Civilizations Are Not Mortal.

I have received my first comments from Indian people. I’m so glad this happened. India intrigues me and, as I said in the introduction. I was looking for a wider communication. As far as India I had a special interest for this country since I was a kid. As I told this Indian blogger ishmeet  the seems to be a real star) “I remember how my father, now no more, used to tell us stories about your country, about princes and wonderful palaces, and we all kids listened in wonder. I have been to India many times since, and my sisters and brothers too.”

So this blog is now starting to be real fun. Only, I had prepared a post on Rome and Carthage and on the idea that civilizations never die. Since this is true also for India and China (put together for their ancientness, huge size and tremendous success) I wanted to please my Indian readers but I had no post ready for them. This is why I am copying this exchange of words with another incredible Indian guy (I changed only 2-3 words of my text). I do promise to face these topics in a more structured way and with lots of posts. Welcome India!

Civilizations of India

For many thousands of years mankind has inhabited the Indus River Valley. Living a simple life of hunting, gathering, and later, of farming and agriculture, these peoples were able to thrive, raise families, and practice their religious beliefs.

Then in about 1500 B.C. a new, more technically advanced group of people arrived in the region. These people were known as the Aryans. The Aryans were a fair skinned people that used their technologies to conquer the peoples of the Indus River Valley.

VARANASI

The venerable and ancient city Varanasi is the religious centre of the world for Hindus. A magnificent city, with myriad attractions, both as an exalted place of pilgrimage and a microcosmic centre of faith. Thousands of pilgrims visit the city from all parts of India and from across the world. A unique city where the past and present, eternity and continuity live side by side.

The city rises from the high northern bank on the outside curve of Ganga, the holiest of all Indian rivers, to form a magnificent panorama of buildings in many varieties of Indian architecture. The unique relationship between the sacred river and the city is the essence of Varanasi - the land of sacred light. The Ganga is believed to have flown from the heaven to wash away the worldly sins of the humankind. Thus, to be in Varanasi is an out of this world experience, and experience of self discovery, a journey throughthe present and the past in search of immortality..

History
According to the historians, the city was founded some ten centuries before the birth of Christ. Situated between the two tirbutaries of the Gangas- Varuna to the north and Asi to the south - it has attained immortality. The city is mentioned in holy scriptures like ' Vamana Purana' , Buddhist texts and in the epic 'Mahabharata'.

Varansi - The Land of Holy River Ganga
The life and activities in the city revolves around the holy river. Life on the banks of the Ganga begins before dawn when thousands of pilgrims -men, women and children, come down to the river to wait for the rising sun. Some come in groups, some alone, all absorbed in their intense thoughts of salvation, waiting for the moment when immersion in the sacred river will cleanse them of their mundane sufferings and wash their sins away. Gradually the sun rises, and the river mists slowly lift to reveal the magnificent buildings that have a solemnity unmatched by any city in the world.

Soon after the sunrise, the city's great amphitheatre of ghats burst into activity. In the charged holistic atmosphere of the morning venerable Brahmins (known as Pandas) recite passages from sacred texts, priests dispense holy ashed to pilgrims to mark their foreheads in veneration of the gods. Boatmen, flower seller, shrill- voiced sellers selling sweetmenats and knick knacks, sacred bulls and cows roam around.

Varansi - The City of Inspiration
Varanasi inspires one to reflect about life, to ponder about creation and the insignificance of temporal wealth in the face of death. Along the watre's edge, there are the burning ghats. The most sacred one is Manikarnika, associated with Hoddess Parvati. Lord Shiva's wife.

Indian Temples

Introduction: Almost all Indian art has been religious, and almost all forms of artistic tradition have been deeply conservative. The Hindu temple developed over two thousand years and its architectural evolution took place within the boundaries of strict models derived solely from religious considerations. Therefore the architect was obliged to keep to the ancient basic proportions and rigid forms which remained unaltered over many centuries.

Even particular architectural elements and decorative details which had originated long before in early timber and thatch buildings persisted for centuries in one form or another throughout the era of stone construction even though the original purpose and context was lost. The horseshoe shaped window is a good example. Its origins lie in the caitya arch doorway first seen in the third century B.C. at the Lomas Rishi cave in the Barbar Hills. Later it was transformed into a dormer window known as a gavaksha; and eventually it became an element in a purely decorative pattern of interlaced forms seen time and time again on the towers of medieval temples. So, in its essence, Indian architecture is extremely conservative. Likewise, the simplicity of building techniques like post and beam and corbelled vaulting were preferred not necessarily because of lack of knowledge or skill, but because of religious necessity and tradition.

