Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
Pashupati and the Harappan Seal.
Published on 25th February, 2022, in The Hindu. We have all heard of the Pashupati seal in Harappa. Scholars are clear that it has nothing to do with Shiva, even though it is still labelled as proto-Shiva in popular books. The Pashupati described in the Veda is the guardian of cattle, animals that have been…
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Articles
The Body and House of God
Published on 20th February, 2022, in Mid-day. Now-a-days, we do not see the Mediterranean world as a unit. We see the northern shores as European and Christian, and the southern shores as African and Muslim. But for hundreds of years, the entire Mediterranean was a unit controlled by the Roman Empire. Wealth from these regions…
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Articles
Geography of God
Published on 6th February, 2022, in Mid-day. In north India, as per politicians, three major pilgrimage sites are important. The first is Ayodhya, where Ram was born and the kingdom of Ram was established. The second is Mathura where Krishna was born. The third is Kashi, with which Shiva is associated. Ram, Krishna and Shiva…
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Articles
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 it always has, magnificence from behind an expressionless face — the wall. Chinese culture does…
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Articles
21 Principles of Sanatan Dharma
Published on 23rd January, 2022, in Mid-day. Sanatan Dharma is a term used for religions based on rebirth. So it is applied to Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism. These religions emerged in the Gangetic plains in the second millennium BCE, and spread across the Indian subcontinent. These have to be distinguished from monotheistic religions such as…
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Articles
View: Reclaiming Loans Is an Achievement, But Writing Off Loans Is the Super-achievement
Published on 22nd January, 2022, in Economic Times. 2500 years ago, a great revolution took place in India. The country saw the rise of many monastic orders, in the middle of great affluence. The most popular amongst them were the Buddhists. But the Jains were the most resilient. The unique feature of the Jain monastic…
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Articles
How Puritanical Islam Faced Backlash in India
Published on 15th January, 2022, in Times of India. People who follow secularism have been accused of an asymmetrical relationship with Islam and other faiths. Make fun of the Islamic practices, and the secular scholar is upset. Make fun of Hindu practices, and the secular scholar provides rational explanations. Atrocities against Muslims by Muslims in…
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Articles
What Hindutva Doesn’t Get About Sanatan Dharma
Published on 7th January, 2022, in Times of India. Sanatan means something that is timeless. Dharma in colloquial parlance is religion. It can also mean culture and civilisation. So, sanatan dharma can mean “timeless civilisation”. In the Gita, Krishna describes the knowledge he shares as sanatana, timeless. Hindutva — a word that was invented in…
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Articles
Hindutva’s Caste Masterstroke
Published on 1st January, 2022, in The Hindu. Ever since erstwhile champions of secular values have begun differentiating between Hindu and Hindutvawadi, a whole lot of intellectuals are bristling. They are arguing how these nuanced metaphysical differentiations hold no relevance on the street. Mostly from the Hindu elite, these are the same scholars who will…
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Books
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 we follow God’s law and accept God’s love, conveyed through his many messengers, the first…
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Articles
Why Does Hindutva Not Like Historians?
Published on 4th December, 2021, in Times of India. The subject that we know as history emerged only in the 19th century. Before that, memory, legends and evidence-based history were all combined as a single unit. They were stories from the past, communicated by bards to make communities feel good about the past or to…
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Articles
‘Dharma’ Always Comes With ‘Dharma-sankat’
Published on 4th December, 2021, in The Hindu. In a crime, the victim accuses the villain. But when the villain counter-accuses the victim, and insists the victim is villain too, we call it ‘whataboutery.’ This word is a neologism, first used in the 1970s in the context of violence in Northern Ireland. Whataboutery creates a…
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Articles
Hindu vs Hindutva: A Mythic Dissonance
Published on 24th November, 2021, in India Today. Hindus are at odds with the world in terms of its underlying mythic structure. By contrast, Hindutva is very much aligned to the dominant global discourse. We realise this if we meditate on two myths: the myth of equality and the myth of the wound. Myth here…
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Articles
How Did Hinduism Come to Dominate India?
Published on 20th November, 2021, in Times of India. Nearly 2,000 years ago, there were Buddhist stupas across India. Nearly 1,500 years ago, there were Buddhist caves in the Deccan. But 1,000 years ago, Buddhist structures were overshadowed by Hindu temples. Jain art, which was as popular as Buddhist art, became a relatively minor force.…
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Articles
What Creates Culture Also Creates Cult
Published on 5th November, 2021, in The Hindu. Cult refers to religious groups, or brainwashed communities, who believe in the occult, the mystical, the spiritual, the paranormal or the supernatural. Culture refers to a community’s aesthetic expression: food, fashion, customs, literature, and art. Both words, ‘cult’ and ‘culture’ have the same etymology – from words…