Aum namah Sivaya!

It was a quiet day at Kauai Aadheenam, as far as guests are concerned. But we monks kept serving Lord Siva in small ways, each one doing our tasks with dedication and a full heart.

The news today is that Innersearch seats are almost completely sold out. We are stunned at how popular they are. We can understand how everyone wants to have meditation classes with Bodhinatha…

We also had a safety class on the new CAT today.

Iraivan continues to move forward steadily, according to the cosmic will of Lord Siva. The blue skies are a ever-changing frame for the glint of the golden capstone. Iraivan Temple is truly one of Gurudeva’s masterpieces.

The silpis continue to improve the carvings, doing some ornamentation work that was not originally planned but will make this jewel look even better for centuries to come.

Our team of traveling swamis are in Washington, D.C., working on a mission that includes assuring a continuity of visas for these marvelous craftsmen.

“Siva Siva!”

Breaking news from D.C.: “Suffice to say, a total success,” says Sivakatirswami. We will probably have many more details, and we hope to have photos, on tomorrow’s TAKA.

Today we were visited by Dr. Nalini Rao, a scholar in Hindu art and daughter of the famous Indian archeologist Dr. Rao, who is a pioneer in excavating submerged cities.

Very knowleadgeable about temple art, she said “It is wonderful to see that this is the face of Saivite art in the XXI century. It is so traditional and then again slightly innovative in many details. It will be studied by historians in centuries to come.”

Silpi Manickandam was happy to talk to her in Tamil and explain the process.

Dr. Rao said she is so happy to see this craft survive through the hands of skilled men as our silpis.

“My father will love to come here!” she said.

A few slides of Dr. Rao’s presentation:

The depth of Hindu mysticism has always baffled western scholars. It is from inability to understand the deep meaning of many manifestations of Hindu art, culture and religion that came many modern misunderstandings. A common one is that Hinduism is a polytheistic religion.
This is a photo of an ancient Sivalinga, the most primal and essential form of worshipping Siva.

An interesting collection of 1,008 lingams.

This is one of the most explicit statements of monism and monistic theism in Hindu art. Unlike the popular – and erroneous – concept that Hindus worship a “trinity, ” it shows that the Supreme being can be seen as many, usually Brahma-Vishnu-Rudra, but in essence He is One Being.

This supreme manifestation, the Primal Soul, is seen here inside a linga, Parasiva.

See Gurudeva’s explanation of the three perfections of Lord Siva in Dancing with Siva.

Dr. Nalini Rao’s presentation art brings us many examples of depictions of Siva as formless, to the left, and with form, to the right.

We are in the process of scanning and digitizing each one of the estimated 80,000 photos of our archives. We want to share with you some of the beautiful treasures we found.

Gurudeva’s eyes glare with divine wisdom.

Many of the photos have no caption or information, and we have fun trying to figure them out.

We thought we could use our new zoom-in feature to share you TAKA readers some of the beautiful art of our Hindu Art DVD. Enjoy! You can also find the DVD at the MiniMela webstore.

Use the zoom controls under the photo to zoom in and then grab the image to move it.