Biography of Jayatīrtha, 14th century Sanskrit scholar and commentator.

On Hindu philosophy and Sanskrit semantics; transcript of lectures delivered at the Sampurnanand Sanskrit Vishvavidyalaya, 1980.

Contributed seminar papers on Kashmir Śaivism and Buddhist philosophy, held from March 24, 2012 to March 26, 2012, organized by Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapith, New Delhi.

Transcript of papers on Jaina epistemology at a national seminar titled "Bhāratīya Cintana meṃ Syādvāda' held on 28 March 2011 organised by Deaprtment of Jaina Philosophy, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, New Delhi.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Epistemologies and the Limitations of Philosophical Enquiry: Doctrine in Madhva VedantaChristopher BartleyEpistemologies and the Limitations of Philosophical Enquiry: Doctrine in Madhva Vedanta. By Deepak Sarma. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005. Pp. xiii + 101.Epistemologies and the Limitations of Philosophical Enquiry: Doctrine in Madhva Vedanta, by Deepak Sarma, purports to discuss the possibility of philosophical evaluation of a tradition of thought and practice, in this case the Dvaita (...) school of Vedānta to which the author belongs, that upholds a "strict insider epistemology." (Although the work bears the subtitle "Doctrine in Madhva Vedanta," for information about beliefs and epistemology the reader would be better advised to consult Deepak Sarma's An Introduction to Madhva Vedanta [Ashgate, 2003].)The present reviewer is not privy to the "insider-outsider debate" apparently current in some centers of Religious Studies, and I state at the outset that I cannot see what all the fuss is about. If one is not a member of a private club, one probably doesn't care about what goes on within its walls. If a tradition is closed to nonmembers, successfully concealing its beliefs and practices (in the manner of some versions of Freemasonry), that's the end of the matter. If texts are really not accessible (p. 6), the activities that the philosopher can pursue are not just "severely restricted"! If what a tradition involves is public (even allowing for esoteric elements revealed only to initiates and for rituals of restricted participation), there are still "outsiders," but they are not debarred from appreciation, discussion, and critical philosophical [End Page 126] analysis of its truth claims. Albeit a middle-aged male member of the Church of England, I can understand (in the conventional sense of the term, which is the only one it has) the Dvaitin adoption of the unusual reading "atat tvam asi" (Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7 et seq.).What is meant by "insider epistemology"? Sarma says:[T]here are two kinds of communities that uphold insider epistemologies. One is centred around experiential data and claims that outsiders can neither know nor understand what it is like to be an insider. The other simply does not permit outsiders to access root texts. Though actual communities are likely to lie somewhere between these two, or combine elements from each, this bivalent taxonomy is useful as a heuristic device [sic]. (p. 9)The Madhvas, insofar as they deny noninitiates access to some of their basic texts, belong to the second group. (Members of the first are what can politely be called eccentric.) Madhvāchārya, the founder, prohibited outsiders from reading certain texts and from learning from teachers. These restrictions on eligibility, it is claimed, "insulated his position from criticism and evaluation."Even if outsiders' views of core Madhva school doctrines are deemed irrelevant by insiders, Sarma's assertion that Madhvāchārya's views are immune to rational consideration by people who do not belong to the same tradition will astonish anyone familiar with medieval Vedāntic debates. The second chapter describes the historical context in which Madhvāchārya's "insider epistemology" was established. The problem here for the author's insistence on some particularly exigent sort of Dvaitin exclusivity is that there is nothing strikingly un-Vedāntic about that tradition's claims where eligibility for hearing and understanding Scripture (shruti) is concerned. As the author makes clear, Vedāntic theological enquiry, the systematic elucidation of the Upanishads and Brahma-sūtras in the context of dialectic between rival schools, was the preserve of males born into the higher three castes who could understand Sanskrit. This constraint is sometimes intensified by sectarianism, where cultic initiation is additional to caste-based qualification. In the latter respect, the Madhvas are comparable to Shrī Vaishnavas and sundry Shaiva cults. But none of this impeded a plethora of rational disputation! Had the Madhva school prohibited outsiders from "accessing its texts altogether," argument could never have gotten off the ground. But it certainly did. Moreover, the restrictions on eligibility or qualification (adhikara) to study Scripture amount to the claim that there are moral and intellectual preconditions for a proper understanding of some subject matter. At its most... (shrink)

Contributed seminar papers presented at Seminar on the subject of Siddhantavada, organized by Department of Nyayavaisheshika, Shri Lalbahadur Shastri Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, New Delhi in 2016.

The story of Indian philosophy.--Basic tenets of Indian philosophy.--Testimony in Indian philosophy.--Hinduism.--Hinduism and Hindu philosophy.--The Jain religion.--Some riddles in the behavior of Gods and sages in the epics and the Purānas.--Autobiography of a yogi.--Jainism.--Svapramanatva and Svapraksatva: an inconsistency in Kumārila's philosophy.--The nature of Buddhi according to Sānkhya-Yoga.--The individual in social thought and practice in India.--Professor Zaehner and the comparison of religions.--A comparison between the Eastern and Western portraits of man in our time.

