This essay shows that physicians of early Āyurveda adopted a pragmatic approach to the challenges dharma imposed on them. While the concept and its importance is generally accepted in the medical compendia, various passages stress the fact that good health is an indispensable precondition to pursue dharma and other goals of life. In the interests…[Read more]

My argument is that religious beliefs are primarily created and generated by four very basic and fundamental “Needs” or “Drives.” From a rather practical and pragmatic approach, in general, religions could be said to involve meaning or purpose, others and relationships, as well as structures and principles for both meaning, relationships, and gro…[Read more]

Karen Armstrong, In her book, The Case For God, opens with the discussion of the 300 plus caves in Southern France and Northern Spain which have amazingly artistic ‘prehistoric’ cave paintings of prehistoric animals many of whom are now extinct, some dating to 30,000 years ago. “In all there are about six hundred frescoes and fifteen hundred engra…[Read more]

This text consists of the ‘lectio praecursoria’ given at the defense of my doctoral dissertation “The Good Noblemen Who Conquered the Kingdom: Islam, Historiography, and Aristocratic Legitimation in Late-Medieval Portugal”. This dissertation deals with aristocratic historiography and political legitimation in late-medieval Portugal (late…[Read more]

Abstract: The causes of suffering are a central topic in Buddhism as well as in Ayurveda. The Pāli Canon and other early Buddhist texts like the Milindapañha mention eight specific causes resulting in disease or suffering at several places. In contrast, early Ayurveda, as presented in the Carakasaṃhitā, knows a threefold causal complex of dise…[Read more]

As educators, we are all familiar with Bloom’s Taxonomy and the way it progressively maps the cognitive activities involved in learning and constructing knowledge. Too often, however, we educators who work in writing-focused curricula ask our students to work in the higher-order cognitive domains of analysis and creation without necessarily giving…[Read more]

Teaching the fundamentals of writing composition shouldn’t be boring. It should be active, engaging, and EMPOWERING! Most students, whether they consciously articulate it or not, want to vanquish their writing anxiety. They want to develop confidence in their ability to compose and revise strong prose that will help them thrive in coursework and…[Read more]

In courses that end in summative final exams or capstone projects, it can be challenging to get students to pull back and identify the learning that they’ve done across an entire unit or semester rather than only focus on the learning they’ve undertaken most recently. As part of our larger sequence of active-learning-based lesson plans designed to…[Read more]

Sinabi ni Ramon Reyes: Kung ituturing nating relihiyon ang pangunahing dimensyon ng tao kung saan iniuugnay niya ang sagrado, sa “lampas,” sa nagbibigay ng batayan at pinakahuling kahulugan ng kanyang pang-araw-araw na pag-iral, kung gayon ang mga animistikong paniniwala at gawain ng ang mga unang Pilipino ay magiging kuwalipikado bilang…[Read more]

Bukod sa musika at sining, nagpapakita ako ng isang magaspang na balangkas para sa pananaw sa ilang pwersonal na espirituwal-psychic na karanasan.+. “Ang musika ay isang pangunahing bahagi ng ating ebolusyon; marahil ay kumanta kami bago kami magsalita sa mga pangungusap na may gabay na sintaktik. Ang kanta ay kinakatawan sa buong mundo ng h…[Read more]

The Case For God, binuksan ni Karen Armstrong ang kanyang libro sa pagtalakay sa 300 plus caves sa Southern France at Northern Spain na may kamangha-manghang artistikong ‘prehistoric’ cave paintings ng mga prehistoric na hayop na marami sa kanila ay wala na ngayon, ang ilan ay dating sa 30,000 taon na ang nakalipas. “Sa kabuuan ay may mga anim na…[Read more]

Colonial predicament made the life and its understanding complex in the Subcontinent. To represent this complexity, Urdu writers found the polyphonic genre, i.e. the novel helpful. They used different techniques of characterization to narrate the social hierarchy of characters. The novel also provided the space for them to attract the people with…[Read more]

Mesmerism provided Edgar Allan Poe with a framework in which to reimagine logical and poetic rigor.

Erica Hill emphasizes, “Their thoughts and actions established and maintained relationships with prey animals and may be more productively conceptualized as dynamic social behaviours embedded within the context of daily life than as privileged ritual acts.”
It would appear readily apparent that in many different ways spiritual and religious bel…[Read more]

.“MUSIC is a fundamental part of our evolution; we probably sang before we spoke in syntactically guided sentences. Song is represented across animal worlds; birds and whales produce sounds, though not always melodic to our ears, but still rich in semantically communicative functions. Song is not surprisingly tied to a vast array of semiotics t…[Read more]

Ang bawat kultura ay nagkakaroon ng ilang uri ng sining tulad ng pag-unlad ng wika. Ang ilang mga sinaunang kultura ay walang tunay na mitolohiya o relihiyon, ngunit lahat ay mayroong ilang siningsayaw, awit, disenyo …… …… Ang sayaw, higit sa lahat, ay tila ang pinakalumang na nailarawang sining …. Ang sining ay, sa katunayan, ang pinuno…[Read more]

Debemos asumir detrás de esta fuerza la existencia de una mente consciente e inteligente – (Max Planck, & Ciencia sin significado – “Sería posible describir todo científicamente, pero no tendría sentido; carecería de significado, como si describió una sinfonía de Beethoven como una variación de la presión de las olas” Albert Einstein.
El argument…[Read more]

This article explores the connection between the development of new literary genres in Urdu and colonial authority. British Colonial authorities tried to develop a system of scrutiny for local literatures. To limit the ‘vernacular’ literatures within the ‘suggested’ traits, colonial administration used its local subordinates in disseminating the…[Read more]

Com base em uma incursão crítica por debates sobre literatura e cinema mundial, em que busco interrogar o conceito de mundo, este artigo elabora um argumento duplo, no qual está em jogo a questão da mundação, isto é, da configuração de mundos como partilhas do comum. Por um lado, trata-se de um argumento fundamentalmente teórico. Literatur…[Read more]