I would like to use this thread to solicit your views on how we can accomplish our goals of propagating positive views and educating people about India.



Fellow forum members, I believe that one of better ways to make our voices heard is by publishing our thoughts as a monthly magazine in a coherant, well organized and professional manner.



These are my thoughts. I encourage you to comment and make any suggestions.



The magazine will have following sections:

1) Front Page

2) Table of Contents

3) Editorial (an executive summary of the issues covered by the articles)

4) Articles (about 4 to 8)



In section 4, we will have one article as a monthly executive summary (hopefully humorous) of happenings in our forum.



In the first issue or so, I suggest we stick to 2-3 book reviews and one or two historical perspectives about India (which seems to be our forte currently).



If you need to contact me personally, please email me at o_vijay at yahoo.com

Added 11/2/2003 - I just changed the title of the thread, since i wanted to avoid thread proliferation



I thought it would be useful to collate information on the various temples of India, information that may be useful for travellers. I am almost certain that no one Indian is aware of the rich bounty and totality of all temples , that still survives from medieval times. Many of course were rebuilt or restored during the British era or after Independence



I found this site to be fairly comprehensive, one which gives a synopsys of each temple that it covers. Obviously these are only medium to large scale temple complexes and do not include small structures which exist in each neighborhood. These temples are a veritable photographers paradise, especially in this age of digital photography



[url="http://www.templenet.com/"]http://www.templenet.com/[/url]



The site has broken down the temples according to deity, as well as by state.



some excerpts

Quote:Abodes of Shiva , is a mega-presentation describing Shiva temples all over India, with emphasis on the 275 temples glorified by the hymns of the Tamil saints of the 1st millennium CE.

Abodes of Vishnu is a special presentation highlighting the 108 temples of Vishnu all over India glorified by the Tamil saints of the 1st millennium CE.



Templenet presents Abodes of Shakti, a presentation featuring  temples dedicated to the worship of Shakti, or the feminine aspect of Divinity.



Abodes of Skanda describes temples and shrines dedicated to Skanda located in Tamilnadu, Kerala and Karnataka.



Templenet presents Abodes of Ganesha, a comprehensive presentation featuring shrines dedicated to the worship of Ganapati the elephant faced God..





Templenet is a premier site conceived and published with the objective of showcasing India - The Land of Temples in cyberspace. Indeed, India is rightfully The Land of Temples, as Egypt is The Land of Pyramids. Thousands of temples dot the landscape of the entire sub continent - bringing to focus, a vibrant - live art gallery, showcasing achievements in art and architecture over a two thousand year period, in a manner never seen in any other part of the world. Regional variations lend dramatic contrasts to lifestyles across the subcontinent, and the stunning variations reflective of this diversity - as  seen in temple styles across the region can be an enthralling experience even to a mildy interested tourist.



In the arena of cyberspace, Templenet presents to the world a  world of temples, reflecting the grandeur and the stunning diversity of temple styles across the nation. At the geographical level, it provides an index to temples by region, where temples are described in detail with approprite illustrations. Sifting legend from history, these descriptions throw complete light on the origin, religious significance, history, architectural and sculptural grandeur, beliefs and legends, worship protocols, festivals and tourism related information. In addition, the various sections on architecture, festivals, beliefs provide a whole range of descriptive articles on related subjects. A glossary of terms acquaints readers with terminology related to temples.



Templenet is an ongoing selective presentation on an extensive research project on Indian temples - sourced, authored and directed by Kanniks Kannikeswaran.

Indians in the last 200 years have different kinds of history

One is puranas which have beenc arried over for atleast 1000 years



Other is the history as written by foriegn invaders



Indians have been living with both of them for several centuries and have not debated on the force of history.





It is the study of History with the intent to find out laws that will enable predictions in the domain of

today's power dynamics. Sadly, this is a far cry from the approach adopted to the teaching of History in India today, where a

Macaulayan education system dumps thousands of irrelevant facts into young minds effectively resulting in mental constipation.





--

THis thread is to study the general perception and the image in the minds of Indians with a std education.

India's verbal adherence to the UN Charter has been unequivocal. This, despite the fact that the UN platform has been singularly hostile to Indian aspirations both in the J&K issue as well as the de facto Nuclearization of India. The following is the speech by ABV. By and large it is a good speech, probably written by one of those Babus who stood first in the IAS exam.



