Thursday 15 October 2015
Wednesday 14 October 2015
Visite ones
Dharmasthala @ Karnataka (D), India
The village is known for its Dharmasthala Temple which houses the shrine of Shiva, Manjunatha, Ammanavaru, Chandranath and the Dharma Daivas (guardian spirits of Dharma) namely Kalarahu, Kalarkayi, Kumaraswamy and Kanyakumari. The temple is unusual in that it is run by a Jain administration and poojas are conducted by Hindu priests of Madhvaorder. Lakshadeepa, the festival of lights, is the annual festival of Dharmasthala in November–December On an average the flow of pilgrims is about 10,000 people a day. A mechanised kitchen provides free food for all pilgrims and there are guest houses with modern amenities.
Dharmastala represents religious tolerance. A Jain Tirthankara is worshipped beside Daivas and Lord Manjunatha (Shiva). The priests are Vaishnavite Brahmins and the guardian of the temple a Heggade (Jain). To those who come here for justice, the Heggade dispenses judgements that are said to represent the will of the deities.
800 years ago, Dharmasthala was known as Kuduma in Mallarmadi, then a village in Belthangady. Here lived the Jain Bunt chieftain Birmanna Pergade and his wife Ammu Ballalthi in a house called Nelliadi Beedu. According to the legend, the guardian angels of Dharma assumed human forms and arrived at Pergade's abode in search of a place where Dharma was being practised and could be continued and propagated. As was their habit, the couple hosted these illustrious visitors with all their wherewithal and great respect. Pleased by their sincerity and generosity, that night the Dharma Daivas appeared in the dreams of Pergade. They explained the purpose of their visit to him and instructed him to vacate his house for the worship of the Daivas and dedicate his life to the propagation of Dharma. Asking no questions, the Pergade built himself another house and began worshiping the Daivas at Nelliadi Beedu.
This worship of daivas continues. The Dharma Daivas again appeared before Pergade to build separate shrines to consecrate the four Daivas — Kalarahu, Kalarkayi, Kumaraswamy and Kanyakumari. Also, Pergade was instructed to choose two persons of noble birth to act as the Daivas' oracles and four worthy persons to assist Pergade in his duties as the executive head of the shrines. In return, the Daivas promised Pergade protection for his family, abundance of charity and renowned for the 'Kshetra'. Pergade, as desired, built the shrines and invited Brahmin priests to perform the rituals. These priests requested Pergade to install a Shivalinga beside the native Daivas. The Daivas then sent their vassal Annappa Swamy to procure thelingam of Shiva from Kadri Manjunath Temple, near Mangalore. Subsequently, the Manjunatha temple was built around the linga.
Bahubali (English: one with strong arms) was the son of Rishabha (first tirthankara and founder of Jainism). Bahubali is a much revered figure among Jains. After winning the nonviolent duel with his elder brother, Bharata, he developed a desire for renunciation. He gave his kingdom to Bharata and became a Jain monk. Bahubali meditated motionless for a whole year in kayotsarga posture because of which climbers grew around his legs. After one year of meditation, he attained Kevala Jnana (omniscience) and became an arihant. A human being who destroys all inner passions like anger, attachment, greed and pride is revered as anarihant. According to Jain texts, he attained moksha at mount Kailasa and became a Siddhai.e., soul at its purest form (or a liberated soul). Bahubali is also called Gommatesh because of the statue dedicated to him. "Gommateshwara" statue, built by the Ganga dynasty minister and commander Chamundaraya, is a 57-foot (17 m) monolith (statue casted from a single piece of rock) and is situated above a hill in Shravanabelagola, in the Hassan district of Karnataka state, India. It was built in around 983 A.D. and is one of the largest free standing statues in the world. On August 5, 2007, the statue was voted by Indians as the first of Seven Wonders of India; 49% of the total votes went in favor of it.
Dudhsagar Water Falls
The magnificent Dudhsagar Waterfall is perched in the high peaks of the Western Ghats and is a sight to behold especially in the monsoons when it is in full and furious flow. From a distance, the waterfall appears like streams of milk rushing down the mountainside. The exhuberent and spectacular waterfall is located in the Sanguem taluka.
Measuring a mighty 600m from head to foot, this waterfall on the Goa-Karnataka border, attracts a steady stream of visitors from the coast into the rugged Western Ghats. After pouring across the Deccan plateau, the headwaters of the Mandovi River form a foaming torrent that splits into three streams to cascade down a near-vertical cliff face into a deep green pool.
