Bhootkal Vartmankal Bhavisyatkal

This list is intended to serve as a ready reference for the words used in some of the articles in the blog.  S.No Tamil Word English Translation 1 Aadhinam refers to a mutt; sometimes also used to indicate the head of the mutt. 2 Mandapam a temple porch / smaller shrines inside a temple 3 Nayanmaar They were a group of 63 devotional poets / saints who were devoted to Lord Shiva 4 Pradakshina circumambulation of the shrine, temple 5 Sastiapthapurthi It is a ceremony celebrated on the completion of 60 years of age of the male. It is combination of three words from Sanskrit – “sashti” meaning 60, “Abdha” meaning years and “purthi” meaning completion. 6 Siddha Great thinker / perfected one In case you find the translation inappropriate or have suggestions to improve the s...

His original name was Sundaranathar. Bogar – 7000 apparently has reference to Thirumoolar’s father and his mother. He was one of the eight disciples of Nandhidevar (Nandhinatha Sampradaya). The other disciples were Sanaka, Sanatana, Sanananda, Sanatkumara, Vyagrapada, Patanjali and Sivayoga Muni. Thirumoolar had around 16/64 disciples of his own (differing versions). Some of them are Kaalangi Siddhar, Kanjamalai Siddhar, Mālāngan, Indiran, Coman, Piraman, Uruttiran. He is considered one of the 18 siddhas in the Tamil Siddha tradition and also considered one of the 63 nayanmaars . He had come down to Thiruvaduthurai. There are many versions which we come across as to why he came there and what happened from there on. Two of the prominent ones are as follows: 1.      The Periya Puranam Version: He wanted to visit and stay for some time with his friend and first siddha – Agathiyar and started on a journey from Kailash to Podhigai Hills. He ha...

(Part 1 - Background behind this series)  Thirumoolar – As We Understand  We were attending my maternal uncle’s Sastiapthapurthi in Mayiladuthurai. Post the function, we planned a visit to Thiruvaduthurai, more so to meet the Aadhinam & seek his blessings. While going there, my uncle said that the Thiruvaduthurai Siva Temple was home to the largest Nandi. Naturally, we were interested in seeing it. So, post meeting the Aadhinam, we went to the temple and saw the huge Nandi carved out of a single big rock. We then went into the temple. The sanctum-sanctorum was however closed because it was around 1 pm and we did our pradakshina . This was when my uncle told that this is also the home to the great Siddha – Thirumoolar. My mother had told me and my brother a lot of stories about him – how he lived for 3000 years composing an aphorism every year. Infact one of my mother’s friend - a learned vedic scholar had once told my mother that he was about to start deciphering Thir...

In the  previous post  on the Karma Series ( Part 1 ,  Part 2 )we set forth understanding if the concept of Karma was true. In the process, we stumbled upon a very pertinent question - "Do we have multiple births?".   The starting point for our analysis was the Big Bang Theory. Though there are lot of contentions regarding the validity of the theory, we used it to explore a thread of thought based on parallel universes by neither affirming nor denying the Theory but using it to understand a powerful concept. In this post, we shall try to answer the very same question (Do we have multiple births?) using an alternate path of a series of simple questions & answers between a seeker of truth and his Guru. Seeker: What is Karma? Guru: It can be defined as a cause and effect principle where the intent and actions of an individual influence the future of that individual. Good intent/action result in accumulation of good karma & bad intent/actio...

KARMA - Part 2 After a good 4 years of thinking, there are some additional thoughts to add on to the question which we started asking earlier – “ “Are you controlled by karma/fate OR do you have the power to change your karma/fate?” We reached at the following mutually exclusive conclusions in our earlier post: 1.      Human beings and all other creations are puppets in the hands of a super-power – which/who is doing all these staged dramas/plays for some reason unknown to us. OR 2.      The entire idea of karma is false. Let us delve deeper into these thoughts in this post. Let us first list down all the facts we know about Karma. Firstly, we all know that the concept of Karma is born out of the fact that every single action/thought which emanates from a human being has a future effect. This future effect might either be after a period of 1 year, 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years or even longer. Depending upon the t...

After a long time, I was going on a trip to a few temples in South India along with my family. To kill time during travel, we started talking about random topics. Quite a lot of them were really thought provoking. I would like to post one such very interesting topic here –  “Are you controlled by karma/fate OR do you have the power to change your karma/fate?” Let us validate each argument separately. In India, we have always believed in karma as concept wherein the good & bad deeds done in one’s previous life(s) will have a direct bearing on the subsequent life(s). We are controlled by karma/fate: Now we start by assuming that we are controlled by karma/fate. Hence, when a person is born, his fate is already decided. The decision each person takes in his/her life will make sure that the person is moving on the track towards this “intended fate”. This would mean all good deeds & bad deeds that a person would do are already pre-decided so that he achieves...

Today is the 28th of August, two years since a dream named "The Seventh Sense" materialized!! ;-) ;-) :-) I was just thinking about the entire episode and thought this would be a great opportunity to recognize & thank each one of you who were involved in this. The entire department including 1000 odd students, 75 odd staff(teaching & non-teaching) were a part of this, so please excuse my limited memory if i have missed out on anyone. First and foremost, all the event coordinators.. Once you talk about events, the first which comes to my mind is paper presentation.. The reason - I dint know "a..b..c.." of what is supposed to be done there and therefore we wanted someone really really competent!! Our answer - N.S.P Aravinth & Pranesh. Paper presentation always is an integral part of any Techfest and if that failed or something went wrong during the event, things would turn out to be pretty bad. But the way they handled it made sure we had one...