Chitvan….What does it mean?
Currently there are three stories about the origin of the name Chitvan:
1. The dense jungle there (before men started settlements there) was teeming with Cheetahs, and, the word for ‘jungle’ in Hindi is van. So, the people around started to call that locality as Cheetah-van, which was later modified as Chitvan.
2. The dense jungle in the past was teeming with spotted-deer, and so they started to call it Chitri-van which gave way to the present word for the district. Chitri meaning spotted.
3. As per Rigveda (an ancient Indian Scripture) life is divided into four stages, namely,
Brahamcharya (Until 25 years of age)
Grahistha (From 25 till 50 years of Life)
Vanaprastha (From 50 till 75 years of Life)
Sannyas ( 75 years of Life)
By the end of second stage the householder is said to finish all his family responsibilities. He enters the third stage, Vanaprastha (The Hermit in Retreat) and renounces all worldly pleasures, he goes to the Van (Forest), to tame the animal forces of mind, by staying with the animals. This prepares him for the fourth stage of life, where he renunciates practically all his wants and desires and is a wandering ascetic in this stage.
Chitt is a product of Mind, Intellect and Ego, Van is Forest. So Chitvan is the forest which a man in his third stage of life visits to chanelize his Chitt (Mind, Intellect and Ego).
The idea behind Chitvan is to make it a retreat from Worldly Life, a Stage 3 retreat, where a person would free himself from all Illusions.
Logo of Chitvan: Lotus
“Lotus” is an aquatic plant with broad floating green leaves and bright fragrant flowers that grow only in shallow waters. In India the sacred lotus is legendary and much folklore and religious mythology is woven around it. Rich in meaning and metaphor, the Lotus symbolises divinity, fertility, wealth, knowledge and not to forget enlightenment. A symbol of strong vital force that could withstand extremely adverse conditions. The lotus flower represents long life, health, honor and good luck.. It was this depth of thought that made the founding fathers of modern India enshrine the lotus in the Constitution as the National Flower
Come visit Chitvan.. Thee Van
