Category: History: India

Tamil-Brahmi in Thailand

Even though the Harappas had a script it still remains undeciphered. Brāhmī, the script in which the Asokan edicts were written is considered to be one of the earliest known scripts in India. While some Indian authorities maintain that it was derived from the Harappan script [13], the popular notion is that it was derived from a Semitic script like the Imperial Aramaic alphabet. Indo-Greek bi-lingual coins usually had  the name of the King in Greek on one side and in Brāhmī on the other side.

The script used in the earliest inscriptions in Tamil were in Tamil Brahmi or Tamili script and it varied from the Asokan Brahmi. The Brāhmī script, originally was believed to be bought to South India by Buddhist and Jain monks in the post-Asokan period. Tamil Brahmi scripts dating to 3rd century BCE have been found in the caves of Jain monks in Tamil Nadu. Last year, urns containing human skeletons were found in Adichanallur in Tamil Nadu and those urns dating to 500 BCE were found to have Tamil Brāhmī inscriptions which means that the script reached Tamil Nadu during the time of the Buddha. In fact, there has been evidence that the script reached Sri Lanka also around the same time.

Now in an exciting discovery, Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions dating to second century AD have been found in pottery in Thailand.

At the request of the archaeologists, Iravatham Mahadevan, an expert in Tamil Epigraphy, has examined the inscription. He has confirmed that the pottery inscription is in Tamil and written in Tamil-Brahmi characters of about the second century AD. Only three letters have survived on the pottery fragment. They read tu Ra o… , possibly part of the Tamil word turavon meaning `monk.’

The presence of the characteristic letter Ra confirms that the language is Tamil and the script is Tamil-Brahmi. It is possible that the inscription recorded the name of a Buddhist monk who travelled to Thailand from Tamil Nadu. This is the earliest Tamil inscription found so far in South East Asia and attests to the maritime contacts of the Tamils with the Far East even in the early centuries AD.

Prof. Richard Salomon of the University of Washington, U.S., an expert in Indian Epigraphy, has made the following comment on the inscription:

“I am happy to hear that the inscription in question is in fact Tamil-Brahmi, as I had suspected. This is important, among other reasons, because it presents a parallel with the situation with Indian inscriptions in Egypt and the Red Sea area. There we find both Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions and standard-Brahmi insciptions; and we now see the same in Vietnam and South-East Asia. This indicates that the overseas trade between India to both the West and the East involved people from the Tamil country and also other regions.” [Tamil-Brahmi inscription on pottery found in Thailand]

Reconstructing Nalanda

In Buddhism education was usually monastery based, as opposed to the home based education or gurukul in Hinduism. One monastery which evolved into a world famous university was Nalanda, which was founded during the  times of the Guptas. Information about Nalanda comes from the writings of Huen Tsang or Xuanzang who visited the place in the 7th century.

According to his notes, the monastery was full of intellectual activity and it did not restrict the training to Buddhists. Vedas, Hindu philosophy, logic, grammar and medicine were also taught and students belonging to other faiths were also admitted, provided they passed an oral examination. Arjun Singh was not there to enforce reservation and it was purely merit based admission.

Nalanda was supported by the revenues of an estate of hundred villages and by patrons like Harsha. From Nalanda, the missionary monk Padmasambhava went to Tibet to convert them to Buddhism in the 8th century, while students came from China and South-East Asia to study there. Nalanda remained an important center of learning till it was destroyed by invading Turkish Muslims under the leadership of Bakhtiyar Khalji.

Now based on an idea by President A P J Abdul Kalam, the ruins of Nalanda will be developed and upgraded to  international standard, whatever that means.

The ancient Nalanda University was spread over an area having a radius of about 16 km out of which an area of only 1.6 km radius has been excavated so far.

“A team of experts will soon conduct fresh survey and properly map some of the nearby mounds at Rukiministhan, Jwarfardih, Kool and Balaur villages within a radius of 16 km from the present excavated site of the university before initiating proper exploration work,” Vaidya said, adding that a systematic study of some of the adjoining villages will give an idea of the history of the settlement pattern of Nalanda.

