With a foreword by His Holiness The Dalai Lama. Sharanam Gachhami: An Album of Awakening is a collection of photographs shot by twenty photographers, both professionals and amateurs, including well known names such as Richard Gere, Steve McCurry, Raghu Rai, Deepti Naval and Ven. Matthieu Ricard. Nine different themes make up the nine chapters of the book, eight of them representative of Buddhist ideals and principles that are so ingrained in our lives that we often tend not to recognize them. The last chapter, the ninth, is on Buddhist heritage and includes examples of Buddhist art and architecture, as well as Buddhist culture and traditions in different parts of the world. Kishore Thukral, writer - photographer and financial adviser, has trekked and researched extensively in the western Himalayas. He is the author of a novel, The Chronicler's Daughter (2002) and Spiti through Legend and Lore (2006), a book that documents the legends and folktales of the remote trans - Himalayan valley both in text and photographs. He has to his credit several photography exhibitions and illustrated lectures on Spiti, Dangkhar and Tibetan Buddhist art. He has been instrumental in setting up Save Dangkhar, a project for the restoration of the ancient Dangkhar monastery in Spiti. He lives in Delhi and is presently working on a handbook on Tibetan Buddhist iconography.