Arvind Sharma

DHARMA AND THE ACADEMY FROM A HINDU ACADEMIC’S VIEWPOINT

August 13, 2021

Members of both the Hindu and the academic community have expressed deep distress at the ad hominem nature of the attacks levelled on or by the members of the two communities. The Hindu community wonders if the academic community can ever evoke Hinduism without condescension and the academic community wonders...

HINDU TRADITIONS AND THE ACADEMIC OPTICS OF THE WEST

July 9, 2021

The relations between the academic community and the Hindu community have recently come to be characterised by a sharp debate, which has also spilled over into journalism and the Internet. This development has been prompted by the reservations expressed by a significant number of Hindus in North America and India...

The difference between faith and fanaticism

April 20, 2021

Fanaticism has been in evidence across the world. Even Europe has no respite from the scourge, as one saw during the summer of 2016—from the acts of terrorism in Brussels on 22 March to the machete attack in Belgium on 6 August. And the trend continues till date. This wave...

Sabarimala’s ban on women isn’t a black and white matter

March 24, 2021

The current situation at Kerala’s Sabarimala templehas its genesis in the application made by S. Mahendran against the apparent violation of the traditional ban upon seeing the picture of former Devaswom Commissioner Chandrika conducting a rice-feeding ceremony of her granddaughter in the presence of her daughter at the Sabarimala temple...

Women and the case of Sabarimala pilgrimage

February 27, 2021

Sabarimala is a pilgrimage centre in mid-east Kerala, dedicated to the deity Ayyappan. Situated in the Periyar Tiger Reserve and surrounded by eighteen hills, it is among the major pilgrimage centres in south India, and even in the world, sometimes referred to as the ‘Kumbh Mela’ of the South on...

Why Hinduism is not Brahmanical

January 18, 2021

Hinduism is regularly characterised in the Western as well as Indian academia and media as Brahmanical. How does this description measure up against the evidence? To begin with Hindu myths: A major myth of Vedic Hinduism is that of the Indra and Vrtra, in which Indra slays Vrtra. What are...

The tension between Hinduism and Hindutva

December 23, 2020

India has always had a tradition of honorary membership of other religions. Are we not justified in calling Shankaracharya’s Guru’s Guru, Gaudapada, an ‘honorary Buddhist’ on account of his positive engagement with Buddhist thought; or Kabir, Dadu and Dara Shukuh as ‘honorary Hindus’ for the same reason? Or Girish Chandra...