The prelude to the philosophical penetration

It was a couple of months after dvAdashAnta. We were wandering on our ashva at the foothills of the chanDikA parvata. We went down the road south of the vinAyaka chaitya and the kapAla slopes and continued on the long path past the hill of the dasyu-s and reached the end of the long path near the school of the taittirIyaka-s of the mahArATTa country. After a while ekanetra joined us and we bought ourselves some spinach bhR^ijjika-s which we sat eating. To our surprise and delight she came by a few minutes later on her much faster ashva. We exchanged signs of recognition. She was a bit hesitant as to whether to stop to converse or move on. She then said something in Hindustani, which neither of us understood due to the Urdu idiom. She refused to explain its meaning and simply chuckled saying it was one of the advantages of knowing the “turukon kI bhAShA” — which we would not understand due to not seeing movies. Then she started haranguing us on the filthiness of the bhR^ijjika seller, the potential for disease from the bhR^ijjika-s and then the possibility of a pAtaka. We some trepidation we wondered what the elders might do if they knew that we were eating these bhR^ijjika-s. But we knew she was in our pakSha and would not snitch on us. We asked her what she was doing here when we had thought we had seen the last of her.

There was a flashback: We had just finished the critical battle of aNDAkara, even though we were afflicted with a raging jvara. We felt we might fall to the jvara even before we entered the samarA~NgaNa. But like in the upheaval of the kShatriya-s on the 14th day of the Great War, in our own last rush we picked up our khaDga and charged through the ranks lowering the heads of hrasvaroman, ashvashiras, the proud jyeShThamukha, kumbhaghoNa, ghanamukha, duShTa-brAhmaNa and the vile sphigShiras. Coming out from the great yuddha still covered with the lohita of our own and our bhrAtR^ivya-s we were barely holding on to our ashva with our chaturtha fellow-rider by our side. We paused to send forth a sUkta to that great indra who does not let the Arya name to fall to the dasyu-s (“na yo rara AryaM nAma dasyave”) and that fierce viShNu who tramples the dasyu-s underfoot. We were nearly delirious with the wounds and the raging roga as we summoned our strength to aid our chaturtha fellow rider who was severely wounded by a dart of hrasvaroman to reach his destination. Then we rushed to the ashva-sthala to catch one last glimpse of her who shone like vena in the firmament. We had little strength left in us as we finally reached her who was like an avantisundarI. We were delighted that she had waited for us. But we were also alarmed as we learned that in her part of the raNakShetra she had brought down the powerful braindeya and shvetA~ngA without much of a sign of injury. We spoke a few words on the braincase of theropod dinosaurs — the implications of which we did not fully understand. But we also felt that Proceratosaurus was likely to be coelurosaur something that has recently become rather prominent (not just any coelurosaur, but a basal tyrannosaur). By then my strength had reached its nadir. She said that she was departing the next day to indraprastha and then to krau~ncha dvIpa for a couple of months after which she would return to continue in indraprastha. We may have spoken on for hours but with the jvara killing us, we retreated to our fort and collapsed. When we recovered several days later we realized that it was the last we had ever seen of her.

