Religions
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India Has Many Krishnas
India does not have one Krishna, it has many. Each region, language, social class, and historical moment has shaped its own idea of who Krishna was, and what he meant.
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How Buddhism Became Navayana
When Dr BR Ambedkar converted to Buddhism on 14 October 1956 in Nagpur, he was not simply changing his religion. He was making a powerful social and political statement. However, the Buddhism he adopted was not exactly the same as…
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How Vishnu Became a Vegetarian Missionary
Over 90% of the world eats meat. The strictly vegetarian minority of India happens to be the only community that has historically dehumanised humans through untouchability. That is not a coincidence. That is the point.
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Brahmins In Jain Memory
In the Brahminical tradition, the Brahmin stands at the apex of creation, born from the mouth of Prajapati, custodian of the sacred fire by divine right. Jainism offers a different account entirely. It does not deny the Brahmin’s existence; it…
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Djinns Amongst Us
The Quran describes jinn as beings created from a “smokeless flame of fire,” while humans were created from clay and angels from light. The Arabic word jinn comes from a root meaning “hidden” or “concealed.” They inhabit a parallel dimension…
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The Shambala Prophecy
In a world that seems to be hurtling from one crisis to another, many people are talking about the Shambala prophecy. This appeared in the early 11th century in a Buddhist Tantric text called the Kalacakratantra.
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Is Sanatan Dharma Only 200 Years Old?
‘Sanatan Dharma’ (common noun) as a phrase is very old. It appears in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions as a common noun meaning ‘eternal order’ or ‘timeless law’. However, ‘Sanatan Dharma’ (proper noun) as the name of an organised conservative…
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How Hinduism Transformed in the Vedic land
Punjab, watered by the tributaries of the Indus, was the original Vedic land. Yet today, the Veda is more closely associated with the Yamuna-Ganga doab, while Punjab is better known as the fountainhead of Sikhism. The western part of historic…
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Ekalavya’s Thumb and Angulimala’s Garland Of Fingers
Ekalavya’s story is that of a low-born forest boy, rejected by the Brahmin teacher Drona, and who then trains alone before a clay idol, masters archery, and surrenders his thumb when Drona discovers that his own prize student Arjuna has…
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The Islamic Wound That Does Not Heal
Islam has faced civilisational catastrophe twice. Once at the hands of the Mongols in the 13th century and the next at the hands of the Europeans in the 19th century. The first time it responded by becoming more open. The…
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Mahakala in Baghdad
Mughals claimed royal authority very differently, directly from God, almost like Sufi mystics without the Caliph’s intervention. This little detail is often missed. And this shift has to do with Buddhism. Specifically, Tantrik Buddhism of Tibet.
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How Was Atharva Veda Different?
The Rigveda praises the gods. The priest composes beautiful hymns, asks for cattle, sons, victory, rain. The relationship is simple: human below, god above, prayer going upward. The Atharva Veda works differently. The priest does not pray. He acts.
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The Rise of Nava-grahas
In Vedic times, graha meant malevolent spirits who hurt mothers and babies. It had nothing to do with planets. The 3000-year-old Vedic Jyotisha had nothing to do with predicting the future. It was a practical science of timekeeping — fixing…
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Did Indra Eat Buffaloes?
We live in times, where people want to ban goat sacrifice during the Muslim observance of Bakra Eid, on grounds of compassion. This overt attack on Islamic rituals is also a covert attack on subaltern Hindu practices — where goddesses…
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How the Bhagavad Gita Invented Sattvic Food
The Vedas gave us Purusha. Tantra and Yoga gave us Prakriti and the gunas. Only the Bhagavad Gita welded these to food and caste, creating the “sattvic” framework popularly invoked today.
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The Chandala in the Vedas
The term Chandala, referring to the “lowest of the low” in Brahmin lore, appears a few times in the Vedic literature itself. It is essentially absent from the Rigveda Samhita and emerges only in the later strata of the corpus…