{"id":13811,"date":"2023-08-07T10:04:19","date_gmt":"2023-08-07T04:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=13811"},"modified":"2025-04-02T07:30:34","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T02:00:34","slug":"shaligrams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/shaligrams\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaligrams"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>About Shaligrams<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For more than 2,000 years, <strong>Hinduism, Buddhism and the shamanic Himalayan religion<\/strong> of Bon have venerated Shaligrams.<\/li>\n<li>These are <strong>ancient fossils of ammonites<\/strong>, a class of extinct sea creatures related to modern squids.<\/li>\n<li>Originating from a single remote region in northern Nepal in the <strong>Kali Gandaki River Valley of Mustang.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>These stones are viewed primarily as manifestations of the Hindu god Vishnu.<\/li>\n<li>Because they are not human-made, but created by the landscape, they are believed to have an intrinsic consciousness of their own.<\/li>\n<li>As a result, Shaligrams are kept in homes and in temples, where they are treated as both living gods and active community members.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Impacts of Climate Change<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Climate change, faster glacial melting, and gravel mining in the Kali Gandaki are changing the course of the river, which means <strong>fewer Shaligrams are appearing each year.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>This is mainly because the <strong>Kali Gandaki is fed by meltwater from the Southern Tibetan<\/strong> Plateau.<\/li>\n<li>But with the glacier disappearing, the river is becoming smaller and shifting away from the fossil beds that contain the ammonites needed to become Shaligrams.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What is a river valley?<\/h3>\n<p>A river valley is a geographical landform created by the erosion and deposition of water over time. It refers to the low-lying area that surrounds and is shaped by a river. River valleys are diverse and can vary greatly in size, shape, and characteristics based on factors such as the type of rock, climate, and the river&#8217;s flow dynamics<\/p>\n<p>Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.downtoearth.org.in\/blog\/climate-change\/shaligrams-worshipped-by-hindus-and-buddhists-for-over-2-000-years-are-becoming-rarer-because-of-climate-change-91025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Shaligrams, worshipped by Hindus and Buddhists for over 2,000 years, are becoming rarer because of climate change<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shaligrams are ancient fossils of ammonites, a class of extinct sea creatures related to modern squids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}