title: Cognitive load

text: Much later, other researchers developed a way to measure perceived mental effort which is indicative of cognitive load. Task-invoked pupillary response is a reliable and sensitive measurement of cognitive load that is directly related to working memory. Information may only be stored in long term memory after first being attended to, and processed by, working memory. Working memory, however, is extremely limited in both capacity and duration. These limitations will, under some conditions, impede learning. Heavy cognitive load can have negative effects on task completion, and it is important to note that the experience of cognitive load is not the same in everyone. The elderly, students, and children experience different, and more often higher, amounts of cognitive load.


title: Cognitive load

text: The fundamental tenet of cognitive load theory is that the quality of instructional design will be raised if greater consideration is given to the role and limitations of working memory.


title: Cognitive load

text: With increased distractions, particularly from cell phone use, students are more prone to experiencing high cognitive load which can reduce academic success.


title: Cognitive load

text: In the late 1980s, John Sweller developed cognitive load theory out of a study of problem solving, in order "to provide guidelines intended to assist in the presentation of information in a manner that encourages learner activities that optimize intellectual performance". Sweller's theory employs aspects of information processing theory to emphasize the inherent limitations of concurrent working memory load on learning during instruction. It makes use of the schema as primary unit of analysis for the design of instructional materials.


title: Cognitive load

text: The history of cognitive load theory can be traced to the beginning of cognitive science in the 1950s and the work of G.A. Miller. In his classic paper, Miller was perhaps the first to suggest our working memory capacity has inherent limits. His experimental results suggested that humans are generally able to hold only seven plus or minus two units of information in short-term memory.


title: Cognitive load

text: In 1973 Simon and Chase were the first to use the term "chunk" to describe how people might organize information in short-term memory. This chunking of memory components has also been described as schema construction.


title: Cognitive load

text: In the late 1980s John Sweller developed cognitive load theory (CLT) while studying problem solving. Studying learners as they solved problems, he and his associates found that learners often use a problem solving strategy called means-ends analysis. He suggests problem solving by means-ends analysis requires a relatively large amount of cognitive processing capacity, which may not be devoted to schema construction. Sweller suggested that instructional designers should prevent this unnecessary cognitive load by designing instructional materials which do not involve problem solving. Examples of alternative instructional materials include what are known as worked-examples and goal-free problems.


title: Cognitive load

text: In the 1990s, cognitive load theory was applied in several contexts. The empirical results from these studies led to the demonstration of several learning effects: the completion-problem effect; modality effect; split-attention effect; worked-example effect; and expertise reversal effect.


title: Cognitive load

text: Cognitive load theory provides a general framework and has broad implications for instructional design, by allowing instructional designers to control the conditions of learning within an environment or, more generally, within most instructional materials. Specifically, it provides empirically-based guidelines that help instructional designers decrease extraneous cognitive load during learning and thus refocus the learner's attention toward germane materials, thereby increasing germane (schema related) cognitive load. This theory differentiates between three types of cognitive load: intrinsic cognitive load, germane cognitive load, and extraneous cognitive load.


title: Cognitive load

text: "Intrinsic cognitive load" is the inherent level of difficulty associated with a specific instructional topic. The term was first used in the early 1990s by Chandler and Sweller. According to them, all instructions have an inherent difficulty associated with them (e.g., the calculation of 2 + 2, versus solving a differential equation). This inherent difficulty may not be altered by an instructor. However, many schemas may be broken into individual "subschemas" and taught in isolation, to be later brought back together and described as a combined whole.


title: Cognitive load

text: "Extraneous cognitive load" is generated by the manner in which information is presented to learners and is under the control of instructional designers. This load can be attributed to the design of the instructional materials. Because there is a single limited cognitive resource using resources to process the extraneous load, the number of resources available to process the intrinsic load and germane load (i.e., learning) is reduced. Thus, especially when intrinsic and/or germane load is high (i.e., when a problem is difficult), materials should be designed so as to reduce the extraneous load.


title: Cognitive load

text: An example of extraneous cognitive load occurs when there are two possible ways to describe a square to a student. A square is a figure and should be described using a figural medium. Certainly an instructor can describe a square in a verbal medium, but it takes just a second and far less effort to see what the instructor is talking about when a learner is shown a square, rather than having one described verbally. In this instance, the efficiency of the visual medium is preferred. This is because it does not unduly load the learner with unnecessary information. This unnecessary cognitive load is described as extraneous.


title: Cognitive load

text: Chandler and Sweller introduced the concept of extraneous cognitive load. This article was written to report the results of six experiments that they conducted to investigate this working memory load. Many of these experiments involved materials demonstrating the split attention effect. They found that the format of instructional materials either promoted or limited learning. They proposed that differences in performance were due to higher levels of the cognitive load imposed by the format of instruction. "Extraneous cognitive load" is a term for this unnecessary (artificially induced) cognitive load.


title: Cognitive load

text: Extraneous cognitive load may have different components, such as the clarity of texts or interactive demands of educational software.


title: Cognitive load

text: "Germane cognitive load" is the processing, construction and automation of schemas. It was first described by Sweller, Van Merriënboer and Paas in 1998. While intrinsic cognitive load is generally thought to be immutable (although techniques can be applied to manage complexity by segmenting and sequencing complex material), instructional designers can manipulate extraneous and germane load. It is suggested that they limit extraneous load and promote germane load.


title: Cognitive load

text: Until the 1998 article by Sweller, Van Merriënboer & Paas, cognitive load theory primarily concentrated on the reduction of extraneous cognitive load. With this article, cognitive load researchers began to seek ways of redesigning instruction to redirect what would be extraneous load, to now be focused toward schema construction (germane load). Thus it is very important for instructional designers to "reduce extraneous cognitive load and redirect learners' attention to cognitive processes that are directly relevant to the construction of schemas".


title: Cognitive load

text: As of 1993 Paas and Van Merriënboer had developed a construct known as relative condition efficiency, which helps researchers measure perceived mental effort, an index of cognitive load. This construct provides a relatively simple means of comparing instructional conditions, taking into account both mental effort ratings and performance scores. Relative condition efficiency is calculated by subtracting standardized mental effort from standardized performance and dividing by the square root of two.


title: Cognitive load

text: Paas and Van Merriënboer used relative condition efficiency to compare three instructional conditions (worked examples, completion problems, and discovery practice). They found learners who studied worked examples were the most efficient, followed by those who used the problem completion strategy. Since this early study many other researchers have used this and other constructs to measure cognitive load as it relates to learning and instruction.


title: Cognitive load

text: The ergonomic approach seeks a quantitative neurophysiological expression of cognitive load which can be measured using common instruments, for example using the heart rate-blood pressure product (RPP) as a measure of both cognitive and physical occupational workload. They believe that it may be possible to use RPP measures to set limits on workloads and for establishing work allowance.


title: Cognitive load

text: Task-invoked pupillary response is a form of measurement that directly reflects the cognitive load on working memory. Greater pupil dilation is found to be associated with high cognitive load. Pupil constriction occurs when there is low cognitive load. Task-invoked pupillary response shows a direct correlation with working memory, making it an effective measurement of cognitive load explicitly unrelated to learning.


title: Cognitive load

text: Some researchers have compared different measures of cognitive load. For example, Deleeuw and Mayer (2008) compared three commonly used measures of cognitive load and found that they responded in different ways to extraneous, intrinsic, and germane load. A 2020 study showed that there may be various demand components that together form extraneous cognitive load, but that may need to be measured using different questionnaires.


title: Cognitive load

text: A heavy cognitive load typically creates error or some kind of interference in the task at hand. A heavy cognitive load can also increase stereotyping. Stereotyping is an extension of the Fundamental Attribution Error which also increases in frequency with heavier cognitive load. The notions of cognitive load and arousal contribute to the "Overload Hypothesis" explanation of social facilitation: in the presence of an audience, subjects tend to perform worse in subjectively complex tasks (whereas they tend to excel in subjectively easy tasks).


title: Cognitive load

text: As of 1971, some evidence had been found that individuals systematically differed in their processing capacity. As of 1984 it was established for example, that there were individual differences in processing capacities between novices and experts. Experts have more knowledge or experience with regard to a specific task which reduces the cognitive load associated with the task. Novices do not have this experience or knowledge and thus have heavier cognitive load.


title: Cognitive load

text: The danger of heavy cognitive load is seen in the elderly population. Aging can cause declines in the efficiency of working memory which can contribute to higher cognitive load. Heavy cognitive load can disturb balance in elderly people. The relationship between heavy cognitive load and control of center of mass are heavily correlated in the elderly population. As cognitive load increases, the sway in center of mass in elderly individuals increases. An 2007 study examined the relationship between body sway and cognitive function and their relationship during multitasking and found disturbances in balance led to a decrease in performance on the cognitive task. Conversely, an increasing demand for balance can increase cognitive load.


title: Cognitive load

text: As of 2014, an increasing cognitive load for students using a laptop in school has become a concern. With the use of Facebook and other social forms of communication, adding multiple tasks jeopardizes students performance in the classroom. When many cognitive resources are available, the probability of switching from one task to another is high and does not lead to optimal switching behavior. In a study from 013 oth students who were heavy Facebook users and students who sat nearby those who were heavy Facebook users performed poorly and resulted in lower GPA.


title: Cognitive load

text: In 2004, British psychologists, Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch proposed that the components of working memory are in place at 6 years of age. They found a clear difference between adult and child knowledge. These differences were due to developmental increases in processing efficiency. Children lack general knowledge, and this is what creates increased cognitive load in children. Children in impoverished families often experience even higher cognitive load in learning environments than those in middle-class families. These children do not hear, talk, or learn about schooling concepts because their parents often do not have formal education. When it comes to learning, their lack of experience with numbers, words, and concepts increases their cognitive load.


