Adelaide
Adelaide (/ˈædəleɪd/) is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million. The demonym "Adelaidean" is used in reference to the city and its residents. Adelaide is located north of the Fleurieu Peninsula, on the Adelaide Plains between the Gulf St Vincent and the low-lying Mount Lofty Ranges which surround the city. Adelaide stretches 20 km (12 mi) from the coast to the foothills, and 90 km (56 mi) from Gawler at its northern extent to Sellicks Beach in the south.
Named in honour of Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, queen consort to King William IV, the city was founded in 1836 as the planned capital for a freely settled British province in Australia.Colonel William Light, one of Adelaide's founding fathers, designed the city and chose its location close to the River Torrens in the area originally inhabited by the Kaurna people. Light's design set out Adelaide in a grid layout, interspaced by wide boulevards and large public squares, and entirely surrounded by parkland. Early Adelaide was shaped by religious freedom and a commitment to political progressivism and civil liberties, which led to the moniker "City of Churches".
Allahabad
Allahabad ([ɪlɑhɑbɑd̪]; Hindi: इलाहाबाद; Urdu: الہ آباد), or Settled by God in Persian, is a major city of India and is one of the main holy cities of Hinduism. It was renamed by the Mughal emperor Akbar from the original (still unofficially used) native name of Prayaga, and is by some accounts the second-oldest city in India. It is located in the north Indianstate of Uttar Pradesh, lying some 205 kilometres (127 mi) south of the state capital, Lucknow. It is the administrative headquarters of the Allahabad District. Allahabad has been ranked the world's 130th fastest growing city (growth rate: 2.09 per cent (2011)).[citation needed] The ancient name of the city is Prayaga (Sanskrit for "place of sacrifice"), as it is believed to be the spot where Brahma offered his first sacrifice after creating the world. It is one of four sites of the mass Hindu pilgrimage Kumbh Mela, the others being Haridwar, Ujjain and Nashik. It has a position of importance in Hindu scriptures for it is situated at Triveni Sangam, the confluence of the holy rivers Ganges and Yamuna, and the ancient Sarasvati River.
Bali
Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east. It is one of the country's 33 provinces with the provincial capital at Denpasar towards the south of the island. The province covers a few small neighbouring islands as well as the isle of Bali.
With a population recorded as 3,891,428 in the 2010 census, the island is home to most of Indonesia's Hindu minority. In the 2000 census about 92.29% of Bali's population adhered to Balinese Hinduism while most of the remainder follow Islam. It is also the largest tourist destination in the country and is renowned for its highly developed arts, including traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music. Bali, a tourist haven for decades, has seen a further surge in tourist numbers in recent years.
Bali was inhabited by around 2000 BC by Austronesian peoples who migrated originally from Taiwan through Maritime Southeast Asia. Culturally and linguistically, the Balinese are thus closely related to the peoples of the Indonesian archipelago, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Oceania. Stone tools dating from this time have been found near the village of Cekik in the island's west.
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital city of and largest urban area in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon (กรุงเทพมหานคร, pronounced [krūŋ tʰêːp máhǎː nákʰɔ̄ːn] (listen)) or simply Krung Thep (listen), meaning "city of angels". Bangkok is by far the most densely populated city in Thailand with about 12 million people. Bangkok was a small trading post near the mouth of the Chao Phraya River during the Ayutthaya Kingdom in the 15th century. It eventually grew in size and became the site of two capital cities: Thonburi in 1768 and Rattanakosin in 1782.
Because of its strategic location in Southeast Asia, Siam (later Thailand) acted as a buffer-zone between the French and British colonial empires. Bangkok itself has gained a reputation as an independent, dynamic and influential city. Bangkok is the political, social and economic centre of Thailand, and one of the leading cities in Southeast Asia.
Due to the 1980s and 1990s Asian investment boom, many multinational corporations make their regional headquarters in Bangkok and the city is a regional force in finance and business. Its increasing influence on global politics, culture, fashion and entertainment underlines its status as an Alpha global city. In 2009, it was the second most expensive city in South-East Asia behind Singapore. The city's many cultural landmarks and attractions in addition to its nightlife venues has made it synonymous with exoticism. Its rapid modernization, reflected in the cityscape and the urban society, has left untouched the historic Grand Palace, Wat Arun, Vimanmek Palace Complex and hundreds of Buddhist temples draw about 10 million international visitors each year, second only to London.
Bangladesh Coordinates: 23°N90°E / 23°N 90°E / 23; 90
Bangladesh (i/ˈbɑːŋɡlədɛʃ/ or i/bæŋɡləˈdɛʃ/ (Anglicized pronunciation); Bengali: বাংলাদেশ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh (Bengali: গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশGônoprojatontri Bangladesh) is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India and Burma and by the Bay of Bengal to the south. The capital (and largest city) is Dhaka, located in central Bangladesh. The official state language is Bengali. The name Bangladesh means "Land of Bengal" or "Country of Bengal" the in the Bengali language, from Bangla "Bengal" and desh holding a dual meaning of "land" and "country" as English "country," German land, French pays, etc.
The borders of present-day Bangladesh were established with the partition of Bengal during the reign and demise of the British India. Its map was chartered by Sir Cyril Radcliffe during the creation of Pakistan and India in 1947, when the region became East Pakistan, part of the newly formed nation of Pakistan. Due to political exclusion and economic exploitation by the politically dominant West Pakistan, popular agitation grew against West Pakistan and led to the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, after the Bangladeshi Declaration of Independence on 26 March 1971. With the intervention of the Indian Army, the war came to an end on 16 December 1971 with the surrender of the Pakistan Army at Ramna Race Course.
Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai (Thai: เชียงใหม่[tɕʰiəŋ màj] (listen), Northern Thai: ᨩ᩠ᨿᨦᩉ᩠ᨾᩲ᩵[tɕiəŋ màj]) sometimes written as "Chiengmai" or "Chiangmai", is the largest and most culturally significant city in northern Thailand. It is the capital of Chiang Mai Province, a former capital of the Kingdom of Lanna (1296–1768) and was the tributaryKingdom of Chiang Mai from 1774 until 1939. It is located 700 km (435 mi) north of Bangkok, among the highest mountains in the country. The city is on the Ping River, a major tributary of the Chao Phraya River. Chiang Mai means "new city" and was so-named because it was the new capital, founded in 1296, succeeding Chiang Rai (founded 1262) in the capital of the Lanna kingdom.
In recent years, Chiang Mai has become an increasingly modern city and has been attracting over 5 million visitors each year, of which between 1.4 million and 2 million are foreign tourists (depending on the year). Chiang Mai gained prominence in the political sphere in May 2006, when the Chiang Mai Initiative was concluded here between the ASEAN nations and the "+3" countries (China, Japan, and South Korea). Chiang Mai is one of three Thai cities contending to host the World Expo 2020. It has also recently positioned itself to become a Creative City and is considering to apply for Creative City Status with UNESCO. Chiang Mai is the only tourist destination in Thailand to have made it in to the 2012 list of "25 Best Destinations in the World" of the popular travel website TripAdvisor, standing in place 24.
Haridwar
Haridwar pronunciation (help·info) (also spelled Hardwar, Hindi: हरिद्वार) is an important pilgrimage city and municipality in the Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, India. The River Ganges, after flowing for 253 kilometres (157 mi) from its source at Gaumukh at the edge of the Gangotri Glacier, enters the Indo-Gangetic Plains of North India for the first time at Haridwar, which gave the city its ancient name, Gangadwára.
Haridwar is regarded as one of the seven holiest places to Hindus. According to the Samudra manthan, Haridwar along with Ujjain, Nasik and Allahabad is one of four sites where drops of Amrit, the elixir of immortality, accidentally spilled over from the pitcher while being carried by the celestial bird Garuda. This is manifested in the Kumbha Mela being celebrated every 3 years in one of the 4 places, and thus every 12 years in Haridwar. Amidst the Kumbha Mela, millions of pilgrims, devotees, and tourists congregate in Haridwar to perform ritualistic bathing on the banks of the river Ganges to wash away their sins to attain Moksha. Brahma Kund, the spot where the Amrit fell, is located at Har ki Pauri (literally, "footsteps of the Lord") and is considered to be the most sacred ghat of Haridwar.
Kathmandu
Kathmandu (Nepali: काठमांडौ[kɑːʈʰmɑːɳɖuː]; Nepal Bhasa: येँ देय्) is the capital and, with more than one million inhabitants, the largest metropolitan city of Nepal. The city is the urban core of the Kathmandu Valley in the Himalayas, which contains two sister cities: Lalitpur (Patan), 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) to its south and Bhaktapur or Bhadgaon, 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) to its east, and a number of smaller towns. It is also acronymed as 'KTM' and named 'tri-city'. In the last census (2001), the city of Kathmandu had 671,846 inhabitants. Population estimates for 2005 were 790,612 and for 2010 they stood at 989,273. The municipal area is (50.67 square kilometres (19.56 sq mi)) and the population density is 19,500 per km².
The city stands at an elevation of approximately 1,400 metres (4,600 ft) in the bowl-shaped valley in central Nepal surrounded by four major hills: Shivapuri, Phulchowki, Nagarjun and Chandragiri. Kathmandu valley is part of three districts, Kathmandu District, Lalitpur District and Bhaktapur District, with the highest population density in the country and accounting for about 1/15 of its population. These three disticts contain 2.5 million people, as of the 2011 census.
Kaveri
The Kaveri, also spelled Cauvery in English, is a large Indian river. The origin of the river is traditionally placed at Talakaveri, Kodagu in the Western Ghats in Karnataka, flows generally south and east through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and across the southern Deccan plateau through the southeastern lowlands, emptying into the Bay of Bengal through two principal mouths.
The Kaveri basin is estimated to be 27,700 square miles (72,000 km2) with many tributaries including the Shimsha, the Hemavati, the Arkavati, Honnuhole, Lakshmana Tirtha, Kabini, Bhavani River, the Lokapavani, the Noyyal and the Amaravati River. Rising in southwestern Karnataka, it flows southeast some 475 mi (765 km) to enter the Bay of Bengal. East of Mysore it forms the island of Shivanasamudra, on either side of which are the scenic Shivanasamudra Falls that descend about 320 ft (100 m). The river is the source for an extensive irrigation system and for hydroelectric power. The river has supported irrigated agriculture for centuries and served as the lifeblood of the ancient kingdoms and modern cities of South India.
Kenya
Kenya (/ˈkɛnjə/ or /ˈkiːnjə/), officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator. With the Indian Ocean to its south-east, it is bordered by Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, South Sudan to the north-west, Ethiopia to the north and Somalia to the north-east. Kenya has a land area of 580,000 km2 and a population of nearly 41 million, representing 42 different peoples and cultures. The country is named after Mount Kenya, a significant landmark and second among Africa's highest mountain peaks. Kenya's capital and largest city is Nairobi.
Kenya has a warm and humid climate along its coastline on the Indian Ocean which changes to wildlife-rich savannah grasslands moving inland towards the capital Nairobi. Nairobi has a cool climate that gets colder approaching Mount Kenya, which has three permanently snow-capped peaks. The warm and humid tropical climate reappears further inland towards lake Victoria, before giving way to temperate forested and hilly areas in the western region. The North Eastern regions along the border with Somalia and Ethiopia are arid and semi-arid areas with near-desert landscapes. Lake Victoria, the world's second largest fresh-water lake (after Lake Superior in the US and Canada) and the world's largest tropical lake, is situated to the southwest and is shared with Uganda and Tanzania. Kenya is famous for its safaris and diverse world-famous wildlife reserves such as Tsavo National Park, the Maasai Mara, Nakuru National Park, and Aberdares National Park.
Liverpool
Liverpool (/ˈlɪvəpuːl/) is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Liverpool was 445,200 and was part of a larger urban area of 816,216. Historically a part of Lancashire, the urbanisation and expansion of Liverpool were both largely brought about by the city's status as a major port. By the 18th century, trade from the West Indies, Ireland and mainland Europe coupled with close links with the Atlantic Slave Trade furthered the economic expansion of Liverpool. By the early 19th century, 40% of the world's trade passed through Liverpool's docks, contributing to Liverpool's rise as a major city.
Inhabitants of Liverpool are referred to as Liverpudlians but are also colloquially known as "Scousers", in reference to the local dish known as "scouse", a form of stew. The word "Scouse" has also become synonymous with the Liverpool accent and dialect. Liverpool's status as a port city has contributed to its diverse population, which, historically, were drawn from a wide range of peoples, cultures, and religions, particularly those from Ireland. The city is also home to the oldest Black African community in the country and the oldest Chinese community in Europe.
London
London i/ˈlʌndən/ is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans, who named it Londinium. London's ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its square-mile mediaeval boundaries. Since at least the 19th century, the name London has also referred to the metropolis developed around this core. The bulk of this conurbation forms the London region and the Greater London administrative area, governed by the elected Mayor of London and the London Assembly.
London is a leading global city, with strengths in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism and transport all contributing to its prominence. It is the world's leading financial centre alongside New York City and has the fifth-largest city GDP in the world (and the largest in Europe). London has been described as a world cultural capital. It was the world's most visited city during 2011 and London Heathrow is the world's busiest airport by number of international passengers. London's 43 universities form the largest concentration of higher education in Europe. In 2012 London will become the first city to host the modern Summer Olympic Games three times.
Malaysia
Malaysia (i/məˈleɪʒə/mə-LAY-zhə or i/məˈleɪsiə/mə-LAY-see-ə) is a federalconstitutional monarchy in Southeast Asia. It consists of thirteen states and three federal territories and has a total landmass of 329,847 square kilometres (127,350 sq mi) separated by the South China Sea into two similarly sized regions, Peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo. Land borders are shared with Thailand, Indonesia, and Brunei, and maritime borders exist with Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government. In 2010 the population exceeded 27.5 million, with over 20 million living on the Peninsula.
Malaysia has its origins in the Malay Kingdoms present in the area which, from the 18th century, became subject to the British Empire. The first British territories were known as the Straits Settlements, whose establishment was followed by the Malay kingdoms becoming British protectorates. The territories on Peninsular Malaysia were first unified as the Malayan Union in 1946. Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, and achieved independence on 31 August 1957. Malaya united with Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore on 16 September 1963, with si being added to give the new country the name Malaysia. However, less than two years later in 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation. Since independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with GDP growing an average 6.5% for almost 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its natural resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, tourism, commerce and medical tourism.
Maldives
Maldives (i/ˈmɒldaɪvz/ or /ˈmɒldiːvz/), (Dhivehi: ދިވެހިރާއްޖެ, Dhivehi Raa'je), officially Republic of Maldives (Dhivehi: ދިވެހިރާއްޖޭގެ ޖުމްހޫރިއްޔާ, Dhivehi Raa'jeyge Jumhooriyya), also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep Islands, between Minicoy Island and Chagos Archipelago. It stands in the Laccadive Sea, about 700 kilometres (430 mi) south-west of Sri Lanka and 400 kilometres (250 mi) south-west of India. During the colonial era, the Dutch referred to the country as "Maldivische Eilanden" in their documentation, while "Maldive Islands" is the anglicised version of the local name used by the British, which later came to be written "Maldives".
The archipelago is located on top of the Chagos-Maldives-Laccadive Ridge, a vast submarine mountain range in the Indian Ocean. Maldives also form a terrestrial ecoregion together with the Chagos and the Lakshadweep. The atolls of Maldives encompass a territory spread over roughly 90,000 square kilometres (35,000 sq mi), making it one of the world's most geographically dispersed countries. Its population of 328,536 (2012) inhabits 200 of its 1,192 islands. Maldives' capital and largest city Malé had a population of 103,693 in 2006. It is located at the southern edge of North Malé Atoll, in the Kaafu Atoll. It is also one of the Administrative divisions of the Maldives. Traditionally it was the King's Island where the ancient Maldive Royal dynasties were enthroned.
Nepal
Nepal (नेपाल) (i/nɛˈpɔːl/ne-PAWLNepali: नेपाल[neˈpal] (listen)), officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India. Specifically, the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, and Sikkim border Nepal, while across the Himalayas lies the Tibetan Autonomous Region. With an area of 147,181 square kilometres (56,827 sq mi) and a population of approximately 27 million (and 2 million absentee workers living abroad), Nepal is the world's 93rd largest country by land mass and the 41st most populous country. Kathmandu is the nation's capital and the country's largest metropolis. Kathmandu Valley itself has estimated population of 5 million.
Nepal has a rich geography. The mountainous north has eight of the world's ten tallest mountains, including the highest point on Earth, Mount Everest, called Sagarmatha in Nepali. It contains more than 240 peaks over 20,000 ft (6,096 m) above sea level. The fertile and humid south is heavily urbanized.
Padua
Padua (Italian: Padova[ˈpaːdova] (listen), Latin: Patavium, Venetian: Padoa, Ancient German: Esten) is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 214,000 (as of 2011[update]). The city is sometimes included, with Venice (ItalianVenezia) and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having a population of c. 1,600,000.
Padua stands on the Bacchiglione River, 40 km west of Venice and 29 km southeast of Vicenza. The Brenta River, which once ran through the city, still touches the northern districts. Its agricultural setting is the Venetian Plain (Pianura Veneta). To the city's south west lies the Euganaean Hills, praised by Lucan and Martial, Petrarch, Ugo Foscolo, and Shelley.
It hosts the renowned University of Padua, almost 800 years old and famous, among other things, for having had Galileo Galilei among its lecturers.
The city is picturesque, with a dense network of arcaded streets opening into large communal piazze, and many bridges crossing the various branches of the Bacchiglione, which once surrounded the ancient walls like a moat.
Rookwood Cemetery
Rookwood Cemetery (officially named Rookwood Necropolis) is the largest multiculturalnecropolis in the Southern Hemisphere, located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Rookwood is also considered to be a suburb, close to Lidcombe railway station about 17 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district.
Rookwood Cemetery is divided into denominational and operational areas with individual offices, staff, and equipment to run different parts of the entire area. The cemetery is now managed by five denominational Trusts, each of which is responsible for the care and maintenance of a number of burial sections catering to various ethnic and cultural groups within the community. The following individual Trusts manage the cemetery on behalf of the NSW State Government: Anglican & General Cemetery Trusts, the Catholic Cemeteries Board, The Independent Cemetery Trust, Jewish Cemetery, Muslim Cemetery Trust, and, importantly, The NSW Cremation Company, which founded and operates The Rookwood Crematorium, the oldest operating crematorium in the country. The NSW Cremation Company is the only private company operating a 'cemetery' section within the necropolis grounds, today the company is part of the Invocare company. Rookwood also contains a number of memorial shrines including those dedicated to victims of the Holocaust and to members of the merchant marine killed in wartime. The Sydney War Cemetery is located in the eastern section of the necropolis. The Circle of Love is a shrine dedicated to stillborn children or those who died in young infancy.
Somalia
Somalia (/soʊˈmɑːliə/soh-MAH-lee-ə; Somali: Soomaaliya; Arabic: الصومال aṣ-Ṣūmāl), officially the Somali Republic (Somali: Jamhuuriyadda Soomaaliya, Arabic: جمهورية الصومال Jumhūriyyat aṣ-Ṣūmāl) and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory. The internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government controls only a small part of the country. Somalia has been characterized as a failed state and is one of the poorest and most violent states in the world.
Somalia lies in the easternmost part of Africa. It is bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, the Gulf of Aden with Yemen to the north, the Indian Ocean to the east, and Ethiopia to the west. It has the longest coastline on the continent, and its terrain consists mainly of plateaus, plains and highlands. Hot conditions prevail year-round, along with periodic monsoon winds and irregular rainfall.
South Australia Coordinates: 30°0′S135°0′E / 30°S 135°E / -30; 135
South Australia (abbreviated as SA) is a state of Australia, located in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of 983,482 square kilometres (379,725 sq mi), it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.
South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland states and the Northern Territory. It is bordered to the west by Western Australia, to the north by the Northern Territory, to the north-east by Queensland, to the east by New South Wales, to the south-east by Victoria, and to the south by the Great Australian Bight and the Indian Ocean. With over 1.6 million people, the state comprises less than 8% of the Australian population and ranks fifth in population among the states and territories. The majority of its people reside in the state capital, Adelaide, with most of the remainder settled in fertile areas along the south-eastern coast and River Murray. The state's origins are unique in Australia as a freely settled, planned British province, rather than as a convict settlement. Official settlement began on 28 December 1836, when the colony was proclaimed at The Old Gum Tree by Governor John Hindmarsh.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (i/ʃriːˈlɑːŋkə/, /sriːˈlɑːŋkə/, or /sriːˈlæŋkə/;Sinhala: ශ්රී ලංකාව, Tamil: இலங்கை), is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent in South Asia. Known until 1972 as Ceylon (/sɨˈlɒn/, /seɪˈlɒn/, or /siːˈlɒn/), Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar, the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the Maldives.
As a result of its location in the path of major sea routes, Sri Lanka is a strategic naval link between West Asia and South East Asia. It was an important stop on the ancient Silk Road. Sri Lanka has also been a center of the Buddhist religion and culture from ancient times, being the nation where the Buddhist teachings were first written down as well as the oldest continually Buddhist country. Sri Lanka boasts a diverse range of cultures, languages and religions. The Sinhalese people form the majority of the population; Tamils, who are concentrated in the north and east of the island, form the largest ethnic minority. Other communities include Moors, Burghers, Kaffirs, Malays and the aboriginal Vedda people.
Sutlej
The Sutlej River (alternatively spelled as Satluj River) (Punjabi: ਸਤਲੁਜ, Sanskrit: शुतुद्रि, Śutudri, Urdu: ستلج, and Hindi: सतलज) is the longest of the five rivers that flow through the historic crossroad region of Punjab in northern India and Pakistan. It is located north of the Vindhya Range, south of the Hindu Kush segment of the Himalayas, and east of the Central Sulaiman Range in Pakistan.
The Sutlej is sometimes known as the Red River. It is the easternmost tributary of the Indus River. Its source is from Lowangko Co, Tibet near Lake Rakshastal in Tibet, China, near Mount Kailas, and it flows generally west and southwest entering India through the Shipki La pass in Himachal Pradesh. In Pakistan, it waters the ancient and historical former Bahawalpur state. The region to its south and east is arid, and is known as Cholistan a part of Bahawalpur Division. The Sutlej is joined by the Beas River in Hari-Ke-Patan, Amritsar, Punjāb, India, and continues southwest into Pakistan to unite with the Chenab River, forming the Panjnad River near Bahawalpur. The Panjnad joins the Indus River at Mithankot. Indus then flows through a gorge near Sukkur, flows through the fertile plains region of Sindh, forming large delta region between border of Gujarat, India & Pakistan and finally terminates in the Arabian Sea near the port city of Karachi in Pakistan.
Sydney
Sydney (/sɪdni/) is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is classified as an Alpha+ World City indicating its influence in the region and throughout the world.
Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people. Inhabitants of Sydney are called Sydneysiders, comprising a cosmopolitan and international population.
The site of the first British colony in Australia, Sydney was established in 1788 at Sydney Cove by Arthur Phillip, commodore of the First Fleet as a penal colony. The city is built on hills surrounding Port Jackson which is commonly known as Sydney Harbour, where the iconic Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge feature prominently. The hinterland of the metropolitan area is surrounded by national parks, and the coastal regions feature many bays, rivers, inlets and beaches including the famous Bondi Beach and Manly Beach. Within the city are many notable parks, including Hyde Park and the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Tanzania Coordinates: 6°18′25″S34°51′14″E / 6.307°S 34.854°E / -6.307; 34.854 Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania (/ˌtænzəˈniːə/Swahili: Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern border lies on the Indian Ocean.
Tanzania is a state composed of 26 regions (mikoa), including those of the semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar. The head of state is PresidentJakaya Mrisho Kikwete, elected in 2005. Since 1996, the official capital of Tanzania has been Dodoma, where Parliament and some government offices are located. Between independence and 1996, the main coastal city of Dar es Salaam served as the country's political capital. Today, Dar es Salaam remains the principal commercial city of Tanzania and the de facto seat of most government institutions. It is the major seaport for the country and its landlocked neighbours.
Varanasi
Varanasi Hindustani pronunciation: [ʋaːˈraːɳəsi] (listen)), also commonly known as Banaras or Benaras (Banāras[bəˈnaːrəs] (listen)) and Kashi, Kāśī[ˈkaːʃi] (listen)), is a city situated on the banks of the River Ganges in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, 320 kilometres (199 mi) southeast of state capital Lucknow. It is regarded as a holy city by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and the oldest in India.
The Kashi Naresh (Maharaja of Kashi) is the chief cultural patron of Varanasi and an essential part of all religious celebrations. The culture of Varanasi is closely associated with the River Ganges and the river's religious importance. The city has been a cultural and religious centre in North India for several thousand years. The Benares Gharana form of the Indian classical music developed in Varanasi, and many prominent Indian philosophers, poets, writers, and musicians resided or reside in Varanasi. Gautama Buddha gave his first sermon at Sarnath located near Varanasi (Kashi).
Wat Chedi Luang
Wat Chedi Luang (Thai: วัดเจดีย์หลวง, lit. temple of the big stupa) is a Buddhist temple in the historic centre of Chiang Mai, Thailand. The current temple grounds were originally made up of three temples — Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Ho Tham and Wat Sukmin.
The construction of the temple started in the 14th century, when King Saen Muang Ma planned to bury the ashes of his father there. After 10 years of building time it was left unfinished, later to be continued after the death of the king by his widow. Probably due to stability problems it took until mid-15th century to be finished during the reign of king Tilokaraj. It was then 82 m high and had a base diameter of 54 m, at that time the largest building of all Lanna. In 1468, the Emerald Buddha was installed in the eastern niche. In 1545, the upper 30 m of the structure collapsed after an earthquake, and shortly thereafter, in 1551, the Emerald Buddha was moved to Luang Prabang.
In the early 1990s the chedi was reconstructed, financed by UNESCO and the Japanese government. However the result is somewhat controversial, as some claim the new elements are in Central Thai style, not Lanna style. For the 600th anniversary of the chedi in 1995, a copy of the Emerald Buddha made from black jade was placed in the reconstructed eastern niche. The icon is named official Phra Phut Chaloem Sirirat, but is commonly known as Phra Yok.
Woking Crematorium
Woking Crematorium is a crematorium in Woking, a large town in the west of Surrey, England. Established in 1878, it was the first custom-built crematorium in the United Kingdom and is closely linked to the history of cremation in the UK.
The crematorium is located in Woking, just outside St John's Village on Hermitage Road. Brookwood Cemetery, also known as the London Necropolis, is located nearby but operated separately; it was established by the London Necropolis Company in 1849 to house London's deceased.
The crematorium in Woking was founded in 1878, when a piece of land close to St John's Village was bought by Sir Henry Thompson. He was a surgeon and Physician to the QueenVictoria. In 1874, he was a foremost founder and first president of the Cremation Society of Great Britain. The acre of land on which the crematorium was to be established was purchased with the aid of subscriptions (at £200 each) from the London Necropolis Company. It was both secluded yet readily accessible, as a train service, suitable for the conveyance of the dead, already ran between London and Woking.
Asian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.
Native ethnic groups of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan self-identify themselves as Asian. They are also recognized as Asian by Russians and Chinese.[citation needed]
This self-identification is based phenotypically, and on cultural differences from Russians, as these countries used to be parts of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and therefore have significant Russian populations. Another reason for such self-identification is patriotic: "the native people of the Center of Asia - are undoubtedly Asians".[citation needed]
In parts of anglophoneAfrica, especially East Africa and South Africa, and in parts of the Anglophone Caribbean, the term "Asian" is more commonly associated with people of South Asian origin, particularly Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans.
Notably, the Australian Census includes Central Asia, a region that is often considered to be part of the Greater Middle East. The Australian Census includes four regions of Asia in its official definition. Defined by the 2006–2011 Australian Census, three broad groups have the word Asian included in their name: Centraland Southern Asian, South-East Asian and North-East Asian. Russians are classified as Southern and Eastern Europeans while Middle Easterners are classified as North African and Middle Easterners.
Balinese people
The Balinese population of 3.0 million (1.5% of Indonesia's population) live mostly on the island of Bali, making up 89% of the island's population. There are also significant populations on the island of Lombok, and in the eastern-most regions of Java (e.g. the Municipality of Banyuwangi). It is the most populous Hindu majority island in the world.
The origins of the Balinese came from three periods: The first waves of immigrants came from Java and Kalimantan in the prehistoric times of the proto-Malay stock; the second wave of Balinese came slowly over the years from Java during the Hindu period; the third and final period came from Java, between the 15th and 16th centuries, at the time of the conversion of Islam in Java, aristocrats fled to Bali from the Javanese Majapahit Empire to escape Islamic conversion, reshaping the Balinese culture into a syncretic form of classical Javanese culture with many Balinese elements.
Balinese culture is perhaps most known for its dance, drama and sculpture. The culture is noted for its use of the gamelan in music. The island is also known for its form of Wayang kulit or Shadow play/Shadow Puppet theatre. It also has several unique aspects related to their religions traditions. Balinese culture is a mix of Balinese Hindu/Buddhist religion and Balinese custom.
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero (/ˈsɪsɨroʊ/; Classical Latin: [ˈkɪkɛroː]; January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC; sometimes anglicized as Tully), was a Romanphilosopher, statesman, lawyer, orator, political theorist, Roman consul and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.
He introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary (with neologisms such as humanitas, qualitas, quantitas, and essentia) distinguishing himself as a linguist, translator, and philosopher. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. According to Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński, "Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity." The peak of Cicero's authority and prestige came during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and his impact on leading Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, David Hume, and Montesquieu was substantial. His works rank among the most influential in European culture, and today still constitute one of the most important bodies of primary material for the writing and revision of Roman history, especially the last days of the Roman Republic.
Death in absentia
Death in absentia (or presumption of death) is a legal declaration that a person is deceased in the absence of remains (e.g., a corpse or skeleton) attributable to that person. Such a declaration is typically made when a person has been missing for an extended period of time without any evidence that the person is still alive, or when the circumstances surrounding a person's disappearance overwhelmingly support the belief that the person has died (e.g., an airplane crash). A declaration that a person is dead resembles other forms of "preventive adjudication," such as the declaratory judgment.
In most common law and civil code jurisdictions, it is usually necessary to obtain a court order directing the registrar to issue a death certificate in the absence of a physician's certification that an identified individual has died. However, if there is circumstantial evidence that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the individual is deceased on the balance of probabilities, jurisdictions may agree to issue death certificates without any such order. For example, passengers and crew of the Titanic who were not rescued by the RMS Carpathia were declared legally dead soon after the Carpathia's arrival at New York City. More recently, death certificates for those who perished in the September 11, 2001 attacks were issued by the State of New York within days of the tragedy. The same is usually true of soldiersmissing after a major battle, especially if the enemy keeps an accurate record of its prisoners of war.
Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara (Gujarati: ફારોખ બલ્સારા), 5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991) was a British musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the rock band Queen. As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and powerful vocals over a four-octave range. As a songwriter, Mercury composed many hits for Queen, including "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Killer Queen", "Somebody to Love", "Don't Stop Me Now", "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and "We Are the Champions". In addition to his work with Queen, he led a solo career, and also occasionally served as a producer and guest musician (piano or vocals) for other artists. He died of bronchopneumonia brought on by AIDS on 24 November 1991, only one day after publicly acknowledging he had the disease.
Mercury was a Parsi born in Zanzibar and grew up there and in India until his mid-teens. He has been referred to as "Britain's first Asian rock star". In 2002, Mercury was placed at number 58 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, in 2006, Time Asia named him one of the most influential Asian heroes of the past 60 years, and he continues to be voted one of the greatest singers in the history of popular music. In 2005, a poll organised by Blender and MTV2 saw Mercury voted the greatest male singer of all time. In 2008, Rolling Stone editors ranked him number 18 on their list of the 100 greatest singers of all time. In 2009, a Classic Rock poll saw him voted the greatest rock singer of all time.Allmusic has characterised Mercury as "one of rock's greatest all-time entertainers", who possessed "one of the greatest voices in all of music".
Herodotus
Herodotus (/hɨˈrɒdətəs/; Ancient Greek: ἩρόδοτοςHēródotos) was an ancient Greekhistorian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria (modern day Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the fifth century BC (circa 484 – 425 BC). He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative.The Histories—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced—is a record of his "inquiry" (or ἱστορίαhistoría, a word that passed into Latin and acquired its modern meaning of "history"), being an investigation of the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were fanciful, he claimed he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his personal history. The Histories, otherwise known as The Researches or The Inquiries, were divided by later Alexandrian editors into nine books, named after the nine Muses: the "Muse of History", Clio, representing the first book, then Euterpe, Thaleia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, Ourania and Calliope for books 2 to 9, respectively. At its simplest and broadest level of meaning, The Histories is structured as a dynastic history of four Persian kings:
Homer
In the Western classical tradition, Homer (/ˈhoʊmər/; Ancient Greek: Ὅμηρος, Hómēros) is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greekepicpoet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.
When he lived is unknown. Herodotus estimates that Homer lived 400 years before Herodotus' own time, which would place him at around 850 BC; while other ancient sources claim that he lived much nearer to the supposed time of the Trojan War, in the early 12th century BC. Modern researchers appear to place Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC.
The formative influence played by the Homeric epics in shaping Greek culture was widely recognized, and Homer was described as the teacher of Greece. Homer's works, which are about fifty percent speeches, provided models in persuasive speaking and writing that were emulated throughout the ancient and medieval Greek worlds. Fragments of Homer account for nearly half of all identifiable Greek literary papyrus finds.
Hui people
The Hui people (Chinese: 回族; pinyin: Huízú, Xiao'erjing: حُوِ ذَو / حواري) are a predominantly Muslim ethnic group in China. Hui people are found throughout the country, though they are concentrated mainly in the provinces of Ningxia, Qinghai, and Gansu. According to a 2000 census, China is home to approximately 9.8 million Hui people, the majority of whom are Chinese-speaking practitioners of Islam, though some practice other religions. Although many Hui people are ethnically similar to Han Chinese, the group has retained some Persian and Central Asian features, their ethnicity and culture having been shaped profoundly by their position along the Silk Road trading route.
In the People's Republic of China, the Hui people are one of 56 officially recognized ethnic groups. Under this definition, the Hui people are defined to include all historically Muslim communities in People's Republic of China that are not included in China's other ethnic groups. Since China's Muslims speaking various Turkic, Mongolic, or Iranian languages are all included into those other groups (e.g., Uyghurs, Dongxiang, or Tajiks) the "officially recognized" Hui ethnic group consists predominantly of Chinese speakers. In fact, the "Hui nationality" is unique among China's officially recognized ethnic minorities in that it does not have any particular non-Chinese language associated with it.
Javanese people Not to be confused with Japanese people.
The Javanese (JavaneseNgoko: Wong Jawa, Krama: Tiyang Jawi;Indonesian: suku Jawa) are an ethnic group native to the Indonesian island of Java. At approximately 85 million people (as of 2009[update]), they form the largest ethnic group in Indonesia. They are predominantly located in the central to eastern parts of the island. There are also significant populations in most Provinces of Indonesia, in Malaysia, Singapore and also Suriname in South America.
Today, majority of the Javanese people identify themselves as Muslims. Because the Javanese civilization has been influenced for more than a millennia of interactions between the native animism and the Indian Hindu—Buddhist culture, there are traces of their influences in the Javanese history, culture, traditions and art forms. The Javanese are said to be rigid and tight upper lipped in their social interactions with mannerism and Javanese etiquette held high, but today the rules are more relaxed.
Like most Indonesian ethnic groups, including the Sundanese of West Java, the Javanese are of Austronesian origins whose ancestors are thought to have originated in Taiwan, and migrated through the Philippines, reaching Java between 1,500BCE and 1,000BCE.
Jeanette Pickersgill
Jeanette Pickersgill (died March 20, 1885) was the wife of the artist Henry William Pickersgill. She was the first person to be legally cremated in the United Kingdom at Woking Crematorium in Woking, Surrey. She published a volume of poetry in 1827 entitled Tales of the Harem.The Times described Pickersgill as "a well-known figure in literary and scientific circles"., Pickersgill was cremated six days after her death.
The cremation took one hour and 15 minutes. The notes in the cremation register record that the remains were later taken to Golders Green Crematorium's East Columbarium. The great concern at the time was that the person may not be actually dead, and the thought of being burned alive was too shocking for the Victorians to contemplate. Due to this concern, two doctors certified that Pickersgill was dead.
By year's end, only three cremations took place out of 597,357 deaths in the UK. At that time cremation was championed by the Cremation Society of Great Britain. By 1901, with six crematoria established, only 427 cremations took place out of 551,585 deaths - less than one-tenth of one percent. However, by the end of the century (2000), over 240 crematoria were in use. Over 70% of the deceased were cremated (437,609 out of 611,960 deaths).[citation needed]
Pope Paul VI
Paul VI (Latin: Paulus PP. VI; Italian: Paolo VI), born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini (26 September 1897 – 6 August 1978), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it. He fostered improved ecumenical relations with Orthodox and Protestants, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements.
Montini served in the Vatican's Secretariat of State from 1922 to 1954. While in the Secretariat of State, Montini and Domenico Tardini were considered as the closest and most influential co-workers of Pope Pius XII, who named him in 1954 Archbishop of Milan, the largest Italian diocese, yet denying him the Cardinal designation that traditionally accompanies being Archbishop of Milan, a function which made him automatically Secretary of the Italian Bishops Conference. John XXIII elevated him to the College of Cardinals in 1958, and after the death of John XXIII, Montini was considered one of his most likely successors.
Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India.
Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III. Both the Duke of Kent and the King died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne at the age of 18, after her father's three elder brothers had all died without surviving legitimate issue. The United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the Sovereign held relatively few direct political powers. Privately, she attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments. Publicly, she became a national icon, and was identified with strict standards of personal morality.
She married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children and 26 of their 34 grandchildren who survived childhood married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.
Tumulus
A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A cairn (a mound of stones built for various purposes), might also be originally a tumulus. A long barrow is a long tumulus, usually for numbers of burials.
The method of inhumation may involve a dolmen, a cist, a mortuary enclosure, a mortuary house or a chamber tomb. Examples of barrows include Duggleby Howe and Maeshowe.
The word tumulus is Latin for 'mound' or 'small hill', from the PIE root *teuh2- with extended zero grade *tum-, 'to bulge, swell' also found in tumor, thumb, thigh and thousand.
The funeral of Patroclus is described in book 23 of the Iliad. Patroclus is burned on a pyre, and his bones are collected into a golden urn in two layers of fat. The barrow is built on the location of the pyre. Achilles then sponsors funeral games, consisting of a chariot race, boxing, wrestling, running, a duel between two champions to the first blood, discus throwing, archery and spear throwing.
Zhu Xi
Zhu Xi or Chu Hsi (Chinese: 朱熹, October 18, 1130, Youxi, Fujian Province, China – April 23, 1200, China) was a Song DynastyConfucian scholar who became the leading figure of the School of Principle and the most influential rationalist Neo-Confucian in China. His contribution to Chinese philosophy included his assigning special significance to the Analects of Confucius, the Mencius, the Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean (the Four Books), his emphasis on the investigation of things (gewu), and the synthesis of all fundamental Confucian concepts.
(Music by King Diamond) Whenever the dark is near I will return from the grave to haunt You...Godforsaken whore Typed By : Erik Campo - campoe@JSP.UMontreal.Ca
Undertones of horror Are in the ring of freedom Turn down the television And listen for the hungry army With a hand to feed them don't ignore the power Of ignorance All the names were changed Uniforms exchanged Still dressed to kill Because the intent is still the same And has been all this while Lying under a pile Of lye coated children All wearing big smiles They've been strip-mauled And hauled From their o'hallowed halls All classes dismissed Any risk of infection Now we all learn From our imperfections Now we all burn in our own hell But theres no division All you parents Run and scream "NO!" Please don't let it go to Our children But they only heard the word "NO!" When they needed your undivided attention While you were so busy Out funding ethnic cleansing Why are you so fucking stupid? You can't wash your hands to kill infection Let the schools burn And end this quarentine All you parents and teachers You're fired!
I have just died or so they say was it mere fate? or have they lied... To welcome death, the would have me burn, scatter my remains and take what is mine. They tie me to a cold slab, wire my jaws shut, the oven is heated, my body shoved in... No mercy in thair eyes, for I'm not dead. They close the door to lock, my life is too fate... My skin begins to burn and melt it slides from muscle and bone. My insides burst from within me the smell of my body cooked... I endure the burning pain tear open my mouth to scream I feel my brain explode
National Geographic's, Science of Death: National Geographic takes a look at the science behind how a crematory and cremation equipment is made and used along with how it operates.
National Geographic's, Science of Death: National Geographic takes a look at the science behind how a crematory and cremation equipment is made and used along with how it operates.
Cremations are performed 24/7 at Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal. It lies on the banks of the Bagmati River, which flows into the holy Ganges River in India. www.insidebayarea.com
Cremations are performed 24/7 at Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal. It lies on the banks of the Bagmati River, which flows into the holy Ganges River in India. www.insidebayarea.com
Elisa Krcilek talks about what is involved in the cremation process. Elisa is a funeral director who works for Cremation Society of Illinois as their Vice President. More information can be found about this cremation provider at their website: www.cremation-society.com
Elisa Krcilek talks about what is involved in the cremation process. Elisa is a funeral director who works for Cremation Society of Illinois as their Vice President. More information can be found about this cremation provider at their website: www.cremation-society.com
Cremation and cemeteries are two topics studied at the University of Bath Centre for Death and Society. Dr. John Troyer studies modern crematorium equipment and the cremation process, and Dr. Kate Woodthorpe studies attitudes to cemetery use. The Centre for Death and Society specialises in Death, Dying and the dead body.
Cremation and cemeteries are two topics studied at the University of Bath Centre for Death and Society. Dr. John Troyer studies modern crematorium equipment and the cremation process, and Dr. Kate Woodthorpe studies attitudes to cemetery use. The Centre for Death and Society specialises in Death, Dying and the dead body.
In India, only members of a lower caste can touch dead bodies. And it is these people who must perform cremations. See All National Geographic Videos video.nationalgeographic.com
In India, only members of a lower caste can touch dead bodies. And it is these people who must perform cremations. See All National Geographic Videos video.nationalgeographic.com
Anderson-McQueen Family Tribute Centers is the first funeral home to offer bio-cremation in the US Bio-cremation is growing in popularity as more people learn about how it can help the environment preserving precious natural resources and reducing the carbon footprint in a final act of thoughtfulness.
Anderson-McQueen Family Tribute Centers is the first funeral home to offer bio-cremation in the US Bio-cremation is growing in popularity as more people learn about how it can help the environment preserving precious natural resources and reducing the carbon footprint in a final act of thoughtfulness.
Written by Robert Service. Album: Personal File (highly recommended) I like this version of poem more than others, due to its darker and more sinister mood.
Written by Robert Service. Album: Personal File (highly recommended) I like this version of poem more than others, due to its darker and more sinister mood.
Five Ways to Boost Productivity Using Windows 7 www.lockergnome.com How to Use Pinterest Without Breaking the Law www.lockergnome.com P is for Potential: 10 Possibilities for Windows Phone 7 www.lockergnome.com How Do You Get Rid of the Babylon Toolbar? www.lockergnome.com How to Reduce Fan Noise on a Desktop Computer www.lockergnome.com Cremation: the Creation of the Implant Recycling Industry www.lockergnome.com Back Link of the Day kevingilmartin.com Thanks to Kevin Gilmartin for mentioning Gnomies.com (and his support for it) at his blog in an opinion piece about the controversies surrounding paid communities. Go read it. Good stuff! If you'd like to be mentioned as a Back Link of the Day, link to one of our posts on LockerGnome.com from your site and -- this is the important part -- tell us about it! www.lockergnome.com Join us when the countdown ends! www.gnomies.com https twitter.com www.facebook.com
Five Ways to Boost Productivity Using Windows 7 www.lockergnome.com How to Use Pinterest Without Breaking the Law www.lockergnome.com P is for Potential: 10 Possibilities for Windows Phone 7 www.lockergnome.com How Do You Get Rid of the Babylon Toolbar? www.lockergnome.com How to Reduce Fan Noise on a Desktop Computer www.lockergnome.com Cremation: the Creation of the Implant Recycling Industry www.lockergnome.com Back Link of the Day kevingilmartin.com Thanks to Kevin Gilmartin for mentioning Gnomies.com (and his support for it) at his blog in an opinion piece about the controversies surrounding paid communities. Go read it. Good stuff! If you'd like to be mentioned as a Back Link of the Day, link to one of our posts on LockerGnome.com from your site and -- this is the important part -- tell us about it! www.lockergnome.com Join us when the countdown ends! www.gnomies.com https twitter.com www.facebook.com
Our very own 'Rustam-e-Hind' Dara Singh left for his heavenly abode on Thursday evening and left his fans deeply saddened. His Bollywood colleagues gathered to pay him a tribute at his home. The cremation will be held in Mumbai today. For more info log on to: www.youtube.com/abpnewsTV
Our very own 'Rustam-e-Hind' Dara Singh left for his heavenly abode on Thursday evening and left his fans deeply saddened. His Bollywood colleagues gathered to pay him a tribute at his home. The cremation will be held in Mumbai today. For more info log on to: www.youtube.com/abpnewsTV
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Cremation. Recent images give an idea of Maharishi's physical deterioration in his reclusive last years, his death in Holland and the vedic style burial in Allahabad. More coverage at maharishi.re-membered.com
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Cremation. Recent images give an idea of Maharishi's physical deterioration in his reclusive last years, his death in Holland and the vedic style burial in Allahabad. More coverage at maharishi.re-membered.com
I noticed the grass, I noticed the hills, I noticed the highways, I noticed the dirt road; I noticed the car rows in the parking lot I noticed the ticket takers, noticed the cash and the checks and credit cards, I noticed the buses, noticed mourners, I noticed their children in red dresses, I noticed the entrance sign, noticed retreat houses, noticed blue and yellow flags Noticed the devotees, their trucks and buses, guards in khaki uniforms, I noticed the crowds, noticed misty skies, noticed the all pervading smiles and empty eyes I noticed the pillows, coloured red and yellow, square pillows round and round I noticed the Tori gate, passers-through bowing, a parade of men & women in formal dress Noticed the procession, noticed the bagpipe, drums, horns, noticed high silk head crowns and saffron robes, noticed the three piece suits, I noticed the palanquin, an umbrella, the stupa painted with jewels the Colours of the four directions Amber for generosity, green for karmic works, I noticed the white for Buddha, red for the heart Thirteen worlds on the stupa hat, noticed the bell handle and umbrella, the empty head of the white cement bell Noticed the corpse to be set in the head of the bell Noticed the monks chanting, horn plaint in our ears, smoke rising from astep the firebrick empty bells Noticed the crowds quiet, noticed the Chilean poet, noticed a rainbow, I noticed the guru was dead, I noticed his teacher bare breasted watching the corpse burn in the stupa, Noticed ...
I noticed the grass, I noticed the hills, I noticed the highways, I noticed the dirt road; I noticed the car rows in the parking lot I noticed the ticket takers, noticed the cash and the checks and credit cards, I noticed the buses, noticed mourners, I noticed their children in red dresses, I noticed the entrance sign, noticed retreat houses, noticed blue and yellow flags Noticed the devotees, their trucks and buses, guards in khaki uniforms, I noticed the crowds, noticed misty skies, noticed the all pervading smiles and empty eyes I noticed the pillows, coloured red and yellow, square pillows round and round I noticed the Tori gate, passers-through bowing, a parade of men & women in formal dress Noticed the procession, noticed the bagpipe, drums, horns, noticed high silk head crowns and saffron robes, noticed the three piece suits, I noticed the palanquin, an umbrella, the stupa painted with jewels the Colours of the four directions Amber for generosity, green for karmic works, I noticed the white for Buddha, red for the heart Thirteen worlds on the stupa hat, noticed the bell handle and umbrella, the empty head of the white cement bell Noticed the corpse to be set in the head of the bell Noticed the monks chanting, horn plaint in our ears, smoke rising from astep the firebrick empty bells Noticed the crowds quiet, noticed the Chilean poet, noticed a rainbow, I noticed the guru was dead, I noticed his teacher bare breasted watching the corpse burn in the stupa, Noticed ...
Get your DeFranco Monkey/This is America Poster: bit.ly What is a Fail Fighter?: on.fb.me Choose Your Favorite State Farm Ending: on.fb.me And a big thanks to Statefarm for supporting these Fail Friday videos and to you guys for watching and enjoying them :) Of course if you've missed any of the 5 shows this week catch up at: DeFran.co
Get your DeFranco Monkey/This is America Poster: bit.ly What is a Fail Fighter?: on.fb.me Choose Your Favorite State Farm Ending: on.fb.me And a big thanks to Statefarm for supporting these Fail Friday videos and to you guys for watching and enjoying them :) Of course if you've missed any of the 5 shows this week catch up at: DeFran.co
National Geographic's, Science of Death: National Geographic takes a look at the science behind how a crematory and cremation equipment is made and used along with how it operates.
