/lit/ - Literature

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Start with "The Wonder that was India" which is a solid history of Pre-Islamic India that mostly focuses on society, culture, religion, language, literature and economy with a short narrative history at the start
It is great for giving you context
Then you should read the Rig Veda which is a prayer book but will further and elaborate and showcase the deities you learned about in Basham's work. I like the Debroy translation
Afterwards, go with the "Thirteen Principal Upanishads" version which covers the Upanishads and gives a better mythological and metaphysical showcase of what was contextualised in Basham's work
You finish with the epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana
Since the Mahabharata is gigantic, you could probably get away with reading the first book and the Bhagavad-Gita, again Debroy is solid but there's probably others too
After that, it's exegetical works of which I'm less well aware
Real chads read the Sahib too

Start with Shankara's commentaries on the Upanishads.

>>16075205
ramakrishna. I liked it when he said you can enter the palace through the toilet, or something like that.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7to-WWizjog

>>16075366
Thanks bro, I'm going to do this.

>>16075205
>Hinduism
First of all, it's called Sanatama Dharma, eurocentrist bigot!

Learn Sanskrit.

For reading, the Ramayana, Gitas, and Upanishads.

For a translation, I recommend Sri Radhakrishnan's translation of the Upanishads since it has the IAST Sanskrit Romanization alongside a great translation with a superb commentary.

As for the Vedas, many of them are just amendments from the Rig Veda for song-- all you'd need to read is the Rig Veda. The Mukhya Upanishads are also the most important. Many Upanishads are contained in other Vedas such as the Aitreya in the Rig.

>>16075904
Is learning Sanskrit necessary? If so, what is the best method of learning it?

>>16075374
I would be careful about reading Advaita Vedanta interpretations such as Shankara's as a commentary to the Upanishads, they are extremely reliant on Buddhist philosophy (Shankara is called a "cryptobuddhist" by most Hindus, and most scholars agree). If you want to read the Upanishads, work through them with editions and commentaries that aren't sectarian, or at least read an interpretation that is closer to the original meaning of the Upanishads, rather than Shankara's 9th century AD quasi-buddhism.

>>16075999
Yeah Sanskrit has a really complex grammatical structure. And generally we ought to be reading anything in its original language due to its poetic nature. I'm not saying this as a "high IQ" thing, I actually mean that poetry is something to be truly experienced.

With any language I start with the Phonetics until I pronounce each letter (or in Devanagari, syllabary) correctly. From then on I proceed to memorize vocabulary from Quizlet. I study grammar only slightly-- Read enough and it'll come naturally.

>>16076035
Also don't listen to this fag. Shankara and Ramanuja are the goto when it comes to Hinduism.

If you want to study Buddhism, I'll reference the Tripitaka.

Sankara himself said that what separates Hinduism from Buddhism, is that the latter doesn't believe in an existence of the self.

>>16075205
Begin with Rene Guenon’s ‘Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines’. You can read it online here

https://archive.org/details/reneguenon

>Another shankaracharya hatred thread

Reminds me of that b*ddhist that was stomped in that copypasta

>>16076548
remember when the resident shankara fanboy posted this in response to buddhists he was arguing with?
>It's been 24 hours and none of you ming-mongs have replied to this. All the more embarrassing considering YoU CaN't HaVe Up WiThOuT dOwN mY dUdEz loooooollzzlz lmafaooo :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!1!111! was intended to be the epic GOTCHA retort. Writhing animals.

he was so fucking embarrassing

>>16075205

https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita.html

https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-Vol-1.pdf
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-vol2.pdf
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Bhagavad-Gita.with.the.Commentary.of.Sri.ShankaracharyaN.pdf

https://archive.org/details/SriJnanadevasAmritanubhavaAmbrosialExperienceEnglishTranslationOfOriginalMarathiChangadevaPasashti/mode/2up
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Sri-Jnandevas-Bhvartha-Dipika-Jnaneswari_smaller.pdf

https://www.beezone.com/Ramana/tripura%20rahasya.pdf
https://archive.org/details/SrimadDeviBhagavatamEnglish/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/VijnanaBhairavaOrDivineConsciousnessJaidevaSingh
https://www.theoldsystem.com/forDownloads/Novels/The%20Temple%20of%20Solomon%20the%20King/Eastern/Saivism/Mark%20S.G.%20Dyczkowski%20-%20The%20Aphorisms%20Of%20Siva.pdf
https://www.pdfdrive.com/abhinavaguptas-commentary-on-the-bhagavad-gita-e38527473.html

http://www.sadgurus-saints-sages.com/books/RamakrishnaParamahamsa/beasyouare.pdf
http://www.nirgunjohn.com/assets/pdf/I-AM-THAT.pdf

>>16076935
Thank you for the resources anon