Secret Chambers etc.

From the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators dept comes this news. A secret chamber, without an entrance, has been found in National Library, Calcutta. Now, you may ask, how do you find a chamber which has no opening? Will I hear the sound of one hand clapping if I enter this chamber? We may find answers as soon as ASI gets a response from the Drilling Permission section of the Ministry of Culture.

Was it used as a punishment room by Hastings or one of the Lt Governors who succeeded him? It was common practice among the British to “wall up” offenders in “death chambers”. Some sources say this enclosure has exactly the same look and feel. The British were also known to hide riches in blind chambers as this.
“It could be just about anything. Skeletons and treasure chests are the two things that top our speculations because it is not natural for a building to have such a huge enclosure that has no opening. We cannot break down a wall, considering the importance of the building. So we have decided to bore a hole through the wall to peer inside with a searchlight,” said D V Sharma, regional director, ASI.[Secret chamber in National Library via IndiaArchaeology]

Yoga's Hindu Roots

The article which was e-mailed more than the WikiLeaks article or Thomas Friedman’s column on the The New York Times website yesterday was titled Hindu Group Stirs a Debate Over Yoga’s Soul. Over 15 million Americans practice yoga and it is a 6 billion dollar industry. What is taught mostly is Hatha Yoga, but without the “baggage of Hinduism“. The Times article describes the activism of second generation of Hindu-Americans and what it has achieved.
The HAF website has more information on the Take Yoga Back campaign

A piece in the LA Times, Bending yoga to fit their worship needs, quoting yet another yoga instructor denying any and all religious roots lead not only to a Letter to the Editor, but also to the publication of The Theft of Yoga, the beginning of what eventually became know as The Great Yoga Debate: Shukla vs Chopra on the Newsweek/Washington Post On Faith site. As HAF’s Dr. Aseem Shukla proudly brought to light yoga’s Hindu roots, Dr. Deepak Chopra penned his disagreement. Shukla’s reply, Dr. Chopra – Honor Thy Heritage, was met with continued resistance from Chopra
…
Even months after the initial launch of this campaign, the issue remains very much alive. On September 23, David Waters, the former editor of On Faith, quotes heavily from HAF’s stance paper in his piece “Should Christians practice yoga? Shouldn’t everyone?” And on October 3, Ms. Shukla once again voiced HAF’s stance in the “yoga debate” on air in a segment on Common Threads (click here to listen to Part 1 of the recorded segment and click here to listen to Part 2).

Briefly Noted: Nanook of the North (1922)

In 1910, Robert Flaherty was hired by William Mackenzie, a Canadian railway entrepreneur, to prospect in the area east of Hudson Bay (Canada) for railway and mineral potential. He made four lengthy expeditions and came into contact with the Inuit people who lived in that frigid and extreme climate. During one of his expeditions, he bought a movie camera along and made a documentary — a genre which did not exist — about their lives and survival techniques. That film called the Nanook of the North was released in 1922.
The movie follows an Inuit family — husband, wife, kids, dogs — as they go about their lives foraging for food. For them, food is the primary concern and they go wherever food is available. Sometimes they find a region with lot of fish; sometimes there is a walrus or a huge seal. Since the game is unpredictable, the entire family is on the move. Once they make the kill, they eat, feed the dogs, build an igloo and spend the night. The next day, the nomadic routine starts all over again.
While we see snowy white all over, the Inuit sees the landscape differently. He for example knows exactly where the fox trap is. Without such intimate knowledge of the land, there is no chance of survival. There are other strategies to survive too. In an area, the size of UK, there are 300 Inuits, but no one lives alone. They live as a group with total co-operation. At the same time, the group cannot be very large. With small groups, a small amount of food — a walrus or seal — is sufficient. Also, small groups don’t finish off all the available resources.
Since they are constantly mobile, they don’t carry unwanted luggage, but just what is hard to replace or time consuming to make (e.g. tools). It is an amazing scene as they settle for the night. It takes the Inuit an hour to build an igloo, complete with a window. They undress and use their dress as the mattress and blanket. The dogs stay outside and pups stay in a small igloo. The next day, they just walk away from the igloo like any modern American householder who has put 0% down payment on his house.
This black and white silent movie with English intertitles is not very authentic in some places. The family shown in the movie was not a family, but just a photogenic cast. The Inuits had started using rifles and Western wear by this time. Some hunting scenes were staged. Despite this, the movie is interesting for one reason. Agriculture has been around for only 10,000 years; 99% of human history was spent as foragers. Now that our supermarkets offer potato chips with varying levels of cholesterol, it is interesting to see how people lived without agriculture, how they killed fish by biting off its head and how they lived eating raw walrus meat.
References:

Lecture 10, 11 & 12 of MMW1 by Prof. Tara Carter, UCSD.
Image via Wikipedia

Understanding American Civil War

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln, one of the most obscure candidates, was elected as the sixteenth president of the United States and Keziah Goodwyn Hopkins, a slave owner in Columbia, SC was worried. Very worried. In her diary she wrote.

