How Daru Brahma Jagannatha Came to Our Ashram for Conducting Ratha Yatra

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Last week was the famous Ratha Yatra chariot festival, which is held each year for Lord Jagannatha in Puri. At first the government had cancelled the religious festival, but as the deadline approached the Supreme Court relented and gave permission for the Puri temple to conduct the festival without the presence of the public. Likewise, Jagannatha temples throughout the state were informed to conduct all the rituals for the festival within their respective temple compounds in a scaled down manner, without the presence of the public.

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The Vedic People of Bactria

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Mazar-i-Sharif will probably be familiar to those who are old enough to remember the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. It was the first Taliban city to fall to the US army, and subsequently became famous for a prison uprising in which a CIA officer was killed and an American named John Walker Lindh was found fighting with the Taliban.

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The Vedic People of Azerbaijan

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In a previous article (The Vedic People of Scandinavia) we highlighted the very clear Vedic connections in Scandinavia. Without repeating those details, we know that the Aesir (Norse gods) are etymologically connected to the Vedic Asuras. But how did these traditions arrive in such a remote place? There is one highly controversial theory worth exploring.

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Hanuman Jayanti Celebrations at Our Ashram in Chennai (December 25th, 2019)

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On December 25th we celebrated Hanuman Jayanti at our ashram in Chennai, where the presiding deity is of Sri Panchamukha Hanuman. From morning till evening thousands of devotees visited for darshana of Lord Hanuman. Bhajans were sung by devotees, and prasadam was distributed to all of the guests throughout the day.

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An Interesting Meeting with Hari Baba of Jharkhand

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Here is a small story of an interesting meeting we recently had with a sadhu from Jharkhand named Hari Baba. He stays in a small village in Jharkhand, and was attending the annual Gita Yagya at Rambaba Ashram, near Jamshedpur. He is a very unique sadhu, always in a type of inner trance, not very aware of the outside around us.

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Did You Know That Mayapur Was Once the Capital of the Eastern Empire of India?

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Did you know that Mayapur was once the capital of the Eastern Empire of India, and that the king’s palace lies in ruins a short walk from ISKCON Mayapur?

Just behind Chand Kazi’s samadhi are the ruins known as Ballal Dhipi, which even today no one really knows much about. If you ask locals they have no idea what it is or what it was. Up until 1980 it was a giant earthen mound 30 feet high, covered in grass. No one knew what was underneath.

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Hanuman Jayanti Celebrations at Bhaktivedanta Ashram in Chennai (2019)

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The following pictures are from the Hanuman Jayanti celebrations at our Panchamukha Hanuman temple in Chennai this year. In North India Hanuman Jayanti falls in April, but according to the Tamil calendar it falls in the months of December and January. This year it was in early January. Due to other work we are a little late posting these pictures, so we apologize for that.

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