Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook Translated From The Sanskrit, translated by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (1975). If you're looking for a book which lays out Hindu mythology as an easy-reading, linear storybook, this isn't it. This is more of an academic study, with each mythological thread preceded with some commentary and then traced through its evolving versions over centuries of religious texts. Still very interesting, though sometimes confusing, as everyone seems to have an unlimited supply of aliases (it's worse than a punk rock band!), which keeps you flipping back to the glossary to check who's who now. The early creation myths are especially knotty, with a lot of recursiveness -- though circularity, contradiction and dizzying dream logic are a constant throughout. Like all the world's mythologies, there's some pretty nutty stuff going on, yet here and there are amazing passages -- like this bit from Siva's preparations to destroy the triple city of the demons: "Having made the year embroidered with the six seasons his bow, he made his own shadow the bow string, unbreakable in battle."