The Konkani name for the falls, which literally translated means "sea of milk", derives from clouds of milky foam which rises up at the bottom of the falls. Dudhsagar is set amidst breathtaking scenery overlooking a steep, crescent-shaped head of a valley carpeted with pristine tropical forest, that is only accessible on foot or by train.
Like most places in Goa, the Dudhsagar waterfall too has a legend attached to its name. The legend tells the story of this powerful and wealthy king who ruled a kingdom in the Western Ghats. His lavish and opulent palace in the hills was surrounded by vast gardens which were full of deers and gazelles.
The King had a beautiful daughter, who used to enjoy taking a bath during the hot summers, in the picturesque lake near the forest on the edge of the King's palace grounds. It was her habit to finish her bath and have a jugful of sugared milk in a jug made of pure gold.
One day when she was finishing her usual jug of milk she found herself being watched by a handsome prince standing amongst the trees. Embarassed by her inadequate bathing attire, the resourceful Princess poured the sugared milk in front of her to form an improvised curtain to hide her body, while one of the maids rushed to cover her with a dress.
Thus was the legend born. The sugared milk (dudh) poured down the mountainside and continued to flow in torrents as a tribute to the everlasting virtue and modesty of the Princess of the Ghats. The Dudh Sagar (Sea of Milk) continues to flow to this day and attracts thousands of visitors to one of the most popular and famous tourist spots in the state of Goa.
A number of private operators offer special trips to the Waterfalls and the tours operated by GTDC (Goa Tourism Development Corpn) also have Dudhsagar Waterfalls as one of the tour stops.
The falls can also be reached by a train journey from Vasco or Margao. At Collem, in the Bhagwan Mahaveer Sanctuary near Mollem, there is a railway station where the train stops to pick up passengers for the journey to the waterfalls. There are two trains a day that stop at Dudhsagar Station and it's possible to catch a morning train up and spend several hours at the falls before taking an afternoon train back.
Near the top of the falls, the railway line from Vasco to Londa crosses the mountainside, with excellent views from the train. There also a couple of pools that you can swim in, making Dudhsagar a great place for a day full of fun and frolic. The alternate way of reaching the falls is only advisable between January and May, when the level of the water in the rivers abates enough to permit jeeps to approach the base of the falls.
Tuesday 13 October 2015
MEDITATION IN DAILY LIFE
How To Practice
Anapanasati Meditation
The Procedure Sit comfortably, Cross the legs,
Joins your hands, Close the mouth,
Close the eyes
Take time to get comfortable
There is nothing else to do, or think about. Just relax!
Be the Breath
Breathe in softly, easily.
Breathe out softly, easily.
Let your breath be calm,
follow your breath.
Be Calm
BE WITH YOUR BREATH
Use your mind
to follow your
breath in ... out ...in ... out,
that is all
Be Still
BE WITH YOUR BREATH
Be with your breath-energy
Anapanasati Meditation is
simple
very easy ..
and not at all difficult
Meditation can be done
by
any one
at any age
at any time
at any place
Meditation should be done
regularly ... every day meditation
should be done ... as per
one’s age in terms of those many
minutes... twenty minutes -
if your age is twenty yars.
Forty minutes - if your age is
forty years and so on.
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Monday 12 October 2015
32,000 Years Old
City Under the Sea-Dwarka?
B.K. Parthasarathy writes about a spectacular underwater archaeological find by a joint British-Indian diving team that could rewrite history.
Who would have thought a city that could be older than the Harappan civilization could be lying beneath water right off the coast of Mahabalipuram?
Sometimes, it pays to listen to the stories of humble fishermen. Local fishermen in the coast of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu have for centuries believed in that a great flood consumed a city over 1,000 years ago in a single day when the gods grew jealous of its beauty.
The myths of Mahabalipuram were written down by British traveler J. Goldingham, who visited the town in 1798, at which time it was known to sailors as the Seven Pagodas. Legend had it that six temples were submerged beneath the waves, with the seventh temple still standing on the seashore.
Best-selling British author and television presenter Graham Hancock took these stories seriously. The hypothesis that there may be ruins underwater off the coast of Mahabalipuram has been around at least since the eighteenth century among scholarly circles.
“I have long regarded Mahabalipuram, because of its flood myths and fishermen’s sightings as a very likely place in which discoveries of underwater structures could be made, and I proposed that a diving expedition should be undertaken there,” said Hancock.