On the other hand, the architect and sculptor were allowed a great deal of freedom in the embellishment and decoration of the prescribed underlying principles and formulae. The result was an overwhelming wealth of architectural elements, sculptural forms and decorative exuberance that is so characteristic of Indian temple architecture and which has few parallels in the artistic expression of the entire worlds.

It is not surprising that the broad geographical, climatic, cultural, racial, historical and linguistic differences between the northern plains and the southern peninsula of India resulted, from early on, in distinct architectural styles. The Shastras, the ancient texts on architecture, classify temples into three different orders; the Nagara or ‘northern’ style, the Dravida or ‘southern ‘ style, and the Vesara or hybrid style which is seen in the Deccan between the other two. There are also dinsinct styles in peripheral areas such as Bengal, Kerala and the Himalayan valleys. But by far the most numerous buildings are in either the Nagara or the Dravida styles and the earliest surviving structural temples can already be seen as falling into the broad classifications of either one or the other.

In the early years the most obvious difference between the two styles is the shape of their superstructures.

Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission-what they are

Religion is a set of common beleifs and held by the group of people often codified as prayer and religious law. There are as many different types of religion and there are different types of people in the world. Religion has been defined in a wide variety of ways.

India is a country of many religions. Here live Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, muslims, etc. All have their various religious places spread all over the country right from kashmir to kanyakumari and bengal to rajasthan. India is a land of many religions with its deep historical roots and it is the birthplace of two great religions of the world, namely Hinduism, Buddhism. Hinduism is the dominant faith.

According to 2001 census 80.5% of the population of the country are designated Hindu. Muslims are the most prominent religious group and are an integral part of indian society. There are approximately 13.4%Muslims (over 100 million), 2.3% Christians (over 200 million), 1.9% Sikhs (18 million) and others including Buddhists (6 million).

The Religious Groups

In India the religious groups can be broken down as follows: Hindus 675,000,000 Muslims 110,000,000 Christians 38,000,000 Sikhs 17,000,000 Buddhists 6,000,000 Jains 4,000,000

It has been reported that less than 2% of the evangelical effort is directed towards reaching these needy souls. India has the largest number of Sikhs and the second largest number of Muslims in the world, next to Indonesia. In 1971 the Muslim population was 9.9%, which increased to 11.35 in 1981. This increase is about 30.5%, and now it is claimed that India is more than 14% Muslim.

The Buddha

One day, resolved that he should see more of the world, Siddhartha ordered a chariot to take him out to witness the life led by his subjects. There, for the first time, he encountered an old man bent with age, and so came to the realization that with advancing years one’s strength diminishes. On subsequent trips, he saw an ill man, and was brought to an awareness of disease, and finally a corpse, which brought home the inescapable conclusion that no one can escape death. Upon his return to the palace, Siddhartha resolved to find the cause for the sorrow that afflicts humans, as well as the way to bring the sorrow to an end. Accompanied only by his faithful servant Channa, he set out from the palace one night; and then sending Channa back to Kapilavastu with his jewel, Siddharta cut off hair and assumed the life of a mendicant.

In the sixth century BCE, north India was home to a dozen or more kingdoms and oligarchies, including the kingdom of Koysala, which in the Ramayana is described asbeing ruled by Dasaratha and his son Rama at one time, their capital located at Ayodhya. The Sakya tribe, which ruled over Koysala in the sixth century, had its capital at Sravasti in the Himalayan foothills, and it is at nearby Lumbini (now in Nepal) that Siddhartha Gautama was born in or around 563 BCE on a full moon night. His birth, like that of Christ, is supposed to have been miraculous, and the sage Asita is said to have declared that the boy would become the greatest monarch of all times or a great renouncer, the teacher of humankind. Anxious lest Siddhartha take to the life of a saint, his father and aunt, in whose care he had been placed after the death of his mother in his infancy, endeavored to hide the realities of life from Siddharta. In his young manhood, Siddhartha was married to Yasodhara, who soon bore him a son.

