Atheists who are born as Hindus but don't actively practice the religion are no different from millions of Christians who don't participate in any religious activity. They also celebrate their festivals in the same way as you do. Such an approach is vacuous for many reasons.

https://twitter.com/Schandillia/status/1781936377183285451

The cultural aspects of the religion such as festivals, temples and so on in which the atheists participate are generated by the religious factors and are inseparable from the religious aims. Without the generating engine of religion, culture isn't going to survive.

Ambedkar's view on Islam, its followers and their utility in right wing discourse

Ambedkar's view on the exclusivist tendency of Indian Muslims to create a separate community for themselves is something which is often quoted by Indian RW authors as a great counter to Liberals. In the term 'liberals' above, leftists are by default included here. My focus is not much on the content of Ambedkar's view on such topics but their utility from the narrative perspective. Ambedkar's views on Hinduism and its social system were vitriolic as we know.

The assumption that Hindutva can make India a casteless society as some of the prophets of new age Hindutva believe is unfounded in the reality. To understand the relationship between caste and politics, let's turn to Rajni Kothari. In his introduction to 'Caste in Indian Politics', Kothari describes the relationship between caste and politics in below words (p.7): "There never was a complete polarisation between the caste system and the political system, and that what is involved in the contemporary +

The supposed Iranian descent of Varahamihir is an interesting question which requires some discussion. From the works of Varahamihir, we know in his own words that he was a resident of Avanti and son of Adityadasa. He was a devotee of Surya deva as well.

https://twitter.com/LykosPagan/status/1731124007016051079

So how does Iranian descent come into the question? Utpal Bhatta in his commentary on Varahamihir's Brihatsamhita (BS) calls him a मगधद्विज. So, why does Utpal Bhatta call him a मगध-द्विज when he was from Avanti? A simpler explanation could be that his ancestors were from Magadh.

Humanities (or liberal arts) education in its current form is a civilizational destruction force. Humanities is critical and indispensable for the understanding of human activities but only after destroying its current structure and incentive. Let's look into what plagues it.

https://twitter.com/halleyji/status/1728559762789614078

Unlike STEM or other profesional courses, Humanities education is not a contributor to the jobs. It's purely an intellectual exercise whose application beyond the intellectual domain is rather limited. This doesn't mean that the ideas of humanities don't affect other domains.

The travel and residence of Chinese monk Xuanzang in India in the 7th century is well-known. In this thread, I'll be dealing with his correspondence with Indian friends after he went back to China based on the article of great P C Bagachi. There are three letters written in Sanskrit which we have for this discussion. From Indian side, his friends were प्रज्ञादेव and ज्ञानप्रभ. Both of them were Buddhist monks of considerable repute and these letters were preserved in the biography of Xuanzang written by Huili.

A timeline of the Diwali festival from first century CE to modern time. I'll be sharing excerpts from the excellent work by P K Gode in which he had summarized the references of Diwali festival covering two millennia. 1. 50-400 CE: The primary reference comes from Kamsutra of Vatsyayan.

The assumption that Dayabhaga was the dominant authority of Hindu law in Bengal
related to succession prior to British takeover of Bengal is simply untrue. Until Colebrooke translated the text to English in 1810, the reference of Dayabhaga in British works is rare.

https://twitter.com/Changeling_auf/status/1718117197955125627

The oldest reference of Dayabhaga in the British work is from 1786 when William Jones mentioned about it. Dayabhaga became the default authority on inheritance in the courts established by the British in the 19th century. Yet, lawyers and judges often disagreed.

Narada Smriti (I.46-49) lays down certain conditions in which a person couldn't be arrested. One of them was prohibiting arrest when one was about to perform yajna-s. But was this ever followed in reality? Surprisingly, R Nagaswamy found an inscription from 11th c. related to it. As per this inscription from 1010 AD of the Chola king Rajaraja I, people were exempted from arrest on three days: full moon, the day after full moon and Sankranti. While there was general prohibition, in some cases males could be arrested but not the females.

I recently come across an interesting paper on the tradition of Vayu worship in Gujarat. Vayu is obviously an integral part of Vedic Yajna-s and he also finds place in temples of different deities as guardian deity of North-west, but Gujarat has dedicated temples to Vayu. Texts such as Vishnu Dharmottara Purana, Manasollasa and others deal with the iconography of Vayu. He should be typically depicted with two or more hands; body should be black or dark-blue in colour; he carries chakra and flag; and his mouth is open.

Perhaps the honourable Shankaracharya of Dwarka was a complicit actor in this RSS psyop that he presided over the key rituals performed during the inauguration of Bharat Mata temple at Haridwar in 1983. However, it's equally important to understand Bharat Mata in true context.

https://twitter.com/pahadanldki_SK/status/1697888898603712549

Is the idea of Bharat Mata supposedly modern? The short answer is yes. But the psyche and ideas operating behind this are anything but modern. It's rooted in the Hindu religious conception of considering mother as expression of divine feminine.

