TeluguVaibhavam: Literature | Shiva Stuti | Ganga Taranga Ramaneeya...

TeluguVaibhavam: Literature Shiva Stuti Ganga Taranga Ramaneeya...

Acoording to Hindu myths..

NORTH REPRESENTS BIRTH......
North is the side which lies on the sun’s right hand and lies on either side of life; it
symbolizes night sky and night wind and is the home of the Moon and the Milky
Way. North represents coldness, alienation, and hostility; it is the abode of death
SOUTH REPRESENTS DEATH
South is the side which lies on the Sun’s left hand and is the hand of fire.

According to hindu mythology the person's good/bad deeds while on earth and decides if the soul goes to a heaven and/or a hell, for how long, and in what capacity. Some versions of the theology state that good and bad deeds neutralize each other and the soul therefore is born in either a heaven or a hell, but not both, whereas according to another school of thought, the good and bad deeds don't cancel out each other. In either case, the soul acquires a body as appropriate to the worlds it enters. At the end of the soul's time in those worlds, it returns to the earth (is reborn as a life form on the earth). It is considered that only from the earth, and only after a human life, can the soul reach supreme salvation, the state free from the cycle of birth and death, a state of absolute and eternal bliss.

Varanasi, which stands on the West bank of the River Ganga in India, is often called the City of Death. In the Hindu faith, it is said to be the most auspicious place to die and have one’s remains submersed in the river. Moksha, or liberation from the cycle of life and death, is believed to be the grace of the water itself.

The virtuous Varanasi on the banks of Ganges is one of the most important pilgrimages for Hindus and Buddhists. AT VARANASI THE RIVER GANGA FLOWS FROM SOUTH TO NORTH ie. back towards its origin in the Himalayas, considered a most auspicious phenomenon by Hindus. Varanasi has been the center of education, religion, art of culture since ages. Varanasi indeed offers the incredible India at its religious and cultural zenith.

So the direction of flow of the holy River Ganga  symbolises the path of .....Death to Life

GANGA THE MIGHTY RIVER OF INDIA

ganges ...illuminated

Evening prayer (Aarti) at Ganges is the most awaiting moment for all the tourists in the town. This musical ritual is full of lightening where a group of artists offer their deities to Goddess Ganges every evening. The entire atmosphere at river side was lively and transformation was awe-inspiring. As the ceremony began all the spectators got mesmerized and it continued for some 2 hours.

 It attracts a large gathering in the evening and many of the priests join in to pray to Ganges with lights, Conch sounds and bell ringing with Vedic chants. Many of the nights around this Ghat is always full of peace with serene river flowing by.

Celebrations at ganges...

Kumbha Mela has gained international fame as "the world's most massive act of faith." Pilgrims come to this holy event with such tremendous faith and in such overwhelming numbers that it boggles the mind. Faith is the most important thing for the pilgrims at Kumbha Mela, they have an "unflinching trust in something sublime".

The main highlight for most pilgrims during a Kumbha Mela is the observance of a sacred bath at the sangam. It is said that a bath in either of the sacred rivers has purifying effects, but where the three rivers meet, the bather's purification is increased one hundred times. Furthermore, it is said that when one takes a bath at the sangam during the Kumbha Mela, the influence is one thousand times increased

According to astrological calculations, the Kumbha Mela is held every twelve years and begins on Makar Sankranti, the day when the sun and moon enter Capricorn and Jupiter enters Aries. The astrological configuration on Makar Sankranti is called " Kumbha snana-yoga" and is considered to be especially auspicious, as it is said that the passage from Earth to the higher planets is open at that time, thus allowing the soul to easily attain the celestial world. For such reasons it is understandable why the Kumbha Mela has become so popular among all classes of transcendentalists in India .

People immerse themselves in the icy cold water. Loud chanting of "Bolo Ganga Mai ki jai (all glory to Mother Ganga)" filled the clear night air as the pilgrims washed away their bad karma. They came away from the bathing area wrapped in blankets and shivering from the cold. But as quickly as they came out of the water, thousands more came in their wake. With continual chants of " Bolo Ganga Mai ki jai" they entered the waters.

At dawn the sky reddened and the sun rose to reveal a crowd of five million enthusiasts slowly advancing towards the sangam. From the center of that mass of humanity came a marvelous procession announcing the official beginning of the Kumbha Mela. Bands played, people danced in jubilation, and colorful flags and banners flew above the crowd.
At the head of the procession were the nagas, India's famed naked holy men. These holy men engage themselves in renunciation of the world in search of equilibrium. They hope to escape the world's concomitant reactions and suffering by their austere practices such as complete celibacy and non-accumulation of material possessions. Thus they are known as liberationists. With matted locks of hair, their bodies covered in ashes, and their tridents ( the symbol of a follower of Shiva) raised high, they descended upon the bathing area. Entering the water in a tumult, blowing conchshells and singing " Shiva ki jai, Ganga ki jai," they splashed the sacred waters upon each other and played just like children. Indeed, they are said to be the very children of the Ganges.

