Word: rama
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...name baffles shopkeepers and historians alike. After all, it was salt mined from the flats that put Phetchaburi on the map. But it was King Rama IV who ensured Phetchaburi's enduring legacy back in 1860?at least to fans of grand kitsch. On a hilltop west of town, the King constructed a dazzling summer estate: palaces and stables, with enough guesthouses to shelter the entire royal court. The design was meant to blend the best of East and West, but the result was an eclectic hodgepodge of Greek columns, Thai teak, Chinese tile roofs and a rounded Italian observatory...
Back on the banks of the burning ghat, the funeral party prepares to light the pyre. The shroud has been pushed back from the corpse's face so he can look upon Rama, the sun. The eldest son circles the body once and sprinkles it with ghee, or clarified butter. Finally, hands trembling, he sets the dry wood alight, using live coals brought from his household's devotional fire. As the flames engulf the corpse, the adolescent turns away and covers his face with his hands...
This most recent conflicts in India stems from one small piece of land in Ayodhya. Originally, a Hindu temple to the God Rama was built there, but in the sixteenth century, Muslims tore down the temple and replaced it with a mosque. This mosque was left standing until a decade ago, when Hindus tore down the mosque, leading to riots in which 2,000 people died. The issue comes down to who should have a house of worship on this land...
...noblemen built a mosque in Ayodhya. History suggests the Muslim invaders dismantled a Hindu temple to do so. That's the building and the site that is provenance of the current conflict: some Hindus say the temple, and then the mosque, sat on the actual birthplace of Rama. For a century-and-a-half, Hindus and Muslims squabbled over the mosque. For Hindus, reclaiming the site is more about punishing the Muslims for the Islamic invasions and partioning of the subcontinent in 1947 - in other words, a chance to reopen old wounds. For Muslims, the mosque was an ugly wreck...
...episode in December 1992 was the collusion between the Congress government in New Delhi and the main opposition party of the country, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was in the forefront of the movement to destroy the mosque built, it said, where the revered Hindu god Rama was born. The Congress Prime Minister at the time, P.V. Narasimha Rao, in a modern variation of the Nero legend, slept while the mosque was being destroyed. Even his Cabinet colleagues were not allowed to disturb his sleep, according to numerous statements made by them (after he lost power). Rao rationalized...