124-456: Traditional Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri (also written Sriyuktesvara , Sri Yukteshwar ) ( Devanagari : श्रीयुक्तेश्वर गिरि ) (10 May 1855 – 9 March 1936) is the monastic name of Priya Nath Karar (also spelled as Priya Nath Karada and Preonath Karar ), an Indian monk and yogi, and the guru of Paramahansa Yogananda and Swami Satyananda Giri . Born in Serampore , West Bengal, Sri Yukteswar
248-507: A Buddha statue, involved alms giving and it might have been a Buddhist festival. In contrast, Ariel Glucklich – a scholar of Hinduism and Anthropology of Religion, the Xuanzang memoir includes, somewhat derisively, the reputation of Prayag as a place where people (Hindus) once committed superstitious devotional suicide to liberate their souls, and how a Brahmin of an earlier era successfully put an end to this practice. This and other details such as
372-501: A Muslim historian's Ain-i-Akbari (c. 1590 CE). The latter Akbar -era Persian text calls Prayag (spells it Priyag ) the "king of shrines" for the Hindus, and mentions that it is considered particularly holy in the Hindu month of Magha . The late 16th-century Tabaqat-i-Akbari also records of an annual bathing festival at Prayag sangam where "various classes of Hindus came from all sides of
496-515: A central attraction and a stop for mainstream Hindus who seek their darsana (meeting, view) as well as spiritual guidance and blessings. The Kumbh Melas have been one of their recruitment and initiation venues, as well as the place to trade. These akharas have roots in the Hindu Naga (naked) monks tradition, who went to war without clothes. These monastic groups traditionally credit the Kumbh mela to
620-520: A closer examination reveals they are very similar except for angles and structural emphasis. Among the languages using it as a primary or secondary script are Marathi , Pāḷi , Sanskrit , Hindi , Boro , Nepali , Sherpa , Prakrit , Apabhramsha , Awadhi , Bhojpuri , Braj Bhasha , Chhattisgarhi , Haryanvi , Magahi , Nagpuri , Rajasthani , Khandeshi , Bhili , Dogri , Kashmiri , Maithili , Konkani , Sindhi , Nepal Bhasa , Mundari , Angika , Bajjika and Santali . The Devanāgarī script
744-496: A group, the thirteen active akharas have been, The ten Shaiva and Vaishnava akharas are also known as the Dasanamis, and they believe that Adi Shankara founded them and one of their traditional duties is dharma-raksha (protection of faith). The Kumbh melas of the past, albeit with different regional names, attracted large attendance and have been religiously significant to the Hindus for centuries. However, they have been more than
868-610: A large number of visitors came there for trade. He also includes a 1814 letter from his missionary friend who distributed copies of the Gospel to the pilgrims and tried to convert some to Christianity. According to an 1858 account of the Haridwar Kumbh Mela by the British civil servant Robert Montgomery Martin , the visitors at the fair included people from a number of races and clime. Along with priests, soldiers, and religious mendicants,
992-411: A later practice by a "small circle of adherents" who have sought the roots of a highly popular pilgrimage and festival. The Hindu legend , however, describes the creation of a "pot of amrita (nectar of immortality)" after the forces of good and evil churn the ocean of creation. The gods and demons fight over this pot, the " kumbha ", of nectar in order to gain immortality. In a later day extension to
1116-518: A local festival. Like the priests at Prayag, those at Nashik and Ujjain, competing with other places for a sacred status, may have adopted the Kumbh tradition for their pre-existing Magha melas. One of the key features of the Kumbh mela has been the camps and processions of the sadhus (monks). By the 18th century, many of these had organised into one of thirteen akharas (warrior ascetic bands, monastic militia), of which ten were related to Hinduism and three related to Sikhism . Seven have belonged to
1240-527: A part of the glory of the Kumbh festival is in that "feeling of brotherhood and love" where millions peacefully gather on the river banks in harmony and a sense of shared heritage. In modern religious and psychological theory, the Kumbh Mela exemplifies Émile Durkheim 's concept of collective effervescence . This phenomenon occurs when individuals gather in shared rituals, fostering a profound sense of unity and belonging. The collective energy generated during
1364-418: A place "bustling with pilgrims, priests, vendors, beggars, guides" and local citizens busy along the confluence of the rivers ( Sangam ). These Sanskrit guide books of the medieval era India were updated over its editions, likely by priests and guides who had a mutual stake in the economic returns from the visiting pilgrims. One of the longest sections about Prayag rivers and its significance to Hindu pilgrimage
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#17330862014381488-525: A religious event to the Hindu community. Historically the Kumbh Melas were also major commercial events , initiation of new recruits to the akharas , prayers and community singing, spiritual discussions, education and a spectacle. During the colonial era rule of the East India Company, its officials saw the Hindu pilgrimage as a means to collect vast sums of revenue through a "pilgrim tax" and taxes on
1612-399: A sentence or half-verse may be marked with the " । " symbol (called a daṇḍa , meaning "bar", or called a pūrṇa virām , meaning "full stop/pause"). The end of a full verse may be marked with a double- daṇḍa , a " ॥ " symbol. A comma (called an alpa virām , meaning "short stop/pause") is used to denote a natural pause in speech. Punctuation marks of Western origin, such as
1736-621: A syllabus for schools, on the subjects of physics, physiology, geography, astronomy, and astrology He also wrote a book for Bengalis on learning basic English and Hindi called First Book , and wrote a basic book on astrology. Later, he became interested in the education of women, which was uncommon in Bengal at that time. Yukteswar was especially skilled in Jyotiṣa (Indian astrology), and prescribed various astrological gemstones and bangles to his students. He also studied astronomy and science, as evidenced in
1860-440: A very large human gathering, with officials estimating 70 million people over the festival, including more than 40 million on the busiest single day according to BBC News. Another estimate states that about 30 million attended the 2001 Kumbh mela on the busiest mauni amavasya day alone. In 2007, as many as 70 million pilgrims attended the 45-day long Ardha Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj . In 2013, 120 million pilgrims attended
1984-509: Is a major pilgrimage and festival in Hinduism . On 4 February 2019, Kumbh Mela witnessed the largest peaceful public gathering of humans ever recorded. It is celebrated in a cycle of approximately 12 years, to celebrate every revolution Brihaspati ( Jupiter ) completes, at four river-bank pilgrimage sites: Prayagraj ( Ganges - Yamuna - Sarasvati rivers confluence), Haridwar (Ganges), Nashik ( Godavari ), and Ujjain ( Shipra ). The festival
