Author: जयकृष्णः | ജയകൃഷ്ണൻ

Need more proof?

Pakistani ministers contantly say that there are no terrorist training camps and madrassas do not incite terrorism. The chorus for this song is sung by various Presidents, Prime Ministers, Newspapers and think-tanks. But here comes a party pooper from Pakistan itself.

The fact is that most top madrassas are directly or indirectly involved in breeding militant Islamists who are inclined to become terrorists. This has been proved beyond doubt, unless you want proof of nothing less than actual military training grounds on their premises. Pakistan’s most notorious terrorist wanted by India together with Ahmad Umar Sheikh, the murderer of Daniel Pearl in Karachi, is Maulana Masood Azhar, a graduate of the Banuri Town madrassa in Karachi. The director of the madrassa, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai — target-killed last year –arranged the first meeting between Osama bin Laden and Mullah Umar, the self-styled “caliph” of the Taliban. The South Waziristan terrorist still on the loose in his area, Abdullah Mehsud, went straight to Banuri Town madrassa after his release from Guantanamo Bay and declared war on the Americans and “their allies”. After his mentor Mufti Jamil of the madrassa was killed in Karachi, he struck in South Waziristan, kidnapping two Chinese engineers, with horrible consequences for Pakistan. On June 24, Mufti Rehman and Maulana Irshad, new heads of the Banuri Mosque madrassa in Karachi, were also target-killed.[EDITORIAL: Madrassas, Ijaz ul Haq and Musharraf]

Boats – Neolithic to 10th century A.D.

Just after the much advertised bronze age trade route boat sank, there have been stories about various archaeological discoveries related to boats in various periods of time. At this website, we will be looking at world events alongwith Indian events so that we can get a better perspective on our development.
The boat trip from Oman to India was based on a bronze age design dating to about 3500 B.C and gave us an idea of what materials were used in the construction and how navigation was done. Now a Neolithic age boat has been discovered in South Korea which dates to about 6000 B.C.

(…) It dates back to 8,000 years ago and measures 60 centimeters wide, 310 centimeters long and 20 centimeters deep.
“Although scientific studies determining the exact date of the boat have yet to be completed, the fact that it was discovered in the fifth shell layer, the lowest layer in the Pibong-ri, Changnyong County ruins dating to early Neolithic era, gives us reason to believe that the boat is approximately 8,000 years old,â??â?? Im said.
(…) The boat, made of pinewood and presumed to have been at least four meters long in its original state, was first sighted during a dig started in early December 2004. Excavation work continued through late August.
Im said the boat sheds new light on the lives of our prehistoric ancestors.
“From the boatâ??s size and thickness of the platform, which measures five centimeters, we are assuming that it was used for fishing and traveling across surrounding small bodies of waters,â??â?? he said.

Human habitation in South Kyongsang Province, especially Pusan has been dated to early Neolithic times, between 5000 B.C. and 4000 B.C. During the Neolithic era, major human achievements include weaving, farming, and using pottery.
Two years back, the remains of a boat about a 1000 years old was discovered in Kerala. This boat, similar to the one discovered in Korea was used for traveling along the coast and inland waters. Now from the same period in time comes the discovery of a Chinese ship that went down in the blue Java sea, while traveling along a trade route connecting Asia with Europe and Middle East.

(…) It appears the Sriwijaya ship was relatively small and locally made, with initial carbon testing showing the wood may have come from Indonesiaâ??s Sumatra or Kalimantan islands, Agung said. That would indicate that Chinese and Arabian traders brought the goods to Sriwijaya, he said, for inter-island trade in the region.
(…) But Agung said he has experienced little problem with the Sriwijaya ship, in part because the Chinese â?? unlike Europeans â?? kept no data on maritime trade a thousand years ago.
[ Sunken treasure sheds new light]

Wootz

There are many powerpoint presentations floating on the web touting the greatness of ancient India. The bullet points include items like the invention of zero, surgery, ayurveda, grammar etc. One item missing in the list is Wootz, a steel alloy making technique discovered in India (between 200 B.C. and 300 A.D.) But amateur historians cannot be blamed for leaving it out, since even professional historians do not seem to have given it much value.
The fascinating story about Wootz steel is that, it was exported from India to a global market and was popularly known as Damascus steel. There is a new book on this topic titled Indiaâ??s Legendary Wootz Steel and Nanditha Krishna has a review.

