2024 / Articles
-
Ancient Indian Fashion Today
How old is Indian fashion? It is extremely difficult to prove continuity in the realm of fashion history.
-
Being Cultured In Japan
When we refer to culture, we typically refer to the packaging and the performance – music, costumes, food, dance, literature. We never talk about mindsets.
-
Legacy Of Those Denied Success By Heartless Gods
This is a story from Sumerian mythology. Sumer is a region in southern Iraq where the world’s first cities were established around 3500 BC.
-
How Pottery Offers Glimpses Of Cultures
Once pots were invented, humans could carry food and water wherever they went. This is why pots became objects of worship.
-
From Ram to Jagannath
As the chariot rolls out of the Jagannath temple in Odisha this year, some may ask, is Jagannath now the favoured ‘national’ god, overshadowing Ram of Ayodhya?
-
Gita is all about Family, Property and Inheritance
How do we decide who is an insider in a family, and who is an outsider? Who is mine, and who is not mine?
-
Rediscovering the Unique, Prehistoric Sites
The word prehistory is typically used for pre-writing cultures and more specifically for cultures that existed before farming and the use of metal tools.
-
Song and Dance For a Thai God
When you go to Bangkok, in the Sukhumvit area, you find a temple dedicated to a god called Erawan. The deity has four heads, eight hands, and he is associated with Brahma.
-
Kashi Brahmins and the Maratha King
There are many complex stories of why and how Brahmins challenged the caste status of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
-
Debunked Invasion, Ignored Migration
Academics, who accuse others of using imaginary stories and manipulating social constructs, need funding from politicians who have an agenda, so they select facts and present ideas to suit the ideology.
-
What Do We Really Know About Shankaracharya?
Comic books and popular mainstream films have created the impression that we know a lot about Adi Shankaracharya. But we know very little.
-
A Fascinating History Of Coins In India
Ever since the existence of civilisations, humans have been trading to facilitate exchange. But trading can happen without coins by recording debt. In fact, it is debt or rinn — the word found in the Rig Veda — that played…
-
Artificial Intelligent Slaves
So the origin of slavery and the origin of the working class really comes from the human desire not to produce one’s own food, but to outsource the work to others while enjoying its fruits.
-
Unwrapping the Meaning of Culture and Civilisation
Culture is what we are, civilisation is what we have. It suggests that culture is more psychological and about values, while civilisation is more material and about goods, technology, art and architecture. Can one exist without the other?
-
Saraswati, Sister of the Indus
In 1947, India was partitioned. The major sites of the civilisation, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, went to Pakistan. The artefacts were divided between the two nations. The Priest King went to Pakistan; the Dancing Girl came to India.