Society
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Dharma of the Shudra
Dharma claims to be eternal. Eternal things are not supposed to change. But a Shudra landowner living better than a starving Brahmin priest is a fact that eternal texts cannot simply ignore. So Sanskrit scholars did what they always do…
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Hindu Temples Within Mughal Gardens
When BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham opened in Delhi in 2005, it was hailed as a triumph of Hindu civilisation. The sandstone shikhara, the hand-carved pillars, the bronze elephants: all sourced from the iconographic repertoire of classical India. And then, surrounding this…
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Chanakya’s Temple Economics
The political treatise Arthashastra, attributed to Chanakya (Kautilya), dated to 300 AD, does not romanticise the role of the temple in ancient India. Image of the romantic Hindu temple as a sacred space, untainted by politics and money, does not…
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Prithu’s Cow, Ashoka’s Lion
Dharma is being equated with development, with the destruction of forests and rivers. The literal cow is honoured with melodramatic sentimentality while the earth-cow is plundered for minerals and timber, her air and water poisoned. She is crying, and there…
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Taxing Varuni, the Goddess of Intoxication
Varuni, the goddess of wine, churned out of the ocean of milk, joined Indra and transformed Swarga into paradise. So say the Puranas. However, very little is mentioned about Varuni in popular lore. Scholars believe this was grape wine imported…
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Is Sanatan Dharma Only 200 Years Old?
‘Sanatan Dharma’ (common noun) as a phrase is very old. It appears in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions as a common noun meaning ‘eternal order’ or ‘timeless law’. However, ‘Sanatan Dharma’ (proper noun) as the name of an organised conservative…
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From Gulamgiri to The Immortals of Meluha
Phule’s work is insurgent literature that anticipates evidence from below. Tripathi’s 21st century civilisational literature evades it from above.
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The Selective Sanctity of the Ganga
In Ayodhya Kanda, verse 52.89, Sita stands before the Ganga before crossing into exile and makes a vow. The Sanskrit is unambiguous. “Sura-ghata-sahasrena”: a thousand pots of wine. “Mamsa-bhuta-odanena”: cooked rice mixed with meat (the original Vedic biryani?).
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Did Proto-Naxals fight the East India Company?
Today, the word Naxal is used casually by politicians and businessmen to demonise anyone protesting against exploitation as anti-national. This does not bode well for a country where a large proportion of the youth are unemployed and risk a bleak…
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Sanatan Dharma: A Hinduism That Defines Itself Through Food ‘Purity’
Notably, the term “satvik” food does not appear in Ayurveda, yet it has become central to the Sanatan Dharma movement. North Indian temples now demand that no meat-serving establishments operate within 15 km of their premises. This dietary politics points…
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Today’s Sanatan Dharma prefers ‘trad’ Bhisma
The Trans Bill signed by the President of India aligns with the commander of the Kauravas, not Krishna. The Kauravas were more aligned to Christian Evangelists, not “woke” Krishna.
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Why Lord Ram Was Painted Green
In Nayaka art, Ram is painted green, the colour of tender leaves that emerge from the earth after rains. Green is not the colour of fear or dominance. It is the colour of renewal, fertility and calm strength. This Ram…
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If Usha Vance became Christian, would she be American enough?
Sensing the shift in public narrative following the killing of Charlie Kirk, now seen as a Christian martyr, Vice President JD Vance declared publicly that he hoped his wife, Usha, daughter of Telugu Brahmin immigrants, would convert to Christianity. But…
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Blood Pacts of Kutch
Priestly role was often performed by Charans. They were bards, negotiators, ritual specialists, poets, warriors, royal companisons and much more. They preserved memory in the old Dingal language.
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Can a French man be a ‘civilisational Hindu’?
In New India, an Italian woman with an Indian passport remains a ‘foreigner’, but a French man with an Indian passport becomes a ‘civilisational Hindu’, and is even asked to influence young impressionable minds by creating ‘decolonised’ school textbooks.