Religions
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Divine Mathematics
Published on 11th June, 2022, in Economic Times. People often ask, if Aryabhatta invented zero, how did people count Ravana’s ten heads and Gandhari’s hundred heads before that. It is one of those foolish WhatsApp “mysteries” for people who do…
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Mahabharata in Jataka
Published on 5th June, 2022, in Mid-day. While some see Mahabharata as history, others see Mahabharata as an epic born of a common pool of folk stories that was shared by Buddhist Jatakas also. Here are four stories that share…
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Flying Mountains Do Not Lie
Published on 29th May, 2022, in Mid-day. Nationalists want to believe that Hinduism existed homogeneously across the Indian subcontinent (Akhand Bharat) since time immemorial. However, everyone who studies history knows this is not true. Harappan civilisation thrived 4,000 years ago…
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Full-and-Final Settlement Before God
Published on 28th May, 2022, in Economic Times. We often forget that the word cash is derived from the Sanskrit word “Karshapana”. Indians invented the idea of money long ago. Irregularly-shaped copper coins were used by merchants for banking 2500…
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Claiming the Earth as Nation
Published on 22nd May, 2022, in Mid-day. In prehistoric times, people captured a hunting ground or agricultural land or pastures by claiming that is where the ancestor was buried. Burial was an important ritual invented by ancient people to claim…
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Kashmir Before Islam
Published on 21st May, 2022, in Times of India. The Muslims say that Suleiman (Solomon) came to Kashmir on a flying throne (takht), sat on a hill in Srinagar, and got his djinns to clear the lake, get rid of…
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Out of the Woods
Published on 20th May, 2022, in The Hindu. The word ‘history’ as we know it today, which means the scientific evidence-based understanding of the past, is less than 200 years old. The Sanskrit words ‘itihasa-purana’, both of which are translated…
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Why Scholars Don’t Agree About the Origins of the Shivlinga
Published on 18th May, 2022, in Times of India. Orientalist academicians love describing the Shiva-ling as a ‘phallic symbol’ because it irritates the Hindu who prefer to see the object of their devotion as something spiritual, not sexual. For the…
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Lion Atop an Elephant
Published on 8th May, 2022, in Mid-day. A very common motif found in Indian art is the lion standing on top of the elephant, defeating it. These images are called the Gaja-Simha images, Gaja meaning the elephant and Simha meaning…
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How Nepal Came to Be Once Called ‘Asli Hindustan’
Published on 7th May, 2022, in Times of India. In the 18th century, as many tiny principalities and kingdoms of Nepal were being unified to one mighty kingdom, the king of Nepal saw his land as ‘Asli Hindustan’ and saw…
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Dogs, Rats, Unicorns and Other Animal Guilds
Published on 30th April, 2022, in Economic Times. Animals have a close relationship with human corporations and guilds. Nearly 4500 years ago, in the Harappan cities of Northwestern India, archeologists have found hundreds of soft stone seals, barely an inch…
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Can Hanuman Protect Us From Political Sorcery?
Published on 27th April, 2022, in Times of India. Hanuman Chalisa is a 400-year-old Awadhi poem of forty (chalis) verses, aimed at invoking Hanuman to get health, wealth, wisdom, security, and success. Jai Hanuman Gyan gun sagar. Jai Kapis Tihun…
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Bankura Horse for Dharma Thakur
Published on 24th April, 2022, in Mid-day. Terracotta Bankura horses serve as decoration today. But for many centuries, these were offerings made in rural Bengal to the god Dharma who is formless and all-powerful. Stories about Dharma Thakur were written…
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The Jogi As Seasonal Hermit
Published on 23rd April, 2022, in The Hindu. In North India, especially in the Gangetic plains, in what is now Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, we find songs known as Baramasa. It is a 12-month cycle in poetry, expressing the…
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What Genghis Khan Can Teach Us About Secular Values
Published on 23rd April, 2022, in the Times of India. China today has a very problematic relationship with two provinces on its west. To the Northwest is Xinjiang, home of Uighur Muslims. To its Southwest is Tibet, home of Vajrayana…