Notes from Kerala (3)

Bhaskar writes about the Communist Government in Kerala

This government cannot be saved by saving the ministers concerned. So far no member of this administration has been able to gain recognition as a good minister. At the same time, the parties say they are satisfied with the ministers’ performance. Apparently, although the ministers have not been successful in addressing the people’s problems, they are meeting the party’s needs.

Akrami writes, again about the Communist Government in Kerala

Every hour passed with the comedy government in power will prove costly for the LDF and will soon see a coming back of the vicious minority lobbies. Atchuthanandan it seems has vowed to see the end of the LDF. Democracy itself needs changes that able people come to power, manage the state’s resources. But for now a better team needs to take charge. This small state with not a kilometre of normal roads, not a urinal around, not public transport, with only pety issues and petty politics cannot stand watching further. Before they are kicked out without grace let them leave and make way for better people.

Ratheesh writes how people of Kerala are resorting to Gandhigiri to stop hartals

From one of my relatives, I came to know about this Gandhian model campaign in Kerala against “Hartal”. Campaign for Peace is an NGO that plans to send a lakh postcards to the Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court requesting him to ensure safety of people during Hartal days. The plan is to send postcards on October 2, which is going to be observed as Hartal Viruddha Dinam (Anti-Hartal Day). Why not e-mails? I think it’s because e-mails are not frequently read in many Government organizations in India, and having an email flood in the Inbox would hardly have any impact anywhere. But making a lakh postcards pile up in the mail-room would be a more effective form of symbolic protest.

The Buddha loses

Nitin, you were right. They came back.

MINGORA: Some unidentified militants blew up the historic statue of Buddha in Jihan Abad area of Swat district on Saturday.

The curator maintained that the statue belonged to 7th century A.D, and it was the most complete and inspiring symbol of Gandahara art. After the historic statues of Bamyan in Afghanistan, which were destroyed by the Taliban, the swat statue was the sole example of Buddhist cultural heritage.

“It was seven meters tall and 20 feet high from the land, showing Buddha in the condition of meditation. I don’t know what they want to achieve by such actions,” he added. Aqleem said he had reported the incident to the local police but he did not think that the police would be able to protect Buddhist cultural sites in swat as they themselves were the victims of terrorist attacks.[Militants blow up Buddha statue in Swat]

Epic Problems: My article in Pragati

In an affidavit pertaining to the Sethusamudram project, the Central government told the Supreme Court that there was no historical evidence to establish the existence of Lord Rama or the other characters in Ramayana. The affidavit was filed by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), an organization under the Ministry of Culture, whose goal is to conduct archaeological research and protect India’s cultural heritage. This caused an arc of outrage and a political crisis. To control the political damage, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government withdrew the affidavit and suspended the concerned ASI officials. This makes sense, not so much for shielding the Minister for Culture, but for making unwarranted statements about the historicity of Rama.
Read the rest at the October 2007 (Community Edition) of Pragati.
The Community Edition of Pragati is available for free download and this edition may be freely distributed (in its complete form) via both electronic and non-electronic means. You are encouraged to share your copy with your local community or social networks.

Lost Under Water Cities

Excerpt from Egyptian antiquities By George Long (Published in 1832)

After the 2004 tsunami receded, a naval diving team assisted the Archaeological Survey of India in looking for some structures which were revealed in Mahabalipuram. They found some temple shaped structures covered with marine growth leading archaeologists to believe that it was the remains of the other six pagodas.

Under water archaeology in Dwaraka and the dating of the retrieved artifacts have revealed that the debris is related to the ruins of a city dated to 2280 BCE. Previous under water excavations revealed about 120 anchors. These anchors often had three holes of which the upper one was used for tying a rope and the other two holes for holding wooden flukes.

There seems to be evidence of a submerged city, similar to Dwaraka, near the island of Yonaguni Jima in Japan. Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan, who has been diving there for more than fifteen years has found submerged stone structures which look like a monolithic stepped pyramid. (photos)

Similar to the story of the lost continent of Atlantis and Lemuria, there is an Asian tale of the lost continent of Mu. According to one concept, it was the survivors of Mu who found the Mayan civilization and some folks believe that the structures found near Yonaguni Jima is evidence of Mu.

