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19 July 2024
- 18:5718:57, 19 July 2024 diff hist +10,015 N Aesthetics Vs. Meaning Part II: The Importance of Hindu Architecture Created page with "==== The Aedicule in the Hindu Temple ==== In order to understand that we need to first understand the meaning of the term aedicule, this is frequently used about the Hindu temple. In the context of the Hindu temple, the term aedicule refers to the miniature shrine or a mini replica of the entire temple, temple shikhara or vimana, which is to be found most prominently on its shikhara and outer walls of the garbha-griha. It is found in all three major varieties of Nagara..." Tag: Visual edit
- 18:5218:52, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 Aesthetics Vs. Meaning Part I: The Importance of Hindu Architecture No edit summary current
- 18:5218:52, 19 July 2024 diff hist +10,303 N Aesthetics Vs. Meaning Part I: The Importance of Hindu Architecture Created page with "==== The Perspective Heaven ==== Any student of architecture with reasonable skills in photography knows by instinct upon entering the precincts of an Islamic monument like the Taj Mahal, Agra, or the Bibi Ka Maqbara, Aurangabad that he has landed into perspective heaven. The perspective here is easily coaxed out of almost any angle. Point the camera in the right direction and the perspective lines are ready-made. The beautiful gardens with many layers of fountains, wat..." Tag: Visual edit
- 18:2418:24, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 The Temple and the Teertha No edit summary current
- 18:2318:23, 19 July 2024 diff hist +13,098 N The Temple and the Teertha Created page with " What remains after an Islamic invader destroys a temple? What remains after the vigraha of the primary devata is destroyed or taken away and the temple is also destroyed? Does the sanctity of the place disappear with one such attack? Or is there something greater to a teertha than a temple? A large part of our country no longer boasts of ancient temples. Starting from the plains of the Punjab and Haryana and continuing through Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal,..." Tag: Visual edit
- 18:2118:21, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 The Water that Became Ghee No edit summary current
- 18:2118:21, 19 July 2024 diff hist +12,160 N The Water that Became Ghee Created page with " One of the most common legends about the sacred centers of India that we all grew up listening to is the legend of the water that turned into ghee. The sacred pulse of India is never out of sight. A great temple, a sacred centre is never far away. This is as true about north India where there is hardly any ancient temple left, as it is about south India. Almost every district and region in India have at least one such great centre. In north India, it is often called a..." Tag: Visual edit
- 18:1518:15, 19 July 2024 diff hist +31 Symbolism of Temples Part I: Do Hindus Understand their Sacred Symbols? No edit summary current Tag: Visual edit
- 18:1418:14, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 Symbolism of Temples Part I: Do Hindus Understand their Sacred Symbols? No edit summary
- 18:1418:14, 19 July 2024 diff hist +9,990 N Symbolism of Temples Part I: Do Hindus Understand their Sacred Symbols? Created page with "==== Do Hindus understand the symbolism of temple sculpture and architecture? ==== Many will argue that today this is largely not so. The symbols lie unrecognized by many devotees. The rituals continue without connecting meaning to symbols. In general, the appreciation of both sculpture and architecture is going down because the faculties of appreciating them are disappearing. The reasons are too well known. The cultural disconnect that modern education and socio-poli..." Tag: Visual edit
- 18:1018:10, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 Symbolism Of Temples Part II: The Shared Vocabulary Of Indian Arts No edit summary current
- 18:1018:10, 19 July 2024 diff hist +11,532 N Symbolism Of Temples Part II: The Shared Vocabulary Of Indian Arts Created page with "==== The Universal Metaphors ==== Indian arts are not isolated disciplines. They are connected to each other with a shared vocabulary and universal metaphors which pervade all of these disciplines. It is the all-pervasiveness of these metaphors which connects Indian art with the connoisseur; which connects the sculpture and the architect with the devotee. One such metaphor is bija, or the cosmic seed coupled with the symbolism of hiranyagarbha, or the cosmic womb. These..." Tag: Visual edit
- 18:0618:06, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 Symbolism of Temples Part III – Pradakshina and Kshetram No edit summary current
