The sphere fell on Wednesday in a village of Riacho dos Poços in Brazilian
Maranhão state. No casualties were reported apart from an unfortunate cashew
tree that was severed by the object as it plunged to the ground, according to MR
Notícias, a Mata Roma news site.An unidentified metal sphere has plunged from the
sky on unsuspecting villagers in northern Brazil, causing an uproar. According to
eyewitnesses, the UFO weighs about 50 kilograms and measures roughly one
meter in diameter.
Valdir José Mendes, 46, told police the sphere landed several meters from his house leaving a one-meter-deep hole in the yard.
"I heard the noise and I went out to see what caused it. I thought it was a plane that had fallen, or an earthquake," he said.
The noise was such that Mendes was too scared to go outside. However, curiosity got the better of him and he headed outside to find the cashew tree’s trunk snapped in half by a mysterious metal sphere lying in a hole nearby.
Some 20 villagers joined Mendes to help him extract the object from the ground and examine it. Mendes says the sphere is hollow and if shaken some sort of liquid can be felt swishing inside. Locals quickly spread the news, as they reached the town of Mata Roma over 2,000 people flocked to see the “UFO”.
"It was a huge uproar here. Some feared it was the beginning of the 2012 end of the world, others said it was ‘alien’, but I think it is a piece of satellite," said Max Garreto Mauro, 25, a resident of Mata Roma.
Peter Costa, the meteorologist at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), agrees with Garetto, saying the object would probably be part of a satellite. "I'm sure this is not a weather balloon or part of it," he said as quoted by O Imparcia.
Military police confiscated the sphere and took it to the barracks in the nearby Mata Roma. They have not specified what the UFO’s possible future will be. In a statement the Air Force Command said it"does not have specialized structures to perform scientific research on this type of aerial phenomena, which prevents the institution to submit an opinion on these events."
Photo: SCIENTIST X
Mind your head!
In December 2011, a similar incident happened in Namibia, where a metal “Teletubby head”weighing 5.9 kilograms and measuring 35 centimeters in diameter hit the ground in the village of Omanatunga. Some Russian specialists believe the “head” was part of the third stage of the Soyuz-U rocket, launched on October 30.
Space debris stories made the headlines throughout 2011. In January, media chased the infamous Russian Mars probe Phobos-Grunt across five oceans to keep up with Russia’s space agency, constantly changing the possible impact location.
Earlier in October, the German Roentgen satellite split into 30 chunks, one of which weighed 400 kilograms, but those globs eventually made their way in to the Indian Ocean.
In September 2011, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite made headlines when it threatened to fall right onto Britain but eventually collapsed into a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.
In 1998, Dr. Steven M. Greer resigned his post as Chairman of Emergency Medicine at Caldwell Memorial Hospital in North Carolina to spend all of his time and energy on exposing a massive corporate-government cover-up of extraterrestrial contact that's been kept under wraps for decades. Why does this matter? It's not so much the dozens of deceased aliens secreted at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, Greer says, or even the supersecret radionic technology that took the life of his assistant and two colleagues and nearly killed him. It's not even the prototypes of UFOs that roam the Southwest's friendly skies, looking so much like real E.T. craft that it's hard to tell the difference. (Your tax dollars at work.) What's important, Greer insists, is that if the government came clean with what it knows about E.T. technology, we could upgrade the planet. Not only would we wean ourselves off oil and other fossil fuels, we could scrap nuclear power and implement clean, cheap, safe energy that any country or culture could afford. One problem: That might weaken or topple the corporate-government power structure that controls our fuel and energy systems, mass-produces war weapons and keeps a light rein on the global economy. So how to shine a light on a shadowy consortium that promotes war while fostering scarcity, making gas prices astronomic?
