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Kedarnath Temple
Kēdāranātha Temple (Sanskrit: केदारनाथ मंदिर, IAST: ''Kēdāranātha Mandira'', ) is a Hindu temple, one of the twelve ''jyotirlinga'' of Śiva. The temple is located on the Garhwal Himalayan range near the Mandakini River, Mandākinī river, in the state of Uttarakhand, India. Due to extreme weather conditions, the temple is open to the general public only between the months of April (Akshaya Tritiya, Akṣaya Tritiya) and November (Kartika Purnima, Kārtika Pūrṇimā, the autumn full moon). During the winters, the ''vigraha'' (deity) of the temple is carried down to Ukhimath to be Worship, worshiped for the next six months. Kēdāranātha is seen as a homogeneous form of Śiva, the 'Lord of Kēdārakhaṇḍa', the historical name of the region. The temple is not directly accessible by road and has to be reached by a uphill trek from Gauri Kund, Gaurikuṇḍa. According to Hindu legends, the temple was initially built by the Pāṇḍavas, a ...
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Uttarakhand
Uttarakhand (, ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; List of renamed places in India, the official name until 2007), is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. The state is bordered by Himachal Pradesh to the northwest, Tibet to the north, Nepal to the east, Uttar Pradesh to the south and southeast, with a small part touching Haryana in the west. Uttarakhand has a total area of , equal to 1.6% of the total area of India. Dehradun serves as the state capital, with Nainital being the judicial capital. The state is divided into two divisions, Garhwal division, Garhwal and Kumaon division, Kumaon, with a total of List of districts of Uttarakhand, 13 districts. The forest cover in the state is 45.4% of the state's geographical area. The cultivable area is 16% of the total geographical area. The two major rivers of the state, the Ganges and its tributary Yamuna, originate from the Gangotri and Yamunotri glaciers respectively. Ranked 6th among the Top 1 ...
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Pāṇḍava
The Pandavas (Sanskrit: पाण्डव, aɳɖɐʋᵊ IAST: Pāṇḍava) is a group name referring to the five legendary brothers, Yudhishtira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva, who are central figures of the Hindu epic ''Mahabharata''. They are acknowledged as the sons of Pandu, the King of Kuru, but were fathered by different '' Devas'' (gods) due to Pandu's cursed inability to naturally sire children. In the epic, the Pandavas married Draupadi, the princess of Panchala, and founded the city of Indraprastha after the Kuru Kingdom was split to avoid succession disputes. After the split, the other part of the kingdom was ruled by their cousins, the Kauravas. However, the Pandavas lost their kingdom to Duryodhana (eldest and king of the Kauravas) when Yudhishthira gambled it away during a game of dice. The bet Yudhishtira agreed to was that the Pandavas would hand the kingdom over to the Kauravas and go into exile for 12 followed by an year in hiding. After this time the ...
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Debris
Debris (, ) is rubble, wreckage, ruins, litter and discarded waste, garbage/refuse/trash, scattered remains of something destroyed, or, as in geology, large rock fragments left by a melting glacier, etc. Depending on context, ''debris'' can refer to a number of different things. The first apparent use of the French word in English is in a 1701 description of the army of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Prince Rupert upon its retreat from a battle with the army of Oliver Cromwell, in England. Disaster In disaster scenarios, tornadoes leave behind large pieces of houses and mass destruction overall. This debris also flies around the tornado itself when it is in progress. The tornado's winds capture debris it kicks up in its wind orbit, and spins it inside its vortex. The tornado's wind radius is larger than the funnel itself. Tsunamis and tropical cyclone, hurricanes also bring large amounts of debris, such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Earthquakes rock citi ...
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2013 North India Floods
In June 2013, a mid-day cloudburst centered on the North Indian state of Uttarakhand caused devastating floods and landslides, becoming the country's worst natural disaster since the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, 2004 tsunami. The rainfall received that month was far greater than the rainfall the state usually received. Debris blocked the rivers, causing major overflow. The main day of the flood was 16 June 2013. Some parts of Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh in India experienced the heavy rainfall, as well as regions of Western Nepal and some parts of Western Tibet. Over 89% of the casualties occurred in Uttarakhand. , according to figures provided by the Government of Uttarakhand, more than 5,700 people were "presumed dead." This total included 934 local residents. The death toll was later placed at 6,054. Destruction of bridges and roads left about 300,000 pilgrims and tourists trapped in the valleys leading to three of the four Hindu Chota Cha ...
