Bollywood stars celebrating Ganesha festival
The Times of India has a nice photogallery of Bollywood stars celebrating the Ganesha Festival, one of the busiest festivals in India.
The Times of India has a nice photogallery of Bollywood stars celebrating the Ganesha Festival, one of the busiest festivals in India.
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Oh I dunno, the biggest democracy in the world and the stars of the lagest movie industry in the world celebrate a religious festival.
All of which is more or less alien to the west, I think it is well worth a look.
And I too welcome our Lord Ganesha.
any excuse for a party, but I'd be more impressed if that many people walked away from an organized religion.
Hinduism may well be the awesomest religion in the world. With three hundred million gods hanging around, basically just about anything you fancy to do, you can find a god commanding you to do it. How cool is that? Not even Bob or the FSM come anywhere close.
Ganesh has been subdued.
With ypui there TAKUAN
#4 Darren Garrison-What! Ganesh subdued? Not on your nelly mate, as long as Hanuman has breath in his body.
Good thing the stars weren't detained at the airport for too long.
So even Urmila Matondkar photographs badly sometimes. She's human!
Wonder if Salman Khan just earned another fatwa.
Takuan humans will always attempt to corral their psyches by manifesting gods. Hinduism is cool for having such a wide variety. Also pretty colors, lots of flowers, feasts. Yes, it is used negatively like all religions. Life would be more boring in Bangalore if it wasn't for the festivals, though.
oh, completely agreed it's visually gorgeous. Just a rather depressing lack of tentacles in the pantheon. Limbism. Again.
@ #4 Anonymous
It's totally awesome as long as you aren't lower caste.
I don't know... the Discordians could give it a run for the money.
All hail Eric, and whatnot!
that Ghost in the Shell parade sequence (and Tekkonkinrit?) had some lovely Ganesh action.
The original Hindu concept tells us about an all pervading energy field, from/on which all of the reality is formed, and to which we can tune ourselves through meditation.
The Shivas and Vishnus were created to explain different characteristics of the reality. They are based on observations. It's like giving a word or symbol to something that is not easily described otherwise; it helps to focus your attention.
It's interesting to see how the original phenomenon, which words cannot describe, has been subjected to the word-reality, in which it has been further dissected and manipulated.
Nowadays people hold on these symbols and words as they were real, even though they are only vehicles of communication in the whole Hindu philosophy. Essentially, the concept has become a religion.
that's what "organizing" does.
I've had the pleasure of a few conversations with a cultivated (and very devout) hindu friend. Hindu theology is surprisingly (?) sophisticated and nuanced stuff, along the lines you say.
It can be argued (as Gandhi in fact did) that the caste system is not an intrinsic part of hinduism, but rather a kind of economic-power-infrastructure superimposed on it.
Of course, you can say that Hinduism is used to justify the castes power structure, but hey, show me a religion/ideology/set of concepts that hasn't been co-opted and twisted by the ruling class to further its interests and I'll show you a religion/ideology/set of concepts that didn't last long.
I enjoyed the picture of the Muslim actor participating. I'm not religious but seeing people celebrating the holidays of religions they don't belong to always seems like a good thing.