title: Uluru

text: In 1993, a dual naming policy was adopted that allowed official names that consist of both the traditional Aboriginal name (in the Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara and other local languages) and the English name. On 15 December 1993, it was renamed "Ayers Rock / Uluru" and became the first official dual-named feature in the Northern Territory. The order of the dual names was officially reversed to "Uluru / Ayers Rock" on 6 November 2002 following a request from the Regional Tourism Association in Alice Springs.


title: Uluru

text: The sandstone formation stands high, rising above sea level with most of its bulk lying underground, and has a total perimeter of . Both Uluru and the nearby Kata Tjuta formation have great cultural significance for the local Aṉangu people, the traditional inhabitants of the area, who lead walking tours to inform visitors about the bush, food, local flora and fauna, and the Aboriginal dreamtime stories of the area.


title: Uluru

text: Uluru is also very notable for appearing to change colour at different times of the day and year, most notably when it glows red at dawn and sunset.


title: Uluru

text: Kata Tjuta, also called Mount Olga or the Olgas, lies west of Uluru. Special viewing areas with road access and parking have been constructed to give tourists the best views of both sites at dawn and dusk.


title: Uluru

text: Uluru is an inselberg, meaning "island mountain". An inselberg is a prominent isolated residual knob or hill that rises abruptly from and is surrounded by extensive and relatively flat erosion lowlands in a hot, dry region. Uluru is also often referred to as a monolith, although this is an ambiguous term that is generally avoided by geologists.


title: Uluru

text: The remarkable feature of Uluru is its homogeneity and lack of jointing and parting at bedding surfaces, leading to the lack of development of scree slopes and soil. These characteristics led to its survival, while the surrounding rocks were eroded.


title: Uluru

text: For the purpose of mapping and describing the geological history of the area, geologists refer to the rock strata making up Uluru as the Mutitjulu Arkose, and it is one of many sedimentary formations filling the Amadeus Basin.


title: Uluru

text: Uluru is dominantly composed of coarse-grained arkose (a type of sandstone characterised by an abundance of feldspar) and some conglomerate. Average composition is 50% feldspar, 25–35% quartz and up to 25% rock fragments; most feldspar is K-feldspar with only minor plagioclase as subrounded grains and highly altered inclusions within K-feldspar. The grains are typically in diameter, and are angular to subangular; the finer sandstone is well sorted, with sorting decreasing with increasing grain size. The rock fragments include subrounded basalt, invariably replaced to various degrees by chlorite and epidote. The minerals present suggest derivation from a predominantly granite source, similar to the Musgrave Block exposed to the south. When relatively fresh, the rock has a grey colour, but weathering of iron-bearing minerals by the process of oxidation gives the outer surface layer of rock a red-brown rusty colour. Features related to deposition of the sediment include cross-bedding and ripples, analysis of which indicated deposition from broad shallow high energy fluvial channels and sheet flooding, typical of alluvial fans.


title: Uluru

text: The Mutitjulu Arkose is believed to be of about the same age as the conglomerate at Kata Tjuta, and to have a similar origin despite the rock type being different, but it is younger than the rocks exposed to the east at Mount Conner, and unrelated to them. The strata at Uluru are nearly vertical, dipping to the south west at 85°, and have an exposed thickness of at least . The strata dip below the surrounding plain and no doubt extend well beyond Uluru in the subsurface, but the extent is not known.


title: Uluru

text: The rock was originally sand, deposited as part of an extensive alluvial fan that extended out from the ancestors of the Musgrave, Mann and Petermann Ranges to the south and west, but separate from a nearby fan that deposited the sand, pebbles and cobbles that now make up Kata Tjuta.


title: Uluru

text: The similar mineral composition of the Mutitjulu Arkose and the granite ranges to the south is now explained. The ancestors of the ranges to the south were once much larger than the eroded remnants we see today. They were thrust up during a mountain building episode referred to as the Petermann Orogeny that took place in late Neoproterozoic to early Cambrian times (550–530 Ma), and thus the Mutitjulu Arkose is believed to have been deposited at about the same time.


title: Uluru

text: The arkose sandstone that makes up the formation is composed of grains that show little sorting based on grain size and exhibit very little rounding; the feldspars in the rock are relatively fresh in appearance. This lack of sorting and grain rounding is typical of arkosic sandstones and is indicative of relatively rapid erosion from the granites of the growing mountains to the south. The layers of sand were nearly horizontal when deposited, but were tilted to their near vertical position during a later episode of mountain building, possibly the Alice Springs Orogeny of Palaeozoic age (400–300 Ma).


title: Uluru

text: Historically, 46 species of native mammals are known to have been living near Uluru; according to recent surveys there are currently 21. Aṉangu acknowledge that a decrease in the number has implications for the condition and health of the landscape. Moves are supported for the reintroduction of locally extinct animals such as malleefowl, common brushtail possum, rufous hare-wallaby or mala, bilby, burrowing bettong, and the black-flanked rock-wallaby.


title: Uluru

text: The mulgara is mostly restricted to the transitional sand plain area, a narrow band of country that stretches from the vicinity of Uluru to the northern boundary of the park and into Ayers Rock Resort. This area also contains the marsupial mole, woma python, and great desert skink.


title: Uluru

text: The bat population of the park comprises at least seven species that depend on day roosting sites within caves and crevices of Uluru and Kata Tjuta. Most of the bats forage for aerial prey within or so from the rock face. The park has a very rich reptile fauna of high conservation significance, with 73 species having been reliably recorded. Four species of frogs are abundant at the base of Uluru and Kata Tjuta following summer rains. The great desert skink is listed as vulnerable.


title: Uluru

text: Aṉangu continue to hunt and gather animal species in remote areas of the park and on Aṉangu land elsewhere. Hunting is largely confined to the red kangaroo, bush turkey, emu, and lizards such as the sand goanna and perentie.


title: Uluru

text: Of the 27 mammal species found in the park, six are introduced: the house mouse, camel, fox, cat, dog, and rabbit. These species are distributed throughout the park, but their densities are greatest near the rich water run-off areas of Uluru and Kata Tjuta.


title: Uluru

text: Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park flora represents a large portion of plants found in Central Australia. A number of these species are considered rare and restricted in the park or the immediate region. Many rare and endemic plants are found in the park.


title: Uluru

text: The growth and reproduction of plant communities rely on irregular rainfall. Some plants are able to survive fire and some are dependent on it to reproduce. Plants are an important part of "Tjukurpa", and ceremonies are held for each of the major plant foods. Many plants are associated with ancestral beings.


title: Uluru

text: Trees such as the mulga and centralian bloodwood are used to make tools such as spearheads, boomerangs, and bowls. The red sap of the bloodwood is used as a disinfectant and an inhalant for coughs and colds.


title: Uluru

text: Several rare and endangered species are found in the park. Most of them, like adder's tongue ferns, are restricted to the moist areas at the base of the formation, which are areas of high visitor use and subject to erosion.


title: Uluru

text: Since the first Europeans arrived, 34 exotic plant species have been recorded in the park, representing about 6.4% of the total park flora. Some, such as perennial buffel grass ("Cenchrus ciliaris"), were introduced to rehabilitate areas damaged by erosion. It is the most threatening weed in the park and has spread to invade water- and nutrient-rich drainage lines. A few others, such as burrgrass, were brought in accidentally, carried on cars and people.


title: Uluru

text: The park has a hot desert climate and receives an average rainfall of per year. The average high temperature in summer (December–January) is , and the average low temperature in winter (June–July) is . Temperature extremes in the park have been recorded at during summer and during winter. UV levels are extreme between October and March, averaging between 11 and 15 on the UV index.


title: Uluru

text: There are a number of differing accounts given, by outsiders, of Aboriginal ancestral stories for the origins of Uluru and its many cracks and fissures. One such account, taken from Robert Layton's (1989) "Uluru: An Aboriginal history of Ayers Rock", reads as follows:


title: Uluru

text: Two other accounts are given in Norbert Brockman's (1997) "Encyclopedia of Sacred Places". The first tells of serpent beings who waged many wars around Uluru, scarring the rock. The second tells of two tribes of ancestral spirits who were invited to a feast, but were distracted by the beautiful Sleepy Lizard Women and did not show up. In response, the angry hosts sang evil into a mud sculpture that came to life as the dingo. There followed a great battle, which ended in the deaths of the leaders of both tribes. The earth itself rose up in grief at the bloodshed, becoming Uluru.


title: Uluru

text: It is sometimes reported that those who take rocks from the formation will be cursed and suffer misfortune. There have been many instances where people who removed such rocks attempted to mail them back to various agencies in an attempt to remove the perceived curse.


title: Uluru

text: Archaeological findings to the east and west indicate that humans settled in the area more than 10,000 years ago.


title: Uluru

text: Europeans arrived in the Australian Western Desert in the 1870s. Uluru and Kata Tjuta were first mapped by Europeans in 1872 during the expeditionary period made possible by the construction of the Australian Overland Telegraph Line. In separate expeditions, Ernest Giles and William Gosse were the first European explorers to this area. While exploring the area in 1872, Giles sighted Kata Tjuta from a location near Kings Canyon and called it Mount Olga, while the following year Gosse observed Uluru and named it Ayers' Rock, in honour of the Chief Secretary of South Australia, Sir Henry Ayers.


title: Uluru

text: Further explorations followed with the aim of establishing the possibilities of the area for pastoralism. In the late 19th century, pastoralists attempted to establish themselves in areas adjoining the Southwestern/Petermann Reserve and interaction between Aṉangu and white people became more frequent and more violent. Due to the effects of grazing and drought, bush food stores became depleted. Competition for these resources created conflict between the two groups, resulting in more frequent police patrols. Later, during the depression in the 1930s, Aṉangu became involved in dingo scalping with 'doggers' who introduced the Aṉangu to European foods and ways.


title: Uluru

text: Between 1918 and 1921, large adjoining areas of South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory were declared as Aboriginal reserves, government-run settlements where the Aboriginal people were forced to live. In 1920, part of Uluṟu–Kata Tjuṯa National Park was declared an Aboriginal Reserve (commonly known as the South-Western or Petermann Reserve) by the Australian government under the "Aboriginals Ordinance 1918".


