This site — varnam.org/blog — has existed since the Pre-Cambrian era of Indian blogging. During those initial days, the urge was to write about everything; now this blog focuses on Indian history. The next logical step in evolution is to join a group of folks with similar interests and INI seems to be the perfect place.

Hope to see you at varnam.nationalinterest.in

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This skeleton, of a man who probably was 35+/-10 years and 5′10″, was found in a settlement which flourished from 3700 – 1820 BCE; the people there had pottery and copper and cultivated barley as well as wheat. He was buried between 2500 – 2000 BCE — much before the decline of the Harappan civilization — and was a leper. In fact, this skeleton is the oldest example of leprosy in the world.

But he was not Harappan: he belonged to the Ahar-Banas culture. In the Mewar region of Rajasthan, hunter-gatherers developed farming communities in the middle of the fifth millennium BCE, independent of the Harappan culture. By around 2500 BCE, they became prosperous and had fortified settlements, roads, and lanes. Also, the earliest burned brick (4000 BCE) was found in Gilund at this site^[2].

By 2500 BCE, Ahars had trade relations with the Harappans to the north. They also had trade relations with their contemporaries in South and Central India and the skeleton confirms it. This skeleton was buried with vitrified ash from cow dung. So far the Southern Neolithic ash mounds found in South Deccan and North Dharwar were believed to be cattle settlements or the result of  cow dung disposal. Now we can speculate that they were the result of funeral activities of a shared tradition.

Besides this domestic connection, these people had international contacts as well. There are two strains of leprosy: an Asian one and an East African one. It is possible that the African one was transmitted to Asia around 40,000 BCE or vice versa at a much later date. The second one seems to have happened since lerosy depends on human contact and it must been transmitted over the trading network involving the Ahars, Harappans,people of Magan, Mesopotamians and Egyptians.

This skeleton fits well with  the Atharva Veda (Hymn 23, 24) making it the earliest historical reference to leprosy. The Ebers papyrus, dated to 1550 BCE has been interpreted to contain evidence of leprosy, but the earliest affected skeleton found in Egypt has been dated only to 400 – 250 BCE.

Another point is regarding the burial; after 2000 BCE, burial was uncommon except for some special cases like infants and spiritual people. Harappan skeletons were both cremated — there is evidence at Sanauli at least — and buried, but true burials are very few compared to expected numbers. Many archaeologists believe that cremation must have been widely practised by Harappans. Also, at Dholavira and other sites, dozens of graves turned out to be without any bones which implies symbolic burials.

It is believed that the burial at Balathal followed the Vedic tradition: lepers were buried alive in some parts of India. Also there is evidence that diseased bodies were sometimes not cremated.

(One of the skeletons from Balathal in samadhi posture)

The excavations reveal a large number of bull figurines indicating the Ahar people worshipped the bull ^[6]. At Marmi, a site near Chittorgarh, these figures have been found in abundance indicating it could be a regional shrine of the bull cult of this rural population. Discovery of cow-like figurines in Ojiyana, the first site found on the slope of a hill, has baffled archaeologists. Cow-worship was not a known Ahar practice. “There are no humps and we can see small teats,” B.R.Meena, superintendent, ASI Jaipur circle, who undertook the excavation, says, “These are certainly cows.” Other archaeologists suspect them to be bull calves but insist if further studies prove these to be cows, one could infer that the cow was a revered animal and the Hindu practice of treating the cow as a holy animal can thus be of pre-Aryan antiquity. [Were they cow worshippers?]

The large number of bull figurines found at Ahar and Gilund could indicate a bull cult^[6]. There is a debate over if the figurines represent bulls or cows, but these figurines were part of the second phase of the Ahar culture (2100 – 1800 BCE) or as late as 1600 BCE ^[7] and are the only clue to the religious beliefs of the Ahars^[8].

Another clue is the time frame of these skeletons. While the leper was dated to 2000 BCE, the skeletons in samadhi were from700 BCE^[9]. So while the leper burial was unusual, there is nothing unusual about burying a man in samadhi posture by the Early Historical Period.

