Hindus feel one should pray, but not because one wants something. Hindus also do not pray in the way Westerners do to Hindus, prayers granted become curses.
Our heaven is a temporary abode, after the enjoyment of which one is born again and given another chance to do better than gaining heaven. Hindus have no word for “heaven” in the sense of eternal reward. The gods we worship are the gods we create we cannot worship the God who creates us. Hindu gods have notoriously clay feet and are subject to the laws of cause and effect as are we poor mortals. Miracles cannot happen because nothing in this world of matter and karma operates outside the orbit of matter and karma. For example, Indian philosophy has no word for “miracle” in Sanskrit or any of the Indian languages. Plus, we may attribute some of our cultural concepts to make meaning of theirs, when actually those concepts may not even exist in the original context. Words that cannot be translated are given a description that may not represent the true intention or its value within Indian culture. This very much affects how Indian philosophy is represented in Western literature. SANSKRIT: artha, avatara, dharma, kala, kama, karma, moksha, nirvana, shantiĮNGLISH absolution (of sins), blasphemy, guilt, heaven, hell, incarnation, irony, miracle, religion, resurrection, secular, sin, tragedy Consider that some key words on both sides of the East-West divide have no translatable equivalents.
Let me first present an intriguing difficulty for all who wish to study the influences of Indian ideas, values, and beliefs on Western literature.