2108-510: Is a table for Hindi, one for Sanskrit and Prakrit, etc. WX is a Roman transliteration scheme for Indian languages, widely used among the natural language processing community in India. It originated at IIT Kanpur for computational processing of Indian languages. The salient features of this transliteration scheme are as follows. ISCII is an 8-bit encoding. The lower 128 codepoints are plain ASCII ,
2232-642: Is associated with an application of the same name that enables typesetting in Indic scripts . The user inputs in Roman letters and the ITRANS pre-processor translates the Roman letters into Devanāgarī (or other Indic languages). The latest version of ITRANS is version 5.30 released in July 2001. It is similar to Velthuis system and was created by Avinash Chopde to help print various Indic scripts with personal computers. The disadvantage of
2356-619: Is being conducted by the Binary Research Institute, which produced a documentary on the topic titled The Great Year , narrated by James Earl Jones . There was an Apple iPhone Application for calculating Sri Yukteswar's calculations. The theory of the Sun's binary companion expounded by Sri Yukteswar in The Holy Science has attracted the attention of David Frawley , who has written about it in several of his books. According to Frawley,
2480-566: Is closely related to the Nandināgarī script commonly found in numerous ancient manuscripts of South India , and it is distantly related to a number of southeast Asian scripts. Devanāgarī is formed by the addition of the word deva ( देव ) to the word nāgarī ( नागरी ). Nāgarī is an adjective derived from nagara ( नगर ), a Sanskrit word meaning "town" or "city," and literally means "urban" or "urbane". The word Nāgarī (implicitly modifying lipi , "script")
2604-575: Is found in chapters 103–112 of the Matsya Purana . Exceedingly old pilgrimage There is evidence enough to suggest that although the Magh Mela – or at least, the tradition of religious festival at the triveni [Prayag] – is exceedingly old, the Kumbh Mela at Allahabad is much more recent. According to James Lochtefeld – a scholar of Indian religions, the phrase Kumbh Mela and historical data about it
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#17330862014382728-631: Is found in the Vedic texts, in this sense, often in the context of holding water or in mythical legends about the nectar of immortality. The word Kumbha or its derivatives are found in the Rigveda (1500–1200 BCE), for example, in verse 10.89.7; verse 19.16 of the Yajurveda , verse 6.3 of Samaveda , verse 19.53.3 of the Atharvaveda , and other Vedic and post-Vedic ancient Sanskrit literature. In astrological texts,
2852-409: Is indicated by diacritics . The vowel अ ( a ) combines with the consonant क् ( k ) to form क ( ka ) with halant removed. But the diacritic series of क , ख , ग , घ ( ka, kha, ga, gha , respectively) is without any added vowel sign, as the vowel अ ( a ) is inherent . The combinations of all Sanskrit consonants and vowels, each in alphabetical order, are laid out in
2976-426: Is marked by a ritual dip in the waters, but it is also a celebration of community commerce with numerous fairs, education, religious discourses by saints, mass gatherings of monks, and entertainment. The seekers believe that bathing in these rivers is a means to prāyaścitta (atonement, penance, restorative action) for past mistakes, and that it cleanses them of their sins. The festival is traditionally credited to
3100-582: Is missing in early Indian texts. However, states Lochtefeld, these historical texts "clearly reveal large, well-established bathing festivals" that were either annual or based on the twelve-year cycle of planet Jupiter. Manuscripts related to Hindu ascetics and warrior-monks – akharas fighting the Islamic Sultanates and Mughal Empire era – mention bathing pilgrimage and a large periodic assembly of Hindus at religious festivals associated with bathing, gift-giving, commerce and organisation. An early account of
3224-546: Is part of the Brahmic family of scripts of India , Nepal , Tibet , and Southeast Asia . It is a descendant of the 3rd century BCE Brāhmī script , which evolved into the Nagari script which in turn gave birth to Devanāgarī and Nandināgarī . Devanāgarī has been widely adopted across India and Nepal to write Sanskrit , Marathi , Hindi , Central Indo-Aryan languages , Konkani , Boro , and various Nepalese languages. Some of
3348-683: Is similar to the Krutidev typing method, popular in Rajasthan. The 'itrans' method is useful for those who know English (and the English keyboard) well but are not familiar with typing in Devanāgarī. Thousands of manuscripts of ancient and medieval era Sanskrit texts in Devanāgarī have been discovered since the 19th century. Major catalogues and census include: Kumbha Mela Traditional Kumbh Mela or Kumbha Mela ( / ˌ k ʊ m b ˈ m eɪ l ə / )
3472-450: Is the best in terms of ligatures but, because it is designed for Vedic as well, requires so much vertical space that it is not well suited for the "user interface font" (though an excellent choice for the "original field" font). Santipur OT is a beautiful font reflecting a very early [medieval era] typesetting style for Devanagari. Sanskrit 2003 is a good all-around font and has more ligatures than most fonts, though students will probably find
3596-671: Is the standard keyboard layout for Devanāgarī as standardized by the Government of India. It is inbuilt in all modern major operating systems . Microsoft Windows supports the InScript layout, which can be used to input unicode Devanāgarī characters. InScript is also available in some touchscreen mobile phones. This layout was used on manual typewriters when computers were not available or were uncommon. For backward compatibility some typing tools like Indic IME still provide this layout. Such tools work on phonetic transliteration. The user writes in
3720-460: Is used for writing languages other than Sanskrit, conjuncts are used mostly with Sanskrit words and loan words. Native words typically use the basic consonant and native speakers know to suppress the vowel when it is conventional to do so. For example, the native Hindi word karnā is written करना ( ka-ra-nā ). The government of these clusters ranges from widely to narrowly applicable rules, with special exceptions within. While standardised for
3844-485: Is visible in the Kutila inscription of Bareilly dated to VS 1049 (992 CE), which demonstrates the emergence of the horizontal bar to group letters belonging to a word. One of the oldest surviving Sanskrit texts from the early post- Maurya period consists of 1,413 Nāgarī pages of a commentary by Patanjali , with a composition date of about 150 BCE, the surviving copy transcribed about 14th century CE. In
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3968-749: The Siddhaṃ matrika script (considered as the closest precursor to Nāgarī) was in use by Buddhists . Nāgarī has been the primus inter pares of the Indic scripts. It has long been used traditionally by religiously educated people in South Asia to record and transmit information, existing throughout the land in parallel with a wide variety of local scripts (such as Moḍī , Kaithi , and Mahajani ) used for administration, commerce, and other daily uses. Sharada remained in parallel use in Kashmir . An early version of Devanāgarī
