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Mahavidya

The Mahavidya (महाविद्या,, lit. Great Wisdoms) are a group of ten Hindu Tantric goddesses. The 10 Mahavidyas are usually named in the following sequence: Kali, Tara, Tripura Sundari, Bhuvaneshvari, Bhairavi, Chhinnamasta, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi and Kamala. Nevertheless, the formation of this group encompass divergent and varied religious traditions that include yogini worship, Saivism, Vaishnavism, and Vajrayana Buddhism.

The development of the Mahavidyas represent an important turning point in the history of Shaktism as it marks the rise of the Bhakti aspect in Shaktism, which reached its zenith in 1700 CE. First sprung forth in the post-Puranic age, around 6th century CE, it was a new theistic movement in which the supreme being was envisioned as female. A fact epitomized by texts like Devi-Bhagavata Purana, especially its last nine chapters (31-40) of the seventh skandha, which are known as the Devi Gita, and soon became central texts of Shaktism.

Names
Shaktas believe, "the one Truth is sensed in ten different facets; the Divine Mother is adored and approached as ten cosmic personalities," the Dasa-Mahavidya ("ten-Mahavidyas"). As per another school of thought in Shaktism Mahavidyas are considered to be form of Mahakali. The Mahavidyas are considered Tantric in nature, and are usually identified as:

 * 1) Kali The goddess who is the ultimate form of Brahman, and the devourer of time (Supreme Deity of Kalikula systems). Mahakali is of a pitch black complexion, darker than the dark of the dead of the night. She has three eyes, representing the past, present and future. She has shining white, fang-like teeth, a gaping mouth, and her red, bloody tongue hanging from there. She has unbound, disheveled hairs. She wears tiger skins as her garments, a garland of skulls and a garland of rosy red flowers around her neck, and on her belt, she was adorned with skeletal bones, skeletal hands as well as severed arms and hands as her ornamentation. She has four hands, two of them had the trident called the trishula and the sword and two others carried a demon head and a bowl collecting the blood dripping from a demon head.
 * 2) Tara The goddess who acts as a guide and a protector, and she who offers the ultimate knowledge that grants salvation. She is the goddess of all sources of energy. The energy of the sun is believed to originate from her. She manifested as the mother of Shiva after the incident of Samudra Manthana to heal him as her child. Tara is of a light blue complexion. She has disheveled hair, wearing a crown decorated with the digit of the half-moon. She has three eyes, a snake coiled comfortably around her throat, wearing the skins of tigers, and a garland of skulls. She is also seen wearing a belt supporting her skirt made of tiger-skin. Her four hands carry a lotus, scimitar, demon head and scissors. Her left foot rests on the laying down Shiva.
 * 3) Tripura Sundari (Shodashi, Lalita) The goddess who is "beauty of the three worlds" (Supreme Deity of Srikula systems); the "Tantric Parvati" or the "Moksha Mukta". She is the ruler of Manidvipa, the eternal supreme abode of the goddess. Shodashi is seen with a molten gold complexion, three placid eyes, a calm mien, wearing red and pink vestments, adorned with ornaments on her divine limbs and four hands, each holding a goad, lotus, a bow, and arrow. She is seated on a throne.
 * 4) Bhuvaneshvari The goddess as the world mother, or whose body comprises all the fourteen lokas of the cosmos. Bhuvaneshvari is of a fair, golden complexion, with three content eyes as well as a calm mien. She wears red and yellow garments, decorated with ornaments on her limbs and has four hands. Two of her four hands hold a goad and noose while her other two hands are open. She is seated on a divine, celestial throne.
 * 5) Bhairavi The fierce goddess. The female version of Bhairava. Bhairavi is of a fiery, volcanic red complexion, with three furious eyes, and disheveled hair. Her hair is matted, tied up in a bun, decorated by a crescent moon as well as adorning two horns, one sticking out from each side. She has two protruding tusks from the ends of her bloody mouth. She wears red and blue garments and is adorned with a garland of skulls around her neck. She also wears a belt decorated with severed hands and bones attached to it. She is also decked with snakes and serpents too as her ornamentation – rarely is she seen wearing any jewelry on her limbs. Of her four hands, two are open and two hold a rosary and book.
 * 6) Chhinnamasta ("She whose head is severed") - The self-decapitated goddess. She chopped her own head off in order to satisfy Jaya and Vijaya (metaphors of rajas and tamas - part of the trigunas). Chinnamasta has a red complexion, embodied with a frightful appearance. She has disheveled hair. She has four hands, two of which hold a sword and another hand holding her own severed head; three blazing eyes with a frightful mien, wearing a crown. Two of her other hands hold a lasso and drinking bowl. She is a partially clothed lady, adorned with ornaments on her limbs and wearing a garland of skulls on her body. She is mounted upon the back of a copulating couple.
 * 7) Dhumavati The widow goddess. Dhumavati is of a smoky dark brown complexion, her skin is wrinkled, her mouth is dry, some of her teeth have fallen out, her long disheveled hair is gray, her eyes are seen as bloodshot and she has a frightening mien, which is seen as a combined source of anger, misery, fear, exhaustion, restlessness, constant hunger and thirst. She wears white clothes, donned in the attire of a widow. She is sitting in a horseless chariot as her vehicle of transportation and on top of the chariot, there is an emblem of a crow as well as a banner. She has two trembling hands, her one hand bestows boons and/or knowledge and the other holds a winnowing basket.
 * 8) Bagalamukhi The goddess who paralyzes enemies. Bagalamukhi has a molten gold complexion with three bright eyes, lush black hair and a benign mien. She is seen wearing yellow garments and apparel. She is decked with yellow ornaments on her limbs. Her two hands hold a mace or club and holds demon Madanasura by the tongue to keep him at bay. She is shown seated on either a throne or on the back of a crane.
 * 9) Matangi - The Prime Minister of Lalita (in Srikula systems), sometimes called Śyāmala ("dark in complexion", usually depicted as dark blue) and the "Tantric Saraswati". Matangi is most often depicted as emerald green in complexion, with lush, disheveled black hair, three placid eyes and a calm look on her face. She is seen wearing red garments and apparel, bedecked with various ornaments all over her delicate limbs. She is seated on a royal throne and she has four hands, three of which hold a sword or scimitar, a skull and a veena (a musical instrument). Her one hand bestows boons to her devotees.
 * 10) Kamala (Kamalatmika) she who dwells in lotuses; sometimes called the "Tantric Lakshmi". Kamala is of a molten gold complexion with lush black hair, three bright, placid eyes, and a benevolent expression. She is seen wearing red and pink garments and apparel and bedecked with various ornaments and lotuses all over her limbs. She is seated on a fully bloomed lotus, while with her four hands, two hold lotuses while two grant her devotees' wishes and assures protection from fear.

All these Mahavidyas reside in Manidvipa.

The Maha bhagavata Purana and Brihaddharma Purana however, list Shodashi (Sodasi) as Tripura Sundari, which is simply another name for the same goddess.

The Todala-Tantra associates the Mahavidyas with the Dashavatara, the ten avatars of Vishnu, in chapter ten. They are as follows:

The Guhyati guyha-tantra associates the Mahavidyas with the Dashavatara differently, and states that the Mahavidyas are the source from which the avatars of Vishnu arise.

Note: In the above list do not get confused the names of Matanga Bhairava with Matanga Rishi, and Narada Bhairava with Narada Rishi.

title: Mahavidya


text:
Bagala

Bagala may refer to:

 * Bagala, a clan of the Jawoyn people of northern Australia
 * Bágala, a town in Panama
 * Baghlah, also spelt bagala, a type of Arab sailing dhow
 * Bagala, a social group (community) of India
 * Bagalamukhi, also known as Bagala, one of the mahavidyas and an aspect of Devi in Hinduism

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Bagala


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A* search algorithm

A* (pronounced "A-star") is a graph traversal and pathfinding algorithm, which is used in many fields of computer science due to its completeness, optimality, and optimal efficiency. Given a weighted graph, a source node and a goal node, the algorithm finds the shortest path (with respect to the given weights) from source to goal.

One major practical drawback is its $$O(b^d)$$ space complexity where $d$ is the depth of the solution (the length of the shortest path) and $b$ is the branching factor (the average number of successors per state), as it stores all generated nodes in memory. Thus, in practical travel-routing systems, it is generally outperformed by algorithms that can pre-process the graph to attain better performance, as well as by memory-bounded approaches; however, A* is still the best solution in many cases.

Peter Hart, Nils Nilsson and Bertram Raphael of Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) first published the algorithm in 1968. It can be seen as an extension of Dijkstra's algorithm. A* achieves better performance by using heuristics to guide its search.

Compared to Dijkstra's algorithm, the A* algorithm only finds the shortest path from a specified source to a specified goal, and not the shortest-path tree from a specified source to all possible goals. This is a necessary trade-off for using a specific-goal-directed heuristic. For Dijkstra's algorithm, since the entire shortest-path tree is generated, every node is a goal, and there can be no specific-goal-directed heuristic.

History
A* was created as part of the Shakey project, which had the aim of building a mobile robot that could plan its own actions. Nils Nilsson originally proposed using the Graph Traverser algorithm for Shakey's path planning. Graph Traverser is guided by a heuristic function $h(n)$, the estimated distance from node $n$ to the goal node: it entirely ignores $g(n)$, the distance from the start node to $n$. Bertram Raphael suggested using the sum, $g(n) + h(n)$. Peter Hart invented the concepts we now call admissibility and consistency of heuristic functions. A* was originally designed for finding least-cost paths when the cost of a path is the sum of its costs, but it has been shown that A* can be used to find optimal paths for any problem satisfying the conditions of a cost algebra.

The original 1968 A* paper contained a theorem stating that no A*-like algorithm could expand fewer nodes than A* if the heuristic function is consistent and A*'s tie-breaking rule is suitably chosen. A "correction" was published a few years later claiming that consistency was not required, but this was shown to be false in 1985 in Dechter and Pearl's definitive study of A*'s optimality (now called optimal efficiency), which gave an example of A* with a heuristic that was admissible but not consistent expanding arbitrarily more nodes than an alternative A*-like algorithm.

