The Dharma Dispatch

Maha Vaidyanatha Sivan: The Voice that Swam in all Octaves -- Maha Sivan's voice extended from the anu-mandara pancama to ati-tara shadja. It is difficult to believe that any human voice – let alone a male voice – could have such a stupendous range. https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/maha-vaidyanatha-sivan-the-voice-that-swam-in-all-octaves

When Maha Vaidyanatha Sivan Composed the Mela Ragamalika in Just a Week -- What a phenomenal musical stalwart! What all have we lost 🙏🙏🕉️🎶🎵 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/when-maha-vaidyanatha-sivan-composed-the-mela-ragamalika-in-just-a-week

Childhood and Early Influences of Maha Vaidyanatha Sivan   Maha Vaidyanatha Shivan was born in the village of Vaiyyacheri (Tamil Nadu) on 26 May 1844 into an orthodox Smartha Brahmin family of Kaundinya gotra.   His father was Pancha Nada Iyer, known also as Doriaswamy Iyer; his mother was Arundhati Tayi.  He always maintained an open house and visitors to the village were offered hospitality. Contemporary accounts tell us that his mother fed at least ten poor children every day.  As devout Brahmins, their needs were simple.   Maha Vaidyanatha Sivan's younger brother, Ramaswami was an eka-sanda-grahi – i.e., he could remember anything after one hearing.  Maha Shivan was dvi-sanda-grahi – or one who could remember after having heard something twice. Maha Sivan had unequaled capacity for improvisation and almost instantaneous grasp.  He could master the most complicated compositions in minutes.   -- Read the whole piece! 🎵🎻🛕📝🎻 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/childhood-and-early-influences-of-maha-vaidyanatha-sivan

Maha Vaidyanatha Sivan: Music of the Spirit   The first episode of a series authored by the late Dr. N.S. Rajaram, beautifully profiling the art of Maha Vaidyanatha Sivan, one of the greatest musical geniuses the world has ever known.   Maha Vaidyanatha Iyer – better known as Maha Vaidyanatha Sivan – was unusual in an important respect.  Those who heard him wrote: “There is no record of anyone before him who could compare with him.”  So, his reputation was not based on nostalgia.   He appeared on the musical scene in what is widely regarded as the most golden of the Golden Ages of Karnataka (South Indian) music, sharing the limelight with a galaxy of brilliant musicians never equaled in history. And yet, both fans and colleagues acknowledged his supremacy without reserve.    There are at least forty biographies, the first written by his elder brother Ramaswamy Sivan (1842-1898).   -- Read the whole brilliant piece! 🪔🙏🕉🎵🎻   https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/maha-vaidyanatha-sivan-music-of-the-spirit

On the sacred festival of #Deepavali, please consider making a donation of your choice to The Dharma Dispatch to help us combat the Abrahamic forces of darkness by shining the light of Sanatana Dharma and enable us to offer even more superlative content to the Sanatana community. #HappyDiwali2022 🛕🪔🛕🙏🕉🪔 -- Link to donate: https://pages.razorpay.com/DonatetoDD

The Decree of Madhusudana and the Lessons for our Supreme Court Milords ---   The dispute between the Bhillamāladeva and Devi Bhagavati Temple was resolved by a profound appeal to the divinity of their respective devotees. The solution was called a Vyavasthā: meaning, a legal decision based on a Sthiti or decree.   In Sanatana jurisprudence, a Stithi is an order imbued with a permanent character, i.e., once it is ratified by both parties, it becomes irrevocable. But what made this Vyavasthā unique and special is the fact that it emanated directly from Bhillamāladeva himself and he delivered it to the Vārikas who in turn offered it to the Maṭhikā.   In other words, this was a legal decision that emanated from the deity, Madhusudana, and not from any administrative or judicial authority.    This is a great model of how such cases can be resolved even today.   And today, we have Supreme Court judges who lose no chance to indulge in novel-length, toxic pontifications about a sublime and profound spiritual heritage of their own land, the ignorance of which does not deter their confidence bestowed by a black British robe. But to offer an honourable whisper of wisdom to Their Honours: not every temple dispute is a “court case.”    The inscriptional evidence presented in essays like this is just a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of an inexhaustible wealth of lived jurisprudence of Sanatana Dharma which is not only just but also ennobling. It is justice which brings joy and not merely satisfaction.  -- Read the whole piece and share it widely. 🛕✍️📝🕉🛕   https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/the-decree-of-madhusudana-and-the-lessons-for-our-supreme-court-milords