So it was a pleasing to see her back. After the preliminaries on the bhR^ijjika-s she began filling us in about her visit to the mlechCha-desha. Our heart nearly jumped out as we heard of the advances that were happening in the realm of dinosauria — the recognition of an abelisaur-ceratosaur clade, the definition of maniraptora and the like, the dinosaur we had overlooked, Stokesosaurus and descriptions of Segnosaurus and Therizinosaurus. But all this was a mere shadow of what was to come, we clearly got the prophetic foreboding right then. But there were other advances like that the protein with 4 homeodomains and many zinc fingers that drew our more immediate attention. After all this talk we started unveiling our newly acquired knowledge of quantum mechanics — and how we had finally figured the way to derive the Hückel rule for aromatics. Due to this she sparked a philosophical discourse that exposed our profound ignorance. It proceeded thus: If we find some regular laws in a domain of science we usually go downwards to explain it with even more basic underlying laws. But are there some laws that really do not depend on the more basic underlying laws in any basic sense. They are simply laws that apply to the emergent properties of the systems comprised of entities governed by the same or different downward laws. Our discussions with her on this issue led to idea that such emergent laws might be the ones important in certain areas of science like the “laws” of domains of sciences like biology or linguistics. She interpreted some of Dawkins ideas on memes and later what came to be called temes as evidence for such emergent laws. However, I was still not sure, bringing up the issue that perhaps it is either our limitation of knowledge or the subtlety of the link or the triviality of the link that makes us blind to teleology of the emergent laws in more basic laws. The valence of carbon being 4 is not required to do a good part of biology but it still subtly influences its “emergent laws” I felt. But neither of us nor the spectator ekanetra, who wisely watched as brahma priest, could create the formalism for testing the reality of emergent laws. So, at least she and I took the path of experimentation to test this possibility. Towards the end she also somewhat interestingly made a statement, a little surprising for that age, that consciousness was an emergent property of several simple signaling systems of neurons. She declared that she wanted to devote her time to study this possibility and wanted to investigate the functioning signaling systems. At the same time a parallel thought was running in my mind in which I had move two steps ahead — a study of the evolution of the signaling systems. But at that point both of us were caught in the mist of this idea of consciousness as an emergent system and dived into the study of signaling (she says to her it was all probably “aparAvidya”). It was already late and the kShatriya of the night had mounted the bear on the high sky (amI ya R^ikSha nihitAsa uchchA) and we had to tear ourselves apart before the earthly spasha-s of the pUrva-s came to know of our clandestine rendezvous. As we rode our ashva back we had a feeling that cannot be described — being at the threshold of the unknown that seemingly lay in our hands but so beyond anything we knew. This we can only say in retrospect.
continued…

Lama tAranAtha’s account of the nAstika virUpA the younger

In the kaccha country in the west lived a king named vibharaTTa during whose reign lived the siddha virUpA. He had a daughter who became the queen of devapAla. vibharaTTa had a temple that enshrined both bauddha and Astika images. The rAjan was a bauddha but his ministers were tIrthika-s. While building the temple the rAjan placed human-sized images of both tIrthika and bauddha deities in the same shrine. The bauddha-s asked him to build separate temples instead. The tIrthika-s wanted them together in the same shrine and the ministers agreed to this. The king asked virUpA to do pratiShTha of the images. He did no ritual but simply said in a Bengali form of apabramsha “Aisha Aisha”. All the idols came out and assembled in the corridor of the temple. He then asked the deities to sit down and they all sat down on the floor of the corridor. He then took a pot of water and sprinkled it on the heads of the deities. The deities of the bauddha-s got up and walked into the shrine laughing aloud. The deities of the tIrthika-s remained seated outside with their heads hung low. This temple named amR^itakumbha still exists.

An account from Lama tAranAtha’s history

During the reign of pa~nchamasiMha lived two brothers who were AchArya-s of the tIrthika-a. One of them named dattAtreya was supposed to teach the doctrine of samAdhi. The second name sha~NkarAchArya was a worshipper of mahAdeva. He chanted mantra-s on jar with a covered lid. From the jar mahAdeva would emerge up to the neck and teach the art of debate. In va~Nga he entered into debates with the bauddha-s and defeated them repeatedly. The bauddha scholars wanted to call in dharmapAla, chandragomin or chandrakIrti to debate with sha~Nkara, but the local paNDita-s did not want their prestige to go down with outsiders coming to save their face. They decided to take on sha~Nkara himself and were defeated by him in debate. As a result 25 bauddha centers fell to the tIrthika and 500 bauddha-s gave up the saMgha to become shaiva-s. Similarly, in oDivisha appeared a disciple of sha~Nkara called bhaTTAcharya. He had been made an expert in nyAya by the daughter of brahmA. A bauddha AchArya kulishashreShTha approached him in debate proud over his strength of grammar and logic. But he was routed in the debate with bhaTTAcharya and as a result bauddha-s had to forfeit their slaves to the tIrthika-s. The tIrthika-s now occupied the temples of the bauddha-s. In the south were two mighty tIrthika polemicists, the brAhmaNa named kumArlIla and kaNanAda (could it be Tamilized corruption of gaNanAtha; the Tibetan is: gzegs-ma-sgra-sgrorg). The latter was a shaiva (pAshupata) who observed the govrata. In many debates in the south they routed the successors of buddhapAlita, bhavya, dharmadAsa and dignAga. Similarly not one belonging to the shrAvaka saMgha or a sthaviravAdin was able to stand them in a debate. As a result many of the saMghA had to go over to the tIrthika brAhmaNa-s and the latter robbed the saMgha of its property.

