Jainism.
Jains form less than one percent of the Indian population.
For centuries, Jains are famous as community of trade and merchants.
Gujarat and Rajasthan have the highest concentration of Jain population in India.
Jain religion is traced to Vardhamana Mahavira (The Great Hero 599-527 B.C.). Mahavira was the twenty-fourth and last of the Jain Tirthankars. Mahavira was born in a ruling family of Vaishali, located in the modern state of Bihar.
At the age of thirty, Mahavira renounced royal life and devoted himself to the task of discovering the meaning of existence.
At the age of 42 he attained enlightenment and spent the rest of his life meditating and preaching Jainism.
Jain pilgrimage destnations are Palitana, Girnar, Ranakpur, Dilwara, Sravan belagola,
Udaygiri caves and Khandagin caves.
Jainism rests on a real understanding of the working of karma, its effects on the living soul and the conditions for extinguishing action and the soul's release. Jainism considers the soul as a living substance that combines with various kinds of non-living matters. The Jain religion rests on complete inactivity and absolute nonviolence (ahimsa) against all living beings. It is evident from the Jain monks and nuns wearing to avoid inhaling small organisms. It is for the same reason all practicing Jains try to remain vegetarians.
Jain religion during Mahavir’s life got its roots firmly embedded through out the country.
It had 14,000 monks and 36,000 nuns at the time of Mahavira's death.
Svetambaras, the "White-robed" and the Digambaras are the two streams of Jainism.
The major points of difference between the two concern the question of proper monastic attire and whether or not a soul can attain liberation from a female body.
Jain monks must fight against the passions and bodily senses in order to gain omniscience and the complete purity of soul that represents the highest religious goal in the Jain system.
Its influence on India's culture has been considerable, including significant contributions in philosophy and logic, art and architecture, grammar, mathematics, astronomy and astrology, and literature.
Jainism has largely been confined to India, although the migration of Indians to other, predominantly English-speaking countries has spread its practice to many Commonwealth nations and to the United States. Its continuous existence in India for some 2,500 years is in sharp contrast to Buddhism, which is widespread in Asia.
The abhiseka, or head-anointing ritual, has had great significance especially in royal contexts. The best-known example of this ritual is the one performed every 12 to 14 years on the statue of Bahubali at the Jain pilgrimage site at Shravana Belgola. The structure of this ritual is similar in each religious context; in each case, however, it has specific meaning peculiar to that context.
In the literary sphere, each tradition developed an extensive corpus of canonical and commentarial literature, and each has developed a body of narrative literature. For example, so great was the influence of the story of Rama in the classical Hindu Ramayana, that the Buddhists and Jain felt obliged to retell the story in their own terms.
Jain literature includes 16 different telling of this story in Sanskrit and Prakrit.
Finally, each tradition shares a similar understanding of the ascetic life, though each understands it as functioning properly only within the context of its own religious system.
Many of the terms applied to figures in each monastic organization are the same and several of the monastic ritual and meditative activities are similar in structure.
According to Jain teaching, there were 23 Tirthankaras, before Mahavira Vardhamana. Today they are venerated as saints in temples containing their images.
Veneration of the Holy Tirthankaras is viewed in terms of purifying the devotee.
Jains incorporate a number of rituals into their daily life. Spreading the grain for the birds in the morning, and filtering or boiling the water for the next few hours' use are ritual acts of charity and non-violence.
Some people dismiss the ritual acts as superstition others recognize that while the Jain idols have no miraculous powers, daily rituals help the worshipper towards a reverent state of mind.
Samayika
Pratikramana
Worship before the Jain idols, bowing to the idols, and lighting a lamp in front of the idols is an ideal way to start the day for many Jains. More elaborate forms of puja, as described, is a regular daily ritual usually done in the temple. The worshipper enters the temple with the words 'Namo Jinanam' 'I bow to the Jina', and repeats three times, 'Nisihii' (to relinquish thoughts about worldly affairs). The simpler surroundings of the household shrine can also provide a suitable setting. The members of some sects of Jainism don’t believe in worship of the Jina image. They believe in meditation and silent prayers. Worship, or puja, can take many forms.
1. The Snana Puja
2. Antaraya Karma Puja.
3. Arihanta Puja.
4. Siddhachakra puja.
Festivals.
The Paryusana Parva is the most important festival for the Jains.
Mahavir Jayanti.
Diwali or Deepawali
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Tripura.Eastern State of India.
Tripura.
Capital. Agartala.
Area. 4060 square miles.
Population. 3.3. Million.
Revenue districts.4.
Tripura is Tripurasundari is famous as one of the 51 Shakti Pith. The
Tripureshvari temple near RadhaKishanpur is very famous. Tripura finds
mention in Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharata and pillar inscriptions
of King Asoka.
One of the seven sister’s states of northern India, Tripura has a unique
strategic position. Tripura is mainly a hilly territory with varying heights from
hundred to three thousand feet above the sea level.
It is located in the north eastern part of the subcontinent. It is bordered on the north, west, and south by Bangladesh, on the east by the state of Mizoram, and on the north east by the state of Assam. Covering an area of only 4,060 square miles, it is India's third smallest state, after Goa and Sikkim. With its isolation, hilly terrain, and tribal populations, Tripura shares many of the problems of India's north eastern region.
Central and northern Tripura is a hilly region crossed by four major valleys--from east to west, the Dharmanagar, Kailashahar, Kamalpur, and Khowai--carved out by northward-flowing rivers Juri, Manu and Deo, Dhalai, and Khowai,
The lower valleys in the west and south tend to be open and marshy, although in the south the terrain is heavily dissected and densely forested. North-south-trending ranges separate the valleys. East of the Dharmanagar valley, the Jamrai Tlang rises to elevations between 2,000 and 3,000 feet. Altitude decreases westward through the successive ranges--the Sakhan Tlang, the Langtarai Range, and the Artharamura Range--with the westernmost hills, the Deotamura, attaining heights of only 800 feet. West of the Deotamura Range is the Agartala Plain, an extension of the Ganges-Brahmaputra lowlands, with an elevation of less than 200 feet. It is drained by numerous rivers, the largest of which, the Gumti, emerges from the eastern hills in a steep-sided valley near Radhakishanpur.
More than 80 inches of rainfall occur during the monsoon season from June to September. Maximum temperatures in the lowlands average around 35 C in the summer, though it is cooler in the mountains. Forests cover about half the state; although extensively cleared for cultivation; they still contain valuable trees, including sal, a tree that yields hardwood, second in value only to teak. Animal life includes tigers, leopards, elephants, jackals, wild dogs, boar, gayal ox, wild buffalo, and gaur--the largest of the world's wild oxen.
The major population and life exists in the plains. It has moderate temperature
And high humid atmosphere, Tripura is a favourite hot-spot for visitors through out the year.
Tripura is largely a Bengali community despite the 19 scheduled tribes that form a chunk of the population.
Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism are the main religions followed in Tripura.
The tribals have a varied and rich culture belong mainly to the Reang, Chakma, Halam, and Usai communities. Majority of the tribals live in elevated houses of bamboo called “Tong.”
Music and dance are an integral part of Tripura.
Joy and sorrow are marked by dances that project the myriad emotion of the people.
Handloom and handicrafts of Tripura reflect the inherent quality and workmanship
And uniqueness of the people of Tripura.
Some materials as bamboo, cane, palm leaves and ordinary yarn are used to create
A fascinating variety of handiwork. Furniture, toys, items of daily utility such as lamp shades, baskets, calendars ivory work and Tripura tribal jewellery make shopping here
a fantastic experience.
Tripura's economy is primarily agricultural. The major crop is rice, which is grown throughout the state. Cash crops include jute, cotton, tea, sugarcane, and fruit. Livestock plays only a subsidiary role in the state's agriculture.
Forestry-based industries produce timber, firewood, and charcoal.
Manufacturing is largely on a small scale and includes many cottage industries, such as weaving, carpentry, basketry, and pottery making. The state government is active in fostering the growth of small-scale industries. Industrial units also exist for the production of tea, sugar, canned fruit, agricultural implements, bricks, and footwear; larger establishments include a spinning mill, a jute mill, a steel mill, a plywood factory, and a pharmaceuticals plant. Tripura has a state cooperative bank, a land mortgage bank, and a number of agricultural and marketing societies.
Energy is provided by diesel-powered thermal plants at Agartala, Ambasa, Khowai, Dharmanagar, Kailashahar, Udaipur, and Bagafa and by the Gumti Hydroelectric Project (completed in 1976). Extensive resources of natural gas have recently been discovered in the state.Tripura's hilly topography renders communications difficult.
Moreover, with Bangladesh bordering the state on three sides, Tripura is virtually isolated from India; land routes consist only of the Agartala-Karimganj (Assam) road and a metre-gauge railway link from Dharmanagar to Kalkali Ghat, Assam. Most rivers carry boat traffic, but this is generally for local transport. Agartala is linked by air to Calcutta and various towns in Assam. Intrastate air service also exists.
Capital. Agartala.
Area. 4060 square miles.
Population. 3.3. Million.
Revenue districts.4.
Tripura is Tripurasundari is famous as one of the 51 Shakti Pith. The
Tripureshvari temple near RadhaKishanpur is very famous. Tripura finds
mention in Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharata and pillar inscriptions
of King Asoka.
One of the seven sister’s states of northern India, Tripura has a unique
strategic position. Tripura is mainly a hilly territory with varying heights from
hundred to three thousand feet above the sea level.
It is located in the north eastern part of the subcontinent. It is bordered on the north, west, and south by Bangladesh, on the east by the state of Mizoram, and on the north east by the state of Assam. Covering an area of only 4,060 square miles, it is India's third smallest state, after Goa and Sikkim. With its isolation, hilly terrain, and tribal populations, Tripura shares many of the problems of India's north eastern region.
Central and northern Tripura is a hilly region crossed by four major valleys--from east to west, the Dharmanagar, Kailashahar, Kamalpur, and Khowai--carved out by northward-flowing rivers Juri, Manu and Deo, Dhalai, and Khowai,
The lower valleys in the west and south tend to be open and marshy, although in the south the terrain is heavily dissected and densely forested. North-south-trending ranges separate the valleys. East of the Dharmanagar valley, the Jamrai Tlang rises to elevations between 2,000 and 3,000 feet. Altitude decreases westward through the successive ranges--the Sakhan Tlang, the Langtarai Range, and the Artharamura Range--with the westernmost hills, the Deotamura, attaining heights of only 800 feet. West of the Deotamura Range is the Agartala Plain, an extension of the Ganges-Brahmaputra lowlands, with an elevation of less than 200 feet. It is drained by numerous rivers, the largest of which, the Gumti, emerges from the eastern hills in a steep-sided valley near Radhakishanpur.
More than 80 inches of rainfall occur during the monsoon season from June to September. Maximum temperatures in the lowlands average around 35 C in the summer, though it is cooler in the mountains. Forests cover about half the state; although extensively cleared for cultivation; they still contain valuable trees, including sal, a tree that yields hardwood, second in value only to teak. Animal life includes tigers, leopards, elephants, jackals, wild dogs, boar, gayal ox, wild buffalo, and gaur--the largest of the world's wild oxen.
The major population and life exists in the plains. It has moderate temperature
And high humid atmosphere, Tripura is a favourite hot-spot for visitors through out the year.
Tripura is largely a Bengali community despite the 19 scheduled tribes that form a chunk of the population.
Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism are the main religions followed in Tripura.
The tribals have a varied and rich culture belong mainly to the Reang, Chakma, Halam, and Usai communities. Majority of the tribals live in elevated houses of bamboo called “Tong.”
Music and dance are an integral part of Tripura.
Joy and sorrow are marked by dances that project the myriad emotion of the people.
Handloom and handicrafts of Tripura reflect the inherent quality and workmanship
And uniqueness of the people of Tripura.
Some materials as bamboo, cane, palm leaves and ordinary yarn are used to create
A fascinating variety of handiwork. Furniture, toys, items of daily utility such as lamp shades, baskets, calendars ivory work and Tripura tribal jewellery make shopping here
a fantastic experience.
Tripura's economy is primarily agricultural. The major crop is rice, which is grown throughout the state. Cash crops include jute, cotton, tea, sugarcane, and fruit. Livestock plays only a subsidiary role in the state's agriculture.
Forestry-based industries produce timber, firewood, and charcoal.
Manufacturing is largely on a small scale and includes many cottage industries, such as weaving, carpentry, basketry, and pottery making. The state government is active in fostering the growth of small-scale industries. Industrial units also exist for the production of tea, sugar, canned fruit, agricultural implements, bricks, and footwear; larger establishments include a spinning mill, a jute mill, a steel mill, a plywood factory, and a pharmaceuticals plant. Tripura has a state cooperative bank, a land mortgage bank, and a number of agricultural and marketing societies.
Energy is provided by diesel-powered thermal plants at Agartala, Ambasa, Khowai, Dharmanagar, Kailashahar, Udaipur, and Bagafa and by the Gumti Hydroelectric Project (completed in 1976). Extensive resources of natural gas have recently been discovered in the state.Tripura's hilly topography renders communications difficult.
Moreover, with Bangladesh bordering the state on three sides, Tripura is virtually isolated from India; land routes consist only of the Agartala-Karimganj (Assam) road and a metre-gauge railway link from Dharmanagar to Kalkali Ghat, Assam. Most rivers carry boat traffic, but this is generally for local transport. Agartala is linked by air to Calcutta and various towns in Assam. Intrastate air service also exists.
Indian Railway.
Indian Railway.
After the massacre of 1857, the English speeded up construction of
Broad gauge railway lines for easy transportation. Delhi was linked
with Bombay Madras Calcutta and all other major cities were linked by rail.
First railway in India was in the year 1853 between VT and Thane.
On April 16th, at 3:35pm, the first train in India left Bombay for Thane.
Initial scheduled services consisted of two trains each way between Bombay and Thane and later Bombay and Mahim via Dadar. The first railway link between Bombay Delhi was in 1886.
Indian Railways is divided into zones, which are further sub-divided into divisions.
Each zonal railway is made up of a certain number of divisions, each having a divisional headquarters, at important cities.
The Kolkata, Delhi Metro is owned and operated by Indian Railways, but is not a part of any of the zones. It is administratively considered to have the status of a zonal railway.
Each of the zones, as well as the Kolkata and Delhi Metro, is headed by a General Manager (GM) who reports directly to the Railway Board. The zones are further divided into divisions under the control of Divisional Railway Managers (DRM). The divisional officers of engineering, mechanical, electrical, signal and telecommunication, accounts, personnel, operating, commercial and safety branches report to the respective Divisional Manager and are in charge of operation and maintenance of assets. Further down the hierarchy tree are the Station Masters who control individual stations and the train movement through the track territory under their stations' administration.
With approximately 1.6 million employees, Indian Railways is the country's single largest employer Staff are classified into gazetted Group A and B and non-gazetted Group C and D employees The recruitment of Group A & B gazetted employees is carried out by the Union Public Service Commission through exams conducted by it.
Indian Railways manufactures much of its rolling stock and heavy engineering components at its six manufacturing plants, called Production Units, which are managed directly by the ministry. As with most developing economies, the main reason for this was the policy of import substitution of expensive technology related products when the general state of the national engineering industry was immature. Each of these six production units is headed by a General Manager, who also reports directly to the Railway Board.
There exist independent organizations under the control of the Railway Board for electrification modernization and research and design each of which is headed by a General Manager. A number of Public Sector Undertakings which perform railway-related functions ranging from consultancy to ticketing are also under the administrative control of the Ministry of railways.
The total length of track used by Indian Railways was about 69,300 miles while the total route length of the network was 39,316 miles on 31 March 2010.
Broad gauge is the predominant gauge used by Indian Railways.
The Kalka-Shimla Railway, the Nilgiri Mountain Railway and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway are three notable hill lines that use narrow gauge.
Indian Railways operates about 9,000 passenger trains and transports 20 million passengers daily across twenty-eight states and two union territories Sikkim Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya are the only states not connected by rail. A standard passenger train consists of eighteen coaches but popular trains can have up to 26 coaches.
Coaches are designed to accommodate anywhere from 18 to 108 passengers, but during the holiday seasons and/or on busy routes, more passengers may travel in unreserved coaches. Most regular trains have coaches connected through vestibules However; 'unreserved coaches' are not connected with the rest of the train via any vestibule.
Reservation against cancellation service is a provision for shared berth in case the travel ticket is not confirmed
In air-conditioned sleeper classes passengers are provided with sheets, pillows and blankets. Meals and refreshments are provided, to all the passengers of reserved classes, either through the on-board pantry service or through special catering arrangements in trains without pantry car. Unreserved coach passengers have options of purchasing from licensed vendors either on board or on the platform of intermediate stops.
The amenities depend on the popularity and length of the route. Lavatories are communal and feature both the Indian style as well as the Western style.
The Palace on Wheels is a specially designed train, frequently hauled by a steam locomotive, for promoting tourism in Rajasthan. On the same lines, the Maharashtra government introduced the Deccan Odyssey covering various tourist destinations in Maharashtra and Goa, and was followed by the Government of Karnataka which introduced the Golden Chariot train connecting popular tourist destinations in Karnataka and Goa. However, neither of them has been able to enjoy the popular success of the Palace on Wheels.
The Samjhauta Express is a train that runs between India and Pakistan. However, hostilities between the two nations in 2001 saw the line being closed. It was reopened when the hostilities subsided in 2004. Another train connecting Khokhrapar (Pakistan) and Munabao (India) is the Thar Express that restarted operations on February 18, 2006; it was earlier closed down after the 1965 Indo-Pak war. The Kalka Shimla Railway till recently featured in the Guinness Book of World Records for offering the steepest rise in altitude in the space of 96 kilometre.
After the massacre of 1857, the English speeded up construction of
Broad gauge railway lines for easy transportation. Delhi was linked
with Bombay Madras Calcutta and all other major cities were linked by rail.
First railway in India was in the year 1853 between VT and Thane.
On April 16th, at 3:35pm, the first train in India left Bombay for Thane.
Initial scheduled services consisted of two trains each way between Bombay and Thane and later Bombay and Mahim via Dadar. The first railway link between Bombay Delhi was in 1886.
Indian Railways is divided into zones, which are further sub-divided into divisions.
Each zonal railway is made up of a certain number of divisions, each having a divisional headquarters, at important cities.
The Kolkata, Delhi Metro is owned and operated by Indian Railways, but is not a part of any of the zones. It is administratively considered to have the status of a zonal railway.
Each of the zones, as well as the Kolkata and Delhi Metro, is headed by a General Manager (GM) who reports directly to the Railway Board. The zones are further divided into divisions under the control of Divisional Railway Managers (DRM). The divisional officers of engineering, mechanical, electrical, signal and telecommunication, accounts, personnel, operating, commercial and safety branches report to the respective Divisional Manager and are in charge of operation and maintenance of assets. Further down the hierarchy tree are the Station Masters who control individual stations and the train movement through the track territory under their stations' administration.