Only recently, a Japanese delegation came to Patna after meeting Kalam in Delhi. The Bihar government has already identified 450 acres of land located between Rajgir and Nalanda for the proposed university that would impart quality teaching in philosophy and value education, among others. [ASI move to develop ancient Nalanda varsity site]

Reference: The Wonder That Was India by A. L. Basham

ICHR says – No Aryans or Dravidians

Romila Thapar  has said it. Dr. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, who has been excavating in the Indus city of Harappa has said it. Now the bastion of the Eminent Historians – the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) too agrees that  there is nothing called Aryans or Dravidians and we Indians all  belong to the same gene pool.

The test has classified the people in north and south India as belonging to one gene pool, and not different ethnic groups such as Aryans and Dravidians.

Giving the information to The Hindu here, Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research D.N. Tripathi said geneticists from Pakistan had collected samples for genetics analysis of the people of Indian subcontinent and sent them to cellular and molecular biology laboratories in the U.S. Scientists in Pakistan concluded from the test results that the human race spread out of Africa 60,000 years before Christ. They settled in the subcontinent. Geneticists in Pakistan concluded that people living in the northern and southern regions of India and those in the West Asian region were from the same gene pool, he added.

Asked about the argument of many historians tracing the lineage of people in north India to Aryans, Prof. Tripathi said test results had proved this wrong. “We have the results of studies. The conclusion of some historians that Aryans came here 15,000 years before Christ does not hold water,” he added.  [People in north and south India belong to the same gene pool: ICHR Chairman via Rajeev Srinivasan]

Two observations

  1. According to the theory supported by the Aryan Invasion/Migration folks, the invasion/migration happened between 3000 – 1000 BCE and not, 15,000 years back.
  2. The fact that humans migrated out of Africa some 85,000 years ago has been proved by the Bradshaw Foundation and Professor Stephen Oppenheimer and hence that too is not a new revelation

Lost Temples of India

If you switch on The History Channel, you are overwhelmed with documentaties on Egypt. Every pyramid, every pharoah and every single grain of sand has a documentary. “Ancient Secrets of Egypt”, “Really Ancient Secrets of Egypt”, “The secret of the pyramids”, “The Pharoah’s slave’s wife’s second cousin’s story”, so goes the list. But if you ask which Indian emperor has moved more stone than the pyramid in Giza to construct a temple, everyone would blink.
It was refreshing to see the documentary called The Lost Temples of India ( via lazygeek) on the Big Temple at Tanjore, constructed by Raja Raja Chola. The documentary talks about how Raja Raja selected elephants for battle, how he moved 40 tonne granite stones to build the temple and the techniques used for cutting granite. They even find the remains of the ramp which could have been used for sliding up the stones.
Besides the Tanjore temple, the documentary also talks about the Vijayanagara empire, Sri Rangam and the temples of Khajuraho.

Buddha's Tooth: An epic story

The Buddha died in the town of Kushinara, now called Kasia on the river Chotta Gandak in Uttar Pradesh. He had not given any instructions on what was to be done with his mortal remains. The Mallas of Kusinara had gathered to pay respects to Buddha and they took over the responsibility of the funeral. After paying respects for six days, they decided to cremate the body. After the funeral there was a fight among the Mallas and certain chieftains for sharing the relics. Finally, Dona, a brahmin intervened and the chieftains decided to divide the relics into eight portions. Each of them built a monument over the relic.
Out of these relics, Buddha’s tooth reached Sri Lanka.

