India Religious History

Starting his journey from Jerusalem and passing through Nasibus and Iran, Jesus is shown to have reached Afghanistan where he met the Jews who had settled there.

From the first agricultural settlement more than 7,000 years ago to the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great and the vast Maurya Empire, ancient India tells a story interweaved with captivating legends and cultural legacy.

5,000 years of history—from the Bhagavad Gita to Bollywood—fill this masterful portrait of the world's most populous nation and a rising global power.

Hinduism is practiced by nearly 80 percent of India's population, and by some 70 million people outside India. In this Very Short Introduction, Kim Knott offers a succinct and authoritative overview of this major religion, and analyzes the challenges facing it in the 21st century. She discusses key preoccupations of Hinduism such as the centrality of the Veda as religious texts, the role of Brahmins, gurus, and storytellers in the transmission of divine truths, and the cultural and moral importance of epics such as the Ramayana.

Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, typically referred to as Saint Teresa of Calcutta in the Catholic Church, was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She was born in Skopje (today the capital of North Macedonia), which was then part of the Ottoman Empire's Kosovo Vilayet. After 18 years in Skopje, she went to Ireland and ultimately to India, where she spent the remainder of her life. Teresa formed the Missionaries of Charity in the year 1950, a Roman Catholic spiritual order with about 4,500 nuns active in about 133 nations in the year 2012.

Mohandas Gandhi inspired the spiritual and political souls of millions of people. His concept of nonviolent resistance propelled numerous struggles throughout the world, including the civil rights movement in America. Written after his release from prison, first published in English in 1927, My Experiments with Truth is Gandhi's autobiography, documenting his spiritual journey amidst the political strife of his times.