems** of **Namm\u0101\u1e37v\u0101r** (880\u2013 930), one of the **\u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs** , 12 **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** poets of southern India. Namm\u0101\u1e37v\u0101r was born a **\u015a\u016bdra** , or a member of the servant **caste**. His text is revered in the **\u015arivai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition as being no less sacred than the _Vedas_ , and it continues to be used in **temple** rituals up to the present. Namm\u0101\u1e37v\u0101r's revered position as a person of low caste in this tradition is significant, being illustrative of the **philosophy** of **bhakti** , or devotion, according to which social categories such as gender and caste are irrelevant to one's spiritual status or proximity to salvation. _See also_ POETRY.\n\n**TORA\u1e46A.** Arched gateway of a Hindu **temple** ; also used in Indian **Buddhist** temples. The design was transmitted by Buddhists to East Asia, becoming the model for the _torii_ , or gate of a Shinto shrine in Japan. The tora\u1e47a marks the boundary between the mundane realm and the sacred space of the temple.\n\n**TRAILANGA SW\u0100M\u012a (1607?\u20131887?).** Hindu holy man of **Banaras** who is claimed to have lived to the incredibly old age of 280\u2014and according to some accounts, 358. Stories of his paranormal abilities and unusual qualities abound. He is said to have eaten little and yet to have weighed approximately 300 pounds. He did not wear clothing. He is attributed with great psychic powers, being able to read the minds of others easily. His disciples worshiped him as a living incarnation or **avat\u0101ra** of **\u015aiva**. He is believed to have been born in Andhra Pradesh and was a member of the **Da\u015ban\u0101m\u012b Order** of Hindu monks. Both **Ramakrishna** and **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** met him in Banaras, where he resided on the banks of the **Ga\u1e45g\u0101** , or Ganges River. He is in many ways the prototype of the image of the mysterious Indian holy man with miraculous powers.\n\n**TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION (TM).** **Mantra** -based practice of **meditation** taught and promoted globally by **Maharishi Mahesh Yogi** ; popularly known as \"TM.\" One of the main centers for the teaching and promotion of this practice is Maharishi University of Management (formerly Maharishi International University) in Fairfield, Iowa. Though it has strong **Tantric \u015aaiva** roots, the practice is presented in a nonsectarian fashion as a scientifically based, holistic path to a state of complete well-being: spiritual, emotional, and physical. It is maintained by some adherents that practice of TM by a sufficient number of persons in a given geographic region leads to what is known as the \"Maharishi Effect,\" resulting in a drop in violent crime and an increased sense of peace and happiness. The movement has put considerable effort into validating these claims statistically. To promote its program for world peace through meditation, some members of the movement started a political party in the 1990s called the \"Natural **Law** Party,\" fielding candidates in both the United States and Great Britain.\n\n**TRANSCENDENTALISTS.** Nineteenth-century group of American authors, **poets** , and activists inspired to varying degrees by Indic traditions as presented in the very early translations of such texts as the _Upani\u1e63ads_ and the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ into English and other European languages. The transcendentalist ethos both draws from Hindu sources and, in turn, inspires modern Hindu thinkers of the nascent **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** movement in India. Its prominent members include **Ralph Waldo Emerson** , **Henry David Thoreau** , and Walt Whitman. They emphasize self-reliance and the immanence of the divine within nature.\n\n**TRAY\u012a VIDY\u0100.** \"Threefold knowledge\"; term for the _Vedas_ in very ancient sources as well as in the tradition of the **Namb\u016btiri Brahmins** of **Kerala**. This term is one piece of evidence for the view that the fourth Vedic **Sa\u1e43hit\u0101** , the _Atharva Veda_ , is later than the other three _Vedas_ , and was not immediately accepted as authoritative by all Brahmins.\n\n**TRILOKA.** \"Three worlds.\" In early **Vedic** thought, the universe is divided into three levels\u2014the Earth, the lower atmosphere, and the upper atmosphere, or celestial realm. In the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ , this threefold cosmology is modified into a division into the heavens, the Earth, and the hells. In some sources, the three worlds are also said to refer to the three divisions of time\u2014the past, present, and future. In **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** texts, **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** is often referred to as \"Lord of the Three Worlds.\"\n\n**TRIM\u016aRTI.** \"Three forms\"; sometimes referred to as the Hindu Trinity; a model of the godhead as consisting of three personae defined by their roles in the creative process of the cosmos: **Brahm\u0101** the Creator, **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** the Preserver, and **\u015aiva** the Destroyer. This idea seems to emerge from the nonsectarian **Sm\u0101rta** tradition. In the **literature** of the sects that take one or other of the deities to be supreme\u2014 **God** in a **monotheistic** sense\u2014the deity in question performs all three roles\u2014 **creation** , preservation, and destruction\u2014and not just one. Though sharing with the Trinity of **Christianity** the basic structure of three persons in one deity, attempts to correlate the roles of the three persons of each model fail to yield a perfect correspondence. A closer set of correspondences is possible between the Trinity of Christianity and the actual trinity of popular Hindu **devotion** : Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, \u015aiva, and **\u015aakti** , the **Mother Goddess**.\n\n**TRINITY.** _See_ TRIM\u016aRTI.\n\n**TRI\u015aULA.** Trident; divine weapon, often depicted as being carried by **\u015aiva** and **Durg\u0101**. Many Hindu **ascetics** , especially **\u015aaiva** ascetics, often carry a tri\u015bula as a symbol of their religious allegiance.\n\n**TRIVANDRUM.** _See_ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM.\n\n**TRUTH.** _See_ SATYA.\n\n**TUK\u0100R\u0100M (1608\u20131649). Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava bhakti** **poet** and saint of Maharashtra. Tuk\u0101r\u0101m claimed to have been given initiation ( **d\u012bk\u1e63\u0101** ) by **Caitanya** in a dream and the **Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition claims him on this basis. Many of his writings can also be found in the _\u0100di Granth_ , the sacred **scripture** of **Sikhism**. Like many bhakti saints, Tuk\u0101r\u0101m was more concerned with doing good in the world than with sectarian divisions and ritualism. Tuk\u0101r\u0101m is regarded as part of the **Sant** movement.\n\n**TULS\u012a.** Basil plant sacred to **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas** , who regard it as an embodiment of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**.\n\n**TULS\u012aD\u0100S (1532\u20131623).** **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava bhakti** **poet** and saint greatly revered for his _R\u0101m Carit M\u0101nas_ , a retelling in medieval **Hindi** of the **Sanskrit** _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ of **V\u0101lm\u012bki** , of whom he is regarded by some as a **reincarnation**. Like many bhakti saints and **Sants** of his time, Tuls\u012bd\u0101s had little regard for the **caste** system and specifically chose to translate the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ in order to make its saving message available to the common people. It is said that he was opposed by his fellow **Brahmins** in his native **Banaras** for undertaking this project. The project was, in any case, an enormous success. The _R\u0101m Carit M\u0101nas_ is better known among most north Indian Hindus than is the original _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_. _See also_ LITERATURE.\n\n**TUR\u012aYA.** \"The Fourth\"; the fourth of the four basic **states of consciousness**. The first is the waking state, or conventional consciousness. It consists of a subject experiencing external objects of awareness. The second is the dream state, which consists of a subject experiencing internally generated objects of awareness. The third is the state of dreamless sleep, in which there is no distinction of subject and object, but also no awareness. In tur\u012bya, the fourth state, there is no distinction of subject and object, but there is awareness. This is a state that is identified by the **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** tradition with **j\u00f1\u0101na** , or direct awareness of the unity of the experiencing subject ( **\u0101tman** ) and the universal reality ( **Brahman** ). It is the experience of **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth**.\n\n**TVA\u1e62\u1e6c\u1e5a.** **Vedic** deity; one of the 12 **\u0100dityas** ; divine artisan; also called \"maker of all\"; credited with fashioning **Indra** 's thunderbolt weapon. _See also_ VI\u015aVAKARMAN.\n\n**TWICE-BORN.** A person who has received the **sacred thread** through the **upanayana** ritual, thus entering the first of the four stages of life, or **\u0101\u015bramas**.\n\n**TY\u0100GAR\u0100JA (1767\u20131847).** A composer of south Indian classical **music** (also known as _Carnatic_ music); native of Andhra Pradesh, where he is a cultural hero. His deeply devotional songs continue to be performed in Hindu **temples** today.\n\n## U\n\n**UDAIGIRI.** Site in Madhya Pradesh, in central India; location of numerous **temples** and carven caves utilized by both Hindus and **Jains** and dating from the **Gupta** period (320 to 550 CE).\n\n**UDAYANA (fl. 10th century CE).** Philosopher in the **Ny\u0101ya** system, or **dar\u015bana** ; renowned for his arguments for the existence of **God**. Udayana's chief philosophical interlocutors were **Buddhists** who sought to refute the traditional Hindu notion of a creator deity. He argued that the universe is an effect that requires a cause, and also that the atomic units or **param\u0101\u1e47us** that make up material substances could not organize themselves in this way without an outside agency.\n\n_UDDHAVA G\u012aT\u0100_ **.** Section of the _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ that consists of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** 's teaching to his disciple Uddhava. Often circulated as a standalone text, the _Uddhava G\u012bt\u0101_ has a special significance to **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas** as K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a's final teaching\u2014for it is presented just before he retires to the forest where he knows he will die, being shot by a hunter.\n\n**UDG\u0100T\u1e5a. Brahmin** priest whose traditional duty is to sing hymns from the _S\u0101ma Veda_ at **Vedic** rituals of sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ).\n\n**UDIPI.** Town in **Karnataka** ; birthplace of **Madhva** (1238\u20131317), a **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava \u0101c\u0101rya** and founder of the dualistic or **Dvaita** system of **Ved\u0101nta**. Madhva spent most of his life in Udipi.\n\n**UJJAIN (UJJAYIN\u012a).** City in Madhya Pradesh, in central India; one of the traditional locations of the **Kumbha Mel\u0101**. It is located on the \u015aipr\u0101 River.\n\n**UM\u0100.** Alternative name for **P\u0101rvat\u012b** , the **Mother Goddess** and wife of **\u015aiva**. Um\u0101 first appears in the _Kena_ _Upani\u1e63ad_ , where she teaches **Indra** about **Brahman** , thus making him foremost among the **devas** , or **gods**.\n\n**UNTOUCHABILITY.** The **caste** -based practice of viewing certain occupations as so polluting as to render those who practice them inherently and permanently impure, and so a source of pollution to members of higher groups in the caste hierarchy. The lowest\u2014and so most impure\u2014group in most versions of the caste system is the **Ca\u1e47\u1e0d\u0101las** , responsible for burning corpses in cremation grounds. Other such groups include those responsible for cleaning human toilets and sweeping streets. These Untouchable castes today are known as **Dalits** \u2014\"the oppressed\"\u2014or **Harijans** \u2014\"children of **God**.\" The term _Dalit_ is a reference to the suffering such groups have experienced due to caste prejudice ( **casteism** ) and the term _Harijan_ was coined by **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** to indicate that God is on the side of those who suffer most due to social injustice. Different low-caste communities prefer different terms depending upon their political orientation toward Hinduism, with Dalits tending to see Hinduism in a negative light, as warranting their oppression, and Harijans tending to see Hinduism in a positive light, seeing caste prejudice as a perversion of the tradition. All such groups are officially termed **Scheduled Castes** by the government of India, because they are on a list, or \"schedule,\" of groups that warrant special benefits on the basis of the discrimination from which they have traditionally suffered.\n\n**UNTOUCHABLE.** _See_ UNTOUCHABILITY.\n\n**UPAC\u0100RA.** \"Approach\"; offerings made to a deity in **p\u016bj\u0101**. They traditionally include such items as water, flowers, food, incense, light (in the form of the lit flame of a lamp [ **d\u012by\u0101** ] or candle), and a **tilak** of **sandalwood** paste, and **actions** such as prayer.\n\n**UPANAYANA.** The **sacred thread** ceremony, or \"second birth\"; the **Vedic** ritual of investiture with the sacred thread marks the transition from childhood to **brahmacarya** , the first of the four stages of life, or **\u0101\u015bramas**. The thread is traditionally worn over the left shoulder, from where it hangs diagonally across the chest and back. As a coming-of-age ritual, the upanayana is analogous to the Bar Mitzvah of Judaism, or the **Christian** sacrament of Confirmation. It is a ritual traditionally reserved for **Brahmin** males. In the modern period, though, this ritual has been opened to girls as well. The process of **Sanskritization** , by which some lower **-caste** communities elevate themselves in the caste hierarchy, includes performing rituals of this kind. The idea of this ritual as a \"second birth\" is why higher castes\u2014especially Brahmins\u2014are often called **twice born**.\n\n_UPANI\u1e62ADS_ **.** \"Secret doctrine\"; the final portion of the **Vedic** **literature** , which is also known, for this reason, as the **Ved\u0101nta** , or \"end of the _Vedas_.\" The _Upani\u1e63ads_ are seen as the \"end\" of the _Vedas_ in both a literal sense (as the last part of the Vedic literature to be composed), but also, in the traditions of Ved\u0101nta **philosophy** , in a more extended sense as conveying the ultimate meaning to which the Vedic literature points. The _Upani\u1e63ads_ were composed, at least in their current form, primarily between the fifth century BCE and the first two centuries of the Common Era. They consist largely of dialogues on the nature of **Brahman** , the ultimate reality.\n\n**UP\u0100SANA KANDA.** \"Contemplative portion\"; the section of the **Vedic** **literature** that comes, historically, between the early **Karma Kanda** , or \" **action** portion\" of the _Vedas_ , and the later **J\u00f1\u0101na Kanda** , or \"wisdom portion.\" The Karma Kanda consists of the early Vedic hymns, or _Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s_ and the \"priestly texts,\" or _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_. The J\u00f1\u0101na Kanda consists of the _Upani\u1e63ads_. The Up\u0101sana Kanda, however, is made up of the \"Forest Texts,\" or _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_.\n\n**URVA\u015a\u012a.** Character of a story, first mentioned in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ and later elaborated upon in the _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ and the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , and finally in a famous play by the renowned **Sanskrit poet** and playwright **K\u0101l\u012bd\u0101sa** (the _Vikramorva\u015b\u012b_ ). In the story, a mortal king, **Pur\u016bravas** , falls in love with **Urva\u015b\u012b** , who is a celestial maiden ( **apsaras** ), and asks to marry her. She agrees, on the condition that he protect her rams from being stolen and he never lets her see him naked. They live together happily for many years until a group of mischievous **gandharvas** steals one of Urva\u015b\u012b's rams in the middle of the night. Hearing the commotion, Pur\u016bravas leaps naked out of bed to save the ram. The gandharvas flash a bright light on him, revealing his naked form to Urva\u015b\u012b, and make off with the ram. At this, Urva\u015b\u012b returns to the heavens.\n\nIn another story in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , Urva\u015b\u012b becomes enamored of **Arjuna** during his sojourn in the heavens during the period of the **Pa\u1e47\u1e0davas** ' exile. In response to her overtures\u2014and knowing the story of his distant ancestor, Pur\u016bravas\u2014Arjuna responds that he sees Urva\u015b\u012b as his mother. Angry at being thus spurned, Urva\u015b\u012b curses Arjuna to live for a year as a **woman**. This turns out to be fortuitous, however; the year following the P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas' exile, during which they are to live incognito, Arjuna uses this curse to disguise himself as a woman, his identity remaining hidden. _See also_ LITERATURE.\n\n**U\u1e62AS.** **Vedic** **goddess** of the dawn.\n\n**UTTARA M\u012aM\u0100\u1e42S\u0100.** Later exegesis; another term for **Ved\u0101nta** , which contrasts this system of thought with **P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101** , or \"earlier exegesis,\" which focuses upon the interpretation of the earlier, ritualistic portion (or **Karma Kanda** ) of the **Vedic** **literature**. Uttara M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101, in contrast, focuses upon the later Vedic literature, the _Upani\u1e63ads_ (also known as the **knowledge** portion, or **J\u00f1\u0101na Kanda** of the _Vedas_ ). _See also_ M\u012aM\u0100\u1e42S\u0100.\n\n## V\n\n**V\u0100C.** \"Speech\"; **Vedic goddess** who is later identified with **Sarasvat\u012b** and embodies the powers of speech and thought. It is through the power of speech that **Praj\u0101pati** is able to create the world.\n\n**V\u0100CASPATI MI\u015aRA (900\u2013980 CE).** Prolific philosopher; author of commentaries on all of the **\u0101stika** (\"orthodox\") systems of Hindu philosophy ( **dar\u015banas** ). Although he was an adherent of **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , his thought was influential on the later **Navya Ny\u0101ya** school established by the 13th-century philosopher Ga\u1e45ge\u015ba Up\u0101dhy\u0101ya.\n\n**VAHANA.** \"Vehicle\"; the animal that accompanies each deity and serves as that deity's vehicle. Examples include **\u015aiva** 's bull, **Nandi** ; **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** 's eagle, **Garu\u1e0da** ; and **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba** 's mouse, **M\u016b\u015baka**.\n\n**VAIKH\u0100NASA.** Community of south Indian **Brahmins** whose traditional job is to serve as priests in **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** **temples**.\n\n**VAIKU\u1e46\u1e6cHA.** Heavenly abode of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. In many of the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** traditions, **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth** , is conceived as dwelling for eternity in Vaiku\u1e47\u1e6dha with Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, or **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , who is conceived as **God** in a **monotheistic** sense, as the supreme deity.\n\n**VAI\u015aAKHA.** Month of the **Hindu calendar** that corresponds roughly to the period from mid-April to mid-May.\n\n**VAI\u015aA\u1e42PAYANA.** One of the five **Brahmin** students of **Vy\u0101sa** , also known as **Veda Vy\u0101sa** , who is attributed not only with authoring the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ but also with organizing the _Vedas_ into their current distribution of four texts: the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , _Yajur Veda_ , _S\u0101ma Veda_ , and _Atharva Veda_. According to the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ , each of Vy\u0101sa's students was responsible for memorizing and passing on a separate Vedic text\u2014one for each of the four _Vedas_ and one for the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. Vai\u015ba\u1e43payana was the student responsible for transmitting the _Yajur Veda_. In the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , he recites the text to King Janamejaya, great-grandson of **Arjuna** , at the former's snake sacrifice.\n\n**VAI\u015aE\u1e62IKA.** \"Differentiation\"; one of six \"orthodox\" ( **\u0101stika** ) systems of philosophy ( **dar\u015banas** ); attributed to the sage Ka\u1e47\u0101da, who most probably lived in the fourth century before the Common Era. Later aligned closely with the **Ny\u0101ya** system of logic, with which it is often paired and with which it had effectively merged by the medieval period, Vai\u015be\u1e63ika is focused primarily upon the analysis of the material world, positing a theory of atoms ( **param\u0101\u1e47u** ) and of compound and noncompound substances.\n\n**VAI\u1e62\u1e46AVA.** Devotee of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ; adherent of **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism** ; of or referring to Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism. Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas form the largest subdivision of Hinduism, with roughly 60 percent of Hindus identifying themselves as Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava.\n\n**VAI\u1e62\u1e46AVISM.** In terms of the numbers of its adherents, Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism is the largest of the four main sectarian subdivisions that make up Hinduism. The various subtraditions that constitute Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism share the trait of being oriented devotionally toward **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** as the supreme deity, regarding him as **God** in a **monotheistic** sense. Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava traditions have a strong focus on **bhakti** , or devotion to the supreme deity, as the preeminent\u2014or even exclusive\u2014path to **mok\u1e63a** , or **liberation** from the cycle of **rebirth**. Though there is internal theological diversity among the many Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava denominations ( **sa\u1e43prad\u0101yas** ), it can broadly be said that the Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas are more inclined than the adherents of other Hindu traditions to insist upon a strong metaphysical distinction between God and the individual soul ( **j\u012bva** ). The sharpest arguments for this view are presented by **Madhva** , the **\u0101c\u0101rya** of the **Dvaita** , or dualistic form of **Ved\u0101nta**.\n\nThe other Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava systems of Ved\u0101nta, such as the **Vi\u015bi\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101dvaita** or **Qualified Nondualism** of **R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja** , the _Bhed\u0101bheda_ (\"Difference-and-Non-Difference\") taught by **Nimb\u0101rka** , and the _Acintya Bhed\u0101bheda_ teaching (\"Inconceivable Difference-and-Non-Difference\") of **Caitanya** , affirm, in varying degrees and senses, an organic unity of God and the world, while maintaining the real distinction between God and the soul that all of these schools of thought see as a precondition for bhakti. They uniformly reject the **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** system's subordination of the personal deity to an impersonal absolute ( **Nirgu\u1e47a Brahman** ) and its claims that the personal God is part of the realm of illusion ( **m\u0101y\u0101** ) and that bhakti is a merely preparatory discipline for **j\u00f1\u0101na** , or knowledge, which **\u015aa\u1e45kara** claims to be constitutive of mok\u1e63a.\n\nIn practice, the most popular object of devotion for most Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas is actually not Vi\u1e63\u1e47u in his celestial form, but the **avat\u0101ras** , or incarnations, **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** and **R\u0101ma**. Indeed, the **Gau\u1e0d\u012bya Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition claims that K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a is not merely an incarnation, but is in fact the supreme deity, from whom the celestial form of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u is a projection. And there is, indeed, support for this view in such early Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava texts as the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_.\n\n**Lak\u1e63m\u012b** , or **\u015ar\u012b** , the **goddess** of prosperity and wife of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, plays a prominent role in many Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava traditions\u2014particularly **\u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47avism** , which claims that Lak\u1e63m\u012b and Vi\u1e63\u1e47u are inseparable, forming a single, composite deity.\n\n**VAI\u015aYA.** The third of the four **var\u1e47as** or **castes**. In terms of traditional occupation, this caste is made up of trades that involve economically productive activity, such as **arts** and crafts and farming, as well as trade. In the _Puru\u1e63a_ _Sukta_ of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , this caste is said to have been formed from the stomach of the cosmic person ( **puru\u1e63a** ). The word _vai\u015bya_ , or \"commoner,\" for this caste also suggests that its membership was relatively large in ancient India.\n\n**V\u0100JAPEYA.** \"Drink of strength\"; a royal **Soma** sacrifice offered by a king who aspires to victory in battle. _See also_ A\u015aVAMEDHA; R\u0100JAS\u016aYA; YAJ\u00d1A.\n\n**VAJRA.** Thunderbolt; favored weapon of **Indra** ; fashioned by **Tva\u1e63\u1e6d\u1e5b** ; a symbol of the sudden flash of **enlightenment** in **Tantric** forms of **Buddhism**.\n\n**V\u0100K.** _See_ V\u0100C.\n\n**VALLABHA (1479\u20131531).** **\u0100c\u0101rya** of the **Vallabha Sa\u1e43prad\u0101ya** , a **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** tradition also known as the Pu\u1e63\u1e6di M\u0101rg (\"Way of Prosperity\"), largely popular among the Gujarati **Vai\u015bya** communities. His teaching, known as _\u015auddh\u0101dvaita_ , or \"Pure **Nondualism** ,\" is that all souls ( **j\u012bvas** ) are ultimately one with **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a**. Strong emphasis is placed on **bhakti** and cultivating a personal relationship with K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a as his servant, friend, parent, or lover\u2014a theme of many Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava traditions. Vallabha, a south Indian **Brahmin** who relocated to Gujarat and made many pilgrimages to **V\u1e5bnd\u0101vana** , where K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a spent his youth, is held by adherents of his tradition to be an incarnation of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a. Not an **ascetic** tradition, the **gurus** of the Vallabha Sa\u1e43prad\u0101ya are direct male descendants of Vallabha.\n\n**V\u0100LM\u012aKI.** Sage attributed with authorship of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_. It is said that although V\u0101lm\u012bki was born a **\u015a\u016bdra** , or member of the servant **caste** , he achieved the status of a **Brahmin** through his great learning\u2014an indication, similar to the story of **Satyak\u0101ma** in the _Ch\u0101ndogya Upani\u1e63ad_ \u2014of voices within the **Vedic** tradition that regard one's personal **qualities** rather than one's parentage as determinative of one's role in society. Although the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , in its present form, is regarded by scholars as the work of many authors working over the course of several centuries (from roughly 200 BCE to 200 CE by most estimates), it is possible that a historical V\u0101lm\u012bki existed at an early period whose initial composition formed the basis for the current **Sanskrit** text. _See also_ LITERATURE.\n\n**V\u0100M\u0100C\u0100RA.** _See_ LEFT-HANDED TANTRA.\n\n**V\u0100MADEVA.** Major **Vedic \u1e5b\u1e63i** , or sage, to whom much of the fourth **ma\u1e47\u1e0dala** or book of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ is attributed; patriarch of a **Brahmin** family charged with transmitting the _\u1e5ag Veda_ to future generations.\n\n**V\u0100MANA.** The dwarf **avat\u0101ra** , or incarnation, of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ; the fifth of the 10 avat\u0101ras in the most popular traditional list of incarnations of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u. **Bali** \u2014the grandson of **Prahl\u0101da** and great-grandson of **Hira\u1e47yaka\u015bipu** , who was destroyed by the **Narasi\u1e43ha** or man-lion avat\u0101ra of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u\u2014was a mighty **asura** who achieved dominance over the Earth. In order to defeat Bali, Vi\u1e63\u1e47u approached his court as a dwarf and asked to be given the land that he could cover in three steps. Seeing the tiny creature, Bali laughed arrogantly and granted the dwarf's request. At that, the dwarf rapidly grew until he filled the universe and took three steps, encompassing the \"three worlds\" ( **triloka** ), or all of existence. Bali was humbled and allowed the dwarf to put his foot on his head, pressing him down to the underworld. This story could be seen as an explanation for references in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ to Vi\u1e63\u1e47u's \"three steps\" by which he creates the world.\n\n**VANAPRASTHA.** Literally, \"forest-dwelling\"; retirement; withdrawal; the third of the four stages of life or **\u0101\u015bramas** that map out the life of an orthodox Hindu according to the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_. The name of this stage and descriptions in the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ suggest that at one time **householders** actually did withdraw with their wives to a forest to practice **asceticism**. Today, however, this stage refers simply to a life of retirement and withdrawal from daily responsibilities to focus upon religious duties and prepare for the end of one's life, typically spent residing in the home of one of one's children as part of an extended family. It is said that one should enter this stage when one's hair begins to turn gray and one's children give birth to children of their own.\n\n**VAR\u0100HA.** The boar **avat\u0101ra** , or incarnation, of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ; the third of the 10 avat\u0101ras in the most popular traditional list of incarnations of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u. The **asura Hira\u1e47yak\u1e63a** is said to have cast the Earth into the cosmic ocean, from which the boar avat\u0101ra rescued it. He then slew Hira\u1e47yak\u1e63a. Var\u0101ha is traditionally depicted iconographically as a warrior with the head of a boar holding the sphere of the Earth in his tusks and standing on the body of the demonic Hira\u1e47yak\u1e63a.\n\n**V\u0100R\u0100\u1e46AS\u012a.** Alternative name for **Banaras**.\n\n**VARMA, MAHESH PRAS\u0100D (1918\u20132008).** _See_ MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI (MAH\u0100R\u1e62I MAHE\u015aA YOG\u012a).\n\n**VAR\u1e46A.** Literally, \"color\"; principal unit of division of the **caste** system. It is probably due to the literal meaning of this term that the term _caste_ was coined to refer to the Indian traditional division of social labor\u2014 _casta_ being the Portuguese word for \"color\" that was later Anglicized to _caste_. The use of this term, combined with 19th-century racial assumptions, led early **Indologists** to speculate that caste originated as a system of racial segregation imposed by light-skinned **\u0100ryan** invaders upon the dark-skinned indigenous peoples of ancient India, an interpretation that fit well with the **\u0100ryan Invasion Theory**.\n\nAn alternative theory, however, based on the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ , is that the \"colors\" of the var\u1e47as are symbolic of the **gu\u1e47as** , or qualities, that persons in these var\u1e47as are believed to embody. The three gu\u1e47as, or qualities, that make up all phenomena according to **S\u0101\u1e43khya** **philosophy** are each assigned colors\u2014the **sattva** gu\u1e47a being white, the **rajas** gu\u1e47a being red, and the **tamas** gu\u1e47a being black. The colors traditionally assigned to the var\u1e47as are white for the **Brahmins** , red for **K\u1e63atriyas** , yellow for **Vai\u015byas** , and black for **\u015a\u016bdras**. **Untouchables** or **Outcastes** \u2014persons whose duties are regarded as so polluting as to be beyond the pale of the caste system\u2014are called _avar\u1e47a_ , or \"without color.\" This does not fit well with an interpretation of the var\u1e47as as skin tones\u2014nor does the variation of skin tones that one actually finds internally to all of the var\u1e47as in India.\n\nIn terms of actual social status and practice, var\u1e47a is of far less consequence in the caste system than **j\u0101ti** \u2014literally \"birth\"\u2014the subgroups or \"subcastes\" into which each of the four var\u1e47as is divided. The relative locations of the j\u0101tis within the var\u1e47a hierarchy vary a good deal regionally, due in part to **Sanskritization**.\n\n**VAR\u1e46\u0100\u015aRAMA-DHARMA.** \"The ordering of **castes** and stages of life\"; the duties of a person as mapped out according to one's location within the caste, or **var\u1e47a** , system and within the system of four stages of life or **\u0101\u015bramas** ; the classical Hindu way of life as it is outlined in the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_.\n\n**VARU\u1e46A.** **Vedic** deity of the **ocean** ; one of the **\u0100dityas** ; along with **Indra** , **Agni** , and **Yama** , one of the **Lokap\u0101las** or \"World Guardians\"; close associate of the deity **Mitra**. Some hymns of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ suggest that Varu\u1e47a was, at one point, the supreme deity of the Vedic religion. Varu\u1e47a is associated with judgment and the forgiveness of sins. He is sometimes depicted as holding a noose with which he ensnares the **souls** of the wicked. In some verses he is referred to as an **asura** , not in the later sense that this word has as a reference to the demonic, but in its more ancient sense as meaning \"powerful.\" He may be related to **Ahura Mazda** , the supreme deity of **Zoroastrianism**. In the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , Varu\u1e47a assists **R\u0101ma** and his armies by keeping the oceans calm as they build a bridge to **La\u1e45ka** to rescue **S\u012bt\u0101** from **R\u0101va\u1e47a**.\n\n**VASI\u1e62\u1e6cHA.** One of the Seven Sages ( **Saptar\u1e63i** ) born from the mind of **Brahm\u0101** who is said to preside over the cosmos during our current **world age**. Vasi\u1e63\u1e6dha is a significant figure in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , attributed with authoring much of the seventh **ma\u1e47\u1e0dala** or book of this text. In the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , he is a priest to the royal family in which **R\u0101ma** is raised. A major **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** text, the _Yoga-V\u0101si\u1e63\u1e6dha_ , is presented as the teaching of Vasi\u1e63\u1e6dha to the young R\u0101ma. In the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , a set of eight deities called the **Vasus** conspire to steal Vasi\u1e63\u1e6dha's cows. Upon discovering that they had stolen his cows, Vasi\u1e63\u1e6dha curses the Vasus to be born as human beings. They then ask the **goddess Ga\u1e45g\u0101** to give birth to them and immediately drown them in her waters so they can return to the heavens. Only one of the Vasus\u2014the original conspirator who hatched the cow-stealing plot\u2014cannot get out of his situation so easily. He is not drowned and grows up to become **Bh\u012b\u1e63ma** , the grandsire of the **P\u0101\u1e47\u1e0davas** and a major character of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ who lives to a very great age.\n\n_VASTU \u015a\u0100STRA_ **.** \"Science of objects\"; a Hindu analogue of _feng shui_. _Vastu \u015a\u0101stra_ encompasses architecture, the construction and consecration of **temples** and **m\u016brtis** , or images of Hindu deities, and the placement of objects in a room in order to maximize the positive flow of subtle energies.\n\n**VASU.** \"Good, prosperous\"; category of **Vedic** deities frequently invoked for material benefits. There are eight Vasus altogether. In the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , the Vasus conspire to steal the cows of the sage **Vasi\u1e63\u1e6dha**.\n\n**VASUDEVA.** Father of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** and **B\u0101lar\u0101ma** ; husband of **Devak\u012b** ; chief minister of the wicked King **K\u0101\u1e43sa** , of whom it was prophesied that a son of Vasudeva would slay him. K\u0101\u1e43sa therefore imprisons Vasudeva and Devak\u012b and conspires to kill their children. But K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and B\u0101lar\u0101ma are rescued and the prophecy is eventually fulfilled.\n\n**V\u0100SUDEVA.** \"Of **Vasudeva** \"; epithet of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** that refers to the fact that he is the son of Vasudeva.\n\n**V\u0100SUK\u012a.** Gigantic celestial serpent; king of the **N\u0101gas**. The N\u0101gas reside in a portion of the underworld known as **P\u0101t\u0101la** , over which V\u0101suk\u012b presides. V\u0101suk\u012b permitted the **devas** and **asuras** to use his body as the rope for a massive churn when they churned the cosmic ocean together in search of the elixir of life, or **am\u1e5bta**.\n\n**VA\u1e6cAKALAI.** Subdivision of **\u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47avism**.\n\n**V\u0100TSY\u0100YANA (c. 4th\u20136th centuries CE).** **Brahmin** ; author of the _K\u0101ma S\u016btra_.\n\n**V\u0100YU.** **Vedic** deity or **deva** , personification of the wind. Known for his great power, V\u0101yu is the father of **Hanuman** in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ and of **Bh\u012bma** in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. **Madhva** , founder and **\u0101c\u0101rya** of the **Dvaita** , or dualistic school of **Ved\u0101nta** is believed to be the third incarnation, or **avat\u0101ra** , of V\u0101yu. _See also_ GODS.\n\n_VEDA_ **,** _VEDAS_ **.** \"Wisdom\"; the most revered, ancient, and authoritative collection of Hindu **scripture** ; the **\u015br\u016bti** , or \"that which is heard\"; the direct, divinely revealed word of **God** , or the original sound of the universe heard in the distant past by the **\u1e5b\u1e63is** or sages; non-man-made ( _apauru\u1e63eya_ ), in contrast with **sm\u1e5bti** (\"that which is remembered\"), the sacred tradition that takes as its foundation the more ancient and fundamental _Vedas_ ; the primordial knowledge that underlies **creation**. The _Vedas_ are a collection of texts written over a period spanning more than a thousand years, with the earliest Vedic texts being composed around 1500 BCE (according to mainstream scholarship) and the latest **Vedic** texts\u2014the later _Upani\u1e63ads_ \u2014being composed in the first couple of centuries of the Common Era.\n\nThe _Vedas_ are organized into four collections, each of which can be subdivided into a further four historical \"layers\" or \"strata\" of texts composed during different periods, and each of which serves as a commentary upon or elaboration of the texts that precede it. The four basic collections are the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , _Yajur Veda_ , _S\u0101ma Veda_ , and _Atharva Veda_. The first historical \"layer\" of each is a **Sa\u1e43hit\u0101** or collection of **mantras** , or hymns. The largest and the oldest is the _\u1e5ag Veda_ **,** whose Sa\u1e43hit\u0101 consists of 1,028 hymns to various **devas** or deities and philosophical reflections on the nature of creation. Next come the _Yajur Veda_ and the _S\u0101ma Veda_. The former is concerned with the correct performance of ritual and the latter sets hymns from the _\u1e5ag Veda_ to **music** , forming the basis of Indian classical music. The _Atharva Veda_ is a later text that includes hymns, magical spells, and philosophical reflections. The second historical layer consists of the _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ , or \"priestly texts,\" that focus on the meaning of the ritual of sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ) and include a good deal of narrative **literature**. The third layer consists of the _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_ , or \"forest texts,\" and the fourth is the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , each of which is progressively more esoteric.\n\nThese four layers of text are also divided in a threefold fashion based on subject matter. The _Sa\u1e43hit\u0101s_ and _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ , being concerned mainly with ritual **action** , form the **Karma Kanda** , or \"action portion.\" The _\u0100ra\u1e47yakas_ are called the **Up\u0101sana Kanda** , or \"contemplative portion,\" as they begin to reflect upon mystical correspondences between the elements making up the Vedic ritual and broader realities both within the cosmos and interior to the individual person. Finally, the _Upani\u1e63ads_ are called the **J\u00f1\u0101na Kanda** , or \"wisdom portion,\" which reveals the ultimate meaning of the Vedic corpus as a whole in the form of dialogues on **Ved\u0101nta** philosophy. And the _Upani\u1e63ads_ themselves are also known as _Ved\u0101nta_ , or \"end of the _Veda_ ,\" a term with a double meaning, referring both to the fact that these texts form the final section of the Vedic corpus and to their content as the ultimate \"end\" or purpose toward which all Vedic wisdom and practice is directed.\n\n**VEDA VY\u0100SA.** Epithet of **Vy\u0101sa** that refers to his role in organizing the **Vedic** literary corpus into its current form.\n\n**VED\u0100NTA.** \"Ultimate end or purpose of wisdom\"; \"end of the _Veda_ \"; the philosophy of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , which are also called _Ved\u0101nta_. The term has a double meaning, referring both to the fact that the _Upani\u1e63ads_ form the final section of the **Vedic** corpus and to their content as the ultimate \"end\" or purpose to which Vedic wisdom is directed. Because the _Upani\u1e63ads_ do not present a single consistent **philosophy** in a linear fashion but convey their concepts through dialogues, **poetry** , and riddles, one must interpret these texts utilizing some hermeneutical principles as a basis. Differences of approach in this regard have led to the emergence of several different schools or systems of Ved\u0101nta over the centuries. One of the oldest of these systems is the **non-dualistic** or **Advaita** Ved\u0101nta associated prominently with **\u015aa\u1e45kara (** 788\u2013820), which affirms that **Brahman** \u2014infinite being, consciousness, and bliss\u2014is the sole reality and that all phenomena are merely an appearance, or **m\u0101y\u0101** \u2014an effect of ignorance ( **avidy\u0101** ) that gives rise to the process of **rebirth** and **liberation** from rebirth ( **mok\u1e63a** ), which arises only when one has knowledge ( **j\u00f1\u0101na** ) of the true nature of reality as Brahman.\n\nSubsequent systems of Ved\u0101nta, of which there are many, express discomfort with \u015aa\u1e45kara's insistence on the final unreality of phenomena, including the personal **God** , devotion ( **bhakti** ) toward whom \u015aa\u1e45kara does commend as a purifying discipline preparatory to the arising of true knowledge but which other systems see as the preeminent path to liberation, which is seen as a salvation given by the grace of a loving God. Because of the centrality of bhakti in their understanding of the spiritual path, these thinkers insist, to varying degrees, on a real metaphysical distinction between the individual soul ( **j\u012bva** ) and God as a necessary condition for the relationship of bhakti. The most radical in this regard is **Madhva** (1238\u20131317), whose dualistic **Dvaita** Ved\u0101nta draws a sharp distinction between God ( **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** ) and the world of souls. Most, such as the **Vi\u015bi\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101dvaita** or **Qualified Non-Dualism** of **R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja** (1077\u20131157), seek to affirm both unity and duality, in different ways and in different senses. All of these approaches to the nature of Brahman can find justification in the _Upani\u1e63ads_. In addition to the traditional or classical systems of Ved\u0101nta, which are concerned primarily with the correct interpretation of **scripture** , there is the **Neo-Ved\u0101nta** of the modern period, which is associated with **Ramakrishna** and **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** , but is also expressed by such major figures of modern Hindu thought as **Aurobindo Ghose** and **Rama\u1e47a Mahar\u1e63i** , as well as many others. Adherents of Neo-Ved\u0101nta see Ved\u0101nta as universal knowledge available preeminently, but not exclusively, through the Vedic texts, which are seen as the records of the insights and experiences of the Vedic seers, or **\u1e5b\u1e63is**. It is the experience ( **anubh\u0101va** ) of Brahman rather than the texts that speak of it that is regarded as primary in Neo-Ved\u0101nta, which sees itself less as a system of Hindu thought and more as a **perennial philosophy** , present in all cultures and religions to varying degrees but expressed with particular clarity in the Vedic tradition.\n\n**VED\u0100NTA SOCIETY.** Organization devoted to teaching and promoting the **Ved\u0101nta** of **Ramakrishna** and **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** ; established by Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda in New York in 1894. Its Indian companion organization is the **Ramakrishna Mission**. It is closely tied to the **Ramakrishna Order** , which provides the monks and nuns who run the various centers that the society runs around the world.\n\n_VED\u0100NTA S\u016aTRAS_ **.** Root text of the **Ved\u0101nta** systems of **philosophy** ; alternative name for the _Brahma S\u016btras_.\n\n**VEDI (VED\u012a).** Area within the sacred space of a **Vedic** ritual where implements such as ladles and spoons (for pouring **ghee** and other substances onto the sacred fire) are kept. It is also the space where the **gods** are invited to sit during the ritual. _See also_ YAJ\u00d1A.\n\n**VEDIC.** Of or referring to the _Vedas_ ; adjective often used to refer to Brahmanical culture in general; also the archaic form of **Sanskrit** in which the _Vedas_ are written. _See also_ BRAHMANISM.\n\n**VEGETARIANISM.** Dietary practice of avoiding foods that involve harm to animals, primarily meat, but also eggs and, in some cases, milk products (a practice more widely known as _veganism_ ). Vegetarianism is practiced to varying degrees in Indic traditions, ranging from the very strict dietary rules of **Jainism** to the relatively loose vegetarianism of many **Brahmins** in **Bengal** who eat fish but abstain from land animals. Most Hindu vegetarians eat no meat or eggs, but do partake of milk products. Jains are traditionally in this category as well, but avoid root vegetables that involve the killing of the entire plant. Some have recently become vegan, avoiding even milk due to the cruelty that is involved in modern milk-gathering techniques. Vegetarianism is a practice of **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** , or nonviolence, though it is also promoted as a healthy diet, conducive to spiritual practices such as **meditation**. Vegetarian food is held to contain more of the **sattva gu\u1e47a** that is a quality conducive to clarity of mind. About one third of Hindus are actually vegetarian.\n\n**VE\u1e44KA\u1e6cE\u015aVARA.** \"Lord who destroys sins\"; form of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** that is highly popular in southern India. Ve\u1e45ka\u1e6de\u015bvara's main shrine is in **Tirupathi** , in Andhra Pradesh, on the sacred hill of Tirum\u0101la. His gaze is believed to be so powerful that his eyes are covered. Indeed, he is also popularly known as \"B\u0101laji,\" or \"powerful one.\"\n\n**VIBH\u012a\u1e62ANA**. Character in the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ ; a \"good\" **r\u0101k\u1e63asa** who is devoted to **R\u0101ma** , perceiving R\u0101ma's true, divine nature as an **avat\u0101ra** of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u**. Vibh\u012b\u1e63ana first advises his cousin, **R\u0101va\u1e47a** , not to abduct **S\u012bt\u0101** and then to return her to R\u0101ma when she is being held as a prisoner in **La\u1e45ka** , warning that this act will bring destruction upon the r\u0101k\u1e63asas. In the end, he betrays R\u0101va\u1e47a, joining R\u0101ma's army and advising him on how best to defeat R\u0101va\u1e47a. After the battle, when S\u012bt\u0101 has been rescued and R\u0101va\u1e47a defeated, R\u0101ma gives Vibh\u012b\u1e63ana the kingship of La\u1e45ka.\n\n**VIDY\u0100.** Wisdom; liberating **knowledge** ; direct knowledge that **Brahman** , the universal reality, and **\u0101tman** , the self, are one and the same.\n\n**VIJAYAN\u0100GARA.** \"City of Victory\"; highly successful kingdom that ruled the entire southern portion of the Indian continent from 1336 to 1646. Its capital, a city of the same name, was located in **Karnataka** , near the border with Andhra Pradesh. The city was sacked after the battle of Talikota in 1565, beginning a long period of decline and gradual disintegration of the kingdom. The city remains in ruins today but still contains a great many architectural and **artistic** wonders. The kings of Vijayan\u0101gara practiced religious tolerance, supporting **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism** , **\u015aaivism** , **\u015a\u0101ktism** , and **Jainism**.\n\n**VIJ\u00d1\u0100NABHIK\u1e62U (fl. 1550\u20131600).** Philosopher who wrote commentaries on three of the **\u0101stika** , or \"orthodox,\" systems of Indian philosophy\u2014 **Ved\u0101nta** , **S\u0101\u1e43khya** , and **Yoga**. He sought to synthesize these three systems, paving the way for future Hindu thinkers who have increasingly seen these systems as forming a unitary whole. It has been argued that some of his interpretations of these systems involved some distortion carried out in the name of his agenda of unification\u2014particularly his claim that S\u0101\u1e43khya is theistic. He was critical of the **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** doctrine of the illusory nature of phenomena ( **m\u0101y\u0101** ) and adhered to the _Bhed\u0101bheda_ interpretation of Ved\u0101nta associated with **Nimb\u0101rka** that seeks to accommodate both the **Upani\u1e63adic** teaching that all is one in **Brahman** and the realist understanding that difference is not a mere appearance, but that real metaphysical differences obtain, particularly between individual souls ( **j\u012bvas** ) and **God**. His approach to unifying diverse systems of thought anticipates **Neo-Ved\u0101nta**.\n\n**VIJ\u00d1\u0100NA-MAYA-KO\u015aA. \"** Layer made up of consciousness.\" One of the five layers or \"sheaths\" ( **ko\u015bas** ) that surround the self ( **\u0101tman** ). The vij\u00f1\u0101na-maya-ko\u015ba is between the **mano-maya-ko\u015ba** , or \"layer made up of **mind** ,\" and the **\u0101nanda-maya-ko\u015ba** , which is the inmost layer, closest to the self.\n\n**VIKRAM\u0100DITYA.** \"Sun of heroism\"; title held by several ancient Hindu kings. The first, whose ascent to power is marked by one of the most popular Hindu dating systems (the _Vikrama Sa\u1e43vat_ , which begins in 58\u201357 BCE), is believed to have lived in the first century before the Common Era and ruled from the city of **Ujjain** , which is today located in the state of Madhya Pradesh, in central India. The second major ruler to carry this title is Candragupta II, a king of the **Gupta** dynasty who successfully expanded his empire to its height, encompassing all of northern India from the **Indus** River to the **Ganges** delta.\n\n**VIM\u0100NA.** Flying **chariot** ; preferred method of locomotion among many of the **gods** ; the inspiration for such works (many would say pseudo-scientific works) as Erich Von Daniken's _Chariots of the Gods_ , which speculate that extraterrestrial astronauts visited the Earth in ancient times, providing a basis for such concepts of traditional mythology as the vim\u0101na.\n\n**V\u012a\u1e46\u0100.** Indian lute; stringed **musical** instrument. **Sarasvat\u012b** , the **goddess** of wisdom, and the sage **N\u0101rada** are both depicted carrying this instrument.\n\n**V\u012aRABHADRA.** Fierce form of **\u015aiva** , created by him to avenge the **death** of his wife, **Sat\u012b** , by destroying the sacrifice performed by her father, **Dak\u1e63a** , and beheading Dak\u1e63a in the process.\n\n**V\u012aRA\u015aAIVA.** \"Follower of the heroic **\u015aiva** \"; **\u015aaiva** tradition based in **Karnataka** and established by the **bhakti** **poet** and social reformer **Basava** (1134\u20131196). Also known as the **Li\u1e45g\u0101yats** , the V\u012bra\u015baivas oppose **casteism** and teach the equality of all human beings as manifestations of \u015aiva. Believing in holding ritualism to a bare minimum, the only image the V\u012bra\u015baivas use is the abstract form of \u015aiva, the **li\u1e45ga** (hence the alternate name _Li\u1e45g\u0101yat_ for this tradition), which they traditionally wear on a necklace. The V\u012bra\u015baivas regard \u015aiva as **God** in the **monotheistic** sense\u2014as the one supreme deity.\n\n**VI\u015aI\u1e62\u1e6c\u0100DVAITA VED\u0100NTA.** The metaphysical teaching developed by the Ved\u0101ntic **\u0101c\u0101rya R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja**. According to this view, all of reality is, as **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** teaches, one with **Brahman**. But unlike in the Advaitic concept of Brahman, Brahman is here conceived as having internal differences. _See_ QUALIFIED NON-DUALISM.\n\n**VI\u1e62\u1e46U.** \"The all-pervasive one\"; the single most popular Hindu deity. He is regarded by many of his devotees, who are called **Vai\u1e63\u1e47avas** , as **God** in a **monotheistic** sense. He is seen in the broader Hindu tradition as that aspect of the divine that preserves the world from chaos during the vast interval of time between its periodic **creation** and destruction. He carries out this act of preservation, as stated in the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ (4:7), by projecting himself into the world in the form of an **avat\u0101ra** , or incarnation, to protect **dharma** and destroy the demonic forces of chaos (usually represented as demonic beings\u2014 **asuras** and **r\u0101k\u1e63asas** ). A benevolent deity, he is a popular savior and object of **bhakti** , or devotion.\n\nIn his origins, Vi\u1e63\u1e47u appears to be a solar deity, closely associated with imagery of sunlight. He is mentioned infrequently in the _Vedas_ \u2014though in one of these references he is attributed with creating the entire universe by taking three steps, which gives rise to the \"three worlds\" ( **triloka** )\u2014the Earth, the atmosphere, and the celestial realm. He is far more prominent in the later epic **literature** \u2014the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ and _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ \u2014and in the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_. Several, perhaps originally distinct, deities seem to have gone into his classical form (such as **N\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a** ). Vi\u1e63\u1e47u is worshiped most frequently not in his celestial form\u2014as Vi\u1e63\u1e47u per se\u2014but in the form of his two most popular avat\u0101ras\u2014 **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** and **R\u0101ma**. His wife, **Lak\u1e63m\u012b** , is also a highly popular **goddess**. She is viewed by some traditions, such as **\u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47avism** , as essentially one with Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, with the two forming a composite deity.\n\nVi\u1e63\u1e47u is most frequently represented as a celestial monarch, holding in his four hands a conch shell ( **\u015ba\u1e45kha** ), a discus ( **cakra** ), a club, and a **lotus**. His skin is the blue color of the infinite sky and his clothing is yellow, which is symbolic of the Earth. These colors of sky and Earth represent his all-pervasive nature (which is also the meaning of his name).\n\n**VI\u1e62\u1e46UPUR (BISHNUPUR).** City in **West** **Bengal** renowned for its artisans and brick **temples** with terracotta tiles that depict events from the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ and _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_.\n\n**VI\u015aUDDHA CAKRA.** **Cakra** that is located in the throat. _See also_ TANTRA.\n\n**VI\u015aVA HINDU PARI\u1e62AD (VHP).** \"World Hindu Council.\" This **Hindu Nationalist** organization was established in 1964. Also known as the VHP, it defines Hinduism broadly (and in keeping with **Savarkar** 's definition) as encompassing all Indic religions, and so as incorporating **Buddhism** , **Jainism** , and **Sikhism**. Of course, some Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs do not approve of their traditions being incorporated into Hinduism by definitional fiat. But others do not object, as evidenced by the fact that some Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh religious leaders\u2014including the Dalai Lama\u2014are members of the VHP and were present at its founding.\n\nThe controversial stands that the VHP has taken include its demand that a **temple** to **R\u0101ma** be built at the site of the demolished **Babr\u012b Masj\u012bd** in **Ayodhy\u0101** (a site recently divided among Hindu and Muslim organizations by an Indian high court) and its stated desire to transform India formally into a Hindu, rather than a secular, state. Its ties to the **Bharat\u012bya Janata Party** (BJP) have proven controversial for this party. The VHP shares with the BJP the agenda of developing a \"Uniform Civil Code\" for India to replace the system of multiple civil codes for different religious communities that exists at present. The VHP is also an outspoken critic of proselytizing activities by **Christian** and **Islamic** groups directed at Hindus in India.\n\n**VI\u015aVAKARMAN.** \"Maker of all\"; the supreme architect of the universe; an epithet of **Tva\u1e63\u1e6d\u1e5b** , the divine artisan of the _Vedas_ ; one of the **\u0100dityas**. He represents creative power and **knowledge** and is attributed with creating the science of architecture ( _Vastu_ _\u015a\u0101stra_ ).\n\n**VI\u015aVAMITRA.** One of the Seven Sages ( **Saptar\u1e63i** ) born from the **mind** of **Brahm\u0101** that preside over the cosmos; an important seer or **\u1e5b\u1e63i** of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ , to whom many of the hymns of the third **ma\u1e47\u1e0dala** of this work are attributed. In the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ , he is depicted as **R\u0101ma** 's and **Lak\u1e63ma\u1e47a** 's **guru** , taking them to the wilderness during their youth and teaching them to slay demonic beings. He is also the father of **\u015aakuntal\u0101**.\n\n**VI\u015aVAN\u0100THA MANDIR.** Major **temple** in **Banaras** that is dedicated to **\u015aiva**. It is controversial for not permitting entry to non-Hindus.\n\n**VI\u015aVEDEVAS.** \"All **gods** \"; a term sometimes used in the _\u1e5ag Veda_ to refer to a specific group of deities, but also used (in the same text) to refer to all gods in general. It may be that the Vi\u015bvedevas are invoked to ensure that no deity has been forgotten in the course of a ritual performance. _See also_ DEVAS.\n\n**VI\u1e6c\u1e6cHALA.** \"Standing on a brick\"; an image of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** that is popular in Maharashtra.\n\n**VIV\u0100HA.** The Hindu sacrament of **marriage** ; the Hindu wedding ceremony. _See also_ SA\u1e42SK\u0100RA; WOMEN.\n\n**VIVASVAT.** Name for **S\u016brya** , **god** of the sun.\n\n**VIVEKA.** Discernment; discrimination. An important intellectual virtue in **Ved\u0101nta**.\n\n**VIVEK\u0100NANDA, SW\u0100M\u012a (1863\u20131902).** Born Narendran\u0101th Datta; chief disciple of **Ramakrishna** and the first of many Hindu spiritual teachers to successfully spread their traditions in the West. A member of the **Brahmo Sam\u0101j** early in his life, and with a tendency to view religion from a skeptical perspective, Datta was quite powerfully drawn to the teaching and personality of Ramakrishna. After Ramakrishna's **death** in 1886, he joined the **Da\u015ban\u0101m\u012b Order** of monks, becoming Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda, and leading other young disciples of Ramakrishna to do the same, thus starting the **Ramakrishna Order**.\n\nIn 1893, Vivek\u0101nanda accepted an invitation to speak at the first Parliament of the World's Religions. His address to the parliament was a success and led to a speaking tour that took him across the United States\u2014where he established the first **Ved\u0101nta Society** in New York City in 1894\u2014and to Great Britain. In 1897, he initiated Margaret E. Noble as the first known Westerner to join a Hindu monastic order (from which point she came to be known as **Sister Nivedit\u0101** ). That same year, he returned to India and established the **Ramakrishna Mission**.\n\nVivek\u0101nanda's teachings in many ways reflect and in many ways go beyond the teachings of his master, Ramakrishna. His primary innovation was to direct the monks of the Ramakrishna Order to engage in work for the uplift of the poor\u2014a break with tradition inasmuch as **sanny\u0101sins** have generally been expected to pursue study, **meditation** , and **ascetic** practice exclusively. He was also the first to explicitly articulate the concept of **four yogas** , or paths to **mok\u1e63a** ( **liberation** from **rebirth** ) and to see these paths as equally valid and effective.\n\n**VRAJA.** Region of northern India in which **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** is believed to have spent much of his life on Earth, and therefore particularly holy to **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** devotees. It includes **Mathur\u0101** , the city where he was born and later slew the wicked King **K\u0101\u1e43sa** , and **V\u1e5bnd\u0101vana** , the town where he lived amongst the **gop\u012bs** , or cowherdesses, during his adolescence.\n\n**VRATA.** Vow. A _vrata_ generally refers to a period of fasting undertaken for a set time either as a way to ask for a particular divine favor or as a more general act of spiritual and mental purification. Some vratas are regarded as being especially auspicious if carried out on particular holy days or at particular points on the **Hindu calendar**. A vrata may involve abstaining from particular foods (or from all food) for a set period of time, doing a particular **p\u016bj\u0101** , abstaining from sexual activity, giving gifts to the poor or to religious institutions, or going on a pilgrimage ( **yatra** ). Such vows are a form of lay **asceticism** , which is especially popular among **women**.\n\n**VR\u0100TYA.** \"One who has taken a vow\"; an ancient type of **ascetic** mentioned in both the _\u1e5ag Veda_ and the _Atharva Veda_. The descriptions of their activities in these texts suggest they were early practitioners of what would later be known as **Yoga** and **Tantra**. They may have been warrior monks. It is possible that they were precursors of the **\u015brama\u1e47a** movement, which would include **Jainism** and **Buddhism**.\n\n**V\u1e5aND\u0100VANA.** Town where **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** resided during his adolescence, after being taken into hiding to protect him from the evil King **K\u0101\u1e43sa**. It is where K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a played with the **gop\u012bs** and met his beloved **R\u0101dh\u0101** , as described in the _Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_ and in greater detail in the _G\u012btagovinda_ of **Jayadeva**. It is highly sacred to the devotees of K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a and a very popular site for pilgrimage ( **yatra** ).\n\n**V\u1e5aTRA.** \"Obstructor, restrainer\"; serpentine monster defeated by **Indra**. V\u1e5btra captured the world's cattle and its water\u2014both important symbols of prosperity\u2014keeping them in a mountain cave that he then surrounded with his enormous body, coiling it around the mountain. Indra slew V\u1e5btra with his thunderbolt weapon ( **vajra** ) and freed the cattle and the waters, both of which could then flow freely across the Earth.\n\nIn terms of **Indo-European** mythology, Indra's struggle with V\u1e5btra is comparable to Thor's battle, in Norse mythology, with the Midgard Serpent. _See also VEDAS_.\n\n**VY\u0100SA.** Sage who is attributed with compiling the _Vedas_ into their current form, a feat for which he is known as **Veda Vy\u0101sa** , and with authoring the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , which he is said to have dictated to the deity **Ga\u1e47e\u015ba**. Vy\u0101sa is also a character in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , where he is said to be the son of Satyavat\u012b, the daughter of the king of the fishermen, and the sage **Par\u0101\u015bara**. He is the father of **Dh\u1e5btar\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dra** and **Pa\u1e47\u1e0du** , the kings whose sons' rivalry is the main topic of the epic. _See also BRAHMA S\u016aTRAS_.\n\n**VY\u016aHA.** \"Manifestation\"; appearance of **Vi\u1e63\u1e47u** in his full power; similar to an **avat\u0101ra** , though not all avat\u0101ras are vy\u016bhas. Some of the avat\u0101ras are **a\u1e43\u015bas** , or manifestations of merely a portion of Vi\u1e63\u1e47u's total being.\n\n## W\n\n**WAKING CONSCIOUSNESS.** One of the four **states of consciousness** described in the _Upani\u1e63ads_. The other three levels are the dream state, dreamless sleep, and the fourth state, or **tur\u012bya** , associated with spiritual transcendence and **enlightenment**.\n\n**WARRIOR.** **K\u1e63atriya** , the second of the four **var\u1e47as** or \"castes,\" the first being the **Brahmin** priesthood, and the third and fourth, respectively, being the **Vai\u1e63ya** or common people and the **\u015a\u016bdra** or servant caste.\n\n**WEST BENGAL.** Portion of **Bengal** that became part of the Republic of India after the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan. East Bengal first became East Pakistan and, after breaking away from Pakistan in a revolution in 1971, Bangladesh. East and West Bengal were first partitioned under the British **R\u0101j** in 1905.\n\n**WIDOW IMMOLATION.** _See_ SAT\u012a; WOMEN.\n\n**WIDOW REMARRIAGE.** _See_ WIDOWS; WOMEN.\n\n**WIDOWS.** Because Hindu **marriage** is traditionally seen as being for life\u2014and on some interpretations, as extending over many lifetimes\u2014the remarriage of widows is frowned upon in the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_. It is not clear, however, to what extent such prohibitions were observed in practice in ancient times, or if the very point of such prohibitions is to put an end to a widespread practice of which the **Brahmanical** authors of these texts do not approve. In the traditional Brahmanical schema of a human lifetime, measured out in terms of social location ( **var\u1e47a** ) and stages of life ( **\u0101\u015brama** ), the only roles assigned to a **woman** are to be a daughter to her father, wife to her husband, and mother to her children. The single adult woman, without a husband, therefore does not fit neatly into this scheme.\n\nIt has often been the case that widows have entered the **vanaprastha \u0101\u015brama** \u2014the retirement or withdrawal stage of life\u2014upon the deaths of their husbands, being cared for by their adult children. But in the case of women who are not elderly, or even young and childless\u2014not an uncommon occur-rence at an earlier time when marriages were often arranged in which a young girl was betrothed to a much older man\u2014it is often expected that they will enter a state of **sanny\u0101sa** (renunciation), becoming a Hindu nun. There are many communities of such women, particularly in the city of **Banaras** , who dedicate themselves to religious activity. Such women have often suffered exploitation of various kinds, leading the Hindu reformers of the 19th century to advocate for widow remarriage and against childhood betrothals. As a result of their efforts, widow remarriage is now more common than it used to be. But it is still regarded as a grave infraction by orthodox Hindus.\n\n**WILSON, HORACE HAYMAN (1786\u20131860).** British **Indologist** ; translator of the _\u1e5ag Veda_ ; first Boden Professor of **Sanskrit** at Oxford University.\n\n**WIND.** _See_ V\u0100YU.\n\n**WOMEN.** The roles of women in Hinduism have been far too complex throughout the centuries for any generalization to be adequate. And prior to the modern period, so many of our sources consist of prescriptive texts\u2014such as the _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ \u2014that reflect what their **Brahmin** authors regarded as an ideal situation that it is nearly impossible to deduce from them what the ground realities were at any given time. Were the injunctions of the Brahmins followed closely by most people? Or was the entire point of these injunctions to seek to change a ground reality that was radically different from what their authors felt should be the case? It is likely that both situations\u2014as well as a mix of both\u2014occurred at different times and in different locations. When alternative voices are available, such as in the folk tales and vernacular **literatures** of the local non- **Sanskrit** traditions, or in the inscriptions left by kings or wealthy patrons of religious institutions, they suggest a more mixed picture than do the Brahmanical texts. And such voices also intrude into the texts of the Brahmins from time to time\u2014just as, with regard to the issue of **caste** , one can find a **Satyak\u0101ma** or a **V\u0101lm\u012bki** , as well as an **Ekalavya**. If the reader will bear all of this in mind, what follows can be understood for what it is\u2014a very broad set of generalizations based on the sources that are available in abundance (Brahmanical Sanskrit texts) that can sometimes reflect and can sometimes be in radical discontinuity with the social realities of actual Hindu women.