title: Cognitive load

text: As children grow older they develop superior basic processes and capacities. They also develop metacognition, which helps them to understand their own cognitive activities. Lastly, they gain greater content knowledge through their experiences. These elements help reduce cognitive load in children as they develop.


title: Cognitive load

text: Gesturing is a technique children use to reduce cognitive load while speaking. By gesturing, they can free up working memory for other tasks. Pointing allows a child to use the object they are pointing at as the best representation of it, which means they do not have to hold this representation in their working memory, thereby reducing their cognitive load. Additionally, gesturing about an object that is absent reduces the difficulty of having to picture it in their mind.


title: Cognitive load

text: As of 2013 it has been theorized that an impoverished environment can contribute to cognitive load. Regardless of the task at hand, or the processes used in solving the task, people who experience poverty also experience higher cognitive load. A number of factors contribute to the cognitive load in people with lower socioeconomic status that are not present in middle and upper-class people.


title: Cognitive load

text: Bodily activity can both be advantageous and detrimental to learning depending on how this activity is implemented. Cognitive load theorists have asked for updates that makes CLT more compatible with insights from embodied cognition research. As a result, Embodied Cognitive Load Theory has been suggested as a means to predict the usefulness of interactive features in learning environments. In this framework, the benefits of an interactive feature (such as easier cognitive processing) need to exceed its cognitive costs (such as motor coordination) in order for an embodied mode of interaction to increase learning outcomes.


title: Cognitive load

text: With increase in secondary tasks inside cockpit, cognitive load estimation became an important problem for both automotive drivers and pilots. The research problem is investigated in various names like drowsiness detection, distraction detection and so on. For automotive drivers, researchers explored various physiological parameters like heart rate, facial expression, ocular parameters and so on. In aviation there are numerous simulation studies on analysing pilots’ distraction and attention using various physiological parameters. For military fast jet pilots, researchers explored air to ground dive attacks and recorded cardiac, EEG and ocular parameters.


title: Cognitive load

text: For those wishing to learn more about cognitive load theory, please consider reading these journals and special issues of those journals:


title: Social Democratic Party (Japan)

text: The is a political party in Japan that was established in 1996. Since its reformation and name change in 1996, it has advocated pacifism and defined itself as a social-democratic party. It was previously known as the .


title: Social Democratic Party (Japan)

text: The party was refounded in January 1996 by the majority of legislators of the former Japan Socialist Party, which was largest opposition party in the 1955 System; however, most of the legislators joined the Democratic Party of Japan after that. Five leftist legislators who did not join the SDP formed the New Socialist Party, which lost all its seats in the following elections. The SDP enjoyed a short period of government participation from 1993 to 1994 as part of the Hosokawa Cabinet and later formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democratic Party under 81st Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama of the JSP from 1994 to January 1996. The SDP was part of ruling coalitions between January and November 1996 (First Hashimoto Cabinet) and from 2009 to 2010 (Hatoyama Cabinet).


title: Social Democratic Party (Japan)

text: In the 2019 Japanese House of Councillors election, the party won four representatives in the National Diet, two in the lower house and two in the upper house. In November 2020, the party entered into a merger agreement with the Constitutional Democratic Party. The party president Mizuho Fukushima held her seat, and the party cleared the minimum two percent voter share to maintain its legal political party status, in the 2022 House of Councillors elections.


title: Social Democratic Party (Japan)

text: In 1995, the former Japan Socialist Party (JSP) was in a deep crisis, as it faced criticisms on entering a coalition with its longtime rival LDP, and core policy changes. Aiming at saving the party, the leadership of JSP decided to dissolve the party and to establish a new social democratic party. In January 1996, such a new party, the Social Democratic Party, was established along with the dissolution of JSP. "De jure", JSP changed its name to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) as an interim party for forming a new party, and a movement for transforming the SDP into a new social-democratic and liberal party was unsuccessful. Under Murayama's successor Ryūtarō Hashimoto (LDP), the SDP remained part of the ruling coalition. Long before the disappointing result in the 1996 Japanese general election, the party lost the majority of its members of the House of Representatives, mainly to predecessors of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) that was formed in 1996, but also some to the NFP and other opposition parties. After its electoral defeat in the 1996 general election when it lost another 15 of its remaining 30 seats in the lower house, the SDP left the ruling coalition which it had entered as the second largest force in Japanese politics as a minor party.


title: Social Democratic Party (Japan)

text: The SDP won six seats in the 2003 Japanese general election, compared with 18 seats in the previous 2000 Japanese general election. Its motives against the Self-Defense Forces have reverted into abolishing it in the long term, returning into its opposition against the force it had applied in the 1950s. Doi had been the leader since 1996, but she resigned in 2003, taking responsibility for the election losses. Mizuho Fukushima was elected as the new party leader in November 2003. In the 2004 Japanese House of Councillors election, the SDP won only two seats, having five seats in the House of Councillors and six seats in the House of Representatives. In 2006, the party unexpectedly gained the governorship of the Shiga Prefecture. In the 2009 Japanese general election, the DPJ made large gains and the SDP maintained its base of 7 seats in the, becoming a junior partner in a new government coalition; however, disagreements over the issue of the Futenma base led to the sacking of Fukushima from the cabinet on 28 May and the SDP subsequently voted to leave the ruling coalition.


title: Social Democratic Party (Japan)

text: As of October 2010, the SDP had six members in the House of Representatives and four members in the House of Councillors. Following the 2012 Japanese general election, the party retained only six seats in the whole of the Diet, two in the House of Representatives and four in the House of Councillors. The count lowered to five seats in 2013. In 2013, the party's headquarters in Nagatacho, where the party's predecessor the JSP had moved in 1964, were demolished. The headquarters moved to a smaller office in Nagatacho.


title: Social Democratic Party (Japan)

text: During the nomination period of the 2016 Japanese House of Councillors election, the party signed an agreement with the Democratic, Communist and People's Life parties to field a jointly-endorsed candidate in each of the 32 districts in which only one seat is contested, thereby uniting in an attempt to take control of the House from the LDP/Komeito coalition. The party had two Councillors up for re-election and fielded a total of 11 candidates in the election, 4 in single and multi-member districts and 7 in the 48-seat national proportional representation block.


title: Social Democratic Party (Japan)

text: In the 2017 Japanese general election, the party managed to hold to its two seats it had prior to the election. Tadatomo Yoshida declined to run for re-election when his term expired in January 2018. Seiji Mataichi was elected unopposed in the ensuing leadership election and took office on 25 February 2018.


title: Social Democratic Party (Japan)

text: On 14 November 2020, the party voted to agree to a merger arrangement with the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), allowing members to leave the SDP and join the latter party. The majority of the party supported the agreement and joined the CDP; however, party leader Fukushima herself was opposed to the merger agreement and remains a member of the Social Democratic Party.


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: Blind Willie Johnson (January 25, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was an American gospel blues singer, guitarist and evangelist. His landmark recordings completed between 1927 and 1930—thirty songs in total—display a combination of powerful "chest voice" singing, slide guitar skills, and originality that has influenced generations of musicians. Even though Johnson's records sold well, as a street performer and preacher, he had little wealth in his lifetime. His life was poorly documented, but over time, music historians such as Samuel Charters have uncovered more about Johnson and his five recording sessions.


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: A revival of interest in Johnson's music began in the 1960s, following his inclusion on Harry Smith's "Anthology of American Folk Music", and by the efforts of the blues guitarist Reverend Gary Davis. Along with Davis, he has since been considered the dominant player of "holy blues" music, which conveyed religious themes in a blues idiom and often with the genre's style of guitar accompaniment.


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: Johnson's work has become more accessible through compilation albums such as "" and the Charters compilations. As a result, Johnson is credited as one of the most influential practitioners of the blues, and his slide guitar playing, particularly on his hymn "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground", is highly acclaimed. Other recordings by Johnson include "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed", "It's Nobody's Fault but Mine", and "John the Revelator".


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: Johnson was born on January 25, 1897, in Pendleton, Texas, a small town near Temple, Texas, to sharecropper Dock Johnson and Mary King. His family, which according to the blues historian Steven Calt included at least one younger brother named Carl, moved to the agriculturally rich community of Marlin, where Johnson spent most of his childhood. There, the Johnson family attended church—most likely the Marlin Missionary Baptist Church—every Sunday, a practice which had a lasting impact on Johnson and fueled his desire to be ordained as a Baptist minister. When Johnson was five years old, his father gave him his first instrument—a cigar box guitar.


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: Johnson was not born blind, though he was impaired with the disability at an early age. It is uncertain how he lost his sight, but it is generally agreed by most biographers of Johnson that he was blinded by his stepmother when he was seven years old, a claim that was first made by Johnson's purported widow Angeline Johnson. In her recollection, Willie's father had violently confronted Willie's stepmother about her infidelity, and during the argument she splashed Willie with a caustic solution of lye water, permanently blinding him. Other theories have also been developed to explain Johnson's visual impairment, including that he wore the wrong spectacles, that he viewed the solar eclipse of August 30, 1905 that was partially observable over Texas or a combination of the two conjectures.


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: Few other details are known about the singer's childhood. At some point he met another blind musician, Madkin Butler, who had a powerful singing and preaching style that influenced Johnson's own vocal delivery and repertoire. Adam Booker, a blind minister interviewed by the blues historian Samuel Charters in the 1950s, recalled that while visiting his father in Hearne, Johnson would perform religious songs on street corners with a tin cup tied to the neck of his Stella guitar to collect money. Occasionally, Johnson would play on the same street as Blind Lemon Jefferson, but the extent of the two songsters' involvement with each other is unknown. In 1926 or early 1927, Johnson established an unregistered marriage with Willie B. Harris, who occasionally sang on the street with him and at benefits for the Marlin Church of God in Christ with Johnson accompanied on piano. From the relationship, Johnson had a daughter, Sam Faye Johnson Kelly, in 1931. The blues guitarist L. C. Robinson recalled that his sister Anne also claimed to have been married to Johnson in the late 1920s.


