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Explained: Story of ‘rat temple' near Bikaner, visited by PM Modi
Explained: Story of ‘rat temple' near Bikaner, visited by PM Modi

Indian Express

time24-05-2025

  • General
  • Indian Express

Explained: Story of ‘rat temple' near Bikaner, visited by PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday (May 24) visited the Karni Mata temple in Deshnok, a small town about 30 km from Bikaner, Rajasthan. Dubbed the 'rat temple', this historical place of worship is famous for being the home to tens of thousands of kabas (rats), which are considered sacred and protected. Karni Mata, also known as Ridhi Kanwar or Ridhu Bai, is believed to have been a 14th–15th sage, and an incarnation of Goddess Durga. She is said to have been born in 1387 CE in the village of Suwap near Phalodi, about 100 km from Deshnok, into a Charan family. (Traditionally, Charans are bards, or court poets and genealogists.) It is said that Ridhi Kanwar was in her mother's womb for 21 months, and her coming was foretold by Goddess Durga herself, who appeared in her mother's dreams. Upon performing many miracles while growing up, Ridhi Kanwar was given the name Karni Mata. Historical details of Karni Mata's life are scant, and much of what is known about her comes from oral tradition and hagiographies, such as the Karni Mata Charitra, which portray her as a spiritual leader who performed miracles and supported rulers including Rao Jodha, the founder of Jodhpur, and Rao Bika ji, the founder of Bikaner. It is said that both Jodhpur and Bikaner were established in 1459 and 1488, respectively, with Karni Mata's blessings. Her followers say she lived for 151 years, before her 'ascension' in 1538 AD. The present structure of the Karni Mata Temple was commissioned in the early 20th century by Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner. 'Karni Mata represents a blend of folk sainthood and goddess worship unique to western Rajasthan,' notes Prof Lindsey Harlan, in Religion and Rajput Women: The Ethic of Protection in Contemporary Narratives (University of California Press, 1992). Charans consider Karni Mata as not just a goddess but also as their kuldevi (tutelary deity). The priests at the Karni Mata temple have traditionally been Charans, who trace their lineage to her family. The community maintains custodianship of the temple. 'For the Charans, Karni Mata is not only divine but a blood relation, which reinforces their caste identity and social authority in the region' wrote Prof Ann Grodzins Gold, in Fruitful Journeys: The Ways of Rajasthani Pilgrims (University of California Press, 1988). Karni Mata is also deeply venerated by Rathore Rajputs, the dominant warrior caste in the region. Her blessings to Rao Jodha and Rao Bika, both Rathore kings, leads to many many Rajput clans in Rajasthan considering her their royal protector and family deity. 'The Karni Mata cult reflects the intertwining of folk sainthood with the political legitimisation of early Rajput kingdoms,' noted Prof Harlan. The first Karni Sena, the Shri Rajput Karni Sena (SRKS) which was created in 2006, derives its name from Karni Mata. Karni Mata is also worshipped by other castes, including the Meghwals and Malis. Her reputation as a just, miracle-working saint who protected her people transcends caste, and her temple offers equal access to devotees. Locally known as kabas, rats are believed to be incarnations of Karni Mata's family members. Legend has it that when her stepson Laxman, also known as Lakhan, drowned, Karni Mata asked Yama, the god of death, to revive him. Yama relented and allowed him and other members of her lineage to be reborn as rats, avoiding the cycle of death and rebirth. Other legends say that when Yamaraj said he was unable to do so, Karni Mata herself revived Lakhan and decreed that her family members would no longer die but be re-incarnated as rats. Hundreds of families living near the temple claim to be descendants of Karni Mata. This belief has transformed the rodents into holy beings: rats are considered to be Karni Mata's descendants, who will then take birth as humans, and then again as rats again in the temple, and so on. There are more beliefs surrounding the rats, one being that despite the presence of a large number of rats, there have been no diseases or infection; that their numbers have mostly stayed the same over the centuries; that there is no foul smell when they die; and that they don't leave the temple premises. The prasad touched by the rats is also considered sacred and followers say that it holds the power to cure ailments. Moreover, spotting a white rat is considered auspicious. The temple holds immense significance for the armed forces in the district bordering Pakistan. That said, the temple's association with the armed forces dates back to the pre-Independence era, long before Pakistan was on the map. Col Mahendra Singh Chandel (retd), recipient of Vishisht Seva Medal, said: 'Karni Mata has been a deity of the erstwhile Bikaner state's armed forces: the Karni Battalion, Sadul Infantry, Dungar Lancers, Vijay Battery and the Ganga Risala. Of these, the Sadul Infantry and Karni Battalion were converted into the 19 Rajput Battalion, which is still sometimes known as 19 Rajput Karni Battalion. Similarly, the Vijay Battery was merged into 41 Field Regiment Artillery and is still sometimes known as 41 Field Karni Regiment.' As part of the tradition, the Commanding Officers of the 19 Rajput Battalion visit the temple whenever they take over. And, during navratra, two non-commissioned officers (NCOs) are sent to the temple to make special offerings on behalf of the Battalion. Karni Mata is seen as a symbol of divine feminine power and is invoked for courage, protection and success, particularly by soldiers with Rajasthani roots. It is common for serving soldiers from the region to visit the temple in uniform, offer prayers, and seek blessings before joining field duty or deployment. 'Military reverence for Karni Mata reflects the traditional martial values of Rajputana, where deities are protectors and guardians in both spiritual and battlefield realms,' said Col R S Rathore (retd), in an interview published in the Journal of Indian Military History, 2015.