\n\nThe overall orientation of the Brahmanical tradition is decidedly patriarchal. The system of **var\u1e47as** (\"castes\") and **\u0101\u015bramas** (stages of life) defines the ideal life trajectory of a male. It is males who traditionally receive the **sacred thread** ( **upanayana** ) and who take up an occupation appropriate to their caste after **marriage** and entering the stage of the **householder**. They then retire, entering the **vanaprastha** stage. Alternatively, they may, at any point, renounce the life of a layperson, undertaking **sanny\u0101sa**.\n\nThe **dharma** of a woman, however, is to be a daughter to her father, a wife to her husband, and a mother to her children. A woman may enter the retirement phase along with her husband, or have it forced upon her by **widowhood**. Her social role is entirely defined in terms of her relationships with men\u2014her father in childhood, her husband as a married woman, and her sons, first as their caretaker, and then, perhaps, as the recipient of their care in her old age. Her daughters, if she has any, will join the families of their husbands and their first duty will be to their husbands and their husbands' parents.\n\nAgain, the degree to which this Brahmanical ideal has been observed in practice is open to question. Certainly in the modern period it has been observed quite rigorously in many settings\u2014particularly rural settings\u2014but also set aside quite decisively, particularly among the wealthy and well educated. Premodern exceptions\u2014independently wealthy women who were patrons of particular religious communities, and who were more often than not courtesans by trade\u2014did exist.\n\nOn the classical model, the only route for a woman to live independently\u2014and for which a good deal of evidence exists\u2014is the religious life. In the religious arena, women could attain not only a degree of independence from male domination but could even rise to a considerable level of social authority, wielding power\u2014even over men\u2014as **gurus** and as highly revered saints. Figures such as **\u0100\u1e47\u1e0d\u0101l** , **Mah\u0101deviyakka** , and **M\u012bra Bai** could transgress their traditional social roles because they did so out of love for **God**.\n\nThis model continues into the modern period, with such figures as **\u0100nandam\u0101y\u012b M\u0101** , **M\u0101t\u0101 Amrit\u0101nandamay\u012b** , and **Gurumay\u012b** being highly revered and independent. It may be argued that the price of such independence is the total religious commitment that these women's lives display. But we would also be erring if we presumed that the sole motive of these women has been personal independence, and has not included a spiritual aspiration of a fairly traditional sort\u2014a desire for **mok\u1e63a** or to be nearer to God.\n\nLike the discourses of democracy and human rights, however, feminist discourse has also made inroads into Hinduism. Though it is in many ways a deeply conservative tradition, it has also proven to be highly adaptive through the centuries. In recent years, on the basis of the same doctrine of the unity of all beings that has served to undercut the caste system, women have increasingly made inroads into former bastions of orthodoxy, engaging in public reading of the _Vedas_ , for example, receiving the sacred thread, and, as more women in urban areas have taken up jobs outside of the home\u2014either out of desire or necessity\u2014being seen as co-householders with their husbands.\n\nAt the same time, the heavy hand of patriarchy is still very much in evidence. A traditional preference for sons over daughters has led to a widespread practice of aborting female fetuses. And the ongoing practice of dowry\u2014in which the family of a new bride is expected to pay a considerable fee to the family of her husband\u2014fuels the preference for sons, because sons will bring money into the family when they marry, whereas daughters will cost money. Dowry **death** , too, is a result of this practice\u2014in which families conspire to marry their sons to women, extract a dowry from the woman's family, and then murder the woman, sometimes doing this serially.\n\nThe practice of **sat\u012b** , or widow immolation\u2014which many non-Hindus wrongly take to be a widespread and current practice\u2014is nearly unheard-of. The last such event, at least to receive publicity, occurred in 1987, and received widespread condemnation from the wider Hindu community. The practice was banned in 1829, due largely to the activism of the Hindu reformer **R\u0101m Mohan Roy**.\n\nThe presence of a vigorous **Goddess** tradition, and a wide range of assertive and powerful **goddesses** , might suggest a broader feminist streak in Hinduism than is actually the case. But the worship of goddesses and the roles of actual women have largely been independent variables.\n\nThe range of options available for traditional Hindu women is often discussed in terms of the contrast between the heroines of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ and _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ \u2014 **S\u012bt\u0101** and **Draupad\u012b** , respectively. S\u012bt\u0101 is obedient to every wish of her husband, even to the point of suffering the indignity of the fire test, when she has all along been perfectly faithful to him. She suffers both through her husband's troubles and through the indignity society imposes upon her without complaint. Draupad\u012b is also a faithful wife who suffers with her husbands. But when her rights are violated, when her husband does not protect her honor but, quite literally, gambles it away as though it were a possession, she speaks up for her rights, not only questioning the rightness of her husband's choices but also displaying a considerable **knowledge** of dharma. Of the two, S\u012bt\u0101 has generally been upheld as the model Hindu woman. But the model of Draupad\u012b suggests another way, from within the Hindu tradition, for a woman to live\u2014with dignity and equality.\n\n**WORK.** _See_ KARMA; KARMA YOGA.\n\n**WORLD AGES.** Hindu traditions conceive of time as flowing on a vast, cosmic scale. Strictly speaking, on a mainstream Hindu understanding\u2014as shaped by the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ _\u2014_ there is no precise beginning (or end) of time. In terms of **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** , time itself is an illusion, the only reality being the eternal, timeless, and formless **Brahman**. But within the realm of **m\u0101y\u0101** , of the appearance of time and space, the universe is continuously and repeatedly created, endures, is destroyed, and is re-created. In the _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_ and _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras_ , these vast cycles are conceived as days and nights of **Brahm\u0101** , the creator **god**. Each day of Brahm\u0101\u2014a **kalpa** or cosmic epoch\u2014is divided into 14 \"ages of **Manu** \" or Manvantaras, each of which is presided over by a Manu, or being born from the **mind** of Brahm\u0101. It is also divided into 1,000 _Mah\u0101yugas_ , or \"great eons.\" Each Mah\u0101yuga is made up of four **yugas** , or eons. Each yuga within a Mah\u0101yuga is somewhat worse (but also, mercifully, shorter) than the one before it. The K\u1e5bta or **Satya** yuga is equal to 4,000 divine years (which equals 518,400,000 terrestrial years). The Tret\u0101 yuga lasts 3,000 divine years (388,800,000 terrestrial years). The Dv\u0101para yuga lasts 2,000 divine years (259,200,000 terrestrial years). The Kali yuga (which we currently inhabit) lasts 1,000 divine years (129,600,000 terrestrial years). Between the yugas are intermediate periods that last 800, 600, 400, and 200 divine years. An entire Mah\u0101yuga is therefore equal to 12,000 divine years, or 1,555,200,000 terrestrial years, and an entire kalpa or day of Brahm\u0101 is equal to 12,000,000 divine years, or 1,555,200,000,000 terrestrial years. After 100 years of Brahm\u0101\u2014that is, 36,500 days of Brahm\u0101, which equals a cosmic cycle\u2014a **pralaya** , or dissolution, occurs. At the end of a cosmic cycle, the forces of chaos and entropy overcome the forces of order, or dharma, and the universe dissolves, returning to a potential state. There follows the great sleep, or _mah\u0101pralaya_ , which also lasts for 100 years of Brahm\u0101, after which a new **creation** will emerge and a new age of Brahm\u0101 will begin.\n\n**WORLD COUNCIL OF THE \u0100RYA SAM\u0100J.** Organization distinct from the **\u0100rya Sam\u0101j** , based on the ideals and teachings of **Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b** , and founded by **Sw\u0101m\u012b Agnive\u015ba** , who became president of the organization in 2004.\n\n**WORLD GUARDIANS.** _See_ LOKAP\u0100LAS.\n\n## Y\n\n**YADAVA.** \"Descendent of Yadu\"; the family lineage of **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** , of which his father, **Vasudeva** and his aunt, **Kunti** , were both members. The city of the Yadavas, **Dv\u0101rak\u0101** , tragically sank into the ocean at the end of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_.\n\n**YAJ\u00d1A.** Sacrifice; the central **Vedic** ritual. The most ancient Vedic sacrifices consisted of offerings to the **gods** , or **devas** , in return for which they hoped to attain specific goods, usually of a material sort\u2014health, wealth, long life, security, good weather, and so on. In the _Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_ , one begins to see a more sophisticated theory of sacrifice develop. No longer a mere transaction, the sacrifice comes to be seen as something that the gods _need_ , making the human performance of sacrifice an essential element in the smooth running of the cosmos. Sacrifice becomes vital to the upholding of **\u1e5bta** , the cosmic order\u2014a concept later denoted with the term **dharma**. In the _Upani\u1e63ads_ , there is a divergence from this ritual concept. The ritual is internalized. It becomes a metaphor for all of life. Breath is a kind of sacrifice. Speech is a kind of sacrifice. Sexual activity is a kind of sacrifice. **Actions** of all kinds\u2014 **karma** \u2014are seen as yielding definite effects in the world, and not only the ritual action of the sacrificial arena. This leads to a gradual devaluation of the ritual of sacrifice and its replacement with practices such as **meditation** and worship ( **p\u016bj\u0101** ).\n\nIt is probably not a coincidence that the offering of **animal sacrifice** is viewed with increasing disfavor over the course of this development, with **vegetarian** substitutes eventually becoming far more prevalent than the ritual offering of slain animals. By the time of the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ , sacrifice is seen in at least some Hindu traditions as a matter of mentally offering all of one's actions to **God** as a form of devotion ( **bhakti** ), or as an act of purification in preparation for the knowledge ( **j\u00f1\u0101na** ) that everything is **Brahman**.\n\n**Y\u0100J\u00d1AVALKYA.** **Brahmin** sage greatly revered for his wisdom; a major character in the _B\u1e5bhad\u0101ra\u1e47yaka Upani\u1e63ad_. The first explicit articulation of the doctrines of **karma** and **rebirth** in a Hindu text is placed in the mouth of Y\u0101j\u00f1avalkya, in a conversation with the sage King **Janaka**.\n\n_YAJUR VEDA_. The second **Sa\u1e43hit\u0101** of the _Vedas_ , likely composed between 1200 and 1000 BCE, according to mainstream scholarship. The main concern of this text is correct performance of the ritual of sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ). It exists in two distinct recensions called the \"Black\" or _K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a Yajur Veda_ and the \"White\" or _\u015aukla Yajur Veda_.\n\n**YAMA.** **Vedic** deity of **death** and the underworld. It is said that Yama attained this distinction by being the first human being to die, and therefore the first inhabitant of the underworld. Yama is one of the **Lokap\u0101las** , or \"World Guardians.\" _See also_ DEVAS.\n\n**YAMAS.** Restraints; five moral principles set forth in the _Yoga S\u016btras_ of **Pata\u00f1jali** that together make up the first stage or \"limb\" of his eight-limbed ( **a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** ) system of **yoga**. The five yamas are **ahi\u1e43s\u0101** (nonviolence), **satya** (truthfulness), **asteya** (nonstealing), **brahmacarya** (control of sexual desires and activities), and **aparigraha** (detachment).\n\nThe yamas provide evidence that the yoga system of Pata\u00f1jali shares a common cultural milieu with the **ascetically** oriented **\u015brama\u1e47a** traditions, **Jainism** and **Buddhism**. The content and order of the yamas are identical with those of the **vratas** (moral vows) of Jainism and with four of the Five Precepts of Buddhism.\n\n**Y\u0100MUNA (fl. 11th century CE). \u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava** theologian; grandson of N\u0101thamuni, a scholar who introduced the **poetry** of the **\u0100\u1e37v\u0101rs** into formal **temple** worship in the 10th century. Y\u0101muna translated many of the poems into **Sanskrit** , contributing to the process begun by his grandfather of formalizing the systematization of the \u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava tradition, a process completed by **R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja** (1077\u20131157). _See also_ VAI\u1e62\u1e46AVISM.\n\n**YAMUN\u0100 RIVER.** River that flows from the **Him\u0101layas** , past **New Delhi** , and through the **Vraja** region associated with **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a**. It joins the **Ga\u1e45g\u0101** at **Pray\u0101ga** ( **Allahabad** ).\n\n**YANTRA.** Abstract, diagrammatic representation of a Hindu deity, often used as a focus of **meditation** , particularly in **Tantric** practice. _See also_ MA\u1e46\u1e0cALA.\n\n**YATRA.** Pilgrimage; travel to a sacred place. Making such a journey, particularly if it involves some hardship, is a form of meritorious **action**.\n\n**YOGA.** Literally, \"yoke\"; spiritual discipline; path to **mok\u1e63a** ( **liberation** from **rebirth** ). There is speculation that yoga may have originated as a form of military training among **K\u1e63atriya** warriors. It includes, but is far from limited to, the physical exercises of **Ha\u1e6dha Yoga** that come to the minds of most Westerners who hear or use this term. In classical Indian texts, the term often refers to a total way of life, and is akin, in its semantic range, to the term _religion_. It also refers to a specific system of spiritual practice\u2014the **A\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** , or \"eight-limbed\" system of **Pata\u00f1jali** , outlined in his _Yoga S\u016btra_. In the modern period, **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** identifies this system with the R\u0101ja Yoga of the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. In Vivek\u0101nanda's usage\u2014based, again, on the _G\u012bt\u0101_ \u2014yoga encompasses such activities as working for the good of humanity, devotional activity ( **bhakti** ), and study for cultivation of wisdom ( **j\u00f1\u0101na** ). _See also_ FOUR YOGAS; YOG\u012a; YOGIN\u012a.\n\n**YOGA DAR\u015aANA**. System of philosophy based on the **A\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** or \"eight-limbed\" type of **yoga** outlined in **Pata\u00f1jali** 's _Yoga S\u016btra_. Within the system of six orthodox or **Vedic** ( **\u0101stika** ) systems of philosophy or **dar\u015banas** , the Yoga dar\u015bana is traditionally paired with the **S\u0101\u1e43khya** system, with which it is almost identical, being related to S\u0101\u1e43khya in the way that a practice is related to the theory that underlies it. The chief difference between the S\u0101\u1e43khya and Yoga worldviews is the incorporation into the Yoga system of the idea of **God** or **\u012a\u015bvara**. Contemporary scholars debate the degree to which this incorporation of \u012a\u015bvara into the Yoga system reflects a serious commitment to theism on the part of Pata\u00f1jali (such as that found in the **Vai\u1e63\u1e47ava** traditions), or is more of an afterthought. The role of \u012a\u015bvara in the _Yoga S\u016btra_ is not to act as creator or savior of the world. He is solely an object of contemplation ( **\u012a\u015bvara-pra\u1e47idh\u0101na** ), which is one of the five **niyamas** or observances that form the second stage or \"limb\" of Pata\u00f1jali's system.\n\n_YOGA S\u016aTRA_ **.** Root text of the **Yoga dar\u015bana** , or system of philosophy. Attributed to **Pata\u00f1jali** , the text was composed some time between 100 BCE and 500 CE. It outlines the eight stages or \"limbs\" of the \"eight-limbed\" ( **A\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga** ) system of yoga.\n\n**YOG\u0100NANDA, PARAMAH\u0100\u1e42SA (1893\u20131952).** **Bengali** spiritual teacher and founder of the **Self-Realization Fellowship** (SRF); author of the classic _Autobiography of a Yogi_ , a popular work among Westerners drawn to Indic traditions; after **Sw\u0101m\u012b Vivek\u0101nanda** , the second in a series of Hindu **gurus** who have found a following in the West. Coming to the United States in 1920 for a conference of religious liberals, Yog\u0101nanda remained in the country and established the Self-Realization Fellowship that same year to disseminate the practice of _Kriya_ _Yoga_ , into which he had been initiated by his guru, **Sri Yukte\u015bwar Giri**. Among the distinctive aspects of the Self-Realization Fellowship is its emphasis on devotion to Jesus as an **enlightened** master. As chronicled in his famous autobiography, Yog\u0101nanda met a number of important figures of modern Hinduism in his lifetime, such as **Mohand\u0101s K. G\u0101ndh\u012b** , **Rabindran\u0101th Tagore** , and **\u0100nandam\u0101y\u012b M\u0101**.\n\n_YOGA-V\u0100SI\u1e62\u1e6cHA-R\u0100M\u0100YA\u1e46A_ **.** Also known simply as the _Yoga-V\u0101si\u1e63\u1e6dha_ , this text is a presentation of **Advaita Ved\u0101nta** in the form of the teaching of the sage **Vasi\u1e63\u1e6dha** to a young **R\u0101ma**.\n\n**YOGE\u015aVARA.** Lord of **Yoga** ; an epithet of both **\u015aiva** and **K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a** ; in the _Yoga S\u016btra_ of **Pata\u00f1jali** , **God** as an object of **meditation**. It is not clear from the text if Pata\u00f1jali has in mind any specific sectarian conception of divinity (like \u015aiva or K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a) or a more generic conception into which any deity preferred by the practitioner ( **i\u1e63\u1e6dadevat\u0101** ) could fit.\n\n**YOG\u012a.** A male practitioner of **yoga**.\n\n**YOGIN\u012a.** A female practitioner of **yoga** ; a female **yog\u012b**.\n\n**YONI.** Womb; the female reproductive organ; often depicted in an abstract iconographic form, and frequently in conjunction with the **li\u1e45ga**. The joining of the yoni, a symbol of female fertility and of the **Mother Goddess** ( **\u015aakti** ) with the li\u1e45ga (often interpreted as a phallic symbol of **\u015aiva** ) symbolizes both fertility and creativity in general, with the union of \u015aiva and \u015aakti representing the conjoining of pure consciousness and creative principle (symbolized in **S\u0101\u1e43khya** philosophy by **puru\u1e63a** and **prak\u1e5bti** , respectively).\n\n**YUGA.** _See_ WORLD AGES.\n\n**YUKTE\u015aWAR GIRI, SRI (1855\u20131936).** A spiritual teacher from **Bengal**. Although he has his own following, Yukte\u015bwar is best known for being the **guru** of **Paramah\u0101\u1e43sa Yog\u0101nanda**.\n\n## Z\n\n**ZAEHNER, ROBERT CHARLES (1913\u20131974).** **Indologist** ; known for his translation of the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_.\n\n**ZARATHUSTRA (fl. 1100 BCE).** Founder of **Zoroastrianism**.\n\n**ZED, RAJAN.** Nevada-based Hindu priest. On 12 July 2007, Zed made history as the first chaplain to recite a Hindu prayer for the opening ceremonies of the U.S. Senate. Prior to this, Zed had opened the Alaska state legislative session. Zed's prayer for the U.S. Senate was met with some protest from fundamentalist **Christians**. The prayer consisted of the recitation of an English translation of the **G\u0101yatr\u012b mantra**.\n\n**ZOROASTRIANISM.** One of the world's oldest religions, Zoroastrianism is practiced today by a small community (approximately 150,000 adherents) in India. The official religion of the Persian Empire for over a thousand years, Zoroastrianism had a profound impact upon the Abrahamic religions\u2014Judaism, **Christianity** , and **Islam**. It also shares historical roots with Hinduism and is known to have influenced Mah\u0101y\u0101na **Buddhism**. The founder of Zoroastrianism, **Zarathustra** , was a priest in Iran during what, in India, was the **Vedic** period. The religion of Iran at the time was a close relative of the Vedic religion, with its hymns and its rituals of sacrifice ( **yaj\u00f1a** ). This is because the culture of ancient Iran was, like that of the Vedic tradition, **Indo-European**. The pre-Zoroastrian Iranians worshiped deities called _daevas_ with names such as _Intar_ (cognate with **Indra** ), _Uruwana_ ( **Varu\u1e47a** ), _Haoma_ ( **Soma** ), and _Mithra_ ( **Mitra** ). Supreme over all of these deities was the \"Wise Lord\"\u2014 **Ahura Mazda** (whose name is cognate with the **Sanskrit** term **asura** , which did not yet have demonic connotations at this early period).\n\nAccording to the Zoroastrian **scriptures** , Zarathustra received divine revelations from Ahura Mazda, who was revealed to be the **One** , supreme **God** and creator of the universe. Zarathustra's teachings also included the idea of linear time\u2014with a beginning and an end\u2014a single lifetime for each human being followed by a judgment, an afterlife of reward or punishment until the end of time for good or bad behavior, and a resurrection and restoration of all beings to an everlasting earthly paradise at the end of time. When **Islam** became the dominant religion of Iran in the seventh century of the Common Era, many Zoroastrians fled to India, where they are known as _Parsis_.\n\n# Bibliography\n\n## INTRODUCTION\n\nTo compile a comprehensive bibliography of Hinduism is a daunting\u2014and arguably an impossible\u2014task. In terms of primary sources, Hinduism is a tradition\u2014or rather, a family of traditions\u2014that has been producing texts for over 3,000 years. The \"classical\" or premodern sources that survive are largely composed in Sanskrit. However, there are also a variety of vernacular literatures, such as the popular devotional poetry of the bhakti movement, composed in other Indic languages, such as Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Gujarati, and Marathi, to name just a few of the most prominent ones. And there is, of course, the Hindu writing of the modern period, much of which is in English, though the vernacular languages of India continue to be rich loci of Hindu literary and philosophical activity, as does Sanskrit (though for a small audience, despite periodic resurgences of interest).\n\nSecondary sources on Hinduism also abound. With a history beginning in the late 18th century, with such pioneers as Sir William Jones, the scholarly discipline of Indology (often termed, in the United States, South Asian Studies) has produced a great abundance of historical, philological, anthropological, sociological, and philosophical writing\u2014a process that continues unabated today.\n\nWhat follows is therefore not comprehensive but seeks to give a broad overview of at least the major works in this field, both primary and secondary. The major division this bibliography makes is between primary and secondary sources. The primary sources have been divided into original works composed in Sanskrit and other Indic languages, translations of Sanskrit and other original works, and primary sources written in English. The original works in Sanskrit and other Indic languages are often anonymous and have been listed alphabetically by title. In cases where the name of an author is known (or is traditionally attributed), this has been indicated with the phrase \"of so-andso\" after the title (e.g., _The R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a of V\u0101lm\u012bki_ ). The translations have been listed alphabetically by the last name of the translator.\n\nThe modern primary sources in English include writings by Western authors who have identified with or been deeply influenced by Hindu traditions, as well as sources by major Hindu figures or representatives of modern Hindu movements.\n\nThe secondary sources are divided by their subject matter and approach into: (a) broad surveys of and introductions to Hinduism; (b) historical studies; (c) textual studies; (d) studies of practice (primarily ritual and ethics); (e) studies of particular deities; (f) studies of the arts; (g) studies of Hindu society; (h) constructive studies of Hinduism\u2014that is, studies that reflect philosophical or theological methodologies, or that have philosophy or theology as their subject matter; (i) studies of particular Hindu traditions; (j) studies of Hinduism outside South Asia; (k) works that focus on broad theoretical concerns; and (l) studies of other religious traditions that are closely related to Hinduism.\n\nThe first category\u2014broad surveys and introductions\u2014also includes reference works and other materials useful to beginners in the field of Hindu studies. Historical studies range from histories of the Indian subcontinent, to studies of the history of particular regions or movements, to biographies of individuals.\n\nTextual studies often have relevance to other areas but are focused primarily on understanding a specific text or use a specific text or set of texts as the chief lens through which an issue is viewed. Studies of practice include ethnographic works and other primarily descriptive works on ritual and ethics.\n\nStudies of deities are distinguished from textual studies and studies of particular Hindu subtraditions by the fact that their primary subject matter is the deity in question, rather than the texts or traditions centered on that deity. Studies of the arts include art histories, works on iconography, and works on both drama and dance. Studies of Hindu society include both theoretical and ethnographic studies of phenomena such as caste, Hindu nationalism, and women's issues.\n\nStudies of philosophies and theologies include both descriptive works\u2014histories of Indian philosophy\u2014and normative, constructive works, in which the author identifies with and seeks to advance a philosophical or religious point of view. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the latter type of work and modern primary sources in English. Generally, works by figures who have come to be seen as major founders of movements or as exemplars of such movements (such as Sita Ram Goel as a representative of Hindu nationalism) have gone into the category of primary sources. Works by professional scholars of religion or philosophy, however, have also gone into this category.\n\nStudies of particular Hindu traditions include works on Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism, \u015aaivism, Tantra, and so forth, as distinct from broader surveys of Hinduism as a whole.\n\nStudies of Hinduism outside of South Asia include works on Hinduism in areas such as Southeast Asia, where Hindu traditions have been practiced for many centuries, as well as in the Western world, where such traditions are a more recent phenomenon, as a result of both Hindu immigration and Westerners being drawn to particular Hindu ideas and practices.\n\nWorks that focus on broad theoretical concerns include works that engage with issues such as the validity of the category of Hinduism and the relationship between the study of India and issues of colonization and power.\n\nThe studies of traditions related to Hinduism include work on such traditions as Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, which emerged either from or in close dialogue with Hindu traditions, as well as works on both Hindu\u2013 Christian and Hindu\u2013Muslim relations.\n\nFinally, I have included a section on Internet materials for the study of Hinduism, which can themselves be divided into primary and secondary sources, depending on the point of view that a given website takes. Avowedly Hindu websites that seek to advance a particular Hindu perspective are primary sources, in contrast with purely scholarly sites, which strive to present information in a more or less objective manner.\n\nAmong the many libraries with excellent collections relating to Hinduism, one of the most renowned is that of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Poona, a city famous for its centers of language and textual study. Another is the Indian Institute of the Bodleian library at Oxford University and the University of Chicago's Regenstein library, both of which have proven invaluable in my own research.\n\nThe University of Chicago also provides an exceptionally useful Internet resource in the form of its _Digital South Asia Library_ (<http:\/\/dsal.uchicago.edu\/reference\/>), which includes a vast collection of online materials, such as audio samples from the Linguistic Survey of India and digital versions of many journals and reference works that are listed in this bibliography, such as Schwartzberg's _Historical Atlas of India_. And as a primary source, _The Hindu Universe_ (<http:\/\/www.hindunet.org\/>) is especially rich.\n\nClearly, not all works fit neatly or obviously into any of these categories. It is not unlikely that some readers will take issue with the placement of certain works. (Indeed, I have argued with myself about some of these placements and am open to persuasion that some should be located in categories other than where they are currently.) The categories themselves are also less than perfect, but they are the ones that emerged organically as I compiled these titles, and most works do seem to lend themselves to placement in one of these categories.\n\nAt the beginning of each section, beginning with English translations of primary sources, I have included a brief paragraph in which I recommend texts from within that section that may be particularly useful or accessible to beginners in this field.\n\n## I. PRIMARY SOURCES\n\nA. Sources in Sanskrit and Other Indic Languages\n\n_Abhij\u00f1\u0101na\u015bakuntala of K\u0101lid\u0101sa_. Bombay: Nirnaya Sagara Press, 1958.\n\n_Adhy\u0101tma R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_. Calcutta: Metropolitan Printing and Publishing House, 1935.\n\n_Agni Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Poona: Anandasrama Sanskrit Series, 1957.\n\n_Aitareya Br\u0101hma\u1e47a_. Calcutta: Bibliotheca Indica, 1895.\n\n_Apastamba Dharma S\u016btra_. G. B\u00fchler, ed. Bombay: Bombay Sanskrit Series 44 and 50, 1892, 1894.\n\n_Artha\u015b\u0101stra of Kau\u1e6dilya_. R. P. Kangle, ed. Bombay: University of Bombay, 1960.\n\n_Atharva Veda_. Hoshiarpur: Vishveshvaranand Vedic Research Institute, 1960.\n\n_Baudhayana Dharma S\u016btra_. C. Sastri, ed. Benares: Kashi Sanskrit Series 104, 1934.\n\n_Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. (See _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_.)\n\n_Bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Benares: Pandita Pustakalaya, 1972.\n\n_Brahma S\u016btra Bh\u0101\u1e63ya of Madhva_. Tirupati: Tirumala-Tirupati-Devasthanena, 1893.\n\n_Brahma S\u016btra Bh\u0101\u1e63ya of R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja (\u015ar\u012b Bh\u0101\u1e63ya)_. Swami Vireswarananda and Swami Adidevananda, eds. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 2008.\n\n_Brahma S\u016btra Bh\u0101\u1e63ya of \u015aa\u1e45kara_. Bombay: Nirnaya Sagara Press, 1948.\n\n_Brahm\u0101\u1e47\u1e0da Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Bombay: Venkateshvara Steam Press, 1857.\n\n_Brahmavaivarta Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Poona: Anandasrama Sanskrit Series, 1935.\n\n_B\u1e5bhaddevat\u0101 of \u015aaunaka_. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1904.\n\n_Buddhacarita of A\u015bvagho\u1e63a_. E. H. Johnston, ed. Calcutta: Panjab University Oriental Publications, 1935\u20131936.\n\n_Da\u015b\u0101vat\u0101racarita of K\u1e63emendra_. Bombay: Kavyamala Series, 1891.\n\n_Dev\u012bbh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Benares: Pandita Pustakalaya, 1960.\n\n_Garu\u1e0da Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Benares: Pandita Pustakalaya, 1969.\n\n_Gautama Dharma\u015b\u0101stra_. New Delhi: Veda Mitra, 1969.\n\n_G\u012bt\u0101 Govinda of Jayadeva_. Hyderabad: Sanskrit Academy Series, 1969.\n\n_Hariv\u0101\u1e43\u015ba_. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1969.\n\n_Har\u1e63acarita of Ba\u1e47a_. Bombay: Bombay Sanskrit and Prakrit Series, 1909.\n\n_Jaimin\u012bya Br\u0101hma\u1e47a_. Nagpur: Sarasvati-vihara Series, 1954.\n\n_J\u0101takam\u0101la of \u0100rya\u015bura_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1971.\n\n_K\u0101lika Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Sri Biswanarayan Sastri, ed. Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1972.\n\n_Kalki Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Mathura: Jai Nitai Press, 2006.\n\n_K\u0101mas\u016btra of Vatsyayana_. Varanasi: Kashi Sanskrit Series, 1964.\n\n_Ka\u1e6dhasarits\u0101gara_. Bombay: Nirnara Sagara Press, 1930.\n\n_Kau\u1e63\u012btaki Br\u0101hma\u1e47a_. Calcutta: Bibliotheca Indica, 1903.\n\n_Kurma Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Varanasi: All-India Kashiraj Trust, 1972.\n\n_Li\u1e45ga Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Calcutta: Sri Arunodaraya, 1812.\n\n_Madhvavijaya of N\u0101r\u0101ya\u1e47a Pa\u1e47\u1e0dit\u0101c\u0101rya_. Vishakhapatnam: Shrimadananda Tirtha Publications, 1983.\n\n_Mah\u0101bh\u0101gavata Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Bombay: Venkateshvara Steam Press, 1913.\n\n_Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1933\u20131969.\n\n_Mah\u0101nirv\u0101\u1e47a Tantra_. Madras: Tantrik Texts, 1929.\n\n_Maitraya\u1e47i Sa\u1e43hit\u0101_. Wiesbaden, Germany: R. Steiner, 1970\u20131972.\n\n_Manusm\u1e5bti_. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Series, 1972\u20131978.\n\n_Nai\u1e63ad\u012byacarita of \u015ar\u012b Har\u1e63a_. Bombay: Nirnaya Sagara Press, 1896.\n\n_Nirukta of Yaska_. Lakshman Sarup, ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1920\u20131927.\n\n_Priyadar\u015bika of Har\u1e63a_. M. R. Kale, ed. Bombay: Motilal Banarsidass, 1928.\n\n_P\u016brvam\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 S\u016btra of \u015aabarasv\u0101min_. Hirayana: Ramlal Kapar, 1986.\n\n_R\u0101macaritam\u0101nasa of Tuls\u012bd\u0101s_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1990.\n\n_R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a of Valm\u012bki_. Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1960\u20131975.\n\n_\u1e5ag Veda_. London: Oxford University Press, 1890\u20131892.\n\n_Sarvadar\u015banasa\u1e43graha of Madhava_. London: Tr\u00fcbner, 1914.\n\n_\u015aa\u1e45karadigvijaya of Madhava_. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1915.\n\n_\u015aatapatha Br\u0101hma\u1e47a_. Benares: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series, 1964.\n\n_Saty\u0101rth Prak\u0101\u015b of Sw\u0101m\u012b Day\u0101nanda Sarasvat\u012b_ (Reprint). Delhi: Manoj Publications, 2009.\n\n_Saura Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Poona: Anandashrama Sanskrit Series, 1923.\n\n_\u015aiva Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Benares: Pandita Pustakalaya, 1964.\n\n_Skanda Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Bombay: Shree Venkateshvara Steam Press, 1867.\n\n_\u015ar\u012b R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja G\u012bt\u0101 Bh\u0101\u1e63ya_. Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1992.\n\n_Taittiriya Br\u0101hma\u1e47a_. Rajendralal Mitra, ed. Calcutta: Bibliotheca Indica, 1859.\n\n_Taittiriya Sa\u1e43hit\u0101_. Poona: Anandashrama Sanskrit Series, 1979.\n\n_Upade\u015basahasr\u012b of \u015aa\u1e45kar\u0101c\u0101rya_. Mylapore, Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1961.\n\n_Upani\u1e63ads_. Bombay: Nirnaya Sagara Press, 1913.\n\n_Vajasaneyi Sa\u1e43hit\u0101_. Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series, 1972.\n\n_V\u0101mana Pur\u0101na_. Benares: All-India Kashiraj, 1968.\n\n_V\u0101yu Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Poona: Anandashrama Sanskrit Series, 1860.\n\n_Vi\u1e63\u1e47u Pur\u0101\u1e47a_. Calcutta: Sanatana Shastra, 1972.\n\nB. English Translations of Primary Sources (Including Compendia)\n\nGeorge Thompson's translation of the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ is excellent\u2014a translation of this important text that has the exceptionally rare virtue of being both true to the original Sanskrit and highly readable for the native speaker of English. The same is true of Barbara Stoler Miller's translations of both the _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_ and the _Yoga S\u016btras_ of Pata\u00f1jali ( _Yoga: Discipline of Freedom_ ). Patrick Olivelle's translations of the _Upani\u1e63ads_ and the _Dharma S\u016btras_ are also both scholarly and readable. Wendy Doniger's _Hindu Myths_ provides a good sampling of Hindu narrative literature from the epics and _Pur\u0101\u1e47as_. Dominic Goodall's _Hindu Scriptures_ is a nice compendium for beginners.\n\nWilliam Buck's novelized translations of the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ and _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ both provide highly accessible points of entry into these two epic poems.\n\nAll of these \"high\" Sanskritic sources are nicely balanced by R. K. Ramanujan's _Folk Tales of India_ , which often give a twist to the better-known, dominant Brahmanical conceptions of Hindu belief and practice.\n\nAmbikananda Saraswati, Swami. _The Uddhava G\u012bt\u0101: The Final Teaching of Krishna_. London: Frances Lincoln, 2000.\n\nAvalon, Arthur, trans. _Tantra of the Great Liberation (Mah\u0101nirv\u0101\u1e47a Tantra)_. New York: Dover, 1972.\n\nBailly, Constantina Rhodes. _Shaiva Devotional Songs of Kashmir: A Translation and Study of Utpaladeva's \u015aivastotr\u0101vali_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987.\n\nBhattacharya, Deben. _Love Songs of Chandidas_. London: Allen and Unwin, 1967.\n\nBloomfield, Maurice. _Hymns of the Atharvaveda_. London: Sacred Books of the East, 1897.\n\nBuck, William. _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.\n\nChatterji, Bankimcandra. _\u0100nandamath, or The Sacred Brotherhood_. Julius J. Lipner, trans. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.\n\nCowell, E. B., trans. _Jataka Stories_. London: Pali Text Society, 1973.\n\nDimock, Edward C., and Tony K. Stewart, trans. _Caitanyacarit\u0101m\u1e5bta of Krishnadasa Kaviraja_. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999.\n\nDoniger, Wendy. _Hindu Myths_. New York: Penguin, 1975.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Rig Veda_. New York: Penguin, 1981.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.\n\nDoniger, Wendy, and Brian K. Smith, trans. _Laws of Manu_. New York: Penguin, 1991.\n\nEmbree, Ainslie T. _The Hindu Tradition_. New York: Random House, 1966.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Sources of Indian Tradition, Vol. 1: From the Beginning to 1800_. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.\n\nFutehally, Shama, trans. _In the Dark of the Heart: The Songs of Meera_. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1995.\n\nGoldman, Robert P., trans. _The R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a of V\u0101lm\u012bki_. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984.\n\nGoodall, Dominic, ed. and trans. _Hindu Scriptures_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.\n\nGriffith, Ralph T. H., trans. _Hymns of the \u1e5ag Veda_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1973.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014, trans. _Hymns of the S\u0101maveda_. Banaras: Chowkhamba, 1963.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014, trans. _Hymns of the Yajurveda_. Banaras: Chowkhamba, 1957.\n\nHawley, John Stratton, and Mark Juergensmeyer. _Songs of the Saints of India_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.\n\nHay, Stephen, ed. _Sources of Indian Tradition, Vol. 2: Modern India and Pakistan_. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.\n\nHess, Linda, and Shukdev Singh, trans. _A Touch of Grace: Songs of Kabir_. Boston: Shambhala, 1994.\n\nHume, Robert Ernest, trans. _The Thirteen Principal Upanishads_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.\n\nIngalls, Daniel H. H. _An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry: Vidy\u0101kara's Subh\u0101\u1e63itaratnako\u015ba_. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965.\n\nJohnson, Clive, ed. _Ved\u0101nta: An Anthology of Hindu Scripture, Commentary, and Poetry_. New York: Harper and Row, 1971.\n\nJohnson, Willard J. _The Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.\n\nLayne, Gwendolyn, trans. _Kadambari of Ba\u1e47abha\u1e6d\u1e6da: A Classic Story of Magical Transformations_. New York: Garland, 1991.\n\nMayeda, Sengaku, trans. _A Thousand Teachings: The Upade\u015basahasr\u012b of \u015aa\u1e45kara_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.\n\nMiller, Barbara Stoler, trans. _The Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101: Krishna's Counsel in Time of War_. New York: Bantam Books, 1986.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014, trans. _Yoga: Discipline of Freedom_. New York: Bantam Books, 1998.\n\nM\u00fcller, Friedrich Max. _Rig Veda_. London: W. H. Allen, 1874.\n\nNikhilananda, Swami, trans. _The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna_. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1942.\n\nOlivelle, Patrick, trans. _Dharmas\u016btras_. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014, trans. _Upani\u1e63ads_. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.\n\nOnians, Isabelle, trans. _Da\u015bakum\u0101racarita of Da\u1e47\u1e0din (What Ten Young Men Did)_. New York: New York University Press, 2005.\n\nPanikkar, Raimundo. _The Vedic Experience: Mantrama\u00f1jar\u012b_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1977.\n\nPereira, J., ed. _Hindu Theology: A Reader_. Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1976.\n\nPeterson, Indira V., trans. _Poems to \u015aiva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints_. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989.\n\nPope, G. U. _The Tiruv\u0101cagam or \"Sacred Utterances\" of the Tamil Poet, Saint, and Sage Manikkavacakar_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1900.\n\nPrabhavananda, Swami, and Christopher Isherwood, trans. _How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali_. Hollywood: Vedanta Society of Southern California, 1953.\n\nRadhakrishnan, Sarvepalli, and Charles A. Moore. _A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy_. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975.\n\nRamanujan, A. K. _Folktales from India: A Selection of Oral Tales from Twenty-two Languages_. New York: Pantheon Books, 1991.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Hymns for the Drowning: Hymns for Vishnu by Nammalvar_. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Interior Landscape: Love Poems from a Classical Tamil Anthology_. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Speaking of \u015aiva_. New York: Penguin, 1973.\n\n\u015aarma, Vi\u1e63\u1e47u. _The Pancatantra_. Chandra Rajan, trans. New York: Penguin, 2007.\n\nSchweig, Graham. _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101: The Beloved Lord's Secret Song_. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2010.\n\nThompson, George. _The Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation_. New York: North Point Press, 2008.\n\nVenkatesananda, Swami. _The Concise R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a of V\u0101lm\u012bki_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Concise Yoga V\u0101si\u1e63\u1e6dha_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984.\n\nC. Modern Primary Sources in English\n\nSome of these primary sources have become something akin to classics among contemporary spiritual seekers. They include Gandhi's autobiography ( _The Story of My Experiments with Truth_ ), Aurobindo Ghose's _Essays on the Gita_ , Huxley's _The Perennial Philosophy_ , Thoreau's _Walden_ , and Yogananda's _Autobiography of a Yogi_. As a source on the life of Ramakrishna that is at once a work of scholarship and devotion, Christopher Isherwood's _Ramakrishna and His Disciples_ is particularly accessible.\n\nAmbedkar, B. R. _The Buddha and His Dharma_. Bombay: Peoples Education Society, 1957.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Towards an Enlightened India_. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2004.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables_. Bombay: Thacker, 1948.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Why Go for Conversion?_ Bangalore: Pariah Sahitya Akademy, 1981.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Untouchables_. Bombay: Thacker, 1948.\n\nBesant, Annie. _Hindu Ideals_. Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1904.\n\nBlavatsky, Helena Petrovna. _The Secret Doctrine_. London: Theosophical Publishing, 1888.\n\nChowgule, Ashok V. _Christianity in India: The Hindutva Perspective_. Mumbai: Hindu Vivek Kendra, 1999.\n\nGandhi, Mohandas K. _An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth_. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Bhagavad Gita According to G\u0101ndh\u012b_. Berkeley, Calif.: Berkeley Hills Books, 2000.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi: A Complete Representative Set of Gandhian Literature in Six Volumes_. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing, 1993.\n\nGhose, Aurobindo. _Essays on the Gita_. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1983.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Life Divine_. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2010.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Secret of the Veda_. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1953.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Upanishads_. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1996.\n\nGoel, Sita Ram. _Catholic Ashrams: Sannyasins or Swindlers?_ New Delhi: Voice of India, 1994.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them?_ New Delhi: Voice of India, 1998.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _History of Hindu-Christian Encounters_. New Delhi: Voice of India, 1989.\n\nHuxley, Aldous. _The Perennial Philosophy_. New York: Harper and Row, 1944.\n\nIsherwood, Christopher. _My Guru and His Disciple_. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Ramakrishna and His Disciples_. Hollywood, Calif.: Vedanta Press, 1965.\n\nMaharishi Mahesh Yogi. _Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101, Chapters 1\u20136_. New York: Penguin, 1990.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Science of Being and Art of Living_. New York: Plume, 2001.\n\nMuktananda, Swami. _Play of Consciousness: A Spiritual Autobiography_. South Falls-burg, N.Y.: Siddha Yoga Publications, 2000.\n\nPandit, Bansi. _The Hindu Mind: Fundamentals of Hindu Religion and Philosophy for All Ages_. Glen Ellyn, Ill.: B and V Enterprises, 1998.\n\nPrabhup\u0101da, A. C. Bhaktived\u0101nta Sw\u0101m\u012b. _Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101: As It Is_ (Reprint). Los Angeles: Bhaktived\u0101nta Book Trust, 1997.\n\nRadhakrishnan, Sarvepalli. _The Hindu View of Life_. London: Macmillan, 1927.\n\nRama, Swami. _Living with the Himalayan Masters_. Blue Mountain, Pa.: Himalayan Institute Press, 2007.\n\nRichards, Glyn. _A Source-Book of Modern Hinduism_. Richmond, U.K.: Curzon, 1985.\n\nSatchidananda, Swami. _The Living Gita_. New York: Henry Holt, 1988.\n\nSubramuniyaswami, Satguru Sivaya. _Dancing with \u015aiva: Hinduism's Contemporary Catechism_. Kauai, Hawaii: Himalayan Academy, 1997.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _How to Become a Hindu: A Guide for Seekers and Born Hindus_. Kauai, Hawaii: Himalayan Academy, 2000.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Merging with \u015aiva: Hinduism's Contemporary Metaphysics_. Kauai, Hawaii: Himalayan Academy, 1999.\n\nThoreau, Henry David. _Walden_. New York: W. W. Norton, 1966.\n\nVivekananda, Swami. _The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda_. Vols. 1\u20138. Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 1989.\n\nYogananda, Paramahamsa. _Autobiography of a Yogi_. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1999.\n\n## II. SECONDARY SOURCES\n\nA. Broad Surveys and Introductory Works\n\nAmong the titles listed in this bibliography, beginners will probably find the broad surveys and introductory works listed in this section especially helpful. But even some of these presuppose a measure of specialized knowledge. I especially recommend David Knipe's _Hinduism_ , K. M. Sen's _Hinduism_ , and Vasudha Narayanan's _Hinduism: Origins, Beliefs, Practices, Holy Texts, Sacred Places_ , all of which I have used effectively in introductory-level college courses on Hinduism or Indic religions.\n\nFor the more ambitious reader, I would recommend Klaus K. Klostermaier's _A Survey of Hinduism_ (for a view of Hinduism that many practitioners find authentic), as well as Wendy Doniger's _The Hindus: An Alternative History_ , which many practitioners have found problematic but which presents an interpretation of the tradition by a scholar who has had a profound impact upon the ways in which the contemporary academy views Hinduism.\n\nAiyar, C. P. Ramaswamy. _Fundamentals of Hindu Faith and Culture_. Trivandrum: Government Press, 1944.\n\nBrockington, J. L. _The Sacred Thread: Hinduism in its Continuity and Diversity_. Edinburgh, U.K.: Edinburgh University Press, 1996.\n\nDallapiccola, Anna L. _Dictionary of Hindu Lore and Legend_. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002.\n\nDoniger, Wendy. _The Hindus: An Alternative History_. New York: Penguin, 2009.\n\nFlood, Gavin. _The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism_. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _An Introduction to Hinduism_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.\n\nFuller, Chris. _The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism and Society in India_. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004.\n\nGrimes, John. _A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.\n\nHopkins, Thomas. _The Hindu Religious Tradition_. Encino, Calif.: Dickenson, 1971.\n\nJacobs, Stephen. _Hinduism Today_. London: Continuum, 2010.\n\nJagannathan, Shakuntala. _Hinduism: An Introduction_. Mumbai: Vakils, Feffer and Simons, 1984.\n\nKlostermaier, Klaus K. _A Survey of Hinduism_. 3rd ed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.\n\nKnipe, David. _Hinduism_. San Francisco: Harper, 1991.\n\nKnott, Kim. _Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.\n\nJohnsen, Linda. _The Complete Idiot's Guide to Hinduism_. Indianapolis, Ind.: Alpha Books, 2002.\n\nKinsley, David. _Hinduism: A Cultural Perspective_. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1993.\n\nLal, Vinay, and Borin van Loon. _Introducing Hinduism_. Thriplow, U.K.: Icon Books, 2005.\n\nLipner, Julius. _Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices_. London: Routledge, 1994.\n\nLopez, Donald S. _Religions of India in Practice_. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995.\n\nMittal, Sushil, and Gene Thursby, eds. _The Hindu World_. London: Routledge, 2004.\n\nMonier-Williams, Monier. _Religious Thought and Life in India_. London: John Murray, 1885.\n\nNarayanan, Vasudha. _Hinduism: Origins, Beliefs, Practices, Holy Texts, Sacred Places_. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.\n\nSen, Kshiti Mohan. _Hinduism_. New York: Penguin, 1961.\n\nStutley, Margaret, and James Stutley. _A Dictionary of Hinduism: Its Mythology, Folklore, and Development, 1500 B.C.\u2013A.D. 1500_. New York: Harper and Row, 1977.\n\nSullivan, Bruce M. _The Historical Dictionary of Hinduism_. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1997.\n\nB. Historical Studies\n\nAs noted earlier, the works that are contained in this section range from histories of the Indian subcontinent, to studies of the history of particular regions or movements, to biographies of individuals.\n\nIn the first category, I recommend John Keay's _India: A History_ and Romila Thapar's _Ancient Indian Social History_. Though a bit dated, A. L. Basham's _The Wonder That Was India_ is a classic and creates a rich and vivid picture of ancient India in the mind of the reader. For the Indus Valley civilization, Jane R. McIntosh's _A Peaceful Realm: The Rise and Fall of the Indus Civilization_ is especially good for beginners.\n\nFor the modern period, Collins and Lapierre's _Freedom at Midnight_ , on the Indian independence movement, is a classic, as is Louis Fischer's _The Life of Mahatma Gandhi_. William Dalrymple's _White Moghuls: Love and Betrayal in 18th Century India_ is accessible and entertaining as an introduction to the early colonial period.\n\nAbbot, J. E. _The Poet Saints of Maharastra_. 12 vols. Poona: Scottish Mission Industries, 1926\u20131941.\n\nAdcock, Catherine. _Religious Freedom and Political Culture: The \u0100rya Sam\u0101j in Colonial North India_. PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2007.\n\nAgrawala, V. S. _India as Known to P\u0101\u1e47ini_. Varanasi: Prithvi Prakasan, 1963.\n\nAiyangar, S. K. _Some Contributions of South India to Indian Culture_. Calcutta: Calcutta University, 1942.\n\nAiyer, A. Nataraja, and S. Lakshminarasimha Shastri. _The Traditional Age of \u015ar\u012b \u015aa\u1e45kar\u0101ch\u0101rya and the Maths_. Madras: Private publication, 1962.\n\nAllchin, B., and R. Allchin. _The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.\n\nAltekar, A. D. _The Position of Women in Hindu Civilization from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day_. Banares: Motilal Banarsidass, 1956.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _State and Government in Ancient India_. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1962.\n\nAshby, Philip H. _Modern Trends in Hinduism_. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974.\n\nBakker, Hans T. _Ayodhya: The History of Ayodhya from the 7th Century BC to the Middle of the 18th Century_. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1986.\n\nBall, Charles. _The History of the Indian Mutiny, Giving a Detailed Account of the Sepoy Insurrection_. New Delhi: Master Publishers, 1859.\n\nBasham, A. L. _The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism_. Boston: Beacon Press, 1975.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Wonder That Was India_. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1954.\n\nBeal, Samuel, trans. _Si-yu-ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World_. New York: Paragon, 1968.\n\nBryan, Edwin F. _The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-\u0100ryan Migration Debate_. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.\n\nChakrabarti, Dilip K. _The Archaeology of Ancient Indian Cities_. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _India: An Archaeological History_. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.\n\nChakrabarti, Kunal. _Themes in Indian History_. Oxford Readings in Sociology. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006.\n\nChattopadhyaya, S. _The Evolution of Theistic Sects in Ancient India_. Calcutta: Progressive Publishers, 1963.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Reflections on the Tantras_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Some Early Dynasties of South India_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1974.\n\nChaudhuri, N. _That Compassionate Touch of Ma Anandamayee_. Reprint. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2006.\n\nClothey, Fred. _Images of Man: Religion and Historical Process in South Asia_. Madras: Blackie and Son, 1983.\n\nCollins, L., and D. Lapierre. _Freedom at Midnight_. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975.\n\nCrawford, S. Cromwell. _Ram Mohan Roy: Social, Political and Religious Reform in Nineteenth Century India_. New York: Paragon House, 1987.\n\nDalrymple, William. _White Moghuls: Love and Betrayal in 18th Century India_. Hammersmith, U.K.: HarperCollins, Flamingo, 2003.\n\nDandekar, R. N. _Some Aspects of the History of Hinduism_. Poona: University of Poona, 1967.\n\nDani\u00e9lou, Alain. _A Brief History of India_. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2003.\n\nDavid, Saul. _The Indian Mutiny_. New York: Penguin Books, 2003.\n\nDevahuti, D. _Harsha: A Political Study_. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970.\n\nEaton, Richard M. _Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States_. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.\n\nEban, M., ed. _Maharishi the Guru: The Story of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi_. Bombay: Pear Publications, 1968.\n\nErikson, Erik H. _Gandhi's Truth_. New York: W. W. Norton, 1970.\n\nFeuerstein, Georg, Subhash Kak, and David Frawley. _In Search of the Cradle of Civilization_. Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1995.\n\nFischer, Louis. _The Life of Mahatma Gandhi_. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1959.\n\nGlucklich, Ariel. _The Strides of Vishnu: Hindu Culture in Historical Perspective_. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.\n\nHardy, Friedhelm. _Viraha Bhakti: The Early History of Krishna Devotion in South India_. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983.\n\nHawley, John Stratton. _Three Bhakti Voices: Mirabai, Surdas and Kabir in Their Times and Ours_. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005.\n\nJames, Lawrence. _Raj_. New York: Little, Brown, 1997.\n\nKeay, John. _India: A History_. New York: Grove Press, 2000.\n\nKeer, Dhananjay. _Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission_. Bombay: India Printing Works, 1962.\n\nKenoyer, Jonathan Mark. _Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.\n\nKulke, Hermann, and Dietmar Rothermund. _A History of India_. London: Routledge, 1986.\n\nLorenzen, David N. _Kabir Legends and Anantadas's Kabir Parachay_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.\n\nLudden, David E. _India and South Asia: A Short History_. Oxford: One World, 2002.\n\nMajumdar, R. C., ed. _The Vedic Age_. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1952.\n\nMcCrindle, J. W. _Ancient India as Described in Classical Literature_. Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1975.\n\nMcIntosh, Jane R. _A Peaceful Realm: The Rise and Fall of the Indus Civilization_. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2002.\n\nMcLean, Malcolm. _Devoted to the Goddess: The Life and Work of Ramprasad_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.\n\nMishra, Pankaj. \"Exit Wounds: The Legacy of Indian Partition.\" _New Yorker_ (August 13, 2007): 80\u201384.\n\nMoon, Penderel. _British Conquest and Dominion of India_. London: Duckworth, 1989.\n\nMukherjee, Ramkrishna. _The Rise and Fall of the East India Company: A Sociological Appraisal_. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974.\n\nMukhia, Harbans. _The Mughals of India_. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2004.\n\nNeumayer, E. _Prehistoric Indian Rock Paintings_. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983.\n\nNikam, N. A., and Richard McKeon. _The Edicts of A\u015boka_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.\n\nNilakantha Shastri, K. A. _A Comprehensive History of India_. Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1957.\n\nOlivelle, Patrick, ed. _Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE_. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.\n\nParashar, Aloka. _Mlecchas in Early India: A Study in Attitudes toward Outsiders Up to AD 600_. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1991.\n\nParpola, Asko. _Deciphering the Indus Script_. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.\n\nPollock, Sheldon. _The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.\n\nPossehl, Gregory L. _The Indus Age: The Writing System_. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective_. Walnut Creek, Calif.: Altamira Press, 2002.\n\nRenou, Louis. _Religions of Ancient India_. New York: Schocken, 1968.\n\nSchwartzberg, J. E., ed. _Historical Atlas of India_. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.\n\nSeal, Anil. _The Emergence of Indian Nationalism: Competition and Collaboration in the Later Nineteenth Century_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971.\n\nSen, Amitya. _Hindu Revivalism in Bengal, 1872\u20131905: Some Essays in Interpretation_. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993.\n\nSethna, K. D. _Ancient India in a New Light_. Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1989.\n\nSingh, S. D. _Ancient Indian Warfare, with Special Reference to the Vedic Period_. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965.\n\nSmith, Bardwell L., ed. _Essays on Gupta Culture_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1983.\n\nSuddhatmaprana, Pravrajika. _Indian Saints and Mystics_. Kolkata: Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, 2009.\n\nThapar, Romila. _Ancient Indian Social History_. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1978.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _A\u015boka and the Decline of the Mauryas_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961.\n\nWhite, David Gordon. _The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.\n\nC. Textual Studies\n\nAnanda K. Coomaraswamy and Sister Nivedita's compendium of the _Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists_ is an excellent introduction to the narrative traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, as is Edward C. Dimock's _The Literatures of India: An Introduction_. Iravati Karve's _Yuganta: The End of an Epoch_ is an intriguing guide to the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ , as is Alf Hiltebeitel's _The Ritual of Battle_ and his more recent work, _Rethinking the Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata: A Reader's Guide to the Education of the Dharma King_. Romila Thapar's _Exile and the Kingdom: Some Thoughts on the R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_ is a similarly good entry into the _R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_.\n\nAli, S. M. _The Geography of the Pur\u0101\u1e47as_. New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1966.\n\nAmore, R. C., and L. D. Shinn. _Lustful Maidens and Ascetic Kings: Buddhist and Hindu Stories of Life_. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.\n\nApte, V. M. _\u1e5agvedic Mantras in Their Ritual Setting in the G\u1e5bhyas\u016btras_. Poona: Deccan College Research Institute, 1950.\n\nBakker, Hans T., ed. _Origin and Growth of the Puranic Text Corpus with Special Reference to the Skanda Purana_. Groningen, Netherlands: E. Forsten, 1986.\n\nBalasundaram, T. S. _The Golden Anthology of Ancient Tamil Literature_. 3 vols. Madras: South India \u015aaiva Siddh\u0101nta Book Publishing Society, 1959\u20131960.\n\nBanerjea, S. C. _Dharma \u015a\u0101stras: A Study of Their Origin and Development_. Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 1962.\n\nBanerji, S. C. _Studies in the Mah\u0101pur\u0101\u1e47as_. Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 1991.\n\nBhattacharya, Asutosh. _Folklore of Bengal_. New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1978.\n\nBloomfield, Maurice. _Hymns of the Atharva Veda_. New York: Greenwood Press, 1969.\n\nBrockington, John L. _The Sanskrit Epics_. Leiden: Brill, 1998.\n\nChakravarti, C. _Tantras: Studies on Their Religion and Literature_. Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 1963.\n\nCoburn, Thomas. _Dev\u012b M\u0101h\u0101tmya: The Crystallization of the Goddess Tradition_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984.\n\nCoomaraswamy, Ananda K., and Sister Nivedita. _Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists_. Reprint. New York: Dover, 1967.\n\nDandekar, R. N., ed. _Vedic Bibliography_. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1961\u20131973.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Vedic Mythological Tracts_. Delhi: Ajanta, 1977.\n\nDerrett, J. Duncan M. _Dharma\u015b\u0101stra and Juridical Literature_. Weisbaden, Germany: Otto Harrassowitz, 1973.\n\nDevasthali, G. V. _Religion and Mythology of the Br\u0101hma\u1e47as_. Poona: University of Poona, 1965.\n\nDimock, Edward C., ed. _The Literatures of India: An Introduction_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.\n\nDoniger, Wendy, ed. _Pur\u0101\u1e47a Perennis: Reciprocity and Transformation in Hindu and Jaina Texts_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.\n\nFaddegon, Barend. _Studies in the S\u0101maveda_. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1951.\n\nGoldman, Robert P. _Gods, Priests, and Warriors: The Bh\u1e5bgus of the Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.\n\nGonda, Jan. _Dual Deities in the Religion of the Veda_. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1974.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Indra Hymns of the \u1e5agveda_. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Loka: World and Heaven in the Veda_. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1966.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Mantra Interpretation in the \u015aatapatha Br\u0101hma\u1e47a_. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Ritual S\u016btras_. Wiesbaden, Germany: Otto Harassowitz, 1977.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Vision of the Vedic Poets_. The Hague: Mouton, 1963.\n\nGonzalez-Riemann, Luis. _The Mahabharata and the Yugas_. New York: Peter Lang, 2002.\n\nGoudriaan, Teun. _M\u0101y\u0101 Divine and Human: A Study of Magic and Its Religious Foundations in Sanskrit Texts_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978.\n\nHiltebeitel, Alf. _Rethinking the Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata: A Reader's Guide to the Education of the Dharma King_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Ritual of Battle_. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1976.\n\nHopkins, E. W. _The Great Epic of India: Its Character and Origin_. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901.\n\nJohnson, Willard J. _Poetry and Speculation of the \u1e5ag Veda_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.\n\nKailasapathy, K. _Tamil Heroic Poetry_. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968.\n\nKane, P. V. _History of Dharma\u015b\u0101stra_. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1962.\n\nKarve, Iravati. _Yuganta: The End of an Epoch_. Poona: Deshmukh Prakashan, 1969.\n\nKatz, Ruth C. _Arjuna in the Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata: Where Krishna Is, There Is Victory_. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989.\n\nKnipe, David M. _In the Image of Fire: Vedic Experiences of Heat_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975.\n\nLutgendorf, Philip. _The Life of a Text: Performing the R\u0101mcaritm\u0101nas of Tuls\u012bd\u0101s_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.\n\nMani, Vettam. _Pur\u0101\u1e47ic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary of Epic and Pur\u0101\u1e47ic Literature_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975.\n\nMinor, Robert, ed. _Modern Indian Interpretation of the Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986.\n\nNarayan, Vasudha. _The Vernacular Veda: Revelation, Recitation, and Ritual_. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994.\n\nNath, Vijay. _Puranas and Acculturation: A Historico-Anthropological Perspective_. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2001.\n\nPatton, Laurie L., ed. _Authority, Anxiety, and Canon: Essays in Vedic Interpretation_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.\n\nPowell, Barbara. _Windows into the Infinite: A Guide to the Hindu Scriptures_. Fremont, Calif.: Asian Humanities Press, 1996.\n\nRenou, Louis. _The Destiny of the Veda in India_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1965.\n\nSantucci, James A. _An Outline of Vedic Literature_. Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1967.\n\nSharma, Arvind, ed. _Essays on the Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991.\n\nThapar, Romila. _Exile and the Kingdom: Some Thoughts on the R\u0101m\u0101ya\u1e47a_. Bangalore: Mythic Society, 1978.\n\nD. Practice: Ritual and Ethics\n\nLawrence Babb's _The Divine Hierarchy_ and _Redemptive Encounters_ are both fine examples of the genre of ethnographic writing: clear and accessible, and giving the reader a strong sense of lived Hinduism.\n\nIn the area of ethics, Christopher Chapple's _Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions_ is both clear and concise and has a considerable section devoted to Hinduism. For another perspective, D. N. Jha's _The Myth of the Holy Cow_ reveals how recent the practice of cow protection as a defining feature of Hinduism really is.\n\nOn the philosophy and practice of yoga, Mircea Eliade's _Yoga: Immortality and Freedom_ is a classic, while Chapple's recent _Yoga and the Luminous_ is an excellent entry point to the practice of yoga by a scholar-practitioner.\n\nJulia Leslie's _Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women_ and Anne Mackenzie Pearson's _Because It Gives Me Peace of Mind: Ritual Fasts in the Religious Lives of Hindu Women_ are especially good introductions to the rituals specific to Hindu women.\n\nArvind Sharma's _Hinduism and Human Rights_ is a groundbreaking work that brings the discourse of dharma into conversation with the modern concept of human rights.\n\nAlper, Harvey, ed. _Understanding Mantras_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989.\n\nBabb, Lawrence A _. The Divine Hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in Central India_. New York: Columbia University Press, 1975.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Redemptive Encounters: Three Modern Styles in the Hindu Tradition_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.\n\nBahadur, Om Lata. _Book of Hindu Festivals and Ceremonies_. New Delhi: UBS, 1994.\n\nChapple, Christopher Key. _Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Yoga and the Luminous: Pata\u00f1jali's Spiritual Path to Freedom_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009.\n\nChapple, Christopher Key, and Mary Evelyn Tucker, eds. _Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water_. Cambridge, Mass.: Center for the Study of World Religions, 2000.\n\nClooney, Francis X. _Thinking Ritually: Rediscovering the P\u016brva M\u012bm\u0101\u1e43s\u0101 of Jaimini_. Vienna: Institut f\u00fcr Indologie, 1990.\n\nCreel, A. B. _Dharma in Hindu Ethics_. Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books, 1977.\n\nCutler, Norman. _Songs of Experience: The Poetics of Tamil Devotion_. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.\n\nDani\u00e9lou, Alain. _Virtue, Success, Pleasure, Liberation: The Four Aims of Life in the Traditions of Ancient India_. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions International, 1993.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Yoga: The Method of Reintegration_. New York: University Books, 1956.\n\nDatta, V. N. _Sati: A Historical, Social, and Philosophical Enquiry into the Hindu Rite of Widow Burning_. New Delhi: Manohar, 1987.\n\nEliade, Mircea. _Yoga: Immortality and Freedom_. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1958.\n\nGold, Ann Grodzins. _Fruitful Journeys: The Ways of Rajasthani Pilgrims_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.