Wednesday, October 28, 2009



The Abominable Snowman, or "Yeti", is said to be a powerful, fearsome ape-like beast that resides in the perfmafrost of the Himalayan Mountains in central Asia. This creature has terrorized the indigenous inhabitants of that region for the past several hundred years. Leading a lonely, solitary existence (except for raiding the ocasional village to carry away a few small children), this brute is seldom seen by human eyes.

The first Westerner actually to see what may have been such creatures (though there are other, unsubstantiated claims for that distinction) was Lt. Col. C. K. Howard-Bury, who led a reconnaissance expedition up Mount Everest in September 1921. At 20,000 feet on the side of the mountain that faces northern Tibet, the group found a large number of footprints three times the size human beings would make. The Sherpas attributed them to what Howard-Bury, apparently incorrectly, transcribed as metoh-kangmi. A Calcutta Statesman columnist who was shown the colonial officer's official report mistranslated the word as "abominable snowman." Apparently Howard-Bury had misunderstood the Sherpa term meh-teh, which means, approximately, "manlike thing that is not a man."


In any case, "abominable snowman" entered the English language and popular culture soon afterwards, as a consequence of the massive newspaper coverage accorded Howard-Bury's testimony, notwithstanding his belief that the tracks "were probably caused by a large 'loping' grey wolf, which in the soft snow formed double tracks rather like those of a barefooted man." This explanation is hard to square with what Howard-Bury describes of the prints.
Four years later N. A. Tombazi, a British photographer and member of the Royal Geographical Society, saw a strange creature in the Himalaya range. The incident occurred near the Zemu Glacier, at 15,000 feet altitude. He recorded this account:


The intense glare and brightness of the snow prevented me from seeing anything for the first few seconds; but I soon spotted the "object" referred to, about two to three hundred yards away down the valley to the east of our camp. Unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to uproot or pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes. It showed up dark against the snow and, as far as I could make out, wore no clothes. Within the next minute or so it had moved into sonic thick scruband was lost to view.
Two hours later, as the party descended, Tombazi went to check the area where he had seen the creature. There he examined 16 footprints "similar in shape to those of a man, but only six to seven inches long by four inches wide at the broadest part of the foot.... The prints were undoubtedly of a biped, the order of the spoor having no characteristics whatever of any imaginable quadruped,"


From these somewhat vague accounts, plus much more specific and detailed ones from native informants, the yeti (from the Sherpa yeh-teh, meaning "that thing") entered world consciousness. Since then it has inspired countless expeditions, speculations, and debates, with no resolution in sight and the quality of the evidence not significantly improved.
Probably the most interesting sighting by a Westerner took place on Mount Annapurna in 1970. The witness, prominent British mountaineer Don Whillans, was looking for a campsite one evening when odd cries sounded. His Sherpa companion said they were a yeti's call, and Whillans caught a glimpse of a dark figure on a distant ridge. The next day he found humanlike tracks sunk 18 inches into the snow, and that night, sensing the creature's presence, he looked out of his tent and saw, in the moonlight, an ape-shaped animal as it plucked at tree branches. He watched it for 20 minutes through binoculars before it wandered away.
This far from adequate description is the best we have from any other than native sources. Many Western writers are suspicious of Sherpa accounts, as primatologist John Napier remarks, "because of their vagueness as to time and place, the obvious garnish of common folklore themes, and motivation derived from the animistic philosophy of Tibetan Buddhism." There are also other problems, as we shall see, associated with some demonstrably dubious claims of physical evidence of yetis.

Still, if yetis exist, the people most likely to encounter them are the people who share the neighborhood, and that the hardy Sherpas surely do. Investigators who take their testimony seriously have recorded their conviction that at least two yetis exist: the dzu-teh ("big thing"), seven to eight feet tall, and the nich-teh, in the five- to six-foot range. Far more frequently reported than the dzu-teh, the nich-teh is what most people think of as the "abominable snowman." Edward W. Cronin, Jr., gives this composite description:


Its body is stocky, apelike in shape, with a distinctly human quality to it, in contrast to that of a bear. It stands five and a half to six feet tall and is covered with short, coarse hair, reddish-brown to black in color, sometimes with white patches on the chest. The hair is longest on the shoulders. The face is robust, the teeth are quite large, though fangs are not present, and the mouth is wide. The shape of the head is conical, with a pointed crown. The arms are long, reaching almost to the knees. The shoulders are heavy and hunched.
There is no tail.

Physical evidence?In the scientific and serious popular literature most of the debate has centered on the tracks which, whatever one makes of the sightings or the credibility of witnesses to the animal itself, undeniably exist. Skeptics usually explain these as the spoor of - conventional animals such as snow leopards, foxes, bears-or even wandering Tibetan lamas (who evidently do not mind freezing their feet)-and sometimes claim that melting has distorted their shapes into "yeti" prints. Though by now a virtual article of faith among skeptics, this last notion is a dubious one. Napier, no yeti believer, writes that "there is no real experimental basis for the belief that single footprints can become enlarged and still retain their shapes, or that discrete prints can run (or melt) together to form single large tracks."


In any case, some of the tracks are found fresh-in other words, before the elements have had a chance to act on them. Among the more impressive incidents involving tracks is one that happened in 1972 to members of the Arun Valley Wildlife Expedition, a multidisciplinary ecological survey of a deep river valley in far-eastern Nepal where many rare animals and plants live isolated and undisturbed. Its participants, including leader Edward Cronin, a zoologist, were open-minded about the yeti's possible existence and even looked for evidence in the course of their two-year effort, but this was not the main purpose of their endeavor.


