AbstractIn this article, I call attention to the Yogavāsiṣṭha’s depiction of Rāma’s existential crisis and Vasiṣṭha’s various methods for resolving it. However, I illuminate this crisis and Rāma’s lengthy monologue by turning to an altogether different frame of reference: Albert Camus’s philosophy of the absurd as developed in his absurd-oriented works, from The Myth of Sisyphus to The Rebel. Arguing that Rāma’s existential crisis is strongly reminiscent of Camus’s awakening to life’s absurdity, and that his monologue may be considered among the most successful meditations on this predicament, I examine not only Rāma’s quandary but also what the Yogavāsiṣṭha deems the ultimate response to it. In this way, I throw into sharp relief two contrasting responses to the absurd condition in human life that effectively challenge one another. Considering some of the Indian classical works, such as the Yogavāsiṣṭha, in this light suggests that they too acknowledge the absurd as their starting point and, at least to a certain extent, develop doctrines that aid their practitioners in facing it. Nevertheless, the Yogavāsiṣṭha also enables us to develop our thinking about absurdity and expand the discussion of constructive responses to the reality of the absurd.

AbstractThis research brings to light a paradoxical phenomenon of mummification and veneration of “whole-body relic” of the ascetic whose remains are enshrined in a vṛndāvana. The term vṛndāvana is normally attributed to the garden where Krsna and the gopis danced in eternal bliss. However, the relic of the ascetic head of a sectarian monastery is termed as vṛndāvana as well. There are numerous relic memorials in the sectarian Vedānta Vaisnava Dvaita monastery and its branches, where it is worshipped particularly in the state of Karnataka. This paper is an investigation into the rationale for the naming of the whole-body relic memorial as vṛndāvana. Such an attribution in term to a memorial and icon of an ascetic head and a transformation of its meaning is a conundrum. I argue that the rationale for such an adoption lies in the geographical, mythological, metaphysical, and philosophical connections between Krsna’s vṛndāvana and that of the ascetic. The sources that I have used in order to comprehend the traditional concepts and historical context include ancient Pūraṇas, archeological and artistic evidence, bhakti poetry, and discussions with living ascetics. This multidisciplinary exploration reveals the inventive genius of Dvaita monasteries and the sacred interchangeable concept-status and sacredness, dead and living between the ascetic and God.

AbstractThis paper analyzes the construction of Indian society in retellings of the Rāmāyaṇa published in India between 2010 and 2020. I focus on the concepts of caste, class, and mythological species. Through discourse analysis of a corpus of retellings, nonfiction works by the same authors, and comparisons with secondary literature, I show how specific castes, classes, and species are assimilated to one another and contrasted with competing identities. I also show how such representations define positive traits of Indianness and contrast them with the opposite negative traits of Otherness. I conclude that, despite differences in style, the retellers imagine an ancient pre-colonial India imbued with the modern neoliberal values of freedom of choice and social mobility.

AbstractThis comparative theological article explores Meher Baba’s written Vedāntic teaching he once called “the yoga of ‘you go’” within a cosmological scheme he named “The Divine Theme,” which features in his books God Speaks and The Nothing and the Everything. Following his Vedāntic master, Upasni Maharaj and Sri Rāmakṛṣṇa, Meher Baba innovated on what scholars call the Yoga Advaita traditions. The important features of these lineages that impact his version are mental annihilation or manonāśa and the destruction of impressions or vāsanākṣaya (what he called “unwinding saṃskāras”) in order to liberate the soul while living in a body or jīvanmukti. Further, I map the total arc of Meher Baba’s work and how it fits historically within the Yoga Advaita lineages as they developed from the tenth century CE to the present. There are two basic sides to his work: his written teaching, which consolidates what one commentator calls “the ascendant path of return” to the nondual Self, and his active ministry, which I can only introduce here, which charts new territory for the future in what this commentator calls “the descendant path” of God-realization. I also constructively explore the ways that in The Nothing and the Everything the story of Gaṇeśa’s decapitation and recapitation is used to express, in narrative form, the philosophical treatment in God Speaks. In terms of salvation, Meher Baba’s teaching yields a theology of religious diversity I call “exhaustivism.” This refers to an “exhaustive” scope of learning literally all there is to learn in creation as each form in creation, including every kind of religious possibility in the human phase of reincarnation, a use of energy in each stage of the cosmic growth process that is “exhausting,” and finally, it refers to a difficult final stage of return to the divine that is marked by safely disposing of the saṃskāric “exhaust” generated in this evolution. Lastly, I offer some topics for further study in his Divine Theme that include the nature of human life and death, as well as the role of religions, God-realized masters or “Man-Gods,” and Meher Baba himself as the “God-Man” or Avatāra.

This paper deals with the psychological trauma caused by death and how Hindu culture responds to that trauma. Every culture has a grieving mechanism to ease the pain and suffering brought on by death. In this paper, the author presents his personal experience with death of his parents and his best friend’s families who died of COVID-19. To cope with the loss that death involves, all cultures have some kind of death ceremonies—some are more elaborate than others. Hindu death ceremonies are rooted in texts that guide the grieving one through various steps to keep the bereaved family members preoccupied with ritualistic activities that give them no time to think about the loss. The preta karma is one of the Hindu samskāras related to death that this paper goes into detail to argue that it is designed to ease the bereavement process, a coping mechanism invented before Western psychotherapy came into practice in the nineteenth century.

AbstractStarting from the allegation of the Pure Land tradition “as a deviant form of Buddhism,” the paper looks at non-dualist and dualist features in the teachings of the Japanese medieval Pure Land master Shinran Shōnin (1173–1263). It is suggested that Shinran should be understood within the Mahāyāna framework of the two truths or realities (satyadvaya). Shinran retains both perspectives in a paradoxical way implicating that non-dualism needs to be realized in a spiritual practice with strong dualist aspects. Non-dual ultimate reality manifests itself within conventional reality as the all-embracing compassionate “other-power” (tariki) that evokes an existential attitude of radical entrusting (shinjin) thereby evoking a liberative transformation “naturally” (jinen).