10.30.2007

The essence of the Vilva leaf

To the Great Lord Trimurthi
I see your reflection in my hand

I see your three eyes shine bright
I see the knowledge of life unfold

I see the trident of Love
Pierce my heart and kill my ego

I seek this moment to be with you

Your picture in my mind I hold

As I witness you dance within

A great hall of gold

The beats that echo within my walls
The world I do not know any more
I come with a simple offering my Lord
To Your heavenly abode.

The golden leaf inscribed

Your seed syllables of life

Hang down within my chamber

Ignite within my soul

The Lord resides for ever

Within my heart of gold

Gold Vilva cover my soul

Oh Lord, take me home.


Bilva patra, or vilva leaves otherwise known as the Bel leaf is the most sacred offering to Lord Shiva. Its a herb with very
high medicinal value. The vilva leaf has found its presence across the various Puranas and has played an important role in various mythologies.

Quoted from a few web sources:


In the Agni Purana it is believed that on any auspicious day in Bhadra, it is considered very sacred to worship Lord Shiva
with a day long fast and have vilva leaves to eat at night.
In the Padma Purana and the Brahma Purana it is believed that Shiva once hid from asuras by covering Himself with vilva
leaves.
In the Skanda Purana it is believed that this plant grew out of the perspiration from Parvati when it trickled to the ground
while she was in penance worshipping Lord Shiva. It is also believed that the various incarnations of Parvati reside on different parts of the vilva tree.
Another Purana relates that Lakshmi used to pray to Lord Shiva everyday by offering Him lotus buds. On one such day, during
her worship she fell short of two buds. Reflecting that Lord Vishnu had once compared the beauty of her breasts with a lotus, she humbly offered one of her breasts to the Lord during her worship. When she was about to offer the second by cutting it off, Lord Shiva moved by her devotion appeared before her and stopped her. He made her cut breast the fruit of the vilva tree.
In the Bhavishya Purana it is believed that during the Samudra Manthan, after the poison had oozed out and Lord Shiva
swallowed it save the world, Goddess Lakshmi rose out of the sea. She carried in a gold pot the sacred seeds of the vilva tree associated with Lord Shiva.
(Please note - the details above may not be authentic)

The vilva leaf in essence is the very Lord Himself in the form of Lord Trayambakeshwar, whose third eye reveals to us the
truth of life an existence. The vilva leaf is a reflection of the Lord's eyes, bringing alive the presence of Agni, Surya and Chandra each of whom are a representation of each leaf of the Vilva offering made to the Lord. Therefore the offering of vilva to the Lord is always a sets of 3.

The vilva leaf finds its divine presence in the Golden hall at Chidambaram where it hangs down to reveal the presence of the
Akasha Linga. It is a beautiful delicate gold curtain of vilva leaves strung together with the Lord's beeja inscribed in it. The offering of the vilva patra when offered to the Lord grants the removal of sin committed over three janmas or births.

Last but not the least, the Loknath Shiv temple at Puri, was installed by Lord Ram and has a Shiva Linga that is constantly
under water. During the Saranti Samobar Mela held during Shivrathri the upper part of the main Shiva Linga is known to emit steam which symbolizes the Holy river Ganges, thereby revealing the Linga. This Linga is worshiped with flowers, a mixture of herbs and sandal paste, all of which are offered during abhishekam and they remain in the water that surrounds this Linga. The result is spectacular as this watery mixture tends to have a different "fragrance" with the offerings poured in and is believed to have a very high medicinal value and contains the essence of the Lord. This is considered to be the prasad of the temple and is called Bilva Patra.

Loknath Temple, Puri

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kavitha~ Your opening lines, to me, sounded like what ‘I’ has been saying all the while! Yes, ‘I’ sees not five-fingers in ‘my’ palm, but three only! The numeral 3 of the ancient ‘wise’, seen through their eyes, the symbol OM representing primordial unique energy reflected by Trimurty, that is, Brahma-Vishnu-Mahesh of the ‘Hindu Mythology’, or the Trident of Shiva reflected in the form of a Bilva leaf for the benefit of ‘common man’ - and not the 'rich and famous' of 'Kaliyuga' the'dark age' when 'money spoke through the heads' of majority of humans, the 'nouveau riche' souls who were suddenly exposed to the 'material world' and particularly its 'gold'!

Anonymous said...

Maybe it was just a coincidence that because of circumstances, or ‘churning’, my wife, like my ancestors also belonged to a ‘hill-family’ from a lower range of the upper Himalayas in the north. And, just as mine had come to New Delhi, it had come to reside in the Bastar District of Madhya Pradesh state, now Chhatisgarh, literally ‘thirty-six forts”, inhabited by ‘tribals’ who used herbs, including bilva leaves and fruits, for treatment...and they fought with bows and arrows resisting the state's merger with the composite 'India'!

