Welcome to Eternal Path Musings, a weekly newsletter for the modern and curious Hindu, featuring highlights around religious texts, practice, history, politics, people, and ways to better our engagement and personal progress.
First Time? To read previous issues, here’s week one, week two, and week three!
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Reading Highlights
Western Ghat Temples - Where spirituality and ecology meet.
The ICHR Cabal - How the Indian Council for Historical Research was essentially run by a seven-person cabal since India’s independence, and its implications
Major Media and Hinduphobia - A survey in how major media are quick to demonize Hindus but slow/unable to mention atrocities against Hindus
Resource Highlight: Prekshaa’s Mahabharata Series
Prekshaa is an online journal focused on content exploring Indian and Hindu arts, philosophy, culture, and history. They have a number of well-written articles and series which explore both mainstream and obscure topics within these fields in depth.
A vast majority of Hindus learn about the Mahabharata as kids. The epic itihasa holds special significance for Vaishnavite Hindus as it is the setting in which the Lord Krishna and Arjuna have the conversation which becomes the Bhagavad Gita.
Prekshaa has a very well-written, 99-part, series/retelling of the Mahabharata, by famous scholar A. R. Krishna Shastry. The first part is available here and all 99 parts are available at this link (from 99 down to 1). This series is perfect for bedtime reading or for weekly satsang at temples.
Community Highlight: Javanese Hindus
Outside of the Indian subcontinent, the Balinese of Indonesia are arguably the most famous Hindu community. Bali’s temples and culture attract throngs of tourists every year and Balinese largely spearheaded the form that modern Hinduism in Indonesia took through the Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia.
However, there is a community of Hindus in Central and East Java. These areas were Hindu until the late Middle Ages, and are home to beautiful examples of Hindu architecture like the Prambanan Temple (a UNESCO World Heritage Site). The chief of these groups is the Tenggerese, a Hindu group found in the highlands of Java. Tengger Hindu practice is centered around the mountains Bromo and Sumeru. For an in-depth profile of Tengger Hindu practice, Mahavidya has you covered.
Hinduism today has a fantastic profile on this community, available here.
Humor Highlight: Sanskrit Meme
Aesthetic:
