[n_t]

While Jung here mostly seem to admire Ramana and India's philosophy, it is my opinion that world has largely slighted and meted out injustice to India's philosophical traditions. There are many exceptions, primarily among physicists and non-academic philosophers, but most commonly cited literature is very dismissive. It could be due to two reasons -

1. 1000+ years of invasions and occupations which deliberately mispotrayed indic philosophy, still has its effect.

2. Earlier academicians took a reductionist view or outright dismissal due to incorrect translation of literature and lack of cultural understanding. The translations were also incorrect as they were retrofitted into then familiar philosophies, religions and terms.

Probably, same argument can be applied to many other ancient cultures too but I think over time native or non-native academicians took genuine interest and brought out the the best. For India, unfortunately, everything got entangled with politics post-independence, including philosophy. Indians themselves either have next to no knowledge of it's philosophical treasures (barring few sayings and quotes) or take very negative view of it's past contributions since that's what they have largely read. The end result is that now traditionalists are very apprehensive of any scrutiny or change as they feel more and more cornered. On the hand, modernists are even more vocally abusive of past, as with flooded with all sort of information (like the one from OP) general audience has started questioning their stance as well. I hope, eventually people will get to see the depth of Indian philosophies and with that start seeing religious text as high philosophies and its "holy-men" as philosophers (what they really are and as Jung sees) and not as godmen who craft miracles and wishes.

[sidm83]

Having been very much from the modernist camp, a few years ago I read some Norse mythology followed by some Greek. Whatever I knew of Indian mythology was mostly through festivals, stories told by elders during childhood and some children's books. Norse felt pretty much tribal in comparison and Greek was a bit better than Norse, still it felt short of childhood memories. So I started to dig up more about Indian, and boy it took me a while in wikipedia figuring out the chronology and even the different kinds of literature that existed, a real rabbit hole. I have just about started out and got a long way to go.

[galtwho]

Someone making it easier for the current educated english speaking Indian to know about their history and culture is a guy called Jaggi Vasudev also known to his fans as Sadhguru.

His organisation Isha has 2 ashrams, one in Missippi, US and a bigger one in Coimbatore, India.

Seems to have quite the following as well as is evident by some of the discussions from diverse[1] set of people

1. https://www.youtube.com/user/sadhguru/videos

[sidm83]

Not him please. Even otherwise I feel not wise to follow a single guru if your interests are more academic otherwise it generally leads to a more cultish experience. There is no single canonical way to 'enlightenment' here, each one can find their own.

What I am doing - starting with Upanishads (aka Vedanta, literally the end part of Vedas, where you get the gist), there are 10 major ones which come with commentary by Adi Shankaracharya. Remaining are not minor in the sense of importance, just that you get to them once you grasp the major ones first as they come without the authoritative commentary. They are overall philosophical in nature.

Next come the Puranas. Again there are about 8-10 of these. These contain most of the stories or the 'mythology' which we heard in our childhood and read in the books.

There are many more but I guess I'll start here and see where it takes me.

[sidm83]

I am currently reading the Aitareya Upanishad with commentary by Swami Chinmayananda (founder Chinmaya Mission), but you can find multiple well rated ones online. For Puranas too there are multiple options though I don't think one could go wrong with the translations by Dr Bibek Debroy (leading Economist and Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. Look up his limericks on twitter) who has also translated the Ramayana and only the third person to translate the unabridged version of the Mahabharata.

Otherwise if you can read Hindi and manage to find physical or electronic versions, would recommend Gita Press versions. English ones often come with a multitude of pronunciation symbols (due to the limits of English) which unaccustomed readers may find a bit irritating.

[krtkush]

> What I am doing - starting with Upanishads (aka Vedanta, literally the end part of Vedas, where you get the gist), there are 10 major ones which come with commentary by Adi Shankaracharya. Remaining are not minor in the sense of importance, just that you get to them once you grasp the major ones first as they come without the authoritative commentary. They are overall philosophical in nature.

Next come the Puranas. Again there are about 8-10 of these. These contain most of the stories or the 'mythology' which we heard in our childhood and read in the books.

Could you please point to the resources and translations you are using?

[lappet]

A while back I started reading the Bhagavata Purana and boy does it have some good stories. Do you have any favorites or recommendations for old Indian texts?

[akritrime]

I feel like Sadhguru is the exact opposite of the person you would want to use as an example in this context.

[alZPOnz]

Please do read about cults before engaging with such nonsense. This is the most famous one and probably an inspiration for copycats:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh

Read the part about the number of Rolls Royces of the "holy" man.

[novarro1]

have you read his books? people come out with totally different impression once they do so.

[dr_dshiv]

Osho was brilliant. His YouTube videos are great, too! He never took himself as seriously as people think -- too devoted to playfulness and a huge proponent of independent thinking.

[hunter-2]

Please, not him. Guy has a real shady history. He killed his wife and claimed she attained moksha or something.

[lotsofpulp]

The guy is a cult leader who espouses “enlightened” nonsense and claims he has magical powers.

