Mangottu Bhagavathi Temple
#Palakkad #Kerala
#keralatemples 🚩

Mangottu Bhagavathi Temple is situated in Athipotta near Alathur of palakkad district. Devi is kshipraprasadi here and grants relief to those who worship with full faith.
Mookken Chathen, situated on the Northern 👇

side of the temple, is guarding Devi here.
Story says that, once there lived a weaver named Kuttan who was a Devi Bhaktan. During one festival time Kuttan was so pleased by the Devi Vigraham that he requested her to come along with him. At that time wind blew heavily and Cloths

in Vigraham flew. Kuttan immediately decorated Devi with his cloth which stuck to Vigraham and returned to his village and with his Umbrella. Devi came with him in that Umbrella and stayed in his place. This place is Mangottu Bhagavathi temple now.

Amme Narayana
🙏🕉🙏

Bonds explained in 90 seconds! [Thread]

Wait, what's a bond?

Very simply, it's a loan.

Instead of borrowing money from a bank, a company (or government) will borrow from investors. So investors will give the company money & in exchange they get paid interest (called coupons)

Fancy term for the IOU is "bond issuance"

I'm an investor, how do the mechanics work?

Company sells you a bond for $100 and promises you 5% every year for 3 years. They also pay you $100 at the end.

Yr 1: $5
Yr 2: $5
Yr 3: $5 + $100

That's $115 (or a 15% return) after 3 years. Right?

The real return is closer to 10%

Why are my returns so much lower?

$100 today is worth more than $100 in 3 years from now - yes, inflation!

Even at a modest 1.5% inflation each year, the $100 you give up today is worth less than $96 in 3 years from now.

ILBs (inflation linked bonds) try & help solve this.

How come bonds are always quoted in yields (%s) instead of actual prices like shares?

Bonds have different maturities* & coupons - quoting a percentage makes it easy to compare different bonds & compare against other assets.

*Maturity = time to get paid back (3yrs in example)

THE EPITOME OF COURAGE, VALOUR AND SACRIFICE:RANI DURGAVATI

I am sure,many of us don't even know who Rani #Durgavati was 'coz our #History textbooks don't tell us this. Today, let us learn something about this great warrior queen.

Rani Durgavati was a #Gondwana Queen who fought 51 battles, out of them 3 were against Mughals and she never lost. She was an exemplary woman who got married at 18 and was widowed at 24. At 24, she became Queen of a vast kingdom of mainly tribal people and fought 51 gallant wars.

She was a great war tactician &an exemplary young ruler who never lost any battle.She was born on Oct 5th,1524 in the family of Gurjar Chandela's Rajput ruler Keerat Pal Singh in fort of Kalinjar,Banda,UP. Her family built #Khajuraho temples which r a #UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE

She was married to Gondi King Dalpati Shah in 1542.This brought an alliance between the Gonda family &the Chandelas of Bundelkhand so that they could resist the onslaught of Sher Shah Suri who attacked Kalinjar in 1545.
Same year Durgavati gave birth to Vir Narayan, her only son.

After the death of her husband in 1548, she reluctantly took up throne on the insistence of her ministers who were aware of her abilities &wanted the Kingdom to remain independent.She was only 24 and took up the reign on behalf of her son who was only 5 by that time.

ATHMANATHAR SWAMY KSHETRAM, TIRUPERUNTHURAI(TN)

Here Shiva is formless (Atmanatar). There is no Sivalingam, only a pedestal/Avudayar in the sanctum, so the name Avudayar Koil.
It is so built that setting sun strikes the sanctum even though it is cloistered in 3 pradakshina paths

In 9th c AD, Manikkavacakar, the chieftain of Arimarthana Pandian II, was sent to buy horses for the kingdom. On his way, he saw a guru chanting Shiva’s name. Manikkavacakar desired to be his student. He fell into a deep meditation. When he awakened, the guru was gone.