No Marxist "historian" has EVER carried out any study on the subject of Hindu temple destructions. Yet for about a century, they have arrogantly claimed that Hindu kings also destroyed temples! -- Read this brutal takedown!🛕✍️📝 https://thedharmadispatch.substack.com/p/did-hindu-kings-destroy-hindu-temples-67d

Conflict Resolution and Legal Decisions in Temple Management: An Evocative Portrait from the Rashtrakuta Era Two inscriptions from the 10th Century Rashtrakuta Era reveal an extraordinary world comprising temple management, business, religious harmony, and the state of the Hindu society. -- Today, Sanjan is a small coastal town tucked away in the Valsad district, Gujarat. It derives its significance from the fabled Parsi folklore as the place where  persecuted Zoroastrians from Khorasan first landed in India and were given shelter by the Hindu ruler there.   But did you know that Sanjan once boasted of a great Madhusudana Temple built by a community of Hindu merchants originally hailing from Bhillamāla, which is today known as Bhinmal in Jalore district, Rajasthan?   The temple was also known as Bhillamāladeva temple in honour of their hometown.   We observe the same phenomenon at work to this day. Almost every major urban centre in India — Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, etc — boasts of several temples built by the migrant Hindu and Jain businessmen from Marwar and other places. Most if not all of them are named after their respective Kula-devatas. To state it explicitly, this phenomenon too, is among the infinite clues that help us understand the fundamental and edifying unity of the Sanatana-Samaja.  -- Do read the whole piece! 🛕🕉🙏📝🛕   https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/conflict-resolution-and-legal-decisions-in-temple-management-an-evocative-portrait-from-the-rashtrakuta-era

Just received news that my "Invaders and Infidels: Book 1" is still holding a top slot in the "I$lam" category. Oh! and there's a good discount on offer on both paperback and hardcover. If you haven't bought it already, this is a good opportunity. 🛕🙏✍️ https://www.amazon.in/Invaders-Infidels-Book-500-Year-Invasions/dp/9390077206

How Thrissur is Connected with Arasikere via Kunjanambi Setti -- The concluding episode of this series shows how Kunjanambi Setti from Padiyur, near Thrissur, became a profound connection with Arasikere, Karnataka.   Kunjanambi Setti’s timely and virtuous intervention averted a potential battle between Hoysalas and Sevunas and prevented needless Hindu bloodshed.   Kunjanambi Setti's grandson, Kunja became a Jangama (wandering Shaiva ascetic), and gave up his body to the lotus feet of Somanatha. To celebrate it, a grand Shiva temple was built at Muttana-hosavūru. Today it is known as Hiriyuru 12 kms from Arasikere.   The temple is known as the Kunjeshwara Temple.   This is how Bharatavarsha was woven. Via cultural indivisibility. Kerala was connected to Karnataka via noble souls like Kunjanambi Setti. Padiyur was meshed with Arasikere via the Kunjesvara Temple built in the Hoysala style architecture by the descendants of a Malayala businessman.    This is the real idea of India, which no seminar or conference will tell you because it can't be taught. 🛕🕉🛕🛕🕉🙏 Ōṁ śrī kun̄jēśvarāya Namaḥ -- https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/how-thrissur-is-connected-with-arasikere-via-kunjanambi-setti

Please join me today #Live at 8 PM IST on The Mahakal Corridor's significance. -- Link to join: youtu.be/MemKMcQDnV8

The Mahakala Corridor: A Corridor to the Sanatana Cultural Reclamation --   One of the most exalted embodiments of life-nourishing and soul-uplifting elements is undoubtedly the form of Shiva as Mahakala. Even as a philosophy and symbol, Mahakala is one of the original gifts of the genius of the Hindu civilisation to the world.    As Mahakala, Shiva signifies the incessant flow of time. He embodies the ultimate action of Laya (or dissolution). Adi Sankara evocatively brings out this aspect of Shiva in a tangential fashion when he says that Time is the world-eater (Jagadbhakṣakaḥ). As Mahakala, Shiva also symbolises Sanatana or Eternity in the great cycle of Time. Thus, when Time repeats itself, what really is meant by “destruction?” We also notice the unity of this profound conception in Shiva’s widely familiar abode: the Smaśāna (cemetery).    It couldn’t have been more appropriate that Mahakala is located in Ujjayinī — literally meaning city of victory, one of the Seven Sacred Sanatana Cities. It is additionally significant that the word Ujjayinī is a feminine noun (stri-linga). In our tradition, Śrī (prosperity) resides where Strī (woman) is victorious.  It is not coincidental that Ujjayini is both a Jyotirlinga, and a Dēvi-pīṭha, where Mahakala’s wife also resides as Mahakali. It is in this backdrop of our cultural history that the recent re-evolutions at Varanasi and the Mahakala Corridor at Ujjayini acquire such enormous significance.  The Mahakala Corridor is actually a corridor to the Sanatana cultural reclamation, renaissance, renewal and rejuvenation. In that order. More power to such reclamations, which should occur more often on a more widespread scale.   Laya is followed by Srushti.   -- Do read the whole piece! 🛕🕉🙏✍️🛕 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/the-mahakala-corridor-a-corridor-to-the-sanatana-cultural-reclamation

