Important Discovery in Tamil Nadu

bq. In spectacular finds, the Archaeological Survey of India, Chennai Circle, has unearthed a dozen 2,800-year-old human skeletons intact in urns at Adichanallur, 24 km from Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu. Three of these urns contain writing resembling the early Tamil Brahmi script. The dozen urns containing the skeletons form a part of about 100 fully intact urns unearthed in various trenches at the site, where excavation is under way. The urns were found at a depth of two to three metres. The finds may revolutionise theories about the origin of ancient culture in Tamil Nadu and the origin of writing in South Asia.
bq. Dr. Sathyamurthy said that the Brahmi script of around 500 B.C. had been found in Sri Lanka. Dr. S.U. Deraniyagala, former Director-General and now Consultant to the Archaeological Survey Department, Sri Lanka, called the discovery of the writing on the urns at Adichanallur “fantastic” and “very, very important.” The evidence of writing on more than 75 pieces of pottery had been found in Sri Lanka and radio-carbon dating had established that they belonged to the period between 600 B.C. and 500 B.C. This discovery “sheds a completely new light on the origin of writing in South Asia,” said Dr. Deraniyagala. Interestingly, there has been no evidence of habitation close to the cemeteries (burial sites) discovered there. [“The Hindu”:http://www.hindu.com/2004/05/26/stories/2004052602871200.htm]
This discovery gives us more information on life in Tamil Nadu, about 3 centuries before the time of Buddha.

Buddha's Bones

bq. A Buddhist body here has said it will seek a court order for display of relics of Lord Buddha discovered in a cave in Orissa during excavations in 1985. The relics, comprising a fragment of a charred bone and ashes contained in a gilded stone casket, were found during excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) at Lalitgiri in Jajpur district.
bq. The casket found at Lalitgiri has no inscriptions but it closely resembles caskets discovered by Alexander Cunningham from the Maha Stupa at Sanchi in 1961. Though researchers across India had demanded the display of the relics, the ASI reportedly turned down the request for security reasons. “We don’t know whether ASI has the relics or not. Since they are sacred, they should be given to us for worship,” said Sahu. [“NewIndianExpress”:http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20040505091605&Page=Q&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0&]
According to another version “I blogged last year”:https://varnam.org/archives/000099.html, Buddha’s bones were discovered in a casket at Vaishaligarh, 35 kilometres from Patna. Then how did they turn up in Orissa ? To add to the mystery, the Chinese are parading what they claim is the “finger of Buddha”:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/26/wchina26.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/05/26/ixportal.html. There was another news item “which explained what all bones”:https://varnam.org/archives/000152.html remained after Buddha’s body was burned. There was no finger in that list.

Buddha: Born in Orissa ?

Most of us think that Lumbini in Nepal is the birthplace of Siddhartha. But was Buddha born in Kapileshwar in Orissa ?
bq. A team of archeological experts from Orissa say their recent findings at the Kapileshwar village may help establish the small hamlet as the birthplace of Lord Buddha, instead of Lumbini, in Nepal. Officials at the Orissa State Museum, which conducted the excavation, said that the new findings, which included artefacts dating back to 6th century BC, supported the claims of Kapileshwar being Lord Buddha’s birthplace.
bq. “These fossilised specimen will be tested in the Institute of Physical Laboratory, where we will be doing collaborative work, so the dateline will be determined and comparative study of potteries recovered with that of potteries recovered form other parts of the country will be conducted. Because many materials are there, literary and other evidence are there about the bath of Buddha and Kapileshwar, but solid archaeological materials like pottery with correct dateline was not available to us till date. There is an excavation, now there are archaeological material, so identification of this bath place of Buddha is getting more prominent now,” said Dr. C.B. Patel, the Superintendent of Orissa State Museum. [via “WebIndia”:http://www.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=38819&cat=India]

Troy

Saw the movie “Troy”:http://troymovie.warnerbros.com/ last night. This movie is a lesson to all young men and women who fall in love. The lesson is that if the young woman happens to be the wife of another person, who is the king of another country, then there will be a war and everyone will be killed except the two people who fell in love and started the war. The other lesson is that you will have to wear a skirt, even if you are Brad Pitt.
The movie is what the industry likes to call, “A Major Motion Picture”, which means, lot of extras get killed. Brad Pitt stars as Achilles and it was believable. The rest of characters, Paris, Helen, Agamemnon were not properly defined. I am comparing this against the Gladiator, where even Commodus as a well defined person. Here you get to know Achilles very well (he walks naked, sleeps naked even when there is war going on) and no one else.
“Troy’s Fallen”:http://www.archaeology.org/online/reviews/troy/index.html is the movie review from Archaeology Magazine, which points out many archaeological mistakes as well as changes from the orignal.
bq. Clearly Homer had the story of the Trojan War wrong and it had to be rewritten, to judge by changes (I can’t say improvements) this movie makes. Homer says it took ten years, but here it is three weeks with the famous quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles taking place on day one. Hektor kills Menelaos and Ajax on day two of the war (Homer’s having Menelaos surviving the war and returning to live happily in Sparta with Helen is awkward, and the suicide of Ajax isn’t really needed for this movie). On the night of day two, the Trojans unleash their secret weapon: Great Balls of Fire! Day three, Hektor is such a good guy that after he kills Patroklos, the young protege of Achilles, he suggests everybody knock off for the rest of the day. By the end of day four, Achilles kills Hektor and Priam can come and beg for his son’s body. Where Homer took more than nine years, the film gets it all done in just four days. For the grand finale, the filmmakers aren’t satisfied with just the horse and the sack of Troy. In the epics, Achilles is dead and gone by the time the wooden horse is built, but here he is still alive so he can search for his love interest, Briseis. Attacked by Agamemnon, Briseis kills him (never mind the ancient tale of Agamemnon returning to Greece to be killed by his unfaithful wife Clytemnestra and then be avenged by his children Orestes and Electra). Paris then shoots Achilles with arrows (five or six, I lost count) before scampering off with his love interest, Helen, to live the simple life somewhere–maybe subsisting on nuts and twigs on the slopes of Mount Ida. That’s right! Helen and Paris get to run away! Homer had it wrong!

