vidyadaanam - november 2011 - souvenir

NEWS LETTER

1Issue #7 November 2011

Saturday, November 19, 2011 5.00 pm

Granville Arts Center300 North 5th Street, Garland, TX

All proceeds from this fund raiser will go towards a years’ maintenance expenses for chatralaya run by AIM For Seva

Vidya Daanam in Sanskrit means the “Gift of Education”.

A 2009 initiative from Sanatana Dharma Foundation, Vidyadaanam makes an attempt to

create new futures for children in rural, tribal and backward communities in India.

Vidyadaanam tries to break the vicious cycle of poverty, which keeps deepening with

every passing generation by making education accessible and affordable.

www.vidyadaanam.org

JAGADANANDA KAARAKAA Grand Kuchipudi Dance Ballet

I am very happy to know that Sanatana Dharma Foundation

is committed to encourage people to participate in the educational programs in India designed to educate children in tribal and rural areas as well as the

children in the slums of cities.

Among the gifts, Vidya Daanam, once given is not expendable.

Swamy Dayananda Saraswati,Convener, Hindu Dharma Acharya

Sabha

s

Swami Dayananda Saraswati on ‘Daanam’• The culture of Hindus is one of caring. Elders, animals, air, water, earth,

people all these we care for. As an individual ,as a corporate entity, as a collective body, we care and we express that care. We grow by car-ing, from being only a consumer to be a contributor. Daanam, giving and sharing, is a mark of growth. Remaining a consumer all the time, and not becoming a contributor, is not the Vedic view of life.

• One’s self-worth is not mere money. It is one’s culture. We have started a movement, a seva movement , that includes validation of cultures. Validation of one’s culture brings respect and appreciation and one gains self-worth.

• If you do not have love , act lovingly; you will discover love. Similarly, in the act of giving, you grow, people grow and your country grows.

• Keep giving until it hurts. “Giving” is like weight-lifting. You cannot take a small mug and practise weight-lifting! The capacity of weight-lifting is in the attempt of shaking something that you cannot shake. You can give your time, you can lend a sympathetic ear to someone; lots of people want ears. You can express worlds of appreciation, encouragement, em-pathy and so on. Sharing your knowledge with somebody is also caring. You can also pray for somebody; there are may ways of giving.

Sanatana Dharma Foundation’s “Vidya Daanam” empowers under-privileged children born in rural and remote tribal areas in India by providing them the opportunity to gain a de-cent education. “Vidya Daanam” works with its Partner organization in India called “Aim for Seva” whose Vision is to create a National movement of caring to transform society, by bridging the urban – rural divide in India, through a network of Seva services. Aim for Seva is an NGO with special Consultative status with the Economic and Social council of the United Nations.

The primary vehicle through which Aim for Seva makes its services available is through a Student Home – also called a “Chatralaya’. The Chatralayas offer the children a nurturing, stable residential environment, and become the hub of other activi-ties such as health care, counseling, mobile medi-cal facilities for the children as well for the people in the rural and tribal areas. Women receive spe-cial counseling on post natal care, hygiene, child nutrition and so on. Thus the Chatralaya enables the integration of backward segments of society into the mainstream society.

The children in a Chatralaya are inculcated a disci-plined daily routine that includes prayers, exercises, study, and recreation. Special emphasis is given to imparting value based education to build character of children, enabling them to grow in a safe, healthy and conducive environment till they complete their secondary education. During the weekends art & craft classes are also conducted. Special classes (Sandhya Gurukulam) are held for those children, who require additional help in their academics. The older children help in keeping the Chatralaya clean. Periodic medical checkups ensure healthy progress of the children.

Chatralayas are located close to a School, so that the teachers and the School Principal can take personal interest in the welfare and progress of the children. Thus the Chatralaya is a source of stability in the life of a child whose future may otherwise be uncertain. Aim for Seva currently manages over 70 Chatralayas in 13 States, and 10 Schools in 4 states. In addition, Aim for Seva also runs 100+ Balwadis (Pre-school centers) and 130 Sandhya Gurukulams in India.

Smt Srilatha Suri - Director , Jagadananda KaarakaSmt. Srilatha Suri is a senior disciple of internationally ac-claimed dancer Padmasri Dr. Sobha Naidu. Smt Suri has per-formed in more than 500 Kuchipudi solo and group perfor-mances in India, Trinidad, Tobago as well as a coast-to-coast expedition of the United States.

