The Writings of an Illiterate Man Vol. 2

I started with Durga on the recommendation of a classmate. She is a warrior goddess, and one of the most important forms of Devi. I was then led to Dashain . Dashain is a fifteen day Hindu festival. It represents Durga's triumph over a demon. Part of the ceremony traditionally took place at the Hanuman Dhoka  palace. The palace gets its name from a stone statue of Hanuman at its gates. Finally, I was led to what is called a Torana . It is basically just an ornate archway that is freestanding. Torana In Front of Sanchi Stupa Source

I started with Agni . Agni is a deity I have been interested since before even taking this class. I even considered doing my project over him. From there I was led to Holi , or the "Festival of Colors". This is a springtime festival that essentially celebrates the triumph of good over evil and many other things. It also involves the lighting of a ceremonial bonfire. That bonfire is called the Holika Dahan . The bonfire is significant as it is on this pyre that the demoness Holika was burned. Holika Bonfire in front of Jagdish Temple in Udaipur Source Holika was a demoness referenced in Hindu Mythology. She was asked by her brother to kill her nephew after the nephew chose to worship Vishnu over his father, a demon king. She attempted to kill her nephew by sitting on a pyre with him in his lap. She had on a cloak that made her invulnerable to the fire. But, while the fire burned, the cloak flew from her and onto her nephew. Her burning on this pyre is signified ...

I started with Arjuna , one of the Pandava Brothers. He was one of the more heavily featured of the brothers so I felt it would be a good place to start. I then found out that there is a class of asteroid named after him. The Arjuna class of asteroids are near earth asteroids with low inclination, eccentricity, and a nearly 1 year period of revolution about the sun. From there I took a look at other near-earth objects . There is some really cool stuff near us. Then I went to read up about the Tunguska event . I have heard about it, but never really read much about it. Essentially there was an explosion in 1908 in Siberia. We don't really know what caused it, but one of the leading theories is that it was caused by an asteroid. Trees Knocked Over by the Blast Source

I started with Vajra . Vajra is Indra's weapon and it translates to "Thunderbolt". I think lightning is pretty cool, and the Vajra is one of the topics I will be writing about for my project. I was then led to the Mirage 2000 aircraft. As an aerospace engineer, I can get pretty excited about aircraft sometimes. Vajra is the Indian Airforce's nickname for their variant of the Mirage 2000. From their I learned that the Mirage was originally based off of designs for a variable-sweep aircraft. Variable sweep aircraft are really cool so I decided to read up more about them. Finally, I was led to the F-111 Aardvark . The F-111 was the first variable-sweep aircraft to make it to production. This aircraft pioneered what would become a very popular military aircraft mechanic for the next couple of decades or so. F-111 Sweep Sequence Source

So I started with Hanuman since he is one of my favorite characters from out readings. One of the reasons I liked him so much was because he reminds me of Sun Wukong, the main character from the chinese novel Journey to the West . Wukong is also a playable character in Smite (where I was first introduced to him). Wikipedia lists Sun Wukong in the see also section. I thought it would be cool to read a bit about the character since I haven't read the novel about him and all of my knowledge of him is from a couple of video games. Sun Wukong Fighting a Wind Demon Source From there I went to learn more about his weapon, the Jingu Bang . The weapon itself is pretty interesting as it is able to grow or shrink to any size. I learned that the original use of the weapon was Yu the Great . I clicked on the link because anyone named "The Great" must have a pretty interesting story. It turns out he introduced flood control techniques to the chinese. Also, we aren't...