While the bull figurines and the skeletons in samadhi were known earlier, this leper skeleton has added new information about this less known culture. Hopefully as more papers come out, we will get a clear picture on their religious beliefs, such as if this Vedic burial was an exception or a common practice.

1. This post is based on [4]. Many thanks to Michel Danino for information and images of the samadhi skeletons and Harappan burials. Also thanks to Gwen Robbins, the primary author of [2, 4], for patiently answering many questions.

1. The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective by Gregory L. Possehl
2. A panel on the The Cultural Diversity of Northwestern South Asia at the time of the Indus Civilization convened by Prof. Gregory Possehl (University of Pennsylvania) and Prof. Vasant Shinde: Deccan College
3. Gwen Robbins, Veena Mushrif, V.N. Misra, R.K. Mohanty and V.S. Shinde, Human Skeletal Remains from Balathal: a Full Report and Inventory, Man and Environment, XXXII 2007, pp. 1-25.
4. Ancient Skeletal Evidence for Leprosy in India (2000 B.C.), Gwen Robbins et al.
5. Piecing the Ahar Puzzle by Rohit Parihar
6. Encyclopedia of Prehistory: South and Southwest Asia By Peter Neal Peregrine
7. Tribal roots of Hinduism By Shiv Kumar Tiwari
8. The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan by Bridget Allchin
9. The skeletons have also been dated all way back to 1800 BCE

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[View with PicLens]

These photographs were taken during a recent visit. It is forbidden to take photographs inside the synagogue, and so the two inside images are from the post cards they sell in the gift shop. They also sell a facsimile of the copper plates by which the Rajah granted them land and one photograph is from my copy of those plates.

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After further objections to the “imaginary learning” of Hindu schools, he [Ram Mohan Roy] summarily assures Lord Amherst that “the Sanskrit system of education would be the best calculat-  ed to keep this country in darkness.” What he wants to see established is “a more liberal and enlightened system of  instruction, embracing mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, anatomy, with other useful sciences.” This, he urges “may be accomplished with the sums proposed, by employing a few gentlemen of talent and learning educated  in Europe and providing a College furnished with neces- sary books, instruments, and other apparatus.” [The life and letters of Raja Rammohun Roy]

Macaulay was of the opinion that there was no point in perfecting the vernaculars, since there was nothing intelligent, but falsehood in them. In his Minute, he noted that he had no knowledge of Sanskrit or Arabic, but was convinced that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. On the other hand, whoever learned English had access to the vast intellectual wealth of the wisest nations of the earth and the literature available in English is valuable that the literature of all languages of the world together.[Macaulay's Education Part 3: The Minute]

Duff had already done this without any Government support and had solved many problems which the administration would face later. When a medical college was established in Calcutta there seemed to be a problem since Hindu shastras prohibited touching a dead body for anatomical purposes. To find a way out, the education commission visited Duff’s school. The students told the commission that it was a fact that shastras prohibited handling of a dead body, but they did not care. They wanted to take up the medical profession. Later orthodox priests told William Bentinck that there was no prohibition against touching a dead body for learning, but Duff was praised for showing that modern science was compatible with traditionalism.

Duff’s work continued and Bengalis from high castes, ignoring opposition from their families, converted. The conversion process was dramatic: people would leave their families and take refuge in Duff’s house where he would baptize them. Soon he could not handle the flood of people and had to build a home for the new converts.  He gave Sunday classes to clerks, weekly lectures for students who kept in touch with him and theological lectures for the converts. Duff’s converts became Indian missionaries and pastors and some of them went abroad and served in foreign missions. The ones who stayed India also hit the jackpot; soon the Governor General Sir Henrey Harding opened Government service to English educated Indians and Duff looked like a visionary.

