Zero to Infinity

My purpose in this series was to give a taste of every type of Sanskrit Literature. I did not write any post for well known texts like the Vedas, Mahabharata or Ramayana. Of course I have mentioned these and highlighted some of their aspects from time to time. This being the last post in the … Continue reading Zero to Infinity →

Yogavashistha – the path of pure knowledge

Without giving the right context it is difficult to talk about spiritual traditions of India. That is also the difficulty one faces when planning to write any short article on spirituality. First of all spirituality and religion are not the same thing. As Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says, 'Religion is the banana peel and … Continue reading Yogavashistha – the path of pure knowledge →

The Stuti Genre of Sanskrit Literature

Stuti is a musical composition in praise of a particular form of the divine. Sometime it includes the prayer element, sometimes not. The nearest word for it is hymn. Of course for the compositions of the post vedic periods, the word hymn is rarely is used since hymn has an ancient connotation to it being … Continue reading The Stuti Genre of Sanskrit Literature →

Narada Bhakti Sutras

I will take this opportunity to talk about the Bhakti genre of literature as well as the sutra form of Indic texts. Bhakti literature flourished in the middle ages. The poet saints of that era wrote odes to particular form of deities. Those who were devotees of Lord Krishna wrote songs in praise of lord … Continue reading Narada Bhakti Sutras →

Kamasutra of Sage Vatsyayana

The difficulty of writing a post about Kamasutra is that there is so much free material already floating in cyberspace. With about 12000 verses Charaka Samhita may have 12 times more content than Kamasutra. But the wikipedia page of Kamasutra is definitely much more elaborate than Charaka Samhita. So sex being still a taboo, we … Continue reading Kamasutra of Sage Vatsyayana →

Interpretation of Indic texts

Knowing Sanskrit definitely helps in understanding the essence of Indic Texts. Even partial knowledge of Sanskrit may help to at least have a sense as to whether the commentator has interpreted correctly. Western scholars who are interested in Sanskrit texts usually learn Sanskrit. Unfortunately, this is not so with many Indian intellectuals even though it … Continue reading Interpretation of Indic texts →

Hatha Yoga Pradipika

We live in the times of market economy. Seeing that yoga has caught the fancy of all and sundry, multi-billion dollar multinational industries have grown around it. Then, to make it more marketable, customer friendly and gain the competitive edge, these days all kinds of body contortions and conceptual distortions go in the name of … Continue reading Hatha Yoga Pradipika →

Eesha Upanishad

To indicate its proper pronunciation it is written as īśā. Most commonly it is written simply as Isha. Except for the title I will also stick to Isha so that my post is not left out of SEO benefits. But, since in Devanagari it is written as ईशा it should be written in Roman alphabets as … Continue reading Eesha Upanishad →

how will you know what you are not?

If you were not you, who would you like to be? This is the topic for Indispire Edition #362. I don't know on what premise the proposer poses this interesting topic for bloggers to express their views. But, from the wordings it is assumed that the author already assumes you are you. So, supposing you … Continue reading how will you know what you are not? →

Let noble thoughts come to us from all sides

Are we living in a world fragmented not only by physical boundaries but also by ideological boundaries? In India at least until a few years ago we never heard words like 'right wing', 'left wing', 'centre left', 'right of centre', 'liberal’ etc. in our popular discourses. Now even people take pride in branding and labeling … Continue reading Let noble thoughts come to us from all sides →