Dhanga
(d. 1003) A monarch in the Chandella
dynasty, most famous for committing
religious suicideby drowning himself
at Allahabad, at the confluence of the
Ganges and Yamuna rivers. The
inscription that records this event
mentions that Dhanga did this at the
end of his life—when he had lived
more than one hundred years—while
meditating on the god Rudra, a form of
Shiva, and further notes that by com-
mitting suicide Dhanga gained final
liberation of the soul (moksha). This
description clearly shows that religious
suicide was a highly structured reli-
gious act, the object of which was to
help the performer die in a calm and
composed state of mind, ideally with
one’s last thoughts focused on a deity.
A crucial element in this ritual was the
statement of purpose (samkalpa), in
which the performer would state the
benefit desired from his performance.
Dhanga’s statement of purpose is
almost certainly the basis for his asser-
tion that he attained final liberation,
since this claim is not verifiable in any
other way.
Dhangar
The model for traditional Indian society
was a collection of endogamoussub-
groups known as jatis(“birth”). These
jatis were organized (and their social
status determined) by the group’s hered-
itary occupation, over which each group
had a monopoly. In traditional central
Indian society, the Dhangars were a
Hindu jati whose hereditary occupation
was herding sheep and goats. They
are particularly associated with the state
of Maharashtra.
Dhanus
(“bow”) In Hindu iconography, the bow
is a weapon associated with several
Hindu deities. It has strong mythic asso-
ciations with the god Shiva, who in one
of his mythic exploits destroys the Three
Cities (tripura) with a single arrow. It is
also commonly associated with the god
Rama, whose unfailing arrows slay
Ravana, the demon-king of Lanka.
Aside from these, it is also one of the
weapons commonly carried by power-
ful forms of the Goddess, such as
Durga. The reason for this can be
found in her charter myth in the
Devimahatmya, in which the Goddess
is formed from the collected radiance
of all the gods and receives duplicates
of all their weapons.Dhanvantari
In Hindu mythology, Dhanvantari is
the physician of the gods and is cred-
ited as the founder of ayurveda, a tra-
ditional system of Indian medicine.
Dhanvantari is born when the gods
and demons (supernatural beings)
churn the Ocean of Milk to produce
the nectar of immortality. In the
course of their churning, many pre-
cious things are produced, including
the goddess Lakshmi, the wishing-cow
Kamadhenu, and the Kaustubhajewel.
As the churning reaches its climax,
Dhanvantari himself emerges from the
ocean bearing the pot of amrta, the
nectar of immortality that has been
the ultimate product of the whole
endeavor. See also Tortoise avatar.Dharamshala
(“abode of dharma”) A no-frills rest
house for pilgrims. Dharamshalas
were often built by pious donors (this
was endowed as a religious act), to
provide pilgrims not only with a basic
place to stay during their pilgrimage,
but also a place with a wholesome
religious atmosphere. The facilities at
a dharamshala are generally quite
basic, and well below the standard set
by a hotel—in many cases it is a nearly
bare room in which the pilgrims cook,
eat, and sleep, often on their own bed-
ding. Until well into the twentieth
century, pilgrims were under no oblig-
ation to pay anything for staying,
although on departing they were
expected to leave a donation accord-
ing to their means and inclination. InDhanga