Willem

The discussion about re-accessing the vibrancy of the Indian culture and the question whether or not to legislate against conversion, are best treated separately. An answer to the latter does not necessarily count as an answer to the first. In fact, the tendency to counter the proselytising drive of Christianity and Islam by voting laws against conversion is itself an indication of India’s …

I do understand the anger that people feel when they read Jeffrey Kripal’s and other people’s assessment of Indian traditions. If someone were to come up with a similar distortion of my own cultural heritage, I would probably feel the same. However, I do feel troubled when people end up calling Kripal a “cheat’’, a “spiritual bandit” or begin to speculate about hidden ‘agendas’. My problem is not …

Colonial Experience of Indian Intellectuals Opposing factions in the Orientalist-Anglicist controversy in the 19th century shared a common understanding of Indian religion and society. Europeans from diverse ideological and religious backgrounds identified the brahmins as priests and brahmanism as a ‘religion of the priests’. This common understanding derived its consistency from a Christian …

Some consider it to be a “superstitious practice”, the implication being that it is irrational to believe that dancing causes the rain to fall: no reasonable people on earth can buy the story that dancing actually causes rain to fall. I am not willing to buy it. However, it is a fact that in some cultures people do perform ‘rain dances’. However, to explain the ‘rain dance’ by attributing a …