Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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#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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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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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…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? Hindu ship of Theseus
Traditions may change every few years, but one school of thought says the essence of Hinduism will remain the same…
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Ancient incest in the sky
In the Vedas, long before people knew about gods such as Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma, there was a story of how the god of heaven committed incest with the goddess of dawn, his daughter…