KASHI.......THE SHIVA POPULATED CITY

The mythology of Banaras, including the stories of Śiva's connection to this city, is found in the Purāṇas in a genre of praise literature called māhātmya. The most extensive of such māhātmyas is the Kāśī Khaṇḍa, an entire section of the voluminous Skanda Purāṇa. One myth tells of the divine hierophany of Śiva in this place. Here, it is said, Śiva's fiery pillar of light (jyotirliṅga) burst from the netherworlds, split the earth, and pierced the sky—a luminous and fathomless sign of Śiva. Kāśī is not only the place where that liṅga of light is said to have split the earth, but in a wider sense, Kāśī is also said to be the liṅga of light—an enormous geographical liṅga, with a radius of five krośas (about ten miles). Even today pilgrims circumambulate Kāśī on the Pañcakrośī Road, a five-day pilgrimage circuit around the whole of the city.

There are countless shrines and temples of Śiva in Kāśī, each containing a liṅga, which, according to Saiva theology, is a symbol (pratīka) of that fathomless light of Śiva

It is said that in Kāśī there is a liṅga at every step; indeed, the very stones of Kāśī are Śiva liṅgas. Within this wider array, however, there are several temples that have special fame as sanctuaries of Śiva. The most significant of these liṅgas are Oṃkāreśvara, Viśveśvara, and Kedāreśvara, which traditionally centered the three khaṇḍas, or "sectors," of Banaras—north, central, and south.

In another mythic sequence from the Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Śiva populated the city of Vārāṇasī with the entire pantheon of gods. At that time, Śiva dwelt in his barren Himalayan home with his new bride, Pārvatī. He surveyed the entire earth for a suitable abode for the two of them. Seeing the beautiful Kāśī, he set about the task of evicting its ruling king, Divodāsa, so that he could have the city for himself. One by one, Śiva sent the various gods and demigods to Kāśī to find some way to force the king to leave. Not only did each god fail, but all the gods were so entranced with the city itself that they remained there without reporting to Śiva. Finally, with the help of Viṣṇu, Śiva succeeded in evicting King Divodāsa. The city into which he triumphantly entered was full of the gods.

CITY OF VARANASI

The city of Varanasi is located on the western bank of the Ganges where it makes a gentle curve.The Ganges is worshipped as a goddess and is referred to as "Mother Ganga". In fact Hindus believed that it is the goddess Ganga descended from heaven. The Ganges is 2510 km long and flows through northern India and empties into the delta in Bangladesh. Its most important tributary is the river Yamuna, which flows through Delhi and Agra before joining the Ganges at the town of Prayag, for which the Prayag Ghat in Varanasi is named after.

Hindus believe that by bathing in the Ganges on specific occasions will cleanse away their sins and help them attain salvation. Many Hindus also believe that the water from the Ganges can cleanse away past sins and cure all ills. Similarly, Hindus believe that to be cremated by the bank of the Ganges at Varanasi will cleanse away past sins. Some bring the ash of their family relatives to immerse in the Ganges, as doing will helped the deceased attain salvation.

The Ganges is mentioned in the Rig-Ved, the earliest and holiest Hindu scripture. Earlier scriptures place the Indus and Sarasvati rivers as the major rivers, but in later scriptures, the Ganges gained prominence as the most important of the three

KASHI VISHWANATHA TEMPLE

Standing on the western bank of India's holiest river Ganges, Varanasi is the oldest surviving city of the world and the cultural capital of India. It is in the heart of this city that there stands in its fullest majesty the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in which is enshrined the Jyotirlinga of Shiva, Vishweshwara or Vishwanatha. Here gravitate the teeming millions of India to seek benediction and spiritual peace by the darshan of this Jyotirlinga which confers liberation from the bondages of maya and the inexorable entanglements of the world. A SIMPLE GLIMPSE OF JYOTIRLINGA IS A SOUL-CLEANSING EXPERIENCE THAT TRANSFORMS LIFE AND PUTS IT ON THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF.Vishweshwara Jyotirlinga has a very special and unique significance in the spiritual history of India. Tradition has it that the merits earned by the darshan of other jyotirlinga scattered in various parts of India accrue to devotee by a single visit to Kashi Vishwanath Temple.

 Deeply and intimately implanted in the Hindu mind, the Kashi Vishwanath Temple has been a living embodinent of our timeless cultural traditions and highest spiritual values. The Temple has been visited by all great saints- Adi Shankaracharya, Ramkrishna Paramhansa, Swami Vivekanand, Goswami Tulsidas, Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati, Gurunanak and several other spiritual personalities.

The Viswanath temple of the [BHU]BANARS HINDU UNIVERSITY is a massive temple complex consisting of seven temples. The Shiva temple is in the ground floor and the Lakshmi Narayan and the Durga temples are in the first floor. This elegant temple structure is located almost at the center of the University campus. The laying of the foundation stone of the temple took place in March, 1931 and it took almost three decades to complete its construction. Its sky penetrating spiraling top is 252 ft. high. The whole of Geeta and extracts from the sacred Hindu scriptures are inscribed with illustrations on the inner walls of the temple. Devotees, pilgrims and tourists from all over the world visit the temple throughout the year. Religious discourses are held periodically in the central hall of the temple. Viswanath temple is the spiritual center of the University