War Goddess ATHENA Invoked in South Asia as IIP Slump Heralds DISASTER in Shining India!
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 124
Palash Biswas
Indus Valley Civilization
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Indus Valley Civilization (Mature period 2600–1900 BCE), abbreviated IVC, was an ancient civilization that flourished in the Indus River basin. Primarily centred in modern day Pakistan (Sindh and Punjab provinces) and India (Gujarat and Rajasthan), it extends westward into the Balochistan province of Pakistan. Remains have been excavated from Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Iran, as well. Historically part of Ancient India, it is one of the world's three earliest urban civilizations along with Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. The mature phase of this civilization is technically known as the Harappan Civilization, after the [1]first of its cities to be unearthed: Harappa in Pakistan. Excavation of IVC sites have been ongoing since 1920, with important breakthroughs occurring as recently as 1999.[2]
The civilization is sometimes referred to as the Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilization[3] or the Indus-Sarasvati civilization. The appellation Indus-Sarasvati is based on the possible identification of the Ghaggar-Hakra River with the Sarasvati River mentioned in the Rig Veda,[4] but this usage is disputed on linguistic and geographical grounds.[
Religion
Further information: Prehistoric religion and History of Hinduism
In view of the large number of figurines[50] found in the Indus valley, it has been widely suggested that the Harappan people worshipped a Mother goddess symbolizing fertility. However, this view has been disputed by S. Clark.[51] Some Indus valley seals show swastikas which are found in later religions and mythologies, especially in Indian religions such as Hinduism and Jainism. The earliest evidence for elements of Hinduism are present before and during the early Harappan period[52][53]. Phallic symbols resembling the Hindu Siva lingam have been found in the Harappan remains.[54][55]
Many Indus valley seals show animals. One famous seal shows a figure seated in a posture reminiscent of the Lotus position and surrounded by animals was named after Pashupati (lord of cattle), an epithet of Shiva and Rudra.[56][57][58].
In the earlier phases of their culture, the Harappans buried their dead; however, later, especially in the Cemetery H culture of the late Harrapan period, they also cremated their dead and buried the ashes in burial urns, a transition notably also alluded to in the Rigveda, where the forefathers "both cremated (agnidagdhá-) and uncremated (ánagnidagdha-)" are invoked (RV 10.15.14).
Agriculture
Some post-1980 studies indicate that food production was largely indigenous to the Indus Valley. It is known that the people of Mehrgarh used domesticated wheats and barley,[46] and the major cultivated cereal crop was naked six-row barley, a crop derived from two-row barley (see Shaffer and Liechtenstein 1995, 1999). Archaeologist Jim G. Shaffer (1999: 245) writes that the Mehrgarh site "demonstrates that food production was an indigenous South Asian phenomenon" and that the data support interpretation of "the prehistoric urbanization and complex social organization in South Asia as based on indigenous, but not isolated, cultural developments." Others, such as Dorian Fuller, however, indicate that it took some 2000 years before Middle Eastern wheat was acclimatised to South Asian conditions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization
War Goddess ATHENA Invoked in South Asia as IIP Slump Heralds DISASTER in Shining India! International diplomacy was defusing tension with India after the militant attack on Mumbai, and action against militant groups should reassure New Delhi, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said on Saturday. Whereas prospects of a military confrontation between the nuclear-armed neighbours has receded in the two weeks since the slaughter of 179 people in Mumbai, India has said a four-year-old peace process is in jeopardy. Normalisation takes time," Gilani said in an interview. On the other hand,India on Saturday piled new pressure on Pakistan to crack down on Islamic militants in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh citing a "moral duty" to combat terrorism.
The United States has been at the forefront of intense diplomatic efforts to stop tension erupting into a full-blown crisis between two countries that have already fought three wars. A Pakistan-based conglomerate of militant groups active in Kashmir, headed by Syed Salahuddin, has "temporarily" dissolved itself with
its leaders going underground in the wake of the crackdown on Jamaat-ud-Dawa and other banned terrorist outfits, a media report said today. The United Jehad Council (UJC) -- which comprises Hizbul Mujahideen of Salahuddin, Harkat-ul-Ansar, Jamiat-ul- Mujahideen, Al-Jihad, Al-Barq, Ikhwan-ul-Mussalmin and Tehrik-ul-Mujahideen -- has closed its offices, removed all signboards and asked its leaders to stay quiet while temporarily dissolving the coalition, the report said.
"Following the Mumbai attacks and the subsequent tension between Pakistan and India, the United Jihad Council has decided to remain silent," an unnamed commander of one of the militant groups in the UJC told 'The News' daily.
He said the current Pakistani leadership is pursuing the policy adopted by ex-President Pervez Musharraf and "statements on Kashmir issued so far by President Asif Zardari had made it clear that the present Pakistan government would extend no support" to them.
Meanwhile, The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Russian Space Agency have joined hands to share critical equipments for the Indian
Man Mission to the Moon. India and Russia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote joint activities in the field of human space flight programme during the visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last week.
It means RUSSIA is not READY as yet to loose the traditional Defence and ARNMS Monopolistic ties with India despite Strategic realliance in Indian Ocean Pece Zone making it a WAR ZONE in US lead!
In India, the elite stay above the fray. They live in walled compounds, have their own source of electricity, hire their own security guards and educate their children in private schools, avoiding the issues confronting the government and the masses. But for the first time as it happened that the 60-hour siege that struck the heart of India's financial and entertainment center, killing 171 people, has fractured that secure existence, galvanizing thousands of middle- and upper-class Indians to get involved. A day after the assault ended, dozens turned out for a march along Mumbai's elegant Marine Drive. ``I'm gonna vote!'' shouted Shrenik Kenia, a 24-year-old engineering student. ``We're all gonna vote!'' It's not something many affluent Indians bother with, but mep the state, with its notoriously turgid, corrupt, and inefficient government.
Now the Ruling Hegemonies and their Agencies including National governments and security forces with Creamy Layer Policy Makers have been SET for MASS DESTRUCTION everywhere in this part of the Galaxy so Complex with ETHNIC DIVIDES! Thus, the War Goddess ATHENA is Invoked far away from the TROY of GREECE!
India is hurtling towards an industrial recession despite the much hyped Risilience claims by the outgoing Chettiar Gangsters of World Bank, FIMNMIn and RBI!Indian exports have already recorded double-digit declines in October and November. Imports continue to rise, which could put the balance of payments under immense pressure.The government said on Friday that the Index of Industrial Production in October was 0.4% lower than what it was a year ago. This is the first such decline in industrial output since 1993.
The FREEsenSEX is in CHOPPING times and it is all the PLEASURE for the BEARs! The recent interest rate cuts and fiscal stimulus will make an impact a few months later. Forget 8%: even a 7% growth rate seems unlikely now.
OPEC consensus on output cut-president
2008-12-13 [18:54:39 hrs]
OPEC ministers are in agreement on the need to cut output when they meet on Wednesday in Algeria to prop up sagging prices, OPEC President Chakib Khelil said on Saturday.
"There is an OPEC consensus on the reduction. But I can not tell you (more)," Khelil told reporters.
Since early September, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has already agreed to reduce supply by a total of two million barrels per day (bpd).
OPEC oil ministers are scheduled to meet in the western Algerian city of Oran on Wednesday amid expectations they will endorse a large cut in supplies to prevent further falls in oil prices.
Khelil, who is also Algeria's energy and mining minister, said Russia and some other non-OPEC oil producing countries like Azerbijan are to due attend the Oran meeting.
But he gave no furhter details about their possible contribution in trimming oil crude supply.
Two more US banks fail, toll reaches 25
13 Dec, 2008 [02:52 PM]
US Regulators closed two small regional banks, in Georgia and Texas, bringing to 25 the number of US bank failures this year. ....Read More
US Federal regulators reach a deal with Madoff
13 Dec, 2008 [02:51 PM]
As investors feared their life savings might be wiped off, Federal regulators are reported to have reached a deal with the Wall Street trader Bernard L....Read More
Bush may tap bailout fund to aid carmakers
13 Dec, 2008 [02:48 PM]
With Congress gridlocked and the economy floundering, the Bush administration declared on Friday it would step in to prevent the "precipitous collapse" of the US auto....Read More
Tata, Parekh, Ashok Ganguly meet PM to discuss slowdown
13 Dec, 2008 [02:47 PM]
With the Mumbai terror attacks rattling business confidence, members of the Investment Commission on Friday called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and are believed to have....Read More
Kuwait says OPEC should cut oil production
13 Dec, 2008 [02:46 PM]
Moussa Maarafi, a member of the Kuwaiti Supreme Petroleum Council, has said that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) at its meeting in Algeria next....Read More
German bourse opens office in Beijing: Statement
13 Dec, 2008 [02:45 PM]
Deutsche Boerse, the operator of the German stock exchange, has opened a representative office in Beijing, the latest bourse to do so in a bid to....Read More
Already THREE LAC Corores of national Revenue, the tax Payers` Money and Funds for the Masses have been PUMPED into MONEY Machine and the Infinite BAIOUT PLAN goes on and on! Suppose the Ruling Hegemony decides for yet ANOTHER WAr, What would happen to the STARVING People? Who have no Plastic Money nor the mandatory Purchasing Power to enter in the Market! What wil be their SURVIVAL Strategy? And the Newsbreak:The gunman captured in last month's Mumbai terrorist attacks told police he had originally intended to seize hostages and call the media to make demands, according to his confession statement obtained Saturday by The Associated Press!
Even as Pakistan refuses to accept that the attackers responsible for the November 26 terror strikes on Mumbai are Pakistanis, Mumbai police has come up with another clinching evidence.
Mumbai crime branch chief joint commissioner of police Rakesh Maria has confirmed that Mohammad Ajmal, the terrorist captured alive after the attacks, has written to the Pakistan High Commission seeking legal help.
Maria says that in a three-page letter scripted in Urdu, Mohammad Ajmal has confessed to his role in the 26/11 attacks.
In the letter, Kasab reportedly admits to being a Pakistani national and a part of the Lashkar-e-Toiba operations.
Kasab has also reportedly disclosed details of the LeT leaders and named Zaki-ur-rehman Lakhvi, LeT chief Hafeez Sayeed and Mohammad Kahafa as the key players in the group's training.
Just Think my FRIENDS!
Army Chief Deepak Kapoor on Saturday asserted that Indian security forces are well equipped to handle any challenges saying, the country can produce many Unnikrishnans who will readily sacrifice their lives on the motherland.
Addressing the Passing Out ceremony of Indian Military Academy in Dehradoon, the Army chief said that our security forces have faced various challenges many times and are always ready to handle all kind of difficult situations.
"Our forces will produce many Unnikrishnans who will be ready to sacrifice their lives for the motherland," Chief guest Kapoor said adding, "India is a secular country and the main duty of our soldiers are to protect the countrymen."
He said "our officers not only ensure the security of the country but also uphold it's honour and dignity."
He added that our officers were not only soldiers but also doctors, teachers, environmentalists and technical experts.
Advising the cadets during the ceremony, Kapoor said that one should never stop the process of acquiring knowledge which helps in facing any adversary.
He addressed 498 cadets, including six from Assam Rifles and 24 from foreign countries like Nepal, Tazhakistan and Bhutan on the occasion.
While prestigious 'Sword of Honour' award and Gold medal was bestowed on Abhishek Gurgmukh, cadets Atul Kumar Rai and Kunandan Kumar were awarded with silver and bronze medals respectively during the ceremony
However, Army Banner Award was given to Casino company of Bhagat Batallion.
Just note the US TURNAROUND! You depend so much on it!
The United States has said that Pakistan banned the Jamaat-ud-Dawa for its own interest and not because Islamabad was warned by the Bush administration that it stood to be branded as a terrorist state.
At Foggy Bottom the Spokesman Sean McCormack was asked to clarify a statement by the Defence Minister of Pakistan that Islamabad had to ban the Jamaat because if that hadn't happened, it would have been branded a terrorist state.
"Is that the message the US has sent out?" McCormack was asked. "No," he replied.
"...Pakistan did this because it saw it in its interest. As we have said many, many times over, the threat from violent extremists is as much a threat to Pakistani people and the Pakistani government as it is to anybody else. All that said, it's a welcome step that they took," he said.
"This is a day-by-day process, and it's something that requires vigilance every single day, fighting terrorism," he said making the point that at no time was there any talk of branding Pakistan as a terrorist state.
The Spokesman was also asked to clarify if the banning of the Jamaat would be one of the topics that the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would be covering when she visits the United Nations next week.
Rice is scheduled to be in New York for two days starting Monday for discussion on a range of issues including Zimbabwe and piracy.
"...there are a lot of different things that she's going to be talking about up there. I'm sure that she will touch on the issues related to India and Pakistan. I know that Foreign Secretary Miliband, at least at this point in time, plans to be up there and she plans to see him. And if they do get together, I'm sure that that topic will come up," he added.
Whoever may be behind the Terrorist activities, they never happen to be the Majority of the People. We may not blame the innocent Pakistani People for the crimes of Pakistani Military, ISI or even the government of pakistan. We never know the role played by United states of America and its NOTORIOUS Intelligence agency CIA, infamous for creating WAR and CIVIL WAR like Environment to protect US ZIONIST interests worldwide. Mind you, after POKARAN, Russia holds the ARMS MARKET MONOPOLY and since seventies America and NATo and the WEST never entered the Indian ARMS Market! Just because of SANCTIONS imposed by the same United satates of America! The Western Weapon Industry was very keen to operationalise the Indo US Nuclear deal and the US Congress obliged so easily. We got the NSG green Signal without any hinderance after DR Manmohan Manipulated Parliamentary Mandate at home! What for President BUSH has done all this HARD Work if US interests are not involved at all. Why does Barack OBAMA is so involved in Indian Affairs! The Ruling Hegemony knows very well that they have the best CHANCE to get an ESCAPE Route out of Recession in SOUTH ASIA if India and Pakistan tend to move into the US Weapon Market with long long shopping list!
Zardari's ability to deliver anything beyond the current crackdown is in serious doubt. In a new twist to the Mumbai terror attack probe, the only surviving terrorist captured during the Mumbai attacks -Ajmal Kasab-has written a letter to the Pakistan embassy pleading for legal aid! What Option remains at last?
May we Consider the Option of War against Pakistan considering that India’s economy could expand at a much lower rate than estimated with data released on Friday showing that industrial output in October contracted by 0.4%, the first time this is happening in 15 years, because of a decline in both domestic and external demand.
Industrial output grew 12.2% in October 2007!
The sharp fall is likely to increase pressure on the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to undertake another round of policy measures to boost domestic demand.
Why should we be provoked with Blind Nationalism just because of some terrorist incidents as we know well that United States of America created the GIANT to save its interests worldwide and now has to fight against it. Why should we be a PARTNER of United States of America and indulge ourselves IN yet another HOLOCAUST in the Bleeding Geopolitics South Asian? Why the STATE POWER is not COMPETENT enough to ensure our Safety and security? Is it possible to import safety and Security from united States of America!
Now Government of India is mulling a new anti-terror law to more effectively deal with the scourge. The law ministry has sent a proposal to the home ministry and would very soon declare the contents of the law which will have "reasonable restrictions," Union law minister H R Bhardwaj told reporters here on Saturday.
The minister was non-committal on being asked whether the new legislation will come up before the ongoing session of Parliament, saying it has to be first cleared by the cabinet.
Earlier, addressing the International Conference of Jurists on Terrorism, Rule of Law and Human Rights, Bhardwaj said time had come for a "really very effective" legislation to combat the menace in the aftermath of the Mumbai mayhem last month.
"We would arm ourselves with laws specifically aimed at terrorist and disruptive elements. The government would very soon declare the contents of the law," he said. The minister said the country never thought that it will face terrorism to such an extent. "But now the time has come for really very effective laws," he said.
Goddess ATHENA depicts Power as Indian Goddess Durga. But Durga, in her all forms, is associated with Lord SHIVA. As durga represents the PRAKRITI, Nature and Shiva , the MAN. Eternal relationship in between Nature and Man is thus symbolised in Age OLD Myths in India. Goddess Kali seems to be Aryanised in form of DURGA while Lord remains the same. We see durga mentioned well in Vedic Literature as well as in Upanishads and puran to be believed written by Aryans who created the Goddess replicating Indigenous Kali agnaist aboriginal indigenous black untouchables! Durga kills the Asuras, the aboriginal communities. kali is also described by the Aryans as war Goddess!Aboriginal Gods and Goddesses were ARYANISED to convert the NATIVES in Hindutva and occasionally fighting against the indigenous tribes as well as amongst themselves, that they conceived of some elemental gods and goddesses adopting the aboriginal and indigenous gods and goddesses as Shiva, Kali and even Durga!All documents and literature relating to Indigenous Dravid civilisation were first destroyed in Harappa and Mohanjodoro. US Imperialism did the same thing in Iraq and Afganistan! Mohanjodoro has not any legacy anywhere as they wiped out. Charvak philosophy was diluted in hindutva.south and North Indian dalits and Tribals are divided!ruling galaxy hegemony is NOTHING but but an expression of racial supremacy which began with the destruction of Mahergargh, Harrapa and Mohanjodoro as well as Maya and Inca civilisations!Since the Indus script has not been deciphered and apart from the bathhouse in Mohenjo-doro there are no religious structures! But we have enough evidences of their Indigenous developed agriculture, Civil Society, religion and culture. The Linga and YONI images which later transformed into SHIVALINGA is rooted in MOhanjedoro! The TERECOTA Seal found in HARAPPA depicts the Goddess of fertility, the Earth upsied down as the head lying underneath and the rest of the body stands vertically ERECT with stretching Legs and the stomock generating Production System depicted by storage of cereals. it resembles with the Abstract Modern Painting of Picasso! Not only this, the Goddess has two tigers face to face standing by her side. Mind you, Goddess durga stands on the Lion. She is the Daughter of Himalayas which has been always inhibited by Indigenous people but they were not Black! As the people of Kashir are also not Black but they never happen to be Aryans. We know about Baisno Devi, the Himalayan version of Goddess Durga! Thus, it may be understood that the Goddess of Peace and Fertility was translated as the Goddess of War by the Culture in Aggression, the Aryan!
But our people worship Goddess Kali, the SAVIOUR! She is known as Raksha Kali! The Kali who protects and who, at the same time depicts the fiercest REALITIES of life as we see in the Kali Idol in kalighat , well portrayed by Gunter Grass!
Even today, in my village where the comrades of My Father Pulin Babu established a Co Operative Land Settlement society way back in 1956, naming it after my mother Basanti Devi, the people rooted in the Myths, Legends and Superstitions of different indigenous districts of East Bengal as Jassore,Faridpur, Khulna and Barishal, worship Rakshakali, the Saviour. it is amusing taht even in Bengal, Original Durga image was very different from present form. The eyes were extremely slanted (like bamboo leaves) and the face was almost triangular and mask like. Basanti (Spring) puja is still done with exactly the same iamge. One is Ravana's puja and the other is Rama's (Ramachandra). The Asvina one seems to be a celebration of Rama's puja. The story of the Bengali version of the Ramayana is seen as the starting point of the worship of Durga in the autumn (Sabarotsaba). Little is known about Kalikapurana or any shastras for that matter. Basanti puja rare these days. basanti Puja is organised originally as durga associated with Nature. Lord Rama invoked Goddess Durga with Akal BODHAN to kill RAVANA, the Demon king in Shrilanka!While, Bengali cast Gondho-banik. All worship Shiva on a bull with Durga on lap, blessing with 4 figures accompanying. Not the usual Durga image. Paper merchants worship this type.
The Puja continues in its traditional form in every Summer in Bengali month of Baishak, on Satureday in Amavasya, Dark Moon. Any FAULT in the ritual is avoided as it is feared most in Myth, legend and superstition. I remember those days while just after Raksha Kali Puja, in case of breaking an Epidemic of Small POX or Cholera, the rituals had to be repeated once again with a fresh Raksha Kali IDOL being worshipped! In East Bengal our people tried to save themselves against all kinds of FURY of Nature, be it famine, Be it Cyclone or Floods, be it Epidemics, Worshipping Goddess Raksha kali. She has never been a Goddess of war as we find in Jasimuddin`s Sojan Badiyar Ghat where Raksha Kali was invoked to indulge our people , the Namoshudras to fight the Muslims replicating the infamous Padma BILL Riots. The Legend is Goddess kali was engaged Killing Muslims in Padma Bill. I have heard so many details of the riots described by my Thakuma( mother of my father) and Dididma( Mother of my Jethima, aunt)!To sustain human faith through the centuries, human beings converted earthly heroes and heroines into divine Gods and Goddesses !The early inhabitants believed in village gods and goddesses, tree, and serpent cults ..... was probably Aryanised and taken into the fold. of the Brahmanical deities. The absorption of gods and goddesses. of the primitive people down from the ...It may be noted in the Aryanisation of the South, particularly of the Tamil ... especially the rock cut forms of the Dravid architecture !
Pakistan police have reportedly arrested 167 Jamaat-ud-Dawa operatives and closed down over 50 of its offices across the country in a continued crackdown against the banned group. The Daily Times quoted official sources in Islamabad as saying that three offices of the Jamaat-ud-Daawa in the national capital were sealed on Friday.
``Well-to-do Indians think the state is irrelevant. We keep doing what we do, living in private enclaves, and making money,'' said Nandan Nilekani, co-chairman of Indian software giant Infosys Technologies Ltd. ``This has been a rude awakening.''
The question is, will their involvement make a difference? India is run by a massive, lumbering, outdated and frequently corrupt bureaucracy. While a civil service job used to be among the greatest professional plums for India's educated classes, these days the rich and ambitious focus far more on the country's fast-growing private sector.
And politics is riddled with century's-old class conflicts, religious divisions and nepotism.
Also, in the 60 years since independence, India's leaders have done the math and turned to the nation's hundreds of millions of rural poor to win office, prompting the middle class to withdraw from the political process.
The rich and well-connected have been largely unscathed by the wave of terror strikes that roiled India in recent years, with most bombs exploding in markets and on public trains. The Nov. 26-29 attacks hit far closer to home. The gunmen attacked south Mumbai, a center of social power graced with stately old buildings and great, weeping trees.
Two of the targets were the iconic Taj Mahal hotel and the luxurious Oberoi hotel, sites of countless business meetings and the playground for Mumbai's high society.
Residents lost friends, relatives and colleagues and live with the dread that it could have been them trapped as the gunmen sprayed five-star restaurants with bullets and grenades. Many now wonder where to meet for lunch.
The attack ``has galvanized the middle class and elite like no other act of violence has before,'' said Nilekani, who has just written a book on Indian society and politics, ``Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century.''
Their quest for change is not unprecedented. The swelling ranks of educated, affluent Indians have already transformed the country into an emerging economic power and a high-tech leader. But this has been largely done despite the government and India's primitive infrastructure.
For now, the frustrations amount to little more than symbolic gestures and an inchoate demand for change.
The Society of Indian Law Firms, a group of 60 top firms across the country, filed a petition last week, urging the Bombay High Court to compel the government to take concrete steps to improve security and set up a citizen oversight committee to make sure reforms stay on track. The Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a group of about 2,000 businesses based in Mumbai, signed on in support.
Sriram Subramanian, who runs a consulting company, sent out an e-mail to a hundred friends and colleagues calling for a new political party, which would draw on the expertise of India's educated urbanites.
The comments from Indian prime Minister came after Pakistan arrested dozens of members of the charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, suspected of being a front for militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) -- which India blames for last month's attacks on its financial hub.
Pakistan has placed the charity's leader Hafiz Saeed under house arrest and ordered its assets frozen after the UN Security Council listed it as a terror group following the attacks that left 172 people dead, including nine gunmen.
"The forces of terrorism, inspired by ideologies of hatred, intolerance and exclusion, pose today a fundamental challenge to liberal democracies," Singh told a conference of jurists in New Delhi.
"They pose a challenge to democracy at home, to democracy in our region, to democracy around the world," he said.
"Governments and authorities in our region and elsewhere have therefore a moral duty to act firmly and quickly," he said.
New Delhi had previously blamed "elements in Pakistan" for being behind the 60-hour siege that ended on November 28, raising tensions between the two nuclear-armed South Asian rivals.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said "non-state actors" operating on Pakistani soil were responsible for the attacks.
Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee meanwhile voiced scepticism over Pakistan's arrests of Saeed and Maulana Masood Azhar, the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed, which like LeT is fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
"We shall have to see whether these (actions by Pakistan) are taken to their logical conclusion," said the minister, noting Islamabad had detained the pair in 2002 but later released them.
"All our common friends and responsible statesmen are playing their important role in defusing the situation and I'm pretty sure that will work."
Gilani said Pakistan was taking its own action against groups and people put on a U.N. terrorist list, and the chances of India resorting to air strikes against militant targets were remote.
"I think India is equally responsible and they won't. There is no fear of anything like that," Gilani said.
Indian and U.S. officials have levelled accusations at Lashkar-e-Taiba, a jihadi organisation that fought Indian rule in Kashmir and, according to analysts, has had close ties to the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
India's Parvathy Omanakuttan was adjudged the first runner-up at the Miss World pageant here Saturday evening. Miss World Pageant
She impressed the jury with her looks and quick wit and was one the five finalists out of the 109 contestants at the Sandton Convention Center. However, she was finally beaten by Miss Russia.
Miss Trinidad and Tobago was named the second runner-up. The others in contention in the final five were Miss South Africa and Miss Angola.
India had high hopes on 21-year-old Parvathy to win the crown that last came to the country in 2000.
India boasts of Miss Worlds like Reita Faria (1966), Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (1994), Diana Hayden (1997), Yukta Mookhey (1999) and Priyanka Chopra (2000).
The ruling Hegemonies in this divided Bleeding Geopolitics of south Asia have done everything to make the Nation State Colonised SURRENDERING Sovereignity and FREEDOM. Have done everything to Americanise the People ENSLAVED with inherent inequality, injustice and GRADED Caste system sustaining! They havd done every thing to DESTROY Production systems and Productive FORCES. Corporate IMPERILISM, supported by Fascism and BETRAYAL of MARXISTS, has the Last Say in this Subcontinent. Now we share the US Destiny in Life and Death! In the wake of last month's terror attacks in Mumbai and the subsequent crackdown by the Pakistan Government on the banned
Lashkar-e-Toiba and its political wing - the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a coalition of five major Jihadi organisations, led by militant commander Syed Salahuddin, has disappeared.
According to The News, these Jihadi organizations have temporarily dissolved themselves, closed down their offices, removed all signs and asked their leaders to stay quiet.
Data released by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) on Friday showed that in the first seven months of this fiscal year (April-October), the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) grew 4.1% compared with 9.9% during the same period a year ago. The output of the manufacturing sector, which accounts for around 80% of IIP, shrank 1.2% in October, while those of the electricity and mining sector rose 4.4% and 2.8%, respectively. And while the output of intermediate goods and consumer goods companies fell, those of companies in the basic and capital goods sectors registered weak growth. Economists here do not expect the factory output numbers to get better in a hurry.
“Industrial production may somehow perform better in coming months. But for a country like India, any sub-5% growth in industrial output is pathetic. Industry should grow at around 9-10%,” said Dharmakirti Joshi, principal economist with credit rating agency Crisil Ltd. His estimate of industrial output in 2008-09 is 5%.
Meanwhile,Foreign lender, HSBC has decided to cut 193 jobs in its Indian consumer assets business segment after it reviewed the portfolio in the backdrop of the prevailing economic conditions, the bank said.The bank is restructuring its consumer assets business division in the country owing to the economic downturn and had made "every efforts to redeploy the staff," HSBC said in a statement on Friday.
"Some 620 people have been redeployed in suitable positions in the bank and other group entities in India. The leavers have been placed in the bank's priority returners scheme which will give them first preference for suitable jobs that come up in the next year," the statement said.
Nine patrol vessels deployed for India's coastal surveillance
In a significant step towards strengthening India's coastal surveillance, the Indian Customs Saturday commissioned nine advanced patrol vessels and announced plans to acquire 100 more within the next five years at a cost of Rs.3.58 billion.
Chairman of Central Board of Excise and Customs P.C. Jha commissioned two classes of vessels - three category I vessels and six category III vessels at the Mumbai Port Saturday evening.
These vessels shall be stationed in Mumbai, Raigad, Ratnagiri (Maharashtra), Goa, Mangalore (Karnataka), Kochi, Trichy (Kerala), Okha, Kandla, Valsad and Umargaon (Gujarat).
The vessels, built by a Malaysian company, Gold Bridge, can stay at sea for up to three days. The category I vessels are air-conditioned, 20 metres in length and can attain speeds of up to 25 knots, Jha said.
The category III vessels, built by a Singapore company, Brunswyck, are small speed boats measuring between six to nine metres and capable of achieving speeds of up to 35 knots and can remain at sea for up to 10 hours.
The induction of these vessels comes barely a fortnight after a group of terrorists entered Mumbai unobtrusively from the Arabian Sea and created mayhem for almost three days in which over 170 people lost their lives and nearly 300 others were injured.
"As an enforcement agency we are continuously faced with new challenges and complexities and the greatest challenge is to augment our capacity to respond effectively to those seeking to breach our coasts," Jha said while commissioning the vessels.
The government will acquire another 24 such vessels over the next 15 months from Gold Bridge, he added.
In addition, a contract has been signed to acquire advanced patrol vessels in the category II, which are 13.5 metres long with a speed of 40 knots. Equipped with sophisticated communication and navigational aids like radar, GPS, satellite communication, VHF and other equipment, these shall be built by Bahrain's Al Dhaen Craft, Jha said.
In the first phase of this programme, surveillance on the west coast shall be beefed on the coastal states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala.
India has a total coastline measuring 7,600 km.
The new vessels shall also augments efforts to monitor smuggling activities, narcotics trade through the sea, sneaking in arms and ammunition, apart from checking potential terrorist threat and bio-security threats.
The three large vessels commissioned today are named "Ila", "Chitra", and "Kaushalya" after the former senior women officers who served the customs department.
Cranked-up SEZs won’t be denotified
13 Dec 2008, 0115 hrs IST, Amiti Sen, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Centre—which recently decided to denotify DLF’s “barren” special economic zone (SEZ) in Delhi—will not allow operational SEZs, where
units have been set up, to be denotified. “The SEZs where units have been set up cannot be denotified,” commerce secretary GK Pillai said.
The Goa government, which has been urging the Centre to take steps to denotify the three notified SEZs in the state, will have to continue its discussions with developers to come to an amicable settlement on the issue. The state government had declared last December that it would not allow any SEZs and all existing zones would be scrapped.
Since three of the zones in the state are notified and have units, the state is finding it difficult to get rid of them.
Speaking to ET, Mr Pillai said it will not be difficult to denotify the DLF SEZ in Delhi as there are no units in the
zone and the land is barren. However, the zones which has units cannot be denotified as it would affect the unit owners and the people employed in the units.
SEZs, where developers have undertaken construction activity, can also be denotified if there are no units in the zone and the developers agree to refund the tax benefits they received during the construction phase.
SEZ developers and units get a host of tax breaks including tax-exemption on profits for a specified period. The problem of credit squeeze and global economic slowdown which has cast its shadow on the Indian industry at large, is also making it difficult for SEZ developers and units.
The commerce department has already asked the RBI to expedite action on the Centre’s decision to grant infrastructure status to SEZs (for all activities barring the acquisition of land), so that SEZs get access to funds at lower rate of interest.
In the board of approval (BoA) meeting of SEZs earlier this week, about six SEZs had applied for partial denotification of their land. Mr Pillai pointed out that it was routine for SEZ developers to ask for both pruning and expansion of their areas. “As long as the SEZs do not breach the minimum area and maximum area norms, it is allowed,” he said.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Economy/Cranked-up_SEZs_wont_be_denotified/articleshow/3830674.cms
Higher WMA limit not enough for govt
13 Dec 2008, 0011 hrs IST, ET Bureau
MUMBAI: A funds-starved government has breached its enhanced ways and means advances (WMA) limit for the second half. And forex reserves continued
their downslide after a pause of one week. The reserves dipped $1.8 billion during the week ended December 5.
