Five Views Of Vishnu Temple

Ravi Shankar: Ravi Shankar (1964)

Ravi Shankar: Three Ragas

The Ganges, though flowing
from the foot of Vishnu
and through Siva's hair,
is not an ancient stream.
Geology, looking further
than religion, knows of
a time when neither the river
nor the Himalayas
that nourished it existed,
and an ocean flowed over
the holy places of Hindustan.
The mountains rose,
their debris silted up the ocean,
the gods took their seats on them
and contrived the river,
and the India we call immemorial
came into being.
But India is really far older.
In the days of the prehistoric ocean
the southern part of the peninsula
already existed, and the high places of Dravidia have been land since land began, and have seen on the one side the sinking of a continent that joined them to Africa, and on the other the upheaval of the Himalayas from a sea. They are older than anything in the world. No water has ever covered them, and the sun who has watched them for countless aeons may still discern in their outlines forms that were his before our globe was torn from his bosom. If flesh of the sun's flesh is to be touched anywhere, it is here, among the incredible antiquity of these hills.
--E.M. Forster

Ravi Shankar: Ragas Hameer and Gara