Hindu Cremations at Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu Nepal
Cremations are performed 24/7 at Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal. It lies on the banks of the Bagmati River, which flows into the holy Ganges River in India. www.insidebayarea.com
Elisa Krcilek talks about what is involved in the cremation process. Elisa is a funeral director who works for Cremation Society of Illinois as their Vice President. More information can be found about this cremation provider at their website: www.cremation-society.com
Cremation and Cemeteries - Centre for Death and Society
Cremation and cemeteries are two topics studied at the University of Bath Centre for Death and Society. Dr. John Troyer studies modern crematorium equipment and the cremation process, and Dr. Kate Woodthorpe studies attitudes to cemetery use. The Centre for Death and Society specialises in Death, Dying and the dead body.
In India, only members of a lower caste can touch dead bodies. And it is these people who must perform cremations. See All National Geographic Videos video.nationalgeographic.com
Florida bio-cremation | green cremation from Anderson-McQueen
Anderson-McQueen Family Tribute Centers is the first funeral home to offer bio-cremation in the US Bio-cremation is growing in popularity as more people learn about how it can help the environment preserving precious natural resources and reducing the carbon footprint in a final act of thoughtfulness.
Written by Robert Service. Album: Personal File (highly recommended) I like this version of poem more than others, due to its darker and more sinister mood.
TLDR: Potential, Pinterest, Productivity, and Cremation
Five Ways to Boost Productivity Using Windows 7 www.lockergnome.com How to Use Pinterest Without Breaking the Law www.lockergnome.com P is for Potential: 10 Possibilities for Windows Phone 7 www.lockergnome.com How Do You Get Rid of the Babylon Toolbar? www.lockergnome.com How to Reduce Fan Noise on a Desktop Computer www.lockergnome.com Cremation: the Creation of the Implant Recycling Industry www.lockergnome.com Back Link of the Day kevingilmartin.com Thanks to Kevin Gilmartin for mentioning Gnomies.com (and his support for it) at his blog in an opinion piece about the controversies surrounding paid communities. Go read it. Good stuff! If you'd like to be mentioned as a Back Link of the Day, link to one of our posts on LockerGnome.com from your site and -- this is the important part -- tell us about it! www.lockergnome.com Join us when the countdown ends! www.gnomies.com https twitter.com www.facebook.com
Our very own 'Rustam-e-Hind' Dara Singh left for his heavenly abode on Thursday evening and left his fans deeply saddened. His Bollywood colleagues gathered to pay him a tribute at his home. The cremation will be held in Mumbai today. For more info log on to: www.youtube.com/abpnewsTV
YURI KAGEYAMA. AP Business Writers= TOKYO (AP) — Boeing Co.'s 787 planes were grounded for safety checks Wednesday by two major Japanese airlines after one was forced to make an emergency landing in the latest blow for the new jet ... The 787, known as the Dreamliner, is Boeing's newest and most technologically advanced jet, and the company is counting heavily on its success ... The grounding was done voluntarily by the airlines ... The U.S ...U.S....(size: 11.1Kb)
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction” is Newton’s third law of physics. Its counterpart in geopolitics is “blowback,” when military action in one sphere produces an unintended and undesirable consequence in another. September 11, 2001, was blowback. George H.W.Bush had sent an army of half a million to hurl Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, a triumph ... bases in Saudi Arabia ... Patrick J....(size: 5.8Kb)
TOKYO. Aviation regulators on Thursday grounded most of the world's 787 Dreamliner fleet until a fire risk linked to the plane's batteries can been fixed, deepening a crisis for its US manufacturer Boeing. Regulators in Japan, India and Chile followed the lead of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in ordering an indefinite halt to all operations, after a JapaneseDreamliner on Wednesday was forced into an emergency landing ... ....(size: 4.5Kb)
AMY TEIBEL. Associated Press= JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's premier on Wednesday dismissed President Barack Obama's reported displeasure with his hard-line policies toward the Palestinians, a sisgn that the two could be headed for a showdown. Polls suggest Benjamin Netanyahu is poised to win Israel's elections next week and continue in office ... could suffer in unprecedented ways if the Israeli government doesn't change its policies....(size: 10.2Kb)
BAMAKO, Mali -- After a punishing bombing campaign failed to halt the advance of al-Qaida-linked fighters, France pledged Tuesday to triple the size of its force in Mali, sending in hundreds more troops as it prepared for a land assault to dislodge the militants occupying the country's northern half ... On Tuesday, France announced that it was increasing the number of troops from 800 to 2,500 ... "We have one objective ... On Tuesday, U.S ... ....(size: 3.6Kb)
More than 700 mourners filled the Anzac Hall in Featherston to overflowing yesterday to farewell local man Glen Jones, who died after a vicious beating in his home. The 40-year-old supermarket worker died in Wellington Hospital early last Saturday, hours after he was attacked ... and he lost his fight" ... His brothers carried his brightly decorated coffin from the service, after which there was a private cremation ... ....(size: 2.5Kb)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California woman was sentenced to probation on Friday for helping an 86-year-old World War Two veteran kill himself by mixing a lethal dose of Oxycontin into his yogurt even though he was not terminally ill or bedridden ... "I think Ms ... Prosecutors say Barrett drove Koency to a branch of the NeptuneSociety, a cremation provider, to make his own funeral arrangements....(size: 2.4Kb)
A Laguna Woods woman who helped a World War II veteran commit suicide with a mixture of OxyContin, yogurt and heartburn medication has been sentenced to probation, with no jail time ... Also. Koency had a history of mental health issues and had undergone therapy, said Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Ebrahim Baytieh ... 30, 2011, Barrett drove Koency to the NeptuneSociety so he could plan cremation services and make funeral arrangements ... 0. ... ... ....(size: 33.3Kb)
LOS ANGELES — Gertrude “Gussie” Moran, who shocked the modest midcentury tennis world when she took the court at Wimbledon with short skirt and ruffled underwear, has died at age 89. Ms ...Moran in her final year. As a 25-year-old seventh seed at Wimbledon in 1949, Ms ... “She had no idea what she was getting into,” Neworth said ... Ms ... Ms ... Ms ... Ms ... Moran will be cremated, and friends plan to spread her ashes in the ocean, in view of her family home....(size: 3.5Kb)
It is interesting how some obscure, esoteric and occult issues become all the rage with regards to discussion and debate. The infiltration of Bohemian Grove by MikeHanson and Alex Jones brought about such a fracas, a friendly one, due to Jones’ identification of the huge owl idol as being Moloch (or, Molech) ... I am the LORD (Leviticus 18.21) ... Fact ... Fact ... Seductress, Heroine or Murderer? ... The BohemianGrove and the “cremation of care” ... ....(size: 4.5Kb)
By Mike Glenn . January 18, 2013. Comments (0) E-mail Print. Tweet. Page 1 of 1. Lee Cearnal was city editor of The Ledger in Lakeland, Fla., when a job candidate called from the airport asking for directions to the office. "Lee told him, 'No. Get here on your own ... He was 68. "He expected people to be their best ... Cearnal was a pilot in the U.S ... A great organizer ... A man for details ... Gretchen Cearnal Botha said her father will be cremated ... Tweet ... ....(size: 10.9Kb)
The Company's products and services include cast bronze and granite memorials and other memorialization products; caskets; cast and etched architectural products; cremation equipment and cremation-related products; mausoleums; brand management; printing plates and cylinders, pre-press services and imaging services for the primary packaging and ......(size: 17.3Kb)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California woman accused of helping an 86-year-old World War II veteran kill himself by mixing a lethal dose of Oxycontin into his yogurt pleaded guilty on Friday to a charge of assisted suicide and was sentenced to probation ... Prosecutors say Barrett drove Koency to a branch of the NeptuneSociety, a cremation provider, to make his own funeral arrangements ... (Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Tim Dobbyn). ....(size: 2.9Kb)
(Source. Swansea City and Borough Council). HERE is a winter weather services update from SwanseaCouncil for Friday (January 18) . This page will be updated if the situation changes in any of our services throughout the course of the day. It was last updated at 11.30am. * Housing Options on High Street and all District Housing Offices are open ... * Swansea Mobility Hire is closed ... * Burials, cremations and funerals are operating as normal....(size: 3.6Kb)
The face of a wealthy Roman citizen who lived in south Wales has been revealed nearly two millennia after he died. Using the latest technology, experts have produced a portrait of the man whose skeleton was uncovered 18 years ago in Caerleon, near Newport... "The fact that the man had been buried rather than cremated as most of the people were at that time was a clue to the fact he was probably well off," he said ... ....(size: 3.3Kb)
A City student pursuing higher studies in Germany was found dead under mysterious circumstances there 10 days ago. His body was cremated here on Friday. However, relatives of 25-year-old Likith Shashidhar were not convinced with the German authorities’ explanation that he had committed suicide. Suspecting foul play, they said Likith used to refer to a “network” frequently that prevented him from returning to India... ....(size: 3.5Kb)
Gertrude "Gussie" Moran, who shocked the modest midcentury tennis world when she took the court at Wimbledon with a short skirt and ruffled underwear, has died at age 89 ... She lost the match, but her striking fashion statement appeared on magazine covers around the world, the British press dubbing her "Gorgeous Gussie." ... Moran will be cremated, and friends plan to spread her ashes in the ocean, in view of her family home. ....(size: 3.3Kb)
The examples and perspective in this article or section might have an extensive bias or disproportional coverage towards one or more specific regions. Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page.
Cremation is the use of high-temperature burning, vaporization, and oxidation to reduce dead animal bodies, including human ones, to basic chemical compounds, such as gases and mineral fragments retaining the appearance of dry bone.[1] Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite that is an alternative to the interment of an intact body in a casket. Cremated remains, which do not constitute a health risk, may be buried or interred in memorial sites or cemeteries, or they may be legally retained by relatives and dispersed in various ways. Cremation is not an alternative to a funeral, but rather an alternative to burial or other forms of disposal.
In many countries, cremation is usually done in a crematorium, but other countries prefer different methods, such as open-air cremation in India and in Nepal.
The cremation occurs in a crematory that is housed within a crematorium and comprises one or more furnaces. A cremator is an industrial furnace that is able to generate temperatures of 870–980 °C (1600–1800 °F) to ensure disintegration of the corpse. A crematorium may be part of a chapel or a funeral home or may be an independent facility or a service offered by a cemetery.
Assumption Catholic Cemetery and Crematory in Mississauga, Ontario, with chimney visible
Modern cremators have adjustable-control systems that monitor the furnace during cremation. These systems automatically monitor the interior to tell when the cremation process is complete, after which the furnace automatically shuts down. The time required for cremation varies from body to body, and, in modern furnaces, the process may be as fast as one hour per 45 kilograms (99 lb) of body weight.
A cremator is not designed to cremate more than one human body at a time; cremation of multiple bodies is illegal in the United States and many other countries. Exceptions may be made in special cases, such as with still-born twins or with a still-born baby and a mother who died during childbirth. In such cases, the bodies must be cremated in the same container.
The chamber where the body is placed is called a retort and is lined with heat-resistant refractory bricks. The coffin or container is inserted (charged) into the retort as quickly as possible to avoid heat loss through the top door. The container may be mounted on a charger (motorised trolley) that can quickly insert it, or on a fixed or movable hopper that allows the container to slide into the cremator.
Modern cremators are computer-controlled to ensure legal and safe use. For example, the retort door cannot be opened until the cremator has reached its operating temperature, and United States federal regulations[4] require that newly constructed cremators feature dual electrical and mechanical heat-shutoff switches and door releases that are accessible from inside the retort. Refractory bricks are typically replaced every five years, because thermal fatigue gradually introduces fissures that reduce the insulating strength.
Some crematoria allow relatives to view the charging. This is sometimes done for religious reasons, such as in traditional Hindu and Jain funerals.[5]
The size of most cremators is standardized. Typically, larger cities have access to an oversized cremator that can handle corpse in the 200 kilograms (440 lb)+ range. Most large crematoria have small cremators installed for the cremation of fetal and infant remains.
In the United States, a body ready to be cremated must be placed in a container for cremation,[citation needed] which can be a simple corrugated-cardboard box or a wooden casket (coffin). Most casket manufacturers provide lines of caskets that are specially built for cremation[citation needed]. Another option is a cardboard box that fits inside a wooden shell, which is designed to look like a traditional casket. After the funeral service, the box is removed from the shell before cremation, permitting the shell to be re-used.[citation needed]Funeral homes may also offer rental caskets, which are traditional caskets used only during the services, after which the bodies are transferred to other containers for cremation.[citation needed] Rental caskets are sometimes designed with removable beds and liners, which are replaced after each use.[citation needed]
In the United Kingdom, the body is not removed from the coffin and is not placed into a container as described above.[citation needed] The body is cremated with the coffin, which is why all British coffins that are to be used for cremation must be combustible. The Code of Cremation Practice forbids the opening of the coffin once it has arrived at the crematorium, and rules stipulate that it must be cremated within 72 hours of the funeral service.[6] Therefore, in the United Kingdom, bodies are cremated in the same coffin that they are placed in at the undertaker's, although the regulations allow the use of an approved 'cover' during the funeral service.[6] It is recommended that jewellery be removed before the coffin is sealed, for this reason. When cremation is finished, the remains are passed through a magnetic field to remove any metal, which will be interred elsewhere in the crematorium grounds or, increasingly, recycled.[7] The ashes are then given to relatives or loved ones or scattered in the crematorium grounds where facilities exist.[8]
In Germany, the process is mostly similar to that of the United Kingdom. The body is cremated in the coffin. A piece of fireclay with a number on it is used for identifying the remains of the dead body after burning.[9] The remains are then placed in a container called an ash capsule, which generally is put into a cinerary urn.
In Australia, the deceased is cremated in a coffin supplied by the undertaker.[citation needed] Reusable or cardboard coffins are becoming popular, with several manufacturers now supplying them.[citation needed] For low cost, a plain, particle-board coffin (known in the trade as a "chippie") can be used. Handles (if fitted) are plastic and approved for use in a cremator. Coffins vary from natural cardboard and unfinished particle board (covered with a velvet pall if there is a service) to solid timber; most are veneered particle board.[citation needed]
Cremations can be "delivery only", with no preceding chapel service at the crematorium (although a church service may have been held) or preceded by a service in one of the crematorium chapels. Delivery-only allows crematoria to schedule cremations to make best use of the cremators, perhaps by holding the body overnight in a refrigerator, allowing a lower fee to be charged. Delivery-only is sometimes called west chapel service in industry jargon.[citation needed]
(Germany) A piece of fireclay used for identifying the ash after burning the dead body
(Germany) A cinerary urn. The laces are used to lower the urn into the ground
(Germany) An open cinerary urn, showing the ash capsule containing the remains of the dead
(Germany) The ash capsule
(Germany) An open ash capsule showing the remains of the dead
(Germany) Ash capsule and cinerary urn after 15 years
The box containing the body is placed in the retort and incinerated at a temperature of 760 to 1150 °C (1400 to 2100 °F). During the cremation process, the greater portion of the body (especially the organs and other soft tissues) is vaporized and oxidized by the intense heat; gases released are discharged through the exhaust system. The process usually takes 90 minutes to two hours, with larger bodies taking longer time.[citation needed]
Jewellery, such as wrist-watches and rings, are ordinarily removed before cremation, and returned to the family. The only non-natural item required to be removed is a pacemaker, because it could explode and damage the cremator; the mercury contained in a pacemaker's batteries also poses an unacceptable risk of air pollution.[citation needed] In the United Kingdom, and possibly other countries, the undertaker is required to remove pacemakers prior to delivering the body to the crematorium, and sign a declaration stating that any pacemaker has been removed.[10]
Contrary to popular belief, the cremated remains are not ashes in the usual sense. After the incineration is completed, the dry bone fragments are swept out of the retort and pulverised by a machine called a cremulator to process them into "ashes" or "cremated remains",[10] although pulverisation may also be performed by hand. This leaves the bone with a fine sand like texture and color, able to be scattered without need for mixing with any foreign matter,[11] though the size of the grain varies depending on the cremulator used. Their weight is approximately 4 pounds (1.8 kg) for adult human females and 6 pounds (2.7 kg) for adult human males. There are various types of cremulators, including rotating devices, grinders, and older models using heavy metal balls.[12]
The grinding process typically takes about 20 minutes.
In a Japanese funeral and in Taiwan, the bones are not pulverised unless requested beforehand. When not pulverised the bones are collected by the family and stored as one might do with ashes.
The appearance of cremated remains after grinding is one of the reasons they are called ashes, although a non-technical term sometimes used is "cremains",[13][14] a portmanteau of "cremated" and "remains". (The Cremation Association of North America prefers that the word "cremains" not be used for referring to "human cremated remains." The reason given is that "cremains" is thought to have less connection with the deceased, whereas a loved one's "cremated remains" has a more identifiable human connection.[15])
After final grinding, the ashes are placed in a container, which can be anything from a simple cardboard box to a decorative urn. The default container used by most crematoriums, when nothing more expensive has been selected, is almost always a hinged snap-locking box of plastic.
An unavoidable consequence of cremation is that a tiny residue of bodily remains is left in the chamber after cremation and mixes with subsequent cremations.
Cremated remains are mostly dry calcium phosphates with some minor minerals, such as salts of sodium and potassium. Sulfur and most carbon are driven off as oxidized gases during the process, although a relatively small amount of carbon may remain as carbonate.
The ash remaining represents very roughly 3.5% of the body's original mass (2.5% in children). Because the weight of dry bone fragments is so closely connected to skeletal mass, their weight varies greatly from person to person. Because many changes in body composition (such as fat and muscle loss or gain) do not affect the weight of cremated remains, the weight of cremains can be more closely predicted from the person's height and sex (which predicts skeletal weight), than it can be predicted from the person's simple weight.
Ashes of adults can be said to weigh from 4 pounds (1.8 kg) to 6 pounds (2.7 kg), but the first figure is roughly the figure for women, and the second, for men. The mean weight of adult cremated remains in a Florida, U.S. sample was 5.3 lb (approx. 2.4 kg) for adults (range 2 to 8 lb or 0.91 to 3.6 kg). This was found to be distributed bimodally according to sex, with the mean being 6 pounds (2.7 kg) for men (range 4 to 8 lb or 1.8 to 3.6 kg) and 4 pounds (1.8 kg) for women (range 2 to 6 lb or 0.91 to 2.7 kg). In this sample, generally all adult cremated remains over 6 pounds (2.7 kg) were from males, and those under 4 pounds (1.8 kg) were from females.[16]
Not all that remains is bone. There may be melted metal lumps from missed jewellery; casket furniture; dental fillings; and surgical implants, such as hip replacements. Large items such as titanium hip replacements (which tarnish but do not melt) or casket hinges are usually removed before processing, as they may damage the processor. (If they are missed at first, they must ultimately be removed before processing is complete, as items such as titanium joint replacements are far too durable to be ground). Implants may be returned to the family, but are more commonly sold as ferrous/non-ferrous scrap metal. After the remains are processed, smaller bits of metal such as tooth fillings, and rings (commonly known as gleanings) are sieved out and may be later interred in common, consecrated ground in a remote area of the cemetery. They may also be sold as precious metal scrap.
A relic found amid the ashes of Chan Kusalo (the Buddhist Patriarch of Northern Thailand) is placed inside a chedi shaped vial and displayed inside Wat Chedi Luang in Chiang Mai
Cremated remains are returned to the next of kin in a rectangular plastic container, contained within a further cardboard box or velvet sack, or in an urn if the family had already purchased one. An official certificate of cremation prepared under the authority of the crematorium accompanies the remains, and if required by law, the permit for disposition of human remains, which must remain with the cremated remains.
Cremated remains can be kept in an urn, stored in a special memorial building (columbarium), buried in the ground at many locations or sprinkled on a special field, mountain, or in the sea. In addition, there are several services in which the cremated remains will be scattered in a variety of ways and locations. Some examples are via a helium balloon, through fireworks, shot from shotgun shells, or scattered from an airplane. One service sends a lipstick-tube sized sample of the cremated remains into low earth orbit, where they remain for years (but not permanently) before re-entering the atmosphere. Another company claims to turn part of the cremated remains into synthetic diamonds that can then be made into jewelry. Cremated remains may also be incorporated, with urn and cement, into part of an artificial reef, or they can also be mixed into paint and made into a portrait of the deceased. Cremated remains can be scattered in national parks in the U.S. with a special permit. They can also be scattered on private property with the owner's permission. A portion of the cremated remains may be retained in a specially designed locket known as cremation jewelry. The cremated remains may also be entombed. Most cemeteries will grant permission for burial of cremated remains in occupied cemetery plots that have already been purchased or are in use by the families disposing of the cremated remains without any additional charge or oversight.
The final disposition depends on the personal wishes of the deceased as well as their cultural and religious beliefs. Some religions will permit the cremated remains to be sprinkled or kept at home. Some religions, such as Roman Catholicism, insist on either burying or entombing the remains. Hinduism obliges the closest male relative (son, grandson, etc.) of the deceased to immerse the cremated remains in the holy river Ganges, preferably at the holy city of Triveni Sangam, Allahabad, or Varanasi or Haridwar, India. The Sikhs immerse the remains in Sutlej, usually at Sri Harkiratpur. In southern India, the ashes are immersed in the river Kaveri at Paschima vahini in Srirangapattana at a stretch where the river flows from east to west, depicting the life of a human being from sunrise to sunset. In Japan and Taiwan, the remaining bone fragments are given to the family and are used in a burial ritual before final interment.
Cremation allows for very economical use of cemetery space.
Apart from religious reasons (discussed below), some people find they prefer cremation to traditional burial for personal reasons. The thought of a long, slow decomposition process is unappealing to some;[17] many people find that they prefer cremation because it disposes of the body immediately.[18]
Other people view cremation as a way of simplifying their funeral process. These people view a ground burial as an unneeded complication of their funeral process, and thus choose cremation to make their services as simple as possible.
The cost factor tends to make cremation attractive. Generally speaking, cremation is cheaper than traditional burial services,[18] especially if direct cremation is chosen, in which the body is cremated as soon as legally possible without any sort of services.
Cremated remains can be scattered or buried. Cremation plots or columbarium niches are usually cheaper than a traditional burial plot or mausoleum crypt, and require less space. Some religions, such as Roman Catholicism, require the burial or entombment of cremated remains, but burial of cremated remains may often be accomplished in the burial plot of another person, such as a family member, without any additional cost. This option is charged for in England in an Anglican church where the fee is set by the Table of Parochial Fees (£36 to incumbent and £78 to church council) a total of £114 in 2010 with a marker charged as extra. It is also very common to scatter the remains in a place which was liked by the deceased such as the sea, a river, a beach, a park, or mountains, following their last will. This is generally forbidden in public places but very easy to do. Some persons choose to have a small part of their ashes (usually less than 1 part in 1000, because of cost constraints) scattered in space (known as space burial).
Cremation might be preferable for environmental reasons. Burial is a known source of certain environmental contaminants, with the coffin itself being the major contaminant,[19] though natural burials are also possible. Another environmental concern is that traditional burial takes up a great deal of space. In a traditional burial, the body is buried in a casket made from a variety of materials. In the United States, the casket is often placed inside a concrete vault or liner before burial in the ground. While individually this may not take much room, combined with other burials, it can over time cause serious space concerns. Many cemeteries, particularly in Japan[20] and Europe as well as those in larger cities, have run out of permanent space. In Tokyo, for example, traditional burial plots are extremely scarce and expensive,[21] and in London, a space crisis led Harriet Harman to propose reopening old graves for "double-decker" burials.[22] However, many environmentalists[who?] object that cremation in huge number has a bad effect on air & soil pollution.
Islam categorically disapproves of cremation. Islam has specific rites[23] for the treatment of the body after death. Usually deceased are wrapped by a single piece of cloth for burial and without a casket.
The Indian religions, such as Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism, mandate cremation. In these religions, the body is seen as an instrument to carry the soul. As an example, the Bhagavad Gita. According to Hindu philosophy the human body is a combination of five basic natural elements; namely agni (fire), jala (water), vayu (air), prithvi (earth) and akasha (space/ether). When one dies, fire (agni tattva) ceases, and that living form is sent to its original state of creation. Fire (in the form of cremation) is used to complete the fifth element.
According to Hindu traditions, the reasons for preferring to destroy the corpse by fire, over burying it into ground, is to induce a feeling of detachment into the freshly disembodied spirit, which will be helpful to encourage it into passing to "the other world" (the ultimate destination of the dead).[24] Hindus have 16 rites of passage (Saṃskāra); i.e. A Hindu undergoes 16 rituals during his lifetime, like Naming ceremony, Thread ceremony: beginning of student life, Marriage, etc., and the last being cremation. Cremation is referred to as antim-sanskara, literally meaning "the last rites." At the time of the cremation or "last rites," a "Puja" (ritual worship) is performed. Hindus believe that the cremation ceremony is not just a disposal of the dead body, but the union of Atma (Soul) with the Paramatma (The universal spirit). The holy text of Rigveda, one of the oldest Hindu scriptures, has many Ruchas (also written and pronounced as Richas) (small poems) related to cremation, which state that Lord Agni (God of Fire) will purify the dead body, also known as the Parthiv. Therefore, the Parthiv is given over to him.
Open air cremations are becoming less frequent in urban areas. There are crematoriums in most major cities, which are in effect indoor electric or gas based furnaces. Most cremations take place in these indoor crematoriums.
In Hinduism, during cremation the eldest son, the adopted son, the younger brother, or in the modern period even daughters put first fire on the dead person's body. This ritual is considered mandatory.
The act of sati is when widowed women throw themselves onto their husband's funeral pyre. This tradition has its origin in a legend in which the goddess Satiself-immolated because she was unable to bear her father Daksha's humiliation of her (living) husband Shiva. By 10th CE, this tradition had gained foothold in Indian subcontinent and was spreading. This practice was made illegal in 1829[25], but it has occasionally continued despite the risk of prosecution.
Bodies of holy men and children, however, are buried not cremated.[26] Certain castes and tribes who get classified as Hindus also perform burials, not cremations.
Balinese Hinduism is widely divergent from the IndianHindu orthodoxy. As such, most practices of the Indian Hindu "mainstream" are ignored and abandoned, especially regarding the use of butter. Balinese Hindu dead are generally buried for a period of time, which may exceed one month or more, so that the cremation ceremony (Ngaben) can occur on an auspicious day in the Balinese-JavaneseCalendar system ("Saka"). Additionally, if the departed was a court servant, member of the court or minor noble, the cremation can be postponed up to several years to coincide with the cremation of their Prince. Balinese funerals are very expensive and the body may be interred until the family can afford it or until there is a group funeral planned by the village or family when costs will be less. The purpose of burying the corpse is for the decay process to consume the fluids of the corpse, which allows for an easier, more rapid and more complete cremation.
The Roman Catholic Church's discouragement of cremation stemmed from several ideas: first, that the body, as the instrument through which the sacraments are received, is itself a sacramental, holy object;[27] second, that as an integral part of the human person,[28] it should be disposed of in a way that honors and reverences it, and many early practices involved with disposal of dead bodies were viewed as pagan in origin or an insult to the body;[29] and third, that it constituted a denial of the resurrection of the body.[30] Cremation was forbidden because it might interfere with God's ability to resurrect the body; however, this was refuted as early as Minucius Felix, in his dialogue Octavius.[31]
Cremation was, in fact, never forbidden in and of itself; even in Medieval Europe, cremation was practiced in situations where there were multitudes of corpses simultaneously present, such as after a battle, after a pestilence or famine, and where there was an imminent fear of diseases spreading from the corpses, since individual burials with digging graves would take too long and body decomposition would begin before all the corpses had been interred.
Beginning in the Middle Ages, and even more so in the 18th century and later, rationalists and classicists began to advocate cremation again as a statement denying the resurrection and/or the afterlife,[32] although the pro-cremation movement more often than not took care to address and refute theological concerns about cremation in their works.[33] Sentiment within the Catholic Church against cremation became hardened in the face of the association of cremation with "professed enemies of God."[33] Rules were made against cremation,[34] which were softened in the 1960s.[30] The Catholic Church still officially prefers the traditional burial or entombment of the deceased,[35] but cremation is now permitted as long as it is not done to express a refusal to believe in the resurrection of the body.[36]
Current[37] Catholic liturgical regulations requires that, if requested by the family of the deceased, the cremation must not take place until after the funeral Mass. This way the body may be present for the Mass so that it, symbolizing the person, may receive blessings, be the subject of prayers in which it is mentioned, and since the body's presence "better expresses the values which the Church affirms in those (funeral) rites (or Mass)."[38] Once the Mass itself is concluded, the body could be cremated and a second service could be held at the crematorium or cemetery where the cremated remains are to be interred just as for a body burial.
Although "The Church clearly prefers and urges that the body of the deceased be present for the funeral rites,...Sometimes, however, it is not possible for the body to be present for the Funeral Mass. When extraordinary circumstances (emphasis added) make the cremation of a body the only feasible choice, pastoral sensitivity must be exercised...."[39] In other words, cremation is discouraged and Funeral Masses with cremated remains present is not permitted in keeping with the truth of the sign in the liturgical action. This is because, ashes are the sign of the corruption of the human body, and thus inadequately represent the character of ‘sleeping’ awaiting the resurrection. Furthermore, it is the body, not the ashes, that receives liturgical honors, because through baptism it has become temple of the Spirit of God. It is of greatest interest to keep the truth of the sign, so that both the liturgical catechesis and the very celebration may be held truthfully and fruitfully. Therefore, if the body of the deceased cannot be brought to church for the celebration of the funeral mass, it is allowed to celebrate the same mass, whenever it be permitted, even if the body of the deceased is absent, according to the rules to be observed for the celebration in the presence of the body.[40]
In 1997 the Vatican'sCongregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments granted an indult to allow for "...the celebration of the Funeral Liturgy, including Mass, in the presence of the cremated remains[41] being made less rare, although still not preferred, in the Latin Rite dioceses of the United States of America. In order for it to be allowed certain qualifications must be met. These qualifications include: 1) the cremation has not be inspired by motives contrary to Christian teaching such as respect for the body or the resurrection of the body.[36] 2) the local "...bishop (judges) it is pastorally appropriate to celebrate the liturgy for the dead, with or without Mass, with the ashes present, taking into account the concrete circumstances in each individual case, and in harmony with the spirit and precise content of the current canonical and liturgical norms."[42] In other words, in the USA there is no guarantee that in every case of a cremation prior to the Church service taking place will receive a Funeral Mass. This indult does not mention other rites, dioceses, or nations.
When a Funeral Liturgy is to be celebrated with the cremated remains present they must be in worthy vessel and placed on small prepared table or stand located in the space normally occupied by the coffin.[43] The usual funeral prayers and practices are to be adapted suit the occasion, for example prayers which explicitly refer to the body present under normal circumstances would need to be changed.
Regardless of the location and Funeral Liturgy, or lack thereof, the Church still specifies requirements for the reverent disposition of ashes, normally that the ashes are to be buried or entombed in an appropriate container, such as an urn (rather than scattered or preserved in the family home). Catholic cemeteries today regularly receive cremated remains, and many have columbaria.
Protestant churches were much more welcoming of the use of cremation and at a much earlier date than the Catholic Church; pro-cremation sentiment was not unanimous among Protestants, however.[44] The first crematoria in the Protestant countries were built in 1870s, and in 1908, the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey—one of the most famous Anglican churches—required that remains be cremated for burial in the abbey's precincts.[45] Scattering, or "strewing," is an acceptable practice in many Protestant denominations, and some churches have their own "garden of remembrance" on their grounds in which remains can be scattered. Other groups also support cremation. These include the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
On the other hand, some branches of Christianity oppose cremation, including some minority Protestant groups and Orthodox.[46] Most notably, the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches forbid cremation. Exceptions are made for circumstances where it may not be avoided (when civil authority demands it, or epidemics) or if it may be sought for good cause, but when a cremation is willfully chosen for no good cause by the one who is deceased, he or she is not permitted a funeral in the church and may also be permanently excluded from liturgical prayers for the departed. In Orthodoxy, cremation is a rejection of the dogma of the general resurrection, and as such is viewed harshly.[47][48]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) in past decades has had certain leaders say that cremation is discouraged, but not expressly forbidden. In the 1950s, ApostleBruce R. McConkie[49] wrote that "only under the most extraordinary and unusual circumstances" would cremation be consistent with LDS teachings. More recent LDS publications have provided instructions for how to dress the deceased when they have received their temple endowments (and thus wear temple garments) prior to cremation for those wishing to do so, or in countries where the law requires cremation. Except where required by law, the family of the deceased may decide whether the body should be cremated, though the Church "does not normally encourage cremation."[50]
Jehovah's Witnesses publications have stated, "Cremation is not condemned by Jehovah. ...Something that might influence a person’s decisions in making these arrangements, however, is the way that the local community views funeral customs. Those who abide by Bible principles would certainly not want to do anything that would cause unnecessary offense to their neighbors."[51]
Judaism traditionally disapproved of cremation in the past (it was the traditional means of disposing the dead in the neighboring Bronze Age cultures). It has also disapproved of preservation of the dead by means of embalming and mummifying,[52][53] a practice of the ancient Egyptians. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, as the Jewish cemeteries in many European towns had become crowded and were running out of space, cremation became an approved means of corpse disposal amongst the Liberal Jews. Current liberal movements like Reform Judaism still support cremation, although burial remains the preferred option.[17][54]
The Orthodox Jews have maintained a stricter line on cremation, and disapprove of it as Halakha (Jewish law) forbids it. This halakhic concern is grounded in the upholding of bodily resurrection as a core belief of traditional Judaism, as opposed to other ancient trends such as the Sadduccees, who denied it. Conservative Jewish groups also oppose cremation.[55][56]
Some secular Jews may reject cremation perhaps in reaction to The Holocaust, in which the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide were disposed of by cremation at the death camps. At many former Nazi death camps, mounds of ashes are present beneath a shallow layer of dirt.
In Israel there were no formal crematories until 2007 when B&L Cremation Systems Inc. became the first crematory manufacturer to sell a retort to Israel. In August 2007, the predominantly orthodox ZAKA members in Israel were accused of burning down a secret crematorium.[57] ZAKA spokespersons denied any involvement, but its founder, Yehuda Meshi Zahav, applauded the act of arson, calling the existence of the crematorium a "desecration of the dead" and that the crematorium was "destined to disappear in flames". Since that incident, cremation takes place in Israel without interruption, by Aley Shalechet, the first modern funeral home in Israel. .[57]
The Bahá'í Faith forbids cremation, except when required by law.
Traditionally, Zoroastrianism disavows cremation or burial to preclude pollution of fire or earth. The traditional method of corpse disposal is through ritual exposure in a "Tower of Silence", but both burial and cremation are increasingly popular alternatives. Some contemporary adhererents of the faith have opted for cremation. Parsi-Zoroastrian singer Freddie Mercury of the group Queen was cremated after his death.
Traditionally, Buddhist monks in China exclusively practiced cremation because other Chinese detest cremation, refusing to do it.[58] But now, the atheist Communist party enforces a strict cremation policy on Han Chinese. However, exceptions are made for Hui who do not cremate their dead due to Islamic beliefs.[59]
Cremation dates to at least 20,000 years ago in the archaeological record with the Mungo Lady, the remains of a partly cremated body found at Mungo Lake, Australia.
Alternative death rituals emphasizing one method of disposal of a body—inhumation (burial), cremation, and exposure—have gone through periods of preference throughout history.
In the Middle East and Europe, both burial and cremation are evident in the archaeological record in the Neolithic. Cultural groups had their own preference and prohibitions. The ancient Egyptians developed an intricate transmigration of soul theology, which prohibited cremation, and this was adopted widely among other Semitic peoples. The Babylonians, according to Herodotus, embalmed their dead. Early Persians practiced cremation, but this became prohibited during the Zoroastrian Period. Phoenicians practiced both cremation and burial. From the Cycladic civilisation in 3000 BC until the Sub-Mycenaean era in 1200–1100 B.C., Greeks practiced inhumation. Cremation appearing around the 12th century B.C. constitutes a new practice of burial and is probably an influence from Minor Asia. Until the Christian era, when the inhumation becomes again the only burial practice, both combustion and inhumation had been practiced depending on the era, and area.[60] Romans practiced both, with cremation generally associated with military honors.
In Europe, there are traces of cremation dating to the Early Bronze Age (c. 2000 B.C.) in the Pannonian Plain and along the middle Danube. The custom becomes dominant throughout Bronze Age Europe with the Urnfield culture (from ca. 1300 B.C.). In the Iron Age, inhumation becomes again more common, but cremation persisted in the Villanovan culture and elsewhere. Homer's account of Patroclus' burial describes cremation with subsequent burial in a tumulus similar to Urnfield burials, qualifying as the earliest description of cremation rites. This is mostly an anachronism, as during Mycenaean times burial was generally preferred, and Homer may have been reflecting more common use of cremation in the period in which the Iliad was written centuries later.
Criticism of burial rites is a common aspersion in competing religions and cultures, and one is the association of cremation with fire sacrifice or human sacrifice.
Hinduism and Jainism are notable for not only allowing but prescribing cremation. Cremation in India is first attested in the Cemetery H culture (from ca. 1900 B.C.), considered the formative stage of Vedic civilization. The Rigveda contains a reference to the emerging practice, in RV 10.15.14, where the forefathers "both cremated (agnidagdhá-) and uncremated (ánagnidagdha-)" are invoked.
Cremation remained common, but not universal, in both Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. According to Cicero, in Rome, inhumation was considered the more archaic rite, while the most honoured citizens were most typically cremated—especially upper classes and members of imperial families.
Christianity frowned upon cremation, both influenced by the tenets of Judaism, and in an attempt to abolish Graeco-Roman pagan rituals. By the 5th century, the practice of cremation had practically disappeared from Europe.
In early Roman Britain, cremation was usual but diminished by the fourth century. It then reappeared in the fifth and sixth centuries during the migration era, when sacrificed animals were sometimes included with the human bodies on the pyre, and the deceased were dressed in costume and with ornaments for the burning. That custom was also very widespread among the Germanic peoples of the northern continental lands from which the Anglo-Saxon migrants are supposed to have been derived, during the same period. These ashes were usually thereafter deposited in a vessel of clay or bronze in an "urn cemetery." The custom again died out with the Christian conversion among the Anglo-Saxons or Early English during the seventh century, when inhumation of the corpse became general.[61]
Throughout parts of Europe, cremation was forbidden by law, and even punishable by death if combined with Heathen rites.[62] Cremation was sometimes used by authorities as part of punishment for heretics, and this did not only include burning at the stake. For example, the body of John Wycliff was exhumed years after his death and cremated, with the ashes thrown in a river,[63] explicitly as a posthumous punishment for his denial of the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.[64] On the other hand, mass cremations were often performed out of fear[65] of contagious diseases, such as after a battle, pestilence, or famine. Retributory cremation continued into modern times. For example, after World War II, the bodies of the 12 men convicted of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials were not returned to their families, but were instead cremated, then disposed of at a secret location as a specific part of a legal process intended to deny their use as a location for any sort of memorial.[66] In Japan, however, erection of a memorial building for many executed war criminals, who were also cremated, was allowed for their remains.[67]
Cremation was declared as legal in England and Wales when Dr. William Price was unsuccessfully prosecuted for cremating his son;[71] formal legislation followed later with the passing of the Cremation Act of 1902 (this Act did not extend to Ireland), which imposed procedural requirements before a cremation could occur and restricted the practice to authorised places.[72] In 1885 the first official cremation took place at Woking. Ten cremations then took place in 1886. In 1892 a crematorium opened in Manchester, followed by one in Glasgow in 1895 and one in Liverpool in 1896.
Some of the various Protestant churches came to accept cremation, with the rationale being, "God can resurrect a bowl of ashes just as conveniently as he can resurrect a bowl of dust." The 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia was critical about these efforts, referring to them as a "sinister movement" and associating them with Freemasonry, although it said that "there is nothing directly opposed to any dogma of the Church in the practice of cremation."[73] In 1963, Pope Paul VI lifted the ban on cremation,[30] and in 1966 allowed Catholic priests to officiate at cremation ceremonies.
Australia also started to establish modern cremation movements and societies. Australians had their first purpose-built modern crematorium and chapel in the West Terrace Cemetery in the South Australian capital of Adelaide in 1901. This small building, resembling the buildings at Woking, remained largely unchanged from its 19th-century style and was in full operation until the late 1950s. The oldest operating crematorium in Australia is at Rookwood Cemetery, in Sydney. It opened in 1925.
In the Netherlands, the foundation of the Association for Optional Cremation[74] in 1874 ushered in a long debate about the merits and demerits of cremation. Laws against cremation were challenged and invalidated in 1915 (two years after the construction of the first crematorium in the Netherlands), though cremation did not become legally recognised until 1955.[75]
In Nazi concentration camps, the remains of dead inmates were disposed of using incineration in special built furnaces supplied by a number of manufacturers, with the most common being Topf and Sons. This method was considered deeply offensive in Orthodox Judaism, because Halakha, the Jewish law, forbids cremation[citation needed] and additionally holds that it is painful to the soul of a cremated person. This is because the soul of a recently dead person is not fully aware that they died, and they experience seeing their body burnt (this is also one of the reasons autopsies are forbidden under normal circumstances). In a normal burial, as the body decays, slowly the soul moves "farther" from it. Since then, cremation has carried an extremely negative connotation for many Jews.[citation needed]
In early 2002, 334 corpses that were supposed to have been cremated in the previous few years at the Tri-State Crematory were found intact and decaying on the crematorium's grounds in the U.S. state of Georgia, having been dumped there by the crematorium's proprietor. Many of the corpses were decayed beyond identification. Some families received "ashes" that were made of wood and concrete dust.[citation needed]
Operator Ray Brent Marsh had 787 criminal charges filed against him. On November 19, 2004, Marsh pleaded guilty to all charges. Marsh was sentenced to two 12-year prison sentences, one each from Georgia and Tennessee, to be served concurrently; he was also sentenced to probation for 75 years following his incarceration.[citation needed]
Civil suits were filed against the Marsh family as well as a number of funeral homes who shipped bodies to Tri-State; these suits were ultimately settled. The property of the Marsh family has been sold, but collection of the full $80-million judgment remains doubtful. Families have expressed the desire to return the former Tri-State crematory to a natural, parklike setting.[citation needed]
The magnitude 9.0–9.3 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake triggered a series of lethal tsunamis on December 26, 2004 that killed almost 300,000 people, making them the deadliest tsunamis in recorded history. The tsunamis killed people over an area ranging from the immediate vicinity of the quake in Indonesia, Thailand, and the northwestern coast of Malaysia, to thousands of kilometers away in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and even as far as Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania in eastern Africa.
Authorities had difficulties dealing with the large numbers of bodies, and as a result, thousands of bodies were cremated together out of fear that decaying bodies would cause disease. Many of these bodies were not identified or viewed by relatives prior to cremation. A particular point of objection was that the bodies of Westerners were kept separate from those of Asian descent, who were mostly locals. This meant that the bodies of tourists from other Asian nations, such as Japan and Korea, were mass cremated, rather than being returned to their country of origin for funeral rites.[citation needed]
This article incorporates text from China revolutionized, by John Stuart Thomson, a publication from 1913 now in the public domain in the United States.
^Matthews Cremation Division (2006). Cremation Equipment Operator Training Program. pp. 1.
^ abIn the Netherlands this is also done by either the undertaker or the hospital where the person died. Green, Jennifer; Green, Michael (2006). Dealing With Death: Practices and Procedures. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. pp. 112. ISBN1-84310-381-8.
^Sublette, Kathleen; Flagg, Martin (1992). Final Celebrations: A Guide for Personal and Family Funeral Planning. Pathfinder Publishing. pp. 52. ISBN0-934793-43-3.
^Spongberg, Alison L.; Becks, Paul M. (January 2000). "Inorganic Soil Contamination from Cemetery Leachate". Water, Air, & Soil Pollution117 (1–4): 313–327. DOI:10.1023/A:1005186919370.
^Shimizu, Louise Picon; Maruyama, Meredith Enman; Tsurumaki, Nancy Smith (1998). Japan Health Handbook. Kodansha International. pp. 335. ISBN4-7700-2356-1. "Not only is cremation of the body and internment of the ashes in an urn a long-standing Buddhist practice, it is also a highly practical idea today, given the scarcity of burial space in crowded modern Japan."
^Furse, Raymond (2002). Japan: An Invitation. Tuttle Publishing. pp. 73. ISBN0-8048-3319-2. "[L]and prices so high that a burial plot in Tokyo a mere 21 feet square could easily cost $150,000."
^Davies & Mates, "Cremation, Death and Roman Catholicism", p. 107
^St. Thomas Aquinas, for instance, specifically rejected the notion that the human person is merely the soul "trapped" in a body. Robert Pasnau, in the introduction to his translation of Summa Theologiae, says that Aquinas is "quite clear in rejecting the sort of substance dualism proposed by Plato [...] which goes so far as to identify human beings with their souls alone, as if the body were a kind of clothing that we put on," and that Aquinas believed that "we are a composite of soul and body, that a soul all by itself would not be a human being." See Aquinas, St. Thomas (2002). Summa Theologiae 1a, 75-89. trans. Pasnau. Hackett Publishing. p. xvii. ISBN0-87220-613-0.
^Prothero, Stephen (2002). Purified by Fire: A History of Cremation in America. University of California Press. pp. 73–74. ISBN0-520-23688-2. "To the traditionalists, cremation originated among "heathens" and "pagans" and was therefore anti-Christian[.]"
^ abcKohmescher, Matthew F. (1999). Catholicism Today: A Survey of Catholic Belief and Practice. Paulist Press. pp. 178–179. ISBN0-8091-3873-5.
^In which he said, "Every body, whether it is dried up into dust, or is dissolved into moisture, or is compressed into ashes, or is attenuated into smoke, is withdrawn from us, but it is reserved for God in the custody of the elements. Nor, as you believe, do we fear any loss from sepulture, but we adopt the ancient and better custom of burying in the earth.". The full text of Octavius is available online from ccel.org. See also Davies & Mates, p. 107-108.
^McConkie, Bruce R. Mormon Doctrine, A Compendium of the Gospel, 1958
^Church Handbook of Instructions, Book 2 (2010). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, pp 81,183-84.
^"Should You Object to Cremation?", Awake!, March 2009, page 11
^Schulweis, Harold M.. "SHAILOS & TSUVAS: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS". http://www.vbs.org/religious/shailos.htm. Retrieved 2007-02-21. "Judaism is a tradition which affirms life. It has struggled from its inception against concentration on death and the deification of the human being as exemplified in the Egyptian concern with mummification and the preservation of the body after death."
^Bleich, J. David (2002). Judaism and Healing: Halakhic Perspectives. KTAV Publishing House. pp. 219. ISBN0-88125-741-9.
^Shapiro, Rabbi Morris M., Binder, Rabbi Robert (ed.) (1986). "Cremation in the Jewish Tradition". The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. http://www.uscj.org/Cremation_in_the_Jew7234.html. "The subsequent weight of opinion is against cremation and there is no convincing reason why we should deviate from the sacred established method of burial."
^Rabow, Jerome A.. A Guide to Jewish Mourning and Condolence. Valley Beth Shalom. http://www.vbs.org/religious/mourning.htm#The%20Roles. Retrieved 2006-02-03. "... cremation is un-questionably unacceptable to Conservative Judaism. The process of cremation would substitute an artificial and "instant" destruction for the natural process of decay and would have the disposition of the remains subject to manipulation by the survivors rather than submit to the universal processes of nature."
^S.J. Plunkett, Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times, 1-62.
^von Döllinger, Johann Joseph Ignaz (1841). A History of the Church. C. Dolman and T. Jomes. pp. 9. "The punishment of death was inflicted on the refusal of baptism, on the heathen practice of burning the dead, and on the violation of the days of fasting[...]"
^Peach, Howard (2003). Curious Tales of Old North Yorkshire. Sigma Leisure. pp. 98. ISBN1-85058-793-0.
^Schmidt, Dr. Alvin J. (2004). How Christianity Changed the World. Zondervan. pp. 261. ISBN0-310-26449-9.
^de Ville de Goyet C (2004). "Epidemics caused by dead bodies: A disaster myth that does not want to die". Revista panamericana de salud publica = Pan American journal of public health15 (5): 297–9. PMID15231075.
