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Boekbespreking Religion

Absent Mother God of the West

A Kali Lover’s Journey into Christianity
and Judaism, Rowman & Littlefield 2015

Neela Bhattacharya Saxena

The author draws on her personal religious experiences and devotion to the Goddess Kali as a starting point to reflect on the absence of a Divine Feminine in Christianity and Judaism. We discuss the psychological and spiritual implications of that absence, along with discussing phenomena such as the Black Madonna and the Shekhinah in Jewish mysticism. This book is about the missing Divine Feminine in Christianity and Judaism chronicles, a personal as well as an academic quest of an Indian woman who grew up with Kali and myriad other goddesses. The book examines how the Divine Feminine was erased from the western consciousness and how it led to an exclusive spiritually patriarchal monotheism with serious consequences for both women’s and men’s psychological and spiritual identity. While colonial, proselytizing and patriarchal ways have denied the divinity inherent in the female of the species, a recent upsurge of body-centric practices like Yoga and innumerable books about old and new goddesses reveal a deep seated mother hunger in the western consciousness. Written from a practicing Hindu/Buddhist perspective, this book looks at the curious phenomenon called the Black Madonna that appears in Europe and also examines mystical figures like Shekhinah in Jewish mysticism.

The Indian Diaspora

Hindus and Sikhs in Australia
Manticore Press 2019

Jayant B. Bapat, Purushottama Bilimoria, Philip Hughes

Since the late 1990s, the Indian community in Australia has grown faster than any other immigrant community. The Indian Diaspora has made substantial contributions to the multi-ethnic and multi-religious diversity within Australia. The growth of Hinduism and Sikhism through gurus, temples, yoga and rituals of many kind has brought new colours, images, customs and practices to the profile of Australian religion, and the Australian landscape more widely. At the same time, Hinduism and Sikhism have themselves been transformed as Hindus and Sikhs from different parts of India as well as Fiji, Malaysia and other parts of the world have come together to establish a pan-Indian ethos. Hindus and Sikhs here have also interacted with other sectors of the Australian population and with religions from the Western world. This is the theme of this book, it covers the theory of diaspora, the historical development of the Indian communities in Australia since the late 19th century to the present times, current practices and statistical profiles of Hindus and Sikhs in Australia, and interactions between Hindus and Sikhs with the wider Australian community. There are case-studies of the Indian students and women in the Australian community, of Indian communities in Melbourne and South Australia, and of temple building and the Sikh gurdwara.

Anti-Christian Violence in India

Cornell University Press 2020

Chad M. Bauman

Does religion cause violent conflict and if so, does it cause conflict any more than other social identities? Through an extended history of Christian-Hindu relations, and with particular attention to the 2007-08 riots in Kandhamal, Odisha, this book examines religious violence and how it pertains to broader aspects of humanity. Is “religious” conflict sui generis, or is it merely one species of inter-group conflict? Why and how might violence become an attractive option for religious actors? What explains the increase in religious violence over the last twenty to thirty years? Integrating theories of anti-Christian violence focused on politics, economics, and proselytization, the book additionally weaves in recent theory about globalization, and in particular the forms of resistance against Western secular modernity that globalization periodically helps provoke. With such theories in mind, Bauman explores the nature of anti-Christian violence in India, contending that resistance to secular modernities is, in fact, an important but often overlooked reason behind Hindu attacks on Christians. Intensifying the widespread Hindu tendency to think of religion in ethnic rather than universal terms, the ideology of Hindutva explicitly rejects both the secular privatization of religion and the separability of religions from the communities that incubate them. And so, with provocative and original analysis, Bauman questions whether anti-Christian violence in contemporary India is really about religion, in the narrowest sense, or rather a manifestation of broader concerns, among some Hindus, about the Western socio-political order with which they associate global Christianity.

The Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations

Routledge 2020

Chad M. Bauman and Mischelle Voss Roberts

The tension between the two historical realities, Hinduism as an ancient Indian religion and Christianity as a religion associated with foreign power and colonialism, continues to animate Hindu-Christian relations today. On the one hand the book describes a rich history of amicable, productive, even sometimes syncretic Hindu-Christian encounters. On the other, this handbook equally attends to historical and contemporary moments of tension, conflict, and violence between Hindus and Christians. The handbook explores how the study of Hindu-Christian relations has been and ought to be done, the history of Hindu-Christian relations through key interactions, ethnographic reflections on current dynamics of Hindu-Christian exchange, important key thinkers, and topics in comparative theology, ultimately providing a framework for further debates in the area.

Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions

Routledge 2020

Knut A. Jacobsen

This book presents critical research, overviews and case studies on religion in historical South Asia and in the seven nation states of contemporary South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. Chapters by an international set of experts analyse formative developments, roots, changes and transformations, religious practices and ideas, identities, relations, territorialisation, and globalisation in historical and contemporary South Asia. The Handbook is divided into two parts which firstly analyse historical South Asian religions and their developments and secondly contemporary South Asia religions that are influenced by both religious pluralism and their close connection to nation states and their ideological power. Contributors argue that religion has been used as a tool for creating nations as well as majorities within those nations in South Asia despite, and as response to, their enormous diversity, in particular religious diversity. The handbook explores these diversities and tensions, historical developments and the present situation across religious traditions by utilising an array of approaches and from the point of view of various academic disciplines. Drawing together a remarkable collection of leading and emerging scholars, this handbook is an invaluable research tool and will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of Asian religion, religion in context and South Asian religions.

Education and Modernity in Colonial Punjab

Khalsa College, the Sikh Tradition and the Webs of
Knowledge 1880-1947, Palgrave Macmillan 2020

Michale P. Brunner

This book explores the localisation of modernity in late colonial India. As a case study, it focuses on the hitherto untold colonial history of Khalsa College, Amritsar, a pioneering and highly influential educational institution founded in the British Indian province of Punjab in 1892 by the religious minority community of the Sikhs. Addressing topics such as politics, religion, rural development, militarism or physical education, the study shows how Sikh educationalists and activists made use of and “localised” communal, imperial, national and transnational discourses and knowledge. Their modernist visions and schemes transcended both imperialist and mainstream nationalist frameworks and networks. In its quest to educate the modern Sikh - scientific, practical, disciplined and physically fit - the college navigated between very local and global claims, opportunities and contingencies, mirroring modernity's ambivalent simultaneity of universalism and particularism.

Reading the Hindu and Christian Classics

Reading the Hindu and Christian Classics

Why and How Deep Learning Still Matters
University of Virginia Press 2019

Francis X. Clooney

We live in an era of unprecedented growth in knowledge. Never before has there been so great an availability of and access to information in both print and online. Yet as opportunities to educate ourselves have greatly increased, our time for reading has significantly diminished. And when we do read, we rarely have the patience to read in the slow, sustained fashion that great books require if we are to be truly transformed by them. In this book the author argues that our increasing inability to read in a concerted manner is particularly notable in the realm of religion, where the proliferation of information detracts from the learning of practices that require slow and patient reading. Although awareness of the world's many religions is at an all-time high, deep knowledge of the various traditions has suffered, Clooney challenges this trend by considering six classic Hindu and Christian texts dealing with ritual and law, catechesis and doctrine, and devotion and religious participation, showing how, in distinctive ways, such texts instruct, teach truth, and draw willing readers to participate in the realities they are learning. Through readings of these seminal scriptural and theological texts, he reveals the rewards of a more spiritually transformative mode of reading and how individuals and communities can achieve it.

Religious Tolerance

A History
Harper Collins 2019

Arvind Sharma

Religion has become a vital element in identity politics globally after the terror attacks of 11 September 2001 in the United States of America. And so the question of how religious tolerance may be secured in the modern world can no longer be avoided. Can religious tolerance be placed on a firmer footing by finding grounds for it within the different faiths themselves? This book addresses that question. In this book Sharma examines Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Confucianism, Daoism and Shinto - whose followers together cover over two-thirds of the globe - to identify instances of tolerance in the history of each of these to help the discussion proceed on the basis of historical facts. This is a timely book - the first of its kind in scope and ambition.

The Muhammad Avatara

Salvation History, Translation and the Making of
Bengali Islam, Oxford University Press 2021

Ayesha A. Irani

The book reveals the powerful role of vernacular translation in the Islamization of Bengal. Its focus is on examining the magnificent seventeenth-century Nabīvamsa of Saiyad Sultān, who lived in Arakanese-controlled Chittagong to affirm the power of vernacular translation in the Islamization of Bengal. Drawing upon the Arabo-Persian Tales of the Prophets genre, the Nabīvamsa (“The Lineage of the Prophet”) retells the life of the Prophet Muhammad for the first time to Bengalis in their mother-tongue. Saiyad Sultān lived in Arakanese-controlled Chittagong, in a period when Gauriya Vaisnava missionary activity was at its zenith. This book delineates the challenges faced by the author in articulating the pre-eminence of Islam and its Arabian prophet in a place land where multiple religious affiliations were common, and when Gaurīya Vaisnava missionary activity was at its zenith. Sultān played a pioneering role in setting into motion various lexical, literary, performative, theological, and, ultimately, ideological processes that led to the establishment of a distinctively Bengali Islam in East Bengal, while yet shaping a distinctively Bengali Islam. At the heart of this transformation of a people and their culture lay the persuasiveness of translation to refresh salvation history for a people on a new Islamic frontier. The Nabīvamsa not only kindled a veritable translation movement of Arabo Persian Islamic literature into Bangla, but established the grammar of creative translation that was to become canonical for this regional tradition. This text-critical study lays bare the sophisticated strategies of translation used by a prominent early modern Muslim Bengali intellectual to invite others to his faith.

The Science of Satyug

Class, Charisma and Vedic Revivalism in the
All World Gayatri Pariwar, Suny Press 2021

Daniel Heifertz

The first in-depth study of the All World Gayatri Pariwar, a modern Indian religious movement. The All World Gayatri Pariwar is a modern religious movement that enjoys wide popularity in North India, particularly among the many STEM workers who joined after becoming disillusioned with their lucrative but unfulfilling private-sector careers. Founded in the mid-twentieth century, the Gayatri Pariwar works to popularize practices inspired by ancient religious texts and breaks with convention by framing these practices as the foundation of a universal spirituality. The movement appeals to science in its advocacy of these practices, claiming that they have medical benefits that constitute proof that rational people around the world should find persuasive. Should these practices become sufficiently widespread, the belief is that humanity will enter a new satyug, or “golden age.” The book focuses on how religion and science are objects of intense emotion that help to constitute identities. Weaving engaging ethnographic anecdotes together with readings of Gayatri Pariwar literature, Heifetz interprets this material in light of classic and contemporary theory. The result is a significant contribution to current conversations about the globalized middle classes and the entanglement of religion and science that will appeal to anyone interested in understanding these aspects of life in modern India.

World Religions Reader

Understanding Our Religious World
Robinest 2020

Thomas Robinson and Hillary Rodrigues

This book designed as an introductory reader for a World Religions course, provides key texts from Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Shintoism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, along with a chapter on ancient religions of the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian worlds. There are 125 passages, 33 symbols, 22 photos, 10 Quick Facts pages, 7 audio clips, and links to hundreds of audio files of technical terms related to the study of religion. Each textual selection has an introduction and footnotes to help the reader understand the context of the passage.

Sikhs in the Deccan and North-East India

Taylor & Francis 2018

Birinder Pal Singh

This book is a major intervention in the understanding of the dynamics of internal migration in South Asia. It traces the historical roots of certain migrant Sikh communities to the south and north-east India; chronicles their social, religious and economic practices; and examines peculiar identity formations. This first-of-its-kind empirical study examines the socio-economic conditions of Sikhs in the Deccan and the North-East who are believed to be the descendants of the soldiers in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s army despatched to the two regions in the early nineteenth century. It draws on extensive ethnographic accounts to present the social realities of the different communities, including language, religion, culture, occupation, caste, marriage and kinship, and agency. It also questions the idea of Sikh homogeneity that many within the community have come to believe in, while revealing both differences and similarities. The book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of sociology and social anthropology, migration and diaspora studies, religion, especially Sikh studies, cultural studies, as well as the Sikh diaspora worldwide.

Bhante Saranapala on Kindness

The Urban Buddhist Monk
New Books Network 2021

Bhante Saranapala

What does wisdom have to do with kindness? This podcast features words of wisdom form Bhante Saranapala, also known as The Urban Buddhist Monk. An International Monk, Teacher, and Speaker, Bhante is the Founder and President of Canada: A Mindful and Kind Nation, he teaches loving-kindness meditation and offers private consultation and public speaking.