It is interesting to note from the Atlas that the longitude of its headquarter, Jagdalpur, is 82.04 degrees east, that is, the region is close to the ‘zero’ of ‘ancient India’ corresponding to 82.5 degrees east according to which one reckons the IST today!

Before ‘India’ attained ‘Independence’, Bastar was ruled by the Bhanjadeo kings who originally belonged to Orissa state where ‘tantricism’ apparently originated at the same time as it believably did in Assam...

The legend has it that Bhanjadeo was an ardent devotee of Mother, Dantewada, and he reportedly used to regularly play the game of dice with Her! She gave him a boon, a bed-sheet that is ‘Vastra’, and told him to go ahead and the sheet would get stretched infinitely and all the land that it covers would determine the land he would rule!

But, there was a condition too, that if he looked back, the sheet wouldn’t stretch further!

When he walked ahead, from the ‘ghunghroo’ she wore on her feet near the ankles, he knew Mother also followed him and he thus felt assured...

This continued till the king had reached Bastar (misnomer of Vastra). There, on the banks of the river, the king happened to look back for he didn’t hear the ghunghroo because of the sand and thus Mother disappeared! And the river thus came to mark the boundary of the land under his rule!

Now, the Bhanjadeo kings were considered God by the tribals, Murias and Marias. And, one of the Bhanjadeo kings, as a part of entertainment, believably used to stand on top of his palace at Jagdalpur and would throw bundles of loose Rupee notes into the crowd below! And then he would have a big laugh when they ran helter-skelter to grab the notes, and also fight with each other at times to claim a particular note grabbed between two of them!

Anonymous said...

Kavitha, I am sorry! On review of the above comment, ‘I’ noticed there has crept in a factual error.

Please read the name of ‘Mother’ as 'Ma Danteshwari', who has the original temple dedicated to Her at Dantiwada on the confluence of two rivers, one carrying blackish water and the other relatively clear water (models of Yamuna & Ganga?) and also one at Jagdalpur for the king and his family within the palace’s premises, which is however open to the public also…

Also, one could perhaps associate the name Danteshwari with human teeth, which generally can be considered, in a normal mouth, to consist of four sets of 8 numbers each, that is 32, and could thereafter be related with '64 Yoginis' of the Tantrics too!

Kavitha Kalyan said...

Hi Joshi Uncle

A very interesting to read, with a few disjointed facts and stories. It just amazes me sometimes to think that kings of those days used to derive sadistic pleasure by watching people scamper around for money. I have seen this often in movies set up in medieval European environments. The rich really have the poor make a run for their money.

Regds
Kavitha

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Anonymous said...

Kavitha, ‘India that is ‘Bharat’ is a mini-world. If you have traveled all over ‘India’ and have luckily had the opportunity to see the grand variety in all aspects that exists here, you might only thereafter find copies or reflections, with slight variations maybe, in the topography and history reflected in other parts of the globe too, for comparison!

But, if you haven’t seen ‘India’ and, say, get air-lifted to Europe etc. or the ‘west’ straightaway, you will believe a similar scenario that you had the occasion to see there, and you see here too - when you return to ‘India’ - to be a copy of the ‘west’! For, west is believed to be ruled by Saturn, the mischievous Krishna or ‘satan’ of say the ‘Christian’ belief!

A ‘seeker’ would find the same ‘Truth’ reflected in the Hindu Mythological story carried forward through innumerable generations about Parvati’s favourite son Ganesha (ruler of the east, that is the ruler of both ‘material’ and spiritual’ aspects thanks to blessings of both Mothers Kali the centre of earth, and Gauri representing the solar system) winning the rule of earth by believably going around his parents instead of the globe superficially, like Shiva’s favourite son Kartikeya (ruler of the’west’ alone, that is the ‘material’ aspect only represented by blue colour/ iron & steel that is also associated with Saturn) believably did it physically but relatively in more time and, therefore, lost in the race!

Thus the ancients laid stress on essence that is ‘satva’, expressed also as ‘Satya’…

All said and done, however, the ‘wise’ ancients realized all this to be part of a drama that is illusion or ‘Maya’. Earth itself was believed to be a lie or ‘mithya jagat’ created believably by the ‘five elements’, reflected also in a bilva’s compound leaf by the apparent physical Creator as the Trinity, that apparently represents the Creator, who in reality is formless!

The ‘wise ancients’ expressed in Gita, through the character of Krishna, that anybody could reach Him, irrespective of one’s sex, caste, creed and so on – if one surrendered in Him (wisely, for all wrong actions were stated to be on account of lack of overall knowledge)!

