Desire To Think

Tag: india

  • Tantra at the British Museum

    Tantra at the British Museum

    A short review of the exhibition ‘Tantra: enlightenment to revolution’ which is currently on at the British Museum.

  • Sexual Harassment in the Mahābhārata

    Sexual Harassment in the Mahābhārata

    Sexual harassment is an unfortunate reality in many societies, and this fact is also reflected in literature too. In the story of Śakuntalā, originally in the Mahābhārata, Śakuntalā becomes pregnant by Duryodhana who then initially refuses to acknowledge that he is the father. In the Rāmāyaṇa, too, Sītā chooses to accompany her husband Rāma into…

  • Faizi, Akbar and Sanskrit literature

    Faizi, Akbar and Sanskrit literature

    The Mughal period in India was a fascinating and intriguing period from the perspective of development and dissemination of Sanskrit literature.

  • India, Africa and African Americans

    India, Africa and African Americans

    Cultural exchange and interaction between African or African-origin people and Indian people has a long and important history

  • Emotions in Indian Art and Poetry

    Emotions in Indian Art and Poetry

    A verse and a painting on Rama’s love for Sita

  • Emotions in Indian literature

    Emotions in Indian literature

    … as a source of spontaneity in the Ramayana and some works of Kālidāsa

  • The Self in Indian Philosophy

    The Self in Indian Philosophy

    Reflecting on the chariot as a metaphor for the Self

  • Śakuntalā’s poem

    Dushyanta and Shakuntala in a Landscape — LACMA The play Abhijnāna-Śakuntalam is one of the most well-known and frequently-performed works by the renowned Indian poet Kālidāsa. The play is based on the famous story found in the Mahābhārata about the romance of Śakuntalā and Duṣyanta. However, Kālidāsa uses his own creative imagination to add some additional twists…

  • Spirituality and the Himalayas

    Our emotional response to mountain landscapes Since ancient times the Himālayas have loomed large in the consciousness of the Indian people, geographically, politically and most of all in the context of religious belief and practice.  This was perhaps in part because the ritual drink of Soma was fetched down from Mount Munjavant in the Himālayas…

  • The Battle of Ten Kings

    Ahi-Kshetra – the ancient capital of Northern Panchala — Wikimedia Commons The account in the Ṛg Veda and the legacy for modern India The seventh maṇḍala of the Ṛg Veda was largely composed by the Rṣi Vasiṣṭha Maitrāvaruṇi, well-known from later literature too, especially for the mutual antagonism between him and Viśvamitra. It commemorates some events leading…