Alchabitius was an
astrologer from Arabia who lived in the tenth century and was recognized in
Europe by his Latin name.
His astrology dissertation was well-received, and it was
translated into Latin and issued in 1473.
Other versions have subsequently emerged, the finest of
which being Venice's Alchabitius con commento (1503), which was translated by
John of Seville.
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During the 1980s, ufologists began to devote more time to
investigating accounts of people who claimed to have not only seen various types
of spacecraft, but also to have been dragged aboard and forced to undergo
various medical-like procedures, the most common of which were various types of
body probes.
People having direct touch with entities in charge of
spaceships were reported to the UFO community.
These were usually accounts of amicable encounters with
extraterrestrials who delivered a warning about society's present direction,
which should be opposed by a renewed understanding of the Earth's place in the
wider realm of spiritual truths.
Contactees were described by ufologists as persons who
claimed to have had these types of encounters with extraterrestrials.
In the 1960s, the first reports that matched what would
become the general pattern of abduction accounts surfaced.
Betty Hill, a New Hampshire housewife, reported a UFO
experience to NICAP in 1961.
(the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena).
Uncertain aspects of the narrative came to light during
follow-up interviews with NICAP investigators.
One of them had a two-hour gap.
Betty and her husband were coming home when they saw the
sighting.
They came two hours after they were supposed to.
The pair eventually sought psychotherapy and detailed their
encounter with a group of entities described as around five feet tall, with a
huge hairless head, greyish skin, wide slanted eyes, a slit mouth, small nose
and ears, and long fingers, while under hypnosis.
They were examined and brought onboard a spaceship.
Betty's stomach was pierced with a needle.
They were advised to forget about the event before they
departed, and as the space ship left the earth, their memories of what had just
happened disappeared.
If writer John Fuller hadn't found the Hills and written a
book chronicling the events disclosed in the series of hypnotic sessions, the
Hill's story may have been buried within the massive databases of UFO accounts.
Fuller's book Interrupted Journey, released in 1966, as well
as a simplified version of the narrative published in Look magazine, put
abductions on the radar of the UFO community.
Other reports of forced contact with extraterrestrials have
been reported to various UFO groups, to be sure.
One of them, the narrative of Antonio Villas Boas, a young
Brazilian guy who claimed to have been kidnapped in 1957, was published in 1965
in Flying Saucer Review, a respected British UFO magazine.
Following the publishing of the Hill case, it was given a
full examination.
He was purportedly brought onboard the saucer and made to
have intercourse with a human-like lady, following which samples of his sperm
were collected and kept.
Despite the fact that two well-documented incidents were
already under investigation, new reports were sluggish to emerge.
It wasn't until the 1970s that a series of abduction
incidents rekindled interest in the phenomenon.
Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, two shipyard employees,
were kidnapped while fishing in Pasacagoula, Mississippi, in 1973.
Several others occurred in the same year.
Then, in 1975, six guys in Arizona claimed that one of their
coworkers had vanished as he approached a hovering UFO.
Five days later, Travis Walton emerged and proceeded to tell
his narrative of a forced meeting with the entity onboard the vessel.
Other lesser-known abduction incidents were reported again
that year, but more importantly, a made-for-TV movie on the Hill case aired on
NBC on October 20.
Through the conclusion of the decade, a rising number of
cases were documented each year.
The interactions themselves were usually years, if not
decades, previous to any investigator hearing of the abduction incidents, since
the abduction accounts generally contained an element of memory loss.
Betty Andreasson's situation was typical.
Despite the fact that her alleged kidnapping happened in
1967, Raymond Fowler's inquiry did not begin until 1976, and his book detailing
the event did not emerge until 1979.
However, his The Andreas Son Affair (1979) and Ann Druffel
and D. Scott Rogo's The Tujunga Canyon Contacts (1980) primed the UFO community
for a new look at the abduction accounts during the following decade.
In the 1980s, kidnapping tales would take center stage.
