Sanatana Dharma - Aka Hinduism (3rd Bin)

[Husky]

(Follows on from previous)

Post 7/?





The following is relevant to Onam, Vaamana and Mahabali, and is in particular relevant to Rajeev's conclusions concerning these:



www.telegraphindia.com/1130916/jsp/nation/story_17354615.jsp

Monday , September 16 , 2013

Emperor strikes back

ONAM SPECIAL: The vital statistics of a festival mascot have landed Kerala between a popular pot belly and a six-pack regimen worked out by a royal

[...]



Some Malayalis are debating the looks of Mahabali aka Maveli, the Asura (demon) king who folklore says ruled the earth thousands of years ago and whose annual “visit” to his subjects is celebrated through Onam.

Ardent Mahabali fans are aghast at the portrayal of their beloved king as a podgy figure in government and commercial ads during the Onam season, as well as in literature on the festival, paintings and TV pictures. They feel the popular depiction resembles a jester rather than an idealist king whose praise they have grown up listening to.



(^What the actual article is about^. The Hindus don't want the unlikely modern presentation of Mahabali as an oversized comic character. The seculars/cryptos want to demote him into a comic character, to secularise him further into some Indian santa type. The article features an image of Mahabali commissioned and approved of by the Travancore royal family. Hindoos should consciously make this and similar images famous among themselves as a suitably representative likeness.)



[...]



Onam is a harvest festival when families wear new clothes, make floral arrangements at home and invite relatives and friends to feasts. M.G.S. Narayanan, historian and former head of the Indian Council for Historical Research, traced its history for this newspaper.

Narayanan said none of the ancient texts that mention Mahabali makes any reference to Kerala, so any suggestion that he ruled over the state has to be treated as fiction.



(Puts a damper on Rajeev's highly evolved fantasizing and self-identification concerning his allegedly buddhist ancestors being allegedly oppressed and replaced by Hindu religion and then allegedly referred to as asuras thereafter... Also, historic Jains are on record claiming it was they who drove out Buddhism from India's Tamil regions, Kerala and the south in general into SL; and anti-Hindu SL Buddhist monks also still insist this is so.

As for Kerala's region not being mentioned in the Pauranic Vamana accounts, it does not rule out that these events may still have had Kerala for their setting - or not. But even if it were, Dravoodianism/Buddhism/Jainism were still never involved. And which latter claims remain unHindu fantasizing.

Further, just to be contrarian: there are Tamil Hindu traditions that place the Vamana vs Mahabali event in Tamil regions, as I'm sure there are traditions tracing the events to other parts of Akhanda Bharatam ... Just saying. BTW, Onam is also a sacred Hindu observation known to Tamil Hindus since ancient times, as seen also in the following statements where the Alwars are mentioned



“There are five or six Puranas that cite the story of Mahabali and how he was banished from earth by Vamana, the avatar of Vishnu. But what records like the poems of the Tamil Alwars, who were Vishnu devotees, and copper plates from some central Kerala temples suggest is that at least till the 11th century or so, the hero of the festival was Vamana,” he said.

“But by the 16th century, the festival, which had till then been confined to temples, began to be celebrated at homes as well and Mahabali gained prominence over Vamana. The Mahabali imagery can be attributed to this democratisation of the festival.”



(So just like Vamana's importance and benevolence got obscured, overshadowed, replaced and forgotten by confused Indians, moderns have now demoted Mahabali as well, by turning him into a comic figure. The de-volution of the sacred Hindu festival continues.)

As seen above, the festival originally concerned exclusively Hindu cosmology - the context was "many 1000s of years ago" when Mahabali was to have ruled all the earth (and not just Kerala or TN by the way). Much later, Jainisms, Buddhisms and Dravoodianisms appeared and over time each have made incursions to hijack the Hindu narrative in order to insert themselves as the injured victims. So that now, as seen below, Onam is "equally" communist too - indeed, Kerala's communists like to project it as the world's oldest "socialist" aka communist festival. [And Onam is since more recently hijacked by christianism too. But if one utterly uninvolved missionary ideology can be allowed to hijack the sacred Hindu festival to peddle itself, so can others surely?]

Besides, the belief that Mahabali ran a Utopia-like state has prompted some to describe Onam as the world’s oldest “socialist festival” —– a label that strikes a chord in a state that usually alternates between governments led by the communists and the Congress every five years.

Such interpretations also make Onam more digestible to communists, just as community participation allows Durga Puja to transcend barriers in Bengal.

Despite the increasing number of claimants making incursions on Onam and Hindoodom, *nevertheless*, Onam - like Durga Pooja etc - and the religio-historic context and characters involved in the observance (Mahabali, Vamana) all remain exclusively Hindoo and will never have anything to do with christianism/ communism/ dravoodianism/ Jainism/ Buddhism/ whatever missionary ideology appears next.





Am repeating the following segment again, to provide an example for its statement on how the sacred Hindoo festival of Onam was originally celebrated with Vamana as the hero (and still is in southern Vamana Kovils including Kerala):

M.G.S. Narayanan, historian and former head of the Indian Council for Historical Research, traced [Onam's] history for this newspaper. [...]