[gholap]

Heads up: he makes really funny claims like "I can make drinking water into poison just by looking at it"

Ref: https://youtu.be/6C1p4HUHlfE?t=105 (1:45 mark)

[trevyn]

Some more data points on this one: https://www.google.com/search?q=sadhguru+cult

[galtwho]

yeah do your own research, trust only your own experiences

[selimthegrim]

Didn't your high school assign you the book by Edith Hamilton on Greek Mythology?

[sidm83]

Not in India. We didn't even study Indian mythology!

[selimthegrim]

OK. I thought you were in USA.

[mark_l_watson]

India’s philosophical traditions took a bad hit under British rule. School systems were destroyed, and the culture was subverted.

[raincom]

Actually, they were already destroyed by the time British Raj came to India. It was due to Islamic rule/colonization. Between 10th century and 15th century (for 500 years) there were no intellectual works in eight domains, as Sheldon Pollock noted in his paper "Sanskrit knowledge on the eve of colonialism and at the dawn of globalization".

[mark_l_watson]

You might want to check that. We recently saw the new documentary movie on Ayurvedic food and eating. They had a section on how the British destroyed the schools (including Ayurveda schools) and generally used maiming and other extreme punishments.

I am not picking on the English, all empires do really rotten stuff. I can’t think of one exception.

[raincom]

I agree with you. When you look at postcolonial arguments, they make it sound as if whatever sins we see in India is due to British colonialism. However, the same postcolonial scholars are silent on the Islamic colonialism.

[naruvimama]

Sheldon Pollock of all the people. He is a known American Orientalist.

Are there no traditionalists, do we still need to depend on a white man to get our own philosophy?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_for_Sanskrit

[raincom]

Having white skin doesn't make false whatever Pollock says. Similarly, having brown skin doesn't make true whatever a brown person says.

Just evaluate arguments independently of one's color. I am not saying that whatever Pollock says is true; instead, I am bringing in a specific point, for which Pollock adduces evidence.

[KhoomeiK]

The 5 non-Vedantic schools were already on the decline long before foreign invasion. I attribute it largely to the Bhakti movement which sort of functioned as the popular wing to the intellectual Vedantic school, which had no parallel in the other Astika schools. Nyaya-Vaisesika arguably survived in the form of Navya Nyaya but never gained popular support while Sankhya-Yoga (and the Buddhist/Sramana milieu) had a lot of their concepts reincorporated into Advaita Vedanta. Mimamsa is completely extinct as far as I know except for perhaps the Srauta tradition in regions of South India. If you want to blame anything for the death of Indian philosophical tradition, blame the onslaught of Vedanta and their relentless arguments about self-god metaphysics for 1500 years.

[raincom]

There are many factors: (a) Prof. Sheldon Pollock notes that there is complete silence in eight domains from 10th century to 15th century. This is due to Islamic Rule.

(b) Bhakti movement did not emerge in the south India. In fact, it is a product of North India in response to Islam. Prof. Jack Hawley made the case for its being North Indian product in his 2015 book.

(c) Prof. SN Balagangadhara in a talk provides another evidence: Bhagavadgita itself notes that gyaana maarga (the research tradition) died out even before the gita time. Upanishads and Brahma sutras were product of this group of researchers (or gyaana maarga).

[z3phyr]

The bhakti movement started in southern part of the subcontinent around 8th century A.D.

The Hephthalite invasions came around 3rd, 4th and 5th century A.D. The Rashidun and Umayad (Islamic campaigns) came around late 600 A.D.

I am not going to talk about the Indo-Greeks, the Indo-Scythians and other invasions, but they happened way before.

[KhoomeiK]

> The bhakti movement started in southern part of the subcontinent around 8th century A.D.

I don't really see how that's relevant. It doesn't matter where the Bhakti movement started, only that it bolstered the Vedantic school's ideas.

> The Hephthalite invasions came around 3rd, 4th and 5th century A.D.

These only really impacted the Punjab region, while the intellectual centers across the Gangetic Plain remained more or less stable as far as I know.

> The Rashidun and Umayad (Islamic campaigns) came around late 600 A.D.

Again, these only really impacted the Sindh and Punjab regions and widespread Islamic conquest only started in the 1200s with the Ghaznavids.

> I am not going to talk about the Indo-Greeks, the Indo-Scythians and other invasions, but they happened way before.

The Indo-Greeks and Scythians arguably had a positive impact on Indian philosophy, pretty much never destroying items with cultural value. They made major contributions to Buddhism and played a significant role in its spread across Asia.

[z3phyr]

Actually, the Hephthalite invasion weakened (and directly led to the fall of) the Gupta Empire which spanned a huge part of the subcontinent.

[raincom]

Prof Jack Hawley of Columbia University convincingly argued the opposite: Bhakti movement did not start in the South, and its a product of North India. Check his book: A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement (Harvard, 2015)

[mavelikara]

> 1000+ years of invasions and occupations which deliberately mispotrayed indic philosophy, still has its effect.

The Indian subcontinent was broken into many small countries engaged in constant battles with each other. Do you mean that?

[switch11]

very well put