Sanatan Archive

History books will never tell you who Velu Nachiyar was, or that she was the first ever queen from India to have bravely rebelled against the British forces. Neither will they mention Kuyili, who was the commander of Velu’s army, and gave the British East India Company a real run for their money!

In the history of Bharat’s fight against British rule, Freedom Fighter Azhagumuthu Kone (1728 – 1757) may be called the first freedom fighter and martyr of Tamil Nadu who boldly opposed the rule of the foreigners and vehemently denied subjugation to the British orders by refusing to pay any tax.

Rudra — As the concluder of creation, Lord Shiva is known as Rudra — because then he has to assume a ruthless and angry form. The word  ‘Rudra’ means anger and wrathfulness. (Refer to Sharav Upanishad, verse no. 10.)

Perhaps of the best chief and draftsmen of India's progressive revolution, Rash Behari Bose assumed a most powerful and dynamic part in the accomplishment of Independence in India in 1947. On the off chance that Aurobindo Ghose is viewed as the Mazzini of Young India, Rash Behari Bose might be fitly called the Cavour of India's Freedom Movement.

Nava Tirupathi is a set of 9 temples of Lord Vishnu located between Tirunelveli and Tiruchendur in the southern Indian state of Tamilnadu. Nava Tirupathi is part of the 108 Divya Desam temples revered by the Alvars, the 12 Tamil poet-saints who lived 2500 years ago.

In the early summer of 1819, a British hunting party was heading through the thick jungle near Aurangabad, in Maharashtra, western India, when the tiger they were tracking disappeared into a deep ravine. Leading the hunters was Captain John Smith, a young cavalry officer from Madras. Beckoning his friends to follow, he tracked the animal down a semi-circular scarp of steep basalt, and hopped across the rocky bed of the Wagora river, then made his way up through the bushes at the far side of the amphitheater of cliffs.

Sringara Prakasa (शृङ्गार प्रकाश – Śṛṅgāra Prakāśa) is a voluminous set of Sanskrit poetry consisting of thirty-six chapters, documented in 1908. It deals mostly with Alamkara-Shastra (rhetoric) and Rasa, and is claimed to have been authored by Raja Bhoja, the king of Paramara dynasty in the early 11th century A.D. A large extent of this magnum opus is dedicated to Sringara Rasa, which according to Bhoja's theory: "is the only one Rasa admissible.”

Even thousands of years before, India had become famous and reached its pinnacle in astrological and astronomical sciences. Ancient Astrological works had been translated into many foreign languages. Ibn Batuta and Al Baruni were two prominent Arab travellers who had visited ancient India specially to pursue Astrology.

The Arthashastra is so much a part of modern Indian vocabulary on politics, economics, and society that it is hard to imagine that this was a book unknown to the English-speaking world until an old manuscript was discovered in 1904. It was translated and presented to the world by R. Shamasastry of the Mysore Oriental Research Institute in Sanskrit, in 1909, and in English in 1915.

Hinduism is a diverse tradition and very different from other monolithic religions. In the monolithic sense, it is defined by The Four Pillars. Faith (sraddha) is individualistic whereas religion (dharma) is collective, and so Hindus are encouraged to explore their faith, which is why there are more Hindu scriptures and textual opinions on spirituality than any other religion. There isn’t a single scriptural or spiritual authority to define matters of the faith for Hindus, unlike in some other religions with a central pontiff.