By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist Valmiki composed the Ramayana and it is still popular though no one reads the old 2,000-year-old Sanskrit version nor the 1,000-year-old regional classics in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Assamese, Awadhi. What we usually access as colloquial folk versions, often transmitted orally, known as the Ramakatha….

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist Every woman does not have a vagina. Every man does not have a penis.” This language is familiar to students of gender studies around the world. Here, gender and even sexuality are seen as a social constructs, not biological fact, outcomes of nurture and culture, not…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist When we use the word demon in English we are instantly drawn to dark and hideous evil creatures. This idea comes to us from the Christian world that gave us the mythology of the Devil, and from the Zoroastrian world before that, where all things ugly…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist When a man is born he is born in debt (rinn). This is the Hindu concept of debt. He is obliged to repay his ancestors without whom he would have a lineage. He is obliged to his parents who raise him. He is obliged to his…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist As an Odia child raised in Mumbai, I am often asked about my roots. My parents told me we belong to the ‘karana’ caste. No one in Mumbai had heard of this caste. Later, I learned that karana caste is what is known as karanam in…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik Sport, as we know it today, comes from ancient Greece where games were part of the funeral rituals to honour dead heroes and leaders. India also has a long history of sport. In Harappa, one finds seals that suggest that the people of Harappa were familiar with bull fighting or bull…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist In the Ramayana, how did Bharat demonstrate to the people that he had rejected his mother’s ideology of capturing the throne through cunning, and how he wanted Ram to be king and spend his life serving as Ram’s regent? He did so by placing Ram’s footwear…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist In the Old Testament there is the concept of the serpent who tempts Eve in the garden of Eden, but one is not clear if the creature is supernatural or the Devil. In the Judaic Tanakh, the Devil is a heavenly prosecutor who appears on behalf…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist The epics Ramayana and Mahabharata reached their final form roughly 2,000 years ago, between the 3rd century BCE and 3rd century CE. We know this as the Sanskrit used in the epics is based on a grammar codified by Panini, who lived 2,500 years ago. The…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist Hindu households have always had a puja room. Traditionally, here were located the many Gods of the household. The griha-devata of the house, the kula-devata of the clan, the grama-devata of the village, the ishta-devata of each of the family members, maybe an image of an…