He realised that he was guided by Shiva himself and used the money meant for horses to build the Mandir.
Here, he composed the sacred Shaiva siddhanta “The Tiruvacakam” whose verses make up 8 volumes out of total 12 volumes in Shaivite literature.
@DubeyYash1911

Inside the sanctum is an upturned bowl or kuvalai, which represents the body and soul.
Ma Ambika is Yoga Nayika here. She too is formless and symbolised by Yoga ‘Peetham’ or pedestal on which her footprint is carved out. Rice cakes are kept under the bowl as an offering to her.

As Shiva was himself the Guru of Sri Manickavasagar, worshippers visit here to pray for their education and progress.

It is believed that treating Sri Manickavasagar different from Shiva is an unforgivable sin.

The Chariot in the Mandir is one of the biggest in Tamil Nadu.

SRI KAMAKSHI AMMAN KSHETRAM, MANGADU (TN)

At this place, Ma Kamakshi did extreme tapasya before her wedding with Sri Ekambareswarar in Kanchipuram.
Once, Ma Parvati playfully closed the eyes of Mahadev with her palms. The whole universe fell in eternal darkness immediately.

Shiva ordained her to perform Tapasya. Parvati ji came down to this place and performed tapasya amidst "Panchagni" resting her left leg on the sacred fire and folding her right leg. Later, when she left this place, the heat of the fire that she had created became unbearable.

Adi Shankaracharya is believed to have visited Mangadu and installed a Sri Ardhameru Chakram at this place. This was done to calm down the heat of this fire. The chakra has 43 Trikonas (triangles). It is made of Astagandham.
@upma23

Hence no abishek is offered to it and only Kumkuma archana is performed. On Vijayadasami, the Chakra is covered with gold while on other days, it has a silver cover.

It is believed that hurdles in marriage are eliminated by praying to Mangadu Kamakshi.

Heard about a Marathan run that is conducted as part of Maha Shivarathri celebrations -Shivalaya Oottam

Marathan run by devotees covering 12 Shiva Alayams/ Temples chanting Govinda..Gopala...

This practice is related to an legend #story of #Mahabharata

Do read this #Thread

Devotees dressed in khawi/safforn cloths,will run /walk to one Shiva Alayam to other,covering 12 Shiva Alayams in Kanyakumari district by foot & total distance is abt 88 Km.
First temple is Thirumalai Mahadevar Temple,Munchirai
During the run,they take holy dips in temple tanks.

Devotees who cover the distance by foot observe Vriddham for a week.During fasting they eat tender coconut,Nungu &Tulsi water.Those who cannot run this distance,visit all 12 temples in vehicles.
After darshan in Thirumalai temple,they go to 2nd temple Tikkurichi Mahadeva Temple.

Followed by darshan at Thirunandikarai Shiva Temple,Ponmanai Thimbilankudi Mahadevar Temple,Thiruppanri Bhagam Shiva Temple,Kalkulam Neelakanda Mahadevar Temple, Melangode Shiva Temple, Thiruvidaikodu Mahadevar Temple.Lastly to Thirunattalam Sankara Narayan Temple.

All these shiva temples,have separate sannathi for Vishnu.
Interestingly,in each of these temples,prasad is Vibuthi or bhasma & at Thirunattalam Sankara Narayan Temple the prasad is sandal paste/Chandan symbolic of unity of Shiva &Vishnu.

Legend #story 👇

Thread on "The Final Checklist"
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Thottuva Dhanwanthari Kshetram
#KeralaTemples 🚩

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय धन्वंतरये
अमृतकलश हस्ताय सर्वामयविनाशनाय
त्रिलोक्यनाथाय श्री  महाविष्णवे   नमः  

Thottuva Dhanwanthari Temple is located in Perumbavoor, of Ernakulam District.
Dhanwanthari Murthy here is six feet tall, 👇

facing east.

Story says that Parasurama did Prathishta here of Dhanwanthari Murthy. A brahmin family of Korambur Mana was in charge of the temple earlier. Devotees perform ‘Bhajanam,’ (stay at the temple)
here for 41 days.
It is said that, many years ago a man

had leprosy, and he came and stayed at the temple for 41 days. After his daily bath at the nearby Thottuva Thodu, he used to worship the Dhanwanthari murthy and he got completely cured at the end of his 41-day prarthana.

