BharataSamskriti

  Viramitrodaya Samskaraprakasha; On Upanayana of Women Preface : This is only a part of the Viramitrodaya, and that to part of the specific chapter. I have translated it for the sake of having it on the blog. In the future, I will write a more comprehensive article on the right of Vedic study for women. I will be quoting from the Viramitrodaya, and to make my future article more streamlined, I will keep the translation seperate. My translation here is not perfect, so I hacve my personal notes in parenthesis. 

 Hitopadesha Book 3 Vigraha (War) This is the third book of Hitopadesha, which concerns war (Vigraha).  Hitopadhesa is a collection of animal fables that is meant to teach social ethics ( niti ). The stories are passed down from generation to generation before commited to writing. The text I am about to give you consist of Sanskrit shlokas which are essentially proverbs. It turns out that the Hitopadesha is not an actual full on Sanskrit text like the Itihasas or Puranas. Rather it is told as one pleases and these Sandkrit proverbs are cleverly scattered through out them. In this chaoter on war, the text gives proverbs on whom to wage war with and how a king should wage war. The translation are by mine with some outside help. Correct me on the translations if they are wrong. This is the link to the original source for the Sanskrit: https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/hitopadesha-sanskrit/d/doc277173.html

 Reform Due to Other Religions  This article is made with a view of accusations that Hinduism reformed itself because of British Colonialism or Christian missionary activity or Islamic evangelism, etc. Yes, there were certain practices Hindus did that were stopped in large part due to these foreign religions, but so what? That doesn't collapse Hinduism as a whole? You can forgo these practices and keep the essence of Hinduism. In my future blog posts, I will explain how social evils like Sati or Untouchability, or even Child Marraige is not fundemental to Hinduism. The reason I say this is because this isn't the first time Hinduism got reformed by another religion. Case in point: Buddhism.  Most Hindus know that animal sacrifices were done in the ancient past, and interestingly enough, they have Vedic sanction, which actually will strengthens my point. Now as most of us know, Buddhism played an active role in the discontinuation of animal sacrifices and the popularization...

 What is Anagolous to the Smritis? This will be a very brief blog.  A lot of traditional Hindus believe that the Smritis (Dharmasashtras and Prayogasashtras) are as if they are the word of God, or as serious as the Vedas.  R emember that the literal definition of a Smritis are actaully recollections of traditions and social customs passed down from time immemorial. text called Manusmriti is simply a recollection the tradition of laws and teachings that trace back to somwone Manu. And critics of Hinduism place them on par with the Bible and the Sharia laws. And this brings us to an important matter to discuss. When we try to judge other religions by their scriptures, you have to take into account that those scriptures don't function the same way as the scriptures of your religion do. While the Smritis so have a theological component to them and are on a higher pedastal than say the Sharia law, it is wrong to assume that they are a practical end all be all.  In actuali...