Wise words from Tayumanavar

Tayumanavar By Arunankapilan (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

It is easy to tame the rogue elephant. It is easy to tie the mouth of a bear. It is easy to mount the back of a lion. It is easy to charm poisonous snakes. It is easy to conquer the celestial and the noncelestial realms. It is easy to trek the worlds invisible. It is easy to command the angelic heavens. It is easy to retain youth eternally. It is easy to enter the body of others. It is easy to walk on water and sit in burning fire. It is easy to attain all of the siddhis (yogic powers). But to remain still is very, very difficult indeed

- Tayumanavar (1706-1744), Tamil saint, mystic and poet

HT Hinduism Today Magazine. (n.d.). Retrieved March 21, 2018, from https://www.hinduismtoday.com/blogs-news/hindu-press-international/daily-inspiration/16182.html

Daylight Savings Time begins Sunday, March 11

For the benefit of those who call from India to the U.S. and vice versa:

Daylight savings time (DST) is the practice of advancing clock by one hour so that evening daylight lasts longer.

This year (2018), DST begins on Sunday, March 11 in the U.S. The time difference between India and U.S. time zones will decrease by 1 hour. IST is UTC +0530.

Daylight Savings Time (select image to enlarge)

Even simpler is to look at the widget in the right sidebar!

Check out the श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता #gita audio site

INDIA, March 1, 2018 (The Hindu): It is never too late to start learning Srimad Bhagavad Gita. Members of the team that built the website https://gitachanting.wixsite.com/gita believe in this as they add their attempt to numerous prior ones by so many others in bringing Bhagavan Sri Krishna's Kurukshetra upadesa closer to a seeker. What perhaps differentiates this free-online-access, user-friendly effort is the combination of features, in short, RSTU -- Repeat audio at a line-level instead of verse-level, Search Text at a letter-level in 10 scripts, Sandhi resolution between audio and text, create playlists Unique to your requirements. In its web version, indexed search-friendly text is available in Devanagari and eight other national scripts -- Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Bengali, Oriya, Gurmukhi -- in addition to two English transliteration schemes.

Source: Venkataramanan, G. (2018, March 01). This website takes you closer to Gita. Retrieved March 21, 2018, from http://www.thehindu.com/society/history-and-culture/website-with-a-difference-to-learn-bhagavad-gita/article22892544.ece

via Hinduism Today Magazine. (n.d.). Retrieved March 21, 2018, from https://www.hinduismtoday.com/blogs-news/hindu-press-international/this-website-takes-you-closer-to-gita/16184.html

Want to hear a sample from श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता #gita? This is Chapter 1:

Rembrandt and the Inspiration of India

"One of the most intriguing series in Rembrandt's oeuvre comprises his drawings made in the style of artists serving the Mughal court in India."

Shah Jahan and Dara Shikoh

The exhibition Rembrandt and the Inspiration of India, which juxtaposes Rembrandt's drawings with Indian paintings and drawings of similar compositions, opens March 13 at the Getty Museum in LA.

Picture credit:

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Dutch, 1606 - 1669)
Shah Jahan and Dara Shikoh, about 1656–1661, Brown ink and gray wash with scratchwork
21.3 × 17.8 cm (8 3/8 × 7 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Rani Abbakka: An Untold Legacy - HT Swarajya

Rani Abbakka Devi Chowta, a Tuluva queen from Karnataka drove away the Portuguese in the 16th century CE, and Karnataka recognizes her with a crude statue:

Rani Abbakka Devi Chowta

Source: Raghuram, M. “Rani Abbakka: An Untold Legacy.” Swarajya Read India Right, 8 Mar. 2018, swarajyamag.com/ideas/rani-abbakka-an-untold-legacy.

Bengali and Devanagari scripts

I think that if I look at these diagrams often enough, I'll learn the Bengali script ☺

While we are talking about scripts, check out Indian Type Foundry (ITF). ITF designs and distributes retail and custom Unicode-compliant digital fonts for both Indian and global markets. Unicode enables people around the world to use computers in different languages. Freely-available Unicode specifications and data form enable software internationalization in major operating systems, search engines, applications, and the Web.

Happy Holi!

Happy Holi!

Bhagavad Krishna and Radha celebrate Holi

Factoid: did you know that Radha was not mentioned by name in the Bhagavata Purana?  While he has a favorite gopi, she is never named.

Happy Holi!

Because it's not a matter if you've seen Sholay, but how many times you watched it.😉

Happy Holi!