Jnana yoga: the path of knowledge. Jnana yoga is not focused on book learning, but on the knowledge of becoming one with the Universe and the Divine. Bhakti yoga: the path of devotion. Although a form of yoga, it is not as rigorous a practice as many other yogic schools. Share this:. Related Terms. Related Articles. Experience the 5 Koshas Through Yoga Nidra. Why We Say Namaste. CBD for Your Muscles. Linking Breath and Mantra. Search term:.
Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience.
Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. Krishna Janmashtami Krishna Jayanti Last updated Celebrations For the 48 hour period Hindus are likely to forego sleep and instead sing bhajans , which are traditional Hindu songs. Find out more Vishnu Top. See also. A good example was when Krishna lifted Govardhana Hill. Every year the residents of Vrindavana worshiped Lord Indra for supplying rain.
Our specific relationship is with Govardhana Hill and Vrindavana forest. Let us have nothing to do with Indra. King Nanda finally agreed with Krishna and prepared to offer the sacrifice to Govardhana Hill. This made Lord Indra angry and jealous. He is nothing but a child, and by believing this child, they have enraged me. All the people and animals came to Krishna for shelter, and in a miraculous show of strength, Krishna lifted Govardhana Hill with one finger to make the mountain into a huge umbrella.
Everyone crowded underneath it and remained safe until the rains stopped. Later, Lord Indra realized his mistake in attacking Krishna and apologized. This is an example of one of the demigods behaving like a demon. Magically, Krishna and Balarama killed them all as part of their divine play, or lila. On hearing this news, Kansa imprisoned Devaki and Vasudeva again and renewed his vow to kill Krishna and Balarama.
He sent his servant Akrura to bring the boys back to Mathura. Kansa was delirious with fear waiting for Krishna to arrive, and unable to sleep through the night because of bad dreams. He saw his headless body in a mirror, everything appeared double, and he saw the covering of the sky as pierced. He saw holes in his shadow and left no footprints when he walked. Krishna and Balarama entered the splendorous city with their friends.
After fighting for a few moments, Krishna and Balarama easily killed their opponents. Everyone except Kansa rejoiced at the wonderful defeat. Kill that ill-motivated Vasudeva! Also kill my father, Ugrasena, along with his followers, who have sided with our enemies. Krishna jumped into the stands, seized Kansa, knocked off his crown and dragged him to the wrestling mat by his hair.
There He easily killed Kansa, striking him with His fist. Krishna and Balarama met their parents, but Devaki and Vasudeva were struck with awe seeing the prophecy fulfilled, and because of a feeling of reverence they were afraid to embrace their sons. After that incident, Krishna and Balarama entered the gurukula and became princes in the court of Yadu. In the time of Krishna, the blind King Dhritarastra headed the lunar dynasty in Hastinapur. His wife, Queen Gandhari, had one hundred sons called the Kauravas, the oldest of whom was Duryodhana.
She grew up away from her family, in the palace of Kuntibhoja, her cousin. When she was a child, Kunti had pleased the powerful sage Durvasa Muni, who gave her a mantra that would allow her to conceive five sons from the demigods.
She tested the mantra and the Sun God gave her Karna, whom she secretly set afloat in a river. Karna grew up to become a great warrior for the Kauravas, and Kunti later revealed that she was his real mother. Pandu was cursed to die if he ever tried to have sex with his wives, so he was glad Kunti could obtain sons from the demigods. He asked her to give the last chance to his other wife Madri, who subsequently had twins, Nakula and Sahadev. These five children were the Pandava brothers.
Eventually, Pandu attempted to have sex with Madri and immediately died from the curse. Madri killed herself in the funeral pyre but Kunti lived on to care for the children. She and her sons moved into the palace of Dhritarastra, provoking scorn and jealousy among the hundred Kauravas. Her son Bhima caused problems with the other children, because he was a bully. In retaliation, the Kaurava brothers once tied him up and threw him in the ocean, but Bhima returned with added siddhis yogic powers , annoying them all the more.
At this time Grandfather Bhisma enrolled the Pandava and Kaurava brothers in archery training under the renowned archer, Drona. As a final request to his students guru-dakshine , Drona asked them to arrest a neighboring king, Drupada, and bring him there for justice. This angered the Kauravas and moved the family deeper into conflict that would eventually erupt in the devastating war, which was the basis of the most fundamental books of the Hindu religion: Mahabharata and Bhagavad-gita.
Feeling angry and jealous of the Pandavas, Duryodhana made a plan to kill them. On a family pilgrimage, he built a house of lac for them, and then his servants set it on fire. The Kauravas thought the Pandavas were dead, but they had escaped through an underground tunnel and lived anonymously in the forest for a time. Finally, they heard about and engagement contest svayamvara for the hand of the Princess of Panchali, Draupadi, and went there in disguise.
The object of the svayamvara was that the contestants had to string a heavy bow and shoot five arrows into the eye of a fish that was dangling on a target in a courtyard. Many princes had gathered, including the Kauravas, but Arjuna won the competition and brought Draupadi back to the forest retreat with him. When they arrived home with Draupadi, Arjuna told his mother that he had won a great prize that day.
Without knowing what it was, Kunti instructed her sons to divide it equally among themselves, and thus they all shared Droupadi as their bride. Everyone was joyful to find the Pandavas still alive, and married into a prominent ruling family, and so King Dhritarastra invited them to come back to Hastinapura and told his sons to give Yudhistira half the kingdom. Yudhistira built his palace and lived peacefully with his brothers, Droupadi and their other wives. On the occasion of a solar eclipse, all the royal families traveled to Kurukshetra to observe religious rites.
Kurukshetra would later become the battlefield for the Great War, but for now it was known only as a holy place of pilgrimage. In a previous millennium, Parasurama, an ancient incarnation of God, had killed thousands of evil military kings there, and their blood formed a river at that spot.
When the royal families met their relations in Kurukshetra, there were great exchanges of love. There were drops of tears falling from their eyes, the hair on their bodies stood on end, and because of their extreme ecstasy, they were temporarily speechless. At this meeting, Vasudeva and Kunti, who were brother and sister, lamented their long separation. Kunti complained about all she had been through due to Duryodhana.
Krishna and Balarama met the residents of Vrindavana and renewed their relationships with their foster parents, Nanda, Yasoda and Rohini, and the gopis, cowherd girls. The gopis were especially pleased to see Krishna again, since He had never fulfilled His promise to return to Vrindavana. Duryodhana remained angry at the Pandavas and wanted to drive them from the kingdom. He challenged Yudhistira to a game of dice, in which Yudhistira lost everything including his brothers, Droupadi and himself.
The Kauravas brought Droupadi to the arena to strip off her sari and humiliate her, but she prayed to Krishna and He mystically supplied an unending length of cloth. King Dhritarastra came on the scene and gave everything back to the Pandavas and sent them home. Soon after that, despite warnings and protests from all sides, Duryodhana convinced Yudhistira to play dice again, and Yudhistira lost again. Thus to satisfy the terms of the wager, Kunti, the Pandavas and Droupadi went to the forest for twelve years, and spent a additional year incognito.
The Pandavas migrated as far north as Badrikashram in the Himalayas for some years, then back to neighboring regions. Toward the end of their exile, the fighting between the Pandavas and Kauravas heated up again. Duryodhana and his men occasionally visited the Pandavas in the forest to pick fights.
Another mortal enemy, Jayadrath, kidnapped Droupadi, but the Pandavas rescued her. After satisfying the conditions of the dice game by living in exile, the Pandavas returned to Hastinapura to reclaim their kingdom, but Duryodhana refused to give them even a pinpoint of land.
0コメント