\n\nHarman, William. _The Sacred Marriage of a Hindu Goddess_. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.\n\nHazra, R. C. _Studies in the Puranic Records of Hindu Rites and Customs_. Dacca: University of Dacca, 1940.\n\nHeesterman, Jan C. _The Broken World of Sacrifice_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.\n\nHocart, A. M. _Caste: A Comparative Study_. London: Methuen, 1950.\n\nHouben, Jan E. M., and K. R. van Kooij, eds. _Violence Denied: Violence, Non-Violence, and the Rationalization of Violence in South Asian Cultural History_. Leiden: Brill, 1999.\n\nHuffer, Amanda. _Guru Movements in a Globalized Framework: Amritanandamayi Ma's (Amma's) Community of Devotees in the United States_. PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2010.\n\nJha, D. N. _The Myth of the Holy Cow_. London: Verso, 2002.\n\nJordens, J. T. F. \"Reconversion to Hinduism, the Shuddhi of the \u0100rya Sam\u0101j.\" In _Religion in South Asia: Religious Conversion and Revival Movements in South Asia in Medieval and Modern Times_ , ed. G. Oddie, 144\u201353. London: Curzon Press, 1977.\n\nKakar, Sudhir. _Shamans, Mystics, and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and Its Healing Traditions_. New York: Knopf, 1982.\n\nLeslie, Julia, ed. _Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women_. Rutherford, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1991.\n\nPearson, Ane Mackenzie. _Because It Gives Me Peace of Mind: Ritual Fasts in the Religious Lives of Hindu Women_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.\n\nSharma, Arvind. _Hinduism and Human Rights: A Conceptual Approach_. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003.\n\nE. Deities\n\nAs a broad overview of the Hindu pantheon, Alain Dani\u00e9lou's _The Myths and Gods of India_ is both accessible and very widely encompassing. Thomas Coburn's _Dev\u012b Mah\u0101tmya: The Crystallization of the Goddess Tradition_ is an excellent guide to goddess traditions, as is David Kinsley's _Hindu Goddesses_. Philip Lutgendorf's _Hanuman's Tale_ is a clear and comprehensive guide to the lore surrounding Hanuman. John Stratton Hawley's _Krishna, The But_ _ter Thief_ is a very good introduction to the devotional tradition surrounding Krishna, and Wendy Doniger's _\u015aiva: The Erotic Ascetic_ is, despite its racy title, a fine guide to the primary source literature on \u015aiva and the ways in which this deity transforms over time.\n\nBeck, Guy L., ed. _Alternative Krishnas: Regional and Vernacular Variations on a Hindu Deity_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.\n\nBryant, Edwin F., ed. _Krishna, a Sourcebook_. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.\n\nClothey, F. W. _The Many Faces of Murukan: The History and Meaning of a South Indian God_. The Hague: Mouton, 1978.\n\nCoburn, Thomas B. _Dev\u012b Mah\u0101tmya: The Crystallization of the Goddess Tradition_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984.\n\nDani\u00e9lou, Alain. _Hindu Polytheism_. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Myths and Gods of India_. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions International, 1985.\n\nDas, B. _K\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e47a: A Study in the Theory of Avat\u0101ras_. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1962.\n\nDoniger, Wendy. _\u015aiva: The Erotic Ascetic_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.\n\nErndl, Kathleen M. _Victory to the Mother: The Hindu Goddess of Northwest India in Myth, Ritual, and Symbol_. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.\n\nHandelman, Don, and David Shulman. _God Inside Out: \u015aiva's Game of Dice_. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.\n\nHawley, John Stratton. _Krishna, The Butter Thief_. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983.\n\nKinsley, David. _Hindu Goddesses_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Sword and the Flute: Kali and Krishna_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.\n\nLutgendorf, Philip. _Hanuman's Tale_. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.\n\nNathan, Leonard, and Clinton Seely. _Grace and Mercy in Her Wild Hair_. Boulder, Colo.: Great Easter, 1982.\n\nF. The Arts\n\nFor the beginner, T. Richard Blurton's _Hindu Art_ is indispensable, as is Partha Mitter's _Indian Art_. Diana L. Eck's _Dar\u015ban: Seeing the Divine Image in India_ is a fine introduction to the theology that underlies that use of images in Hindu worship. I then recommend Richard Davis's _Lives of Indian Images_ as a follow-up.\n\nOn dance and drama, David L. Haberman's _Acting as a Way of Salvation: A Study of Raganuga Bhakti Sadhana_ explores the religious significance of acting in Hinduism. Stella Kramrisch's _The Hindu Temple_ is a good guide to the meaning of Hindu temple art and architecture.\n\nAcharya, Prasanna K. _A Dictionary of Hindu Architecture_. London: Oxford University Press, 1946.\n\nAnand, Mulk Raj. _The Hindu View of Art_. Bombay: Popular, 1957.\n\nArcher, W. G. _Indian Miniatures_. Greenwich: New York Calligraphic Society, 1960.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry_. London: Allen and Unwin, 1957.\n\nBanerjea, Jitendra Nath. _The Development of Hindu Iconography_. Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1956.\n\nBlurton, T. Richard. _Hindu Art_. London: British Museum Press, 1992.\n\nCoomaraswamy, Ananda K. _The Dance of \u015aiva_. Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1956.\n\nDavis, Richard. _Lives of Indian Images_. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997.\n\nDesai, Devangana. _The Religious Imagery of Khajuraho_. Mumbai: Franco-Indian Research, 1996.\n\nEck, Diana L. _Dar\u015ban: Seeing the Divine Image in India_. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.\n\nGaston, Anne Marie. _\u015aiva in Dance, Myth and Iconography_. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982.\n\nGoetz, Hermann. _Studies in the History and Art of Kashmir and the Indian Himalaya_. Weisbaden, Germany: Otto Harassowitz, 1969.\n\nGopinatha Rao, T. _Elements of Hindu Iconography_. Madras: Law Printing House, 1916.\n\nGupta, Chandra Bhan. _The Indian Theatre_. 2nd ed. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1991.\n\nHaberman, David L. _Acting as a Way of Salvation: A Study of Raganuga Bhakti Sadhana_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2001.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Journey through the Twelve Forests: An Encounter with Krishna_. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.\n\nHawley, John Stratton. _At Play with Krishna: Pilgrimage Dramas from Brind\u0101ban_. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981.\n\nIyer, K. Bharata. _Kathakali: The Sacred Dance-Drama of Malabar_. London: Luzac, 1995.\n\nKramrisch, Stella. _The Hindu Temple_. Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books, 1991.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Unknown India: Ritual Art in Tribe and Village_. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1968.\n\nKuiper, F. B. J. _Varu\u1e47a and Vid\u016b\u1e63aka: On the Origin of Sanskrit Drama_. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1979.\n\nLidova, Natalia. _Drama and Ritual of Early Hinduism_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994.\n\nMehta, Tarla. _Sanskrit Play Production in Ancient India_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1995.\n\nMichell, George. _Hindu Art and Architecture_. London: Thames and Hudson, 2000.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Hindu Temple: An Introduction to Its Meaning and Forms_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.\n\nMitter, Partha. _Indian Art_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.\n\nMookerjee, Ajit. _Tantra Art: Its Philosophy and Physics_. Basel: Ravi Kumar, 1971.\n\nRao, T. A. G. _Elements of Hindu Iconography_. New York: Paragon, 1968.\n\nStutley, Margaret. _The Illustrated Dictionary of Hindu Iconography_. London: Rout-ledge and Kegan Paul, 1985.\n\nVaidyanathan, K. R. _\u015ar\u012b Krishna, the Lord of Guruvay\u016br_. Bombay: Bh\u0101rat\u012bya Vidy\u0101 Bhavan, 1977.\n\nVaradpande, M. L. _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata in Performance_. New Delhi: Clarion Books, 1990.\n\nWaghorne, Joanne P., and Norman Cutler, eds. _Gods of Flesh\/Gods of Stone: The Embodiment of Divinity in India_. Chambersberg, Pa.: Anima, 1985.\n\nWulff, Donna M. _Drama as a Mode of Religious Realization: The Vidagdham\u0101dhava of R\u016bpa Gosv\u0101m\u012b_. Atlanta: American Academy of Religion, 1984.\n\nG. Hindu Society\n\nAs introductions to the overall structure of Hindu society, two classics in the field remain Madeleine Biardeau's _Hinduism: The Anthropology of a Civilization_ and Louis Dumont's _Homo Heirarchicus_. I also recommend Bernard S. Cohn's _India: The Social Anthropology of a Civilization_. A fine example of ethnographic writing that focuses on Hindu social structures in southern India is E. Valentine Daniel's _Fluid Signs: Being a Person the Tamil Way_. Nicholas Dirks's _Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India_ explores the reification of the caste system under the influence of colonial rule. Also excellent on the issue of caste is Ramdas Lamb's _The Ramnamis, Ramnam, and Untouchable Religion in Central India_ , as is Brian K. Smith's work, _Classifying the Universe: The Ancient Indian Varna System and the Origins of Caste_.\n\nFinally, Christophe Jaffrelot's _The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India_ is, in my judgment, the best introduction available to the militant political wing of Hinduism.\n\nAiyar, S. P. _The Politics of Mass Violence in India_. Bombay: Manaktalas, 1967.\n\nAiyer, V. G. R. _The Economy of a South Indian Temple_. Annamalai, Tamil Nadu: Annamalai University, 1946.\n\nAli, S. _The Congress Ideology and Programme_. New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1958.\n\nAllen, Douglas, ed. _Religion and Political Conflict in South Asia: India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka_. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992.\n\nAltekar, A. D. _Sources of Hindu Dharma in Its Socio-Religious Aspect_. Sholapur, Maharashtra: Institute of Public Administration, 1952.\n\nAltekar, A. S. _The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day_. Benares: Motilal Banarsidass, 1956.\n\nAnand, Mulk Raj. _Coolie_. Bombay: Kutub, 1957.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Untouchable_. Bombay: Jaico, 1956.\n\nAnderson, W. K., and S. D. Dhamle. _The Brotherhood in Saffron: The R\u0101\u1e63\u1e6dr\u012bya Swayam-sevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism_. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987.\n\nBaden-Powell, B. H. _The Indian Village Community_. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1958.\n\nBiardeau, Madeleine. _Hinduism: The Anthropology of a Civilization_. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994.\n\nBronkhorst, Johannes, and M. M. Deshpande, eds. _\u0100ryan and Non-\u0100ryan in South Asia: Evidence, Interpretation and Ideology_. Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books, 1999.\n\nCarstairs, G. M. _The Twice-Born_. London: Hogarth Press, 1957.\n\nCenkner, W. _A Tradition of Teachers: \u015aa\u1e45kara and the Jagadgurus Today_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1983.\n\nCohn, Bernard S. _India: The Social Anthropology of a Civilization_. Englewood Cliffs, N.Y.: Prentice Hall, 1971.\n\nDaniel, E. Valentine. _Fluid Signs: Being a Person the Tamil Way_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.\n\nDani\u00e9lou, Alain. _India, a Civilization of Differences: The Ancient Tradition of Universal Tolerance_. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions International, 2003.\n\nDas, Veena. _Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India_. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia_. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990.\n\nDeliege, Robert. _The Untouchables of India_. Oxford: Berg, 2001.\n\nDirks, Nicholas. _Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India_. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001.\n\nDum\u00e9zil, Georges. _The Destiny of a King_. Alf Hiltebeitel, trans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.\n\nDumont, Louis. _Homo Hierarchicus_. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Religion, Politics and History in India: Collected Papers in Indian Sociology_. The Hague: Mouton, 1970.\n\nForbes, G. _Women in Modern India_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.\n\nGhurye, G. S. _The Scheduled Tribes_. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1963.\n\nGlucklich, Ariel. _Religious Jurisprudence in the Dharma\u015b\u0101stra_. New York: Macmillan, 1988.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Sense of Adharma_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.\n\nGopal, Sarvepalli, ed. _Anatomy of a Confrontation: Ayodhya and the Rise of Communal Politics in India_. Delhi: Penguin India, 1991.\n\nHardiman, David. _The Coming of the Devi: Adivasi Assertion in Western India_. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995.\n\nHardy, Friedhelm. _The Religious Culture of India: Power, Love, and Wisdom_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.\n\nHawley, John Stratton, ed. _Sati, the Blessing and the Curse: The Burning of Wives in India_. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.\n\nHuyler, Stephen P. _Village India_. New York: Harry Abrams, 1985.\n\nIsaacs, Harold. _India's Ex-Untouchables_. New York: John Day, 1964.\n\nJaffrelot, Christophe, ed. _Hindu Nationalism: A Reader_. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India_. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014, ed. _Hindu Nationalism: A Reader_. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007.\n\nJuergensmeyer, Mark. _Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in 20th Century Punjab_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.\n\nKulke, Hermann, and Burkhard Schnepel. _Jagannatha Revisited: Studying Society, Religion, and the State in Orissa_. New Delhi: Manohar, 2001.\n\nKuruvachira, J. _Roots of Hindutva: A Critical Study of Hindu Fundamentalism and Nationalism_. Delhi: Media House, 2005.\n\nLamb, Ramdas. _The Ramnamis, Ramnam, and Untouchable Religion in Central India_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.\n\nMarriott, McKim, ed. _India through Hindu Categories_. Newbury Park, N.J.: Sage, 1990.\n\nOlivelle, Patrick. _The Ashrama System: The History and Hermeneutics of a Religious Institution_. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1993.\n\nOmvedt, Gail. _Dalit Visions: The Anti-Caste Movement and the Construction of an Indian Identity_. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1995.\n\nSharma, Jyotirmaya. _Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism_. New Delhi: Penguin, Viking, 2003.\n\nSmith, Brian K. _Classifying the Universe: The Ancient Indian Varna System and the Origins of Caste_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.\n\nWeber, Max. _The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism_. New York: Free Press, 1958.\n\nH. Constructive Thought: Philosophy and Theology\n\nThe clearest introduction to Hindu theology available, to my knowledge\u2014and one to which my students have responded very positively for years\u2014is Pravrajika Vrajaprana's _Vedanta: A Simple Introduction_. Also clear and scholarly is Anantanand Rambachan's _The Advaita Worldview_ (for the nondualist stream of Hindu thought), as well as Deepak Sarma's _An Introduction to M\u0101dhva Ved\u0101nta_ (for a dualist counterpoint). Stephen Phillips, in his _Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy_ , presents a very clear and cogent defense of the classical Hindu doctrines of karma and rebirth. Though it may be heavy going for a beginner, Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya's _Lokayata: A Study in Ancient Indian Materialism_ is an intriguing exposition and defense of the relatively little-known materialist system of Indian philosophy.\n\nThe works of Wilhelm Halbfass listed here\u2014 _India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding_ , _On Being and What There Is: Classical Vai\u015be\u1e63ika and the History of Indian Ontology_ , and _Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought_ all give excellent overviews of various dimensions of Hindu intellectual history. The main focus of _India and Europe_ is the interactions between India and the West. _On Being and What There Is_ is probably the best exposition of the Vai\u015be\u1e63ika system of Indian philosophy that is available in the English language. _Tradition and Reflection_ is a wide-ranging, but quite accessible, collection of essays on a variety of topics relating to Hindu thought.\n\nThe articles in Rita Sherma and Arvind Sharma's edited volume, _Hermeneutics and Hindu Thought: Toward a Fusion of Horizons_ , are excellent examples of constructive thought in contemporary Hinduism.\n\nArapura, J. G. _Hermeneutical Essays on Ved\u0101ntic Topics_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1986.\n\nBalasubramanian, R. _Advaita Ved\u0101nta_. Madras: University of Madras, 1976.\n\nBanerjea, A. K. _Philosophy of Gorakhn\u0101th_. Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh: Mahant Dig Vijai Nath Trust, Gorakhnath Temple, 1962.\n\nBrown, W. Norman. _Man in the Universe: Some Continuities in Indian Thought_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.\n\nCarman, John Braisted. _The Theology of R\u0101m\u0101\u1e47uja: An Essay in Interreligious Understanding_. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974.\n\nCarpenter, J. E. _Theism in Mediaeval India_. London: Constable, 1921.\n\nChakravarti, S. C. _The Philosophy of the Upani\u1e63ads_. Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1935.\n\nChapple, Christopher Key. _Karma and Creativity_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986.\n\nChatterjee, Margaret. _Gandhi's Religious Thought_. South Bend, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press, 1983.\n\nChatterji, Jagadish Chandra. _The Wisdom of the Vedas_. Wheaton, Ill.: Quest Books, 1992.\n\nChattopadhyaya, Debiprasad. _Lokayata: A Study in Ancient Indian Materialism_. New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1959.\n\nClooney, Francis X. _Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary_. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Theology after Ved\u0101nta_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.\n\nCoward, H. G. _Bhart\u1e5bhari_. Boston: Twayne, 1976.\n\nDandekar, R. N. _Universe in Hindu Thought_. Bangalore: University of Bangalore, 1972.\n\nDas, R. V. _Introduction to \u015aa\u1e45kara_. Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 1968.\n\nDasgupta, Surendranath. _History of Indian Philosophy_. 5 vols. Reprint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.\n\nDeutsch, Eliot. _Advaita Ved\u0101nta: A Philosophical Reconstruction_. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1969.\n\nDoniger, Wendy. \"Do Many Heads Necessarily Have Many Minds? Hindu Polytheism and Religious Diversity\" _Parabola_ 30, no. 4 (2005): 10\u201319.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014, ed. _Karma and Rebirth in Classical Hindu Traditions_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.\n\nEck, Diana L. _Banaras: City of Light_. New York: Penguin, 1983.\n\nFeuerstein, Georg. _The Philosophy of Classical Yoga_. Manchester, U.K.: University of Manchester Press, 1982.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Tantra: The Path of Ecstasy_. Boston: Shambhala, 1998.\n\nHalbfass, Wilhelm. _India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _On Being and What There Is: Classical Vai\u015be\u1e63ika and the History of Indian Ontology_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.\n\nIsayeva, Natalia. _Shankara and Indian Philosophy_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.\n\nLarson, Gerald James. _Classical Samkhya: An Interpretation of Its History and Meaning_. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Ross\/Erikson, 1979.\n\nLong, Jeffery D. _A Vision for Hinduism: Beyond Hindu Nationalism_. London: I. B. Tauris, 2007.\n\nMarcaurelle, Roger. _Freedom through Inner Renunciation: \u015aa\u1e45kara's Philosophy in a New Light_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000.\n\nMatilal, Bimal Krishna. _The Character of Logic in India_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.\n\nMuller-Ortega, Paul Eduardo. _The Triadic Heart of \u015aiva: Kaula Tantricism of Abhinavagupta in the Non-Dual Shaivism of Kashmir_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989.\n\nObeyesekere, Gananath. _Imagining Karma_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.\n\nPhillips, Stephen. _Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy_. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.\n\nRambachan, Anantanand. _Accomplishing the Accomplished: The Vedas as a Source of Valid Knowledge in \u015aa\u1e45kara_. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Advaita Worldview: God, World, and Humanity_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda's Reinterpretation of the Vedas_. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994.\n\nSarma, Deepak. _An Introduction to M\u0101dhva Ved\u0101nta_. Surrey, U.K.: Ashgate, 2003.\n\nSherma, Rita, and Arvind Sharma, eds. _Hermeneutics and Hindu Thought: Toward a Fusion of Horizons_. New York: Springer, 2010.\n\nTapasyananda, Swami. _Bhakti Schools of Vedanta_. Madras (Chennai): Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1990.\n\nVrajaprana, Pravrajika. _Vedanta: A Simple Introduction_. Hollywood, Calif.: Vedanta Press, 1999.\n\nWhicher, Ian. _The Integrity of the Yoga Dar\u015bana: A Reconsideration of Classical Yoga_. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999.\n\nI. Hindu Traditions\n\nAmong the excellent works listed in this section, I would suggest, as particularly accessible to beginners, Vasudha Narayanan's _The Way and the Goal: Expressions of Devotion in the Early \u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava Community_ , Douglas R. Brooks's _The Secret of the Three Cities: An Introduction to Hindu \u015a\u0101kta Tantrism_ , and David N. Lorenzen's _Kapalikas and Kalamukhas: Two Lost \u015aaivite Sects_.\n\nAyyar, C. V. N. _Origin and Early History of \u015aaivism in South India_. Madras: University of Madras, 1936.\n\nBhandarkar, R. G. _Vai\u1e63\u1e47avism, \u015aaivism and Minor Religious Systems_. Varanasi: Indological Book House, 1965.\n\nBhattacharya, Nagendranath. _History of the Tantric Religion_. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1982.\n\nBrooks, Douglas R. _The Secret of the Three Cities: An Introduction to Hindu \u015a\u0101kta Tantrism_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.\n\nBurghart, Richard. \"The Founding of the R\u0101manand\u012b Sect.\" _Ethnohistory_ 225 (1978): 121\u201339.\n\nDimock, Edward C. _The Place of the Hidden Moon: Erotic Mysticism in the Vai\u1e63\u1e47avasahajiya Cult of Bengal_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.\n\nLorenzen, David N. _Kapalikas and Kalamukhas: Two Lost \u015aaivite Sects_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.\n\nNarayanan, Vasudha. _The Way and the Goal: Expressions of Devotion in the Early \u015ar\u012bvai\u1e63\u1e47ava Community_. Cambridge, Mass.: Center for the Study of World Religions, 1987.\n\nOpenshaw, Jeanne. _Seeking Bauls of Bengal_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.\n\nJ. Hinduism Outside of South Asia\n\nBy far the most accessible book in this section is the enlightening and entertaining _American Veda_ , by Phil Goldberg, which chronicles the influence of Hindu thought in the United States. Somewhat more theoretical and \"academic,\" but nevertheless accessible and engaging, is Lola Williamson's _Transcendent in America: Hindu-Inspired Meditation Movements as New Religion_. Less wide-ranging, but also more in-depth than Goldberg's work, Williamson's book focuses on three specific Hindu-based traditions: Siddha Yoga, Transcendental Meditation (TM), and Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF).\n\nBakker, F. L. _The Struggle of the Hindu Balinese Intellectuals: Developments in Modern Hindu Thinking in Independent Indonesia_. Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1993.\n\nBilimoria, Purushottama. _Hinduism in Australia: Mandala for the Gods_. Melbourne: Spectrum Publications, 1989.\n\nBromley, David G., and Larry Shinn, eds. _Krishna Consciousness in the West_. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1989.\n\nBurghart, Richard, ed. _Hinduism in Great Britain_. London: Tavistock, 1987.\n\nFrench, Harold. _The Swan's Wide Waters: Ramakrishna and Western Culture_. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1974.\n\nGoldberg, Phil. _American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation\u2014How Indian Spirituality Changed the West_. Bourbon, Ind.: Harmony, 2010.\n\nJackson, Carl. _Ved\u0101nta for the West: The Ramakrishna Movement in the United States_. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.\n\nJudah, J. Stillson. _Hare Krishna and the Counterculture_. New York: Wiley, 1974.\n\nKlass, Morton. _Singing with Sai Baba: The Politics of Revitalization in Trinidad_. Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991.\n\nShankarananda, Swami. \"Confessions of a Western Hindu\" _Hinduism Today_ (October\u2013December 2005).\n\nVertovec, Steven. _Hindu Trinidad_. London: Macmillan, 1992.\n\nWilliamson, Lola. _Transcendent in America: Hindu-Inspired Meditation Movements as New Religion_. New York: New York University Press, 2010.\n\nK. Theoretical Issues\n\nA little more challenging for beginners, the works in this field are focused upon a range of theoretical concerns that are of great importance for the representation of Hindu traditions but are largely of interest to teachers and professional scholars. Works from this list that are particularly clear and powerful in making their argument, having become practically required reading for scholars in this field, are Ronald Inden's _Imagining India_ and Sharada Sugirtharajah's _Imagining Hinduism: A Postcolonial Perspective_. But for those who are new to this field and to these issues, I would recommend starting with J. E. Llewellyn's edited volume of essays by various authors, _Defining Hinduism: A Reader_.\n\nBreckenridge, Carol A., and Peter van der Veer, eds. _Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament_. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.\n\nBrown, W. Norman. _India and Indology_. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978.\n\nDalmia, Vasudha, and Heinrich von Stietencron, eds. _Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious Traditions and National Identity_. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1995.\n\nInden, Ronald. _Imagining India_. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1990.\n\nJha, D. N. _Rethinking Hindu Identity_. London: Equinox, 2009.\n\nLlewellyn, J. E. _Defining Hinduism: A Reader_. New York: Routledge, 2005.\n\nLorenzen, David N. \"Who Invented Hinduism?\" _Comparative Studies in Society and History_ 41, no. 4 (October 1999): 630\u201359.\n\nNicholson, Andrew J. _Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History_. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.\n\nPennington, Brian K. _Was Hinduism Invented? Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion_. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.\n\nRamaswamy, Krishnan, Antonio de Nicolas, and Aditi Banerjee, eds. _Invading the Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America_. Delhi: Rupa, 2007.\n\nSen, Amartya. _The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity_. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005.\n\nSontheimer, G\u00fcnther-Dietz, and Hermann Kulke, eds. _Hinduism Reconsidered_. New Delhi: Manohar, 2001.\n\nSugirtharajah, Sharada. _Imagining Hinduism: A Postcolonial Perspective_. London: Routledge, 2003.\n\nTrautmann, Thomas R. _The Aryans and British India_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.\n\nTyagananda, Swami, and Pravrajika Vrajaprana. _Interpreting Ramakrishna_. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2010.\n\nL. Other Religious Traditions Related to Hinduism\n\nFor beginners, some of the clearest and most accessible works on traditions that are closely related to Hinduism are those published in the I. B. Tauris series of introducing the world's religions: Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh's _Sikhism: An Introduction_ , Jenny Rose's _Zoroastrianism: An Introduction_ , and my own _Jainism: An Introduction_. Richard F. Gombrich's _Therav\u0101da Buddhism_ , recently revised, has become something of a classic in the field of Buddhist studies. Peter Gottschalk's _Beyond Hindu and Muslim: Multiple Identity in Narratives from Village India_ is outstanding on Islam in India.\n\nAriarajah, S. W. _Hindus and Christians: A Century of Protestant Ecumenical Thought_. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991.\n\nChand, T. _Influence of Islam on Indian Culture_. Allahabad: Indian Press, 1963.\n\nChattopadhyaya, Brajadulal. _Representing the Other? Sanskrit Sources and the Muslims_. Delhi: Manohar, 1998.\n\nCoward, H. G. _Hindu-Christian Dialogue_. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1990.\n\nFrykenberg, Robert Erik, ed. _Christians and Missionaries in India_. London: Rout-ledge, 2003.\n\nGascoigne, Bamber. _The Great Moguls_. New York: Carroll and Graf, 2002.\n\nGilmartin, David, and Bruce B. Lawrence. _Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia_. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.\n\nGombrich, Richard F. _Therav\u0101da Buddhism: A Social History_. New York: Routledge, 2006.\n\nGottschalk, Peter. _Beyond Hindu and Muslim: Multiple Identity in Narratives from Village India_. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.\n\nHerman, Arthur. _Influences: How Ancient Hinduism Dramatically Changed Early Christianity_. Stevens Point, Wis.: Cornerstone Press, 2004.\n\nKaur Singh, Nikky-Guninder. _Sikhism: An Introduction_. London: I. B. Tauris, 2011.\n\nLong, Jeffery D. _Jainism: An Introduction_. London: I. B. Tauris, 2009.\n\nMonius, Anne E. _Imagining a Place for Buddhism_. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.\n\nPangborn, Cyrus R. _Zoroastrianism: A Beleaguered Faith_. New York: Advent Books, 1983.\n\nRose, Jenny. _Zoroastrianism: An Introduction_. London: I. B. Tauris, 2011.\n\n## III. INTERNET SOURCES\n\nA. Primary Sources\n\nComplete Works of Swami Vivekananda:  \n<http:\/\/www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info\/vivekananda\/complete_works.htm>\n\nThe Hindu Universe:  \n<http:\/\/www.hindunet.org\/>\n\nHinduism Today:  \n<http:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/>\n\nVedanta Spiritual Library:  \n<http:\/\/www.celextel.org\/>\n\nB. Secondary Sources\u2014Popular\n\nAdherents.com:  \n<http:\/\/www.adherents.com\/>\n\nBeliefnet.com:  \n<http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/>\n\nC. Secondary Sources\u2014Academic\n\nDigital South Asia Library (University of Chicago):  \n<http:\/\/dsal.uchicago.edu\/reference\/>\n\nHinduism Home Page (University of Wyoming):  \n<http:\/\/uwacadweb.uwyo.edu\/religionet\/er\/hinduism\/index.htm>\n\nSanskrit, Tamil, and Pahlavi Dictionaries (University of Cologne, Germany):  \n<http:\/\/webapps.uni-koeln.de\/tamil\/>\n\n# About the Author\n\n**Jeffery D. Long** received a PhD in the philosophy of religions from the University of Chicago's Divinity School in the year 2000. His dissertation was entitled _Plurality and Relativity: Whitehead, Jainism, and the Reconstruction of Religious Pluralism_. In it, he attempts to re-articulate the religious pluralism of the modern or Neo-Vedanta tradition of Sri Ramakrishna in a way that draws upon both the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and the Jain philosophy of relativity. Since completing his degree at Chicago, he has been teaching in the Department of Religious Studies at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, where he is currently an associate professor and department chair. He is also a cofounder and codirector of Elizabethtown's Asian Studies program. He has published two books\u2014 _A Vision for Hinduism: Beyond Hindu Nationalism_ (2007) and _Jainism: An Introduction_ (2009). His other publications include three dozen articles and reviews in various edited volumes and scholarly journals. Ongoing projects include an introduction to Indian philosophy and a theology of divine incarnation for the Ramakrishna tradition, as well as a science fiction\/fantasy epic that some of his students have dubbed \"the Hindu _Lord of the Rings_.\" Raised Catholic, Long was drawn to Hinduism at an early age and formally embraced the tradition as an adult, at the age of 26. Both he and his wife, Dr. Mahua Bhattacharya (who teaches Japanese at Elizabethtown College), are active members of their local Hindu temple, as well as of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society. He is also a regular consultant to the Hindu American Foundation. He has served as chair of the steering committee of the Dharma Academy of North America (DANAM) and he is currently cochair of the North American Hinduism consultation of the American Academy of Religion.\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\n**Begin Reading**\n\nTable of Contents\n\nNewsletters\n\nCopyright Page\n\nIn accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.\n\n#\n\n_To see everything, the Master's eye is best of all,_\n\n_As for me, I would add, so is the Lover's eye._\n\n\u2014CAIUS JULIUS PHAEDRUS\n\n_Like all great rationalists you believed in things that were twice as incredible as theology._\n\n\u2014HALLD\u00d3R LAXNESS, _U NDER THE GLACIER_\n\n_Chess is life._\n\n\u2014BOBBY FISCHER\n\n# PREFACE\n\nEvery afternoon, seven summers ago, I sat at my kitchen table in the south of England and worked on a book. Its name was _Born on a Blue Day._ The keys on my computer registered hundreds of thousands of impressions. Typing out the story of my formative years, I realized how many choices make up a single life. Every sentence or paragraph confided some decision I or someone else\u2014a parent, teacher, or friend\u2014had taken, or not taken. Naturally I was my own first reader, and it is no exaggeration to say that in writing, then reading the book, the course of my life was inexorably changed.\n\nThe year before that summer, I had traveled to the Center for Brain Studies in California, where the neurologists probed me with a battery of tests. It took me back to early days in a London hospital when, surveying my brain for seizure activity, the doctors had fixed me up to an encephalogram machine. Attached wires had streamed down and around my little head, until it resembled something hauled up out of the deep, like angler's swag.\n\nThese scientists wore tans and white smiles. They gave me sums to solve, and long sequences of numbers to learn by heart. Newer tools measured my pulse and my breathing as I thought. I submitted to all these experiments with a burning curiosity; it felt exciting to learn the secret of my childhood.\n\nMy autobiography opens with their diagnosis. My difference finally had a name. Until then it had run the whole gamut of inventive aliases: painfully shy, hypersensitive, cack-handed (in my father's characteristically colorful words). According to the scientists, I had high-functioning autistic savant syndrome: the connections in my brain, since birth, had formed unusual circuits. Back home in England I began to write, with their encouragement, producing pages that in the end found favor with a London editor.\n\nTo this day, readers both of the first book and of my second, _Embracing the Wide Sky,_ continue to send me their messages. They wonder how it must be to perceive words and numbers in different colors, shapes, and textures. They try to picture solving a sum in their mind using these multidimensional colored shapes. They seek the same beauty and emotion that I find in both a poem and a prime number. What can I tell them?\n\nImagine.\n\nClose your eyes and imagine a space without limits, or the infinitesimal events that can stir up a country's revolution. Imagine how the perfect game of chess might start and end: a win for white, or black, or a draw? Imagine numbers so vast that they exceed every atom in the universe, counting with eleven or twelve fingers instead of ten, reading a single book in an infinite number of ways.\n\nSuch imagination belongs to everyone. It even possesses its own science: mathematics. Ricardo Nemirovsky and Francesca Ferrara, who specialize in the study of mathematical cognition, write that \"like literary fiction, mathematical imagination entertains pure possibilities.\" This is the distillation of what I take to be interesting and important about the way in which mathematics informs our imaginative life. Often we are barely aware of it, but the play between numerical concepts saturates the way we experience the world.\n\nThis new book, a collection of twenty-five essays on the \"math of life,\" entertains pure possibilities. According to the definition offered by Nemirovsky and Ferrara, \"pure\" here means something immune to prior experience or expectation. The fact that we have never read an endless book, or counted to infinity (and beyond!) or made contact with an extraterrestrial civilization (all subjects of essays in the book) should not prevent us from wondering: _what if?_\n\nInevitably, my choice of subjects has been wholly personal and therefore eclectic. There are some autobiographical elements but the emphasis throughout is outward looking. Several of the pieces are biographical, prompted by imagining a young Shakespeare's first arithmetic lessons in zero\u2014a new idea in sixteenth-century schools\u2014or the calendar created for a Sultan by the poet and mathematician Omar Khayy\u00e1m. Others take the reader around the globe and back in time, with essays inspired by the snows of Quebec, sheep counting in Iceland, and the debates of ancient Greece that facilitated the development of the Western mathematical imagination.\n\nLiterature adds a further dimension to the exploration of those pure possibilities. As Nemirovsky and Ferrara suggest, there are numerous similarities in the patterns of thinking and creating shared by writers and mathematicians (two vocations often considered incomparable). In the \"Poetry of the Primes,\" for example, I explore the way in which certain poems and number theory coincide. At the risk of disappointing fans of \"mathematically constructed\" novels, I admit this book has been written without once mentioning the name \"Perec.\"\n\nThe following pages attest to the changes in my perspective over the seven years since that summer in southern England. Travels through many countries in pursuit of my books as they go from language to language, accumulating accents, have contributed much to my understanding. Exploring the many links between mathematics and fiction has been another spur. Today, I live in the heart of Paris. I write full-time. Every day I sit at a table and ask myself: _what if?_\n\n# One\n\n# FAMILY VALUES\n\nIn a smallish London suburb where nothing much ever happened, my family gradually became the talk of the town. Throughout my teens, wherever I went, I would always hear the same question, \"How many brothers and sisters do you have?\"\n\nThe answer, I understood, was already common knowledge. It had passed into the town's body of folklore, exchanged between the residents like a good yarn.\n\nEver patient, I would dutifully reply, \"Five sisters, and three brothers.\"\n\nThese few words never failed to elicit a visible reaction from the listener: brows would furrow, eyes would roll, lips would smile. \"Nine children!\" they would exclaim, as if they had never imagined that families could come in such sizes.\n\nIt was much the same story in school. _\"J'ai une grande famille\"_ was among the first phrases I learned to say in Monsieur Oiseau's class. From my fellow students, many of whom were single sons or daughters, the sight of us siblings together attracted comments that ranged all the way from faint disdain to outright awe. Our peculiar fame became such that for a time it outdid every other in the town: the one-handed grocer, the enormously obese Indian girl, a neighbor's singing dog, all found themselves temporarily displaced in the local gossip. Effaced as individuals, my brothers, sisters, and I existed only in number. The quality of our quantity became something we could not escape. It preceded us everywhere: even in French, whose adjectives almost always follow the noun (but not when it comes to _une grande famille_ ).\n\nWith so many siblings to keep an eye on, it is perhaps little wonder that I developed a knack for numbers. From my family I learned that numbers belong to life. The majority of my math acumen came not from books but from regular observations and day-to-day interactions. Numerical patterns, I realized, were the matter of our world. To give an example, we nine children embodied the decimal system of numbers: zero (whenever we were all absent from a place) through to nine. Our behavior even bore some resemblance to the arithmetical: over angry words, we sometimes divided; shifting alliances between my brothers and sisters combined and recombined them into new equations.\n\nWe are, my brothers, sisters, and I, in the language of mathematicians, a \"set\" consisting of nine members. A mathematician would write:\n\n> S = {Daniel, Lee, Claire, Steven, Paul, Maria, Natasha, Anna, Shelley}\n\nPut another way, we belong to the category of things that people refer to when they use the number nine. Other sets of this kind include the planets in our solar system (at least, until Pluto's recent demotion to the status of a non-planet), the squares in a game of x's and o's, the players in a baseball team, the muses of Greek mythology, and the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. With a little thought, it is possible to come up with others, including:\n\n> {February, March, April, May, August, September, October, November, December} where S = the months of the year not beginning with the letter J.\n> \n> {5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King} where S = in poker, the possible high cards in a straight flush.\n> \n> {1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81} where S = the square numbers between 1 and 99.\n> \n> {3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29} where S = the odd primes below 30.\n\nThere are nine of these examples of sets containing nine members, so taken together they provide us with a further instance of just such a set.\n\nLike colors, the commonest numbers give character, form, and dimension to our world. Of the most frequent\u2014zero and one\u2014we might say that they are like black and white, with the other primary colors\u2014red, blue, and yellow\u2014akin to two, three, and four. Nine, then, might be a sort of cobalt or indigo: in a painting it would contribute shading, rather than shape. We expect to come across samples of nine as we might samples of a color like indigo\u2014only occasionally, and in small and subtle ways. Thus a family of nine children surprises as much as a man or woman with cobalt-colored hair.\n\nI would like to suggest another reason for the surprise of my town's residents. I have alluded to the various and alternating combinations and recombinations between my siblings. In how many ways can any set of nine members divide and combine? Put another way, how large is the set of all subsets?\n\n> {Daniel}... {Daniel, Lee}... {Lee, Claire, Steven}... {Paul}... {Lee, Steven, Maria, Shelley}... {Claire, Natasha}... {Anna}...\n\nFortunately, this type of calculation is very familiar to mathematicians. As it turns out, we need only to multiply the number two by itself, as many times as there are members in the set. So, for a set consisting of nine members the answer to our question amounts to: 2 \u00d7 2 \u00d7 2 \u00d7 2 \u00d7 2 \u00d7 2 \u00d7 2 \u00d7 2 \u00d7 2 = 512.\n\nThis means that there existed in my hometown, at any given place and time, 512 different ways to spot us in one or another combination. 512! It becomes clearer why we attracted so much attention. To the other residents, it really must have seemed that we were legion.\n\nHere is another way to think about the calculation that I set out above. Take any site in the town at random, say a classroom or the municipal swimming pool. The first \"2\" in the calculation indicates the odds of my being present there at a particular moment (one in two\u2014I am either there, or I am not). The same goes for each of my siblings, which is why two is multiplied by itself a total of nine times.\n\nIn precisely one of the possible combinations, every sibling is absent (just as in one of the combinations we are all present). Strange as it may sound, we can even define those sets containing no objects. Mathematicians call them an \"empty set.\" Where sets of nine members embody everything we can think of, touch, or point to when we use the number nine, empty sets are all those that are represented by the value zero. So while a Christmas reunion in my hometown can bring together as many of us as there are Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, a trip to the moon will unite only as many of us as there are pink elephants, four-sided circles, or people who have swum the breadth of the Atlantic Ocean.\n\nOur mind uses sets when we think and when we perceive just as much as when we count. Our possible thoughts and perceptions about these sets can range almost without limit. Fascinated by the different cultural subdivisions and categories of an infinitely complex world, the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges offers a mischievously tongue-in-cheek illustration in his fictional Chinese encyclopedia entitled _The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge:_\n\n> Animals are classified as follows: (a) those that belong to the Emperor; (b) embalmed ones; (c) those that are trained; (d) suckling pigs; (e) mermaids; (f) fabulous ones; (g) stray dogs; (h) those that are included in this classification; (i) those that tremble as if they were mad; (j) innumerable ones; (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's-hair brush; (l) et cetera; (m) those that have just broken the flower vase; (n) those that at a distance resemble flies.\n\nNever one to forgo humor in his texts, Borges here also makes several thought-provoking points. First, though a set as familiar to our understanding as that of \"animals\" implies containment and comprehension, the sheer number of its possible subsets actually swells toward infinity. With their handful of generic labels (\"mammal,\" \"reptile,\" \"amphibious,\" etc.), standard taxonomies conceal this fact. To say, for example, that a flea is tiny, parasitic, and a champion jumper is only to begin to scratch the surface of all its various aspects.\n\nSecond, defining a set owes more to art than it does to science. Faced with the problem of a near endless number of potential categories, we are inclined to choose from a few\u2014those most tried and tested within our particular culture. Western descriptions of the set of all elephants privilege subsets like \"those that are very large,\" and \"those possessing tusks,\" and even \"those possessing an excellent memory,\" while excluding other equally legitimate possibilities such as Borges's \"those that at a distance resemble flies,\" or the Hindu \"those that are considered lucky.\"\n\nMemory is a further example of the privileging of certain subsets (of experience) over others, in how we talk and think about a category of things. Asked about his birthday, a man might at once recall the messy slice of chocolate cake that he devoured, his wife's enthusiastic embrace, and the pair of fluorescent green socks that his mother presented to him. At the same time, many hundreds, or thousands, of other details likewise composed his special day, from the mundane (the crumbs from his morning toast that he brushed out of his lap) to the peculiar (a sudden hailstorm on the mid-July afternoon that lasted several minutes). Most of these subsets, though, would have completely slipped his mind.\n\nReturning to Borges's list of subsets of animals, several of the categories pose paradoxes. Take, for example, the subset (j): \"innumerable ones.\" How can any subset of something\u2014even if it is imaginary, like Borges's animals\u2014be infinite in size? How can a part of any collection not be smaller than the whole?\n\nBorges's taxonomy is clearly inspired by the work of Georg Cantor, a nineteenth-century German mathematician whose important discoveries in the study of infinity provide us with an answer to this paradox.\n\nCantor showed, among other things, that parts of a collection (subsets) as great as the whole (set) really do exist. Counting, he observed, involves matching the members of one set to another. \"Two sets _A_ and _B_ have the same number of members if and only if there is a perfect one-to-one correspondence between them.\" So, by matching each of my siblings and myself to a player on a baseball team, or to a month of the year not beginning with the letter J, I am able to conclude that each of these sets is equivalent, all containing precisely nine members.\n\nNext came Cantor's great mental leap: in the same manner, he compared the set of all natural numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5...) with each of its subsets such as the even numbers (2, 4, 6, 8, 10...), odd numbers (1, 3, 5, 7, 9...), and the primes (2, 3, 5, 7, 11...). Like the perfect matches between each of the baseball team players and my siblings and me, Cantor found that for each natural number he could uniquely assign an even, an odd, and a prime number. Incredibly, he concluded, there are as \"many\" even (or odd, or prime) numbers as all the numbers combined.\n\nReading Borges invites me to consider the wealth of possible subsets into which my family \"set\" could be classified, far beyond those that simply point to multiplicity. All grown up today, some of my siblings have children of their own. Others have moved far away, to the warmer and more interesting places from where postcards come. The opportunities for us all to get together are rare, which is a great pity. Naturally I am biased, but I love my family. There is a lot of my family to love. But size ceased long ago to be our defining characteristic. We see ourselves in other ways: those that are studious, those that prefer coffee to tea, those that have never planted a flower, those that still laugh in their sleep...\n\nLike works of literature, mathematical ideas help expand our circle of empathy, liberating us from the tyranny of a single, parochial point of view. Numbers, properly considered, make us better people.\n\n# Two\n\n# ETERNITY IN AN HOUR\n\nOnce upon a time I was a child who loved to read fairy tales. Among my favorites was \"The Magic Porridge Pot\" by the Brothers Grimm. A poor, good-hearted girl receives from a sorceress a little pot capable of spontaneously concocting as much sweet porridge as the girl and her mother can eat. One day, after eating her fill, the mother's mind goes blank and she forgets the magic words \"Stop, little pot.\"\n\n> So it went on cooking and the porridge rose over the edge, and still it cooked on until the kitchen and whole house were full, and then the next house, and then the whole street, just as if it wanted to satisfy the hunger of the whole world.\n\nOnly the daughter's return home, and the requisite utterance, finally brings the gooey avalanche to a belated halt.\n\nThe Brothers Grimm introduced me to the mystery of infinity. How could so much porridge emerge from so small a pot? It got me thinking. A single flake of porridge was awfully slight. Tip it inside a bowl and one would probably not even spot it for the spoon. The same held for a drop of milk, or a grain of sugar.\n\nWhat if, I wondered, a magical pot distributed these tiny flakes of porridge and drops of milk and grains of sugar in its own special way? In such a way that each flake and each drop and each grain had its own position in the pot, released from the necessity of touching. I imagined five, ten, fifty, one hundred, one thousand flakes and drops and grains, each indifferent to the next, suspended here and there throughout the curved space like stars. More porridge flakes, more drops of milk, more grains of sugar are added one after another to this evolving constellation, forming microscopic Big Dippers and minuscule Great Bears. Say we reach the ten thousand four hundred and seventy-third flake of porridge. Where do we include it? And here my child's mind imagined all the tiny gaps\u2014thousands of them\u2014between every flake of porridge and drop of milk and grain of sugar. For every minute addition, further tiny gaps would continue to be made. So long as the pot magically prevented any contact between them, every new flake (and drop and granule) would be sure to find its place.\n\nHans Christian Andersen's \"The Princess and the Pea\" similarly sent my mind spinning toward the infinite, but this time, an infinity of fractions. One night, a young woman claiming to be a princess knocks at the door of a castle. Outside, a storm is blowing and the pelting rain musses her clothes and turns her golden hair black. So sorry a sight is she that the queen of the castle doubts her story of high birth. To test the young woman's claim, the queen decides to place a pea beneath the bedding on which the woman will sleep for the night (princesses being most delicate creatures!). Her bed is piled to a height of twenty mattresses. But in the morning the woman admits to having hardly slept a wink.\n\nThe thought of all those tottering mattresses kept me up long past my own bedtime. By my calculation, a second mattress would double the distance between the princess's back and the offending pea. The tough little legume would therefore be only half as prominent as before. Another mattress reduces the pea's prominence to one-third. But if the young princess's body is sensitive enough to detect one-half of a pea (under two mattresses) or one-third of a pea (under three mattresses), why would it not also be sensitive enough to detect one-twentieth? In fact, possessing limitless sensitivity (this is a fairy tale after all), not even one-hundredth, or one-thousandth or one-millionth of a pea could be tolerably borne.\n\nWhich brings us back to the Brothers Grimm and their tale of porridge. For the princess, even a pea felt infinitely big; for the poor daughter and her mother, even an avalanche of porridge reduced to the infinitesimally small.\n\n\"You have too much imagination,\" my father said when I shared these thoughts with him. \"You always have your nose in some book.\" My father kept a pile of paperbacks and regularly bought the weekend papers, but he was never a particularly enthusiastic reader. \"Get outdoors more\u2014there's no good being cooped up in here.\"\n\nHide-and-seek in the park with my brothers and sisters lasted all of ten minutes. The swings held my attention for about as long. We walked the perimeter of the lake and threw breadcrumbs out onto the grimy water. Even the ducks looked bored.\n\nGames in the yard offered greater entertainment. We fought wars, cast spells, and traveled back in time. In a cardboard box we sailed along the Nile; with a bedsheet we pitched a tent in the hills of Rome. At other times, I would simply stroll the local streets to my heart's content, dreaming up all manner of new adventures and imaginary expeditions.\n\nReturning one day from China, I heard the low grumble of an approaching storm and fled for cover inside the municipal library. Everyone knew me there; I was one of their regulars. Corridors of books pullulated around them, centuries of learning tiled the walls, and I brushed my fingertips along the seemingly endless shelves as I walked.\n\nMy favorite section brimmed with dictionaries and encyclopedias: the building blocks of books. These seemed to promise (though of course they could not deliver) the sum of human knowledge: every fact and idea and word. This vast panoply of information was tamed by divisions\u2014A\u2013C, D\u2013F, G\u2013I\u2014and every division subdivided in turn\u2014Aa\u2013Ad... Di\u2013Do... Il\u2013In. Many of these subdivisions also subdivided\u2014Hai\u2013Han... Una\u2013Unf\u2014and some among them subdivided yet further still\u2014Inte\u2013Intr. Where does a person start? And, perhaps more important, where should he stop? I usually left the choice to chance. At random I tugged an encyclopedia from the shelf and let its pages open where they may, and for the next hour I sat and read about _Bora Bora_ and _borborygmi_ and the _Borg_ scale.\n\nLost in thought, I did not immediately notice the insistent _tap-tap_ of approaching footsteps on the polished floor. They belonged to one of the senior librarians, a neighbor. He was tall (but then, to a child is not everyone tall?) and thin with a long head finished off by a few random sprigs of graying hair.\n\n\"I have a book for you,\" said the librarian. I craned upward a moment before taking the recommendation from his big hands. The cover, titled _The Borrowers,_ wore a \"Bookworms Club Monthly Selection\" sticker. I thanked him, less out of gratitude than the desire to end the sudden eclipse that darkened my table. But when I finally left the desk an hour later, the book left with me, checked out and tucked firmly beneath my arm.\n\nIt told the story of a tiny family that lived under the floorboards of a house. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live so small. In my mind's eye, I pictured the world as it continued to contract. The smaller I became, the bigger my surroundings grew. The familiar now became strange; the strange became familiar. All at once, a face of ears and eyes and hair becomes a pink expanse of shrub and grooves and heat. Even the tiniest fish becomes a whale. Specks of dust take flight like birds, swooping and wheeling above my head. I shrank until all that was familiar disappeared completely, until I could no longer tell a mound of laundry or a rocky mountain apart.\n\nAt my next visit to the library, I duly joined the Bookworms Club. The months were each twinned with a classic story, and some of the selections enchanted me more than others, but it was December's tale that truly seized my senses: _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ by C. S. Lewis. Opening its pages, I followed Lucy, as she was sent with her siblings \"away from London during the war because of the air raids... to the house of an old professor who lived in the heart of the country.\" It was \"the sort of house that you never seem to come to the end of, and it was full of unexpected places.\"\n\nWith Lucy, I stepped into the large wardrobe in one of the otherwise bare spare rooms, tussled with its rows of dense and dust-fringed clothes as we fumbled our way with outstretched fingers toward the back. I, too, suddenly heard the crunch of snow beneath my shoes, and saw the fur coats give way all at once to the fir trees of this magical land, a wardrobe's depth away.\n\nNarnia became one of my favorite places, and I visited it many times that winter. Repeated readings of the story would keep me in bright thoughts and images for many months.\n\nOne day, on the short walk home from school, it so happened that these images came to the front of my mind. The lampposts that lined the street reminded me of the lamp-post I had read about in the story, the point in the landscape from which the children return to the warmth and mothballs of the professor's wardrobe.\n\nIt was midafternoon, but the electric lights were already shining. Fluorescent haloes stood out in the darkening sky at equidistant points. I counted the time it took me to step with even paces from one lamppost to another. Eight seconds. Then I retreated, counting backward, and arrived at the same result. A few doors down, the lights came on in my parents' house; yellow rectangles glowed dimly between the red bricks. I watched them with only half a mind.\n\nI was contemplating those eight seconds. To reach the next lamppost I had only to take so many steps. Before I reached there I would first have to arrive at the midway point. That would take me four seconds. But this observation implied that the remaining four seconds also contained a midway point. Six seconds from the start, I would land upon it. Two seconds would now separate me from my destination. Yet before I made it, another halfway point\u2014a second later\u2014would intervene. And here I felt my brain seethe hot under my woollen hat. For after seven seconds, the eighth and final second would likewise contain a halfway point of its own. Seven and one half seconds after starting off, the remaining half a second would also not elapse before I first passed its midway point in turn. After seven seconds and three-quarters, a stubborn quarter of a second of my journey would still await me. Going halfway through it would leave me an eighth of a second still to go. One sixteenth of a second would keep me from my lamppost, then 1\/32 of a second, then 1\/64, then 1\/128, and so on. Fractions of fractions of fractions of a second would always distance me from the end.\n\nSuddenly I could no longer depend on those eight seconds to deliver me to my destination. Worse, I could no longer be sure that they would let me move one inch. Those same interminable fractions of seconds that I had observed toward the end of my journey applied equally to the start. Say my opening step took one second; this second, of course, contained a halfway point. And before I could cross this half of a second, I would first have to traverse its own midway point (the initial quarter second), and so on.\n\nAnd yet, my legs disposed of all these fractions of seconds as they had always done. Adjusting the heavy schoolbag on my back, I walked the length between the lampposts and counted once again to eight. The word rang out defiantly into the cold crisp air. The silence that followed, however, was short-lived. \"What are you doing standing outside in the cold and dark?\" shouted my father from the yellow oblong of the open front door. \"Come inside now.\"\n\nI did not forget the infinity of fractions that lurked between the lampposts on my street. Day after day, I found myself slowing involuntarily to a crawl as I passed them, afraid perhaps of falling between the whole seconds into their interspersed gaps. What a sight I must have made, inching warily forward tiny step after tiny step with my round woolly head and the lumpy bag upon my back.\n\nNumbers within numbers, and so tiny! I was amazed. These fractions of fractions of fractions of fractions of fractions went on forever. Add any of them to zero and they hardly registered at all. Add tens, hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of them to zero and the result is still almost exactly zero. Only infinitely many of these fractions could lead from zero to one, from nothing to something:\n\n> 1\/2 + 1\/4 + 1\/8 + 1\/16 + 1\/32 + 1\/64 + 1\/128 + 1\/256 + 1\/512 + 1\/1024... = 1.\n\nOne evening in the new year, my mother, very flustered, asked me to be on my best behavior. Guests\u2014a rarity\u2014were due any moment now, for dinner. My mother, it seemed, intended to repay some favor to the librarian's wife. \"No funny questions,\" she said, \"and no elbows on the table. And after the first hour, bed!\"\n\nThe librarian and his wife arrived right on time with a bottle of wine that my parents never opened. With their backs to one another, they thrashed themselves out of their coats before sitting at the dining room table, side by side. The wife offered my mother a compliment about the checkered tablecloth. \"Where did you buy it?\" she asked, over her husband's sigh.\n\nWe ate my father's roast chicken and potatoes with peas and carrots, and as we ate the librarian talked. All eyes were on him. There were words on the weather, local politics, and all the nonsense that was interminably broadcast on TV. Beside him, his wife ate slowly, one-handed, while the other hand worried her thin black hair. At one point in her husband's monologue, she tried gently tapping his tightly bunched hand.\n\n\"What? What?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\" Her fork promptly retired to her plate. She looked to be on the verge of tears.\n\nVery much novices in the art of hospitality, my mother and father exchanged helpless glances. Plates were hurriedly collected, and bowls of ice cream served. A frosty atmosphere presently filled the room.\n\nI thought of the infinitely many points that can divide the space between two human hearts.\n\n# Three\n\n# COUNTING TO FOUR IN ICELANDIC\n\nAsk an Icelander what comes after three and he will answer, \"Three what?\" Ignore the warm blood of annoyance as it fills your cheeks, and suggest something, or better still, point. \"Ah,\" our Icelander replies. Ruffled by the wind, the four sheep stare blankly at your index finger. _\"Fj\u00f3rar,\"_ he says at last.\n\nHowever, when you take your phrase book\u2014presumably one of those handy, rain-resistant brands\u2014from your pocket and turn to the numbers page, you find, marked beside the numeral 4, _fj\u00f3rir._ This is not a printing error, nor did you hear the Icelander wrong. Both words are correct; both words mean \"four.\" This should give you your first inkling of the sophistication with which these people count.\n\nI first heard Icelandic several years ago during a trip to Reykjav\u00edk. No phrase book in my pocket, thank God. I came with nothing more useful than a vague awareness of the shape and sounds of Old English, some secondary-school German, and plenty of curiosity. The curiosity had already seen service in France. Here in the North, too, I favored conversation over textbooks.\n\nI hate textbooks. I hate how they shoehorn even the most incongruous words\u2014like \"cup\" and \"bookcase,\" or \"pencil\" and \"ashtray\"\u2014onto the same page, and then call it \"vocabulary.\" In a conversation, the language is always fluid, moving, and you have to move with it. You walk and talk and see where the words come from, and where they should go. It was in this way that I learned how to count like a Viking.\n\nIcelanders, I learned, have highly refined discrimination for the smallest quantities. \"Four\" sheep differ in kind from \"four,\" the abstract counting word. No farmer in Hverager\u00f0i would ever dream of counting sheep in the abstract. Nor, for that matter, would his wife or son or priest or neighbor. To list both words together, as in a textbook, would make no sense to them whatsoever.\n\nThis numerical diversity applies not only to sheep. Naturally enough, the woolly mammals feature little in town dwellers' talk. Like you and me, my friends in Reykjav\u00edk talk about birthdays and buses and pairs of jeans but, unlike in English, in Icelandic these things each require their own set of number words.\n\nFor example, a toddler who turns two is _tveggja_ years old. And yet the pocket phrase book will inform you that \"two\" is _tveir._ Age, abstract as counting to our way of thinking, becomes in Icelandic a tangible phenomenon. Perhaps you too sense the difference: the word _tveggja_ slows the voice, suggesting duration. We hear this possibly even more clearly in the word for a four-year-old: _fj\u00f6gurra._ Interestingly, these sounds apply almost exclusively to the passage of years\u2014the same words are hardly ever used to talk about months, days, or weeks. Clock time, on the other hand, renders the Icelander almost terse as a tick: the hour after one o'clock is _tv\u00f6._\n\nWhat about buses? Here numbers refer to identity rather than quantity. In Britain or America, we say something like, \"the number three bus,\" turning the number into a name. Icelanders do something similar. Their most frequent buses are each known by a special number word. In Reykjav\u00edk, the number three bus is simply _\u00feristur_ (whereas to count to three the Icelander says _\u00fer\u00edr_ ). _Fjarki_ is how to say \"four\" when talking buses in Iceland.\n\nA third example is pairs of something\u2014whether jeans or shorts, socks or shoes. In this case, Icelanders consider \"one\" as being plural: _einar_ pair of jeans, instead of the phrase book _einn._\n\nWith time and practice, I have learned all these words, more words for the numbers one to four than has an English speaker to count all the way up to fifty. In English, I would suggest, numbers are considered more or less ethereal\u2014as categories, not qualities. Not so the smallest numbers in Icelandic. It is as though each corresponded to a delicate nuance of color. Where the English word \"red\" is abstract, indifferent to its object, words like \"crimson,\" \"scarlet,\" and \"burgundy\" possess their own particular shade of meaning and application.\n\nWe can only speculate as to the reason why Icelanders stop at the number five (for which, like every number thereafter, a single word exists). According to psychologists, humans can count in flashes only up to quantities of four. We see three buttons on a shirt and say \"three\"; we glance at four books on a table and say \"four.\" No conscious thought attends this process\u2014it seems to us as effortless as the speech with which we pronounce the words. The same psychologists tell us that the smallest numbers loom largest in our minds. Asked to pick a number between one and fifty, we tend toward the shallow end of the scale (far fewer say \"forty\" than \"fourteen\"). It is one possible explanation for why only the commonest quantities feel real to us, why most numbers we accept only on the word of a teacher or textbook. Forty, to us, is but a vague notion; fourteen, on the other hand, is a quantity within our reach. Four, we recognize as something solid and definite. In Icelandic, you can give your baby the name \"Four.\"\n\nI do not know Chinese, but I have read that counting in this language rivals in its sophistication even that of the Icelanders. A shepherd in rural China says _s\u00ec zh \u012b_ when his flock numbers four, whereas a horseman\u2014possessing the same quantity of horses\u2014counts them as _s\u00ec p \u012d._ This is because mounts are counted differently from other animals in Chinese. Domesticated animals, too. Asked how many cows he had milked that morning, a farmer would reply _s\u00ec t\u00f3u_ (four). Fish are a further exception. _S\u00ec ti\u00e1o_ is how an angler would count his fourth catch of the day.\n\nUnlike in Icelandic, in Chinese these fine distinctions apply to all quantities. What saves its speakers from endless trouble of recall is generalization. _S\u00ec ti\u00e1o_ means \"four\" when counting fish, but also trousers, roads, and rivers (and other long, slender, and flexible objects). A locksmith might enumerate his keys as _q \u012b b\u0103_ (seven), but so too would a housewife apropos her seven knives, or a tailor when adding up his seven pairs of scissors (or other handy items). Imagine that, with his scissors, the tailor snips a sheet of fabric in two. He would say he has _li \u0103ng zh\u0101ng_ (two) sheets of fabric, using the same number word as he would for paper, paintings, tickets, blankets, and bedsheets. Now picture the tailor as he rolls the fabric into long inflexible tubes. This pair he counts as _li \u0103ng ju\u0103n_ (two scrolls, or rolls of film, would be counted in the same way). Scrunching the sheets into balls, the tailor counts them as _li \u0103ng tu\u00e1n,_ insofar as they resemble other pairs of round things.\n\nWhen counting people, the Chinese start from _y \u012b ge_ (one), though for villagers and family members they begin _y \u012b k\u014fu,_ and _y \u012b m\u00edng_ for lawyers, politicians, and royals. Numbering a crowd thus depends on its composition. A hundred marchers would be counted as _y \u012bb\u0103i ge_ if they consist, for example, of students, but as _y \u012bb\u0103i k\u014fu_ if they hail from the villages.