Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
Double Entry of Paap and Punya
The idea that every financial transaction has two sides is old in India. Long before the Venetian merchants of the 15th century formalised double-entry bookkeeping, Indian traders, guilds and temples had developed parallel practices that reveal the same mental model of balance and reciprocity. …
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Increase upon Increase
The Sanskrit term for compound interest is chakra-vriddhi, literally ‘wheelgrowth’ or “increase upon increase”. This word occurs in classical Sanskrit lexicons and legal-economic literature, where it denotes interest that accrues on previously accumulated interest, i.e., compound interest…
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Articles
When Billionaires Speak of The Antichrist
Peter Thiel – venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder – recently used the Christian myth of Antichrist to describe everyone who fears and resists technological change. In other words, for him technology is Christ, saviour, God even…
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Articles
Hindu Temple in China
In the city of Quanzhou in Fujian province of China, there is a Buddhist temple, whose base and pillars are full of Hindu imagery. …
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Articles
Not Ready to ‘Tremble and Obey’
China was always centralised with the Dragon throne in Forbidden City seeking tributes from the rest of the world. India, by contrast, is based on the Mandala model, first described by Chanakya, a set of intersecting spheres of power that are endlessly pulsating, contracting and expanding over time. No centralisation…
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Stories of How India Connected East and West
The Indian subcontinent is located right in the center of the world if we see Europe and America as the West and China and Japan as the East…
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Bharat’s Mercantile Heritage
India’s oldest civilisation was the Harappan civilisation, which was a merchant civilisation. Over 4,000 years ago, in the Bronze Age, several planned brick cities stood along the Indus, the now-dry Saraswati, and the coasts of Gujarat. They traded tin, copper, lapis lazuli, carnelian and cotton with Middle Eastern cities…
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Articles
A Tale of Two Weddings
In India, we find two types of weddings: the lavish and the simple. Lavish weddings are typically seen in those who follow the Shaiva or Vaishnava path of householders. Simple weddings are typically seen in those who follow the Buddhist or Jain path of hermits…
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Articles
The Gratitude Trick
Gratitude is a masquerade of humility. Unless it is accompanied by generosity…
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Articles
A Starry Network of Arabian Trade
The word monsoon comes from the Arabic word ‘mausam’, meaning season. Incidentally, the word ‘ara’ in Sanskrit means desert…
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Articles
Is Sustainability the New Immortality?
Sustainability isn’t about transformation-it’s about holding on to one’s position forever. It is about sustaining the old order, the old inequalities, the old hierarchies. Yet history shows us that this never lasts, even if we convince ourselves of the unending power of banking families lurking in the background of great empires…
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Articles
India’s Rich History of Trade and Cultural Exchanges
India has had relations with cultures around the subcontinent by both land and sea. By land, it was connected across the Hindu Kush to Persia (modern-day Iran) as well as Central Asia. By sea, it was connected to Persia, Arabia, and via the Red Sea to the Roman Empire. On the eastern coast, it had…
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Articles
View: No Safe Space For Gen Z
As Gen Z enters the workplace, they are hearing on social media handles that Boomers (grandparents) and Gen X (parents) and Gen Y (older siblings), saying they have to work 70 hours a week if they wish to be successful, and shrugging their shoulders when a kid dies due to work pressure, arguing such kids…
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Articles
The Reality of Impermanence
Ancient Vedic ritual halls were set aflame to remind everyone that nothing is permanent. Buddha said the same thing. So did the Tirthankaras. Even today Hindu rituals involve building images of gods using perishable materials like straw, clay and flowers. After a few days of worship, the images are thrown in the river. A reminder…
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Articles
Trust In Currency
Does the buyer trust the value of the token being given to him by the seller? Today, we trust a number appearing on a screen as money. That is how much we trust technology…
