Author: Maria Wirth
Many Indians will remember the girl from Kathua, whose alleged gangrape and murder got huge media coverage in the spring of 2018, comparable only to the huge media coverage of Nirbhaya in 2012. In Nirbhaya’s case, all the accused mentioned by the media had Hindu names, as they withheld the Muslim name of a juvenile. In Kathua, too, all accused had Hindu names. Yet while in Nirbhaya’s case, there was evidence that the accused were involved, because they were all in the bus, in the Kathua case, there was no evidence whatsoever. The whole story was based only on the…
In August 2022, I was flying from Khajuraho to Delhi. Khajuraho is a small airport, and the passengers walk to the plane. A woman, walking next to me, pointed to a young Swami near us, “We are so lucky”, she said in a low voice. “The Maharaj of Bageshwar Dham is flying with us. Thousands come to his darshan, and here we are so close.” I had not heard of Pandit Dhirendra Krishna Shastri and Bageshwar Dham Sarkar till then, but when I came home and showed the photo, which I had taken, to my neighbour, she exclaimed, “you have…
The following article by me has gone viral on social media, including on WhatsApp some years ago. Its popularity had provoked V. Raghunathan, an NRI from Canada with a long and very impressive bio, to write a counter under the rubric ‘Outraged’ for the Times of India blog in January 2020. He titled it: “Why Maria Wirth is wrong”, which shows up even today when googling my name. Strangely, V. Raghunathan did not give a link to my original blog which had outraged him. I post it here, so that the reader can come to his own conclusion if I…
By chance I discovered only now a review of my book from 2019 at the website of the journal AUROBHARATI. It’s very flattering, but to be frank, I also feel, the book turned out well. However, nowadays only few people find time to read books and even fewer know about my book. Here I copy the review by Beloo Mehra: APRIL 1, 2019 / BOOK OF THE MONTH, NATION / BY BELOO MEHRA From time to time, Renaissance will feature a book which brings new light on some aspect of Indian culture – whether it be an invocation of the…
The Pioneer newspaper had recently an editorial titled “culture wars”. It considered ‘the Kashmir files’ movie as a “part of the culture wars” and that the ‘real purpose’ of the movie was to promote the BJP agenda. The BJP agenda, so is implied, is to create a Hindu rashtra Yet not only an Indian newspaper disparaged the Kashmir Files. The Time Magazine had a headline: “The Kashmir Files: How a new Bollywood movie marks India’s further descent into bigotry.” It made me wonder who are the players in the “culture wars” and why a dominant Hindu culture is usually projected…
This was a question on Quora already 8 years ago. Meanwhile there are many more attempts to associate Hinduism wrongly with violence. Here is my updated reply from 8 years ago: Hinduism is the only religion of the three major religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism) that never used a sword to spread, unlike the other two. The reason is simple. It is the only religion that does not divide humanity into “us, who are right, versus them, who are wrong”. It is the only religion of the three, which does not claim that it alone is true and others need to…
In the first part, I showed that German philosophers were VERY interested in ancient Indian manuscripts which were often looted by missionaries. What about German scientists? Were they also interested in Indian knowledge? Yes. Very much so. Famous names are among them: Einstein, Max Born, Max Planck, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Weizaecker and Wernher von Braun. These scientists of the early 20th century knew about Indian philosophy and did not hide their knowledge of Vedanta. Schroedinger ended his lectures often with the Upanishadic quote “Atma is Brahma”. But these scientists did not disclose if they got concrete help from ancient manuscripts for ‘their…
Germans became interested in India rather late, but when they finally came in touch with ancient Indian manuscripts and their translations, Germans became VERY interested. Heinrich Heine, (1797 – 1856), a German author, wrote after listening to lectures on the Upanishads, “The Portuguese, Dutch and British have for a long time ferried huge treasures on big ships from India to their home countries. We Germans had to look on. But we will not be left behind. We take their knowledge. Our Sanskrit scholars provide us with this wealth from India right here in Bonn or Munich.” Many Germans intellectuals became…
This was a question in an interview. Since the interview is quite long, I post here my reply to this question: In my view, the caste system is unfairly misused to demonize India and Hinduism. A study of history would show that it has been misrepresented, probably with the agenda by the Church to convince Hindus and the world that their tradition needs to be replaced with the “true religion”. All over the Western world, children hear in school that the core of Hinduism is a terrible caste system (apart from many gods), which of course is not true. I…
In December 1985, I was sitting at the back of a small temple at the outskirts of Chamba near Tehri when some boys discovered me and, typically for Indian kids, who are never shy, started asking me questions. “Where you are from? Do people there also know about Ram?” “No, where I am from, people don’t know about Ram”, I replied. They looked disappointed. Only then I realised that the crackling of loudspeakers that I heard from a village downhill, was in preparation for the Ramlila. A year later, I attended the grand Ramleela in Varanasi over 30 evenings and…