Bilateralia

The cutting edge of Symmetry

IFS addiction

This is our 20th year with this addiction …

The story of Mn

We have referred to Mn under many disguises. He was and remains the master of concealment and image-building but the muni had seen through him early and summarily dismissed his disguises. The muni had formerly made him the topic of his hilarious one-liners in his study of English vocabulary. Why waste time on Mn one might ask? Well, in this declining age of the kali we need to understand the causes of why our foundations are being swept away. Importantly his tale offers an example of how buddhi does not necessarily mean viveka – much like the old tale of the brAhmaNa-s who brought the tiger back to life. Mn was enormously learned and intelligent — before him all of us were like mere fools. Every object of learning he mastered with ease and always knew more on any subject than other around him. In the days of yore he applied himself to the practice of Hindu ways. He identified himself as a Hindu and performed his rituals regularly. He corrected the errors in our understanding of the yajurvedic anunAsika which had come due to the wrong instruction of the sachiva. The amAtya was awfully scared of his great power of disguise and felt we might be fooled by it. But little did the amAtya know that a fool we might have been, but not so great a fool. As Mn grew older he became less of Hindu and he spoke dismissively of the rituals of a brAhmaNa. But now he was an Indian nationalist. He knew everything of geopolitics and how important it was for India to curb TSP and TSB. He foresaw trouble in Nepal and the Taleban, and he wanted India to conquer Shri Lanka! He endlessly spoke of the weapon systems of the Indian military and of missiles and nukes. Then Mn reached the shores of the mlechChadesha a little after I had done the same. He was now a big man in every sense of the word. He now said different things. He now said TSPians are very good people and we must not talk ill of them as they are our people. Amazingly, he had forgotten every iota of geopolitics and asked us why we waste time on “politics”. He constantly genuflected before powerful mlechCha-s and sang their tune what ever it may. If a mlechCha said something Mn would say it is cool. He spoke of how a Hindu should not criticize Mohammedanism and Isaism for it was a mean thing to criticize others religions while praising ones own. His relatives warned him about the evils of the religions of peace and love but Mn admonished them not to be mean. He had forgotten his gotra — he even claimed he did not know what a gotra meant. He had forgotten his veda and he claimed it was something the pUjAri-s do in temples. No, Mn had not decreased even a delta x in his intelligence, but in his viveka he had regressed beyond where he was as child. He is not alone — as ekanetra and the va~Nga paNDita noted so many around us have gone the way of Mn.

People used think Mn was a non-conformist and I was conformist. But the wise amAtya felt the reality was reverse. Indeed therein lies the answer to mysteries such as Mn.

