National Emblem - Saranath Lion Capital of Ashoka

Location:
North of the equator between 8°4′ and 37°6′ North Latitude and 68°7′ and 97°25′ East Longitude
Continent: Asia
Region: Southern Asia
Coordinates: 20°00′N 77°00′E

Area:
Seventh largest country in the world
3,287,263 square kilometers (1,269,219.3 square miles)
Land (90.44%) – 2,973,190 square kilometers (1,147,955.08 square miles)
Water (9.56%) – 314,400 square kilometers (121,390.519 square miles)

 Political / Administrative Geography:
States: 28 (subdivided into districts)
Union Territories: 6 Union Territories and 1 National Capital Territory

Map of India - States and Union Territories
State	Capital
Andhra Pradesh	Hyderabad
Arunachal Pradesh	Itanagar
Assam	Dispur
Bihar	Patna
Chattisgarh	Raipur
Goa	Panaji
Gujarat	Gandhinagar
Haryana	Chandigarh
Himachal Pradesh	Shimla
Jammu and Kashmir	Srinagar (Summer Capital), Jammu (Winter Capital)
Jharkhand	Ranchi
Karnataka	Bengaluru (Bangalore)
Kerala	Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum)
Madhya Pradesh	Bhopal
Maharashtra	Mumbai (Bombay)
Manipur	Imphal
Meghalaya	Shillong
Mizoram	Aizawl
Nagaland	Kohima
Orissa	Bhubaneswar
Punjab	Chandigarh
Rajasthan	Jaipur
Sikkim	Gangtok
Tamil Nadu	Chennai (Madras)
Tripura	Agartala
Uttar Pradesh	Lucknow
Uttarakhand	Dehradun
West Bengal	Kolkata (Calcutta)
Union Territory	Capital
Andaman and Nicobar Islands	Port Blair
Chandigarh	Chandigarh
Dadra and Nagar Haveli	Silvassa
Daman and Diu	Daman
Lakshadweep	Kavaratti
National Capital Territory of Delhi	Delhi
Puducherry (Pondicherry)	Puducherry (Pondicherry)
For detailed information like the Administrative, Legislative and Judiciary Capital with year of establishment please visit Wikipedia

Climate:
Climatic zones:
Alpine Zone: High altitudes of Himalayas in the northern most areas of India
The climatic zones here are varied with the foothills experiencing subtropical climate and Alpine Tundra Zone on the higher altitudes. These climatic variations occur within several dozen miles of each other.

Subtropical Humid Zone: Majority of Northeast India and North India
This zone experiences hot summer with rainfall while in winter temperature may fall to freezing point in higher ranges.

Tropical
Tropical Wet Zone: Southwestern lowlands next to the Malabar Coast, the Western Ghats, Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
The zone experiences moderate to high year-round temperatures with the average temperature not falling below 18 degree Centigrade. The rainfall is seasonal but heavy occurring between May and November.

Tropical Wet and Dry: Large part of Peninsular India
The zone experiences long & dry winter and early summer, with the month of May experiencing extremely hot summers. June to September brings in the annual rainy season with an average rainfall of 750 – 1500 millimeters.

Arid: Arid Zone covers about 12% of the country’s geographical area which comprises of over 31.7 m ha of hot desert and about 7 m ha of cold desert.
Semi-Arid Zone:Includes Karnataka, inland Tamil Nadu, western Andhra Pradesh, and central Maharashtra
March to May remains hot and dry, with December being the coldest month, October and November experiences significant amount of post-monsoon rainfall. Generally this area tends to be prone to draughts due to less reliable rainfall.

Arid Zone:Most of western Rajasthan (arid), East of the Thar Desert, the region running from Punjab and Haryana to Kathiawar (tropical and sub-tropical steppe climate)
July, August, and September experiences cloudbursts due to the monsoon winds and rainfall is generally unpredictable. The months of May and June tend to be exceptionally hot.

Seasons:
Winter:
December to February with the month of December being the coldest
Winters are dry in Northern India, with the Southern part not very marked due to the moderating effect of Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea.

Summer:
Starts from the month of March thru to June, with summer in Northwestern India starting from April thru to July
April is the hottest month for the western and southern regions whereas for most of North India, it is May.

Monsoon:
In late May or early June the monsoons hit the coastal shores of South West India and gradually sweep across to North India by the end of June lasting till September.
South India receives overall higher rainfall than North India.

Retreating Monsoon/ Post Monsoon:
As monsoons drenching all of India, begins to retreat this season marks the switch from wet to dry conditions. Mostly lasting between the months of September to November, this period experiences a gradual decrease in rainfall.

Peacock in Indian Religion
- PARAVANI, the peacock is the vehicle (carriage) of Kartikeya or Subramanya the son of Lord Shiva
- Lord Krishna is depicted with peacock feather adorning his headgear known as the ‘mor-mukut’
- The Ramayana has references of the peacock as follows:
Ravana the asura king, due to the boon granted by Brahma, which made him invincible from the wrath of any gods and goddess misused his powers to terrorize the Gods. Fearing Ravana and for protection the gods chose to enter the bodies of birds. Indra (also known as the Lord of Rain) chose to enter the body of Peacock. Pleased with the protection by the Peacock, Indra bestowed a boon on the peacock that it would never be afraid of snake and it would have a thousand ‘eyes’ on its fan-tail. It is also mentioned that due to this close association of peacock with Indra it shows its delight by dancing whenever it rains.

