India forever India

India, a vast country like a continent, containing almost all the physical, mineral and environmental varieties of the world, a fountain head of spirituality, was the cradle of one of the oldest civilizations on earth. I think like Swami Vivekananda that it was the swing of my childhood, grove of my youth and it is the Varanasi or the divine refuge of my mature age. I wish to share Rabindranath Tagore’s emotion that my birth here is significant. Born in your lap, nurtured by you, living in different parts of your body, I shall die somewhere in you, O Mother!  Rig-Veda is the first primary source and available record of Indian civilization. Of this Sri Aurobindo said, “Rig-Veda is itself the one considerable document that remains to us from the early period of human thought of which the historic Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries were the failing remnants, when the spiritual and psychological knowledge of the race was concealed, for reasons now difficult to determine, in a veil of concrete and material figures and symbols which protected the sense from the profane and revealed it to the initiated.” (Veda/5-6) Bounded by the mighty mountains on the north, extending to the north-west and north-east, peninsular India has sea on all other sides. These are the natural boundaries for millennia. It was the birthplace of Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana and Mahabharata, the cultural and intellectual products of the great Aryan civilization. Mohenjo-daro and Harappan sites may be some of the physical remains of the same and related civilization. There has not been any proof of Aryan invasion and destruction of any preexisting Dravidian civilization. With Innumerable admixture of peoples from other countries and cultures India remains great throughout the ages. It has spread its cultural fragrance to other corners of the globe but seldom invaded others to spread its territories. Though not politically, culturally and physically Bharat has ever remained one; a unified country, which is revered by her sons as the mother. “I look upon my country as the Mother. I adore her. I worship Her as the Mother. What would a son do if a demon sat on his mother’s breast and started sucking her blood? Would he quietly sit down to his dinner, amuse himself with his wife and children, or would he rush out to deliver his mother?” (Sri Aurobindo/82) Rig-Veda keeps the secret of herself in it, to be treasured by the flowing humanity. Efforts to Desecrate Ancient Indian heritage foiled  Towards the end of the eighteenth century the ruling British scholars took special interest in finding the truth of ancient India. They made indepth study of Sanskrit language and its relation with other European groups of languages. Their similarities led them to name the whole group of languages as Indo-European language of which Aryan comprised the leading part. After the discovery of Harrappa and Mohenjo-Daro sites, known as the Indus Valley Civilisation, the rulers and the like minded scholars found out, to satisfy their superiority, that Aryans were the people originating in Europe spread to India and other areas who destroyed the Dravidian or the Indus Valley Civilisaiton. Beginning with Mortimar Wheeler numbers of foreign scholars took interest to prove that India had the Dravidian people and other ignoramuses like hill living tribes who were driven out by the superior Aryan people. Many Indian scholars too helped them in explaining and elaborating such theories. Frederick Max Muller, the German scholar living in England, favoured specially by none of the two countries, took great interest in proving the above theory with apparent show of educating and civilising India with the aim of and by way of conversion to Christian religion. Historians and Indologists like Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, R. K. Mookerjee, D. D. Kosambi, Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, K. D. Sethna, N. Rajaram, Romila Thapar, and many others were and are on the job of elucidating the Indian past. Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900) was a great Indologist and scholar who twisted his scholarship, sometimes contradicting himself, to propagate his ideas for a distinct purpose of denigrating Indian past, to help getting it converted to Christianity. Professor Ratna Basu of Calcutta University in her paper “Max Muller’s Indology Revisited” observed, (Read at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Kolkata; 15-16 December, 2000). “If we survey his long life, we find India alone had been the centre of all his herculean intellectual efforts and outstanding academic creations. He tried to uproot our established perceptions of our own past and transplant new ones in their place. We had believed that our Vedas had a divine origin and had existed from eternity. He, by publishing for the first time the full text of the Rig-Veda along with the 14th century commentary by Sayana in six volumes between 1849 and 1873, tried to convince us that Rig-Veda was man made and that its antiquity did not go beyond 1200 B.C. We knew that Rig-Veda led us through a maze of multiplicity of cosmic deities to one ultimate reality, but Max Muller told us that Rig-Veda reflected the religious yearnings of a nature fearing primitive man and it neither represented polytheism, nor monotheism, rather henotheism, a word coined by him.” She further wrote, “Not that Max Muller was not aware of the hoary antiquity of the Rig-Veda. In his Autobiography, written in his last days and published after his death by his son, he admits: ‘As to the actual date of the Veda … if we were to place it at 5000 B.C. I doubt whether anybody could reduce such a date, while if we go back beyond the Veda, and come to measure the time required for the formation of Sanskrit, and of the Proto-Aryan language, I doubt very much whether even 5000 years would suffice for that. There is an unfathomable depth in language, layer following after layer, long before we arrive at roots, and what a time and what an effort must have been required for their elaboration, and for elaboration of the ideas expressed in them.’ [1] “Max Muller knew the thing at heart but wrote the opposite and talked controversially. His design is clear from his letter to his wife in 1866, ‘I am convinced, though I shall not live to see that day, that this edition of mine and the translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India … . It is the root of their religion and to show them what the root is, I feel sure is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last three thousand years.’ (Max Muller/V.1) “In a speech delivered in the hall of St. John’s College on request of the Vicar of St. Giles in 1887 he said. ‘When I undertook to publish for the University Press a series of translations of the most important of these sacred books, one of my objects was to assist the missionaries. What shall we think of a missionary who came to convert us, and who had never read our Bible . . .’ (MaxMuller/V.2/455) While he wrote for his own purpose it struck the right cord in another heart without his knowing. Sri Aurobindo’s biographer writes, “While reading Max Muller’s translations in the ‘Sacred Books of the East’ series, he came across the idea of self or Atman. This struck him as some reality and he decided in his mind that Vedanta has something that is to be realized in life.” (Sri Aurobindo/35) It will not be out of place to add the address of Lord Macaulay to the British Parliament on 2 February, 1835 to view the similarity of their purpose. “I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is beggar, who is a thief, such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that, I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and ummariz heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.” (Web) Taking a clue from Professor Asko Parpola of the University of Helsinki, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu made huge propaganda in favour of Tamil language and covertly of the community for his political purpose which was resented later by other personalities of similar importance. True that Tamil is one of the oldest extant languages of which some links were discovered by professor Parpola with the Indus Valley scripts which remains, in spite of all claims so far, undeciphered. Asko Parpola was awarded ‘Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi Classical Tamil Award’ on 23 June 2010 by the President of India at Chennai with much fanfare. Let us quote from the speech given by Parpola on the occasion, as reported by a newspaper: “‘While Tamils were entitled to ‘some pride’ for having preserved so well the linguistic heritage of the Indus valley civilization, Tamil was not alone in India in possessing a rich heritage’, Asko Parpola, Professor-Emeritus of Indology, Institute of World Cultures, University