Patrick Peebles is Professor Emeritus in History at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, where he taught courses on Asian history. He is a specialist on the modern history of Sri Lanka. In 2008–2009, he carried out research in Sri Lanka under a grant from the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies for a book on the transformation of the colony from a military outpost to a plantation economy in the period from 1833 to 1850. In the fall of 2009, he taught in London in the Missouri London Program. His most recent research and book project is his microhistory of the East India Company from 1680 to 1700. He is a contributor to a number of encyclopedias and dictionaries on South Asia, and his books include History of Sri Lanka (2006), Plantation Tamils of Ceylon (2001), Social Change in Nineteenth Century Ceylon (1995), and Classics of Eastern Thought (1994).

• Chapter 1 Vedic Hymns; Chapter 2 Sermon at the Deer Park, Siddhartha Gautama Buddha; Chapter 3 Bhagavad Gita; Chapter 4 Arthasastra, Kautilya; Chapter 5 Poems of Love and War; Chapter 6 Mah?vamsa; Chapter 7 The Perfect Bride, Dandin; Chapter 8 Gitagovinda, Jayadeva; Chapter 9 Songs of Kabir; Chapter 10 Sacred Writings of the Sikhs; Chapter 11 Akbar Nama, Abu-? Fazl; Chapter 12 Hanuman Chalisa; Chapter 13 On the Burning of Widows, Ram Mohan Roy; Chapter 14 Govinda Samanta, Lal Behari Day; Chapter 15 Gitanjali, Rabindranath Tagore; Chapter 16 Hind Swaraj, Mohandas K. Gandhi; Chapter 17 Muna and Madan, Lakshmiprasad Devkota; Chapter 18 What Is India?, Jawaharlal Nehru; Chapter 19 Waiting for the Mahatma, R.K. Narayan; Chapter 20 All Is Burning, Jean Arasanayagam;