Panda

The red panda's history in zoos begins some 40 years after its discovery. The first one to be seen outside of its natural range arrived at London Zoo on 22nd May 1869, [...] On arrival at the zoo, the last surviving panda was given into the care of Abraham Bartlett, the superintendent of the zoo. [...] The feeding instructions that came with the panda said it should be given milk, a little rice and grass each day. [...] Bartlett felt that the suggested diet was not adequate and set out to find what the animal would accept; [...] Unfortunately, although it ate well, this first zoo red panda was not destined for a long life, it died suddenly during the night of 12 December 1869, a little over 6 months after its arrival.

Before the confrontation, the youth sighted a police personnel carrier, two dog patrol vans, a motorway style car, at least two pandas and one unmarked police car.

There are therefore in this district no Varna or degraded Brahmans nor are those at all disgraced who officiate in any temple as Pandas.

PANDA: PUNDA. Hind[i] and Beng[ali]. The proprietary or presiding priest of a Hindoo temple of Siva usually though not invariably a Brahman. The office is hereditary, and in some places, as at Benares, the Panda officiates only on particular occasions, the duties of daily worship being performed by inferior priests or Pujaris in his employ. The term is also applied to a priest who is stationary at any particular place or shrine.

The pilgrims are required first to bathe in the Marnikarnika Kund (or tank) near the ghât of that name, taking with them flowers and uncooked rice. [...] [T]hey must make presents to the pandas, who are certain privileged hereditary Brahmins. Whilst the pilgrim is in the water, the pandas repeat some Sanscrit verses; [...]

Whenever there is a death in the family, someone will go to Hardwar to immerse the ashes of the departed. There our family has its own panda, as these priests are called, who at his death is succeeded by his son. He maintains the family records in long, old-fashioned Indian ledgers, covered in red cloth, in which he writes down the length of the page. [...] When I first visited Hardwar I only had to say I was a Tandon from Gujrat, and from a crowd of pandas our priest came forward and reeled off our whole family tree for several generations.

'The mafia-like activities' and 'growing internal competition' of the contemporary panda community are the consequence of an almost complete breakdown of the old configuration. Durable long-term relations between priests and their patrons have been replaced by 'the emergence of a totally impersonal religious market' [...], a controlled trickle of elite donors by a torrent of hoi polloi pilgrims, and the relationship between panda and pilgrim has been replaced by that between panda and agent as the pivot of the system.

Many a time, the temple received unkind ravishments from the non-Hindu attackers. [...] The frightened pandas of Puri considered Lord Jagannatha to be the living and loving god, the caretaker of their beings and their country. They had no other option but to hide the Lord from the clutches of the javanas. It is learnt from history and the contemporary literature that the pandas used to carry the Lord to distant hills and mountainous ranges.

I may be man of commerce in your eyes, Miss—and in this age of evil, who is not?—but are you aware that eleven generations of my ancestors have been pandas at one of Nabadwip's most famous temples?

As at most Hindu pilgrimage sites, Hardwar has a group of local brahmins who serve as hereditary pilgrim guides. The most respectful name for them is tirtha purohit (a tirtha "priest'), but the more common name is panda, a short form of pandita ("a learned man"). Pandas arrange for their clients' material and ritual needs, and they also officiate at certain life-cycle ceremonies (samskaras). In return, their clients give them fees and gifts.

Trouble broke out at Kalighat temple on Monday morning after police barred pandas from near the sanctum sanctorum. Angry pandas, some armed with sticks, allegedly assaulted members of the temple committee. [...] Temple sources said the cop crackdown was a knee-jerk reaction to a complaint filed by an NRI [non-resident Indian] woman on Sunday against the pandas.