(pic) chariots made of sandstone at ‘Sri Ramanuja ‘Samata-Kendramu’ are inspired by the iconic stone chariot at the ‘Vijaya-Vittala temple complex in Hampi (Karnataka,)’ a Unesco world heritage site in Vijayanagara district. (source of pic: PTI FILE PHOTO)
The 216-feet tall ‘Statue of Equality’ of Sriramanujacharya that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “dedicated to the world” recently was made in China and cost about Rs 135 crore.
China’s Aerosun Corporation was awarded the contract in August 2015 while an Indian company was also in the fray.
Casting works were carried out in China and the statue was brought here in 1,600 pieces. The installation took place in 2017-18, taking about 15 months, according to a report by Deccan Herald.
The statue is mounted on a 54-feet high base building, named ‘Bhadra Vedi’, which has floors devoted to a Vedic digital library and research centre, ancient Indian texts, a theatre, an educational gallery detailing many works of Sri Ramanujacharya.
The statue – among the world’s tallest – has been conceptualised by Sri Chinna Jeeyar Swami of Sri Ramanujacharya Ashram.
‘Bhagyapuri’ is the newest spiritual tourism attraction in Telangana – a vast temple complex on 45 acres, with a 216-feet Ramanujacharya statue in the centre – has a Karnataka connection too!
I understand there is a plan to link up ‘Bhagyapuri’ with Gaya (in Bihar,) Kashi and Mathura (in U.P) and also the ‘The Char Dham’ (meaning: four abodes or four pilgrimage sites.)
Hindus with some (any) spirituality left in them believe that visiting these sites helps in achieving moksha (salvation).
The ‘Char Dhams’ are, Badrinath (in Uttarkhand state of India,) Dwarka (in Gujarat state of India,) Jagannath Puri (in Odisha state of India) and last but not least, Rameshwaram (in Tamilnadu state of India.)
NOTE-1:
- Ramanuja (c. 1077–1157 CE) Rāmānujā; also known as Ramanujacharya was a Hindu philosopher, theologian, social reformer and one of the most important exponents of the “Sri Vaishnavism tradition” within Hinduism.
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- Ramanuja philosophy leads us towards unquestioned devotion (‘Bhakti movement’ in Hinduism) to realize almighty god.
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- Ramanuja was the first Hinduism saint-philosopher who accepted all castes and communities into the Sri Vaishnava tradition.
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- ‘Bhakti movement’ used local languages of India so ‘message of spiritualism’ reached the masses in India (see NOTE-2.)
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- ‘Bhakti movement’ was inspired by many poet-saints, who championed a wide range of philosophical positions ranging from theistic dualism of Dvaita to absolute monism of Advaita Vedanta
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Another place in Andhra Pradesh where ancient spiritual history from Bhagavat_puranas have been immortalised in brick and plaster is SURENDRAPURI.
I have visited SURENDRAPURI. It takes a whole day to visit enchanting episodes from Srimad Bhagavatam that have been elugised there. View some of them in my blog@
In my view, Tamilnadu & Kerala state have lost all spiritual history and philosophy of sanatana Hinduism because of colonial dominance and influences from tyranny of Mughul rule (of over 1000 years in India;) also British Raj (of over 200 years in India.) Alien Marxism and Maoism has filled the vacuum in these 2-southern States of India. Shiva temples in these 2-states have been derprived of ancient heritage, spiritual history, vedantic thoughts of ‘Ramanuja’ due to liberal pseudo secularism that has gripped the administrators there.
Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Serice (IPS) officers and Judiciary in High Courts in these 2-states just play second fiddle to politicians that rule Tamilnadu and Kerala with an atheist mindset.
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NOTE-2:
According to Article 343 of the Indian Constitution, India has no National Language but, English and Hindi are ‘popular’ official languages. Each State of India has own official language.
- (popular as in ‘majority ‘of people who can understand or speak or communicate in a language with other members in a gathering in India.)
However, Members of Parliament and State Assemblies are allowed to speak in a language that is comfortable to them in order to interact with other members of Parliament/State Assembly. For ‘official languages’ of India, Parliament and State Assemblies provide audio translation devices for use during a Parliament/Assembly session.
