The Discover India Podcast by Professor Pankaj Jain: Bhārat Darśan

Uncovering the hidden gems of ancient Indian science never ceases to intrigue, especially the lesser-known early Indian scientific contributions, which include a comprehensive theory of mind, Pāṇini's remarkable Sanskrit grammar, Piṅgala's binary numbers, and more. But what sets apart the work of Kaṇāda?

Join Professors Subhash Kak and Pankaj Jain as they take us on a fascinating journey of discovering the work of Kaṇāda, who dared to propose a system that encompasses space, time, matter, and observers - a feat no physicist has attempted to date.

In this interactive lecture demonstration, Prof. Srinivas Reddy introduces the sitar, a prominent Indian instrument that embodies ancient technologies and modern innovations. He also discusses how the sitar represents the syncretic nature of Hindustani raga music regarding instrument design, raga exposition and aesthetic appreciation, as well as how the instrument is used in various genres, from classical raga music to Bollywood. The interactive session also includes a short sitar performance.

Indian Civilization is primarily based on Dharmic Principles. The nature of Dharma, however, is extremely subtle. Often, naively Dharma is equated with religion, resulting in confusing or misleading interpretations about India. Therefore, it is essential to understand Dharma's contours and India and its value system. 2nd Justice Ranade Memorial Lecture by Prof. Pankaj Jain attempts to do precisely that. It delves into different meanings and interpretations of Dharma in the Indic texts and provides a perspective to understand India.

At the end of WW I, a historical conjuncture incorporated technological developments, social change, political dynamics, and industrial structure into a rapidly growing global music economy. India’s position in that economy was determined by internal cultural dynamics but equally by its place within the corporate structures of British colonialism. Coincident with Indian independence, a second historical conjuncture helped to isolate the Indian music industry from the global music economy. That isolation affected Indian music culture in multiple ways throughout the 20th Century. Although the cultural effects of globalization have become increasingly embedded in the 21 st Century, the aftermath of that isolation continues to be apparent in Indian music culture. This talk is based on ethnographic and archival research on India’s music industry. I examine the position of and developments in Indian music, culture, and commerce from the early 1920s through the first decades of the 21 st Century.  

GREGORY D. BOOTH is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Auckland and has studied Indian music and culture for more than forty years. He is the author of Behind the Curtain: Making Music in Mumbai’s Film Studios (OUP 2008) and Brass Baja: Stories from the World of Indian Wedding Bands (OUP 2005), as well as numerous articles on the music and film industry in South Asia. He co-edited the 2014 OUP publication More than Bollywood –Studies in Indian Popular Music. He is currently studying India’s music and film culture industries focusing on various factors, including intellectual property, technology, industrial structures, and the music-film relationship. 

Professor Pankaj Jain shares examples from key Dharmic and Yogic texts and contexts from which Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists continue to derive their inspiration. Evidently, in Yogic and Dharmic contexts, religion, ethics, and environmentalism are intertwined with each other instead of distinctly evolved theories.  

About the Theme:  In the West, the current paradigm of wishing to establish ecological balance via education, public policy, advocacy, and law enforcement has a serious deficit, i.e., how to do it. The Indic way is to provide the HOWTOs to accomplish an environment-friendly society. Yoga practice can go a long way for the benefit of ecology. Thus, a paradigm shift is needed from a top-down enforcement approach to bottom-up individual practice where Yoga can facilitate the praxis necessary for establishing ecological balance.  

About the Author:  Pankaj Jain is a Philosophy, Religious Studies, Film Studies, Sustainability, and Diaspora Studies, Professor. He has authored three books and has co-edited the Hinduism Section of the Encyclopedia of Indian Religions. His articles have appeared in multiple academic journals and popular websites.  

Academic Works:  Dharma and Ecology of Hindu Communities: Sustenance and Sustainability  Science and Socio-Religious Revolution in India: Moving the Mountains  Dharma in America: A Short History of Hindu-Jain Diaspora  Edited volume:  Encyclopedia of Indian Religions- Hinduism and Tribal Religions.

"1947 Partition is a small blip in the infinite Indian civilizational consciousness beyond time, beyond space." - Professor Pankaj Jain

Questions discussed:

1. What/how you were taught about Partition in school? 

2. Is Partition part of shared cultural knowledge - do people reference it in everyday conversation? 

3. Do you feel any connection to this history? 

4. We read Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day and Bapsi Sidwa's Cracking India - if you have read either of these novels, do you feel a connection to the story, a particular character, etc.? 

5. What does being Indian mean to you? 

6. What do you wish Americans knew about India? This can be present-day, historical, or both.

Partition-themed Films mentioned:  • Garam Hawa (Post partition) • Khuda ke Liye (Pakistani) • Train to Pakistan (Based on Khushwant Singh’s novel) • 1947 Earth (Post partition) • Chhalia (Post partition) • Dharmputra (Post partition) • Dhool ka Phool • Mammo • Nastik (Post partition) • Partition of Pakistan • Pinjar (Post partition) • Tamas and Buniyaad (TV Serials) •Khamosh Pani (Post partition) •Motir Maina (Post partition)

What India Can Teach Us: A Webinar by Prof Pankaj Jain 

As the currents of globalization sweep us into the twenty-first century, it calls for a global renaissance where knowledge systems inspired by Indian civilization have much to offer to the world. Prof. PankajJain, Head of Humanities and Languages, FLAME University, through this Upskill session, will introduce participants to the unique India-centric liberal education offered at FLAME University and shed light on why it is essential in today’s time to adapt the India-focused approach to solving global issues like climate change.

Self, No-Self, and Self-Consciousness: Some Classical Indian Views, A Webinar by Prof Stephen Phillips

The question of what accounts for personal identity through bodily, emotional, and mental change is one of many topics related to the positions taken on the nature of subjectivity and self-awareness in classical Indian thought. “Enlightenment” and yogic practice is another. This talk takes up Vedānta, Yogācāra Buddhism, Nyāya, Cārvāka, and other classical views, the debate between Naiyāyikas and Buddhists in particular.

Bio:

Stephen Phillips is professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin and has been visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Hawaii and Jadavpur University. Author of ten books, including Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Brahman (Brill 1984), Classical Indian Metaphysics, “Refutations” of Realism and the Emergence of “New Logic” (Open Court 1995 and Motilal Banarsidass 1998), and Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy (Columbia 2009), named by Choice an “Outstanding Academic Title,” he has more recently written Classical Indian Epistemology: The Knowledge Sources of the Nyāya School (Routledge 2012), which presents classical Indian views in terminology suited for philosophy professionals. With Matthew Dasti, he published The Nyāya-sūtra: Selections with Early Commentaries (Hackett 2017), and with Dasti and Nirmalya Guha, a short text, God and the World’s Arrangement: Vedānta and Nyāya Philosophy of Religion (Hackett 2021). Phillips teamed with N. S. Ramanuja Tatacharya to translate the perception chapter of the monumental fourteenth-century Tattva-cintā-maṇi, “(Wish-fulfilling), Jewel of Reflection on the Truth about Epistemology,” by Gaṅgeśa (American Institute of Buddhist Studies 2004 and Motilal Banarsidass 2008), in 750 pages. In three volumes, about 2000 pages, a translation of the entire text has now been published by Bloomsbury (2020) in a solo-authored set including much historical and philosophic exegesis. A synopsis is available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gangesa.

5th song in #AnandBakshi Lyrics Series (In Raag Jhinjhoti)

ye lal rang kab mujhe chhodega

From https://www.hindigeetmala.net/song/ye_laal_rang_kab_mujhe.htm