“The importance of this Encyclopedia in a Hindu self-reassertion is that Hindus have at last decided to speak for themselves. Whereas outsiders like Wendy Doniger can only speak of Hinduism in caricatures, here Hindus have given an account of their own understanding of their civilization. What we ourselves do, we do better.” – Dr Koenraad Elst

Decades of effort by hundreds of scholars have brought to completion the 11-volume Encyclopedia of Hinduism, the brainchild of the India Heritage Research Foundation and Swami Chidananda Saraswati of Parmarth Niketan, and published by Mandala Publishing. In its 25-year gestation, first Prof. K. L. Seshagiri Rao and then Prof. Kapil Kapoor served as its general editor. Kapoor wrote a scholarly introduction. With a foreword by Dr. Karan Singh, the work contains contributions by over 1,500 scholars in 7,500 articles. These deal with saints, kings, language, history, arts and crafts, temples, pilgrimages…