Hindu texts

Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges was removed from the origin of The Bhagavad-Gita by thousands of years and miles, yet his works bear remarkable similarities to The Gita’s teachings. Specifically, Borges’ short stories, “The Immortal” and “The Library of Babel,” reflect and parallel the teachings of the sacred Hindu text, The Bhagavad-Gita, namely, its assertion that desire creates suffering and inhibits the pursuit of knowledge, and its perspective that divinity and spirituality can be found through language. One of the core concepts of The Bhagavad-Gita is the belief that desire begets suffering. This is exemplified in The Gita, when Lord Krishna states, “since he knows that discipline / means unbinding the bonds of suffering, he should…

The Bhagavad-Gita is a rather small section in the overall massive text of the Mahabharata. However, the size of this passage had no effect on its ability to influence. The likes of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Annie Besant, and Mohandas K. Gandhi were all inspired or influenced by this text. The Bhagavad-Gita wouldn’t be the inspiring text is it today if it hadn’t been influenced by many other religious texts that came before it. The Bhagavad-Gita takes ideas from other religious…

Throughout India's rich history, there existed a period of time in which people were organized into different social groups at birth. The organization that was used is identified as the Caste system and its roots can be traced all the way back to early Hindu texts. One text that specifically shows signs of the system is The Bhagavad Gita. This ancient Hindu text is regarded by many as the Hindu bible and its extremely influential in the forms of modern day Hinduism. The Bhagavad Gita today, is…

The Bhagavad-Gita is an ancient Hindu scripture that encompasses seven hundred verses and conveys how we are attached to the pleasures, desires, and duties that distract us from our true self. Slightly older, the Daodejing is an ancient Chinese text that is comprised of eighty-one brief chapters. As the fundamental text of Taoism, the Daodejing expresses how we must be in a state of “Wei Wei,” in order to be synchronized with the ever-changing universe. The author of the Daodejing was a sage…

Hindu is a pagan religion espoused by the people of India and Nepal, was formed through a long march from the fifth century BC to the present. It is a religion of spiritual and moral values as well as legal and regulatory principles taken several gods, according to related works, for every area of the god, and every act or phenomenon there a God for it. There is no specific founder for Hindu religion and most of their books they don’t know who the authors, the religion as well as the books have…

form, in hopes to gain nirvana to Brahman (Humanities I, 74). Karma can be altered through natural and moral decisions and actions. Hinduism teaches morality of the soul, but not individual or personal morality. This has to do with the gradual rejection of the material world, as personality is part of the illusion and gets in the way of gaining the unity that many Hindu’s seek(Humanities I, 73). Through the belief of reincarnation, the soul of an individual who did not reach the goal of…

Eastern and western religions are used as an ethical basis for societies and individual believers to adhere to. In understanding this ethical influence of religions, it is essential to understand the fundamental views of time and the afterlife according to each religious tradition. In the following pages, I will analyze and compare the Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, and Christian teachings of afterlife, time, and the effects of these teachings on religion-based ethics. Hinduism, founded by Aryans in…

Ramakrishna, was a Hindu religious leader and a founder of religious thought that became the Ramakrishna Order. Ramakrishna also known as Gadadhar Chatterji or Gadadhar Chattopadhyaya claimed to have had the same experiences as brahman and he is often referred to as the first Hindu saint (“Ramakrishna”). Ramakrishna and his disciples were the first followers of the religious thought ramakrishna order. The Ramakrishna order follows unselfish work, love of god, knowledge, and awakening of…

In Hinduism, the concepts of dharma and karma are essential components of the religion, and they are invariably interlinked, both with each other, and the structure of the Hindu community, known as the Caste System. The term dharma is problematic in translation, with a range of suggestions such as ‘law,’ ‘duty,’ and ‘religion’ (Flood, G. 2004, p.52). The term, in short, refers to ritual and moral behaviours which are necessary to uphold to maintain cosmic order, or rta. (Flood, G. 2004, p.53;…

With the emergence of Bhaktism in South Asia, Hindus started to show their love for Hindu deities through poetry and other forms of art. Bhakti is an intense emotional love for a personal god. It favors an immediate experience of the divine. This trend leads to the creation of major Hindu devotional groups: Shaivism, Vaishnavism, and Shaktism. All three major groups are unified within the realm of bhakti/devotion; however, each group is distinguishable through their belief system, traditions,…