CHARVAKA DESK
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Striving for Just Society
Ram Puniyani The verdict of magistrate Dr. Jyotsna Yagnik, sentencing Dr. Maya Kodnani, Babu Bajrangi and others to long imprisonment (31 August, 2012) has come as a big relief to the victims of Naroda Patiya, for whom it was like return of Eid to their houses. Naroda Patiya had witnessed horrific carnage and acts of rape in…
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Was Veer Savarkar Really “Veer”?
R.A Jahagirdar For generations the Hindutvavadis have venerated Vinayak Sawarkar as Veer Savarkar. The writings of Savarkar, especially in Marathi, show great valour and heroic sentiments. In language that is both beautiful and brave, the writings of Savarkar – in prose and poetry – display heroic qualities but of Hinduism. Savarkar wrote an essay, “Hindutva”…
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The Social Outlook of the Cārvāka/Lokāyata: A Reconstruction
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya The Cārvāka/Lokāyata school of philosophy flourished in India in or around the eighth century CE and was a living system till the twelfth or thirteenth century. Thereafter it seems to have vanished into the blue, without leaving any trace whatsoever. It was the most uncompromising philosophical system that ever appeared in India. It refused to accept the notions…
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Abraham Kovoor’s Case Diary: A Religio-Maniac’s Threat
Abraham Kovoor (Selections from the Writings of Abraham Kovoor) On 25th January, 1969, the following challenge from an anonymous religious fanatic appeared in The Times Weekender:- “CHALLENGE TO MR. K. To Face the Unknown Terrors of an Unseen World? Abraham T. Kovoor, rationalist, has from time to time over the years laughed to scorn all…
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Swayambhu: Making Idols Appear by themselves from Earth!
B Premanand Experiment: 55 Effect: Producing Ganga water from hands or beard. Props: Cloth or sponge dipped in water. Method: Hide the cloth or sponge where you sit. Show your hands empty and palm the sponge or cloth. Press the hands together, or with the beard, and the water in the sponge or cloth is squeezed…
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Bangladeshis in India: Myth and Reality
Ram Puniyani The Assam violence between Bodos and Muslims, alleged by many to be Bangldeshi infiltrators, has a long chain of repercussions. The number of dead is nearly eighty. Killings are continuing and the people who have been displaced have been over 4 lakhs. There is no exact statistics to tell us how many of…
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Riot with Many Contrasts
Ram Puniyani India has been the victim of divisive-sectarian violence from more than a century, more particularly after the British implemented their policy of ‘divide and rule’ and encouraged communal formations to flourish. These communal formations, Muslim and Hindu both, in turn spread hatred against the ‘other religious community’ and violence in the name of…
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Abraham Kovoor’s Case Diary: Rifai Ratheeb – Unravelling a Muslim Miracle!
Abraham Kovoor (Selections from the Writings of Abraham Kovoor) My interest in Rathib ceremony was first aroused when I read a reference to it in the book “Far Off Things” by Dr. R.L. Spittel. In that book he mentions how he, in the company of Messrs. R.H. Basset and J.R. G. Bantock, witnessed a Rathib…
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Uddalaka and Yajnavalkya: Materialism & Idealism
Walter Ruben The problem of when and how philosophy in India began is of great importance. In 1954, I started the theory that the first Indian philosopher was Uddalaka Aruni in Ch. Up. vi.1 According to my interpretation, he was a hylozoist, which means a primitive materialist. Such an interpretation must provoke criticism, because it…
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Abraham Kovoor’s Case Diary: Lady Wonder: A Mind-Reading Horse!
Abraham Kovoor In Richmond, Virginia, one Mrs. C.D. Fonda owned a horse named ‘Lady Wonder’ reputed to possess psychic powers. In the journal of ‘Abnormal and Social Psychology’, Volume 23 (1929), on page 449-466 there appeared an article headed “An investigation of a Mind-reading Horse” by Dr. J.B. Rhine and Dr. Lousia E. Rhine of…
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Abraham Kovoor’s Case Diary: Science of Charms!
