What is experience? IV
1. If we take our English language use as a reference point, it appears as though we can speak sensibly about experiencing our feelings (‘I experience sadness’), experiencing thoughts (‘I…
Read moreWhat is experience? II
1.1. Let us begin with the word “Anubhava”, which we use to translate the English word “experience”. There are two sub-words here: Anu and Bhava. ‘Anu’ can be translated as…
Read moreIs maaya an illusion? Is maaya real? Does maaya exist?
According to your account, Vedanta claims that the world is an illusion and that only the Brahman is real. If the world is an illusion, Vedanta has to deny the…
Read moreDoes Hinduism Exist?
(a) Which evidence (what kind of evidence) could prove the existence of Hinduism? (b) Idem. for the non-existence of Hinduism. I think these issues are far too important to allow…
Read moreYoga, shudras, and women
X says: Yoga practice of self attainment without the help of external deity worship so common in those days of Patanjali as today was restricted to very few as it required…
Read moreFallacy of Equivocation: Indian Secularism
While reading Shabnum Tejani’s Indian Secularism: A Social and Intellectual History (2008), I ran into the same weird point that Neera Chandhoke also tried to make at the RRI platform…
Read moreIndians’ Barren criticisms of Western translations
X says: “Wendy Doniger translates all the Sanskrit words into English and thereby ends up distorting their meaning. Dharma becomes religion, Varna becomes color, and apparently she ends up even…
Read moreWhy use Indic categories to describe the world?
The issue is simply this: why use Indic categories to describe the world? What is interesting or important about this goal or venture? This, as I said, is the issue…
Read moreFuss about Indic categories II
1. Social psychology, for instance, speaks of ‘categorization theory’, and we do use ‘categorization’ also in the sense of classification. However, unless one gives a technical meaning to ‘category’ (which…
Read moreFuss about Indic categories(concepts) I
Let me give the gist of the consensus and overlook philosophical nuances about categories. 1. Consider the following sentences: ‘It is raining’, ‘het regent’, ‘Es Regnet’, ‘Baarish aa raha hai’.…
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