Of all the religious texts, the Avesta is perhaps the least familiar. This is unsurprising, since the Avesta was written in a now-dead language, before being lost for almost one thousand years...
Elephants are one of the smartest and most powerful animals in the world. It is no wonder then that these magnificent beasts were exploited and trained to be brutal executioners. Death by elephant is...
An old man sits hunched over his prayer mat as dawn breaks over the horizon, his white beard soaked from tears shed through the night. No one would believe that this troubled figure is the sixth...
In 1988 Lana Corrine Cantrell wrote The Greatest Story Never Told , a book that combined multiple ancient culture histories turned-into-myth as one story – the story of our ancient, off-world, or...
Thuggees, from the Sanskrit word meaning “concealment”, were an organized gang of professional assassins – sometimes described as the world's first mafia – who operated from the 13th to the 19th...
When we think of the empowerment of women, we usually think about Western culture. Nevertheless, the East has had its fair share of female role models. While Islam has historically given men the role...
New carbon dating performed on organic deposits found in Mayiladumparai, Tamil Nadu has pushed the beginning of the Iron Age in southern India back by approximately 700 years, the Deccan Herald...
The kings of the Sena Empire, who were part of the Brahmin top-echelon caste in India, originally came from Karnata in southern India before they moved to the Bengali region. The history of the Sena...
This week, security guards at the Taj Mahal, the enormous 17th century white marble mausoleum built in Agra by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan , forbade entry to Ayodhya-based Hindu seer, Jagadguru...
While John Dalton, an English chemist and physicist, is the man credited today with the development of atomic theory at the turn of the 19th century, a theory of atoms was actually formulated 2,500...
A team of researchers has documented the find of “mystery” stone jars from the state of Assam in northeastern India. The 65 stone jars were unearthed in 2020 from four sites across the Dima Hasao...
A bygone era forgotten in Western circles but preserved in the histories of Buddhist traditions tells the story of the Greek contribution to Buddhism. Enshrined in the daily prayers of the Theravāda...
Considered the world’s most expensive spice , saffron has been highly valued by many ancient civilizations, but its origins have long been debated. A new study claims to have traced the evolution of...
Rohtas Fort located in Punjab, one of Pakistan’s four provinces. The construction of the fort was ordered by Sher Shah Suri, the founder of the Indian Suri Empire, though the actual work was carried...
India, particularly when viewed from the Western lens, has always occupied a particular place in popular imagination. The Indian subcontinent was a land of mysticism, yoga, ayurveda, alternate...
Did Buddhism exist in Upper Egypt and the Lower Meroitic Empire? The answer appears to be yes. It was in Memphis that English Egyptologist and archaeologist W. M. Flinders Petrie found evidence of...
The Upanishads are a genre of texts that form the final and last section of the Vedas. The Upanishads were composed orally in Sanskrit, and the earliest surviving ones dating to the 1st millennium BC...
Throughout human history we seem to have done almost anything to entertain ourselves, and some forms of entertainment have been pretty weird. Some of these have even teetered on the edge of the...
Nanjanagudu is located in India’s ancient Mysuru (Mysore) district and is home to Srikanteshwara Temple, an ancient, important Hindu pilgrimage site. For this reason, the Nanjanagudu area is a holy...
Just 68 miles (110 km) from Patna, in India’s eastern Bihar province, the Kesaria stupa lies in the landscape partially hidden amongst vegetation. The original Kesaria stupa is believed to date back...
The term "tree hugger" is a phrase greatly associated with 1970's era Western liberal activists vigilantly trying to protect the environment from humanity's industrial destructive thirst for profit...
Archaeologists digging in the southern Indian village of Konthagai in the state of Tamil Nadu have found a rare and useful artifact. It is a rusted iron dagger, believed to be anywhere from 2,500 to...
Hidden deep in India’s northwestern state of Haryana, archaeologists have discovered cave paintings dating to the Upper Paleolithic age. The cave art was found at Faridabad's Mangar Bani hill forest...
The Barabar Caves are a group of rock-cut caves located in the eastern Indian state of Bihar. The Barabar Caves contain a total of seven caves, the oldest of which date to the Mauryan period. The...