4092-483: The bārākhaḍī ( बाराखडी ) or bārahkhaṛī ( बारहखड़ी ) table. In the following barakhadi table, the IAST transliteration of each combination will appear on mouseover: The following letter variants are also in use, particularly in older texts and in specific regions: As mentioned, successive consonants lacking a vowel in between them may physically join as a conjunct consonant or ligature . When Devanāgarī
4216-546: The Government of India . A standard transliteration convention was codified in the ISO 15919 standard of 2001. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brāhmic graphemes to the Latin script. The Devanāgarī-specific portion is nearly identical to the academic standard for Sanskrit, IAST . The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is the academic standard for
4340-517: The Hindu luni-solar calendar and the relative astrological positions of Jupiter , the sun and the moon. The difference in Prayag and Haridwar festivals is about 6 years, and both feature a Maha (major) and Ardha (half) Kumbh Melas. The exact years – particularly for the Kumbh Melas at Ujjain and Nashik – have been a subject of dispute in the 20th century. The Nashik and Ujjain festivals have been celebrated in
4464-470: The Indian Railways , artificially intelligent video surveillance and analytics by IBM , disease surveillance , river transport management by Inland Waterways Authority of India , and an app to help the visitors. The Kumbh mela is "widely regarded as the world's largest religious gathering", states James Lochtefeld. According to Kama Maclean, the coordinators and attendees themselves state that
4588-646: The Shaivism tradition, three to Vaishnavism , two to Udasis (founded by Guru Nanak's son) and one to Nirmalas . These soldier-monk traditions have been a well-established feature of the Indian society, and they are prominent feature of the Kumbh melas. Until the East India Company rule , the Kumbh Melas (Magha Melas) were managed by these akharas . They provide logistical arrangements, policing, intervened and judged any disputes and collected taxes. They also have been
4712-595: The UNESCO's Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity . The festival is observed over many days, with the day of Amavasya attracting the largest number on a single day. The Kumbh Mela authorities said that the largest one-day attendance at the Kumbh Mela was 30 million on 10 February 2013, and 50 million on 4 February 2019. The Kumbha in Kumbha Mela literally means "pitcher, jar, pot" in Sanskrit . It
4836-683: The colon , semicolon , exclamation mark , dash , and question mark have been in use in Devanāgarī script since at least the 1900s, matching their use in European languages. A variety of Unicode fonts are in use for Devanāgarī. These include Akshar, Annapurna, Arial , CDAC-Gist Surekh, CDAC-Gist Yogesh, Chandas, Gargi, Gurumaa, Jaipur, Jana, Kalimati, Kanjirowa, Lohit Devanagari, Mangal, Kokila, ,Preeti, Raghu, Sanskrit2003, Santipur OT, Siddhanta, and Thyaka. The form of Devanāgarī fonts vary with function. According to Harvard College for Sanskrit studies: Uttara [companion to Chandas ]
4960-558: The 1789 Nashik Kumbh Mela. The dispute started over the bathing order, which then indicated status of the akhara s. At the 1796 Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, violence broke out between the Shaivites and the Udasis on logistics and camping rights. The repetitive clashes, battle-ready nature of the warrior monks, and the lucrative tax and trading opportunities at Kumbh melas in the 18th-century attracted
5084-750: The 7th century, under the rule of Songtsen Gampo of the Tibetan Empire , Thonmi Sambhota was sent to Nepal to open marriage negotiations with a Nepali princess and to find a writing system suitable for the Tibetan language. He then invented the Tibetan script based on the Nāgarī used in Kashmir. He added 6 new characters for sounds that did not exist in Sanskrit. Other scripts closely related to Nāgarī (such as Siddhaṃ ) were introduced throughout East and Southeast Asia from
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5208-603: The 7th to the 10th centuries CE: notably in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Japan. Most of the Southeast Asian scripts have roots in Dravidian scripts, but a few found in south-central regions of Java and isolated parts of southeast Asia resemble Devanāgarī or its prototypes. The Kawi script in particular is similar to the Devanāgarī in many respects, though the morphology of the script has local changes. The earliest inscriptions in
5332-484: The 8th-century Hindu philosopher Adi Shankara , as a part of his efforts to start monastic institutions ( matha ), and major Hindu gatherings for philosophical discussions and debates. However, there is no historic literary evidence that he actually did start the Kumbh melas. During the 17th century, the akharas competed for ritual primacy, priority rights to who bathes first or at the most auspicious time, and prominence leading to violent conflicts. The records from
5456-622: The 8th-century Hindu philosopher and saint Adi Shankara , as a part of his efforts to start major Hindu gatherings for philosophical discussions and debates along with Hindu monasteries across the Indian subcontinent. However, there is no historical literary evidence of these mass pilgrimages called "Kumbha Mela" prior to the 19th century. There is ample evidence in historical manuscripts and inscriptions of an annual Magha Mela in Hinduism – with periodic larger gatherings after 6 or 12 years – where pilgrims gathered in massive numbers and where one of
5580-516: The 9th century copper plate inscription of Devapaladeva (Bengal) which is also in early Devanāgarī script. The term kawi in Kawi script is a loan word from kāvya (poetry). According to anthropologists and Asian studies scholars John Norman Miksic and Goh Geok Yian, the 8th century version of early Nāgarī or Devanāgarī script was adopted in Java, Bali , and Khmer around the 8th–9th centuries, as evidenced by
5704-617: The Devanāgarī-like scripts are from around the 10th century CE, with many more between the 11th and 14th centuries. Some of the old-Devanāgarī inscriptions are found in Hindu temples of Java, such as the Prambanan temple. The Ligor and the Kalasan inscriptions of central Java, dated to the 8th century, are also in the Nāgarī script of north India. According to the epigraphist and Asian Studies scholar Lawrence Briggs, these may be related to
5828-464: The East India Company rule era report of violence between the akharas and numerous deaths. At the 1760 Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, a clash broke out between Shaivite Gosains and Vaishnavite Bairagis (ascetics), resulting in hundreds of deaths. A copper plate inscription of the Maratha Peshwa claims that 12,000 ascetics died in a clash between Shaivite sanyasi s and Vaishnavite bairagi s at