Greer's Disclosure Project
Based in Crozet, Virginia, Greer's Disclosure Project has convinced hundreds of insiders, including military brass and CIA ops, to defy nondisclosure pacts. They've coughed up documents (some still classified) and signed testimonials. Greer's got it all - in fact, he gave Peter Jennings's producers access to these bombshell revelations for the ABC special on UFOs that aired last spring. But, as the good doctor found out, you can't give this stuff to the mainstream media and expect it to air on prime time. "They won't let us do it," a senior producer told Greer by phone. "I said, 'Who's They?'" "And he said, 'Dr. Greer, you know who They are.'" And click, he hung up. So why not get these documents to the President of the United States? Been there, done that. "Hillary and Bill spent hours poring over them," Greer claims a close friend of the Clinton's reported, adding that when Clinton took office, he wanted two questions answered: 1. Who killed Jack Kennedy? 2. What's going on with the UFOs? It didn't take long for Clinton to realize, says Greer's friend, that he had a much better chance of completing his term if he followed his very own "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. (Do you think his life was in jeopardy?) In 2001, Greer held a press conference at which many witnesses came forward, but it was eclipsed by 9/11. Since then he's gathered more insiders willing to reveal what the government won't. So if you're tired of holding hands with the Saudis, or you think it's time Earthlings had access to that cool, antigravity technology that allows UFOs to dodge our weapons (most of the time), check out:
It's about your pocketbook, not about little green men," says Greer, who wants to replace fossil fuel and nuclear power with the advanced energy systems used by ETs. Where do you get that? "Just ask the government," Greer replies. "They've had it for 50 years." Washington may not want to listen, but we certainly do. Bassior - Q: When did you see your first UFO? Dr. Steven Greer: Back in the early 1960s, when I was 8 or 9. Some neighborhood boys and I saw a disc-shaped, windowless object that hovered, silent, then simply vanished. My parents said, "That's very nice" and ignored it, but I knew what I'd seen, and it was life-changing. Q: What made you leave medicine to focus on the UFO cover-up full time? Greer: In 1990, I learned that NATO and the Belgian Air Force were tracking an enormous triangular craft - about 800 feet in diameter, and it re-ignited my interest. I went there and actually saw the F-16 fighter jet radar tape of a massive UFO hovering, then accelerating at several thousand miles per hour. Q: Have you seen a UFO at close range? Greer: My research team and I had one of these massive triangles come down right over our car. It was vibrating on top and sounded like an enormous transformer - a deep, low-frequency hum. The most dramatic thing we've seen is a near-landing in England, in 1992, where we had a 100-foot diameter disc in front of us about ten feet above the ground, signalling and communicating. There were people on board. Q: Has your team ever established contact with an E.T. Spacecraft? Greer: In the early 1990s, a BBC recording crew picked up a series of beeping tones (from a UFO). We recorded that, and we fed it back out. For all we know, it's their trash compactor, but we figure that if they see humans sending their signal back to them, they'll identify it as communication. In Pensacola, Florida, we signaled (a UFO craft) with high-powered lights and lasers - and they signaled back to us! We have this on videotape. Q: Are UFOs hostile? Greer: There's not a shred of evidence that these UFOs or the life-forms behind them are a threat or hostile to us. There is a lot of evidence that some rogue military projects have done dangerous things that have been aggressive toward them. Q: Has the government concealed E.T. vehicles and bodies? Greer: They have several dozen extraterrestrial vehicles and dozens of deceased extraterrestrial life-forms of various races. Some are stored in an underground facility near Fort Huachuca in Arizona.
The Quantum Vacuum
Q: Are secret programs developing E.T. technology? Greer: Yes. We can prove, through the testimony of dozens of witnesses, that there have been covert programs that have studied and figured out the energy and propulsion systems behind UFOs. We're talking about a whole new type of physics that would enable humans to generate energy from what's called the "quantum vacuum." Q: How does this energy work? Greer: There's a baseline level of energy that's in all space around us - not outer space, but the space in this room. It's estimated that every cubic centimeter of space here has enough energy to run the entire Earth for a day. This can be tapped. Some scientists are trying to fabricate motors that extract energy from the quantum vacuum, the energy that surrounds us. Q: You mean the space between atoms? Greer: Correct. The "zero point" energy. I've actually seen one of these devices working. Of course, the inventor has been threatened. Dr. Eugene Mallove, who was murdered in May 2004, and I were working on this.I'm carrying it forward, but it is high risk. Q: How close are we to harnessing this energy? Greer: We're fairly close. There are people with a "proof of principle" thing, but no products for sale yet. Right now we're working with an inventor who has created energy from this quantum vacuum in the hundreds of watts range - enough to run several things in your home. We can also demonstrate the antigravity effects of high-voltage systems under certain controlled experiments. An electronic field makes something fairly weightless. We're working with a man who's done very advanced antigravity work. The colonel who classified it is willing to declassify it for us to take forward. Q: You've made an object weightless? Greer: We've seen this done in a lab. The techniques for tapping this energy have already been fully developed within rogue and covert programs. Lockheed Skunkworks has enormous ships zipping around that are powered by antigravity. A lot of the UFOs sighted in the high desert of California and Utah are actually man-made prototypes. Q: Who else is making these phony UFO's? Greer: The companies involved are SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation), TRW, Northrop, Raytheon and EG&G. We have enormous intelligence on this. I know the buildings where this stuff is going on. This needs to come out so people know the truth. Q: Does our tax money support these secret programs, or are they privately funded? Greer: Both. There's private, corporate funding as well as what's called "black budget" sources. I met with Senator Robert C. Byrd's staff in 1994. His senior investigator and chief counsel for the Senate Appropriations Committee, for which he was chairman at the time, told me that this stuff was real, (but that) they could not penetrate this black world dealing with UFOs. At that time between $40 billion and $100 billion a year was going into these projects, and they could NOT trace the money.
Maintaining The Status Quo
Q: Why are these programs kept secret? Greer: Fossil fuel and the nuclear power industries would be made redundant by these technologies that very elegantly extract energy from the quantum vacuum, or "zero point" energy field. We have a $7 trillion part of the world economy dealing with fossil fuels and conventional transportation. If this information comes out - aside from people realizing that we're not alone in the universe - they'll quickly see that we don't need oil, coal or central utilities. It's all about maintaining the homeostasis and status quo of the world macro-economic and power dynamic.
Zero-Point Energy
Q: How would zero-point energy transform the global economy? Greer: It would replace everything. You wouldn't need oil, but the $30 trillion-a-year global economy would quickly grow to $200 trillion because there'd be clean, sustainable energy, and manufacturing and transportation would be very inexpensive. Eighty percent of the world's population lives in amazing poverty, and it would lift that. It would revolutionize the planet. People talk about the "peace dividend," but it's time for a "space dividend." Q: Who's hiding these advanced energy systems from the public? Greer: The entity that runs this stuff is the world's largest RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization). They used to be called MJ - Majestic 12 - but the last term I heard was PI-40. It's not one society. There are sweeping conspiracy theories about the Masons, Bilderbergers, Trilateral Commission and Counsel of Foreign Relations. I know people in all these groups. Q: Why do they feel threatened? Greer:It would decentralize power. Right now the centralized financial and oil system is so integrated with the way the world runs. We have testimony about what the agenda is from people who've been on the inside. Q: Who is this covert group? Greer: There's a committee of 200 to 300 people who are on the policy board for this issue. Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, who went from head of the National Security Agency to the board of SAIC - which is one of the crown jewels of the covert entity - is a member. So is Admiral Harry Trane. George Bush, Sr., Cheney and Rumsfeld are involved, as is the Liechtenstein Banking Family. The Mormon corporate empire has an enormous interest in this subject; they have much more power than the White House or the Pentagon over this issue. And there are secret cells within the Vatican. Q: Have you met with any of these people? Greer: There are factions within this group, and I've met with some of the "good guys." People think that it's a monolithic conspiracy, but they're wrong. About 40% to 50% of people involved in these supersecret projects want this stuff out. They know we're running out of oil, China is industrializing, and the polar ice caps are melting. And they know that if this (advanced E.T. technology) was announced today, it would take ten to twenty years to get it into widespread application to avert an economic, strategic, geopolitical and environmental catastrophe. They see that and want to fix it, but they're still a minority. They're more enlightened, but it's the ruthless ones who rule.