In his quest for the ‘truth’, Siddhartha engaged with the teachings of various sages, and practiced the austerities counseled by these spiritual teachers. Weak from hunger and the pain inflicted on his body, Siddhartha came to the conclusion that extreme deprivation and exposure of the body to pain would in no manner bring him closer to self-realization. Moving underneath a bodhi tree in Sarnath, outside the vicinity of present-day Benares, he resolved to sit and meditate until he achieved enlightenment. Though visions of affluence, power, opulent food, and sexual fulfillment swept past him, Siddhartha remained untempted by all these deviations from the path. It is then that he became the exponent of a specific set of teachings, henceforth known as the "Four Noble Truth", namely: all existence is suffering (dukha); the cause of suffering is ignorance (avidya) or desire; if there is suffering, there is a cure for it; and the cure for suffering lies in the eight-fold path of right beliefs, right speech, right conduct, right mode of livelihood, right effort, right mindedness, right meditation, and right aspirations.

Siddhartha, or the Buddha, "The Enlightened One", as he became known, preached his first sermon in the deer park at Sarnath in or around 527 BCE. The very first disciples he acquired became the members of the Buddhist sangha or association, and slowly his fame spread. It is said that Kasshyapa, a renowned Brahmin sage, came to realize the futility of worshipping the fire (agni) upon encountering the Buddha, and similarly the Buddha was able to persuade king Bimbisara, who would become his patron, that the sacrificial killing of innocent animals could not be construed as adding merit or happiness to one’s life. The Buddha became the great exponent of ahimsa or non-violence, but he resolutely refused to claim for himself any miraculous powers. One of the most famous episodes in Buddha’s life relates how, since his fame had spread, a woman once came to him with her dead child, and asked him to bring him back to life. While consoling her, the Buddha asked her to bring him a few mustard seeds from any house where no death had taken place; and though she went from door to door, this woman had to return to the Buddha with the news that she had not been able to find any such house. This would be the great teaching of the Buddha: whatever is born must die, and there is no permanence except sorrow; and to free us from this sorrow, one must become free from desire itself. The Buddha’s last words, in paraphrase, are said to have been, "Growing old is the dharma of all composite things."

Over the years, though his father endeavored to restore to him the kingdom that he had renounced, the Buddha could not be tempted to abandon his calling; eventually, his own son, Rahula, became his disciple. The oral sources relate how some people conspired to kill him: a huge boulder was thrown down upon him and some disciples gathered around him, but it is said that the boulder split in two, and a piece fell on either side of the Buddha. A wild elephant was set loose in the Buddha’s path, and though it caused havoc everywhere, it knelt at the Buddha’s feet. The Buddha lived to the age of eighty, when he is described as having achieved mahanirvana, or absolute spiritual emancipation. In less than two centuries after his death, his teachings had spread not only in India but over large parts of Asia. The emperor Ashoka, who was to establish the greatest empire India was to know until the advent of the Mughals in the sixteenth century, himself became a convert to Buddhism. Some people have associated the Buddha’s teachings with an excessive intellectualism and agnosticism; others have charged that Buddhism is a form of quietism. [For a more detailed consideration, see Buddhism] However one may view the subsequent history of Buddhism, it is clear that the teachings of the Buddha constitute one of the eminent chapters in the spiritual and intellectual history of humankind.

Avatars [Incarnations or Descents] of Vishnu

Of the three gods that are constitutive of the Hindu trinity, Vishnu (the Preserver) alone has avatars or incarnations. His principal counterpart, Shiva (the Destroyer), has offspring, such as Ganesh, but no avatars; Brahma (the Creator), meanwhile, ceased to have any importance with the passage of time, and today there is said to be only one Brahma temple in India, in the town of Pushkar in Rajasthan. The main lore about the avatars of Vishnu is to be found in the Puranas, though of course the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are critical sources for the two heroic avatars of Vishnu.

