KURUKSHETRA : The place where Lord Krsna spoke Bagavad-Gita to Arjuna

             Kurukshetra is the place where Lord Krsna Personally spoken The Bagavad-Gita which is the great philosophical discussion ever happened between him and his great devotee Arjuna. This place still exists in the state of Haryana and the very same spot where it happened still maintains its glory and give many of the devotees great joy to have pilgrimage to it. Here is the nice article on its significance and its history of chronicle events.

Jyotisar at Kurukshetra

7 Goswami temples of Vrindavan

1. Radha Madana Mohana Temple – Sanatana Goswami discovered the deity of Madana Mohana and this was the first temple to be built in Vrindavan. The original deity of Madana-mohana was taken to Karauli for protection during the Muslim attacks led by Emperor Aurangzeb in 1670.

2. Radha Damodara – The original deity was carved by Rupa Gosvami and gifted to disciple, Jiva Gosvami, who built this temple.

3. Radha Syamasundara – This is one of the lesser known but very important temples as the deity was manifested from Srimati Radharani’s heart and given to Syamananda to worship.

4. Radha Ramana – “Radha Ramana” means “one who gives pleasure to Radha”, andRadha Ramana is one of the few original deities still left in Vrindavan. Radha Ramana is said to be self-manifested from one of the Goswami’s saligram silas in 1542.

5. Radha Govinda – This temple was built by Maharaja Man Singh and the original Govindaji was reinstalled in Jaipur during the Muslim attacks.

6. Radha Gokulananda – This temple has a Govardhana shila gifted by Lord Chaitanya to Raghunath Dasa Gosvami and is believed to contain the thumbprint of Lord Chaitanya. The temple also has Radha-Vinoda deities of Lokanatha 
Gosvami, Vijaya Govinda of Baladeva Vidyabhusana and Viswanath Chakravarti’s Radha-Gokulananda deities.

7. Radha Gopinatha – Gopinatha was first installed 5,000 years ago by Vajranaba, Lord Krishna’s grandson, and rediscovered at Vamsi-vata by Paramananda Goswami.

RadhaGopinath in Vrindavan

RadhaGopinath in Jaipur (original)

Collection of Folk stories from Pitt U

                 Folk stories are simple yet a great moral conveying tools for all classes of men. It contains a subtle message to be imbibed for an ethical upbringing of human being. Often animals plays lead roles in these stories and their conversations with human beings and other species brings a completely different experience to the reader. This style is very natural and in the sense you don't find much similarities often in the contemporary literature.

First in this domain known to exist and spread across the world in different languages is - Panchatantra by Vishnu Sharma from India. This is the most celebrated epic ..

Here is the electronic collection of some of the stories by a professor D.L.Ashliman from Univ of Pittsburg.

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html

Krishna Janmastami - 2013

Krishna Janmastami is different experience  for me this year - 2013.. I celebrated this here in Penang, Gelugor temple.. For last few years I was in Singapore and we used to celebrate this in a much bigger scale in a auditorium. This year in Penang we were about 50 people and the celebration went up to 2'o clock in the night. We danced to maximum extent for the sweet kirtans by devotees.

Here are some of the pictures by famous artist B.G Sharma on Krsna lila ..

http://m.dandavats.com/?p=1119

Rama-lila photos by B.G Sharma
http://m.dandavats.com/?p=1954

SRI DWARKA DHAMA YATRA ARTICLE

A very good description and photo tour of different places, in and out of one of most sacred places of KRSNA's pastimes, DWARKA .... All the details that may require for you to visit DWARKA has been very wonderfully delineated by chandan yatra prabhu in the following link.. I wish I should visit DWARKA soon.. Krsna when will you grant me that boon.... Praying ...

http://www.dandavats.com/wp-content/uploads3/Gmail%20-%20SRI%20DWARKA%20DHAMA%20YATRA.htm

http://www.dandavats.info/?p=3016&page=2

rare photos of India.. a Large collection.. 

Gaura Purnima - 2013 in Mayapur

http://www.dandavats.info/?p=2077