A ‘tribal’ in the environment in which he/ she is born and brought up might find it hard to get accustomed to urban style of living and initially look ‘foolish’ to ‘city dwellers’, but a city dweller, say, accidentaly finding oneself in their environment would find a ‘tribal’ to appear quite versatile while he/ she might appear ‘foolish’ in his own eyes!

Yogiraja Krishna, the physical representative of Vishnu the Nadbindu was stated to be mischievous, and one was therefore advised to seek Him, not outwards but within the self with an overall view, like Himself that is like a ‘Siddha’ or an all rounder!

Dr.Anil Joshi said...

Kavitha,Joshi Uncle,The modern day kings i.e. the politicians still play the same game & probably derieve the same sadistic pleasure!The blog on bilva patra strangely brought forth the mrmories of Dussera when the leaves of "Shami" or "apta" are distributed.A lot many trees are denuded this way & on the next day of Dussera the streets are littered with the same leaves.Some religious practises badly need a rethink!

Anonymous said...

Hi Dr. Anilji, Yes, you are right, for in the ‘present’ also it has been concluded that no administrative system has proved to be fool-proof! And Mirabai also concluded that 'Krishna' has given the throne to fools while pundits remain beggars. ‘Wise Hindus’ also believed that which does not change with time only to be the truth. Thus exploitation was accepted as a natural phenomenon.

In simple words, “Jiski lathi uski bhains”, or “Might is right”, is a natural law. And, if you believe God to be Almighty then naturally He is always right! Only we mortals don't know His purpose!

Maybe, the practice of use of leaves, as they fall away naturally also, from certain trees on certain religious occasions to a limited extent, because they are bio degradable, were considered all right by the ancients in place of plastic material as in the urban regions today.

And because the majority mainly dealth with some agrarian practices, perhaps therefore the practice was adopted. For, even in places where this practice of serving ‘prasad’ or food on leaves is continued ritually even today, as per my experience, I saw, in Manipur say, the hosts burying the leaves and left over food in pits that were duly covered with earth fr 'nature' to do the rest…

Dr.Anil Joshi said...

Joshi Uncle,May be the end of the world is nearing hence this god's arrangement of being ruled by the fools!!
Kavitha,another suggestion is that please start a series on"Appreciation of temple Architecture"With Joshi uncle's wealth of knowledge it will be a memorable experience & hopefully pave the way for your future book!

Anonymous said...

Hi Anilji, although it is difficult, but by change of view-point, perhaps one could accept that what one calls as 'foolishness in the present' could, in fact, reflect the beginning of the 'churning' in the 'past' - when the stage of perfection was still just Shiva's dream!

“Brevity is the soul of life”, is the ancient thought from a ‘western’ view-point on ‘essence’, that is, ‘satva’, while in the ‘east’ the Yogis, as models of Yogeshwar Shiva, used three words, “Satyam Shivam Sunderam”, that literally is interpreted as, ‘Shiva is the ‘Truth’ and He is beautiful’...

However, because of the style adopted by the wise ancients in the remote past, supposedly to create ‘Maya’ or illusion, an uninitiated ‘westerner’ today, without going into the depth, might come to visualize ‘Shiva’ as an uncultured appearing person, say like a ‘tribal’ in the present in some remote jungles of ‘India’ who is yet to ‘become civilized’, unlike us the city-dwellers in the ‘present-day-India’, the ‘originally uncivilized natives’ who had been lucky to come in contact with the different ‘western civilizations’ over Centuries: with long beard and locks of hair on head, and having a serpent around His neck while he sports just a tiger skin from below his waist and is seated in 'lotus-pose' or 'padmasan'; his weapon, a trident, driven into the ground in front of him!

And, to make him look beautiful, or a simple God, that is a cool dude, a croissant-like moon is shown on his forehead, and the Holy Ganga flowing out of his locks!

The initiated, however, comes to learn that SHIVA is opposite of VISHA the poison, which, in fact, pointed towards the ‘Blue Planet’, as His prototype, that is the composite Earth! It has in its 'Heart' (the word formed with the same five letters, but putting letter 'H', for ‘Hari Vishnu’, before the rest four letters as it is – Hari meaning Green and Vishnu literally means an atom of poison!) the destructive cum creative force ‘Kali’, meaning ‘Krishna’ that is ‘Black’, the dark space!

And that EARTH the 'holder of Ganga' that has Moon over His head (in the ‘sky’ as one of the five elements or panchabhoota) represented the immortal or formless Creator, the one who alone could overcome the effect of VISHA, (reflected also by the ‘vishadhar’ like Him, that is, a serpent around His neck!), that turned His throat blue thanks to ‘Amrit’ supplied by ‘somrus’ or moonrays, moon the satellite of earth considered as Shiva’s consort Parvati the daughter of Himalayas! And, so on…innumerable stories to last till eternity, expressed in “Hari ananta, Hari katha ananta…”!