With approximately 1.6 million employees, Indian Railways is the country's single largest employer Staff are classified into gazetted Group A and B and non-gazetted Group C and D employees The recruitment of Group A & B gazetted employees is carried out by the Union Public Service Commission through exams conducted by it.
Indian Railways manufactures much of its rolling stock and heavy engineering components at its six manufacturing plants, called Production Units, which are managed directly by the ministry. As with most developing economies, the main reason for this was the policy of import substitution of expensive technology related products when the general state of the national engineering industry was immature. Each of these six production units is headed by a General Manager, who also reports directly to the Railway Board.
There exist independent organizations under the control of the Railway Board for electrification modernization and research and design each of which is headed by a General Manager. A number of Public Sector Undertakings which perform railway-related functions ranging from consultancy to ticketing are also under the administrative control of the Ministry of railways.
The total length of track used by Indian Railways was about 69,300 miles while the total route length of the network was 39,316 miles on 31 March 2010.
Broad gauge is the predominant gauge used by Indian Railways.
The Kalka-Shimla Railway, the Nilgiri Mountain Railway and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway are three notable hill lines that use narrow gauge.
Indian Railways operates about 9,000 passenger trains and transports 20 million passengers daily across twenty-eight states and two union territories Sikkim Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya are the only states not connected by rail. A standard passenger train consists of eighteen coaches but popular trains can have up to 26 coaches.
Coaches are designed to accommodate anywhere from 18 to 108 passengers, but during the holiday seasons and/or on busy routes, more passengers may travel in unreserved coaches. Most regular trains have coaches connected through vestibules However; 'unreserved coaches' are not connected with the rest of the train via any vestibule.
Reservation against cancellation service is a provision for shared berth in case the travel ticket is not confirmed
In air-conditioned sleeper classes passengers are provided with sheets, pillows and blankets. Meals and refreshments are provided, to all the passengers of reserved classes, either through the on-board pantry service or through special catering arrangements in trains without pantry car. Unreserved coach passengers have options of purchasing from licensed vendors either on board or on the platform of intermediate stops.
The amenities depend on the popularity and length of the route. Lavatories are communal and feature both the Indian style as well as the Western style.
The Palace on Wheels is a specially designed train, frequently hauled by a steam locomotive, for promoting tourism in Rajasthan. On the same lines, the Maharashtra government introduced the Deccan Odyssey covering various tourist destinations in Maharashtra and Goa, and was followed by the Government of Karnataka which introduced the Golden Chariot train connecting popular tourist destinations in Karnataka and Goa. However, neither of them has been able to enjoy the popular success of the Palace on Wheels.
The Samjhauta Express is a train that runs between India and Pakistan. However, hostilities between the two nations in 2001 saw the line being closed. It was reopened when the hostilities subsided in 2004. Another train connecting Khokhrapar (Pakistan) and Munabao (India) is the Thar Express that restarted operations on February 18, 2006; it was earlier closed down after the 1965 Indo-Pak war. The Kalka Shimla Railway till recently featured in the Guinness Book of World Records for offering the steepest rise in altitude in the space of 96 kilometre.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Drugs Addiction.Opium.
Addiction. Opium.
Keep a grain of opium in mouth, cries of sex-partner will be heard a mile far.
Keep two grains of opium, cries of the sex-partner will be heard two miles far.
Keep three grains and cries of sex-partner will be heard three miles far and so on.
Opium is a sex-stimulant. The Moguls and Raj puts had sex-orgies in their courts.
Opium was freely distributed with competitions in sex-orgies. The sufferers
were tender good family girls and maidens who were brought in for experimentation.
They had trained staff in-charge of the entire poppy fields spread over miles unto miles, on the outskirts of Mountain Heights.
The workers in poppy fields had mastery in secreting sticky liquid from the fallen petal. It was collected in earthen bowls. It was allowed to sun-dry. The moisture would dry out and it would turn out the black gold, the opium lump.
Poppy plants were grown in the fields spread miles unto miles, extended to both side of the river, flowing from the hills, passing through woods. A castle at the top of the hill proved a shelter for the staff, and all, working in the fields in their region. There were hundreds of workers plucking the petal and incising them, as taught and trained by specialists.
They kept account of everything. They were used to move in the fields. From the hill, from the heights of the windows of the fort, they kept an eye on everything going on in the area. This is the story prior to the reforms when the princely states were lords and masters in their respective states. They had inherited the fields from their ancestors.
They used to grow poppy plants in the valleys behind the mountains extended to lush forest and meadows. From the sticky juice from poppy- petal came the substance with immense power to stimulate pleasure, cause numbness of the brain. Use of opium was moving among the princely states like plague.
The scene reflects life in India in the early part of the last century. The people were moderately advanced in the stages of life. The kingly states lost their kingdom in pursuit of horse races, bullfights, keeping harems and consuming opium. Since birth, the prince child was administered liquid opium.
By the time he turned an adult, he turned out a confirmed opium-eater, an addict. Taking opium was symbolic, a matter of pride. It was a status symbol to serve liquid opium in the courtroom to their office bearer and guests. It led them to their way to financial physical and mental ruin. This craze was crazy enough for the innocent victim’s friends and families of opium consumers, crime victims and those who unknowingly became involved in it. For ages nations have been consuming these items in different forms. It begins with a mild stimulant. Thereafter the journey of its intake progresses to more serious stages. Ultimately it gets transformed into a killer-drug.
There were an army of workers, contractors, transporters, landing agents, engaged in this job. Everything was done with the final permission from the Top. They would be moving in fields, supervising the workers. From the heights of the castle windows, they kept an eye on anything and everything. They were collecting opium from poppy petal twelve hours straight and they would not be tired. They were robot slaving from early morning till nightfall. They would come to the house to bathe, eat sleep and back to work, next morning. They used to return home late evening for their ritual bath food and sleep. This was their life. Their life was their work. They were addict-slaves.
The English Viceroy had his seat at Delhi. He had about fifty
Political agents under him in charge of states. Their duty was to
buy opium and ship steamer loads of opium to China Europe and America.
The Portuguese Viceroy had his seat at Goa. His agents at Goa, Diu, Daman etc were responsible to buy opium consignments and shipped them to China.
The opium poppy was native to what is now Turkey.
Ancient Assyrian herb lists and medical texts refer to both the opium poppy plant and opium, and in the 1st century AD, the Greek physician Dioscorides described opium in his treatise De Materia Medica, which was the leading Western text on pharmacology for centuries.
The growth of poppies for their opium content spread slowly eastward from Mesopotamia and Greece. Apparently opium was unknown in either India or China in ancient times, and knowledge of the opium poppy first reached China about the 7th century AD. At first, opium was taken in the form of pills or was added to beverages. The oral intake of raw opium as a medicine does not appear to have produced widespread addictions in ancient Asian societies.
Opium smoking began only after the early Europeans in North America discovered the Indian practice of smoking tobacco in pipes. Some smokers began to mix opium with tobacco in their pipes, and smoking gradually became the preferred method of taking opium. Opium smoking was introduced into China from Java in the 17th century and spread rapidly.
The Chinese authorities reacted by prohibiting the sale of opium, but these edicts were largely ignored. During the 18th century European traders found in China an expanding and profitable market for the drug, and the opium trade enabled them to acquire Chinese goods such as silk and tea without having to spend precious gold and silver.
Opium addiction became widespread in China, and the Chinese government's attempts to prohibit the import of opium from British-ruled India brought it into direct conflict with the British government.
As a result of their defeat in the Opium Wars, the Chinese were compelled to legalize the importation of opium in 1858. Opium addiction remained a problem in Chinese society until the Communists came to power in 1949 and eradicated the practice.
In the West, opium came into wide use as a painkiller in the 18th century, and opium, laudanum, and paregoric were active ingredients in many patent medicines. These drugs were freely available without legal or medical restrictions, but the many cases of addiction they caused did not arouse undue social concern. Morphine was first isolated from opium about 1804, and the hypodermic syringe was invented at mid-century. Their use in combination on hundreds of thousands of sick or wounded American soldiers in the Civil War produced unprecedented numbers of addicts.
Heroin, which was first synthesized in 1898, proved even more addictive than morphine, and by the early decades of the 20th century the legal use of opiates of any kind had been curtailed. The traffic in such drugs then went underground, leading to a vast illicit trade in heroin by the late 20th century.
In the meantime, the smoking of opium had greatly declined in the 20th century, partly because opium had been supplanted by more potent derivatives, and partly because of determined legal efforts in China and other developing nations to eradicate it.
Though opium smoking has declined, opium remains the starting product for heroin, which has millions of addicts worldwide. The cultivation of opium, which was formerly centred in India, Turkey, and China and was sometimes carried on legally, shifted to other countries and became wholly illicit in the second half of the 20th century.
By the century's end, the nations of Myanmar (Burma), Afghanistan, Laos, Iran, and Pakistan had become the leading producers and exporters of opium.
The war in Afghanistan is about opium.
Keep a grain of opium in mouth, cries of sex-partner will be heard a mile far.
Keep two grains of opium, cries of the sex-partner will be heard two miles far.
Keep three grains and cries of sex-partner will be heard three miles far and so on.
Opium is a sex-stimulant. The Moguls and Raj puts had sex-orgies in their courts.
Opium was freely distributed with competitions in sex-orgies. The sufferers
were tender good family girls and maidens who were brought in for experimentation.
They had trained staff in-charge of the entire poppy fields spread over miles unto miles, on the outskirts of Mountain Heights.
The workers in poppy fields had mastery in secreting sticky liquid from the fallen petal. It was collected in earthen bowls. It was allowed to sun-dry. The moisture would dry out and it would turn out the black gold, the opium lump.
Poppy plants were grown in the fields spread miles unto miles, extended to both side of the river, flowing from the hills, passing through woods. A castle at the top of the hill proved a shelter for the staff, and all, working in the fields in their region. There were hundreds of workers plucking the petal and incising them, as taught and trained by specialists.
They kept account of everything. They were used to move in the fields. From the hill, from the heights of the windows of the fort, they kept an eye on everything going on in the area. This is the story prior to the reforms when the princely states were lords and masters in their respective states. They had inherited the fields from their ancestors.
They used to grow poppy plants in the valleys behind the mountains extended to lush forest and meadows. From the sticky juice from poppy- petal came the substance with immense power to stimulate pleasure, cause numbness of the brain. Use of opium was moving among the princely states like plague.
The scene reflects life in India in the early part of the last century. The people were moderately advanced in the stages of life. The kingly states lost their kingdom in pursuit of horse races, bullfights, keeping harems and consuming opium. Since birth, the prince child was administered liquid opium.
By the time he turned an adult, he turned out a confirmed opium-eater, an addict. Taking opium was symbolic, a matter of pride. It was a status symbol to serve liquid opium in the courtroom to their office bearer and guests. It led them to their way to financial physical and mental ruin. This craze was crazy enough for the innocent victim’s friends and families of opium consumers, crime victims and those who unknowingly became involved in it. For ages nations have been consuming these items in different forms. It begins with a mild stimulant. Thereafter the journey of its intake progresses to more serious stages. Ultimately it gets transformed into a killer-drug.
There were an army of workers, contractors, transporters, landing agents, engaged in this job. Everything was done with the final permission from the Top. They would be moving in fields, supervising the workers. From the heights of the castle windows, they kept an eye on anything and everything. They were collecting opium from poppy petal twelve hours straight and they would not be tired. They were robot slaving from early morning till nightfall. They would come to the house to bathe, eat sleep and back to work, next morning. They used to return home late evening for their ritual bath food and sleep. This was their life. Their life was their work. They were addict-slaves.
The English Viceroy had his seat at Delhi. He had about fifty
Political agents under him in charge of states. Their duty was to
buy opium and ship steamer loads of opium to China Europe and America.
The Portuguese Viceroy had his seat at Goa. His agents at Goa, Diu, Daman etc were responsible to buy opium consignments and shipped them to China.
The opium poppy was native to what is now Turkey.
Ancient Assyrian herb lists and medical texts refer to both the opium poppy plant and opium, and in the 1st century AD, the Greek physician Dioscorides described opium in his treatise De Materia Medica, which was the leading Western text on pharmacology for centuries.
The growth of poppies for their opium content spread slowly eastward from Mesopotamia and Greece. Apparently opium was unknown in either India or China in ancient times, and knowledge of the opium poppy first reached China about the 7th century AD. At first, opium was taken in the form of pills or was added to beverages. The oral intake of raw opium as a medicine does not appear to have produced widespread addictions in ancient Asian societies.
Opium smoking began only after the early Europeans in North America discovered the Indian practice of smoking tobacco in pipes. Some smokers began to mix opium with tobacco in their pipes, and smoking gradually became the preferred method of taking opium. Opium smoking was introduced into China from Java in the 17th century and spread rapidly.
The Chinese authorities reacted by prohibiting the sale of opium, but these edicts were largely ignored. During the 18th century European traders found in China an expanding and profitable market for the drug, and the opium trade enabled them to acquire Chinese goods such as silk and tea without having to spend precious gold and silver.
Opium addiction became widespread in China, and the Chinese government's attempts to prohibit the import of opium from British-ruled India brought it into direct conflict with the British government.
As a result of their defeat in the Opium Wars, the Chinese were compelled to legalize the importation of opium in 1858. Opium addiction remained a problem in Chinese society until the Communists came to power in 1949 and eradicated the practice.
In the West, opium came into wide use as a painkiller in the 18th century, and opium, laudanum, and paregoric were active ingredients in many patent medicines. These drugs were freely available without legal or medical restrictions, but the many cases of addiction they caused did not arouse undue social concern. Morphine was first isolated from opium about 1804, and the hypodermic syringe was invented at mid-century. Their use in combination on hundreds of thousands of sick or wounded American soldiers in the Civil War produced unprecedented numbers of addicts.
Heroin, which was first synthesized in 1898, proved even more addictive than morphine, and by the early decades of the 20th century the legal use of opiates of any kind had been curtailed. The traffic in such drugs then went underground, leading to a vast illicit trade in heroin by the late 20th century.
In the meantime, the smoking of opium had greatly declined in the 20th century, partly because opium had been supplanted by more potent derivatives, and partly because of determined legal efforts in China and other developing nations to eradicate it.
Though opium smoking has declined, opium remains the starting product for heroin, which has millions of addicts worldwide. The cultivation of opium, which was formerly centred in India, Turkey, and China and was sometimes carried on legally, shifted to other countries and became wholly illicit in the second half of the 20th century.
By the century's end, the nations of Myanmar (Burma), Afghanistan, Laos, Iran, and Pakistan had become the leading producers and exporters of opium.
The war in Afghanistan is about opium.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Tulsidas the Poet.
Tulsidas. (1532-1623)
Tulsi Tulsi Sab Kahe,
Tulsi Ban Ki Ghass,
Ho Gai Kripa Ram Ki
To Ban Gaye Tulsi Das.
Kaam Krodh Mad Lobh Ki
Jo Log Main Hai Khaan,
To Log Pandit Murakh Ek Saman.
Naman Naman Main Fer,
Bahoot Name Naadan,
Tulsi Kahe Daya Na Chhodi Ye
Jab Tak Tan Main Pran.
Goswami Tulsidas was a great devotee, philosopher and writer of many books on
Sri.Ram. His Ramcharita manas, an epic devoted to Lord Rama, was the Awadhi version of Ramayana of Valmiki.
He was born in Banda district in UP during the reign of Akbar.
He is regarded as an incarnation of sage Valmiki.
In Bhavishya Uttar Purana, Lord Shiva, narrates to Parvati, how Valmiki got
a boon from Hanumana to sing the glory of Lord Rama in Kaliyuga.
Tulsidas's most famous and read piece of literature apart from the Ramayana is the "Hanuman Chalisa” a poem praising Hanuman. Hindus recite it daily as a prayer.
Like many translations of the original Sanskrit Ramayana, his work is read and worshipped with great reverence in many Hindu homes. It is an inspiring book that contains couplets in verse form.
Ramacharitamanas is not exactly the "Awadhi version", but the original one of its kind. Apart from "Awadhi"- three other languages are also seen in the epic. They are "Bhojpuri", " Brijbhasa" and "the local language of people of Chitrakut".
It is well known among Hindi-speaking Hindus. Many of its verses are popular proverbs in that region. Tulsidas' phrases have passed into common speech, and are used by millions of Hindi speakers and even speakers of Urdu without the speakers being conscious of their origin. Not only are his sayings proverbial: his doctrine actually forms the most powerful religious influence in present-day Hinduism and, though he founded no school and was never known as a guru or master, he is everywhere accepted as both poet and saint, an inspired and authoritative guide in religion and the conduct of life.
Tulsidas professed himself the humble follower of his teacher, Narhari Das, from whom as a boy in Sukar-khet he first heard the tale of Rama's exploits that would form the subject of Ramacharitamanasa, and Narhari Das was the sixth in spiritual descent from Ramananda a founder of popular Vaishnavism in northern India, who was also known for his famous poems.
There are numerous differences between Tulsi Rāmacaritamānasa and Valmiki Ramayana. One example is the scene in which Kaikayi forces her husband to exile Rama. in Tulsi Das it becomes considerably longer and more psychological, with intense characterization and brilliant similes.
Besides Ramacharitamanasa, Tulsidas is the author of five longer and six shorter works, most of them dealing with the theme of Rama, his doings, and devotion to him.
1. The Dohavali consisting of, 573 miscellaneous doha and sortha verses; of this there is a duplicate in the Ram-satsai, an arrangement of seven centuries of verses, the great majority of which occur also in the Dohavali and in other works of Tulsi,
2. The Kavitavali, which is a history of Rama in the kavitta, ghanakshari, chaupaï and savaiya metres, similar to Ramacharitamanasa, it is divided into seven kandas or cantos, and is devoted to setting forth the majestic side of Rama's character,
3. The Geetavali, also in seven kandas, aiming at the illustration of the tender aspect of the Lord's life; the metres are adapted for singing
4. the Krishna-geetavali, a collection of 61 songs in honor of Krishna, in the Kanauji dialect of Hindi.
5. Vinaya Patrika is a series of hymns and prayers of which the first 43 are addressed to the lower gods, forming Rama's court and attendants, and the remainder, Nos. 44 to 279, to Rama himself.
His minor works include Baravai Ramayana, Janaki Mangal, Ramalala Nahachhu, Ramajna Prashna, Parvati Mangal, Krishna Gitavali, Hanuman Bahuka, Sankata Mochana and Vairagya Sandipini. Of the smaller compositions the most interesting is the
Vairagya Sandipani, a poem describing the nature and greatness of a holy man, and the true peace to which he attains.
