चैत्र प्रतिपदा - कुछ जानकारी

According to the Vedic laws, only the king in whose kingdom there was no hunger or misery was allowed to have a "Samvat" named after him. Samvat were also named after some epoch making event.

The Vikrami Samvat was named after Samrat Vikramaditya who used to rule from Ujjain. He was born in times that were tough for the country. The Saka tribes (barbarians from Central Asia) had invaded India, over run the northern India and driven in till the center of the country (Ujjain).

The country united in its effort to drive out Sakas. Rulers from all over India came togather to drive out a common enemy. Pal rulers from Bengal sent forces as did rulers from areas that now correspond to Gujarat / Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. The forces chose Samrat Vikramaditya as the leader under whom battle would be fought.

Under Samrat Vikramaditya's leadership, the united Hindu forces drove away the Saka tribes. That he earned the title of "Shak-ari" meaning enemy (ari) of the Shaka race speaks about the thoroughness of his victory.

To commemerate this epoch making event that altered India's history, a calender or "Samvat" was begun this day.

This happenned ~ 57 BC, so the Vikram Samvatsar that begins today is 2066.

135 years later, similar circumstances reoccured, Saka and Hun tribes were attacking India again. Again, the rulers of various parts of India came togather to ward off enemy who would have finished the Indian way of living. The Shaka and Hun were driven away and the "Shaka Samvat" ("शक संवत") was launched, corresponding to ~ 78 AD.

The Saka Samvat was adopted by the Government of India as official calender even though in the general public's usage, it is Vikram Samvat that is followed.

Various other calenders or "samvat" exist like :

• The Veer Samvat or the Jain calender (which commemorates the birth of Lord Mahaveer) and
  
• The नानकशाही कैलेंडर (commemorating the birth of Guru Nanak Dev ji) and so on, but it is the Vikram Samvat that is लोकमान्य or widely accepted by the masses.
  

The Hindu new year starts on the day after Amavasya (no moon day) in the Chaitra month. The first day of the year is called Chaitra Pratipada.

Irrespective of which calender (Saka / Vikram / others) that you follow, today is the first day of the new year.

विशेष :

आज (27-03-2009) चैत्र प्रतिपदा है, जिसका अर्थ होता है, चैत्र महीने के शुक्ल पक्ष (the period in which moon starts waxing or increasing in its brightness), कि पहली तिथि।

चैत्र प्रतिपदा के ही दिन अन्य "calenders" या "संवत" का भी पहला दिन होता है, जैसे,

• शक संवत 1931
  
• युगाब्द 5110
  

For those interested in details, while Chaitra is the first month of the year, it is pertinent to note that the 15 days before the "Pratipada" are also called Chaitra month but because they are of "Krishna" paksh (dark fortnight since the moon is waning/declining), they are part of earlier year (in this case Vikram Samvat 2065).

The chaitra navratras begin from this day. Many other important events are linked with the day of Chaitra Pratipada like

a) Birth of the sage Gautam (who went to South and settled there)

b) Birth of Dr. Keshava Baliram Hedgewar, founder of the RSS.

c) The Sindhi new year also begins this day as it is birth day of Lord Jhulelal.

d) The Spring or वसंत नवरात्र begin from this day, the ninth day is राम नवमी.

Please add any further information that I would have missed.

चैत्र प्रतिपदा की शुभकामनाएं

नव वर्ष

वर्ष नव, हर्ष नव
जीवन उत्कर्ष नव

नव उमंग, नव तरंग
जीवन का नव प्रसंग

नवल चाह, नवल राह
जीवन का नव प्रवाह

गीत नवल, प्रीति नवल
जीवन की रीति नवल

जीवन की नीति नवल
जीवन की जीत नवल

-----हरिवंश राय बच्चन


चैत्र प्रतिपदा की शुभकामनाएं

चंदन है इस देश कि माटी...........................

आज बहुत दिनों बाद शाखा में गया और आज ही जो गीत गाया, वह मेरा प्रिय गीत है.

जब भी इस गीत को गाता हूँ या फिर सुनता हूँ, गीत के भाव एवं शब्द सोचने के लिए विवश कर देते हैं, विशेष कर
"जीवन का आदर्श जहॉं पर परमेश्वर का धाम है"

गीत गंगा नामक वेबसाइट है, जहाँ पर संघ के गीत आप सुन सकते हैं एवं पढ़ सकते हैं, आभार सहित वहीँ से लिया है .