5952-566: The Haridwar Kumbh Mela was published by Captain Thomas Hardwicke in 1796 CE. According to James Mallinson – a scholar of Hindu yoga manuscripts and monastic institutions, bathing festivals at Prayag with large gatherings of pilgrims are attested since "at least the middle of the first millennium CE", while textual evidence exists for similar pilgrimage at other major sacred rivers since the medieval period. Four of these morphed under
6076-527: The Hindu pilgrims to a Christian sect. During the 1857 rebellion, Colonel Neill targeted the Kumbh mela site and shelled the region where the Prayagwals lived, destroying it in what Maclean describes as a "notoriously brutal pacification of Allahabad". "Prayagwals targeted and destroyed the mission press and churches in Allahabad". Once the British had regained control of the region, the Prayagwals were persecuted by
6200-944: The Indic language Misplaced Pages and other wikiprojects, including Hindi, Bhojpuri, Marathi, and Nepali Misplaced Pages. While some people use InScript , the majority uses either Google phonetic transliteration or the input facility Universal Language Selector provided on Misplaced Pages. On Indic language wikiprojects, the phonetic facility provided initially was java-based, and was later supported by Narayam extension for phonetic input facility. Currently Indic language Wiki projects are supported by Universal Language Selector (ULS) , that offers both phonetic keyboard (Aksharantaran, Marathi: अक्षरांतरण , Hindi: लिप्यंतरण, बोलनागरी ) and InScript keyboard (Marathi: मराठी लिपी ). The Ubuntu Linux operating system supports several keyboard layouts for Devanāgarī, including Harvard-Kyoto, WX notation , Bolanagari and phonetic. The 'remington' typing method in Ubuntu IBUS
6324-586: The Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj. Nasik has registered maximum visitors to 75 million. Maha Kumbh at Prayagraj is the largest in the world, the attendance and scale of preparation of which keeps rising with each successive celebration. For the 2019 Ardh Kumbh at Prayagraj , the preparations included the construction of a ₹ 42,000 million (equivalent to ₹ 52 billion or US$ 630 million in 2023) temporary city over 2,500 hectares with 122,000 temporary toilets and range of accommodation from simple dormitory tents to 5-star tents, 800 special trains by
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#17330862014386448-423: The Kumbh Mela brand during the East India Company rule (British colonial era) when it sought to control the war-prone monks and the lucrative tax and trade revenues at these Hindu pilgrimage festivals. Additionally, the priests sought the British administration to recognise the festival and protect their religious rights. The 16th-century Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas mentions an annual Mela in Prayag, as does
6572-407: The Kumbh Mela is uncertain. The 7th-century Buddhist Chinese traveller Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsang) mentions king Harsha and his capital of Prayag, which he states to be a sacred Hindu city with hundreds of " deva temples" and two Buddhist institutions. He also mentions the Hindu bathing rituals at the junction of the rivers. According to some scholars, this is the earliest surviving historical account of
6696-530: The Kumbh Mela originated in times immemorial and is attested in the Hindu mythology about Samudra Manthana ( lit. churning of the ocean) found in the Vedic texts. Historians, in contrast, reject these claims as none of the ancient or medieval era texts that mention the Samudra Manthana legend ever link it to a "mela" or festival. According to Giorgio Bonazzoli, a scholar of Sanskrit Puranas, these are anachronistic explanations, an adaptation of early legends to
6820-401: The Kumbh Mela, which took place in present-day Prayag in 644 CE. Kama MacLean – an Indologist who has published articles on the Kumbh Mela predominantly based on the colonial archives and English-language media, states based on emails from other scholars and a more recent interpretation of the 7th-century Xuanzang memoir, the Prayag event happened every 5 years (and not 12 years), featured
6944-611: The Kumbh Melas: Prayagraj, Haridwar, Trimbak-Nashik and Ujjain. Other locations that are sometimes called Kumbh melas – with the bathing ritual and a significant participation of pilgrims – include Kurukshetra , and Sonipat . Each site's celebration dates are calculated in advance according to a special combination of zodiacal positions of Bṛhaspati ( Jupiter ), Surya (the Sun ) and Chandra (the Moon ). The relative years vary between
7068-561: The Latin alphabet and the IME automatically converts it into Devanāgarī. Some popular phonetic typing tools are Akruti, Baraha IME and Google IME . The Mac OS X operating system includes two different keyboard layouts for Devanāgarī: one resembles the INSCRIPT/KDE Linux, while the other is a phonetic layout called "Devanāgarī QWERTY". Any one of the Unicode fonts input systems is fine for
7192-817: The Mela strengthens social bonds and elevates individual and communal consciousness, illustrating the power of such gatherings to create shared identity and purpose. The Kumbh Mela are classified as: For the 2019 Prayagraj Kumbh Mela , the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced that the Ardh Kumbh Mela (organised every 6 years) will simply be known as "Kumbh Mela", and the Kumbh Mela (organised every 12 years) will be known as "Maha Kumbh Mela" ("Great Kumbh Mela"). Numerous sites and fairs have been locally referred to be their Kumbh Melas. Of these, four sites are broadly recognised as
7316-518: The Tamil Kumbh Mela. Other places where the Magha-Mela or Makar-Mela bathing pilgrimage and fairs have been called Kumbh Mela include Kurukshetra, Sonipat , and Panauti (Nepal). The Kumbh Melas have three dates around which the significant majority of pilgrims participate, while the festival itself lasts between one and three months around these dates. Each festival attracts millions, with
7440-457: The Vedic era texts (pre-500 BCE). Nor is this story found in the later era Puranas (3rd to 10th-century CE). While the Kumbha Mela phrase is not found in the ancient or medieval era texts, numerous chapters and verses in Hindu texts are found about a bathing festival, the sacred junction of rivers Ganga , Yamuna and mythical Saraswati at Prayag, and pilgrimage to Prayag. These are in
7564-651: The above ASCII schemes is case-sensitivity, implying that transliterated names may not be capitalised. This difficulty is avoided with the system developed in 1996 by Frans Velthuis for TeX , loosely based on IAST, in which case is irrelevant. ALA-LC romanisation is a transliteration scheme approved by the Library of Congress and the American Library Association, and widely used in North American libraries. Transliteration tables are based on languages, so there
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#17330862014387688-404: The adoption of Nāgarī scripts. For example, the mid 8th-century Pattadakal pillar in Karnataka has text in both Siddha Matrika script, and an early Telugu-Kannada script; while, the Kangra Jawalamukhi inscription in Himachal Pradesh is written in both Sharada and Devanāgarī scripts. The Nāgarī script was in regular use by the 7th century CE, and it was fully developed by about
