Rationality is a myth; man is a creature of emotions

Goddess Saraswati 

(10th century)

The idea that man is a rational creature is a myth propagated by the power-hungry intellectuals and politicians of the modern age. They proclaimed themselves as the “voice of rationality,” because they wanted to propagate the myth that they were superior to everyone else and hence best suited to wield political power. 

Man is a creature of emotions who is capable of rationalizing. Too often we confuse our rationalization with the aspect of being rational. But rationalization has nothing to do with being rational. A super-advanced computer (an AI) can be rational, but Man is incapable of being rational. 

What is the rational course of action in any context is impossible for man to decipher. All the knowledge of humanity is not sufficient to decode the mysteries of the limitless universe. With his limited knowledge and experience man is incapable of identifying the ultimate truth. How can man be rational when he is clueless about the ultimate truth? 

The man who says that he knows what is the rational course of action is either a fool, who does not know what he is talking about, or a power hungry tyrant. 

The ancient sages of Sanatana Dharma did not exhort people to be rational; they told them that the world was a sea of consequences and the eternal truth is hard to find because it resides within infinite myths and falsehoods. They told them that one can try to move close to the eternal truth by being patient and by developing wisdom and empathy. 

Dharma is more about wisdom than rationality, it is more about empathy than ethics.

Lord Kalki: The end of metaphysics, the beginning of new universe

Lord Kalki, an avatara of Vishnu, appears at the final or ultimate moments of the Mahayuga. 

Metaphysically, Lord Kalki represents the end of everything: mind and matter, space and time, life and non-life, the cycle of birth and death, all history and memory come to an end with his coming. The universe goes out of existence. But the end of the universe is the fountainhead for the creation of a new universe. 

The cycle of a new Mahayuga and new universe begins after the dissolution of the earlier Mahayuga and universe. The Upanishads mention that there are four yugas in every Mahayuga: Krita (Satya), Treta, Dvapara and Kali. The current universe is in Kali Yuga, which began in 3102 BC, and will last for 1200 divine years, or 432,000 human years.

The Puranas describe periods of time much larger than the yugas and the mahayuga—these are called manvantaras and kalpas. One manvantara comprises 71 mahayugas; 14 manvantaras comprise one kalpa, equal to a day in Brahma's life. Thus, a day in Brahma’s life consists of an infinite number of years from the human perspective. 

Since Lord Kalki appears at the end of the Mahayuga, it can be surmised that, according to the Upanishads and Puranas, the universe comes to an end and is reborn several times in each manvantara and kalpa. The Puranas talk about thirty kalpas. The present kalpa is the Varaha Kalpa which came after the passage of the previous kalpa, the Padma Kalpa.

John Galt: Ayn Rand’s world-destroying, world-conquering conquistador

John Galt, the central figure in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, is often hailed as a prophet of radical individualism and the quintessential libertarian hero. But peel back the sheen of heroic rhetoric, and he emerges not as a liberator but as a postmodern conquistador—one who presides, not with sword and musket, but with monologues and manifestos, over the symbolic slaughter of millions and the systematic dismantling of civilization.

Galt is not a man of compromise. He believes he alone knows the optimal way of life, and in Rand’s telling, that conviction gives him the moral authority to impose his worldview upon all of humanity. His revolution is not merely ideological; it is cataclysmic. By the novel’s end, Galt and his disciples have crippled industry, toppled governments, sabotaged infrastructure, and watched—without flinching—as millions perish in the resulting chaos. This, we are told, is the necessary price of moral purification.

In Rand’s inverted moral universe, these orchestrators of collapse are not villains but saints. Their atrocities are justified, even celebrated, because they are carried out in the name of her so-called “rational” values: atheism, reason, individualism, unregulated capitalism, and freedom. That these values require the destruction of nearly everything else—tradition, community, religion, empathy, doubt—matters little. The world must be remade in their image, or it must burn.

This narrative impulse echoes Rand’s disturbing admiration for the historical conquistadors—men like Columbus and Cortés—whose genocidal violence, she believed, was a necessary prelude to the birth of modern America. In essays marked by staggering historical ignorance and moral blindness, she denigrated Native American cultures and suggested that their annihilation was deserved. Just as the conquistadors of old cleared the land with steel and fire, so too must Rand’s philosophical vanguard clear the mental and cultural terrain of the 20th century.

To be clear, Rand did not preach violence in the literal sense. But she recognized that her vision would never be accepted willingly. People, tethered as they are to religion, tradition, and emotional nuance, would need to be broken. And thus, Atlas Shrugged becomes not a novel of liberation, but of coercion through collapse. It is the fantasy of a cultural tabula rasa, achieved not by persuasion but by the erosion of everything else.

Galt does not kill with his hands. He kills with his voice. His infamous 60-page speech, the climactic sermon of Atlas Shrugged, is a rhetorical siege—a didactic ultimatum that offers no middle ground. Accept his truth in its totality, or be left to perish. The tone is not philosophical; it is theological. It is not a dialogue; it is dogma. In Rand’s Manichaean cosmos, there is no space for doubt, debate, or deviation. There is only the saved and the damned.

Though often labeled a philosopher of classical liberalism or libertarianism, Ayn Rand was no philosopher. Her grasp of the Western canon was shallow, her critiques of thinkers like Aristotle, Plato, and Kant riddled with caricature and confusion. Politically, she was less a theorist than a totalist—insisting that only one kind of person deserved to inherit the Earth: the person who lived strictly by her code. All others were unfit, parasitic, or tragically lost.

In the final decades of her life, Rand sought to birth a movement. What she managed instead was a cult. Her circle was filled with young, semi-educated idealists, many of whom soon grew disillusioned and abandoned her. Those who remained were often the mediocrities—the ones who mistook rigidity for clarity, bombast for brilliance. They lived in the shadow of Galt, and she became their oracle. Together, they transformed her system of thought into a theology without forgiveness.

Rand’s legacy endures not because of the strength of her ideas, but because of their allure. She offers certainty in a complex world, righteousness in the face of ambiguity, and a mythic hero for those weary of nuance. But beneath that promise lies a brutal message: if the world will not conform, let it collapse.

And in the end, that is what Atlas Shrugged is—a seductive hymn to destruction masquerading as liberation, a tale not of heroes but of zealots, not of freedom but of fire.

Rajiv Malhotra's Being Different: Arguments against the ideologies of sameness, multiculturalism, assimilation

Started reading Rajiv Malhotra's book Being Different yesterday. Now on Chapter 3. 

This book is full of arguments against the postmodern ideologies of "sameness," "multiculturalism" and "assimilation." Rajiv Malhotra argues that "sameness," "multiculturalism" and "assimilation" are not humane and development-oriented ideologies. These are brutal political strategies. 

Whenever these ideologies take root in any society, they result in the "devouring" and "digestion" of one culture by the other. The culture which tries to follow the principles of "sameness," "multiculturalism" and "assimilation" is the one that gets devoured and digested.



Malhotra also argues (in the pages that I have read so far) that being different is not a bad thing—it is a fact of nature. He propagates “being different” as a virtue practiced by long-lasting civilizations with highly advanced philosophy, literature and religious theory. 

