Diwali explanations

DIWALI

The Hindu festival of Diwali is celebrated for five days, celebrating 5 main events. According to the luni-solar Hindu Calendar. It begins in late in the month called 'Ashwin' (usually between September and October, sometimes stretching into early November, as it was in 2013) and ends in early in the month of 'Kartik.'
The first day major event is Dhan Teras. The last day is Yama Dvitiya, which signifies the second day of the bright-half of the month 'Kartik.' Usually each day of Diwali marks one celebration of the five principal stories associated with the festival.

The festival starts with Dhanteras on which most Indian business communities begin their financial year. The second day of the festival, Naraka Chaturdashi, marks the vanquishing of the demon Naraka by Lord Krishna and his wife Satyabhama. Amavasya, the third day of Deepawali, marks the worship of Lakshmi, Lakshmi Puja (Prayer), the Goddess of wealth in her most benevolent mood, fulfilling the wishes of her devotees. Amavasya also tells the story of Lord Vishnu, who in his dwarf incarnation vanquished the Bali, and banished him to Patala. It is on the fourth day of Deepawali, Kartika Shudda Padyami, that Bali went to 'patala' (hell) and took the reins of his new kingdom in there. The fifth day is referred to as Yama Dvitiya (also called Bhai Dooj), and on this day sisters invite their brothers to their homes.

Diwali Day 1: Vasu Baras- Baras means 12th day of the Ashwin month and vasu means cow. The cow and calf are worshipped on Vasu Baras. This event is not taken into account while calculating the '5-day Diwali'

Diwali Day 2: Dhanteras- Dhanvantari- an incarnation of the God of health and welfare: Vishnu, is worshipped. Many consider this to be the first day of the Diwali festival. During this day people buy new clothes, new vessels, gold and silver etc. because this is the day that Dhanvantari came from the sea during Samudra Manthan.

Diwali Day 3: Naraka Chaturdashi- This signifies the fourteenth day of the dark half of Ashwin month, on which demon Narakasura was killed by god Krishna (the god Vishnu's incarnation. Naraka Chaturdashi signifies the victory of good over evil and light over darkness. In much of Southern India this is the main day of the festival. The are many traditions such as taking a bath before sunrise, which it is believed that when the stars are still visible in the sky a bath is equivalent to bathing in the holy Ganges. New clothes are worn and candles and lamps are used as well as large fireworks displays. Firecrackers are believed to repel the demons. falls on the second day of the festival of Diwali.

Kali means Dark (evil) and Chaudas - Fourteenth. Thus, celebrated on the 14th day of the dark half of Āshwin month, Kali Chaudas is the day allotted to the worship of Maha-Kali or Shakti and is believed that on this day Kali killed the wickedest Narakasura. Narak Chaturdashi andKali Chaudas is day to abolish laziness and evil which create hell in our life and shine light on life.

Day 4: Diwali Day- Celebrated on Kartik Amavasya. Lakshmi Puja- This is the most important day of Diwali celebrations in Northern India. Homes worship Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, Ganesh the God of auspicious beginnings and then light lamps all across the streets and homes so as to welcome prosperity and well-being. The third day of the festival of Diwali is the most important day of Lakshmi-puja and is entirely devoted to the propitiation of Goddess Lakshmi. On this very day sun enters his second course and passes Libra which is represented by the balance or scale. Hence, this design of Libra is believed to have suggested the balancing of account books and their closing. Despite the fact that this day falls on an amavasya day it is regarded as the most auspicious. Due to this system being based on the luni-solar calendar, sometimes there is overlapping of dates and events, as this years Kalnirnay will show that Lakshmi Puja and Naraka Chaturdashi will be on the same day, though seperated by hours.

Diwali Day 5: Bali Pratipada and Govardhan Puja/Govardhan Puja/Annakut- This is celebrated as the day Krishna - an incarnation of god Vishnu defeated the god Indra and by the lifting of Govardhana Hill saved his kinsmen and cattle from rain and floods. Also known as Diwali Padwa, this also is celebrated as a New Year amongst many communities,eg- the Gujaratis, leading into the new Year of the Vikram Samvat Calendar followed in Western India.

Diwali Day 6: Bhaiduj/Bhayyaduj/Bhaubeej/Bhayitika This is a day for families across India and other Hindu areas to meet and rejoice in life. This is the second day of the bright fortnight or Shukla Paksha of the Hindu month of Kartik. On this day, sisters pray for their brothers to have long and happy lives by performing the Teeka ceremony, and brothers make gifts to their sisters.

The explanations and meanings are derived and written as per my understanding of the system. I could be off, way off, and of course I could be right. Please speak to your mythology mentor before embarking on any religion based event.