Description

A* is an informed search algorithm, or a best-first search, meaning that it is formulated in terms of weighted graphs: starting from a specific starting node of a graph, it aims to find a path to the given goal node having the smallest cost (least distance travelled, shortest time, etc.). It does this by maintaining a tree of paths originating at the start node and extending those paths one edge at a time until the goal node is reached.

At each iteration of its main loop, A* needs to determine which of its paths to extend. It does so based on the cost of the path and an estimate of the cost required to extend the path all the way to the goal. Specifically, A* selects the path that minimizes

 * $$f(n) = g(n) + h(n)$$

where $n$ is the next node on the path, $g(n)$ is the cost of the path from the start node to $n$, and $h(n)$ is a heuristic function that estimates the cost of the cheapest path from $n$ to the goal. The heuristic function is problem-specific. If the heuristic function is admissible – meaning that it never overestimates the actual cost to get to the goal – A* is guaranteed to return a least-cost path from start to goal.

Typical implementations of A* use a priority queue to perform the repeated selection of minimum (estimated) cost nodes to expand. This priority queue is known as the open set, fringe or frontier. At each step of the algorithm, the node with the lowest $f(x)$ value is removed from the queue, the $f$ and $g$ values of its neighbors are updated accordingly, and these neighbors are added to the queue. The algorithm continues until a removed node (thus the node with the lowest $f$ value out of all fringe nodes) is a goal node. The $f$ value of that goal is then also the cost of the shortest path, since $f$ at the goal is zero in an admissible heuristic.

The algorithm described so far gives us only the length of the shortest path. To find the actual sequence of steps, the algorithm can be easily revised so that each node on the path keeps track of its predecessor. After this algorithm is run, the ending node will point to its predecessor, and so on, until some node's predecessor is the start node.

As an example, when searching for the shortest route on a map, $h(x)$ might represent the straight-line distance to the goal, since that is physically the smallest possible distance between any two points. For a grid map from a video game, using the Taxicab distance or the Chebyshev distance becomes better depending on the set of movements available (4-way or 8-way).

If the heuristic $h$ satisfies the additional condition $h(x) ≤ d(x, y) + h(y)$ for every edge $(x, y)$ of the graph (where $h$ denotes the length of that edge), then $d$ is called monotone, or consistent. With a consistent heuristic, A* is guaranteed to find an optimal path without processing any node more than once and A* is equivalent to running Dijkstra's algorithm with the reduced cost $d'(x, y) = d(x, y) + h(y) − h(x)$.

Pseudocode
The following pseudocode describes the algorithm:

Remark: In this pseudocode, if a node is reached by one path, removed from openSet, and subsequently reached by a cheaper path, it will be added to openSet again. This is essential to guarantee that the path returned is optimal if the heuristic function is admissible but not consistent. If the heuristic is consistent, when a node is removed from openSet the path to it is guaranteed to be optimal so the test ‘ ’ will always fail if the node is reached again.

Example
An example of an A* algorithm in action where nodes are cities connected with roads and h(x) is the    straight-line distance to the target point:

Key: green: start; blue: goal; orange: visited

The A* algorithm has real-world applications. In this example, edges are railroads and h(x) is the great-circle distance (the shortest possible distance on a sphere) to the target. The algorithm is searching for a path between Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.

Implementation details
There are a number of simple optimizations or implementation details that can significantly affect the performance of an A* implementation. The first detail to note is that the way the priority queue handles ties can have a significant effect on performance in some situations. If ties are broken so the queue behaves in a LIFO manner, A* will behave like depth-first search among equal cost paths (avoiding exploring more than one equally optimal solution).

When a path is required at the end of the search, it is common to keep with each node a reference to that node's parent. At the end of the search, these references can be used to recover the optimal path. If these references are being kept then it can be important that the same node doesn't appear in the priority queue more than once (each entry corresponding to a different path to the node, and each with a different cost). A standard approach here is to check if a node about to be added already appears in the priority queue. If it does, then the priority and parent pointers are changed to correspond to the lower-cost path. A standard binary heap based priority queue does not directly support the operation of searching for one of its elements, but it can be augmented with a hash table that maps elements to their position in the heap, allowing this decrease-priority operation to be performed in logarithmic time. Alternatively, a Fibonacci heap can perform the same decrease-priority operations in constant amortized time.

Special cases
Dijkstra's algorithm, as another example of a uniform-cost search algorithm, can be viewed as a special case of A* where $h$ for all x. General depth-first search can be implemented using A* by considering that there is a global counter C initialized with a very large value. Every time we process a node we assign C to all of its newly discovered neighbors. After every single assignment, we decrease the counter C by one. Thus the earlier a node is discovered, the higher its $h(x) = 0$ value. Both Dijkstra's algorithm and depth-first search can be implemented more efficiently without including an $h(x)$ value at each node.

Termination and completeness
On finite graphs with non-negative edge weights A* is guaranteed to terminate and is complete, i.e. it will always find a solution (a path from start to goal) if one exists. On infinite graphs with a finite branching factor and edge costs that are bounded away from zero ($d(x,y)>\varepsilon>0$ for some fixed $$\varepsilon$$), A* is guaranteed to terminate only if there exists a solution.

Admissibility
A search algorithm is said to be admissible if it is guaranteed to return an optimal solution. If the heuristic function used by A* is admissible, then A* is admissible. An intuitive "proof" of this is as follows:

When A* terminates its search, it has found a path from start to goal whose actual cost is lower than the estimated cost of any path from start to goal through any open node (the node's $h(x)$ value). When the heuristic is admissible, those estimates are optimistic (not quite—see the next paragraph), so A* can safely ignore those nodes because they cannot possibly lead to a cheaper solution than the one it already has. In other words, A* will never overlook the possibility of a lower-cost path from start to goal and so it will continue to search until no such possibilities exist.

The actual proof is a bit more involved because the $f$ values of open nodes are not guaranteed to be optimistic even if the heuristic is admissible. This is because the $f$ values of open nodes are not guaranteed to be optimal, so the sum $g$ is not guaranteed to be optimistic.

Optimality and consistency
Algorithm A is optimally efficient with respect to a set of alternative algorithms Alts on a set of problems P if for every problem P in P and every algorithm A′ in Alts, the set of nodes expanded by A in solving P is a subset (possibly equal) of the set of nodes expanded by A′ in solving P. The definitive study of the optimal efficiency of A* is due to Rina Dechter and Judea Pearl. They considered a variety of definitions of Alts and P  in combination with A*'s heuristic being merely admissible or being both consistent and admissible. The most interesting positive result they proved is that A*, with a consistent heuristic, is optimally efficient with respect to all admissible A*-like search algorithms on all "non-pathological" search problems. Roughly speaking, their notion of the non-pathological problem is what we now mean by "up to tie-breaking". This result does not hold if A*'s heuristic is admissible but not consistent. In that case, Dechter and Pearl showed there exist admissible A*-like algorithms that can expand arbitrarily fewer nodes than A* on some non-pathological problems.

Optimal efficiency is about the set of nodes expanded, not the number of node expansions (the number of iterations of A*'s main loop). When the heuristic being used is admissible but not consistent, it is possible for a node to be expanded by A* many times, an exponential number of times in the worst case. In such circumstances, Dijkstra's algorithm could outperform A* by a large margin. However, more recent research found that this pathological case only occurs in certain contrived situations where the edge weight of the search graph is exponential in the size of the graph and that certain inconsistent (but admissible) heuristics can lead to a reduced number of node expansions in A* searches.

Bounded relaxation
While the admissibility criterion guarantees an optimal solution path, it also means that A* must examine all equally meritorious paths to find the optimal path. To compute approximate shortest paths, it is possible to speed up the search at the expense of optimality by relaxing the admissibility criterion. Oftentimes we want to bound this relaxation, so that we can guarantee that the solution path is no worse than (1 + ε) times the optimal solution path. This new guarantee is referred to as ε-admissible.

There are a number of ε-admissible algorithms:

 * Weighted A*/Static Weighting's. If ha(n) is an admissible heuristic function, in the weighted version of the A* search one uses $h_{w}(n) = ε h_{a}(n)$, $ε > 1$ as the heuristic function, and perform the A* search as usual (which eventually happens faster than using ha since fewer nodes are expanded). The path hence found by the search algorithm can have a cost of at most ε times that of the least cost path in the graph.
 * Dynamic Weighting uses the cost function $g+h$, where $$w(n) = \begin{cases} 1 - \frac{d(n)}{N} & d(n) \le N \\ 0 & \text{otherwise} \end{cases}$$, and where $f(n) = g(n) + (1 + \varepsilon w(n))h(n)$ is the depth of the search and N is the anticipated length of the solution path.
 * Sampled Dynamic Weighting uses sampling of nodes to better estimate and debias the heuristic error.
 * $$A^*_\varepsilon$$. uses two heuristic functions. The first is the FOCAL list, which is used to select candidate nodes, and the second hF is used to select the most promising node from the FOCAL list.
 * Aε selects nodes with the function $d(n)$, where A and B are constants. If no nodes can be selected, the algorithm will backtrack with the function $A f(n) + B h_F(n)$, where C and D are constants.
 * AlphA* attempts to promote depth-first exploitation by preferring recently expanded nodes. AlphA* uses the cost function $$f_\alpha(n) = (1 + w_\alpha(n)) f(n)$$, where $$w_\alpha(n) = \begin{cases} \lambda & g(\pi(n)) \le g(\tilde{n}) \\ \Lambda & \text{otherwise} \end{cases}$$, where λ and Λ are constants with $$\lambda \le \Lambda$$, π(n) is the parent of n, and ñ is the most recently expanded node.

Complexity
The time complexity of A* depends on the heuristic. In the worst case of an unbounded search space, the number of nodes expanded is exponential in the depth of the solution (the shortest path) $C f(n) + D h_F(n)$: $O(b^{d})$, where $d$ is the branching factor (the average number of successors per state). This assumes that a goal state exists at all, and is reachable from the start state; if it is not, and the state space is infinite, the algorithm will not terminate.

The heuristic function has a major effect on the practical performance of A* search, since a good heuristic allows A* to prune away many of the $b$ nodes that an uninformed search would expand. Its quality can be expressed in terms of the effective branching factor $b*$, which can be determined empirically for a problem instance by measuring the number of nodes generated by expansion, $b^{d}$, and the depth of the solution, then solving

 * $$N + 1 = 1 + b^* + (b^*)^2 + \dots + (b^*)^d.$$

Good heuristics are those with low effective branching factor (the optimal being $b* = 1$).

