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Science and spirituality: In the world of Anand Neelakantans Mahishasura

Every year, during Navaratri the story of Mahishasura is rendered in households, reminding us of the Devis power and her abolishing evil. In Anand Neelakantans Mahishasura: The Legend of Kumarikandam (Penguin, `499), we see the creation of the demon, a Shakti who does not know her powers, and a reality which is just a simulation. He weaves science and mythology in the first book of The Devi series . Set 70,000 years ago in the now submerged land of Kumarikandam, Anands book is a reimagination of popular puranas, and Tamil texts. The gods are playing a game, the asuras are showing the prowess in science and technology, and the humans live their life carefree until a force threatens to upend their lives. And contrary to popular stories, it is not an evil force alonea much larger plan is afoot. Hence, Devi, in the form of Meenakshi, steps in. The world-building in this book is far more complex than the Bahubali universe Anand created and far tougher than the Asura or Ajaya series, which were retellings. He explores a new genre that marries scientific fiction and mythology. Excerpts follow: Tell us about your vision for The Devi Series. The Devi has always fascinated me because she is the only force in Indian mythology that unites creation and destruction without an apology. In the Devi Mahatmyam and Devi Purana , the goddess is not born; she manifests when the universe cannot protect itself. That idea of a force beyond gods and demons, beyond good and evil stayed with me for years. When I began conceptualising The Devi Series , I realised that every civilisation has its own memory of a mother goddess who rises from ruins. The Tamil traditions speak of the ancient land of Kumarikandam, a vast civilisation believed to have stretched across the Indian Ocean, flourishing with art, philosophy, agriculture and early science. The legends say it sank after a cataclysmic event, taking with it the collective memory of a people. Similarly, the Sanskrit puranas, especially the Matsya Purana , speak of a great flood that destroyed earlier worlds, leaving behind only those saved by Manu. What attracted me was the possibility that these are not separate stories at all, but two cultural memories of the same calamity. The Devi Series is my attempt to explore this forgotten intersection where the feminine divine becomes the memory-keeper of a lost world. Through the Legend of Kumarikandam , I am trying to fuse these two fascinating worlds together. Why did you decide to weave sci-fi and mythology? The fusion of science fiction and mythology came naturally when I began reading the Matsya Purana alongside Tamil legends of Kumarikandam. The story speaks of Manu, a Dravida king, who is warned of an impending cosmic flood and is guided by the Matsya, and finds a new land and the Vedic civilisation. We can see parallels to this flood myth in the Bible as the legend of Noahs ark, and almost all major mythologies across the world have some version of this legend. Tamil lore speaks of a landmass that housed early Sangam culture, now lost beneath the sea. When two entirely different traditions describe a similar disaster, a storytellers mind begins to ask whether these memories are fragments of a much older human drama. And what if the flood myth prevalent across the world is a collective memory of this ancient trauma? The moment I imagined devas and asuras as technologically advanced beings in a prehistoric world a world that might itself be a simulation the story found its own momentum. It was not an attempt to mix genres; it was simply following the trail our ancestors left behind, and asking what happens if we interpret their metaphors through the lens of modern science. There are traces of AI and several technologies in the narrative. What was your research like? The challenge was to place Artificial Intelligence in a world set in 70,000 BC without turning it into fantasy. To do that, I had to research not only current AI systems but also the philosophical questions they raise about autonomy, creation, ethics and the possibility that intelligence can emerge in layers, whether biological or digital. Simultaneously, I delved deeply into ancient Indian cosmology. The Upanishads speak of the self observing itself through layers of reality. The purana s describe universes created and dissolved in cycles, like simulations, re-run endlessly. When I studied simulation theorists and quantum physicists, I found an uncanny resonance with these ancient ideas. Researching Kumarikandam was equally important. While not accepted as historical fact, it survives vividly in Tamil folklore, in Sangam literature, and in the collective consciousness of south Indian coastal communities. These sources describe an advanced maritime culture, a sophisticated society of scholars, astronomers, and seafarers. This gave me a framework within which advanced technologies could exist not as anachronisms, but as the remnants of a forgotten age. By merging these research threads, the AI in my novel becomes neither magic nor science fiction in the Western sense. Instead, it becomes a continuity of our cultural imagination, where technology, myth, and philosophy are different names for the same human longing to understand creation. This book was five years in the making and one of your toughest. Could you walk us through the journey of writing it? This book demanded a level of synthesis I had never attempted before. On one hand, I had vast mythological material Devi traditions, the flood narratives in the Matsya Purana , and the multi-layered world of devas and asuras . On the other, I had folkloric memories of Kumarikandam, the archaic rhythms of Sangam poetry, and the haunting idea of a continent swallowed by the sea. To bring these together, I had to travel not physically but imaginatively. I spent years reading about prehistoric migrations, sea-level changes, archaeo-genetics, and the evolution of early human societies. At the same time, I immersed myself in philosophical debates about the nature of reality, Artificial Intelligence, and the possibility that consciousness might be the fundamental currency of the universe. There were days the task felt