\n\nSo complex is this method of counting that, in some regions of China, the words for certain numbers have even taken on the varying properties of a dialect. _W \u016dsh\u00ed li,_ for example, a standard Mandarin word meaning \"fifty\" (when counting small, round objects like grains of rice), sounds truly enormous to the speakers of southern Min, for whom it is used to count watermelons.\n\nThis profusion of Icelandic and Chinese words for the purpose of counting appears to be an exception to the rule. Many of the world's tribal languages, in contrast, make do with only a handful of names for numbers. The Veddas, an indigenous people of Sri Lanka, are reported to have only words for the numbers one ( _ekkamai_ ) and two ( _dekkamai_ ). For larger quantities, they continue: _otameekai, otameekai, otameekai..._ (\"and one more, and one more, and one more...\"). Another example is the Caquintes of Peru, who count one ( _aparo_ ) and two ( _mavite_ ). Three they call \"it is another one\"; four is \"the one that follows it.\"\n\nIn Brazil, the Munduruku relay quantity by according an extra syllable to each new number: one is _pug,_ two is _xep xep,_ three is _ebapug,_ and four is _edadipdip._ They count, understandably, no higher than five. This imitative method, while transparent, has clear limitations. Just imagine a number word as many syllables long as the quantity of trees leading to a food source! The seemingly endless chain of syllables would prove far too expensive to the tongue (not to say the listener's powers of concentration). It pains the head even to think about what it would be like to have to learn to recite the ten times tables in this way.\n\nAll this may sound almost incomprehensible for those brought up speaking languages that count to thousands, millions and beyond, but it does at least make the relationship between a quantity and its appointed word sound straightforward and conventional. Quite often, though, it is not. In many tribal languages, we find that the names for numbers are perfectly interchangeable, so that a word for \"three\" will also sometimes mean \"two,\" and at other times \"four\" or \"five.\" A word meaning \"four\" will have \"three\" and \"five\"\u2014occasionally \"six\"\u2014as synonyms.\n\nFew circumstances within these communities require any greater numerical precision. Any number beyond their fingertips is superfluous to their traditional way of life. In many of these places there are, after all, no legal documents that require dates, no bureaucracies that levy taxes, no clocks or calendars, no lawyers or accountants, no banks or banknotes, no thermometers or weather reports, no schools, no books, no playing cards, no lines, no shoes (and hence, no shoe sizes), no shops, no bills, and no debts to settle. It would make as much sense to tell them, say, that a group of men amounts exactly to eleven, as for someone to inform us that this same group has precisely one hundred and ten fingers, and as many toes.\n\nThere is a tribe in the Amazon rain forest that knows nothing whatsoever of numbers. Their name is the _Pirah\u00e3_ or the _Hi'aiti'ihi,_ meaning \"the straight ones.\" Surrounded by throngs of trees, their small clusters of huts lie on the banks of the Maici River. Tumbling gray rain breaks green on the lush foliage and long grass. Days there are continuously hot and humid, inducing a perpetual look of embarrassment on the faces of visiting missionaries and linguists. Children race naked around the village, while their mothers wear light dresses obtained by bartering with the Brazilian traders. From the same source, the men display colorful T-shirts, the flotsam of past political campaigns, exhorting the observer to vote Lula.\n\nManioc (a tough and bland tuber), fresh fish, and roasted anteater sustain the population. The work of gathering food is divided along lines of sex. At first light, women leave the huts to tend the manioc plants and collect firewood, while the men go upriver or downriver to fish. They can spend the whole day there, bow and arrow in hand, watching the water. For want of means of storage, any catch is consumed quickly. The _Pirah\u00e3_ apportion food in the following manner: members of the tribe haphazardly receive a generous serving until no more remains. Any who have not yet been served ask a neighbor, who has to share. This procedure only ends when everyone has eaten his fill.\n\nThe vast majority of what we know about the _Pirah\u00e3_ is due to the work of Daniel Everett, a Californian linguist who has studied them at close quarters over a period of thirty years. With professional perseverance, he gradually heard their cacophonic ejections as comprehensible words and phrases, becoming in the process the first outsider to embrace the tribe's way of life.\n\nTo Everett's astonishment, the language he learned has no specific words for measuring time or quantity. Names for numbers like \"one\" or \"two\" are unheard of. Even the simplest numerical queries brought only confusion or indifference to the tribesmen's eyes. Of their children, parents are unable to say how many they have, though they remember all their names. Plans or schedules older than a single day have no purchase on the _Pirah\u00e3_ 's minds. Bartering with foreign traders simply consists of handing over foraged nuts as payment until the trader says that the price has been met.\n\nNor do the _Pirah\u00e3_ count with their bodies. Their fingers never point or curl: when indicating some amount they simply hold their hand palm down, using the space between their hand and the ground to suggest the height of the pile that such a quantity could reach.\n\nIt seems the _Pirah\u00e3_ make no distinction between a man and a group of men, between a bird and a flock of birds, between a grain of manioc flour and a sack of manioc flour. Everything is either small ( _h\u00f3i_ ) or big ( _ogii_ ). A solitary macaw is a small flock; the flock, a big macaw. In his _Metaphysics,_ Aristotle shows that counting requires some prior understanding of what \"one\" is. To count five, or ten or twenty-three birds, we must first identify one bird, an idea of \"bird\" that can apply to every possible kind. But such abstractions are entirely foreign to the tribe.\n\nWith abstraction, birds become numbers. Men and maniocs, too. We can look at a scene and say, \"There are two men, three birds, and four maniocs\" but also, \"There are nine things\" (summing two and three and four). The _Pirah\u00e3_ do not think this way. They ask, \"What are these things?\" \"Where are they?\" \"What do they do?\" A bird flies, a man breathes, and a manioc plant grows. It is meaningless to try to bring them together. Man is a small world. The world is a big manioc.\n\nIt is little surprise to learn that the _Pirah\u00e3_ perceive drawings and photos only with great difficulty. They hold a photograph sideways or upside down, not seeing what the image is meant to represent. Drawing a picture is no easier for them, not even a straight line. They cannot copy simple shapes with any fidelity. Quite possibly, they have no interest in doing so. Instead their pencils (furnished by linguists or missionaries) produce only repeating circular marks on the researcher's sheet of paper, each mark a little different from the last.\n\nPerhaps this also explains why the _Pirah\u00e3_ tell no stories, possess no creation myths. Stories, at least as we understand them, have intervals: a beginning, a middle, and an end. When we tell a story, we recount: naming each interval is equivalent to numbering it. Yet the _Pirah\u00e3_ talk only of the immediate present: no past impinges on their actions; no future motivates their thoughts. History, they told Everett, is \"where nothing happens, and everything is the same.\"\n\nLest anyone should think tribes such as the _Pirah\u00e3_ somehow lacking in capacity, allow me to mention the _Guugu Yimithirr_ of north Queensland in Australia. In common with most Aboriginal language speakers, the _Guugu Yimithirr_ have only a handful of number words: _nubuun_ (one), _gudhirra_ (two), and _guunduu_ (three or more). This same language, however, permits its speakers to navigate their landscape geometrically. A wide array of coordinate terms attune their minds intuitively to magnetic north, south, east, and west, so they develop an extraordinary sense of orientation. For instance, a _Guugu Yimithirr_ man would not say something like, \"There is an ant on your right leg,\" but rather \"There is an ant on your southeast leg.\" Or, instead of saying, \"Move the bowl back a bit,\" the man would say, \"Move the bowl to the north-northwest a bit.\"\n\nWe are tempted to say that a compass, for them, has no point. But at least one other interesting observation can be drawn from the _Guugu Yimithirrs'_ ability. In the West, young children often struggle to grasp the concept of a negative number. The difference between the numbers two (2) and minus two (\u20132) often evades their imagination. Here the _Guugu Yimithirr_ child has a definite advantage. For two, the child thinks of \"two steps east,\" while minus two becomes \"two steps west.\" To a question like, \"What is minus two plus one?\" the Western child might incorrectly offer, \"Minus three,\" whereas the _Guugu Yimithirr_ simply takes a mental step eastward to arrive at the right answer of \"one step west\" (\u20131).\n\nThe _Kpelle_ tribe of Liberia offers a final example of culture's effect on how a person counts. The _Kpelle_ have no word in their language corresponding to the abstract concept of \"number.\" Counting words exist, but are rarely employed above thirty or forty. One young _Kpelle_ man, when interviewed by a linguist, could not recall his language's term for seventy-three. A word meaning \"one hundred\" frequently stands in for any large amount.\n\nNumbers, the _Kpelle_ believe, have power over people and animals and are to be traded lightly and with a kind of reverence; village elders therefore often guard jealously the solutions to sums. From their teachers, the children acquire only the most basic numerical facts in piecemeal fashion, without learning any of the rhythm that constitutes arithmetic. The children learn, for example, that 2 + 2 = 4, and perhaps several weeks or months afterward that 4 + 4 = 8, but they are never required to connect the two sums and see that 2 + 2 + 4 = 8.\n\nCounting people directly is believed by the _Kpelle_ to bring bad luck. In Africa, this taboo is both ancient and widespread. There exists as well the sentiment, shared by the authors of the Old Testament, that the counting of human beings is an exercise in poor taste. The simplicity of their number words is not only a question of language, it also reveals an ethical dimension.\n\nI read with pleasure a book of essays published several years ago by the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe. In one, Achebe complained of the Westerners who asked him, \"How many children do you have?\" Rebuking silence, he suggested, best answered such an impertinent question.\n\n\"But things are changing and changing fast with us... and so I have learned to answer questions that my father would not have touched with a bargepole.\"\n\nAchebe's children number _ano_ (four). In Iceland, they would say _fj\u00f6gur._\n\n# Four\n\n# PROVERBS AND TIMES TABLES\n\nI once had the pleasure of discovering a book wholly dedicated to the art of proverbs. It was in one of the municipal libraries that I frequented as a teenager. The title of the book escapes me now, the name of its author, too, but I still recall the little shiver of excitement I felt as my fingers caressed its quarto pages.\n\n> \"Penny wise, pound foolish.\"\n> \n> \"Small fishes are better than empty dishes.\"\n> \n> \"A speech without proverb is like a stew without salt.\"\n\nNow that I come to think of it, I doubt this book had any single author. Every proverb is anonymous. Each appears in a society's mental repertoire by some process akin to immaculate composition. Like the verses in the Muslims' Koran, proverbs seem pre-written, patiently awaiting a mouth to utter their existence. Some linguists contend that language happens independently of our reason, its origins traceable to a still mysterious and exclusive gene. Perhaps proverbial logic is like language in this respect, its existence as essential to our humanity as the power of speech.\n\nWhoever the author or the editor, this book proved to me that there are only so many proverbs a healthy man can take. A point of surfeit is reached, beyond which the reader can no longer follow: his brain starts to ache, his eyes to water. Taken in excess, proverbs lose all the familiar felicities of their compact structure. They start to read merely as repetitions\u2014which many by then quite probably are. From my experience, I estimate this limit at about one hundred.\n\nOne hundred proverbs, give or take, sum up the essence of a culture; one hundred multiplication facts compose the ten times table. Like proverbs, these numerical truths or statements\u2014two times two is four, or seven times six equals forty-two\u2014are always short, fixed and pithy. Why then do they not stick in our heads as proverbs do?\n\nBut they did before, some people claim. When? In the good old days, of course. Today's children, they suggest, are simply too slack-brained to learn correctly. Nothing interests them but sending one another text messages and harassing the teacher. The critics hark back to those days before computers and calculators; to the time when every number was drummed into children's heads till finding the right answer became second nature.\n\nExcept that, no such time has ever really existed. Times tables have always given many schoolchildren trouble, as Charles Dickens knew in the mid-nineteenth century.\n\n> Miss Sturch put her head out of the school-room window: and seeing the two gentlemen approaching, beamed on them with her invariable smile. Then, addressing the vicar, said in her softest tones, \"I regret extremely to trouble you, sir, but I find Robert very intractable, this morning, with his multiplication table.\" \"Where does he stick now?\" asked Doctor Chennery. \"At seven times eight, sir,\" replied Miss Sturch. \"Bob!\" shouted the vicar through the window. \"Seven times eight?\" \"Forty-three,\" answered the whimpering voice of the invisible Bob. \"You shall have one more chance before I get my cane,\" said Doctor Chennery. \"Now then, look out. Seven times...\n\nOnly his younger sister's rapid intervention with the answer\u2014fifty-six\u2014spares the boy the physical pain of another wrong guess.\n\nCenturies old, then, the difficulty that many children face acquiring their multiplication facts is also serious. It is, to borrow a favorite term of politicians, a \"real problem.\" \"Lack of fluency with multiplication tables,\" reports the UK schools inspectorate, \"is a significant impediment to fluency with multiplication and division. Many low-attaining secondary-school pupils struggle with instant recall of tables. Teachers [consider] fluent recall of multiplication tables as an essential prerequisite to success in multiplication.\"\n\nThe facts in a multiplication table represent the essence of our knowledge of numbers: the molecules of math. They tell us how many dimes make up a dollar (10 \u00d7 10), the number of squares on a chessboard (8 \u00d7 8), the quantity of individual surfaces on a trio of boxes (3 \u00d7 6). They help us evenly divide fifty-six items among eight people (7 \u00d7 8 = 56, therefore 56\/8 = 7), or realize that forty-three of something cannot be evenly distributed in the same way (because forty-three, being a prime number, makes no appearance among the facts). They reduce the risk of anxiety in the young learner, and give a vital boost to the child's confidence.\n\nPatterns are the matter that these molecules, in combination, make. Take, for instance, the consecutive facts 9 \u00d7 5 = 45, and 9 \u00d7 6 = 54: the digits in both answers are the same, only reversed. Thinking about the other facts in the nine times table, we see that every answer's digits sum to nine:\n\n> 9 \u00d7 2 = 18 (1 + 8 = 9)\n> \n> 9 \u00d7 3 = 27 (2 + 7 = 9)\n> \n> 9 \u00d7 4 = 36 (3 + 6 = 9)\n> \n> Etc....\n\nOr, surveying the other tables, we discover that multiplying an even number by five will always produce an answer ending in zero (2 \u00d7 5 = 10, 6 \u00d7 5 = 30), while multiplying an odd number by five gives answers that always end in itself (3 \u00d7 5 = 15, 9 \u00d7 5 = 45). Or, we spot that six squared (thirty-six) plus eight squared (sixty-four) equals ten squared (one hundred).\n\nSevens, the trickiest times table to learn, also offer a beautiful pattern. Picture the seven on a telephone's keypad, in the bottom left-hand corner. Now simply raise your eye to the key immediately above it (four), and then again to the next key above (one). Do the same starting from the bottom middle key (eight), and so on. Every keypad digit in turn corresponds to the final digit in the answers along the seven times table: 7, 14, 21, 28...\n\nNot all multiplication facts pose problems, of course. Multiplying any number by one or ten is obviously easy enough. Our hands know that two times five, and five times two, both equal ten. Equivalencies abound: two times six, and three times four, both lead to twelve; multiplying three by ten, and six by five, amounts to the same thing.\n\nBut others are trickier, less intuitive, and far easier to let slip. A numerate culture will find whatever means at its disposal to pass these obstinate facts down from one generation to the next. It will carve them into rock and scratch them onto parchment. It will condemn every inauspicious student to threats and thrashings. It will select the most succinct form and phrasing for its essential truths: not too heavy for the tongue, nor too lengthy for the ear.\n\nJust like a proverb.\n\nFor example, what did our ancestors mean precisely when bequeathing us a truth like \"An apple a day keeps the doctor away\"? Not, of course, that we should read it literally, superstitiously, imagining apples like the cloves of garlic that are supposed to make vampires take to their heels. Rather, the sentence expresses a core relationship between two different things: healthy food (for which the apple plays stand-in), and illness (embodied by the doctor). Consider a few of the alternate ways in which this relationship might also have been summed up:\n\n> \"A daily fruit serving is good for you.\"\n> \n> \"Eating healthy food prevents illness.\"\n> \n> \"To avoid getting sick, eat a balanced diet.\"\n\nThese versions are as short, or even shorter, than our proverb. But none is anywhere near as memorable.\n\nLong before Dickens wrote about the horrors of multiplication tables, our ancestors had decided to sum up fifty-six as \"seven times eight,\" just as they described health (and its absence) in apples and doctors. But as with a concept like \"health,\" understanding the number fifty-six can be achieved via many other routes.\n\n> 56 = 28 \u00d7 2\n> \n> 56 = 14 \u00d7 4\n> \n> 56 = 7 \u00d7 8\n\nOr even:\n\n> 56 = 3.5 \u00d7 16\n> \n> 56 = 1.75 \u00d7 32\n> \n> 56 = 0.875 \u00d7 64\n\nIt is not difficult to see, though, why tradition would have privileged the succinctness and simplicity of \"seven times eight\" for most purposes, over rival definitions such as \"one and three-quarters times thirty-two\" or \"seven-eighths of sixty-four\" (as useful as they might be in certain contexts).\n\nWhat is seven times eight? It is the clearest and simplest way to talk about the number fifty-six.\n\nThese familiar forms may be simple and succinct, but they are finely wrought, nonetheless, whether in words or figures. The proverbial apple, for example, begins the proverb, though its meaning (as a protector of health) cannot be grasped until the end. \"Apple\" here is the answer to the question: What keeps the doctor away? Other proverbs also share this structure, where the answer precedes the question. \"A stitch in time saves nine\" (What saves nine stitches? A stitch in time) or \"Blind is the bookless man\" (What is the bookless man? Blind).\n\nPlacing the answer at the start compels our imagination: we concede more freely the premise that an apple can deter illness, in part because the word \"apple\" precedes all the others. Using this structure can also arouse our attention, inciting us to picture the rest of the proverb with the opening image in mind: to see the bookless man, for example, more clearly in light of his blind eyes.\n\nWhen I discussed the ways in which we could think about the number fifty-six, I borrowed this feature of proverbs and put the sum's answer at the start. Saying, \"Fifty-six equals seven times eight\" lends emphasis where it is needed most: not on the seven or the eight, but on what they produce.\n\nForm is important. A pupil reads 56 = 7 \u00d7 8 and hears the whisper of many generations, while another child, shown 7 \u00d7 8 = 56, finds himself alone. The first child is enriched; the second is disinherited.\n\nToday's debates over times tables often neglect questions of form. Not so the schools of nineteenth-century America. The young nation, still younger than its oldest citizens, hosted educational discussions unprecedented in their inquisitive detail. Teachers pondered in marvelous depth the kind of verb to use when multiplying. In _The Grammar of English Grammars_ (published in 1858) we read, \"In multiplying one only, it is evidently best to use a singular verb: 'Three times one is three.' And in multiplying any number above one, I judge a plural verb to be necessary: 'Three times two are six.' \"\n\nThe more radical contributors to these debates suggested doing away with excess words like \"times\" altogether. Instead of learning \"four times six is twenty-four,\" the child would repeat, \"four sixes are twenty-four.\" These educators urged a return to the way ancient Greek children had chanted their times tables two millennia before: \"once one is one,\" \"twice one is two,\" et cetera. Others went even further, suggesting that the verb \"is\" (or \"are\") also be thrown out: \"four sixes, twenty-four,\" in the manner of the Japanese.\n\nSchools in Japan have long lavished attention on the sounds and rhythms of the times tables. Every syllable counts. Take the multiplication 1 \u00d7 6 = 6, among the first facts that any child learns. The standard Japanese word for \"one\" is _ichi;_ the usual Japanese word for \"six\" is _roku._ Put together, they make: _ichi roku roku_ (one six, six). But Japanese pupils never say this: the line is clumsy, the sounds cacophonous. Instead, the pupils all say, _in roku ga roku_ (one six, six), using an abraded form of _ichi_ ( _in_ ) and an insertion ( _ga_ ) for euphony.\n\nThe trimming of unnecessary words or sounds shapes both the proverb and the times table. \"Better late than never,\" says the parent in New York when his son complains of his allowance long overdue. \"Four fives, twenty,\" says the boy when he finally counts his money.\n\nIn Japanese, the multiplication 6 \u00d7 9 = 54 is an extreme example of ellipsis. Being similar in sound, the two words\u2014 _roku_ (six) and _ku_ (nine)\u2014merge to a single _rokku._ This new number would be a little like pronouncing the multiplication 7 \u00d7 9 in English as \"sevine.\"\n\nWhy is _in roku ga roku_ judged more pleasing than _ichi roku roku?_ Both phrases contain six syllables; both phrases use the \"roku\" word twice, yet the first sounds beautiful, while the second seems ugly. The answer is, parallelism. _In roku ga roku_ has a parallel structure, which makes it easier on the ear. We hear this balanced structure frequently in our proverbs: \"fight fire with fire.\" One six is six.\n\nIt is much harder to make good parallel times tables in English than it is in Japanese. The same is true of many European languages. In Japanese, a child says _roku ni juuni_ (six two, ten two) for 6 \u00d7 2 = 12, and _san go juugo_ (three five, ten five) for 3 \u00d7 5 = 15, whereas an English-speaking child must say \"twelve\" and \"fifteen,\" a French child _douze_ and _quinze,_ and a German child _zw\u00f6lf_ and _f\u00fcnfzehn._\n\nBeside the ones, it is only the ten times table that produces consistent parallel forms in English, of the kind \"easy come, easy go\": \"seven tens (are) seventy.\"\n\nNot all proverbs employ parallels. Many use alliteration\u2014the repetition of certain sounds: \"One swallow does not a summer make\" or \"All that glitters is not gold.\" Times tables alliterate too: \"four fives (are) twenty\" and (if we extend our times tables to twelve) \"six twelves (are) seventy-two.\"\n\nParallels and alliteration are both in evidence when proverbs rhyme: \"A friend in need is a friend indeed\" or \"Some are wise and some are otherwise.\" By definition, square multiplications (when the number is multiplied by itself) begin in a similar way: \"two times two...\" \"four fours...\" \"nine times nine...\" though only the squares of five and six finish with a flourish: \"five times five (is) twenty-five\" and \"six times six (is) thirty-six.\"\n\nFor this reason, learners procure these two multiplication facts (after, perhaps, \"two times two is four\") with the greatest ease and pleasure. This pair\u2014\"five times five is twenty-five\" and \"six times six is thirty-six\"\u2014truly attain the special quality of the proverb. Other multiplication facts, from the same times tables, get close. For example, multiplying five by any odd number inevitably leads to a rhyme: \"seven fives (are) thirty-five.\" Six, when followed by an even number, causes the even number to rhyme: \"six times four (is) twenty-four\" and \"six eights (are) forty-eight.\"\n\nMistakes? Of course they happen. Nobody is above them. No matter how long a person spends immersed in numbers, recollection can sometimes go astray. I have read of world-class mathematicians who blush at \"nine times seven.\"\n\nThe same troubles we encounter with times tables sometimes occur with words, what we call \"slips of the tongue,\" though more often than not the tongue is innocent. It is the memory that is to blame. Someone who says, \"He is like a bear with a sore thumb\" (mixing up \"like a bear with a sore head\" and \"to stick out like a sore thumb\") makes a mistake similar to he who answers \"seven times eight\" with \"forty-eight\" (confusing 7 \u00d7 8 = 56 with 6 \u00d7 8 = 48).\n\nSuch mistakes are mistakes of unfamiliarity. Proverbs, like times tables, can often strike us as strange, their meanings remote. Why do we talk of bears with sore heads? In what way do swallows conjure up summertime better than other birds? The choice of words seems to us as arbitrary and archaic as the numbers in the times tables. But the truths they represent are immemorial.\n\n\"Hold fast to the words of ancestors,\" instructs a proverb from India. Hold fast to their times tables, too.\n\n# Five\n\n# CLASSROOM INTUITIONS\n\nTelevision journalists, in their weaker moments, will occasionally pull the following stunt on a hapless minister of education. Mugging through his makeup at the attendant cameras, the interviewer strokes his notes, clears his throat, and says, \"One final question. What is nine times six?\"\n\nSuch episodes never fail to make me sigh. It is a sad thing when mathematics is reduced to the recollection (or, more often, the non-recollection) of a classroom rule.\n\nIn one particular confrontation of this type, the presenter demanded to know the price of fourteen pens when four had a price tag of $2.42. \"I haven't the foggiest,\" the minister whimpered to the audience members' howls of delight.\n\nOf course, the questions are patently asked with the expectation of failure in mind. Politicians are always trying to anticipate our expectations and to meet them. Should we then feel such surprise when they judge the situation correctly and get the sum wrong?\n\nProperly understood, the study of mathematics has no end: the things each of us does not know about it are infinite. We are all of us at sea with some aspect or another. Personally, I must admit to having no affinity with algebra. This discovery I owe to my middle school math teacher, Mr. Baxter.\n\nTwice a week, I would sit in Mr. Baxter's class and do my best to keep my head down. I was thirteen, going on fourteen. With his predecessors I had excelled at the subject: number theory, statistics, probability, none of them had given me any trouble. Now I found myself an algebraic zero.\n\nThings were changing; I was changing. All swelling limbs and sweating brain, suddenly I had more body than I knew what to do with. Arms and legs became the prey of low desktops and narrow corridors, were ambushed by sharp corners. Mr. Baxter ignored my plight. Bodies were inimical to mathematics, or so we were led to believe. Bad hair, acrid breath, lumpy skin, all vanished for an hour every Tuesday and Thursday. Young minds in the buff soared into the sphere of pure reason. Pages turned into parallelograms; cities, circumferences; recipes, ratios. Shorn of our bearings, we groped our way around in this rarefied air.\n\nIt was in this atmosphere that I learned the rudiments of algebra. The word, we were told, was of Arabic origin, culled from the title of a ninth-century treatise by Al-Khwarizmi (\"algorithm,\" incidentally, is a Latin corruption of his name). This exotic provenance, I remember, left a deep impression on me. The snaking, swirling equations in my textbook made me think of calligraphy. But I did not find them beautiful.\n\nMy textbook pages looked cluttered with lexicographical debris: all those x's and y's and z's. The use of the least familiar letters only served to confirm my prejudice. I thought these letters ugly, interrupting perfectly good sums.\n\nTake x\u00b2 + 10x = 39, for example. Such concoctions made me wince. I much preferred to word it out: a square number (1, or 4, or 9, etc.) plus a multiple of ten (10, 20, 30, etc.) equals thirty-nine; 9 (3 \u00d7 3) + 30 (3 \u00d7 10) = 39; three is the common factor; x = 3. Years later, I learned that Al-Khwarizmi had written out all his problems, too.\n\nStout and always short of breath, Mr. Baxter had us stick to the exercises in the book. He had no patience whatsoever for paraphrasing. Raised hands were cropped with a frown and the admonition to \"reread the section.\" He was a stickler for the textbook's methods. When I showed him my work, he complained that I had not used them. I had not subtracted the same values from either side of the equation. I had not done a thing with the brackets. His red pen flared over the carefully written words of my solutions.\n\nLet me give a further example of my deviant reasoning: x\u00b2 = 2x + 15. I word it out like this: a square number (1, 4, 9, etc.) equals fifteen more than a multiple of two (2, 4, 6, etc.). In other words, we are looking for a square number above seventeen (being fifteen more than two). The first candidate is twenty-five (5 \u00d7 5) and twenty-five is indeed fifteen more than 10 (a multiple of two); x = 5.\n\nA few of Mr. Baxter's students acquired his methods; most, like me, never did. Of course I cannot speak for the others, but I found the experience bruising. I was glad when the year was over and I could move on to other math. But I also felt a certain shame at my failure to comprehend. His classes left me with a permanent suspicion of all equations. Algebra and I have never been fully reconciled.\n\nFrom Mr. Baxter I learned at least one profitable lesson: how not to teach. This lesson would serve me well on numerous occasions. Two years after I left school, while leafing through the newspaper one morning, I came across an agency's advertisement recruiting tutors. I had taught English in Lithuania and discovered that I liked teaching. So I applied. I was interviewed by a lady up in years named Grace, in the office that she kept in her living room. Needlepoint cushions filled the small of my back as I sat before her desk. The wallpaper, if I remember correctly, had a pattern of small birds and honeybees.\n\nThe meeting was brief.\n\n\"Do you enjoy helping others to learn something new?\"\n\n\"Are you mindful of a student's personal learning style?\"\n\n\"Could you work according to a set curriculum?\"\n\nHer questions contained their own answers, like the dialogue taught in a foreign language class: \"Yes, I could work according to a set curriculum.\"\n\nAfter ten minutes of this she said, \"Excellent, well, you would certainly fit in with us here. For English we already have tutors and there is not much demand for foreign languages. What about primary school\u2013level math?\"\n\nWhat about it? I was a taker.\n\nGrace's bookings certainly kept me on my toes. My tutoring patch extended to the neighboring town five miles away, and the bus ride and walk to the farthest homes took as long as the lessons. Nervous, I learned on the job, but the families helped me. I found the children, between the ages of seven and eleven, generally polite and industrious; their parents' nods and smiles tamed my nerves. After a while I ceased to worry and even began to look forward to my weekly visits.\n\nShould I admit I had a favorite student? He was a brown-haired, freckled boy, eight years old but small for his age, and the first time I came to the house he fairly shivered with shyness. We started out with the textbooks that the agency loaned me, but they were old and smelly and the leprous covers soon came apart in our hands. A brightly colored book replaced them, one of the boy's Christmas gifts, but its jargon was poison to his mind. So we abandoned the books and found some better way to pass the hour together. We talked a lot.\n\nIt turned out that he had a fondness for collecting baseball cards and could recite the names of the players depicted on them by heart. With pride he showed me the accompanying album.\n\n\"Can you tell me how many cards you have in there?\" I asked him. He admitted to having never totaled them up. The album contained many pages.\n\n\"If we count each card one by one it will take quite a long time to reach the last page,\" I said. \"What if we were to count them two by two instead?\" The boy agreed that would be quicker. Twice as quick, I pointed out, \"And what if we were to count the cards in threes? Would we get to the end of the album even faster?\" He nodded. Yes, we would: three times as fast.\n\nThe boy interrupted. \"If we counted the cards five at a time, we would finish five times faster.\" He smiled at my smile. Then we opened the album and counted the cards on the first page, I placing my larger palm over every five. There were three palms of cards: fifteen. The second page had slightly fewer (two palms and three fingers, thirteen)\u2014so we carried the difference over to the next. By the seventh page we had reached twenty palms: one hundred cards. We continued turning the pages, putting my palm onto each, and counting along. In all, the number of cards rose to over eighty palms (four hundred).\n\nAfter making light work of the album, we considered the case of a giant counting its pages. The giant's palm, we agreed, would easily count the cards by twenty.\n\nWhat if the same giant wanted to count up to a million? The boy thought for a moment. \"Perhaps he counts in hundreds: one hundred, two hundred, three hundred...\" Did the boy know how many hundreds it would take to reach a million? He shook his head. Ten thousand, I told him. His eyebrows leaped. Finally, he said, \"He would count in ten thousands, then, wouldn't he?\" I confirmed that he would: it would be like us counting from one to hundred. \"And if he were really big, he might count in hundred thousands,\" I continued. The giant would reach a million as quickly as we counted from one to ten.\n\nOnce, during a lesson solving additions, the boy hit upon a small but clever insight. He was copying down his homework for us to go through together. The sum was 12 + 9, but it came out as 19 + 2. The answer, he realized, did not change. Twelve plus nine, and nineteen plus two, both equal twenty-one. The fortuitous error pleased him; it made him pause and think. I paused as well, not wishing to talk for fear of treading on his thoughts. Later I asked him for the answer to a much larger sum, something like 83 + 8. He closed his eyes and said, \"Eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one.\" I knew then that he had understood.\n\nOf the other students, I recall the Singh family whose children I taught on Wednesday evenings for two hours back-to-back. I remember I could never get on with the father, a businessman who put on executive airs, although the mother treated me with nothing but kindness. They had three children, two boys and a girl; the children were always waiting for me around the table in the living room, still dressed up in their school uniforms. The eldest boy was eleven: a bit of a show-off, he had the confidence of an eldest son. His sister regularly deferred to him. In the middle, the second son laughed a lot. He seemed to laugh for the whole family.\n\nIn the beginning, the trio took the wan bespectacled man before them only half seriously as a teacher. Between them, they had ten years on me. I looked too young and probably sounded it as well, without the smooth patter that comes with experience. All the same, I held my ground. I helped them with their times tables, in which they were far from fluent. They showed surprise when I failed to berate their errors and hesitations. On the contrary, if they were close to the right answer I told them so.\n\n\"What is eight times seven?\"\n\n\"Fifty...\" The eldest boy wavered.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, encouraging.\n\n\"Fifty- _four,_ \" he ventured.\n\n\"Nearly,\" I said. \"Fifty-six.\"\n\nThis hesitation, a habit of many of my students, intrigued me. It suggested not ignorance, but rather indecision. To say that a student has no idea of a solution, I realized, is untrue. Truth is, the learner _does_ have ideas, too many, in fact\u2014almost all of them bad. Without the knowledge necessary to eliminate this mental haze, the learner finds himself confronted with an embarrassment of wrong answers to helplessly pick from.\n\nWhat had the boy been thinking, I inquired, when he selected fifty-four as his answer? He admitted having previously considered fifty-three, fifty-six, fifty-seven, and fifty-five (in that order). He had felt sure that fifty-one or fifty-two would be too small an answer, both fifty-eight and fifty-nine, too high. Then I asked him why he had finally preferred fifty-four to fifty-three. He replied that he had thought of the eight in the question, and the fact that fifty is half of one hundred, and that half of eight is four.\n\nWe moved on to discussing the difference between odd and even numbers. Eight was an even number; seven was odd. What happens when we multiply odd by even? The children's faces showed more hesitation. I suggested several examples: two times seven (fourteen), three times six (eighteen), four times five (twenty), every answer an even number. Could they see why? Yes, said the second son at last: multiplying by an even number was the same thing as creating pairs. Two times seven created a pair of sevens; four times five made two pairs of fives; three times six produced three pairs of threes. What, then, about eight times seven? It meant four pairs of sevens, the boy said.\n\nPairs evened every odd number: one sock became two socks, three became six, five became ten, seven became fourteen, and nine became eighteen. The last digit of a pair would always be an even number.\n\nThe mental fog of eight times seven was evaporating. Fifty-three promptly vanished as a contending answer; so too did fifty-seven and fifty-five. That left fifty-four and fifty-six. How, then, to tell the two apart? The number fifty-four, I pointed out, was six away from sixty: fifty-four\u2014like sixty\u2014was divisible by six. Like sixty, fifty-four will therefore be the answer to a question containing a six (or a number divisible by six), but neither a seven nor an eight.\n\nBy this process of elimination, which amounts to careful reasoning, only fifty-six remained. Fifty-six is two sevens away from seventy, three eights away from eighty. Eight times seven equals fifty-six.\n\nMy only adult student was a housewife with copper-colored skin, and a long name with vowels and consonants that I had never before seen in such a permutation. The housewife, Grace informed me on the phone, aspired to professional accountancy. In my mind, this fact made for an unpromising start. The admission of self-interest rubbed up against my naive vision of mathematics as something playful and inventive. There seemed to me something almost vulgar in the housewife's sudden interest in numbers, as if she wanted to befriend them only as some people set out to befriend well-connected people.\n\nQuickly I amended this faulty judgment. The reservations about my new student were unfair. They were the reservations of a children's tutor\u2014I knew nothing of teaching adults, of anticipating their needs and expectations.\n\nWe were talking together one day about negative numbers, as we sat in her white-tiled kitchen. Like mathematicians of the sixteenth century, who referred to them as \"absurd\" and \"fictitious,\" she found these numbers difficult to imagine. What could it mean to subtract something from nothing? I tried to explain, but found myself at a frustrating loss for words. Somehow my student understood.\n\n\"You mean, like a mortgage?\"\n\nI did not know what a mortgage was. Now it was her turn to try to explain. As she spoke, I realized that she knew a lot more about negative numbers than I did. Her words possessed real value: they had the bullion of hard experience to back them up.\n\nAnother time we went over \"improper\" fractions: top-heavy fractions, like four-thirds (4\/3) or seven-quarters (7\/4), that help us to think about units in different ways. If we think of the number one as being equivalent to three thirds, for example, then four-thirds is another way of describing one and one-third. Seven-quarters, my student and I agreed, resembled two apples that had been quartered (considering \"one\" as equal to four quarters) and one of these eight apple-quarters consumed.\n\nOur hour was soon up, but we kept on talking. We were discussing fractions and what happens when you halve a half of a half of a half, and so on. It amazed us both to think that this halving, theoretically speaking, could continue indefinitely. There was pleasure in confiding our mutual amazement, almost in the manner of gossip. And like gossip, it was something that we both knew and did not know.\n\nThen she came to a beautiful conclusion about fractions that I shall never forget.\n\nShe said, \"There is no thing that half of it is nothing.\"\n\n# Six\n\n# SHAKESPEARE'S ZERO\n\nFew things, to judge by his works, so fascinated William Shakespeare as the presence of absence: the lacuna where there ought to be abundance\u2014of will, or judgment, or understanding. It looms large in the lives of many of his characters, so powerful in part because it is universal. Not even kings are exempt.\n\nLEAR: What can you say to draw\n\nA third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.\n\nCORDELIA: Nothing, my lord.\n\nLEAR: Nothing?\n\nCORDELIA: Nothing.\n\nLEAR: Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.\n\nThe scene is one of the tensest, most suspenseful moments in theater, a concentration of tremendous force within a single word. It is the ultimate negation, tossed between the old king and his beloved youngest daughter, compounded and multiplied through repetition. Nothing. Zero.\n\nOf course, Shakespeare's contemporaries were familiar with the idea of nothingness, but not with nothingness as a number, something that they could count and manipulate. In his arithmetic lessons, William became one of the first generation of English schoolboys to learn about the figure zero. It is interesting to wonder about the consequences of this early encounter. How might the new and paradoxical number have driven his thoughts along particular paths?\n\nArithmetic spelled trouble for many schoolmasters of the period. Their knowledge of it was often suspect. For this reason, lessons were probably short, often kept until almost the final hour of the afternoon. Squeezed in after long bouts of Latin composition, a list of proverbs, or the chanting of prayers, the sums and exercises were mostly drawn from a single textbook: _The Ground of Artes_ by Robert Recorde. Published in 1543 (and again, in an expanded edition, in 1550), Recorde's book, which included the first material on algebra in the English language, taught \"the work and practice of Arithmetike, both in whole numbres and Fractions after a more easyer and exarter sorte than any like hath hitherto been sette furth.\"\n\nShakespeare learned to count and reckon using Recorde's methods. He learned that \"there are but tenne figures that are used in Arithmetick; and of those tenne, one doth signifie nothing, which is made like an O, and is privately called a Cypher.\" These Arabic numbers\u2014and the decimal place system\u2014would soon eclipse the Roman numerals (the Tudors called them \"German numbers\"), which were often found too cumbersome for calculating.\n\nGerman numbers were, of course, letters: I (or j), one; V, five; X, ten; L, fifty; C, one hundred; D, five hundred; and M, one thousand. Six hundred appeared as vj.C and three thousand as CCC.M. Perhaps this is why Recorde compares the zero to an O. Years later, Shakespeare would deploy the cipher to blistering effect. \"Thou art an O without a figure... Thou art nothing,\" the Fool tells Lear, after the dialogue with Cordelia that destroys the king's peace of mind.\n\nIn Shakespeare's lessons, letters were out, figures (digits) in. Perhaps they were displayed conspicuously on charts, hung up on walls like the letters of the alphabet are now. Ten to a hard bench, the boys trimmed and dipped their quills in ink, and their feathered fingers copied out the numbers in small, tidy lines. Zeroes spotted every page. But why record something that has no value? Something that is nothing?\n\nEngland's medieval monks, translators and copiers of earlier treatises by the Arab world's mathematicians, had long before noted the zero's almost magical quality. One twelfth-century scribe suggested giving it the name \"chimera\" after the fabulous monster of Greek mythology. Writing in the thirteenth century, John of Halifax explained the zero as something that \"signifies nothing\" but instead \"holds a place and signifies for others.\" His manuscript proved popular in the universities. But it would take the invention of Gutenberg's printing press to bring his ideas to a much wider audience, including the motley boys of King's New School in Stratford.\n\nGLOUCESTER: What paper were you reading?\n\nEDMUND: Nothing my lord.\n\nGLOUCESTER: No? What needed then that terrible despatch of it into your pocket? The quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself. Let's see: Come, if it be nothing I shall not need spectacles.\n\nThe quality of nothing. We can picture the proto-playwright grappling with zero. The boy closes his eyes and tries to see it. But it is not easy to see nothing. Two shoes, yes, he can see them, and five fingers and nine books. 2 and 5 and 9: he understands what they mean. How, though, to see _zero_ shoes? Add a number to another number, like a letter to another letter, and you create something new: a new number, a new sound. Only, if you add a number to zero, nothing changes. The other number persists. Add five zeroes, ten zeroes, a hundred zeroes if you like. It makes no difference. A multiplication by zero is just as mysterious. Multiply a number, any number\u2014three, or four hundred, or 5,678\u2014by zero, by nothing, and the answer is zero.\n\nWas the boy able to keep up in his lessons, or did he lag? The Tudor schoolmaster, violence dressed in a long cloak and black shoes, would probably have concentrated his mind. The schoolmaster's cane could reduce a boy's buttocks to one big bruise. With its rhyming dialogues (even employing the occasional joke or pun) and clear examples intended to give \"ease to the unlearned,\" we can only hope that Recorde's book spared Shakespeare and his classmates much pain.\n\n> Heere you see vj. (six) lines, whiche stande for vj. (six) places... the [lowest line] standeth for the first place, and the next above it for the second, and so upwarde, till you come to the highest, whiche is the sixth line, and standeth for the sixth place.\n> \n> 100000\n> \n> 10000\n> \n> 1000\n> \n> 100\n> \n> 10\n> \n> 1\n\n> The first place is the place of units or ones, and every counter set in that line betokeneth but one, and the seconde line is the place of 10, for everye counter there standeth for 10. The thirde line the place of hundreds, the fourth of thousands, and so forth.\n\nPerhaps talk of counters turned the boy's thoughts to his father's glove shop. His father would have accounted for all his transactions using the tokens. They were hard and round and very thin, made of copper or brass. There were counters for one pair of gloves, and for two pairs, and three and four and five. But there was no counter for zero. No counters existed for all the sales that his father did not close.\n\nI imagine the schoolmaster sometimes threw out questions to the class. How do we write three thousand in digits? From Recorde's book, Shakespeare learned that zero denotes size. To write thousands requires four places. We write: 3 (three thousands), 0 (zero hundreds), 0 (zero tens), 0 (zero units): 3,000. In _Cymbeline,_ we find one of Shakespeare's many later references to place value (what Recorde in his book called each digit's \"roome\").\n\n> Three thousand confident, in act as many\u2014\n> \n> For three performers are the file, when all\n> \n> The rest do nothing\u2014with this word \"Stand, stand,\"\n> \n> Accommodated by the place...\n\nThe concept must have fascinated him ever since his schooldays. A nothing, the boy sees, depends on kind. An empty hand, for example, is a smaller nothing than an empty class or shop, in the same way that the zero in 10 is ten times smaller than the zero in 101. And the bigger the number, the more places and therefore the more zeroes it can contain: ten has one zero, whereas one hundred thousand has five. He thinks, the bigger an empty room, the more the things that can be contained inside: the greater an absence, the greater the potential presence. Subtract (or \"rebate\" as the Tudors said) one from one hundred thousand and the entire number transforms: five zeroes, five nothings, all suddenly turn to nines (the largest digit): 99,999. Perhaps, like Polixenes in _The Winter's Tale,_ he sensed already the tremendous potential of self-effacement, understood imagination as shifting from place to place like a zero inside an immense number.\n\n> And therefore, like a cipher [zero]\n> \n> (Yet standing in rich place), I multiply\n> \n> With one \"We thank you\" many thousands more\n> \n> That go before it\n\nRecorde's book abounded with exercises. Shakespeare and his classmates' sheets of paper would have quickly turned black with sums as they measured cloth and purchased loaves and counted sheep and paid clergy. But William's mind returns ceaselessly to the zero. He thinks of ten and how it differs from his father's ten. To his father, ten (X) is twice five (v): he counts, whenever possible, in fives and tens. To his son, ten (10) is a one (1) displaced, accompanied by a nought. To his father, ten (X) and one (i) have hardly anything in common: they are two values on opposite ends of a scale. But for the boy, ten and one are intimately linked: there is nothing between them.\n\nTen and one, one and ten.\n\nThe boy sees that, with a retinue of zeroes, even the humble one becomes enormously valuable. Imagination can reconcile even one and one million, as Shakespeare affirmed in his prologue to _Henry V,_ when the chorus stake their claim to represent the multitudes on the field of Agincourt.\n\n> O, pardon! Since a crooked figure [digit] may\n> \n> Attest in little place a million,\n> \n> And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,\n> \n> On your imaginary forces work\n\nBut it is perhaps in his poetry that the boy\u2014now a young man\u2014would most clearly express the impact of Recorde's teaching on his mind. In Sonnet 38, Shakespeare wrote about the relationship between himself and his beloved Muse, comparing their couple to a ten: the poet, the zero, and his beloved, the one.\n\n> O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me\n> \n> Worthy perusal stand against thy sight...\n> \n> Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth...\n\nThis relationship, as everyone knows, would prove remarkably fruitful: his poems and plays multiplied. In the Globe Theatre, round as an O, an empty cipher filled with meaning, Shakespeare's loquacious quill drew crowds.\n\n\"Shakespeare was the least of an egotist that it was possible to be,\" wrote the nineteenth-century critic William Hazlitt. \"He was nothing in himself; but he was all that others were, or that they could become.\" That nothing, who had once been a dazzled schoolboy, laboring for the breakthrough moment when he comprehended the paradoxical fullness of the empty figure of a zero, would surely have been delighted with this description.\n\n# Seven\n\n# SHAPES OF SPEECH\n\nWe know next to nothing with any certainty about Pythagoras, except that he was not really called Pythagoras. The name by which he is known to us was probably a nickname bestowed by his followers. According to one source, it meant \"He who spoke truth like an oracle.\" Rather than entrust his mathematical and philosophical ideas to paper, Pythagoras is said to have expounded them before large crowds, making the world's most famous mathematician its first rhetorician.\n\nIt is easy to imagine the atmosphere of intrigue and anticipation that would have attended such a spectacle. To believe later accounts, people came from far and wide to hear the legendary figure speak. Citizen after citizen: male and female, young and old, rich and poor, politicians and lawyers and doctors and housewives and poets and farmers and children. Latecomers, red-faced from running, jostled for a place at the back. Waiting for the event to start, they would have shared gossip. Pythagoras, someone whispered, has a thigh made of gold. His words can soothe even wild bears, said another. He communes with nature, affirmed a third. Even the rivers know his name!\n\nPythagoras was a handsome, forty-something-year-old man when, in around 530 BCE, he founded his school of disciples on the Greek colony of Croton in southern Italy. The residents of this distant outpost, many hundreds of miles from Athens, treated the newcomer's teachings with the highest respect. Their appetite for novelty, excitement, \"the next big idea,\" would have been considerable. Prestige, and perhaps some educational and economic advantage over the neighboring colonies, was also on many minds.\n\nBy all accounts, Pythagoras's ideas were more than up to his students' expectations. Mathematics, for him, was nothing less than a way of life. He \"transformed the study of geometry into a liberal education,\" wrote Proclus, the last major Greek philosopher, \"examining the principles of the science from the beginning and probing the theorems in an immaterial and intellectual manner.\" Pythagoras is reputed to have taught that the identities of all existing objects depended on their form rather than on their substance, and could consequently be described using numbers and ratios. The entire cosmos constituted some vast and glorious musical scale. The Pythagoreans thus became the first to understand the world not via tradition (religion), or observation (empirical data), but through imagination\u2014the prizing of pattern over matter.\n\nPythagoras had star quality, that much is clear. His timing was impeccable. An unhurried speaker, he took his time before addressing the eager crowd. Everyone had the feeling that Pythagoras was speaking to him alone. Not a single phrase went above the listener's head. He understood completely. \"Yes,\" he would think to himself, \"yes, it is just as he says. It cannot be any other way.\" But of course this flash of certainty, this grasping of an absolute truth, was an illusion. The listener's mind had duly accompanied the speaker down one carefully laid path of reasoning, though many alternate paths existed. The listener simply forgot about those other ways of thinking and seeing the world. The audience was swept, logical step by logical step, from their old certainties to new and unexpected ones. This was the power of Pythagoras.\n\nRhetoric, the art of speaking, gave shape and solidity to Pythagoras's words and ideas. It would also mark the beginning of truly mathematical thought. \"A [mathematical] proof,\" says Steven G. Krantz, a mathematician based at Washington University in St. Louis, \"is a rhetorical device for convincing someone else that a mathematical statement is true or valid.\" Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh, two other leading academics, support this view. \"Mathematics in real life is a form of social interaction where 'proof' is a complex of the formal and the informal, of calculations and casual comments, of convincing argument and appeals to the imagination and the intuition.\"\n\nAncient Greece, with its passionate debates, litigious citizens, and rowdy assemblies, proved an ideal environment for just this kind of social interaction, and consequently, for the development of both rhetoric and mathematics. In fact, without the refinement of rhetoric, there would have been no logic, and thence none of the mathematics that forms one of the cornerstones of our empirically minded Western civilization. Before any of these cultural and intellectual endeavors, there was the practice of persuasion, through argument and the evaluation of evidence. And it was in the law courts, with their public trials, that these building blocks of our system of thought were honed.\n\nCourt cases were a daily occurrence in ancient Athens. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of free citizens filled theaters to hear the parties speak. These citizens composed a vast and anonymous jury: only their age (above thirty years old) and maleness united them. Since the jury was always made up of an odd number of people, no tied judgments were possible. Every decision was final, and without appeal.\n\nIn the space of several hours, the defendant and his accuser took center stage. The accuser would speak first, leaving the defendant to refute his arguments. Each wanted to be a Pythagoras. Each tried to dazzle the men of the jury with the order, rhythm, and precision of his words. For the less gifted or confident, eloquence could be bought at a price; professional speechwriters were very much in demand. A single tightly argued presentation, every Greek knew, could make the difference between liberty and imprisonment, between life and death.\n\nLet us picture a trial. The defendant, it is claimed, killed the accuser's son for his one hundred gold coins. What argument does the grieving father bring to the court? Perhaps he points to a similar case, known to everyone present, of a man who killed another for his ten gold coins. If a man would be prepared to risk his skin for ten coins, says the father, then he would surely risk it for one hundred coins. The father's argument, by which he establishes motive, is an exercise in basic mathematical logic: if x is true, then x\u00b2 is also true.\n\nA real example of ancient Greek court rhetoric has come down to us from the orator Antiphon's _First Tetralogy._ It involves the case of a man accused of killing his victim (along with the victim's slave) in cold blood. Anticipating a likely defense of \"someone else did it,\" the plaintiff methodically goes through the possible scenarios, eliminating each in turn, in a style of argument that resembles what mathematicians call \"proof by exhaustion.\"\n\n> Malefactors [thieves] are not likely to have murdered him, as nobody who was exposing his life to a very grave risk would forgo the prize when it was securely within his grasp; and the victims were found still wearing their cloaks. Nor again did anyone in liquor kill him; the murderer's identity would be known to his boon companions. Nor again was his death the result of a quarrel; they would not have been quarreling at the dead of night or in a deserted spot. Nor did the criminal strike the dead man when intending to strike someone else; he would not in that case have killed master and slave together. As all grounds for suspecting that the crime was unpremeditated are removed, it is clear from the circumstances of death themselves that the victim was deliberately murdered.\n\nThe plaintiff renders the potential defense precisely as: \"death either by (1) thieves (2) drunks (3) quarrel (4) accident\" in order to refute each part. But he does something more. Each scenario represents a miniature proof. Rejecting, for instance, the possibility that a thief committed the murder, his argument proceeds:\n\n> A thief (claims the defendant) killed the victim.\n> \n> But thieves would steal the victim's cloak.\n> \n> Thus a thief did not kill the victim.\n\nWhich self same structure we can find throughout the _Elements_ of Euclid.\n\n> CA and CB are each equal to AB.\n> \n> But things equal to the same thing are also equal to one another.\n> \n> Thus CA is also equal to CB.\n\nWritten in the third century before the Christian era, it is hard to overstate the _Elements'_ importance to the history of intellectual progress, or the extent to which it embodied the flourishing of rhetoric and logic that permitted its creation. Proposition 21, in Book IX of the treatise (among its oldest pages, dating back to the Pythagoreans), illustrates the lawyerly manner that its author adopted throughout.\n\n> If as many even numbers as we please be added together, the whole is even... For, since each of the numbers... is even, it has a half part; so that the whole [number] also has a half part. But an even number is that which is divisible into two equal parts; therefore [the whole number] is even.\n\nWe might summarize this argument as:\n\n> Proposition: Even numbers (of any quantity) added together make an even number.\n> \n> Clarification: Since even numbers have half parts, their sum will also have a half part.\n> \n> Axiom: An even number is that which is divisible into two equal parts.\n> \n> Conclusion: Therefore the sum of any quantity of even numbers is even.\n> \n> This echoes any number of the possible arguments that would have passed through the Ancient Greek courts.\n> \n> Proposition: The accused stole my ox.\n> \n> Clarification: Since he said nothing to me about the ox before taking it, the ox was taken without my permission.\n> \n> Axiom: An item of property removed without the owner's consent is stealing.\n> \n> Conclusion: Therefore my ox was stolen.\n\nWith their axioms\u2014statements that we accept as being self-evidently true\u2014the Greek plaintiff was able to methodically construct his case and the Greek mathematician his theorem. Nowhere else on Earth had men thought to agree on what constituted the essence of such and such a thing. Uniquely, the Greeks tore themselves away from the word of rulers, gods, or tradition, in favor of logical reasoning. What is wrongdoing? What is murder? What is theft? The ancient Greeks were the first to ask themselves these kinds of questions. They were the first to distinguish a \"criminal act\" from \"misfortune\" or \"error of judgment.\" Definitions\u2014concise, basic, and unambiguous\u2014entered the Athenian imagination, as Aristotle tells us in _Rhetoric:_\n\n> It often happens that a man will admit an act, but will not admit the accuser's label for the act... He will admit that he took a thing but not that he \"stole\" it; that he struck someone first, but not that he committed \"outrage\"; that he had intercourse with a woman, but not that he committed \"adultery\"; that he is guilty of \"theft\" but not of \"sacrilege,\" the object stolen not being consecrated; that he has encroached, but not that he has \"encroached on State lands\"; that he has been in communication with the enemy, but not that he has been guilty of \"treason\".... Therefore we must be able to distinguish what is theft, outrage, or adultery, from what is not, if we are to be able to make the justice of our case clear...\n\nSimilarly, Euclid defines a \"point,\" a \"line,\" a \"square,\" a \"unit,\" and a \"number\" (among other things), as if answering questions that no one had thought to ask before. What is a point? What is a line? To a scribe in Alexandria, or a logician in Xianyang, these sentences were only puzzles. They had no meaning. Or else for response they would simply make a point or draw a line with a drop of ink.\n\nEuclid's books not only posed these questions, they laid down the law (so far as the answers were concerned) for future generations of mathematicians. What is a point? That which has no part. A line? A length without breadth. A square? A quadrilateral, which is both equilateral and right-angled. A unit? That of which each of the things that exist is called one. A number? A multitude composed of units. Et cetera. These foundations allowed mathematicians to \"be able to make the justice of [their] case clear.\" Not to mention the case of others. In the mid-nineteenth century, more than two millennia after Euclid, a copy of his _Elements_ traveled in the carpetbag of a circuit lawyer from Illinois. His name was Abraham Lincoln.\n\nThe pages and their propositions made a deep impression on Lincoln's mind, following him into his subsequent career in politics. In a speech given to an Ohio crowd in 1859 in opposition to a pro-slavery rival, one Judge Douglas, Lincoln declared, \"There are two ways of establishing a proposition. One is by trying to demonstrate it upon reason, and the other is, to show that great men in former times have thought so and so, and thus to pass it by the weight of pure authority. Now, if Judge Douglas will demonstrate somehow that this is popular sovereignty,\u2014the right of one man to make a slave of another, without any right in that other, or anyone else to object; demonstrate it as Euclid demonstrated propositions,\u2014there is no objection. But when he comes forward, seeking to carry a principle by bringing it to the authority of men who themselves utterly repudiate that principle, I ask that he shall not be permitted to do it.\"\n\nDefinitions and axioms would shape President Lincoln's most famous addresses. His powers of rhetoric, persuasion, deduction, and logic were all subjected to the severest tests. The nation was in crisis. Civil war would shortly come. Still, the president spoke to the entire country in defense of the Union.\n\n> I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.\n> \n> Proposition: The Union of these States is perpetual.\n> \n> Clarification: Perpetuity is implied in the fundamental law of all national governments.\n> \n> Axiom: No government ever had a legal provision for its own termination.\n> \n> Conclusion: Therefore continue to execute the Constitution and the Union will endure forever.\n\nThroughout Lincoln's four years in office, intense fighting saw approximately 750,000 men killed and the nation all but tear itself apart, but the president's proof would ultimately be vindicated.\n\n\"We are not enemies,\" the president had said in the same national address, \"but friends.\" Perhaps he was thinking of a proverb attributed to Pythagoras, one that he took as an axiom: \"Friendship is equality.\"\n\n# Eight\n\n# ON BIG NUMBERS\n\nIn the second of his _Olympian Odes,_ the ancient lyric poet Pindar wrote, \"the sand escapes numbering.\" He was expressing the same idea that would lead his fellow Greeks to coin the term \"sand hundred\" for an inconceivably great quantity.\n\nPindar's claim remained unassailable for some two centuries, which of course is not bad at all as far as a line of poetry goes. The eventual refutation, composed in the middle of the third century BCE, can be fairly listed among the finest achievements of the mathematician Archimedes.\n\nIntroducing his academic paper\u2014the first in recorded history\u2014to the king of his day, Archimedes made a spectacularly audacious argument.\n\n> Some people believe, King Gelon, that the grains of sand are infinite in number. I mean not only the sand in Syracuse and the rest of Sicily, but also the sand in the whole inhabited land as well as the uninhabited. There are some who do not suppose that they are infinite, but that there is no number that has been named which is so large as to exceed its multitude... I will attempt to prove to you through geometrical demonstrations, which you will follow, that some of the numbers named by us... exceed... the number of grains of sand having a magnitude equal to the earth filled up.\n\nArchimedes' estimations for the measurements of the Earth, moon, sun, and the other stars were generous: for example, making Earth's perimeter ten times larger than the calculations of earlier astronomers. Similarly, Archimedes went to great lengths to provide a capacious margin for error concerning the estimated size of a grain of sand. He compared ten thousand grains to the scale of a poppy seed, and then patiently lined the seeds end to end on a smooth ruler. In this way he measured the number of poppy seeds required to reach an inch as being twenty-five. This figure he adjusted still further, changing it to forty-seeds-per-inch length, so as to \"prove indisputably what is proposed.\" Thus he calculated as sixteen million (10,000 \u00d7 40 \u00d7 40) the maximum number of grains of sand that could fill one square inch.\n\nArchimedes assumed that the universe was spherical. He estimated a value for the diameter of the universe using calculations for the diameter of the Earth's orbit around the sun. The universe, according to his reckoning, had a diameter no greater than 100,000,000,000,000 stadia (about two light-years). 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand would more than saturate the whole of space.\n\nNext, Archimedes showed that the Greek term \"myriad\" (ten thousand or a hundred hundreds) more than sufficed for the purpose of counting even the largest worldly quantities. The phrase \"myriad myriads,\" he pointed out, allowed the counter to reach the equivalent of one hundred million\u2014the largest named number in his time. But, he continued, if it is possible to count in myriads, it should be equally possible to count in \"myriad myriads\" so that multiplying the latter by itself the counter could attain \"myriad myriad myriad myriads\" or 10,000,000,000,000,000. And considering this new figure likewise as a unit, as respectable as a \"myriad\" or \"myriad myriads,\" the counter could multiply \"myriad myriad myriad myriads\" by itself and proceed to: \"myriad myriad myriad myriad myriad myriad myriad myriads\" or 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.\n\nUp till now we have multiplied a myriad by itself a total of eight times. Archimedes' next step possessed all the elegance of simple logic: multiply a myriad myriads by itself myriad myriads times over. The \"1\" that starts the resulting number is tailed by eight hundred million zeroes.\n\nDoggedly pursuing his logic, Archimedes proposed multiplying this new number by itself up to as many as a myriad myriads times over: a number requiring the insertion of eighty quadrillion (80,000,000,000,000,000) zeroes after the one.\n\nArchimedes concluded his paper in confident, if understated tones.\n\n> King Gelon, to the many who have not also had a share of mathematics I suppose that these will not appear readily believable, but to those who have partaken of them and have thought deeply about the distances and sizes of the Earth and sun and moon and the universe this will be believable on the basis of demonstration. Hence, I thought that it is not inappropriate for you too to contemplate these things.\n\nWe find the same comparison between immensity and grains of sand in the sutras of India, many of which were set down on paper in Archimedes' time. In the _Lalitavistara_ sutra, a hagiographical account of the Buddha's life, we read of a meeting between the young Siddhartha and the \"great mathematician Arjuna.