Death Of CIA Director Bill Colby
Q: Was CIA Director William Colby involved at some point? Was his "accidental" death in 1996 connected to your work? Greer: Bill Colby was defecting from the supersecret group, and he was ASSASSINATED because he was going to transfer some hard technologies - operating devices - and $50 million in funding TO US. He knew that with my kind of willpower and connections, I would have gotten that out to the world. He was found floating down the Potomac River the week he was going to meet with my closest friend. They made an example of him. In fact, Colby's best friend, a colonel who set up the meeting, said it was absolutely a hit. Even his wife said on CNN, "You know, it was strange, because he would never go out canoeing in a flooded, rain-swollen Potomac River at night and leave the house open and coffeemaker and the computer on." Colby's widow stopped short of calling it murder. Someone may have said, "Play along, or your children are next." I mean, these people are thugs. Q: Has your life been threatened? Greer: Around the time Colby was killed, my right-hand assistant, a member of Congress who was working very closely with us, and myself, all got a deadly type of cancer in the same month - different kinds. I don't talk about this publicly much because people say, "Come on!" But it absolutely can be done, it WAS done, and everyone DIED but me. I was devastated, and it took me 18 months to recover. Q: You're saying the UFO-cover-up conspirators can target people from a distance and produce cancer? Greer: Yes. Dr. Tom Bearden's books about the scalar electromagnetic weapon systems explain how longitudinal waveforms can be a carrier wave for this kind of thing. They can get it down to a cell: to you DNA. It's all resonance. We've had this technology since the 1950s. Q: Do you have witnesses willing to step forward and reveal what they know about this massive cover-up? Greer: We have about 450 military and government "insiders" who have been present during rather undeniable events, including the study of these energy and propulsion systems.
The Reason Marilyn Monroe Died
Q: Do you have documents? Greer: We have a number of "smoking gun" documents, including a wiretap of Marilyn Monroe the day before she died, which has never been declassified. She was threatening to hold a press conference to tell the world what Jack Kennedy had told her during pillow talk about having seen debris from an extraterrestrial vehicle at what the document calls a "secret air base." She was murdered for this. Q: Why isn't the mainstream media covering these stories? Greer: The biggest problem IS the media. If a congressman starts looking into this, they get pilloried and ridiculed by the media. There's a CIA document from 1991 that clearly states that the Agency had contacts or resources at every major media outlet to kill, spin or stop stories. It's a canard that we have a free press. Also, people can't wrap their minds around it. A former editor at the Boston Globe told me, "This is just too far out." And yet these people (the media) will spend millions for satellite trucks and onsite reporters to cover freak shows like the O. J. Simpson or Michael Jackson trials. Q: Why is the UFO issue so urgent? Greer: It's about how we live our lives. Aside from cleaning up the environment, it (E.T. technology) extricates us from our dependency on OIL, gets us out of that Middle East mess, and saves the average American household thousands of dollars a year in heating, utilities and gas for their cars. And, globally, it frees up enormous amounts of economic potential. This would be the tide that raises all ships. Q: How do you keep going in the face of so much mainstream resistance? Greer: It's a sort of Promethean challenge. Lawrence Rockefeller once told me, "It's wonderful that you're going to do this, and it's so important. But I'm afraid you're going to be the court jester - that people won't take this seriously." And I said, "Well, we at least have to try." Q: How will you publicize your information? Greer: We're moving on two fronts. One is technology, working through SEAS (Space Energy Access Systems, Inc.) at www.SeasPower.com. That's the corporate side for the technology and research we're doing. The second is identifying funding support for the next phase - a much larger press and media presence with new witnesses, particularly those with advanced technologies. The limiting factor has been funding. If I were to claim aliens raped me, I'd have a multimillion-dollar movie deal. Doing something serious, there's hardly any money available. They talk about lack of morality in our society, but real morality is being concerned with these issues
What Our Extraterrestrial Visitors Want
Q: What do you think our extraterrestrial visitors are looking for now? Greer: I think they're waiting for us to grow up and quit destroying Earth and each other. That may be the entry requirement for joining the interplanetary club, and we're just not there yet. I believe that's the biggest challenge for the human race. Q: Are you hopeful for the future? Greer: I'm very hopeful. In fact, I have no doubt that the outcome will be peaceful, that these technologies will completely rehabilitate Earth's fortunes and environment, and eliminate poverty. And it will happen in our lifetimes. But the question is. . . . .how much madness has to go on between now and then?
Life on Mars | Scientist Explains | Disclosure is near 2013
For centuries people have speculated about the possibility of life on Mars owing to the planet's proximity and similarity to Earth. Serious searches for evidence of life began in the 19th century, and continue via telescopic investigations and landed missions. While early work focused on phenomenology and bordered on fantasy, modern scientific inquiry has emphasized the search for water, chemical biosignatures of life in the soil and rocks at the planet's surface, and the search for biomarker gases in the atmosphere.
