Shiva is Universal Consciousness (Bhagavad Gītā 5.29 calls the inner Self “Maheśvara”, the Great Īśvara, another name for Śiva) and Nandi is the individual who keeps vigil, & the gaze unites the two.
Nandi is patient.
Nandi in Kashi got to see Shiva again after 353 years.
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The land was in darkness, but Nandi remained steadfast in faith.
Shiva is Pashupati & the individual (paśu) is in bondage (pāśa) to embodied nature. For freedom, one needs the equivalence with Pashupati, which is celebrated as the deep experience of Śivoham.
Prakāśa dawns.
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Mar 22, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
In the theatre where I saw Kashmir Files, a tall young American man a few rows down from us, let out a terrifying scream near the end of the movie and ran out.
He was crying he couldn't take the pain, but he must have crept back in for I saw him again as the movie ended.
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A different movie that captured deep pain is Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers, a movie on the horrors of emptiness, of betrayal of oneself.
This one captures the naked faces of evil, deceit, and betrayal, all hidden under the mask of ordinariness.
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Mar 21, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I just saw the amazing Kashmir Files in Miami this afternoon.
It is a great movie not only because it speaks truth to power in ways not done in cinema for a long time; it exposes layers of deceit within the echo-system of Indian media, academic, and power establishments.
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The horror of the cultural and physical genocide of Kashmiri Hindus is a searing story.
Compared to the genocide and sexual-slavery of the Yazidis, it is more terrifying psychologically, because while the Yazidis have returned home, the Kashmiri remains in perpetual exile.
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Mar 11, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Western experts are shocked by the election results in India, because their contacts in the Indian Anglosphere (IA) had assured them this won’t happen.
The IA after 75 years of political independence is clueless and in a bubble, seeing India through the colonizer’s eyes.
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This view of India is racist, and false, and bizarrely, the IA has embraced self-hate.
The British destroyed India’s education and economy, stole 35 trillions dollars worth of wealth, precipitated devastating famines, and somehow convinced Indians it was all their fault.
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Feb 11, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
It really bothers me that Indian history books don't speak of how Raja Bhoja and his ally Rajendra Chola ruled over most of India.
Bhoja was the most brilliant king of history with 84 books
Gangeya Telang was king of Telang country who was his ally sometime and also a rival.
This saying indicates that Bhoja was absolutely incomparable in royalty and achievement.
Feb 5, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
To understand the jibe by an MP in the Indian Parliament who called Hindus go-mutra drinkers, note that India may have gained political independence but it remains intellectually colonized.
It is under the heel of Anglosphere-sepoys of European racism.
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The racism is perpetuated using language and colonial ideas that are so embedded in the school and media narratives that they are taken to be the truth.
The sepoys say:
-Hindus are not mature enough to run their temples
-their festivals are profane and noisy
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Jan 18, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Bhoja राजा भोज Paramāra Dynasty (r. 1010 - 1055) of Central India was arguably the world's most brilliant king ever.
He was a warrior, he also wrote 84 books on subjects as varying as grammar, music, statecraft, politics, city-building, medicine, ship-building, and so on.
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His life is described in Bhoja-prabandha भोजप्रबन्ध by बल्लाल सेन.
Amongst other fields he also wrote on yantras or self-driven machines and planes made of wood in समराङ्गणसूत्रधार
Are Indian students being told about this greatest king of all time?
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Dec 7, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
So let's put the Kanyādānam कन्यादानम् controversy to rest.
कन्या + आदानम् = कन्यादानम्, i.e. "Reception of the bride"
Beautiful.
Quite like विद्या + आलयः = विद्यालयः.
विवाह is the "interbinding" of two equal life flows वाह
The last vow of the groom and the bride is:
यथा सम्मनसौ भूत्वा सखायाविव सचावहै
Let us work together like two friends, two seekers of the same goal.
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Dec 7, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Kanyā Dānam in a Wedding Ceremony? by A.V. Srinivasan
People wrongly think that currently popular word-meanings have been for ever
दानम् [दा-ल्युट्] : Giving, granting, teaching, &c. (in general); giving in marriage (cf. कन्यादान)
2 Anything coming from a cow; such as milk, flesh, leather &c.
3 The stars
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Nov 8, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Secret meaning of the seven rishis:
Brihadaranyaka Upanisad 2.2.6 says that the Saptarshi: Atri, Bharadvaja, Gautama, Jamadagni, Kashyapa, Vashistha and Vishvamitra are [mirrored as] the cognitive centers in the head.
Based on what your strongest "sense" is, you can trace your gotra to that Rishi.
Nov 5, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The work of Sanskrit scholars in translating thousands of texts into Chinese over a period of centuries required creation of new words.
According to famed linguist Wang Li, Sanskrit words came to be embedded in Chinese language deeply in many ways that most are unaware.
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Scholar Victor Mair estimates that at least 35000 words are from Sanskrit, & many are in common use (e.g., fang-bian [convenient; from Sk., upāya, skill-in-means] and cha-na [instant; from Sk., kṣaṇa (क्षण, instant])
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Oct 15, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Nīlakaṇṭha Dhāraṇī (chant) of Shiva (+Vishnu) by bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara is most popular in China, Korea,Japan, Vietnam, and so on.
