Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
Creation, In Many Tongues
India is not just Vedas and Puranas. India is also Bhil, Gond, Santhal, Khasi, Banjara, Dhangar, Koli, Toda, Rabari, Munda, Nicobarese, and Lepcha. …
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Articles
The Sage Under the Berry Tree
The name Badrinath carries a quiet ecological memory. Badri means the berry (Ziziphus mauritiana), or jujube tree. Nath means lord. …
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Articles
Lakshmi’s Elephants
Across India, the most familiar image of prosperity is Lakshmi flanked by two elephants pouring water over her. We see this in homes, shops, banks, and even in modern advertising. But few pause to ask why elephants stand beside the goddess of wealth. Why not cows, horses, lions or birds? …
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Articles
Children of the Sun God
From early Vedic times, the sun is also tied to humanity and death. Surya has two sons who frame the human condition. Manu is the father of humankind, lawgiver, and culture hero…His brother Yama embodies the opposite destiny…
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Articles
Is the Hamsa an Indian Goose or a European Swan?
The bar-headed goose (hansa) is a key cultural symbol of India, along with other waterfowl such as the sarus crane (krauncha), ruddy shelduck (chakravaka) and crane (baga, bagula). This list excludes the swan (raj-hansa), which is European, not Indian. But somewhere in the last two centuries, the Indian goose was eclipsed…
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Articles
Demon King of Brahmaputra
Once upon a time, the earth-goddess Bhumi was dragged under the sea by an asura called Hiranayaksha. Vishnu took the form of Varaha, killed Hiranayaksha, placed Bhumi on his snout, raised her up and thus rescued the earth-goddess. …
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Articles
Comparing Sun Tzu and Kautilya
Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War, and Kautilya, the author of the Arthashastra. Both wrote for rulers and generals who were constantly at war. Both believed that power was too important to be left to emotion, impulse or heroism. Both wanted to discipline rulers and professionalise the business of war. …
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Articles
Salt to Remove the Evil Eye
In India, salt is not just a mineral. It is a magical substance that not only enhances the taste of food, but also protects the body from ‘nazar’ or evil eye…
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Articles
The Two Faces Of Varuna
Varuna is one of the most ancient gods of the Vedic pantheon. In the Rig Veda, he is majestic, distant, and terrifying. He sits above the world, ruler of the sky and the ocean, guardian of the cosmic law called rta. He sees everything. Nothing escapes him. …
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Articles
A Fantasy Called Chanakya
There is absolutely no historical evidence that a man called Chanakya ever lived during Mauryan times (300 BC) or that he guided Chandragupta Maurya to kingship. …
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Articles
The Durga of Dalit Mythology
In recent years, there has been a growing clash between ‘Sanatani mythology’ and ‘Dalit mythology’. During the festival season last month, a well-known Dalit activist argued that the worship of Durga is nothing but the celebration of an Aryan invasion of Dravidian lands. In his retelling, Mahishasur, the buffalo demon, represents dark-skinned Dravidians while Durga…
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Articles
Reclaiming the Festival of Lights
Diwali is the Prakrit way of saying Deepavali, a Sanskrit word meaning ‘the festival of lights’. This festival has been increasingly dominated by a single Hindi-belt narrative: that it commemorates the Rama’s return to Ayodhya after his forest-exile. But Diwali is also about Krishna, and Yama, and Lakshmi, and Bali…
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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
Three Dharmic Archetypes
Hindu mythology expresses personal transformation of leaders through three archetypes: Indra, Shiva and Vishnu. The worlds they create are Swarga, Kailasa and Vaikuntha…
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Articles
Decoding Invisible Hunger and Fear
Where there is pursuit of food, there is hunger. Where there is hunger there is competition, collaboration, success and failure. …
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Articles
Coil of Endless Serpents
Coiled serpents and inter-twined conjugal serpent pairs appear as sacred symbols on Hindu temple walls. They reflect sacred ideas from beyond the Vedic world, where communities venerated serpent groves, filled with termite mounds, which served as entrances to a subterranean world of magical beings — the Naga, serpents with hoods, multiple heads, and the magical…