Mars is of particular interest for the study of the origins of life, because of its similarity to the early Earth. This is especially so as Mars has a cold climate and lacks plate tectonics or continental drift, and has remained pretty much unchanged since the end of the Hesperian period. At least two thirds of Mars' surface is more than 3.5 billion years old, and Mars may thus hold the best record of the prebiotic conditions leading to abiogenesis, even if life does not or has never existed there.
Fictional Martians have been a recurring feature of popular entertainment of the 20th and 21st centuries, and it remains an open question whether life currently exists on Mars, or has existed there in the past.
Historical map of Mars from Giovanni Schiaparelli.
Mars canals illustrated by astronomerPercival Lowell, 1898.
Mars' polar ice caps were observed as early as the mid-17th century, and they were first proven to grow and shrink alternately, in the summer and winter of each hemisphere, by William Herschel in the latter part of the 18th century. By the mid-19th century, astronomers knew that Mars had certain other similarities to Earth, for example that the length of a day on Mars was almost the same as a day on Earth. They also knew that its axial tilt was similar to Earth's, which meant it experienced seasons just as Earth does — but of nearly double the length owing to its much longer year. These observations led to the increase in speculation that the darker albedo features were water, and brighter ones were land. It was therefore natural to suppose that Mars may be inhabited by some form of life.
In 1854, William Whewell, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who popularized the word scientist, theorized that Mars had seas, land and possibly life forms. Speculation about life on Mars exploded in the late 19th century, following telescopic observation by some observers of apparent Martian canals — which were later found to be optical illusions. Despite this, in 1895, American astronomer Percival Lowell published his book Mars, followed by Mars and its Canals in 1906, proposing that the canals were the work of a long-gone civilization.This idea led British writer H. G. Wells to write The War of the Worlds in 1897, telling of an invasion by aliens from Mars who were fleeing the planet’s desiccation.
Spectroscopic analysis of Mars' atmosphere began in earnest in 1894, when U.S. astronomer William Wallace Campbell showed that neither water nor oxygen were present in the Martian atmosphere. By 1909 better telescopes and the best perihelic opposition of Mars since 1877 conclusively put an end to the canal theory.
Missions
Mariner 4 probe performed the first successful flyby of the planet Mars, returning the first pictures of the Martian surface in 1965. The photographs showed an arid Mars without rivers, oceans, or any signs of life. Further, it revealed that the surface (at least the parts that it photographed) was covered in craters, indicating a lack of plate tectonics and weathering of any kind for the last 4 billion years. The probe also found that Mars has no global magnetic field that would protect the planet from potentially life-threatening cosmic rays. The probe was able to calculate the atmospheric pressure on the planet to be about 0.6 kPa (compared to Earth's 101.3 kPa), meaning that liquid water could not exist on the planet's surface. After Mariner 4, the search for life on Mars changed to a search for bacteria-like living organisms rather than for multicellular organisms, as the environment was clearly too harsh for these.
Mariner Crater, as seen by Mariner 4 in 1965. Pictures like this suggested that Mars is too dry for any kind of life.
Streamlined Islands seen by Viking orbiter showed that large floods occurred on Mars. Image is located inLunae Palus quadrangle.
Viking orbiters
Liquid water is necessary for known life and metabolism, so if water was present on Mars, the chances of it having supported life may have been determinant. The Viking orbiters found evidence of possible river valleys in many areas, erosion and, in the southern hemisphere, branched streams.
Viking experiments
The primary mission of the Viking probes of the mid-1970s was to carry out experiments designed to detect microorganisms in Martian soil because the favorable conditions for the evolution of multicellular organisms ceased some four billion years ago on Mars. The tests were formulated to look for microbial life similar to that found on Earth. Of the four experiments, only the Labeled Release (LR) experiment returned a positive result, showing increased 14CO2 production on first exposure of soil to water and nutrients. All scientists agree on two points from the Viking missions: that radiolabeled 14CO2 was evolved in the Labeled Release experiment, and that the GC-MS detected no organic molecules. However, there are vastly different interpretations of what those results imply.
One of the designers of the Labeled Release experiment, Gilbert Levin, believes his results are a definitive diagnostic for life on Mars. However, this result is disputed by many scientists, who argue that superoxidant chemicals in the soil could have produced this effect without life being present. An almost general consensus discarded the Labeled Release data as evidence of life, because the gas chromatograph & mass spectrometer, designed to identify natural organic matter, did not detect organic molecules. The results of the Viking mission concerning life are considered by the general expert community, at best, as inconclusive.