The idea with which Rabindranath Tagore established Visva-Bharati is different from that of the grounding of Immanuel Kant's "university with condition" or that of Jacques Derrida's "university without condition." The thinking that finally materialized into Visva-Bharati, or rather the "fore-thinking," is an uncanny complex of aesthetics, politics, topolitics, pedagogy, and Tagorean philosophy of the "home" and the "world." There is neither the "conflict" of Kant's essay _The Conflict of the Faculties_ nor Derrida's absolute radicality and radical absoluteness: there is neither (...) Kant's "freedom of the Enlightenment" nor Derrida's "freedom from the Enlightenment." Ranjan Ghosh captures this so-called dichotomy engrossingly in his book _Aesthetics, Politics, Pedagogy and Tagore_. In Tagore's idea of university, we find a "traffic," an exchange of some sort, between nativism and cosmopolitanism, colonial and postcolonial, singularity and plurality, root and rootlessness. Ghosh not only controls the "traffic" in his work but also gives his close reading of the institution and, most importantly, the underlying principle that led to the establishment of the institution. Visva-Bharati was not built upon the principles of a modern university. It did not have the moral responsibility of following the already established norms and regulations or the society at large but had what Ghosh calls a sense of "no-responsibility." Tagore's idea of university was thus built upon the "no-responsibility" toward the old Eurocentric model of pedagogy and the "responsibility" toward creating a new and more reflective model. He employed one set of responsibilities to "counter" another set of responsibilities. This article in a way is a reimagining, a commentary on Ghosh's work on the pedagogical aspects of Visva-Bharati. (shrink)

This paper describes the design of a control and management network (orderwire) for a mobile wireless Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network. This mobile wireless ATM network is part of the Rapidly Deployable Radio Network (RDRN). The orderwire system consists of a packet radio network which overlays the mobile wireless ATM network, each network element in this network uses Global Positioning System (GPS) information to control a beamforming antenna subsystem which provides for spatial reuse. This paper also proposes a novel Virtual (...) Network Configuration (VNC) algorithm for predictive network configuration. A mobile ATM Private Network-Network Interface (PNNI) based on VNC is also discussed. Finally, as a prelude to the system implementation, results of a Maisie simulation of the orderwire system are discussed. (shrink)

This volume envisions new methodologies for teaching, learning and management of stakeholders in the field of education The book walks us through the observations and experiences the author had during 18 years of teaching at higher education institution with special reference to teacher education. It also examines newly developed theories proposed in the book, Role model theory, theory of contribution, theory of success, Freedom Expression and Creativity approach and generic teaching model in education. The book also includes complementary suggestions for (...) UNESCO terms of teachers' status and rights. The book will be of interest to teachers, students and researchers of B.Ed. and M.Ed. education, sociology, psychology and development studies. It will also be useful for policymakers, academicians, curriculum developers, teachers training courses, and professionals working in the field of education. (shrink)

There are at least three kinds of structure we find in Islamic socio-cultural phenomena. First is the binary oppositional structure, which has two kinds of variations : hierarchical and non-hierarchical. Second is the threefold structure which has three kinds of variations, the hierarchical, the non-hierarchical and the triangle, third is the fivefold structure. Those structures are neither material nor spiritual. They are above the material, the behavioral, as well as the spiritual phenomena, but they are manifested, expressed in material, behavioral (...) and spiritual phenomena. They are thus the transcendental structures in Islam. Are those structures universal? Can we find them in other religions? To answer these questions we need to analyze data from other religions. (shrink)

Self-discipline, ethics, character, and philosophy in Hindu poetry; criticism to Bhagavad Gita, Nītīśāstra, Sāra-samuccaya, etc.

Acknowledged in 2016 by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, yoga today can be said to impact three primary sets of stakeholders: global practitioners and professional instructors of studio-based postural yoga; academic scholars investigating yoga’s historical, textual, and cultural life; and traditional culture bearers within established guru lineages in South Asia and the diaspora. These groups are not mutually exclusive, exhaustive, or homogeneous, but there are often significant cleavages between them—particularly in the production and dissemination of authoritative knowledge (...) about yoga’s premodern “roots.” This essay investigates how practitioners of studio-based postural yoga are currently able to access new scholarship on premodern yoga traditions, and the extent to which specialized Sanskrit language training may offer practitioners a pathway for more active participation in this knowledge mobilization process. We suggest that a kinesthetic approach, in which Sanskrit pedagogy is juxtaposed with physical yoga practice in the studio, might further enhance this process, leading to a more equitable engagement between scholars, studio-based practitioners, and traditional culture bearers of yoga. (shrink)