1.
Velankanni
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Velankanni, is a panchayat town in Nagapattinam district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It lies on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal,350 km south of Chennai and 12 km south of Nagapattinam, once a port that traded with Rome and Greece, the tiny commercial center gradually lost its importance to the larger city of Nagapattinam. The canal built to link this town with Vedaranyam still lies to the west, the Vellayar, a minor branch of the Cauvery River, runs south of the town and discharges into the sea. The town was among the worst hit by the tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, the town is home to a significant Roman Catholic Latin Rite shrine called the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health. Velankanni has been chosen as one of the cities for HRIDAY - Heritage City Development. The 2001 Indian census indicated Velankanni had a population of 10,144, males constitute 48% of the population and females 52%. Citizens there have a literacy rate of 69%, higher than the national average of 68%, male literacy is 75%. 12% of the population is under six years of age, Velankanni has one of the countrys biggest Catholic pilgrimage centres, the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health. Devoted to Our Lady of Good Health, it is known as the Lourdes of the East. Its origins can be traced back to the 16th century and it is built in the Gothic style, was modified by Portuguese and then further expanded later on due to the influx of pilgrims. The church building was raised to the status of basilica in 1962 by Pope John XXIII. Annually,20 million pilgrims flock to the shrine from all over India and abroad, the 11-day annual festival concludes with the celebration of the Feast of the Nativity of Mary on 8 September. Vailankanni is located 350 kilometres south of Chennai and 14 kilometres south of Nagapattinam on the Coramandel coast, Vailankanni is well connected by road and rail to the rest of the country. The East Coast Road that runs from Chennai to Cuddalore, connects the town to the rest of the country, the nearest operational airports are Tiruchirappalli International Airport,165 kilometres away and Chennai International Airport,300 kilometres away. The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation run a bus service to Changanassery. The TNSTC– Kumbakonam division operates short distance buses to Tiruchirappalli, Thanjavur, Pudukkottai, Karaikudi, Tiruvarur, Kumbakonam, Pondicherry, Karaikal, Velankanni railway station is a terminal station on the 10 kilometre long Nagapattinam - Velankanni broad gauge line. The foundation stone of the line was laid in 1999 and it was completed in 2010 at a cost of Rs.48 crores, the line is part of the Tiruchirappalli railway division of Southern Railway zone of the Indian Railways. The Vailankanni –Chennai Egmore Link Express runs daily with only four coaches from Velankanni, the weekly Velankanni Express between Vasco da Gama, Goa and Velankanni is operated by South Western Railway zone
2.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
3.
Marian apparition
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A Marian apparition is a reported supernatural appearance by the Blessed Virgin Mary. The figure is named after the town where it is reported. Marian apparitions sometimes are reported to recur at the site over an extended period of time. In the majority of Marian apparitions only one person or a few people report having witnessed the apparition, exceptions to this include Zeitoun, Fátima and Assiut where thousands claimed to have seen her over a period of time. The term appearance has been used in different apparitions within a range of contexts. And its use has been different with respect to Marian apparitions and visions of Jesus Christ, in some apparitions such as Our Lady of Lourdes an actual vision is reported, resembling that of a person being present. In some of these reports the viewers do not initially report that saw the Virgin Mary. In these cases the viewers report experiences that resemble the visual and verbal interaction with a present at the site. In most cases, there are no indications as to the auditory nature of the experience. The 1973 messages of Our Lady of Akita were to Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa who went deaf before 1973, in some apparitions an image is reported absent any verbal interaction. An example is the reported apparitions at Our Lady of Assiut in which people reported a bright image atop a building. However, such image-like appearances are hardly ever reported for visions of Jesus, in most cases these involve some form of reported communication. And apparitions should be distinguished from interior locutions in which no visual contact is claimed, interior locutions consist of inner voices. Interior locutions are generally not classified as apparitions, physical contact is hardly ever reported as part of Marian apparitions. In rare cases a physical artifact is reported in apparitions, such as the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, according to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, the era of public revelation ended with the death of the last living Apostle. The Church may pronounce an apparition as worthy of belief, the Holy See has officially confirmed the apparitions at Guadalupe, Saint-Étienne-le-Laus, Paris, La Salette, Lourdes, Fátima, Pontmain, Beauraing, and Banneux. An authentic apparition is believed not to be a subjective experience, the purpose of such apparitions is to recall and emphasize some aspect of the Christian message. The church states that cures and other events are not the purpose of Marian apparitions
4.
