Underlying every kind of scientific theory is a fundamental conundrum between change and constant. For example, if we want to do sociology, we must talk about how society is changing. But in so talking, we have to say that there is a thing called “society”, which changes in some ways but remains the same society. The new and old societies are...
Before you read this article, I will urge you to read the Scientific American article No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in Air. Comments or counterarguments about this article should be directed to Scientific American, and not to me. With that out of the way, in this article, I will talk about an alternative theory of flight, which involves the...
Buddhism had four successive goals—(a) reject deities as representations of the ultimate truth, (b) end all rituals and sacrifices performed for these deities, (c) dethrone the status position of the Brahmanas who were performing these rituals, and (d) reject all Vedic texts as sources of knowledge of the truth. Shankaracharya is revered as one who defeated Buddhism in India. But he...
One of the comments after the last post—which spoke about the polytheistic origins of monotheism—was that these narratives are an academic’s opinion, different from the believer’s viewpoint. The believers have an orthodox view of their religion while the academics have a heterodox view of the same religion. This deviation between the orthodox and the heterodox views, the commenter alleged, is a...
There are widespread misconceptions about monotheism at present—(a) that it is about a transcendent God, (b) that it has had no connections to polytheism, and (c) that it has always been monotheistic. These are far from the truth. The truth is that monotheism emerged out of polytheism, that its “God” was originally a low-level demigod but later transformed into an all-powerful...
A few months ago, I was participating in a live discussion where I could see a stream of user comments. One such comment was that people in India lead miserable lives. The implication was that Western thinking is better because the West is more prosperous. People today see poverty in India and don’t know about past prosperity. Christopher Columbus was searching for...
In Chaitanya Caritāmrita 20.117, Lord Chaitanya instructs Sanātana Goswami as follows: kṛṣṇa bhuli’ sei jīva anādi-bahirmukha ataeva māyā tāre deya saṁsāra-duḥkha. Śrila Prabhupāda translates this verse as “Forgetting Kṛṣṇa, the living entity has been attracted by the external feature from time immemorial. Therefore, the illusory energy [māyā] gives him all kinds of misery in his material existence”. The contentious issue here...
Many people at present see similarities between Abrahamic monotheism and Vedic personalism and contrast these two philosophies to impersonalism and voidism. Personalism is similar to monotheism in some superficial ways but different from it in essential ways. Likewise, personalism is different from impersonalism in one way—accepting or rejecting an eternal personality of a person—but in many other ways, personalism is similar...
Some religions accept a soul without reincarnation while others accept reincarnation without a soul. In this post, I will talk about why a soul without reincarnation is problematic but reincarnation without a soul is not. We will divide ideologies into four—(a) reincarnation with a soul, (b) reincarnation without a soul, (c) soul without reincarnation, and (d) no reincarnation and no soul....
Many people have heard of the “Aryan Invasion Theory” according to which the Vedic civilization is not native to India, but was created by invaders who came from other parts of the world into ancient India. Factually, whether the Vedic texts were authored by natives or invaders should not matter if they are true. The proof of truth should be the...
There is much confusion regarding the importance of Sanskrit at present. Some people treat Sanskrit as the origin of multiple languages, particularly those that are spoken in India. Others have talked about the key role that Sanskrit can play in Artificial Intelligence. And yet other people are talking about the precise and sophisticated system of rule-based grammar formulated by Pāṇini, quite...