Regional Communities of Devotion in South Asia

Insiders, Outsiders and
Interlopers, Routledge 2019

Gil Ben-Herut and Jon Keune

This book explores the key motif of the religious Other in devotional (bhakti) literatures and practices from across the Indian subcontinent. The primary aim of this book is to reconsider and challenge inherited notions of the bhakta's or devotee's Other and unmask processes of representation that involve adoption, appropriation, and rejection of different social and religious agents. The book considers the ways in which bhakti might be conceived as having an inter-regional impact - as a force, discourse, network, mythology, ethic - while critically engaging with extant scholarly narratives about what bhakti is and tracing when and how those narratives have been used. The sheer diversity of South Asia's devotional traditions renders them an especially rich resource for examining social and religious fault lines, thereby furthering scholarly understanding of how communalism and sectarianism originate and develop on local or regional levels, with wider geographic implications. Bringing together studies from a subcontinent-wide variety of linguistic, geographical, and historical frames for the first time, this book will be an important contribution to the literature on bhakti, and it will be of interest to scholars of South Asian Religion and Asian Religion.

Teaching Buddhist Studies Online

A Discussion with Kate Hatmann
New Books Network 2021

Kate Hartmann

The author is Director of Buddhist Studies Online, a new educational platform providing coursework on the history, philosophy, and practices of Buddhism. Founded in 2021 by Seth Powell as a sister institute to Yogic Studies, this book provides accessible, affordable, and high-quality courses for the broader community interested in learning more about Buddhism in a non-sectarian way. It aims to bridge the gap between widespread interest in meditation and other aspects of Buddhist traditions and the all-too-often inaccessible research of the academy. The mission of BSO is discussed, the surprising role the NBN podcast played in BSO's origin story, and growing landscape of public-facing teaching and scholarship. How should scholars think about how to address multiple publics? How can they make their research and teaching available and meaningful to popular audiences while still being academically grounded and responsible? How do platforms like BSO fit into the larger landscape of lineage-based Buddhist teachers, mindfulness coaches, and orientalizing discourses about Asian religions? Kate and Raj draw on their respective experiences with BSO and the School of Indian Wisdom in this wide-ranging conversation about what it means to be a scholar in this exciting new era of the humanities.

Brian Carwana on World Religions

Executive Director of Encounter World
Religions, New Books Network 2021

Brian Carwana

Why study World Religions? This podcast features words of wisdom from Dr. Brian Carawana, Executive Director of Encounter World Religions who advocates for widespread religious literacy. We learn core insights the author has arrived at having avidly studying and taught the world’s religions for over 20 years.

Muslim Communities and Cultures of the Himalayas

Conceptualizing the Global
Ummah, Routledge 2020

Jacqueline Fewkes and Megan Adamson Sijapati

This book explores individual perspectives and specific iterations of Muslim community, Muslim practice and experience of Islam in the Himalayan region as well as the concept of the general Islamic community the Ummah. A multidisciplinary analysis of Muslim communities and historical and contemporary Islamicate traditions, the book shows how Muslims understand and mobilize regional identities and religious expressions. Moreover, it assesses regional interactions, the ways in which institutions shape Muslim practices in specific areas and investigates the notion of the Himalayas as an Islamic space. The book suggests that the regional focus on the Himalayas provides a site of both geographic and cultural crossroads where Muslim community is simultaneously constituted at multiple social levels. As a result, chapters document a wide range of local, national, and global interests while maintaining a focus on individual perspectives, moments in time, and localized experiences. This book draws attention to the cultural, social, artistic, and political diversity of the Himalaya beyond the better-understood and frequently documented religio-cultural expressions of the region.

Everyday Shi’ism in South Asia

John Wiley & Sons 2021

Karen G. Ruffle

This book is an introduction to the everyday life and cultural memory of Shi’i women and men, focusing on the religious worlds of both individuals and communities at particular historical moments and places in the Indian subcontinent. Ruffle draws upon an array primary sources, images, and ethnographic data to present topical case studies offering broad snapshots Shi'i life as well as microscopic analyses of ritual practices, material objects, architectural and artistic forms, and more. Focusing exclusively on South Asian Shi'ism, an area mostly ignored by contemporary scholars who focus on the Arab lands of Iran and Iraq, the author shifts readers’ analytical focus from the center of Islam to its periphery. Ruffle provides new perspectives on the diverse ways that the Shi’a intersect with not only South Asian religious culture and history, but also the wider Islamic humanistic tradition.

Ruth Roth on the Wisdom of the Catholic Church

Roman Catholic Women Priests of
Canada, New Books Network 2021

Ruth Roth

What wisdom does the Roman Catholic Church hold for our modern world? Can it become more inclusive? Join us as we speak to Ruth Roth, a Roman Catholic Woman Priest, who was ordained by a Bishop of the Church as part of one such effort.

Malleable Mara

Transformations of a Buddhist
Symbol of Evil, Suny Press 2020

Michael Nichols

This is the first book to examine the development of the figure of Māra, who appears across Buddhist traditions as a personification of death and desire. Portrayed as a combination of god and demon, Māra serves as a key antagonist to the Buddha, his followers, and Buddhist teaching in general. From ancient India to later Buddhist thought in East Asia to more recent representations in Western culture and media, Māra has been used to satirize Hindu divinities, taken the form of wrathful Tibetan gods, communicated psychoanalytic tropes, and appeared as a villain in episodes of Doctor Who.

Print and the Urdu Public

Muslims, Newspapers and Urban Life in Colonial India
Oxford University Press 2020

Megan Eaton Robb

In early twentieth century British India, prior to the arrival of digital medias and after the rise of nationalist political movements, a small-town paper from the margins of society became a key player in Urdu journalism. Published in the isolated market town of Bijnor, Madinah grew to hold influence across North India and the Punjab while navigating complex issues of religious and political identity. The author uses the previously unexamined perspective of the Madinah to consider Urdu print publics and urban life in South Asia. Through a discursive and material analysis of Madinah, the book explores how Muslims who had settled in ancestral qasbahs, or small towns, used newspapers to facilitate a new public consciousness. The book demonstrates how Madinah connected the Urdu newspaper conversation both explicitly and implicitly with Muslim identity and delineated the boundaries of a Muslim public conversation in a way that emphasized rootedness to local politics and small urban spaces. The case study of this influential but understudied newspaper reveals how a network of journalists with substantial ties to qasbahs produced a discourse self-consciously alternative to the Western-influenced, secularized cities. Robb augments the analysis with evidence from contemporary Urdu, English, and Hindi papers, government records, private diaries, private library holdings, ethnographic interviews, and training materials for newspaper printers. This thoroughly researched volume recovers the erasure of qasbah voices and proclaims the importance of space and time in definitions of the public sphere in South Asia. Print and the Urdu Public demonstrates how an Urdu newspaper published from the margins became central to the Muslim public constituted in the first half of the twentieth century.

Translating Wisdom

Hindu-Muslim Intellectual Interactions in Early
Modern South Asia, University of California Press 2020

Shankar Nair

During the height of Muslim power in Mughal South Asia, Hindu and Muslim scholars worked collaboratively to translate a large body of Hindu Sanskrit texts into the Persian language. The book reconstructs the intellectual processes and exchanges that underlay these translations. Using as a case study the 1597 Persian rendition of the Yoga-Vasistha - an influential Sanskrit philosophical tale whose popularity stretched across the subcontinent - Nair illustrates how these early modern Muslim and Hindu scholars drew upon their respective religious, philosophical, and literary traditions to forge a common vocabulary through which to understand one another. These scholars thus achieved, Nair argues, a nuanced cultural exchange and interreligious and cross-philosophical dialogue significant not only to South Asia’s past but also its present. This interview is one of 3 interviews related to an upcoming American Academy of Religion “New Books in Hindu Studies” academic panel.

Religious Studies Today

New Books Network 2021

Amir Hussain

Listen in as Balkaran speaks with Hussain about his scholarship on Muslims in America, his work as the Editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (2011-2015), his role as the Vice President of the American Academy of Religion, and overall trends in the field of Religious Studies.

Being Black and Buddhist

New Books Network 2021

Pamela Ayo Yetunde

What does it mean to be black and Buddhist, and what does that have to do with Life Wisdom? This episode of Life Wisdom features the dynamic work of Yetunde, Pastoral Counsellor, Co-Founder of Centre of the Heart, Buddhist Justice Reporter and co-editor of Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us about Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom.

Perspectives on Reincarnation
Hindu, Christian, Scientific    
MDPI Books 2019
Jeffery D. Long

What happens after you die? The book brings together fascinating theological and religious studies perspectives on a controversial yet pervasive idea: reincarnation. An estimated 1 on 5 Americans subscribe to this belief, despite their religious background. Why is this? What are the philosophical, spiritual, pragmatic merits of subscribing to reincarnation? What about the pitfalls? Does believing in reincarnation counter Christian teachings? Is it a uniquely Hindu practice? Join us as we explore these and other questions with Dr. Jeffery D. Long, Professor of Religion and Asian Studies at Elizabethtown College (PA) and editor of this book.

Endless Song
Tiruvaymoli
Penguin 2019
Archana Venkatesan

This is an exquisite translation of the Tiruvaymoli (sacred utterance), a brilliant 1102-verse ninth century tamil poem celebrating the poet Nammalvar’s mystical quest for union with his supreme lord, the Hindu great god Visnu. In this interview we discuss the sophisticated structure and profound content of the Tiruvaymoli, along with the translator’s own transformative journey rending into English the meaning, emotion, cadence and kaleidoscopic brilliance proper to this Tamil masterpiece.

The Other Rama
Matricide and Genocide in the Mythology
of Parasurama, Suny Press 2020
Brian Collins

The book examines a fascinating, understudied figure appearing in Sanskrit narrative texts: Parasurāma, i.e., “Rāma with the Axe”. Though he is counted as among the ten avatāras of Visnu, his biography is quite grisly: Parasurāma is best known for decapitating his own mother and launching a genocidal campaign to annihilate twenty-one generations of the warrior caste. Why do ancient Sanskrit mythmakers elevate such an arguably transgressive and antisocial figure to so exalted a religious status? The book explores this question by undertaking analysis of the Parasurāma myth cycle using the methods of comparative mythology and psychoanalysis.

The Subhedar’s Son
A Narrative of Brahmin-Christian Conversion from Nineteenth
Century Maharashtra, Oxford University Press 2019
Deepra Dandekar

This book is a translation and study of an award-winning Marathi biographical novel written in 1895 by Rev. Dinkar Shankar Sawarkar, who writes about his own father, Rev. Shankar Nana (1819-1884). Nana, a Brahmin, was among the early Christian converts of the Church Missionary Society in Western India. The Subhedar's Son provides a fascinating insight into Brahmanical-Christian conversions of the era, along with attitudes surrounding such conversions. In this podcast, we interview Deepra Dandeka and Sawarkar’s own great-grand-daughter about this text and its important context.

Poetry as Prayer in the Sanskrit Hymns of Kashmir
Oxford University Press 2019
Hamsa Stainton

This book explores the relationship between “poetry” and “prayer” in South Asia through close examination of the history of Sanskrit hymns of praise (stotras) in Kashmir from the eighth century onwards. Beyond charting the history and features of the stotra genre, Stainton presents the first sustained study of the Stutikusumāñjali, an important work dedicated to the god Siva, one bearing witness to the trajectory of Sanskrit literary culture in fourteenth-century Kashmir. Poetry as Prayer illumines how these Saiva poets integrate poetics, theology and devotion in the production of usage of Sanskrit hymns, and more broadly expands our understanding Hindu bhakti itself.

Hinduism in America
Bloomsbury Academic 2020
Jeffery D. Long

Long traces two worlds that converge - that of Hindu immigrants to America who strive to preserve their traditions in a foreign land, and that of American spiritual seekers who turn to Hindu practices and ideas. Long explores the influence of concepts such as karma, rebirth, meditation and yoga on the American consciousness, along with Hindu temples in America.

The Jewel of Annual Astrology
A Translation of Balabhadra’s
Hayanaratna, Brill 2020
Martin Gansten

We speak with Gansten on his groundbreaking edition and translation of Balabhadra's Hāyanaratna (1649), the first-ever scholarly volume on Sanskritized Perso-Arabic (Tājika) astrology. In addition to speaking about this work, we dive into the perplexing world of Indian astrology.