नानापुराणनिगमागमसम्मतं यद्
Like Ramanuja, Tulsi believes in a supreme personal God, possessing all gracious qualities (sadguna), as well as in the quality-less (nirguna) neuter impersonal Brahman of Sankaracharya; this Lord Himself once took the human form, and became incarnate, for the blessing of mankind, as Rama. The body is therefore to be honored, not despised. The Lord is to be approached by faith bhakti disinterested devotion and surrender of self in perfect love, and all actions are to be purified of self-interest in contemplation of Him. Show love to all creatures, and thou wilt be happy; for when thou lovest all things, thou lovest the Lord, for He is all in all. The soul is from the Lord, and is submitted in this life to the bondage of works karma Mankind, in their obstinacy, keep binding themselves in the net of actions, and though they know and hear of the bliss of those who have faith in the Lord, they don't attempt the only means of release. The bliss to which the soul attains, by the extinction of desire, in the supreme home, is not absorption in the Lord, but union with Him in abiding individuality. This is emancipation mukti from the burden of birth and rebirth, and the highest happiness. Tulsi, venerates the whole Hindu pantheon, and is especially careful to give Shiva or Mahadeva; the special deity of the Brahmins, his due, and to point out that there is no inconsistency between devotion to Rama and attachment to Shiva. But the practical end of all his writings is to inculcate bhakti addressed to Rama as the great means of salvation and emancipation from the chain of births and deaths, a salvation which is as free and open to men of the lowest caste as to Brahmins.
However it is important to understand that for Tulsidas "doctrine" is not so important. Far more relevant is practice, the practice of repeating Rama-Nama, the name of the Rama. In fact, Tulsidas goes as far as to say that the name of Rama is bigger than Rama Himself (कहउँ नामु बड़ राम तें निज बिचार अनुसार, Why is the name of Rama bigger than Rama? Because "Rama" is a mantra a sound, the repetition of which can lead one to higher states of consciousness. Because the name itself contains Lord Rama himself in it. Rama itself means the one which is present in every atom of this universe (Ramta sakal jahan).
The literary worth of Tulsidas has been highlighted by Acharya Ram Chandra Shukla in his critical work Hindi Sahitya Ka Itihaas.Acharya Shukla has elaborated Tulsi's Lokmangal as the doctrine for social upliftment which made this great poet immortal and comparable to any other world littérateur.
In Growse's translation of Ramacharitamanas will be found the text and translation of the passages of Bhagatmala and its commentary, which are the main original authority for the traditions relating to the poet. Nabhaji had himself met Tulsidas; but the stanza in praise of the poet gives no facts relating to his life – these are stated in the tika or gloss of Priya Das, who wrote in A.D. 1712, and much of the material is legendary and untrustworthy. Unfortunately, the biography of the poet, Gosaichariata, has disappeared, and no copy of it is known to exist.
In the introduction to the edition of Ramayana by the Nagri Pracharni Sabha all the known facts of Tulsi's life are brought together and critically discussed, for an exposition of his religious position and his place in the popular religion of northern India.
A manuscript of Ayodhyakand, said to be in the poets own hand, exists at Rajapur in Banda, his reputed birthplace. One of Balakanda dated Samvat 1661, nineteen years before the poet's death, and carefully corrected, it is alleged written by Tulsidas himself, is at Ayodhya. Another autograph is reported to be preserved at Maliabad in the Lucknow, district, but has not, so far as known, been verified. Other ancient manuscripts are to be found at Benares.
A person from non-Hindi background may find Sri Ramcharitmanas bit difficult to understand. This mainly arise from the colloquialisms, and the idiomatic and elliptical structure of the sentences. These very difficulties constitute its peculiar value to the student who wishes to learn the Sri Ramcharitmanas. It disciplines the mind into recognizing words which have been distorted and twisted, and teaches one that a sentence can be turned upside down and inside out and yet remain intelligible.
O mind! Worship the compassionate Shree Ramachandra
Who destroys fear of the phenomenal world
His eyes are like fresh lotuses. He is lotus faced.
His hands are like lotuses, his feet are like lotuses.
His beauty excels that of myriad Cupids,
He is handsomely blue-hued like a cloud.
I bow before the one who wed the daughter of Janaka,
Who wears the yellow garment, the pure one who destroys arrogance.
Worship the friend of the poor,
The Sun who destroys the families of demons.
The progeny of Raghu, the son of Dasharatha,
The reservoir of bliss, the moon to Kosala.
Worship the one who wears the crown on his head,
Ear ornaments and crimson mark on the forehead
Whose every limb is decorated beautifully and generously,
Who is tall of stature, well built with strong arms,
Carrying bow and the arrows and victorious over evil demons in battle.
Thus says Tulsidas, worship Him who pleases Shankara and all the sages,
Reside in the lotus of my heart, destroying evil feelings like lust.
Tulsidas urges his mind to meditate on Sri Rama, the ever compassionate one who will destroy all the fears that we have during this harsh life of ours.
Tulsi Tulsi Sab Kahe,
Tulsi Ban Ki Ghass,
Ho Gai Kripa Ram Ki
To Ban Gaye Tulsi Das.
Kaam Krodh Mad Lobh Ki
Jo Log Main Hai Khaan,
To Log Pandit Murakh Ek Saman.
Naman Naman Main Fer,
Bahoot Name Naadan,
Tulsi Kahe Daya Na Chhodi Ye
Jab Tak Tan Main Pran.
Goswami Tulsidas was a great devotee, philosopher and writer of many books on
Sri.Ram. His Ramcharita manas, an epic devoted to Lord Rama, was the Awadhi version of Ramayana of Valmiki.
He was born in Banda district in UP during the reign of Akbar.
He is regarded as an incarnation of sage Valmiki.
In Bhavishya Uttar Purana, Lord Shiva, narrates to Parvati, how Valmiki got
a boon from Hanumana to sing the glory of Lord Rama in Kaliyuga.
Tulsidas's most famous and read piece of literature apart from the Ramayana is the "Hanuman Chalisa” a poem praising Hanuman. Hindus recite it daily as a prayer.
Like many translations of the original Sanskrit Ramayana, his work is read and worshipped with great reverence in many Hindu homes. It is an inspiring book that contains couplets in verse form.
Ramacharitamanas is not exactly the "Awadhi version", but the original one of its kind. Apart from "Awadhi"- three other languages are also seen in the epic. They are "Bhojpuri", " Brijbhasa" and "the local language of people of Chitrakut".
It is well known among Hindi-speaking Hindus. Many of its verses are popular proverbs in that region. Tulsidas' phrases have passed into common speech, and are used by millions of Hindi speakers and even speakers of Urdu without the speakers being conscious of their origin. Not only are his sayings proverbial: his doctrine actually forms the most powerful religious influence in present-day Hinduism and, though he founded no school and was never known as a guru or master, he is everywhere accepted as both poet and saint, an inspired and authoritative guide in religion and the conduct of life.
Tulsidas professed himself the humble follower of his teacher, Narhari Das, from whom as a boy in Sukar-khet he first heard the tale of Rama's exploits that would form the subject of Ramacharitamanasa, and Narhari Das was the sixth in spiritual descent from Ramananda a founder of popular Vaishnavism in northern India, who was also known for his famous poems.
There are numerous differences between Tulsi Rāmacaritamānasa and Valmiki Ramayana. One example is the scene in which Kaikayi forces her husband to exile Rama. in Tulsi Das it becomes considerably longer and more psychological, with intense characterization and brilliant similes.
Besides Ramacharitamanasa, Tulsidas is the author of five longer and six shorter works, most of them dealing with the theme of Rama, his doings, and devotion to him.
1. The Dohavali consisting of, 573 miscellaneous doha and sortha verses; of this there is a duplicate in the Ram-satsai, an arrangement of seven centuries of verses, the great majority of which occur also in the Dohavali and in other works of Tulsi,
2. The Kavitavali, which is a history of Rama in the kavitta, ghanakshari, chaupaï and savaiya metres, similar to Ramacharitamanasa, it is divided into seven kandas or cantos, and is devoted to setting forth the majestic side of Rama's character,
3. The Geetavali, also in seven kandas, aiming at the illustration of the tender aspect of the Lord's life; the metres are adapted for singing
4. the Krishna-geetavali, a collection of 61 songs in honor of Krishna, in the Kanauji dialect of Hindi.
5. Vinaya Patrika is a series of hymns and prayers of which the first 43 are addressed to the lower gods, forming Rama's court and attendants, and the remainder, Nos. 44 to 279, to Rama himself.
His minor works include Baravai Ramayana, Janaki Mangal, Ramalala Nahachhu, Ramajna Prashna, Parvati Mangal, Krishna Gitavali, Hanuman Bahuka, Sankata Mochana and Vairagya Sandipini. Of the smaller compositions the most interesting is the
Vairagya Sandipani, a poem describing the nature and greatness of a holy man, and the true peace to which he attains.
नानापुराणनिगमागमसम्मतं यद्
Like Ramanuja, Tulsi believes in a supreme personal God, possessing all gracious qualities (sadguna), as well as in the quality-less (nirguna) neuter impersonal Brahman of Sankaracharya; this Lord Himself once took the human form, and became incarnate, for the blessing of mankind, as Rama. The body is therefore to be honored, not despised. The Lord is to be approached by faith bhakti disinterested devotion and surrender of self in perfect love, and all actions are to be purified of self-interest in contemplation of Him. Show love to all creatures, and thou wilt be happy; for when thou lovest all things, thou lovest the Lord, for He is all in all. The soul is from the Lord, and is submitted in this life to the bondage of works karma Mankind, in their obstinacy, keep binding themselves in the net of actions, and though they know and hear of the bliss of those who have faith in the Lord, they don't attempt the only means of release. The bliss to which the soul attains, by the extinction of desire, in the supreme home, is not absorption in the Lord, but union with Him in abiding individuality. This is emancipation mukti from the burden of birth and rebirth, and the highest happiness. Tulsi, venerates the whole Hindu pantheon, and is especially careful to give Shiva or Mahadeva; the special deity of the Brahmins, his due, and to point out that there is no inconsistency between devotion to Rama and attachment to Shiva. But the practical end of all his writings is to inculcate bhakti addressed to Rama as the great means of salvation and emancipation from the chain of births and deaths, a salvation which is as free and open to men of the lowest caste as to Brahmins.
However it is important to understand that for Tulsidas "doctrine" is not so important. Far more relevant is practice, the practice of repeating Rama-Nama, the name of the Rama. In fact, Tulsidas goes as far as to say that the name of Rama is bigger than Rama Himself (कहउँ नामु बड़ राम तें निज बिचार अनुसार, Why is the name of Rama bigger than Rama? Because "Rama" is a mantra a sound, the repetition of which can lead one to higher states of consciousness. Because the name itself contains Lord Rama himself in it. Rama itself means the one which is present in every atom of this universe (Ramta sakal jahan).
The literary worth of Tulsidas has been highlighted by Acharya Ram Chandra Shukla in his critical work Hindi Sahitya Ka Itihaas.Acharya Shukla has elaborated Tulsi's Lokmangal as the doctrine for social upliftment which made this great poet immortal and comparable to any other world littérateur.
In Growse's translation of Ramacharitamanas will be found the text and translation of the passages of Bhagatmala and its commentary, which are the main original authority for the traditions relating to the poet. Nabhaji had himself met Tulsidas; but the stanza in praise of the poet gives no facts relating to his life – these are stated in the tika or gloss of Priya Das, who wrote in A.D. 1712, and much of the material is legendary and untrustworthy. Unfortunately, the biography of the poet, Gosaichariata, has disappeared, and no copy of it is known to exist.
In the introduction to the edition of Ramayana by the Nagri Pracharni Sabha all the known facts of Tulsi's life are brought together and critically discussed, for an exposition of his religious position and his place in the popular religion of northern India.
A manuscript of Ayodhyakand, said to be in the poets own hand, exists at Rajapur in Banda, his reputed birthplace. One of Balakanda dated Samvat 1661, nineteen years before the poet's death, and carefully corrected, it is alleged written by Tulsidas himself, is at Ayodhya. Another autograph is reported to be preserved at Maliabad in the Lucknow, district, but has not, so far as known, been verified. Other ancient manuscripts are to be found at Benares.
A person from non-Hindi background may find Sri Ramcharitmanas bit difficult to understand. This mainly arise from the colloquialisms, and the idiomatic and elliptical structure of the sentences. These very difficulties constitute its peculiar value to the student who wishes to learn the Sri Ramcharitmanas. It disciplines the mind into recognizing words which have been distorted and twisted, and teaches one that a sentence can be turned upside down and inside out and yet remain intelligible.
O mind! Worship the compassionate Shree Ramachandra
Who destroys fear of the phenomenal world
His eyes are like fresh lotuses. He is lotus faced.
His hands are like lotuses, his feet are like lotuses.
His beauty excels that of myriad Cupids,
He is handsomely blue-hued like a cloud.
I bow before the one who wed the daughter of Janaka,
Who wears the yellow garment, the pure one who destroys arrogance.
Worship the friend of the poor,
The Sun who destroys the families of demons.
The progeny of Raghu, the son of Dasharatha,
The reservoir of bliss, the moon to Kosala.
Worship the one who wears the crown on his head,
Ear ornaments and crimson mark on the forehead
Whose every limb is decorated beautifully and generously,
Who is tall of stature, well built with strong arms,
Carrying bow and the arrows and victorious over evil demons in battle.
Thus says Tulsidas, worship Him who pleases Shankara and all the sages,
Reside in the lotus of my heart, destroying evil feelings like lust.
Tulsidas urges his mind to meditate on Sri Rama, the ever compassionate one who will destroy all the fears that we have during this harsh life of ours.
Earth.
Earth.
Before the Earth had taken shape, all was vague and amorphous.
It was the great Beginning.
The great Beginning produced Emptiness-the void.
The Universe found shape from the Void.
Earth has a solid surface, abundant waters, and oxygen-rich atmosphere.
All this have combined to create conditions suitable for life.
The Earth is a globe with an equatorial radius of about 4000 miles.
Compared with the other planets of the solar system, it is only of intermediate size and is substantially smaller than the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
The Earth rotates on its axis.
On account of the rotation of the Earth on its axis that is the entire mass of the globe standing north to south rotates on an axis round the Sun. Therefore we see that
the Sun rises, the Sun sets and we see stars in the horizon in the night. That makes day and night.
At the Equator, the circumference of the Earth is 24000 miles. Therefore the Earth
rotates around its axis at a speed of 1000 miles an hour. This is the speed of rotation at the Equator. It gets smaller as you go up or down the Equator.
For example, at 40 degree latitude north, is 780 miles an hour.
Now this rotating Earth at the same times revolves on its orbit of a grand circular track
taking a round around the Sun. This process of revolution on its orbit round the Sun,
for the Earth it takes a time of 365 days that is how years happen. The Earth revolves
on its orbit round the Sun at a speed of 67000 miles per hour.
Therefore the Earth rotates round its axis and revolves around the Sun on its orbit.
It completes its one round around the Sun on its orbit takes one year.
It completes its round on its axis in a day that is how day and night are formed.
The Earth is bisected at the Equator in two halves. Each half has 90 latitudes.
Each latitude has a distance of 67 miles between each.
The Earth is divided into longitudes with a time difference of four
minutes between each.
The Earth is slanted 23.5 degree east of North Pole at present for 4000 years.
The Earth will be straight at North Pole for next span of 4000 years.
The Earth will again slant 23.5 degree west of North Pole thereafter.
This cycle continues every 4000 years.
The land area- between East Africa and western India remains cut and ocean
takes over the land in the present span of 4000 years.
In the next span East Africa and Western India gets linked by land as ocean moves away. Atlantis country will reappear on West Europe, Atlantic Ocean in next 4000 years span.
Presently it is submerged into Atlantic Ocean due to slanting earth.
The Moon is a complimentary in the process of Earth motions. Earth and the Moon raise tides in the bodies of one another, resulting in the dissipation of energy into heat, which in turn leads to the slowing of the Earth's spin velocity on its axis and the recession of the Moon.
The outstanding feature of the Earth as a planet is the presence of liquid water. Water is vital not only for the biosphere but also for the geologic processes of erosion, transport, and deposition that shape the Earth's surface. Yet, if the Earth were closer to the Sun, the water would be vaporized; if farther, it would turn to ice.
Two-thirds of the terrestrial surface is covered by oceans. It was long thought that the continents, constituting the remaining one-third of the surface, had been fixed in position throughout the Earth's history. Gradually some Earth scientists dared to suggest that there had been major continental displacements, and finally, during the 1960s, investigators developed the full picture of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics. The continents, though constantly in motion, are in fact the oldest portions of the Earth's surface, for the seafloor is created at ridges and consumed at trenches on a geologically short time scale.
That the Earth has a magnetic field has been known at least since the 11th century when the directional properties of suspended magnetic rock were first used for navigation. Over the centuries the characteristics of this changing field have become better understood, until it now appears that the only plausible cause is some system of motions in the Earth's liquid outer core. These motions, which may be thermally driven like the slow convection currents in the mantle, constitute an electromagnetic dynamo whose electric currents sustain the field. Many problems remain: Why, for example, should the field have reversed polarity at irregular intervals through geologic time? But again, the existence of the field is in all likelihood simply further evidence of the Earth's dynamic structure.
Some other planets, notably Jupiter and Mercury, are known to have magnetic fields. It is interesting that Jupiter and Mercury differ appreciably in density and therefore composition, but both planets must have the internal motions necessary to constitute a dynamo. The Moon probably once had a magnetic field, but its internal dynamo apparently ceased long ago as the fluid interior froze.
The Earth's magnetic field shields the planet from the most direct effects of the ionized gas that constitutes the solar wind, carving out a cavity known as the magnetosphere. The existence of the magnetosphere has in all likelihood played a fundamental role in determining the nature of the Earth's atmosphere and its climate and therefore in the development of life. Yet, the verification of the magnetosphere's existence is a fairly recent accomplishment.
Earth is the third planet outward from the Sun. Its single most outstanding feature is that its near-surface environments are the only places in the universe known to harbour life.
Humans for the first time saw the Earth as a complete globe in December 1968 when Apollo 8 carried astronauts around the Moon. In December 1990 the Galileo spacecraft, outfitted with an array of remote-sensing instruments, studied the Earth during the first of its two gravity-assisted flybys en route to the planet Jupiter. The information about the Earth gathered from Galileo was meagre compared with that obtained by the swarm of artificial satellites that have orbited the globe throughout the space age, but it provided some unique portraits of the Earth as a planet. Viewed from another planet, the Earth would appear bright and bluish in colour. Most readily apparent would be its atmospheric features, chiefly the swirling white cloud patterns of mid-latitude and tropical storms, ranged in roughly latitudinal belts around the planet. The Polar Regions also would appear a brilliant white owing to the clouds above and the snow and ice below. Beneath the changing patterns of clouds are the much darker, blue-black oceans, interrupted by occasional tawny patches of desert lands. The green landscapes that harbour most human life would not be easily seen from space; not only do they constitute a modest fraction of the land area, which itself is a small fraction of the Earth's surface, but they are often obscured by clouds. Over the course of the seasons, some seasonal changes in the storm patterns and cloud belts on Earth would be observed. Also prominent would be the growth and recession of the winter snowcap across land areas of the Northern Hemisphere.