According to data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its weekly statistical supplement (WSS), government banks borrowed Rs 30,986 crore — way higher than the enhanced limit of Rs 20,000 crore, which was revised upwards from Rs 6,000 crore in November in anticipation of revenue mismatches, as two government bond auctions were cancelled during the month.
WMA is a temporary advance to meet government revenue mismatches. At any given point in time, the government cannot have an outstanding borrowing over the prescribed limit under this facility. When 75% of the limit of WMA is utilised by the government, RBI may trigger fresh floatation of market loans. Borrowings within the prescribed limit are at the prevailing repo rate, while loans in excess of the limit attract an additional 2% interest.
Following a severe liquidity squeeze through October, the central bank on November 12 had enhanced the WMA limit to Rs 20,000 crore until December 31, 2008. RBI had then said, “The temporary enhancement of the limit of WMA will help meet the unanticipated mismatches between government payments and receipts arising from the cancellation of two auctions scheduled for October 2008, and the bunching of expenditure following the supplementary demand for grants.”
Though reliance on RBI was anyway anticipated, what is disconcerting is the fact that the amount ended up being more than what was envisaged earlier. This was largely because the government virtually exhausted its resources required to meet daily administrative expenses with virtually no market borrowings even in November too, according to an economist with a leading brokerage house. Also, there has been a marked slowdown in revenue this year, which could have shrunk the government’s revenue kitty. It was by end-October that the government implemented the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission and also settled the arrears to government employees.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Market_News/Higher_WMA_limit_not_enough_for_govt/articleshow/3830484.cms
Hopes of further rate cuts, fiscal boost to play on market sentiment
13 Dec 2008, 1039 hrs IST, Surya R Kannoth, ECONOMICTIMES.COM
MUMBAI: The show of resilience that Indian bourses displayed on Friday paint a healthy picture for the markets in the forthcoming week. Hopes of
further rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of India and prospects of a second round of fiscal incentives may keep the momentum going.
"The second half of Friday's session conveys buoyancy returning to the market. Unless the US markets tank tonight in reaction to the failure of the auto makers' bailout, (although it seems unlikely) there could be some downside for our markets. But our markets seem poised for a steady upmove with another round of fiscal stimulus on the cards," said Sandeep Shenoy, head-equities at PINC Research.
Moreover, the image of FIIs scrambling en masse to the exit doors has changed with the reversal of trend in FII activity in the month of December. Till date this month, FIIs have turned buyers to the tune of Rs 2048.7 crore in equities, according to SEBI data. Anlaysts feel that the trend is likely to remain intact till the month end.
"In the last one week, we have observed that despite external insecurities, the Indian market has shown strength. Even after the collapse of the US automakers bailout and dismal IIP data, Indian equities showed remarkable strength. Bond markets were rallying on hopes of another round of rate cuts and fiscal package measures next week. This could keep the market sentiment upbeat," said Anita Gandhi, head-institutional business at Arihant Capital.
The government is likely to announce another fiscal stimulus package next week aimed to prevent further deceleration in India's growth rate, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said.
"The package will be directed at employment-intensive sectors. It could include sops for engineering and textile sectors as well as refinance for exporters," he said at the sidelines of a function organised by Spanish Institute of Foreign Trade.
According to initial estimates with the commerce ministry, exports have fallen by over 10 per cent in November compared with growth of over 30 per cent in the same month last year. This will be the second consecutive month in which exports have dipped owing to a waning demand from overseas clients.
The new package is likely to include enhanced rates of Duty Drawback and Duty Entitlement Passbook Scheme, which will allow exporters higher reimbursements of indirect taxes paid. Moreover, some sectors like textile could get additional subvention in interest rate on export credit.
India's industrial production unexpectedly declined in October. Although the Indian economy depends largely on its services sector, analysts feel a contraction in the manufacturing sector is still of concern to its overall growth outlook. The slump in industrial output during October was likely attributed to a decline in both domestic and external demand.
The industry recorded negative growth for the first time in 15 years, falling to 0.4 per cent in October as against 12.2 per cent expansion a year ago as the impact of the global economic downturn deepened in the country. The fall is partly due to a dip of over 12 per cent in India's exports.
Policy makers said the fall was bigger than expected even as they exuded confidence that the December 7 stimulus package would arrest any further decline.
Job losses force investors to turn traders
12 Dec 2008, 1620 hrs IST, Mandar Nimkar, ECONOMICTIMES.COM
MUMBAI: Long time investors have turned traders as the spilling over effect of the deepening global recession has started trouble their daily bread Tips to get your dream job
When dream job is not perfect
Cos with maximum volatility
Stock buyback & how it's done
and butter.
Increasing fears of job losses have prompted investors to raise cash levels and make money out of the intraday volatility.
The high volatile trading seen in the markets in the last few months was the result of the change in investor sentiment and attitude. The cascading effects of the global recession have changed the basic rules of the game.
The emerging economies like India have also not been spared from the slowdown threat. Job cuts, though not severe in Indian industries, is still creating havoc among the workforce. Employees from IT, realty and auto sectors are more worried about their job security. Employees, who were the long term investors in the stock markets and have lost their jobs, are now attracted towards intraday trading.
Kiran Bhagat who was with one of the top IT companies had invested Rs 1,00,000 on April 3, 2006 when Nifty was at 3473 level. Even after holding his shares for two years, he incurred a loss of Rs 17000 as on December 11, 2008. He would have remained invested for a longer time if he could have saved his job.
"I could have kept my investments for a longer duration but the sudden job loss has forced me to liquidate my investments at loss. However, I had invested Rs 25,000 on Oct 27 when Nifty was at 2450 levels and by October 31, I earned about Rs 3000 on my investments. A return of 12 per cent in 4 days," said Bhagat.
Same is the case with another long term investor Unmesh Deodhar. He lost about Rs 48000 in the recent stock market carnage. "Investment from a long term point view is good, but when you are out of job or uncertainty lingers over your daily income you have to change yourself as per the situation," said Deodhar.
He further added that, "When the future is not known and the present is bleak one should always play with the momentum. For me it's better to loose some money in short term trade rather than losing from a long term approach. Now I have started going by my gut feelings. It helped me immensely for intraday trading."
Fears of slowdown get dense as the index of industrial production data has turned into negative for the first time in at last 10 years. India's index of industrial production for October turned negative for the first time in last 10 years. The industrial production fell to -0.4 per cent in October against 4.8 per cent in September and 12.22 per cent a year earlier.
"It is but obvious that when one's source of income comes under the uncertainty, he ought to change his investment attitude. This is very natural thing. The volatility increases when players opt to go for very short term trade to avoid locking money for longer duration. However, there is a high risk for the unprofessional investors to trade from a very shorter time perspective or an intraday trading," said Tanuj Shukla, analyst with Krug and Bordan Advisory.
Systemic reforms for internal security
13 Dec 2008, 0214 hrs IST,
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Systemic_reforms_for_internal_security/articleshow/3830788.cms
The fundamental problem with India’s internal security policy is that it is merely reactive and not proactive, and that the initiatives are just ad
hoc and not systemic and sustained. It is often limited to heightened rhetoric post-terrorist attacks, hurling allegations upon Pakistan and followed by a few days of high alert and increased police presence. In a matter of few days, everything returns to square one and the lull creeps in, till another identical terror attack.
Contrast this to the US reaction towards internal security, post the 9/11 attacks. The US initiated one of the largest multi-layered reforms to integrate its federal, state and local government efforts to secure its land, maritime, air, space and cyber domains.
The creation of the department of homeland security enabled synergy of efforts of otherwise disparate departments and agencies of the federal and local governments, thereby unifying the vision and ensuring cohesive strategic approach.
This was followed by the creation of office of director, national intelligence, the homeland security council, and the national counterterrorism centre. Extensive legal reforms included the US PATRIOT Act, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, and the Protect America Act of 2007. And what was the outcome? Despite being the prime target of global terrorism, the US did not have a single incident of major terrorist attack over the past seven years.
India has to necessarily learn lessons from the US experience and follow suit. To begin with, we should have a dedicated ministry for internal security, which would integrate the host of agencies and departments involved in preventive operations, enforcement of law, collection of intelligence, tasks of immigration, customs, coastal security and criminal investigation and prosecution upon such crime. Federal crimes, especially terror attacks, inter-state organised crimes, and Naxalite movements need to be tackled exclusively by federal agencies for investigation and prosecution.
For this purpose, an exclusive federal agency for investigation, and a federal directorate of prosecution is
necessary. A federal intelligence agency should convert raw intelligence inputs into credible, actionable and timely responses; and all agencies including IB, RAW, military intelligence, directorate of revenue intelligence and all state intelligence agencies should report to it.
Extensive legal reforms should be undertaken on a war footing. Legal and structural reforms are badly needed to prevent economic and cyber crimes, which can decimate the country. Criminal justice system should be overhauled at least for the limited purposes of investigating, prosecuting and trying persons accused of crimes against national security, in a manner comparable with military courts.
India’s borders are porous and we do not have an immigration policy or an enforcement system similar to that of the US. Cross-border infiltration from Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan is detrimental to national security. As a long-term strategy, we should deport all the illegal migrants from neighbouring countries.
Financial inclusion for the under-privileged
10 Dec 2008, 1803 hrs IST, Nishthala Ramakrishnan,
Bhavani Shankar, a plumber who hails from Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh, has been working in Mumbai for the past eight years. With great difficulty he
managed to meet the KYC norms of a public sector bank, and finally he opened a no-frills bank account in a branch close to his Mumbai home. Four months after opening the account, he had accessed it only twice. The travails of an irregular income continued to trouble him.
When I asked Bhavani why he had not yet opened a recurring deposit with his account, so that he could save the excess income he made during the peak periods of the year, such as during festive times, he looked bewildered. “Nobody at the bank told me anything, once the bank account was opened. What does this recurring deposit mean?”
In the statistics of the Government of India, Bhavani would be counted as one of the financially included, but on the ground, nothing has changed for him. The staff at the bank had fulfilled the statistical requirement of opening a bank account but had nothing else. Unfortunately Bhavani’s is not an isolated example. In a study by the management consulting firm, The Boston Consulting Group, it is estimated that close to 40% of all the no-frills account holders rarely access their accounts. While the bank account holders in rural India face other challenges such as the cost of reaching the banks as well as potential loss of income for that day, in urban India, the problem is essentially one of financial illiteracy.
What is financial inclusion? It is the access that an individual has to the full range of financial services, including savings, credit, insurance and investment advice.
At one end of the spectrum is the financially privileged individual who is constantly pursued by banks and other financial institutions wanting to give him loans, credit cards etc. (Anybody who has been at the receiving end of a persistent tele-caller trying to sell a credit card, guaranteed free for a life time, would fall into this category!). At the other extreme end are those who do not even have a bank account. But, as Bhavani’s example illustrates, having an account alone is not enough.
What is imperative is a systematic process which lays down the series of steps that the bank-staff need to go through in making the full range of financial services available to the individual with a no-frills account. Let’s take these up one by one.
Savings account: Most self-employed people belonging to this category earn in cash. They need to be coached on the habit of putting their surplus money beyond their immediate needs, in the savings account, through regular deposits. The life time habit of keeping this money either tucked away in the house in some corner, or with a ‘reliable friend’ is hard to break and needs diligent coaching.
Insurance: One of the greatest dangers for the self-employed with limited income is a relatively huge outflow of cash due to medical emergencies. For a person with a monthly income of Rs 4,000, a hospitalization stay costing Rs 30,000 would beggar him for a long time to come. Added to this is the loss of income during the period of hospitalization. These days, insurance companies have several simple products which for an annual payment of Rs 500 to Rs 600 can offer hospitalization cover, under a group scheme. The banks could offer a group cover option to all their no-frills account holders, furthering their financial stability.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Financial_inclusion_for_the_under-privileged/articleshow/3819226.cms
Pakistan continues crackdown on Jamat-ud-Dawah
Islamabad (IANS): Pakistan's law-enforcing agencies on Saturday continued their countrywide crackdown against the Jamat-ud-Dawah (JuD), proscribed by the UN Security Council in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
Reports said that 11 more arrests were made from different parts and almost all offices of the JuD had been closed down either by the security agencies or by the JuD itself.
An interior ministry official said three out of four men who came under sanction by the U.N. Security Council Sanctions Committee on Wednesday — Muhammad Saeed a.k.a. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Haji Muhammad Ashraf Arian, and Mohmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq — were apprehended, while the agencies were conducting raids to arrest Arian, an important member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
However, media reports said Arian had died some six years back. A report by GEO television quoting his close relatives said Arian died during his arrest in jail in 2002 after he was picked up from his home from interior Sindh.
Arian's family migrated from Indian Punjab to Sindh in 1947 during the partition and since then was living there. His family members said security officials had raided their house and they were shown his death certificate issued by jail authorities.
Declare Pakistan a 'terrorist state', UN urged
New York Over 100 activists of a US-based Indo-American group, affiliated to the BJP, held a protest demonstration outside the United Nations headquarters here, demanding the world body declare Pakistan a ‘terrorist state’ in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.
"Nothing short of that would help," the supporters of the Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP) asserted, while dismissing sanctions against Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a front organisation of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) blamed for the November 26 attacks, and four of its men as an ‘eye wash.’
Pakistan never implemented its earlier ban on LeT and allowed its leaders to work in freedom to recruit and train terrorists and collect funds, they charged on Friday.
"What is different this time?" they asked and sent a petition to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demanding that the world body threaten Pakistan with action unless it reins in terrorists operating from its territory.
"Otherwise, the world would witness another Mumbai massacre soon," they warned, while carrying placards listing the demands.
Several participants suggested India should attack terrorist training camps inside Pakistan if Islamabad fails to do so within a short time.
But the Mumbai attacks, they said, were ‘most audacious’ so far as their planning and execution was concerned and showed that ‘weak action’ by Indian government had encouraged them.
But advocating more balanced approach, NRIs for Secular and Harmonious India (NRI-SAHI) commended the Indian government for not escalating the situation on the borders with Pakistan while simultaneously sending a strong message to Islamabad against encouraging terrorist outfits.
Cautioning the opposition parties which are demanding ‘war’ with Pakistan, NRI-SAHI said any conflict would be ‘disastrous’.
"Children of both countries need books, need bread and not bombs and bullets," it said.
It also pointed out that Pakistan itself has been victim of terrorism and has suffered severely at the hands of religious extremists.
But it is important that Pakistan destroys all terror network so that the region could live in peace, it added.
It's 'soul-searching' time for Pak. media
Islamabad (PTI): As the Pakistani government cracks down on terrorists linked to the Mumbai carnage, the media in the country has embarked on a "soul-searching exercise", with questions being raised as to why the Islamic nation has become "the hub of militancy and terrorism.
"Soul-searching is in order, and an acceptance of the fact that Pakistan is indeed a hub of militancy and terrorism, the influential Dawn newspaper said on Saturday.
The Pakistani government has cracked down on the banned militant group Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT) and its affliate group Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), which has been declared a terrorist organisation by the UN.
The newspaper lamented that even though an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis do not support militancy "a small fanatical fringe has come to dictate the agenda" of the country.
In an editorial headlined 'The common enemy,' it said "we have a collective responsibility to look inwards".
The News daily said the JuD and the LeT were known to have scouted Punjab for suitable people to join their ranks.
"It is only when its roots are pulled out that an organisation like the JuD can be stopped. Otherwise, like a weed, it will continue to spread rapidly," it said in an editorial on Saturday.
The media has highlighted the pull of money and identity for the self-styled 'jihadis'. "The resentment the powerless feel may be cloaked in anti-Americanism or religiosity but in actual fact it boils down to a class conflict," Dawn argued.
It warned that as long as nothing is done to address the growing underemployment in this country, "the militants will find no shortage of fresh recruits". "At least that is the case in Pakistan," it added.
The Dawn said becoming part of a militant or terrorist organisation "empowers poor, impressionable young men". It cited the case of Ajmal Amir Kasab, the sole terrorist caught alive in the Mumbai carnage. Kasab, who hails from Faridkot, apparently first sought refuge from poverty in crime and then gravitated towards jehadi outfits.
The paper demanded the country's leadership to inform the nation in unequivocal terms" that extremism will enjoy no sanction and will not be tolerated.
The News highlighted the fact that many of the leaders of the militant organisations were backed by the country's top spy agency to fulfill its diplomatic agenda set by its leaders.
It said that in the mid-1980s, the LeT and Hafiz Muhammad Saeed enjoyed the backing of the CIA and the ISI to battle Soviet troops in Afghanistan.
"This patronage helped it to evolve into an organization believed to be one of South Asia's largest militant forces. The links with elements within the ISI are thought to have been retained as the guns turned away from Afghanistan and towards Kashmir", The News underlined.
"This background means that the current action against the JuD may not be enough," it stressed, for "Its tentacles run deep and enwrap many minds".
In effect, the media argued that Pakistan as a nation "face isolation, and internal ruin" if the militants are not "brought to book.
India has blamed Pakistan-based LeT and its front organisation JuD for planning and carrying out the Mumbai attacks on November 26 that killed nearly 200 people.
On the other hand,A.R Rahman pays tribute to the bleeding city as Expressindia reports:
A.R Rahman is a name that is synonymous with excellence in music and he is breaking new grounds with his music each time. With the nomination ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ for the Golden Globes, Rahman has added yet another feather on his cap. At a recent launch of a new music collection in collaboration with Nokia, Rahman expressed his vision to connect India through music.
“In today’s time a song like ‘Jiya Se Jiya’ becomes even more relevant as it gives the message of embracing everyone irrespective of their region, religion or language,” he added.
Expressing his condolences for the victims of the Mumbai attack, he saluted all the peace keepers who helped in saving the bleeding city. For A.R Rahman, art is like medicine in these trying times.
He felt the need to escape from the city to change his frame of mind and the nomination of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ for the Golden Globes has been the only good news that comes his way as he lost a co-worker to the terror attack.
Rahman hopes to bring a smile back on the faces of the people with this album and claims he would have been jumping had it not been for the tragedy. The album also includes tracks from Mann Chandre, Kural, Mylapore Blues and Mosquito.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/A-R-Rahman-pays-tribute-to-the-bleeding-city/397675/
A hoax call and Pakistan went up in smoke!
Press Trust of India
Posted: Dec 12, 2008 at 1442 hrs IST
Islamabad Spoof writers across the globe are churning out stories on the hoax telephone call that almost sparked fears of a military confrontation between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan shortly after the terror attacks on Mumbai.
A spoof put out from Sydney with a dateline of February 1, 2013 reads: "Two hoax calls that were made to US President Sarah Palin and Pakistan President Asif Zardari last night brought an end to world civilization after these calls triggered off a nuclear holocaust resulting in probable death of over 3 billion people, half of the world's population."
The story titled ‘Hoax calls bring about end of the world’ says a caller pretending to be Indian Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani called Zardari and told him that Indian missiles had landed on Lahore and Karachi and Islamabad was next.
"Zardari immediately ordered nuclear strikes on New Delhi and Mumbai in retaliation which resulted in counter-strikes by India. India hit back strongly by nuking Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Hyderabad. And Pakistan went up in smoke!" wrote a spoof writer known as Sunil Bhuneja.
Zardari reportedly took a phone call from a man pretending to be India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on November 28, apparently without following the usual verification procedures.
The hoax caller threatened military action against Pakistan in response to the then ongoing Mumbai attacks. India subsequently clarified that Mukherjee had made no such call to Zardari.
According to the spoof, as India and Pakistan were being attacked, another hoax caller called ‘US President Sarah Palin’ and claimed to be Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev.
The prank caller informed Palin that Russia has nuked New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. "Palin ordered half a dozen Russian cities to be nuked. But due to missile-launcher malfunction, a couple of them landed on Chinese soil by mistake.”
Within next half an hour, the US was inundated by nuclear missiles from both Russia and China landing on all its major cities," the spoof item said.
When Palin was running for Vice-Presidency, she got hoaxed by a Canadian DJ who pretended to be French President Nicholas Sarkozy.
PTI
Pakistan has to hand over terrorists, says Pranab
Berhampore India on Saturday said that Pakistan should hand over terrorists wanted by New Delhi immediately and take concrete steps against elements spreading terror.
"Pakistan has to hand over those using its soil to spread terror in India and award exemplary punishment to those directly involved in the Mumbai attacks on November 26," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said.
Mukherjee said that India had on a number of occasions demanded immediate hand-over of those using Pakistani soil to carry out terrorist activities and now it had to act as per international demand.
Stating that Pakistan was now under international pressure, Mukherjee said, "but it has to act."
Pakistan has to abide by the international demand for action against terrorist organisations in that country, he said.
Referring to agreement signed between former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf that Pakistan soil would not be allowed to be used to target India, Mukherjee said, "we would like Islamabad to keep the sanctity of the agreement."
Expressing himself against the term ‘Islamic terrorism’, Mukherjee said, "Islam does not believe in terrorism. It preaches love and brotherhood and it is the very tenet of the religion."
He was speaking to reporters after inaugurating Sagardighi College, 45 km from Berhampore.
Pak cracks down on terror groups but what next?
Atishay Abbhi / CNN-IBN
Published on Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 19:45 in World section
New Delhi: It is a crackdown unprecedented by Pakistan's standards. Never before has the Jamaat-ud-Dawa faced this kind of heat from the authorities. But what next?
"We expect Pakistan to do much more. We are ready to share any information with Pakistan. Pakistan has to dismantle the entire terror infrastructure," India's External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee said on Saturday.
However, Pakistani politicians are dismissive.
General Secretary of the PML(Q), Mushahid Hussain said, "There is no evidence that has been shared with Pakistan. It may be existng in South Block or in the Prime Minister's Office. Why is India shy of sharing this with Pakistan?"
The obfuscation and denial is only part of the problem. Pakistan President Zardari's ability to deliver anything beyond the current crackdown is in serious doubt because he no control over the powerful Pakistan army.
Nor does he have any access to Pakistan's most notorious instrument of state power - the ISI. It's widely believed that sections of the ISI have turned rogue, running their own security policy, colluding with groups like the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the Tehreek-e-Taliban to destabilise their own government.
Former under-secretary-general of the United Nations, Shashi Tharoor says, "Is it being orchestrated at the very top of the Pakistani military and the ISI? Or is it merely being condoned? Is it taking place at the middle and senior levels but not at the very top? We don't know and we don't even know if Pakistan's government knows."
Lacking political or diplomatic leverage, South Block is now relying on the US.
United States Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte says, "It's imperative that these are thoroughly investigated and those responsible be brought to account. Efforts are on for investigating those responsible. All our diplomatic partners have responsibility."
This strategy could work as the US wants to stabilise Zardari's civilian government, cut the army to size and eliminate the infrastructure of terror. If that is the goal, India may have no reason to complain.
(With inputs from Shuchi Yadav and Achyut Punnekat in New Delhi)
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/pak-cracks-down-on-terror-groups-but-what-next/80483-2.html
NEW DELHI: Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said that there was need to reform heavy-layered security apparatus which protected
persons like himself, even as he called for a greater price to be attached to every Indian life lost in a terror attack.
In remarks that could be seen as a critique of a “soft state”, Rahul said a reason why India had suffered long from terrorism was because it tolerated the deaths of its people. He said this had led to an increasing scale of violence against the country.
Noting the Mumbai attacks were a watershed of sorts, he said they marked a “massive escalation of terrorism” but while signalling the arrival of new threats Rahul argued that the terror in Mumbai was a part of what has been happening for long. At stake was nothing less than the democratic freedoms Indian people enjoyed including the freedom of press.
He was critical of heavy layered security for VIPs and said such institutions tended to be too hierarchical — like the one that protected him. “I have found that the officer on the ground does not get enough of a say, he does not have the freedom he should be getting,” he said. ASI Ombale did an incredible act of bravery by facing bullets to help capture a terrorist. “But he did not have the equipment to save himself,” Rahul pointed out. “We have to say that we will not tolerate the loss of a single life,” he added.
Rahul said mere defence to the attacks would not be enough and country would have to give up tolerating the killing of Indians. “It is not enough for us to protect the people... we should go one step beyond. People who have done this should understand very clearly... not only do we hold lives of our people highly, but there is also a cost of killing innocent Indians.”
In keeping up his anguish, expressed at CWC meeting where he asked what was to be done about Pakistan and likened the attacks to someone barging into one’s home and slapping the householder, Rahul dubbed it an act of “war on India”. It is a description which, with the terrorism’s clear links to Pakistan, could raise the party rhetoric to a new level.
The young MP was speaking on a debate on terrorism in which senior government ministers and party leaders tried to defend the government as well as put across the steps taken to contain export of terror from across the border.
But as international diplomacy and intelligence dominated the arguments, Rahul pointed fingers inwards to urge MPs-MLAs to stop “politicization of police”. He said the attitude among public representatives that they can interfere with the police be it transfer or promotions would have to go for the cops to do a professional job. “In the interest of the nation, we should desist from it,” he said.
Rahul appealed that challenges like terror were an opportunity for the society to give up its differences and political partisanship, saying that terrorists did not discriminate between religion and caste of Indians while killing them. “If our enemies view us as one, we have to act as one,” he said. He said a “national priority and a national response” was needed to effectively deal with the war being waged on India.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/VIPs_should_leave_cops_alone_Rahul_Gandhi/articleshow/3824960.cms
Kurla court remands Purohit in three-day police custody
MUMBAI: Kurla magistrate's court on Saturday remanded Lt Col Prasad Purohit, prime accused in Malegaon blast case, to three-day custody of Matunga
police.
Purohit was wanted by Suburban Matunga police in a forgery case.
Purohit allegedly provided Sudhakar Chaturvedi, an accused in Malegaon blast case arrested by Matunga police last month, with a revolver and forged license papers.
'Time to bid goodbye to jihad diplomacy'
13 Dec 2008, 0939 hrs IST, TNN
NEW DELHI: A well-known Pakistan commentator feels it's about time the diplomacy of jihad was discontinued. The right lessons drawn from 26/11 could
turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the Islamic republic, he says.
"It may be time to bid a final farewell to the diplomacy of 'jihad'. There was a time when Pakistan could get away with the sponsoring of crossborder 'jihad'. Profiting by the Afghan experience, and indeed spurred by it, we did it again in Kashmir. The concept of 'jihad' may be alive and well in Afghanistan but it has become passe, a dangerous fad to nurture, in Pakistan," writes noted political commentator Ayaz Amir in Friday's The News International newspaper.
Amir adds that Pakistan must not be provoked into any panic reaction by the US and India.
"We must deal with the problem in our own way and on our own terms. Pakistan thus faces a double task: exorcising the ghosts of 'jihad' and at the same time, while seeking American friendship, saying goodbye to the military alliance with the United States which sits like a yoke round our necks. In a way, therefore, if the proper lessons are drawn, Mumbai, a terrible event for India, may turn out to be a blessing for Pakistan, helping to concentrate Pakistani minds and enabling Pakistan to take the turning that otherwise it might not have taken so soon," he says.
Writing in the Frontier Post, Muhammad Asif too calls for self-introspection. "Instead of looking at our problems, we as a nation have chosen to bury our heads in the sand and blame India, the US, Israel and almost everyone but do not realise how and why we have landed in such problems," he says in the Peshawar-Quetta-based daily.
He further prods: "We must begin by questioning ourselves whether the war on terror is our war. Who is occupying our territory, and who is killing us in our cities? Can we negotiate with someone who is bent upon destroying us and forces his warped ideology upon us? The issue is that Zia created this menace. Instead of accepting responsibility for making this nation hostage to all sorts of extremists' criminal groups who abuse the name of Islam and jihad, these post-Zia era rulers want us to believe through media that this is all because of the policies of the USA. India and US have played a big part in this but they only exploited our weaknesses. Only when we nib the root cause of the sickness will we be able to mend the situation."
The Karachi headquartered Dawn newspaper provides some inside information on what US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte told Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and PM Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on his visit to Pakistan. Quoting unnamed sources, it says, "Negroponte delivered Indian assurances that military options would not be considered as long as Pakistan maintained a verifiable commitment against proscribed groups."
The report published on Friday further said "the Deputy Secretary of State also emphasized the need to maintain troop presence in the troubled north of the country, urging Pakistan not to redeploy troops to the Indian border. Sources said that the US was troubled by Taliban attacks on its supply lines in Pakistan, and called for the government to improve security."
Sources also informed Dawn that "Negroponte shared a list of militant groups which needed to be cracked down on, which included well known groups such as Lashkar-i-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Jaish-e-Muhammad, and the Al-Rashid Trust as well as revealing several new groups, such as Pasban-e-Ahle-Hadith."
The Dawn's editorial said that half-hearted measures against militants wouldn't serve the purpose. "If Hafiz Saeed and his men are involved in the Mumbai attacks, they must be prosecuted. The Lashkar and its offshoots must be shut down —- as must other groups that preach mayhem," the editorial noted.
Meanwhile, according to a December 12 report published in The Nation newspaper, Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan's General Secretary Munawar Hassan has strongly criticised the United Nations for what he termed as its 'double standards' for banning Pakistani religious organizations including Jamaat-ud-Daawa and 'branding' its citizens terror suspects.
Hassan observed on Thursday, "Mumbai attacks exposed the performance of Indian intelligence agencies and added that to cover their own weaknesses India took to old tactics of blaming Pakistan."
He also recalled "that US had itself praised the JuD over the voluntarily work for humanity in the past. He said President Zardari himself had said that RAW could be behind Balochistan insurgency but he did not dare protest against the same with the Indian government."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Time_to_bid_goodbye_to_jihad_diplomacy/articleshow/3831524.cms
VIPs should leave cops alone: Rahul Gandhi
12 Dec 2008, 0202 hrs IST, TNN
India: house arrest, sealing won’t do
Sandeep Dikshit
Dismantle terror infrastructure, Pakistan told
NEW DELHI: India has told United States interlocuters that it remains unimpressed with the house arrest of the chief of the Jamat-ud-Dawah and the reported sealing of some of the offices of this front organisation of the Laskhar-e-Taiba. The steps initiated by Pakistan should be taken to their logical conclusion, including dismantling of the terror infrastructure. This was conveyed during a telephonic conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on Wednesday and during meetings with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte on Friday.
Pointing out that its penal code was the same as Pakistan’s, India said it did not think the restraint orders on the men identified as terrorists by the United Nations Security Council were sufficient steps. For, this was done briefly earlier also by Islamabad after the Parliament House attack in 2001.
The Indian position was also endorsed by Germany, which said the arrest of the LeT chief was not sufficient and Pakistan must do more to ensure that its territory was not used for committing violence in third countries. German Home Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told journalists that, “forbidding an organisation is one thing and to avoid crimes is another.” While advising Pakistan to “ensure that nobody commits terrorist attacks or other crimes,” he admitted that it was a “difficult situation” for Islamabad and wondered if there was any alternative.
Mr. Schaeuble who, among others, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan, said he was told that the intention behind the several acts of terror that rocked India was to provoke Hindus and Muslims and cause tension. He appreciated India’s response that did not include the option of military strikes and saw dialogue and cooperation with Pakistan as the only solution.
Meanwhile, Mr. Negroponte, in his meetings with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and Mr. Narayanan, agreed that the attacks should be thoroughly investigated and those responsible for perpetrating these incidents brought to account.
“A positive step”
PTI reports from Washington/Islamabad:
Ms. Rice, Mr. Negroponte and State Department spokesman Sean McCormack spoke in tandem, sending a strong signal to Pakistan that more needed to be done to prevent future terror attacks. Mr. McCormack, however, termed the crackdown in Pakistan on radical elements a “positive step.”
Diplomatic sources told PTI in Islamabad that Mr. Negroponte assured the Pakistani leadership that the U.S. would prevent any military action as long as Pakistan continued taking action against banned terror groups.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/13/stories/2008121357520100.htm
No fear of peace process being derailed: Gilani
Reuters
Published on Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 18:39, Updated on Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 18:57 in World section
Islamabad: International diplomacy was defusing tension with India after the militant attack on Mumbai, and action against militant groups should reassure New Delhi, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said on Saturday.