The monitors

There was a good program aired by PBS on the monitor lizards that features some work done by Pianka who has been studying these lizards for several decades. I could identify with his fascination for these lizards as I felt similarly in my youth. My live encounters with them have been limited to a single species the Varanus bengalensis. Of course this lizard is legendary in the mahArATTa country due to the role it played in the re-conquest of Kondana from the Mogols. This is a rather remarkable lizard which I first encountered literally in my grandmother’s tale about a maternal relative who was bitten by it and supposedly developed a long lasting immunological reaction at the spot of the bite. I then read an article on this lizard by a guy called Walter Auffenberg who had devoted his life studying them. This later led me to his monographic book on the topic which is no longer easy to get. I acquainted R with Auffenberg’s article in the Sanctuary magazine and later she most helpfully managed to procure that book. Before talking of any biology I should make note of a philological point. The names for this Varanus in Indo-Aryan languages is (there could be some inaccuracies here as I got it from an old book rather than speakers):
Bengali: gohsAp; Bihari dialect: gho; Oriya: godhi; Rajasthani: gho-eldo; Balouchi: goj; mahArATTi: ghorpaD; Nepali: gopar; Dakkani Hindi: ghopor; Gujarati: patla gho; Panjabi: gar-gho/pattan gho; Sindhi: kAla-gho; Kohistani:ghua; Simhala: goya
In saMskR^ita we have godhA/godhikA which is attested right from the vedic layer.
In the Iranian languages we have- Persian: samserah; Pushto: somsereh; Swati: samsArah; in Firdausi’s Persian we encounter the interesting sUsmAr whose relation to the previous words is unclear to me. It is certainly not of Arabic origin as the word in that language is zabb or waran.
In the Dravidian languages we have- Tamil/Malayalam: uDuMbu; Kanada: uDA; Telugu: oDer; Tulu:oDu
Thus, it is clear that within each of these language families the word was vertically inherited from their respective common ancestors. However, there appears to be no relationship of the word between families. It is particularly interesting that Indo-Aryan and Iranian do not share a common word though the word is conserved within each of these families. While the animal was unlikely to have been present in the Indo-European homeland further north, it is clear that the early Aryans in both India and Iran recognized this animal. Its conservation within each family suggests that the animal was well known and easily recognized once each Aryan group had settled in their current locations. Yet the origin of the word godhA is unclear to me — it is conceivable it was a saMskR^itization of a vernacular found in the old IVC/SSVC language X. Indeed the monitor was a well known food item of both Indo-Aryans and Dravidians mentioned as such in the dharmasUtra-s, rAmAyaNa and the early Tamil poems. Monitor bones have been found in kitchen garbage in IVC/SSVC sites. Indeed, I have seen even these days the drAviDa make uDumbu kari. Indeed in one of the tales of the tathAgata he narrates the case of a prince who gourmised a whole roasted Varanus without giving his wife her share of it. But the animal had a place beyond the dinner plate in early Indic literature. There was the monitor-headed goddess godhikA in the early kaumara system [Footnote 1]. An image of her has been found in the Kushana age ruins from Uttar Pradesh. The godhA is also depicted as an emblem of umA in several temples. There is also another perceptive tale of the tathAgata in the pAlI jAtaka which eloquently captures the nature of lizard. It roughly goes thus (jAtaka 138 and 325 in pAlI):
In the days long past the tathAgata had taken birth as a rAja-godhA or the king of the lizards who lived at the fringe of a village. There a parivrAjaka lived beside him and delivered lectures which were appreciated by the villagers and also the lizard. Once that parivrAjaka went away and a pAShaNDa posing as a parivrAjaka took his place. The lizard continued to come out to listen to this pAShaNDa too mistaking him for the real teacher. One day there was an unnatural rain in summer and many insects had come out. Seeing this, several monitors came out to feed on the insects. But the villagers who were in turn lying in wait caught the monitors and cutting them up made a curry with several flavors. They gave the pAShaNDa some of this meat to eat. He was delighted by its taste and enquired what the meat was and the villagers let him in on the secret. He thought to himself I see that monitor coming out daily to see me. Let me kill him and make some more lizard-curry for myself. So he fetched ghee, curds, salt and pepper, and also a club and hid it under his saffron robe and waited for the monitor. But as the pAShaNDa was turned windward the rAja-godhA smelt the flesh of lizards on him and realized that the pAShaNDa was eating his kin and might try to kill him next. The monitor ran away but the pAShaNDa turned and tried to kill him but throwing his club. The monitor deftly evaded his club and ran into a burrow and disappeared. Then putting his head out of another burrow hole he recited a gAtha denouncing the pAShaNDa and threatened to expose him as one. Fearing this, the pAShaNDa fled the place. Then the tathAgata revealed that the rogue whom the saMgha had caught cheating people was the pAShaNDa in his past birth, while the brAhmaNa sAriputra was the original parivrAjaka, whereas the monitor was the tathAgata himself as a bodhisattva.

