Courtesy: Mani – the room mate.
Place – mysore

Technorati Tags: statue, sculpture, narasimha, temple, kanchi, kanchipuram, kanjivaram,

I am not good at mythology, I have tried naming cherecters. suggest me good names to the sculptures ( if you dint like my nomenclature). these are the images of walls of cave temples in mahabalipuram.

GovardhanaGiridhari.: To protect a town called “nandagopa”, krishna lifts a mountain called “govardhana giri” with his small finer. All living creature take protection under that.

Gopika/gopalaka : These are the subjects of the town. Krishna used to be very naughty with them, specially gopikas. continuation of above image.

Balaram : elder brother of krishna. partner in all activities. continuation of above images.

anantashayana/ padmanabha : image of vishnu with his wife lakshmi. he has a lotus coming out of his naval and brahma is sits in that. Located below light house

mahishasuramardhini : Goddess durga comes down to earth to kill an evil demon mahishasura. Located below light house

• India’s oldest light house
• Photos: Mahabalipuram
• Gods, demons, dancers, soldiers etc.
• Mahabalipuram – ‘Pallava’ remains.
  

Technorati Tags: mahisharuramardhini, mahish, Vishnu, Krishna, krisna, gopika, govardhana, wall+sculptures, ananta, shayana, padmanabha

Good morning… Then afternoon …..And now …

Friends complain for me not mentioning the place I click the photos. Most of the time it is not worth telling, sometimes I too don’t know them. So let me try from this time.

The location I clicked this is called “Narahari Parvatha”. It’s not a big mountain (as its name says) , but surely is a hill which has “sadashiva” temple built on the top of it. As usual people don’t like to climb a lot just to see god, unless he is a powerful god like thirupathi. Temple was empty, not a great trekking spot , but still…500 steps !!!

I tried to shoot Netravathi River, dint come up well. Look at the satellite image, see anything interesting? – How people converted a blue river into a sand basin.

Almost been three years since I started blogging. Now I am planning to quit. Blog needs lot of reading and time, which I can’t think of in near future. Bye

Technorati Tags: narahari, parvatha, netravathi, bantwal,

In India believers have some undefined dislike towards animal products into places of worship. They are not allowed into temples and places of worships. I really don’t buy the idea of we all started as vegetarians and animal lovers, but I feel they are introduced into the religion to convince the followers to show god loves animals too.

Major three or four religions in India want its followers to be vegetarians. Most of the followers successfully convince their gods, that they will be vegetarians on specific days of the week (Fridays Lakshmi, Saturdays Vishnu etc).I saw so many of them while ordering in a hotel “two Rotis … and then …hmm… today what ..??Tuesday… alright … Butter chicken!”.

People don’t enter temples if they had taken any non-veg that day, and most of them can’t explain why?

These all confusing rules, people made them and the same people find loopholes not to follow them, Then why to have them at all. Why restrict only to temples.

There are some more of them

• Kerosene are not supposed be used in any of places of worships. They are considered to be animal product, came into form by tones of animals and plants died billions of years ago.
• Sugar is not used in any of the Hindu religious ceremonies. The reason is sugar is prepared from Jaggery, and while doing it they polish jaggery with some animal product (I guess it is leather). So any sweet is cooked is using Jaggery directly.

I have listed certain things which are missing in those rules.

• All gods and goddesses wear silk. All Shwethambaras and Peethambaras presented to gods are silk, which are results of boiling thousands of silkworms. Similarly honey, which is obtained killing or burning thousands of honeybees.
• Worships are accompanied with drums, which of course cannot be made of plastic. One priest explained me (proudly) drums (and similar) have leather of camel (lizard leather for small ones) and sting instruments have horse skin (stings made out of that).
• Krishna idols have feathers on his head. Idols have Hamsa-thulika-thalpa (bed made out of feathers of a swan), and Chamara (Fans). I am sure no peacock or swan volunteer and donate its feathers, it I supposed to be bought from a hunter

I see similar so many things, which animal loving people are forgot to mention in the books.

Two things to conclude.

We were never vegetarians originally. Sacrifice wouldn’t have had a meaning otherwise. Neither were we animal lovers (remember Ashwa-medha-yaga?). Every now and then priests get bored they create something like this ,  “vegetarians only”.

Following Friday Vegetarianism religiously is just hypocrisy.

Related photos : patten, Gods, demons, dancers, soldiers etc. Halebidu – An Architectural beauty.

Technorati Tags: patterns, stone, carvings, sculpture, shila, temples

Technorati Tags: pallava, caves, pandava, remains, corridor,

I started loving history and geography only after I stopped studying them. Text books say Buddhism was propagated by ashoka’s sons to Srilanka, south-east Asian islands trade path. I could not see Lakshadweep Islands till 2007, how could they do with 100 BC technologies. Some of the other examples are: Big chunk of population in all those countries are of Tamilians. how ? Precedents (only those names I get to here) names are Suhardo, Sukarno, Meghavathi Sukarno-Putri etc which are almost Sanskrit. why ? One of biggest Indian temple is there in Cambodia. how ?

Some of the proofs that actually saw were in mahabalipuram. There were remains of a port, through which south Indians supposedly did trading and also exchanged culture and language. The other thing I am showing you was a light house.

Light house, of course is carved beautifully as any of other structures. It has a store room (which is not locked for avoiding illegal activities) for keeping wood dry. Burning woods (or may be coal) used to show direction for traders. It is located in such a place that entire city also can utilize light.

• Wall sculptures
• Photos: Mahabalipuram
• Gods, demons, dancers, soldiers etc.
• Mahabalipuram – ‘Pallava’ remains.

Technorati Tags: light, house, old, pallava, oldest

These are rest of the photos of Halebidu. Reference to my previous post Halebidu an architectural beauty

Halebidu karnataka travel photography

Related posts :

• Halebidu – An Architectural beauty.
• Narasimha’s devorce
• Mahabalipuram – ‘Pallava’ remains.

Previous post : Our Bangalore to Namma Bengalooru

Next Post : Just imagine .. If you were here !!

Technorati Tags: halebeedu, halebidu, hoysala, karnataka, hassan, temples, architecture, sculpture, god, demons, soldiers, carving, stone, art,

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This is the most favorite place on the face of the earth for me. I love sitting there for a long time and daydreaming. I do not have the count how many times I been there. Halebeedu (search in net for: halebeedu, halebeed, halebid or dwarasamudra) is one of the very skilled works I have seen.

There are many reasons why I go there. One is its uniqueness; it is built in Hoysala style – very different from any other south Indian temples (tamilnadu is kingdom of temples; most of all other state temples are built in the same of architectural style, except few historical ones). Second is it is very calm – only Pease lovers come here, god lovers go to the other similar temple nearby belur. And third reason is the surrounding, it’s green.

Technorati Tags: Halebeedu, halebidu, karnataka, hassan, temples, remains, ruins, hoysala, invasion, architecture, sculpture, idols

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Narasimha is one of the “Avatars” of Vishnu; you can read it more in here in Wikipedia. You can find the statues, idols and sculptures in temples of any ancient non-Dravidian kingdoms. So here is one of them, in Hampi. Hampi was the capital of Vijaya- nagara Empire, which once ruled entire south India. Hampi was biggest and richest city in the whole world during its time. Now Hampi belongs one elite group to world heritages.

Viki shows This image for Hampi – Lakshmi Narasimha

Usually Narasimha is accompanied by Lakshmi his wife (goddess of wealth), sitting on his lap. Some time in storybooks you will also find the demon king Hiranyakashyapu on his lap with his intestines pulled out by the god himself. Hampi had one of such a statue. Eventually by nature or may be by the courtesy of Hyderabad Nijams, the statue was reframed. Narasimha was forced to take divorce from Lakshmi, and she magically dis- appeared.

Some time back, (I don’t know when it was, may be ten years back) under discussion and Shivarama Karanta (a renowned writer and Jnanapeetha award winner) wrote a letter to the arch- -eological department and the ministry about this bad condition of this fearsome god in Hampi.

Now the story starts. Ministry calls some local contractor “Yo man, ‘ssup maan …there is a god in Hampi. Go and “repair” him”. That semi-engineer might have just returned from “Shabari- -malai” trip, had full of “Swamiye sharanamayyappa “in his mind, starts of with the work. Some sand some cement makes god – “ repair “. Now this is how god looks in Hampi. Engineer made laxmi’s devorce with this god official. The statue looks like upper half narasimha and lower as ayyappa.

Ayyappa

There is a thousand miles of deference between Vijaya- nagara kingdom and Cheran kingdom in Kerala, for god’s sake how can there be a mixture of architecture? There are some things in this world; they look good if you leave it to them their selves. In case I meet that engineer I will surely ask “Sir, did you ever thought of crucifying narasimha.. You know … the lion might look good nailed to a cross“

Here is one one example, for how Mrs. and Mr. Narasimha look in a Sculpture (on wall actually) a painting and a idol

There is one more example; I wanted to write but have no information is “Kukke Subrahmanya” temple. Yes it is the same temple god 2-million google hits after little master Sachin Tendulker visited (for bribing god for getting into Indian team). If you have ever seen temple, and you have the habit of admiring the architectural wonder (and also you are not to busy praying), you will really get confused. You bound think did “Raja Raja Chola” from all the way from “tanjaore” came here and built this temple?? Subrahmanya temple has Tamilnad Gopuram, huge one. What is the point in Copying architecture? When you have your own?? One day we all forget history and we need at least different things to show “this is Hoysala style, this is Dravidian style “.

