Source DHAKA, BANGLADESH, October 14, 2013 (Dhaka Tribune): The five-day-long Hindu festival of Durga Puja will come to an end today through the celebration of Vijaya Dashami, in which the main ritual is the immersion of Durga statues in rivers. Devotees will bring out Vijaya Dashami processions carrying statues of the deity Durga and her children Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kartik and…
Source Do you realize now the sacred significance and the supreme importance of the guru’s role in the evolution of man? It was not without reason that the India of the past carefully tended and kept alive the lamp of guru-tattva. It is therefore not without reason that India, year after year, age after age, commemorates anew this ancient concept…
Source MADHYA PRADESH, INDIA, October 13, 2013 (BBC): Some 91 pilgrims, mostly women and children, have been killed in a stampede at a Hindu festival in central India, local officials have said. Many were crushed after panic broke out on a bridge near the Ratangarh temple in Madhya Pradesh state. Others died when they jumped from the bridge. Officials said…
Source BHUBANESWAR, INDIA, October 13, 2013 (Times of India): Organizers clearing debris from broken puja pandals, government officials clearing roads of snapped branches of trees and people queuing up before water tankers summed up the scene at Bhubaneswar and Cuttack a day after severe cyclone Phailin made landfall near Gopalpur. Puja pandals (temporary road-side temples set up for a festival)…
Source O Mother! Let all my speech be your prayer; let all my crafts and technology be your worship and be the mystic gestures of my hand, adorning you. May all my movements become your devotional circumambulations. May everything I eat or drink be oblations to you. Let my lying down in rest and sleep be prostrations to you. Mother!…
Source INDONESIA, October 9, 2013 (India TV News): Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country with the ethnic group Javanese in majority. The group of islands has been a trade hub and the local rulers have traded with China and India since the 7th century. Local rulers gradually absorbed Hindu and Buddhist traditions. The influence of Hindu and Buddhist…
Source JOHANNESBURG, October 8,2013 (Times of India): South Africans are increasingly embracing Indian culture, opening up historical venues to Hindus to celebrate religious events. “The way in which other communities have embraced Hindu cultural activities is a direct result of the Rainbow Nation ideal of former President Nelson Mandela,” said the Chairman of the Gauteng chapter of the South African…
Source Do you realize now the sacred significance and the supreme importance of the guru’s role in the evolution of man? It was not without reason that the India of the past carefully tended and kept alive the lamp of guru-tattva. It is therefore not without reason that India, year after year, age after age, commemorates anew this ancient concept…
Source NEW YORK, NEW YORK, October 9, 2013 (A Journey Through NYC Religions): Anantanand Rambachan is professor of religion at St. Olaf College, Minnesota. This article is taken from his keynote address to the Hindu Caribbean Conference of America in New York on October 6, 2012. The abolition of the slave trade created a labor shortage that threatened the survival…
Source Just as a big banyan tree sprouts from a tiny seed, so the wide universe with names and forms sprouts forth from the heart.— Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), South Indian mystic