Religions
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How technology has turned the State into an all-powerful God
The only difference between Abrahamic religions and nation-state structure is that God is a supernatural entity established by faith in the former, while the state is an artificial structure established through reason in the latter.
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From five to ten directions
The concept of 10 diggapalas reached its final form about a thousand years ago when grand Hindu temples of stone started being built across India. But the thought can be traced to the Gangetic plains where Vedic yagna was being…
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Who is a Hindu? The making of Hindu anger
Can a religion be objectively criticised? Whose criticism must be taken seriously — the outsider’s or the insider’s?
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The end of the Buddha’s clan
This story from the Bhaddasala Jatakas is very similar to the story of the death of the Yadava clan decades after the war at Kurukshetra between Pandavas and Kauravas.
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Ram and the Rooster
In Odisha, there have been many local versions of the Ramayana with subplots that are unique to the region. One of these subplots involves a rooster.
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Both Rahul Gandhi & Narendra Modi subscribe to a western, Christian reading of Mahabharata
The villain in Hindu narratives is not evil but is just someone frightened and clinging to wealth, power and throne.
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Who is a Hindu? Life, death and afterlife
Rebirth and liberation are the twin fates that await the Hindu dead, but there are temporary sojourns to heaven and hell as well.
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Gender studies in ancient India
Gender studies was very much part of ancient India. The unique feature was the acknowledgement of the third sex: one that is neither male nor female.
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Emperor Xi a mandate of heaven
Xi Jingping seems to be creating heaven on earth, making China a powerhouse in geopolitics, restoring the glory of China since the infamous ‘hundreds years of shame’ in the 19th century.
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Maya and Myth
First City Magazine, New Delhi, July 2001. “Sex and violence are fundamentals of life. They rotate the cycle of life. Without sex, there is no life. There is violence every time we eat-when a fruit is plucked, a crop is…
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How Call me By Your Name reclaims Eden for gay people everywhere
Luca Guadagnino’s Oscar-nominated Call Me By Your Name, with brilliant use of narrative, visuals and music.
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Demon Poets
It is fascinating to learn that until the Mughals painted Hindu mythology on orders of Akbar in the 16th century, demons of Puranas were never shown as having dark complexion.
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Who is a Hindu? Economics of being Hindu
The Lingayats socio-cultural demand to be classified as different from Hindus throws up many interesting questions.
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Transgenders in Buddhism
After attaining Buddha-hood, the Buddha went to meet his mother in heaven, and share his wisdom with her. In many retellings, in her new life in heaven, Buddha’s mother is a god with a male body, for she had earned…
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The Hindu concept of debt
This idea of a karmic balance sheet is not found in the Vedic period but emerges in the Upanishadic period, especially after the rise of monastic orders.
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Descendants of Chitragupta
In one story, popular in the Gangetic plains, the god of death, Yama, wanted a scribe to help him keep a record of people’s karma. And so Brahma created Chitragupta (he who knows the secrets of diagrams i.e. scripts), who…