He notes that the cosmos is full of different heavenly objects, atomic objects and lifeforms. Nature does not push these objects and lifeforms towards losing their differences and becoming one. The sun does not yearn to become like planets, the deer does not try to become like the wolf. The objects and lifeforms in the cosmos try to find a balance while retaining their unique character.  



Why should human culture and civilizational principles defy the fundamental principles of the cosmos and try to make all humans alike? Malhotra argues that ideologies of "sameness," "multiculturalism" and "assimilation" are political and cultural strategies to disarm and weaken other civilizations and then devour and digest them.

(More on the book later…)

Bhima: The Greatest Warrior of the Mahabharata

Raja Ravi Varma’s Painting

 of Bhima

Arjuna, the third among the Pandava brothers, is viewed as the greatest warrior of the Mahabharata. But the distinction of being the greatest warrior should go to Bhima, the second among the Pandava brothers. In the Mahabharata war, it was Bhima, not Arjuna, who caused maximum devastation to the Kaurava side. He was the great predator of the Kauravas. Arjuna did not kill a single Kaurava brother. Each one of the 100 sons of Dhritarashtra were ruthlessly pursued and butchered by Bhima. Single handedly, Bhima wiped out the Kaurava clan. 

With great brutality, Bhima butchered two of the key sons of Dhritarashtra, Dushasana and Duryodhana. He killed Dushasana by tearing open his chest and drinking his blood, and he fatally wounded Duryodhana by shattering his thighs with his mace. Duryodhana died after suffering for days from the injuries inflicted by Bhima. The Mahabharata contains verses which compare Bhima to a hungry lion that devours deers in the forest. The deers in this case were the 100 Kaurava brothers. They were terrified by Bhima. Encountering Bhima in the battlefield implied brutal death for them. 

Arjuna’s greatest contribution in the Mahabharata was that he was the direct audience to Lord Krishna’s Bhagwan Gita. He was a philosophically and spiritually inclined man. He was not a ruthless and brutal killing machine like Bhima. In the Mahabharata war, Arjuna did not kill any major warrior who was armed. Bhisma and Karna were disarmed—they had discarded their weapons—at the time when they were cut down by Arjuna’s arrows. 

Bhishma had taken a vow that he would never be in a relationship with a woman, nor would he ever strike a woman or someone who had once been a woman. Shikhandi fought in the Mahabharata war as a male warrior but he had once been a woman. (He became a man due to a boon granted by a Yaksha). When he rode into the battlefield in a chariot in front of Arjuna’s chariot, Bhishma refrained from shooting his arrows in their direction. Bhishma could give up his life but he would not break his vow of never fighting a woman or someone who had once been a woman. When he threw down his arms, Arjuna pierced his body with arrows. 

Karna too was not killed by Arjuna in a fair fight. While he was armed, Karna could not be defeated by Arjuna. They fought for days; on some occasions Karna came close to killing Arjuna who was saved mainly through the interventions of Lord Krishna, the avatara of Lord Vishnu who was playing the role of Arjuna’s charioteer and his spiritual and military guide. Karna was defeated when he was forced to discard his weapons and dismount from his chariot to free the chariot’s wheels which had got stuck in the ground. While Karna was engaged in freeing the wheels of his chariot, Arjuna fired his arrows and killed him.

The wife of the five Pandava brothers, Draupadi, realized that Bhima was the only real warrior among her five husbands—whenever she was facing great danger, she remembered Bhima, not Arjuna and the other three Pandava brothers. In the Mahabharata’s Kichaka-badha Parva, a man called Keechaka, who was the commander-in-chief of the King of Matsya, publicly humiliated Draupadi and tried to coerce her into a relationship with him. To save herself from Keechaka, Draupadi did not go to Arjuna—she went to Bhima who bashed Keechaka to death.

Shiva in the Mahabharata: The God who turns vengeance into destiny & a force of history

Shiva enters the Mahabharata as the god of fire and vengeance, the ascetic who destroys yet also grants the strength to destroy. Though the epic sings of Krishna’s wisdom and Vishnu’s preservation, it is Shiva who bends the tide of history through the raw gift of power. He is not the gentle guide but the terrible ally, invoked by those consumed with rage, humiliation, and the thirst for retribution. Whenever Shiva appears, destiny shifts. He does not soothe human passions; he sanctifies them. He does not erase wrath; he consecrates it.

Amba, the wronged princess of Kashi, turns to Shiva in her torment. Bhishma’s rejection becomes her wound, and she resolves that only his death can heal it. Through austerities, she compels Shiva to grant her a dreadful boon—that she will be the cause of Bhishma’s fall. To hasten that promise, she casts herself into flames and is reborn as Shikhandi, whose very presence on the battlefield ensures Bhishma’s death. Without Shiva, Amba’s grievance would have died with her. With him, it becomes the pivot of history.

Drupada, too, finds in Shiva the god of vengeance. Defeated by his old companion Drona, stripped of honor and empire, he prays not for reconciliation but for children who will destroy his enemies. Shiva answers by giving him offspring born of fire: Shikhandi, Dhrishtadyumna, and Draupadi. Each becomes a force of reckoning—Dhrishtadyumna who slays Drona, Draupadi whose humiliation ignites the war, and Shikhandi who fells Bhishma. In Drupada’s prayer, Shiva transforms personal defeat into the architecture of cosmic war.

Arjuna’s encounter with Shiva reveals yet another dimension of his power. Exiled to the forest, commanded by Indra to seek arms, Arjuna subjects himself to severe penance. Shiva, disguised as a hunter, tests his courage, then unveils himself and grants him the Pashupatastra—the supreme weapon of annihilation. In this act, Shiva ensures that the Pandavas will never be powerless before their foes. He arms Arjuna not merely for vengeance but for destiny, so that the balance of dharma may be preserved through destruction.

Thus, in the Mahabharata, Shiva is the god who answers the cry for vengeance and makes it fruitful. He does not intervene to prevent war; he sharpens its edge. He does not calm the fire in human hearts; he feeds it until it consumes empires. The epic, though it celebrates Krishna’s counsel, shows that without Shiva’s dreadful gifts there would have been no fall of Bhishma, no death of Drona, no weapon powerful enough to tilt the war. If Krishna is the voice of dharma, Shiva is the hand that wields its sword.

In these appearances, Shiva alters history not by gentle persuasion but by empowering wrath. He makes vengeance the engine of destiny, and destruction the servant of righteousness. To invoke Shiva in the Mahabharata is to accept that fury has a place in the divine order, that the god of power stands behind the great upheavals, and that sometimes it is through fire and blood alone that dharma is restored.

The end of the Kuru bloodline: Rethinking lineage in the Mahabharata

Vyasa with Satyavati

(Geeta Press Illustration)

The Mahabharata is conventionally understood as the epic of a fratricidal war between two branches of the Kuru dynasty: the Pandavas, sons of Pandu, and the Kauravas, sons of Dhritarashtra. Yet, when examined through the lens of biological lineage rather than dynastic convention, this familiar framing begins to unravel. 

Strictly speaking, the war of the Mahabharata is not a conflict within the Kuru bloodline at all. The Kuru lineage, in a biological sense, ends with Bhishma. Neither Pandu nor Dhritarashtra belonged to it by birth.

