Junagarh Fort

Junagarh Fort – One of the very well preserved Forts of India. Even after 423 years after it was built it looks very elegant and wonderful. Inside the fort there are many Palaces built by different rulers over the centuries. The walls have carved stones, marbles, paintings and inlaid semiprecious stones. 

 

This fort is different from other forts of Rajastan in two aspects. First it is not on hill top - like most of the forts in Rajastan and the other is that till date this fort is not conquered by any one! The Junagarh Fort has defied all the attacks except for a brief stint by Kamaran who captured the fort but was unable to retain his victory more than 24 hours! 

This magnificent fort was originally known as Chintamani Fort. It was renamed as “Junagarh Fort” or “Old Fort” in the early 20th century. The Junagarh Fort is a legacy of Raja Rai Singhji, who was the sixth ruler of Bikaner, from 1571 AD to 1612 AD. He was a contemporary of Emperor Akbar and held a very high rank in the court. 

As a trusted military commander of Akbar, Raja Rai Singhji was granted fields of Gujarat and Burhanpur. He was a well travelled person and imbibed the art and architectural forms of the various lands that he went to. The influence of all these is clearly visible in the Junagarh Fort, made of red sandstone.

 

The Anup Mahal is one of the most impressive rooms in the fort complex. The ornately lacquered walls are covered in red and gold with colored glass inlay. White plaster pillars are decorated in delicate patterns and covered with gold leaf. In a land where water is rare, the Badal Mahal or Cloud Palace's walls are painted with a fresco of rain clouds.

 

The palaces, constructed in red sandstone and marble, make a picturesque ensemble of courtyards, balconies, kiosks and windows dotted all over the structure. The premises also house a museum which has a rich collection of artifacts. The fort is surrounded by a high wall and deep moats. There are 37 bastions guarding the fort with only two gates as the entrance pathway to the fort.

Defenitely, Junagarh Fort is a must see destination in Rajasthan!

Delhi City’s tallest beauty!

During eighth century A.D. Turkish, Arabian and Mangolian cultures started invading into the main cultural stream of India. When these foreign cultural people started living in India during medieval period, they employed local Hindu masons for constructing their architectural marvels i.e. mosques, tombs, maqbaras, madarasas, forts & fortresses. It is because of this reason that we see the mixture of various cultural influences in these architectural works of medieval India. Thus a new Indianised style of semi-circular domes, mehrabs (conical minars which were earlier being used for temple niche of the Buddhists or Hindu deities) came into existence.

One good example of such medieval Indo Islamic architecture is Qutub minar at Delhi.

Qutub Minar.
 

(Qutub= Name of the mogul ruler who built it; Minar=Tower)

 

An exquisite example of Indo-Islamic Afghan architecture, the construction of which was started by Qutab-uddin Aibak and was completed later by his successor Iltutmish.

Qutb-Minar in red and buff standstone is the highest tower in India. It has a diameter of 14.32 m at the base and about 2.75 m on the top with a height of 72.5 m. There are 379 steps in this to reach the top. Nowadays tourists are not allowed to climb to the top thanks to modern day security!

The walls of Qutub minar are decorated by the verses of Qur’an. Besides Qur’an numerous inscriptions in Arabic and Nagari characters in different places of the minar reveal the history of Qutb. All the storeys are surrounded by a projected balcony encircling the minar and supported by stone brackets, which are decorated with honey-comb design, more conspicuously in the first storey.

This is a tower of victory, a monument that signify the might of Islam, or a tower for keeping a check for defence.

UNESCO has declared this as a World Heritage Site. Qutub minar over the years has been hit by ravages of nature like lightning and earthquake but still stands tall after minor repairs by subsequent rulers. 

 

 

The Iron Pillar in the courtyard bears an inscription in Sanskrit in Brahmi script of fourth century AD, according to which the pillar was set up as a Vishnudhvaja (standard of god Vishnu) on the hill known as Vishnupada in memory of a mighty king named Chandra. A deep socket on the top of the ornate capital indicates that probably an image of Garuda was fixed into it. Some of the motifs viz., the wheel, tassel etc., are reminiscent of Hindu designs.

Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, to the north-east of minar was built by Qutbu'd-Din Aibak in AD 1198. It is the earliest extant mosque built by the Delhi Sultans. It consists of a rectangular courtyard enclosed by cloisters, erected with the carved columns and architectural members of 27 Hindu and Jaina temples which were demolished by Qutbu'd-Din Aibak as recorded in his inscription on the main eastern entrance. (Ref: Archaeological Survey of India.)

Garbh Sanskar

Garbh Sanskar is a Sanskrit word, the meaning of which is - teaching good things to the unborn baby in womb during pregnancy.

Sounds crazy?

Not really. Read on . . . .

Sometime back I was in Helebeedu, which is in Hassan district of Karnataka, India. I visited the biggest attraction over there - Hoysaleshvara temple. Everywhere in this temple one can see wonderful sculptures. There are many sculptures which depicts different scenes from the Hindu Epic Mahabaratha and various mythological stories. One such sculpture is that of Abhimanyu entering the Chakra vyuha.

Chakravyuha-labyrinth (Source: Wikipedia)

There is a nice story behind this sculpture from the epic Mahabharata.

As an unborn child in his mother's womb, Abhimanyu learned the knowledge of entering the deadly and virtually impenetrable Chakravyuha from Arjuna, his father. (Chakravyuha (चक्रव्यूह) refers to a Military formation narrated in the Hindu epic Mahabharata)The epic explains that he overheard his father, Arjuna, talking about this with his wife Subhadra, while he was still in his mother′s womb. Arjuna explains to Subhadra in detail, the technique of attacking and escaping from various vyuhas. After explaining all the vyuhas, he explains about the technique of cracking Chakravyuha. Arjuna explains to her how to enter the Chakryavyuha. When he was about to explain how to exit from the Chakravyuha, he realises that Subhadra is asleep and stops expounding on the Chakravyuha further. As a result, Abhimanyu could not hear the story about how to exit. (Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhimanyu)

So, Abhimanyu knows how to enter the Chakra vyuha but does not know how to exit from it. Then during the Kurukshetra War between Kauravas and the Pandavas he gloriously enters the Chakra vyuha and fights gallantly. But when the time comes to exit from the Chakra vyuha he was unable to do that as he has only heard from his father while he was in his mother’s womb the technique of entry but not the technique of exit! Because of this he finally gets killed in the war.

Now back to Garbh Sanskar! Is it really possible? Although our Hindu epic has talked about this thousands of years back, till recently it was considered as a well imagined and very creative story! But scientists now have discovered that it is indeed possible and they have proved it with various modern experiments.

 

Listen to the science writer and author of book Origins - Annie Murphy Paul’s talk on “What we learn before we're born”.

Sixty years back, a French ENT specialist, Professor Alfred Tomatis, developed a theory about how the child listens and learn in the womb (the child actually hears its mother's voice through bone conduction). Because at the time he could not prove much of his insights, Tomatis was first dismissed by the scientific world, then taken seriously, then dismissed again. Nowadays, people around the world are applying Tomatis theories and techniques to help people with a whole range of auditory spectrum disorders. The most important stage in the Tomatis treatment is listening to the mother's voice through special filters that attempt to reproduce the sound the way the child hears it inside the womb.

Moral of the story?

What our modern day’s scientists discover today with their sophisticated instruments in ultra modern laboratories with cutting edge technology, were already known to Hinduism thousands of years back when none of these facilities ever existed! 

Tomatis picture: http://www.tomatis.lu/institute/?language=en&page=method_founder

Annis’s picture: http://www.ted.com/speakers/annie_murphy_paul.html