Wootz is a form of crucible steel, formed by adding large quantities of carbon to iron. This results in alternating layered light and dark etched patterns, created by welding layers of lower and higher carbon steel. The design came to be known as damask, referring to the watered pattern, and thereby Damascus. Today the word â??â??Damascusâ??â?? is applied to patterns in integrated circuits with copper interconnects. Wootz was the western name for high carbon steel from India, derived from the Kannada ukku and Sangam Tamil ekku, meaning crucible steel.
The Iron Pillar of Delhi (AD 400) and the lesser-known iron pillar at Kochadri in Karnataka and the iron beams of the Konark temple – the latter two situated in humid coastal areas – stand testimony to ancient Indian knowledge of corrosion resistance.
By 1100 BC, iron was in use in South Indian megalithic cultures, from Adichanallur in the South to Vidarbha in the North. Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu was a hub of ferrous crucible processing by 300 BC. The southern peninsula became the centre of this vibrant and growing steel industry, which attracted traders from Rome and the Middle East. By AD 300, the Alexandrian alchemist Zosimos of Panapolis had published an unequivocal reference to Indian crucible steel. The pattern-welded crucible steel manufactured in India was used by the European Merovingians, Carolingians and even the Vikings between AD 500 and 800. [Made in India via IndiaArchaeology]

A sword which is popular in Kerala is called the urumi and it is used in Kalaripayattu. This sword is made of a special composition of steel that it could be limp as well as straight based on the need.

Recreating an ancient trade route

According to Romila Thapar[3], the trade via the maritime route between the west coast of India and west Asia go back to the third millennium B.C. At that time the Egyptian civilization was in existence and Indus Valley was in its early stages. Once the trade route was established, there was continuous Indian presence in west Asia. This was the predecessor of the trade relations with Rome in the first millennium B.C and Africa in the first millennium A.D.
Georg Feuerstein et al[2] writes about cuneiform texts mentioning historical a historical place called Magan (or Makan) which according to some scholars could be Sudan or Ethiopia. But majority of the scholars think that Magan is present day Oman. Copper was found there as early as the fifth millennium B.C and and Omanis were wealthy from copper export. Copper attracted the merchants from the Indus valley and an inscription in Harappan script was found at Ras al-Junayz.
Now some researchers are traveling along that bronze age trade route, on a boat, similar to the one used by people four millennia back.

The 40-foot Magan, named after an ancient name for Oman, is made of reeds formed into bundles, lashed together with rope made from date palm fibers and covered with a woven mat coated with black bitumen or tar to make it waterproof. The vessel will be powered by a square-rigged sail made of tightly woven wool and maneuvered using two teak steering oars.
The plan is to leave Sur in Oman on Wednesday, taking advantage of the last of the southwest monsoon winds and favorable currents, and sail east 590 miles to the historic port of Mandvi in Gujarat, India, a journey that could take up to three weeks.[Bronze Age-style reed boat to sail from Oman to India]

This is going to be one hell of a trip since the boat is not covered and the sails have to be adjusted constantly. The crazy people who are doing this, all eight of them want to know how life was back then, how boats were built and ancient navigation techniques. To add authenticity, they have cargo similar to the ancient ones and the menu consists of a typical bronze age meal.

Even maneuvering aboard will be hard, since crew members will be walking on cargo piled up in the bottom. The cargo is meant to be representative of trade goods of the period: copper ingots for making the bronze that gave the age its name, blocks of fine black diorite stone for carving, turtle and marine shells, pearls, frankincense, carved soapstone vessels, dates and date products, fish oil and sharkskin – an ancient sandpaper.
The crew consists of Vosmer and the navigator, both Americans; a sailing master from Australia; two Omani seamen; two Italian graduate students; and an Indian archaeologist. They will have a Bronze Age diet of dates, honey, legumes, dried fish, bread and water, but there will also be some modern munchies.

But unlike the bronze age travellers, Magan will have a GPS, navigation lights, emergence beacon and life jackets, and also an Indian naval vessel will be following it.
Update (Sept 8, 2005): The boat sinks
Update 2(Sept 11, 2005): There is going to be another boat (via Secular-Right India)

Question on Ochre Colored Pottery in UP

A historian from Bolivia sent me the following mail. I don’t know the answer. If you have any pointers, please leave a comment.

This time I would like to tell you that I’m interested in Ochre Coloured Pottery excavations in UP. Time ago I asked V.N. Misra and he told me there is no big digging in the area these days searching for OCP habitations and pottery. Anyway there were news of a team searching Saket and the note mentioned the possibility of finding earlier potteries than PGW in, I mean, Sanchankot.
Could you please tell me if you know of news about OCP new findings, books and specially Web pages where I could find information?
I also would like pictures of this ware.