There is yet another yarn of the tathAgata when he was again born as rAja-godhA which we will narrate next (jAtaka 141). This along with the above one shows the buddha’s deep understanding of Varanus behavior:
During the reign of brahmadatta, the tathAgata was born as the rAja-godhA who lorded over hundreds of lizards. He lived in a great burrow in a forest near a branch of the ga~NgA. He had a son who was unnaturally infatuated by a Calotes lizard and spent his time sniffing the Calotes with his tongue and embracing him. The royal monitor reprimanded his son repeatedly for this allophilia warning him of his intimacy with the lowly Calotes. Despite his repeated advice the young monitor did not give up his intimacy. Fearing that a great calamity might arise due to this allophilia the royal monitor dug up new escape burrows to prepare for an eventuality. With time the Calotes remained the same size but the young monitor was growing rapidly. Soon the Calotes was crushed by the monitor’s embraces and felt he might die if the monitor continued with his embraces a little longer. So he decided to put an end to the race of the monitors. The Calotes saw a monitor hunter arrive with his spade, club and dogs. He led the hunter to the entrances of the monitor burrows and asked him to pile fuel and start fires. The hunter got to work and as the monitors tried to escape the smoke he clubbed them and those he missed fell to his dogs. But the rAja-godhA who had dug new escape tunnels made it to safety via those evading the hunter. As he escaped he recited a gAtha that the misplaced allophilia for the Calotes had brought genocide upon the monitors. Then the tathAgata revealed that the traitor who had left the saMgha of the tathAgata and joined that of devadatta was the young monitor, the Calotes was his cousin devadatta in his past birth who was hence destined for the avIchi naraka, whereas the royal monitor was the tathAgata himself as a bodhisattva.

A picture of the Indian monitor at jetavana kindly provide by shrI sarvesha tivArI. He informs me that the bauddha sites of jetavana and srAvastI are notable for the prevalence of the monitor (incidentally the buddha narrated the above tales at jetavana). They probably have been so since the days of the tathagata and beyond. Note that the lizard is performing typical activity of exploring a cleft in the tree.

The Indian monitor is usually up by around 7.00 AM and comes out of it burrow and spends the day foraging. Usually it returns to its burrow around 1.00 PM for some rest and then forages again till it returns between 4.30 to 7.10 PM to rest for the day. It also climbs certain chosen trees and spends a while on those trees.

It was the third complete year after the battle of dvAdashAnta. The non-jAmadagnya vatsa and I were strolling around 6.30 AM in gavalakuNDa near a reptile holding area of his employer. As were coming up the grassy bank we heard a pair of stone-curlews, those original R^iShi-s, intoning their sAman-s, even as an udgAtar recites the vAn-nidhana krau~ncha sAman and the tritIyakrau~ncha at offering of indra in the dvAdashAha ritual. We soon were to witness an unforgettable battle between the dinosaurs, a lepidosaur and a mammal. Suddenly, all went quite with a monitor descending from a tree and swiftly running towards were the stone-curlews were. The two birds ran towards the lizard with their wings widely spread in a peculiar attacking pose making shrill screeching noises. When I saw that a flash went off in my head — this is exactly how the theropod dinosaurs might have held their hands while attacking their prey [Footnote 2]. The small birds put up such a show that the lizard hastily retreated. Then we saw the most unexpected sight – a mongoose probably originally tracking the lizard made a lunge at the birds. The stone- curlews mounted an attack on the mongoose next. They took of the ground briefly to land on the mongoose and peck it and then chased it on the ground till it ran out of their range.

Pianka remarked that the monitor is probably more intelligent than other lizards. This is perhaps true based on the observations of the doyen of monitor studies Auffenberg and my one few observations on V.bengalensis. The monitor is able to maintain a rather active life-style because it is freed from Carrier’s constraint by its gular pump and has a more elaborate alveolar development than any other lizard. As the tathAgata notices the monitor anticipates when and where insects might be available. This has been noticed with respect rains in the Indian monitor and with respect to forest fires in one of the Australian monitors. The monitor does not attempt to take termite mounds in summer, but as soon as it rains it translocates to these mounds and tears its way through to get the insects. The Indian monitor also knows how to exploit bovine dung to catch insects. The monitors routinely inspect only dung pats at the correct stage in their decay when they are inhabited by large beetles and termites and start dismantling them to locate the insects and eat them. Then they dig up the insects from their hole below the dung pats and eat them. The monitor is very hard to dig out from its burrow as it can slash the attacker with its tail. But two animals specialize in killing monitors in their burrows — the python and the boar. The python systematically checks out burrows of monitors when they are sleeping at night to pull them out. The boar having smelt out a monitor will carry out an excavation into the burrow and kill the lizard. When in the open it is sought by the mongoose and the power crested serpent eagle. An acquaintance of mine, the shUdra of dIpa-patha, claimed he had seen this fierce eagle carry away a monitor. It may also be attacked and killed by its cousin the water monitor, which I have only seen dead.

