The Discover India Podcast by Professor Pankaj Jain: Bhārat Darśan

Prof Pankaj Jain
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Bhārat Darśan: The Discover India Podcast is about Indian Culture, Indian classical music, Sustainability, Hindu/Buddhist/Jain Studies, Film Studies, and Diaspora Studies. Episodes also include presentations at various conferences and webinars. Dr. Pankaj Jain is the Director of The India Centre and the Head of the Department of Humanities and Language at FLAME University. #India #Indology #IndianClassicalMusic #IndianCulture #IndianTraditions #India #Hinduism #Jainism #Buddhism #Dharma #Jainology #ReligionAndEcology #FilmStudies #Bollywood #IndianDiaspora #Dharmic #ManojGovindraj

  1. 3d ago

    The Ragas Behind Bollywood's Greatest Songs — Best of the Raag Series

    Before this channel decoded Sanskrit words hiding in English, it spent two years decoding the classical ragas hiding inside Bollywood's biggest songs — a 63-episode webinar series with tabla and sitar scholar Shri Manoj Govindraj. This is the best of it: eight ragas, eight unforgettable film songs, and the 500-year-old music theory neither soundtrack ever credited. Every song in this episode is sung live by Manoj on harmonium — Durga, Malgunji, Deskar, Brindavani Sarang, Tilang, Gara, Bihag, Madmadh Sarang — with the one idea that makes each raga recognizable by ear, then the Bollywood song that was quietly built on it. Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:26 Raag Durga — "Hum Intezaar Karenge" (Bahu Begum, 1967) 02:46 Raag Malgunji — "Jeevan Se Bhari Teri Aankhen" (Safar, 1970) 05:40 Raag Deskar — "Jyoti Kalash Chhalke" (Bhabhi Ki Chudiyan, 1961) 10:00 Raag Brindavani Sarang — "Jiya Jab Jhoome" 12:16 Raag Tilang — "Kaise Kahen Hum Pyar Ne" (Sharmilee, 1971) 15:51 Raag Gara — "Mohe Panghat Pe" (Mughal-e-Azam, 1960) 18:34 Raag Bihag — Bihag and Maru Bihag, sung back to back 20:47 Raag Madmadh Sarang — "Laut Ke Aaja Mere Meet" (Rani Roopmati, 1959) 23:00 OutroThe video version, with the Devanagari title cards for each raga, is on YouTube: Discover India with Professor Pankaj Jain. All 63 full episodes of the Raag series are in the playlist there.Prof. Pankaj Jain — scholar of Indian religions, Jain studies and Indology; Director, The India Centre, and Head of Humanities & Languages, FLAME University. With tabla/sitar scholar Shri Manoj Govindraj.

  2. 5d ago

    The Matrix ← Māyā: Reality Isn't What You Think

    The Matrix ← Māyā. The highest-grossing sci-fi film of its era asks "what is real?" — a question Sanskrit philosophy put at its center 2,500 years earlier. The word is माया · māyā: not "nothing is real," but the creative power by which infinite consciousness appears as a finite world. The film's answer is the red pill — wake up to a different reality. The Upaniṣadic answer runs the other way: the consciousness watching the illusion was never trapped by it. And the Wachowskis reached for the same texts — Revolutions ends on a chant from the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, asato mā sad gamaya, "lead me from the unreal to the real." A scholar's quick decode from the Bhārat Darśan film-philosophy series.

  3. Sep 29

    Pitru Paksha: A Pause for Where You Came From (Shraddh, Explained)

    If you grew up in an Indian home, you probably touch a book to your forehead when your foot brushes it. Nobody taught you that. And yet, somebody did. In this short episode, Prof. Pankaj Jain reflects on Pitṛ Pakṣa (Pitru Paksha), the fortnight of the ancestors. It falls between Bhagwan Gaṇeśa's visarjan and Maa Durgā's arrival, when many Hindu families pause to remember those who came before them. In this episode: What pitṛ means, and why it's a cousin of Latin pater and English fatherThe quiet rite of śrāddha: water from cupped hands, rice on a leaf, a crow called down to eatWhy śrāddha comes from śraddhā, faith, whose old sense is "to place your heart somewhere"Why a fortnight called "inauspicious" is really asking us to look backIt was never a pause for the dead. It's a pause for where you came from. 📅 Pitṛ Pakṣa 2026: September 27 – October 10 (Mahālaya / Sarva Pitṛ Amāvasyā), per most North Indian calendars. Traditions vary by region and family; follow your own family's practice. 📖 Read more: Prof. Jain's Times of India essay on Pitṛ Pakṣa and śrāddha https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/the-india-centre/from-present-to-past-the-philosophy-of-hindu-rituals-for-ancestors-pit-e1-b9-9b-pak-e1-b9-a3a-and-sraddha/ ▶️ Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/shorts/78UWxtVsek0?feature=share 🎧 All episodes: pod.link/profpankajjain Discover India: Decoded · Bhārat Darśan Heritage and memory, not theology.

