Rinehart, Robin. Contemporary Hinduism: Ritual, Culture, and Practice. Santa Barbara: Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data, 2004.

I searched the Lafayette library catalogue for “Hinduism in contemporary society” because I am interested in studying the difference between contemporary Hinduism and early Hinduism. There are plenty of relevant resources popping out. Therefore, I tried to narrow down for a specific topic, which was “social values in contemporary Hinduism”. Fortunately, I found Contemporary Hinduism: Ritual, Culture, and Practice, which perfectly met my expectation of finding a book related to contemporary Hinduism. On top of that, it also referred to some intereting topics like “how the caste system functions today in Hinduism”. It inspires me to write about the status of the caste system in Hinduism.

The cover of this book mainly portrayed a scene of a traditional ritual in a Hindus family, accompanied by several pictures of three famous Hindu deities below. It was so vivid and colorful that attracted me immediately when I found it on the shelf. I felt even more excited when I scanned through the chapter titles. This book contained of twelve chapters, each of which dealt with different topics. The introductory chapter throughly outlines vital developments in the history of Hinduism and the following chapters specifically addressed interesting topics like “oral and written texts in Hinduism”, “gurus and group”, “the Hindu Ritual Calendar”, etc. Undoubtedly, the most attractive topic to me was “Caste in Contemporary India” as the caste system had always been a controversial and long existed issue in India, originating from Hinduism.

When I was looking for this book, I also felt curious about the titles of books adjacent to it, such as “The Hindu Pantheon” written by Edward Moor, which mainly mentioned the court of all Hindu gods. As the status of Hindu gods and their stories was unparalleled through the history of India, I thought it might also be a valuable topic that I can deeply study in the future.