There are numerous instances in Ramayana and Mahabharata where the Peacock holds a special place.

Peacock in Indian Art and Literature
The famous ‘Peacock Throne’ (Takht-e-Tâoos) of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan is one of the most popular pieces of art and sculpture that depicts the Peacock. Shah Jahan had the famous Koh-i-noor diamond placed in this throne.

Peacock has been carved in Bronze statues of Skanda from the period of Chola (11 century AD), in Vijanagar art and appears on silver coins of Kumaragupta I. It has replaced an absentee lover in Pahari painting of 18th century AD, adorned a Rajasthani Ivory Lamp, enameled in design in inner royal apartment in Udaipur (17-18th century AD).

Through out the recorded history of India the Peacock holds a special place. The following books and links provides more information about Peacock in Indian Art and Literature
- Peacock in Indian Art, Thought And Literature (2006) by Krishna Lal
- http://www.geocities.com/belabutalia/nbird.htm
- Peacock Throne – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacock_Throne
- ‘A pageant of Indian Culture’ by Asoke Kumar Bhattacharyya has an entire chapter (Chapter 16) dedicated to The Peacock in Art and Literature.

Scientific facts
The Scientific name of the Indian peafowl is “Pavo cristatus”
Indian Peafowl is also known as Common Peafowl or Blue Peafowl

Hence this site that solely concentrates on exploring and discovering India, her past, her present and her future derives it name from the majestic and beautiful bird that symbolizes India. So, lets discover and explore India – her past, her present and her future - making Mayukhi.com truly ‘Yours India!’.

Reference:
Wikipedia:
Pavo Cristatus

Indian Divinity:
Animal Deities,  Avataar Rama

The fascination one has with India often begins and is associated with these terms. More often than not she also holds attention in the broader sense with the generic terms like rich culture, bright colors, spicy curry, IT professionals, cheap labor, cricket and Bollywood.

Is this all India has to offer?

We are talking about a country that boasts one of the oldest civilizations known to mankind – yet today her civilization is identified as the land of snake-charmers. A country that established the first University in the world and yet today she dons the mantle of an illiterate. The richest country ever in the face of the earth until she was philandered by the countless invasions and colonial rulers; yet in her known existence of over 10,000 years she has never set foot in another soil with the intention of invasion. She hides in her folds untold miseries of invasion, hurt, despair yet she glitters like a diamond that has been cut and polished only to sparkle more brilliant than ever. In the words of Swami Vivekananda: “Civilizations have arisen in other parts of the world. In ancient and modern times, wonderful ideas have been carried forward from one race to another…But mark you, my friends; it has been always with the blast of war trumpets and the march of embattled cohorts. Each idea had to be soaked in a deluge of blood….. Each word of power had to be followed by the groans of millions, by the wails of orphans, by the tears of widows. This, many other nations have taught; but India for thousands of years peacefully existed. Here activity prevailed when even Greece did not exist… Even earlier, when history has no record, and tradition dares not peer into the gloom of that intense past, even from until now, ideas after ideas have marched out from her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it. We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live…”

The truth is India is an enigma even today; what her infinite folds hold is a mystery even to her. Her charm is perennial; her beauty lies in all she has to offer; she inspires and instills a contradictory array of fascinating and mesmerizing emotions. She has the best and the worst; it is perhaps her legacy for surviving and celebrating of more than 10,000 years of civilization; of giving the world her best and asking very little in return.

“This is India! The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition, whose yesterdays bear date with the moldering antiquities of the rest of the nations – the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien persons, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the rest of the globe combined” said Mark Twain. And how very true are the words that try to describe India, her glory and her paucity; her heritage and culture; her legacy and her traditions.

INDIA… she spells it all – the magic and the mystique, the allure and the grandeur, the vastness and the unknown, the opulence and the mediocrity, the insight and the absurdity, the unity within the diversity – a true celebration of life in every sense; a spectrum of rainbow that spills myriad colors. As such it is not possible to easily understand and realize her centuries old civilization, her infinite heritage, and her present.

Mayukhi.com is our humble attempt to bring forth the varied dimension of India – a land for centuries perceived as the land of fabulous riches, wisdom, mystique and fascinating heritage. It is a stage on which we endeavor to bring to you the rich heritage and capture the magic, allure and grandeur of her bygone era; try to bring the flavor of her as she is today. We hope to set this platform via two means to portray the diversity of her flavor.

1)  Series of Websites
A series of related web sites like Indian Dances, Indian Divinity etc. portraying the spectrum of the glorious heritage and tradition and the rich cultural and natural wealth of India will be a part of this endeavor.

2) Mayukhi Blog
A discussion platform concentrating on India, with topics related to her current situation, her up’s and down’s, her positives and negatives, and a myriad of other issues and subjects.

We hope you will give us your valuable input, support us and encourage us in trying to explore and discover India, her past, her present, and her future.