Tripura Rahasya has the story of King Susena, who went on an Ashwamedha yagya. The royal horse was let loose, and the royal entourage followed. Eventually, the horse reached the ashram of rishi Gana, who was deep in meditation. The soldiers set camp without paying any respects to the rishi and started drinking and making noise. This upset the rishi’s son, who shouted at the soldiers. The irritated soldiers decided to arrest him. Using his powers, the rishi’s son turned them into ashes. The rishi’s son took the royal horse and walked into the nearby mountain.
Some ministers who escaped the rishi’s son’s wrath returned to Susena and told him what happened. Susena sent his wise brother Mahasena to handle the situation. Mahasena reached the ashram and offered his respects to the meditating rishi and son. Gana came out of meditation and heard what had happened. He asked the son to return the royal horse back immediately. The rishi’s son walked to the mountain, vanished, and reappeared with the horse.
Mahasena was stunned. He asked the rishi’s son what had just happened. How did he disappear and reappear again? Gana smiled and asked his son to show Mahasena the cave inside the mountain. When the son was doubtful, the father smiled and said, “Don’t worry; he has a long life.”
We will pause this story here and come back to it at the end.
Indic religions have some really big ideas about time. We measure time in trillions of years and even more! You might think these are concepts from ancient texts that no longer matter. However, they’re still very much part of Sanatana Dharma today. While it might seem that these concepts exist in a realm disconnected from modern life, they remain deeply ingrained in contemporary Hindus’ religious and cultural practices. In this article, we’ll look at how these vast time scales are remembered in everyday prayers.
Let’s start by looking at Brahma’s age, and for that, you have to start counting from the yugas. We have to go step by step and understand the durations of Yuga, Mahayuga, Kalpa etc.
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Yuga Cycles:
A Yuga Cycle, also known as chatur yuga, encompasses four world ages: Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga.
Each Yuga Cycle lasts for 4,320,000 years .
Duration of Each Yuga:
Satya Yuga: lasting 1,728,000 years. (4 x Kali Yuga)
Treta Yuga: lasting 1,296,000 years. (3 x Kali Yuga)
Dvapara Yuga: lasting 864,000 years. (2 x Kali Yuga)
Kali Yuga: lasting 432,000 years (our current yuga).
Mahayuga:
A Mahayuga comprises one cycle through all four yugas.
The total duration of a Mahayuga is 10 times the duration of Kali Yuga, which equals 4,320,000 years.
Kalpa (Day of Brahma):
Multiply a Mahayuga by 1,000 to get a Kalpa.
One Kalpa is equivalent to one day of Brahma.
A Kalpa consists of 14 Manus (rulers), each ruling for a specific period called a Manvantara.
A day and night together constitute a Brahma day, totaling 8.64 billion years.
Brahma’s Lifetime:
Multiply a Brahma day by 360 to get a Brahma year.
Brahma’s lifetime spans 100 Brahma years, resulting in a staggering 311 trillion years.
That is one huge number. There is no other civilization that has thought of numbers so large. The highest number in ancient China and Greece was 10,000 (myriad in Greek), and Arab names did not go beyond 1000. Europe heard about “million” when the French introduced it in the thirteenth century.
We were comfortable with these large numbers. Jain cosmology involved a timescale of 2588 years and was comfortable with infinity. The Rig Veda frequently mentions 100,000, but the Yajur Veda mentions 1012 and calls it parardha. The Jaina text Anuyogadvāra-sūtra talks about numbers exceeding 10250, and the Buddhist text Lalitavistara Sūtra names multiples of ten up to 10145.
Coming back to the present day, how do we remember these large numbers? Is the age of Brahma just a fancy number? That’s where the Sankalpa Sutra comes in. The Sankalpa Sutra, also known as the Sankalpa Mantra, is a verse recited at the beginning of Hindu rituals, especially during ceremonies like puja, yajna, or other religious observances. It typically includes details like the time, place, purpose, and the name of the person performing the ritual.
The time related portion starts with आद्य ब्राह्मण द्वितीय पारार्धे (Ādya brāhmaṇa dvitīya pārārdhe) which means, the current Brahma in the second half of his life. He has finished 50 years and is now in his second half.
Then it says श्रीश्वेतवाराहकल्पे (Shri Shwetavaraha Kalpe), which is the kalpa we are in now. It is known as the Kalpa of the white boar.
Then, वैवस्वतमन्वन्तरे (Vaivasvata Manvantare), which means the Manvantara where Vaivasvata is the name of the Manu.
The next concept is अष्टाविंशतितमे कलियुगे प्रथमे पादे (Ashtavimshatitame Kaliyuge, Prathame Pade), which means that we are in the first quarter of the 28th Kali Yuga. As we know, yugas are cyclical. At the end of the Kali Yuga, the Satya Yuga comes again. If we are in the 28th Kali Yuga, 28 Mahayugas are almost over.
There is more to the mantra, but those are the portions that deal with time. Thus, when one Brahma day is over, imagine how many human years are over. Our lifespan seems long, but when you look at these numbers, it is just a blink.
Since this mantra is chanted even now, it shows that these large timescales are not some abstract philosophical ideas but part of the lived experience. The use of these concepts in daily rituals reinforces their importance. These profound insights into time’s vastness and cyclical nature remind us of our place within the cosmos and the enduring legacy of our ancestors.
What makes a civilization think of such large numbers? Think of our ancestors from the ancient past who observed nature. The passing of the seasons and the years would be observed by observing the planets and the stars. Our ancestors, attuned to celestial rhythms, observed nature’s cyclical patterns, laying the groundwork for these vast time scales. Still, that leads to periods in the human lifespan range. Let us be generous and say they could imagine many multiples of it. That does not explain how someone could imagine numbers like million times million or the age of Brahma. They must have experienced this insight differently.
Now, coming back to the story of the royal horse, the rishi’s son took Mahasena near the mountain. The rishi’s son said, “Let’s enter the mountain.”. Mahasena was perplexed as he did not see an entrance. The rishi’s son said, “You will have to be in my state of consciousness to enter this mountain as it is my creation.” The rishi’s son triggered an expansion of consciousness, and Mahasena experienced his body as a large number of bits of energy. They both then entered the mountain.
What he saw inside was stunning. He saw a whole universe with many billions of stars, a moon, rivers, trees, and various animals. It was a vast creation. They traveled from one location to another and a day and night passed. The rishi said they had to leave, but Mahasena wanted to stay and experience this world. Finally, the rishi nudged him to exit the mountain.
When they came back, Gana, the great rishi, was still there. However, the whole landscape had changed. There was no royal horse, and the trees looked ancient. A perplexed Mahasena asked the rishi if they had come to the wrong place. The rishi replied that it was the same place. Mahasena wondered how a place could change so much in a day.
The rishi laughed and said, “My wheel runs on a different wheel of time than yours. Twelve thousand years have passed on earth.”
The boy goes to school from his mother’s home with a friend at 8 am to study.
In Ted Chiang’s short story, Story of Your Life, a few alien ships appear and orbit around the Earth. The aliens (called heptapods, because they have seven lidless eyes that ring all the way around the top of their bodies) send communication devices called looking glasses to communicate with the humans. Louise Banks, a linguist, is called by the military to assist in decoding the alien language. She soon finds that the alien sentence possesses several distinctive qualities that set it apart from English:
Instead of displaying multiple characters or “words,” the heptapods display a single pattern containing variations, such as extra strokes or flourishes. How the strokes in a given symbol are arranged visually provides the context for understanding how all the parts of the symbol fit together and, thus, its meaning.
The order of the “words” doesn’t matter. A heptapod sentence is presented as one symbol, and how each constituent stroke in any given symbol is oriented provides the context for understanding the nuance of each expression.
This way of expressing all ideas simultaneously, rather than linearly, as in human languages, results from the radial symmetry of the heptapods’ physiology. Since their bodies have no front or back, their language doesn’t either.
The writing is semasiographic and independent of speech, like the no-walk or right-turn sign.
While English forces a linear way of thinking, one of the interesting features of Samskritam is that, in a sentence, the order of the words doesn’t matter. You can switch them around, and the meaning remains the same.
For example, a sentence like “Rama is going to the forest” in Samskritam is written as रामः वानमं गाच्छति
It can also be written as
गाच्छति रामः वानमं
गाच्छति वानमं रामः
वानमं गाच्छति रामः
You can’t do this in English. You can’t do “Forest going to be Rama the.” It is possible in Samskritam because the word form changes by incorporating the preposition into it. This process is called vibhakti, and there are 7 types of them. (Technically, 8, but I will exclude Sambodhana from this). You might have mugged it as रामः रामौ रामाः …, but lets see what it means.
Here is a bit of a complex sentence: The boy goes to school from his mother’s home with a friend at 8 am to study.
There are 17 words in this sentence.
The first question to ask is: What is the verb? What indicates action?. That would be “goes.” In Samskritam, that is गाच्छति.
The next question is: who goes? The answer is “The boy”. In Samskritam, it becomes बालकः Since it is the subject, it is in the first vibhakti form बालकः instead of something else. As we look at other vibhaktis, this will become clear what other forms बालकः can take.
Thus, we have a simple sentence: बालकः गाच्छति. (The boy goes).
With the subject and verb sorted out, let’s find out the object. In this case, it is the school or विद्यालय:. Since it is the object, it cannot be in the first vibhakti form विद्यालय:. It will change to the second vibhakti विद्यालयं.