Smt. Srilatha Suri founded Natyanjali Kuchipudi Dance School in order to promote the exquisiteness of this beautiful art of Kuchipudi. She currently teaches in Plano, Frisco, Irving and Coppell in the DFW area.

Awards and Recongnition:1980 AP Government recognition certificate in Bharatnatyam Diploma 1984 Natyavisharada from Kuchipudi art Academy Hyderabad 2002 NrityaBharathi –Silicon Andhra 2005 Special recognition award –Tantex2008 Special recognition award Silicon Andhra International Kuchipudi convention 2008 Guinness Book of World Records2009 NatyaMayuri from Tantex 2010 Recognition award from Tana –SarvamSaiMayam2011 Recognition award from AP State Cultural Council and Department of Culture2011 Natyakalaprapoorna -Sri Lalitha Peetam 2011 Jagadananda Kaaraka

Dr. Sobha Naidu is among the foremost Kuchipudi dancers of India and an outstanding disciple of the renowned mas-ter Vempati Chinna Satyam. She mastered the technique of Kuchipudi and began dancing lead roles in dance-dramas while still very young. She has performed with her guru’s troupe all over the country and abroad, excelling in the roles of Satyabhama and Padmavati.

Dr Naidu is also an excellent solo dancer.Principal of Kuchipudi Art Academy, Hyderabad, Sobha Naidu has been imparting training to younger students over the past few years. She has also choreographed several dance-dramas. She has received the title of Nritya Choodamani from Krishna Gana Sabha, Ma-dras.Sobha Naidu was born in Anakapalli town of Visakhapat-nam district in Andhra Pradesh state in 1956.

Padmashree Sobha Naidu - Choreographer , Jagadananda Kaaraka

Awards and Recongnition:2001 Padma Shri award in 20011982 Nritya Choodamani award in 19821991 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for her contribution to Kuchipudi dance in 19911996 Nritya Kala Siromani award in 19961998 Late Sri N T Rama Rao award in 19981998 AP State Government Hamsa award

JagadanadaKaraka - A Grand Kuchipudi Dance Ballet is the story of Lord Rama based on Tyagaraja Krithis - Choreographed by Guru Padmasri Sobhanaidu -

Presented by Natyanjali Kuchipudi Dance schoolDirected by Guru Smt.Srilatha Suri - Assistant Direction by Pranamya Suri

Aiswarya Nair Mytreyi Abburu Samhita Bandaru

Akhila Nanneboyina Nagarani Nikita Kamarapu Samhita Kakarlapudi

Amiya Chennappan Neha Cheruku Shreya Reddy Billa

Anagha Gouru Nikita Gokiraju Silpita Pochiraju

Ananya Ponangi Neha Marneni Sindhu Nemana

Anisha Puppala Pallavi Shah Sobhita Pochiraju

Apporva Balakavi Pranamya Suri Spruha Shah

Deshna Karra Pranhuti Suri Sravya Varikonda

Gauri Nukala Rajesh Adusimili Sreeragini Ghantasala

Grishma Geedipally Ramya Pusuluri Sreya Laxmi Kodela

Kaivalya Gudooru Sriya Vaskarala Sri Charan Navuluri

Keertana Kamboji Suman Vadlamani Sridevi Gundimeda

Lakshmi Sruthi Vedala Sriya Nallala Sruti Atluri

Maina Atluri Sudiksha Pai Sushma Pai

Manasvi Kanneganti Swapna Guddimela Vaishnavi Ayyagari

Medha Argula Sweccha Guntamukkala Vathsalya Senapathi

Megha Manne Sadhana Punnam

Midhila Vaddi Sai Spoorthi Rallabandi

Artists peforming in Jagadananda Kaaraka 2011

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A Chatralaya experience of a memberNamaste,

Want to share the happenings at the other end of Vidyadaanam. We visited the Chatralaya in Indore and were just mesmerized by the experience! Kids were pretty energetic in the evening even after having spent a whole day from 4 am on their trip to Ujjain. Never before have I seen children doing prayers and singing nationalistic songs with such a deep emotion.I remember, as a child how I just took all the facilities available to me as granted and waited for prayers in school to just come to an end.