NOTE:

I found websites that had short and long information on one or the other events. I satt down to collate this information, on the urging of a friend at work. I must thank him for the persistent questioning. Thanks, SZK. Here in a effort for kids, adults, friends near and far to follow this major Hindu religious festival. I hope you would have some or a better idea of what this is about after reading this write up.

As usual I do thank the internet to have brought information to my workstation, and to have brought light- in the sense of knowledge to me and others. Should you forward,  forward with credit.

Regards.

_________________________

Follow my motorcycle related blog at http://beagoodrider.blogspot.in

Weekend interests.

With the monsoons here and spectacular drives available for people to do, I am posting a few things of interest and when we pass the 200Km form Pune to Kolhapur, we wonder what all those horizontal lines on the hills are.
I did some research and asked a few questions and came up with this. Attached is a small drive route of about 200Km from Kolhapur, which should take about 5 hours to complete in good rain. Else faster. Have a goos season and drive safe.

Kamu.

Deccan Traps, India- 

Seen on the eastern side of the Pune-Kolhapur Highway.

Each layer is formed by one 'pour' of molten basalt, each pour being enough to cover half a million square kilometers. See region in grey marked below ranging from Tapi river to Dharwad in the south. Such pours happened about 60-65 million years ago, and the staart-finish was in less than 10,000 years.

See images below.

17-24N, 43-47E
Elevation: 4,000 feet (1,200 m)

The Deccan Traps are one of the largest volcanic provinces in the world. It consists of more than 6,500 feet (>2,000 m) of flat-lying basalt lava flows and covers an area of nearly 200,000 square miles (500,000 square km) (roughly the size of the states of Washington and Oregon combined) in west-central India. Estimates of the original area covered by the lava flows are as high as 600,000 square miles (1.5 million square km). The volume of basalt is estimated to be 12,275 cubic miles (512,000 cubic km)(the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens produced 1 cubic km of volcanic material). The Deccan Traps are flood basalts similar to the Columbia River basalts of the northwestern United States. This photo shows a thick stack of basalt lava flows north of Mahabaleshwar. Photograph by Lazlo Keszthelyi, January 28, 1996.

The Deccan basalts may have played a role in the extinction of the dinosaurs. Most of the basalt was erupted between 65 and 60 million years ago. Gases released by the eruption may have changed the global climate and lead to the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. This photo shows the Deccan Tarps between Mambai and Mahabaleshwar. Photograph by Lazlo Keszthelyi, January 27, 1996.

Vocanologists are also trying to understand how such great volumes of lava are erupted. Early models proposed that lava flooded across large areas at extremely rapid rates. Recently proposed models suggested that at least some of the flows are emplaced at gradual rates, lasting months to years. This photo shows the Ajanta Caves, temples carved into the basalts. Note the school group for scale. Photograph by Lazlo Keszthelyi, January 31, 1996.

Why is the incident of the creation of the Deccan Traps important?

Huge volcanic eruptions that belched sulfur into the air for around 10,000 years could have killed the dinosaurs, according to new evidence unearthed by geologists.

Evidence is accumulating that it wasn't an asteroid that did the beasts in, but volcanoes — the first real challenge the extinction theory has met in three decades.

A combination of studies on dinosaur fossils, magnetic signatures in rocks and the timing of the disappearance of different species suggest it was volcanoes, not an asteroid, that caused the dinosaurs' extinction.

"We're discovering … amazingly large flows, amazingly short time scales and amazing volcanic (eruptions)," said Vincent Courtillot of the University of Paris, who is is presenting new evidence for the volcano theory this week at the American Geophysical Union conference here.

For the last 30 years, the prevailing theory has been that an asteroid, around six miles across, hit the Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago, throwing debris into the atmosphere, blocking the sun and chilling the planet to the point that nearly half of all species went extinct.

Physicist Luis Alvarez of the University of California, Berkeley, first presented the asteroid impact hypothesis in 1980. It was based on an extensive layer of iridium, which is associated with impacts, that could be found in many places across the globe in the same geologic time sequence. A decade later, the Chicxulub crater was discovered on the Yucatan peninsula, adding weight to the idea that an impact killed off the dinosaurs.

The idea that Indian volcanoes, known as the Deccan Traps, might have contributed to the mass extinction is not new. But scientists at the AGU meeting think the eruptions could be the sole cause of the die-offs, and that the asteroid had little or no effect on life at all.

"If there had been no impact, we think there would have been a massive extinction anyway," Courtillot said.

Courtillot has studied the magnetic signatures of the Indian volcanic deposits that lined up with the Earth's magnetic field as they cooled. Because the orientation of the magnetic field has changed over time, lava that cooled at different times have different signatures.

The more than 2-mile thick pile of Deccan Traps deposits has several major pulses that occurred over the course of several decades each, almost certainly less than 100 years. And the entire sequence erupted in less than 10,000 years, rather than the million years or more that has been suggested.

All told, this would have put 10 times more climate-changing emissions into the atmosphere than the asteroid impact.

