Question: why religion spreads among (some) human beings? What is it about them that enables the transmission of religion? This issue allows multiple answers. In this post, I would like to focus on the simplest answer to the question. In my theory, I presuppose an answer to the question: I assume that there is something in our constitution that allows religion to spread among human beings. The …

We have developed partial explanations of why the secularism debate in India takes such peculiar forms and why otherwise intelligent people talk nonsense here. But we don’t do so by pegging our use of the word secularism “onto Balu’s theory about the nature of religion and how that entity religion behaves in the world” and then expecting that other people do the same. Let me quickly repeat our …

I want to go deeper into the claim of my earlier post that Shabnum Tejanis and Neera Chandhokes of this world do not think but merely talk. In other words, is it possible to identify the problems with their accounts (that explicates more clearly why I say that they do not think) in such a way that it is susceptible to some sort of solution? If, indeed, we can show that such people do not think and …

We do not have any clear explanation of the nature and rise of American identity politics as yet. But here are a few speculative intuitions: Identity politics seems to be the way in which the dominant culture in America compels other cultural communities to become variants of itself. It sustains a basic model of society which neutralizes groups that challenge the dominant culture by making them …

Vyasa’s argument (to the extent we can speak of an argument in this context) is quite subtle: When Urvasi comes to Arjuna at the behest of his father, and when she is possessed by desire, and when the Apsaras choose freely and unconfined, then (a) one cannot reject her; (b) and with the argument that she is a superior to him. If you split this conjunction and cast in normative terms, it says …

Let us begin with the assumption that our stories about Indra and the Gandharvas are just that: stories, authored by human beings, without truth-content. (That is to say, they are neither true nor false.) When human beings write stories, their imagination is (partially) constrained by their societies, cultures and the times they live in. None quite knows how exactly the latter constrain human …

Contrast sets have multiple functions depending on the contexts in which they are used. For instance, in the case of theories about some phenomena, they can be used to test the robustness of the theories: why do unsupported objects on earth fall downwards instead of floating? Why did the Primitive Man invent ‘religion’ instead of doing any number of other things he could have done? And so on. In …

X says: “Modern prostitution is a very specific institution with the features of pimps, forced sex, kidnapped women, drug addicted women, immigrants lured to foreign shores on false pretences, and so on. If we insist on precision in ideas, then it is counterproductive to confuse matters by calling Apsaras prostitutes without first showing that at least some of the above conditions hold true and …

In so far as the suggestion is that the English word ‘prostitute’ does not capture the connotations of the earlier uses of ‘Veshya’, as I said, I agree with all of you. In this sense, if you further suggest that ‘Apsara’ should not be considered as a synonym for ‘prostitute’, I would also agree. I do not suggest that ‘apsara’ and ‘prostitute’ are synonyms: for two words to be synonymous in this …

You suggest that calling Apsaras as “prostitutes in the court of Indra” is an extreme statement. Of course, you would be right if you mean that the English word does not carry all the connotations of ‘Veshya’ or even that our current usage of the word ‘Veshya’ is not as rich as the earlier uses of the same word were. You are right too when you point out that the word ‘Kama’, as a pursushartha, …

1.1. The Indian traditions did not have the same attitude as Christianity towards prostitution or adultery. And the Indians of yesteryears were not defenders of the Victorian (and Christian) morality. Of course, I approvingly said that the “Indians are not prudes” but this approval has to do with the thrust of Indian thought, as I have understood it: the impossibility of prohibiting or making …

Let me invite you to do a thought-experiment along with me. Imagine that all human beings seek happiness. Imagine too that they can all achieve this state of being. Because, as I said in one of my posts, there are no qualifications (or requirements) to reach this end-state; any and all ways are conducive to reach this end-state: thinking, meditation, music, dance, and, yes, even going to temples …

I think there is a simpler answer to why we do not eat beef: “we do not see it as food.” In the same way people in the Nazi concentration camps and the Ethiopians during the famine did not see fellow human beings as edible items, we do not see cows as food. (Contrast this with the story of a plane crash in the Andes Mountain some three decades ago, where the dead were cannibalized by the living in …

Traditions are inherited practices, which mean two things: they are both transmitted and learnt. The learning occurs through imitation, following instructions, through stories and so on. Consequently, traditions ‘change’ (i.e. undergo modifications) even as they are being transmitted and learnt. This makes traditions flexible and adaptive. Human practices conserve, that is, we do not go around …

1. Here is one way of looking at what stories are. They are symbols. What are they symbols of? Well, they could symbolize acts; they could also be symbolically interpreted as justifications of such acts. Under this construal, a story requires an interpretation: one has to interpret the story as a symbol of either an act or as its symbolic justification. (The same applies to looking at stories as …

A science of cultures is not Atmagyaana or Brahmagyaana. Let me also add that I find a quest for happiness a normal human striving. According to the Indian traditions, experience itself is a state of being: anubhava. In my story, so is happiness (or atmasaakshaatkaara). Need one be enlightened in order to speak about enlightenment? Should that be the case, one cannot strive for enlightenment at …

Why did Christianity become a ‘universal’ religion? How did Christians replace the ‘chosen’ people? What was the logic behind the transformation of the Jewish god into God of the humankind? In the literature on the subject that I have read, the first two questions get a historical (semi-psychological) answer. Traces of this answer can also be found between the lines in ‘The Heathen…’. There is a …

Let us begin with the idea that religion is some kind of a system (or structure or whatever you feel like using) that maintains itself. That is to say, it is able to reproduce itself, and sustain itself. I call this the ‘simple reproduction’ of religion. This dynamic enables not only the reproduction of the community of believers but also the experiential intelligibility that the Cosmos has for …

Assume that India (or any other society) does not have an ethics. What would happen? Surely, if ethics has something to do with coordinating human actions, we know of several ways to do the same without taking recourse to ethical thinking: laws, rules (like those in games), agreements, pacts, covenants, … are some of the candidates. Assume that India does not know of normative ethics. So, what is …

There are other normative statements besides ethical ones: even aesthetic statements are normative (when you judge something to be ugly or beautiful) or statements about the presence of other values (say, ’the meaning of life’ questions). I have never denied it. As you rightly point out, legal norms are normative but they are not co-extensive with the ethical ones. If there are standards to …