Moreover, never before even for 5 minutes I have seen a gathering of 50 children as disciplined as these children were for more than a couple of hours of our stay. The ashram looked a comfortable place for children,not in terms of materials of comfort though. However the ashram is very clean and well organized, equipped with the basic amenities. The bonding of love between Swamiji, karyakartas and the children seemed to have made children adjust so well , so happy and being able to con-centrate on studies in the ashram miles away from their parents. Apart from studies children help in maintaining the ashram with all chores from pre-paring food to gardening. They grow their own vegetables in the ashram !! I felt like asking for some fresh ones :-)

After prayers we got to interact with the children.Some of them are really doing well and leading in the studies in the school. The school is about 3 kilometres from the ashram and there is a arranged vehicle to take them to the school. There are extra tuitions for weak areas of kids(English and Maths) in the evenings. Apart from all the things that I mentioned above it is important to mention that the kids have a deep aware-ness of how Swamiji and other people in India and in the US are working hard to make their lives. When asked what they would do in return they said they would work hard and would make the swamiji’s and ash-ram’s name shine. It may sound like a cliche but when the children said that, voice seemed to come not from the throat but from somewhere else. When Swamiji asked them to pose their questions to us, they promptly showed their inquisitiveness about life in US and what is attracting so many people to the US and asked various questions about how we think they can succeed in their lives. However hard I may try, I cannot put in words, even a small bit of the experience and the thankfulness expressed there for all the efforts made in this direction. May the spirit of Vidyadaanam live for years to come!!

Best Regards,Swati

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Vidya Daanam works with another partner organizations in India, which is doing excellent work in the field, called Bharat Heritage Foundation (BHF). Bharat Heritage Foundation’s vision is to focus on extremely weak and under-privileged segments, with a special focus on women.

The primary vehicle through which Bharat Heritage Foundation makes its services available is through a net-work of teachers who offer evening tuitions and classes in a nmber of surrounding villages. These evening classes are called ‘Sandhya Gurukulams’. The teachers are trained to deal with exceptionally weak children - who have gone through the trauma of catastrophic events such as the Tsunami of 2004. Much of BHF’s activities are concentrated in Tsunami affected areas in Tamilnadu.

The picture shown on the left, is a weekend retreat camp - in which the students get an opportunity to spend the entire weekend with a trained teacher. The teacher leads the students through a variety of learn-ing excercises - designed to augment what they learn in school through audio visual and other means.

These weekend retreats are very useful in building self-esteem and brings back a measure of human dig-nity and allows these children to integrate back with mainstream society in the course of time. BHF places a lot of emphasis on the training and development of these teachers who are the primary vehicles through which the programs of BHF called ‘Vidya Vikasini’ are sustained.

The picture shown on the right is a tuition class in progress for girls who are on the threshold of taking a board exam. BHF’s tuition classes are designed with a commitment to take these girls to the door-step of college. When these girls pass their board exams, it is a matter of great pride for their entire village - since in many cases, no one has ever at-tempted and passed a State board exam from these families.

BHF’s Vidya Vikasini program has impacted 1000’s of girls and made a positive difference in their per-formance in schools upto 30 to 35%. Once these girls arrive at college, they themselves develop a belief that they can go farher in life.

The picture on the left shows a Computer training class that has been set up under the aegis of BHF, in a re-mote village in Tamil Nadu. These computer classes are extremely popular amongst the students, and are in great demand. Through well structured 12 to 14 week courses, teachers of BHF are able to provide hands on training to these children from very backward areas in India. By se-lecting only the best students who have performed well in their regular school curriculum, the Vidya Vikasini pro-gram, creates an incentive for the children to study well and demonstrate an improvement in performance. Older girls are encouraged to tutor the younger children, and a self sustaining structure is being created.

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Ramayana – History or Myth ?Kalyan Viswanathan - November 2011

Was Lord Rama a historical person, who lived, breathed and walked in India, or was he merely a mythical personality, a construct of Maharishi Valmiki’s imagination?

If Rama was indeed a historical person, is the Ramayana a literal biographical account of his life or has the account been substantially enhanced with imaginative embellishments, making it more like a myth than a real story? If the Ramayana was a myth, a story that had no basis in reality, then how do we relate to the enormous number of ways in which the story of Rama has been tethered to the history, geography, religion, spirituality, art, architecture, festival and culture of India and its neighborhood?

Let’s look at the evidence, briefly.

