Deepak Sarma

Yoga is in the news again, though no longer as a panacea for all the world(s)' problems, or as a benign souvenir from the so-called mystical "East," but as an easy way to injure one's body. If you are a yoga practitioner who believes that your practice (or your guru's...

There is no period in the Gregorian calendar more demanding and transformative for diaspora Hindus than the weeks leading up to and culminating with Christmas. In daycares and schools, in workplaces and civic spaces, on television and in the digital media in North America, Hindus are constantly reminded about the...

It is concurrently ironic and hypocritical that the very same "Hindus" who champion "Hinduism" to be the only tolerant religion are also intolerant of academic and other publications that are incongruous with their imagined and reified vision of Hinduism, and especially with their homogenized version of the epic Rāmāyaṇa. The...

Should Hindus study Hinduism? Or, for that matter, anything that is not prima facie germane to their vocational aspirations? There are two good reasons why they definitely should study Hinduism: one from the perspective of the philosophy of religions, and one from the perspective of Hindu "theology," specifically from the...

Should Hindus Study Hinduism?

When I teach "Introduction to Hinduism" in the fall of every year most of my students are neither Hindu nor of Indian heritage. I often hear from the few Hindu students who do take my class, that their Hindu peers felt that by reason of their...