The story repeats

A day after India’s new government took office, a landmine planted by Islamic separatist guerrillas killed at least 28 paramilitary soldiers and their relatives in Kashmir, underscoring the urgency of planned negotiations with Pakistan on the future of the disputed Himalayan province.

Police officials said the blast killed 19 Border Security Force soldiers, six women and three children. Body parts, bloodstained clothes and lunch boxes were scattered along the pavement, Reuters news service reported from the scene. The families had been traveling with the soldiers on leave from Srinagar to Jammu, the state’s winter capital, according to the Press Trust of India news service. [via Washington Post]

The same strategy continues. Kill people and force the Indian Government to the negotiating table. I am sure Dan Burton will not want to conduct a hearing on this.

NRIs vs Dan Burton Again

From “USINPAC”:http://www.usinpac.com/ Mailing List
bq. May 12, 2004 was not an easy day. Gearing up for this day demanded a lot of preparation and homework on our part, as one of the most persistent India-bashers in the US Congress Mr. Dan Burton initiated a hearing on Kashmir under the aegis of the House Subcommittee on Human Rights & Wellness (Committee on Government Reform). This was certainly not the first occasion when Congressman Burton had attempted to malign the image of India before the US Congress. In fact not too long ago, Burton was given severe jolts as USINPAC through its dynamic lobbying had managed to impose an indefinite halt to this move.
bq. But Burton acted again to revive the move and this time USINPAC decided to take up the challenge. We had to expose Burton?s ?lies?. We could just not let his march go unopposed. At this hour of crisis, we chose to mobilize the Indian American community and raised a unified voice of protest. The USINPAC volunteers across the U.S. approached important leaders and Congressmen from their respective areas for help. USINPAC made sure that the friends of India were well represented at the Hearing. USINPAC recommended and confirmed Selig Harrison as a witness for the Hearing. USINPAC’s leadership in Washington individually called, met with and briefed Members of the House Government Reform Committee and the House International Relations Committee urging them to attend the Hearing. USINPAC also submitted draft questions to the Members to ask the witnesses.
Continue reading “NRIs vs Dan Burton Again” →

Forming a Govt

“Despite a plea”:http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/001200405161630.htm by _intellectuals_ like Tarun Tejpal, Praful Bidwai, Shabana Azmi, Habib Tanveer,Asghar Ali Engineer, A K Hangal, Anand Patwardhan, Baba Azmi, Nandita Das, Govind Nihalani, Shabana Azmi, historian K N Pannikar, writer Namwar Singh and scientist Prof. Yashpal, the Communists have decided “not to join the Government”:http://us.rediff.com/election/2004/may/17left.htm. Is this another _historic blunder_ ? Or is it a calculated move ?
Maybe the Left knows that this Government might not last that long and soon they will be back to their home states of West Bengal and Kerala, where they will have a tough time explaining their opposition against Congress Governments. The Left Leaders are also finding it difficult to explain it to the cadres in the state.
bq. “When we disagree, we should have room to express ourselves,” said Harkishan Singh Surjeet, the 88-year-old leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), one of four Communist parties in the front. The Congress party and the Communists are pitted against one another in two key states, Kerala and West Bengal, and Congress officials said the Communists felt they could not sell a Congress-dominated alliance to party leaders in the states. [“NY Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/18/international/asia/18INDI.html?ex=1085457600&en=7ee9b96e83c828b6&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE]
In another development, “Sonia has refused to become the Prime Minister”:http://www.nirajweb.net/mt/niraj/archives/002496.html, and so “Sushma Swaraj can eat proper food”:http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.asp?ID=IEL20040518075127&Title=B+R+E+A+K+I+N+G++++N+E+W+S&Topic=304& and dress in colorful clothes. It is also helping “the gene pool”:http://in.rediff.com/election/2004/may/18cong2.htm.

Outsource the Election

Come November and the voters of California “will not be using electronic voting machines”:http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/010327.shtml to elect the next President of United States.
bq. Two weeks ago, California’s secretary of State banned or restricted the use of state-of-the art electronic voting machines purchased by 14 counties because of computer malfunctions and concerns about the installation of unapproved software. More than 20 other states are considering paper-backup requirements for touch-screen machines or are slowing plans to buy high-tech voting equipment because of worries about similar glitches. [USA Today: “High Tech hiccups ignored”:http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-05-13-our-view_x.htm]
Here is a suggestion. Why not outsource the elections to India ? Recently India held the “largest democratic exercise”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3704313.stm in the world when “Electronic Voting Machines”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3493474.stm were used all over the nation. One million EVMs, designed and built in India were used successfully and the results were announced in one day. No hanging or pregnant chads.