Katha Charithra:: #4

Katha Charithra:: Answer # 3

An idol of Lord Ranganatha

Vibheeshana attends Lord Rama's paatabhishekam after the war and meets Rama to bid farewell. A teary eyed Vibheeshana requests Rama that the Lord must be his guiding force so that he can rule Lanka well. Lord Rama assures him and presents him an idol of Lord Ranganatha.

The lord instructs him not to place the idol on the floor until he reaches Lanka. Vibheeshana obeys his Lord's order and dutifully carries the idol. On reaching an island formed by the rivers Kaveri and Kollidam in southern India, Vibheeshana places the island on the floor to rest for a while, forgetting his Lord's order. The idol gets fixed to the place so rigidly that Vibheeshana was not able to pick it up again. Only then Vibheeshana recollects his Lord's order and laments on the sin he has committed. Lord Ranganatha appears before him and consoles him. He asks Vibheeshana to return to Lanka and promises to guard Lanka from this place. Hence the place assumes the name Srirangam - Abode of Sri Ranganatha.

There is another interesting anecdote connected to this temple. The initial temple was built by the greater Chola king - Killivalavan about 2500 years ago. The Pallavas, later Cholas and the Krishnadevaraya empires expanded and safeguarded the temple from time to time. But the southern Gopuram of the temple was never constructed so that Lord Ranganatha's sight on Lanka is not disrupted!

Katha Charithra:: Question #4

This one is simple :)Whom did Sage Vashista fail to acknowledge as Brahmarishi?

Katha Charithra:: #3

Katha Charithra:: Answer # 2

Guptkashi

After the Kurukshetra war, Pandavas repent that they had committed sin by fighting with their cousins. They are advised to seek the blessings of Shiva, so that their sins are cleansed and their forefathers attain Mukthi.

They go to Kashi to worship Shiva. Upon reaching Kashi, they realise that the Lord has left for Kailash. Determined to seek his blessings, they go on a mission to find him in Kailash. On reaching the foothills of the Himalayas, they feel the presence of Shiva around them but are unable to locate him. They realise that Shiva was testing their determination. Finally Yudhistra locates Shiva after a long hide and seek and hence the place derives its name 'Guptkashi'; Gupt meaning secret.

Pleased by their devotion, Shiva showers his blessings on Pandavas.


Katha Charithra:: Question #3

What did Lord Rama gift Vibheeshana during the Lord's Pattabhishaka?

Katha Charithra # 2

Katha Charithra:: Answer # 1

Turmeric Paste.

There were no guards at Parvati's abode and she had to take bath. So Parvati created a doll of a small boy using turmeric paste and induced life into it. She asked the little boy to take guard at the doorstep and ordered not to allow anyone inside.

Shiva entered the abode but was stopped by the little boy. This outraged Shiva and out of anger, he chopped the little boy's head. Enraged by this act, Parvati asked Shiva to bring him back to life. But the head of the boy was severely damaged and could not be fixed with the body.

Shiva ordered his commander Nandi to go in the northern direction and get the head of the first living thing he comes across. Nandi returned with an elephant's head. Shiva fixed the elephant's head on the boy's torso and induced life into him again. Thus the boy got the name 'Gajanana'

Shiva made him the leader of his army named 'Ganas' and hence the boy also took the name 'Ganapati' or 'Ganesha'.


Katha Charithra:: Question # 2

After the Kurukshetra war, Pandavas go in search of Shiva to seek his blessings in order to cleanse their sins. Where do they meet the Lord?

Katha Charithra - Prologue

Katha Charithra

~ The Indian Folklore

If something has held our attention for a long time, I would bet it has to be 'STORIES'. We have always been fascinated by stories. No wonder cinemas, books, news, theatre occupy a major portion of our lives.

Indian history and mythology is an ocean consisting of interesting stories and hence there is never a dearth for drama. Every kind of character can be found in our history. All powerful Shiva, his better half in the true sense Parvati, the master strategist Krishna, Maryada Purushotam Rama, the loyal wife Sita, the varana sena, the divine and knowlegeable Rishis, the mighty Arjuna, the lawful Dharma, the woman personified Draupadi, the cunning Shakuni, all conquering Ashoka and Raja Raja Chola and the list never ends...

Having grown up listening to these stories, our mythology has always fascinated me, just like you! This is an attempt to recollect and relish a few of those stories from the vast ocean of Indian history and mythology.

To make this more interesting, let us have this in Question and Answer format.
I would be posting a question regularly. Please post your answers in the comments section. I would post the answer and the relevant story in the the next post.

I promise to be as regular as I can!

Looking forward for your support and encouragement!