Bhishma was the son of King Shantanu of Hastinapura and the river goddess Ganga. After Ganga abandoned Shantanu and returned to her celestial realm, the king married Satyavati, a woman of extraordinary destiny. From this union were born two sons, Chitrangada and Vichitravirya. Long before this, however, Bhishma had made his momentous renunciation. 

To ensure that the children of Satyavati would ascend the throne without challenge, he relinquished his own claim to kingship and took a fearsome vow of lifelong celibacy, effectively removing himself and his potential progeny from the line of succession.

With Bhishma’s renunciation, the responsibility of continuing the Kuru lineage passed to Chitrangada and Vichitravirya. Chitrangada, however, was a violent and arrogant ruler. His life ended abruptly after a prolonged and ferocious duel with a Gandharva who bore the same name. His death left Vichitravirya as the sole surviving heir.

Vichitravirya, however, presents one of the more enigmatic figures of the epic. His very name suggests anomaly: vichitra meaning strange or unusual, and virya denoting virility or masculine potency. The text leaves his condition ambiguous, but the implications are clear. He appears to have been incapable of fulfilling the reproductive duties expected of a king, whether due to impotence, frailty, sterility, or some form of sexual nonconformity.

Confronted with this dynastic crisis, Bhishma intervened decisively. When the king of Kashi announced a svayamvara for his three daughters—Amba, Ambika, and Ambalika—Bhishma stormed the assembly, defeated the assembled suitors, and abducted the princesses, intending to marry them to Vichitravirya. Amba, however, declared her prior attachment to King Shalva. Respecting her choice, Bhishma allowed her to depart. Ambika and Ambalika were married to Vichitravirya, but fate intervened once again. The king died before he could produce an heir.

With the Kuru throne once more imperiled, Satyavati urged Bhishma to father children with Ambika and Ambalika. Bhishma, bound by his vow, refused. As a final recourse, Satyavati turned to her firstborn, Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, conceived in her youth through a divine union with the sage Parashara. Though this encounter had produced a son, it had left her virginity intact, underscoring its supernatural nature.

Vyasa, by then a towering ascetic figure who had compiled the four Vedas and was revered across the three worlds, accepted his mother’s request. Through the ancient practice of niyoga, he impregnated Ambika and Ambalika. Ambika, terrified by the ascetic’s austere and fearsome appearance, shut her eyes during their union, and her son Dhritarashtra was born blind. 

Ambalika, overcome by pallor and fear, gave birth to Pandu, who was weak and sickly. Dissatisfied with these outcomes, Satyavati asked Vyasa to approach Ambika once more. Repulsed by the prospect, Ambika sent her maid in her place. From this union was born Vidura, wise and virtuous, though excluded from kingship due to his mother’s status.

By the legal and social conventions of niyoga, Dhritarashtra, Pandu, and Vidura were recognized as the sons of Vichitravirya and thus members of the Kuru dynasty. Yet biologically, they were the offspring of Vyasa, a Brahmin, and women who themselves were not of Kuru blood. From this perspective, both the Pandavas and the Kauravas emerge not as Kurus by blood, but as descendants of a Brahmanical lineage.

Bhishma alone stands apart. Born of Shantanu and Ganga, bound by his terrible vow, and unwavering in his dharma, he remains the last true Kuru in the biological sense. The great war that defines the Mahabharata thus unfolds not as a clash within the Kuru bloodline, but as a tragic struggle fought in its shadow, after the lineage itself had come to an end.

The Sons of Indra and Surya

Sunrise in Uttarakhand

The feud between Karna and Arjuna in the Mahabharata can be seen as a continuation of the ancient rivalry between the two Gods: Surya (the Lord of the Sun) and Indra (the Lord of Swarga-Loka or heaven). Karna is Surya’s son; Arjuna is Indra’s son. In the Mahabharata war, Arjuna killed Karna with the help of Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu. 

In the Ramayana, which happened in an earlier Yuga, the rivalry between Surya and Indra has been depicted through a clash between the two brothers Vali and Sugriva. Vali was the son of Indra and Sugriva was the son of Surya. In this case, Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu, sided with Sugriva. With Rama’s help, Vali was slain and Sugriva proclaimed the king of Kishkindha, the kingdom of the divine vanaras.

Thus, in the Mahabharata, Indra’s son destroyed Surya’s son; in the Ramayana, Surya’s son destroyed Indra’s son. The decisive role in both cases was played by the avatar of Vishnu. Victory went to the side supported by Vishnu. The question of who is more powerful between the two Gods—Indra and Surya—remains unanswered till this day.

Who Controls Social Media and Mainstream Media?

In his tweet on 17 December, Matt Taibi said: “Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary… The #TwitterFiles are revealing more every day about how the government collects, analyzes, and flags your social media content.” 

The #TwitterFiles show that the FBI used to give Twitter management a list of individuals that they wanted to be silenced. Twitter used to immediately comply. If the American intelligence agencies (basically the political establishment in America) can control social media, then why do we expect them to allow the mainstream media to remain free? I don’t think the mainstream media in America and other countries is free. The mainstream media pretends to be free, but in every country, they are in control of the political establishment.

The trending stories in social media, the breaking news stories in mainstream media do not provide a true picture of the world—these stories are fake; they are propaganda.

Kurukshetra Beyond Good and Evil: Rethinking Dharma in the Mahabharata

Statue of Krishna and Arjuna in chariot

Kurukshetra (Haryana)

The Mahabharata ends with the defeat of the Kauravas and the victory of the Pandavas. Yet, in a striking epilogue, we are told that both the Kauravas and the Pandavas ultimately ascend to Swarga-Loka—heaven. This paradoxical culmination raises a profound question: if the victors and the vanquished share the same celestial fate, what then was the war truly about? Was it a simple conflict between righteousness and unrighteousness, or something more intricate?

The answer lies in the Hindu conception of Dharma, one of the four pillars of Purushartha—the guiding aims of human life. Alongside Artha (material pursuit), Kama (desire), and Moksha (liberation), Dharma denotes righteousness, duty, and the ethical order. It is not merely a set of rules but a dynamic principle rooted in context, character, and consequence.

Contrary to conventional interpretation, the Mahabharata war was not a straightforward contest between Dharma and Adharma. In fact, both the Pandavas and the Kauravas adhered, in their own ways, to codes of conduct, ancestral obligations, and religious observances. They belonged to the same Kuru clan, shared the same lineage, revered the same gods, and upheld many of the same traditions. That is perhaps why Krishna’s Yadava clan faced a moral quandary in choosing sides.

Krishna himself opted to assist the Pandavas—not as a warrior, but as Arjuna’s charioteer. He lent his wisdom, not his weapons. His powerful army, on the other hand, fought for the Kauravas. Even Balarama, Krishna’s elder brother and a warrior of great renown, chose to abstain entirely. He refused to take a side in a war where both sides, in his eyes, were bound to Dharma. His neutrality underscores the central ambiguity of the conflict: that virtue did not reside exclusively on one side.