On the night of December 17, Cronin and expedition physician Howard Emery, along with their Sherpa guides, camped on a depression at 12,000 feet in the ridge of Kongmaa La mountain. The next morning, when Emery awoke and stepped outside, he was startled to find footprints of a bipedal creature which had walked between the two tents sometime in the night. Nine inches long and four and three-quarters wide, perfectly preserved, the tracks showed, Cronin recorded, a "short, broad, opposable hallux, an asymmetrical arrangement of the four remaining toes, and a wide, rounded heel." They looked very much like a yeti print photographed by mountaineer Eric Shipton in 1951.


Expedition members followed the prints for some distance. The creature had come up and down the slope to the north, crossed through the camp, and proceeded over the south slope. Then it returned to the top of the ridge. Its tracks disappeared down the south slope in scrub and rock. "The slope was extremely steep," Cronin wrote, "and searching for the prints was arduous and dangerous. We realized that whatever creature had made them was far stronger than any of us."
If prints associated with the yeti continue to resist conventional explanation, other kinds of evidence have proven disappointing or, at best, am biguous. The 1954 London Daily Mail expedition examined a "yeti scalp," said to be 350 years old, preserved as a kind of sacred object in a Tibetan lamasery. Four years later members of an expedition led by Texas oilman Tom Slick looked at it and another specimen. Two years later, in the course of a much-publicized expedition sponsored by the publishers of World Book bicyclopedia, Sir Edmund Hillary, whose blunt derision did much to dampen subsequent scientific interest in the yeti question, was able to secure yet a third specimen. It turned out, analysts- with the notable exception of British Museum authority John Hill-agreed, to be from a serow (goat antelope).

The 1958 Slick expedition also collected two examples of alleged yeti hands. One, at a lamasery at Makulu, proved to be the paw and forearm of a snow leopard, The other, a far more interesting matter, may be the single best piece of evidence for yeti's existence; ironically, owing to confusion and misunderstanding, it is usually treated as devastating disproof.

In early 1959 expedition member Peter Byrne was permitted into a lamasery at Pangboche, Nepal, where he had learned that a purported yeti hand was kept. The monks had specified that the hand was not to leave the premises, but Byrne, who had carefully worked out a plan of action, managed to persuade the lamas to let him examine it privately.

They had no idea what Byrne had brought with him: human hand parts, secured from British primatologist W. C. Osman Hill, a scientific consultant to the expedition. Byrne reported to Slick in a February 3 letter:
I shall not go into detail here of how we got the thumb and the phalanx of the Pangboche hand. The main thing is that we have them, and that the lamas of the monastery do not know that we have them. Because they do not know it is of the utmost importance that there is [sic] no news releases on this or any publicity for some time.... The Pangboche hand is still complete, as far as the lamas are concerned. It still has a thumb and an index procimal phalanx. What they do not know, and what they never know, is that the thumb and the p. phalanx at present on the hand are human ones, which we switched.

The stolen samples, which included a piece of skin, were placed in a pack and taken undetected across the Nepalese border. But getting them out of India, where customs were stricter, was a more complicated matter. As it happened, however, two close friends of expedition cosponsor Kirk Johnson were staying at a Calcutta hotel, and Byrne sought their assistance. The friends, film actor James Stewart and his wife Gloria, wrapped the samples in underwear, buried them deep in their luggage, and brought them undetected to London, where they were given to Johnson. Johnson brought them to Hill on February 20.

Hill concluded, disappointed, that the thumb and phalanx were "human." Later, however, he would change his mind, declare them less than fully human-possibly even the remains, unlikely as it seemed, of a Neanderthal man. Two other scientists who examined the samples at the time confessed to puzzlement. Zoologist Charles A. Leone regretted his "inability to make a positive identification," and anthropologist George Agogino later told writer Gardner Soule, "Many people who have examined this hand feel that it is a human hand with very primitive characteristics.... I do not feel that this hand is a normal human hand at all.... It is highly characteristic, however, of all the giant anthropoids." Blood tests of the skin sample indicated it was from no known human or primate.

Because of the circumstances under which the samples were collected-the technical term is thievery-none of this was known when Hillary, who deemed the yeti something of a joke (intimating, for example, that Sherpa sightings and Sherpa drinking habits are not unconnected), declared with much amusement that the Pangboche hand is "essentially a human hand, strung together with wire, with the possible inclusion of several animal bones." This, of course, is precisely what it was after Byrne got through with it. Had Hillary directed his attention to the "animal" (nonhuman) bones instead of the irrelevant planted human bones, he and his associates would likely have been as astonished and puzzled as Hill and his colleagues were. Unfortunately, the present whereabouts of the samples are unknown.


State of the controversy. After the heyday of expeditions in the 1950s, culminating in the debunking that followed Hillary's venture in 1960, scientific and popular interest in the "abominable snowman" peaked, though a few books, magazine articles, and infrequent forays into the Himalayas (such as Cronin's in 1972-74) occasionally have revived the issue. In 1986, in a farcical episode, an English traveler took what he sincerely believed to be a yeti photograph; subsequent investigation conclusively proved that the "yeti" was a mountain rock. In February and March of the same year, the New World Explorers Society collected reports, some relatively recent, from native informants and returned with alleged yeti hair, described only as "long, black, and coarse." The fibers were handed over to the International Society of Cryptozoology for analysis, but the results, if any, had not been published as of late 1992.



