Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Mallapurana

The Mallapurana

Billinge, Tom
Jnanavarna
Dunichandra

Paperback

Series: Billinge Translations

General FitnessHinduismMartial Arts

ISBN10: 1968394109
ISBN13: 9781968394103
Publisher: Sanctus Arya Press
Published: Oct 16 2026
Pages: 486
Weight: 1.42
Height: 0.98 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
The Mallapurāṇa is a remarkable Sanskrit treatise devoted to the martial, physical, and spiritual traditions of India's Jyeṣṭhīmalla wrestlers. Part sacred narrative, technical manual, and record of a specialized warrior culture, this extraordinary work presents wrestling as more than a contest of strength. It is a discipline governed by tradition, ritual, bodily mastery, and devotion to the divine.

Through a dialogue of Kṛṣṇa and Someśvara, this text traces the origins of mallavidyā (knowledge of wrestling), exploring qualities expected of the wrestler and a classification of physical types, as well as training methods, exercises, diet, massage, health, and the conduct of combat. This work also opens a window onto the formidable tradition of Vajramuṣṭi, a distinctive form of armed combat associated with the Jyeṣṭhīmallas, whose contests combined wrestling, striking, and the use of a knuckleduster. Here is a martial culture whose techniques, ceremonies, and ideals resist reduction to modern sport. Strength carries obligations; training follows a sacred order; and the wrestler stands as both combatant and devotee.

For the modern reader, the Mallapurāṇa poses a provocative question: what is lost when physical culture is stripped of its religious foundations, inherited disciplines, and higher purpose? Its vision challenges the assumption that athletic excellence is merely a matter of performance, fitness, or victory. Instead, it preserves an older ideal in which the pursuit of strength becomes a path of self-mastery and spiritual realization.

Introduced by Tom Billinge

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