Banai (Marathi: बाणाईBāṇāi, sometimes बानाई), also known as Banu (Bāṇu, बानू) and Banu-bai (Bāṇu-bāī, बानू-बाई), is a Hindu goddess and the second wife of Khandoba, a form of the god Shiva worshipped in the Deccan – predominantly in the Indian states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. Khandoba is portrayed as a king of Jejuri, where his chief temple stands. Some traditions do not give her the status of a legal wife and treat her as a concubine of Khandoba.
While scriptures related to Khandoba do not mention Banai, she is a central subject of folk songs. Banai is considered a Dhangar, a sheep herding caste, and is sometimes regarded to be of celestial origin. Oral traditions chiefly discuss the tale of her marriage to Khandoba and her conflicts with his first wife Mhalsa. Banai is an antithesis of Mhalsa; together they complete the god. Banai is generally depicted with Khandoba and often is also accompanied by Mhalsa. (Full article...)
Dwarka has the Dwarkadhish Temple dedicated to Krishna, which is one of four sacred Hindu pilgrimage sites called the Chardham founded by Adi Shankaracharya at the four corners of the country. The Dwarkadhish Temple was established as a monastic center and forms part of the Dwarka temple complex. Dwarka is also one of the seven most ancient religious cities (Sapta Puri) in India. (Full article...)
Lakshmi (/ˈlʌkʃmi/; Sanskrit: लक्ष्मी, IAST: Lakṣmī, sometimes spelled Laxmi, lit.'she who leads to one's goal') also known as Shri (Sanskrit: श्री, IAST: Śrī, lit.'Noble'), is one of the principal goddesses in Hinduism. She is the goddess of wealth, fortune, power, beauty, fertility and prosperity, and associated with Maya ("Illusion"). Along with Parvati and Saraswati, she forms the Tridevi of Hindu goddesses.
Within the goddess-oriented Shaktism, Lakshmi is venerated as the prosperity aspect of the Mother goddess. Lakshmi is both the consort and the divine energy (shakti) of the Vishnu, the Supreme Being of Vaishnavism; she is also the Supreme Goddess in the sect and assists Vishnu to create, protect, and transform the universe. She is an especially prominent figure in Sri Vaishnavism, in which devotion to Lakshmi is deemed to be crucial to reach Vishnu. Whenever Vishnu descended on the earth as an avatar, Lakshmi accompanied him as consort, for example, as Sita and Radha or Rukmini as consorts of Vishnu's avatars Rama and Krishna, respectively. The eight prominent manifestations of Lakshmi, the Ashtalakshmi, symbolise the eight sources of wealth. (Full article...)
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Front view of the Murugan Temple
The Murugan Temple at Saluvankuppam, Tamil Nadu, India, is a shrine dedicated to Tamil Hindu deityMurugan. Archaeologists believe that the shrine, unearthed in 2005, consists of two layers: a brick temple constructed during the Sangam period (the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE) and a granite Pallava temple dating from the 8th century CE and constructed on top of the brick shrine making it the oldest temple in India. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) team which conducted the excavation believe that brick temple could be the oldest of its kind to be discovered in Tamil Nadu.
The temple was discovered by a team of archaeologists from the ASI based on clues found in a rock inscription left exposed by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Initially, excavations revealed an 8th-century Pallava-era shrine. Further excavations revealed that the 8th-century shrine had been built on the brick foundation of an earlier shrine. The brick shrine has been dated to the Sangam period. (Full article...)
Yoga-like practices were first mentioned in the ancient Hindu text known as Rigveda. Yoga is referred to in a number of the Upanishads. The first known appearance of the word "yoga" with the same meaning as the modern term is in the Katha Upanishad, which was probably composed between the fifth and third centuries BCE. Yoga continued to develop as a systematic study and practice during the fifth and sixth centuries BCE in ancient India's ascetic and Śramaṇa movements. The most comprehensive text on yoga, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, date to the early centuries of the Common Era; Yoga philosophy became known as one of the six orthodox philosophical schools (Darśanas) of Hinduism in the second half of the first millennium CE. Hatha yoga texts began to emerge between the ninth and 11th centuries, originating in tantra. (Full article...)
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Mahadevi or Durga
The Devi Upanishad (Sanskrit:देवी उपनिषत्), is one of the minor Upanishads of Hinduism and a text composed in Sanskrit. It is one of the 19 Upanishads attached to the Atharvaveda, and is classified as one of the eight Shakta Upanishads. It is, as an Upanishad, a part of the corpus of Vedanta literature collection that present the philosophical concepts of Hinduism.