Fecal droppings associated with yetis comprise another kind of evidence. Eggs found in samples collected by Slick's 1959 expedition were determined to be from a previously unknown parasitic worm. Bernard Heuvelmans has remarked of this fact, "Since each species of mammal has its own parasites, this indicated that the host animal is also equally an unknown animal."
Most students of the yeti believe the dzu-teli, supposedly the larger version of the beast, is in fact a blue bear. If there is a yeti, it is the meh-teh. Those who think it is a real unknown animal agree that it does not live in the high mountain snows but in the surrounding mountain forests. But what kind of animal is it?


Nicholas Warren offers a conservative positive interpretation. "The concept of a vegetarian ape, occasionally straying from the forests into the high snowfields, is not only logical, but also plausible, as an explanation of the small yeti," he says. More often, however, yeti students from Willy Ley to Edward Cronin to Loren Coleman have been drawn to another, rather more extraordinary interpretation of a sort that has been applied to other kinds of reported, though unrecognized, anthropoids such as Bigfoot and the Chinese wildman: Gigantopithecus, a large prehistoric ape, fossil remains of which have been uncovered in, among other places, the Himalayan foothills.


When Slick showed native witnesses photographs of various animals and asked them which one the yeti most looked like, there was, he said, "a unanimous selection, in the same order, with the first choice being the gorilla standing up, the second choice being an artist's drawing of a prehistoric apeman, Australopitliecus, and the third choice being an orangutan standing up, which they liked particularly for the long hair."



The Yeti or Abominable Snowman as it is sometimes called is an ape-like creature that lives in the himalayan region of Nepal and Tibet. The Yeti has become a legend, just like the Loch Ness Monster, due to the lack of evidence of its existence.


In 1951 while attempting to scale Mount Everest, the British mountaineer Eric Shipton came across a number of large footprints in the snow, at about 6,000 m (20,000 ft). His photographs that he took have been subject to intense scrutiny and debate. Some argue they are the best evidence of Yeti's existence, while others contend the prints are those of a mundane creature that have been distorted by the melting snow


Two years later in 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reported seeing large footprints while scaling Mount Everest. In his first autobiography Tenzing said that he believed the Yeti was a large ape, and although he had never seen it himself his father had seen one twice, but in his second autobiography he said he had become much more sceptical about its existence.
The following year in 1954 during the Daily Mail Snowman Expedition the leader John Jackson made the first trek from Everest to Kangchenjunga. He tracked and photographed many footprints in the snow, most of which were identifiable.

However, there were many large footprints which could not be identified. These flattened footprint-like indentations were attributed to erosion and subsequent widening of the original footprint by wind and particles.

In 1984, American mountaineer David Sheppard claims to have been followed by a large furry man over the course of several days while he was near the southern Col of Everest. His sherpas, however, say they saw no such thing. Sheppard claims to have taken a photograph of the creature, but a later study of it proved inconclusive.

In December 2007, American television presenter Joshua Gates and his team reported finding a series of footprints in the Everest region of Nepal resembling descriptions of Yeti. Each of the footprints measured 33 cm (13 in) in length with five toes that measured a total of 25 cm (9.8 in) across. Casts were made of the prints for further research. The footprints were examined by Jeffrey Meldrum of Idaho State University, who believed them to be too accurate to be fake or man made. Meldrum also stated that they were very similar to a pair of Bigfoot footprints that were found in another area.

On October 20, 2008 a team of seven Japanese adventurers photographed footprints they believed to be made by a Yeti. The team's leader, Yoshiteru Takahashi claims to have observed a Yeti on a 2003 expedition and is determined to capture the creature on film.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009



Are Dreams Premontions?????????????????????????

A premonition is an impression, often perceived as a warning, of a future event (from the Latin praemonēre, to forewarn : prae-, pre- + monēre, to warn). It bears similarities to the concept of second sight in that it frequently comes in the form of a paranormal vision or as a vivid dream.
Premonitions are sometimes attributed to the presence of supernatural or paranormal abilities such as those of the prophetess Cassandra. However, the distinction between precognition and ordinary evidence-based predictions is sometimes not made sharply. Premonition is a concept which may or may not include ordinary predictions, resulting in a bias towards supernatural explanations for the phenomenon.



Abraham Lincoln had a very vivid premonition of his death. Ten days before he was assassinated he dreamt he was in the East Wing of the White House where people were mourning. When he asked a soldier who had died, he was told "The President".


Otto von Bismarck predicted the beginning of the First World War, by saying (shortly before he died in 1898) to Ballen: "If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans"


The novelist Mark Twain predicted that Halley's Comet would be seen on the day of his death, just as it was when he was born. Twain died on Halley's 1910 appearance on April 20.
Movies based on dreams and premontions--Final Destination -Premonition
Dream is an experience of envisioned images, sounds, or other sensations during sleep. In dreams we are able to go anywhere and do anything. It seems that we are passengers on a moving train who are unable to control our actions and choose surroundings.

Interpreting dreams date back since 4000 B.C. It has been documented on clay tablets. Primal societies people were unable to distinguish between the dream world and waking world. They thought the dream world to be an extension of reality and was also more powerful world.

The Greek and Romans believed that dreams were direct messages from the Gods or from the dead. They even dictated the actions of political and military leaders through dreams. Dream interpreters in those days even accompanied military leaders into the battle to help with war strategy.

In Egypt, the priests acted as dream interpreters. Egyptians recorded their dreams in hieroglyphics.

In China the people believed that the soul leaves the body to go into this world. If they should be suddenly awakened, their soul may fail to return to the body.
It is a sign of fortunate undertakings and cheerful companions.