The idea of an avatar was distinct to Hinduism before a variation of it was introduced into Mahayana Buddhism, and it retains a pivotal role in Hindu theology and mythology. The idea of an avatar is predicated on the notion that from time to time, whenever evil or ignorance is on the increase, the Supreme Being must incarnate itself in some form, or descend to earth, so that the forces that stand for good might be reinforced. According to the Matsya Purana (47.32), "When the end of an Age rolls around and time has lost its strength, then Lord Vishnu is born among men. When the gods and demons go to war, then Hari [Vishnu] is born." Again, in the words of the Garuda Purana (1.13), "For the protection of his creation, the unborn, undying Vasudeva [another name for Vishnu] made various avataras", and (142.2): "When lord Hari descended in order to annihilate the law of the demons and to preserve the law of the Vedas and other laws . . . the unborn god assumed avataras." Though the word avatar is usually translated into English as "incarnation", and less often as "descent", an avatar can also be understood as an exemplar, as in the case of Rama, or as a vehicle for transmitting ideas to human beings; an avatar might also be viewed as an expression of God’s playfulness, wrath, or mere concern for human welfare – and as a warning. The Supreme Being (as Vishnu) might choose to incarnate itself in forms lower than humans, so that what the Greeks called the hubris or pride of man is checked; it might choose to manifest itself in forms – such as half man, half lion – that are incomprehensible from the standpoint of ordinary rationality, but that point to the animal tendencies within us, just as they suggest both that the enterprise of being human is always fraught with the most hazardous consequences, and that those forms of life which we habitually consider below us might have in them the intimations of divinity.

Vishnu is generally held to have ten incarnations, but the number ten is much less ‘traditional’ than is commonly believed. The Matsya Purana (47.32-52), for instance, enumerates twelve avatars, while the Garuda Purana (1.12-35) mentions twenty-two. TheBhagavata Purana likewise mentions twenty-two incarnations, but after enumerating them, it adds: "The incarnations of Vishnu are innumerable, like the rivulets flowing from an inexhaustible lake. Rishis, Manus, gods, sons of Manus, Prajapatis, are all portions of him." The ten incarnations of Vishnu take us from lower forms of evolution to divinities that appear in the guise of men. Though some might read in the narrative of the avatars a strict linear progression, the numerous texts belie such a mechanical interpretation. Vishnu is first said to have come down in the form of a fish (matsya), which saved the Vedas from being consumed by the asuras (demons), followed by a tortoise (kurma) and boar (varaha). In the form of a boar, Vishnu killed the mighty asura Hiranyaksha, whereupon the latter’s elder brother, Hiranyakashipu, swore to avenge his brother’s death. According to the Vishnu Purana, Hiranyakashipu practiced such immense austerities that the rivers and oceans trembled before him, the volcanoes spit fire, and the astral bodies went astray. Hiranyakashipu subjected his own son Prahlad, a devotee of Vishnu, to immense pain and suffering, and consequently Vishnu had to descend in the form of Narasimha, half-man and half-lion, to put an end to the demon’s life. These four incarnations are held to have appeared in the satya-yuga, or the first epoch of the world.

Bali, the chief of the Daityas or asuras in the treta-yuga, or the second age, had acquired immense powers on account of his austerities, and again Vishnu was approached by thedevas, who sought freedom from Bali’s tyrannical behavior. In the guise of a dwarf, Vamana, Vishnu appeared before Bali, who in his generosity agreed to grant the dwarf as much land as he could cover in three steps. Little did he know what Vamana was capable of doing: with his first two steps, he astrode the entire earth, heavens, and universe; and as Vamana had no place for placing his foot anywhere, he stepped on Bali’s forehead. In his sixth incarnation, Vishnu appeared as Parasurama, or "Rama with the axe", armed with the mission of liberating the Brahmins from the yoke of the Kshatriyas. The seventh, eighth, and ninth avatars of Vishnu suggest the heroic, and to some degree, historic element. It is quite likely that Rama was a local hero, who was ultimately elevated to the status of a divinity; and in the Ramayana, which celebrates his exploits, he is described as an avatara of Vishnu who had perforce to kill the demon-king, Ravana. Krishna, the eighth avatara, was similarly most likely a hero or minor king at first, and in the Mahabharata he is described as a prince of the Yadava clan. He was eventually absorbed into the pantheon of Vishnu’s avatars, but assumed such importance that he was taken to be the Supreme Being himself. The Buddha appears as the ninth avatar, according to the puranas, and some scholars have pointed to this as an illustration of the tendency within Hinduism to absorb its rivals. Finally, the tenth avatar is yet to appear at the end of the present or kali-yuga: it is represented as Kalki, a figure seated on a white horse, with a drawn sword flashing away, cutting at the forces of evil.

