Number

Title: Number

Author: Tobias Dantzig

Publisher: Plume Printing, 2007

Pages: 371

Tobias Dantzig’s “Number” is an attempt to trace the historical course of the evolution of the concept of numbers, their underlying operations, and mathematics in general. The origins, natural numbers, integers, rational numbers, irrational numbers, transcendental numbers, complex numbers and other types are explained with special emphasis to the development cycle and prominent mathematicians who had played a great part in their evolution. The author has established that a number sense exists not only in man, but in other lesser life forms like birds, chimps etc. The argument that chimpanzee’s number sense is not so developed as that of birds like crow seemed to be incongruent. Considering that the book was first published in 1930 before the advent of modern computers, the range of information provided is impressive. At several places, Dantzig refers to a ‘computer’ by which we should think of a person allocated the task of computing or calculating and not the modern machine which has become such an inseparable part of our daily lives.

Dantzig (1884-1956) was born in Latvia and as a young man, he was caught distributing anti-tsar propaganda and migrated to the US. In France he studied under Henri Poincare, the noted French mathematician of the 20^th century. This work is his magnum opus.

However, the book miserably fails to impress. It lacks the rigour to be attractive to a practising mathematician and not simple enough to appeal even to those casual readers, who have a good basis in college mathematics. The language is terse, which utterly fails to hold reader’s attention. Without regard to the propriety of using symbols, equations and diagrams in reading material, they are distributed according to one of the branches of mathematics – probability or random theory! The historical narratives are poorly researched and even stretches to the point of boredom. If some author can rewrite the book with proper examples and fluent style, it would surely become one of the essentials expected of a decent book shelf. The work does not appeal to the formal practitioners is shown by the fact that several arguments or proofs are cut short by declaring that it is out of scope for the book, as if it’d be wholeheartedly accepted by the general public. The structure of the book is pathetic at least, if not utterly disastrous. The main content spans over 257 pages, whereas the appendices and notes cover 114, which is 44% of the main theme. The structure is self-evident from the page count itself! Moreover, abstract mathematical formulas and proofs litter those appendices which are thrown at random. The notes, given in the last section, are numbered from 1 to 237, but are not referenced in the main section, and we are at a loss to find out which article they are related to. The book was such a boring experience that I had to complete it only to write a review. The pleasurable experience, which is an essential constituent of reading is sorely lacking in this hodgepodge of a compilation. The book cannot be recommended to any class of readers and the time spent on it can be guaranteed to be useless. The only saving grace of the work is the quotations from various authors given at the beginning of each chapter.

There is an interesting quotation from Laplace regarding how the world view of even great thinkers will be affected by the prejudices formed during childhood. Regarding Leibnitz, he says, “Leibnitz saw in his binary arithmetic the image of Creation……He imagined that Unity represented God, and Zero the void; that the Supreme Being drew all beings from the void, just as unity and zero express all numbers in his system of numeration. This conception was so pleasing to Leibnitz that he communicated it to the Jesuit, Grimaldi, president of the Chinese tribunal for mathematics, in the hope that this emblem of creation would convert the Emperor of China, who was very fond of the sciences. I mention this merely to show how the prejudices of childhood may cloud the vision even of the greatest men!”

Laplace praises Indian thinkers for inventing the decimal notation, as “It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to all computations put our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the greandeur of this achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity”. (The words “ten symbols” was put in bold by me). Laplace has credited ancient Indians with the invention of ten symbols, which doubtless includes zero. Now, consider how Dantzig explains this, as “The Indian term for zero was ‘sunya’, which meant empty or blank, but had no connotation of ‘void’ or ‘nothing’. And so, from all appearances, the discovery of zero was an accident brought about by an attempt to make an unambiguous permanent record of a counting board operation”, also, “How the Indian sunya became the zero of today constitutes one of the most interesting chapters in the history of culture. When the Arabs of the tenth century adopted the Indian numeration, they translated the Indian sunya by their own, ‘sifr’ which meant empty in Arabic. When the Indo-Arabic numeration was first introduced into Italy, sifr was latinized into ‘zephirum’. This happened at the beginning of the 13^th century, and in the course of the next hundred years, the word underwent a series of changes which culminated in the Italian zero.

