Tag Archives: mahabharata

Selections from Rajaji’s Mahabharata

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

One of my many purchases on a recent trip to India was a copy of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari’s English translation of the Mahabharata.  Rajaji (1878-1972) was an important Indian statesman, but he spent a bit of his active life on literature and religion rather than politics.  His Mahabharata is ~450 pages long, which can hardly include [...]

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Authentic or Apocryphal? Does it even matter?

Sunday, January 3, 2010

In one of the discussions with Swami Tyagananda during the fall semester, we discussed whether the Ramayana & Mahabharata were historically accurate. Did Rama really kill a ten-headed demon Ravana? Did Draupadi really have an infinite sari? Or was it merely a figment of Vyasa’s imagination?
More importantly, are the answers to these [...]

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Moral Interpretation in Hinduism

Monday, November 2, 2009

Recently, Santosh generated an interesting email thread by asking “What is ‘Hinduism’s official stance’ on premarital sex?” I saw this as an opportunity to explore how Hinduism approaches moral issues, what the consequences of Hinduism’s approach are, and why discussion of moral issues in Hinduism tends to be so clouded.
First, two points:
1) I think asking [...]

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