7812-475: The ages." Sri Yukteswar was born Priya Nath Karar in Serampore , India to Kshetranath and Kadambini Karar. Priya Nath lost his father at a young age, and took on much of the responsibility for managing his family's land holdings. A bright student, he passed the entrance exams and enrolled in Srirampur Christian Missionary College, where he developed an interest in the Bible. This interest would later express itself in his book, The Holy Science , which discusses
7936-451: The ancient Brāhmi script. It is one of the official scripts of the Republic of India and Nepal . It was developed and in regular use by the 8th century CE and achieved its modern form by 1000 CE. The Devanāgari script, composed of 48 primary characters, including 14 vowels and 34 consonants, is the fourth most widely adopted writing system in the world, being used for over 120 languages. The orthography of this script reflects
8060-416: The attendance rose sharply. On amavasya – one of the three key bathing dates, over 5 million attended the 1954 Kumbh, about 10 million attended the 1977 Kumbh while the 1989 Kumbh attracted about 15 million. On 14 April 1998, 10 million pilgrims attended the Kumb Mela at Haridwar on the busiest single day, according to the Himalayan Academy editors. In 2001, IKONOS satellite images confirmed
8184-407: The attention of the East India Company officials. They intervened, laid out the camps, trading spaces, and established a bathing order for each akhara. After 1947, the state governments have taken over this role and provide the infrastructure for the Kumbh mela in their respective states. The Kumbh Melas attract many loner sadhus (monks) who do not belong to any akharas. Of those who do belong to
8308-490: The colonial officials, some convicted and hanged, while others for whom the government did not have proof enough to convict were persecuted. Large tracts of Kumbh mela lands near the Ganga-Yamuna confluence were confiscated and annexed into the government cantonment. In the years after 1857, the Prayagwals and the Kumbh Mela pilgrim crowds carried flags with images alluding to the rebellion and the racial persecution. The British media reported these pilgrim assemblies and protests at
8432-650: The country to bathe, in such numbers, that the jungles and plains [around it] were unable to hold them". The Kumbh Mela of Haridwar appears to be the original Kumbh Mela, since it is held according to the astrological sign "Kumbha" ( Aquarius ), and because there are several references to a 12-year cycle for it. The later Mughal Empire era texts that contain the term "Kumbha Mela" in Haridwar's context include Khulasat-ut-Tawarikh (1695–1699 CE), and Chahar Gulshan (1759 CE). The Khulasat-ut-Tawarikh also mentions an annual bathing pilgrimage festival in Prayag, but it does not call it Kumbh. Both these Mughal era texts use
8556-450: The crowd behind the Beatles. Devanagari Devanagari ( / ˌ d eɪ v ə ˈ n ɑː ɡ ə r i / DAY -və- NAH -gə-ree ; देवनागरी , IAST : Devanāgarī , Sanskrit pronunciation: [deːʋɐˈnaːɡɐriː] ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent . Also simply called Nāgari ( Sanskrit : नागरि , Nāgari ), it is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system ), based on
8680-557: The earliest epigraphic evidence attesting to the developing Sanskrit Nāgarī script in ancient India is from the 1st to 4th century CE inscriptions discovered in Gujarat . Variants of script called nāgarī , recognisably close to Devanāgarī, are first attested from the 1st century CE Rudradaman inscriptions in Sanskrit, while the modern standardised form of Devanāgarī was in use by about 1000 CE. Medieval inscriptions suggest widespread diffusion of Nāgarī-related scripts, with biscripts presenting local script along with
8804-517: The end of first millennium. The use of Sanskrit in Nāgarī script in medieval India is attested by numerous pillar and cave-temple inscriptions, including the 11th-century Udayagiri inscriptions in Madhya Pradesh , and an inscribed brick found in Uttar Pradesh , dated to be from 1217 CE, which is now held at the British Museum . The script's prototypes and related versions have been discovered with ancient relics outside India, in places such as Sri Lanka , Myanmar and Indonesia . In East Asia,
8928-417: The fair had horse traders from Bukhara , Kabul , Turkistan as well as Arabs and Persians. The festival had roadside merchants of food grains, confectioners, clothes, toys and other items. Thousands of pilgrims in every form of transport as well as on foot marched to the pilgrimage site, dressed in colourful costumes, some without clothes, occasionally shouting "Mahadeo Bol" and "Bol, Bol" together. At night
9052-459: The flow of pilgrims to and from the river and ghats was managed. In 1986, 50 people were killed in a stampede. The Prayag Kumbh mela in 1885 became a source of scandal when a Muslim named Husain was appointed as the Kumbh Mela manager, and Indian newspaper reports stated that Husain had "organised a flotilla of festooned boats for the pleasure of European ladies and gentlemen, and entertained them with dancing girls, liquor and beef" as they watched
9176-773: The form of Snana (bathe) ritual and in the form of Prayag Mahatmya (greatness of Prayag, historical tour guides in Sanskrit). The earliest mention of Prayag and the bathing pilgrimage is found in Rigveda Pariśiṣṭa (supplement to the Rigveda ). It is also mentioned in the Pali canons of Buddhism , such as in section 1.7 of Majjhima Nikaya , wherein the Buddha states that bathing in Payaga (Skt: Prayaga) cannot wash away cruel and evil deeds, rather
9300-569: The formulation of his Yuga theory in The Holy Science . He had only a few long-term disciples, but in 1910, the young Mukunda Lal Ghosh would become Sri Yukteswar's most well known disciple, eventually spreading the teachings of Kriya Yoga throughout the world as Paramahansa Yogananda with his church of all religions – Self-Realization Fellowship / Yogoda Satsanga Society of India . Yogananda attributed Sri Yukteswar's small number of disciples to his strict training methods, which Yogananda said "cannot be described as other than drastic". Regarding
9424-425: The four sites, but the cycle repeats about every 12 years. Since Jupiter's orbit completes in 11.86 years, a calendar year adjustment appears in approximately 8 cycles. Therefore, approximately once a century, the Kumbh mela returns to a site after 11 years. Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj is celebrated approximately 3 years after Kumbh at Haridwar and 3 years before Kumbh at Nashik and Ujjain (both of which are celebrated in
9548-566: The greater Kolkata area to his Kriya yoga students, and also regularly invited individuals from all social backgrounds to his ashrams to discuss and exchange ideas on a range of topics. As a guru, he was nonetheless known for his candid insight, stern nature and strict disciplinary training methods, as noted by his disciple Yogananda in his autobiography . The rigorous nature of his training eventually prepared his disciples, such as Satyananda and Yogananda himself, for their own intense social work in India and America, respectively. In accordance with
