Ashwini Mokashi. Kabir: On Philosophical Counseling. Poetry, Insight, and Practice. Belagivi, India: Academy of Comparative Philosophy & Religion, 2026. 83 pp. Softcover. USA $14.99; United Kingdom £11.99; India ₹399. Orders, with current 15% discount: https://ashwinimokashi.com/purchase/.
Ashwini Mokashi (Oxford University), a past president of the Princeton Research Forum and one of its most public and respected members, has published a brief guide on a universal concern: the healing heart. Dr Mokashi offers comfort and direction in the philosophical principles of 15th-century Hindu mystic and poet, Kabir. Over six chapters, her book includes introductory information on Kabir’s life and political background, with special emphasis on the method of the “Kabir-Bhakti framework” used in Mokashi’s philosophical counseling. Chapter 3 on twelve verses by Kabir is the theoretical core of the book, and each selection is printed in four versions: original text, Roman transliteration, Hindi translation, and English translation.
And then praxis! Mokashi’s vivid “stories” (case studies) of clients’ transformations will hold the attention of the most jaded post-modernist. For example, Anna’s journey (Story 3) recounts the malaise and then spiritual reconnection in the life of a young corporate professional (pp. 57-58).
The achievement of this useful guide for the heartsick – and their caregivers — is Mokashi’s accessible presentation of esoteric Medieval Hindi material to a 21st-century audience, with life-lessons from her own deep experience as a professional philosophical counselor.
For perhaps a second edition, Mokashi might include a timeline of Kabir’s life and literary writings, and certainly a photograph of a selected folio leaf in Kabir’s Hindi script (Bodleian Library MS. Hindi e.1; 90 ff complete; see Digital Bodleian).
By Maureen E. Mulvihill. Scholar & Rare Book Collector. Princeton Research Forum. NJ.
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