Due to bad health, Duff often left India for Scotland for rest. After one such trip he arrived back in 1856 – a crucial year in Indian history. There were agrarian revolts and revolts by the aboriginals and soon the First War of Independence broke out. Duff was in Calcutta which was not a site for the revolt, but he lived in panic.

From Bengal, Duff expanded his activities. He started a mission for the Santals; his disciples too started spreading around starting missions in Jalna, which was part of the state of Hyderabad. It bothered Duff that missionaries were ill-educated and fanatical and this was not the quality he wanted in people for his missionary enterprise, which for him was the heart of the Gospel. He wanted to create an army of educated and experienced men and for this training he wanted a Missionary Institute to be set up in Scotland similar to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in Rome.

His campaign worked and the institute was set up with Duff as the first Professor, but unlike his mission in India, this turned out to be a failure.He had become old and could not connect to the younger people with his lengthy speeches. Besides this, he was not keeping well. The Indian weather was not agreeable to him and he had returned often due to jungle fever and dysentery. He died on Feb 12, 1878.

The Duff Effect

Due to the efforts of Duff and  Macaulay, English became the language of the educated people, replacing Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit. Also due to this Western literature and science  became accessible to the educated. It has also been argued that nationalism was a consequence of English education, but that would be ignoring the fact that the Vellore mutiny and First war of Independence happened without the infusion of English language.

Duff’s work highlights a less mentioned part of Indian history:  the decision to impose English had reasons other than the economics of text books and the need for educated employees. Though he only had a superficial knowledge of the religion, Duff sincerely believed that Hinduism was an evil darkness from which people had to be rescued. During one of his trips to Scotland, he lectured on his technique – spreading Western education linked with Christian teaching – and thought it was the best way to preach to Hindus without antagonizing them.

Duff hated secular education; in a spiritual country like India, he thought  it would be dangerous to try it. He did not want education to create a “spiritual barrenness”, but instead address the whole personality.  Duff’s concept of teaching Christian truths in educational institutions had a great effect. Soon there were many such schools, not just in Bengal, but also in Madras, Bombay and Lahore; about 1/4th of the educational institutions were missionary schools. Members of the Indian Christian Community became highly educated and started occupying positions of power in the Government.

If the success was measured in terms of the number of converts, probably Duff was a failure. His success was in making Christian thought very popular in India and in spreading those ideas among the educated. When Duff had started his school, it was considered sacrilege to even touch the Bible, but he was able to change that attitude. Duff legacy lies in creating a favorable image of Christianity among the educated which continues even to this day.

1. Alexander Duff, pioneer of missionary education, by William Paton
2. The Life of Alexander Duff by George Smith.
3. Clive, John. 1973. “Indian Education: The Minute” and “Indian Education: The Consequences”. Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian , 342 – 426. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

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1. The Man who came to destroy Hinduism – 1 On Jan 15, 1823, Jean-Antoine Dubois, a French-Catholic missionary, who spent time in Pondicherry, Madras Presidency and Mysore left India for Paris, never to return again. During his time...

But seven years later, on May 27th, 1830, a Scottish missionary arrived in Calcutta and his goal was to “prepare a mine which should one day explode beneath the very citadel of Hinduism.” This 24 year thought that the methods of other missionaries, like directly appealing Hindus to renounce their faith, would do nothing but anger the natives. Instead he claimed to have found a unique way to destroy Hinduism in a peaceful manner.

1. The language of the Government was Persian and there were a few educational institutions which taught Arabic and Sanskrit. The learned people spoke these Oriental languages and not English.
2. Duff arrived at a time when there was a controversy in British India over the language to be used for Indian higher education. On the one side there were the British Orientalists who wanted to use Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic and on the other side there were the Anglicists who had scorn for Oriental languages and Indian culture and wanted to enforce English
3. The missionary activities were not very successful. The missionary technique consisted of standing in the street corner and preaching which fetched an occasional convert or two, but nothing of great significance. Even in South India, where there were more converts, the converts came from the out castes; the Hindu masses remained unaffected.