Dreams have influenced mighty kings, given insights to world-changing scientists and inspired gifted artists. The importance and power of dreams are well established. From the temples of antiquity to the sleep labs of modern days, humans have tried to understand, explain and apply them.

The earliest recorded dreams are derived from materials dating back approximately 5000 years, in Mesopotamia (Hall, 1991, p. 47).

The Sumerians, the first cultural group to reside in Mesopotamia, left dream records dating back to 3100 BC. According to these early writings, deities and royals, such as the 7th century BC scholar-king Assurbanipal, gave careful attention to dreams. Within Assurbanipal's archive of clay tablets, portions of the story of the legendary king Gilgamesh were found. In this epic poem – one of the earliest known classical stories – Gilgamesh reported his recurring dreams to his goddess-mother Ninsun, who made the first recorded dream interpretation.

His dreams were taken as prophecy and used to guide actions in the waking world. These attitudes recorded in the Gilgamesh epic provide a valuable source of information about ancient dream beliefs.

Ancient Hebrews believed dreams were connections with God. The biblical figures Solomon, Jacob, Nebuchadnezzar and Joseph were all visited in their dreams by God or prophets, who helped guide their decisions. It was recognized and accepted that the dreams of kings could influence whole nations and the futures of their peoples.

The Talmud, which was written between 200 and 500 AD, includes over two hundred references to dreams. It states that "dreams which are not understood are like letters which are not opened."

Ancient Egyptians also gave the dreams of their royal leaders special attention since gods were more likely to appear in them. Serapis, the Egyptian god of dreams, had temples in which dream incubation occurred. Before going to these temples, dreamers would fast, pray and draw to help ensure enlightening dreams.

Chinese considered the dreamer's soul to be the guiding factor of dream production . The hun, or spiritual soul, was thought to leave the body and communicate with the land of the dead. They also practiced incubation in dream temples.

These temples served a political purpose through the 16th century. Any high official visiting a city reported to a temple the first night to receive dream guidance for his mission. Judges and government officials were also required to visit dream temples for insight and wisdom.

The Sacred Books of Wisdom, or Vedas, were written in India between 1500 and 1000 BC. In the Vedas, dreams of violence were thought to lead to success and happiness if the aggression was pro actively handled in the dream, even if the dreamer gets hurt in the process.
If the dreamer remains passive and becomes hurt by his own passivity, however, it was considered a bad omen. Van de Castle (1994) states that these dreams might be more indicative of the dreamer's character than prophecy, since "those who take an active role in their dreams are likely to be more active, and therefore, more successful, in their daily lives" (p. 59).

The Upanishads, written between 900 and 500 BC, articulates two perspectives on dreams. The first maintains that dreams are merely expressions of inner desires. The second closely resembles the Chinese belief of the soul leaving the body and being guided until awakened. It was also thought that if the sleeper was awakened abruptly, the soul might not return to the body quickly enough and the sleeper could die.

The earliest Greek view of dreams was that the gods physically visited dreamers, entering through a keyhole, and exiting the same way after the divine message was delivered. The fifth century BC marks the first known Greek book on dreams, written by Antiphon, an Athenian statesman. During this century, the Greeks developed the belief (through contact with other cultures) that souls left the sleeping body.

The practice of dream incubation was at least as important to the Greeks as it was among Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and Chinese. Aesculapius was a Greek healer who was believed to be the son of Apollo. He was linked with cults that began the practice of incubation. He visited sleepers, miraculously curing them. A shrine to Aesculapius was established at Epidaurus in the fifth century BC. It may still be visited today. There are thought to be around 410 Aesculapian sanctuaries near Athens, generally being active from the sixth century BC until the third century BC.

Hippocrates (469-399 BC), the father of medicine and Socrates' contemporary, wrote On Dreams. His theory was simple: during the day, the soul receives images; during the night, it produces images. Therefore, we dream.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) thought that dreams could be indicators of conditions within the body. He did not believe they were divinely inspired. He hypothesized that external stimuli are absent during sleep, so dreams are manifestations of a profound awareness of internal sensations which are expressed as dream imagery.

Galen, a Greek physician born in 129 AD, emphasized the need to observe dreams carefully for clues to healing. He was so trusting of dream messages that he carried out operations on the basis of his dream interpretations.


Saturday, October 24, 2009




Nazca Mystery-(alien mysterious drawings in desert)

The Nazca Lines are a series of geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert, a high arid plateau that stretches more than 80 kilometres (50 mi) between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana in Peru. Although some local geoglyphs resemble Paracas motifs, these are largely believed to have been created by the Nazca culture between 200 BCE and 700 CE. There are hundreds of individual figures, ranging in complexity from simple lines to stylized hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, sharks or orcas, llamas, and lizards.

Stretching across the Nazca plains - like a giant map or blueprint left by ancient astronauts, lie the famous Nazca Lines of Peru. It also known as Nazca figures, Nazca Pictures and Nazca Images.

The Nazca Lines are an engima. No one know who had built them or indeed why. Since their discovery, the Nazca Lines have inspired fantastic explanations from ancient gods, a landing strip for returning aliens, a celestial calendar, used for rituals probably related to astronomy, to confirm the ayllus or clans who made up the population and to determine through ritual their economic functions held up by reciprocity and redistribution or, a map of underground water supplies.

There are also huge geoglyphs in Egypt, Malta, United States (Mississippi and California), Chile, Bolivia and in other countries. But the Nazca geoglyphs, because of their numbers, characteristics, dimensions and cultural continuity as they were made and remade through out the whole prehispanic period, form the most impressive as well as enigmatic archeological group.