\" Arjuna asks the boy to multiply numbers a hundredfold beginning with one _koti_ (generally considered the equivalent of ten million). Without the slightest hesitation, Siddhartha correctly replies that one hundred _koti_ s equals an _ayuta_ (which would equate to one billion), and then proceeds to multiply this number by one hundred, and the new number by one hundred, and so on, until\u2014after twenty-three successive multiplications\u2014he reaches the number called _tallaksana_ (the equivalent of 1 followed by 53 zeroes).\n\nSiddhartha proceeds to multiply this number in turn, though it is unclear whether he does so by one hundred or some other amount. In a phrase reminiscent of Archimedes, he claims that with this new number the mathematician could take every grain of sand in the river Ganges \"as a subject of calculation and measure them.\" Again and again, the _bodhisattva_ multiplies this number, until at last he reaches _sarvaniksepa,_ with which, he tells the mathematician, it would be possible to count every grain of sand in ten rivers the size of the Ganges. And if this were not enough, he continues, we can multiply this number to reach _agrasara_ \u2014a number greater than the grains of sand in one billion Ganges.\n\nSuch extreme numerical altitudes, we are told, are the preserve of the pure and enlightened mind. According to the sutra, only the _bodhisattva_ s, beings who have arrived at their ultimate incarnation, are capable of counting so high. In the closing verses, the mathematician Arjuna concedes this point.\n\n> This supreme knowledge I do not have\u2014he is above me.\n> \n> One with such knowledge of numbers is incomparable!\n\nThe story of the enlightenment of Siddhartha Gautama, to give him his full name, begins in his father's palace. It is said that the Nepalese king resolved to seclude his son at birth from the heartbreaking nature of the world. Shut up behind gilded doors, the boy would remain forever innocent of suffering, poverty, and death. We can imagine his constricted royal life: the fine meals of rich food, lessons in literature and military arts, ritual music and dance. In his ears he wore precious stones heavy enough to make his earlobes droop. But of course he was not free: he had only walls for a horizon, only ceilings for a sky. Bangle strings and brass flutes displaced all birdsong. Cloying aromas of cooked food overlay the smell of rain.\n\nNearly thirty years, a marriage, and even the birth of a son all passed before Siddhartha learned of a world beyond the palace walls. Having resolved to go forth and see it, he made a trip through the countryside, accompanied only by the charioteer who drove him. The prince saw for the first time men enfeebled by ill health, old age, and want of money. He was not even spared the sight of a corpse. Deeply shocked by all that he had seen, he fled his old life for the ascetic's road.\n\nThe story of the prince's seclusion in a palace reads like a fairy tale\u2014it may very well be such a tale\u2014with all its peculiar and thought-provoking charm. One particular aspect of Siddhartha's revelation of the outside world has always struck me. Quite possibly he lived his first thirty years without any knowledge of numbers.\n\nHow must he have felt, then, to see crowds of people mingling in the streets? Before that day he would not have believed that so many people existed in all the world. And what wonder it must have been to discover flocks of birds, and piles of stones, leaves on trees, and blades of grass! To suddenly realize that, his whole life long, he had been kept at arm's length from multiplicity.\n\nLater, his followers would associate Siddhartha's enlightened mind with a profound knowledge of numbers. Perhaps as much as all the other surprises he witnessed from his chariot, it was this first sighting of multiplicity that set him on the path to Nirvana.\n\nI am reminded of another story. This time the man was not a prince but a mathematician in mid-twentieth-century America. Big numbers fascinated him; he enjoyed talking about them with his nine-year-old nephew. One day, the mathematician, Edward Kasner, invited the boy to name a number that contains a hundred zeroes after the 1. \"Googol,\" the boy replied, after a little thought.\n\nNo explanation for the origin of this word is given in Kasner's published account _Mathematics and the Imagination._ Probably, it came intuitively to the boy. According to linguists, English speakers tend to associate an initial G sound with the idea of bigness, since the language employs many G-words to describe things which are \"great\" or \"grand,\" \"gross\" or \"gargantuan,\" and which \"grow\" or \"gain.\" I could point out another feature: both the elongated \"oo\" vowel and the concluding L suggest indefinite duration. We hear this difference in verbs like \"put\" and \"pull,\" where \"put\"\u2014with its final _T_ \u2014implies a completed action, whereas an individual might \"pull\" at something for any conceivable amount of time.\n\nIn a universe teeming with numbers, no physical quantity exists that coincides with a googol. A googol dwarfs the number of grains of sand in all the world. Collecting every letter of every word of every book ever published gets us nowhere near. The total number of elementary particles in all of known space falls some twenty zeroes short.\n\nThe boy could never hope to count every grain of sand, or read every page of every published book, but, like Archimedes and the Siddhartha of the sutras, he understood that no cosmos would ever contain all the numbers. He understood that with numbers he might imagine all that existed, all that had once existed or might one day exist, and all that existed too in the realms of speculation, fantasy, and dreams.\n\nThe mathematician liked his nephew's word. He immediately encouraged the boy to count higher still and watched as his small brow furrowed. Now came a second word, a variation of the first: \"googolplex.\" The suffix _-plex_ (duplex) parallels the English _-fold,_ as in \"tenfold\" or \"hundredfold.\" This number the boy defined as containing all the zeroes that a hand could write down before tiring. His uncle demurred. Endurance, he remarked, varied a great deal from person to person. In the end they agreed on the following definition: a googolplex is a 1 followed by a googol number of zeroes.\n\nLet us pause a brief moment to contemplate this number's size. It is not, for instance, a googol times a googol: such a number would \"only\" consist of a 1 with 200 zeroes. A googolplex, on the other hand, contains far more than a thousand zeroes, or a myriad zeroes, or a million or billion zeroes. It contains far more than the eighty quadrillion zeroes at which even the painstaking and persistent Archimedes ceased to count. There are so many zeroes in this number that we could never finish writing them all down, even if every human lifetime devoted itself exclusively to the task.\n\nThe googolplex is so vast a number that it encompasses virtually every conceivable probability. Physicist Richard Crandall gives the example of a can of beer that spontaneously tips over, \"an event made possible by fundamental quantum fluctuations,\" as having vastly greater than 1-in-a-googolplex odds. A further illustration, by the English mathematician John Littlewood, asks us to imagine the plight of a mouse in outer space. Littlewood calculated as being well within a googolplex the likelihood that this mouse\u2014helped by sufficient random fluctuations in its environment\u2014might survive a whole week on the surface of the sun.\n\nBut of course a googolplex is not infinite. We can, as perhaps the boy did, continue to count by simply adding one. Modern computers, impervious to zero vertigo, have calculated that this number, googolplex + 1, is not prime. Its smallest known factor is: 316,912,650,057,057,350,374,175,801,344,000,001.\n\nWhat did the mathematician make of his nephew's \"googolplex\" as the biggest number he could conceive of? His reply is not recorded, but he might have told him about some of the infinitely many numbers that exceed the googolplex's scope. He might, for example, have mentioned \"googol factorial,\" being the product of multiplying every whole number between 1 and a googol (1 \u00d7 2 \u00d7 3 \u00d7... 950,345 \u00d7... 1,000,000,000,000,008,761 \u00d7... googol). This number, which computers tell us begins 16294... easily surpasses every other number that we have encountered in these pages.\n\nFor a universe of such limited dimensions, these monstrous numbers seem quite useless. Worse, they can appear to us excessive, disproportionate. Every number, after a certain point, feels gratuitous. Who knows? It is possible they are not intended for our attention. The Flower Adornment sutra speaks of immense aeons, _kalpa_ s, in which the universe is continuously destroyed and reborn. At the kalpa's peak, men live for an average of eighty-four thousand years. In other realms, so the _Heart_ sutra reports, a single life spans eighty-four thousand _kalpa_ s\u2014that is to say, eighty-four thousand epochs, each one many zeroes long. For such beings, a googol or its factorial would belong merely to the tangible and the convenient.\n\nMathematicians aspire to these heavenly realms. Vast numbers that split our senses enrich their work. But they also produce paradoxes. For instance, which is greater: 10 or 27, when each is multiplied by itself exactly a googolplex number of times? The latter, of course, although even the most powerful calculators\u2014plunging one hundred digits deep\u2014struggle to tell the two apart. This difficulty confounds our expectations: intuitively, we feel that the ordering of a number should remain straightforward, even when the number's precise value cannot be known. And yet, there exist numbers so large that we cannot easily distinguish them from their double, or triple, or quadruple or any other amount. There exist magnitudes so immense that they escape all our words, and all our numbers.\n\nThe most famous paradox concerning big numbers takes us back once more to the ancient Greeks. Tradition attributes it to the philosopher Eubulides. It has been suggested that Eubulides' inspiration owes something to his fellow skeptic Zeno, who argued that every falling grain of wheat makes a noise proportionate to the noise made by a falling bushel. Eubulides' formulation does not feature wheat, however. As would Archimedes a century later, Eubulides built his argument on sand.\n\nIt goes as follows: first, we agree that one grain of sand does not make a heap. Adding a second grain does not make a heap either. Nor do we produce a heap with the third grain. From this it follows that adding one to any small number generates another number we call \"small.\" But if this is true, a billion is a small number. So, too, is a googolplex.\n\nUnderstandably wary of this conclusion, the reader might propose that a heap of sand, like a big number, begins at a certain point: say, ten thousand. As a resolution of the paradox, this answer is unsatisfactory. It is unclear why nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine should be considered small, but not nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine plus one.\n\nOf course, in at least one sense all numbers are small. Given any number \"n,\" there will be only n-1 numbers less than n, but an infinite group of numbers greater than it.\n\nAddressing the unjustly forgotten mathematician Archytas, the Roman poet Horace, who was regarded as the finest lyric poet of the era of Emperor Augustus, expressed in his verse perhaps the greatest paradox of them all: that of finite men who spend their lives attempting to scale the infinite.\n\n> You who measured the sea and the earth and the numberless sands,\n> \n> you, Archytas, are now confined in a small mound of dirt\n> \n> near the Matine shore, and what good does it do you that you\n> \n> attempted the mansions of the skies and that you traversed\n> \n> the round celestial vault\u2014you with a soul born to die?\n\n# Nine\n\n# SNOWMAN\n\nOutside it is cold, cold\u2014ten degrees below, give or take. I step out with my coat zipped up to my chin and my feet encased in heavy rubber boots. The glittering street is empty; the wool-gray sky is low. Under my scarf and gloves and thermals I can feel my pulse begin to make a racket. I do not care. I observe my breath. I wait.\n\nA week before, not even a whole week, the roads showed black tire tracks and the trees' bare branches stood clean against blue sky. Now Ottawa is buried in snow. My friends' house is buried in snow. Chilling winds strafe the town.\n\nThe sight of falling flakes makes me shiver; it fills the space in my head that is devoted to wonder. How beautiful they are, I think. How beautiful are all these sticky and shiny fragments. When will they stop? In an hour? A day? A week? A month? There is no telling. Nobody can second-guess the snow.\n\nThe neighbors have not seen its like in a generation, they tell me. Shovels in hand, they dig paths from their garage doors out to the road. The older men affect expressions both of nonchalance and annoyance, but their expressions soon come undone. Faint smiles form at the corners of their wind-chapped mouths.\n\nGranted, it is exhausting to trudge the snowy streets to the shops. Every leg muscle slips and tightens; every step forward seems to take an age. When I return, my friends ask me to help them clear the roof. I wobble up a leaning ladder and lend a hand. A strangely cheerful sense of futility lightens our labor: in the morning, we know, the roof will shine bright white again.\n\nHot under my onion layers of clothing, I carry a shirtful of perspiration back into the house. Wet socks unpeel like Band-Aids from my feet; the warm air smarts my skin. I wash and change my clothes.\n\nLater, around a table, in the dusk of a candlelit supper, my friends and I exchange favorite recollections of winters past. We talk sleds, and toboggans, and fierce snowball fights. I recall a childhood memory, a memory from London: the first time I heard the sound of falling snow.\n\n\"What did it sound like?\" the evening's host asks me.\n\n\"It sounded like someone slowly rubbing his hands together.\"\n\nFrowns outline my friends' concentration. Yes, they say, laughing. Yes, we can hear what you mean.\n\nA man sporting a gray mustache laughs louder than the others. I do not catch his name; he is not a regular guest. I gather he is some kind of scientist, of indeterminate discipline.\n\n\"Do you know why we see snow as white?\" the scientist asks. We shake our heads.\n\n\"It is all to do with how the sides of the snowflakes reflect light.\" All the colors in the spectrum, he explains to us, scatter out from the snow in roughly equal proportions. This equal distribution of colors, we perceive as whiteness.\n\nNow our host's wife has a question. The ladle with which she has been serving bowls of hot soup idles in the pot. \"Could the colors never come out in a different proportion?\" she asks.\n\n\"Sometimes, if the snow is very deep,\" he answers. In which case, the light that comes back to us can appear tinged with blue. \"And sometimes a snowflake's structure will resemble that of a diamond,\" he continues. Light entering these flakes becomes so mangled as to dispense a rainbow of multicolored sparkles.\n\n\"Is it true that no two snowflakes are alike?\" This question comes from the host's teenage daughter.\n\nIt is true. Imagine, he says, the complexity of a snowflake (and enthusiasm italicizes his word \"complexity\"). Every snowflake has a basic six-sided structure, but its spiraling descent through the air sculpts each hexagon in a unique way: the minutest variations in air temperature or moisture can\u2014and do\u2014make all the difference.\n\nLike mathematicians who categorize every whole number into prime numbers or Fibonacci numbers or triangle numbers or square numbers (and so on) according to its properties, so researchers subdivide snowflakes into various groupings according to type. They classify the snowflakes by size and shape and symmetry. The main ways in which each vaporous hexagon forms and changes, it turns out, amount to several dozen or several score (the precise total depending on the classification scheme).\n\nFor example, some snowflakes are flat and have broad arms, resembling stars, so that meteorologists speak of \"stellar plates,\" while those with deep ridges are called \"sectored plates.\" Branchy flakes, like the ones seen in Christmas decorations, go by the term \"stellar dendrites\" (dendrite coming from the Greek word for a tree). When these treelike flakes grow so many side branches that they finish by resembling ferns, they fall under the classification of \"fernlike stellar dendrites.\"\n\nSometimes, snowflakes grow not thin but long, not flat but slender. They fall as columns of ice, the kinds that look like individual strands of a grandmother's white hair (these flakes are called \"needles\"). Some, like conjoined twins, show twelve sides instead of the usual six, while others\u2014viewed up close\u2014resemble bullets (the precise terms for them are \"isolated bullet,\" \"capped bullet,\" and \"bullet rosette\"). Other possible shapes include the \"cup,\" the \"sheath,\" and those resembling arrowheads (technically, \"arrowhead twins\").\n\nWe listen wordlessly to the scientist's explanations. Our rapt attention flatters him. As he speaks, his white hands draw the shape of every snowflake in the air.\n\nComplexity. But from it, patterns, forms, identities, that every culture can perceive and understand. I have read, for instance, that the ancient Chinese called snowflakes blossoms and that the Scythians compared them to feathers. In the Psalms (147:16), snow is a \"white fleece,\" while in parts of Africa it is likened to cotton. The Romans called snow _nix,_ a homonym\u2014the seventeenth-century mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler would later point out\u2014of his Low German word for \"nothing.\"\n\nKepler was the first scientist to describe snow. Not as flowers or fleece or feathers, snowflakes were at last perceived as being the product of complexity. The reason behind the snowflake's regular hexagonal shape was \"not to be looked for in the material, for vapor is formless.\" Instead, Kepler suggested some dynamic organizing process, by which frozen water \"globules\" packed themselves together methodically in the most efficient way. \"Here he was indebted to the English mathematician Thomas Harriot,\" reports the science writer Philip Ball, \"who acted as a navigator for Walter Raleigh's voyages to the New World in 1584\u20135.\" Harriot had advised Raleigh concerning the \"most efficient way to stack cannonballs on the ship's deck,\" prompting the mathematician \"to theorize about the close packing of spheres.\" Kepler's conjecture that hexagonal packing \"will be the tightest possible, so that in no other arrangement could more pellets be stuffed into the same container\" would only be proven in 1998.\n\nThat night, the snow reached even into my dreams. My warm bed offered no protection from my childhood memories of the cold. I dreamed of a distant winter in my parents' garden: the powdery snow, freshly fallen, was like sugar to my younger brothers and sisters, who hastened out to it with shrieks of delight. I hesitated to join them, preferred to watch them playing from the safety of my bedroom window. But later, after they had all wound up their games and headed back in, I ventured out alone and started to pack the snow together. Like the Inuit (who call it _igluksaq,_ \"house-building material\"), I wanted to surround myself with it, build myself a shelter. The crunching snow gradually encircled me, accumulating on all sides, the walls rising ever higher until at last they covered me completely. My boyish face and hands smeared with snow, I crouched deep inside feeling sad and feeling safe.\n\n_\"On t'attend!\"_ my friends call up in the morning to my room. \"We are ready and waiting!\" I am the English slowpoke, unaccustomed to this freezing climate, the lethargy it imposes on the body, and the dogged, unshakable feeling of being underwater. What little snow I have experienced all these years, I realize now, has been but a pale imitation of the snow of my childhood. London's wet slush, quick to blacken, has muddied the memory. Yet here the Canadian snow is an irresistible, incandescent white\u2014its glinting surfaces give me back my young days, and alongside them, a melancholic reminder of age.\n\nAfter my sweater, I pull on a kind of thermal vest, then a coat, knee-long. My neck is wrapped in a scarf; my ears vanish behind furry muffs. Mitten fingers tie bootlaces into knots.\n\nFortunately, the Canadians have no fear of winter. The snow is well superintended here. Panic, of the kind that grips London or Washington, DC, is unfamiliar to them; stockpiling milk, bread, and canned food is unheard of. Traffic jams, canceled meetings, energy blackouts, are rare. The faces that greet me downstairs are all kempt and smiling. They know that the roads will have been salted, that their letters and parcels will arrive on time, that the shops and schools will be open as usual for business.\n\nIn the schools of Ottawa, children extract snowflakes from white sheets of paper. They fold the crisp sheet to an oblong, and the oblong to a square, and the square to a right-angled triangle. With scissors, they snip the triangle on all sides; the pupils all fold and snip the paper in their own way. When they unravel the paper, different snowflakes appear, as many as there are children in the class. But every one has something in common: they are all symmetrical.\n\nThe paper snowflakes in the classroom resemble only partly those that fall outside the window. Shorn of nature's imperfections, the children's unfolded flakes represent an ideal. They are the pictures that we see whenever we close our eyes and think of a snowflake: equidistant arms identically pliable on six sides. We think of them as we think of stars, honeycombs, and flowers. We imagine snowflakes with the purity of a mathematician's mind.\n\nAt the University of Wisconsin, the mathematician David Griffeath has improved on the children's game by modeling snowflakes not with paper, but with a computer. In 2008, Griffeath and his colleague Janko Gravner, both specialists in \"complex interacting systems with random dynamics,\" produced an algorithm that mimics the many physical principles that underlie how snowflakes form. The project proved slow and painstaking. It can take up to a day for the algorithm to perform the hundreds of thousands of calculations necessary for a single flake. Parameters were set and reset to make the simulations as lifelike as possible. But the end results were extraordinary. On the mathematicians' computer screen shimmered a galaxy of three-dimensional snowflakes\u2014elaborate, finely ridged stellar dendrites and twelve-branched stars, needles, prisms, every known configuration, and others, resembling butterfly wings, that no one had identified before.\n\nMy friends take me on a trek through the nearby forest. The flakes are falling intermittently now; above our heads, patches of the sky show blue. Sunlight glistens on the hillocks of snow. We tread slowly, rhythmically, across the deep and shifting surfaces, which squirm and squeak under our boots.\n\nWhenever snow falls, people look at things and suddenly see them. Lampposts and doorsteps and tree stumps and telephone lines take on a whole new character. We notice what they are, and not simply what they represent. Their curves, angles, repetitions, command our attention. Visitors to the forest stop and stare at the geometry of branches, of fences, of trisecting paths. They shake their heads in silent admiration.\n\nA voice somewhere says the Hull River has frozen over. I disguise my excitement as a question. \"Shall we go?\" I ask my friends. For where there is ice, there will inevitably dance ice skaters, and where there are ice skaters, there will be laughter and lightheartedness, and stalls selling hot pastries and spiced wine. We go.\n\nThe frozen river brims with action: parkas pirouette, wet dogs give chase, and customers line up at the concessions. The air smells of cinnamon. Everywhere, the snow is on people's lips: it serves as the icebreaker for every conversation. Nobody stands still as they are talking: they shift their weight from leg to leg, and stamp their feet, wiggle their noses and exaggerate their blinks.\n\nThe flakes fall heavier now. They whirl and rustle in the wind. Everyone seems in thrall to the tumbling snowflakes. Human noises evaporate; nobody moves. Nothing is indifferent to its touch. New worlds appear and disappear, leaving their prints upon our imagination. Snow comes to earth and forms snow benches, snow trees, snow cars, snowmen.\n\nWhat would it be like, a world without snow? I cannot imagine such a place. It would be like a world devoid of numbers. Every snowflake, unique as every number, tells us something about complexity. Perhaps that is why we will never tire of its wonder.\n\n# Ten\n\n# INVISIBLE CITIES\n\nWe wish to see ourselves translated into stone and plants, we want to take walks in ourselves when we stroll around these buildings and gardens.\" This, says Nietzsche, is the purpose of the city: to create space and structure in which a person might think. Ostentatious church buildings, he complained, inhibited free thought. He argued for the ideal of a \"wide\" and \"expansive\" city, expansive in every sense of the word.\n\nI remember these words every time I fly to New York City, a place where tall buildings aspire to the sky. Long shadows in the shape of skyscrapers alight on yellow taxis and hot dog carts. The city's buildings are home to eight million human beings. Among them number some of the most creative people in the world. People come here from every land, and from every language, for what reason? Quite possibly, they come here in order to think.\n\nBut New Yorkers, like the rest of us, do not pay much attention to their surroundings, how the city incites and informs their thoughts. There are exceptions, of course, and I am not only talking about those who are newly arrived. I am talking about mathematicians, who are tourists in every place. What with its towering buildings, and its grid's rectilinear streets, and the intersections named after numerals (Ninety-Third and Fifth Avenue), New York City was made for mathematicians.\n\nPlanning a city, or dreaming about one, invites us to think by numbers, to borrow some of the mathematicians' delight. Architects of cities and of individual buildings divide and categorize the air. In this portion: morning traffic; in that section: jogging in the park. Up on this level: office computers; beneath it: a parking lot. The designers translate numbers into symmetry, into shape and order and livable form. Cities are the embodiments of numerical patterns that contain and direct our lives. But all cities are invisible to start with.\n\nBefore New York the city, there was New York the idea: a mere glint in the European settlers' eye. They christened the woodlands and rivers and the trails of native clans that they discovered, _Nieuw Amsterdam._ Many years later, following the War of Independence, the nascent settlement would serve briefly as the fledgling Union's capital. Intangible visions could now be rendered concrete.\n\nA commission, formed in 1811, found in favor of a plan for the mass building of \"straight-sided and right-angled houses.\" Avenues were laid, precisely one hundred feet wide, and numbered (beginning with the easternmost) from one to twelve. Running at right angles to the avenues were passages turned into symmetrical streets (sixty feet in width), each allotted a consecutive number between one and one hundred and fifty-five. Street names acted like compass points, shepherding strangers and the easily lost to their destination. The rigid geometry imposed order, efficient commerce, and cleanliness, but it also obliterated many of Manhattan Island's natural spaces. In the words of one commissioner, the grid system became \"the day-dawn of our empire.\"\n\nNew York City is an exception, though. Not all cities find their territory; many remain forever orphans, existing only in their inventor's dreams. What follows is my attempt to sketch a brief history of these invisible cities.\n\nPlato, in his _Laws,_ gives a recipe for the ideal city. Like any recipe maker, he puts great store by the precision with which he delineates its ingredients. At various points in the text, he insists rather heavily on a particular number. No margin exists for approximation in the Platonic design. Neither is there any room for discussion, since for Plato, the self-evident quality of his city is \"as plain as the fact that Crete is an island.\"\n\nJudging by his laws, Plato really intended limits. Without a city, he argues, man would dwell in a \"fearful, illimitable desert.\" Such a man would know nothing of art or science; worse, he would hardly know himself. A city's limits should be carefully demarcated, set neither too big nor too small, so that its citizens might, with time and sufficient effort, be capable of putting a name to every face. This, in Plato's judgment, would prevent the blight of war, which had struck down so many great cities of the past. He quotes with approval the poet Hesiod's praise of moderation: \"the half is often greater than the whole.\"\n\nStarting from the principle that \"numbers in their divisions and complexities are useful for everything,\" Plato proposes limiting his ideal city to exactly 5,040 landholding families. Why 5,040? It is what mathematicians call a \"highly composite number,\" meaning that it can be divided in multiple ways. In fact, no fewer than sixty numbers divide into it, including every number from one to ten.\n\nTwelve can also divide evenly into 5,040. Plato divides the total number of households into twelve tribes, each therefore consisting of 420 families. While interdependent, each tribe is conceived as being fixed and self-sufficient, like the months in a solar year.\n\nUsing highly composite numbers facilitates the subdivision of land and property among the citizens. Each family, in each tribe, receives an equal lot of land, beginning from the city center and radiating out to the countryside. In this way the city fairly distributes the fertility of its soil: half of each lot shall contain the city's richest ground, while the other half shall consist of the rockiest.\n\nPlato's ideal number of 5,040 families intrigues modern statisticians. They calculate that such a population would require 164 (or 165) births per year to sustain itself. Following the ancient Greek logic that treated men as the head of every household, they also calculate the city's annual number of potential fathers to be 1,193. Plato believed that one marriage in seven would be fruitful per year, suggesting an anticipated annual birthrate of 170\u2014which corresponds almost exactly to our statisticians' calculations.\n\nHow did Plato count on keeping his ideal city's number of households in check? He proposed that each inheritance should pass into the hands of a single \"best-loved\" male heir. Any remaining sons would be distributed among the childless citizens, while the daughters should be married off.\n\nLarge families had no place in Plato's city. Fecundity would be illegal: any couple producing \"too many\" children was to be rebuked. The city's precise limit of 5,040 households was inviolable: all surplus members were to be sent packing.\n\nPlato imagined that his limits would ensure equality and security for every citizen. In his bucolic vision, men and women would \"feed on barley and wheat, baking the wheat and kneading the flour, making noble puddings and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or clean leaves; themselves reclining the while upon beds of yew and myrtle boughs. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and having the praises of the gods on their lips, living in sweet society, and having a care that their families do not exceed their means; for they will have an eye to poverty or war.\"\n\nPerhaps. But it is also conceivable that Plato's city would have encouraged just the kind of petty-mindedness among its citizens that exact calculation often fosters. During the Renaissance, when Plato and his ideas were rediscovered by humanist scholars, we find an Italian architect similarly moved to envision his own perfect city. His name was Antonio di Pietro Averlino, though he is better known today by the Greek name Filarete (meaning \"lover of virtue\"). Unlike Plato, Filarete was an architect, albeit one with a rich and complicated past: he had once been arrested and barred from working in Rome for allegedly stealing the head of Saint John the Baptist.\n\nFilarete described his city _Sforzinda_ (the name a flattery aimed at his patron Francesco Sforza of Milan) at some length in his _Trattato di architettura._ Its thick symmetrical outer walls formed an eight-pointed star. Though attractive, the unusual choice of shape was also intended to be defensive: invaders mounting its angles would find themselves exposed on multiple sides.\n\nLike spokes in a vast wheel, eight straight roads led from the walls to the city center. The roads were studded with small piazzas, surrounded by shops and markets. A visitor treading his path downtown from the city gates would pass pyramids of apples, stacks of loaves, and multicolored garments spilling over tables. Merchants, their eyes enlarged by expectation, shouting: _\"Signore, signore!\"_ At last the city center appears. Three vast interconnecting piazzas greet him. Here the market noises fade before the imposing ducal palace to his left, and a massive cathedral on his right. In between the palace and the cathedral, on the main piazza, stands another lofty building, ten stories high.\n\nWhat is this strange building to which every street in the city addresses itself? Filarete called it the \"House of Vice and Virtue.\" Every floor housed a different class of activity. A brothel, on the ground floor, would entertain the majority of the building's callers. Alcoholic drinks and games could be had on the floors immediately above. Ascending further, a university and lecture halls offered its few visitors instruction. An observatory topped them all.\n\nThe homes to which the citizens would return after their day's work or play had been just as intricately imagined. Filarete planned his houses according to the resident's social rank: the artisans' quarters taking up far less space than the houses of the city's merchants or gentlemen. In comparison with his artist and painter neighbors, the architect's own house would be twice as spacious.\n\nFilarete's plans are long, his writing spidery. Spread across its twenty-five volumes his treatise contains an entire city in waiting. But not long after its completion, in 1466, the Duke Sforza died and Filarete's vision survived only on paper.\n\nPlato's ideal limits and Filarete's volumes appealed to new dreamers. They passed from mind to mind, and from century to century. It should perhaps come as no surprise that they would go on to inspire the grandest and most ambitious city plans, those drawn up in the United States.\n\nKing Camp Gillette, who would later invent the safety razor, once dreamed of an immense city he called Metropolis. In 1894, he published a short illustrated book aimed at its promotion. The city, Gillette wrote, would be \"situated in the vicinity of Niagara Falls, extending east into New York State and west into Ontario.\" It would take the shape of a rectangle, sixty miles long and thirty miles wide. Gillette considered its construction, \"In the light of a machine, or rather a part of the machine of production and distribution; and, as such, the objects to be attained must be known and understood. It must have no unnecessary parts to cause friction or demand unnecessary labor, and yet it must combine within itself all the necessary parts which will contribute to the happiness and comfort of all.\"\n\nSixty million inhabitants would live in circular skyscrapers, six hundred feet in diameter, \"upon a scale of magnificence such as no civilization has ever known.\" Elevators, a still recent invention in Gillette's day, had gradually shifted city design from the horizontal toward the vertical. But Metropolis took the idea of a vertical city to a whole other level. The skyscrapers would be truly colossal, attaining a height of twenty-five stories. Habitable monoliths, lots and lots of them, shining with glass and progress, smooth and steel-colored, a monotony of monuments. A beehive-like distribution of apartments throughout the city would lend space enough between the buildings for wide avenues and parks. No citizen, it also ensured, would reside any nearer or farther away from a school, shop, or theater than any other.\n\nThe city's highly regular order appears again in miniature in Gillette's plan for every home. For Gillette, as for Filarete, the home was a tiny city. The interior would be completely symmetrical, with parallel sitting rooms, bedrooms, and bathrooms on either side. And in each room, the windows would be so arranged as to make it impossible to look out from one apartment into a neighbor's.\n\nConscious of the artificiality of his vision (even the hexagonal lawns that surrounded each building would be composed of artificial grass), Gillette proposed distributing thousands of public gardens filled with trees and \"urns of flowers\" at regular intervals throughout the city. Being constructed with complete regularity did not mean that it would suffer from sameness, he insisted. Looking out from his window, the citizen's roving eye would encounter \"a continuous and perfectly finished facade from every point of view, each building and avenue surrounded and bordered by an ever changing beauty in flowers and foliage.\"\n\nGillette summed up his utopian vision:\n\n> Imagine for a moment these thirty-odd thousand buildings of _Metropolis,_ each standing alone, a majestic world of art... a never-ending city of beauty and cleanliness, and then compare it with our cities of filth, crime, and misery, with their ill-paved and dirty thoroughfares, crowded with the struggling masses of humanity and the system of necessary traffic. And then compare the machinery of both systems, and take your choice; for I believe the only obstacle that lies in the way of the building of this great city is man.\n\nFifty years after Gillette's book was published, the 1939 World's Fair in New York exhibited its own \"City of the Future.\"\n\nMillions stood in line for hours to see the model Democracity. (This fact alone is truly remarkable: New Yorkers hate to stand in line. They hate the involuntary intimacy, and the excruciating foot shuffles, and the boredom of being so long in their own company. And yet wait in line they did.)\n\nHow long must it have taken the model makers to build? It was housed inside a sphere eighteen stories tall. An escalator, the world's longest, ascended visitors fifty feet above the ground to the exhibition. Music blared triumphant over loudspeakers as they entered, and then a resounding voice spoke. \"The city of man in the world of tomorrow. Here are grass and tree as well as stone and steel. Not a dream city but a symbol of life as lived by the man of tomorrow. As man helps man so nation leans on nation, united by a thousand roads of commerce... Here brain and brawn, faith and courage, are interlinked in high endeavor.\"\n\nStanding on slowly rotating balconies, visitors peered down at the city as though at an altitude of seven thousand feet. They saw a vast ring, brightly lit and painted, representing eleven thousand square miles of terrain. In its center loomed a single block: an awesome office complex to which a quarter of a million inhabitants (one citizen in six) would commute every day.\n\nFive satellite suburbs surrounded this central district in concentric circles. Even the most distant Pleasantville (as the residential areas were called) lay within sixty miles of the hub. Larger Millvilles, home to the city's factories, exiled their noise and pollution to the outskirts. Greenbelts were interspersed with suburbs; wide highways communicated between the center and the various sectors.\n\nMobility, an American obsession, had never been so well catered to. Traffic lights would be a thing of the past. The city's highways would always flow freely, in a straight line, planned in such a way as to avoid all jams and pedestrian crossings. All other roads would be built a safe distance from any school.\n\nTwo minutes into the performance, all of a sudden the lights would dim; the concave ceiling sparkled as if with stars. A chorus started up, and a film showed marching men: artisans, farmers, mechanics, everyone who would work together to help build tomorrow. The voices rose; the marching figures grew; the fairgoers held their breath.\n\nAnd then, just as quickly, the music died away and the men in the film disappeared behind thick plumes of smoke. The show was over.\n\n# Eleven\n\n# ARE WE ALONE?\n\nDemocritus, a contemporary of Plato and Aristotle, imagined all matter as composed of indivisible elements he called \"atomos,\" and was also the first thinker to propose a cosmos of many worlds. Every world was different. Some had neither a sun nor a moon, while others had larger moons or smaller moons or moons more numerous than our own.\n\nThe Pythagoreans also believed that our world was simply one of many. For them the moon was Earth-like and inhabited, containing larger beings and more beautiful plants. The lunar residents, they believed, stood fifty times our height, lived on air and for this reason produced no excrement.\n\nRefutations of these ideas by both Plato (to call the number of worlds indefinite requires definite knowledge) and Aristotle did not prevent later thinkers from endorsing them.\n\n> Since space lies empty and infinite in all directions and since atoms in countless numbers fly every which way through its furthest reaches... it is utterly unrealistic to think that ours are the only world and sky to have been born and that so many atoms outside our world are doing nothing... there are other worlds in other parts of the universe, different races of humans and species of animals.\n\nThese lines come from the epic poem _On the Nature of Things,_ written by the Roman Lucretius in the first century before the Christian era. The poet's ideas would later fill the fathers of the early Church with consternation. If other worlds existed, wrote St. Augustine, they would each require their own Savior, which would contradict the unique role of Christ.\n\nBut by the medieval period, not everyone in the Church shared Augustine's view. In 1277, the Bishop of Paris denounced the proposition that God could not create more than one world. Three centuries later, the friar Giordano Bruno put forth an elaborate argument in favor of an infinite number of worlds: if man can imagine so many worlds, then so can God, who creates what He thinks. The friar pictured Gardens of Eden, infinite in number: in half, Adam and Eve eat the fruit of Knowledge; in half, they do not. An infinite number of worlds will fall from grace and require an infinite number of Saviors to redeem them. Unlike Augustine, Bruno had no difficulty imagining an infinite number of Christs. For this and other \"theological errors,\" the authorities denounced the heretic and burned him at the stake.\n\nThe Inquisitors' heavy footsteps dissuaded Bruno's contemporary, Galileo Galilei, from seeing any evidence for extraterrestrial life in the rugged lunar landscape revealed by his telescope. All the same, since the valleys and mountains that corrugated the moon's surface seemed at least comparable to those on Earth, might not the moon also have people to dwell among them? His friend Johannes Kepler, the seventeenth-century mathematician and astronomer, thought so. Jupiter, too, he deduced \"with the highest degree of probability,\" though its inhabitants were undoubtedly inferior to humans.\n\nProbability: this word became the cornerstone of the argument for life on other planets. \"As for mind beyond the confines of our tiny globe,\" wrote the American astronomer Percival Lowell in 1895, \"modesty, backed by a probability little short of demonstration, forbids the thought that we are the sole thinkers in this great universe.\"\n\nHis argument, two millennia old, tallied with the most modern scientific observations: the conditions on Mars suggested hospitality. The planet enjoyed an atmosphere and its weather appeared extremely clement (with an average climate, he reported, that was similar to that in southern England). Water, essential for life, was also present. \"Anyone looking through a telescope at the planet, early last summer,\" noted Lowell, \"would at once have been struck by the fact that its surface was diversified by markings in three colors, white, blue-green, and reddish-ocher; the white lying in a great oval at the top of the disc. The white oval was the south polar icecap.\" And the blue-green? The color of water. Or, of what still remained of Martian water, since \"the signs [are] that its water supply is now exceedingly low.\" Its inhabitants, he reasoned, had poured all their energies into irrigation. When he scanned the planet's surface, he picked out a \"network of fine, straight dark lines.\" Canals. \"All this,\" the astronomer conceded, \"of course, may... signify nothing; but the probability seems the other way... that Mars seems to be inhabited is not the last, but the first word on the subject.\"\n\nLowell's claims found many sympathetic ears. \"Probability,\" he knew, was a sesame word: it opened ears and minds. But its magic did not work on everyone. The biologist Alfred Russel Wallace, who independently of Darwin discovered the principle of natural selection, was among his fiercest critics. Yes, Mars appeared to have polar icecaps, and a day only half an hour longer than our own, and lengthy seasons that vanished one into the next. But according to Wallace's calculations, the planet was in fact too cold to have rivers, seas, or canals. The features observed by Lowell were natural landforms, all products of normal geological processes. \"Mars, therefore, is not only uninhabitable by intelligent beings... but is absolutely uninhabitable.\"\n\nNot only was the planet Mars lifeless, but there were in all likelihood no habitations on any other planet either. This, at the turn of the twentieth century, was Wallace's stark assessment. The exceptional (and exceptionally complex) combination and sequence of events\u2014physical, chemical, cosmological\u2014permitting the origin of life on Earth made the prospect of finding other beings elsewhere in the universe immeasurably remote. The formation of intelligent life, quite simply, was a once-in-a-universe event.\n\nWhat? _Alone?_ Many people could not believe it. It was one thing to be alone in a room, or a house. But to imagine being the only person in a town, a city, a country! The only people in a universe. They agreed with the ancient Greek Metrodorus, who had thought it absurd that in a vast field only one stalk should ever sprout. What is more, the sense of such all-encompassing solitude seemed to these people intolerably oppressive. They felt like foreigners in a lifeless void.\n\nDecades passed, and the only extraterrestrials were to be found in pulp stories and motion pictures. When the American astronomer Frank Drake\u2014who has spearheaded research into extraterrestrial communication\u2014was a boy, he drew on this imagery as he listened to the words of his father, an engineer. Look at this star, and this one, and that star, and that one. All these stars, innumerable stars, shining in the night sky. Around some of those stars, somewhere in space, circled other worlds like our own. The boy listened to his father and believed him. He believed with all his heart.\n\nFrank Drake was at home with big numbers. His formative years were spent in Chicago, a city so populous that it could sustain the livelihoods of more than a hundred full-time piano tuners. His thoughts ran often to the many, many worlds far above his head. He wondered about their cities, about their cars, about whether they knew war or cancer.\n\nAfter graduating from Harvard with a doctorate in radio astronomy, Drake conducted the first ever search for interstellar communication. On April 8, 1960, he aimed the radio at two stars much like our sun, twelve light-years from Earth. Over the next two months he and his colleagues listened sedulously for a signal, but heard nothing. Not a peep.\n\nBut the numbers! Drake believed the numbers were on his side. The number of stars in our galaxy amounts to at least one hundred billion. One hundred billion! And how many of these stars were suns to planets? No hard facts could lend a hand. His imagination groped, sifted, hesitated. He closed his eyes and made a guess: one in two. Planets would orbit half of all the stars in the Milky Way, which equals fifty billion solar systems.\n\nNot every solar system will produce life, however. A shot at life requires a certain kind of solar system (a sun that is neither too cool nor too dim, nor so massive as to burn out before life appears), which would host planets in some way comparable to Earth. Drake thought of the only solar system with which we are familiar, of its (then) nine planets, and the sole planet that had become a world. This figure\u2014one\u2014troubled him: it smacked of uniqueness. No, no, there had to be solar systems with multiple worlds. Some system will host a world, then it will host another, and perhaps another after that. Why not? Look at Mars; it had not been so very far off from being a second Earth. And so he made the guess of two (two being greater than one) for the number of possible Earths in each solar system.\n\nSo far, so good. But Drake's next estimations demanded all his powers of invention. First, he had to estimate the number of these planets on which life has emerged. This is how he reasoned about it. Four and a half billion years ago, not long after our Earth was formed, it struck out as a cold and barren rock. From this unpromising start, a few hundred million years later, the first living cells arose. What are a few hundred million years in a universe of ten or twenty billion years? It is as though life will get going just as soon as it is given the chance. Life had come quite easily to Earth, he concluded, therefore it should come easily for all the other possible worlds.\n\nSecond, Drake pondered the question of intelligence. On how many of the hundred billion Earth-like planets might the living cells contrive intelligent forms? Earth's diversity presented itself to his mind. Billions of animal species had wriggled, and buzzed, and hissed, and flitted, and swum through the ages. Yet only one had ever posed itself questions, and dreamed of life on other worlds. Furthermore, _Homo sapiens_ was a latecomer to a planet that had done without its brains for billions of years. It suggested to Drake that questioning minds were anything but universal. He finally settled upon a figure of one in a hundred, leaving him a billion potential civilizations amid the stars.\n\nHow many of these civilizations had developed the technology (not to mention, had the desire) to communicate with others and in ways that we could understand? Drake was a radio astronomer. He knew that transmissions from Earth had already seeped far into space. Out there somewhere, twenty or thirty light-years away, hands and ears with the know-how were already perhaps tuning in to the same episodes of _Flash Gordon_ and _The Lone Ranger_ that he had listened to as a boy. And some of these planets would certainly be broadcasting signals of their own: say, one hundred thousand in all.\n\nThese planets would exude music, news broadcasts, coded messages, provided of course that they were still around, that this same technology had not yet blown them to pieces. Civilization, after all, is a tricky business. Hazardous, too. The civilized human dates back only ten thousand years, and already Washington, DC, had nuclear arms aimed at Moscow (and vice versa). The threat of mutual destruction, Drake knew, was no delusion. But neither was such a trajectory inevitable. Mindful of his final proviso, he set his expectations low: of the potential hundred thousand communicating civilizations, the survivors in our galaxy would number maybe ten. Signals, centuries and millennia old, from thousands of their predecessors would likewise be filtering through space, ready to brush some awaiting antenna.\n\nDrake wrote out his reasoning in the impressive-looking shorthand of an equation.\n\n> N = N* x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x fL\n> \n> Where N is the number of communicating civilizations in our galaxy.\n> \n> N* is the number of stars in the Milky Way.\n> \n> fp is the fraction of stars with planets orbiting them.\n> \n> ne is the number of planets per star ecologically capable of life.\n> \n> fl is the fraction of those planets where life evolves.\n> \n> fi is the fraction of these living planets that evolves intelligent life.\n> \n> fc is the fraction of these that communicate with others.\n> \n> fL is the fraction of a planet's life during which the civilization survives.\n\nNow to a journalist's question, \"Do other intelligent civilizations exist?\" came Drake's reply: \"With almost absolute certainty.\" A certainty identical to and inherited from the one he had heard in his father's voice.\n\nWhat would the astronomer give to actually find another world! (Russian colleagues reminded him that \"world\" in their language is a homonym for \"peace.\") Every day, in his observatory, he set to work. Through thick glasses he followed the chart recorder's progress, watched the needle fidget, saw the ink illustrate the contours of random noise. Occasionally, growing more and more impatient, he would snatch up headphones and listen in to the reception. He sat stock-still in the room, his heart in his mouth, and listened. Listened for what exactly? For a beep, a buzz, an electronic whisper. He watched and listened and waited and the hours turned. But the surprise did not come. Nothing came, except the months, the years, the hours.\n\nWith time, the technology became refined and upgraded. More and more assistants lent their ears and patience to the expanding project. \"Probability\" was on everyone's lips. The numbers are on our side, they told the press, their friends, themselves. It is only a matter of time.\n\nQueasy silence was all that they heard.\n\nThe radio telescopes grew, and with them the doubts. You would have to be superhuman not to doubt. Except perhaps for Drake, who had invested so heavily in his hope.\n\nThe problem posed by the silence was striking, though. For if thousands of communicating civilizations have evolved throughout our galaxy over millions (or even billions) of years, why has not a single one colonized its environs, including Earth? A civilization far older than our own, out of the thousands predicted by Drake's equation, would need only a few million years\u2014a cosmic blink of an eye\u2014to have colonized the Milky Way. Or, at the very least, to have flooded us with signs of its presence.\n\nLook longer! Listen harder! Drake's response was emphatic. Perhaps the other civilizations are checking us out before they get in touch. Or perhaps they content themselves with colonizing only their solar systems. Or perhaps the cost of interstellar travel is too steep. Or perhaps, they never invented the radio. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.\n\n_Is Anyone Out There?_ To coincide, in 1992, with the five-hundredth anniversary of Columbus's discovery of America, Drake published a book posing this question. The answer, he felt, was closer than ever. He wanted to \"prepare thinking adults\" for the \"imminent detection of signals from an extraterrestrial civilization.\" What kind of civilization? They would resemble humans, with heads on the top of their bodies and two legs to walk on. But instead of two arms, they would have four: \"four make for a much better design.\" They would also be immortal, innocent of death. \"This discovery, which I fully expect to witness before the year 2000, will profoundly change the world.\"\n\nIn the same year, NASA's computers performed fifty million tests per second on the data from the largest ever and most sophisticated radio scan of the heavens. They found nothing.\n\nBiologists, meanwhile, were offering a reassessment of the equation's assumptions. Drake and his colleagues applied \"strictly deterministic thinking,\" wrote the Harvard biologist Ernst Mayr. \"Such thinking is often quite legitimate for physical phenomena, but is quite inappropriate for evolutionary events or social processes such as the origin of civilizations.\" Another biologist, Leonard Ornstein, pointed out that \"even if we allow that the universe may be awash with planets with flourishing 'protometabolism,' and even 'protocells,' it does not necessarily follow that contingent events that contributed to the next step in the origin of life have been mimicked on even one of these hypothetical worlds.\"\n\nOrnstein suggested an analogy: imagine that we dipped our hand only once into a bag of marbles and withdrew just one marble. This marble is blue-green. Conclusion? We could as equally suppose that the bag contained only one-in-a-million other blue-green marbles, or none at all, as suppose that all or many still in the bag would possess a similar color.\n\nThe only thing we can know for certain is that the probability of intelligent life in our universe is above zero (for were it zero, I would not be here to write this sentence and you would not be here to read it). The rest is speculation. Since the big bang, there have been billions of civilizations. There have been millions of civilizations. There have been thousands of civilizations. There have been hundreds of civilizations, or tens. Or just one.\n\nWhy not? Probability is often expressed using large but finite numbers: \"one in a thousand,\" \"one in a million.\" But perhaps the probability of life, intelligent life, appearing somewhere in our universe is _infinitesimal._ If so, a universe would need infinitely many planets to produce even a finite number of civilizations (i.e., one).\n\nSuch a conclusion ought to be at least as motivating to us as Drake's, especially in an age of high-stakes international diplomacy, atomic bombs, and climate change. As the astronomer Michael Papagiannis concluded, \"Knowing we are the only ones might make us realize that we are too valuable to destroy.\"\n\n# Twelve\n\n# THE CALENDAR OF OMAR KHAYY\u00c1M\n\nFor the Bedouins living before the era of Muhammad, time did not exist. Or rather, they thought of it as an all-enveloping and all-enfeebling mist, without clear shape or pattern. Only the bright stars overhead pricked the pervasive gloom, helping the nomads to anticipate rain and decide when to take their animals to pasture. To make sense of their lives, the men sang songs, and the songs they sang told of distant earthquakes and battles. It was the sole history that they knew.\n\nThe Prophet's birth, to believe tradition, coincided with one of these battles: the so-called Event of the Elephant (occurring in the latter half of the sixth century of the Christian Era), when Mecca fell under the siege of a foreign king's army with a white elephant at its helm. According to a tale later told in the Koran, God sent a cloud of birds to pelt the attackers with stones until they fled.\n\nAlongside Muhammad's revelation of a new religion came his revelation of time. Gone now was the idea of life as constituted by a flux of vague, discontinuous, and casual moments. Five compulsory prayers\u2014 _Fajr_ (at dawn), _Dhuhr_ (after the sun's zenith), _Asr_ (during late afternoon), _Maghrib_ (at sunset), and _Isha_ (at twilight)\u2014regulated each day. All our days, said the Prophet, are numbered. Each follows the other in meaningful succession.\n\n\"God wraps night around day, and He wraps day around night.\"\n\nSeven of them together make a week (beginning on what we call Saturday), the span in which, it was said, God had progressively created the world: the earth on the first day, the hills on the second, the trees on the third, all unpleasant things on the fourth, the light on the fifth, the beasts on the sixth, and Adam, who was the last of creation, about the time of the _Asr_ prayer on the seventh.\n\nLook up at the heavens, Muhammad urged his followers. Each month, he declared, began when the moon appeared \"like an old shriveled palm-leaf.\" Divinely ordained properties separated the months and made them distinct. During four of the months, it was forbidden to draw a sword. During certain others, believers could set out on pilgrimage. One month, called Ramadan, was set aside for fasting during the hours of daylight. Twelve lunar months composed one year.\n\nMuhammad had been preaching for about a decade when, at the approximate age of fifty, he, along with his small band of followers, was ousted from the city by the rulers of Mecca. On camels, they traveled north to the oasis town of Yathrib, finding refuge there. The flight, known as _hegira,_ became the founding date of the Islamic calendar; henceforth, every period of time would be precisely accounted.\n\nExquisitely contrived clocks sprang up across the Islamic world throughout the medieval period. The most impressive of these their makers filled not with sand, but water. A Chinese traveler's report from a visit to Antioch, three centuries after Muhammad, tells of a water clock within the royal residence that suspended twelve golden balls corresponding to the twelve hours of the day. At each hour one of the balls fell, splashing two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock, \"the sound of which makes known the divisions of the day without the slightest error.\" Another water clock, described by Al-Jazari in his 1206 _Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices,_ stood as high as two men and featured robotic drummers, trumpeters, and cymbalists who played in turns according to the time of day.\n\nBy employing water\u2014a precious substance in a peninsula largely composed of desert\u2014the clockmakers demonstrated the reverence they accorded to time. Indeed, the Prophet had told his faithful to pay minute attention to its reckoning. Mosques employed _muwaqqit_ s (timekeepers) to calculate the official hours for each prayer. Generations of scholars scrupulously debated the world's age. The historian Al-Tabari, for example, figured that the world would endure in total seven thousand years, of which his generation had before them only two hundred. He based his calculation on a saying of the Prophet, in which Muhammad likens the time remaining until the Last Day to the fraction of time between the _Asr_ (afternoon) prayer and sunset (about one-fourteenth of a day).\n\nWriting in the fourth and fifth centuries of _hegira_ (the eleventh century according to our way of reckoning), a near contemporary of Al-Tabari, Al-Biruni, compiled his _Chronology of Ancient Nations._ In it, he compares the calendars of the other great civilizations. The Greeks, the Syrians, and the Egyptians, he noted, all used a calendar of 365 and one one-quarter days, summing the quarters to make one complete extra day every four years.\n\n\"The ancient Egyptians followed the same practice, but with this difference, that they neglected the quarters of a day till they had summed up to the number of days in one complete year, which took place every 1,460 years; then they added one extra year.\"\n\nThe ancient Persians, he continued, also neglected these quarters of a day, though for a period of 120 years, after which they added one extra month.\n\nAs fate would have it (though Muslims believe no such thing exists, and that every moment is the conscious creation of God), Al-Biruni died in the same year that a boy was born to a Persian tentmaker. The Farsi word for tentmaker is _khayy\u00e1m;_ the tentmaker named his son Omar.\n\nIt is probable that as a child he studied the Koran. He would have learned to recite its verses aloud, for tradition holds that the scripture is akin to a chant, which is why the angel Gabriel chose to speak its words to the illiterate Muhammad. Perhaps the boy recited such a verse as, \"Most surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alteration of the night and the day, there are signs for men who understand.\"\n\nMany other books, on many subjects, must also have passed through his hands: books on geometry and the movement of the stars, books on arithmetic and music. He would have learned many of the pages by heart. It is likely that he also read or heard of Al-Biruni's compendium of calendars, and smiled at Al-Tabari's apocalyptic prediction. From long years of cloistered study, indifferent to the company of other people, he earned the bookish reputation as a \"bad character.\"\n\nOne story relates how a student visited Khayy\u00e1m daily before dawn to learn from him, before badmouthing him to the other townspeople. Hearing of this, Khayy\u00e1m secretly invited the town's musicians to call on him at dawn the next day. When the unsuspecting student arrived as usual for his lesson, Khayy\u00e1m ordered the musicians to beat their drums and blow their trumpets; the commotion awakened people from every quarter. \"Men of Nishapur,\" Khayy\u00e1m said, addressing the crowd, \"he comes every day at this hour to my house, and studies with me, but to you he speaks of me in the manner you know. If I am really as he says, then why does he come and study with me? And if not, why does he abuse his teacher?\"\n\nWhen he was not reading books, he wrote them. A gifted poet, he was better known in his day as a talented mathematician. \"The notion that one could use geometric constructions for certain types of algebraic problems was certainly recognized by Euclid and Archimedes,\" writes the mathematician Ramesh Gangolli, \"but before Omar Khayy\u00e1m's construction, only simple types of equations... were thought to be amenable to the geometric method... Khayy\u00e1m opened the door to the study of the more general question: What kind of algebraic problems can be represented and solved successfully in this manner?\"\n\nThe young Persian's receptivity to inspiration must have been immense. When the sunlight shone through the latticework windows of his study, it danced upon the walls in geometrical shapes. Khayy\u00e1m's pen traced _rubai_ (poems) of four short rhyming lines, tight as theorems, writing the words from right to left. Some say he composed only sixty such poems; others, six hundred. He also wrote a commentary on Euclid's _Elements_ that Gangolli tells us explained \"in more detail many aspects that were left implicit and clarified many misconceptions about the structure of axiomatic systems.\"\n\nPolyvalent talent like his is rare in any age. It likely led to jealousies, snide comments, upturned noses from certain quarters among his fellow countrymen. In one of several treatises on algebraic problems, Khayy\u00e1m complained about the trials of the mathematician's life.\n\n> I was unable to devote myself to the learning of this algebra and the continued concentration upon it, because of obstacles... which hindered me; for we have been deprived of all the people of knowledge save for a group, small in number, with many troubles, whose concern in life is to snatch the opportunity, when time is asleep, to devote themselves meanwhile to the investigation and perfection of a science; for the majority of people who imitate philosophers confuse the true with the false, and they do nothing but deceive and pretend knowledge, and they do not use what they know of the sciences except for base and material purposes.\n\nIn 452 (1074 CE by the Julian calendar), Sultan Jalal Al-Din invited Omar to the capital. His long Farsi texts, packed with numbers and equations, had preceded him. Even at the zenith of the golden age of Islamic mathematics, Khayy\u00e1m's talent marked him out. Anxiously, expectantly, he must have followed his guide through the halls of the turquoise-studded palace. Tessellating tiles ran the length of the floor; mirrors hanging on the walls returned to him every one of his features, down to the wrinkles of laughter around his eyes.\n\nThe Sultan that Khayy\u00e1m met hardly looked the part: he was very young, not yet twenty years of age, and keen to make his mark. His illustrious guest, the Sultan's Vizier reports, was promptly showered with the prince's praises, and offered an annual pension of 1,200 _mithk\u00e1l_ s of gold. For this, Khayy\u00e1m agreed to accept an important commission: he was to create\u2014provided that God were willing\u2014a new civil calendar in the young Sultan's name.\n\nPersia, geographically vast and intricately governed, had long lived on two times: while the imams practiced the faith using the _hegira_ calendar, the bureaucrats counted their days by looking to the sun. The old civil calendar consisted of twelve months each of thirty days, excepting the eighth month, which contained thirty-five days. Its total of 365 days (eleven days more than in a lunar year) helped fix administrative dates far more closely to the seasons: an essential requirement when the nation's annual tax revenues relied heavily on the autumn harvests. But even these eleven extra days could not keep up precisely with the seasons: each year, as Al-Biruni had recorded, accumulated a lag of a quarter day. This was the problem that Khayy\u00e1m set out to solve.\n\nDay and night, Omar pondered how best to reform the old civil calendar. Astronomy had never before found itself so flattered and moneyed. A large observatory duly arose, from which Khayy\u00e1m and his colleagues stalked the sky. He studied the sun's pathway through the twelve constellations of stars, and compiled detailed statistical tables. With this data he mapped a calendar based on the seasons, beginning the year (which the Persians called _Nowruz_ ) on the spring equinox (March 20 or 21), with the fourth month falling on the summer solstice (June 21), the seventh month on the autumn equinox (September 21), and the tenth on the winter solstice (December 20 or 21).\n\nTo resolve the lagging of quarter days, Khayy\u00e1m devised an ingenious formula. His calendar interleaved eight extra days over each thirty-three-year span. The calculation: 365 + 8\/33 = 365.2424 days, aligned almost perfectly with the actual year length (365.2423 days), and proved even more accurate than that of the later Gregorian calendar: 365 + 1\/4 \u2212 1\/100 + 1\/400 = 365 + 97\/400 = 365.2425 days.\n\nThe Sultan officially adopted Khayy\u00e1m's reform on Friday, March 15, 1079 ( _Farvardin_ 1, 458 according to the new calendar). Drums and cannon blasts across the nation proclaimed the first new year.\n\nConcerning Khayy\u00e1m's later years, we can say very little. The Sultan's premature death, just ten years after the calendar's adoption, brought an end to his generous patronage. Khayy\u00e1m quit the royal court, only the ritual pilgrimage to Mecca delaying a return to his hometown. He continued to write poems.\n\n> Ah, but my computations, People say,\n> \n> Reduced the year to better reckoning? Nay,\n> \n> 'Twas only striking from the Calendar\n> \n> Unborn tomorrow and dead Yesterday\n\nOne day in his eighth decade, Khayy\u00e1m tired and lay down to rest. His heavy head swaddled in sheets of turban, he gazed up toward the sky. The light around him slowly faded, and then went out. The year was around 500 of the _hegira_ \u2014the point Al-Tabari had long ago calculated as being the end of the world.\n\n# Thirteen\n\n# COUNTING BY ELEVENS\n\nPhysicians say that thumbs are the master fingers of the hand,\" wrote Michel de Montaigne, the Renaissance nobleman who invented the personal essay, in his short piece _On Thumbs._ So vital did Rome's ancient rulers consider them, he explains, that war veterans who were missing thumbs received automatic exemption from all future military service.