Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu or Sarojini Chattopadhyaya also known by the sobriquet Bharatiya Kokila (The Nightingale of India), was a child prodigy, freedom fighter, and poet. Naidu was the first Indian woman to become the President of the Indian National Congress and the first woman to become the Governor of Uttar Pradesh.

She was active in the Indian Independence Movement, joining Mahatma Gandhi in the Salt March to Dandi, and then leading the Dharasana Satyagraha after the arrests of Gandhi, Abbas Tyabji, and Kasturba Gandhi.

Harishchandra

Harishchandra, in Hindu religious texts is the 28th king of the Solar Dynasty. His legend is very popular and often told as a benchmark for an ideal life. He was renowned for his piety and justice. His name is Sanskrit for "having golden splendour". Harishchandra had two unique qualities. The first being, he kept his word and never went back on what he uttered as a promise. The other being, he never uttered a lie in his life. These twin qualities were tested heavily in his life by various circumstances that led him to penury and separation from his family. But he stood to his principles in the face of all ordeals and persevered to become a symbol of courage.

Vikramaditya 102 BCE to 15 CE was a legendary king of Ujjain, India, famed for his wisdom, valour and magnanimity. The title "Vikramaditya" has also been assumed by many kings in Indian history, notably the Gupta King Chandragupta II and Samrat Hem Chandra Vikramaditya. The name King Vikramaditya is a Sanskrit tatpurusha, from (vikrama) meaning "valour" and Āditya, son of Aditi. One of the most famous sons of Aditi, or Adityas, was Surya the sun god; hence, Vikramaditya means Surya, translating to "Sun of valour". He is also called Vikrama or Vikramarka (Sanskrit arka meaning the Sun).

Vikramaditya lived in the first century BCE. According to the Katha-sarita-sagara account, he was the son of Ujjain's King Mahendraditya of the Paramara dynasty. However this was written almost 12 centuries later. Furthermore, according to other sources Vikramaditya is also recorded to be an ancestor of the Tuar dynasty of Delhi.The increasingly common naming of Hindu children by the name Vikram can be attributed in part to the popularity of Vikramaditya and the two sets of popular folk stories about his life.

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa(February 18, 1836 - August 16, 1886), born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay, was a famous mystic of 19th-century India.His religious school of thought led to the formation of the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda- both were influential figures in the Bengali Renaissance as well as the Hindu renaissance during the 19th and 20th centuries.He was considered an avatar or incarnation of God by many of his disciples, and is considered as such by many of his devotees today.

Ramakrishna was born in a poor Brahmin Vaishnava family in rural Bengal. He became a priest of the Dakshineswar Kali Temple, dedicated to the goddess Kali, which had the influence of the main strands of Bengali bhakti tradition. His first spiritual teacher was an ascetic woman skilled in Tantra and Vaishnava bhakti.Later an Advaita Vedantin ascetic taught him non-dual meditation, and according to Ramakrishna, he experienced nirvikalpa samadhi under his guidance. Ramakrishna also experimented with other religions, notably Islam and Christianity, and said that they all lead to the same God.Though conventionally uneducated, he attracted attention of the Bengali intelligentsia and middle class.

The Ramakrishna movement was brought to the West by Swami Vivekananda,and has been termed as one of the revitalization movements of India.

Swami Vivekananda(January 12, 1863–July 4, 1902), born Narendranath Dutta is the chief disciple of the 19th century mystic Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and the founder of Ramakrishna Mission.He is considered a key figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga in Europe and America and is also credited with raising interfaith awareness, bringing Hinduism to the status of a world religion during the end of the 19th century.Vivekananda is considered to be a major force in the revival of Hinduism in modern India.He is best known for his inspiring speech beginning with "sisters and brothers of America",through which he introduced Hinduism at the Parliament of the World's Religions at Chicago in 1893.