Now our sentence becomes बालकः विद्यालयं गच्छति
Next question: with whom? Answer: with a friend.
A friend in Samskritam is मित्रं . If it is “with a friend,” it becomes the third vibhakti. Thus मित्रं, which is the first vibhakti form of a friend, becomes मित्रेण.
Now our sentence is: बालकः मित्रेण विद्यालयं गच्छति
Next question: for what? Answer: for studying, which becomes पठनाय which is the fourth vibhakti.
Next question: from where? The answer is home or गृहं. But “from” indicates the fifth vibhakti, and hence it becomes गृहात्.
Next question: whose house? Answer: mother’s. Mother is माता. But since this indicates a belonging, it becomes the sixth vibhakti, and the form changes to मातुः
Next question: At what time? Answer: 8 am which is अष्ट वादनम् . Since this represents “at” a time, it becomes the seventh vibhakti or अष्ट वादने
Putting it all together, the sentence becomes बालकः विद्यालयं गच्छति मातुः गृहात् मित्रेण पठनाय अष्टवादने
Thus, 17 words in an English sentence become 8 words in Samskritam. This is because all the prepositions are now part of the word.
We achieve a few things due to this.
The first is compactness. By cleverly combining word endings and cases, Samskritam packs a lot of information into fewer words. In an oral tradition, this makes it easy to memorize texts.
Second, this makes switching the word order and preserving the same meaning easy. Hence our sentence can also be written as बालकः मातुः गृहात् मित्रेण अष्टवादने पठनाय विद्यालयं गच्छति. In English, the sentence follows a linear order. Scramble the words, and the meaning is lost. In Samskritam, poets and writers can play with word order for emphasis, rhythm, or specific effects. It unlocks a non-linear way of thinking and expression, allowing the Samskritam’s beauty to shine.
Finally, with each word complete by itself, we get a good idea of its relationship with other words. For example, when we see the word मित्रेण, it gives out a clue that it is the third vibhakti form of मित्रं and that it has a “with” relationship. Each vibhakti case acts like a flag attached to a word, indicating its role and relationship with other words in the sentence. So, regardless of the order, every word, with its own special ending, gives us hints about what it’s doing in the sentence, making it easier to understand quickly.
In the short story, the heptapods reveal that they know an entire sentence before it is written down. Instead of writing each element following the other, they write all of them simultaneously. As Louise learns this language, she realizes that it allows for more flexibility of thought. The English language is constraining for a species with simultaneous mode of consciousness like the heptapods. It explains why their language evolved that way.
Towards the end, it affects her way of thinking. She learns how to write without planning every stroke ahead of time. She sees ideas form in her mind’s eye as semagrams rather than words. Finally, her perception of time is no longer linear; she experiences future events alongside the present and understands her life as a whole rather than a sequence of moments.
In Vikram Sampath’s book “Bravehearts of Bharat: Vignettes from Indian History,” he points out the significant issues within Indian historiography. The history we learn in schools, often centered on Delhi, tends to overlook the genuine stories of Indians. Instead, it spotlights foreign invaders and their victories. The narrative presented suggests a constant series of failures, implying a lack of bravery on our part. Every discussed battle ends in defeat, portraying us as merely a chain of losers. Notably absent is any mention of resistance from our side, almost as if they want us to believe our nation was filled with individuals like Raja Ambhi, who meekly submitted to Alexander of Macedonia.
When opportunities arise for cultural revival or correcting civilizational wrongs, Indian Left historians intervene to prevent it. This was evident in the debate about whether the Babri structure was built on top of a mandir at Janmabhumi. The Left historians swiftly entered the scene. Initially, they refused to acknowledge that the Babri structure was built on top of a temple. Later, when evidence surfaced against that claim, they shifted to asserting it was anything but a Hindu temple. With the temple set to be inaugurated on Jan 22, 2024, it becomes crucial to know the names of these Left historians and understand their actions in obstructing the construction of the Ram temple at Janmabhumi.
Some Historians are More Equal Than Others
In his memoir, “An Indian, I am” K.K. Muhammad, the ASI archaeologist who participated in excavations with B.B. Lal, explores the profound significance of Ayodhya for Hindus. “The Ram temple is to a Hindu, what Mecca and Medina are to a Muslim. A Muslim cannot imagine both these places under the control of another religion. Muslims should feel the pain of a Hindu, whose religious places are under the control of another religion, even though they live in a Hindu-majority country. Hindus believe Babri Masjid is Ram Janmabhoomi. This place has nothing to do with Prophet Muhammad. It relates only to Babar. So why should there be such a fight over this place?”
Since the 1980s, Left historians have been leading a campaign against the Rama temple, contending that Rama worship emerged in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, positioning it as a post-Babar phenomenon. They also challenge the historicity of Ayodhya in Valmiki’s account, dismissing the present-day identification of Ayodhya as Ramjanmabhumi as a matter of faith. This narrative clashes with K.K.Muhammad’s portrayal of Ayodhya’s sanctity, deepening the divide between perspectives on this historical and religious site.
The first argument of the Left historians was that Babar did not demolish any temple.. Their counterargument posited that the Babri structure emerged on virgin land without prior temple demolition. In their fantasy world, Babar deliberately bypassed existing temples, procured new land, and erected a mosque. This stance, a strategic move to hinder any potential settlement between Hindus and Muslims, necessitated the outright denial of a temple’s existence beneath the Babri structure. For them, the absence of a temple underneath would settle the case definitively.
However, their narrative faced a pivotal challenge well before the 1992 demolition. B.B. Lal’s earlier excavations in Ayodhya uncovered a pillared structure dating back to the 11th century. The brick-built pillar bases were marginally larger than the fourteen black stone pillars within the Babri structure. The carvings on these pillars followed the Pratihara style from the eleventh century CE. This archaeological revelation effectively dismantled their assertion that the Babri structure was erected on clean ground.
Once the first argument by the Leftists was demolished, their second argument was that the excavated structure cannot be a temple.
.The Leftists harbored a strong aversion to the brick-pillar-indicated-mandir theory. Consequently, they resorted to a dubious strategy of concocting alternative explanations. They suggested the revealed structure might have been an ordinary building or a hall adjacent to a mosque. According to them, the carvings could be attributed to a domestic house, proposing that the excavated structure could represent anything—perhaps even a Starbucks—but definitely not a temple.
As the Court ordered excavations started, the evidence supporting the existence of a temple continued to surface. This compelling proof included the Nagari-scripted letter “Shri” on a black stone pillar, the identification of the temple’s plinth beneath the boundary wall, and the discovery of a substantial stone adorned with intricate floral motifs. The most decisive piece of evidence came in the form of a stone slab measuring 5×225 ft, bearing 20 lines of inscriptions referencing Bhargava Parasurama, Ayodhya, and Vishnu’s incarnations. This accumulation of concrete archaeological findings served to counter the Leftists’ speculative and dismissive claims about the nature of the excavated structure.
As the excavations progressed, revealing figurines and stone architectural fragments such as the amalaka, ghata–pallava base, kirtimukhas, and other elements, the unmistakable conclusion emerged that the structure beneath Babri was not of Muslim origin. Responding to mounting evidence, Leftists shifted their narrative, asserting that it was, in fact, Buddhist and not Hindu. This shift in focus demonstrated a steadfast commitment to denying the possibility that it was a Hindu temple that had been demolished. However, as evidence accumulated, the Leftists found it increasingly challenging to maintain their position.
Ultimately, when confronted with artifacts like the Kalash, symbolic of Hindu temples, and representations of the crocodile (associated with the river Ganga) and the tortoise (associated with the river Yamuna), the Leftists had to concede that these items were non-Islamic. The sheer weight of archaeological findings debunked their claims, forcing a reevaluation of their narrative.
The ASI’s findings unveiled a massive structure dating back to the 11th and 12th centuries, over which another substantial structure was built between the 12th and 16th centuries. The Babri structure was completed atop this foundation. ASI noted the presence of a significant structure below Babri and identified sculptures depicting a divine couple, amalaka, lotus motifs, and a circular shrine with a pranala in the north—distinctive features of north Indian temples. These excavations provided undeniable evidence of a temple with a garbha griha.
Faced with the exposure of their inaccurate narrative, Left historians vehemently protested against the ASI, accusing it of producing a biased report. The clash between the archaeological evidence and the ideological stance of the Leftists intensified, marking a contentious chapter in the discourse surrounding Ayodhya.
The Confessions
One of the prominent Left historians, D. Mandal, initially posited an argument that the site had been utilized by Muslims since the Gupta period, citing two floods as reasons for abandonment. However, during court proceedings, he had to correct himself, acknowledging the absence of evidence supporting the flood claim. Despite a pranala, a crucial feature of temples for draining water on a Shiva linga, which would typically confirm it as a temple to Hindus, Mandal remained resistant to such interpretation.
On the other hand, Supriya Varma and Jaya Menon contended that the circular shrine was a Buddhist stupa. At the same time, attempts were made to label it as a Muslim tomb despite its apparent small size. Ifran Habib argued that the presence of lime, mortar, and surkhi pointed to Muslim construction methods, only to face dissent from his own party members. Jaya Menon countered by asserting that lime and gypsum had been used since Neolithic times, with surkhi dating back to the early Kushan period.