The author explains how the ancient Indians carried forward the intellectual questions posed by Greek thinkers, who themselves was reluctant to pursue it. See Dantzig’s style when describing this free flow of intellectual curiosity, as “The Hindus may have inherited some of the bare facts of Greek science, but not the Greek critical acumen. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. The Hindus were not hampered by the compunctions of rigour, they had no sophists to paralyze the flight of their creative imagination. Such racist remarks should have been omitted from a literary work by a noted writer. Perhaps the notions of culture and sophistication may not apply for an author who had to flee one of the political backyards of Europe where people were almost slaves of one neighbouring power for nearly most of their history!

The description of ‘amicable numbers’ is curious to learn. Pythagoras, when asked what a friend was, replied: “One who is the other I, such are 220 and 284”. This means that the factors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71 and 142 and these add up to 220, while the factors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55 and 110, and these in turn add up to 284. Such numbers the Pythagoreans called ‘amicable numbers’.

With the Renaissance, mathematics flourished, as Dantzig says, “When, after a thousand year stupor, European thought shook off the effect of the sleeping powders so skillfully administered by the Christian Fathers, the problem of infinity was one of the first to be revived”. He describes why such a lethargy existed even in the 17^th century, as “Kepler reluctantly engaged in astronomy after his hopes of becoming an ecclesiastic were frustrated; Pascal gave up mathematics to become a religious recluse; Descartes’ sympathy for Galileo was tempered by his faith in the authority of the church; Newton in the intervals between his masterpieces wrote tracts on theology; Leibnitz was dreaming of number schemes which would make the world safe for Christianity. To minds whose logic was fed on such speculations as Sacrament and Atonement, Trinity and Trans-substantiation, the validity of infinite processes was a small matter indeed.

A commendable piece of insight in the book is the role of mathematicians described. “The mathematician may be compared to a designer of garments, who is utterly oblivious of the creatures whom his garments may fit. To be sure, his art originated in the necessity for clothing such creatures, but this was long ago; to this day a shape will occasionally appear which will fit into the garment as if the garment had been made for it. Then there is no end of surpirse and of delight! There have been quite a few such delightful surprises. The conic sections, invented in an attempt to solve the problem of doubling the altar of an oracle, ended by becoming the orbits followed by planets in their courses about the sun. The imaginary magnitudes invented by Cardan and Bombelli describe in some strange way the characteristic features of alternating currents. The absolute differential calculus, which originated as a fantasy of Riemann, became the mathematical vehicle for the theory of Relativity. And the matrices which were a complete abstraction in the days of Cayley and Sylvester appear admirably adapted to the exotic situation exhibited b the quantum theory of the atom”.

Even though the publishers have claimed that Einstein has remarked the book as “This is beyond doubt the most interesting book on the evolution of mathematics which has ever fallen into my hands”, we may safely conclude that it requires the genious of Einstein to appreciate this book as it will be simply tossed away by lesser intellects like you and me!

Overall rating: 1 Star

Civilization in Ancient India

The Civilization in Ancient India

Author: Louis Renou
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers
Pages: 182

The Civilization in Ancient India, by Louis Renou in French and translated by Philip Spratt is a work on the polity, life and thought in ancient India. Based on several references, the book is a solid piece of historical scholarship. A brief overview of the history, religion and philosophy is given in the first four chapters as an introduction and the probe into various activities of ancient Indian life begins thereafter in full earnest. The author has based his references mainly on Kautilya’s Arthashasthra. Several passages and conclusions are founded on the anecdotes in Mahabharata, Ramayana, Kathasaritsagara, Mricchakatika and other Buddhist texts. The authenticity of a work which is based on such fictional literature is naturally to be doubted. However, Renou has indicated at several places, that the veracity is to be doubted and suggests possible alternatives. The work makes it an essential object of desire for anybody intending to dig to the roots of the stories and morals depicted in the most prominent epics of Hinduism. Various topics such as Caste, family, civil law, penal law, state, politics and war, economics and public as well as private life are discussed in detail.

