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- A further image of rAjAdhirAja from shailendra Java https://t.co/y29AaNz9Ir 17 hours ago
- A further gaNesha pendant from the champA kingdom in what's today Vietnam. https://t.co/amxnJg48VB 17 hours ago
- Interesting graphs in this article by Haidt: jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/mental-healt… While Haidt himself likes to play equal-equal i… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 18 hours ago
- There is an interesting parallel across steppe-derived civilizations that persisted across time & even post-settlem… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 day ago
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- The Vyomavyāpin in the Pāśupata-tantra and a discursion on nine-fold Rudra-mantra-s
- Bhāskara-II’s polygons and an algebraic approximation for sines of pi by x
- Origins of the serpent cult and Bhāguri’s snake installation from the Sāmaveda tradition
- Two simple stotra-s, sectarian competition, and the Varāha episode from the archaic Skandapurāṇa
- The zombie obeys: a note on host manipulation by parasites and its ecological consequences
- Cārucitrābhisambodhi
- RV 10.78
- The turning of the yugacakra
- A sampler of Ramanujan’s elementary results and their manifold ramifications
- A catalog of attractors, repellors, cycles, and other oscillations of some common functional iterates
- The wink of the Gorgon and the twang of the Lyre
- Some poems
- The Kaumāra cycle in the Skandapurāṇa’s Śaṃkara-saṃhitā
- Some notes on the runiform “Altaic” inscriptions and the early Turk Khaghanates: Orkhon and beyond
- Vikīrṇā viṣayāḥ: India and the Rus
- Alkaios’ hymn to the Dioskouroi: Hindu parallels
- Some notes on the Indo-European aspects of the Anatolian tradition
- The death of Miss Lizzie Willink
- Indo-European expansions and iconography: revisiting the anthropomorphic stelae
- Geopolitical summary: March 2022
- Human retroviruses, sociology of science, and biographical ruminations
- Transcripts of conversations: the addiction principle:
- Phantom impressions-1
- A note on Śrī, Viṣṇu and śṛṅgāra
- Are civilizational cycles the norm?
- On the rise of the mātṛkā-s and the goddess Cāmuṇḍā
- Huns, Uralics, and empires of the steppe
- Some observations on the Lekkerkerker-Zeckendorf decomposition of integers
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Pages
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Search this Blog
Archives
mAnasa-taraMgiNI supplement
- A further image of rAjAdhirAja from shailendra Java https://t.co/y29AaNz9Ir 17 hours ago
- A further gaNesha pendant from the champA kingdom in what's today Vietnam. https://t.co/amxnJg48VB 17 hours ago
- Interesting graphs in this article by Haidt: jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/mental-healt… While Haidt himself likes to play equal-equal i… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 18 hours ago
- There is an interesting parallel across steppe-derived civilizations that persisted across time & even post-settlem… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 day ago
Top Posts
-
Recent Posts
- Some ruminations on asteroids and meteoritic falls
- Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
- The Vyomavyāpin in the Pāśupata-tantra and a discursion on nine-fold Rudra-mantra-s
- Bhāskara-II’s polygons and an algebraic approximation for sines of pi by x
- Origins of the serpent cult and Bhāguri’s snake installation from the Sāmaveda tradition
- Two simple stotra-s, sectarian competition, and the Varāha episode from the archaic Skandapurāṇa
- The zombie obeys: a note on host manipulation by parasites and its ecological consequences
- Cārucitrābhisambodhi
- RV 10.78
- The turning of the yugacakra
- A sampler of Ramanujan’s elementary results and their manifold ramifications
- A catalog of attractors, repellors, cycles, and other oscillations of some common functional iterates
- The wink of the Gorgon and the twang of the Lyre
- Some poems
- The Kaumāra cycle in the Skandapurāṇa’s Śaṃkara-saṃhitā
- Some notes on the runiform “Altaic” inscriptions and the early Turk Khaghanates: Orkhon and beyond
- Vikīrṇā viṣayāḥ: India and the Rus
- Alkaios’ hymn to the Dioskouroi: Hindu parallels
- Some notes on the Indo-European aspects of the Anatolian tradition
- The death of Miss Lizzie Willink
- Indo-European expansions and iconography: revisiting the anthropomorphic stelae
- Geopolitical summary: March 2022
- Human retroviruses, sociology of science, and biographical ruminations
- Transcripts of conversations: the addiction principle:
- Phantom impressions-1
- A note on Śrī, Viṣṇu and śṛṅgāra
- Are civilizational cycles the norm?
