Shakti Gurung
In Hinduism, especially Shaktism (a theological tradition of Hinduism), Shakti ( Devanagari: शक्ति, IAST: Śakti; lit. "Energy, ability, strength, effort, power, capability") is the primordial cosmic energy, female in aspect, and represents the dynamic forces that are thought to move through the universe. She is thought of as creative, sustaining, as well as destructive, and is sometimes referred to as auspicious source energy. Shakti is sometimes personified as the creator goddess, and is known as "Adi Shakti" or " Adi Parashakti" ("inconceivableprimordial energy"). In Shaktism, Adi Parashakti is worshipped as the Supreme Being. On every plane of creation, energy manifests itself into all forms of matter; these are all thought to be infinite forms of Parashakti. She is described as ''anaadi'' (with no beginning, no ending) and ''nitya'' (forever). Origins One of the oldest representations of the goddess in India is in a triangular form. The Baghor stone, found ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tripura Sundari
Tripura Sundari (Sanskrit: त्रिपुरा सुन्दरी, IAST: Tripura Sundarī), also known as Rajarajeshwari, Shodashi, Kamakshi, and Lalita is a Hindu goddess, worshipped as a principal aspect of supreme goddess Mahadevi mainly venerated in Shaktism, the goddess-oriented sect of Hinduism. She is also one of the ten Mahavidyas. She is praised in many Shakta texts, with '' Lalita Sahasranama, Soundarya Lahari'' being the most popular one. She is known as Adi Parashakti in Lalitopakhyana of Brahmanda Purana. According to the Srikula tradition in Shaktism, Tripura Sundari is the foremost of the Mahavidyas, the supreme divinity of Hinduism and also the primary goddess of Sri Vidya. The Tripura Upanishad places her as the ultimate Shakti (energy, power) of the universe. She is described as the supreme consciousness, ruling from above Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Kinsley says, "In one instance she is said to be sitting on Shiva's lap in the Kameshwara form, the 'Lor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hinduism
Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global population, known as Hindus. The word ''Hindu'' is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, many practitioners refer to their religion as '' Sanātana Dharma'' ( sa, सनातन धर्म, lit='the Eternal Dharma'), a modern usage, which refers to the idea that its origins lie beyond human history, as revealed in the Hindu texts. Another endonym is ''Vaidika dharma'', the dharma related to the Vedas. Hinduism is a diverse system of thought marked by a range of philosophies and shared concepts, rituals, cosmological systems, pilgrimage sites, and shared textual sources that discuss theology, metaphysics, mythology, Vedic yajna, yoga, agamic rituals, and temple building, among other to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mariamman
Mariamman, often abbreviated to Amman, is a Hindu goddess of rain, predominantly venerated in the rural areas of South India. Her festivals are held during the late summer/early autumn season of Ādi throughout Tamil Nadu and the Deccan region, the largest being the ''Ādi Thiruviḻa''. Her worship mainly focuses on bringing rains and curing diseases like cholera, smallpox, and chicken pox. Mariamman is worshipped in accordance with local traditions such as ''Pidari'' or the '' Gramadevatai.'' She is considered as a guardian deity (kaval deivam) by many South Indian village-dwellers. Origin Mariamman's worship originated in the traditions of Dravidian folk religion, the faith practised by the inhabitants of the south before its syncretism with Vedic Hinduism. She is the main Tamil mother goddess, predominantly venerated in the rural areas of South India. Mariamman has since been associated with Hindu goddesses like Parvati, Kali, Durga,"The truthful Kali who guarded the home ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Indus Valley Civilization
The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilisations of the Near East and South Asia, and of the three, the most widespread. Its sites spanned an area from much of Pakistan, to northeast Afghanistan, and northwestern India. The civilisation flourished both in the alluvial plain of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra, a seasonal river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan. The term ''Harappan'' is sometimes applied to the Indus civilisation after its type site Harappa, the first to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was then the Punjab province o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jonathan Mark Kenoyer
Jonathan Mark Kenoyer (born 28 May 1952, in Shillong, India) is an American archaeologist and ''George F. Dales Jr. & Barbara A. Dales'' Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He earned his Bachelor of Arts, Master's, and Doctorate degrees at the University of California, Berkeley, finishing in 1983. Kenoyer is president of the Society of Bead Researchers. Being focused on the Indus Valley civilization, Kenoyer is involved in ongoing research on the Indus Civilization in the Indian Subcontinent as well as in adjacent regions such as Oman and Afghanistan. He has also expanded his areas of study into East and Southeast Asia to better understand the long-distance trade linking these regions to the Subcontinent. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011 and is a member of the American Anthropological Association, as well as many other professional associations. He has been involved in numerous institutions that link US acade ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yantra