There are several aspects which the book makes amply clear. For example, while even the most adroit philospher may be at a disadvantage if asked to define Hinduism, this work gives a nice one as “a complete organisation of society and of thought”. The family is defined as “the community of residence and meals (those who live at the same fire – Brihaspati Smriti, XXV-6)”. The practice of Stridhana in ancient times is described as, “Property of certain kinds forms Stridhana, “the property of the woman”. Kautilya defines it briefly as cost of maintenance and things attached to the body like clothes and jewels. The interesting fact about this special kind of property is that the woman can dispose it of freely; and passes by right to the daughters according to the compex rules which take into account the class f the marriage etc”. Obviously, the practice has changed a lot from those times!

A weird aspect of the judicial system is explained. The plantiff was penalised if he lost the appeal, and if he wins, the judge who ruled against him were punished. Our judicial officers definitely won’t like to relive the past!. As Renou says, “The cost of justice was high. The plaintiff who loses an appeal pays twice the fine to which he was sentenced in the lower court; if he wins, his opponent pays double, and the judge whose decision is thus reversed are themselves liable to penalty. To the legal costs must be added the sums, at stake on the on side or the other, or on both: the profit from it all goes to the king, or sometimes to the magistrate”.

Islam, which became prominent in the 7^th century CE prohibits depiction of life forms in portraits and sculpture. Curiously, Buddha also seems to have issued such an edict as, “The existence of frescoes representing the human figure is proved by the Vinaya, such representation was forbidden by the Buddha, who allowed only floral designs to be painted (Chullavagga, VI-3)” (page 163). This may be the reason why early Buddhist paintings show the enlightened one by symbols only. It is also true that the practice was grossly abused in the later centuries.

However, on several points, the assertions of the author are liable to objections. Especially in the case of war and military preparations, the author seems to have accepted the puranic descriptions without any qualifications. The constitution of the Akshouhini (a legion of ancient warfare) is given as 21,870 chariots and elephants, 65,610 horses and 1,09,350 infantrymen. Eighteen such akshouhinis participated in the Mahabharata war. This is highly exaggerated and the ancient population was not so numerous as to account for the infantry men, let alone the logistic requirements of managing such huge military force! Similar is the case when Renou asserts that a strong central government existed, as “The provisions summarized here (regarding commercial law) allow us to infer the existence of a highly centralized state, in which the private activitywas subjected to control, and in a certain degree ‘directed’” page 81. We know that India was a decentralized state, with the village councils growing into prominence when the central authority waned. This was the established custom through the ages. So, where is the evidence for a centralized state?

The claims of the proponents of vedic science has grown so extravagant that aviation science was also known in ancient India. But Renou has conclusively puts the idea to rest, as “Certain Indian authors have believed or claimed to believe in aviation in ancient India, on the ground of the mention of vimana or aerial chariots (which are sometimes flying houses, such as the chariot Pushpaka possessed by the demon Ravana in the epics. Simple poetical fantasies are given a trifle more solidity by the pseudotechnical description of ‘flying machines’ found in the Samaranganasutra, a treatise on architecture attributed to king Bhoja (11^th century). In any case, there is nowhere any clear mention of the use of such machines in war”. (Page 125)