I have never been opposed to giveing up slavery if we could send them out of our country — I have often wished I had been born in just such a country — with all our religious previleges & liberties with none of them in our midst — if the North had let us alone — the Master & the servant were happy with out advantages — but we had had vile wretches ever making the restless worse than they would have been & from my experience my own negroes are as happy as I am: [A Slaveholder’s Diary]

If you have not educated yourselves about the American Civil War by watching Ken Burns’ excellent series, then you can follow the events of the war by subscribing to the Disunion blog. The latest entry describes the events of Nov 16-22 when Georgians were deciding the course of action.
In other civil war related news, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln movie now has a start date and Daniel Day-Lewis is starring as the President.

The Mystery of the 5th Century Sarnath Buddha

When it comes to Buddhist art, one of the first thing that comes to mind is the Gandharan form which developed when Classical Greece met Buddhism in the Af-Pak region; it was a Big Bang moment in Buddhist art. Less mentioned is a major breakthrough which happened in 5th century Sarnath — the place where Buddha gave his first sermon — when a new style of representing Buddha was created. The origins of this style still remain a mystery.
Compared to other representations of Buddha, the Sarnath Buddha (see pic) is quite different. He is seen wearing a see through dress which covers his torso and has no folds; most other styles show dress with folds. The second point is not quite clear in the photo, but the left knee is a bit bent. Third, his genitals are hidden. Also, the eyes look down and he looks feminine. This unique style spread to rest of the Buddhist world — to China, to Vietnam, to Cambodia.
To put this in perspective, look at Bala Buddha (125 CE), one of the important anthropomorphic representations of Buddha, found in nearby Mathura. The statue is 9ft tall and he is staring right at you. Also his genitals are not hidden; the pose is quite strong and powerful. He wears a underskirt and exposes his torso. This is not surprising since Ananda Coomaraswamy found that the inspiration for the Bala Buddha came from the Hindu iconography for the Yaksha. You can see similar pose for a 5th century Vishnu as well. Now if you go back to the Sarnath Buddha (see pic) you can see that all the manliness has been drained out.
What exactly happened to trigger such a change? Was there a political situation which caused Buddhists to change their representation or was it in response to an ascendant Hinduism? (Note that while this change was happening, the Gupta empire was in political turmoil). Is this a feminine representation to come up with something like the ardhanari concept? Or is this a boyish look to appeal to women or queens who were Buddhists ?
Or is there any other theory?
Notes:

Recently I attended a lecture by Prof. Robert L. Brown of UCLA on this topic. This post comes from the lecture notes.

Briefly Noted: The Buddha (PBS)

For someone interested in Buddha’s life, there are numerous books ranging from the ordinary (Deepak Chopra’s Buddha) to the brilliant (Thich Nhat Hanh’s Old Path White Clouds). When it comes to movies or documentaries, I have seen more on the Dalai Lama (Seven Years in Tibet, Kundun) than the Buddha himself; Siddhartha is summarized quickly in programs like Michael Wood’s The Story of India.
In this new PBS documentary, he gets two full hours — highly insufficient to understand his work in detail, but just sufficient to piqué your interest. The documentary combines video, cartoons, and Buddhist art to narrate Siddhartha’s biography.The miracles and the super natural elements are not left out; you get the traditional story. The documentary also finds some time to briefly discuss meditation and mindfulness and why it is effective. It is combined with commentary by Dalai Lama, Buddhist monks, Prof. Robert Thurman, a bunch of American Buddhists I have never heard of.
The PBS website for the program, as usual, is a treasure trove of information. Checkout the dynamic timeline or the Educational Resources

Indian History Carnival – 35: Konark, Britain, Ayodhya

In his post titled The Sun Temple of Konark Or Girish Sahane Gets it Wrong in Detail, Sandeep explains what really happened to the shrine.

One wonders why the priests had to migrate with their God to Puri if say, the Sun temple at Konaraka had been ruined due to say, natural causes. As Hunter records, and Prabhat Mukherjee quotes, it was because Kalaphad had desecrated the shrine. The fact that the temple servitors as late as 1940 (when Mr. Mukherjee’s book was written) testify to that transported idol speaks volumes. As is well-known, Hindu temples or idols once desecrated are treated as mail or impure or defiled and hence unworthy of worship, a tradition that holds true even today.

Fëanor writes about horse trading — of animals which walk on four legs — in 15th century India.

The price of the horse multiplied crazily once it arrived in India. Ibn Battuta talks some numbers: the best bahri horse was valued at up to 4000 tanka, as compared to the middling tatari, which cost only about 100 tanka. The top-class bahris were not for war – most were kept as luxury items coveted by the rich; only the tataris were destined to be warhorses

Anuraag Sanghi writes about how Indian ship building expertise helped Britain to become a prime military power.

British access to India’s huge ship-building capacity, raw-material sources, technicians, shipwright, gave them a decisive edge – considering that Britain controlled Chittagaon (colonial Chittagong), Surat and Mumbai (colonial Bombay), Chennai (colonial Madras), Northern Sircars (modern Andhra Coast) – all famous Indian ship-building centres. Based on this experience, British further expanded teak sources to include Burma by the middle of 19th century. Just before steel started to take over from teak.