Sceptics think that these pyramid like structures are natural formations, but Kimura says that he has found quarry marks and characters etched into the carved faces. He believes that the ruins are 5000 years old based on the date of stalactites, which is around the same time as the ruins found in Dwaraka.

A similar under water city has now been found under the site of present day Alexandria, the city found by Alexander of Macedonia. The city, dated to around 1000 BCE, seems to be the remains of Rhakotis, a town mentioned in histories, but never found.

As evident from the archaeology at Dwaraka, Mahabalipuram, Yonaguni Jima and Alexandria, there is always some historical basis for certain “mythologies”. Any decent archaeologist would investigate the sites before jumping to conclusions, unless of course they report to Ambika Soni or T R Baalu.

Tags: Dwaraka, Mahabalipuram, Archaeology, Yonaguni Jima, Rhakotis, Ancient History

Found: Buddha's Hand

According to Digha Commentary II, what remained after Buddha’s body was burned were four canine teeth, the two collarbones, the frontal bone, the other unburnable dhatus. Now we have the whole hand, in the form of a citrus fruit.

The Saraswati Project is on

The Saraswati Heritage Project was started by the culture and tourism minister Jagmohan in 2003-2004 to conduct archaeological excavations in the region. Then the usual words – saffronization of history, attempts to push the antiquity of Indian civilization were thrown and Congress led UPA Government canned it.

Turns out that there are some smart folks at the ASI for they have quietly continued the project just by renaming it.

But the ASI funded the project from its own resources. “We wanted to bring the search to a logical conclusion,” RS Bisht, former joint director, ASI, who coordinated the project during the NDA regime, told DNA. [Sarasvati project is on, under a new name]

Tags: Archaeology, Saraswati, Ancient History

Historical Levity

Amit Kaundinya’s review of Priyadarshan’s new movie Dhol has the following paragraph

Armed with a script that is as old as the Harappan Civilization and with actors who are competing for the Worst Actor Award, director Priyadarshan sets off to make the audience laugh. And as expected he fails miserably. Clichéd scenes, garish cinematography, tiring songs and perhaps the most banal screenplay are what you take back after watching Dhol. [Dhol]

ASI archaeologist Karunanidhi, who also doubles as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, would have explained Priyadarsan’s miserable failure as the result of a Dravidian trying to adapt a script as old as an Aryan civilization. Besides this, Priyadarshan also used Aryan actors in a movie which was initially written and performed by Dravidians.

Exodus: A myth?

One of the important events in the book of Exodus, which describes the departure of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt under the leadership of Moses, is the parting of the Red Sea. Chased by the Pharaoh’s army, the Israelites reach the Red Sea and Moses causes the water to part. Once the Israelites cross to safety, the water comes back and drowns the Pharaoh’s army.

There have been countless under water archaeological expeditions looking for evidence of drowned Egyptian armies, but all unsuccessful. In Simcha Jacobovici’s controversial documentary The Exodus Decoded, there was an attempt to find the location of the place where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, a scene immortalized in Cecil B. DeMille‘s The Ten Commandments. After looking at a hieroglyphic which he says depicts the parting of the sea he concludes that Red Sea is not the Red Sea we know, but a small lake known as the El Balah Lake.

According to Dr. Zahi Hawass, the story of Exodus is a myth. No, Dr. Hawass is not an ASI official who makes judgement on religious scriptures without doing any work, but Egypt’s chief archaeologist who has been conducting excavations in the Sinai region. So far they have not found any evidence for the accounts in the Hebrew scriptures and there has been only one find which suggests the existence of Israel.

Then, Egypt is the supermarket of ancient history and tomorrow there could be a discovery which could change the status of Exodus from myth to history.

Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud, the head of the excavation, seemed to sense that such a conclusion might disappoint some. People always have doubts until something is discovered to confirm it, he noted.

Then he offered another theory, one that he said he drew from modern Egypt.