of Helsinki, Finland, said on Wednesday. . . . ‘There are, of course, different opinions, but many critical scholars agree that even the Rig-Veda, collected in the Indus Valley about 1000 BCE, has at least half a dozen Dravidian loan words,’ he told a large gathering.” [2] In the introductory part titled, “The Indus Civilization and its historical context”, Parpola, the author of the book writes, “No unambiguous information has been preserved to tell us the names of the Indus kings or their subjects, the name of the gods they worshipped, or even what language they spoke. The Harappan language and religion continue to be among the most vexing problems of South Asian protohistory.” (Parpola/ 3) But inside the book he has the other story to tell following the footsteps of some early Western scholars with some details like, “In the third millennium when the Aryan languages had probably not yet arrived and the Gangetic Valley had not yet become intensively cultivated . . . the Harappan languages are likely to have formed the majority of the South Asian population . . . . the Dravidian family is the best match for Harappan among the known non-Aryan families of long standing in South Asia . . . . about one-quarter of the entire population spoke Dravidian.” (Parpola/169) He thought that the Aryan language did not arrive before1000 B.C. Let us now come to Sri Aurobindo, the scholar, social thinker and philologist who was the greatest interpreter of Vedas as he linked up with the origin of it as seen or heard by the Rishis, the recorders of such Shruti, through his yogic power. He found out the symbolic meaning of the words of Veda and wrote them with elaborate explanation which was far from the ken of an archaeologist or a scholar. He wrote as if he visualizing the scene of awarding professor Parpola, “The philologists have, for instance, split up, on the strength of linguistic differences, the Indian nationality into northern Aryan race and the southern Dravidian, but sound observation shows a single physical type with minor variations pervading the whole of India from Cape Comorin to Afghanistan. Language is therefore discredited as an ethnological factor. The races of India may be all pure Dravidians, if indeed such an entity as a Dravidian race exists or ever existed, or they may be pure Aryans, if indeed such an entity as an Aryan race exists or ever existed, or they may be a mixed race with one predominant strain, but in any case, the linguistic division of the tongues of India into the Sanskrit and Tamilic counts for nothing in that problem. Yet so great is the force of attractive generalisations and widely popularized errors that all the world goes on perpetuating the blunder talking of the Indo-European races, claiming or disclaiming Aryan kinship and building on that basis of falsehood the most far-reaching political, social or pseudo-scientific conclusion.” (Veda/553-554) Let us read some more pieces out of the vast work he did on the Veda. “The symbolism of the Veda depends upon the image of the life of man as a sacrifice, a journey and a battle. The ancient Mystics took for their theme the spiritual life of man, but, in order both to make it concrete to themselves and to veil its secrets from the unfit, they expressed it in poetical images drawn from the outward life of their age.” (Veda/ 175) “Secret words that have kept indeed their secret ignored by the priest, the ritualist, the grammarian, the pundit, the historian, the mythologist, to whom they have been words of darkness or seals of confusion and not what they were to the supreme ancient forefathers and their illumined posterity . . .” (Veda/202) These are the words of revelation by the yogi and the greatest interpreter of the Veda. If there are half a dozen Tamil loan words in Sanskrit language there are hundreds and hundreds of Sanskrit words in all the languages of South India. See everywhere; in personal names, names of shops and institutions and parks, in songs where they love to add Sanskrit words; in every temple Vedic chanting is done. Even when attempts were made to appoint priest from the common folk in Tamil Nadu it was resisted vehemently and the court had to disallow it. Again in October 2011 the Madras High Court has dismissed a writ petition challenging the engagement of security guards from the pool run by other religious denomination for a temple under its jurisdiction, telling that even a contractor cannot be engaged if it is run by other religionists as the temple is Hindu temple and it is a matter of their faith; it is not a state affair. Sanskrit is the backbone, the flowing blood in all Indians; they love it with the love for their regional tongues. It is the source of the Mother Tongue of most of the north Indian languages. Ancient India still runs through the veins of India as the river Saraswati flows unseen. Indian people are the same with innumerable variations due to huge admixture in the past and present but basically, culturally India is one. Any fissiparous tendency and attempt is doomed to failure. Raja Rammohan Roy, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore, M. K. Gandhi, Radhakrishnan, K.D. Malavya, Jawharlal Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad and host of other great names in the nineteenth and twentieth century were the voices of integration and unity. Going forward in tune with the past, breaking from it whenever it is obscure and obsolete, is our holy aim. Speaking about the vigour and achievement of India in the past Sri Aurobindo observed, “Not only was India in the first rank in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, surgery, all the branches of physical knowledge which were practiced in ancient times, but she was, along with the Greeks, the teacher of the Arabs from whom Europe recovered the lost habit of scientific enquiry and got the basis from which modern science started. In many directions India had the priority of discovery,- to take only two striking examples among a multitude, the decimal notation in mathematics or the perception that the earth is a moving body in astronomy,- cala prithvi sthira bhati, the earth moves and only appears to be still, said the Indian astronomer many centuries before Galileo.” (Indian Culture/67) In general, he said, “The ancient Indian culture attached quite as much value to the soundness, growth and strength of the mind, life and body as the old Hellenic or the modern scientific thought, although for a different end and a greater motive.” (Indian Culture/427-428) The soul of Indi has survived all barbaric onslaughts for two thousand years. In the concluding part-4 of his ‘Indian Polity’ Sri Aurobindo’s ever positive mind ummarized his long discourse on India. He said, “India has never been nationally and politically one. India was for close on a thousand years swept by barbaric invasions and for another thousand years in servitude to successive foreign masters . . . . (Indian Culture/363)  He further analysed, “The problem that presented itself at the beginning was that of a huge area containing more than a hundred kingdoms, clans, peoples, tribes, races, in this respect another Greece, but a Greece of an enormous scale, almost as large as modern Europe.” (Indian Culture/366)  The whole of the continent was divided into many kingdoms or different divisions, there arose no question of political unity except under some great or powerful kings who won and unified as it happened during reign of Asoka, during the Mughal period and during the British period. India has peculiar mental and spiritual make up. This Sri Aurobindo explains, “The whole basis of Indian mind is its spiritual and inward turn, its propensity to seek the things of the spirit and the inner being first and foremost and to look at all else as secondary, dependent, to be handled and determined in the light of the higher knowledge and as an expression, a preliminary or field or aid or at least a pendent to the deeper spiritual aim,- a tendency therefore to create first on the inner plane and afterwards in its other aspects. This mentality and this consequent tendency to create from within outwards being given, it was inevitable that the unity India first created for herself should be the spiritual and cultural oneness.” (Indian Culture/366) He further explained that Rome and Greece though militarily unified, could not endure. He did not find a fault in Indian mind, rather a special trend he found in it: “It is due to this original peculiarity, to this indelible spiritual stamp, to this underlying oneness amidst all diversities that if India is not yet a single organized political nation, she still survives and is still India. “After all, the spiritual and cultural is the only enduring unity and it is by a persistent mind and spirit much more than by an enduring physical body and outward organization that the soul of a people survives.” (Indian Culture/366-67)

Devi Kamakhya Mandir: One of the Oldest Shaktipeeths of Maa Sati

Kamakhya mandir is the main temple in a complex of individual temples dedicated to the ten Mahavidyas: Kali, Tara, Sodashi, Bhuvaneshwari, Bhairavi, Chhinnamasta, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi and Kamala. Among these, Tripurasundari, Matangi and Kamala reside inside the main temple whereas the other seven reside in individual temples. It is an important pilgrimage destination for general Hindu and especially for Tantric worshipers.

The Kamakhya Temple is a Hindu temple dedicated to the mother Devi Kamakhya, one of the oldest shakti peeths.

While there are many unheard secrets about this temple, today we are going to tell you popular facts of this temple you should have known.

Kamakhya Temple, Assam is one among the 52 shakti peeths of India. Kamakhya Temple is situated at the top of Ninanchal Hill (800 feet above sea level) in the Western part of Guwahati city. There is no image of Shakti here. Within a corner of the cave in the temple, there is naturally sculptured image of the yoni of the goddess, which is the object of reverence. A natural spring keeps the stone moist. Other temples on the Ninanchal Hill include those of Tara, Bhairavi, Bhuvaneshwari and Ghantakarna.

This temple was almost destroyed in early 16th century by terrorist mughals and then rebuilt in the 17th century by Hindu king Nara Narayana of Cooch Bihar.

Contents [hide]

• 1 Kamakhya Temple and History
  • 1.1 Structure of Kamakhya Temple
  • 1.2 Emergence of Kamakhya Temple
  • 1.3 Stair case of the Kamakhya Temple
  • 1.4 Types of Puja in Kamakhya Temple
  • 1.5 Surprise Me More:

Kamakhya Temple and History

Structure of Kamakhya Temple

The current temple has a beehive-like Shikhara with delightful sculptured panels and images of Shree Ganesh and other Hindu Devi and Devtas on the outside.

The temple consists of three major chambers. The western chamber is large and rectangular and is not used by general pilgrims for worship. The middle chamber is a square with a small idol of the Devi, a later addition. The walls of this chamber contain sculpted images of Nara Narayana, related inscriptions and other Devtas.

The middle chamber leads to the sanctum of the temple in the form of a cave, which consists of no image, but a natural underground spring that flows through a yoni-shaped cleft in the bedrock.

Emergence of Kamakhya Temple

According to history of Bharat, Maa Sati married Bhagwan Shiv against the wish of her father, king Daksha. Once king Daksha was having a yagna, but he didn’t invite Sati and Shiv. Sati was very upset, but she still went to her father’s palace. When she reached there, her father insulted her and Shiv. Sati was unable to bear this disrespect towards Bhagwan Shiv, so she jumped in the yagna fire and killed herself.

When Bhagwan Shiv came to know about this, he got very angry. Enraged Shiv wondered while holding the dead body of Sati in his arms. He started the dance of destruction of the universe.

The Tandav Nritya soon started decimation of the Universe. Bhagwan Vishnu in order to save the universe, cut the body of Sati into pieces with his Sudarshan chakra. Body parts of Sati fell at different places and these places are known as shakti peeths.

In Kamakhya temple, yoni of the Goddess fell.

Stair case of the Kamakhya Temple

There was a demon Naraka who fell in love with Devi Kamakhya and wanted to marry her. Devi put a condition that if he would be able to build a staircase from the bottom of the Ninanchal Hill to the temple within one night, then she would surely marry him.

Naraka took it as a challenge and tried all with his might to do this mammoth task. He was almost about to accomplish the job when the Devi, panic-stricken as she was to see this, played a trick on him. She strangled a rooster and made it crow untimely to give the impression of dawn to Naraka. Duped by the trick, Naraka thought it was a futile job and left it half way through. Later he chased the rooster and killed it in a place which is now known as Kukurakata, situated in the district of Darrang. The incomplete staircase is known as Mekhelauja path.

Apart from the daily puja offered to the Devi, a number of special pujas are also held round the year in Kamakhya Temple. These pujas are Durga Puja, Pohan Biya, Durgadeul, Vasanti puja, Madandeul, Ambuvaci and Manasa puja.

Types of Puja in Kamakhya Temple

Durga Puja: This is celebrated annually during Navratri, in the month of September-October.

Ambuwasi Puja: This is a fertility festival. It is believed that the Devi goes under menstrual period and the temple remains closed for 3 days and then opened with great festivity on fourth day.

Pohan Biya: A symbolic marriage between Dev Kamesvara and Devi Kamesvari during the month of Pausa.

Durgadeul: During the month of Phalguna, Durgadeul is observed in Kamakhya.

Vasanti Puja: This puja is held at Kamakhya temple in the month of Chaitra.

Madandeul: This deul is observed during the month of Chaitra when Kamadeva and Kamesvara is offered special puja.

Manasa Puja: Manasa Puja is observed with Sankranti or Sravana and continues up to the second day of Bhadra.

आजाद हिंद फौज बनाकर दी अंग्रेजों को टक्कर, जानें नेताजी के बारे में 10 बातें

सुभाष चंद्र बोस देश के उन महानायकों में से एक हैं, जिन्‍होंने आजादी की लड़ाई के लिए अपना सर्वस्व न्योछावर कर दिया. उनके संघर्षों और देश सेवा के जज्बे के कारण ही महात्मा गांधी ने उन्हें देशभक्तों का देशभक्त कहा था. जानें सुभाष चंद्र बोस के बारे में 10 खास बातें...

1. सुभाष चंद्र बोस का जन्म 23 जनवरी, 1897 को उड़ीसा के कटक शहर में हुआ थाlanguage="javascript" src="http://c.amazon-adsystem.com/aax2/assoc.js" type="text/javascript">

2. कटक में प्राथमिक शिक्षा पूरी करने के बाद उन्होंने रेवेनशा कॉलिजियेट स्कूल में दाखिला लिया. जिसके बाद उन्होंने कलकत्ता यूनिवर्सिटी से पढ़ाई की. 1919 में बीए की परीक्षा उन्होंने प्रथम श्रेणी से पास की, यूनिवर्सिटी में उन्हें दूसरा स्थान मिला था.

3. उनके पिता की इच्छा थी कि सुभाष आईसीएस बनें. उन्होंने अपने पिता की यह इच्छा पूरी की. 1920 की आईसीएस परीक्षा में उन्होंने चौथा स्थान पाया मगर सुभाष का मन अंग्रेजों के अधीन काम करने का नहीं था. 22 अप्रैल 1921 को उन्होंने इस पद से त्यागपत्र दे दिया.

4. सुभाष चंद्र बोस की पहली मुलाकात गांधी जी से 20 जुलाई 1921 को हुई थी. गांधी जी की सलाह पर वे भारतीय स्वतंत्रता संग्राम के लिए काम करने लगे.

5. वे जब कलकत्ता महापालिका के प्रमुख अधिकारी बने तो उन्होंने कलकत्ता के रास्तों का अंग्रेजी नाम हटाकर भारतीय नाम पर कर दिया.

