1. Balanese Celebrate Galungan
2. Archeologist Advocates Preservation of Underwater City
3. Surat Gears Up For Air-Conditioned Navratri Festival
4. Run Your Car On Coconut Oil

1. Balanese Celebrate Galungan

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BALI, INDONESIA, October 6, 2005: The Hindu Balanese turned the resort island into a gigantic shrine of devotion on Wednesday, with colorful offerings and solemn rituals performed simultaneously at thousands of temples in a festival to mark the victory of good over evil. The Galungan religious celebration came just four days after terrorists bombed Bali for a second time in a tragedy that gave this year's annual event a tone of somberness. "This year's Galungan is quieter than the last one we had," a canang (offering) seller Ni Wayan Suci said. Suci, a 38-year old mother of three, sold canang, a simple offering comprising flowers and shredded leaves arranged on a palm-size rectangular structure made of young coconut leaves, a few meters from the main gate of Denpasar's main temple, Jagatnatha. "Last year I could sell 150 canang on Galungan day. Today, I brought only 100 canang and, as you can see, there are still many left unsold," she said.

Hindu devotees began pouring into the temple early in the morning. Dressed in traditional costumes, they gathered at the temple's main yard before praying together toward a towering Padmasana shrine that bore the golden Acintya, the mysterious, incomprehensible aspect of the Almighty. A similar ritual and joint prayers took place throughout the island. Balanese congregated and prayed at family temples before carrying the fruit and cake offerings to the major temples of their villages. Balanese also made offerings at numerous shrines at the roadside, riverside and beachside to honor the deities and other supernatural beings there. Denpasar looked like a deserted city, with most of the Hindu population spending the religious holiday in their native villages. "Let's hope that the chance to share intimate moments with relatives and close friends that Galungan has provided would enable the Balanese Hindus to view and treat the recent tragedy in a much calmer and more peaceful way," cultural observer Sugi Lanus Kaleran said.

HPI note: More than a dozen Balinese Hindus came to our Kadavul Siva temple here in Kauai for this festival. They brought the canang offering mentioned above. Some were workers assembling a Balinese house here on Kauai, others staff from the cruise ships which visit Kauai.

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2. Archeologist Advocates Preservation of Underwater City

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INDIA, October 6, 2005: Internationally renowned marine archaeologist Dr. S. R. Rao today called for preservation of underwater cultural heritage, particularly the Dwarka city, believed to have been built by Lord Krishna in Gujarat. Speaking at the 7th national conference on marine archaeology of Indian ocean countries at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Dr. Rao regretted that many of the archaeological remains excavated were not preserved for posterity by the agency conducting the excavation. He pointed to the neglect of the excavated Harappan site of Kalibangan. The Lothal site was, however, preserved and a museum built for it, he added. Most of the important underwater sites of Dwarka excavated by the NIO's Marine Archaeology Centre (MAC) with funds from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Department of Science and Technology and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) should have been preserved by a competent agency, he said. With neither the CSIR nor the ASI having expertise to undertake conservation of a submerged city, the octogenarian archaeologist said he had prepared a project report in consultation with a number of organizations and individuals including the Indian Navy, research foundations and underwater construction engineers.

On the controversy regarding date of submerged site of Dwarka near the Gomti river mouth in Arabian Sea, Dr. Rao said the archaeologists could not arrive at the date in isolation, but relied on relative chronology such as pottery and the sea-level rise. ''We are of the view that Dwarka was submerged by tsunami-like high energy waves, pulling down heavy blocks of stone used in the construction of the structures. This must have also resulted in changing the course of the paleo channel of Gomti, as recorded by NIO maritime archaeologist K. H. Vora during recent studies,'' he said. The reference to such a catastrophe was made in the Mahabharata and other epics which said Dwarka, built on mainland by Lord Krishna, was contemporary to Bet Dwarka (Kusasthali) that could be dated to 17th century BCE, and this was later confirmed by scientists, he said. Dr Rao said the three-holed triangular stone anchors found in large numbers in Dwarka waters suggested a continuity in evolution of the anchors in Lothal and Mohenjo-Daro, which had a single hole. The Dwarka anchors of late Harappan phase are a couple of centuries older than the identical anchors of late Bronze Age used in Cyprus and Syria, he added.

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3. Surat Gears Up For Air-Conditioned Navratri Festival

www.hindustantimes.com

SURAT, INDIA, September 30, 2005: Gujarat has come up with novel ideas in the past to celebrate the nine-day-long Hindu festival of Navaratri, and this year, too, is proving to be no different. The organizers of the festival have decided to set up air-conditioned halls for the traditional dances performed during the event. Navratri (nine nights) festival, celebrated twice in a year, during the spring and autumn season, symbolizes the triumph of good over evil. In Surat, an air-conditioned dome covering an area of 30,000 square feet is under construction for the celebration, which is just around the corner. The dome will provide an estimated 20,000 square feet for dancers to perform the Garba and Dandiya dances, which form an important part of the festivities in Gujarat. In keeping with an order of the Supreme Court banning loud speakers the dome has been made sound proof. "We have made the provision for the AC dome. This will be constructed in keeping with the orders of the Supreme Court, which has banned playing of loud speakers. The dome will be sound proof. This will enable the dancers to dance for a longer time," said Nitin Talati, organiser of Navratri at the AC dome. The dome has a capacity for 7,000 dancers and 5,000 seats. Dandiya is a traditional dance of the Gujarati community performed with sticks. Group of young men, dressed in traditional attire, with women wearing long skirts, dance to folk tunes with rhythmic beating of sticks between them. The folk dance is performed after worshipping the Hindu goddess Durga who is, the mother of all gods, on all nine days of the festival. Besides the air-conditioned dome, the festival will also be celebrated at a fully air-conditioned indoor stadium which has a seating capacity of 7,000

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4. Run Your Car On Coconut Oil

in.rediff.com

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, October 7, 2005: It might sound nuts, but two engineering students in New Zealand claim that coconut oil can be used as an alternative to diesel, providing a possible answer to rising fuel cost woes. Samoan Dominic Schwalger and Penaia Rogoiumari from Fiji, both students at Auckland University in northern New Zealand, demonstrated on Friday how a diesel engine can run on a blend of diesel and coconut oil, or on pure coconut oil alone. "What we have shown is that without any modification to either the pure oil or the engine you can use it as an alternative fuel,'' they said in a statement released by the university. The budding engineers said they have analyzed engine performance and exhaust emissions as part of their research. Their findings could help reduce fuel prices, especially in southern Asia and the Pacific Islands where coconuts are cheaply grown and plentiful. Schwalger said producing coconut oil for use in standard diesel engines is a simple process, unlike some bio-diesels, which require complex equipment and chemical reactions. "The combination of a ready supply of coconuts, rising fuel prices and ease of manufacture makes this a real option for villagers who need to run equipment like generators or boat engines,'' Rogoiumari said. At that point, it is ready for use and is utilized already in various ways such as cooking oil and suntan lotions,'' he said, adding that experiments involving coconut oil as a fuel substitute have been carried out in Asia and the Pacific Islands in the past two years.

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