Murugan Bhakti Newsletter No. 7: January-February 2001
Newsletter Contents:
- Discovery Channel documentary 21 January!
- What's new at Murugan Bhakti?
- Five new associated websites
- Murugan Conference News
Happy New Year and Pongal nal vāzhthukkal!
I. Discovery Channel documentary premiers 21st January
The Discovery Channel documentary on body-piercing practices at Kathirkamam Adi Festival will be broadcast Sunday 21 January in North America at 10 pm EST/PST on The Discovery Channel.
Note that this telecast is for North America only. Later telecast in Europe, Asia, Africa & Australia will be at a later date. Watch this website and the Murugan Bhakti newsletter for details.
Gabriel Films documentary producer Heidi Ewing announced on 17 Jan that The Discovery Channel will be telecasting this documentary on body-piercing and other spiritual practices shot at the Kathirkamam Adi festival in Sri Lanka last July. Kataragama Devotees Trust devotees including Murugan Bhakti editor Patrick Harrigan were closely involved in the planning and on-scene direction of this documentary.
This documentary in The Discovery Channel's "Ancient Moderns" series features visually stunning videography by Marco Franzoni. The one-hour documentary is a video montage contrasting body-piercing practices in three far-flung locales: southern Sudan in Africa, the Kataragama festival in Sri Lanka, and young Americans in Texas, USA.
For enquiries, contact the Murugan Bhakti editor or see:
"Discovery Channel discovers Kataragama"
II. What else is new at Murugan Bhakti?
There are SO many new pages since the last newsletter of a few months ago that, once again, we can only offer an overview of highlights. These include:
III. 5 new websites associated with Murugan Bhakti
- Bhogar.com
Brand-new website devoted to Siddhar Bhogar of Palani. Superb graphics (uses Flash technology). Please contact Bhogar.com if you have any info/graphics on Bhogar to contribute.
- Saranam.com
Pages on over 250 temples in India, including 18 Murugan temples, many with detailed info not available anywhere else. They can arrange to perform pujas on your behalf and ship the prasad to you. Check it out!
- Vedda.org
Website of Sri Lanka's Veddas, the indigenous forest people and original custodians of Kataragama's traditions. Photos, maps, and the complete story of the Veddas.
- CulturalSurvivalTrust.org
Murugan Bhakti's sister organisation Cultural Survival of Sri Lanka: its role in helping to protect Sri Lanka's cultural & environmental diversity.
- LivingHeritage.org
Living Heritage of Sri Lanka: our parent organisation responsible for linking and protecting sacred sites all across Sri Lanka.
IV. Murugan Conference news
The 2nd International Conference Seminar on Skanda-Murukan will take place 24-28 April 2001 in Mauritius. The Government of Mauritius and the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Moka, Mauritius will host the Conference.
The theme of the 2nd Conference is: "Murukan Bhakti among the Tamil diaspora".
The deadline for submission of proposals for papers is 31 January, 2001.
Enquiries about arrangements in Mauritius should be directed to the local organising secretary, Maga Ramasamy maga@intnet.mu. For more details see the Murukan Conference home page.
See also complete index of topics with hyperlinks to websites.
Murugan Bhakti Newsletter No. 7
Newsletter of Murugan.org and Kataragama.org
To read past issues, go to the Murugan Bhakti online archives at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/murugan_bhakti/
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