The planet orbits the Sun in a path that is presently more nearly a circle than are the orbits of most other planets. The direction of the Earth's revolution—counter clockwise as viewed down from the north--is in the same sense (direction) as the rotation of the Sun; the Earth's spin, or rotation about its axis, is also in the same "direct" sense. The length of a day (23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds) is typical of other planetary objects. Jupiter and most asteroids have days less than half as long, while Mercury and Venus have days more nearly comparable with their orbital periods. The slant (inclination) of the Earth's axis to its orbit (23.5), also typical, is responsible for the change of seasons. Compared with the other eight planets of the solar system, the Earth is relatively small. Although it is the largest of the inner planets, it is considerably smaller than the gas giants of the outer solar system. The Earth has a single satellite, the Moon. The Moon is one of the bigger natural satellites in the solar system and is in fact relatively large compared with the Earth itself. Some people consider the Earth-Moon system a double planet, with some similarities to the Pluto-Charon system.
The Earth's gravitational field is manifested as the attractive force acting upon a free body at rest, causing it to accelerate in the general direction of the centre of the planet. Departures from the spherical shape and the effect of planetary rotation cause gravity to vary with latitude over the terrestrial surface. Gravity typically is not measured at sea level, so corrections must be made for its decrease in value with increasing elevation. Such height-related gravity anomalies may be corrected for by using free-air or Bouguer reductions. In the Bouguer reduction, the effect of the attraction of the additional mass located above sea level is taken into account, while in the free-air reduction this mass effect is ignored. The Bouguer anomaly can be used to indicate variations of density within the Earth by measuring the corresponding variation in gravity.
The Earth's gravity keeps the Moon in its orbit around the planet and also generates tides in the body of the Moon. Such deformations are manifested in the form of slight bulges at the lunar surface, detectable only by sensitive instruments. The Moon, owing to its relatively large mass, exerts a gravitational force that likewise causes tides on the Earth. These are most readily observable as the daily rises and falls of the ocean water, although tidal deformations occur in the solid Earth as well as in its atmosphere.
In short, our Earth has solid surface, abundant waters, and oxygen-rich atmosphere have combined to create conditions suitable for life. The Earth is a nearly spherical body with an equatorial radius of slightly more than 4000 miles. Compared with the other planets of the solar system, it is only of intermediate size and is substantially smaller than the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. This fact has been of great importance in determining the history of the Earth's rotation, for the Earth and the Moon raise tides in the bodies of one another, resulting in the dissipation of energy into heat, which in turn leads to the slowing of the Earth's spin velocity on its axis and the recession of the Moon. In fact, if the present rates of slowing and recession are linearly extrapolated backward in time, the Moon is found to have been impossibly close to the Earth at a time within the geologic record--a seemingly unexplainable paradox. Only very recently has it been shown that the present distribution of continents and oceans produces an anomalously high rate of slowing, and so the Moon need never have been extremely close to the Earth.
The outstanding feature of the Earth as a planet is the presence of liquid water. Water is vital not only for the biosphere but also for the geologic processes of erosion, transport, and deposition that shape the Earth's surface. Yet, if the Earth were closer to the Sun, the water would be vaporized; if farther, it would turn to ice. Two-thirds of the terrestrial surface is covered by oceans. It was long thought that the continents, constituting the remaining one-third of the surface, had been fixed in position throughout the Earth's history. Gradually some Earth scientists dared to suggest that there had been major continental displacements, and finally, during the 1960s, investigators developed the full picture of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics. The continents, though constantly in motion, are in fact the oldest portions of the Earth's surface, for the seafloor is created at ridges and consumed at trenches on a geologically short time scale. Other planets, notably Mars and Venus, have surface features that suggest some elements of plate tectonics, but none is known to be undergoing the constant rejuvenation of the surface as is the Earth.
The fundamental laws of geologic succession, of the differences between igneous rocks and sedimentary rocks began to be understood toward the end of the 18th century.
At about the same time the measurement of the constant in Newton's law of gravitation showed that the specific gravity of the Earth was about 5.5, whereas that of a typical crustal rock was only about 2.7. Obviously, the interior must be much denser, and it became apparent that pressure alone could not explain the difference. Instead, there have to be differences in chemical composition, involving a decrease with depth of the light elements abundant in the crust (oxygen, silicon, and aluminum) and an increase of heavier elements such as iron. With reference again to the other planets of the solar system, it is seen that their densities tend to fall into two groups: the inner planets with densities close to that of the Earth, and the giant planets with appreciably lower densities. The members of the first group probably have iron cores (proposed for the Earth in the early years of the 20th century), while those of the second must contain large amounts of very light elements such as hydrogen.
If the Earth were completely static, it would be virtually impossible to obtain information about the interior apart from the mean density. Dynamism is, however, the mark of the Earth: tectonic plates move, probably driven by slow convection currents within the Earth's mantle; earthquakes occur; and, from the study of earthquake waves, the broad outlines of the interior can be established. The resulting picture of the Earth includes a solid inner core, a fluid outer core whose radius is more than half the planet's radius, a predominantly solid mantle, and a chemically distinct thin crust that contains most of the familiar geologic features. The rigid plates that are driven over the surface consist of the crust and some uppermost mantle, which together make up a mechanically distinct regime called the lithosphere.
Before the Earth had taken shape, all was vague and amorphous.
It was the great Beginning.
The great Beginning produced Emptiness-the void.
The Universe found shape from the Void.
Earth has a solid surface, abundant waters, and oxygen-rich atmosphere.
All this have combined to create conditions suitable for life.
The Earth is a globe with an equatorial radius of about 4000 miles.
Compared with the other planets of the solar system, it is only of intermediate size and is substantially smaller than the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
The Earth rotates on its axis.
On account of the rotation of the Earth on its axis that is the entire mass of the globe standing north to south rotates on an axis round the Sun. Therefore we see that
the Sun rises, the Sun sets and we see stars in the horizon in the night. That makes day and night.
At the Equator, the circumference of the Earth is 24000 miles. Therefore the Earth
rotates around its axis at a speed of 1000 miles an hour. This is the speed of rotation at the Equator. It gets smaller as you go up or down the Equator.
For example, at 40 degree latitude north, is 780 miles an hour.
Now this rotating Earth at the same times revolves on its orbit of a grand circular track
taking a round around the Sun. This process of revolution on its orbit round the Sun,
for the Earth it takes a time of 365 days that is how years happen. The Earth revolves
on its orbit round the Sun at a speed of 67000 miles per hour.
Therefore the Earth rotates round its axis and revolves around the Sun on its orbit.
It completes its one round around the Sun on its orbit takes one year.
It completes its round on its axis in a day that is how day and night are formed.
The Earth is bisected at the Equator in two halves. Each half has 90 latitudes.
Each latitude has a distance of 67 miles between each.
The Earth is divided into longitudes with a time difference of four
minutes between each.
The Earth is slanted 23.5 degree east of North Pole at present for 4000 years.
The Earth will be straight at North Pole for next span of 4000 years.
The Earth will again slant 23.5 degree west of North Pole thereafter.
This cycle continues every 4000 years.
The land area- between East Africa and western India remains cut and ocean
takes over the land in the present span of 4000 years.
In the next span East Africa and Western India gets linked by land as ocean moves away. Atlantis country will reappear on West Europe, Atlantic Ocean in next 4000 years span.
Presently it is submerged into Atlantic Ocean due to slanting earth.
The Moon is a complimentary in the process of Earth motions. Earth and the Moon raise tides in the bodies of one another, resulting in the dissipation of energy into heat, which in turn leads to the slowing of the Earth's spin velocity on its axis and the recession of the Moon.
The outstanding feature of the Earth as a planet is the presence of liquid water. Water is vital not only for the biosphere but also for the geologic processes of erosion, transport, and deposition that shape the Earth's surface. Yet, if the Earth were closer to the Sun, the water would be vaporized; if farther, it would turn to ice.
Two-thirds of the terrestrial surface is covered by oceans. It was long thought that the continents, constituting the remaining one-third of the surface, had been fixed in position throughout the Earth's history. Gradually some Earth scientists dared to suggest that there had been major continental displacements, and finally, during the 1960s, investigators developed the full picture of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics. The continents, though constantly in motion, are in fact the oldest portions of the Earth's surface, for the seafloor is created at ridges and consumed at trenches on a geologically short time scale.
That the Earth has a magnetic field has been known at least since the 11th century when the directional properties of suspended magnetic rock were first used for navigation. Over the centuries the characteristics of this changing field have become better understood, until it now appears that the only plausible cause is some system of motions in the Earth's liquid outer core. These motions, which may be thermally driven like the slow convection currents in the mantle, constitute an electromagnetic dynamo whose electric currents sustain the field. Many problems remain: Why, for example, should the field have reversed polarity at irregular intervals through geologic time? But again, the existence of the field is in all likelihood simply further evidence of the Earth's dynamic structure.
Some other planets, notably Jupiter and Mercury, are known to have magnetic fields. It is interesting that Jupiter and Mercury differ appreciably in density and therefore composition, but both planets must have the internal motions necessary to constitute a dynamo. The Moon probably once had a magnetic field, but its internal dynamo apparently ceased long ago as the fluid interior froze.
The Earth's magnetic field shields the planet from the most direct effects of the ionized gas that constitutes the solar wind, carving out a cavity known as the magnetosphere. The existence of the magnetosphere has in all likelihood played a fundamental role in determining the nature of the Earth's atmosphere and its climate and therefore in the development of life. Yet, the verification of the magnetosphere's existence is a fairly recent accomplishment.
Earth is the third planet outward from the Sun. Its single most outstanding feature is that its near-surface environments are the only places in the universe known to harbour life.
Humans for the first time saw the Earth as a complete globe in December 1968 when Apollo 8 carried astronauts around the Moon. In December 1990 the Galileo spacecraft, outfitted with an array of remote-sensing instruments, studied the Earth during the first of its two gravity-assisted flybys en route to the planet Jupiter. The information about the Earth gathered from Galileo was meagre compared with that obtained by the swarm of artificial satellites that have orbited the globe throughout the space age, but it provided some unique portraits of the Earth as a planet. Viewed from another planet, the Earth would appear bright and bluish in colour. Most readily apparent would be its atmospheric features, chiefly the swirling white cloud patterns of mid-latitude and tropical storms, ranged in roughly latitudinal belts around the planet. The Polar Regions also would appear a brilliant white owing to the clouds above and the snow and ice below. Beneath the changing patterns of clouds are the much darker, blue-black oceans, interrupted by occasional tawny patches of desert lands. The green landscapes that harbour most human life would not be easily seen from space; not only do they constitute a modest fraction of the land area, which itself is a small fraction of the Earth's surface, but they are often obscured by clouds. Over the course of the seasons, some seasonal changes in the storm patterns and cloud belts on Earth would be observed. Also prominent would be the growth and recession of the winter snowcap across land areas of the Northern Hemisphere.
The planet orbits the Sun in a path that is presently more nearly a circle than are the orbits of most other planets. The direction of the Earth's revolution—counter clockwise as viewed down from the north--is in the same sense (direction) as the rotation of the Sun; the Earth's spin, or rotation about its axis, is also in the same "direct" sense. The length of a day (23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds) is typical of other planetary objects. Jupiter and most asteroids have days less than half as long, while Mercury and Venus have days more nearly comparable with their orbital periods. The slant (inclination) of the Earth's axis to its orbit (23.5), also typical, is responsible for the change of seasons. Compared with the other eight planets of the solar system, the Earth is relatively small. Although it is the largest of the inner planets, it is considerably smaller than the gas giants of the outer solar system. The Earth has a single satellite, the Moon. The Moon is one of the bigger natural satellites in the solar system and is in fact relatively large compared with the Earth itself. Some people consider the Earth-Moon system a double planet, with some similarities to the Pluto-Charon system.
The Earth's gravitational field is manifested as the attractive force acting upon a free body at rest, causing it to accelerate in the general direction of the centre of the planet. Departures from the spherical shape and the effect of planetary rotation cause gravity to vary with latitude over the terrestrial surface. Gravity typically is not measured at sea level, so corrections must be made for its decrease in value with increasing elevation. Such height-related gravity anomalies may be corrected for by using free-air or Bouguer reductions. In the Bouguer reduction, the effect of the attraction of the additional mass located above sea level is taken into account, while in the free-air reduction this mass effect is ignored. The Bouguer anomaly can be used to indicate variations of density within the Earth by measuring the corresponding variation in gravity.
The Earth's gravity keeps the Moon in its orbit around the planet and also generates tides in the body of the Moon. Such deformations are manifested in the form of slight bulges at the lunar surface, detectable only by sensitive instruments. The Moon, owing to its relatively large mass, exerts a gravitational force that likewise causes tides on the Earth. These are most readily observable as the daily rises and falls of the ocean water, although tidal deformations occur in the solid Earth as well as in its atmosphere.
In short, our Earth has solid surface, abundant waters, and oxygen-rich atmosphere have combined to create conditions suitable for life. The Earth is a nearly spherical body with an equatorial radius of slightly more than 4000 miles. Compared with the other planets of the solar system, it is only of intermediate size and is substantially smaller than the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. This fact has been of great importance in determining the history of the Earth's rotation, for the Earth and the Moon raise tides in the bodies of one another, resulting in the dissipation of energy into heat, which in turn leads to the slowing of the Earth's spin velocity on its axis and the recession of the Moon. In fact, if the present rates of slowing and recession are linearly extrapolated backward in time, the Moon is found to have been impossibly close to the Earth at a time within the geologic record--a seemingly unexplainable paradox. Only very recently has it been shown that the present distribution of continents and oceans produces an anomalously high rate of slowing, and so the Moon need never have been extremely close to the Earth.
The outstanding feature of the Earth as a planet is the presence of liquid water. Water is vital not only for the biosphere but also for the geologic processes of erosion, transport, and deposition that shape the Earth's surface. Yet, if the Earth were closer to the Sun, the water would be vaporized; if farther, it would turn to ice. Two-thirds of the terrestrial surface is covered by oceans. It was long thought that the continents, constituting the remaining one-third of the surface, had been fixed in position throughout the Earth's history. Gradually some Earth scientists dared to suggest that there had been major continental displacements, and finally, during the 1960s, investigators developed the full picture of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics. The continents, though constantly in motion, are in fact the oldest portions of the Earth's surface, for the seafloor is created at ridges and consumed at trenches on a geologically short time scale. Other planets, notably Mars and Venus, have surface features that suggest some elements of plate tectonics, but none is known to be undergoing the constant rejuvenation of the surface as is the Earth.
The fundamental laws of geologic succession, of the differences between igneous rocks and sedimentary rocks began to be understood toward the end of the 18th century.
At about the same time the measurement of the constant in Newton's law of gravitation showed that the specific gravity of the Earth was about 5.5, whereas that of a typical crustal rock was only about 2.7. Obviously, the interior must be much denser, and it became apparent that pressure alone could not explain the difference. Instead, there have to be differences in chemical composition, involving a decrease with depth of the light elements abundant in the crust (oxygen, silicon, and aluminum) and an increase of heavier elements such as iron. With reference again to the other planets of the solar system, it is seen that their densities tend to fall into two groups: the inner planets with densities close to that of the Earth, and the giant planets with appreciably lower densities. The members of the first group probably have iron cores (proposed for the Earth in the early years of the 20th century), while those of the second must contain large amounts of very light elements such as hydrogen.
If the Earth were completely static, it would be virtually impossible to obtain information about the interior apart from the mean density. Dynamism is, however, the mark of the Earth: tectonic plates move, probably driven by slow convection currents within the Earth's mantle; earthquakes occur; and, from the study of earthquake waves, the broad outlines of the interior can be established. The resulting picture of the Earth includes a solid inner core, a fluid outer core whose radius is more than half the planet's radius, a predominantly solid mantle, and a chemically distinct thin crust that contains most of the familiar geologic features. The rigid plates that are driven over the surface consist of the crust and some uppermost mantle, which together make up a mechanically distinct regime called the lithosphere.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Mizoram-state of India.
Mizoram.
The State of Blue Mountain.
Capital. Aizawl.
Population. 1 million.
Area.8140 square miles.
Revenue Districts. 8.
Mizoram is one of the seven sister’s states of north-eastern India.
Perched like a lone sentinel, on the tip of the North-Eastern border
Of India, the state of Mizoram is an amalgamation of former north and south
Lushai Hill districts.
Mizoram is a land of great natural beauty and an endless variety of
Landscape with rich flora and fauna, clusters of whispering pines and
quaint villages with their houses on stilts.
Mizoram means the land of the Highlanders has its boundaries with
Burma and Bangladesh while it shares it other borders with state of
Assam, Manipur and Tripura.
The Tropic of Cancer runs through Mizoram. Therefore it has pleasantly
temperate climate through out the year. It is a land of steep hills and
deep gorges and Mizoram’s highest peak “The Blue Mountain” rises
to a height of 7000 feet.
Important rivers that flow from Mizoram are Tlawang, Sonai Tuivawl,
Kolodine and Kamaphul.
Prior to 1947 Mizoram formed a district of Assam. The discontent among the Mizo led to
declaration of independence by the Mizo National Front in 1966. It compelled the Union
to place it as a Union territory. The insurgency continued till an accord was signed in 1986
as a result of which Mizoram was granted full status of 23rd state of the union of India.
Aizawl, a town and capital of Mizoram state, is situated on a ridge at an elevation of about 3000 feet, and is the most populous town in the state. In the 1970s Aizawl was the scene of an armed attack on the government treasury and other offices by members of the Mizo National Front.
Aluminum utensils, hand loomed textiles, and furniture are manufactured in the town. Electricity is generated by a diesel-power station, and there is an airport nearby.
The surrounding region is a part of the Assam-Myanmar geologic province, with north-south-aligned, steeply inclined hill ranges. The rapid Dhaleshwari, Tuivawl, and Sonai, rivers and their tributaries crisscross the region.
Timber and bamboo are collected from the dense hillside forests. The soil cover is generally thin except in the river valleys, where rice, corn (maize), beans, tobacco, cotton, pumpkins, oilseeds, and peanuts are grown. Poultry raising, hunting, fishing, and animal husbandry supplement agriculture. Mizoram is a cursed place with famine looming large every five years.