Kavitha Kalyan said...

Hi Anilji,

This blog started with the appreciation of temple architecture and sculpture and for an entire year it didnt seem to gain any ground with the audience as it was rather professorial in nature.

Bringing in a bit of truth which connects with our lives today and is something that people can relate to seems to make the difference.

Understanding temple architecture needs time and patience and more importantly - interest and I do not know how the audience will react to it. I should give it a shot anyway and see the reaction of people.

Regds
Kavitha

Anonymous said...

With the objective of maintenance of, say for example, proper Law & Order today, and at all times too as reflected by ‘Trimurty’ of ‘Sanatan Dharma’, one feels need of three independent systems, with different hierarchy between the three as well as in each system too: The ‘Judiciary’ (to lay down the laws to cover various anticipated situations) and the ‘Police’ (to execute those in proper spirit, because words fail to cover all aspects) according to the Constitution and their amendments from time to time to cover certain loopholes that had remained unanticipated at the time of casting of the original Constitution - laid down by the Political Administrator(s) concerned at the given point in time as the decision maker(s)…

Similar is the relationship between Architects & Engineers to meet the requirement of the clients, for various desired purposes - as ‘decision makers’ - as spelt out by the concerned in words…

In brief, ‘Architecture’ basically deals with the details related with the outward appearance of a structure, whereas, ‘Egineering’ deals with execution of the building after fulfilling all the technical feasibility, and/ or economc feasibility too, in ideal case for resulting in ‘eternal bliss’ to be exactly as it was imagined by the client…

The ancient ‘wise Hindus’, after in-depth thoughts (after reaching the thoughtless stage) realized the above as the basis of formation of the human structure – in the ‘image of God’ - as the task 'Lord Vishnu' believably gave to 'Krishna', who ended up in the ‘immortal’ physical Earth at the head and all other physical forms inferior to it, in a hierarchical manner, in order to present in front of the ‘decision maker’ the ‘images’ in human form that apparently truly reflected Him from (-) infinity to (+) infinity at all times!

Anonymous said...

Kavitha, With Bilvs patra or leaf/ Shiva's Trident/ Trimurty and so on in mind, a 'Hindu' would perhaps have no problem in accepting the following as essence of 'Hindu' belief.

Some wise person said that words cannot express a realization However, if you want to share it with others, you need words. Any numbers of words used might not be sufficient. However, sometimes just a hint might suffice to the ‘wise’, and a stick to the ‘foolish’!

The ‘Hindus’, the word derived from ‘Indu’ that is moon or La Lune, whose essence is supposed to be housed in each human beings head, believed man to be the model of the infinite Universe, each human being reflecting some essential characteristic property of the Formless Creator, namely, creation, sustenance, and destruction or transformation - giving everyone the opportunity to realise the ‘Truth’ or ‘purpose’ of human life during the allotted time…

Anonymous said...

Attempting to 'read the mind of the formless Creator' through ancient 'wise Hindus', continuing further, ‘I’ had elsewhere said how it was my elder brother who introduced me into palmistry, the art of reading lines on the human palms, when he brought 'Cheiro’s book' during one of our summer vacations in the school days...

Only ‘I’ continued observing palms thereafter and learned many things about these lines…as well as fingers related with planets and time…

For example, the five fingers, including the thumb, seem to represent the ‘five elements’ or literally the ‘five ghosts’ of the ‘Hindu’ belief, in which thumb represents ‘air’ the number one in the hierarchy for existence of life on earth; index finger acts as a pointer, that is, like a teacher or Guru who shows the right direction, which the Hindu mythology points towards Moon - whose essence is believed to lie in the head – the source of ‘water’, as the number 2 item for 'life', and as the ruler of the dark space that is ‘shunya’ or ‘zero’ the index finger together with the thumb acts as one unit reflected in ‘siddhasan’ too; middle finger, being the tallest of the four fingers, indicates infinity as well as the ‘egoistic ruler’ of the material world, Saturn the mischievous one, or polluted earth, reflected by Venus, that is, the ‘blue sky’; ring finger represents the bright and the hot Sun, that is, ‘fire’ as the ruler of the sky during the day with blue sky in the background and the two therefore together acting as one unit; and last but not the least the little finger represents the red hot core or heart of earth representing the primordial energy 'Kali', at the heart of physical earth/ the dark space…

Also seven days in a week (similarly perhaps by seven vertebrae in the thoracic region) seem represented by the four fingers and three gaps between them; each finger, being divided into three parts, appear to indicate 12 parts to represent 12 months in an year (and there are 12 vertebrae in the Lumbar region); and as seen above the little finger has 3 parts, the ring and middle fingers together have 6 parts, while the index finger and thumb together have 5 parts and these three digits read 365, that is, the number of days in an year! And these numbers total 14, number of days in a fortnight and thus 28 days in a month, read in both palms together, which the palmist must study for proper interpretation of the predominant lines that become the governing ones for a particular individual!