Whereas prospects of a military confrontation between the nuclear-armed neighbours has receded in the two weeks since the slaughter of over 200 people in Mumbai, India has said a four-year-old peace process is in jeopardy.
"Normalisation takes time," Gilani told Reuters in an interview.
The United States has been at the forefront of intense diplomatic efforts to stop tension erupting into a full-blown crisis between two countries that have already fought three wars.
"All our common friends and responsible statesmen are playing their important role in defusing the situation and I'm pretty sure that will work," Gilani stated.
Declare Pak a terrorist state: Indian Americans
Kasab is my son, says Mumbai attacker's father
He said Pakistan was taking its own action against groups and people put on a UN terrorist list, and the chances of India resorting to air strikes against militant targets were remote.
"I think India is equally responsible and they won't. There is no fear of anything like that," Gilani said.
Indian and US officials have levelled accusations at Lashkar-e-Toiba, a jihadi organisation that fought Indian rule in Kashmir and, according to analysts, has had close ties to the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
Pakistan began raiding and shutting offices and schools of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) charity, linked to Lashkar, late on Thursday. Scores of activists have been detained.
The US Security Council had put the charity and its head, Hafiz Saeed, on a list of individuals and organisations linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban late on Wednesday.
Saeed, who has been put under house arrest, founded Lashkar, but quit it days before Pakistan banned it in 2002, but he stayed as head of the charity, raising funds and drawing recruits.
Saeed and the JuD have said they would go to the courts to remove the restrictions on their activities, the freeze of their bank accounts, and block on their travel.
Having seen the ineffectiveness of Pakistan's past measures, and harbouring suspicion that security agencies have retained links with Lashkar and other groups, Indian officials privately doubt whether any decisive action will be taken this time.
UN BACKING
Gilani said the latest crackdown on anti-Indian jihadi organisations would go beyond previous ineffective bans because UN resolutions gave the government a stronger legal position.
"Now we have to act according to the United Nations resolutions," Gilani said.
The government of General Pervez Musharraf banned Lashkar and Jaish-e-Mohammad shortly after the two groups were blamed for a raid on the Indian Parliament in 2001.
But analysts say those bans were a sham and Pakistan's ISI allowed the militants to thrive in order to unleash them whenever they wanted to unsettle New Delhi.
Gilani said the insurgency in Indian Kashmir was indigenous, "not state-sponsored" and "nothing to do with Pakistan".
Pressed on whether his government would act against armed groups based in Pakistan and fighting in Kashmir, Gilani replied: "Certainly, if Pakistan soil is being used for any such activity, the law will take its own course."
He said India has yet to supply hard evidence of Pakistani links to Mumbai attack, but hoped this would be forthcoming when foreign ministers from both countries meet on Sunday in Paris on the sidelines of a conference on Afghanistan.
Gilani reiterated Pakistan's position that anyone caught in Pakistan would be tried there also, and suspects wouldn't be handed over to India.
"We will go according to our own law," he said. "There is no such thing of handing over to India."
He also set out plans to snap links between Islamic charities and militant groups. He said charitable trusts and schools would be overhauled by the government, new boards of directors formed, and their work would be regularly monitored.
Gilani said the greatest threat to Pakistan was terrorism, and one of the root causes was economic. Faced with an economic crisis, that the International Monetary Fund has papered over last month with a $7.6 billion loan, Gilani said he was looking for multilateral lenders and friendly governments to help Pakistan meet the challenges.
Potential donors are expected to meet next month in a "Friends of Pakistan" conference.
Pak. will not hand over suspects to India: Gilani
Islamabad (IANS): Reiterating that his government will not hand over any terror suspect to India, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday said he had not received any evidence of any Pakistani's involvement in the Mumbai carnage.
In an interview with a Gulf television channel, he said if anyone was found involved in any terrorist activity, he will be dealt with according to the law but will "not be handed over to India".
Indian authorities have maintained that the 10 terrorists who struck Mumbai on the night of November 26 has come from Pakistan. In a demarche served to the Pakistani High Commissioner in New Delhi, India has asked Pakistan to hand over 40 people it says are fugitives and responsible for various acts of terror in the country.
Gilani, however, said Pakistani authorities had so far not received any evidence of the use of Pakistan's soil in the attacks that killed at least 170 people, including 22 foreigners.
"If India has any solid evidence it should share it with Pakistan," he said adding Pakistan is ready to help India in investigations.
The Prime Minister said his government had taken action against the Jamat-ud-Dawah (JuD), considered a front of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), as a responsible state and abiding by the international laws and not any pressure from India.
Following India's representation on Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council proscribed the JuD.
Amid rising tensions between the two South Asian neighbours, Gilani said India was a responsible state and will not launch any strike against Pakistan.
He added some international "common friends" were trying to restore normalcy between India and Pakistan.
'I am going away for jehad': Ajmal told people of his village
Islamabad (PTI): Ajmal Amir Iman, the lone gunman captured for the Mumbai terror attacks, told residents of his village in Pakistan's Punjab province during his last visit there that he was going away for jehad.
Iman, also known as Ajmal Kasab, visited Faridkot village in Okara district of Punjab about five months ago and asked his mother to bless him before he embarked on jehad, local residents were quoted as saying in a report aired by Geo News channel on Saturday.
"He came to the village about five or six months ago. He told his mother he was going away for jehad. He asked her to bless him and to leave his fate in the hands of Allah," said an unnamed resident of Faridkot in what the channel described as secretly filmed footage.
The channel said most people of Faridkot and nearby Depalpur sub-district were reluctant to talk about Iman on the record. However, in the secretly filmed footage, some residents were shown discussing his last visit to the village.
"A man from Faridkot said that on his last visit to the village, Ajmal gathered a group of boys near a school and asked them to catch him. He demonstrated feats of wrestling to them. Then we heard he had left home and joined a jehadi group," a man said.
A village elder shown in the footage said Iman's father Amir Kasab had moved to Faridkot from the nearby Haveli Lakha. Amir Kasab used to sell 'pakoras' from a hand cart that he pushed around the village, the elder said.
The president of the press club in Depalpur too confirmed in secretly filmed footage that Iman was from Faridkot. The channel also quoted residents of Faridkot as saying that Iman's father had confirmed to several people that the gunman whose pictures were shown in the media was his son.
NSG, not god, saved us at Taj: CPM MP
New Delhi Recalling his ordeal inside the Taj during the November 26 Mumbai carnage, CPM MP N N Krishnadas on Friday said had it not been for the presence of NSG commandos, he would not have survived on that fateful day.
"It is NSG and not god that saved us," Krishnadas, who was stuck inside the Taj along with four other MPs, said when asked whether he would be thankful to god for his survival.
The veteran Communist leader was inside the hotel on November 26 night for a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Subordinate Legislation, of which he is the chairman.
"We were having dinner at the 'Shamiana' when the attack took place. The hotel staff took us through a narrow staircase to the first floor lobby. We remained there for the whole night and the next morning the NSG arrived," Krishnadas said.
There were about 200 people in the lobby when security forces launched the rescue mission.
"We were all witness to the gun fights, blasts and the fire that took place the whole night inside the hotel. It was only when the commandos arrived, we felt secure," he said.
On the question of delay in the rescue operation, he said, "NSG has to come from Delhi. And then, our security forces were not familiar with the hotel's layout plan while terrorists seem to be well acquainted with the place. That could be the obstacle in its security operation," the MP said.
He demanded that there should be NSG hubs in every major cities and state police should also be trained in commando operation.
Kasab writes to Pak High Commission, seeks legal aid
Mumbai: Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman, who was arrested on November 26 during the Mumbai terror attack, has written a letter to the Pakistan High Commission seeking legal help.
The letter has been forwarded by the Mumbai police to the External Affairs and the Union Home Ministries for necessary action, Joint Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria said on Saturday.
Maria said Ajmal has also asked the Pakistan High Commission to take custody of the body of fellow terrorist Ismail Khan who was killed in an encounter in South Mumbai the same night.
Iman, also known as Ajmal Kasab, is the only terrorist captured alive by police during the operation while nine other terrorists involved in the terror attack at Taj, Oberoi-Trident Hotels and Nariman House besides Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and Cama Hospital were killed.
Ajmal has been remanded to police custody till December 24.
However, the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi denied having received any letter from Iman.
"We have not received any letter," a Pakistan High Commission spokesman said.
Pakistan's denial comes against mounting evidence that Iman, who hails from Faridkot vilage in Punjab province of Pakistan.
Meanwhile, advocate Ashok Sarogi said a social organisation has approached him to represent Ajmal and his view was that ‘nobody should go undefended.’
Asked whether he would be representing Ajmal, Sarogi said, "nothing is final but discussion is on. Let's see."
Sarogi had in the past represented gangster Abu Salem who is facing trial in 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case.
Several lawyers of Mumbai have refused to defend Ajmal and Bombay Metropolitan Magistrate Courts' Bar Association adopted a resolution deciding not to take up the terrorist's case.
Earlier, Advocate Dinesh Mota, the senior most member of the Legal Aid Panel, refused to represent Ajmal saying ‘I am a Mumbaikar and all the victims (of terror attack) are like my family. Why would I ever represent him?’
Ajmal, the Pakistani national is facing a dozen charges including waging war against the country and murder.
He was also involved in the killing of three senior police officials, including ATS chief Hemant Karkare in November 26 night near Cama hospital in South Mumbai.
Economic crisis forcing NYT to cut costs
New York Massive revenue decline as a result of global economic downturn is fast eroding media's advertising base, forcing major newspapers in the US to look for cost cutting measures.
The latest victim is the New York Times which told its print and web employees that non union staff would receive no pay raises next year, Forbes.com reported.
The announcement comes a day after Newsweek was reported to have been considering reducing staff and cutting print order for the magazine.
"Advertising revenues at both the paper and the website remain weak and the financial outlook for 2009 is daunting," the staff was told in an internal e-mail from Times' publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr, which Forbes.com claimed to have obtained.
In October, advertising revenues from its New York Times Media Group, which includes properties such as the 'Times' and the 'International Herald Tribune', dropped 15.3 per cent as compare to the same period last year, Forbes said.
At the time, its advertising revenue for the group was down 10.6 per cent over last year for a total of some USD 900 million, Forbes quoted the company as saying, as a result, the organisation has been aggressively trying to cut costs.
Earlier this month, the Times had announced that it was planning to borrow USD 225 million against its New Manhattan headquarters because of a cash flow squeeze.
In September, the Times had announced to close its wholesale newspaper distributor, City & Suburban, which delivered the Times and more than 200 other publications to newsstands and other locations in New York.
The newspaper has also consolidated some print sections such as mashing its sports section into its business section, Forbes said.
Nevertheless, Sulzberger told employees that efforts were falling short. "We felt it was essential to take this step to further control our costs during these hard times."
Meanwhile, Detroit Media Partnership L P, which operates the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News, is expected to announce next week that it will cease home delivery of the papers' print editions on most days of the week, the Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the company's policy.
But actual scenario set to be unveiled Tuesday when the Free Press, the 20th largest US newspaper in terms of weekday circulation, and the News, are to end home delivery on all but the most lucrative days -- Thursday, Friday and Sunday.
On other days, the company would sell abbreviated print editions at newsstands and direct readers to the papers' expanded digital editions.
Both The Free Press, owned by Gannett Co and the News, owned by MediaNews Group, are operated by Detroit Media. The Free Press and the News would be the first dailies in a metropolitan market to curtail home delivery and scale down their print editions. But the Journal said other newspapers are contemplating similar moves.
In October, the Christian Science Monitor said it will stop printing a daily newspaper in April and move instead to an online version with a weekly print product.
The changes are likely to result in significant job cuts, the Journal said, adding that Gannett, which owns 85 daily newspapers, recently said it was eliminating 2,000 positions as part of a 10 per cent staff reduction. Two of its papers, USA Today and the Free Press, were not part of the layoff. "The Detroit Media Partnership is looking at everything right now just like everyone else in the country," its spokesman Leland K Bassett was quoted as saying. The cuts are expected to come mostly, if not entirely, from outside the newsroom, the report added.
Harappan Civilization: An Analysis in Modern Context
The Harappan Civilization has significance for not only historians and archaeologists but also the common man. Though the first Harappan sites were discovered way backing 1920-21, by archaeologists Dr. D.R. Sahni and Dr. R.D. Banerjee (Harappa in Punjab and Mohenjo-Daro in Sind - both in Pakistan now) fresh sites are still being unearthed, ading insight into the rich culture of the Harappan civilization.
Some of the most striking aspects of the discoveries are the town planning and architecture, art and crafts and the social, religious and economic condition of that era. Much has been known about the town planning and architecture of the Harappan civilization. The cities boasted of well-planned roads wide and straight, houses provided with an efficient drainage system and ventilation.
The excavations have yielded a rich collection of objects in stone, bronze and terracotta. One of the most known figurines is perhaps the `dancing girl' (in bronze) naked but for a necklace and a series of bangles almost covering one arm, her hair dressed in a complicated coiffure, standing in a provocative posture, with one arm on her hip and one lanky leg half bent. This face has an air of lively pertness quite unlike anything in the work of other ancient civilizations. Her thin boyish figure and those of the mother goddesses found here, indicate incidentally, that the ideas of gfemale beauty among the Harappan people were very different from those of later India. It has been suggested that this `dancing girl' is representative of a class of temple dancers and prostitutes, such as existed in contemporary Middle Eastern civilizations and were an important feature of later Hindu culture, but this cannot be proved. It is not certain that the girl is a dancer much less a temple dancer.
In stone much discussed are two male figures - one is a the torso in red sandstone and the other is the bust of a bearded man. In the former, the limbs have been made separately and fitted into sockets.
The Harappan people also made rough terracotta statuettes of women, usually naked, but with elaborate head dresses, These are certainly icons of the mother goddess and are so numerous that they seem to have been kept in nearly every home. They are crudely fashioned so historians assume that the Goddess was not favoured by the upper classes who commanded the services of the best craftsmen, but that her effigies were mass produced by humble potters to meet popular demand. In terracotta we also find a few figurines of bearded male with coiled hair, their posture rigidly upright, legs slightly apart, and the arms parallel, to the sides of the body. The repetition of this figure in exactly the same position would suggest that he was a deity. A terracotta mask of a horned deity has also been found.
Archaeologists have discovered thousands of seals with beautiful figures of animals, such as unicorn bull, rhinoceros, tiger, elephant, bison, goat, buffalo etc. The most remarkable seal is Pashupati Seal (size: 1/2" to 2" with square and rectangular shape). From the seals it appears certain that the Indus valley civilization had trade links with Mesapatomia and perhaps merchants from India even visited and stayed there. The stanhdard Harappan seal was a square plaque 2 x 2 sq. inches usually made from the soft river stone steatite. Every seal is engraved in a pictographic script (yet to be deciphered). It appears that the seals were also used as amulets, carried on the persons of their owners, perhaps as modern day identity cards. Some seals have also been found in gold, ivory or blue or white. They all bear a great variety of designs, most often of animals including bull, with or without hump, elephant, tiger, goat and also monsters. Sometimes trees or human figures were also depicted.
The jewelry in gold and silver-bangles, necklaces and other ornaments are well crafted. They are "so well finished and so highly polished that they might have come out of a Bond Street Jeweller's of today rather than from a pre-historic house of thousands years ago" says Marshall. The Harappan people also made brilliantly naturalistic models of animals, specially monkeys and squirrels, used as pin-heads and beads. They also made toys in terracotta with movable heads, monkeys which would slide down a string, little toy carts (one of the oldest example of a wheeled vehicle) and whistles shaped like birds.
Tools of stone, copper and bronze have been found, which in many respects were technologically sound. The blades were flat and easily bent while the axe heads had to be lashed to their shafts. In the design of one tool, however, the Harappans had been superior; they had devised a saw with undulating teeth, which allowed the dust to escape freely from the cut and much simplified the carpenter's craft.
The origin and the race of the Harappan are still a matter of dispute. While one section of scholars believes that they were Dravidian, definitely Indo-Aryan, another section believes that they were the same as Sumerians or the Cretans. The Harappan script has not been deciphered but the discovery of writing material clearly indicates that the Harappans were educated.
The discovery of a large number of spindles of various sizes indicate that threads both of cotton and woolen must have been spun in those days. Spindle whorls made of pottery, shell and faience have been found. From the statues it appears both men and women wore two separate pieces of clothes similar to dhoti and shawl (covering lower and upper parts of the body respectively). The `shawl' covered the left shoulder, passing below the right shoulder. No footwear has survived nor is it shown in any of the figures. Both men and women wore ornaments. While necklaces, fillets, armlets and finger-rings were common to both sexes, women wore girdles, earrings and anklets. Ornaments were made of gold, silver, copper, ivory, precious and semi-precious stones, bones and shells etc. From archaeological findings it appears that the Harappans were conscious of fashion. Different hairstyles and beards were in vogue. Cinnabar was used as a cosmetic and face-paints, lipsticks and collyrium (eye liners) were also known to them.
http://ignca.nic.in/nl002308.htm
Kalighat Kalika
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A famous temple dedicated to the goddess Kali is situated in Kalighat. This is one of the 51 Shakti Peethas. The right toe of Dakshayani is said to have fallen here. The Shakti here is known as Kalika, while the Bhairava is Nakulesh. It is a very famous place and a pilgrimage for Shakta (Shiva and Durga/Kali/Shakti worshippers) followers within the Hindu religion.
One Raja Basanta Roy, uncle of Pratapaditya and the King of Jessore, Bangladesh perhaps built what is now known as Old Temple. This temple was situated on the banks of river Adi Ganga. The natmandir, a hall attached to the sanctum sanctorum is in the southern side while Shiva's temple is situated in the north-east. There is also a temple dedicated to Radha Krishna built in 1843 by a zamindar of Baowali. The speciality of Kali of this temple is the long protruded tongue made of gold. This is a different appearance from the other visualisations of Kali.
Kalighat temple has references in 15th century texts. The original temple was a small hut. The present temple was built by the Sabarna Roy Choudhuryfamily of Barisha in 1809. They offered 595 bighas of land to the Temple deity so that worship and service could be continued smoothly. It is believed by some scholars that the name Calcutta was derived from Kalighata. In the early days traders halted at Kalighat to pay patronage to the goddess. The temple was initially on the banks of Hooghly. The river over a period of time has moved away from the temple. The temple is now on the banks of a small canal called Adi Ganga, connecting to Hooghly. The present dakshina Kali idol of touchstone was created by two saints - Brahmananda Giri and Atmaram Giri. It was Padmabati Devi, the mother of Laksmikanta Roy Choudhury who discovered the fossils of Sati's finger in a lake called Kalikunda. This made Kalighat as one of the 51 Shakti Pithas.[1]
Kalika's Image
The image of the deity is incomplete. Only the face of the deity was made first. The hands, made of gold and silver, the tongue, the Shiva statue and all the jewellery were added over the years. On snanyatra day, while giving Mother the ceremonial bath, the priests tie their eyes with cloth coverings. On auspicious occasions like Kali Puja, Durga Puja, Poila Boishakh, the Bengali New Year day and sankranti large number of devotees throng the place with offerings.
[edit] Kalighat painting
Kalighat painting, or pata (pronounced 'pot') is a style of Indian painting derives its name from the place. It is characterised by generously curving figures of both men and women and an earthy satirical style. It developed during the nineteenth century in response to the sudden prosperity brought to Calcutta by the East India Company trade, whereby many houses including that of 'Prince' Dwarkanath Tagore, grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore became incredibly wealthy. Many of these nouveau riche families came from not particular exalted caste backgrounds, so the orthodox tended to frown on them and their often very tasteless conspicuous consumption. To the common people the 'babu's, as they were called, were equally objects of fun and sources of income. Thus the 'babu culture' portrayed in the Kalighat patas often shows inversions of the social order (wives beating husbands or leading them about in the guise of pet goats or dogs, maidservants wearing shoes, sahibs in undignified postures, domestic contretemps, and the like.) They also showed European innovations (babus wearing European clothes, smoking pipes, reading at desks, etc). The object of this is only partly satirical; it also expresses the wonder that ordinary Bengalis felt on exposure to these new and curious ways and objects.
Kalighat pata pictures are highly stylised, do not use perspective, are usually pen and ink line drawings filled in with flat bright colours and normally use paper as a substrate, though some may be found with cloth backing or on cloth. The artists were rarely educated, and usually came from a lineage of artisans. Kalighat patas are still made today although genuine work is hard to come by. The art form is urban and largely secular: although gods and goddesses are often depicted, they appear in much the same de-romanticised way as the humans do. By contrast, the Orissa tradition of pata-painting, centering around Puri, is consciously devotional. Kalighat pata has been credited with influencing the Bengal School of art associated with Jamini Roy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalighat
Günter Grass's 1988 Zunge zeigen has been criticised as an example of Eurocentricism, an especially harsh charge against this author known for his critique of globalisation. The claim that Grass writes about India as a colonising Westerner overlooks the ways in which he undermines the sovereignty of the Western subject through his polyphonic, self-reflexive account. The result is a sincere attempt to destabilise the oppressive subject he has been accused of promoting. This attempt notwithstanding, Grass's critique does falter for two reasons that critics of Zunge zeigen have not addressed. The first concerns his use of Theodor Fontane both as a bridge to the history of colonialism and as a model for engaged literature. Fontane proves tenuous on both counts, and diverts Grass's attention both from India's colonial history and literary present. Second, Grass's prescription for overcoming the misery he documents in India and Bangladesh – the Enlightenment – ultimately reinscribes a discourse of domination that favours Europe. By choosing Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, to represent India, Grass reinforces the notion that rationality is a European invention that is alien to the mystical, chaotic East. Ultimately, Grass fails to account for the Enlightenment's own historical complicity in colonialism.
In the fall and winter of 1987-88, Günter Grass and his wife, Ute, settled in Calcutta for the Bengali-language staging of his 1966 play, ''The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising.'' ''Show Your Tongue'' is his honest, even passionate response to the fabled and maligned city: 97 pages of journals, a 12-stanza poem and 112 pages of Expressionist drawings. John E. Woods's translation does not betray the urgency and the intimacy of the material.
This one-man show of a book is Mr. Grass's tribute to Calcutta's unparalleled ability to move and engage. It may be Kipling's city of dreadful night, and of the infamous Black Hole, but it's also Dominique Lapierre's city of joy, the home of numerous modern saints (not just Mother Teresa) and master creators. Calcutta was also the home of Subhas Chandra Bose, Bengal's all-time favorite son, impatient freedom fighter, enemy of Gandhi, would-be saboteur of the British war effort, opportunistic ally of the Fascists in World War II and a figure of enormous difficulty for the author of ''The Tin Drum.''
''Show Your Tongue'' (the title is an allusion to the bloody-mouthed, patiently waiting goddess of destruction, Kali, who is usually represented with her tongue hanging out) is in many ways, despite its virtuosity, a modest, very personal book. It charts Mr. Grass's inner journey to a kind of fundamental, uncomplicated political esthetic. Highfalutin phrase - let me illustrate with two examples.
There's no commoner sight in Calcutta than cow dung patties - the cheapest cooking fuel - drying on every graffiti-filled wall, lamppost and sidewalk of the city. Young girls, 6 years old and younger, scoop up the raw dung, fresh from the diseased cows, carry it in baskets on their heads, mix it with straw and coal dust, then squeeze it into patties and set them out in the sun for drying. Many properly outraged and predictable responses are possible; Mr. Grass, provocatively, concentrates on the esthetic: ''All framed and pedestaled works of art should be forced to compete with such scenes from reality.'' This is the working hypothesis of a critic who has experienced the shock of Calcutta. After that city, one grows impatient with SoHo.
He goes further, in a rage that seems (in our English tradition) more in the mode of his spiritual kinsman William Blake - another furious etcher-poet - than of anything contemporary: ''If . . . [ you ] set down instead one single slum hovel, as authentic as want has made it, right next to the glassy arrogance of the Deutsche Bank, beauty would at once be on the side of the hovel, and truth too, even the future. The mirrored art of all those palaces consecrated to money would fall to its knees, because the slum hovel . . . belongs to tomorrow.''
In Calcutta, Mr. Grass touches again on the sources of his pure political passion. The book is dedicated to the Calcutta Social Project, an educational undertaking for the children of the most abject of Calcutta's garbage handlers and garbage dwellers. He spends days helping to get a West German visa for a stateless, exiled Bangladeshi poet. He lectures women cigar-factory workers on the efficacy of strikes in 19th-century German labor history, and of course he's working furiously on his play, his drawings and his journal.
n the fall and winter of 1987-88, Günter Grass and his wife, Ute, settled in Calcutta for the Bengali-language staging of his 1966 play, ''The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising.'' ''Show Your Tongue'' is his honest, even passionate response to the fabled and maligned city: 97 pages of journals, a 12-stanza poem and 112 pages of Expressionist drawings. John E. Woods's translation does not betray the urgency and the intimacy of the material.
This one-man show of a book is Mr. Grass's tribute to Calcutta's unparalleled ability to move and engage. It may be Kipling's city of dreadful night, and of the infamous Black Hole, but it's also Dominique Lapierre's city of joy, the home of numerous modern saints (not just Mother Teresa) and master creators. Calcutta was also the home of Subhas Chandra Bose, Bengal's all-time favorite son, impatient freedom fighter, enemy of Gandhi, would-be saboteur of the British war effort, opportunistic ally of the Fascists in World War II and a figure of enormous difficulty for the author of ''The Tin Drum.''
''Show Your Tongue'' (the title is an allusion to the bloody-mouthed, patiently waiting goddess of destruction, Kali, who is usually represented with her tongue hanging out) is in many ways, despite its virtuosity, a modest, very personal book. It charts Mr. Grass's inner journey to a kind of fundamental, uncomplicated political esthetic. Highfalutin phrase - let me illustrate with two examples.
There's no commoner sight in Calcutta than cow dung patties - the cheapest cooking fuel - drying on every graffiti-filled wall, lamppost and sidewalk of the city. Young girls, 6 years old and younger, scoop up the raw dung, fresh from the diseased cows, carry it in baskets on their heads, mix it with straw and coal dust, then squeeze it into patties and set them out in the sun for drying. Many properly outraged and predictable responses are possible; Mr. Grass, provocatively, concentrates on the esthetic: ''All framed and pedestaled works of art should be forced to compete with such scenes from reality.'' This is the working hypothesis of a critic who has experienced the shock of Calcutta. After that city, one grows impatient with SoHo.
He goes further, in a rage that seems (in our English tradition) more in the mode of his spiritual kinsman William Blake - another furious etcher-poet - than of anything contemporary: ''If . . . [ you ] set down instead one single slum hovel, as authentic as want has made it, right next to the glassy arrogance of the Deutsche Bank, beauty would at once be on the side of the hovel, and truth too, even the future. The mirrored art of all those palaces consecrated to money would fall to its knees, because the slum hovel . . . belongs to tomorrow.''
In Calcutta, Mr. Grass touches again on the sources of his pure political passion. The book is dedicated to the Calcutta Social Project, an educational undertaking for the children of the most abject of Calcutta's garbage handlers and garbage dwellers. He spends days helping to get a West German visa for a stateless, exiled Bangladeshi poet. He lectures women cigar-factory workers on the efficacy of strikes in 19th-century German labor history, and of course he's working furiously on his play, his drawings and his journal.
ATHENE (or Athena) was the great Olympian goddess of wise counsel, war, the defence of towns, heroic endeavour, weaving, pottery and other crafts. She was depicted crowned with a crested helm, armed with shield and spear, and wearing the snake-trimmed aigis cloak wrapped around her breast and arm, adorned with the monstrous head of the Gorgon.
The more famous myths featuring the goddess Athene include:--
Her birth from the head of Zeus, fully-grown and arrayed in arms;
Her contest with Poseidon for dominion of Athens in which she produced the first olive tree and he the first horse;
The War of the Giants in which she buried Enkelados beneath Mount Etna and made her aigis from the skin of Pallas;
The attempted rape of the goddess by Hephaistos, who spilled his seed upon the earth and produced Erikhthonios, who she then adopted as her own;
The assisting of Perseus in his quest to slay the Gorgon and the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece;
The assisting of Herakles with his twelve labours;
The weaving contest with Arakhne who was transformed by the goddess into a spider;
The blinding of Teiresias for viewing her naked in the bath;
The Judgement of Paris in which she competed with Hera and Aphrodite for the prize of the golden apple;
The Trojan War where she sided with the Greeks in battle, but attacked their ships with a storm when they failed to punish Oilean Ajax for violating her Trojan shrine.
This site contains a total of 9 pages describing the goddess, the content of which is outlined in the table below. N.B. The Athene pages are still under construction.
NEOLITHIC PERIOD ! ORIGIN OF CULTURE 21
At Langhnaj 5 in Gujarat three zones of microliths are found
without any variation in types. In the first zone the microliths were
associated with, comparatively recent pottery, along with a tanged iron
dagger. In the second zone a different type of pottery, with incised
lattice decoration, was found. The pottery is thin and red slipped over a
pale brown surface. It was associated with microliths, a large quartzite
mace-head, having a central perforation with an hour-glass section, and
pieces of two Neolithic celts of schist and a copper knife. In the third
zone, which is purely Microlithic, sandstone quern fragments, microliths,,
ill-baked pottery have occurred. People were buried in a highly flexed
posture, mostly in east-west direction within the kitchen debris.
Thus, in Gujarat, we have evidence of a Microlithic folk being
introduced into agriculture and pottery, and the original Mesolithic
food-gatherers becoming Neolithic food producers. 6 The evidence
noted at Langhnaj in Gujarat was confirmed at Nagarjunakonda 7 in
the Krishna Valley. The clear stratigraphical evidence obtained here
shows that the pre-pottery Microlithic industry was succeeded by a mixed
lithic industry, containing the true hunting type of microliths, along with
cores, flakes of trap and quartzite, made by a different technique and
wheel-made pottery.
At Sanganakallu, Phase-I was characterised by the presence of a
large number of heavily patinated flakes of trap and sandstone, associated
with a crude Microlithic industry of quartz and chert without any definite
evidence of the association of pottery. Phase-II is divided into two sub-
periods oil the basis of the relative quantitative distribution of two main
fabrics of pottery- the pale grey-ware and the coarse brown and black-
ware-, which dominated the lower and upper levels respectively. The
Sub-pn-icd - It of Phase-II is characterised by the presence of fresh
stone-axes and flakes associated with a fine Microlithic industry of chert
and .jasper with types like parallel-sided blades and lunates, blunted along
the arc. Sub-period-I, as suggested by Subba Rao, corresponds to the
Early Neolithic stone-axe culture. It is characterised by coarse brown
and black hand made wares and a few pieces of pale grey ware in diminish-
ing proportions. In this phase a few sherds, with violet and purple
paintings on a dull back ground and sometimes on a dull red slip, were
found.
Phases-T and II are separated by a thin barren layer on which
Subba Rao has suggested that the gap between Phases-I and II may be
5. Saokalia R.D,, 1905, Excavation at Langhnaj, p.20.
6. Krishnaswamy V.D,, I960, "The Neolithic Pattern of India", AI, Vol. 16, p. 29
7. SouiKiararajan K.V., 1 958, "Studies in the Stone Age of Nagarjunakonda and
Neighbourhood; 1 AI., Vol. 14, pp. 49-1 13.
22 THE PROTO \ND EARLY HISTORICAL CULTURES OF A.P.
filled-up by a large number of lightly patinated chipped and ground-
tools. He characterised this phase as the Early Neolithic.
At Peddabankur in Karimnagar district fluted cores, with pointed
flat or chisel ends, along with crescents or lunates, parallel-sided blades,
leaf points, besides a unique arrow-head of milky quartz, were found
over a thin gravel layer, capping the natural morrum-bed. This imple-
mentiferous layer was sealed by a thick deposit of black cotton soil of
45 cm. thickness. The collection was associated with a highly weathered
and fragile pottery in tiny fragments. The surface of the pottery looks
dull red, possibly due to water logging, as indicated by many shells of
mollusc in the sterile black cotton soil cap. Scores of ground-stone tools
of trap, found in unrelated strata in the course of excavation, may belong
to the above phase, which may be the Early Neolithic as suggested by
Subba Rao. There was no evidence of any pale grey, brown or black
wares typical of the Neolithic.