In 2007, during a Seminar of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution (Washington, D.C., USA), Gilbert Levin's investigation was assessed once more. Levin still maintains that his original data were correct, as the positive and negative control experiments were in order. Moreover, Levin's team, on 12 April 2012, reported a statistical speculation, based on old data —reinterpreted mathematically through complexity analysis— of the Labeled Release experiments, that may suggest evidence of "extant microbial life on Mars." Critics counter that the method has not yet been proven effective for differentiating between biological and non-biological processes on Earth so it is premature to draw any conclusions.
Ronald Paepe, an edaphologist (soil scientist), communicated to the European Geosciences Union Congress that the discovery of the recent detection of silicate minerals on Mars may indicate pedogenesis, or soil development processes, extended over the entire surface of Mars. Paepe's interpretation views most of Mars surface as active soil, colored red by eons of widespread wearing by water, vegetation and microbial activity.
A research team from the National Autonomous University of Mexico headed by Rafael Navarro-González, concluded that the equipment (TV-GC-MS) used by the Viking program to search for organic molecules, may not be sensitive enough to detect low levels of organics. Because of the simplicity of sample handling, TV–GC–MS is still considered the standard method for organic detection on future Mars missions, so Navarro-González suggests that the design of future organic instruments for Mars should include other methods of detection.
Carl Sagan poses next to a replica of the Viking landers.
Phoenix lander, 2008
The Phoenix mission landed a robotic spacecraft in the polar region of Mars on May 25, 2008 and it operated until November 10, 2008. One of the mission's two primary objectives was to search for a "habitable zone" in the Martian regolith where microbial life could exist, the other main goal being to study the geological history of water on Mars. The lander has a 2.5 meter robotic arm that was capable of digging shallow trenches in the regolith. There was an electrochemistry experiment which analysed the ions in the regolith and the amount and type of antioxidants on Mars. The Viking program data indicate that oxidants on Mars may vary with latitude, noting that Viking 2 saw fewer oxidants than Viking 1 in its more northerly position. Phoenix landed further north still.Phoenix's preliminary data revealed that Mars soil contains perchlorate, and thus may not be as life-friendly as thought earlier. The pH and salinity level were viewed as benign from the standpoint of biology. The analysers also indicated the presence of bound water and CO2.
Dwarka () also spelled Dvarka, Dwaraka, and Dvaraka, is a city and a municipality of Jamnagar district in the Gujaratstate in India. Dwarka is one of the seven most ancient cities in the country.
Climate
Moreover, Dwarka is one of seven most holy places forHindusin India whereVaranasiis considered as the holiest of the seven holy cities.
“
Ayodhyā Mathurā Māyā Kāsi Kāñchī Avantikā I
Purī Dvārāvatī chaiva saptaitā moksadāyikāh II – Garuḍa Purāṇa I XVI .14
”
A Kṣetra is a sacred ground, a field of active power, a place where Moksha, final release can be obtained. The Garuda Puranaenumerates seven sites as giver of Moksha, They are Ayodhya, Mathura, Māyā, Kāsi, Kāñchī, Avantikā, Purī and Dvārāvatī.
Demographics
As of the 2001 Indian census,Dwarka had a population of 33,614. Males constitute 53% of the population, and females constitute 47%. Dwarka has an average literacy rate of 64%, higher than the national average of 59.5%; the male literacy rate is 72%, and the female literacy rate is 55%. 13% of the population is under six years of age. Dwarka is dominated by people from ahircommunity.
The present temple was built from 6th to 7th century, while the original temple was believed to have been built by Krishna's great grandson, KingVajra. The 5-storied temple is made of limestone and sand. A flag is hoisted in the temple tower five times each day. There are two gateways –Swarga Dwar, where pilgrims enter, and Moksha Dwar, where pilgrims exit. From the temple one can view the Sangam (confluence) of River Gomati flowing towards the sea. In Dwaraka, there are also shrines for Vasudeva, Devaki,Balarama and Revati, Subhadra, Rukmini Devi, Jambavati Devi and Satyabhama Devi.
There is a special temple for Rukmini Devi on the way to the Bet Dwarka temple. Bet Dwarka, a similar deity to Lord Dwarakanath, is also keptin Bet Dwaraka. The temple of Bet Dwarka can be reached by boat. The temple has many shrines for Lakshmi Narayana, Trivikrama, Jambavati Devi, Satyabhama Devi and Rukmini Devi.