1. Provide English education for the masses
2. Make Bible studies an integral part of this education
3. Be non-apologetic about teaching Christianity.

Duff was very clear about what Christian education meant: it was not secular education with some Biblical studies thrown in. For him Christianity contained all knowledge and his goal was to teach with Christianity revelation at the center.

When Duff first proposed this method, veteran missionaries did not find it appealing. Still he went ahead without any government support. Bengalis did not mind an English school, but had reservations about an English school where Bible was an important subject. This reservation made it difficult for Duff to get started; he could not even find a building to start his classes.

One Indian who helped get Duff was Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Mohan Roy who worked with Lord William Bentinck in suppressing sati and who believed that the pure faith of the vedas were corrupted by various cults had founded Brahma Samaj to teach the worship of one God. Ram Mohan Roy provided Duff with a hall as well as his first students. When parents learned that Bible was being taught there, they were reluctant to send their kids, but Ram Mohan Roy helped there as well. On the first day of school, Ram Mohan Roy, who had three more years to live, calmed the students who refused to read the Bible and appeared daily for the Bible class.

Though Duff was a proponent of higher studies in English, he did not hate Bengali. He did not want students to be alien to their culture and hence Bengali studies were an important part of the curriculum. After one year, Duff conducted a public exam  – in front of parents and the media – and students demonstrated their knowledge in language, science and Bible. This was a huge success and it convinced both Indians and the British. Soon the number of students started increasing.

Not everyone in Calcutta was his fan. One of the newspapers published an article suggesting that all students who attended Duff’s school be outcasted. This warning had an effect and the attendance dropped briefly, but later picked up.

Soon Duff encountered students —- not from his school, but from the Hindu college — who were enamored by Western thought and had a low opinion of Hinduism. These were the kind of people Duff wanted to seed Christian religion into and he invited them to his home to attend lectures on “God and His Revealing.” Hindus reacted strongly against Duff and asked the Government to stop this. Lord William Bentinck asked Duff to slow down and this crisis too passed.

But soon Duff got his converts — Krishna Mohan Banerjee, Mohesh Chunder Ghosh, Gopinath Nandi and Anando Chand Mazumdar  — and as he had expected they came from the higher castes. Some of them were Brahmins who ate beef to show their defiance against Hinduism and whose moral vacuum was happily filled by Duff.

By this time the Orientalist-Anglicist fight had reached critical mass. The East India Company needed a supply of qualified clerks and there were educational institutions like the Mohammedan college in Calcutta and Sanskrit college in Benares which provided the employees. The company even started a new Sanskrit college in Calcutta and Oriental colleges in Delhi and Agra. A large sum of money was spent in publishing books in the Oriental languages and translating European works into these languages. For the amount of money spent on education, there was not enough demand for these books.

In the language fight, the Government, missionaries and Orientalists wanted to use the Oriental languages, while Duff sided along with the Anglicists. If Indians were to learn Western culture and Christian theology, he said, it was not possible to do it in Sanskrit, Arabic or Persian or the vernacular Bengali. This decision on which language to choose for Duff was very critical and in a later speech given in Scotland, he said that it concerned the ultimate evangelization of India.

His arguments against Sanskrit were that (a) it was not perfect for Western education (b) ordinary people did not speak Sanskrit and © Western literature was not translated to Sanskrit. Since Sanskrit was tied to Hinduism, even if one were to teach Western literature in Sanskrit, the association formed in the mind of people would of an idolatrous and superstitious religion whereas English, would bring fresh ideas without the burden of association.

(Read Part 2)

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The earlier assumptions are now being questioned because the biblical narrative was not able to withstand examination by archaeological data.

According to the PBS documentary, the Hebrew Bible was formed during the Babylonian exile.