title: Uluru

text: The first tourists arrived in the Uluru area in 1936. Permanent European settlement of the area began in the 1940s under Aboriginal welfare policy and to promote tourism at Uluru. This increased tourism prompted the formation of the first vehicular tracks in 1948 and tour bus services began early in the 1950s. In 1958, the area that would become the Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park was excised from the Petermann Reserve; it was placed under the management of the Northern Territory Reserves Board and named the Ayers Rock–Mount Olga National Park. The first ranger was Bill Harney, a well-recognised central Australian figure. By 1959, the first motel leases had been granted and Eddie Connellan had constructed an airstrip close to the northern side of Uluru. Following a 1963 suggestion from the Northern Territory Reserves Board, a chain was laid to assist tourists in climbing the landmark. The chain was removed in 2019.


title: Uluru

text: On 26 October 1985, the Australian government returned ownership of Uluru to the local Pitjantjatjara people, with one of the conditions being that the Aṉangu would lease it back to the National Parks and Wildlife agency for 99 years and that it would be jointly managed. An agreement originally made between the community and Prime Minister Bob Hawke that the climb to the top by tourists would be stopped was later broken.


title: Uluru

text: The Aboriginal community of Mutitjulu, with a population of approximately 300, is located near the eastern end of Uluru. From Uluru it is by road to the tourist town of Yulara, population 3,000, which is situated just outside the national park.


title: Uluru

text: On 8 October 2009, the Talinguru Nyakuntjaku viewing area opened to public visitation. The project about on the east side of Uluru involved design and construction supervision by the Aṉangu traditional owners, with of roads and of walking trails being built for the area.


title: Uluru

text: The development of tourism infrastructure adjacent to the base of Uluru that began in the 1950s soon produced adverse environmental impacts. It was decided in the early 1970s to remove all accommodation-related tourist facilities and re-establish them outside the park. In 1975, a reservation of of land beyond the park's northern boundary, from Uluru, was approved for the development of a tourist facility and an associated airport, to be known as Yulara. The camp ground within the park was closed in 1983 and the motels closed in late 1984, coinciding with the opening of the Yulara resort. In 1992, the majority interest in the Yulara resort held by the Northern Territory Government was sold and the resort was renamed Ayers Rock Resort.


title: Uluru

text: Since the park was listed as a World Heritage Site, annual visitor numbers rose to over 400,000 visitors by 2000. Increased tourism provides regional and national economic benefits. It also presents an ongoing challenge to balance conservation of cultural values and visitor needs.


title: Uluru

text: The local Aṉangu do not climb Uluru because of its great spiritual significance. They have in the past requested that visitors do not climb the rock, partly due to the path crossing a sacred traditional Dreamtime track, and also due to a sense of responsibility for the safety of visitors. Until October 2019, the visitors' guide said "the climb is not prohibited, but we prefer that, as a guest on Aṉangu land, you will choose to respect our law and culture by not climbing".


title: Uluru

text: On 11 December 1983, the Prime Minister of Australia, Bob Hawke, promised to hand back the land title to the Aṉangu traditional custodians and caretakers and agreed to the community's 10-point plan which included forbidding the climbing of Uluru. The government, however, set access to climb Uluru and a 99-year lease, instead of the previously agreed upon 50-year lease, as conditions before the title was officially given back to the Aṉangu on 26 October 1985.


title: Uluru

text: A chain handhold added to the rock in 1964 and extended in 1976 made the hour-long climb easier, but it remained a steep, hike to the top, where it can be quite windy. It was recommended that individuals drink plenty of water while climbing, and that those who were unfit, or who suffered from vertigo or medical conditions restricting exercise, did not attempt it. Climbing Uluru was generally closed to the public when high winds were present at the top. There were at least 37 deaths relating to recreational climbing since such incidents began being recorded.


title: Uluru

text: According to a 2010 publication, just over one-third of all visitors to the park climbed Uluru; a high percentage of these were children. About one-sixth of visitors made the climb between 2011 and 2015.


title: Uluru

text: The traditional owners of Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park (Nguraritja) and the Federal Government's Director of National Parks share decision-making on the management of Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park. Under their joint Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park Management Plan 2010–20, issued by the Director of National Parks under the "Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999", clause 6.3.3 provides that the Director and the Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa Board of Management should work towards closure of the climb and, additionally, that it was to be closed upon any of three conditions being met: there were "adequate new visitor experiences", less than 20 per cent of visitors made the climb, or the "critical factors" in decisions to visit were "cultural and natural experiences". Despite cogent evidence that the second condition was met by July 2013, the climb remained open.


title: Uluru

text: Several controversial incidents on top of Uluru in 2010, including a striptease, golfing, and nudity, led to renewed calls for banning the climb. On 1 November 2017, the Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park board voted unanimously to prohibit climbing Uluru. As a result, there was a surge in climbers and visitors after the ban was announced. The ban took effect on the 26 October 2019, and the chain was then removed.


title: Uluru

text: The Aṉangu request that visitors do not photograph certain sections of Uluru, for reasons related to traditional "Tjukurpa" (Dreaming) beliefs. These areas are the sites of gender-linked rituals or ceremonies and are forbidden ground for Aṉangu of the opposite sex to those participating in the rituals in question. The photographic restriction is intended to prevent Aṉangu from inadvertently violating this taboo by encountering photographs of the forbidden sites in the outside world.


title: Uluru

text: In September 2020, Parks Australia alerted Google Australia to the user-generated images from the Uluru summit that have been posted on the Google Maps platform and requested that the content be removed in accordance with the wishes of Aṉangu, Uluru's traditional owners, and the national park's Film and Photography Guidelines. Google agreed to the request. Currently, the only photos of Uluru are photos at the surface.


title: Uluru

text: During heavy rain, waterfalls cascade down the sides of Uluru, a rare phenomenon that only 1% of all tourists get to see. Large rainfall events occurred in 2016 and the summer of 2020–21.


title: Chanakya

text: Chanakya (Sanskrit: चाणक्य; IAST: ', ; 375–283 BCE) was an ancient Indian polymath who was active as a teacher, author, strategist, philosopher, economist, jurist, and royal advisor. He is traditionally identified as Kauṭilya or Vishnugupta, who authored the ancient Indian political treatise, the "Arthashastra", a text dated to roughly between the fourth century BCE and the third century CE. As such, he is considered the pioneer of the field of political science and economics in India, and his work is thought of as an important precursor to classical economics. His works were lost near the end of the Gupta Empire in the sixth century CE and not rediscovered until the early 20th century.


title: Chanakya

text: Around 321 BCE, Chanakya assisted the first Mauryan emperor Chandragupta in his rise to power and is widely credited for having played an important role in the establishment of the Maurya Empire. Chanakya served as the chief advisor to both emperors Chandragupta and his son Bindusara.


title: Chanakya

text: There is little documented historical information about Chanakya: most of what is known about him comes from semi-legendary accounts. Thomas Trautmann identifies four distinct accounts of the ancient Chanakya-Chandragupta "katha" (legend):


title: Chanakya

text: In all the four versions, Chanakya feels insulted by the Nanda king, and vows to destroy him. After dethroning the Nanda, he installs Chandragupta as the new king.


title: Chanakya

text: The ancient "Arthashastra" has been traditionally attributed to Chanakya by a number of scholars. The "Arthashastra" identifies its author as Kauṭilya, a gotra or clan name, except for one verse that refers to him by the personal name of Vishnugupta. Kauṭilya is presumably the name of the author's gotra (clan).


title: Chanakya

text: One of the earliest Sanskrit literatures to identify Chanakya with Vishnugupta explicitly was the "Panchatantra".


title: Chanakya

text: K. C. Ojha proposes that the traditional identification of Vishnugupta with Kauṭilya was caused by a confusion of the text's editor and its originator. He suggests that Vishnugupta was a redactor of the original work of Kauṭilya. Thomas Burrow suggests that Chanakya and Kauṭilya may have been two different people.


title: Chanakya

text: According to the Jain account, Chanakya was born to two lay Jains ("shravaka") named Chanin and Chaneshvari. His birthplace was the Chanaka village in Golla "vishaya" (region). The identity of "Golla" is not certain, but Hemachandra states that Chanakya was a Dramila, implying that he was a native of South India.


title: Chanakya

text: Chanakya was born with a full set of teeth. According to the monks, this was a sign that he would become a king in the future. Chanin did not want his son to become haughty, so he broke Chanakya's teeth. The monks prophesied that the baby would go on to become a power behind the throne. Chanakya grew up to be a learned "shravaka", and married a Brahmin woman. Her relatives mocked her for being married to a poor man. This motivated Chanakya to visit Pataliputra, and seek donations from the king Nanda, who was famous for his generosity towards Brahmins. While waiting for the king at the royal court, Chanakya sat on the king's throne. A "dasi" (servant girl) courteously offered Chanakya the next seat, but Chanakya kept his kamandal (water pot) on it, while remaining seated on the throne. The servant offered him a choice of four more seats, but each time, he kept his various items on the seats, refusing to budge from the throne. Finally, the annoyed servant kicked him off the throne. Enraged, Chanakya vowed to uproot Nanda and his entire establishment, like "a great wind uproots a tree".


title: Chanakya

text: Chanakya knew that he was prophesied to become a power behind the throne. So, he started searching for a person worthy of being a king. While wandering, he did a favour for the pregnant daughter of a village chief, on the condition that her child would belong to him. Chandragupta was born to this lady. When Chandragupta grew up, Chanakya came to his village and saw him playing "king" among a group of boys. To test him, Chanakya asked him for a donation. The boy told Chanakya to take the cows nearby, declaring that nobody would disobey his order. This display of power convinced Chanakya that Chandragupta was the one worthy of being a king.


