Yes, I was visiting a friend's family in Guntur and we watched TV together. I saw NTR as Venkateshvara, and couldn't help being reminded of the fabulous Nataraja, now in Paris, I think. This one: but NTR was even more handsome. . .  dear Malathi, I hate the emphasis on skin-tone that persists throughout the Southern world. Can we get past it ? I was just in Ramtek. MR, at the Santinatha Digambara Centre. Here's one of the velvety monks I saw [ photo taken by a young Jaina, only a couple of weeks before I was there -- 1/3/09 ] a monk totally unclothed.  Just look what he is! The nudity was a real culture-shock for me. All those non-sexual, totally naked men! Kathie > --- In [email protected], Katherine Brobeck
Jain saints yes, very un-self conscious people. It takes a high degree of spiritual evolvement to be like that. Also to prove crudity and vulgarity are often in the beholder's eyes.
The emphasis on skin tone..is more up north than in south, most north indian heroes are fair skinned with sack-of-potatoes like body but still regarded as handsome. Regardless no easy getting away from that anywhere. BTW Sarojadevi one of the heroines i listed for you was dark skinned and rejected repeatedly for that reason, she went on to become a heart throb.
ha here is the golden chance to steer the conversation from the silver screen
> Jain saints yes, very un-self conscious people. It takes a high degree of spiritual evolvement to be like that.
in dalavanur we had the cave temples adjoining the fields. climbing the rock on which the cave had been excavated on small rock cut steps we came to a set of jain beds on a rock surface a hundred feet high.
itr semed like a perfect hide out. rocks leaning on each other prevented sun from any angle, and the hollow inbetween was tunneling wind. the place was very cool. there must have been shallow rock depressions which held onto the rain water.
why a hide out- from there one could see a great distance without being sen. i imagined jain monks on the run from the converted pallava hiding there from his vengance. the cut out beds were shallow and smoothened, when fsting jains on their last round of life had their bones jutting out this smoothness helped them from pain i was told.
venketesh
> > The emphasis on skin tone..is more up north than in south, most north indian heroes are fair skinned with sack-of-potatoes like body but still regarded as handsome. Regardless no easy getting away from that anywhere. BTW Sarojadevi one of the heroines i listed for you was dark skinned and rejected repeatedly for that reason, she went on to become a heart throb. >
Hi Venkat, great imagination!! The jain temples I have seen in pictures or in person have extremely intricate carvings and work, my grandmother often used to talk about Dilwara temple in Mount Abu as one of the most beautiful temples she had ever seen.
One such site is near Valli Malai, some 15 km behind Thiruthani. Jain caves are under Indian Archealogical Society. the temples gradually until Mahendra pallava and Gyana Sambandar adigal came to the rescue.
And I didn't mean caves, I meant temples. Jain temples have an amazing wealth of sculptural beauty - even modern temples are not concrete structures they are marble with a mind boggling amount of art work.
I have seen two modern ones in Bangalore and Kovai. The Dilwara temple in Mount Abu - my grandmotehr has seen that and I have seen pictures, it is gorgeous.
> Ravi, > Rescue? What's wrong w Jaina? > I think they're an amazing clean, renunciate religion. > Kathie
Hi Kathie
you are too much into statues and away from local politics
in the 7th and 8th centuries of tamilnadu there was a huge war of religion .
jains on one side and hindus on another ( whether shaivism and vaishnavism were part of the same religion or not is another debatable point) the two great empires of tamilnadu pallavas and pandyas were ruled by jains. highly biased opinions can be expected from both side. there was a lot of killing, maimim, and torture going on. a jain monk converts to hinduism at the age of 50 . the pallava king tortureshim. finally after having beaten fire and raging elephants he was thrown into the sea with a huge rock tied to him. the sinker becomes the float and the convert escapes. during his exile he meets a young , shall i say, prodigy who takes it on himself to convert the land back to hinduism. he journeys into pandya land where his foes the jains hold control over the king himself. the king nedumaran fortunately has a wife and a prime minister who are hindus who invite the prodigy to cure the king of his raging fever. the boy just does that with his holy ash, converst the king and then hold you breath a few thousand jains are impaled on stakes.
the pallavas too converted and the jains were a relious sect on the run
read the histories of saints appar, and sambandar to know more.
The Siva/Vishnu sects have fought a lot of wars with various invasions (Kalabaras / Jain - Budha / Sultanate assaults / Modern thoughts (for want of another term to avoid side tracks).
These sects have typically been the real kings on the southern side.
I think the jains to have been killed in thousands was more of a poetic note. That brings another question, do we believe the Mahendravarman of Kalki or Mahendravarman who tormented Appar ?
