Agni Purana
Translated and annotated by N.Gangadharan
Published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi - 1954

Volume 3

Read book online:

http://bit.ly/3oaV7TO

Download pdf book:

https://bit.ly/3iELyLO

The Agni Purana, is a Sanskrit text and one of the eighteen major Puranas of Hinduism. The text is variously classified as a Purana related to Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism and Smartism, but also considered as a text that covers them all impartially without leaning towards a particular theology.

The text exists in numerous versions, some very different from others. The published manuscripts are divided into 382 or 383 chapters, containing between 12,000 and 15,000 verses. The chapters of the text were likely composed in different centuries, with earliest version probably after the 7th-century, but before the 11th-century because the early 11th-century Persian scholar Al-Biruni acknowledged its existence in his memoir on India.The youngest layer of the text in the Agni Purana may be from the 17th-century.

The Agni Purana is a medieval era encyclopedia that covers a diverse range of topics, and its "382 or 383 chapters actually deal with anything and everything", remark scholars such as Moriz Winternitz and Ludo Rocher. Its encyclopedic secular style led some 19th-century Indologists such as Horace Hayman Wilson to question if it even qualifies as what is assumed to be a Purana. The range of topics covered by this text include cosmology, mythology, genealogy, politics, education system, iconography, taxation theories, organization of army, theories on proper causes for war, martial arts, diplomacy, local laws, building public projects, water distribution methods, trees and plants, medicine, design and architecture, gemology, grammar, metrics, poetry, food and agriculture, rituals, geography and travel guide to Mithila (Bihar and neighboring states), cultural history, and numerous other topics.
- Wikipedia

Image:

Gouache painting on paper, part of an album of seventy paintings of Indian deities. Agni, with two heads, sits on the back of a ram. On both heads his hair is tied neatly in a jata makuta from which emanate tongues of fire. One of Agni’s faces is shown in profile and the other full frontal. In his upper pair of hands Agni carries a fan; his lower right hand is in abhaya while his lower left is in varada mudra.

Company School
Trichinopoly Style
Image and text credit:

© 2021 The Trustees of the British Museum
​Thanks to Rare Book Society

Happy Navaratri, Durga Puja, Maha Vidya time, many systems simultaneously. It all depends on the level of the sadhaka or sadhika !

Traditional Way: Druga Puja

Nava 9 Durga

1. Shailaputri - Sun
2. Brahmacharini - Saturn
3. Chandraghanta - Moon
4. Kushmanda - Jupiter
5. Skandamata - Mars
6. Katyayani - Venus
7. Kalaratri - Rahu
8. Mahagauri - Mercury
9. Siddhidatri - Ketu

Devi Mahatmaya -

1st 3 days Kali,
2nd 3 days Laxshmi,
3rd 3 days Saraswati.

Tantric Way:

Nava Graha (planets)

1. Rahu - Dhumavati and Kali's black body.
2. Ketu - Chinnamasta and Kali's sword.
3. Shukra - Kamla and Kali's beauty.
4. Chandra - Lalita and Kali's severed head (ahamkara)
5. Surya - Bhuvaneshwari and Kali's maya.
6. Shani - Baglamukhi and Kali's tongue
7. Mangal - Bhairavi and Kali's tejas (radience)
8. Brihaspati - Tara and Kali's speech (her necklace of skulls or aksharas)
9. Matangi - Budha and Kali's third eye or transcendental wisdom

Dasa 10 Maha Vidya (Tantric aspects of Kali)"

1. Kali - Saturn
2. Tara - Jupiter
3. Tripura Sundari - Mercury
4. Bhuvaneshwari - Moon
5. Bhairavi - Lagna
6. Chinnmasta - Rahu
7. Dhumavati - Ketu
8. Bagalamukhi - Mars
9. Matangi - Sun
10. Kamla - Venus

Nava Graha (planets)