- On the rise of the mātṛkā-s and the goddess Cāmuṇḍā
- Huns, Uralics, and empires of the steppe
- Some observations on the Lekkerkerker-Zeckendorf decomposition of integers
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March 2023 M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Tag Archives: tantra
The Vyomavyāpin in the Pāśupata-tantra and a discursion on nine-fold Rudra-mantra-s
The Pāśupata-tantra is a poorly understood śaiva text that is believed to be affiliated with the Pāśupata tradition of Lakulīśa. While the colophons of some manuscripts present it as “Lakulīśa-pravartita-Pāśupata-tantram”, internally, it presents itself as a teaching of Nandin to … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, Life
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, Hindu, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, kaula, mantra, mantra-sAdhana, mantra-shAstra, pA~ncharAtra, religion, rudra, saiva, shaiva, shiva, tantra, tantra age
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Origins of the serpent cult and Bhāguri’s snake installation from the Sāmaveda tradition
Mathuran Nāga installations From the few centuries preceding it down to the first few centuries of the Common Era we see numerous installations of snake deities, i.e., Nāga-s, at various archaeological sites throughout northern India (most famously at the holy … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, atharvaveda, balabhadra, Hindu, Indo-Aryan, mahAbharata, mantra, mantra-sAdhana, mantra-shAstra, religion, Rigveda, Samaveda, saMkarShaNa, shiva, snake, tantra, tantra age, tantras, vaiShNava, Veda, viShNu, Yajurveda
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The Kaumāra cycle in the Skandapurāṇa’s Śaṃkara-saṃhitā
Many khaṇḍa-s, māhātmya-s and saṃhitā-s attach themselves to the sprawling “Mega-Skandapurāṇa”. We use this term to distinguish it from the “Ur-Skandapurāṇa”, which was first published by Bhaṭṭārāi in the late 1980s and is now known to survive as three related … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought
Tagged gods, heathen, Hindu, Hindu ritual, karttikeya, kaumAra, kaumAra ritual, kumAra, kumArasaMbhava, mantra, purAna, purANas, rudra, saiva, shaiva, shiva, shiva purana, skanda, skandapurANa, tantra, tantras, viShNu
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The strange case of the Āpastamba sprite
This is the second of the two stories that arose from incidents during the visit of Yaśaśravas, Somakhya’s cousin. With the autumnal vacations, Somakhya was having a good time with his visiting cousin, giving him lectures on the theory and … Continue reading
The minimal triangle circumscribing a semicircle
Consider a fixed semicircle with center at and radius . Let be the isosceles triangle which circumscribes it (Figure 1). Figure 1 What will be the characteristics of the minimal form of the said triangle, i.e. triangle with minimum perimeter, … Continue reading
The magic of the deva-ogdoad
Classical Hindu tradition holds that the ogdoad of deva-s corresponding to their directions is: Indra: East; Agni: Southeast; Yama: South; Nirṛti: Southwest; Varuṇa: West; Vāyu: Northwest; Kubera: North; Īśāna: Northeast. The central position might be occupied in certain traditions by … Continue reading
Śarabha vidhi
The account of this rite continues from the prefatory narrative. Lootika: “There are several ways in which Rudra is worshipped as Śarabha conceived as the great dinosaur. We shall follow the way which is appropriate for us brāhmaṇa-s who observe … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought
Tagged maNDala, mantra, mantra-sAdhana, mantra-shAstra, religion, shaiva, sharabha, Story, tantra
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A note on lost Śaiva centers: consideration of examples from Magadha and Vaṅga
To be read in conjunction with this handout: Harihara in the Indosphere One of the poorly understood but immensely important facets of Hindu history is the role of the saiddhāntika Śaiva-s in the cultural unification of the Indosphere within the … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, Anti-Hindu, Army of Islam, Hindu, history, India, medieval Hindu literature, Mohammedanism, rudra, saiva, shaiva, shiva, tantra
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The ghosts of Tulagiri