The time complexity is polynomial when the search space is a tree, there is a single goal state, and the heuristic function h meets the following condition:

 * $$|h(x) - h^*(x)| = O(\log h^*(x))$$

where $h^{*}$ is the optimal heuristic, the exact cost to get from $N$ to the goal. In other words, the error of $x$ will not grow faster than the logarithm of the "perfect heuristic" $h^{*}$ that returns the true distance from $h$ to the goal.

The space complexity of A* is roughly the same as that of all other graph search algorithms, as it keeps all generated nodes in memory. In practice, this turns out to be the biggest drawback of the A* search, leading to the development of memory-bounded heuristic searches, such as Iterative deepening A*, memory-bounded A*, and SMA*.

Applications
A* is often used for the common pathfinding problem in applications such as video games, but was originally designed as a general graph traversal algorithm. It finds applications in diverse problems, including the problem of parsing using stochastic grammars in NLP. Other cases include an Informational search with online learning.

Relations to other algorithms
What sets A* apart from a greedy best-first search algorithm is that it takes the cost/distance already traveled, $g(n)$, into account.

Some common variants of Dijkstra's algorithm can be viewed as a special case of A* where the heuristic $$h(n) = 0$$ for all nodes; in turn, both Dijkstra and A* are special cases of dynamic programming. A* itself is a special case of a generalization of branch and bound.

A* is similar to beam search except that beam search maintains a limit on the numbers of paths that it has to explore.

Variants

 * Anytime A*
 * Block A*
 * D*
 * Field D*
 * Fringe
 * Fringe Saving A* (FSA*)
 * Generalized Adaptive A* (GAA*)
 * Incremental heuristic search
 * Reduced A*
 * Iterative deepening A* (IDA*)
 * Jump point search
 * Lifelong Planning A* (LPA*)
 * New Bidirectional A* (NBA*)
 * Simplified Memory bounded A* (SMA*)
 * Theta*

A* can also be adapted to a bidirectional search algorithm. Special care needs to be taken for the stopping criterion.

title: A* search algorithm


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Dhumavati

Dhumavati (धूमावती,, literally "the smoky one") is one of the Mahavidyas, a group of ten Hindu Tantric goddesses. Dhumavati represents the fearsome aspect of Mahadevi, the supreme goddess in Hindu traditions such as Shaktism. She is often portrayed as an old, ugly widow, and is associated with things considered inauspicious and unattractive in Hinduism, such as the crow and the chaturmasya period. The goddess is often depicted carrying a winnowing basket on a horseless chariot or riding a crow, usually in a cremation ground.

Dhumavati is said to manifest herself at the time of cosmic dissolution (pralaya) and is "the Void" that exists before creation and after dissolution. While Dhumavati is generally associated with only inauspicious qualities, her thousand-name hymn relates her positive aspects as well as her negative ones. She is often called tender-hearted and a bestower of boons. Dhumavati is described as a great teacher, one who reveals ultimate knowledge of the universe, which is beyond the illusory divisions, like auspicious and inauspicious. Her ugly form teaches the devotee to look beyond the superficial, to look inwards and seek the inner truths of life.

Dhumavati is described as a giver of siddhis (supernatural powers), a rescuer from all troubles, and a granter of all desires and rewards, including ultimate knowledge and moksha (salvation). Her worship is also prescribed for those who wish to defeat their foes. Dhumavati's worship is considered ideal for unpaired members of society, such as bachelors, widows, and world renouncers as well as Tantrikas. In her Varanasi temple, however, she transcends her inauspiciousness and acquires the status of a local protective deity, where she is also worshipped by married couples. Although she has very few dedicated temples, her worship by Tantric ritual continues in private in secluded places like cremation grounds and forests.

Origins

Dhumavati hardly has an independent existence outside the Mahavidya group. There is no historical mention of her before she is included among the Mahavidyas. As a goddess of poverty, frustration, and despair, Daniélou associates Dhumavati with Nirriti, the goddess of disease and misery, and Alakshmi, the goddess of misfortune and poverty. Kinsley adds another goddess to the list: Jyestha.

The Vedic goddess Nirriti is associated with death, decay, bad luck, anger, and need. Hymns emphasize offerings to keep her away. Like Nirriti, Dhumavati is associated with unpromising things and hardship. Jyestha, also an early Hindu goddess, has similarities in iconography with Dhumavati. Like Dhumavati, she is dark, ugly and is associated with the crow. Jyestha is described as being unable to tolerate any auspiciousness. Also like Dhumavati, Jyestha dwells in quarrels, inauspicious places, and has a bad temper. Lakshmana Desika, the commentator on the Saradatilaka-Tantra, identifies Dhumavati with Jyestha. Both Alakshmi, the sister and antithesis of Lakshmi (Shri), the goddess of wealth, luck and beauty, and Dhumavati are described as old, carrying a broom and having a crow banner. Both symbolize hunger, thirst, need, and poverty.

While there are similarities between Dhumavati and the three goddesses, the latter lack significant characteristics of Dhumavati, like her widowhood and a textual emphasis on her ugliness. The names of the three goddesses also do not figure in Dhumavati's nama stotras (hymns invoking her many names), where such identifications could have been explicitly mentioned. The three also lack the more fierce warrior aspects of Dhumavati as well as her positive aspects in the context of the Mahavidyas. In scholar David Kinsley's opinion, though the three may be Dhumavati's antecedents, they are not "the same" as Dhumavati. According to Kinsley, the concept of ten Mahavidyas may not be earlier than the 12th century.

Legends

Dhumavati is often named as the seventh Mahavidya. The Guhyatiguhya-Tantra equates Vishnu's ten avatars with the ten Mahavidyas. The fish incarnation Matsya is described as arising from Dhumavati. A similar list in the Mundamala equates Dhumavati with Vamana.

In a story from the Shakta Maha-Bhagavata Purana, which narrates the creation of all the Mahavidyas, Sati, the daughter of Daksha and first wife of god Shiva, feels insulted that she and Shiva are not invited to Daksha's yagna ("fire sacrifice") and insists on going there, despite Shiva's protests. After futile attempts to convince Shiva, the enraged Sati transforms into the Mahavidyas, who surround Shiva from the ten cardinal directions. Dhumavati stands in the southeast. Another similar legend replaces Sati with Kali (the chief Mahavidya) as the wife of Shiva and origin of the other Mahavidyas. The Devi Bhagavata Purana mentions the Mahavidyas as war-companions and forms of goddess Shakambhari.

A legend from the Shaktisamgama-Tantra describes that Sati commits suicide by jumping in Daksha's yagna and Dhumavati rises with a blackened face from the sad smoke of Sati's burning body. She is "all that is left of Sati" and is her outraged and insulted avatar. The Pranatosini-Tantra explains the widowhood of Dhumavati. Once, Sati asked Shiva to give her food. When Shiva declines, the goddess eats him to satisfy her extreme hunger. When Shiva requests her to disgorge him, she obliges. Shiva then rejects her and curses her to assume the form of a widow. Another oral legend tells that Dhumavati was created by the warrior goddess Durga in the battle against demons Shumbha and Nishumbha. Dhumavati's literal name ("she who abides in smoke") comes from her ability to defeat demons by creating stinging smoke.

The Pranatosini-Tantra version stresses Dhumavati's destructive aspect and hunger, which is satisfied only when she consumes Shiva, who himself contains or creates the universe. It brings out her inauspicious status as a widow and her self-assertion on her husband.

Iconography and textual descriptions
The Dhumavati Tantra describes her as an old and ugly widow. She is thin, tall, unhealthy, and has a pale-grey complexion. She is described as restless and wicked. Unadorned with jewellery, she wears old, dirty clothes and has dishevelled hair. Her eyes are fearsome, her nose long and crooked, and some of her long fang-like teeth have fallen out, leaving her smile with gaps. Her ears are ugly and rough; her breasts hang down. In one of her trembling hands, she holds a winnowing basket, while the other makes a boon-conferring gesture (varada-mudra) or knowledge-giving gesture (cinmudra). She rides in a horseless chariot bearing an emblem of a crow and a banner. She is astute and crafty, though. Always hungry and thirsty, Dhumavati initiates quarrels and invokes fear.

In the Prapancasarasara-samgraha, Dhumavati is described as having a black complexion and wearing ornaments made of snakes. Her dress is made of rags taken from cremation grounds. She holds a spear and a skull-cup (kapala) in her two hands. The spear is sometimes replaced by a sword. Another description in the same text says Dhumavati is aged with a wrinkled, angry face and cloud-like complexion. Her nose, eyes, and throat resemble a crow's. She holds a broom, a winnowing fan, a torch, and a club. She is cruel and frowning. Her hair appears dishevelled and she wears the simple clothes of a beggar. Her breasts are dry. Her hair is grey, her teeth crooked and missing, and her clothes old and worn.

Sometimes, Dhumavati rides a crow and holds a trident. She may be depicted wearing a garland of severed heads, with red-coloured limbs and matted but dishevelled hair. Sometimes, she carries the buffalo-horn of Yama, the god of death, symbolizing her association with death.

Dhumavati has fierce, warlike attributes too. In the Shakta pramoda, she crushes bones in her mouth, creating an awful noise. She also makes the fearful and warlike noises of drums and bells. She wears a garland of skulls, chews the corpses of the demons Chanda and Munda, and drinks a mixture of blood and wine.

Though there are standard descriptions of Dhumavati's form, some relatively recent paintings deviate from it. For example, an 18th-century painting by Molaram depicts Dhumavati sitting on a chariot pulled by two black scavenger birds with curved beaks. The painting follows the usual attributes like the winnowing basket, boon-giving gesture, but also depicts her young and beautiful with full breasts and adorned in gold finery, a stark contrast to her usual form. An early 20th-century painting from Varanasi depicts her riding a crow, holding a trident, a sword, a winnowing fan, and a bowl in her four arms, dark-complexioned, with sagging breasts, wearing white clothes and with cremation flames in the background. She is again adorned in gold finery and wears a gold-hewn lower garment, unusual for a widow's dress. Another 18th-century Nepali manuscript depicts a complete deviation from her traditional descriptions. She is completely nude with high breasts, wears a pearl necklace and headband, stands on a peacock with legs apart, and holds a mirror while looking at her reflection. A ring of fire surrounds her, possibly conveying cremation flames.