Thus, the Mahabharata was not a war about Dharma. It was a war within Dharma—a civilizational rupture between two righteous claims, both rooted in justice as they understood it. The true axis of the war was Kurukshetra, a term that transcends geography. Literally meaning “the field of the Kurus,” Kurukshetra symbolises not merely a battlefield in northern India, but the moral and terrestrial domain of the human condition—our world, our choices.

At the heart of the conflict was a political question cloaked in cosmic stakes: Who shall rule the earth? Who has the rightful claim to kingship? The Pandavas asserted that the land was theirs by birth and by justice; the Kauravas believed it was theirs by continuity and conquest. Neither side was willing to compromise, and so war became inevitable. But the deeper lesson of the Mahabharata is that justice, when wielded without compassion or self-restraint, leads not to harmony but to devastation.

In the end, the battlefield of Kurukshetra becomes a metaphor for life itself—a space where Dharma is constantly negotiated, never absolute. It is not the triumph of one moral order over another, but the tragic recognition that human justice is often a matter of perspective, and that righteousness, though divine in conception, is deeply human in execution.

Garuda and the Metaphysics of Death and Rebirth

Vishnu and Lakshmi on Garuda

(12th century sculpture)

A major difference between Hinduism and the Semitic religions is in the area of the metaphysics of death and rebirth. In Semitic religions death is permanent—when an individual dies, his soul goes to heaven or hell, depending on his deeds, and there it resides till eternity. In Hinduism, death is not permanent. After serving in the world of afterlife, a dead man’s soul returns to the land of the living. The process of birth and rebirth is eternal, and all beings, even the supreme sages and Gods, are subject to it. 

Every year, Hindus observe Pitru Paksha for a fortnight—the word “pitru” means ancestors and “paksha” means fortnight. The sixteen days of Pitru Paksha fall on the 2nd fortnight of the Hindu lunar month of Bhadrapada (September). In this period, Hindus perform rituals to venerate and feed the souls of their dead ancestors. It is the metaphysics of death and rebirth that drives these rituals—the living believe that by performing these rituals they will facilitate a quick return (rebirth) of their dead ancestors from the land of the dead. 

The metaphysics of death and rebirth, and the custom of observing Pitru Paksha is one of the oldest features of Hinduism—these religious and philosophical ideas were developed in the Vedic Age, about 4000 years ago, and are explicated in the Garuda Purana, which is one of the major Puranas of Hinduism. Most historians believe that the Garuda Purana was systematized between the seventh and ninth centuries CE, but the religious and philosophical knowledge contained in this text is to a large extent of Vedic origin. 

Garuda is the divine eagle who is more powerful than Indra and all the Devas. He is the vanquisher of nagas, and the mount of Lord Vishnu. He is capable of flying anywhere in the universe. He is full of wisdom and dharma. When he receives Amrita (the elixir of eternal life) after defeating Indra and the Devas, he does not drink it. He faithfully transports the Amrita to the right place, and ensures its eventual return to the Devas. He does not crave for power, wealth, and glory—he wants wisdom and knowledge. His desire for wisdom and knowledge is fulfilled by Vishnu. 

From Vishnu, Garuda learns about the metaphysics of death and rebirth, and what the living must do to ensure the happy rebirth of their dead ancestors. Garuda transmits this knowledge to his father Kashyapa Prajapati. Kashyapa taught this knowledge to Bhrigu, who taught it to Vasishtha. From Vasishtha this knowledge went to Parashara, who told it to Veda Vyasa. For the benefit of mankind, Vyasa compiled this knowledge in the text called Garuda Purana. During the observation of Pitru Paksha, it is a tradition to recite the verses from Garuda Purana.

Aurobindo: Nationalism is the Work of God

Copy of Bande Mataram

Edited by Sri Aurobindo

September 1907

Shri Aurobindo viewed nationalism as the work of God. In his lecture delivered under the auspices of the Bombay National Union, on 19th January, 1908, he said:

“You call yourselves Nationalists. What is Nationalism? Nationalism is not a mere political programme; Nationalism is a religion that has come from God; Nationalism is a creed which you shall have to live. Let no man dare to call himself a Nationalist if he does so merely with a sort of intellectual pride, thinking that he is more patriotic, thinking that he is something higher than those who do not call themselves by that name. If you are going to be a Nationalist, if you are going to assent to this religion of Nationalism, you must do it in the religious spirit. You must remember that you are the instruments of God…. Nationalism survives in the strength of God and it is not possible to crush it, whatever weapons are brought against it. Nationalism is immortal; Nationalism cannot die; because it is no human thing, it is God.”

In context of the history of the world since the fifteenth century, Aurobindo was right in comparing nationalism with God. The European states were the first to develop a sense of nationalism—that is why they managed to colonize large parts of several continents after the fifteenth century. People in other parts of the world were divided into many religious and tribal groups—they did not possess a sense of nationhood. The Europeans were united under the banner of “One God, One Monarch, One Nation.” They were motivated by the aim of furthering the racial, economic, and political interests of their nation. Aurobindo understood this aspect of history—he understood that European nationalism was the fountainhead of European global success. He understood that India could not become a great nation until the Indians developed a sense of nationalism.

Ram Mohan Roy’s View of Sanskrit Education

Stamp Dedicated to the Sanskrit College

(Issued in 1999)

In 1823, work began in Calcutta to build a new Sanskrit college. Ram Mohan Roy was opposed to this college because he was convinced that education in Sanskrit had no practical use. He felt that Anglicization was the best option for India. He wrote, in his perfect English, a letter to William Amherst, the Governor-General of India from 1823 to 1828, to denounce the project for building a Sanskrit college in Calcutta. 

Here’s an excerpt from Roy’s letter:

“We find that the government is establishing a Sanskrit school under Hindu pandits to impart such knowledge as is already current in India. This seminary… can only be expected to load the minds of youth with grammatical niceties and metaphysical distinctions of little or no practical use to the possessors or to society. The pupils will acquire what was known two thousand years ago with the addition of vain and empty subtleties…” (Sources of Indian Tradition, by Theodore De Barry; Page 593)

Roy goes on to say that he was opposed to the Sanskrit college because “the Sanskrit system of education would be something best calculated to keep this country in darkness…” (Page 595)

In the middle part of his lengthy letter, Roy (who was himself educated in a Sanskrit institution in Banaras) makes disdainful comments on several aspects of ancient Sanskrit texts and the system of Sanskrit based education. But Roy’s analysis of Sanskrit culture was outrageously incorrect—those who are acquainted with ancient Indian texts would recognize these aspects as the greatest achievements of ancient Sanskrit literature, philosophy, linguistics, and political theory. 

Most Indians prefer to blame British intellectuals like Thomas Macaulay and James Mill for creating a negative opinion in India and Europe about Sanskrit literature and Hindu culture, which persists till this day, and promoting the Anglicization of India’s education. They ignore the role played by prominent Hindu intellectuals like Roy.

What Roy’s letter to William Amherst proves is that the educated class of Hindus have mostly been people with amnesia. Even intellectuals like Roy did not really possess a sense of India’s history, or even interest in it. They were not aware of the fact that the Indian subcontinent was one of the earliest centers of human civilization. They were not aware of the achievements of Sanskrit literature, philosophy, linguistics, and political theory. 