As the legal proceedings unfolded, it became apparent that the Left historians were espousing positions even more stringent than necessary. Notably, they argued that an old mosque or Eidgah lay beneath the Babri structure, a claim not asserted by the Muslims themselves.The courtroom drama highlighted the ideological fervor of the Left historians, whose interpretations often contradicted the archaeological evidence and diverged from the perspectives of the communities directly involved.
The Court keenly observed this evolving attitude of the Left historians. Initially, they asserted that the Babri structure occupied a site devoid of any religious significance or previous Hindu structures, disassociating it from the birthplace of Lord Rama. However, as successive excavations dismantled these claims, a noticeable shift occurred in their stance.
The Court noted that the excavations unequivocally demonstrated that the disputed structure did not stand on vacant land but had been in continuous use for centuries, serving a religious purpose. The critical question remained whether it was a temple.
The ASI’s findings revealed a massive structure beneath the Babri structure, featuring a 50 m-long wall and seventeen rows of pillar bases. The Leftists contended that it was a Muslim structure wrongfully claimed as Hindu, asserting it could be Buddhist, Jain, or Muslim but not Hindu. The bias against anything Hindu was palpable. When faced with the pillar bases, they went so far as to accuse the ASI of fabrication. This accusation stunned the Court, given that all excavations were conducted in the presence of plaintiffs and court-appointed observers. The Court rightfully deemed the Leftist arguments “thoroughly hollow.” These were the same pillar bases initially identified by B.B. Lal in 1976-1977 and later confirmed by archaeologist K.K. Muhammad. The Court firmly rejected the insinuation that the excavation lacked fidelity, highlighting the unwarranted nature of the Leftists’ allegations.
As the weight of evidence mounted against them, confessions from the Left historians began to emerge. One admitted to relying solely on newspaper reports and hearsay for knowledge about the disputed site, confessing to not having read Babarnama or any material on the Babri Mosque. Another self-proclaimed epigraphy expert acknowledged a lack of proficiency in Arabic, Persian, or Latin—the languages of the inscriptions in question. He initially identified the language as Persian in a flip-flop, later retracting and stating it was Arabic. Another historian, claiming literary evidence sufficed without visiting the disputed site, eventually conceded his inability to read Persian, Arabic, or Sanskrit, relying on his father-in-law for Persian translations.
The author of “The Disputed Mosque, a Historical Inquiry” admitted to lacking expertise in epigraphy or numismatics, archaeology, architecture, or any language. Another historian formed an opinion before reviewing the ASI report, while another with a Ph.D. sourced information from newspapers and magazines without reading any book by a historian.
One individual, who had never visited Ayodhya and lacked knowledge of Babar’s reign, disclosed being a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. The Court expressed surprise at the recklessness of these self-proclaimed expert historians and archaeologists who made irresponsible statements without proper study, research, or investigation, particularly in a dispute of such sensitivity.
The individuals involved in these confessions included Romila Thapar, D.N. Jha, Shireen Moosvi, Irfan Habib, D. Mandal, Supriya Varma, Jaya Menon, Sita Ram Roy, Suraj Bhan, Ashoka Dutta, Shireen Ratnagar, and R.C. Thakran. Hailing from institutions like Jawaharlal Nehru University and Aligarh Muslim University, some were card-carrying members of CPI and CPI(M), indicating that their stance was driven more by ideology than academic rigor—an ideology seemingly anti-Hindu. The confessions suggested a fear of judgment by Babar for not defending his iconoclasm.
Finally
Hindus have a profound connection to sacred spaces tied to geography, and the Ramjanmabhumi stands prominently among them as the revered birthplace of Lord Rama. Even after the demolition of the temple by Babar, accounts from Western travelers attest to the enduring reverence devotees held for this sacred ground. However, the forceful opposition from Left historians against acknowledging the existence of a temple hints at a more insidious motive—an apparent willingness to obstruct any resurgence of Hindu identity.
This distortion of history extends beyond academic debate; it represents a deliberate effort to implant seeds of inferiority within the fabric of our nation. In the post-independence era, as Indian Marxist historians took the reins, they perpetuated a relentless self-critique that went beyond the narrative of colonial oppressors. Instead, they engaged in a constant act of apologizing for our own history. Through their written works, they painted a picture where the erstwhile slave, long after the departure of the master, continues to self-inflict the whip—a poignant portrayal of the completion of the insidious work of colonialism. This historical manipulation becomes a tool not only to distort the past but also to shape a narrative that undermines a nation’s cultural pride and identity.
On a date that would one day be marked by future tragedy, history quietly marked its own significant encounter. On the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean, just near the bustling port of Surat, two vessels came perilously close. One was a majestic Mughal ship, her hull filled with treasures. This vessel had evaded many pirates lurking in these waters. The other was an English pirate ship, and its target was the Mughal galleon, which had eluded the snares of many pirates lurking in these waters. The Mughal ship was just a few days from home, but an encounter happened in the blink of an eye, pushing these ships into a historic confrontation.
First, a canon on the Mughal ship, instead of blasting the pirate ship, exploded on deck. Instead of being a formidable weapon, it becomes a formidable bomb. In that chaos, another significant event occurs. Defying all odds, a cannonball from the pirate ship scores a direct hit on the main mast of the Mughal ship. This renders the mighty vessel defenseless and vulnerable to the pirates of the Indian Ocean. Two hundred pirates erupt in jubilation.
This was a time when the English had not started looting India. They were in the nascent stages of establishing commercial roots and currying favor with Aurangzeb. By this time, Aurangzeb was busy with looting and religious purification. By then, the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya had been demolished. Within this backdrop, the tale unfolds—a narrative entwined with the exploits of pirates and the looming presence of Aurangzeb, poised to cast its shadow upon the destiny of the burgeoning East India Company. This could have ended the East India Company adventures even before they started.
The Chase
Aurangzeb (Wikipedia)
Aurangzeb’s ship, the Ganj-i-Sawai, was a hefty wooden vessel known as a ghanjah dhow, cruising the waters of the vast Indian Ocean. Weighing in at over 1500 tonnes, it could carry more than a thousand people. Ganj-i-Sawai meant “exceeding treasure,” while the English gave it the moniker Gunsway.
Designed for a specific mission—to transport Aurangzeb’s family members to Mecca for the hajj—the Gunsway was loaded with valuable goods like calico, fine porcelain, ivory ornaments, and peppercorns. Think of it like Jeff Bezos’ yacht rolling into the harbor in today’s terms. The ship was armed with eighty guns and had a crew of four hundred soldiers, highlighting its dual role of imperial grandeur and practical defense of precious cargo during its voyages.
Onboard the Ganj-i-Sawai, alongside the distinguished women from Aurangzeb’s court, were other female passengers. However, a darker aspect tainted the ship’s voyage, as the captain engaged in a side business—sex trafficking of Turkish women. In stark contrast, the pirate ship sailed without women, shedding light on the stark differences in the moral compass between these maritime ventures.
The other ship was commanded by Henry Every, also known as “Long Ben,” a notorious English pirate who operated during the late 17th century. Every gained infamy for orchestrating one of history’s most audacious and profitable pirate raids. In 1694, he led a mutiny aboard the slave ship Charles II, renaming it the Fancy, and embarked on a spree of piracy in the Indian Ocean.
Back in the 1600s, getting rich was exclusive. You had to luck out and be born into a royal dynasty ( Mughal, British Royal Family) or take the pirate route (Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh). If you were a peasant, getting rich was a distant dream—until joint stock companies entered the scene. Suddenly, you didn’t have to be Captain Jack Sparrow or William III. Between 1660 and 1680, the British East India Company’s stock value shot up fourfold, giving birth to a new class of wealthy folks.
In those days, the Mughal ship laden with treasures was quite the talk of the “pirate internet.” It wasn’t just Every’s pirate ship on the hunt; a couple of American vessels were also waiting for this grand prize. Fate took a twist when all these pirate ships coincidentally converged on a tiny island in the Red Sea. Strangely unanimous, they elected Every as their captain, and that marked the commencement of an extraordinary chase. The fleet, now under Every’s command, set its sights on Aurangzeb’s ships, initiating a high-stakes pursuit on the vast expanse of the Red Sea.
In due course, the pirates closed in on the Gunsway, finally incapacitating it. Remarkably, this small crew managed to cripple a ship three times its size. The Gunsway’s hold contained a wealth of treasures—gold, silver, frankincense, myrrh, jewels, ivory, and saffron—an impressive haul, marking one of the most lucrative heists of its time.
However, the aftermath took a dark turn. In the days that followed, the pirates subjected the women on the ship to a multi-day ordeal of rape, and the men endured torture. As time passed, the weight of those inhumane actions lingered heavily on the conscience of one pirate. Confessing on his deathbed, he revealed how the haunting memories of the mistreatment of both men and women continued to affect his soul.
Decades before this event, Aurangzeb’s representatives disliked the English factory in Surat. The contentious issues at the Surat site led the East India Company to seek an alternative location, choosing one 200 miles south of Surat. These islands were initially under Portuguese occupation, but they eventually decided to sell them to the British as part of a dowry deal. The transfer occurred after Catherine of Braganza married Charles II in 1661. Subsequently, the British opted to lease these islands to the East India Company. Referred to as Bombaim by the Portuguese, the East India Company established itself on these islands, now known as Bombay.