Symbolism and associations
Vedic scholar Ganapati Muni described the goddess: Perceived as the Void, as the dissolved form of consciousness, when all beings are dissolved in sleep in the supreme Brahman, having swallowed the entire universe, the seer-poets call her the most glorious and the eldest, Dhumavati. She exists in the forms of sleep, lack of memory, illusion, and dullness in the creatures immersed in the illusion of the world, but among the yogis she becomes the power that destroys all thoughts, indeed Samadhi (death and liberation) itself.

Dhumavati is always considered a widow, and thus, is the only Mahavidya without a consort. Though associated with Shiva, having eaten him, he has since left her. Having destroyed the male element (Purusha) in the universe, she is left with nothing, but she is still Shakti, the female element with latent energy. Dhumavati's insatiable hunger and thirst is highlighted in many texts, and has been interpreted as the manifestation of her unsatisfied desires.

As a widow in a horseless chariot, Dhumavati is portrayed as a woman going nowhere in life and society. She is "all that is unlucky, unattractive and inauspicious". She appears in the form of the poor, the beggars, the lepers, and the diseased. She dwells in the "wounds of the world", deserts, ruined houses, poverty, tatters, hunger, thirst, quarrels, mourning of children, in wild and other uncivilized, dangerous places. Widows in general are considered inauspicious, dangerous, and susceptible to possession by evil spirits. As a divine widow, Dhumavati is to be feared. Dhumavati is described as a hag or witch, crafty and quarrelsome; she represents all the dreaded miseries of life.

Alternative paintings show her as young and adorned, as a sexually tempting, eroticised, young, attractive yet inauspicious widow. Her thousand-name hymn says that she gives enjoyment, is completely beautiful and adorned with garlands, clothes, and jewellery. She is also associated with sex in the hymn, which calls her "She Whose Form Is Rati". Rati literally means "sexual intercourse" and also the name of the Hindu love goddess. Dhumavati is said to enjoy sexual intercourse, to be present where sexual activity is, and to be occupied with sex. She is said to like liquor (a forbidden drink), to be intoxicated, and to be worshiped by intoxicated people. She also indulges in the Tantric ritual of breaking the five taboos—the Panchamakara, which include consuming wine, meat, fish, parched grain and ritual sex.

Dhumavati is a manifestation of the anti-social and inauspicious elements in women and is an antithesis to the goddess Lakshmi. Like Alakshmi, Dhumavati rules over the four months of the rainy season, when even solar light is obscured by the evil water spirit. This coincides with Chaturmas, a period during the year when the god Vishnu sleeps. At that time, darkness rules and the soul loses its usual luster. This period is considered inauspicious, and as such as no auspicious ceremonies like marriage can take place.

The presence of the crow, a carrier of death, in her iconography as well as her textual description of having crow-like features associate her with death and inauspiciousness. Another motif in her iconography linking her with death is the presence of a cremation ground and cremation pyres in the background. Her thousand name hymn says that she lives in the cremation ground, sits on a corpse, wears ashes, and blesses those who haunt the grounds. The Prapancasarasara-samgraha relates that she wears a dress taken from a corpse. Dhumavati is the embodiment of tamas guna, associated with ignorance and darkness. She likes meat and wine, both tamasic in nature. The Pranatosinitantra associates her with tamas, when classifying the mahavidyas based on guna.

Dhumavati is often said to appear at the time of Maha-pralaya, the great dissolution of the cosmos and is equated with the dark clouds that rise during Pralaya. Her thousand name hymn also calls her by names meaning "She Whose Form is Pralaya", "Who Is Occupied with Pralaya", "Who Creates and Causes Pralaya" and "Who Walks About in Pralaya". An author says that she stays even after Shiva (who is Maha-kala) ("Great Time" or "Great Death") disappears, thus she is "the Power of Time", and considered to be beyond time and space. Dhumavati represents ultimate destruction, the smoke that rises after the universe is destroyed.

The goddess' name "Dhumavati" means the "smoky one". She is said not to like offerings burnt in a fire that is not smoky. She likes smoke from incense, offerings, and cremation pyres, as these symbolize destruction. Dhumavati also exists in the form of smoke and roams everywhere at her will.

While Dhumavati generally is associated with only inauspicious qualities, her thousand-name hymn tells about her positive aspects, too. She is often called as bestower of boons and tender-hearted. Her hymn says that she lives in the midst of women and is worshipped by them. Her hymn sings of her as the giver of children.

As an ancestor or Grandmother spirit, she embodies a great teacher and guide, granting knowledge of the ultimate truth of life and death. Her smoke hides that which is obvious, revealing hidden secrets and truths of "the unknown and the unmanifest". Frawley says her outer appearance as poverty is deceptive and a mere illusion that hides the inner reality. She is "the good fortune that comes to us in the form of misfortune". Dhumavati embodies the "power of suffering". Through the negative aspects that Dhumavati represents rise the virtues of patience, persistence, forgiveness, and detachment. Without the revealing of this negativity of life, it cannot be transcended and the secret truths would remain hidden under the smoky veil of illusion.

Dhumavati's outer inauspicious, fearful form reveals the dangers of considering sensory pleasures as fulfilment-giving. The winnowing basket, used to separate the husk from the grain, symbolizes the need to separate the outer illusory form from the inner reality. Her ugly form teaches the devotee to go beyond the outer deceptive appearances and seek the inner truths of life.

Dhumavati is the primordial darkness and ignorance, from which rises the world of illusion. She represents the darkness/ignorance before creation and after decay. This ignorance, which obscures the ultimate reality, is necessary because without the realization of this ignorance, true knowledge can not be achieved. Dhumavati also represents yogic sleep (Yoganidra), the pre-creation state of consciousness, as well as the primal sleep (the Void) in which all creation would dissolve and reach ultimate reality of Brahman. This void is pure consciousness, the cessation of movements of the mind, and silence. Even Dhumavati's ability to spread disease is also considered positive, as disease punishes the wicked and restores cosmic order. Dhumavati is also associated with the heart or middle region of the body. Dhumavati is also called ‘Arikshyaykar’ or ‘one who destroys both the external as well as the internal enemy’.

Dhumavati is sometimes regarded as an older form of Kali, in which she represents timelessness and unmanifest life-force. Another tradition identifies Dhumavati with Smashana-kali, "Kali who lives in the cremation ground." She is considered a terrible aspect of the Goddess and included among the Kalikula ("family of Kali") goddesses. Dhumavati's nama stotras (hymn with names of the deities) identify her with Parvati, Sati, and glorify her as a slayer of demons.

Worship

Though Dhumavati may seem to be a goddess to be avoided due to her inauspiciousness, she is described as tender-hearted and one who gives her devotees whatever they want. In several places, Dhumavati is described as a giver of siddhis (supernatural powers), a rescuer from all troubles and granter of all desires and rewards, including ultimate knowledge and moksha (salvation). Dhumavati's worship is prescribed to ward off all the negativity that she stands for and to transcend the smoke screen to acquire true knowledge. By worshipping and confronting her, the embodiment of the impure, the inauspicious and outside the fringes of society, one can look beyond the arbitrary dichotomies of society and acquire ultimate knowledge to become spiritually enlightened.

Married people, however, are advised not to worship Dhumavati. It is said that her worship creates a feeling of wanting solitude and distaste of worldly things, which is considered as highest characteristics of a spiritual quest. Thus, Dhumavati's worship is appropriate for world renouncers who roam as lone wanderers and widows who parallel the life of world renouncers. Dhumavati is also described a being partial to single persons and especially partial to widows. Widows are considered the only beings who can withstand her power.

The mantra of Dhumavati is "Dhum Dhum Dhumavati Svaha", containing a repetition of her seed syllable Dhum. This mantra used in the worship of Dhumavati, sometimes with her yantra, is believed to create a protective smoke shielding the devotee from negativity and death. Her worship involves clearing one's mind of all thoughts and leaving back the known, meditating on the unknown silence beyond, and the Void that Dhumavati represents.

The Shaktisamgama Tantra says that Dhumavati can be worshipped for the Uchhatana (eradication) of a person. A worshipper should imagine the world as well as the goddess's mantra as grey. He should blacken his teeth and wear black clothes and observe regulations, such as eating little, sleeping on the ground, and subduing his senses. In this worship procedure called kakakarma (crow-procedure), he should "transform his mind into a crow" by which one can cause harm to a person. Another Tantric text mentions the worshipper should burn a crow in a cremation flame and, while repeating the goddesses' mantra, spread the ashes in the enemy's house, which will lead to his destruction. The text further says Dhumavati should be worshipped only by Dakshinamarga ("right-handed path"). While the Kalarudra-tantra says Dhumavati can be worshipped for destructive purposes, Shakta-pramoda relates that her worship is useful to acquire siddhi to destroy one's foes.

Dhumavati's worship is performed in the night in a cremation ground, bare-bodied with the exception of a loincloth. The fourth lunar day of the dark fortnight (Krishna Paksha) is considered the special day to perform her puja (worship). The worshipper should observe a fast and remain silent for a whole day and night. They should also perform a homa ("fire sacrifice"), wearing wet clothes and a turban, repeating the goddess' mantra in a cremation ground, forest, or any lonely place.

Dhumavati temples are extremely rare. At a temple in Varanasi, Dhumavati is the main deity. Smaller Dhumavati temples exist in Rajrappa in Bihar and near the Kamakhya Temple near Guwahati. At the Varanasi temple, which claims to be a Shakti Peetha, Dhumavati's idol rides a chariot and holds a winnowing fan, a broom, and a pot, while the fourth hand makes the fear-not gesture (abhaya-mudra). The goddess is offered usual offerings like flowers and fruit, but also liquor, bhang, cigarettes, meat, and sometimes even blood sacrifices. Though traditional devotees of Dhumavati (world renouncers and Tantrikas) worship at the Varanasi temple, here the goddess transcends her traditional role as "the inauspicious, dangerous goddess who can be approached only by heroic tantric adepts". Dhumavati acquires the role of a local guardian deity, or village deity, who protects the locals and even married couples worship her. There is also a temple dedicated to the goddess in Pitambara Peeth temple complex, Datia.

title: Dhumavati


text:
Talk:Rastafari

Motion to restore the Order of Primus St. Croix
07:39, 17 April 2021 Midnightblueowl →Mansions of Rastafari: reverting the recent mass addition of text about one (fairly obscure) Rasta group; this material relies heavily on Primary Sources and is certainly WP:Undue in its length. This should not be restored as per WP:BRD; Talk Page discussion would be the next step.

