once krishna said

Hayagrīva (हयग्रीव), the horse-face  avatāra  (incarnation) of Viṣhṇu,  was associated in Hindu mythology with the restoration of the Vedas and with learning, speech and knowledge. The Mahābhārata (XII. 127) mentions a beautiful region called Badarī, the abode of Nara and Nārāyaṇa, where Hayagriva read the  Vedas. It describes the horse-face Viṣṇu bringing back the stolen Vedas after killing the two  asura  thieves Madhu and Kaiṭabha.  ICONOGRAPHY   The Horse symbolises skillful action and vital force — that which conveys us to our ultimate destination (mukti) in the best possible way.  In his left lower hand he holds a palm-leaf manuscript which is the Vedas.  The right lower hand is held in the "chin-mudra" or the gesture of teaching. This gesture is made by joining the index finger with the tip of the thumb.  The right upper hand holds a rosary (japa-mala) which represents the practical application of spiritual knowledge in the form of meditation and the cultiv

So it doesn’t matter how many verses in puranas  it only matters what the shruti (  Vedasa and upanishads) teach. The principal verse in the Veda describing the caste system comes from Rig Veda 10:90:12 - this verse is the supreme judgement in this matter - It says that the four castes are the limbs of society like that of the Cosmic Being. How does it describe them? From the mouth of the Social Being - the Brahmins arose. From the arms - the Kshatriyas were created. From the thighs the Vaishyas too [were created] From the feet - the Shudras were BORN. So this seminal verse on the varna-system clearly states that the 3 varnas are “created” but only the Sudra Varna is born. This is then confirmed in the Upanishads (Vajra-sūcika Upaniṣad) many Smritis and Itihasas . This is the case of uniformity of birth established — EVERYONE is born a Sudra by DEFAULT. Confirmed in the Mahābhārata:– The cause of brahmanhood is not birth, or sacraments, or learning or progeny, goo

Firstly the Law Book known as Manusmriti or Manvadharma Shastra was not the work of a single author, there are too many inconsistencies and contradictions. Whatever the original text was there have been hundreds of interpolations over centuries.  It contains laws, regulations and customs pertaining to every walk of life but is primarily meant for the members of the first 3 castes. It is “idealistic’ in that it was never a practical text, nor was it every actually applied in any kingdom in ancient India.  Laws in India were primarily caste-based - each and every caste was autonomous and created their own laws which governed them. It was only major disputes which were brought to the royal court. The Kings were primarily interested in collecting taxes and left the daily legalities to the caste panchayats and their self-governance. There are a large number of different Law Books (Smritis) produced by different Law-givers and used in the many countries and districts of India,

Sati largely misunderstood  i don't know who started it and how it became popular  but i am damn sure its not in the vedas  What they say :  sati was been done by rajput queens .. (Half truth)  what they do not say.. : Queens were been taken as slaves when the kings die and they were been raped day and night by So called Islamic Invaders like Allauddin khilji so in order to save their chastity queens would jump inside the fire so that they can escape from clutches of Barbaric invaders.  For example  During the invasion of Muhammad al-Qasim), invariably numerous women and children were enslaved. The sources insist that now, in dutiful conformity to religious law, 'the one-fifth of the slaves and spoils' were set apart for the caliph's treasury and despatched to Iraq and Syria. The remainder was scattered among the army of Islam. At Rūr, a random 60,000 captives reduced to slavery. At Brahamanabad 30,000 slaves were allegedly taken. At Multan 6,000

Kamasutra MISCONCEPTIONS Many think kamasutra means variety of sexual poses derived from yoga thanks to  perverted mindset of Indians and the people from west . kamasutra in actuality contents of kamasutra sadhaarana it tells about various aspects of people. it tells about importance of dharma( virtue) ,artha(wealth)  ,kama(pleasure) and moksha (enlightenment or mukti).  woman fit unfit for maritial as well as sexual happiness. and the general description of people at that times samprayogika about different times of having a union acts like kissing ,biting,scratching,ways to make love to a woman, different kinds of sex and love quarrels. oral sex and different kinds of genital stimulation kanya samprayukta it tells about finding a bride creating confidence in a girl different types of marriage and so on bharyadhikarika tells about the role of wife and the duties of the wife paraadhika tells us about sexual standards  to maintain tells us about  with

