A memorial for vipassana

Once Buddhism spread from India to neighboring countries, Buddha’s teachings were also preserved in Thailand, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Laos. In Burma, through a teacher-student relation, the practice of vipassana was also preserved for almost 2000 years. Sayagyi U Ba Khin (1899-1971), the first accountant general of independent Burma taught it to S N Goenka and ever since that Goenka has led the establishment of dhamma centers to teach vipassana free of cost around the world.

A golden pagoda, the world’s largest stone monument and the first dome in human history of this size without any supporting pillars will be innagurated in Mumbai this week. This large meditation hall which can hold upto 8000 meditators will also be holding the authentic relics of the Buddha.

This pillarless 27-meter-high dome is attracting architectural wonder considering that thousands of stones, each weighing about 600-700 kilograms, are suspended without any external support. “These massive stones seemingly float over our heads, locked into place by the interlocking principle of one stone gripping and holding another. The more weight that is added to the stones, the more firmly the stones grip and hold each other,” said M M Khandhar, a veteran construction engineer with experience of building projects in the US. When fully complete, the pagoda will be 100 meters high.

The biggest stone dome with a hollow interior built anywhere in the world before the Global Pagoda was the Gol Gumbaj Dome in Bijapur, southern India, which is 40 meters in diameter. The Global Pagoda is more than twice its size.

“We initially contemplated building the pagoda in reinforced concrete and steel. But the project aim is to build a structure to last for a thousand years, so we decided to use the basic building principles that have existed in ancient India for centuries, combined with latest construction technologies,” explained the Mumbai-based Global Vipassana Foundation that is executing the project. “The construction plans were finalized following advice from consultants and research studies, including one by the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.”

When Goenkaji first expressed his wish to have such a dome built without any pillars in the meditation hall, to avoid inconvenience to meditators, almost all consultants and technical personnel expressed their doubts, saying this was almost impossible.

Chandubhai Sompura, an Indian architect, provided the breakthrough by demonstrating the idea of the locking system of stones using bars of soap cut into the same shape as the present stones are cut. A stone has grooves cut both horizontally and vertically, and is designed to interlock in both directions and hold the stones in place. [Asia’s spectacular monument of gratitude]

Exodus Decoded (2)

Read Part 1

The final pieces of the puzzle is the location of Mount Sinai, the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Currently it is believed to be in Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Mount Sinai. In the novel, The Last Cato, we saw the protagonists going there to retrieve some ancient parchments. According to Simcha Jacobovici, this place does not fit a single Biblical criteria and is not in any flock grazing distance. Then he identifies it as Gebel Hashem el-Tarif in Egypt because it has a cleft from which Moses could have preached, has the graves of holy men and there is a fresh water spring at the top, a rare thing in Sinai.

According to the Bible, Moses placed the ten commandments in a golden box called the Ark of the Covenant (the same artifact that Nazis and Indiana Jones fight over in The Raiders of the Lost Ark). In the tombs in Mycenae, Simcha Jacobovici finds an image of the Ark of the Covenant carved in gold. The documentary concludes that with all this evidence it is now sure that the Exodus is a historical fact.

This is documentary is filled with stunning graphics which I have not seen in any documentary, except maybe Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. The animations and the visuals are an absolute delight to watch, but still it could not convince Hershel Shanks, the editor of Biblical Archaeological Society.

On the things I know a little about, I tend to disagree with you. Beginning with the Hyksos. This is an old idea. It’s hard to find a scholar today who subscribes to it. Among its many problems: Where were the Israelites for 300 years [from 1500 to 1200 BCE] after the Egyptian expulsion of the Hyksos/Israelites? (Incidentally, you’re not really changing Egyptian chronology, despite what you say. What you are doing is simply dating the Exodus to 1500 BCE.)

