A visit to Ayodhya
I have been visiting India for more than 30 years and probably 30 times in all. India is in my system and I have an abstract, but deep connection with Hinduism, which was confirmed in a private ritual by Guru Brahmashree More...
The Scientific Dating of the Ramayana
Did Rama exist? A billion Hindus believe he did and an unbroken tradition of Rama worship has continued for thousands of years in India. Rama is also a hero in Indonesia (despite it being a Muslim country), Thailand More...
Lessons from the Story of Lord Hanumana
Our mythology is replete with rich metaphors that contain valuable insights on how we can successfully negotiate the turbulent waters worldly existence. They need to be understood metaphorically as well. To understand More...
Did the Buddha Break Away from Hinduism?
This was published in Hindu Human Rights, on 10 August 2013, and in Sutra Journal, October, 2015. Orientalists have started treating Buddhism as a separate religion because they discovered it outside India, without More...
The Poetic Genius of Kalidasa
[contextly_sidebar id=”k25h4q0fgJWiAjGci9MuqW6EjH5VbAfH”] Kalidasa is known as the master of similes. The Sanskrit tradition has proclaimed him as upamAkAlidAsasya. The variety, depth and appropriateness More...
Twenty statements from Sheldon Pollock on India, Hinduism and Sanskrit
The Murty Classical Library of India was launched with quite some fanfare recently by Rohan Murty, son of software czar and founder of Infosys Narayan Murthy. The Murty Library under the general editorship of Sheldon More...
Five major distortions of the Ramayana in academia
1. The educational site www.historyforkids.org characterizes Ramayana as follows in their Ramayana Project: The Ramayana is partly a metaphor for the Aryans trying to invade the people of southern India. It’s More...
The definitive Ayodhya chronicle
There are very few publications giving a factual account of historical facts underlying the Ayodhya controversy. Yet this controversy has played a decisive role in recent Indian politics, giving the BJP the electoral More...