^"Cremation". Catholic Encyclopedia. The Encyclopedia Press. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04481c.htm. "In conclusion, it must be remembered that there is nothing directly opposed to any dogma of the Church in the practice of cremation, and that, if ever the leaders of this sinister movement so far control the governments of the world as to make this custom universal, it would not be a lapse in the faith confided to her were she obliged to conform."
^Dutch, Vereniging voor Facultatieve Lijkverbranding
Cash was known for his deep, distinctive bass-baritone voice;[4][5][6] for the "boom-chicka-boom" sound of his Tennessee Three backing band; for his rebelliousness,[7][8] coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor;[4] for providing free concerts inside prison walls;[9][10] and for his dark performance clothing, which earned him the nickname "The Man in Black".[11] He traditionally started his concerts by saying, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash."[12][13] and usually following it up with his standard "Folsom Prison Blues".
Cash, a troubled but devout Christian,[16][17] has been characterized as a "lens through which to view American contradictions and challenges."[18][19][20] A Biblical scholar,[2][21][22] he penned a Christian novel titled Man in White,[23][24] and he made a spoken word recording of the entire New King James Version of the New Testament.[25][26] Even so, Cash declared that he was "the biggest sinner of them all", and viewed himself overall as a complicated and contradictory man.[27][28] Accordingly,[29] Cash is said to have "contained multitudes", and has been deemed "the philosopher-prince of American country music".[30][31]
Johnny Cash was born in Kingsland, Arkansas,[32] the fourth of seven children to Ray Cash (May 13, 1897, Kingsland, Arkansas – December 23, 1985, Hendersonville, Tennessee)[33] and Carrie Cloveree Rivers (March 13, 1904, Rison, Arkansas – March 11, 1991, Hendersonville, Tennessee).[34][35] Cash was named John R. Cash because his parents couldn't think of a name, but he went by J. R. all throughout his childhood as a shortened version of his real name. When Cash enlisted in the Air Force, they wouldn't let him use initials as his name, so he began to use his legal name of John R. Cash. In 1955, when signing with Sun Records, he took Johnny Cash as his stage name.[36]
The Cash children were, in order: Roy, Margaret Louise, Jack, J. R., Reba, Joanne and Tommy.[37][38] His younger brother, Tommy Cash, also became a successful country artist.
In March 1935, when Cash was three years old, the family settled in Dyess, Arkansas. He started working in cotton fields at age five, singing along with his family simultaneously while working. The family farm was flooded on at least two occasions, which later inspired him to write the song "Five Feet High and Rising".[39] His family's economic and personal struggles during the Great Depression inspired many of his songs, especially those about other people facing similar difficulties.
Cash was very close to his older brother, Jack.[40] In May 1944, Jack was pulled into a whirling head saw in the mill where he worked and was almost cut in two. He suffered for over a week before he died on May 20, 1944, at age 15.[39] Cash often spoke of the horrible guilt he felt over this incident. According to Cash: The Autobiography, his father was away that morning, but he and his mother, and Jack himself, all had premonitions or a sense of foreboding about that day, causing his mother to urge Jack to skip work and go fishing with his brother. Jack insisted on working, as the family needed the money. On his deathbed, Jack said he had visions of heaven and angels. Decades later, Cash spoke of looking forward to meeting his brother in heaven.
Cash's early memories were dominated by gospel music and radio. Taught by his mother and a childhood friend, Cash began playing guitar and writing songs as a young boy. In high school he sang on a local radio station; decades later he released an album of traditional gospel songs, called My Mother's Hymn Book. He was also significantly influenced by traditional Irish music that he heard performed weekly by Dennis Day on the Jack Benny radio program.[41]
On July 18, 1951, while in Air Force training, Cash met 17-year-old Vivian Liberto at a roller skating rink in her native San Antonio. They dated for three weeks, until Cash was deployed to Germany for a three year tour. During that time, the couple exchanged hundreds of pages of love letters.[46] On August 7, 1954, one month after his discharge, they were married at St. Anne's Catholic church in San Antonio. The ceremony was performed by her uncle, Father Vincent Liberto. They had four daughters: Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy and Tara. Cash's drug and alcohol abuse, constant touring, and affairs with other women, and his close relationship with future wife June Carter, led Liberto to file for divorce in 1966.[47]
In 1968, 13 years after they first met backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, Cash proposed to June Carter, an established country singer, during a live performance in London, Ontario,[48] marrying on March 1, 1968, in Franklin, Kentucky. They had one child together, John Carter Cash (born March 3, 1970). They continued to work together and tour for 35 years, until June Carter died in 2003. Cash died just four months later. Carter co-wrote one of Cash's biggest hits, "Ring of Fire," with singer Merle Kilgore. She and Cash won two Grammy awards for their duets.
Vivian Liberto claims a different version of the origins of "Ring of Fire" in I Walked the Line: My Life with Johnny, stating that Cash gave Carter the credit for monetary reasons.[49]
Cash was a long time friend of Woody Hayes (ex Ohio State Buckeyes football coach). The lyrics "I braided Twigs of Willows Made a String of Buckeye Beads" from the song Flesh and Blood was for Woody.[citation needed]
In 1954, Cash and Vivian moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he sold appliances while studying to be a radio announcer. At night he played with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant. Perkins and Grant were known as the Tennessee Two. Cash worked up the courage to visit the Sun Records studio, hoping to get a recording contract. After auditioning for Sam Phillips, singing mostly gospel songs, Phillips told him that he didn't record gospel music any longer. It was once rumored that Phillips told Cash to "go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell," though in a 2002 interview Cash denied that Phillips made any such comment.[56] Cash eventually won over the producer with new songs delivered in his early rock'a'billy style. In 1955 Cash made his first recordings at Sun, "Hey Porter" and "Cry! Cry! Cry!", which were released in late June and met with reasonable success on the country hit parade.
Cash (standing at right) with Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis. Cash wrote in his book, Cash: the Autobiography, that he sang the songs on the recordings, but was the one who was the farthest from the microphone and was singing the songs in a higher pitch to blend in with Elvis.
On December 4, 1956, Elvis Presley dropped in on studio owner Sam Phillips to pay a social visit while Carl Perkins was in the studio cutting new tracks, with Jerry Lee Lewis backing him on piano. Cash was also in the studio and the four started an impromptujam session. Phillips left the tapes running and the recordings, almost half of which were gospel songs, survived and have since been released under the title Million Dollar Quartet.
Cash's next record, "Folsom Prison Blues", made the country Top 5, and "I Walk the Line" became No. 1 on the country charts and entered the pop charts Top 20. "Home of the Blues" followed, recorded in July 1957. That same year Cash became the first Sun artist to release a long-playing album. Although he was Sun's most consistently selling and prolific artist at that time, Cash felt constrained by his contract with the small label partly due to the fact that Phillips wasn't keen on Johnny recording gospel, and he was only getting a 3% royalty as opposed to the standard rate of 5%. Presley had already left Sun, and Phillips was focusing most of his attention and promotion on Lewis. The following year Cash left the label to sign a lucrative offer with Columbia Records, where his single "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" became one of his biggest hits.
In the early 1960s, Cash toured with the Carter Family, which by this time regularly included Mother Maybelle's daughters, Anita, June and Helen. June, whom Cash would eventually marry, later recalled admiring him from afar during these tours. In the 1960s he appeared on Pete Seeger's short lived Rainbow Quest.[57]
He also acted in a 1961 film entitled Five Minutes to Live, later re-released as Door-to-door Maniac. He also wrote and sang the opening theme.
As his career was taking off in the late 1950s, Cash started drinking heavily and became addicted to amphetamines and barbiturates. For a brief time, he shared an apartment in Nashville with Waylon Jennings, who was heavily addicted to amphetamines. Cash used the uppers to stay awake during tours. Friends joked about his "nervousness" and erratic behavior, many ignoring the warning signs of his worsening drug addiction. In a behind-the-scenes look at The Johnny Cash Show, Cash claims to have "tried every drug there was to try."
Although in many ways spiraling out of control, Cash's frenetic creativity was still delivering hits. His rendition of "Ring of Fire" was a crossover hit, reaching No. 1 on the country charts and entering the Top 20 on the pop charts. The song was written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore. The song was originally performed by June's sister, but the signature mariachi-style horn arrangement was provided by Cash, who said that it had come to him in a dream.
In June 1965, his truck caught fire due to an overheated wheel bearing, triggering a forest fire that burnt several hundred acres in Los Padres National Forest in California.[58][59] When the judge asked Cash why he did it, Cash said, "I didn't do it, my truck did, and it's dead, so you can't question it."[39] The fire destroyed 508 acres (206 ha), burning the foliage off three mountains and killing 49 of the refuge's 53 endangered condors. Cash was unrepentant: "I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards." The federal government sued him and was awarded $125,172 ($923,127 today). Cash eventually settled the case and paid $82,001.[60] He said he was the only person ever sued by the government for starting a forest fire.[39]
Although Cash carefully cultivated a romantic outlaw image, he never served a prison sentence. Despite landing in jail seven times for misdemeanors, each stay lasted only a single night. His most infamous run-in with the law occurred while on tour in 1965, when he was arrested October 4 by a narcotics squad in El Paso, Texas. The officers suspected that he was smuggling heroin from Mexico, but it was 688 Dexedrine capsules and 475 Equanil tablets that the singer had hidden inside his guitar case. Because they were prescription drugs rather than illegal narcotics, he received a suspended sentence.
Cash was later arrested on May 11, 1965, in Starkville, Mississippi, for trespassing late at night onto private property to pick flowers. (This incident gave the spark for the song "Starkville City Jail", which he spoke about on his live At San Quentin prison album.)
In the mid 1960s, Cash released a number of concept albums, including Ballads Of the True West (1965), an experimental double record mixing authentic frontier songs with Cash's spoken narration, and Bitter Tears (1964), with songs highlighting the plight of the Native Americans. His drug addiction was at its worst at this point, and his destructive behavior led to a divorce from his first wife and canceled performances.
Johnny Cash's final arrest was in Walker County, Georgia where he was taken in after being involved in a car accident while carrying a bag of prescription pills. Cash attempted to bribe a local deputy, who turned the money down, and then spent the night in a LaFayette, Georgia jail. The singer was released after a long talk with Sheriff Ralph Jones, who warned him of his dangerous behavior and wasted potential. Johnny credited that experience for saving his life, and he later came back to LaFayette to play a benefit concert that attracted 12,000 people (the city population was less than 9,000 at the time) and raised $75,000 for the high school.[61]
Cash curtailed his use of drugs for several years in 1968, after a spiritual epiphany in the Nickajack Cave, when he attempted to commit suicide while under the heavy influence of drugs. He descended deeper into the cave, trying to lose himself and "just die", when he passed out on the floor. He reported to be exhausted and feeling at the end of his rope when he felt God's presence in his heart and managed to struggle out of the cave (despite the exhaustion) by following a faint light and slight breeze. To him, it was his own rebirth. June, Maybelle, and Ezra Carter moved into Cash's mansion for a month to help him conquer his addiction. Cash proposed onstage to June at a concert at the London Gardens in London, Ontario on February 22, 1968; the couple married a week later (on March 1) in Franklin, Kentucky. June had agreed to marry Cash after he had "cleaned up".[62] He rediscovered his Christian faith, taking an "altar call" in Evangel Temple, a small church in the Nashville area, pastored by Rev. Jimmie Rodgers Snow, son of country music legend Hank Snow.
According to longtime friend Marshall Grant, Cash's 1968 rebirth experience did not result in his completely stopping use of amphetamines. However, in 1970, Cash ended all drug use for a period of seven years. Grant claims that the birth of Cash's son, John Carter Cash, inspired Cash to end his dependence. Cash began using amphetamines again in 1977. By 1983, he was once again addicted, and entered the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage, California for rehabilitation. Cash managed to stay off drugs for several years, but by 1989, he was dependent again and entered Nashville's Cumberland Heights Alcohol and Drug Treatment Center. In 1992, he entered the Loma Linda Behavioural Medicine Centre in Loma Linda, California for his final rehabilitation (several months later, his son followed him into this facility for treatment).[63][64][65]
Cash felt great compassion for prisoners. He began performing concerts at various prisons starting in the late 1950s. His first ever prison concert was held on January 1, 1958 at San Quentin State Prison.[66] These performances led to a pair of highly successful live albums, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968) and Johnny Cash at San Quentin (1969).
The Folsom Prison record was introduced by a rendition of his classic "Folsom Prison Blues", while the San Quentin record included the crossover hit single "A Boy Named Sue", a Shel Silverstein-penned novelty song that reached No. 1 on the country charts and No. 2 on the U.S. Top Ten pop charts. The AM versions of the latter contained a couple of profanities which were edited out. The modern CD versions are unedited and uncensored and thus also longer than the original vinyl albums, though they still retain the audience reaction overdubs of the originals.
In addition to his performances at U.S. prisons, Cash also performed at the Österåker Prison in Sweden in 1972. The live album På Österåker ("At Österåker") was released in 1973. Between the songs, Cash can be heard speaking Swedish, which was greatly appreciated by the inmates.
From 1969 to 1971, Cash starred in his own television show, The Johnny Cash Show, on the ABC network. The Statler Brothers opened up for him in every episode; the Carter Family and rockabilly legend Carl Perkins were also part of the regular show entourage. However, Cash also enjoyed booking more mainstream performers as guests; such notables included Neil Young, Louis Armstrong, Kenny Rogers and The First Edition (who appeared a record four times on his show), James Taylor, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton (then leading Derek and the Dominos), and Bob Dylan. During the same period, he contributed the title song and other songs to the film Little Fauss and Big Halsey, which starred Robert Redford, Michael J. Pollard, and Lauren Hutton. The title song, The Ballad of Little Fauss and Big Halsey, written by Carl Perkins, was nominated for a Golden Globe award.
Cash had met with Dylan in the mid 1960s and became closer friends when they were neighbors in the late 1960s in Woodstock, New York. Cash was enthusiastic about reintroducing the reclusive Dylan to his audience. Cash sang a duet with Dylan on Dylan's country album Nashville Skyline and also wrote the album's Grammy-winning liner notes.
Another artist who received a major career boost from The Johnny Cash Show was songwriter Kris Kristofferson, who was beginning to make a name for himself as a singer/songwriter. During a live performance of Kristofferson's "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", Cash refused to change the lyrics to suit network executives, singing the song with its references to marijuana intact: "On a Sunday morning sidewalk / I'm wishin', Lord, that I was stoned."[67]
By the early 1970s, he had crystallized his public image as "The Man in Black". He regularly performed dressed all in black, wearing a long black knee-length coat. This outfit stood in contrast to the costumes worn by most of the major country acts in his day: rhinestone suit and cowboy boots. In 1971, Cash wrote the song "Man in Black", to help explain his dress code: "We're doing mighty fine I do suppose / In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes / But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back / Up front there ought to be a man in black."
Cash attired in black performing in Bremen, Northern Germany, in September 1972
He wore black on behalf of the poor and hungry, on behalf of "the prisoner who has long paid for his crime",[68] and on behalf of those who have been betrayed by age or drugs.[68] "And," Cash added, "with the Vietnam War as painful in my mind as it was in most other Americans', I wore it 'in mournin' for the lives that could have been.' ... Apart from the Vietnam War being over, I don't see much reason to change my position ... The old are still neglected, the poor are still poor, the young are still dying before their time, and we're not making many moves to make things right. There's still plenty of darkness to carry off."[68]
He and his band had initially worn black shirts because that was the only matching color they had among their various outfits.[39] He wore other colors on stage early in his career, but he claimed to like wearing black both on and off stage. He stated that, political reasons aside, he simply liked black as his on-stage color.[39] To this day, the US Navy's winter blue uniform is referred to by sailors as "Johnny Cashes", as the uniform's shirt, tie, and trousers are solid black.[69]
In the mid 1970s, Cash's popularity and number of hit songs began to decline. He made commercials for Amoco, an unpopular enterprise in an era in which oil companies made high profits while consumers suffered through high gasoline prices and shortages. However, his autobiography (the first of two), titled Man in Black, was published in 1975 and sold 1.3 million copies. A second, Cash: The Autobiography, appeared in 1997. His friendship with Billy Graham led to the production of a film about the life of Jesus, The Gospel Road, which Cash co-wrote and narrated.
He also continued to appear on television, hosting an annual Christmas special on CBS throughout the 1970s. Later television appearances included a role in an episode of Columbo (Swan Song). He also appeared with his wife on an episode of Little House on the Prairie entitled "The Collection" and gave a performance as John Brown in the 1985 American Civil War television mini-series North and South. Johnny and June also appeared in Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman (TV series) as a recurring couple. Cash also had a starring role in a Columbo film.
He was friendly with every US President starting with Richard Nixon. He was closest to Jimmy Carter, with whom he became close friends.[39] He stated that he found all of them personally charming, noting that this was probably essential to getting oneself elected.[39]
When invited to perform at the White House for the first time in 1970,[70] Richard Nixon's office requested that he play "Okie from Muskogee" (a satirical Merle Haggard song about people who despised youthful drug users and war protesters) and "Welfare Cadillac" (a Guy Drake song which denies the integrity of welfare recipients). Cash declined to play either and instead selected other songs, including "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" (about a brave Native AmericanWorld War II veteran who was mistreated upon his return to Arizona), and his own compositions, "What Is Truth" and "Man in Black". Cash wrote that the reasons for denying Nixon's song choices were not knowing them and having fairly short notice to rehearse them, rather than any political reason.[39] However, Cash added, even if Nixon's office had given Cash enough time to learn and rehearse the songs, their choice of pieces that conveyed "antihippie and antiblack" sentiments might have backfired.[71]
In 1980, Cash became the Country Music Hall of Fame's youngest living inductee at age 48, but during the 1980s his records failed to make a major impact on the country charts, although he continued to tour successfully. In the mid 1980s, he recorded and toured with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson as The Highwaymen, making three hit albums which were released beginning with the originally titled "Highwaymen" in 1985, followed by "Highwaymen 2" in 1990, and concluding with "Highwaymen - The Road Goes on forever" in 1995.
During that period, Cash appeared in a number of television films. In 1981, he starred in The Pride of Jesse Hallam, winning fine reviews for a film that called attention to adult illiteracy. In the same year, Cash appeared as a "very special guest star" in an episode of the Muppet Show. In 1983, he appeared as a heroic sheriff in Murder in Coweta County, based on a real-life Georgia murder case, which co-starred Andy Griffith as his nemesis. Cash had tried for years to make the film, for which he won acclaim.
Cash relapsed into addiction after being administered painkillers for a serious abdominal injury in 1983 caused by an unusual incident in which he was kicked and wounded by an ostrich he kept on his farm.[72]
At a hospital visit in 1988, this time to watch over Waylon Jennings (who was recovering from a heart attack), Jennings suggested that Cash have himself checked into the hospital for his own heart condition. Doctors recommended preventive heart surgery, and Cash underwent double bypass surgery in the same hospital. Both recovered, although Cash refused to use any prescription painkillers, fearing a relapse into dependency. Cash later claimed that during his operation, he had what is called a "near death experience". He said he had visions of Heaven that were so beautiful that he was angry when he woke up alive.[citation needed]
Cash's recording career and his general relationship with the Nashville establishment were at an all-time low in the 1980s. He realized that his record label of nearly 30 years, Columbia, was growing indifferent to him and was not properly marketing him (he was "invisible" during that time, as he said in his autobiography). Cash recorded an intentionally awful song to protest, a self-parody.[citation needed] "Chicken in Black" was about Cash's brain being transplanted into a chicken. Ironically, the song turned out to be a larger commercial success than any of his other recent material. Nevertheless, he was hoping to kill the relationship with the label before they did, and it was not long after "Chicken in Black" that Columbia and Cash parted ways.
In 1986, Cash returned to Sun Studios in Memphis to team up with Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins to create the album Class of '55. Also in 1986, Cash published his only novel, Man in White, a book about Saul and his conversion to become the Apostle Paul. He also recorded Johnny Cash Reads The Complete New Testament in 1990.
His career was rejuvenated in the 1990s, leading to popularity with an audience not traditionally interested in country music. In 1991, he sang a version of "Man in Black" for the Christian punk band One Bad Pig's album I Scream Sunday. In 1993, he sang "The Wanderer" on U2's album Zooropa. Although no longer sought after by major labels, he was offered a contract with producer Rick Rubin's American Recordings label, better known for rap and hard rock.
Under Rubin's supervision, he recorded American Recordings (1994) in his living room, accompanied only by his Martin Dreadnought guitar – one of many Cash played throughout his career.[73] The album featured covers of contemporary artists selected by Rubin and had much critical and commercial success, winning a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Cash wrote that his reception at the 1994 Glastonbury Festival was one of the highlights of his career. This was the beginning of a decade of music industry accolades and commercial success. Cash teamed up with Brooks & Dunn to contribute "Folsom Prison Blues" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. On the same album, he performed the Bob Dylan favorite "Forever Young".
In 1997, Cash was diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease Shy-Drager syndrome, a form of multiple system atrophy. The diagnosis was later altered to autonomic neuropathy associated with diabetes. This illness forced Cash to curtail his touring. He was hospitalized in 1998 with severe pneumonia, which damaged his lungs. The albums American III: Solitary Man (2000) and American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002) contained Cash's response to his illness in the form of songs of a slightly more somber tone than the first two American albums. The video that was released for "Hurt", a cover of the song by Nine Inch Nails, fits Cash's view of his past and feelings of regret. The video for the song, from American IV, is now generally recognized as "his epitaph,"[74] and received particular critical and popular acclaim.
Cash's grave (top) and the Cash/Carter memorial (bottom)
June Carter Cash died on May 15, 2003, at the age of 73. June had told Cash to keep working, so he continued to record, completing 60 more songs in the last four months of his life, and even performed a couple of surprise shows at the Carter Family Fold outside Bristol, Virginia. At the July 5, 2003, concert (his last public performance), before singing "Ring of Fire", Cash read a statement about his late wife that he had written shortly before taking the stage:
The spirit of June Carter overshadows me tonight with the love she had for me and the love I have for her. We connect somewhere between here and heaven. She came down for a short visit, I guess, from heaven to visit with me tonight to give me courage and inspiration like she always has.
Cash died of complications from diabetes at approximately 2:00 a.m. CT on September 12, 2003, while hospitalized at Baptist Hospital in Nashville - less than four months after his wife. It was suggested that Johnny's health worsened due to a broken heart over June's death.[75][76] He was buried next to his wife in Hendersonville Memory Gardens near his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
On May 24, 2005, Vivian Liberto, Cash's first wife and the mother of Rosanne Cash and three other daughters, died from surgery to remove lung cancer at the age of 71. It was her daughter Rosanne's 50th birthday.[77]
In June 2005, Cash's lakeside home on Caudill Drive in Hendersonville was put up for sale by his estate. In January 2006, the house was sold to Bee Gees vocalist Barry Gibb and wife Linda and titled in their Florida limited liability company for $2.3 million. The listing agent was Cash's younger brother, Tommy Cash. During a major restoration of the property by the new owner, Cash's home was accidentally destroyed by workers using linseed oil products in a spontaneous combustion-ignited fire on April 10, 2007.[78]
One of Cash's final collaborations with producer Rick Rubin, entitled American V: A Hundred Highways, was released posthumously on July 4, 2006. The album debuted in the No.1 position on the Billboard Top 200 album chart for the week ending July 22, 2006.
On February 23, 2010, three days before what would have been Cash's 78th birthday, the Cash Family, Rick Rubin, and Lost Highway Records released his second posthumous record, titled American VI: Ain't No Grave.
From his early days as a pioneer of rockabilly and rock and roll in the 1950s, to his decades as an international representative of country music, to his resurgence to fame in the 1990s as a living legend and an alternative country icon, Cash influenced countless artists and left a large body of work. Upon his death, Cash was revered by the greatest popular musicians of his time. His rebellious image and often anti-authoritarian stance influenced punk rock.[79][80]
Cash nurtured and defended artists on the fringes of what was acceptable in country music even while serving as the country music establishment's most visible symbol. At an all-star concert which aired in 1999 on TNT, a diverse group of artists paid him tribute, including Bob Dylan, Chris Isaak, Wyclef Jean, Norah Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Dom DeLuise and U2. Cash himself appeared at the end and performed for the first time in more than a year. Two tribute albums were released shortly before his death; Kindred Spirits contains works from established artists, while Dressed in Black contains works from many lesser-known artists.
In total, he wrote over 1,000 songs and released dozens of albums. A box set titled Unearthed was issued posthumously. It included four CDs of unreleased material recorded with Rubin as well as a Best of Cash on American retrospective CD.