\n\nThroughout his writings, the Frenchman marveled at the extent to which we depend upon our hands. A gesture of thumbs-up or -down, an index finger pressed to the mouth, the palms held flat open toward the skies: delivered at the right instant all can say more than any word. In another essay Montaigne describes the case of a \"native of Nantes, born without arms\" whose feet did double duty so well that the man \"cuts anything, charges and discharges a pistol, threads a needle, sews, writes, takes off his hat, combs his head, plays at cards and dice.\" Elsewhere he observed that hands sometimes seem almost to possess a life of their own, as when his idle fingers would tap during a period of daydreaming, free of conscious effort or instruction.\n\nMontaigne neglects to mention counting as being among the many useful tasks undertaken by our hands (biographers have pointed out that arithmetic was not his strong suit). Of course, there is much to be said for the idea that our decimal number system originated from the practice of counting with the fingers. In our Latin-derived word \"digit,\" the meanings \"number\" and \"finger\" coincide. The Homeric Greek term for counting, _pempathai,_ translates literally: \"to count by fives.\"\n\nPeople the world over, numbers at their fingertips, count to ten and by tens (twenty, thirty... fifty... one hundred...). But the manner of their getting to ten varies from hand to hand and from culture to culture. Like many Europeans, I count \"one\" beginning on the thumb of my left hand and continue past five with the digits of my right till I arrive at the other thumb. Where people read from right to left, as in the countries of the Middle East, counting generally begins on the little finger of the right hand. In Asia, the counter employs a single hand, folding the fingers thumb first to reach five, before unfolding them from the little finger (six) returning to the thumb (ten).\n\nWhat, I wonder, would it be like for a person who had not too few fingers\u2014like Montaigne's Roman veterans\u2014but too many? Would such a person learn to count like you or me? How would it be to count by elevens?\n\nAccording to tradition, Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn, carried a sixth finger on one of her hands\u2014a medical condition known as polydactyly. Girls of high birth in Tudor society had the attention of tutors and learned to read, write, and do sums. Counting on her eleven fingers, however, would have posed Anne certain difficulties.\n\nTo start with, she would have found herself a number word short. Between the ninth finger and the last (which would still be the tenth\u201410 meaning \"1 set and 0 remainders\"), her surplus digit would have needed naming. Given that she spent part of her childhood in France, she might have come up with the label _dix._ So Anne would have counted: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, _dix,_ ten. Though the numbers' music sounds a little strange to our ears, in her mind the sequence would have come to feel like second nature. A year before the age of twenty, she would have celebrated (if only mentally) her dixteenth birthday. Counting higher, she would have taken the nineties down a peg, to make room for the dixties, and by way of dixty-dix arrive finally at one hundred.\n\nCounting in this way produces some funny-looking sums. Subtracting seven from ten (where, given the extra _dix,_ \"ten\" would to our way of thinking be eleven), for example, would have left Anne not with three, but four. Half of thirteen equals seven. Six squared (6 \u00d7 6) is thirty-three (three \"tens\" of eleven, plus three units): a pretty result.\n\nFractions would have proven particularly tricky. Unlike ten, eleven is a prime number: divisible only by itself and one. No precise midway point exists between one and eleven, or between Anne's ten (equivalent to our eleven) and her one hundred (11 \u00d7 11). What then might a half of something mean to someone with eleven fingers? And what about a fifth or a quarter or two-thirds? Possibly such concepts would remain as airy and intangible as a _dixth_ of something might seem to you or me. (We can nonetheless imagine that rote learning would have sufficed to acquire them.)\n\nStill, I am curious about the intuitions that an eleven-fingered girl might have brought to such ideas. From our two hands, equally endowed, we understand immediately that halves are clean and precise, leaving no remainder. Half of eight is four, not three or five. A right-angle triangle is exactly one half of a square. Prime numbers, by definition, cannot be halved in this way. Might Anne's hands\u2014with six fingers on one hand, and \"only\" five on the other\u2014have given her a more approximate, fuzzier feeling for the concept of a half? To a casual remark like, \"I'll be along in half an hour,\" would the impatient thought have occurred to her, \"Which half do you mean\u2014the lesser or the greater?\"\n\nAt her secret wedding to the King of England, Boleyn would have well understood which half of the couple she represented. Her triumph was infamously short-lived. Within months, the Archbishop of Canterbury had declared the marriage invalid. Roman Catholics denounced her as a scarlet woman.\n\nThe charge of treason brought against her only three years after the wedding makes no mention of witchcraft. All the same, her enemies alleged that the Queen's body showed strange warts and growths\u2014the same body that had produced only stillborn fetuses for a male heir. It was in the role of a conspiring adulteress that she knelt in a black damask dress before the executioner's block on the morning of May 19, 1536.\n\nIt is certainly conceivable that the story of an eleventh finger was a fabrication of Anne's enemies. A famous portrait by an unknown artist, which now hangs in Hever Castle (Boleyn's childhood home) in Kent, reveals a striking young woman clutching a rose. The hands peek shyly from long sleeves; the fingers\u2014ten in all\u2014appear, in contrast to the smooth oval face, somewhat ill formed. A slander, or a secret, Anne's eleven fingers have become an integral part of her legend.\n\nI was reminded of the legend recently when a fascinating newspaper article caught my attention. It was about one Yoandri Hernandez Garrido, a thirty-seven-year-old Cuban man with twelve fingers and twelve toes. Apparently, Fidel Castro's doctor once paid the extradexterous boy a visit and declared his hands and feet the most beautiful that he had ever seen.\n\nIn keeping with the Latin American taste for nicknames based on physical appearance, schoolmates gave Garrido the name \"Veinticuatro\" (twenty-four). He learned to count in class like his friends but one day, he recalls, his primary schoolteacher asked him for the answer to the sum 5 + 5. In his confusion he answered, \"Twelve.\"\n\nGarrido tells the reporter that he makes a fine living with his hands. American tourists regularly tender their dollars to have a photo taken with the twelve-fingered Cuban. A few extra bucks can go a long way in Castro's republic. Proudly, Garrido holds his hands up to the camera. There is generosity in his smile.\n\nThe article makes no mention of the adult Garrido's arithmetic. Counting time, to give one example, should be simpler with twelve fingers\u2014one digit for every hour on the clock. To find what time is nine hours before four o'clock in the afternoon, he need simply hold down five fingers (9\u22124) on his right hand to reveal the answer: one hand (six fingers) plus the right hand's thumb: seven a.m. One digit for every month as well: so half-year periods jump from one hand's finger to the same finger on the other hand.\n\nWe know that the Romans preferred to perform certain calculations using a base of twelve. In his _Ars Poetica_ the poet Horace offers us a vignette of Roman boys learning their fractions.\n\n> Suppose Albinus's son says: if one-twelfth is taken from five-twelfths, what is left? You might have answered by now: One-third. Well done. You will be able to manage your money. Now add a twelfth: what happens? One-half.\n\nThe Venerable Bede taught his fellow monks to quantify the various periods of time in the biblical stories using the Roman fractions. One-twelfth, he noted, went by the name of an _uncia_ (from which comes the word \"ounce\"), while the remaining part of 11\/12 was called _deunx._ Dividing into six, the sixth part (1\/6) was called _sextans,_ and _dextans_ for the rest (5\/6). _Quadrans_ was the Roman name for a quarter (1\/4); three-quarters they called _dodrans._\n\nWhat do we get if we add one _sextans_ to a _dodrans_ (1\/6 + 3\/4)? As quick as Horace's schoolboys, or the Venerable Bede's monks, Garrido's fingers (or toes) would tell him: one-sixth equals two digits and three-quarters equals nine digits, so 1\/6 + 3\/4 = 11\/12 (a _deunx_ ).\n\nI wonder what Garrido makes of our deficient hands, all of us counting to the tune of ten? Does he pity us as the Romans pitied their thumbless veterans? He calls his condition a blessing; it is clear that he would not wish to be any other way.\n\nSome believe that we should all learn to count like Garrido. A society formed in the mid-1900s advocates replacing the decimal system with a \"dozenal\" one, since twelve divides more easily than ten. Leaving aside itself and one, the number twelve can be divided into four factors: two, three, four, and six, compared with the factors of ten: two and five. In England and America the society still militates for the return of Roman fractions (among other measures), judging their abandonment a gross error.\n\nLike the Esperantists and the simplified spellers that came before them, the society's members dream of a highly rational world comprising pairs, trios, quarters, and sextets, a world innocent of messy fractions. Theirs is the charm of the hopeless cause.\n\nAn English queen with eleven fingers, a Cuban man with twelve toes\u2014such stories still incite our wonder and with it our vague sense that something has gone awry.\n\nMontaigne, typically generous, remedies this view. He recalls once encountering a family who exhibited \"a monstrous child\" in return for strangers' coins. The infant had multiple arms and legs, the remains of what we now call a conjoined twin. In the infinite imagination of its Creator, Montaigne supposes, the child is simply one of a kind, \"unknown to man.\" He concludes, \"Whatever falls out contrary to custom we say is contrary to nature, but nothing, whatever it be, is contrary to her. Let, therefore, this universal and natural reason expel the error and astonishment that novelty brings along with it.\"\n\n# Fourteen\n\n# THE ADMIRABLE NUMBER PI\n\nTo believe the poet Wis\u0142awa Szymborska, I am one in two thousand. The 1996 Nobel laureate offers this statistic in her poem \"Some Like Poetry\" to quantify the \"some.\" Actually I think she is a tad too pessimistic\u2014I am hardly as rare a reader as that. But I can see her point. Many people consider poetry to be all clouds and buttercups, without purchase on the real world. They are right and they are wrong. Clouds and buttercups exist in poetry, but they are there only because storms and flowers populate the real world too. Truth is, a good poem can be about anything.\n\nIncluding numbers. Mathematics, several of Szymborska's verses show, lends itself to poetry. Both are economical with meaning; both can create entire worlds within the space of a few short lines. In \"A Large Number,\" she laments feeling at a loss with numbers many zeroes long, while her \"Contribution to Statistics\" notes that \"out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two\" but also, \"worthy of empathy: ninety-nine.\" And then there is \"The Admirable Number Pi,\" my favorite poem. It\u2014the poem, and the number\u2014begins: three point one four one.\n\nOnce, in my teens, I confided my admiration for this number to a classmate. Ruxandra was her name. Like the poet's, her name came from behind the Iron Curtain. Her parents hailed from Bucharest. I knew nothing of Eastern Europe, but that did not matter: Ruxandra liked me. She liked that I was quite different from the other boys. We spent breaks between lessons in the school library, swapping ideas about the future and homework tips. Happily for me, her strongest subject was math.\n\nIn a moment of curiosity, I asked about her favorite number. Her reply was slow; she seemed not to understand my question. \"Numbers are numbers,\" she said.\n\nWas there no difference at all for her between the numbers 333, say, and fourteen? There was not.\n\nAnd what about the number pi, I persisted\u2014this almost magical number that we learned about in class. Did she not find it beautiful?\n\nBeautiful? Her face shrank with incomprehension.\n\nRuxandra was the daughter of an engineer.\n\nThe engineer and the mathematician have a completely different understanding of the number pi. In the eyes of an engineer, pi is simply a value of measurement between three and four, albeit fiddlier than either of these whole numbers. In his calculations he will often bypass it completely, preferring a handy approximation like 22\/7 or 355\/113. Precision never demands of him anything beyond a third or fourth decimal place (3.141 or 3.1416, with rounding). Digits past the third or fourth decimal do not interest him; as far as he is concerned, it is as though they do not exist.\n\nMathematicians know the number pi differently, more intimately. What is pi to them? It is the length of a circle's round line (its circumference) divided by the straight length (its diameter) that splits the circle into perfect halves. It is an essential response to the question, \"What is a circle?\" But this response\u2014when expressed in digits\u2014is infinite: the number has no last digit, and therefore no next-to-last digit, no antepenultimate digit, no third-from-last digit, and so on. One could never write down all its digits, even on a piece of paper as big as the Milky Way. No fraction can properly express pi: every earthly calculation produces only deficient circles, pathetic ellipses, shoddy replicas of the ideal thing. The circle that pi describes is perfect, belonging exclusively to the realm of the imagination.\n\nMoreover, mathematicians tell us, the digits in this number follow no periodic or predictable pattern: just when we might anticipate a six in the sequence, it continues instead with a two or zero or seven; after a series of consecutive nines, it can as easily remain long-winded with another nine (or two more nines or three) as switch erratically between the other digits. It exceeds our apprehension.\n\nCircles, perfect circles, thus enumerated, consist of every possible run of digits. Somewhere in pi, perhaps trillions and trillions of digits deep, a hundred successive fives rub shoulders; elsewhere occur a thousand alternating zeroes and ones. Inconceivably far inside the random-looking morass of digits, having computed them for a time far longer than that which separates us from the big bang, the sequence 123456789... repeats 123,456,789 times in a row. If only we could venture far enough along, we would find the number's opening hundred, thousand, million, billion digits immaculately repeated, as though at any instant the whole vast array were to begin all over again. And yet, it never does. There is only one number pi, unrepeatable, indivisible.\n\nLong after my schooldays ended, pi's beauty stayed with me. The digits had insinuated themselves into my mind. Those digits seemed to speak of endless possibility, illimitable adventure. At odd moments I would find myself murmuring them, a gentle reminder. Of course, I could not possess pi\u2014the number, its beauty, or its immensity. Perhaps, in fact, it possessed me. One day, I began to see what this number, transformed by me, and I by it, could turn into. It was then that I decided to commit a multitude of its digits to heart.\n\nThis was easier than it sounds, since big things are often more unusual, more exciting to the attention, and hence more memorable than small ones. For example, a short word like _pen_ or _song_ is quickly read (or heard), and as quickly forgotten, whereas _hippopotamus_ slows our eye (or ear) just enough to leave a deeper impression. Scenes and personalities from long novels return to me with far greater insistence and fidelity, I find, than those that originated in short tales. The same goes for numbers. A common number like thirty-one risks confusion with its common neighbors, like thirty and thirty-two, but not 31,415 whose scope invites curious, careful inspection. Lengthier, more intricate digit sequences yield patterns and rhythms. Not 31, or 314, or 3141, but 3 _1_ 4 _1_ 5 sings.\n\nI should say that I have always had what others call \"a good memory.\" By this, they mean that I can be dependably relied upon to recall telephone numbers, dates of birthdays and anniversaries, and the sorts of facts and figures that crowd books and television shows. To have such a memory is a blessing, I know, and has always stood me in good stead. Exams at school held no fear for me; the kinds of knowledge imparted by my teachers seemed especially amenable to my powers of recollection. Ask me for the third person subjunctive of the French verb \"\u00eatre,\" for instance, or better still the story of how Marie Antoinette lost her head, and I could tell you. Piece of cake.\n\nPi's digits henceforth became the object of my study. Printed out on crisp, letter-size sheets of paper, a thousand digits to a page, I gazed on them as a painter gazes on a favorite landscape. The painter's eye receives a near infinite number of light particles to interpret, which he sifts by intuitive meaning and personal taste. His brush begins in one part of the canvas, only to make a sudden dash to the other side. A mountain's outline slowly emerges with the tiny, patient accumulation of paint. In a similar fashion, I waited for each sequence in the digits to move me\u2014for some attractive feature, or pleasing coincidence of \"bright\" (like 1 or 5) and \"dark\" (like 6 or 9) digits, for example, to catch my eye. Sometimes it would happen quickly, at other times I would have to plow thirty or forty digits deep to find some sense before working backward. From the hundreds, then thousands, of individual digits, precisely rendered and carefully weighed, a numerical landscape gradually emerged.\n\nA painter exhibits his artwork. What was I to do? After three months of preparation, I took the number to a museum, the sprawling digits tucked inside my head. My aim: to set a European Record for the recitation of pi to the greatest number of digits.\n\nMarch is the month of spring showers, and school holidays, and spick-and-span windows. It is also the month when people the world over celebrate \"Pi Day,\" on March 14. So on that day, in 2004, I traveled north from London to the city of Oxford, where staff members at the university's Museum for the History of Science were waiting for me. Journalists, too. An article in the _Times,_ complete with my photo, announced the upcoming recitation.\n\nThe museum lies in the city center, in the world's most ancient surviving purpose-built museum building, the Old Ashmolean. Iconic stone heads, wearing stone beards, peer down at visitors as they pass through the gates. The thick walls are the color of sand. Approaching the building, photographers appear as if from nowhere, holding cameras, like masks, up to their faces. The piercing flashes momentarily petrify my expression. I stop and raise my features into a smile. A minute later they are gone.\n\nThe record attempt's organizers have occupied the museum building. Television camera wires snake the length of the floor. Posters requesting donations (the event is raising money for an epilepsy charity, at my request, since I suffered from seizures as a young child) dress the walls. A table and chair, I see on entering, have already been set out for me on one side of the hall. Before it, a longer table awaits the mathematicians who will verify my accuracy. But there is still an hour before the recitation is due to start, and I find only a trio of men talking together. One has a full head of wiry hair, one has a multicolored tie, and one has neither hair nor tie. The third steps briskly forward and introduces himself as the main organizer, and the others as the museum's curator and his assistant. Their faces show mild puzzlement, curiosity, and nerves. Shortly afterward, reporters arrive to hold the microphones and man the television cameras. They film the display cases containing astrolabes, compasses, and mathematical manuscripts.\n\nSomeone asks about the blackboard that hangs high on the wall opposite us. The curator explains that on May 16, 1931, Albert Einstein used it during a lecture. What about the chalky equations? They show the physicist's calculations for the age of the universe, replies the curator. According to Einstein, the universe is about ten, or perhaps one hundred, thousand million years old.\n\nFootfalls increase on the museum's stone steps as the hour approaches. The mathematicians duly arrive, seven strong, and take their seats. Men, women, and children keep coming; it is soon standing room only. The air in the hall grows thick with hushed talk.\n\nAt last, the organizer calls everyone to silence. All eyes are on me; nobody moves. I sip a mouthful of water and hear my voice begin. \"Three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven nine three two three eight four...\"\n\nMy audience is only the second or third generation able to hear the number pi beyond the first few tens or hundreds of decimal places. For millennia it existed only in a breathful of digits. Archimedes knew pi to only three correct places; Newton, almost twenty centuries later, managed sixteen. Only in 1949 did computer scientists discover pi's thousandth digit (following the decimal point): nine.\n\nIt takes about ten minutes, at a rate of one or two digits per second, for me to reach this nine. I do not know how long exactly; an electronic clock records the seconds, minutes, hours of the recitation for the public to watch, but I cannot see it from my chair. I stop reciting to sip water and catch my breath. The pause feels palpable. Dolorous even. I feel completely, oppressively alone.\n\nThe rules for the recitation are strict. I cannot step away from the desk, except to use the bathroom, and then always accompanied by a member of the museum's staff. No one may talk to me, not even to cheer me on. I can stop reciting momentarily to eat fruit or a piece of chocolate, or drink, but only at pre-agreed intervals a thousand digits apart. Cameras record my every sound and gesture.\n\n\"Three eight zero nine five two five seven two zero one zero six five four...\"\n\nAn occasional cough or sneeze from the audience punctuates the flow of digits. I do not mind. I meditate on the colors and shapes and textures of my inner landscape. Calmness gains on me; my anxiety falls away.\n\nMost of the spectators know nothing of Archimedes' polygons; they have no idea that the ten digits they have just heard will eventually repeat an infinite number of times, have never thought of themselves as being in any way susceptible to math. But they listen attentively. The concentration in my voice seems to communicate itself to them. Faces, young and old, round and oval, all wear delicate frowns. Listening to the digits, they hear their dress sizes, their birthdays, their computer passwords. They hear excerpts\u2014both shorter and longer\u2014from a friend's, or parent's, or lover's telephone number. Some lean forward in expectation. Patterns coalesce, and as quickly disperse, in their minds.\n\nThe people are all different. They have various motives for being here, and various goals. A teenager finds in the hall a hideout from his Sunday boredom; a manual laborer, having donated the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes in salary, sticks around to get his money's worth; an American tourist in shorts and a Mickey Mouse hat cannot wait to recount the spectacle to her family.\n\nAn hour passes, and then another.\n\n\"Zero, five, seven, seven, seven, seven, five, six, zero, six, eight, eight, eight, seven, six...\"\n\nI head further and further inside the number, exhaling effort, rhythm, and precision with every breath. The decimals exhibit a kind of deep order. Fives never outstrip sixes for long, nor do the eights and nines lord it over the ones and the twos. No digit predominates except for brief and intermittent instants. Every digit, in the end, has more or less equal representation. Every digit contributes equally to the whole.\n\nHalfway through the recitation, more than ten thousand decimals in, I stop to stretch. I push back the chair, stand and shake out my limbs. The mathematicians put down their sharp pencils and wait. I bring a bottle to my lips and swallow the plastic bottle-tasting water. I eat a banana. I fold my legs, resume my position at the desk, and continue.\n\nThe silence in the hall is total. It reigns like a tsar. When a young woman's mobile telephone suddenly starts up, she finds herself promptly ejected.\n\nDespite such rare commotions, a sly complicity establishes itself between the public and me. This complicity marks a vital shift. At the beginning, the men and women beamed confidence, listening expectantly, and taking pleasure in the digits' familiar sounds as those shoe sizes, historical dates, and car registration plates reached their ears. But, slowly, imperceptibly, something changed. Consternation grew. They could not follow the rhythm of my voice, they realized, without making continuous minor adjustments. Sometimes, for example, I recited the digits fast, and at other times I recited them slow. Occasionally, I recited in short bursts interleaved with pauses; at other moments, I recited the digits in a long, unbroken phrase. Sometimes the digits sounded thinly, accented by some inner agitation in my voice; instants later, they would soften to a clear and undulating beat.\n\nConsternation now turns increasingly to curiosity. More and more, I feel the timing of their breathing coincide with mine. I sense their raw intrigue at the sound and sweep of every digit as it passes and makes way for the next. When the digits darken in my mouth\u2014heavy eights and nines packed together\u2014the tense distant faces grow tenser still. When a sudden three emerges from a series of zeroes and sevens, I hear something like a faint collective pant. Silent nods greet my accelerations; warm smiles welcome my slowdowns.\n\nBetween the moments when I stop reciting to sip water or take a bite, and continue reciting, I hardly know where to look. My solitude is absolute; I do not want to return the people's stares. I look down at the shadows of bones and veins in my hands, and at the scuffs in the wooden desk on which they rest. I notice the glimmers of shiny metal that dapple the display cases. On a cheek, here and there, I cannot help noticing, tears.\n\nPerhaps the experience has taken the audience by surprise. No one has told them that they will find the number tangible, moving. Yet they succumb gladly to its flow.\n\nI am not the first person to recite the number pi in public. I know there are a few \"number artists\"\u2014men who recount numbers as actors recall their scripts. Japan is the center of this tiny community. In Japanese, spoken digits can sound like whole sentences; pronounced a certain way, the opening digits of pi, 3.14159265, mean \"An obstetrician goes to a foreign country.\" The digits 4649 (which occur in pi after 1,158 decimal places) sound just like \"nice to meet you,\" while a Japanese speaker pronouncing the digits 3923 (which occur after 14,194 decimal places) simultaneously says, \"Thank you, brother.\"\n\nOf course, such verbal constructions always suffer from arbitrariness. The short, stiff phrases stand apart, with only the speaker's ingenuity to splice them together. Japanese spectators, I have heard, watch these men perform as they might watch a tightrope walker; listening only in case of a blunder, as others watch only in case of a fall.\n\nThe relationship these artists have with numbers is complicated. Many years of repetitive learning hone their technique; but they also produce a nagging feeling of duplicity: repeated numbers (and words) often finish by losing all their sense. It is not uncommon, after each public display, for the performer to impose a monthslong fast of every digit. Benumbed by numbers, even a price tag, a barcode, an address, sickens him.\n\nIn the number artist's brain, pi can be reduced to a series of phrases. In my mind, it is I, not the number, who grows small. I diminish myself as much as possible before the mystery of pi. Emptying myself, I perceive every digit up close. I do not wish to fragment the number; I am not interested in breaking it up. I am interested in the dialogue between its digits; in the unity and continuity that underlie them all.\n\nA bell cannot tell time, but it can be moved in just such a way as to say twelve o'clock\u2014similarly, a man cannot calculate infinite numbers, but he can be moved in just such a way as to say pi.\n\n\"Three, one, two, one, two, three, two, two, three, three, one...\"\n\nReciting, I try to summon up a true picture of what I see and feel. I want to convey the shapes, and colors, and emotions that I experience, to everyone in the hall. I share my solitude with those who watch and listen to me. There is intimacy in my words.\n\nA third hour comes and goes; the recitation enters its fourth hour.\n\nMore than sixteen thousand decimal places have escaped my lips. Their swelling company presses me on. But exhaustion also grows within my body, and all of a sudden my mind goes blank. I feel the blood falling out of my head. Up until only a few moments ago the digits had accompanied me; now they make themselves scarce.\n\nIn my mind's eye, ten identical-looking paths stretch out before me; each path leading on to ten more. One hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, a million paths, beckon me out of the impasse. They stream in every possible direction. Which way to go? I have no idea.\n\nBut I do not panic. What good did panicking ever do anyone? I shut my eyes tight, and coaxingly rub the skin around my temples. I take a deep breath.\n\nGreen-tinted blackness pervades my mind. I feel disoriented, lost. A filmy white surfaces over the black, only to be recovered by a rolling gray-purple. The colors bulge and vibrate but resemble nothing.\n\nHow long did these maddening misty colors last? Seconds, but they each seemed agonizingly longer.\n\nThe seconds pass indifferently; I have no choice but to endure them. If I lose my cool, all is finished. If I call out, the clock comes to a halt. If I do not give the next digit in the next few moments, my time will be up.\n\nNo wonder the next digit, when finally I release it, tastes even sweeter than the rest. This digit requires all my force and all my faith to extract it. The mist in my head lifts, and I open my eyes. I can see again.\n\nThe digits flow fleet and sure, and I regain my composure. I wonder if anyone in the hall noticed a thing.\n\n\"Nine, nine, nine, nine, two, one, two, eight, five, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, three, nine, nine...\"\n\nQuickly, quickly, I must keep going. I must not let up. I cannot linger, not even before the most outstanding glimpses of the number's beauty; the joy I feel is subordinate to the need to reach my goal and recite the final digit in my mind. I must not disappoint all who are standing here, watching me and listening to me, waiting for me to bring the recitation to its fitting conclusion. All the preceding thousands have no value in themselves: only once I have wrapped everything up can they successfully count.\n\nFive hours have now elapsed. My speech begins to slur; I am drunk on exhaustion. The end is in sight, but it generates fear: am I up to it? What if I fall short? Tension stirs me for this culminating burst.\n\nAnd then, minutes later, I say, \"Six, seven, six, five, seven, four, eight, six, nine, five, three, five, eight, seven,\" and it is over. There is nothing more to say. I have finished recounting my solitude. It is enough.\n\nPalms come together; hands clap. Someone lets out a cheer. \"A new record,\" someone else says: 22,514 decimal places. \"Congratulations.\"\n\nI take a bow.\n\nFor five hours and nine minutes, eternity visited a museum in Oxford.\n\n# Fifteen\n\n# EINSTEIN'S EQUATIONS\n\nSpeaking about his father, Hans Albert Einstein once said, \"He had a character more like that of an artist than of a scientist as we usually think of them. For instance, the highest praise for a good theory or a good piece of work was not that it was correct nor that it was exact but that it was beautiful.\" Numerous other acquaintances also remarked on Einstein's belief in the primacy of the aesthetic, including the physicist Hermann Bondi, who once showed him some of his work in unified field theory. \"Oh, how ugly,\" Einstein replied.\n\nIt is a mostly thankless task to try to assign to mathematicians some universal trait. Einstein's famous predilection for beauty offers one rare exception. Mathematicians can be tall or short, worldly or remote, bookworms or book burners, multilingual or monosyllabic, tone-deaf or musically gifted, devout or irreligious, hermit or activist, but virtually all would agree with the Hungarian mathematician Paul Erd\u00f6s when he said, \"I know numbers are beautiful. If they are not beautiful, nothing is.\"\n\nEinstein was a physicist, yet his equations inspired the interest and admiration of many mathematicians. His theory of relativity drew their praise for combining great elegance with economy. In a handful of succinct formulas, every symbol and every number obtaining its perfect weight, Newtonian time and space were recast.\n\nBooks on popular mathematics abound with discursive explanations of technical proofs to illustrate their beauty. I cannot help but wonder if this might not be a mistake. I suspect that, more usually, what we laymen really admire in the work of a Euclid or an Einstein is its ingenuity, rather than its beauty. We are impressed, and yet unmoved by them.\n\nThe barrier to an appreciation of mathematical beauty is not insurmountable, however. I would like to suggest a more indirect approach. At a remove from the technical acumen of a theorist, my suggestion is more intuitive. The beauty adored by mathematicians can be pursued through the everyday: games, and music, and magic.\n\nTake the game of cricket, which was the frequent inspiration for G. H. Hardy\u2014a major number theorist and the author of _A Mathematician's Apology\u2014_ who scoured the newspaper for cricket scores over breakfast every morning. In the afternoon, after some hours at his desk, he would furl his theorems and transport them in his pockets (in case of rain) to see a local match. Among his papers he sketched the following cricket \"dream team\":\n\n> Hobbs\n> \n> Archimedes\n> \n> Shakespeare\n> \n> M Angelo\n> \n> Napoleon (Capt)\n> \n> H Ford\n> \n> Plato\n> \n> Beethoven\n> \n> Johnson (Jack)\n> \n> Christ (J)\n> \n> Cleopatra\n\nCricket matches presented Hardy the spectator with the same \"useless beauty\" that he so cherished in his theorems. By useless, he meant only that neither had any goal beyond the pursuit for its own sake. He would also frequently stand at the stumps himself, surrounded by the other team's fielders, watching the red ball expand as it flew toward his bat. Both experiences seemed to stimulate his mathematical antennae for order, pattern, and proportion.\n\nTime elapses differently on a cricket ground or in a concert hall. At its best, a well-executed, smooth-flowing cricket match can replicate the sense of harmony that we most often associate with music. The tension mounts and falls tidally, like the notes in a song. A five-day match is adept at slackening and pulling tight the outline of its hours, while every musical composition bears its own time within the structure of its notes. The unique tempo is also a part of the experience of mathematical beauty.\n\nGottfried Leibniz wrote that music's pleasure consisted of \"unconscious counting\" or an \"arithmetical exercise of which we are unaware.\" The great philosopher-mathematician meant, I suppose, that the numerical ratios that underlie all music are grasped intuitively by our minds. Every instant the listener mentally resolves the relation between the various notes\u2014the fourths and fifths and octaves\u2014as though they were objects all laid out before him side by side in some gigantic illustration. This \"grasping\" of the music\u2014however fleeting\u2014is something we can all experience as beautiful.\n\nOn the relationship between musical and mathematical beauty, we can learn more from writings about Pythagoras. It is said that he possessed a musician's ear. From boyhood, he showed a flair for the lyre. Perhaps he first heard its seven strings played by a traveling _citharede,_ a female performer dressed in long curls and bright colors; the _citharede_ s were the divas of their day.\n\nPythagoras discovered that the most harmonious notes result from the ratios of whole numbers. A vibrating string exactly halved or doubled, for example, produces an octave (ratio 1:2 or 2:1). If precisely one-third of the string is held down, or when the string is tripled in length, a perfect fifth (an octave higher) results. A perfect fourth can be obtained by holding down one-quarter of the string, or stretching it out four times longer. The whole harmonic scale was constructed in this way. Pythagoras observed that all of music depended on the first four numbers and their interrelations. He worshiped ten as the most perfect number, reflecting the unity of all things, it being the sum of one and two and three and four.\n\nAccording to Hippolytus, one of the great theologians of the Early Church, Pythagoras taught that the cosmos sang and was composed of music and \"he was the first to put down the movement of the seven stars to rhythm and melody.\" He even attempted to reproduce this soothing universal music for his disciples, rousing them in the morning to the sound of his lyre. In the evening, too, he would play for their benefit, \"in case too turbulent thoughts might still inhabit them.\"\n\nFrom Pythagoras's lyre it is an easy hop to Einstein's violin. \"If I were not a physicist,\" he once told an interviewer, \"I would probably be a musician. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. I get most of my joy in life out of music.\" His violin case accompanied him on many trips, but Einstein played with discretion and few reliable reports of his musical ability survive. It appears that his amateur technique was respectable, if somewhat limited. Though there may be an affinity between the laws of math and music, they cannot be conflated. Even prodigious mathematical gifts such as Einstein's did not translate into exceptional musicianship, but they certainly sharpened and reinforced his appreciation.\n\nIf math is the secret underpinning the harmonies of cricket and music, mathematical beauty is also key to feats of magic. Ever since I was a small child, playing cards that swap places, white handkerchiefs that take wing, and top hats that turn into rabbit holes have fascinated me. The visions touch some nerve deep inside.\n\nOne evening several years ago I attended the London performance of a young conjuror, who was playing to a full house. I was seated in one of the middle aisles, in a sea of heads, next to a rather elderly gentleman whose stomach sat on his lap. From this distance I had a good view of the stage. A blend of high technology spotlights and music hall gloom favored illusion.\n\nPeople come to magic shows for all sorts of reasons: some for the theatrics, others for the performer's comedy, and some (like my neighbor), it would seem, to cough. The main draw for me, though, is an experience of the unexpected. It is this that gives a conjuror's performance its peculiar beauty, a beauty akin to a well-turned equation.\n\nI am not talking here about the end result, the \"effect,\" of a trick. I am talking about the method. Every mind-read drawing or woman sawn in half looks pretty much alike, whereas the hidden ideas that make each possible can vary as much as their performers. Dozens, if not hundreds, of ways exist to levitate a spoon or make the Statue of Liberty vanish, in the same manner that numerous hundred people (not all of them professional mathematicians) have shown that the square of a right-angled triangle's hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides. But few of these theoretical demonstrations, or magical methods, would be considered up to Einstein's test of beauty. The truly beautiful are those that foster surprise.\n\nA genuine experience of the unexpected, in math as much as in magic, demands of its performer at once originality of insight and a lightness of touch. Even a single step too many in a method renders ugly and clumsy the theorem or the trick.\n\nIt is sometimes said that a magician will go to great pains to conceal his workings from the public. The reality is that only a poor method requires such attention; a fine one, by its beauty, conceals itself. We might call this rule the coquetry of good technique.\n\nOne part of the magic performance from that evening in London well illustrates this point. A shy-looking woman from the audience was invited up onto the stage. At its center, on a pedestal, stood a glass bowl containing large multicolored buttons. The buttons, we were told, totaled one hundred in all. Following instructions, the woman dipped her hands into the bowl, netting as many of the buttons as she wished. Unclenching her fingers, she next poured the buttons onto a tray and covered them with a tea towel. The magician approached the tray, peeked under the towel for all of two seconds, and then turned to the public.\n\n\"Seventy-four,\" he declaimed.\n\nThe woman duly proceeded to count the scattered buttons on the tray, one by one. It took quite some time. After a minute or so, she prodded the final button and the expression of her face lengthened. There were precisely seventy-four buttons on the tray. Gasps popped around my ears, followed immediately by a brisk weather front of applause. The \"counting buttons\" trick was a highlight of the show.\n\nI imagine some people applauded the magician for mental powers that flirted with the supernatural. To recognize seventy-four items (and not mistake them for seventy-three, or seventy-five) in the space of two seconds is, it must be said, quite something. Neurologists tell us that the human brain \"subitizes\" (counts at a glance) no better than in fours or fives. This figure remains constant across all categories of people, irrespective of training or synaptic quirks\u2014neither mathematicians nor autistic savants exceed it. In two seconds, even the most practiced eye can enumerate only eight or ten, and no higher.\n\nThe explanation of divination did not cross my mind; even admitting that it was possible (which I do not), it would have felt somewhat disappointing. A laborious counting of every button, even if accomplished at the most remarkable clip, would be totally lacking in finesse or beauty. I groped with my imagination for the magician's insight.\n\nHow might a person count some (relatively) large quantity in no time at all? This question stayed with me that night as I tossed and turned in bed, finally to sleep. In my dreams the gleaming transparent globe and its outsize buttons and the shy woman holding the tray all returned to me. I looked and looked but failed to see.\n\nEarly in the morning I woke to a beautiful sensation of absolute clarity. The night had seemingly done its work. Now every moment of the magician's trick, from beginning to end, made perfect sense. Had I unveiled the trick's machinery? I could not say for sure. In its simplicity and economy the solution felt inevitable, but I have no idea whether it was in fact the magician's or merely my own. In any event my mood that morning was immediately elevated. I wanted, like Archimedes in his bath, to leap and cry, \"Eureka!\" Quite possibly I did. I felt like a mathematician who receives the sudden, shocking ecstasy of a proof.\n\nOf the school of nocturnal thoughts that swam anonymously through my brain, one image had stuck. It was a modest household object that I used every day: my kitchen scale. Now to the question \"how might a person count some large quantity in no time at all?\" came at once the delicious answer: weigh it! What if the identical buttons weighed exactly one gram each? And what if the glass bowl's pedestal concealed a weighing scale? When the woman lifted seventy-four buttons from the bowl, the reading (displayed backstage) would fall instantly from \"100\" to \"26.\" This number, via an earpiece or some prearranged signal, could then be relayed to the performer. That the math involved might be the simplest of simple subtractions only accentuates the solution's charm.\n\nThis pure beauty that we call mathematical, and that we find in games, music, and magic tricks, is something like a rumor or a longing that lingers in the person, hinting at significance and depth. We go back to it time and time over: it is beautiful, because it stays. It is we who change.\n\nProblems, in magic or mathematics, are wonderful things. Without problems, we would have no proofs, and the shimmering pleasure of elucidation is a thing of beauty. Einstein's equations possessed this special quality in abundance, of course. E = mc\u00b2 (energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared) answered riddles\u2014such as the behavior of light\u2014that most other scientists had not even seen.\n\nI have spoken about mathematical beauty with hardly any reference to numbers, but, of course, numerical problems also provide many instances of beauty. A personal example, from arithmetic, is the multiplication 473 \u00d7 911. The solution\u2014430,903\u2014may at first sight appear merely banal. Its repeating threes and zeroes, however, reversed as in a mirror, hint at some attractive pattern lurking beneath. And so we begin to loiter around the answer. With a closer look, we might observe the relationship: 903 \u2212 430 = 473. If now we modify the original question slightly, 473 \u00d7 910, simplifying the sum, we reach the answer: 430,430. And we ask ourselves: how is this possible? Again we return to the original problem and dissect its numbers. 473 equals 43 \u00d7 11. The number 910 comprises 7 \u00d7 13 \u00d7 10. We toy with these smaller constituents, until at last we discover that our original sum equates to (430 \u00d7 1001) + (43 \u00d7 11).\n\nA further illustration of this numerical beauty can be found within the primes. The number 75,007 (as it happens, a rather chic Parisian postcode) poses the problem of whether any smaller number evenly divides it. In other words, is the number 75,007 prime? Deceptively simple to formulate, this question proves to be treacherously difficult to answer. As with the sum above, we must grapple with the number until its secret finally yields.\n\nWe begin by assuming (the odds are on our side) that the number 75,007 is composite\u2014that some smaller numbers exist that will cleanly divide it. Not an even number, it cannot be divisible by 2 (the smallest prime). The number 75, we note, divides into 3 and 5 (the next primes), but not when followed by two zeroes and a seven. We might think of 75,007 as a house on a very lengthy street, and observe that, sixty-eight doors down, number 75,075 patently divides by 1,001 (and therefore, by 7 and 11 and 13). But 68 can be split only into two and then a further two to leave seventeen.\n\nImagine the mathematician, pencil in hand, attempting to winkle out the number's factors. The insight resists him; he wonders whether it will ever come. He abandons his desk, pacing the floor, and he marches along the mental street and its numbered houses. And then, all of a sudden, the dizzying thought strikes him: 75,007 can be expressed as 74,900 + 107, or (10,700 \u00d7 7) + 107, or more precisely still (107 \u00d7 100 \u00d7 7) + 107. His blood leaps with joy to recognize the repeated factor: 107. On a crisp sheet of paper, he writes: 75,007 = 107 \u00d7 701.\n\nHuman beings' quest for meaning is perpetual; lack of meaning is offensive to the mind, and whatever the scale of the problem, a solution is a thing of beauty. Einstein's equations solved problems such as \"What do we mean by the words 'time' and 'mass'?\" A mathematician could tell us that the number 75,007 means to travel from 0 to 107, and then repeat the same distance successively 701 times. Other meanings, like those found in music or cricket, while more intimate and inexpressible, can prove just as powerful. Where chaos is subdued and the arbitrary averted, there lies beauty, and it is all around us.\n\nI recall an afternoon I once spent at a summerhouse belonging to friends. We had just returned, tired and hungry, from a long hike among the encircling hills. One of my friends switched on a little radio. We sat here and there around the living room, with views out to the sea, half listening and half talking. The broadcaster was reading out the week's letters sent in by listeners to the program. Among their litany of compliments and complaints, he recited a short puzzle sent in by a longtime listener in the north.\n\n\"A remarkable species of water lily doubles in size every day. If the lily covers an entire lake in a period of 30 days, after how many days will it cover half of the lake?\"\n\nOur various discussions slowed, then continued as before. Someone switched off the radio. The face of the friend opposite me gradually darkened, and her replies became wayward and staccato. Other voices took up the slack. It seemed no one else had taken the problem of the lily to heart.\n\nMinutes passed. My friend cast sidelong glances at the walls and the windows and the flower-lit hills they framed. Her blue eyes narrowed to a squint. Kitchen noises filled the house, followed by the chattering distribution of hot teacups, exhaling steam. Her untouched drink trembled when she struck the table absentmindedly with her shin.\n\nAnd then I saw it. Suddenly, her features shone. \"Twenty-nine,\" she said, with a broad smile. If the lily doubles every day, it will also halve every day when we track its history. With a size of 1 (for \"one lake\") after 30 days, it had a size of 0.5 after 29 days, 0.25 after 28 days, 0.125 after 27 days, and so on.\n\nThe moment had surprised her, she said. It had come right out of the blue. In this moment, I saw my friend behold the astonishing beauty of mathematics.\n\n# Sixteen\n\n# A NOVELIST'S CALCULUS\n\nThe history of the world, Tolstoy said, is the history of little people. Leo Nikolayevich himself, though, was a giant of a man. Just shy of six feet, he was taller than most of his contemporaries. Stronger, too. He could lift 180 pounds with a single hand. He dressed his muscles plainly, in a peasant's smock, with a belt that cinched the small of his back. His ego-enhancing arguments were just as sturdy. Always resistant to the thinking of his day, he denounced historians as hero worshipers. In _War and Peace,_ over one thousand pages long, he launched his most sustained attack. His primary weapon was drawn from mathematics.\n\nCalculus was by no means a novel idea in Tolstoy's time. Its \"inventors,\" Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, in the late seventeenth century, were refining theories that had been in development since the time of the ancient Greeks. As geometers study shape, the student of calculus examines change: the mathematics of how an object transforms from one state into another, as when describing the motion of a ball or bullet through space, is rendered pictorial in its graphs' curves. In these curves, smooth and subtle, girding the infinitesimal movements behind every human life, Tolstoy thought he saw the blindness of contemporary historians.\n\nAlongside formidable intellectual powers, he certainly had a head for exotic ideas. I think of the wackier pronouncements: the dismissal of Shakespeare as a lousy poet, of Darwinism as a transient fad, of marriage as legalized fornication. Like Thomas Jefferson, he took a pair of scissors to the New Testament, trimming its pages of every one of its miracles. His cult of simplicity (as G. K. Chesterton later called it) welcomed flocks of disciples to his estate: men and women, young and old, dressed in bedsheets and bark sandals, who followed his every step and hung on his every word. But more ambitious, more inventive, and more subversive than any of these was the novelist's view of history itself as a kind of calculus.\n\nWe find this view studded throughout the pages of _War and Peace,_ in those portions that resemble the tight and intense arguments of a pamphleteer. It so happens that they are the same parts that most modern readers tend, perhaps understandably, to skip. But this less diligent reader misses a crucial bedrock of Tolstoy's work.\n\n> The movement of humanity, arising as it does from innumerable arbitrary human wills, is continuous. To understand the laws of this continuous movement is the aim of history... only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation... and attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history.\n\nCalculus, which Tolstoy defined as \"a modern branch of mathematics having achieved the art of dealing with the infinitely small,\" offered him a vocabulary in which to voice his disagreement with many historians. He denounced their lamentable tendency to simplify. The experts stumble onto a battlefield, into a parliament or a public square, and demand, \"Where is he? Where is he?\" \"Where is who?\" \"The hero, of course! The leader, the creator, the great man!\" And having found him, they promptly ignore all his peers and troops and advisers. They close their eyes and abstract their Napoleon from the mud and the smoke and the masses on either side, and marvel at how such a figure could possibly have prevailed in so many battles and commanded the destiny of an entire continent. \"There was an eye to see in this man,\" wrote Thomas Carlyle about Napoleon in 1840, \"a soul to dare and do. He rose naturally to be the King. All men saw that he was such.\"\n\nBut Tolstoy saw differently. \"Kings are the slaves of history,\" he declared. \"The unconscious swarmlike life of mankind uses every moment of a king's life as an instrument for its purposes.\" Kings and commanders and presidents did not interest Tolstoy. History, his history, looks elsewhere: it is the study of infinitely incremental, imperceptible change from one state of being (peace) to another (war).\n\nThe experts claimed that the decisions of exceptional men could explain all of history's great events. For the novelist, this belief was evidence of their failure to grasp the reality of an incremental change brought about by the multitude's infinitely small actions. Out of a need to theorize, to locate \"causes,\" the historian privileges one series of events and examines it apart from all the others. Why, all of a sudden, had Napoleonic France and Tsarist Russia rushed to war? What drove millions of men, men who licked their plates and read stories to their sons and worried about their looks, to suddenly thieve and crush and slaughter one another? Napoleon overreached, a victim of his own pride and mania, says one expert. He let himself go, growing fat and moody. With successive battle victories under his belt, he fell inevitably to thinking himself invincible. No, no, says another historian, you forget how weak and high-strung was the Tsar Alexander. Such weakness certainly invited a military strike. The long-standing economic embargoes in Europe, suggests a third, led to strained relations between the different peoples. A fourth points out that hundreds of thousands of soldiers obtained gainful employment. Napoleon himself, near the end of his life, is said to have put the war down to the intrigues of the British.\n\nNaturally, not all these \"causes\" can be right, and some are even mutually contradictory. Either Napoleon's decision to invade Russia was impetuous and instinctive, or else it was carefully calculated (against Russian weakness) and deliberate (to keep his forces busy). Either Russian weakness impelled the attention of France's army, or else Napoleon's mania invented such weakness for its own purpose. Either the war resulted from French initiative, or from British interference.\n\nAs a Briton who lives in France, I see how each nation selects its own causes, and edits them convincingly into its own version of history. In Britain, Napoleon's name is synonymous with tyranny and a small comic man's delusions of grandeur. In France, _au contraire,_ he is a revolutionary who stood up for the new Republic against the hostile monarchies of Europe. The puffed-up Napoleon with \"small white hands,\" as depicted by Tolstoy, is, of course, a Napoleon from the Russian perspective.\n\nThis third Napoleon, as conceived by Tolstoy, had at least one cardinal virtue: he knew to keep out of the way of his soldiers, not to tread on anyone's boots, to give a fair impersonation of someone who is in command. It is the soldiers who shoot, and stab, and cough, and groan and bleed. They constituted the vast majority of the French emperor's army, but they issued not a single command. The commands came from the officers above the soldiers, who took them in turn from the generals above the officers, who took them from the commander-in-chief above the generals. The most important commands always come from those who participate least in the physical action. Consequently, most of these commands, thousands of them, not corresponding to conditions \"on the ground\" at the moment and in the place that they finally filtered down to the troops, were never executed. They did not coincide with the reality of circumstances that remained beyond the chief's control. As far as Tolstoy is concerned, then, to say that Napoleon invaded Russia is only to say that a few of his commands, out of the thousands that came to nothing, coincided with certain broader events between the peoples of France and Russia in the year of 1812.\n\nWhat were these broader events \"on the ground\"? As the novel's calculus analogy suggests, they were innumerable, infinitesimal. At a given moment, in a given place, the wishes and desires and intentions of hundreds and thousands of people temporarily coalesced. Tolstoy illustrates such a moment in the life of a backwoods Russian region.\n\n> In the vicinity of Bogucharovo were large villages belonging to the crown or to owners whose serfs... could work where they pleased... In the lives of the peasantry of those parts the mysterious undercurrents in the life of the Russian people, the causes and meaning of which are so baffling to contemporaries, were more clearly and strongly noticeable than among others. One instance, which had occurred some twenty years before, was a movement among the peasants to emigrate to some unknown \"warm rivers.\" Hundreds of peasants... suddenly began selling their cattle and moving in whole families toward the southeast. As birds migrate to somewhere beyond the sea, so these men with their wives and children streamed to the southeast, to parts where none of them had ever been. They set off in caravans, bought their freedom one by one or ran away, and drove or walked toward the \"warm rivers.\" Many of them were punished, some sent to Siberia, many died of cold and hunger on the road, many returned of their own accord, and the movement died down of itself just as it had sprung up, without apparent reason. But such undercurrents still existed among the people and gathered new forces ready to manifest themselves just as strangely, unexpectedly, and at the same time simply, naturally, and forcibly. Now in 1812, to anyone living in close touch with these people it was apparent that these undercurrents were acting strongly and nearing an eruption.\n\nContemporary historians, to believe Tolstoy, took no notice of these \"undercurrents\" in the life of a people. They failed to see the ocean of history for the waves. Aware only of the tides they called \"causes,\" they ignored the vast depths from which these ripples emerge. A man called Napoleon has an impetuous character; six months later Moscow is under siege. The historian looks at these two situations and asserts a link: namely, that hundreds of thousands of Muscovites fled their homes, and whole battalions of soldiers lost their lives, because of the impetuousness of this single man called Napoleon. Or, the historian notices that in, say, Liverpool and London there occurred local riots caused by a shortage of bread and that within a year Russian troop masses were fending off the French. Entire theories, each more elaborate and ingenious than the next, are spun in order to thread the rowdy fisticuffs in these English cities with the subsequent slashing and burning and murdering at Borodino.\n\nI have, admittedly, offered only gross approximations of these historical theories, and of course they are often far more complex, discerning many separate causes\u2014one cause after another\u2014of a war. The temperament of a man called Napoleon is only one cause, they say, and the bread shortage in a city like Liverpool another. Often they will find a third, and perhaps a fourth or fifth, cause to supplement the first and second. All the same, Tolstoy's chief objection remains. Historians tend by their very nature to adopt a flawed approach, he argued, because a mass conflict can no more be reduced to a handful of causes than can a ship's course be reduced to a few waves. Between a French port and a Russian port lie innumerable points in the sea: why label the fifteen thousand four hundred and third point, say, or the seventy-one thousand nine hundred and sixty-eighth point, as being ultimately responsible for the ship's arrival?\n\nAn equivalent mistake would be to inquire of an age-beaten man, in which hour of your life was the blow delivered? Which blow? Why, the blow that loosened your teeth, and broke your bones, and thrashed your skin. Of course, there is no sense in such a question. The flow of time erodes patiently, continuously. What, then, could our elderly man say by way of a reply? He might recall that during a particularly hot summer night in 1968 he rolled out of bed and broke a shin. Perhaps he would smell once more the harsh carbolic soap with which, as a child growing up in the 1940s, he scrubbed his face. A game with his grandson in 1997 might come to his mind, in which a hard rubber ball accidentally struck his jaw. But none of these events, not less in combination, could truly help us to understand the elderly man's present condition.\n\nChange appears to us mysterious because it is invisible. It is impossible to see a tree grow tall or a man grow old, except with the precarious imagination of hindsight. A tree is small, and later it is tall. A man is young, and later he is old. A people are at peace, and later they are at war. In each case, the intermediate states are at once infinitely many and infinitely complex, which is why they exceed our finite perceptions.\n\nEven a dramatic change can thus be accomplished without our knowledge. A friend once related to me the following illustrative tale. A friend of my friend inherited a house in southern Europe. This house contained many fine pieces of furniture and works of art. Every summer, she flew to Europe and lived for several months in the house among these objects. She sat on the same cushions, walked past the same paintings, and heard the same ticking of the grandfather clock. The house's upkeep she entrusted to a small and loyal staff, so that its rooms were always cleaned and polished and in good repair whenever she came through the door. And then one day, several summers following her inheritance, her kid sister came to stay. The sister felt excited; she had heard many good things about the house and was longing to see it. But this feeling quickly gave way first to curiosity, then to confusion, and finally to astonishment. A distinguished-looking chair in the hall, upon closer inspection, revealed itself to be cheap and rickety. Removed from its frame, the painting that hung above the fireplace flapped poster-thin. The marble-colored statuette in the guest bedroom gave off the unmistakable whiff of plastic. Fakes! Frantically, the sisters raced from room to room, until the whole place was left upside down. Every chair, every vase, every painting, virtually everything in the house\u2014over one hundred items\u2014unbeknownst to this woman, had been meticulously replaced. Little by little, piece by piece, a wily member of the staff had stolen the house away from under her nose.\n\nSometimes, revolutions turn over a country in the same way that this staff member turned over the house. Imperceptibly, dissidence grows across a land long before the dictator calls out his tanks. And as recent events in the Arab world remind us, nobody predicts a revolution before it happens and nobody controls it once it is under way. \"Why war and revolution occur we do not know,\" affirms Tolstoy. \"We only know that to produce the one or the other action, people combine in a certain formation in which they all take part.\" Hearing the sudden drumbeat of shoes, the roar of voices, the upturned faces flushed with anger, the almighty, most wise, and beneficent ruler does not comprehend. In his incomprehension, he asks the same question that many of his fellow dictators end up asking themselves: from where did they come? All these people with their fists and their voices. He shakes his head in disbelief. And yet, the answer is simple because only one answer is possible. Simply put, the people were always there: on the streets, in the mosques, in the bazaars. Only now, this distributed mass of people suddenly and noisily combines. Only now do the man without work, and the woman without dignity, and the teenager without anything to eat make themselves seen and heard.\n\nWhat is the power that moves peoples? Not the power of rulers, says Tolstoy, or for that matter the power of ideas. It is ineffable, invisible.\n\n> History seems to assume that this force is self-evident and known to everyone. But in spite of every desire to regard it as known, anyone reading many historical works cannot help doubting whether this force, so variously understood by the historians themselves, is really quite well known to everybody.\n\nThis force is the Human Life in which every person\u2014from the lowly peasant Karataev to the emperor Napoleon\u2014participates. It is the \"hidden warmth\" of patriotism experienced by the Muscovites when suddenly confronted with the dramatic threat of foreign invasion. It is the \"chemical decomposition\" of the fleeing mass of French soldiers once their goal (the head-on confrontation in Moscow with an appointed \"enemy\") becomes unattainable. It is the \"force of habit,\" during a salon conversation, which makes Prince Vasili Kuragin say \"things he did not even wish to be believed.\"\n\nRather than assign various degrees of responsibility to this cause or that, Tolstoy proposes that historians pay far greater attention to this force. Moscow's conflagration, which the historians variously explain as a defensive tactic of the Russians (the so-called scorched-earth policy) or the wild vengeance of the invading French, becomes explicable in other terms.\n\n> Moscow was burned because it found itself in a position in which any town built of wood was bound to burn.... A town built of wood, where scarcely a day passes without conflagrations when the house owners are in residence and a police force is present, cannot help burning when its inhabitants have left it and it is occupied by soldiers who smoke pipes, make campfires of the Senate chairs in the Senate Square, and cook themselves meals twice a day.\n\nReaders were shocked by these arguments when the book first appeared (over several editions) in the 1860s. Turgenev denounced the historical reflections as \"charlatanism\" and \"puppet comedy,\" while Flaubert found them merely repetitive. The historian A. S. Norov entitled his review of the book \"Tolstoy's Falsification of History.\" Another historian, Kareev, complained that the novelist wanted to abolish history altogether. When, one and a half centuries later in the year 2000, a Russian publisher edited and released an early draft of the book, it boasted about the lack of all these troublesome elements. \"Half the usual length. Less war and more peace. No philosophical digressions or incomprehensible French. A happy ending.\"\n\nMathematicians, on the other hand, have proved considerably more receptive. Tolstoy's mathematician friend, Urusov, expressed his delight at the analogy with calculus. And more recently, in a 2005 article for the Mathematical Association of America, Stephen T. Ahearn praised Tolstoy's mathematical metaphors as being both \"rich\" and \"deep\" and encouraged math teachers to use them in their classrooms.\n\nWhat, then, might we conclude? Should we even conclude? After all, if Tolstoy is right, his book\u2014like any event in time\u2014cannot be understood with prior assumptions, rules, and theories. Everything has its moment, its context. Earlier, in one state, you began this essay, and now later on, you finish it in another. What do you think? I cannot tell you. In everyone and everything, the process of change always asserts its own meaning.\n\n# Seventeen\n\n# BOOK OF BOOKS\n\nI have walked in my sleep, and talked in my sleep, but I have never written in my sleep. The Icelandic author Gyr\u00f0ir El\u00edasson's short story _\"N\u00e6turskriftir\"_ (\"Nightwriting\") depicts a character whose writer's block suddenly disappears once the lights go out. In a notebook lifted from his bedside table, he begins to write down words, sentences, and even whole stories while he dreams.\n\n> The days passed by all the same; he could not write... but at night he wrote; nearly every night... his wife knew not to wake a sleepwriter, so she lay [in the bed] and watched the expression of his back, how he wrote with amazing confidence with the notebook on his knees. (My translation).\n\nSomething about El\u00edasson's tale touches a chord in me. I think it has to do with confronting the infinity that is every written and unwritten book, including the \"Book of Life\": the infinitely many potential combinations that comprise our days. How does the author select the right word, the right phrase, the right image from among the countless conceivable possibilities? How does each person imagine a new existence; reconfigure the choices that make up another destiny?\n\nSleep on it. Why not? Our dreams contain the infinite. Uninhibited by wakefulness, words and pictures and emotions circulate and combine freely inside our head. Across the centuries, the Unconscious mind has authored some of the greatest works in literature: Goethe and Coleridge are only two of its pseudonyms.\n\nDreams defy our finite scrutiny; too often they evaporate in the narrow light of day. We are left upon waking only with sweet hints of rain and distant echoes of a song, a nose here, a smile there, some tremor of sadness or flicker of joy, a suggestive and beguiling void. Like a book, like a life, where does the explanation start? A dream has no beginning, and therefore no middle and no end.\n\nI dreamed I entered a house and found its inhabitants all lying on the floor. Lying, but talking and laughing and eating together. Lying instead of sitting. It was like a scene from a book that I had not read and that had not been written. How many such scenes are there to occupy our dreams, our lives, the pages of a book? Infinitely many.\n\nLike El\u00edasson's sleepwriter, Anton Chekhov faithfully nurtured a little notebook throughout his remarkable career, though we can suppose that he used his mostly during waking hours. Filled with his day-to-day observations of existence's minutiae, the pages preserve glimpses of \"ordinary\" life's infinite permutations.\n\n\"Instead of sheets\u2014dirty tablecloths.\"\n\n\"In the bill preserved by the hotelkeeper was, among other things: 'Bugs\u2014fifteen _kopecks._ ' \"\n\n\"If you wish women to love you, be original; I know a man who used to wear felt boots summer and winter, and women fell in love with him.\"\n\nThis endless variety inspired many of Chekhov's tales. In \"The Lottery Ticket,\" a middle-class couple envisage the potential lives that would follow a jackpot.\n\n> The possibility of winning bewildered them.... \"And if we have won,\" he said, \"why it will be a new life, it will be a transformation!