Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
How Devdutt Saved Buddhism
Buddha Had A Cousin Who Often Argued With Him And Opposed Him. His Name Was Devdutt, Or Devadatta. He Was Also Buddha’s Brother-In-Law…
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Articles
Honour as value: A concept for people without much economic or political power
Like ‘honour’, ‘holiness’ is also a currency. Icons become holy. Teachers become holy and so everything they touch become holy…
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Books
I Am Divine So Are You
How Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and Hinduism affirm the dignity of queer identities and sexualities. …
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Articles
Tulu-Nadu’s Bhootas
In Tulu Nadu, one finds even today, special temples, known as ‘sthaans’ where metal and wooden masks of spirits, or Bhootas, are worshipped…
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Articles
India’s New Age gurus believe sexuality may be fluid – but not brutal structures of caste, gender
They have fine-tuned Indian philosophy to pacify middle-class guilt about wealth and power while amplifying guilt over pleasure that could disrupt social norms…
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Articles
Does Hinduism have anything to say about mind, perception and cognition?
The word “spirituality”, which is about self-discovery leans towards the former, and the word “religion”, which is about social engineering leans towards the latter…
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Articles
Rituals, not belief
Hindu unity is sought by looking for the familiar, and ignoring the unfamiliar. There is no idea of a ‘false’ god…
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Articles
Born of Brahma’s hair
Plants play a key role in Hindu mythology. Plants are seen as sacred, sometimes deities by themselves, and sometimes as key offerings in a ritual…
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Articles
Is there such a thing as Hindu Halloween?
In Hinduism, there is no exact equivalent of Halloween, but there are many rituals performed that recognises the proximity of ghosts and seeks to keep them away…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? Karma, caste and free will.
Is Hinduism fatalistic? The answer depends on the context…
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Articles
Hutatma, the martyr-witness
At the heart of martyrdom is the idea of clinging. And this is why it is not a central theme in mythologies based on karma, where liberation (moksha) follows only when you let go!…
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Articles
Why do Hindus light lamps?
The lamp was lit primarily by homemakers and is very different from the fire in the yagna shala lit by brahmins, which, in turn, is very different from the campfire (dhuni) of sanyasis…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? Always and everywhere
The notion that religious texts have always been around may be rooted in the timelessness of philosophies…
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Articles
How India favoured the kshatriya feudalism to market-based economies of vaishya
The discomfort with all things associated with the market can be seen in India when holy men warn people not to be bhogi (seek satisfaction of desires), when desire for goods and services and ideas is what creates the market, with the goods provided by the craftsmen, the service by the shudras, and the ideas…
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Articles
Bali underfoot
From a mythological point of view, the story is very complex, containing layers and layers of thought, spread over 3,000 years……