Despite Roy’s opposition, the Sanskrit College was founded on 1 January 1824, and the college rose to prominence during the principalship of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar in 1851.

The Master of Eclipses: Rahu and Ketu

Statue of Mohini

(Avatar of Vishnu)

The devas (Gods) can be defined as the beings who drank the amrita (the elixir of eternal life), and the danavas (demons) can be defined as those who were denied the amrita in the primordial age when Samudra Manthana, the churning of the cosmic ocean, took place. Svarbhanu was a special danava—his head drank the amrita, the rest of his body didn’t. He became the progenitor of the two entities, Rahu and Ketu, who have the attributes of both devas and danavas. 

The story of Samudra Manthana is given in the Vishnu Purana and several other ancient texts, including the Mahabharata (Adi Parva; sub-parva: Astika Parva). 

The devas, the sons of Aditi, and the danvas, the sons of Diti, were fighting over the pot of amrita that Dhanvantari, the heavenly physician, had brought out of the ocean during Samudra Manthana. To prevent the danavas from becoming immortal by drinking the amrita, Vishnu appeared in the form of Mohini, the goddess of seduction. Mohini wooed the danvas, and made them agree to her plan for distributing the amrita. She made the devas and the danavas sit in rows, and began to distribute the amrita—the devas were the first recipients. 

Svarbhanu became suspicious. Disguised as a deva, he sat in the row of devas and received amrita from Mohini. The moment the amrita dropped into his mouth, the Sun God and the Moon God recognized Svarbhanu. They alerted Vishnu, who used his Sudarshan Chakra to slice Svarbhanu’s neck before the amrita could drop into his body. 

Svarbhanu’s head became Rahu, the implacable enemy of the two Gods—the Sun and the Moon—who were responsible for alerting Vishnu. Rahu took the vow of eating the Sun and the Moon from time to time, and since then he has been the cause of eclipses. The torso of Svarbhanu became a headless demon called Ketu, a directionless comet. Rahu is represented as a cosmic serpent’s head, while Ketu is represented as the serpent’s tail.

Rahu and Ketu are part of the Navagraha (nine planets) system of Hindu astrology which is based on nine cosmic bodies: Surya (sun), Chandra (moon), Mangala (Mars), Budha (Mercury), Brahaspati (Jupiter), Shukra (Venus), Shani (Saturn), Rahu, and Ketu. Identified as the invisible cosmic bodies which reside at the points of intersection in the paths of the sun and the moon, Rahu and Ketu possess the power to influence, mostly unfavorably, the life of human beings.

The Sutras and Bhasyas of the Six Schools of Hindu Philosophy

Shankaracharya with disciples

Painting by Raja Ravi Varma

Of the six schools of Hindu philosophy (Vaishesika, Nyaya, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimansa and Vedanta), Samkhya is the oldest. The root sutra of Samkhya (by Sage Kapila) is not extant—we know about this philosophy from references in the Vedas, Puranas, and the Mahabharata. Isvara Krishna’s Sankhyakarika is the earliest exposition of Samkhya that is extant. 

The root sutra of Yoga is  Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. The dualistic metaphysics of Samkhya underpins the practical and action based psychology of Yoga. 

The root sutra of Nyaya, the school of logic and argumentation, is Gautama’s Nyaya Sutra. The root sutra of Vaisheshika, which is an atomistic tradition, is Kanada’s Vaisheshika Sutra. In the ancient age, Nyaya and Vaisheshika were separate schools. But in the early Middle Ages, they started coming together, forming a single syncretic school, Nyaya-Vaisheshika, which specialized in logic, argumentation, epistemology, and metaphysics. 

The root sutra of Mimamsa, the school of scriptural exegesis, is Jaimini’s Mimamsa Sutra. The school of Vedanta (also known as Uttara Mimamsa) focuses on the teachings of the later Upanishadic texts and its root sutra is Badarayana’s Brahma Sutra. 

For every root sutra, there is a bhasya (commentary), which comes at a later stage.

For Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, the bhasya is Vyasa’s Yogabhasya. For Gautama’s Nyaya Sutra, the bhasya is Vatsyayana’s Nyayabhasya. For Kanada’s Vaisheshika Sutra, the bhasya is Prasastapada’s Padartha-dharma-saṅgraha. For Jaimini’s Mimamsa Sutra, the bhasya is Shabara’s Shabarabhashya. For Badarayana’s Brahma Sutra, the bhasya is Adi Shankaracharya’s Brahma Sutra Bhasya.

Language and Grammar in the Vedic Age

Birch bark manuscript from Kashmir of 

Panini’s Rupavatara

Panini (about 800 BCE) was the last of the Vedic grammarians. Several grammarians came centuries before him. In his works, Panini has admitted his debt to Yaska (the author of Nirukta, dated to the 9th century BCE), Paraskara, Sakatayana, and Vyasa. Old Sanskrit was probably fully systematized at the time of the composition of the early verses of the Rig Veda (before 1500 BCE).

The Rig Veda contains verses which indicate that the Vedic sages were aware of the art of writing, and the rules of grammar and vocabulary. Here’s a translation of the Rig Veda’s verses 1 to 4, from Hymn 71 of Mandala 10 (T.H. Griffith’s translation): 

1. WHEN-men, Brhaspati, giving names to objects, sent out Vak's first and earliest utterances,

     All that was excellent and spotless, treasured within them, was disclosed through their affection.

2. Where, like men cleansing corn-flour in a cribble, the wise in spirit have created language,

     Friends see and recognize the marks of friendship: their speech retains the blessed sign imprinted.

3. With sacrifice the trace of Vak they followed, and found her harbouring within the Rsis.

     They brought her, dealt her forth in many places: seven singers make her tones resound in concert.

4. One man hath ne'er seen Vak, and yet he seeth: one man hath hearing but hath never heard her.

     But to another hath she shown her beauty as a fond well-dressed woman to her husband.

In the above verses, the sages are insisting on distinct and correct articulation of letters and words. They believed that if the words in a hymn were not articulated correctly, the Gods would be displeased. Language and speech were of such importance that they were regarded as a Goddess. In Mandala 10, Hymn 125 of the Rig Veda, the Goddess Speech describes herself and the role that she played among the Gods and humans. Here’s a translation of verses 5 and 6:

5. I, verily, myself announce and utter the word that Gods and men alike shall welcome.

     I make the man I love exceeding mighty, make him a sage, a Rsi, and a Brahman.

6. I bend the bow for Rudra that his arrow may strike and slay the hater of devotion.

     I rouse and order battle for the people, and I have penetrated Earth and Heaven.

Another point worth noting is that the Vedas and the Upanishads contain references to very large numbers. Without possessing the knowledge of writing, the Vedic sages could not have made such complex calculations. 

Study of language and grammar was an essential component of the six limbs of Vedanga—Shiksha, Chandas, Vyakarana, Nirukta, Kalpa, and Jyotisha. The Upanishads describe the six limbs as an essential part of the Brahmanas section of the Vedic texts. It is justified to assume that these subjects were in existence throughout the Vedic period (before 1000 BCE), and were an essential part of the Vedic education system. 

