This translation of a twelfth-century Sanskrit text is the most comprehensive presentation of Hindu ascetic practices available in English. It is also the clearest.

This edition of the early Upanisads , the central scriptures of Hinduism, includes the complete Sanskrit text, as well as scholarly emendations and explanations of Patrick Olivelle’s choices of particular…

A Dharma Reader traces the definition, epistemology, procedure, and process of Indian law from the third century B.C.E. to the middle ages. Its breadth captures the centuries-long struggle by Indian…

A Treatise on Dharma, written in the fourth or fifth century, illuminates major innovations in religious, civil, and criminal law, and informed Indian life for a thousand years. This new…

A study of the asrama system, a Hindu construct consisting of four legitimate ways of leading a religious life. Olivelle traces its early history and how it gradually established connections…