Hand weaving, blacksmithing, carpentry, basket making, and hat making are the main cottage industries. The Mizo Hills tribes of the region are mostly emigrants from Myanmar, and most have become Christians.
The Border Roads Organization has built many paved roads in the area.
Christianity is practised by majority of the Mizo. The Church is an important part of Mizo culture.
The major Christian denominations are Presbyterian founded by the Presbyterian Church of Assam.
Mizo is the official language of the Mizo people. Mizo community is the amalgamation of many clans and tribes who had their own unique lifestyle and distinctive dialects.
In terms of economic development, the state lags behind in comparison with others. There is no
major industry. Cottage industry and other small scale industry play the key role. There is
lack of market and lack of raw material.
Seventy percent of the population is involved in agriculture. The practice of Jum cultivation
Is carried out by the majority of them. Rice corn cotton and vegetables are main items.
Mizo women use a typical handloom to make clothing and other handicraft. They are fond
of colourful hand woven wrap around their skirt and a beautiful matching top. The
multi-coloured traditional bag knitted of eye catching colours is popular. Mizoram blankets are heavy and sturdy and are quality blankets an attraction of tourist’s purchase.
Music and dance are important elements in the cultural life of the people. Celebrations include
The Christian holidays and local agriculture festivals such as Pawkut and Mimkut.
Road, rail and air services are in primitive condition and are devoid of modernisation and lack
infrastructure. It is in need of modernisation and overhaul. The Government has done nothing in the past many years. Whatever money was allotted for the state has not reached the people.
This is an example of highest discontent and hatred by the people of this state for the administration. It is an eye-opener for the ruling party to do something in this regard.
The State of Blue Mountain.
Capital. Aizawl.
Population. 1 million.
Area.8140 square miles.
Revenue Districts. 8.
Mizoram is one of the seven sister’s states of north-eastern India.
Perched like a lone sentinel, on the tip of the North-Eastern border
Of India, the state of Mizoram is an amalgamation of former north and south
Lushai Hill districts.
Mizoram is a land of great natural beauty and an endless variety of
Landscape with rich flora and fauna, clusters of whispering pines and
quaint villages with their houses on stilts.
Mizoram means the land of the Highlanders has its boundaries with
Burma and Bangladesh while it shares it other borders with state of
Assam, Manipur and Tripura.
The Tropic of Cancer runs through Mizoram. Therefore it has pleasantly
temperate climate through out the year. It is a land of steep hills and
deep gorges and Mizoram’s highest peak “The Blue Mountain” rises
to a height of 7000 feet.
Important rivers that flow from Mizoram are Tlawang, Sonai Tuivawl,
Kolodine and Kamaphul.
Prior to 1947 Mizoram formed a district of Assam. The discontent among the Mizo led to
declaration of independence by the Mizo National Front in 1966. It compelled the Union
to place it as a Union territory. The insurgency continued till an accord was signed in 1986
as a result of which Mizoram was granted full status of 23rd state of the union of India.
Aizawl, a town and capital of Mizoram state, is situated on a ridge at an elevation of about 3000 feet, and is the most populous town in the state. In the 1970s Aizawl was the scene of an armed attack on the government treasury and other offices by members of the Mizo National Front.
Aluminum utensils, hand loomed textiles, and furniture are manufactured in the town. Electricity is generated by a diesel-power station, and there is an airport nearby.
The surrounding region is a part of the Assam-Myanmar geologic province, with north-south-aligned, steeply inclined hill ranges. The rapid Dhaleshwari, Tuivawl, and Sonai, rivers and their tributaries crisscross the region.
Timber and bamboo are collected from the dense hillside forests. The soil cover is generally thin except in the river valleys, where rice, corn (maize), beans, tobacco, cotton, pumpkins, oilseeds, and peanuts are grown. Poultry raising, hunting, fishing, and animal husbandry supplement agriculture. Mizoram is a cursed place with famine looming large every five years.
Hand weaving, blacksmithing, carpentry, basket making, and hat making are the main cottage industries. The Mizo Hills tribes of the region are mostly emigrants from Myanmar, and most have become Christians.
The Border Roads Organization has built many paved roads in the area.
Christianity is practised by majority of the Mizo. The Church is an important part of Mizo culture.
The major Christian denominations are Presbyterian founded by the Presbyterian Church of Assam.
Mizo is the official language of the Mizo people. Mizo community is the amalgamation of many clans and tribes who had their own unique lifestyle and distinctive dialects.
In terms of economic development, the state lags behind in comparison with others. There is no
major industry. Cottage industry and other small scale industry play the key role. There is
lack of market and lack of raw material.
Seventy percent of the population is involved in agriculture. The practice of Jum cultivation
Is carried out by the majority of them. Rice corn cotton and vegetables are main items.
Mizo women use a typical handloom to make clothing and other handicraft. They are fond
of colourful hand woven wrap around their skirt and a beautiful matching top. The
multi-coloured traditional bag knitted of eye catching colours is popular. Mizoram blankets are heavy and sturdy and are quality blankets an attraction of tourist’s purchase.
Music and dance are important elements in the cultural life of the people. Celebrations include
The Christian holidays and local agriculture festivals such as Pawkut and Mimkut.
Road, rail and air services are in primitive condition and are devoid of modernisation and lack
infrastructure. It is in need of modernisation and overhaul. The Government has done nothing in the past many years. Whatever money was allotted for the state has not reached the people.
This is an example of highest discontent and hatred by the people of this state for the administration. It is an eye-opener for the ruling party to do something in this regard.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
FIFA-World Cup Soccer in SA.
Soccer. Foot Ball.
‘You will feel nearer to Heaven by playing a game of football than reading the Geeta.”
The object of the game is to propel the ball into the goal, using any part of the body except the hands and arms; the side scoring more goals wins.
The ball is a round, leather-covered, inflated rubber bladder 27-28 inches in circumference and 14-16 ounces or 397-454 grams in weight. The players move the ball by hitting it with head or foot from one teammate to another or by dribbling--a series of very short kicks, usually with the instep or side of the foot.
Only the goalkeeper of the 11 players is allowed to handle the ball, and he is restricted to the penalty area, a rectangular area in front of the goal, 44 yards wide and extending 18 yards into the field. The goal is eight yards wide and eight feet high. The game is of 90 minutes' duration and is divided into halves. The teams change ends after a five-minute half-time interval.
FIFA rules prescribe a playing field pitch 100 to 130 yards long and between 50 and 100 yards wide; however, for international matches, it must be 110-120 yards long and 70-80 yards wide.
Soccer field and the positions of players at the kickoff.
Women and schoolchildren usually play a shorter game on a smaller field. The game is controlled by a referee, who is also the timekeeper, and two linesmen who patrol the touchlines, or sidelines, signalling when the ball goes out of play.
The biggest changes have been in uniforms and equipment. Clothing has become attenuated, and heavy boots have given way to shoes. Many players have discarded shin guards. Conformity of dress is not essential, provided that the sides can be identified and the goalkeeper is distinguishable.
While solo runs and dribbles are spectacular, association football is essentially a team game, based on accurate passing of the ball among members of the same side. Passing produces the fluid movements and varied patterns that contribute to the game's attractiveness.
A distinctive feature is the development of heading, and many thrilling goals are scored by a forward jumping to hit the ball with his forehead. Too much can be made of numbers and systems.
Basically, the aim is to put a man with time and room to spare in a shooting position near the opponent's goal, and it does not matter whether the man is nominally a forward or a defender. Attitude is an important factor to go along with technical excellence in achieving the aim.
The 2010 FIFA World cup is scheduled to start in South Africa from 11th June and the final match will be played at Nelson Mandela stadium on 11th July 2010.
32 teams of 32 countries are divided into groups as under:
Group. A.
South Africa.
Mexico.
Uruguay.
France.
Group.B.
Argentina.
Nigeria.
Korea. ®.
Greece.
Group.C.
UK.
USA.
Algeria.
Slovenia.
Group.D.
Germany.
Australia.
Serbia.
Ghana.
Group.E.
Netherland.
Denmark.
Japan.
Cameron.
Group.F.
Brazil.
Korea. (DPR)
Ivory Coast.
Portugal.
Group.H.
Spain.
Switzerland.
Honduras.
Chile.
The football cup matches excite the viewers and there are all chances of violence
and disruptions at the hands of fans and admirers. This is the first time in the history
of World Cup that it is organised in Africa. It will be a trial and test for the host country
to maintain law and order.
‘You will feel nearer to Heaven by playing a game of football than reading the Geeta.”
The object of the game is to propel the ball into the goal, using any part of the body except the hands and arms; the side scoring more goals wins.
The ball is a round, leather-covered, inflated rubber bladder 27-28 inches in circumference and 14-16 ounces or 397-454 grams in weight. The players move the ball by hitting it with head or foot from one teammate to another or by dribbling--a series of very short kicks, usually with the instep or side of the foot.
Only the goalkeeper of the 11 players is allowed to handle the ball, and he is restricted to the penalty area, a rectangular area in front of the goal, 44 yards wide and extending 18 yards into the field. The goal is eight yards wide and eight feet high. The game is of 90 minutes' duration and is divided into halves. The teams change ends after a five-minute half-time interval.
FIFA rules prescribe a playing field pitch 100 to 130 yards long and between 50 and 100 yards wide; however, for international matches, it must be 110-120 yards long and 70-80 yards wide.
Soccer field and the positions of players at the kickoff.
Women and schoolchildren usually play a shorter game on a smaller field. The game is controlled by a referee, who is also the timekeeper, and two linesmen who patrol the touchlines, or sidelines, signalling when the ball goes out of play.
The biggest changes have been in uniforms and equipment. Clothing has become attenuated, and heavy boots have given way to shoes. Many players have discarded shin guards. Conformity of dress is not essential, provided that the sides can be identified and the goalkeeper is distinguishable.
While solo runs and dribbles are spectacular, association football is essentially a team game, based on accurate passing of the ball among members of the same side. Passing produces the fluid movements and varied patterns that contribute to the game's attractiveness.
A distinctive feature is the development of heading, and many thrilling goals are scored by a forward jumping to hit the ball with his forehead. Too much can be made of numbers and systems.
Basically, the aim is to put a man with time and room to spare in a shooting position near the opponent's goal, and it does not matter whether the man is nominally a forward or a defender. Attitude is an important factor to go along with technical excellence in achieving the aim.
The 2010 FIFA World cup is scheduled to start in South Africa from 11th June and the final match will be played at Nelson Mandela stadium on 11th July 2010.
32 teams of 32 countries are divided into groups as under:
Group. A.
South Africa.
Mexico.
Uruguay.
France.
Group.B.
Argentina.
Nigeria.
Korea. ®.
Greece.
Group.C.
UK.
USA.
Algeria.
Slovenia.
Group.D.
Germany.
Australia.
Serbia.
Ghana.
Group.E.
Netherland.
Denmark.
Japan.
Cameron.
Group.F.
Brazil.
Korea. (DPR)
Ivory Coast.
Portugal.
Group.H.
Spain.
Switzerland.
Honduras.
Chile.
The football cup matches excite the viewers and there are all chances of violence
and disruptions at the hands of fans and admirers. This is the first time in the history
of World Cup that it is organised in Africa. It will be a trial and test for the host country
to maintain law and order.
Tobacco.
Tobacco.
Tobacco is a filthy weed,
That from devil does proceed,
It drains purse, it burns clothes,
And makes a chimney of the nose.
Tobacco is a dirty weed, yet we want it,
It satisfies no normal need, yet we like it,
It makes you thin, it makes you lean,
It takes the hair right out your bean.
Tobacco is divine, rare, excellent,
Tobacco goes far beyond all panaceas,
It is portable gold and philosopher’s stone,
It is a sovereign remedy to all disease,
It is commonly abused by most men,
They take it as Tinkers do ale,
That tobacco is plague, a mischief,
A purger of goods, lands, health
Hellish, devilish, and damned the tobacco,
The ruin and overthrow of body and soul.
Sublime tobacco, east to west,
Cheers the labour and Turkmen rest,
This very night I am going to leave off tobacco,
Surely there must be some other world in which
This unconquerable purpose shall be realised.
Oh! Metaphysical tobacco,
Fetched as far as from Morocco,
Thy searching fume,
Exhales the rheum,
Oh! Metaphysical tobacco.
Tobacco, the road to ruin, know it now.
I was born in a trunk,
Mama died and daddy got drunk,
Left me there to die alone
In the middle of our tobacco field.
People smoke cigar, cigarette, pipe, bidi and the hookah.
People inhale through nose snuff plain and the perfumed,
People chew plain and perfumed powdered tobacco.
It is said that Raj Kapoor had his finger tips and nails, which were
permanently, stained, brown black on account of chain smoking.
Tobacco has been in use as a recreational item through-out the world.
It contains nicotine. The word nicotine was adopted in honour of
Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to Portugal who in 1560
sent as a gift a pouch of tobacco to the court of Queen Katherine.
Because of its addictive properties of nicotine, tolerance and dependence
get developed.
It is believed in some countries that Tobacco is a gift from Heaven,
And exhaled tobacco smoke carries one’s thoughts and prayers to Heaven.
Tobacco plants are grown in field on lines of other normal plants. First
the tobacco seeds are scattered on some garden soil where they are allowed
to grow up. Then they are transplanted to big tobacco growing fields
at an even distance. It is an annual crop. It is harvested mechanically
or manually. After harvest tobacco leaves are stored for curing which
allows for slow oxidation.
There are different methods of curing
which are known Flu-cured, Sun-cured, Air-cured and Dry-cured.
Apart from tobacco leaves, entire tobacco plant is allowed to sun-dry
and shredded and crushed into particles for use in fields as pesticides.
Tobacco leaves when dried are shredded and crushed into tiny particles for
use in cigarettes, pipes, cigars and used in chewing or made snuff powder etc.
Usage of tobacco in cigar, pipe, cigarettes, and hookah came to be associated
with masculinity power and iconic image coupled with Upper class.
It got vide popularity through films.
The risks associated with smoking includes diseases affecting the lungs
heart and can invite cancer. It is reported that 2 billion people in the world
out of a population of 6 billion are addicted to taking it in different forms.
German scientists identified link between smoking tobacco and cancer.
The poor and the unhappy smoke cheaper varieties while the upper
Class enjoys Havana Cigars or costly blended pipe tobacco or cigarettes.
Smoking is the most common method of consuming tobacco. It is
often mixed with other addictives so that the vapour when inhaled triggers
reaction in nerves to heighten heart-rate, memory and alertness.
Nicotine does it. When you smoke, nicotine goes into the blood-stream
and reaches the brain in ten seconds. It also produces tar sticky black
lump made of hundreds of chemicals and it can cause cancer.
Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas which is formed when you smoke
or light a cigarette. Studies show that each cigarette you smoke, you
shorten your life by ten minutes.
Bhutan is the only country in the world to ban use of tobacco in Bhutan.
China is the world’s largest tobacco market. China has thirty million
household growers of tobacco plants in three million hectares of land.
Brazil India, Australia besides China is major tobacco growing
Countries.
Cuba grows special Havana brand tobacco in the hilly areas of Cuba.
It is used in making world famous Havana Cigar. A cigar is a tightly
rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco which is ignited so
that its smoke is drawn in the smoker’s mouth. Cigars are not
to be inhaled and puffed like cigarettes. Its high alkalinity in the
smoke can be irritating to the lungs.
Hookah is a single or multi steamed water-pipe which filters smoke
which passes through water before reaching the smoker for inhalation.
Originally from India, Hookah was so popular that its use was
popular in all Muslim-populated countries.
Tobacco is a filthy weed,
That from devil does proceed,
It drains purse, it burns clothes,
And makes a chimney of the nose.
Tobacco is a dirty weed, yet we want it,
It satisfies no normal need, yet we like it,
It makes you thin, it makes you lean,
It takes the hair right out your bean.
Tobacco is divine, rare, excellent,
Tobacco goes far beyond all panaceas,
It is portable gold and philosopher’s stone,
It is a sovereign remedy to all disease,
It is commonly abused by most men,
They take it as Tinkers do ale,
That tobacco is plague, a mischief,
A purger of goods, lands, health
Hellish, devilish, and damned the tobacco,
The ruin and overthrow of body and soul.
Sublime tobacco, east to west,
Cheers the labour and Turkmen rest,
This very night I am going to leave off tobacco,
Surely there must be some other world in which
This unconquerable purpose shall be realised.
Oh! Metaphysical tobacco,
Fetched as far as from Morocco,
Thy searching fume,
Exhales the rheum,
Oh! Metaphysical tobacco.
Tobacco, the road to ruin, know it now.
I was born in a trunk,
Mama died and daddy got drunk,
Left me there to die alone
In the middle of our tobacco field.
People smoke cigar, cigarette, pipe, bidi and the hookah.
People inhale through nose snuff plain and the perfumed,
People chew plain and perfumed powdered tobacco.
It is said that Raj Kapoor had his finger tips and nails, which were
permanently, stained, brown black on account of chain smoking.
Tobacco has been in use as a recreational item through-out the world.
It contains nicotine. The word nicotine was adopted in honour of
Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to Portugal who in 1560
sent as a gift a pouch of tobacco to the court of Queen Katherine.
Because of its addictive properties of nicotine, tolerance and dependence
get developed.
It is believed in some countries that Tobacco is a gift from Heaven,
And exhaled tobacco smoke carries one’s thoughts and prayers to Heaven.
Tobacco plants are grown in field on lines of other normal plants. First
the tobacco seeds are scattered on some garden soil where they are allowed
to grow up. Then they are transplanted to big tobacco growing fields
at an even distance. It is an annual crop. It is harvested mechanically
or manually. After harvest tobacco leaves are stored for curing which
allows for slow oxidation.
There are different methods of curing
which are known Flu-cured, Sun-cured, Air-cured and Dry-cured.
Apart from tobacco leaves, entire tobacco plant is allowed to sun-dry
and shredded and crushed into particles for use in fields as pesticides.
Tobacco leaves when dried are shredded and crushed into tiny particles for
use in cigarettes, pipes, cigars and used in chewing or made snuff powder etc.
Usage of tobacco in cigar, pipe, cigarettes, and hookah came to be associated
with masculinity power and iconic image coupled with Upper class.
It got vide popularity through films.
The risks associated with smoking includes diseases affecting the lungs
heart and can invite cancer. It is reported that 2 billion people in the world
out of a population of 6 billion are addicted to taking it in different forms.
German scientists identified link between smoking tobacco and cancer.
The poor and the unhappy smoke cheaper varieties while the upper
Class enjoys Havana Cigars or costly blended pipe tobacco or cigarettes.
Smoking is the most common method of consuming tobacco. It is
often mixed with other addictives so that the vapour when inhaled triggers
reaction in nerves to heighten heart-rate, memory and alertness.