"There are five or six Puranas that cite the story of Mahabali and how he was banished from earth by Vamana, the avatar of Vishnu. But what records like the poems of the Tamil Alwars, who were Vishnu devotees, and copper plates from some central Kerala temples suggest is that at least till the 11th century or so, the hero of the festival was Vamana,” he said.

But by the 16th century, the festival, which had till then been confined to temples, began to be celebrated at homes as well and Mahabali gained prominence over Vamana. The Mahabali imagery can be attributed to this democratisation of the festival.

So they're saying it was as late as the 16th century - later even than Buddhism, Jainism and christianism appeared in the world - that Mahabali overtook Vamana as focus of the sacred festival.

So then here's the relevant Kerala example where Onam is still celebrated with Vishnu-Vaamana as the hero in the established traditions of an old Hindoo temple dedicated to him:



www.tourismindiatravel.com/kerala/vamanamoorthy-temple-thrikkakara/

Vamanamoorthy Temple Thrikkakara

Vamanamoorthy Temple is located in Thrikkakara within 10 kms from east side of Cochin in Kerala. This place is fully covered with beautiful sceneries, landscape, rivers, and hills etc. It is also famously called as Thrikkakara Vamanamoorthy Temple. The word Thrikkakara is separated as “Thiru” “Kaal “and “Kara” which means “Land with the blessed foot”.

(Same meaning in Tamil too.)



Architecture of Vamanamoorthy Temple

It is the 13 centuries old temple constructed by the king Kulasekhara Varma belongs to the Chara Empire. It was constructed in unusual style of architecture. A small Shiva temple is located near to this temple. Other gods also placed in this temple namely Lord Ganapathy, Goddess Parvathy, goddess Bhagavathy, Lord Sastha, Lord Subramanyan, and Lord Gopalakrishnan.

(The typical listing of additional Gods featured here is noteworthy. Also seen in most Hindoo temple sites in TN.)



This temple is devoted to Lord Vamana who is the 5th avatar of lord Vishnu. He was also called as Vamanamoorthy or Trikkakara Appan. In Kerala it is the only temple devoted to Lord Vishnu.(<- Must be typo, I think it's meant to be "Lord Vamana", since there are many temples to Vishnu/avataaras in Kerala **) And it is one of the 108 Vaishnava temples in Kerala. This temple holds some old records and proof which add more proud to this place.



(Don't know if there's any overlap with Kerala's list of 108 Vishnu temples, but in one of the famous 108 Divyadesams known to Tamizh Hindus, one is to "the God [Trivikrama-Vishnu] Who Measured The World" [with his feet] too. But the temple and moorti name is different.)



Festivals in Vamanamoorthy Temple

Onam is harvest festival and is also the state festival for Kerala. It is the major festival to this temple celebrated in a grand manner every year. Earlier the Onam festival is celebrated by 61 local rulers under the control of Travancore Maharaja. It is celebrated during the Malayalam month of Chingam for 10 days Another annual event in Tripunithura is the celebration or Athachamayam which is taken out on the Atham day before the Onam and marks the opening of celebrations of Onam festival. It is a colourful ritual to see almost all the folk art forms of Kerala. A grand rally is held in Kalamasserry from where Kalabam was brought to Thrikkakara Temple during this festival.



Onasadhya is the most delicious part of the Onam festival. It is prepared on the last day of Onam. It is considered to be the most elaborate and grand meal prepared by all people without seeing any caste or religion. Large numbers of devotees visit to this temple during this festival. This festival is held in Tiruvonam hall which can hold 15,000 people. It is specially opened to devotees during this ceremony. Another ritual held during this festival is Mahabali. It is believed that Lord Vamana came to earth to banish the King Marthanda varma. (<- If that was his name in actual Hindu scriptures, the asura is still not to be confused with later human kings known as Martanda Varma, such as the famous one of the 17th or 18th century.) So that day is celebrated as Mahabali. Devotees believed that god will come to earth again during this celebration.

So in the Kovil, they expect Mahavishnu to make an appearance again at this time.

Essentially, the Hindoo traditions still uphold the Hindoo cosmological view that Trivikrama teamed up with Indran in order to check the Asuras' growing powers, and on Bhoo this had to be achieved by removing Mahabali. And Mahabali - like Duryodhana and his Kaurava brothers and Ravana etc - remain part of Hindoo cosmology onlee, same as the Hindoo Gods and other Hindoo heroes. Any peddling of other ideologies into Hindoo religio-history is unHindu and indeed anti-Hindu and either consciously or subconsciously motivated by the same.



** Vamanamoorti Temple obviously can't be the only Vishnu Temple in Kerala and that statement must have been a typo. There are lots of Vishnu temples in Kerala (and the excerpt itself immediately proceeds to mention there are 108 Vaishnava temples in Kerala). E.g. Kerala has Narasimha temples, many Krishna temples - not just the famous Guruvaayoorappan one, but also of course the Pancha Pandava Divyadesams built by each of the Pandavas for Krishna (which includes the Paarthasaaraty Kovil built to Parthasarati Krishna by Arjuna. Arjuna similarly also built Ernakulam Shiva Kovil to Kiraata-Shiva, containing the Shivalingam that Arjuna constructed and worshipped.)