Sufism back in Afghanistan

Sufism is a branch of Islamic spirituality in which people practice for inner awakening and enlightenment. This is similar in concept to Buddhism or Raja Yoga practitioners of Hinduism. They also follow a Guru-Sishya culture like Hinduism and use parables for explanations like the Zen. Now with the Taliban gone, Sufism is reappearing in Afghanistan.

Kabul has again become a center for Islamic mysticism, or Sufism, a term used to describe those who are interested in inner knowledge or finding the path toward inner awakening and enlightenment. After the flight of the Taliban, every neighborhood in Afghanistan’s capital now seems to have its own Sufi brotherhood.
In the house, Hamidullah’s seven sons attend to him and his guests. They run the economic life of the tariqat. They also organize the practical details of the ecstatic ceremonies, or “zikrs,” around which the tariqat revolves. The zikr is held every Thursday evening, as well as during big religious feasts.
The zikr consists of the rhythmic, collective recitation of a series of mystical names given to God. This culminates with the modulated howling of the “shahada,” which embodies the main teaching of Islam: “La illaha ill’Allah,” or “There is no god but Allah.”
This is shouted in unison by the dervishes. The combination of their breathing and physical movements sometimes results in a trancelike state.
The Qadiris and the Sohrawardis perform a vocal zikr, while the Naqshbandis are silent. The ritual of the Chishtiya includes the attainment of a trance through the use of music. The zikr of the Chishtiya brotherhood is always done through common singing. [Sufism reemerges in Afghanistan]

All these seem like group Bhajans and the article does not mention anything about personal meditation techniques like Vipassana or Raja Yoga
Footnote: One person in India who converted to Sufism and derives inspiration from it is A R Rahman.

Musharraf's options

If Musharraf thought that the previous NDA Govt was tough, he is now finding that the present UPA Govt is equally tough when it comes to matters of National Security. This was made very clear by the Prime Minister himself.
In Strobe Talbott’s book Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb, he writes about talking to the NDA Govt on rolling back the nuclear plans with no effect. After that the Americans went to see Sonia Gandhi who was the leader of opposition at that time. After listening to them patiently, she just asked them to enjoy their stay here, implying that when it comes to issues of security, there is no compromise.
What did Musharraf think in the first place ? Giving the old school report card in New York to Manmohan Singh would restore all relations ? His suggestion that India be divided again on communal lines be taken seriously ? What should we expect now ? Sudden increase in jihadi activity ?

Finding Atlantis

Robert Sarmast claims that Atlantis has been found. It is not the first time that Atlantis has been discovered. It has been discovered before in Brazil, Haiti, Mexico, Atlantic Ocean, Santorini, Portugal etc.
Now people are already contesting Robert Sarmast’s claim.

But German physicist Christian Huebscher said he had identified the phenomenon as 100,000 year-old volcanoes that spewed mud.
Huebscher, of the Hamburg Centre for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, is quoted in Wednesday’s edition of the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as saying he and two Dutch colleagues had sailed in a boat to the same area at which Sarmast claimed to have located Atlantis and made their findings.
Sarmast’s team claims to have found man-made structures located about one mile (some 1.5 kilometres) below sea level and 50 miles (80 kilometres) off the southeast coast of Cyprus. [German physicist disputes Atlantis discovery claim by American]

The Indian stand on Jammu and Kashmir

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Wednesday said any proposal to divide Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of religion would not be acceptable to India.
“I have made this point clear that any redrawing of the international border is not something which is going to be acceptable to our country,” Manmoahn Singh said at a press conference here on the first day of a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir.
“Any proposal which would further divide our country on the basis of religion is not going to be acceptable to us,” he said. [No division of Kashmir on basis of religion: Manmohan]

These are two important points – non acceptance of a communal solution and a new map. The Prime Minister is also dumping lot of money into the state even though no one is really happy there. Creating more job opportunities so that people can earn a living should be the route to go.

Multi Fibre and India

In Jan, 2005 when the Multi Fibre Agreement lapses and it becomes a free for all in the global apparel market how are the Indian companies going to perform ? Are they geared to meet the challenge ? The Frontline takes a look at the knitted garment industry in Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu

THE industry, on the eve of the dismantling of the multi-fibre agreement (MFA) wears a different look now. The bigger units supply their wares to some of the leading retail chains in the developed world such as Wal Mart, Marks and Spencer, C&A and many others. Many of the products wear labels of some of the top brands. [Towards new frontiers]

The Businessworld does not share this optimism and suggests that China is going to make a kill. Jagdish Bhagwati made a note of the mistakes India did in his book In Defence of Globalization. Now there are more problems.

