Buddha in Tanjavur

Theodore Bhaskaran discovered some panels in the Great temple at Tanjavur showing the Buddha.

There are at least two panels featuring the Sakyamuni: one at the base of the second gopuram and the other in the main temple. Here, events are depicted in comic-strip style, using small sequential sculptural panels. This was an artistic convention that can be observed in the temples of the medieval period in Tamil Nadu. You can see similar story-telling miniature sculptures in other temples also. It could be an episode from mythology or depicting a historical event. At the Vaikuntha Perumal temple in Kanchipuram, certain events from Pallava history are told in the manner, while at the Gangaikondacholapuram temple, the story of Bhagiratha is depicted similarly.

The second set of Buddha figures is in the body of the main temple, on the right balustrade of the step leading into the sanctum and on the southern side. There are three sculpture pieces here. The first one shows Buddha seated under a tree, flanked by royalty. The gandharvas are depicted on the upper part of the frieze. The next one shows Buddha standing under a tree, and royalty worshipping him. Behind them are the gandharvas, also in a posture of supplication.The Buddha at Thanjavur

In that article there is mention of Buddhism flourishing in the coastal region during the Chola period and Jainism in the delta region. In Kerala there were many Buddhist temples many of which were later believed to be converted to Hindu Temples. The most famous of them is Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala.

Languages and Brain

There has been a study in Britain on the brain structure of bilingual people and

They found learning other languages altered grey matter – the area of the brain which processes information – in the same way exercise builds muscles. People who learned a second language at a younger age were also more likely to have more advanced grey matter than those who learned later, the team said. Scientists already know the brain has the ability to change its structure as a result of stimulation – an effect known as plasticity – but this research demonstrates how learning languages develops it.

The scans revealed the density of the grey matter in the left inferior parietal cortex of the brain was greater in bilinguals than in those without a second language. The effect was particularly noticeable in the “early” bilinguals, the findings published in the journal Nature revealed. Learning languages ‘boosts brain’

Since most Indians learn multiple languages in school (I had to learn three languages, English, Malayalam and Hindi), does this mean that we have more density of the grey matter than anyone else ?

The Australian Elections

John Howard won by a narrow margin in Australia with a swing of less than 2% and James Taranto immediately branded it as a defeat for al Qaeda as if the whole election was fought on that issue. Australia has only 800 odd troops in Iraq and they have not suffered any casualities.

The election was not a referendum on the Iraq war because the issue was buried by the Labor Party and the mass media. Despite the mountain of evidence showing that the war was based on lies, Howard was never challenged by opposition leader Mark Latham, who maintained that the issue of

Undisclosed Location

ABC news has an article on Pakistan’s test of its nuclear capable Ghauri V missile from an undisclosed location. The undisclosed location news was carried by all major newspapers in India too, like Times of India. The ABC news was from AP while PTI reported the Times of India news.
Only if these newspapers had used Google, they could have found this information

ISN SECURITY WATCH (12/10/04) – Pakistani dictator General Pervez Musharraf marked the fifth anniversary of the military coup that put him in power by test-firing an upgraded version of the Ghauri (previously known as the Hatf V) medium-range ballistic missile. The missile, in its fourth test-firing from Malot in Jhelum District, about 121 kilometers south of the capital Islamabad, is capable of carrying both nuclear and conventional 700-kilogram warheads to a maximum range of 1

North Ireland type solution for Kashmir

This is the season of proposing solutions to the Kashmir Problem. There was a solution to adjust the LoC so that India would give some land to Pakistan. Then there was the Andorra proposal. Now a Congress leader Salman Khurshid has suggested looking at the Northern Ireland model for solving this problem.

Pointing out to the emergence of the European Union, which obliterated the issue of territorial boundary in Northern Ireland, Khurshid said: “If that (emergence of a Union) happens here, then the intensity of the conflict will also go away,” he said. Referring to the resolution of the diplomatic and sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland through a referendum that led to the formation of a Northern Irish parliament, Khurshid suggested a serious study of the Irish peace model in South Asia. “The Irish model is very complicated and deep rooted like (the problem) that we share with Pakistan,” he said.[Khurshid suggests Irish peace model for India, Pak]

Sumantra Bose has a discussion of the North Ireland type solution for Kashmir in his book Kashmir : Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace. But that requires a giant leap of faith and trust between the two nations which is currently lacking.