9672-424: The high ideals and "penetrating insight" with which he lived, Sri Yukteswar was considered by Yogananda as a Jnanavatar , or "Incarnation of Wisdom;" Evans-Wentz felt him "worthy of the veneration which his followers spontaneously accorded to him...Content to remain afar from the multitude, he gave himself unreservedly and in tranquility to that ideal life which Paramhansa Yogananda, his disciple, has now described for
9796-491: The highest esteem. I vividly recall his tall, straight, ascetic figure, garbed in the saffron-colored garb of one who has renounced worldly quests, as he stood at the entrance of the hermitage to give me welcome. His hair was long and somewhat curly, and his face bearded. His body was muscularly firm, but slender and well-formed, and his step energetic. Yukteswar attained mahasamadhi at Karar Ashram, Puri, India on 9 March 1936. Sri Yukteswar wrote The Holy Science in 1894. In
9920-464: The historian and biographer of the Turco-Mongol raider and conqueror Timur , Timur's armies plundered Haridwar and massacred the gathered pilgrims. The ruthlessly slaughtered pilgrims were likely those attending the Kumbh mela of 1399. The Timur accounts mention the mass bathing ritual along with shaving of head, the sacred river Ganges, charitable donations, the place was at the mountainous source of
10044-677: The hubs for the Hindutva movement and politics. In 1964, the Vishva Hindu Parishad was founded at the Haridwar Kumbh Mela. The historical and modern estimates of attendance vary greatly between sources. For example, the colonial era Imperial Gazetteer of India reported that between 2 and 2.5 million pilgrims attended the Kumbh mela in 1796 and 1808, then added these numbers may be exaggerations. Between 1892 and 1908, in an era of major famines, cholera and plague epidemics in British India,
10168-496: The impact of the religious tax on the pilgrims became clear. In 1938, Lord Auckland abolished the pilgrim tax and vast numbers returned to the pilgrimage thereafter. According to Macclean, the colonial records of this period on the Prayag Mela present a biased materialistic view given they were written by colonialists and missionaries. Baptist missionary John Chamberlain, who visited the 1824 Ardh Kumbh Mela at Haridwar, stated that
10292-424: The introduction, he wrote: The purpose of this book is to show as clearly as possible that there is an essential unity in all religions; that there is no difference in the truths inculcated by the various faiths; that there is but one method by which the world, both external and internal, has evolved; and that there is but one Goal admitted by all scriptures. The work introduced many ideas that were revolutionary for
10416-518: The keyboard. This makes typing in Harvard-Kyoto much easier than IAST. Harvard-Kyoto uses capital letters that can be difficult to read in the middle of words. ITRANS is a lossless transliteration scheme of Devanāgarī into ASCII that is widely used on Usenet . It is an extension of the Harvard-Kyoto scheme. In ITRANS, the word devanāgarī is written "devanaagarii" or "devanAgarI". ITRANS
10540-573: The largest gathering at the Prayag Kumbh Mela and the second largest at Haridwar. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica and Indian authorities, more than 200 million Hindus gathered for the Kumbh Mela in 2019, including 50 million on the festival's most crowded day. The festival is one of the largest peaceful gatherings in the world, and considered as the "world's largest congregation of religious pilgrims". It has been inscribed on
10664-648: The later Kumbh Mela as strangely "hostile" and with "disbelief", states Maclean. The Kumbh Mela continued to play an important role in the independence movement through 1947, as a place where the native people and politicians periodically gathered in large numbers. In 1906, the Sanatan Dharm Sabha met at the Prayag Kumbh Mela and resolved to start the Banaras Hindu University in Madan Mohan Malaviya's leadership. Kumbh Melas have also been one of
10788-411: The legend, the pot is spilled at four places, and that is the origin of the four Kumbha Melas. The story varies and is inconsistent, with some stating Vishnu as Mohini avatar, others stating Dhanavantari or Garuda or Indra spilling the pot. This "spilling" and associated Kumbh Mela story is not found in the earliest mentions of the original legend of Samudra Manthana (churning of the ocean) such as
10912-399: The many contemporaneous inscriptions of this period. The letter order of Devanāgarī, like nearly all Brāhmic scripts, is based on phonetic principles that consider both the manner and place of articulation of the consonants and vowels they represent. This arrangement is usually referred to as the varṇamālā (" garland of letters"). The format of Devanāgarī for Sanskrit serves as
11036-579: The monastic name Sri Yukteswar Giri. His disciple Satyananda writes that the Sri in his name is not a separate honorific but part of his given name: "...many follow the usual procedure (for writing or saying someone's name informally) and drop the 'Sri' and say only 'Yukteshvar', but this is not correct. If one wants to put a ' Sri ' at the beginning as in the prevalent fashion, then his name would look as: 'Sri Sriyukteshvar Giri.'" In 1884, Priya Nath met Lahiri Mahasaya , who became his guru and initiated him into
11160-473: The most part, there are certain variations in clustering, of which the Unicode used on this page is just one scheme. The following are a number of rules: The pitch accent of Vedic Sanskrit is written with various symbols depending on shakha . In the Rigveda , anudātta is written with a bar below the line ( ◌॒ ), svarita with a stroke above the line ( ◌॑ ) while udātta is unmarked. The end of
11284-425: The name Kumbh for these more ancient bathing pilgrimages probably dates to the mid-19th century. D. P. Dubey states that none of the ancient Hindu texts call the Prayag fair as a "Kumbh Mela". Kama Maclean states that the early British records do not mention the name "Kumbh Mela" or the 12-year cycle for the Prayag fair. The first British reference to the Kumbh Mela in Prayag occurs only in an 1868 report, which mentions
11408-530: The names of temples and bathing pools suggest that Xuanzang presented Hindu practices at Prayag in the 7th century, from his Buddhist perspective and perhaps to "amuse his audience back in China", states Glucklich. Other early accounts of the significance of Prayag to Hinduism is found in the various versions of the Prayaga Mahatmya , dated to the late 1st-millennium CE. These Purana-genre Hindu texts describe it as
11532-538: The native police also made attempts to improve the infrastructure, movement of pilgrims to avoid a stampede, detect sickness, and the sanitary conditions at the Melas. Reports of cholera led the officials to cancel the pilgrimage, but the pilgrims went on "passive resistance" and stated they preferred to die rather than obey the official orders. The Kumbh Melas have been sites of tragedies. According to Sharaf ad-Din Ali Yazdi ,
