1008 posts since 2008

Dandapani’s Blog

Welcome! Sharing my reflections on the spiritual path.
Join me on a profound journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth.

Feb 29, 2012

Making a Kolam

Especially during the harvest season, you'll see many women making kolams outside their homes in the morning. Kolams are beautiful patterns made from rice flour. Besides for decoration purposes it was a way to feed birds and critters. A way to honor that all life is sacred and a tribute to harmonious co-existence. During our recent meditation retreat I captured this lady decorating the area in fr...

Feb 26, 2012
1 MINUTE READ

Rice, food of the south

The harvest festival, Thai Pongal, takes place on the 14th of January and is celebrated predominantly in Tamil Nadu, South India. The festival is dedicated to the sun god, Surya, and marks the beginning of the sun's journey northward, uttarayana. Tamils thank Surya for a good har
Feb 26, 2012

Frams Torners....letters in disguise

Occasionally I'll post something totally random like this that I've seen while on the road. This one I saw in a little village in a pretty remote part of South Eastern India in a road side shop. As soon as I saw it I knew I had to blog it. Ok, I've heard of Transformers - robots
Feb 26, 2012
1 MINUTE READ

Smashing the Ego

At a small Shiva temple in the countryside of the Chettinad region, we stopped to participate in a Hindu custom in which a coconut is smashed on the ground in front of the temple to symbolize the smashing of the ego. The temple was beautifully kept and practically deser
Feb 25, 2012
1 MINUTE READ

At the Ayyanar temple

Ayyanar is a village god, loosely affiliated with Hinduism, but emerging from a folk tradition of protective deities that keep disease and misfortune away from small rural villages. In one area of Tamil Nadu, the Ayyanar cult is particularly strong and many villages have Ayyanar
Feb 25, 2012
1 MINUTE READ

Learning Chettinad Cooking

Our spiritual and culinary adventure is coming to a conclusion and today we had our last cooking class. It was on two Chettinad style dishes. The first was "Mint Chutney" and the second "Kola Urundai Kolambu". Here's the recipe for the "Mint Chutney" that we learned today. Ingr
Feb 25, 2012
1 MINUTE READ

Fire ceremony at Pillayarpatti

Today we went to the small town of Pillayarpatti in the heartland of Chettinad to an ancient Ganesha temple. The priests in the temple come from the best priest training school in South India and the ceremonies are conducted with incredible rigor and to the highest standard. Anci