By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist The images of Puranic gods only started appearing on cave and temple walls after the 5th Century AD. We find such images in Odisha, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, and among these are images of fierce goddesses. The most popular of these shows a goddess riding…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist Of the thousand songs in the Rigveda, we find 200 songs praising Agni. In fact, the first song of the Rigveda is a praise to Agni, who is called the priest and messenger of the gods. Agni must be placed in the eastern direction and it…

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist In Gujarat, there is a river called Saraswati that originates in the Aravalli mountains and runs for 350 kms. In Uttarakhand, there is another Saraswati river that is a tributary of the Alakananda that joins the river near Badrinath. There is another Saraswati river that flows through…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist No conversation about Harappans and Aryans is now complete without discussing the Oxus civilisation. Cities of the Oxus civilisation, in what is now Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, traded with cities of the Harappan civilisation to their south, until Harappan cities ceased to exist by 1900 BCE. They…

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist In Greek mythology, we hear the story of Sisyphus. The gods condemn him to roll a rock up the mountain all day, only to find the rock rolling down at night. Thus, he is doomed for all eternity, to repeat the task again and again and again….

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist We have heard stories of how Shiva beheaded his father-in-law Daksha Prajapati and replaced Daksha’s head with that of a goat and how he beheaded his son Ganesha and replaced Ganesha’s head with that of an elephant. We have also heard folk stories of how devotees…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist In a popular social media short video, a young stand-up comedian says that he bought an iPhone because its greatest feature is that it makes you confident. As soon as he got the iPhone, he felt confident enough to abuse his friends and colleagues who did…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist Mantra means a sound meant to connect the Gods outside (deva) to the God inside (atma). Vedic people were convinced the Rishi did not craft these sounds; they ‘saw’ them in the universe and simply transmitted them. Historians see mantras of the Rig Veda as human…

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist Kings across East Asia, whether it’s China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia consider the lion as the symbol of kings. In front of Chinese Palaces, there is the male and female lion, the male holding under his paw a globe representing the world while the female holds a…

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist Today, anyone can go to a school or an institute, where a set of subjects are taught by experts who follow a fixed time-table, an approved curriculum, a standardised method of teaching and evaluation. That was not the case before. In the old Indian model, your caste…