Overview

Hidden in Plain Sight is a visually rich exploration of the Indian and Hindu roots preserved within Japanese Buddhism and culture. Based on the author's travels across Japan and his background in Sanskrit, Hindu tradition, and temple study, the book brings together original photography, historical explanation, language connections, and personal observation to show how ancient Indian ideas continue to live in Japan today. Across pilgrimage routes, temples, rituals, deities, architecture, scripts, festivals, food, and everyday practices, the book highlights connections that many visitors overlook. Readers encounter familiar deities in Japanese form, from Sarasvatī to Benzaiten and Gaṇapati to Kangiten, alongside parallels in sacred architecture, mantra traditions, fire ritual, symbolic language, and devotional life. Written for a general audience, the book is both informative and highly visual. It is part photography book, part cultural study, and part personal journey, inviting readers to see Japan not only as a modern nation of remarkable refinement and technology, but also as a place where older civilizational currents from India remain alive, transformed, and often hidden in plain sight.

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Ganapathi Pamula is a writer, photographer, researcher, and inventor whose interests span culture, language, history, science, and technology. His work lies at the intersection of understanding the past through careful historical inquiry and building the future through technological innovation.Hidden in Plain Sight grew out of a long-standing fascination with Japan and a curiosity about the ways Indian religious, linguistic, and ritual traditions have shaped Japanese culture over time. Drawing on travel across Japan, visits to hundreds of temples in India, and a background in Sanskrit and Japanese, he brings a lived comparative lens to sacred spaces, material culture, and the continuities that link civilizations across time. In this book, he combines visual storytelling with clear explanation, bringing together photography, field observation, language study, and research in a way that is accessible to general readers while still engaging serious readers.Beyond cultural and historical work, his interests also extend strongly into innovation. He has published peer-reviewed research, holds issued patents, and has received innovation awards. He has also written science fiction, reflecting an equal interest in imagining the future and studying the past. Across these different pursuits, he is drawn to both discovery and creation: carefully studying the past, explaining and contextualizing it for the present, and building new technologies for the future. Prof. Kishor Trivedi is Hudson Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University, where he has served on the faculty since 1975 and built an internationally recognized career in reliability and dependable systems research. Beyond engineering, he has long been active in Hindu education and community life in North Carolina. He is the author of Introduction to Hinduism, has taught Hinduism at many venues, represented Hinduism in numerous interfaith dialogues, and has been an active leader of the Hindu Society of North Carolina since its early years. He also runs the Know Your Dharma lecture series and serves as the founding faculty advisor to the Duke Hindu Students Association. His connection to this book's themes is also personal, having spent several months in Japan during sabbaticals, where he developed a deeper familiarity with the country and its culture.

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