Holy See
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The Holy See, also referred to as the See of Rome, is the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, the episcopal see of the Pope, and an independent sovereign entity. It serves as the point of reference for the Catholic Church everywhere. Today, it is responsible for the governance of all Catholics, organised in their Particular Churches, Patriarchates, as an independent sovereign entity, holding the Vatican City enclave in Rome as sovereign territory, it maintains diplomatic relations with other states. Diplomatically, the Holy See acts and speaks for the whole church and it is also recognised by other subjects of international law as a sovereign entity, headed by the Pope, with which diplomatic relations can be maintained. The creation of the Vatican City state was meant to ensure the diplomatic, in Greek, the adjective holy or sacred is constantly applied to all such sees as a matter of course. The word see comes from the Latin word sedes, meaning seat, while Saint Peters basilica in Vatican City is perhaps the church most associated with the Papacy, the actual cathedral of the Holy See is the church of Saint John Lateran within the city of Rome. The Pope governs the Catholic Church through the Roman Curia, the Secretariat of State, under the Cardinal Secretary of State, directs and coordinates the Curia. The incumbent, Archbishop Pietro Parolin, is the Sees equivalent of a prime minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Secretary of the Section for Relations with States of the Secretariat of State, acts as the Holy Sees minister of foreign affairs. Parolin was named in his role by Pope Francis On 31 August 2013, mamberti was named in his role by Pope Benedict XVI in September 2006. The Secretariat of State is the body of the Curia that is situated within Vatican City. The others are in buildings in different parts of Rome that have rights similar to those of embassies. The Roman Rota handles normal judicial appeals, the most numerous being those that concern alleged nullity of marriage and it also oversees the work of other ecclesiastical tribunals at all levels. The most important of these is the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, the Prefecture of the Papal Household is responsible for the organization of the papal household, audiences, and ceremonies. The Holy See does not dissolve upon a Popes death or resignation and it instead operates under a different set of laws sede vacante. The government of the See, and therefore of the Catholic Church, canon law prohibits the College and the Camerlengo from introducing any innovations or novelties in the government of the Church during this period. In 2001, the Holy See had a revenue of 422.098 billion Italian lire, the Guardian newspaper described Mennini and his role in the following manner. Paolo Mennini, who is in effect the popes merchant banker, Mennini heads a special unit inside the Vatican called the extraordinary division of APSA – Amministrazione del Patrimonio della Sede Apostolica – which handles the patrimony of the Holy See. The Holy See has been recognized, both in practice and in the writing of modern legal scholars, as a subject of public international law, with rights
5.
Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health
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The Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health is located at the small town of Velankanni in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India. The Roman Catholic Latin Rite Basilica is devoted to Our Lady of Good Health and these accounts are based on oral tradition and there are no written or attested records in support of them. The Holy See has not approved these apparitions, the chapel was finally built by Portuguese sailors. More than 500 years later, the festival and celebration is still observed. The Shrine of Our Lady of Vailankanni, also known as the Lourdes of the East, is one of the religious sites in India. There are no documents or records about the apparitions of Mary at Vailankanni. The first apparition is said to have occurred in May 1570, along the way he met a beautiful woman holding a child, who asked for some milk for the little one. After giving her the milk, he continued on his way, a small shrine was built near the site where the boy encountered the woman, a location that came to be called Matha Kulam, which means Our Lady’s Pool. The second apparition is said to have happened in 1597, not far from Matha Kulam, a beautiful woman with a young boy in her arms appeared to a young crippled boy selling buttermilk. The boy set out quickly and realized that he was no longer lame. A small thatched chapel was built in honor of Our Lady of Health. They invoked the help of the Blessed Virgin under her title Star of the Sea, the storm subsided and the 150 men on board were saved. It was September 8, the Feast of the Nativity of Mary, in thanksgiving, the sailors rebuilt the Shrine to Our Lady of Good Health, and continued to enhance it whenever their voyages brought them to the area. The shrine that started as a chapel in the mid-sixteenth century became a parish church in 1771 when Catholics in India were under persecution from the Dutch. Later in 1962 it was granted a Special status of a Minor Basilica by Pope John XIII, the shrine of Vailankanni was elevated to the status of Minor Basilica and merged with the Major Basilica of Mary in Rome on 3 November 1962 by Pope John XXIII. For Goan and Konkani people, she is called Shantadurga, the portrayal of the Virgin Mary as a curer of illness and a victor over all demonic forces is seen by local Hindus as an attribute equivalent to the Hindu goddess Mariamman. Being a Roman Catholic Marian church, it is dedicated to Our Lady of Good Health, Mary is depicted wearing a sari. The usual time for pilgrimage is during the festival between August 29 to September 6 and Christmas
6.