Budd Hopkins, a relative newbie to the subject, was in the
forefront of the demand that ufologists pay attention to abduction cases.
His 1981 book, Missing Time, documented a number of
abduction cases he had unearthed.
He also noticed parallels in the cases, such as the gray
humanoids that carried out the abductions, the physical examination that
included blood or skin samples, and special attention to the reproductive
organs.
Hopkins' investigation brought to light the fact that there
were a huge number of instances with a lot of quantifiable commonalities.
In 1987, when prominent horror fiction writer Whitley
Streiber was sued for his book Communion, in which he described the account of
his own abduction, interest in the work reached a new peak.
The book became a best-seller, bringing the UFO community a
level of attention it hadn't seen since the Condon Report (1969).
Folklorist Thomas E. Bullard stated the presence of more
than 300 incidents in a collection of cases published by the Fund for UFO
Research the same year.
The increased attention devoted to abductions in 1987
resulted in a significant increase in the number of reports.
These hundreds of cases, which have arisen from people who
are dependent on others or who are aware of abduction stories in general, tell
a very similar story, despite the fact that the details vary greatly.
Strange beings interrupt the abductee's life, and their will
to resist is weakened.
They are transported onboard a space ship, sometimes with
the assistance of levitation, and subjected to an intrusive physical
examination.
In most cases, the victim is made to forget the occurrence,
and it is only years later, when troubled emotions develop in nightmarish
dreams, that the victim seeks psychotherapy or hypnosis, during which the
recollection of the abduction resurface.
The element of memory loss, combined with the intrusive
invasion of the body during the examination, has led to comparisons of
abduction stories with a very similar story of Satanic ritual abuse, in which
stories emerge of people being forced to participate in a Satanic ritual where
they were raped while undergoing psychotherapy and/or hypnosis.
They eventually forgot about the incident (s).
The abduction and satanism stories have combined to form a
new term for the lost memory condition.
As fundamental research on abductions progressed, experts
were split on how to interpret the findings.
Many ufologists, like historian David Jacobs, agreed with
Hopkins that the instances were fundamentally true and that they were the
greatest proof of an alien presence on Earth.
More crazy elements woven more insane stories of government
conspiracies and extraterrestrial alliances.
Most abductees, on the other hand, have merely wanted to
know what had happened to them, and have been relieved to hear that others had
had similar experiences.
They've been looking for a bigger significance in this
occurrence for a long time.
The majority of studies have determined that the abductee
has no psychopathology and has no motivation to give such a terrible account.
The huge number of reported interactions is a source of
criticism to the story's literal acceptance as evidence of alien contacts.
Given the current level of interstellar travel, the amount
of spacecraft that could or would come to Earth to account for all of the
connections is quite unlikely.
The many exams of reproductive organs also raises concerns
about the aim of bodily probing.
What is there to gain? Furthermore, although the tales are
supported by their consistency, they lack independent supporting evidence.
Evidence may have been lost in many situations involving
reports of long-ago occurrences.
However, there has been little cooperation overall.
Some hoped to find proof in things implanted in contactees'
bodies, however such foreign objects detected in abductees' bodies have shown
out to be completely commonplace in nature.
The claims' closeness to abduction and Satanic abuse
accounts was highlighted once again by the absence of supporting proof.
Others, both sympathetic and antagonistic to the abductees,
have come up with their own explanations.
The abduction claims have been criticized by certain UFO
debunkers, headed by tradition critic Philip Klass, as either frauds or
delusions.
A purely psychological view has been endorsed by several
psychologists.
The most appealing argument stems from the concept of the
forgotten ten memory condition, which also accounts for the extremely similar
Satanic abuse claims.
This hypothesis proposes that the abductee has been through
a true trauma, generally sexual molestation as a kid, but that during efforts
to retrieve the memories, a tale is created that validates the trauma while simultaneously
disguising it in a Satanic cult or a spacecraft.
The abduction tales started to blend with the contactee
stories in the 1990s, adding another crucial aspect to the abduction accounts.