Anonymous said...

One could perhaps see the trident/ compound ‘vilva’ or ‘bel’ leaf also reflected in the three major lines on a palm that are called ‘Life’, Head’ & ‘Heart’ lines, with the ‘Fate line’ acting as the handle that keeps one Shiva’s-trident-like attached to the ground that is earth, or the stem that joins the leaf with the tree proper!

‘Heart line’, as seen earlier elsewhere also, starts from the inner end of the palm under the little finger that represents ‘Red’, while the ‘Life’ and ‘Head’ lines, both start at the outer end of the palm, in line with the index finger that represents ‘Yellow’ at the base of ‘zero’ or letter ‘O’, formed by joining it with the thumb, of ‘OM’, where letter ‘M’ can be read by holding the palm in ‘siddhasan’ with the rest three fingers open and pointing towards earth!

Anonymous said...

Continuing 'my' dialogue with 'I', Once you learn that the human brain is an analogous super computer, unlike the digital computer that we appear to use ‘today’ and which gets slower because of the need to first convert the alphanumeric symbols into machine, or binary language that utilizes only two digits, ‘0’ and ‘1’, it becomes easier to appreciate why ‘advanced Hindus’ used symbols to represent the different forms of the unique energy through generally a variety of female forms, but which itself is represented symbolically by numeral 3 (the Trimurty), and three other symbols that represent the centre of earth shown as a dot, that is, a ‘star’; a crescent of Moon; and Mars the ‘starter’, i.e., a handle-like figure that was seen more in the olden days for cranking of certain engines...

The various forms of energy although themselves individually are also indestructible, these are capable of getting transformed from one to another using mediums – as known with the example of telephone wherein sound energy at one end is converted into electrical impulses with the use of a magnet, and then reconverting it - back to sound energy at the receiver end…

Krishna reportedly is mischievous!

Anonymous said...

Plainly reviewing, man is one of the innumerable varieties of ‘life’, one of the animal species that apparently exist on the ever changing earth at any given point in time, an evolved mammal that apparently heads the animal world...

In this apparent hierarchy in all aspects, he believes he is the superior most. This sense of superiority over the apparently innumerable ‘inferior life forms’ leads the generality of men who, (because of the apparent hierarchy between one man and another too, act as heads as the ‘physically and/ or mentally powerful most’ in different pockets of land), to a feeling of ‘false pride’, a feeling of superiority for some time, that often gets shattered (for ‘history repeats’) when one day the ‘boss’ or the leader - who all the while wasn’t aware of the overall scenario existing over the globe, like the proverbial ‘koopmandook’ or the ‘frog in the well’ - comes face to face with an adversary who is relatively more powerful to him…

The essence, even in the interiors of the ‘developing country’ that ‘India’ believably materially is, has been expressed since time immemorial, which for example I used to hear in my childhood from my ‘illiterate’ mother as, “Nan goru pai thul goru/ Thul goru pai bagh”, that literally means, ‘The big cow bosses over a small cow/ Tiger bosses over the big cow’…for the ‘wise ancient Hindus’ believed in ‘satva’ that is ‘essence’ of life realized as ‘design’ by the one and only ‘supreme being’ that is ‘Paramatma’ or ‘supreme soul’ whose three aspects of ‘creation’, ‘sustenance’ and ‘transformation’ gets reflected in all forms of life as the ‘Truth’, which the ‘common man’ could also see in the ‘bel patra’ the compound Vilva leaf associated with formless Shiva (Bhootnath, the 'Lord of the Ghosts/ Past') symbolically represented by ‘Shiva-ling’...

The present day literates could perhaps see the central idea, for example, in the ‘PIE’ chart related with any long-term project, that is the day-to-day cycles of ‘planning’, ‘implementation’ and ‘evaluation’ with the overall objective in mind – starting from ‘scratch’...

The ancients expressed it as the formless Creator, Nadbindu, literally the 'roaring point', ‘reaching perfection starting from nothing (material)’ in apparently four intermediate stages of time in terms of long periodic cycles of time, i.e., a 'Mahayuga' consisting of four different Yugas…essence stated in three words, "Om Namah Shivaya"...