The Nazca Lines are located in the Pampa region of Peru, the desolate plain of the Peruvian coast which comprises the Pampas of San Jose (Jumana), Socos, El Ingenio and others in the province of Nasca, which is 400 Km. South of Lima, covers an area of approximately 450 km2, of sandy desert as well as the slopes of the contours of the Andes. They cover nearly 400 square miles of desert. Etched in the surface of the desert pampa sand about 300 hundred figures made of straight lines, geometric shapes most clearly visible from the air. They were supposedly built by an ancient civilization called the Nazca.


The Nazca plain is virtually unique for its ability to preserve the markings upon it, due to the combination of the climate (one of the driest on Earth, with only twenty minutes of rainfall per year) and the flat, stony ground which minimises the effect of the wind at ground level. With no dust or sand to cover the plain, and little rain or wind to erode it, lines drawn here tend to stay drawn. These factors, combined with the existence of a lighter-coloured subsoil beneath the desert crust, provide a vast writing pad that is ideally suited to the artist who wants to leave his mark for eternity.

The pebbles which cover the surface of the desert contain ferrous oxide. The exposure of centuries has given them a dark patina. When the gravel is removed, they contrast with the color underneath. In this way the lines were drawn as furrows of a lighter color, even though in some cases they became prints. In other cases, the stones defining the lines and drawings form small lateral humps of different sizes. Some drawings, especially the early ones, were made by removing the stones and gravel from their contours and in this way the figures stood out in high relief. eh, Nazca Lines.

The concentration and juxtaposition of the lines and drawings leave no doubt that they required intensive long-term labor as is demonstrated by the stylistic continuity of the designs, which clearly correspond to the different stages of cultural changes.

There appear to be two kinds of designs: the first are figures of various beings and things and the others form geometric lines.

Many lines are random and seem to have no pattern to them. They are seen over the scattered seemingly at random over the desolate plain, crossing and intersecting for no apparent reason.

The Nazca Lines were first spotted when commercial airlines began flying across the Peruvian desert in the 1920's. Passengers reported seeing 'primitive landing strips' on the ground below. Today people sometimes fly in hot air balloons to view the splendors of the Nazca Lines, their eneries awakening something within their souls.

The Nazca plain is virtually unique for its ability to preserve the markings upon it, due to the combination of the climate (one of the driest on Earth, with only twenty minutes of rainfall per year) and the flat, stony ground which minimises the effect of the wind at ground level. With no dust or sand to cover the plain, and little rain or wind to erode it, lines drawn here tend to stay drawn. These factors, combined with the existence of a lighter-coloured subsoil beneath the desert crust, provide a vast writing pad that is ideally suited to the artist who wants to leave his mark for eternity.

The pebbles which cover the surface of the desert contain ferrous oxide. The exposure of centuries has given them a dark patina. When the gravel is removed, they contrast with the color underneath. In this way the lines were drawn as furrows of a lighter color, even though in some cases they became prints. In other cases, the stones defining the lines and drawings form small lateral humps of different sizes. Some drawings, especially the early ones, were made by removing the stones and gravel from their contours and in this way the figures stood out in high relief. eh, Nazca Lines.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Was the Vijaynagar Empire Cast With a Spell of Destuction or was it Fate or wrong Timing of Invoking Good Spirits or Vastu fault.

Time or KAL as time is called in Hindi is the all encompassing reality which we call God-Fate-Destiny driven. None can escape the clutches of time and every thing that exists is but at the clutches of time. Time is the unknown and the unknown will always remain the unknown.





It is learnt that saint Vidyaranya Swamy made all the arrangements for the foundation laying ceremony. The saint by himself conducted mahasankalpam, invoked the deity of Vastu, determined the directions of North and South with the help of Dhruva Star and the Trisanku was erected. On East and Western directions Sankhas (conches) were arranged and molten gold of sixteen shades were poured in the foundation pit in large quantities.


Sri Samrajya Lakshmi yantram was then placed and opposite to the site a reservoir was dug where his disciples were asked to wait and watch for his signal of most auspicious time for laying the foundation stone. The Saint conveyed to them that he would give an indication by ringing a bell and would blow a conch shell. A brick was tied to the end of a thin string, along with Vastu yantramu, Diamonds and Mercury and arrangement was made such that by slicing the thread, the brick would fall into the foundation pit at the auspicious moment.







It is learnt that saint Vidyaranya Swamy made all the arrangements for the foundation laying ceremony. The saint by himself conducted mahasankalpam, invoked the deity of Vastu, determined the directions of North and South with the help of Dhruva Star and the Trisanku was erected. On East and Western directions Sankhas (conches) were arranged and molten gold of sixteen shades were poured in the foundation pit in large quantities.


Sri Samrajya Lakshmi yantram was then placed and opposite to the site a reservoir was dug where his disciples were asked to wait and watch for his signal of most auspicious time for laying the foundation stone. The Saint conveyed to them that he would give an indication by ringing a bell and would blow a conch shell. A brick was tied to the end of a thin string, along with Vastu yantramu, Diamonds and Mercury and arrangement was made such that by slicing the thread, the brick would fall into the foundation pit at the auspicious moment.


Making all these arrangements and instructing Harihara and Bukka Raya the Saint went over to the top of the hill and was engrossed in the astronomical calculations and was waiting for the auspicious moment. The Saint planned the time and state of various planets such that the capital and the Empire that was likely to be established would flourish for 3600 glorious yearsTo the misfortune of Hindus, a Tantrik was worshipping lord Shiva at a place down the hill and after completing his worship rang the bronze bell and blew his conch shell loudly.


