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Nine Lives
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Nine Lives (2009) (edit title/settings)

In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

by William Dalrymple (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

From the author of The Last Mughal (“A compulsively readable masterpiece”— The New York Review of Books ), a mesmerizing book that explores how traditional religions are observed in today’s India, revealing ways of life that we might otherwise never have known. A middle-class woman from... read more

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “That's reality,isn't it?That's life.Life is hard.”
    Hari Das
  • “For soul will not wither, and in rebirth you simply exchange your torn and damaged old clothes for a smart new suit.”
    Prassanmati mataji
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • the quest for material success and comfort against the claims of the life of the spirit; the call of the life of action against the life of contemplation; the way of stability against the lure of the open road; personal devotion against conventional or public religion; textual orthodoxy against the emotional appeal of mysticism; the age-old war of duty and desire.
    Highlighted by 45 Kindle customers
  • ‘There is no fire in hell,’ he reported. ‘Everyone who goes there brings their own fire, and their own pain, from this world.’”
    Highlighted by 43 Kindle customers
  • Just as the blind can develop a heightened sense of hearing, smell and touch to compensate for their loss of vision, so it seems that the illiterate have a capacity to remember in a way that the literate simply do not. It was not lack of interest, but literacy itself, that was killing the oral epic.
    Highlighted by 39 Kindle customers
  • All religions were one, maintained the Sufi saints, merely different manifestations of the same divine reality. What was important was not the empty ritual of the mosque or temple, but to understand that divinity can best be reached through the gateway of the human heart—that we all have Paradise within us, if we know where to look.
    Highlighted by 39 Kindle customers
  • At its purest, Jainism is almost an atheistic religion, and the much venerated images of the Tirthankaras in temples represent not so much a divine presence as a profound divine absence.
    Highlighted by 38 Kindle customers
  • “Myths pick up the pieces where philosophy throws up its hands. The great myths may help survivors to think through this unthinkable catastrophe, to make sense by analogy.”
    Highlighted by 38 Kindle customers
  • As wanderers, we monks and nuns are free of shadows from the past. This wandering life, with no material possessions, unlocks our souls. There is a wonderful sense of lightness, living each day as it comes, with no sense of ownership, no weight, no burden. Journey and destination became one, thought and action became one, until it is as if we are moving like a river into complete detachment.”
    Highlighted by 35 Kindle customers
  • “We believe that all attachments bring suffering,” said Prasannamati Mataji, after we had been talking for some time. “This is why we are supposed to give them up. It is one of the main principles of Jainism—we call it aparigraha. This was why I left my family, and why I gave away my wealth.”
    Highlighted by 29 Kindle customers
  • “The mullahs are always trying to fight a jihad with their swords,” said Sain Fakir, “without realising that the real jihad is within, fighting yourself, achieving victory over your desires, and the hell that evil can create within the human heart. Fighting with swords is a low kind of jihad. Fighting yourself is the greater jihad. As Latif said, ‘Don’t kill infidels, kill your own ego.’”
    Highlighted by 24 Kindle customers
  • She smiled. “You have to understand that for us death is full of excitement. You embrace sallekhana not out of despair with your old life, but to gain and attain something new. It’s just as exciting as visiting a new landscape or a new country: we feel excited at a new life, full of possibilities.”
    Highlighted by 24 Kindle customers
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First Sentence edit see section history

Two hills of blackly gleaming granite, smooth as glass, rise from a thickly wooded landscape of banana plantations and jagged palmyra palms.

Table of Contents edit see section history

1. The Nun's Tale
2. The Dancer of Kannur
3. The Daughters of Yellamma
4. The Singer of Epics
5. The Red Fairy
6. The Monk's Tale
7, The Maker of Idols
8. The Lady Twilight
9. The Song of the Blind Minstrel

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. William Dalrymple (Author)

Other Contributors:

  1. Oliva Fraser (Illustrator)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing plc
Country: Great Britain
Publication Date: 2009
ISBN: 9781408800614
Page Count: 285

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: BL2001.3 .D35 2010
  • Dewey: 910

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