title: Chanakya

text: Chanakya took Chandragupta to conquer Pataliputra, the capital of Nanda. He assembled an army using the wealth he had acquired through alchemy ("dhatuvada-visaradan"). The army suffered a severe defeat, forcing Chanakya and Chandragupta to flee the battlefield. They reached a lake while being pursued by an enemy officer. Chanakya asked Chandragupta to jump into the lake, and disguised himself as a meditating ascetic. When the enemy soldier reached the lake, he asked the 'ascetic' if he had seen Chandragupta. Chanakya pointed at the lake. As the soldier removed his armour to jump into the lake, Chanakya took his sword and killed him. When Chandragupta came out of the water, Chanakya asked him, "What went through your mind, when I disclosed your location to the enemy?" Chandragupta replied that he trusted his master to make the best decision. This convinced Chanakya that Chandragupta would remain under his influence even after becoming the king. On another occasion, Chanakya similarly escaped the enemy by chasing away a washerman, and disguising himself as one. Once, he cut open the belly of a Brahmin who had just eaten food, and took out the food to feed a hungry Chandragupta.


title: Chanakya

text: One day, Chanakya and Chandragupta overheard a woman scolding her son. The child had burnt his finger by putting it in the middle of a bowl of hot gruel. The woman told her son that by not starting from the cooler edges, he was being foolish like Chanakya, who attacked the capital before conquering the bordering regions. Chanakya realized his mistake, and made a new plan to defeat Nanda. He formed an alliance with Parvataka, the king of a mountain kingdom called Himavatkuta, offering him half of Nanda's kingdom.


title: Chanakya

text: After securing Parvataka's help, Chanakya and Chandragupta started besieging the towns other than Pataliputra. One particular town offered a strong resistance. Chanakya entered this town disguised as a Shaivite mendicant, and declared that the siege would end if the idols of the seven mothers were removed from the town's temple. As soon as the superstitious defenders removed the idols from the temple, Chanakya ordered his army to end the siege. When the defenders started celebrating their victory, Chanakya's army launched a surprise attack and captured the town.


title: Chanakya

text: Gradually, Chanakya and Chandragupta subdued all the regions outside the capital. Finally, they captured Pataliputra and Chandragupta became the king. They allowed the king Nanda to go into exile, with all the goods he could take on a cart. As Nanda and his family were leaving the city on a cart, his daughter saw Chandragupta, and fell in love with the new king. She chose him as her husband by svayamvara tradition. As she was getting off the cart, 9 spokes of the cart's wheel broke. Interpreting this as an omen, Chanakya declared that Chandragupta's dynasty would last for 9 generations.


title: Chanakya

text: Meanwhile, Parvataka fell in love with one of Nanda's visha kanyas (poison girl). Chanakya approved the marriage, and Parvataka collapsed when he touched the girl during the wedding. Chanakya asked Chandragupta not to call a physician. Thus, Parvataka died and Chandragupta became the sole ruler of Nanda's territories.


title: Chanakya

text: Chanakya then started consolidating the power by eliminating Nanda's loyalists, who had been harassing people in various parts of the kingdom. Chanakya learned about a weaver who would burn any part of his house infested with cockroaches. Chanakya assigned the responsibility of crushing the rebels to this weaver. Soon, the kingdom was free of insurgents. Chanakya also burned a village that had refused him food in the past. He filled the royal treasury by inviting rich merchants to his home, getting them drunk and gambling with a loaded dice.


title: Chanakya

text: Once, the kingdom suffered a 12-year long famine. Two young Jain monks started eating from the king's plate, after making themselves invisible with a magic ointment. Chanakya sensed their presence by covering the palace floor with a powder, and tracing their footprints. At the next meal, he caught them by filling the dining room with thick smoke, which caused the monks' eyes to water, washing off the ointment. Chanakya complained about the young monks' behavior to the head monk Acharya Susthita. The Acharya blamed people for not being charitable towards monks, so Chanakya started giving generous alms to the monks.


title: Chanakya

text: Meanwhile, Chandragupta had been patronizing the non-Jain monks. Chanakya decided to prove to him that these men were not worthy of his patronage. He covered the floor of the palace area near the women's rooms with powder and left the non-Jain monks there. Their footprints showed that they had sneaked up to the windows of the women's rooms to peep inside. The Jain monks, who were assessed using the same method, stayed away from the women's rooms. After seeing this, Chandragupta appointed the Jain monks as his spiritual counsellors.


title: Chanakya

text: Chanakya used to mix small doses of poison in Chandragupta's food to make him immune to poisoning attempts. The king, unaware of this, once shared his food with Queen Durdhara. Chanakya entered the room at the instant she died. He cut open the dead queen's belly and took out the baby. The baby, who had been touched by a drop (""bindu"") of the poison, was named Bindusara.


title: Chanakya

text: After Chandragupta abdicated the throne to become a Jain monk, Chanakya anointed Bindusara as the new king. Chanakya asked Bindusara to appoint a man named Subandhu as one of his ministers. However, Subandhu wanted to become a higher minister and grew jealous of Chanakya. So, he told Bindusara that Chanakya was responsible for the death of his mother. Bindusara confirmed the allegations with the nurses, who told him that Chanakya had cut open the belly of his mother. Bindusara became enraged, and started hating Chanakya. As a result, Chanakya, who had grown very old by this time, retired and decided to starve himself to death. Meanwhile, Bindusara learned the detailed circumstances of his birth, and implored Chanakya to resume his ministerial duties. After failing to pacify Chanakya, the emperor ordered Subandhu to convince Chanakya to give up his suicide plan. Subandhu, while pretending to appease Chanakya, burned him to death. Subandhu then took possession of Chanakya's home. Chanakya had anticipated this, and before retiring, he had set up a cursed trap for Subandhu. He had left behind a chest with a hundred locks. Subandhu broke the locks, hoping to find precious jewels. He found a sweet-smelling perfume and immediately inhaled it. But then his eyes fell on a birch bark note with a curse written on it. The note declared that anybody who smelled this perfume will have to either become a monk or face death. Subandhu tested the perfume on another man, and then fed him luxurious food (something that the monks abstain from). The man died, and then Subandhu was forced to become a monk to avoid death.


title: Chanakya

text: According to another Jain text – the "Rajavali-Katha" – Chanakya accompanied Chandragupta to forest for retirement, once Bindusara became the king.


title: Chanakya

text: According to the Buddhist legend, the Nanda kings who preceded Chandragupta were robbers-turned-rulers. Chanakya (IAST: Cāṇakka in "Mahavamsa") was a Brahmin from Takkāsila (Takshashila). He was well-versed in three Vedas and politics. He was born with canine teeth, which were believed to be a mark of royalty. His mother feared that he would neglect her after becoming a king. To pacify her, Chanakya broke his teeth.


title: Chanakya

text: Chanakya had an ugly appearance, accentuated by his broken teeth and crooked feet. One day, the king Dhana Nanda organized an alms-giving ceremony for Brahmins. Chanakya went to Pupphapura (Pushpapura) to attend this ceremony. Disgusted by his appearance, the king ordered him to be thrown out of the assembly. Chanakya broke his sacred thread in anger, and cursed the king. The king ordered his arrest, but Chanakya escaped in the disguise of an Ājīvika. He befriended Dhananada's son Pabbata, and instigated him to seize the throne. With help of a signet ring given by the prince, Chanakya fled the palace through a secret door.


title: Chanakya

text: Chanakya escaped to the Vinjha forest. There, he made 800 million gold coins ("kahapana"s), using a secret technique that allowed him to turn 1 coin into 8 coins. After hiding this money, he started searching for a person worthy of replacing Dhana Nanda. One day, he saw a group of children playing: the young Chandragupta (called Chandagutta in "Mahavamsa") played the role of a king, while other boys pretended to be vassals, ministers, or robbers. The "robbers" were brought before Chandragupta, who ordered their limbs to be cut off, but then miraculously re-attached them. Chandragupta had been born in a royal family, but was brought up by a hunter after his father was killed by an usurper, and the devatas caused his mother to abandon him. Astonished by the boy's miraculous powers, Chanakya paid 1000 gold coins to his foster-father, and took Chandragupta away, promising to teach him a trade.


title: Chanakya

text: Chanakya had two potential successors to Dhana Nanda: Pabbata and Chandragupta. He gave each of them an amulet to be worn around the neck with a woolen thread. One day, he decided to test them. While Chandragupta was asleep, he asked Pabbata to remove Chandragupta's woolen thread without breaking it and without waking up Chandragupta. Pabbata failed to accomplish this task. Some time later, when Pabbata was sleeping, Chanakya challenged Chandragupta to complete the same task. Chandragupta retrieved the woolen thread by cutting off Pabbata's head. For the next seven years, Chanakya trained Chandragupta for royal duties. When Chandragupta became an adult, Chanakya dug up his hidden treasure of gold coins, and assembled an army.


title: Chanakya

text: The army of Chanadragupta and Chanakya invaded Dhana Nanda's kingdom, but disbanded after facing a severe defeat. While wandering in disguise, the two men once listened to the conversation between a woman and her son. The child had eaten the middle of a cake, and thrown away the edges. The woman scolded him, saying that he was eating food like Chandragupta, who attacked the central part of the kingdom instead of conquering the border villages first. Chanakya and Chandragupta realized their mistake. They assembled a new army, and started conquering the border villages. Gradually, they advanced to the kingdom's capital Pataliputra (Pāṭaliputta in "Mahavamsa"), where they killed the king Dhana Nanda. Chanakya ordered a fisherman to find the place where Dhana Nanda had hidden his treasure. As soon as the fishermen informed Chanakya about its location, Chanakya had him killed. Chanakya anointed Chandragupta as the new king, and tasked a man named Paṇiyatappa with eliminating rebels and robbers from the kingdom.


title: Chanakya

text: Chanakya started mixing small doses of poison in the new king's food to make him immune to poisoning attempts by the enemies. Chandragupta, who was not aware of this, once shared the food with his pregnant queen, who was seven days away from delivery. Chanakya arrived just as the queen ate the poisoned morsel. Realizing that she was going to die, Chanakya decided to save the unborn child. He cut off the queen's head and cut open her belly with a sword to take out the foetus. Over the next seven days, he placed the foetus in the belly of a goat freshly killed each day. After seven days, Chandragupta's son was "born". He was named Bindusara because his body was spotted with drops ("bindu") of goat's blood.