\"... Pictures came crowding on his imagination, each more gracious and poetical than the last. And in all these pictures he saw himself well fed, serene, healthy, felt warm, even hot!... \"Yes, it would be nice to buy an estate,\" said his wife, also dreaming.... Ivan Dmitritch stopped and looked at his wife. \"I should go abroad you know, Masha,\" he said. And he began thinking how nice it would be in late autumn to go abroad somewhere to the south of France, to Italy, to India!\n\nWriting half a century after his fellow countryman, another precocious note taker, Vladimir Nabokov, composed his novels in two alphabets and three languages (Russian, French, and English). From a blank vivid room, anagrams, puns, and neologisms spilled out. He compared composing a story with fitting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.\n\n> Reality is a very subjective affair.... You can get nearer and nearer, so to speak, to reality; but you never get near enough because reality is an infinite succession of steps, levels of perception, false bottoms, and hence unquenchable, unattainable. You can know more and more about one thing but you can never know everything about one thing: it's hopeless.\n\nLike a jigsaw puzzle, like a dream, Nabokov's novels emerged nonlinearly; he often wrote the middle of a story last. Chapter 8 of a draft manuscript might appear long before chapter 7 or chapter 3. He would frequently write a new story backward, starting out from its final lines.\n\n_Lolita,_ Nabokov's most famous (and infamous) novel, began life on a long series of three-by-five-inch index cards. He sketched out the story's closing scenes first. On subsequent cards Nabokov jotted down not only paragraphs of text but also plot ideas and other bits of information; on one, a chart of statistics on the average height and weight of young girls; on another, a list of jukebox songs; on a third, an illustration of a revolver.\n\nEvery so often Nabokov would rearrange his index cards, searching for the most promising combination of scenes. The number of possible permutations would have been immense. Three of Nabokov's cards can be rearranged in a total of six different ways\u2014(1, 2, 3), (1, 3, 2), (2, 1, 3), (2, 3, 1), (3, 1, 2), (3, 2, 1)\u2014while ten cards (equivalent to between two and three printed pages in a book) would be capable of permuting into more than three and a half million sequences. To compose only four or five pages (equivalent to the contents of about fifteen index cards) would require a choice from among some 1.3 trillion variations. _Lolita_ runs to sixty-nine chapters and over 350 pages, which means that the number of its potential versions exceeds (by an almost unimaginable margin) the number of atoms that make up our universe.\n\nOf course, many of these potential _Lolita_ s would simply not have been viable. And yet among the bewildering, nonsensical, or ham-fisted editions, readable alternatives must exist. How many? A hundred? A thousand? A million? More. Many more. Publishers could produce enough of them to give every reader on the planet his or her very own _Lolita._ In one, the famous opening couplet, \"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul,\" would appear halfway down page 39\u2014perhaps replaced with a line that Nabokov placed in his chapter 2: \"My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning)...\" In another reader's edition, the couplet shows up at the top of page 117. This _Lolita_ begins instead, \"I saw her face in the sky, strangely distinct, as if it emitted a faint radiance of its own.\" In a third version, the original couplet serves as the story's closing lines.\n\nFor all I know, some of these incalculably many editions were actually published, each with their subtle yet striking alterations. Perhaps this would explain why the _Atlantic Monthly_ 's reviewer called the book \"one of the funniest serious novels I have ever read,\" the _Los Angeles Times_ declared it \"a small masterpiece... an almost perfect comic novel,\" and the _New York Times Book Review_ announced, \"technically it is brilliant... humor in a major key,\" whereas Kingsley Amis read a book leading to \"dullness, fatuity, and unreality\" and Orville Prescott, writing for the _New York Times,_ found the story \"dull, dull, dull.\"\n\nWhich _Lolita_ did they read?\n\nIt is the writer and reader together who compose their infinite tale. The Argentine writer Julio Cort\u00e1zar created a novel in which he made this principle explicit. _Rayuela_ ( _Hopscotch_ ) was published fifty years ago, not long after _Lolita._ It contains 155 chapters (over some 550 pages), which can be read in two distinct ways. Either the reader starts at chapter 1 and continues reading linearly until the end of chapter 56 (the chapters and two hundred pages that remain being considered \"expendable\"), or else he begins at chapter 73, then turns back to chapter 1, continues to chapter 2 before jumping forward to chapter 116, then back to chapter 3, forward to chapter 84, and so on back and forth between the chapters according to a \"Table of Instructions\" at the front of the book.\n\nIn one of his \"expendable\" chapters, Cort\u00e1zar describes the book's goal:\n\n> It would seem that the usual novel misses its mark because it limits the reader to its own ambit; the better defined it is, the better the novelist is thought to be. An unavoidable detention in the varying degrees of the dramatic, the psychological, the tragic, the satirical, or the political. To attempt on the other hand a text that would not clutch the reader but which would oblige him to become an accomplice as it whispers to him underneath the conventional exposition other more esoteric directions.\n\nAs Cort\u00e1zar's accomplice, we follow the novel's hero\u2014an Argentine bohemian\u2014through the streets of Paris as he contemplates his life and its inexhaustible potential paths. We begin the book either at chapter 1, like this: \"Would I find La Maga?\" Or else at chapter 73, on page 383: \"Yes, but who will cure us of the dull fire, the colorless fire that at nightfall runs along the Rue de la Huchette...\"\n\nTurning the pages, reading different stories. For instance, the reader who begins at chapter 1 will soon reach this line in the fourth chapter: \"She] picked up a leaf from the edge of the sidewalk and spoke to it for a while.\" For the other reader, however, \"chapter 4\" is really the seventh chapter of the story, preceded by the sixth chapter, which is labeled \"chapter 84.\" In this chapter, on page 405, he reads, \"I keep on thinking of all the leaves I will not see, the gatherer of dry leaves, about so many things that there must be in the air and which these eyes will not see... there must be leaves that I will never see.\" These lines enrich the second reader's understanding of the woman who, several pages later, [here, will pick up a leaf from the edge of the sidewalk and speak to it.\n\nA consequence of reading in this way is disorientation; the leapfrogging reader lacks any sense of having completed the book. He reads the final lines on the final page of the physical book long before he comes to any conclusion of the story. Arriving later at the one hundred and fifty-third chapter (labeled \"chapter 131\"), he proceeds to the following chapter (labeled \"chapter 58\"), only to discover that he should return again to chapter 131. An interminable loop between the two \"final\" chapters appears. What is more, assuming he has kept count, the reader notices that the chapters\u2014read in this order\u2014total 154. One of the chapters\u2014\"chapter 55\"\u2014is absent from the list.\n\n_Hopscotch_ 's structure demands that readers make their own sense of the story. One might decide to read the chapters consecutively, but in descending order, starting at chapter 155. Another decides to read all the even chapters before the odd: 2, 4, 6, 8... 1, 3, 5, 7... A third does the reverse, reading all the odd chapters before the even. A fourth reads only the prime-numbered chapters: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31... finishing at chapter 151 (thirty-six chapters in all). A fifth begins at the first chapter, then reads the third (1 + 2), turning next to the sixth (1 + 2 + 3), followed by the tenth (1 + 2 + 3 + 4) and so on.\n\nJust when the plucky reader has attained the end of one story, another story beckons him to pick up its pages and start again. The book of ascending chapters becomes a book of descending chapters. The book of odd-number chapters becomes a book of even-number chapters. Every reading differs; every reading offers something new. It is impossible to dip into the same book twice.\n\nI am reminded of Nabokov's view that we can never read a book: we can only reread it. \"A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader,\" says Nabokov, \"is a rereader.\" Initial readings, he explains, are always laborious, a \"process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation.\"\n\nThink of the countless stories of Chekhov, of the innumerable editions of _Lolita_ and _Hopscotch,_ which lie before every reader's eyes unnoticed, unloved, unread.\n\nFlaubert, in a letter to his mistress, wrote, \"How wise one would be if one knew well only five or six books.\" It seems to me that even this figure is an exaggeration. To learn infinitely many things, we would only ever need perfect knowledge of one book.\n\n# Eighteen\n\n# POETRY OF THE PRIMES\n\nArnaut Daniel, whom Dante praised as _\"il miglior fabbro\"_ (\"the better craftsman\"), sang his love poems in the streets of twelfth-century southern France. Of his life not much is known, but I find it tempting to link a brief and rare report about the troubadour with the _sestina_ form of poetry (six stanzas, each containing six lines, plus a concluding half stanza) that he invented.\n\nRaimon de Durfort, a contemporary of Arnaut, called him \"a scholar undone by dice.\" This alleged acquaintance with gambling suggests a possible influence for the sestina's form. A die, as everyone knows, has six faces. The throw of a pair of dice creates a range of outcomes amounting to thirty-six, which is the total number of lines in the poem's six stanzas. So far as I can tell, no one has made this connection between the sestina and the die before\u2014maybe because it is a connection little worth making. I leave it for the reader to decide.\n\nUnusually, the sestina does not run on rhyme, symbolism, alliteration, or any other of the poet's typical devices. Its power is the power of repetition. The same six words, one at the tail of each line, persist and permute across every stanza (in the final half stanza, the words appear two to a line) according to an intricate pattern.\n\n> First stanza: 1 2 3 4 5 6\n> \n> Second stanza: 6 1 5 2 4 3\n> \n> Third stanza: 3 6 4 1 2 5\n> \n> Fourth stanza: 5 3 2 6 1 4\n> \n> Fifth stanza: 4 5 1 3 6 2\n> \n> Sixth stanza: 2 4 6 5 3 1\n> \n> Conclusion: 2 1, 4 6, 5 3\n\nWhich is to say, the final word in line six of the first stanza (1 2 3 4 5 **6** ) reappears as the last word of the next stanza's opening line ( **6** 1 5 2 4 3), and at the close of the second line of stanza three (3 **6** 4 1 2 5), and so on. Here follows an example, from Dante (employing the six words \"shadow,\" \"hills,\" \"grass,\" \"green,\" \"stone,\" and \"woman\").\n\n> I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow,\n> \n> to the short day and to the whitening hills,\n> \n> when the color is all lost from the grass,\n> \n> though my desire will not lose its green,\n> \n> so rooted is it in this hardest stone,\n> \n> that speaks and feels as though it were a **woman.**\n\n> And likewise this heaven-born **woman**\n> \n> stays frozen, like the snow in shadow,\n> \n> and is unmoved, or moved like a stone,\n> \n> by the sweet season that warms all the hills,\n> \n> and makes them alter from pure white to green,\n> \n> so as to clothe them with the flowers and grass.\n\n> When her head wears a crown of grass\n> \n> she draws the mind from any other **woman,**\n> \n> because she blends her gold hair with the green\n> \n> so well that Amor lingers in their shadow,\n> \n> he who fastens me in these low hills,\n> \n> more certainly than lime fastens stone.\n\n> Her beauty has more virtue than rare stone.\n> \n> The wound she gives cannot be healed with grass,\n> \n> since I have traveled, through the plains and hills,\n> \n> to find my release from such a **woman,**\n> \n> yet from her light had never a shadow\n> \n> thrown on me, by hill, wall, or leaves' green.\n\n> I have seen her walk all dressed in green,\n> \n> so formed she would have sparked love in a stone,\n> \n> that love I bear for her very shadow,\n> \n> so that I wished her, in those fields of grass,\n> \n> as much in love as ever yet was **woman,**\n> \n> closed around by all the highest hills.\n\n> The rivers will flow upwards to the hills\n> \n> before this wood, that is so soft and green,\n> \n> takes fire, as might ever lovely **woman,**\n> \n> for me, who would choose to sleep on stone,\n> \n> all my life, and go eating grass,\n> \n> only to gaze at where her clothes cast shadow.\n\n> Whenever the hills cast blackest shadow,\n> \n> with her sweet green, the lovely **woman**\n> \n> hides it, as a man hides stone in grass.\n\nAn air of expectancy permeates the text: since the reader knows what is coming, the poem must rise to the challenge of delivering surprise. The sestina plays with meaning, conferring new aspects, in changing contexts, on the same word. A tension between the law of the numerical pattern and the liberty of the author is ever present, ever palpable.\n\nArtists and mathematicians alike have been drawn to the sestina's numerous properties. In their wonderful book, _Discovering Patterns in Mathematics and Poetry,_ the mathematician Marcia Birkin and poet Anne C. Coon compare the rotation of words in a sestina to the shifting digits in a cyclic number.\n\nCyclic numbers are related to primes. Division using certain prime numbers (such as 7, 17, 19, and 23) produces decimal sequences (the cyclic numbers) that repeat forever. For example, dividing one by seven (1\/7) gives the decimal expansion 0.142857142857142857... where the six digits 142857\u2014the smallest cyclic number\u2014continue around and around in a never-ending ring dance.\n\nIf we multiply 142,857 by each of the numbers below 7, we see that the answers are permutations of the same six digits.\n\n> 1 \u00d7 142857 = 142857\n> \n> 2 \u00d7 142857 = 285714\n> \n> 3 \u00d7 142857 = 428571\n> \n> 4 \u00d7 142857 = 571428\n> \n> 5 \u00d7 142857 = 714285\n> \n> 6 \u00d7 142857 = 857142\n\nIn this instance, the digit 7 at the end of the first answer (14285 **7** ) reappears in the fourth position of the second answer (285 **7** 12) and in the fifth position in the third (4285 **7** 1) and so on. Each digit rotates through every answer, changing place at every turn, like the end words in the stanzas of a sestina.\n\nHazard has no place in the sestina. The end words in every stanza fall at once into line, the position of each determined before the poem begins. Algebraically, we can describe the sestina's structure (from the second stanza onward) like this.\n\n> {n, 1, n \u2013 1, 2, n \u2013 2, 3} where _n_ refers to the number of stanzas (six).\n\nHow our medieval troubadour concocted this clever pattern is unknown. His deep familiarity with the rhythms of words and music likely helped. In one of his few surviving songs he says:\n\n> Sweet tweets and cries\n> \n> and songs and melodies and trills\n> \n> I hear, from the birds that pray in their own language,\n> \n> each to its mate, just as we do\n> \n> with the friends we are in love with:\n> \n> and then I, who love the worthiest,\n> \n> must, above all others, write a song contrived so\n> \n> as to have no false sound or wrong rhyme.\n\nOf course, that Arnaut plumped for six stanzas, and not five or seven, probably owes as much to chance as the outcome of the toss of a die. In fact, a small number of poets have tried their hands at _tritina_ s (containing three stanzas) and _quintina_ s (containing five), with some success. Raymond Queneau, a French poet with a mathematician's itch for generalization, eager to understand how the pattern works, explored the limits of the form. In the 1960s, he worked out that only certain numbers of stanzas permitted the permutations of the sestina. A four-stanza poem, for example, produced jarring alignments of the same word.\n\n> {n, 1, n \u20131, 2}\n> \n> First stanza: 1 2 **3** 4\n> \n> Second stanza: 4 1 **3** 2\n> \n> Third stanza: 2 4 **3** 1\n> \n> Fourth stanza: 1 2 **3** 4\n\nThe same went for a poem of seven stanzas.\n\n> {n, 1, n \u20131, 2, n \u2013 2, 3, n \u2013 3}\n> \n> First stanza: 1 2 3 4 **5** 6 7\n> \n> Second stanza: 7 1 6 2 **5** 3 4\n> \n> Third stanza: 4 7 3 1 **5** 6 2\n> \n> Fourth stanza: 2 4 6 7 **5** 3 1\n> \n> Etc....\n\nAfter much trial and error, Queneau determined that only thirty-one of the numbers smaller than 100 produced the sestina's pattern. His observation led mathematicians to discover a surprising relationship between the sestina and the primes. Namely, poems containing three or five stanzas behave like the six stanzas in a sestina, because 3 (or 5, or 6) \u00d7 2, + 1, always equals a prime number. For the same reason, sestina-like poems of eleven, thirty-six, or ninety-eight stanzas are all possible, but not those containing ten, forty-five, or one hundred.\n\nSestinas are not the only form of poetry to be shaped by primes. Brief and glancing, haiku poems also derive their strength from these numbers.\n\nThe Japanese have long been disposed to brevity. Inquiries for the name of \"Japan's Shakespeare\" or \"Japan's Stendhal\" will be, in the best of cases, greeted with blank stares. Oriental epics fell into complete neglect at about the same time that the Viking Snorri Sturluson was putting the finishing touches to his saga. Courtiers of the Heian period (dating from the eighth to the twelfth centuries, a period that the Japanese consider a high point in their history) worked up the most extended pieces by concatenating dozens of short verses, by many hands. Dignitaries alone, however, had the right to commence these chain poems by inventing their opening three lines (called the \"hokku\"). Among images of romantic love and soul searching, these opening lines always contained a reference to the seasons, and an exclamation such as _ya_ (\"!\") or _kana_ (\"how...! what...!\"). However, even this carefully wrought convoy of miniature verses became too cumbersome in the end for Japanese tastes, so that generations of mouths gradually eroded them to the triplet of lines that we know today as haiku.\n\nLike the sestina, the haiku uses no rhyme. Its three lines contain five, seven, and five _onji_ (syllables), seventeen in all. Three, five, and seven are the first odd prime numbers. Seventeen, too, is prime.\n\nOne possible (if partial) explanation for this structure is the marked Japanese preference for odd numbers. In the annual _Shichigosan_ (Seven-Five-Three) festival, three-year-old children of both sexes, five-year-old boys, and seven-year-old girls visit shrines to celebrate their growth. Cheerleaders at a sports match clap in three-three-seven beats. Even numbers, meanwhile, are virtual bogeymen. The number two represents parting and separation, while four is associated with death. In several phrases the number six translates roughly as \"good-for-nothing.\"\n\nPrime numbers contribute to the haiku form's elemental simplicity. Each word and image calls out for our undivided attention. The result is an impression of sudden, striking insight, as if the poem's objects had been put into words for the very first time. A sample from the form's most celebrated practitioner, the seventeenth-century poet Matsuo Bash\u014d, illustrates this.\n\n> _Michinobe no_ (The mallow flower)\n> \n> _Mukuge wa uma ni_ (Against the side of the road)\n> \n> _Kuwarekeri_ (Eaten by my horse)\n\nThere exists as well a slightly longer version of the haiku, the _tanka_ form, which complements the haiku's trio of lines with two further lines of seven syllables each (known as the _shimo-no-ku,_ or \"lower phrase\"). The _tanka_ 's total number of syllables\u2014thirty-one\u2014is, once again, a prime.\n\nBash\u014d, whose name today is synonymous with the haiku form, counted various influences on his work, but chief among them was a wandering monk who lived at the time of Arnaut Daniel and wrote some of the finest _tanka_ verse. His name was Saigy\u014d. Something of the master's evocative simplicity is suggested in the following _tanka_.\n\n> _Michi no be ni_ (On that roadside lea)\n> \n> _Shimizu nagaruru_ (Where pure, crystal waters flowed)\n> \n> _Yanagi kage_ (Grew a willow tree)\n> \n> _Shibashi to te koso_ (For a little while I stayed)\n> \n> _Tachidomaritsure_ (There and rested in its shade)\n\nIt seems that the image of Saigy\u014d's willow tree took root in the imagination of many generations of poets. Some five centuries after the poem's composition, Bash\u014d underwent a pilgrimage to its site in the north. In his travel diary he noted that \"[t]he willow about which Saigy\u014d wrote the famous poem still stood by a rice field in Ashino village. As Mr. Koho, who governed this county, always wanted to show the tree to me, I had been anxious to discover its location. I was happy to stop by the tree today.\"\n\nBash\u014d's homage culminated in a haiku dedicated to Saigy\u014d's tree.\n\n> _Ta ichimai_ (Over a whole field)\n> \n> _Uete tachisaru_ (They have planted rice, before)\n> \n> _Yanagi kana_ (I leave the willow)\n\nAs I think of the complicity between poems and primes, perhaps the only surprise is that we should even find it surprising. Viewed one way, the relationship makes a perfect kind of sense. Poetry and prime numbers have this in common: both are as unpredictable, difficult to define, and multiple-meaning as a life.\n\nThis lifelike quality connecting them is too often overlooked. Many poems, it is true, lie mothballed in slim anthologies; many primes languish in mathematicians' sums. Picked and pored over by their experts, they lose the public's attention (and affection) for the academic company they keep.\n\nAnd yet we see her so clearly, Dante's woman, as she wanders through our memory, and Bash\u014d's horse, munching his flower, looks and sounds all too real. Free (as a prime number) from a rhyme's reassurance or a storybook's rules, the images swerve and forestall our expectations\u2014and keep all clich\u00e9s at bay.\n\nPoems and primes are tricky things to recognize. A glance will usually not suffice to tell us if such-and-such a number has factors, or whether a given text contains much meaning. Even old hands can find it hard to tell genuinely felt verse from a trite list of nice-sounding words, or spot a composite number as being merely a pastiche of lesser primes.\n\nDante's sestina, haiku verses, and the hither and thither of the primes\u2014for each we ask ourselves, what does it mean? Are we, in the end, any closer to the woman whose beauty \"has more virtue than rare stone\"? Her face changes with the stanzas, offering us a multiplicity of perspectives. And what of Saigy\u014d's willow tree, which provides at once shade and reflection?\n\nThe same is true of the prime numbers\u2014an ancient mathematical mystery. Thirty-one, the number of syllables in the _tanka,_ is a twin prime (being two apart from its neighbor twenty-nine), and a Mersenne prime\u2014being one less than a power of two: (2 \u00d7 2 \u00d7 2 \u00d7 2 \u00d7 2) \u2013 1\u2014but such labels fall far short of explanation. That is because we do not really know why the prime numbers appear where they do. Many unproven conjectures remain. The reader of poetry and the mathematician are left finally only with hints and fragments, minus any big picture\u2014as in life.\n\n# Nineteen\n\n# ALL THINGS ARE CREATED UNEQUAL\n\nUnlike diabetes or curly hair, poverty rarely skips a generation. A parent's bank balance will often dictate his child's destiny to a far greater extent than his blood. Blond mothers sometimes produce brunet babies; tall men may not always spawn basketball pros; but more than ninety times out of every hundred, the poor beget more poor.\n\nI am the son of poor parents, poor grandparents, poor great-grandparents, and so on. Suffice it to say that more than a few grisly tales of hard times have come down to me. One of these was told to me by my father, back in the early 2000s, not long after I had flown the family nest to serve my apprenticeship in the adult world. I was living in a house south of London that belonged to someone else. It was the first time I had shared with a roommate. The place had little to commend it. Small, out of the way, it was very modestly decorated. In my box of a bedroom, I slept on a sofa bed, pale green, the color of a plant in shade. I subsisted on students' fare: small plates of pasta, sandwiches, and beans on toast.\n\nSome evenings I took calls from home. On one occasion my father rang, and we fell into a long conversation. His chattiness, I must admit, took me rather by surprise. He had never been one for self-disclosure. Why then was he opening up to me? For an eldest son's compassion, for a walk accompanied down memory lane? I do not know. We had been talking about nothing in particular when all of a sudden he said, \"We moved around a lot when I was a kid.\"\n\n\"Sorry?\"\n\n\"My parents, well, my mum and her man. It is a long story.\"\n\nAnd, just like that, in a matter-of-fact voice, he told me his tale. He told it with such simplicity and such precision, not a word or image out of place, that it dawned on me only later that he had certainly long rehearsed this moment in his mind. Even as I listened I knew better than to interrupt him with my questions or comments. He spoke, as we say, \"from the heart\"; this man, my father, telling me, his son, such things as he considered important and valuable for me to hear.\n\nOne scene in particular struck me. As a boy of ten or thereabouts, he and his parents had been returning home one summer evening from a trip to the town fair. The front lawn, they noticed as they approached the house, had been eerily altered. Running ahead, my father was stunned by what he found. Chairs and tables and pots and pans and beds and lamps had been evacuated. The furniture huddled destitute in a big pile. A padlock on the front door barred their entry.\n\nI might have asked, \"Why had the landlord not given my grandparents more time to clear their debt?\" But I did not ask. The thought of the furniture left out in the front yard made a deep impression on my mind. It was the image of a home turned inside out, its intimacy smashed, its innards spewed. How terrible they must have looked, those useless lamps and long bare table legs and the embarrassing tea-colored letters in a half-open desk drawer. The scene felt so vivid that it made my eyes smart.\n\nMy father was born in 1954, the year that followed Queen Elizabeth's coronation. My grandparents' expulsion from their home happened ten years later\u2014in the midst of the swinging sixties, the decade of \"peace and love.\" In their book _The Poor and the Poorest,_ published in 1965, the sociologists Peter Townsend and Brian Abel-Smith estimated that this ten-year period, the first ten years of my father's life, had produced a near doubling in the percentage of Britons living beneath the breadline, rising from 8 percent to 14.\n\nIn 1979, the year of my birth, Peter Townsend published a further study, _Poverty in the UK,_ showing that relative hardship stifled the lives of 21 percent of the population. This figure appears to have remained more or less stable ever since.\n\nA final statistic, this one from 2008, describing the generation after mine: according to the London School of Economics, the household wealth of the top 10 percent of the population now towers one hundred times above that of the lowest 10 percent.\n\nInequality is invidious. It is also universal. No country, to judge from the comparative data, has been spared it. Every land has its share both of hovels and five-star hotels. Talk of a \"classless society\" has, time and time again, proved to be nothing but hot air. Western sympathizers who visited the Soviet Union in the 1930s were disappointed to find that its October Revolution had hardly \"abolished\" the gulf that divided rich and poor. Zero in imperial units, they learned, was still zero under the metric system. Meanwhile beneath their mud-brown uniforms, stiff with starch, the Kremlin's rulers continued to wear the slaughtered emperor's clothes.\n\nBut enough with statistics: I wonder if mathematics can do more about the phenomenon of disparity than simply measure it. I wonder if it can tell us something about what kind of thing disparity is: where does it come from? What makes it grow or shrink? Can mathematical thinking address these kinds of questions?\n\nIt can. Mathematics and money both originated in abstraction. As with mathematics, we owe the concept of money to the ancient Greeks. They who first abstracted \"five\" from the fingers on one hand, first stamped \"five drachmas\" on a metal coin. And just as the concept of \"five\" slipped from the fingers that had described it, becoming applicable to anything\u2014men, crumbs, daydreams\u2014with identical quantity, so a coin's \"value\" exceeded the metal of its composition, capable of transforming into anything agreed as having equal worth.\n\nSubstituting numbers for objects changed the world, for better or worse. At once everything became quantifiable, even the light of the moon, which Aristophanes in one of his plays describes as saving people a drachma's worth of torches per month. Where previously, bartering and the exchange of gifts had settled all Athenian transactions, now most social dealings came down to sums. Reciprocity between citizens gave way to the potentially unlimited accumulation of individual \"wealth.\" We read with a feeling of familiarity Aristotle's lament (in his _Politics_ ) that some doctors turn their skills into the art of making money. Sophocles goes much further, placing in one of his character's mouths a blistering denunciation of money as that which \"lays waste even cities, expels men from their homes,\" and \"thoroughly teaches and transforms good minds... to know every act of impiety.\"\n\nIn its abstraction, money acquired the impersonal neutrality of numbers. Goods no longer embodied the donor's generosity or personality; calculation replaced feelings. Individual autonomy grew, but so too did an egoism that made money the measure of all things. And like abstract numbers, money became invisible. Coins might be concealed far more easily than cows. Lycurgus, ruler of Sparta, found that he could only fight the \"injustice\" of the rich hiding away large sums only by making his iron coins so large and so heavy that ten of them alone required transportation upon a wagon.\n\nBecause numbers can go on forever, money has no limit. Of wealth, Aristophanes tells us, a person can never have enough. Bread and sex and music and courage all sate the preceding appetite, but wealth does not. It is impossible to put a check on moneymaking. If a man receives thirteen coins, he will hanker after sixteen, and possessing them he considers life unbearable unless he now earns forty. Nature, it might be observed, imposes strict boundaries on a person's height and age span, so that in even the most extreme instances no one can rise or fall too far or too short from the rest, whereas no such boundary inhibits money. Think of King Croesus who had so much gold that he gave it away. It was Croesus whom Solon the legislator memorably warned when he said that he who has much, has much to lose.\n\nI am reminded here of the story I first heard on the morning radio two years ago, of an elderly Parisian heiress who had been flattered into great feats of generosity by a much younger man. Of course, the story immediately spread to print. I read the fine details across consecutive pages of my daily paper. The billionaire had allegedly been pampered out of paintings by Munch, Picasso, Matisse, seduced into gifting precious tomes and manuscripts and, all in all, fussed over to the tune of scores of millions of euros in handouts over several years.\n\nPoor thing!\n\nSolon, I should mention, became the first man in history to make laws addressing inequality. We read in Plutarch how the mass of ancient Athenians in Solon's day found themselves in hock to the city's wealthy aristocrats. Some had been sold into slavery or else had handed over their children as collateral, while others had fled with their family into exile. When he was elected chief magistrate, Solon promptly divided the city's populace into categories, granting to each category proportional responsibilities and rights. The highest class consisted of those earning an income in excess of five hundred bushels. In the second class were those citizens able to afford a horse (and therefore to pay a \"horse tax\" upon the purchase). Yoke-of-oxen men comprised the third class, with an annual income between two hundred and three hundred bushels. Freed from the fear of enslavement, the remainder of landless citizens could attend public assemblies for the first time, and sit on juries.\n\nWe can express the distribution of wealth in any society as a formula, using a number _x_ between 50 and 100 such that _x_ percent of the society's wealth belongs to (100\u2013 _x_ ) percent of the population. In a highly egalitarian society (where _x_ equals, say, 55 or 60), 45 percent (or 40 percent) of the people would hold 55 percent (or 60 percent) of the assets. Most Western societies, however, show a far more skewed distribution. Economists have found that _x_ in most developed countries equates to a number in the region of 80, meaning that 80 percent of the society's fortune pads the pockets of only 20 percent of its members.\n\nNaturally, the share will vary from person to person. Money is fickle, always changing owners. That different people have dissimilar wealth is not surprising. What surprises is the scale and constancy of the divide. The economist and mathematician Vilfredo Pareto, who first observed (at the end of the nineteenth century) that 20 percent of Italians owned 80 percent of the nation's wealth, found nearly identical results when he studied the historical data from many other parts of Europe. The distribution of wealth in Paris since 1292, he discovered, had hardly moved at all. Later researchers confirmed these findings.\n\nBecause most men and women, for want of resources, remain at the bottom, the elite, for want of competition, remain at the top. The poorest expend all their energies simply to keep body and soul together. I think of Degas's painting of the two peasant women ironing: one is anonymous, hunched over her iron; the other yawns candidly, her mouth the shape of an \"O.\" The yawn distorts her features, undoing the individuality of her face.\n\nThe Spartan Lycurgus, we saw, made money as big as men; imagine, an instant, men as big as their money. Picture the difference between a miller and a millionaire. The man who mills grain owns perhaps no more than one-thousandth of the rich man's fortune: the millionaire, his advantage converted into height, would be a thousand times as tall. To him, the miller would appear no bigger than an ant. With whom will the giant do business? Only with someone big and strong enough to carry his employer's burden. Likewise this someone, smaller than the millionaire on whom he is dependent, but still far greater in size than the grain-running ant, to whom will he entrust his dealings? To his peers. They, in turn, will do the same. Good manners and compromise characterize the bulk of these transactions, but hardly anyone thinks to condescend to those with whom they have next to nothing in common. Our lowly ant friend is simply nowhere in sight.\n\nEvery man and woman, at whichever point along the scale, prefers to look up, not down. Even the miller gives a hand to his equal or his superior, rather than to someone far below him, for fear of conceding his rank to the worse-off man. With the wealthier, he is generous; with the poorer, he is mean. He has little, but the little he has goes purely to keeping up his minor station.\n\nComparisons are somewhat facile, of course. Beside a billionaire, even the millionaire is poor. The world's hundredth-richest person has but one dollar for every eight in the pocket of the world's richest man.\n\nWhether the economy expands or whether it shrinks, the obsession with keeping up one's station remains. The inequality this obsession feeds off is a precocious learner: the more of it there is, the faster it will grow. Take the hypothetical egalitarian society, for example, where 45 percent of the population own 55 percent of its wealth. In such a society, around 20 percent (45 percent of the 45 percent) of citizens own about 30 percent (55 percent of the 55 percent) of the total resources. By the same logic, a sixth (55 percent of the 30 percent) of the society's goods belongs to one citizen in every eleven (45 percent of 20 percent).\n\nThe contrast between this theoretical society and most of our modern cities\u2014those that obey Pareto's 80\u201320 principle\u2014is striking. Wealth in these places can propagate far more ruthlessly, dramatically: the accounts of as few as four individuals in every hundred (20 percent of 20 percent) will bloat with as much as two-thirds (80 percent of 80 percent) of all the available income. And of these four men made of money, the very richest might have up to one-half (80 percent of the two-thirds) all to himself.\n\nHuman beings and their self-interest are inseparable, but inequality needs a society to invent it. The creation of any vast and ambitious social project demands an unequal allocation of resources in order to achieve its goals. Without substantial inequality, as John Maynard Keynes pointed out, Europe's railroads\u2014a \"monument to posterity\"\u2014would never have been constructed. Tolstoy, for one, hated the railroads precisely because they represented this inequality, going even so far as to throw his best-loved character under a murderous train. It is true that most of the men who laid the rails never had the opportunity to ride them. Why then did they agree to do so? The railroad workers chose to cooperate with the wealthy, Keynes argued, on the tacit understanding that what they produced together, using the money of one side, the labor of the other, would ultimately serve the nation as a whole, and the principle of \"progress.\" World war, however, would subsequently smash this fragile alliance between the classes, by shaking the faith of both in the future. The bludgeoning of bombs and the gutting of gunfire disclosed to all \"the possibility of consumption... and the vanity of abstinence.\"\n\nWhen Keynes spoke of the value of inequality he did not mean unbridled inequality. He meant an inequality that was consensual and that served a collective purpose. The selfish motive of making money, he admitted, helped to produce goods and services that benefit many. The same motive could also turn certain \"dangerous human proclivities\"\u2014cruelty, self-aggrandizement, and the tyrannical pursuit of power\u2014to more harmless pursuits. But, he was not at all complacent.\n\n> It is not necessary for the stimulation of these activities and the satisfaction of these proclivities that the game should be played for such high stakes as at present. Much lower stakes will serve the purpose equally well, as soon as the players are accustomed to them. The task of transmuting human nature must not be confused with the task of managing it.\n\nHow we lower those stakes is a question I leave to our politicians. I will not hold my breath. There is no easy solution\u2014none analogous to a politician's promise. Money's abstractness is complex, evasive. It turns our world upside down. For instance, a farmer's cow calves more prodigiously than other cattle\u2014this is normal, part of nature. What, though, should we think of houses that beget more houses? Like many of those born poor, my father never had the chance to own the roof above his head, whereas the proprietor of four houses will likely wind up with six, or twelve, or twenty.\n\nAll of which brings us to the question that Tolstoy posed his readers in the short story \"How Much Land Does a Man Need?\" Pahom, the greedy peasant, kills himself in the endless pursuit of more and more acres.\n\n\"They are poor in the midst of riches,\" Seneca observed of some of ancient Greece's wealthiest\u2014and greediest\u2014men, \"which is the worst kind of poverty.\"\n\n# Twenty\n\n# A MODEL MOTHER\n\nNot long ago, my mother's age reached double mine. Two lives when compared with my young man's span\u2014half of her that I cannot see.\n\nMy mother has always been a mystery to me. We have had my lifetime to get to know each other, but it still feels nowhere near long enough. Her behavior eludes me; it outpaces my powers of comprehension. Try as I might, I cannot figure her out.\n\nHer face has not changed much with the years. She often wears an expression that flits between smugness and fright. The same stubborn creases, made by steady clenching, around the mouth; the same defiant twinkle in her eyes. She smiles fitfully, unexpectedly, as if bestowing a favor. Beneath the fine graying hair and wrinkles, I can still find myself in her gaze.\n\nMemories. Take the kitchen of my childhood, for example, where my mother would spend the lion's share of her day. I remember her prowling the linoleum, pen and notepad in hand, compiling a list of groceries to buy. She was alive to every sound and suspicious of the slightest incursion. She poked her nose into cupboards and the fridge, looking for the cans of beans and the bottles of milk and the packets of cheese and sliced bread bought only a day or two before. Thin air had taken their place.\n\n\"The children eat us out of house and home,\" she complained to my father.\n\nMy father assumed a posture of resignation.\n\nWe kids knew which of our parents held command. Or at least, we thought we did. At other times my mother would suddenly come over all shy and prone to blushing. My father could hardly draw a word out of her.\n\nThen there were the Christmas presents. Year-round she would ferret out bargains at local yard sales, sequestering the toys and games in closets or under beds until Santa's sleigh arrived. Of course, we always knew where to find them, but in the spirit of the season we turned a blind eye. It was never easy: buried treasure seemed to lie in every nook and cranny of every room. Why, then, many Decembers later, under piles of old clothes, did we bring unopened presents to the surface? Had she simply mislaid them, forgotten their location? Could it really be that the buying of them had meant more to her than the offering?\n\nA mathematician would say, \"Graph the data.\" That is how mathematicians speak. And it is true enough: puzzling occurrences usually require the long view\u2014and a firm grasp of context. In my preteens I decided that if only I could assemble enough of my observations, and settle on some parameters for their analysis, it might be possible to make a predictive model of my mother's behavior.\n\nIt was around the time that I began to look like her, once the elementary school blackboard became a blur. Our myopia, it could be said, brought us closer together. \"A mommy's boy,\" my father sometimes called me. None of my brothers earned this epithet. Spending more and more time in her company, I felt the puzzle of her presence intensely.\n\nBack then, a thigh thinner, she was always on the go. I took to mapping her movements. On Saturday mornings my mother would return from the local library, carrying a couple of romance paperbacks in her arms, smelling faintly of must. In the space in the living room before the television, I would sit for what seemed like hours half listening to the yellow rustling of the pages that originated from the settee. Every other Sunday, robed in her best dress, she would take us\u2014my brother, sister, and I\u2014to the neighbor's on the corner to drink tea and trade gossip. Midweek, she would venture out to do the rounds of secondhand shops, returning with bags fattened on goods that nobody seemed to need.\n\nPerhaps she noticed me tracking her and wished to catch me out, or perhaps she simply grew bored with her own repetition, but for whatever reason she would sometimes decide to mix it all up. Come Saturday, the living room would contain the same atmosphere. But now, dog-eared biographies exhaled the musty smell. Without warning, the front door would stay shut for the Lord's Day of rest; we took tea with the neighbor an evening after school instead. Even her favorite shops suddenly became good only for returning things.\n\nOne afternoon she took me with her to return a pair of shoes. Approaching the shop, I compared the mother in my head with the real thing. The imaginary mother would choose a male shop assistant (my mother, I knew, hated to haggle with other women). She would complain that the shoes pinched her young son's toes, and when the man lifted the offending footwear from its container, she would add that the leather scuffed immediately. To the request for a receipt (which she always lost), her voice would rise in volume, detailing all the children's feet that she had to keep dry and warm. The man would then nod patiently before offering an exchange.\n\nUnfortunately, on this occasion my real mother bore no resemblance to her model.\n\nA young woman with tight bound hair assisted all the customers. My mother's voice as she handed over the shoebox sounded weak, her words unacquainted with one another. \"I'm sorry to hear it,\" the woman interrupted, as though offering her condolences. \"I'm sorry to hear it, but there really is nothing that I can do.\"\n\nI confidently expected my mother to put up a fight. But she promptly slumped into one of the seats intended for the trying-on of shoes, with only a long sigh for a rejoinder. The shop assistant reiterated that a refund was quite out of the question. My mother looked down at the floor and merely sighed again. Eventually, when my mother showed no signs of relenting, the young woman said, \"Please leave,\" and then, \"Please leave, or I will have to call the police.\" My mother sagged even deeper into her seat and crossed her legs.\n\nMy ten-year-old self was filled with apprehension. My imaginary mother would never have behaved like that! It took a long time for me to understand my real mother's sit-in. Of course, she knew all too well what she was doing. She knew that the young lady had conceived her own version of my imaginary mother. On that day, in that shop, my mother in her flesh and blood defied them both.\n\nAt last, driven to exasperation, the woman pulled something small and shiny from her pocket. \"Do not breathe a word of this to anyone,\" she said, before sketching a long gash along one of the shoes with the blade of her penknife. \"This way we get a refund from the manufacturer for damaged goods.\"\n\nIn fact, it did not bother me as much as you might think when the actions of my mother and her imaginary doppelg\u00e4nger failed to coincide. I slowly came to understand how limited and clumsy an approximation was my model of her, how many variables I had not accounted for (whose existence I had not even guessed), and how large and liberating a role chance played in all our affairs. Besides, each variation between the imaginary and the real provided me with new clues. This variation, I hoped, growing larger or smaller by turns, would act as a sort of compass toward a greater understanding of my mother's true nature.\n\nOn those rare occasions when my mother became her model's mimic, the eerie sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu nauseated me. I worried that it suggested some dark cunning within me, or, worse, deterioration in the liberty of my mother's will. Besides, how could I even be sure that my success showed real merit? Perhaps it could be put down to nothing more than luck: even a stopped watch gives the correct time twice a day.\n\nPossibly, my inability to understand my mother is the result of an anterior uncertainty, that is: what should a mother's behavior look like? I am not talking about an ideal mother\u2014I do not believe, alas, in such creatures\u2014but rather the most common and distinguishing maternal qualities. A baseline, if you will.\n\nThis is more difficult than it sounds. For one thing, the category of \"mother\" admits all manner of members. You can be a mother at sixteen or at sixty (the latter with the help and expertise of scientists); with a single child, or my mother's nine. According to the dictionary definition, a mother is any \"female who has given birth to offspring.\" This is about as roomy and heterogeneous a group of people as we can find. It is, in the words of statisticians, too large a sample.\n\nHow, then, should I go about assembling a more workable sample of my mother's peers, one that provides a realistic context for analysis? By looking at mothers of nine? I am not sure that Britain can boast many nine-child families, not since the days when Queen Victoria had her own royal brood of nine. Newspaper articles turn up only a couple of examples: one is a philosophy graduate and boardroom executive who thought she and her Buddhist husband \"would stop at five\"; the second, a former anorexic who says she feared her chances of getting pregnant were \"very, very slim.\" Naturally, this tiny cohort of women is no more representative of maternity than the first.\n\nI might try a slightly different, related question: what does my mother's behavior tell us about her? But here we run into similar difficulties. For each of her acts, we can imagine a hundred more or less plausible reasons. A hundred imaginary mothers would slug it out for vindication. But each act is the offspring of another: each imaginary mother would be capable of producing one hundred more. Clearly, this approach will take us nowhere closer to any answer. For even if we could somehow locate the \"right\" reason for each of my mother's actions, and thus identify the \"right\" imaginary mother within our galaxy of imaginary mothers, we would be left in the end only with an identical twin\u2014as complex, mysterious, and baffling a woman as the one who raised me.\n\nMore empirical observation and less abstract reasoning seem necessary, if I am to arrive at any conclusions about who my mother really is. I fully admit that in this I am saying nothing new. When the psychiatrist \u00c9douard Toulouse resolved to objectively measure \u00c9mile Zola's genius, for example, he was entirely typical of his times. He took the novelist's height, wrapped a tape around his shoulders, skull, and pelvis, evaluated the strength of his grip, the acuity of his nose, ears, and vision, grilled his powers of recollection and noted the hours when he ate, slept, and wrote. Zola's pulse, the doctor found, was sixty-one before he first put pen to paper, dropping to fifty-three when he called it a day.\n\nScientists in the Soviet Union also went in for this sort of thing, counting the subject's words rather than his pulse. In their experiments, they tried predicting the next word in a sentence from those that had come before. Young girls in conversation, they discovered, were easiest to anticipate; newspaper columnists followed close behind, while poets proved hardest to second-guess.\n\nDid this result surprise the scientists? They do not tell us. Perhaps the poets took the same liberties with their speech as with their pen. The best poems, the mathematicians determined, combined in equal parts the predictability of meter with the novelty of unusual words. Too much meter made a poem banal; too much freewheeling, on the other hand, rendered it hard to follow. The delicate balance of convention and invention gives meaning to what we say.\n\nThe lesson we can learn from these experiments is small but valuable. Mutual understanding depends on our powers of prediction, though they frequently operate beyond our control. With his microscope the psychiatrist got no nearer to what moved Zola's pen, yet he knew intuitively how to talk his old friend into his tests. The Soviet mathematicians could not accurately preview the poets' inspiration, but their conversations once outside the laboratory ranged as far and wide as with anyone else.\n\nIn Edgar Allan Poe's story \"The Purloined Letter,\" we see a boy observing and then outguessing each of his schoolmates at a game of marbles. The game consists in determining whether the number of marbles concealed in the opponent's hand is odd or even. For every correct guess, a marble is won; for every wrong guess, one marble is yielded. Thanks to his \"astuteness,\" the boy finishes by winning all the marbles in the school. The boy, Poe explains, makes an intuitive assessment of his rival.\n\n> For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand, asks, \"are they even or odd?\" Our schoolboy replies, \"odd,\" and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself, \"the simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon the second; I will therefore guess odd\";\u2014he guesses odd, and wins.\n\nWhen the boy considers his opponent \"a simpleton a degree above the first,\" he reasons, \"this fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and, in the second, he will propose to himself upon the first impulse, a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton; but then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even as before. I will therefore guess even.\" He guesses even, and wins.\n\nPoe goes on to tell us how the marble winner is able to intuit the thoughts and feelings of the boy opposite him: he closely watches and mirrors the opponent's facial expression, so that the other boy's gaze fleetingly becomes his gaze, the boy's smile becomes his smile, the boy's frown becomes his own. In this posture, the winner finds himself thinking and feeling in the same way as his rival. His success hinges entirely on the precision of his mime.\n\nIn a sense, we are always evaluating and predicting the other, though we may not heed the act. Often the people we scrutinize hardest are those we cherish the most. In love there is constant contemplation and the most intense desire to understand the object of our affections. There exists melancholy, too, as we grow to appreciate just how little we can ever truly know for sure. Our ignorance is painful. And yet we persevere. Humbly, patiently, we assiduously observe till at last we identify ourselves in some way with the other. Anticipation becomes an act of love.\n\nI have spent years learning how to evaluate my mother's various tics and gestures. These days, I can read her body language with fair fluency. But still the same questions return over and over again. What, I often wonder, does that smile of hers say?\n\nWe meet in a posh restaurant in central London. A woman's face, old enough to be thought young-looking, smiles from a table at the back when I come through the door. I kiss my mother on the cheek. Her ecstatic eyes follow the stiff-backed young waiters carrying platters of food and wine. What shall we eat? I know the place well and have already made up my mind. I confide my choices to my mother before heading to the bathroom. When I return, the menus are gone. My mother is fiddling with her napkin. The skin on her hands is worn tight, I notice, like the peel on overripe fruit. Her fingers twist the napkin while we talk.\n\nHer rent has gone up again. Arabesques of graffiti continue to shout from wall to wall. Last week, an Albanian down the road set fire to his mattress; the wailing sirens made \"a right old racket.\" And yet, my mother will not hear of moving away. She insists on sticking close to where her children were all born and raised. I am aware that any new plea will fall once more on deaf ears, and have no choice but to let the matter go.\n\n\"Midday,\" I answer when she asks about my flight tomorrow out of Heathrow. Tokyo, I tell her, is nine hours ahead of her time. The trip will include my first lecture in the Far East. My mother feigns curiosity. She has never held a passport, knows nothing of the world beyond her shores. All of a sudden, she shakes with silent laughter. Some word, its sound or the mental image elicited by the word, has tickled her. Like the boy in Poe's tale, I reciprocate and try to laugh along. But I do not understand. And then, just as quickly as it came, the laughter leaves her. With the napkin, she dabs the wet corners of her eyes.\n\nI think back to the menu. For each course there are just a few options. A good opportunity to put my imaginary mother to the test. But will the model and the mother agree? Recalling the trios of starters, mains, and desserts, I assign to each a probability. I assess not only each of the individual courses but also the potential combinations across them. For example, two-thirds of the mains have meat: for this reason I downgrade the odds of my mother selecting p\u00e2t\u00e9 as a starter (unless, that is, she were to opt for a second course of fish). Assuming she begins with the good intentions of a salad, I plump for the caramel cake as her choice of dessert.\n\nMy imaginary mother decides to steer a middle route between the p\u00e2t\u00e9 and the salad. When the waiter looms, his voice announces the roast vegetable soup. I inhale the satisfying sweetness as it passes my chair.\n\nNow the beef rises even higher up my mental shortlist. But when the table has been cleared, and the waiter next comes, I find my stare returned by the glassy eye of a baked cod. Bits of the fluffy flesh scatter around her plate and down her top as she eats.\n\nFinally, we arrive at dessert. There is no room for doubt in my mind. My model mother's fondness for chocolate has been corroborated many times before. But not today. My actual mother finishes her meal with a bowl of exotic fruit.\n\nOutside the restaurant, she takes my arm in hers. She wants to show me the street on which she grew up. She grips my arm tight as we take the short walk side by side. Of her life before me I know next to nothing, only one or two tidbits, gathered here and there. I ask whether it is true that before starting a family, she worked as a secretary. \"Leave off,\" she laughs. \"I typed addresses onto envelopes.\" She still has postal codes on the brain.\n\n\"Name a town,\" she says suddenly.\n\nBethlehem, I think. \"St. Ives,\" I say.\n\n\"St. Ives,\" she repeats and it sounds twice as long when she says it. \"TR26.\"\n\nWe turn onto the street, a stone's throw from Westminster Palace. My grandfather worked for the local brewery here, delivering the beer by horse and cart. The block of flats was home to several of the workers' families. A single washroom, with enamel bath, did for everyone. We cannot see inside, however. The building has become a base for the homeless; some of the windows are boarded up. Before we leave, I pull out my camera and take a photo.\n\nI think of the girl who would grow up to become my mother. Who was the future woman that she imagined for herself? Did she dream of having a loving partner, a big house, and children who always smiled at her? In her mind's eye, would she be well educated and well traveled, always generous, patient, and kind? Did she imagine that every cherished moment would be remembered forever; every grievance instantly forgotten?\n\nAnd thinking of this girl I feel at once immensely happy and immensely sad. I feel as I feel when I think of myself.\n\n# Twenty-One\n\n# TALKING CHESS\n\nTo win at chess is simple: victory belongs to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.\n\nWhoever it was that first came up with this line spoke much truth. The strongest players operate neither like machines nor angels; their superiority lies in accomplishing a better class of error.\n\nA winning mistake would presumably owe nothing to sloppiness, incuriosity, or a yellow belly. It would be far closer to the lucky slip of an artist's brush or writer's pen, one that suddenly infuses a picture or page with unforeseen possibility. I am thinking of the (perhaps apocryphal) story of the painter who, hot-tempered at his many failed attempts to perfect a detail of his portrait, tossed his sponge with disgust at the easel and thereby achieved just the desired effect. Or that of the book printer who inadvertently won Herman Melville lavish accolades for the phrase \"soiled fish\" (in place of the intended \"coiled fish\" in reference to an eel).\n\nI will not risk stretching this argument any further. Creativity is obviously so much more than an unexpected gesture here and there. But talent in chess bears this similarity with other creative pursuits, in tolerating error, as if the grandmaster\u2014like the great artist\u2014is the one who truly explores possibility's outer limits. Or, as a character in Joseph Conrad's _Lord Jim_ intones, \"To the destructive element submit yourself and with the exertions of your hands and feet in the water make the deep, deep sea keep you up.\"\n\nChess is a perfect arena for just such an exerted exploration of the possible. Its checkered sea is very deep indeed. The mathematics behind the game's complexity are staggering. An initial move by each player will create one of four hundred legal positions. A second move by each: seventy-two thousand. There are some nine million possible setups after the players' third move; 288 billion after their fourth. Back in 1950, the mathematician Claude Shannon calculated the possible number of forty-move games, a figure henceforth known as the \"Shannon Number.\" He estimated as about thirty the potential number of viable moves at every turn. In this way he arrived at a total number (1 followed by 120 zeroes) that easily exceeds the number of atoms in the observable universe.\n\nFor all its immensity, chess is a finite game. It is therefore at least conceivable that a machine might one day be programed with the knowledge, deep down in its nodes, of every possible sequence of moves for every possible game. No combination, however ingenious, would ever surprise it; every board position would be as familiar as a face. Like checkers, which was solved by computer scientists in Canada in 2007, we would finally discover how chess, played perfectly by both sides, ends.\n\nThis perfect game of chess\u2014the immaculate order and configuration of its moves, the exquisite ballet of its pieces in their precisely timed roles\u2014is imprinted on the imagination of every player. In his innermost being, every player carries some notion of the divine game. For one, it begins with the two-square forward march of the white king's pawn, to which the L-shaped spring of black's queenside knight replies. Six moves later, the white queen arrives on a 4\u2014a side square\u2014only to be promptly rebuffed by black's bishop. No, no, says a second player: the game begins with a white knight\u2014either one\u2014to which black responds in kind. The central pawns advance in pairs. But another player disagrees, citing the fact that a piece would need to be sacrificed by white after eleven moves\u2014the exchange of his queen for a rook. For still others the white pawns creep up the far sides of the board like ivy, or the black king crouches incessantly behind his queen, or all four bishops dance the diagonals until precisely half of all the original pieces remain.\n\nWho, then, prevails in this Platonic ideal of chess? Each player confesses a secret faith. A triumph for white in forty-three moves, or in forty-one if black's sixth move disturbs a pawn. Or else a win for black, after a marathon two hundred and twenty-seven moves, the surviving white piece finally confiscated by the king. But such are the visions of romantics; a large majority seem resigned to the probability of a draw.\n\nA small number of enthusiasts (a handful of masters, too) claim to have adjudicated the question in favor of one or the other side, outlining a \"system\" for the player to follow. Understandably these systems have been subjected to many critiques. In his books and articles, Weaver Adams, who won the U.S. Open Championship in 1948, argued that with a first-move king's pawn advance \"white ought to win.\" In his own matches, however, Adams seemed to have perversely better luck with black. A certain Dr. Hans Berliner agrees with Adams concerning white's predestined triumph, but differs in his choice of the clinching initial move. According to Berliner, white must employ the queen's pawn instead.\n\nWithin our lifetimes a definitive solution, using the fastest computers, might indeed emerge. But there is still a very, very long way to go. So far algorithms have resolved every lawful chess position containing at most six pieces (including the two kings). The compiled data has yielded more than a few surprises. Numerous endgame positions long considered mere draws, we know now beyond all shadow of a doubt, can in fact produce a winner. Among the most recent analysis, which has moved on to the study of endgames of seven pieces, researchers have hit upon an astonishing forced win for white\u2014provided that the winner's concentration could somehow hold out over five hundred and seventeen flawless moves!\n\nIn the end, maybe no solution of chess exists, or at least none that we could ever extract in the time allotted to our universe. Any complete solution might even reveal itself to be simply beyond the pale of our imagination: knights that forage for pawns for no apparent reason, bishops that take turns occupying consecutive squares, or rooks that slide up and down, and left and right, ninety-nine times in a row.\n\nBut of course chess would not be chess without its mystery, or its players' mistakes. Men, like chessmen, are made from crooked timber. With his mistakes, the beginner (what players call a \"patzer\") immediately blows his cover. He brings his queen out too quickly, exchanges too many pieces too soon, moves his pawns in such a way that their formation finishes by resembling Swiss cheese. But the problem is more one of quantity than quality. The patzer loses not because he makes too many mistakes, but because he makes too few\u2014a mere handful of classic blunders. He does not last long enough to make more! Traps abound, and he duly falls into one or another. Cannier, moderate-strength players (such as club champions) make more mistakes than beginners. Sidestepping the early pitfalls, they grant themselves far greater scope in which to stumble.\n\nStronger play demands more than the avoidance of blunders. The player has to learn to make his own mistakes, which is far more difficult than it sounds. He has to stop mimicking the moves he reads in books and magazine columns, and which he does not really understand: even the best moves can turn bad when played on the wrong square or at the wrong instant. He has to root out his most cherished errors, the kind that he plays with the frequency of a tic. In short, he has to clear his head and think and feel and suffer for himself. Only then can he hope to obtain the slightest grip upon the game.\n\nAll of this amounts to nothing less than that nebulous attribute we call personality. It is the indescribable quality that seems to bring the pieces on the board to life. As with the brushstrokes of a gifted painter, we can identify a strong player from the moves, including the mistakes, which he makes. The observer traces in the movements of the pieces the movement of the player's thought. What we call his mistakes are also the expressions of a deep and personal understanding of such-and-such position, which is\u2014like every human understanding\u2014imperfect. Out of this personal understanding comes both his biggest howlers and his finest moves.\n\nNo master of the game, I would suggest, had more personality than the Soviet champion \"the Magician of Riga,\" Mikhail Tal. Not a few of his games have gained the status of the masterpiece. At its best, Tal's play betrayed a courage that bordered on insouciance. He was always in the thick of the action, inviting complications. Of this proclivity for problems, he once remarked, \"You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2 + 2 = 5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one.\"\n\nIn the depths of this forest even he sometimes lost his way. During one simultaneous exhibition against a score of Americans, the grandmaster took the fight to a plucky and talented twelve-year-old. At a crucial moment Tal surrendered his queen in exchange for the initiative, but the sacrifice eventually proved unsound and he went on to lose. With a shrug of his shoulders, the former World Champion gamely shook the boy's hand, before continuing to ply his trade among the other boards.\n\nTal played instinctively. Faced with the game's intractable complexity, he always followed his nose. He would feel his way around the squares of the board, for feeling is also a kind of thinking. In his autobiography, there is a small but marvelous anecdote of this intuitive approach. Tal describes a contest with the grandmaster Vasiukov at the Championship of the USSR. By dint of adventurous play, the two men had reached a highly entangled position. Tal says he hesitated a long time over his next move. His path to victory, he sensed, began with the sacrifice of his knight, but the immense number of possible variations unnerved him. Head in his hands, he meditated on one after another without result. Mental chaos ensued. All of a sudden, from out of nowhere, an amusing couplet by the children's poet Chukovsky broke the surface in his mind. _\"Oh, what a difficult job it was. To drag out of the marsh the hippopotamus.\"_\n\nTal was at a loss to know by what process of connection his mind had suggested the poem's lines. But now the thought gripped him: how exactly would a man pull such an animal from a marsh? As the spectators and journalists looked on, the grandmaster contemplated any number of hippopotamus-rescue methods: jacks, levers, helicopters, and \"even a rope ladder.\" Here, as well, his calculations came to no avail. \"Well, just let it drown,\" he said to himself at last, in a fit of ill temper. Tal's head cleared immediately and he resolved to trust his instincts and play. The next morning the newspaper report read, \"Mikhail Tal, after carefully thinking over the position for forty minutes, made an accurately calculated piece sacrifice.\"\n\nBefore we leave Tal, one word about his chess education. The young Mikhail's development proved vertiginous. He first learned to play at the age of eight, watching the games of patients at a hospital where his father worked. The boy did not shine, far from it. His youthful style was simply one more against which the older players gained their points. Only from the age of twelve did he apply himself seriously. A local master took him under his wing. Within two years the teen had qualified for his national championship; a year later he finished ahead of his trainer. The next year, aged sixteen, he won his country's chess crown and the title of master.\n\nSuch rapid acquisition is reminiscent of the facility with which we learn our mother tongue. Only four years separated the beginner Tal from his first national championship; only four years\u2014as a rule\u2014separate the baby from fluent speech. In both cases, an adult's guiding hand makes all the difference. Left to his own devices, neither the baby nor the beginner can hope to make much progress. Linguists say that a child learns his language by exposure to highly structured input; his parents address him more slowly, more questioningly, in short sentences that verge on curtness. The chess player, in a similar fashion, learns best from a coach's counsel; he is shown many patterns and combinations of moves that characterize expert play.