Word: vishnu
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Last week, Chief Minister K. C. Reddi of Mysore escorted Lord Mountbatten, India's Governor General, and Lady Mountbatten into the inner temple of Sri Ranganadha (Vishnu) near Seringapatam. When they left, Priest Archaka closed the inner precincts and began cleaning up after the Mountbattens. He washed down the black stone idol with water and then with milk, chanted prayers in the oldtime purification ceremony. Irritated, the Mysore government ordered the conservative Archaka to suspend the ceremony and reopen the temple. The Governor General was thus implicitly raised at least to the new level of the Untouchables...
...ancient Hindu holy book, the Vishnu Purana, he could recall, says that the life of man will run in four cycles. The last is to be the Age of Kali. It closes in, says the book, when "society reaches a stage where property confers rank, wealth, becomes the only source of virtue, passion, the sole bond of union between husband and wife, falsehood the source of success in life, sex the only means of enjoyment, and when outer trappings are confused with inner religion...
...indoors. Last week their schools were closed, for no pupils would attend. Bazaars and fairs shut down. Panicky villagers feared that 108 children would be kidnaped for sacrifice.* They picked 108 as the proper figure because that is sacred to Hindus. Rama, for instance, one of the incarnations of Vishnu, the Protector, offered his wife Sita 108 lotuses, each with 108 petals...
...Nepal has two dynasties, one for kings or maharajadhirajas, and the other for prime ministers or maharajas. The king wields no political power. As a reincarnation of Vishnu, he is chiefly a religious figure. Real power is in the hands of the Rana family, which furnishes the maharajas. The relationship resembles that in old Japan between the Emperor and the Shogun...
Spiritual Ecstasy. Ramakrishna's father, a pious Brahman, made a pilgrimage in 1835 to the footprint of Vishnu at Gaya, and there, it is said, had a dream in which Vishnu promised to be born as his son. On his return he found, it is said, that his wife had had a similar vision and had conceived. Ramakrishna was born on Feb. 18, 1836. He had his first spiritual ecstasy at the age of six or seven while eating puffed rice. "He looked up at the sky and saw a beautiful, dark thundercloud. As it spread, rapidly enveloping...