Sacred India

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Summary: Sacred India
Review: Beautiful evocation of the many religions that make up India. The book focuses mainly on the tenets and customs of the four major religions in India...Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, and Buddhism...but touches on the other religions as well, if more briefly. The juxtaposition of the photographs, history, explanations of religious practices, and the words and experiences of the faithful brings these religions to life with great clarity. My only complaint is that the pictures are too small...although a "coffee table" size book might have proved a bit more unwieldy to read, the photographs would have had greater visual impact had they been larger. Yet overall, I would recommend this book as a good introduction to the spiritual life of India and its people.

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Summary: Overview with gorgeous photos
Review: India is a place where you'll miss A LOT if you don't have some understanding of the religious traditions. This lovely book covers the great religions--Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, etc.--with an admittedly broad brush, but it's enough to give you a taste of what you'll see and hopefully whet your appetite for more. Not quite a coffee table book, not really a guide book--but Lonely Planet generally does a good job of conveying culture as well as travel facts. Would also make a nice gift.

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Summary: An introduction to religions in India
Review: India is a secular country that respects all religions. It is the birthplace of both Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism. It also has one of the world's oldest Jewish communities (though it is fast depleting thanks to emigration to Israel). The tolerance and acceptance of each other's very different beliefs is a part of the Indian psyche. Whatever one may read about religious violence in that country is more a result of manipulations by politicians than anything else.

This coffee-table format book offers a simplistic high-level introduction to the very complex subject of religions in India including Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism, Christianity, Jainism, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism- some more detailed than the other. It contains color photographs on every page. Rather than the photographs complementing the text, each text block describes a specific photograph. Some pictures and text associated with Hinduism are very region specific and are not a general representation of the religion. E.g. picture of the Bride and the practice described is very specific to Bengal state. This may be as much as 95% different for other brides, depending on the state. Since an attempt has been made to cover a very complex subject in a few pages, the result is surface grazing of the subject rather than deep insight or detailed treatment. The impact of religion on daily life is well represented and explained. This book by Lonely Planet is a decent starter book for introduction to various religions.