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Newasa - Encountering an unique form of Vishnu, and Sant Jnaneshwar

The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
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White Browed Wagtails

It was at Tirunelli Temple in Wayanad that we saw the White Browed Wagtail, strutting about on the temple roof. Waiting for the temple to open, I had plenty of time to click photos....





And then, on my recent visit to Jog Falls, we saw the bird again, this time, a pair....



I wondered if the brown one was the female..



but a bit of reading tells me that its a juvenile.



The bird is quite a common one, and is frequently seen near water bodies, and is known to nest on roof tops. Interestingly, the scientific name of the bird is 'Motacilla Maderaspatensis', derived from the city of Madras, now called Chennai!


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