Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
How Do We Know What We Know?
Published on 20th March, 2022, in Mid-day. How do we know what we know? This subject is called epistemology. Here, we try to understand how knowledge is created. This subject was a part of intellectual discourse in ancient India, under the subject Nyaya. Today, “nyaya” means justice. But in ancient times, it meant rational thinking…
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Articles
Treasures of Mythology: Inside the Fascinating World of the Merchant Class
Published on 19th March, 2022, in Economic Times. When we read stories from history, we focus on kings and their wars. The reason for this excessive focus on kings and warfare is the fact that the subject of history emerged in Europe in the 19th century. During this time, kings themselves wanted to hear stories…
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Articles
Seven Holes of Hundun
Published on 13th March, 2022, in Mid-day. Hundun gave food to two beings, one who came from the north and the other who came from the south. Grateful, the two decided to help Hundun. Hundun had no eyes, nose, ears or mouth. He did not have the seven holes to appreciate the world around. So…
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Articles
How Do We Know What’s History, Myth or Legend?
Published on 12th March, 2022, in Times of India. In ancient times, ‘itihasa’ meant stories ‘witnessed’ by the storytellers. So Ramayana is ‘itihasa’ because it was witnessed by Valmiki who wrote the story. Mahabharata is ‘itihasa’ because it was witnessed by Vyasa who wrote the story. The Brihaddevata is a Vedic text full of such…
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Articles
The Dark Man on a White Horse
Published on 6th March, 2022, in Mid-day. Most Indians have heard about Somnath temple that was raided by Mahmud of Ghazni a thousand years ago. Very few know that in the same century, the Chola king from the south raided Odisha and Bengal and took back with him images of Shiva. Even fewer people know…
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Articles
What Draws the Corporate World to Himalayan Yogis and Siddha Purusha
Published on 5th March, 2022, in Economic Times. Jesus’ fame came not from reasonable and compassionate gospels, but for news that he turned water into wine. Buddha’s fame came not from mindful meditation that destroys desire, but from chanting Buddhist hymns that fulfil desire. Likewise, Himalayan Yogis and Siddha Purusha may look like ascetics but…
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Articles
Tigress Goddess of Harappa
Published on 27th February, 2022, in Mid-day. The first goddess of India is depicted on Harappan seals dated to 2,500 BCE. She is shown as half tiger, like a sphinx, upper half female with headdress and bangles, and the lower half of the cat. It’s the oldest sphinx image in the world, showing a woman…
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Articles
How Trade Blossomed an Exchange of Ideas Between India and Arabia.
Published on 26th February, 2022, in Times of India. Indians had been trading with Arabs for a long time. About 4000 years ago, trade happened with Harappans by ships that travelled along the sea-coast. Birds were used to identify the direction of the shore if the ship went too far into the sea and lost…
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Articles
Pashupati and the Harappan Seal.
Published on 25th February, 2022, in The Hindu. We have all heard of the Pashupati seal in Harappa. Scholars are clear that it has nothing to do with Shiva, even though it is still labelled as proto-Shiva in popular books. The Pashupati described in the Veda is the guardian of cattle, animals that have been…
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Articles
The Body and House of God
Published on 20th February, 2022, in Mid-day. Now-a-days, we do not see the Mediterranean world as a unit. We see the northern shores as European and Christian, and the southern shores as African and Muslim. But for hundreds of years, the entire Mediterranean was a unit controlled by the Roman Empire. Wealth from these regions…
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Articles
What Lapis Lazuli Tells About the Power Establishment in Ancient India?
Published on 19th February, 2022, in Economic Times. If one travels to a period nearly 5000 years ago, and goes to ancient Egypt, or ancient Mesopotamia (which is modern-day Iraq), we will find images of their gods and goddesses. These deities had blue hair, blue eyebrows and blue eyes. The distinct blue color is placed…
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BooksFeatured Books
The Stories We Tell: Mythology to Make Sense of Modern Lives
In The Stories We Tell: Mythology to Make Sense of Modern Lives, renowned mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik presents seventy-two tales from India’s rich treasure of myths and legends to explain life in the twenty-first century. The stories are arranged into a variety of themes, including ‘Apsara’, a reflection on the portrayal of women in ancient texts;…
