The logic school of Hindu philosophy, Nyaya, flourished for 2000 years before dying out during the late Mughal and early British rule.
Just 100 km away from Kolkata, on the banks of the Bhagirathi River, is a town called Navadvipa, well known as the birthplace of the great Vaiṣṇava saint, Caitanya Mahāprabhu, and the seat of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism. Less well known is the fact that, long before British rule, some of the world’s most sophisticated work in logic, epistemology, law, hermeneutics, and grammar was taking place in Navadvipa. Students from across India, Nepal and Tibet thronged to this town to learn under master logicians and grammarians. Navadvipa was a seat…
JUB makes important breakthroughs in our understanding of Om, prana, meditation and rebirth.
Jaiminīya Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇa (JUB), is the oldest known Upaniṣad and yet not many people are aware of it. The primary reason is that the Vedāntins do not recognise JUB as a Upaniṣad and so awareness of it has been confined to the small circle of people…
Saiva sages who wove the threads that tied India into a common idiom and religion of Saivism
Deep into the heartlands of Madhya Pradesh, somewhere between Gwalior and Guna, sits an ancient village called Ranod. To get there, one has to leave the Mumbai-Agra National Highway, which cuts across Madhya Pradesh, and drive for several hours along a small…
The Hatha-yoga corpus of texts unequivocally proclaims that the goal of yoga is the union of atman with paramatman. Academics tend to de-emphasize this aspect.
Yoga evolved from Hinduism’s Vedic background at least 2500 – 3000 years ago; however, its more physical form, commonly called Haṭha yoga, only came into prominence about 1000 years ago, at least as far as our literary and archaeological records show. The…
With the collapse of the Gupta Empire, Saivism became the dominant religion of India.
Not many people are aware that, between the fifth and thirteenth centuries, Śaivism—or Śiva Dharma—was the most dominant religious tradition within Hinduism. During this period, most of the Indian…
Showcasing some of the earliest sculpture of the great Natha yogi Matsyendranatha.
Matsyendranātha is considered the first Gurū of the Nātha sampradāya. According to the tradition, he had encompassed the knowledge revealed by Ādinātha (Śiva) during his conversation with Girijā,…
A vast yogic sculptural treasure lay forgotten in hundreds of early temples across India. Here are a few important ones.
Nātha sampradāya is a millennia-old Śaiva ascetic tradition of yogīs. It is believed that the foundation of the sampradāya took place from the 11th to 12th centuries with the amalgamation of various tantra and Śaiva traditions. The geographical expanse of the…