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