".. Nīlakaṇṭhāya svāhā varāha-mukhāya svāhā narasiṃha-mukhāya svāhā
Gada-hastāya svāhā cakra-hastāya svāhā padma-hastāya svāhā"
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Dhāraṇīs in Sanskrit (written phonetically in Chinese characters) have been inscribed on pillars and rocks for over a thousand years in Asia (including on the Great Wall)
Here's one installed in Taiwan in 2005
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Sep 22, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Direct experience alone is the basis for all proofs...
That substratum is the experiencing intelligence which itself becomes the experiencer, the act of experiencing, and the experience. [Yoga-Vasistha 2.19-20]
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Everyone has two bodies, the one physical and the other mental.
The physical body is insentient and seeks its own destruction; the mind is finite but orderly. [YV 4.10]
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Aug 7, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Japan remained true to its spirit and chose the path of the Samurai, while India did not. Sri Aurobindo: “In India, the bourgeois, in Japan, the Samurai; in this single difference is comprised the whole contrasted histories of the two nations during the nineteenth century.”
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"The belief that a subject nation can acquiesce in subjection and yet make .. progress, growing to strength in its chains, is a lie. The idea that mitigations of subjection constitute freedom or that anything but the exercise of liberty fits man for liberty, is another lie. "
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Apr 2, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
For uncertain times (छान्दोग्य उपनिषद ७.१४):
"Hope, undoubtedly, is greater than memory. For only when it is kindled with hope does memory recite Vedic formulas, do rites, seek to obtain children and wealth, and aspire to winning this world and the next.
So venerate hope.
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"If someone venerates brahman as hope --well, by mere hope, all his desires are fulfilled and his prayers are answered; he obtains complete agency in every place reached by hope, if he venerates brahman as hope."
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Jan 4, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The (Two) Golden Fishes, suvarnamatsya, symbolize happiness, fertility and abundance & conjugal unity and fidelity.
They relate to two rivers the Yumuna and Ganga.
When shown swimming upstream they indicate attraction to the jewel of knowledge.
Treasure Vase, kalaśa, with a short neck with jewel (three jewels) in its opening. Denotes satisfaction of material desires.The sacred vase is filled with amṛta, elixir from heaven.
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Dec 27, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
BBC News - Bhoot Vidya: India university to teach doctors Ghost Studies.
Sorry BBC, Bhuta Vidya भूत विद्या in आयुर्वेद means "Psychotherapy" and not "Ghost Studies".
Is UK so financially strapped that BBC can't even hire competent journalists? bbc.com/news/world-asi…
Āyurvedic has eight branches: kāyāchikitsā (internal medicine), shalyachikitsā (surgery, anatomy), shālākyachikitsā (ENT diseases), kaumārabhritya (pediatrics), bhūtavidyā (psychiatry), agada tantra (toxicology), rasāyana (science of rejuvenation), and vājīkarana (fertility).
Dec 1, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Spent two marvelous days in Kolkata. It is a beautiful city with wide avenues in Salt Lake and New Town, and the old City connected with the names of great writers and scientists.
Delivered the 81st Acharya J.C. Bose Memorial Lecture at the Bose Institute yesterday.
Title of my lecture was "Computers, Indian Scientific Tradition, and AI."
Bose Institute is a great place, a beautiful campus associated with several world renowned scientists in addition to Jagadis Chandra Bose and visionaries like Swami Vivekananda & Rabindra Nath Tagore.
Oct 28, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The unending allure of Ellora.
A whole temple carved out of one rock. How was it visualized by the architects?
With James Fergusson's 19th-century sketch of the Kailasa temple
The Kailasa temple at Ellora (Elapura) is attributed to Krishna I (c. 757–783 CE).
Karkaraja II inscription, 812 CE:
"The architect builder of which was himself suddenly struck with astonishment, saying "Oh, how was it that I built it!""
Aug 27, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Isha = Oesho = Shiva was the principal deity of the Kushanas.
Kanishka I (c. 127/8-152 CE)
Kanishka holding goad and standard sacrificing over altar with flames at shoulders
Shiva pouring water from flask and holding vajra (thunderbolt), trident and goat.
The Rabatak inscription of Kanishka I invokes Goddess Nana.
nnδβ’mbn nǝnǝ-δβāmbǝn: Nana-debi-amban | नाना देवी अम्बा
Since Ambā (Universal Mother) is the original name and Durgā (Unassailabe) just an appellation, we conclude that Nana Devi Ambā is indeed the same as Durgā.
Aug 18, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
No word for "caste" in any Indian language. Caste not same as jati.
The British Supdt. of 1921 Census: “We pigeon-holed everyone by caste and if we had no true caste for them, labelled them with the hereditary occupation.. We are largely responsible for the system we deplore.”
"In the 19th century bands of missionaries, phrenologists, ethnologists, anthropologists, orientalists and eugenicists, set about identifying and classifying Indians like zoological specimens into different castes. They used head measurements, skin color, physique, occupation."
The Kailasa temple at Ellora (Elapura) is attributed to Krishna I (c. 757–783 CE).
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