Foundations of Indian Culture by R. Ganesh

For a quite some time I have been searching for some lucid material on the foundations of Indian culture, the so called sanatan dharma, that can be understood by everyone. Finally, I found these 18 hours lectures by R. Ganesh which are amazing, because they are very easy to understand and at the same time covers most aspects of the foundations of sanatan dharam in an intimate setting (conversationally).

Gandhi and the Political Enlightenment – Akeel Bilgrami

Natya Shastra by Bharat Gupta

Lecture on Natya Shastra, an ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts, encompassing theatre, dance and music.

More here

What Europe can learn from India

“While Europe is advanced in many ways, Dr Thomas Bak – a neurologist and cognitive neuroscientist of international repute, from School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, Edinburgh – lays down many areas where India has to teach the world and what Europe in particular can learn from India.”

Thomas Paine and Modern Liberalism

Talk by Susan Jacoby

Talk by John Nichols

Debt: The First 5000 Years

David Graeber in his book, Debt: The First Five Thousand  Years, explores the history of money and credit, and how societies have been divided into creditors and debtors. Here is an interview on the same topic.

Changing Interpretations of Indian History – Romila Thapar

A very interesting talk given by Indian historian, Romilar Thapar, on the changing interpretation of Indian history.

Another interesting conversation can be found here.

(only audio)

Pi Day

It is 3.14 and today is Pi Day.  Wikipedia tells me that people started celebrating this day only since 1989. That seems too late to me, given that we know about this mathematical constant for at least few thousand years now! It is hard to know when and where exactly this number first appeared in our ancient history. Apart from Egypt and Babylonia, this constant also appeared in the ancient Indian texts. In particular, the Vedic text śatapatha brāhmana (roughly means exegesis of a Hundred Paths) quotes this number to be around 3.139, which is very close to the real value. A thoroughly referenced article is here.

For now I can think of the best way to celebrate this day: Eat a delicious pie while watching the movie Pi.