Shivani's Blog!

A sculpture of Chandra from the 13th century. Source: Wikipedia For this week's Wikipedia Trail I started with white elephant because my one of the Jataka readings was about a white elephant. I think they are so beautiful and I love to look at pictures of them. This led me to Airavata , which was the name of the flying white elephant who belonged to the God Indra. This elephant was the king of all elephants and has 5 trunks and 10 tusks. The previous search led me to the ocean of milk , where some legends say that Airavata came out of. This ocean of milk is a major marker in Hinduism and its legends. It is the 5th from the center of 7 oceans and surrounded Krauncha, a continent. This ocean is where Vishnu rests with Lakshmi, his consort. Ocean of milk led me to the final page of my Wikipedia Trail, which was Chandra , the Moon God. This ties in with the ocean of milk because of Chandra's involvement in the Ocean's churning in order to get the nectar of immortal lif...

The Om symbol, a sacred sound and spiritual icon in Hinduism. Source: Wikipedia For this week's Wikipedia trail I started with Krishna since we have the option to read his tales for our storytelling for the week. Krishna is the 8th avatar of Vishnu. He has many names. He goes by Govinda, Mukunda, Makhan Chor (which literally means cream/butter thief!) He loved to eat butter as a child, hence his name, and he played the flute. All of the women surrounded by him are the avatars of Lakshmi, Vishnu's consort. Krishna led me to searching for avatar and its meaning. Avatar means descent, or the incarnation of a godly figure on earth. Avatar is most commonly associated with Vishnu because he has so many forms. The same concept of incarnation can apply in Buddhism. The next term I was led to was the Bhagavad Gita , a Hingu scripture written in Sanskrit. It is a part of the Mahabharata. It was written by the sage Vyasa, since the Mahabharata was written by him. This text has be...

Sita and Rama in a 1950's bazaar art piece. Source: Wikipedia I started with Sita , who was the consort of Lord Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu. She herself, was an avatar of Lakshmi. She was one of the central figures of the Ramayana and was the Daughter of Bhumi, the earth goddess. She was adopted by King Janaka and Queen Sunaina. This led me to Ayodhya  which is an ancient city thought to be the birthplace of Rama. It is 1 of 7 different pilgrimage sites for the followers of Hinduism. There is much controversy about the present Ayodhya and the ancient Ayodhya being the same place. Ayodhya leads me to Treta Yuga  which is the second out of 4 different yugas. Yugas are the ages of mankind in Hinduism. In a way, it is like different ages (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, etc.) of the earth. During this yuga, people grew more materialistic and the power of humans diminished a slight bit. However, this period brought knowledge of the universal magnetism and humans learned and unde...