Indians have visualised India in many different ways. Often through the lens of outsiders. About …
The idea of enchanting magical women abducting men is a recurring idea around the world. …
The idea of a temple or a deity attracting ships, forcing them to move off course and causing shipwrecks by their magnetic power is also found on the western coast of India…
What turned Muhammad, the trader, into Muhammad, the raider? It was the lack of empathy. …
A king’s dream about a god in a tree connects Manipur and Sri Lanka with Odisha…
The South has been the home of Sugriva, king of monkeys (vanara) and Ravana, king of demons (rakshasa). …
We can argue that goddesses have been integral to Hinduism since Vedic times. But of the 1,000 hymns of the Rig Veda only the maximum number of hymns dedicated to a goddess as the 21 hymns for Usha, the dawn-goddess…
But in mythology, seventy two is a very exciting number. It is 2 raise the power of 3 (2x2x2) multiplied by 3 raise to the power of 2 (3×3). A perfect symmetry which gives us 8×9 = 72. In ancient times, such numbers had sacred meaning…
Increasingly, modern society is trying to turn every game into a competitive game, where someone has to be defeated to win. The dopamine rush comes only when you triumph over others. This is the value that we are giving people. …
Many Hindus argue that the ninth avatar of Vishnu is Buddha. But hardly any Hindus know about how Vishnu is a guardian-god in the Buddhist faith in Sri Lanka…
A translation in Odia of Tales from the Land of Jagannatha…
Internet alien hunters have concluded that in Gujarat there is an underground upside-down temple, despite the fact that the ‘upside-down’ temple has upright images of Vishnu and his avatars…
The oldest Indian mythology of rice can be found among the Bonda tribal people, who live in Odisha, who are linked to the Munda and Austroasiatic communities who entered India from the Southeast, and brought rice growing technology with them over 4,000 years ago…
In nature, the predator eats the prey, the hound hunts the hare. But in culture, the prey will fight back and will not be reduced to food…
It’s great fun to read Ramayan by politicians and activists. Right-wing Hindutva folks will go …