Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
Nachiketa’s question
Yama said it was a very difficult question to answer, even the gods were not sure of the answer…
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Articles
Fake news: Was Sita the first victim?
In popular tradition, Ram is called Ramachandra. Though he belongs to the Suryavansh lineage, the solar dynasty, his name contains the word, Chandra or moon, to remind one – as per one folk tale – how his nobility gets eclipsed by the moon in the way he treats Sita…
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Articles
The sacred form of Kashi
In Kashi, the river Ganga, which normally runs from the Himalayas to the sea in the south, takes a turn and moves northwards. This reverse flow of the Ganga is considered spiritually significant because it is believed that one can manifest certain tantric ideas in such places…
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Articles
Son of an asura
Because Hiranyakashipu receives a boon from Brahma, he cannot be killed by any human or animal, either inside or outside a dwelling, at day or at night…
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Articles
Dhruva Or The North Star
In this story, there are many layers. One level becomes an etiological myth: how a country explains why the Pole Star is fixed in this position…
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Articles
The Myth of Property
The notion of property is the greatest myth of human civilisation. It is a fiction that everyone believes in and so is now seen as ‘fact’. It is not a natural phenomenon but a cultural concept enforced by various forces that benefit the members of a society…
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Articles
Radha In Space And Time
All Dharmashatras say, all traditions (riti) and laws (niti) must be subject to change depending on geography (desh), history (kala) and capability of communities (guna) involved…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? Hinduism in the Caribbean
The easiest way to identify a Caribbean Hindu is to look at their house from outside:you will see a jhandi, a pennant of different colours that represent different gods…
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Articles
The march of Yudhishthira’s horse
This is not just a conquest by a victorious king, but also an attempt to reconcile with former enemies…
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Articles
Buddhist scheme of things: King not just a king but a guardian of morality
The king, or leader, in the Buddhist scheme of things was thus not just a politician but a guardian of morality and ethics…
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Books
Hindi: Shyam: An Illustrated Retelling of the Bhagavata
Translation of Shyam: An Illustrated Retelling of the Bhagavata…
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Articles
The gallery of female rogues
Women can be dangerous forces of nature, or hypersexual beings, who take away the power of men, chain them to the material world and prevent them from walking the spiritual path…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? The importance of Ubhaya Bharati
The scholar taught Adi Shankaracharya that one cannot gain real wisdom without understanding the household, the body and the woman…
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Books
Ramayana Versus Mahabharata: My Playful Comparison
Ideas in this book are distributed over 56 chapters. In temples ritual, Vishnu is offered 8 different meals daily, different on all seven days of the week–56 dishes in all. May each chapter serve as a mouthwatering offering to the Vishnu within you…
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Articles
#MeToo in Mahabharata: Political needs were placed over Draupadi’s security
The story, an interlude in the otherwise royal saga, draws attention to how staff, especially female staff, are treated in organisations by people in positions of power…
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Articles
Bypassing the womb
In Puranic literature, we come across the concept of ayonija, someone who is not born from the womb, and consequently, is able to bypass or rise above the cycle of birth and death…
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Articles
On Diwali, understanding the nature of wealth through the mythology connected with goddess Lakshmi
Editor’s note: “The living (sajiva, in Sanskrit) seek food, the lifeless (ajiva) and the dead (nirjiva) don’t. This makes food the fundamental target (laksh) of life. From laksh comes Lakshmi. Lakshmi is food (anna) in nature and wealth (dhana) in culture,” writes Devdutt Pattanaik in his book 7 Secrets of the Goddess (published by Westland).…
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Articles
Land of body parts
The Buddhists and the Hindus share the idea of the land becoming sacred, when it is connected with the body of a holy being…