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: By the time Johnson began his recording career, he was a well-known evangelist with a "remarkable technique and a wide range of songs", as noted by the blues historian Paul Oliver. On December 3, 1927, Johnson was assembled along with Billiken Johnson and Coley Jones at a temporary studio that talent scout Frank Buckley Walker had set up in the Deep Ellum neighborhood in Dallas to record for Columbia Records. In the ensuing session, Johnson played six selections, 13 takes in total. Among the songs Johnson recorded in Dallas were "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed", "It's Nobody's Fault but Mine", "Mother's Children Have a Hard Time", "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground", and "If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down". He was compensated with $50 per "usable" side—a substantial amount for the period—and a bonus to forfeit royalties from sales of the records.


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: The first songs to be released were "I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole" and "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed", on Columbia's popular 14000 Race series. Johnson's debut became a substantial success, as 9,400 copies were pressed, more than the latest release by one of Columbia's most established stars, Bessie Smith, and an additional pressing of 6,000 copies followed. His fifth recorded song, "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground", eventually the B-side of Johnson's second release, best exemplifies his unique guitar playing in open D tuning for slide. For the session, Johnson substituted a knife or penknife for the bottleneck and—according to Harris—he played with a thumb pick. His melancholy, indecipherable humming of the guitar part creates the impression of "unison moaning", a style of singing hymns that is common in southern African-American church choirs. In 1928, the blues critic Edward Abbe Niles praised Johnson in his column for "The Bookman", emphasizing his "violent, tortured, and abysmal shouts and groans, and his inspired guitar playing".


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: Johnson, accompanied by Harris, returned to Dallas on December 5, 1928, to record "I'm Gonna Run to the City of Refuge", "Jesus Is Coming Soon", "Lord I Just Can't Keep From Crying", and "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning". Two unreleased and untitled tracks were also recorded by Johnson under the pseudonym Blind Texas Marlin, but the master recordings of the session have never been recovered. Another year passed before Johnson recorded again, on December 10 and 11, 1929, the longest sessions of his career. He completed ten sides in 16 takes at Werlein's Music Store in New Orleans, also recording some duets with an unknown female singer, who is thought to have been a member of Reverend J. M. Gates's congregation. The blind street performer Dave Ross reported hearing Johnson performing on the street in New Orleans in December 1929. According to a story heard by the jazz historian Richard Allen, Johnson was arrested while performing in front of the Custom House on Canal Street, for allegedly attempting to incite a riot with his impassioned rendition of "If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down".


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: For his fifth and final recording session, Johnson journeyed to Atlanta, Georgia, with Harris returning to provide vocal harmonies. Ten selections were completed on April 20, 1930. "Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right" paired with "Go with Me to That Land" were chosen as the first single released from the session. However, the Great Depression had wiped out much of Johnson's audience, and consequently only 800 copies were pressed. Some of his songs were re-released by Vocalion Records in 1932, but Johnson never recorded again.


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: Johnson allegedly remarried, this time to Angeline Johnson, in the early 1930s, but, as with Harris, it is unlikely that the union was officially registered. Throughout the Great Depression and the 1940s, he performed in several cities and towns in Texas, including Beaumont. A city directory shows that in 1945, a Reverend W. J. Johnson—undoubtedly Blind Willie—operated the House of Prayer at 1440 Forrest Street, in Beaumont. In 1945, his home was destroyed by a fire, but, with nowhere else to go, Johnson continued to live in the ruins of his house, where he was exposed to the humidity. He contracted malarial fever, and no hospital would admit him, either because of his visual impairment or, as Angeline Johnson stated in an interview with Charters, because he was Black. Over the course of the year, his condition steadily worsened until he died, on September 18, 1945. His death certificate reported syphilis and blindness as contributing factors.


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: According to his death certificate, he was buried in Blanchette Cemetery, in Beaumont. The location of the cemetery had been forgotten until it was rediscovered in 2009. His grave site remains unknown, but the researchers who identified the cemetery erected a monument there in his honor in 2010.


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: Johnson is considered one of the masters of blues, particularly of the gospel blues style. Like his contemporary Blind Lemon Jefferson, Johnson channeled the expressiveness of the blues into his religious messages derived from hymnbooks. Samuel Charters, in the liner notes to the compilation album "The Complete Blind Willie Johnson", wrote that, in fact, Johnson was not a bluesman in the traditional sense, "but here still is so much similarity between his relentless guitar rhythms and his harsh, insistent voice, and the same fierce intensities of the blues singers, that they become images of each other, seen in the mirror of the society that produced them".


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: An important aspect of Johnson's recordings was his mastering of the bottleneck guitar technique, which was immediately influential on Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf. He punctuated his selections with tonal control and a sense of timing, often using the guitar as a part of his harmonic phrasing, particularly on "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground". By most accounts, including one by the reputable blues guitarist Blind Willie McTell, Johnson used a knife as a slide, but other claims by Harris and the bluesman Thom Shaw also state he used a thumb pick or brass ring on his recordings. The music historian Steve Calt said of Johnson's style: "opposed to other bottleneck artists he varies the speed of his vibrato drastically, often speeding up as he slides into a note. He is also one of the few bottleneck artists with the ability to consistently sound 3 or 4 discreet melody notes upon striking a string once, a skill that reflects uncanny left-handed strength, accuracy and agility".


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: Johnson sang in a harsh, gravelly bass voice that was meant to be powerful enough to be heard by passersby on the streets. His vocal interplay was described by the blues writer Mark Makin as "fierce" and "not unlike the 'Hell and Damnation' of a Baptist preacher such as a fired-up Reverend A. W. Nix". On some instances in his recordings, Johnson also delivered vocals in his natural tenor voice. The only known influence on Johnson's singing style is the blind musician Madkin Butler, who, like Johnson, sang his religious message on the streets of Texas cities.


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: Johnson's music was revived in the 1960s thanks in large part to his inclusion on Harry Smith's "Anthology of American Folk Music" in 1952 and the efforts of the blues guitarist Reverend Gary Davis, a highly regarded figure in New York's blossoming folk scene. As he taught Johnson's music to young musicians, groups and acts like the Soul Stirrers, the Staples Singers, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Fairport Convention, and Peter, Paul and Mary covered or re-interpreted his work. In November 1962, Bob Dylan recorded a rendition of "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed", retitled "In My Time of Dying", for his self-titled debut album. Rock bands and artists of the 1970s also covered Johnson's songs, including Led Zeppelin, John Sebastian, and Eric Clapton. Alligator Records released the tribute album "God Don't Never Change: The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson" produced by Jeffrey Gaskill in 2016 with covers by various artists including Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams, Sinead O'Connor and Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi. The album was nominated for two Grammy Awards: Best Roots Gospel Album and Best American Roots Performance for Blind Boys of Alabama recording of "Mother's Children Have a Hard Time".


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: All of Johnson's released material has become easily accessible thanks to its preservation on compilation albums such as "Blind Willie Johnson 1927–1930" and "The Complete Blind Willie Johnson", among others. Samuel Charters was the first major blues historian to attempt to uncover more about Johnson's life, first documenting him in his 1959 book "The Country Blues". In 1993, Charters corrected some factual inaccuracies in Johnson's biography in the liner notes to "The Complete Blind Willie Johnson". Other books related to Johnson include "Shine a Light: My Year with Blind Willie Johnson" and "Revelation The Blind Willie Johnson Biography".


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: In 1977, Carl Sagan and a team of researchers were tasked with collecting a representation of Earth and the human experience for sending on the Voyager probe to other life forms in the universe. Among the 27 songs selected for the Voyager Golden Record, "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" was chosen by NASA consultant Timothy Ferris because, according to Ferris, "Johnson's song concerns a situation he faced many times: nightfall with no place to sleep. Since humans appeared on Earth, the shroud of night has yet to fall without touching a man or woman in the same plight". Johnson's recording of "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" was also selected by the Library of Congress as a 2010 addition to the National Recording Registry, which selects recordings annually that are deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: Blind Willie Johnson

text: In 2017, the story of Blind Willie Johnson's inclusion on the Voyager probe was told in the multi-award-winning 2017 documentary series "American Epic" directed by Bernard MacMahon. The film was accompanied by a compilation album, "", featuring radically improved restorations of sixteen of Johnson's recordings.


title: Contraindication

text: In medicine, a contraindication is a condition that serves as a reason not to take a certain medical treatment due to the harm that it would cause the patient. Contraindication is the opposite of indication, which is a reason to use a certain treatment.


title: Contraindication

text: "Absolute contraindications" are contraindications for which there are no reasonable circumstances for undertaking a course of action. For example, children and teenagers with viral infections should not be given aspirin because of the risk of Reye syndrome, and a person with an anaphylactic food allergy should never eat the food to which they are allergic. Similarly, a person with hemochromatosis should not be administered iron preparations.


title: Contraindication

text: "Relative contraindications" are contraindications for circumstances in which the patient is at higher risk of complications from treatment, but these risks may be outweighed by other considerations or mitigated by other measures. For example, a pregnant woman should normally avoid getting X-rays, but the risk may be outweighed by the benefit of diagnosing (and then treating) a serious condition such as tuberculosis. Relative contraindications may also be referred to as "cautions", such as in the British National Formulary.