The city derives its name from word dvar, meaning door or gate in Sanskrit. Dwarka is considered to be one of the holiest cities in Hinduism and one of the Char Dham along with Badrinath, Puri, Rameswaram. The city is especially respected by Vaishnavas. The Jagatmandir temple, which houses the Dwarkadhish, a form of Krishna, is also located in Dwaraka.
Dwarka is also the site of Dvaraka Pitha, one of the four cardinal mathas established by Adi Shankara, the others being those at Shringeri, Puri and Jyotirmath.
Gujarat, India Adi Shankara had visited Dvarakadisha Shrine and had established the Dvaraka Pitha. The Lord here is dressed in Kalyana Kolam where he appears to be a Royal Wedding costume. It is one of the 108 Divya desams.
There are many Darshan and Sevas for Lord Dwaraknath. The dress is changed accordingly. The Darshans follow the Pushti Marg Vaishnava scriptures established by Shree Vallabhacharya and Shree Vitheleshnathji. Dwarkadhish temple is a Pushti Marg Temple. The Darshan are
Mangala
Shringar
Gval
Rajbhog
Uthapan
Bhog
Sandhya Aarati
Shayan
Dwarka Kingdom
A Painting depicting Krishna's Dwarka made during Akbar's reign from theSmithsonian Institution Main article: Dwaraka Kingdom
Dwarka is mentioned in the Mahabharata, the Harivansha, the Bhagavata Purana, theSkanda Purana, and the Vishnu Purana. It is said that this Dwarka was located near the site of the current city of Dwarka, but was eventually deserted and submerged into the sea.
Characteristics of the CityThe city was built by Vishwakarma on the order of Lord Krishna. Land was reclaimed from the sea near the western shores of Saurashtra. A city was planned and built here. Dwarka was a planned city, on the banks of Gomati River. This city was also known as Dvaramati, Dvaravati and Kushsthali. It had six well-organized sectors, residential and commercial zones, wide roads, plazas, palaces and many public utilities. A hall called "Sudharma Sabha" was built to hold public meetings. The city also boasted having the possession of a good sea harbour. The city had 700,000 palaces made of gold, silver and other precious stones. Each one of Lord Krishna's wives had her own palace. Besides this, the city had beautiful gardens filled with flowers of all seasons and beautiful lakes.
Sudama bows at the glimpse of Krishna's golden palace in Dwarka. ca 1775–1790 painting
Dwarakadheesh temple in present Dwarka city, believed to have been originally built by Lord Krishna's grandson, Vajranabha, over the hari-griha (Lord Krishna's residential place)
Submersion into the SeaAfter Krishna left the earth for Vaikuntha,about 36 years after the Mahabharat War (3138 BC), and the major Yadava leaders were killed in disputes among themselves, Arjuna went to Dwarka to bring Krishna's grandsons and the Yadava wives to Hastinapur, to safety. After Arjuna left Dwarka, it was submerged into the sea. Following is the account given by Arjuna, found in the Mahabharata:
...imposed on it by nature. The sea rushed into the city. It coursed through the streets of the beautiful city. The sea covered up everything in the city. I saw the beautiful buildings becoming submerged one by one. In a matter of a few moments it was all over. The sea had now become as placid as a lake. There was no trace of the city. Dwaraka was just a name; just a memory.
The Vishnu Purana also mentions the submersion of Dwarka, stating
On the same day that Krishna departed from the earth the powerful dark-bodied Kali Age descended. The oceans rose and submerged the whole of Dwarka.
Marine archaeological findings
Main article: Marine archaeology in the Gulf of Cambay
On 19 May 2001, India's Science and Technology Minister Murli Manohar Joshi announced the finding of ruins in the Gulf of Khambhat. The ruins, known as the Gulf of Khambhat Cultural Complex (GKCC), are located on the seabed of a nine-kilometer stretch off the coast of Gujarat province at a depth of about 40 m. The site was discovered by a team from the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) in December 2000 and investigated for six months with acoustic techniques.