Since eighteenth century

Since at least the eighteenth century, India has been associated in the European imagination as preeminently a land of religion. By the late nineteenth century, Europeans (and increasingly Americans) were coming to India as a landthat promised spiritual release from the weariness of the material life. In the twentieth century, this reputation appeared to be solidified. The struggle for independence came to be waged under the leadership of Gandhi, whose unflinching advocacy of non-violence endeared him to admirers as a man of religion and peace; and in the 1960s, when the enduring image of India was as a land suffused spirituality, Westerners flocked to India to avail themselves of the spiritual advice and teachings of countless number of Indian gurus. This image has taken something of a battering in recent years, and today Westerners, when they think at all of India, think of the country as engulfed by religious 'wars' and hatred, as ensnared by perpetual Hindu-Muslim conflict; meanwhile, the gross materialism of middle-class Indians, given naked encouragement by the state, indigenous and foreign corporate interests, the culture of modernity, and international finance organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank, has all but eroded the image as a land of sublime spirituality.

What is indubitably unique about India as a 'land of religions' is that it is the birthplace of several major world religions. Three-fourths of the people describe themselves as adherents of Hinduism, the oldest continuous faith in the world. Though today Hinduism has spread to all parts of the world, taken there by Indian migrants, Hinduism has, and will continue to have, an indelible association with India; and perhaps in no other case is the association between a faith and a land so close as it is with Hinduism. This religion produced a vast corpus of texts: preeminent among them have been the Rig Veda, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, and theBhagvata Purana; and the commentaries of Shankaracharya; modern-day classics include the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, the Gita-Rahasya of Tilak, and Conversations with Sri Ramana Maharishi.

India is equally a land of other faiths: the world's second largest population of Muslims, nearly 130 million in number, is to be found in India, and there are also some 25 million Christians. Indian Islam has enjoyed a relationship that is at once syncretistic and agonistic with Hinduism, and the fruits of this encounter have been many, extending from the more obvious vocal andclassical music of India, Mughlai cuisine, and Indo-Mughal architecture, to the lived practices common to adherents of both these great faiths. In antiquity, Buddhism flourished in India, and it is in Bodh Gaya that theBuddha gained enlightenment; his great contemporary, Mahavira, is the founder of Jainism, also uniquely Indian. Today Jains are among India's most distinguished trading and business communities; and the legacy of Jain art and culture is just as profound. Sikhism, another Indian faith, is often imagined as the Protestantism of Hinduism: today there are nearly 15 million Sikhs in India, and perhaps as many as 2 million outside India, whose practices and precepts may well change the nature of the faith in India. India also has the largest community of Zoroastrians, also known as Parsees, and though in recent years the once-thriving and very old Jewish community of Cochin has all but disappeared, the small Jewish community of Bombay still makes its presence felt in the public realm.

But all these are only the institutionalized forms of religious worship in India, and a bewildering array of other religious practices, both outside the faiths and within the faiths, are encountered all over India. Various devotional poets, religious mendicants, renowned men and women of spirituality, and local holy men and women wear no religious tags, and their teachings and lives continue to be an example to the common realm of humanity. From the 9th century to the 16th century, from the Deccan to the north, and from Bengal in the east to modern-day Gujarat and Maharashtra in the West, India was swept by the fervor of bhakti, or devotion. The songs, lyrics, and religious compositions of the bhakti poets — Nammalvar, Jnaneshvar, Kabir, Tulsidas, Surdas, Tukaram, Vidyapati, Chandidasa,Mirabai, among others — are still sung to popular and classical music alike, and scarcely any kind of literature resonates more with Indians than do their compositions. Similarly, though the institutionalized religions are associated with great architectural monuments, such as the Hindu temple cities of South India (Kanchipuram, Rameswaram, Chidambaram, and many others), the Mughal splendors of Delhi, Agra, and Fatehpur Sikri, or the Golden Temple at Amritsar, the roadside monuments and shrines are even more indicative of the manner in which these faiths interweave with the lives of their adherents.

Stop interference in religion: IHK Muslim scholars ask India

Srinagar, January 16 (KMS): The Muslim scholars of occupied Kashmir have threatened to launch a Valley-wide agitation if the Indian government and its intelligence agencies don’t stop interfering in the religious affairs of the Kashmiri Muslims.