Yantra () (literally "machine, contraption") is a geometrical diagram, mainly from the Tantric traditions of the Indian religions. Yantras are used for the worship of deities in temples or at home; as an aid in meditation; used for the benefits given by their supposed occult powers based on Hindu astrology and tantric texts. They are also used for adornment of temple floors, due mainly to their aesthetic and symmetric qualities. Specific yantras are traditionally associated with specific deities and/or certain types of energies used for accomplishment of certain tasks, vows, that may be materialistic or spiritual in nature. It becomes a prime tool in certain sadhanas performed by the sadhaka the spiritual seeker. Yantras hold great importance in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. Representations of the yantra in India have been considered to date back to 11,000–10,000 years BCE. The Baghor stone, found in an upper-paleolithic context in the Son River valley, is considered the e ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Son River
Son River ( hi, सोन नदी, also spelt Sone River) is a perennial river located in central India. It originates near Amarkantak Hill in Gaurela-Pendra-Marwahi district of Chhattisgarh and finally merges with the Ganges River near Patna in Bihar. Sone river is the second-largest southern tributary of the Ganges' after Yamuna River. India's oldest river bridge Koilwar Bridge over Sone River connects Arrah with Patna. Sone river is famous for its sand across country. Multiple dam(s) and hydro-electric projects run on its course towards Ganges. Course Sone River is called 'सोन / सोने' in Hindi, but called 'शोण' in Sanskrit, a rare instance of an Indian river having masculine name. Damodar and Brahmaputr also have masculine name. The Sone originates near Pendra in Chhattisgarh, just east of the headwater of the Narmada River, and flows north-northwest through Shahdol district in Madhya Pradesh state before turning sharply eastward where it encoun ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paleolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehistoric technology. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins, 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene, 11,650 cal BP. The Paleolithic Age in Europe preceded the Mesolithic Age, although the date of the transition varies geographically by several thousand years. During the Paleolithic Age, hominins grouped together in small societies such as bands and subsisted by gathering plants, fishing, and hunting or scavenging wild animals. The Paleolithic Age is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, includ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Baghor Stone
Baghor stone is an Upper Paleolithic archaeological object that was found in the Son river valley near the village of Medhauli, in the Sidhi District, Madhya Pradesh, India. The stone, interpreted as a cult object, was found at the site of Baghor I, which is located near the base of the Kaimur Escarpment. It was first excavated in 1980. Baghor stone is a natural triangular piece of local sandstone; it is rather colourful, and had been decorated with yellow pigment. These types of stones may be found on top of the escarpment. The Baghor site, with all its many lithic artefacts, is dated between 9000 B.C and 8000 B.C. Site description The site was first excavated under the direction of archaeologists G. R. Sharma of Allahabad University and J. Desmond Clark of University of California, and assisted by Jonathan Mark Kenoyer and J.N. Pal. This was determined as a short term occupation site. The floor was composed of rubble, and there was a lot of manufacturing waste from stone too ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Supreme Being
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically conceived as being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, as well as having an eternal and necessary existence. God is often thought to be incorporeal, evoking transcendence or immanence. Some religions describe God without reference to gender, while others use terminology that is gender-specific and . God has been conceived as either personal or impersonal. In theism, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, while in deism, God is the creator, but not the sustainer, of the universe. In pantheism, God is the universe itself, while in panentheism, the universe is part (but not the whole) of God. Atheism is an absence of belief in any God or deity, while agnosticism is the belief that the existence of God is u ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Universe
The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. According to this theory, space and time emerged together ago, and the universe has been expanding ever since the Big Bang. While the spatial size of the entire universe is unknown, it is possible to measure the size of the observable universe, which is approximately 93 billion light-years in diameter at the present day. Some of the earliest cosmological models of the universe were developed by ancient Greek and Indian philosophers and were geocentric, placing Earth at the center. Over the centuries, more precise astronomical observations led Nicolaus Copernicus to develop the heliocentric model with the Sun at the center of the Solar System. In developing the law of universal gravitation, Isaac Newton built upon Copernicus's work as well ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Energy (esotericism)
Proponents and practitioners of various esoteric forms of spirituality and alternative medicine refer to a variety of claimed experiences and phenomena as being due to "energy" or "force" that defy measurement and thus are distinguished from the scientific form of energy. Claims related to energy therapies are most often anecdotal, rather than being based on repeatable empirical evidence. There is no scientific evidence for the existence of such energy, and physics educators criticize the use of the term "energy" to describe the ideas as potentially confusing. History Concepts such as "life force", "'' qi''" and "''élan vital''" existed from antiquity. In the 18th century, Franz Mesmer ignited debate with his theory of animal magnetism. Attention to vitalism grew in the 18th and 19th centuries. Interest continued into the 20th century, largely fuelled by adherents of the New Age movement. As biologists studied embryology and developmental biology, particularly before the d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |