Iravan (Aravan) is a minor character from the Hindu epic of
Mahabharata. The son of Pandava prince Arjuna (one of the main heroes
of the Mahabharata) and the Naga princess Ulupi, Iravan is the central
god of the Kuttantavar cult and plays a major role in the cult of
Draupadi. Both these cults are of South Indian origin, from a region of
the country where he is worshipped as a village deity. The Mahabharata
portrays Iravan as dying a heroic death in the 18-day Kurukshetra War,
the epic's main subject. However, the South Indian cults have a
supplementary tradition of honouring Iravan's self-sacrifice to the
goddess Kali to ensure her favour and the victory of the Pandavas in
the war. The South Indian cults focus on three boons granted to Iravan
by the god Krishna in honour of his sacrifice. Iravan is also a patron
god of the well-known Indian transgender communities called Ali. In
Koovagam, Tamil Nadu, an 18-day festival holds a ceremonial marriage of
Iravan to Alis and male villagers and followed then by their
"widowhood" after ritual re-enactment of Iravan's sacrifice. Iravan is
also known in Indonesia. Independent Javanese traditions present a
dramatic marriage of Iravan to Titisari, daughter of Krishna, and a
death resulting from a case of mistaken identity.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iravan>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1588:
Anglo-Spanish War: The Spanish Armada , with 130 ships and over 30,000
men, set sail from Lisbon for the English Channel in an attempt to
invade England.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada>
1644:
English Civil War: Royalist troops allegedly slaughtered up to 1,600
people during their storm and capture of the Town of Bolton.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolton_Massacre>
1892:
Aided by a group of professors from the University of California at
Berkeley and Stanford University, Preservationist John Muir founded the
environmental organization Sierra Club in San Francisco.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir>
1936:
English mathematician Alan Turing submitted his paper "On Computable
Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem" for
publication, introducing the Turing machine, a basic abstract
symbol-manipulating device that can simulate the logic of any computer
algorithm.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing>
1961:
The British newspaper The Observer published English lawyer Peter
Benenson's article The Forgotten Prisoners, starting a letter-writing
campaign that grew and became the human rights organization Amnesty
International.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_International>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
vote with one's feet (v):
To express one's preferences through one's actions, by participating in
or voluntarily withdrawing from an activity, group, or process
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vote_with_one%27s_feet>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The time has come when scientific truth must cease to be the property
of the few, when it must be woven into the common life of the world.
--Louis Agassiz
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Louis_Agassiz>
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