Upon settling in Bombay, the company established a new mint, a venture entrusted to the capable hands of the well-connected 19-year-old Samuel Annesley. The kid found that the coins minted had no use outside Bombay. But before he could address those issues, he was sent to Surat to help with the factory there. The English had several warehouses and residence halls overlooking the Tapti River. Since it was a hub of the Indian Ocean trade network, it was a wealthy place. Soon, Annesley became part of the trading community and knew all the secrets of the place. He was like Abraham bin Yiju, the Jewish trader who had settled in Mangalore centuries before. But by the time of Every’s attack on Ganj-i-Sawai, Annesley was thirty-seven years old, with many decades of wisdom in dealing with the Mughals and other traders.
Upon learning of the pirate attack at Surat, the locals suspected that the English had more on their agenda than just trade—they might be supplementing their income through piracy. To the Indians, English merchants and pirates seemed indistinguishable; they were all tarred with the same brush. The traders attempting to establish businesses found themselves under scrutiny and suspicion.
The news of the piracy incident spread like wildfire, drawing an angry crowd to the East India factory in Surat, seeking retribution. In response, Mughal troops intervened, placing Annesly and other members of the East India Company under protective custody and house arrest. The enraged crowd, however, clamored for execution, accusing the English of complicity in the crime.
As tensions simmered, the Mughals crunched the numbers. They realized starkly that the English weren’t making significant profits through trade alone. The suspicion that piracy might be a necessary means to balance the books fueled the locals’ discontent, adding complexity to the strained relations between the East India Company and the Mughal authorities.
Aurangzeb grew weary of the English presence and ordered his men to seize the Surat factory while preparing for an assault on Bombay. He was determined to expel them from India, setting the stage for a triangular battle involving three distinct entities: Aurangzeb’s Empire, the East India Company as a private corporation, and the pirates. The unfolding conflict encapsulated the complex dynamics among these forces vying for control in the Indian subcontinent.
Adding to its concerns, the East India Company (EIC) confronted yet another existential threat. Its primary business wasn’t in spices but in Calico. This fabric gained immense popularity and even started replacing traditional English wool. The rising discontent against Calico prompted Britain’s “Make England’s Wool Great Again” movement.
The movement gained momentum, leading the House of Commons to pass a bill to ban the import of Calico. The looming question now hinged on the decision of the House of Lords. If they, too, passed the bill, the East India Company would find itself in significant jeopardy, navigating troubled waters in a struggle to maintain its economic foothold.
Amidst the East India Company (EIC) personnel under house arrest in Surat, urgent letters were dispatched to the company’s London office. The message was crystal clear – the company faced imminent peril if Captain Every wasn’t apprehended. Aurgangzeb’s retaliatory actions loomed, and the prospect of any silver lining appeared dim. Faced with this precarious situation, the East India Company implored the government to intervene and respond.
In response, the government took decisive action by offering a reward for the capture of the pirates. The stakes were high, and the race to bring Captain Every to justice became paramount for both the East India Company and the authorities.
While the British Government, East India Company personnel, and various bounty hunters scoured the seas for Captain Every and his crew, Samuel Annesley was still confined in Surat. Undeterred, he pondered the situation extensively, allowing his thoughts to percolate.
Following this incident, the British found themselves at a crossroads, faced with a crucial decision. They had to choose between two avenues of wealth: making money through piracy or engaging in trade. Notably, the flow of money through trade had yet to materialize fully, given that the establishment of the first factory had just taken not too far back. Concurrently, British monarchy-sanctioned pirates, officially known as privateers, were actively plundering Spanish ships and contributing funds to the crown. This pivotal moment marked a juncture where the British had to determine how their economic interests would be pursued.
This decision didn’t rest on the shoulders of the English Monarch; instead, it landed squarely on Samuel Annesley.
In a moment of insight, Annesley conceived a strategic idea that would prove pivotal in safeguarding the fate of the East India Company (EIC). Recognizing Aurangzeb’s desire for EIC to provide security for Mughal ships as a guarantee, Annesley saw an opportunity to extend the company’s influence beyond land, asserting power over the seas. He proposed that the EIC could offer protection not only to Aurangzeb’s ships but also to those of other merchants. In exchange for this safeguard, the company could levy charges on Aurangzeb, transforming itself into a maritime law enforcement authority.
This innovative approach would empower the EIC to regulate behavior at sea, ensuring both justice and order. By protecting private rights on the ocean, the East India Company could carve out a distinct and influential position in the unfolding dynamics of maritime security.
Possibilities
Thus, what might have been a decisive and potentially terminal moment for the East India Company was averted by Samuel Annesly’s strategic insight. Had he not proposed providing maritime security and seizing the opportunity presented by Aurangzeb’s request, the company faced the imminent risk of expulsion from India. Coupled with the protectionist movement favoring wool, this could have precipitated a severe crisis.
In this alternate scenario, the potential outcome is shrouded in uncertainty. Aurangzeb might have expelled the company from Surat and Bombay, leaving the East India Company in limbo. Speculation abounds regarding the company’s potential return, and its subsequent growth trajectory remains an open question. The intricate interplay of historical forces could have altered the course of the East India Company’s history, influencing its size, influence, and the timing of its presence in the Indian subcontinent.
Reference
Enemy of All Mankind by Steven Johnson The events mentioned above are adapted from this book, which contains a lot more details of the world of those times including what happened to Pirate Every. Highly recommended.
In 1132 CE, in Mangalore, the Tunisian Jewish merchant Abraham bin Yiju married Ashu Nair, a local Malayali woman. They lived together for less than two decades in great prosperity and raised a family. Eventually, their story ended in a heartbreaking tragedy. Fortunately, we can reconstruct the lives of these two people with a fair amount of accuracy because letters written by Abraham still exist.
Historical accounts typically concern kings, warriors, philosophers, or world travelers. Rarely do you get the stories of people like Abraham bin Yiju, who was one of the many traders along the Indian Ocean supermarket. We know about him because of an ancient Jewish tradition: if the form of the word God appeared on paper, it was not to be destroyed. A room called the geniza was maintained next to a synagogue to preserve such letters. This room had no doors or windows but a slot through which letters could be deposited. Abraham’s personal and business correspondence was preserved in a synagogue near Cairo.
This story is fascinating in many ways because we have first-hand accounts of the lives of Abraham and Ashu. Second, it gives us details of the ports of the Indian Ocean trading network and their inner workings. Third, it provides us vivid details of life on the Malabar coast at that time. We will learn about all these as we go over the lives of Abraham and Ashu.
Tunisia, Aden, and Cairo
First of all, how does a Tunisian Jew end up on the Malabar coast in the 12th century and end up staying for two decades.? Abraham’s father was a rabbi in the port of Mahdia in Tunisia. Instead of becoming a rabbi, Abraham wanted to be a trader. The way to get a start in those days was by becoming an apprentice to a well-known trader. For that purpose, around 1120 CE, Abraham left Tunisia. He traveled along the caravan route to Cairo with letters of introduction to prominent Jewish Tunisian traders. Cairo was the hub from where spices were distributed to North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Abraham was on the move after spending a few years with traders there. He left for Aden with introductions to the Jewish traders there. The unfolding of his life was beyond prediction.
There was a reason why Aden was an important place. In those days, ships did not go directly from Malabar to Cairo. The stop before Cairo was Aden, a major conduit between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean trade. The traffic to Europe via Cairo and the Middle East via Jeddah would go through Aden. Aden was also a perfect port location since it was where the spout of the Red Sea opened to the Indian Ocean. However, Aden had horrible weather and was cut off from the rest of the country via mountains. Hence, there was no hinterland to trade.
The Aden trading hub had one thing in plenty: traders with vast trading and travel experience. Though not as famous as world travelers like Ibn Batuta and Marco Polo, the trader Abu Sa’id Halfon had traveled between Egypt, India, East Africa, Syria, Morocco, and Spain. Another one, Abu Zikri Sijilmasi from Morocco, traveled to Egypt, southern Europe, and India. Traders like them transported Persian Saffron to China, dishes from China to Greece, Greek brocade to India, Indian steel to Aleppo, glass from Aleppo to Yemen, and striped material from Yemen to Persia.
There was a reason why Jewish traders in Cairo and Aden focused on the India trade. By this period, the First Crusade had taken over Jerusalem and established kingdoms over today’s Israel and Lebanon over the years. These “holy wars” made it difficult for Jews to work there as Anti-Semitism was rampant. Hence, European Jewish refugees moved to other opportunities like the India trade.
In fact, the existence of this long-distance Indian Ocean trade is not surprising at all as there has been plenty of evidence for commodities from India appearing in faraway places, even further back in time. Archaeologists in Dhuwelia, a seasonal hunting site in Eastern Jordan, found a cotton thread embedded in lime-plaster dating to the fourth millennium BCE. Cotton is not native to Arabia, and that particular species could have come from only one place in the world – Balochistan, where it has been cultivated since the fifth millennium. Queen Puabi, who lived in Iraq during the Mature Harappan period (2600 – 1900 BCE) had Harappan carnelian beads in her tomb. Following her, Sargon of Akkad (2334 – 2279 BCE) boasted about ships from Meluhha, primarily identified with this Indus region, docked in the bay. This suggests ships from the Indus region journeyed to Iraq about 5,000 years back.