The Audacious Raconteur
Sovereignty and Storytelling in Colonial
India Cornell University Press 2020
Leela Prasad

Can a subject be sovereign in a hegemony? Can creativity be reined in by forces of empire? This book argues that even the most hegemonic circumstances cannot suppress “audacious raconteurs”: skilled storytellers who fashion narrative spaces that allow themselves to remain sovereign and beyond subjugation. The book tells the stories of four Indian narrators who lived in colonial India: a Goan Catholic ayah, a Telugu lawyer from the Raju community, a Tamil brahmin archaeologist, and a librarian from the medara (basket-weavers) caste. These four Indian narrators, through their vigorous orality, maverick use of photography, literary ventriloquism, and bilingualism, dismantle the ideological bulwark of colonialism - colonial modernity, history, science, and native knowledge.

White Utopias
The Religious Exoticism of Transformational
Festivals, University of California Press Press 2020
Amanda J. Lucia

Transformational festivals, from Burning Man to Lightning in a Bottle, Bhakti Fest, and Wanderlust, are massive events that attract thousands of participants to sites around the world. The author shows how these festivals operate as religious institutions for “spiritual, but not religious” (SBNR) communities. Whereas previous research into SBNR practices and New Age religion has not addressed the predominantly white makeup of these communities, White Utopias examines the complicated, often contradictory relationships with race at these events, presenting an engrossing ethnography of SBNR practices. Lucia contends that participants create temporary utopias through their shared commitments to spiritual growth and human connection. But they also participate in religious exoticism by adopting Indigenous and Indic spiritualities, a practice that ultimately renders them exclusive, white utopias. Focusing on yoga's role in disseminating SBNR values, Lucia offers new ways of comprehending transformational festivals as significant cultural phenomena.

Material Devotion in a South Indian Poetic World
Bloomsbury Academic 2020
Leah Elizabeth Comeau

This book contributes new methods for the study and interpretation of material religion found within literary landscapes. The poets of Hindu devotion are known for their intimate celebration of deities, and while verses over a thousand years old are still treasured, translated, and performed, little attention has been paid to the evocative sensorial worlds referenced by these literary compositions. This book offers a material interpretation of an understudied poem that defined an entire genre of South Asian literature - Tirukkovaiyar - the 9th century Tamil poem dedicated to Shiva. The poetry of Tamil South India invites travel across real and imagined geography, naming royal patrons, ancient temple towns, and natural landscapes. Comeau locates the materiality of devotion to Shiva in a world unique to the South Indian vernacular and yet captivating to audiences across time, place and tradition.

Digital Hinduism
Routledge 2019
Xenia Zeiler

Digital Religion does not simply refer to religion as it is carried out online, but more broadly studies how digital media interrelate with religious practice and belief. Zeiler's book explores and consequentially studies how Hinduism is expressed in the digital sphere and how Hindus utilise digital media. Highlighting digital Hinduism and including case studies with foci on India, Asia and the global Hindu diaspora, this book features contributions from an interdisciplinary and international panel of academics. The chapters focus on specific case studies, which in summary exemplify the wide variety and diversity of what constitutes Digital Hinduism today. Applying methods and research questions from various disciplinary backgrounds appropriate to the study of religion and digital culture, such as Religious Studies, South Asian Studies, Anthropology and Media and Communication Studies, this book is vital reading for any scholar interested in the relationship between religion and the digital world.

Pandemic Perspectives: Working Remotely
A Discussion with Raj Balkaran
New Books Network 2021
Raj Balkaran

In this episode you’ll hear about: the benefits and challenges of working remotely, being alt-ac, Hindu Studies, founding an online school, and the pandemic shutdowns in Canada. Our guest is a prolific independent scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. Having taught comparative religion and mythology at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies for a decade, he now Tutors at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies where he also serves on the Centre’s Curriculum Development Board. Alongside his academic training, he has received extensive spiritual training as part of an oral tradition dedicated to the transmission of Indian wisdom teachings. Integrating his academic and spiritual training, he has founded the online School of Indian Wisdom where he designs and delivers original online courses centered on the practical life wisdom to be found in the philosophical, mythological and spiritual traditions of ancient India. Beyond teaching and research, Dr. Balkaran runs a thriving life consulting practice and hosts the New Books in Indian Religions podcast.

Bhaktimarga Swami on Devotion
ISKCON Leader
New Books Network 2021
Bhaktimarga Swami

What does it mean to be a Swami? This podcast features words of wisdom from ISKCON Leader Bhaktimarga Swami. In drawing from his ISKCON journey which began in 1973, we broach topics of devotion, detachment, and surrender.

Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinametic Universe
McFarland 2021
Michael D. Nichols

Breaking box office records, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has achieved an unparalleled level of success with fans across the world, raising the films to a higher level of narrative: myth. This is the first book to analyze the Marvel output as modern myth, comparing it to epics, symbols, rituals, and stories from world religious traditions. Nichols places the exploits of Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther, and the other stars of the Marvel films alongside the legends of Achilles, Gilgamesh, Arjuna, the Buddha, and many others. It examines their origin stories and rites of passage, the conflicts they contend with, and the symbols of death and the battle against it that stalk them at every turn. The films deal with timeless human dilemmas and questions, evoking an enduring sense of adventure and wonder common across world mythic traditions.

The Scholar Practitioner
Jesuit Priest, Professor, Harvard Divinity
School, New Books Network 2021
Frank Cloooney

To what extent should scholarship foreground the beliefs and experiences of the scholar producing it? Where does the scholar-practitioners fit at the academy today? Join us as we explore such issues in conversation with Dr. Francis Clooney, Jesuit Priest and Harvard Professor of Comparative Theology, specializing in Catholic and Hindu traditions.

Chris Chapple on Nonviolence as Pandemic Wisdom
New Books Network 2021
Chris Chapple

How can the doctrine of nonviolence help us cope with these troubled times? Join us as we speak to Dr. Chris Chapple, Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology at Loyola Marymount University as we discuss specific, ancient strategies for navigating tumultuous times such as this moment in human history.

Healing Wisdom from a Métis Elder
New Books Network 2021
Ernest W. Matton

The author is a spiritual ambassador who blends Traditional teachings with mainstream information to provide holistic healing approaches for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community members and professional disciplines. What wisdom teachings does he have to offer for healing and the current state of the world at large?

Wisdom and Social Activism
New Books Network 2021
Oneika Mays

How do you engage in social activism in a healthy, balanced sustainable manner? This podcast features the considerable social justice wisdom of Oneika Mays (she, her, certified meditation teacher, E-RYT, LMT and energy worker) who teaches mindfulness to incarcerated people at Rikers Island Correctional Facility in NYC. We discuss the significance of self-care and self-inquiry to social activism, and much more.

Open Access Publishing
New Books Network 2021
Dominik Haas

What is Open Access Publishing and why is it important? Listen in as Raj Balkaran interviews Dominik A. Haas on his Fair Open Access Publishing in South Asian Studies (FOASAS) initiative which maintains a list of relevant publishers, journals, book series and other publication media. The list is available here.

Branding Bhakti
Krishna Consciousness and the Makeover of
a Movement, Indiana University Press 2021
Nicole Karapanagiotis

How do religious groups reinvent themselves in order to attract new audiences? How do they rebrand their messages and recast their rituals in order to make their followers more diverse? The author considers the new branding of the Hare Krishna Movement, or the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Branding Bhakti not only investigates the methods the ISKCON movement uses to position itself for growth but also highlights devotees’ painful and complicated struggles as they work to transform their shrinking, sectarian movement into one with global religious appeal.

To Savor the Meaning
The Theology of Literary Emotions in
Medieval Kashmir, Oxford University Press 2021
James D. Reich

Medieval Kashmir in its golden age saw the development of some of the most sophisticated theories of language, literature, and emotion articulated in the pre-modern world. This book examines the overlap of literary theory and religious philosophy in this period by looking at debates about how poetry communicates emotions to its readers, what it is readers do when they savor these emotions, and why this might be valuable.

Online Dharmasastra Library
New Books Network 2021
Don Davis

Dr. Don Davis (Professor and Chair, Department of Asian Studies) speaks about the newly launched Resource Library for Dharmasāstra Studies, a digitized open educational resource hosted at the University of Texas, Austin. We discuss the genesis and utility of this important online resource, highlighting the herculean efforts of Dr. Patrick Olivelle.

The Philosophy of Sri Chinmoy
Love and Transformation
Lexington Books 2021
Kusumita P. Pedersen

This podcast interviews Pedersen on the first book-length study of the thought of Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007) and his teaching of a dynamic spirituality of integral transformation. This book is a straightforward and unembroidered account of his philosophy, allowing Sri Chinmoy to speak for himself in his own words, in poetry as much as in prose.

Winged Stallions and Wicked Mares
Horses in Indian Myth and History
University of Virginia Press 2021
Wendy Doniger

Raj Balkaran speaks with Wendy Doniger about her new book Winged Stallions and Wicked Mares: Horses in Indian Myth and History (University of Virginia Press, 2021), along with her translation of the final four books of the Mahābhārata's Critical Edition translation project, the power of the purānas, cultural appropriation, and more!

Savoring God
Comparative Theopoetics
Oxford University Press 2021
Gloria Maité Hernández

This book compares two mystical works central to the Christian Discalced Carmelite and the Hindu Bhakti traditions: the sixteenth-century Spanish Cántico espiritual (Spiritual Canticle), by John of the Cross, and the Sanskrit Rāsa Līlā, originated in the oral tradition. These texts are examined alongside theological commentaries: for the Cántico, the Comentarios written by John of the Cross on his own poem; for Rāsa Līlā, the foundational commentary by Srīdhara Swāmi along with commentaries by the sixteenth-century theologian Jīva Goswāmī, from the Gaudīya Vaisnava school, and other Gaudīya theologians.

The Cloud of Longing
A New Translation and Eco-Aesthetic Study of
Kalidasa's Meghaduta, Oxford University Press 2021
E.H. Rick Jarow

This is a translation and full-length study of the great Sanskrit poet Kālidāsa's famed Meghadūta (literally: “The Cloud Messenger”) with a focus on its interfacing of nature, feeling, figurative language, and mythic memory. While the Meghadūta has been translated a number of times, the last “almost academic” translation was published in 1976 (Leonard Nathan, The Transport of Love: The Meghadūta of Kālidāsa). This volume, however, is more than an Indological translation. It is a study of the text in light of both classical Indian and contemporary Western literary theory, and it is aimed at lovers of poetry and poetics and students of world literature. It seeks to widen the arena of literary and poetic studies to include classic works of Asian traditions. It also looks at the poem's imaginative portrayals of “nature” and “environment” from perspectives that have rarely been considered.

A Conversation with Laurie Patton
New Books Network 2022
Laurie Patton

Raj Balkaran speaks with Laurie Patton, Professor of Religions and President at Middlebury College, about her scholarly journey, educational administration, poetry, trends in scholarship, the significance of Indian myth, and more.

Boekbespreking Hinduism

Hindu Pluralism
Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern
South Asia, University of California Press 2017
Elaine Fisher

This book sheds light on the variegated, pluralistic texture of Hinduism in precolonial times. Drawing on Sanskrit, Telugu, and Tamil sources, Fisher argues for a uniquely South Asian form of religious pluralism, evidenced by religious performances in the public space. Her work is crucial for considering the development of Hinduism in the early modern era, and that era’s legacy on modern constructions of Hinduism, calling into question the colonial categories implicit in the term “sectarianism”.

Hinduism
A Contemporary Philosophical
Investigation. Routledge 2018
Shyam Ranganathan

In this book the author argues that a careful philosophical study reveals telling philosophical disagreements across topics such as: ethics, logic, epistemology, moral standing, metaphysics, and politics. His analysis offers an innovative stance on the very study of Hinduism, and tensions between scholars and practitioners of Hindu traditions.

Living Mantra
Mantra, Deity, and Visionary Experience
Today. Palgrave Macmillan 2019
Mani Rao

What role does mantra play in the lives of Hindu practitioners? Mani Rao takes us on a journey to three sacred sites across India’s Andhra-Telangana region. The practitioners she engages at these sites offer insight into their transformative embodied experience of mantra. Rao dovetails scholarship and practice to grapple with the captivating, eye-opening, mind-blowing narratives of the practitioners she engages. This book broaches compelling questions such as: what is the relationship between mantras and deities? Texts? Gurus? Do practitioners relate to mantra as vehicles of meaning, or as aesthetic entities? What is the relationship to sound and visions in mantra practice? What is the role of imagination here? Celebrating lived experience, the book documents the modern-day existence of seers (rishis), thus underscoring the open, ongoing nature of divine revelation in Hindu traditions.