In the sequel to Communion, Transformation: The Breakthrough,
Whitley Strieber focused attention to this feature of abduction accounts
(1988).
Strieber recounted a series of encounters with the
"Visitors" that started when he was a boy, and his developing feeling
that their interference into human existence was fundamentally good.
Leo J. Sprinkle, who had been organizing yearly contactee
gatherings at the University of Wyoming each summer, finally joined him in this
assessment.
As other abductees attended the meetings, he saw the lines
between their accounts dissolving over time.
In a similar vein, psychiatrist John Mack discovered that
when the accounts of the abductees he counseled were placed in a wider
framework of personal growth and changes in consciousness, they could be
explained.
They came to believe that the experience was best viewed as
a difficult but necessary lesson that led to spiritual growth and change.
In the New Age community, both Strieber and Mack found a
large following.
Though ufologists lost part of their attention on the
reports in the 1990s, probably owing to a lack of fresh material, there is no
such thing as a consensus when it comes to abductions.
The investigation looked to have come to a halt.
They haven't yielded hard physical evidence of
extraterrestrials, such as a spaceship, alien materials, or an alien, like
other areas of UFO research.
Bullard, Thomas E. ‘‘Abduction Phenomenon.’’ In Jerome Clark, ed. UFO Encyclopedia. Detroit: Apogee Books, 1999.
Druffel, Ann, and D. Scott Rogo. The Tujunga Canyon Contacts. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980.
Fowler, Raymond. The Andreasson Affair. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1979.
Hopkins, Budd. Missing Time: A Documented Study of UFO Abductions. New York: Richard Marek Publishers, 1981.
Jacobs, David J. The Terror That Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.
Klass, Philip J. UFO Abductions: A Dangerous Game. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1988.
Mack, John E. Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994.
Pritchard, Andrea, et al., eds. Alien Discussions: Proceedings of the Abduction Study Conference. Cambridge, Mass.: North Cambridge Press, 1994.
Strieber, Whitley. Communion: A True Story. New York: Beach Tree/William Morrow, 1987.
Transformation: The Breakthrough. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1988.
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At the beginning of
the fifth century, an Arabian astrologer was born in Cordova.
His book of horoscopes, De Judici is seu fatis stellarum,
was translated into Latin and published in Venice in 1485.
The amazing precision of Aben-forecasts Ragel's was
well-known.
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Abigor is the Grand
Duke of Hades, according to Johan Weyer.
Weyer, Johannes. Witches, Devils, and Doctors in the Renaissance: Johann Weyer, De Praestigiis. Edited by George Mora.
Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991.
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The Silver Star, the
Rosy Cross, and the Golden Dawn are three secret societies created by Aleister
Crowley (1875–1947).
The Great White Brotherhood is another name for this
organization, however Theosophists prefer to use that phrase.
The letters AA stand for Argenteum Astrum, and the triangle
of dots represents a secret club linked to ancient secrets.
Crowley felt he had attained the exalted degree of the
Silver Star and was therefore a Secret Chief of the Golden Dawn during his time
in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (GD).
Crowley founded his own organization, the Silver Star, or
AA, in 1906, based on the Golden Dawn's rituals and doctrines.
In March 1909, he started publishing the Equinox as the
A.A.'s official organ, with the Outer Order of the Society's rites included in
the second issue.
Members of the Golden Dawn were worried, and S. L. MacGregor
Mathers, one of the Golden Dawn leaders, filed legal action to stop Crowley
from publishing the rites.
Although a temporary restraining order was issued, Mathers
lacked the financial means to fight an appeal, and Crowley proceeded to publish
his own version of GD secret rites.
Crowley received extra attention as a result of the court
process, as well as a public performance of "the Rites of Eleusis" in
Caxton Hall, University of London, in 1910.
This ritual included seven invocations of the gods, as well
as dance by Crowley's follower Victor Neuburg, violin playing by Leila Waddel
(dubbed the "Scarlet Woman" by Crowley), and the reading of Crowley's
poetry.