Anonymous said...

Shiva the ‘Neelkantha’ that is the immortal ‘Blue Planet’ that eventually was projected as the most evolved and unending Heavenly Body as His ‘true image’, the Formless Creator has mischievously managed to hide His true identity from man - believed also as ‘His Own image’ - by relating ‘Blue’ colour with ‘Rakshashas’ or selfish people, generally imagined as demons, who believably could fool one by apparently projecting the same form at the same time at different locations (and ‘voice throwing’ as seen even today being practiced by some 'artists') that led to the 'devtas', or selfless people, reaching the real form out of so many of the same antagonist…

"Satyameva Jayate", however, indicates that 'Truth ever prevails', that could perhaps mean that Earth is immortal - like the unborn and unending Formless Creator! This could perhaps be interpreted as the essence of the Vilva leaf!

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

This reminds me that ‘I’ came across a ‘shloka’ in the ‘chandyogyopnishad’ in Sanskrit translated into Hindi, to the effect with respect to the present day terminology, “The essence of the five elements is earth. Essence of earth is water. Essence of water is chemicals in plant life etc. Essence of chemicals is man, the human body. Essence of man is his voice. Essence of voice is prayer in praise of God. Essence of prayer is singing in proper tune. Essence of proper tune is singing the name of God. And essence of all essences is the name of God”.

Kavitha, we have already elsewhere had seen how, in ‘Namah Shivaya’ Na could perhaps be interpreted to stand for ‘Nabha that is sky’; ‘Mah’ for ‘Mahi the earth including Ganga’; ‘Shi for shikhi the fire’; ‘Va for Vayu the air; and ‘Ya for Yamuna the relatively more polluted river than Ganga, reflecting the initial stage of churning and the emergence of poison’.

Thus “Om namah Shivaya” covers names of both the formless as well as the God with form.

In the Bhagavadgita, that is, literally the verses sung by Krishna in human form, in essence, the Lord discloses that the above is the only purpose of man on earth!

Anonymous said...

Kavitha, Here is another reaction, an essence of Hindu Mythology for information, for it is perhaps not saleable in news- media in Kaliyuga, the Dark Age!

This has reference to the article by Shri Shashi Tharoor (STOI), ‘Three Big Rs: Railways, Ray and Reliance.

‘I’ would like to only indicate an overall ‘ancient Hindu’ point of view, in brief.

P for Population & R for Reliance: Related with ‘I’ for ‘India’ that is ‘B’ for ‘Bharat’, the letter ‘P’ also stands for the ‘pyramid’, that is, its shape that is given to the ‘Vimana’ (literally ‘aeroplane’ for souls to reach Heaven!) carried forth since time immemorial, the pyramid shaped upper tapering part of ancient ‘Hindu Temples’, particularly the ones that are dedicated to Lord Shiva who is associated with Satyuga, the era that ‘I’ had left behind billions of years ago! And thus the ones in Egypt, in the African Continent that believably is the root of the present day Homo sapiens, could perhaps be considered as the nth copy, where ‘n’ tends to infinity! And, the tents that campers/ mountaineers (‘who conquered Mount Everest’ the highest Himalayan peak even) generally use are also pyramid shaped!

Now, perhaps it is well known that if the apex of a particular tent - to house a large number of people or a pyramid - is required to reflect the peak of the Mount Everest as its copy, or model, it would need to have a relatively large base…

However, ‘Hindu Mythology’ lays more stress on the Mount Kailash, jointly with the Mansarovar Lake, a relatively smaller Himalayan mountain, because these two together act as a ‘Reliable’ perennial source of ‘life-giving’ water, and thus food too, to us ‘Indians’ through generations since time immemorial, just as an average star called SUN provides the necessary life-giving energy to inhabitants of the immortal ‘Blue Planet’ that is SHIVA, the reliable source of all basic needs of all animals - that are easily accessible…A poet said, in Hindi, to the effect, “What’s the use if one grows tall like a date-palm/ Neither does one provide shade to the traveler nor its fruit is easily accessible”…

Anonymous said...

Speaking about the ‘Apsmara Purush’, that is, man who isn’t able to recall his past, under the foot of Natraja Shiva, it’s very well known by the majority of people today how the ancient ‘Hindus’ described Shiva to apply ‘crematorium’s ash’ on His body, and that He had a poisonous serpent hissing, dangling from his neck!
However, mischievous Krishna perhaps doesn’t let it be realized by the ‘civilized’ beings in Kaliyuga today that even they too are virtually spraying and applying dust of stone, talcum powder, like the proverbial ‘crematorium’s ash’, on their body after bath (a practice followed by elephants too when with their trunks they spray dust over their bodies!), and also producing the hissing sound, with the swoosh, the sound produced by the perfume they sprinkle in the general region of their necks and shoulders!