overwhelming. How does one write a story that spans cosmic timelines and intimate human emotions? How does one keep the reader rooted in characters while discussing worlds within worlds? And how to write it in an engaging way that would appeal to the modern reader without bombarding them with research material? How to tell an interesting story simple enough to make the reader grasp the complexity of what I was attempting to say? All these made this project the toughest and riskiest one I have done so far. The breakthrough came when I realised that if I treated the entire universe as a simulation as the Upanishads hinted and as modern science proposes everything could coexist naturally. After that, the novel took shape as the story of a civilisation struggling not only against physical destruction but against the collapse of meaning itself. That emotional core is what carried me through five long years. You touch upon the sensitive subject of varnas , Manuneeti , and the caste system. Why? No retelling of ancient India can avoid confronting its moral anxieties. The varna system, in its original fluid form, might have been a way to organise society, but over time it hardened into a structure that caused immense suffering. The story of Manuneeti is both revered and criticised, depending on which version one encounters. Setting my narrative in 70,000 BC allowed me to explore these themes without pointing at any modern community. In my book, varna is not a rigid hierarchy but an allegory for how civilisations classify people, justify power, and define purity. The devas and asuras are not races but symbolic expressions of political and cultural dominance. Addressing caste and Manuneeti was a deliberate choice because mythology must engage with uncomfortable truths. If it cannot question the past, it becomes propaganda. My aim was not to rewrite history but to echo the many folk traditions where villains become heroes, where justice is contested, and where the oppressed speak through forgotten stories. By embedding these themes within the ancient world of Kumarikandam, I hoped to show that humanity has always struggled between order and compassion, between law and fairness, between justice and survival. The book deals with the dilemma of science versus spirituality. What would you like readers to take away from this? I believe science and spirituality are two attempts to decode the same mystery. When a physicist speaks about a universe that may be a mathematical structure, and a sage speaks about maya , both are grappling with a reality that refuses to reveal itself fully. Our civilisation never separated knowledge into silos the rishis were both philosophers and scientists in their own way. The conflict between science and spirituality arises only when each side assumes its language is superior. But if we look deeper, we see that both are describing a universe where consciousness plays a central role. The ancient stories of the Devi, the notions of cosmic cycles, the idea that the universe is created from sound or vibration all these align in fascinating ways with modern theories of energy, information and simulation. What I want readers to take away is not a definitive answer but a sense of wonder. The universe is greater than any single explanation we can offer. If we approach it with humility and curiosity, science and spirituality cease to be rivals and become partners in the human search for meaning. How do you see the old debate of good versus evil, devas versus asuras? My reading of mythology has taught me that good and evil are rarely absolutes. Most epics, when examined closely, do not present simple moral binaries. Ravana is a villain in one telling and a tragic hero in another. Bali is a tyrant according to one community and a beloved king to another. Similarly, the asuras are scholars, warriors, law-givers and inventors in many lesser-known traditions. When I humanise a suras or rakshasas , I am not subverting mythology; I am returning to its original plurality. Our stories were never meant to be monologues. They were dialogues between cultures, constantly rewritten to reflect shifting power. Devas and asuras represent competing worldviews, not fixed identities. One values order, the other values freedom. One protects tradition, the other challenges it. In the world I have created, their powers appear divine only because their technologies surpass human understanding. The debate between them is not about morality but about who gets to define truth. By exploring these tensions in the submerged world of Kumarikandam, I wanted readers to see that history is always a negotiation between perspectives, and that understanding the other side is the first step to understanding ourselves. Whats next in the series? The Devi Series will continue to expand the universe I have begun building in this book and will continue to the world of Karthikeya and Shiva purana , albeit based on the Tamil puranic traditions rather than the Sanskrit ones. However, I consider The Devi Series as the gateway into a vast story universe. It leaves me enough space to explore the origins of the devas, the forgotten rebellions of the asuras, and the hidden architecture of the simulated cosmos they inhabit. The genre will remain the same, but the scope will grow larger. Readers can expect journeys into the deepest layers of creation, confrontations between artificial and organic intelligence, explorations of pre-human civilisations and the secrets that lie beneath the ocean floors. The ancient world described in the puranas will be reimagined not as fantasy but as coded memory data that survived cataclysm and evolved into stories. This series is my attempt to bring together mythology, speculative science, philosophy and human drama into one narrative. And I expect all of them to be global films, sooner rather than later. I envisage a massive cinematic universe too, as Indias answer to the world that Hollywood created through the Marvel universe. I dream of taking Indian stories global on a scale that rivals anything Hollywood has done. We have the potential, talent and stories to create a hundred Avatar kind of stories. The novel series is just laying the foundation for something far bigger. Read the full interview on www.newindianexpress.com

2 Dec 2025 6:00 am