Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
The Immortals
Published on 23rd April, 2016, in Mid-day. In Hindu mythology, whenever an asura asks for immortality, Brahma tells them that they can have whatever they wish except that. The clever asura then asks for a boon that will render him immortal for all practical purposes. But, embedded in the boon is a loophole, a vulnerability…
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Articles
Is Hinduism the same as Hindutva?
A crude, but useful way to understand the relationship between Hinduism and Hindutva is to study Hindu history…
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Articles
Classifying Jati
There are over 3,000 jatis in India today, most are regional, not known across India…
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Articles
Is Buddha an avatar of Vishnu?
For Buddhists, Buddha is not an avatar of Vishnu. For Hindus, he may be…
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Articles
Last hymn of the Rig Veda
As people drift away, or break asunder, it is time to sing hymns that motivate them to come closer together, like this the final hymn of the Rig Veda…
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Articles
What exactly is the Manusmriti?
Many assume Mansumriti to be the law book of Hindus. It is not…
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Facebook LiveVideos
28 Days 28 Secrets
The Puranas are just like a jigsaw puzzle – lets try and solve their secrets together…
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Articles
How to spot a lesbian in sacred Indian art
Is it our discomfort with homosexuality that makes us believe that it cannot be part of the sacred?…
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Articles
A Harappan Parvati?
She could very well be the bangle-seller’s daughter. Or a local princess. Or maybe an exasperated girl-child, because she did not like the food prepared. We really don’t know…
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Articles
What do Manusmriti and Dharmashastra have to say about homosexuality?
Tales, of God prohibiting certain sexual acts but allowing others, are not found in Hindu mythology…
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Articles
From Macaulay to Frawley, from Doniger to Elst Why do many Indians need White saviours?
Would non-White Indologists evoke such passions as the likes of Sheldon Pollock and Wendy Doniger or David Frawley and Koenraad Elst do?…
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Articles
The hermits of Samanar Hills
Devdutt Pattanaik hikes up a hill in Madurai to map its height in 2,500 years of Jain history in Tamil Nadu…
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Articles
When Saraswati met Indus
Decoding the correlation between the hymns of the Rig Veda and the artefacts of the Indus Valley civilisation…
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Articles
Big, bigger, biggest
The idea of measurement is a key theme in Hindu mythology: three measures of man are not quite the three measures of God…
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Articles
How Adi Shankaracharya united a fragmented land
Is our current understanding of Shankara contaminated by the ambitions of his not-so-intellectual followers who relish the idea of domination?…
