Mahavira, the founder of the religion that came to be known as Jainism was an older contemporary of the Buddha and is mentioned frequently in the Tipitaka where is called Nataputta. By the time the Buddha started teaching Jainism was … Read the rest
When we think of the beginnings of Hinduism in the West we usually think of Swami Vivakananda teaching Vedanta at the World Parliament of Religions in 1896 or of Swami Yogananda founding the Divine Life Mission in Los Angeles in … Read the rest
By the 1840’s the Imperial Chinese government was beginning to realise just how precarious its long cherished independence was. It looked on with alarm as one of its neighbours after another fell to the Western powers. The pattern of absorption … Read the rest
One often hears it said today that all religions are the same. It is a curious claim given that even a cursory reading of the doctrines of different faiths reveals a wide variety of ideas which have little in common … Read the rest
If there was one advantage of communism it is that it drove out from the lands where it became dominant some of their best minds and they enrich the non-communist world. The many outstanding Tibetan monks who are now promoting … Read the rest
The first time elephants were seen in Europe was in 280 BC when Pyrrhus of Epirus and his army of 25,000 men and 20 elephants crossed from north Africa to Terentus in the heel of Italy to begin their march … Read the rest
Some years ago while visiting my younger brother in France he, his family and I made a day trip to the small town of Vaison-la-Romaine in the south-east of the country. The river that divides the town is spanned by … Read the rest
The recent tsunami, the greatest natural disaster in living memory, has given rise to a great deal of soul-searching, not to say ‘theological’ searching. People are struggling to explain the disaster within the context of their religious beliefs. The English … Read the rest
Buddhism teaches causation, that the whole universe is a web of interrelated causes and effects. There are two types of causation – natural causation and moral causation. Natural causation has nothing to do with people being good or bad, it … Read the rest
Recently there has been widespread discussion in Singapore about the pros and cons of euthanasia. The government originally broached the subject, probably in response to rising health costs, and various medical and religious bodies have given their opinions on the … Read the rest