The word Tantra is derived from :– tanyate, vistāryante jñānam aṇena, iti tantra. Tantra refers to those sacred writings or inspired scripture whereby "sacred" knowledge is spread. The suffix "tra" means to save, so the Tantra is the knowledge or wisdom which saves from the ocean of transmigration. Vaishnava and Shaiva Tantra is usually known as Agama, and the texts of the Agama have four major divisions known as pādas. jñāna-pāda — deals with spiritual knowledge, philosophy, theology, cosmology, metaphysics etc. kriya-pāda — deals with all aspects of ritual from the making of icons and building of temples to the types and times of festivals. carya-pāda — conduct - which deals with the daily routines and practices of an initiate, guru-disciple relations etc. yoga-pāda — deals with all aspects of Yoga, but primarily with meditation techniques and practices. A more descriptive catalogue of the topics treated in the corpus of the Āgamas wou

quote from the Rig Veda 5;61;6— 8: “Yea many a woman is more steady and better than the man who turns away from the Gods, and serves not. She who assists the weak and the worn, the person who thirsts and is in want; she sets her mind upon the gods. Those deluded relatives who live off a woman’s property (i.e. dowry) — her carriages, her clothes, and so on are evil and go to hell. (Manu 3:52) Fathers, brothers, husbands and brothers-in-law who wish for great fortune should revere women and adorn them. (Manu 3:55) The deities delight in those places where women are revered, but where women are not revered all rites are fruitless. (Manu 3:56) Where the women of the family are miserable, the family is soon destroyed, but it always thrives where the women are contented. (Manu 3:57) Therefore men who wish to prosper should always honour women with ornaments, clothes and food at celebrations and festivals. (Manu 3:59) Here’s another quote from a great Law-giver Vasiṣṭha

Hinduism is an umbrella organisation with many different sects and religions but all of them have five things in common known as Pañca-Śraddhā BRAHMAN — the belief in an Absolute qualified by sat-chit-ānanda - space-time-consciousness. This non-conceptual, ineffable Brahman is viewed in different ways by the different sects – some call it Sat, Tat, Ka, Iśvara, Paramātma, Bhagavan, Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti, Ganesha etc. JĪVĀTMA – the individual Self - a spark, or mode, or ray of BRAHMAN which takes the form of creatures, animals, humans, gods, anti-gods. The Jīvātma is characterised by consciousness which is contracted in the various species, is limited in time and space and the ability to enjoy but it is of the same essential nature as Brahman. SAMSĀRA — the cycle of birth-death-rebirth - the ocean of conditioned existence in which we all have our being and in which we are reborn again and again. KARMA — the law of cause and effect, action and reaction - it is Karma that turns

Kamalā — The Lotus-Goddess, the Power of Wealth. The Night-of-Splendour (Mahā-rātrī) According to the Śaiva Tantra when Everlasting-Siva (Sadā-śiva) takes over the function of Viṣṇu and sustains and conserves the world, then Kamalā becomes his consort. She is the embodiment of all that is materially and spiritually desirable, the exact counterpart of the Smoky-One (Dhūmavatī). The signs of the zodiac associated with these 2 goddesses are in opposition. Kamalā rules over the auspicious nakṣatra Rohini in Taurus, giver of wealth, while Dhūmavati rules over the nakshatra Jyeṣṭha in the sign Scorpio which brings poverty. (Dhūmavati is identified with Alakṣmī) Kamalā is the power inherent in prosperity. As the energy of preservation she represents the potential for universal well-being that can only be accomplished through the correct utilisation of resources. She is the only one of the Daśa-mahā-vidyās who is totally benevolent and compassionate. In fact coming last in the list of

One Zen monk, Bokuju, was passing through a street in a village. Somebody came and struck him with a stick. He fell down, and with him, the stick also. He got up and picked up the stick. The man who had hit him was running away. Bokuju ran after him, calling, ”Wait, take your stick with you!” He followed after him and gave him the stick. A crowd had gathered to see what was happening, and somebody asked Bokuju, ”That man struck you hard, and you have not said anything!” Bokuju is reported to have said, ”A fact is a fact. He has hit, that’s all. It happened that he was the hitter and I was the hit. It is just as if I am passing under a tree, or sitting under a tree, and a branch falls down. What will I do? What can I do?” But the crowd said, ”But a branch is a branch, this is a man. We cannot say anything to the branch, we cannot punish it. We cannot say to the tree that it is bad, because a tree is a tree, it has no mind.” Bokuju said, ”This man to me is also just a branch.