Harihara Raya who was at the foundation pit awaiting the indication from the Saint immediately sliced the thread and the brick fell into the foundation pit before the auspicious moment arrived. Within a short time another sound of the bell and and blowing of conch shell was heard. Harihara and Bukka Raya ran to the top of the hill to enquire abount the two sounds at different moments.


Vidyaranya Swamy lamented that the foundation stone was laid much before the auspicious time. He after examination of the time and planetary position at the instant of dropping of the foundation stone predicted that the empire would lost for 260 years and would be destroyed by the enemies due to inauspicious time of the ceremonial event. He also said that the prediction of sage Vyasa to him at Kashi has come true. It appears Sage Vyasa stated that the empire would last 300 years. The Vijaynagar city was thus established and the empire flourished for nearly three centuries from 1336 to 1646.


Thursday, October 8, 2009



Crater Lake is a caldera lake located in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is the main feature of Crater Lake National Park and famous for its deep blue color and water clarity.

The lake partly fills a nearly 1,958 foot (597 m) deep caldera that was formed around 7,700 (± 150) years ago by the collapse of the volcano Mount Mazama.

On June 12, 1853, John Wesley Hillman was reportedly the first European American to see what he named "Deep Blue Lake" in Oregon. The lake was renamed at least three times, as Blue Lake, Lake Majesty, and finally Crater Lake.

Crater Lake is known for the "Old Man of the Lake", a full-sized tree that has been bobbing vertically in the lake for more than a century.[5] Due to the cold water, the tree has been rather well preserved.


While having no indigenous fish population, the lake was stocked from 1888 to 1941 with a variety of fish. Several species have formed self sustaining populations.

The commemorative Oregon State Quarter, which was released by the United States Mint in 2005, features an image of Crater Lake on its reverse.


The lake is 5 by 6 miles (8 km × 10 km) across with an average depth of 1,148 feet (350 m). Its deepest point has been measured at 1,949 feet (594 m) deep,[1] though as with any lake its depth fluctuates with the climate, particularly rainfall.


This makes Crater Lake the deepest lake in the United States, the second deepest lake in North America (Great Slave Lake is the deepest) and the ninth deepest lake in the world (Lake Baikal is the deepest). Crater Lake is often cited as the 7th deepest lake in the world, but this ranking excludes Lake Vostok, which is situated under nearly 13,000 feet (4,000 m) of Antarctic ice, and the recent soundings of San Martín Lake, which is located on the border of Chile and Argentina.


However, on the basis of comparing average depths among the world's deepest lakes, Crater Lake becomes the deepest lake in the Western Hemisphere and the third deepest in the world. Comparing average depths among the world's lakes whose basins are entirely above sea level, Crater Lake is the deepest.

The caldera rim of Crater Lake ranges in elevation from 7,000 to 8,000 feet (2,100 to 2,400 m).

Mount Mazama, part of the Cascade Range volcanic arc, was built up mostly of andesite, dacite, and rhyodacite over a period of at least 400,000 years. The caldera was created in a massive volcanic eruption that led to the subsidence of Mount Mazama around 5700 BC: about 50 cubic kilometers (12 cubic miles) of rhyodacite was erupted in this event. Since that time, all eruptions on Mazama have been confined to the caldera.

Lava eruptions later created a central platform, Wizard Island, Merriam Cone, and other, smaller volcanic features, including a rhyodacite dome that was eventually created atop the central platform. Sediments and landslide debris also covered the caldera floor.

Eventually, the caldera cooled, allowing rain and snow to accumulate and eventually form a lake. Landslides from the caldera rim thereafter formed debris fans and turbidite sediments on the lake bed. Fumaroles and hot springs remained common and active during this period. Also after some time, the slopes of the lake's caldera rim more or less stabilized, streams restored a radial drainage pattern on the mountain, and dense forests began to revegetate the barren landscape. It is estimated that about 720 years was required to fill the lake to its present depth of 594 m. Much of this occurred during a period when the prevailing climate was less moist than at present.

Some hydrothermal activity remains along the lake floor, suggesting that at some time in the future Mazama may erupt once again
Due to several unique factors, most prominently that it has no inlets or tributaries, the waters of Crater Lake are some of the purest in terms of the absence of pollutants in North America.

Secchi disk clarity readings have consistently been in the high-20 meter to mid-30 meter (80–115 ft) range, which is very clear for any natural body of water. In 1997, scientists recorded a record clarity of 43.3 meters (142 ft).

The lake has relatively high levels of dissolved salts, total alkalinity, and conductivity. The average pH has generally ranged between 7 and 8.

The Klamath tribe of Native Americans, who may have witnessed the collapse of Mount Mazama and the formation of Crater Lake, have long regarded the lake as a sacred site. Their legends tell of a battle between the sky god Skell and Llao, the god of the underworld.

Mount Mazama was destroyed in the battle, creating Crater Lake. The Klamath people used Crater Lake in vision quests, which often involved climbing the caldera walls and other dangerous tasks. Those who were successful in such quests were often regarded as having more spiritual powers. The tribe still holds Crater Lake in high regard as a spiritual site.


The following diagrams show the formation of Crater Lake during the climactic eruption of Mount Mazama. Diagrams are by Charles Bacon, acquired from the 1988 editon of the 1:62,500 scale topographic map entitled "Crater Lake National Park and Vicinity, Oreg."