title: Neurofeedback

text: Neurofeedback (NFB), also called neurotherapy, is a type of biofeedback that presents real-time feedback from brain activity in order to reinforce healthy brain function through operant conditioning. Typically, electrical activity from the brain is collected via sensors placed on the scalp using electroencephalography (EEG), with feedback presented using video displays or sound. The effectiveness of neurofeedback is disputed. While studies and reviews have often found neurofeedback treatment to be beneficial for the patient, it has yet to be shown these effects are directly caused by the neurofeedback technique applied. Placebo-controlled trials have often found the control group to show the same level of improvement as the group receiving actual neurofeedback treatment, which suggests these improvements may be caused by secondary effects instead. Despite this controversy and never having gaining prominence in the medical mainstream, it has been practiced for over four decades. NFB is relatively non-invasive and is administered as a long-term treatment option, typically taking a month to complete. A 30-minute to 60-minute neurofeedback session is typical.


title: Neurofeedback

text: Several neurofeedback protocols exist, with potential additional benefit from use of quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to localize and personalize treatment. Related technologies include functional near-infrared spectroscopy-mediated (fNIRS) neurofeedback, hemoencephalography biofeedback (HEG) and fMRI biofeedback.


title: Neurofeedback

text: In 1924, the German psychiatrist Hans Berger connected a couple of electrodes (small round discs of metal) to a patient's scalp and detected a small current by using a ballistic galvanometer. During the years 1929–1938 he published 14 reports about his studies of EEGs, and much of our modern knowledge of the subject, especially in the middle frequencies, is due to his research. Berger analyzed EEGs qualitatively, but in 1932 G. Dietsch applied Fourier analysis to seven records of EEG and became the first researcher of what later is called QEEG (quantitative EEG).


title: Neurofeedback

text: The first study to demonstrate neurofeedback was reported by Joe Kamiya in 1962. Kamiya's experiment had two parts. In the first part, a subject was asked to keep his eyes closed and when a tone sounded to say whether he thought he was in alpha. He was then told whether he was correct or wrong. Initially the subject would get about fifty percent correct, but some subjects would eventually develop the ability to better distinguish between states. Many could then produce alpha and non-alpha states at will. In the second part of the study, a tone was sounded whenever alpha was present, and subjects were asked to increase the percentage time the tone was on. Most participants were able to increase their percent time spent in alpha within about four training sessions. Maintaining the alpha state was found to be associated with relaxation, a sense of "letting go", and pleasant affect. High alpha amplitude had been seen in advanced meditators, combined with an emerging counter-cultural interest in altered states of consciousness, led to significant public interest in alpha training as an alternative to psychedelic drugs. Several optimistic studies replicated Kamiya's findings and suggested alpha training could be useful for treating stress and anxiety. However, other studies found that alpha was not reliably associated with calm and pleasant mental states, while eyes-closed alpha never increased above the resting baseline. Hardt and Kamiya (1976) argued that the replication failures were an artifact of an incorrect method of measuring alpha, and future studies continued to demonstrate learning of alpha based on feedback.


title: Neurofeedback

text: In the late sixties and early seventies, Barbara Brown, one of the most effective popularizers of Biofeedback, wrote several books on biofeedback, making the public much more aware of the technology. The books included "New Mind New Body", with a foreword from Hugh Downs, and "Stress and the Art of Biofeedback". Brown took a creative approach to neurofeedback, linking brainwave self-regulation to a switching relay which turned on an electric train.


title: Neurofeedback

text: The work of Barry Sterman, Joel F. Lubar and others has been relevant on the study of beta training, involving the role of sensorimotor rhythmic EEG activity. This training has been used in the treatment of epilepsy, attention deficit disorder and hyperactive disorder. The sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) is rhythmic activity between 12 and 16 hertz that can be recorded from an area near the sensorimotor cortex. SMR is found in waking states and is very similar if not identical to the sleep spindles that are recorded in the second stage of sleep.


title: Neurofeedback

text: For example, Sterman has shown that both monkeys and cats who had undergone SMR training had elevated thresholds for the convulsant chemical monomethylhydrazine. These studies indicate that SMR may be associated with an inhibitory process in the motor system.


title: Neurofeedback

text: In the 2000s, neurofeedback took a new approach in taking a look at deep states. Alpha-theta training has been tried with patients with alcoholism, other addictions as well as anxiety. This low frequency training differs greatly from the high frequency beta and SMR training that has been practiced for over thirty years and is reminiscent of the original alpha training of Elmer Green and Joe Kamiya. Beta and SMR training can be considered a more directly physiological approach, strengthening sensorimotor inhibition in the cortex and inhibiting alpha patterns, which slow metabolism. Alpha-theta training, however, derives from the psychotherapeutic model and involves accessing of painful or repressed memories through the alpha-theta state. The alpha-theta state is a term that comes from the representation on the EEG.


title: Neurofeedback

text: A recent development in the field is a conceptual approach called the Coordinated Allocation of Resource Model (CAR) of brain functioning which states that specific cognitive abilities are a function of specific electrophysiological variables which can overlap across different cognitive tasks. The activation database guided EEG biofeedback approach initially involves evaluating the subject on a number of academically relevant cognitive tasks and compares the subject's values on the QEEG measures to a normative database, in particular on the variables that are related to success at that task.


title: Neurofeedback

text: The Society of Applied Neuroscience (SAN) is an EU-based nonprofit membership organization for the advancement of neuroscientific knowledge and development of innovative applications for optimizing brain functioning (such as neurofeedback with EEG, fMRI, NIRS). The International Society for Neurofeedback & Research (ISNR) is a membership organization aimed at supporting scientific research in applied neurosciences, promoting education in the field of neurofeedback.


title: Neurofeedback

text: The Foundation for Neurofeedback and Neuromodulation Research is a non-profit organization that, through donations, provides grants for student research. The FNNR also issues awards for professionals and publishes books related to neurofeedback.


title: Neurofeedback

text: The Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB) is a non-profit scientific and professional society for biofeedback and neurofeedback. The International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (ISNR) is a non-profit scientific and professional society for neurofeedback. The Biofeedback Federation of Europe (BFE) sponsors international education, training, and research activities in biofeedback and neurofeedback.


title: Neurofeedback

text: The Biofeedback Certification International Alliance (formerly the Biofeedback Certification Institute of America) is a non-profit organization that is a member of the Institute for Credentialing Excellence (ICE). BCIA certifies individuals who meet education and training standards in biofeedback and neurofeedback and progressively recertifies those who satisfy continuing education requirements. BCIA offers biofeedback certification, neurofeedback (also called EEG biofeedback) certification, and pelvic muscle dysfunction biofeedback certification. BCIA certification has been endorsed by the Mayo Clinic, the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB), the International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (ISNR), and the Washington State Legislature.


title: Neurofeedback

text: The BCIA didactic education requirement includes a 36-hour course from a regionally accredited academic institution or a BCIA-approved training program that covers the complete Neurofeedback Blueprint of Knowledge and study of human anatomy and physiology. Applicants must also pass a written exam, complete 25 hours of mentoring, 10 case reviews, perform 100 hours of client sessions, and conduct 10 hours of personal NF. The Neurofeedback Blueprint of Knowledge areas include: I. Orientation to Neurofeedback, II. Basic Neurophysiology and Neuroanatomy, III. Instrumentation and Electronics, IV. Research, V. Psychopharmacological Considerations, VI. Treatment Planning, and VII. Professional Conduct.


title: Neurofeedback

text: Applicants may demonstrate their knowledge of human anatomy and physiology by completing a course in biological psychology, human anatomy, human biology, human physiology, or neuroscience provided by a regionally accredited academic institution or a BCIA-approved training program or by successfully completing an Anatomy and Physiology exam covering the organization of the human body and its systems.


title: Neurofeedback

text: Applicants must also document practical skills training that includes 25 contact hours supervised by a BCIA-approved mentor designed to teach them how to apply clinical biofeedback skills through self-regulation training, 100 patient/client sessions, and case conference presentations. Distance learning allows applicants to complete didactic coursework over the internet. Distance mentoring trains candidates from their residence or office. They must recertify every four years, complete 55 hours of continuing education (30 hours for Senior Fellows) during each review period or complete the written exam, and attest that their license/credential (or their supervisor's license/credential) has not been suspended, investigated, or revoked.


title: Neurofeedback

text: In 2010, a study provided some evidence of neuroplastic changes occurring after brainwave training. Half an hour of voluntary control of brain rhythms led in this study to a lasting shift in cortical excitability and intracortical function. The authors observed that the cortical response to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was significantly enhanced after neurofeedback, persisted for at least 20-minutes, and was correlated with an EEG time-course indicative of activity-dependent plasticity


title: Neurofeedback

text: There is significant controversy about the effectiveness of treating psychiatric disorders using EEG neurofeedback. While studies and meta-analyses often note apparent positive effects, it is yet to be shown conclusively that this effect is directly related to the neurofeedback, and not caused by secondary or placebo effects Additionally, meta-analyses and reviews tend to emphasize that different neurofeedback protocols should be considered entirely different treatment methods, further increasing the difficulty of drawing conclusions about neurofeedback in general.


title: Neurofeedback

text: A double-blinded, sham-controlled study of neurofeedback as a treatment for insomnia found that neurofeedback did not beat placebo.


title: Neurofeedback

text: Reviews into the effectiveness of neurofeedback for ADHD have found neurofeedback to have durable effects following treatment, although double-blind placebo-controlled studies show the control group will experience very similar improvements to the treatment group, suggesting improvements were not caused by a specific treatment method, but by secondary effects not directly related to neurofeedback.


title: Neurofeedback

text: Results are inconclusive about whether neurofeedback is an effective treatment for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or developmental trauma. Similarly, systematic reviews about its effectiveness as a treatment for traumatic brain injuries or strokes have not been able to produce conclusive results.


title: Neurofeedback

text: More conclusive evidence exists for its effectiveness as a treatment for epilepsy and seizure disorders. Patients who had been unable to control their condition with medication were the focus of numerous studies, and meta-analysis has yielded generally promising results.