6. भारत की आजादी के साथ-साथ उनका जुड़ाव सामाजिक कार्यों में भी बना रहा. बंगाल की भयंकर बाढ़ में घिरे लोगों को उन्होंने भोजन, वस्त्र और सुरक्षित स्थानों पर पहुंचाने का साहसपूर्ण काम किया था. समाज सेवा का काम नियमित रूप से चलता रहे इसके लिए उन्होंने 'युवक-दल' की स्थापना की.

7. भगत सिंह को फांसी की सजा से रिहा कराने के लिए वे जेल से प्रयास कर रहे थे. उनकी रिहाई के लिए उन्होंने गांधी जी से बात की और कहा कि रिहाई के मुद्दे पर किया गया समझौता वे अंग्रेजों से तोड़ दें. इस समझौते के तहत जेल से भारतीय कैदियों के लिए रिहाई मांगी गई थी. गांधी जी ब्रिटिश सरकार को दिया गया वचन तोड़ने के लिए राजी नहीं हुए, जिसके बाद भगत सिंह को फांसी दे दी गई. इस घटना के बाद वे गांधी और कांग्रेस के काम करने के तरीके से बहुत नाराज हो गए थे.
8. अपने सार्वजनिक जीवन में सुभाष को कुल 11 बार कारावास की सजा दी गई थी. सबसे पहले उन्हें 16 जुलाई 1921 को छह महीने का कारावास दिया गया था. 1941 में एक मुकदमे के सिलसिले में उन्हें कलकत्ता की अदालत में पेश होना था, तभी वे अपना घर छोड़कर चले गए और जर्मनी पहुंच गए. जर्मनी में उन्होंने हिटलर से मुलाकात की. अंग्रेजों के खिलाफ युद्ध के लिए उन्होंने आजाद हिन्द फौज का गठन किया और युवाओं को 'तुम मुझे खून दो, मैं तुम्हें आजादी दूंगा' का नारा भी दिया.

6. भारत की आजादी के साथ-साथ उनका जुड़ाव सामाजिक कार्यों में भी बना रहा. बंगाल की भयंकर बाढ़ में घिरे लोगों को उन्होंने भोजन, वस्त्र और सुरक्षित स्थानों पर पहुंचाने का साहसपूर्ण काम किया था. समाaज सेवा का काम नियमित रूप से चलता रहे इसके लिए उन्होंने 'युवक-दल' की स्थापना की.

7. भगत सिंह को फांसी की सजा से रिहा कराने के लिए वे जेल से प्रयास कर रहे थे. उनकी रिहाई के लिए उन्होंने गांधी जी से बात की और कहा कि रिहाई के मुद्दे पर किया गया समझौता वे अंग्रेजों से तोड़ दें. इस समझौते के तहत जेल से भारतीय कैदियों के लिए रिहाई मांगी गई थी. गांधी जी ब्रिटिश सरकार को दिया गया वचन तोड़ने के लिए राजी नहीं हुए, जिसके बाद भगत सिंह को फांसी दे दी गई. इस घटना के बाद वे गांधी और कांग्रेस के काम करने के तरीके से बहुत नाराज हो गए थे.

8. अपने सार्वजनिक जीवन में सुभाष को कुल 11 बार कारावास की सजा दी गई थी. सबसे पहले उन्हें 16 जुलाई 1921 को छह महीने का कारावास दिया गया था. 1941 में एक मुकदमे के सिलसिले में उन्हें कलकत्ता की अदालत में पेश होना था, तभी वे अपना घर छोड़कर चले गए और जर्मनी पहुंच गए. जर्मनी में उन्होंने हिटलर से मुलाकात की. अंग्रेजों के खिलाफ युद्ध के लिए उन्होंने आजाद हिन्द फौज का गठन किया और युवाओं को 'तुम मुझे खून दो, मैं तुम्हें आजादी दूंगा' का नारा भी दिया.

9. 1934 ई. में सुभाष अपना इलाज कराने के लिए ऑस्ट्रिया गए थे. उस समय उन्हें अपनी पुस्तक टाइप कराने के लिए एक टाइपिस्ट की जरूरत थी. उन्हें एमिली शेंकल नाम की एक टाइपिस्ट महिला मिली. 1942 में सुभाष ने इस टाइपिस्ट से शादी कर ली.

10. 18 अगस्त 1945 को वे हवाई जहाज से मंचूरिया जा रहे थे. इस सफर के दौरान ताइहोकू हवाई अड्डे पर विमान दुर्घटनाग्रस्त हो गया, जिसमें उनकी मौत हो गई. उनकी मौत भारत के इतिहास का सबसे बड़ा रहस्य बनी हुई है. उनकी रहस्यमयी मौत पर समय-समय पर कई तरह की अटकलें सामने आती रहती हैं.

Sanskrit – Timeless Bridge to an Unseen World

Long, long time ago, from the sparkling womb of Eternity, rose a profound rhyme. It circled the splendid Heavens spreading a rapture so divine that the mystic rishis bowed in veneration as they received the sacred “OM” in the deep recesses of their minds. Pondering on the pulsating rhythms and cosmic cadence of the great unknown, they created a new language Sanskrit to commune with the universe, and bring its resplendent knowledge and mystic secrets to the whole world. And thus began the fascinating ascent of Sanskrit.