After reviewing the reasons cited by Midnightblueowl for the reversion of the subsection "Mansions of Rastafari" we find that the classification "undue weight" is unfounded and therefore the decision to revert unsubstantiated. Bearing in mind that the Order of Primus St. Croix is one of the youngest established Rastafari mansions today and that it has only existed for less than twenty-one years the material surprisingly doesn't rely heavily on primary sources. At the time of this writing, out of a total of twenty-five sources cited only eleven are primary; seven of those eleven are from one book (just different page numbers) which means there's only five primary sources used out of a total of nineteen distinct references. Moreover the moderator stated that it's "certainly undue in its length" yet the section is only fourteen sentences long. WP:Undue ("Due and undue weight") is a subsection of Neutral point of view which states, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints."

When determining proper weight we must consider the fact that the mansions of Nyabinghi, Bobo Ashanti and Twelve Tribes of Israel are mentioned on the page a total of eleven times outside of the "Rastafari Mansions" subsection. Entire subsections of the page devoted to superficial characteristics such as "Appearance", "Diet," "Language" and even large subsections detailing narcotics usage are published with impunity yet one sentence about the Order's denouncement of cannabis isn't allowed, that's undue weight. Furthermore the only reason why the Order of Primus St. Croix seems to have a disproportionate amount of content compared to the other mansions in the subsection is because the other mansions practice poor scholarship and haven't taken the time to update their Wikipedia entries in the subsection which could easily be enhanced by them at any point in time. Here we take the opportunity to say that it's not our fault that competing mansions neglect their own Wikipedia content. We're essentially being penalized and our achievements and contributions to the movement have been censored because of the other organizations' indifference which is why the consequences of the reversion are clearly inequitable and hardly "neutral" at all. The marginalization of our Order is nothing new, only this time the ostracism has been performed under the guise of Wikipedia protocol technicalities (see also 1 Corinthians 4:9-14). Nevertheless in an effort to avoid WP:BRD "deadlock" we propose the following resolution: the subsection "Mansions of Rastafari" has been expanded upon so that the prominent common Rastafarian mansions have a significantly larger body of content than the Order of Primus St. Croix which has been included at the end of the subsection so that it can no longer be mistakenly perceived as "undue in its length," completed per BRD's "attempt a new edit" guidelines.Czar Petar I (talk) 05:43, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

 * I appreciate that, as an apparent member of the Order of Primus St. Croix, you may feel that it is unfair that other denominations (Mansions) of Rastafari are discussed in the article but that your own is not, but that is not sufficient reason for Wikipedia to give this particular group coverage. We give coverage to the major Mansions that exist, and we determine what is major by looking at which ones are covered in the WP:Reliable Sources - namely academic studies of the Rastafari movement. At present, those sources do not appear to discuss the Order of Primus St. Croix. If, in the years to come, they do begin to discuss the Order of Primus St. Croix, then we could certainly add some information about it to the article.
 * Bear in mind that this is a WP:Featured Article - it's rated among our top quality articles - and that is why we are going to be very cautious about how it is changed. As per WP:BRD, you were bold in your edits, but because these edits were controversial, they were reverted. It is then incumbent on you not to WP:Edit War to restore the material you want into the article, but rather to try and gain consensus for your additions at the Talk Page. You should absolutely not be edit warring to get your desired additions into this Featured Article, as you have already done once. Make your case as to why and how this article should be changed and if you can convince other editors, then we may be able to reach consensus. If needs be, we can take the situation to some form of WP:Dispute resolution, such as WP:RfC. Midnightblueowl (talk) 08:52, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Seems big addition is in wrong article.-- Moxy -Maple Leaf (Pantone).svg 08:58, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * We've never stated that we feel that it's "unfair" that other mansions of Rastafari are discussed in the article and that our own isn't, nor have we attempted to argue that something like that is sufficient reason for Wikipedia to approve the information about the Order. Midnightblueowl stated, "You should absolutely not be edit warring to get your desired additions into this Featured Article, as you have already done once." Please explain how we've already done this once before. The last sentence of our initial motion clearly states that we've "attempted a new edit" as according to BRD's Cycle guidelines which state: "To avoid bogging down in discussion, when you have a better understanding of the reverter's concerns, you may attempt a new edit that reasonably addresses some aspect of those concerns. You can try this even if the discussion has not reached an explicit conclusion, but be sure you don't engage in any kind of edit warring." We've merely "attempted a new edit" which addressed your initial concerns about "undue length," we haven't started any "edit war" and would appreciate it if we weren't falsely accused of any negative behavior from here on out.
 * Further, after reviewing WP:Reliable Sources cited by Midnightblueowl it states, "If the book merely quotes the proclamation (such as re-printing a section in a sidebar or the full text in an appendix, or showing an image of the signature or the official seal on the proclamation) with no analysis or commentary, then the book is just a newly printed copy of the primary source, rather than being a secondary source." [...] "More importantly, many high-quality sources contain both primary and secondary material. A textbook might include commentary on the proclamation (which is secondary material) as well as the full text of the proclamation (which is primary material)." The book "Seventy Years Accomplished" includes copies of the letters written by Kenyatta Felix which he left behind for investigators at the crime scenes, however it also contains extensive commentary on those letters and many other Rastafari doctrines (355 pages worth to be exact) therefore we've come to the conclusion that the book we initially considered to be primary is actually a secondary source, it was cited seven times in our edit and mentioned in the original motion. We understand that our Order is "controversial" however that alone isn't sufficient reason for Wikipedia to remove content. We request that this case be escalated through WP:RfC and we've already taken the initiative to file a dispute and notify you here.Czar Petar I (talk) 11:06, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Restoring controversial text after it has been removed (as you did here) constitutes edit warring. You should not be trying to make substantial changes to an FA-rated article after concerns have been raised about the content of your additions. That's not how Wikipedia works. But as the issue is now being dealt with over at the Dispute Resolution noticeboard, let's see how that develops rather than continuing to debate the issue here. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:49, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * For reference Dispute resolution noticeboard stated: Closing because- there has been insufficient discussion at this time. Only a handful of messages have been posted on the talk page- and DRN asks that editors give a significant good faith effort before coming here. Also- I would like to remind all involved editors that 1- Accusing someone of an edit war when they are not in one is not WP:AGF- and 2- filing editor is reminded to read WP:BRD, you made a bold change- it has been reverted- now you must discuss the proposed change on the article talk page. Other editors will work with you to find an acceptable compromise. Finally- please disclose a WP:COI and read the policy on conflicts of interest- it is recommended that on pages you have a connection to- you suggest changes on the talk page and refrain from actually editing them yourself. Nightenbelle (talk) 15:46, 18 April 2021 (UTC)Czar Petar I (talk) 16:02, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * There are other forms of dispute resolution available. One is Third opinion, but as we have already had the de facto third opinion of User:Moxy, that may be a little superfluous. The other option is Request for Comment. That seems like a good avenue to take if you still want to try and attract support for your proposed additions. I don't mind setting that up. Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:54, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Czar Petar I (talk) 17:00, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Bro 86.188.243.18 (talk) 09:13, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

JAH in Psalm 68:4
In the section "Jah and Jesus of Nazareth" it says, "The term "Jah" is a shortened version of "Jehovah", the name of God in English translations of the Old Testament."

In Psalm 68:4 KJV the term "JAH" is given as the actual name of the God: "Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH, and rejoice before him."

This piece of scripture is worth noting and of significant importance for three reasons: 1.) It is the only time God is referred to as "JAH" in the KJV Bible, 2.) the Psalms of David are a scriptural pillar of Rastafari beliefs, 3.) the scripture instructs the reader to 'sing praises to JAH' (music praising JAH is a central theme of Rastafari culture). 2601:804:380:1220:E963:EF73:B7DC:C6C (talk) 15:43, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Abrahamic faith in lead?
Is there any reason it's not mentioned prominently in the article that it's an Abrahamic faith? Based on my like 10 minutes total of reading (take me with a grain of salt) isn't it pretty roundly considered to be so by religious scholars? toobigtokale (talk) 19:06, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
 * We would need WP:Reliable Sources to make such a claim in the article. We could probably find an RS somewhere that describes it as such, but it's certainly not a common claim in the specialist literature on Rastafari, which is extensively cited in the article. Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:38, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I've gone through Google Scholar and found some recent sources that would support the claim that Rastafari is Abrahamic. I have both introduced those into the main body of the article and amended the opening sentence so that it includes the identification of Rastafari as an Abrahamic tradition. Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:21, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Can you give sources that Rastafari is an Abrahamic religion?
Thanks. SAYITWITHYOURCHEST (talk) 06:37, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The citations are cited in the article, should you wish to look them up. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:31, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think the Abrahamic faith claim is likely to be further challenged in the future; possibly merits refs in the lead next to that claim per WP:LEAD. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 06:26, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Please provide sources that say it is not an abrahamic religion. Simonm223 (talk) 12:32, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Um? Because I’ve never seen a Rastafarian person call themselves a part of Abrahamic religions. They don’t consider themselves that at all. And don’t be rude to me? SAYITWITHYOURCHEST (talk) 14:35, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * And plus there wasn’t any citations next to the Abrahamic religion claim so that’s why I asked. I’m not scrolling all the way down to see some obscure claim, I’d like it to be provided in the first sentence. SAYITWITHYOURCHEST (talk) 14:36, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I am not being rude. But this is how Wikipedia works. We use reliable (secondary) sources. Which is why I asked you to please show me reliable sources that categorize Rastafarianism as being non-Abrahamic. Your personal interaction with members of this faith is irrelevant to article content as it would constitute original research which we do not use. Simonm223 (talk) 14:37, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

 * The only reason I asked for a source because it doesn’t provide a source next to the Abrahamic religion claim, which is why I questioned it. SAYITWITHYOURCHEST (talk) 14:38, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * And plus there wasn’t any citations next to the Abrahamic religion claim so that’s why I asked. I’m not scrolling all the way down to see some obscure claim, I’d like it to be provided in the first sentence. SAYITWITHYOURCHEST (talk) 14:37, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * There are actually two citations for the statement that the religion is Abrahamic. They are in the body because we generally exclude over-citation from the lede. This is a WP:MOS thing. Simonm223 (talk) 14:37, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Okay I’ll check them out. SAYITWITHYOURCHEST (talk) 14:40, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Specifically please see MOS:LEAD As a general rule of thumb, a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs and be carefully sourced as appropriate, although it is common for citations to appear in the body and not the lead. (emphasis mine). Simonm223 (talk) 14:42, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Although restating to be clear, per MOS:LEADCITE, any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports it. This claim has been challenged, so we should now put the refs next to the claim in the lead. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 15:42, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * No, you're misinterpreting that. The verifiability has not been challenged nor is it likely to be. The sources in the body are, in fact, high quality. If you insist on putting the citations in the lede I won't personally stand in your way. But others might. And If you try to delete from the lede as uncited I will revert. Simonm223 (talk) 15:49, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not the other user, I'm actually toobigtokale from above, who suggested adding the Abrahamic faith info in the first place. I don't think I'm misinterpreting that quote; think of the purpose behind the policy. We're not just catering to people who'd bother to dig through the body to find the refs, we're catering to the 99% of people who leave articles within 1 minute because they basically only read the lead. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 16:12, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * As I said, be my guest to move those two refs up into the lede if you wish. Simonm223 (talk) 16:14, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Please watch the tone; it's bordered on snippy and condescending several times in this thread. Please be more mindful of this in future. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 16:27, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Exactly my point though. SAYITWITHYOURCHEST (talk) 23:20, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I don’t agree that the verifiability will never be challenged. SAYITWITHYOURCHEST (talk) 23:21, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Britain is cooked
Help come to Rh37EE pls help 86.188.243.18 (talk) 09:09, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Rastafari


text:
System on a chip

A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. SoCs ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include on-chip central processing unit (CPU), memory interfaces, input/output devices and interfaces, and secondary storage interfaces, often alongside other components such as radio modems and a graphics processing unit (GPU) – all on a single substrate or microchip. SoCs may contain digital and also analog, mixed-signal and often radio frequency signal processing functions (otherwise it may be considered on a discrete application processor).

Higher-performance SoCs are often paired with dedicated and physically separate memory and secondary storage (such as LPDDR and eUFS or eMMC, respectively) chips, that may be layered on top of the SoC in what is known as a package on package (PoP) configuration, or be placed close to the SoC. Additionally, SoCs may use separate wireless modems.

An SoC integrates a microcontroller, microprocessor or perhaps several processor cores with peripherals like a GPU, Wi-Fi and cellular network radio modems or one or more coprocessors. Similar to how a microcontroller integrates a microprocessor with peripheral circuits and memory, an SoC can be seen as integrating a microcontroller with even more advanced peripherals.

Compared to a multi-chip architecture, an SoC with equivalent functionality will have reduced power consumption as well as a smaller semiconductor die area. This comes at the cost of reduced replaceability of components. By definition, SoC designs are fully or nearly fully integrated across different component modules. For these reasons, there has been a general trend towards tighter integration of components in the computer hardware industry, in part due to the influence of SoCs and lessons learned from the mobile and embedded computing markets.

SoCs are very common in the mobile computing (as in smart devices such as smartphones and tablet computers) and edge computing markets.

Types
In general, there are three distinguishable types of SoCs:
 * SoCs built around a microcontroller,
 * SoCs built around a microprocessor, often found in mobile phones;
 * Specialized application-specific integrated circuit SoCs designed for specific applications that do not fit into the above two categories.

Applications
SoCs can be applied to any computing task. However, they are typically used in mobile computing such as tablets, smartphones, smartwatches and netbooks as well as embedded systems and in applications where previously microcontrollers would be used.

Embedded systems
Where previously only microcontrollers could be used, SoCs are rising to prominence in the embedded systems market. Tighter system integration offers better reliability and mean time between failure, and SoCs offer more advanced functionality and computing power than microcontrollers. Applications include AI acceleration, embedded machine vision, data collection, telemetry, vector processing and ambient intelligence. Often embedded SoCs target the internet of things, multimedia, networking, telecommunications and edge computing markets.

Mobile computing
Mobile computing based SoCs always bundle processors, memories, on-chip caches, wireless networking capabilities and often digital camera hardware and firmware. With increasing memory sizes, high end SoCs will often have no memory and flash storage and instead, the memory and flash memory will be placed right next to, or above (package on package), the SoC. Some examples of mobile computing SoCs include:

 * Samsung Electronics: list, typically based on ARM
 * Exynos, used mainly by Samsung's Galaxy series of smartphones
 * Qualcomm:
 * Snapdragon (list), used in many smartphones. In 2018, Snapdragon SoCs were being used as the backbone of laptop computers running Windows 10, marketed as "Always Connected PCs".
 * MediaTek, typically based on ARM
 * Dimensity & Kompanio Series. Standalone application & tablet processors that power devices such as Amazon Echo Show

Personal computers
In 1992, Acorn Computers produced the A3010, A3020 and A4000 range of personal computers with the ARM250 SoC. It combined the original Acorn ARM2 processor with a memory controller (MEMC), video controller (VIDC), and I/O controller (IOC). In previous Acorn ARM-powered computers, these were four discrete chips. The ARM7500 chip was their second-generation SoC, based on the ARM700, VIDC20 and IOMD controllers, and was widely licensed in embedded devices such as set-top-boxes, as well as later Acorn personal computers.

Tablet and laptop manufacturers have learned lessons from embedded systems and smartphone markets about reduced power consumption, better performance and reliability from tighter integration of hardware and firmware modules, and LTE and other wireless network communications integrated on chip (integrated network interface controllers).

Structure
An SoC consists of hardware functional units, including microprocessors that run software code, as well as a communications subsystem to connect, control, direct and interface between these functional modules.

Processor cores
An SoC must have at least one processor core, but typically an SoC has more than one core. Processor cores can be a microcontroller, microprocessor (μP), digital signal processor (DSP) or application-specific instruction set processor (ASIP) core. ASIPs have instruction sets that are customized for an application domain and designed to be more efficient than general-purpose instructions for a specific type of workload. Multiprocessor SoCs have more than one processor core by definition. The ARM architecture is a common choice for SoC processor cores because some ARM-architecture cores are soft processors specified as IP cores.

Memory
SoCs must have semiconductor memory blocks to perform their computation, as do microcontrollers and other embedded systems. Depending on the application, SoC memory may form a memory hierarchy and cache hierarchy. In the mobile computing market, this is common, but in many low-power embedded microcontrollers, this is not necessary. Memory technologies for SoCs include read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM (EEPROM) and flash memory. As in other computer systems, RAM can be subdivided into relatively faster but more expensive static RAM (SRAM) and the slower but cheaper dynamic RAM (DRAM). When an SoC has a cache hierarchy, SRAM will usually be used to implement processor registers and cores' built-in caches whereas DRAM will be used for main memory. "Main memory" may be specific to a single processor (which can be multi-core) when the SoC has multiple processors, in this case it is distributed memory and must be sent via on-chip to be accessed by a different processor. For further discussion of multi-processing memory issues, see cache coherence and memory latency.

Interfaces
SoCs include external interfaces, typically for communication protocols. These are often based upon industry standards such as USB, FireWire, Ethernet, USART, SPI, HDMI, I²C, CSI, etc. These interfaces will differ according to the intended application. Wireless networking protocols such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 6LoWPAN and near-field communication may also be supported.

When needed, SoCs include analog interfaces including analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, often for signal processing. These may be able to interface with different types of sensors or actuators, including smart transducers. They may interface with application-specific modules or shields. Or they may be internal to the SoC, such as if an analog sensor is built in to the SoC and its readings must be converted to digital signals for mathematical processing.

Digital signal processors
Digital signal processor (DSP) cores are often included on SoCs. They perform signal processing operations in SoCs for sensors, actuators, data collection, data analysis and multimedia processing. DSP cores typically feature very long instruction word (VLIW) and single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) instruction set architectures, and are therefore highly amenable to exploiting instruction-level parallelism through parallel processing and superscalar execution. SP cores most often feature application-specific instructions, and as such are typically application-specific instruction set processors (ASIP). Such application-specific instructions correspond to dedicated hardware functional units that compute those instructions.

Typical DSP instructions include multiply-accumulate, Fast Fourier transform, fused multiply-add, and convolutions.

Other
As with other computer systems, SoCs require timing sources to generate clock signals, control execution of SoC functions and provide time context to signal processing applications of the SoC, if needed. Popular time sources are crystal oscillators and phase-locked loops.

SoC peripherals including counter-timers, real-time timers and power-on reset generators. SoCs also include voltage regulators and power management circuits.

Intermodule communication
SoCs comprise many execution units. These units must often send data and instructions back and forth. Because of this, all but the most trivial SoCs require communications subsystems. Originally, as with other microcomputer technologies, data bus architectures were used, but recently designs based on sparse intercommunication networks known as networks-on-chip (NoC) have risen to prominence and are forecast to overtake bus architectures for SoC design in the near future.

Bus-based communication
Historically, a shared global computer bus typically connected the different components, also called "blocks" of the SoC. A very common bus for SoC communications is ARM's royalty-free Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture (AMBA) standard.

Direct memory access controllers route data directly between external interfaces and SoC memory, bypassing the CPU or control unit, thereby increasing the data throughput of the SoC. This is similar to some device drivers of peripherals on component-based multi-chip module PC architectures.

Wire delay is not scalable due to continued miniaturization, system performance does not scale with the number of cores attached, the SoC's operating frequency must decrease with each additional core attached for power to be sustainable, and long wires consume large amounts of electrical power. These challenges are prohibitive to supporting manycore systems on chip.