Or take the Semitic inscriptions at Serabit el-Khadem. You use a conjectural translation [“God, save me”] of [William Foxwell] Albright. This decipherment is really not secure. Kyle McCarter thinks he has accurately deciphered this writing. He has not yet published it. But everyone knows that Albright’s efforts are uncertain. But even if correct, “El” is not necessarily the Israelite God. It is the generic word for “God.” Many Semites used it. Everyone accepts the idea that Semites were worker/slaves(?) at Serabit. But you jump to the conclusion that they were Israelites—in the 16th century BCE.

Or take your identification of “Jacob.” This name appears fairly frequently at this time. But that doesn’t mean it refers to the Biblical Jacob. The appearance of the name is appropriately used to give a plausibility to the story, but not to say this is Joseph’s father. [The Exodus Debated]

The first historical reference to the Israelites date from 1207 BCE, which is a date much after the demise of the Harappan Civilization in India (to give a time reference). According to Ronald Hendel of the University of California, Berkeley, if the Exodus represents the expulsion of the Hyksos, then they would have been roaming in the desert for about 300 years, which is the same point Hershel Shanks makes. The entire documentary stands on the basis of this date of 1500 BCE, the time of the Santorini eruption. Also it seems the parallels between the Ahmose Stele and the biblical story of the ten plagues are not that identical.

In his defence Simcha writes that the basis of the date of 1207 BCE for first reference to the Israelites comes from the Merneptah stele which records Pharaoh Merneptah’s battles with the Israelites. If the Israelites were strong enough for the Pharoah to brag about it, then they would have been a strong force in 1207 and this can happen only in a time period of about 2-300 years after the Exodus.

The interesting part in this whole debate is the assumption that the Biblical text is a perfect historical document and all the details mentioned actually happened as told. Hershel questions this very basis.

You, on the other hand, start out with the assumption that your Bible is historically accurate, including the miracles, unless you can find some archaeological problem with doing so; and also accepting as proof anything archaeological that seems to confirm the historicity of the text, including the miracles.

You may deny this, but you do do it. As a kind of test, let me ask you if you would apply the same presumption of historicity to other ancient texts, such as Homer and Gilgamesh? Would you accept all the details in Homer as historically accurate, even the miracles and the acts of the gods? Do you accept as a historical fact that the wildman Gilgamesh was acculturated by a prostitute? How about his refusal of a marriage proposal by Ishtar, the goddess of Uruk? Do you believe that Utnapishtim is immortal (as the text says), perhaps still living in disguise somewhere in war-torn Baghdad?[The Exodus Debated]

The response for this from Simcha is that the Torah has been transmitted for over 2700 years without any errors, which makes it very credible. If during Sabbath Torah reading, a single letter is found smudged, the Torah is declared un-Kosher and removed. He says that no other text has such disciplined chain of transmission.

Probably Simcha has never heard of the Vedas which were transmitted exactly the same way. The largest surviving body of ancient literature has been passed down orally for over thousands of years. This Vedic lore, considered to be divine revelation was painstakingly memorized and even when the original meaning of the words were lost, the brahmins remembered and recited the hymns with the utmost fidelity[2]. Will scholars then give the same historical validity to the Vedas which they give the Torah and the Bible?

See Also: Exodus Decoded, Virtual Museum which shows all the evidence, Transcript of the program

Exodus Decoded (1)

The story of Exodus, the escape of Moses and the Israelites from Egypt to the promised land has all the ingredients of a fairy tale. The reason for the disbelief is due to various super natural elements of the story such as the ten plagues which includes the Nile turning blood red and all the first Egyptian male children dying. There is also the parting of the Red Sea and the swallowing of the Pharoah’s army by the same sea. In a new documentary, Exodus Decoded, which premiered on the History Channel about a week back, film maker Simcha Jacobovici and Executive Producer James Cameron (the same guy who made Titanic) prove that there is a scientific explanation for the Exodus.

