Temples & Pilgrimage
Capturing Divinity
India’s ancient crafts, thriving to this day, tell awe-inspiring tales of human creativity and religious fervor. Stone e…
Topic
Environment
77 articles
Spiritual Life
Sri Ramana
India’s Unassuming Sage By Sudarshan Ramabadran and ϖ Anandhi RamachandranAll Sidebars Are by the Editors By Sudar…
Spiritual Life
Awesome Kedarnath
A Malaysian survives a monsoon-pelted yatra to Siva’s Himalayan home Aravindraj Chandrasekaran, Kuala Lumpur Growing up …
Environment
Childhood Nutrition
Don’t just feed your children good food,teach them how to eat right their whole life By Dr. Virender Sodhi Childhood [&h…
Spiritual Life
Disciplines of Yoga
A path to self-mastery through solitude and dedicated practice The following are excerpts from Dr. S. P. Sabharathnam’s …
Environment
Herd Lumbers Across the USA
An invasive toxic shrub is transformed into models of elephants in South India to raise millions for forest restoration …
Youth
Dharma Defenders in America
The Hindu American Foundation’s Dharma Ambassador Certification Program helps graduates explain the religion convincingl…
Spiritual Life
Invoking the Divine Feminine
Interview With Maa Gyaan Suveera By Erica Bassani, Rishikesh During my research on female masters to interview for the W…
Global Dharma
Global Dharma
Grandparent Uses Modern Media to Pass on Her Faith American Hindu parents and grandparents are grappling with how to kee…
Temples & Pilgrimage
200 Deities Pilgrimage to Mandi for Mahasivaratri
Join our reporter for the little-known, week-long celebration of Mahasivaratri in the Himalayan foothills, attended by …
Environment
Vanamali Mataji: All Women Are Sacred
By Erica Bassani, Rishikesh It was my great good fortune to interview this 84-year-old saint at her Rishikesh ashram Mar…
Spiritual Life
I Surrendered to Kailash’s Embrace
How I defied the odds to rapidly prepare for a grueling but liberating trek on foot around the most sacred […]
Environment
Celebrating the Circle of Life
The Punya Dham Ashram provides retirement homes for cows and aging humans as well as mass weddings for the young [&helli…
Environment
Leaf Plates: Our Traditional Past Meets the Ecological Future
By Devi Ravindraraj, Texas What is beautiful, healthful, environmentally-friendly, fun to eat from, and a long-establish…
Environment
Hinduism: Nature’s Guardian
Here we explore a range of sacred plants and the unique ways Hindu beliefs in nature’s divinity have helped protect [&he…
Temples & Pilgrimage
The Holy Ganga, from Varanasi to the Sea
For the millions of devout Hindus living close to Ganga, every day is full of blessings from the sacred river. [……
Environment
Beloved Mystic Mountains
Nepal’s chief surveyor recounts the Himalayas’ spiritual importance, the modern and ancient history and his own 2019 wor…
Environment
India’s Profound Kinship with Water
Water holds a special place in every Hindu’s life. The rivers are sacred, the temple tanks bestow blessings, and worship…
Environment
A List of Sacred Plants
All rituals for Hindus begin and end with flowers. Our temples (especially in India) have a Sthala Vriksha or Sacred [&h…
Environment
Bathing the Gods in Bottled Water?