Although the top factories have increased their capacities substantially, by and large the country is not ready for the post-quota advantage. “There is going to be a huge capacity crunch, looking at the volume of business coming our way,” warns Hinduja.
The capacity crunch is the direct fallout of policies that encouraged the proliferation of small units with their inherent inefficiencies, at the cost of large-scale production. While China has created huge capacities and capitalised on economies of scale, India has an incredibly fragmented industry which is simply not geared to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing global industry. There are hundreds of thousands of powerloom units producing 90-95 per cent of the fabrics in the country, while the organised sector turns out just over 5 per cent.
“If we believe we can overrun the world on the strength of powerloom manufacturing and hand-processing units, then we are extremely naïve,” says a textile industry analyst. [Too little, too late]

On China and India

Amartya Sen has an article in New York Review of Books on the 2000 year old relation between China and India. Since ancient times China has exported its goods to India and India exported Buddhism and Mathematics to China.

As it happens, relations between China and India almost certainly began with trade, not with Buddhism. Some two thousand years ago the consumption habits of Indians, particularly of rich Indians, were radically influenced by innovations from China. A treatise on economics and politics by the great Sanskrit scholar Kautilya, first written in the fourth century BCE, though revised a few centuries later, gives a special place to “silk and silk-cloth from the land of China” among “precious articles” and “objects of value.” In the ancient epic Mahabharata there are references to Chinese fabric or silk (cinamsuka) being given as presents, and there are similar references in the ancient Laws of Manu.
Chinese records show that several Indian astronomers and mathematicians held high positions in the Astronomical Bureau at the Chinese capital during this period. Not only did one of them, Gautama, became president of the Board of Astronomy in China, he also produced the great Chinese compendium of astronomy, Kaiyvan Zhanjing, an eighth-century scientific classic. He adapted a number of Indian astronomical works for publication in Chinese, among them the Jiuzhi li, which draws on a particular planetary calendar in India and is clearly based on a classical Sanskrit text, produced around 550 CE by the mathematician Varahamihira. This work is mainly an algorithmic guide to computation, estimating, for example, the duration of eclipses based on the diameter of the moon and other relevant parameters. The techniques involved drew on methods established by Aryabhata in the late fifth century, and then further developed by his followers in India, including Varahamihira and Brahmagupta. [Passage to China]

One of the travelers Fax-ian who came to India in 401 AD was impressed by the medical facilities in Bihar and wrote

All the poor and destitute in the country…and all who are diseased, go to these houses, and are provided with every kind of help, and doctors examine their diseases. They get the food and medicines which their cases require, and are made to feel at ease; and when they are better, they go away of themselves.

In the 21st century Bihar both the doctors and patients are in trouble.

Rebuilding Afghanistab's Heritage

The other day I was watching the documentary, In the Footsteps of Alexander and the host Michael Wood walks to Kabul Museum, which is just a building under lock and key. There was one guard with an AK-47 kinda gun and all the artifacts were locked in the basement.
But now the Afghans want to restore their heritage back and they are asking the British to return their 2000 year old Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism from the British Library.

The Kharosti Scrolls would be a hugely prestigious centerpiece for the new museum. The 60 fragments of text written in the ancient script Kharosti on birch bark are considered by Buddhist scholars as comparable in historical importance to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Between the 2nd and 7th centuries AD, Hadda was one of the holiest sites in Buddhism drawing pilgrims from all over India and China. The scrolls are the earliest known Buddhist scripts and were produced by monks in the extraordinary civilisation of Gandhara, a synthesis of Indian and Greek culture spread to Asia by the followers of Alexander the Great.
The civilisation flourished at the time of the Roman Empire in what is now the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. [Afghanistan wants its ‘Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism’ back from UK]

Movable Type problems on powweb.com

For some reason Movable Type on my host (powweb.com) has started flip-flopping in its behavior. So now I cannot post an entry directly. If I publish an entry it does not appear on the main page. I have to an explicit rebuild which looks ridiculous.
The category archiving has failed completely. Comments do not work. The worlds are colliding.
My hosting provider graciously declined to help which means I am on my own to debug.
So I have to explore other options like
(a) Fix the problem
(b) Move to another hosting service
Till one of them happens there will not be any more posts. If you have suggestions for a good MT Hosting Service please mail me at tiptronicus [at] gmail dot com.