When Buddha’s remains were cremated in north India around 486BC, eight corporeal relics survived. They were sealed in stupas (shrines) built across the Buddhist heartland. Custody of the tooth seems to have been disputed at various times but by 310AD the situation was serious enough for an Indian king to accede to a Sinhalese request that it be transported to Sri Lanka for safekeeping. From Tamlik in west Bengal it crossed the Bay of Bengal to land on the island’s eastern shore before heading inland to Anuradhapura, the vast Sinhala capital that endured for nearly a millennium.
Its guardians took it to the Isurumuniya Monastery that still stands today. It is a small complex of buildings and shrines built around and hollowed out of a hillock of dark boulders. There is a charming sunken pool and an impressively large reclining Buddha statue of yellow complexion and scarlet robes.
[Nothing but the tooth]

It seems the tooth survived various Chola invasions as it was hidden by various priests. The first time it was hidden in 1017 and it resurfaced in 1056 at Polonnaruwa, the new Sinhala capital. The tooth survived another Chola invasion after that.

Invading Tamils kept the tooth guardians on theirtoes and it was spiritedfrom Kurunegala to Gampola to Kotte, all short-lived capitals with scant remains today. Arriving in the early 1500s, the distasteful Portuguese once claimed to have taken the tooth to Goa and burnt it, and so forced desperate Buddhists to substitute a buffalo’s.
Sri Lankans prefer the folkish story of its time hidden beneath a grinding stone, from where it eventually headed for Kandy in 1593 and a more-or-less permanent home.
The tooth endured the Dutch and the British rule. It had many more brushes with danger and destruction, most recently with a 1998 Tamil Tiger bomb attack that, among other things, exposed 18th-century frescoes hidden by plaster.[Nothing but the tooth]

The tooth’s story could be made into an epic movie probably starring Brad Pitt as the tooth.
See Also: Buddha’s Bones, Buddha’s relics

Prambanan temple damaged

Prambanam
The Indian influence over South-East Asia expanded a lot during the time of Pallavas between the fifth and seventh centuries and the influence was mainly seen in Cambodia. In Indonesia, Srivijaya, a maritime power and dynasty which controlled the empire stretching from Sumatra to Malaya, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam arose from obscurity in the 8th century. Srivijaya was an Indianised polity, more Buddhist than Brahminical with its capital near Palembang in South Eastern Sumatra.
Rival to the Srivijaya dynasty was the joint kingdoms of Sailendra and Sanjaya based in central Java. It was during their time (after 780 CE) that the temple building activity flourished in the island. These temples were based on the layout and elevation of the Pallavan and Chalukyan temples. An exception to this style of construction is the colossal temple at Borobudur, which apparently started as a Hindu temple and was converted to a Buddhist place of worship.
One of the largest Hindu temples in the region is Prambanan, located in central Java. This temple, which was built around 850 CE during the time of the Sanjaya dynasty is dedicated to the Trimurtis. There are about 200 temples in this complex and the bas-relief of the temple depicts the story of Ramayana. Parts of this temple was damaged in the recent earthquake that hit Indonesia.

Brahma temple, one of the ancient shrines in the Prambanan compound in Klaten, Central Java,has been seriously damaged by the earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale which struck Yogyakarta city and environs early Saturday morning, a tourism official said.
“In the Prambanan complex, Brahma Temple sustained serious damage in the earthquake,” Soeroso, director of archalogical heritages at the Tourism, ArtS and Culture Ministry , said here on Saturday.
Damage was also done to Plaosan Lor and Sejiwan temples but not to serious extent. Sejiwan Temple was actually in the process of being repaired and the quake undid some of the complete repairs. The Brahma Temple must now be rehabilitated totally because its basic structre had been damaged, he said. [Brahma Temple in Prambanan Complex seriously damaged]

Parvathi gets her head back

In Hindu mythology, there are many stories about how Ganesha got his elephant head. One of them says that Lord Shiva cut off the head in a fit of anger and was adivced by Brahma to replce it with the head of the first living being he came across. Recently, Parvathi, Ganesha’s mother also got her head back and thankfully, it was the same one she lost.
This believe-it-or-not story comes from Cambodia, where once the statue of Parvathy was decapitated in the 15th century. This headless body was taken by French Archaeologists and exhibited in Paris.