Shiksha was devoted to the training of articulation; Chandas to the study of poetic meters; Vyakarana to grammar and linguistic analysis; Nirukta to etymology or the explanation of words; kalpa to the training in rites and rituals (geometry or sulva sastra was part of it); Jyotisha to the study of the movement of planets, stars, and other heavenly bodies.

Narasimha Rao: The accidental statesman who remade India

P. V. Narasimha Rao

The irony of India’s modern history is that its strongest political and economic reforms were carried out by its weakest government—the minority administration of P. V. Narasimha Rao. History has a taste for paradox, and in Rao it found one of its richest.

When we think of twentieth-century strongmen, the mind turns to Stalin and Churchill, Deng Xiaoping and Nehru, Thatcher and Reagan. 

Narasimha Rao belongs to none of these archetypes. He was no orator, no mass leader, no populist firebrand. Dour, cautious, almost spectral in presence, he appeared less a politician than a bureaucrat lost in the folds of his files. Yet retrospect grants him a stature equal to those world-shaping figures: for in his quiet, unassuming way, Rao altered the trajectory of India.

Before 1991, nothing in his career suggested the capacity for transformation. He had held senior portfolios, but left little personal stamp upon them. His speeches were cautious, his public persona colourless, his reputation one of pliancy. 

To his contemporaries, he seemed the very image of a stopgap prime minister, installed in the aftermath of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination simply to hold office until a scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty could reclaim the throne. Rao was trusted precisely because he seemed incapable of betrayal.

But power has its own alchemy. The prime ministership did not merely elevate Rao; it transfigured him. In office, the “faceless bureaucrat” revealed himself as a strategist of remarkable subtlety and a reformer of iron will. The India he inherited in 1991 was on the brink of bankruptcy, its socialist economy collapsing under its own weight. 

With a few audacious moves Rao dismantled the edifice of Nehruvian socialism, opened the gates to liberalization, and invited the world into India’s markets. The nation’s economic history can be divided with clarity into two eras: before Rao, and after Rao.

Nor was his influence confined to economics. The Ram Janmabhoomi movement gathered unprecedented momentum during his tenure. Though led by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Sangh Parivar, Rao’s government refrained from decisive suppression. Was it mere hesitation, or a tacit sympathy for the movement’s cultural undertones? The ambiguity remains, but the result is beyond doubt: the movement, unchecked, reshaped the political landscape of India.

Thus the foundations of twenty-first century India—its high-growth economy and its renewed cultural self-consciousness—were laid in those five turbulent years between 1991 and 1996. The man who seemed destined to be a footnote became the hinge of history.

Narasimha Rao remains one of India’s great ironies: the weak man who proved stronger than the strong, the accidental prime minister who became an architect of destiny. He was, in the truest sense, India’s unlikely hero.

Naubandhana: The forgotten Vedic name of Mount Everest

During the Vedic age, the tallest peak of the Himalayan range—what the modern world calls Mount Everest—was known as Naubandhana, “the binding of the ship.” In the ancient imagination, this was not merely a mountain but the anchor point of survival itself, for it was here, according to tradition, that the boat carrying the great sages and the seeds of all earthly life was secured during the mahapralaya—the great deluge that swept away the old world.

The tale of Naubandhana lives on in the Mahabharata and in several Puranas. In the Atharva Veda, the towering mountain of Navaprabhramsana is believed to correspond to the Naubandhana of later epics. The most vivid account comes in the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata, within the Markandeya-Samasya Parva, when the sage Markandeya visits the Pandavas during their exile in the Kamyaka forest. As was their custom with all illumined visitors, the Pandavas asked him about the distant past, about dharma and the origins of humankind.

In answer, Markandeya spoke of Vaivasvata Manu, progenitor of the human race in the current kalpa—and of the time when life on earth was nearly extinguished.

One day, as Manu performed austerities on the banks of the River Virini, a tiny fish approached him, pleading for protection:

“O illustrious one, I am small and weak. The larger fish will devour me. Such is the law of the waters. But you, knower of dharma, can save me.”

Moved by compassion, Manu lifted the fish into a water pot and cared for it as one might a child. But the fish grew, outgrowing the pot, then a pond, and finally even the mighty Ganga. Each time, Manu relocated it, and each time the fish swelled to a size that defied its new home. Eventually, Manu carried it to the ocean—astonished that despite its vastness, he could still bear it with ease, for he was aided by divine strength.

In the ocean, the fish spoke again:

“O sage, you have guarded me faithfully. Now hear this: the time of the earth’s destruction is near. Build a sturdy boat. When the waters rise, board it with the sapta-rishis and take with you the seeds of all life. I will come for you, and you will know me by the horn upon my head.”

Manu now understood: this was no ordinary fish, but an incarnation of Prajapati Brahma—or, as some Puranas tell it, Lord Vishnu himself. He pledged to obey.

In time, Manu’s great boat was ready, filled with the sages and the seed of every living thing. Then came the deluge. Waters swallowed the land; waves rose like mountains; the sky itself seemed to collapse into the sea. Amid the chaos appeared the horned fish, immense beyond measure. Manu fastened the boat’s rope to its horn, and the fish towed them through the storm, shielding them from destruction.

At last, they came to where the Himalayas once rose in full majesty. All lay submerged save for one peak—the tallest, still piercing the floodwaters. The fish commanded Manu to bind the boat to it, and thus secured, the vessel and its sacred cargo endured until the waters receded.

From that day, the peak bore the name Naubandhana—the place where the boat was bound.

Today, the world knows this peak as Mount Everest, a name imposed in 1865 to honor Sir George Everest, a British Surveyor General who never even set eyes on it. This is the language of colonial cartography: erasing native names to overwrite history. But mountains are more than coordinates; they are repositories of memory, culture, and myth.

India’s tallest peak should not bear the burden of imperial nomenclature. It should reclaim the name that springs from the deepest strata of our civilization’s storytelling. To call it Naubandhana is not nostalgia—it is historical and cultural restitution. In that name lives the memory of survival, of divine intervention, and of the binding of life itself to the last refuge above the waters.

Let the summit once again be known for what it was in the beginning: not the Everest of colonial surveys, but Naubandhana—the eternal anchor.

What Can Narendra Modi Learn from George H.W. Bush

Netanyahu and Modi

Tel Aviv 2017

In his article, “Trends Are Bad, Events Are Worse, But ‘Trevents’ May Surprise Us” (Bloomberg; October 2, 2022), Niall Ferguson writes:

“Remember the fate of George H.W. Bush, who finished the Cold War with spectacular success, only to fail in his bid for re-election in 1992.

"Bush was in many ways the maestro president when it came to foreign policy. With extraordinary dexterity, he handled the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of all the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, German reunification and then the Soviet disintegration. On his watch, Nelson Mandela was set free and apartheid consigned to the history books; and Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait was reversed.

“And yet still the presidency was won by a scandal-prone Southern governor with the banal but brilliant slogan: “It’s the economy, stupid.””

Ferguson is making a good point. The foreign policy of George H.W. Bush was spectacularly successful (from a Western conservative point of view)—despite that he lost the election to a man who is probably America’s most crooked and immoral politician: Bill Clinton. 

