March 30, 2019
Review: Kural by Tiruvalluvar
Tiruvalluvar. Kural. Translated and edited with an Introduction by P. S. Sundaram. Penguin Classics India, 1990. 168 pages. The Kural generally goes by the title Tirukural, where the “Tiru” […]
March 9, 2019
Review: Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra
PATANJALI’S YOGA SUTRA. Translated from the Sanskrit with an Introduction and Commentary by Shyam Ranganathan. Penguin Classics India, 2008. 319 pages. During a recent visit to the Jaipur Literary […]
April 16, 2014
Magical Mystery Tour: Science as the New Authority
In Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor” passage from The Brothers Karamazov, the Grand Inquisitor’s plan to “correct” the work of God (in a sense, to establish the Church) was based on […]
November 4, 2013
Blasphemy’s Implicit Exaltation of Language
A poet’s concern that his poems are failures is nothing new. The difference, beginning in the 20th century, has been where we place the blame. We used to say: […]