Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
Did the Mughals invent Hindi?
Hindi is often described as a language born in Mughal barracks, as if it were simply the speech of imperial camps. This is an attractive phrase, but it is historically incomplete. The story of Hindi is much older, far wider, and far more layered. …
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Articles
Comparing Poems from Tantra and Bhakti
A tiny fragment of the Indian population was literate in medieval times. But a large portion knew poetry, composed poetry and transmitted poetry. These poems are thus major cultural outputs. …
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Articles
How the British shaped India’s education system
Education in India underwent a major transformation in the nineteenth century during British rule, particularly after the intervention of Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1835…
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Articles
How Mangal Kavyas reinvented Hinduism in Bengal
Stories shape culture. The Mangal Kavyas is one such example. They are folk narratives that emerged in Bengal between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. …
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Articles
What was Rig Vedic society like?
Rig Vedic society reflects a long and uneven transition from a predominantly pastoral mode of life to a more settled agrarian order, accompanied by the gradual emergence of social hierarchies…
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Articles
What Is India’s Original Name?
India has numerous names, but lacks a single, definitive origin story. This is unsettling for modern nationalism, which favours a clear and singular genesis. The truth, however, is more nuanced and compelling. …
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Articles
How Metaphors Reveal Ancient India’s Cultural Secrets
Early Indian metaphors emerge from three very different cultural zones: the Vedic northwest, the Tamil south, and the Prakrit-speaking Deccan. Each region had its own climate, flora, fauna, settlement pattern, and historical rhythm. …
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Articles
Brief History of Rasa, India’s Aesthetic Theory
Ancient Indians analysed the experience of beauty (aesthetics) using the rasa theory. Rasa means juice. Just as the mere thought of food makes the mouth water, the experience of art generates a flow of aesthetic juices (rasa) in the audience – be it the performing arts (music, song, dance, story, theatre) or the plastic arts…
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Articles
Is Buddha a historical or a mythological figure?
No one ever talks about the “300 Buddhas” or the many narratives that recount the story of the Buddha. The assumption is that the Buddha is a historical figure, even though every Buddhist scholar knows that the Buddha story we recognise today was constructed by 19th-century Europeans using a variety of texts and arbitrary principles…
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Articles
When India First Smelted Iron
Nowadays, we take iron and steel for granted, but it is worth pausing to ask when iron first appeared around the world. Everyone has heard of the Bronze Age. The Harappan cities of northwest India were Bronze Age cities, built on a foundation of copper and bronze. But it is quite possible that the global…
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Articles
Are Horses Native to India?
Many people are arguing that horses are native to India and were domesticated here in pre-historic times. They argue that cave paintings of horses in Bhimbetka prove that horses existed in India even before the Harappan period (2500-2000 BC). But this is simply not true…
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Articles
The History of the Hindu Temple
It was only around 2,000 years ago that we began to see the first sculptures of Hindu gods in Mathura. Interestingly, images of Shiva, Vishnu, and the Goddess also appear on Kushan coins from the same period, though scholars debate whether these are truly Hindu deities or representations shaped by Zoroastrian and Greek influences…
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Articles
Legacy of Brahmi in Modern Languages
Why is the Ashokan script called the Brahmi script? Was it known so in Mauryan times? We do not know. Early scholars referred to it as “pin-man” script, then “Lat” script (from lathi, or staff, as the Ashokan pillars were known), “Indian Pali” and “Mauryan” scripts. …
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Articles
Stories Behind Diverse Calendars of India
India has many calendars; different communities use different calendars in different regions. Therefore, it is very difficult to create a single Indian calendar, even if it follows traditional rules…
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Articles
Cultural Significance of the Buffalo
Buffaloes are found in ponds, rivers, marshes, and wetlands meant for rice cultivation. Cows, on the other hand, prefer drier jungle areas. India has both dry jungles and wet river basins…
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Articles
Funeral practices across faiths and regions in India
Different cultures imagine the afterlife differently and so have different funeral practices…