In this article I consider the stories of Jesus’ women ancestors in the genealogy which opens the Gospel of Matthew. Reading these stories in light of Marxist-feminist analyses of marriage, sex work and reproductive labor, alongside contemporary sex workers’ rights discourse, and through Marcella Althaus-Reid’s claim that all theology is “a se…[Read more]

John 20:24-29 – the Doubting Thomas Narrative – is explored in terms of the thesis that Jesus showed Thomas wounds absolutely identical to the wounds originating at the time of the crucifixion. John understands the risen Jesus to enact sovereignty over time in this passage. This was a new stage in John’s Christological Development and aug…[Read more]

In interpreting the risen Jesus’ action of appearing ‘out of nowhere’ at John 20:19-20 (and Luke 24:36) and his inferred action of rising from the dead at John 20:5-7 (and Luke 24:12), the consensus of both classical and modern biblical tradition has been to understand these actions as Jesus in some sense passing through physical objects and there…[Read more]

In the section ‘Jesus Christ, Lord of Time’ in Church Dogmatics III/2 Karl Barth held that lordship or sovereignty over time was central to the reality of the risen Jesus. I argue that his enacting sovereignty over time coincided with the very resurrection of time itself – the past recapitulated in the present – in a way necessarily invol…[Read more]

Yoga-Taravali of Acharya Shankara
Translated by Swami Narasimhananda

A review of the translation of Uttara Gita by Minati Kar published by the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Kolkata, India. Though brief, the Uttara-gita clearly explains the nature of the Atman and the method to realize it,primarily through yoga. This book serves as a supplementary text to the Bhagavadgita. It is a text that inspires…[Read more]

Book Review Towards the Goal by Mrs Vandana Sarathy and Dr Rajeev Ramakrishna

Book Review The Western Construction of Religion: Myths, Knowledge, and Ideology by Daniel Dubuisson

Book Review The Truth Will Set You Free by Svami Purna

Søren Kierkegaard has left insightful and penetrating texts on the inner life. He gave context to contemplation on and surrender to God. The awareness of agency in a spiritual aspirant creates the obstacle of letting the grace flow freely into one. The lily of the field and the bird of the air breathe a freedom that the conscious agency of a…[Read more]

Book Review The Journal of Oriental Research, Madras, 2010–2012 Eds Dr V Kamesari, Dr K S Balasubramanian, and Dr T V Vasudeva

Book Review The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations, Jacqueline I. Stone co-edited with Bryan J. Cuevas

Book Review The Brahma Kumaris as a Reflexive Tradition by John Wallis

Self Knowledge by Nome Book Review Prabuddha Bharata November 2010

Secularism and Religion in Multi-faith Societies: The Case of India by Ragini Sen, Wolfgang Wagner, and Caroline Howarth Book Review Prabuddha Bharata December 2015

In this book, Muthuraj Swamy discusses how conflicts are usually caused by factors other than religious factors at the grassroots level, and how dialogue is an elitist phenomenon that does not percolate to the grassroots, who do not need it in the first place.

Psychoanalysis and its father in the West, Sigmund Freud, have often been seen as the antitheses of religion and faith. This book seeks to dispel this misconception and place Freud and psychoanalysis as hopes to the faithful and the hedonist alike. Ethics and morality do not get compromised and unethical and immoral behaviour do not get free…[Read more]

St Teresa of Avila is one of the most studied and emulated Christian mystic. She is an extraordinary role model to be followed by a monastic religious, because she not only gives step-by-step instructions for the ‘interior’ life, but also guides life in a monastic community. She is one of the very few mystics who have recorded in detail their exp…[Read more]

Through this work, François Laruelle looks at non-philosophers from various angles. He seeks to look at them from a humane perspective and as ‘subjects of knowledge’ (25). He argues that ‘non-philosophy is a close relative of the spiritual but definitely not the spiritualist’ (26).

Religious leaders often come together for a statement of their respective beliefs seeking a false satisfaction that they are working for world peace by a disparate series of talks meant to only emphasize differences among faith traditions. This book is a welcome departure from such meaningless exercises and hopes to create a tradition of…[Read more]