Hindu Murthis & Vigrahams Smuggled Out of India

Ugra has assembled a collection of images of Hindu Murthis and Vigrahams Smuggled Out of India on Twitter.

Here is a statue of the child saint Sambandar that dates back to the Chola period:

Child Saint Sambandar

It is currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  According to the web page, here is the provenance of this statue:

Dr. J. R. Belmont , Basel (by ca. 1950, until 1966; sold to Ellsworth); Robert H. Ellsworth , New York (1966–2008; sold to Wiener); [ Doris Wiener , New York, 2008–10; gift and sale to MMA]

Therefore, we have no idea of its provenance prior to 1950 CE.

Sources:

[Child Saint Sambandar]. (n.d.). Retrieved May 27, 2018, from https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/as/original/DP234672.jpg

A Compilation of Hindu Murthis & Vigrahams Smuggled Out of India. (n.d.). Retrieved May 27, 2018, from https://twitter.com/i/moments/999916482640232450

A compilation of priceless Hindu murthis which lay smuggled away in various museums across the globe. The murthis include some of the rarest & finest pieces which are not seen even in India. This thread is intended to raise awareness about it.

Child Saint Sambandar. (n.d.). Retrieved May 27, 2018, from https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/75960

Sambandar, the popular seventh-century child saint, is one of the muvar, the three principal saints of South India. Legend recounts that after receiving a gift of milk (represented by the bowl) from the goddess Uma, the infant Sambandar devoted his life to composing hymns in praise of Lord Shiva; his raised hand points to Shiva’s heavenly abode at Mount Kailash, in the Himalayas. The sculptor captured the saint’s childlike quality while also empowering him with the maturity and authority of a spiritual leader. This icon was intended for processional use during temple festivals celebrating gods and saints.

'via Blog this'

The Bahu of Bengal: Bengali and Devanagari scripts

And here are more graphics of Bengali and Devanagari scripts compared, complete with transliteration or romanization using the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST). See The Bahu of Bengal: Bengali and Devanagari scripts ('via Blog this'):

Vowels

Consonants

Sibilants

I am taking the online course Introduction to Sanskrit offered by the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies.  Here are a couple of tools that I use to augment my study:

Google Input Tools. (n.d.). Retrieved May 24, 2018, from https://www.google.com/inputtools/

Google Input Tools makes it easy to type in the language you choose. I installed language packs for Sanskrit and Bengali , which I used to create the graphics above.

Transliteration Tool. (n.d.). Retrieved May 24, 2018, from https://www.ashtangayoga.info/sanskrit/transliteration/transliteration-tool/

The Transliteration Tool enables you to enter text in Devanagari and transliterate it into IAST. I use it to cross-check my homework.

Sacrilege in Gaza

From NPR Morning Edition:

INSKEEP: And we've also encountered Ahmed al-Bordani (ph), who is 19 years old, and when we saw him, was holding a homemade white kite.

AHMED AL-BORDANI: (Through interpreter) This is a kite that's going to go to the Jews.

INSKEEP: He said it's designed to float over the Israelis and catch fire. It was decorated with writing claiming Jerusalem for Palestinians and also with swastikas.

What does this thing mean to you? Why do you put that on there?

AL-BORDANI: (Through interpreter) The Jews go crazy for Hitler when they see it.

INSKEEP: "This is actually what we want them to know," he says, "that we want to burn them.” That is one of many views we've heard in the last few days in Gaza, where at least 60 people were killed yesterday in protests.

Wow. Just wow. Steve Inskeep didn't push back on al-Bordani's Jew-hatred.

And look at this sacrilege:

The "Palestinians" desecrate a Hindu/Jain swastika:

Sources:

Conricus, J. (2018, April 20). Moments ago, terrorist #Hamas sent a Molotov cocktail over the Gaza border into Israel. They flew it with their true colors. pic.twitter.com/LOexWD76lf. Retrieved May 18, 2018, from https://twitter.com/LTCJonathan/status/987316707516698624
File:Swastik4.GIF [Jain Swastika traditional symbol]. (n.d.). Retrieved May 18, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Swastik4.GIF
Inskeep, S., & Estrin, D. (2018, May 15). It's A Day Of Grieving And More Protests In Gaza. Retrieved May 18, 2018, from https://www.npr.org/2018/05/15/611213687/its-a-day-of-grieving-and-more-protests-in-gaza

Kaveri River dispute

The recent MLA election in Karnataka obscured pressing issues such as water. I stepped in to create maps of rivers.

Rivers of India

I champion open principles: open data, open software, and open standards.

Natural Earth is a public domain map dataset that provided data layers for shaded relief, internal administrative boundaries (states),water bodies, waterways, and populated places. The datasets are available at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110 million scales. I chose datasets at 1:10 million, the most detailed that Natural Earth provides.

I processed the layers in QGIS, which is built on top of and is Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). QGIS uses the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL).The Free Software Foundation sponsors the GNU Operating System. FOSS software licenses grant the users rights to modify and re-use software product.

At the India extent, I applied labels for the states. Going on the premise that named waterways are more significant than unnamed waterways, I created separate layers for named and unnamed waterways. The named waterways were portrayed with a thicker line, while the unnamed waterways were portrayed in a lighter blue color and a thinner line. 

I also created separate layers for rivers with a specified width and rivers with an unspecified width.  Those rivers that had a specified width were deemed more important than those that didn't: likewise, they had a thicker line.

Kaveri River

I then selected administrative boundaries for Goa,Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu; saved them to a new layer; and zoomed in on the layer.In addition to labeling the states, I labeled populated places. Natural Earth favors regional significance over population census in selecting populated places. I also selected segments for the Kaveri River (waterways named Kaveri), saved them to a new layer, and styled the layer with a thick blue line.

Sources:

Front Page - Free Software Foundation - working together for free software. (n.d.). Retrieved May 16, 2018, from https://www.fsf.org/

GNU Operating System. (n.d.). Retrieved May 16, 2018, from http://www.gnu.org/

Natural Earth. (n.d.). Retrieved May 16, 2018, from http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

QGIS. (n.d.). Retrieved May 16, 2018, from https://www.qgis.org/en/site/