Ahmose I was a pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty, who reigned from 1550 to 1525 BCE . During his time the Hyksos, a group of Semites who were the rulers of lower Egypt rebelled and were expelled from Egypt. The documentary starts with a look at the Ahmose Stele stored in the Cairo Museum which records a tremendous catastrophe that struck Egypt which involved rain, thunder and storm. Usually all these do not happen in north-west Africa and was unusual. The Bible says that there was storm during the time of Exodus, so does the Stele. The Bible says there was darkness, so does the Stele. It is from this Stele that we get the name of the Pharoah as Ahmose which means brother of Moses in Hebrew. Simcha then goes to the museum and locates the mummy of Ahmose from among many mummies lying in various boxes.

Scholars have dated the Exodus to 1200 BCE, to the time of Ramesses II and the Hyksos were expelled hundreds of years before Moses. Simcha suggests a new date for the Exodus of around 1500 BCE to the time of Ahmose. He suggests that the Hyksos who were expelled were the Israelites and an expert suggests that the story in the Ahmose Stele and the Exodus refer to the same event.

The Hyksos ruled from the capital city called Avaris. Simcha films there, being the first film maker to do so. Then they find a tomb at Beni Hasan which shows evidence for the entry of Western Semitic people into Egypt. The hieroglyphs call them Amo, which means Gods people. It also records that one of the migrants rose to the highest power and his name was Joseph, son of Yakov (Jacob). Joseph wore on his fingers the seal of royal authority and Simcha shows such seals which were found through archeology. They also find a slave inscription in a cave which reads, “El, save me” which was a plea to the God of the Israelites.

About 3500 years ago, the Greek island of Santorini, located about 700 KM from the Egyptian coast had one of the largest volcanic eruptions believed to have led to the collapse of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete.This same eruption according to the documentary explains the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea.

During the time of the wrath of God, besides the Nile turning blood red, the Egyptian statues were toppled and there was a hail of ice and fire. Locusts swarmed the place and there was darkness among other things. The explanation offered is that Egypt is located in a region filled with fault lines. The rift between the African and Asian plates go under Santorini. The gas released by the earthquake caused the Nile to turn red and the same phenomenon was seen in Lake Nyos in Cameroon in 1984. The ash from the Santorini explosion caused the skies to turn dark.

While most of these plagues can be explained due to natural phenomena, the one most difficult to explain is the death of every first born Egyptian child one night. The documentary offers an explanation for this as well. It was the night of the first passover and all the Israelites were awake and celebrating it. The Egyptians slept at that time. In Egyptian society, the first born male had special privileges and slept in a low bed which was close to the ground, while most adults slept in the roof tops. The Carbon di-Oxide which rose due to the seismic activity fogged the land and affected the people who were sleeping low to the ground, which was the first born male children of Egypt. The same incident happened in Lake Nyos as well.

Then comes the major event of the parting of the Red Sea. It seems the Hebrew word, Yam Suf was mistranslated as Red Sea while it actually means Reed Sea. Instead of looking for the sea scholars should have been looking for a lake. Based on the new evidence, the film makers find the location of the Reed Sea, a lake currently dried up, due to the Suez Canal. Again, the parting of the lake is attributed to the seismic activity.

While most people followed Moses to the promised land, some people in fact boarded ships to Greece. In 1972, in Santorini they found Minoan style wall paintings depicting a journey from Egypt to Greece with a picture of Avaris. In Mycenae in Greece they have found 3500 year old tombs with tombstones depicting sequences which show the parting of the sea and people escaping through it. Actually one expert in the museum where the tomb stones are located says the depictions are too abstract to make such an interpretation.

Tomorrow: Mt. Sinai, Ark of the Covenant, and doubts on the evidence.

Did Rama exist?

