Current affairs, spirituality, heritage & lifestyle.
There are numerous hymns in the Vedas that deal with the social customs than prevalent and from them one can form a broad idea as to how girls and women were looked upon, treated, and the status were accorded upon them by society. We begin with the field of education. Several hymns in the Vedic […]
Standing on a packed train on the way home from university, I was feeling terrible. It had been a hard week, I was annoyed with several colleagues, the train had been delayed and everybody nearby seemed to be coughing and sneezing on me! In the rush to get onto the train people were barging each […]
Vast is That, divine, its form unthinkable; it shines out subtler than the subtle: very far and farther than farness, it is here close to us, for those who have the vision it is here even in this world; it is here, hidden in the secret heart. Mundaka Upanishad III.1.6 The biggest criticism of Hinduism […]
“Why is it that Hindu women have to burn themselves when their husbands die?” This question was relayed to the Hindu speaker at an event in Brighton University. The speaker smiled and asked the largely Hindu audience if they had actually heard of any woman amongst their family or friends who had burnt herself when […]
If you look at the images of Hindu deities, you will see that many of them are depicted as sitting on a lotus. The image of Lakshmi (shown to the left) is one such example. Numerous references to the lotus can be found in the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, slokas, kathas and other ancient Hindu literature. […]
The Gayatri-mantra is the most famous of all Vedic verses. The Vedas are the compendium of spiritual realisations of the ancient Hindu sages. It has been said since ancient times that as long as the Gayatri-mantra is still recited with understanding, Hindu civilisation and its culture will always survive. It is traditionally chanted at the […]
“How can you call yourself a Hindu?…YOU EAT MEAT!!!” I heard two Hindu boys yelling at a non-vegetarian Hindu girl at a university Hindu Society event. The discussion was supposed to be on the subject of “Karma and Reincarnation”, and hence quite unrelated to an individual’s dietary habits. But somehow the discussion had sidetracked onto […]
This article put another perspective on a phenomenon that no-one usually dares to mention without putting on a grimace of horror and uttering shrieks of indignation: Chaturvarna, usually mistranslated as the caste system. Let me state from the outset that I am a firm believer in the Vedic verse “All men are brothers; no one […]
Hindu Perspective 