Indian Literature and Philosophy
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.
Read More Love, death and Sanskrit literatureFor 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.
Read More On craft-worker gods and heroesThe 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.
Read More T.S. Eliot, the Vedas and the Concept of Timeage has been connected with religious and ethical traditions in diverse regions of the world and throughout history, from the Biblical idea that the Word is God to the Confucian idea of the rectification of names. In the Indian tradition, too, language has been of central importance, and this has motivated a tradition of linguistic analysis and linguistic precision in the Sanskrit language. Indeed, for some Indian thinkers, sound itself, in the form of human speech, is the metaphysical basis for our entire reality.
Read More Speech in the Rig VedaIf, however, we were to speculate more freely, we may canvas a possible connection with the English word ‘hebban’, meaning ‘to lift’ or ‘to raise’, made plausible when we think of the sky as something that has been raised up as a firmament or heavenly vault. This line of thought gains further strength when we consider the many creation myths about the separation of earth and sky to make room in the cosmos for us.
Read More The separation of Earth and SkyRivers have been revered since time immemorial in cultures across the world. For ancient peoples, the pure waters provided by rivers to drink and to water crops must have seemed to be a blessing from nature or from the gods. In the Rig Veda, the sapta-sindhu or seven rivers stand pre-eminent. Two among these, the Vipāśā (Beas) and Śutudrī (Satluj) rivers are the interlocutors of the sage Viśvamitra in a fascinating and unique conversation translated here.
Read More Talking with the riversṚg Veda Book 10 Verse 85 is commonly known as Sūryā’s Bridal Hymn or the Wedding Hymn. In some Hindu families, this is one of the Vedic verses recited as part of the liturgy at Hindu marriage ceremonies. It tells a metaphorical story of the wedding of Sūryā, seemingly the daughter of the sun-god, as bride, to soma, seemingly the moon, as bridegroom. Some of the features of the wedding described continue to be features of Hindu weddings today
Read More Marriage in the Rig VedaThe sun has been worshipped as a deity in many of the major religious traditions in history, dating at least from the ancient Egyptian religion which worshipped the sun god 𒊑𒀀 (a.k.a. Re or Ra).
Read More On worshipping the sun as godHow should a person who wants to practice dharma behave? What is eternal dharma?
Read More What is eternal dharma?