Literature

Valmiki’s Ramayana is undoubtedly the most ancient of the literary versions, consisting of some 24000 slokas (verses) divided into 7 Kandas (Cantos). This would fill approximately 1200 pages of a modern book.

It has also been rendered and re-rendered in so many languages by so many authors throughout India’s history such as• Ramcharitamanas (Hindi – 16th Century CE) of Goswami Tulsidas, • Krittivasa’s Ramayana (Bengali – 14th Century CE), • Adbhutaramayana of Adbhutacharya (Bengali – 17th Century CE), • Ramavataram (Tamil – 12th Century) of Kamban, • Ramachandracharita (Kannada – 11th Century CE) by Nagachandra • and many hundreds of others

Ramayana features prominently in Buddhist, Jain and Sikh literature such as • The Dasaratha Jataka (Buddhist – 3rd Century BCE), • Pauma chariyam (Jain – 5th Century CE), and • the Guru Granth Sahib, which carries thousands of references to Rama.

The Ramayana has echoes in other countries in the neighborhood of India as well such as • Janaki harana of Kumaradasa (Sri Lanka – 7th Century CE); • Anamaka Jataka (China and Japan – 3rd Century CE); • Hikayet Seri Rama (Malaysia – Oral tradition); • Ramakerti (Cambodia – date unknown); • Ramayana Kakawin (Indonesia – 8th Century CE); • Maharadia Lawana (Phillipines)

Geography

One of the extraordinary aspects of the Story of Ramayana is the fact that it is anchored deeply in the Geography of India and Sri Lanka. The various texts of the Ramayana abound with references to places and locations that are actually in existence today representing both a historical and geographic continuity. More over many of these sites are dotted with hundreds of temples and structures that carry the memory of Rama’s passage through the site.

Before the period 1000 BCE, no single writer could have traversed the length and breadth of India on foot or horse chariot, and invented a story that accurately reflects the geographical extent of India. During those times, life was lived mostly locally, and people had access only to a few a nearby villages during their lifetime.

Shown below is a map with a recreation of the numerous sites mentioned in the various texts associated with the Ramayana, and a satellite picture of the Rama Sethu.

The Government of Sri Lanka has identified 50 Sites associated with the events in the Rama-yana, out of which it is working on promoting the top 10 sites as major tourist sites. The Indian Government on the other hand, has been reluctant to acknowledge that the more than 500+ sites in India associated with the Ramayana, could actually be sites of historical significance. Perhaps the most audacious and extraordinary geographical structure of the Ramayana is the Rama Sethu – the bridge across the ocean built by Rama, to reach Sri Lanka to retrieve his wife Sita. Both the physical dimension of Rama’s long journey and the great construction of the bridge to Sri Lanka, represent compelling arguments in favor of the historicity of Rama as a person who lived in India.

History

The exact dates when Rama is said to have lived represents an abiding mystery of our time. Efforts to take the astronomical positions mentioned in Valmiki Ramayana, and translate them into discernible dates, have been made by numerous authors in recent times. Shri Pushkar Bhatnagar and Dr. P.V. Vartak are two researchers who have taken these dates and used Planetarium software to identify potential dates of various events mentioned in the Ramayana.

By presenting the Planetarium software, with positions of stars in the sky, as observed from a particular location on the earth i.e. latitude and longitude, it is possible to extract a sequence of plausible dates when such configurations could have occurred. By presenting the Planetarium software, with positions of stars in the sky, as observed from a particular location on the earth i.e. latitude and longitude, it is possible to extract a sequence of plausible dates when such configurations could have occurred. But since, the software can only provide a sequence, further corroboration is required between multiple dates and planetary positions mentioned in the texts, to narrow down the possible dates from many hundreds to a few.

These efforts have come up with dates such as 5114 BCE (Pushkar), and 7600 BCE (P.V.Vartak). While these dates are somewhat in keeping with modern timelines of human history, (The Vedic Period could well have been in the range of 7000 BCE to 4000 BCE), there are also numerous verses in Hindu Scripture that talk of timescales vastly in excess of these.

For example the Yuga computations, place the Ramayana in the Treta Yuga, which is said to have occurred sometime in the period, 1,731,102 and 867,102 BCE. While these scales of time periods do not square up with modern understanding of history, the same planetary configurations could have occurred in the realm of these time scales. How do we reconcile these versions of the history of Rama?