title: Neurofeedback

text: No neurofeedback device has yet been approved by FDA for treatment of ADHD. In 2019, the FDA permitted marketing of the first medical device (external Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation or eTNS) for treatment of ADHD. eTNS is a nerve stimulation and not a neurofeedback device.


title: Neurofeedback

text: The applications of neurofeedback to enhance performance extend to the arts in fields such as music, dance, and acting. A study with conservatoire musicians found that alpha-theta training benefitted the three music domains of musicality, communication, and technique. Historically, alpha-theta training, a form of neurofeedback, was created to assist creativity by inducing hypnagogia, a "borderline waking state associated with creative insights", through facilitation of neural connectivity. Alpha-theta training has also been shown to improve novice singing in children. Alpha-theta neurofeedback, in conjunction with heart rate variability training, a form of biofeedback, has also produced benefits in dance by enhancing performance in competitive ballroom dancing and increasing cognitive creativity in contemporary dancers. Additionally, neurofeedback has also been shown to instil a superior flow state in actors, possibly due to greater immersion while performing.


title: Neurofeedback

text: Neurofeedback has been used to improve athletic psychomotor and self-regulation ability. Sensorimotor rhythm neurofeedback training of accuracy has been used in top-level sports, especially in target-based sports (e.g. golf). Neurofeedback training of shooting accuracy in elite football has been employed by the German company neuro11 at Liverpool FC since the summer of 2021.


title: Neurofeedback

text: However, randomized control trials have found that neurofeedback training (using either sensorimotor rhythm or theta/beta ratio training) did not enhance performance on attention-related tasks or creative tasks. It has been suggested that claims made by proponents of alpha wave neurofeedback training techniques have yet to be validated by randomized, double-blind, controlled studies, a view which even some supporters of alpha neurofeedback training have also expressed.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The Ayodhya dispute is a political, historical, and socio-religious debate in India, centred on a plot of land in the city of Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. The issues revolve around the control of a site traditionally regarded among Hindus to be the birthplace of their deity Rama, the history and location of the Babri Masjid mosque at the site, and whether a previous Hindu temple was demolished or modified to create the mosque.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The Babri Masjid was destroyed during a political rally on 6 December 1992 triggering riots all over the Indian subcontinent. Many attempts were thwarted previously, one of which led to the 1990 Ayodhya firing incident. A subsequent land title case was lodged in the Allahabad High Court, the verdict of which was pronounced on 30 September 2010. In the judgment, the three judges of the Allahabad High Court ruled that the of Ayodhya land be divided into three parts, with one third going to the Ram Lalla or Infant Rama represented by the Vishva Hindu Parishad, one third going to the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board, and the remaining third going to Nirmohi Akhara, a Hindu religious denomination. While the three-judge bench was not unanimous that the disputed structure was constructed after demolition of a temple, it did agree that a temple structure predated the mosque at the same site.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The five-judge Supreme Court bench heard the title dispute cases from August to October 2019. On 9 November 2019, the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, announced their verdict; it vacated the previous decision and ruled that the land belonged to the government based on tax records. It further ordered the land to be handed over to a trust to build the Hindu temple. It also ordered the government to give an alternate five-acre tract of land to the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board to build the mosque.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The Archaeological Survey of India during excavation of the site had found remains of a temple there which was later used as evidence in the Supreme Court of India.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: On 5 February 2020, the Government of India made an announcement for a trust named as Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra to reconstruct a Ram temple there. It also allocated an alternative site in Dhannipur, Ayodhya to build a mosque to replace the Babri Masjid that was demolished in 1992.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The land on which the medieval mosque, Babri Masjid, stood is traditionally considered by Hindus to be the birthplace of the Hindu deity, Rama, and is at the core of the Ayodhya dispute.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: Rama is one of the most widely worshipped Hindu deities and is considered the seventh incarnation of god Vishnu. According to the "Ramayana", Rama was a prince born in Ayodhya to parents Kaushalya and Dasharatha in the "Treta Yuga", that is thousands of years before the "Kali Yuga" which is supposed to have begun in 3102 BCE according to the Hindu tradition.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The "Ayodhya Mahatmya", described as a "pilgrimage manual" of Ayodhya, traced the growth of the sect in the second millennium CE. The original recension of the text, dated to the period between 11th and 14th centuries, mentions the "janmasthana" (birthplace) as a pilgrimage site. A later recension adds many more places in Ayodhya and the entire fortified town, labelled "Ramadurga" ("Rama's fort"), as pilgrimage sites.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: Babur was the first Mughal emperor of India and the founder of the Mughal empire. It is believed that one of his generals, Mir Baqi, built the Babri Masjid ("Babur's Mosque") in 1528 on his orders. The belief came into currency since 1813–14, when the East India Company's surveyor Francis Buchanan reported that he found an inscription on the mosque walls which attested to this fact. He also recorded the local tradition, which believed that emperor Aurangzeb () built the mosque after demolishing a temple dedicated to Rama.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The earliest historical record of a mosque comes from Jai Singh II, a Rajput noble in the Mughal court, who purchased the land of the mosque and the surrounding area in 1717. His documents show a three-domed structure resembling the mosque, which is however labelled the "birthplace" ("chhathi"). In the courtyard can be seen a platform ("chabutra") to which Hindu devotees are shown circumambulating and worshipping. All these details were corroborated by the Jesuit priest Joseph Tieffenthaler half a century later. Tieffenthaler also said that "The reason for this is that once upon a time, here was a house where Beschan [Vishnu] was born in the form of Ram."


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The "Baburnama", Babur's diary in which he meticulously documented his life, bears no mention of either the construction of a mosque in Ayodhya or the destruction of a temple for it. Neither do his grandson Akbar's court documents, the "Ain-i-Akbari", nor his contemporary Hindu poet-saint Tulsidas' epic poem "Ramcharitmanas", dedicated to the Hindu god Rama.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: Both the Hindus and Muslims are said to have worshipped at the "mosque-temple", Muslims inside the mosque and Hindus outside the mosque but inside the compound. In 1857 a British administrator had a railing erected between the two areas to prevent disputes. In 1949, after India's independence, an idol of Ram was placed inside the mosque, which triggered the dispute.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: In Buddha's time (600 BCE) the present-day Ayodhya was called "Saketa" and it was one of the 6 largest cities of North India. During the Gupta times, either Kumaragupta or Skandagupta made it their capital, after which it came to be called Ayodhya. Kalidasa wrote Raghuvamsa here, and referred to "Gopratara tirtha" (Guptar Ghat), where Rama was believed to have entered the waters of Saryu in his ascent to heaven. According to a local tradition recorded by Francis Buchanan and Alexander Cunningham, Ayodhya became desolate after Rama's ascent to heaven and "Vikramaditya" revived it. (In "Raghuvamsa", Rama's son "Kusa" revived it.) Prabhavatigupta, the daughter of Chandragupta II, was a Rama devotee. Her son, Pravarasena II wrote "Sethubandha", in which Rama is regarded as identical to Vishnu. He also built a temple to Rama at Pravarapura (Paunar near Ramtek) in about 450 CE.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: After the Guptas, the capital of North India moved to Kannauj and Ayodhya fell into relative neglect. It was revived by the Gahadavalas, coming to power in the 11th century CE. The Gahadavalas were Vaishnavas. They built several Vishnu temples in Ayodhya, five of which survived till Aurangzeb's reign. Indologist Hans T. Bakker concludes that there might have been a temple at the supposed birth spot of Rama built by the Gahadavalas. In subsequent years, the cult of Rama developed within Vaishnavism, with Rama being regarded as the foremost avatar of Vishnu. Consequently, Ayodhya's importance as a pilgrimage centre grew. In particular, multiple versions of "Ayodhya Mahatmya" (magical powers of Ayodhya) prescribed the celebration of "Ram Navami" (the birthday of Rama).


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: In modern times, a mosque was located at the supposed birth spot of Rama, which sat on a large mound in the centre of Ayodhya, called the "Ramadurg" or "Ramkot" (the fort of Rama). The mosque bore an inscription stating that it was built in 1528 by Mir Baqi on the orders of Babur.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: According to an early 20th century text by Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar and the surrounding historical sources examined by historian Harsh Narain,


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: the young Babur came from Kabul to Awadh (Ayodhya) in disguise, dressed as a "Qalandar" (Sufi ascetic), probably as part of a fact-finding mission. Here he met the Sufi saints "Shah Jalal" and "Sayyid Musa Ashiqan" and took a pledge in return for their blessings for conquering Hindustan. The pledge is not spelled out in the 1981 edition of Abdul Ghaffar's book, but it is made clear that it is in pursuance of this pledge that he got the Babri mosque constructed after conquering Hindustan. The original book was written in Persian by Maulvi Abdul Karim, a spiritual descendant of Musa Ashiqan, and it was translated into Urdu by Abdul Ghaffar, his grandson, with additional commentary. The older editions of Abdul Ghaffar's book contain more detail, which seems to have been excised in the 1981 edition.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: Lala Sita Ram of Ayodhya, who had access to the older edition in 1932, wrote, "The faqirs answered that they would bless him if he promised to build a mosque after demolishing the "Janmasthan" temple. Babur accepted the faqirs' offer and returned to his homeland."


