Strength of Sanatana Dharma

Today is Makara Sankranti, celebrated across India to both herald the beginning of longer days, and reap the harvest of months of backbreaking work in the fields. But the greater significance of Makara Sankranti like most Hindu festivals, is to highlight another living instance of the amazing cultural unity of India. People in Karnataka exchange [...]

Gurcharan Das and the Liberal Hindu

A few weeks ago, I made a hurried list that broadly categorized contemporary Hindus based on certain general parameters. Gurcharan Das of India Unbound fame adds to this list by slotting himself into a new category: Liberal Hindu. Much of what he says in that post is along familiar, “safe Hindu” lines but he does [...]

Sunday Special: Excerpts from an Autobiography : 2

Soon after, I wrote Jalapaata (Waterfall) and Tabbaliyu Neenaade Magane (You have been orphaned, my Son). A singular experience inspired both these works. A revolution of sorts was brewing in the cooperative sector in the Kaira district, which not just bettered the lives of the farmers there but supplied plentiful milk to far-off places like [...]

The Sublime and the Mundane

A good way to take a break from sickening news, never ending political crap and even mundane life, and recover sanity is to turn the mind towards the more refined appeals. The kinds that we’ve lost the time and solitude to enjoy at will: music, painting, sculpture, plays, and literature. More specifically, the classical variety [...]

Remembering Madhava Vidyaranya

It is Vijayadashami here in Karnataka, a hallowed tradition that celebrates both the victory and renewal of the spirit of Sanatana Dharma in South India. A tradition handed down to us from the time Harihara established the Vijaynagar empire after defeating the marauding Islamic armies that threatened to sweep the entire South India. It won’t [...]

Let’s Talk About Sex

I know the title of this post will get all kinds of visitors to this blog but everything has a price. Okay, so this is about sex in Indian art, something I might have touched upon mostly in my posts on M.F. Hussain.
One of the first cries in the defence of Hussain is how sex [...]

The Direction of this Blog

After about seven years of almost nonstop blogging, I have reached a decisive turn. I won’t stop this blog or anything. I’ll continue being rude but much less often.
However, I’ve decided to turn to studying more in depth, and writing on the philosophical concepts that shaped Indian thought. This includes everything from Vedanta to [...]

Reason for Fundamentalism and Biogtry

So this is both a question and a test of how well you know your Hinduism.
What according to Sanatana Dharma is the root cause of religious fundamentalism/bigotry?
Technorati Tags: hinduism,sanatana dharma,question,quiz,india,indian philosophy

Dharma 101: A Critique

As promised to Yossarin, I hereby add, clarify, and (hope to) correct some items in Yossarin’s elucidation of Dharma. I’ve adopted his question-answer format because it offers a nice readymade template.

Dissecting Contextual Morality: Part 3

Read Part 1
After observing how AKR leaves us confounded with academic jargon and widely deviating from his original theme, I’ll continue the same examination a tad more. A commenter helpfully added some valuable information about AKR’s corruption of the ullurai concept.
The focus is slightly different in this case.