In recognition of his lifelong support of SOS Children's Villages, his family invited friends and fans to donate to that charity in his memory. He had a personal link with the SOS village in Diessen, at the Ammersee Lake in Southern Germany, near where he was stationed as a GI, and also with the SOS village in Barrett Town, by Montego Bay, near his holiday home in Jamaica.[81] The Johnny Cash Memorial Fund was founded.[82]
In a tribute to Cash after his death, country music singer Gary Allan included the song "Nickajack Cave (Johnny Cash's Redemption)" on his 2005 album entitled Tough All Over. The song chronicles Cash hitting rock bottom and subsequently resurrecting his life and career.
The main street in Hendersonville, Tennessee, Highway 31E, is known as "Johnny Cash Parkway"; the Johnny Cash Museum is located in the town.
On November 2–4, 2007, the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival was held in Starkville, Mississippi. Starkville, where Cash was arrested over 40 years earlier and held overnight at the city jail on May 11, 1965, inspired Cash to write the song "Starkville City Jail". The festival, where he was offered a symbolic posthumous pardon, honored Cash's life and music, and was expected to become an annual event.[85]
JC Unit One, Johnny Cash's private tour bus from 1980 until 2003, was put on exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum in 2007. The Cleveland, Ohio museum offers public tours of the bus on a seasonal basis (it is stored during the winter months and not exhibited during those times).
The Canada Trust company used his name and images for their Johnny Cash automatic bank machines during the late 80s and early 90s.
In 1998, country singer Mark Collie was the first to portray Cash, in the short film, I Still Miss Someone.
In November of 2005, Walk the Line, an Academy Award-winning biopic about Cash's life starring Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny (for which he was nominated for the 2005 Best Actor Oscar) and Reese Witherspoon as June (for which she won the 2005 Best Actress Oscar), was released in the United States on to considerable commercial success and critical acclaim. Both Phoenix and Witherspoon have won various other awards for their roles, including the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, respectively. They both performed their own vocals in the film, and Phoenix learned to play guitar for his role as Cash. Phoenix received the Grammy Award for his contributions to the soundtrack. John Carter Cash, the first child of Johnny and June, served as an executive producer on the film.
On April 11, 2010, Million Dollar Quartet, a musical portraying the early Sun recording sessions involving Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins, debuted on Broadway. Actor Lance Guest portrayed Cash. The musical was nominated for three awards at the 2010 Tony Awards, and won one.
Cash received multiple Country Music Association Awards, Grammys, and other awards, in categories ranging from vocal and spoken performances to album notes and videos.
In a career that spanned almost five decades during which he rose to recording industry icon status, Cash was the personification of country music to many people around the world. Cash was a musician who was not tied to a single genre. He recorded songs that could be considered rock and roll, blues, rockabilly, folk, and gospel, and exerted an influence on each of those genres. Moreover, he had the unique distinction among country artists of having "crossed over" late in his career to become popular with an unexpected audience, young indie and alternative rock fans. His diversity was evidenced by his presence in three major music halls of fame: the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1977), the Country Music Hall of Fame (1980), and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1992). Only thirteen performers are in both of the last two, and only Hank Williams Sr., Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills, and Bill Monroe share the honor with Cash of being in all three. However, only Cash was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the regular manner, unlike the other country members, who were inducted as "early influences." His pioneering contribution to the genre has also been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.[86] He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1996. Cash stated that his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, in 1980, was his greatest professional achievement. In 2001, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.[87] He was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for best cinematography for "Hurt" and was supposed to appear, but died during the night.
In 2007, Cash was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.[88]
^Although Cash's voice type endured over the years, his timbre changed noticeably: "Through a recording career that stretche[d] back to 1955", Pareles writes, Cash's "bass-baritone voice [went] from gravelly to grave".
^Dickie M (2002). "Hard talk from the God-fearin, pro-metal man in Black". In M Streissguth (Ed.), Ring of fire: The Johnny Cash reader. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, pp. 201–205. Original work published 1987.
^For Cash, black stage attire was a "symbol of rebellion—against a stagnant status quo, against ... hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others' ideas"; Cash J; Carr P (2003). Cash: The Autobiography. San Francisco: HarperCollins, p. 64.
^Schultz B (2000, July 1). "Classic Tracks: Johnny Cash's 'Folsom Prison Blues'". Mix. Retrieved March 22, 2010. Schultz refers to this phrase as Cash's "trademark greeting", and places his utterance of this line, on Cash's At Folsom Prison, album "among the most electrifying [seconds] in the history of concert recording."
^For additional quotations by Johnny Cash, consult the Johnny Cash page at Wikiquote,
^Other appraisals of Cash's iconic value have been even bolder. Clapp (2008) writes: "Very few figures in recent history are seen as more representative of American identity as Cash ... His has often been suggested as the face that should be added to the select pantheon on Mt. Rushmore", p. xvi.
^For example, Urbanski (2003, p. 39) notes that Cash's habit of performing in black attire began in a church. In the following paragraph, Urbanski (pp. 39–40) quotes Cash (cf. Cash & Carr, 2003, p. 64) as indicating that this habit was partially reflective of Cash's rebellion "against our hypocritical houses of God".
^Urbanski D (2010). "Johnny Cash's complicated faith: Unwrapping the enigma of the Man in Black". Relevant Magazine. Retrieved March 22, 2010. According to Urbanski, Cash's self-perception was accurate: "He never intended to be categorized or pigeonholed", and indeed he amassed a "cluster of enigmas" which "was so impenetrably deep that even those closest to him never got to see every part of him".
^Huss J; Werther D (Eds.) (2008). Johnny Cash and philosophy: The burning ring of truth. Chicago: Open Court.
Dara Singh (Gurumukhi:ਦਾਰਾ ਸਿੰਘ, Birth: 19 November 1928[2]Place: Village Dharmoochak District Amritsar) is a wrestler and Indian film actor. He was born in a Jat Sikh family of Punjabi background. His full name is Dara Singh Randhava.
He was a wrestler before he started acting in Hindi films in 1962.[3]
Dara Singh was born to Balwant Kaur and Surat Singh Randhawa on 19 November 1928[2] in the village Dharmuchak of Amritsar district in Punjab. He was encouraged in wrestling due to his massive physique. He worked at his Farm as a kid.He was encouraged to study Pehlwani, an Indian style of wrestling, in the milked sand wrestling pits called akhara. Dara Singh was a favourite in wrestling tournaments in India. In addition to this, he wrestled on invitation of kings of Indian princely states and wrestled frequently in haats and melas (fairs and carnivals). He successfully competed against some of the greatest names in wrestling history and professional wrestlers in the United States.
Dara went to Singapore in 1947. Became the Champion of Malaysia (Indian style wrestling) by defeating Tarlok Singh in Kuala Lumpur. He has toured almost all far-east countries as a Professional Wrestler. Dara Singh returned to India in 1952 and became the Indian Champion in 1954.
He has toured all Commonwealth countries and defeated Oriental Champion King Kong, George Gordienko (Canada), John Desilva (New Zealand) and numerous more. He became the Commonwealth Champion in 1959.[5]
He has toured in most of the wrestling countries and fought their champions. He defeated Lou Thesz (America) and became Champion of the World on 29 May 1968. He again visited countries world-wide and defended title of The World Champion. Dara Singh retired from the wrestling arena in 1983, Undefeated.
His top fights include Champion of Pakistan Mazid Akra, Shane Ali and Tariq Ali (Pakistan), prince Kumali (Champion of Africa), Japanese Great Rikidozan, European Champion Bill Robinson, Champion of England Patroch. David Taylor, Danny Lynch, Man Mountain Jack, Caswell Jack, George Burgers, Sky Hi, Lee and innumerable more. He is the only Professional who has defeated all his rival Champions in their home crowd.
Dara Singh includes over 500 professional fights to his credit, all undefeated. Most of Former Indian Prime Ministers have visited his fights, including Shri JawaharLal Nehru ji, Chaudhary Charan Singh Ji, Shri Morarji Desai, Shri Chandrashekhar, Shri Rajiv Gandhi. President of India Shri Giani Zail Singh has also visited his fights. His series of fights with Lou Thesz, King Kong and others are still cherished today.
His Last tournament where he announced his retirement was held in Delhi, Inaugrated by Shri Rajiv Gandhi and the winning trophy was presented by Shri Giani Zail Singh Ji. He remains as the Action King of Bollywood of the 1960s and 1970s, and believed to have started the trend of Taking the shirt off. He is included in the wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of fame. He made a large number of Hindi films which had him in the lead. One of his notable finds was the actress Mumtaz with whom he had performed in 16 Hindi films. He then went on to television in the 1980s and 1990s where he played the role of Hanuman in the television adaptation of the Hindu epic Ramayan. He worked in some television serial shows, including Had Kar Di which was aired on Zee TV. He has acted in over 100 films. His latest Hindi movie is Jab We Met and his latest Punjabi movie is Dil Apna Punjabi. He acted in National Award winner film Main Maa Punjab Dee (Director Balwant Singh Dullat).
Singh is also the owner of prestigious Dara Studio[7] at Mohali, distric roppar Punjab. Dara Film Studio was founded in 1978.also dara palce in mohali The Studio is operational from 1980 as film studio. Dara Studio is a self-contained mini-city with every facility within the compound. They are a fully equipped Studio with Camera, Camera Equipment, Nagra Lights and all type of Extra Equipment like Stands, Trolleys, Cables for filming Movies, Serials & Pop Albums throughout North India.[8]
Although most of the major achievements have been covered hereinabove yet some significant awards and accomplishments to Dara Singh are appended below.
National Wrestling Alliance:
Canadian Open Tag Team Champion (1 time) – with Yukon Eric
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi became a disciple and assistant of SwamiBrahmananda Saraswati, the Shankaracharya (spiritual leader) of Jyotirmath in the Indian Himalayas. The Maharishi credits Brahmananda Saraswati with inspiring his teachings. By 1955, the Maharishi had introduced the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique and other related programmes and initiatives to the world. His first global tour began in 1958.[7]
He began to be known as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi around the year 1955.[8] His devotees referred to him as His Holiness,[9] and because he often laughed in TV interviews he publicly became known as the "giggling guru".[10][11][12]
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Maharishi achieved fame as the guru to The Beatles and other celebrities. He started the TM-Sidhi programme, in the late 1970s that claimed to offer practitioners the ability to levitate and to create world peace.[13] The Maharishi's Natural Law Party was founded in 1992, and ran campaigns in dozens of countries. He moved to MERU, Holland, near Vlodrop, the Netherlands, in the same year.[14] In 2000, he created the Global Country of World Peace, a country without borders, and appointed its leaders. In 2008, the Maharishi announced his retirement from all administrative activities and went into silence until his death three weeks later.[15]
The Maharishi is reported to have trained more than 40,000 TM teachers, taught the Transcendental Meditation technique to "more than five million people" and founded thousands of teaching centers and hundreds of colleges, universities and schools, [16][17][18] while TM websites report tens of thousands learned the TM-Sidhi program. His initiatives include schools and universities with campuses in several countries including India, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.[19] The Maharishi, his family and close associates created charitable organisations and for-profit businesses including health clinics, mail-order health supplements and organic farms. The reported value of the Maharishi's organization has ranged from the millions to billions of dollars and in 2008, the organization placed the value of their United States assets at about $300 million.[16]
The birth name, birth date, and caste of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi are not known with certainty, in part because of the tradition of ascetics and monks to renounce family connections.[20] Many accounts say he was born Mahesh Prasad Varma (Hindi: महेश प्रसाद वर्मा) into a family[21][22] living in the Central Provinces of British India.[23] A different name appears in the Allahabad University list of distinguished alumni, where he is listed as M.C. Srivastava.[24] Srivastava is the name of his nephews and cousins,[20] and an obituary says his name was "Mahesh Srivastava".[25]
Various accounts give the year of his birth as 1911, 1917 or 1918.[12] Biographies by Paul Mason and William Jefferson say that he was born 12 January, 1917 in Jabalpur, Central Provinces. The place of birth given in his passport is "Pounalulla", India and his birth date as 12 January 1918. Mahesh's father is identified as a local tax official in the civil service.[12][26] One source says he worked in the department of forestry.[23] While a few sources say Mahesh came from a lower-caste family,[27] the predominant view is that he was a member of the Kayasthacaste, a high-status caste whose traditional profession is writing.[28]
Mahesh studied physics at Allahabad University and earned a degree in 1942. Some accounts say that he worked in a factory following graduation.[29][30] In 1941, he became an administrative secretary to the Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, Swami [[Brahmananda Saraswati] ] (also known as Guru Dev), and took a new name, Bal Brahmachari Mahesh.[31][32] Coplin refers to bala brahmachari as both a title and a name, and considers that it "identified him as a fully dedicated student of spiritual knowledge and life-long celibate ascetic".[32]The Maharishi recalls how it took about two and a half years to attune himself to the thinking of Brahmananda Saraswati and to gain "a very genuine feeling of complete oneness with Guru Dev".[33]
Brahmachari Mahesh remained with Swami Brahmananda Saraswati until the latter died in 1953, when he moved to Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand in the Himalayas. He was trusted to take care of the bulk of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati's correspondence without direction, and was also sent out to give public speeches on Vedic (scriptural) themes.[34] Although Brahmachari Mahesh was a close disciple, he could not be the Shankaracharya's spiritual successor because he was not of the Brahmincaste.[35][36] The Shankaracharya, at the end of his life, charged Brahmachari Mahesh with the responsibility of travelling and teaching meditation to the masses, while he named Swami Shantananda Saraswati as his successor.[37][38]
In 1955,[12][39][40][41] Brahmachari Mahesh left Uttarkashi and began publicly teaching what he stated was a traditional meditation technique[42] learned from his master Brahmananda Saraswati, and that he called Transcendental Deep Meditation. Later the technique was renamed Transcendental Meditation.[43] It was also then that he was first publicly known with the name "Maharishi" an honorific title meaning "great sage".[26][6]
He travelled around India for two years.[44][45] At that time, he called his movement the Spiritual Development Movement, but renamed it the Spiritual Regeneration Movement in 1957, in Madras, India, on the concluding day of the Seminar of Spiritual Luminaries.[12] According to J. Lynwood King, in his dissertation Fundamentals of Maharishi Vedic Science, the feedback Brahmachari Mahesh received from the diverse population that learned his technique suggested to him that it could be of wide benefit.[46] According to Coplin, in his visits to southern India, Mahesh spoke English rather than the Hindi spoken in his home area to avoid provoking resistance among those seeking linguistic self-determination, and to appeal to the "learned classes".[47]
In 1959, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi began his first world tour,[12][17] writing: "I had one thing in mind, that I know something which is useful to every man".[10]
The Maharishi's 1986 book, Thirty Years Around the World, gives a detailed account of his world tours, as does a later biography, The Maharishi by Paul Mason.[48] The first world tour began in Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar) and included the countries of Thailand, Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong and Hawaii.[49][50][51] The Honolulu Star Bulletin reported: "He has no money, he asks for nothing. His worldly possessions can be carried in one hand. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is on a world odyssey. He carries a message that he says will rid the world of all unhappiness and discontent."[52] In 1959, the Maharishi lectured and taught the Transcendental Meditation technique in Honolulu, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, New York and London.[17][49][53][54][55]
When the Maharishi came to the U.S. in 1959, his movement was renamed Transcendental Meditation.[10] That same year he began the International Meditation Society establishing centres in San Francisco and London.[26] Maharishi was a frequent guest at the Los Angeles home of Roland and Helena Olson and their daughter Theresa, who wrote several books about their experiences. He continued to visit the Olsons' home over the next few years.[49][56]
In 1960, the Maharishi travelled to many cities in India, France, Switzerland, England, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Africa.[57][58] He lectured, taught the Transcendental Meditation technique, and established administrative centres where practitioners could gather for meetings in his absence.[citation needed]
While in Manchester, England, the Maharishi gave a television interview and was featured in many English newspapers such as the Birmingham Post, the Oxford Mail and the Cambridge Daily News.[59] This was also the year in which the Maharishi trained Henry Nyburg to be the first Transcendental Meditation teacher in Europe.[60][61]
In 1961, the Maharishi visited Austria, Sweden, France, Italy, Greece, India, Kenya, England, USA and Canada.[44][62] While in England, the Maharishi appeared on BBC television and gave a lecture to 5,000 people at the Royal Albert Hall in London.[44][63] In April 1961, the Maharishi conducted his first Transcendental Meditation Teacher Training Course in Rishikesh, India with sixty participants from various countries.[17][64] Teachers continued to be trained as time progressed.[65] During the course, Maharishi began to introduce additional knowledge regarding the development of human potential, and began writing his translation and commentary on the first six chapters of the ancient Vedic text, the Bhagavad Gita.[66][67]
At this time, the Maharishi began to recommend the daily practice of yoga exercises or asanas to accelerate growth through meditation. "For good health it is necessary for everyone to do something with the body so that it remain flexible and normal," Maharishi said. "The advantage of YOGA ASANAS over other eastern and western systems of physical posture is that they do not consume energy. They help restore life force, promote health and maintain normal conditions in the body." His organisation produced an introductory publication on yoga asanas in cooperation with a professor of yoga at the University of Travancore, India, K.B. Hari Krishna.[68]
His 1962 world tour included visits to Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand. The year concluded in California where the Maharishi began dictating his book The Science of Being and Art of Living.[69][70] In Rishikesh, India, beginning on 20 April 1962, a forty-day course was held for "sadhus, sanyasis, and brahmacharis" to introduce TM to "religious preachers and spiritual masters in India".[71]
The Maharishi toured cities in Europe, Asia, North America and India in 1963, and also addressed ministers of the Indian Parliament.[72][73] According to his memoirs, twenty-one members of parliament then issued a public statement endorsing the Maharishi's goals and meditation technique.[74] His Canadian tour[75] generated news articles in the magazine Enjoy and in the Daily Colonist, Calgary Herald and The Albertan.[76]
The Maharishi's fifth world tour, in 1964, consisted of visits to many cities in North America, Europe and India.[77][78] During his visit to England, he appeared with the Abbot of Downside, Abbot Butler, on a BBC television show called "The Viewpoint".[79][80] In October of that year, in California, the Maharishi began teaching the first Advanced Technique of Transcendental Meditation to some experienced meditators.[81][82] While travelling in America, the Maharishi met with Robert Maynard Hutchins, the head of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, and U Thant, the Secretary General of the United Nations.[83][84] During this same year, the Maharishi finished his book The Science of Being and Art of Living, which sold more than a million copies and was published in fifteen languages.[85]
In 1966, the Maharishi founded the Students' International Meditation Society, which The Los Angeles Times later characterised as a "phenomenal success".[12][86]
In 1967, the Maharishi gave a lecture at Caxton Hall in London which was attended by Pattie Boyd, George Harrison's wife,[26] as well as Leon MacLaren, the founder and leader of the School of Economic Science (SES).[34] That same year, an article in Time magazine called the Maharishi the "soothsayer for everyman" and reported that he "has been sharply criticised by other Indian sages, who complain that his program for spiritual peace without either penance or asceticism contravenes every traditional Hindu belief".[87] Religion and culture scholar Sean McCloud says that Newsweek reported that "many Indian sages contend that his rather simplified system of meditation is without basis in the Bhagavad-Gita—the epic poem that is Hinduism’s most exalted scripture". McCloud also writes that Look magazine "asserted that tradition-minded gurus, angrily citing the Bhagavad Gita, say that self-abnegation and suffering along with rigid concentration are the prescribed pathway to Enlightenment", in contrast to the Maharishi's "belief that Enlightenment was compatible with active living and easily available to everyone."[88]
In 1967, the Maharishi's fame increased and his movement "really took off" when he became the "spiritual advisor to The Beatles".[85][89]The Beatles met him for the first time in London in August 1967, and studied with him in Bangor, Wales, before travelling to Rishikesh, India in February 1968 to "devote themselves fully to his instruction".[90]Starr and his wife Maureen left after ten days because they missed their children and Ringo’s body was sensitive to the spicy food, perhaps attributable to his childhood illnesses.[90][91][92]McCartney left three weeks later. Both Beatles said later that they enjoyed the ashram experience and planned to continue with their meditation.[93]Lennon and Harrison departed two weeks later after hearing a rumour that the Maharishi had made sexual advances towards Mia Farrow and a few other women.[90][94]
Lennon wrote the song "Maharishi" (with the lines: "what have you done? You made a fool of everyone") as he was leaving.[95] George Harrison argued that the title was disrespectful and possibly libelous.[90][96] The title and lyrics were changed from "Maharishi" to "Sexy Sadie."[90][96] On the Tonight Show a few months later, Lennon said that "We believe in meditation, but not the Maharishi and his scene".[97] McCartney said The Beatles' association with the Maharishi was "a public mistake",[98] and Lennon "an error of judgment".[99][100]
The New York Times and The Independent reported that the influence of the Maharishi, and the journey to Rishikesh to meditate, weaned The Beatles from LSD and inspired them to write many new songs.[26][90] It was "an extraordinary period of creativity for them," during which they wrote almost all of the songs that would appear on both the White Album and Abbey Road, said biographer Barry Miles.[90][93]
Alexis Mardas, head of The Beatles' Apple Electronics, declared the Rishikesh ashram to be luxurious,[86] though Ringo Starr likened it to "a kind of spiritual Butlins",[101] a low-cost British holiday camp. Nancy Cooke de Herrera lists many privations and says, "Dripping pipes, broken windows, and dirty rooms seemed to be the common complaints."[102] She quotes the Maharishi as saying,"Our primitive conditions here are not good enough for Westerners; however, once they get into the bliss of good meditation, all else will be unimportant."[103]
Neil Aspinall, The Beatles' road manager, recalled his opinion in reference to obtaining rights for a feature film that "[t]his guy knows more about making deals than I do. He's really into scoring, the Maharishi".[86]
The New York Times reported in 2008 that Harrison and McCartney reconsidered the accusations. McCartney said that the rumours of sexual impropriety were raised by Alexis Mardas who "had agendas of his own, and may have fabricated (or at least exaggerated) the story".[90] In a press conference on April 3, 2009, prior to his performance at the David Lynch Foundation benefit concert "Change Begins Within", Paul McCartney commented that Transcendental Meditation was a gift The Beatles had received from Maharishi at a time when they were looking for something to stabilise them.[104] Harrison commented, "Now, historically, there's the story that something went on that shouldn't have done — but nothing did".[105] Farrow's autobiography is ambiguous about the incident: she describes "panicking" and fleeing after the Maharishi put his arms around her in a dark cave, immediately after a private meditation session.[106]Deepak Chopra, who met and became a "disciple of the Maharishi's" in the 1990s before later splitting, said in 2008 that the Maharishi had a "falling out with the rock stars when he discovered them using drugs".[89][107][108] In their obituaries of the Maharishi, Rolling Stone and Bloomberg news service stated that the rumour of impropriety was "unfounded" and never proven.[10][109][110] Yoko Ono said in 2008 that if Lennon were alive he probably would have reconciled with the Maharishi.[109]
The Maharishi during a 1979 visit to Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa.