I think Narendra Modi should pay heed to the fate of George H.W. Bush’s presidency.

Like Bush, Modi is an arch-conservative. Like Bush, his political program is focused on cultural issues and foreign policy. Despite doing reasonably well (not spectacularly well) in the areas of culture and foreign policy, Modi could lose the election in 2024, if the country’s economic woes continue to exacerbate. 

The slogan—“It’s the economy, stupid”—might play on the mind of the Indian voters and lead them to vote against Modi.

Is Journalism the First Draft of History?

It has been claimed that journalism is the “first draft of history.” We the people of the present know how incomplete, biased, opinionated, corrupted, momentary, mercenary, facile, frivolous, and politically correct this so-called first draft of history is. If the reports of modern journalists were to serve as the foundational material for our period’s history, which would be written 25 to 50 years from today, then this history would consist of nothing more than a stream of falsehoods and propaganda—it would not provide a true picture of the state of our world. Journalism does not reveal the truth; it is the antithesis of serious historiography. The work of today’s journalists belongs in the trash can; it cannot be viewed as the first draft of history.

On Bharavi’s Kiratarjuniya

Shiva granting 

Pashupatastra to Arjuna

In the Vana Parva section of the Mahabharata, there is the story of how Arjuna received the mighty Pashupatastra weapon from Lord Shiva. After Yudhishthira's defeat in the gambling contest, the Kauravas exiled the Pandava brothers in the forest. While they were living in the forest, Arjuna was instructed by the Lord of Heaven, Indra, to perform austerities for propitiating Shiva. Arjuna left his brothers and Draupadi, and went to another part of the forest to perform his austerities. 

Shiva was pleased with Arjuna’s prayers. When a demon called Muka who had the form of a wild boar attacked Arjuna, Shiva appeared in the form of a hunter called Kirata. Arjuna and Kirata simultaneously shot their arrows at Muka. Struck by their arrows, the demon was instantly killed. The demon’s death led to an argument between Arjuna and Kirata over whose arrow had killed Muka. A battle broke out between them. Arjuna was amazed to find that he was unable to vanquish the hunter. Finally it dawned on him that the hunter was the same God that he was trying to propitiate, Shiva. He surrendered himself to Shiva, who blessed him and granted him the Pashupatastra weapon. 

The story of the battle between Arjuna and Shiva (in the form of Kirata) has been retold in the epic poem called Kiratarjuniya, by the poet Bharavi, who probably thrived in the sixth century BCE, or before that. The epic poem consists of sixteen cantos and is regarded as a great Sanskrit classic. It is known for its decorative composition, brevity, and elaborate similes and metaphors.

Yoga in Katha, Shvetashvatara, and Maitri Upanishads

Statue of Patanjali, (Haridwar)

The Katha, Shvetashvatara, and Maitri Upanishads contain some of the oldest descriptions of the philosophy and the methods of Yoga. The Katha Upanishad recommends Yoga as the path for attaining self-knowledge and focused mind. The verse 2.6.10-11 of this Upanishad says: 

“Only when Manas (mind) with thoughts and the five senses stand still,

and when Buddhi (intellect, power to reason) does not waver, that they call the highest path.

That is what one calls Yoga, the stillness of the senses, concentration of the mind,

It is not thoughtless heedless sluggishness, Yoga is creation and dissolution.”

The Shvetashvatara Upanishad gets more specific and gives advice on the practical methods of conducting Yogic exercises. The verse 2.10 of this Upanishad makes the following recommendation about the place where Yogic exercises can be performed:

“In a clean level spot, free from pebbles, fire and gravel,

Delightful by its sounds, its water and bowers,

Favorable to thought, not offensive to the eye,

In a hidden retreat protected from the wind,

One should practise Yoga.”

The Maitri Upanishad contains a more extensive discussion of Yoga. Between sections 6.18 and 6.30, the six limbs of Yoga for self-knowledge and a healthy mind and body are described. These are: Pranayama (regulation of breath), Pratyahara (withdrawal of senses inwards), Dhyana (meditation), Dharana (concentration of mind on one idea), Tarka (creative, contemplation of idea), Samadhi (absorption with the idea, a state of being one with the idea).

In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras which came after the Katha, Shvetashvatara, and Maitri Upanishads, eight limbs of Yoga have been described.

The Subversive Character of History

History is not politically correct—it is brutal and subversive. That is why the leftist intellectuals try to hide real history from the masses. If a significant part of the population learned about their true history, there would be large-scale unrest—governments would fall, economic systems would collapse, intellectual establishments would lose their influence, and cultures would be transformed.

Shriharsha: The Philosopher and Poet of the Middle Ages

Nala leaving Damayanti 

while she sleeps

(Raja Ravi Varma’s painting)

Shriharsha, the great Hindu philosopher and poet of the twelfth century, was the author of several works, two of which are extant: Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhadya and Naishadha Charita. His other works are mentioned by him and referred to by other scholars of the Middle Ages. 

He was a critic of the realist philosophy of the Nyaya school. His Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhadya (Sugar-candy Pieces of Refutations) is regarded as an important philosophical text of the Advaita Vedanta school. In this text, Shriharsha uses dialectical arguments to refute Nyaya’s realist principles, and establish the idealistic principles of Advaita. He preached that the scriptures prove the existence of Brahman (the Ultimate principle and divinity of the universe). In a passage in Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya, he declares that he had achieved the awareness of Brahman. 

In chapter three of his book, Classical Indian Metaphysics, Stephen H. Phillips has examined the philosophy of Sriharsha. On Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhadya, Phillips writes: 

“The [Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhadya] for its part is not only a central work relative to the entire span of classical Indian philosophy—about two thousand years—it is also a masterpiece of prose style, full of wit and humor, employing a vocabulary unusually rich for a philosophical text… The [Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhadya] dismantles the Nyaya realist view detail by minute detail, and the Advaitin shows deep appreciation of Buddhist Mimamsaka, Jaina, Carvaka, and of course Vedantic philosophies.” (Page 77)

Naishadha Charita is a mahakavya (epic poem)—it is a retelling of the love story of King Nala of the Nishadha Kingdom and Princess Damayanti of the Vidarbha Kingdom. This love story originally occurs in the Vana Parva section of the Mahabharata, and it is probably the most famous love story in India. On Naishadha Charita, Phillips writes: 

“The Naishadha Charita is one of the finest accomplishments of world literature: an elegant poem, encyclopedic in its mythological allusions and masterful in its use of poetic figures and rhetorical devices, it brims with the wisdom and sensibility of the classical culture (at a time, moreover, that some have considered its zenith). The long poem also contains many explicit, though unusually playful, recountings of doctrines forged in the full array of classical schools.” (Page 77)

Ferguson’s Conception of the West’s Challenger

Grinning Nixon meets Dour Mao

(21 Feb 1972)

“What we are living through now is the end of 500 years of Western predominance. This time the Eastern challenger is for real, both economically and geopolitically. It is too early for the Chinese to proclaim “We are the masters now.” But they are clearly no longer the apprentices.” ~ Niall Ferguson in his book Civilization: The West and the Rest (2011) 

Ferguson is the arch-conservative propagator of the idea that the West is the best. According to his myopic worldview, the West is always pitted against the rest. He sees the end of the West’s global hegemony as a great cataclysm for all of mankind. 