Mātangi — the Elephant Power, the Power of Domination, the Outcaste Goddess. The Night-of-Delusion (Moha-rātrī) The regal elephant is the mount of Indra, king of the gods as well as of temporal kings. It is the symbol of the power of domination. After the terror of the night appears the reassuring dawn. The demons of chaos and have been defeated; Mātaṅgī, the Elephant-power, establishes the rule of peace, of calm, of prosperity. The day is, however, a dream, a mirage that punctuates the eternal night. As a form of night, Mātaṅgī is therefore the Night-of-Delusion (Moha-rātrī). Tantra brazenly embraces a theology of transgression, one of the dictums of Tantra is “yair eva patanti taireva siddhyanti” — whatever causes one to fall can also be used to elevate Tantra challenges the ritual and social orthodoxy of Brahminical Hinduism, the first three hindrances to the spiritual path are lajjā – shame, ghṛṇa – disgust and bhaya – fear. Mātaṅgī which is also a term for an outcaste (c

Bagalā mukhī — The Deceitful, Crane-headed, the Power of Cruelty. The Second Night-of-Courage (Vīra- rātri) In order to maintain social order, we very quickly learn to repress or sublimate any desire that may arise in our minds to kill other living beings – a primitive desire to destroy all others but ourselves; the forbidden pleasure that we feel when hurting another — something we as civilized people don’t like to admit to. This potential or subtle desire to kill or to hurt others, is present to some degree in the psyche of everyone. This repressed destructive desire, unconsciously motivates many of our actions in day to day life. In the iconography of Tantra this aspect of our sub-conscious minds is personified and represented as a woman with the head of a crane (baka), the placid, graceful crane being considered the most deceitful of all creatures – it stands on one leg in the river, perfectly still like a yogi — but it waits for an unsuspecting fish to glide by. Bagal

Dhūmāvatī — the Smoky One, the Power of Poverty. The Night- of-Frustration (Daruṅa-rātri) After the jīva has left, the body is consigned to the funeral pyre, our entire subjective universe centered on the body ends in smoke; hence the power of ultimate destruction is called the Smoky-One (Dhūmāvati). She is the śakti that destroys the structures of all things, (any “structure” is ruled over by the male principle whereas “process” is the feminine energy), hence she is called a widow (vidhavā). Nothing is left for her to own, hence she is utterly destitute. She is the goddess-of-poverty (Dāridra), of frustration, of despair, identified with Mis-fortune (A-lakṣmī) and with the goddess-of-disease-and misery (Niṛṛti). Her presence can be seen in the destitute, the beggars, the lepers, the diseased and disenfranchised. She dwells in the wounds-of-the-earth (kṣata-vikṣata-pṛthivi), in deserts, ruined houses, rags, hunger, thirst, widowhood, quarrels, alcoholism, crime, domestic viol

The Fearful Goddess, the Power of Death. The Night-of-Death (Kala-rātri) Chinnamasta represents the end of things, the spectacular moment when the victim is sacrificed, beheaded; life and existence comes to an abrupt end. But this apparently sudden end is only the culmination of a process that began long before. Destruction begins from the very first moment of conception — death of one state and birth of another – the sperm unites with the ovum to produce the zygote which goes on changing with the production of the foetus. Death is the ever-present reality operating in everything. This aspect of death is called the “perpetual-destruction” (nitya-pralaya). The southern direction is dedicated to Yama, the God of death – In the Vedic Yajñas there are 3 fire-pits, the southern Vedic fire (dakṣina agni) is the fire of destruction. The northern direction is dedicated to Soma, the “essence of life,” or of love (sneha tattva), the nourishing ambrosia of immortality (amṛta). In Śaiva

The Self-Beheaded, the Power of the Sacrifice. The Night- of- Courage (Vira-rātri) Chinnamastā’s myth is recounted in the Pranatoshini Tantra. Once the progress of the day or the process of world unfoldment has reached a state of stability, it continues to exist, depending for its sustenance on destruction, on burning, on consuming. The cosmic sacrifice (yajña) expresses this process of universal metabolism, and the ritual sacrifices (yajña) are performed with the intention of harmonising and co-operating with the cosmic process of maintenance. Yajña is the exchanging of energies between differing levels of existence and the creation of harmony and balance. The aspect of Śiva which presides over the cosmic sacrifice is the Headless (Kabandha). The Vedic ritual of sacrifice involves the beheading the victim — “The sacrifice is indeed beheaded.” (Satapatha Brahmana). Hence the Shakti (dynamic energy) of the sacrifice is depicted as the “Beheaded-one (Chinnamastā). At the end of