The text was likely composed between 9th- to 14th-centuries CE. It refers to Mahadevi as representing all goddesses. The Devi Upanishad is part of the five Atharvashiras Upanishads important to Tantra and Shakta philosophy traditions. (Full article...)
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Sanskrit (/ˈsænskrɪt/; attributivelyसंस्कृत-, saṃskṛta-; nominallyसंस्कृतम्, saṃskṛtam, IPA:[ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm]) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting effect on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies.
Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rigveda, a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from what is today Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northwestern India. Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of newly encountered plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax. Sanskrit can also more narrowly refer to Classical Sanskrit, a refined and standardized grammatical form that emerged in the mid-1st millennium BCE and was codified in the most comprehensive of ancient grammars, the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight chapters') of Pāṇini. The greatest dramatist in Sanskrit, Kālidāsa, wrote in classical Sanskrit, and the foundations of modern arithmetic were first described in classical Sanskrit. The two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, however, were composed in a range of oral storytelling registers called Epic Sanskrit which was used in northern India between 400 BCE and 300 CE, and roughly contemporary with classical Sanskrit. In the following centuries, Sanskrit became tradition-bound, stopped being learned as a first language, and ultimately stopped developing as a living language. (Full article...)
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Rama holding arrows, early 19th century depiction
Rama (/ˈrɑːmə/; Sanskrit: राम, IAST: Rāma, Sanskrit:[ˈraːmɐ]ⓘ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is the seventh and one of the most popular avatars of Vishnu. In Rama-centric traditions of Hinduism, he is considered the Supreme Being.
According to the Ramayana, Rama was born to Kausalya and Dasharatha in Ayodhya, the capital of the Kingdom of Kosala. His siblings included Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna. He married Sita. Born in a royal family, Rama's life is described in the Hindu texts as one challenged by unexpected changes, such as an exile into impoverished and difficult circumstances, and challenges of ethical questions and moral dilemmas. Of all his travails, the most notable is the kidnapping of Sita by demon-king Ravana, followed by the determined and epic efforts of Rama and Lakshmana to gain her freedom and destroy the evil Ravana against great odds. (Full article...)
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Para Brahman or Param Brahman (Sanskrit: परब्रह्म, romanized: parabrahma) in Hindu philosophy is the "Supreme Brahman" that which is beyond all descriptions and conceptualisations. It is described as the formlessness (in the sense that it is devoid of Maya) that eternally pervades everything, everywhere in the universe and whatever is beyond.
Hatha yoga (/ˈhʌtə,ˈhɑːtə/; IAST: Haṭha-yoga) is a branch of yoga that uses physical techniques to try to preserve and channel vital force or energy. The Sanskrit word हठ haṭha literally means "force", alluding to a system of physical techniques. Some hatha yoga style techniques can be traced back at least to the 1st-century CE, in texts such as the Hindu Sanskrit epics and Buddhism's Pali canon. The oldest dated text so far found to describe hatha yoga, the 11th-century Amṛtasiddhi, comes from a tantric Buddhist milieu. The oldest texts to use the terminology of hatha are also Vajrayana Buddhist. Hindu hatha yoga texts appear from the 11th century onward.
Some of the early hatha yoga texts (11th-13th c.) describe methods to raise and conserve bindu (vital force, that is, semen, and in women rajas – menstrual fluid). This was seen as the physical essence of life that was constantly dripping down from the head and being lost. Two early hatha yoga techniques sought to either physically reverse this process of dripping by using gravity to trap the bindhu in inverted postures like viparītakaraṇī, or force bindu upwards through the central channel by directing the breath flow into the centre channel using mudras (yogic seals, not to be confused with hand mudras, which are gestures). (Full article...)
