Taking Bath To Purify

Ganges River

    Water is considered purifier in many religions and Hinduism could be one of the biggest example. The picture as shown is a scene from the Ganges River, the sacred water for Hindus and which is personified as goddess known as Ganga. It is believed that bathing in the river makes the soul get closer to the liberation of rebirth, moksha,which is the salvation of the soul ,and washes away sins. Even sacred statues of deities are bathed in the Ganges after being first created. Now the river hosts for thousands of Hindus every single day who are bathing, drinking, chanting it's name and praying. However scientists found out that the water of Ganges River is not clean and contains many harmful bacteria. Many people are getting sick but they never will stop using it since they believe in, this way they were able to advertise to the world how important the river is for them and how strong their beliefs are.

The Holy Temple

                                                  

                  

        

This is the Meenakshi Amman Temple in  the temple city of Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. The temple receives an annual revenue of sixty million with 15,000 visitors a day and  25,000 on Fridays. The temple is 51.9 meters (170ft) high and at least 600 years old. There are an estimated 33,000 sculptures in it and amazes a person every single time with thousands upon thousands of stone figures at it's exterior, you can check out more images from this site: lhttp://www.kuriositas.com/2013/03/meenakshi-amman-temple-indias-dazzling.html.  Meenakshi is an avatar of Hindu goddess Pravati which is Shiva's wife(Shiva is on of the main god and he's the destroyer). She is on of the few female deities to have major temple devoted to. This temple reminds Hindu people about their gods and they come here to worship.

The Key To Spirituality

An early script from 19th century.

 Upanishads are the holy Hindu scriptures which are used as a guide to free souls from reincarnation.

The purpose of it was to interpret and explain the hidden meanings of Vedas which form the main holy texts of Hinduism. Upanishad means "sit down with" master to learn about the Atman(soul) so it's written as a dialogue between a teacher and a student. In the course of dialogues, the two explore how a person can achieve liberation from desires and suffering, which is described as moksha. Upanishads lead to the evolution of many basic Hindu beliefs like karma,dharma,moksha,Brahman... Many people around the world appreciate the text and the depth meaning of it. German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, impressed by the Upanishads, calls the texts "the production of the highest human wisdom".

The God Of Protection

The picture above is one of the most important Hindu god, Vishnu. He is the one who protects and incarnates, meaning that comes to the world with different appearances. He gets worshiped by a lot of  Hindus and maintain a lot of  temples. In the picture he is holding four objects and they all represent Vishnu's responsibilities. First object is a conch and it's sound symbolize the sound of creation. The second one is chakra or discuss and stands for the mind. Third one is a lotus flower, it shows his glory and liberation. Lastly, the fourth one is a mace which represents mental and physical strength.

New Guests, New Religion

Aryans migrating to India

       Aryans, which are the Indo European people crossed the Indus River Valley and settled into India as how it's shown on the map. Since new people were brought, the country was upon violence and disorder.  Their biggest conflicts were with the people who originally lived in India, aka Dasas. In order to rule them, they made a social class structure called "The Caste System", which later on led to a new religion, Hinduism. The Caste System originally known as Varnas, separated Indian society into 4 groups: 1)Brahmins 2)Kshatriya 3)Vaishya 4)Sudra; along the Dalits who lived outside the caste system and were considered  unclean. Now it's more than 3,000 years old and still on action by Hindus.