[url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?msid=202564"]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll...how?msid=202564[/url]



He had this to say to his old friend Mush ,

Quote:Yesterday, the president of Pakistan chose this august assembly to make a public admission for the first time that Pakistan is sponsoring terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. After claiming that there is an indigenous struggle in Kashmir, he has offered to encourage a general cessation of violence within Kashmir, in return for "reciprocal obligations and restraints".Touche for ABV. obviously how can the terrorist state 'encourage' a general cessation of violence, if they do not already have a measure of influence and control over the jihadis and are constantly encouraging the jihadis in their murderous game.







We totally refuse to let terrorism become a tool of blackmail. Just as the world did not negotiate with Al Qaida or the Taliban, we shall not negotiate with terrorism.an excellent point. In my recollection this is the first time that an Indian PM has called the Paki actions blackmail.







If we do so, we would be betraying the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who defied a most ferocious campaign of violence and intimidation sponsored from across our borders, and participated in an election, which has been universally hailed as free and fair. This was an unequivocal expression of both determination and self-determination.







When the cross-border terrorism stops - or when we eradicate it - we can have a dialogue with Pakistan on the other issues between us.







While on this subject, I would also like to point out to the president of Pakistan that he should not confuse the legitimate aspiration for equality of nations with outmoded concepts of military parity.

At the time when Christ was born, the Indic civilization pervaded a vast area of Asia , bounded on the north by the steppes of Central Asia, on the west by the Persian empire and on the east by by what is now known as South East Asia. Contrary to what is popularly believed it was the Indic civilization that had far greater currency in most of Asia rather than the Sinic (even in China). This topic will attempt to explore what we are uncovering from recent studies. we start of with this vignette from HH on the Parthian empire. The word Iran is a derivative of Arya and it is clear that the modern Iranian considers himself descended from Aryans. It is another matter that i have a problem with the category of Aryan as an ethnic designator, but that is a topic for another thread.



When i use the word Greater it is more in a geographical sense and not to imply superiority over other civilizations. The French author Coedes uses the term 'Farther India' to describe such geographies where the Indic civilization was the predominant one. Furthermore, it does not imply that the entire area was under one central suzerainty. What it does mean is that a traveller could go from one corner of this vast area to another and find himself in linguistic and cultural affinity wherever he went

Quote:The Seleucid kingdom was founded by one of Alexander's generals

Seleukos Nikator, who had led his troops with much perseverance during

the former's Indian campaign. The Seleucid kingdom started

degenerating in 245BCE as Indo-Greek kshatrapa, Andragoras declared

himself an independent monarch. About this time and Iranian tribe

termed the Parni organized a massive cavalry army in the steppes,

broke free from another Iranian tribe, the Daha, that was their

overlord, and moved into Southern Turkmenistan. From here the Parni

launched a massive invasion of Andragoras' satrapy under the

leadership of their famed leader Arshaka (Arsaces in Greek).

Andragoras was killed in the battle against the Parni and the Greeks

forces scattered, allowing the invaders to conquered the territory to

the southeast of the Caspian corresponding to Hyrcania and Parthia.

After this they acquired the name Parthians in the West after the

territory they had conquered. This sparked off a see-saw struggle with

the Macedonians that turned to their advantage after the death of the

Arshaka who had a prolonged war with Seleukos II. Arshaka II his son

was beaten in battles by Antiochus III and had to sue peace after

losing Hyrcania. However, in 171BC, the Parthian king Mithradata I

came to power, who(Mithridates in Greek) raised them to the height of

their glory. In 148 BC he crushed the Seleukids in crucial battle,

sacking Media, in 141 he followed it up with the conquest of Babylon.

Then he struck to his east outflanking the Indo-Greek army and

destroying it at Margiana and annexed their territory to found what

may be called the Parthian empire. He settled the Shaka tribe that

aided him in these conquests in Seistan (Shakastan) and took on the

title Kshatyatama- emperor. His son Phraetra II (Phratres) finally

destroyed the Seleukid empire completely by smashing them completely

in 129 BC. This was followed by a struggle with their onetime allies

the Shakas, and the Massagetaen tribes of the Daha confederacy that

nearly destroyed the Parthians. Their capital was established in Nisa

near today's Ashkhabad and studies show that within a few years of

their conquest of the new territory they became quite urban in their

economy. Excavation reports by Russians at Nisa reveal large fortified

constructions, with Fire temples. This suggests that we should not be

so prompt in claiming that the oasis civilizations and the mature/late

Harappan had nothing to do with the early Indo-Iranians- the parallel

to the Parthians is very clear. The Indo-Iranians could have occupied

these centers and become urban in a very short time: note the Fire

temples were not an acquired cult for these Parthians but merely

expanded on urban settlement. Hence, what we see is a near complete

Aryan domination of both Persia and the steppes till they were

ultimately decimated and absorbed by the great expansion of the

Altaics under Motun-tegin of the first Hun Kha'khanate.