Katha Charithra:: Question # 1

Going by our tradition, lets start with Ganesha! :)

What paste did Parvati use to create Ganesha?

Senseless. So... Nameless

My friend in England said that they do not celebrate International Women's day there and that it is American. Finally we do something which the English do not believe in. May be a welcome symbol of us getting out of the clutches of the 'English Syndrome' unintentionally. May be and it is just a may be.

Not that I am a hard core feminist but the optimist in me was expecting that atleast this women's day would turn out to be a day of retrospection. In the wake of the recent developments after the Nirbhaya case, this women's day would have been a perfect occasion to reflect on the society, recent degeneration of values and a path to resurrect it. I received a comment from another friend of mine saying what do we do for Independence day, Republic day, Deepavali and Pongal. Why do you expect something different only for women's day? May be it is there in our genes to just celebrate irrespective of the occasion or the need of the hour.

Nirbhaya case was the trigger point for all the woman activists and groups to agitate. Candle light marches followed. Women danced, walked and sung to mark the 'One billion rising'. Then came the international women's day. All malls were flashing colourful banners with wishes. Radio stations were competing with each other to scream their wishes to the women folk. Movies on female infanticide, wicked in-laws, suspecting husband occupied primetime in televisions. Major spas and beauty salons announcing special offers. So-called liberal men praised the mother, sister, wife, daughter and what-not in every woman. And the women folk accepting these wishes happily oblivion to the fact that she is only respected for the role she performs and seldom respected for the soul in her. Nevertheless celebrations were in full swing. Everything was bountiful but still something was conspicuous in its absence. 

Sense! 

The very essence and strength of womanhood.

Indian Culture Bigger Than V-Day

And it is Valentine's day today. Valentine's day and the opposition to celebrate it have become an annual ritual by now. The so-called protectors of Indian culture would suddenly turn into purohits and start conducting weddings at the street corners, if they found a couple.

Where do these people find the dos and donts of Indian culture is still a mystery. Remember we had something called as Ghandarva Vivah (Kalavu Manam in Tamil), which can be equated to the modern day live-in relationship. Our society was endorsing this also as a legitimate wedding previously. Indian society had 7 types of wedding, of which we follow only the "Saptapati way" now. Others types have gone into oblivion with time. But that does not mean they are not legitimate.

These people tend to get finicky about everything that comes from the west. We import everything from technology to clothes from there. If at all we need to worry about the western impact, it must be in the industrial side. What have we innovated in the last century? The answer is "nothing significant". We simply keep dwelling on the past and contribute nothing to the future.

If these groups find this day not worthwhile, the best way would be to ignore it. Let it simply pass off as yet another day, instead of giving it the negative publicity. We all tend to forget the fact that neither Valentine's day is so powerful to destroy our culture nor are we super powerful to guard our culture. Infact, it is Indian culture imbibed inside each one of us that is protecting us and not the other way round..

This culture has withstood numerous invasions because Indian culture is porous. It embraces all good things  readily with an open arm. Remember only porous soil can hold water and in turn nurture life!

Its to do with moral values, not Bharat

Any thought on the Hindu tradition or culture is considered medieval by the so-called secularist media. No wonder Shri. Bhagwat's Bharat-India comment drew much of wrath. All that he said was that a society with high moral values and dharma such as Bharat will not witness so many rapes, where as a cosmopolitan society such as India with lesser moral values will attract more rapes. It was an amazingly simple thought. What was even more amazing was how this shameless, news-craving carnivorous media could tweak such a simple comment into an urban-rural divide and run debates for hours. What followed this was nothing but only ruckus.

In olden day bharat, woman was not just treated as peer but was considered superior to man. Birth of a girl child was celebrated as arrival of Lakshmi. There were equal number of female doctors, scientist, ministers in the vedic period. Annapoorni feeds us, Kali saves us, Lakshmi showers us with wealth, Saraswati gives us knowledge. In a society that celebrated feminity with so much zeal, there ought to have been lesser violence against women. Hence I do not have a problem with Shri. Bhagwat's comment on moral values. Nevertheless, Bharat was also not very ideal either. Draupadi was disrobed in Bharat, not in modern day India. Bharat was not blemish-free, neither India is full of blemishes.

Frequent occurrence of such incidents only shows the diminishing moral values in the society. Any society with disintegrating moral values will only fall. History has witnessed this time and again. Sita was kidnapped and Lanka was brought down. Draupadi was disrobed in Kurukshetra (Today's Delhi), the entire clan of Kowravas vanished. May be the insult to this 'Damini' is setting a pretext to something large. As Krishna said, whenever adharma overtakes dharma, a battle will be fought to ascertain dharma. Good will prevail over evil. Let history repeat itself...