title: Chanakya

text: The earliest Buddhist legends do not mention Chanakya in their description of the Mauryan dynasty after this point. Dhammapala's commentary on "Theragatha", however, mentions a legend about Chanakya and a Brahmin named Subandhu. According to this account, Chanakya was afraid that the wise Subandhu would surpass him at Chandragupta's court. So, he got Chandragupta to imprison Subandhu, whose son Tekicchakani escaped and became a Buddhist monk. The 16th-century Tibetan Buddhist author Taranatha mentions Chanakya as one of Bindusara's "great lords". According to him, Chanakya destroyed the nobles and kings of 16 towns and made Bindusara the master of all the territory between the eastern and the western seas (Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal).


title: Chanakya

text: The Kashmiri version of the legend goes like this: Vararuchi (identified with Katyayana), Indradatta and Vyadi were three disciples of the sage Varsha. Once, on behalf of their guru Varsha, they travelled to Ayodhya to seek a gurudakshina (guru's fee) from king Nanda. As they arrived to meet Nanda, the king died. Using his yogic powers, Indradatta entered Nanda's body and granted Vararuchi's request for 10 million dinars (gold coins). The royal minister Shakatala realized what was happening, and had Indradatta's body burnt. But before he could take any action against the fake king (Indradatta in Nanda's body, also called Yogananda), the king had him arrested. Shakatala and his 100 sons were imprisoned and were given food sufficient only for one person. Shakatala's 100 sons starved to death, so that their father could live to take revenge.


title: Chanakya

text: Meanwhile, the fake king appointed Vararuchi as his minister. As the king's character kept deteriorating, a disgusted Vararuchi retired to a forest as an ascetic. Shakatala was then restored as the minister, but kept planning his revenge. One day, Shakatala came across Chanakya, a Brahmin who was uprooting all the grass in his path, because one blade of the grass had pricked his foot. Shakatala realized that he could use a man so vengeful to destroy the fake king. He invited Chanakya to the king's assembly, promising him 100,000 gold coins for presiding over a ritual ceremony.


title: Chanakya

text: Shakatala hosted Chanakya in his own house and treated him with great respect. But the day Chanakya arrived at the king's court, Shakatala got another Brahmin named Subandhu to preside over the ceremony. Chanakya felt insulted, but Shakatala blamed the king for this dishonour. Chanakya then untied his topknot (sikha), and vowed not to re-tie it until the king was destroyed. The king ordered his arrest, but he escaped to Shakatala's house. There, using materials supplied by Shakatala, he performed a magic ritual which made the king sick. The king died of a fever after 7 days.


title: Chanakya

text: Shakatala then executed Hiranyagupta, the son of the fake king. He anointed Chandragupta, the son of the real king Nanda, as the new king (in Kshemendra's version, it is Chanakya who installs Chandragupta as the new king). Shakatala also appointed Chanakya as the royal priest ("purohita"). Having achieved his revenge, he then retired to the forest as an ascetic.


title: Chanakya

text: According to the "Mudrarakshasa" version, the king Nanda once removed Chanakya from the "first seat of the kingdom" (this possibly refers to Chanakya's expulsion from the king's assembly). For this reason, Chanakya vowed not to tie his top knot ("shikha") until the complete destruction of Nanda. Chanakya made a plan to dethrone Nanda, and replace him with Chandragupta, his son by a lesser queen. Chanakya engineered Chandragupta's alliance with another powerful king Parvateshvara (or Parvata), and the two rulers agreed to divide Nanda's territory after subjugating him. Their allied army included Bahlika, Kirata, Parasika, Kamboja, Shaka, and Yavana soldiers. The army invaded Pataliputra (Kusumapura) and defeated the Nandas. Parvata is identified with King Porus by some scholars.


title: Chanakya

text: Nanda's prime minister Rakshasa escaped Pataliputra, and continued resisting the invaders. He sent a vishakanya (poison girl) to assassinate Chandragupta. Chanakya had this girl assassinate Parvata instead, with the blame going to Rakshasa. However, Parvata's son Malayaketu learned the truth about his father's death and defected to Rakshasa's camp. Chanakya's spy Bhagurayana accompanied Malayaketu, pretending to be his friend.


title: Chanakya

text: Rakshasa continued to plot Chandragupta's death, but all his plans were foiled by Chanakya. For example, once Rakshasa arranged for assassins to be transported to Chandragupta's bedroom via a tunnel. Chanakya became aware of them by noticing a trail of ants carrying the leftovers of their food. He then arranged for the assassins to be burned to death.


title: Chanakya

text: Meanwhile, Parvata's brother Vairodhaka became the ruler of his kingdom. Chanakya convinced him that Rakshasa was responsible for killing his brother, and agreed to share half of Nanda's kingdom with him. Secretly, however, Chanakya hatched a plan to get Vairodhaka killed. He knew that the chief architect of Pataliputra was a Rakshasa loyalist. He asked this architect to build a triumphal arch for Chandragupta's procession to the royal palace. He arranged the procession to be held at midnight citing astrological reasons, but actually to ensure poor visibility. He then invited Vairodhaka to lead the procession on Chandragupta's elephant, and accompanied by Chandragupta's bodyguards. As expected, Rakshasa's loyalists arranged for the arch to fall on who they thought was Chandragupta. Vairodhaka was killed, and once again, the assassination was blamed on Rakshasa.


title: Chanakya

text: Malayaketu and Rakshasa then formed an alliance with five kings: Chiravarman of Kauluta (Kulu), Meghaksha of Parasika, Narasimha of Malaya, Pushkaraksha of Kashmira, and Sindhusena of Saindhava. This allied army also included soldiers from Chedi, Gandhara, Hunas, Khasa, Magadha, Shaka, and Yavana territories.


title: Chanakya

text: In Pataliputra, Chanakya's agent informed him that three Rakshasa loyalists remained in the capital: the Jain monk Jiva-siddhi, the scribe Shakata-dasa and the jewellers' guild chief Chandana-dasa. Of these, Jiva-siddhi was actually a spy of Chanakya, unknown to his other spies. Chandana-dasa sheltered Rakshasa's wife, who once unknowingly dropped her husband's signet-ring ("mudra"). Chanakya's agent got hold of this signet-ring, and brought it to Chanakya. Using this signet ring, Chanakya sent a letter to Malayaketu warning him that his allies were treacherous. Chanakya also asked some of Chandragupta's princes to fake defection to Malayaketu's camp. In addition, Chanakya ordered Shakata-dasa's murder, but had him 'rescued' by Siddharthaka, a spy pretending to be an agent of Chandana-dasa. Chanakya's spy then took Shakata-dasa to Rakshasa.


title: Chanakya

text: When Shakata-dasa and his 'rescuer' Siddharthaka reached Rakshasa, Siddharthaka presented him the signet-ring, claiming to have found it at Chandana-dasa's home. As a reward, Rakshasa gave him some jewels that Malayaketu had gifted him. Sometime after this, another of Chanakya's agents, disguised as a jeweller, sold Parvata's jewels to Rakshasa.


title: Chanakya

text: Sometime later, Rakshasa sent his spies disguised as musicians to Chandragupta's court. But Chanakya knew all about Rakshasa's plans thanks to his spies. In front of Rakshasa's spies, Chanakya and Chandragupta feigned an angry argument. Chandragupta pretended to dismiss Chanakya, and declared that Rakshasa would make a better minister. Meanwhile, Malayaketu had a conversation with Chanakya's spy Bhagurayana while approaching Rakshasa's house. Bhagurayana made Malayaketu distrustful of Rakshasa, by saying that Rakshasa hated only Chanakya, and would be willing to serve Nanda's son Chandragupta. Shortly after this, a messenger came to Rakshasa's house and informed him that Chandragupta had dismissed Chanakya while praising him. This convinced Malayaketu that Rakashasa could not be trusted.


title: Chanakya

text: Malayaketu then decided to invade Pataliputra without Rakshasa by his side. He consulted the Jain monk Jiva-siddhi to decide an auspicious time for beginning the march. Jiva-siddhi, a spy of Chanakya, told him that he could start immediately. Jiva-siddhi also convinced him that Rakshasa was responsible for his father's death, but Bhagurayana persuaded him not to harm Rakshasa. Shortly after, Chanakya's spy Siddharthaka pretended to get caught with a fake letter addressed to Chandragupta by Rakshasa. Wearing the jewels given by Rakshasa, he pretended to be an agent of Rakshasa. The letter, sealed with Rakshasa's signet-ring, informed Chandragupta that Rakshasa only wished to replace Chanakya as the prime minister. It also stated that five of Malayaketu's allies were willing to defect to Chandragupta in return for land and wealth. An angry Malayaketu summoned Rakshasa, who arrived wearing Parvata's jewels that Chanakya's agent had sold him. When Malayaketu saw Rakshasa wearing his father's jewels, he was convinced that there was indeed a treacherous plan against him. He executed his five allies in a brutal manner.


title: Chanakya

text: The rest of Malayaketu's allies deserted him, disgusted at his treatment of the five slayed allies. Rakshasa managed to escape, tracked by Chanakya's spies. One of Chanakya's spies, disguised as a friend of Chandana-dasa, got in touch with him. He told Rakshasa that Chandana-dasa was about to be executed for refusing to divulge the location of Rakshasa's family. On hearing this, Rakshasa rushed to Pataliputra to surrender and save the life of his loyal friend Chandana-dasa. When he reached Pataliputra, Chanakya, pleased with his loyalty to Chandana-dasa, offered him clemency. Rakshasa pledged allegiance to Chandragupta and agreed to be his prime minister, in return for release of Chandana-dasa and a pardon for Malayaketu. Chanakya then bound his top knot, having achieved his objective, and retired.


title: Chanakya

text: Two books are attributed to Chanakya: "Arthashastra", and "Chanakya Niti", also known as "Chanakya Neeti-shastra". The "Arthashastra" was discovered in 1905 by librarian Rudrapatna Shamasastry in an uncatalogued group of ancient palm-leaf manuscripts donated by an unknown pandit to the Oriental Research Institute Mysore.


title: Chanakya

text: Chanakya is regarded as a great thinker and diplomat in India. Many Indian nationalists regard him as one of the earliest people who envisioned a united India spanning the entire subcontinent. India's former National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon praised Chanakya's Arthashastra for its precise and timeless descriptions of power. Furthermore, he recommended reading of the book for broadening the vision on strategic issues.