Art, Architecture and Culture

But Rama has transcended further, from being merely a historical person, to an archetypal hero and a perfect human being, and then even further to an Avatar of Mahavishnu. Rama pervades the Consciousness of India like no other single figure does. He and his family, Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman come alive throughout the length and breadth of India, in song and dance, art and sculpture, temple and festival. Terracotta figures from the 2nd century CE, showing scenes from the Ramayana, that have been excavated in Nachara Khera, in Haryana carrying Brahmi inscriptions identifying the principal figure as Rama; A stone sculpture dated to the the 3rd century CE, depicting Bharata’s meeting with Rama in Citrakuta found in Nagarjunakonda, Andhra Pradesh; A stone panel depicting Ravana’s abduction of Sita found in Madhyapradesh dated to the 5th century CE; Scenes depicting the construction of the Rama Sethu depicted on Stone carvings in Papanatha Temple, (7th Century CE), from Karnataka; Stone panels depicting Ravana carrying Sita away in the temple at Angkor Wat in Cambodia, 11th century CE; Stone depictions of Rama subduing the sea, in Pramabanam, Indonesia from the 9th century CE; and many more like this, all over the land, have helped in cementing the story of Rama into the consciousness of the people of India.

Numerous Poets, such as Tulasidas, Surdas, Badrachala Ramadas, Thyagaraja, and many others have immortalized the story of Rama, through heart rending songs, throughout the history of India. Rama Navami and Deepavali are festivals celebrated throughout the Hindu world. Indeed every family who names their first born son with the name of Ram, hopes that an infinitesimal fraction of the glory of Rama may manifest in this child.

Relating to the Ramayana

This then is the glory of Rama – that his story has been an anchor for the civilization, a repre-sentation of all that is great and glorious that a human being can aspire towards. He is “Vigrahavaan Dharma” – the very embodiment of Dharma. And his story is primarily one that can inspire us on the path of Dharma and Moksha, which constitute the unique civilizational values of India. It is these values that he embodies – the values that Sage Narada describes in the very opening verses of the Ramayana – one who is virtuous, courageous, valorous, truth-ful, conscientious, steadfast, determined, established in good conduct, benign, adept and able, good to behold, self-controlled, brilliant, free of jealousy, fearsome when provoked, moral and learned, concerned for the welfare of all, clean and diligent, a protector of Dharma, a scholar of the Veda, a master of Dhanurveda, clear headed, discriminating, a knower of the essence of the Scriptures, esteemed in all the worlds, deep and profound as an ocean, unshakable like the Himalayas in fortitude.

The story of Rama is not mere history, even though there is much in it that is historically accu-rate. It is not just a legend or myth, even though there is much in it that is magical, and extraordinary. But it is its integrative capacity, of weaving together the people of India into a common cultural whole and place before them a moral and ethical ideal, a fabric of spiritual values to be esteemed and aspired towards by one and all, a standard and a picture of perfection and potential, that is seared into the memory of a nation, through numerous strands and narratives, through oral transmission, scriptal record, song, dance, sculpture, art, architecture, as a story that renews itself age after age, providing fresh guidance to a new generation, that makes this itihaasa unlike any other story in the world.

Every civilization has a value system. The West has privileged history as a discipline that is pre-sented as the ‘truth’ about what happened. But this has fundamental difficulties. For there is the history as fact – that which really happened. A great deal has happened through the years and it is impossible to record all of it. And then there is history as record, that which has actually been recorded through what are called original sources – through documents, scriptures, architectural artifacts and so on.Every civilization must pick and choose what to record, essentially select from among millions of possibilities, and the very act of selection reveals the cultural propensity and priority of the civilization. And every civilization must also choose to keep that record in ways that are culturally unique and specific.

