2025
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Royal Ram Hunted Deer, Not Lions
Ram of the Ramayana is a great archer but he is never depicted in art or story as hunting lions or tigers. That is strange, considering his royal status.
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Binding Bharat With a Vegetarian Canteen
Many pilgrim spots are being turned vegetarian. First Jain sites. Now Hindu sites. The assumption being vegetarian food is non-violent (it is not), eggs, fish, and meat are impure and polluting (they are not) and gods prefer vegetarian food (since…
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Why Myth Terrifies Seekers Of Truth
Truth based on faith is religious truth or cultural truth or patriotic truth, which in modern academic circles is called “myth”. Truth based on scepticism is scientific truth, and depends on measurement, evidence, and experimentation.
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Did Aryans Know About Same-Sex Behaviour?
In a story from Brahmanas, when the world was split into three, men went on top with the sky, women stayed below with earth, in between was the third sex, neither this nor that. Indra once becomes third being “men…
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Hanuman Jayanti
As a child, Hanuman wanted to learn everything about the world. He asked his mother how he could do so and his mother pointed to the sun and said that since the sun saw everything, Hanuman should learn from the…
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Bharat’s Mercantile Heritage
India’s oldest civilisation was the Harappan civilisation, which was a merchant civilisation. Over 4,000 years ago, in the Bronze Age, several planned brick cities stood along the Indus, the now-dry Saraswati, and the coasts of Gujarat. They traded tin, copper,…
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Jainism
Mahavir was conceived in the womb of a Brahmin woman, but according to Jains, a Tirthankar can only be born to a Kshatriya. So, the foetus must be transplanted by a goat-headed or deer-headed god named Naigamesha.
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The Fire-born Rajputs
The Rajputs themselves have many stories about their origin. Raghuvamsi Rajputs claim descent from the solar dynasty of kings. Chandella and Yaduvamshi Rajputs claim descent from lunar lines of kings. Then there are the Agni-kula or fire-born Rajputs.
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Why Pots Are Integral to Understanding Culture
Pottery is a sign of culture. It allowed humans to transport food and water. Besides cooking or storage — it serves ritualistic purposes in both marriage and death ceremonies. This dual function, both practical and spiritual, makes pottery an essential…
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Where Is Bharat In Sugriva’s Atlas?
The Valmiki Ramayana has layers of information, included in different historical periods, that saw the location of Sugrivaʼs kingdom and Ravanaʼs kingdom shift.
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Stage-Managed Spirituality
The trees have not changed. The animals have not changed. Humans have not changed, either. Only technology has changed. Spirituality is essentially about coping with anxiety and finding meaning.
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Flames of Fidelity
No one knows when the pan-Indian practice of warrior widows burning themselves with (sahagamana) or without (anugamana) the corpse of their husband came to be known as ‘sati’ — a word that means the chaste wife. The inhuman practice was…
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So Many Types of Nagas
Naga ascetics of Kumbh Mela are now world famous. These are the ascetics who arrive at the confluence of rivers wearing no clothes and bearing weapons. They are smeared with ash, and have matted hair.
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When Gurus Cling to Opinions
In nature, no land belongs to any plant or animal. Everyone fights for territories and the strongest wins. In nature, no one has rights over their body: it is food for the hungry, it is a vehicle to produce the…
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Old Babas and Young Babas
In mythology, the rishi or sage comes in all shapes and sizes. A sage can be a child, a youth, or an old man, and the same applies to gods.
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Sodom, Lut and other Islamic myths
What was the wickedness of the Sodomites? They wanted to have sex with Lotʼs male guests, who were actually Godʼs angels. Lot offered them his daughters instead.