Essential Facts of Sanatana Dharma
Sometimes people ask what Hinduism is, and how it compares with the other religious/spiritual traditions of the world. Most of the time Hindus find it difficult to provide simple and cogent answers to such questions, More...
Do The Hindus Have 33 Crore Gods?
Quite often we discuss among ourselves, with a slight tone of self-mockery, that we Hindus have thirty-three crore (330 million) gods. We think we have such a surfeit of gods that we do not mind accepting anything More...
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 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 caste system is a colonial idea
It was primarily under colonial Christian rule that the caste system as we know it today was defined, shaped and a narrative built around it. It’s time for India to take back the caste narrative in its own hands. More...
Foundational Texts of Hinduism
[contextly_sidebar id=”0kRA9p0AseV0c8qQz9LfXdoj5KuqVt8f”] The foundational texts of Hinduism have, for centuries, been transmitted by means of an oral tradition – teachers taught this to their disciples, More...
Foundations of Hinduism
Link to the first part. In its original and purest form, Hinduism is sanātana dharma, loosely translated as ‘eternal truth’ or ‘timeless religion’ or ‘eternal way of life’ or ‘timeless ethic.’ It More...
Introduction to Hinduism
This is the first part of a new series on Hinduism. Hinduism is the major religion of India with a worldwide following of over a billion people. In its original and purest form, it is a sanātana dharma (loosely More...
Hindus and the Restoration of Cultural Diversity
If we turn back the clock 2000 years we would see a world full of diverse societies and cultures. Though there were indeed clearly identifiable markers that represented distinct civilizations, be they Chinese, Indian, More...
How to spot an Indian Intellectual
From a lecture by former JNU Vice-Chancellor Prof. Kapil Kapoor before the Indore-based India Inspires Foundation, I have to relate a particularly relevant part, viz. about our Indian “intellectuals”. More...