Gayatri mantra

Published on 27th January, 2023, in The Hindu. Mantra is a carefully crafted sound formula that has the power to invoke and anchor divine energy for the benefit of humans: this is what Hindus, Buddhists and Jains believe. Rig Veda is the oldest collection of mantras: 10,000 verses that were brought together like flowers to make 1,000 songs-garlands ( suktas), placed in 10 chapter-baskets ( mandalas) It was compiled over 3,000 years ago, in the Punjab-Haryana region, and orally transmitted meticulously by men who came to be known as Brahmins, who were so focussed on the pronunciation, that over time only specialists bothered with the ..

Published on 16th September, 2018, in Mid-day. A dramatic shift happened in Buddhism roughly 500 years after the historical Buddha. This dramatic shift is the rise of what is called Mahayana Buddhism or the Great Vehicle of Buddhism. This thought perhaps emerged in Kashmir and Afghanistan and spread to China, where it was patronised by the local kings, especially the Tang dynasty in the 7th century, and eventually spread to Japan. The fundamental difference between Mahayana Buddhism and the older school of Buddhism is that it had a far more optimistic view of life. The older school, or the 'Theravada' school or the 'Abhidhamma' school, ..