Burial sites in the third millennium BCE Mesopotamia had shell-made lamps and cups produced from a conch shell found only in India; Early Dynastic Mesopotamians were consumers of the Harappan carnelian bead. By 2000 BCE, the trade between Africa and India intensified. While crops moved from Africa to India, genetic studies have shown that the zebu cattle went from India via Arabia to Africa. Around 1200 BCE, among the dried fruits kept in the mummy of Ramses II’s nostrils was pepper from South India. If you are familiar with the trading hubs of the old world (1, 2), there is nothing unusual about this trade from both North and South India.
The most important trading goods in the 12th century were spices, like during the time of Queen Puabi and Ramses II. Among the spices like cardamom, ginger, coriander, nutmeg, and cloves, black pepper was considered the most valuable. In 408 CE, Alaric demanded 3000 pounds of pepper as ransom from Rome. Pepper was not used just for cooking but also as medicine.
At Aden, Abraham found luck with one of the most powerful and influential Jewish traders named Madmun ibn Bandar. Madmun was the head of the city’s large and wealthy Jewish community and a man of great influence with a trading network extending from Spain to India.
Staying at Aden, Abraham mastered the intricacies of the Indian Ocean trade. He learned about the wind patterns which decided the trade cycles. He learned how to manage risk. Bad weather could sink a ship. Pirates could loot a ship. The risk was managed by spreading consignments across multiple ships, forming partnerships, and dealing with various commodities. During those times, no brokerage firms or warehouses could store goods for a fee. The traders kept track of the price fluctuations of iron, pepper, cardamom, and other spices in the markets of Cairo. They relayed the news to their friends and junior trading partners and kept track of events in Syria and Palestine.
As any marriage counselor would say, constant communication is crucial to success. There was a reliable mail system between the trading ports, which would allow a shipper to send advance notice of the list of goods before sending it on a ship. The mail system did not carry just the list of goods but also gossip and market intelligence. Trade depended on the goodwill of friends and business contacts. These relationships had to be established and nurtured. Hence, the letters also carried mention of personal affection for the recipient and their family members. Gifts were sent along with letters to keep the relationship strong.
Mangalore
Letter from Abraham b. Yijū to his brothers and sisters after his safe return from India, written in Aden in 1149 CE. (via Cambridge Collection. Fair Use)
After three years of apprenticeship, Madmun encouraged the young Abraham to move to Mangalore to become his junior partner in trade. Initially, this looked like a straightforward ask, but something else was happening here. Most traders traveled back and forth between the ports of the Indian Ocean. Some stayed for a longer duration, but none matched the length of Abraham’s stay at Mangalore. He stayed there for 17 years without even a trip to Aden or Cairo. It is possible he was a bad boy and ran to India to escape the repercussions or he had accumulated large losses and had to stay to recoup it.
The travel was not easy and he wrote about the hardships. Madmun reassured him that the wealth he would accumulate would compensate for the ordeal. The place where he arrived, Mangalore, was one of the many ports on the West Coast of India that rose to prominence due to the spice trade. The harbor was scenic, with the Nethravathi River flowing amid coconut trees into the Indian Ocean. A sandbar protected the lagoon from the ocean waves. Far away in the inland hills grew black pepper and other spices.
The time that Abraham moved to Mangalore was a time of honest trade. Twelve Hindu kingdoms on the Malabar coast controlled ports such as Mangalore, Beypore, Cochin, Cannore, and Calicut. The primary income for these kings was taxes on the trade and some of the wealthy financed ships. The king also provided protection from pirates while the ship was at the port. They also kept war fleets to attack pirates and force the merchants to pay taxes. Merchants stored their wares in fortified houses behind the harbor, close to the beach, where they could keep an eye on the incoming ships. There were no guns or walls or any other defense. These would change centuries later when the Asuric Portuguese showed up with the canons.
Abraham bin Yiju lived alongside a huge community of traders who were Arabs, Gujaratis, Tamils, and Jews. Like the Jewish traders, Gujaratis traveled across the Indian Ocean ports from Aden to Malacca. They had powerful control over the flow of goods. Madmun, Abraham’s mentor at Aden, had a close relationship with them and exchanged information about market conditions in the Middle East. Madmun had business relationships not just with these Gujarati traders but also with Muslims. Besides that, one of the ships he used belonged to a Pattani-Swami and a man called Nambiar, who was from Kerala.
Trade did not happen via the barter system. Gold and Silver came in from Aden. Abraham bought goods and sent them over to Aden; horse, weapons, and ceramics trade had not started yet. Goods that were imported to India consisted of silk and clothing, jewelry, household utensils, cheese, sugar, raisins and olive oil. The goods were imported in small quantities indicating it was for personal use and not for wholesale.
Also, the trading network was self-regulated, unlike in Europe, where guilds controlled it. There is no evidence of price regulation which existed in Europe at that time. Even though there were Hindu, Muslim, and Jewish traders, partnerships were conducted across religious lines. The biggest fear for the traders was not Jewish courts or Sharia courts but the loss of reputation. This prevented fraud more than the legal repercussions.
The Indian Ocean trade was so lucrative that one could become wealthy beyond imagination. One Muslim trader, Ramisht, profited so much from just one voyage that he provided Chinese silk covering for Ka’aba. Abraham, too, became wealthy. He imported soap and sugar from Egypt, pots and sieves from Aden, mats from Somalia, and carpets from Gujarat. His clothing, including robes, turbans, and shawls, was imported from Egypt.
Abraham also turned into an entrepreneur. There were many metal workers along the Malabar coast, and he saw an opportunity to start a repair shop. From his contacts, he received damaged vessels, lamps, and dishes from as far away as Spain. These damaged goods came with instructions for repair. This is an example of outsourcing work to India, a millennia before it became a thing.
There is one interesting point in his letters. Even though Abraham lived in Mangalore and never traveled to other ports or even inland towns, he referred to the region as al-Hind or bilad al-Hind (the country of India). Thus, even though many kingdoms along the Malabar coast controlled the various ports, even a 12th-century trader knew they were all part of India. Traders from that period knew the land east of Sindh to Assam as one unit called al-Hind. Arab travelers and geographers believed this al-Hind had one center under the control of a king named Ballahra (possibly the Arabic version of Vallabharaja, a title used by various dynasties). For them, Bharat was a civilization state.
Life was going fine when something happened on 17th October 1132 CE. The letters say Abraham publicly granted freedom to a slave girl named Ashu. Or words to that effect. The letters also tell us that Ashu was a Nair. Such relationships were common among traders who did not bring their families along. If you look at Ibn Batuta’s life story, he was the Sanjay Dutt of those times. Abraham married Ashu and had three children: a son named Surur, a daughter named Sitt Al Dar, and one child who died.
It is hard to believe Ashu’s backstory. Nairs were mostly warriors and some headed local kingdoms. Some of them looked after land and temples. Thus, it is hard to believe that a Nair would be enslaved. It is not like there were no Jewish girls on the Malabar coast then, and Abraham could have married one of them. Several thousand Jews lived around Cochin, but most were from Syria, not Tunisia. So, there was something else to the story that can be pieced from other information.
There is one incident which throws some light on what could have happened. Abraham had ordered 14 mithqals of cardamom from a middleman. The trader did not show up in time, and the ships were about to leave. So he had to buy cardamom for 17 mithqals. This was the nature of trade during that time. It was based on an understanding that allowed traders to commit large amounts of money without a mechanism to address fraud. Trust and relationships were paramount.
This was a fraud from the middleman. It was not just Abraham’s money at stake. Some of his partner’s money was also lost in this deal. Two of them wrote back, asking Abraham to deal with this matter directly, or they would rebuke the middleman. They also suspected that there was something odd in this transaction. They asked Abraham to deal with it directly, independent of the role of the partners. They pushed Abraham for many years, but no result came of it. It turned out that this middleman was a close relative of Ashu’s brother, the Nair. Thus, Abraham may have loaned the middleman because Ashu or her brother had asked him to. In such close business relations, it is possible that a monetary debt to her brother, who holds an important position in the matrilineal society of Nairs, may have forced the marriage.
This marriage, which went outside the Jewish community, was not accepted by the partners, and there is complete silence in the letters about Ashu. It is typical for the partners to inquire about the well-being of the merchant’s family. The problem could have been religion; according to Jewish law, the child gets the mother’s religion.
Malayali historian Manmadhan Ullattil, too, does not believe the slave story. He writes
My belief was that this deed was made by Yiju for the only purpose of making the Yiju offspring legal in their Jewish community back home and ensuring legal succession (Yiju was a wealthy man). I am not sure about Nair slaves (consider also that Ashu was not thrown out of home or lost caste- as she had a fruitful relationship with her family all the time) at that time or that Ashu would have wanted such a manumission document. Ghosh in his book the Imam and the Indian Page 220 concurs with this since the event was celebrated with fanfare, the document (like today’s wedding card!)was more a public announcement of the betrothal and legality than an act of manumission.
Abraham would have lived on the Malabar coast with Ashu and the kids, but the actions of Roger II, the king of Sicily, changed their lives. In 1148 CE, Roger II attacked Tunisia. People were struck by famine and disease. Abraham’s family was kidnapped and taken to Sicily. Abraham got a message that his brother Mubashshir wanted to join him in India.
On this news, Abraham left Mangalore with his kids in 1149 CE. Ashu stayed or was left behind. Abraham met his brother, who defrauded him. His son Surur died soon after. In 1151 CE, Madmun, too, passed away. A broken Abraham moved from Aden to Egypt and south Yemen, where he became a prominent person in the Jewish community.