title: Chanakya

text: The diplomatic enclave in New Delhi is named Chanakyapuri in honour of Chanakya. Institutes named after him include Training Ship Chanakya, Chanakya National Law University and Chanakya Institute of Public Leadership. Chanakya circle in Mysore has been named after him.


title: Chanakya

text: Chanakya uses different terms to describe war other than dharma-yuddha (just war), such as kutayudhha (unjust war).


title: Chanakya

text: Several modern adaptations of the legend of Chanakya narrate his story in a semi-fictional form, extending these legends. In "Chandragupta" (1911), a play by Dwijendralal Ray, the Nanda king exiles his half-brother Chandragupta, who joins the army of Alexander the Great. Later, with help from Chanakya and Katyayan (the former Prime Minister of Magadha), Chandragupta defeats Nanda, who is put to death by Chanakya.


title: Hasnat Khan

text: Hasnat Ahmad Khan (; born 1 April 1958) is a British-Pakistani heart and lung surgeon. He is widely known for his romantic relationship with Diana, Princess of Wales, from 1995 to 1997.


title: Hasnat Khan

text: Khan was born on 1 April 1958 in Jhelum, a city in the Punjab province of Pakistan, in a Mohmand Pashtun family. He is the eldest of four children. His father, Rashid Khan, a graduate of the London School of Economics, ran a glass factory. Hasnat Khan is a distant cousin of Imran Khan, former prime minister of Pakistan.


title: Hasnat Khan

text: Until 1991 he worked in Sydney, Australia and then began to work in London. He served at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London from 1995 to 1996, then he began to work at the London Chest Hospital. In 2000, he worked at St Bart's hospital, after which he served at Harefield Hospital. In November 2007, he resigned from the post and began to head a cardiac hospital in Malaysia. As of August 2013, Khan is working as a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at Basildon University Hospital.


title: Hasnat Khan

text: Khan had a two-year relationship with Diana, Princess of Wales, who is said to have described him as "Mr Wonderful." In May 1996, Diana visited the Khan family in Lahore. Diana's butler Paul Burrell said in testimony at her 2008 inquest that Diana described Khan as her soulmate. Diana ended the relationship in July 1997.


title: Hasnat Khan

text: Diana's friends are reported to have described Hasnat as the "love of her life" and to have spoken of her distress when she ended their relationship. He, however, is said to be reticent about speaking of how much he may have meant to her or even how much she meant to him. Khan attended Diana's funeral ceremony at Westminster Abbey in September, 1997.


title: Hasnat Khan

text: The heart surgeon told the police in 2004 that he doubted she had been pregnant when she died because she always took her contraceptive pills. In March 2008, Khan said in a written statement to Lord Justice Scott Baker's inquest into Diana's death that their relationship had begun in the late summer of 1995, and that although they had talked about getting married he believed that he would find the inevitable media attention "hell." Khan also said he believed the car crash which caused Diana's death was a tragic accident.


title: Hasnat Khan

text: Khan married 28-year-old Hadia Sher Ali in Pakistan, descended from Afghan royalty, in May 2006. In July 2008, Khan and Ali filed an application for divorce in the local arbitration council of Islamabad. Hasnat Khan is currently married to Somi Sohail.


title: Hasnat Khan

text: The relationship between Khan and Diana, Princess of Wales is portrayed in the film "Diana" (2013), directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and based on Kate Snell's book "Diana: Her Last Love" (2001). Khan is played by Naveen Andrews, while Diana is played by Naomi Watts.


title: Andy Jassy

text: Andrew R. Jassy (born January 13, 1968) is an American business executive who is the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Amazon. Before being appointed by Jeff Bezos and the Amazon board during the fourth quarter of 2020, Jassy served as the SVP and later as the CEO of AWS from 2003 to 2021.


title: Andy Jassy

text: Jassy is the son of Margery and Everett L. Jassy of Scarsdale, New York. Jewish with Hungarian ancestry, his father was a senior partner in the corporate law firm Dewey Ballantine in New York City, and chairman of the firm's management committee. Jassy grew up in Scarsdale, and attended Scarsdale High School, where he played varsity soccer and tennis.


title: Andy Jassy

text: Jassy graduated cum laude from Harvard College in government, where he was advertising manager of "The Harvard Crimson", before earning an MBA from Harvard Business School. In 1989, he wrote in "The Crimson" that the newspaper should continue to publish advertisements from Eastern Air Lines, despite an ongoing labor dispute there.


title: Andy Jassy

text: Jassy worked for five years after graduation before entering his MBA program as a project manager for a collectibles company, MBI, and then he and an MBI colleague started a company and closed it down.


title: Andy Jassy

text: Jassy joined Amazon as a marketing manager in 1997 with several other Harvard MBA colleagues. In 2003, he and Jeff Bezos came up with the idea to create the cloud computing platform that became known as Amazon Web Services, which launched in 2006. Jassy headed it and its team of 57 people.


title: Andy Jassy

text: In March 2016, Jassy was named Person of the Year by the "Financial Times". A month later, Jassy was promoted from senior vice president to chief executive officer of Amazon Web Services. That year Jassy earned $36.6 million.


title: Andy Jassy

text: For his work as chief executive officer of Amazon Web Services, Jassy earned a base compensation of $175,000 in 2020, plus a restricted stock unit award of 4,023 shares (a value of $12,104,844.93 as of July 26, 2020) of Amazon with vesting beginning in 2023. He also received a restricted stock unit award in April 2018 for 10,000 shares (a value of $30,089,100 as of July 26, 2020), which vest 37.5% in 2021, 12.5% in 2022, 37.5% in 2023, and 12.5% in 2024.


title: Andy Jassy

text: In January 2021, Bezos designated Jassy his official successor as CEO; the announcement was made on February 2 during Q4's earnings release. The transition was scheduled for Q3 2021, and on May 26 July 5 was confirmed as the handover date. Jassy assumed the office on the same day as Bezos had founded the company in 1994. During his first year running Amazon, he received a pay package of $212.7 million, a substantial increase from his 2020 compensation.


title: Andy Jassy

text: In 1997, Jassy married Elana Rochelle Caplan, a fashion designer for Eddie Bauer and graduate of the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in Santa Monica, California. Their wedding was officiated by New York Rabbi James Brandt, a cousin of Elana. Both their fathers were senior partners in law firm Dewey Ballantine. Jassy and Caplan have two children.


title: Andy Jassy

text: They live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle in a 10,000-square-foot house bought in 2009 for $3.1 million. In October 2020, it was reported that Jassy had bought a $6.7 million 5,500-square-foot house in Santa Monica.


title: House of Leaves

text: House of Leaves is the debut novel by American author Mark Z. Danielewski, published in March 2000 by Pantheon Books. A bestseller, it has been translated into a number of languages, and is followed by a companion piece, "The Whalestoe Letters".


title: House of Leaves

text: The plot is centered on a fictional documentary about a family whose house contains a seemingly endless labyrinth. The format and structure of "House of Leaves" is unconventional, with unusual page layout and style, making it a prime example of ergodic literature. It contains copious footnotes, many of which contain footnotes themselves, including references to fictional books, films or articles. In contrast, some pages contain only a few words or lines of text, arranged in strange ways to mirror the events in the story, often creating both an agoraphobic and a claustrophobic effect. At points, the book must be rotated to be read. The novel is also distinctive for its multiple narrators, who interact with each other in elaborate and disorienting ways.


title: House of Leaves

text: While some have attempted to describe the book as a horror story, many readers, as well as the author, define the book as a love story. Danielewski expands on this point in an interview: "I had one woman come up to me in a bookstore and say, 'You know, everyone told me it was a horror book, but when I finished it, I realized that it was a love story.' And she's absolutely right. In some ways, genre is a marketing tool." "House of Leaves" has also been described as a "satire of academic criticism."


title: House of Leaves

text: "House of Leaves" begins with a first-person narrative by Johnny Truant, a Los Angeles tattoo parlor employee and professed unreliable narrator. Truant is searching for a new apartment when his friend Lude tells him about the apartment of the recently deceased Zampanò, a blind, elderly man who lived in Lude's apartment building.


title: House of Leaves

text: In Zampanò's apartment, Truant discovers a manuscript written by Zampanò that turns out to be an academic study of a documentary film called "The Navidson Record" directed by an acclaimed photojournalist named Will Navidson, though Truant says he can find no evidence that the film or its subjects ever existed.


title: House of Leaves

text: The rest of the novel incorporates several narratives, including Zampanò's report on the (possibly fictional) film; Truant's autobiographical interjections; a small transcript of part of the film from Navidson's brother, Tom; a small transcript of interviews of many people regarding "The Navidson Record" by Navidson's partner, Karen; and occasional brief notes by unidentified editors, all woven together by a mass of footnotes. There is also another narrator, Truant's mother, whose voice is presented through a self-contained set of letters titled "The Whalestoe Letters". Each narrator's text is printed in a distinct font, making it easier for the reader to follow the occasionally challenging format of the novel (Truant in Courier New in the footnotes, and the main narrative in Times New Roman in the American version, the unnamed editors are in Bookman, and the letters from Johnny's mother are in Dante).


title: House of Leaves

text: Zampanò's narrative deals primarily with the Navidson family: Will Navidson, a photojournalist (partly based on Kevin Carter); his partner, Karen Green, an attractive former fashion model; and their two children, Chad and Daisy. Navidson's brother, Tom, and several other characters also play a role later in the story. The Navidson family has recently moved into a new home in Virginia.