1. Rahu - Dhumavati and Kali's black body.
2. Ketu - Chinnamasta and Kali's sword.
3. Shukra - Kamla and Kali's beauty.
4. Chandra - Lalita and Kali's severed head (ahamkara)
5. Surya - Bhuvaneshwari and Kali's maya.
6. Shani - Baglamukhi and Kali's tongue
7. Mangal - Bhairavi and Kali's tejas (radience)
8. Brihaspati - Tara and Kali's speech (her necklace of skulls or aksharas)
9. Matangi - Budha and Kali's third eye or transcendental wisdom

Dasa 10 Maha Vidya (Tantric aspects of Kali)"

1. Kali - Saturn
2. Tara - Jupiter
3. Tripura Sundari - Mercury
4. Bhuvaneshwari - Moon
5. Bhairavi - Lagna
6. Chinnmasta - Rahu
7. Dhumavati - Ketu
8. Bagalamukhi - Mars
9. Matangi - Sun
10. Kamla - Venus

Each system is interrelated! However, you can not compare apples to oranges, an each category has a specific purpose and it is easy to get confused. You must learn your categories by entering into Sadhana (practice) through the Lord of Categories Ganesha.

Durga is Kali and Kali is Durga's other rupa (form).

It is not one or the other, all are related.

There are plants, flags and many karakas ( significators) for each category, Ganesha is the Lord of categories and Durga's son, no one can understand without getting past Lord Ganesha.

It all can be complicated to understand the relations of all, it is not one is better than the other, it is what is your purpose for doing any of these practices?

Each sadhana has a purpose.

More to come over the next few days, this is just a simple touch of a huge indigenous practice that belongs to the people of India as they have preserved it for thousands of years, so that we many have a glimpse. This is by no means a complete picture.

Ancient India as described by Ptolemy

By J.W.McCrindle

Published by Trubner & Co., London - 1885

Read Book Online:

http://bit.ly/PwDsUe

Download pdf Book:

https://bit.ly/30HwvsU

Biography:

Claudius Ptolemy (fl. AD 127-145) was an ancient geographer, astronomer, and mathematician. He is known today through translations and transcriptions of his work, but little is known about his life besides his residence in Alexandria.

Several of his works are still known today, although they have passed through several alterations and languages over the centuries. The Almagest, in thirteen books, discusses astronomy. It is in the Almagest that Ptolemy postulates his geocentric universe. His geometric ideas are contained in the Analemma, and his optical ideas were presented in five books known as the Optica.

His geographic and cartographic work was immensely influential. In the Planisphaerium, Ptolemy discusses the stereographic projection. Perhaps his best-known work is his Geographia, in eight books. However, Ptolemy’s ideas had been absent from western European intellectual history for roughly a thousand years, although Arab scholars interacted with his ideas from the ninth century onward.

In 1295, a Greek monk found a copy of Geographia in Constantinople; the emperor ordered a copy made and the Greek text began to circulate in eastern Europe. In 1393, a Byzantine diplomat brought a copy of the Geographia to Italy, where it was translated into Latin in 1406 and called the Cosmographia. The manuscript maps were first recorded in 1415. These manuscripts, of which there are over eighty extant today, are the descendants of Ptolemy’s work and a now-lost atlas consisting of a world map and 26 regional maps.

When Ptolemy’s work was re-introduced to Western scholarship, it proved radically influential for the understanding and appearance of maps. Ptolemy employs the concept of a graticule, uses latitude and longitude, and orients his maps to the north—concepts we take for granted today. The Geographia’s text is concerned with three main issues with regard to geography: the size and shape of the earth; map projection, i.e. how to represent the world’s curve proportionally on a plane surface; and the corruption of spatial data as it transfers from source to source. The text also contains instructions as to how to map the world on a globe or a plane surface, complete with the only set of geographic coordinates (8000 toponyms, 6400 with coordinates) to survive from the classical world.

The Earliest Obtainable Map of Southeast Asia, India, etc.
​
Important early map of the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia, first published in the 1478 Rome edition of Ptolemy's Geography, Claudii Ptholomei Alexandrini. Cosmographia..., created under the direction of Conrad Swenheym (who apprenticed with Guttenberg) and published after Swenheym's death (1477) by Arnold Buckinck.

