Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist As per Hindu lore, to make the Veda accessible to women and ‘lowerʼ castes, the sages told stories — the Fifth Veda. The Fifth Veda includes Mahabharata, Ramayana and the vast corpus of Puranas. In Ramayana, there are two Vedic scholars, experts in Sanskrit. The first is…
Unfaithful wives across seas
March 21, 2024By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist For nearly 2,000 years, Arab traders used the monsoon winds to travel across the sea to India. Along the Western coasts, in Kerala, Karnataka and Goa, they met people who allowed them to marry their daughters, but did not let them take these wives back home….
Sita’s three sons
February 1, 2024By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist In the popular understanding of Ramayana, Sita gave birth to twins Luv and Kush who challenged their father and defeated him in battle and restored the dignity of Sita. However, in the many re-tellings of Ramayana found across the world, we learn Sita delivered only one…
The God who sprouted hair
January 25, 2024By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist A king would visit the temple every morning to receive flowers offered to the deity at dawn, when the temple doors opened. But one day, the priest was so busy enjoying the company of the temple dancer that he forgot to perform the morning rituals. When…
History of Luv-Kush
January 11, 2024By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist The word kushalava in Sanskrit literature like Manusmriti and Arthashastra refer to low-born travelling entertainers. This feels strange as Kusha and Lava are the names of Ram’s twin sons — Ram who is the greatest king of Indian lore. In Sikh folklore, endorsed by the 18th…
Origins of the Rice Goddess
July 27, 2023By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist 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. The Bonda…
From Shrinathji to Jagannath: How Krishna avatars change across India
July 20, 2023By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist 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….
Shaped by the Rains
June 22, 2023By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist Aryans came from lands north of the Himalayas where there was no monsoon rains. They focused on four quarters of the year, based on the solstices and equinoxes. Bal Gangadhar Tilak pointed out how Vedic hymns refer to long days without sun. He pointed out how…
Indra’s Paradise is the Indian Paradise
June 8, 2023By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist Swarga or paradise of the gods, full of wish-fulfilling trees, damsels and musicians, is described in Buddhist and Jain mythologies, not just Hindu mythology. When Buddha attains nirvana, he first travels to the heaven of 33 gods where he meets his mother (reborn as a god)…
Swallowing Gods
June 1, 2023By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist In Hindu mythology, during the battle between the devas and asuras, the guru of the asuras, Shukracharya, is about to use Sanjeevini Vidya to resurrect all dead asuras. To prevent this from happening, the gods beg Shiva to help. Shiva swallows Shukracharya and keeps him in…
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