India - Spiritual News
Mystery death at India
Hindu monastery
BBC- Jan 20/05 - The manager of a Hindu monastery in India's Tamil Nadu state has been found dead with stab wounds, police say.
The body of Srinivasachar was found in a pool of blood in the 150-year-old Uttaradi Mutt in the southern town of Kanchipuram on Thursday, reports say.
Kanchipuram has been rocked by the arrests of two Hindu religious leaders belonging to another monastery, who are charged with murdering a former aide.
Police have so far not commented on how Srinivasachar, 40, might have died.
There is no indication the discovery of the body on Thursday is in any way linked to the earlier murder charges.
The Uttaradi Mutt was set up to look after pilgrims from the northern Indian state of Bihar.
Temple killing
Southern India's leading temple town recently saw the arrest of prominent Hindu seer, Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, on charges of killing another temple official.
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Animal Worship Praying to an Indian Hindu God: Elephant-God Ganesh immersions ruled unlawful
BBC - Sep 8/04 - The Madras high court in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu has imposed a temporary ban on immersions of idols of the Hindu God, Ganesh.
The court upheld a petition which said the idols are made of chemicals which pollute the sea and other water sources.
Hundreds of idols, big and small, are taken to the sea in Madras at this time of the year.
They are immersed as part of a Hindu festival which begins later this month.
Hindu Fundamentalist groups
The petition filed at the high court said that the sea and other water resources are poisoned by chemicals used to make the Ganesh idols, and the practise should be banned.
The court accepted the petition and imposed a stay on such immersions.
The court also issued notices to the state government and the Pollution Control Board to explain their stand on this issue.
Observers say that the practise of immersing Ganesh idols during Hindu processions began 15 years ago during the Ganesh Chaturti festival.
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Animal
Worship India
Worships & Celebrates elephant god
BBC - Aug 26/01 - A colourful 10-day festival to celebrate the birthday of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh has come to a close in India.
In the southern port city of Madras, it ended with hundreds of idols of Lord Ganesh being lowered into the sea.
The festival was marked all over India with politicians publicly offering up prayers to the god who is believed to "bring success" and "remove obstacles".
But in the state of Assam the celebrations were marred on the first day by tragedy.
Two elephants were being herded across a bridge over the river Brahmaputra in
Guwahati, the state capital, in the early hours of the morning when a speeding bus ran into them.
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India - Ravi Shankar calls for restraint over seer's arrest
New Delhi, Nov 13/04 (IANS) Indian spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Saturday appealed to Hindus to keep their calm and not to precipitate matters in the wake of the Kanchi Shankaracharya's arrest in connection with a murder case.
In a statement issued in Rishikesh in Uttaranchal, Ravi Shankar urged the people not to make the crisis the religion was going through into a communal issue.
He said the news of Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi's arrest Thursday had shaken the Hindu psyche.
"Saints cannot even think of committing such a crime. At a time when such an accusation has been made, all that one can say is that saints should keep a watch on people around them," he said.
Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi, head of the Kanchipuram hermitage in Tamil Nadu, was arrested for alleged involvement in the murder of Sankara Raman, a manager of the Varadaraja Perumal temple in the same town.
[Note: Shankar appears to specialize in Vedic Chanting intertwined into his music. The purpose of Vedic Chanting is to allow demonic forces to overtake one's life, or in Vedic terms to allow the "universe to speak through you".]
Seer's arrest left us in deep shock: Vajpayee
New Delhi, Nov 13/04 (IANS) Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee Saturday said here the Kanchi Shankaracharya's arrest in a murder case left his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in "deep shock".
"It (the arrest and jailing of the Hindu pontiff) has left us in deep shock. More people are hurt by the manner in which the seer was arrested," Vajpayee told reporters during an Iftar party he organised at his official residence.
Earlier in the day, he telephoned Home Minister Shivraj Patil to express his concern over the arrest of Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi on murder charges.
"I spoke to Patil to ensure the security and safety of the Shankaracharya," he said. However, Vajpayee said the court would take the decision on the fate of the case.
Hindu group seeks centre's intervention in seer's case
New Delhi, Nov 13/04 (IANS) The seer of Badarinath Mutt Saturday asked the central government to ensure the "unconditional release" of the Hindu seer Kanchi Shankaracharya, who was arrested on murder charges, and probe into the "conspiracy" that led to his arrest.
Shankaracharya of Jyotishpeeth Swami Madhavashramji Maharaj, who is also president of the All India Cow Protection Campaign Society, alleged the seer's arrest was "most unfortunate" and alleged that it was a the result of a "conspiracy".
Addressing religious leaders in Koteshwar district in Uttaranchal, he asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Shivraj Patil to ensure the release of the pontiff.
"The government should take an initiative to probe who were behind the conspiracy and punish them," he said.
Hindu seers protest arrest of their revered Pontiff.
Varanasi, Nov.13/04 (ANI): Hindu seers in India's northern holy city of Varanasi began a massive agitation for the release of one of the most senior Hindu priests, arrested in connection with the murder of a temple official, on Saturday.
Jayendra Saraswathi, venerated by millions of Hindus, was arrested late on Thursday in southern Andhra Pradesh by police from the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, where he heads a Hindu monastery in the pilgrim town of Kanchipuram.