Beginning with the Rig Veda, the Sanskrit juggernaut straddled the ancient world, bringing to life vast treasures of knowledge in every field of human endeavor. It has lent its resilience to incorporate a panorama of ideologies and learning, ranging from mammoth metaphysical and philosophical speculations, scientific and mathematical calculations, literary expressions, medicine and surgery, hypnotism and chess to name only a few. As early as the first century A.D., concepts of Algebra, infinity, negative numbers, the decimal system, value of pi, square roots, cube roots, Geometry, Trigonometry, Vedic Mathematics, Calculus, atomic and magnetic theory, radium, electronics, airship, Chemistry, Metallurgy, Medicine, Surgery, action of blood vessels with their circulation, processes such as tempering of steel and dyeing of cloth, use of metals and metallic compounds, and shipbuilding were all expressed in Sanskrit.

The Scientific potential of Sanskrit has not gone unnoticed. Modern Thailand has adopted Sanskrit words for technical, scientific and Governmental terms. Eulogies pour in from great Scientists of the world including Werner Heisenberg (quantum mechanics), Johnstone, Wilcox, Thoreau, Woodroffe and Einstein to name a few. The concept of “Shunya” or the Sanskrit equivalent of “zero” has been hailed the world over. Says Lancelot Hogben, a versatile British zoologist “There has been no more revolutionary contribution than the one which the Hindus made when they invented ZERO.”

Most of this is known to our countrymen as well as many scholars around the world. Question is what happened afterward? With so much scientific terms in Sanskrit and in the heritage of India, why has there been no effort to promote Sanskrit? Why has the spiritual binding force which expressed the immortal Bande Mataram languishing in neglect? The answer is obvious. The politicians who ruled to loot have continued the line of the Mughals and the British. Driven by greed for votes and straitjacketed by political correctness, the new Mughals have not only slaughtered the cultural odyssey of centuries, but have also left a damaging psyche filled with loathing for anything that even remotely smacks of Hinduism, and thus the medium of Hindu scriptures- Sanskrit.

Fortunately change comes, come what may. The new private players in India have seen the light. Modern Management institutes talk about the concepts of decentralization and delegation gleaned from scriptures such as Prashnopanishad. Amazing structures and principles are buried in Vedic Math. One enterprising student from IIM Bangalore has used the power of Vedic Math (via his site magicalmethods.com) to assist other students to pass the CAT exam. Several articles use ancient Sanskrit texts to study spiritual eco systems necessary to produce innovation, decision making and leadership qualities. Recognition is seeping in that there is a spiritual component to producing leaders and to promoting creativity. It is no coincidence that when Sanskrit was revered, India was the most prosperous and innovative nation on the earth, and all roads led to its beckoning frontiers.

Speaking of Management, it is also grappling with the rough reality of Intellectual Property Rights. For example, A Virginia based Pharmaceutical Company, Insmed Inc, uses Arhar extracts to cure Diabetes. But Arhar is used daily in India and Ayurvedic texts describe how to use Arhar to cure diabetes. However, the credit for Arhar is given to a 1968 journal in the West not to Ayurveda. The culprit is not the West but a serious shortage of Sanskrit scholars and physicians, who could not present the case with required documentation. Also, tremendous amount of knowledge is out there in palm leaves and unearthed manuscripts, which foreigners are diligently picking up by training themselves in Sanskrit and building up a knowledge repertoire. A German firm has patented the Gayathri mantra, and patents are out for Yoga systems. And it is a matter of time before the knowledge hungry West burrows through volumes of Ayurveda and old scientific texts and produces the information in a new and disguised form, depriving India of valuable intellectual property rights.

“Knowledge Economy” is the new buzzword and the world is gearing up for it. The new rulers will not be those with big guns, but those who can tell a better story using their media expertise and technical skills to mine the world’s knowledge. Geopolitical conflicts would occur depending on the quantity of intellectual property rights a country owns. As the saying goes, “quantity has a quality all its own.”

The grand sweep of Sanskrit is evident in the unifying power of rituals. The mantras for marriages, funerals and the varied customs are the same from Kashmir to Kanyakumari providing a culturally and spiritually unifying force, the only strong link that fosters such an emotional unity throughout the length and breadth of India. This is no mean achievement for such a vast and diverse nation, a tribute to the formidable grit of our ancestors who kept Sanskrit alive at a great risk to their lives under the bigoted and cruel Aurangzeb and the Mughals.

Speaking of Aurangzeb, those were the times time when people valued principles. The courage and daring of Shivaji and the martyrdom of Sikhs sprang straight from the nurturing environment of classics. As early as the 13th century, the Western world was aware that the classics are priceless in encouraging a principled existence, nourishing human values and building character. Study of Latin and Greek writings propelled the rise of the West (via the Renaissance) from the dark ages to world leadership. Even the founding fathers in America promoted and valued classical texts and literature. Thomas Jefferson carried his Greek grammar book wherever he went. In 1750 Harvard, students were taught lessons in virtue and liberty from the works of Plutarch, Xenophon, Tacitus, Polybius, Sallust and Herodotus

Similarly, classics through the medium of Sanskrit has the potential to stoke the fires of renaissance. Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Gita and the Upanishads along with popular myths, legends, folklore, ballads in Sanskrit champion virtue, chivalry, justice and truth, providing spiritual nourishment to the vast and varied population of India. When India abandoned Sanskrit, it lost the virtues of truth and justice.  From a country that produced martyrs, it went to producing men who disdainfully proclaim “Me first, country last.”