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Sekkizhar
Sēkkilān Mādēvadigal Rāmadēva (12th century CE), known popularly by his family name as Sekkizhar, was a saint and a contemporary of Kulottunga Chola II. He compiled and wrote the ''Periya Puranam'' (Great Story or Narrative) in 4253 verses, recounting the life stories of the sixty-three Shaiva Nayanars, the devotees of Shiva. Sekkilhar himself was later canonised and his work, the Periyapuranam became the twelfth and final book of the sacred Saiva canon. Life Sekkilhar was born as Arulmozhithevan, meaning ''the one of the divine language''. He was a native of Kundrathur village (a suburb of the present-day Chennai), a sub-division of Puliyur-kottam in Thondaimandalam. He born in a Tamil vellalar family. Sekkilhar was a child of precocious genius and having noticed this, king Anapaya, that is Kulothunga Chola II appointed him as his Prime Minister on account of his talents. His life is celebrated by Umapati Sivacharya in his fourteenth century work (1313 CE) called Sek ...
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Sundarar
Sundarar (), also referred to as Chuntarar, Chuntaramurtti, Nampi Aruran or Tampiran Tolan, was an eighth-century poet-saint of Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta tradition of Hinduism. He is among the Tevaram trio, and one of the most prominent Nayanars, the Shaiva bhakti (devotional) poets of Tamil Nadu. His hymns form the seventh volume of the ''Tirumurai called Thiruppattu'', the twelve-volume compendium of Shaiva Siddhanta. His songs are considered the most musical in ''Tirumurai'' in Tamil language. His life and his hymns in the Tevaram are broadly grouped in four stages. First, his cancelled arranged marriage through the intervention of Shiva in the form of a mad petitioner and his conversion into a Shaiva devotee. Second, his double marriage to temple dancers Paravai and Cankali with their stay together in Tiruvarur. Third, his blindness and then return of his sight. Finally, his reflections on wealth and material goods. Names Sundarar is referred to by many names. Sundarar (Cunta ...
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Appar
Appar (), also referred to as Tirunavukkaracar () or Navukkarasar, was a seventh-century Tamil Shaiva poet-saint. Born in a peasant Shaiva family, raised as an orphan by his sister, he lived about 80 years and is generally placed sometime between 570 and 650 CE.Zvelebil 1974, p. 95 Appar composed 4,900 devotional hymns to the god Shiva, out of which 313 have survived and are now canonized as the 4th to 6th volumes of ''Tirumurai''. One of the most prominent of the sixty-three revered Nayanars, he was an older contemporary of Sambandar. His images are found and revered in Tamil Shiva temples. His characteristic iconography in temples show him carrying a farmer's small hoe – a gardening tool and weed puller. Names Appar is also known as Tirunavukkaracar (''lit.'' "King of the Tongue, Lord of Language"). His birth-name was Marulneekkiyar. He was renamed Dharmasenar while he studied and later served as the head of a Jain monastery. After he returned to Shaivism and began composi ...
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Sambandar
Sambandar (Tamil language, Tamil: சம்பந்தர், Romanization, romanized: ''Campantar''), also referred to as Thirugnana Sambandar (Tamil language, Tamil: திருஞானசம்பந்தர், Romanization, romanized: ''Tiruñāṉacampantar''), was a Shaivism, Shaiva poet-saint of Tamil Nadu who lived sometime in the 7th century CE. According to the Tamil Shaiva tradition, he composed an of 16,000 hymns in complex meters, of which 383 (384) hymns with 4,181 stanzas have survived. These narrate an intense loving devotion (''bhakti'') to the Hindu god Shiva. Sambandar merged with the divine effulgence when he was sixteen years of age. The surviving compositions of the poet-saint are preserved in the first three volumes of the ''Tirumurai called'' Thirukkadik kaappu, and provide a part of the philosophical foundation of Shaiva Siddhanta. He is one of the most prominent of the sixty-three Nayanars, Tamil people, Tamil Shaiva Bhakti movement, bhakti saint ...
