Many ancient civilizations have a flood story in their mythology. There is the story of Noah’s Ark in Judeo-Christian countries and Sumerians have the Epic of Gilgamesh. In Hinduism we have the story of Manu.
It is amazing that countries spread so far apart have such similar stories and it does not end there. Another similarity is in the stories of children who were floated in baskets down rivers. Yocheved put her son Moses in a small ark and placed it on the river in which the Pharaoah’s daughter bathed. In Mahabharata, Kunti did a similar thing and sent Karna floating down the river.
The book I am reading The Fourteen Dalai Lamas: A Sacred Legacy of Reincarnation has a similar story about King Nyatri Tsanpo, regarded as Tibet’s first recorded monarch. King Tsanpo was Indian by birth, descended from a Licchavi king. When he was born, he had many unusual signs in his body and hence his father put him in a casket and sent him river rafting down the Ganges. The child was rescued by a farmer, and later when he came to know his trip down the river, he was overcome with grief and fled to the Himalayas. He arrived at the Yarlung valley in Tibet and later became the King.

Lahore, Pakistan, was founded by Loh (Lav), the son of Lord Rama and there is a temple in Lahore fort dedicated to him. After being closed for many years, the dungeons of Lahore fort and the temple are going to be opened for public.

The temple was named after Loh, a Hindu prince, the founder of Lahore and one of the two sons of Rama, the hero of Ramayana. Kush, Rama

Professor Zemaryali Tarzi has made it his life’s mission to find the third reclining Buddha at Bamiyan. Information about this reclining Buddha comes from the notes of Huen Tsang, who traveled to India as well.

To some, the search is a quixotic one. If the ancient Chinese pilgrim is to be believed, the sleeping Buddha is almost as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall. How could such a monumental structure disappear underground, some ask, and how could it be salvageable if it still exists?
Tarzi has possible answers: The statue could have been deliberately buried centuries ago by devotees to protect it from invading Muslim armies, or it could have been covered after a major earthquake. But more important, his team has begun uncovering at the site clay figures and sophisticated structures that lend support to his grand theory.
Last summer, the dig uncovered a wall that Tarzi is convinced is part of the ancient monastery that housed the huge statue. Excavators have also discovered several dozen sculptures of Buddha heads and other statue fragments, some dating to as far back as the 3rd century — when Bamian was growing as a Buddhist center. At the very end of the digging season, Tarzi found evidence as well of what he believes may be part of a huge statuary foot.
He is aware of the professional skepticism surrounding his quest — some have said the reported size of the structure has been misunderstood, while others suggest that the reclining “statue” may have been an outcropping of rock that reminded the religious of a sleeping Buddha — but he insists the evidence is clear. [Afghan Archaeologist Seeks Sleeping Buddha]

During the weekend, I met Nadia Tarzi, daughter of Zemaryali Tarzi, the archaeologist mentioned in the above story. She has now started the Association for the protection of Afghan Archaeology which aims to raise awareness of Afghan Culture.
I asked her if the only information for this Buddha was from Huen Tsang and she said that’s the only one they know. Huen Tsang was very accurate in his descriptions about the standing Buddhas and their dimensions and hence they believe the reclining Buddha should exist as well. For example, here at Varnam we have reported about the findings at Sirpur which was described in the writings of Huen Tsang. But Nadia Tarzi would like to know if there are any other ancient works which mention this Buddha.
Related Links: Along Huen Tsang’s path, Buddha’s Foot

Recently many burrial urns were discovered in various parts of Tamil Nadu. While the ones discovered in Palani were about 2000 years old, the ones in Adichanallur date to 800 BC.
The most recent issue of Archaeology Magazine has an article on the Warriors of Paros, a Greek Island in the Aegean Sea. Here too archaeologists found the remains of soldiers in urns.

Soldiers’ bones in urns–evidence of a forgotten battle fought around 730 B.C. Did these men perish on their island home of Paros, at the center of the Aegean Sea, or in some distant land? The loss of so many, at least 120 men, was certainly a catastrophe for the community, but their families and compatriots honored them, putting their cremated remains into large vases, two of which were decorated with scenes of mourning and war. Grief-stricken relatives then carried the urns to the cemetery in Paroikia, the island’s chief city, and placed them in two monumental tombs. [Warriors of Paros]

While the urns in Adichanallur had beautiful decorations of garlands and necklaces, the ones in Greece depicts war scenes. One vase showed a warrior fighting from a chariot with dead combatants lying next to him. It also shows foot soldiers and cavalry in action. A second vase shows war and mourning with women standing with their hands raised and men giving a salute to the dead.

