Religions
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Silent Screams In Bhrigu’s Dreams
Published on 2nd October, 2022, in Mid-day. A large forest was torn down to make a helipad for a visiting minister, who is a strict vegetarian. The mountain was sold to miners, who are strict vegetarians. An air-conditioned hall was…
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Why East India’s Contribution to Hinduism Remains Forgotten
Published on 24th September, 2022, in Times of India. Whenever we talk about Hinduism of India, most of the attention is taken over by talk of North India, with Rajput lands to its west and Gangetic plains to its east.…
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Tales of the Horned Sage
Published on 18th September, 2022, in Mid-day. The story of Rishyasringa Muni is found in the Ramayana. Dashratha had three wives, but no children. So, he called a sage to perform the ritual that would get him children. The rishi…
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The Shaven Head of Adi Shankara
Published on 16th September, 2022, in The Hindu. Vedic Rishis are imagined with long hair, tied in a topknot. But Adi Shankara, the Vedanta philosopher, is depicted in popular artworks with a shaved head, covered with a drape. An enquiry…
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Why Origins of the Caste System Polarise Both Left and Right
Published on 11th September, 2022, in Times of India. A peculiar feature of the internet is finding a vast number of upper caste, mostly Brahmin, men who argue that there was no caste system prevalent in Vedic India. They further…
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Sound and Meaning of Veda
Published on 11th September, 2022, in Mid-day. Mantra means a sound meant to connect the gods outside (deva) to the god inside (atma). Vedic people were convinced the Rishi did not craft these sounds; they ‘saw’ them in the universe…
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Speech, Offence and Victimhood
Published on 4th September, 2022, in Mid-Day. What is the opposite of freedom of speech? It is the right to get offended. Recently, Nupur Sharma commented about the Prophet Muhammad’s marriage on national television. She stated it in a debate…
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Myth and Memories Before History
Published on 28th August, 2022, in Mid-Day. Vedic literature is full of stories informing us how rishis discovered and used the mantra to solve problems. These stories were called the itihasa, as they are reported by those who witnessed the…
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How a ‘Ram Rajya’ Was Established In South
Published on 27th August, 2022, in Times of India. About 700 years ago, on the banks of Tungabhadra, in Karnataka, as per legend, two brothers known as Harihara and Bukka, saw hares turning around and attacking hunting hounds. They realised…
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When Somnath Temple Was Being Raided, Chola kings Were Reaching Vietnam
Published on 15th August, 2022, in Times of India. As per Brahmin lore, all civilisation in Tamil lands emerged in a mystical past after Agastya brought grammar from the Himalayan regions, along with mountains and rivers which became known as…
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Three Global Gifts From Indian Civilisation
Published on 14th August, 2022, in Mid-day. Culture creates ideas. Civilisation shares ideas. Can India be considered the mother of civilisation? What ideas has India given the world? The world today is dominated by ideas that can be traced to…
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The Elusive Amrita and the Question Of Eternal Life
Published on 11th August, 2022, in The Hindu. The earliest story of the grand churning of the ocean of milk, samudra-manthan, for the nectar of immortality, amrita, is found in the Mahabharata. But strangely there are more images of this…
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Passionate Devotion for Shiva
Published on 7th August, 2022, in Mid-day. About a thousand years ago, we are told that the Chola king was drawn to a Jain epic called Jivaka Chintamani. It tells the story of a young man’s erotic and valient adventures,…
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What You Need to Know About Buddhist Capitalism
Published on 6th August, 2022, in Economic Times. We have always been taught that capitalism was invented in Europe. But the capitalism that we see today is the outcome of the Industrial Revolution. Before the Industrial Revolution, capitalism thrived in…
