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The Gossiper: A Bihari Folktale
There lived a gossiper in a certain village. He was notorious for spreading rumours about others. But the villagers loved him, for he was an excellent entertainer. One day, the gossiper went to a confectioner in the neighbourhood. The confectioner was sitting idle, for he had no customers to deal with at that particular time.… Read more
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The Story of South-Asian Muslims
As with the Muslim world more widely, the single most important thing to understand about patterns both of Muslim history and of Muslim consciousness in South Asia is the tremendous rise of Muslim power up to the seventeenth century, and its steep decline thereafter. Before 1947, the glorious history of Muslim rule and cultural achievement… Read more
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What Flowers Mean to Us
Steven Pinker, an experimental psychologist best known for his works The Blank Slate and How the Mind Works, argues that one of the reasons for our success as a species is our ability to recognise, value, classify and locate distinctive forms of plant life. Our capacity to appreciate the beauty of flowers is evidence of… Read more
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Understanding the Nature of Self
Our culture is founded upon the assumption that reality consists of two essential ingredients: mind and matter. In this duality, matter is considered the primary element, giving rise to the prevailing materialistic paradigm in which it is believed that mind, or consciousness — the knowing element of mind — is derived from matter. How consciousness… Read more
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What Does a Religion of Peace Look Like?
It is often argued whether this is a religion of peace or that is a religion of peace. We come up with different answers. However, when it is pointed out that there are specific doctrines in almost all major religions which support violence, in one form or another, we start talking about the context. Then… Read more
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Xuanzang in India: The Travels of the 7th-century Chinese Scholar
Xuanzang, also known as Hiuen Tsang, was a seventh-century Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator. He came to India along the Himalayas into the rich plains of the Punjab, a land watered by five rivers. Two days out of Rajouri, he crossed the river Chenab. This section of his journey closely followed India’s present-day… Read more