The performances were remarkable, albeit perplexing to the
general audience, who paid five guineas per head to see them.
Surprisingly, there were harsh critiques of such a bold
presentation in the prudish culture of the period.
The publication the Looking Glass published a critical
review of the Rites, ridiculing the lyrics as "gibberish." The
Looking Glass featured spectacular charges against Crowley and his allies Allan
Bennett and George Cecil Jones in a subsequent edition.
Jones responded by suing the magazine in 1911, and the court
case garnered a lot of attention for Crowley.
Although Crowley may have enjoyed the spotlight, he lost
some friends as a result of it, including his pupil J. F. C. Fuller, who wrote
Crowley's eulogy, The Star in the West (1907).
Meanwhile, Crowley had joined the Ordo Templi Orientis
(OTO), a secret organization that placed a significant emphasis on the potency
of sex magic.
The A.A. discontinued operating as a group in London when
Crowley left for the United States at the end of 1914.
King, Francis. Ritual Magic in England: 1887 to the Present Day. London: Neville Spearman, 1970.
Suster, Gerald. The Legacy of the Beast. York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1989.
Symonds, John. The Great Beast: The Life and Magick of Aleister Crowley. London: Macdonald, 1971. Rev. ed. London: Mayflower, 1973.
The King of the Shadow Realm. London: Duckworth, 1989
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A magical wand based on the biblical story of Moses and
Aaron's rods, which were employed in the marvels of parting the Red Sea and
causing water to spring from a rock in the desert.
Aaron's rod morphed into a snake when he threw it in front
of Pharaoh and his magicians (Exodus 7), hence the esoteric usage of Aaron's
Rod with a serpent image.
According to Jewish folklore, Aaron's rod was created on the
sixth day of Creation and was kept by Adam when he left the Garden of Eden,
eventually passing through a series of patriarchs.
According to an apocryphal Christian tale, the rod was cut
from the Tree of Knowledge, ultimately falling into Judas' hands, and finally
becoming the cross beam on which Christ was crucified.
The hazel wand used by water diviners in dowsing is
reminiscent of Aaron's rod in the wilderness, which found water.
A wand of some kind has long been a symbol of power.
The wand is also used by contemporary conjuring magicians as
a magical staff.
Cyrus D. F. Abayakoon (1912–1986) was a Ceylon-born astrologer (now Sri Lanka).
Buddhist monks taught him astrology, which was an established science at the time.
He also honed his skills in palmistry and illness cure via Mantra yoga (science of sound vibration through sacred utterance).
He accurately predicted a number of major historical events, including Gandhi's killing, Khrushchev's collapse, Kennedy's assassination, and the Watergate crisis.
Abayakoon, Cyrus D. F. Astro-Palmistry: Signs and Seals of the Hand. New York: ASI, 1975.
Rahu Pimma [and] Yama Kalaya. Delhi, India, ca. 1957.
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Ab is the mythical month of
the Semites.
On the twentieth of the month, crossing a river was said to
make you ill.
According to ancient writings, a man would be troubled with
boils if he eats pig meat on the thirty-first day of Ab.
The heart was also known as Ab in ancient Egypt.
The preservation of the heart, which was the seat of the conscience,
was a crucial aspect of the mummification process.
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"The
Destroyer," derived from a Hebrew term that means
"construction." Chief of the seventh hierarchy's demons.
The ruler of the grasshoppers is referred to as Abaddon by St. John in the Apocalypse.
He is also known as the destroying angel or lord of the underworld, and is also known as Apollyon (Rev.9:11). (Also see Black Magic.)
Barrett, Francis. The Magus. London, 1801. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1967.
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A famous magician and
Scythian high priest of Apollo.
He flatteringly sung Apollo's praises, and the god granted
him a golden arrow with which he could fly through the air like a bird.
As a result, he was dubbed the Aerobate by the Greeks.
