buddhism

While atheism and Christianity may seem at polar opposites in mainstream discourse, the reality is that they are actually singing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to Hindus. The denigration of Hindu civilisation and culture to which the western world owes so much is enacted with the standard neocolonialist and racist mindset which [...]

For many people, the main concern in a yoga class is whether they are breathing correctly or their legs are aligned. But for others, there are lingering doubts about whether they should be there at all, or whether they are betraying their religion.Farida Hamza, a Muslim woman living in the US (pictured above), had been [...]

iN HIS 1905 book, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”, Max Weber credited the Protestant ethic with giving rise to capitalism. Now it sometimes seems as if it is the Buddhist ethic that is keeping capitalism going. The Protestants stressed rational calculation and self-restraint. The Buddhists stress the importance of “mindfulness”—taking time out [...]

The outburst by India’s leading rationalists back in 2013 over K Radhakrishnan’s visit to the famous Lord Venkateswara temple in southern India needs to be examined. Radhakrishnan is chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisationand the head of India’s space agency, in fact the man responsible for launching that nation’s mission to the planet Mars. [...]

Buddhist petitioners have successfully filed a case at the Indian Supreme Court seeking to overturn the Bodh Gaya Temple Act of 1949. That legislation had enabled a shared Hindu and Buddhist management of Bodh Gaya. Nehru sponsored this consensus arrangement in order to roll back the Saivite Mahant’s, until then, exclusive control over temple administration. [...]

Dr Koenraad Elst explores the truth behind the often made claim that Buddha was a caste reformist [...]

No less a person than Mahatma Gandhi once estimated that nearly a quarter of Hindus had converted to Islam over the past on thousand years. How true is this statement ? [...]