title: House of Leaves

text: Upon returning from a trip to Seattle, the Navidson family discovers a change in their home: a closet-like space shut behind an undecorated door appears inexplicably where previously there was only a blank wall. A second door appears at the end of the closet, leading to the children's room. As Navidson investigates this phenomenon, he finds that the internal measurements of the house are somehow larger than external measurements. Initially there is less than an inch of difference, but as time passes the interior of the house seems to expand while maintaining the same exterior proportions. A third and more extreme change asserts itself: a dark, cold hallway opens in an exterior living room wall that should project outside into their yard, but does not. Navidson films the outside of the house to show where the hallway should be but clearly is not. The filming of this anomaly comes to be referred to as "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway". This hallway leads to a maze-like complex, starting with a large room (the "Anteroom"), which in turn leads to a truly enormous space (the "Great Hall"), a room primarily distinguished by an enormous spiral staircase which appears, when viewed from the landing, to spiral down without end. There is also a multitude of corridors and rooms leading off from each passage. All of these rooms and hallways are completely unlit and featureless, consisting of smooth ash-gray walls, floors, and ceilings. The only sound disturbing the perfect silence of the hallways is a periodic low growl, the source of which is never fully explained, although an academic source "quoted" in the book hypothesizes that the growl is created by the frequent re-shaping of the house.


title: House of Leaves

text: There is some discrepancy as to where "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway" appears. It is quoted by different characters at different times to have been located in each of the cardinal directions. This first happens when Zampanò writes that the hallway is in the western wall (page 57), directly contradicting an earlier page where the hallway is mentioned to be in the northern wall (page 4); Johnny's footnotes point out the contradiction.


title: House of Leaves

text: Navidson, along with his brother Tom and some colleagues, feel compelled to explore, photograph, and videotape the house's seemingly endless series of passages, eventually driving various characters to insanity, murder, and death. Ultimately, Will releases what has been recorded and edited as "The Navidson Record".


title: House of Leaves

text: Will and Karen purchase the house because their relationship is becoming strained with Will's work-related absences. While Karen is always adamantly against marriage (claiming that she values her freedom above anything else), she always finds herself missing and needing Will when he is gone: "And yet even though Karen keeps Chad from overfilling the mold or Daisy from cutting herself with the scissors, she still cannot resist looking out the window every couple of minutes. The sound of a passing truck causes her to glance away" (pages 11–12).


title: House of Leaves

text: Zampanò's narrative includes references to Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick, Douglas Hofstadter, Ken Burns, Harold Bloom, Camille Paglia, Hunter Thompson, Anne Rice, and Jacques Derrida to indicate that the Navidsons' story achieved international notoriety.


title: House of Leaves

text: Many of the references in Zampanò's footnotes, however, are real, existing both within his world and the world outside the novel. For example, several times Zampanò cites an actual Time-Life book, "Planet Earth: Underground Worlds" (page 125).


title: House of Leaves

text: An adjacent story line develops in Johnny's footnotes, detailing what is progressing in Johnny's life as he is assembling the narrative. It remains unclear if Johnny's obsession with the writings of Zampanò and subsequent delusions, paranoia, etc. are the result of drug use, insanity, or the effects of Zampanò's writing itself. Johnny recounts tales of his various sexual encounters, his lust for a tattooed dancer he calls Thumper, and his bar-hopping with Lude throughout various footnotes. The reader also slowly learns more about Johnny's childhood living with an abusive foster father, engaging in violent fights at school, and of the origin of Johnny's mysterious scars (page 505). More information about Johnny can be gleaned from the Whalestoe Letters, letters his mother Pelafina wrote from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institution. Though Pelafina's letters and Johnny's footnotes contain similar accounts of their past, their memories also differ greatly at times, due to both Pelafina's and Johnny's questionable mental states. Pelafina was placed in the mental institution after supposedly attempting to strangle Johnny, only to be stopped by her husband. She remained there after Johnny's father's death. Johnny claims that his mother meant him no harm and claimed to strangle him only to protect him from missing her. It is unclear, however, if Johnny's statements about the incident—or any of his other statements, for that matter—are factual.


title: House of Leaves

text: This story is included in an appendix near the end of the book, as well as in its own, self-contained book (with additional content included in the self-contained version). It consists of Johnny's mother's letters to him from a psychiatric hospital. The letters start off fairly normal but Pelafina quickly descends into paranoia and the letters become more and more incoherent. There are also secret messages in the letters which can be decoded by combining the first letters of consecutive words.


title: House of Leaves

text: Johnny Truant serves a dual role, as primary editor of Zampanò's academic study of "The Navidson Record" and protagonist as revealed through footnotes and appendices.


title: House of Leaves

text: In the beginning of the book, Truant appears to be a normal, reasonably attractive young man who happens upon a trunk full of notes left behind by the now deceased Zampanò. As Truant begins to do the editing, however, he begins to lose the tenuous grip he has on reality, and his life begins to erode around him. He stops bathing, rarely eats, stops going to work, and distances himself from essentially everyone, all in pursuit of organizing the book into a finished work that, he hopes, will finally bring him peace.


title: House of Leaves

text: Initially intrigued by Zampanò's isolative tendencies and surreal sense of reality, Johnny unknowingly sets himself up as a victim to the daunting task that awaits him. As he begins to organize Zampanò's manuscripts, his personal footnotes detail the deterioration of his own life with analogous references to alienation and insanity: once a trespasser to Zampanò's mad realm, Truant seems to become more comfortable in the environment as the story unfolds. He even has hallucinations that parallel those of Zampanò and members of the house search team when he senses "...something inhuman..." behind him (page 26).


title: House of Leaves

text: Zampanò is the blind author of "The Navidson Record". Approximately eighty years old at the time of his death, he is recognized by his neighbors as "eccentric" and "crazy." He was known to employ the services of volunteers (exclusively female) from local community centers to come to his apartment and read books to him. While little information is given explicitly about Zampanò's past, blindness, or personality, Johnny's introduction does state that Zampanò went blind sometime in the 1950s. Zampanò also suffers from graphomania.


title: House of Leaves

text: Danielewski made Zampanò blind as a reference to blind authors Homer, John Milton and Jorge Luis Borges.


title: House of Leaves

text: Pelafina, more commonly referred to as simply "P.", is Johnny's institutionalized mother who appears in the appendix to the text. Her story is more fully developed in "The Whalestoe Letters".


title: House of Leaves

text: Lude: Johnny Truant's best friend, Lude is also the one that informs him of Zampanò's vacant apartment. Lude is a minor character, but some of his characteristics and actions are important in understanding Johnny. Lude assists Johnny many times in obtaining phone numbers of girls when they visit bars, clubs, and restaurants. Several times, Johnny mentions that he wishes he had not answered Lude's call late at night. Every time Johnny and Lude are together they seem to involve themselves in difficult situations. He is killed in a motorcycle accident near the end of the novel.


title: House of Leaves

text: Thumper: A stripper who is a regular client of the tattoo parlour where Truant works. Although Johnny has encounters with many women, he remains fixated on Thumper throughout. Thumper's real name is eventually revealed to Johnny, but never to the reader.


title: House of Leaves

text: Will is the central character in "The Navidson Record" subplot of the novel. A stint in the army early in his life leads him to a very successful career as a photographer, primarily in war-torn parts of the world; his role as an impartial documentarist of war affects him deeply. Later in his life, he moves to the eponymous house (located in the southeastern Virginia countryside), in an effort to find "[a] place to drink lemonade and watch the sun set", a place to "once and for all stay in and explore the quieter side of life" (page 9). However, the unnatural events that occur thereafter have a profound effect upon him and his relationship with his partner, Karen.


title: House of Leaves

text: Karen is Will's partner and a former fashion model. She suffers from claustrophobia, and throughout the novel refuses to enter the labyrinth within her house. She also seems to be extremely insecure regarding her relationship with Will; he is 'her rock,' though it is confirmed that she had at least three long-term affairs during the course of their relationship. Curiously, the events of the novel only seem to reduce her dependence on Will (as well as contributing to the eventual dissolution of their relationship). It is speculated that, during Karen's childhood, her stepfather once took Karen and her sister into a barn in their backyard, putting one sister in a well while he raped the other, and vice versa. This event is widely considered to be the cause of her claustrophobia. However, several footnotes and comments about the incident question this claim (another of many examples of the use of an unreliable narrator in the novel). In the aftermath of the events in the house, she becomes an unlikely editor, approaching many real characters (including Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick, Hunter S. Thompson, Douglas Hofstadter, Harold Bloom, and Jacques Derrida) for comment on "The Navidson Record", albeit comment within the fictional universe of the novel. Eventually, she is reunited with Navidson after she conquers her claustrophobia and saves him from the abyss of the labyrinth.


title: House of Leaves

text: Tom is Will Navidson's somewhat estranged twin brother; Tom is a carpenter with substance addiction problems, who is markedly less successful than Will in his personal and professional life. After approximately 8 years of little contact, Will contacts Tom when he notices that his house is larger on the inside than the outside. A section of the novel, called "Tom's Story", is a partial transcript of documentary evidence and radio communication with the outside world during his vigil within the labyrinth, which he spends alone with his radio, waiting for Will. This section is referred to in the book as a "sometimes funny, sometimes bizarre history of thoughts passing away in the atrocity of that darkness" (page 252). He often refers to "Mr. Monster" and many of the jokes and anecdotes he provides are religious in nature. However, in a test of his true character, he bravely saves Will's kids from being swallowed by the house before being swallowed himself.


title: House of Leaves

text: Billy is an engineer and a friend of Will's, whom Will enlists early on in the story to help him try to find a rational explanation for the house's oddities. Billy uses a wheelchair, having been paralyzed from the waist down in a freak engineering accident in India; Will happened to be on the scene and took a photo of Billy moments before he became paralyzed. Billy came across the photo after his accident and kept it as a reminder that he was fortunate to have survived. Once the house's irregularities become more extreme, Billy joins Will and Tom in a thorough analysis; after Holloway and his men go missing, Billy insists on joining Will on the rescue mission, navigating the maze in his wheelchair. He eventually saves Will and Holloway's men from Holloway by engaging in a firefight with him, holding him back long enough for the house to "consume" Holloway. Billy survives the journey into the maze, but suffers persistent cold spells afterward as well as sustaining damage to his wheelchair.