The map illustrates one of the greatest of the Ptolemy errors, the belief that a southern continent existed, which counter-balanced the weight of the land-masses in the northern hemisphere, to keep the earth stable on its axis. The present map illustrates a portion of the landlocked Indian Ocean, including much of the Indian Ocean (Indicum Mare), as it had been mapped by Ptolemy.

Image and text credit:
Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc.

Thanks to Rare Book Society!
​
https://www.rarebooksocietyofindia.org

It is my belief and study that the timing of the Ramayana is important to stop wild claims by certain scholars of where Shiva first was worshiped in India. Ravana was the greatest devotee of Shiva, he has a kingdom in India now called Sri Lanka, it is said he flew in flying machines. Through the keys of Jyotish (Vedic Astrology) coded in the Ramayana the Astro Archeologists the world has the best chances at timing of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. There are many ancient cultures throughout India and no one place is the originator or as new scholars are trying to prove, this is all so ancient.

Trying to find the keys of a MYSTICAL tradition is like try to write while blind, mystical subjects are just that Mystical and trying to dig only through modern science or translations of texts is useless. One must look with their inner eye and see for oneself Lumueria and Atlantis, there is a reason humans still mention and write about these ancient advanced civilizations and why they were destroyed and disappeared so long ago. I believe South India (Sri Lanka now) was Lumueria and that is where Ravana lived, long long before Harappa. Although it is said, Ravana flew to Mount Kailash and I am sure maybe around the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemuria_(continent)

https://www.rarebooksocietyofindia.org/postDetail.php?id=196174216674_10152962830606675

Thanks to Rare Book Society and Archive.org

Vaimanika Shastra
By Pandit Subbaraya Shastry
Translated by G.R.Josyer
Printed at The Coronation Press, Mysore - 1973

The Vaiminika Shastra ( , lit. "shastra on the topic of Vimanas"; sometimes also rendered Vimanika, Vymanika) is an early 20th century Sanskrit text on aeronautics obtained by psychic channeling and automatic writing. It makes the claim that the vim?nas mentioned in ancient Sanskrit epics were advanced aerodynamic flying vehicles, similar to a rocket.

The existence of the text was revealed in 1952 by G. R. Josyer who asserted that it was written by Pandit Subbaraya Shastry (1866-1940), who dictated it during the years 1918 - 1923. A Hindi translation was published in 1959, while the Sanskrit text with an English translation was published in 1973. It contains 3000 shlokas in 8 chapters which Shastry claimed was psychically delivered to him by the ancient Hindu sage Bharadvaja.The text has gained favor among proponents of ancient astronaut theories.
- Wiki

Read online:

http://bit.ly/1BEu19N

Download pdf Book:

http://bit.ly/1IjvXGN

It might be appropriate to read the scientific opinion on this work by five scientists of The Indian Institute of Science, published in 1974:

Scientific opinion:
A critical study of the work - VYMANIKA SHASTRA
By H.S.Mukunda, S.M.Deshpande, H.R.Nagendra, A.Prabhu and S.P.Govindaraju
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore - 1974

Read and download pdf:

http://bit.ly/13Licfs

https://www.rarebooksocietyofindia.org

Five years ago, I was a mess it was in the middle of my fathers passing due to bladder cancer. I needed air went to the beach and my husband put me on the spot with a camera in my face for a episode of his local tv show.
One Indian man a Vedic Astrologer said, who is that white women she knows nothing. Babu said, that is my wife and the man said, oh yes sorry she knows everything :) 

LOL that is probably my one dislike. I had so much on my mind at that time.

More video's to come about everything, Trishula's Bhakti Masala and Vedic Astrology.

Life is stranger than fiction!!

