Welcome to Eternal Path Musings, a newsletter geared towards content that educates, informs, and inspires the Modern Hindu!
To read previous issues, click this link.
This week we feature: a newly translated 1200+ year-old text, Hindus in Siberia, and a Vietnamese pilgrimage site.
Text Highlight: Devala Smriti
User @IndianHistory0 on Twitter, whose finds and work we’ve highlighted before in this newsletter, recently completed a translation of a text called Devala Smriti, which was hitherto untranslated. Recall that smritis, while sometimes used as guidelines for behavior, are not at the level of shruti. He has a great thread on twitter outlining his findings as well as a blogpost (thread link, blog post link).
This text was likely conceived and written down around the time of the Arab invasions of Sindh in the 8th century CE. It is centered on purification of people who were captured by mlecchas (a term for “barbarian”) and in some cases their reconversion to Hinduism. There are seven categories of expiation outlined in the text.
His translation is available on Archive.org for download and we encourage readers to download the text, read it, share its insights, and print for their book/text collections.
Community Highlight: Altai Hindus
For reference the Altai Republic is in the Southern part of Siberia, bordering Kazakhstan, populated largely by Russian, Kazakh, and Altay (a Turkic speaking ethnic group) peoples. The below map outlines the Republic’s geographic position within Russia.
Aesthetic: Cham Pilgrimage
Cham Hindus making the pilgrimage to the Po Klong Shiva Temple, for the Mbang Kate festival, which coincides with Navaratri. (via @porbotialora)