title: House of Leaves

text: Holloway is an experienced explorer whom Will contacts in an effort to properly explore the labyrinth beneath his house. Holloway is presented as the consummate outdoorsman: He has successfully engaged in numerous expeditions which would have killed normal men, and is an expert in all forms of survivalist equipment, from spelunking gear to firearms. He engages in two brief explorations of the labyrinth before deciding to take his men on a third, prolonged expedition, prior to which they load themselves up with enough food and water to last several days and enough provisions to—they believe—safely guide them back home. During the course of this exploration, Holloway reaches the bottom of the Great Staircase and becomes deranged due to finding nothing but more empty hallways. The house's bizarre architecture leads him to believe an image he sees down a hall is the "monster" stalking them when, in fact, he is actually looking at his own men; he shoots one of them, and, upon realizing what he has done, suffers a complete psychological breakdown and tries to murder them. Eventually, the house "traps" him by sealing him inside a series of locked chambers; alone and insane, Holloway records a series of unsettling final messages on a video camera before filming himself committing suicide. The tape of his death is recovered by Will from the labyrinth. The seconds leading up to the end of the tape reveal that either 1) Holloway's corpse is devoured by the "monster" he is convinced is real or 2) Holloway merely disappears into the blackness of the house.


title: House of Leaves

text: When the House begins to attempt to harm the others late in the novel, Reston calls out Holloway's name. Whether Holloway had some influence on the house's actions (before or after his suicide) is left ambiguous.


title: House of Leaves

text: Kirby 'Wax' Hook: Another explorer of the labyrinth in Navidson's house. He is ultimately shot in the shoulder by Holloway, but he survives. The House leaves him with limited functionality in that shoulder, and an inexplicable case of impotence. However, after Navidson reenters the House for a fifth and final exploration, these symptoms disappear. Wax has a reputation as a flirt, who constantly attempts to hook up with women. He kisses Karen Green, a scene which Will later witnesses on camera.


title: House of Leaves

text: Jed Leeder: The third explorer of the labyrinth in Navidson's house. He is shot by Holloway in the jaw, killing him.


title: House of Leaves

text: Chad Navidson: Will Navidson and Karen Green's son, the older sibling. Around the times of the explorations, Chad is described as becoming increasingly aggressive and wandering.


title: House of Leaves

text: Daisy Navidson: Will Navidson and Karen Green's daughter. During the explorations of the house, Daisy is described as suffering from echolalia.


title: House of Leaves

text: Danielewski wrote the book in longhand and revised it with a word processor. He then flew to Pantheon's NY headquarters to do the typesetting himself in QuarkXPress because he only trusted himself with the book's vision.


title: House of Leaves

text: "House of Leaves" includes frequent and seemingly systematic color changes. While Danielewski leaves much of the interpretation of the choice of colors up to the reader, several distinct patterns emerge upon closer examination.


title: House of Leaves

text: Throughout the book, various changes in font serve as a way for the reader to quickly determine which of its multiple narrators’ work they are currently following. In the book, there are four fonts used by the four narrators. These are: Times New Roman (Zampanò), Courier (Johnny), Bookman (The Editors), and Dante (Johnny's mother). (Additional font changes are used intermittently—Janson for film intertitles, Book Antiqua for a letter written by Navidson, and so on.)


title: House of Leaves

text: The book was followed by a companion piece called "The Whalestoe Letters", a series of letters written to the character Johnny Truant by his mother while she was confined in a mental institution. Some (but not all) of the letters are included in the second edition.


title: House of Leaves

text: "House of Leaves" was accompanied by a companion piece (or vice versa), a full-length album called "Haunted" recorded by Danielewski's sister, Anne Danielewski, known professionally as Poe. The two works cross-pollinated heavily over the course of their creations, each inspiring the other in various ways. Poe's statement on the connection between the two works is that they are parallax views of the same story. "House of Leaves" references Poe and her songs several times, not only limited to her album "Haunted", but "Hello" as well. One example occurs when the character Karen Green is interviewing various academics on their interpretations of the short film "Exploration #4"; she consults a "Poet," but there is a space between the "Poe" and the "t," suggesting that Poe at one point commented on the book. It may also be a reference to Edgar Allan Poe.


title: House of Leaves

text: The album "Haunted" also draws heavily from the novel, featuring tracks called "House of Leaves", "Exploration B" and "5&½ Minute Hallway", and many less obvious references. The video for "Hey Pretty" also features Mark Danielewski reading from "House of Leaves" (pp. 88–89), and in "House of Leaves", the band Liberty Bell's lyrics were also songs on Poe's album.


title: House of Leaves

text: In 2017, Danielewski entered talks to adapt the novel into a TV series. with Danielewski stating that if a deal was not made by February 2020, the project would be abandoned. However, the screenplays have since been published online. The screenplays present a sequel to the book, extending the story to the present day: the first three published episodes set up a conflict between Mélisande Avignon, a filmmaker who witnessed and filmed Johnny's discovery of "The Navidson Record", and Skiadyne, a "data disposal" company which successfully suppressed public knowledge of both "The Navidson Record" and Avignon's film. Both sides, joined by private security personnel, fight for control of the films after unknown parties steal the films from Skiadyne and return them to Avignon.


title: House of Leaves

text: Stephen Poole, writing in the Guardian, admired the book's parody of academia: "Danielewski...weaves around his brutally efficient and genuinely chilling story a delightful and often very funny satire of academic criticism." Steven Moore, writing in The Washington Post, also praised the novel: "Danielewski's achievement lies in taking some staples of horror fiction – the haunted house, the mysterious manuscript that casts a spell on its hapless reader – and using his impressive erudition to recover the mythological and psychological origins of horror, and then enlisting the full array of avant-garde literary techniques to reinvigorate a genre long abandoned to hacks." The Village Voice's Emily Barton was less impressed: "Danielewski’s bloated and bollixed first novel certainly attempts to pass itself off as an ambitious work; the question for each reader is if the payoff makes the effort of slogging through its endless posturing worthwhile."


title: Clark Gregg

text: Robert Clark Gregg Jr. (born April 2, 1962) is an American actor, director, and screenwriter. He is best known for playing Agent Phil Coulson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films "Iron Man" (2008), "Iron Man 2" (2010), "Thor" (2011), "The Avengers" (2012), "Captain Marvel" (2019), and the television spin-off series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." (2013–2020) and Disney+ series "What If...?" (2021). Gregg also voiced Phil Coulson on the animated series "Ultimate Spider-Man" (2012–2017) and in the video games "Lego Marvel Super Heroes" (2013), "Marvel Heroes" (2013), and "Lego Marvel's Avengers" (2016).


title: Clark Gregg

text: Gregg is also known for his role as FBI Special Agent Mike Casper on the NBC political drama series "The West Wing" (2001–2004) and as Richard, the ex-husband of Christine Campbell, in the CBS sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine" (2006–2010).


title: Clark Gregg

text: He wrote the horror film "What Lies Beneath" (2000), and wrote and directed the black comedy "Choke" (2008) and the comedy-drama "Trust Me" (2013). He appeared in the films "The Adventures of Sebastian Cole" (1998), "One Hour Photo" (2002), "In Good Company" (2004), "When a Stranger Calls" (2006), "500 Days of Summer" (2009), "Much Ado About Nothing" (2012), "The To Do List" (2013), "Labor Day" (2013), and "Live by Night" (2016).


title: Clark Gregg

text: Gregg was born April 2, 1962, in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Mary Layne (née Shine) and Robert Clark Gregg Sr., an Episcopal priest and Stanford University professor. Because his family relocated frequently, he had lived in seven cities by the time he was 17. He attended high school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where his father was a professor at nearby Duke University.


title: Clark Gregg

text: He attended Ohio Wesleyan University for two years before dropping out and moving to Manhattan. He worked various jobs, such as being a bar back, a security guard at the Guggenheim Museum, and a parking valet at a restaurant. He later enrolled at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied drama and English, and graduated in 1986.


title: Clark Gregg

text: Gregg was a founding member, and later artistic director, of the off-Broadway Atlantic Theater Company, which formed in 1983. Gregg has been featured in a number of supporting roles in films, such as "Lovely & Amazing", "The Human Stain", and "In Good Company", and a number of guest spots on TV series, such as "Will & Grace", "Sports Night", "Sex and the City" and "The West Wing". He also wrote the screenplay for the 2000 thriller "What Lies Beneath".


title: Clark Gregg

text: He is the director and screenwriter of the 2008 film "Choke", based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel of the same name, starring Sam Rockwell. Gregg consulted his father, a retired religion professor at Stanford, for the quotation from Saint Paul's letter to the Galatians which Gregg used in "Choke". Gregg's father is also the former chaplain at Stanford Memorial Church.


title: Clark Gregg

text: In 2008, Gregg appeared in the film "Iron Man" as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson. In 2010, Gregg reprised his role as Agent Coulson for "Iron Man 2". Gregg had since signed up for a multiple film deal as the character with Marvel Studios. In 2011, he returned again as Coulson for "Thor". Gregg noted his being a part of the expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe as being very exciting; "Agent Coulson was one of the guys who wasn't really in the comic books, and he was a very kind of small role in "Iron Man"," he said, "and I was just very lucky that they chose to expand that character and chose to put him more into the universe of it. It's really a blast!" Following on from his appearance in "Thor", he again reprised his role in "The Avengers". Gregg also stars in a series of Marvel short films that center around his character and can be seen on the Blu-ray releases of the films.


title: Clark Gregg

text: In October 2010, Gregg was part of the cast of a staged reading of Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart" alongside Dylan Walsh, Lisa Kudrow, and Tate Donovan, presented in Los Angeles on the occasion of the play's 25th anniversary (and preceding the play's 2011 Broadway premiere, which retained elements of this staged reading); the reading was directed by his then-father-in-law, Joel Grey.


title: Clark Gregg

text: From 2013 to 2020, Gregg portrayed Agent Phil Coulson in the ABC television superhero drama series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", set within the MCU, alongside Ming-Na Wen and Chloe Bennet. He also went on to direct episodes in seasons five and six.


title: Clark Gregg

text: On April 20, 2013, "Trust Me", a film written, produced, and directed by Gregg, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film found limited release in the United States in June 2014.


title: Clark Gregg

text: Gregg reprised his role as Agent Coulson in the 2019 superhero film "Captain Marvel" and the animated series "What If...?", episodes "What If... the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?" and "What If... Thor Were an Only Child?", released in 2021.


