News, articles and Essays on Sanatana Dharma, Hinduism and Indian way of life.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, some writers tried to connect Māori origins directly with India, Sanskrit and so-called Aryan ancestry. Te Ara records that Edward Tregear argued in the 1880s that Māori language, mythology and customs contained signs of Aryan-Indian heritage, and Te Ara also notes that older theories placed Māori origins in many places, including India, Greece, Egypt, Palestine and the Americas.
The name itself reflects this adaptation. Yama Zatdaw is the Burmese version of the Ramayana and the Dasaratha Jataka. The term Yamayana refers to the story, while Zatdaw refers to an acted play or a story connected with the Jataka tradition of Theravada Buddhism. This makes the Myanmar Ramayana both an epic drama and a Buddhist cultural retelling.
The Prambanan complex was built during the reign of the Mataram kingdom, especially under rulers such as Rakai Pikatan and Rakai Balitung. Unlike a single temple structure, Prambanan is a large sacred complex consisting of hundreds of shrines. Traditionally, the site is associated with 240 temples, arranged in a carefully planned layout. At its heart are the main temples dedicated to the Hindu trinity: Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma.
The three Indian antiquities being returned include a sacred Nandi idol from Tamil Nadu, a ceremonial trident associated with Goddess Bhadrakali, and a six-headed Karttikeya or Shanmukha idol. These objects are linked to South Indian temple traditions and carry deep religious, artistic and civilisational value.
The special greatness of Sree Thiruvegappura Temple lies in its three-fold divinity. The temple brings together Shaiva and Vaishnava worship in a harmonious spiritual arrangement. Lord Shiva with Parvathy represents the power of tapas, protection, and cosmic dissolution. Lord Vishnu represents preservation, compassion, and dharmic order. Lord Sankaranarayana represents the beautiful union of Shiva and Vishnu tattva, showing that different forms of worship ultimately flow toward the same divine truth.
The centre was inaugurated during the visit of an Indian academic delegation to Kyrgyzstan from July 4 to 7, in collaboration with the Manas National Academy and the Centre for Studies of International Relations (CSIR), New Delhi. The event also marked the release of the first Hindi translation of the Kyrgyz national epic, Manas, making one of Central Asia’s most celebrated literary works accessible to millions of Hindi readers.
The name Thekkumkur is commonly understood as the “southern regent” or southern division, often remembered in relation to Vadakkumkur, the northern counterpart. These two political houses emerged after the older regional order of Vempolinad weakened and split into smaller principalities. Local historical accounts connect the Kottayam region with the older Kulasekhara and Vempolinad background before the rise of Thekkumkur and Vadakkumkur as separate powers.
Rabindranath Tagore’s journey to Indonesia in 1927 was more than a literary visit. It was a cultural pilgrimage into a region where Indian civilisational influences had blended with local genius for centuries. During his stay, Tagore travelled widely, observing Indonesian traditions, temple art, dance, architecture and craft traditions. His interaction with the cultural life of Java and Bali deeply influenced his own imagination and later shaped artistic exchanges between Indonesia and Santiniketan.
These similarities are powerful because they show a shared ancestral layer beneath two distant cultures. A Norwegian child saying mor and an Indian tradition preserving mātṛ are separated by geography and centuries, yet they echo an older linguistic inheritance. The same pattern appears in bror and bhrātṛ, where the sound has changed but the ancestral relationship remains visible.
This connection is best understood as Brihattar Bharat — the larger civilisational sphere shaped by Indian stories, dharmic ideas, maritime exchange, Sanskritic vocabulary, sacred art, and shared cultural memory.
