Sanatan Archive

The memory and lionisation of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose as a national hero loomed large, as PM Modi spoke via videoconference at the unveiling ceremony.  The event was held on Parakram Diwas, celebrated each year on January 23, Netaji’s birthday.

Hindu Dharma has a glorious past of great Saints and Sages. Several Saints ascended to the state of Guru and showed the path of God realisation to many. They also taught spirituality to the society through their conduct and actions.

Hinduism, as the world’s oldest religion, has traveled all across the world since the dawn of time. This polytheistic religion is one of the most well-known and widely practiced religions in the world, particularly in Southeast Asia. Even while each culture interprets religion differently, the essential beliefs remain the same. The Besakih temple in Bali is an excellent example of this.

Surya Sen was a Bengali independence activist who remembered for his daring raid on the British armoury in Chittagong (now in Bangladesh) in 1930. A school teacher, revered by all as ‘Masterda’, an honorific translating to “a teacher and an elder brother”, he was deeply influenced by nationalist ideals even as a student.

Independence day is such an auspicious day for every Indian. On this very day the citizen of this nation reclaimed their land again. Nation paid heavy price not just during the independence movement but for centuries. India faced one of the longest slavery of whole nation in Human history and faced many adulterations in culture, practices and demography.

One of the most effective voice against British Imperialism, during India’s freedom struggle, was— Sachindra Sanyal. Gandhians (Gaandhivadi, Blind devotees of Gandhi) sought to crush this personality under Gandhi’s imaginary idealism, The communists who occupied the educational institutions of the country were only devoted to their fatherland they believed in a murderous ideology and the idolatry of their dictators. 

The Indian Veena has always been considered as an instrument of the Gods and hence the name ‘Divine instrument’ has been attributed to it. From the earliest times, the Veena has been a guiding star for the development of Indian Music in general. But Carnatic music cherished the Veena and the Yazh as gifts of the gods and through centuries of study and experiment, coaxed out of them a system of music that has no parallel in the whole world.

BEFORE THE FIRST RAYS OF sunlight stream across the rice fields and mud roads in the Nilgiri Mountains, before they force their way through the high-rises in the urban jungle of Chennai and Madurai, the women of Tamil Nadu are up for the day. In the dark, they clean the threshold to their home, and, following a centuries-long tradition, painstakingly draw beautiful, ritualistic designs called kōlam, using rice flour.

A Yazhi or Yali (Pronounced yA lee and unrelated to the Navajo name) is a mythical animal that is a chimera of a lion, elephant and a snake. They could have a lion face, its paws (and claws) and tail, fangs of a snake, body, hind legs and trunk of an elephant.