Customer Reviews

Nine Lives

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The Bangalore bookshops are prominently showing this book and having read William Dalrymple before and liked his scholarship and easy style I bought it. I wasn't disappointed, in fact i hated to see the book come to an end. The common theme of heartfelt devotion is told simply and openly through nine diverse and extraordinary lives. You feel that each one is a person you've come to know and like. I am an American living in South India and this book helps me appreciate living here even more. It helps me appreciate William Dalyrmple even more too. He writes wonderful books!

Highly interesting, wonderfully researched, beautifully written, as are all of this author's works.
A main question seems to be whether often-isolated, syncretistic, devotional religious practices will continue in the face of India's burgeoning economy and, presumably, growing secularism and consumerism, on the one hand, and the exclusionary fanaticism of a militant segment of Hindus and Muslims, on the other. While much will be gained by greater educational opportunity and a higher/healthier standard of living for the rural and urban poor and powerless, rich, curious, sometimes bizarre religious practices in the name of the gods will probably fade away.

This book is not about mainstream religious practices or faiths of the great religions --- or even of "smaller traditions" that have gained acceptance, if not understanding, because of their great age. The `Sacred" referred to in the title are approaches to gods/God that are, for all the integrity of those interviewed who practice them, mightily strange.

The book certainly shows that devout, faithful approaches to belief are common to all levels of people and a belief in a "greater power" is sustaining in the most difficult of situations. The book is a wondrous "read" about good people whom most of us will never otherwise hear.

Elegant and occasionally nostalgic William Dalrymple has written a beautiful and insightful book on the hidden India, a country at once capitalist and modern but also still spiritual and unique. Dalrymple said that the idea for this book was born 16 years ago in 1993 when he was corkscrewing up a Himalayan trail. He does not identify when his interviews took place. It is therefore difficult to envisage when and how India's traditional forms of religious life have been transformed in the vortex of the region's rapid change. I have always liked Dalrymple's books as he has always been fantastic through his well researched writings. Nine Lives isn't just another travel book. It's a window to contemporary India - the one that remains forgotten or hidden, but is very much out there on the road, quite literally. As Dalrymple puts it, "The water moves on, a little faster than before, yet still the great river flows. It is as fluid and unpredictable in its moods as it has ever been, but it meanders within familiar banks."

William Dalrymple's latest book, Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India, raises the question in relief: what is sacred, what is spiritual, and how do those qualities exist against a backdrop of daily life, its woes and joys, triumphs and travails? Dalrymple seeks out individuals who imbue their lives with their own apprehensions of the sacred. These exemplars are more often than not at the fringes of modern India (and in one case, Pakistan). Three or four truly stand out, lingering in the reader's memory--not just because Dalrymple lets us see them as fully developed individuals, but because their beliefs are so strong, so informed by their lives. The book isn't perfect: a couple of the choices are, if not unconvincing, then not up to the standard of the others, but they are the exception.

The nine seekers cover a broad swath of belief systems in India, though sidestep orthodox Muslim and Christians. In fact, they are mostly unorthodox, outside of the mainstream of belief. They need to be, in a sense: if they weren't, their devotion would be halfhearted, not defining. The first chapter, "The Nun's Tale," is powerful and disturbing. The young nun in question is a Jain, a member of the sect that began around 600 BC and which is most notable for its belief in absolute non-harming of other beings. Jains gently sweep the paths they take, to avoid stepping on insects, and will wear masks to protect any flying creatures or even microbes from being breathed in.

Prasannamati Mataji comes from a well-to-do family, but at an early age is drawn to the acetic life of the Jain nuns. Following tradition, she ceremonially plucks all her own hair out as a sign of her devotion to the way, and wanders with her fellow Jains, no possessions but her bowl, her whisk, and her robes. Shortly before we meet Mataji, a companion of hers for a number of years, dying of tuberculosis, performs sallekhana, ritually starving herself to death. In the end, Mataji tells Dalrymple that she, too, has decided to take the same path, even though she is healthy and in her mid-30s. "First you give up your home, then your possessions. Finally you give up your body," she says by way of explanation. It's a jarring reminder of the all-encompassing--some might say dark--side of some forms of spirituality.

Then there is Hari Das, a Dalit--an untouchable--who digs water wells for well-off Brahmins nine months of the year, but for three is a dancer of epics, channeling Hindu gods. Wearing the costume of a god, he becomes that god in his trance-like dances, and the otherwise disdainful Brahmins eagerly seek his approval. Dalrymple sympathetically portrays Das in his contradictory life, god and untouchable. Then there is Srikanda, a maker of idols from a family of idol-makers going back 700 years. Once the eyes of the bronze-cast idols are carved opened--the final step for the artist, performed following ancient ritual practice--they literally become those gods. As Srikanda tells Dalrymple, everyone has worries--money, family, and work--but the idols are gods who help supersede them all. But one worry remains: Srikanda's son is drawn to video games and a career in computers in Bangalore. The 700-year family tradition is in imminent danger of a sudden death.