Vrishchika was taking a few days off to visit her parents’ town before proceeding with her fellowship. Lootika had nearly completed moving her lab to Somakhya’s institute. She was happy that they could finally be together for good again and … Continue reading
The domain of India according to bhāskararāya-makhīndra
bhāskararāya was one of the greatest mantravādin-s of all times, who perhaps was only rivaled by the illustrious abhinavagupta or aghoraśiva deśika, who in times closer to our own was verily like how a brāhmaṇa sage of the time of … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, greater India, India, tantra
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Some comments of on the vyapohana stava and its pantheon
The vyapohana stava is an important saiddhAntika purificatory incantation. It may be compared with other works composed by deshika-s of the Urdhvasrotas such as: 1) the vyomavApistava of the Kashmirian commentator bhaTTa rAmakANTha-II; 2) the shiva-pUjA-stava of j~nAnashambhu, a scholar … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, Hindu, pAshupata, rudra, shaiva, shiva, tantra
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susmeratayA saha saMmelana
Holding a trident he arrived at the great smashANa at the foot of kollagiri from the subterranean temple of nR^isiMha where he had practiced the mantra of the adhomukha. It was in the midst of a storm: the trees in … Continue reading
Posted in art, Heathen thought
Tagged ancient India, kaula, magician, mantra-sAdhana, mantra-shAstra, sorcery, Story, tantra, vidyAdhara
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Some notes on the dispersion of the kaumAra-shAsana
In the early 1900s the English archaeologist John Marshall began excavations at Bhita (pronounced: bhITA) near prayAga, modern Uttar Pradesh. He wrote an account of this excavation aided by the native assistants in the archaeological survey of India’s annual report … Continue reading
saMmelana song of the vIra
It was the saMmelana of the holders of the kapAla in the great shmashAna of kollagiri, in quest of mahAnaya. We were reclined in the haze of the pyres; the embrace of our dUtI fanning the inner fires; the fire … Continue reading
A saiddhAntika adaptation of the vAstupuruSha narrative
We had earlier pointed out that the vAstupuruSha narrative in the smArta vAstu texts ( e.g. as provided by varAhamihira in his bR^ihatsaMhitA) might be derived from an old brAhmaNa-like narrative that was provided in the context of explaining the … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought
Tagged andhaka, chAgAsura, evolution, matsya purANa, purANas, shiva purana, tantra, vAstushAstra
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A note on the Tantric state among the chIna-s and recovery of a lost vainAyaka ritual
In 705 CE, amoghavajra was born in Samarkand to a brAhmaNa teacher from either Prayag or Kashi and his Iranian wife. His father died when he was 10 years old and he moved to the chInadesha with his mother and … Continue reading
Fragments of West Asian heathen thought: late surviving Hermetica
To be read in conjunction with this. Many moons ago aurvasheyI brought my attention to a curious news item in an Indian paper – in small print it narrated a village conflict involving the deployment of what might be termed … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged bahanamati, charms, Harran, heliocentric, Hermes, Hermetica, Islamic, Middle East, spells, tantra, Thabit ibn Kurra, Thoth
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Geopolitics of the tantra age: an attempt at a blunt assessment
The va~Nga-paNDita placed the following issue before ekanetra and me. He had seen a somewhat convergent theory amongst both Hindus and Hindu-haters. We lay this out as some kind of pUrva-pakSha for further study. -The beginning in the gupta age … Continue reading
The “paurANic” element of the pashchimAmnAya
In the days after the fierce battle of dvAdashAnta, after we had overthrown the kR^ityAstra that struck us, we were resting in the city of the karnATa-s. There while meditating on the aghora mantra we experienced that connection with samayA … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought
Tagged goddesses, kaula, rudra, shaiva, shiva, tantra, tantra age, tantras
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