In 1968, the Maharishi announced that he would stop his "public activities" and instead begin the training of TM teachers at his new global headquarters in Seelisberg, Switzerland.[86]
In 1970, the Maharishi held a TM teacher training course at a Victorian hotel located in Poland Springs, Maine with 1,200 participants. Later that year, he held a similar four-week course at Humboldt State College in Arcata, California. About 1,500 people attended and it was described as a "sort of a crash program to train transcendental teachers".[111] Following tax troubles in India, he moved his headquarters to Italy and then to Austria.[110] That same year, the City of Hope Foundation in Los Angeles gave the Maharishi their "Man of Hope" award.[112]
In 1971, the Maharishi held a press conference with American inventor, Buckminster Fuller, in Amherst Massachusetts.[113][114]
A 1972, a TM training course was given by the Maharishi at Queens University and attended by 1,000 young people from all over the USA and Canada. At the start of the course the Maharishi encouraged the attendees to improve their appearance by getting haircuts and wearing ties.[115]
In March 1973, Maharishi addressed the legislature of the state of Illinois. That same year, the legislature passed a resolution in support of the use of Maharishi’s Science of Creative Intelligence in Illinois public schools.[116][117]
In 1975, the Maharishi embarked on a five-continent trip to inaugurate what he called "the Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment". The Maharishi said the purpose of the inaugural tour was to "go around the country and give a gentle whisper to the population".[119][120] He visited Ottawa during this tour and had a private meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, during which he spoke about the principles of TM and "the possibility of structuring an ideal society."[121][122][123] That same year, the Pittsburg Press reported that “The Maharishi has been criticised by other Eastern yogis for simplifying their ancient art.”[124] The Maharishi appeared as a guest on The Merv Griffin Show in 1975 and again in 1977 and this resulted in "tens of thousands of new practitioners” around the USA.[12][125][126][127]
In the mid 1970s, the Maharishi's U.S. movement was operating 370 TM centres manned by 6,000 TM teachers.[10] At that time, the Maharishi also began approaching the business community via an organisation called the American Foundation for SCI (AFSCI), whose objective was to eliminate stress for business professionals. The Maharishi's message was a promise of "increased creativity and flexibility, increased productivity, improved job satisfaction, improved relations with supervisors and co-workers".[119] His TM movement came to be increasingly structured along the lines of a multinational corporation.[86]
The Maharishi's headquarters in Seelisberg, Switzerland
The teaching of TM and the Science of Creative Intelligence in a New Jersey public school was stopped when a US court, in 1977, declared the movement to be religious, and ruled adoption of TM by public organisations in breach of the separation of church and state (First Amendment).[128]
During the 1980s, the organisation continued to expand despite making claims that grew more and more outlandish and accusations of fraud from disaffected former disciples.[86] However, his meditation technique continued to attract celebrities.[10]
The Maharishi made a number of property investments with the funds he amassed. In England, he bought Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, Roydon Hall in Maidstone, Swythamley Park in the Peak District and a Georgian rectory in Suffolk.[86] In the United States, resorts and hotels, many in city centres, were purchased to be used as TM training centres. Doug Henning and the Maharishi planned a magical Vedic amusement park, Vedaland, and bought large tracts of land near Orlando, Florida and Niagara Falls, Ontario to host the park. The Maharishi commissioned plans from a prominent architect for the world's tallest building, a Vedic-style pyramid to be built in São Paulo, Brazil, and to be filled with Yogic Flyers and other TM endeavours.[129] In later years, the Maharishi directed the purchase of properties in locations such as islands and land at the geographic centre of the continental United States and other countries.[citation needed]
In January 1988, the Maharishi's offices in India were raided by Indian police, who reportedly confiscated cash, securities and jewels. News reports varied widely as to the dollar value of the goods seized. One source said $500,000,[130] while two others put the figure at $60,000 and $30,000, respectively.[131][132] A fourth newspaper article, quoting Maharishi's Age of Enlightenment News Service[133] reported that nothing at all of value was confiscated.[134] The raid occurred amidst a conflict with authorities over taxes and the movement was accused of lying about expenses.[135] The Maharishi moved out of India following the tax audit.[136] That same year the Maharishi created a "Master Plan to Create Heaven on Earth", a plan for reduced crime, longer life spans and increased prosperity and happiness.[110] Following an earthquake in Armenia, the Maharishi trained Russian TM teachers and set up a Maharishi Ayurveda training center in the Urals region.[137]
In 1990, the Maharishi relocated his headquarters from Seelisberg, Switzerland to a former Franciscan monastery in Vlodrop, the Netherlands, which became known as MERU, Holland on account of the Maharishi European Research University (MERU) campus there.[108][138] A building, called the "largest wooden structure" in the Netherlands, was built for Maharishi, reportedly at "vast expense".[139] During his time in Vlodrop, he communicated to the public mainly via video and the internet. He also created a subscription-based, satellite TV channel, called Veda Vision, which broadcast content in twenty-two languages and 144 countries.[86]
In 1991, the Maharishi called Washington D.C. a "pool of mud" after a decade of attempts to lower the rate of crime in the city, which had the second-largest TM community in the US. He told his followers to leave and save themselves from its "criminal atmosphere".[140] The Maharishi is believed to have made his final public appearance in 1991, in Maastricht, the Netherlands.[139]Deepak Chopra, described as "one of the Maharishi's top assistants before he launched his own career",[12] wrote that the Maharishi collapsed in 1991 with kidney and pancreas failure, that the illness was kept secret by the Maharishi's family and that he tended to Maharishi during a year-long recovery. According to Chopra, the Maharishi accused him, in July 1993, of trying to compete for the position of guru and asked him to stop travelling and writing books, which led to Chopra's decision to leave the movement in January 1994.[141]According to Mozambique's President Chissano, the result of inviting the Maharishi to Maputo in 1992 was balance and peace.[142]
The Maharishi inaugurated the Natural Law Party (NLP) as a means for achieving a "natural government" to enact his plans.[110] His adherents, led by Maharishi University of Management president Bevan Morris, founded the NLP in 1992.[143] It was active in forty-two countries.[144]John Hagelin, the NLP's three-time candidate for U.S. president, denied any formal connection between the Maharishi and the party.[145] The chief plank in the NLP's platform was funding the Maharishi's plan for thousands of Yogic Flyers who could create the Maharishi Effect and thereby insure invincibility for every nation.[146] According to spokesman Bob Roth, "The Maharishi has said the party has to grow to encompass everyone".[144] Critics charged that the party was an effort to recruit people for Transcendental Meditation,[147] and that it resembled "the political arm of an international corporation" more than a "home-grown political creation".[148] The Indian arm of the NLP, the Ajeya Bharat Party, achieved electoral success, winning one seat in a state assembly in 1998.[149] The Maharishi shut down the political effort in 2004, saying, "I had to get into politics to know what is wrong there."[150]
In 1992, the Maharishi began to send groups of Yogic Flyers to India, America, China and Brazil in an effort to increase global peace through a "coherent world consciousness".[110]
In 2000, the Maharishi founded the Global Country of World Peace (GCWP) "to create global world peace by unifying all nations in happiness, prosperity, invincibility and perfect health, while supporting the rich diversity of our world family".[22][151] The Maharishi crowned Tony Nader as the Maharaja (king) of the GCWP in 2000. The GCWP unsuccessfully attempted to establish a sovereign microstate when it offered USD 1.3 billion to the President of Suriname for a 200-year lease of 3,500 acres (14 km2) of land and in 2002, attempted to choose a king for the Talamanca, a "remote Indian reservation" in Costa Rica.[152][153]
In 2001, followers of the Maharishi founded Maharishi Vedic City a few miles north of Fairfield, Iowa in the United States. This new city requires that the construction of its homes and buildings be done according to the Maharishi Sthapatya Veda principles of "harmony with nature".[154]
In a 2002 appearance on the CNN show, Larry King Live, the first time in twenty-five years that the Maharishi had appeared in the mainstream media, he said "Transcendental Meditation is something that can be defined as a means to do what one wants to do in a better way, a right way, for maximum results".[85] It was occasioned by the reissue of the Maharishi's book The Science of Being and Art of Living.[155] That same year, the Maharishi Global Financing Research Foundation issued the "RAAM" as a currency "dedicated to financing peace promoting projects".[86]
In 2003, David Lynch began a fundraising project to raise USD 1 billion "on behalf of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi" to build a meditation centre large enough to hold 8,000 skilled practitioners.[156]
The Maharishi ordered a suspension of TM training in Britain in 2005 due to his opposition to Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to support the Iraq War.[157] The Maharishi said that he did not want to waste the "beautiful nectar" of TM on a "scorpion nation".[157][158] He lifted the ban after Blair's resignation in 2007.[159]
In 2007, the GCWP purchased the American Bank Note Company Building near the New York Stock Exchange for its Maharishi Global Financial Capital. Its purpose is to create funding that will support the construction of 3,000 "peace palaces" around the world.[10] The building was sold in 2010 for a $5.5 million profit.[160]
During this period, sceptics were critical of some of the Maharishi's programmes, such as a $10 trillion plan to end poverty through organic farming in poor countries and a $1 billion plan to use meditation groups to end conflict.[108] In 2008, BBC news reported that "The Maharishi's commercial mantras drew criticism from stricter Hindus, but his promises of better health, stress relief and spiritual enlightenment drew devotees from all over the world".[99][161]
Swami Swaroopananda Saraswati, Shankaracharya of Dwarka and one of three claimants to Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math told a German filmmaker in 2010 that "Mahesh Yogi instigated [Swami] Shantanand [Saraswati] to fight the court case" and that as a member of the trader class and Saraswati's bookkeeper, the Maharishi had no right to teach meditation or to give mantras, and that "Gurus don't sell their knowledge, they share it."[27][162] Other sources say that Maharishi worked closely with the Shankaracharya and was considered a "great disciple" and his "right (hand) man".[25][163] According to biographer Paul Mason, Swami Shantanand Saraswati (whom Brahmananda Saraswati had named as his successor) "publicly commended the practice of the Maharishi's meditation," referring to it as a 'master key to the knowledge of Vedanta.'[164] Sociologist J.R Coplin, who conducted interviews in India as part of his research on the TM organisation, says that Swami Shantanand's successor as Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, Swami Vishnudevanand, "speaks highly of Maharishi and sees his teaching as a reflection of their master's (Brahmananda Saraswati)".[165]
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, concerned about his health,[166] became increasingly secluded in two rooms of his residence.[108] He communicated with even his closest advisors by closed-circuit television.[22]
On January 12, 2008, the Maharishi declared: "It has been my pleasure at the feet of Guru Dev (Brahmananda Saraswati), to take the light of Guru Dev and pass it on in my environment. Now today, I am closing my designed duty to Guru Dev. And I can only say, 'Live long the world in peace, happiness, prosperity, and freedom from suffering.'"[167][168][169]
A week before his death, the Maharishi said that he was "stepping down as leader of the TM movement" and "retreating into silence" and that he planned to spend his remaining time studying "the ancient Indian texts".[85][89] Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died peacefully in his sleep of natural causes on February 5, 2008 at his residence in Vlodrop, Netherlands.[170] The cremation and funeral rites were conducted at the Maharishi's Allahabad ashram in India, overlooking the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.[171][172] The funeral, with state honours,[173] was carried by Sadhana TV station and was presided over by one of the claimants to the seat of Shankaracharya of the North, Swami Vasudevananda Saraswati Maharaj.[citation needed] Also in attendance were state and local officials, thirty-five Rajas of the Global Country of World Peace, one-time disciple Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and David Lynch.[174] A troop of uniformed policemen lowered their arms in salute.[174] A memorial building, the Maharishi Smarak, is now under construction near the same site. With a projected height of about 80 feet (24 m) and a golden roof topped with kalashas, it is expected to be "visible everywhere from the city of Prayag (Allahabad)".[175][176]
After his death, Indian spiritual guru and former disciple Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, said "Maharishi laid the foundation for a new world based on the knowledge of Vedas and spirituality" and that "there was none like him and none shall ever be again."[citation needed]Paul McCartney also commented saying that "Whilst I am deeply saddened by his passing, my memories of him will only be joyful ones. He was a great man who worked tirelessly for the people of the world and the cause of unity."[186]
The Maharishi was reported to be an entrepreneur, a monk and "a spiritual man who sought a world stage from which to espouse the joys of inner happiness". [16] Diminutive at a little over five feet tall, the Maharishi often wore a traditional cotton or silk, white dhoti and carrying or wearing flowers.[22] He often sat cross-legged on a deerskin and had a "grayish-white beard, mustache and long, dark, stringy hair".[22][187]Barry Miles described the Maharishi as having "liquid eyes, twinkling but inscrutable with the wisdom from the East".[93] Miles said the Maharishi was a man in his seventies who looked much younger than his age.[188] He had a high-pitched voice.[188] Newspapers, detractors, and even followers began often referred to him as the "Giggling Guru", in part due to his habit of laughing during television interviews.[157][189] TV personality Merv Griffin described him as having "a long flowing beard and a distinctive, high pitched laugh that I loved to provoke".[127]
The Maharishi attracted scepticism because of his involvement with wealthy celebrities, his business acumen, and his love of luxury, such as his habit of touring in a Rolls-Royce.[86] However, others have noted his comparative moderation, personally and financially. Said an Economist obituary: "He did not use his money for sinister ends. He neither drank, nor smoked, nor took drugs. . . . . He did not accumulate scores of Rolls-Royces, like Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh; his biggest self-indulgence was a helicopter."[190][191] And the Maharishi is also credited with helping to "inspire the anti-materialism of the late 60s".[17] When some observers questioned how his organisation’s money was being used, the Maharishi said, "It goes to support the centres, it does not go on me. I have nothing."[192]
During the wave of publicity surrounding the Beatles' attendance, an unsympathetic press lampooned the guru and the band. Private Eye ridiculed Yogi as "Veririchi Lotsamoney Yogi Bear".[26] The Maharishi was also parodied by comedians Bill Dana and Joey Forman in the 1968 comedy album "The Mashuganishi Yogi",[193] and by comedian Mike Myers in the film The Love Guru[194] and in the character "Charlatan His Serene Calmness the Guru Maharishi Yogi" featured in the BBC sketch show Goodness Gracious Me.[195]
Scientist and futurist Buckminister Fuller, after spending two days on the stage with Maharishi at a symposium at the University of Massachusetts in 1971, said, "You could not meet with Maharishi without recognizing instantly his integrity. You look in his eyes and there it is."[196] Authors Douglas E. Cowan and David G. Bromley write that the Maharishi did not claim any "special divine revelation nor supernatural personal qualities".[197]
When the Maharishi first began teaching he had three main aims: to revive the spiritual tradition in India, that meditation was for everyone and not just for recluses, and to show that Vedanta is compatible with science.[198] The Maharishi had a message of happiness, writing in 1967, that "being happy is of the utmost importance. Success in anything is through happiness. Under all circumstances be happy. Just think of any negativity that comes at you as a raindrop falling into the ocean of your bliss".[85] His philosophy featured the concept that "within everyone is an unlimited reservoir of energy, intelligence, and happiness".[17] He emphasised the naturalness of his meditation technique as a simple way of developing this potential.[199]
He also taught that practising Transcendental Meditation twice a day would create inner peace and that "mass meditation sessions" could create outer peace by reducing violence and war.[85] According to a TM website, the performance of yagyas by 7,000 pandits in India, plus hundreds of Yogic Flyers in Germany, brought "coherence and unity in the collective consciousness of Germany" and caused the fall of the Berlin Wall.[200] One religion scholar, Michael York, considers the Maharishi to have been the most articulate spokesman for the spiritual argument that a critical mass of people becoming enlightened through the practice of "meditation and yogic discipline" will trigger the New Age movement's hoped-for period of postmillennial "peace, harmony, and collective consciousness".[201]
Religious studies scholar Carl Olson writes that the TM technique was based on "a neo-Vedanta metaphysical philosophy in which an unchanging reality is opposed to an ever-changing phenomenal world" and that the Maharishi says it is not necessary to renounce worldly activities to gain enlightenment, unlike other ascetic traditions.[199]
Some religious studies scholars have further said that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is one of a number of Indian gurus who brought neo-Hindu adaptations of Vedantic Hinduism to the west.[202][203][204] Author Meera Nanda calls neo-Hinduism "the brand of Hinduism that is taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Deepak Chopra, and their clones".[205] J.R. Coplin, a sociologist and MIU graduate, says that the Maharishi saw his own purpose as "the 'revival' of the knowledge of an integrated life based upon Vedic principles and Vedantist reality".[32]
Author Barry Miles writes that, in spite of the media's scepticism for the Maharishi's spiritual message, they seized upon him because young people seemed to listen to his pro-establishment, anti-drug message.[93]
During a CNN interview in 2002, the Maharishi said "Transcendental meditation is something that can be defined as a means to do what one wants to do in a better way, a right way, for maximum results".[85] Over a thirty-year period, the Maharishi held many advanced, in-residence courses and assemblies in North America, India and Europe for practitioners of the Transcendental Meditation technique. These courses consisted of long meditation sessions, lectures by Maharishi, discussions based on personal experiences of meditation, questions from course participants, and organisational meetings. This type of in-residence course style continues to this day.[206] By the time of his death, there were nearly 1,000 TM training centres around the world.[86]
In the mid 1970s, the Maharishi began the TM-Sidhi programme, including Yogic Flying, as an additional option for those who had been practising the Transcendental Meditation technique for some time. According to Coplin, this new aspect of knowledge emphasised not only the individual, but also the collective benefits created by group practice of this advanced programme.[207] This new programme gave rise to a new principle called the Maharishi Effect, which is said to "create coherence in the collective consciousness" and to suppress crime, violence, and accidents.[208]
Entrance to the Maharishi University of Management and Maharishi Vedic University campus in Vlodrop, Holland
Maharishi Vedic Science, or MVS, is based on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's interpretation of the ancient Vedic texts. MVS includes two aspects, the practical aspect of the Transcendental Meditation technique and the TM-Sidhi programme, as well as the theoretical aspect of how MVS is applied to day to day living.[209]
These applications include programmes in: Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health (MVAH);[210][211]Maharishi Sthapatya Veda, a mathematical system for the design and construction of buildings; Maharishi Gandharva Veda,[212][213] a form of classical Indian music; Maharishi Jyotish (also known as Maharishi Vedic Astrology),[213][214] a system claiming the evaluation of life tendencies of an individual; Maharishi Vedic Agriculture, a trademarked process for producing fresh, organic food; and Consciousness-Based Education.[215]
According to educator James Grant, a former Maharishi University of Management Associate Professor of Education and the former Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Maharishi brought out a "full revival of the Vedic tradition of knowledge from India" and demonstrated its relevance in many areas including education, business, medicine and government.[216]
The Maharishi has written more than twenty books on the Transcendental Meditation technique and Maharishi Vedic Science.[217]
In 1955, the organisers of The Great Spiritual Development Conference of Kerala published The Beacon Light of the Himalayas, a transcribed, 170-page, "souvenir" of the conference. Authors Chryssides, Humes and Forsthoefel, Miller, and Russel cite this as the Maharishi's first published book on Transcendental Meditation, although Transcendental Meditation is not mentioned in the text of the book.[218][219][220][221][222] The book is dedicated to Maharshi Bala Brahmachari Mahesh Yogi Rajaram by his devotees of Kerala and contains photographs, letters and lectures by numerous authors which appear in various languages such as English, Hindi and Sanskrit.[218]
The Maharishi audiotaped the text of the book Science of Being and Art of Living, which was later transcribed and published in fifteen languages in 1963.[85][223][224] The book is described by its author as "the summation of both the practical wisdom" of "Vedic Rishis" and the "scientific thinking" of the "Western world".[225] The book is divided into 4 sections: "Science of Being", "Life", "Art of Living" and "Fulfillment". The first section, "Science of Being", "is a deep and practical philosophy of life."[226] The other 3 sections "present the most practical wisdom of day-to-day life", "based on the deep philosophical significance contained in the section on the Science of Being."[227] The 2001 edition, published by Plume (a division of Penguin), contains a new Foreword written by Dr. Bevan Morris, President of Maharishi University of Management. In it, Morris lays out a historical account of the Maharishi's contribution in the field of knowledge and the technologies for the development of human consciousness.[228]
In his 1967 publication, Bhagavad-Gita: A New Translation and Commentary, the Maharishi describes the Bhagavad Gita as "the Scripture of Yoga". He says that "its purpose is to explain in theory and practice all that is needed to raise the consciousness of man to the highest possible level."[229] In the Preface, the Maharishi writes: "The purpose of this commentary is to restore the fundamental truths of the Bhagavad-Gita and thus restore the significance of its teaching. If this teaching is followed, effectiveness in life will be achieved, men will be fullfilled on all levels and the historical need of the age will be fulfilled also."[230] In 1964, the Maharishi attended the All-India Yogic Conference held in Calcutta, India, where he said that the teachings contained in the Bhagavad Gita were misunderstood in the current age, and "the practice of yoga was misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misapplied", resulting in "weakness in the fields of thought and action".[231] The Maharishi said that the source of his commentary was his master: "We are just an innocent means for the spontaneous flow of that knowledge—that's all."[232] A list of the masters of the "Holy Tradition" is printed in the appendix of the Maharishi's translation and commentary of the Bhagavad-Gita.[233] The Appendix of the Maharishi's Gita also contains a detailed discussion of the "Six Systems of Indian Philosophy", namely, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Sankhya, Yoga, Karma Mimansa, and Vedanta.[234]
Maharishi International University (renamed Maharishi University of Management (MUM) in 1995), the first university Maharishi founded, began classes in Santa Barbara, California, in 1973. In 1974 the university moved to Fairfield, Iowa, where it remains today. The university houses a library of the Maharishi's taped lectures and writings, including the thirty-three-lesson Science of Creative Intelligence course, originally a series of lectures given by the Maharishi in Fiuggi, Italy, in 1972. Described in the MUM university catalogue as combining modern science and Vedic science,[235] the course also defines certain higher states of consciousness, and gives guidance on how to attain these states.[46]
The Maharishi Vidya Mandir Schools (MVMS), an educational system established in sixteen Indian states and affiliated with the New Delhi Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), was founded in 1995 by the Maharishi.[236] It has 148 branches in 118 cities with 90,000 to 100,000 students and 5,500 teaching and support staff.[237]
In 1998, Maharishi Open University was founded by the Maharishi. It was accessible via a network of eight satellites broadcasting to every country in the world, and via the Internet.[238]
The Maharishi also introduced theories of management, defence, and government,[46] programmes designed to alleviate poverty, and introduced a new economic development currency called the RAAM.[239] In 2000, the Maharishi began building administrative and teaching centres called "Peace Palaces" around the world, and by 2008 at least eight had been constructed in the US alone.[240] The Maharishi Institute, an African university that is part of a group of schools around the world that are named after him, was founded in 2007 and uses his Transcendental Meditation technique in their teaching.[241][242]
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, in his farewell message on January 11, 2008, announced the establishment of the Brahmananda Saraswati Trust (BST), named in honour of his teacher, to support large groups totalling more than 30,000 peace-creating Vedic Pandits in perpetuity across India.[243] According to Bevan Morris, the Prime Minister of the Global Country of World Peace, the BST is an endowment fund to "support the Vedic Pandits to perform Yagyas and Graha Shanti for all 192 countries of the world generation after generation".[167] The Patron of the Brahmanand Saraswati Trust is the Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math.[167]
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is credited with heading charitable organisations, for-profit businesses, and real estate investments whose total value has been estimated at US$ 2 to 5 billion. The real estate alone was valued in 2003 at between $3.6 and $5 billion.[244] Holdings in the United States, estimated at $250 million in 2008, include dozens of hotels, commercial buildings and undeveloped land.[240] The Maharishi Group, an international conglomerate created by the Maharishi in 1959, is controlled by members of the Maharishi's family including his nephew, Anand Shrivastava (also spelled Srivastava).[182] The group, which includes schools, solar power factories, health supplements, organic farms, software, jewelry, and many other businesses, was reported in 1999 to be worth $700 million.[245] The Maharishi "amassed a personal fortune that his spokesman told one reporter may exceed $1 billion".[246] According to a 2008 article in The Times, the Maharishi "was reported to have an income of six million pounds".[86] The Maharishi's "worldwide network" is primarily financed by course fees for Transcendental Meditation as well as real estate holdings and donations.[247]
In his biography of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, The Story of the Maharishi (published 1976), William Jefferson suggests that the financial aspect of the TM organisation was one of the greatest controversies it faced. He says the paradox that a movement whose concern is spiritual growth should have generated so much controversy about finances is unfortunate, and notes that other organisations handled finances differently from the TM organisation. Jefferson says that the concerns with money came from journalists more than those who have learned to meditate. The controversy circled around the Maharishi's mission, the comments from leaders of the movement at that time, and fees and charges the TM organisation made. According to Jefferson, Maharishi said in response to concerns about finances in the TM organisation that, "Money is never on my mind. When I created the world plan to establish centres in every country on earth, I didn’t consider whether we had the necessary money to do it, I saw only the possibility…". The Maharishi also said, "We cannot take away the economic aspects of the movement…even though my message concerns the non-economic fulfillment of life. If initiations were free we could not cover the overhead for spreading the movement throughout the world."[248] According to The Times obituary, the Maharishi said he had no interest in wealth: "It goes to support the centres, it does not go on me. I have nothing."[86]
Creating an ideal society: a global undertaking, International Association for the Advancement of the Science of Creative Intelligence, 1976
Results of scientific research on the Transcendental Meditation program, MERU Press, 1976
Enlightenment to every individual, invincibility to every nation, Age of Enlightenment, 1978 ISBN 99911-608-9-2
Freedom behind bars: enlightenment to every individual and invincibility to every nation, International Association for the Advancement of the Science of Creative Intelligence, 1978
Life supported by natural law : discovery of the Unified Field of all the laws of nature and the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field, Age of Enlightenment Press, 1986 ISBN 978-0-89186-051-8
Thirty years around the world: dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, Maharishi Vedic University, 1986 ISBN 978-90-71750-01-4
Maharishi's Programme to create world peace: global inauguration, Age of Enlightenment Press, 1987 ISBN 978-0-89186-052-5
Maharishi's master plan to create heaven on earth, Maharishi Vedic University Press, 1991 ISBN 978-90-71750-11-3
A Proven program for our criminal justice system: Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and Corrections, Maharishi International University, 1993
Vedic knowledge for everyone: Maharishi Vedic University, an introduction, Maharishi Vedic University Press, 1994 ISBN 90-71750-17-5
Maharishi's Absolute Theory of Government – Automation in Administration, Maharishi Prakshan, 1995 ISBN 81-7523-002-9
Maharishi University of Management – Wholeness on the Move, Age of Enlightenment Publications, 1995 ISBN 81-7523-001-0
Constitution of India Fulfilled through Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation, Age of Enlightenment Publications, 1996 ISBN 81-7523-004-5
Inaugurating Maharishi Vedic University, Maharishi Vedic University Press, 1996 ISBN 978-81-7523-006-4
Maharishi's Absolute Theory of Defence – Sovereignty in Invincibility, Age of Enlightenment Publications, 1996 ISBN 81-7523-000-2
Celebrating Perfection in Education – Dawn of Total Knowledge, Maharishi Vedic University Press, 1997 ISBN 81-7523-013-4
Maharishi Forum of Natural Law and National Law for Doctors – Perfect Health for Everyone, Age of Enlightenment Publications, 1997 ISBN 81-7523-003-7
Maharishi Speaks to Educators – Mastery Over Natural Law, Age of Enlightenment Publications, 1997 ISBN 81-7523-008-8
Maharishi Speaks to Students – Mastery Over Natural Law, Age of Enlightenment Publications, 1997 ISBN 81-7523-012-6
Celebrating Perfection in Administration, Maharishi Vedic University, 1998 ISBN 81-7523-015-0
^Chryssides George D. Defining the New Spirituality http://www.cesnur.org/conferences/riga2000/chryssides.htmOne possible suggestion is that religion demands exclusive allegiance: this would ipso facto exclude Scientology, TM and the Soka Gakkai simply on the grounds that they claim compatibility with whatever other religion the practitioner has been following. For example, TM is simply – as they state – a technique. Although it enables one to cope with life, it offers no goal beyond human existence (such as moksha), nor does it offer rites or passage or an ethic. Unlike certain other Hindu-derived movements, TM does not prescribe a dharma to its followers – that is to say a set of spiritual obligations deriving from one’s essential nature.
