Hiranyakashipu

Published on 23rd June, 2019, in Mumbai Mirror Indians are obsessed with their mothers. An overview of Bollywood films reveals that. Mothers can do no wrong. They always sacrifice their life for their children. Good sons always choose mother over wife. By contrast, fathers are considered absent, leaving the mother to take care of the child. Or they are tyrannical, demanding obedience from sons. This is often Hindu mythology. But such conclusions are reductive, a classic case of cherry-picking, because Hindu mythology has all kinds of fathers, and mothers — from good to bad, from loving to indifferent. In the Ramayana, for example, we can ..

Published on 31st March, 2019, in Mumbai Mirror. The Rig Veda refers to giant houses with many pillars. However, we have no archaeological evidence of them, because the material used was probably wood. In the Atharva Veda, we hear of the stambha, or pillar, that separates Heaven and Earth. Even today in traditional Hindu temples, a pillar stands in front of the temple, either for the flag, or for lamps, or to simply assert divine authority. Pillars have played a very important role in cultures around the world to reflect both religious as well as political ideas. Some of the earliest pillars of the world ..

Published on 23rd December, 2018, in Mid-day. In the Vishnu Purana, we are introduced to the story of Prahalad. We are told he is the son of an asura king, Hiranyakashipu. 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. Therefore, he gains a certain immortality and starts demanding everybody worship him as God. However, Prahalad refuses to accept his father as God, and keeps worshipping Vishnu or Narayan, and keeps saying Narayan is present everywhere, in day and night, within and without. Prahalad prefers to worship ..