Welcome Remarks by Dr Arvind Gupta, Director VIF during the Vimarsh talk by Prof Arvind Sharma on ‘The Indic Religious Tradition – An Outline’ on Monday, 05 Aug 2024

He has published extensively in the fields of Indian religions and comparative religion. He is the general editor of the Encyclopedias of Indian Religions (Dordrecht: Springer, 2017) and his book on the Manusmṛti is currently awaiting publication.

He was also instrumental in the adoption of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the World’s Religions, at a global conference held in Montreal, in 2016.

Last year, Prof Sharma gave five lectures on Hindutva at the VIF. These were very well received. These are being published in the form of a book.

We are grateful to Sh S Gurumurthy for his participation in today’s talk. Sh Gurumurthy is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Vivekananda International Foundation. A Chartered Accountant by profession, Sh Gurumurthy is a noted writer and a thought leader. His lectures and writings on India’s civilisation and India’s place in the world have made a deep impression. His talk to the NITI Aayog last year has been incorporated as a chapter on climate change and India’s approach in the Economic Survey 2024.

This year, in the previous talks, Prof Sharma has covered Religion, Dharma, and the Indic Religious Tradition; The Indic Religious Tradition and the Philosophical Tradition of India; VARNA, ASHRAMA, and the Indic Religious Tradition; and the Relationship between Hinduism and Buddhism’. In today’s talk, he will be giving an outline of the “Indic Religious Tradition”

In his previous talks, he has unlined that the Indic tradition is essentially Dharmik tradition in contrast to the Abrahamic religion. Hindutva, Buddhism, Jain and Sikh complement each other and should be taken up as a whole. There may be some differences among them. That is to be expected. But there are a lot of commonalities in their value systems.

I now request Prof Arvind Sharma to deliver his talk.