I've waited for a bit too long to start this thread on Indian Cuisine.

Feel free share interesting tidbits about all that yummy stuff....you know cuisines, great food joints, secret recipes, URLs of interest etc.



If HH/Kaushal or history experts can connect some dots across civilizations/nations using food habits, I personally would be most interested.



Some URLs:

[url="http://www.bawarchi.com"]http://www.bawarchi.com[/url]

[url="http://www.sanjeevkapoor.com"]http://www.sanjeevkapoor.com[/url] <-- recipes for paid subscribers <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> (I always suspected that he holds something back - if you know what I mean)

[url="http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld1.htm"]http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld1.htm[/url]

[url="http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld2.htm"]http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld2.htm[/url]

[url="http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld3.htm"]http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld3.htm[/url]

[url="http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld4.htm"]http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld4.htm[/url]

[url="http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld5.htm"]http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld5.htm[/url]

[url="http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld6.htm"]http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld6.htm[/url]





Galileo, the space probe launched on October 18, 1989, arrived in Jupiter's orbit on December 7, 1995, for what was scheduled to be a two-year exploration. Over the next eight years, the craft revealed some secrets of the solar system's biggest planet.

Galileo will crash into Jupiter on Sunday. It is being 'killed' to save potential life on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons.



If Galileo, which could contain bacteria from Earth, crashes into Europa, NASA scientists believe it could contaminate whatever may be living there.



Europa is covered with a sheet of ice, which hides a vast ocean. Beneath that ocean, there might be volcanic activity, and the combination of heat and water is ideal for the creation of life.



Photographs: Courtesy, NASA

Links to background information and FAQs on Ayodhya

Quote:[url="http://www.flex.com/~jai/articles/ayodhya.html"]http://www.flex.com/~jai/articles/ayodhya.html[/url]



BRIEF HISTORY - 1528 THRU 1934 :



RECENT HISTORY - 1934 THRU 1992



[url="http://www.hvk.org/specialrepo/bjpwp/ch1.html"]http://www.hvk.org/specialrepo/bjpwp/ch1.html[/url]



Arnold Toynbee's view of Ayodhya



[url="http://www.hvk.org/specialrepo/bjpwp/"]http://www.hvk.org/specialrepo/bjpwp/[/url]



BJP's white paper on Ayodhya



[url="http://www.ayodhya.com/ayotemplet.jsp?sno=4"]http://www.ayodhya.com/ayotemplet.jsp?sno=4[/url]



Some FAQs on Ayodhya



[url="http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ayodhya/intro.htm"]http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ayodhya/intro.htm[/url]



Ayodhya and After by Koenraad Elst(online book)



[url="http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20030602&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=1"]Secrets Of The Shrine[/url] 

Sandipan Deb gets into the heavily-guarded excavation site at Ayodhya and finds clues to a confusing past Updates



SANDIPAN DEB





The following article refers to the dastardly role that the Communists played in the Ayodhya drama.



[url="http://www.wac.uct.ac.za/croatia/gupta.htm"]ROLE OF INTELLECTUALS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES ON AYODHYA ISSUE[/url]

S.P. Gupta Chairman. Indian Archaeological Society.

Hi all,



This Friday we'll be one month old. :thumbsup



India Forum went live on Aug 12th - 3 days ahead of the planned launch date of Aug 15th.



Last weekend we signed up our 50th member - all word of mouth referral. We have had a very low key approach to promoting this site - there's a lot of rif-raff out there in cyberspace which we don't want to attract.



Quality rather than quantity has been our goal. If you know of good postors out

there, please do invite them here.



Remember, a site/forum is only as good as the quality of posts/postors on that forum.



Please use this thread to posts any suggestions/comments etc on how to improve this site and quality of posts.

[url="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?artid=174045"]MS settles down in Hyderabad facility[/url]

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