Here, the musician uses his or her music as a weapon to shield and protect his or her spirituality. The authors discussed in this volume depict music as a mystical, shamanistic, and spiritual power that can miraculously transform the realities of the soul and of the world.

The nine original essays in Black Orpheus examines the Orphic theme in the fiction of such African American writers as Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, James Baldwin, Nathaniel Mackey, Sherley Anne Williams, Ann Petry, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Gayl Jones, and Toni Morrison.

The liberating effect of music has been a particularly important theme in twentieth-century African American literature. Over time, the Orphic theme has come to indicate the power of music to unsettle, subvert, and ultimately bring down oppressive realities in order to liberate the soul and expand human life without limits. The legendary Greek figure Orpheus was said to have possessed magical powers capable of moving all living and inanimate things through the sound of his lyre and voice. 10% of the profit from the sale of this book will be donated to raising funds for Phaung Daw Oo Monastic Education High School in Mandalay, Myanmar Let their quaint humour and gentle earnestness teach you the wholesome lessons of the Buddhist ideology, among them the duty of kindness to animals. Captivate yourself with the charm of these 18 Jataka Tales. At times they have been used merely as merry tales, and at other times they're used as literature, as by Chaucer, who unwittingly puts a Jataka story into the mouth of his Pardoner when he tells the tale of The Ryotoures Three. While some of the stories are based in Buddhist ideology, many are age-old fables, the flotsam and jetsam of folk-lore that have appeared under various guises throughout the centuries. The Tale of the Sandy Road is one of the finest in the collection. The Tale of the Banyan Deer, which offered its life to save a roe and her young, illustrates self-sacrifice of the noblest sort. The Tale of the Measures of Rice illustrates the importance of a true estimate of values.

Tales like The Merchant of Seri, who gave up all that he had in exchange for a golden dish, embodies much the same idea as the New Testament's parable of the priceless pearl. These Jataka Tales contain deep truths, and are calculated to impress lessons of great moral beauty. Carved railings around the relic shrines of Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh and Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh indicate that the birth-stories were widely known in the third century B.C. They relate the adventures of the Buddha in his former existences. The Jatakas, or birth-stories, form one of Buddhism's sacred books.

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