The Alwars are a group of twelve ancient Vaishnava saints who lived in Tamil Nadu in the eighth and ninth centuries. They are famous for their poetry in praise of Lord Vishnu. The collection of their 4000 poems is known as the ‘Naalaayira Divya Prabhandam’. Among the Alwars, the first in the line up is Poigai Alwar, Bhudat Alwar and Pei Alwar. They are collectively called as "Mudhal Alwars" (the first Alwars) and belong to the same period of time. The other Alwars are Perialwar, Andal, Nammalwar, Madhura kavi Alwar, Tirumazhisai Alwar, Thondaridipodi Alwar, Tirumangai Alwar, Tiruppan Alwar and Kulasekara Alwar. This book gives a brief account of these twelve great saints.
“Dwadash Alwar” by Sarvasakshi Dasa is an enlightening English book that delves into the lives and teachings of the twelve revered Alwar saints of South India. Through captivating narratives, it unveils their profound devotion to Lord Vishnu and the impact of their hymns on Hindu Bhakti tradition. This book offers readers a deeper understanding of these spiritual luminaries and their timeless contributions.
Recent years have seen a sea change in the way history is written and also in the way our conceptions of the past are being rewritten. In traditional historiography, women’s articulation is often marginalized and dominated by male voices. Through centuries of patriarchal control, women negotiated many layers and levels of existence working out different forms of resistance which have often gone unnoticed. Bhakti was one such medium. Religion provided the space in the medieval period and women saints embraced bhakti to define their own truths in voices that question society, family and relationships. For all these women bhaktas, the rejection of the male power that they were tied to in subordinate relationship became the terrain for struggle, self assertion and alternative seeking. Most of these women lived during the period from 12th to 17th Century. While the dominant mode of worship in bhakti was prostration to a deity like a feudal lord, the women bhaktas’ idea of God as a lover, a husband and a friend came as a breath of fresh air. The individual outpourings and the voices of these women, who had the courage to sing unfettered in their own voices, refused to melt in the din of the feudal scene which was largely patriarchal. This book will be useful to scholars interested in Feminist History, Comparative Religion and Asian Studies. The sensitive and rigorous research will be of great help to young scholars interested in embarking on a journey to discover religious history, especially with regards to women’s history in the South Asian context.
The Present Volume Deals With The First Nine Hundred Years Of The Medieval Period Of Indian Literary History.A History Of Indian Literature Is An Account Of The Literary Activities Of The Indian People Carried Through In Many Languages And Under Different Social Conditions. It Is The Story Of A Multilingual Literature, A Plurality Of Linguistic Expressions And Cultural Experience And Also Of The Remarkable Unity Underlying Them.
Started in 1958, Sanathana Sarathi is a monthly magazine devoted to Sathya (Truth), Dharma (Righteousness), Shanti (Peace) and Prema (Love) - the four cardinal principles of Bhagawan Baba's philosophy. It is published from Prasanthi Nilayam (the Abode of Highest Peace) and acts as a mouthpiece of Baba's Ashram as it speaks of the important events that take place in His sacred Abode, besides carrying Divine Messages conveyed through Divine Discourses of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. The word meaning of Sanathana Sarathi is the 'Eternal Charioteer'. It signifies the presence of the Lord in every being as the atma guiding their lives like a charioteer. It implies that he who places his life, the body being likened to a chariot, in an attitude of surrender in the hands of the Lord, will be taken care of by the Lord even as a charioteer would take the occupant of his chariot safely to its destination. The magazine is an instrument to disseminate spiritual knowledge for the moral, physical and mental uplift of humanity without any discrimination as the subject matter discussed therein is always of common interest and of universal appeal. The fifteen Vahinis - streams of sacredness - known as the Vahini Series comprising annotation and interpretation of the Upanishads and other scriptures, Itihasas like the Ramayana, the Bhagavatha and the Mahabharata, and authentic explanations on Dhyana, Dharma, Prema, etc., have been serially published in this magazine as and when they emanated from the Divine pen of Bhagawan Baba. This magazine is published in almost all Indian languages, English and Telugu from Prasanthi Nilayam and others from respective regions. Every year Sanathana Sarathi comes out with a special issue in November commemorating the Divine Birthday. The English and Telugu magazines are posted on the 10th and 23rd respectively, of every month, from Prasanthi Nilayam. This magazine has wide, ever increasing circulation in India as well as abroad, as the study of it brings the reader closer to the philosophy of the Avatar in simple understandable language THUS SPAKE SAI... Discoursing during the launch of Sanathana Sarathi... From this day, our Sanathana Sarathi will lead to victory the cohorts of truth - the Vedas, the Sastras and similar scriptures of all faiths, against the forces of the ego such as injustice, falsehood, immorality and cruelty. This is the reason why it has emerged. This Sarathi will fight in order to establish world prosperity. It is bound to sound the paean of triumph when universal Ananda is achieved.
In this volume representing Part One, twelve of these personalities are dealt with: five from Tamil Nadu in the South, two from the North-west (Punjab and Kashmir), one from Varanasi, and two from the East (Bengal and Assam). The book is edited by Dr. V. Raghavan, an eminent Sanskrit scholar and Indologist.
The present work is an analytical account of classical Sanskrit literature in its historical perspective. It is divided into six books, containing several chapters, each dealing with a particular branch of Sanskrit learning. The work is full of references; the footnotes refer to a variety of sources, legendary, inscriptional, numismatic, architectural and literary. The writer has exploited all the relevant material of the journals, catalogues, annals, reports and other documents in discussing the vexed problems of the date, place, genealogy of the authors and the literary tendencies of their compositions. His methodology of literary criticism is rationalistic and bears the stamp of the modern scientific age. The elaborate index, the critical introduction, the exhaustive bibliography, the list of abbreviations, the table of transliteration and a supplement are the most useful additions to this interesting and instructive work of literary history.
Viswam is a resident of Mylapore which is a place in the city of Chennai in India. Mylapore is an area famous for temples, churches and other religious and cultural places and is also historically, culturally and traditionally a very ancient one. It was a time of Dasara, one of the important festival of the Hindus. Immediately prior to the beginning of Dasara, there is a period of fifteen days known as Mahalayam also called as Pitrupaksha. It is a fortnight of ancestors and people having faith in the Vedic religion used to perform certain religious austerities. Viswam is making arrangements for performance of these austerities. Vishnu Sarma is the father of Viswam who passed away two years before. He comes to Viswam’s place on the earth in a group along with his family and friends from the world of the ancestors to take part in the acceptance of the austerities being performed by his son. These ancestors, who are dead and gone, are coming in their subtle bodies invisible to people on earth. Vishnu Sarma also brings along with him the English poets William Wordsworth and Alfred Tennyson from their place in the Paradise. Vishnu Sarma takes them along to the various places in Mylapore. How does Wordsworth and Tennyson enjoy their visit to Mylapore? What is the significance of these austerities? What is the greatness of the temples and other places in Mylapore? It is a story which primarily explains these things.
