Hinduism

[Anonymous No.11737964]

How do I into it?

[Anonymous No.11738281]

start by reading this intro book
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.280367

After that the next step would probably be the Bhagavad-Gita and then after that you have many hundreds of texts to choose from depending on what interests you.

[Anonymous No.11738433]

>>11737964
An introductory book to start with I think, there are concepts in the central texts that might be confusing for a western reader. I found V. Narayanan's Understanding Hinduism to be a perfect, light, introduction. As the other anon said, the Bhagavad Gita is a good starter for primary texts, all Hindus read it. There are many translations, a lot of which are by unqualified hippies, so be careful. W.J. Johnson's translation (Oxford) is just the text with an introduction, so I'd say it's good for a read-through. Accessible Hindu commentaries include those by S. Radhakrishnan and Swami Sivananda. Western scholarly commentaries include R.C. Zaehner's and Nicholas Sutton's.

[Anonymous No.11739443]

>>11737964
bump

[Anonymous No.11739842]

>>11738281
>guenonfag on standby for eastern threads
i wouldn't be surprised if you phone posted this thread and samefagged the fp

[Anonymous No.11739884]

>>11739842
>When you don't like an author and especially don't like that he has become well-known by other people who frequent what you regard as your safe space but you get BTFO every time you make half-assed criticisms of him because you haven't actually read him and so you are reduced to alleging that it's literally one person who posts anything Guenon-related as a way of attacking Guenon indirectly by association

top kek

[Anonymous No.11739901]

>>11739842
O B S E S S E D

[Anonymous No.11739943]

>>11739884
dude just give it up, you've been exposed as the sole guenonfag in this board multiple times (remember that thread that found out your jpg title patterns?), there is no point hiding behind a phantom group of Geunonians you've concocted in your mind.

[Anonymous No.11739954]

>>11739901
>O B S E S S E D
yes that geunonfag is quite obsessed with Guenon isn't he?

[Anonymous No.11740044]

>>11738281
>>11739884
>this guy again
did you forget the last time you got btfo?

[Anonymous No.11740062]

>>11739943
If you are talking about that thread from a few days ago some anon accused the OP (who posted links to several dozen books and texts, only one of which was Guenon) of making a similar thread some weeks or months before that on the basis of two pictures having similar names. That hardly proves that it's only one person shilling Guenon, even if that guy did post both of those threads.

There is a thread up on /lit/ right now near the top of the catalog where people are talking about Guenon's thoughts on western philosophy, the counter says there are 14 posters in that thread and most of the posts indicate a familiarity with his books. Are all of them your 'Guenon-fag' boogeyman? Is he spending his free time switching between 10 different IP's to give off the illusion of a group of people talking to eachother? This is so retarded I don't even know why I am bothering to reply.

[Anonymous No.11740073]

>>11740062
>some guy posts two guenon related threads
>therefore every guenon related thread and every pro guenon post is by the same guy
wow, is this dude retarded

[Anonymous No.11740206]

>>11738281
>start with a French trad author
>’oh yea then uhh just read some Indian stuff whatever...’
I really hope you’re being sarcastic here

[Anonymous No.11740215]

>>11740206
OP wants to learn about Hinduism. It's a complex tradition so obviously OP needs to start with an intro text. So that anon recommended Guenon. You can recommend some other intro texts if you like. I don't think the race of the person who wrote the text matters as long as they were well informed on the subject.

[Anonymous No.11740227]

>>11740062
>Is he spending his free time switching between 10 different IP's to give off the illusion of a group of people talking to eachother?
2bh I could totally see this happening considering his unyeilding devotion for the guy, i honestly wouldn't put it past him

[Anonymous No.11740255]

Easwaran has a nice set called Classics of Eastern Spirituality which includes the Upanishads, Baghavad Gita, and Dhammapada. Both hardcore Buddhists and hardcore Hindus aren't fans that probably means he's doing something right. ISKCON's "Baghavad Gita As It Is" should be avoided. Penguin Classics uses outdated westernized translations and should be avoided as well. Also, Ghandi and Aurobindo both have translations and commentaries on the Baghavad Gita which are interesting and influential in Neo-Vedanta.

[Anonymous No.11740269]

>>11740215
>OP wants to learn about Hinduism
>so he recommended some sufi mystic
Ok bud...

[Anonymous No.11740275]

>>11740269
So only a Hindu can write a good book on Hinduism? Is that what you're saying?

[Anonymous No.11740289]

Listen to Om, and then imagine science fiction things with a detached sort of aesthetic. Ponder parallels to other Indo-European mythologies. What the Indians were on about isn't so stupid once you cut out the later additions and other nonsense your Yamnaya mind dislikes

[Anonymous No.11740301]

Read Ardor and Ka by Roberto Calasso

[Anonymous No.11740348]

>>11740275
Im saying he's irrelevant in hindu scholarship and should be avoided

[Anonymous No.11740359]

>>11740348
How is he irrelevant ?

[Anonymous No.11740395]

>>11740359
He's a perennial traditionalist author, not in any way an authority of hinduism. He hardly comes up in serious dialouges outside of 4chan eastern threads.

