The Hindu and Buddhist history of Odisha , or rather, ancient Kalinga, is rather well known to everyone. Who hasn’t heard of the grand temples of Odisha – Puri, Lingaraj and Konark, or the great war of Kalinga which inspired Ashoka to convert to Buddhism? In contrast, very few know of the Jaina heritage of this region. This is quite a pity, since, just around 7 km from the city, is one of India’s most ancient inscriptions, which throws light on the Jaina heritage of Odisha. This inscription is the Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela, in the hills of Udaygiri. Udaygiri and Khandgiri are two hills located opposite each other, and both are testaments to the rich Jaina heritage of Odisha. The caves at Udaygiri are older, while Khandgiri is relatively newer, but has lasted much longer, and continues to be a place of pilgrimage for Jains even today. These hills, from inscriptions and excavations of caves, shrines and rock beds, appear to have been a haven for Jaina monks, right from the ...
We are a family which speaks more often in English or Hindi than in our mother tongue – Tamil. We are more comfortable in these languages, and don’t even know to read and write Tamil properly. But there is one field in which our mother tongue comes first, and we discovered that when my son was born! We most often spoke to him in English/Hindi, but when it came to playing with him, the first songs which came to mind were the ones our grandmothers sang – in Tamil! We had to try hard to remember the words of some of the songs and rhymes, but somehow, we enjoyed those a lot more than any English rhymes we could sing….. In fact, for the first time I realised how wonderful they were, and thought of recording them for posterity. As things happened, we had no time for that, and we soon forgot all about them as my son outgrew that stage…. Thanks to Tulika, and their fourth blogathon, I now have a chance of re-remembering some of them…. so here I go…. Note: please exc...