Nicotine does it. When you smoke, nicotine goes into the blood-stream
and reaches the brain in ten seconds. It also produces tar sticky black
lump made of hundreds of chemicals and it can cause cancer.
Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas which is formed when you smoke
or light a cigarette. Studies show that each cigarette you smoke, you
shorten your life by ten minutes.
Bhutan is the only country in the world to ban use of tobacco in Bhutan.
China is the world’s largest tobacco market. China has thirty million
household growers of tobacco plants in three million hectares of land.
Brazil India, Australia besides China is major tobacco growing
Countries.
Cuba grows special Havana brand tobacco in the hilly areas of Cuba.
It is used in making world famous Havana Cigar. A cigar is a tightly
rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco which is ignited so
that its smoke is drawn in the smoker’s mouth. Cigars are not
to be inhaled and puffed like cigarettes. Its high alkalinity in the
smoke can be irritating to the lungs.
Hookah is a single or multi steamed water-pipe which filters smoke
which passes through water before reaching the smoker for inhalation.
Originally from India, Hookah was so popular that its use was
popular in all Muslim-populated countries.
Karate.
Karate.
In Japan, Karate is taught in schools to the children as a subject of self-protection against
any outside force. Karate generally means,”do it with hand” or “do it with empty hand”.
Karate is an un-armed, combat science which authorises use of kicks, strikes and defensive blocking with one’s arms and legs. Mental alertness is the key to success to karate system.
The emphasis is on practised concentration and alertness and attention of all the faculties of the body as far as possible at the point of strike and opponent’s counter-strike. You have to foresee the opponent’s speed and force and measure the safest course to avert his blows. Sense of judgment is the key to success in Karate lessons.
The striking surfaces include the hands, knuckles and outer edge, the ball of the foot, heel
forearm, knee and the elbow. All these parts get toughened by practice blows.
Padded surface, or wood pine boards up to several inches of thickness, can be broken by
bare hand, or the foot of a practised karate-man.
Timing, tactics and high spirit and confidence does it. Each of these mental faculties
have to be trained and toughened like the body parts and mental alertness is considered as important as physical toughening.
In sporting karate and sparring (kumite) in training, blows and kicks are stopped short, preferably within an inch of contact. Sporting matches commonly last only three minutes, to a decision, if neither contestant has scored a clean "killing" point in the estimation of the judges. Contests of form (kata) are also held, in which single competitors perform predetermined series of movements stimulating defence and counterattack against several opponents. Performances are scored by a panel of judges, as in gymnastics.
Karate evolved in the Orient over a period of centuries, becoming systematized in Okinawa in the 17th century, probably by people forbidden to carry weapons. It was imported into Japan in the 1920s. Several schools and systems developed each favouring somewhat different techniques and training methods. Karate, like other Oriental fighting disciplines, stresses mental attitude, rituals of courtesy, costumes, and a complex ranking system by “colour of belt”. There is some overlapping of technique with other fighting styles.
We have references of Bodhidharma. He is known as "Daruma" in Japan, this Indian Buddhist monk is cited as the prime source for all martial arts styles or at the vary least, for any style which traces its roots back to the fabled Shaolin Temple. Bodhidharma was the son of a south India King. He lived in the 5th century. He travelled to China from Canton and reached Nanking.
From there he went to Shaolin monastery where he taught for nine years.
As legend has it, the evolution of karate began over a thousand years ago, possibly as early as the fifth century BC when Bodhidharma arrived in Shaolin-si (small forest temple), China from India and taught Zen Buddhism. He also introduced a systematized set of exercises designed to strengthen the mind and body, exercises which allegedly marked the beginning of the Shaolin style of temple boxing. Bodhidharma's teachings later became the basis for the majority of Chinese martial arts. In truth, the origins of karate appear to be somewhat obscure and little is known about the early development of karate until it appeared in Okinawa.
In its earliest stages, the martial art known as "karate" was an indigenous form of closed fist fighting which was developed in Okinawa and called Te, or 'hand'. Weapons bans, imposed on the Okinawa’s at various points in their history, encouraged the refinement of empty-hand techniques and, for this reason, was trained in secret until modern times. Further refinement came with the influence of other martial arts brought by nobles and trade merchants to the island.
Te continued to develop over the years, primarily in three Okinawa cities: Shuri, Naha and Tomari. Each of these towns was a centre to a different sect of society: kings and nobles, merchants and business people, and farmers and fishermen, respectively. For this reason, different forms of self-defence developed within each city and subsequently became known as Shuri-te, Naha-te and Tomari-te. Collectively they were called Okinawa-Te or Tode, 'Chinese hand'.
Gradually, karate was divided into two main groups: Shorin-ryu which developed around Shuri and Tomari and Shorei-ryu which came from the Naha area. "It is important to note, however, that the towns of Shuri, Tomari, Naha are only a few miles apart, and that the differences between their arts were essentially ones of emphasis, not of kind. Beneath these surface differences, both the methods and aims of all Okinawa karate are one in the same".
These two styles were developed based on different physical requirements, Shorin-ryu was quick and linear with natural breathing while Shorei-ryu emphasized steady, rooted movements with breathing in synchrony with each movement. Interestingly, this concept of two basic styles also exists in kung-fu with a similar division of characteristics.
Wado-ryu, 'way of harmony', founded in 1939 is a system of karate developed from jujitsu and karate. This style of karate combines basic movements of jujitsu with techniques of evasion, putting a strong emphasis on softness and the way of harmony or spiritual discipline.
In Japan, Karate is taught in schools to the children as a subject of self-protection against
any outside force. Karate generally means,”do it with hand” or “do it with empty hand”.
Karate is an un-armed, combat science which authorises use of kicks, strikes and defensive blocking with one’s arms and legs. Mental alertness is the key to success to karate system.
The emphasis is on practised concentration and alertness and attention of all the faculties of the body as far as possible at the point of strike and opponent’s counter-strike. You have to foresee the opponent’s speed and force and measure the safest course to avert his blows. Sense of judgment is the key to success in Karate lessons.
The striking surfaces include the hands, knuckles and outer edge, the ball of the foot, heel
forearm, knee and the elbow. All these parts get toughened by practice blows.
Padded surface, or wood pine boards up to several inches of thickness, can be broken by
bare hand, or the foot of a practised karate-man.
Timing, tactics and high spirit and confidence does it. Each of these mental faculties
have to be trained and toughened like the body parts and mental alertness is considered as important as physical toughening.
In sporting karate and sparring (kumite) in training, blows and kicks are stopped short, preferably within an inch of contact. Sporting matches commonly last only three minutes, to a decision, if neither contestant has scored a clean "killing" point in the estimation of the judges. Contests of form (kata) are also held, in which single competitors perform predetermined series of movements stimulating defence and counterattack against several opponents. Performances are scored by a panel of judges, as in gymnastics.
Karate evolved in the Orient over a period of centuries, becoming systematized in Okinawa in the 17th century, probably by people forbidden to carry weapons. It was imported into Japan in the 1920s. Several schools and systems developed each favouring somewhat different techniques and training methods. Karate, like other Oriental fighting disciplines, stresses mental attitude, rituals of courtesy, costumes, and a complex ranking system by “colour of belt”. There is some overlapping of technique with other fighting styles.
We have references of Bodhidharma. He is known as "Daruma" in Japan, this Indian Buddhist monk is cited as the prime source for all martial arts styles or at the vary least, for any style which traces its roots back to the fabled Shaolin Temple. Bodhidharma was the son of a south India King. He lived in the 5th century. He travelled to China from Canton and reached Nanking.
From there he went to Shaolin monastery where he taught for nine years.
As legend has it, the evolution of karate began over a thousand years ago, possibly as early as the fifth century BC when Bodhidharma arrived in Shaolin-si (small forest temple), China from India and taught Zen Buddhism. He also introduced a systematized set of exercises designed to strengthen the mind and body, exercises which allegedly marked the beginning of the Shaolin style of temple boxing. Bodhidharma's teachings later became the basis for the majority of Chinese martial arts. In truth, the origins of karate appear to be somewhat obscure and little is known about the early development of karate until it appeared in Okinawa.
In its earliest stages, the martial art known as "karate" was an indigenous form of closed fist fighting which was developed in Okinawa and called Te, or 'hand'. Weapons bans, imposed on the Okinawa’s at various points in their history, encouraged the refinement of empty-hand techniques and, for this reason, was trained in secret until modern times. Further refinement came with the influence of other martial arts brought by nobles and trade merchants to the island.
Te continued to develop over the years, primarily in three Okinawa cities: Shuri, Naha and Tomari. Each of these towns was a centre to a different sect of society: kings and nobles, merchants and business people, and farmers and fishermen, respectively. For this reason, different forms of self-defence developed within each city and subsequently became known as Shuri-te, Naha-te and Tomari-te. Collectively they were called Okinawa-Te or Tode, 'Chinese hand'.
Gradually, karate was divided into two main groups: Shorin-ryu which developed around Shuri and Tomari and Shorei-ryu which came from the Naha area. "It is important to note, however, that the towns of Shuri, Tomari, Naha are only a few miles apart, and that the differences between their arts were essentially ones of emphasis, not of kind. Beneath these surface differences, both the methods and aims of all Okinawa karate are one in the same".
These two styles were developed based on different physical requirements, Shorin-ryu was quick and linear with natural breathing while Shorei-ryu emphasized steady, rooted movements with breathing in synchrony with each movement. Interestingly, this concept of two basic styles also exists in kung-fu with a similar division of characteristics.
Wado-ryu, 'way of harmony', founded in 1939 is a system of karate developed from jujitsu and karate. This style of karate combines basic movements of jujitsu with techniques of evasion, putting a strong emphasis on softness and the way of harmony or spiritual discipline.
Sikhism.
Sau Sakhi.
The Hundred Stories.
Although the Gurus themselves disclaimed miraculous powers, a vast body of sakhis ("stories") recounting such miracles grew up, and with them gurdwaras (temples) commemorating the sites where they were performed.
It also became an article of belief that the spirit of one Guru passed to his successor "as one lamp lights another." This notion gained confirmation through the fact that the Gurus used the same poetic pseudonym, "Nanak," in their compositions.
A composition about which little is known, but which has played an important role in Sikh affairs, is a collection of prophecies, Sau Sakhi ("Hundred Stories"), ascribed to Gobind Singh. Various versions are known to have been published prophesying changes of regimes and the advent of a redeemer who will spread Sikhism over the globe.
Sau Sakhi translates (Sau) hundred stories about the Guru (Sakhi). This book contains stories that are penned by or are about Guru Gobind Singh Jee. It contains many stories about incidents in Guru Sahib Jee’s life always with a moral.
There are also stories that predict future events especially about the end of the present age of Kalyuga (Darkness). It depicts a nightmare world of society that has broken down into chaos where dharam (religion) is outlawed and the mere mention of anything religious is punishable. In this state of total darkness when all hope is lost will emerge an avatar (incarnation), called Kalki.
Once, there a great sangat (congregation) came to to get darshan of Guru Gobind Singh Jee. Guru Jee appeared, dressed immaculately, looking radiant and handsome, as if the God of mammon himself was sitting there.
Guru Jee said, "Do not let anyone go."
It saddened the 'Sangat', when three days passed, the 'Sangat' became homesick. There were some Sikhs belonging to the 'Malwa' region. They had a lot of work to do at their homes.
Not one of them dared to ask Guru Jee to let them go. So, they planned to flee from the Guru's place.
They got a bamboo-stair and made a bier from it. They put a man, who was alive, on it and pretended as if it was a dead body. The devotional singing was going on in the holy court of Guru Jee. These Sikhs pretended as if they were going to burn the dead body and started to go singing the holy hymns. They were singing the holy line, "Sevak Kee Orhak Nibhahee Preet".
When they reached near Guru Jee, he asked, "Why is there such a noise? Why are these people crying?"
One of the courtiers went to those Sikhs and asked what was the problem. He came back to Guru Jee and said, "O true King! A Sikh has died".
Guru Jee ordered, "Bring him here".
That false bier was brought near Guru Jee. The false tears were running out of the eyes of those Sikhs. After a while the all knowing Guru said to the supplicant ('Ardaaseeya'), "The discipleship ('Sikkhee') is far away. Mostly, there is just the 'guise' (Bhekh). Has anyone the faith in Guru's house?"
The supplicant appealed, "O true King! The people are liberated by your holy view. They sing the holy hymns of the Guru. All the Sikhs will be liberated".
Guru Jee said, "If you want to see, put the bier on the fire secretly".
The supplicant went near the bier and put a log, which was ablaze, under it. The man, who was lying on the bier, felt the heat. He got up and made a ran for it tearing the shroud as he ran.
The other Sikhs were stunned to see how some people were trying to deceive Guru Jee. The Sikhs, who organised all this drama felt ashamed.
Guru Jee said, "Brothers! This Sikh will go to the heaven, because you were singing the holy hymns. Listen, had you succeeded to deceive, you would have gone to your homes and would say that Guru Jee makes no difference to the people as we tricked him. Your faith in the Guru would be lost".
Guru Jee gave them the permission to go.
The Hundred Stories.
Although the Gurus themselves disclaimed miraculous powers, a vast body of sakhis ("stories") recounting such miracles grew up, and with them gurdwaras (temples) commemorating the sites where they were performed.
It also became an article of belief that the spirit of one Guru passed to his successor "as one lamp lights another." This notion gained confirmation through the fact that the Gurus used the same poetic pseudonym, "Nanak," in their compositions.
A composition about which little is known, but which has played an important role in Sikh affairs, is a collection of prophecies, Sau Sakhi ("Hundred Stories"), ascribed to Gobind Singh. Various versions are known to have been published prophesying changes of regimes and the advent of a redeemer who will spread Sikhism over the globe.
Sau Sakhi translates (Sau) hundred stories about the Guru (Sakhi). This book contains stories that are penned by or are about Guru Gobind Singh Jee. It contains many stories about incidents in Guru Sahib Jee’s life always with a moral.
There are also stories that predict future events especially about the end of the present age of Kalyuga (Darkness). It depicts a nightmare world of society that has broken down into chaos where dharam (religion) is outlawed and the mere mention of anything religious is punishable. In this state of total darkness when all hope is lost will emerge an avatar (incarnation), called Kalki.
Once, there a great sangat (congregation) came to to get darshan of Guru Gobind Singh Jee. Guru Jee appeared, dressed immaculately, looking radiant and handsome, as if the God of mammon himself was sitting there.
Guru Jee said, "Do not let anyone go."
It saddened the 'Sangat', when three days passed, the 'Sangat' became homesick. There were some Sikhs belonging to the 'Malwa' region. They had a lot of work to do at their homes.
Not one of them dared to ask Guru Jee to let them go. So, they planned to flee from the Guru's place.
They got a bamboo-stair and made a bier from it. They put a man, who was alive, on it and pretended as if it was a dead body. The devotional singing was going on in the holy court of Guru Jee. These Sikhs pretended as if they were going to burn the dead body and started to go singing the holy hymns. They were singing the holy line, "Sevak Kee Orhak Nibhahee Preet".
When they reached near Guru Jee, he asked, "Why is there such a noise? Why are these people crying?"
One of the courtiers went to those Sikhs and asked what was the problem. He came back to Guru Jee and said, "O true King! A Sikh has died".
Guru Jee ordered, "Bring him here".
That false bier was brought near Guru Jee. The false tears were running out of the eyes of those Sikhs. After a while the all knowing Guru said to the supplicant ('Ardaaseeya'), "The discipleship ('Sikkhee') is far away. Mostly, there is just the 'guise' (Bhekh). Has anyone the faith in Guru's house?"
The supplicant appealed, "O true King! The people are liberated by your holy view. They sing the holy hymns of the Guru. All the Sikhs will be liberated".
Guru Jee said, "If you want to see, put the bier on the fire secretly".
The supplicant went near the bier and put a log, which was ablaze, under it. The man, who was lying on the bier, felt the heat. He got up and made a ran for it tearing the shroud as he ran.
The other Sikhs were stunned to see how some people were trying to deceive Guru Jee. The Sikhs, who organised all this drama felt ashamed.
Guru Jee said, "Brothers! This Sikh will go to the heaven, because you were singing the holy hymns. Listen, had you succeeded to deceive, you would have gone to your homes and would say that Guru Jee makes no difference to the people as we tricked him. Your faith in the Guru would be lost".
Guru Jee gave them the permission to go.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Manipur-the Jewel State of India.
Manipur.
Manipur. The Jewelled State of India.
Capital.Imphal.
Population. 3 million.
Area. 8628 square miles.
Languages. Manipuri
Revenue Districts.9.
Manipur is an important geographically and strategically situated state of
The Union of India with Imphal as capital and an important city of attraction.
It is bound by Nagaland on the north, Mizoram on the south, Assam on the west
And Burma on the east.
Guru Nanak visited Manipur in 1510, with him his band of followers who
were allowed to stay behind and settle in Manipur and propagate the principles
of Holy Grinth. There are about ten percent of Muslims inhabiting in the state
who are descendants of Bengal migrants known as the Pan gals.
The English while serving in India prior to independence called Manipur
“The Switzerland of India.” Manipur means the land of the Jewels.
Manipur is a land of velvet like lawns wrapped in peaceful silence.
Its alluring atmosphere of grace and majesty instantly attracts the tourists.
Manipur can boast of an exotic landscape with gently undulating Hills.
The emerald green valleys, blue lakes and dense forests are its assets.
The view is interrupted by a soft breeze that sets it apart from all others
North-Eastern states and makes it the ideal getaway.
Manipur is one of the most important states of the North East of India.
It is the jewel of the seven sisters of the East. Its city of Imphal lies in
an oval shaped valley of 700 miles surrounded by Blue Mountains at an
elevation of 800 meters above the sea level. The slope of the valley is
from north to the south. The presence of the mountain ranges prevents
cold winds from the north and acts as a barrier to cyclonic storms
originating from the Bay of Bengal.
There are four major river basins, Barak valley, Manipur basin, Yu river basin,
Lenya river basin in the north. The Barak River is the largest river of the state
originating from Manipur Hills and in the end enters the state of Assam.
The different dialects here are Manipuri, Burmese and Tibetan. The life-style
and characteristics of the people of Manipur vary from tribe to tribe
according to geographical conditions. The Meitees inhabit on the plains
live a much more easy and sophisticated life than Kukies and Nagas of the Hills.
Early Manipuri were Hindus and believed in the hierarchy of the Gods.
The advent of Christianity resulted in conversion of the Nagas and Kukis
in the Hills while majority of the Maitees living in the plains are more or
less Hindus.
Theatre and society are intimately linked in this state. Manipuri are
culturally very advanced and very enthusiastic kind of people. It is this type
of cultural spirit that has kept their lives alive and meaningful in the remoteness
from the outside world.