For many millennia, India was an oral civilization, and committed great bodies of knowledge to memory and even invented a class of people whose sole job was to be the repository of the civilization’s intellectual and spiritual heritage. Lastly there is history as a narrative, a discourse – an attempt to weave a story around the selected artifacts that have been deemed to represent what really happened. And every narrative has a purpose and intent behind it. Western paradigm of history emphasizes strict chronology i.e. the strict temporal sequence of what happened, and what followed, and what resulted from that. India has not emphasized this chronology, and in fact has minimized it. The strict keeping of a chronological sequence of events is in the Indian imagination of no real value. How indeed does it matter who lived when, and who did what? In India’s thought, what matters is the value system, the instructional value of a story that matters more than the truth about when it hap-pened exactly or why it happened. It is the living guidance that we can glean for ourselves, for the purpose of living our own lives, more meaningfully, with greater degree of coherence to our Dharma that is the supreme purpose of both record and narrative. This then is the light in which we must view the Ramayana – for what it offers up as teaching, guidance, and counsel for navi-gating the real challenges and opportunities of our time and age. This signifies the real worth and value of the story of Rama.

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Vidya Daanam Contributions (till date)

Date Contribution Benefeciary Purpose

June 2011 $25,000 Chikmagalur chantralaya, Aim For Seva School in Chikmagalur Karnataka

Continued service to the education of children in under-privileged communities in

Chikmagalur, Karnataka

May 2011 USD $7000 Bharath Heritage Foundation

Continued service to the education of children in under-privileged communities in South

India (especially Tamil Nadu)March 2011 USD $ 2062 Veda Patashala

in Andhra PradeshContributions towards preserving Vedic teach-

ing and cultural heritage

September 2010 USD $ 7,000 Bharath Heritage Foundation

Continued service to the education of children in under-privileged communities in South

India (especially Tamil Nadu)

August 2010 USD $ 2,000 World Association of Vedic Sudies (WAVES)

On the occasion of the WAVES conference in Trinidad and Tobago

June 2010 USD $ 2,000 Sanskrit ScholarSmt. Sampada Savardekar

Special award for Sampada’s travel and pre-sentation at the WAVES conference

March 2010 USD $ 25,000 All India Movement for Seva Donated on the occasion of the Shanti Fund Raiser Program, in Houston

January 2010 USD $ 8,000 Bharath Heritage Foundation

Continued support for Children’s education through Sandhya Gurukulams

July 2009 USD $ 2,000 Veda Patashala in Andhra Pradesh

Contributions towards preserving Vedic teach-ing and cultural heritage

July 2009 USD $ 30,000 Aim for Seva Contributions towards children’s education - Chattralaya at Chikmagalur, Karnataka

June 2009 USD $ 7,000 Bharath Heritage Foundation Contribution for Sandhya Gurukulam programs in Tamil Nadu

folio line

When is Rama’s birth celebrated?Rama was born on navami, the ninth day of the waxing moon, in the In-dian month of Chaitra (late March or early April). Sometimes the festival is observed for nine days before or after navami.

How do Hindus observe Rama Navami?Devotees fast or eat only fruit or spe-cial food offerings prepared for the day. They participate in non-stop reading of the 24,000-verse epic Ramayana, at home or in a temple. Images or statues of baby Rama are placed in cradles and rocked by devotees. Homes resound with singing. In the evening, crowds attend Ramalila, in which storytellers and dance-drama troupes depict the Ramayana. It is common to remain awake the whole night, engaged in de-votional practices. Devotees contribute generously to temples and charitable

organizations. They make buttermilk and a lime drink called panaka, serving them to the public without charge. Some temples make khoa, a sweet made from thickened milk. This festival is especially popular in Uttar Pradesh, where Rama’s kingdom of Ayodhya is located.

Is the festival observed at temples?Many temples hold grand celebrations on this day, especially those with shrines for Lord Rama, His wife Sita, His brother Lakshmana and His loyal friend Hanuman, Lord of Mon-

keys. Panaka and garlands of the sacred tulsi plant are offered as families pray for “Rama-Rajya,” a time when dharma will once again be upheld in the world. In South India, the day is celebrated as the marriage anniversary of Rama and Sita. A ceremonial wedding is held at temples with great fanfare.

Why is Rama so popular?Rama is one of the ten avatars or incar-nations of Lord Vishnu. He is revered as the perfect husband and ruler, who held duty to king and country above all else. He held strong to his ideals in the face of tremendous trials, in-cluding exile from His kingdom and separation from His beloved wife, Sita, herself an embodiment of virtue and truth. He is honored and glori- ed for His unshakable adherence to dharma, righteousness. The story of Rama is deeply in uential and popular in the societies of the Indian subcon-tinent and across Southeast Asia.