The Performative Ground of Religion and Theatre
Routledge 2018
David V. Mason

To what extent may we say that religion is a theatrical phenomenon, and that theatre is a religious experience? Can making sense of one help us make sense of the other? Join us as we dive into this book where the author posits an intriguing parity between theatre and religion. Drawing heavily from Hindu aesthetic theory and Hindu religious performance, Mason examines the phenomenology of religion in an attempt to better understanding of the phenomenology of theatre, arguing that religion can show us the ways in which theatre is not fake.

The Goddess in Hindu-Tantric Traditions
Devī as Corpse. Routledge, 2018
Anway Mukhopadhyay

Why is the Indian Goddess sometimes figured as a corpse in Tantric Traditions? What is the significance of this? How is it different from when the Hindu god Shiva is figured as a corpse? Centered on the myth of Sati (whereby the Goddess was dismembered after her self-immolation), this book features a fascinating take on why the “death” of the Goddess in this myth is no death at all, especially in contrast to Shiva as corpse.

Rites of the God-King
Santi and Ritual Change in Early
Hinduism, Oxford University Press 2018
Marko Geslani

Is “Vedic” fire sacrifice at odds with “Hindu” image worship? Through a careful study of ritual (santi) texts geared towards appeasement of inauspicious forces (primarily the Atharva Veda and in the Brhatsamhitā, an Indian astrological work), Marko Geslani demonstrates the persistent significance and centrality of the work of Brahmanical priesthood from ancient to medieval to modern times. In doing so he aptly problematizes the scholarly tendency to demarcate Vedic ritual from popular Hinduism.

Reciting the Goddess
Narratives of Place and the Making of Hinduism
in Nepal, Oxford University Press 2018
Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz

This book represents the very first study of a fascinating Hindu phenomenon: the Svasthanivratakatha (SVK), a sixteenth-century narrative textual tradition native to Nepal surrounding the Goddess, Svasthānī. This work explores Himalayan Hindu religious tradition in the making during the very self-conscious creation of Nepal as the “world's only Hindu kingdom” in the early modern period. Touching on the pan-Hindu goddess tradition, regional ideals of Hindu womanhood, linguistic culture, identity formation and placemaking.

The History of the Arthasastra
Sovereignty and Sacred Law in
Ancient India, Cambridge UP 2019
Mark McClish

Was ancient India ruled by politics or religion? This book explores the Arthasāstra (ancient India’s foundational treatise on statecraft and governance) to problematize the common scholarly idea that politics in ancient India was circumscribed by religion, i.e., that kings prioritized a sacred duty to abide by the spiritual law of dharma. McClish shows that this model of kingship comes to the fore only in the classical period, demonstrating that the Arthasāstra originally espoused a political philosophy marked by empiricism and pragmatism.

Imagining Religious Communities
Transnational Hindus and their Narrative
Performances, Oxford University Press 2019
Jennifer B. Saunders

This book tells the story of the Gupta family through the personal and religious narratives they tell as they create and maintain their extended family and community across national borders. Based on ethnographic research, the book demonstrates the ways that transnational communities are involved in shaping their experiences through narrative performances, it demonstrates that narrative performances shape participants' social realities in multiple ways: they define identities, they create connections between community members living on opposite sides of national borders, and they help create new homes amidst increasing mobility. The narratives are religious and include epic narratives such as excerpts from the Ramayana as well as personal narratives with dharmic implications. The analysis combines scholarly understandings of the ways in which performances shape the contexts in which they are told, indigenous comprehension of the power that reciting certain narratives can have on those who hear them, and the theory that social imaginaries define new social realities through expressing the aspirations of communities. This book argues that this Hindu community's religious narrative performances significantly contribute to shaping their transnational lives.

Hinduism Before Reform
Harvard University Press 2020
Brian A. Hatcher

Did modern Hinduism truly emerge due to the “reforms” instigated by “progressive” colonial figures such as Rammohun Roy? This book challenges this prevalent notion. Aimed at sidestepping the obfuscating binary of “progressive” vs “traditional”, this book examines in tandem two early nineteenth-century Hindu communities and their influential leaders: Rammohun Roy (founder of the “progressive” Brahmo Samaj) and Swami Narayan (founder of the “traditional” Swaminarayan Sampraday movement). This book advocates a radically different understanding of the origins of modern Hinduism by problematizing the notion of “reform” itself, instead advocating for viewing these movements as “religious polities.”

Dharma in America
A Short History of Hindu-
Jain Diaspora, Routledge 2019
Pankaj Jain

This book provides a concise history of Hindus and Jains in the Americas over the last two centuries, highlighting contributions to the economic and intellectual growth of the US in particular. Pankaj Jain pays special attention to contributions of the Hindu and Jain diasporas in the area of medicine and music.

A Conversation witn Nicholas Sutton
Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
New Books Network 2020
Nicholas Sutton

Today I talked to Dr. Nicholas Sutton about his work at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. We discuss his teaching philosophy, his mandate of making the study of Hinduism accessible to public audiences, and the Centre’s exciting collection of online courses.

The Regulation of Religion and the
Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad
University of North Carolina Press 2019
Alexander Rocklin

The history of the Caribbean Island of Trinidad bears witness to an important interplay between the religious practices of peoples of South Asian and those of peoples of African descent, and in particular the manner in which colonial religious categories shaped that interplay. The author draws on colonial archives and ethnographic work in this pioneering examination of the realities of indentured workers in colonial Trinidad wherein he illuminates in tandem the roots of the Caribbean Hindu diaspora and the very roots of Hinduism itself and its status as a World Religion.

The Many Faces of a Himalayan Goddess
Hadimba, Her Devotees and Religion in
Rapid Change, Oxford University Press 2019
Ehud Halperin

Hadimba is a primary village goddess in the Kullu Valley of the West Indian Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh, a rural area known as the Land of Gods. As the book shows, Hadimba is a goddess whose vitality reveals itself in her devotees' rapidly changing encounters with local and far from local players, powers, and ideas. These include invading royal forces, colonial forms of knowledge, and more recently the onslaught of modernity, capitalism, tourism, and ecological change. Hadimba has provided her worshipers with discursive, ritual, and ideological arenas within which they reflect on, debate, give meaning to, and sometimes resist these changing realities, and she herself has been transformed in the process. Drawing on diverse ethnographic and textual materials gathered in the region from 2009 to 2017, the book is rich with myths and tales, accounts of dramatic rituals and festivals, and descriptions of everyday life in the celebrated but remote Kullu Valley. The book employs an interdisciplinary approach to tell the story of Hadimba from the ground up, or rather, from the center out, portraying the goddess in varying contexts that radiate outward from her temple to local, regional, national, and indeed global spheres. The result is an important contribution to the study of Indian village goddesses, lived Hinduism, Himalayan Hinduism, and the rapidly growing field of religion and ecology.

Crossing the Lines of Caste
Visvamitra and the Construction of Brahmin Power in
Hindu Mythology, Oxford University Press 2015
Adheesh Sathaye

What does it mean to be a Brahmin, and what could it mean to become one? The ancient Indian mythological figure Visvāmitra accomplishes just this, transforming himself from a king into a Brahmin by cultivation of ascetic power. The book examines legends of the irascible Visvāmitra as occurring in Sanskrit and vernacular texts, oral performances, and visual media to show how the “storyworlds” created by these various retellings have adapted and reinforced Brahmin social identity over the millennia.

Loving Stones
Making the Impossible Possible in the Worship of
Mount Govardhan, Oxford University Press 2020
David L. Haberman

This book explores the worship world of Mount Govardhan; located in the Braj region of India, the mountain is considered an embodied form of the Hindu deity Krishna. Above and beyond providing insight into the fascinating religious practices surrounding worship of Mount Govardhan, Haberman probes the paradox of an infinite god embodied in finite form, In doing so, he offers critical consideration of the pejorative concept of idolatry in the study of religions, in particular its problematic use to when applied to Hindu religiosity.

Material Acts in Everyday Hindu Worlds
Suny Press 2020
Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger

In her fascinating book, the author analyzes the agency of materiality, that is, the ability of materials to have effect beyond what was intended. This ethnographic journey across three Indian locales examines the agency of various materials - from ornaments, to female guising, to cement images. This book not only delivers deep insight into the Hindu world, but broadens our understanding of the role of material agency within the study of religion.

Woman as Fire, Woman as Sage
Sexual Ideology in the Mahabharata
Suny Press 2008
Arti Dhand

The Hindu tradition has held conflicting views on womanhood from its earliest texts -holding women aloft as goddesses to be worshipped on the one hand and remaining deeply suspicious about women’s sexuality on the other. Dhand examines the religious premises upon which Hindu ideas of sexuality and women are constructed. The work focuses on the great Hindu epic, the Mahābhārata, a text that not only reflects the cogitations of a momentous period in Hindu history, but also was critical in shaping the future of Hinduism. Dhand proposes that the epic’s understanding of womanhood cannot be isolated from the broader religious questions that were debated at the time, and that the formation of a sexual ideology is one element in crafting a coherent religious framework for Hinduism.

Temples of Modernity
Nationalism, Hinduism and Transhumanism in
South Indian Science, Lexington Books 2018
Robert M. Geraci

What is the relationship between science, religion and technology in Hinduism? We speak with Robert M. Geraci about his research into religious ideas and practices in Indian science and engineering circles. The book uses ethnographic data to investigate the presence of religious ideas and practices in Indian science and engineering. Geraci shows 1) how the integration of religion, science and technology undergirds pre- and post-independence Indian nationalism, 2) that traditional icons and rituals remain relevant in elite scientific communities, and 3) that transhumanist ideas now percolate within Indian visions of science and technology. This work identifies the intersection of religion, science, and technology as a worldwide phenomenon and suggests that the study of such interactions should be enriched through attention to the real experiences of people across the globe.

Rabbi on the Ganges
A Jewish-Hindu Encounter
Lexington Books 2019
Alan Brill

How do Judaism and Hinduism compare as religions? Beyond the academic merits of comparative religion, what can adherents to one of these faiths gain by learning about the other? This is the first work to engage the new terrain of Hindu-Jewish religious encounter. The book offers understanding into points of contact between the two religions of Hinduism and Judaism. Providing an important comparative account, the work illuminates key ideas and practices within the traditions, surfacing commonalities between the jnana and Torah study, karmakanda and Jewish ritual, and between the different Hindu philosophic schools and Jewish thought and mysticism, along with meditation and the life of prayer and Kabbalah and creating dialogue around ritual, mediation, worship, and dietary restrictions. The goal of the book is not only to unfold the content of these faith traditions but also to create a religious encounter marked by mutual and reciprocal understanding and openness.

Contemplative Studies in Hinduism
Meditation, Devotion, Prayer
and Worship, Routledge 2020
Rita D. Sherma and Purushottama Bilimoria

What counts as contemplative practices in Hinduism? What can Hindu Studies offer Contemplative Studies as a discipline? This book explores diverse spiritual and religious Hindu practices to grapple with meditative communion and contemplation, devotion, spiritual formation, prayer, ritual, and worship. Contemplative Studies in Hinduism covers a wide range of topics - classical Sāmkhya and Patañjali Yoga, the Bhāgavata Purāna, the role of Sādhana in Advaita Vedānta, Srīvidyā and the Srīcakra, the body in Tantra, the semiotics and illocution of Gaudīya Vaisnava sādhana, mantra in Mīmāmsā, Vaisnava liturgy - to articulate indigenous categories for grappling to Hindu contemplative traditions. In doing so it enriches the fields of both Contemplative Studies and Hindu Studies.

Devi Mahatmyam
The Glory of the Goddess
Raconteurs Audio LLP 2020
Tim Bruce

For millions worldwide, the Devi Mahatmyam is of central spiritual importance and of equal cultural significance within Indian Sanskrit literature to the Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharata, and the Ramayana. Also known as the Shri Durga Saptashati (700 verses to Goddess Durga), it forms a major part of the Markandeya Purana (dating from around 550 CE) and remains the prime focus of festivity and devotion to the Divine Mother during the nine nights of Navaratri. Listening to this story nurtures a strong positive feeling of protection and well-being within the Heart chakra, stimulates the energy of the sternum bone that produces the antibodies that fight infection, and is of particular benefit to mankind today, as the world struggles to cope with the many physical and psychological challenges and the increasing pressures of modern life. This is a Devi Mahatmyam for our time.

A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses
Tales of the Feminine Divine from India and
Beyond, University of California Press 2020
Michael Slouber

The book surveys the diversity of India's feminine divine tradition by bringing together a fresh array of captivating and largely overlooked Hindu goddess narratives from different regions. As the first such anthology of goddess narratives in translation, it highlights a range of sources from ancient myths to modern lore. The goddesses in this book battle demons, perform miracles, and grant rare Tantric visions to their devotees. Each translation is paired with a short essay that explains the goddesses historical and social context, demonstrating the ways religion changes over time.

