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Showing posts from September 3, 2014


No Live Foxes for Nariyai Pariyakkuthal Ritual at the Madurai Meenakshi Temple

Live foxes were used in the Nariyai Pariyakkuthal Ritual at the Madurai Meenakshi Temple . The foxes were captured from their habitat and later released in the same region. But the forest department has decided not to give permission to this ritual which is held in the Aavani month in Madurai Meenakshi Temple . Economic Times reports "Chasing of any wild animal from its habitat and driving it to a different habitat and then releasing it again in the wild will disturb the socio ecological niche of the wild animal and will amount to a cognizable and non-bailable offence, under the Act," divisional forest officer (DFO), Nihar Ranajan said. He appealed to the authorities to extend full support the forest department in curbing and controlling such mythical and criminal practices.   When contacted, N Natarajan , joint commissioner of Meenakshi temple, said that such practice of bringing a live fox for the ritual was in vogue till three years ago. They have sought perm

Bankim Chandra Chatterji Explains On Idol Worship In Hindu Religion

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838 – 1894) explains the importance of idol (murti) worship in Hindu religion.  He was the composer of Vande Mataram personifying India as Mother Goddess and inspiring freedom fighters during the Indian Independence Movement. The true explanation consists of the ever true relations of the subjective Ideal and to its objective Reality. Man is by instinct a poet and an artist. The passionate yearnings of heart for the Ideal in beauty, in power, and in purity, must find an expression in the world of the Real. Hence proceed all poetry and all art. Exactly in the same way the ideal of the Divine in man receives a form from him, and the form is an image. The existence of Idols is as justifiable as that of the tragedy of Hamlet or of that of Prometheus. The religious worship of idols is a justifiable as the intellectual worship of Hamlet or Prometheus. The homage we owe to the ideal of the human realized in art is admiration. The homage we owe to