More on languages in India@ Languages of India – New World Encyclopedia
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RELATED BLOG@
http://creative.sulekha.com/motherhood-and-apple-pie_639460_blog
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Navneet
I am doing a copy/paste of my own comment from own blog at creative.sulekha.com that is very pertinent in answer to a comment by venkatewarlu of Sulekha-blogs. Here I Go…
Venkateswarlu
I am giving a link to a talk (towards end of these comment lines,) by Kurshed Batliwala (a speaker who has been on TED-talks…) and, is also a teacher at Art of Living Foundation (AOL) at Bengaluru. During his college years he has won a gold medal for his math-skills. He also graduated from IIT Mumbai. He mixes his talks on ‘Sprituality’ (his favorite subject,) with Science (some related, others not so, to make his talks appealing to the younger generation.
In this TED talk (link at end of comments) Kurshed mentions how ancient India had technlogy to do metal castings of rust proof iron pillars (example, the famos one in front of Kutubminar in Delhi and also another at Kollur (near Bengaluru,) which were installed centuries ago (perhaps,) by artisans of India.
Kurshed also talks about how ancient India had the unique technology to extract Zinc metal from Zinc-ore (a process which is considered difficult as there is just ‘small window of opportunity’ between liquified zinc-ore and zinc-ore in gaseous state, during distillation of such ore…) and how, at one time, only ancient India knew a unique technique to grab liquifed-zinc within that window of opportunity (ie., “3 degree C (Celcius) window” between the liquified Zinc-ore and gasified zinc-ore.)
He laments on how all such unique ‘metallurgy-technology’ is (perhaps,) lost to the British and Chinese (may be because India could not patent such processes in thousands of years ago (my observation) when India was under colonial rule of Britain or during Mughal rule of India.
So, the answer to your question is YES, INDIA HAD TECHNOLOGY in ancient times to do massive castings, mixing alloys (of pancha loha (5 metals…) but all such unique techinques are (perhaps) lost now to foreign countries. For more on all this… please visit link to the TED-talk by Kurshed@ end of these comments.
(BY THE WAY, some critics of Kurshed Batliwala have’de-bunked’Kurshed and his knowledge on such subjects saying he is not accurate about time-lines and the unique metallurgy-technogy (he talks about) as beloging to India! However, that is for another day! I feel Kurshed is knowledgeable on these issues).
by the way, if you do not have the time to view the entire youtube video (link in next comment window) go to 4.10 on video timeline to hear only about the ancient metallurgy kowledge in India.
Suresh / / 15 mins ago
http://profiles.sulekhalive.com/mstore/681790/profile//small/suresh-n-rao.jpg
All About Om – A TEDx talk by Khurshed Batliwala – YouTube
‘Ramanuja Samata Kendra’ (meaning, a center to celebrate RAMANUJA’s ‘equality philosophy’ is very important in today’s world with pseudo-secularists attacking all forms of spiritualism and understanding of almighty god in Hinduism.) The center in Telangana State is funded by individuals and private organizations interested in spreading spirituality in Hinduism. I think Modi ji likes ‘quality philosophy’ as interpreted in ‘Sri Vaishnava tradition’.
I am not sure if the State government in Telangana has any role in creation of this new center. The State may have donated land to build this new complex spread over 45 acres.
But at home, there are people who can do anything to see him removed from office and this is tragic. Wonder why hatred should be so overpowering as to deny oneself even the ability to judge what is good in a person. Ever since he has assumed office, his popularity has been growing and so is with the bitterness in the hearts of the people who don’t like him for one reason or the other. The exhibition of this by Telengana C.M. is the latest addition to the long list of them. Does it matter to him? For decades we haven’t had such a dedicated selfless and nationalist leader.
Like in most States of India, CM of Telangana also guards his chair and populist support to his government from minorities and pseudo-secularists! PM of India, Sri Modi ji, likes to have BJP party collision government in Telangana.
PM of India Sri Modi ji highlighted (in his inaugural speech) that ‘secularism’ is not new to Vendantic tradition in Sri Vaishnava school of understanding of how almighty god is very ‘secular’ and how spirituality is not confined to only the so called ‘Brahmin castes’ of India.
This is the reason why Tirumala Temple for Sri Vishnu (Venkateswara in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh) is the largest temple in the world, attracting all castes and communities.
This is also reason why ‘Hare Krishna movement’ (spreading fast in western countries) embraces Sri Vaishnava philosophical thoughts.
In many western countries ‘Hare Krishnas’ sing and dance to realize their god! That is part of ‘Bhakti movement’ (see meaning of same at link given in last line of article.)
By the way, PM Narendra Modi tops ‘Global Leader Approval’ list again, leaves behind US President Joe Biden, 11 others (msn.com)