News

Friends Talk: The Concept of God in the Bhagavad Gita

Birmingham Friends Event
Saturday, 16 February 2013 - 7:00pm to 9:00pm

 

Dr. Kate Wharton, Deputy Adviser for Inter Religious Affairs and Ramesh Pattni, Co-Chair of Hindu Christian Forum will each give a short presentation in response to the text of the Gita.
 
Ramesh Pattni will show how the Gita has been read by a variety of Hindu traditions to depict God in different ways. Is Krishna in his highest essence a divine being beyond personhood, a divine person coextensive with all creation or as first among equals, one divine person among many?
 
Kate Wharton will respond by speaking about her experience of first encountering the Gita and how it inspired her

Young, Hindu, Oxonian

25 January 2013

A talk by Alpesh B Patel, Tuesday 29 January 2013, 6pm, Balliol College as part of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies Leadership Programme.

What does it mean to be a good leader, and what qualities do we associate with good leadership? What do aspiring young leaders need to focus on most in their early years?

The purpose of this student organised lecture series is to help students consider leadership from Indian sources, dharmic and spiritual perspectives and practices, and from the considerable experience of representatives from government, the civil service, the media, community

Friends Event: The Cook, the Thief, the Wife and the Lover: Images of Time in Hindu tradition

Leicester Friends Event
Saturday, 15 December 2012 - 6:30pm to 9:00pm

A talk by Anuradha Dooney of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies.

We all know the clock-face of time that marks our days in ticks and tocks, but who knows the face of Time presented as these characters above?

This talk draws upon some less familiar faces of Time from the Mahabharata, the Puranas and the Bhagavad Gita and explores the relevance of these positive and negative descriptions to our experience of time today. It is accompanied by a visual presentation and will allow time questions and further discussion

Nehru Centre talk: Bhakti and Bollywood

Nehru Centre Event
Thursday, 6 December 2012 - 6:30pm

A talk by Dr Jessica Frazier of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Nehru Centre talk: Does that mean I am God?: Understanding Vedanta?

Nehru Centre Event
Monday, 19 November 2012 - 6:30pm

A talk by Dr Nick Sutton of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Vedanta is today the predominant form of Hindu religious philosophy and has been so for many centuries.  But what does Vedanta actually teach? And how accurately do the writings of Shankaracharya reflect the ideas of the Upanishads on which Vedanta is supposed to be based.  In this talk we explore these and other questions with particular emphasis on the Vedantic notion of inner divinity and what that implies for human life.

Friends Event: Women in Hinduism

Thursday, 1 November 2012 - 7:00pm to 9:00pm
A talk by Anuradha Dooney of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies.
The roles of women in Hindu traditions are changing as they are throughout the rest of the world. What can stories of Sita and Draupadi, of Savitri or Sulabha contribute to the contemporary challenges of chapati rolling ( or not!) child-care and career-making. This talk sketches a broad overview of varying female voices from selected Hindu sacred texts and explores their relevance to Hindu women today.

New book - Modern Hindu Personalism

20 October 2012

Sardella Book

OCHS fellow, Ferdinando Sardella, has published a new book, Modern Hindu Personalism, in which he explores the life and works of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati (1874-1937), a Vaishnava guru of the Chaitanya school of Bengal. Ferdinando Sardella examines Bhaktisiddhanta's background, motivation and thought, especially as it relates to his creation of a modern traditionalist institution for the successful revival of Chaitanya Vaishnava bhakti.

Friends Event: Does Hinduism Exist?

Leicester Friends Event
Saturday, 27 October 2012 - 6:30pm to 9:00pm

Contrary to common assumptions that the existence of a religion called “Hinduism” is beyond question, on-going debates in the world of scholarship reveal that the issue is far from settled. This talk will survey some of the arguments for and against the coherence and usefulness of the term “Hinduism”.

Bhumi in India

15 October 2012
Our Project Manager, Gopal Patel, is currently in India for the next few months. Whilst there he will be working on a number of India-based initiatives for Bhumi.
 
The first is to develop an India-based Hindu chapter of the Green Pilgrimage Network which was launched by ARC last year in Assisi, Italy <http://arcworld.org/news.asp?pageID=493>. He will be helping organise two conferences that will bring together civic and religious leaders from pilgrim towns across the country. The first will take place in Hyderabad in mid-October, during the Convention on Bio-diversity <

OCHS Cricket Day 2012

10 October 2012

The last weekend of the cricket season saw the first OCHS Cricket Day, with gorgeous weather conditions and two excellent teams set for a great day. 

The format of the game was two innings; one of twenty overs and the second of sixteen. The teams were London vs Rest of the world and the game was played at the beautiful Luton Town and Indians cricket ground.

London batted first, slightly over confident they crumbled to 26/4 within the first 6 overs.

New book series

9 October 2012

The OCHS is proud to announce a new academic book series “Archaeology and Religion”, published in partnership with Routledge India. The new series examines inscriptions, ritual objects, coins, and sculptural and narrative representations on shrines to help investigate the complex relationship between manifestations of religion and the archaeological record.

Through the study of the archaeological record, we can appreciate the diverse uses of sacred sites and how religious communities and practices have changed and evolved over time.

IK Foundation Lecture: India: A Secular State?

Nehru Centre Event
Thursday, 18 October 2012 - 6:30pm

A talk by Dr Nick Sutton of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

The constitution of India is clearly that of a modern secular society that excludes any single religion from exerting significant political influence.  Yet India is still far from being a country without religion.  In this talk we will consider the limits of secularism and exactly what distinctions exist between secular and religious societies.