“Facts are everybody’s truth. Fiction is nobody’s truth. Myths are somebody’s truth”
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Articles
Re-centring the Hindu Goddess
Re-centring the goddess is not anti-male. It is pro-ecosystem. It reminds us that festivals are contracts with land, water, animals, and labour — especially women’s labour. When we reduce Diwali to a warrior’s homecoming, we miss Lakshmi’s audit of how we earned, spent, hoarded, and gave. When we make Navaratri a fashion parade, we forget the seed in the pot, the sprout on the windowsill, and the choreography that once honoured soil…
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Articles
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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Articles
Narada: the Original Provocateur
Narada is Hindu mythology’s impish, itinerant sage. His presence in a story spells trouble. As a character, he plays a key role. He spotlights our love for gossip, our fragile ego, our competitive spirit, our yearning to measure ourselves against others, our refusal to be content…
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Articles
The Global Resurrection of Islam
Earlier, Islam was sustained by rulers. In the modern era, it is sustained by communities. Authority shifted from courts and empires to classrooms, print networks, voluntary organisations, and individual conscience…
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Articles
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 is not alone. …
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Articles
Ashoka and the Unifier of China
Over 2200 years ago, two rulers on opposite ends of Asia confronted a similar problem: how to hold together vast, diverse territories emerging from long periods of conflict. Qin Shi Huang in China and Ashoka in India both inherited states forged through conquest. Yet the solutions they offered to the problem of unity could not have been more different…
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Articles
Chandala’s daughter, Arundhati
Arundhati is remembered today as the ideal wife, the tiny star beside Vasistha in the Saptarshi constellation, shown to every new bride as a model of fidelity. But beneath this polished image lies a far more unsettling story. …
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Articles
Persia was a Civilisation Long Before Islam and Rome
Zoroastrianism traced its teachings to the prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster), who is believed to have lived many centuries earlier, perhaps around 1200 BC, according to some scholars. …
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Articles
Did the Mughals invent Hindi?
Hindi is often described as a language born in Mughal barracks, as if it were simply the speech of imperial camps. This is an attractive phrase, but it is historically incomplete. The story of Hindi is much older, far wider, and far more layered. …
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Articles
A Colonial Category Called Religion
Hinduism did not become a religion by organic evolution. It was forced into becoming a …
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Articles
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 in today’s America, that is not enough…
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Articles
The Ravana of Ratanpur
At Ratan-gad, or Ratanpur Fort, near Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh — once part of Madhya Pradesh — there exists a rare and striking sculpture of Ravana. He is shown cutting off several of his 10 heads and offering it into a sacrificial fire. This scene does not come from Valmiki’s Ramayana, but from a later imagination. The offering is made to Brahma in Mahabharata’s ‘Ramopakhyana’. And in later regional versions, to Shiva…
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Articles
The Tale of Two Somnaths
Loud discussions on how Muslim raiders from Ghazni plundered Somnath temple, on the Gujarat coast a thousand years ago, ignore how Jain ‘basadi’ in Karnataka were replaced by Somanatha Shiva temples around the same time. This is also the time when Rajaraja Chola marched up the eastern coast of India, plundering the kingdoms of Andhra, Odisha, and Bengal and bringing back images of Bhairava and Kali…
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Articles
Will Bollywood Rama Ignore Shambuka?
A Brahmin approaches Rama in grief. His young son has died prematurely. Such a death, he says, can only happen when dharma is disturbed. A king is responsible for cosmic order. If something unnatural has occurred, the fault lies with the ruler…
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Articles
Are God’s Messengers Real or Imaginary?
We know that information about Gautama Buddha, Chanakya, and Shankaracharya come from textual sources that were composed centuries after their supposed lifetimes. There is no material proof of their existence. But they are assumed to be historical figures. The same holds true for religious leaders like Jesus Christ and Prophet Muhammad. Believers insist they are historical…