Swami Vivekananda was born in an aristocratic Kayastha family of Calcutta in 1863. His parents influenced the Swami's thinking – the father by his rational mind and the mother by her religious temperament. From his childhood, he showed inclination towards spirituality and God realization. While searching for a man who could directly demonstrate the reality of God, he came to Ramakrishna and became his disciple. As a guru, Ramakrishna taught him Advaita Vedanta and that all religions are true, and service to man was the most effective worship of God. After the death of his Guru, Vivekananda became a wandering monk, touring the Indian subcontinent and getting a first-hand account of India's condition. He later sailed to Chicago and represented India as a delegate in the 1893 Parliament of World Religions. An eloquent speaker, Vivekananda was invited to several forums in United States and spoke at universities and clubs. He conducted several public and private lectures, disseminating Vedanta, Yoga and Hinduism in America, England and a few other countries in Europe. He also established Vedanta societies in America and England. He later sailed back to India and in 1897 he founded the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, a philanthropic and spiritual organization. Swami Vivekananda is regarded as one of India's foremost nation-builders. His teachings influenced the thinking of other national leaders and philosophers, like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Aurobindo Ghosh, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.

peacock

The Indian Peafowl, Pavo cristatus, also known as the Common Peafowl or the Blue Peafowl, is one of the species of bird in the genus Pavo of the Phasianidae family known as peafowl. The Indian Peafowl is a resident breeder in the Indian subcontinent and has been introduced into many parts of the world and feral populations exist in many introduced regions. The peacock is the national bird of India.


Indian Peahen with Immatures at Hodal in Faridabad District of Haryana, India.
Peacock "tail feathers" are really upper tail coverts.The species is found in dry semi-desert grasslands, scrub and deciduous forests. It forages and nests on the ground but roosts on top of trees. It eats seeds, insects, fruits, small mammals and reptiles.

Females are about 86 cm (34 in) long and weigh 2.75–4 kg (6-8.8 lbs), while males average at about 2.12 m (7.3 ft) in full breeding plumage (107 cm/42 in when not) and weigh 4–6 kg (8.8-13.2 lbs). The male is called a peacock, the female a peahen. The Indian Peacock has iridescent blue-green plumage. The upper tail coverts on its back are elongated and ornate with an eye at the end of each feather. These are the Peacock's display feathers. The female plumage is a mixture of dull green, grey and iridescent blue, with the greenish-grey predominating. In the breeding season, females stand apart by lacking the long 'tail feathers' also known as train, and in the non-breeding season they can be distinguished from males by the green colour of the neck as opposed to the blue on the males.

Peafowl are most notable for the male's extravagant display feathers which, despite actually growing from their back, are known as a 'tail' or train. This train is in reality not the tail but the enormously elongated upper tail coverts. The tail itself is brown and short as in the peahen. The colours result from the micro-structure of the feathers and the resulting optical phenomena.[1] The ornate train is believed to be the result of female sexual selection as males raised the feathers into a fan and quiver it as part of courtship display. Many studies have suggested that the quality of train is an honest signal of the condition of males and that peahens select males on the basis of their plumage. More recent studies however, suggest that other cues may be involved in mate selection by peahens.[2] [3] [4]

They lay a clutch of 4-8 eggs which take 28 days to hatch. The eggs are light brown and are laid every other day usually in the afternoon. The male does not assist with the rearing, and is polygamous with up to six hens.

Tiger

The Bengal tiger, or Royal Bengal tiger is a subspecies of tiger primarily found
in India and Bangladesh . They are also found in parts of Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and southern Tibet. The Bengal tiger is the most numerous of the tiger sub-species. According to WWF there are about 2,000 Royal Bengal tigers in the wild today, including 1,411 in India, 450 in Bangladesh, 150 in Nepal, 100 in Bhutan, as well as a number in Myanmar and China.

The Bengal tiger is historically regarded as the second largest subspecies after the Siberian tiger. The Bengal subspecies is the national animal of India.