Om Dhanwanthariye Namaha
🙏🕉🙏

1/ Let’s talk about vaccine misinformation, @cdcgov style. On Friday the CDC ran a report titled “Reduction in COVID-19 Patients Requiring Mechanical Ventilation Following Implementation of a National COVID-19 Vaccination Program.”

The headline is a lie. No other word will do...

2/ How do I know? From the data in the report itself.

The report, written by three Israeli scientists, intentionally tries to obscure the facts it presents (I’m not entirely sure why it was written at all), but they come out anyway to anyone paying attention...

3/ Your first clue the authors have no interest in presenting the facts honestly comes when they refuse simply to divulge how many people were on ventilators before and after the start of vaccinations on Dec. 19. Instead they focus on the ratio of patients in two age groups...

NAGARAJA MANDIR, NAGERCOIL (TN)

Dedicated to Naag Devta Vasuki. The five-headed Naga Devta is visited by devotees, especially on Sundays when special Pooja is performed offering milk and turmeric to the deity.
Two nagas- Darnendran and Padmavati are dwarapalaks here.
@twttdc

Once a village girl was cutting grass in the area when she noticed blood oozing out of her axe after accidentally hitting a stone. It was the stone murti of Naga devta. A hut was built around it. Later Raja Marthanda Verma visited here when he was suffering from skin problems.

His disease was cured and he built a huge mandir here.
The main sanctum still has mud walls and thatched roof with the stone murti of Nagaraja placed on the soil. The soil underneath it always remains wet. It is believed that blood is still oozing out of the murti till date.

It is said that this soil holds special powers and can cure any skin ailments; the soil is also given as prasadam to the visitors of the mandir.
Amazingly, the soil is black in dakshinayana punyakala and turns white in uttarayana punyakala of Surya.

A tortoise occupies the place (instead of Garuda) on the flagpost. This maybe because Garuda and Naga are natural enemies. Also, Sri Vishnu took kurma avatar during samudra manthan. Image of tortoise maybe to show respect to kurma avatar.

Nagalinga flowers also bloom here.

women of twitter: raise your hand if you’ve ever discovered that a male colleague with the same (or less!) years of experience and same job title as you was actually making more money?

i’ll go first: 🙋🏽‍♀️

i’ll never forget the feelings i experience when i found this out. initially, i felt shock, followed immediately by self-loathing—it seemed like the company had gotten me “on the cheap” and it made me feel incredibly like i had been incredibly stupid to not negotiate for more.

that quickly evolved into rage: how did they think it was okay to meet his negotiation demands when he was hired but not think to look at the other people at the same level and wonder if their compensation should be raised to match his, too?

i had always thought that i had always been an excellent performer at every company and role that i’ve held, so finding this news out felt a bit humiliating; i had to fight feelings of self-doubt and push myself to remember that i am stellar and deserved better—i deserved equity.

this is the moment in my career where i fully realized that i had to be own fiercest advocate. that was the moment that i decided to never assume that the company would see your worth—instead, it was always going to be on me to MAKE them to see it, or to go somewhere that would.

Due to the pandemic you may not have visited your local library in a while. So come with me on a virtual library tour, courtesy of stock photography, to see what we do for a living...

Libraries are of course information resource centres, but in many ways they are so much more. To get the best out of them you need to really know your way around the stacks.

The enquiries desk is normally your first stop in a library, and this is where you will meet The Angry Librarian! Why is she angry? Because you keep asking her stupid questions!

"Are you open?"
"Do you have a toilet?"
"That chair's wobbly!"
"Why isn't it available in audiobook?"
"Someone else is on the computer and that's not fair!"

On and on it goes...

And that's why in the library we insist on silence. It's the only way to stop us swearing at all the idiotic things you ask us. And we've looked up a lot of old swear words: beardsplitter, bescumber, rantallion, smellfungus etc. We're such muckspouts...

1/

Get a cup of coffee.

In this thread, I'll help you work out how much money you need to retire.

2/

The goal is simple.

