Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
Forgotten Horses of the Silk and Golden Roads
Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads and William Dalrymple’s The Golden Roadwith strikingly similar book covers (title within circle), share a striking silence. They speak at length of roads, trade, ideas, monks, merchants, and empires, but largely ignore the animal that made most premodern power possible: the horse…
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Articles
Hindu Temples in Cambodia and Thailand
The recent skirmish between Cambodia and Thailand caught Indian attention not because of Buddhist politics but because the fight was over a Hindu temple perched on the border of two Buddhist nations. …
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Articles
Kailasa in Cambodia
A few decades before the Chola king Rajaraja I built the Brihadeeswara Temple in Tamil Nadu, around 1000 AD, a Khmer king called Jayavarman IV had begun building a temple to replicate the Kailasa mountain in Cambodia, at Koh Ker, complete with a tank that would replicate the river Ganga. …
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Articles
A Starry Network of Arabian Trade
The word monsoon comes from the Arabic word ‘mausam’, meaning season. Incidentally, the word ‘ara’ in Sanskrit means desert…
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Articles
Song and Dance For a Thai God
When you go to Bangkok, in the Sukhumvit area, you find a temple dedicated to a god called Erawan. The deity has four heads, eight hands, and he is associated with Brahma…
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Articles
Origins of the Rice Goddess
The oldest Indian mythology of rice can be found among the Bonda tribal people, who live in Odisha, who are linked to the Munda and Austroasiatic communities who entered India from the Southeast, and brought rice growing technology with them over 4,000 years ago…
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Articles
Diversity and Inclusion is a radical idea in the West because of monotheism
In the USA, a section of activists prefer the word ‘birthing people’ to ‘mothers’. This …
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Articles
Ravana in Malaysia and Indonesia
The Ramayana has been retold by several communities and several people over a period of 2,000 years and over a region that spreads over 5,000 miles. Scholars have found the Ramayana retellings even in faraway places such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. The story was taken there by seafaring merchants. …
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Articles
Who are the power-broking landlord monks of Tamil Nadu?
Sengol is a staff of royal authority. We can call the symbol of justice in the spirit of wordplay, when a symbol of monarchy is made the symbol of democracy. …
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Articles
The Hindu History of Bengal
Published on 6th May, 2023, in Times of India. When we talk about Bengal, we …
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Articles
Why Puranas Represent a Wider Indian Ethos Than the Vedas
Published on 5th April, 2023, in Times of India. The Puranas are called the fifth …
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Articles
Forgotten Ballads Of Indian Merchants
Published on 1st April, 2023, in Economic Times. India was famous for trading with Southeast …
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Articles
Tibetan Ramayana
Published on 12th March, 2023, in Mid-day. In the early 20th century, six incomplete manuscripts …
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Articles
Why the Location of Shiva’s Pillars Has Become So Controversial
Published on 25th February, 2023, in Times of India. The Assam government’s claim that the …
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Articles
The Meaning of Contentment
Published on 30th December, 2022, in The Hindu. At the start of anything new, like …
