The Pantheon of the Indian Saura Tradition
The Indian Saura-mata (or the Hindu sect of the Sun) is an amalgam of two distinct layers [ 1]: 1) The endogenous layer of solar deities going back to the Veda and 2) The neo-morphic layer of Iranic origin which was transferred to India as a result of contact with Zoroastrians and to an extent, non-Zoroastrian Iranians from a period spanning the beginning More...
Musings of a Hindu Savage
I am a Hindu savage. And I need to be civilised. My friends would have you believe so. A recent conversation with a high school friend of mine on Hinduism reminded me of a scene from the 80s movie, Crocodile Dundee. Dundee More...
The Hindu View on Freedom of Expression and Public Discourse
This essay was jointly authored by Hari Ravikumar. For a moment, just try to visualize the kind of public debates that happen today, on television, in the newspapers, and in person. In the light of these images More...
The Realm of Indra
Indra is the Indo-Aryan version of the preeminent deity of the ancestral Indo-European pantheon. In the Vedic texts, we see remnants of what might have been an ancient tripartition of this deity, as manifest on More...
The case for Sanskrit as National Language of India
In my previous column, I had raised the possibility of adopting Sanskrit as the national language of India. But Hindi, along with English, has been our official language since independence. Therefore, before I move More...
Hindu View of Leadership
The colonization of India had one major destructive impact among several others: a near-complete obliteration of all brahma-kshAtra spheres of activity including leadership. Today, both the Indian state and academia More...
Say ‘Om’ to Sanskrit
The British left long ago but sheer inertia and a colonized mindset has ensured that the legacy of blind deference to the English language survive to this day. So ubiquitous and ingrained is such servile behaviour More...
Kalidasa: The Great Integrator
[contextly_sidebar id=”I2DzCYDRPbsUSL4G4uo8sO3ZLKdLxTfh”] Synthesis of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva Kalidasa was the first great poet to advocate the basic oneness governing the three forms of Brahma, Vishnu More...
Kalidasa’s Exposition of Eternal Values
[contextly_sidebar id=”KSzcWYf0Z772nzzj9yD7k4OPXgg4mG4A”] As noted in the previous parts in this series, Kalidasa has been the greatest yet most graceful exponent of Indian values. He has upheld the More...
What Yoga is and is not: A report from Greece
Shantom Centre, Athens, 6 June 2015 Professor Bharat Gupt, a classicist, expert in ancient Greek and Indian theater, and a scholar of Indian philosophy and religion spoke at the Shantom Centre, Athens on the topic More...