Introduction In Hindu tradition, the story of the world is not told once. It is told in cycles. In each cycle, the divine steps in when the world is in danger. Vaishnava tradition says Vishnu has done this many times. Nine of his best known descents have already come. The tenth is still to come. … Read more
Most people, when they hear the word destruction, think of loss. Something ends. Something is broken. Something is gone. The word carries weight, and almost always negative weight. But in Hindu cosmology, destruction is not the enemy of creation. It is its partner. You cannot have a new beginning without an ending. You cannot plant … Read more
Karma and reincarnation are probably the two most widely recognized concepts that Hinduism has given to the world. They appear in everyday conversation, in self-help books, in pop music lyrics, and in news commentary. And yet for all their popularity, they are also two of the most consistently misunderstood ideas in global religious thought. Most … Read more
There is a feeling that many people carry around without quite being able to name it. A sense that the world is not going in the right direction. That something has been lost. That human beings are capable of so much more than what they actually do, and yet the gap between that potential and … Read more
Every civilisation in human history has looked at the darkness around it and asked whether something greater than human effort will eventually come to set things right. The question is always the same, even when asked in different languages, in different centuries, in different temples and churches and mosques. Are we alone in this? Is … Read more
Most people in the modern world carry an assumption about time so deep they have never thought to question it. Time moves forward. The past was primitive and the future will be better. Science advances. Technology improves. Civilisation progresses. The arrow of history points upward, from the cave to the smartphone, from superstition to reason, … Read more
What Is Hindu Eschatology? Most people who search for end-times beliefs come with a particular picture in their heads. History is a straight line. It began at creation. It will end at a final judgment. God will reward the righteous and punish the wicked, and that will be the last word. Eschatology in Hinduism does … Read more