Bryant has published seven books and authored a number of articles on
Vedic history,
yoga, and
Krishna-
bhakti tradition. He is an expert on
Krishna tradition and has translated the story of
Krishna from the
Sanskrit Bhagavata Purana. • Edwin F. Bryant,
The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate. — Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. — xi, 387 p. — , (pbk.) • Edwin F. Bryant,
Krishna: The Beautiful Legend of God; Śrīmad Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Book X; with chapters 1, 6 and 29-31 from Book XI, Translated with an introduction and notes by Edwin F. Bryant. — London: Penguin Books, 2003. — xxxi, 515 p. — • Edwin F. Bryant and Maria L. Ekstrand,
The Hare Krishna Movement: The Postcharismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant. New York; Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2004. — xix, 448 p. — • Edwin F. Bryant and Laurie L. Patton,
Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History. London: Routledge, 2005. — 522 p. — (cased), (pbk.) • Edwin F. Bryant,
Krishna: a Sourcebook. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. — xiv, 575 p. — (hbk.) (pbk.) • Edwin F. Bryant,
The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary with Insights from the Traditional Commentators; illustrated. New York: North Point Press, 2009. — xvii, 598 p. — • Edwin F. Bryant,
Bhakti yoga: Tales and teachings from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, New York, North Point Press. 2017. 688 p. —
The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture Bryant is the author of
The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture (
Oxford University Press, 2001).
J. P. Mallory says the book:
Michael Witzel writes:
Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History This book, edited by Edwin Bryant and Laurie Patton, contains a series of articles by proponents of the "
Indigenous Aryans" position and scholars of the
Indo-Aryan migration theory, with some alternative interpretations. According to Edwin Bryant, most of the evidence regarding the origin of Indo-Aryans is inconclusive and he is not convinced of the Indo-Aryan migrations theory, but he is also not convinced of an "Out-of-India position", since the support for it is not significant. He notes that the discovery of Indo-Aryan language family was foundational to the investigation of the origins of the Western civilization, and the relationship between the Indo-Aryan family and the remaining
Indo-European languages must be established. However, he states: "... I find most of the evidence that has been marshalled to support the theory of Indo-Aryan migrations into the subcontinent to be inconclusive upon careful scrutiny, but on the other, I have not been convinced by an Out-of-India position, since there has been very little of significance offered so far in support of it." In a review, Sanskrit linguist
Stephanie W. Jamison likened the effort of the volume to calls to "teach the controversy" by the proponents of
Intelligent Design. She states that the Indo-Aryan controversy is a "manufactured one" with a non-scholarly, religio-nationalistic attack on scholarly consensus and the editors (Bryant and Patton) have unwittingly provided it a gloss of intellectual legitimacy. The editors are not linguists, she contends, and they have accepted patently weak or false linguistic arguments. So their apparently even-handed assessment lacks merit and cannot be regarded as objective scholarship. Historian Sudeshna Guha concurs, saying that Bryant does not probe into the epistemology of evidence and hence perceives the opposing viewpoints unproblematic. On the contrary, she holds that the timing and renewed vigour of the indigenist arguments during the 1990s demonstrates unscholarly opportunism. Fosse and Deshpande's contributions to the volume provide a critical analysis of the historiography and the nationalist and colonial agendas behind it. She also holds Bryant's desire to present what he calls the views of "Indian scholars" for "reconstructing the religious and cultural history of their own country" as misleading because it patently ignores the views of historians of India who have done so since the beginning of the twentieth century.
Translation of the Yoga Sutras and interpretation In 2007 Bryant completed a translation of the
Yoga Sutras and their traditional commentaries. Control and elimination of
vrittis comprise significant portion of yoga practices and observances (
yama and
niyama) that culminates with
nirodha, an arrested state of mind capable of one-pointedness. Otherwise, if unwanted
vrittis are allowed to predominate, "We risk missing the whole point of the practice". In the interview
Inside the Yoga Tradition, Bryant describes some tenets of his interpretation of the
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, "I stress in my commentary that
Patanjali is emphatic about the
yamas and
niyamas (vows and observances). We can't say that what he is teaching is applicable only to the time period in which he codified the Sutras or that they are only for Hindus living in India. Patanjali asserts that
yamas and
niyamas are great universal vows. He didn't have to further qualify them - universal means no exception whatsoever." Discussing theistic overtones in
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the practice of
ishvara-pranidhana (commitment or surrender to God), David Gordon White points out in his
The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali - A Biography, "Edwin Bryant, who, in his recent splendid commentary on the Yoga Sutra, notes that
Vijnanabhiksu considered
ishvara-pranidhana to refer to the practice of devotion to Krishna, the Lord of the
Bhagavat Gita. Bryant clearly aligns himself with this interpretation of the term, reading
ishvara-pranidhana as submission to a personal god and asserting that most yogis over the past two millennia have been associated with devotional sects." Similar view is expressed by a commentator of
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (1999),
Baba Hari Dass, "
Ishvara pranidhana (surrender to God) is a method of the devotional path (
Bhakti Yoga)". ==See also==