• A Short Course on Buddhism by Nagarjuna

    Nagarjuna was a renowned Buddhist sage who lived in the second and third century AD. His writings, particularly his commentaries on Buddhist philosophy, hold great significance even today. One of the popular collections is called Nagarjuna’s Letter to King Gautamiputra which has been published under the same title and translated in all major languages. Nagarjuna…

  • Unusual Temples of India

    Temples are the soul of India. You find them in every street, every village, every town, every riverbank, every hillock – almost everywhere you see you find a temple. A lot has been written about the temples of India. Most of the writing happens to be on the architecturally opulent temples, on the past grandeur,…

  • Avoiding Gobbledygook in Your Writing

    Sometimes we need jargons, complicated language and excessive use of difficult words; in other words, we need Gobbledygook. But, most times we don’t. Gobbledygook only hurts the clarity of our writing. An emphasis on clarity does not mean, though, that you should limit yourself to three-letter words; but use familiar, everyday words wherever possible. You…

  • Indian Secularism: History, Form and Understanding

    The long history of heterodoxy has a bearing not only on the development and survival of democracy in India, it has also richly contributed to the emergence of Indian secularism, and even to the form that Indian secularism takes, which is not exactly the same as the way secularism is defined in parts of the…

  • An Italian Folktale: The Salamanna Grapes

    There was once a king who had a very beautiful daughter of marriageable age. A neighbouring king had three grown sons, who all fell in love with the princess. The princess’s father said, “As far as I am concerned, you are all three equal, and I couldn’t for the life of me give any one…

  • J Sai Deepak’s Book and What’s Happening in India Today

    If you are following Indian politics, chances are, this is what you have been hearing: the country is taking a right-turn, prime minister Modi leading millions of his followers towards Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation), and majority of the population succumbing to his ideology. That does not tell the whole story; in fact, it barely touches…

  • Chachnama: The First Muslim-Conquest of India

    The Arabs of the seventh century, inspired by their own version of Islam, poured out of Arabia and spread east and west, overthrowing decayed kingdoms and imposing the new faith. They moved fast. In the west, they invaded Visigothic Spain in 710; in the east, in the same year, they moved beyond Persia to invade…

  • Do You Have the Right Posture for Meditation?

    ORDINARILY we think of meditation as an activity involving our minds, but in truth meditation is initiated by assuming a specific gesture with our bodies. This gesture or posture forms the literal base on which the focused inquiry of meditation ultimately rests and depends. If we build a house with a faulty foundation, we create…