understanding Mantras explores the origin, nature, function, and significance of mantras within the bounds of the hindu tradition. It analyses the use of mantras in the Vedic age in the gtreat theistic movements of Saivism and Vaisnavism, and in Tantra. A brief introduction by Alper outlines the major controversies in Western scholarship concerning the nature of mantras and gives an insightful and suggestive paradigm for resolving the issues. It approaches a bibliography on all of Hinduism and will serve as an invaluable tool for future research.

This work looks back at the role Bihar played in the struggle for India's independence in the first decade after its separation from Bengal as a province in 1912, particularly through the archival material contained in the contemporary confidential government files preserved in the Bihar State Archives, Patna. It uncovers some significant facts and dimensions like rumor-mongering adopted as a mode of struggle by the revolutionaries against British rule during World War I and the establishment of parallel administration at different levels during the Non-Cooperation Movement by its local leaders in Bihar. While it scrutinizes the sorrowful tales of sufferings of the Indian people under British colonial rule, it also raises questions about how the hate politics and hate crimes under BJP's rule, particularly against Minorities and Dalits can be justified as less brutal than the brutalities committed under the tyrannical British rule? Or how the targetted use of draconian laws or law enforcing agencies against those who question its unconstitutional and repressive policies and communal or rather hate politics can be justified as just in independent India under democratic government, and the use of similar laws or law enforcing agencies as repressive and unjust under despotic British rule?

Many women scientists, particularly those who did crucial work in two world wars, have disappeared from history. Until they are written back in, the history of science will continue to remain unbalanced. This book tells the story of Elizabeth Alexander, a pioneering scientist who changed thinking in geology and radio astronomy during WWII and its aftermath.Building on an unpublished diary, recently declassified government records and archive material adding considerably to knowledge about radar developments in the Pacific in WWII, this book also contextualises Elizabeth's academic life in Singapore before the war, and the country's educational and physical reconstruction after it as it moved towards independence.This unique story is a must-read for readers interested in scientific, social and military history during the WWII, historians of geology, radar, as well as scientific biographies.

Drawing on a multi-method study, from the late nineteenth century to the present, of the stark variations in educational and health outcomes within a large, federal, multiethnic developing country - India, this book develops an argument for the power of collective identity as an impetus for state prioritization of social welfare.

This book studies the engagement of various Muslim communities with Bihar politics from colonial times to present-day India. It debunks several myths in highlighting Muslim resistance to the Two-Nation theory, and counters the ‘Isolation Syndrome’ faced by Muslim communities after Independence. Using rare archival sources and hitherto unexamined Urdu texts, this book offers a nuanced exploration of complex themes such as the struggle against Bengali hegemony, communalism, regionalism and alienation before Independence, recent language politics, the political assertion of low-caste Muslims in current Bihar, as well as their quest for social and gender justice. An important contribution to the study of South Asian Islam, this book will interest students and scholars of modern Indian history, politics, sociology, religion, gender, and minority studies.