Topic
hinduism
Essays connected by a shared question.
The Lord of the Hills and the Clay of the Desert
A terracotta goddess excavated at Ur around 1800 BCE looks unmistakably like Venkateshwara. Coincidence, or a shared grammar for picturing the divine?
Age of the Shiva Tandava Stotra
The hymn is credited to Ravana, but its metre, vocabulary and imagery point somewhere else entirely: eighth-century Rashtrakuta India.
Why India created so many spiritual systems, and kept them all
Ritual, self-knowledge, mantra, yoga, devotion: India kept adding paths without discarding the old ones. Why the contradictions were allowed to stand.
Tracing the origins of Srāddha
The gods are offered svāhā; the ancestors, svadhā. Following one difference in wording back through the Brāhmaṇas to the root of a rite for the dead.
The Timeless Evolution of Shiva
Ascetic, dancer, destroyer. Shiva was not born whole: he accumulated, absorbing a wild forest power, a storm god and a yogi across four thousand years.
The Rise of Vishnu and Fall of Indra
Religion and nature were deeply intertwined in ancient India, with gods representing powerful forces influencing daily life.