I was surprised to get the recommendation from an older Indian man (the father of a friend), but I can’t say I regret reading this book. There was a lot of interesting information about various rituals for the plethora of deities in southern India.

There was way less judgement than I expected in a book from this period, written by a British clergyman (though what judgment is in the book is saved for the final chapter). My biggest gripe with the book is that it’s almost entirely about the rituals people perform, and not enough about the mythology of the deities.