Did Kumārila believe in the language-independent existence of deities? In their efficacy within sacrifices? I believe he did not. Sacrifices work independently of deities who at most might be Epicurean-like entities, with no function in human lives. For this purpose, I am going to examine a passage in Kumārila’s Ṭupṭīkā ad 9.1, adhikaraṇa 4, p. 1652ff (Śubbāśāstrī 1929 editio...

It’s hard for me to view B.R. Ambedkar as a real Buddhist, when he threw out the Four Noble Truths after getting to Buddhism by a mere process of elimination. But then, to a real Buddhist, it shouldn’t matter – at least it s...

Susanta Bhattacharya, a doctoral candidate in Indian philosophy in Kraków, Poland, published in Journal of Indian Philosophy earlier this year and asked us to share a summary. The full title of the piece is “Does Liberation Entail Disembodiment? Re-examining the Concept of Pratiprasava in the Yogasūtra“. Feedback is welcomed.

Some interpret th...

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One of the first things you’d learn in any Intro to Buddhism course is that most Buddhists alive today are part of the Mahāyāna tradition, in which one aspires to be a bodhisattva (and eventually become a buddha). Mahāyāna is the ma...