Vicissitudes of the Goddesses
Reconstructions of the Gramadevata in India’s
Religious Traditions, Oxford University Press 2013
SreePadma

Here the focus is on two types of Gramadevatas or goddesses: deified women and those associated with disease and fertility. Setting these figures in the context of their Brahmanic transformation into popular goddesses and noting the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate categories of goddess, the author argues for a continuation of certain goddesses from the Indus period to the contemporary one. She demonstrates two significant aspects of the study of goddesses. First, against the backdrop of the rural versus the urban context, she articulates a history of local goddesses of Andhra Pradesh, clearly linking them to the Indus context as well as the present day. Second, she explains why and how these local goddesses were adopted and adapted to other traditions or systems of thought, namely Brahmanic, Buddhist, and Jain.

The Contemporary Hindu Temple
Fragments for a History
Marg Foundation 2019
Annapurna Garimella

Contemporary Hindu temples raise aesthetic, economic, political and philosophical questions about the role of architecture in making a place for the sacred in society. This book presents the Hindu temple from the perspectives of institutions and individuals, including priests, building practitioners and worshippers, to consider what it means when the temple is no longer at the centre of Indic life, but has instead become one among several important sites of social praxis. The book takes as its subject the multiple forms of architecture, design and sociability that Hindu spaces of worship encompass today. The essays cover shrines located in urban and rural India, where Hindu temples are being maintained, resuscitated or newly constructed at a rapid pace. The authors of the essays in this volume take the contemporary as a moment in which historic structures, modern renovations, evolving religiosities and new design and construction practices intersect and converge. This centres the temple in a landscape of automobility, wireless connectivity and economic reformation, at the crossroads of informal acts of insertion, formal planning and governmentality, or as an architect-designed structure consciously being pushed toward the fresh horizons that a changing society offers. By focusing on a variety of structures, large and small, on expansive forms of encroachment, and on incremental acts of negotiation and seemingly insignificant processes, small feelings and pieties, this book nuances and expands our understanding of the Hindu temple today.

Gandhi and Rajchandra
The Making of the Mahatma
Lexington Books 2020
Uma Majmudar

This book traces the little-known yet unparalleled influence of Shrimad Rajchandra, Jain zaveri (jeweller)-cum-spiritual seeker, on Mahatma Gandhi. In examining original Gujarati writings of both Gandhi and Rajchandra, Majmudar explores their deeply formative relationship, unfolding the unique impact of Rajchandra’s teachings and contributions upon Gandhi. Through careful examination of the contents and significance of their intimate spiritual discussions, letters, questions and answers, the book illuminates the role of the man who became Gandhi’s most trusted friend, exemplar, mentor and refuge.

Ownership and Inheritance in Sanskrit Jurisprudence
Oxford University Press 2021
Christopher T. Fleming

This book provides an account of various theories of ownership (svatva) and inheritance (dāya) in Sanskrit jurisprudential literature (Dharmasāstra). It examines the evolution of different juridical models of inheritance - in which families held property in trusts or in tenancies-in-common - against the backdrop of related developments in the philosophical understanding of ownership in the Sanskrit text-traditions of hermeneutics (Mīmāmsā) and logic (Nyāya) respectively. The author reconstructs medieval Sanskrit theories of property and traces the emergence of various competing schools of Sanskrit jurisprudence during the early modern period (roughly fifteenth-nineteenth centuries) in Bihar, Bengal, and Varanasi. Fleming attends to the ways in which ideas from these schools of jurisprudence shaped the codification of Anglo-Hindu personal law by administrators of the British East India Company during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While acknowledging the limitations of colonial conceptions of Dharmasāstra as positive law, this study argues for far greater continuity between pre-colonial and colonial Sanskrit jurisprudence than accepted previously. It charts the transformation of the Hindu law of inheritance - through precedent and statute - over the late nineteenth, twentieth, and early twenty-first centuries.

An Indian Tantric Tradition and Its Modern Global Revival
Contemporary Nondual
Saivism, Routledge 2020
Douglas Osto

Osto analyses the contemporary global revival of Nondual Saivism, a thousand-year-old medieval Hindu religious philosophy. Providing a historical overview of the seminal people and groups responsible for the revival, the book compares the tradition's medieval Indian origins to modern forms, which are situated within distinctively contemporary religious, economic, and technological contexts. The author bridges the current gap in the literature between “insider” (emic) and “outsider” (etic) perspectives by examining modern Nondual Saivism from multiple standpoints as both a critical scholar of religion and an empathetic participant-observer. Osto explores modern Nondual Saivism in relation to recent scholarly debates concerning the legitimacy of New Age consumptive spirituality, the global spiritual marketplace, and the contemporary culture of narcissism. It also analyses the dark side of the revived tradition, and investigates contemporary teachers accused of sexual abuse and illegal financial activities in relation to unique features of Nondual Saivism's theosophy and modern scholarship on new religious movements (NRMs) and cults. This book shows that, although Kashmir Saivism has been adopted by certain teachers and groups to market their own brand of “High Tantra”, some contemporary practitioners have remained true to the system's fundamental tenets and teach authentic (albeit modern) forms of Nondual Saivism. This book will be of interest to academics in the fields of religion and Asian philosophies, especially South Asian, tantric, neo-tantric and yoga philosophies, alternative and New Age spiritualities, religion and consumerism, and new religious movements (NRMs) and cults.

Till Kingdom Come
Medieval Hinduism in the Modern
Himalaya, Suny Press 2021
Lokesh Ohri

Hinduism, as is well known, has taken a multitude of shapes and forms. Some Hindu “little traditions” have remained obscure or understudied to this day due to their regional remoteness. One such offshoot is the influential cult of Mahasu, which has existed since medieval times in a part of the western Himalaya. The deity at the core of the cult takes the form of four primary Mahasus with territorial influence, installed in various far-flung temples. Their geographical center is the village of Hanol, and the larger territory is integrated into the Mahasu politico-religious system by a peripatetic deity with loyal followers across a considerable domain. Mahasu remains influential in the region, its ritual practices having remained quite distinct despite social change. An anthropological survey was conducted in its terrain during British times, but this is the first book to offer a detailed framework, a fine-grained history, and an analytically nuanced understanding of one of the rarest branches of Hindu worship

The Reluctant Family Man
Shiva in Everyday Life
Penguin Enterprise 2019
Chitgopekar Nilima

He’s the destroyer of evil, the pervasive one in whom all things lie. He is brilliant, terrifying, wild and beneficent. He is both an ascetic and a householder, both a yogi and a guru. He encompasses the masculine and the feminine, the powerful and the graceful, the Tandava and the Laasya, the darkness and the light, the divine and the human. What can we learn from this bundle of contradictions, this dreadlocked yogi? How does he manage the devotions and duties of father, husband and man of the house, and the demands and supplications of a clamorous cosmos? In this book the author uses the life and personality of Shiva - his self-awareness, his marriage, his balance, his detachment, his contentment - to derive lessons that readers can practically apply to their own lives. With chapters broken down into distinct frames of analysis, she defines concepts of Shaivism and interprets their application in everyday life.

Indian Mythology
New Books Network 2021
Brian Collins

What insights on the human experience can we find in ancient Indian mythology? Join us as we speak to Dr. Brian Collins (Associate Professor, Chair Department of Classics and Religious Studies, Ohio University) about his work on Parasu-Rāma, the brahmin who decapitates his own mother and annihilates 21 generations of the warriors.

In the Service of Krishna
Illustrating the Lives of Eight-Four Vaishnavas
from a 1702 Manuscript, Mapin Publishing 2020
Emilia Bachrach

The Pushtimarg, or the Path of Grace, is a Hindu tradition whose ritual worship of the deity Krishna has developed in close relationship to a distinct genre of early-modern Hindi prose hagiography. This book introduces readers to the most popular hagiographic text of the Pushtimarg which tells the sacred life stories of the community's first preceptor Vallabhacharya (1497-1531) and his most beloved disciples. This book focuses on the only extant Chaurasi Vaishnavan ki Varta manuscript dated to the beginning of the 18th century, now in artist Amit Ambalal's collection. The volume will appeal to scholars and students of Indian art and literature, to those who have grown up in the Pushtimarg tradition, and more broadly to those with an appreciation for the distinct ways in which pictures can tell stories that unite the everyday with intimate experiences of the Divine.

Performing the Ramayana Tradition
Enactments, Interpretations and
Arguments, Oxford University Press 2021
Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha

This book examines diverse retellings of the Ramayana narrative as interpreted and embodied through a spectrum of performances. Unlike previous publications, this book is neither a monograph on a single performance tradition nor a general overview of Indian theatre. Instead, it provides context-specific analyses of selected case studies that explore contemporary enactments of performance traditions and the narratives from which they draw: Kutiyattam, Nangyarkuttu and Kathakali from Kerala; Kattaikkuttu and a “mythological” drama from Tamilnadu; Talamaddale from Karnataka; avant-garde performances from Puducherry and New Delhi; a modern dance-drama from West Bengal; the monastic tradition of Sattriya from Assam; anti-caste plays from North India; and the Ramnagar Ramlila.

The Radha Tantra
A Critical Edition and Annotated
Translation, Routledge 2016
Mans Broo

The Rādhā Tantra is an anonymous 17th-century tantric text from Bengal. This book offers a lively picture of the meeting of different religious traditions in 17th century Bengal, since it presents a Sākta version of the famous Vaisnava story of Rādhā and Krsna. This book presents a critically edited text of the Rādhā Tantra, based on manuscripts in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, as well as an annotated translation It is prefaced by an introduction that situates the text in its social and historical context and discusses its significance.

Kali in Bengali Lives
Narratives of Religious Experience
Lexington Books 2021
Suchitra Samanat

The author examines Bengalis' personal narratives of Kali devotion in the Bhakti tradition. These personal experiences, including miraculous encounters, reflect on broader understandings of divine power. Where the revelatory experience has long been validated in Indian epistemology, the devotees' own interpretive framework provides continuity within a paradigm of devotion and of the miraculous experience as intuitive insight (anubhuti) into a larger truth. Through these unique insights, the miraculous experience is felt in its emotional power, remembered, and reflected upon. The narratives speak to how the meaning of a religious figure, Kali, becomes personally significant and ultimately transformative of the devotee's self.

Devotional Hindu Dance
A Return to the Sacred
Palgrave Macmillan 2021
Sabrina D. MisirHiralall

This book sheds light on the purpose of Hindu dance as devotional. The author explains the history of Hindu dance and how colonization caused the dance form to move from sacred to a Westernized system that emphasizes culture. Postcolonialism is a main theme throughout this text, as religion and culture do not remain static. The author points to a postcolonial return to Hindu dance as a religious and sacred dance form while positioning Hindu dance in the Western culture in which she lives.

Nine Nights of Power
Durgā, Dolls, and Darbārs
Suny Press 2021
Ute Hüsken, Vasudha Narayanan and Astrid Zotter

The autumnal Navarātri festival - also called Durgā Pūjā, Dassehra, or Dasai - is the most important Hindu festival in South Asia and wherever Hindus settle. A nine-night-long celebration in honor of the goddess Durgā, it ends on the tenth day with a celebration called “the victorious tenth” (vijayadasamī). The rituals that take place in domestic, royal, and public spaces are closely connected with one’s station in life and dependent on social status, economic class, caste, and gender issues. Exploring different aspects of the festival as celebrated in diverse regions of South Asia and in the South Asian diaspora, this book addresses the following common questions: What does this festival do? What does it achieve, and how? Why and in what way does it sometimes fail? How do mass communication and social media increase participation in and contribute to the changing nature of the festival? The contributors address these questions from multiple perspectives and discuss issues of agency, authority, ritual efficacy, change, appropriation, and adaptation. Because of the festival’s reach beyond its diverse celebrations in South Asia, its influence can be seen in the rituals and dances in many parts of Western Europe and North America.

A Conversation with Vasudha Narayan about Hindu Studies
New Books Network 2021
Vasudha Narayanan

Raj Balkaran has a candid conversation with seasoned scholar Dr. Vasudha Narayanan about her academic journey, the current state of Hindu Studies and her ground-breaking work on Hindu temples and traditions in Cambodia. Dr. Narayanan is Distinguished Professor, Department of Religion, at the University of Florida, Director for the Centre for the Study of Hinduism and former President of the American Academy of Religion.