Rediff Entertains

Looks like that opening Rediff had for fact checkers has not been filled yet. Today, while reporting on Adoor Gopalakrishnan being awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke award, Rediff Entertainment Bureau wrote

A three-time National Award winner and a Padma Shri, some of Adoor’s most famous films include Swayamvaram, Chemmeen, Elipathayam and Nizhalkuthu.[Phalke award for Adoor]

Chemmeen, based on a novel by Thakazhi Shivashankara Pillai was made by Ramu Kariat. The film had an Adoor connection, but it was the actress Adoor Bhavani.

A new history blog

I am happy to announce a new blog, The Palm Leaf, devoted to Indian History, hosted here at varnam.org. From now, the regular blog will cover current issues whereas time travel will be done in the history blog. This new blog has been initialized with all the history posts from the original blog.
The word, Palm Leaf, was chosen as it was a popular medium of writing in India for almost two thousand years. Letters were written on a dried, smoothed, smoke treated leaves of palm trees using a stylus. These were then blackened with vegetable juice and lamp black. This site hopes to be the electronic version of those palm leaves.
Even though the tagline says, A look at India’s Past, I don’t plan to cover each and every topic related to our history. So you will not see much mythology or discussions of various religious texts. Instead there will be archaeological news, coverage of development of language, and information on people, places and monuments. There will be more posts about the Mauryan empire, Saraswathi-Sindu civilization and Kerala due to my current interest in those areas.
On the technical side, the new blog runs Movable Type 3.2 with dynamic publishing. This means that only the main page has a physical existence. Rest of the pages are created on the fly based on the request. The style of the new blog is the same as the old one, but it will be changed soon.

A new history blog

I am happy to announce a new blog, The Palm Leaf, devoted to Indian History, hosted here at varnam.org. From now, the regular blog will cover current issues whereas time travel will be done in the history blog. This new blog has been initialized with all the history posts from the original blog.
The word, Palm Leaf, was chosen as it was a popular medium of writing in India for almost two thousand years. Letters were written on a dried, smoothed, smoke treated leaves of palm trees using a stylus and then blackened with vegetable juice and lamp black. This site hopes to be the electronic version of those palm leaves.
Even though the tagline says, A look at India’s Past, I don’t plan to cover each and every topic related to our history. So you will not see much mythology or discussions of various religious texts. Instead there will be archaeological news, coverage of development of language, and information on people, places and monuments. There will be more posts about the Mauryan empire, Saraswathi-Sindu civilization and Kerala due to my current interest in those areas.
On the technical side, the new blog runs Movable Type 3.2 with dynamic publishing. This means that only the main page has a physical existence. Rest of the pages are created on the fly based on the request. The style of the new blog is the same as the old one, but it will be changed soon.

Banking using cell phones

One person who is unhappy with everything in the world in Arudhathi Roy. Her anti-American, anti-capitalism articles have a wide following among the people who believe that there is an alternate way. After criticizing every living thing in the world, she turned her attention to non-living things and the object of her wrath was the cell-phone.

“Are you going to starve to death dreaming of a mobile phone or you going to have control of the resources that are available to you and have been for generations, but have been taken away so that someone else can have a mobile phone?”[India’s dying ‘n we flaunt mobiles: Arundhati Roy]

And Gaurav Sabnis responded with the question WTF??. Arundhathi can say all she wants, but the reality is even poor people are adopting cell phones in India because they find immense use for it.
Sure, there must be a big adrenalin rush while criticizing anything used by the not-poor people as there is an audience for it and also it is a lucrative field. But isn’t she a thinker, something above the whine-bloggers? So while criticizing something, one would expect some creative suggestions from a person like her who travels around the world and reads a lot. It she really wanted to help the poor, she would have said, asking people to go back to stone age looks stupid. So let’s see how we can use the forces of globalization and technology to improve the condition of the poor. For example, there is something we can learn from the Africans, who are using the cell phones for banking.

With the new technology, a grandmother in rural area can receive money from her son, working hundreds of miles away, with the beep of her cellphone. A teenager can buy groceries with a few punches of keys. Not a coin need change hands.
It’s a high-tech solution designed to help poor people here who never have had access to banks, cash machines, or credit cards. And it’s another example of using digital technology to fast forward development in remote areas.[Africa’s cellphone boom creates a base for low-cost banking via engadget]

I have never heard any progressive suggestions from people like her. Politicians need a constituency of poor people, so do the advocates of the alternate universe.