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Ithihāsas – a character explorer for Hindu epics, built in a few hours

Ithihāsas – a character explorer for Hindu epics, built in a few hours

by cvrajeesh·Apr 13, 2026·176 points·45 comments
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AI Analysis

●MidCozyEye Candy

Clean visualizations for Hindu epics, but it's curated content with standard chart libraries.

Strengths
  • •Force graph and chord diagrams make character relationships visually navigable
  • •Bilingual support with Sanskrit quotes adds authenticity
  • •Built quickly with Claude CLI, honest about manual data work
Weaknesses
  • •No novel technique—essentially a reference site with visualization libraries
  • •Data consistency acknowledged as manual work, not scalable
Category
Education
Target Audience

Students of Hindu mythology, researchers, culturally curious readers

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Post Description

Hi HN!

I’ve always found it hard to explore the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa online. Most content is either long-form or scattered, and understanding a character like Karna or Bhishma usually means opening multiple tabs.

I built https://www.ithihasas.in/ to solve that. It is a simple character explorer that lets you navigate the epics through people and their relationships instead of reading everything linearly.

This was also an experiment with Claude CLI. I was able to put together the first version in a couple of hours. It helped a lot with generating structured content and speeding up development, but UX and data consistency still needed manual work.

Would love feedback on the UX and whether this way of exploring mythology works for you.

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