^Oates, Robert M. (1976). Celebrating the dawn: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the TM technique. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. p. 40. ISBN978-0-399-11815-9.
^Mason, Paul (1994). The Maharishi—The Biography of the Man Who Gave Transcendental Meditation to the World. Shaftsbury, Dorset: Element Books Ltd.. p. 28. ISBN1-85230-571-1.
^Carlton, Jim (1991-04-15). "For $1,500 a Head, Maharishi Promises Mellower Inmates --- Transcendental Meditation Goes to Prison as Backers Try to Lock Up Contracts". Wall Street Journal (New York, N.Y.): p. A.1.
^Warren, Jenifer (October 27, 1995). "Party Asks Voters to Put Their Faith in Meditation; Politics: Skeptics scoff at Natural Law Party's answer to nation's ills, but backers say they have more to offer.". Los Angeles Times: p. 1.
^ abCoplin, J.R. (1990). "Chapter Two: Socio-Historical Context for SRM's Emergence". Text and Context in the Communication of a Social Movement's Charisma, Ideology, and Consciousness: TM for India and the West (Ph.D. thesis). University of California, San Diego. p. Footnote #73. "Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's caste background is a matter of some uncertainty because it is the tradition of yogis, ascetics, and renunciants to relinquish their family ties. His education and family status are known by many long-time movement members, however. Shrivastava is the family name of his cousins and nephews, and that name can be traced to the Hindu Kayasthas."
^Coplin, J.R. (1990) p. 48 Note: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi . . . was most likely born into a family of Hindu Kayasthas, a well known and high status literary caste of Hindustan - with reference to varna, a kshatryia not a brahmin jati.
^Mason, Paul (1994). The Maharishi—The Biography of the Man Who Gave Transcendental Meditation to the World. Shaftsbury, Dorset: Element Books Ltd.. p. 17. ISBN1-85230-571-1.
^ abcCoplin, J.R. (1990). "Chapter Three: SRM as Cultural Revitalization Text". Text and Context in the Communication of a Social Movement's Charisma, Ideology, and Consciousness: TM for India and the West (Ph.D. thesis). University of California, San Diego. "While his association with the illustrious Shankaracharya tradition served as vital letter of introduction throughout India, his title, "bala brahmachari" identified him as a fully dedicated student of spiritual knowledge and life-long celibate ascetic. Literally, the name means "childhood or boy" (bala) "student of sacred knowledge" (brahmachari), and it has signified from Vedic times one who has taken the vow of chastity."
^'Thirty Years Around the World- Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment', MVU, 1986, pp185-6
^Williamson, Lola (2010). Transcendent in America. New York University Press. p. 84. ISBN978-0-8147-9449-4. "Guru Dev represented the tradition well, for he did not allow anyone who was not of the Brahmin varna, the caste of the priesthood, to teach. Since Mahesh was born into a scribe caste (kayastha), he was not allowed to join the order of monks. Thus when Saraswati died in Calcutta in 1953, Mahesh would not have been considered a candidate to replace him."
^Coplin, J.R. (1990) p. 49 Note: "Because he was not a brahmin, Mahesh could not become a member of the dandi sannyasi order and succeed his master as Shankaracharya; the honor passed to Swami Shantanand Saraswati in June, 1953." (This from an interview by the author with the Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, Swami Vishnudevananda Saraswati on June 12, 1983.)
^ abcMaharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986). Thirty Years Around the World: Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment. Maharishi Vedic University Press. p. 199. ISBN90-71750-02-7.[Need quotation to verify]
^Coplin, J.R. (1990). "Chapter Two: Socio-Historical Context for SRM's Emergence". Text and Context in the Communication of a Social Movement's Charisma, Ideology, and Consciousness: TM for India and the West (Ph.D. thesis). University of California, San Diego. "In South India Maharishi spoke in English because his Hindi would not only be little understood outside of the North, but it would provoke hostility among many who were fighting for linguistic self-determination in the period immediately following Independence. The use of English, however, had greater connotations, as it presumed an audience of Indians familiar with British administration and education. More significantly, it appealed to the "learned classes," mostly brahmins, but also lower caste officials whose families had escaped their more humble backgrounds by means of acquiring an English education."
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 237 "Summary 1958: The first countries he visited on his first world tour were Burma, Thailand, Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong and the USA (Hawaii)."
^Mason, p. 37 (1994) "He has no money; he asks for nothing. His worldly possessions can be carried in one hand. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is on a world odyssey. He carries a message that he says will rid the world of all unhappiness and discontent..."
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 275 "Summary 1959: In January Maharishi travelled to the [mainland] USA for the first time, establishing the movement in Hawaii and then moving on to San Francisco and Los Angeles. Towards the end of the year, he once again visited Hawaii, the flew to the East Coast cities of Boston and New York"
^Olson, Helena, Hermit in the House, p.44, Los Angeles, 1967[unreliable source?]
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) pp. 318-320 Note: The source contains a 3-page itinerary of 40+ cities visited by the Maharishi with corresponding dates of visit ranging from 1/1/60 and 12/30/60, "Summary 1960: Maharishi brought TM to the countries of Europe and in his many lectures in England, Scotland, Norway, and Germany he...""In the first half of the year he visited France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany." "...then travelled to the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Denmark and Sweden."
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 305 "In Manchester, Maharishi gave a television interview which reached millions of people in the north of England" "In Cambridge, the Daily News carried headline: 'Maharishi shows a simple method of meditation', while the Oxford Mail reporter who asked Maharishi ...."
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 302 "Maharishi made Henry Nyburg his personal representative for Europe and gave him the training and authority to teach Transcendental Meditation, thus making him the first European teacher."
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) pp. 318-344 "From Chapter Titled '1961' pg 328 "The following day, BBC Television interviewed Maharishi and chose as the setting for the interview the Acropolis, one of the glories of ancient Greece." "On 20 April Maharishi inaugurated..."Maharishi then conducted the first international course to train teacher of TM" "The graduation ceremony of the course was held on 12 July and 60 new teachers of TM returned to their countries...."
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 400 "...it was on this course that Maharishi started his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita--a commentary later to be published..."
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 490-491 and p.503 "And in the final days of 1962, in the silent surroundings of Lake Arrowhead, California, Maharishi brought out yet another gift for the world--The Science of Being and Art of Living--a treasury of pure knowledge to guide mankind in its evolution to perfection."
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 414 "Chapter Titled "1962": On 20 April, Maharishi in the presence of His Holiness Swami Shantanand Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of northern India, inaugurated a special course" "In the Prospectus, this special 40-day course was announced for 'sadhus, sannyasis and brahmacharis, and retired persons of energetic calibre'."
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) pp. 544-545 "Twenty one members of the parliament, representing each of the Indian states, issued a statement entitled a 'timely Call to the Leaders of Today and Tomorrow' for the speedy introduction of the system [of TM] into the daily routine of national life." NOTE: the text of the 3-page statement from the parliament is also included in the book on pages 504-507
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 504-507 "Twenty one members of parliament, representing each of the Indian states, issued a statement entitled a 'timely Call to the Leaders of Today and Tomorrow' for the speedy introduction of the system [of TM] into the daily routine of national life." NOTE: the text of the 3-page statement from the parliament is also included in the book on pages 504-507
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 530-536 "Tributes were later printed in the Canadian magazine, Enjoy"--"A front page news article in the local Daily Colonist newspaper" "The Calgary Herald reported an entertaining incident, which took place during an interview in Maharishi's hotel room". "The Albertan newspaper of Wednesday, 25 September quoted Maharishi as saying that there were now 1,000 meditators in Canada."
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) pp 587-588 "ON his fifth world tour, Maharishi conducted a Meditation Guides Course in Norway, a course in London, where advanced techniques of TM were given for the first time, and Meditation Guides Courses in Austria, Canada, and Germany/"
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 553 "But the highlight of this London visit was the popular BBC television interview with Robert Kee, featuring Maharishi and the Abbot of Downside, Abbot Butler."
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 572 "On his fifth world tour, Maharishi conducted a Meditation Guides Course in Norway, a course in London, where advanced techniques of TM were given for the first time, and Meditation Guides Courses in Austria, Canada, and Germany"
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) pp 576-577 "On the 17th Maharishi went to Santa Barbara to meet with Dr. Robert Maynard Hutchins, head of the Centre for Democratic Studies. Maharishi left for NYC on 19 December to meet with U Thant, Secretary General of the United Nations."
^The Beatles Anthology. Chronicle Books. 2000. pp. 285–86. ISBN0-8118-2684-8.
^Farrow, Mia. What Falls Away. Bantam. p. 128. ISBN0-553-76334-2. "...I was blinking at his beard when suddenly I became aware of two surprisingly male, hairy arms going around me. I panicked, and shot up the stairs, apologizing all the way. I flew out into the open air, and ran as fast as I could to Prudy’s room... I blurted out something about Maharishi’s cave, and arms, and beard, and she said, It’s an honor to be touched by a holy many after meditation, a tradition."
^Goldhaber, Nat, Denniston, Denise, McWilliams, Peter , (1976). TM: an alphabetical guide to the transcendental meditation program, p.109. Ballantine, New York. ISBN 0-345-24096-0 Note: "It was in honor of his great contribution to humankind that Maharishi was named Man of Hope in 1970 by the City of Hope Foundation in Los Angeles”.
^[1] Vanity Fair, Beam Me Up, Bucky, James Walcott, Sept 15 2010
^[2] "People", Anchorage Daily News, 1973-03-14. Note: “The Maharishi addressed the Illinois legislature Tuesday and made a few suggestions on how to handle fiscal problems. “The basis of a restful budget is no problems in society,” he told legislators. Retrieved on 2010-12-01.
^[3] "The TM believers are expanding their universe", Bangor Daily News, 1973-03-6. Note: “The legislature in the State of Illinois passed a resolution this past year recommending the inclusion of SCI teaching in the public schools.” Retrieved on 2010-12-01.
^Braun, Frank Dirceu (August 7, 1999). "La Jolla resident involved with maharishi in plans for world's tallest high-rise, Brazil project expected to cost $1.6 billion". The San Diego Union - Tribune: p. A.12.
^WATERS, SHAUN (April 11, 1988). "Canadians urged to help build guru's heavenly housing". The Globe and Mail: p. A.13.
^Ehmann, James (May 5, 1988). "Ehmann’s People". The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY): p. A2. "Sub-head: We'll Transcend Our Mistake. "$60,000 in undeclared cash and jewelry were confiscated."
^Speers, W. (December 24, 1987). "VON BULOW LAWSUIT IS SETTLED". The Philadelphia Inquirer: p. C02.
^Ehmann, James (May 5, 1988). "Ehmann’s People". The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY): p. A2. "Sub-head: We'll Transcend Our Mistake. Section: Back in December, we repeated a wire service's assertion that offices in India of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had been raided and that $60,000 in undeclared cash and jewelry were confiscated. Recently, we heard from the Age of Enlightenment News Service in Livingston Manor, which asserted that, according to "official documents from the Indian government," nothing of value was confiscated in the raids."
^JOHNSON, BRYAN (March 1, 1988). "INDIA 'Buried' holy man fosters skepticism". The Globe and Mail: p. A.8.
^Richardson, Mark (October 16, 1993). "Natural Law confident its 'new knowledge' can solve the nation's problems". The Ottawa Citizen.: p. A.9.
^ abOsborn, Andrew (December 4, 2001). "Real lives: Holy man of Maastricht: Since George Harrison's death, the papers have been full of pictures of him with his Indian guru in the 60s. So what is the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi up to these days? Andrew Osborn tracks him down - to Holland". The Guardian (Manchester (UK)): p. 4.
^Maier, Scott (September 22, 1992). "DON'T TAKE IT PERSONAL MEDITATION TECHNIQUE ADVOCATES BRING YOU NATURAL LAW PARTY". Seattle Post-Intelligencer: p. b.1.
^ abSCHULTE, BRIGID (June 23, 1996). "IMAGINE YOU ARE OUR NEXT PRESIDENT MEDITATION IS KEY IN THIRD-PARTY BID Series: Another in an occasional series of profiles of long-shot candidates for president.". The Record (Bergen County, N.J.): p. 32.
^Howard, Phoebe Wall (January 8, 1996). "New laid-back national party calls philosophy only natural". The Fresno Bee (Fresno, Calif.): p. A.1.
^BRAVIN, JESS (September 12, 1992). "Laws of Nature Transcend GOP Ties for Beach Boys Politics: Group, which will perform in Costa Mesa, parts ways with Bush on environment.". Los Angeles Times: p. 1.
^COBB, CHRIS (October 30, 1993). "Party of the flying yogics gets a free ride from the taxpayers". The Vancouver Sun: p. A.10.
^KAPICA, JACK (November 27, 1993). "VEDA LAND The New Incarnation of the Maharishi REJECTION BY THE VOTERS ONLY SERVES TO MAKE THE NATURAL LAW PARTY'S APPEALS MORE URGENT, ITS PLANS MORE GRANDIOSE, ITS CLAIMS MORE STRIDENT". The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ont.): p. D.3.
^[7] Paul Mason, The Last Instruction, Retrieved June 24, 2011
^Coplin, J.R. (1990) p. 61. Note: "When Maharishi began teaching during his South Indian tour in the mid-1950s, he arrived as an informal representative of the Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, being a 'great disciple of Shri Swami Brahmananda Saraswati (former Shankaracharya)'".
^Mason (1994) p. 57 Note: "On Tuesday, 30 May 1961, eight years to the day after his master's death, the Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, Swami Shantanand Saraswati graced the teacher training course with his presence and was received with all due ceremony. Arriving at the site where the new Academy was being built, he addressed the Maharishi and the gathered meditators . . . . He commended the practice of the Maharishi’s meditation, describing it as a 'master key to the knowledge of Vedanta' and added, 'There are other keys, but a master key is enough to open all the locks.'
^Coplin, J.R. (1990) p. 62-63 Note: "Maharishi, though a devoted and favored disciple, was not eligible to become Shankarachaharya due to his caste background (non-brahmin). Nontheless, he shares with the last two Shankaracharyas of Jyotir Math (who succeeded Brahmanand Saraswati) a brotherly relationship, known as guru-bhais to one another. Even today, Swami Vishnudevanand (the current Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math) speaks very highly of Maharishi and sees his teaching as a reflection of their master's. Both he and Swami Shantanand (his immediate predecessor) are frequent guests of Maharishi's both in India and abroad, personally endorsing his mission."
^Mason, Paul (1994). The Maharishi—The Biography of the Man Who Gave Transcendental Meditation to the World. Shaftsbury, Dorset: Element Books Ltd.. p. 221. ISBN1-85230-571-1. "Other popular misconceptions are that he amassed a huge fleet of Rolls Royce cars and private aeroplanes, but, people easily confuse him with other Indian teachers, such as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and Guru Maharaj Ji."
^Mason, Paul (1994). The Maharishi—The Biography of the Man Who Gave Transcendental Meditation to the World. Shaftsbury, Dorset: Element Books Ltd.. p. 221. ISBN1-85230-571-1. "What makes Maharishi beloved and understood is that he has manifest love. You could not meet with Maharishi without recognizing instantly his integrity. You look in his eyes and there it is."
^Cowan, Douglas E.; Bromley, David G. (2008). Cults and New Religions: A Brief History. Blackwell Publishing. p. 68. ISBN978-1-4051-6128-2.
^Goldberg, P. (2010) American Veda, New York, Harmony Books pp154-155.
^Larson, Gerald James (2009). "Hinduism in India and in America". In Neusner, Jacob. World Religions in America: An Introduction. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 192. ISBN978-0-664-23320-4.
^Nanda, Meera (2004). Prophets facing backward: postmodern critiques of science and Hindu nationalism in India. Piscataway N.J.; London: Rutgers University Press. p. 46. ISBN978-0-8135-3357-5.
^Coplin, J.R. (1990) p. 71[Need quotation to verify]
^WAGER, GREGG (December 11, 1987). "Musicians Spread the Maharishi's Message of Peace". Los Angeles Times: p. 12.
^Bonshek, Anna; Bonshek, Corrina; Fergusson, Lee C. (2007). The Big Fish: Consciousness as Structure, Body and Space. Consciousness, literature & the arts. Rodopi. pp. 6–9. ISBN978-90-420-2172-3.
^Sharma, H.; Clark, Christopher (1998). "Chapter 13: Maharishi's Vedic Approach to Health". Contemporary Ayurveda, Medicine and Research in Maharishi Ayur-Veda. ISBN978-0-443-05594-2.
^Schneider, Robert H.; Fields, Jeremy Z. (2006). Total Heart Health: How to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease with the Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health. Basic Health Publications, Inc.. ISBN978-1-59120-087-1.
^Wallace, Robert Keith (1986). The Physiology of Consciousness. Maharishi International University Press. pp. 99–102. ISBN978-0-923569-02-0.
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 459 "There was not much time for writing a book, so Maharishi said, 'I'll speak it out on tape, and then you'll get it printed'."
^Jones, Lindsay, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion. Detroit: Macmillan Reference. p. 3. ISBN0-02-865981-3.
^Science of Being and Art of Living, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Introduction page xli, Meridian Books, 1995
^Science of Being and Art of Living, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Introduction page xli, Plume, 2001
^Science of Being and Art of Living, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Introduction page xlii, Plume, 2001
^Science of Being and Art of Living, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Forward, pages xi - xxxix, Plume, 2001
^{Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1969). Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad-Gita : A New Translation and Commentary, Chapters 1-6. New York: Penguin Books. pp. 20–21. ISBN978-0-14-019247-6.
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1990). Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad-Gita : A New Translation and Commentary, Chapters 1-6. New York: Arkana. pp. 17. ISBN978-0-14-019247-6.
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 587 "Maharishi emphasized therefore , that the practice of yoga was 'misunderstood, misinterpreted and misapplied', as a result of these misinterpretations." "Lack of correct appreciation of yoga had resulted, Maharishi said, in weakness in the fields of thought and action...." "1964 began with a three-day All-India Yoga Conference where Maharishi replaced the principles of ignorance governing the common understanding of yoga with the enlightened understanding that yoga is unity, achieved only by effortlessness through TM, and not through denial or effort."
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1986) p. 348 "So the credit of this knowledge goes to the source and the time—Guru Dev and the present time of the world.... We are just an innocent means for the spontaneous flow of that knowledge—that's all."
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad-Gita - A New Translation and Commentary Chapters 1-6, Appendix, The Holy Tradition, P. 469, Arkana, 1990, ISBN 978-0-14-019247-6
^Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1990). Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad-Gita : A New Translation and Commentary, Chapters 1-6. New York: Arkana. pp. 472-494. ISBN978-0-14-019247-6.
^Harris, Chris (2003-11-13). "The Maharishi's Hotel of Emptiness:Will the Beatles' former guru leave Hartford with a permanent blemish, or is there hope for the Clarion Hotel?". Hartford Advocate.
This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (May 2010)
Jeremy Robert Myron Sumpter (born February 5, 1989) is an American actor. His prominent roles include the title role in the 2003 live action film Peter Pan and the recurring role of J. D. McCoy in the NBC television series Friday Night Lights (2008–2010). He most recently co-starred alongside AnnaSophia Robb and Helen Hunt in Soul Surfer.
Sumpter was born in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California to Sandy (née Johnson) and Gary Sumpter.[1] He has a twin sister, Jessica, and two other siblings, Travis and Jennifer.[1][2] His family moved to his mother's hometown, Mount Sterling, Kentucky, when he was ten months old.[1][3]
Sumpter's first movie role was in the 2001 film Frailty as the young Adam Mieks seen in flashbacks (played as an adult by the film's star Matthew McConaughey). Sumpter received a Saturn Award nomination for "Best Performance by a Younger Actor" for his performance. Following that, he appeared with Danny Glover in the Showtime film Just a Dream, for which he received a Young Artist Award for "Best Performance in a TV Movie, Mini-Series or Special - Leading Young Actor". His next film was Local Boys, a family surfing drama, with Mark Harmon and Eric Christian Olsen.
In July 2002, at age 13, Sumpter was selected for the role of Peter Pan, a role traditionally played on stage by women. Sumpter did nearly all of his stunts for the film himself. To prepare, he says he practiced sword fighting as much as five hours a day, as well as training in gymnastics and lifting weights. While filming in Australia, he supplemented his training with cricket and surfing. Sumpter grew several inches while in the film's production, requiring staging tricks to retain Captain Hook's height advantage over Peter in face-to-face scenes late in the process. Producer Lucy Fisher also said that, "The window he flies out of had to be enlarged twice."[4] Sumpter won both a Saturn and Young Artist Award for the film.[5]
In the fall of 2004 he starred in the TV series Clubhouse as a boy who gets his dream job of working at a batboy for a New York City major league baseball team. The series was canceled by CBS after five episodes; all 11 episodes made have since been broadcast on cable/satellite channels. He then starred in Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life, a Lifetime Channel movie about a popular teenager whose life is ruined by an addiction to internet pornography.
Sumpter spent the summer of 2005 in Oregon filming the teen comedy The Sasquatch Gang (a.k.a. The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang), released in November 2006. He had a small role in the film An American Crime, which played on Showtime in 2008 before going to DVD. He appeared in an episode of CSI: Miami as the boyfriend of a girl whose parents are murdered.
Cremation is the use of high-temperature burning, vaporization, and oxidation to reduce dead animal bodies, including human ones, to basic chemical compounds, such as gases and mineral fragments retaining the appearance of dry bone. Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite that is an alternative to the interment of an intact body in a casket. Cremated remains, which do not constitute a health risk, may be buried or interred in memorial sites or cemeteries, or they may be legally retained by relatives and dispersed in various ways. Cremation is not an alternative to a funeral, but rather an alternative to burial or other forms of disposal.
In many countries, cremation is usually done in a crematorium, but other countries prefer different methods, such as open-air cremation in India and in Nepal.
The cremation occurs in a crematory that is housed within a crematorium and comprises one or more furnaces. A cremator is an industrial furnace that is able to generate temperatures of 870–980 °C (1600–1800 °F) to ensure disintegration of the corpse. A crematorium may be part of a chapel or a funeral home or may be an independent facility or a service offered by a cemetery.
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