@KeshavSrinivasan does Skanda Purana southern recension has info about Shiva Temples of Andhra or south india, because many important temple of south India are missing in Skanda Purana even the 2nd jyotirlinga Mallikarjuna.
@TheDestroyer Some Sthala Puranas are based on folktales, other Sthala Puranas like the Tirumala Sthala Purana consist of quotes from Puranas.
@TheDestroyer By the way, I don't think there's an online version of the southern recension of the Skanda Purana, and I don't think it's ever been translated into English. But there's a two or three volume Tamil translation of it by Sengalipuram Anantarama Dikshitar. You may be able to find it in bookstores in India.
@TheDestroyer Oh ok, I can't read or write Tamil, and I can't even speak it. I can only understand it when others are speaking. That's the consequence of being born and raised in America.
@TheDestroyer And yeah, I can't understand things like the Alwars' poems either.
@KeshavSrinivasan i can understand that. But how do you manage when you go to Tamilnadu. In metros such as Chennai especially south Chennai and its suburbs, you can manage with English but if you go into mainland you must know Tamil.
@KeshavSrinivasan Is Srirangam your parents native place?
I just came back from a trip to India, and one of the places I visited was my dad's native village of Kuchanoor. It's the site of the famous Kuchanoor Shanishwaran temple, one of the few temples in the world for Shani, god of the planet Saturn. For those who don't know, Shani is the son of Surya,...
@TheDestroyer Well, yeah, Sri Rangam is the original place of Sri Vaishnavas. At some point the Sri Vaishnava sect was just a tiny group of people living in Sri Rangam. All the early Sri Vaishnava Acharyas, including Nathamuni, Yamunacharya, and Ramanujacharya had their headquarters there. It was only from the time of Ramanujacharya that Sri Vaishnavism expanded far beyond Sri Rangam.
@TheDestroyer In any case, my grandmother, i.e. my father's mother, is from Sri Rangam. Her father and brother were priests in the Pillai Lokacharya Sannidhi in the Sri Rangam temple. But then the endowment board took it away from them and made someone else the priest.
@TheDestroyer It's really bad that the endowment board is able to interfere with the operations of Hindu temples. The Hindu Endowment Acts need to be abolished.
@TheDestroyer Pillai Lokacharya is an important Sri Vaishnava Acharya, by the way. It's the differences between Vedanta Desikan and Pillai Lokacharya that gave rise to the split of the Sri Vaishnava sect, as I discuss here:
First of all, these aren't the two main sub-sects of Vaishnavism, they are the two main sub-sects of Sri Vaishnavism. There are other Vaishnava Sampradayas, like the Gaudiya Vaishnava sect that ISKCON adheres to. What distinguishes Sri Vaishnavas from other kinds of Vaishnavas are mainly two th...
There is another deity besides Ganesha who destroys obstacles. He has a big mask for a face. He is more direct then Ganesha. I forget his name, does some one know who he is?
@KeshavSrinivasan I think the alternative deity ,which the author is talking abt is non other than ganesha himself i think. Cause the reason is ,during 10 day ganesha festival celebrated in konkan region of deccan , a community based play is arraged which is abt Dashavateas of vishnu and during opening of that play a person wearing mask of ganesh appears on stage as symbol of starting of play.
@TheDestroyer I like the concept of arranging elaborate puja in mind itself and without actually doing any action . Thats puja performed with only our mind :)
There is another deity besides Ganesha who destroys obstacles. He has a big mask for a face. He is more direct then Ganesha. I forget his name, does some one know who he is?