Figure A: Plinian eruption deposits airfall pumice and ash, blown by winds to north and east.


.
Figure B: Vent enlarges and eruption column collapses; pyroclastic flows deposit the Wineglass Welded Tuff on north and east flanks.



Figure C: Roof of magma chamber collapses, forming caldera as new vents open above fractures; pyroclastic flows deposit pumice and ash on all flanks of Mount Mazama and in valleys below.



Figure D: Caldera has been partly filled with pumice and ash from the eruption shown in C and with blocks of rock from the caldera walls; weak, dying explosions within the caldera deposit ash on the caldera rim; pyroclastic-flow deposits develop fumaroles and gradually cool.

Figure E: Crater Lake today.
courtesy:http://oregonexplorer.info/craterlake/geology.html

Wednesday, October 7, 2009



MANDALA

Origin of Nagaradhane

Snakes, especially the cobra have been revered from ancient times all over India. Due to their mysterious appearances and slithering movements, snakes had always been held in awe in India. Snakes find mention in famous religious epics like Mahabharata, Vishnu Purana etc. Hindu Gods like Vishnu and Shiva have been associated with snakes. According to Hindu mythology, Lord Vishnu takes rest under the shade of the giant snake, Adisesha. Lord Shiva wears a snake vasuki around his neck.

It is difficult to trace the origin of Nagaradhane, though the Bunts of Tulu Nadu claim to be kshatriyas of Nagavanshi descent, thus maybe snake worship was popularised by them. Though most rituals of snake worship are done by brahmins, there is not a single Bunt house that does not have a nagabana. Mostly, snakes were seen as a symbol of fertility. Elsewhere in India, snakes are worshiped during the Nagarapanchami Day. They are offered milk (research has shown that snakes are allergic to milk) and thilak is applied on their forehead.

The snake worship rituals practiced in Tulu Nadu are quite unique and different from the other rituals. Snakes have their own snake shrines in a sacred grove known as Nagabana. The shrines have images of cobras carved of stones. Accordingly, nobody is allowed to chop the tree near the Nagabana. It is also believed that snakes, specifically the cobras, are not be harmed or killed by anyone. If harmed, the individual has to perform a ritual to cleanse the sin of killing or harming the snake. The belief is that the individual who refuses to perform the ritual will be cursed by the
snake for eternity.

It can also be noted that in Tulu Nadu or the South Canara region in Karnataka, agriculture is predominant that too paddy is the main crop. In these fields snakes help in saving the crop from rodents. This can be a plausible reason for worship of snakes in line with other nature worships such as cow and the banyan tree.

The Ritual mandala drawn during ashleshabali at Belle Badagumane moodubelle,udupiThere are two distinct rituals performed in reverence to the snake. They are, Aashleshabali and Nagamandala. Of these, Nagamandala is longer and colourful than Aashleshabali. Nagamandala depicts the divine union of male and female snakes. It is generally performed by two priests. The first priest, called as patri inhales the areca flower and becomes the male snake.
The second priest, called as Nagakannika or the female snake dances and sings around an elaborate serpent design drawn with natural colours on the sacred ground. The ritual is supplemented by playing an hour glass shaped instrument called as Dakke. The drawings in five different colours on the sacred ground are white (white mud), red (mix of lime powder and turmeric powder), green (green leaves powder), yellow (turmeric powder) and black (roasted and powdered paddy husk). Aashleshabali is similar nature to the after death rituals performed for the humans as per the Hindu tradition.

The ritual, centered around the serpent design, continues till early in the morning. A similar kind of ritual is found in Kerala and is known as Sarpam Thullal and Sarpam Kali.all communities of tulu nadu revere .

Significance of Nagabanas



Nagabanas or the sacred grooves are deemed to be the resting place of the Snake God. Cutting of trees or defacing the groove is considered as sacrilege. People are wary of the wrath unleashed by the deity. Nagabanas have largely remained unspoilt and have contributed immensely to the preservation of valuable trees and medicinal plants in tulu nadu.


Bhootha Aradhane or Bhoota Kola
This dance form is widely performed in the coastal areas of Karnataka. The Bhootha Aradhane or Holy Spirit (Shiva Gana's) worship, includes a procession of idols depicting 'bhoothas". This procession is characterized by the beating of drums and bursting of firecrackers. After the end of the procession, the idols are placed on a plinth. Then, a dancer personifying a Bhoota (Holy Spirit) dances around the plinth with sword and jingling bells. The dancer dances vigorously at one point of time and then slows down, signifying that he is now a divine person.



This ritualistic dance form is performed by the people of south Karnataka. It is done to tranquilize the serpent spirit and is an extravagant affair held throughout the night. The dancers called the Vaidyas are dressed as nagakannika. They dance all night long around a huge figure, drawn on the sacred ground with natural colors, in a pandal specially erected in front of the shrine. This ritualistic dance is generally performed between December to April.


SARASWATI -THE HIDDEN RIVER

What happened to river Saraswati -did it change its course or do we call it by another name or did it sink into the earth due t o sesamic shifts or Tectonic uplifts.



Almost 13 km from Kurukshetra lies the ancient village of Bhoresaidan - named after the Kaurava hero Bhurisrava, who was one of Duryodhana's 11 distinguished senapatis during the Mahabharata war.A dusty road adjacent to the village leads to a yawning valley, flanked by rocks and covered with a soil that is a curious mix of various sedimentary deposits.

Rajesh Purohit, deputy director of the Kurukshetra-based Sri Krishna Museum, bends to scoop up some of the soil. "This soil has a lot of history," he says gravely. "After all, the river Sarasvati used to once flow here."