A Conversation with Hanuman Dass
Founder and Chairman of Go
Dharmic, New Books Network 2022
Hanuman Dass

Raj Balkaran interviews Hanuman Dass, Chairman and Founder of Go Dharmic, about his far-reaching humanitarian work and universal vision if Hindu values. We also touch on his co-authored works with Dr. Nick Sutton of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies.

Hinduism General

Om-Shanti: - Studie en Academie Materiaal
HINDUISM - GENERAL - DEEL 1 - 01

5 Hindu Philosophies that makes us
Responsible Towards the Environment

Hindu teachings have always been very caring towards the mother nature. Hindu texts contain numerous references to the worship of the divine in nature in it the Vedas. Hindu dharma lays as high emphasis on environmental ethics. Since, the earliest times of The Mahabharata, Ramayana, Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Puranas and Smriti, all of them contain the earliest messages for the preservation of the environment, loving the nature and ecological balance. Hindus have never considered nature or Earth a hostile element to be conquered or dominated. Hindu teach to live in harmony with nature and recognize that divinity prevails in all elements, including plants and animals.The rishis of the past have always had a great respect for nature. Millions of Hindus recite Sanskrit mantras daily to revere their rivers, mountains, trees, animals and the earth. Ecology is an inherent part of a spiritual world view in Hindu religion. Today’s environmental crisis demands a spiritual response. An awareness of our actions and a rise in the human consciousness, that is born out of inner commitment is very much needed today. Hence, here are some of the saying mentioning about Environmental ethics and relation from Hindu texts that can help us to be more aware of our relation and responsibility towards the environment.

01.  Ishavasyam Idam Sarvam
“Ishavasyam idam sarvam” means, Whatever there is in this world, it is covered and filled with Narayana. Hindu texts, such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavad Purana, contain many references to the omnipresence of the supreme divinity, including its presence throughout and within nature. Thus, Hindus worship and accept the presence of God in nature, in the environment in every form.

02.  Bhoomi Devi - Mother Earth
Hindus consider Earth as a mother, seemingly as all our mothers, even our mother Earth deserves our respect, love, and care. In fact, many Hindus touch the floor before getting out of bed every morning and ask the Devi to forgive them for trampling on her body. Many Hindu rituals recognize that human beings benefit from the earth, and offer gratitude and protection in response.

Atharva Veda, states “Bhumi Devi” (Mother Earth), “May whatever I dig from you grow back again quickly, and may we not injure you by our labor.” There are also hymns to Mother Earth, which states, “Earth, in which the seas, the rivers, and many waters lie, from which arise foods and fields of grain, abode to all that breathes and moves, may she confer on us with her finest yield.”

03.  Karma
Good behavior results in good karma, hence, our behavior towards the environment marks simultaneous karmic consequences. In short, our environmental actions affect our karma. Karma is the basic focus not just in Hindu philosophy but in Buddhism as well. It says that each of our actions creates consequences which constitute our karma and results or effects our future actions. We as humans, who have free choice to act anyway have to have a sense of responsibility and be cautious to our actions. Many Hindu texts and Gurus mentions that natural disasters are consequences of our actions where we have harmed mother nature in various ways.

04.  Dharma
Dhar and darna mean hold/support/harmony. It is a set of practices that enables humans to sustain in the world. Dharma includes the moral code and lays out the rules and guidelines on how humans can stay in harmony with the world around us. Mostly, Hindu religion believes to not have any specific name for the religion. It is just called “dharmic”(religious) - one who follows a code. Therefore, protecting the environment is part of Dharma and people in the olden times, did not have an understanding of “the environment” as separate from the other spheres of activity in their lives.

05.  Pancha Mahabhutas - Five Elements
Hindu religion teaches that the five great elements, such as, Space, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth constitute the environment, which is all derived from nature. As a result, it creates a web of life that connects the cosmos, nature, plants, animals, the human body and everything present in the universe. The Upanishads explains that the interdependence of these elements in relation to Brahman, the supreme reality, from which they arise: “From Brahman arises space, from space, arises air, from air arises fire, from fire, arises water, and from water arises earth.”

It is recognized that the human body contains and relates to these five elements. Furthermore, each of the elements relates to one of the five senses. The human nose is related to earth, tongue relates to water, eyes relates to fire, skin relates to air and ears relates to space. This bond between our senses and the elements is the foundation of our human relationship with the natural world. They are an inseparable part of our existence, and they constitute our very bodies. Hence, harming nature would, in fact, be harming ourselves.

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copyright: https://detechter.com/5-hindu-philosophies-makes-us-responsible-towards-environment

Om-Shanti: - Studie en Academie Materiaal
HINDUISM - GENERAL - DEEL 1 - 02

10 Indian Inventions and Discoveries that Shaped the Modern World

The famous American author Will Durant writes in his book of The Story of Civilization about the Indian civilization: “It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier, India has sent to the West such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals and the decimal system. India was the mother of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages. She was the mother of our philosophy, mother through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics, mother through Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother through village communities of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.”

Many scholars have attempted to document the ancient Indian civilization over the years. But very few talk about the accurate details that's been able to penetrate the public. Incredible discoveries and inventions in ancient India have shaken the world that we belong to today.

01. The Hindu Numeral system
Not many realize the numeral system that we currently use came from India. Most people think that we are using the Arabic numerals, but the Arab traders acquired the Indian mathematical concepts when they came to India and shared it with the West when they travelled around. This system broke the common, but complex Roman system back then. The other civilizations were also working to create a better numeral system than Roman, but the Indian numeral system succeeded, and is used as a foundation in our modern mathematics and has a stronghold in our modern life.

 Apart from the numeral system, there are several other mathematical principles that have the roots in India, and the foreign scholars - from Greek philosophers to Arab mathematicians and from British inventors to Nazi and Cold War era scientists have been studying these principles. Albert Einstein says, “We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.” Ludvig von Shroeder says, “Nearly all the philosophical and mathematical doctrines attributed to Pythagoras are derived from India.”

02. Carburized Steel
India is supposedly one of the pioneers in metallurgy and had been producing top quality steel way back, two thousand years back than the time when Michael Faraday demystified the real process. The Indian Wootz Steel is considered to be legendary, and many great civilizations - from Ancient Greece to Persia, from Arabia to Ancient Rome - were so astonished by it. Even King Porus selected it as a gift to offer Alexander the Great, instead of picking the common gold and silver. High-quality steel is still a major raw material in the modern world of production and industries. After the independence, India has again become the world leader in metallurgy and production of high-quality steel.

03. Influence in Western Philosophy
Many historians talk about the influence of India in Ancient Greeks and Romans. Apart from the technology, town planning, and statecraft, Greeks sought new ideas and thoughts in the Vedic scriptures and even learned their trades in Indian universities like Taxila and Nalanda. In the Western philosophy, the Greek philosophers play a prominent role in shaping the core of their thought process in philosophy, and their philosophies are considered to be the foundation of the modern philosophies. But many scholars also acknowledge how Indians have contributed to Greek philosophies. In “The Shape of Ancient Thought”, Thomas McEvilley presents a thorough analysis of how Indian philosophy directly made an impact in the pre-Socratic Greek philosophy. Voltaire says, “Is it not probable that the Brahmins were the first legislators of the earth, the first philosophers, the first theologians? The Greeks, before the time of Pythagoras, travelled into India for instruction.”

04. Without cotton textiles, the world would have had clothing crisis
The use of cotton textiles for clothing is a revolutionary Indian contribution to the world. Back in the days, the Greeks were still wearing animal skin, until they found the cotton industry in India when Alexander the Great was conquering the world. That was when they started to use Indian garments, which is what we all still wear today. The Columbia Encyclopaedia writes: “Hundreds of years before the Christian era, cotton textiles were woven in India with matchless skill, and their use spread to the Mediterranean countries.” The Western Europeans might argue with this, however. What we have achieved today is because of the knowledge gained from high-quality textiles production and trading with India. Many argue that the Indian te textile industry was intentionally dismantled. Dan Nadudere, in The Political Economy of Imperialism, says, “It was by destroying the Indian textile industry that the British textile industry ever came up at all.”

05. Democracy
The Greek republic of Athens is always regarded as the oldest non-tribal, organized democracy in the world But historians know about the ancient Indian republic of Vaishali which dates back to 600 BCE, which is almost a hundred years before the institution of Athenian democracy. But the modern-era colonial propaganda neglects this fact. Rather than that, the most ancient form of Indian democracy is the “panchayat” system which dates back more than three thousand years ago. It literally means “assembly of five”, whereby five leaders combine to govern the society. Thomas McEvilley says, “Through such chronological manipulations, the threat that the Indian past presents to the Greek miracle (as postulated by European supremacists) is defused by chronology.” Will Durant says, “India was the mother of village communities of self-government and democracy.”

06. Lunar water
The most recent space exploration between 2008 and 2009 with Chadrayaan-1 detected the presence of lunar water and is regarded as one of the modern contributions by India in the space world. This exploration was done even before NASA'S “Moon Mineralogy Mapper”. Jim Green, NASA Director, said, “We want to thank ISRO for making the discovery possible. The moon till now was thought to be a very dry surface with a lot of rocks.”

07. Quantum Statistics
Many European scientists are known to have turned to Vedas for inspiration. Arthur Schopenhauer, “The Upanishads is the most satisfying and elevating reading which is possible in the world; it has been the solace of my life and will be the solace of my death.” The likes of Einsteins, Nazi scientists, and other inventors were also the student of the advanced Upanishads. Wheeler Wilcox says, “India - the land of Vedas, the remarkable works contain not only religious ideas for a perfect life but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all were known to the seers who founded the Vedas.” The most unnoticed hero, however, is the 20th century Bengali scientist Satyendra Nath Bose who provided the foundations for quantum statistics. But the Nobel Prize went to German and US scientists. He is still known for the widely known “God particle”, and is part of the Higgs Boson particle. P. Johnstone says, “Gravitation was known to the Indians before the birth of Newton. The system of blood circulation was discovered by them centuries before Harvey was heard of.”

08. Wireless Communication
The inventor of wireless radio technology is attributed to Guglielmo Marconi and also received Nobel Peace Prize in Physics. But Jagadish Chandra Bose, an Indian scientist, demonstrated the first use of radio technology in 1895, which is two years before Marconi's demonstration. In the Daily Chronicle, England, 1896, there is a piece that says, “The inventor (J.C. Bose) has transmitted signals to a distance of nearly a mile and herein lies the first and obvious and exceedingly valuable application of this new theoretical marvel.”

09. Zero
Zero is one of the most important inventions in the world of Mathematics. It has had an impact in all fields - from art, philosophy, to technology. That's even led to the binary bits 0 and 1, which is critical in the world of technology. It's because of these O’s and I’s that you've been able to read this article on your device. Lancelot Hogben says, “In the whole history of mathematics, there has been no more revolutionary step than the one which India made when they invented zero.” Similar strategies to use calculus (which has been attributed to Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz) were developed hundreds of years before they did. Even the Pythagorean theorem had been developed in a similar fashion before in India.

Dr. David Gray writes, “The study of mathematics in the West has long been characterized by a certain ethnocentric bias, a bias which most often manifests not in explicit racism, but in a tendency toward undermining or eliding the real contributions made by non-Western civilizations. The debt owed by the West to other civilizations, and to India in particular, go back to the earliest epoch of the “Wester” scientific tradition, the age of the classical Greeks, and continued up until the dawn of the modern era, the Renaissance when Europe was awakening from its dark ages.... Due to the legacy of colonialism, the exploitation of which was ideologically justified through a doctrine of racial superiority, the contributions of non-European civilizations were often ignored, or, as George Ghevarughese Joseph argued, even distorted, in that they were often misattributed as European.”

10. Complex Hydraulic Engineering
During the growth of Indus valley civilization 5000 years ago, a vast and highly advanced network of canals, along with intricate irrigation, water management, and sewage systems were developed in parts of India. In this largest ancient civilization of the world, the sewage systems were designed in such a way that the blockages were self-cleared and even accounted for smell and odor. They even had developed first flush toilets back in the days.

David Hatcher Childress, an American author of historical revisionism, claims that the sewage systems were so sophisticated that they are still superior to many developing countries today. He writes about Indus valley civilization with these words: “A wonder to modern-day researchers, the cities were highly developed and advanced. A remarkable early example of city planning.”

A similar system of canals that was developed by lsambard Kingdom Brunel in the 19th century existed way before in India. Edmund Burke, a philosophical father of the modern Conservative party, slams the impact of British colonization in India that had ruined the Indian reservoir system that had lasted forthousands of years and had kept the dry regions fertile, making the Indian population self-sufficient, nourished and prosperous. He writes,

“In the happier times of India, a number almost incredible of reservoirs have been made in chosen places throughout the whole country. There cannot be in the Carnatic and Tanjore (alone) fewer than ten thousand of these reservoirs of the larger and middling dimensions.”

