Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
Goddess of “X” factor
Published on 29th December, 2019, in Mid-day In temples like Jagannath Puri and in many South Indian temples, Vishnu is flanked by two forms of Lakshmi: Sridevi and Bhoodevi. What is the difference between the two? Bhoodevi is the goddess of the earth, from earth comes all our wealth. From within the earth come minerals;…
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Articles
Shakti within, Durga without: Different aspects of power
Published on 29th November, 2019, in The Economic Times Shakti and Durga are two words that can be used interchangeably for the mother goddess. However, when we observe these words carefully, we realise they represent two different aspects of power. Shakti is power that comes from within, while Durga is rooted in the word ‘durg’…
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Articles
Shakti or Shaktiman?
Published on 13th October, 2019, in Mid-day I was recently trolled by a group of people. This was because I apparently had stated a claim that women are not powerful in India. I tried to figure out from where they had derived this alleged statement of mine and eventually realised that I had made a…
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Articles
A cluster of goddesses
Published on 29th September, 2019, in Mid-day In the Vedas, one does find references to individual goddesses, like Usha, Vak, and Aranyani who represent dawn, speech, and forests, respectively. In the Puranas, there is Lakshmi, Durga and Saraswati, embodiments of wealth, power and knowledge. However, in practice, Hindus often worship goddesses in groups. In these…
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Articles
Goddess of Economics: Money Has Value Only When It’s Circulated
Published on 21st September, 2019, in Economic Times Buddhism is a religion where you are told that desire is the cause of suffering, where we hear of Buddha giving up his kingdom to become the great awakened one. Yet, at the stupa where he is remembered, we find some of the earliest images of the…
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Articles
Welcoming Lakshmi through service, yagna
Published on 18th August, 2019, in Mumbai Mirror. Arthashastra, or economics, is today linked with Chanakya, even though he himself claims his knowledge to have come down from Shukra, the guru of Asuras, and Brihaspati, the guru of Devas. Since Chanakya eclipses Shukra and Brihaspati, arthashastra has become more statecraft, or dharmashastra, than economics. When…
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Articles
The sage who witnessed all
Published on 10th February, 2019, in Mid-day. In Hinduism, the Markandeya Purana is one of the oldest puranas, roughly 1,700 years old. It is special because it contains the earliest reference to the Devi Bhagavata story…
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Articles
The sacred form of Kashi
In Kashi, the river Ganga, which normally runs from the Himalayas to the sea in the south, takes a turn and moves northwards. This reverse flow of the Ganga is considered spiritually significant because it is believed that one can manifest certain tantric ideas in such places…
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Articles
The gallery of female rogues
Women can be dangerous forces of nature, or hypersexual beings, who take away the power of men, chain them to the material world and prevent them from walking the spiritual path…
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Articles
On Diwali, understanding the nature of wealth through the mythology connected with goddess Lakshmi
Editor’s note: “The living (sajiva, in Sanskrit) seek food, the lifeless (ajiva) and the dead (nirjiva) don’t. This makes food the fundamental target (laksh) of life. From laksh comes Lakshmi. Lakshmi is food (anna) in nature and wealth (dhana) in culture,” writes Devdutt Pattanaik in his book 7 Secrets of the Goddess (published by Westland).…
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Articles
Land of body parts
The Buddhists and the Hindus share the idea of the land becoming sacred, when it is connected with the body of a holy being…
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Articles
Men and women in Hindu mythology
God cannot exist without Goddess. Goddess cannot exist without God. Indian author Devdutt Pattanaik sheds light on Hindu mythology…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? Understanding Hindu stories
A typical Durga image, established collectively, represents the collective power of the village which helps in defeating calamities. This then becomes an anthropological approach in the study of Hindu mythology…
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Articles
Metaphors of the Goddess
It is a mystery for many why Hindus, for whom divinity is both male and female, treat women so badly…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? The politics of bodily fluids
By using body physiology to create a spiritual hierarchy, some Hindu orders have placed men above women…
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Articles
Who is a Hindu? Why do intellectuals scorn Hindu deities?
Hindus as it doesn’t comply with their preconceived notions of what god and religion should be…