9
At Polakonda in Warangal district the total Neolithic deposit,
with no visible variation in soil composition, is as thick as 2 m., which
is an indication that the Neolithic habitation continued for a considerably
long time, unruffled by any extraneous influence, The cerami ; assem-
blage consisted of grey, pale-grey, blotchy brown, pale red and small
fragments of black burnished wares. The pottery from the early levels
is more gritty and distinguished by low firing, leaving a thick black core
inside. No painted pottery was recovered in any of the trenches. A few
sherds were decorated with incised oblique slashes, chevrons, cord and
Inger-nail impressions, etc. The Neolithic phases at Polakonda may
correspond to Phase-II,, Sub-period-II of Sanganakallu,
As a result of the above discussion it may now be possible to
reconstruct the sequence of the Neolithic Culture,
Stage-! of the Neolithic is Represented by Phase-II, Sub-period-II
,er SsngAnaksalh and Phases - 1 and U of Polakonda in Warangal
indicating the presence of a thick jungle in the past. The
site at Peddabankur was covered with a thick deposit of
black soil over a bed of granitic morrum. At a few spots the
soil covering was washed away, denuding the natural morrum.
Miorolithic implements were collected over these denuded, spots,
same level, under the thick black soil cover in other excavated
; ? the industry was noticed over the same morrum bed, indicating
daring post-raicrolithic period the black cotton soil must have
deposited daring a wet period.
Arid and dry climatic conditions during the Neolithic period
" by the presence of some plant remains, such as acacia
http://www.archive.org/stream/protoandearlyhis024606mbp/protoandearlyhis024606mbp_djvu.txt
History of Anavils
ANAVILS OF SOUTH GUJARAT by Shri AMBELAL GOPALJI DESAI
Nag and Dasyu Races In The Pauranik Era
When did the ancestors of Anavil Brahmins start residing in Deccan Gujarat? What reasons prompted the ancestors of this community to come down to Gujarat? Were they residing in this area from the beginning? Without proper research, true answers to these questions cannot be found.
To what extent Pauranik references can be relied upon is a debatable point. The progressive, modern world may not accept such Pauranik references as true. Some scholars hold different opinions about the Purans. However the credibility of these Purans have been increased by Pargiter. Relying on Pargiter, many scholars have given credence to the belief that the old history of India is truly contained in the Puranas.
Some ancient facts are noted here. When the Aryans came to India, the Nagas of the Dasyu races were residing in Gujarat of the Saurashtra regions. The Naga race were considered as Anarya. That race used to reside on the western coast of Gujarat of Saurashtra. The Nagas were of wheat and gold complexion and their culture was superior to that of the Dasyu race. The Nagas were proficient in state administration, as well as art and artistry.
Bhim was poisoned and thrown in the river by the Kauravas. Some people are of the belief that the adverse effect of Bhim’s poison might have been neutralized by someone belonging to the Naga race. And as a result, Bhim might have come to the Naga region on the Gujarat-Saurashtra coast, and eventually might have married a Naga bride. It is said in Mahabharat that Bhim went to Patal-lok (bottom less pit) from there. Many battles were fought between the Aryans and the Nagas. On some occasions, Dasyus were on the side of the Aryans, while on other occasions they were fighting for the Nagas (Anaryans). Out of sheer fear and in order to protect their culture the Nagas migrated to South India and settled there, leaving their Patal Pradesh in Gujarat. Some of the Nagas also embraced the Aryan religion. The Anaryan leader known as Tarakasur, residing in Tarapur near Khambhat. also fled to the south. Tarkasur passed the remainder of his life in a town known as Tarapur , established by him, and it is near the present day Boisar. Another Anaryan known as Mahishasur went to the south and established the town of Mysore (Mahisur). The Aryans of the Nagas again fought some battles, on occasion, around Mysore. Mahishasur was killed by Chamundadevi in one of these battles. Chamundadevi is also known as the killer of Mahishasur. A life size statue of the demon Mahishasur has been installed on the Chamundi hill, while on the way to the Chamundadevi temple. This fantastic looking demon has been shown standing with a chopper in one hand and a cobra in the other. At some places in the area around Mysore one finds the idol with the cobra like images. This leads us to believe that at sometime there must have been Naga kingdom around here. The cobra in one of the hands of the Mahishasur’s statue may be to create an impression of Mahishasur’s dominance over the Naga race. The Naga race was under his dominance and used to carry out his bidding. Mahishasur is shown having held the cobra in the center very carefully, so he may not be injured. It can therefore be presumed that from this that Mahishasur was not the enemy of the Naga race. It is quite possible that the cobra may be taken as the emblem of the Naga race
The impressive Rishi Ashtik, the savior of the Naga family at the Naga-Yagna of Janmajey was the nephew of the Nagas. It is said Rishi Astik was staying in the southern coast of the river Tapti. The temple of Ashtik Rishi is situated in a village Ghodadara, near Udhna. Many people of the Surat District call the Rishi Astik as “ASPAR BAPJI”. The existence of the Astik temple elsewhere in India is not known.
In those times there was neither any social nor religious embargo on Aryans marrying Aryan men or women. It is observed that brides from lower status used to marry grooms in the higher status.By such marital alliances with original natives they used to create their superior culture in those people. It is not impossible that according to the then times, the Aryan may have absorbed a sect of the Nag community , amongst them after settling in this region. The Aryans permanently settled in this region upon absorbing a sect of the Naga community.
References have been found that the ancestors of Anavil Brahmins had married the Nag brides. To indicate that they used to marry the Nag brides, certain words are spoken in the Anavil community. When an Anavil youth marries a beautiful bride, the people used to say that the bride looks like a Naga bride. If per chance a father were to visit his daughter during a fight between the daughter and the mother-in-law, the angry mother-in-law would haughtily order him to take with him his Naga Kanya. The cluster of words such as Nag-Panchmi, Nag-Puja, Nag-Talao, Nag-Dhara, Nag-Devi, Nageshwar, Nagpur, Nagmandel proves that at one time the Nag people may have a considerable dominance in the Deccan Gujarat. On the banks of the river Narmada, there used to be an administrative office of the Karkotak Nag. Such offices of the Nag people were also seen in the Lat region (Pradesh). The civilized traits of the Naga community are still preserved in the whole of Gujarat and is amply proved by the ritual of the cobra worship, by the Anavils. The name of the mother of Small-pox Goddess was Ulupi and she was Nag-Kanya (maiden). That such stories of folklore are still current in Deccan Gujarat of Nagdevta, having rescued a married but a harassed bride in her in-law’s house. The Nag community people were smart, agile, adventurous, vindictive, proud and illustrious. That community was not of that caliber of the Aryans. The facial shape of the Nag people was not as oval shaped as that of the Aryans. Many traits of these clever and bold community are found in the Anavil community today. The Naga community used to worship the Cobra. There used to be the images of cobras with fangs raised on the helmets of the soldiers of the Naga community. It is quite possible that the community may have been called the Naga community.
Now we get some information about the Dashyu community. This community known as Dashyu was also residing in Deccan Gujarat when the Naga race had its suzerainty. The Dashyu people were black in appearance . They were short and stub-nosed. Their faces could be called ugly. In the Vedas, they are described as ‘Anas” -i.e., ugly faced. Their physical structure was greatly different to that of the people of the Nag community. The trail of loyalty was much less in this community with thick stout necks and low intellect. Consequently the Dashyu community sometimes used to be on the side of the Anaryans and at other times would be on the side of the Aryans. The community was adept at usurping other people’s wealth. The very meaning of the word Dashyu is a thief or scoundrel. The Aryans drove away the Nag people and also captivated the Dashyu community. Some of the Dashyu people were absorbed by the Aryans in their religion, some were left as slaves. The remaining Dashyu community, in order to protect themselves from the tyranny of the Aryans fled into the jungles of eastern Gujarat. There used to be a bitter enmity between the Aryan community and the Anaryan community in the forest.
It has been observed in historical annals that a victor-nation may consider and make others take them as cultured and well behaved. At the same time they consider and acknowledge a vanquished nation as un-Aryan and uncultured. Are we not unmindful of the vanity of the whites? They still claim to protect the colored races of this world. Some of the people are of the view that the Aryans have perpetrated unparalleled tyranny on the natives of this region. However it can positively be said that the Aryans were more powerful both physically and mentally than the natives of this region.
In the list of Gods and Goddesses of the Dashyu community are included the names of Mamadevi, Khetar-pal, Shikotri goddess and Khodiyarmata. Some of the old fashioned Anavils still worship these Dashyu Gods and Goddesses. Some people are of the belief that the area around places near Surat, Broach, Kosad, Bharthana was known as Hedambavan during the times of Mahabharat. It is so said that Bhim and Hedamba had met in this region and as compared to the normal height of this race Hedamba’s height was outstanding. It is also said that Hedamba was a non-Aryan lady of Dasyu race. The nick-name of Hedamba is generally awarded to the tall ugly ladies in the Anavil community.
The Dashyu community was dirty, obstinate, lazy and possessed a highly angry temperament. One is likely to err if one is to take for granted that today’s forest people are of the Dashyu community. The traits of the Nag and Aryan community are also observed in some of the forest population. In today’s times, we find the traits of the highbrows in the people whom we consider of the low class and vice-versa.
It is believed that blood of the Aryans and the Nag community flow in the veins of the ANAVIL community. With the changing of times. They may have mixed other blood in their flow. Therefore it is difficult to say how much blood of which tribe may be flowing in the veins of the Anavil community. It is impossible to claim with certainty, whether any community of today’s India was formed from the good mix of which tribes. Many rivers have merged in the ocean of the communities of India. None of the communities of India is pure.
Mr. Rashiklal Chhotalal Parikh in his preface to Umashanker Joshi's book "Gujarat in Paranas" has said that according to Pargiter's "The Dynasties of Cleage" and "Indian Historical Tradition" has attempted to unearth the historical facts concealed in the Puranas, has rendered the study of Puranas indisputable and at some places the opinions hava started veering round to go into the direction that whatever has been said in the Puranas is history. This is the reaction of the History of Puranas by Macualy and it is quite understandable that it may be short of critical analysis. However there is both reality and imagination in the Puranas. To find out reality is the researcher's job.
Mr. Ratnamanirao Bhimrao Jot in his "Cultural History of Gujarat, Part II" has said it has been probed that the Puranas are not only gossips and some of the facts are of the Vedic times and even more ancient than that. Even the Vaidic period is believed to be more ancient than the common belief. So, based on that belief, the strict historians have to more or less accept the manner of evaluating the old ancient historical facts in the distant past. This entire subject is confusing . It is however, very important in the cultural history of Gujarat. The geographical conditions are the base of its history. The material for its solid foundation is the progressive historic but confusing ancient and incomplete but important facts. With the passage of time and more research it will be proved as history.
Judicious evaluation necessitates to unearth the truth from the Puranas. If in case we dismiss Puranas as gossip, we will prove ourselves to be careless and negligent towards the invaluable treasure of our literature.
Professor Wilson says about Puranas " Some of the stories of the Hindus in the Puranas are as old as three Hundred years, having relationship with the era even before that and that the birth of certain Hindu Puranas has occurred before religious beliefs of the peoples of other nations, their miracle institutions and mionor illogical stories. The exact and detailed description of the places and importance of the rivers are contained more in the fast forgotten historical annals, than in the books and maps published both by the government and other bodies. Some believe that the period of Puranas is before the birth of Christ. Pargiter states that the Puranas were written not before 950 years before Christ. Shri Ramanlal Vasantrai Desai is of the view that the Puran period is from 300 B.C to the Mohammed period. It is difficult to predict the exact period of the Puranas.
The place Mahishmati on the banks of the river Narmada was the natural place of the demons of the Mahishi clan. Some of these demons went and settled at Mysore in the south and it was known as Mahishasurpur Mysore. It is said that Mahisasur's abode is in the Chamundi hills. The tradition of the demons and their places shown in Mysore are in fact originating from the settlement of the demons in Gujarat. It is believed that the idol of the goddess slaying Mahisasur is in Unai. In one of the hands of this goddess is the hair of Mahisasur. (From Mr. Manibhai Kaliawadikar's artticle titled "UNAI".)
Refer to Late Rao Bahadur Kantawala'a article in "Kapol".
"... and imposed their superior civilization on those with whom they so mingled." (Gujarat and its Literature by Mr. K.M. Munshi)
http://www.anavilsamaj.com/history.php
Thinkpad
Indian encounter with two occupations
By Dr Vijaya Rajiva
India experienced two back to back occupations lasting a thousand years, the Muslim and the British. Of these two, with the passing of time, the British occupation has become less problematic than the other one. While scholars and historians continue to examine the British period, the existential reality of Britain in India has become less urgent and has vanished into the mist of time. The Muslims on the other hand are an existential reality in present day India and the attendant angst(while moderated by good things) is very much there in both communities, largely because of its haunting presence in the Muslim community to start with and its blowback in the Hindu majority community.
Hindu certitude derives not only from the fact of their majority but because the history of India goes back for several millennia, long before the two occupations. Indian history can be traced back at least to 5,000 BC (now scholars have placed it at 7,000 BC) with the Indus Valley civilization . The existence of indigenous peoples pre-dates even that. With the arrival of the Indo Aryans in successive waves starting approximately in 2,000 BC the third important component of the famed Hindu synthesis was physically present.
India then, is earlier than either Islam or Britain. The conquest of Sind in the 8th century AD was accompanied by the forced conversion of the indigenous Hindus to Islam. This is well known and acknowledged by historians. There may have been other reasons also for the conversions such as material incentives, political alliances and in some cases an escape from the orthodoxy of Hinduism. Whatever the motives, the conversions happened and hence with some exceptions the majority of the Muslim population today is indigenous, ethnically, in the same way that Hindus are. However, the advent of a religious text and an imported ethos from Saudi Arabia and other foreign lands has given this indigenous population a special configuration which is important for both the minority and majority communities to recognise.
The conversion process has led to the erasure of indigenous memories from the Muslim population of a time when they were not Muslim. Hence Muslims, even well informed scholars, think in terms of the medieval period as their earliest racial memory and history.
Take for instance the sensitive work of Rasheeduddin Khan, called Bewildered India (Har Anand Publications, 1994 ). His argument that Muslims have contributed as much to Indian history as the Hindus starts only from the medieval period. True, the Muslims did contribute their own successes to national life and continue to do so to day. But Hindu or Indian history, started long before the medieval period, as has been pointed out above. And the continuity of Indian history is largely supplied by the Hindu ethos. As in classical Indian music the sruti is provided by Hindu experience(defined above as the synthesis of the Indus Valley, the indigenous population and the Indo Aryan). The variations are provided by the other communities alongside of Hindu variations.
This sruti is therefore, both geographic and civilisational. Hindus never left the land, nor were they driven out (unlike the Jews). They continued on the land which was variously called Bharat and India. There is therefore not so much complacency or a sense of entitlement or arrogant self assertion of Hindu identity as much as the existential preponderance of a lived history on the same land, continuously for several millennia.
The Hindu religion has been variously described as polytheism, as monism, as dualism, as henotheism , as idolatory, and many other isms. These are interesting labels but the key feature of Hinduism is its awareness of the ‘Divine Principle’ as being infinite and therefore manifesting itself in various forms. Hence, the built in tolerance for other faiths, which can be seen as expressions of the Divine in some form other than the one which any particular individual or community experiences.
Islam and its followers in India are committed to monotheism, the belief that there is only the one God that they worship and that mediation to this one God as they understand it, is through one Prophet, and only Him. This central belief of Islam cannot be wished away and is ever present in the consciousness of every Muslim. This leads to the attendant belief that the true way must be communicated to non believers. The proselytisation tendency is ever present.
Hence, the absence of a historical perspective of going back long before the Muslim conquest of India in combination with the dogmatic belief in the correctness of their own religion has led to a certain type of psyche that now finds it difficult to adjust to the larger Hindu community, in the last analysis. The adjustment takes place at the everday level of livelihood, during exchange in commerce and in the market place or in social events. But the underlying need for proselytisation is never far from the Muslim psyche, since it is built into the religious system. The non believer, is that other person who is an obstacle to the realisation of a world wide religious Caliphate. This must surely be an internalised value, although it manifests in violence only under certain circumstances and under certain political influences. And only in certain segments of the population.
The exclusivity of the Hindu ethos (in its internal dynamic towards the lower castes) does not apply to the Muslim world. The Hindu exists in some primordial world in which the Muslim or the Christian simply fits into as a distant variation. Any feelings of superiority are not external to the fact that Hindu India existed long before the arrival of the Muslim conquerors on the subcontinent. A simple example will suffice. The greater part of the Indus river now flows through Pakistan. Neverthless, to the Hindu this is still their sacred river. This is the river where the sacred texts may have been composed. This is the river, whose famed tributary the Saraswati (mentioned in the Rg Veda) once existed. The romance of this river is all encompassing.
Of course, since the Muslim occupation other memories and associations have been created, but the most ancient memory is Hindu. The same thinking applies to Kashmir, where Islam arrived only in the 14th century. Recently, the American Taliban, whose name prior to conversion is Adam, made a video which was shown on CNN. He claimed that his jihad was righteous because it consisted of driving out the foreigners from Muslim lands. He mentioned Kashmir in this statement. While a certain case may be made for ‘Muslim’ lands even in Iran or other places in the Middle East, in Kashmir, it is singularly inappropriate and reflects his ignorance of Indian history.
While in all lands where the Muslim conquest was successful the native indigenous traditions were largely destroyed and supplanted by Islam, this did not happen in India.
It is an important question to ponder, and an initial approximate answer is this: the resilience of Hinduism as a way of life, as a religion, as a philosophy ,as a culture, is elusive and cannot be identified in simplistic terms. It goes beyond ancient lineage and enters the realm of the indescribable. It is both most ancient and forever young. It allows for the gracious acceptance of other religions, because it is secure both in its physical home, the subcontinent of India and its psychological and spiritual home. Once, the Muslim inhabitants of this gracious land can truly understand this, then the attempt to overthrow this ethos will be abandoned once and for all. There is room for all in Hinduism and in Bharat Varsha, so that all may live in peace and prosperity.
(The writer taught Political Philosophy at a Canadian university.)
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Christianity and the Vedic Teachings Within It
« on: December 12, 2008, 11:02:31 AM »
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By Stephen Knapp
When we consider the story of how baby Jesus appeared in the heart of his mother Mary by immaculate conception, as well as the bright star appearing in the night sky, we can discern a direct parallel to Lord Krishna’s birth three thousand years earlier in Vrindavana, India, as recorded in the Vedic literature. It is described in the ancient Vedic texts how Krishna appeared in the mind of Vasudeva, Krishna’s father, and was then transferred into the heart of His mother, Devaki. During Krishna’s birth, the bright star Rohini was high in the sky, and the king at the time, Kamsa, actually ordered the killing of all the infants in an attempt to kill Krishna, similar to the way Herod was supposed to have done as described in the gospel of Matthew. And just as a multitude appeared among the shepherds in the hills praising God at the time of Jesus’ birth, there were also many demigods who came and danced and sang about the glories of Krishna when He was ready to appear in this world. Krishna was born in a cave-like dungeon, while Jesus was also born in a cave, although some say a manger in a barn. Rays of light illuminated the area after they had taken birth. While newly born, they both spoke of why they had come to this world. And as wise men were supposed to have presented Jesus with frankincense and myrrh, baby Krishna was also presented with gifts that included sandalwood and perfumes.
At the time when Krishna left this planet, His foot was pierced with an arrow, while Jesus’ side was pierced with a spear. There was a darkness that descended when Jesus is said to have been crucified, just as there was a darkness and many calamities taking place when Krishna left this world. And as there is a description of many ominous signs that are to signify the second coming of Christ, there are even more symptoms of the terrible age of Kali that we are going through that indicates the time before the coming of Krishna’s next incarnation as Kalki. Many of these I have included in my book, The Vedic Prophecies. There are many other parallels that we could refer to that are disclosed in the Vedas, which were written many hundreds of years before the Bible.
Jesus preached in a way that can also be compared to the sayings of Krishna. For example, in Bhagavad-gita (7.6-7) Krishna said, “I am the cause of the whole universe, through Me it is created and dissolved, all things are dependant on Me as pearls are strung on a thread.” Jesus said, “Of Him and through Him, and unto Him, are all things. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1.3) Krishna had said (Bg.4.7), “For the establishment of righteousness I am born from time to time.” This compares to Jesus in John 18:37, wherein he says, “Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” These and many other comparisons can be made. Nonetheless, the fact is that the history of Krishna is thousands of years older than that of Jesus.
In this way, practically speaking, what we find in the Bible regarding Jesus’ birth is a description of the appearance of Lord Krishna, but only the names have been changed. Of course, there are different theories about how this happened. One theory is that when the Christians went to India, they found out that this story was there in the Bhagavat-Purana; so, they immediately had to change the date of when the Bhagavat-Purana was supposed to have been written. So now the historians generally say that it was written about 1400 years ago. Otherwise, how could they explain the story of Krishna’s birth being so similar to the story of Christ’s birth? They thought that the Vedic pundits must have heard about the story of Jesus and adapted the story to their own incarnation, as if the Vedic scholars would demean themselves by putting a story into their scripture that was heard from people who were considered low-born foreigners. Actually, what happened was just the opposite.
Since both the Bhagavad-gita and the Srimad-Bhagavatam contain many similar sentiments and descriptions to Christianity, numerous Christian scholars have tried to prove that the stories therein had been borrowed from the Bible. However, this has been proved to be quite the reverse. This is has been accepted by Reverend J. B. S. Carwithen, known as one of the “Brampton Lecturers,” who says, as quoted in Reverend J. P. Lundy’s Monumental Christianity (pp. 151-2), “Both the name Crishna and the general outline of his story are long anterior to the birth of our Savior [Jesus Christ]; and this we know, not on the presumed antiquity of the Hindoo records alone. Both Arrian and Strabo assert that the God Crishna was anciently worshiped at Mathura, on the river Jumna, where he is worshiped at this day. But the emblems and attributes essential to this deity are also transplanted into the mythology of the West.”
Monier Williams, one of the accepted early Western authorities on Hinduism, Professor at Oxford in London and a devout Christian, also focused on this issue when writing for the “Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge” in his book, Indian Wisdom. Therein he states: “To any one who has followed me in tracing the outline of this remarkable philosophical dialogue, and has noted the numerous parallels it offers to passages in our Sacred Scriptures, it may seem strange that I hesitate to concur to any theory which explains these coincidences by supposing the author [of such Vedic books as the Bhagavad-gita and the Srimad-Bhagavatam] had access to the New Testament, or that he derived some of his ideas from the first propagators of Christianity. Surely it will be conceded that the probability of contact and interaction between Gentile systems and the Christian religion of the first two centuries of our era must have been greater in Italy than in India. Yet, if we take the writings and sayings of those great Roman philosophers, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, we shall find them full of resemblances to passages in our Scriptures, while there appears to be no ground whatever for supposing that these eminent Pagan writers and thinkers derived any of their ideas from either Jewish or Christian sources. In fact, the Reverend F. W. Farrar, in his interesting and valuable work, Seekers After God, has clearly shown that ‘to say that Pagan morality kindled its faded taper at the Gospel light, whether furtively or unconsciously, that it dissembled the obligation and made a boast of the splendor, as if it were originally her own, is to make an assertion wholly untenable.’ He points out that the attempts of the Christian Fathers to make out Pythagoras a debtor to Hebraic wisdom, Plato an ‘Atticizing Moses,’ Aristotle a picker-up of ethics from a Jew, Seneca a correspondent of St. Paul, were due in some cases to ignorance, in some to a want of perfect honesty in controversial dealing. . . It must indeed be admitted that the flames of true light which emerge from the mists of pantheism in the writings of the Indian philosophers, must spring from the same source of light as the Gospel itself; but it may reasonably be questioned whether there could have been any actual contact of the Hindoo systems with Christianity without a more satisfying result in the modification of pantheistic and anti-Christian ideas.”
Again, Monier points out the antiquity of the Vedic culture, practically over and beyond all others, when he explains on page iv of his book: “It should not be forgotten that although the nations of Europe have changed their religions during the past eighteen centuries, the Hindu has not done so, except very partially. Islam converted a certain number by force of arms in the eighth and following centuries, and Christian truth is at last slowly creeping onwards and winning its way by its own inherent energy in the nineteenth; but the religious creeds, rites, customs, and habits of thought of the Hindus generally have altered little since the days of Manu. . .”
In light of all this research, by myself and others, we can conclude with the words of T. W. Doane in his book, Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions. Therein he goes so far as to say at the beginning of Chapter Twenty-Eight, “. . . the mythological portion of the history of Jesus of Nazareth, contained in the books forming the Canon of the New Testament, is nothing more or less than a copy of the mythological histories of the Hindoo Savior Crishna, and the Buddhist Savior Buddha, with a mixture of mythology borrowed from the Persians and other nations. . .”
One archeological find that proved that knowledge of Krishna antedated Christianity by at least 200 years was the Heliodorus column, built in 113 B.C. in central India by the Greek ambassador to India, Heliodorus. On it is an inscription commenting on the ambassador’s devotion to Lord Vishnu (Krishna) and mentioning when the column had been erected. The column still stands near the town of Vidisha.
We must remember that when the Christians first came to India to preach, they were not very well received by the local people. There was very little penetration because the Christian priests and missionaries were seen for what they were: mlecchas and yavanas, more or less unclean cow-killers or untouchables in local terminology. So it is doubtful that the Vedic pandits spent much time even listening to them, what to speak of writing scripture or changing the story of Krishna’s birth on account of hearing these missionaries. Of course, now as Indian society has deteriorated and become more attracted to Western values (partly due to being indoctrinated by the British rule years ago), Christianity is more easily accepted.
So, the conclusion we must arrive at is that the story of Lord Krishna’s birth, along with numerous other parts of the Vedic philosophy, must have come to the mid-eastern part of the world because of the many trade caravans going back and forth at that time from India to the region of Palestine. Since there were no real witnesses of Christ’s birth and hardly any history in the gospels of the life of Christ up to the age of thirty, it is likely they applied the story of Krishna to Jesus’ life. Otherwise, there is little historical evidence that any of it is factual.
There is evidence, however, as more facts are being uncovered, that contends that Jesus may have been nailed to the cross but did not die on it. After having been taken from the cross, he later recovered from the ordeal rather than rose from the dead. The Shroud of Turin, if it is authentic (which has been a great debate by itself), seems to provide some evidence that Christ was not dead when taken from the cross since his body was still bleeding while wrapped in the cloth. Even if Christ did appear to die on the cross, being a yogic master, he could have put himself into trance to be revived later. This goes on even today with yogis in India or fakirs in Egypt who can appear to die, be buried for hours, days, months, or sometimes years, and then be uncovered and resurrected from their apparent death. Even the Koran (4.157) claims that Jesus did not die on the cross.
There is also evidence that after the crucifixion Jesus traveled through Turkey, Persia, and then India. The Russian scholar Nicolas Notovitch discovered in 1887 Buddhist documents at the Hemis monastery in Ladakh that describe the life of Issa. Issa is the Tibetan spelling while Isa is the Arabic spelling of the name Jesus, and the name commonly used in Islam. The manuscript was originally from Lhasa, translated into Tibetan from the Pali language. Jesus’ ascension into heaven may have referred to his entrance into Kashmir, an area considered by many to have been like heaven or the promised land.
Furthermore, the Bhavishya Purana, dating back to 3000 B.C. and compiled by Srila Vyasadeva, also described the future coming of Jesus and his activities. Dr. Vedavyas, a research scholar who holds a doctorate in Sanskrit, said that the Purana tells of how Jesus would visit the Himalayas and do penance to acquire spiritual maturity under the guidance of the sages and siddha-yogis of India. Dr. Vedavyas says that besides describing the future events of Kali-yuga, the Purana predicted that Jesus would be born of an unmarried woman, Kumari (Mari or Mary) Garbha Sambhava, and would first go to India when he was 13 years old and visit many Hindu and Buddhist holy places. This was his spiritual training in a time of his life of which the gospels are totally ignorant. Furthermore, the actual burial place of Jesus is believed to be in Anzimar or Khanyar, Srinagar’s old town in Kashmir, where thousands of pious pay homage to the tomb of Issa each year. There is where he settled and died sometime after the crucifixion.
In any case, the Christian Church began with what Paul said about the resurrection of Jesus. Whether the resurrection actually happened or not cannot be proved. Nonetheless, a new faith was born. But through the years there has been much controversy about the nature of Jesus and whether he was actually God as some Christians seem to believe. None of his direct disciples believed that he was, and, indeed, there are many Bible verses which state directly that he was the son of God, such as Luke 1.35, Matthew 17.5, John 4.15, 8.28, 14.28, and others. Only Paul put forward the idea that Jesus was God. But historically it is said that Paul never met Jesus personally, and was converted to Christianity several years after Jesus’ disappearance. Other than that, most of Jesus’ followers thought that perhaps he was the Jewish Messiah. But the Jewish Messiah, according to their prophecies, was not God but rather a Jew who was empowered by God. This actually fits into the Vedic view because there are many empowered living beings who appear from time to time who are sent by God to represent and disseminate His law. Furthermore, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, one of the great Vaishnava spiritual masters in the Madhava-Gaudiya line of disciplic succession, has stated that Jesus was a shaktyavesha avatar, or an empowered living entity meant to preach the glories of God.
People may say that Jesus walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead, so he must have been God. But even today in India there have been yogis who have walked on water or who can do other amazing things, like walking over hot coals. This is not like the Hollywood fad of fire walking, but the yogis let the coals burn for days and get so hot that you cannot even get near them without burning your clothes. Then, after spending one month in penance, praying to Durga, they walk across the fire and do not even burn their feet. But some people will say this is the work of the devil. However, is this not peculiar logic to say that walking across fire is of the devil, but if one walks across water he is God? This kind of thinking that is usually found amongst fundamentalists simply shows a great ignorance of yogic powers, which is all walking across fire or water is. Therefore, the miracles of Jesus are a sign of his knowledge of the mystical powers that come from practicing yoga. But it is not a proof that someone is God.
One important part of Eastern knowledge that was present in early Christianity was the understanding of karma and reincarnation. I have already discussed this and pointed out some of the verses that showed the acceptance of reincarnation in the Bible in The Secret Teachings of the Vedas; so, I will not go into it so deeply here. But it is known that the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 A.D. threw out all references to reincarnation and stated that the idea of it was a myth, and anyone who believed in it would be excommunicated. Of course, this action would not be unexpected in light of the other things the Church has done throughout history in order to place itself as the only way to reach heaven and attain the mercy of God. By eliminating the possibility of reincarnation and the soul’s existence prior to this life, there could be no chance for the soul to reach the state of spiritual perfection over a period of several lifetimes. There would only be this one lifetime in which the soul came into existence, and one chance for a person to reach either heaven or eternal hell, which would be determined by the intervention of the Church. In other words, the Church felt threatened by the fact that the soul has an eternal and personal relationship with God that must be rekindled either in one, two, or however many lifetimes it takes, and this relationship does not necessarily depend on one’s good standing in any religious organization. Thus, people could try to re-establish their relationship with God by other means than the dictates of the Church, which is what the Church could not tolerate.
Unfortunately, by taking out the knowledge of reincarnation and karma, the Church has created huge gaps in its philosophy which leave questions it cannot answer. For example, the Christians cannot explain why one person may be born blind, poor, deformed, or sickly, while another may be born healthy and rich. They do not understand why reversals in life may happen to some, and others seem to have a life of ease. They cannot explain why these differences take place and, in fact, they sometimes blame God for such things, which only shows their ignorance of spiritual knowledge. Furthermore, they do not understand the science of the soul and our spiritual identity, the nature of the spiritual realm, the characteristics of the personality of God, nor the pastimes and incarnations of God, and so on. Thus, the spiritual knowledge that the Christians utilize in their philosophy is very elementary and incomplete. And as we have already established in our previous writings, reaching complete spiritual perfection is not possible in such an incomplete spiritual process. At best, it promotes good moral values, detachment toward worldly life, attachment and devotion to God, and the possibility of reaching the heavenly planets. However, the heavenly planets are still within the material cosmic manifestation and not in the spiritual realm. A real religionist or transcendentalist is interested only in reaching the level of spiritual realization that enables him to directly perceive his spiritual identity and enter the spiritual strata far beyond this material creation.