Israelites were reminded that they had broke the covenant with God and hence were incurring his wrath. Still this was not taken seriously till the time the Babylonians exiled the Caananites. It was during this exile that one of the scribes of that era, known as “P”, took all the previous revisions and created the present version of the Bible. The documentary suggests that the Abraham story was created then, by this scribe, to enforce the concept of the covenant. The scribe lived in Babylon and Abraham was placed in the nearby Ur; Abraham’s goal was to reach the promised land, so was the dream of the exiles. [Bible's Buried Secrets (2/2)]

Yahwism after the Exile experienced discontinuity of iconographic practices and matured as it consolidated its sacred literature.Stern (2001: 29) insists that “upon the return from exile, the Jews purified their worship. Jewish monotheism was at last consolidated.” This assumes that there were no iconographic representations of Yahweh after the Babylonian deportation. The archaeological and textual evidence supports pentateuchal Yahwism as the official, normative religion that was practiced by the majority, even though there are some iconographic representations from the Persian period that require more detailed discussion. The Persian period seems to be the time when the prohibition on representation of Yahweh was particularly widespread. Pentateuchal Yahwism thrived and became the norm that would be followed by the world’s major religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. [The Persian Period and the Origins of Israel: Beyond the "Myths"]

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The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century (Paperback), by Ross E. Dunn, 379 pages, University of California Press; 1 edition (December 9, 2004)

The first thing that Prof Matthew Herbst asks students to do in the introductory lecture of the series New Ideas/Clash of Cultures at University of California, San Diego is to draw a map of the world and label as many countries as possible. A minute later they are asked to keep their pens down and  name the country at the centre of the map. Some have Italy, a few have North America, and some the Atlantic Ocean.

This instinctive action, which illustrates the cultural bias of historians, is amplified if education starts with the typical Western Civilization till 1600 followed by the Western Civilization since 1600 course. A student could thus specialise in the Ancient Near East with tangential knowledge about India, China, Africa, or the Muslim empires.

Affinity towards one’s homeland is natural, but it should be balanced with knowledge about other civilisations. It is natural that for Indians, the centre of their world is India, but when they read about the Buddha, knowledge of the Axial age — when Socrates, the Jewish prophets, and Confucius  revolutionised thinking — gives better perspective. Such perspective provides awareness that the empiricism of John Locke and scepticism of David Hume could be derived from the dialogue between Indra and Prajapathi in Chandogya Upanishad. Proper context for local history will be obtained by taking an introductory course in World Civilisation instead of Western Civilisation, as well as by reading the works of ancient travellers like Ibn Battuta.

In 1325, this twenty-one year old Moroccan left home to perform the haj. In fact he visited Mecca four times—first from Morocco via North Africa, Egypt, Palestine and Syria, the second after visiting Iraq and Persia, the third after going down the Swahili coast up to Tanzania and the final one after visiting Anatolia, Delhi, Calicut, Maldives and China. When he returned  to Morocco, surviving the Black Plague that devastated Europe, he had visited about forty countries in the modern map covering a distance of 117,000 km.

Settling down in Tangier he collaborated with a young literary scholar, Ibn Juzayy, to compose the rihla—a book of travels in Arabic literature—about his impressions of all the countries and his experience which included working as a judge for Mohammed bin Tughluq, becoming penniless near the Doab, and attempting a coup in Maldives.

Since Ibn Battuta wrote his rihla towards the end of his itinerant career, some details are incorrect and fuzzy; after visiting Constantinople, Ibn Battuta was impressed by the markets, monasteries and the Genoese colony of Galata while in reality, by that time, it was a city on the decline. Also his book is not an encyclopedia; he wrote about things which fascinated him, like saints, life among the upper crust of society, and Muslim culture.

So using the rihla as spine, Ross E Dunn has fleshed out this book by providing the history of each city that Ibn Battuta visited. The chapter on Anatolia provides a brief history of the transformation of a country of Greek and Armenian Christians into Turkey and the sections on Cairo and Delhi provides background information on how they both rose to prominence, thanks to the Mongol empire. Since Ibn Battuta’s objects of fascination were few, Dr Dunn juxtaposes the missing pieces from other history books and writings from other travellers like Simon Semeonis, Ludolph von Suchem, and Ibn Jubayr, making this book comprehensive.