title: Clark Gregg

text: Gregg married actress Jennifer Grey on July 21, 2001; the couple co-starred in the Lifetime TV movie "Road to Christmas". They have a daughter Stella, born December 3, 2001. Gregg and Grey were two of the demonstrators at the 2017 Women's March held on January 21, 2017 in Washington, D.C. On July 3, 2020, Grey and Gregg announced they had separated amicably on January 18, 2020, and were in the process of divorcing. Their divorce ruling was issued in November and that became official finalized on February 16, 2021.


title: Clark Gregg

text: Gregg is a sober alcoholic, and describes himself as a member of a Jewish family (his ex-wife's faith).


title: Languages with official status in India

text: There is no national language in India. However, article 343(1) of the Indian constitution specifically mentions that, "The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union shall be the international form of Indian numerals," while the clause 3 of mentions the, "Continuation of English Language for official purposes of the Union and for use in Parliament", thus denoting Hindi and English as the official languages of the Union. Business in the Indian parliament can only be conducted in Hindi or in English. English is allowed to be used in official purposes such as parliamentary proceedings, judiciary, communications between the Central Government and a State Government. There are various official languages in India at the state/territory level. States within India have the liberty and powers to specify their own official language(s) through legislation. In addition to the official languages, the constitution recognizes 22 regional languages, which include Hindi but not English, as scheduled languages.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: States can specify their own official language(s) through legislation. The section of the Constitution of India dealing with official languages, therefore, includes detailed provisions which deal not just with the languages used for the official purposes of the union, but also with the languages that are to be used for the official purposes of each state and union territory in the country, and the languages that are to be used for communication between the union and the states.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: The official languages of British India were English, Urdu and later Hindi, with English being used for purposes at the central level. The origins of official Hindi usage traces back to 1900, when MacDonnell issued an order, which allowed the “permissive — but not exclusive — use” of Devanagari for Hindustani in the courts of North-Western Provinces. The Indian constitution, adopted in 1950, envisaged that English would be phased out in favour of Hindi, over a fifteen-year period, but gave Parliament the power to, by law, provide for the continued use of English even thereafter. Plans to make Hindi the sole official language of the Republic were met with resistance in many parts of the country. English and Hindi continue to be used today, in combination with other (at the central level and in some states) official languages.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: The legal framework governing the use of languages for official purpose currently is , the Official Language Rules, 1976, and various state laws, as well as rules and regulations made by the central government and the states.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: The Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India contains a list of 22 scheduled languages. The table below lists the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India set out in the Eighth Schedule as of May 2008, together with the regions where they are widely spoken and used as the state's official language. However, states are not mandated to choose their official languages from the scheduled languages. Sindhi is not official in any states or union territories even though it is listed in the Eighth Schedule.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: The Indian constitution, in 1950, declared Hindi in Devanagari script to be the official language of the union. Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of English for official purposes was to cease 15 years after the constitution came into effect, i.e., on 26 January 1965. The prospect of the changeover, however, led to much alarm in the non-Hindi-speaking areas of India, especially Dravidian-speaking states whose languages were not related to Hindi at all. As a result, Parliament enacted the , which provided for the continued use of English for official purposes along with Hindi, even after 1965.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: In late 1964, an attempt was made to expressly provide for an end to the use of English, but it was met with protests from states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, West Bengal, Karnataka, Puducherry, Nagaland, Mizoram and Andhra Pradesh. Some of these protests also turned violent. As a result, the proposal was dropped, and the Act itself was amended in 1967 to provide that the use of English would not be ended until a resolution to that effect was passed by the legislature of every state that had not adopted Hindi as its official language, and by each house of the Indian Parliament.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: The position was thus that the Union government continues to use English in addition to Hindi for its official purposes as a "subsidiary official language", but is also required to prepare and execute a program to progressively increase its use of Hindi. The exact extent to which, and the areas in which, the Union government uses Hindi and English, respectively, is determined by the provisions of the Constitution, the Official Languages Act, 1963, the Official Languages Rules, 1976, and statutory instruments made by the Department of Official Language under these laws.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: Department of Official Language was set up in June 1975 as an independent Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: The Indian constitution distinguishes the language to be used in Parliamentary proceedings, and the language in which laws are to be made. Parliamentary business, according to the Constitution, may be conducted in either Hindi or English. The use of English in parliamentary proceedings was to be phased out at the end of fifteen years unless Parliament chose to extend its use, which Parliament did through the Official Languages Act, 1963. Also, the constitution permits a person who is unable to express themselves in either Hindi or English to, with the permission of the Speaker of the relevant House, address the House in their mother tongue.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: In contrast, the constitution requires the authoritative text of all laws, including Parliamentary enactments and statutory instruments, to be in English, until Parliament decides otherwise. Parliament has not exercised its power to so decide, instead merely requiring that all such laws and instruments, and all bills brought before it, also be translated into Hindi, though the English text remains authoritative. The Official Languages act, 1963 provides that the authoritative text of central acts, rules, regulations, etc., are published in Hindi as well in the official gazette by President of India.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: The constitution provides, and the Supreme Court of India has reiterated, that all proceedings in the Supreme Court (the country's highest court) and the High Courts shall be in English. Parliament has the power to alter this by law but has not done so. However, in many high courts, there is, with consent from the president, allowance of the optional use of Hindi. Such proposals have been successful in the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: The Official Language Act provides that the Union government shall use both Hindi and English in most administrative documents that are intended for the public, though the Union government is required by law to promote the use of Hindi. The Official Languages Rules, in contrast, provide for a higher degree of use of Hindi in communications between offices of the central government (other than offices in Tamil Nadu, to which the rules do not apply). Communications between different departments within the central government may be in English and Hindi (though the English text remains authoritative), although a translation into the other language must be provided if required. Communications within offices of the same department, however, must be in Hindi if the offices are in Hindi-speaking states, and in either Hindi or English otherwise with Hindi being used in proportion to the percentage of staff in the receiving office who have a working knowledge of Hindi. Notes and memos in files may be in English and Hindi (though the English text remains authoritative), with the Government having a duty to provide a translation into the other language if required.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: Besides, every person submitting a petition for the redress of a grievance to a government officer or authority has a constitutional right to submit it in any language used in India.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: Various steps have been taken by the Indian government to implement the use and familiarisation of Hindi extensively. Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha headquartered at Chennai was formed to spread Hindi in South Indian states. Regional Hindi implementation offices at Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Bhopal, Delhi and Ghaziabad have been established to monitor the implementation of Hindi in Central government offices and PSUs.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: Annual targets are set by the Department of Official Language regarding the amount of correspondence being carried out in Hindi. A Parliament Committee on Official Language constituted in 1976 periodically reviews the progress in the use of Hindi and submits a report to the President. The governmental body which makes policy decisions and established guidelines for the promotion of Hindi is the "Kendriya Hindi Samiti" (est. 1967). In every city that has more than ten central Government offices, a Town Official Language Implementation Committee is established and cash awards are given to government employees who write books in Hindi. All Central government offices and PSUs are to establish Hindi Cells for implementation of Hindi in their offices.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: In 2016, the government announced plans to promote Hindi in government offices in Southern and Northeast India.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: The Indian constitution does not specify the official languages to be used by the states for the conduct of their official functions and leaves each state free to, through its legislature, adopt Hindi or any language used in its territory as its official language or languages. The language need not be one of those listed in the Eighth Schedule, and several states have adopted official languages which are not so listed. Examples include Kokborok in Tripura and Mizo in Mizoram.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: The constitutional provisions in relation to use of the official language in legislation at the State level largely mirror those relating to the official language at the central level, with minor variations. State legislatures may conduct their business in their official language, Hindi or (for a transitional period, which the legislature can extend if it so chooses) English, and members who cannot use any of these have the same rights to their mother tongue with the Speaker's permission. The authoritative text of all laws must be in English unless Parliament passes a law permitting a state to use another language, and if the original text of a law is in a different language, an authoritative English translation of all laws must be prepared.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: The state has the right to regulate the use of its official language in public administration, and in general, neither the constitution nor any central enactment imposes any restriction on this right. However, every person submitting a petition for the redress of a grievance to any officer or authority of the state government has a constitutional right to submit it in any language used in that state, regardless of its official status.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: Besides, the constitution grants the central government, acting through the President, the power to issue certain directives to the government of a state in relation to the use of minority languages for official purposes. The President may direct a State to officially recognize a language spoken in its territory for specified purposes and in specified regions if its speakers demand it and satisfy him that a substantial proportion of the State's population desires its use. Similarly, States and local authorities are required to endeavor to provide primary education in the mother tongue for all linguistic minorities, regardless of whether their language is official in that State, and the President has the power to issue directions he deems necessary to ensure that they are provided these facilities.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: States have significantly less freedom in relation to determining the language in which judicial proceedings in their respective High Courts will be conducted. The constitution gives the power to authorize the use of Hindi, or the state's official language in proceedings of the High Court to the Governor, rather than the state legislature and requires the Governor to obtain the consent of the President of India, who in these matters acts on the advice of the Government of India. The Official Languages Act gives the Governor a similar power, subject to similar conditions, in relation to the language in which the High Court's judgments will be delivered.


title: Languages with official status in India

text: Four states—Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan— have been granted the right to conduct proceedings in their High Courts in their official language, which, for all of them, was Hindi. However, the only non-Hindi state to seek a similar power—Tamil Nadu, which sought the right to conduct proceedings in Tamil in its High Court—had its application rejected by the central government earlier, which said it was advised to do so by the Supreme Court. In 2006, the law ministry said that it would not object to Tamil Nadu state's desire to conduct Madras High Court proceedings in Tamil. In 2010, the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court allowed lawyers to argue cases in Tamil.


Languages with official status in India


title: Languages with official status in India

text: The language in which communications between different states, or from the union government to a state or a person in a state, shall be sent is regulated by the Official Languages Act and, for states other than Tamil Nadu, by the Official Languages Rules. Communication between states who use Hindi as their official language is required to be in Hindi, whereas communication between a state whose official language is Hindi and one whose is not, is required to be in English, or, in Hindi with an accompanying English translation (unless the receiving state agrees to dispense with the translation).