Actually, Christians still must accept the understanding of karma and reincarnation to some extent in order to explain logically how one can have a life after death in heaven or hell. According to the Christian doctrine, qualifying for heaven or hell depends on one’s actions in this life. That is called karma in Vedic literature. And as one enters heaven or hell in his next life, he takes on or incarnates in a different form. This is reincarnation. So Christians must, at least to this degree, accept karma and reincarnation whether they fully understand it or not. But to understand it more completely, as explained in the philosophy of the Vedic literature, allows us to realize that our good or unpleasant situations in this life depends on our activities from past lives. And by our activities in this life we can cause our future existence to be good or bad, or we can reach the heavenly or hellish planetary systems to work out our karma. This understanding is accepted by many cultures throughout the world. In fact, the scholar Max Muller remarked that the greatest minds humanity has produced have accepted reincarnation.
More connections between Christianity and the Vedic culture can be recognized as follows:
The ancient Vedic custom of applying ash or sandalwood paste to the body is still retained by Christianity in the observance of Ash Wednesday. The so-called “All Soul’s Day” is an exact translation of the Vedic observance of Sarva Pitri Amavasya, the day fixed by tradition for the worship of all deceased ancestors.
Another Christian tradition derived from Vedic origins is that of having and ringing bells in the churches, especially before or during worship. In Vedic temples it is often seen where bells are rung during worship and when pilgrims enter the temple, announcing their entrance. Christian churches also ring bells to announce the beginning of worship. The word “bell” comes from the Sanskrit bal which means strength. This is in reference to the idea that ringing a bell adds force to the voice of prayer in invoking divinity.
When the Christians say “Amen” at the end of their hymns or to emphasize something, what they are saying is a corrupted form of “Aum” or “Om,” which is a standard form of Vedic meditation and name of the Supreme Being.
While we are on the topic of words used in Christianity that are derived from Sanskrit, the Catholic term “Madonna,” another name for Mother Mary, comes from the Sanskrit Mata Nah, meaning “Our Mother.” This is also derived from the great Vedic Mother Goddess. Thus, Mother Mary was a reference not only to the mother of Jesus alone, but a reference to the Goddess, mother of all humanity. Furthermore, the European term of “Madam” is a soft pronunciation of the Hindu term mata or mataji, which also means “Mother.”
The term “vestry” in referring to the room in churches in which holy clothes are kept comes from the Sanskrit word vestra, meaning clothes. Even the word “psalm” with a silent “P” comes from the Sanskrit word sam or sama which means holy and serious sacred songs, hymns or chants, as found in the Sama-veda.
Other Christian links with Sanskrit words can be found in the name Bethlehem, which is the English mispronunciation of the Sanskrit Vatsaldham, which means “the home (town) of the darling child.” The Sanskrit term Nandarath is linguistically connected with Nazareth. Nandarath means Nanda’s chariot, and King Nanda was the guardian at whose village he nurtured Lord Krishna (sometimes pronounced as Chrisn, and later Christ in some regions).
The Christian term “Satan” and the Islamic term “Shaitan” both are derived from the Sanskrit term Sat-na, which means non-truth, falsehood, or fraudulence. The Christians who explain the term “Devil” as a fallen angel should realize that the word is derived from the Sanskrit terminology which signifies a fallen Deva.
At the beginning of the book of John in the New Testament, it states, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is actually a verbatim translation of the Vedic Sanskrit mantra: “Prajapatirvai idamagraasit, tasya vag dvitiyaa asit, vag vai paramam Brahma.”
The Holy Spirit in Christianity is called Paramatma in Sanskrit, or Parakalate. In Greek the word is Paraclete. This is the God of that spiritual knowledge which is revealed or descended, or the Veda, which is spoken through the prophets (Sanskrit purohitas) . Veda is Yeda in Hebrew, the word God uses for His Self-revelation in Exodus of the Old Testament. Veda in Greek is Oida, and Aidos, from which the English word idea is derived. The term oida is used for God’s/Christ’s Sel-revelation in the New Testament. Thus, the Vedas, the Old and New Testament, and the related scriptures are but part of one continuous revelation of God.
Dr. Venu Gopalacharya also points out in his book, World-Wide Hindu Culture (pp. 158-9), that in the book of Genesis, Chapter 22, God told Abraham that he and his wife, Sarah, would be blessed and God would, “make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. . . and through thy seed, shall all nations be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice.” Dr. Venu Gopalacharya explains, “Abraham and Sarah [Sarai] refer to [or was derived from] the Indian version of Brahma and Sarasvati. This indicates that this is an abridgement of some of the versions in the Indian Puranas referring to ‘Brahma and his consort as the first aspects of the Supreme Lord or His agents of creation and offering sacrifices [or performing austerities].’ In the commencement of the book of Genesis, the sentence, ‘In the Beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the waters.’ This is similar to the Vedic Puranas stating that MahaVishnu or Narayana was lying on Adisesha in the ocean, [who is] the original source from which Brahma comes into being. The killing of Abel by his brother for the sacrifice of animals refers to the slaying of Asuras by the Devas, their own brothers, due to the difference of opinion about the mode of offering sacrifices or worshiping God.
“Just as Indian Puranas were compiled to glorify a particular aspect of the Supreme Lord as Vishnu, or of Shiva, Durga, Ganesha, etc., the Old Testament deals with ‘Yahwe,’ an aspect of the angry god Rudra. As the word ‘Rudra’ means a weeping god, the Jews for worship use weeping before the wailing wall of the ‘Dome of the Rock’ within the temple of Harmahesh Sri (called by Judaic religionists as Haram Esh Sheriff) in the old city of Jerusalem, i.e., Yadusailam. The Jews spell the name of the city as ‘Yerushalayim,’ of which the Sanskrit synonym is Yadu Ishalayam, which means the temple of the Lord of the Yadus [the descendants of Lord Krishna’s clan].
“Dr. S. Radhakrishnan has informed in his book, Pracya Mattu Paschatya Sanskriti, that the Greeks asserted that the Jews were Indians whom the Syrians called Judea, the Sanskrit synonym of which is Yadava or Yaudheya, and the Indians called them Kalanis, meaning orthodox followers of the scripture.”
This information certainly provides serious insights into the relationship between the early Jews, Christians, the Bible, and the Vedic culture. I could go on pointing out more Eastern traditions that influenced or were adopted and preserved in various levels of Christianity, but this should be enough for now.
FURTHER SOURCES OF OUTSIDE INFLUENCE IN CHRISTIANITY
At the time of Jesus’ appearance there were many cults in Judaism. There were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and another was the Essenes who were very pure in their habits. They were frugal and were strict vegetarians, eating no meat of any kind and drinking fresh fruit juices or water. They believed in working in harmony with nature and the forces that surround the world and all within it.
The name Essene is supposed to derive from a Syrian word meaning physician, and they would practice the healing of the sick in mind, body, and soul. They had two main communities, one in Egypt, the other in Palestine near the Dead Sea. Another was in Syria. Their origins can be traced to the Far East, and their methods of prayer, meditation, and fasting were quite similar to Eastern or Vedic practices.
Their membership was open to all and they were a well respected order with many hundreds waiting to join. But their teachings were given only to members. To be a member of the Essene order, one had to pass a probationary period of one year and be able to fast for 40 days. Their school had three degrees, and few passed successfully through all. They divided themselves into two levels, consisting of those who were celibate and those who were married. The Essenes were a peaceful order of pious men and women who lived in asceticism, spending their days in simple labor and their evenings in prayer. They never became involved with political or military affairs. They never became merchants or entered into commercial life in the cities, but maintained themselves by agriculture and raising sheep for wool, as well as by crafts like pottery and carpentry. (And tradition holds that Jesus was a carpenter.) Any profits or harvests were not kept individually, but were given to the community and then divided.
More information is provided by H. Spencer Lewis who writes on page 28 of his book, The Mystical Life of Jesus: “Every member of the Essenes in Egypt or Palestine had to be a pure-blooded descendant of the Aryan race.” This would indicate that the Essenes were a clan of Aryans and, as we know, the Aryans were followers of the Vedic principles. On page 29, Lewis explains further: “Immediately upon initiation, each member adopted a robe of white composed of one piece of material, and he wore sandals.” This one-piece robe sounds very much like the Vedic practice of wearing a dhoti.
In a footnote (p. 31) of another book, The Secret Doctrine of Jesus, H. Spencer Lewis describes that, “Findings of such archeologists as G. Lankester Harding, Director of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities (viz. The) most startling disclosure of the Essene documents so far published is that the sect possessed, years before Christ, a terminology and practice that has always been considered uniquely Christian. The Essenes practiced baptism and shared a liturgical repast of bread and wine, presided over by a priest. They believed in redemption and immortality of the soul. Their most important teacher was a mysterious figure called the Teacher of Righteousness.”
This makes it quite obvious that many of the so-called Christian practices and terminology, aside from those that Paul established, are a mere continuation of the pre-Christian Essene tradition. The Essenes were also followers or worshipers of Essan (Issan), which comes from the Sanskrit term Isha, which means God.
Jesus was a member of the Essenes and was apparently the head of one of the Essene temples. In all the Essene temples there was one leader and twelve assistants. When they had their ritual, which they had been doing many years before Jesus appeared, they would break bread and take wine. The leader would stand over the wine and bread and say, “This is my body, this is my blood,” acting as a representative of God. Then he would distribute it. This is information from the Dead Sea Scrolls which were written long before Christ appeared. So we can see that this is a tradition previous to Christ that is still being carried on in the Christian churches today.
The philosophy of the Essenes was very exalted for that period of time. Traditionally, the Jewish doctrine for justice was an eye for an eye. But the Essenes, even before Christ, taught that one should simply turn the other cheek. So in many cases when Jesus taught, he was simply repeating the doctrine of the Essenes. It was not original. But considering the advanced level of the Essene philosophy in general, it would not be surprising if they had been influenced by the Vedic writings in some way. In fact, evidence of this can be seen when we consider that the school of the Essenes was originally conducted chiefly for the purpose of interpreting the Pythagorean symbols and teachings.
According to legend, Pythagoras was one of the many sages of antiquity for whom an immaculate conception is asserted. He was born between 600 and 590 B.C. and the birth was predicted by the oracle of Delphi. Pythagoras had traveled and learned the mysteries of the Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, and even went through Media and Persia to Hindustan to study for several years under the learned Brahmin priests. This is accepted by some to be the same areas where Jesus later traveled and learned the Eastern spiritual philosophy.
One of the things Pythagoras had declared was that meat-eating clouded the reasoning faculties, and that judges should refrain from eating meat before a trial to assure that the most honest decisions would be made for those who went before them. He also taught that mortals who, during their earthly existence, had become like animals in their activities would return to earth again in the form of the beasts they had grown to resemble or act like. Pythagoras also taught the medicinal properties of plants and how to heal by the use of color, vibrations, music, herbs, etc. He also taught how there was a Supreme World, spiritual in nature, which pervaded all things. The material worlds existed within the nature of this supreme sphere, and people should try to recognize the spiritual nature in their surroundings. The Essenes taught many of these same points. They also believed in the eternality of the soul and the philosophy of reincarnation, as did the Pythagoreans and other groups of that time, and taught that rewards of righteousness must be earnestly striven for.
Jesus’ brother James was one of the leaders of the Essenes in Jerusalem and was a strict vegetarian. It is said that never in his life did he eat meat, nor did he drink liquor. He was an ascetic. So if these two brothers were stalwart preachers of the Essenes and one was a staunch vegetarian, it is hard to imagine that the other one would not also be. Of course, if a person wants to establish Jesus as a meat-eater, they can repeat the biblical story in which he distributed many fish. But that was an emergency situation, and whether Jesus actually ate any fish is still in question. But, from an objective point of view, there is evidence that Jesus did not eat meat. In Isaiah (7.14-15) it is stated: “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.” This shows that Christ was a vegetarian.
The founding fathers of the early Christian church, such as Tertullian, Pliny, Origen, St. John Chrysostom, etc., were also strict vegetarians. In fact, St. John Chrysostom advised that saints are loving not only toward people, but also to the beasts because they come from the same God who created mankind. Other saints who were either vegetarian or who at least made friends with animals or protected them from hunters include St. Francis, and Georgian saints like St. David of Garesja, St. John Zedazneli, and early Celtic saints like St. Wales, St. Cornwall, and St. Brittany. Therefore, a real “Christian” who follows Christ’s doctrines should also extend their love to all of God’s creatures as Christ had done. Otherwise, how can they be considered real followers of Christ?
The fact of the matter is that the Bible, in Genesis (1.26), states: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” Herein, dominion does not mean to do whatever one wants to with other creatures, but to have dominion as a ruler of a country has leadership over the people he rules. It is not expected that a leader will torture and eat the people who inhabit his country. That is no leader at all, but is merely one who exploits others for his own interests. Furthermore, only a few verses after the one above we find that God expects us to be vegetarian: “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat.” (Genesis 1.29) Therefore, meat-eating should be avoided in Christianity.
Only after the Ecumenical councils at the time of Emperor Constantine, who was a meat-eater, did vegetarian Christians have to practice underground. It was either this or live in fear of having molten lead poured down their throat, which Constantine would do if he caught any vegetarian Christians. Of course, now this is no longer an issue in Christianity. Almost everyone considers that meat-eating is normal and that animals have no soul or feelings.
The idea that animals have no soul was started by Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.) also supported this view because he favored meat-eating. Aristotle based his opinions on his speculations, but later Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) unfortunately adopted Aristotle’s philosophy, and the Church took Aquinas’ teachings as dogma. And now most everyone in Christianity has followed suit. In fact, due to the expansion of Christianity in Ceylon and other parts of the East, meat-eating has spread, although the slaying of animals is forbidden in Buddhism and amongst those lamas, yogis, and Brahmins who are working to attain the highest spiritual development. Therefore, we can see how this destructive opinion that animals have no soul, which is based on a gross ignorance of spiritual knowledge, has spread.
The understanding that meat-eating is incompatible with spiritual progress can be seen more clearly in early Christianity and Eastern religious systems. In fact, such similarities between the Eastern and Western philosophies were more evident before the Ecumenical councils, which did away with many of the early Christian teachings that dealt with such things as reincarnation, karma, rebirth, and so on. Such Eastern influence was no doubt partly due to Jesus’ travels through the Eastern countries, such as India, Ceylon, and a few of the Himalayan countries. But the modern Church often declines to discuss the fact that early Christianity shows every evidence of being influenced by the East. And the East, specifically India, has always been viewed as the land of spiritual knowledge since time immemorial. So it should not be considered too unusual that many philosophical ideas of Christianity are rooted in the Vedic literature. However, if it is ever established beyond a doubt that Jesus was an initiate of the so-called “pagan” Asiatic teachings, it could certainly have a considerable effect on the members of the Christian faith. However, more and more people are gradually becoming aware of this Eastern influence.
PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY
The name pagan means a country man. The name heathen comes from the word heath, which is a common name for a variety of evergreen shrubs that live in swamps or along mountain slopes. Thus, the name heathen simply referred to those who lived in the country near such plants. Therefore, the use of the name heathen or pagan originally was not meant in a condescending way. To be a heathen or pagan simply meant that one followed those religions that existed prior to Christianity, or that he or she participated in the nature religions, which primarily meant demigod worship. So paganism is simply a reference to following the old remnants of the Vedic Aryan culture. And people throughout pre-Christian Europe worshiped a variety of spirits and demigods, known by different names according to culture and region. The Romans and Greeks of that time also worshiped demigods. The sun-god, Mithra, was apparently considered the most exalted of the demigods. Even King Constantine (280-337 A.D.) was originally a devotee of the sun-god. His famous vision of the cross that he had while marching on Rome came to him from the sun. In fact, even after he was converted to Christianity, he remained a devotee of the sun-god, and because of that he continued to hold the Sabbath on Sunday, which traditionally was on Saturday.
According to Jewish tradition, the Sabbath was Saturday when God finished the creation and rested. So Saturday is the seventh day and Sunday is the first. Therefore, the Seventh Day Adventists, in a kind of protest, changed the Sabbath back to the original day. So even today the Sabbath is celebrated as a kind of pagan carry-over on the sun’s day. In this way, each day was set aside for different demigods, who are the presiding deities of different planets. Thus, Sunday is for the sun, Monday is for the moon, Tues is the Greek name for Mars, Wednesday is for Mercury, Thursday for Jupiter, Friday for Venus, and Saturday for Saturn.
We can trace many more similarities between Christianity, Judaism, and other cultures. The origin of one of the first stories in the Bible can be traced to Zoroastrianism. In Zoroastrianism we find where the Lord, Ahura Mazda, creates the world in six stages, and then creates the first man and woman and brings them to consciousness with the breath of life. Shortly afterward, Ahriman, the devil, convinces the man and woman to eat of the forbidden fruit, thus bringing sin and death into the world.
In other cases, the Jews, having such little information about their founders, borrowed ideas from the legends of neighboring cultures to make their own heroes look special. For example, the stories of Moses’ activities are borrowed from the god Bacchus, who as a baby was found floating in a small boat in the water the way Moses was. Bacchus also emitted rays of light from his forehead, wrote laws on stone, crossed the Red Sea without getting his feet wet, and had armies that were led by pillars of fire. Other similarities can be found in the story of Lord Rama and in the activities of Zoroaster who is said to have lived many years before Moses.
Other customs, such as circumcision, that now most Christians practice, is not exclusively Jewish, but actually came from Egypt. It had been practiced by the Egyptian priests as far back as 4,000 BC, long before there ever was a Jewish tribe.
Baptism is another ceremony that is often considered exclusively Christian. However, this is far from true, as some authorities admit. Reverend J. P. Lundy, who made ancient religions a special study, relates on page 385 of his book, Monumental Christianity, that, “John the Baptist simply adopted and practiced the universal custom of sacred bathing for the remission of sins. Christ sanctioned it; the church inherited it from his example.”
So from where did Baptism come? The fact is that it has been practiced in the form of immersion or by sprinkling for the purification of sins as a common rite in various countries far and wide, for many centuries, in religions that are the least connected. One of the oldest forms of baptism comes from and is found in India. It is here where people, for aeons, have bathed with the intent of spiritual purification in rivers that are considered sacred. Rivers like the Ganges and Yamuna, or sacred lakes and ponds, have long been accepted as sources of spiritual cleansing if one bathes in them with reverence, especially at important times or events. Even today you can visit holy towns along the Ganges where people, young and old, make special endeavors to take a holy bath in the river, in which they plunge three times into the water, or at least sprinkle drops on their heads. This ancient practice spread all over the world in various forms.
Ancient Persians also practiced baptizing their infants soon after birth, dipping the baby in a vase of water. The old Mithraic initiation ceremonies also included baptism. The Egyptians used baptism as a symbol and rite of spiritual regeneration. Baptism by immersion was also performed by the pagan Greeks, Romans, Mayans, Incas, and, of course, the Essenes and Jews, long before it became a Christian custom.
There are also events and miracles in the life of Jesus that were known to have happened to other special beings, such as Buddha several hundred years earlier. For example, Jesus was supposed to have radiated light after his birth. However, other personalities who also had light shining from them when they were born include Bacchus, Apollo, the first Zoroaster, Moses, and the oldest of which is Krishna. Furthermore, just as Jesus fasted for 40 days and was tempted by the devil, Buddha also fasted and was tempted by the demon Mara in a more severe manner than Jesus. And just as Jesus told the devil, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” the Buddha also told Mara, “Get thou away from me.” However, other personalities from various cultures were also tempted in a similar way, such as Zoroaster of the Persians, and Quetzalcoatl of ancient Mexico.
Actually, Paul was the fanatic who took whatever was known of Jesus and, while misinterpreting Jesus’ teachings, made Jesus out to be the incarnation of God, the Messiah, that Jesus never wanted to be. As described in Mark (8.29-30), when Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was, Peter said that he was the Christ. And Jesus charged them that they should tell no man of him. In fact, the term Christ was first used in relation to Jesus by Paul when Paul first started preaching in the city of Antioch. The name Christ was simply the Greek word for Messiah. It was not a person’s name.
Paul was the person who developed Christian theology and ritual and simply wrote in the Epistles his own ideas of Jesus while never referring to what Jesus actually said. Paul also put many threats into the philosophy of Christianity and created an image of a fearsome and jealous God rather than one that was merciful and loving. But, according to Paul’s version of Christianity, salvation was granted by God alone who would save you if you simply became a Christian because Christ had already died on the cross as a sacrifice for your sins. In this way, faith was all that was needed, and faith outweighed the need for good works. This may be a simple and comfortable concept for Christians but is not a true one and was never presented in the real teachings of Jesus. Jesus actually did emphasize the need for good works. So what we really find in Christianity are the teachings of Paul, which in some areas have little to do with what Jesus actually taught.
Paul also accepted Sunday as the day of rest from Mithraism rather than Saturday, the seventh day as found in the Hebraic tradition. Paul also took Easter from Mithraism as the day Jesus rose from the grave. Mithra is said to have died in battle on a Friday and was buried in a rock tomb from which, after three days, he rose on the festive occasion of the spring equinox, called Eastra, the Latin word for Astarte, the earth mother goddess. Interestingly, the 40 days before the spring equinox corresponding to Lent was the period for searching for the renewal of life in that tradition. Furthermore, the celebration for the resurrection of the Greek god Adonis is said to have taken place as late as 386 A.D. in Judea at the same time as the Easter observance of Jesus’ resurrection. And the use of dyed Easter eggs was widely known by such people as the Egyptians and Persians who made presents of them, and by the Jews who used them in the Passover feast. These are some of the non-Christian traditions that became incorporated into the Christian Easter holiday and are still practiced today.
In regard to Jesus’ crucifixion, he is supposed to have died and descended into hell, and on the third day rose again. However, if we look at other cultures, many of which are far older than Christianity, this is hardly an isolated event. The Persian Zoroaster, the Egyptian Osiris, Horus, Adonis, Bacchus, Hercules, and the Scandinavian Baldur, and the Mexican Quetzalcoatl all are supposed to have spent three days in hell after their death and then rose again. All these persons also performed many miracles that can be compared to the ones Jesus performed.
The Eucharist of Christianity was also a practice of the ancient Egyptians in commemoration of the death of Osiris. They would eat the sacred cake or wafer after it had been consecrated by a priest, after which it became the veritable flesh of his flesh. The Persian Magi also administered bread and wine in their worship of Mithra. The ancient Pagan Greeks celebrated the sacrament of the Lord’s supper in honor of Bacchus, the god of wine.
A more ancient form of this practice is found in the Vedic culture in which the people and priests would offer opulent foodstuffs to the Deities, and then partake of the remnants as prasadam, which means the Lord’s mercy. The food would be accepted as practically equal to God and extremely purifying and sacred. This custom is still widespread around the world among Vedic followers. From these ceremonies and observances came the practices now seen in the Christian sacrament.
We can easily recognize many more outside influences in Christianity if we take a closer look. For example, one of the basic doctrines of Christianity is the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But the holy trinity existed many years prior to Christianity as an Eastern tradition. The Trinity, as in God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, is another concept which is far from being of Christian origin. It comes from outside Christianity and from a much earlier source. We find the trinity in many cultures, including the Chinese and Japanese Buddhists (in the form of Fo), the Egyptians (in God’s form represented as the wing, globe and serpent, and in which the second aspect is called the Logos or Word of God), the Greeks (Pythagorus, Heraclitus, and Plato all taught the Trinity in their theological philosophy), Assyrians, Phoenicians, the ancient inhabitants of Siberia, as well as the Maya ( Tezcatlipoca, Huitzlipochtli, and Tlaloc) and Incas. The Scandinavians worshiped Odin, Thor, and Frey. The Druids worshiped Taulac, Fan, and Mollac. The Romans’ trinity was God, the Word, and the Spirit. The Persians had a trinity consisting of Ahura Mazda as the creator, Mithras as the son or savior, and Ahriman as the evil one, or destroyer.
The oldest and one of the most prominent forms of the Trinity is the tri-murti (meaning three forms in Sanskrit), which is the Vedic triad consisting of Brahma (the secondary creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer), often worshiped in a three-in-one Deity form or separated on individual altars in many temples of India. Even the Vedic form of the one Supreme Being has three forms or expansions as Bhagavan (the Lord’s Supreme Personality, Krishna), Paramatma (the Supersoul that accompanies each individual soul), and Brahman (the spiritual energy or force that emanates from the body of God and pervades everywhere). A variation of that is Lord Vishnu as the universal father, His incarnations as the sons, and His form of the omnipresent Supersoul as the Holy Ghost.
Therefore, long before Christianity, God was worshiped in a Trinity form around the world. The idea of a Trinity is not Christian at all, but a “pagan” concept. So Christians, namely Paul, may have adopted the Trinity not out of a philosophical choice, but out of necessity to accommodate the majority view. Thus, the trinity was nothing new in the world when Christianity adopted it.
After the Trinity was accepted by the Christians, it was still not until the 2nd century when the Christians claimed Jesus to be the son in their Trinity. This idea is traced back to Justin Martyr who simply stated that he realized this understanding by God’s special favor rather than by using biblical references to verify it. In fact, though it had been proclaimed by Paul, the very idea that Jesus was God in human form, and, therefore, a part of the Trinity, was not settled until 325 A.D. during the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople. Controversy had developed in regard to whether there was a time when the Trinity did not exist and whether the Trinity was formed only after the birth of the son, Jesus. Emperor Constantine was forced to summon the Council of Nicaea in hopes of solving this problem. During the council it was resolved that never was there a time when the Son of God did not exist, and those who thought there may have been were anathematized by the Church. They denounced the teachings of Arius, who had taught that the Son of God was a created human being who appeared once only and was secondary to the Father. Thus, by a majority vote, the Church pushed the resolution through and those who did not agree or believe it were expected not to oppose it and to keep their thoughts to themselves.
In fact, it was at this Nicaean Council that all the bishops gathered to discuss what interpretations of Christian theology the Church would teach. This was an attempt to calm the many disputes that had been going on within the Church about its varied teachings. Once this was settled, all other teachings were thrown out and considered heretical, and to teach or follow them was punishable by excommunication or death. To solidify these essential teachings, the Church compiled and edited the New Testament, omitting what was not acceptable and adding new material to justify its viewpoints and fill in what it did not know. Thus, the Church presented itself as the only source of truth and salvation.
Another interesting point regarding pagan influence is that the crucifix or cross and its many variations was not exclusively a Christian symbol. Bishop Colenso explains in his book, The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined (Vol. 6, p. 113), “Of the several varieties of the cross still in vogue, as national and ecclesiastical emblems, and distinguished by the familiar appellations of St. George, St. Andrew, the Maltese, the Greek, the Latin, etc., etc., there is not amongst them the existence of which may not be traced to the remotest antiquity. They were the common property of the Eastern nations.”
Prior to Christianity, history shows that the cross was an auspicious and mystical symbol amongst ancient Babylonians, Indians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Druids, and even Laplanders and Scandinavians. For centuries, Indians used the cross in a variety of shapes, most notably as the swastika. For many years the Romans carried a cross with a dark skinned man on it as a standard. The crucifix was also known in ancient Mexico, as discovered by the Spanish monks who first went there. They were told that the Son of God, Quetzalcoatl, died on the cross for the sins of mankind. Even Tertullian, as late as 211 A.D., wrote that the Christians neither adored nor desired crosses, and criticized pagans for doing so and for putting a man on the cross, too. For pagans, a cross was a sign of eternity.
In the first several centuries of Christianity, Jesus was represented as a lamb, or as a shepherd with a lamb over his shoulders. It was not until the 6th synod of Constantinople that it was decided that the symbol of Christianity, which was confirmed by Pope Adrian I, would be represented from that time on as a man crucified on the cross. In fact, the earliest instances of any artwork that illustrates Jesus on the cross can be traced back only to the eighth or ninth century. Thus, the Christians adopted the crucifixion as a symbol from the pagans.
Another interesting point regarding pagan influence is within one of the first principles of Christianity: the virgin birth of Jesus from Mary. Chapter 19 of the Koran explains Mary’s pregnancy, which some interpret to mean she was impregnated by an angel of the Lord, said to be Gabriel. But the idea of a virgin birth for a highly revered personality is not exclusive to Christianity. Those who are said to have had a miraculous birth, or were born from a virgin, include Buddha, the Siamese Codom, the Chinese Fo-hi (said to be born 3468 B.C.), Lao-tzu (604 B.C.), the Chinese sages Yu and Hau-ki, as well as Confucius. In India everyone knows of Krishna who was born of a virgin without the need of any sexual exchange. In Egypt, there is the god Ra, and Horus born of the virgin Isis. Also Zoroaster of Persia. The Greek Hercules, Bacchus, Amphion, Prometheus, and Perseus are all said to have been fathered by the gods and born of mortal mothers. There are also Romans, such as Romulus, Alexander the Great, Ptolemy, King Cyrus of Persia, Plato, Pythagorus, and others who have the reputation of being born of virgin mothers. So this was nothing new.
The celebration of Christmas is, of course, supposed to commemorate the birth of Jesus. However, historical evidence shows that Jesus was born in the springtime. Some of the early churches observed the birth in April or May, and some in January. Even today the Eastern Church celebrates Christmas on the seventh of January, while the Western Church celebrates it on December 25. Generally, no one is really sure of what day it was. But the birth of Jesus being held on the 25th of December can be traced back to the time of Emperor Commodus (180-192 A.D.), but it is earlier attributed to Telesphorus who had influence during the time of Antonins Pius (138-161 A.D.).
Other cultures also celebrated the 25th of December. The Persians celebrated it as the birthday of Mithras. The Greeks celebrated it as the birth of Bacchus. Egyptians recognized it as the appearance day of Osiris. The Romans also celebrated the Saturnalia festival by feasting, stopping all business, holding public games, and exchanging gifts. The Scandinavians celebrated it as the birthday of Freyr, son of their god Odin and goddess Frigga. Here, too, there was much merry-making and exchanging of presents. The early Germans observed it as part of the Winter solstice, called the Yule feast. They spent time in jovial hospitality, made sacrifices, and worshiped their gods and burned the yule-log on the eve of the 24th. Yule was the old name for the 25th, which came from the word Jul used by the Scandinavians, while Noel in French came from the Hebrew word Nule.
Actually, the whole affair with the Christmas tree, the use of the mistletoe, hanging wreaths of flowers or evergreens on the doors, giving presents and so on, were all a part of the pagan celebration. The gift-giving we now observe on Christmas is a carry-over from the early pagan celebrations, and is not something that was started by Christianity. In fact, Tertullian, one of the early Fathers of Christianity, called such practices rank idolatry since it was associated with the “customs of the heathen.” After all, the use of evergreens, Christmas trees, wreaths, etc., have nothing to do with Christianity, but they were used in the old traditions to signify the return of the sun, the longer days, and the regenerative power that was sure to follow the winter solstice. Thus, the 25th of December was a day of celebration and for showing respect to the gods long before the Christians adopted it for their purposes.
Historically, it is known that Jesus was not even born in the winter. So why is the celebration placed on December 25th? The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge explains that, “the date of the festival depended upon the Pagan Brumalia (December 25) following the Saturnalia (December 17-24), and celebrating the shortest day of the year and the ‘New Sun’. . . The Pagan Saturnalia and Brumalia were too deeply entrenched in popular custom to be set aside by Christian influence.”
The same Encyclopedia also reveals that emperor Constantine incorporated Sunday as a day of Christian rest and holiday because Sunday was the pre-Christian Pagan day of worship.