Ibn Battuta’s World

Some time after the first haj Ibn Battuta heard about India’s riches and wanted to seek employment there. He already had exposure to Indians; some selling drugs and food items in Mecca, some as pages accompanying Princess Bayalun of the Golden Horde, and some scholars in Oman. He knew that Indian ships sailed to Aden regularly. He also knew that the Delhi Sultanate welcomed foreigners and paid well.

It is interesting to contrast some of the places Ibn Battuta visited with their current state. Mogadishu, currently invokes the images of civil war, militias and poverty, but at the time of Ibn Battuta’s visit, it was one of the richest ports owing to the connections with the Horn of Africa and Ethiopia. Ibn Battuta met the ruler, Abu Bakr, who wore a “robe of green Jerusalem stuff” above “fine loose robes of Egypt with a wrapper of silk.” During a meal of chicken, meat, fish, green ginger, mangoes and pickled lemon, he observed that a single resident of Mogadishu ate more than a whole company of visitors.

While the Mongols had reduced Baghdad to a small provincial town, Cairo was prospering under the Mamluk Sultanate—members of a slave dynasty—due to the Red Sea trade. Jerusalem, which was under Mamluk control, was a small town of no great importance; Ibn Battuta spent a week there meeting various scholars and Sufi masters. By the time he arrived in Delhi, Mohammed bin Tughluq, who had succeeded a Slave Dynasty, had finished his experiment in shifting capitals. A seven year drought and the first of the twenty-two rebellions that would bring his downfall was about to start.

On his first visit, the sultan’s mother gave Ibn Battuta 2000 silver dinars. Even before he got the job of the judge, Tughluq ordered him to be paid 5000 silver dinars and the revenue from two villages. On his appointment, he got 12,000 dinars as perquisite with an annual salary of 12,000 dinars.  According to Dunn, at that time an average Hindu family lived on 5 dinars per month; a soldier, 20.

Even though he was rich, the cost of living in Delhi was high. The hamster that kept the Delhi’s economic wheel turning, much like the present, was sycophancy. Nobles borrowed money to buy expensive gifts for the sultan and other nobles, who then reciprocated with gifts of higher value. Soon Ibn Battuta amassed debts of more than 55,000 dinars to get out of which, quite interestingly, he composed an ode to the Sultan.

Also he faced first hand the job risks in working with a pixilated Sultan. Tughluq took umbrage at Ibn Battuta’s association with a Sufi ascetic who had fallen out of favour. Tughluq first got the ascetic’s beard plucked hair by hair, then later tortured and beheaded him. Ibn Battuta was put under house arrest for nine days and expected to be executed. Surprisingly he was freed and entrusted with a mission to China.

Arriving in Calicut and Quilon on his way to China as the Mughal emissary to the Mongol court carrying a gift of 200 Hindu slaves, he found that the entire trade of the Malabar and Coromandel coast was controlled by Muslims. He also found that the Hindu rulers of those provinces allowed Muslims to worship as they pleased and encouraged these trade communities. Also, similar to the frequent battles between the countries on the African coast, battles among small provinces along the Indian west coast was also common and Ibn Battuta participated in the battle by Honavar against Sandapur (Goa).

Ibn Battuta’s travels showcase the importance of Muslim trade networks and the prosperity it bought to the trading communities in India and elsewhere. He travelled during a period of relative calm; the crusades were over, the Mongols were Islamised and the Muslim caravan routes throbbed with activity carrying not just merchants, but scholars, craftsmen, Sufis and converts. Thus a Muslim grandee seized by wanderlust could travel through Dar al-Islam staying in mosques, or with the scholars, kings, and saints receiving gifts of robes, horses and camels.

