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Bishnois
Bishnoi (also known as Vishnoi) is a community found in the Western Thar Desert and northern states of India. They follow a set of 29 principles/commandments given by Guru Jambheshwar (also known as Guru Jambhoji, Guru Jambha Ji) (1451-1536). They are a sub-sect of the Vaishnav Sampraday. As of 2019, there are an estimated 600,000 followers of Bishnoi Panth residing in north and central India.Akash KapurA Hindu Sect Devoted to the Environment New York Times, 8 Oct 2010. Shree Guru Jambheshwar founded the sect at Samrathal Dhora in 1485 and his teachings, comprising 120 shabads, are known as ''Shabadwani''. He preached for the next 51 years, travelling across India. The preaching of Guru Jambhoji inspires his followers as well as the environmental protectors. Bishnoi sect admitted members from a variety of castes including Jats, Bania, Charans, Rajputs, and Brahmins. Background Etymology Guru Jambheshwar gave his followers 29 precepts, bis means 20 in the local dialect a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guru Jambheshwar
Guru Jambheshwar, also known as Guru Jambhaji, (1451–1536) was the founder of the Bishnoi Panth. He taught that God is a divine power that is everywhere. He also taught to protect plants and animals as they are important in order to peacefully co-exist with nature. Biography Jambheshwar ji was born in a family of the Panwar clan in the village of Pipasar, Nagaur district in 1451. He was the only child of Lohat Panwar and Hansa Devi. For the first seven years of his life, Guru Jambeshwar was considered silent and introverted. He spent 27 years of his life as a cow herder. Founding Bishnoi Panth Aged 34, Guru Jambheshwar founded the Bishnoi sub-sect of Vaishnavism at Samrathal Dhora. His teachings were in the poetic form known as Shabadwani. He preached for the next 51 years, travelling across the country, and produced 120 Shabads, or verses, of Shabadwani. The sect was founded after the big draught in Rajasthan in 1485. He had laid down 29 principles to be followed by the se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homa (ritual)
In the Vedic Hinduism, a homa (Sanskrit: होम) also known as havan, is a fire ritual performed on special occasions by a Hindu priest usually for a homeowner (" grihastha": one possessing a home). The grihasth keeps different kinds of fire including one to cook food, heat his home, amongst other uses; therefore, a Yajna offering is made directly into the fire. A homa is sometimes called a "sacrifice ritual" because the fire destroys the offering, but a homa is more accurately a "votive ritual". The fire is the agent, and the offerings include those that are material and symbolic such as grains, ghee, milk, incense and seeds. It is rooted in the Vedic religion, and was adopted in ancient times by Buddhism and Jainism. The practice spread from India to Central Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia. Homa rituals remain an important part of many Hindu ceremonies, and variations of homa continue to be practiced in current-day Buddhism, particularly in parts of Tibet and Japan. It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animal Husbandry
Animal husbandry is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, fibre, milk, or other products. It includes day-to-day care, selective breeding, and the raising of livestock. Husbandry has a long history, starting with the Neolithic Revolution when animals were first domesticated, from around 13,000 BC onwards, predating farming of the first crops. By the time of early civilisations such as ancient Egypt, cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs were being raised on farms. Major changes took place in the Columbian exchange, when Old World livestock were brought to the New World, and then in the British Agricultural Revolution of the 18th century, when livestock breeds like the Dishley Longhorn cattle and Lincoln Longwool sheep were rapidly improved by agriculturalists, such as Robert Bakewell, to yield more meat, milk, and wool. A wide range of other species, such as horse, water buffalo, llama, rabbit, and guinea pig, are used as livestock in some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Devanagari
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient Brahmi script, ''Brāhmī'' script, used in the northern Indian subcontinent. It was developed and in regular use by the 7th century CE. The Devanagari script, composed of 47 primary characters, including 14 vowels and 33 consonants, is the fourth most widely List of writing systems by adoption, adopted writing system in the world, being used for over 120 languages.Devanagari (Nagari) , Script Features and Description, SIL International (2013), United States The orthography of this script reflects the pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brahmin
Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests (purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (guru or acharya). The other three varnas are the Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra. The traditional occupation of Brahmins is that of priesthood at the Hindu temples or at socio-religious ceremonies, and rite of passage rituals such as solemnising a wedding with hymns and prayers.James Lochtefeld (2002), Brahmin, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol. 1: A–M, Rosen Publishing, , page 125 Traditionally, the Brahmins are accorded the highest ritual status of the four social classes. Their livelihood is prescribed to be one of strict austerity and voluntary poverty ("A Brahmin should acquire what just suffices for the time, what he earns he should spend all that the same day"). In practice, Indian texts suggest that some Brahmins historicall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rajput
Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Rajput covers various patrilineal clans historically associated with warriorhood: several clans claim Rajput status, although not all claims are universally accepted. According to modern scholars, almost all Rajput clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities. Over time, the Rajputs emerged as a social class comprising people from a variety of ethnic and geographical backgrounds. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the membership of this class became largely hereditary, although new claims to Rajput status continued to be made in the later centuries. Several Rajput-ruled kingdoms played a significant role in many regions of central and northern India from seventh century onwards. The Rajput population and the former Rajput stat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charan
Charan ( IAST: Cāraṇ; Sanskrit: चारण; Gujarati: ચારણ; Urdu: ارڈ; IPA: cɑːrəɳə) is a caste in South Asia natively residing in the Rajasthan and Gujarat states of India, as well as the Sindh and Balochistan provinces of Pakistan. Historically, Charans have been engaged in diverse occupations like bards, poets, historians, pastoralists, agriculturalists and also administrators, jagirdars and warriors and some even as traders. Historical roles and occupations Poets and historians Rajasthani & Gujarati literature from the early and medieval period, upto the 19th century, has been mainly composed by Charans. The relationship between Charans and Rajputs is deeprooted in history. As Charans used to partake in battles alongside Rajputs, they were witnesses not only to battles but also to many other occasions and episodes forming part of the contemporary Rajput life. The poems composed about such wars and incidents had two qualities: basic historical t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bania (caste)
__NOTOC__ The Bania (also spelled Baniya, Banija, Banya, Vaniya, Vani, Vania and Vanya) is a Vaishya community mainly found in Indian states of Gujarat, and Rajasthan, but they are also found in Madhya Pradesh. Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh, Traditionally, the main occupations of the community are merchants, bankers, money-lenders, and in modern times they are mostly White-collar and Knowledge workers and owners of commercial enterprises. The community is composed of several sub-castes including the Agarwal Banias, Porwal Banias, among others. Most Banias follow Hinduism or Jainism, but a few have converted to Sikhism, Islam, Christianity and Buddhism. Most of Hindu Banias are Vaishnavas and are followers of Vallabhacharya and Swaminarayan. Etymology The etymological origin lays in the Sanskrit word ''vanik'', and they are deemed to be India's "pre-eminent" trading community, historically. In Bengal the term Bani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jats
The Jat people ((), ()) are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in late medieval times, and subsequently into the Delhi Territory, northeastern Rajputana, and the western Gangetic Plain in the 17th and 18th centuries. Quote: "Hiuen Tsang gave the following account of a numerous pastoral-nomadic population in seventh-century Sin-ti (Sind): 'By the side of the river.. f Sind along the flat marshy lowlands for some thousand li, there are several hundreds of thousands very great manyfamilies ..hichgive themselves exclusively to tending cattle and from this derive their livelihood. They have no masters, and whether men or women, have neither rich nor poor.' While they were left unnamed by the Chinese pilgrim, these same people of lower Sind were called Jats' or 'Jats of the wastes' by the Arab geographers. The Jats, as 'dromedary men.' we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shabad (hymn)
''Shabda'' ( sa, शब्द, ), is the Sanskrit word for "speech sound". In Sanskrit grammar, the term refers to an utterance in the sense of linguistic performance. History In classical Indian philosophy of language, the grammarian Katyayana stated that ''shabda'' ("speech") is eternal (''nitya''), as is ''artha'' "meaning", and that they share a mutual co-relation. According to Patanjali, the permanent aspect of ''shabda'' is ("meaning"), while ''dhvani'' ("sound, acoustics") is ephemeral to ''shabda''. Om, or Aum, a sacred syllable of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, is considered to be the first resonating vibrational sound within an individual being. It also denotes the non-dualistic universe as a whole. In Buddhism, Om corresponds to the crown chakra and white light. Bhartrihari, on the other hand, held a ''shabda-advaita'' position, identifying ''shabda'' as indivisible, and unifying the notions of cognition and linguistic performance, which is ultimately ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central India
Central India is a loosely defined geographical region of India. There is no clear official definition and various ones may be used. One common definition consists of the states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, which are included in almost all definitions. Like some other definitions this takes the part of northern India that is "central" on an east-west axis. Thus the Central Zonal Council set up by the Indian government includes both these states, plus Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand to the north, the last taking the region to the border with Tibet/China in the Himalayas. Another approach, historically more usual, is to base "Central India" on a north-south axis, making it the part of India that is south of North India and north of South India; the definition of North India also varies hugely, but that of South India is generally agreed. This definition includes either some or all of the Deccan, in particular Maharashtra, and may or may not include some of the Indo-G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vishnu
Vishnu ( ; , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism. Vishnu is known as "The Preserver" within the Trimurti, the triple deity of supreme divinity that includes Brahma and Shiva.Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism' (1996), p. 17. 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. According to Vaishnavism, the highest form of Ishvara is with qualities (Saguna), and have certain form, but is limitless, transcend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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