Anonymous said...

During the school days, our teacher once asked us to write an essay on what God would feel if He were to appear on earth then (and see the apparent deteriorating conditions).

The above thought would indicate that it was even then being generally felt, in the early fifties itself, the state of mind of the generality of ‘common man’ tehn. And, over the five decades thereafter the whole global environment appears to have undergone a drastic downward plunge, in so far as human behaviour is concerned, as it is apparent not only in the ‘truncated India’, but in its neighboring countries also that once were its parts in the apparent ‘past’ that in reality is a reflection of its ‘future’ - then only a dream of ‘Shiva’ who was ‘Krishna/ Kali’ to start with, as indicated by ‘wise ancient Hindus’!

Anonymous said...

Let us once again revert to the ‘nuclear deal’ that is apparently in the offing between the now ‘truncated India’ - as it perhaps might have been at some stage in the beginning of a Kaliyuga, for although the universe is estimated to be in existence for around 13 billion years, our Sun - with its white sunlight that holds seven other visible colurs - is the apparent direct and indirect source of energy on our earth that is the ‘Blue Planet’ as part of the solar system, which apparently was born relatively in recent times, and is in existence for over 4 billion years already…

Now, the direction where the sun apparently rises, that is, ‘east’, is symbolically represented (by ancient ‘Hindus’) by ‘Krishna’/ ‘Kali’ the black bodied devtas, which because of emphasis laid on Her protruding red tongue indicates ‘Red colour’ as the essence of the ruler of the ‘materially poor east’, (the colour that is also reflected by the ’Leftists’ in ‘India’ that believably represents the poor majority – like the Communists elsewhere upon the globe)…also, ir could be noticed that red and green colours result in blackish colour, i.e., perhaps ne could imagine black to have been divded to result in red and green colours, while green on division might have resulted in Blue and Yellow...

And, the USA in the ‘present’ apparently represents the physical location that is inhabited by, relatively speaking, the richest people ‘today’ in the ‘west’ (even the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra in west India are relatively richer compared to certain states in hte east)...

And, the ‘west’ is the direction where the sun apparently sets and which was believed by the ancients to be ruled by Saturn/ materialistic Venus that has ‘Blue’ colour as its essence housed in the throat of Shiva…and it’s well known that in the solar system Venus is a ‘specialist’ that holds poisonous gases etc. in its atmosphere. And as the ‘Hindus’ believed poison to have emerged at the beginning of the ‘churning’ that was held by Shiva in His throat, one could perhaps conclude that they believed Solar System to symbolically represent Mahashiva, wherein each member could be visualized as one of the vital organs of His body…

Anonymous said...

As per the apparent grand and intricate design in 'Nature', believably by a Supreme formless being, only seven colours, that is, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet colours apparently become visible in the spectrum to human eyes (while various other energies aren't) when sunlight gets refracted (seen by the literates through a glass prism that is a pyramid-like object, which has three tapering side that meet at one point, but instead of a square it has an equilateral triangle as its base), seen by everyone in a rainbow as it is naturally formed in the ‘sky’, or even in a film of oil on the surface of a water body, explained by ‘scientists’, due to different refractive indices...

As we have seen earlier also, our Sun, the source of white light appears as the physical ruler during the day only while our Moon similarly rules during the night, both as apparent temporary bodies as some of the various ‘Truths’, it is in fact the ‘sky’, which appears pale blue during the day and black during the night, but ever remaining in the background, and was believed by the ‘Hindus’ to be one of the ‘panch bhoota’ the ‘five ghosts’ that reflect the ‘Absolute Truth’ or the formless Creator who ever remains unseen, but its essence could be seen in three colours, that is, red, blue and yellow and their combinations, for blue and yellow make green; red and yellow make orange; and red and blue make indigo…The ancients apparently related each of the various colours, and certain energies too (Infra-red, and ultra-violet that replaced indigo and viooet, with selected eight number members of the solar system to have gone into the making of the variety of ‘life’ forms…

Anonymous said...

The question that is likely to naturally arise in the mind of the reader would be how the knowledge thus gained could be used to improve the lot of the ‘common man’ by modifying the electro-chemical system of a human body utilizing colours...

However, before this could be attempted, one would need to know first what are the colours due to lack/ excess of which a particular malfunctioning has occurred at the first place as it becomes apparent today...

In this regard the essence reached by the ancients is expressed in the sayings, “Excess of anything is bad”, and “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

A surgeon ‘I’ happened to come across also said that each individual is a unique system and, therefore, after a surgeon has performed the operation, he keeps his fingers crossed. And, depending on the nature of the complication thereafter observed, he symptomatically treats the concerned patient.