Altruism is actually a fantastic survival strategy
Altruism is actually a fantastic survival strategy

Yahoo

time16-03-2025

  • Science
  • Yahoo

Altruism is actually a fantastic survival strategy

Reprinted from "Your Brain on Altruism: The Power of Connection and Community during Times of Crisis" by Nicole Karlis, courtesy of University of California Press. Copyright 2025. On a tiny island called Cayo Santiago off the coast of Puerto Rico exists a colony of about 1,800 rhesus macaques. Each weighing about 20 pounds and known for their sand-colored fluffy tails, the monkeys that inhabit this island today are descendants of those brought over by primatologist Clarence Carpenter in the late 1930s. Since then, they have helped primatologists, evolutionary biologists, and scientists of all kinds better understand primate behavior in a unique natural laboratory setting. Neuroscientist Michael Platt is one of those lucky scientists who has been able to study them for over a decade, particularly with a focus on how their social environment affects their brains, how they make decisions, and the genetic underpinnings of their social behavior. When news broke in the fall of 2017 that Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm, was bound to make landfall, Platt and his colleagues were terrified. They worried about what this would mean for their research and the monkeys who had given so much to science. On September 20, 2017, the hurricane hit at a ferocious speed, pummeling the island with 170-mile-per-hour winds and torrential rains. Platt and his colleagues waited several nail-biting days to hear about the assessed damage and potential mortalities of the monkeys. Upon their colleagues' surveying the scene by helicopter, a heroic effort at the time, they learned that two-thirds of the island's green vegetation had been wiped away. The freshwater cisterns that the monkeys relied on as a water source were destroyed. Through a collective effort, researchers were able to get back up and running fairly quickly, which positioned them to be in a unique opportunity: to see how the rhesus macaques would respond in the wake of a natural disaster. Specifically, the researchers were curious to see if the monkeys' social ties had shifted and if their behavior would turn more tolerant or aggressive. Considering the lack of resources and devastation, would the monkeys fight over strained resources in the quest to survive? Since the researchers had over a decade of their social behavior documented, they'd be able to compare the monkeys' behavior from before the hurricane to that after the hurricane. For example, they knew that while these monkeys are highly social, they can also have very competitive streaks. Previously, the researchers had relied on a study method that required researchers to follow each individual monkey for 10 minutes and report every action and interaction to study their behavior. Since the devastation was too big to support this kind of approach, researchers turned to another sampling technique known as the 'scan method.' In this technique, an observer looks up every 30 seconds to record the interactions of every monkey around. After adjusting for potential biases, like louder monkeys trying to grab the attention of the researchers, an analysis of their data showed that the monkeys' behavior had indeed changed after the hurricane. But instead of for the worse, it was for the better. For instance, the monkeys appeared to be more tolerant of each other compared to the previous times. While the researchers expected the monkeys to rely on those they already had invested relationships with to cope with the ecological devastation, they found that the monkeys appeared to actually seek out new relationships and expand their social networks. A close relationship still had a lot to provide, but it was almost as if the monkeys experienced a realization that a social network where everyone is friendly enough is better for their overall survival than a network with just a few close friends. 'What was amazing was that these monkeys immediately began to reach out and make more friends,' Platt told me in an interview. 'And everybody got connected with everybody in a dense web of interconnection.' Fascinatingly, even monkeys who were previously characterized as socially isolated broke out of their lonely shells and made more social connections in the hurricane's most of the monkeys survived the initial impact of the storm, the population experienced an uptick in mortality a month later. As time went on, researchers found that the monkeys who had more friends were more likely to survive in the damaged ecosystem for the following two years. And it wasn't just their physical habitat that had experienced rapid deterioration. Platt and his colleagues made another observation of the monkeys. Some appeared to have aged about two years. Monkeys in their teenage years were developing arthritis. Five years later, the stronger and more tolerant connections among the monkeys were still living on. 