Tamil language
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Tamil is a Dravidian language predominantly spoken by the Tamil people of India and Sri Lanka, and also by the Tamil diaspora, Sri Lankan Moors, Burghers, Douglas, and Chindians. Tamil is a language of two countries, Singapore and Sri Lanka. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and it is also used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia, along with English, Malay and Mandarin. Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities in the four other South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and it is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India. Tamil is one of the classical languages in the world. Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions from 500 BC have been found on Adichanallur and 2 and it has been described as the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past. The variety and quality of classical Tamil literature has led to it being described as one of the classical traditions. A recorded Tamil literature has been documented for over 2000 years, the earliest period of Tamil literature, Sangam literature, is dated from ca.300 BC – AD300. It has the oldest extant literature among other Dravidian languages, the earliest epigraphic records found on rock edicts and hero stones date from around the 3rd century BC. More than 55% of the inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India are in the Tamil language. Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka, the two earliest manuscripts from India, acknowledged and registered by the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 1997 and 2005, were written in Tamil. In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiraan Vanakkam, the Tamil Lexicon, published by the University of Madras, was one of the earliest dictionaries published in the Indian languages. According to a 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages, a family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent. It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family, the closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam, the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. According to linguists like Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Tamil, as a Dravidian language, descends from Proto-Dravidian, linguistic reconstruction suggests that Proto-Dravidian was spoken around the third millennium BC, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin in peninsular India. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of the associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India. The next phase in the reconstructed proto-history of Tamil is Proto-South Dravidian, the linguistic evidence suggests that Proto-South Dravidian was spoken around the middle of the second millennium BC, and that proto-Tamil emerged around the 3rd century BC. The earliest epigraphic attestations of Tamil are generally taken to have been shortly thereafter
7.
Veneration of Mary in Roman Catholicism
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In the Catholic Church, veneration of Mary, mother of Jesus encompasses various Marian devotions which includes prayer, pious acts, visual arts, poetry, and music devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Popes have encouraged it, while taking steps to reform some manifestations of it. The Holy See has insisted on the importance of distinguishing true from false devotion, there are significantly more titles, feasts, and venerative Marian practices among Roman Catholics than in other Christian traditions. The term hyperdulia indicates the special veneration due to Mary, greater than the ordinary dulia for other saints, the term Mariolatry is a Protestant pejorative label for perceived excessive Catholic devotion to Mary. Belief in the incarnation of God the Son through Mary is the basis for calling her the Mother of God, at the Second Vatican Council and in Pope John Paul IIs encyclical Redemptoris Mater, she is spoken of also as Mother of the Church. The Holy See approves only a few as worthy of belief. In Roman Catholic teachings, the veneration of Mary is a consequence of Christology, Jesus and Mary are son and mother, redeemer. This sentiment was expressed by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Redemptoris Mater, At the centre of this mystery, in the midst of this wonderment of faith, stands Mary. As the loving Mother of the Redeemer, she was the first to experience it, in the Roman Catholic tradition Mariology is seen as Christology developed to its full potential. Mary is seen as contributing to an understanding of the life of Jesus. In this view, a Christology without Mary is not based on the revelation of the Bible. Traces of this parallel interpretation go back to the days of Christianity. The development of this continued into the 20th century. The divine salvation plan, being not only material, includes a permanent spiritual unity with Christ, Christians love for Mary intuited, frequently in anticipation, certain aspects of the mystery of the Blessed Virgin, calling the attention of theologians and pastors to them. Venerative and devotional practices have often preceded formal theological declarations by the Magisterium, the veneration of the Blessed Virgin takes place in various ways. Marian prayers and hymns usually begin with praise of her, followed by petitions, the number of Marian titles continued to grow as of the 3rd century, and many titles existed by the 5th century, growing especially during the Middle Ages. Veneration for Mary is based on the reference in the Gospel of Luke to Mary as the handmaid of the Lord who is greeted and praised by both Elizabeth and the angel Gabriel. One of the components of the Catholic veneration of Mary is the focus on her participation in the processes of salvation and redemption and this has been explored by such writers as Edward Schillebeeckx and Adrienne von Speyr
8.
