BBC's Article on Jain Temples in Palitana‏

I am sure most of you have heard of the amazing Jain temples on the Shatrunjay hills in Palitana, Gujarat. Some of you might even have been there. For those of you who haven't (or even for those who have), here is your opportunity to go on a video pilgrimage to this holy site with over 1,500 temples, some of them dating back hundreds of years.

The video, which is about three and a half minutes long, is made by BBC News and was on BBC in January 2010. Just turn on your speakers, click on the link below and go on the pilgrimage. If you are not able to click open the URL, just copy and paste on your Internet Explorer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8456435.stm

Informative !

In Tamilnadu, in Salem area on the road from Salem to Coimbatore there are many saboodana factories. We start getting terribly bad smell when we are about 2 kms away from the factories.

Saboodana is made by root like sweet potato. Kerala has this root each weighing about 6 kgs. Factory owners buy these roots in bulk during season, make it to pulp and put it in pits of about 40ft x 25ft. Pits are in open ground and the pulp is allowed to rot for several months. Thousands of tons of roots rot in pits. There are huge electric bulbs throughout the night where millions of insects fall in the pits.

While pulp is rotting, water is added everyday due to which 2" long white colour eel is automatically born like pests are born automatically in gutter. The walls of pits are covered by
millions of eels and factory owners with the help of machine crush the pulp with the eels who also become paste. This action is repeated many times during 5-6 months.

The pulp is thus ready as roots and millions & millions of pests and insects crushed and pasted together. This paste is then passed through round mesh and made into small balls and then polished. This is saboodana.

This might be the reason why many people don't eat Saboodana treating this as non-vegetarian.