@mrityuloknative 's Thanks For This.

Dancing Saraswati Hoysaleswara temple, Halebidu, Karnataka

Halebid – also referred to as Halebidu, Dwarasamudra, Dorasamudra – was a major city prior to the 14th-century in Hoysala kingdom.It is now a small town in south Karnataka. The temple belongs to the Shaivism tradition of Hinduism.

Like major historic Hindu temple complexes on the Indian subcontinent, this temple reverentially includes legends and ideas of Vaishnavism and Shaktism traditions of Hinduism. It was built in the first half of 12th century. During the early 14th century, Halebidu temple site along with others were sacked, looted and much artwork was damaged (particularly nose/face, limbs, sexual organs) by Muslim invaders from northern India (Khilji dynasty and Tughlaq dynasty of Delhi Sultanate). The relief panels present legends from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata Purana and secular fables found in Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Vedic deities such as Agni, Indra and Surya, various avatars of Vishnu, the Hindu goddesses such as Saraswati, Lakshmi avatars, Durga, Kali among others are presented.

The carving is three dimensional where the deep reliefs often emerge as statues with depth. Panels are continuous, with one perspective showing one part of the legend, a perpendicular perspective of the same column or wall or corner showing another part of the same legend. The carving material was soapstone.

Above: Sarasvati is typically shown seated and holding a musical instrument. She is, however, the goddess of knowledge and all arts in Hinduism. The reliefs at Hoysalesvara temple show her in many panel, some where she holds a musical instrument. Three panels show her dancing, in a classical Indian dance posture (all are damaged panels, two of these panels is better preserved, the third is badly damaged). In this better preserved panel, she has eight hands and she holds a pen, a palm leaf manuscript, tools of other arts as she dances.

📷 by Ms Sarah Welch (via wikipedia)

100 चूहे खाकर बिल्ली हज को चली

Shoot us and then offer free food to get rid of the guilt or the bad karma. Those are the same hands that pulled the trigger and those are the hands that are not cutting fruits for you.

I saw a post by one of my mutuals talking about dhoti. But I can't find it now. I just wanted to reblog it to say that I've heard many relatives and even my mother call a saree dhoti while talking in awadhi.

Which reminds me of this one very wholesome moment with my (now late) grandmother.

I was 5years old. And like every other summer vacation, we were visiting our grandparents in uttar pradesh. My parents had bought a really simple beautiful saree for my dadi. And the second day of us being there, my parents and I were sitting with my dadi and my parents told her that I had chosen and bought a saree for her (which was a lie but idk why my parents do that to involve me like all the time to show that I do think about all this). And my dadi got so happy saying "अरे हमार भैया हमरे खातिर धोती लाये अहेन? कहाँ बा?" So my mother sent me to go get it, because "i had picked it". But I replied to my mother "but hum toh dhoti laaye hi nahi hai. hum toh saree leke aaye hai dadi ke liye. dadi ko dhoti kyu chahiye? dadi dhoti pehente ha?". My mother replied didn't explain this to me. She just laughed and went with me to bring the saree and we gave it to daadi.

शीतला सप्तमी

My family celebrates Sheetla Saptami every year twice. Once in the month of Chaitra (चैत in Awadhi) and then in the month of Shravan (सावन in Awadhi)

My mother has to observe a fast on Saptami and do a pooja before dawn the next day

Hibiscus flowers, doob grass and paan leaves are offered to Mata

There are offerings made, which is completely satvic. There is a puri, a batasa(बतासा), a jaggery filled gujiya (गुजिया), few uncooked soaked chana, a small amount of dahi, a dallop of lapsi(लपसी prepared from flour and jaggery), and a clove(लौंग)

A diya is to be lit and kept on a rice filled earthen bowl called कोसा in Awadhi. Which is kept on a kalash filled with water and adorned with mango leaves

Shiva and Parvati

I've been meaning to talk about this.

Don't blame all Kashmiris and Indian Muslims for terrorism. Okay ji.

But blaming all UCs for 5000 years of history is alright? Building a system which denies equal opportunities for ordinary general category Indians citizens is also acceptable?

How does that work?

I think one of the greatest things about Sanatan/hinduism is how animals are so intrinsically involved in worship and divinity, something which is often used by Hinduphobes to poke fun at us but I’m super proud of my ancestors for making us understand that every being is divine. That divinity is everywhere and that includes animals and plants as well.

Mata Durga temple at Manali Mall Road

I loved the daffodils that were offering to Mata. Loved the little art on the gold plates.

I used to assume that the Hindu Kush region had Hindu connections only from ancient times, like the Mahabharata era. I didn’t realize that Hindu communities were still present there as recently as 500 years ago.

This region isn't even the Indian subcontinent it's Central Asian. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I looked it up on Google and I swear the pictures look so amazing. such beautiful mountains and water bodies. They stole that from us. And they still want more. Outrageous.

Yeah I’m not gonna shut up about this.