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The fact that Babur came in the guise of a "Qalandar" is corroborated in Abdullah's "Tarikh-i Dawudi", where it is detailed that he met the Sultan Sikandar Lodhi in Delhi in the same disguise. The inscription on the Babri mosque also names him as "Babur Qalandar". Musa Ashiqan's grave is situated close to the Babri mosque site, whose shrine uses two of the same type of black basalt columns used in the Babri mosque, indicative of his role in the destruction of the prior temple.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: Tulsidas, who began writing the Ramcharit Manas in Ayodhya on Rama's birthday in 1574 (coming there from his normal residence in Varanasi) mentioned the "great birthday festival" in Ayodhya but made no mention of a mosque at Rama's birthplace. Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak (1551–1602), who wrote "Akbarnama", completing the third volume "Ain-i Akbari" in 1598, described the birthday festival in Ayodhya, the "residence of Rama" and the "holiest place of antiquity", but made no mention of a mosque. William Finch, the English traveller who visited Ayodhya around 1611, and wrote about the "ruins of the Ranichand [Ramachand] castle and houses" where Hindus believed the great God "took flesh upon him to see the "tamasha" of the world." He found "pandas" (Brahmin priests) in the ruins of the fort, who were recording the names of the pilgrims, a practice that was said to go back to antiquity. Again there was no mention of a mosque in his account.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The first known report of a mosque appears in a book "Sahifa-I-Chihil Nasaih Bahadur Shahi", said to have been written by a daughter of the emperor Bahadur Shah I (1643–1712) and granddaughter of emperor Aurangzeb, in the early 18th century. It mentioned mosques having been constructed after demolishing the "temples of the idolatrous Hindus situated at Mathura, Banaras and Awadh etc." Hindus are said to have called these demolished temples in Awadh ""Sita Rasoi"" (Sita's kitchen) and "Hanuman's abode". While there was no mention of Babur in this account, the Ayodhya mosque had been juxtaposed with those built by Aurangzeb at Mathura and Banaras.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: Jai Singh II (popularly called "Sawai Jai Singh", 1688–1743) purchased land and established "Jaisinghpuras" in all Hindu religious centres in North India, including Mathura, Vrindavan, Banaras, Allahabad, Ujjain and Ayodhya. The documents of these activities have been preserved in the Kapad-Dwar collection in the City Palace Museum in Jaipur. R. Nath, who has examined these records, concludes that Jai Singh had acquired the land of "Rama Janmasthan" in 1717. The ownership of the land was vested in the deity. The hereditary title of the ownership was recognized and enforced by the Mughal State from 1717. He also found a letter from a "gumastha" Trilokchand, dated 1723, stating that, while under the Muslim administration people had been prevented from taking a ritual bath in the Saryu river, the establishment of the "Jaisinghpura" has removed all impediments.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The Jesuit priest Joseph Tieffenthaler, who visited Awadh in 1766–1771, wrote, "Emperor Aurangzebe got the fortress called Ramcot demolished and got a Muslim temple, with triple domes, constructed at the same place. Others say that it was constructed by 'Babor'. Fourteen black stone pillars of 5 span high, which had existed at the site of the fortress, are seen there. Twelve of these pillars now support the interior arcades of the mosque." This ambiguity between Aurangzeb and Babur could be significant. Tieffenthaler also wrote that Hindus worshipped a square box raised 5 inches above the ground, which was said to be called the ""Bedi", i.e., the cradle", and "The reason for this is that once upon a time, here was a house where Beschan [Vishnu] was born in the form of Ram." He recorded that Rama's birthday was celebrated every year, with a big gathering of people, which was "so famous in the entire India".


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The first recorded instances of religious violence in Ayodhya occurred in the 1855. Certain "Sunnis claimed that the Bairagis of Hanumangarhi had destroyed a mosque that existed atop it. The Muslims charged on the Hanumangarhi but were repelled and routed. They hid inside the mosque of Babur that lay at a distance of less than a kilometre from Hanumangarhi." The Babri mosque was attacked by Hindus in the process. Since then, local Hindu groups made occasional demands that they should have the possession of the site and that they should be allowed to build a temple on the site, all of which were denied by the colonial government. In 1946, an offshoot of the Hindu Mahasabha called "Akhil Bharatiya Ramayana Mahasabha" (ABRM) started an agitation for the possession of the site. In 1949, Sant Digvijay Nath of Gorakhnath Math joined the ABRM and organised a 9-day continuous recitation of Ramcharit Manas, at the end of which the Hindu activists broke into the mosque and placed idols of Rama and Sita inside. People were led to believe that the idols had 'miraculously' appeared inside the mosque. The date of the event was 22 December 1949.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: Jawaharlal Nehru insisted that the idols should be removed. However, the local official K. K. K. Nair, known for his Hindu nationalist connections, refused to carry out orders, claiming that it would lead to communal riots. The police locked the gates so that the public (Hindus as well as Muslims) could not enter. However, the idols remained inside and priests were allowed entry to perform daily worship. So, the mosque had been converted into a "de facto" temple. Both the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board and the ABRM filed civil suits in a local court staking their respective claims to the site. The land was declared to be under dispute, and the gates remained locked.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: Christophe Jaffrelot has called the Gorakhnath wing of Hindu nationalism 'the other saffron', which has maintained its existence separately from the mainstream Hindu nationalism of the Sangh Parivar. After the Vishva Hindu Parishad was formed in 1964 and started agitating for the Babri Masjid site, the two strands of 'saffron politics' came together.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The district magistrate Nair, who refused to carry out orders, was eventually dismissed, but he became a local hero and subsequently a politician of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: In the 1980s, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), belonging to the mainstream Hindu nationalist family Sangh Parivar, launched a new movement to "reclaim" the site for Hindus and to erect a temple dedicated to the infant Rama (Ramlala) at this spot. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), formed in 1980 from the remnants of the Jana Sangh, became the political face of the campaign. In 1986, a district judge ruled that the gates would be reopened and Hindus permitted to worship inside, providing a major boost to the movement. In September 1990, BJP leader L. K. Advani began a ""rath yatra"" (pilgrimage procession) to Ayodhya in order to generate support for the movement. Advani later stated in his memoirs, "If Muslims are entitled to an Islamic atmosphere in Mecca, and if Christians are entitled to a Christian atmosphere in the Vatican, why is it wrong for the Hindus to expect a Hindu atmosphere in Ayodhya?" The yatra resulted in communal riots in many cities in its wake, prompting the government of Bihar to arrest Advani. In spite of this, a large number of 'kar sevaks' or Sangh Parivar activists reached Ayodhya and tried to attack the mosque. They were stopped by the Uttar Pradesh police and the paramilitary forces, resulting in a pitched battle in which several "kar sevaks" were killed. Accusing the central government led by V.P. Singh of being weak, the BJP withdrew its support, necessitating fresh elections. In these elections, the BJP won a majority in the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly increased its share of seats in the Lok Sabha.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: On 6 December 1992, the VHP and its associates, including the BJP, organised a rally involving 150,000 VHP and BJP "kar sevaks" at the site of the mosque. The ceremonies included speeches by the BJP leaders such as Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti. The mob grew restive through the duration of the speeches, and stormed the mosque shortly after noon. A police cordon placed there to protect the mosque was heavily outnumbered. The mosque was attacked with a number of improvised tools, and brought to the ground in a few hours. This occurred despite a commitment from the state government to the Indian Supreme Court that the mosque would not be harmed. More than 2000 people were killed in the riots following the demolition. Riots broke out in many major Indian cities including Mumbai, Bhopal, Delhi and Hyderabad.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: On 16 December 1992, the Liberhan Commission was set up by the Government of India to probe the circumstances that led to the demolition of the Babri Mosque. It was the longest running commission in India's history with several extensions granted by various governments. The report found a number of people culpable in the demolition, including BJP leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, Pramod Mahajan, Uma Bharti and Vijayaraje Scindia, as well as VHP leaders like Giriraj Kishore and Ashok Singhal. Other prominent political leaders indicted by the commission include late Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray and former RSS leader K. N. Govindacharya. Relying on the testimonies of several eyewitnesses, the report stated that many of these leaders had made provocative speeches at the rally that provoked the demolition. It also stated that they could have stopped the demolition if they had so wished.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: Many Muslim organisations have continued to express outrage at the destruction of the disputed structure. In July 2005, terrorists attacked the makeshift temple at the site of the destroyed mosque. In 2007, M. N. Gopal Das, the then head of the Ram temple, received phone calls making threats against his life. Many terror attacks by banned jihadi outfits like Indian Mujahideen cited the demolition of Babri Mosque as an excuse for terrorist attacks.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: Several years later mosques were built in the Faizabad district, in which the pilgrim city of Ayodhya falls. Ayodhya itself has a small Muslim population, though there are substantial numbers of Muslims 7 km away at District Headquarters – Faizabad.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: Since 1949, by Indian Government order, Muslims were not permitted to be closer than 200 yards away to the site; the main gate remained locked, though Hindu pilgrims were allowed to enter through a side door.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The 1986 Allahabad High Court ordered the opening of the main gate and restored the site in full to the Hindus. Hindu groups later requested modifications to the Babri Mosque, and drew up plans for a new grand Temple with Government permissions; riots between Hindu and Muslim groups took place as a result, and the dispute became sub-judice. The political, historical and socio-religious debate over the history and location of the Babri Mosque, is known as the Ayodhya dispute.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: In 2003, by the order of an Indian High Court, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was asked to conduct a more in-depth study and an excavation to ascertain whether the type of structure that was beneath the rubble indicated definite proof of a temple under the mosque. However, it could not be ascertained if it was a Rama temple, as the remnants had more resemblance to a Shiva temple. In the words of ASI researchers, they discovered "distinctive features associated with... temples of north India". Excavations further yielded:


