Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
What Is God’s Pronoun?
Published on 22nd October, 2021, in Times of India. Currently, across US college campuses, there is a strong movement to popularize the idea of gender fluidity. People are specifying their preferred pronoun. If you identify yourself as male, you choose he and his. If you identify yourself as a woman, you will use she and…
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Articles
Activism, Monotheism and Intolerance
Published on 17th October, 2021, in Mid-day. Have you noticed that academicians who say Hinduism is casteist, and promotes inequality, rarely talk about intolerance of monotheistic faiths like Christianity and Islam which dominate the world? Monotheist religions endorse the worship of ‘true’ God and oppose worship of ‘false’ gods, especially idolatry. What is a false…
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Articles
Is Criticism Of Caste the Same As Hinduphobia?
Published on 25th September, 2021, in Times of India. Recently, a conference was held on the theme of ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’. It was sponsored by American universities tired of Hindutva bullying. However, the decision to hold it immediately after the anniversary of the 9/11 twin tower attack, from September 10-12, was not accidental. It was…
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Articles
Tombs of Holy Men
Published on 19th September, 2021, in Mid-day. Since the time of the Buddha, when a holy man would die, he would be buried. His burial site would become a shrine, or a memorial. This shrine would be visited by people, with the hope that his spiritual energy would bring them various benefits. So people visit…
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Articles
Festival Of Women, By Women, For Women
Published on 12th September, 2021, in Mid-day. The word ‘teej’ refers to the third day of the lunar cycle when women fast, stay awake in all night vigils, hoping to find good husbands if not married, and praying for the health of husbands if married. Hariyali Teej is celebrated during the waxing moon of Shravan,…
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Articles
Is Hinduism Answerable to Western Gaze?
Published on 10th September, 2021, in Times of India. The word religion initially applied to only Christianity. Everyone else was either heretic or pagan. But in the 19th Century, Europeans were forced to acknowledge the validity of Japanese faith if they sought access to Japanese markets. Thus the idea of ‘many religions’ emerged. Hinduism was…
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Articles
Why Is Secret Love So Important In Gita Govinda?
Published on 28th August,2021, in Times of India. Krishna on television appears in bright light, with fair complexion and light eyes. No one is outraged or offended, even though Krishna means someone with a dark complexion, a fact reiterated by other names of Krishna such as Ghanashyam, which means one who is as dark as…
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Articles
Privileging Political Independence
Published on 15th August, 2021, in The Hindu. The story of the eagle Garuda stealing the nectar of immortality from Indra’s paradise to liberate his mother from slavery reminds us of Greek heroes who go on quests to fight monsters to liberate damsels in distress. In Biblical tales, the role of the Greek hero is…
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Articles
A Brahmin in Kerala
Published on 21st August, 2021, in Economic Times. The Puranas tell the story of an asura king called Mahabali who gave people whatever they desired. Mahabali had thrown out Indra, king of devas, who ruled the skies, and now controlled the three worlds: the sky, the earth and everything in between. Mahabali was a generous…
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Articles
View: Do Not Consume What You Protect
Published on 6th August, 2021, in Economic Times. Four hundred years ago, the people of Kerala began telling the story of how Kerala emerged from a mysterious past. They spoke of how Parashurama reclaimed land from the sea and gave it to the Brahmins. But the Brahmins could not collaborate with each other since they…
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Articles
Shutting Up a Vampire
Published on A vampire in Indian folktales is known as a vetala. It is unable to cross the river Vaitarni and go to the land of the ancestors. So it lives in the crematorium, inside a corpse, using its tongue to speak. If you can bottle a vetala, you can use it for sorcery and…
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Articles
Prophets In Islam
Published on 18th July, 2021, in Mid-day. In Islamic lore, Islam is as old as creation. Allah, which is Arabic for ‘the’ God, created 1,24,000 prophets (paigambar), who encouraged all humans to follow the path prescribed by God. Of these, only 25 are referred to in the Quran, and they reveal many commonalities with prophets…
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Articles
Hindutva: A Sampradaya, Not a Parampara
Published on 30th May, 2021, in Mid-day. The word Hindutva was invented by Chandranath Basu in Bengal in 1892. He was against the 19th Century reform movement popularly known as Hindu Renaissance led by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who had coined the word ‘Hinduism’ in 1816. This period saw Dayanand Saraswati who said, ‘Back to…
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Articles
Why Do Hindu Gods Never Give Sermons?
Published on 22nd May, 2021, in Mumbai Mirror. Buddhism speaks of the discourses given by the Buddha to thousands of monks, nuns and lay people at Jetavana. Jainism speaks of samavasaran, when the Tirthankara reveals Jain wisdom to all creatures, earthly and heavenly, who sit around him in a circle. Jewish folk speak of Moses…
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Articles
Tamed by Buddhism
Published on 18th April, 2021, in Mid-day. Buddha taught the sacred lore (dhamma) that would end all suffering. Many of his students renounced society and became monks (bhikku) and nuns (bhikkuni) of his sacred order (sangha). They travelled everywhere spreading Buddhist ideas. The people they encountered had their own gods—friendly or dangerous spirits who lived…