World Mythology
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Why Do We Sacrifice Humans to a God, Ideology or Nation?
Published on 16th October, 2022, in Times of India. There are two types of gods in this world. The singular god of monotheists and the many gods of polytheists. The one god of monotheists demands obedience to the law he…
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Two Gods In Our Brain
Published on 26th June, 2022, in Mid-day. We are familiar with that false idea that the left brain grants us logical thinking and mathematics and the right brain grants us creativity and abstract thinking, and that students of science and…
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Claiming the Earth as Nation
Published on 22nd May, 2022, in Mid-day. In prehistoric times, people captured a hunting ground or agricultural land or pastures by claiming that is where the ancestor was buried. Burial was an important ritual invented by ancient people to claim…
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Creepy-Crawly Lore
Published on 1st May, 2022, in Mid-day. The story of Bhramari Devi comes to us from Andhra Pradesh’s Mallikarjuna temple. It is said that there was an asura called Arunasura. He had asked for protection from all creatures that have…
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What Genghis Khan Can Teach Us About Secular Values
Published on 23rd April, 2022, in the Times of India. China today has a very problematic relationship with two provinces on its west. To the Northwest is Xinjiang, home of Uighur Muslims. To its Southwest is Tibet, home of Vajrayana…
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Seven Holes of Hundun
Published on 13th March, 2022, in Mid-day. Hundun gave food to two beings, one who came from the north and the other who came from the south. Grateful, the two decided to help Hundun. Hundun had no eyes, nose, ears…
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In China, Gods, Spirits and Ancestors Thrive, But Leave the Affairs of Humans to Humans
Published on 29th January, 2022, in The Hindu. China today seems mysterious with its very own version of Communism, Capitalism and Democracy. But the mystery vanishes when we see it through a mythic lens and realise that China functions as…
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Eden: An Indian Exploration of Jewish, Christian and Islamic Lore
Eden is the garden of happiness that humanity was cast out of when Adam and Eve, the first human couple, disobeyed the one true God, and ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. To this garden we shall return if…
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Gods of the Week
Published on 5th December, 2021, in Mid-day. The seven-day-week is not based on any natural phenomena. The ancient Mesopotamians decided that the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th days after the new moon were days of rest and that is how…
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Loki, the Father and the Mother
Published on 7th November, 2021, in Mid-day. The unique belief of the Norse, not shared by other cultures, was that the world would eventually end, and in the final battle, even the gods would die, fighting the giants and goblins…
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Taoism and Tantra
Published on 5th September, 2021, in Mid-day. There is much in common between the Chinese path of Taoism and the Indian path of Tantra. Both value the body and the material world. Both see all power coming from nature. They…
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Ancestor Gods of Korea
Published on 15th August, 2021, in Mid-day. The Korean peninsula is located in Northeast Asia, jutting out into the sea. To its west is China and to its east is Japan. Both China and Japan have sought to lay claim…
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China’s Rabbit Gay God
Published on 6th June, 2021. in Mid-day. In Beijing, during the autumn festival, people buy images of a rabbit god who is said to have been sent by the moon-goddess to save people during an epidemic. But in Taiwan, there…
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Kaabah, As Metaphor
Published on 9th May, 2021, in Mid-day. Humans found food in the plant and animal kingdoms. They were first foragers of fruits and roots, and hunters of animals. Then, they became cultivators of the land and herders of goats, pigs,…
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Don’t Turn Back
Published on 11th April, 2021, in Mid-day. Once, an old man promised a fellow traveller, a young man, his daughter’s hand in marriage. Days later, when the young man actually showed up at the village, the old man refused saying…
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Sindhi Love Poetry
Published on 14th February, 2021, in Mid-day. In the 16th Century, Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai wrote a set of love poems in Sindhi to express Sufi mysticism, metaphorically capturing the tension between love and law, head and heart. Each has…