गीत को सुने और आनंद लें.

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चंदन है इस देश की माटी तपोभूमि हर ग्राम है
हर बाला देवी की प्रतिमा बच्चा बच्चा राम है || ध्रु ||

हर शरीर मंदिर सा पावन हर मानव उपकारी है
जहॉं सिंह बन गये खिलौने गाय जहॉं मॉं प्यारी है
जहॉं सवेरा शंख बजाता लोरी गाती शाम है || 1 ||

जहॉं कर्म से भाग्य बदलता श्रम निष्ठा कल्याणी है
त्याग और तप की गाथाऍं गाती कवि की वाणी है
ज्ञान जहॉं का गंगाजल सा निर्मल है अविराम है || 2 ||

जिस के सैनिक समरभूमि मे गाया करते गीता है
जहॉं खेत मे हल के नीचे खेला करती सीता है
जीवन का आदर्श जहॉं पर परमेश्वर का धाम है || 3 ||

The soil of this country (Bhaarat) is like ‘chandan’, each village a ‘land of penance’.
Each girl is an image of a Devi while each boy is ‘Ram’.

Each body is like a sacred mandir, every person benevolent,
where lions became toys (the story of the little prince Bharat, who out of curiosity dared to open the jaw of a lion to count the teeth) and a cow is worshipped as a beloved mother.
Here, dawn blows the ‘shankh’ every morning and dusk sings lullaby every evening.

Where one’s fortune is shaped through one’s actions, dedication to work is one’s sacred duty, Where the poets sing the saga of sacrifice and penance.
The knowledge and wisdom of this land is like the water of Ganga - pure and perennial.

Whose soldiers chant the holy Bhagavad Geeta in the battlefield,
Where, in a field, Seeta was found playing under a plough,
Where the goal of human life is nothing less than God-realisation.

Did you know that earthquakes are so frequent

I am a subscriber to and avid reader of Google blog - since I use so many of their features. They have more than 485, 000 readers so I am sure many of you would have read this, but I thought I would share anyways.

This post at the google blog mentions the website of US Geological Survey where you can check all the earthquakes that happened in last 7 days.

You can look not just for US but for other parts of the world as well.

As I looked at data for last 7 days, I was amazed to find the large number of + 5 Richter earthquakes.

Scary.

Lest We Forget - Moplah Murders

This is about the Moplah revolt against the British in 1921, in Kerala, where more than one lakh (100, 000 ) Hindus were murdered, women raped and temples broken.

I am repeating verbatim from a letter......

Excerpts from a heart-rending petition to Lady Reading, the wife of the then Viceroy of India from Rani of Nilambur

'We, the Hindu women of Malabar of varying ranks and stations in life who have recently been overwhelmed by the tremendous catastrophe known as the Moplah rebellion, take the liberty to supplicate your Ladyship for sympathy and succour.'

Your Ladyship is doubtless aware that though our unhappy district has witnessed many Moplah outbreaks in the course of the last 100 years, the present rebellion is unexampled in its magnitude as well as unprecedented in its ferocity.

But it is possible that your Ladyship is not fully appraised of all the horrors and atrocities perpetrated by the fiendish rebels -

of the many wells and tanks filled up with the mutilated, but often only half dead bodies of our nearest and dearest ones who refused to abandon the faith of our fathers;

of pregnant women cut to pieces and left on the roadsides and in the jungles, with the unborn babies protruding from the mangled corpses;

of our innocent and helpless children torn from our arms and done to death before our eyes and of our husbands and fathers tortured, flayed and burnt alive;

of our helpless sisters forcibly carried away from the midst of kith and kin and subjected to every shame and outrage which the vile and brutal imagination of these inhuman hellhounds could conceive of;

of thousands of our homesteads reduced to circular mounds out of sheer savagery in a wanton spirit of destruction;

of our places of worship desecrated and destroyed and of the images of the deity shamefully insulted by putting the entrails of slaughtered cows where flower garlands used to lie, or else smashed to pieces;

of the wholesale looting of hard earned wealth of generations reducing many who were formerly rich and prosperous to publicly beg for a pie or two in the streets of Calicut, to buy salt or betal leaf -rice being mercifully provided by the various relief agencies of Government.

Why is this relevant in 2009 ?