December is also the time of year when the celebration takes place of Lord Krishna speaking the Bhagavad-gita at Kuruksetra. This could mean that Christ’s “Sermon on the Mount” is none other than a reference or similarity to Krishna’s sermon delivered to Arjuna while Krishna was mounted on His chariot. The Bhagavad-gita is a sermon, given 5,000 years ago, that provides indispensable spiritual guidance to all people, which is also said about Christ’s sermon, said to have taken place on the Mount of Olives.
Ultimately, there is nothing Christian about the Christmas celebrations. Even Christians admit this pagan influence, as pointed out in numerous Christian publications. One such publication is The Plain Truth About Christmas, by the staunch Christian Worldwide Church of God (P. O. Box 6727, Mumbai, 400 052, India). The booklet seems to plead to rid Christianity of its non-Christian content. It says that Christians tend to “follow the crowd” and assume things about Christmas that are not true. Christmas came not from the New Testament or the Bible, nor from the original apostles. “It gravitated in the fourth century into the Roman church from Paganism.”
The conclusion is that if we took everything non-Christian out of Christmas, you would have almost nothing left. In fact, some of the most orthodox Christian countries went so far as to place a statute to ban Christmas. In World Vedic Heritage (p. 975-6) we find that: “A statute passed in 1660 A.D. by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in New England, USA, prohibiting the observance of Chr
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Re: Christianity and the Vedic Teachings Within It
« Reply #1 on: December 12, 2008, 11:06:18 AM »
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esus Predicted in the Vedic Literature
By Stephen Knapp
Every once in a while someone writes in to ask me what I know about Jesus being mentioned in the Vedic literature, specifically the Bhavishya Purana. So I've decided to make the information that I know available to everyone.
Dr. Vedavyas, a research scholar with a doctorate in Sanskrit, discusses some important prophecies from the Bhavishya Purana, which he says dates back to 3000 B.C. He states that one prophecy describes the future appearance of Isha putra, the son (putra) of God (Isha)(Jesus Christ), born of an unmarried woman named Kumari (Mary) Garbha Sambhava. He would visit India at the age of thirteen and go to the Himalayan Mountains and do tapas or penance to acquire spiritual maturity under the guidance of rishis and siddha-yogis before going back to Palestine to preach to his people. So if Jesus was trained by the sages of India, this would explain why he was able to perform various miracles (siddhas). It also explains why there are so many philosophical similarities between early Christianity and Hinduism.
Dr. Vedavyas goes on to say that the Bhavishya Purana describes how Jesus would visit Varanasi and other Hindu and Buddhist holy places. This is also corroborated by the manuscript on the life of Isha (or Issa), discovered by Mr. Notovich in 1886 at the Hemis monastery in Ladakh, India as well as by the Hebrew inscriptions found in Srinagar, Kashmir at the Roza bal, the tomb of Yuz Asaf [Isha or Issa]. The Bhavishya Purana also predicted how Jesus would meet Emperor Shalivahana who established the Shalivahana or “Saka” era. Dr. Vedavyas describes this in his Telegu book, Veerabrahmendra Yogipai Parishodhana.
The description that is taken to be of Jesus is found in verses 17-32 in the 19th chapter of the Chaturyuga Khanda Dvitiyadhyayah of the Bhavishya Purana. To get a clearer understanding, here is what the verses say:
Texts 17 - 21
vikramaditya-pautrasca
pitr-rajyam grhitavan
jitva sakanduradharsams
cina-taittiridesajan
bahlikankamarupasca
romajankhurajanchhatan
tesam kosan-grhitva ca
danda-yogyanakarayat
sthapita tena maryada
mleccharyanam prthak-prthak
sindhusthanam iti jneyam
rastramaryasya cottamam
mlecchasthanam param sindhoh
krtam tena mahatmana
ekada tu sakadiso
himatungam samayayau
“Ruling over the Aryans was a king called Shalivahana, the grandson of Vikramaditya, who occupied the throne of his father. He defeated the Shakas who were very difficult to subdue, the Cinas [Chinese], and the people from Tittiri and Bahikaus who could assume any form at will. He also defeated the people from Rome and the descendants of Khuru, who were deceitful and wicked. He punished them severely and took their wealth. Shalivahana thus established the boundaries dividing the separate countries of the mlecchas [low classes] and the Aryans. In this way Sindusthan came to be known as the greatest country. That personality appointed the abode of the mlecchas beyond the Sindhu River and to the west.”
Text 22
ekadaa tu shakadhisho
himatungari samaayayau
hunadeshasya madhye vai
giristhan purusam shubhano
dadarsha balaram raajaa
Once upon a time the subduer of the Sakas went towards Himatunga and in the middle of the Huna country (Hunadesh - the area near Manasa Sarovara or Kailash mountain in Western Tibet), the powerful king saw an auspicious man who was living on a mountain. The man’s complexion was golden and his clothes were white.
Text 23
ko bharam iti tam praaha
su hovacha mudanvitah
iishaa purtagm maam viddhi
kumaarigarbha sambhavam
“The king asked, ‘Who are you sir?’ ‘You should know that I am Isha Putra, the Son of God’, he replied blissfully, and ‘am born of a virgin.’”
Text 24
mleccha dharmasya vaktaram
satyavata paraayanam
iti srutva nrpa praaha
dharmah ko bhavato matah
“‘I am the expounder of the religion of the mlecchas and I strictly adhere to the Absolute Truth.’ Hearing this the king enquired, ‘What are the religious principles according to your opinion?’
Texts 25 - 26
shruto vaaca mahaaraaja
praapte satyasya samkshaye
nirmaaryaade mlechadeshe
masiiho 'ham samagatah
iishaamasii ca dasyuunaa
praadurbhuutaa bhayankarii
taamaham mlecchataah praapya
masiihatva mupaagatah
“Hearing this questions of Shalivahana, Isha putra said, ‘O king, when the destruction of the truth occurred, I, Masiha the prophet, came to this country of degraded people where there are no rules and regulations. Finding that fearful irreligious condition of the barbarians spreading from Mleccha-Desha, I have taken to prophethood’.”
Texts 27 - 29
mlecchasa sthaapito dharmo
mayaa tacchrnu bhuupate
maanasam nirmalam krtva
malam dehe subhaasbham
naiganam apamasthaya
japeta nirmalam param
nyayena satyavacasaa
manasyai kena manavah
dhyayena pujayedisham
suurya-mandala-samsthitam
acaloyam prabhuh sakshat-
athaa suuryacalah sada
“Please hear, Oh king, which religious principles I have established among the mlecchas. The living entity is subject to good and bad contaminations. The mind should be purified by taking recourse of proper conduct and performance of japa [meditation on the chanting of the holy names of God]. By chanting the holy names one attains the highest purity. Just as the immovable sun attracts, from all directions, the elements of all living beings, the Lord of the Surya Mandala [solar planet], who is fixed and all-attractive, and attracts the hearts of all living creatures. Thus by following rules, speaking truthful words, by mental harmony and by meditation, Oh descendant of Manu, one should worship that immovable Lord’.”
Text 30
isha muurtirt-dradi praptaa
nityashuddha sivamkari
ishamasihah iti ca
mama nama pratishthitam
“Having placed the eternally pure and auspicious form of the Supreme Lord in my heart, O protector of the earth planet, I preached these principles through the mlecchas’ own faith and thus my name became ‘isha-masiha’ (Jesus the Messiah).”
Text 31
iti shrutra sa bhuupale
natraa tam mlecchapujaam
sthaapayaamaasa tam tutra
mlecchasthaane hi daarune
“After hearing these words and paying obeisances to that person who is worshiped by the wicked, the king humbly requested him to stay there in the dreadful land of mlecchas.”
Text 32
svaraajyam praaptavaan raajaa
hayamedhan ciikirat
raajyam kriitvaa sa shashthyabdam
svarga lokamu paayayau
“King Shalivahana, after leaving his kingdom performed an asvamedha yajna and after ruling for sixty years, went to heaven. Now please hear what happened when the king went to (the heavenly region of) svargaloka.”
Thus ends the second chapter entitled, “The Age of Shalivahana” of the story of Kali Yuga of the Chaturyuga Khanda also called Pratisarga-parva of the wonderful Bhavishya Maha Purana.
As we can read here, this relates that the grandson of Bikrama Jit, Shalivahana, was the ruler of the Kushans. Some estimate that he ruled from 39 to 50 A.D. It is also said that he vanquished the attackers from China, Parthia, Scythia, and the Bactrians. After establishing a border between the Aryans and the mlecchas, he ordered all the mlecchas to leave India. Once when Shalivahana went to the Himalayas he reached the land of the Hun, or Ladakh, and saw a man who was fair and dressed in white, looking very saintly. The powerful king asked who he was. The man replied that he was called a son of God, born of a virgin, a teacher of the nonbelievers, and was earnestly searching for the truth.
The king asked his religion. The man replied that he came from a foreign country where there was no truth, only unlimited evil. He had appeared as the Messiah but the terrible demon Ihamasi [illusion] of the barbarians appeared and he had ended up in her realm.
The man explained to the king that his religion was to purify the consciousness and impure body, after which, seeking guidance in the Naigama [a scripture], man could pray to the Supreme. By acting in truth and justice and engaging in meditation and spiritual unity, man will return to Isa, the Supreme Being. God will one day unite with all wandering spiritual beings, and Ihamasi [the evil of illusion] will be destroyed. Then man will be absorbed in the ecstatic image of Isa who exists in the heart and is the source of happiness. The man then told the king, “I am called Isa-Masih [Jesus the Messiah].” After the king heard the man speak, the king sent the teacher of the faithless back to his land of nonbelievers.
Another thing Dr. Vedavyas says is that there is evidence that it was not Jesus Christ whom they crucified on the cross but his double. The last words, “Oh Lord, why have you forsaken me?” refers to Jesus having left him on the cross after Jesus went to the “promised land” of Kashmir. Of course, there are other theories on this. Among other scholars, some say Jesus did not die on the cross but was crucified, suffered and was later revived. Others also say his ascent into heaven was actually his journey up to the heavenly land of Kashmir, where he eventually died and was buried in Srinagar at the Roza bal, the presently known grave of Yuz Asaf, a name known to be that of Jesus.
Dr. Vedavyas goes on to say that the coming of Lord Kalki, as described in the Bhavishya as well as many other Puranas, is the avatara equivalent to the second coming of Christ as described in the Bible. Lord Kalki will be the next great world leader many years from now and will establish a world government and bring back the Vedic culture in a new Satya-yuga, a new kingdom of God. However, before this will happen, Dr. Vedavyas says the Bhavishya Purana describes a great tribulation and global disaster. It has been suggested that when this may happen, or when the events that will begin to trigger the event, could be sometime after the year 2000 A.D. Some people also say that there will be a planetary effect of great magnitude striking the earth at that time which may cause widespread earthquakes or tidal waves, or even what may become a shifting of the north and south poles. The fact is, there has been an increase in earthquakes, and on December 26, 2004 the planet felt the impact of a mighty tsunami that greatly affected the people of the region of Indonesia and East India. This could only be a sign of what more may come. Such things have also been described in Nostradamus’s predictions. However, we know these things have happened before many years ago. So what may or may not continue to happen remains to be seen.
The Bhavishya Purana also relates the likelihood of a great war of wars which could change the entire map of the world, at least politically, and possibly even geographically if nuclear weapons are used. This has been further corroborated by other psychics and astrologers.
Aside from all of this, the Bhavishya Purana also contains quotes relating to various personalities, such as Adam, Noah, Allah, Shankaracarya, Jayadev, Kabir, Nanak, Aurangzeb, Shivaji, and on up to the rule of Queen Victavati, meaning Queen Victoria. It even describes how the British will build factories in Calcutta. Most of these quotations are rather short with little elaboration. An example of one such quote is that which describes the appearance of Mohammed.
SPECIAL NOTE:
One point we must clearly understand, is that if we do accept that Jesus was predicted in the Bhavishya Purana and traveled to India, and if Jesus did study under the Vedic brahmanas and priests before returning to his homeland to preach, which some evidence indicates, then I’m sure it would come as a shock to most Christians that Jesus was an initiate of the Vedic wisdom of India. Thus, he naturally based much of his own teachings on Vedic knowledge, as anyone who is familiar with Eastern philosophy can see. This would also explain why there are so many similarities between early Christianity and the Dharmic wisdom, much of which seems to have been lost from the Christian fold through the ages.
It is obvious that Christianity is but a modified form of Sanatana-dharma. Yet, since Jesus spoke in parables on many occasions, the connection with Vedic knowledge and the deeper meaning of his teachings are not always made clear. In fact, there have been numerous diversions and misunderstandings made because of this, as shown by the hundreds of sects that have developed within the Christian community. So, essentially, this would also mean that you cannot comprehend the deepest aspects of Jesus’ teachings without understanding Vedic scripture or the philosophy of Sanatana-dharma, since those are really the roots of Christianity and the basis of the teachings of Jesus. Therefore, it makes sense that we all look into, study and learn this Vedic knowledge and follow its principles for a higher degree and more complete form of spirituality that we can add to our lives, for this is the foundation of most of the spiritual knowledge that has spread throughout the world into its many forms that we find today.
WAS JESUS REALLY PREDICTED IN THE BHAVISHYA PURANA?
Though some people have become convinced that Jesus went to India, or is predicted in the Vedic literature, there is also another view to this. With the help of the research done by B. V. Giri Swami, based near Mysore, India, he relates that a closer look at the prediction of Jesus found in the Bhavishya Purana strongly suggests foul play or interpolation on the part of Christian missionaries in India during the late 18th century.
The Bhavishya Purana is considered to be one of the major 18 Puranas of the Vedic canon. As the name suggests, it mainly deals with future events (bhaviysati). The Bhavishya Purana is also mentioned in the ancient text of the Apastambha-dharma-sutras, so it is to be taken as an original Puranic literature dating from the time of Srila Vyasadeva, who is said to be its original author.
However, there are presently four known editions of the Bhavishya Purana, each having different predictions from the other, but suspiciously having one consistent prediction - that of Jesus. One edition contains five chapters, one contains four, another contains three and yet another contains only two. Additionally, the contents in all four editions differ in various degrees - some having extra verses and some having less. Due to these circumstances, it is difficult to ascertain which of the four is the original text of the Bhavishya Purana, if indeed an original text still exists, but suspiciously, as mentioned, all four editions do mention Jesus.
The Venkateswar Steam Press edition of the Bhavishya Purana printed in Bombay in 1829 (and reprinted by Nag Publishers in 2003) is probably the most complete version available, containing all the main features of the four manuscripts. Since none of the four editions of the Bhavishya Purana predate British Rule in India, this further suggests a discrepancy. The fact is that the British tried to monopolize the publishing of all Sanskrit literature during the British Raj. They bought or confiscated any Sanskrit literature they could locate. And that is why you practically cannot find any Vedic literature that is published before 200 years ago. It is further known that they liked to publish their own translations, as if India could not produce its own Sanskrit scholars to translate the Sanskrit themselves. Plus, they would also try to interpolate various verses here and there to have the reader draw a different conclusion of the personality or traits of the characters described in the texts. Most were quite noble, but by slipping in verses that said certain persons had less than admirable qualities, or that questionable practices were used, it would change the reader’s disposition and attitude toward the Vedic culture, even if they were Indian born followers of it.
Therefore, the consistent prophecy of Jesus in all four editions of the Bhavishya Purana, in spite of the differences in the editions found, seems to indicate an interpolation regarding the so-called meeting of Maharaja Shalivahana and Jesus. This is found in the 19th chapter of the Pratisarga-parva. However, as B. V. Giri Swami relates, in examining this section, certain flaws can be found which betray its dubious origins.
For example, at the very outset of this description of Jesus meeting Shalivahana, this section is fraught with historical inaccuracies. Shalivahana was the king of Ujjain (in modern day Madhya Pradesh), and while it is not surprising that Shalivahana traveled to the Himalayas, the enemies that he supposedly vanquished in battle before he went should be looked into more thoroughly. Historical research tells us that the only invading force that Shalivahana actually subdued were the Sakas, who entered India from the north-west regions. But as for his defeating the Cinas (Chinese), Bahlikas (Bactrians), Kamarupas (Assamese), Romas (Romans) and the Khurus (Khorasans, or Persians), there is no historical evidence that validates Shalivahana doing this, nor is their any historical proof of the Romans and the Chinese ever invading India at that time. The Bactrians (Greeks) came earlier during the Gupta Period and the Persians (Moguls) came later. The people of Assam were simply a small hill-tribe during this period of Indian history [conquering which would not have warranted a mention in Vedic verse].
Later, the king asks Jesus “Who are you?” and Jesus answers that he was born of a virgin. However, the Christian idea that Jesus was born of a virgin is based on the following verse found in the Christian version of the Old Testament in the Book of Isaiah: “Behold, a virgin has conceived and bears a son and she will call his name Immanuel.” But the original Hebrew text of the Book of Isaiah does not mention anything about a virgin. The original text being: hinneh ha-almah harah ve-yeldeth ben ve-karath shem-o immanuel, “Behold, the young woman has conceived - and bears a son and calls his name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7.14)
The Hebrew word for virgin is betulah yet it appears nowhere in this verse of Isaiah. The word used is almah which simply means “a young woman”. Isaiah only uses almah once. However, the word betulah is used five times throughout the Book of Isaiah, so Isaiah obviously made a distinction between these two words.
After Jesus has introduced himself to Shalivahana, he explains that he is teaching religion in the distant land of the mlecchas and tells the king what those teachings are, in which he says: “Please hear from me, O King, about the religion that I have established amongst the mlecchas. The mind should be purified by taking recourse of proper conduct, since we are subject to auspicious and inauspicious contaminations - by following the scriptures and concentrating on japa (meditation on the repetition of God’s names) one will attain the highest level of purity; by speaking true words and by mental harmony, and by meditation and worship, O descendant of Manu. Just as the immovable sun attracts from all directions the elements of all living beings, the Lord of the Surya-mandala (sun globe) is fixed and all-attractive, and attracts the hearts of all living creatures.” (19:27-29)
However, nowhere in the Gospels do we find in the ministry of Jesus the above teachings to his followers, unless they had been removed from the Gospels and somehow preserved in the Bhavishya Purana. Furthermore, in this passage, Jesus is advocating the worship of the sun-god (again, something that is absent in his instructions to the apostles). Japa, meditation, the negation of both good and bad karma, are all concepts that are familiar to eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, but not to the Abrahamic religions of the west, unless Jesus had already been trained by Vedic brahmanas and Buddhist priests at that time. In such a case, the Bhavishya Purana may have preserved some of the concepts of the teachings of Jesus that were never included in the Gospels, or were later deleted from them because of manipulating politics.
Considering the above anomalies and the fact that no edition of the Bhavishya Purana can be found prior to the British period in India, we can deduce that the Bhavishya Purana may have been tampered with by the Christian missionaries who added the chapter on Jesus. Their motive would be obvious -- to make the personality of Jesus acceptable to the Hindus in order to convert them to Christianity.
In 1784, the famous Indologist Sir William Jones wrote the following letter to Sir Warren Hastings, Governor General of India, confirming our suspicions that this was indeed part of their program:
“As to the general extension [spreading] of our pure faith [Christianity] in Hindoostan [India] there are at present many sad obstacles to it... We may assure ourselves, that Hindoos will never be converted by any mission from the church of Rome, or from any other church; and the only human mode, perhaps, of causing so great a revolution, will be to translate into Sanscrit... such chapters of the Prophets, particularly of ISAIAH, as are indisputably evangelical, together with one of the gospels, and a plain prefatory discourse, containing full evidence of the very distant ages, in which the predictions themselves, and the history of the Divine Person (Jesus) is predicted, were severally made public and then quietly to disperse the work among the well-educated natives.” (Asiatic Researches Vol. 1. Published 1979, pages 234-235. First published 1788).
What better way to translate into Sanskrit whatever they could of predictions of the Christian prophets and then disperse them among the well-educated natives than to slip such translations into some of the Vedic texts themselves? Plus, we often see that Christians, especially in India, tell Hindus that since Jesus is supposed to be predicted in the Vedic texts, then they should accept Jesus as their ultimate savior. But the Vedic texts are much more open and inclusive than that and also describe so many more avataras and incarnations of Lord Vishnu. So why shouldn’t the Christians also accept Lord Vishnu or Krishna as the Supreme Person, or at least aspects of the Supreme Being? After all, it was proclaimed that Jesus was the son of God. And who is the Father? So Vishnu or Krishna must have been the Supreme Father as the Bhagavad-gita and other Vedic texts clearly state. And if Jesus did go to India, then he was familiar with this concept, which he thus expressed in his own teachings in his homeland. This is not going against the Biblical tenants. After all, the Bible does not exactly describe who is the Supreme Person, but only gives Him a name, such as Yahweh, etc. The Vedic texts, however, give God innumerable names and describes much more about Him, such as His character, personality, pastimes, and so on.
Swami B.V. Giri concludes that it may also be noted that throughout the Pratisarga-parva of the Bhavishya Purana we find the stories of Adam and Eve (Adhama and Havyavati), Noah (Nyuha), Moses (Musa), and other Biblical characters. These he also considers to be likely additions by zealous Christians. The Bhavishya Purana may well be a genuine Vedic scripture prophesying future events, but from the above analysis we may want to reconsider how likely it is that the Jesus episode of the Bhavishya Purana is an authentic Vedic revelation.
[This article available at: www.stephen-knapp.com]
http://dailykenoshan.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=63&topic=53389.msg57888;topicseen
Catholic nun, Hindu Swami and the politics of identity
By Saurav Basu
In India, every day over 18 women are raped, but their sordid stories rarely make headlines. However, in this case, the vested interests in the media found an opportunity to twist a case of human suffering to fit their own communal agenda. Even before ascertaining the facts of the case, they started a campaign of using this one-off incident to foster their goal of demonising anything that is Hindu. To anyone who has been following the incidents in Orissa, it would be absolutely clear that these very same groups in the media have, from the very beginning, presented a totally distorted picture of the actual nature of the conflict in the state.
The alleged rape of a Catholic nun in Kandhamal by suspected Kandh Vanvasis has intensified the Congress-led UPA government’s fascist intention to dismiss the popularly elected, two term Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik heading the BJD-BJP coalition, hypocritically disowning their own legacy of failure under Congress Chief Minister JB Patnaik.
Big font headlines in English dailies over an event which considering the explosive situation prevailing in Kandhamal district, barely two days after Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati’s murder, seems intriguing especially since the latter’s brutal murder along with four other Ashram inmates were shunted to page 10 by the same. Not satisfied with that, they accepted with alacrity the supposedly Maoist appropriation of the crime, even when this claim of a Maoist group had been rejected by their own peers, who are known to be in cohorts with Christian evangelists.
In India, every day over 18 women are raped, but their sordid stories rarely make headlines. However, in this case, the vested interests in the media found an opportunity to twist a case of human suffering to fit their own communal agenda. Even before ascertaining the facts of the case, they started a campaign of using this one-off incident to foster their goal of demonising anything that is Hindu. To anyone who has been following the incidents in Orissa, it would be absolutely clear that these very same groups in the media have, from the very beginning, presented a totally distorted picture of the actual nature of the conflict in the state. They have used every trick out of their propaganda manual to try to paint the conflict in such a way as to support their own nefarious thesis.
In Orissa, for decades, there has been simmering tensions between the Kandh Vanvasis and the Panis, the latter having allied with the missionaries have persistently persecuted the former and frequently been party to land grabs. A lot of this forcibly appropriated land has been used for constructing illegal churches which serve as houses of conversion. The fact is that the Panis are not even Vanvasis, but they strive to demote their caste status from SC to ST in order to conveniently usurp the very meager state doles, meant for the Kandhas in a district where 78 per cent of the population resides below the poverty line. Even The Statesman, known for its socialist viewpoint, in an editorial admitted the deep rooted Vanvasi disaffection representing the ethnic aspect of the subaltern strife which cannot be reduced to the terms of the recent pattern of VHP-Christian confrontation. This internecine struggle between two indigenous communities on considerations of caste and reservation has been further accentuated by the Christian evangelist propaganda and consequent exploitation of the situation.
The yet unknown culprits have also been explicitly identified as ‘Hindu fanatics’ by the very same media which dogmatically dither from denigrating terror bombers as ‘Muslim fundamentalists’ and instead prefer to use politically loaded terms like misguided Islamic militants or sometimes even ‘misguided youth’! Not surprisingly, these Hindu fanatics will discover no guardian angels in the English language mouthpieces unlike the SIMI which has Tehelka and a host of other sympathisers in human right forums, academic circles and political parties. MC Sharma has now been declared to have been killed in a fake encounter by MJ Akbar, The Hindustan Times, Muslim fact finding teams and Mushirul Hasan, Vice Chancellor and “JNU recognised secular historian” of the Jamia Milia Islamia. But it is certain that no Hindu activist, group or leader will allege the rape to be fake or consensual; such conspiracy theories have no place within the domains of a genuine ‘Hindu mindset’ despite the fact that in the infamous Jhabua rape case in 1999, six of the twelve accused in question who had been prematurely identified as Hinduvta activists by the ‘secular brigade’ turned out to be Vanvasi converts to Christianity. Of course, the `secular’ media ran away after telling such a massive lie, when the truth was revealed. No apology was forthcoming.
The confabulating Catholics will vehemently deny the Vanvasis a place in the Hindu religious fold in order to facilitate their conversion strategies. They are animists, they say, ironically the very cult Romila Thapar reserved for the Vedic Aryans in her VI class NCERT textbook. However, the same Catholics in alliance with the ‘secularists’ now claim Hindus to be responsible for this dastardly drama—the accused Vanvasis in question have now been conveniently elevated to the status of ‘caste’ Hindus. Perhaps, we are also ignoring that in most Indian Vanvasis, the ideology of rape is minimal, if not non-existent.
The perversions of The Times View (October 4) is explicit in their illegitimate improvisation where they have the audacity to declare discovering no difference between the acts of terrorist bombings in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and that of the rape in question. It is preposterous to suggest that an isolated solitary rape case in a remote and inaccessible region and in a highly charged atmosphere caused by the brutal murder of a popular religious icon is the same as pre-planned conspiracy to destroy the nation by Islamic fundamentalists, guided by an inhuman and barbaric ideology. The propagation of such patently false ideas is not only a great disrespect to thousands of victims killed and maimed in terror attacks but also exposes the moral vacuity and the vicious agenda of a section of India’s fourth estate.
Moreover, it is becoming increasingly apparent that sections of the ‘secular’ media have their own doctrinal axis to grind, which includes distortion and suppression of news involving Christian atrocities on Hindus in Kandhamal. For instance, on September 26, CNN.com, the leading American news channel, reported a Hindu man killed by a presumably Christian mob in Kandhamal. In contrast, the very next day on September 27, the communist national daily, The Hindu, applied their Goebellesque imagination by insisting that some man was killed by members of the majority community!
Rediff.com reported on October 3 that two Hindus had been hacked to death, however they had no word of condemnation for any Christian group, which is in total contrast to their behaviour when a victim is other than Hindu.
France 24, a French daily in one of their inflammatory articles, accused the late Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati to be an extremist fundamentalist eliminated by Maoists for good reasons. And yet, Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi continue to bend over backwards to appease hyperbolic Christian sensitivities of the West actively engaged in funding the likes of Project Joshua which relentlessly rushes to Christianise India by the turn of the next century. While this conflagration rages on, the debate over conversion has been sidelined. Unconstitutional, unlawful conversion is cheered in the name of providing health and education services through quacks and Christian geocentric theories respectively. Any nationalist and Hindu rescuing his faith through reconversion is deemed communalist and cause of tension, a situation strangely reminiscent of the Raj’s attitude which VD Savarkar had summed up thus:
“If reconversion movement created tension, why should the conversion movement not be considered so? I emphasize that if at all anybody was to be held responsible for the tension, the missionaries and the maulvis should be held so because they had started the conversion first…moreover, I was doing sacred work for my nation which is being exploited in her fallen days by foreign faiths. It was a strange attitude on the part of a government that allowed robbers to commit robberies and prohibited the owners from protecting and defending their property”
Ultimately, cynical exploitation of an unfortunate rape victim’s tragic story and zealously transforming her into a ‘secular’ mascot in the political crusade against ‘imaginary Hindu fundamentalism’ is representative of the absolute amorality of its agents.
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=266&page=33
Patriotism, nationalism and racism
Posted on December 2, 2008
Warner Todd Huston sets out at some length the simple but rather denied truth that Leftists only pretend to be patriotic. In a patriotic nation they have to do that for PR purposes but their hearts are not in it and they manage the pretense only by claiming that they love what America COULD BE rather than what it is. Pathetic!
I have set out at some length previously evidence that patriotism is not in general aggressive. There is however a related attitude known as nationalism. That is when the lovers of their own country want to dominate other countries. All the examples I can think of, however, from Napoleon to Hitler, have been Leftists. So my summary of the matter is that nationalism is a Leftist perversion of patriotism. No wonder Leftists are so suspicious of patriotism! They judge others by themselves. They know how vicious they would be with an entire nation behind them and assume that others think similarly.
But both patriotism and nationalism are only one sort of group loyalty. Rotarians are often strongly attached to their club and even homosexuals feel “gay pride” apparently. And many church members are strongly attached to their religious denomination or local church. And religious identity can extend to something like nationalism — with physical attacks on members of other denominations. There is still a faint remnant of that in Northern Ireland (though the enmity there is as much historic as religious) and in Islam there is a lot of it. Muslims are great slaughterers of other Muslims — if the other Muslims don’t subscribe to the “right” brand of Islam. But Islam is Fascistic anyway.
And then there is the great unmentionable. You CAN feel proud of your race. And if the pride is “black pride” that is just fine. But “white pride” is apparently a breath from the depths of hell. Yet history’s most destructive example of racism was not concerned with whiteness at all. Hitler in fact allied himself with the non-white Japanese and attacked many nations that were just as white as Germans are. In fact there are proportionately rather more blue-eyed blondes in Russia and in Poland than there are in Germany — and Adolf slaughtered millions of both. Hitler’s bag was — following Woodrow Wilson — ARYANS. And most Aryans are in fact brown (Indians).
So the Leftist suspicion of pride in being white has exactly no foundation in the place where it might be most expected! Pretty normal Leftist ignorance of facts and history, of course. So white racism as an oppressive thing is mainly an American phenomenon. And the KKK were overwhelmingly Democrats! Clearly, conservatives were not the problem there.
I can’t resist noting here, however, that I quite like Aryans myself. I have at the moment three quite brown Indians living with me in my house and most days I fly the flag of the Republic of India from my flagpole. Maybe that just makes me a nut but the court jester of old was the only one in the court allowed to tell the whole truth so I cheerfully claim that privilege. Does that make me a dangerous nut? Maybe. Truth is dangerous to those who live by deception.
I in fact have very good contacts with India. The chairman of the huge company that owns the recently attacked Taj hotel is the much admired Ratan Tata and if I wanted to get a message to him there is a good Indian friend of mine for whom Ratan Tata would always pick up the phone. Everybody who loves India will be pleased to hear that Mr Tata has pledged to rebuild the Taj hotel so that it is as good as new again.
I imagine that it is by now pretty clear that Leftists would have an uphill job of tagging me as a white racist (though they will no doubt get to the top of that hill somehow). I just don’t fit their simplistic black-and-white way of thinking. If we are more careful with our definitions than Leftists usually are, however, I think it should become clear that there are some forms of white “racism” that are perfectly reasonable, normal and harmless.
I refer in particular to my prior comments showing that patriotism is not in general necessarily aggressive, hostile or oppressive. And I see no reason why what we might call “white patriotism” should be aggressive, hostile or oppressive. In other words, a feeling of connectedness with other whites and a pride in being white does not necessarily imply a wish to oppress or attack people of other races. But when we come to nationalism, however (the Leftist specialty), it is a very different situation. White nationalism (the desire to conquer or control non-white races) is indisputably a very bad thing.