[Anonymous No.11740502]

>>11740395
How many books about Hinduism have you wrote anon? He wrote and published 3, which have been translated into at least a dozen languages. That makes him more of an authority than you. Can you provide any quote of any esteemed scholar on Hinduism saying anything bad about Guenon or are you just pulling this out of your ass? If the perspective of Hindus themselves is worth anything, let it be noted that Ramama Maharshi spoke approvingly of him.

[Anonymous No.11740521]

>>11740502
comparative religion scholars and “orientalists” and linguists don’t reference guenon, there’s a wealth of academic and Indian lit on the subject which is more than adequate. the issue is that u people steer everyone to guenon interminably and never even think to recc authorities on the subject. This despite the fact Guenon was not a Hindu.

[Anonymous No.11740538]

>>11740521
Not him but I can see your point, you can't ignore guenon's arguments though.

Does he raise any solidified arguments? I've never read his works.

[Anonymous No.11740546]

>>11740502
>b-b-but what about you huh!?
I wonder why you're so adamantly defending 'that anon' that you have to sperg out when someone blasphemes against his holiness Abdul 'Guenon' al-Wahid Yahya.

[Anonymous No.11740661]

>>11740521
Academia is a joke. If I want to learn how to understand Tantra or Vedanta from the perspective of a practitioner why should I care about what some academic says who doesn't even believe that it's true? Aside from using linguistics to help date texts (which is itself hardly important to a practitioner) what does western academia offer with regards to Hinduism that Hindu brahmins and sannyasas don't already know? Let me guess, you bought into the meme of academia and think if someone isn't referenced in academia they are unimportant because you guys are the ultimate arbiters of importance? A traditional instruction by a guru or something written by someone who received one is infinitely more valuable to understanding Hinduism from a Hindu perspective than some textbook examining it from an anthropological perspective written by people who never received such an instruction.

[Anonymous No.11740748]

>guenonfag getting called out for his autism and samefagging for the hundredth thread in a row

it's like a lit tradition now

[Anonymous No.11740766]

>>11740062
you mean these two threads: warosu.org/lit/image/Rvqhpi3734i5I2dtgeHrzQ

that are clearly made with the same image with the same hash with the same filename, that guenonfag openly lied about not making until someone pointed it out:
>Anonymous Sat Sep 1 18:19:05 2018 No.11720148
>I didn't post that thread, whoever did it was obviously joking around, nobody would ever seriously include what was written there unless they were asking to be trolled.

[Anonymous No.11740782]

>>11737964
>hindu gods are exclusively white or non-human color
>not a single indian or nepalese that is white
kek

[Anonymous No.11740816]

>>11740748
Yeah you got me, I'm being funded by the gulf monarchies to spread Guenon (pbuh) online to lure people into Islam so we can establish sharia law and outlaw Christianity, western philosophy and non-Traditional (e.g. Theravada) Buddhism. My plan was almost complete until you caught on. All of the (now 18) posters in the other thread are actually mine too and were made with my various proxy IP addresses. I'm paid to lurk /lit/ 24/7 to help convert impressionable minds, every single post ever about Guenon, Schuon, Coomaraswamy, Vedanta and Sufism are acually all mine.

[Anonymous No.11740846]

>>11740816
No, not all of them. Just these ones:
>>/lit/?task=search&ghost=yes&search_text=%22theosophy+shill%22

>>/lit/thread/S11577383#p11589919

[Anonymous No.11740881]

>>11740846
what does theosophy have to do with anything here?

[Anonymous No.11740992]

>>11740881
If you scroll down a bit you can see Guenonfag repetitively and delusionally thinking he's being stalked by "theosophy shills." Everyone who disagrees with him becomes a "______ shill" that can haunt him for "over a year." Which is a funny juxtaposition with this post >>11740816 where he is mocking just this sort of paranoia.

[Anonymous No.11741132]

>>11740816
GuenonIDF please go.

>>11740255
>>11738433
Can I get some agreement on which Gita translation I should be reading?
Also, is any background advisable or can I just jump in? (Hoping the background isn't just read "Mahabharata". That's crazy long.)

[Anonymous No.11741149]

>>11741132
Only Gita translations I've read are the ISKCON one and the Winthrop. Winthrop was much better (less annoying commentary). It had some useful explanatory footnotes, which were kept to a minimum which was nice since reading books with a ton of footones kills the flow of the reading.

[Anonymous No.11741187]

Guenonfag got me into Guenon. I don't know why some person hates him so much

[Anonymous No.11741520]

>>11738433
What about eaknath easwaran

[Anonymous No.11742448]

>>11741132
Most Gita translations have an introduction explaining the context.

>>11741149
I have Winthrop Sargeant's, positives are that it seems very straightforward. But I've read some very negative reviews saying he misunderstands Sanskrit grammar and makes some basic translation errors.

>>11741520
I've read it, but I'm not a fan. It's clearly aimed at beginners but leaves a lot of Sanskrit terms untranslated so you need to keep flipping to the glossary and end notes. It's an odd combination of over-simplifing some parts while making others too technical for a new reader.

[Anonymous No.11743031]

>>11737964
Read "Hinduism: Past and Present" by Axel Michaels, I'm reading it (in the original German) at the moment, and it's very well-written and looking into both the traditional aspects of Indology as well as the newer ethnoreligious aspects.