"Modern times require modern language to narrate our sacred texts for dissemination into masses" is a completely bogus assumption. Goswami Tulasidas ji wrote Manas in Awadhi without subverting the sacredness of the text and its popularity is unparalleled. The description of बाल-लीला of Bhagwan Krishna by Surdas in simple Braj language is unparalleled in the world in terms of the rasa which it invokes. Vidyapati managed to do the same regarding Krishna and Radha in Maithili. There are similar examples in other Indian languages.

The practice of replacing an actual animal with a symbolic animal made of rice flour or any other item for ritual sacrifice in Hinduism is well known but we also have reference of similar practices in Greek and Egyptian pagan religions who possibly learnt it from the Indians. Empedocles of Akragas (5th c. BC) opposed the ritual sacrifice of animals on the basis that all living beings are on the same spiritual plane and sacrificed a bull made out of pastry to the god following the idea of Pythagoras. The followers of Pythagoras practiced vegetarianism.

Regarding caste based movements in N India, there is something important to note with the rise of Ambedkar and the demand for affirmative section for the 'oppressed groups'. Caste based movements in pre-1930 phase were centered around gaining a higher status in caste hierarchy. Lot of peasant and artisan castes had formed caste association where they invented certain narrative about their emergence from deities, being of higher varna in the past and so on. In addition to their claims, they also eliminated certain practices contrary to Shastra-s.

From 1970s, there have been numerous incidents of caste-based massacres (in addition to murder of individuals) in Bihar. Yet, you will find very few literature published by Bihari scholars trying to honestly study why the issue was so severe in Bihar. The way communists + in Bihar translated the theory of caste being class in practice in Indian context under the aegis of CPI-ML in 1970s leading to extremely bloody period of caste-based violence for the next three decades in Bihar is a unique phenomenon in post-independence India.

In the Uttara Bhaga of Kadambari (written by Banabhatta's son), there is a very vivid description of the dwelling of चाण्डाल-s. The description though expressed in poetic manner still captures the essence of how such dwellings looked. Some of the key points from it in the thread. 1. The chief occupation of the Chaandala-s was hunting. It involved every form of hunting from fishing to the killing of violent wild animals.

2. In this specific scene, the Chaandala-s were seen repairing their traps, getting ready with hunting weapons such as spears, bows etc.

Aacharya Patanjali in his Mahabhashya on Panini's Ashtadhyayi has used numerous epithets for Aacharya Panini which shows how the former regarded the latter for his contribution. Some of these epithets are worth mentioning. Let's look into these ones. 1. Sutrakaara: As the ability of Panini to compose Sutra-s was unparalleled in terms of brevity and conciseness of expression, he was called Sutrakaara even though Sutra as a way of expression of ideas existed in other fields as well.

In Purana-s (viz. Vaamana Purana), Shiva has been called Mriga-vyaadha in the specific context when he pierces the Agni who had assumed the form of deer in the sky after Daksha Yajna. The source of Shiva as Mriga-vyaadha comes from Rudra being Mriga-vyaadha in Taittiriya Brahman. Similarly, the other Puranic motifs of Nara-Narayana, continuous struggle between Indra and Vishnu, Brahma-hatya, Bhaga and Pusha etc. come from either Samhita or Brahmana segments if the Veda-s. V S Agrawala's writings on Purana-s demonstrating such connection is quite sublime.

When it's said that Mahabharata is the encyclopedia of Indian cultural history, it's not really an exaggeration and some of the findings really leave you surprised. In Sabha Parva of Mahabharata, Chapter 21, there are two verses on Naga worship at the old capital of Magadha. The Naga-s worshipped at the old capital of Magadha (Rajagriha) were: Arbuda, Shakravapin, Svastika, Mani-naga, Kaushika and Manimat. An inscription dated 1395 AD was discovered from Biharsharif which is near to Rajagriha mentioning the construction of a temple.

While the humanities department in many IITs have existed since 1960s or 70s, most of them restricted themselves to offering PhD courses. It was primarily during 2004-14 when they started offering Maser's courses such as Integrated MA at IIT Madras introduced in 2006.

https://twitter.com/jsaideepak/status/1584207712086204416

The selection of the courses introduced in these IITs such as English Studies or Development Studies clearly shows that it was an ideological attempt to swarm the campus with Leftist thought as these fields are dominated by the Leftists.

Eight forms of Shiva (commonly known as Ashtamurti) which are mentioned in Shatapatha Brahman, Mahabharata, Padma Purana, Linga and other Purana-s, Kalidasa's Abhigyana-Shakuntalam was well known in Indo-China as well. The eight forms of Shiva representing different elements as + per Shatapatha Brahman are: Rudra (fire), Sarva (water), Pashupati (plants), Ugra (air), Ashani (lightening), Bhava (Parjanya), Mahadeva (Moon) and Ishana (Sun). Some of the inscriptional records from Indo-China mentioning the Ashtamurti are:

1. In the Phnom Preah Vihear +