Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
How Jains Described Chanakya and Chandra Gupta Maurya
Published on 18th March, 2023, in Economic Times. As per popular lore, Chanakya was a Brahmin from Taxila who enabled the rise of Chandragupta, the founder of the Mauryan Dynasty, 2300 years ago, at the time of the Greek invasion of India. He is credited with composing the Arthashastra, a book of political economy, as…
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Articles
Are You a Harappan or Vedic Woman?
Published on 5th March, 2023, in Mid-day. Harappan cities thrived between 2500 BCE and 1900 BCE. The Vedic culture thrived between 1000 BCE and 500 BCE. Almost 1,000 years apart, the two cultures reveal two different worlds for women. When we study Harappan women and Vedic women, we realise they display characteristics found in Indian…
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Articles
Parshuram’s Tryst With Kshatriyas
Published on 26th February, 2023, in Mid-day. Parshuram was born in a Brahmin family of the Bhrigus. His father, Jamadagni, was a sage who performed rituals in exchange for which he received cows. His mother was a princess. Parshuram is famous for raising his axe for two reasons. The first time he did so, he…
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Articles
Veda, Vedanga, Vedanta
Published on 19th February, 2023, in Mid-day. Hinduism can be divided into three major eras. Veda dominated 3,000 years ago, Vedanga dominated 2,000 years ago, and Vedanta became central 1,000 years ago. These are approximations of course, but a good rule-of-thumb to remember Hindu history. The Veda refers to a set of mantras that dominated…
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Articles
Bhakti Is Devotion? Is Loyalty?
Published on 4th February, 2023, in Economic Times. Most family business owners in India prefer loyal staff over professional staff. Loyal staff can be paid less, work on Saturdays, take abuse but they will never leave your side. The professional staff will leave you if they get a better offer. That makes the loyal staff…
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Articles
How Gods, Demons Formed India’s Mountains, Rivers and Seas
Published on 28th January, 2023, in The Times of India. One of the ways you map India is through the Shakti Pithas. It is said that when the goddess got angry with her father, Daksha, for insulting her husband, Shiva, she jumped into the yagya altar and burned herself to death. Shiva carried the remains…
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Articles
How the Gayatri Mantra, composed by men, heard by men, for a male deity, became embodied as a goddess
Published on 27th January, 2023, in The Hindu. Mantra is a carefully crafted sound formula that has the power to invoke and anchor divine energy for the benefit of humans: this is what Hindus, Buddhists and Jains believe. Rig Veda is the oldest collection of mantras: 10,000 verses that were brought together like flowers to…
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Articles
View: Privilege to Saraswati at the cost of Durga & Lakshmi is an old Brahmanical hangover
Published on 21st January, 2023, in Economic Times. In America, the state serves the rich. In China, the rich serve the state. The American politicians get the military to ensure American businesses have access to resources and markets. The Chinese politicians restrain most successful businessmen from gambling away the country’s future in speculative stock market…
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Articles
Where Is the River Saraswati?
Published on 8th January, 2021, in Mid-day. In Gujarat, there is a river called Saraswati that originates in the Aravalli mountains, and runs for 350 km. In Uttarakhand, there is another Saraswati river that is a tributary of the Alakananda that joins the river near Badrinath. There is another Saraswati river that flows through the…
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Articles
Shakti Is Power Within, Durga Is Power Without
Published on 7th January, 2023, in Economic Times. In a popular social media short video, a young stand-up comedian says that he bought an iPhone because its greatest feature is that it makes you confident. As soon as he got the iPhone, he felt confident enough to abuse his friends and colleagues who did not…
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Articles
The Sun Kings Who Ruled Sri Lanka
Published on 15th January, 2023, in Mid-day. As 2022 drew to a close, the Government of India admitted in Parliament that it is difficult to conclusively prove that Ram Setu, the bridge between India and Sri Lanka (visible until 500 years ago) was manmade, as the Ramayana took place 18,000 years ago, the bridge is…
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Articles
Losing and Gaining the Head
Published on 1st January, 2023, in Mid-day. We have heard stories of how Shiva beheaded his father-in-law Daksha Prajapati and replaced Daksha’s head with that of a goat and how he beheaded his son Ganesha and replaced Ganesha’s head with that of an elephant. We have also heard folk stories of how devotees offer their…
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Articles
The Meaning of Contentment
Published on 30th December, 2022, in The Hindu. At the start of anything new, like New Year, Hindus look towards Ganesha. We want him to remove obstacles from our lives, and usher in prosperity. We have been conditioned to see his big belly or lambodara as a symbol of wealth. We have forgotten that this…
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Articles
Tales Of Gods, Politics Of Kings
Published on 24th December, 2022, in Economic Times. If one goes to Kerala, one hears of “tharavad”. These were ancestral homes, where large joint families lived together. They controlled large tracts of land. A similar system is found in faraway Nepal. Here, instead of the word “tharavad”, the word “guthi” is used. This is a…
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Articles
The Lore of Weavers
Published on 18th December, 2022, in Mid-day. Weaving is a very unique human activity. Animals don’t wear clothes, humans wear clothes. The earliest clothes that humans wore were skins of animals. Gradually, it was the bark of plants, and leaves. Later, fibres of plants were gently woven. Eventually, humans discovered the fine art of weaving,…
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Articles
How Hara and Hari Helped Kings of Cambodia
Published on 17th December, 2022, in Times of India. In the 5th century AD, i.e. 1,500 years ago, the Gupta kings rose in India. They were amongst the earliest royal families to establish themselves through a Hindu framework. Following the Gupta period, trade with Rome was disrupted, as the Roman Empire collapsed. But trade from…