Yantra , Tantra, Mantra

The Zoroastrians had the privilege of a mighty empire of which ruled the entire Middle East along with parts of South Asia in the form on Achaemenid and Sassanid empires. The latter especially had routinely humiliated the Romans and was an unstoppable force until the Arab invasion. The question remains as to how this highly centralized empire fall to a few thousand horsemen from Arabia while the fractured kingdoms in Bharatavarsha prone to internecine warring manage to thwart their attempts once for all. Here we will concentrate on the Arab attempts rather than the later Turkic Muslims who of course far more successful in making inroads into India as that was a different era (300-400 years later) and all the different social, political, economic,military and religious differences it entailed. Perhaps we need to realize that first and foremost Zoroastrianism like Buddhism places ethics such as non violence on a rather high plane Firstly Zoroastrianism was thoroughly unorigi...

It occurs to me that the only reason Putin has any admirers is because he behaves as how a Western leader would a 100 years ago - assertive, nationalistic ,imperialistic and charismatic. Social conservatives in the West are understandably impressed with his Russian Orthodox inspired stance against the propagation of homosexuality and aberrant values which undermine bourgeois morality. Curiously these same conservatives particularly in America were virulently anti Russian 30 years ago as the latter were viewed as amoral communists out to undermine Western Christendom. To be clear, I don't begrudge Russians for admiring Putin. It is natural for them to crave respect rather ridicule and degradation which is what occurred in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse and despair of Russian society. You had respectable grandmothers selling their family heirlooms on the street, wholesome mild mannered boys were reduced to thuggery and beautiful, sweet...

Looks like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The zombie like Vadakayil followers including Enigma and this anonymous fool only imbibe all the negative aspects of the captains personality and none of the(few) positive. I mean look at this amith Mishra   January 28, 2015 at 5:15 PM hi capt is japan still occupied nation i mean The "patriot" Japanese are technically still an occupied people as U.S maintains troops there and dictates its foreign policy. Not to mention Japanese women go out of their way to reject Japanese men and couple with American males be they tourists or GIs   Of course our unbalanced captain never gives a straight answer as that's not his style and goes off in a bizarre tangent because...PERCEPTION!   Anyway where did I see those claims before about Japan ,its patriotism and their women. Oh yes... here ( scroll to the section in bold )   ysv_rao October 27, 2014 at 9:15 AM I suppose this is how Vadakayil supporter...

We are talking about an incredibly courageous, resourceful, resilient and patriotic individual who by defying stereotypes and conventions had a fall out with Gandhi(then at the zenith of his influence), gave the British the slip under house arrest in Calcutta, travelled to Peshawar in disguise ,travelled to Kabul, disguised himself as an Italian, met with Adolf Hitler , raised an Indian army from scratch ,fought the Allied powers against overwhelming odds, dealt with fractitious politics with the Axis powers who were ambivalent about him and participated in submarine warfare. And his death remained an unresolved mystery for the next fifty years complete with near mystical sightings of him in Japan and Taiwan. Surely you would assume about movie about his incredible individual would be something like Patton meets Das Boot and then some.But alas, the project fell into the hands of Shyam Benegal and as the result the feature is as exciting ...

"Give me your tired , your poor ,your huddled masses, yearning to break free" says the inscription at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty. An appealing sentimental advertisement for the open heartedness of the American people. The problem is that is not quite what the founders envisioned and they were not bigots for doing so. It was based on a poem composed by a socialist Emma Lazarus.There were many caveats in the founding documents, one of which being the Preamble to the Constitution which states "promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity , do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States ..." Posterity can mean many things but most likely here it refers to kin or blood descendants. Now to be sure, the Founders were an eclectic and somewhat eccentric lot. Benjamin Franklin didn't care for Germans and preferred Jewish to Catholic immigrants. But in general they preferred Northern Europea...

I must say I am very concerned about the near juvenile level of meanderings on Justice Katju's blog. Is this a hard headed individual with decades of legal experience at high level under belt?It seems more like the output of reasonably bright but a bit wet behind the years political science college junior. Judge(heh) for yourself What is worrying is that he thinks highly of Rosseau. The godfather of modern liberalism. Also our friendly neighborhood captain is a frequent poster spammer on his comments board. The captain is a fan of his seemingly. That about says it all.

I wished to correct the coarse and degrading(to women) explanation of Karva Chauth and pati vrata. I post below Kunal Singh's take on this matter. Mr Singh was a prolific Indian American poster on Hindu theology and history in soc.culture.indian newsgroups.Many if not most of  his posts are available in deja.com. His knowledge and understanding of the Vedas which stemmed from an unbiased and independent mindset seemed unparalled. He is responsible for my taking great pride in my heritage and encouraging to learn more about Vedic culture and looking at our religion with a fresh pair of eyes. I will be posting more of his observations here Meaning of Pati Vrata   Most people's definition or understanding of a 'pati vrata nari' comes from badly made Hindi films where a woman is holding her husband's feet while he kicks her repeatedly insisting that she will never leave him.  But then such popular interpretations of 'pati vrata' are easily contradict...