A follow up investigation was conducted by the same institute in November 2001, which included dredging to recover artefacts. A round of further underwater explorations was made in the Gulf of Khambhat site by the NIOT team from 2003 to 2004, and the samples obtained of what was presumed to be pottery were sent to laboratories in Oxford, UK and Hannover, Germany, as well as several institutions within India, to be dated.
One of the main controversies is a piece of wood that was carbon dated to around 7500 BCE, a date which is used in arguments for a very early date for a city here.Dr. D.P. Agrawal, chairman of the Paleoclimate Group and founder of Carbon-14 testing facilities in India stated in an article in Frontline Magazine that the piece was dated twice, at separate laboratories. The NGRI in Hyderabad returned a date of 7190 BC and the BSIP in Hannover returned a date of 7545–7490 BC. Some archaeologists, Agrawal in particular, contest that the discovery of an ancient piece of wood does not imply the discovery of an ancient civilisation. Agrawal argues that the wood piece is a common find, given that 20,000 years ago the Arabian Sea was 100 meters lower than its current level, and that the gradual sea level rise submerged entire forests.
"The sacred town and temples of Dwarka," from Grindlay's 'Scenery, Costumes and Architecture chiefly on the Western Side of India', London, 1826–30
Bet Dwarka
Bet Dwarka is famous for its temples dedicated to Lord Krishna and is of great importance in the ancient Hindu tradition. It and other coastal sites have ample antiquities, mainly potsherds, suggesting maritime trade and commerce with the Mediterranean countries around the Christian era. This flourishing harbour and religious capital is believed to have submerged under the sea after the Krishna left dwarka for vaikunth.
A team of archaeologists have carried out onshore and inter-tidal zone explorations and a few trial trenches were laid to trace a proper cultural sequence. The most potential sites, where a large number of antiquities were recovered are the sectors, Bet Dwarka-I, II, VI, and IX.
The findings of Bet Dwarka may be divided into two broad periods: Pre-historic period which includes a small seal of conch shell engraved with a three-headed animal motif, two inscriptions, a copper fishhook and late Harappan pottery (circa 1700–1400 BC) and the Historical period consisting of coins and pottery. Onshore and inter-tidal zone explorations have indicated some kind of shoreline shifting around the Bet Dwarka island as a few sites get submerged during high tide.
Offshore explorations near present Bet Dwarka brought to light a number of stone anchors of different types that include triangular, grapnel and ring stones. They are made out of locally available rocks and their period may also be similar to those found at Dwarka and other places. Recently, Roman antiquities including shreds of amphorae and a lead ingot and lead anchors were found. There is also an indication of a shipwreck of Roman period in Bet Dwarka waters.
The archaeological explorations at Bet Dwarka Island have brought to light a large number of data on India's external overseas trade and commerce with western countries. Recent findings at the Bet Dwarka have shown evidence of Indo-Roman trade. India had an active maritime trade with Rome from the fourth century BCE to 4th century CE. These findings would concentrate on the time period from the first century BCE to the 2nd century CE. The discovery of the amphoras in Bet Dwarka is significant in view of the maritime history of India in concerned. There are remains of seven amphoras from which a black encrustation can be seen. This ware was mainly used for exporting wine and olive oil from the Roman Empire; it is most likely that these were wine amphoras. The discovery of a large quantity of amphora sherds suggests that Bet Dwarka had international trade contact during the early centuries of the Christian era. The findings present the possibility of a shipwreck in this area associated with Roman trade, though it is unlikely that the remains of the hull of the wreck survive. Thus the presence of Roman amphoras show that Roman ships reached Bet Dwarka waters earlier than has been previously noted. These same archaeological findings along with anchors have indicated the existence of several ports, jetties and anchoring points along the west coast of Indian. Though there are no remains of an ancient jetty at Bet Dwarka, the presence of stone anchors in the intertidal one indicates that the high tide was effectively used for anchoring the boats. The presence of a large number and variety of stone anchors in Bet Dwarka suggests that this was one of important ports in ancient times. The location of Bet Dwarka was favourable for safe anchorage in the past since it was protected from high waves and storms.
The proposal for the Dwarka museum, submitted by the Marine Archaeology Centre of the National Institute of Oceanography im 1999, involves laying a submarine acrylic tube through which visitors can view through glass windows the ruins of the city. The State Government of Gujarat and the Travel & Tourism Department of Gujarat are working on this proposal. When completed, it will be the first museum to be built under the sea.
home
Home
