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Pavana (Hinduism)
Vayu (, sa, वायु, ), also known as Vata and Pavana, is the Hindu god of the winds as well as the divine massenger of the gods. In the ''Vedic scriptures'', Vayu is an important deity and is closely associated with Indra, the king of gods. He is mentioned to be born from the breath of Supreme Being Vishvapurusha and also the first one to drink Soma. The ''Upanishads'' praise him as ''Prana'' or 'life breath of the world'. In the later Hindu scriptures, he is described as a Dikpala (guardians of the direction), who looks over the North-west direction. The Hindu epics describe him as the father of the god Hanuman and Bhima.https://books.google.co.in/books?id=1HMXN9h6WX0C&q=Indra+wife&pg=RA1-PA260&redir_esc=y#v=snippet&q=Vayu&f=false The followers of the 13th-century saint Madhva believe their guru as an incarnation of Vayu. They worship the wind deity as Mukhyaprana and consider him as the son of the god Vishnu. Connotations The word for air (''vāyu'') or wind (''pavan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gazelle
A gazelle is one of many antelope species in the genus ''Gazella'' . This article also deals with the seven species included in two further genera, ''Eudorcas'' and ''Nanger'', which were formerly considered subgenera of ''Gazella''. A third former subgenus, ''Procapra'', includes three living species of Asian gazelles. Gazelles are known as swift animals. Some are able to run at bursts as high as or run at a sustained speed of . Gazelles are found mostly in the deserts, grasslands, and savannas of Africa; but they are also found in southwest and central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. They tend to live in herds, and eat fine, easily digestible plants and leaves. Gazelles are relatively small antelopes, most standing high at the shoulder, and are generally fawn-colored. The gazelle genera are ''Gazella'', ''Eudorcas'', and ''Nanger''. The taxonomy of these genera is confused, and the classification of species and subspecies has been an unsettled issue. Currently, the genu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horses
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, ''Eohippus'', into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000 BCE, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BCE. Horses in the subspecies ''caballus'' are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior. Horses are adapted to run, allowing them to quickly escape predators, and poss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) 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 impact 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 Rig Veda, a colle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classical Element
Classical elements typically refer to earth, water, air, fire, and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Greece, Tibet, and India had similar lists which sometimes referred, in local languages, to "air" as "wind" and the fifth element as "void". These different cultures and even individual philosophers had widely varying explanations concerning their attributes and how they related to observable phenomena as well as cosmology. Sometimes these theories overlapped with mythology and were personified in deities. Some of these interpretations included atomism (the idea of very small, indivisible portions of matter), but other interpretations considered the elements to be divisible into infinitely small pieces without changing their nature. While the classification of the material world in ancient Indian, Hellenistic Egypt, and ancient Greece into Air, Earth, Fire and Water was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Air (classical Element)
Air is one of the four classical elements along with water, earth and fire in ancient Greek philosophy and in Western alchemy. Greek and Roman tradition According to Plato, it is associated with the octahedron; air is considered to be both hot and wet. The ancient Greeks used two words for air: ''aer'' meant the dim lower atmosphere, and '' aether'' meant the bright upper atmosphere above the clouds. Plato, for instance writes that "So it is with air: there is the brightest variety which we call ''aether'', the muddiest which we call mist and darkness, and other kinds for which we have no name...." Among the early Greek Pre-Socratic philosophers, Anaximenes (mid-6th century BCE) named air as the ''arche''. A similar belief was attributed by some ancient sources to Diogenes Apolloniates (late 5th century BCE), who also linked air with intelligence and soul (''psyche''), but other sources claim that his ''arche'' was a substance between air and fire. Aristophanes parodied such t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avatar
Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance" is sometimes used to refer to any guru or revered human being. The word ''avatar'' does not appear in the Vedic literature; however, it appears in developed forms in post-Vedic literature, and as a noun particularly in the Puranic literature after the 6th century CE. Despite that, the concept of an avatar is compatible with the content of the Vedic literature like the Upanishads as it is symbolic imagery of the Saguna Brahman concept in the philosophy of Hinduism. The ''Rigveda'' describes Indra as endowed with a mysterious power of assuming any form at will. The ''Bhagavad Gita'' expounds the doctrine of Avatara but with terms other than ''avatar''. Theologically, the term is most often associated with the Hindu god Vishnu, though th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hindu Epics
