Each and every one of us wants to become successful. We aim to fight and win in businesses, careers, relationships and, ultimately, in life. However, most of us fail to reach our full potential because of various speed breakers. Chanakya and the Art of War draws upon lessons from the great teacher, philosopher and strategist Chanakya’s masterpiece, Arthashastra, which can help us overcome those speed breakers to become innovative and influential and realize our true potential.
Author of the bestselling Inside Chanakya’s Mind, Radhakrishnan Pillai decodes the war secrets of Chanakya as relevant to our personal and professional lives. Be it an army fighting enemy soldiers across the border, the police encountering internal challenges, a politician who wants to win an election, or the common man fighting for survival, Chanakya has a plan for every situation. In the game of life, Chanakya teaches you the winning strategies by putting into practice the Art of War.
Archives: Books
Chatur Chanakya And The Himalayan Problem
Here’s the smartest of them all!
Summer vacations are over. As a new academic year begins at Vani Vidyalaya, Arjun’s search for a close friend and bench partner goes on, Lakshmi hopes to display her leadership skills, and all the teachers and students seem to be getting fed up of Himalaya’s bullying and hurtful pranks.
In walks Chanakya, pale and thin, a choti shooting out of his big head, and soon it’s clear that Vani Vidyalaya will never be the same again.
Chanakya is witty. Chanakya is smart. He always has a trick up his sleeve. Get ready to join Chanakya, Arjun and the gang on the first of many adventures. Get ready for Chatur Chanakya.
The Bhagavadgita
The foundational text on dharma and Hindu philosophy, exquisitely rendered by one of our most eminent Sanskrit translators
As a spiritual guide, the Bhagavadgita is a mesmerizing account of the debate between right and wrong, and the bond between action and consequence. One of the core Hindu scriptures, it is part of the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata, and unfolds in the form of a dialogue between Krishna and the Pandava prince, Arjuna.
This beautifully produced bilingual edition is a masterful verse-for-verse translation, providing the original Sanskrit verses alongside the English rendition. Bibek Debroy’s deep familiarity with the text yields a treasure trove of insights that will delight the scholar and the lay reader alike, making this essential reading for anyone with an abiding interest in Indian scriptures.
Dharma
Chaturvedi Badrinath is known for his authoritative work on the Mahabharata, and on the central place of dharma in Indian thought. His Swami Vivekananda: The Living Vedanta continues to inspire readers with a fresh perspective on the man who was the living embodiment of the Vedanta he preached.
In Dharma: Hinduism and Religions in India, Badrinath argues that the Indian civilization is a ‘Dharmic’ one, founded as it is on the principle of dharma. Dharma has always been translated, wrongly, as ‘religion’.
The concerns of Indian philosophy are the concerns of human life everywhere. Badrinath talks about the history of the words ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hinduism’, Islam in relation with Hinduism, the issues that arose from the spread of Christianity in India, Jainism and Buddhism as part of dharma and darshana, and explains why organized violence in the service of religious fundamentalism is the very negation of religion with its reverence for life.
Thought provoking, perceptive and challenging many long-held notions, Dharma is a must-read for anyone who is interested in India, the interaction of different religions over centuries in this land, and the underlying unity of all life.
The First Aryan
Will a series of brutal killings destroy the very foundation of Parsuvarta, an ancient kingdom?
A series of murders have taken place in Parsupur, the capital city of Parsuvarta. Kasyapa and Agastya, two students training to become priests, are asked by their guru to investigate the deaths. Around the same time, there is great turmoil brewing in the city-a palace coup and a battle for supremacy between the traditional Indra worshipers and the new sect of Varuna followers.
It is an age when Vedic gods are worshiped, religious sacrifices are performed regularly, commerce flourishes and kings are guided by their loyal head priests. But beneath this façade of order lie prejudices and political rivalries, jealousy and power games. This is why the murders, which at first seem to be unconnected, soon lead in the same direction. It is now up to Kasyapa and Agastya to find out the common thread and identify the killer.
The First Aryan is a one-of-its-kind murder mystery set in the Vedic times.
Pilgrim’s India
More people have embarked on a quest for the sacred in India than anywhere else.