Also supporting the volcanic theory is fossil evidence from Texas and Mexico that most of the species extinctions coincided with the final pulse of eruptions, not with the asteroid impact, which may have occurred approximately 300,000 years earlier, according to Gerta Keller of Princeton University.

"There is essentially no extinction associated with the impact," Keller said.

Evidence that dinosaurs survived in India right up to the final volcanic onslaught further bolsters the case.

But it will take a lot of evidence to convince the bulk of the scientific community that the asteroid theory is wrong.

"There was volcanism at the time. There's always volcanism, but that impact is so significant that you can't ignore it," said Rick Firestone of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who studies the link between impacts and extinctions. "The only question is, were there other things that happened as result of it."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaganbawada

http://maps.google.co.in/maps?saddr=kolhapur&daddr=gaganbawda+to:phonda+to:kolhapur&hl=en&ll=16.537481,73.990173&spn=0.533174,1.056747&sll=16.541955,73.99004&sspn=0.561464,1.056747&geocode=FWDS_gAd1LVsBCkpesDeDADBOzEv5FIpZOro7A%3BFRFv_AAdvpRmBCnFR791BTbAOzH6a73b9tQuLg%3BFfXT-QAdFAVmBCn7rrvUKznAOzGS97TTW_xFwg%3BFWDS_gAd1LVsBCkpesDeDADBOzEv5FIpZOro7A&mra=ls&t=h&z=11

Gagangiri Maharaj Math above Karul Ghat (above)

(below) View of road form the Math..

There are just too many images of the Radhanagari Wildlife Sanctuary which we will be crossing.... Please refer and check other websites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhanagari

--
Texas A&M, Class of '94

"For all your days prepare,
And meet them ever alike:
When you are the anvil, bear-
When you are the hammer, Strike."
Preparedness, an Epigram by Edwin Markham (1852-1940)

http://therealslimkd.blogspot.com/

My views on Indian athletes doping

In 1989, I visited NIS-Patiala, the dorm rooms + toilets looked like the frigging Woodstock grounds- syringes, needles, broken steroid ampules- ALL our athletes were on the take. 6 months pre-Intl games they stop, teh chutiyas thinkimng they can piss away the traces. However, having beaten other honest & deserving athletes, the dopers fail our country miserably time and again... Cut to 2008- the CY Games at Balewadi Pune... except for the addition of used condoms to the mess of medical waste, the doping scene in the Indian tents was the same. Our athletes should be flogged. tehir mentors should be jailed. And if you think I am kidding you should take stock of steroid sales in and around NIS... So if the athletes are not doing it, then its no samll wonder the fucking Sardars are high on testosterone, its not genetic, its injected. There goes a myth.
Its not even surprising to read the doping scandals. I would think every one of our athletes to be tested- and if proved positive, just banned for life. Nothing else. Anyone getting caught overseas and shaming the country to be jailed for 5 years.

Mahindra Adventure

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--
Texas A&M, Class of '94

http://therealslimkd.blogspot.com/

"For all your days prepare,
And meet them ever alike:
When you are the anvil, bear-
When you are the hammer, Strike."
Preparedness, an Epigram by Edwin Markham (1852-1940)

My Fathers Birthday

Had my father been alive, yesterday would have been his 80th birthday and Fathers Day celebrations at one go. However, my father has moved on.

In his memory, today we gave away notebooks to emphasize his importance of education- to 625 students in a government run residential school for tribal children.

Attached are a few photographs of the school and its surroundings and apart from the small distribution ceremony, the images of Principal and Mrs Mahala are of significance for retiring after serving the school for 35 years.

Cleanliness, hygiene and studies are the most important things taught here and we wish well for the students and the staff.

Regards,

The Desais

--
Texas A&M, Class of '94

"For all your days prepare,
And meet them ever alike:
When you are the anvil, bear-
When you are the hammer, Strike."
Preparedness, an Epigram by Edwin Markham (1852-1940)

Mumbai 2011- A different point of view

We did a heritage walk around Hutatma Chowk and the Taj and took a few pictures.

We went for a heritage walk, early on a sunday morning- and we saw the many faces that make my city the city that it is... where the hardworking barbers were toiling at 0630, the hardest working sleep the sleep of the honest at 0900, where we rebuild and come stronger after terrorists visit, where foreign and Indian companies vie to maintain our heritage buildings, while some of us keep our gardens clean while others let structures collapse, signboards serving tourists our 'desi cool drink' and where shamelessly government-owned companies take credit for supplying free gas to a light up a national monument.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150224640793886.336788.574983885&l=0320d926fb

--
Texas A&M, Class of '94

"For all your days prepare,
And meet them ever alike:
When you are the anvil, bear-
When you are the hammer, Strike."
Preparedness, an Epigram by Edwin Markham (1852-1940)