But white nationalism is a very rare thing. Hitler wasn’t moved by it nor was the British empire. The chief enemy of the British empire was the French, who are quite white. The KKK is about the only example of white nationalism that I can think of. And the KKK at one time dominated Democrat conventions. Such acclaimed Democrat Presidents as Woodrow Wilson and FDR both had solid KKK support. So if we are careful with our definitions, white pride is only dangerous in the hands of Leftists. The very small band of modern-day neo-Nazis are probably an exception to that but there are small exceptions to most rules. And the modern-day political parties that are most often called neo-Nazi (Britain’s BNP and Germany’s NDP) do in fact have a lot of quite socialistic policies — just as old Adolf did.
Note how easily everything falls into place once we have swept away the Leftist hokum about Nazism and the KKK being “Rightist”.
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here
“Nothing specifically Hindu about yoga”
11 Dec 08 : 8.00AM
By Zedeck Siew
zedecksiew@thenutgraph.com
PETALING JAYA, 11 Dec 2008: There is nothing specifically Hindu about yoga, instructors said, with one adding that it was possible to become a better Muslim because of yoga practice.
Yoga instructor Azmi Samdjaga explained that Patanjali, the compiler of the Yoga Sutras or one of the foundational texts of yoga, used the Sanskrit word “Ishvara” which means God or Supreme Being.
“(The texts) do not name any deity of any particular religion,” Azmi said in an e-mail interview, adding that this universality freed the exercise from conflict with any religious principle.
“Yoga aims to concentrate and to still the mind,” said Azmi, a Muslim who has been practising yoga for the past 11 years.
“When this is concentrated and directed upon one's God, the practitioner is focused in reaching towards the very heart of his (or her) religion. Therefore it is possible to adapt the practice of yoga to worship Allah better, and be a better Muslim.”
Azmi, who teaches yoga in Damansara Perdana, was responding to the National Fatwa Council's ban on yoga on 22 Nov 2008.
About 30% of Azmi's students are Muslim. “Many were shocked by the (fatwa on yoga),” he said, noting that these individuals did not see how their faith could be adversely affected.
“On the contrary, they felt that after taking up yoga classes, they could get up fresher and feel healthier in the morning for their first prayers,” Azmi, 37, said. Also, he said, his students could now sit longer in their zikir (meditation) and be more focused about their faith.
Malaysian Yoga Society deputy president Tay Siew Leng confirmed that ancient yogic texts make no reference to any particular religion, let alone Hinduism.
“Yoga techniques are just universal tools that practitioners can apply according to their own requirements,” Tay told The Nut Graph.
There are five schools of yoga: Hatha, Karma, Raja, Jnana and Bhakti. Tay said typically, yoga practised in Malaysia was of the Hatha variety which comprises physical postures, breathing techniques and relaxation to bring about balance and wellbeing.
She explained that only Bhakti Yoga, a devotional form of the exercise practised in temples and ashrams, included elements of chanting.
Tay said even though the consensus in archaeological findings placed yoga's origin in the Indus Valley, where modern-day India and Pakistan are, there was not enough evidence to ascertain whether the Indus-Sarasvati civilisation was linked to Hinduism.
Business unaffected
Azmi said he was initially worried about his business after the fatwa against yoga.
However, he was confident about his fellow Muslims following subsequent developments.
“We are stronger in our minds than what the Council thought, and can rise above such ignorance,” Azmi said.
He added, however, that he was grateful for the Council's efforts in researching the Quran, the Hadith and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad. But he expressed disappointment that the Council failed to seek the truth on the modern practice of yoga.
http://thenutgraph.com/article-1238.html
Macedonia - HISTORICAL REVIEW
Print Article Australian Macedonian Advisory Council
December 02, 2008
Occupying the bigger part of northern Greece, Macedonia first appears on the historical scene as a geographical-political unit in the 5th century BC, when it extended from the upper waters of the Haliakmon and Mount Olympus to the river Strymon. In the following century it reached the banks of the Nestos. The history of the Macedonians, however, may be said to commence somewhere around the beginning of the 7th century BC; at this time the Greek tribe of the Makedones, whose home was in Orestis, began to expand, driving out the Thracians and contending with the Illyrians, and gradually occupied Eordaia, Bottiaia, Pieria and Almopia, finally settling in the region called by Thucydides "Lower Macedonia, or Macedonia by the Sea".
Prehistoric period
This region of high mountains, large rivers, lakes and fertile plains makes its appearance on the stage of civilization as early as the Early Neolithic Period (Nea Nikomedeia, region of Yanitsa). The density of the settlements, however, shows a vertical increase at the end of the 5th millennium BC (Late Middle Neolithic) and attests, throughout the whole of the region though especially in central and east Macedonia, to significant mobility on the part of the population and to its characteristic dynamism. These same settlements prospered until the Early Bronze Age - that is, until the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC -most of them organized in the plains, with houses either square or rectangular in plan, sometimes with wooden posts and sometimes with stone foundations for the walls.
Prehistoric settlement form the late Neolithic Age – the first half of the fifth millennium BC
Stock-breeding, based on the raising of goats and sheep, was one of the prime factors in Macedonia's development, in combination, of course, with other intra-community activities and occupations, such as hunting and fishing. An improvement in the quality of diet is indicated by the diversity of crops cultivated: grain, vines and olives. Exchanges of cultural goods (jewelry, quality pottery) now multiplied, clearly an example of prestige gifts rather than evidence of commercial contacts.
The Bronze Age finds Macedonia with fewer settlements, a circumstance that may be interpreted either as the result of the contraction of the population or as the result of the development of central cores at the expense of small-scale satellite settlements. The houses are now quite frequently two-roomed, with the areas relating to the preparation of food kept separate; they are constructed with wooden posts, and have one of the ends apsidal in form. A still primitive system of planned streets can be detected in some of the settlements. Both bovines and sheep and goats, along with pulses and cereals (wheat and barley) formed part of the daily diet of the inhabitants of Macedonia, who at this period were serving their apprenticeship in the production of bronze tools, used alongside stone implements. The pottery, and especially the quality pottery, usually monochrome, reveals relations with the Bronze Age pottery of central Europe, neighboring Epirus and Thessaly, and also with that of the north-east Aegean. In time, it also acquired a certain independence, despite the fact that in the later centuries of this same period (Bronze Age), it was to be influenced by the outstanding achievements of the Mycenaean wheel. Overworking of the land and the steady increase in the density of the settlements, which now show a preference for semi-mountainous sites, suggest the evolution, with the passage of time, of a certain hierarchy and a central authority. The articulation of society is indicated in a general way by the differentiation in burial customs.
The transition to the following period, the Early lron Age, though not yet clearly demarcated, is distinguished by clear destruction levels or levels indicating the abandonment of settlements. The houses, with stone-built bases, now frequently have wattle-and-daub walls. The dead were generally buried in organized cemeteries with earth tumuli covering groups of cist graves, simple burials directly in the earth or in jars; this is one of the hallmarks of the period, which is defined by the appearance of protogeometric decorative elements on the local pottery (Vergina, West Macedonia), the lavish use of bronze objects, mainly jewelry, the founding of settlements on spacious sites, and the exploitation of iron deposits for the construction of weapons.
Geometric and Archaic periods
The relative isolation of the Macedonian region in the period from the 10th to the 8th centuries BC - an isolation due to the temporary unavailability of the commercial routes from south to north - was soon overcome, and Macedonia entered upon the Archaic period as the promised land for the hundreds of colonists who came to the coasts of the Aegean from many cities in southern Greece. It was during this period that colonists from southern Greece founded Methone, Sane, Skione, Potidaia, Akanthos and many other cities-ports on the coasts of Pieria and Chalkidike.
Ancient Pydna lies in north Pieria, to the south of Makrygialos. The first settlement of the region, one of the most extensive settlements of the Late Neolithic period, is located to the south west of Makrygialos. The settlement presents two phases, one pre-Diminian. covering an area of approximately 75 acres and bounded by a trench system, and another contemporary with the period of Dlmini.
Bounded to the south by a long chain of mountain ranges -Ossa, Olympus and the Kambounian Mountains, to the west by the Pindos range, to the east by the river Strymon and then the Nestos, and to the north by Orbelos, Menoikion, Kerkine, Boras and Barnous, Macedonia was cut off from the main body of Greece, on the ramparts of Hellenism, and lived until the 6th century by the teachings of the Homeric epic.
The state-form was unusual: in one sense a federal state composed of autonomous Macedonian tribes subject to the central authority (Orestai, Elimeiotai, Lynkestai), yet also an ethnos with a strong, though democratic monarchy, and a society of farmers and stock-breeders capable of defending their land against all foreign designs, Macedonia evolved with the passage of the centuries into a power of world-wide (for the period) influence and prestige.
The country was self-sufficient in products to meet basic needs (timber, cereals, game, fish, livestock, minerals) and soon became the exclusive supplier of other Greek states less blessed by nature, though at the same time it came to be the target of expansionist schemes dictated largely by economic interests. A particularly "introspective" land, with conservative customs and way of life and a social structure and political organization of a markedly archaic character, speaking a distinctive form of the Doric dialect, Macedonia took over the reigns of the Greek spirit in the 4th century BC, when the city-state was entering on its decline; revealing admirable adaptability in the face of the demands of the present and the achievements of the past, and ingenuity and boldness when confronted with the problems of the future, the country was quickly transformed into a performer of new roles, open ing up new roads towards the epoch of the Hellenism of three continents.
Language
The Macedonians were a Dorian tribe, according to the testimony of Herodotus (1, 56): "(The Dorian ethnos) ... dwelt in Pindos, where it was called Makednon; from there ... it came to the Peloponnesos, where it took the name of Dorian". And elsewhere (VIII, 43): "these (that is, the Lacedaimonians, Corinthians, Sikyonians etc.), except the people of Hermione, were of the Dorian and Makednon ethnos, and had most recently come from Erineos and Pindos and Dryopis". A Dorian tribe, then, that expanded steadily to the east of Pindos and far beyond, conquering areas in which dwelt other tribes, both Greek and non-Greek.
Rediff.com reported on October 3 that two Hindus had been hacked to death, however they had no word of condemnation for any Christian group, which is in total contrast to their behaviour when a victim is other than Hindu.
France 24, a French daily in one of their inflammatory articles, accused the late Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati to be an extremist fundamentalist eliminated by Maoists for good reasons. And yet, Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi continue to bend over backwards to appease hyperbolic Christian sensitivities of the West actively engaged in funding the likes of Project Joshua which relentlessly rushes to Christianise India by the turn of the next century. While this conflagration rages on, the debate over conversion has been sidelined. Unconstitutional, unlawful conversion is cheered in the name of providing health and education services through quacks and Christian geocentric theories respectively. Any nationalist and Hindu rescuing his faith through reconversion is deemed communalist and cause of tension, a situation strangely reminiscent of the Raj’s attitude which VD Savarkar had summed up thus:
“If reconversion movement created tension, why should the conversion movement not be considered so? I emphasize that if at all anybody was to be held responsible for the tension, the missionaries and the maulvis should be held so because they had started the conversion first…moreover, I was doing sacred work for my nation which is being exploited in her fallen days by foreign faiths. It was a strange attitude on the part of a government that allowed robbers to commit robberies and prohibited the owners from protecting and defending their property”
Ultimately, cynical exploitation of an unfortunate rape victim’s tragic story and zealously transforming her into a ‘secular’ mascot in the political crusade against ‘imaginary Hindu fundamentalism’ is representative of the absolute amorality of its agents.
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=266&page=33
Patriotism, nationalism and racism
Posted on December 2, 2008
Warner Todd Huston sets out at some length the simple but rather denied truth that Leftists only pretend to be patriotic. In a patriotic nation they have to do that for PR purposes but their hearts are not in it and they manage the pretense only by claiming that they love what America COULD BE rather than what it is. Pathetic!
I have set out at some length previously evidence that patriotism is not in general aggressive. There is however a related attitude known as nationalism. That is when the lovers of their own country want to dominate other countries. All the examples I can think of, however, from Napoleon to Hitler, have been Leftists. So my summary of the matter is that nationalism is a Leftist perversion of patriotism. No wonder Leftists are so suspicious of patriotism! They judge others by themselves. They know how vicious they would be with an entire nation behind them and assume that others think similarly.
But both patriotism and nationalism are only one sort of group loyalty. Rotarians are often strongly attached to their club and even homosexuals feel “gay pride” apparently. And many church members are strongly attached to their religious denomination or local church. And religious identity can extend to something like nationalism — with physical attacks on members of other denominations. There is still a faint remnant of that in Northern Ireland (though the enmity there is as much historic as religious) and in Islam there is a lot of it. Muslims are great slaughterers of other Muslims — if the other Muslims don’t subscribe to the “right” brand of Islam. But Islam is Fascistic anyway.
And then there is the great unmentionable. You CAN feel proud of your race. And if the pride is “black pride” that is just fine. But “white pride” is apparently a breath from the depths of hell. Yet history’s most destructive example of racism was not concerned with whiteness at all. Hitler in fact allied himself with the non-white Japanese and attacked many nations that were just as white as Germans are. In fact there are proportionately rather more blue-eyed blondes in Russia and in Poland than there are in Germany — and Adolf slaughtered millions of both. Hitler’s bag was — following Woodrow Wilson — ARYANS. And most Aryans are in fact brown (Indians).
So the Leftist suspicion of pride in being white has exactly no foundation in the place where it might be most expected! Pretty normal Leftist ignorance of facts and history, of course. So white racism as an oppressive thing is mainly an American phenomenon. And the KKK were overwhelmingly Democrats! Clearly, conservatives were not the problem there.
I can’t resist noting here, however, that I quite like Aryans myself. I have at the moment three quite brown Indians living with me in my house and most days I fly the flag of the Republic of India from my flagpole. Maybe that just makes me a nut but the court jester of old was the only one in the court allowed to tell the whole truth so I cheerfully claim that privilege. Does that make me a dangerous nut? Maybe. Truth is dangerous to those who live by deception.
I in fact have very good contacts with India. The chairman of the huge company that owns the recently attacked Taj hotel is the much admired Ratan Tata and if I wanted to get a message to him there is a good Indian friend of mine for whom Ratan Tata would always pick up the phone. Everybody who loves India will be pleased to hear that Mr Tata has pledged to rebuild the Taj hotel so that it is as good as new again.
I imagine that it is by now pretty clear that Leftists would have an uphill job of tagging me as a white racist (though they will no doubt get to the top of that hill somehow). I just don’t fit their simplistic black-and-white way of thinking. If we are more careful with our definitions than Leftists usually are, however, I think it should become clear that there are some forms of white “racism” that are perfectly reasonable, normal and harmless.
I refer in particular to my prior comments showing that patriotism is not in general necessarily aggressive, hostile or oppressive. And I see no reason why what we might call “white patriotism” should be aggressive, hostile or oppressive. In other words, a feeling of connectedness with other whites and a pride in being white does not necessarily imply a wish to oppress or attack people of other races. But when we come to nationalism, however (the Leftist specialty), it is a very different situation. White nationalism (the desire to conquer or control non-white races) is indisputably a very bad thing.
But white nationalism is a very rare thing. Hitler wasn’t moved by it nor was the British empire. The chief enemy of the British empire was the French, who are quite white. The KKK is about the only example of white nationalism that I can think of. And the KKK at one time dominated Democrat conventions. Such acclaimed Democrat Presidents as Woodrow Wilson and FDR both had solid KKK support. So if we are careful with our definitions, white pride is only dangerous in the hands of Leftists. The very small band of modern-day neo-Nazis are probably an exception to that but there are small exceptions to most rules. And the modern-day political parties that are most often called neo-Nazi (Britain’s BNP and Germany’s NDP) do in fact have a lot of quite socialistic policies — just as old Adolf did.
Note how easily everything falls into place once we have swept away the Leftist hokum about Nazism and the KKK being “Rightist”.
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here
“Nothing specifically Hindu about yoga”
11 Dec 08 : 8.00AM
By Zedeck Siew
zedecksiew@thenutgraph.com
PETALING JAYA, 11 Dec 2008: There is nothing specifically Hindu about yoga, instructors said, with one adding that it was possible to become a better Muslim because of yoga practice.
Yoga instructor Azmi Samdjaga explained that Patanjali, the compiler of the Yoga Sutras or one of the foundational texts of yoga, used the Sanskrit word “Ishvara” which means God or Supreme Being.
“(The texts) do not name any deity of any particular religion,” Azmi said in an e-mail interview, adding that this universality freed the exercise from conflict with any religious principle.
“Yoga aims to concentrate and to still the mind,” said Azmi, a Muslim who has been practising yoga for the past 11 years.
“When this is concentrated and directed upon one's God, the practitioner is focused in reaching towards the very heart of his (or her) religion. Therefore it is possible to adapt the practice of yoga to worship Allah better, and be a better Muslim.”
Azmi, who teaches yoga in Damansara Perdana, was responding to the National Fatwa Council's ban on yoga on 22 Nov 2008.
About 30% of Azmi's students are Muslim. “Many were shocked by the (fatwa on yoga),” he said, noting that these individuals did not see how their faith could be adversely affected.
“On the contrary, they felt that after taking up yoga classes, they could get up fresher and feel healthier in the morning for their first prayers,” Azmi, 37, said. Also, he said, his students could now sit longer in their zikir (meditation) and be more focused about their faith.
Malaysian Yoga Society deputy president Tay Siew Leng confirmed that ancient yogic texts make no reference to any particular religion, let alone Hinduism.
“Yoga techniques are just universal tools that practitioners can apply according to their own requirements,” Tay told The Nut Graph.
There are five schools of yoga: Hatha, Karma, Raja, Jnana and Bhakti. Tay said typically, yoga practised in Malaysia was of the Hatha variety which comprises physical postures, breathing techniques and relaxation to bring about balance and wellbeing.
She explained that only Bhakti Yoga, a devotional form of the exercise practised in temples and ashrams, included elements of chanting.
Tay said even though the consensus in archaeological findings placed yoga's origin in the Indus Valley, where modern-day India and Pakistan are, there was not enough evidence to ascertain whether the Indus-Sarasvati civilisation was linked to Hinduism.
Business unaffected
Azmi said he was initially worried about his business after the fatwa against yoga.
However, he was confident about his fellow Muslims following subsequent developments.
“We are stronger in our minds than what the Council thought, and can rise above such ignorance,” Azmi said.
He added, however, that he was grateful for the Council's efforts in researching the Quran, the Hadith and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad. But he expressed disappointment that the Council failed to seek the truth on the modern practice of yoga.
http://thenutgraph.com/article-1238.html
Macedonia - HISTORICAL REVIEW
Print Article Australian Macedonian Advisory Council
December 02, 2008
Occupying the bigger part of northern Greece, Macedonia first appears on the historical scene as a geographical-political unit in the 5th century BC, when it extended from the upper waters of the Haliakmon and Mount Olympus to the river Strymon. In the following century it reached the banks of the Nestos. The history of the Macedonians, however, may be said to commence somewhere around the beginning of the 7th century BC; at this time the Greek tribe of the Makedones, whose home was in Orestis, began to expand, driving out the Thracians and contending with the Illyrians, and gradually occupied Eordaia, Bottiaia, Pieria and Almopia, finally settling in the region called by Thucydides "Lower Macedonia, or Macedonia by the Sea".
Prehistoric period
This region of high mountains, large rivers, lakes and fertile plains makes its appearance on the stage of civilization as early as the Early Neolithic Period (Nea Nikomedeia, region of Yanitsa). The density of the settlements, however, shows a vertical increase at the end of the 5th millennium BC (Late Middle Neolithic) and attests, throughout the whole of the region though especially in central and east Macedonia, to significant mobility on the part of the population and to its characteristic dynamism. These same settlements prospered until the Early Bronze Age - that is, until the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC -most of them organized in the plains, with houses either square or rectangular in plan, sometimes with wooden posts and sometimes with stone foundations for the walls.
Prehistoric settlement form the late Neolithic Age – the first half of the fifth millennium BC
Stock-breeding, based on the raising of goats and sheep, was one of the prime factors in Macedonia's development, in combination, of course, with other intra-community activities and occupations, such as hunting and fishing. An improvement in the quality of diet is indicated by the diversity of crops cultivated: grain, vines and olives. Exchanges of cultural goods (jewelry, quality pottery) now multiplied, clearly an example of prestige gifts rather than evidence of commercial contacts.
The Bronze Age finds Macedonia with fewer settlements, a circumstance that may be interpreted either as the result of the contraction of the population or as the result of the development of central cores at the expense of small-scale satellite settlements. The houses are now quite frequently two-roomed, with the areas relating to the preparation of food kept separate; they are constructed with wooden posts, and have one of the ends apsidal in form. A still primitive system of planned streets can be detected in some of the settlements. Both bovines and sheep and goats, along with pulses and cereals (wheat and barley) formed part of the daily diet of the inhabitants of Macedonia, who at this period were serving their apprenticeship in the production of bronze tools, used alongside stone implements. The pottery, and especially the quality pottery, usually monochrome, reveals relations with the Bronze Age pottery of central Europe, neighboring Epirus and Thessaly, and also with that of the north-east Aegean. In time, it also acquired a certain independence, despite the fact that in the later centuries of this same period (Bronze Age), it was to be influenced by the outstanding achievements of the Mycenaean wheel. Overworking of the land and the steady increase in the density of the settlements, which now show a preference for semi-mountainous sites, suggest the evolution, with the passage of time, of a certain hierarchy and a central authority. The articulation of society is indicated in a general way by the differentiation in burial customs.
The transition to the following period, the Early lron Age, though not yet clearly demarcated, is distinguished by clear destruction levels or levels indicating the abandonment of settlements. The houses, with stone-built bases, now frequently have wattle-and-daub walls. The dead were generally buried in organized cemeteries with earth tumuli covering groups of cist graves, simple burials directly in the earth or in jars; this is one of the hallmarks of the period, which is defined by the appearance of protogeometric decorative elements on the local pottery (Vergina, West Macedonia), the lavish use of bronze objects, mainly jewelry, the founding of settlements on spacious sites, and the exploitation of iron deposits for the construction of weapons.
Geometric and Archaic periods
The relative isolation of the Macedonian region in the period from the 10th to the 8th centuries BC - an isolation due to the temporary unavailability of the commercial routes from south to north - was soon overcome, and Macedonia entered upon the Archaic period as the promised land for the hundreds of colonists who came to the coasts of the Aegean from many cities in southern Greece. It was during this period that colonists from southern Greece founded Methone, Sane, Skione, Potidaia, Akanthos and many other cities-ports on the coasts of Pieria and Chalkidike.
Ancient Pydna lies in north Pieria, to the south of Makrygialos. The first settlement of the region, one of the most extensive settlements of the Late Neolithic period, is located to the south west of Makrygialos. The settlement presents two phases, one pre-Diminian. covering an area of approximately 75 acres and bounded by a trench system, and another contemporary with the period of Dlmini.
Bounded to the south by a long chain of mountain ranges -Ossa, Olympus and the Kambounian Mountains, to the west by the Pindos range, to the east by the river Strymon and then the Nestos, and to the north by Orbelos, Menoikion, Kerkine, Boras and Barnous, Macedonia was cut off from the main body of Greece, on the ramparts of Hellenism, and lived until the 6th century by the teachings of the Homeric epic.
The state-form was unusual: in one sense a federal state composed of autonomous Macedonian tribes subject to the central authority (Orestai, Elimeiotai, Lynkestai), yet also an ethnos with a strong, though democratic monarchy, and a society of farmers and stock-breeders capable of defending their land against all foreign designs, Macedonia evolved with the passage of the centuries into a power of world-wide (for the period) influence and prestige.
The country was self-sufficient in products to meet basic needs (timber, cereals, game, fish, livestock, minerals) and soon became the exclusive supplier of other Greek states less blessed by nature, though at the same time it came to be the target of expansionist schemes dictated largely by economic interests. A particularly "introspective" land, with conservative customs and way of life and a social structure and political organization of a markedly archaic character, speaking a distinctive form of the Doric dialect, Macedonia took over the reigns of the Greek spirit in the 4th century BC, when the city-state was entering on its decline; revealing admirable adaptability in the face of the demands of the present and the achievements of the past, and ingenuity and boldness when confronted with the problems of the future, the country was quickly transformed into a performer of new roles, open ing up new roads towards the epoch of the Hellenism of three continents.
Language
The Macedonians were a Dorian tribe, according to the testimony of Herodotus (1, 56): "(The Dorian ethnos) ... dwelt in Pindos, where it was called Makednon; from there ... it came to the Peloponnesos, where it took the name of Dorian". And elsewhere (VIII, 43): "these (that is, the Lacedaimonians, Corinthians, Sikyonians etc.), except the people of Hermione, were of the Dorian and Makednon ethnos, and had most recently come from Erineos and Pindos and Dryopis". A Dorian tribe, then, that expanded steadily to the east of Pindos and far beyond, conquering areas in which dwelt other tribes, both Greek and non-Greek.
Ancient Macedonian calender with words that clearly are Greek
For many centuries, Macedonia remained on the fringe of the Greek world. In the mountainous regions of Macedonia, at least, the way of life will have consisted predominantly of transhumant pasturage. Education will, at best, have been confined to aristocratic circles and those connected with them. We do not, therefore, expect to find any written texts of a private nature from the Archaic period. In the rest of the Greek world, writing is related to the structure and mechanisms of the city-state, and is used mainly for the recording of justice in the broadest sense of the word. Under a monarchical regime like that of Macedonia, however, and in a world of nomads, we would hardly expect to find public documents.
At about the end of the 6th century BC, the changed socio-economic circumstances deriving from permanent settlement and the intensification of economic and cultural relations with the rest of the Greek world led to the creation of the preconditions for the use of writing, mainly for the purposes of diplomatic relations. The local dialect a member, as far as we can judge, of the group known as the north-west Greek dialects, which included Phokian, the Lokrian dialects, etc., had no written tradition, whether literary or other. Consequently, the rise of education and culture was to the detriment of the Macedonian speech. Attic was selected as the language of education, and the local dialect was "smothered" by the written language, the koine, and was never, or hardly ever, written down, being restricted to oral communication between Macedonians. From as early as the time of Alexander the Great, moreover, Macedonian lost ground to the koine in this sphere too, if we are to believe the historical sources, and there is certainly no evidence that it was spoken in the centuries after Christ. Only its memory was perpetuated through the use of personal names until the 4th century AD
Although very little of the Macedonian tongue has survived, there is no doubt that it was a Greek dialect. This is clear from a whole series of indications and linguistic phenomena by which the koine of the region is "colored" which are not Attic but which can only have derived from a Greek dialect. For example: The vast majority of even the earliest names, whether dynastic names or not, are Greek, formed from Greek roots and according to Greek models: Hadista, Philista, Sostrata, Philotas, Perdikkas, Machatas and hundreds of others. In general, the remnants of the Macedonian dialect that have come down to us have a completely different character from Ionic. This circumstance is patent proof that there can be no question of the ancient Macedonians having been Hellenised, as has been asserted (Karst), for such Hellenisation could have been only by the Greek colonies on the Macedonian coast, in which the Ionian element was predominant (Beloch).
The fact that Roman and Byzantine lexicographers and grammarians cited examples from Macedonian in order to interpret particular features of the Homeric epics must mean that Macedonian - or rather, what survived of Macedonian at the period in question - was a very archaic dialect, and preserved features that had disappeared from the other Greek dialects; it would be absurd to suggest that these scholars, in their commentaries on the Homeric poems, might have compared them with a non-Greek language. The name given to the Macedonian cavalry - hetairoi tou basileos - "the King's Companions" - is also indicative: this occurs only in Homer, and was preserved in the historical period only amongst the Macedonians.
The anonymous compiler of the Etymologicum Magnum notes in the entry on Aphrodite, probably adopting a comment by the earlier grammarian Didymos: "V is akin to F. This is clear from the fact that the Macedonians call Philip "Vilip" and pronounce falakros [bald] "valakros" the Phrygians "Vrygians" and the winds (fysitas) "vyktas". Homer refers to "vyktas anemous" (blowing winds). Observations of this type abound. Male and female names occur in Macedonian ending in -as and -a, where in Attic we have -es and -e: Alketas, Amyntas, Hippotas, Glauka, Eurydika, Andromacha, and dozens more. A feature bequeathed by Macedonian to the koine and also to Modern Greek is the genitive of so-called first declension masculine nouns in -a: Kallia, Teleutia, Pausanea (the Attic ending was -ou). The long alpha is retained in the middle of words (as in all dialects other than Ionic-Attic dialects): Damostratos, Damon etc. and Iaos" rather than the "Ieos" of Ionic Attic, is used to form compounds, occurring as both the first and the second element. The koine of Macedonia, for all its conservatism and dialect coloring, follows a parallel path to the koine of other regions, though not always at the same moment in time. Whatever the case, all the changes that marked the Greek language in general and the north Greek dialects in particular, can be followed in the inscriptions of Macedonia.
Classical period
Although Herodotus and Thucydides, both of whom were aware of the genealogy of the Macedonian Argead or Temenids dynasty, made Perdikkas I the head of the family, and moreover at tributed to him the foundation of the state (first half of the 7th century BC), tradition records the names of kings earlier than Perdikkas (Karanos, Koinos, Tyrimmas). It was, however, only after protracted clashes with the Illyrians and the Thracians, and temporary subjection to Persian suzerainty (510-479 BC)- a period during which the Macedonians established themselves in "Lower Macedonia" - that the country acquired its definitive form and character. Through the organizational and administrative abilities of its first great leader, Alexander I, called the Philhellene, whose timely information to the southern Greeks contributed to the defeat of the Persian forces of Xerxes and Mardonios, the suzerainty of the Macedonian kingdom was extended both to the west of the lower Strymon valley and to the region of Anthemous. This brought economic benefits, including the exploitation of a number of silver mines in the area of lake Prasias (the first Macedonian coins were struck at this time), and the independent Macedonian principalities of west and north Macedonia were united around the central authority, recognizing the primacy of the Temenids king. The entry of the state into the history of southern Greece was sealed by the acceptance of Alexander I by the hellanodikai as a competitor in the Olympic games (probably those of 496 BC), in which, as we know, only Greeks were allowed to participate.
Perdikkas II, the first-born son of Alexander I, who ruled for forty years (454-412/13 BC), not only had to face dynastic strife, but also had to be continuously on the alert to deal with the problems created for him by the Thracian tribes and the Lynkestai and Elimeiotai on one hand, and on the other by the doubtful outcome of the Peloponnesian War, which threw the Greek world into turmoil in the 5th century BC, bringing Athenian and Spartan armies, at various times, into the heart of Macedonia. Acting always according to the dictates of political advantage, Perdikkas II proved himself a skillful diplomat and a wily leader, astute in his decisions and flexible in his alliances, and set as the aim of his diplomacy the preservation of the territorial integrity of his kingdom. The completion of the internal tasks that Perdikkas II was prevented from accomplishing by the external situation fell to his successor, Archelaos I; he is credited by the ancient sources and modern scholarship alike with great sagacity and with sweeping changes in state administration, the army and commerce. During his reign, the defense of the country was organized, cultural and artistic contacts with southern Greece were extended, and the foundations were laid of a road network. A man of culture himself, the king entertained in his new palace at Pella, to where he had transferred the capital from Aigai, poets and tragedians, and even the great Euripides, who wrote his tragedies Archelaos and The Bacchae there; he invited brilliant painters - the name of Zeuxis is mentioned - and at Dion in Pieria, the Olympia of Macedonia, he founded the "Olympia", a religious festival with musical and athletic competitions in honor of Olympian Zeus and the Muses. By 399 BC, the year in which he was murdered, Archelaos I had succeeded in converting Macedonia into one of the strongest Greek powers of his period. In the forty years following the death of Archelaos I ,Macedonia formed a field for all kinds of conflict and realignments, and was the object of competition between kings who reigned for very brief periods; the country was ravaged by the savage incursions of the Illyrians, captured by the Chalkidians, and obliged to yield to the demands of the Athenians; despite all this, however, it recovered to some degree with Amyntas III on the throne and, with the accession of Philip II (359 BC), succeeded in regaining its self-belief and recovering its former strength.