Abaris could predict the future, calm storms, cure sickness,
and go days without eating or drinking.
He sculpted a figure of Minerva from Pelops' bones, which he
sold to the Trojans as a heavenly talisman.
This was the fabled Palladium, which guarded and made
impenetrable the town in which it resided.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi revealed the 400-meter-long Kashi Vishwanath Corridor in Varanasi on Monday, the 13th of December 2021, which connects an ancient Shiva shrine to the Ganges' banks.
"It was the Prime Minister's vision for a long time, to facilitate the pilgrims and devotees of Baba Vishwanath, who had to encounter congested streets and surroundings with poor upkeep, when they practiced the age-old custom of taking a dip in the holy river, collecting Gangajal, and offering it at the temple," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement on Sunday.
Mr. Modi laid the foundation stone for the project on March 8, 2019, and it is nearing completion ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election in early 2022.
According to the project's architect, Bimal Patel, although the first part of the project will open on Monday, the Ganges Gateway, the stairs leading down, and the ghat will take another two months to finish.
On Sunday evening, the sacred site, which is in Mr. Modi's Lok Sabha seat, was bustling with activity, not just with preparations for Monday's celebration but also with ongoing building projects.
Buildings along the winding lanes leading up to the shrine were freshly painted.
According to Varanasi Divisional Commissioner Deepak Agrawal, the temple grounds had been decked to welcome the 3,000 visitors who had been invited to the inauguration.
The celebration was attended by roughly 500 religious leaders and families whose homes — around 300 in all — were razed to make place for the corridor, he added.
The Prime Minister "took a great and active interest at all levels of the initiative," according to the PMO.
It was announced that twenty-three buildings will be opened, with ramps and escalators built to make the grounds more accessible.
The first phase construction cost 339 crore, while the entire project cost was about 800 crore.
According to the PMO, the temple's grounds have been increased from 3,000 square feet to 5 lakh square feet.
The corridor, which is claimed to be the Prime Minister's dream project, spans 5,000 hectares and aims to not only decongest but also alter the temple complex.
Varanasi's improved infrastructure is intended to enhance tourism in the holy city as well as the surrounding area, notably the Buddhist pilgrimage site of Sarnath.
The Kashi Vishwanath Dham in Varanasi is lit up ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's inauguration.
The Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, now connects Varanasi's historic Kashi Vishwanath Temple to the Ganga's ghats.
The Rs. 800-crore initiative was inaugurated in March 2019 by the Prime Minister in his parliamentary seat with the goal of restoring the spiritual center's "lost splendor." Officials said Modi has long wanted to improve circumstances for visitors and worshippers who had to suffer the temple's notoriously packed streets and surrounds.
The Kashi Vishwanath temple lacked direct access to the Ganga, therefore a 20-foot-wide corridor between Lalita Ghat on the holy river and Mandir Chowk on the temple grounds was planned.
"Shiva bhakts may take a morning bath in the river and worship the Lord in the temple, which will now be visible from the ghat," a Ministry of Culture official said.
A Tourist Facilitation Centre, Mumukshu Bhavan, Bhogshala, City Museum, Viewing Gallery, and Food Court will be among the 23 structures to be opened.
Some of these phase 1 projects may not be ready to open to the public for a few more weeks.
The Prime Minister's event will take place ahead of the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections and the release of the voting schedule.
The Rudraksh Convention Centre, which is shaped like a Shiva lingam and features divisible conference rooms, an art gallery, and multifunctional pre-function spaces, can accommodate 1,200 people.
Tourists will be able to take Ganga cruises, road infrastructure will be improved, and the Banaras train station in the city's Manduadih neighborhood will be remodeled with the addition of an air-conditioned waiting lounge.
LED displays will be placed across the city to provide travelers with information about Kashi's history, architecture, and art.
On screens around the city, the iconic Ganga Aarti and the aarti at the Kashi Vishwanath temple will be shown.
