Sankar

VIVEKACUDAMANI

L VIVEKACUDAMANI, o Joya suprema del
discernimiento, está valorado como la obra más
importante de Samkara y por tanto del Advaita.

El Advaita puede considerarse la escuela más
profunda y representativa del Vedanta -uno de los seis
darsanas o escuelas filosóficas hinduistas-, y su fundación
en el siglo VIII se debe a Samkara, uno de los más grandes
sabios de la India de todos los tiempos. El Advaita se basa
en el concepto de no-dualidad; no hace distinción entre
Brahman -ser superior o realidad última-y Atman -ser
individual-, siendo ambos idénticos. Es el ser humano el
que, envuelto en la ilusión o maya de lo fenoménico,
percibe la realidad absoluta y única como una
multiplicidad, sumergiéndolo en el error de concebir una
diferenciación entre "yo" y "eso" o entre "tú" y "aquél"

Esta versión esta directamente traducida del sánscrito,
magníficamente comentada por un maestro advaita
contemporáneo que ya tradujo y comentó los Upanisads
en esta misma colección.… (mere)

There are plenty of books about India, but Chowringhee stands apart from the crowd for two reasons - it was written in the 1960s, which means that the India portrayed in it is very different from that in later works, even those which imagine earlier decades; and it was written in Bengali, and it's still pretty hard to find books translated from Indian languages into English - most of the books available were written in English.

Chowringhee tells the story of a hotel in the Chowringhee neighbourhood of Calcutta. The Shahjahan is an old colonial hotel, still haunted by the ghost of its founder Mr Simpson, who stalks around at night playing tricks on any staff who have fallen asleep during their shift. In 1960s India, there is an air of seediness about the hotel, despite its high-quality service. It's a place for people passing through, for drinking and illicit affairs, with 'daring' cabaret acts in the bar and a businessman who's permanently booked one of the suites and installed a 'hostess' there to look after his clients.

The narrator is Shankar, a new receptionist at the start of the book, who gradually gets to know the stories of both staff and guests, and starts to understand all the things that happen behind the scenes - whether that's the amount of work required to make a banquet go perfectly, or the back-door dealing required to get a major contract signed.

This is a book about a time and a place, where the atmosphere is more important than the plot developments. Individuals - from the poorest of the staff to the most important hotel guests - enter the narrative, tell us their stories, then drift out again. Many of them are very sympathetically drawn, but the things that happen to them can be a bit cartoonish, which weakens the book. However, I very much enjoyed the glimpse into a different era of India.… (mere)

Bienvendios a Chowringhee, el cosmopolita barrio del centro de Calcuta. En sus calles se erige la imponente fachada del hotel más antiguo y lujoso de la ciudad, el Shahjahan. Por sus salones y suites transcurren las vidas de ricos huéspedes y humildes trabajadores llenos de sueños y secretos, frustraciones e ilusiones. El carismático Shankar, nuevo miembro del personal del hotel y sagaz observador, nos sirve en bandeja las asombrosas historias de todos estos personajes. Un festín narrativo en cuya mesa el lector podrá saborear una India única, exótica y desconocida, y una época cautivadora, la de mediados del siglo XX.… (mere)