Did the Romans ever reach China ? This is a new theory which has approval by the communist party as well.

The earliest recorded official contact between China and Rome did not occur until 166AD, when, according to a Chinese account, a Roman envoy arrived in China, possibly sent by Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Remarkably, that was the only contact between the two great powers of which a record survives. The Romans referred to the people of the remote east as the Seres

Yesterday there was a news on the discovery of a linga in Vietnam in the Cham community. The first religion of Cham was Shaivite Hinduism.

In the midst of modern day Vietnam, some distinct touches of India remain. These are artefacts of the Cham civilisation that flourished in central Vietnam from the 2nd to 15th century AD. Indian influence in Vietnam spread through its linkages with this dynasty.
The Chams became Indianised through commercial links with India – they adopted Hinduism, employed Sanskrit as a sacred language and borrowed heavily from Indian art. The effects of these are evident in the Cham monuments in the Quang Nam province, 700 km from capital Hanoi.
The Chams battled constantly with the Vietnamese in the north of their kingdom and the Khmers (in modern Cambodia) in the west. The Chams threw off Khmer rule in the 12th century but were entirely absorbed by Vietnam in the 17th century. One of the greatest Cham sites, My Son, is considered the equivalent of Angkor Vat, Cambodia, in terms of archaeological importance. It became a religious centre under King Bhadravarman in the late fourth century. Most of the temples were dedicated to Lord Shiva.
The Vietnam war destroyed My Son – the temples and ruins bombed to bits. Today they require extensive restoration work. A proposal for cooperation between India and Vietnam for restoration and conservation of Cham monuments is being considered by the Archaeological Survey of India. The Cham monuments of My Son have been declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco. The greatest collection of the Cham ruins is at the Cham Museum in Danang. [India lives on in ancient Vietnamese ruins]

Cultural officials have recently found a linga (phallic symbol) of the Cham ethnic minority people at Van Tuong village, Nghia Dung commune in central Quang Ngai province.
The 35-cm-high linga made from sandstone weighs around 100 kg. It is the second found in Quang Ngai province, providing a link to a cluster of towers of the Cham ethnic minority people in the locality. Archaeologist Dr. Doan Ngoc Khoi said the discovery of linga in Quang Ngai reflects the diversity of the Cham Pa culture of the Cham ethnic minority people in Quang Ngai.
Quang Ngai is home to two ancient citadels, namely Chau Sa at Tinh Chau commune in Son Tinh district and Ban Co at Nghia Phu commune in Tu Nghia district, and around 40 towers of the Cham ethnic minority people scattered around the area that have so far been ruined by the climate. Around 80 years ago in 1924, the French found a linga and a yoni during an excavation in Chanh Lo, Quang Ngai township, and these are now exhibited at the Cham museum in the central city of Da Nang. [New linga found in Quang Ngai province]

There is no picture of the linga and hence we don’t know if it was influenced by the Siva Linga worshipped by the Hindus.

Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code generated lot of controversies regarding the marital status of Jesus. To find more about this ABC News sent a reporter to various places mentioned in the book and interviewed people like Dan Brown, priests, art and historical scholars for the documentary ABC News Presents: Jesus, Mary and DaVinci
The first issue was if Mary Magdalene was a prostitute as popularly known. In this case everyone unanimously agreed that nowhere in the Bible it is mentioned so. There is one tale about a prostitute and immediately following that Mary is mentioned. So it could be be association that Mary was turned into a prostitute. Also to speed things up Pope Gregory gave a sermon in 591 AD in which he said that Mary was a prostitute. The Vatican corrected it later in 1969, 1378 years later.
In the novel it is mentioned that Jesus was married. But in the Bible it is not mentioned that he is married. It is not mentioned that he is unmarried too. The opinion of various people was that his marital status could have been either.
Dan Brown then mentions that he was taking some classes and his teacher showed him Da Vinci’s Last Supper. The teacher then asked them to find the cup from which all of them drank and it was then that he noticed that there was no cup. Then it was mentioned that the holy grail was in the painting and it was the person sitting next to Jesus.
But there were some art historians who disagreed with this and said that it was actually male and not Mary. Dan Brown adds that during the time of Da Vinci it was not wise to disagree with the Church and he used his art to convey his belief.
Another point in the novel was that Jesus and Mary had a child who grew up in France. In this documentary they could not find any evidence of this.
While the church accepted certain gospels, some of them were rejected as well. But one of them survived in Egypt and is called the gnostic gospels. In the gnostic gospels, it is mentioned that Jesus kissed Mary and they were very close. Even after resurrection, it was Mary who saw Jesus signifying that she was the favourite.
Finally the documentary concludes that they could not find evidence that Jesus was married and had children. But they found that Mary was much closer to Jesus that is known.

While we only have seen pictures of the two Bamiyan Buddhas, archaeologists have been looking for a missing third reclining Buddha. Now they seem to have uncovered the long-missing statue’s foot.

Two years ago, a French team led by the Afghan-born archeologist Zemaryali Tarzi of Strasbourg University began excavations for the 985-foot-long reclining statue representing the Buddha in a state of “Mahapari nirvana,” or ultimate enlightenment.The dig finally may have yielded something promising. “Professor Tarzi has found a structure which has still to be properly identified but which could be part of the foot of the Sleeping Buddha, maybe the toe,” said Masanori Nagaoka, UNESCO’s Kabul-based culture consultant. “Alternatively, the structure could be the platform on which the giant statue reclined,” he added. [Find stirs Sleeping Buddha talk]

And at the same time the Kiwis are helping to piece back the two statues that were destroyed.

The Bactrian Gold which is speculated to be burried by Bactrian nomads in the first century CE was discovered in 1978. It survived the Soviet invasion, the warring mujahadeen factions and the Taliban rule and was found again in 2003. Recently an inventory was conducted and everything was found to be intact.

In ancient times, Bactrian civilization rivaled that of Mesopotamia. It was a fertile agricultural oasis and a thoroughfare on the Silk Road. Iranian, Indian, Central Asian, Chinese, Greek, Roman, and nomadic cultures encountered one another on the plains and in the capital of Balkh, which the Arabs called “the Mother of Towns.” Artistic and cultural styles fused. Zoroaster first preached monotheism there and King Kanishka commissioned the first human representations of the Buddha there. The poet known as Rumi wrote verses there, and Marco Polo traversed the city on his path to China.

The region was colonized repeatedly. Alexander the Great came to conquer this easternmost outpost of his empire, the last Persian province to fall, and made it his base; his inheritor later traded it to the Indian Mauryan dynasty for five hundred elephants and a princess. Genghis Khan destroyed it with his horde of ten thousand men in the early thirteenth century. “With one stroke a world which billowed with fertility was laid desolate,” the chronicler Juvaini wrote three decades later. And Babur, the founder of the Moguls and a descendent of Genghis Khan, seized the region before he moved on to conquer India.

The treasure may eventually reveal new information about the mysterious span of time between the decline of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom and the rise of the great Kushan Empire. The trove contains many unusual objects. One gold coin resembles no numismatic collection in the world: it depicts a man resting on the Wheel of Dharma, and on the reverse, a lion with a raised paw. Sarianidi hypothesizes that it was minted by the Greco-Bactrian King Agathocles during the interval between Greek and Kushan control.

Another gold coin is stamped with the profile of the Roman emperor Tiberius, minted in Lugdunum in Gaul between 16 and 21 C.E.–the first coin of its kind found in all of Central Asia. Other provocative objects prompt questions about the mingling and syncretism of artistic styles: brooches and figurines depicting Aphrodite show a Kushan interpretation of the goddess’s features–small-breasted, round-bellied, and more serious than her Greek counterpart–but she stands with one arm resting on a column, as was the Hellenistic fashion. [ An Ancient Afghan Treasure is Recovered]

The Los Angeles Times has an article on the Bactrian Gold with some pictures of the treasure. This month’s National Geographic too has an article on Afghan Culture. (links via India Archaeology)