There are some stirring signs of awareness regarding the power and potential of Sanskrit. Many private organizations and institutions have informally promoted Sanskrit.The CBSE schools have designated a Sanskrit week from Aug 7th through the 13th. To stimulate interest and increase awareness, students will encourage speech competitions, compose poems, recite from texts, participate in essay contests, and develop apps and games to stimulate interest. It is a small spark fostered by a nascent nationalist Government that hopefully will blaze into the fiery brilliance and gigantic intellect of the rishis.

Even though Sanskrit lies buried under cultural wastelands, it still holds the roots of Indian cultural and philosophical renaissance. The upheavals of Time may have decayed some of the roots, but they are still there, waiting for the waters of revival. The sooner it comes, the faster it can rebuild the destiny of the nation.

As someone rightly said, “A race with its roots pulled out can have no future.”

India's Forgotten Emperor: Ashoka

The tricolored flag of India has the picture of a wheel with twenty-four spokes in the center. We all know it as Ashoka’s wheel (chakra). The symbol of the wheel and the pillar with the lion capital had languished as part of the scenery in India for many centuries. Only in the 19th century it was recognized as created by one of India’s greatest emperors. King Ashoka’s story is a strange one, as strange as the scribbles on rock surfaces, scattered from Afghanistan and Nepal to Karnataka. Legend of Ashoka: About 225 years after Buddha’s death, there came a powerful king, who had established an empire the size of which would never again be matched by any other king in India. His grandfather, Chandragupta Maurya had established the first empire in India in the wake of Alexander’s withdrawal from Punjab. Pataliputra (Patna) in the east was the capital of Maurya Dynasty. The name of Ashoka (reign: 269 – 232 BC.) was known through Pali texts from Sri Lanka. Dynastic hierarchy of the Mauryas was mentioned in texts called Mahavamsha. Ashoka was mentioned in some Buddhist texts but it was difficult to separate fact from fiction. Megasthenes, a Greek explorer and ethnographer had recorded the impressive rule of Maurya dynasty but that was during the rule of Chandragupta. Ashoka remained just a name among countless erstwhile Indian kings; a cruel and violent king who was transformed by Buddhism to become a kind and benevolent king. This was the myth but yet the proof was there in plain sight all over India. The script on the rock surfaces had fallen into disuse and for centuries no one had made the connection between Ashoka and the inscriptions. Astonishingly, Indians had first forgotten how to read the script and then the memory of a great king eluded them. When historians and archeologists of British East India Company, who had founded the Asiatic Society and the Archeological Survey of India in the 18th century, began asking the locals about the tall pillars and rock faces with strange writings, the answer baffled them. In the local legend Lord Brahma himself was credited with the writings (hence the name Brahmi script). In many places the rocks had been considered divine. The story gets even better about the pillars. The legendary strongman Bhima of Mahabharata had used them as walking sticks, they claimed. Such was the level of ignorance! Devanamapiya Piyadasi aka Ashoka:  James Prinsep, a brilliant man who was endowed with a keen intellect and astute observation, between the years 1836 and 1838 deciphered the Brahmi script. Working in the mint in Calcutta had given him the unique opportunity to see letters on ancient coins with an unreadable script. With diligent work spanning over more than 10 years he was able to resurrect the dead script of Brahmi. All the writings, which were edicts and decrees, were signed off by a king named Devanamapiya Piyadasi (Beloved of God, King Piyadasi). Prinsep received the Pali documents from Sri Lanka. He was able to determine that King Devanamapiya Piyadasi was none other than king Ashoka. In 1915 some rock inscriptions were found in Raichur district in Karnataka (and another minor rock in Madhya Pradesh) with names of both King Piyadasi and Ashoka, confirming Prinsep’s observation. Ashoka’s edict in Brahmi script Essence of the Edicts: Most of the writings on rocks were orders and decrees for the population to follow. Civil amenities for citizens and provision for travelers were written down as public service messages. Some of the ideas were borrowed from Jains, especially the sanctity of all life (ahimsa was a Jain idea). Meat eating was discouraged but not banned. Death penalty was also removed. Preservation of many species (specified by name - Ganges porpoise, rhino and even white ants) and prevention of deforestation were stressed in many rock edicts. Tolerance of other religions and abstinence from speaking ill of neighbor’s faith (because all religions aim at the same end, of purity of mind) were astonishingly spelled out. Though name of Gautama Buddha is mentioned in some of the writings, there is no attempt to conduct religious teachings or expound on Buddhist philosophy. Ashoka’s rule and transformation: Ashoka notoriously ascended the throne after much fratricide and violence. He was unattractive as well as ungainly in appearance. But he was a good administrator and had served as viceroy of Ujjain under his father. There he met and fell in love with a beautiful daughter of a merchant, Devi by name. They had a son Mahinda and a daughter Samghamitta, who would be his ambassadors to spread Buddhism in Sri Lanka and the Far East in the future. However, after becoming the king, Ashoka married other women and his chief queen was a highborn woman Asandhimitta. Ashoka consolidated his position and expanded his kingdom. He embraced a life of pleasure and earned the nickname “Kamashoka.” Later when he was seen to exhibit violence and wickedness his nickname changed to “Chandalashoka.” It was during a brutal war with untold number of casualties in Kalinga (Orissa), in the eighth year of his rule that Ashoka had a change of heart. The bloodshed and mayhem of war prompted the king to become a pacifist and he embraced Buddhism perhaps with the influence from Devi, who was a Buddhist. Just like when Roman Emperor Constantine embraced Christianity, which helped propel Christianity from a fringe cult to a major religion, Ashoka’s conversion helped spread Buddhism not only in India but also in rest of Asia. Buddhism enjoyed a thousand years of influence in India following Ashoka’s conversion. It is difficult to separate legend and folklore from facts in India. Ashoka’s story ends with a sad ending. It hints at a monarch (chakravartin) who might have lost all power before his death (in 232 BC). He had showed interest in donating all his wealth at his death to the Buddhists but his ministers and sons conspired to stop him. His sole possession at the end of his life was half a mango. This goes along the Buddhist theme that suffering is a human trait, even for a mighty emperor. Ashoka worked too hard to create a perfect society. He was not satisfied with his colossal work. After dispersing many edicts and pillars all across his empire, he still lamented in one of his inscriptions, “I am never fully satisfied with the end product of all my work, my exertions and the conclusion of my business…But work I must for the public good.” Once Ashoka’s story was again laid out in front of Indians as a gentle benevolent leader, who had transformed himself from a wicked king, he instantly achieved the status of sainthood. They embraced him whole-heartedly. He regained his rightful place in history as one of the greatest kings to rule India. Framers of the constitution of Republic of India, and the designers of the Indian flag paid homage by using his ideas and symbols. The Ashoka pillar with the four lions (lion capital) has become the symbol of independent India. Lion capital with four lions. And the wheel (chakra)