The court has sent Saraswathi, 60, into judicial custody for 15 days at a high-security prison to allow police more time to investigate the murder. His lawyers have described as baseless the charges of murder and abetment and conspiracy to murder that have been made by police.
The protestors alleged a conspiracy by Christian leaders as the seer had managed to foil their conversion plans.
"In southern India Shankaracharya ji maharaj had worked for Hindus. Christians were feeling threatened as he was re-converting the people who were forcibly taken into Christianity. So this is a conspiracy by the Christian community," said Narendranan Saraswati, a self-proclaimed saint.
Conversions are an extremely sensitive communal flashpoint in the Hindu-majority India with radical Hindus accusing the Christian missionaries of luring poor tribals and villagers with promises of money and employment.
"In any point of view this arrest is not right and Shankaracharya is an exalted post and this is an attack and conspiracy against the 900 million of his followers," added Jugal Kishore Shukla, regional head of the radical Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which is spearheading the campaign.
Temple official Sankaraman (eds: one name), who is said to have been a critic of the religious leader, was hacked to death in an ancient temple in Kanchipuram in early September. The killing sparked protests by Tamil Nadu's main opposition party.
Police have already arrested 14 people over the incident.
The leader is the head of one of five monasteries across India that are said to have been founded in the eighth century by the Hindu philosopher and religious reformer, Adi Shankaracharya, from whose name his official title derives.
Hindus today revere the heads of these monasteries, although their religion has no exact counterpart of the strict hierarchy of some other religions. (ANI)
Living goddess makes rare outing
BBC - Sept 27/04 - A seven-year-old girl revered by Hindus and Buddhists as a living goddess has had a rare festive excursion from the house where she is usually confined in the Nepalese capital,
Kathmandu.
Crowds roar and young men yell as they tug an ancient wooden chariot through the lanes of the old city.
Inside is little Preeti Shakya who herself has been revered as the Kumari and incarnation of the Hindu mother goddess Durga for the past three years, in a tradition going back centuries.
Each Kumari is chosen
aged only three or four , always from the same Buddhist clan, and has to have 32 attributes, including thighs like those of a deer and a neck like a conch shell.
She lives a confined
life, only coming out of her palace three or four times a year until she reaches
adolescence when another Kumari must be found.
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Parents Try to revive Dead Daughter through Black Magic & Demonic Mantras
Tuesday October 5/04
An elderly couple in Ghatkopar
preserved their 24-year-old daughter’s corpse for four days in their kitchen,
believing that she might come to life with the help of black magic.
The incident came to light last Saturday, after residents of the Kailash Prakash
building found a strong odour emanating from one of the flats in the building.
They complained to the police subsequently.
A businessman, Dhirajlal Lukani’s daughter Dipti had suffered gangrene on her
left feet.
After fighting for her life for nearly three months she finally succumbed to the
disease. After taking their daughter’s body for the final rites, the Lukanis
preserved it for four days, believing that she
might come alive to mantras pronounced on her.
Police Inspector V J Matkare of Pant Nagar police station said, “The Lukanis
(with daughters Dipti and Purvi) have been residents of Ghatkopar for the past
14 years. Despite medical treatment, the family used to approach a tantrik with
the belief that their daughter might be cured.” Her body was kept beside a
small temple inside the kitchen.
Kailash Prakash building at Ghatkopar, where businessman Dhirajlal Lukani lives
with his familyDr P M Shinde of Rajawadi police station said, “We have sent
the samples to a forensic expert for chemical analysis, to ascertain that her
death was natural.”
A resident of the Kailash Prakash building said: “We started getting a foul
odour since last Wednesday. The residents put it down to a dead rat, but the
odour got stronger by the hour. We eventually traced it to the Lukanis’
kitchen.” The resident also added that the family was
known to practice black magic.
When other residents of the building sought an inspection of the house, the
Lukanis asked them to summon a doctor, saying that their daughter was unwell.
Upon examination, it was learnt that Dipti was dead for over 72 hours. The body
was finally cremated on Saturday night, after an autopsy.
The Lukanis are in a state of shock and declined to comment on the incident.
Animal Worship Hindus mourn monkey god
BBC - Sep 1/02 - Hundreds of people have attended the funeral of a monkey which became revered as a divine incarnation of a Hindu god in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
Animal rights campaigners say the monkey died of starvation and exhaustion after being trapped in a temple for a month by over-zealous worshippers.
The animal was cremated in Anantapur district, 400 kilometres (250 miles) south of the state capital, Hyderabad, on Sunday.
It had not eaten for three weeks.
Last rites were performed by priests in the village of Timmiganipally in the presence of hundreds of devotees who had come to believe that the monkey was a reincarnation of the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman.
Locals said they believed that Lord Hanuman was visiting the village, as the temple had stopped daily rituals after a dispute between two groups of residents.
But animal rights campaigners complained that the animal was being mistreated.
They filed a petition in the state's High Court saying the monkey had been forcibly confined in the temple.
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The blessed HOPE
Perfect ORDER & BEAUTY on earth
Very soon God is going to establish His glorious kingdom through man over the whole earth. But today we find greed and pride ruling the heart of man. Violence and corruption is spreading everywhere.
What is the root cause of all this confusion? Will the earth ever return back to perfect righteousness and peace and prosperity?
HOW & WHEN?
Demonic Inspiration of Certain Kinds of Sounds
Core Universal Rights
The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one's belief or religion
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