The Ennobling Story of Kunjanambi Setti: The Sanatana Guild Leader who Stopped Hindu Infighting   The story of Kunjanambi Setti is the real-life illustration of how Artha unravels profoundly when it is guided by and fused inseparably with Dharma. It is the story of how an individual from the Malayāḷa-dēśa became an instrument of peace between the Karṇāṭa-dēśa and the Marāṭha-dēśa.    This is how an inscription describes the profound character of Kunjanambi Setti: Kunjanambi Setti is a mirror to Goddess Lakshmi of the Kēraḷa-dēśa. Kunjanambi Setti is the ornament of the Vaishya-kula.  Kunjanambi Setti is the treasure-chest of virtue.  Kunjanambi Setti is the boon of Devi Bhadrakali herself. Kunjanambi Setti was an expert in understanding goods and vehicles.  Kunjanambi Setti is akin to a Maharaja among the Vaḍḍa-vyavahāri-s or moneylenders. (The Kannada word Baḍḍi is derived from Vaḍḍa). -- Read the extraordinary story and narrate it to your children. ✍️🙏🛕🕉 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/the-ennobling-story-of-kunjanambi-setti-the-sanatana-guild-leader-who-stopped-hindu-infighting

Dear friends: I will be on CNN NEWS 18 *today at 8 PM* on the Mahakal Temple inauguration by PM Modi. Please tune in if you are free. 🙏🕉️

What the Dark Corners of the East India Company's Loot of India Reveals about the Innate British Character   --- In 1759, King George III received the gift of a caracal named Shah Ghost, which was originally a gift given to Robert Clive by the Nawab of Bengal. Not just the animal, but its keeper had also been shipped to England from Bengal for it would obey only him.    Indeed, Indian animals were responsible for making entire careers cutting across a cross-section of British society.    In 1786, India’s first governor-general, Warren Hastings gifted six exotic Indian birds to King George III and a hyena to the Prince of Wales.   Lower middle class British youth who would have otherwise lived and worked and retired and died in the same job were now beelining to enlist in the service of the East India Company. Why live and die as a clerk in the docks if you could sail to India and then return to buy a manor in say, Southampton?   But to the innate British character, England's colonial empire of loot presented no ethical dilemma. It was concerned more with the image and reputation. -- This makes for disturbing reading. But do read it in full! 🥲✍️📝🙏 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/what-the-dark-corners-of-the-east-india-companys-loot-of-india-reveals-about-the-innate-british-character

The Dravidian Model: Slaughtering History, Promoting Sloth And Murdering Work Ethic --- In the 1950s and 60s, the following were the "academic" qualifications to be selected for writing chapters of the official history of Tamil Nadu, to be published in TEN volumes:   1 The candidate must never have any sort of contact with the impure Aryans. 2 The qualification of an author need not be judged by a University degree but by his commitment to Tamil and the Dravidian ideology. 3 The candidate must “not eat the Government’s salt and backstab it.” 4 More than a command over the subject, the author “must be an expert at using the Tamil language powerfully and creatively.” As a result, an entire book on "Tamil" botany was written with things like "unique Tamil plants, creepers, flowers, etc." The Dravidianist writer of this book gave this reasoning for it: "just as how the Tamils are unique in the whole world, there is a unique Tamil flora." This is how Tamil Nadu became the snake pit of unchecked Dravidianism and a wasteland where all valuable knowledge and fine culture has been destroyed. --- Do read the full piece! ✍️📝😲🙏 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/slaughtering-history-promoting-sloth-and-murdering-work-ethic-the-dravidian-model

The Golden Pagdi is Much Better for a Sepoy than a Congress Topi -- Dark stories of the Congress you might not have heard. 🙏🙂📑 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/the-golden-pagdi-is-much-better-for-a-sepoy-than-a-congress-topi