The Trimurti is the trinity of supreme divinity in Hinduism, in which the cosmic functions of creation, preservation, and destruction are personified as a triad of deities. Typically, the designations are that of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer. The Om symbol of Hinduism is considered to have an allusion to Trimurti, where the A, U, and M phonemes of the word are considered to indicate creation, preservation and destruction, adding up to represent Brahman. The Tridevi is the trinity of goddess consorts for the Trimurti. (Full article...)
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Shaucha (Sanskrit: शौच, romanized: Śauca) literally means purity, cleanliness, and clearness. It refers to purity of mind, speech and body. Shaucha is one of the niyamas of Yoga. It is discussed in many ancient Indian texts such as the Mahabharata and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. It is a virtue in Hinduism and Jainism. In Hinduism purity is a part of worship and an important quality for salvation. Purity is a mind pure and free of evil thoughts and behaviors. Shaucha includes outer purity of body as well as inner purity of mind. It is synonymous with shuddhi (शुद्धि). states that shaucha in yoga is on many levels, and deepens as an understanding and evolution of self increases. (Full article...)
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Lithograph of Sita in exile
Sita (Sanskrit: सीता; IAST: Sītā), also known as Siya, Janaki, Maithili, Vaidehi, Bhumija and Seetha is a Hindu goddess and the female protagonist of the Hindu epic Ramayana. Sita is the consort of Rama, the avatar of god Vishnu, and is regarded as an avatar of goddess Lakshmi. She is the chief goddess of the Rama-centric Hindu traditions and is known as the goddess of beauty and devotion. Sita is known for her dedication, self-sacrifice, courage, and purity.
Described as the daughter of Bhūmi (the earth), Sita is brought up as the adopted daughter of King Janaka of Videha. Sita, in her youth, chooses Rama, the prince of Ayodhya as her husband in a swayamvara. After the swayamvara, she accompanies her husband to his kingdom, but later chooses to accompany her husband, along with her brother-in-law Lakshmana, in his exile. While in exile, the trio settles in the Dandaka forest from where she is abducted by Ravana, the Rakshasa king of Lanka. She is imprisoned in the garden of Ashoka Vatika, in Lanka, until she is rescued by Rama, who slays her captor. After the war, in some versions of the epic, Rama asks Sita to undergo Agni Pariksha (an ordeal of fire), by which she proves her chastity, before she is accepted by Rama, which for the first time makes his brother Lakshmana angry at him. (Full article...)
Angkor Wat was built at the behest of the Khmer king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaśodharapura (present-day Angkor), the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later galleried temple. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology and is surrounded by a moat more than 5 km (3.1 mi). Enclosed within an outer wall 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi) long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west with scholars divided as to the significance of this. (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...)
In many parts of India and South Asia, Bhagavan represents the concept of a universal God or Divine to Hindus who are spiritual and religious but do not worship a specific deity. (Full article...)
The mosque was located on a hill known as Ramkot ("Rama's fort"). According to Hindu nationalists, Baqi destroyed a pre-existing temple of Rama at the site. The existence of this temple is a matter of controversy. The Archaeological Survey of India conducted an excavation of the disputed site on the orders of the Allahabad High Court. The excavation period was short due to court time constraints, lasting only 15 days. The report of the excavation concluded that there were ruins of "a massive structure" beneath the ruins of the mosque which was "indicative of remains which are distinctive features found associated with the temples of north India", but found no evidence that the structure was specifically demolished for the construction of the Babri Masjid. The report received both praise and criticism, with some other archaeologists contesting the results of the report. (Full article...)
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The Bhikshuka Upanishad describes Hindu mendicants who seek spiritual liberation through the practise of yoga
The Upanishad describes four kinds of sannyasins (Hindu monks), their eating habits and lifestyle. Yoga is the path of spiritual liberation for all four. Of these, the Paramahamsa monks are discussed in this text at greater length, and described as loners who are patient with everyone, free from dualism in their thoughts, and who meditate on their soul and the Brahman. (Full article...)
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Raghunath Temple complex
Raghunath Temple is a Hindu temple located in Jammu in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It consists of a complex of seven Hindu shrines. Raghunath Temple was constructed by the first Dogra ruler Maharaja Gulab Singh in the year 1835 and later his son Maharaja Ranbir Singh got it completed in the year 1860 During Dogra rule. The temple has many gods in its complex of shrines, but the presiding deity is Rama – also known as Raghunath, an Avatar of Vishnu. All the spiral-shaped towers have gold plated spires. The niches in the walls of the shrines are decorated with 300 well-crafted icons of gods and goddesses including those of Surya and Shiva, but most are particularly related to the life stories of Rama and Krishna. The paintings in the 15 panels of the main shrine are based on themes from Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Bhagavad Gita. The temple premises include a school and a library that preserves over 6,000 manuscripts in many Indian languages, with a notable collection of Sarada script Sanskrit manuscripts.
The temple witnessed two terrorist attacks in the year 2002, when militants attacked it in March and November, with grenades and indulged in indiscriminate firing which resulted in the death of 20 devotees and also in injuries to over 40 people. (Full article...)
Vishnu is known as The Preserver within the Trimurti, the triple deity of supreme divinity that includes Brahma and Shiva. In Vaishnavism, Vishnu is the supreme being who creates, protects, and transforms the universe. In the Shaktism tradition, the Goddess, or Adi Shakti, is described as the supreme Para Brahman, yet Vishnu is revered along with Shiva and Brahma. Tridevi is stated to be the energy and creative power (Shakti) of each, with Lakshmi being the equal complementary partner of Vishnu. He is one of the five equivalent deities in Panchayatana puja of the Smarta tradition of Hinduism. (Full article...)