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Tevaram
The ''Tevaram'' (, ), also spelled ''Thevaram'', denotes the first seven volumes of the twelve-volume collection ''Tirumurai'', a Saivism, Shaiva narrative of epic and Puranas, Puranic heroes, as well as a Hagiography, hagiographic account of early Shaiva saints set in devotional poetry. The ''Tevaram'' volumes contain the works of the three most prominent Shaiva Tamil saints of the 7th and 8th centuries: Sambandar, Appar, and Sundarar. The three saints were not only involved in portraying their personal devotion to Shiva, but also engaged a community of believers through their songs. Their work is an important source for understanding the Shaiva Bhakti movement in the Middle kingdoms of India#The Deccan plateau and South, early medieval South India. In the 10th century, during the reign of Rajaraja I of the Chola dynasty, these saints' hymns were collected and arranged by Nambiyandar Nambi. Starting with the ''Tevaram'' along with the rest of ''Tirumurai'' and ending with the ...
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Paadal Petra Sthalam
The Paadal Petra Sthalams (), also known as Devara Sthalams, are 276 temples that are revered in the verses of Shaiva Nayanars in the 6th-9th century CE. The Divya Desams by comparison are the 108 Vishnu temples glorified in the poems of the contemporary Sri Vaishnava Alvars of Tamil Nadu, India. Tevaram Tevaram literally means, "garland of divine songs" and refers to the collection of verses sung in praise of Shiva, the supreme god of the Shaivite sect of Hinduism, by three Tamil poets known as Shaiva Kuruvars - Sambandar, Appar, and Sundarar. The three are considered the primary three among the sixty-three Nayanars. The former two lived during the 7th century CE while the latter around the 8th century CE. All songs in Tevaram are believed to be in sets of ten songs, called ''patikam'' in Tamil. Some musical experts consider Tevaram as a divine musical form. There is a common view that Sanskritisation of names of the temples are carried out in later period that superseded ...
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Victor DeLorenzo
Victor DeLorenzo (born October 25, 1954) is an American musician, actor and filmmaker who was the founding drummer for the folk-punk band Violent Femmes. Biography DeLorenzo was born in 1954, the son of Victor and Charlotte DeLorenzo, grew up in Racine, Wisconsin, and has lived in Milwaukee since. He has been a drummer since the age of 16, while attending St. Catherine's High School, and has been an actor since the age of five. While attending the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he auditioned for and was accepted into Theatre X in 1976, and worked with them in various roles for more than 20 years. As a drummer, DeLorenzo paired up with bassist Brian Ritchie in 1980, as a rhythm section they called "Violent Femmes". When singer, guitarist, and songwriter Gordon Gano joined them in 1981, the band kept the name. DeLorenzo's father loaned the band $10,000 to record their eponymous debut album in 1982. However, the band was forced to delay its release until 1983 after they si ...
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Chota Char Dham
The Chota Char Dham ( 'the small four abodes/seats' or 'the small circuit of four abodes/seats') is an important modern Hindu pilgrimage circuit in Uttarakhand, in the Indian Himalayas. Located in the Garhwal region of the state of Uttarakhand, the circuit consists of four sites— Gangotri, Yamunotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath. Badrinath is also one of the four destinations (with each destination being in different corners of the country) of the longer Char Dham from which the Chota Char Dham likely draws its name. Akshaya Tritiya (April or May in the Gregorian calendar) marks the beginning of the Chota Char Dham Yatra and closes two days after Diwali, on the day of Bhai-Bij (or Bhai Dooj) In May and June, tourists flock in large numbers, due to heavy rainfall greater chances of roadblocks or landslides in late July and August during monsoon season. The Annual ''Chota Char Dham Yatra'' resumed in May 2014, after being suspended during the 2013 Uttarakhand floods. The ...
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