11656-594: The need for increased pilgrimage and sanitation controls at the "Coomb fair" to be held in January 1870. According to Maclean, the Prayagwal Brahmin priests of Prayag coopted the Kumbh legend and brand to the annual Prayag Magh Mela given the socio-political circumstances in the 19th century. The Kumbh Mela at Ujjain began in the 18th century, when the Maratha ruler Ranoji Shinde invited ascetics from Nashik to Ujjain for
11780-518: The path of Kriya Yoga . Sri Yukteswar spent a great deal of time in the next several years in the company of his guru, often visiting Lahiri Mahasaya in Benares. In 1894, while attending the Kumbha Mela in Allahabad, he met the guru of Lahiri Mahasaya, Mahavatar Babaji , who asked Sri Yukteswar to write a book comparing Hindu scriptures and the Christian bible. Mahavatar Babaji also bestowed on Sri Yukteswar
11904-439: The path to elevate your Soul by applying the techniques of sadhana given by the guru. Author W.Y. Evans-Wentz described his impression of Sri Yukteswar in the preface to Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi : Sri Yukteswar was of gentle mien and voice, of pleasing presence, and worthy of the veneration, which his followers spontaneously accorded to him. Every person who knew him, whether of his own community or not, held him in
12028-473: The phrase "Kumbh mela" is yet to be found in literature prior to the 19th century. The phrases such as "Maha Kumbh" and "Ardh Kumbh" in the context of the ancient religious pilgrimage festivals with a different name at Prayag, Nasik and Ujjain are evidently of a more modern era. The Magh Mela of Prayag is probably the oldest among the four modern day Kumbh Melas. It dates from the early centuries CE, given it has been mentioned in several early Puranas . However,
12152-444: The pilgrimage dropped to between 300,000 and 400,000. During World War II , the colonial government banned the Kumbh Mela to conserve scarce supplies of fuel. The ban, coupled with false rumours that Japan planned to bomb and commit genocide at the Kumbh mela site, led to sharply lower attendance at the 1942 Kumbh mela than prior decades when an estimated 2 to 4 million pilgrims gathered at each Kumbh mela. After India's independence,
12276-492: The pilgrims bathing. According to the colonial archives, the Prayagwal community associated with the Kumbh Mela were one of those who seeded and perpetuated the resistance and 1857 rebellion to the colonial rule. Prayagwals objected to and campaigned against the colonial government who supported Christian missionaries and officials who treated them and the pilgrims as "ignorant co-religionists" and who aggressively tried to convert
12400-407: The pilgrims. This changed particularly after 1857. According to Amna Khalid, the Kumbh Melas emerged as one of the social and political mobilisation venues and the colonial government became keen on monitoring these developments after the Indian rebellion of 1857. The government deployed police to gain this intelligence at the grassroots level of Kumbh Mela. The British officials in co-operation with
12524-477: The pronunciation of the language. Unlike the Latin alphabet, the script has no concept of letter case . It is written from left to right, has a strong preference for symmetrical rounded shapes within squared outlines, and is recognisable by a horizontal line, known as a शिरोरेखा śirorekhā , that runs along the top of full letters. In a cursory look, the Devanāgarī script appears different from other Indic scripts , such as Bengali-Assamese or Gurmukhi , but
12648-619: The prototype for its application, with minor variations or additions, to other languages. The vowels and their arrangement are: The table below shows the consonant letters (in combination with inherent vowel a ) and their arrangement. To the right of the Devanāgarī letter it shows the Latin script transliteration using International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration , and the phonetic value ( IPA ) in Hindi . The table below shows consonants with common vowel diacritics and their ISO 15919 transliteration. Vowels in their independent form on
12772-492: The rituals included a sacred dip in a river or holy tank. According to Kama MacLean, the socio-political developments during the colonial era and a reaction to Orientalism led to the rebranding and remobilisation of the ancient Magha Mela as the modern era Kumbh Mela, particularly after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 . The weeks over which the festival is observed cycle at each site approximately once every 12 years based on
12896-528: The river and that pilgrims believed a dip in the sacred river leads to their salvation. Several stampedes have occurred at the Kumbh Melas. After an 1820 stampede at Haridwar killed 485 people, the Company government took extensive infrastructure projects, including the construction of new ghats and road widening, to prevent further stampedes. The various Kumbh melas, in the 19th- and 20th-century witnessed sporadic stampedes, each tragedy leading to changes in how
13020-533: The river banks and camps illuminated with oil lamps, fireworks burst over the river, and innumerable floating lamps set by the pilgrims drifted downstream of the river. Several Hindu rajas , Sikh rulers and Muslim Nawabs visited the fair. Europeans watched the crowds and few Christian missionaries distributed their religious literature at the Hardwar Mela, wrote Martin. Prior to 1838, the British officials collected taxes but provided no infrastructure or services to
13144-446: The role of the Guru, Sri Yukteswar said: Look, there is no point in blindly believing that after I touch you, you will be saved, or that a chariot from heaven will be waiting for you. Because of the guru's attainment, the sanctifying touch becomes a helper in the blossoming of Knowledge, and being respectful towards having acquired this blessing, you must yourself become a sage, and proceed on
13268-497: The romanisation of Sanskrit. IAST is the de facto standard used in printed publications, like books, magazines, and electronic texts with Unicode fonts. It is based on a standard established by the Congress of Orientalists at Athens in 1912. The ISO 15919 standard of 2001 codified the transliteration convention to include an expanded standard for sister scripts of Devanāgarī. The National Library at Kolkata romanisation , intended for
13392-400: The romanisation of all Indic scripts, is an extension of IAST. Compared to IAST, Harvard-Kyoto looks much simpler. It does not contain all the diacritic marks that IAST contains. It was designed to simplify the task of putting large amount of Sanskrit textual material into machine readable form, and the inventors stated that it reduces the effort needed in transliteration of Sanskrit texts on
13516-670: The same year or one year apart, typically about 3 years after the Allahabad / Prayagraj Kumbh Mela. Elsewhere in many parts of India, similar but smaller community pilgrimage and bathing festivals are called the Magha Mela, Makar Mela or equivalent. For example, in Tamil Nadu , the Magha Mela with water-dip ritual is a festival of antiquity. This festival is held at the Mahamaham tank (near Kaveri river) every 12 years at Kumbakonam , attracts millions of South Indian Hindus and has been described as