The following are images from various Hinduism-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1Goddess Durga and a pantheon of other gods and goddesses being worshipped during Durga Puja Festival in Kolkata. (from Hindu deities)
Image 2Ishvara 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 3Annaprashanam 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 4The 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 5Shiva (left), Vishnu (middle), and Brahma (right) (from Hindu deities)
Image 6Samskaras 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 7A Hindu girl after her Karnavedha rite of passage (ear piercing) (from Samskara (rite of passage))
Image 8Six 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)
Image 9Upanayana 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 12Vaishnavism focuses on Vishnu or one of his avatars, such as Krishna above (from Hindu denominations)
Image 13A 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 18A 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))
Selected quote
Ayam nijah parovetthi gananam laghu-chetasaam| Udaar charitanam tu vasudhaiva kutumbakam||"
English: "Myself, this is mine, that is yours is a petty way of people in seeing reality; for those with noble consciousness, the whole world is a family.
Paramahansa Yogananda (born Mukunda Lal Ghosh; January 5, 1893 – March 7, 1952) was an Indian-American Hindu monk, yogi and guru who introduced millions to meditation and Kriya Yoga through his organization, Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) / Yogoda Satsanga Society (YSS) of India – the only one he created to disseminate his teachings. A chief disciple of the yoga guru Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, he was sent by his lineage to spread the teachings of yoga to the West. He immigrated to the US at the age of 27 to prove the unity between Eastern and Western religions and to preach a balance between Western material growth and Indian spirituality. His long-standing influence in the American yoga movement, and especially the yoga culture of Los Angeles, led him to be considered by yoga experts as the "Father of Yoga in the West". He lived his last 32 years in the US.
Yogananda was the first major Indian teacher to settle in the US, and the first prominent Indian to be hosted in the White House (by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927); his early acclaim led to him being dubbed "the 20th century's first superstar guru" by the Los Angeles Times. Arriving in Boston in 1920, he embarked on a successful transcontinental speaking tour before settling in Los Angeles in 1925. For the next two and a half decades, he gained local fame and expanded his influence worldwide: he created a monastic order and trained disciples, went on teaching tours, bought properties for his organization in various California locales, and initiated thousands into Kriya Yoga. By 1952, SRF had over 100 centers in both India and the United States. , they had groups in nearly every major American city. His "plain living and high thinking" principles attracted people from all backgrounds among his followers. (Full article...)
Aurobindo studied for the Indian Civil Service at King's College, in Cambridge, England. After returning to India he took up various civil service works under the Maharaja of the princely state of Baroda and became increasingly involved in nationalist politics in the Indian National Congress and the nascent revolutionary movement in Bengal with the Anushilan Samiti. He was arrested in the aftermath of a number of bombings linked to his organization in a public trial where he faced charges of treason for Alipore Conspiracy. However, Sri Aurobindo could only be convicted and imprisoned for writing articles against British colonial rule in India. He was released when no evidence could be provided, following the murder of a prosecution witness, Narendranath Goswami, during the trial. During his stay in the jail, he had mystical and spiritual experiences, after which he moved to Pondicherry, leaving politics for spiritual work. (Full article...)
Madhvacharya (IAST: Madhvācārya; pronounced[mɐdʱʋaːˈtɕaːrjɐ]; 1199–1278 CE or 1238–1317 CE), and also known as Purna Prajna (IAST: Pūrṇa-Prajña) and Ānanda Tīrtha, was an Indian philosopher, theologian and the chief proponent of the Dvaita (dualism) school of Vedanta. Madhva called his philosophy Tattvavāda meaning "arguments from a realist viewpoint".
Madhvacharya was born at Pajaka near Udupi on the west coast of Karnataka state in 13th-century India. As a teenager, he became a Sanyasi (monk) joining Brahma-sampradaya guru Achyutapreksha, of the Ekadandi order. Madhva studied the classics of Hindu philosophy, and wrote commentaries on the Principal Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras (Prasthanatrayi), and is credited with thirty seven works in Sanskrit. His writing style was of extreme brevity and condensed expression. His greatest work is considered to be the Anuvyakhyana, a philosophical supplement to his bhasya on the Brahma Sutras composed with a poetic structure. In some of his works, he proclaimed himself to be an avatar of Vayu, the son of god Vishnu. (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...)
Sai Baba of Shirdi (c. 1838? – 15 October 1918), also known as Shirdi Sai Baba, was an Indian spiritual master and fakir, considered to be a saint, revered by both Hindu and Muslim devotees during and after his lifetime.
According to accounts from his life, Sai Baba preached the importance of "realisation of the self" and criticised "love towards perishable things". His teachings concentrated on a moral code of love, forgiveness, helping others, charity, contentment, inner peace, and devotion to God and Guru. (Full article...)
Modi was born and raised in Vadnagar in northeastern Gujarat, where he completed his secondary education. He was introduced to the RSS at the age of eight. At the age of 18, he was married to Jashodaben Modi, whom he abandoned soon after, only publicly acknowledging her four decades later when legally required to do so. Modi became a full-time worker for the RSS in Gujarat in 1971. The RSS assigned him to the BJP in 1985 and he rose through the party hierarchy, becoming general secretary in 1998. In 2001, Modi was appointed Chief Minister of Gujarat and elected to the legislative assembly soon after. His administration is considered complicit in the 2002 Gujarat riots, and has been criticised for its management of the crisis. According to official records, a little over 1,000 people were killed, three-quarters of whom were Muslim; independent sources estimated 2,000 deaths, mostly Muslim. A Special Investigation Team appointed by the Supreme Court of India in 2012 found no evidence to initiate prosecution proceedings against him. While his policies as chief minister were credited for encouraging economic growth, his administration was criticised for failing to significantly improve health, poverty and education indices in the state. (Full article...)