Textile and Architecture

The origin of relation between Textile and Architecture cannot be specified on a time-line. They both go hand in hand. The presence of textiles in architecture can be viewed not only in the interiors of a building e.g. upholstery, drapery, detailing, wall papering etc. but can also be felt in the construction of the architectural structures.

Influence

No architecture can be complete without the presence of the textile fabric. The usage starts right from upholstered furniture in drawing rooms, cushions and spreads in bedrooms, runners and covers in the dinning halls, the draperies in the kitchens and bathrooms to the curtains, tapestries and other endearments in the houses. The corporate world, theatres, multiplexes, hospitals, the shopping malls, retails, any Architectural structure you name it; Textiles is bound to be there as a basic cover or just to add color and zing. These days textiles is vitally used to add the oomph factor to the buildings.

But that’s not all; importance of textiles and its role can also be seen and felt in the construction techniques and other technical architectural, details, terminology and styles.

Application 

First let us take the basic construction of a wall. The various bonds, the units in a wall are nothing but a microscopic structure of a fabric. Avoiding of the vertical joints while construction of a wall, adding to its strength is naturally present in a fabric. Its nothing but interweaving of threads to form a piece of textile structure: the fabric.

The Toothing in a wall can be explained similarly. When a carpet is being woven and also in looms while ending a particular piece, the loose ends (usually wefts) are assimilated in a way mostly knotted, so as another swatch can be attached or the same piece which is complete for now; can be extended in future.

The same trend can be seen in building construction in the form of toothing a very important technique when it comes to further extending the existing wall.

When it comes to the construction of wall another technique followed especially in Kashmir Architecture and has earned quiet a name in construction in earthquake prone areas not only in India but more so internationally, is Dhajji Wall Construction.

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This construction technique has been inspired from Dhajji quilt work- the patch quilt work. As different pieces of fabric are stitched together to get an aesthetically beautiful and structurally strong textile piece, the same work pattern when followed with the combination of stone and timber, provides us in architecture with such a wall that can sustain many a shocks in an earthquake prone region. Like the textile inspiration, there are many patterns that can be achieved in this wall construction form.




A fabric goes through many stages right from choosing thread: 1-ply, 2-ply; so is the case in masonry: 1st class, 2nd class, ashlars, rubble. At times the natural color of the soot: thread is retained which is closer to the exposed masonry work in architecture.

Other ornamental techniques followed for fabrics in textiles are dyeing : the most common one , the colors, the chemicals and the dyes are decided keeping in consideration the type of fabric, which is equivalent to white-washing, painting, distempering, considering the surface to be colored.

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The walls can be divided into various types: load-bearing walls, partition walls, the curtain walls, so is the case with textiles. One has endless varieties in drapery: heavy, medium, light, shear, the list goes on.
The doors, windows, ventilators: the openings in the walls can be compared to the appliqué work or cut work in textiles. The numerous styles in wall openings are as matchless as varied patterns in appliqué designing. The hemming of a fabric is what beading, nailing in joining is to fixing details in construction.

The tent structures are unthinkable without textiles. The bridges, the roof styles especially the saddle shaped roofs is inspired from the natural flare and fall of a fabric. Everywhere we look in a building and its construction, right to the finished structure, the influence of textiles is undeniable.