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: One of the judges of the Allahabad High Court in 2010 criticised the independent experts who had appeared on behalf of the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board including Suvira Jaiswal, Supriya Verma, Shireen F. Ratnagar and Jaya Menon. The witnesses withered under scrutiny and were discovered to have made "reckless and irresponsible kind of statements". He also pointed out that the independent witnesses were all connected, while adding that their opinions were offered without making a proper investigation, research or study into the subject.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: Udit Raj's Buddha Education Foundation claimed that the structure excavated by ASI in 2003 was a Buddhist stupa destroyed during and after the Muslim invasion of India.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The excavations by the ASI were used as evidence by the court that the predating structure was a massive Hindu religious building.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: Aligarh Historians Society has criticized both the ASI and the Allahabad High Court Judgement on several grounds. First, Justice Agarwal concluded that inscriptions on the Babri Masjid that attribute the Masjid to Babar are not genuine in favor of an omission in account by Fr. Joseph Tieffenthaler to conclude that Mir Baki does not exist and the mosque was constructed by Aurangzeb instead of Babur. However, omissions of this kind "are hardly every given credence" in history. Moreover, Justice Agarwal wrongly concludes that Mir Baqi is a fictional character because he could not find the person ‘Mir Baqi Isfahani’ or ‘Mir Baqi’ in Babur's Memoirs. Habib et al. (2010) argue that `Baqi Tashkandi` and `Baqi Shagawal` are the same person as `Mir Baqi` on the inscriptions. Similarly, ASI professionalism has been criticized for not tabulating the contrarian evidence like animal bones and glazed pottery in spite of explicit instructions from the courts. ASI has also been criticized for ignoring or selecting loose group of brickbats as pillar bases to support their theory of temple beneath the mosque.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: In 1950, Gopal Singh Visharad filed a title suit with the Allahabad High Court seeking injunction to offer 'puja' (worship) at the disputed site. A similar suit was filed shortly after but later withdrawn by Paramhans Das of Ayodhya. In 1959, the Nirmohi Akhara, a Hindu religious institution, filed a third title suit seeking direction to hand over the charge of the disputed site, claiming to be its custodian. A fourth suit was filed by the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board for declaration and possession of the site. The Allahabad high court bench, comprising justices S. U. Khan, Sudhir Agarwal and D. V. Sharma, began hearing the case in April 2002, which it would complete by 2010. In 2003, the Archaeological Survey of India began a court-ordered survey to determine if a temple to Lord Rama existed on the site; the survey said there was evidence of a temple beneath the mosque, but this was disputed by Muslims. After the Supreme Court dismissed a plea to defer the High Court verdict, on 30 September 2010, the High Court of Allahabad, the three-member bench ruled that the disputed land be split into three parts. The site of the Ramlala idol would go to the party representing "Ram Lalla Virajman" (the installed Infant Ram deity), Nirmohi Akhara to get Sita Rasoi and Ram Chabutara, and the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board to get the rest. The court also ruled that the status quo should be maintained for three months. All the three parties appealed against the division of disputed land in the Supreme Court.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The Supreme Court (SC) held final hearing on the case from 6 August 2019 to 16 October 2019. The bench reserved the final judgment and granted three days to contesting parties to file written notes on 'moulding of relief' or narrowing down the issues on which the court is required to adjudicate.


title: Ayodhya dispute

text: The final judgement in the Supreme Court was declared on 9 November 2019. The Supreme Court ordered the land to be handed over to a trust to build the Hindu temple. It also ordered the government to give an alternate 5 acres of land to the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board for the purpose of building a mosque. The court has said in its verdict that the Nirmohi Akhara is not a shebait or devotee of the deity Ram Lalla and the Akhara's suit was barred by limitation.


title: Hannah Storm

text: Hannah Lynn Storen Hicks (born June 13, 1962), known professionally as Hannah Storm, is an American television sports journalist, serving as the anchor of ESPN's "SportsCenter" Face to Face. She was also host of the "NBA Countdown" pregame show on ABC as part of the network's National Basketball Association (NBA) Sunday game coverage. She is also the play-by-play announcer on Amazon Prime Video during Thursday Night Football with Andrea Kremer.


title: Hannah Storm

text: Storm was born in Oak Park, Illinois, and is the daughter of sports executive Mike Storen, who was a commissioner of the American Basketball Association, general manager of that league's Indiana Pacers, Kentucky Colonels and Memphis Sounds franchises, and president of the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA. Her mother, Hannah G. Storen, is a real estate broker. Storm graduated from The Westminster Schools, in Atlanta, Georgia, and in 1983 from the University of Notre Dame.


title: Hannah Storm

text: Storm took her on-air name during her stint as a disc jockey for a hard rock radio station in Corpus Christi, Texas, in the early 1980s. While at Notre Dame, she worked for WNDU-TV, the then-Notre Dame-owned NBC affiliate in South Bend, Indiana. After graduation, she took a job as a disc jockey at KNCN (C-101) in Corpus Christi, Texas. Six months later, she got a job at a Houston rock station KSRR 97 Rock as the drive-time sportscaster and traffic reporter


title: Hannah Storm

text: Storm's national experience began as the first female host on "CNN Sports Tonight" from 1989 to 1992. She also hosted "Major League Baseball Preview" and reported from spring training, the playoffs, and the Daytona 500. In addition, she hosted the 1990 Goodwill Games for TBS.


title: Hannah Storm

text: In May 1992, Storm left CNN and was hired by NBC. She hosted for the Olympic Games, as well as NBA and WNBA basketball, the National Football League, figure skating and Major League Baseball. Storm became the first woman in American television history to act as solo host of a network's sports package when she hosted NBC Major League Baseball games from 1994 to 2000 (CBS' Andrea Joyce preceded her, but co-hosted the sports packages). She then hosted "The NBA on NBC" from 1997 to 2002. Storm also anchored NBC Sports coverage of Wimbledon, French Open, Notre Dame football, World Figure Skating Championships, NBC SportsDesk, Men's and Women's U.S. Open (golf) and various college bowl games. Storm was also the first play-by-play announcer for the WNBA in 1997.


title: Hannah Storm

text: In October 2002, she moved to CBS News and became one of the hosts of "The Early Show". As co-host of "The Early Show", she covered major news events, including the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, Super Bowls XLI and XXXVIII, the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections, and the 2005 London terrorist bombings. Storm has interviewed major newsmakers such as President George W. Bush, First Lady Laura Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Senators John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as many sports and pop culture icons, including Elton John, Paul McCartney, Peyton Manning, Tiger Woods, Jamie Foxx, Halle Berry and Jennifer Aniston.


title: Hannah Storm

text: In addition to her duties on "The Early Show", Storm hosted shows for the award-winning CBS newsmagazine, "48 Hours". She also served as co-host of the network's "CBS Thanksgiving Day Parade" for five years. In 2007, Storm conceived and wrote a daily blog for CBSNews.com, which featured behind-the-scenes insight and stories of inspirational women.


title: Hannah Storm

text: During an "Early Show" on-air segment, Storm revealed on camera that she had a congenital defect known as port-wine stain under her left eye.


title: Hannah Storm

text: In November 2007, CBS announced that Storm was leaving "The Early Show". Storm's last day as an "Early Show" co-host was December 7, 2007.


title: Hannah Storm

text: Storm joined ESPN on May 10, 2008. She anchors "SportsCenter" weekdays (except Fridays during the NFL season) from 9 am until noon and on Sunday mornings during the NFL season with Bob Ley. Her duties are to deliver highlights and to question analysts about sports topics.


title: Hannah Storm

text: In August 2009, she added tennis host to her ESPN duties by co-hosting the 2009 U.S. Open with Mike Tirico and Chris Fowler. She also co-hosted the 2010 U.S. Open, 2011 Wimbledon and the 2011 U.S. Open.


title: Hannah Storm

text: In February 2010, fellow ESPN colleague Tony Kornheiser criticized her outfit that day on his radio show, saying that her outfit looked like "a sausage casing", and was suspended from ESPN for two weeks. He later apologized to her via a 15-minute phone conversation.


title: Hannah Storm

text: Beginning on April 3, 2010, Storm would host "ESPN Sports Saturday", a show on corporate sibling ABC similar to that network's classic sports series, "Wide World of Sports".


title: Hannah Storm

text: In June 2010, alongside fellow anchor Stuart Scott, Storm provided pregame coverage for the 2010 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers. She later became host of the "NBA Countdown" pregame show for the 2010–2011 season, alternating with Stuart Scott, until the 2011–12 NBA season.


title: Hannah Storm

text: When Scott died in 2015, Storm was tasked with announcing the news on "SportsCenter". She nearly broke down during the segment. On August 10, 2016, she also announced the death of another colleague, John Saunders, while airing live from Olympics coverage in Rio de Janeiro.


title: Hannah Storm

text: In 2018, Storm and Andrea Kremer became the first female duo to call an NFL game, which they did for an Amazon Prime stream of "Thursday Night Football".


title: Hannah Storm

text: On January 8, 1994, Storm married sportscaster Dan Hicks. The couple have three daughters together. Storm is Catholic.


title: Hannah Storm

text: Storm was born with a large port-wine stain birthmark under her left eye which she talks about publicly in order to raise awareness about the condition. In 2008 Storm created the Hannah Storm Foundation, which raises awareness and provides treatment for children suffering from debilitating and disfiguring vascular birthmarks. She also sits on the boards of the Tribeca Film Festival, Colgate Women's Sports Awards, 21st Century Kids 1st Foundation, and has done extensive work with the March of Dimes, Partnership for a Drug-Free America, Boys and Girls Club, Special Olympics, the Women's Sports Foundation, Vascular Birthmark Institute, University of Notre Dame and the Diocese of Bridgeport. Storm also founded "Brainstormin' Productions" for the creation of educational and inspirational programming. In May 2011, Storm received "Celebrated Mom" award from LifeWorx, Inc., Chappaqua, New York. This award is given to a mother who inspires others, in spite of career and family challenges.


title: Hannah Storm

text: Storm has also contributed extensively to several magazines, including "Cosmopolitan", "Nick Jr.", "Family Circle", "Child" and "Notre Dame Magazine".


title: Hannah Storm

text: On December 11, 2012, Storm sustained second-degree burns to her chest and hands, and first-degree burns to her neck and face resulting from a propane-gas grill accident at her home. Her 15-year-old daughter alerted authorities to the accident. Storm lost her eyebrows, eyelashes and roughly half her hair. After receiving medical care from the Burn Center at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York, Storm returned to the air January 1, 2013, co-hosting the Rose Parade on ABC while wearing a bandage on her left hand and sporting hair extensions, and returned to "SportsCenter" on January 13, 2013, to host the Sunday-morning edition with Bob Ley.


