Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
A Fantasy Called Chanakya
There is absolutely no historical evidence that a man called Chanakya ever lived during Mauryan times (300 BC) or that he guided Chandragupta Maurya to kingship. …
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Articles
How Vasudeva Became Vishnu
At Malhar, a small town near Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, we find an image of a soldier with four arms, holding a conch shell, a wheel and a mace. It has been identified as the earliest image of Vishnu. The inscription on the stone has been dated to 200 BC…
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Articles
The Durga of Dalit Mythology
In recent years, there has been a growing clash between ‘Sanatani mythology’ and ‘Dalit mythology’. During the festival season last month, a well-known Dalit activist argued that the worship of Durga is nothing but the celebration of an Aryan invasion of Dravidian lands. In his retelling, Mahishasur, the buffalo demon, represents dark-skinned Dravidians while Durga…
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Articles
Is Zohran Mamdani Muslim, American or Gujarati?
With the victory of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, a man with a Muslim name, an African past and an Indian lineage, the American-Christian establishment suddenly feels threatened. …
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Articles
Why no Diwali and Dussehra in Kerala and Kashmir
Religions are never homogeneous. Hinduism is no exception. A case in point is how Diwali and Dussehra are not celebrated in Kashmir or Kerala with the same gusto seen across North, West and East India…
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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
Pigeon Spirituality
Who funds these monks who promote non-violence and vegetarian food? Those who make money from industries that pollute rivers, seas, and air. India’s biggest industrialists are vegetarians. …
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Articles
Is Lingayat a caste or a religion?
The Lingayat community today insists it is a separate religion. They refuse to be placed within the Veerashaiva fold, or being seen as a subset of Hinduism. This demand has upset those who seek to unite Hinduism under a single umbrella by referring to it as ‘sanatan dharma’…
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Articles
Reclaiming the Festival of Lights
Diwali is the Prakrit way of saying Deepavali, a Sanskrit word meaning ‘the festival of lights’. This festival has been increasingly dominated by a single Hindi-belt narrative: that it commemorates the Rama’s return to Ayodhya after his forest-exile. But Diwali is also about Krishna, and Yama, and Lakshmi, and Bali…
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Articles
How Merchants Shape the Satvik Holiness
The richest families in India are strictly vegetarian and belong to the vaishya varna. They are supported by politicians committed to the cause of vegetarianism or Satvikism, a new form of Hinduism. As these rich communities take control of temples and pilgrimage sites, we find them pushing for Satvikism…
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Articles
How Beer Established Civilisation
We are told that the dawn of agriculture was about bread. That our Stone Age ancestors settled down to plant wheat and barley so they could bake loaves. But a growing body of research suggests that this may not be entirely true. The real lure of grain was not bread. It was beer. …
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Articles
Abandoned twins: Kripa and Kripi
One day, King Shantanu stumbles upon two abandoned babies on the forest floor: a boy and a girl. He adopts them, names them Kripa and Kripi, and raises them…
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Articles
The Non-Brahmin Priests of Hinduism
Hinduism has many groups and communities. Different castes and tribes have different gods. Each of these gods have different priests.…
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Articles
How Caste Manifested Before the British
Caste impacts 100% of Hindu society while untouchability impacts 20% of Hindu society. But that lower 20% was sometimes seen as outside the Hindu fold, until their votes mattered in the 20th century…
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Articles
Why is Marxism turning homophobic?
Marxist movements have always aligned with groups seen as oppressed by capitalist regimes. On one side, progressive left voices (e.g., queer activists, gender-fluid theorists) proclaim ‘no binaries, no genders.’ On the other, Marxist solidarity movements justify or ignore homophobia when practiced by anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist groups. Thus, a contradiction emerges: Oppressed peoples are granted the…
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Articles
The Horsemen Of Kanchi
For over 3,000 years, horses were imported into India. They were critical to govern empires and, therefore, were always in demand. But a little known fact is that horses are difficult to breed in our country, which explains the need for annual imports…