By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist Vedic Rishis are imagined with long hair, tied in a topknot. But Adi Shankara, the Vedanta philosopher, is depicted in popular artworks with a shaved head, covered with a drape. An enquiry into how the Hindu sage and monk treated his hair reveals how it has…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist About a thousand years ago, we are told that the Chola king was drawn to a Jain epic called Jivaka Chintamani. It tells the story of a young man’s erotic and valiant adventures, who eventually becomes a Jain monk. To prevent local kings from becoming monks,…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist People often ask, if Aryabhatta invented zero, how did people count Ravana’s ten heads and Gandhari’s hundred heads before that. It is one of those foolish WhatsApp “mysteries” for people who do not realise number systems pre-dated the invention of the number zero. For example, ten…

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist To be king, a man has to establish himself as belonging to a royal family. But what about the founder? How does he distinguish himself from the men he is supposed to rule over? How does he become a special man, a super human, with the power…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist In Indian mythology, two metaphors are used to explain the origin of things and the cause of things. These are womb (yoni, in Sanskrit) and seed (bija). Related to bija is the concept of fruit or phala. From the yoni comes the phala that contains the…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist We are familiar with that false idea that the left brain grants us logical thinking and mathematics and the right brain grants us creativity and abstract thinking, and that students of science and commerce have left brain orientation while students of the arts have right brain…

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist Ravana-podi means burning effigies of Ravana. In the Gangetic plains, this happens at the end of autumn Navaratri after the rains on Vijaya Dashami. In Odisha’s Dasapalla, Nayagarh district, the same happens at the end of the spring Navaratri before the rains on Ram Navami. However, in…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist In prehistoric times, people captured a hunting ground or agricultural land or pastures by claiming that is where the ancestor was buried. Burial was an important ritual invented by ancient people to claim rights over lands. Later, they invented stories to claim land. The Maori say…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist Nationalists want to believe that Hinduism existed homogeneously across the Indian subcontinent (Akhand Bharat) since time immemorial. However, everyone who studies history knows this is not true. Harappan civilisation thrived 4,000 years ago only in NorthWest India. Vedic civilisation emerged 3,000 years ago only in Gangetic…

By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist Giving in Hindu society can be categorised in three ways: dakshina, bhiksha and daan. Dakshina is repayment. Bhiksha is alms. Daan is charity. But meanings are often confusing, as people use the same term differently in different contexts. In Vedic times, poets were given daan. And…