Theatre has remained a part of the Laiahraoaba festivals. Theatre in Manipur
is based on adaptation of religious epics. Manipuri dance is an important
school of dancing known throughout India. Themes based on the life of
Chaitanya Maha Prabhu, Asoka, Ramayana, Mahabharata are very popular.
The Chorus Theatre situated on the outskirts of Imphal is a vast campus
with housing and quarters for teachers and students involved in teaching the
Manipuri dance. A classical form of Manipuri dance centers round the theme
of episodes from the life of Lord Krishna and Gopis and love sequence of
Radha-Krishna love of devotion which forms a graceful slow movement
with elegant costumes embroidered in fast colours to enhance the beauty, and
to capture the hearts of millions of viewers through out the country and abroad.
Manipuri dance ballets have gained universal acclaim for its plays like the
“Chakravyuha”from MahaBharata, “Uttarpriyadashi” –a eighty minutes
exposition of King Asoka’s redemption.
Mukna, the Manipuri sport of wrestling is also popular through out the state.
Mukna-Kangjei combines wrestling and fighting with wood sticks is the art of
Wrestling and fighting active sport, in Hilly areas very popular through out the state.
Cheiraoba, Kut, Ramjan-Id, Yoshang, Ningoi, Chakoube, Kang, Heikru Hidoumbe
Festivals are being celebrated during the year with big pomp and grandeur.
Manipur has suffered from the point of view of standard of living and infrastructure
facilities on account of party politics, apathy and negligence on the part of the
Administration to understand the problems of the people of Manipur.
Manipur. The Jewelled State of India.
Capital.Imphal.
Population. 3 million.
Area. 8628 square miles.
Languages. Manipuri
Revenue Districts.9.
Manipur is an important geographically and strategically situated state of
The Union of India with Imphal as capital and an important city of attraction.
It is bound by Nagaland on the north, Mizoram on the south, Assam on the west
And Burma on the east.
Guru Nanak visited Manipur in 1510, with him his band of followers who
were allowed to stay behind and settle in Manipur and propagate the principles
of Holy Grinth. There are about ten percent of Muslims inhabiting in the state
who are descendants of Bengal migrants known as the Pan gals.
The English while serving in India prior to independence called Manipur
“The Switzerland of India.” Manipur means the land of the Jewels.
Manipur is a land of velvet like lawns wrapped in peaceful silence.
Its alluring atmosphere of grace and majesty instantly attracts the tourists.
Manipur can boast of an exotic landscape with gently undulating Hills.
The emerald green valleys, blue lakes and dense forests are its assets.
The view is interrupted by a soft breeze that sets it apart from all others
North-Eastern states and makes it the ideal getaway.
Manipur is one of the most important states of the North East of India.
It is the jewel of the seven sisters of the East. Its city of Imphal lies in
an oval shaped valley of 700 miles surrounded by Blue Mountains at an
elevation of 800 meters above the sea level. The slope of the valley is
from north to the south. The presence of the mountain ranges prevents
cold winds from the north and acts as a barrier to cyclonic storms
originating from the Bay of Bengal.
There are four major river basins, Barak valley, Manipur basin, Yu river basin,
Lenya river basin in the north. The Barak River is the largest river of the state
originating from Manipur Hills and in the end enters the state of Assam.
The different dialects here are Manipuri, Burmese and Tibetan. The life-style
and characteristics of the people of Manipur vary from tribe to tribe
according to geographical conditions. The Meitees inhabit on the plains
live a much more easy and sophisticated life than Kukies and Nagas of the Hills.
Early Manipuri were Hindus and believed in the hierarchy of the Gods.
The advent of Christianity resulted in conversion of the Nagas and Kukis
in the Hills while majority of the Maitees living in the plains are more or
less Hindus.
Theatre and society are intimately linked in this state. Manipuri are
culturally very advanced and very enthusiastic kind of people. It is this type
of cultural spirit that has kept their lives alive and meaningful in the remoteness
from the outside world.
Theatre has remained a part of the Laiahraoaba festivals. Theatre in Manipur
is based on adaptation of religious epics. Manipuri dance is an important
school of dancing known throughout India. Themes based on the life of
Chaitanya Maha Prabhu, Asoka, Ramayana, Mahabharata are very popular.
The Chorus Theatre situated on the outskirts of Imphal is a vast campus
with housing and quarters for teachers and students involved in teaching the
Manipuri dance. A classical form of Manipuri dance centers round the theme
of episodes from the life of Lord Krishna and Gopis and love sequence of
Radha-Krishna love of devotion which forms a graceful slow movement
with elegant costumes embroidered in fast colours to enhance the beauty, and
to capture the hearts of millions of viewers through out the country and abroad.
Manipuri dance ballets have gained universal acclaim for its plays like the
“Chakravyuha”from MahaBharata, “Uttarpriyadashi” –a eighty minutes
exposition of King Asoka’s redemption.
Mukna, the Manipuri sport of wrestling is also popular through out the state.
Mukna-Kangjei combines wrestling and fighting with wood sticks is the art of
Wrestling and fighting active sport, in Hilly areas very popular through out the state.
Cheiraoba, Kut, Ramjan-Id, Yoshang, Ningoi, Chakoube, Kang, Heikru Hidoumbe
Festivals are being celebrated during the year with big pomp and grandeur.
Manipur has suffered from the point of view of standard of living and infrastructure
facilities on account of party politics, apathy and negligence on the part of the
Administration to understand the problems of the people of Manipur.
Tobacco.
Tobacco.
Tobacco is a filthy weed,
That from devil does proceed,
It drains purse, it burns clothes,
And makes a chimney of the nose.
Tobacco is a dirty weed, yet we want it,
It satisfies no normal need, yet we like it,
It makes you thin, it makes you lean,
It takes the hair right out your bean.
Tobacco is divine, rare, excellent,
Tobacco goes far beyond all panaceas,
It is portable gold and philosopher’s stone,
It is a sovereign remedy to all disease,
It is commonly abused by most men,
They take it as Tinkers do ale,
That tobacco is plague, a mischief,
A purger of goods, lands, health
Hellish, devilish, and damned the tobacco,
The ruin and overthrow of body and soul.
Sublime tobacco, east to west,
Cheers the labour and Turkmen rest,
This very night I am going to leave off tobacco,
Surely there must be some other world in which
This unconquerable purpose shall be realised.
Oh! Metaphysical tobacco,
Fetched as far as from Morocco,
Thy searching fume,
Exhales the rheum,
Oh! Metaphysical tobacco.
Tobacco, the road to ruin, know it now.
I was born in a trunk,
Mama died and daddy got drunk,
Left me there to die alone
In the middle of our tobacco field.
People smoke cigar, cigarette, pipe, bidi and the hookah.
People inhale through nose snuff plain and the perfumed,
People chew plain and perfumed powdered tobacco.
It is said that Raj Kapoor had his finger tips and nails
stained brown black on account of chain smoking.
Tobacco has been in use as a recreational item through-out the world.
It contains nicotine. The word nicotine was adopted in honour of
Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to Portugal who in 1560
sent as a gift a pouch of tobacco to the court of Queen Katherine.
Because of its addictive properties of nicotine, tolerance and dependence
get developed. It is reported that usage of tobacco by two billion people.
It is believed in some countries that Tobacco is a gift from Heaven,
And exhaled tobacco smoke carries one’s thoughts and prayers to Heaven.
Tobacco plants are grown in field on lines of other normal plants. First
the tobacco seeds are scattered on some garden soil where they are allowed
to grow up. Then they are transplanted to big tobacco growing fields
at an even distance. It is an annual crop. It is harvested mechanically
or manually. After harvest tobacco leaves are stored for curing which
allows for slow oxidation. There are different methods of curing
which are known Flu-cured, Sun-cured, Air-cured and Dry-cured.
Apart from tobacco leaves, entire tobacco plant is allowed to sun-dry
and shredded and crushed into particles for use in fields as pesticides.
Tobacco leaves when dried are shredded and crushed into tiny particles for
use in cigarettes, pipes, cigars and used in chewing or made snuff powder etc.
Usage of tobacco in cigar, pipe, cigarettes, and hookah came to be associated
with masculinity power and iconic image coupled with Upper class.
It got vide popularity through films.
The risks associated with smoking includes diseases affecting the lungs
heart and can invite cancer. It is reported that 2 billion people in the world
out of a population of 6 billion are addicted to taking it in different forms.
German scientists identified link between smoking tobacco and cancer.
The poor and the unhappy smoke cheaper varieties while the upper
Class enjoys Havana Cigars or costly blended pipe tobacco or cigarettes.
Smoking is the most common method of consuming tobacco. It is
often mixed with other addictives so that the vapour when inhaled triggers
reaction in nerves to heighten heart-rate, memory and alertness.
Nicotine does it. When you smoke, nicotine goes into the blood-stream
and reaches the brain in ten seconds. It also produces tar sticky black
lump made of hundreds of chemicals and it can cause cancer.
Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas which is formed when you smoke
or light a cigarette. Studies show that each cigarette you smoke, you
shorten your life by ten minutes.
Bhutan is the only country in the world to ban use of tobacco in Bhutan.
China is the world’s largest tobacco market. China has thirty million
household growers of tobacco plants in three million hectares of land.
Brazil India, Australia besides China is major tobacco growing
Countries.
Cuba grows special Havana brand tobacco in the hilly areas of Cuba.
It is used in making world famous Havana Cigar. A cigar is a tightly
rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco which is ignited so
that its smoke is drawn in the smoker’s mouth. Cigars are not
to be inhaled and puffed like cigarettes. Its high alkalinity in the
smoke can be irritating to the lungs.
Hookah is a single or multi steamed water-pipe which filters smoke
which passes through water before reaching the smoker for inhalation.
Originally from India, Hookah was so popular that its use was
popular in all Muslim-populated countries.
Tobacco is a filthy weed,
That from devil does proceed,
It drains purse, it burns clothes,
And makes a chimney of the nose.
Tobacco is a dirty weed, yet we want it,
It satisfies no normal need, yet we like it,
It makes you thin, it makes you lean,
It takes the hair right out your bean.
Tobacco is divine, rare, excellent,
Tobacco goes far beyond all panaceas,
It is portable gold and philosopher’s stone,
It is a sovereign remedy to all disease,
It is commonly abused by most men,
They take it as Tinkers do ale,
That tobacco is plague, a mischief,
A purger of goods, lands, health
Hellish, devilish, and damned the tobacco,
The ruin and overthrow of body and soul.
Sublime tobacco, east to west,
Cheers the labour and Turkmen rest,
This very night I am going to leave off tobacco,
Surely there must be some other world in which
This unconquerable purpose shall be realised.
Oh! Metaphysical tobacco,
Fetched as far as from Morocco,
Thy searching fume,
Exhales the rheum,
Oh! Metaphysical tobacco.
Tobacco, the road to ruin, know it now.
I was born in a trunk,
Mama died and daddy got drunk,
Left me there to die alone
In the middle of our tobacco field.
People smoke cigar, cigarette, pipe, bidi and the hookah.
People inhale through nose snuff plain and the perfumed,
People chew plain and perfumed powdered tobacco.
It is said that Raj Kapoor had his finger tips and nails
stained brown black on account of chain smoking.
Tobacco has been in use as a recreational item through-out the world.
It contains nicotine. The word nicotine was adopted in honour of
Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to Portugal who in 1560
sent as a gift a pouch of tobacco to the court of Queen Katherine.
Because of its addictive properties of nicotine, tolerance and dependence
get developed. It is reported that usage of tobacco by two billion people.
It is believed in some countries that Tobacco is a gift from Heaven,
And exhaled tobacco smoke carries one’s thoughts and prayers to Heaven.
Tobacco plants are grown in field on lines of other normal plants. First
the tobacco seeds are scattered on some garden soil where they are allowed
to grow up. Then they are transplanted to big tobacco growing fields
at an even distance. It is an annual crop. It is harvested mechanically
or manually. After harvest tobacco leaves are stored for curing which
allows for slow oxidation. There are different methods of curing
which are known Flu-cured, Sun-cured, Air-cured and Dry-cured.
Apart from tobacco leaves, entire tobacco plant is allowed to sun-dry
and shredded and crushed into particles for use in fields as pesticides.
Tobacco leaves when dried are shredded and crushed into tiny particles for
use in cigarettes, pipes, cigars and used in chewing or made snuff powder etc.
Usage of tobacco in cigar, pipe, cigarettes, and hookah came to be associated
with masculinity power and iconic image coupled with Upper class.
It got vide popularity through films.
The risks associated with smoking includes diseases affecting the lungs
heart and can invite cancer. It is reported that 2 billion people in the world
out of a population of 6 billion are addicted to taking it in different forms.
German scientists identified link between smoking tobacco and cancer.
The poor and the unhappy smoke cheaper varieties while the upper
Class enjoys Havana Cigars or costly blended pipe tobacco or cigarettes.
Smoking is the most common method of consuming tobacco. It is
often mixed with other addictives so that the vapour when inhaled triggers
reaction in nerves to heighten heart-rate, memory and alertness.
Nicotine does it. When you smoke, nicotine goes into the blood-stream
and reaches the brain in ten seconds. It also produces tar sticky black
lump made of hundreds of chemicals and it can cause cancer.
Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas which is formed when you smoke
or light a cigarette. Studies show that each cigarette you smoke, you
shorten your life by ten minutes.
Bhutan is the only country in the world to ban use of tobacco in Bhutan.
China is the world’s largest tobacco market. China has thirty million
household growers of tobacco plants in three million hectares of land.
Brazil India, Australia besides China is major tobacco growing
Countries.
Cuba grows special Havana brand tobacco in the hilly areas of Cuba.
It is used in making world famous Havana Cigar. A cigar is a tightly
rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco which is ignited so
that its smoke is drawn in the smoker’s mouth. Cigars are not
to be inhaled and puffed like cigarettes. Its high alkalinity in the
smoke can be irritating to the lungs.
Hookah is a single or multi steamed water-pipe which filters smoke
which passes through water before reaching the smoker for inhalation.
Originally from India, Hookah was so popular that its use was
popular in all Muslim-populated countries.
Monday, June 7, 2010
S.Radhakrishnan. The True Philosopher Son of India.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. (1888-1975)
A philosopher and a statesman, he was the first Vice President and the second President
of India after Dr.Rajinder Prasad.
His Birthday 5th September is being celebrated as Teacher’s Day.
He was awarded with Bharat Ratna, the highest Indian award in 1954.
He had his early education in Tamilnadu.
In 1918 he was appointed as a professor of Philosophy in Mysore University.
His first book was “Philosophy of Rabindra Nath Tagore.”
He believed Tagore’s philosophy to be the genuine manifestation of Indian Spirit.
He wrote books on Indian Philosophy according to western academic standards
and compelled the rigid western philosophers to give serious consideration
to the Indian Philosophy.
In his book “Idealistic view of life”, he made a
powerful case for the importance of intuitive thinking as opposed to purely
intellectual norms of Thought.
He is well-known for his commentaries on “Prasthana Trayi” namely the Bhagvata Gita, Upanishads and Brahma Sutras.
“It is not God that is worshipped, but the authority who claims to speak in His name.
Sin becomes dis-obedience to authority and not violation of Integrity.”
As a philosopher, and statesman, he was one of the most recognized and influential Indian thinkers in academic circles in the 20th century. He sought to define, defend, and promulgate our religion, a religion he variously identified as Vedanta, and the religion of the Spirit. He sought to demonstrate that Hinduism was both philosophically coherent and ethically viable.
His concern for experience and his extensive knowledge of the Western philosophical and literary traditions has earned him the reputation of being a bridge-builder between India and the West. He often appears to feel at home in the Indian as well as the Western philosophical contexts, and he has been held up in academic circles as a representative of Hinduism to the West. His lengthy writing career and his many published works have been influential in shaping the West’s understanding of Hinduism, India, and Indians.
“Hinduism, accepts all religious notions as facts and arranges them in the order of their more or less intrinsic significance”
“The worshippers of the Absolute are the highest in rank; second to them are the worshippers of the personal God; then come the worshippers of the incarnations like Rama, Krishna, Buddha; below them are those who worship ancestors, deities and sages, and the lowest of all are the worshippers of the petty forces and spirits”
He uses his distinctions between experience and interpretation, between religion and religions, to correlate his brand of Hinduism that is, Advaita, Vedanta with religion itself.
“Religion, a kind of life of experience.”
It is an insight into the nature of reality, or experience of reality. It is “a specific attitude of the self, itself and not other.” In a short, he characterizes religion in terms of “personal experience.” It is “an independent functioning of the human mind, something unique, possessing and autonomous in character. It is something inward and personal which unifies all values and organizes all experiences. It is the reaction to the whole of man to the whole of reality. It may be called spiritual life, as distinct from a merely intellectual or moral or aesthetic activity or a combination of them.”
For him, integral intuitions are the authority for, and the soul of, religion. Personal intuitive experience and inner realization are the defining features of Advaita, Vedanta, and those same features are the “authority” and “soul” of religion.
“The Vedanta is not a religion, but a creed itself in its most universal and deepest significance.”
Hinduism at its Vedantic best is religion. Other religions, are subordinate forms of Hinduism, are interpretations of Advaita Vedanta . Religion and religions are experience and interpretation. The various religions are merely interpretations of Vedanta.
In a sense, he “Hinduizes” all religions. “We have spiritual facts and their interpretations by which they are communicated to others, śhruti or what is heard, and smṛiti or what is remembered. Śaṅkara equates them with pratyakṣa or intuition and anumana or inference. It is the distinction between immediacy and thought. Intuitions abide, while interpretations change.”
The apologetic force of this brief statement is clear. The intuitive, experiential immediacy of Advaita Vedanta is the genuine authority for all religions, and all religions interpretations derive from and must ultimately refer to Advaita, Vedanta .
“While the experiential character of religion is emphasized in the Hindu faith, every religion at its best falls back on it.”
“While no tradition coincides with experience, every tradition is essentially unique and valuable. While all traditions are of value, none is finally binding.”
Moreover, the value of each religion is determined by its proximity to his understanding of Vedanta.
Hinduism, is a scientific religion. “If philosophy of religion is to become scientific, it must become empirical and found itself on religious experience.”
True religion, remains open to experience and encourages an experimental attitude with regard to its experiential data. Hinduism more than any other religion exemplifies this scientific attitude.
“The Hindu philosophy of religion starts from and returns to an experiential basis.”
“Unlike other religions, which set limits on the types of spiritual experience, the Hindu thinker readily admits of other points of view than its own, and considers them to be just as worthy of attention.”
What sets Hinduism apart from other religions is its unlimited appeal to and appreciation for all forms of experience. Experience and experimentation are the origin and end of Hinduism.
A scientific attitude has been the hallmark of Hinduism throughout its history.
