Why India Has Two Official Names — in One Sentence of the Constitution
“India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.” The Constitution’s very first sentence carries two names — one born from a river seen f...
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Society & Culture
Discover India Podcast by Professor Pankaj Jain, Ph.D.
The Discover India Podcast is about Indian Culture, Indian Classical Music, Sustainability, Hindu/Buddhist/Jain Studies, Film Studies, and Diaspora Studies. Episodes include presentations at...
Discover India Podcast by Professor Pankaj Jain, Ph.D. Podcast Guide
Listen to Discover India Podcast by Professor Pankaj Jain, Ph.D., a Society & Culture podcast by Prof Pankaj Jain. Stream 345 episodes in English, follow new audio stories, and play episodes online on Radio and Podcast.
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20 of 345 episodesHomer and the Rigveda Use the Same Word for Fame — Kléos & Śravas
English took one word from Homer's Odyssey — odyssey , "the long journey out." But the word that poem is really about has a Sanskrit twin. G...
Friendship Day & the Gita: What Krishna Teaches Us About True Friends
On Friendship Day, we turn to the oldest wisdom on what real friendship means — the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna didn't rescue Arjuna from the bat...
The Hymn That Takes Away Everything You Depend On | Gatistvam, Decoded
Not your father. Not your mother. Not your wealth. Not even your knowledge. The Bhavani Ashtakam — traditionally attributed to Adi Shankarac...
"Guru" Doesn't Mean Teacher. It Means Heavy. | Guru Purnima, Decoded
You say it constantly — tech guru, business guru — but the Sanskrit word guru doesn't mean teacher. It means HEAVY, and it shares an ancient...
Why a 500-Year-Old Hindu Sect Sent Salman Khan to Jail
539 years ago, a guru in the Rajasthan desert gave his followers a code: never cut a living tree, never kill an animal. In 1730, 363 Bishnoi...
The Ride Home — Bahuḍā Yātrā & Suna Beṣa
English kept one word from India's biggest chariot festival — "juggernaut," the unstoppable chariot rolling out. But it only kept half the s...
Aagaman: Why India Named a Rocket Launch "The Arrival"
A rocket is built to leave the Earth — and Skyroot named its mission Aagaman: "the arrival." On July 18, 2026, Vikram-1 became the first pri...
Why Chess Is Actually Indian | World Chess Day
Chess was born in India, not as a metaphor, literally. The game began as chaturanga (चतुरङ्ग): chatur, “four,” anga, “limbs” — the four divi...
A billion people, zero FIFA World Cup?
A billion people. Zero World Cup appearances. And the reason we all repeat — that FIFA banned India for playing barefoot — isn't the one his...
Juggernaut: The Word That Got the God Backward | Rath Yatra Decoded
You use the word every week — juggernaut: an unstoppable, crushing force. It comes from Jagannātha, "Lord of the Universe," whose chariot fe...
Āṣāḍha Amāvasyā: When the Moon Disappears, Turn Inward
Today is Āṣāḍha Amāvasyā — the new moon. When the moon disappears from the night sky, our dhārmic traditions read it as an invitation to tur...
The Oldest Motivational Quote in the World — And Everyone Names the Wrong Source (WALK · Charaiveti)
"Charaiveti, charaiveti" — keep walking — may be the oldest motivational line in the world, and it is almost universally misattributed to th...
"Arise, Awake" — The Warning the Famous Quote Leaves Out | Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.3.14
"Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached" is one of the most quoted lines in modern India — but only the first half comes from t...
Jekyll & Hyde vs. the Bhagavad Gita: Who Got the Monster Right?
In 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson gave the West its defining story of the divided self — Dr. Jekyll drinks a potion to split the monster from...
Why Tesla Described the Universe in Sanskrit
Nikola Tesla was born 170 years ago today — July 10, 1856. In 1896, in New York, he met Swami Vivekananda, and by Vivekananda's own letter f...
The Ramayana Never Left Indonesia — Prambanan & the Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa
Prambanan (9th century; a UNESCO World Heritage Site) is Indonesia's largest Hindu temple complex, raised for Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. Aro...
Gita 2.48 — Deadline Stress का Sanskrit जवाब | योगस्थः कुरु कर्माणि S
Deadline पर panic होता है? 2,000 साल पहले श्रीकृष्ण ने इसका जवाब दिया — भगवद्गीता 2.48. योगस्थः कुरु कर्माणि सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा धनञ्जय। सिद्ध्य...
What Is "Captain Cool" in Sanskrit? Dhoni at 45 and the Gītā's Sthitaprajña
MS Dhoni turns 45 today — and the calm the world calls "Captain Cool" has a 2,000-year-old name. In the Bhagavad Gītā (2.54–72), Krishna des...
The Dalai Lama's Buddhism Is Indian — The Nalanda Tradition
The Dalai Lama turns 91 — and he consistently describes his tradition not as Tibetan but as the Nalanda tradition of India: the lineage of N...