Technorati Tags: hampi, hampe, karnataka, protected, monument, narasimha, lord, god, statue, architecture, sangama, vijayanagara, empaire, shivarama, karanta

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About: One of the oldest structure standing in maha- balipuram (now Mamallapuram, I still like the old name). There are supposed to be seven temples and all of them submerged. The rest six are still under water. During Indira Gandhi’s visit, she promised to offer national monument status, she did. Now this is the only temple standing on the beach. All the precautions are taken, that the ocean king does not invade this. Still the salty sea doing its work, its ruining the beauty of the wall without even touching it. Once in year chemical treatment is done to remove all the salt from the walls.

The temple was badly hit by Tsunami, and also by British Queen (locals tell she has taken the golden ‘Shiva Linga’ hundred years back ). you can also see remaining of a port 1300 year old. These kinds of docks south east coast only used to make trade with Srilanka and south East Asian countries.

Place: once submerged now protected temple. Gods are Shiva (linga) and ananthashayana. And don’t miss the scripture in ‘pali’ ‘language carved in pedestals. ‘Pali’ was the official language of ‘Pallavas’.

Technorati Tags: mahabalipuram, mamallapuram, india, temples, ruins, remainings, pallava, pali, tamil, tamilnadu, chennai

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I heard about ISKCON during my school days, and I was told it’s a different version of looking at Hinduism. Built to make the concepts reach everywhere, especially to the west. I also learned about the things they do, and their culture. I never happened to attend the courses they offer. In my high school, I was inspired by on my teacher and also my brother, to look at these things. They asked me to be skeptic, I became atheist!. I lost my interest visiting any of the religious place unless either historic or aesthetically different, I was told it is different. I did not get chance anyway. In my college also weekly seminars were happening, I did not attend.

They came to the town once, the lecture was held at the costliest auditorium in the town (heard the rent is 1 lack Rs. Per day, just heard not sure). And the ticket was of 500 Rs. And for students 250 Rs. (again I am not sure). One of my friends argued, costly because they want quality crowd to understand what they say. I did not know it comes from rich. If I haven’t had the entry pass I wouldn’t have gone at all. But they did not make anything less than a royal treatment. The food, settings, decoration and all the things, it was really pleasant. I had myself entered a different world, everyone wishing “hare rama, hare Krishna“, all the small games we played was based of based on these games. People were so polite.

The problem started with the 108 times chant and meditate. I really did get this concept. Meditation as I know, is to calm your mind, and concentrate. why do you have to chant only the mantra they tell? why not anything else ? Why is it on that particular number? why do we need to count simultaneously ? Why do you need “god” to meditate? I tried but I could not hold it for a long.

Then I came and searched about ISKCON in the net, it read: “the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. This society was started about twenty to thirty years back and stems from the Hare Krishna movement that boomed in America during the sixties and seventies. Followers of the movement hold the Hindu god Krishna at the center of their faith and believe that he is equivalent to Vishnu, the sustainer of life.” And about Bangalore “It sits atop a hill overlooking the city of Bangalore and it is absolutely enormous in its expanse.”

One thing I really liked “the most promising programs in India. It is called “Midday Meals” and works to simultaneously solve the problem of education and hunger in India by delivering basic lunches to school children. Many of the children on the street are not in school because they don’t have food. If the schools provide food then they will go. It is an effort that no one can argue with and has been extremely successful where the government of India has not. So far the program provides over 60,000 meals to children”.

I happened to visit Bangalore ISKCON center, the temple, unplanned. Looks very expensive, I don’t understand what was the need, looks beautiful but. But that is not my problem here.

The first problem I had was the “life members” they never have to wait in line, we happened to stand in a long queue. It’s like you open an account and you have discount. Suppose I do not afford?? And I badly want to see the god, what now?? Why does god prioritize between two visitors? That was
Krishna only right, in our mythology broke the wall to talk to a poor Sheppard? I did not go for this business offer. Finally reached the center hall, made a place to sit ourselves then do what? If you heard that the place is built for meditation, you heard it wrong! that was the noisiest area in the whole temple.

On the way back, the exit was clearly defined, you have to pass through all the things they sell. The books, the cakes, the photos, the cassettes and what not. It made me feel like a kilometer , because this is not I came here for. No visitor came to the temple can skip these shops.

Went to the canteen finally, wanted a coffee or tea badly. They don’t sell it!! They sell one kind of medical tea and I really did not feel like tasting it. it might have medical value, even Neem does. I am not objecting about them giving this, but I have problem with the reason they give to justify. Tea and coffee are bad for health. O yeh. !!!??? What about the bottled cold drink you sell sir??, they are notorious these days!! What about Pani Puri, bhel puri they are good is it?? I took a seven up.

Technorati Tags: ISCKON, india, krishna, Bangalore, Bengaluru, atheism, religion, Hare+rama, Hare+Krishna

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