\n\nWittgenstein observed that language, like chess, is a game governed by rules. Knowing how to use a word, he said, is like knowing how to move a chess piece. From a small number of these initial rules, immense complexity is spawned. Gossip on a street corner can rival in complexity any game of chess. This is because the number of concatenations of words that form meaningful sentences approaches infinity. Speakers (and writers) are always coming up with original sentences, like chess masters with their novel moves. And like any player worthy of winning, the speaker (and again the writer, to some extent) anticipates the other's response. He modifies his speech to accord with his anticipation. Not only does he know what he can say, he knows what he should say, and\u2014perhaps even more interestingly\u2014what he should not. A skilled conversationalist has this knack for knowing which avenues to explore and which to avoid. Similarly, certain chess moves, in certain situations, while perfectly legal, are considered taboo. I have heard of a grandmaster who once described his opponent's early capture of a pawn with his bishop as being \"low culture.\" The move boasted the advantage of quick material gain, but at the expense of the formation and coordination of his pieces. Such moves are rarely propitious to a good game.\n\nI am reminded of a scene from the 1951 novel _The Master of Go_ by Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata. The story's narrator, a passionate amateur of the game (Go is an ancient and highly strategic board game), plays on his pocket magnet set during a train ride home. Opposite him counters a tall American tourist, on whose knees the gold leaf board rests for the duration of the journey. The Japanese narrator prevails quickly, game after game. \"It was as if I were throwing a large but badly balanced opponent in a wrestling match.\" Throughout, he notices a sort of thoughtlessness, a lack of personal investment, in the American's play. For the tourist, he imagines, playing Go was \"like having an argument in a foreign language learned from grammar texts.\"\n\nTaking this thought to its natural conclusion, Kawabata goes so far as to declare the game's subtleties as being inaccessible to foreigners. What he means by this, I think, is that a good game (whether of Go or chess), like a good conversation, requires a certain sensibility born of complete immersion. I am thinking of that attention to form which elevates a phrase or move beyond the merely functional. Even in translation, Kawabata's own elliptic writing style can often puzzle the non-Japanese reader. Many details, which to his countrymen appear straightforward, can pass entirely over our heads. Why, for instance, does the narrator in the novel mention that his Go board is decorated with gold leaf? Might it be a reference to illumination? Or victory? Should we read in it the suggestion of Go as an art? We can only hazard a guess as to its meaning.\n\nGrandmasters, of course, are immersed in their game. Some drown, sunk by an insanity brought on by virtually infinite complexity. Most, however, find their own fullest and richest means of expression in the combinations of moves they deploy. These players do not so much think about chess, as think _in_ chess, just as we think in language. I read an account of one master who recalls each day's events as though they were moves on a chessboard. He remembers going for an afternoon swim as, say, King's knight to F6, while a restaurant meal with his wife comes back to him as a descent four squares of the Queen's rook. These associations appear to him as unremarkable as they are spontaneous.\n\nWe can also see this spontaneity, the spontaneity of speech, in what we call \"blitz\" or \"rapid\" chess. In its most popular form, both players have just one minute in which to dispense all their moves. Pieces slide frantically from square to square; agile hands swat over and over the button on their clock. At a rate of one move per second or thereabouts, whole games, upward of forty moves, are frequently accomplished. In spite of having no time to think, the players in these games often attain surprisingly high standards.\n\nI don't wish to imply that playing chess is all instinct. Alacrity has its virtues (the absence of indecision for one), but they are not the virtues of the longer form. At its best, chess\u2014like language\u2014privileges reflection and careful thought. Looked at one way, a game of chess amounts to a long series of shifting problems, the most intriguing among them capable of making unique demands upon our imagination. As with a beautiful passage in a novel, we feel that we could happily spend almost any amount of time in its company.\n\nOccasionally an amateur player will scour the back pages of certain newspapers (the kind whose pages end up wrapping glass vases, but never greasy fries) to savor and solve these chess problems. Illustrations of the board, its pieces frozen in print, compete for space with the week's crossword puzzle. \"White to play and mate in three\" or \"Black to play and draw\" its title will announce. Quite often the position displayed is at least half cleared of its starting pieces, and the game has attained its final moments. The amateur stares at the inky pieces and the smudged squares, waiting for a surge of inspiration. It is more or less the same experience as when we read some striking lines of a poem.\n\nMany of these published chess positions have never known an actual board; they are the figment of some inventor's imagination. Among these inventors figures one \"Vladimir Sirin,\" better known as the multilingual novelist and poet Vladimir Nabokov, for whom such compositions equated to the \"poetry of chess\" (his 1969 anthology, _Poems and Problems,_ was illustrated by eighteen of his own efforts).\n\nThose sixty-four squares, their peculiar geometry, fascinated the great wordsmith to the point of obsession. The right-angled triangle, for instance, traced by a king's vertical (or horizontal), and then diagonal, retreat across the board disobeys Pythagoras's famous theorem. Off the board, in the \"real world,\" moving, say, three paces across and as many paces up (or down) would produce a greater diagonal distance (four and a quarter paces long) between the start and end points. The king's \"triangle,\" on the other hand, has identical length (traversing the exact same number of squares) on every side. This optical illusion (expecting a diagonal route to require a greater number of moves than either a vertical or horizontal path) plays an essential role in the chess problem composer's craft.\n\nLike his words, Nabokov's chess pieces relied on precise positions and combinations for their meaning. He saw to it that the pieces' values differed sharply from the amateur's expectations. The \"value\" of a position's queen, for example\u2014while generally considered to be twice that of a rook, thrice the worth of a knight or bishop, and nine times as important as a pawn\u2014might decrease to next to nothing if immobilized to a corner or back row by the careful setup of lesser pieces.\n\nNumerous mathematicians also double up as inventors of chess problems. They create positions to solve questions like, what is the maximum number of possible checkmates in one move? Answer, forty-seven. Or what is the smallest number of bishops needed to occupy or attack every square? Answer, eight (the same as for the smallest number of rooks). Or else they compose whole games of a specific number of moves to reach a given position.\n\nThere is a final analogy between chess and language that I should mention. I began these pages reflecting on mistakes. I said that grandmasters make magisterial mistakes, founded on great creative intuition. Young children do, too. From ambient talk they get wind of words, but their minds then make of them what they will. As a matter of fact, the toddler's speech far exceeds the mimicry of adults; its features are distinct and demonstrate invention. For example, we have all heard a young child say something like \"three mouses\" or \"I goed\" instead of \"mice\" and \"went,\" though no parent would utter such a thing. More inventive still were the kids who reportedly suggested that a \"myth\" was a female moth, or that benign is \"what you will be after you be eight.\"\n\nPerhaps they grew up to become grandmasters.\n\n# Twenty-Two\n\n# SELVES AND STATISTICS\n\nFor each one of us, nothing is so personal, so intimate, and so selfish as our death. From time immemorial, men have sought to predict its hour. They have scattered bird entrails, or elaborated bad dreams, or consulted the office of an oracle. When these prophecies were not plainly wrong, deluded, or hysterical, they often proved unhelpfully vague and misleading. According to one legend, a Scythian prince consulted a Greek oracle to discover how he would die. A _mus_ (mouse), he was told, would be the agent of his demise. The prince took the forewarning to heart. He had his houses cleared of mice and even snubbed the company of any man called Mus. All the same, shortly thereafter, death came for him. The cause? He died from an infected arm muscle (the word _muscle,_ in Greek, means \"mouse\").\n\nThe idea of death as a statistical phenomenon, amenable to calculation, occurred only toward the end of the seventeenth century, with the publication of the world's first mortality table. This new conception of death had gestated so long for a good reason: it upended completely how men and women understood their individual lives. _Society_ \u2014if and when this term existed at all\u2014had always been held to be only a loose confederation of free souls. The precise business and destiny of each were an impenetrable mystery. Crowds were merely freaks, monsters with many heads and countless limbs. That a person might be in any way comparable to the crowd, that he might be deciphered by studying the behavior of his family, his village, his fellow countrymen, seemed both impossible and absurd.\n\nAnd if the individual was beyond the pale of understanding, so, too, was his eventual extinction. No scholar, bitter experience told most people, could hope to get inside the Grim Reaper's skull. Death touched rosy-cheeked infants and decrepit widows alike, with no apparent rhyme or reason. An ancient man on his last legs might somehow survive another decade, while his grandson, beaming with youth and health, not live to see the following spring.\n\nStories took the place of science, their tellers repeating the same message over and over: life is full of surprises. Remember Old John, one tale would go, Old John who laughed so hard at his neighbor's joke that his heart gave out? The farmer's wife who was butted into her grave by the goat? The squire who caught cold sleeping in church?\n\nIt was in this atmosphere of ambivalence that Edmond Halley, who found lasting fame calculating a comet's orbit, published _An Estimate of the Degrees of the Mortality of Mankind_ in 1693. Halley based his figures on the city of Breslaw, capital of the province of Silesia, \"near the confines of Germany and Poland and very near the latitude of London,\" with a total population of 34,000. For five years running, monthly figures for every birth and death in the city had been collated: 6,193 births and 5,869 burials in all. Of the newborns, Halley discovered, 28 percent perished in their first year; only a little more than half lived to celebrate their sixth birthday. Most of these, however, would go on to have children of their own. \"From this age the infants being arrived at some degree of firmness grow less and less mortal.\"\n\nOf citizens between the ages of nine and twenty-five, the number of deaths each year equated to about 1 percent. This figure rose to 3 percent for those aged between twenty-six and fifty, jumping to 10 percent for those having reached the ripe age of seventy. \"From thence the number of the living being grown very small, they gradually decline till there be none left to die.\"\n\nHalley used this combined data to calculate \"the differing degrees of mortality, or rather vitality in all ages.\" For example, to estimate the odds that a person aged twenty-five would not die within the next twelve months, he compared the city's twenty-five-year-olds (totaling 567) to its twenty-six-year-olds (560), and thereby concluded that an \"average\" twenty-five-year-old would have odds of 560 to 7, or 80 to 1, that he outlive the year.\n\nWhat is the probability that a man of forty live a further seven years? Halley took the number of forty-seven-year-olds (377) and subtracted it from the number of forty-year-olds (445) to find the difference between the two ages (68). The odds that a forty-year-old become a forty-seven-year-old were therefore 377 divided by 68, or 5.5 to 1.\n\nHow many years might a man of thirty reasonably expect to have still ahead of him? To answer this question, Halley would first determine the number of thirty-year-olds (531), and then halve it (equivalent to considering as even odds that the person would die within the period). This halved figure (265), he then finds, equates to the number of citizens between fifty-seven and fifty-eight years of age. The \"average\" thirty-year-old could look forward to a further twenty-seven or twenty-eight years.\n\nFrom his findings Halley drew a suitably pious conclusion.\n\n> Unjustly we repine at the shortness of our lives, and think our selves wronged if we attain not old age; whereas it appears hereby, that the one half of those that are born are dead in seventeen years time... so that instead of murmuring at what we call an untimely death, we ought with patience and unconcern to submit to that dissolution which is the necessary condition of our perishable materials, and of our nice and frail structure and composition: And to account it as a blessing that we have survived, perhaps by many years, that period of life, whereat the one half of the whole race of mankind does not arrive.\n\nIt was a mortality table just like the one first drawn up by Halley that the American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould would scrutinize at length, three centuries later, in the summer of 1982. It was the summer when the Equal Rights Amendment was voted down, when Italy beat West Germany in the final of the soccer World Cup, when a debt crisis broke loose across South America, and when Gould sat in his doctor's office and learned that he would shortly die. He was forty and had just been diagnosed with a rare and incurable form of cancer. Poring over books at Harvard's medical library, thick as hand-spans, subsequently taught him all that there was then to know about the condition and its survival rates. In summary: he had a median of eight months left to live.\n\nGould could not take seriously Halley's well-meaning words of advice. He would not submit readily to his body's dissolution; he wanted to survive. He thought of his wife, his two young sons, his high-flying career. A million other things went through his mind: the museum's Tyrannosaurus rex, all gigantic teeth and bulky bones, that he had seen as a small boy; his father, in his evening slippers, reading _Das Kapital;_ the opening bars of Gilbert and Sullivan's _Mikado;_ his Yankees season ticket; the Pepperidge Farm cookies in his office drawer. His office. What would his microscopes do, and his favorite rattan chair? Sit on the wrong shelf; stand in an unlit corner. Gather dust.\n\nWhat did Gould do in such dire circumstances? What could he do? He did what virtually every recipient of bad news does: he hunted feverishly after even the slightest, even the faintest positive angle. He would not abandon hope. A _median_ of eight months; that is what the statistics said. If half of all the patients with his cancer would die within eight months of their diagnosis, it meant that half would live beyond eight months. Some would live on for years. This thought comforted him. His mind tightened around it. Age? He was still young. Class? His family lived on the better side of town. Health? A little on the heavy side, but he had no other baggage. Attitude? He identified a strong will, even temper, and a clear purpose for living. His chances of landing in the latter half of the patients' prospects seemed to him great.\n\nHe would have only one future death, not thousands, and the median said next to nothing about it. This became his mantra. Friends and family asked him to explain. Averages talk about populations, not persons, he would reply. If I died a thousand times, approximately half of those deaths would occur within eight months. The other half would follow one by one: days, weeks, months, or years later. Who can tell where my single death, out of the thousand possible deaths, will fall?\n\nThe following months were tough and turbulent for Gould, full of boredom, pain, and exhaustion. Doctors radiated his body, pumped it with drugs, and put it under the knife. He hemorrhaged weight\u2014in all, he lost a third of his 180 pounds. His hair embarrassed him by falling out. The lonely and tedious hours of treatment piled one upon the other, oppressing and enfeebling him. And yet he survived. His cancer went into remission. Two years later he was well enough to write a long article about his experience, \"The Median Is Not the Message.\" A decade after its publication he was still going strong. \"I am a member of a very small, very fortunate, and very select group\u2014the first survivors of the previously incurable cancer,\" he wrote.\n\nIn March 2002, Gould\u2014aged sixty\u2014published his magnum opus, _The Structure of Evolutionary Theory,_ 1,342 pages long. It was the seventeenth book to bear his name since his diagnosis twenty years before.\n\nTwo months later, his personal death finally arrived, the result of a second, unrelated cancer.\n\nKnowing how to read the mortality table's numbers probably extended Gould's life by many years (he affirmed a likely link between an individual's state of mind and his immune system). Not knowing how to read them, on the other hand, cost one man and his family very dear.\n\nAndr\u00e9-Fran\u00e7ois Raffray's story is an extreme illustration\u2014perhaps the most extreme\u2014of confusing persons with percentages. Raffray was a long-serving and successful public notary, living and working in the southern French city of Arles. Among his clients was a ninety-year-old widow, without heirs, whose name was Jeanne Calment. One day, in 1965, Raffray agreed to purchase the widow's house under a scheme the French call _rente viag\u00e8re:_ in return for paying Calment a monthly sum of 2,500 francs, he would own the property upon her death.\n\nRaffray must have imagined that he had struck an excellent deal. The widow's house was worth close to half a million francs. Assuming that she lived another three years\u2014the current life expectancy for an average ninety-year-old French woman\u2014he would shell out fewer than 100,000 francs in all. Over 20 percent of nonagenarians died before their next birthday. The statistics, he thought, were on his side. \"Even if she makes it to ninety-four, or ninety-five, or ninety-six, I will still have the house in the end for only a fraction of its value. And what if she goes on and on, to ninety-seven, or ninety-eight, or\u2014God forbid\u2014to one hundred? But how many people ever live to one hundred? Not even one person in a thousand! To think that she might go on another ten years! I cannot imagine it. But what do I care? Let her keel over at one hundred: I will still make a tidy profit.\" Such was probably his line of thought.\n\nIt was a mistaken assumption that the very old are all more or less the same. The notary's acquaintance with Madame Calment was slight. Her snow-white hair, her birdlike frame, her papery skin, he mistook for frailty. He saw these features and thought at once of every elderly person he had ever met. Faces, bodies, lives, blended together in his mind. What did these people, averaged, have in common? Sickness, sadness, shortness of breath.\n\nBut before Madame Calment was old she had been young, and she had ridden a bicycle through the cobbled streets of Paris, and stretched after fluffy tennis balls, and eaten scores of fruit and salads slick with olive oil. Early marriage to a wealthy merchant had freed her hands for tinkling piano keys and theater applause. No illness had ever troubled her.\n\nLittle had changed for her since moving to the warm and sunny south. She had taken all her favorite things with her, except for the buried husband. But she had long grown comfortable with her solitude. She was not afraid of silence, of hearing the rhythm of her heart. Nor did she worry about her looks: makeup, she had learned, could not resist her frequent tears of laughter. At age eighty-five, she wore silly plump padding for her first fencing lessons without giving it a second's thought. She still loved walking in the open air. Regular sips of port wine and snacks of chocolate brightened her day.\n\nCareful study of the mortality table had taught the notary with what frequency previous nonagenarians had died and after how many years, but he had not thought about the future. It was a fact, for example, that France counted no more than a few hundred centenarians in 1965. But that was then, and the widow would reach her hundredth birthday, if she reached it, in ten years' time. How many centenarians would France have in 1975? In 1980? In 1990? That is the kind of question that the notary forgot to ask. Around the world, medicine and technology were rapidly improving. Once significant causes of death\u2014from flu, vitamin deficiency, or high blood pressure\u2014were dwindling. Within a generation, the number of centenarians in France would increase twentyfold.\n\nAnd what of the table's statistics? They deserve a closer look. For one thing, the data available for the very old was necessarily sparse and unreliable. Too few before the generation of Madame Calment had lived long enough to give being ninety years old a proper try. Statisticians knew next to nothing of a nonagenarian's medical needs, eating habits, daily routines, and much else besides. Guesswork had to fill in the gaps.\n\nLife expectancy: three years, announced the table. But let us see what this actually means. If there were ten thousand ninety-year-olds in 1965, there would be around five thousand still living in 1968. The life expectancy of these ninety-three-year-olds would not be zero. What would it be? (This was another question that the notary did not think to ask.) Almost three years. Live three years in your nineties and the chances are fair you will live three years more. And if there were five thousand ninety-three-year-olds in 1968, there would be around two thousand surviving in 1971. These ninety-six-year-olds could expect, on average, to live a further two years. In 1973, about a thousand\u201410 percent of the original number of ninety-year-olds\u2014would still be alive. Close to half of these in turn would live long enough to reach their hundredth birthday.\n\nMadame Calment, in February 1975, numbered among them. One hundred years old, but still in fine shape, on her feet every day. She left the dying to others. At the age of 105, her notary's monthly checks amounted to the full value of her house. But still he had to keep on paying.\n\nFive more years passed and Madame Calment begrudgingly moved into a nursing home. At 110, her age exceeded the maximum figure of most mortality tables. At 113 she became the oldest person in the world: _la doyenne de l'humanit\u00e9_.\n\nEven then, she did not die. Her eyes dimmed, her joints stiffened, but she remained in good spirits. Statisticians who had long estimated a maximal human life span of between 110 and 115 years were proven wrong. Madame Calment became the first person in history to celebrate her one-hundred-and-sixteenth birthday, her one-hundred-and-seventeenth birthday, her one-hundred-and-eighteenth birthday, her one-hundred-and-nineteenth birthday.\n\nIn 1995, \"Jeanne,\" as people now called her, attained 120 years of age. The nursing home, which until then had received few visitors, suddenly swelled with reporters from around the world. Tiny, desiccated, she sat before a bank of cameras. She does not smile, complained one of the photographers. Ask her if she wants to go on living, demanded a journalist. The nursing home director cupped her hand around the old woman's right ear, as though playing an absurd game of Chinese whispers. \"The monsieur would like to know if you want to live a little longer?\" she shouted into the ear.\n\nYes.\n\nHer notary was absent that day. Long retired, nearing eighty, he was not well enough to attend. Later that year, he died. He had never set foot inside Madame Calment's house. Under the terms of the thirty-year-old contract, his widow continued to pay. By the time Madame Calment eventually died two years later, aged 122, the notary and his family had paid nearly a million francs: many times the anticipated payout and twice what the property had been worth when they took on the arrangement.\n\nFrom where, we might well ask ourselves, did this strange idea of an average cancer patient or an average nonagenarian originate? _A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties_ introduced _l'homme moyen_ (\"the average man\") to the nineteenth-century world. \"If an individual at any given epoch of society possessed all the qualities of the average man, he would represent all that is great, good, or beautiful.\"\n\nThe author\u2014a Belgian mathematician called Alphonse Quetelet\u2014imagined how Nature created men. He pictured Nature as a bowman who aimed continuously for the statistical center. The bull's-eye would be a perfectly median man (or woman): a rational, temperate person free from any excess or deficiency. Most individuals, according to this view, were Nature's errant arrows. They straggled, nearer or farther, around the mean. The taller-than-average flaunted the shorter man's missing inches; the drunkard lacked his part of the teetotaler's (excessive) self-control; the hairy man wore the bald man's follicles.\n\nQuetelet therefore urged his readers to take a wide view of humanity. Every person, after all, was \"but a fraction of mankind.\" Instead of interesting themselves with men and women, scientists should study the population as a whole. \"The greater the number of individuals observed, the more do individual peculiarities, whether physical or moral, become effaced, and allow the general facts to predominate, by which society exists and is preserved.\"\n\nSo the mathematician averages data collected from a thousand or ten thousand households and learns, for example, that the \"normal\" male height is five feet seven inches, that the \"normal\" time spent reading the newspaper is twelve minutes, that the \"normal\" diet consists of eggs, potatoes, and meat. A height of five feet five inches, or six feet two inches, is aberrant; spending five minutes, or thirty, with the newspaper is abnormal; too much fish or too few eggs on a plate is deviant.\n\nDrawing from this data, the mathematician observes regularities: most men are two inches too tall or too squat, most readers linger three minutes too long (or skim three minutes too short) over their newspaper, most housewives cook six potatoes per week too few or too many.\n\nBut it was not only physical or mental traits that a mathematician might average. Morality, too, could offer itself up to calculation. An analysis of police statistics would reveal the defining characteristics of the \"average\" criminal, \"even for such crimes that seem to escape all human foresight like murder since they are committed in general without motive and in circumstances, apparently, the most fortuitous.\" According to Quetelet's figures, the \"typical\" murderer would be male, in his twenties, literate and a white-collar worker. He would have alcohol on his breath, and be wearing the light clothes of summer. Probability would put a pistol (rather than a knife, or a bat, or a vial of poison) in his hand.\n\nThis idea spread quickly. It proved popular with scientists and the general public alike. Most frequently it was reinforced neither by logic nor analysis, but by simple prejudice. People laughed, and sneered, and denounced, and ridiculed variously identified \"types\" of the average man. But worst of all, they believed that such beings really did exist.\n\nImages propagated the idea with particular efficacy; as the proverb says: a picture is worth a thousand words. One newspaper caricature was enough to do the work of Quetelet's wordy disclaimers (his original book had run to several hundred pages). If the caricature depicted an Irishman\u2014all Irishmen\u2014with a misshapen jaw, feathered cap, protruding teeth, it was plain enough that the \"average Irishman\" bore more than a passing resemblance. If it showed a filthy, vulgar, gin-swilling beggar, it confirmed how many readers imagined the \"average poor.\"\n\nPhotography\u2014then still a young and innovative technique\u2014was similarly enlisted. Mug shots of eight different individuals were superimposed to reveal the blurry face of the \"average criminal.\" Nine photos of consumptive patients were merged to produce a portrait of tuberculosis. Images from six medals depicting Alexander the Great were morphed to reveal the ancient king's probable features. \"It is now proposed,\" announced one magazine, \"to get a clear idea of Nebuchadnezzar from the various stone and brick slabs upon which his face is graven.\"\n\nBut if photography served to popularize the idea of \"average men,\" it also produced an alternative way of looking at ourselves. Identikits (facial composites), created at the end of the nineteenth century, helped to divert some of the focus back from the typical toward the individual. Photos that magnified and emphasized all manner of different facial features now replaced the phantom faces typifying this kind of man, or that sort of person. Instead of a single abstract representative of this or that contrived category, the images highlighted a wealth of actual noses, foreheads, wrinkles, ears, chins, eyelids, lips, and mouths.\n\nTake the nose, for example. Plainly, nobody has a \"nose\"\u2014a person has a low nose or a high nose, a wide nose or a narrow nose, a hooked nose or a straight nose, a long nose or a snub nose. Perhaps the tip is bulbous, the nostrils dilated. And what about the chin? Big or small? Flat or bumpy? Does it retreat toward the throat, or jut out proudly? Does it form a square, or slope down into a point?\n\nA new picture of the person emerges. Yes, of course, commonalities remain. His name equally belongs to other people, his nose to other faces. We are all made of the same blood and bones. But take a closer look. See the proportions, the interplay between all the various parts? Every combination, like a mosaic, is unique. He has his father's eyes, and his mother's curls, and his uncle's lopsided smile. Together they create something, and someone, new. Someone who will look through those eyes in his own way, who will wear that hair according to his own style, who will deploy that smile for his own reasons. Talk to that person. Watch the skein of laughter lines that diagram his face. And how his eyes glisten, or darken, at the sound of certain words. He is simply being himself.\n\nQuetelet (and many others after him) believed that the essence of human nature could be found in the average, but he was mistaken. The essence of human nature is its endless variety. As Stephen Jay Gould would later remark, \"All evolutionary biologists know that variation itself is nature's only irreducible essence. Variation is the hard reality, not a set of imperfect measures for a central tendency. Means and medians are the abstractions.\"\n\n# Twenty-Three\n\n# THE CATARACT OF TIME\n\nIf, as is often said, lifetimes flow like a river, they begin with a trickle and culminate in a cataract. Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher, put it well when he said, \"Time is a game played beautifully by children.\" Perhaps this is the root of nostalgia: less the desire to return to our early years than to the more capacious experience of time that we inhabited as children.\n\nTime. You know how it goes. After the age of thirty, I found, the days begin to run away from us. We struggle to keep up. That is when the nostalgic impulse awakens, burgeons, pesters. Last year I moved to Paris. Something about being back in a big city after so many years meant I could not help thinking, more and more, about the old London neighborhood of my youth. I had reached that age when the past becomes so big and so deep that your mind finds itself increasingly drawn there. It is like living on a fragile coast, by an imposing sea whose smells and sounds gradually overwhelm your senses.\n\nSo I decided to return. There was salt water to cross, and buses that jolted and trains that bored, but none of those things mattered. I simply had to go and see the place again after all this time.\n\nMy younger siblings, when I spoke to them about the plan, chorused dissuasion. \"There is nothing there,\" they said, perplexed. Evidently, they had all moved on. \"Why go back?\"\n\nI tried to explain. I opened my mouth, felt the breath on my tongue form plausible shapes. But my heart was not in it and each of my made-up reasons fell flat. I decided not to argue. I booked the tickets, packed my bags, and left.\n\nThat I could not explain my desire to return to my old London home did not disturb me. On the contrary, its surprising strength convinced. Reassured, even. Gazing out from the wobbly train, I tried to remember when I had last set foot there. My reflection in the window wore an expression of thought. Tall trees and green hills ran past. I looked away, cracked open a book, and stared at the pages till the words seemed to gel into a single inky mass.\n\nFive years. Already? Where had they gone? So many things that I had accomplished, people that I had met, places that I had seen, now looking back, seemed to have taken hardly any time at all. And yet how difficult, how exhausting, how important each event had struck me in the moment! And how impossibly distant, a lifetime away, these hours in the train out of Paris would have appeared to me back then.\n\nIt was a fast service to London, without delays. Arriving in the capital, I felt more like a suburban commuter than an international traveler. I changed trains and rattled out from the center toward the familiar periphery, my excitement building. Gradually the carriage emptied of its suits; a different class of passenger took their place. \"We must be getting close,\" I thought, straining forward, oblivious to my wristwatch. Near the end of the line, I gathered my things\u2014my bearings too\u2014and stepped out. The platform was covered in litter and broken glass, but for an instant, at least, it felt unambiguously good to be back.\n\nTime is more than an attitude or a frame of mind. It is about more than seeing the hourglass as half empty or half full. More than ever in this age, let us call it the computer age, a lifetime has become a discrete and eminently measurable quality. To date, to believe the surveys in newspapers, I have spent some one hundred thousand minutes standing in a line, and five hundred hours making tea. I have spent a year's worth of waking days on the hunt for lost things. This year, I knew, contained my twelve-thousand-and-twelfth day and night. That number equates to over a quarter of a million hours, seventeen and a quarter million minutes. Counting one number for every second since my birth, I had recently made it into the billionaire's club.\n\nWe occasionally liken time to money, as something to be spent wisely, but it is not money. No refunds are possible for days ill spent; no bank exists to take savings. We cannot apportion our time like money, since we live always in ignorance of when the former will end. How to plan when a person can never know if he will see tomorrow, or survive to such an age that his eyes turn coal-black with blindness?\n\nPerhaps it would be better to talk about time in the manner of certain tribes. Strangers to clocks, they pace their days according to nature. Native Americans traditionally planted corn \"when the leaf of the white oak was the size of a mouse's ear.\" Equinoxes and solstices scheduled their rituals. As for language, the Sioux have no word for \"late\" or \"waiting.\"\n\nIn Australia, the Aborigines believe that time, place, and people are one. A glance at a tree or a face suffices to know the hour and the day. Their discrimination of the seasons is precise, depending on such factors as plant life and changes in the wind: the Eastern Gunwinggu, for example, speak of six seasons\u2014three \"dry\" and three \"wet\"\u2014where non-Aborigines see only one of each.\n\nFor these and other tribes, time is the product of one's actions. It appears when they sing a song, climb a mountain, or smoke a pipe, and vanishes when they sleep. They do not think of time as something pervasive, like the air. Seconds, minutes, and hours\u2014these are all things that we do. In place of these terms, they speak of a \"time of harvesting\" or a \"river fish time.\" Ask an African herdsman how long such-and-such task might take and he replies, \"Cow milking time,\" meaning the time it takes to milk a cow. What is an hour to such a man? Perhaps the time it takes to milk ten cows.\n\nWe can put it another way: 1 hour = 10 milkings. My equivalent would be 1 hour = 10 tea-makings. Let us call it \"tea time.\" A short walk that lasts eighteen minutes equates to three milkings or makings-of-tea; a two-minute commercial break amounts to one-third of a cup of tea. Between the opening and closing whistles of a soccer referee, time enough would pass to milk fifteen cows, or make fifteen cuppas.\n\nI do not mean by this digression to suggest that approximations necessarily trump exactitude. It is not at all my intention to run clocks down. But the particular words and images our respective cultures deploy shape the way in which we experience time. I said just now that time is not money; we might say instead that it is closer to the spending of money. According to the tribesmen's way of thinking, it is what happens when, for example, we enter a marketplace. This emphasis on activity in how we think about time strikes me as being very healthy. When I hear someone complain about all the hours or weekends he has to fill, I stop and think that it is a mistake to speak of days as we would speak of holes. One hole is much the same as any other, whereas every day is different. In this, it is more like dough that we can sculpt into infinitely varying shapes.\n\nOn the journey back to my childhood home, I paused outside the train station, then made my way north toward the high street. The buildings were more or less the same as in my recollection: the same squat walls, tattooed with graffiti; the same \"50 percent off\" signs in shop windows; the same boys and girls, their busy fingers unwrapping candy. No bravado in the architecture, no color or charm. Along the sidewalks, no bustle either\u2014either too early or too late for shoppers. Few cars animated the road. I walked mechanically, turning here and there, smelling the sugar of freshly laid tarmac on Waterbeach Road.\n\nI landed finally on my old street. I took it all in. On the left stood metal railings and distantly behind them the classroom buildings of my former elementary school, factory-long. To the right, a chain of brick houses, close set. Their thin walls, I recall, made bad neighbors. Down the road, I spotted a small man in the distance. The man grew bigger with every step. He was wearing a blue-and-red jersey, but he did not look like a soccer player. The tightness of the shirt pronounced a sizable paunch. His dark hair was cut penitentiary short. His breathing rasped as he passed me by. And then he was gone.\n\nI was surprised by how little had been altered. Painted house number signs, wooden gates, hedgerows all long forgotten, I recognize instantly. And yet it all seems so different from my kid days. Something has shifted out of sync, something I try to put my finger on. In frustration, I walk up and down the street until my legs tire. Only as I ready myself for the ride back does it hit me. What has changed here is time.\n\nIn his 1890 classic work, _The Principles of Psychology,_ the American philosopher William James noted, \"The same space of time seems shorter as we grow older\u2014that is, the days, the months, and the years do so; whether the hours do so is doubtful, and the minutes and seconds to all appearance remain about the same.\"\n\nJames goes on to cite a mathematical explanation for this phenomenon, by a contemporary French professor. According to this professor, Paul Janet, our experience of time is proportional to our age. For a ten-year-old child, one year represents one-tenth of his existence; whereas for a man of fifty, the same year equates only to one-fiftieth (2 percent). The older man's year will thus seem to elapse five times faster than the child's; the child's, five times slower than the man's.\n\nWhat matters, then, is the relationship between one sequence of years and another sequence. The interval spanning the ages of thirty-two and sixty-four will seem to the individual of similar duration to that experienced between the ages of sixteen and thirty-two, and to the interval between the ages of eight and sixteen, and to that from the age of four to eight, each having the same ratio. For the same reason, all the years from the age of sixty-four to one hundred and twenty-eight (assuming such an age were ever attainable) would seem to us to occupy no more of our feeling, thought, pain, fear, joy, and wonder than that big bang epoch between our second and fourth year.\n\nMore recently, from T. L. Freeman, we have a formula using Janet's insight that yields the individual's \"effective age.\" Freeman's calculations suggest that we experience a quarter of our entire lifetime by age two, over half by age ten, and more than three-quarters by our thirtieth birthday. At only about the chronological midway point, a forty-year-old will experience his remaining time as seemingly but one-sixth of what has gone before. For a sixty-year-old, the future will seem to last merely one-sixteenth the duration of his past.\n\nAre all our attempts to look back, to relive some bygone period, in vain? We can never walk down the same street twice. Those streets of my youth belong to another time, which is no longer my own. Except, that is, when I dream.\n\nFast asleep, I become a visitor there. I see a schoolgirl at the edge of the hopscotch grid, contemplating her throw. A man, atop a ladder, is washing his windows. His free hand glides rhythmically upon the glass. On the pavement, a neighbor's tabby squirms in the sunshine: stretching, and stretching his paws. The grunts and sighs of passing traffic fill my ears. I see my grandfather, alive, standing with his cane at the gate, as though keeping guard over my father's vegetable patch. I stop and watch my father. Sleeves hoisted to his elbows, he picks beans, sows herbs, and counts cucumbers. I watch without hurry, without a care in the world. Time is dilated; there is no time.\n\nAsleep or awake, our bodies keep time a great deal better than our brains. Hair and nails grow at a predictable rate. An intake of breath is never wasted; appetite hardly ever comes late or early. Think about animals. Ducks and geese need only follow their instinct for when to pull up sticks and migrate. I have read of oxen that carried their burden for precisely the same duration every day. No whip could persuade them to continue beyond it.\n\nWe wear the tally of our years on our brows and cheeks. I doubt our bodies could ever lose their count. Like the ox, each knows intimately the moment when to stop.\n\n# Twenty-Four\n\n# HIGHER THAN HEAVEN\n\nOn January 22, 1886, Georg Cantor, who had discovered the existence of an infinite number of infinities, wrote a letter to Cardinal Johannes Franzen of the Vatican Council, defending his ideas against a possible charge of blasphemy. A devout believer, the mathematician considered himself a friend of the Church. God, he believed, had used his preoccupation with numbers to reveal a further aspect of His infinite nature. Fellow logicians had mostly sidestepped the young man's thinking; hardly anyone yet took seriously the outstanding insights that would make his name.\n\nBefore Cantor it had been impossible to speak mathematically about different sorts of infinity. All collections without a final object (the sequence of odd or even numbers, for example, or the primes) were simply conceived as being of equal size. Cantor proved that this was false. His papers were the first to demonstrate uncountable sets of numbers, that is to say, numerical sequences that even an infinitely long recitation could not exhaust. What is more, each uncountable set of numbers spawned another set of numbers that was even \"bigger\" than the last. Of the making of such sets, Cantor realized, there was no end.\n\nThe mathematician Leopold Kronecker, for whom \"God created the integers [whole numbers], all else is the work of man,\" had no truck with Cantor's (infinite) tower of \"smaller\" and \"bigger\" infinities. He hounded his rival with violent words, called him a charlatan, a corrupter of youth. In the absence of his peers' understanding, Cantor turned at last for support to the Holy See.\n\nThe dialogue between theology and mathematics\u2014varied, fitful, and singular\u2014has a long history. Above all, infinity became the favorite topic. God is infinite, therefore mathematics is religion: a pathway to knowledge of the divine. This is what the Church fathers reasoned, and this is why the monks long ago proceeded where the mathematicians had feared to tread.\n\nA thousand years before Cantor, in an Irish monastery, a man sat day after day at a table smelling of wicks and manuscripts. He spent years almost immobile, in deep and sustained contemplation, meditating on a perfect sphere that exists beyond space, universal and without limit. Of course, it is contradictory to think about a shape that has no border. The monk knew this. He knew that to think about infinity is to think in contradictions.\n\nMinutes passed, hours passed. But what is a minute or an hour when compared to eternity? No time at all. A minute, an hour, a year, a thousand years, are all equally long or short in comparison. The light in the monk's cell would gradually disperse at the end of each long day; his mind might stutter, \"I, I, I, I, I...,\" but try as he would, Johannes Scotus Eriugena\u2014John of Ireland\u2014could not escape his senses and grasp the infinite.\n\nAccording to Eriugena, God is not good, since He is beyond goodness; not great since He is beyond greatness; not wise since He is beyond wisdom. God, he writes, is more than God, more than time, _infinitas omnium infinitatum_ (the infinity of all infinities), the beginning and end of all things, though He Himself had no beginning and will meet no end. Eriugena recalls the words of Job:\n\n> Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than heaven\u2014what can you do? Deeper than Sheol\u2014what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. If He passes by, imprisons, and gathers to judgment, then who can hinder Him?\n\nIf God is infinite, Holy Scripture, being inspired by God, is held to exist outside the bonds of conventional time. Eriugena cites St. Augustine to affirm that the Bible often employs the past tense to express the future. Adam's life in Paradise \"only began,\" occupying no real time at all, so that its depiction in Genesis \"must refer rather to the life that would have been his if he had remained obedient.\"\n\nAugustine's teachings contributed greatly to the Irish monk's thought, and that of the theologians who followed. In _The City of God,_ Augustine insists that God knows every number to infinity and can count them all instantaneously. \"If everything which is comprehended is defined or made finite by the comprehension of him who knows it, then all infinity is in some ineffable way made finite to God, for it is comprehensible by his knowledge.\"\n\nTwo centuries after Eriugena, in 1070, Anselm provided his famous \"ontological proof\" that God is that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought. If every number has its object, the object of infinity is God. Anselm became Archbishop of Canterbury; one of his successors, Thomas Bradwardine, in the fourteenth century, identifies the divine being with an infinite vacuum. The finite world is compared to a sponge in a boundless sea of space.\n\nInfinity begets finitude, and thus cannot be grasped in finite terms. But how then to understand infinity in infinite terms? Alexander Neckham, a twelfth-century reviver of interest in Anselm's work, offered this problem a vivid image. For Neckham, God's immensity is such that even if one were to double the world in the next hour, and then triple it in the hour after that, then quadruple it in the following hour, and so on, still the world would be but a \"quasi point\" in comparison.\n\nSuch immensity inspires in the monks at once admiration and consternation: consternation, because an infinitely remote divine being would rule out the Incarnation. For the same reason, the believer would never see God in the Beatific Vision, and neither could he ever conform his will to the divine will. The vacuum is in fact a chasm, forever separating Mankind from its Creator.\n\nThe _De Veritate_ of Thomas Aquinas, written between 1256 and 1259, offers a solution: \"as the ruler is related to the city, so is the pilot to the ship.\" An infinitely powerful ruler bears no direct comparison to a humble captain, yet both possess a \"likeness of proportions\": a finite quantity equates to another finite quantity, in the same way that the infinite is equal to the infinite. In other words, \"three is to six as five million is to ten million\" bears a likeness to the proportion \"God is to the angels as the infinite vacuum is to an eternal creation.\" Aquinas deploys the analogy throughout his work: as our finite understanding grasps finite things so does God's infinite understanding grasp infinite things; as our finite intellect is to what it knows, so is God's infinite intellect to the infinitely many things He knows; just as men distribute finite goods so does God distribute all the goods of the universe. Aquinas writes that the similarity between the infinite God and His finite creation constitutes a \"community of analogy... The creature possesses no being except insofar as it descends from the first being, nor is it named a being except insofar as it imitates the first being.\"\n\nExasperated by critics he called \"murmurers,\" Aquinas sought to settle a further point of contention. The Church taught that the world had a beginning in time. \"The question still arises whether the world could have always existed.\" He penned these words in 1270, entitling them _De Aeternitate Mundi_ (On the Eternal World). His argument was that if the world has always existed, the past regresses infinitely. The world's history must comprise an infinite sequence of past events. If there exists an infinite number of yesterdays, then an infinite number of tomorrows must also succeed. Time is infinitely past, and infinitely future, but never present. For how can any present moment arrive after infinitely many days?\n\nBefore this potentially unsettling line of reasoning, Aquinas remained unmoved and unimpressed. Halfhearted were his remonstrations. Any past event, like the present moment, is finite: therefore the duration between them is also finite, \"for the present marks the end of the past.\"\n\nAnd what about the succession of past events? Aquinas says the arguments for them can go either way. Perhaps God, in all His power, has created a world without end. If so, nothing obliged Him to populate it before Mankind.\n\nA contemporary, Bonaventure, disagreed with Aquinas's equity. His blood thumped at the thought of an interminable past. \"To posit that the world is eternal or eternally produced, while positing likewise that all things have been produced from nothing, is altogether opposed to the truth and reason.\" And what about the contradictions? For instance, if the world were eternal, tomorrow would be a day longer than infinity. But how can something be greater than the infinite?\n\nIn the fourteenth century, Henry of Harclay also faulted Aquinas for saying that an eternal world was possible, but from a point of view entirely opposed to Bonaventure's. For Harclay it was in fact probable, and every supposed contradiction dissolved on careful scrutiny. How can something be greater than the infinite? Look, said Harclay, at the infinite number of numbers: we can count from two, or from one hundred, and in both instances never reach a final number, though there are more numbers to count in the first infinity than there are in the second. He invoked Aquinas's proportions to defend the thesis of an infinite universe in which the infinitely many months occur twelve times more frequently than the infinitely many years.\n\nTo those who point out that an infinite past would have produced an infinite number of souls with infinite power like God, Harclay refutes the argument as follows: infinitely many souls would not constitute an infinite power. They would be not \"any species of number, but a multitude of infinitely many numbers.\" Within this endless multitude, every possible number (59, 1,043,962, 999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999...) could be found, distinct and finite, each corresponding to a soul; save, that is, for an infinitieth number\/soul since this would produce a contradiction: \"there is not a number of infinite numbers, for then it would contain itself, which is impossible.\"\n\nWe trace to the same period, in the monk Gregory of Rimini's hand, the first definition of an infinite number as that which has parts equally great as the whole. Every twenty-third number, for example (we might just as well have taken every ninety-ninth number, or every third, or every five billionth), in the infinite succession of counting numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6...) produces a sequence as long\u2014infinitely long\u2014as all the counting numbers combined: match one with twenty-three, two with forty-six, three with sixty-nine, four with ninety-two, five with one hundred and fifteen, and so on, ad infinitum.\n\nGregory articulated his defining idea fully five centuries before Cantor. He taught for many years in Paris, at the Sorbonne, where his pupils called him _Lucerna splendens_. Perhaps in him they sensed, as future scholars would claim, the last great scholastic theologian to wrestle with the infinite.\n\nJohn Murdoch, a historian of mathematics at Harvard University, remarked that Gregory's insight received hardly any notice from his peers or successors:\n\n> Since the \"equality\" of an infinite whole with one or more of its parts is one of the most challenging, and as we now realize, most crucial aspects of the infinite, the failure to absorb and refine Gregory's contentions stopped other medieval thinkers short of the hitherto unprecedented comprehension of the mathematics of infinity which easily could have been theirs.\n\nIn his writings, Cantor described himself as a servant of God and the Church. His ideas had struck him with the force of revelation. It had been with God's help, he said, that he had worked day after day, alone, at his mathematics. But the mathematician was far from angelic; his humility sometimes slipped. To a friend, in 1896, Cantor confided an excess of pride. \"From me, Christian Philosophy will be offered for the first time the true theory of the infinite.\"\n\n# Twenty-Five\n\n# THE ART OF MATH\n\nI met a mathematician at a \"conference of ideas\" in Mexico at which we had both been invited to speak. He was from the United States, and like all the mathematicians that I have ever met in my travels he fell immediately to talking shop. Moving to a corner of the conference green room, he talked to me about the history of numbers in Cambodia. The concept of zero, he believed fervently, the familiar symbol of nothingness, hailed from there. He dreamed of trekking the kingdom's dirt tracks, in pursuit of any surviving trace. More than a millennium separated him from the decimal system's creation; the odds of turning up any new evidence were slim. But he did not mind.\n\nHe began to explain his current research in number theory, talking quickly with the compression of passion, and I listened intently and tried to understand. When I understood, I nodded, and when I did not understand, I nodded twice, as if to encourage him to move on. His words came fast and enthusiastic, opening up vistas that I could not quite see and mental regions into which I could not follow, but still I listened and nodded and enjoyed the experience very much. Occasionally I supplemented his ideas and observations with some of mine, which he received with the utmost hospitality. It always feels exciting to me, the camaraderie of conversation: no matter whether it involves words or numbers.\n\nHe had none of the strange tics or quirks of the mathematicians that we find in books or see in movies. From experience, I was not the least surprised. Middle-aged, he looked fit and slender, though with skin as pasty as a writer's. His shirt was open at the neck. His face wore many laughter lines. When our time was up, too soon, he patted his pockets and withdrew from one of them a small notebook in which he habitually jotted down his random thoughts and sudden illuminations. As he wrote out his contact information for me, I noticed the smallness and smoothness of his hands.\n\n\"Great meeting you.\" We promised to stay in touch.\n\nIt was still a pleasant surprise, coming down the next morning to the hotel restaurant for an early breakfast, to hear the mathematician's voice call me over to his family's table. I passed the assorted reporters munching their bowls of cereal, and various conference \"stars,\" dodging coffee-flecked waiters and pushing empty chairs out of my way, until I reached them. The mathematician smiled at his wife (also a mathematician, I learned), and the surprisingly placid teenage girl, who looked a lot like her mother, sat in between. Their flight out was still a few hours away: over tea and toast, we talked.\n\nWe talked about the Four Color Theorem, which states that all possible maps can be colored in such a way that no district or country touches another of the same color\u2014using only (for instance) red, blue, green, and yellow. \"At first sight it seems likely that the more complicated the map, the more colors will be required,\" writes Robin Wilson in his popular account of the puzzle's history, _Four Colors Suffice,_ \"but surprisingly this is not so.\" Redrawing a country's boundary lines, or imagining wholly alternative continent shapes, makes no difference whatsoever.\n\nOne aspect of the problem, in particular, had long intrigued me. After more than a century of fruitless endeavors to demonstrate the theorem conclusively, in 1976 a pair of mathematicians in the United States finally came up with a proof. Their solution, however, proved controversial because it relied in part on the calculations of a computer. Quite a few mathematicians refused to accept it: computers cannot do math!\n\n\"I actually met one of those guys who came up with the proof,\" my new friend recalled, \"and we discussed how they had found just the right way to feed the data into the machine and get an answer back. It really was a smart result.\"\n\nWhat did he and his wife think of the computer's role in mathematics? In answer to this general question they were more circumspect. The Four Color Theorem's proof, they admitted, was inelegant. No new ideas had been stimulated by its publication. Worse, its pages were almost unreadable. It lacked the intuitive unity, and beauty, of a great proof.\n\nBeauty. How often have I heard mathematicians employ this word! The best proofs, they tell me, possess \"style.\" One can often surmise who authored the pages simply from the distinctive way that they were put together: the selection, organization, and interplay of ideas are as personal, and as particular, as a signature. And how much time might they spend on polishing their proofs. Superfluous expressions, out! Ambiguous terms, out! Yes, but it was worth all the trouble: well-written proofs could become \"classics\"\u2014to be read and enjoyed by future generations of mathematicians.\n\n\"What time is it?\" None of us was wearing a watch. We stopped a waiter and asked. \"Already?\" said the mathematician's wife when she heard his answer. They drained their cups, and dispersed their crumbs, and made shuffling sounds with their feet.\n\n\"Oh,\" said the mathematician, turning back to me, \"I forgot: where did you say you were based again?\" What with the history of the decimals, and the winding numerical vistas, and the painting of the entire globe with the colors of a single flag, the accidental features of our lives\u2014where we lived, with whom, under what roof and color of sky\u2014had been completely absent from our conversations.\n\nI told him. \"Paris,\" he echoed. \"Why, we love Paris!\"\n\nFrance's capital has something of a one-sided reputation as the consummate city of artists. We know it as the city of Manet, of Rodin, of Berlioz; as the city of street singers and can-can dancers; as the city of Victor Hugo and of young Hemingway in _A Moveable Feast:_ scribbling in a caf\u00e9 corner, turning coffee and rum and the strictures of Gertrude Stein into stories. But Paris is also the city of mathematicians.\n\nIts researchers, a thousand strong, make the _Fondation Sciences Math\u00e9matiques de Paris_ (FSMP) the largest group of mathematicians in the world. About one hundred of the city's streets, squares, and boulevards are named after their predecessors. In the twentieth _arrondissement,_ for example, one can walk the length of _rue_ Evariste Galois, named after a nineteenth-century algebraist felled at the age of twenty by a dueler's bullet. On the opposite side of the Seine, in the fourteenth _arrondissement,_ lies _rue_ Sophie Germain, whose namesake introduced important ideas in the fields of prime numbers, acoustics, and elasticity before her death in 1831. According to her biographer Louis Bucciarelli, \"She did not wish to meet others in the streets or houses of the day, but in the purer realm of ideas outside time, where person was indistinguishable from mind and distinctions depended only on qualities of intellect.\" A few minutes' walk away is Fermat's little road. There are also streets called Euler, and Leibniz, and Newton.\n\nAmong the letters waiting for me on my return to my adopted home was one from the city's _Fondation_ Cartier. A museum for contemporary art, it had sent me a preview invitation to its upcoming exhibition \"Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere\"\u2014the first in Europe to showcase the work of major living mathematicians in collaboration with world-class artists. The timing seemed doubly auspicious: October 2011 happened to be the two-hundredth anniversary of Galois's birth.\n\nThe museum stands in the fourteenth _arrondissement_ at the lower end of one of the long boulevards that diagram the city. It is an ostentatiously modern building, all shiny glass and geometric steel, bright and spacious, an example of \"dematerialized\" architecture. Reflected in the glass, scraggly trees denuded of their summer foliage appeared twice. I looked up at the symmetrical branches as I passed and entered.\n\nMathematics and contemporary art may seem to make an odd pair. Many people think of mathematics as something akin to pure logic, cold reckoning, soulless computation. But as the mathematician and educator Paul Lockhart has put it, \"There is nothing as dreamy and poetic, nothing as radical, subversive, and psychedelic, as mathematics.\" The chilly analogies win out, Lockhart argues, because mathematics is misrepresented in our schools, with curricula that often favor dry, technical, and repetitive tasks over any emphasis on the \"private, personal experience of being a struggling artist.\"\n\nIt was the mathematicians' artistic impulse, and inner struggle, that the exhibition's organizers intended both to communicate and celebrate. A white interior, zero-shaped, was the work of the filmmaker David Lynch. Walls usually reserved for frames and canvases lent their space to equations, light effects, and number displays. I walked through the rooms, now bare and silent, now colorful and stimulating, stopping here and there to take a closer look. I watched the other guests stand back and point and converse in low voices. Before a bright collage of sunrays and leopard spots, waves and peacock tails, and the underlying equations for each, fingers swayed and eyes widened. Another hall arrested visitors' feet around a lean aluminum sculpture, its curves reaching toward infinity.\n\nBut for me, the highlight of the exhibition took place in a darkened room downstairs. Here the visitors melted into twilight, rendered homogeneous in the darkness, sitting or standing in silence, all eyes, observing a large screen where a film shot in black and white was playing. A youngish face, screen big, was talking about his life as a mathematician. I pressed my back against the far wall and listened as he spoke of \"fat triangles\" and \"lazy gases.\" Three or four minutes later, the film suddenly altered: the face gave way to another, wearing glasses. Four minutes after this, the face changed again: this time, a woman's voice began to speak about chance. In total, the film lasted thirty-two minutes\u2014eight faces long. The men and women featured came from a wide range of mathematical subdisciplines\u2014number theory, algebraic geometry, topology, probability\u2014and spoke either in French, or English, or Russian (with subtitles), but their passion and wonder linked each personal testimony into a fascinating and involving whole.\n\nTwo of the testimonies, in particular, stood out. They reminded me of my conversations with the mathematicians in Mexico, and with those in other lands, and the feelings of kinship and excitement that these exchanges incited within me. During his four minutes, Alain Connes, a professor at the _Institut des Hautes \u00c9tudes Scientifiques,_ described reality as being far more \"subtle\" than materialism would suggest. To understand our world we require analogy\u2014the quintessentially human ability to make connections (\"reflections\" he called them, or \"correspondences\") between disparate things. The mathematician takes ideas that are valid in one area and transplants them into another, hoping that they will take and not be rejected by the recipient domain. The creator of \"noncommutative geometry,\" Connes himself has applied geometrical ideas to quantum mechanics. Metaphors, he argued, are the essence of mathematical thought.\n\nSir Michael Atiyah, a former director of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge, used his four minutes to speak about mathematical ideas \"like visions, pictures before the eyes.\" As if painting a picture or dreaming up a scene in a novel, the mathematician creates and explores these visions using intuition and imagination. Atiyah's voice, soft and earnest, made attentive listeners of everyone in the room. Not a single cough or whisper intervened. Truth, he continued, is a goal of mathematics, though it can only ever be grasped partially, whereas beauty is immediate and personal and certain. \"Beauty puts us on the right path.\"\n\nThe faces, old and young, smooth and hairy, square and oval, each had their say. Gradually, the room began to empty. Its intimate ambience slowly dissolved. I followed the last group of visitors up the stairs and out the building and not a word was exchanged. The night absorbed us.\n\nI walked for a while, beside the river, with the night in my hair and in my pockets and on my clothes. The night, I know, is tender to the imagination; at this hour, throughout the city, artists sharpen pencils and dip brushes and tune guitars. Others, with their theorems and equations, revel just as much in the world's possibilities.\n\nThe world needs artists. Into words and pictures, notes and numbers, each transforms their portion of the night. A mathematician at his desk glimpses something hitherto invisible. He is about to turn darkness into light.\n\n# ACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nI could not have written this book without the love and encouragement of my family and friends.\n\nSpecial thanks to my partner, J\u00e9r\u00f4me Tabet.\n\nTo my parents, Jennifer and Kevin; my brothers, Lee, Steven, and Paul; and my sisters, Claire, Maria, Natasha, Anna-Marie, and Shelley.\n\nThanks also to Sigri\u00f0ur Kristinsd\u00f3ttir and Hallgrimur Helgi Helgason, Laufey Bjarnad\u00f3ttir, and Torfi Magn\u00fasson, Valger\u00f0ur Benediktsd\u00f3ttir and Gr\u00edmur Bj\u00f6rnsson, for teaching me how to count like a Viking.\n\nTo my most loyal North American readers, Margo and Linda Flah, Jean-Philippe Tabet, Val\u00e9rie and Arnaud Salambier, and Claire Bertrand (and family!).\n\nI am grateful to my literary agent, Andrew Lownie, and to Tracy Behar and Christina Rodriguez, my editors.\n\n# ABOUT THE AUTHOR\n\nDANIEL TAMMET is the critically acclaimed author of the worldwide bestselling memoir _Born on a Blue Day,_ and the international bestseller _Embracing the Wide Sky._ Tammet's exceptional abilities in mathematics and linguistics are combined with a unique capacity to communicate what it is like to be a savant. His idiosyncratic worldview gives us new perspectives on the universal questions of what it is to be human and how we make meaning in our lives. Tammet was born in London in 1979, the eldest of nine children. He lives in Paris.\n\n# ALSO BY DANIEL TAMMET\n\n_Born on a Blue Day_\n\n_Embracing the Wide Sky_\n\n### Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.\n\nTo receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest ebooks and apps, sign up for our newsletters.\n\n Sign Up\n\nOr visit us at hachettebookgroup.com\/newsletters\n\nFor more about this book and author, visit Bookish.com.\n\n# CONTENTS\n\nCover\n\nTitle Page\n\nWelcome\n\nEpigraph\n\nPreface\n\nChapter One: Family Values\n\nChapter Two: Eternity in an Hour\n\nChapter Three: Counting to Four in Icelandic\n\nChapter Four: Proverbs and Times Tables\n\nChapter Five: Classroom Intuitions\n\nChapter Six: Shakespeare's Zero\n\nChapter Seven: Shapes of Speech\n\nChapter Eight: On Big Numbers\n\nChapter Nine: Snowman\n\nChapter Ten: Invisible Cities\n\nChapter Eleven: Are We Alone?\n\nChapter Twelve: The Calendar of Omar Khayy\u00e1m\n\nChapter Thirteen: Counting by Elevens\n\nChapter Fourteen: The Admirable Number Pi\n\nChapter Fifteen: Einstein's Equations\n\nChapter Sixteen: A Novelist's Calculus\n\nChapter Seventeen: Book of Books\n\nChapter Eighteen: Poetry of the Primes\n\nChapter Nineteen: All Things Are Created Unequal\n\nChapter Twenty: A Model Mother\n\nChapter Twenty-One: Talking Chess\n\nChapter Twenty-Two: Selves and Statistics\n\nChapter Twenty-Three: The Cataract of Time\n\nChapter Twenty-Four: Higher than Heaven\n\nChapter Twenty-Five: The Art of Math\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nAbout the Author\n\nAlso by Daniel Tammet\n\nNewsletters\n\nCopyright\n\n# Copyright\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2012 by Daniel Tammet\n\nCover design by Kimberly Glyder\n\nCover \u00a9 2013 Hachette Book Group, Inc.\n\nAll rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.\n\nLittle, Brown and Company\n\nHachette Book Group\n\n237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017\n\nlittlebrown.com\n\ntwitter.com\/littlebrown\n\nfacebook.com\/littlebrownandcompany\n\nFirst ebook edition: July 2013\n\nLittle, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.  \nThe Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.\n\nThe publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.\n\nThe Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.\n\nExcerpt from _The Lottery Ticket_ by Anton Chekhov; excerpts from _Lolita_ by Vladimir Nabokov \u00a9 Vladimir Nabokov, published by Orion Books, used by permission; excerpt of interview with Vladimir Nabokov was taken from the BBC program _Bookstand_ and is used with permission; excerpts by Julio Cort\u00e1zar from _Hopscotch,_ \u00a9 Julio Cort\u00e1zar, published by Random House New York; quote from _The Master's Eye_ translated by Jean de la Fontaine; quote from _Under the Glacier_ by Halld\u00f3r Laxness, \u00a9 Halld\u00f3r Laxness, published by Vintage Books, an imprint of Random House New York.\n\nISBN 978-0-316-25080-1\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}