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PODCAST

Dharma Katha

Stories of ancestors, devotion and dharma, retold from the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Upanishads and Puranas. Season 1 follows Pitru Paksha: the debt to our ancestors, the soul"s journey, Nachiketa and Yama, Savitri, Gaya, Karna and more. Every episode names its source and says whether it comes from scripture, a Purana, or oral tradition. Narrated in English with context for listeners new to the tradition. Also available in Hindi: Dharma Katha (Hindi).

religion & spirituality hinduism

All Episodes

15:52

Nachiketa III: The Secret Yama Would Not Give

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/03

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 21There is a question that everyone carries, and almost no one asks out loud. What happens when we die? A boy sits in front of Death himself. Death has just offered him any gift in the universe. And the boy says: I already know what I want. Tell me that.Missed the previous story? Listen to Episode 20 first.Source note. Label: scripture. This story is from the Katha Upanishad, first adhyaya, first valli, verses twenty to twenty-nine, and second valli,

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15:11

Nachiketa II: Three Days at Yama's Door

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/03

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 20Death was not at home. A boy stood at his gate. He had walked a long way, on nothing but his father's angry word, to reach the house of the god who ends all lives. And the god was out. There was nobody to receive him. No servant. No bowl of water. No bed.Missed the previous story? Listen to Episode 19 first.Source note. Label: scripture. This story is from the Katha Upanishad, first adhyaya, first valli, verses seven to nineteen. The Sanskrit lines

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12:43

Nachiketa I: A Boy Given to Death

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/03

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 19A boy watches his father give away cattle. It is a great occasion. There are priests, and fires, and the whole household has gathered. The father has promised to give away everything he owns. And the boy, who is still young, is standing at the edge of the courtyard, watching the cows being led past him.Source note. Label: scripture. This story is from the Katha Upanishad, first adhyaya, first valli, verses one to six. The Sanskrit lines quoted are

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10:51

The Cow at the River's Edge: Why Godan

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/02

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 18In many Indian households, at the bedside of the dying, or in the days after a death, someone leads a cow to the door. A priest says a few words. A rope is placed in a hand. And a gift is made that the family may have thought about for years. Why a cow? And why then?Missed the previous story? Listen to Episode 17 first.Source note. Label: text and tradition. The passage on the gift of a cow being equal to the gift of land, on giving a cow at the end,

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9:59

The River Vaitarani

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/02

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 17Every road in the old stories has a river at the end of it. The Styx of the Greeks. The Sinvat Bridge of the Persians. In India, it is the Vaitarani, and it has one very unusual feature. You cannot cross it by strength, or by wealth, or by cleverness. You cross it by a gift.Missed the previous story? Listen to Episode 16 first.Source note. Label: text and tradition. The description of the river Vaitarani, its width, and its effect on the sinful is

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11:08

Who Is Chitragupta?

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/02

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 16There is a clerk in the court of death, and he has never made a mistake. He sits on a throne, with a great ledger. Every kind word, every cruelty, every secret act and every act done in public, is written in it. And when a soul arrives at the end of the road, he reads it out. Welcome to Dharma Katha, Season One, Pitru Paksha. Episode sixteen, on our third day. It is a short one. In the last episode we walked the road of Yama, and at the end of it we

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15:07

The Road to Yamaloka

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/02

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 15Every traveller knows the first rule of a long journey: pack for the road. Food. Water. Something for the cold. Money for the unexpected. You do not set out across a desert with an empty bag. Now suppose you are told that you are about to walk a road eighty-six thousand yojanas long, and that you may carry nothing with you.Missed the previous story? Listen to Episode 14 first.Source note. Label: text. The account of the thirteenth day, the length of

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12:39

The Thirteen Days

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/02

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 14Imagine building a person out of rice. Not as a metaphor. Imagine, for a moment, that a family sits down each morning and forms a small ball of cooked rice and sesame, and says a name, and that with each ball, something is built. On the first day, a head. On the second, a neck and shoulders. On the third, a heart.Missed the previous story? Listen to Episode 13 first.Source note. Label: text. The passage about the ten days of rice-balls, the four

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11:11

The Last Breath

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/02

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 13There is a moment that every family knows, or will know. A room, quiet. A person in a bed, breathing slowly. The people who love them, standing close, saying nothing, because there is nothing that is enough. And then the breath stops.Source note. Labels: text and tradition. The account of the dying person, death approaching like a serpent, the last vision in which all worlds appear as one, the moment that seems an age, the two messengers, and the

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9:49

Sesame, Kusha and Barley: The Small Things in the Rite

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/01

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 12Look at what a man carries to a riverbank in Pitru Paksha. A small copper vessel of water. A pinch of black sesame seeds. A few blades of green grass. And sometimes, a handful of barley. Nothing else.Missed the previous story? Listen to Episode 10 first.Source note. Label: tradition. The uses of kusha, sesame and barley in the rite are living tradition, and the reasons given, purity, protection, association with Vishnu, dearness to the ancestors, the

