Subhash Kak's Blog, Subhash Kak blogs on sulekha, Subhash Kak blog from india

Extreme Monotheism

Posted on Dec 22 2002

It is the paganism of the West that irks the al-Qaeda. But could the West be otherwise, given where science and technology stand? The most conservative religious leaders have seen the writing on the wall as far as the segregation of sexes is concerned. Neither will people give up their TVs or their glossies. Images will not be banished -- in the struggle between the word...

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Cows and Broken Memories

Posted on Nov 13 2002

Take, for example, the word 'babu', the name for the lowly clerk. How many people would recognize its original to be 'prabhu' (lord and master)? Or take 'khatri' from the Punjabi, meaning trader, with its original meaning of warrior (from kshatriya) all but forgotten. We must examine dictionaries (especially old ones) and other texts to see what a familiar word might have

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The Church and The Temple

Posted on Oct 16 2002

When French missionaries, Hac and Gabet, visited Lhasa in 1842, they were astonished by how similar Buddhist ritual was to the Catholic: "The crozier, the mitre, the chasuble, the cardinal's robe, … , the double choir at the Divine Office, the chants, the exorcism, the censer with five chains, the blessing which the Lamas impart by extending the right hand over the heads of the faithful, the rosary

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The Soul of India Debate

Posted on Sep 20 2002

To complement its program called the Soul of India for Thursday, September 19, 2002, PBS asked me to respond to several questions for its online show. The questions and my answers, which I wrote before I saw the program, are given here for the convenience of the readers of Sulekha. Please remember that the producers gave me no idea of the focus of the program when they got in touch with me

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The Taj Mahal Controversies

Posted on Aug 17 2002

The Taj controversies are about the origin of this magnificent seven-storeyed monument. Was the monument erected during 1631-53 AD? Who was its architect? How is the style related to other Mughal buildings? ... Many people consider the controversies about the Taj to be unnecessary. But the controversies have been around for a long time and the Web is giving them even wider currency

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The Burial of Haridas in Lahore

Posted on Jul 13 2002

The West has been aware of the powers of the mind ever since Arrian wrote about the Indian sage, Calanus, in his Anabasis of Alexander. In the modern period, the first person to convince doctors was Haridas, the most famous hatha yogi of the 19th century, whose feats were witnessed and authenticated to the satisfaction of the keenest minds of the day

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A Most Subversive Idea

Posted on Jun 26 2002

The church having retired from the academic debate, the main fight in the academy is between those who believe that biology can determine human behaviour to a great degree and others who claim that for man biology stands superseded by the world of culture, with its own laws of interaction and evolution

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Astrological Predictions

Posted on Jun 17 2002

The year is 1986. The Soviet Union and the United States are locked in a mighty worldwide struggle, with no certainty which side will win. According to the CIA, the Cold War might go on for decades. But that year Hinduism Today, a magazine from Hawaii, publishes three specific forecasts made by G.S. Hiranyappa, a Bangalore astrologer

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The Pakistani Mind

Posted on Jun 5 2002

Pakistanis reject those branches of science which they think might have a 'Hindu' basis. I know of students who have decided not to do physics because Erwin Schrodinger, the creator of quantum physics, was a Vedantist, and because many philosophers have declared the conundrums of quantum theory similar to that of Vedanta

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Is Astrology Useful?

Posted on May 25 2002

...I met participants of a two-week Jyotish workshop run by a well-known American Vedic astrologer. In addition to room and board expenses, each participant had paid $2,500 tuition to the instructor. When asked, they assured me they had got their money's worth

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Man and Beast

Posted on Apr 26 2002

Some may not like the characterisation of the beast within, but I believe that not only the criminal but the rest of us also have an animal lurking within who is kept in check by fear of retribution and the civilising force of culture and habit. The rate of incarceration is different from nation to nation

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A Musical Interlude

Posted on Apr 5 2002

First, a word about the inadequacy of Western classical music. Maceda argues that the successors to Bach, Mozart, Debussy and other geniuses have exhausted their musical vocabulary, and that Western music has become mechanical and lacks a soul. Asian musics, with the tradition of being more centered on the earth and on nature, might provide the clues to further advance

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Spring Meditations

Posted on Mar 22 2002

There are those who argue that more than the combatants in the streets, it is the media and the political elite who are responsible by keeping the pot boiling -- by not finding solutions to the underlying cause of discontent. In the Godhra case, the media may have stoked murderous rage by blaming the victims of the train massacre

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One God, Many Gods

Posted on Jan 31 2002

There are those who insist that there should be no art -- no representation of man, woman, animals, or fantastic beasts, no music, no dance; others who insist that God has a specific name, and if you don't know it then you deserve to be killed; others who demand that one must wear the right shoe first; and others who insist on the singing of specific songs, in a particular fashion

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Sex, Violence and Art

Posted on Jan 2 2002

First time visitors to America can't fail to be struck by the prominence that sex and violence have in the arts, the media, and popular culture. Some see in this signs of decadence; others view it as birth pangs of a new, more humane culture of knowledge, the necessary evil that heralds a new golden age

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The Sun King and Dasharatha

Posted on Dec 14 2001

The story of India's interaction with Egypt is better known, if only to scholars. Two important figures in this story are Dasharatha and the Sun King -- and I don't mean the Suryavanshi king Dasharatha and his son Rama, nor Louis IV, the French Sun King.

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Shri 108 and Other Mysteries

Posted on Nov 27 2001

The Golden Ratio, 1.618033989, is at the basis of stock-market data, petal patterns of flowers, and even the planet periods.

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This Side of Paradise

Posted on Nov 11 2001

And after I had lived in America for several years and become a father, I learned that beauty and aloneness have another side, that of solace and sanctity.

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Masters of Language

Posted on Oct 17 2001

The ideas of the Natya Shastra make intelligible the sculpture, temple architecture, performance, dance and story telling of the culture of east and Southeast Asia.

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The Long War Ahead

Posted on Sep 20 2001

Unless the basic issues that make people susceptible to the terrorist way are addressed, the war to safeguard freedom will be a long one.

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Subhash Kak

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