In 1943, during the Second World War, the British War Cabinet under Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a decision which resulted in the death of three million Indians. Soutik Biswas writes on the BBC blog about this incident.

Mr Churchill turned down fervent pleas to export food to India citing a shortage of ships – this when shiploads of Australian wheat, for example, would pass by India to be stored for future consumption in Europe. As imports dropped, prices shot up and hoarders made a killing. Mr Churchill also pushed a scorched earth policy – which went by the sinister name of Denial Policy – in coastal Bengal where the colonisers feared the Japanese would land. So authorities removed boats (the lifeline of the region) and the police destroyed and seized rice stocks.

In an article published in The Hindu Magazine, Ramachandra Guha made some allegations against an “obscure Belgian priest” who was involved in the Ayodhya movement. The not-so-obscure Belgian priest decided to return the favor.

Guha’s own school could have made that same distinction, e.g. by saying that “it is a pity that Muslims destroyed Hindu temples, but that is no reason for us now to destroy mosques”, or so. Instead, at a time when their power in academe and the media was absolute and unchallenged by any capable Hindu opposition (as demonstrated in M.M. Joshi’s textbook reforms, a horror show of incompetence), it went to their heads and they thought they could get away with denying history. They did indeed get away with their bluff, and may well continue to do so for some more time. However, the prevalent power equation will not last forever, and one day the “secularist” exercise in history denial will be seen for what it was.’

The next edition of Indian History Carnival will be up on Dec 15th. Send your nominations to varnam dot blog @gmail or to @varnam_blog

100 Year Old Sounds from India

Following the Anglo-Indian war of 1857, the British decided to conduct a linguistic survey of India. To compile the list of languages and dialects, people were asked to read the Parable of the Prodigal Son (with some Indian adaptations) from the Gospel of Luke. You can now listen to those sounds from almost a century back at the Digital South Asia Library (H/T Parag)

From the specimens Grierson identified the grammatical and other peculiarities of the language or dialect. He also provided a brief Introduction for each of the languages, distinguishing its various dialects, noting down the number of speakers, the habitat of the language, its literature, and concluding with a sketch of the grammar . In all 179 languages and 544 dialects in the Indian Empire, excluding some portions (Burma, Hyderabad and Mysore states and the Presidency of Madras) were described in the LSI’s eleven volumes in nineteen parts, published between 1903 and 1928 the Introductory volume was published in 1927, followed the next year by a tabular Comparative Vocabulary. Grierson estimated that the survey covered 224 million out of the total population of nearly 300 million of the Indian empire.[Introduction to LSI]

The "Race" Myth

Race was a convenient taxonomy to classify the different people that Europeans saw when they traveled around the world in the 15 and 16th centuries. Carl Linnaeus, the 18th century Swedish botanist, even assigned various traits: Native Americans (wild), Europeans (gentle, law abiding), Asians (melancholic), Africans (ruled by impulse). Well, you get the drift.

In the 20th century, as I wrote in Outdated Syllabus, anthropologists abandoned race as a valid biological construct; it is no longer used to explain the differences between various peoples. But we all are not the same, you may say. Just walk around the agora, and you will be able to distinguish a Malayali from a Punjabi or a Kashmiri from a Naga. Since there is variation among human population and since we can group people by visible biological traits, doesn’t race exist?

No, says Prof. Tara D Carter categorically in Making of the Modern World 1 course (podcast). When we say people are different, we are referring to their — to throw some jargon —phenotypic trait. It just means a quantifiable trait like skin color or hair color or height. These differences occur due to evolution and these traits are preserved since it helps individuals with the traits survive. For example, dark skin is advantageous in warm climates to withstand the ultra-violet radiation. If you are living in a dense forest, it helps to be shorter. Thus this variation is good for us as a species for survival.

These adaptations do not occur randomly, but is dictated by geography. Over a long period, the advantageous traits become common in a population; the differences among us is just an adaptation. To conclude, biologically we all are the same.

Native Civilizations of the Americas

In 1700s India was one of the richest nations in the world, but after two centuries of British rule it became one of the poorest. In the 16th century, when Hernán Cortés went to loot Mexico, he was stunned by the beauty of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. Three centuries later Charles Darwin went that way and found “the most miserable wretches on the face of the earth.” Yes, colonialism was indeed a powerful mechanism.

Post-colonial World History eventually became the history of the Western world; India or Mexico were primitive exotic lands which did not deserve to be mentioned. The engineering, farming and scientific skills of the ancient American civilizations are now slowly getting the attention it deserves, writes Colin McEwan.

By taming the steep mountain slopes, the Incas turned a previously unexploited eco-niche between the lower valleys and the high puna grassland into immensely productive agricultural terrain. Their mastery of the pragmatic demands of water management and irrigation technology blended a consummate knowledge of the landscape with an unrivalled aesthetic sensibility. The sweeping grandeur of these terraces at Pisac, Moray and Ollantaytambo still takes the breath away. [The Americas: The old New World]