His argument that China has graduated from being the West’s apprentice to a challenger is wrong. The West and China are conjoined twins—they share the same economic and ideological heart. China is a creature of Western ideology (a mix of communism and capitalism) and its economy is closely linked to the economies of the Western powers. If one falls, the second will be doomed. 

In the twenty-first century, the West and China are like two Titanic ships which have crashed into the same iceberg of reality. They are going down together.

A Note on Gurcharan Das’s India Unbound

Gurcharan Das’s key argument in his bestselling book India Unbound was that with economic reforms India’s economy could keep growing, resulting in the country becoming a world leader. He predicted that India would dominate the field of Information Technology and become an IT superpower. His book was published in the year 2000—those were the days of optimism, the days of high economic growth and rising power of the middle class. Westernized libertarians like Das used to appear on TV regularly—they used to challenge the political establishment by proclaiming that India’s economic reforms were unstoppable. 

The days of optimism came to an end in 2004, when the UPA (a coalition of socialist and communist parties led by the oligarchic and dynastic Congress Party) won the election. The process of economic reforms came to an end. The ten years of UPA rule were marked by geopolitical setbacks, economic collapse, factionalism, terrorist attacks, and massive corruption. The Information Technology sector, in which Das was overconfident, stagnated and was captured by a bunch of unenterprising crony capitalists. In this political environment, all the pollyanna-like predictions about India’s glorious future that Das had made could not come true. Instead of becoming “unbound,” India was bound in layers of socialist red-tape. 

I read Das’s book in 2003—then I was naive and so I was enthused by his economic vision. Since then I have realized that Das’s economic vision was bound to fail because it was not based on India’s civilizational reality—it was the “imported vision” of a Westernized libertarian intellectual. Being obsessed with economic reforms, Das failed to take note of India’s political, cultural, and religious problems. In his book, there is an excellent critique of Nehruvian socialism but from a purely economic angle. He does not examine the political, cultural, religious problems created by the policies of Nehru and his successors. He does not examine the causes and the consequences of the intractable religious and geopolitical issues that the country faces. 

I have realized that economic problems cannot be seen in isolation from the country's civilizational problems—economic reforms cannot succeed until there is strong action to solve the political, cultural, and religious problems. Civilizational supremacy is the fountainhead of economic success. Despite its shortcomings, India Unbound is a very interesting book. The book’s copy which I purchased in 2003 still rests in my bookshelf.

On The Gayatri Mantra

10th Century Sculpture of 

Sadashiva (Parameshwara)

ॐ भूर् भुवः स्वः ।

तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं

भर्गो॑ देवस्य धीमहि ।

धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात् ॥

(Oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ

tat savitur vareṇyaṃ

bhargo devasya dhīmahi

dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt) ~ the Gayatri Mantra

Dedicated to God Savita, the Gayatri Mantra is part of the Vedic tradition of spiritualism and philosophy that is more than 3000 years old. It occurs in the early section of the Rigveda (Mandala 3.62.10). In some Vedic hymns, Savita means the Sun God. However, Yaska, the celebrated grammarian and linguist of the Vedic age, gives a different meaning to Savita. In his text Nirukta, Yaska posits that Savita was the creator of the universe. This implies that Savita is Parameshwara, the ultimate reality. 

Till this day, millions of Hindus recite the Gayatri Mantra at sunrise and sunset. This is the world’s only mantra whose recitation has been widespread for over 3000 years. Why do the Hindus of today take the Gayatri Mantra so seriously? Why do they feel that the chanting of this mantra purifies their body and soul? Bankim Chandra Chatterjee believed that there was a historical reason behind this mantra’s popularity. In his essay, “The Glory of the Gayatri Mantra,” he wrote: 

“When the greatest rishis of India turned Brahmavadi, or believers in one Supreme God, they were keen to point out how their philosophy was rooted in the Vedas. As the prayer to Savita in the Gayatri Mantra could also be interpreted as a prayer to ‘one who has given brith to the universe’, they attached great importance to it… We are not sure to whom exactly the hymn to Savita in the Gayatri Mantra was originally dedicated, but it makes sense to regard it as dedicated to Parameshwara...” 

In the final paragraph of his essay, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee reflects on the importance of Vedic knowledge:

“The Vedas are definitely the roots of Hinduism. But the roots cannot be the tree. The tree acquires branches, leaves, flowers and fruit. But if we do not acquaint ourselves with the roots, if we remain totally blind about the early stirrings of Hinduism, we will not know our tree well.”

Classical Indian Metaphysics by Stephen H. Phillips

Stephen H. Phillips’s book Classical Indian Metaphysics is a good examination of Nyaya (the word “Nyaya” is roughly translated into logic), one of the six schools of ancient Hindu philosophy. The Nyaya school arose in India probably between the sixth and the second centuries BCE.

In his book, Phillips has examined the metaphysics and epistemology of the Nyaya school from the second century CE to the Middle Ages, a period in which prachin Nyaya transformed into navya Nyaya. He looks at the works of several important Indian philosophers of the Middle Ages: Sriharṣa, Manikantha Misra, Gangesa, Sankara Misra, and Vacaspati Misra. The final section of the book contains translations of key passages from the texts of these philosophers. 

Sriharṣa is the proponent of idealism, while the metaphysics of Nyaya is realist. The debate between the Indian idealists and realists that has been going on for centuries, through the ancient and the Middle Ages, and is still ongoing, is the primary focus of this book.

Girilal Jain’s Book: The Hindu Phenomena

If you are looking for a simple, concise, and systematic introduction to the political and cultural issues that India faced in the twentieth century (most of these issues remain unresolved and continue to plague this country in the twenty-first century), then Girilal Jain’s 1989 book The Hindu Phenomena is the one for you. Jain was the editor of The Times of India from 1978 to 1988. I read his book more than a decade ago—at that time, I was immensely impressed by his analysis of political and cultural issues. I regard Jain’s book as a classic, an absolute must-read.

Rabindranath Tagore: On Hinduism, Semitic Religions, and Communism

Tagore in 1925

“There are two religions on earth, which have distinct enmity against all other religions. These two are Christianity and Islam. They are not just satisfied with observing their own religions, but are determined to destroy all other religions. That’s why the only way to make peace with them is to embrace their religions.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore (Original works of Rabindranath, Vol. 24, page 375)

Tagore believed that universalism preached by Hinduism was the only solution to the divisive and destructive influences of the Semitic religions. He exhorted the Hindus to hold on to their moral and religious values. In his article “Aatmaparichapa,” published in his 1916 book Parichaya, he compared the Semitic religions to Bolshevism (communism) which, he warned, was spreading very fast in the country. He saw communism as a modern sequel to the Semitic religious doctrine. He wrote:

“When two-three different religions claim that only their own religions are true and all other religions are false, their religions are only ways to Heaven, conflicts cannot be avoided. Thus, fundamentalism tries to abolish all other religions. This is called Bolshevism in religion. Only the path shown by Hinduism can relieve the world from this meanness.”