“The truths of the rishis are not evolved as the result of logical reasoning or systematic philosophy but are the products of spiritual intuition, vision. They are not so much the authors of the truths recorded in the Vedas as the seers who were able to discern the eternal truths by raising their life-spirit to the plane of universal spirit. They are the pioneer researchers in the realm of the spirit who saw more in the world than their followers. Their utterances are not based on transitory vision but on a continuous experience of resident life and power. When the Vedas are regarded as the highest authority all that is meant is that the most exacting of all authorities is the authority of facts.”
If the ancient seers are, “pioneer researchers,” the Upanishads are the records of their experiments. “The chief sacred scriptures of the Hindus, the Vedas register the intuitions of the perfected souls. They are not so much dogmatic dicta as transcripts from life. They record the spiritual experiences of souls strongly endowed with the sense of reality. They are held to be authoritative on the ground that they express the experiences of the experts in the field of religion.”
His understanding of scripture as the scientific records of spiritual insights holds not only for Hinduism, but for all religious creeds. Correctly understood, the various scriptures found in the religions of the world are not an infallible revelation, but scientific hypotheses.
“The creeds of religion correspond to theories of science. “Intuitions of the human soul should be studied by the methods which are adopted with such great success of a positive science.” The records of religious experience, of integral intuitions, that are the world’s scriptures constitute the “facts” of the religious endeavour. So, “just as there can be no geometry without the perception of space, even so there cannot be philosophy of religion without the facts of religion.”
Religion is there for the testing. It ought not to be taken as authoritative in and of itself, for only integral intuitions validated by the light of reason are the final authority on religious matters.
“It is for philosophy of religion to find out whether the convictions of the religious seers fit in with the tested laws and principles of the universe.”
“When the prophets reveal in symbols the truths they have discovered, we try to rediscover them for ourselves slowly and patiently.”
The scientific temperament demanded by “Hinduism” lends itself to affirmation of the advaitic Absolute. The plurality of religious claims ought to be taken as “tentative and provisional, not because there is no absolute, but because there is one. The intellectual lot become barriers to further insights if they get hardened into articles of faith and forget that they are constructed theories of experience.”
The marginalization of intuition and the abandonment of the experimental attitude in matters of religion has lead Christianity to dogmatic status.
“It is an unfortunate legacy of the course which Christian theology has followed in Europe that faith has come to connote a mechanical adherence to authority. If we take faith in the proper sense of truth or spiritual conviction, religion is faith or intuition.”
The religious cul de sac in which Europe and Christian theology find themselves testifies to their reluctance to embrace the Hindu maxim that “theory, speculations, dogma change from time to time as the facts become better understood.”
For the value of religious “facts” can only be assessed “from their adequacy to experience.”
Just as the intellect has dominated Western philosophy to the detriment of intuition, so too has Christianity followed suit in its search for a theological touchstone in scripture.
His appeal to institutions underlies his vision for an ethical Hinduism, Hinduism free from ascetic excesses. The ethical potency of institution affirms the validity of the world. “Asceticism is an excess indulged in by those who exaggerate the transcendent aspect of reality.” Instead, the rational mystic “does not recognize any antithesis between the secular and the sacred. Nothing is to be rejected; everything is to be raised.”
His ethical mystic does not simply see the inherent value of the world and engage in its affairs. Rather, the ethical individual is guided by an intuitive initiative to move the world forward creatively, challenging convention and established patterns of social interaction. This ethically integrated mode of being presents a positive challenge to moral dogmatism. The positive challenge to moral convention is the creative promotion of social tolerance and accommodation. Hinduism rejects absolute claims to truth and the validity of external authority, so too Hinduism “developed an attitude of comprehensive charity instead of a fanatic faith in an inflexible creed.”
He affirms that the caste system, correctly understood, is an exemplary case of ethical tolerance and accommodation born out of an intuitive consciousness of reality.
“The institution of caste illustrates the spirit of comprehensive synthesis characteristic of the Hindu mind with its faith in the collaboration of races and the co-operation of cultures. Paradoxical as it may seem, the system of caste is the outcome of tolerance and trust.”
Based not on the mechanical fatalism of karma, as suggested by Hinduism’s critics, but on recognition of Hinduism’s spiritual values and ethical ideals, caste affirms the value of each individual to work out his or her own spiritual realization, a spiritual consciousness, in terms of integral experience. The ranking of religions as affirming the relative value of each religion in terms of its proximity to Vedanta, the institution of caste is a social recognition that each member of society has the opportunity to experiment with his or her own spiritual consciousness free from dogmatic restraints.
Here lies the ethical potency and creative genius of integral experience. Caste is the creative innovation of those “whose lives are characterized by an unshakable faith in the supremacy of the spirit, invincible optimism, ethical universalism, and religious toleration.”
There are numerous criticisms that may be raised against his philosophy.
What follows is not an exhaustive list, but three of the most common criticisms which may be levied are:
The first is a criticism regarding the locus of epistemic authority. Does the test for knowledge lie in scripture or in experience? His view is that knowledge comes from intuitive experience (anubhava). he makes this claim on the basis of scripture, namely the Upaniṣads. The Upaniṣads, according to him, support a monistic ontology.
He makes this claim on the basis that the Upaniṣads are the records of the personal experiences of the ancient sages. Thus, the validity of one’s experience is determined by its proximity to that which is recorded in the Upaniṣads. Conversely, the Upaniṣads are authoritative because they are the records of monistic experiences. There is circularity here. But this circularity is one with which he himself would likely not only acknowledge, but embrace. After all, he might argue, intuitive knowledge is non-rational. An intuitive experience of Reality is not contrary to reason but beyond the constraints of logical analysis.
A second criticism of his views surrounds his characterizations of the “East” and the “West.” He characterizes the West, as well as Christianity, as inclined to dogmatism, the scientific method whose domain is limited to exploration of the outer natural world, and a reliance upon second-hand knowledge. The East, by contrast, is dominated by openness to inner experience and spiritual experimentation. The West is rational and logical, while the East is predominantly religious and mystical. As pointed out by numerous scholars working in the areas of post-colonial studies and orientalism,
His constructions of “West” and “East” (these categories themselves being constructions) accept and perpetuate orientalist and colonialist forms of knowledge constructed during the 18th and 19th centuries. Arguably, these characterizations are “imagined” in the sense that they reflect the philosophical and religious realities of neither “East” nor “West.”
A separate but related criticism that might be levied against his views has to do with his theory of religious pluralism and his treatment of the religious traditions with which he deals.
First, he minimizes the contributions of the monistic philosophers and religious mystics of the West. While he acknowledges the work of such thinkers as Henri Bergen, Goethe, and a variety of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim mystics, he seems to imply that such approaches to religious and philosophical life in the West are exceptions rather than the rule. In fact, he goes to suggest that such figures are imbued with the spirit of the East, and specifically Hinduism as he understands it.
Second, while he readily acknowledges the religious diversity within “Hinduism,” his treatment of Western traditions is much less nuanced. In a sense, he homogenizes and generalizes Western traditions. In his hierarchy of religions, one or another form of Hinduism may be located within each of his religious categories monistic, theistic, incarnation, ancestral, and natural. By contrast, he seems to imply that the theistic and the incarnation categories are the domains of Unitarian and Trinitarian Christianity respectively.
A philosopher and a statesman, he was the first Vice President and the second President
of India after Dr.Rajinder Prasad.
His Birthday 5th September is being celebrated as Teacher’s Day.
He was awarded with Bharat Ratna, the highest Indian award in 1954.
He had his early education in Tamilnadu.
In 1918 he was appointed as a professor of Philosophy in Mysore University.
His first book was “Philosophy of Rabindra Nath Tagore.”
He believed Tagore’s philosophy to be the genuine manifestation of Indian Spirit.
He wrote books on Indian Philosophy according to western academic standards
and compelled the rigid western philosophers to give serious consideration
to the Indian Philosophy.
In his book “Idealistic view of life”, he made a
powerful case for the importance of intuitive thinking as opposed to purely
intellectual norms of Thought.
He is well-known for his commentaries on “Prasthana Trayi” namely the Bhagvata Gita, Upanishads and Brahma Sutras.
“It is not God that is worshipped, but the authority who claims to speak in His name.
Sin becomes dis-obedience to authority and not violation of Integrity.”
As a philosopher, and statesman, he was one of the most recognized and influential Indian thinkers in academic circles in the 20th century. He sought to define, defend, and promulgate our religion, a religion he variously identified as Vedanta, and the religion of the Spirit. He sought to demonstrate that Hinduism was both philosophically coherent and ethically viable.
His concern for experience and his extensive knowledge of the Western philosophical and literary traditions has earned him the reputation of being a bridge-builder between India and the West. He often appears to feel at home in the Indian as well as the Western philosophical contexts, and he has been held up in academic circles as a representative of Hinduism to the West. His lengthy writing career and his many published works have been influential in shaping the West’s understanding of Hinduism, India, and Indians.
“Hinduism, accepts all religious notions as facts and arranges them in the order of their more or less intrinsic significance”
“The worshippers of the Absolute are the highest in rank; second to them are the worshippers of the personal God; then come the worshippers of the incarnations like Rama, Krishna, Buddha; below them are those who worship ancestors, deities and sages, and the lowest of all are the worshippers of the petty forces and spirits”
He uses his distinctions between experience and interpretation, between religion and religions, to correlate his brand of Hinduism that is, Advaita, Vedanta with religion itself.
“Religion, a kind of life of experience.”
It is an insight into the nature of reality, or experience of reality. It is “a specific attitude of the self, itself and not other.” In a short, he characterizes religion in terms of “personal experience.” It is “an independent functioning of the human mind, something unique, possessing and autonomous in character. It is something inward and personal which unifies all values and organizes all experiences. It is the reaction to the whole of man to the whole of reality. It may be called spiritual life, as distinct from a merely intellectual or moral or aesthetic activity or a combination of them.”
For him, integral intuitions are the authority for, and the soul of, religion. Personal intuitive experience and inner realization are the defining features of Advaita, Vedanta, and those same features are the “authority” and “soul” of religion.
“The Vedanta is not a religion, but a creed itself in its most universal and deepest significance.”
Hinduism at its Vedantic best is religion. Other religions, are subordinate forms of Hinduism, are interpretations of Advaita Vedanta . Religion and religions are experience and interpretation. The various religions are merely interpretations of Vedanta.
In a sense, he “Hinduizes” all religions. “We have spiritual facts and their interpretations by which they are communicated to others, śhruti or what is heard, and smṛiti or what is remembered. Śaṅkara equates them with pratyakṣa or intuition and anumana or inference. It is the distinction between immediacy and thought. Intuitions abide, while interpretations change.”
The apologetic force of this brief statement is clear. The intuitive, experiential immediacy of Advaita Vedanta is the genuine authority for all religions, and all religions interpretations derive from and must ultimately refer to Advaita, Vedanta .
“While the experiential character of religion is emphasized in the Hindu faith, every religion at its best falls back on it.”
“While no tradition coincides with experience, every tradition is essentially unique and valuable. While all traditions are of value, none is finally binding.”
Moreover, the value of each religion is determined by its proximity to his understanding of Vedanta.
Hinduism, is a scientific religion. “If philosophy of religion is to become scientific, it must become empirical and found itself on religious experience.”
True religion, remains open to experience and encourages an experimental attitude with regard to its experiential data. Hinduism more than any other religion exemplifies this scientific attitude.
“The Hindu philosophy of religion starts from and returns to an experiential basis.”
“Unlike other religions, which set limits on the types of spiritual experience, the Hindu thinker readily admits of other points of view than its own, and considers them to be just as worthy of attention.”
What sets Hinduism apart from other religions is its unlimited appeal to and appreciation for all forms of experience. Experience and experimentation are the origin and end of Hinduism.
A scientific attitude has been the hallmark of Hinduism throughout its history.
“The truths of the rishis are not evolved as the result of logical reasoning or systematic philosophy but are the products of spiritual intuition, vision. They are not so much the authors of the truths recorded in the Vedas as the seers who were able to discern the eternal truths by raising their life-spirit to the plane of universal spirit. They are the pioneer researchers in the realm of the spirit who saw more in the world than their followers. Their utterances are not based on transitory vision but on a continuous experience of resident life and power. When the Vedas are regarded as the highest authority all that is meant is that the most exacting of all authorities is the authority of facts.”
If the ancient seers are, “pioneer researchers,” the Upanishads are the records of their experiments. “The chief sacred scriptures of the Hindus, the Vedas register the intuitions of the perfected souls. They are not so much dogmatic dicta as transcripts from life. They record the spiritual experiences of souls strongly endowed with the sense of reality. They are held to be authoritative on the ground that they express the experiences of the experts in the field of religion.”
His understanding of scripture as the scientific records of spiritual insights holds not only for Hinduism, but for all religious creeds. Correctly understood, the various scriptures found in the religions of the world are not an infallible revelation, but scientific hypotheses.
“The creeds of religion correspond to theories of science. “Intuitions of the human soul should be studied by the methods which are adopted with such great success of a positive science.” The records of religious experience, of integral intuitions, that are the world’s scriptures constitute the “facts” of the religious endeavour. So, “just as there can be no geometry without the perception of space, even so there cannot be philosophy of religion without the facts of religion.”
Religion is there for the testing. It ought not to be taken as authoritative in and of itself, for only integral intuitions validated by the light of reason are the final authority on religious matters.
“It is for philosophy of religion to find out whether the convictions of the religious seers fit in with the tested laws and principles of the universe.”
“When the prophets reveal in symbols the truths they have discovered, we try to rediscover them for ourselves slowly and patiently.”
The scientific temperament demanded by “Hinduism” lends itself to affirmation of the advaitic Absolute. The plurality of religious claims ought to be taken as “tentative and provisional, not because there is no absolute, but because there is one. The intellectual lot become barriers to further insights if they get hardened into articles of faith and forget that they are constructed theories of experience.”
The marginalization of intuition and the abandonment of the experimental attitude in matters of religion has lead Christianity to dogmatic status.
“It is an unfortunate legacy of the course which Christian theology has followed in Europe that faith has come to connote a mechanical adherence to authority. If we take faith in the proper sense of truth or spiritual conviction, religion is faith or intuition.”
The religious cul de sac in which Europe and Christian theology find themselves testifies to their reluctance to embrace the Hindu maxim that “theory, speculations, dogma change from time to time as the facts become better understood.”
For the value of religious “facts” can only be assessed “from their adequacy to experience.”
Just as the intellect has dominated Western philosophy to the detriment of intuition, so too has Christianity followed suit in its search for a theological touchstone in scripture.
His appeal to institutions underlies his vision for an ethical Hinduism, Hinduism free from ascetic excesses. The ethical potency of institution affirms the validity of the world. “Asceticism is an excess indulged in by those who exaggerate the transcendent aspect of reality.” Instead, the rational mystic “does not recognize any antithesis between the secular and the sacred. Nothing is to be rejected; everything is to be raised.”
His ethical mystic does not simply see the inherent value of the world and engage in its affairs. Rather, the ethical individual is guided by an intuitive initiative to move the world forward creatively, challenging convention and established patterns of social interaction. This ethically integrated mode of being presents a positive challenge to moral dogmatism. The positive challenge to moral convention is the creative promotion of social tolerance and accommodation. Hinduism rejects absolute claims to truth and the validity of external authority, so too Hinduism “developed an attitude of comprehensive charity instead of a fanatic faith in an inflexible creed.”
He affirms that the caste system, correctly understood, is an exemplary case of ethical tolerance and accommodation born out of an intuitive consciousness of reality.
“The institution of caste illustrates the spirit of comprehensive synthesis characteristic of the Hindu mind with its faith in the collaboration of races and the co-operation of cultures. Paradoxical as it may seem, the system of caste is the outcome of tolerance and trust.”
Based not on the mechanical fatalism of karma, as suggested by Hinduism’s critics, but on recognition of Hinduism’s spiritual values and ethical ideals, caste affirms the value of each individual to work out his or her own spiritual realization, a spiritual consciousness, in terms of integral experience. The ranking of religions as affirming the relative value of each religion in terms of its proximity to Vedanta, the institution of caste is a social recognition that each member of society has the opportunity to experiment with his or her own spiritual consciousness free from dogmatic restraints.
Here lies the ethical potency and creative genius of integral experience. Caste is the creative innovation of those “whose lives are characterized by an unshakable faith in the supremacy of the spirit, invincible optimism, ethical universalism, and religious toleration.”
There are numerous criticisms that may be raised against his philosophy.
What follows is not an exhaustive list, but three of the most common criticisms which may be levied are:
The first is a criticism regarding the locus of epistemic authority. Does the test for knowledge lie in scripture or in experience? His view is that knowledge comes from intuitive experience (anubhava). he makes this claim on the basis of scripture, namely the Upaniṣads. The Upaniṣads, according to him, support a monistic ontology.
He makes this claim on the basis that the Upaniṣads are the records of the personal experiences of the ancient sages. Thus, the validity of one’s experience is determined by its proximity to that which is recorded in the Upaniṣads. Conversely, the Upaniṣads are authoritative because they are the records of monistic experiences. There is circularity here. But this circularity is one with which he himself would likely not only acknowledge, but embrace. After all, he might argue, intuitive knowledge is non-rational. An intuitive experience of Reality is not contrary to reason but beyond the constraints of logical analysis.
A second criticism of his views surrounds his characterizations of the “East” and the “West.” He characterizes the West, as well as Christianity, as inclined to dogmatism, the scientific method whose domain is limited to exploration of the outer natural world, and a reliance upon second-hand knowledge. The East, by contrast, is dominated by openness to inner experience and spiritual experimentation. The West is rational and logical, while the East is predominantly religious and mystical. As pointed out by numerous scholars working in the areas of post-colonial studies and orientalism,
His constructions of “West” and “East” (these categories themselves being constructions) accept and perpetuate orientalist and colonialist forms of knowledge constructed during the 18th and 19th centuries. Arguably, these characterizations are “imagined” in the sense that they reflect the philosophical and religious realities of neither “East” nor “West.”
A separate but related criticism that might be levied against his views has to do with his theory of religious pluralism and his treatment of the religious traditions with which he deals.
First, he minimizes the contributions of the monistic philosophers and religious mystics of the West. While he acknowledges the work of such thinkers as Henri Bergen, Goethe, and a variety of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim mystics, he seems to imply that such approaches to religious and philosophical life in the West are exceptions rather than the rule. In fact, he goes to suggest that such figures are imbued with the spirit of the East, and specifically Hinduism as he understands it.
Second, while he readily acknowledges the religious diversity within “Hinduism,” his treatment of Western traditions is much less nuanced. In a sense, he homogenizes and generalizes Western traditions. In his hierarchy of religions, one or another form of Hinduism may be located within each of his religious categories monistic, theistic, incarnation, ancestral, and natural. By contrast, he seems to imply that the theistic and the incarnation categories are the domains of Unitarian and Trinitarian Christianity respectively.
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