Last autumn, the museum held an exhibition on Vietnamese art which paid tribute in its catalogue to a retired American diplomat, John Gunther Dean. The catalogue recounted Mr Dean’s efforts, as ambassador to Cambodia in the early 1970s, to rescue ancient Khmer art from the ravages of the Khmer Rouge, which was determined to expunge all record of Cambodia’s past.
To thank the museum, Mr Dean, now 80, offered a gift from his own collection of ancient Khmer artefacts. Last month, the gift arrived, the sculpted head of a woman found at the Bakong temple site in 1939.
“I asked him for a Khmer head because we only had headless statues but I didn’t think for a moment about a possible match,” said Pierre Baptiste, the museum’s curator for south-east Asian art.
“I brought the head into our [Cambodian] hall looking for a place that it could be exhibited,” said M. Baptiste. “I had a sudden notion the two pieces resembled each other but then thought, ‘no, things never happen that way’.
“I put the head on the statue’s shoulders. It shifted a few millimetres. I heard the little click that you get when two stones fit together and the head fell perfectly into place. It was as if it had put itself together. I still get goose-bumps thinking about it.” [ After 500 years, sheer chance reunites head and body of Hindu statue in Paris]

Subhash Bose: The Report is out

Finally the report by the one man commission on Subhash Chandra Bose’s disappearance has been tabled in the Lok Sabha. The folklore that was told to us was that Bose died in plane crash in Taipei in 1945. One of the commission discoveries is that no such plane crash happened and this has upset some of Netaji’s family members.

“They say that the crash did not happen. On what basis have they said that? There is overwhelming proof that the crash happened,” said Krishna Bose, Netaji’s close relative. [Govt rejects Mukherjee Commission report]

Recently even Pakistan Cricket Board Chief Shaharyar Khan wrote about an eyewitness account of Bose’s death based on the statement of Brigadier Habib-ur-Rehman. The only problem with the story was that according to the Taiwanese there was no air crash in Taipei between August 14 and September 20, 1945. This has been corroborated by the Americans as well.
The second discovery by the commission was that the ashes kept in Renkoji Temple near Tokyo were not that of Subhash Bose.

They found no ashes. There were parts of a human skull, portion of a jaw, some teeth (no gold filling in any of them) and some bone fragments. If, as the Shah Nawaz Khan Committee and GD Khosla Commission claimed, “Netaji’s body” had been “cremated ” for an entire night, no medico-legal expert would adduce that such soft bones would survive. [Subhash Bose: Nehru’s Role]

Also, according to the commission, there is no clinching evidence that Bose went to live in Russia. The way the commission investigated this is funny. He went to Russia and asked if there is any information in the archives and they said no. He happily came back. According to some experts, Mitrokhin (of The Mitrokihn Archive fame) knew something about Bose’s Russia connection, but the Commission found none.
At the end, the Commission has no clue on what happened to Bose. The Congress Party and the Govt. both have rejected the findings for they still believe that the plane crash happened and the ashes in Tokyo are those of Bose. What are they trying to protect?

Hunting for Muziris – II

In A.D. 75 a sea-faring, Greek-speaking Egyptian merchant wrote a book called Periplus, which talks about various ports in India. One of the ports he mentioned is Musiris, which is near present day Kodungallur in Kerala. Dr. Shajan, an archaeologist thinks that ancient Musiris is a town called Pattanam, located 12 KM away from Kodungallur.

Pattanam, on the other hand, has yielded amphora (holding vessels) of Roman make and those made elsewhere in the Persian Gulf. This shows that Pattanam had trade not only with Rome but also with places in the Persian Gulf, she added. [Tracing an ancient trading route]

Is this enough evidence to identify Pattanam as Musiris? While there has been evidence of trade between Kerala and ancient Rome, more research is needed according to visiting fellow of Southampton University, Roberta Tambor.
See Also: Hunting for Muziris, The myth of Cheraman Perumal’s conversion