Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
Lessons from Indra’s elephant
Legend has it that fear of Indian war elephants was one of the reason that prevented Alexander from marching into the subcontinent. By the time of Ashoka, the elephant embodied kingship and so naturally came to be associated with Indra, the celestial king…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? Understanding Hindu stories
A typical Durga image, established collectively, represents the collective power of the village which helps in defeating calamities. This then becomes an anthropological approach in the study of Hindu mythology…
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Articles
Metaphors of the Goddess
It is a mystery for many why Hindus, for whom divinity is both male and female, treat women so badly…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? The politics of bodily fluids
By using body physiology to create a spiritual hierarchy, some Hindu orders have placed men above women…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? Why do intellectuals scorn Hindu deities?
Hindus as it doesn’t comply with their preconceived notions of what god and religion should be…
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Interviews
“Struggle is good. It helps us clarify what matters”: Devdutt Pattanaik weighs in on the fight against Section 377
In an exclusive interview, Devdutt spoke to Ujjawal Krishnam…
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Articles
Breaking the binary
Binaries are a cultural concept for simplicity. But, in nature there is no such thing as binaries, things wax and wane, telescope into each other, there are species which mingle and merge and there is no absolute…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? – Saraswati: Once she was a river
Historians are fairly confident that at one time a river called Saraswati flowed in the north-west part of India, near or around the river Indus, and it is here that the early Vedic civilisation thrived…
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Articles
Hindu gods like Rama & Shiva have six packs now to kill bad guys, like American superheroes
Even Amar Chitra Katha’s new comics have abandoned the gentle sensuality of Raja Ravi Varma and embraced the hyper-masculine, angry, violent American superhero style to portray Hindu gods and goddesses…
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Articles
Expressing devotion sensually
The classic Sanskrit version is found in the 1,000-year-old Bhagavata Purana…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? How Hinduism was enriched by rivalry
Every religion is an outcome of many historical and geographical forces. Every religion has a past and transforms over time…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? Forgotten tales of folk-hero gods
Fascinating stories are not being told because of our fixation with Western concept of religion and pan-India narratives…
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Articles
How Brahmins helped create temple-states and kingdoms in South India and Southeast Asia
It is fashionable nowadays to use the word ‘Brahmin’ with contempt … But this outrage (real and imagined) must not blind us to the contribution of Brahmins …
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? Indra: Entitled, insecure, dispensable
How the primary god and great warrior of the Vedas ended up as a minor Puranic god…
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Articles
Yagna or Puja
Vedic yagna is conventionally translated as ‘sacrifice’ and Puranic puja is translated as ‘worship’. This translation is the basic problem…
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Articles
In Hindu mythology, Lord Vishnu is associated with economic activities
In contrast, Shiva is about letting go and accepting what is while Vishnu is about making efforts to enjoy a good life…