A Hindu may engage in tax fraud, visit the occasional prostitute, and mistreat his elderly parents, but he convinces himself that he is a very pious person because he supports the destruction of the Babri Mosque at Ayodhya and has even donated money to build a Hindu temple in its stead. Just as in ancient times, so also in the twenty-first century the human quest for meaning all too often ends with a succession of sacrifices.
