Kamban's New Creative Strategy and Iraniyan's Story

The Kamba Ramayanam is a unique cultural repository of Tamil society, a treasure of the arts, and an epic in which the Supreme God has incarnated in this soil, bearing a human form. The learners will be well aware of the poetic ability of Kambar, who flavoured the fruits that had been soaked in the heart of Valmiki, the primordial poet, and who then amplified the taste of that fruit. In more than 10,000 of the six chapters, Kambar, who records the divinity of Rama and the greatness of his human birth, brings through it many sub-stories, introduces them, and gives a flavour to the epic. In this way, this article examines the necessity of the Iraniyan story in the Yuddha Kandam (Chapter on War), the creative strategy of the epic scholar to include this subplot in between, and the reason for this

Siddhas' Tomb Shrines and the Power Fields

It can be known from literature that monumental stone has been worshipped in the name of soldiers who died in war since the Sangam period. Tomb shrine worship is worshipping the body of a siddha in the tomb. In Tamil Nadu, the Siddhas studied the body and mind and learned the art of suppressing life with the body and attained immortality. The Siddhas indirectly said that the separation of life from the body is death, and the bio-condensation of life with the body is eternal. To achieve this, if one receives the Kundalini spiritual enlightenment properly from the spiritual educator and performs the proper exercises, the mind becomes compressed and the magnetic energy of the soul expands, and eventually one attains the supreme state of spiritual enlightenment. This state is known as spiritual enlightenment. The Siddhas, who have attained spirituality and have attained mmortality, should bury the bodies of the sages and worship them according to the rules of sacred writings (Agamas). It is called a tomb shrine. The sacred writings tell us how the place of burial, the environment, and the structure of the burial should be. Doing so will benefit the country. If their bodies are burned or neglected, evil will occur. The sacred writings say that if the body of a sage is left unburied and rots and is eaten by foxes, then the land will be destroyed by enmity in the country where it is eaten by foxes. The conclusion of the sacred writings is that the funeral rites and other activities performed for the dead should not be performed for the bodies of sages who have attained spiritual attainment and are considered to be the shrine where the Lord resides and is worshiped. A magnetic energy field is felt in the shrines where spiritual attainers are enshrined. Practitioners of kundalini enlightenment can easily feel that energy and experience ecstasy. Analysts believe that such energy fields cross borders, time zones, and languages and are parallel to one another

Etiology and endoscopic profile of dysphagia in adults - Single center study at a tertiary care center in South India.

Background: Dysphagia is defined as difficulty in deglutition. It can be either structural or motility abnormality in the passage of food from the oral cavity to the stomach. Upper GI endoscopy is the most important tool to diagnose dysphagia and rule out premalignant and malignant lesions. The purpose of the study was to classify various causes of dysphagia. Methods: This prospective observational study was conducted on 206 patients with complaints of dysphagia. Detailed history, physical examination was done. Upper GI endoscopy was done in all cases, and biopsies were taken if required. Oropharyngeal and neurological dysphagia were excluded from the study. The statistical analysis was performed using Microsoft Excel. The mean, percentage and proportions were calculated. Results: Two hundred and six patients were included in the study. Out of 206 patients, 127 were females, and 79 were males. The mean age was 43.62 years. The commonest age group was 21- 40 years contributing 41.7% cases, followed by 41-60 years contributing to 30.8% cases. Benign etiology (n= 141) was more common than that of malignant (n= 65). The commonest benign etiology was reflux esophagitis (n =54) followed by esophageal candidiasis (n= 38). The commonest malignant etiology was adenocarcinoma of the esophagus (n= 38), followed by squamous cell carcinoma (n= 24). Conclusions: The upper GI endoscopy is effective and safe modality to diagnose dysphagia. Benign etiologies were more common among females, but malignant causes were more common among males. The incidence of esophageal malignancy increases with advanced age

Significance of interactions of low molecular weight crystallin fragments in lens aging and cataract formation

Analysis of aged and cataract lenses shows the presence of increased amounts of crystallin fragments in the high molecular weight aggregates of water-soluble and water-insoluble fractions. However, the significance of accumulation and interaction of low molecular weight crystallin fragments in aging and cataract development is not clearly understood. In this study, 23 low molecular mass (<3.5-kDa) peptides in the urea-soluble fractions of young, aged, and aged cataract human lenses were identified by mass spectroscopy. Two peptides, B-(1-18) (MDIAIHHPWIRRPFFPFH) and A3/A1-(59-74)(SD(N)AYHIERLMSFRPIC), present in aged and cataract lens but not young lens, and a third peptide, S-(167-178) (SPAVQSFRRIVE) present in all three lens groups were synthesized to study the effects of interaction of these peptides with intact -, -, and -crystallins and alcohol dehydrogenase, a protein used in aggregation studies. Interaction of B-(1-18) and A3/A1-(59-74) peptides increased the scattering of light by - and -crystallin and alcohol dehydrogenase. The ability of -crystallin subunits to function as molecular chaperones was significantly reduced by interaction with B-(1-18) and A3/A1-(59-74) peptides, whereas S peptide had no effect on chaperone-like activity of -crystallin. The A3/A1-(59-74 peptide caused a 5.64-fold increase in B-crystallin oligomeric mass and partial precipitation. Replacing hydrophobic residues in B-(1-18) and A3/A1-(59-74) peptides abolished their ability to induce crystallin aggregation and light scattering. Our study suggests that interaction of crystallin-derived peptides with intact crystallins could be a key event in age-related protein aggregation in lens and cataractogenesis