That intrusion of the modern world reappears again for the female Sufi we meet in Pakistan's Sindh province, where orthodox Wahhabis are building madrassas--orthodox Islamic schools--to inculcate the young and root out the singing and dancing Sufis and their belief in saint worship. Likewise, a young Tibetan monk, who fled his native country in 1959 with the Dalai Lama, cast off his robes to fight the Chinese, and ended up spending a career in the Indian Army. Finally retired by the time Dalrymple meets him, he takes up his vows again, living in Dharamsala, the center of Tibetan Buddhists in northern India.

Most touching of all are Dalrymple's two final profiles: a woman devoted to the fearsome goddess Tara, who lives in the cremation grounds of Tarapith, and a blind baul, a wandering religious singer. Both are outcasts who have found great joy amidst their tremendous suffering, attaining a peace that the householders of modern India could likely never approach. Their stories, like all in this book, are told mostly in the first person, in lengthy quotes, Dalrymple acting as midwife to their tales. They seem to come from a world much removed from our own, from modern life itself, but they aren't. They are here and now: a testament to the multiplicity of faith in India, and even perhaps, to that country's celebration of the sacred. As Kanai Das Baul, the blind wandering spiritual singer from Bengal, says of his music, "It makes us so happy, that we don't remember what sadness is."

Extremely well written personal tales of individual's spiritual path and practices that illuminates the larger Indian culture past and present.

I never come home from India with less than 25 kilos of luggage. I throw away clothes to make room for books. Therefore, let me save you the backache: this is the book you must read.

Presenting itself as nine "non-fiction short stories", 9 Lives portrays expressions of faith that are often romanticized or sensationalized, such as that of a tantric priestess, or ritual prostitute, or Tibetan soldier monk. As an obsessive reader of books about India, I can assure you that much of what is found here cannot be found anywhere else -- the alternatives are often sensationalist nonsense, or else dry as dust.

For example, the first chapter, about a Jain nun: I dare you to find elsewhere a readable brief narrative of Jainism that explains the basic beliefs and shows how they can continue to compel those that believe.

I've spent time in three of the places Dalrymple explores here -- Sravanabelagola, Dharamsala and Tarapith -- and still I learned so much about each.

(I admit I have an awful fear that the chapter about Tarapith -- the very most beautiful in the book -- will provoke a tourist boom in dusty Tarapith. In which case, let me warn you, the road is one of the most treacherous in India. Potential devotees are strongly advised to take the train.)

Dalrymple writes in spirited opposition to the forces that threaten to homogenize spirituality in India. Almost all of what he profiles here is in danger of being blotted out.

Particularly praise-worthy is Dalrymple's ability to get entirely out of the way of his subject. We learn nothing whatsoever about Dalrymple's personal spiritual journey -- and I mean that as very high praise.

If you love this book, the obvious next step would be to read Wendy Doniger's spectacular "The Hindus: An Alternative History": a beautiful service to Hinduism and human civilization, for which she has been, of course, thunderously condemned by fundamentalist panjandrums.

May the spirituality of India always bloom as richly and strangely and powerfully as Dalrymple finds it blooming here.

In this book, William Dalrymple continues his exploration of India and its diversity by delving into the various fringe and non-mainstream religious and spiritual traditions which are still considered sacred by its many followers. Just as his book 'City of Djinns' showed me how little I knew of the city of Delhi, its history and its pulsating life in spite of living there for five years, this book shows me how little most of us Indians know about our own sacred traditions. Out of the nine distinct spiritual traditions explored here, only three were even familiar to me - that of Jains taking Diksha, the Devadasi tradition and the Theyyam dance of Kerala. Even these were not known to me in as much detail and essence as Dalrymple shows them in his book. But the other ones, like the wandering Epic narrator of Rajasthan, Sufism in modern day Sindh in Pakistan and finally, the rebellious Tantric ways of Tarapith and the singing Baul people in eastern India are really a revelation about India for me, even though I am born and brought up in India. In short, this is a splendid piece of work by Dalrymple.
What is fascinating about some of these traditions is that they are still living ones and are actively practised by its adherents in the same way they have been practised for millenniums, thereby suggesting a long continuity. The author makes many interesting observations along the way. While discussing the oral narration of epics in the form of poems in Rajasthan, Dalrymple says :" ....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..". In the final two chapters, the author talks about the people who live in the cremation grounds of Tarapith and worship Ma Tara by offering goat sacrifice and worshipping with garlands of skulls. He also talks about the wandering singers of the Baul community who also practise Tantric traditions along with those of the cremation grounds of Tarapith. Dalrymple writes about Tantrism as follows: "...some of its constituent elements, such as its goddess cults, shamanism and sexual yoga, may date back to pre-Aryan and pre-Vedic religious currents, and in many ways are fundamentally opposed to the ideas and structures of the Vedas, which emphasise social and religious hierarchies. Tantrics, in contrast, oppose society's conventions and encourage the individual of whatever background to develop a mystical relationship with the diety within, placing Kama, desire in every sense of the word, in the service of liberation....."
What stands out in the book is Dalrymple's approach to the various traditions. He is humble and comes off as a seeker without judgement and full of respect for every tradition that he encounters, however foreign and incomprehensible it may seem to one with a Scottish background. His scholarship on India makes it possible for him to set each of the 'nine lives' in context, in history and in its intrinsic essence in such a way that it is very accessible to a layman like me. For example, after reading about the blind Baul singer and his story, if I come across a blindman singing the praise of Krishna in the suburban Bombay trains again, I would look at him with renewed respect and reverence rather than just a person asking for money in return for his songs.
It is a matter of happiness that all these fantastic traditions have survived and are still thriving in spite of the enveloping modernity all round. One hopes it continues to be so and gives meaning to Indians' belief that 'India is immortal'.

A great book exploring the role of religion and spirituality in the lives of 9 ordinary ...if extreme..Indians. You don't need to be religious - which I am not - or have any interest in spiritual awakening - this is no "Eat Pray Love". What it is is a fascinating piece of social anthropology, through the simple method of letting ordinary people tell their stories. All the testimonies here show the enduring role that the vast stew of beliefs and religious practices in India have in providing comfort and a sense of purpose and a role in life for so many.
From religious icon makers worried about the future of their trade, to singers of epics facing audiences no longer as interested before in staying up for nights on end listening to the oral classics, to abused women who find comfort in devotion to Tara or to Sufi saints and a Tibetan monk doing penance for violence resisting the Chinese, all are the stories cast a light on interesting and rarely heard aspects of Indian life. And the story of the Jain nun, trying and failing to maintain detachment and her incredibly austere life, as her friend starves herself to death is perhaps the saddest thing I have ever read
The only weak spot is a fairly cursory interview with a devadasi - its as though the author felt he had to do it and didn't really have any great interest in the topic.
Otherwise its brilliant. Buy it now

Great reading! I became completely engrossed in each of the nine beautifully drawn portraits in Dalrymple's Nine Lives - to the point where I wanted to go meet each one of the main characters and keep following their stories.

As a whole, the book gives a taste of the wide variety of spiritual experience/practice found in India. If you are not already familiar with Indian (including Muslim/Sufi, Jain, and Buddhist, not just Hindu) spirituality, some of the stories might seem shocking or even repulsive, so be warned; and other than providing some helpful and interesting historical context, Dalrymple does not go into much explanation or analysis of the underlying philosophy or metaphysics of the spiritual paths described in the book, so the unfamiliar westerner may also feel disoriented and confused or simply lost; but if you are open-minded or if you already have some understanding of concepts like bhakti, dharma, yoga, tantra, etc., then there is a good chance that you will find these stories fascinating, mind-expanding, and heart-opening. Personally, it does me good to see that there are so many people out there in the world pursuing their unique and distinct visions of truth, love, and the divine with such total commitment and dedication.

Maybe most importantly, I found the seekers described in Nine Lives to be role-models providing me with inspiration for my own seeking and encouragement to face my own obstacles and go beyond some of the more constricting boundaries imposed by modern, western values and mores. Part of the reason for this is that the characters I met in the book seemed so real. They are not big-name teachers and gurus from large, well-funded organizations which often represent "official" Indian spirituality in the west. These are very real people dealing with very real difficulties, but doing so with a great deal of humility and dignity, within their respective traditions. All of the stories are tinged with sadness (some stories more so than others), none of which is glossed over, and I felt that this contributed greatly to their power.

Only time will tell if India will manage to hold on to Her amazing spiritual heritage in the face of modernization, but Nine Lives gives the hopeful impression that She is managing to do so - at least for the time being.

Brilliant and fascinating. This is the most recent in a collection of splendid travel books - true stories - by William Dalrymple. I own and have read them all.

If you are interested in India, in Indian practices, Indian religion, Indian thought - you MUST read this.