- 18:0618:06, 19 July 2024 diff hist +10,322 N Symbolism of Temples Part III – Pradakshina and Kshetram Created page with "==== Pradakshina and Kshetram – The Sacred Sense of Space ==== The most potent means of imparting meaning to rituals and symbols is pradakshina or the ritual of circumambulation. The Agamas which dictate how a temple should be built, how worship should be offered in the temple, how a priest shall behave and conduct affairs, also speak upon the conduct of the devotee. There are very clear instructions on how to visit a temple and what to do upon visiting a temple. Every..." Tag: Visual edit
- 18:0418:04, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 Yayati Prashna: Why there can be no Technological Solutions to Cultural Problems No edit summary current
- 18:0418:04, 19 July 2024 diff hist +10,841 N Yayati Prashna: Why there can be no Technological Solutions to Cultural Problems Created page with " A few hundred years ago, during the Industrial Revolution, a pipedream was sold to humanity: that unlimited economic progress is possible for humankind, with limited resources, on one planet. A fifth standard student can easily understand that this is theoretically impossible, let alone practically possible. And yet the dream was sold to a certain section of humanity: what became known later as the West, or Western Europe and the USA. Initially it led to economic, milit..." Tag: Visual edit
- 18:0218:02, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 Did Brahmins Monopolize Knowledge in Ancient India? Part 2 No edit summary current
- 18:0218:02, 19 July 2024 diff hist +7,849 N Did Brahmins Monopolize Knowledge in Ancient India? Part 2 Created page with "==== The Fluid Category of the Pancham Veda ==== The Ayurveda is also called the fifth Veda. It is an entire science, an entire discipline. And yet it is called the fifth Veda for it is a life science and instructs not just on medicine or food, but on the entire lifestyle and thus qualifies to be a text akin to the Vedas in its orientation towards pure knowledge. It also shows that the very idea of Pancham Veda was kept fluid, to convey the sense that though the Vedas we..." Tag: Visual edit
- 18:0118:01, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 Did Brahmins Monopolize Knowledge in Ancient India? Part 1 No edit summary current
- 18:0018:00, 19 July 2024 diff hist +6,585 N Did Brahmins Monopolize Knowledge in Ancient India? Part 1 Created page with " One of the most common charges against the Hindu society is that the Brahmins monopolized knowledge and hence powered themselves in ancient India. They claim that only the Brahmins and Kshatriyas were allowed to perform Vedic Yajna while the Shudras and in most cases the Vaishyas were prevented from gaining any knowledge or power. Anyone who is not addled with colonial, racist and anti-Hindu propaganda will realize that this is not true in most ways, but a case of a l..." Tag: Visual edit
- 17:5517:55, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 Dharmic Circuits: The Temple, The Grove And The Lake Part 2 No edit summary current
- 17:5517:55, 19 July 2024 diff hist +11,999 N Dharmic Circuits: The Temple, The Grove And The Lake Part 2 Created page with "==== The Destruction of the Sacred Groves ==== These sacred groves started disappearing as soon as the cultural ecosystem embedded in dharma necessary to sustain it became outlawed by the Indian State. In fact the destruction of these sacred kshetras had started much earlier. First there were the Islamic invaders and then came the British with various laws freezing temple lands. And the most damage was done post-independence with the Tenants Act which made the temple dep..." Tag: Visual edit
- 17:5317:53, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 Dharmic Circuits: The Temple, The Grove And The Lake Part 1 No edit summary current
- 17:5317:53, 19 July 2024 diff hist +11,078 N Dharmic Circuits: The Temple, The Grove And The Lake Part 1 Created page with "==== The Wonder that is Sringeri ==== Shri Sringeri Sharada Peetham, located in the foothills of the Western Ghats in the Chikamagaluru district of Karnataka, seems to be straight out of a fairy tale. It is like a portal to another world; a world of flowing rivers, great temples, running deer, roaming elephants, students in white studying Vedic disciplines, teachers taking classes under the shade of a grove, right beside the sinuous watercourse. One of the greatest seat..." Tag: Visual edit
- 17:4317:43, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 Dharmic Circuits: The Tale of Many Kailashas No edit summary current
