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Can rakshasas or asuras be called the Hindu devil?
Published on 3rd October, 2017, on www.dailyo.in Devil is not a Hindu concept. It’s a Christian concept. The Hindi word for devil – shaitan – is actually an Urdu word rooted in Persian thought. We...
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Hanuman, the Mighty Hero
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Editorial published on 16th December, 2017, in The Speaking Tree Verses of the Hanuman Chalisa suggest that the most efficient way to worship infinity is through this one...
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Epics about Women
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on 21st January, 2018, in Mid-day The epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata reached their final form roughly 2,000 years ago, between the 3rd century BCE and 3rd...
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Bridging the many interpretations of the Ramayana across Southeast Asia and...
An ancient mural with a scene from the Ramakien at Wat Phra Kaew Temple, Thailand. The Ramakien is national epic, derived from the Hindu epic Ramayana(Shutterstock) Published on 26th January, 2018, in...
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Is Hinduism feminist or patriarchal?
Published on 1st February, 2018, on www.dailyo.in Hinduism is patriarchal like most other religions. However, it is also feminist, unlike most other religions. Please note: many Muslim women insist...
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Even the Gods played sport
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on 4th February, 2018, in Mid-day Sport, as we know it today, comes from ancient Greece where games were part of the funeral rituals to honour dead heroes and...
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Ram and the Rooster
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on 25th March, 2018, in Mid-Day Valmiki composed the Ramayana and it is still popular though no one reads the old 2,000-year-old Sanskrit version, nor the...
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Beware the deer hunt
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on 15th April, 2018, in Mid-Day Ancient India was known as Arya-varta, or the land of the noble people. In the early scriptures, the extent of this region was...
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Back to old values of love
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on 7th September, 2018, in Mid-day Five years ago, on December 11, 2013 – my birthday – I was awaiting happy news that the Supreme Court would endorse that homosexual...
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Who is a Hindu? Why do intellectuals scorn Hindu deities?
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on 16th September, 2018, in Mumbai Mirror Krishna steals women’s clothes. Ram abandoned his wife. Shiva smokes narcotics. Durga kills a buffalo. Hindus worship weird...
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How Lord Hanuman can make leaders good human beings
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on 21st September, 2018, in The Economic Times Hanuman knew how to rile up Ravana. Ravana was a powerful king, who thought he was better than others. But Hanuman knew...
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The gallery of female rogues
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on 25th November, 2018, in Mid-day Typically, in storytelling, the main characters, the hero and the villain, are male, and the victim is female: a damsel in distress...
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Fake news: Was Sita the first victim?
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on 29th December, 2018, in Economic Times In the final chapter of the Ramayana, Ram returns to Ayodhya and is crowned king and we learn that Ram asks his courtiers...
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The Five-Headed Hanuman
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on 20th January, 2019, in Mid-day One of the popular images of Hanuman is one where he has five faces and five pairs of hands. It is known as the Panchmukhi, or...
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Who is a Hindu?: The Curious Case of Brahmins
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on 17th February, 2019, in Mumbai Mirror In Hindu scriptures, killing a Brahmin is deemed the worst of sins. It is called Brahma-hatyapaap. And he who kills a Brahmin...
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So many different Indras
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on 16th February, 2019, in Mid-day When we speak of Indra, we must keep in mind that the scriptures refer to six different types of Indra, belonging to different...
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Beyond justice and forgiveness
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik 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...
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The metaphor of the forest
Art by Devdutt Pattanaik Published on 21st April, 2019, in Mid-day To understand Hindu mythology, it is critical to understand the metaphor of forests. Forests represent the default wild world, where...
View ArticleGold Effigy of Sita and a Half-golden Mongoose
For all the violence depicted in the epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata, they carried a profoundly human message for the heart. It is told through the two curious often overlooked moments, one in the...
View ArticleLGBTQIA+ Tales in Temples
For a long time, gatekeepers of Indian culture insisted that all things queer were Western. Then, people started reading the scriptures and realised, that was not quite the case... The post LGBTQIA+...
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