Editorial Standards

Sanatana Rahasya is a reference on Sanatana Dharma, and a reference is only as good as its discipline. This page sets out exactly how the work is researched, written, checked, and corrected, so that any reader, and any machine that reads on a reader's behalf, can judge the standard for themselves.

1. Everything is traced to a source

Every substantive claim is anchored to a primary source — a classical text with its chapter and verse — or to named modern scholarship. Quotations from scripture are given in published, verifiable translations, and the translator is named. Where a page relies on a scholar's argument, that scholar is named too. Sources are listed on the pieces themselves, not left to trust.

2. Tradition and the record are kept distinct

Two different kinds of truth run through this subject, and we never blur them. What the tradition holds as sacred story and doctrine is presented as exactly that, with respect. What the documentary and archaeological record can actually establish is presented separately, as history. When the two diverge, both are shown, and which is which is always made clear. Where the record is silent, the writing says we do not know, rather than filling the gap with a guess.

3. When the lineages disagree, we say so

Sanatana Dharma is not one voice but many, and its schools genuinely differ. Where the lineages converge, the writing speaks plainly. Where they diverge — on metaphysics, on practice, on the reading of a verse — the divergence is named and the major positions are set out without privileging any one camp. This site belongs to no lineage or sect, which is precisely what lets it report the disagreements honestly.

4. Sources are balanced, not one-sided

The work deliberately draws on Indian scholars, practitioners, and primary Indian sources, alongside the Western academic tradition, rather than viewing the subject only through a colonial-era lens. Classical commentators and living traditions are treated as authorities on their own terms, and secondary sources are used to route back to the primaries, not to replace them.

5. A note on translations, and their limits

One constraint shapes how scripture is quoted here, and honesty requires stating it. We quote only translations that are in the public domain, or that we make ourselves from the Sanskrit, because copyright does not permit reproducing modern translations at length. The public-domain corpus of Sanskrit translation is dominated by the colonial-era Sacred Books of the East, which means many of the freely quotable renderings were made by Victorian British and German scholars. A reader who notices that a page cites Griffith or Müller is noticing something real.

What we do about it. First, the authority is the text, not the translator: every quotation carries its chapter and verse, which is the citation that matters, and the translation is named as an illustration of it. Second, wherever a good Indian public-domain source exists, we prefer it, and we name it. The Bhagavad Gita quoted here is the translation of Kashinath Trimbak Telang (1850–1893), a judge of the Bombay High Court and secretary of the reception committee at the first Indian National Congress; the Mahabharata is Kisari Mohan Ganguli's, published under his patron's name; the Ramayana and several Puranas are Manmatha Nath Dutt's; and the Sanskrit editions behind the Tantra material were prepared by named Bengali pandits such as Tārānātha Vidyāratna, even where an Englishman wrote the English around them. Third, the traditional commentators — Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, Madhva, Sāyaṇa, Medhātithi, Abhinavagupta — are Indian voices from within the tradition, and where the argument turns on how a verse has been understood, it is their reading we reach for, not a modern translator's. Where the only complete public-domain translation of a text is a colonial one, as with the Rigveda, we keep it and say so plainly rather than pretend a better free option exists.

6. Nothing is published until it is verified

Before a piece goes live it passes a multi-stage review: a claim-by-claim fact check against the cited sources, a check that every quotation is verbatim and every verse reference correct, cross-checking against more than one independent source where a claim is contested, and an adversarial read whose only job is to try to break the argument. A piece is revised and re-checked until it holds. Accuracy here is treated as an offering, not a formality.

7. Written to be understood

Depth is not the same as obscurity. Every piece opens with a direct answer for the reader in a hurry, then goes as far as anyone wishes to follow. Sanskrit and Tamil terms are explained the first time they appear and linked to a glossary, so no prior training is assumed and no reader is left behind.

8. Corrections are welcome, and made openly

This is careful work, but it is human work. If a date, a citation, a translation, or a claim looks wrong, we want to know, and genuine corrections are made. Write to us through Contact. A reference earns trust not by being infallible but by being correctable.

9. Independence and honesty about money

The core knowledge on this site is free and open. There is no guru to follow, nothing to join, and no enlightenment for sale. Where the site is supported by readers or offers anything for purchase, that is disclosed plainly and kept separate from the editorial work. What you read is shaped by the sources, not by a sponsor.

The work is edited by Aninda Nath. For the fuller account of why the site exists and the spirit in which it is written, see About.