Our holy rivers are in dire need of our help to reduce poaching and pollution and allow us safe access […]
Environment
India From Above
By Saahil Rahmanand Anuradha Goyal There is no nation like it on earth, in diversity, history and visual array. We [&hel…
Environment
Special Feature: Earthquake Devastates Nepal’s Sacred Sites
thomas l kelly SPECIAL FEATURE EARTHQUAKE DEVASTATES NEPAL’S SACRED SITES Nepal’s Hindus and Buddhists face an enormous …
Environment
Environment: Rescuing the Source of Life: Water
ENVIRONMENT RESCUING THE SOURCE OF LIFE: WATER ______________________ The Global Interfaith WASH Alliance brings religio…
Environment
Ecology: For Sustainability, Look to India
ECOLOGY FOR SUSTAINABILITY, LOOK TO INDIA ______________________ Wealthy nations can learn from her frugal, vegetarian-f…
Environment
Environment: Promoting a Green Gathering
ENVIRONMENT PROMOTING A GREEN GATHERING ______________________ The head of Parmarth Niketan explains why he took his “Cl…
Environment
Ecology: Ahimsa Can Save the Planet
BY PANKAJ JAIN For observant Hindus, Jains and Buddhists, hurting or harming another being damages one’s karma and…
Environment
History and Geography: Shaped by Volcanos and Fiery Invasions
It looks a lot like the descriptions of Elysian lands where the Gods dwell. If you ask the Balinese, they […]
Environment
Nonviolence/Environment: How Our Food Choices Affect the Entire Planet
In The Ethics of What We Eat, Why Our Food Choices Matter (Rodale, 2006), Professor Peter Singer and animal rights [&hel…
Environment
‘I Love Cloth Diapers’
By Darshani Sukumaran When I had our daughter a few months ago and people found out I was using cloth […]
Environment
Rethinking Science
By Mark Hawthorne In the scientific community, the name Rupert Sheldrake raises eyebrows. After all, this is the biologi…
Environment
To the Source of Ganga
By Prabha Prabhakar Bhardwaj Many magical tales are told about Gangotri, the mythical wellspring of the Ganges, India…
Environment
Harvesting the Monsoons
By Tirtho Banerjee Fifteen years ago, no father wanted to marry off his daughter to a boy from the village […]
Environment
DNA Exposes India’s Past
Genetic evidence isn’t just about freeing the unjustly convicted these days or determining whether Thomas Jefferso…
Environment
To Rebuild Kutch
By Rajiv Malik The game begins with one child emitting a low-pitch growl, “grrrrrrrrr,” imitating not the wa…
Environment
The Snake Boats of Kerala
Vrindavanam S. Gopalakrishnan This is no ordinary boat race. There are other such tournaments taking place elsewhere in …
Environment
Tesla: Electricity’s Mastermind
By Mark Hawthorne Nikola Tesla is not as famous as his contemporary, Thomas Edison, but his inventions brought the world…
Environment
Golden Rice: When Science Goes Awry
By Vandana Shiva Dr. Vandana Shiva is one of India’s and the world’s foremost environmental activists. She h…
Environment
Sacred Gifts
By Hari Bansh Jha The most valuable gift one can give to the environment is not money–it’s action. On Novemb…
Environment
Waves of Bliss
By Ashwinee Ragoonanan Kartik is one of the largest Hindu festivals celebrated in Trinidad and Tobago. There are many ve…
Environment
India’s Natural Farm Friend
Farming is not business but a religious work,” says Ashok V. Sanghavi, master gardener at the innovative Sanghavi …
Environment
Spirituality Alone Can Save Our Planet
BY JAGADGURU SHANKARACHARYA SRI BHARATI TIRTHA In many parts of the world we witness terrible wars, terrorist activity a…
Environment
In the Wake of a Cyclone
By Sadhu Divyamurtidas Nature’s devastating wrath overwhelmed Orissa, ripping the state apart on October 29, 1999.…
Environment
We Came. We Saw. We Messed it up.
The diversity and relative instability of life on Earth is remarkable, and its history holds some stunning surprises. Si…
Environment
Legends from the Living Mountain
Book Excerpt: Himalayan mountain lore is a mix of ancient myth and modern drama. Sometimes, the two overlap, as findings…
Environment
India’s Picture Vendor
Ever wondered where Hinduism Today gets those fabulous photographs of India like the one below capturing a few hundred t…
Temples & Pilgrimage
These Are Priests, Have No Drought
The Washington Post, one of America’s most prestigious newspapers, was unhesitating in giving credit where credit …
Environment
Narmada Floods Begin
Best-selling Indian authoress Arundhati Roy is leading new protests against daming the Narmada River. In a recent six-da…
Environment
Water Worries