Network on a chip
In the late 2010s, a trend of SoCs implementing communications subsystems in terms of a network-like topology instead of bus-based protocols has emerged. A trend towards more processor cores on SoCs has caused on-chip communication efficiency to become one of the key factors in determining the overall system performance and cost. This has led to the emergence of interconnection networks with router-based packet switching known as "networks on chip" (NoCs) to overcome the bottlenecks of bus-based networks.

Networks-on-chip have advantages including destination- and application-specific routing, greater power efficiency and reduced possibility of bus contention. Network-on-chip architectures take inspiration from communication protocols like TCP and the Internet protocol suite for on-chip communication, although they typically have fewer network layers. Optimal network-on-chip network architectures are an ongoing area of much research interest. NoC architectures range from traditional distributed computing network topologies such as torus, hypercube, meshes and tree networks to genetic algorithm scheduling to randomized algorithms such as random walks with branching and randomized time to live (TTL).

Many SoC researchers consider NoC architectures to be the future of SoC design because they have been shown to efficiently meet power and throughput needs of SoC designs. Current NoC architectures are two-dimensional. 2D IC design has limited floorplanning choices as the number of cores in SoCs increase, so as three-dimensional integrated circuits (3DICs) emerge, SoC designers are looking towards building three-dimensional on-chip networks known as 3DNoCs.

Design flow

A system on a chip consists of both the hardware, described in, and the software controlling the microcontroller, microprocessor or digital signal processor cores, peripherals and interfaces. The design flow for an SoC aims to develop this hardware and software at the same time, also known as architectural co-design. The design flow must also take into account optimizations and constraints.

Most SoCs are developed from pre-qualified hardware component IP core specifications for the hardware elements and execution units, collectively "blocks", described above, together with software device drivers that may control their operation. Of particular importance are the protocol stacks that drive industry-standard interfaces like USB. The hardware blocks are put together using computer-aided design tools, specifically electronic design automation tools; the software modules are integrated using a software integrated development environment.

SoCs components are also often designed in high-level programming languages such as C++, MATLAB or SystemC and converted to RTL designs through high-level synthesis (HLS) tools such as C to HDL or flow to HDL. HLS products called "algorithmic synthesis" allow designers to use C++ to model and synthesize system, circuit, software and verification levels all in one high level language commonly known to computer engineers in a manner independent of time scales, which are typically specified in HDL. Other components can remain software and be compiled and embedded onto soft-core processors included in the SoC as modules in HDL as IP cores.

Once the architecture of the SoC has been defined, any new hardware elements are written in an abstract hardware description language termed register transfer level (RTL) which defines the circuit behavior, or synthesized into RTL from a high level language through high-level synthesis. These elements are connected together in a hardware description language to create the full SoC design. The logic specified to connect these components and convert between possibly different interfaces provided by different vendors is called glue logic.

Design verification
Chips are verified for validation correctness before being sent to a semiconductor foundry. This process is called functional verification and it accounts for a significant portion of the time and energy expended in the chip design life cycle, often quoted as 70%. With the growing complexity of chips, hardware verification languages like SystemVerilog, SystemC, e, and OpenVera are being used. Bugs found in the verification stage are reported to the designer.

Traditionally, engineers have employed simulation acceleration, emulation or prototyping on reprogrammable hardware to verify and debug hardware and software for SoC designs prior to the finalization of the design, known as tape-out. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are favored for prototyping SoCs because FPGA prototypes are reprogrammable, allow debugging and are more flexible than application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

With high capacity and fast compilation time, simulation acceleration and emulation are powerful technologies that provide wide visibility into systems. Both technologies, however, operate slowly, on the order of MHz, which may be significantly slower – up to 100 times slower – than the SoC's operating frequency. Acceleration and emulation boxes are also very large and expensive at over US$1 million.

FPGA prototypes, in contrast, use FPGAs directly to enable engineers to validate and test at, or close to, a system's full operating frequency with real-world stimuli. Tools such as Certus are used to insert probes in the FPGA RTL that make signals available for observation. This is used to debug hardware, firmware and software interactions across multiple FPGAs with capabilities similar to a logic analyzer.

In parallel, the hardware elements are grouped and passed through a process of logic synthesis, during which performance constraints, such as operational frequency and expected signal delays, are applied. This generates an output known as a netlist describing the design as a physical circuit and its interconnections. These netlists are combined with the glue logic connecting the components to produce the schematic description of the SoC as a circuit which can be printed onto a chip. This process is known as place and route and precedes tape-out in the event that the SoCs are produced as application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC).

Optimization goals
SoCs must optimize power use, area on die, communication, positioning for locality between modular units and other factors. Optimization is necessarily a design goal of SoCs. If optimization was not necessary, the engineers would use a multi-chip module architecture without accounting for the area use, power consumption or performance of the system to the same extent.

Common optimization targets for SoC designs follow, with explanations of each. In general, optimizing any of these quantities may be a hard combinatorial optimization problem, and can indeed be NP-hard fairly easily. Therefore, sophisticated optimization algorithms are often required and it may be practical to use approximation algorithms or heuristics in some cases. Additionally, most SoC designs contain multiple variables to optimize simultaneously, so Pareto efficient solutions are sought after in SoC design. Oftentimes the goals of optimizing some of these quantities are directly at odds, further adding complexity to design optimization of SoCs and introducing trade-offs in system design.

For broader coverage of trade-offs and requirements analysis, see requirements engineering.

Power consumption
SoCs are optimized to minimize the electrical power used to perform the SoC's functions. Most SoCs must use low power. SoC systems often require long battery life (such as smartphones), can potentially spend months or years without a power source while needing to maintain autonomous function, and often are limited in power use by a high number of embedded SoCs being networked together in an area. Additionally, energy costs can be high and conserving energy will reduce the total cost of ownership of the SoC. Finally, waste heat from high energy consumption can damage other circuit components if too much heat is dissipated, giving another pragmatic reason to conserve energy. The amount of energy used in a circuit is the integral of power consumed with respect to time, and the average rate of power consumption is the product of current by voltage. Equivalently, by Ohm's law, power is current squared times resistance or voltage squared divided by resistance:

$$P = IV = \frac{V^2}{R} = {I^2}{R}$$SoCs are frequently embedded in portable devices such as smartphones, GPS navigation devices, digital watches (including smartwatches) and netbooks. Customers want long battery lives for mobile computing devices, another reason that power consumption must be minimized in SoCs. Multimedia applications are often executed on these devices, including video games, video streaming, image processing; all of which have grown in computational complexity in recent years with user demands and expectations for higher-quality multimedia. Computation is more demanding as expectations move towards 3D video at high resolution with multiple standards, so SoCs performing multimedia tasks must be computationally capable platform while being low power to run off a standard mobile battery.

Performance per watt
SoCs are optimized to maximize power efficiency in performance per watt: maximize the performance of the SoC given a budget of power usage. Many applications such as edge computing, distributed processing and ambient intelligence require a certain level of computational performance, but power is limited in most SoC environments.

Waste heat
SoC designs are optimized to minimize waste heat output on the chip. As with other integrated circuits, heat generated due to high power density are the bottleneck to further miniaturization of components. The power densities of high speed integrated circuits, particularly microprocessors and including SoCs, have become highly uneven. Too much waste heat can damage circuits and erode reliability of the circuit over time. High temperatures and thermal stress negatively impact reliability, stress migration, decreased mean time between failures, electromigration, wire bonding, metastability and other performance degradation of the SoC over time.

In particular, most SoCs are in a small physical area or volume and therefore the effects of waste heat are compounded because there is little room for it to diffuse out of the system. Because of high transistor counts on modern devices, oftentimes a layout of sufficient throughput and high transistor density is physically realizable from fabrication processes but would result in unacceptably high amounts of heat in the circuit's volume.

These thermal effects force SoC and other chip designers to apply conservative design margins, creating less performant devices to mitigate the risk of catastrophic failure. Due to increased transistor densities as length scales get smaller, each process generation produces more heat output than the last. Compounding this problem, SoC architectures are usually heterogeneous, creating spatially inhomogeneous heat fluxes, which cannot be effectively mitigated by uniform passive cooling.

Throughput
SoCs are optimized to maximize computational and communications throughput.

Latency
SoCs are optimized to minimize latency for some or all of their functions. This can be accomplished by laying out elements with proper proximity and locality to each-other to minimize the interconnection delays and maximize the speed at which data is communicated between modules, functional units and memories. In general, optimizing to minimize latency is an NP-complete problem equivalent to the boolean satisfiability problem.

For tasks running on processor cores, latency and throughput can be improved with task scheduling. Some tasks run in application-specific hardware units, however, and even task scheduling may not be sufficient to optimize all software-based tasks to meet timing and throughput constraints.

Methodologies
Systems on chip are modeled with standard hardware verification and validation techniques, but additional techniques are used to model and optimize SoC design alternatives to make the system optimal with respect to multiple-criteria decision analysis on the above optimization targets.

Task scheduling
Task scheduling is an important activity in any computer system with multiple processes or threads sharing a single processor core. It is important to reduce and increase  for embedded software running on an SoC's. Not every important computing activity in a SoC is performed in software running on on-chip processors, but scheduling can drastically improve performance of software-based tasks and other tasks involving shared resources.

Software running on SoCs often schedules tasks according to network scheduling and randomized scheduling algorithms.

Pipelining
Hardware and software tasks are often pipelined in processor design. Pipelining is an important principle for speedup in computer architecture. They are frequently used in GPUs (graphics pipeline) and RISC processors (evolutions of the classic RISC pipeline), but are also applied to application-specific tasks such as digital signal processing and multimedia manipulations in the context of SoCs.

Probabilistic modeling
SoCs are often analyzed though probabilistic models, queueing networks, and Markov chains. For instance, Little's law allows SoC states and NoC buffers to be modeled as arrival processes and analyzed through Poisson random variables and Poisson processes.

Markov chains
SoCs are often modeled with Markov chains, both discrete time and continuous time variants. Markov chain modeling allows asymptotic analysis of the SoC's steady state distribution of power, heat, latency and other factors to allow design decisions to be optimized for the common case.

Fabrication
SoC chips are typically fabricated using metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) technology. The netlists described above are used as the basis for the physical design (place and route) flow to convert the designers' intent into the design of the SoC. Throughout this conversion process, the design is analyzed with static timing modeling, simulation and other tools to ensure that it meets the specified operational parameters such as frequency, power consumption and dissipation, functional integrity (as described in the register transfer level code) and electrical integrity.

