As humans, thanks to our imagination, our experience expanded beyond the natural world of elements, plants, animals and humans, to the supernatural world of dreams, delusions, projections.

I started writing and luckily, one of my friends who heard it, put it in the corporate dossier.

I started publishing it and the articles became very popular.

Hindutva keeps saying that Hindus never invaded foreign lands; that India has always been invaded.

And they completely ignore the invasion of Malaysia by the naval fleet of the Tamil Chola empire, in1068 CE (less than 50 years after Mahmood of Ghazni raided the Somnath temple) or claim Malaysia as part of Akhand Bharat.

The image of a horned, White man storming the US Capitol building is now part of history.

It reveals the fragility of democracy and the lure of megalomaniacs and conspiracy theories.

But, why horns Do they imply power Or is it a fantasy of how barbarians should be The world of horned gods come to us from ancient tribal cultures that admired the horns of the mighty buffalo or bison, and the antlers of a stag.

Desire is a recurring theme in some of earliest verses of Hindu tradition, found in the Rig Veda.

It is what Lopamudra demands from her husband Agastya, who is distracted by rituals.

It is what makes the apsara Urvashi fond of the human king Pururava, before she abandons him for the pleasures of Paradise.

There is also a rather bizarre hymn where the mighty Indras desirability and virility is paradoxically dependent on his queen, Indrani, copulating with the even more.

Jains are one of the most successful business communities in India.

Not surprisingly their mythology is based on hunger, hunger being a metaphor for all that we desire - materially, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually.

The highest beings, the Jinas, are those who have conquered all hunger, and so reside in Siddha-loka.

The Jivas, on the other hand, are hungry, and so trapped in the world of yearning and seeking.

Social Justice warriors will often tell the story from the Uttara Ramayana of how Ram beheaded the low caste Shambuka for breaking caste rules and performing austerities like a dvija or a twice-born, upper caste Savarna.

But they will not tell you that the same Uttara Ramayana reminds us that Ravana, killed by Ram, was also a Brahmin, a Vedic scholar, son of Rishi Vishrava, grandson of Rishi Pulatsya, great grandson of Brahma.

So why does Ram the alleged patron of Hindutva politics behead a Brahmin And why does Krishna encourage the killing.

But, the human brain evolved to its current size roughly 2,00,000 years ago.

So, when do we find the earliest signs of religion in India It depends on how we define religion.

In archaeological terms, religion means belief in something unseen, apart from the current, lived experience.

Hindu Mythology Books In Hindi Pdf