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
MEDITATIONIN DAILYLIFE
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. --------------------------------------------------END----------------------------------------
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.
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. --------------------------------------------------END----------------------------------------
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.
Raja Harishchandra (1913), by Dadasaheb Phalke, is known as the first silent feature film made in India. By the 1930s, the industry was producing over 200 films per annum. The first Indian sound film, Ardeshir Irani's Alam Ara (1931), was a major commercial success.
Raja Harishchandra (Marathi: राजा हरिश्चंद्रRājā Hariścandra) is a 1913 Indiansilent film, directed and produced by Indian icon Dadasaheb Phalke, and is the first full-length Indian feature film.The film was based on the legend of Raja Harishchandra, recounted in the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Although a silent film with intertitles in Marathi,English and Hindi. Its cast and staff was Marathi and it is therefore regarded as the first Marathi film.
The film marked a historic benchmark in the film industry in India. Only one print of the film was made and shown at the Coronation Cinematograph. It was a commercial success and paved the way for more such films.