He got his daughter married to his elder brother’s son in Egypt. The daughter of a Nair woman, Sitt al-Dar, from Malabar, married her cousin at Futsat on 11th August 1156 CE. That way, Abraham’s wealth stayed in the family. During his final days, he stayed near his daughter. Abraham’s son-in-law, Perahya, made a meager living in the Egyptian countryside, which shows that Abraham was not as wealthy as he was in India. There was not really much wealth to preserve.
He never returned to Ashu in Mangalore. After the wedding, there is no news of Abraham. Neither his son-in-law nor other nephews mention him in their letters. Did he return to Ashu in Malabar or die alone in Egypt? We may never know.
PS: Two hundred years after Abraham bin Yiju, Ibn Batuta from the neighboring Morocco too made his way to the Malabar coast.
References
When Asia Was the World: Traveling Merchants, Scholars, Warriors, and Monks Who Created the “Riches of the “East” by Stewart Gordon
While we all have heard of Rome, Jerusalem, and Nazareth, most of us have not heard of Eleusis. This Greek harbor town was the spiritual capital of the Western world. Plato visited Eleusis and wrote about the “blessed sight and vision” he witnessed “in a state of perfection” by sipping a drink called kykeon. Those who drank kykeon transcended the division between humankind and nature. They also realized that death was not the end of the human journey, and underneath this mortal clothing, we are immortals.
After the Greeks, the Romans continued the tradition. Cicero and Marcus Aurelius were initiated there, along with so many others. We don’t hear about Eleusis anymore because it became a casualty with the Neo-Christianity that arose in the fourth century CE. Pagan monuments were attacked and destroyed. Secret religions like the one in Eleusis were annihilated by the fourth century CE.
In his book The Immortality Key, Brian Muraresku argues that, rather than starting a new religion, Jesus was trying to preserve the “holiest of Mysteries” from Ancient Greece. This is an origin story of Christianity with a psychedelic plot twist. In this version, Jesus continued the tradition of Plato, Pindar, Sophocles, and the rest of the Athenians. In early Christianity, Mass was celebrated in house churches and underground catacombs. Hence, you could brew the drink in your home instead of going to a unique pilgrimage site or the wilderness of Greece and Italy.
How else does Christianity go from being an obscure cult of “twenty or so illiterate day laborers” in a neglected part of the Mediterranean to the official religion of Rome, converting half the empire and millions in the process? It is well known that pagans in the Mediterranean world were ruthlessly targeted by the Gospel writers and Paul. Muraresku argues that they used the Greek language to create a new religion that convinced believers that the Christian wine is no ordinary wine and that the sacrament of the Greeks and the sacrament of Jesus are one and the same. Behind closed doors, the Eucharistic celebrations included secret rites and revealed truths. This also influenced the Gnostic churches, which were Christian sects that thrived in the second and third centuries CE.
The book argues that psychedelics were the shortcut to enlightenment that founded Western civilization. It went from Eleusinian Mysteries to Dionysian Mysteries to the original Christianity. This was then passed on to the witches of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Muraresku’s book is not just about theory but about his twelve-year investigation into this theory. As part of this, he travels to Greece, Louvre, goes into the catacombs in Rome, and finds manuscripts that have yet to be translated into English. Finally, he finds evidence of the ceremonial use of psychedelic drugs in antiquity.
War and Peace Against Consciousness
How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan describes the author’s first-hand experiences with various drugs. He also writes about psychedelic trips by various people in which they experience that the consciousness that manifests in the body is not made by the body, nor is it confined to the body, nor does it die with the body’s death. They also lost the fear of death as they transcended the primary identification with the body and experienced ego-free states. In these “mystical” experiences, they experienced the dissolution of the ego followed by a sense of merging with the universe. They accessed an alternative reality where the usual law of physics did not apply. They saw manifestations of cosmic consciousness, encountering visionary beings and being drawn toward sacred realms of light.
Primal mystic experience can be threatening to existing hierarchical structures. In Abrahamic religions, only the founder has the direct experience of the sacred. God reveals himself in history in unique events to specific peoples or prophets that are unavailable to others directly. Followers listen to stories and follow the symbolism. Access to the sacred must be mediated by priests. The Church of Psychedelics, on the other hand, offers a direct religious experience to anyone. Then faith is superfluous.
What will happen to religion when people are convinced that the consciousness that manifests in the body is neither made by a body-mind complex nor confined to the body. What if people realize that consciousness does not become extinct with the death of the body. With this awareness, you no longer fear death. When you no longer fear death, there is no need to fear hell and the final judgment. When you no longer fear the final judgment, you are no longer a customer of what the Church has to sell.
The fact that ordinary people could experience transcendence without the Church did not go well. In his book Indra’s Net Rajiv Malhotra points out how hierarchical religions counter these self-realizations. In their view, the body and its experience are not reliable. There is a concept of a ‘sin’ which prevents one from realizing their connection to the divine. Even though such declarations were made, it was not as if people complied. Hence the history of the Church is a history of oppression and bans.
Emperor Theodosius outlawed the Mysteries at the end of the fourth century CE. In 367 CE, Archbishop Athanasius of Alexandria called to cleanse the Church from every defilement by rejecting apocryphal books filled with myths. Church fathers of Neo-Christianity considered Gnosticism dangerous because it offered every initiate direct access to God. All those who received gnosis had gone beyond the Church’s teaching and transcended the authority of its hierarchy. Thus the Gnostic Gospel did not make it to the canonical gospels. During the Spanish colonization, psychedelic mushrooms were declared the flesh of the devil and outlawed.
The male-dominated Church did all this to maintain power in their hands. It was women who sustained the secrets of Ancient Greece; hence women were excluded from leadership positions. The holy family is all males. So women became cartoonish Disney witches, and the drugged wine became the symbolic Eucharist.
But guess what? The Eleusinian Mysteries are making a comeback yet again. Now instead of going to the Greek wilderness, people trek to the Burning Man. Psychedelic drugs are having a renaissance, being used experimentally in therapeutic settings to treat depression, addiction, and the existential fear of death in people with cancer. Therapists involved in this research now believe in the power of the mind to heal itself the way the body typically does. Statements like, “There are people who believe that consciousness is a property of the universe, like electromagnetic radiation or gravity.” emerge from these experiences. Big-name universities are involved in this, and the genie has again escaped from the bottle. What will the Church do now?
Conflict and discontinuity in Indian history is an obsession with Marxist historians writing Indian history. Any fresh development in India is seen as a revolt against the past; the new is considered as an improvement over the old. Few narratives that pop out from this camp are (1) Gangetic civilization which arose after the decline of the Harappan civilization had no connection to the latter (2) Buddhism was a revolt against Hinduism (3) The India born in 1947 was an artificial entity created by the British and had no connection to ancient Bharat.
All these are wrong. The details show that continuity, not discontinuity, was an Indic obsession. In this article, we will look at counter arguments to the above, look at the Marxist game plan, and see how our civilization counters that.
The Living Past
If you could time travel to the Saraswati-Sindhu-Narmada period, it will surprise you to see many familiar things. You will see tablets with swastikas incised on them. The “endless knot” pattern used in rangolis and the “intersecting circles” pattern seen at Bodh Gaya will be all around. Buddhists and Jains will find familiarity with the pasupati seal; a Hindu will say, that’s how Shiva is represented. Remember the story of “Crow and Fox”. You will find pottery which depicts that.
In the 1990s, while the Harappan city of Dholavira was being excavated by the ASI, an Italian team visited Kampilya in Uttar Pradesh. When the Italian team presented the dimensions of the ‘Drupad Kila’ to the team which was excavating Dholavira, it surprised them since it coincided with Dholavira’s dimensions. But the two cities were separated by 2000 years in history.
The similarities don’t end there. Many years ago Michel Danino, the author of The Lost River was showing slides of excavations done at Banawali to Vedic scholars in Kerala. They identified the shapes of the fire altars as those being in use even now. In fact, they found evidence in other places like Rakhigarhi, Kalibangan and other places in Gujarat. Michel Danino’s book, has a chapter which covers these continuities. What we see is a cultural continuum between the Indus and Ganges civilizations. There was no “Vedic night” or “Dark Ages”
With Buddhism, the narrative is of a revolt against Brahminism (whatever that is.) This revolt model here is how Martin Luther revolted against the Catholic church. Instead, what happened was constant debates between various darshanas and various Buddhist traditions for a thousand years. According to Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, it was not a revolt. In his book, Hinduism and Buddhism, he writes that the distinction can be found only by people who study Buddhism superficially. According to him, there is nothing he could find which could be called as social reform or a protest against the caste system. Instead, AKC says Buddha can be called a reformer because he had discovered the ancient ways of the awakened. The Buddha also praised the Brahmins, who remembered the old path of the contemplatives that led to Brahma.
Finally, with 1947, just read the debates in the Constituent Assembly on what the name of the new nation should be. J Sai Deepak’s book, India, that is Bharat elaborates on this. The framers of the Indian constitution acknowledged the umbilical cord that connected independent Bharat with its civilizational history. The civilizationally conscious suggestion put forth by several members of the Constituent Assembly resulted in “India that is Bharat” in Article 1. With this statement, they acknowledged they were putting a statist apparatus for an ancient civilization of which they were the descendants. J Sai Deepak writes, “ In other words, there is no basis for the colonialized myth that Bharat was created by the British colonizer prior to which it lacked a sense of self and history.”