By The Associated Press Drilling machines roar as water gushes through thick pipelines laid where rice once grew. These …
Environment
God’s Favorite Flower
By Anil K. Goel Both in worship and in portrayals of the divine, hindus are infatuated with flowers. The very […]
Environment
Badrinath’s Trees
SPECIAL REPORT By EDWIN BERNBAUM High in a valley beneath the sacred snow peak of Nilkanth, the “Blue-Necked God,&…
Environment
India’s Ecological Mess
By M. P. Mohanty India has a culture and tradition of holding every form of life in esteem. Indeed, even […]
Temples & Pilgrimage
Mountains of Mystery
Viewed through the eyes of a Buddhist or Hindu, mountains are mystical realms of Gods, heavens, spirits and spiritual ma…
Environment
Delhi’s Discontented Cows
The city of Delhi employs 100 “cow catchers” to deal with the approximately 40,000 cows which freely wander …
Environment
The Tiger Wallah
By Lavina Melwani He has trudged through impenetrable rain-forests, down swirling rivers, up icy mountains and through h…
Environment
Spirit of the Garden Island
Six million or more years ago, at the most isolated spot in the mid-Pacific ocean, the volcanic island now known [&helli…
Environment
Wailua Botanical Gardens
It is traditional for Hindu temples to cultivate nearby gardens that provide beauty, medicinal resources, fruits and flo…
Environment
The Buttersweet Benefits of Ghee
BY BRAHMACHARINI MAYA TIWARI Vedic seers considered milk to be the most sattvic (peace-producing) food for humankind. Fr…
Environment
Flora’s Friend
By Lavina Melwani She’s a natural, and a more enthusiastic spokesperson for nature would be hard to find. Manju Pr…
Environment
Ajanta to See Daylight
By M. P. MOHANTY For the last seven years I have been pleading to build replicas of the Ajanta Caves,” […]
Environment
India’s Savior of Sacred Plants
“Preservation through documentation and education.” This is the modus operandi of Dr. S.K. Jain, the retired…
Environment
Passionate Pictures
As vast as its rolling highland plateaus are the mountains of books available on Tibet, and their topics and viewpoints …
Environment
Aahh, That’s the Spot!
By Hema Shukla, Associated Press Under the shade of a mango grove in eastern India, four men leisurely haggle over [&hel…
Environment
The Spoiling of the Ganges
Our consciousness has gone in-to a slumber. Our sensitivity has slipped into a strange coma,” laments activist Rak…
Environment
World’s Most Effective Enviromental Attorney
New Delhi attorney M.C. Mehta has successfully argued before India’ Supreme Court that pollution as a hazard to li…
Temples & Pilgrimage
Malaysia’s Everest Quest
Interviews by RAMESH SIVANATHAN and RAJAKUMAR M ANICKAM, Malaysia Thank God! Thank God!’ was the first thing I sai…
Temples & Pilgrimage
Kerala Siva Temples
By VRINDAVANAM S. GOPALAKRISHNAN Two thousand and more timber temples dot Kerala’s verdant landscape. Devotee̵…
Environment
India – Once Plentiful
Most of us college-educated Indians were taught that inefficient technologies and low productivities pervaded through lo…
Environment
Sky’s Not the Limit
By LAVINA MELWANI, NEW YORK Who would have thought that a young Indian girl with her feet firmly on the […]
Environment
Multi-Tailed Comet Visits
Comets through the ages have always brought with them a sense of mystery, foreboding awe and sometimes downright terror.…
Environment
Tulsi and Rudraksha
Plants provide our food, clothes, medicine, building materials and the oxygen we breath, yet we seldom honor their impor…
Environment
City’s Cross Must Go
In two decisions just days apart by the United States Federal Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, a 103-foot …
Environment
‘Deep River’ – a Japanese Odyssey to Holy Ganga
WITH JYOTHI VENKATESH, Mumbai A bus of Japanese tourists bounces east, sightseeing from Delhi toward Banaras and the Gan…
Temples & Pilgrimage
Sacred Psychiatry
By VRINDAVANAM S. GOPAIAKRISHNAN My wife developed mental problems when she was pregnant in 1965. All types of treatment…
Environment
Tribals Take a Walk
It seemed like a good idea at the time–to declare a “Year of the Indigenous Peoples” in 1993 to coinci…
Temples & Pilgrimage
City of 10 Million Icons
BY CHOODIE SHIVARAM, BANGALORE Kammasandra was just an obscure town 100 km from Bangalore until Sri Samba Shivamurthy Sw…
Temples & Pilgrimage
Valiant Himalayan Rescue
Hundreds perish; 9,000 airlifted by helicopters With Vinod Singh Rawat in Delhi This was to be the biggest year ever [&h…
Environment
Life on Mars?
“Worm” found in meteorite in Antarctica sets Earth’s theologists pondering the implications It wasn’t quite what we had …