- 17:4217:42, 19 July 2024 diff hist +12,864 N Dharmic Circuits: The Tale of Many Kailashas Created page with " For the Armenians, the greatest collective pain is to stand in their national capital Yerevan and look at their most sacred symbol, Mount Ararat. It is indeed sad because Armenia is a Christian country and Mount Ararat lies just across its national border in Turkey, a Muslim country which is guilty of committing a number of genocides of Armenians over the centuries. Mount Ararat, the sacred center – the very core of their religious, national and cultural consciousness..." Tag: Visual edit
- 17:3917:39, 19 July 2024 diff hist +8,023 N Dharmic Circuits: Sacred Pathways – Part 2 Created page with "==== Chandrashekhar Temple and the Largest Shiva Linga of Himachal ==== In a remote village Saho, nesting in the secluded valley of the Sal River, in the hills of Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh, lies the Chandrashekhar Temple. The present structure is attributed by Laxman Thakur to be one thousand years old, but the core and the Shiva Linga is older. (Thakur 66) The village is 18 kilometers from the Chamba town and is completely surrounded by high hills. The village..." current Tag: Visual edit
- 17:3717:37, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 Dharmic Circuits: Sacred Pathways – Part 1 No edit summary current
- 17:3617:36, 19 July 2024 diff hist +6,918 N Dharmic Circuits: Sacred Pathways – Part 1 Created page with "==== Kshetra, Desha and Yatra ==== The Hindu sense of space is sacred. It has a center and a periphery. The centre has multiple locations. They are the Teertha Kshetras of India. The periphery coincides with the boundaries of the cultural space of Bharatvarsha and the phenomenon which connects these multiple centers to Bharata’s peripheries is the process of Teertha Yatra. Teertha Yatra is literally the sutra which binds Bharatvarsha together. It is the underlying t..." Tag: Visual edit
- 17:3017:30, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 How Old Is The Hindu Temple Part 2 No edit summary current
- 17:3017:30, 19 July 2024 diff hist +7,128 N How Old Is The Hindu Temple Part 2 Created page with "==== Evidence from the Inscriptions ==== Though not many Hindu temples exist which date back earlier than 3rd or 4th century CE, there are inscriptions which testify to the existence of temple and temple worship before Christ. Gopinatha Rao while writing about a 2nd century BCE inscription found in Brahmi script, on a Garuda Stambha, in Besnagar, Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, says:<blockquote>“This is about the earliest known inscription mentioning Vishnu as Vasudeva; and f..." Tag: Visual edit
- 17:2817:28, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 How Old Is The Hindu Temple Part 1 No edit summary current
- 17:2817:28, 19 July 2024 diff hist +14,468 N How Old Is The Hindu Temple Part 1 Created page with " India has the largest number of monuments in the world. Even after large-scale destruction of its temples during the Islamic invasions of India, still thousands upon thousands of the Hindu temples survive. Though most are in ruins, they give an idea about the Hindu architecture and sculpture. After at least six centuries of Islamic destruction and two centuries of British neglect, it is only in the 21st century that the Hindu temple is getting its due fame in the age..." Tag: Visual edit
- 17:1117:11, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 What Is A Hindu Temple? No edit summary current
- 17:1117:11, 19 July 2024 diff hist +12,484 N What Is A Hindu Temple? Created page with " In an interview last year, of Dr. R. Nagaswamy, the great scholar of temple architecture in India, I dared to put up a rather naïve question to his formidable intellect: “How old is the Hindu temple?” The questions about the antiquity of the Hindu temple constantly occupied my mind. Most of the western scholars credit the emergence of the Hindu temple in India to Buddhism, alleging that the Hindu temple is a development of the Buddhist temple which in turn is ins..." Tag: Visual edit
- 17:0817:08, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 Many Meaning of the Hindu Temple Part 2 No edit summary current
- 17:0817:08, 19 July 2024 diff hist +8,307 N Many Meaning of the Hindu Temple Part 2 Created page with " ==== '''The Temple as the Divine Tree''' ==== The symbolism of the seed is taken further. This seed is believed to have sprouted upwards in the form of the temple ''vimana'' and branching out in various shoots, leaves and branches, it again coalesces at the top in one ''kalash'', bearing fruit which again contains the seed from which it came, and thus directly above this, outside the temple, over the ''vimana'', another ''kalash'' is installed which has the same ‘see..." Tag: Visual edit
- 17:0517:05, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 Many Meanings of the Hindu Temple Part 1 No edit summary current
