Hindu Quiz- 2

[london swaminathan]

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Hindu Quiz- 2

Test your knowledge in Hinduism. Answers are given at the bottom.
If you score between 16 and 12 you are very good
Between 12 and 10, you are good
Between 5 and 10 refresh you your knowledge in Hinduism
Below five, sorry, are you a Hindu?
Compiled by S Swaminathan

1)What is the Vahana of Saraswati Devi?

2)How many chapters are there in the Bhagawad Gita?

3)Who is the author of Brahmasutras?

4)What are the four Vedas?

5)What are the six systems of Hindu Philosophy?

6)Who is the Guru in Kathopanishad?

7)Who is the disciple in Kathopanishad?

8)Where is the Brihadeeswara temple located?

9)Who composed Thiruppavai in Tamil?

10)In which Veda does Sri Rudram occur?

11)What is the Vahana of Shiva?

12)To which Veda does Prasnopanishad belong?

13)Who is the author of the Yoga system of philosophy?

14)What is the birth place of Adi Sankara?

15)Where is the Mahakaleswar Temple located?

16)How many times did Thyagaraja recite Rama’s name and how long did it take?
Answers: 1.Swan (annam)2.Eighteen 3. Vyasa 4. Rig,Yajur, Sama, Atharvana 5.Sankya,Nyaya,Yoga, Vaisheshika, Purva Mimamsa and Uttara Mimamsa 6.Yama 7.Nachiketas 8.Thanjavur,Tamil Nadu 9.Andal 10.Yajur Veda 11. Bull (Nandi) 12.Atharva Veda 13.Patanjali 14.Kaladi in Kerala 15.Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh16) 960 million (96 crores) times, it took him 21 years 15 days.

(For more quiz, contact [email protected] or [email protected] )

 

[mahakavi]

Not to sound like a skeptic, #16 appears incredulous. If you do a simple math, 21 years and 15 days work out 7680 days. Multiply it by 24 hours, you get 184,320 hours. Multiply it by 3600 to get seconds. You get 660 million seconds. Let us assume he can recite "rAma" one per second on a practical basis. Perhaps 3 per 2 seconds. You can recite 990 million times. The target is 960 million. So to do this one has to recite day in and day out for 21 years and 15 days during every second of waking time and sleeping time. Imagine that. When you eat you cannot recite (orally), when you sleep, can you? When did he start and when did he finish? As a boy and how old was he when he finished? He did not do any music then---think, write, sing etc.,?

Sorry to crash the party!

 

[london swaminathan]

mahakavi
good calculation!
This is what the books say about him.
But there is another possibility.
One Rama nama per second is for ordinary mortals like me.
He might have done it with incredible speed. Who knows?

In the Mahabharata under the Yakshaprashna , the ghost asked the question, Which one in the universe has highest speed? or What is the fastest thing in the universe?

Einstein would have answered LIGHT.
But Dharman gave a quick reply: MANAS (the MIND).

I have argued in my HINDU PREDICTIONS FOR FUTURE article, future scientists would find that we can even do time travel by mind!

 

[mahakavi]

Not to prolong this. But the written story about T reciting it for 21 years (960 million times) is a stretch of imagination. We say "pon vaikkum iDattil poo vaikkalAm". Also Vishnu sahasranamam says, "sri rAma rAma rAmEti ramE rAmE manOramE; sahsranAma tattulyam rAma nAma varAnanE". Like that each utterance was equivalent to 1000 times or more is an acceptable advice. Perhaps T was told a similar "yukthi". A shorter span of time than 21 years would have been enough. People who wrote the story really took pains to calculate the elaborate time needed. Imagination can run riot!

 

[prasad1]

Not to sound like a skeptic, #16 appears incredulous. If you do a simple math, 21 years and 15 days work out 7680 days. Multiply it by 24 hours, you get 184,320 hours. Multiply it by 3600 to get seconds. You get 660 million seconds. Let us assume he can recite "rAma" one per second on a practical basis. Perhaps 3 per 2 seconds. You can recite 990 million times. The target is 960 million. So to do this one has to recite day in and day out for 21 years and 15 days during every second of waking time and sleeping time. Imagine that. When you eat you cannot recite (orally), when you sleep, can you? When did he start and when did he finish? As a boy and how old was he when he finished? He did not do any music then---think, write, sing etc.,?

Sorry to crash the party!

Very good analysis.

 

[prasad1]

Mr. Swaminathan,
According to wikipedia:

The Brahma Sutra is attributed to Badarayana — which makes him the proponent of the crest-jewel school of Hindu philosophy, i.e., Vedanta. Vyasa is conflated with Badarayana by Vaishnavas with the reason that the island on which Vyasa was born is said to have been covered by Badara (Indian jujube/Ber/Ziziphus mauritiana) trees. Apart from Adi Shankara who refers to these two separately rather than as a single individual, many modern historians also think these were two different personalities.

 

[london swaminathan]

Dear Prasad

Regarding Question 3, the author of Brahmasutra was Badarayana Vyasa. Your are right.

There were more than 20 Vyasa's according to an old Dictionary of Mythology. But we celebrate two Vyasas: Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa (Mr Black Island) who divided Vedas into four parts because it was so unwieldy for anyone to master in one's life time.He was the Vyasa of Mahabaharata as well. The second Vyasa was the Badarayana Vyasa, the author of Brahmasutra.

Vyasa means an essayist like we have Bernard Shaw, Robert Lind, Francis Bacon, Max Beerbohm etc. in English. Hope you agree with me.