Devdutt Patnaik Exclusive: There is a lot of fun in the reel world, but there is no happiness and peace.

Your new book ‘Ahimsa’ has just come out, how did you come up with the idea and how did you work on it?
We have heard about Harappa and Indus Valley Civilization. It has been more than 100 years since this civilization was discovered. Apart from that, nowadays there is also discussion about Rakhigarhi and Lothal. These are cultures about which we do not know much. I thought there should be a simple book that would give us information about all this.

Can Harappan civilization be linked to mythology?
This is mythology itself, because mythology means a way of looking at people and the world. How we see and express it in narrative form. Like Jain people express their world, their universe through stories. I have talked about this in my book Tirthankar. But Harappan civilization is a very strange civilization. We don’t know much about it, who were the people living there, what were their thoughts. I noticed that in the case of Harappa, there is no story but by looking at the art and architecture we can get an idea of ​​what those people thought. The biggest thing is that it is a non-violent civilization. Because not a single evidence of war has been found here nor any remains of weapons. At the same time, when we look at the civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia or Iraq, there is a lot of violence there. We do not even talk about it, but from the first civilization of India we get a small picture of non-violence. This thing should reach our youth. They should know that we have had this tradition for thousands of years. If this civilization had no connection with mythology then perhaps I would not have been interested in it.

We talk about events that happened a long time ago in mythology. Books are a great means to get information about that. But as you said, information is collected from the remains related to ancient civilizations. Have you ever thought of going and exploring those places yourself?
I had been to Lothal many years ago. Going there I saw many relics of that time. I have seen the remains of a dancing girl in the Delhi Museum. When we study mythology, we do not know everything from the story alone. One also has to talk about topics like symbols, statues, architecture, objects and rituals. Only by seeing all this we understand about mythology. Like ash is a symbol associated with Lord Shiva or sandalwood is a symbol associated with Lord Vishnu. Similarly, in the Harappan civilization, people used to make only one type of stone seal. This seal was of the same stone, of the same color and of the same size. We still use something from Harappa even today. Just as we talk about an iota of gold, it has come out of Harappa only. Apart from this, the system of measuring 16 annas was also present in the Indus Valley 4500 years ago. This is something worth thinking about.

You constantly surprise your readers. Some time ago you wrote a book on Jainism. Now you have brought a completely new topic. How are you planning to surprise your readers in the coming days?
There are many stories in India. I have to write on Buddhism, I have to write on casteism. I want to write about animals and birds. There are many stories associated with geography in India. There are caste Puranas, which are the stories of different castes. The story of Kshatriyas is different, the story of Brahmins is different. The story of the Khatri people in North India is very different. If you go to South India, you get different stories. There is a storehouse of Saraswati in India. I have to show the young generation that look you are like Ali Baba and this is a cave of knowledge where there are so many types of gems. Experience this gem, enjoy, learn and know what your country has to offer.