- 17:0517:05, 19 July 2024 diff hist +10,387 N Many Meanings of the Hindu Temple Part 1 Created page with " The Hindu temple like all other Hindu objects is symbolic, symbolizing the most refined knowledge that the ancient saints of India had codified. In this article, some symbolical aspects of the Hindu temple are discussed. ==== '''Temple as a Sacred Mountain''' ==== The Hindu temple is built and perceived in the image of Mount Meru, the sacred mountain. Mount Meru represents ultimate knowledge and climbing it symbolizes attaining self-realization. The Hindu temple is c..." Tag: Visual edit
- 17:0217:02, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 The Story Of A Priest No edit summary current
- 17:0117:01, 19 July 2024 diff hist +14,575 N The Story Of A Priest Created page with "==== A Heritage Temple ==== Prashant S. Bhardwaj is the head priest of the Veera Narayana Temple, Belavadi. The Veera Narayana Temple is dedicated to Veera Narayana, a form of Lord Vishnu, in the village of Belavadi, Chikamagalur district, Karnataka. The temple was built in the 12th century CE by the Hindu dynasty of the Hoysalas, based at Halebidu which was then called Dwarasamudra. They also built the famous temples at Belur and Halebidu. It is not in the scope of th..." Tag: Visual edit
- 16:5416:54, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 World Civilizations: Mesopotamia, Part 12 - Epic Themes and Mesopotamian Proverbs No edit summary current
- 16:5416:54, 19 July 2024 diff hist +11,726 N World Civilizations: Mesopotamia, Part 12 - Epic Themes and Mesopotamian Proverbs Created page with " Having seen the story, even though we cannot say how exactly the epic was understood by its own people in its own time, I think it is a safe bet to say that the epic conveys deep messages about some themes which are: * Civilization vs Wilderness: The wealth and grandeur of the city of Uruk is contrasted to the wilderness and primitivity of the forest. The conflict between Enkidu and Gilgamesh is a conflict between civilization and wilderness. But the eventual friendsh..." Tag: Visual edit
- 16:4616:46, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 World Civilizations: Mesopotamia, Part 11 - The Culture Hero and Epic, Gilgamesh No edit summary current
- 16:4616:46, 19 July 2024 diff hist +12,224 N World Civilizations: Mesopotamia, Part 11 - The Culture Hero and Epic, Gilgamesh Created page with " The epic of Gilgamesh forms the core of Mesopotamian civilization in the same way the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata do for our civilization. While not all would have been literate philosophers in ancient Mesopotamia who could think and do abstract philosophy, everyone in that civilization would certainly have been familiar with this epic. In this section, I will summarize the contents of the epic. Tablets of this epic have been found in not just Mesopotamia but als..." Tag: Visual edit
- 16:3516:35, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 World Civilizations: Mesopotamia, Part 10 - Creation and Cosmogony No edit summary current
- 16:3516:35, 19 July 2024 diff hist +12,611 N World Civilizations: Mesopotamia, Part 10 - Creation and Cosmogony Created page with "==== Creation & Cosmogony: The Enuma Elish and the Bible ==== As we saw previously, in Mesopotamia water from the rivers and from the rains were not only the lifeline of agriculture and life; but also sources of disasters through floods and storms. In fact, the Mesopotamians thought of the world they lived in as a gap between two waters: First, there was definitely water below the ground which came up in springs, wells, and flowed in rivers. Then, there was definitely wa..." Tag: Visual edit
- 16:2916:29, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 World Civilizations: Mesopotamia, Part 9 - Sacred Geography, the Mother Goddess, and the Afterlife No edit summary current
- 16:2916:29, 19 July 2024 diff hist +15,249 N World Civilizations: Mesopotamia, Part 9 - Sacred Geography, the Mother Goddess, and the Afterlife Created page with "==== Sacred Geography: Temples & Pilgrimages ==== One day, an adventurous man from Mesopotamia would have traveled across the mud all the way - and at the end, he would have found an unusual sight for a muddy flatland - the Zagros mountains which were the source of life (rivers) and death (storms & floods) - and he would have been awed! So, the Mesopotamians considered the mountains as abodes of gods; hence their temples were designed to serve as replicas of mountains. T..." Tag: Visual edit
- 16:2416:24, 19 July 2024 diff hist +28 World Civilizations: Mesopotamia, Part 8 - Religion, the World of Gods and Men, and Civilizational Constants No edit summary current