You want to accumulate a *large* portfolio of assets.

How large?

Well, you should be able to quit your job. And you and your family should be able to live comfortably for decades -- just off of the income generated by this portfolio.

3/

This is the crux of the "FIRE" movement.

FIRE stands for "Financially Independent, Retired Early".

The basic philosophy is: keep your spending needs low. Save a large portion of your income. Invest these savings. With luck, you'll be able to retire early.

4/

FIRE advocates have a rule they love to cite: the 4% rule.

The 4% rule says: your annual expenses in retirement should not exceed 4% of your portfolio.

You can use this rule to calculate how large a portfolio you need to accumulate before you can quit your job and retire.

5/

For example, suppose you and your family need $40K/year to live comfortably in retirement.

Then you need to accumulate a portfolio that's at least $1M.

Another way to say this is: your portfolio should be at least 25 times your annual expenses in retirement.

Let me tell you an amazing story...

In the 1990s, a maverick breast surgeon at @TataMemorial (fresh from his return from the UK) stepped up to do research. Now, to understand the situation, you should go back 30 years, when research was not as big as it is now, and certainly not from surgeons.

Surgeons, and especially cancer surgeons, were renowned for their technical prowess, and their sheer bravado – "wherever the cancer, however advanced, I will take it out". So, our surgeon-researcher was ridiculed for even attempting clinical research

For a surgeon, he couldn’t have chosen a worse topic to research on: early detection; nothing to do with surgery, or even treatment. Remember, this was the 1990s. Cowboy surgery was celebrated, and research ridiculed

Being a breast surgeon, he was troubled with women consistently coming with advanced cancers, and he set out to see if he could work on picking them up at an earlier stage. But community-based early detection needs money, and he just didn’t have it.

Chelamattom Sri Krishna Kshetram
#Ernakulam, #Kerala
#KeralaTemples🚩

Chelamattom Sri Krishna Kshetram is situated near Kalady. Temple is also called Dakshina Kashi. It is believed that Adi Shankaracharya worshipped Sri Krishna and Narasimhamurthy here.

Mahavishnu is worshipped in 3 forms, Narasimhamoorthy, Shri Krishna and Vamana here.
Temple is situated on the banks of Periyar river and is very famous for Pitrtarpanam as it is believed that offering bali here will attain Moksham to departed souls.
Story says that,

In this place place only Narasimha Vigraham was Prathishta. Once, a box came floating across the river and people found Shri Krishna Vigraham inside. Thus Vigraham was taken to the Narasimha Kshetram and Prathista of Shri Krishna was done. Vamana Vigraham was found by

Thottamattom Namboodiri and he too took Vigraham to this temple for Prathista.
Thus three forms of Of Mahavishnu is worshipped here which is very rare.

Om Namo Narayanaya
🙏🕉🙏

ATTUKAL PONGAL: TODAY

Attukal Pongal is celebrated in Attukal Bhagavathy Amman Mandir (Ker)
It is a sweet offering of Rice, Jaggery, Coconut n water in earthen pots and prepared in fireplace made with bricks. These 5 elements show relationship of Human life with Panch Bhutas

Women from different parts of Kerela take part in this festival and take vratha for 9 days. On the first day, thottam pattu takes place. This is like a song which tells the whole story of kannaki. The right to sing Thottam pattu goes to a particular family.
@Piyu_Nair @RajeAiyer

This is sung in a green shed made with coconut leaves in front of the Mandir. This ritual lasts till the 10th day of festival.
Villakku kettu is an offering which is done during the 10 days of festival. It is a huge lamp decorated with flowers, glitter paper, cloth etc.

They are taken to the mandir and finally it is burnt in the mandir.

Thaloppoli is another ritual done by girls under 10 years of age on the day of pongala. It is performed for health, wealth and prosperity of the family. The girls are beautifully decorated with little crowns.

Kuthiottam is a ritual performed by boys below 12 years of age. It is believed that these boys are injured soldiers of Mahishasura mardhini. They have to stay in the mandir for 7 days.
Pongala concludes with Guruthi pooja which is a special ritual performed by the main pujari.