When all known bugs have been rectified and these have been re-verified and all physical design checks are done, the physical design files describing each layer of the chip are sent to the foundry's mask shop where a full set of glass lithographic masks will be etched. These are sent to a wafer fabrication plant to create the SoC dice before packaging and testing.

SoCs can be fabricated by several technologies, including:
 * Full custom ASIC
 * Standard cell ASIC
 * Field-programmable gate array (FPGA)

ASICs consume less power and are faster than FPGAs but cannot be reprogrammed and are expensive to manufacture. FPGA designs are more suitable for lower volume designs, but after enough units of production ASICs reduce the total cost of ownership.

SoC designs consume less power and have a lower cost and higher reliability than the multi-chip systems that they replace. With fewer packages in the system, assembly costs are reduced as well.

However, like most very-large-scale integration (VLSI) designs, the total cost is higher for one large chip than for the same functionality distributed over several smaller chips, because of lower yields and higher non-recurring engineering costs.

When it is not feasible to construct an SoC for a particular application, an alternative is a system in package (SiP) comprising a number of chips in a single package. When produced in large volumes, SoC is more cost-effective than SiP because its packaging is simpler. Another reason SiP may be preferred is waste heat may be too high in a SoC for a given purpose because functional components are too close together, and in an SiP heat will dissipate better from different functional modules since they are physically further apart.

Examples
Some examples of systems on a chip are:

 * Apple A series
 * Cell processor
 * Adapteva's Epiphany architecture
 * Xilinx Zynq UltraScale

Benchmarks
SoC research and development often compares many options. Benchmarks, such as COSMIC, are developed to help such evaluations.

title: System on a chip


text:
Banka-Mundi

Banka-Mundi is the goddess of the hunt and fertility of the Khond people of India. The Khonds worship Banka-Mundi for protection against the wild animals of the forests, and she is said to remove fear and provide fertility.

title: Banka-Mundi


text:
Bhadra

Bhadra is a Sanskrit word meaning 'good', 'fortune' or 'auspicious'. It is also the name of many men, women and objects in Hinduism.

King of Chedi
Bhadra was a king of Chedi Kingdom who participated in the Kurukshetra War from the side of the Pandavas. He was killed by the warrior Karna.

Grandson of Manu
The first man Svayambhuva Manu and his Shatarupa had a daughter named Shraddha. Bhadra was one of her twelve sons.

Yaksha
Bhadra was also the name of a Yaksha who served their king, Kubera. Due to a curse of sage Gautama, he was born as a lion.

Krishna's son
The god Krishna married the river goddess Kalindi and had 10 sons. Bhadra was one of them.

Sage
Bhadra was a renowned Maharishi. He was the son of Pramati and the father of Upamanyu.

Bhadrakali
Bhadrā or Bhadrakālī is one of the fierce forms of the Supreme Goddess Devi.

Kubera's wife
Bhadrā is the queen of Yakshas. She was the first wife of Kubera, the god of wealth. She is also known by the names Yakshi, Chhavi, Riddhi, Manorama, Nidhi, Sahadevi and Kuberi. Bhadrā and Kubera had three sons named Nalakuvara, Manigriva and Mayuraja, and a daughter named Minakshi.

Chandra's daughter
Bhadrā was also the name of a daughter of Chandra (alias Soma), the moon god. She once did penance to gain the sage Utathya as her husband. Seeing this, sage Atri, her grandfather, got her married to Utathya. The god of the seas, Varuna, became enamoured of her and eloped with her from Utathya's hermitage and hid her inside the sea. Despite attempts by the sage Narada to make him return Bhadrā, Varuna refused to give her, causing an enraged Utathya to drink up the entire sea. Seeing the sage's divine powers, Varuna submitted himself to him and returned Bhadrā back. The sage was pleased to get her back, and released both the world and Varuna from their sufferings.

Krishna's wife
Bhadrā is one of the Ashtabharya, the eight principal queen-consorts of Hindu god Krishna. The Vishnu Purana and the Harivamsa refer to her as 'the daughter of Dhrishtaketu' or 'the princess of Kekeya'.

Vasudeva's wife
Krishna's father Vasudeva also had a wife named Bhadrā. She died on the funeral pyre of her husband.

Wife of Vyushitashva
Bhadrā was a beautiful princess, who was the daughter of King Kakshivan. She married King Vyushitashva of Puru dynasty. After his untimely death, she lamented over his body. The spirit of her husband appeared in the sky and blessed her with six sons.

Princess of Vishala
Bhadra was a princess of Vishala who once did penance to married King Karusha. Shishupala, a king, disguised himself as Karusha and married her.

title: Bhadra


text:
Bharadvaja

Bharadvaja (भरद्वाज, ; also spelled Bharadwaja) was one of the revered Vedic sages (maharishi) in Ancient India. He was a renowned scholar, economist, grammarian and a physician. He is one of the Saptarishis (seven great sages or Maharṣis).

His contributions to ancient Indian literature, specifically the Rigveda, provide significant insight into ancient Indian society. He and his family of students were the authors of the sixth book of the Rigveda. In the epic Mahabharata, Bharadvaja was the father of the teacher (guru) Droṇācārya, the instructor to Pandava and Kaurava princes. Bharadvaja is also mentioned in Charaka Samhita, an authoritative ancient Indian medical text.

Etymology
The word Bharadvaja is a compound Sanskrit from "bhara(d)" and "vaja(m)", which together mean "bringing about nourishment". The name lends itself to more than one yoga asana called Bharadvajasana ("nourishing pose") named after the eponymous sage.

Description
His full name in Vedic texts is Bharadvaja Barhaspatya, the last name referring to his father and Vedic deity-sage Brihaspati. His mother was Mamata, wife of Utathya Rishi, who was the elder brother of Barhaspati. In the Bhagavata Purana, he is named as Vitatha. He is one of seven rishis mentioned four times in the Rigveda as well as in the Shatapatha Brahmana, thereafter revered in the Mahabharata and the Puranas. In some later Puranic legends, he is described as the son of Vedic sage Atri.

In Buddhist Pali canonical texts such as Digha Nikaya, Tevijja Sutta describes a discussion between the Buddha and Vedic scholars of his time. The Buddha names ten rishis, calls them "early sages" and makers of ancient verses that have been collected and chanted in his era, and among those ten rishis is Bharadvaja.

The ancient Hindu medical treatise Charaka Samhita attributes Bharadvaja learning medical sciences to Indra, after pleading that "poor health was disrupting the ability of human beings from pursuing their spiritual journey", and then Indra provides both the method and specifics of medical knowledge.

Bharadvaja is considered to be the initiator of the Bharadvāja gotra of the Brahmins, Khatris,name="barbara229" /> Bharadvaja is the third in the row of the Pravara Rishis (Aangirasa, Barhaspatya, Bharadvaja) and is the first in the Bharadvaja Gotris, with the other two rishis being initiators of Gotras with their respective names.

Texts
Bharadvaja and his family of students are 55. Bharadvaja and his family of students were the traditional poets of king Marutta of the Vedic era, in the Hindu texts.

Bharadvaja is a revered sage in the Hindu traditions, and like other revered sages, numerous treatises composed in the ancient and medieval eras are reverentially named after him. Some treatises named after him or attributed to him include:
 * Dhanur-veda, credited to Bharadvaja in chapter 12.203 of the Mahabharata, is an Upaveda treatise on archery.
 * Bharadvaja samhita, a Pancharatra text (an Agama text of Vaishnavism).
 * Bharadvaja srautasutra and grhyasutra, a ritual and rites of passage text from first millennium BCE.  After the Kalpasutra by Baudhayana, these Bharadvaja texts are among the oldest srauta and grhya sutras known.
 * Sections in Ayurveda. Bharadvaja theories on medicine and causal phenomenon is described in Charaka Samhita. Bharadvaja states, for example, that an embryo is not caused by wish, prayers, urging of mind or mystical causes, but it is produced from the union of a man's sperm and menstrual blood of a woman at the right time of her menstrual cycle, in her womb. According to Gerrit Jan Meulenbeld, Bharadvaja is credited with many theories and practical ideas in ancient Indian medicine.
 * Niti sastra, a treatise on ethics and practical conduct.
 * Bharadvaja-siksa, is one of many ancient Sanskrit treatises on phonetics.

Epics and Puranic scriptures
According to one legend, Bharadvaja married Sushila and had a son named Garga and a daughter named Devavarshini. According to some other legends, Bharadvaja had two daughters named Ilavida and Katyayani, who married Vishrava and Yajnavalkya respectively. According to Vishnu Purana, Bharadvaja had a brief liaison with an apsara named Ghritachi, and together they had a child who grew up into a warrior-Brahmin named Drona. In the Mahabharata, Drona is instead born when Bharadvaja ejaculated his semen in a pot. Bharadvaja is therefore directly linked to two important characters of the epic Mahabharata — Dronacharya and Aśvatthāma, the son of Drona. According to the Mahabharata, Bharadvaja trained Drona in the use of weapons. Bharadvaja had two disciples: Agnivesa and Drupada. Agnivesa taught Drona the mastery of the weapon Agneya, while Drupada became the king of Panchala kingdom.

One legend in the Mahabharata states that King Bharata adopted Bharadvaja as his son when he was delivered to the king by the Marutas. Bharadvaja married a kshatriya woman named Sushila. According to the Bhagavata Purana, Bharadvaja beget a son named Manyu also known as Bhumanyu while in the Mahabharata Bhumanyu is born to him by a yajna.

Rāmāyaṇa
In the epic Ramayana, Rama, Sita and Lakshmana meet Bharadvaja at his ashrama (hermitage) at the start of their fourteen-year exile. The sage asks them to stay with him through the exile, but they insist on going deeper into the forest to Chitrakuta, which was three krosha away from the ashram. Bharadvaja gives them directions. Bharata is received at the ashrama by Bharadvaja when attempted to locate Rama in order to bring Sita, Lakshmana, and him back to Ayodhya. He reappears at various times in the epic. According to James Lochtefeld, the Bharadvaja in the Ramayana is different from the Vedic sage mentioned in Panini's Ashtadhyayi.

title: Bharadvaja