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Copyright: https://detechter.com/10-indian-inventions-and-discoveries-that-shaped-the-modern-world/

Om-Shanti: - Studie en Academie Materiaal
HINDUISM - GENERAL - DEEL 1 - 03

15 Ancient Hindu Predictions That Have Come True

In the last section of the ancient Hindu text Bhagavata Purana, there is a list of predictions and prophecies about the dark times for the present age of Kali Yuga. The following fifteen predictions, written 5,000 years ago by Veda Vyasa, are amazing because they appear so accurate.

Prediction 1
Religion, truthfulness, cleanliness, tolerance, mercy, duration of life, physical strength and memory will all diminish day by day because of the powerful influence of the age of Kali.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.1

Prediction 2
In Kali Yuga, wealth alone will be considered the sign of a man’s good birth, proper behaviour and fine qualities. And law and justice will be applied only on the basis of one’s power.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.2

Prediction 3
Men and women will live together merely because of superficial attraction and success in business will depend on deceit. Womanliness and manliness will be judged according to one’s expertise in sex and a man will be known as a brahmana just by his wearing a thread.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.3

Prediction 4
A person’s spiritual position will be ascertained merely according to external symbols and on that same basis, people will change from one spiritual order to the nest. A person’s propriety will be seriously questioned if he do not earn a good living. And one who is very clever at juggling words will be considered a learned scholar.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.4

Prediction 5
A person will be judged unholy if he does not have money, and hypocrisy will be accepted as virtue. Marriage will be arranged simply by verbal agreement and a person will think he is fit to appear in public if he has merely taken a bath.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.5

Prediction 6
A sacred place will be taken tot consist of no more than a reservoir of water located at a distance, and beauty will be thought to depend on one’s hairstyle. Filling the belly will become the goal of life and one who is audacious will be accepted as truthful. He who can maintain a family will be regarded as an expert man, and the principles of religion will be observed only for the sake of reputation.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.6

Prediction 7
As the earth thus becomes crowded with a corrupt population, whoever among any of the social classes shows himself to be the strongest will gain political power.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.7

Prediction 8
Harassed by famine and excessive taxes, people will resort to eating leaves, roots, flesh, wild honey, fruits, flowers and seeds. Struck by drought, they will become completely ruined.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.8

Prediction 9
The citizens will suffer greatly from cold, wind, heat, rain and snow. They will be further tormented by quarrels, hunger, thirst, disease and severe anxiety.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.9

Prediction 10
The maximum duration of life for human beings in Kali Yuga will become 50 years.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.10

Prediction 11
Men will no longer protect their elderly parents.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.11

Prediction 12
In Kali-yuga men will develop a hatred for each other even over a few coins. Giving up all friendly relations, they will be ready to lose their own lives and kill even their own relatives.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.12

Prediction 13
Uncultured men will accept charity on behalf of the Lord and will earn their livelihood by making a show of austerity and wearing a mendicant’s dress. Those who know nothing about religion will mount a high seat and presume to speak on religious principles.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.13

Prediction 14
Servants will abandon a master who has lost his wealth, even if that master is a saintly person of exemplary character. Masters will abandon an incapacitated servant, even is that servant has been in the family for generations. Cows will be abandoned or killed when they stop giving milk.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.14

Prediction 15
Cities will be dominated by thieves, the Vedas will be contaminated by speculative interpretations of atheists, political leaders will virtually consume the citizens, and the so-called priests and intellectuals will be devotees of their bellies and genitals.

Srimad Bhagavatam 12.2.15

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Copyright: https://detechter.com/15-ancient-hindu-predictions-that-have-come-true/

Om-Shanti: - Studie en Academie Materiaal
HINDUISM - GENERAL - DEEL 1 - 04

20 Reasons Why Hinduism is Very Scientific Religion

Hindu Dharma is scientific as it is based on what can be known, intuited and experienced. There is no need for any blind belief to qualify for heaven. The Rishis had profound insights not only in spiritual but also worldly matters. The Rig Veda (10.22.14) states that earth is round, goes around the sun, etc., yet even Hindu children don’t hear about it. Yoga is a verified science, and whosoever denies it, should understand it before calling it a pseudo-science. It’s not even religious in nature or the definition by a far margin. Also Hatha Yoga is depicted as a form of aerobics and nothing more.

Below are few examples of Scientific Proofs of a few day to day things which all Hindus do and this gives a clear picture of Hindu Religion is a very Scientific Religion. There are many other proofs of Hinduism, that is a great science wherein we get all the Knowledge of Any field in sciences like Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Astronomy, Maths, Biology, etc.

01. Joining Both Palms Together to Greet
In Hindu culture, people greet each other by joining their palms, termed as “Namaskar”. The great reason behind this tradition is that greeting by joining both the palms means respect. However, scientifically speaking, joining both hands ensures joining the tips of all the fingers together, which are denoted to the pressure points of eyes, ears and mind. Pressing them together is said to activate the pressure points which helps us remember that person fo a long time. And, nog germs since we don’t make any physical contact!

02. Why Do Hindu Women Wear Toe Ring
Wearing toe rings is not just the significance of married women but there is science behind it. Normally toe rings are worn on the second toe. A particular nerve from the second toe connects the uterus and passes to heart. Wearing toe ring on this finger strengthens the uterus. It will keep it healthy by regulating the blood flow to it and menstrual cycle will be regularized. As silver is a good conductor, it also absorbs polar energies from the earth and passes it to the body.

03. Throwing Coins Into a River
The general reasoning given for this act is that it brings Good Luck. However, scientifically speaking, in the ancient times, most of the currency used were made of copper unlike the stainless steel coins of today. Copper is a vital metal very useful to the human body. Throwing coins in the river was one way our forefathers ensured we intake sufficient copper as part of the water as rivers were the only source of drinking water. Making it a custom ensured that all of us follow the practice.

04. Applying Tilak/Kumkum/Tika on the Forehead
On the forehead, between the two eyebrows, is a spot that is considered as a major nerve point in the human body since ancient times. The Tilak is believed to prevent the loss of “energy”, the red “kumkum” between the eyebrows is said to retain energy in the human body and control the various levels of concentration. While applying kumkum, the points on the mid-brow region and Adnya-chakra are automatically pressed. This also facilitates the blood supply to the face muscles.

05. Why do Temples have Bells
People who are visiting the temples should and will Ring the bell before entering the inner sanctum (Garbhagudi or Garbha Gruha or womb-chamber) where the main idol is placed. According to Agama Sastra, the bell is used to give sound for keeping evil forces away and the ring of the bell is pleasant to God. However, the scientific reasons behind bells is that their ring clears our mind and helps us stay sharp and keep our full concentration on devotional purpose. These bells are made in such a way that when they produce a sound it creates a unity of the Left and Right parts of our brains. The moment we ring the bell, it produces a sharp and enduring sound which lasts for the minimum of 7 seconds in echo mode. The duration of echo is good enough to activate all the seven healing centers in our body. This results in emptying our brain from all negative thoughts.

06. Why We Start With Spice & End With Sweet
Our ancestors have stressed on the fact that our meals should be started off with something spicy and sweet dishes should be taken towards the end. The significance of this eating practice is that while spicy things activate the digestive juices and  acids and ensure that the digestion process goes on smoothly and efficiently, sweets or carbohydrates pulls down the digestive process. Hence, sweets were always recommended to be takes as the last item.

07. Why do Indian Girls Apply Mehend/Henna on the Hand and Feet
Besides lending color to the hands, mehndi is a very powerful medicinal herb. Weddings are stressful, and often, the stress causes headaches and fevers. As the wedding day approaches, the excitement mixed with nervous anticipation can take its toll on the bride and groom. Application of mehndi can prevent too much stress because it cools the body and keeps the nerves from becoming tense. This is the reason why mehndi is applied on the hands and feet, which house nerve endings in the body.

08. Sitting on the Floor & Eating
This tradition is not just about sitting on the floor and eating, it is regarding sitting in the “Sukhasan” position and then eating. Sukhasan is the position we normally use for Yoga asanas. When you sit on the floor, you usually sit cross-legged - in sukhasana or a half padmasana (half lotus), which are poses that instantly bring a sense of calm and help in digestion, it is believed to automatically trigger the signals to your brain to prepare the stomach for digestion.

09. Why You Should not Sleep with your Head Towards North
The myth is that it invites ghost or death but science says that it is because the human body has its own magnetic field (also known as heart’s magnetic field, because the flow of blood) and Earth is a giant magnet. When we sleep with head towards north, our body’s magnetic field become completely asymmetrical to the heart needs to work harder in order to overcome this asymmetry of Magnetic fields. Apart from this, another reason is that Our body have the significant amount of iron in our blood. When we sleep in this position, iron from the whole body starts to congregate in the brain. This can cause a headache, Alzheimer’s Disease, Cognitive Decline, Parkinson disease and brain degeneration.

10. Why We Pierce Ear
Piercing the ears have a great importance in Hindu ethos. Many physicians and philosophers believe that piercing the ears helps in the development of intellect, a power of thinking and decision-making faculties. Talkativeness fritters away life energy. Ear piercing helps in speech restraint. It helps to reduce impertinent behavior and the ear channels become free from disorders. This idea appeals to the Western world as well, and so they are getting their ears pierced to wear fancy earrings as a mark of fashion.

11. Surya Namaskar
Hindus have a tradition of paying regards to Sun God early in the morning by their water offering ritual. It was mainly because looking at Sun rays through water or directly at that time of the day is good for eyes and also by waking up to follow this routine, we become prone to a morning lifestyle and mornings are proven to be the most effective part of the day.

12. Choti (Tuppi) on the Male Head
Sushrut rishi, the foremost surgeon of Ayurveda, describes the master sensitive spot on the head as Adhipati Marma, where there is a nexus of all nerves. The Shikha protects this spot. Below, in the brain, occurs the Brahmarandhra, where the sushu-mna (nerve) arrives from the lower part of the body. In Yog, Brahmarandhra is the highest, seventh chakra, with the thousand-petalled lotus. It is the center of wisdom. The knotted shikha helps boost this center and conserve its subtle energy as Ojas.

13. Why Do We Fast
The underlying principle behind fasting is to be found in Ayurveda. This ancient Indian medical system sees the basic cause of many diseases as the accumulation of toxic materials in the digestive system. Regular cleansing of toxic materials keeps one healthy. By fasting, the digestive organs get rest and all body mechanisms are cleansed and corrected. A complete fast is good for health and the occasional intake of warm lemon juice during the period of fasting prevents the flatulence. Since the human body, as explained by Ayurveda, is composed of 80% liquid and 20% solid, like the earth, the gravitational forca of the moon affects the fluid contents of the body. It causes emotional imbalances in the body, making some people tense, irritable and violent. Fasting acts as an antidote, for it lowers the acid content in the body which helps people to retain their sanity. Research suggests there are major health benefits to caloric restriction like reduced risks of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, immune disorders, etc.

14. The Scientific Explanation of Touching Feet (Charan Sparsh)
Usually the person whose feet your are touching is either old or pious. When they accept your respect which came from your reduced ego (and is called your shraddha) their hearts emit positive thoughts and energy (which is called their Karuna) which reaches you through their hands and toes. In essence, the completed circuit enables the flow of energy and increases cosmic energy, switching on a quick connect between two minds and hearts. To an extent, the same is achieved through handshakes and hugs. The nerves that start from our brain spread across all your body. These nerves or wires end in the fingertips of your hand and feet. When you join the fingertips of your hand to those of their opposite feet, a circuit is immediately formed and the energies of two bodies are connected. Your fingers and palms become the “receptor” of energy and the feet of other person become the “giver” of energy.

15. Why Married Women Apply Sindoor
It is interesting to note that the application of sindoor by married women carries a psychological significance. Modern Sindoor uses Vermilion, which is that purified and powdered form of cinnabar, the chief form in which mercury sulfide naturally occurs. In the past, Sindoor was prepared by mixing tumeric-lime, other herbal ingredients and the metal mercury. Due to its intrinsic properties, mercury besides controlling blood pressure also activates sexual drive. This also explains why Sindoor is prohibited for the widows. For best results, Sindoor should be applied right up to the pituitary gland where all our feelings are centered. Mercury is also known for removing stress and strain.