title: Kenpachi Zaraki

text: Kenpachi has a wild and aggressive appearance, fitting with his personality. He wears his captain's jacket without sleeves, and with a more ragged look to it. He acquired his Haori from the previous 11th Division captain, whom he defeated and killed in a duel in order to become captain. He styles his hair into liberty spikes with bells at the tips, which, Tite Kubo has remarked, makes his hair one of the most difficult to draw in the series. He also wears a special eyepatch on his right eye lined with a strange creatures mouths; the eyepatch was created by the 12th Division. It absorbs the bulk of his power. Both of these are meant to give enemies an advantage, similar to his habit of fighting one-handed, since in an unhandicapped state he would defeat them so quickly that he would not be able to enjoy himself sufficiently to delve into a state of bloodlust, that being what he treasures most. He has a huge scar on the left side of his face, apparently gained well before his time in Soul Society (and even before finding Yachiru).


title: Kenpachi Zaraki

text: Despite his initial introduction as a lethal foe, Zaraki later begins to play the role of the antihero in "Bleach": though still self-centered and violent, his actions tend to be for the best and his relationship with his division and others. This shift is primarily centered around his appearances in the "Bleach" anime and omake stories, with the exception of the occasional diatribe between himself and Yachiru. He is depicted as having a very poor sense of direction, and is often depicted in omake stories asking his lieutenant Yachiru for directions to a particular place (who then randomly points in a direction even though she herself has a terrible sense of direction as well).


title: Kenpachi Zaraki

text: Kenpachi lives for battle (evidenced by his method of attaining his rank) and enjoys a good fight more than anything. He restrains himself in battle in order to prolong and savor the fight. Kenpachi believes that injury and death are nothing more than the price one pays for a good fight. Despite his squad's reputation as the most bloodthirsty of the Gotei 13, they have their own code of ethics, different from the set rules of Soul Society, fitting with Zaraki's portrayal as a free spirit. On various occasions, Kenpachi is seen putting fun before work. Despite his violent tendencies, Zaraki will usually give up on a fight if his opponent is too injured to fight back, claiming that the fight is no longer fun. However, he will unhesitatingly kill his opponent if they refuse to end their fight on his terms as seen during his battles with Tōsen and Nnoitora.


title: Kenpachi Zaraki

text: Prior to entering the Soul Reaper ranks, Zaraki resided in District 80, the most lawless district surrounding the Soul Society. He became very proficient with swordsmanship, or at least fighting, while he was there, and eventually adopted the district's name, "Zaraki", as his surname. He also took a "Zanpakutō" still in its "Asauchi" state from a corpse and made the weapon his own, though unable to hear its spiritual embodiment. During that time, he met a kindred spirit in Squad 4's Retsu "Yachiru" Unohana, both leaving their opponent with a scar during their duel. After leaving the district he found a small girl who, despite her young age, did not fear his sword. Since she had no name, unaware that she is actually a manifestation of his "Zanpakutō", Zaraki named her "Yachiru" after Unohana while christening himself "Kenpachi", Unohana's title which has been associated with one who has killed many. Yachiru became inseparable from Zaraki from that point further, following him wherever he went, usually clinging to his back.


title: Kenpachi Zaraki

text: After some time had passed, Kenpachi found his way into Soul Society and killed the previous captain of the 11th Division, thus gaining his seat in the Gotei 13. As a new captain, Zaraki was begrudgingly forced to learn Kendo, something he hated because it personified his skills, although he did agree on one point: a blade swung with both arms is more powerful than with one arm. such as he made it a point to avoid using it in battle in order to prolong the experience of fighting as long as possible.


title: Kenpachi Zaraki

text: After Ichigo Kurosaki and his friends arrive in Soul Society, Zaraki begins to hunt for the strongest fighter in their group before finding Ichigo. After a short skirmish, Zaraki stabs Ichigo's sword while stabbing him in the chest, seemingly killing him. as Kenpachi begins to walk away, when Ichigo stands up again, healed by the power of Zangetsu. During the fight, Ichigo becomes enough of a challenge that Zaraki removes his eyepatch, thus releasing the extra power it has been devouring. As they rush at each other, the exchange itself ends in a draw, with Ichigo falling first and Zaraki shortly after, both admitting defeat (though Zaraki's sword breaks in the end, after it is deflected by the sudden manifestation of Ichigo's hollow mask, which spared the latter from death). Zaraki later admits that he lost, but he needs to get stronger and pay Ichigo back. He finds himself happy he found someone strong to fight, before falling unconscious. He then decides to help Ichigo and frees his friends from imprisonment. Much later on, while searching for Ichigo with his friends in tow, they are headed off by 7th and 9th Division members. Zaraki battles their captains Sajin Komamura and Kaname Tōsen respectively, defeating Tōsen and fighting off Komamura before Komamura runs away to find Shigekuni Yamamoto Genryūsai. He does not see Ichigo and his friends off when they leave the Soul Society. He tells Yachiru that he and Ichigo will certainly meet again because they are the only ones who are what they seem to be. Kenpachi also helps fight off the Bount invasion and successfully defeats Maki Ichinose, a former member of his own squad who left after Kenpachi killed the former captain.


title: Kenpachi Zaraki

text: During the Arrancar arc, Zaraki appears to Ichigo as his instinct and desire to win, explaining to him that they were both the type of people who live to fight (or fight to live) battle after battle. After Orihime is taken to Hueco Mundo, Zaraki arrives with Byakuya Kuchiki to retrieve Tōshirō Hitsugaya's group and bring them back to Soul Society. Later, in Hueco Mundo, Kenpachi comes to Ichigo's aid during his battle with Nnoitra's Fracción Tesla, dealing the Arrancar a mortal blow with a single strike and then engaging the Espada Nnoitra in battle. Despite having ""more fun than he has had in a long time,"" he suffers enough injuries to realize that he may die if the fight continues. Kenpachi begins to have a few flashbacks to his Kendo training as he would grip his sword with two hands to deal Nnoitra a vicious, incapacitating blow. Unfortunately for Nnoitra during the ensuing fight Zaraki's eye-patch, which is a special seal that strongly 'consumes' his Spirit Pressure (this way battles will last longer allowing him to have more fun), is cut off allowing Kenpachi to fight at full power. When Nnoitra refuses to accept defeat and charges Kenpachi , the latter kills him with another strike. Zaraki then stands over Nnoitra's corpse, telling him their battle "was a blast". He later appears to save Ichigo from the Cero Espada Yammy by cutting off one of his legs, and further engaging him in combat with Byakuya Kuchiki. When it seems that Kenpachi and Byakuya are about to defeat him, Yammy undergoes a new transformation. as Byakuya and Zaraki ultimately defeat their opponent, though Kenpachi thought the fight was quite "boring". He is last seen being reprimanded by the Captain-Commander for losing his captain's haori in battle.


title: Kenpachi Zaraki

text: Seventeen months after the fight with Sōsuke Aizen, Kenpachi, along with all the other high-ranking members of the Gotei 13, are ordered to restore Ichigo's reiatsu. as he arrives with Byakuya, Hitsugaya, Ikkaku, Rukia, and Renji to aid in fighting Xcution. Kenpachi is engaged by Giriko Kutsuzawa and quickly slices the Fullbringer in half, finding him "boring".


title: Kenpachi Zaraki

text: After these events, a group of Quincy called the Wandenreich to appear and send their invading force of Sternritter to take over Soul Society. Zaraki manages to single-handedly kill Berenice Gabrielli, Jerome Quizbatt, and Loyd Lloyd without much difficulty. Kenpachi then confronts Yhwach, revealed to be Loyd's twin brother Royd Lloyd in disguise, and is defeated. After the Wandenreich leaves, Zaraki recovers and engages Unohana in what both expect to be a fight to the death, in order to train him in dealing with the Wandenreich. Despite being brought to the brink of death several times, and Captain Unohana finally releasing her Bankai, Zaraki ultimately cuts down Unohana, subsequently hearing his "Zanpakutō" and learning its name: . During the Wandenreich's second invasion, Zaraki uses Nozarashi's ax-like Shikai form against the Sternritter Gremmy Thoumeaux in an exhausting flight that leaves at the mercy of a quartet of female Sternritters before Ichigo saves him. After being healed twice, the second time being a consequence of being incapacitated while fighting Pernida, Zaraki joins Hitsugaya and Byakuya against Gerard. During the fight, as Yachiru reveals her true identity and sacrifices herself to awaken his full power, Zaraki manifests his "Zanpakutō"'s Bankai form to overwhelm the Sternritter before his body begins to suffer from the strain caused by using the Bankai. He later helps in holding down Gerard for Hitsugaya and Byakuya to land the death blow. Ten years after the war, having become more composed with Ikkaku as his new vice-captain, Zaraki is last seen getting himself lost while attempting to attend Rukia's captain ceremony.


title: Kenpachi Zaraki

text: Zaraki appears in the second session of "Bleach: Beat Collection", together with Yachiru, Ikkaku, and Yumichika. He has a minor role in the "Bleach" OVA, and also appears briefly in "", making sport of one of the Dark Ones. He also appears in , being the first to charge in and attack Sōjirō's new dragon form; he helps out in the final battle as well. In the , he fought an altered Mayuri Kurotsuchi and was consumed by white substance that immobilized him for much of the movie. He was finally released in a fashion and aids in the final battle. Kenpachi also appears in most of the "Bleach" video games. He also appears in four of the Rock Musical Bleach performances: Dark of the Bleeding Moon, No Clouds in the Blue Heavens, The All, and Live Bankai Show Code 002. He is portrayed by Shōgo Suzuki.