Stories
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How Shankara Became a Mythic Hero
The Shankara legend is less about history and more about imagination – how India turned a philosopher into a divine hero, a world conqueror, and a unifier of its sacred geography.
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History In the Age of Historical Fiction
A true historian has no heroes. He tells us that Mahmud of Ghazni and Rajendra Chola were both ambitious kings, raiders, rulers, and products of their time. That is not judgment, but a reminder that humans everywhere act out of…
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Kubera, the Refugee From Lanka
When the Constitution of India was first published, over 75 years ago, it included many artworks. Amongst them was one showing Kubera, Ravana’s brother and the king of wealth and yakshas (nature spirits), fleeing from Lanka. It is often mistaken…
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Who are the power-broking landlord monks of Tamil Nadu?
Sengol is a staff of royal authority. We can call the symbol of justice in the spirit of wordplay, when a symbol of monarchy is made the symbol of democracy.
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How the Gayatri Mantra, composed by men, heard by men, for a male deity, became embodied as a goddess
Published on 27th January, 2023, in The Hindu. Mantra is a carefully crafted sound formula that has the power to invoke and anchor divine energy for the benefit of humans: this is what Hindus, Buddhists and Jains believe. Rig Veda…
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Why Some Gods Dance and Some Don’t
Published on 6th November, 2022, in the Times of India. One of the things we take for granted in Hinduism is dancing. Hindu gods dance. Shiva dances his Tandava as Nataraja surrounded by ganas and yoginis. Vishnu dances in the…
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Tell Me the Story of Chhat Puja
Published on 30th October, 2022, in Mid-day. Many people asked me what is the significance of Chhat puja. They want to know a story, for example, there is a story of Ram’s return to Ayodhya on Diwali, and Lakshmi entering…
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Myth and Memories Before History
Published on 28th August, 2022, in Mid-Day. Vedic literature is full of stories informing us how rishis discovered and used the mantra to solve problems. These stories were called the itihasa, as they are reported by those who witnessed the…
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Purva Paksha and the Art of Winning Arguments
Published on 23rd July, 2022, in Economic Times. The New Testament was finalised about 1500 years ago. About the time when Puranas started being composed in India. But what was new about it? The Church said that the old testament…
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Bankura Horse for Dharma Thakur
Published on 24th April, 2022, in Mid-day. Terracotta Bankura horses serve as decoration today. But for many centuries, these were offerings made in rural Bengal to the god Dharma who is formless and all-powerful. Stories about Dharma Thakur were written…
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How Trade Blossomed an Exchange of Ideas Between India and Arabia.
Published on 26th February, 2022, in Times of India. Indians had been trading with Arabs for a long time. About 4000 years ago, trade happened with Harappans by ships that travelled along the sea-coast. Birds were used to identify the…
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Pashupati and the Harappan Seal.
Published on 25th February, 2022, in The Hindu. We have all heard of the Pashupati seal in Harappa. Scholars are clear that it has nothing to do with Shiva, even though it is still labelled as proto-Shiva in popular books.…
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The Stories We Tell: Mythology to Make Sense of Modern Lives
In The Stories We Tell: Mythology to Make Sense of Modern Lives, renowned mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik presents seventy-two tales from India’s rich treasure of myths and legends to explain life in the twenty-first century. The stories are arranged into a…
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Unfaithful Wives Across Seas
Published on 13th February, 2022, in Mid-day. For nearly 2,000 years, Arab traders used the monsoon winds to travel across the sea to India. Along the Western coasts, in Kerala, Karnataka and Goa, they met people who allowed them to…