“A pharaoh drowned and a whole army was killed,” he said recounting the portion of the story that holds that God parted the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to escape, then closed the waters on the pursuing army.

“This is a crisis for Egypt, and Egyptians do not document their crises.” [Did the Red Sea Part? No Evidence, Archaeologists Say]

Tags: Exodus, Jewish History, Zahi Hawass, Egypt, Israel

3 New books by Infinity Foundation

Rajiv Malhotra’s Infinity Foundation has announced the publication of three new books

“Emerson and the Light of India: An Intellectual History”, by Robert Gordon. National Book Trust, India.
The Experience of Meditation, by Jonathan Shear. Paragon Press,
USA.
Yoga Psychology and the Transformation of Consciousness by Don Salmon and Jan Maslow. Paragon Press, USA.

In his announcement, Rajiv has some interesting information about the second book.

One of the important outcomes from my interactions with Shear over the years has been an incredible treasure trove of evidence on how Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation got co-opted into Herb Benson’s “Western Science” and into Father Keating’s “Christian Centering Prayer”. Both these appropriations are based on TM by erasing the source tradition.

In the case of Father Thomas Keating, the Hindu source was seen as a sort of threat to Christianity’s claim of having developed meditation internally, with no positive help from the heathen others. In Benson’s case, by ignoring the TM origins of all his “scientific findings” he was able to launch himself as a “Western pioneer of mind science”; then this secured him a lucrative and powerful position with Templeton Foundation where he has been facilitating the migration of these scientific findings into Christian frameworks; and now he is established as the “originator” of the new complementary medicine in US research, hospitals and medical colleges. All this and much more will be elaborated in my forthcoming U-Turn Theory book.

Heinrich Schliemann of Troy

Till the end of the nineteenth century, historians thought that Greek civilization started around the eight century BCE, about 200 years before the time of Buddha. In 1871, a German businessman,Heinrich Schliemann, started looking for ancient Greece by excavating sites mentioned by the blind Ionian poet Homer and Schliemann’s work led to the discovery of a lost Greek civilization which was named after Mycenae, an important city of that time.

The Mycenianians were Greek speaking tribes who moved into the Greek peninsula around 2000 BCE. This civilization which reached the peak in the period from 1400 to 1230 BCE consisted of several small states, each with its own ruling dynasty. Thus the antiquity of Greeks was pushed back about 1200 years and was pushed further back when British archaeologist Arthur Evans discovered the Minoan civilization on Crete.

Schliemann’s contributions did not end there. Interested in the location of Homer’s Troy he started digging for it in Turkey. Though British archaeologist Frank Calvert had identified Hissarlik as the site of Troy, his work was over shadowed by Schliemann who published Ithaka, der Peloponnesus und Troja in which he claimed Hissarlik as the site of Troy. This is now accepted by historians.

Even though the site was discovered there were sceptics who claimed that Troy was an insignificant town and such a large war as described by Homer could not have happened there. For the past 16 years more than 350 people have been collaborating on the excavations in the site and their discoveries have resulted in some new facts. Troy, it seems was a large and important city controlling access from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. German archaeologist Manfred Korfmann who has been excavating in Troy wrote

According to the archaeological and historical findings of the past decade especially, it is now more likely than not that there were several armed conflicts in and around Troy at the end of the Late Bronze Age. At present we do not know whether all or some of these conflicts were distilled in later memory into the “Trojan War” or whether among them there was an especially memorable, single “Trojan War.” However, everything currently suggests that Homer should be taken seriously, that his story of a military conflict between Greeks and the inhabitants of Troy is based on a memory of historical events–whatever these may have been [Was There a Trojan War?]

If Karunanidhi was alive in late 19th century, he would have told Schliemann that Iliad was a myth and he should spend his time putting up his own pictures all around the city. Thanks to the work of Heinrich Schliemann, Frank Calvert, Manfred Korfmann and many others, it has been proved that there was history behind what was labeled myth.

Tags: Iliad, Homer, Troy, Archaeology, Before 1 CE