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11:47

Nimi's Grief: The First Shraddha

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/01

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 11A father sits alone in his hermitage. His son is dead. He has performed all the proper rites for the body. The fire is out. The mourners have gone. And now, in the silence, he does something no one has ever done before. He begins to cook.Source note. Label: scripture. This story is from the Mahabharata, Anushasana Parva, section ninety-one in the Ganguli translation. The lineage from Brahma to Atri to Dattatreya to Nimi to Srimat, Srimat's thousand

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9:38

Why Water? The Meaning of Tarpan

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/01

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 10Hold out your hand and imagine there is water in it. Cool, clear, ordinary water. The kind you drink without thinking. Now imagine that this water is a message.Missed the previous story? Listen to Episode 6 first.Source note. Labels: the water in the Ganga story is scripture, from the Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda, sarga forty-one and forty-four. The details of the tarpan rite, the direction, sesame, kusha and the three offerings of water, are living

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14:04

The River in His Hair

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/01

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 9The river of heaven fell from the sky, and she was furious. Not with the earth. Not with the king who had called her. She fell in a rage of pride, with a single thought in her mind: I will sweep away the god who dares to stand in my way. She hit his head.Missed the previous story? Listen to Episode 8 first.Source note. Label: scripture. This story is from the Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda, sarga forty-three and forty-four. The details of Ganga's pride

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11:54

The Thousand Years of Bhagiratha

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/01

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 8At the end of a thousand years, a voice spoke from the sky. The man standing in the fire had no idea how long he had been there. His skin was dark from the sun. His arms had stopped hurting long ago. He had stopped thinking about himself. He was, by now, only a wish, standing on two feet: let the river come.Missed the previous story? Listen to Episode 7 first.Source note. Label: scripture. This story is from the Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda, sarga

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11:25

Amshuman and Dilipa: Two Generations of Failure

Dharma Katha ·

2026/10/01

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 7How long would you keep trying at something if you knew you might die before it worked? A year? Ten years? A whole life? Now imagine you are not the first to try. Your grandfather tried. He failed. Your father is trying, and he too is going to fail. And you are told: this is your task too, and you may fail, and even so, you must not stop.Missed the previous story? Listen to Episode 2 first.Source note. Label: scripture. This story is from the Valmiki

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8:05

Why the Crow Carries Our Offerings

Dharma Katha ·

2026/09/30

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 6On a rooftop in the early morning, a woman places a plate. It holds a little rice, a spoon of lentils, a piece of bread. She sets it on the parapet, steps back, and waits. She is not waiting for a guest. She is waiting for a crow.Missed the previous story? Listen to Episode 1 first.Source note. Label: tradition. The custom of kaak bali, the offering to the crow in Shraddha, and the belief that ancestors may come in the form of a crow, are living

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14:36

Agastya, Lopamudra, and the Pit of Ancestors

Dharma Katha ·

2026/09/30

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 5Here is a love story that begins in a pit full of the dead. A sage finds his ancestors hanging upside down in the dark, and he decides to marry. But he cannot find a bride worthy of him. So he makes one. This is Dharma Katha, Season One, Pitru Paksha. Episode five. In episode three we heard how the sage Jaratkaru found his ancestors hanging by a thread. Today we hear a second story with the same picture at its heart: a sage, a pit, and ancestors who

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7:42

The Three Debts of a Human Life

Dharma Katha ·

2026/09/30

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 4A child is born. A room fills with sound. A mother laughs and cries at the same time. And, says a very old Sanskrit text, in that very moment, before the child has done a single thing, before a word or a breath of choice, the child already owes. This is Dharma Katha, Season One, Pitru Paksha. Episode four. It is a short one. In the last episode, we met a sage who discovered his ancestors hanging by a thread. Today we look at the ancient sentence that

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14:28

Jaratkaru and the Hanging Ancestors

Dharma Katha ·

2026/09/30

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 3Imagine walking through a forest, alone, thin as a stick, a man who has decided that nothing in the world matters except the fire inside him. You have not slept properly in years. You eat almost nothing. You have given up home, wealth, marriage, name. You are proud of it. You think you are close to God.Source note. Label: scripture. This story is from the Mahabharata, Adi Parva, Astika Parva, in the sections numbered thirteen and forty-five to

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19:05

The Sixty Thousand Sons of Sagara

Dharma Katha ·

2026/09/30

Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 2Sixty thousand young men rode out of a city one morning. Not one of them came home. And when their father, an old king, finally learned what had happened to them, there was no body to bury, and no funeral fire to light. There was only a heap of ash, deep under the earth, and a promise that would take three more generations to keep.Source note. Label: scripture. This episode follows the Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda, chapters thirty-eight to forty-one

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