The presence of the Vanaras or monkeys, including Hanuman, has made the authenticity of the epic suspect. But this is the most plausible part of the story. The Vanaras were obviously tribes with the monkey totem: after all, the Ramayana belongs to a period when most of India was jungle with tribal forest-dwellers. India still contains several tribes with animal totems. An early issue of the Bellary District (now in Karnataka) Gazetteer gives us the interesting information that the place was inhabited by the Vanara people. The Jaina Ramayana mentions that the banner of the Vanaras was the vanaradhvaja (monkey flag), thereby reinforcing the totemic theory. Similarly, Jatayu would have been the king of the vulture-totem tribe and Jambavan of the bear-totem tribe.

Was Lanka the modern Sri Lanka? One school of thought places Lanka on the Godavari in Central India, citing the limited descriptions of the South in the latter half of the epic. Narada does not mention Panchavati or Rameshwaram, but refers to Kishkinda and Lanka. Living in the north, it is unlikely that Valmiki knew the south. But Valmiki would know the difference between a sea and a river. Lanka, says the author definitively, was across the sea.

All the places visited by Rama still retain memories of his visit, as if it happened yesterday. Time, in India, is relative. Some places have commemorative temples; others commemorate the visit in local folklore. But all agree that Rama was going from or to Ayodhya. Why doubt connections when literature, archaeology and local tradition meet? Why doubt the connection between Adam’s Bridge and Rama, when nobody else in Indian history has claimed its construction? Why doubt that Rama traveled through Dandakaranya or Kishkinda, where local non-Vedic tribes still narrate tales of Rama? Why doubt that he was born in and ruled over Ayodhya? [Did Rama exist?]

Preventing asphyxiation of artistic expressions

After Andhra Pradesh High Court, it is time for Madras High Court to lecture the Govt. on their “secular” decision to ban The Da Vinci Code

“It would be dangerous to allow the State to straightjacket the right to Freedom of Expression, as artistic expressions may be asphyxiated by law if a petulant group of self-appointed `censors’ prescribes the paradigms for suspending the screening of a film, which has got the approval of the Censor Board,” said Justice Prabha Sridevan.
Rejecting the submission that the State had material to show that there would be a “breach of peace” if the film was exhibited, the judge said, “the inability of the State to maintain law and order or to avert a violation of breach of peace can never be a ground to throttle the Fundamental Rights.”
She said the order did not satisfy the “compelling State interest test,” and added: “When highly respected members of the Christian community have seen the film and have not expressed any apprehension that it may result in breach of peace, and when the Censor Board has certified that the film is worthy of being exhibited, the compulsion that forced the State to pass the impugned order is inexplicable and does not justify the violation of the Fundamental Right of the petitioners.” [Madras High Court quashes ban on film via Reporter’s Diary]

Restoration of Katasraj to start soon

After Malaysia decimated a Hindu temple, Lahore’s only Hindu temple was also demolished to construct a commercial building. Now in a welcome development, Pakistan is spending about $25 million for the restoration of the Katasraj temple.

Pakistan has many famous Hindu temples like the Sharada Thirtha, the temple of Lav (Rama’s son) and Katasraj . Katasraj temple, according to mythology is the place where the Pandavas met the Yaksha who asked them the ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ questions. Al-Biruni mentioned in Ta’rikh al-Hind (“Chronicles of India”) that he learned Sanskrit and Science at Katasraj. The restoration work is expected to start next month.

A comprehensive study had been conducted. The temple ponds would be cleaned, enlarged and fenced, sources said, adding that the Shiva temple and the adjacent area would be restored and debris removed. The missing staircase would be rebuilt and the walls would be plastered, they said.The sources said that proper pathways leading to the pools, the Shiva, Hanuman and Ram temples, as well as the stupa and Hari Singh

Forgive Them Lord..

Finally the High Court of Andhra Pradesh had to lecture the State Government on why it should not have banned The Da Vinci Code.