The scholars, in a meeting held in Srinagar, with the Chairman of All Parties Hurriyet Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in chair, maintained that some elements in the puppet administration and police were following anti-Muslim and anti-Kashmir policy. They demanded stern action against such elements.

“No Friday prayers were allowed in the Jamia Masjid and the other mosques of the Valley for seven consecutive Fridays on the pretext of holding so-called elections in the territory. It was direct interference in our religious affairs and we won’t tolerate it. The Jamia Masjid siege was worst in the history of Kashmir, surpassing even the infamous siege by soldiers during Sikh Rule in the nineteenth century,” Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said.

The APHC Chairman said that on one hand, the entire administration is pressed into service during the Amarnath yatra, but on the other, same administration leaves no stone unturned to quell Muharram, Meelad and other processions taken out by the Muslims.

The participants of the meeting deplored that Indian agencies bar Kashmiris from performing Hajj. “Every Muslim yearns to perform Hajj once in his life. But in Kashmir it has become a routine to prevent the pilgrims on one pretext or the other,” they said, adding, “Stopping any Muslim from performing Hajj is direct interference in our religious matters.”

The scholars took strong exception to Israeli air strikes on Palestinians and urged the Organization of Islamic Conference to take steps to end the miseries of innocent people of Palestine. The meeting was attended among others by Maulana Abbas Ansari, Agha Syed Hassan Al-Moosvi, Mufti Bashiruddin, Maulana Showkat Ahmad Shah and Sheikh Ali Mohammad.

Ancient India

Indian Jews

Indian Jews are a religious minority, living among India's predominantly Hindu populace. However, Judaism was one of the first religions to arrive in India and assimilate with local traditions through cultural diffusion. The Jewish population in India is hard to estimate since each Jewish community is distinct with different origins; some arrived during the time of the Kingdom of Judah, others are descendants of Israel's Lost Ten Tribes. Of the total Jewish population in India, about half live in Mizoram and a quarter live in the city of Mumbai. Unlike many parts of the world, Jews have historically lived in India without largescale anti-Semitism. However, Jews in India have recently suffered from terrorist attacks by Lashkar-e-Toiba, which has declared Jews and Hindus to be enemies of Islam. In Mumbai, two synagogues are located in predominantly Muslim inhabited areas.

In addition to Jewish members of various diplomatic corps, there are five native Jewish communities in India:

      1. The Cochin Jews arrived in India 2,500 years ago and settled down in Cochin, Kerala as traders.

      2. The Baghdadi Jews arrived in the city Mumbai from Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, and Arab countries about 250 years ago.

      3. The Bene Israel arrived in the state of Maharashtra 2,100 years ago.

      4. The Bnei Menashe are Mizo and Kuki tribesmen in Manipur and Mizoram who claim descent from the tribe of Menasseh.

      6. The Bene Ephraim (also called Telugu Jews) are a small group who speak Telugu; their observance of Judaism dates to 198

Sikhism

Sikhism, was founded in India's northwestern Punjab region about 400 years ago. As of 2001 there were 19.3 million Sikhs in India. Many of today's Sikhs are situated in Punjab, the largest Sikh province in the world and the ancestral home of Sikhs. The most famous Sikh temple is the Golden Temple, located in Amritsar, Punjab. Many Sikhs serve in the Indian Army. The current prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh, is a Sikh. Punjab is the spiritual home of Sikhs and is the only state in India where Sikhs form a majority. 

Zoroastrianism

A form of the ancient Persian religion Zoroastrianism continues to be practiced in India, where its followers are called Parsis. Suffering persecution from Muslim rulers in what is now modern-day Iran, Zoroastrian immigrants were granted protection under a Hindu king in the Western section of India many centuries ago. 

Ayyavazhi

Ayyavazhi is a religion originated in south india in the 19th century. Officially it was considered as an offshoot section of Hinduism. But either in Philosophy or in religious practices Ayyavazhi and Hinduism varies a lot. Though it has not received official recognition, it has transformed itself into a distinctive religious phenomenon, making its presence felt in India's southern parts, mostly in southern districts of Tamil Nadu and in some parts of Kerala. But it is one of the fastest growing religions of Southern India, its rapid growth has been noted in the Christian missionary reports of the mid-19th century. It has more than 7000 worship centers throughout south India, mostly in Tamil Nadu and some in the city of Mumbai.