Ravi, the Mahendravaram who tormented Appar really existed. Kalki's Mahendravarman was fictional with some basis in reality. What do we want to belive, honestly that tells more about us than Mahendravarman or Kalki or Appar.
Instead of sweating efforts in trying to determine hindus were less killers than any other religion which may be a statistical fact perhaps how about focusing on unity of faiths in the present? There are several hindu temples in present day which are liberally contributed by Jains. Even the hindu temple near where I live has a Jain deity inside and would not have come to existence without the jain community.
I think the whole line of argument making us hindus to be holier than thou than others is meaningless. In fact if I were a Jain my religion thinks killing all lives including animal and birds is a crime. Undoubtedly hindus eat lot more non veg then and are more killers ?:)) Just a different line of thinking...
Malathi: I understand the difference in reality vs history in case of mahendravarman. His is somewhat interesting - more like the bollywood style - Son of the famous father Simhavishnu - staunch shaivaite, converts to Jain - torments saints of Nayanmar / Alwars - reconverts to Shaiva - gets into a mess with Pulikesi - Builds the great stone temple monuments and...gives us a son who is a hercules of sorts... Hence his life is something that is wanting a deep analysis.
The holier than thou does not stand good in any religion, there have been brutal - barbaric wars in the name of religion, the art of disintegration of any society is inevitable and if you look at history close enough you can conclude that it is... a part of evolution.
As far as Jainisum is concerned, there is more that is under the surface than that is portrayed. The history of Jains and their concepts have to be really grilled prior to reaching a conclusion on 'oh they are a very docile group'.
Kharavela ruled Kalinga sometime in 2nd CE, a follower of Jain religion, virtually anihillated his enemies including the Jain king at Magada. I find it hard to believe where in Jain articles do we find atrocities towards humans is acceptable but against animals is not.
Lets face it, no religion has got clean linen in its backyard.
Ravi, yes definitely i agree with you that Mahendravarman was a fascinating character.
I am not some naive person to think all jains are 'docile' people as much as I dont' think all hindus are 'tolerant' people. It is not really a choice between flagellation and glorification - history is just a collection of facts many of which may be hard to digest. When we go down this part of self serving one liners - Hindus killed less people than other faiths so that is ok, hatred by hindu saints was only in writing so it does not matter (whoever said pen is mightier than the sword ?!) and so on, we have to see what other 'one liners' can come as retorts from the other side as well.
Yes i see what you say on the contradictions in the text. Don't we have our share of contradictions in our texts as well - so does the bible and so does everything else. The whole point is can we put the gory bloody past behind us and work towards the future without blame or engage in this exercise that 'we' are better than 'them' and continue to fuel mutual hatred?
I am stopping here and getting back to payasam like posts,
one last post before I too join in the "paayasam like posts"
I would feel kalki realy sugarcoated ( or in hasher terms)brainwashed us with gentle storylines in PS. i feel SS and even the starting of parthiban kanavu( no chola warrior returned alive from the batlefield...) were truer to history even in PS its not kalki's fault but ours when we forget the gory beheading of vira pandiyan.
its so romantic when the greatest warrior in our history rides an elphant in flooding rivers to save a sparrow's nest and it goes straigh to our heart. but then could have RRC found a line in our history books without treading in blood soaked battlefields? venketesh
> Ravi, yes definitely i agree with you that Mahendravarman was a fascinating character. > > I am not some naive person to think all jains are 'docile' people as much as I dont' think all hindus are 'tolerant' people. It is not really a choice between flagellation and glorification - history is just a collection of facts many of which may be hard to digest. When we go down this part of self serving one liners - Hindus killed less people than other faiths so that is ok, hatred by hindu saints was only in writing so it does not matter (whoever said pen is mightier than the sword ?!) and so on, we have to see what other 'one liners' can come as retorts from the other side as well. > > Yes i see what you say on the contradictions in the text. Don't we have our share of contradictions in our texts as well - so does the bible and so does everything else. The whole point is can we put the gory bloody past behind us and work towards the future without blame or engage in this exercise that 'we' are better than 'them' and continue to fuel mutual hatred? > > I am stopping here and getting back to payasam like posts, > > Malathi >
I agree with you. RRC treading through blood soaked battle fields would have been contemporary in the present age but as you have said im sure Kalki presented us a nobler than life image of RRC. It surely wouldn't have been possible to rule so magnificently by being so saintlike. Im RRC would have had equally fierce instincts as Aditya is shown to have. No way he could have controlled such an empire otherwise.
Nayagan dialogue is very passionate, othukaraen. But we must also admit, Jains of today are not in the least bit terrorists or fundies. There are hundreds of combined jain hindu temples all over the world. We can let bygones be bygones.