Most Hindus used to believe that the monitor is a poisonous lizard. Years ago Gabe and St Girons published a paper that the monitor probably secreted a venom from its large mandibular gland similar to the Gila monster. A Russian Gorelov published an obscure paper claiming that the monitor was venomous as its saliva paralyzed rats and sparrows when injected. In another obscure paper Cogger basically reiterated my grandmother’s claim that the monitor bites might produce prolonged non-healing troublesome wounds. However, Auffenberg states that the monitors have bitten him numerous times throughout his career and he never faced any intoxication. However, he does state that once he had an Indian monitor bite with a prolonged wound that resulted in a serious bacterial infection. There has been some revival of the poisonous monitor theory by Fry et al recently, although they apparently fail to review the prior literature on this matter.

Footnote 1: She is one of a series of zoocephalic deities in the AvaraNa of kArttikeya, such as shishumAramukhI, the dolphin-headed goddess.

Footnote 2: Years later it was to become clear that the way people used to reconstruct the hands of Mesozoic dinosaurs was wrong. They did hold them like their modern representatives

The third enslavement?

The coming of the marUnmatta-s resulted in our first loss of freedom. The leukotestate indologists and their xanthotestate fellow travelers from the eastern fringe of the world told us that it was no enslavement but a cultural enrichment (Hey, we at least get to call the zilebia and the samosa India food). After the mlechCha-s had been packed out of our land ending our 2nd physical enslavement, our eminent netAji-s, who were usually prone to pulling Gandhis, at least tested ANavAstra-s. Most mlechCha-s with whom I have spoken feel no remorse about the killing of the 220000 prAchya-s (minimum) with their ANavAstra-s. In fact, some of them expressed pride and all of them offered all kinds of self-serving justifications. When asked about their well-documented plan to keep dropping several ANavAstra-s on the prAchya-s the mlechCha-s tell us of course they would have done it and there was nothing wrong in that plan. At least the mauryan publicly recanted his killing of 100,000 kali~Nga-s with mere shalya-s and showed remorse for the act for the rest of his existence. It is for reasons such as this we describe the mlechCha-s as barbarians. These same mlechCha-s endlessly pontificate to us about giving up ANavAstra-s — verily only a fool who thinks himself to be a paNDita will use this famous mlechCha-nyAya. But with the turning wheel of the kali things has come to such pass that it appears that we have verily become such fools. The truth is that some of our ANavAstra-s might have been damp fizzes, much like the occasional wet viSphoTaka we would experience in the dIpotsava-s of yore. But the turbaned and shrouded napuMsaka-s who pass off as pUjya netAji-s these days do not want the people to know any of this. Why is this the case? After all now a days we have no kShatriya-s ruling us but a mere gaNarAjaya where the klaibya nIlashirastrANa is elected by the masses. So should the klaibya not do what the masses want? That would be the case only if the masses really demand it. But what has happened is that the masses have been put to sleep with krIDa and kAma that they no longer bother if they really have an ANavAstra or not. To drive the nail in to the coffin the paramapUjya netAji-s are repeatedly lying to the people of bhArata claiming they have the astra. In the mean time they are selling the rAShTra to those same mlechCha-s who have murdered hundreds of thousands of people in a nimesha. Truly we are poised to enter our 3rd enslavement — what does it matter if it is directly under the mlechCha-s, their pretAchArin proxies or some regional opportunist like the chIna-s or the marUnmatta-s. Even the woman, who in the Kazakh entertainment unties the horse knot with her teeth, might feel safer than this forsaken woman called bhAratI.