13640-599: The spacing of the CDAC-Gist Surekh font makes for quicker comprehension and reading. The Google Fonts project has a number of Unicode fonts for Devanāgarī in a variety of typefaces in serif, sans-serif, display and handwriting categories. There are several methods of Romanisation or transliteration from Devanāgarī to the Roman script . The Hunterian system is the national system of romanisation in India , officially adopted by
13764-579: The term "Kumbh Mela" to describe only Haridwar's fair, mentioning a similar fair held in Prayag and Nashik. The Khulasat-ut-Tawarikh lists the following melas: an annual mela and a Kumbh Mela every 12 years at Haridwar ; a mela held at Trimbak when Jupiter enters Leo (that is, once in 12 years); and an annual mela held at Prayag (in modern Prayagraj) in Magh . Like the Prayag mela, the bathing pilgrimage mela at Nasik and Ujjain are of considerable antiquity. However, these were referred to as Singhasth mela , and
13888-504: The term also refers to the zodiac sign of Aquarius . The astrological etymology dates to late 1st-millennium CE, likely influenced by Greek zodiac ideas. The word mela means "unite, join, meet, move together, assembly, junction" in Sanskrit, particularly in the context of fairs, community celebration. This word too is found in the Rigveda and other ancient Hindu texts. Thus, Kumbh Mela means an "assembly, meet, union" around "water or nectar of immortality". Many Hindus believe that
14012-454: The theory offers a better estimate of the age of Rama and Krishna and other important historical Indian figures than other dating methods, which estimate some of these figures to have lived millions of years ago – belying accepted human history. Sri Yukteswar's face can be seen on the cover of the Beatles ' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). He appears on the upper left of
14136-438: The time – for instance, Sri Yukteswar broke from Hindu tradition in stating that the earth is not in the age of Kali Yuga , but has advanced to Dvapara Yuga . His proof was based on a new perspective of the precession of the equinoxes. He also introduced the idea that the sun takes a 'star for its dual', and revolves around it in a period of 24,000 years, which accounts for the precession of the equinox . Research into this theory
14260-665: The title of 'Swami' at that meeting. Sri Yukteswar completed the requested book in 1894, naming it Kaivalya Darsanam , or The Holy Science . Sri Yukteswar converted his large two-story family home in Serampore into an ashram, named "Priyadham", where he resided with students and disciples. In 1903, he also established an ashram in the seaside town of Puri , naming it "Karar Ashram". From these two ashrams, Sri Yukteswar taught students, and began an organization named "Sadhu Sabha". An interest in education resulted in Sri Yukteswar developing
14384-449: The top and in their corresponding dependent form (vowel sign) combined with the consonant ' k ' on the bottom. ' ka ' is without any added vowel sign, where the vowel ' a ' is inherent . A vowel combines with a consonant in their diacritic form. For example, the vowel आ ( ā ) combines with the consonant क् ( k ) to form the syllabic letter का ( kā ), with halant (cancel sign) removed and added vowel sign which
14508-507: The trade that occurred during the festival. According to Dubey, as well as Macclean, the Islamic encyclopaedia Yadgar-i-Bahaduri written in 1834 Lucknow , described the Prayag festival and its sanctity to the Hindus. The British officials, states Dubey, raised the tax to amount greater than average monthly income and the attendance fell drastically. The Prayagwal pandas initially went along, according to colonial records, but later resisted as
14632-632: The unity behind the scientific principles underlying Yoga and the Bible. He also attended Calcutta Medical College (then affiliated with the University of Calcutta ) for almost two years. After leaving college, Priya Nath married and had a daughter. His wife died a few years after their marriage. He was a vegetarian . He eventually was formally initiated into the Swami order by the Mahant at Bodh Gaya , where he received
14756-642: The upper 128 codepoints are ISCII-specific. It has been designed for representing not only Devanāgarī but also various other Indic scripts as well as a Latin-based script with diacritic marks used for transliteration of the Indic scripts. ISCII has largely been superseded by Unicode, which has, however, attempted to preserve the ISCII layout for its Indic language blocks. The Unicode Standard defines four blocks for Devanāgarī: Devanagari (U+0900–U+097F), Devanagari Extended (U+A8E0–U+A8FF), Devanagari Extended-A (U+11B00–11B5F), and Vedic Extensions (U+1CD0–U+1CFF). InScript
14880-485: The virtuous one should be pure in heart and fair in action. The Mahabharata mentions a bathing pilgrimage at Prayag as a means of prāyaścitta (atonement, penance) for past mistakes and guilt. In Tirthayatra Parva , before the great war, the epic states "the one who observes firm [ethical] vows, having bathed at Prayaga during Magha, O best of the Bharatas, becomes spotless and reaches heaven." In Anushasana Parva , after
15004-405: The war, the epic elaborates this bathing pilgrimage as "geographical tirtha" that must be combined with Manasa-tirtha (tirtha of the heart) whereby one lives by values such as truth, charity, self-control, patience and others. There are other references to Prayaga and river-side festivals in ancient Indian texts, including at the places where present-day Kumbh Melas are held, but the exact age of
15128-824: Was a Kriya yogi , a Jyotishi (Vedic astrologer), a scholar of the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, an educator, author, and astronomer. He was a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya of Varanasi and a member of the Giri branch of the Swami order. As a guru, he had two ashrams, one in Serampore and another in Puri , Odisha, between which he alternated his residence throughout the year as he trained disciples. Described by Tibetologist W.Y. Evans-Wentz as being "of gentle mien and voice, of pleasing presence," and with "high character and holiness," Sri Yukteswar
15252-405: Was a progressive-minded figure in 19th-century Serampore society; he regularly held religious festivals throughout the year around the towns and at his ashrams, created a "Satsanga Sabha" spiritual study organization, established syllabi for educational institutions, and re-analyzed the Vedic astrological yugas . Noted for his sharp mind and insightful knowledge, he became a respected guru throughout
15376-409: Was used on its own to refer to a North Indian script, or perhaps a number of such scripts, as Al-Biruni attests in the 11th century; the form Devanāgarī is attested later, at least by the 18th century. The name of the Nandināgarī script is also formed by adding a prefix to the generic script name nāgarī . The precise origin and significance of the prefix deva remains unclear. Devanāgarī
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