Purohit's contention is that the 'valley' is actually the bed of the Sarasvati, a fact which finds mention in numerous ancient literary texts, but whose existence has often been questioned by historians. "The discovery of the river bed," he says, "proves beyond doubt that Sarasvati is not a myth."

That myth may now be laid to rest forever as plans are afoot to revive a part of the course taken by this ancient river. The Haryana government has acquired almost 20 acres of land and work is under way on a 50 km-long channel in Kurukshetra, through which the river will flow again.

"The revival of the Sarasvati will benefit countless people in the region as it will augment ground water resources," says Darshan Lal Jain of the Sarasvati Nadi Shodh Sansthan, which is working with the government on this project. The plan is not to line with the river's course with bricks so that water can permeate the ground. With ground water levels dipping to as low as 150 feet, the river's revival may be a boon for parched Haryana.

A boon that would not have been possible without the discovery of the river bed. "In 2004, an extraordinary phenomenon occurred," recalls Purohit. "Water started oozing out from a palaeochannel (a dried river bed) at the Kapil Muni temple sarovar at Kalayat. We carried out studies of this water. Simultaneously, a scientific team studied its mineral composition."

Scientists from ISRO also carried out studies using space imagery and discovered a number of fossil valleys in upper central Haryana. "Mapping images of the palaeo channels showed that they corresponded to the archaeological sites of Haryana," says Purohit. "This means that these settlements came up near the river, as was the norm in those times and gives further proof that the river Sarasvati indeed existed," he says.

Incidentally, the debate about the existence of the Sarasvati has been continuing for a long time although lately, most historians have begun to concede that the river perhaps did exist. However, they still continue to debate the name by which the river was known, the route that it took and the reasons for its disappearance. "There is no doubt that the Sarasvati river existed. However, opinion is divided on whether it was known as the Sarasvati or the Ghaggar," says S Kalyanraman of the Sarasvati Research and Education Trust (SRET).

The idea that the ancient Sarasvati might be the modern-day seasonal river, Ghaggar, is not new. It was first put forward over 100 years ago by CF Oldham, an English engineer who observed that the dry bed of the Ghaggar appeared too broad for a seasonal river. He believed that the Ghaggar was, in fact, flowing on the bed of a bigger river that existed before. Archaeological excavations of the Indus Valley sites have also revealed numerous settlements along the Ghaggar, lending further credence to this theory.

But then, how did this river disappear? "Primarily due to tectonic shifts," says K S Valdiya of the Bangalore-based Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research.

"Tectonic uplifts caused the deflection of the waters of the Yamuna and Sutlej, which contributed the bulk of the expanse of the river. In a way, it was a case of 'river piracy'," says Valdiya, who recently delivered the keynote address at a conference on the Sarasvati that was organised by SRET.

Whatever the reason for its disappearance, this river sutra is far from over. And when this ancient river does start to flow again, everyone will be watching. After all, it is not every day that a river is reborn.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sunday_TOI/Sarasvati_is_set_to_flow_again/articleshow/3902199.cms

Myth to reality: Sarasvati is set to flow again

Sunday, October 4, 2009




The Great Deserts-Were they Man Made(destruction of nature)
or was it a part of Creation of the Creator?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QRYtBeQo7Q

The 10 largest deserts Rank ↓ Desert ↓ Area (km²) ↓ Area (mi²)


1 Antarctic Desert (Antarctica) 13,829,430 5,339,573
2 Arctic 13,700,000+ 5,300,000+
3 Sahara (Africa) 9,100,000+ 3,320,000+
4 Arabian Desert (Middle East) 2,330,000 900,000
5 Gobi Desert (Asia) 1,300,000 500,000
6 Kalahari Desert (Africa) 900,000 360,000
7 Patagonian Desert (South America) 670,000 260,000
8 Great Victoria Desert (Australia) 647,000 250,000
9 Syrian Desert (Middle East) 520,000 200,000
10 Great Basin Desert (North America) 492,000 190,000



A desert is a landscape or region that receives almost no precipitation. Deserts are defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than 250 millimetres (10 in) per year, or as areas where more water is lost by evapotranspiration than falls as precipitation.

In the Köppen climate classification system, deserts are classed as BWh (hot desert) or BWk (temperate desert). In the Thornthwaite climate classification system, deserts would be classified as arid megathermal climates.

Deserts take up about one third (33 percent) of the Earth's land surface. Hot deserts usually have a large diurnal and seasonal temperature range, with high daytime temperatures, and low nighttime temperatures (due to extremely low humidity). In hot deserts the temperature in the daytime can reach 45 °C/113 °F or higher in the summer, and dip to 0 °C/32°F or lower in the winter. Water acts to trap infrared radiation from both the sun and the ground, and dry desert air is incapable of blocking sunlight during the day or trapping heat during the night.

Thus, during daylight most of the sun's heat reaches the ground, and as soon as the sun sets the desert cools quickly by radiating its heat into space. Urban areas in deserts lack large (more than 14 °C/25 °F) daily temperature variations, partially due to the urban heat island effect.

Many deserts are formed by rain shadows; mountains blocking the path of precipitation to the desert (on the lee side of the mountain). Deserts are often composed of sand and rocky surfaces. Sand dunes called ergs and stony surfaces called hamada surfaces compose a minority of desert surfaces. Exposures of rocky terrain are typical, and reflect minimal soil development and sparseness of vegetation. The soil is rocky because of the low chemical weathering.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmQub8NDkTI-TODAY SPECIAL