Blogs

By Bibek Debroy The story about the battle between Parashurama and Kartavirya is a familiar one. It figures in all Puranas. At the prospect of the ...

A reminder about what happened in the last column. I was recounting a story from Brahmanda Purana, a story narrated by the sage Vasishtha to King S...

In the last post, I mentioned the story of the doe and the stag. Parashurama and Akritavrana heard the story and were amazed. They decided to go th...

All of us know the basic Parashurama story. Therefore, from Brahmanda Purana, I have picked up bits less familiar. Trailokya-vijaya mantra was an e...

Most people know the Parashurama story, at least the bare bones of it. The story is about Kartavirya Arjuna and how, because of Kartavirya Arjuna’...

When Kartavirya Arjuna killed Bhagwan Parashuram's father Jamadagni rishi and he saw his mother lamenting over his father's death, he vowed to avenge the death of his father by killing the entire Kshatriya race 21 times. A task so difficult that only Mahadev can help him with it.

Mahadev presents his divine Vijaya bow to Parashurama.

In the last post, in the story from Brahmanda Purana, Shiva appeared before Parashurama in the form of a hunter. But Parashurama wasn’t yet sure ...

In the last column, in a story from Brahmanda Purana, I spoke of Parashurama reaching the Himalayas, so as to perform austerities dedicated to Shi...

By Bibek Debroy All of us are familiar with stories about Parashurama, in some fashion. In these columns, I have not talked about Parashurama so fa...

By Bibek Debroy ETYMOLOGICALLY, THE WORD tattva means the truth, or essential nature. That’s the reason I think the word Hindutva, which has come ...

By Bibek Debroy The story of how Ganesha came to have a single tusk is fairly well known. Here is that story from Brahmanda Purana. Ganas are Shiva...