Sanatana Dharma

Sanatana Dharma represents the world’s most ancient continuously practiced, indigenous spiritual and philosophical tradition, which focuses on inner knowledge over outer belief and finds its basis in timeless truths and natural law. These truths have been recorded in our scriptures throughout the ages. The wisdom of the Vedas comes from the ancient rishis, nagas and [...]

For several consecutive years, a Hindu American contestant of Indian origin has won the National Spelling Bee in the United States. Preparing for the National Spelling Bee is undoubtedly no small task with contestants studying for many hours a day over several years in order to have a realistic chance at winning. It is no [...]

To my chagrin and dismay, self-appointed defenders of oppressed cultures who cast contemporary western yoga as the second coming of the East India Company have attached themselves to the fabric of yoga discourse with the stubborn persistence of a burr on a sock. Consequently, perfectly serviceable yoga programs are now at risk of being run [...]

“Prof Vamsee Juluri faces Hinduism’s critics frontally, be it the categorisation of Amarnath as a “penis-shaped lump of ice”, pornographic depictions of Ganesh, or Wendy Doniger’s flawed writings that put the Vedic people at par with the white settlers who destroyed the Native Americans and Hitler’s Nazis. While anti-Hindu writings of the colonial era can [...]

“[Many Hindus] claim that having a liberal and enlightened attitude towards homosexuality means that we are giving in to Western influence and values. It is always intriguing when we hear uninformed people speak of homosexuality as a form of colonialism. Aren’t they aware of the apparent contradictions? Of all the institutions we have inherited from [...]

On 5-7 February 2015, the Dharma Civilization Foundation (DCF) organized a brainstorm conference called “Strategic Retreat” in SVYASA outside Bengaluru. Coming in the first year of the reputedly Hindu government of Narendra Modi, it could not but serve as an occasion for guiding and correcting the thought informing the present policies. The organizers themselves had [...]

I would like to discuss briefly my ideas on the English terms like religion, faith and culture and Indic terms like dharma, sanatana dharma, vaidika dharma etc. and also touch upon what we should call ourselves. Different cultures have had different experiences which have conditioned them in different ways, and thus the categories they create [...]

In these last decades, the world has been changing. The phenomenon called “Hindu Awakening” has created a growing favorable interest towards Hinduism not only in India, but at global level. Simultaneously, we have seen that in Western countries there has been a considerable development of the neo-pagan movements and the resurgence of ancient native religions [...]

My mom normally does the daily puja in the house. And when she can’t my sister does it. But last weekend my parents were away and my sister couldn’t do the puja for some reason either, so I said that I’d do it. Well to be honest, she could but I wanted to do the [...]

CHENNAI: A curious coincidence led 62-year-old V Ravi to read about the Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute attached to the Madras Sanskrit College in Mylapore which is languishing for want of funds at a time when he had just begun learning Sanskrit. An email thread, circulated on the subject, had made its way to the mailing [...]