The following are images from various Hinduism-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1Annaprashanam is the rite of passage where the baby is fed solid food for the first time. The ritual has regional names, such as Choroonu in Kerala. (from Samskara (rite of passage))
Image 5Samskaras are, in one context, the diverse rites of passage of a human being from conception to cremation, signifying milestones in an individual's journey of life in Hinduism. Above is annaprashana samskara celebrating a baby's first taste of solid food. (from Samskara (rite of passage))
Image 6Indra is a Vedic era deity, found in south and southeast Asia. Above Indra is part of the seal of a Thailand state. (from Hindu deities)
Image 7Goddess Durga and a pantheon of other gods and goddesses being worshipped during Durga Puja Festival in Kolkata. (from Hindu deities)
Image 8Ishvara is, along with Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma, one of the 17 deities commonly found in Indonesian Surya Majapahit Hindu arts and records. However, Ishvara represents different concepts in various Hindu philosophies. (from Hindu deities)
Image 9The ten avatars of Vishnu, (Clockwise, from top left) Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Vamana, Krishna, Kalki, Buddha, Parshurama, Rama and Narasimha, (in centre) Radha and Krishna. Painting currently in Victoria and Albert Museum. (from Hindu deities)
Image 11A new born's Namakarana ceremony. The grandmother is whispering the name into the baby's ear, while friends and family watch. (from Samskara (rite of passage))
Image 12Upanayana samskara ceremony in progress. Typically, this ritual was for eight-year-olds in ancient India, but in the 1st millennium CE it became open to all ages. (from Samskara (rite of passage))
Image 13A Tamil Hindu girl (center) in 1870 wearing a half-saree, flowers and jewelry from her Ritu Kala samskara rite of passage (from Samskara (rite of passage))
Image 14Vaishnavism focuses on Vishnu or one of his avatars, such as Krishna above (from Hindu denominations)
Image 16A Hindu cremation rite in Nepal. The samskara above shows the body wrapped in saffron on a pyre. (from Samskara (rite of passage))
Image 17Shiva (left), Vishnu (middle), and Brahma (right) (from Hindu deities)
Image 18Six Hinduism deities. Surya, Parvati, Hanuman, Lakshmi, Vishnu, and Indra. All of these statues came from India, except Vishnu (from the Thai-Cambodian border). Various eras. National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh (from Hindu deities)
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After gradual research; I have come to the conclusion that long before all heavenly books, God had revealed to the Hindus, through the Rishis of yore, of whom Brahma was the Chief, His four books of knowledge, the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda. The Quran itself made veiled references to the Upanishads as the first heavenly book and the fountainhead of the ocean of monotheism.
Meera, better known as Mirabai, and venerated as Sant Meerabai, was a 16th-century Hindumystic poet and devotee of Krishna. She is a celebrated Bhakti saint, particularly in the North Indian Hindu tradition. She is mentioned in Bhaktamal, confirming that she was widely known and a cherished figure in the Bhakti movement by about 1600.
Most legends about Mirabai mention her fearless disregard for social and family conventions, her devotion to Krishna, her treatment of Krishna as her husband, and her persecution by her in-laws for her religious devotion. She has been the subject of numerous folk tales and hagiographic legends, which are inconsistent or widely different in details. (Full article...)
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Jagadguru Rambhadracharya delivering a sermon on 25 October 2009 in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
Jagadguru Ramanandacharya Swami Rambhadracharya (born Pandit Giridhar on 14 January 1950) is an Indian Hindu spiritual leader, educator, Sanskrit scholar, polyglot, poet, author, textual commentator, philosopher, composer, singer, playwright and Katha artist based in Chitrakoot, India. He is one of four incumbent Jagadguru Ramanandacharya, and has held this title since 1988.
Rambhadracharya is the founder and head of Tulsi Peeth, a religious and social service institution in Chitrakoot named after Saint Tulsidas. He is the founder and lifelong chancellor of the Jagadguru Rambhadracharya Handicapped University in Chitrakoot, which offers graduate and postgraduate courses exclusively to four types of disabled students. Rambhadracharya has been blind since the age of two months, had no formal education until the age of seventeen years, and has never used Braille or any other aid to learn or compose. (Full article...)
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Advaita Vedanta (/ʌdˈvaɪtəvɛˈdɑːntə/; Sanskrit: अद्वैत वेदान्त, IAST: Advaita Vedānta) is a Hindu-tradition of textual exegesis and philosophy and a Hindusādhanā, a path of spiritual discipline and experience. In a narrow sense it refers to the scholarly tradition belonging to the orthodox Hindu Vedānta tradition, with works written in Sanskrit, as exemplified by the Vedic scholar and teacher (acharya) Adi Shankara (9th cent. CE); in a broader sense it refers to a popular medieval and modern syncretic tradition, blending Vedānta with Yoga and other traditions and producing works in vernacular.