Greek Empire Temenid Dynasty (338 - 317 BCE)
This charismatic ruler, whose strategic genius and diplomatic ability transformed Macedonia from an insignificant and marginal country into the most important power in the Aegean and paved the way for the pan-Hellenic expedition of his son to the Orient, was an expansive leader who had the breadth of vision to usher the ancient world into the epoch of the Hellenism of three continents. During the course of his tempestuous life, he firmly established the power of the central authority in the kingdom, reorganized the army into a flexible and amazingly efficient unit, strengthened the weaker regions of his realm through movements of population, and, abroad, made Macedonia incontestably superior to the institution of the city-state which, at this precise period, was facing decline. His unexpected death at the hands of an assassin in 336 BC, in the theater at Aigai on the very day of the marriage of his daughter Cleopatra to Alexander, the young king of the Molos sians, brought to an end a brilliant career, the final aim of which was to unify the Greeks in order to exact vengeance on Persia for the invasion of 481-480 BC; Macedonia, in complete control of affairs in the Balkan peninsula, was ready to assume its new role. A fascinating sequence of political events with a highly favorable outcome and military victories with world-wide repercussions, the resolution of a number of intractable problems of an inter-state nature, and a series of inspired programs and visions implemented with great success in a short space of time - these are the component elements in the panorama of the life of the great general and civilizer Alexander III, who was justly called the Great and who has passed into the pantheon of legend. And if his victories at Granikos (334 BC), Issos (333 BC), Gaugamela (331 BC) and Alexandria Nikaia (326 BC) may be thought of as sons worthy of their father, bringing about the overthrow of the mighty Persian empire and distant India, the prosperous cities founded in his name as far as the ends of the known world were his daughters - centers of the preservation and dissemination of Greek spirit and culture. From this world of dar ing and passion, of questing and contradiction the robust Hellenism of Macedonia carried the art of man to the ends of the inhabited world, bestowing poetry upon the mute and, in the infancy of mankind, instilling philosophical thought. In the libraries that were now founded from the Nile to the Indus, in the theaters that spread their wings under the skies of Baktria and Sogdiana, in the Gymnasia and the Agoras Homer suckled as yet unborn civilizations, Thucydides taught the rules of the science of history, and the great tragedians and Plato transmitted the principle of restraint and morality to absolutist regimes. Alexander's contribution to the history of the world is without doubt of the greatest importance: his period, severing the "Gordian Knot" with the Greek past, opened new horizons whose example would inspire, throughout the centuries that followed, all those leaders down to Napoleon himself who left their own mark on the course of mankind in both the East and the West.
Despite the unfavorable outcome of affairs on the external front, however, and despite the restraining intervention of the Romans at the ex pense of the territorial integrity of the country, which was deprived of its possessions in south ern Greece and Asia Minor (197 BC), Philip's V prestige and influence was revealed long ago by dedications at the most famous Greek sanctuar ies (Delos, Rhodes, Karia). His dynamism with re gard to the vision of a great and powerful Mace donia is attested by his internal policy during the final decade of his rule (188-179 BC): during these years, the planned exploitation of the mines, the granting to the cities in the kingdom of the right to mint coins, the imposition of harbor dues, the increasing of taxation and the provision of grants to encourage child-bearing, all led not only to recovery but also to the accumulation of wealth.
This prosperity and a sound incomes policy, together with the rise of trade and the liberalization of local institutions in the major urban centers, filled the royal treasury with liquid funds and the granaries with stores of grain, and armed 18,000 mercenaries under the rule of his successor, Perseus, the last king of Macedonia. The 6,000 talents and the vast quantities of precious vessels that came into the hands of Aemilius Paulus on the morrow of the decisive battle of Pydna (168 BC) attest to the economic vigour of the state up to the very eve of its collapse.
Roman period
This, then, was the end of the kingdom be neath Mount Olympus, which had been the com mon point of reference for all the Hellenistic king doms of the East and had supplied succeeding generations with Greek ideals. It was essentially a nation state, in contrast with the "spear-won" kingdoms of the epigoni (Successors) in which the Macedonians were always a minority of for eign conquerors, a conservative country, cer tainly, devoted to its traditional institutions, so dif ferent from the immense new empires of the Se leucids and the Ptolemies, with their heterogene ous populations. Far removed from the deifica tion of leaders, from vainglorious titles, from the appellations and dooms of excess, Macedonia confronted its destiny as once its Stoic king Antigonos II Gonatas had confronted the highest of fice, which had been bestowed upon him: as glo rious slavery!
Philip V of Macedonia the last King who tried valiantly to fend off the Romans
A menace to the Roman Senate, the land of Alexander was divided into four merides (por tions), or economic and administrative districts, and the possession or sale of landed property between them was forbidden, as was intermar riage. The Macedonians were described as "free" (in reality, under the tutelage of the Romans),paid a tax and were obliged to maintain an army only large enough to protect their own borders against the barbarian tribes of the north. This regime, however, lasted no more than twenty years: anti-Roman sentiments on the one hand, and social friction between the privileged classes and the masses on the other, and above all the deterioration of the internal situation led to the revolt of Andriskos, an adventurer who claimed to be the son of Perseus.
Perseus was the last king (Basileus) of the Antigonid dynasty, who ruled the successor state in Macedon created upon the death of Alexander the Great. He also has the distinction of being the last of the line, after losing the Battle of Pydna on 22 June 168 BC; subsequently Macedon came under Roman rule.
With the crushing of his rebellion by the Roman legions (148 BC) Macedonia now belonged to the past, even as a pro tectorate: the senate decided to turn it into a province (provincia Macedonia)- the first Roman province in the East - and incorporate it into the Roman empire, installing a governor with his headquarters at Thessaloniki and an army. The period from 148 BC to the advent of Augustus (27 BC) was undoubtedly one of the most bur densome for the country which, administratively, now stretched from the Ionian sea to the Nestos river, and from mount Olympus to the source of the Axios river: the continuous incursions of bar barian tribes (Skordiskoi, Bessoi, Thracians) throughout the second century BC, the invasion by the armies of Mithridates VI, supported by the Maidoi, the Dardanians and the Sintoi, at the be ginning of the first, and the upheaval, decimation and ravaging inflicted on it during both the first Civil War (Pompey-Caesar, 49-48 BC) and the second (Brutus/Antony-Octavian, 42 BC), turned the province into a huge battlefield, with severely adverse consequences for the land and its inhabitants.
Macedonian coin 100 B.C Roman Era,clearly in Greek writing
The construction of the Via Egnatia from Dyr rachion to Byzantion (in a second stage) as a continuation of the Via Appia on the Italian main land, and the settling of colonists (Dion, Cassan dreia, Pella, Philippoi) and Italian merchants may have transformed the economic and demograph ic face of the country, but it did not bring about the latinization of the inhabitants, who retained their Greek personality and speech to the end.
In a pacified empire, living under the protec tion of the Pax Romana in the rearguard of mili tary enterprises, and a senatorial province from 27 BC to AD 15 and from AD 44 onwards, Macedonia moved onto a different plane. In the "free" cities of Thessaloniki, Amphipolis and Sko toussa, as in the tribute paying (tributariae) cities, the communities in time adjusted to the new state of affairs ordained by Augustus, while preserving their ancient institutions of government (assem bly, council and magistrates); new town-plans were laid out, grand building complexes (agoras, temples) now proclaimed the glory of new gods and earthly lords, honorific altars were erected for select members and officials in a display of gratitude, and fine marble funerary buildings were designed to perpetuate the memory of sim ple mortals and distinguished citizens after their death. And it is the countless inscriptions - often verbose in their attempt to flatter - that preserve names, professions, lists of ephebes, artists' guilds, dedicators, religious associations, immor talizing the passing moment and completing the mosaic of our knowledge of a region of the Ro man world that appears to follow the fortune of a disarmed province.It is the inscriptions that in form us about the existence of koina - those organizations that stood between the Roman ad ministration and the local authorities; about the holding of games called Pythia, Actia, Alexandreia Olympia; about the occasional transit of emperors and their armies, and the anchoring of fleets. And of course, about the preservation in the memory of the Macedonians of the man who glorified their name to the ends of the inhabited world.
Forgotten in its wilderness, the province of Macedonia strengthened the fortifications of its cities - often, indeed, demolishing the adjacent buildings - when, in the middle of the 3rd century, the Carpi, the Goths and the Heruls reached the Aegean, laying everything waste.
In the twilight of the Roman gods, and of all the other deities of oriental or Egyptian origins for whom the country had provided fertile ground on which to establish and disseminate themselves, Christianity offered to Thessaloniki, Philippoi, and Beroia, resignation, redemption and life beyond death, from as early as 50 BC, when saint Paul the Apostle of the Nations preached the new religion. It prepared the ground for the resurrection of the dead and also for the regeneration of the empire. An empire tossing and turning amidst the instability of opportunistic government by a host of ambitious contenders for power, an empire in the chaos of economic decline, threatened with the breaching of the integrity of its borders by the repeated incursions of barbarian tribes, and humbled by heavy defeats on the field of battle.
The assumption of power by Diocletian in AD 280 - an event that formed a landmark in the his tory of the Roman empire and laid the founda tions for a new era - was of the greatest impor tance for Macedonia, as for the rest of the em pire, leading as it did to a way out of the crisis.
Diocletian's administrative changes returned Macedonia to her natural boundaries. Part of the diocese of the Moesia was assigned to the praes es (ruler), who was responsible to the vicarius (vicar), the supreme governor. The situation was standardized first as a result of the changes made by Constantine the Great, according to which Macedonia, along with Thessaly, Epirus Vetus and Epirus Nova, Achaia and Crete formed the diocese of Macedonia, and then in the second half of the 4th century AD when the dio cese of Macedonia, Dacia and Pannonia com bined to form the praefecture of Illyricum, with its capital at Thessaloniki; there were further changes, however, at the beginning of the 5th century, with Macedonia divided into "Macedonia Prima" and "Macedonia Salutaris".
Byzantine period
Macedonia's strategic importance at the crossroads of the major arterial roads in the Bal kan peninsula meant that during the critical peri od marking the transition from the late Roman to the Byzantine period it was the object of bene factions from the royal house, despite the gener al upheavals of the times. Manifestations of this interest included the transfer of the capital to Thessaloniki by Galerius Maximian, and the erection there of an imposing palace; the construction in the same city of a capacious dock yard by Constantine the Great (AD 322/323), and the choice of the capital of Macedonia as the headquarters of Theodosius the Great (AD 379/380) for his campaigns against the Visigoths and Ostrogoths.
In 390 Ambrose had excommunicated Theodosius, who had recently ordered the massacre of 7,000 inhabitants of Thessalonica,in response to the assassination of his military governor stationed in the city, and that Theodosius performed several months of public penance.
The economic prosperity of Macedonia in the 4th and 5th centuries AD is at tested by the large numbers of quarries (Thasos, Prilep), furnaces for the smelting of metals, work shops for the construction of weapons and metal objects, pottery workshops and centers product ing beads of glass-paste; there is also evidence for the existence of extensive farms, salt-flats, yarn dyers (Stoboi), the organizing of trade fairs ("Demetria") and the carrying on of a trade in leather. This prosperity was undoubtedly respon sible for the imposing buildings (whether of a re ligious or secular character) brought to light in many places by the archaeologist's spade: basili cas, villas and fortifications.
Empreror Justinian 5 A.D the builder of St Sophia the greatest Christian church of all born in Macedonia of Roman parentage
It was upon this world, a world deeply influ enced by Christianity, a world that slowly and surely cast off its Roman toga to don the Byzan tine purple, a world sorely tried by the incursions of the Goths, the Avars, and all the others who had designs on its wealth and power, that faith in mission of the "God of mercy" erected the thousand-year empire of the East, to guide and enlighten the West. It raised the cross of the Res urrection as far afield as the banks of the Da nube, in castles, in churches adorned with mosaics, and in bath-houses. Proclaiming the glory of men like Justinian I, the courage of a Heraklios, the majesty of Constantine VII Porphyrogennitus. In the face of the Avars and the Slavs, the Bulgars and the Arabs.
Heraclius Hellenised the Empire by largely discontinuing the use of Latin as its official language, replacing it with Greek. The empire continued to call itself Roman throughout the rest of its history, but the term also increasingly came to be used as an autonym by the Greeks
As the countryside was depopulated by the repeated barbarian incursions and the majority of the inhabitants sought refuge and protection in the urban centers, the cities were transformed into centers of intense commercial and cultural activity. Ports like those of Thessaloniki and Christoupolis (Kavala), with their granaries and heavy traffic in sea-faring ships, and also pros perous cities in the hinterland, such as Herakleia Lynkestis, Bargala, Serrhai and Philippoi, were adorned with brilliant buildings; their fortifications were strengthened, and their old urban tissue was abandoned as new programs of urban development were implemented (to which the destructive earthquakes of the 7th century made their contribution).
It was at this period, moreover, that the ad ministrative system of "themes"(districts), al ready tested in areas of Asia Minor exposed to great danger, was introduced to the European regions of the empire. The characteristic features of this system were the concentrating in one and the same person of military and political au thority, and a change in the composition of the ar my. Macedonia was divided between two "themes" - the "theme of Thessaloniki" (from the Pindos range to the Strymon river) and the "theme of Strymon" (the modern counties of Ser rhai, Xanthe and Rhodope), the latter with its capital at Serrhai.
The integration of the Slavs into Byzantine so ciety (9th century AD), the result partly of their conversion to Christianity by Cyril and Methodios and partly of the extension of Byzantine influence to the interior of the Balkans, had direct conse quences for Macedonia, whose cities benefited from the peace that now prevailed. Thessaloniki evolved into an important cosmopolitan center to which flowed merchandise from East and West. Churches were erected at Kastoria and Beroia and adorned with wall-paintings in which were crystallized the basic elements of large-scale art after the triumph of Orthodoxy and the triumph of the icons.
Basil II,The Bulgar Slayer,Macedonian Dynasty agruably the greatest of all Greek Byzantine Emperors
Before 1204, the year in which Constantino ple was captured by the crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, Macedonia was shaken by the uphea vals and the ravaging and taking of prisoners at tending successive invasions by the Bulgarians, first under Symeon (AD 894-927) and then under Samuel (AD 989-1018), and suffered the humiliation of seeing its capital fall into the hands of Arab pirates (AD 904); almost three hundred years later, the same city, along with others (Kastoria and Serrhai) was captured after a siege by the Normans of Sicily (AD 1185). This is the reason that the 9th and 10th centuries in Macedonia have no great achievements to show in the sphere of cultural activity. A contributing factor in this was, of course, the strict centraliza tion that informed the policy of the Macedonian dynasty. By contrast, the 1 1th and 12th centuries bestowed upon the north Greek administrative division men of the church and of letters, of the stature of Theophylact Hephaistos (the famous archbishop of Bulgaria, with his see at Ochrid), Michael Choumnos (metropolitan of Thessaloniki), and Eustathios Kataphloros (Metropolitan of Thessaloniki and a famous scholiast on classical texts). They contributed to a flowering of ecclesiastical architecture and church painting (Beroia, Edessa, Melenikon, Serrhai, Ayios Achillios, Thessaloniki, Mount Athos, Nerezi, Kastoria and Ochrid) of such intensity that these churches formed models for creations in other Balkan lands and as far afield as Russia and Georgia in the East and Sicily and north ern Italy in the West. Wall-paintings of the quality of Saint Panteleimon at Nerezi (1162) - a typical example of Komne nan painting, with its pronounced depiction of passion and its soft lines in the rendering of bod ies, tall and elegant in their other-worldly Man nerism - or of the Latomos monastery in Thessa loniki (2nd half of the 12th century), and of the Anargyroi at Kastoria and Saint Nikolaos Kasnit zes in the same city (12th century), with their re fined academic style; these are all undoubtedly points of reference for the artistic production and achievement of this age, before the empire was dismembered by the Latins and divided into king doms, baronies, and counties. And, of course, we should not forget the superb compositions of the portable icons and mural mosaics.
Frankish period
With the collapse of the Byzantine Empire and its dismemberment by the western crusad ers (Partitio Romaniae), the whole of Macedonia became subject to the Frankish kingdom of Thes saloniki, of which Boniface, marquis of Montfer rat was appointed ruler. Despite the fact that they had prevailed, however, the new lords had to cope both with rivalries amongst themselves, and with the expansionist visions of Kalojan, the Bulgarian tzar Ioannitzes, who in 1207, the year of his death, arrived with his armies before the walls of Thessaloniki, having first captured Ser rhai and taken prisoner Baldwin, emperor of Con stantinople.
The hated Catholic Franks showed total barbarity towards the Orthodox Christians
The situation became increasingly confused as time went on: the Bulgarian state was con sumed by inter-dynastic quarrels and after the death of Boniface, the Frankish kingdom of Thessaloniki fell into the hands of guardians of minors: the new despot of the so-called "Despotate" of Epirus, the ambitious Theodore Komnenos Doukas Angelos (1215-1230), brother of the founder of the state, Michael II Komnenos Doukas Angelos, systematically extended his possessions from Skodra in Illyria to Naupaktos (Le Panto) and, by steadily advancing his armies, succeeded in capturing the bride of the Thermaic gulf and dissolving the second largest Latin bastion in the Balkans (1224). He was defeated, however, by the Bulgarian tzar lvan Asen II in 1230, at the battle of Klokotnitsa, as a result of which his kingdom contracted to the area around Thessaloniki and shortly afterwards became subject to the rising power of the period, the empire of Nicaea. In December 1246, loannis III Vatatzes, after a victorious advance, during which he captured Serrhai, Melenikon, Skopje, Velessa and Prilep, entered the city of St Demetrios in triumph, and installed as its governor the Great Domestic Andronikos Palaiologos.
Caught at the center of expansionist designs, struggles for survival and domination and
attempts to recover lost prestige, Macedonia repulsed the attacks of the "Despotate" of Epirus, warded off the united armies of king Manfred of Sicily and Villehardouin, ruler of Achaia, and recaptured Kastoria, Edessa, Ochrid, Skopje and Prilep, before eventually being incorporated into the Byzantine Empire, which was reconstituted on the morrow of 1261 with the capture of the Queen of Cities by Michael VIII Palaiologos.
These were ephemeral, "Pyrrhic victories", for the final page of the Byzantine epic augured the demise of a legend that had been kept alive for over a thousand years. The wretched condition of the Empire in every sphere enabled the Serbs of Stephen Dusan to make deep advances to the south (1282 A.D), and the mercenaries of the Catalan Company to devastate the Chalkidike and Mount Athos (1308), fuelled fratricidal dynastic strife between the Palaiologoi and the Kantakouzenoi, and gave rise to social turbu lence such as that provoked by the Zealots in Thessaloniki.
And as the fortresses of moral and material resistance, buffeted by the maelstrom of the times, fell one after the other on the altar of short- term political planning and superstitious delusion, the myopic response to the reality of the situation brought the pagan hordes to European soil and shackled the right hand of Western civilization and Christianity. The last defenders of cities and ideals - an outstanding example of whom was the restless Manuel, governor of Thessaloniki from 1369 and subsequently emperor in Constantino ple as Manuel II - felt the death rattle of Serrhai (1383) as the 14th century expired, and heard the protracted screams of Drama, Zichna, Be roia, Servia and Thessaloniki itself - once in 1395 and once, for the last time, in 1430 - with the crescent moon flying on its battlements.
Amidst the ruins of the nation, the only bea cons of endurance for the enslaved population, the only points of reference to the glorious past for those who abandoned the sinking ship in good time, making their way to the West, were the books in which they took refuge in the harsh cen turies that followed - the deeply philosophical treatises, the pained verses, the inspired compo sitions of men like Thomas Magistros, Demetrios Triklinios, Theodore Kabasilas, Gregorios Pala mas, Demetrios Kydones, and the wise jurist Constantine Armenopoulos. The strikingly warm monuments of the Christian faith, created by named and anonymous mosaicists, painters of cosmic universe, architects of the undomed di vine: in the Peribleptos at Ochrid (1295), in Saint Nikolaos Orphanos, in the Holy Apostles (1312- 1315), in Saint Elias (at Thessaloniki), in Saint Nikolaos Kyritzes (at Kastoria), in the Church of Christ at Beroia (1315), in the Basilica of the Pro taton at Karyes on Mount Athos (end of the 13th century). In the field of myth, masters of the pal ette such as the painter Manuel Panselinos and his fellow artists Eutychios and Michael Astrapas and Georgios Kalliergis.
Wall-painting St Demetrios,Church of St. Clement,Ohrid,1295.
And it was precisely at this period, when the rumored impending judgment of the souls in heaven was menacing terrified mortals on earth with its sword, that there occurred a change in the consciousness of the Byzantine world which led oppressed Hellenism to an unprecedented self awareness, taking it back to the roots of its origins.
Faced with Ottoman predomination, the impo sition of the Muslim religion by forced conver sions to Islam where necessary, the arrival in Macedonia a few years after the fall of Constan tinople of thousands of Jewish refugees from Spain, and the migrations of Vlach- and Slav- speaking groups, the Greek element in the Em pire - the "Romaioi"(Romans) as they were called by the Turks - acquired an inner strength and ral lied round the Great Idea of casting off the for eign yoke and its alien language and religion. Through the encouragement of the crusading Or thodox Church, the preservation of Greek- speaking schools, and revolutionary remittances from the Greeks of the diaspora, especially those in Italy, it kept alive its knowledge, its language and its dreams. And as time went on and the deep wounds of the first decades of slavery were forgotten, it achieved great things in commerce and trade, on the diplomatic front, in administra tion, and in public relations.
The last moments of Constantine Paleologos XI 1449 – May 29, 1453,the last Emperor of Byzantium"
Macedonia under Turkish Rule (the Tourkokratia)
While ruined cities like Thessaloniki, victims of the conquest, were repopulated with peoples from every region of the Ottoman Empire, others, such as Yanitsa (Yenice), were new creations with a purely Turkish population. About the mid dle of the 15th century, Monastir had 185 Chris- tian families, Velessa 222 and Kastoria 938. Thessaloniki, a century later, counted 1087 fam ilies and Serrhai 357. In Drama, Naousa and Ka vala, the main language spoken was Greek. The same was true of Servia, Kastoria, Naousa and Galatista. Stromnitsa, like Yanitsa, was a Turkish city. Jewish communities of some importance were to be found in Beroia, where there were equal numbers of Moslems and Christians, and in Serrhai, Monastir, Kavala and Drama. Few Slav speakers remained in the countryside of Eastern Macedonia - the remnants of Stephen Dusan's empire - though there were more in Western and the north of Central Macedonia.
The inhabitants, new and old, lived in separ ate communities, and were jointly responsible for the implementation of orders from the central au thority, for the preservation of order and, most importantly of all, for the payment of taxes. The administration of the community was in the hands of the local aristocracy, which was permitted cer tain initiatives of a philanthropic or cultural na ture. This local autonomy in matters of adminis tration also extended to the hearing by archbish ops of cases involving family and inheritance law, in accordance with Byzantine custom-law.
The administrative system of the Ottoman Empire was based on its military organization and, at the beginning of the period, the European conquests formed a single military and political district (the Eyalet of Roumelia), governed by the beyrlebey, a high-ranking official. In time, this broad unit was divided and Macedonia was brok en up into smaller sections, of which Western Macedonia was assigned initially to the sanjak of Skopje and later to those of Ochrid and Monastir. By contrast, both Central and Eastern Macedo nia formed separate sanjaks, with their capitals at Thessaloniki and Kavala respectively. The northern areas were assigned to the sanjak of Kyustendil.
As during the Byzantine period, cereals, apples, olives, flax and vegetables were cultivated on the fertile plains of Macedonia. As the centu ries passed, tobacco, cotton and rice were ad ded to them. The creation of settlements in the mountainous areas and the intensification of stock-raising led to a reduction in the forested ar ea. Trout from the rivers and lakes supplied the markets of Constantinople. From the numerous metal,silk and textile workshops - which owed much to the skills of the Jewish element - the em pire ordered objects for daily use and also luxury goods. Goldsmiths, builders, chandlers, furriers, armourers, dyers of thread and cloth-makers in a few years turned the villages and towns in which they settled into bustling production and distribution centers. They were a source of pros perity, economic strength, building activity, and intense competition. The caravans that trans ported the labour and skills of these craftsmen to Vienna, Sofia and Constantinople competed with the boats from the ports of Thessaloniki and Ka vala, which discharged their cargoes at both ends of the Mediterranean. And since Hermes Kerdoos (the god of commerce) invariably walked hand in hand in Greece with Hermes Lo gios (the god of letters), as soon as the tempest of the conquest had subsided and the Greeks had gained control of trade and production, the Greek expatriates achieved great things in the free lands of Austro-Hungary, Germany, France and Italy (both before and after the fall of Con stantinople); the church assumed a leading role, supplanting the imperial authority; thirst for knowledge and the imparting of knowledge led initially to the foundation of church schools and then to the building of community educational in stitutions, to which flocked not only the Greeks but also the Greek-speakers of the Balkans.
Built by Suleiman The Magnificent,the Tower was scene of bloody torture and Ottoman oppression during the Ottoman Era,then known as the Bloody Tower.Now the symbol of Thessaloniki
Through benefactions from wealthy Macedonians(all Greek names no Slavs) such as Manolakis (1682) and Demetrios Kyritzis (1697) from Kastoria, young men were educated in Beroia, Serrhai, Naousa, Ochrid Kleisoura and Kozani. Thanks to the inspired teaching of men like Georgios Kontaris,school arch (head of school) at Kozani (1668-1673) Georgios Parakeimenos, headmaster in the same city (1694-1707), Kallinikos Varkosis,scholarch at Siatista (until 1768), and Kallinikos Manios in Beroia (about 1650), the Macedonians were able to partake of ancient and ecclesiasti calliterature and were initiated into the new achievements of science, which the intellectual pioneers of the Greek spirit were transporting from the educated West. There were many too however, who, either as refugees to the West or as willing emigrants, transmitted their own precious lights to the regenerated world of Europe: men like loannis Kottounios (1572-1657), lecturer in the Universities of Padua, Bologna and Pisa. Demetrios, the Patriarch's envoy to Wurtemberg (1559), and Metrophanis Kritopoulos, teacher of Greek in Venice (1627-1630).
Up until the beginning of the 19th century, though with a substantial break during the period of the Russian-Turkish confrontations (1736-38 and 1768-77), the Macedonian countryside pros pered greatly and was at the same time the scene of unprecedented building activity. New villages were constructed and existing townships extended and beautified; amidst a climate of prosperity and expanding trade, two-storey ar chontika (mansions) were erected at Siatista, Kozani, Kastoria, Beroia and Florina; their tiled roofs, carved wooden ceilings, and elegant built in wooden cupboards, their reception rooms lav ishly painted with floral, narrative and other mo tifs, and their spacious cellars and shady court yards, all reflected the wealth of their owners and the achievements of a popular art that skill fully combined the lessons of tradition with a wide variety of borrowings from East and West.
Church built during the Byzantine era still standing after the harsh Ottoman Era
For some time after the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, the subject Christians of
Macedonia were content to fulfill their Christian duties by using the churches that had escaped pillaging by the conquerors. As the flock steadily increased, however, and the old buildings began to feel the adverse effects of time, while the inhabitants grew more prosperous, the need to repair and beautify the houses of God under the jurisdiction of the Greek communities and also to erect new ones became inescapable. Painters from Kasto ria, and then from Crete, Epirus, and Thebes, in guilds or individually, criss-crossed Macedonia from as early as the 15th century, and hymned the glories of the Orthodox faith with their pal ettes, some in a primitive style, others with a more academic, refined intent. Yet others from Hionades, Samarina, and Selitsa near Eratyra immortalized human vanity in secular buildings and, in the encyclopedic spirit of the age, por trayed philosophers, fantastic landscapes, the dream of the soul - Constantinople - and the vision of progress - cities of Western Europe.
Modern times
And as the wheel of destiny, after many centuries, furrowed the roads of the final decision, and an unquenchable desire for freedom consumed petty interests and leveled out vainglorious vacillation, the national desire to cast of the unbearable yoke began to awaken. The year 1821 of the Uprising in the Peloponnese lit up the peaks of mount Olympus and mount Athos. Although the repressive measures taken by the Turkish army and the seizure of hostages in Thessaloniki did not dishearten the rebels of Emmanuel Pappas and the archimandrite Kallinikos Stamatiadis on Mount Athos and Thasos, who were thirsting for action, the insurrectionaries' ignorance of military affairs and their lack of supplies, together with the ease with which the Turks were able to mobilize large armies, strangled the movement at its birth. The uprisings on Olympus and Bermion met with a similar fate, ending in the tragedy of the holocaust of Naousa.
After the liberation of southern Greece and the foundation of the free Greek state - the furthering of the Great Idea -spirits were restored and, with the invisible support of the Greek con sulate in Thessaloniki, incursions began into Turkish-held Macedonian areas, to stir up arm bands. Tsamis Karatasos roused Chalkidike. So, too, did Captain Georgakis. The unfavorable turn taken by the Cretan Struggle, however, and the inability of Greeks and Serbs to make com mon cause once again prevented a general up rising of the Macedonians.
Map of Megali Hellas - Great Greece -- after the Treaty of Sèvres and featuring Eleftherios Venizelos, a proponent of Megali Idea(modern Greek: ?e???? ?d?a, "Great Idea") was an irredentist concept of Greek nationalism that expressed the goal of establishing a Greek state that would encompass all ethnic Greeks, since large Greek populations after the Greek independence in 1832, still lived under the Ottoman rule.
In the second half of the 19th century, the international conjunctures tended to favor the other peoples of the Balkan peninsula and inter national diplomacy adopted a hostile stance to wards Greek affairs. With the nationalist move ments of Bulgaria rivaling the Turkish rulers in their anti-Greek attitudes, Macedonia, the apple of strife of the south Balkans, strove to preserve its Greek integrity by building schools and found ing educational societies; it countered Slav expansionism with the historical reality and the Orthodoxy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and mobilized yet again its armed hopes and the youth of Free Greece. The Macedonian Struggle was in preparation. From the ill-fated year of 1875, from the inauspicious 1897, despite the genocide and the hecatombs of victims, the marshes of Yanitsa, the mountain peaks of Grevena, the forested ravines of Florina were trans formed into pages on which, at the turn of the 20th century, men like Pavlos Melas, Constantine Mazarakis-Ainian, Spyromilios, Tellos Agapinos(Agras) and so many others, known and anonymous, wrote the name of Macedonian regeneration in their blood.
Pandemonium at the Thessaloniki train station 1000's await upon the arrival of Premier of Greece Eleftherios Venizelos to celebrate their freedom from the Turks
In an empire on its way to collapse, despite the Young Turks' movement for renewal, and in opposition to a heavily armed, irrevocably hostile Bulgaria,with Serbia as an unreliable ally, Hellenism countered with the rights of the nation and,on 26th of October 1912,raised the flag of the cross in the capital of Macedonia, Thessaloniki.
Behind it, 500 years of slavery that had not succeeded in creating slaves. Half a millennium of torture, persecution, murder, plotting, disappointment and falsification of history donned once more the blue and white and, with the sword of justice, opened the road to the modern age. The age of the Balkan epic and progress.
Crown Prince Konstantine in Thessaloniki,Liberation of the city, 26.10.1912
Produced & Presented Truth Bearer & Makedonia25
MOTW
AUSTRALIAN MACEDONIAN ADVISORY COUNCIL (AMAC)
Representing the people from all over Macedonia Florina,Grevena,Kastoria,Giannitsa,Serres,Veria,Edessa,Pella,Kilkis,Kavala,Drama,Thassos,Naousa,Kozani we the indigenous Macedonians our forefathers shed blood for Mother Hellas we will never trade nor sell our legacy of our ancestors who were Greek & proud.We have enough of your lies and deceit if you can't accept our name & deny our birthright then all we can say to you Slavomakedonskis is two words MOLON LABE!!!!!!We are born Macedonians we will die as Macedonians.
Proud indigenous Macedonians proud Greeks one people,one language,one culture,one country..
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/83155
palashcbiswas,
gostokanan, sodepur, kolkata-700110 phone:033-25659551
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