In fact, preserving continuity is in the Indic DNA. Sandeep Balakrishna’s new book, Stories from Inscriptions, gives many examples of how administration was done by various kings and the principles they upheld. One secret to the longevity of the Vijayanagara empire was because of their tendency to preserve traditions of the past. This is embodied in the Kannada word Pūrvadamaryāde which means that ancient traditions and customs have to be continued. This is just not for religious traditions. Old tax rules were maintained. The king honored local traditions. Festivals remained unchanged. Temples got support. Ancient usage was equivalent to law. The more ancient a tradition was, the more sanctity was added to it. According to Dharmasastra, the ruler had to preserve and defend ancient customs, even of conquered lands.
Every ruler – from chieftains to kings — proclaim that they are the maintainer of traditions. In judicial cases, they claimed they were carrying on laws that existed from ancient times. No drastic changes happened. No revolutions happened. It was understood that the lowest unit of administration, like village, should have the maximum autonomy. They kept interference to a minimum.
Puppet Masters
Why do “Eminent Historians” have such fascination with proving a non-existent discontinuity? What is the basis of their ideology.? From a surface level, it seems as if they want to ferment violence by dividing people.
Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan’s new book, Snakes in the Ganga, explores this in the context of Critical Race Theory. According to them, to understand the root of all this divisiveness, one has to go back to the philosophy of history of Hegel. According to Hegel, the world spirit moves through evolutionary stages. Western nations are at the forefront of this evolutionary stage and the goal of all other nations is to aim for that glorious future. There is a linear trajectory that all civilizations should go through. Subjugating Native Americans and colonizing India is justified by this principle. All of that is done for the benefit of Native Americans and Indians to get them ahead on this linear civilizational highway.
What about the culture and traditions of Native Americans and Indians? For progress to happen, the prevailing paradigms have to be demolished. The existing thesis must be countered with an anti-thesis. The destruction caused by the clash of these two will produce a synthesis and the new truth that emerges is higher than the old thesis and anti-thesis. Conflict, destruction and violence are desirable for progress. In this model, there is no way each side can accommodate each other peacefully.
When this blog started in 2002, the only history books available were those written by Marxist historians. Looking at books on my desk in 2022, I am delighted to see many with a Bharatiya voice, and I can’t keep up (Good problem).
At the end of every year, I will try to narrow down all the books I have read and recommend just a handful of the best. Here are some of my favorite books of 2022. This does not mean that they were released in 2022. I either read them or re-read them.
Snakes in the Ganga: Breaking India 2.0 by Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Vishwanathan
Snakes in the Ganga
Recently several buildings on Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus were defaced with anti-Brahmin slogans. Some of the slogans on the wall were “Brahmins Leave The Campus,” “There Will Be Blood”, “Brahmin Bharat Chhodo” and “Brahmino-Baniyas, we are coming for you! We will avenge.” Now “South Asians” in the United States are facing open discrimination by Brown University. This reminded me of the news reports that Jewish Students Are Facing Growing Hostility and they now have to hide their Jewish identity to survive in American Universities.
In this book, Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan explain how Breaking India 2.0 ideologies, run by Indians are Harvard, are being imported into India without judgment. The intention of ideologies like Critical Race Theory (CRT) is to break down society; to achieve this aim, victimhood is weaponized. The book goes into how CRT has been taken over by the Leftists in America, how Harvard has adapted CRT to Critical Caste Theory, and how atrocity literature from Harvard is being used to dismantle India. Sadly these are funded by Indian billionaires who just want a Western stamp of approval.
A detailed review will come next year.
Savarkar: Echoes of a Forgotton Past, Vol. 1: Part 1 by Vikram Sampath
Savarkar Vol 1
Savarkar may not have been controversial, but he has been made so. Currently, one cannot challenge the Gandhi-Nehru narrative, so what would happen to a person who did that when Gandhi was alive. On hearing his name, there are only polar opposite reactions; there is no middle ground. The truth, as Vikram Sampath says in the first part of Savarkar’s biography, is somewhere in between.
Savarkar was an opponent of Gandhi, Congress, and the whole “show your other cheek” ideology and was never given due credit for his role in the freedom movement. This book is about his early days, till his incarceration at the Cellular Jail in Andaman. This book reads like fiction, especially his days as a law student in London. The book gives context by describing the political atmosphere of that time and various groups fighting for independence. We learn about Savarkar through his early life, influences, and revolutionary activities. We get a complete picture of the man from his poems, writings, and speeches.
India, that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution by J Sai Deepak
India that is Bharat
The book Snakes in the Ganga narrates how Breaking India 2.0 forces are exporting Critical Race Theory to India to dismantle India. J Sai Deepak saw this at play with systematic isolation, ostracization, and digestion of Indic strands. The overt hostility hits you every day. The attack on Hindu festivals, the attack on our traditions in Hindi Cinema, and academic Hinduphobia are just a few examples. There is a concerted effort to split sub-identities from their Indic civilizational identity.
This book is part of a trilogy on Bharat that explores the influence of European colonial consciousness. Sai Deepak applies a decolonial lens to shed the European normative framework we have come to accept as the norm. Instead, the book relies on the work of suppressed Indian voices to build the case for the Bharatiya perspective.
Stories From Inscriptions: Profound Real-life Tales from Hindu Cultural History by Sandeep Balakrishna
Stories from Inscriptions
Sandeep’s book is a collection of 15 stories based on inscriptions. These stories were previously unknown except to scholars. This book is meant for the general audience and is written in the style of popular narrative history. The purpose is to introduce incidents from our past as narrated by kings, businessmen, bards, and warriors in their own words. These stories come from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Tamil Nadu and span a timeline from the 9th century CE up to the 17th century CE. This book does three things. First, it shows how Bharat was unified as a civilization state. Second, it refutes many narratives about how uncultured and backward we were till the invaders and colonizers civilized us. Finally, it reveals many aspects of our culture we were unaware of. (Review)
The Case That Shook the Empire by Raghu Palat and Pushpa Palat
The case that shook the empire
Who in their right mind would think that an Indian would get justice in the British legal system.? Between a person responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and a person arguing against the atrocities, whom would the so-called British legal system side with? Would the British system turn a blind eye to one of their own who had committed an unforgivable crime?
The answer is obvious now, as it was in 1924.
This book is about a defamation case filed by Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab during Jallianwala Bagh, against Chettur Sankaran Nair, a former Member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council. The trial lasted five-and-a-half weeks in London. There was nothing that indicated that this would be a fair trial. The judge was a racist who saw nothing wrong in Jallianwala Bagh, and the jury agreed with him. (Review)
This contribution was unique because it was done when Turkish invaders enforced jizya. According to a contemporary of Jehangir, the purpose of imposing jizya on kafirs is their humiliation. The humiliation was amplified by putting a pilgrim tax, and the one enforced on pilgrims going to Kashi and Prayag was the highest. According to a copper inscription from 1279 CE, king Vira Narasimha offered the land revenues of 645 varahas from Hebbale to pilgrims to Varanasi. Among those, 402 varahas were jizya to the Turkish tax collector. The remaining was for the maintenance of Sri Visweshwara temple.
What makes this story interesting is this: Vira Narasimha was an adherent of the Jaina philosophy. So why would a Jaina Hoysala king pay jizya on behalf of Hindu pilgrims from Karnataka visiting Varanasi?
Sandeep’s book is a collection of 15 such stories based on inscriptions. These stories were previously unknown except to scholars. This book is meant for the general audience and is written in the style of popular narrative history. The purpose is to introduce incidents from our past as narrated by kings, businessmen, bards, and warriors in their own words. These stories come from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Tamil Nadu and span a timeline from the 9th century CE up to the 17th century CE.
The stories are organized by various themes mentioned at the beginning of each story. For example, one story is about a wealthy merchant Hatia, who purchased three marketplaces. The revenue from these marketplaces was provided as a permanent endowment to three deities at a temple complex. This story reveals political, social, and economic conditions during that time. History was boring in school because we were taught random dates, wars, and the number of trees planted by various kings. The book goes beyond that and gives us context into the country’s state at that time.
This book does three things. First, it shows how Bharat was unified as a civilization state. Second, it refutes many narratives about how uncultured and backward we were till the invaders and colonizers civilized us. Finally, it reveals many aspects of our culture we were unaware of.
Civilization State
Why did Vira Narasimha fund pilgrimages to Kashi and Prayag.? The answer is simple: Vira Narasimha understood Bharat as a civilization nation. Pilgrimages united the nation, and visit to a holy place was a religious duty. Even before modern transportation systems arrived, people traveled long distances for this purpose. Vira Narasimha’s grant covered payments to the staff of the Sri Visveshwara Temple, its maintenance, and various sevas. Apart from the Kashi pilgrims hailing from Narasimha’s dominions, his grant money was primarily used by strangers in a city he would never meet. It was his dharma, and he performed it.
It was not just Kashi and Prayag that were pilgrimage destinations. Inscriptions in Gujarat at the Bhillamāladeva temple mention visitors from Madurai, Ramanathapuram, Tirunelveli, Thanjavur, Tiruchirapalli, Ceylon, Orissa, Vengi, Jodhpur, Alwar, Bharatpur, Gujarat, and Malava. Diffusion of culture occurred due to business relations as well. For example, when there was a dispute between Karnataka-desa and Maratha-desa, it was resolved by a businessman from Kerala. Due to this, a temple was built in the Hoysala style architecture by the descendants of a Malayali businessman.