Tamil Nadu
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Tamil Nadu is one of the 29 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai, Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Puducherry and the South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. The state shares a border with the nation of Sri Lanka. Tamil Nadu is the eleventh-largest state in India by area and the sixth-most populous, the state was ranked sixth among states in India according to the Human Development Index in 2011, with the second-largest state economy after Maharashtra. Tamil Nadu is the second largest state economy in India with ₹13,842 billion in gross domestic product after Maharashtra. Tamil Nadu was ranked as one of the top seven developed states in India based on a Multidimensional Development Index in a 2013 report published by the Reserve Bank of India and its official language is Tamil, which is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world. Tamil Nadu is home to natural resources. In addition, its people have developed and continue classical arts, classical music, historic buildings and religious sites include Hindu temples of Tamil architecture, hill stations, beach resorts, multi-religious pilgrimage sites, and eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Archaeological evidence points to this area being one of the longest continuous habitations in the Indian peninsula, the ASI archaeologists have proposed that the script used at that site is very rudimentary Tamil Brahmi. Adichanallur has been announced as a site for further excavation. About 60 per cent of the epigraphical inscriptions found by the ASI in India are from Tamil Nadu. A Neolithic stone celt with the Indus script on it was discovered at Sembian-Kandiyur near Mayiladuthurai in Tamil Nadu, according to epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan, this was the first datable artefact bearing the Indus script to be found in Tamil Nadu. Mahadevan claimed that the find was evidence of the use of the Harappan language, the date of the celt was estimated at between 1500 BCE and 2000 BCE. The early history of the people and rulers of Tamil Nadu is a topic in Tamil literary sources known as Sangam literature, numismatic, archaeological and literary sources corroborate that the Sangam period lasted for about six centuries, from 300 BC to AD300. Three dynasties, namely the Chera, Chola and Pandya, ruled the area of present-day Tamil Nadu, the Chera ruled the whole of present-day Kerala and parts of western Tamil Nadu comprising Coimbatore, Dharmapuri, Karur, Salem and Erode districts from the capital of Vanchi Muthur. The Chola dynasty ruled the northern and central parts of Tamil Nadu from their capital, Uraiyur, All three dynasties had extensive trade relationships with Rome, Greece, Egypt, Ceylon, Phoenicia, Arabia, Mesopotamia and Persia. Trade flourished in commodities such as spices, ivory, pearls, beads, Chera traded extensively from Muziris on the west coast, Chola from Arikamedu and Puhar and Pandya through Korkai port. A Greco-Roman trade and travel document, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea gives a description of the Tamil country, besides these three dynasties, the Sangam era Tamilakam was also divided into various provinces named nadu, meaning country
9.
Portuguese people
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Portuguese people are an ethnic group indigenous to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and their predominant religion is Christianity, Portuguese people were a key factor to the Age of Exploration, discovering several lands unknown to the Europeans in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania, helping to pave the way for Globalization. There are around 10 million native Portuguese in Portugal, out of a population of 10.34 million. A small minority of about 15,000 speak the Mirandese language, in the municipalities of Miranda do Douro, Vimioso, all of the speakers are bilingual with Portuguese. An even smaller minority of no more than 2,000 people speak Barranquenho, some people from the former colonies have been migrating to Portugal since the 1900s. More recently, a number of Slavs, especially Ukrainians, Moldovans, Romanians and Russians. There is also a Chinese minority, in addition, there is a small minority Gypsies of about 40,000 people, Muslims about 34,000 people and an even smaller minority of Jews of about 5,000 people. Between 1886 and 1966, Portugal lost to more than any West European country except Ireland. From the middle of the 19th century to the late 1950s, about 40 million Brazilians have relatively recent Portuguese background, due to massive immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. About 1.2 million Brazilian citizens are native Portuguese, significant verified Portuguese minorities exist in several countries. Portuguese Sephardic Jews are also in Israel, the Netherlands, the United States, France, Venezuela, Brazil, in Brazil many of the colonists were also originally Sephardic Jews, who, converted, were known as New Christians. In the United States, there are Portuguese communities in New Jersey, the New England states, in the Pacific, Hawaii has a sizable Portuguese element that goes back 150 years, Australia and New Zealand also have Portuguese communities. Canada, particularly Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, has developed a significant Portuguese community since 1940, argentina and Uruguay had Portuguese immigration in the early 20th century. So has Chile where an estimated 50,000 descendants live, an estimated 800,000 Portuguese returned to Portugal as the countrys African possessions gained independence in 1975, after the Carnation Revolution, while others moved to Brazil and South Africa. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Equatorial Guinea, in 1989 some 4,000,000 Portuguese were living abroad, mainly in France, Germany, Brazil, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, Venezuela, and the United States. Portuguese constitute 13% of the population of Luxembourg, in areas such as Thetford and the crown dependencies of Jersey and Guernsey, the Portuguese form the largest ethnic minority groups at 30% of the population, 20% and 3% respectively. The British capital London is home to the largest number of Portuguese people in the UK, with the majority being found in the boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth and Westminster. The Portuguese diaspora communities still are very attached to their language, their culture and their national dishes, in colonial times, over 700,000 Portuguese settled in Brazil, and most of them went there during the gold rush of the 18th century
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