Mythologist | Author | Speaker | Illustrator
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Articles
Why is Holi celebrated more in north India than south India?
Holi is indeed celebrated mostly in north India, not south India. No one knows the reason why…
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Articles
From Shrinathji to Jagannath: How Krishna Avatars Change Across India.
Published on 29th January, 2022, in Times of India. Five hundred years ago, when the Mughals ruled north India, there was an explosion of Bhakti poetry across India. From north to south, people expressed their devotion to different forms of god using emotionally charged language. One of these forms of God was that of Krishna.…
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Articles
When Does Krishna Justify War?
Published on 2nd October, 2021, in Economic Times. Mahatma Gandhi famously argued that Bhagavad Gita needs to be seen as a metaphor of internal war, and has nothing to do with violence. Western scholars argue that the book does the very opposite – it actually promotes violence, and is therefore favoured by Hindutva. To understand…
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Does Krishna Take the Viratrupa In the Gita To Intimidate?
Who is a Hindu? Does Krishna take the Viratrupa in the Gita to intimidate? Published on 9th May, 2021, in Bangalore Mirror. A friend, who works in human resources, once shared his understanding of the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna was trying to motivate Arjuna to do a job as a warrior. But Arjuna was hesitating. So…
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Articles
Krishna and the Eloping Women
Published on 31st January, 2021, in Mid-day. We live in times where many people cannot handle the idea of adult women choosing their own husbands. Perhaps it is time to revisit the eloping women in sacred Krishna lore. Krishna is famous for playing the flute at night. On hearing this, the milkmaids of Vrindavan would…
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Articles
Financial lessons from Satyabhama
Published on 27th June, 2020, in the Economic Times. Krishna was raised by cowherds and then he moved from Vrindavan to Mathura and thence to Dwarka, where he married many women, often princesses from surrounding kingdoms. But his status in the Yadava clan was ensured by his marriage to Satyabhama, daughter of the richest Yadava…
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Articles
The Love-God’s Mother
Published on 5th April, 2020, in Mid-day Between the 5th and 10th century C.E., we find the development of Puranic literature. Many stories explained the relationships of Vishnu’s many avatars. One story that merits attention is the story of Pradyumna, the son of Krishna and Rukmini. The story is told very differently in the Hindu…
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Articles
Dharma focuses on empathy, not justice
Who is a Hindu? Published on 4th August, 2019, in Mumbai Mirror Once upon a time, there were two friends in a school. They were the best of friends and they promised to share everything with each other. After they graduated, one became rich and one remained poor. The poor friend went to the rich…
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Articles
Who is a good Hindu father?
Published on 23rd June, 2019, in Mumbai Mirror Indians are obsessed with their mothers. An overview of Bollywood films reveals that. Mothers can do no wrong. They always sacrifice their life for their children. Good sons always choose mother over wife. By contrast, fathers are considered absent, leaving the mother to take care of the…
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Articles
Beyond justice and forgiveness
Published on 3rd March, 2019, in Mumbai Mirror. The two ideas may shape our understanding of conflicts, but Hinduism, which is based on karma, is more complex. Whenever we are deeply hurt, a question comes to our mind: do we seek justice through retribution, or do we let go? Justice and forgiveness are two concepts…
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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…
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Articles
Misreading Gita As Motivation
The Bhagavad Gita is a philosophy being presented in the middle of a battleground…
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Articles
8 stories about Lord Krishna you have never heard before
In his new book, Shyam, mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik finally puts together the whole story of Krishna. What you will read below is not an excerpt from the book, but eight things that Devdutt himself learned about one of Hinduism’s most popular gods…
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Articles
The Gita without the Mahabharata
However, when we remove the Gita from the Mahabharata we miss out on the context. And so, miss out much of the learnings…
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Articles
The end of the Buddha’s clan
This story from the Bhaddasala Jatakas is very similar to the story of the death of the Yadava clan decades after the war at Kurukshetra between Pandavas and Kauravas…
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Articles
Radha or Meera?
People… are unable to distinguish the mythic past from the historical past…