Hancock’s initiative resulted in the Dorset, England-based Scientific Exploration Society and India’s National Institute of Oceanography joining hands. In April this year, the team made a spectacular discovery
The SES announced: “A joint expedition of 25 divers from the Scientific Exploration Society and India’s National Institute of Oceanography led by Monty Halls and accompanied by Graham Hancock, have discovered an extensive area with a series of structures that clearly show man made attributes, at a depth of 5-7 meters offshore of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu.
“The scale of the submerged ruins, covering several square miles and at distances of up to a mile from shore, ranks this as a major marine-archaeological discovery as spectacular as the ruined cities submerged off Alexandria in Egypt.”
India’s NIO said in a statement: “A team of underwater archaeologists from National Institute of Oceanography NIO have successfully `unearthed’ evidence of submerged structures off Mahabalipuram and established first-ever proof of the popular belief that the Shore temple of Mahabalipuram is the remnant of series of total seven of such temples built that have been submerged in succession. The discovery was made during a joint underwater exploration with the Scientific Exploration Society, U.K.”
NIO said:
- Underwater investigations were carried out at 5 locations in the 5 – 8 m water depths, 500 to 700 m off Shore temple.
- Investigations at each location have shown presence of the construction of stone masonry, remains of walls, a big square rock cut remains, scattered square and rectangular stone blocks, big platform leading the steps to it amidst of the geological formations of the rocks that occur locally.
- Most of the structures are badly damaged and scattered in a vast area, having biological growth of barnacles, mussels and other organisms.
- The construction pattern and area, about 100m X 50m, appears to be same at each location. The actual area covered by ruins may extend well beyond the explored locations.
- The possible date of the ruins may be 1500-1200 years BP. Pallava dynasty, ruling the area during the period, has constructed many such rock cut and structural temples in Mahabalipuram and Kanchipuram.
The last claim is questioned by Hancock, who says a scientist has told him it could be 6,000 years old.
Durham University geologist Glenn Milne told him in an e-mail: “I had a chat with some of my colleagues here in the dept. of geological sciences and it is probably reasonable to assume that there has been very little vertical tectonic motion in this region [i.e. the coastal region around Mahabalipuram] during the past five thousand years or so. Therefore, the dominant process driving sea-level change will have been due to the melting of the Late Pleistocene ice sheets. Looking at predictions from a computer model of this process suggests that the area where the structures exist would have been submerged around six thousand years ago. Of course, there is some uncertainty in the model predictions and so there is a flexibility of roughly plus or minus one thousand years is this date.”
If that were true, it would be a spectacular development. Previous archaeological opinion recognizes no culture in India 6,000 years ago capable of building anything much.
Hancock says this discovery proves scientists should be more open-minded. “I have argued for many years that the world’s flood myths deserve to be taken seriously, a view that most Western academics reject. “But here in Mahabalipuram, we have proved the myths right and the academics wrong.”
Hancock believes far more research needs to be done on underwater relics.
“Between 17,000 years ago and 7000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, terrible things happened to the world our ancestors lived in,” he says. “Great ice caps over northern Europe and north America melted down, huge floods ripped across the earth, sea-level rose by more than 100 meters, and about 25 million square kilometers of formerly habitable lands were swallowed up by the waves.
“Marine archaeology has been possible as a scholarly discipline for about 50 years — since the introduction of scuba. In that time, according to Nick Flemming, the doyen of British marine archaeology, only 500 submerged sites have been found worldwide containing the remains of any form of man-made structure or of lithic artifacts. Of these sites only 100 — that’s 100 in the whole world! — are more than 3000 years old.”
Hancock, who was understandably resentful about the NIO’s silence in his pivotal role in making the diving expedition happen — SES gave him full recognition — was himself quite generous about who deserved the greatest credit:
“Of course the real discoverers of this amazing and very extensive submerged site are the local fishermen of Mahabalipuram. My role was simply to take what they had to say seriously and to take the town’s powerful and distinctive flood myths seriously. Since no diving had ever been done to investigate these neglected myths and sightings I decided that a proper expedition had to be mounted. To this end, about a year ago, I brought together my friends at the Scientific Exploration Society in Britain and the National Institute of Oceanography in India and we embarked on the long process that has finally culminated in the discovery of a major and hitherto completely unknown submerged archaeological site.”
– B.K. Parthasarathy is a freelance writer based in Chennai.
