Celebrate Diwali with Light, Love & The Divine Protector
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The Sindoor Goddesses of India
The oldest image of Durga, dated to the 1st century BC, was found in Nagar near Chittorgarh, Rajasthan. It shows the goddess with two hands, plucking out the tongue of…
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Sanatan Dharma Says Life Is Not a Problem To Be Solved
Sanatan dharma cannot come from one person. It is not bound to history or culture. It is the realisation that nothing is permanent. Seasons change. People die. Plants die. Animals…
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Elephants As Symbols Of Wealth and Power In Indian Culture
We cannot imagine India without elephants. Elephants have been a powerful symbol of wealth and power since ancient times.
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Historian’s Myth
It is generally assumed that historians are objective and express ideas outside their cultural influence, owing to academic training. However, this is never true. Historians, like all other humans, live…
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Buddhism Was Pushed Out, Or Pulled Out?
Emphasising the “pushing out” of Buddhism frames it as a passive victim. Its “pull out” strategy in response to local hostility, and greater opportunities in foreign lands, reminds us that…
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Caste As the Opposite of Conversion
Every Indian is born into a caste and a religion. But you cannot leave caste. You can only leave religion. This makes the doctrine of caste an antagonist of the…
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Escape the Bakasura Trap : Let Contentment Fuel Your Growth
This book re-discovers this path, first revealed by Hanuman in the Mahabharata. Insightful and inspiring, Escape the Bakasura Trap is another classic from one of our great mythologists and thinkers.
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Sanyasi Sages and Their Wives
Ancient rishis almost always had wives. The Saptarishis (Seven Sages) each had a wife.
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God As Generator, Organiser, Destroyer
The rishi who told stories of the creator, organiser and destroyer, and designed characters like Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, was an ancient Indian ‘seer’ who could see what others could…
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Why Kubera Is Not Ganesha
While plants and animals seek nourishment and security, humans seek more. Our hunger and fear is amplified infinitely by imagination. But food does not take away imagined hunger. If anything,…
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Consonant-gods and Vowel-goddesses of Many Brahmi Scripts
Hanuman wrote Ram’s name on rocks while building a bridge to Lanka. The Mahabharata was written by Ganesha who used his tusk as his stylus. This gave rise to the…
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Diversity and Unity Amongst Castes
The battle over caste identity continues, as it remains a struggle for both access to resources and access to status.
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Rise of the Brahmi Script
The ancient Indian writing system or the Brahmi is unique in that it is an abugida – which falls between an alphabet (vowels and consonants are separate) and a syllabary…
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From Sanskritisation to Backwardation
A century ago, many communities wanted to be recognised as Brahmins and Kshatriya. Today, the same groups want to be Other Backward Community (OBC). The old varna model (Brahmin, Kshatriya,…
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Biblical Tales in the Puranas
The Bhavishya Purana imagines an India (Bharat-varsha) from the Himalayas to the sea, with the Indus or Sindhu-desha forming the main barrier between Arya-desha, land of civilised folk, and Mleccha-desha,…
