Three exhibits at Sri Ganapathi Sachchidananda Ashram in the city, including the largest collection and display of bonsai trees, entered the Guinness Book of World Records. The certificates of records were conferred and received by Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swami at a function on Friday held to mark his 75th birthday celebrations.

The Guinness record for bonsai reads as ‘Largest Display of Bonsai Trees.’ It was created at the International Bonsai Conference and Exhibition held in December 2016 when international delegates took part, the release said. During the conference, 2,649 bonsai trees brought from Bonsai Clubs of Mumbai, Pune, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Bengaluru, Mysuru and other cities were exhibited which resulted in the creation of the record, the release added

The second record was the Bhagavad Gita, at a height of seven ft and a width of five ft, besides a thickness of one ft. All the verses in the book are written in 18 languages, including nine Indian languages (Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Odiya, Gujarati, Gurumukhi, Malayalam and Tamil) and nine foreign languages (English, Greek, Russian-Cyrillic, Armenian, Georgian, Japanese-Katakana, Korean-Hangul, Arabic and Hebrew).A release stated that the Guinness Record reads as ‘Largest Hindu Smriti’ and the printing of the book took 636 hours in all. It was described as the largest book and has been printed using eco-friendly material. Fourteen people worked on it.

The third record pertains to the single largest collection of birds in an aviary at Shuka Vana located in the ashram. There are over 2,000 birds drawn from 475 species. The objective of establishing this aviary was to take care of injured and abandoned birds for which a dedicated hospital has been established, complete with non-invasive investigating apparatus. Bird care is provided by trained volunteers and the practice has been ratified by the Animal Welfare Board as confirming to international standards, the release added.

Visit from Phadnavis

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Phadnavis visited Sri Ganapathi Sacchidananda Ashram on Friday and participated in the 75th birthday celebrations of the seer.

Mr. Phadnavis lauded the spiritual and social work of the seer and his contribution to eradicate discrimination in society. “The swami’s message of compassion is more relevant in the present time than ever,” he said and added that the seer’s knowledge and contribution to the field of music was immense. While other therapies work on the body, music soothes the soul, he said.

Later, speaking to mediaspersons he lauded the works and initiatives of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who completes three years in office this year, and said that the world has realized the true power of India under him.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by Special Correspondent / Mysuru – May 27th, 2017