The rage of the warrior in literature

I previously discussed how strong emotions such as grief and rage well up from a very deep place within the self, expressing themselves in ways which go beyond the usual range of human expression, and how, according to the Indian tradition, the first poetic verse utterance emerged as an expression of deep sorrow. We see this particularly in the expression of rage on the battlefield, as will be described here.

Some Indian love poetry

Human emotions such as love, anger and sorrow have a universal dimension, affecting all peoples in all times and places similarly. But emotions also perhaps have a specific way of emerging and manifesting themselves which perhaps varies according to contextual factors.

Playing games in literature, art and history

The engraving above, based on a sculpture at the Ellora caves, shows Pārvatī and Śiva playing a game of dice. We see Śiva about to roll the dice on some kind of gameboard while Pārvatī gestures expressively at him. This scene perhaps illustrates a well-known episode from the Skanda Purana where they engage in fierce and perhaps somewhat underhand competition at playing dice.

On epic literature and the emotions

Great literature can express emotions in ways that are powerful yet also subtle. This is clear in epic literature, such as in the Iliad, which announces itself straight off the bat as a poem rooted in a specific emotion, viz. rage.

Some Indo-European thoughts on time

Our day-to-day experience of time passing can be highly non-linear and subjective, as we move from giving rapid presentations to enjoying lazy Sunday afternoons. Science too has studied how our brains have the ability to slow down and speed up our perception of time. In this way, our lived experience of the flow of time diverges sharply from the scientific description of this experience.

Some meaningful numbers and number systems in history

According to a famous comic tale, there was once a very beautiful and intelligent young lady who was highly conceited about her profound spiritual knowledge. She had rejected many suitors for her hand in marriage, mockingly telling them that their intellectual level was far below hers. Some of these disgruntled suitors then plotted together to get their comeuppance.

Trysts by night in art and poetry

The painting above, by one of the great Indian artists of the late eighteenth century, Nainsukh, depicts such a scene. Our paramour sneaks away from her home by night to a spot in the forest where she has arranged to meet her lover during the night, and she must be back before anyone awakes and misses her in the morning.

Love, death and Sanskrit literature

In romantic literature across the world, we frequently read about lovers who would die rather than be apart. In the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, Pyramus kills himself, believing Thisbe to be dead. When Thisbe finds the dead body of Pyramus, she also kills herself. Romeo and Juliet, based on this story, and many other tales of world literature, follow a similar pattern.

On craft-worker gods and heroes

For ancient as well as modern people, God has been conceived of in a bewildering variety of ways. At one extreme, we see a wholly abstract and ineffable power, such as the Advaitic conception of Brahman, and on the other hand, we find an anthropomorphic god such as Krishna in the Mahābhārata, who is faced by the same moral dilemmas and limitations on his ability to act as the rest of us.

T.S. Eliot, the Vedas and the Concept of Time

The concept of time seems to have been a preoccupation for many leading figures of this generation across a variety of fields, stimulated perhaps in part by the linking of hitherto distant regions through railway and telegraphy during the nineteenth century, and likely also by the impact of Einstein’s work. Such figures might include Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, Marcel Proust, Salvador Dali and many others.