Epics of India

(Turmeric rhizome and powder, from Wikipedia ) Turmeric I saw this on the class Twitter stream. I always thought it was spelled/pronounced "tumeric," but that's not the case. My mom LOVES turmeric because of all the benefits it has when you eat it. Apparently, it's in the same family as ginger! Whenever I buy turmeric, it's already processed and ground up, and is usually a powder, but it looks really similar to a ginger root, except that it's orange instead of yellow. The picture on Twitter mentioned mixing it with milk to cure coughs and colds. Next time I have a cough or cold, I'll be sure to try it. Ayuverda Of course, turmeric has many medicinal properties, and is used in a system of medicine rooted in India - Ayuverda. It's been said that Dhanvantari, the god of Ayuverda, passed on this knowledge to some physicians. It has treatments that include herbal, mineral, and metal mixtures, as well as surgical techniques, surprisingly! Anci...

Impostor Syndrome : I saw this on the class Twitter feed and it piqued my interest. From the name, it sounds like it would describe an irrational fear that everyone is an impostor out to get them or something - a Truman Show-esque scenario. That, however, is more descriptive of the Capgras delusion, where someone believes a loved one has been replaced by an impostor. Impostor syndrome refers to one's belief/fear that their effort and accomplishments is a fraud, it was based on luck, and that they're living as an "impostor" - portraying themselves as someone they're not. I think this has a real, serious detrimental effect, especially on one's self-confidence and in today's society. I always see memes and jokes on the internet about people who are thirty and it just now hitting them. "When did I become an adult?" or "Adulthood is just faking confidence when you don't really know what's happening." ICD : ICD stands for Intern...

Hanuman Hanuman is a very well known character in the Ramayana, to the point that he has bled over into many of the cultures surrounding India, and even to the Western world. Many iterations and versions of Hanuman have been created, and his influence can even be seen in many of today's stories. Hanuman has a huge influence in Thailand, where I'm from, so I wanted to find out more about him. (painting of protagonists in Journey to the West; photo by Rolf Müller, taken from Wikipedia ) Journey to the West One of the major stories that feature a monkey is, of course, Journey to the West. I think there's even been a movie adaptation of this? (And a sequel!) I don't know much about it, except that Sun Wukong (the monkey) is prominently featured in many Asian-related movies. Sun Wukong I dabble in reading some Chinese light novels/Korean manhwas, and Sun Wukong is commonly seen as a spirit able to be invoked for power. A character from the manga Naruto can summon...

Rama As the main character of the Ramayana, and not having a single negative thing spoken about him throughout the story I've read so far, it seems Rama is a pretty stand up guy. He's blue, and I wanted to find out why, but the Wikipedia article doesn't say. Javanese language I thought this was a typo on "Japanese" but "Ramavijaya" didn't really sound Japanese so I clicked on it. Turns out, Java is an island in Indonesia, and Javanese is the language spoken there. The more you know. Agglutination Agglutination just sounds so...jiggly? But, from what I understand, it is the process of adding prefixes or suffixes to base words to change the tone/tense/meaning of the word. Like in German, suffixes can be packed on suffixes to create a really long word with a complex meaning. This results in Germans being able to create a word with a VERY specific meaning. For example, the word Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtenge...