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The Archaeology of Forgotten Urbanism: Understanding the Iron Age City Beneath Bhubaneswar
Beneath the expanding city of Bhubaneswar lies Sisupalgarh, one of eastern India’s most significant early urban settlements. Its ramparts, gateways, streets, & buried civic order ask us to rethink...

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
May 257 min read


The Super El Niño of 2026: The Cultural and Anthropological Conversation That We Must Have Now
In May 2026, the World Meteorological Organisation confirmed what climate scientists had been tracking with growing alarm for months.

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
May 2312 min read


What Do You Dream When the World Goes Silent?
On visual overconsumption, AI-generated imagery, the death of inner picturing, and what happens to the dreaming mind when it has been fed another person's imagination for long enough.

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
May 1813 min read


Where Do We Go When the World Weakens?
A study of how weakening communities reshape the inner life of individuals, turning home, love, and kinship into fragile spaces of refuge from an anthropological lens.

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
May 1615 min read


Understanding Literature as the First Step of Democracy
Understanding literature as the first step of democracy involves recognising its capacity to cultivate engagement with plurality.

ParibhaAsha Editorial Team
Apr 276 min read


Performing Culture, Producing Belief - Rethinking Odia Identity in an Age of Narration
Culture today exists simultaneously as lived practice and articulated narrative. Belief exists simultaneously as an inherited disposition and a constructed understanding.

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
Apr 223 min read


Hermann Kulke and the Historiography of Odisha: Remembering the German Historian Who Reframed the Study of Jagannath, Kingship, and Regional Identity
Professor Hermann Kulke, the German historian whose scholarship fundamentally reshaped the academic understanding of Odisha’s past, passed away at the age of eighty-seven. For more than four decades, Kulke dedicated his intellectual life to studying the historical processes that shaped Odisha’s society, religion, and political traditions.

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
Apr 148 min read


Heritage and Culture in Public Policy: A Comparative Reading of the Union Budget 2026–27 and Odisha Budget 2026–27 in a Global Cultural Policy Context
The Union Budget and the Odisha Budget offer an opportunity to examine how cultural policy is evolving in India. By comparing these budgets with international models of cultural governance, it becomes possible to assess both their achievements and their limitations.

ParibhaAsha Editorial Team
Apr 147 min read


Pride is Not Proof: Understanding Standards for Responsible Heritage Engagement
While the expansion of heritage walks represents an encouraging development, it also brings certain challenges. One of the most common tendencies in public heritage storytelling is the romanticisation of history. Cultural landscapes are often narrated through emotionally powerful stories that emphasise glory, devotion, or civilisational pride. Such narratives are attractive and easy to communicate, particularly in informal public settings where audiences expect engaging story

ParibhaAsha Editorial Team
Apr 145 min read


Guardians of Living Heritage: Four Padma Shri Awardees from Odisha Who Rewrote the Story of Culture from the Margins
When the Padma Shri honours are announced each year, they often reveal an unheard story of India—one that unfolds far from metropolitan stages and headline-driven achievements.

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
Apr 145 min read


Against the Rush of Consuming Culture:Why Reflection Still Matters
We live in a time that rewards immediacy. Knowledge is consumed in fragments— summaries, reels, headlines, and quick takes— circulating faster than they can be examined. The speed at which information travels today has undeniably democratized access, but it has also altered the nature of understanding itself.

Neha Jha
Apr 149 min read


Caste as Social Structure and Social Fracture: An Anthropological Examination of India’s Most Enduring Institution
Few social institutions in the world have shaped a civilisation as deeply as the caste system has shaped India. It is not merely a cultural practice or a religious belief but a comprehensive social structure that has historically governed occupation, marriage, ritual status, settlement patterns, and access to resources.

ParibhaAsha Editorial Team
Apr 148 min read


Kalinga Architecture & India - Monumental Temples, Regional Identity, and the Forgotten Question of Residential Architecture
The architectural legacy of Kalinga occupies a curious position within the broader historiography of Indian architecture. On one hand, the temples of Bhubaneswar, Puri, and Konark are widely recognised as masterpieces of Indian temple architecture. Art historians have repeatedly highlighted their structural clarity and sculptural richness. On the other hand, the architectural narrative of Kalinga has been overwhelmingly framed through the study of temples alone. As a result,

ParibhaAsha Editorial Team
Apr 147 min read


Padma Shri Utsav Charan Das (1945 - 2026): A Life Devoted to the Preservation of Ghoda Nacha
Achieving national recognition with the Padma Shri in 2020, Das’s legacy lies not merely in his performances but also in his systematic effort to preserve, teach, and increase the visibility of Ghoda Nacha at a time when many traditional folk forms were struggling to survive.

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
Apr 145 min read


Heat, Habit, and Heritage: How Odisha Adapts to Summer Through Food, Festivals, and Everyday Life
To speak of Odisha adapting to summer is therefore not merely to describe cooling foods or seasonal festivals. It is to examine how communities across the state have historically converted climate stress into social practice. In this system, food becomes more than cuisine. Festivals become more than a celebration.

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
Apr 149 min read


This Sunday, Experience Traditional Palm Leaf Etching Craft Firsthand at Ekamra Anubhav 2.0
As part of Ekamra Anubhav 2.0, participants will have the opportunity to engage with the art of palm leaf etching (Talapatra Chitra) through a hands-on interaction. Know more about the event...

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
Mar 254 min read


Ekamra Anubhav 2.0: A Shift in the Framework of Heritage Engagement
You may have come across our recent announcement introducing Ekamra Anubhav 2.0 . The response to that post has already brought up a few immediate questions—why “2.0”, whether there was an earlier version, and what exactly has changed. The announcement itself was simple. Heritage walks, over the past few years, have become an important way for people to reconnect with historic places, and their growing presence across cities reflects a welcome shift in public engagement with

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
Mar 225 min read


Vajrayana on the Eastern Coast: Why the Diamond Triangle Flourished Late
In 'Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks,' Schopen argues that late Buddhist monasteries functioned as “corporate ritual institutions concerned with initiation, property, and lineage transmission".......

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
Feb 245 min read


International Mother Language Day, But Whose Language Really Matters?
Which languages receive the conditions to survive as living, future-facing tools and which are pushed into the museum of nostalgia?

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
Feb 219 min read


Shaivism in Odisha: Sect, State, Stone, and A Long View of Religious Evolution
Across Odisha, Shiva appears in multiple forms: as ascetic and householder, as linga and anthropomorphic icon, as guardian of cities and dweller of forests, as royal deity and village god.

Soumyaranjan Sahoo
Feb 156 min read
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