Dakshina Kannada

Dakshina Kannada is a coastal district in the state of Karnataka in India. Sheltered by the Western Ghats on the east and surrounded by the Arabian Sea on the west, Dakshina Kannada receives abundant rainfall during the monsoon. It is bordered by Udupi District to the north, Chikkamagaluru district to the northeast, Hassan District to the east, Kodagu to the southeast, and Kasaragod District in Kerala to the south.Mangalore city is the district headquarters of Dakshina Kannada.

The district is divided into five talukas namely Mangalore, Bantwal, Puttur, Sullia, and Belthangady. It used to include 4 northern talukas, Udupi, Kundapur, Karkala and Byndoor, but these were separated in August 1997 to form Udupi district. Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Kasaragod are often called Tulu Nadu, as Tulu is the majority language in the region. The Alupas ruled this region between the 8th and 14th century CE as a feudatory of all the major Kannada empires of those times and it is for this reason that the Tulu speaking districts are a part of Karnataka.

Kannada

Kannada /ˈkɑːnədə, ˈkæ-/ (ಕನ್ನಡ kannaḍa, IPA: [ˈkʌnːəɖɑː]) or Canarese/Kanarese /kænəˈriːz/, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Kannada people in South India, mainly in the state of Karnataka, and by linguistic minorities in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Kerala, and Goa. The language has roughly 40 million native speakers who are called Kannadigas (Kannaḍigaru), and a total of 50.8 million speakers according to a 2001 census. It is one of the scheduled languages of India and the official and administrative language of the state of Karnataka.

The Kannada language is written using the Kannada script, which evolved from the 5th-century Kadamba script. Kannada is attested epigraphically for about one and a half millennia, and literary Old Kannada flourished in the 6th-century Ganga dynasty and during the 9th-century Rashtrakuta Dynasty. Kannada has an unbroken literary history of over a thousand years.

Based on the recommendations of the Committee of Linguistic Experts, appointed by the Ministry of Culture, the Government of India designated Kannada a classical language of India. In July 2011, a center for the study of classical Kannada was established as part of the Central Institute of Indian Languages at Mysore to facilitate research related to the language.

Dakshina

Dakshina (Sanskrit: dakṣiṇa, means "south, southern", but also refers to a Tantric concept right-hand path, as well as a Vedic concept of donation or payment for the services of a priest, spiritual guide or teacher.

Etymology and description

As a Vedic concept, the donation originally consisted of a cow (according to Kātyāyana Śrautasūtra 15, Lāṭyāyana Śrautasūtra 8.1.2). The term itself is derived from this, the feminine dakṣiṇā being a term for a cow able to calve and give milk (a prolific cow, milch-cow) in the Rigveda.

Dakshina is personified as a goddess along with Brahmanaspati, Indra and Soma in RV 1.18.5 and RV 10.103.8, and is the reputed author of RV 10.107 according to the Anukramani.

In later literature, in the Manusmrti and in the Ramayana, the term dakshina acquires a more general meaning of "thanks" or "a gift".

Gurudakshina

Gurudakshina refers to the tradition of repaying one's teacher or guru after a period of study or the completion of formal education, or to spiritual guide. This tradition is one of acknowledgment, respect, and thanks. It is a form of reciprocity and exchange between student and teacher. The repayment is not exclusively monetary and may be a special task the teacher wants the student to accomplish.

Karnataka

Karnataka /kərˈnɑːtəkə, kɑːr-/ is a state in south western region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as the State of Mysore, it was renamed Karnataka in 1973. The capital and largest city is Bangalore (Bengaluru). Karnataka is bordered by the Arabian Sea and the Laccadive Sea to the west, Goa to the north west, Maharashtra to the north, Telangana to the North east, Andhra Pradesh to the east, Tamil Nadu to the south east, and Kerala to the south west. The state covers an area of 191,976 square kilometres (74,122 sq mi), or 5.83 per cent of the total geographical area of India. It is the seventh largest Indian state by area. With 61,130,704 inhabitants at the 2011 census, Karnataka is the eighth largest state by population, comprising 30 districts. Kannada is the most widely spoken and official language of the state.

The two main river systems of the state are the Krishna and its tributaries, the Bhima, Ghataprabha, Vedavathi, Malaprabha, and Tungabhadra, in the north, and the Kaveri and its tributaries, the Hemavati, Shimsha, Arkavati, Lakshmana Thirtha and Kabini, in the south. Most of these rivers flow out of Karnataka eastward into the Bay of Bengal.

Kartikeya

Kartikeya (Tamil: Kārttikēyaṉ Sanskrit कार्त्तिकेय Kārttikēya "son of Kṛttikā" ) (/ˌkɑːrtɪˈkeɪjə/), also known as Murugan, Skanda, Kumaran, Kumara Swami and Subramaniya, is the Hindu god of war. He is the Commander-in-Chief of the army of the devas and the son of Shiva and Parvati.

Murugan (Tamil Murukaṉ) is often referred to as Tamiḻ kaṭavuḷ ("God of the Tamils") and is worshiped primarily in areas with Tamil influences, especially South India, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Réunion. His six most important shrines in India are the Six Abodes of Murugan, temples located in Tamil Nadu. In Bengal, Odisha and Maharashtra, he is popularly known as Kartikeya.

Other names

The several names of Murugan of Tamil origin would include the following, Seyon, Senthil, Vēlaṇ, Kumāran ("prince, child, young one"), Svaminatha ("smart, clever"), Saravaṇa, Arumugam or Shanmuga ("having six faces"), Dandapani ("god with a club"), Guhan or Guruguha ("cave-dweller"), Subrahmanya, Kartikeya and Skanda "attacker". He was also known as Mahasena and the Kadamba dynasty worshiped him by this name.