An incarnation of God, an ideal man, dutiful son and just king: these are just a few ways to describe Lord Rama, an exemplar of honor, reverence, self-control and duty. He fought battles, became

king, married a Goddess, traveled far and befriended exotic beings who were steadfast in their loyalty and courage. Rama Navami is the cel-ebration of His birthday, when Hindus honor and remember Him with devotional singing, dramatic performance and non-stop recitation of His remarkable life story, the Ramayana.

HOLY DAYS THAT AMERICA’S HINDUS CELEBRATE

What is the story of Rama? A tale of love and separation, the Ramayana has moved the hearts of millions of Hindus over the ages. To honor a promise made by his father, King Dasaratha, prince Rama abandons His claim to the throne and spends 14 years in exile. Wife Sita and brother Lakshmana join him in exile, a time of perils and tribulations. Sita is abducted by Ravana, the monarch of Lanka. After a long and arduous search, Rama discovers Sita’s whereabouts, with the help of Hanuman. A colossal war ensues against Ravana’s armies. In a duel of majestic proportions, powerful and magical beings wield mighty weaponry in formidable battles. Rama slays Ravana and lib-erates Sita. Having completed His exile, Rama returns to be crowned king, loved by one and all.

Who wrote the epic? Some 25 centuries ago, a sage ordered a thief to sit under a tree and chant “ma-ra” until he returned. Years passed, and an ant-hill covered the man, who had lost himself to the chant. The sage re-turned and broke the anthill, naming the thief Valmiki, meaning “from an anthill.” Inspired

by his expanded awareness, Valmiki immor-talized Rama by composing the Ramayana, a work unmatched in poetic excellence and

longevity. Shri Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas in Hindi and the Kamba Ramayanam by the poet Kambar in Tamil stand along-side Valmiki’s epic in Sanskrit.

Who was Sita? Sita was a powerful, gifted, beautiful woman, utterly devoted to her husband. Found in the elds as a babe by King Janaka, Sita was raised a princess. She walked alongside Rama in exile. When abducted by Ravana, she was unshakeable in her faith that her husband would rescue her. She walked through re to prove her purity. To prevent further slander, Rama sent her away to the for-est. She patiently bore separation from her husband a second time and bore twins named Lav and Kush. When they were reunited with their father, she command-ed Mother Earth to swallow her. The Earth split open and Sita dis-appeared.

Panaka Sweet Indian Limeaide

Ingredients ½ cup of jaggery or brown sugar,4 cups water, juice of one lime, 1½ tsp of grated fresh ginger, 1 tsp ghee or oil, a pinch of cardamom powder

MethodMix ingredients and serve cold.

Spicy ButtermilkIngredients 2 cups buttermilk (or yoghurt),2 cups water, 3 curry leaves, chopped coriander leaves (cilantro), 1 nely chopped green chilli, 1½ tsp ginger powder, 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 pinch asafoetida, salt to taste

MethodHeat oil in saucepan and add mustard seeds; allow it to splutter, then add curry leaves, ginger, green chilies and asafoetida, stirring vigorously. Mix with remaining ingredients and beat until smooth.

This educational poster is part of Hindu Festival Outreach, a collaboration between Sanatana Dharma Foundation of Texas and HINDUISM TODAY magazine in Hawaii. Additional resources may be found at www.hinduismtoday.com/••estival••. Soumya Sitaraman and Usha Kris, respectively author and photographer of Follow the Hindu Moon, generously contributed text and graphics (hindumoon.com).

Tidbits About Lord Rama

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Birthday of Rama, the Ideal ManRama Navami

Fact & FictionFACT: Hinduism has more than one sacred scrip-ture, with several books considered revered or holy. While all Hindus revere the sanctity of the primor-dial Vedas, distinct sects recognize scripture that is most aligned with their theological beliefs, but not universal to all Hindus. Examples are the Agamas, Ramayana, Puranas and Mahabharata.

FICTION: Some deride Hinduism as primi-tive because certain of its Deities have animal features. Actually, most religions share this characteristic. The Greek God Pan and the Egyp-tian Deities Anubis and Horus are examples. In Christianity and Judaism, the biblical prophet Ezekiel describes the angels known as cherubim as having the faces of a lion, an ox, an eagle and a man, with the feet of a calf and four wings.

vidyadaanam - november 2011 - souvenir

Documents

seva movement

sevavidya daanam

rural areas

network of seva services

validation of ones culture

ones selfworth

health care

underprivileged children