16. Why Do We Worship Peepal Tree
“Peepal” tree is almost useless for an ordinary person, except for its shadow. “Peepal” does not have a delicious fruit, its wood is not strong enough for any purpose then why should a common villager or person worship it or even care for it? Our ancestors knew that ”Peepal” is one of the very few trees (or probably the only tree) which produces oxygen even at night. So in order to save this tree because of its unique property, they related it to God/religion.

17.Why Do We Worship Tulsi Plant
Hindu religion has bestowed “Tulsi”, with the status of mother. Also known as “Sacred or Holy Basil”, Tulsi, has been recognized as a religious and spiritual devout in many parts of the world. The Vedic sages knew the benefits of Tulsi and that is why they personified it as a Goddess and gave a clear message to the entire community that it needs to be taken care of by the people, literate or illiterate. We try to protect it because it is like Sanjeevani for the mankind. Tulsi has great medicinal properties. It is a remarkable antibiotic. Taking Tulsi everyday in tea or otherwise increases immunity and help the drinker prevent diseases, stabilize his or her health condition, balance his or her body system and most important of all, prolong his or her life. Keeping Tulsi plant at home prevents insects and mosquitoes from entering the house. It is said that snakes do not dare to go near a Tulsi plant. Maybe that is why ancient people would grow lots of Tulsi near their houses.

18. Why Do We Worship Idol
Hinduism propagates idol worship more than any other religion. Researchers say that this was initiated for the purpose of increasing concentration during prayers. According to psychiatrists, a man will shape his thoughts as per what he sees. If you have 3 different objects in front of you, your thinking will change according to the object your are viewing. Similarly, in ancient India, idol worship was established so that when people view idols it is easy for them to concentrate to gain spiritual energy and meditate without mental diversion.

19. Why Do Hindu Women Wear Bangles
Normally the wrist portion is in constant activation on any human. Also, the pulse beat in this portion is mostly checked for all sorts of ailments. The Bangles used by women are normally in the wrist part of one’s hand and its constant friction increases the blood circulation level. Furthermore the electricity passing out through the outer skin is again reverted to one’s own body because of the ring-shaped bangles, which has no end to pass the energy outside but to send it back to the body.

20. Why Should We Visit Temple
Temples are located strategically at a place where the positive energy is abundantly available from the magnetic and electric wave distributions of north/south pole thrust. The main idol is placed in the core center of the temple, known as “Garbhagriha” or Moolasthanam. In fact, the temple structure is built after the idol has been placed. This Moolasthanam is where earth's magnetic waves are found to be maximum. We know that there are some copper plates, inscribed with Vedic scripts, buried beneath the Main Idol. What are they really? No, they are not God's/priests’ flash cards when they forget the shlokas. The copper plate absorbs earth's magnetic waves and radiates it to the surroundings. Thus, a person regularly visiting a temple and walking clockwise around the Main Idol receives the beamed magnetic waves and his body absorbs it. This is a very slow process and a regular visit will let him absorb more of this positive energy. Scientifically, it is a positive energy that we all require having a healthy life.

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Copyright: https://detechter.com/20-reasons-why-hinduism-is-very-scientific-religion/

Om-Shanti: - Studie en Academie Materiaal
HINDUISM - GENERAL - DEEL 1 - 05

25 Amazing Facts about Hinduism that
Most Hindus Probably Wouldn’t Know

01.
Hinduism is the oldest known religion best known as Sanātana Dharma, with its roots going back to 10,000 years and Hindu Literature dating back to 7000 BCE.

02.
14% of the World’s Population follows Hindu Dharma making it 3rd largest religion after Christianity and Islam.

03.
Yoga, Pranayama, Astrology, Numerology, Palmistry, and Vastu are all part of Hindu culture and lifestyle.

04.
The largest Hindu temple in the world is surprisingly not in India but is in Angkor, Cambodia.

05.
Nepal was formed by a Hindu saint called Ne Muni.

06.
In Hindu religion, men and women are treated as equal halves. Women are also treated as Goddesses.

07.
Hindu temples are not just architectural marvels, they are energy centers and hold great scientific significance which was proven. The usage of metals and construction patterns are proven to transmit positive energy.

08.
Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha are the four goals of an ideal Hindu.

09.
The word “Karma” is derived from the Hindu concept of “good and bad deeds”.

10.
Buddhism has its roots from Hinduism, it originated first in India and later spread across Asia.

11.
One in every seven people in the world is a Hindu living in India.

12.
Steve Jobs had suggested Mark Zuckerberg to visit Kainchi Dham, this is a temple in Uttarakhand to find his inner peace and spirituality.

13.
The World’s richest religious structure is in India, the Padmanabha swamy temple is Kerala holds properties including most precious jewels worth around US$ 22.3 billion.

14.
There are 108,000 recognized temples in India.    

15.
There is no known founder of Hinduism.

16.
“Hinduism” is not the real name for the religion. The real name of Hinduism is Sanatana Dharma. This means “eternal dharma”, or eternal truth.

17.
The word Hinduism is derived from the word “Sindhu River”.

18.
“Kumbhamela”, is a Hindu Festival which occurs once every 12 years and is the largest gathering of humans in the world.

19.
The Saree, a dress worn by women even in modern India and Nepal, dates its origin to the Hindu Cultures from Indus Valley Civilization (2000 B.C.).

20.
Hinduism has its huge influence and common concepts with Sikhism and Jainism which are later originated in India.

21.
108 is the holiest numbers in Hinduism. 108 is considered a holy number also in Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism while its roots originated from Hinduism.

22.
Rig Veda is the oldest known book in the world with its contents dating back to 7000 B.C.

23.
Kamasutra Book is one of the highest selling books around the world.

24.
The Vedas and many other teachings of Hinduism were preserved for thousands of years without paper. They were chanted, memorized and passed on to the next generation.

25.
Singapore City is built based on the Hindu literature of Architecture called “Vastu” which is appreciated by the modern day architects and is adopted in their designs around the world.

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Copyright: https://detechter.com/25-amazing-facts-about-hinduism-that-most-hindus-probably-wouldnt-know/

Om-Shanti: - Studie en Academie Materiaal
HINDUISM - GENERAL - DEEL 1 - 06

Here is Why Hinduism is Actually called Sanatana Dharma

In ancient times, Persians called people living on the bank of Sindhu River as Hindu because they lacked “Sa” syllable in their language and pronunciation, and mixed with “Ha” syllable, thus called Hindu instead of Sindhu. After the influence of European, especially British, due to the colonization of Indus Valley civilization, Hindu religion came to be called Hinduism. But the actual name of the religion is Sanatana Dharma where Sanatana means eternal and Dharma means duty.

Sanatana Dharma means the eternal duty. Not just Hindus, but all beings in creation, including animals, deities, gods, and rest of humanity, share this duty.

In terms of humans and higher entities, Dharma is also used in reference to any set of moral and religious laws and principles that govern religious duty and human conduct upon earth. Hence, in popular usage Dharma is interpreted as morality or religion rather than duty. The essence of Dharma is to protect the order and the regularity of the world through specific obligation by morality and religion as a guiding factor.

Every living being and every object under God’s creation, reasoning above, has a special role and a specific duty in God’s manifested universe. Thus, Sanatana Dharma, which modern world popularly understand as Hinduism, is a duty obliged to God that is shared by all from the lowest to highest creative beings.

Who is a Hindu and why are conversions not accepted in Sanatana Dharma?
It will be unrealistic and unfair to name only to those who practice Hinduism religiously as Hindu, but to all those who contribute to God’s creation and continuity of the creation by performing and sharing the eternal and continuous duties and owes his or her life and adherence to the creator. That is why Sanatana Dharma do not actively seek conversions or increment of numbers of the followers, as everyone, knowingly or unknowingly, in God’s creation is bound to God’s eternal duties and therefore do not require to be converted. It is just that differentiation arises on the basis of good deeds and bad deeds, where good deeds are the religion of Devas (good) and bad deeds are of the Asuras (evil). With this karma, God decides the faith of the being to be rewarded or punished.

How to be more insightful of understanding Sanatana Dharma?
Only foolish argue which religion is the best, as every religion has its own value, just as every duty. Each accommodates to certain needs and fulfills certain aims. Whatever the presumption is, if the living being caters God’s guidelines, he or she is following Sanatana Dharma. Therefore, it is wise not to form hatred in one’s mind to any religion. If we act selflessly take good actions in protecting and putting effort on the regularity of the God’s creation, we are all under Sanatana Dharma.

Lower species have their own special duties, for example in the case of ants, younger ants work inside their nest taking care of the queen and her brood while older workers go outside to gather food and defend the nest against enemies. They are given special duties and perform accordingly. Since the actions of lower species are guided by Nature, they do not incur karma as much as human beings, who are intelligent and who can exercise their will for good and bad.

According to the scriptures of Sanatana Dharma, we all have a responsibility towards ourselves, family, society, towards ancestors and divinities, and to all living beings in general. These duties are essentially meant to establish peace and stability in us, in others and in the world in general.

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Copyright: https://detechter.com/hinduism-is-actually-called-sanatana-dharma/

Om-Shanti: - Studie en Academie Materiaal
HINDUISM - GENERAL - DEEL 1 - 07

Most interesting Facts About Hinduism You May Not Know

The world's 3^rd  largest religion closely following Christianity and Islam is Hinduism. Hinduism is the world's oldest known religion and originally known as Sanatana Dharma, with its roots going back to 10,000 years and Hindu scriptures dating back to 7000 BC.

Here are few interesting Facts about Hinduism:

• Unlike other major religions, Hinduism doesn't consider the pursuit of wealth as a sin.
• The holiest number in Hinduism is 108. This is the ratio of Sun's distance (from earth) Sun's diameter or Moon's distance (from earth) Moon's diameter. Thus, most of our prayer beads have 108 beads. Unlike all other major religions, Hinduism doesn't have a founder. According to Hinduism, the religion has no origin. Hinduism is the only religion that is pro-science from early ages.
• Hinduism is the only religion that is pro-science from early ages. Some of the mind boggling advances in Hinduism texts were:

Mathematics:
Search Engine Hashing Algorithms - Kathapayadi System Musicology; Concept of zero (as a number and as a marker), the concept of Infinity and concept of the Decimal Number System (with a carry-forward); Pythagoras Theorem.

Evolution:
Contrary to most religious beliefs of God creating life, Vedic Vishnu Purana deciphered evolution thousands of years ago in the form of Dashavataram. It starts with Matsya (Fish) and next came to the Tortoise (Kurma) - the amphibian. The next avatar is the Boar (Varaha) - symbolizing the first Mammal. The next is Narasimha (Man-lion) - the being in between the humanoid and the mammal. Next, comes Vamana (dwarf) - the primal short man, and then Parashurama (man with an axe) - representing the first hunter-gatherers creating the first tools. Before Darwin.

Cosmology:
The Big Bang theory is mentioned as early as the Rig Veda, where, in Mandala X - the Cosmos and the “Golden Egg” or the Sun, is born from the Cosmic Void - often called as Asat (Non-being) - also meaning “Non-wisdom” or Chaos.

Medicine:
Ayurveda was also taught to Chinese, Greek, Roman and Persian students who studied at the great Indian Universities as Takshila in Pakistan and Nalanda in India - as early as 700BCE

More Interesting Facts about Hinduism You May Not Know:

• Hinduism has no concept of conversions. All the people following the faith have either willingly embraced it or acquired it by birth.
• Hinduism has spread across many countries over the years, especially in Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and other South East Asian countries.
• Hindu temples are not just architectural marvels, they are energy centers and hold great scientific significance which was proven. The usage of metals and construction patterns are proven to transmit positive energy.
• The institution of marriage was founded and put forth by Hinduism.
• Hinduism has reformed itself multiple times to get rid of any practices like Sati Sahagamana to suit humanity.
• Yoga, the World's most practiced form of spiritual and physical fitness procedure, originated from Hinduism in the Indus- Saraswati civilization 5000 years ago.
• In Hindu cosmology, it is believed that the universe is created and destroyed in a cycle every 4.32 billion years. Quite interestingly, this period is quite close to the current scientific age of the earth.
• Robert Oppenheimer (considered “Father of the Atomic Bomb”) learned Sanskrit in 1933 and used to frequently quote from the sacred Hindu book - the “Bhagwad Gita”. He used his Sanskrit knowledge to decode the Vedas and ancient scripts to form the basis of the Manhattan project and probably much more under the rug.

In the End, this is what Hinduism teaches us:

“Loka Samastha Sukino Bhavantu. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.”

“May all the beings in all the worlds be happy. Let
there be Peace, Peace, and Peace everywhere.”

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Copyright: https://detechter.com/most-interesting-facts-about-hinduism-you-may-not-know/