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Wednesday 7 October 2015
Sangolli Rayanna
Sangolli Rayanna also participated in the 1824 rebellion and was arrested by the British, who released him later. He continued to fight the British and wanted to install adopted son Shivalingappa as the ruler of Kittur. He mobilised local people and started a guerilla type war against the British.He and his "army" moved from place to place, burnt government offices, waylaid British troops and plundered treasuries. Most of his land was confiscated and what remained of it was heavily taxed. He taxed the landlords and built up an army from the masses. The British troops could not defeat him in open battle. Hence, by treachery, he was caught in April 1831 and tried by the British; and sentenced to death.[2] Shivalingappa, the boy who was supposed to be the new ruler, was also arrested by the British.
Rayanna was executed by hanging to death from a Banyan tree about 4 kilometers from Nandagad in Belgaum district on 26 January 1832.
Rayanna was helped by Gajaveera, a Siddi warrior, in his revolt against the British in 1829-30.
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12 Facts About Bhagat Singh That You Still Didn't Know
108 years ago today, one of India's greatest revolutionary freedom fighter, Bhagat Singh was born. And though he died young, his actions inspired the youth of the nation to fight for the nation's freedom. His execution spurred many to take up the revolutionary path, playing an important role in India's freedom struggle. But how much do you really know about him?
1. Bhagat Singh left home for Kanpur when his parents tried to get him married, saying that if he married in slave India, “my bride shall only be death” and joined Hindustan Socialist Republican Association.
2. He along with Sukhdev planned to avenge the death of Lala Lajpat Rai and plotted to kill the Superintendent of Police James Scott in Lahore. However in a case of mistaken identity, John Saunders, the Assistant Superintendent of Police was shot.
3. Although a Sikh by birth, he shaved his beard and cut his hair to avoid being recognised and arrested for the killing. He managed to escape from Lahore to Calcutta.
4. A year later, he and Batukeshwar Dutt threw bombs in the Central Assembly Hall in Delhi, and shouted “Inquilab Zindabad!” He did not resist his arrest at this point.
5. During interrogation, the British came to know about his involvement of in the death of John Saunders a year earlier.
6. At the time of his trial, he didn’t offer any defence, rather used the occasion to propagate the idea of India’s freedom.
7. His death sentence was pronounced on 7 October 1930, which he heard with defiant courage.
8. During his stay in jail, he went on a hunger strike against the policy of better treatment for prisoners of foreign origin.
9. He was sentenced to be hanged on 24 March 1931, but it was brought forward by 11 hours to 23 March 1931 at 7:30 p.m.
10. It is said that no magistrate was willing to supervise the hanging. After the original death warrants expired it was an honorary judge who signed and oversaw the hanging.
11. Legend says, Bhagat Singh marched to the gallows with a smile on his face and his one last act of defiance was shouting "Down with British imperialism."
Wikimedia Commons
12. India’s most famous freedom fighter was only 23 years old when he was hanged. His death inspired hundreds to take up the cause of the freedom movement.
The ancestral home at Khatkar Kalan. Though Singh never lived in the house, it is preserved as a museum.
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Tuesday 6 October 2015
Monday 5 October 2015
PM Modi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel presented with Make In India mementos during visitto Bosch Vocational Centre
Here are the latest developments:
- The two leaders first visited the Bengaluru plant of German automotive major Bosch, where they interacted with its executives on innovation and research to help the government promote 'Make in India' and 'Digital India'.
- Later in the morning, PM Modi and Chancellor Merkel will attend an IT eventorganised by the National Association of Software and Services Companies or Nasscom.
- Prime Minister Modi reached Bengaluru early this morning. Ms Merkel flew into the city on Monday night from New Delhi, where she had held talks with PM Modi. She is on a three-day visit to India.
- After three-hour-long talks and signing 18 deals, PM Modi said, "We see Germany as a natural partner in achieving our vision of India's economic transformation. German strengths and India's priorities are aligned."
- The two countries signed deals worth $2.25 billion (around Rs.14,600 crore) on German investment in developing India's clean energy corridors and solar energy industry, ahead of the crucial UN climate change talks to be held in Paris in December.
- An agreement was also signed under which German will be taught in Kendriya Vidyalayas or central schools across India as an additional foreign language while modern Indian languages will be taught in Germany.
- Germany is already India's most important trading partner in Europe. Trade was worth nearly $17.9 billion (around Rs.1.16 lakh crore) in 2014 - mostly in chemicals, machine tools, electrical goods and textiles.
- But Ms Merkel's Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier said German companies were concerned about "too much red tape, infrastructure hurdles, corruption, lack of skilled labour (and) tax disputes" in India.
- Ms Merkel welcomed the fast-track approval agreement signed on Monday, which will ensure German companies have a single point of contact with the Indian government, to avoid the layers of bureaucracy.