The relative peace during Ibn Battuta’s time soon changed. In China, Genghis Khan’s heir fled with his entire court unable to halt the advance of the rebels. The Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople and turned the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Timur invaded Delhi and by his own account killed 10,000 infidels in an hour.  The most important event happened, a century later, in the Malabar coast with the arrival of Vasco da Gama’s fleet. This was not just a great navigational feat, but a major geo-political event by which Europeans cut off the Muslim middlemen.

Dr. Dunn’s book presents Ibn Battuta’s world not in isolation, but in a global context helping us better understand  the world of 14th century. It is not surprising that this book was required reading in Prof. Herbst’s class.

Image Credits: cgsheldon, lloydi, mckaysavage

(This review appeared in the June 2009 edition of Pragati)

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Epigraphists have deciphered the three Tamil-Brahmi letters on the ring-stand as “vayra,” which means diamond. The deep-set cist-burial, which has two compartments made of granite slabs, was found to have skeletal remains. A pair of stirrups lay next to the ring-stand. The symbol that followed the three Tamil-Brahmi letters showed an etched gem and bead, with a thread coming out of the bead. According to Mr. Mahadevan, the script could be dated to the first century A.D. [The Hindu : Front Page : Tamil-Brahmi script found in village]

Tiruvadavur is now the most disturbed Tamil-Brahmi site in the State, with a huge quarry situated right at the foot of the hill. Quarrying has progressed so deep that the site looks like an open-cast mine. All round the quarry, for several kilometres, granite blocks as big as a truck or a car, are stacked on either side of the village roads. There is a surreal scene too: a nearby hill has been sliced in half, as if it were a cake. An official of the State Archaeology Department admitted that quarrying was under way within the prohibited/regulated area, that is, within 300 m of the protected limits of the monument.[History vandalised]

Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions are important not only in the history of Tamil Nadu and the rest of South India but for the whole country. They have many unique distinctions. They are the oldest writings in any Dravidian language. They are also the oldest Jaina inscriptions in India. I believe that the Mankulam Tamil-Brahmi inscription of [Pandyan king] Nedunchezhiyan is older than the Karavela inscription at Udayagiri in Orissa. Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions are the only record of the old Tamil, the one prior to Sangam poetry. Many Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions are important landmarks in our history. For example, the inscriptions of Nedunchezhiyan at Mankulam, the Irumporai inscriptions at Pugalur near Karur and the Jambai inscription of Adhiyaman Neduman Anji link the Sangam age with the Tamil-Brahmi age. It is the Jambai inscription that prove that the “Satyaputo” mentioned by Asoka was none other than the Adhiyaman dynasty, which ruled from Tagadur, modern Dharmapuri.['Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions are the only record of old Tamil']

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Phil Plait of BadAstronomy notes that the irony of Allen’s claim “is that she’s talking about uranium mining, and it’s through the radioactive decay of uranium that we know the Earth is billions of years old.”[Think Progress» Arizona state senator argues for uranium mining by claiming the Earth is '6,000 years' old.]

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My meaning of brahmacharya is this:One who never has any lustful intention, who by constant attendance upon God has become proof against conscious or unconscious emissions, who is capable of lying naked with naked women, however beautiful they may be, without being in any manner whatsoever sexually excited. Such a person should be incapable of lying, incapable of intending or doing harm to a single man or woman in the whole world, is free from anger and malice and detached in the sense of the Bhagavadgita. Such a person is a full brahmachari. Brahmachari literally means a person who is making daily and steady progress towards God and whose every act is done in pursuance of that end and no other. [Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Online

Marco Polo who visited India in the 14th century writes about meeting yogis who distinguished themselves by their abstinence. They went naked, ate nothing green since they believed that plants also had souls and lived a harsh life.  When a member of the sect died, the successor had to pass a test. Various maidens touched the yogi, “here and there.” If the yogi remained unaffected, he was considered pure and allowed to the serve the idols. But if he failed, he was driven away for the monks did not want to do anything with a man of self-indulgence^[3].

1. Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi
2. Gandhi’s Experiments with Truth by Richard L. Johnson, Gandhi
3. Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu by Laurence Bergreen

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