Rejecting these arguments, Mr. Justice Raghu Ram, in his 48-page judgment, said, “The Constitution does not confer or tolerate such individualised hyper-sensitive private censor intrusion into and regulation of guaranteed freedom of others.”
Tracing the concept of freedom of speech and expression and its necessity for the blossoming of the human mind, he noted that the Censor Board had cleared the film with appropriate conditions. A film was not like a billboard or hoarding that involuntarily affected innocent passersby. Those who purchased tickets to see the film made a conscious decision, and the state had no role to stop the screening.
Mr. Justice Raghu Ram said the authorities who passed the ban order had not even seen the film. The officer “mechanically certified” the veto of a few objectors rather than arriving at a decision based on informed satisfaction. This was “arbitrary, casual and [a] wholly irrational exercise of a very sensitive and responsible executive power, namely the regulation of a cherished, valued and guaranteed fundamental freedom of expression.”
The judge, who saw the film at a special screening, recalled various works on different interpretations of Jesus Christ.
The court said, “Freedom of speech and expression contributes to the richness and equilibrium of human existence.” Terming the Government’s action wholly negligent and an irresponsible exercise of executive power, the judge directed the Government to pay Rs. 10,000 each to the distributors and Rs. 2,500 to Mr. Reddy. [ A.P. ban on Da Vinci Code quashed]

The movie will now be released in the state, but Congress has proved to its vote bank that it is an upholder of “secularism”

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

Against Football

Did you know that football could have a corrupting influence among the new generation and it was a ‘conspiracy instigated by the imperialists’? When you hear such a statement, the immediate guess would be that it came from the Taliban, who converted the football field in Kabul to a killing ground. Sadly, it comes from the 100% literate state of Kerala where football has a major fan following.

By going after those ‘unscrupulous’ and ‘morally weak’ soccer stars, the youth in the district are falling prey to a ‘conspiracy instigated by the imperialists’, they alleged.
“It is cruel to divert resources and energy when there are many who are suffering from poverty,” they said, adding they would launch strong campaigns against the soccer craze. SSF has held a protest march in Tirur the other day against the football craze saying that ‘capitalist forces are trying to make inroads under the guise of football’.[Soccer frenzy: Foul, cry Muslim outfits]

Conspiracy by the imperialists? Over and over again you hear this phrase as if the whole world is out to destroy Kerala through various tactics. If you look at the thirty-two teams playing in World Cup 2006, a vast majority of them are not even developed countries. There are five countries from Africa, and seven from Central and South America and then there are countries like Croatia, and Serbia and Montenegro. Since it is Muslim outfits which are crying out against the football frenzy, they should also note that Iran, as well has the holy land Saudi Arabia are also playing the game.

“Poor Countries” want to play football. Islamic countries want to play football. This protest seems to be yet another case where the monkey brigade seems to be more Catholic than the Pope.
Update: The Islamic Militia who took over Mogadishu also thinks alike. They have cut off electricity to prevent Somalis from watching World Cup, but even they have not been cuckoo enough to suggest that it is an imperialist conspiracy.

On Religious Tolerance

In Lhasa, Tibet, some followers of Dalai Lama entered a monastery and attacked some statues. This story is funny in various aspects. First you have Buddhist monks attacking statues of Dorje Shugden, a deity criticised by the Dalai Lama because he called it a divine offshoot.
Attacking a statue? Hopefully the statue did not come alive and tell them to go deepen their Vipassana practice. Imagine how many Sankha-ra’s this activity must have created (Unless they were doing this with mindfulness ).
Secondly, certainly people got upset over this religious intolerance by Buddhist and who better to express the outrage than a member of the Communist Party, which is the epitome of tolerance.

“What the Dalai Lama has done violates the religious freedom of believers,” Zhang Qingli, the acting Communist Party secretary of Tibet said, according to Xinhua. [Buddhist monks ‘storm’ temple in Tibet]

The Communist Part secretary of Tibet is in that position due to some wonderful demonstration of religious tolerance by the Communists. It is also due to their tolerance that Dalai Lama found an early hiking route to India. Members of Falun Gong and the Pope can also vouch for the Communist Party’s great tolerance.