#Sail 77 to 135.7 yesterday. This one has a long long way to go in the coming years.

@caniravkaria

Sri Devi Karumariamman mandir, Chennai, Tamilnadu

Sri Devi Karumariamman mandir is in Thiruverkadu, a suburb of Chennai. It is said that God Muruga came here and obtained the 'Vel' (spear) from His mother, Goddess Karumari (an avatar of Parvathi) 1/n

to fight the demon Suran and hence this place was called as 'Vel kadu' and became as Verkadu. As per legend Devi Karumariamman once disguised as a soothsayer visited Bhagwan Surya, the Sun God, to predict His future. 2/n

Not realising that the soothsayer is none other than Sakthi Matha, Surya ignored Her. Angered by his indifference, Devi Karumariamman immediately retreated. Bhagwan Surya lost His glory and the earth plunged into darkness. 3/n

Bhagwan Surya then realised His folly and pleaded forgiveness from Devi Karumariamman. In order to pacify mother Karumariamman, Suryadev said that His rays would fall on Her directly twice in a year and touch her feet. (in the month of Panguni (March- April) & during (Sep - Oct)

Mother Karumari Amman is worshipped here in two forms.A swayambu (self manifested) with only head visible above the ground and another one in a graceful sitting posture with all Parasakthi features,with four arms holding skull, sword, trishul, udukkai (damru). 5/n

A distillation of what @naval said on Clubhouse last night:

What you call chaos I call spontaneity.

A regimented life is like a heartbeat that's non-chaotic; it's a system that’s too ordered. It doesn't have any life to it. And real life has lots of ups and downs, some of them very extreme.

I over-plan, but planning is pretty useless. What tends to dominant life are a small number of Black Swan events in both directions, positive and negative.

Expose yourself to asymmetric upside and lots of good options: things that can become massively important for you.

And you want to avoid the asymmetric downside: anything that can end the game, whether it's through financial ruin, or reputational ruin, or physical ruin.

That requires a certain amount of chaos and spontaneity.

If nothing else, 2020 taught the power of optionality.

We think about planning as linear and controlled, but that's not how the world around us works anymore.

The world is dominated by nonlinearities, so understanding options value is far more important.

EVOLUTION OF CROWNS

The ancient Indian kings called a head crown as a Mukut and it would mostly constitute of a golden ornamental headgear like an oval cap with gems.

Sometimes it would also include a halo circle to show the divinity of the king

1/7

As it was considered that kings were appointment by the gods themselves. Example the kings of mewar considered themselves to be the ‘Diwan of eklingji')

But in most cases very few Mukut with halo effect have been found.

2/7

Samudragupta in the gupta era coin. You can see the helmet like headwear on him.

Till gupta era the solid golden head wear was used in most days of the monarch.

But since the onset of 8th century it reduced in usage and was now used only as a ceremonial headwear.

3/7

Whereas earlier the Maharaja had to wear the mukut whenever his court was in session.

Still mukut was being used prominently for ceremonial activities till recent times.

Maharaj Dahir of Sindh👇

4/7

But as times past the style of headwear also changed.

The kings mostly wore turbans ordained with pearls and gems while rarely anyone wore a true Mukut after 16th century.

Portrait of Sri Krishna Dev Raya👇

5/7

SRI THIRUNARAYANA PERUMAL, MELKOTE (KAR)

Known as Dakshin Badri, Thiru Narayanapuram is one of the four famous Swayambu Kshetrams, the other three being Srirangam, Kanchipuram and Tirupati.
The presiding diety is Cheluva Narayana Swamy/ Selva Pillai/ Rama Priyan.

Once, Sri Rama gave his aradhana murthi of Sri Ranganatha, to Raja Vibhishana on his request. So he was left without a murthi for his daily pujas. Brahma is said to have provided the murti of Selva Pillai to Rama who later passed this on to his sons, Lava and Kusa.

When Kusa’s daughter married a Yadava prince, this murthi moved to the lunar dynasty from solar.

It is said that the utsav murthi got the name Selva Pillai due to Sri Ramanuja.
Once, a Sultan took away this murthi and Sri Ramanuja went in its search to the Sultan’s palace.

The BATTLE OF PAVAN KHIND (13 July 1660)

300 MARATHAS against 10000+ ADIL SHAHI TROOPS

A Sparta style last man stand at a mountain pass which ensured Shivaji Maharaj's safety.

Valour, loyalty and sacrifice!

Baji Prabhu Deshpande was one of the most able lieutenants of Shivaji. He sacrificed his life defending Shivaji in a heroic last stand known as the "Battle of Pavan Khind" in which his force was hugely outnumbered.(1)

In this battle he became a martyr, but managed to halt the enemy forces for several hours, which secured Shivaji’s safety and victory on another front. Without this heroic last stand Shivaji’s glorious career may have been cut short.(2)

Baji Prabhu was senior to Shivaji. In the beginning he opposed Shivaji being from a rival Maratha clan, but realised that Shivaji stood for national resurgence. Henceforth he became a friend and loyal supporter of Shivaji.(3)

In 1660, Shivaji was trapped in the fort of Panhala, under siege and vastly outnumbered by an Adilshahi army led by general Siddhi Jauhar.(4)