Pilgrim’s India is about all journeys impelled by the idea of the sacred. It brings together essays and poems-from the Katha Upanishad, Fa-Hien, Basavanna and Kabir to Paul Brunton, Richard Lannoy, Amit Chaudhuri, Arun Kolatkar and others-about various aspects of trips undertaken in the name of God. Readers will encounter the watchful reserve of a British journalist in southern India, the vigorous prose of a contemporary Sikh pilgrim, a French author-adventurer’s appraisal of the Ellora caves, a modern-day Zoroastrian’s reflections on Udvada and a woman’s impression of what it means to be Muslim in India.
Mystics, witnesses and wanderers write about the Supreme Being, about journeys and destination, false starts, bottlenecks and blind alleys, about humour, rage and revelation-all of which make this anthology a deeply absorbing and idiosyncratic take on pilgrims and pilgrim trails in India.
Quichotte
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019
In a tour-de-force that is both an homage to an immortal work of literature and a modern masterpiece about the quest for love and family, Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie has created a dazzling Don Quixote for the modern age.
Inspired by the Cervantes classic, Sam DuChamp, mediocre writer of spy thrillers, creates Quichotte, an ageing travelling salesman who falls in impossible love with a TV star. Together with his imaginary son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a picaresque quest across America to prove worthy of her hand. Meanwhile his creator, in a midlife crisis, has equally urgent challenges of his own.
Just as Cervantes wrote Don Quixote to satirise the culture of his time, Rushdie takes the reader on a wild ride through a country on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse. And with the kind of storytelling magic that is the hallmark of his work, the fully realised lives of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine in a profoundly human quest for love and a wickedly entertaining portrait of an age in which fact is so often indiscernible from fiction.
Ranjit Singh
The classic biography of one of India’s greatest rulers
From being a petty chieftain to becoming the most powerful Indian ruler of his time, Ranjit Singh’s empire extended from Tibet to the deserts of Sindh and from the Khyber Pass to the Sutlej. His army was one of the most powerful of the time in Asia and was the first Indian force in a thousand years to stem the tides of invasion from the north-west frontiers of Hindustan.
In this first detailed biography of the first and only Sikh ruler of the Punjab, Khushwant Singh presents Ranjit Singh as he really was. Based on Persian, Punjabi and English sources, and drawing upon the diaries and accounts of European travellers, this is a memorable account of the pageantry and brilliance of the Sikh kingdom at the height of its power, and a lively portrait of one of the most colourful characters in Indian history.
Hymns Of The Gurus
An illustrated edition containing selected hymns of the ten Sikh Gurus, from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobing Singh, translated by Khushwant Singh. Sacred hymns from the Guru Gibind Singh.
Why I Supported The Emergency
The Emergency Has Become A Synonym For Obscenity. Even Men And Women Who Were Pillars Of Emergency Rule And Misused Their Positions To Harass Innocent People Against Whom They Had Personal Grudges Try To Distance Themselves From Their Past In The Hope That It Will Fade Out Of Public Memory Forever. We Must Not Allow Them To Get Away With It,&Rsquo; Says Khushwant Singh, While Fearlessly Stating His Own Reasons For Championing The Emergency. This Bold And Thought-Provoking Collection Includes Essays On Indira Gandhi&Rsquo;S Government, The Nanavati Commission&Rsquo;S Report On The 1984 Riots And The Riots Themselves, As Well As Captivating Pieces On The Art Of Kissing And The Importance Of Bathing. Alongside These Are Portraits Of Historical Figures Such As Bahadur Shah Zafar, General Dyer, Ghalib And Maharaja Ranjit Singh As Well As Candid Profiles Of The Famous Personalities He Has Known Over The Years, Revealing Intimate Details About Their Lives And Characters. From His Reflections On Amrita Sher-Gil&Rsquo;S Alleged Promiscuity To The Experience Of Watching A Pornographic Film With A Stoic R.K. Narayan, This Is Khushwant Singh At His Controversial And Iconoclastic Best.
Selected And Edited By Sheela Reddy, Why I Supported The Emergency: Essays And Profiles Covers Three Quarters Of A Century. Straight From The Heart, This Is Unadulterated Khushwant Singh.