The term Advaita (literally "non-secondness", but usually rendered as "nondualism", and often equated with monism) refers to vivartavada, the idea that "the world is merely an unreal manifestation (vivarta) of Brahman," as proposed by the 13th century scholar Prakasatman. In this view, Brahman alone is ultimately real, while the transient phenomenal world is an illusory appearance (maya) of Brahman. In this view, jivatman, the experiencing self, is ultimately non-different ("na aparah") from Ātman-Brahman, the highest Self or Reality. The jivatman or individual self is a mere reflection or limitation of singular Ātman in a multitude of apparent individual bodies. (Full article...)
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Painting of Adi Shankara, exponent of Advaita Vedanta with his disciples by Raja Ravi Varma
Adi Shankara (8th c. CE), also called Adi Shankaracharya (Sanskrit: आदि शङ्कर, आदि शङ्कराचार्य, romanized: Ādi Śaṅkara, Ādi Śaṅkarācārya, lit. 'First Shankaracharya', pronounced[aːdɪɕɐŋkɐraːt͡ɕaːrjɐ]), was an Indian Vedic scholar and teacher (acharya) of Advaita Vedanta. Reliable information on Shankara's actual life is scanty, and his true impact lies in his "iconic representation of Hindu religion and culture," despite the fact that most Hindus do not adhere to Advaita Vedanta. He is seen as "the one who restored the Hindu dharma against the attacks of the Buddhists (and Jains) and in the process helped to drive Buddhism out of India." Tradition also portrays him as the one who reconciled the various sects (Vaishnavism, Shaivism, and Saktism) with the introduction of the Pañcāyatana form of worship, the simultaneous worship of five deities – Ganesha, Surya, Vishnu, Shiva and Devi, arguing that all deities were but different forms of the one Brahman, the invisible Supreme Being.
The historical influence of his works on Hindu intellectual thought has been questioned. Until the 10th century Shankara was overshadowed by his older contemporary Maṇḍana Miśra, and there is no mention of him in concurring Hindu, Buddhist or Jain sources until the 11th century. The popular image of Shankara started to take shape in the 14th century, centuries after his death, when Sringeri matha started to receive patronage from the kings of the Vijayanagara Empire and shifted their allegiance from AdvaiticAgamic Shaivism to Brahmanical Advaita orthodoxy. Hagiographies dating from the 14th-17th centuries deified him as a ruler-renunciate, travelling on a digvijaya (conquest of the four quarters) across the Indian subcontinent to propagate his philosophy, defeating his opponents in theological debates. These hagiographies portray him as founding four mathas ("monasteries"), and Adi Shankara also came to be regarded as the organiser of the Dashanami monastic order, and the unifier of the Shanmata tradition of worship. The title of Shankaracharya, used by heads of certain monasteries in India, is derived from his name. (Full article...)
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Illustration of Swaminarayan writing the Shikshapatri
In 1800, he was initiated into the Uddhavasampradaya by his guru, Swami Ramanand, and was given the name Sahajanand Swami. Despite opposition, in 1802, Ramanand handed over the leadership of the Uddhava Sampradaya to him before his death. According to the Swaminarayan tradition, Sahajanand Swami became known as Swaminarayan, and the Uddhava Sampradaya became known as the Swaminarayan Sampradaya, after a gathering in which he taught the Swaminarayan Mantra to his followers. (Full article...)
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A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami in Germany, 1974
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (IAST: Abhaya Caraṇāravinda Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Prabhupāda; Bengali: অভয চরণারৱিন্দ ভক্তিৱেদান্ত স্ৱামী প্রভুপাদ) (1896–1977) was a spiritual, philosophical, and religious teacher from India who spread the Hare Krishna mantra and the teachings of “Krishna consciousness” to the world. Born as Abhay Charan De and later legally named Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami, he is often referred to as “Bhaktivedanta Swami”, "Srila Prabhupada", or simply “Prabhupada”.
Anandamayi Ma (born Nirmala Sundari; 30 April 1896 – 27 August 1982) was an Indian saint, teacher, and mystic. She was revered as an incarnation of Hindu goddess Durga.
She was described by Sivananda Saraswati (of the Divine Life Society) as "la fleur la plus parfaite que le sol de l'Inde ait produite" [the most perfect flower the Indian soil has produced]. Her life was suffused in Bhakti Yoga and she was considered an epitome of "divine grace" that inspired the societal cultural milieu to lead the path of service, love and constant remembrance of the divine. Her followers experienced her spiritual attributes including precognition, faith healing and miracles. Paramahansa Yogananda translates the Sanskrit epithet Anandamayi as "Joy-permeated" in English. This name was given to her by her devotees in the 1920s to describe her perpetual state of divine joy. (Full article...)