The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
I ts been a couple of days since Ganesha came home, and its high time I shared Him with all of you.... Of course, considering that he stays home for ten full days, we have lots of time to share...... To begin with, this time, we decided to try our hand at making a Ganesha out of clay. Here are our combined outputs - the bigger one is obviously mine, but the smaller one is completely Samhith's effort.... Of course, this did not mean that we dispensed off with our regular clay idol from the market - we weren't too sure about how our handmade one would shape - so here is our very own small mandap with the market Ganesha being flanked by our very own smaller ones.... And then , here are the rest of our preparations for the puja - My kolam (rangoli) These are 21 types of leaves supposed to be considered very special for Ganesha.... Dhruva grass - the most sacred of all items for Ganesha (shall post the related story sometime, when I have more time ) and Tu...