In short, one would therefore first need to know the colour(s) needed by the individual to cover all the three axes of development…
Palmists tried to reach these by reading the lines, while the ancient Astrologers appear to have reached those through critical analysis based on study of the horoscope of the concerned that was, and now also is, prepared with reference to the positions of ‘grahas’ in the ‘sky’ at the time of its birth. However, the intricacies of the analysis part are now not fully known to the ‘Apsmara Purush’ that an average man believably is…

Anonymous said...

Human being was realized as the superior most creation of the former Creator who as per the Yogis, because of design, reflected typical characteristic properties of some particular member of ‘Mahashiva’, the solar system...

And, the grand variety and hierarchy as observed among humans at any given point of time was achieved believably as the result of yoga, that is, permutations and combinations of essences of the selected members of the solar system, or ‘grahas’...

And Shiva, in human form, is indicated in essence as the ‘true copy’ of the formless Creator, or the model of composite earth as the perfect Heavenly Body as the essence of the entire universe - at the end of Satyuga when immortality was believably attained by devtas or the ‘grahas’ that between themselves also, however, form a hierarchical order - with earth as the superior most model of universe…

The formless Creator after achieving perfection is believably reviewing, in 'His Thirs Eye', or 'Ajna Chakra' - the house of the commander with green colour, like that of 'vilva' leaf - his own past again and again since that time in His one day, in 1080 cycles from 'perfection' to the stage when it had started the evolutionary process from 'scratch', which works out to over 4 billion years as reckoned by the terrestrials...and the solar system is estimated to have already been in existence for nearly that much time!

Anonymous said...

Those who are in the 'printing line', they are familiar with the use of the term CYMK, that is, Cyan or blue, derived from cyanic or cyanide the powerful poison referred as ‘halahal’ by ancient ‘Hindus’; Yellow; Magenta, a purplish red colour; and black (K for Krishna?), the items on a page to be printed in these four colours, in four cycles (related with four cycles of ‘churning’ referred in the Hindu mythology - indicated in the reverse order – starting from Krishna?!), which are taken up in that order in an offset press whereby the overall printing job gets completed as per the layout of a page originally designed by the team of an ‘Editor’, a ‘Creative Director’ and a ‘Copy writer’ and their various assistants, viz. Desk Top operator, proof reader, cameramen and so on…

Anonymous said...

As in all cases of human activity with some particular goal or objective in mind - whether it is a book/ brochure/ pamphlet etc. as desired by the ‘decision maker’ concerned - a printing job is considered well done only if the end product gives a feeling of happiness to all those to whom the publication was intended to be addressed while primarily serving the purpose that was originally in the mind of the client concerned, and also is delivered within the desired schedule of time…The ancient ‘Hindus’ also similarly sought the purpose of human life, vis-à-vis the Creator’s possible original desire…

Anonymous said...

If the formless Creator’s original desire was just to create an immortal physical form that could reflect its imaginary face, that is, present to it the ‘true image’ of the omnipotent and omnipresent formless energy that it believably is, then planet Jupiter as one of the selected members of our solar system, believably as the essence of our Milky Way Galaxy, which believably is associated with infrared rays, that is, pure heat that gets exchanged between different galaxies, could perhaps have served its purpose to some extent only. For the Creator believably is responsible for the three aspects related with the innumerable physical forms in the universe: Creation, sustenance, and destruction, that came to be, therefore, called Trimurty that also gets reflects through a compound ‘vilva leaf’...

Jupiter, called Brihaspati, the Guru of Devtas, is a big planet that, like earth holds water in liquid form also, mainly contains liquefied Hydrogen at a very high atmospheric pressure (unlike our Sun where the Hydrogen - in the form of gas in the core - continues to explode, to turn into inert gas Helium that forms its outer garment-like cover, and supply energy to all the members of the solar system). And, like planet Saturn, it has rings that, however, are relatively smaller in size and also appear dirtier (‘Hindus’ indicate child Krishna the representative of Vishnu to like eating dust). And also, it holds many satellites – out of which Io is similar to our planet earth. The foregoing thus, in a way, reflects Jupiter independently also as the essence of the solar system too. Or, in other words, the solar system could be imagined as reflecting the different faces of planet Jupiter. And, 'Yogiraja' Krishna says in the Gita that He is present within each human being (as the essence of the solar system - as indicated by Yogis)!

Anonymous said...

Hello,

I'm interested in knowing the lyircs of 'vilvaashtakam'. Can you please help me?

Thanks,
Aparna

Vandana said...

Hi,
Can anybody please tell me if we can keep Vilva Patra tree at home?