The Deen Dayal Hastkala Sankul, which opened in 2017 as a trade facilitation center for Varanasi's weavers, craftspeople, and artisans, serves as both a public space and a marketing platform for local artisans.
Officials claim the PM insisted on preserving existing historic buildings while eliminating homes that were obstructing the designated path.
More than 40 'lost' temples were uncovered during the destruction of the structures, including the Gangeshwar Mahadev temple, the Manokameshwar Mahadev temple, the Jauvinayak temple, and the Shri Kumbha Mahadev temple.
Each of these temples has a long and illustrious history.
At the National Museum in New Delhi, a gallery has been dedicated to displaying some of the unearthed bones, as well as running a narrative on their history on screens.
Smart signage has been installed in Varanasi to give information on the cultural value of historic monuments and the city's 84 ghats, which are noted for their antiquity and architectural significance.
The effort to renovate and rebuild the Kashi Vishwanath complex is in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious plans for temples around the nation.
He lay the foundation stone for the Ram temple in Ayodhya and advocated for renovation and rebuilding initiatives at the Somnath complex and the Kedarnath Dham, both of which were devastated by floods in 2013.
He's called these initiatives "nation-building endeavors," the successful culmination of an old land's attempts to rediscover and commemorate its past greatness.
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The signs of the
zodiac in Indian astrology (jyotisha) are almost similar to those in Western
astrology, and it is widely assumed that the Greek zodiac was carried to India
through Greek kingdoms in modern Afghanistan in the first to third centuries.
The Indian zodiac uses Dhanus ("bow") instead of
Sagittarius, Makara (a sea monster that is commonly mistaken for a crocodile)
instead of Capricorn, and Kumbha ("[water] pot") instead of Aquarius.
Each of the twelve signs, like Western astrology, has its
own set of qualities that those born under them are infused with.
Although both begin with the sign of Aries, the two systems
vary significantly in how they calculate the yearly beginning point.
The Western astrological zodiac starts on the spring
equinox, with the sign of Aries being the first sign.
According to Indian legend, the zodiac begins when the sun
touches the midway of a group of stars known as Ashvini.
It is therefore based on the sun's position in relation to
the fixed stars, while the Western zodiac is based on the sun's position in
relation to the earth—that is, when it meets the equator—and hence is
independent of the fixed stars.
These disparities have resulted in a discrepancy between the
two systems, which is now more than three weeks apart—Aries begins on March 21
in the Western zodiac, but not until around April 14 in the Indian zodiac.
This inconsistency may also be found in the accounts of
Makara Sankranti and Karka Sankranti, which are considered the winter and
summer solstices yet fall in the second weeks of January and July,
respectively.
Given the three-week time gap, it's not surprising that the
astrological calculations between these two systems diverge significantly.
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Yogmaya is a powerful Goddess form known for her capacity to
bewitch and perplex people—in other words, her ability to wield maya, the power
of illusion.
Yogmaya is mentioned as the divinity who assumes the shape
of a newborn girl and is subsequently slain by Krishna's cruel uncle, Kamsa,
according to certain modern texts.
All the inmates of Kamsa's palace fall slumber under her
enchantment the previous night, according to these texts, and Krishna's father,
Vasudeva, is able to take the child away.
Yogmaya is said to have facilitated Krishna's clandestine
rendezvous with the ladies of Braj later in his career—when Krishna plays his
flute, the women come to him, but all the others fall under Yogmaya's influence
and are oblivious of their absence.
Yogmaya is a strong goddess because of her capacity to
manipulate maya; she is honored on the fourth day of Navaratri, the festival of
the "nine nights" that are holy to the Goddess in her many
incarnations.
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Although it has become a pejorative term for female genitalia in contemporary Hindi, its most literal meaning is "womb,".
The Yoni is both literally the location of
conception and metaphorically any place of origin, source, or generative
force.
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("strength in combat") Yudhishthira is the oldest
of the Pandava brothers, the epic's heroes, in the Mahabharata, the later of
the two major Hindu epics.