  4. Sep 26

    The Sixth Sense ← Sākshi: Who Is the "I" That Sees?

    The Sixth Sense ← Sākshi. Cole Sear sees what others can't — but the film never asks what the "I" that sees actually is. Sanskrit philosophy names it: साक्षी · sākshi, the witness — the awareness that observes thought, emotion, and the body without being affected by any of them. Cole is burdened by what he sees; the Upaniṣads point the other way: what if you are the seeing itself? A scholar's quick decode from the Bhārat Darśan film-philosophy series.

  5. Sep 22

    Hanuman Is a "Forest-Being" — What the Title Hanuman Ansh Really Says (Vānara, Decoded)

    You saw Hanuman Ansh. The boy talking to a tree, the pot that never runs dry — both are explained by the title. Ansh, aṃśa, is a fragment. Hanuman is a vānara: vana + nara, forest + person — a forest-being. Greek andr- means "person" too; android is "person-shaped." Cousins from one ancestor, not a borrowing. The pot, read as a way to live rather than a miracle: nothing stored, nothing withheld, plenty from passing it on. That is annadāna. The same Himalayan hills saw the Chipko movement in the 1970s. Devotion, not policy — dharma as right relationship with everything that breathes, grows, and flows. Two hedges: vānara = vana + nara is the traditional gloss, and other derivations exist; and Hanuman Ansh is a devotional film, not an environmental one — it makes no claim about Uttarakhand's present ecological pressures, and neither does this episode. No spoilers. Hanuman Ansh (2026), dir. Vishal Chaturvedi. Discover India: Bhārat Darśan with Dr. Pankaj Jain. #HanumanAnsh, #NeemKaroliBaba, #vānara, Sanskrit etymology, dharma, ecology, annadāna, Chipko, Indian knowledge systems.

  6. Sep 19

    Volkswagen Is Half a Sanskrit Word — But Not the Half You Think

    Volkswagen means "the people's car," and one half of that name is cousin to a Sanskrit word — just not the half most people guess. Wagen and वाहन (vāhana) descend from the same ancestral root meaning "to carry," which also gave Latin vehere and English vehicle. Volks and Sanskrit लोक (loka), on the other hand, mean nearly the same thing and sound nearly the same, and are completely unrelated. A sound law worked out by Jacob Grimm — yes, that Grimm — is what decides it. Cousins from a shared ancestor, never borrowings. From Discover India: Decoded with Prof. Pankaj Jain.

  7. Sep 14

    Gaṇeśa and ‘Republic’ Share the Same Sanskrit Word

    Gaṇeśa’s name doesn’t mean “remover of obstacles” — that title came later. Gaṇa + īśa: lord of the many. The samelittle word gave India gaṇita (mathematics), the ancient gaṇa-saṅgha assemblies, and gaṇatantra — the modern word for republic, honored every Gaṇatantra Divas. On the one day that is both Ganesh Chaturthi and Hindi Diwas, a scholar’s quick decode of the word that runs from the Veda to the Constitution. #GaneshChaturthi #GaneshChaturthi2026#GanpatiBappaMorya #Ganesha #HindiDiwas #Sanskrit #Ganeshotsav #Ganpati#IndianKnowledgeSystems #Etymology #Rigveda #DiscoverIndiaDecoded

  8. Sep 13

    The Highest-Grossing Film in History Has a Sanskrit Title

    The biggest film franchise on earth carries a Sanskrit name, and its director himself said so back in 2007, calling it an incarnation of one of the Hindu gods taking flesh. Notice the vocabulary: incarnation, flesh. That is Christian language, borrowed because English had nothing closer. But avatāra never meant a picture, or a face, or a blue alien. It breaks into ava, "down," and the root tṝ, "to cross over" — a crossing down, a descent. The same root gives tīrtha, a ford in a river and so a place of pilgrimage, and Tīrthaṅkara, the Jain title for one who makes the crossing possible. Its cousins reach as far as Latin trans, hiding inside transit and translate. Three lives of one word: the divine crossing down, a man crossing into a body built for another world, and you, every day, crossing into a screen. A scholar's quick decode. (Box-office rankings here are the standard unadjusted count.) #Avatar #Tirthankar #Tirtha

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Bhārat Darśan: The Discover India Podcast is about Indian Culture, Indian classical music, Sustainability, Hindu/Buddhist/Jain Studies, Film Studies, and Diaspora Studies. Episodes also include presentations at various conferences and webinars. Dr. Pankaj Jain is the Director of The India Centre and the Head of the Department of Humanities and Language at FLAME University. #India #Indology #IndianClassicalMusic #IndianCulture #IndianTraditions #India #Hinduism #Jainism #Buddhism #Dharma #Jainology #ReligionAndEcology #FilmStudies #Bollywood #IndianDiaspora #Dharmic #ManojGovindraj

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