'The monkeys are still way less aggressive, way more tolerant, and more connected with each other,' Platt told me. Indeed, it appeared that the monkeys experienced bounded solidarity and were able to transform it into durable solidarity. Why did it work for the monkeys, and why doesn't it for humans? That's one of a few million-dollar questions, Platt said. Other open-ended questions are these: Why did some monkeys appear to be able to overcome the difficulties of the hurricane more than others? Why did some show early signs of aging from the stress, and others didn't? In other words, why were some more resilient? Social support is thought to be an adaptive response to extreme stressors, Platt said. This means that having strong social support before a tragedy can help organisms better resist stress damage. The implications for the monkeys could be this: those who had stronger social connections before the hurricane were able to cope better with the aftermath of the hurricane. Platt said that there's a lot of compelling research that shows more social connections can act as a buffer in the brain against stress responses. It can help people get through tragedy, disaster and trauma. It can keep people's brains young, in a sense. 'And if you have a younger brain, you're probably going to be able to navigate life better too, so it's a feedback loop,' he said. 'When your brain is older, you're not going to be able to navigate a lot of those complexities.' We know from research on monkeys and humans that having more social support enables resilience, Platt said. But the big open question is, how? Perhaps the first step to understanding how having more social support enables resilience that can be observed in the brain, it's best to understand how stress affects the brain. To find an answer, I reached out to cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Julie Fratantoni, who is also one of the leaders behind the BrainHealth Project, a 10-year longitudinal research study seeking to define, measure and improve brain health. She said broadly speaking, chronic stress kills brain cells in the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory. 'Your neurons literally die,' she told me. When that happens, it can become more difficult for people to learn and remember things. Stress can also affect the brain's frontal networks, which are responsible for executive functions like planning, judgment, organization and problem solving. Higher-order thinking, she said, makes humans different from other animals. When stress shuts down this part of the brain, humans are then forced into survival mode. Further, this shutdown narrows down our options to regulate ourselves. It turns the human brain into a reptilian one and activates the sympathetic nervous system, putting us into fight-or-flight mode — the same one we can get stuck in when we're chronically lonely. Dr. Fratantoni said one way to turn the prefrontal cortex back on to a less stressed mode, one that can think more clearly, is through curiosity. When I asked if altruism could be a way, she said it's possible because there are a lot of similarities between kindness and curiosity. Both, she said, are an 'open posture.' While kindness is hard to access in the immediate aftermath of stress, just as it can be when someone is chronically lonely, it could be a shortcut to bringing the prefrontal cortex back online. What do we know about what happens in the brain during an act of altruism? In 2006, neuroscientist Jorge Moll and colleagues provided some of the first evidence to demonstrate what happens in the human brain when a person gives selflessly to another person. In their experiment, the researchers scanned participants' brains using a functional MRI as participants made decisions about whether to donate money to a charity, oppose donating to a charity, or receive the monetary reward themselves. As they scanned the brains of participants while making decisions, researchers found that those who chose to keep the monetary reward for themselves experienced activity in the mesolimbic reward system, including the ventral tegmental area and the ventral striatum. The mesolimbic reward system, sometimes referred to as the reward pathway or the mesolimbic pathway, is responsible for releasing dopamine, a neurotransmitter that allows us to feel pleasure and satisfaction. It also plays a role in motivating us to want more, like food and sex. This reward pathway regulates motivation, reinforces learning, and activates incentive salience, which is a cognitive process that makes us experience 'desire' or 'want.' Its job is to motivate us to repeat behaviors that are needed to survive. Notably, this reward pathway also plays a significant role in the neurobiology of addiction. The findings in Moll's study did not come as a surprise. Of course, receiving the monetary award felt good and activated the desire to want more. However, when scanning the brains of those who gave the money to charity, scientists saw that these people experienced even more activity in this reward pathway. This finding suggested that giving to other people could provide more pleasure — per the brain's reward system — than doing something that feels good for oneself. Notably, donating the money also activated the subgenual area of the brain, a circuit of the brain that scientists know is rich in serotonin and plays a role in social bonding, which was not activated when the study's participants chose to keep the money for themselves.

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