Indian Ink and Afghan Elections

First the writing of the constitution was considered an impossible task and that was done. After postponing the elections once, Afghans had their chance to vote for their President. But there has been one problem with the indelible ink which was donated by India.

Three years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghans voted in massive numbers Saturday to elect their president for the first time. But the historic and largely peaceful poll quickly fell under a cloud of uncertainty as 15 candidates alleged irregularities and fraud and said they would deem any result “illegitimate.”

The dispute centered on the supposedly indelible ink applied to voters’ thumbs to prevent them from casting ballots more than once. In many precincts, voters said, washable ink was used or indelible ink was applied improperly, allowing the marking to rub off easily and opening the door to repeat voting.[Afghan Votes in Security, but Fraud Allegations Arise]

On BBC News, there was one of the Presidential candidates showing his fingers after voting and his fingers were clean. I have voted many times in Indian elections and all the time the ink would stay for few days and then disappear. So what happened ? Was it the ink that failed ?From a caption under the photo in the Washington Post, it seems the election officials applied regular ink instead of the indelible ink.

Book Review: Digital Fortress

coverLike all other Dan Brown novels this one also starts with a murder. The murdered person, Ensei Tankado was an employee of the National Security Agency, who wrote an unbreakable code which the NSA’s powerful codebreaking machine could not crack. Enter Susan Fletcher, a brilliant and beautiful cryptographer.
At the same time the deputy director of NSA has sent Susan’s boyfriend to retrieve a ring from the dead body in Spain where he is followed by a mysterious assasin. As Susan Fletcher discovers more secrets, you start turning pages more rapidly and as the cover of the book says

The NSA is being held hostage… not by guns or bombs, but by a code so ingeniously complex that if released it will cripple U.S. intelligence. Caught in an accelerating tempest of secrecy and lies, Susan Fletcher battles to save the agency she believes in. Betrayed on all sides she finds herself fighting not only for her country, but for her life, and in the end, for the life of the man she loves.

This book has too much excitement. Each chapter is like one page and ends in a cliff hanger. When you have three hundred such pages, it gets a bit boring and cliched. But you read page one and you cannot keep the book down.
With this book I have finished all of Dan Brown’s books and my favourite is Da Vinci Code, followed by Angels and Demons. Deception Point and Digital Fortress did not impress me as much.

No Draft in the works

As the commentators noted in my post on The Draft coming back ?, that it is mostly democrats who are harping on it. A bill sponsored by Democrats which was lying dormant for 18 months was bought to vote and both Democrats and Republicans voted against it.

The vote put an end to HR 163, but Democrats and Republicans signaled they will continue to accuse each other of contemplating a revival of conscription, at least through the presidential campaign’s final month, and probably as long as U.S. troops are in Iraq.

For 18 months House Republican leaders ignored the bill, sponsored by liberal Democrats who complained that minorities and low-income Americans are doing a disproportionate share of the fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. In recent days, however, Republicans grew increasingly alarmed by sometimes vague, sometimes direct suggestions that President Bush has a secret plan to reinstate the draft if reelected.[House GOP Brings Up Draft in Order to Knock It Down]

The President has publicly stated that there will be no draft. John Kerry too has stated the same. Does that end the issue ?

Proposition 71

At the federal government level, there are so many restrictions against stem cell research in United States as it is against the religious beliefs of the President. But fortunately for us, the democracy in US is much more powerful and the states have lot of autonomy to formulate laws. Proposition 71 on the ballot in California is for providing $3 billion worth research using embryonic stem cells.

Stem-cell research uses embryos left over from treatments at fertility clinics. They are microscopic dots of a few dozen cells. Ordinarily, these embryos are destroyed or frozen indefinitely. No “new” embryos are created or destroyed because of stem-cell research. Stem-cell cures, when they come, will use cells reproduced in the laboratory and will not involve embryos at all. More immediately, passing up a shot at curing Alzheimer’s would at most allow some microscopic embryos already in deep freeze the right to be frozen for good. Stem-cell research is not a sure thing, but bold initiatives in which California is uniquely qualified to succeed are worth the initial gamble.[Yes to Stem-Cell Research]

I hope this propositions passes so that California can take the lead with other nations of the world like Britain and South Korea which are not being held back by religious beliefs.