This book is a gem because it bluntly refutes narratives like “Indians had no sense of history.” Instead, evidence from these inscriptions reveals “an extraordinarily intricate system of administration and governance, a robust military machinery, a Dharma-based jurisprudence, a well-oiled and stable social order and a sprawling economic system bursting with material abundance. Moreover, there was a high degree of administrative sophistication where priority was placed on the human element.”
These fundamental values that united the country are seen in all these inscriptions. We see a world in which truth, dharma, compassion, sacrifice, loyalty, and heroism are admired. We see “donating cows is extolled, temple-building is revered, learning and scholarship are prized and patronized, reverence and respect for women are held paramount, people who die while protecting the honor of women are commemorated with tombstones, valor and death in battle are celebrated, delivering justice based on Dharmic precedents are hailed, composing, singing, and discoursing on our sacred literature are venerated, works of public welfare are supported and praised, and even the most minor act of piety is explicitly recognized and eulogized.”
This richness was not limited to culture. I learned a lot about the maturity of village administration. Our villages provided civilizational sustenance and cultural preservation while the country was being invaded and looted. Village administrations were autonomous entities responsible for managing all aspects of the village. They could administer justice; they had well-defined courts of justice in which the central ruling authority rarely interfered. In return, they deposited annual revenues to the king and prevented anarchy. Annual elections prevented monopolies and concentration of power. Every transaction was written down to the last detail and publicly ratified through voice and in writing.
India that is Bharat
In his book, India, that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution, J Sai Deepak defines the word ‘Coloniality’. This is the process by which the colonizer advances the goal through complete domination of the culture and worldview of the colonized society. This is what the British did to us. Even after they left, Communist party members masquerading as historians used the same ideas, rules, and tools to “civilize” us. This is how we get narratives like Buddhism and Jainism were rebellions against ‘Brahminical hegemony’ or India was not a nation until the British showed up. To understand our past, we must replace the colonial lens with an indigenous lens. This book is a perfect example of that.
These inscriptions enhance our understanding of the vibrancy of our culture and traditions. Despite enormous challenges posed by invaders and colonizers, we survived the invasion of our lands, relentless pressure to abandon our religion, enslavement, and brutal violence. The historical writings gathered in this collection provide abundant evidence of the philosophical roots that built and sustained our civilization and the values that this philosophy birthed and were upheld by our people.
The above picture shows the organization of Samskritam varṇamālā in Devanagari script. First, there are the swaras at the top, followed by the vyañjanas. This sequence is the same in all Indian languages.
But why so? Why not in some other sequence? Why is क the first vyañjana or अ the first swara? In this article, we will look at the reason for such an organization of the aksharas. We will also see how the effects of the points of articulation were understood by Samskritam grammarians. Finally, we will also see what makes Om such a unique sound and how this ties to mantra sadhana.
Points of Articulation
This organization of aksharas is based on understanding how sounds are produced in the human mouth. In Samskritam, five areas of the mouth are important for producing various aksharas. Among these five areas, there is a progression from the back of the mouth to the front, forming the basis of the organization. The sound originates based on the contact between the tongue and these areas. Once you learn this, you will observe how the tongue shifts as you say different aksharas.
Let’s go over each area and see what sounds originate there. The following picture shows our vocal system with the vital sound sources marked.
Samskritam – Points of Articulation
The first position is the kaṇṭah or throat. When your tongue makes contact at the back of the throat to produce those aksharas those sounds are called the kaṇṭhya. To experience this, say क and feel where your tongue hits the mouth.
The aksharas that come from there are the following.
swaras
vyañjana
antastha
ushmana
ayogavāha
अ
कु
ह
visargah
Here अ means both अ and आ. In fact it represents 18 variations of अ (See: Classification of Letters)
Now what the heck is कु? This is a short form for क ख ग घ ङ. Instead of repeating those five vyañjana, Panini calls it कु.
To understand this short form, you have to get into the mindset of Panini. He was obsessed with brevity. If you can compress 8 bytes into 1, he would do it. In an oral tradition, there is limited memory, and you need to find ways to abbreviate. This kind of brevity helps develop a sutra to make it easy to remember. In this case, you can remember the sutra अ-कु-ह-विसर्जनियानां कण्ठः Look at the first three characters of the sutra – अ कु and ह. Then it adds the visarga and says all of these come from the kaṇṭah.
As you move up from kantah, you reach the talu at the back of the mouth. This is the place where your tongue touches your back teeth. To feel this, try saying इ very slowly and see how your tongue stretches at the back and pushes against the back teeth. talu is the pressure between the tongue and the upper back teeth.
The following sounds come from the tālu and are called the tālavya.
swaras
vyañjana
antastha
ushmana
इ
चु
य
श
Try saying च. Do you feel the contact of the tongue at the front of the mouth or the back? It feels like the front. If you are not feeling that pressure, you are not pronouncing it correctly. Next time pay attention. If you are going to events like Gita Chanting Competition, this will help.
The next spot in the mouth is the murdha. This is the roof of your mouth. These sounds originate when your tongue touches the top of the mouth. Try saying ट, and you can feel it. These are the mūrdhanya sounds.
swaras
vyañjana
antastha
ushmana
ऋ
टु
र
ष
The next place in your mouth is where the tongue hits the teeth. They are called the dantya
swaras
vyañjana
antastha
ushmana
ऌ
तु
ल
स
Now you can see the pattern here.
Finally, when the contact happens at the lips, it is called the oṣṭhya.
swaras
vyañjana
antastha
ushmana
उ
पु
What’s left now? ए ऐ ओ औ and व. These come from a combination of two places in the mouth.
ए and ऐ come from both kantah and talu. Hence it is called kantatalu. The best way to experience this is to say अ (kantah) and इ (talu) really fast. Then, you will end up saying ऐ. Now, if you start saying अ and slowly transition to इ, somewhere in the middle, it will transition to ए. That’s why it is known as kantatalu. ए and ऐ have some proportion of अ and इ and is actually a combination letter.
ओ and औ are produced by a combination of kantah and oshtah. Hence it is called kanṭhoṣṭhya. The same process applies here as well. Say अ (kantah) and उ (oshtah) really fast. You will say औ. If you start at अ and slowly transition to उ, you will say ओ. Remember how we saw that ए and ऐ have some proportion of अ and इ. Similarly, ओ and औ have some proportion of अ and उ.
Finally, what’s left is व. That’s a combination of dantah and oshtah. So it is a dantoṣṭhya.
Going back to our original layout of letters, we now see the format based on the points of articulation.
Nāsikā
There are one more places where sounds come from. The nose. There are five nasal sounds in the varṇamālā, the last five letters in the pillar. ङ ञ ण न म They are also called nāsikā.
But didn’t we say that these letters originate in various other places? So these letters need the original place in the vocal and the nose.
Anuswara & Visarga
What about the anuswara and visarga. The anuswara is just a nasal sound and takes on a variation of the vyañjana that follows it. Let’s look at the word संपदः. The anuswara is above स. Look at the vyañjana that follows स. That is प. Now in the varṇamālā, find the location of प. Move your finger all the way to the right, and you hit म.
Samskritam – Anuswara
The sound of anuswara becomes the sound of the vyañjana in the fifth column. Hence the word gets pronounced as sam-pada.
visarga is just the release of the breath. So, for example, if you have the word हरिः, then the ending इ remains as-is, and you release your breath.
Sounds and Vibrations
In Samskritam pronunciation, there is a conscious use of the breath. For example, say क followed by ख and watch the breath pattern. (If you did not feel any difference, you might not be saying ख with intensity). This is like a natural pranayama. Look at the breath pattern when you do the visargah. It is like a sigh, a natural de-stressor. If you take a swara like अ, there are 18 ways to say it with varying breath patterns. (See: Classification of Letters) Due to these varying breath patterns, there is a physiological impact on you. Like when you chant a mantra.
Thus these sounds don’t exist in isolation; they create an experience. Specifically, specific sequences have an impact on the mind and the body. For example, there is a systematic way in which the tongue touches the vocal system. This, in turn, causes the nerve endings to be simulated and hence the corresponding brain regions. The science of mantra believes that if you can use the right words to train your mind, sharpen its focus, and to channelize the divinity in the universe, you can rise above every negative tendency that holds you back and go past the shackles of your limited conscious mind.
Look at the mantra Om. It is made up of three sounds अ उ and म. अ starts at the throat and is the first swara the human vocal system can produce. उ comes from the lips and is the last swara the vocal system can make. Going from अ to उ covers the entire range of the vocal system. The final म is the settling down or containment of the sound produced.
Chanting Om is a mantra sadhana. Aurobindo says, “The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realization of what the mantra symbolizes and is supposed indeed to carry within itself.”
The basic principle of mantra sadhana is to practice the utterance of a sound with such intensity, fervor, and determination, that your whole being starts reverberating with that sound. You become that sound, and that sound transports you to another dimension of consciousness. Mantra is a systematized sound technology. The Samskritam sounds have been organized to affect the person chanting them. This comes from a deep understanding that everything in the universe is a vibration. The rishis knew that certain benefits could be achieved by creating those vibratory patterns through our vocal system.