Slavery was prominent, and they were valued at very low rates. ”An ox cost 12 pana, a horse 24 and a female slave 50”. No Arya was to be made a slave, but the evidence, which contradicts or qualifies such statements, implies at most that the Arya does not lose his quality of Arya, that the notions of Arya and dasa are incompatible”. The taxation was rigid, but not cruel, as the author says, “The normal taxation, the ‘bhaga’ of one-sixth, the reality of which Hiuen-Tsang establishes for his time, cannot have been generally exceeded, and is tolerable. Many kings prided themselves on their moderation: even Rudradaman, whose palace shone with jewels, boasted that he had acquired them by regular taxes, he was able to build the Sudrasana dam without having recourse to extaordinary contributions. The picture drawn by Fa-hien, and especially by Hiuen-Tsang, is definitely favourable. It would be arbitrary to give a gloomy account of the situation of the peasant in antiquity on the basis of the misery which followed the Muslim invasions” (Page 116). Those magnificent building of Mughal era came at price – the life and blood of the millions of agricultural workers!

Overall rating: 3 Star

The Great Arc

The Great Arc

Author: John Keay
Publisher: Harper Collins
Pages: 172

“The Great Arc – The dramatic tale of how India was mapped and Everest was named” is a good book based on a wonderful engineering feat in the 19^th century. The book gives details and anecdotes of the survey team which set about mapping India and calculating the heights of lofty Himalayan peaks. The Great Trigonometrical Survey started in the year 1800 from Madras, went south to Kanyakumari and then off they went up to Dehradun in Uttaranchal under the leadership of William Lambton and after his demise, under George Everest (pronounced ‘eve-rest’) who later became the surveyor general of India. The survey ended in 1843, and by the time the costs in terms of man power and material far exceeded that of any war made by the East India company till then. The survey corrected the maps extant at that time and several errors were brought to public notice for the first time. The width of the south Indian peninsula was lesser than previously thought. Hence, it is also said that this survey caused the East India Company the loss of more land than conceded in any war.

The survey proceeded by triangulation in which three observation points are chosen suitably, the distance (base line) between two points are measured as accurately as possible and the angle between these points obtained using great precision theodolite. It is said that the error in distance was very minute (3 inches along 7.19 miles). Such inch-perfect calculations was further complicated by the fact that the angles of such a triangle described on the curvy earth surface don’t add up to 180 degrees. Corrections for all these factors were also taken into account. The first base line was taken from Marina Beach in Madras to the grand stand in the Madras Race Course. Thus Madras (now Chennai) is called the Greenwich of India. No wonder the Indian Standard Time is actually the local time in Madras.

Till the heights of Himalayan peaks were ascertained, the tallest mountain in the world was considered to be Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador (20,565 ft, which does not include it even in the first 100). This was firmly refuted by Indian surveyors and several peaks were found to be taller than this. George Everest had never seen nor measured the height of the famous mountain which would bear his name. But he was strict on naming any peak with its local appellation and hence the names Kanchenjunga, Nandadevi, Nanga Parbat, Dhaulagiri etc. But the greatest mountain didn’t have a local name and the Nepali government, which had the jurisdiction over the site refused to cooperate with the survey. This prompted Andrew Scott Waugh, who became the Surveyor General after the retirement of Everest, to name the peak in honour of his worthy superior. Waugh’s proposal makes interesting reading.

“We have for some years known that this mountain is higher than any hitherto measured in India and most probably, it is the highest in the whole world. I was taught by my respected chief and predecessor Colonel Sir George Everest to assign to every geographical object its true local or native appellation. I have always scrupulously adhrered to this rule as I have in fact to all other principles laid down by that eminent geodesist. But, here is a mountain, most probably the highest in the world, without any local name that we can discover, whose native appellation, if it has any, will not very likely be ascertained before we are allowed to penetrate into Nepal and to approach close to this stupendous snowy mass. In the meantime, the privilege as well as the duty devolves on me to assign to this lofty pinnacle of our globe a name whereby it may be known among geographers and become a household word among civilized nations. In virtue of this privilege, in testimony of my affectionate respect for a revered chief, in conformity with what I believe to be the wish of all the members of the scientific department over which I have the honour to preside, and to perpetuate the memory of that illustrious master of accurate geographical research, I have determined to name this noble peak of the Himalayas, Mount Everest.The coordinates of Mt Everest are 27 d 59 m 16.7 s N, 86 d, 58 m, 5.9 s E.