- Among the deals signed on Monday, Germany agreed to lend India some of the vocational education expertise that has turned it into an engineering giant, with skilled workers crucial for PM Modi's "Make in India" campaign.
- Copyright@ NDTV
Magnetic Hill Mystery Explained
Those who had watchedTelevision recently must have seen a Bajaj Motorcycle Ad, in which a footage about Magnetic Hill, Leh-Ladakh is shown. And here is the fact file about Magnetic Hill.
Can anyone ever imagine the movement of a vehicle up a steep mountain, with its ignition off? Sounds quite unbelievable! Well, this magnet magic can be experienced while you are traveling to Leh-Ladakh.
Leh is one of the two districts that constitute Ladakh, the other being Kargil. It is a part of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir. This place is called as the MAGNETIC HILL which is 30 km away from leh town.
In the Magnetic hill, you can see for yourself vehicles moving up at a speed of 20 km/ hour with the engines off.
To reach the Magnetic Hill, Ladakh, you need to take the Leh-Kargil-Baltic National Highway. Leh is approximately 360 KM away from Jammu. The hill lies at a distance of 30 km from the town of Leh, at an elevation of around 14,000 feet above sea level.
Location of Magnetic Hill:
Visit this google map if you are more curious about Magnetic Hill’s topography.
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First Residential International University In The World
The establishment of the ancient Nalanda as an undisputed seat of learning was a natural consequence of the time and place in which it was situated. Ancient Magadha was characterized by an intellectual ferment unlike any known to mankind. This heritage was divided into two parts – both Buddhist and non-Buddhist. This ability to meld multiple discourses and to embrace knowledge in its entirety is what made Nalanda uniquely attractive for all seekers of pure knowledge.
Historical sources indicate that the University had a long and illustrious life which lasted almost continually for 800 years from the fifth to the twelfth century CE. It was a completely residential university with over 2,000 teachers and 10,000 students. The Nalanda ruins reveal through their architectural components the holistic nature of knowledge that was sought and imparted at this University. It suggests a seamless co-existence between nature and man and between living and learning.
The profound knowledge of the Nalanda teachers attracted scholars from places as distant as China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, Mongolia, Turkey, Sri Lanka and South East Asia. These scholars have left records about the ambience, architecture and learning of this unique university. The most detailed accounts have come from Chinese scholars and the best known of these is Xuan Zang who carried back many hundred scriptures which were later translated into Chinese.
Close to the end of the twelfth century Nalanda was destroyed by invaders. The period from which Nalanda ceased to exist was a time that the great universities of the western world came into being, marking the shift in knowledge production and dissemination from the East to the West. Only Al Azhar in Cairo (972 CE), Bologna in Italy (1088 CE) and Oxford in the United Kingdom (1167 CE )had been founded before the destruction of Nalanda.
Copyright@http://www.nalandauniv.edu.in/
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First Indian National Army
The First Indian National Army (or the First INA) was the Indian National Army as it existed between February and December 1942. It was formed with Japanese aid and support after the Fall of Singapore and consisted of approximately 12,000 of the 40,000 Indian prisoners of war who were captured either during the Malayan campaign or surrendered at Singapore and was led by Mohan Singh. It was formally proclaimed in April 1942 and declared the subordinate military wing of the Indian Independence League in June that year. The unit was dissolved in December 1942
after apprehensions of Japanese motives with regards to the INA led to disagreements and distrust between Mohan Singh and INA leadership on one hand, and the League's leadership, most notably Rash Behari Bose. A large number of the INAs initial volunteers, however, later went on to join the INA in its second incarnationunder Subhas Chandra Bose.
This first incarnation of the Indian National Army was involved in operations of espionage in the Burma frontier which, according to some military historians and allied generals, threatened the moral of Indian troops and fed discontentment and was partly responsible for the failure of the first Burma offensive. Operatives of the INA were also landed in the Indian coast by submarine for planned espionage operations within India. Coming at the time that the Quit India Movement had raised turmoil within British India, the threat of the INA affecting British Indian troops and INA operatives mounting espionage within India saw the start of a propaganda campaign in the British Indian Army and a news ban on the unit that was not to be lifted till after the war ended.
Part of: Indian Armed Forces
Founded: August 15, 1947, India
Notable commanders: Field Marshal K M Cariappa, Sam Manekshaw, Kodandera Subayya Thimayya
Transport: HAL Dhruv, AĆ©rospatiale Alouette III, AĆ©rospatiale SA 315B Lama
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