Economic Times

The eastern coast of Africa has a long relationship of trade with the western coast of India. However much of it is undocumented and hence it is not part of the popular imagination. In the coast of Karnataka, we find a temple to Kappiri Devaru. It is said that if you give Kappiri Devaru blankets, alcohol and cigarettes, he is pleased and fulfils mundane wishes, like giving children to childless couples. The story goes that he was an African slave who escaped slavery from Portuguese Goa and found his way to Karnataka. Here, he was a wise man who helped local fishermen and healed the ..

Published on 15th April, 2023, in Economic Times. In the famous miniseries, Game of Thrones, everyone loved the queen Daenerys Targaryen who was the mother of dragons. She rode these amazing creatures and watching her fly made everyone feel powerful. If you upset this queen, she could get her dragons to release fire and burn you to death. Thus she got people to fear her and submit to her authority. This fear that leads to submission and obedience is often called respect. Those who yearn for respect, seek these dragons. In Hindu mythology, the same idea manifests as Bhasmasur, or the ash-demon. Once upon a ..

Published on 1st April, 2023, in Economic Times. India was famous for trading with Southeast Asia and the Middle East since ancient times. However, Hindu scriptures shunned mercantile economy and focussed on agricultural economy. Value was placed on land tax, not on toll tax. By contrast, Buddhism and Jainism greatly value merchants. This is why in Hindu epics such as Ramayan and Mahabharat we never hear about traders but Buddhist Jataks and Jain charitras do. As per Buddhist lore, soon after he attained Buddhahood, Siddhartha Gautama was fed by two merchants. They said they could not be bhikku (monk), so Buddha encouraged them to become ..

Published on 15th October, 2022, in Economic Times. Along the banks of the Tungabhadra, the Vijaynagara kings established grand temples in the 14th century. Each temple was attached to a marketplace. There was one temple for the spice market, another for the horse market, and another for the jewellery market. This makes one wonder if the temples were founded as spiritual or material institutions. This brings forth another question. Is this division between spiritual and material an artificial one? Do we truly understand the close relationship between the two? In ancient times, the market and the temple had a close relationship. The maintenance of the ..

Published on 30th September, 2022, in Economic Times. Imagine you go out for dinner with a person who has more wealth than you. He, or she, pays the bill. Then you experience their wealth. However, if you split the bill 50-50, or you pay the entire bill yourself, then you do not experience their wealth. How then does their wealth matter in your relationship? We look at rich people through the lens of their money. We rarely see if their wealth impacts the quality of our relationship with them. Do they buy the goods and services that you offer in the market? Do they invest ..

Published on 17th September, 2022, in Economic Times. The most popular school of Vedanta is called Advaita. Advaita means non-dual. In English it is often translated as monism. But there is a difference between the structure of the two words. Advaita is refuting the existence of two. Monism is acknowledging the existence of only one, no other. Not two does not mean one. This mistranslation happened as early translations of this work in English happened in the colonial context, when Christian monotheism was seen as the benchmark of religion. There was pressure amongst Hindu reformers to show Upanishad as the Hindu equivalent of the New ..

Published on 3rd September, 2022, in Economic Times. To be king, a man has to establish himself as belonging to a royal family. But what about the founder? How does he distinguish himself from the men he is supposed to rule over? How does he become a special man, a super human, with the power to command fellow humans? In ancient India, an ambitious warlord needed to sponsor rituals by Brahmins. The successful completion of this ritual would mean he was favoured by the gods. The rituals are described in the Yajur Veda, and Brahman literature, and include Agistoma, Agnicayana, Ashwamedha, or Vajpayee, and the ..

Published on 6th August, 2022, in Economic Times. We have always been taught that capitalism was invented in Europe. But the capitalism that we see today is the outcome of the Industrial Revolution. Before the Industrial Revolution, capitalism thrived in trading routes controlled by the Arabs. These routes extended from Southeast Asia, right up to the Mediterranean. The city of Baghdad was the centre of trade. This was over a thousand years ago. A thousand years before that, the trading routes across the world were controlled by Buddhist merchant kings. This is one aspect of Buddhism that has been obscured by European historians who since ..

Published on 23rd July, 2022, in Economic Times. The New Testament was finalised about 1500 years ago. About the time when Puranas started being composed in India. But what was new about it? The Church said that the old testament was the Jewish Bible. All that was prophesied there had been fulfilled in the body of Jesus Christ, who the Church declared to be not just the much awaited messiah, but also the Son of God. Did the Jewish folk agree? No, they did not. But the Church did not care. They simply ignored the Jewish opposition, and even referred to the Jewish people as ..