Overall rating: 3 Star

Empires of the Indus

Empires of the Indus

Author: Alice Albinia
Publisher: John Murray Publishers
Pages: 314

Empires of the Indus is the story of a journey from the confluence of the river Indus in the Arabian Sea to its source in Tibet through three nations (India, Pakistan and Afghanistan) and an occupied territory (Tibet). Along the journey, the historical details of the territory as well as ethnic minorities (to whom the author appears to have a special affinity) is also narrated in a compact and easy way. The travel was done in 2005 when the author was only 29. In a sense, this may be said to be an epic journey by a solitary female journalist travelling through often lawless regions and where women are generally considered inferior. May be because of the misogynist sentiments harboured by the inhabitants, all doors will be spontaneously opened for a daring and charming white woman! These people who cover their own womenfolk in purdah would do anything for a lady who dares to ask for what she needs! We find people eager to accompany her as guides in urban Karachi, hilly Swat valley where the writ of Taliban runs supreme, in Kargil and in occupied Tibet where the source of the river is finally found.

The journey begins from the delta of Indus near Karachi. The author makes friends with the sewage cleaners of Karachi, the Sheedis (descendants of negro slaves brought along with Arab Muslim invasionists in 8^th century), the Mohana boat people, Kalash tribals and Tibetans. The sources and references indicate that the material is well researched and scientifically chosen. There is an interesting anecdote in which the Sheedis of Pakistan believe that Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore in the late 18^th century was also a Sheedi. This confirms a lingering doubt a tourist might have after visiting Darya Daulat Ganj (Tipu’s summer palace in Srirangapatna near Mysore) where portraits of the Sultan are exhibited even though against Islamic law which prevents the portrayal of a living being. The sultan is shown as an unusually black person when compared to the other Muslim nobles in his court. I had wondered about this after visiting the site in 2009, and now in the backdrop of the Sheedi theory, perhaps it is now clear.

The author, being one of the ahl-al-kitab (people of the book) gets free access to Islamic holy places. She says, “Early Islam was influenced by the holy scriptures – and prophets – of Judaism and Christianity, and the ahl-al-kitab have advantages in Muslim polities. As believers in one God they might go to paradise; if they are women they can marry Muslims; they can certainly go to each other’s worship-places”.

Regarding Jinnah, several pages are dedicated. “He (Jinnah) had not packed away a single silk sock from his mansion in Bombay or his colonial bungalow in Delhi (fondly imagining weekend retreats to India with his equally naïve sister Fatima). Until the very last moment he seems to have had in mind a vague cohabitation of dominion states; he even seems to have convinced himself that the nation he had won for Muslims would be a realm where religion didn’t matter. ‘You are free’ he said three days before independence in a speech that has become the mantra of Pakistan’s embattled secularists (and conversely is excluded from editions of Jinnah’s speeches by the pious), ‘you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques….you may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state”. And what a hue and cry was raised against L K Advani’s speech terming Jinnah as a secularist!

The book also shows in details the hate propaganda circulating sometimes officially in India and Pakistan against each other. She quotes a social studies text book in Pakistan which says, “Muslims and Hindus are completely different in their way of life, eating habits and dress. We worship in mosques. Our mosques are open, spacious, clean and well-lit. Hindus worship inside their temples. These temples are extremely narrow, enclosed and dark”. See the venom in these words! Children are taught in an official text book that “we” worship in mosques! No wonder Pakistan has become and most dangerous country in the world with all forms of religious terrrorism in every nook and corner of the country where even the Army headquarters is not safe.

The unnatural sexual preferences of a large section of the society in the deeply religious areas of Pakistan are also noted in passing. It seems that Islam’s much fabled separation of the sexes was purchased at the cost of sodomy. Even emperors were no different – Emperor Babur’s mother had to virtually push him into the room of his newly wed bride from the clutches of a slave boy who was his lover. Similar was the case of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, who was portrayed as kissing the feet of the sleeping Ayaz, his negro slave-lover. In fact, the romance between Mahmud and Ayaz became an iconic theme in Persian culture!

However, the book loses relevance at some points where the author has relied solely on facts based hearsay. In page 270, it is shown that, “How completely it (the river Indus) exists at one remove from the Indian mainstream was illustrated clearly when L K Advani, India’s right-wing Home minister, visited Ladakh in the late 1990s. ‘What is the river here?’ he asked his hosts, who told him that it was the Senge Tsampo – using the local Tibetan name for the river; the Sindhu, they added, using the Sanskrit appellation. ‘The what?’ Advani asked; then somebody explained: the Indus”. It really requires a substantially large pinch of salt to accept this story about a man who had spent the prime of his youth on the shores of the same river and the same province which bears its name ‘Sindh’.

Altogether, a good work, eminently readable and touches on some aspects of the cultural psyche which still connects us to river which gave us our name.

Overall rating: 3 Star

Antony and Cleopatra

This is one of the tragical pieces of William Shakespeare composed in 1606 based on historical records. A review is obviously not intended.

Some scenes are really masterful, particularly the last few. The suicides of Antony and Cleopatra bring forth the contradictions and worldly pressures experienced by the lovers. Antony paid the price of ignoring his call of duty and immersing in the pleasure of Egypt. He was defeated in the Battle of Actium by Octavius Caesar and had to commit suicide as no room was granted to him by the victorious Caesar.

India As Seen By Early Muslim Chroniclers

Author: Syed Osman Sher
Publisher: Regency Publications
Pages: 296

A good collection of remembrances of India from the stand point of Muslim chroniclers spaced about a millenia from 8^th to 18^th centuries. The list include royal personages like Babur and Jehangir and also traders and itinerant travellers like Ibn Batuta. We get a glimpse of early India through the eyes of the most hostile historiographers who viewed with disdain the people, religion, customs and traditions of India. The author notes on an almost regretful tone that, “the Muslim chroniclers, and for that matter any Muslim mind, could not compromise with the existence of the vast array of gods in various forms and shades as worshipped by the Indian religious mentality, as also about the absence of the Day of Accountability. In no case or circumstance, the created one can acquire that quality which has bestowed on the Creator the unique position of Godhead. Once God acquires human qualities and human needs, how can he be worthy of worship by fellow humans? Islam, therefore, neither deifies humans nor humanizes God”. Obviously, the medieval Muslim mind could not transgress this narrow limit set by religion. Muslims believe that creation of man took place only 7000 years ago. Al Beruni says in Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh that “the opinion of the Hindus is that the world is very old, and that no age has been devoid of the human race, and that from that event 100 thousand thousand years have passed. And yet for all that they make no mention of Adam, whose creation took place only 7000 years ago. Hence it is evident that these events are not true at all, and are nothing but pure invention, and simple imagination”.

The pages are nothing but more and more professions of ignorance, intolerance and foolhardiness. Timur notes in his Autobiography on the requirement of conquering India as “By the order of God and the Prophet, it is incumbent upon me to make war upon these infidels and polytheists”, and also, “my object in the invasion of Hindustan is to lead an expedition against the infidels that, according to the law of Muhammad (upon whom and his family be the blessing and peace of God) we may convert to the true faith the people of that country, and purify the land itself from the filth of infidelity and polytheism; and that we may overthrow their temples and idols and become ghazis and mujahids before God”.

Al Beruni describes the victorious march of Mahmud of Ghazni as “He went to Mathra (Mathura) which is a place of worship of the infidels, and the birth place of Kishan, the son of Basudev, whom the Hindus worship as a divinity – where there are idol temples without number, and took it without any contest, and raised it to the ground”.

Ibn Batuta notes on the principal mosque of Delhi (not the present Juma Masjid, which was built by Shah Jehan) as “the cathedral mosque occupies a large area; its walls, roofs and paving are all constructed of white stones, admirably squared and firmly cemented with lead…at the eastern gate, there are two enormous idols of brass prostrate on the ground and held by stones, and everyone entering or leaving the mosque treads on them. The site was formerly occupied by an idol temple, and was converted into a mosque on the conquest of the city”.

Many Muslim and pseudo-secular historians suggest that Jizya, the poll tax to be paid by Hindus for living in their own homeland, was necessitated by economic and not religious considerations. The root of this argument crumbles if we consider Muntakhab-Al-Lubab by Mohammed Hashim Khafi Khan that “the income from Jizya, which at its height, amounted to fifty-two lakh was in addition (to these twenty crore); but it began to decrease from the reign of Bahadur Shah”. So, this means that this tax constituted only 2.6% of the total revenue which is hardly an economic motivator, particularly when we learn that Aurangzeb was ready to forego the considerable income from the export of Salt Petre which was used for making gun powder, on the argument that this may be used in wars against Muslim countries!

Babur notes in his diary, later called Babur Nama that, “The solid rock out-croppings around Urwahi (Gwalior) have been hewn into idols, large and small. On the southern side is a large idol, approximately twenty yards tall. They are shown stark naked with all their private parts exposed. Around the two large reservoirs inside Urwahi have been dug twenty to twenty-five wells, from which water is drawn to irrigate the vegetation, flowers and trees planted there. Urwahi is not a bad place. In fact, it is rather nice. Its one draw back was the idols, so I ordered them destroyed”. We can safely assume that the Taliban which destroyed Buddha statues in Bamiyan was emulating their illustrious medieval compatriot.

The cruel face of the spoilt son of Akbar, romantic and often inebriate Jehangir is exposed in his memoirs, the Tuzuk-I-Jehangiri when he comments about Guru Arjan Dev, a Sikh Guru who was beheaded by Jehangir. “In Gobindwal, which is on the river Biyah (Beas), there was a Hindu named Arjan, in the garment of sainthood and sanctity, so much so that he had captured many of the simple-hearted Hindus, and even of the ignorant and foolish followers of Islam, by his ways and manners, and they had loudly sounded the drum of his holiness. They called him Guru, and from all side stupid people crowded to worship and manifest complete faith in him. For three or four generations (of spiritual successors) they had kept this shop warm. Many times it occurred to me to put a stop to this vain affair or to bring him into the assembly of the people of Islam”.

Jehangir notes on Pushkar that, “On the 7^th Azar I went to see and shoot on the tank of Pushkar, which is one of the established praying places of the Hindus, with regard to the perfection which they give (excellent) accounts that are incredible to any intelligence, and which is situated at a distance of three kos from Ajmer. For two or three days I shot water fowls on that tank, and returned to Ajmer. Old and new temples which in the language of infidels, they call Deohara are to be seen around this tank. Among them, Rana Shankar, who is the uncle of the rebel Amar, and in my kingdom is among the high nobles had built a Deohara of great magnificence on which one lakh rupees had been spent. I went to see that temple. I found a form cut out of black stone, which from the neck above was in shape of a pig’s head, and rest of the body was like that of a man. The worthless religion of the Hindus is this, that once on a time for some particular object the Supreme Ruler thought it necessary to show himself in this shape; on this account they hold it dear and worship it. I ordered them to break that hideous form and throw it into the tank”.

A curious reference is also there on the practice of Polyandry in Malabar. Abdur Razzak notes in Matlau-s Sadain that, “among them is a tribe (in Kalikot) in which one woman has several husbands, of which each one engages in separate occupation. They divide the hours of the night and day amongst themselves, and as long as any one of them remains in the house during his appointed time, no other one can enter. The Samuri is of that tribe.”

Rating: 2 Star

Arctic Home in the Vedas

Arctic Home in the Vedas

Author: Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Publisher: Vijay Goel, Delhi

Pages: 188

Tilak, the renowned freedom fighter of India and a learned intellectual to adorn the pantheon of enlightened leaders of the 20^th century puts forward a new theory on the origin and birth place of the Aryan race. From the references in the Vedas and Zend Avesta, the sacred book of the Parsis, Tilak concludes that the original home of the Aryans was well to the north of Arctic circle, which had a pleasant and habitable climate in the inter-glacial period immediately after the last ice age around 8000 BC. They migrated from the place and travelled to diverse places like Western Europe, Persia and India. References from Vedas and Brahmanas are quoted extensively throughout the book giving the arguments credence and authority. Corroborative evidence from Avesta makes the arguments powerful and lends weight to stand upright even in the face of the fiercest criticisms.

Tilak’s language is pristine and unequivocal. Whether the theory is right or wrong, the style of presentation and the author’s knowledge of the topics he is handling is impeccable. The long bibliography testifies to the determination of the ‘hard liner’ in Indian politics in early 20^th century. The time period of Aryans’ migration is categorized thus:

10,000 or 8,000 BC – The destruction of the original Arctic home by the last Ice age and the commencement of the post-Glacial period.

8,000 – 5,000 BC – The age of migration from the original home. The vernal equinox was then in the constellation of Punarvasu.

5,000 – 3,000 BC – The Orion period, when the vernal equinox was in Orion. Many Vedic hymns can be traced to the early part of this period. It was at this time that first attempts to reform the calendar and the sacrificial system appear to have been systematically made.

3,000 – 1,400 BC – The Krittika period, when the Vernal equinox was in Pleiades. The traditions about the original Arctic home had grown dim by this time and very often misunderstood, making the Vedic hymns more and more unintelligible.

1,400 – 500 BC – The Pre-Buddhistic period, when the Sutras and the philosophical systems made their appearance.

When the arguments are however examined with the cold light of reason and hindsight, they fall to the ground. The author’s reasoning is mainly based on the passages in Rig Veda which refer to long nights and dawns. Instead of treating them as poetic fantasies, Tilak takes them to mean verbatim and concludes that the Arctic days and nights are longer, sometimes up to months, these are reproductions of the dim memory of the original home of the Aryans. In some passages, the justifications are really stretched to the verge of breaking. An example goes like this, “Aditi, Mitra and also Varuna forgive if we have committed any sin against you! May I obtain the wide fearless light, O Indra! May not the long darkness come over us! (Rig Veda II, 27,14). The expression in the original for ‘long darkness’ is dirghah tamisrah and means an ‘uninterrupted succession of dark nights rather than simply ‘long darkness’.

Tilak’s unabashed eulogy of Brahmins and supremacy of Aryans is discomfiting for those readers who expect a more cosmopolitan view from one of the stalwarts of Indian nationalism. Regarding Brahmins, he says, “The Asiatic Aryans (as against European Aryans) were able to preserve a good deal more of the original religion and culture, but it seems to be mainly due to their having incorporated the old traditions into their religious hymns or songs; and made it the exclusive business of a few to preserve and hand down with religious scrupulosity these prayers and songs to future generations by means of memory specially trained and cultivated for the purpose.” and also, “the vitality and superiority of the Aryans races, as disclosed by their conquest, by extermination or assimilation of the non-Aryan races, with whom they came in contact in their migrations in search of new lands from the North pole to the Equators, if not to the farther south, is intelligible only on the assumption of a high degree of civilisation in their original Arctic home”

Overall rating: 2 Star