Trishula Musings:

This is a picture the Shani Temple we went to a few years back it is in Shignapur a village located in Ahmednagar District of Maharashtra. It is about 35 km from Ahmednagar. We were spending time in Shirdi visiting the Shirdi Sai Baba and went on a day trip to this Shignapur to visit Lord Shani. It was a totally different world to me at the time and the Puja was unlike any I had experienced in India. 

I remember following Babu barefoot walking through some streets, I was laughing all the way, we were not to make eye contact some kind of male thing about worshiping Lord Shani. Anyway, Babu did his thing in all earnest and after the Puja was over we bought some horseshoe iron rings to wear to appease Lord Shani. Within in hours I was completely depressed, I took the ring off and have never been able to wear it to this day. However, it works for Babu he can has worn this Saturn ring for over a decade now. 

It is important to know what you can handle and if someone gives you a remedy and it does not feel right take it off, it is more important to develop your own intuition than to trust others. In my mind the purpose of going to a Jyotishi is to awaken to yourself not to tell everybody how great the Jyotishi was.

It is always about you not the astrologer.
​
"The presiding deity of Shinganapur, Sri Shaneshwara or Lord Shanidev- the personification of the planet Saturn is worshipped with utmost reverence and devotion by multitudes of people from all over the world. The spectacle of the deity in black stone is overwhelming. A unique aspect of this place is, that no temple structure houses the Shanidev. There is only a simple platform on which stands the swayambhu idol, in black stone.

Shingnapur is also famous for the fact that no house in the village has doors, only door frames. Despite this, no theft is reported in the village. Villagers never keep their valuables under lock and key. Villagers believe that the temple is a "jagrut devasthan" (lit. "alive temple"), meaning that the god here is very powerful. They believe that god Shani punishes anyone attempting theft."

Sawai Jai Singh II - Ved Shala or Jantar Mantar, Ujjain

Ved Shala or Jantar Mantar in Ujjain is believed to be India’s first and foremost observatory. Indian astronomers believe that the first meridian or the Prime Meridian of Longitude (75° 47′ E) passes through Ujjain thus earning it the epithet, ‘Greenwich of India’.

The Tropic of Cancer also passes through Ujjain making it most suitable for an observatory. This observatory, made by Raja Jaisingh of Amer, is among the five built by him in India, the others situated at Delhi, Jaipur, Mathura and Varanasi.

The Jantar Mantar has all the constructional instruments which determine the positions of heavenly bodies in space. Nadivalaya Yantra, Yamyotarra – Bhitti Yantra, Shanku Yantra, Nadivalaya Yantra, Samrat Yantra and Sundial are the major instruments in the Ved Shala.

Although the Jantar Mantar in Ujjain is smaller than that of Delhi and Jaipur, this observatory is most important as the Masonic instruments are still being utilized to conduct research.

​After Raja Jai Singh, the observatory remained isolated and poorly maintained for 200 years till it was renovated by Madhavrao Scindia. The Ved Shala is located on the Chintaman Road, 2.5 kms from Ujjain Railway Station and can be easily reached by local transport.

Source: https://bit.ly/3afzJWz

An account of the Bramin's observatory at Benares
By Sir Robert Barker, Knt. F.R.S.; in a letter to Sir John Pringle, Bart. P.R.S

Published in Philosophical Transactions, Royal Society, London - 1 January 1777

Read book online:

https://bit.ly/2z98X5z

Download pdf book:

https://bit.ly/2z98X5z

Benares Observatory - 18th century

Historical artwork of colonial soldiers, merchants and locals at the astronomical site at Benares (now known as Varanasi) in India. This is one of five similar astronomical sites (all called Jantar Mantar) that were constructed in India between 1724 and 1734 for Maharaja Jai Singh II. The site consists of stone astronomical instruments (yantras), constructed to allow observation of celestial objects such as planets and to predict their movements, and to measure local time. A report on this astronomical site, titled 'An account of the Bramins Observatory at Benares' was read to the Royal Society by Sir Robert Barker in 1777.

Image and text credit:
© Science Photo Library Limited

​Rare Book Society