More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The Earth, bearing upon her many different peoples, speaking many languages, following different dharmas as suit their particular regions. Pour upon us a thousand-fold streams of bountiful treasures to enrich us, like a constant cow that never faileth.
The shrine of the skull-bearer, dweller in Kailasa’s hill and in Kanappar, the trident-holder, bull-rider who shares his body with our Lady is Tiruvaiyaru where the red-legged white sand-crane with sharp beak ruffles its feathers to shake them dry of the water’s cold and looks for prey in the fresh waters of a honeyed grove.
The first map to be widely disseminated was that of the surveyor general of Bengal, James Rennell, in 1782.
For thou art Durgā holding her ten weapons of war, Kamalā at play in the lotuses And Speech, the goddess, giver of all lore, To thee I bow! I bow to thee, goddess of wealth, Pure and peerless, Richly-watered, richly-fruited, The Mother! I bow to thee, Mother, Dark-hued, candid, Sweetly-smiling, jeweled and adorned, The holder of wealth, the lady of plenty, The Mother!
“Our highest ideal of love and devotion to our country is to be found in our conception of our land as Mother.… The imagination that clothed our conception of our country was … not poetical but essentially religious. We addressed our land not merely as … mother country, but simply as Mother.
Our history is the sacred biography of the Mother.104
“A Hindu is a person who regards this land of Bhārata, extending from the River to the Sea as Fatherland and Holyland.
“love the land that stretches from Sindhu to Sindhu, from the Indus to the Seas.”
I am India. The Indian nation is my body. Kanyākumārī is my foot and the Himalayas my head. The Ganges flow from my thighs. My left leg is the Coromandal Coast, my right is the Coast of Malabar. I am this entire land. East and West are my arms. How wondrous is my form! When I walk I sense all India moves with me. When I speak, India speaks with me. I am India. I am Truth, I am God, I am Beauty.
Hiranyagarbha arose in the beginning. He was born, the One Lord of all that is.4
In the beginning this world was merely non-being. It was existent. It developed. It turned into an egg [anda]. It lay for the period of a year. It was was split asunder. One of the two eggshell parts became silver, one gold. That which was of silver is this earth. That which was of gold is the sky. What was the outer membrane is the mountains. What was the inner membrane is cloud and mist. What were the veins are the rivers. What was the fluid within is the ocean.7
The east slope of Meru is white, with the properties of the brahmin caste; the southern slope is yellow, with the properties of the vaishya caste; the western slope is “black as a bee’s wing” and has the properties of the shudras; and the northern slope is red, with the properties of the kshatriyas.43
“embodied goodness of the gods.”
Parushnī,
RAvi
During the winter months, the image of Gangā, along with that of Sarasvatī and Annapurnā, is transported down the mountain for residence at a village called Mukhimath.
O Mother Gangā, may your water, abundant blessing of the world, treasure of Lord Shiva, playful Lord of all the world, essence of the scriptures and embodied goodness of the gods, May your water, sublime wine of immortality, Soothe our troubled souls.
journey arrives at Gangotrī on the auspicious day of Akshaya Tritīya
svarga-sopana-saranī,
O Mother! I ask that I may take leave of this body on your banks, drinking your water, rolling in your waves, remembering your name, bestowing my gaze upon you!
Vishnuprayāg two streams, the Vishnu Gangā and the Dhauli Gangā, join to form the Alakanandā
At Nandaprayāg, the Alakanandā is joined by the Nandākinī,
The Pindar River flowing from farther east in Kumaon joins the swelling Alakanandā at Karnaprayāg. At Rudraprayāg, the blue-green waters of the Mandākinī, which rises in the glacial valley of Kedārnāth, join with the whitish, mica-laden waters of the Alakanandā.
Finally, at Devaprayāg, all these waters join the principal stream of the Gangā, the Bhāgīrathī, named for the princely ascetic who escorted her from heaven.
“What amrita is to gods … so to humans is Gangā water.”48
“liquid” (drava) form of the Supreme Brahman.63
“essence of the scriptures and embodied goodness of the gods.”
I come to you as a child to his mother. I come as an orphan to you, moist with love. I come without refuge to you, giver of sacred rest. I come a fallen man to you, uplifter of all. I come undone by disease to you, the perfect physician. I come, my heart dry with thirst, to you, ocean of sweet wine. Do with me whatever you will.71
Pilgrims would undertake a pilgrimage called “the great going forth” (mahāprasthānaka), meaning the journey to one’s death. They would intend to die or commit suicide at Prayāga.
Indus as it meets the Arabian Sea is still called Sapta Sindhu,
“Even the most hardened atheist of a Hindu will find his heart full of feelings he has never before felt when for the first time he reaches the bank of the Gangā.”
Why bathe in the Ganges or the Kāverī, why make a pilgrimage to Kumāri’s cool, fragrant beach, why bathe in the ocean’s swelling waves? All this is in vain, if you do not think: “The Lord is everywhere.”16
In the heavens is the Tāraka linga, In the netherworlds is Hatakeshvara, And here in this mortal world is Mahākāla. Praise be to thee, O Triple Linga!
In seven places, parts of her body fell. Her feet fell at Devīkuta, where she is called Mahābhagā; her thighs at Uddiyāna, where she is called Kātyāyanī; her yoni at Kāmarupa, where she is called Kāmākhyā; her shoulders and neck at Pūrnagiri, where she is Pūrnesvarī; her navel to the east of Kāmarūpa, where she is Dikkaravāsinī; her breasts at Jalandhara, where she is Chandī. And Shiva became present in each of these places as well, establishing himself as a linga attached to each manifestation of the devī.
Mother, I bow to thee! Rich with thy hurrying streams, Bright with thy orchard gleams, Cool with thy winds of delight, Dark fields waving, Mother of might, Mother free.
The very name “Vishnu” comes from a Sanskrit verbal root meaning “to spread, to pervade.”
“Don’t worship gods that are far-off, but give thanks for those things that are precious right here.”
The Mathurā Māhātmya of the Varāha Purāna may well come from this time. The māhātmya details the temples, the river tīrthas of the Yamunā, and the various forests and groves of Mathurā and its surrounding area. Indeed, it mentions the Ban Yātrā, the eighty-four-kosh, 147–mile pilgrimage through the forests and shrines of this area during the month when Krishna was born. The sixteenth century also saw the arrival of
Their sense of Krishna’s presence was only heightened by his absence.
“The one who always bathes in earthly tīrthas as well as in the tīrthas of the heart reaches the supreme
If life itself is a journey, the final leg of that journey has special importance, and many people yearn to go on pilgrimage to a dhām or a tīrtha as they approach the end.
“I, Lalla, went out far in search of Shiva, the omnipresent lord; having wandered, I found him in my own body, sitting in his house.”
