Kalinga

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 that in the 13th century, the Ganga kings of Odisha bravely fought the Muslim invaders of Bengal, and even established a “New Varanasi” in Cuttack, Odisha, since the “Old Varanasi” had been plundered. Around this time, the giant temple of Purushottama was built, renamed the Jagannatha (lord of the world), ..

Published on 4th March, 2018, in Mid-Day. When we use the word demon in English we are instantly drawn to dark and hideous evil creatures. This idea comes to us from the Christian world that gave us the mythology of the Devil, and from the Zoroastrian world before that, where all things ugly were attributed to Angra Manyu, the smoke to the fire that was the divine Ahura Mazda. However, it is fascinating to learn that until the Mughals painted Hindu mythology on orders of Akbar in the 16th century, demons of Puranas were never shown as having dark complexion. They were coloured red and ..