Saturday 11 March 2017

Lord Ganesha is everywhere.

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Lord Ganesha is everywhere. Everywhere we look, we find examples of learning across religious and cultural boundaries. Burma and Cambodia are notable for the mind-blowing number of shrines and sacred structures. They are recognized as the biggest historic temple sites in the world. A number of these temples have Ganesha friezes at the entrances. But of all of them, the Shwesandaw temple, built in 1057 AD by King Anawrata, is called the Ganesha Temple because the deity’s images stood at the corners of each of the five terraces in the past. Ganesha was also the guardian deity of the Mons dynasty. Burmese culture was heavily influenced by the Chola Empire of South India.
Similarly, Angkor Vat Cambodia was built by generations of Hindu kings who ruled Kamboja. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Angkor Vat, still shows that Ganesha remains one of the most venerated deities in this splendid country of temples, lakes and rivers.
Bali remains Hindu to this day, and the island has several Ganesha shrines. The Candi Loro Jongrang-Prambanan was built by the Sanjaya Hindu kings in the 7th-8th centuries and has splendid shrines dedicated to Shiva, Ganesha and Durga. The Bara Temple in Tuliskaiyo Village in East Java, boasts a three-meter high statue of Ganesha. However, Indonesia is an Islamic country today and no worship is offered at Ganesha temples except in Bali.
In Thailand, this is not so. Even in the hurry-scurry of modern day living, the Thai people, though largely Buddhist, still worship at Bangkok’s Ganesha temple and every Mahashivaratri, the Shiva Jhoola is decorated in a public square. It is recorded that both Hinduism and Buddhism traveled to Siam from India when large settlements of Indians traveled to that country. To this day, Thailand is called Sukothai – or the land of pleasant dawns – in ancient Tamil and Thai. Many words from Tamil have been incorporated in the Thai language. 🐘🕉🐘
Jai Shri Ganeshaya Namah ~ Shubh Ratri! 🙏❤️🙏

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