Abraham Kovoor (Selections from the Writings of Abraham Kovoor) “What really are manthras? They are a certain co-ordination of words, sounds and phrases which, when chanted a required number of times, harmonize to produce an ethereal vibration. This vibration causes ripples in the Pancha Maha Bhutha (five elements). As all living beings are composed of…
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Status of Minorities: A Tale of Two Neighbors
Ram Puniyani Pakistan and India, these neighbors got Independence in the mid August 1947. Today 55 years after the Independence where do these two major countries of the subcontinent stand vis a vis their religious minorities, is the question which we need to answer to ensure a better and more democratic area. On August 11, 2012, a mob of…
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Lokāyata Materialism: Classification of Source Materials
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Very much like the Pre-Socratic philosophical works, the basic texts of the Cārvāka system are lost. Only a few fragments — passages of varying length — have come down to us. Even then all of them are not genuine, as they seem to offer contrary points of view. Earlier scholars from H. T.…
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Atheist Centre to Celebrate Birth Centenary of Saraswathi Gora
We reproduce a communication received from Atheist Centre, Vijayawada which is celebrating the Birth Centenary of Saraswathi Gora on September 28 – 29, 2012. Saraswathi Gora Centenary International Conference Atheist Centre is celebrating Saraswathi Gora’s Birth Centenary by organizing an international conference on the theme, ‘Be Bold Be Human: March towards Equality’, at Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh,…
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Abraham Kovoor’s Case Diary: Apparitions
Abraham Kovoor In an article on Sai Baba Dr. T. Nallainathan, President of the Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba Manram, wrote in the Tamil daily Thinakaran (4.11.1966) thus:- “A yogi is capable of leaving his physical body in one place and appearing in a distant place in his spiritual body. It was like this that…
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Christian Miracles: How Christianity Came To India
B Premanand About one thousand nine hundred and odd years ago, when St. Thomas visited Kerala, he saw Kerala Brahmins (Namboodiri Brahmins) performing shraadha ceremony. He enquired as to what they were doing throwing water upwards. They replied that they were sending water to the Pithrus, the dead ancestors. St. Thomas smiled and said that…
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Preventing Sectarian Violence: Role of State
Ram Puniyani The horrific violence in Assam has once again brought our attention to the malaise of communal violence in India. In the recent times one has witnessed such a violence in parts of UP, (Kosi Kalan, Barailly, Pratapgarh) and also in Gopalgargh in Rajasthan. In most of these acts of violence one has to…
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Cārvāka/ Lokāyata: Some Common Misrepresentations Examined
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya (a) Did the Carvakas Refuse to Admit Inference? In the Indian philosophical context, besides the issues of rebirth, afterlife and otherworld, the instruments of cognition (prammana) are considered to be of seminal importance. The Carvakas are generally branded as a philosophical school that accepted perception as the only means of knowledge. But there…
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The Community of Reason, a Self-Assessment and a Manifesto
Massimo Pigliucci My experience (anecdotal, yes, but ample and varied) has been that there is quite a bit of un-reason within the Community of Reason (henceforth, CoR). This takes the form of more or less widespread belief in scientific, philosophical and political notions that don’t make much more sense than the sort of notions we…
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Why I Left Islam
Ali Sina I am often asked, Why I left Islam? As absurd as it may be, some Muslims cannot even allow themselves to think that leaving Islam is an option, or even possible. They rather think that those who leave Islam are paid Jewish agents than accept the fact that people have freedom to think…
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Lokayata Darsana and a Comparative Study with Greek Materialism – Part I
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya What is Materialism? Before proceeding to details, it is necessary to understand what, in the philosophical context, materialism stands for. George Stack has recently defined materialism as follows: Materialism is a set of theories which holds that all entities and processes are composed of—or are reducible to—matter, material forces or physical processes. All…
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A Sketch of Indian Materialism
Giuseppe Tucci It will seem strange enough that among the multiplicity of Indian philosophical schools and systems I have chosen as the subject of my paper the Carvaka – or Lokayatamata – which as a particular school has disappeared long ago from India, and which was so greatly looked down upon that according to Brahminical…
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Assam Violence: A Wake up call
Ram Puniyani The raging violence in Assam’s Bodo Territorial Autonomous Districts, Khokrajhar and Chirang (July 2012) has shaken the conscience of the nation. The Prime Minister has rushed to the area and called it as a Kalank, a shame for the nation. He also reprimanded the Chief Minister from his own party for the violence.…
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Play with thy Neighbour: Indo-Pak Cricket Series
Ram Puniyani There has been mixed response to the BCCI’s decision to host Pakistan Cricket Team in December-January for a limited-over’s series (July 2012). Ex cricketers like Sunil Gavaskar and Kirti Azad are critical of this decision of BCCI, while many others on both sides of the divide have welcomed this idea. Imran Khan, ex-cricketer turned…