Indian epic poetry is the epic poetry written in the Indian subcontinent, traditionally called ''Kavya'' (or ''Kāvya''; Sanskrit: काव्य, IAST: ''kāvyá''). The ''Ramayana'' and the ''Mahabharata'', which were originally composed in Sanskrit and later translated into many other Indian languages, and the Five Great Epics of Tamil literature and Sangam literature are some of the oldest surviving epic poems ever written. Hindi epics In modern Hindi literature, ''Kamayani'' by Jaishankar Prasad has attained the status of an epic. The narrative of Kamayani is based on a popular mythological story, first mentioned in Satapatha Brahmana. It is a story of the great flood and the central characters of the epic poem are Manu (a male) and Shraddha (a female). Manu is representative of the human psyche and Shradha represents love. Another female character is Ida, who represents rationality. Some critics surmise that the three lead characters of Kamayani symbolize a synthesis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Upanishads
The Upanishads (; sa, उपनिषद् ) are late Vedic Sanskrit texts that supplied the basis of later Hindu philosophy.Wendy Doniger (1990), ''Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism'', 1st Edition, University of Chicago Press, , pages 2-3; Quote: "The Upanishads supply the basis of later Hindu philosophy; they are widely known and quoted by most well-educated Hindus, and their central ideas have also become a part of the spiritual arsenal of rank-and-file Hindus." They are the most recent part of the Vedas, the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, and deal with meditation, philosophy, consciousness, and ontological knowledge; earlier parts of the Vedas deal with mantras, benedictions, rituals, ceremonies, and sacrifices.Gavin Flood (1996), ''An Introduction to Hinduism'', Cambridge University Press, , pp. 35–39A Bhattacharya (2006), ''Hindu Dharma: Introduction to Scriptures and Theology'', , pp. 8–14; George M. Williams (2003), Handbook of Hindu Mythology, Oxford Un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soma (drink)
In the Vedic tradition, ''sóma'' (Devanagari: सोम) is a ritual drink of importance among the early Vedic Indo-Aryans. The Rigveda mentions it, particularly in the Soma Mandala. Gita mentions the drink in Chapter 9. It is equivalent to the Iranian haoma. The texts describe the preparation of soma by means of extracting the juice from a plant, the identity of which is now unknown and debated among scholars. Both in the ancient religions of Historical Vedic religion and Zoroastrianism, the name of the drink and the plant are not exactly the same.Victor Sarianidi, Viktor Sarianidi in The PBS Documentary The Story of India There has been much speculation about the most likely identity of the original plant. Traditional Indian accounts, such as those from practitioners of Ayurveda, Siddha medicine, and Somayajna called Somayajis, identify the plant as "Somalata" ('' Sarcostemma acidum''). Non-Indian researchers have proposed candidates including the fly agaric, ''Amanita ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indra
Indra (; Sanskrit: इन्द्र) is the king of the devas (god-like deities) and Svarga (heaven) in Hindu mythology. He is associated with the sky, lightning, weather, thunder, storms, rains, river flows, and war. volumes/ref> Indra's myths and powers are similar to other Indo-European deities such as Jupiter, Perun, Perkūnas, Zalmoxis, Taranis, Zeus, and Thor, part of the greater Proto-Indo-European mythology. Indra is the most referred deity in the ''Rigveda''. He is celebrated for his powers, and as the one who killed the great evil (a malevolent type of asura) named Vritra, who obstructed human prosperity and happiness. Indra destroys Vritra and his "deceiving forces", and thereby brings rains and sunshine as the saviour of mankind. He is also an important deity worshipped by the Kalash people, indicating his prominence in ancient Hinduism. Indra's significance diminishes in the post-Vedic Indian literature, but he still plays an important role in various m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vedic Scriptures
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. There are four Vedas: the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda. Each Veda has four subdivisions – the Samhitas (mantras and benedictions), the Aranyakas (text on rituals, ceremonies, sacrifices and symbolic-sacrifices), the Brahmanas (commentaries on rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices), and the Upanishads (texts discussing meditation, philosophy and spiritual knowledge).Gavin Flood (1996), ''An Introduction to Hinduism'', Cambridge University Press, , pp. 35–39A Bhattacharya (2006), ''Hindu Dharma: Introduction to Scriptures and Theology'', , pp. 8–14; George M. Williams (2003), Handbook of Hindu Mythology, Oxford University Press, , p. 285 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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