Editor: Prabuddha Bharata, the magazine from the Ramakrishna Mission came out with a special issue in January 2016 titled ‘Reflections on Tantra’. Esamskriti is uploading select articles from this masterpiece issue. If you like to download the entire issue (one with brown cover) Click here

Excerpts from article – “I use the word ‘hinduism’ in a broad sense to cover all periods of its development right from Vedic times. Though the religion came to acquire the name ‘Hinduism’ very much later during British times in India, the roots of Hinduism as it evolved through the ages go back to Vedic times; it is therefore appropriate to look for the origins of some of its ideas in Vedic literature.

Truth is one: The ground breaking contribution to religious and spiritual thought in the Rig Veda is the idea that the ultimate Existence or Truth is ‘One’ and can be described variously by wise people: ‘ekam sat viprah bahudha vadanti; the truth is one and the sages call it variously’.1 We take this oft-quote saying so much for granted that its great significance has been lost to posterity. Even today when bitter struggles rage over the superiority of one God of a particular religion over another, the Vedic sages were able to express the nature of this ultimate reality in an abstract manner calling it just Existence or Truth. It is not only that the ultimate reality does not have a single name but it is also not defined by any gender; this in my view is an intellectual feat of the highest order in that time and age”.

The article includes Truth is One and Female Deities.

Author is the Chair of Hindu Studies at Concordia University, Montreal.

To read article in PDF format.

This article was first published in the Prabuddha Bharata, monthly journal of The Ramakrishna Order started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896. This article is courtesy and copyright Prabuddha Bharata (www.advaitaashrama.org). I have been reading the Prabuddha Bharata for years and found it enlightening. You can subscribe online at www.advaitaashrama.org. Cost is Rs 100/ for one year, Rs 280/ for three years, Rs 1,200/ for twenty years and Rs 2,000 for twenty five years.