When Yudhishthira's mother, Kunti, performs a strong mantra
to have a son by Dharma, the deity of righteousness, Yudhishthira is
miraculously born.
Yudhishthira is his father's son in every aspect; the epic
describes him as the earthly incarnation of Dharma.
He is well-known for his steadfast allegiance to the truth,
politeness for everybody, and commitment to virtue.
His only personal flaw is a gambling addiction, which is
only matched by his complete lack of gaming skill, and this flaw has serious
consequences.
Yudhishthira is chosen as successor to the kingdom by his
uncle, Dhrtarashtra, because of his merits.
Duryodhana, Dhrtarashtra's son, is enraged by this decision.
He seeks to murder the Pandavas by constructing a highly
flammable mansion.
The Pandavas manage to escape unscathed despite the home
being set on fire.
Duryodhana decides to win Yudhishthira's right to the throne
in a game of dice later.
Yudhishthira's gambling addiction gets the better of him here,
when he is pitted against Duryodhana's maternal uncle, Shakuni, who is a
competent player.
As Yudhishthira continues to lose, he bets more and larger
amounts in an attempt to recoup his losses.
Yudhishthira bets himself and his brothers after losing
their kingdom and all their possessions.
He wagers and loses the Pandava brothers' common wife,
Draupadi, after losing this bet.
Draupadi is humiliated as a result of her miscarriage, and
Duryodhana and his brother, Duhshasana, parade her around the assembly hall,
her clothing smeared with her monthly blood.
This event accentuates the two groups' already strong enmi
relations.
Duryodhana's father, King Dhrtarashtra, is shocked by the
treatment and restores the Pandavas' freedom.
However, due to the loss in the dice game, the Pandavas
agree to go into exile for twelve years and live incognito for the thirteenth,
with the caveat that if they are discovered in the thirteenth year, the cycle
will begin all over again.
Peacefully, Yudhishthira and his siblings complete their
twelve-year exile.
They spend the thirteenth year at King Virata's court, where
they stay undetected despite Duryodhana's spies' frantic searches.
Yudhishthira and his brothers return to claim their share of
the kingdom after the thirteen years have gone.
Yudhishthira hopes for a peaceful resolution and sends
Duryodhana a note suggesting that they would be content with only five
villages, one for each brother.
Yudhishthira recognizes that they would not gain their
rights without a fight as Duryodhana says that they will not get as much land
as could fit beneath the tip of a needle.
He unwillingly enlists his siblings in the war effort.
He battles courageously in the big war, and after their
triumph, he is anointed king.
Yudhishthira, after reigning for many years, sets off
towards the Himalayas with his brothers and their bride, Draupadi, accompanied
by a little dog.
Draupadi and his brothers die one by one as they ascend the
mountains, but the dog stays with Yudhishthira.
Yudhishthira finds the deity Indra, the ruler of heaven,
waiting for him in a gilded chariot at the summit of the Himalayas.
Yudhishthira is told by Indra that he would transport him to
paradise, but that he will have to leave his dog behind.
Yudhishthira is adamant about not abandoning his loyal
buddy, even if it means he will miss out on paradise.
The dog then exposes himself to be the disguised deity
Dharma.
The moral of the narrative is that Yudhishthira never allows
himself to wander too far from righteousness throughout his life; even at the
end, he refuses to abandon it.
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A moniker for a unit
of cosmic time that might have two meanings.
Traditional thinking is that time has no origin or conclusion,
but rather rotates between cycles of creation and activity, followed by halt
and silence.
The active period of each of these cycles is known as the
Day of Brahma, while the calm phase is known as the Night of Brahma.
The Day of Brahma is split into a thousand mahayugas
("great cosmic eras"), each lasting 4.32 million years in cosmic
time, and this is one probable definition of the term yuga.
The term is most often used to refer to the Krta Yuga, Treta
Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga, which are the four yugas that make up a
mahayuga.
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Be sure to check out my writings on religion here.