Because Jehadi elements from Kerela were key SIMI operatives in various bomb blasts during 2007 and 2008.

Because Kerala is increasingly the new terror hub and supplier of Islamic Jehadis and Christian missionaries.

Because only in Kerala is it possible that Congress (I) and CPM joined hands to get the Kerala assembly to pass resolution demanding release of Islamic Jehadi terrorist Abdul Naseer Madani.

Because more and more Kerala Muslims are being found involved in areas like Kashmir - killing Indian forces while fighting for their Muslim brothers.

Because the Kerala govt and heavily CPM infiltrated police is busy killing RSS cadre instead of probing the terror links.

Lest We Forget - The Jehadi elements were there in Kerala - killing Hindus 200 years ago and they still exist.

You might be a peace loving liberal thinker, but you and your children will get killed for the crime of being a Hindu.

Action Points:

a) Pray. Include in your daily prayer, prayer to the Lord to give Hindus in Kerala strength to fight back Leftist/Jehadi/Evangelist goons.

b) Contact tatra.yatra@gmail.com for

• sending money to RSS cadre killed defending their faith,
• to provide jobs to kin of Hindus murdered,
• and to contribute legally if you can...

Greening of Public Spaces in Indian cities

I read about Guerrilla Gardening (complete with Seed bombs) at GuerrillaGardening.org.

I wrote an entry about this at my action blog at Param Vaibhavam.

There is such scary stuff.

Read this Rediff special on how most Indian cities are going to go dry - by 2020.


So, we can crib about it, or curse government and our neighbors, or do something about it.

1 Tree / Person / Month is my idea.

And look at this TED.com presentation (again) where they regenerated an entire rainforest ecosystem - because one guy was passionate about saving orangutans.

Akshay Kumar sent a cheque of 5 lakh for late constable Tukaram Ombale

Akshay Kumar sent a cheque of 5 lakh for late constable Tukaram Ombale: "When Akshay learnt that two of his closest friends, actor Manoj Joshi and producer Rakesh Upadhyay were organising a show of Manoj’s play Chanakya for the family of late constable Tukaram Ombale, the actor promptly sent a cheque of Rs 5 lakh for Ombale’s family.

That’s not all. Akshay has also taken the responsibility of educating Ombale’s younger daughters Vaishali and Bharti. Ombale lost his life while trying to nab terrorist Ajmal Qasab on the night of 26/11.

Although Akshay did not attend the play as he was busy, he made it a point to send his sister Alka to attend the show. Alka met Tukaram’s daughter Vaishali and gave her the cheque.

We tried to get in touch with one of Ombale’s elder daughters, Vandana whose husband Rajendra said, ’’Yes, Akshayji has given us a cheque of Rs 5 lakh. He has also offered financial assistance for Vaishali’s as well as Bharti’s education. Vaishali is doing her B.Ed while Bharti is a final year B.Com student.’’

And have they spoken to Akshay after receiving the cheque? ’’Unfortunately, we have not been able to speak to Akshayji as he has been very busy,’’ said Rajendra.

Manoj Joshi said, ’’Although Tukaram only had a lathi to fight the terrorist, he did not care for his life even though he knew that Qasab had deadly weapons. Tukaram’s bravery should not go unnoticed. Akshay has done what few people would do. I have newfound respect for him.’’"

To refresh the memory, Mr. Tukaram Ombale was the policeman who took in ~ 40 bullets and braved this terrorist, hitting him with his lathi, to ensure that we could capture Kasab.

Glad to know that in the world of Salman "Blackbuck Murderer" Khan and Shahrukh "I will smoke on screen-screw the kids" Khan, there is still a gentleman.

Seth's Blog : Three things you need if you want more customers

This came in the daily mail I receive from Seth Godin's blog. Amazing clarity of thought

The link to original post is here.

"Three things you need if you want more customers

If you want to grow, you need new customers. And if you want new customers, you need three things:

1. A group of possible customers you can identify and reach.
2. A group with a problem they want to solve using your solution.
3. A group with the desire and ability to spend money to solve that problem.

You'd be amazed at how often new businesses or new ventures have none of these.

The first one is critical, because if you don't have permission, or knowledge, or word of mouth, you're invisible.

The Zune didn't have #2.

A service aimed at creating videos for bestselling authors doesn't have #1.

And a counseling service helping people cut back on Big Mac consumption doesn't have #3."