The field beyond the seven trees

Sporting with the dUtI we reached the spot where seven trees stood in a row. Those were verily like the trees which had been denuded of their leaves by fist of the tawny ape vAlin. Our dUtI who was verily a madadrava said that beyond these trees was the spot of mR^ityu, where yama bore away those whose term had come. She added it was verily the raurava hell on earth, where, before completing their term, people suffered the tortures of vaivasvata’s bhR^itya-s. For them the coming of the mahiShavAhana was not a cause of sorrow but the eternal relief from the ordeals of chitragupta. Riding our fleet ashva-s we reached the spot beyond the seven trees and the seat of dharmarAjan-s play. At that far away spot were cooped up the rakSha-s of bhR^igu, they who were sent forth during the destruction of dakSha’s adhvara. We went beyond it to the vast shmashAna. In our mind we intoned the words to the wielder of the pAshupata missile. Beyond it was a vast field. The great kShatriya of light pulled down the nakShatra of the day even as the kShatriya of the night, who was praised by shunaHshepa in the days of yore, unfurled the R^ikSha in the high skies. We saw the birds sweeping their heads to catch the magnetic lines and take of in the direction known by that great kShatriya with the pAsha. In that great field with knowledge of the pAsha-s of yama and the great asura prachetas we lay in unison with her whose hair was the like the array of monsoonal clouds of massed by indra against the wall of the sahyAdri. On one side was the gandharva known as mR^ityu on the other side was the gandharva vishvAvasu. But we held on to her whose stanau were like the pots of surA made ready for the ashvinau at the sautrAmaNi rite, and whose smell was like the yakSha’s saugandhika flower. Delighting in rati but ever aware of the buffalo-rider who was at hand we were drinking the honey of ana~Nga’s cup. In the state of the urdhvasravas we took up the mantra of the circle of the yoginI-s headed by viliste~NgA, chatuShpathaniketA and shishumAramukhI.

Of allosaurs and megalosaurs

It was a cold and wet day, hardly inspiring anyone. Among the decadent mists, with not a mammal other than me in sight, we saw the triumphal sign of the dinosaurian presence in the form of 3 crows that were sporting in the rain at a puddle of water.

If one year has changed our understanding of dinosaurs most completely it is 2009 and there is more to come. It turns out that we were right regarding the relationship between Aerosteon and Orkoraptor, but who would have expected the dramatic twist that comes from a detailed and proper analysis? Such an analysis was published yesterday by Benson et al, but looking at the older papers of the main players in this body of work, Benson and Brusatte, it is clear that even their views have been changing rapidly.

Briefly, the diversification of allosauroid theropods and the very nature of the megalosauroid clade within larger clade the tetanurae have been in shrouded in considerable mist. A brief look at these older musings shows the picture:
Small and big theropods
carcharodontosaurids
Basal theropod phylogeny

The picture of tetanuran relationships was incrementally converging towards a picture that showed three successive branches, namely the spinosauroids, the allosauroids and coelurosaurs. This last branch contains the only surviving dinosaurs of the current times, which are incidentally also the most diverse of all amniote vertebrates today. Yet, the membership and the relationships within the spinosauroids and allosauroids remained in the mist. The first “true” glimmer in the mist was the work of ND Smith et al (mentioned above). The leads that emerged in this work have now been taken to conclusion in the work of Benson et al.

In their latest tree the basal-most tetanuran branch was the megalosauroid branch (inclusive of the spinosauroid branch in the older trees; renamed due to inclusion of Megalosaurus one of the earliest dinosaurs to be discovered in the western European world). This branch includes the spinosaurids of the Cretaceous, the great Jurassic and early Cretaceous radiation of forms such as Megalosaurus, Torvosaurus, Eustreptospondylus, Afrovenator, Duriavenator and Dubreuillosaurus, Monolophosaurus, and a basal clade of Condorraptor, Marshosaurus and others. This tree is striking in that it groups together all the basal lineages of tetanurans into a single megalosauroid clade. Further, it suggests that several basal Middle Jurassic forms such as Condorraptor, Piatnitzkysaurus (both from South America), Xuanhanosaurus (Asia) and the Late Jurassic Marshosaurus (North America) form a monophyletic clade whose representatives might have attained global distribution. It also suggests that the Middle Jurassic was the time of a possibly global radiation of megalosaurids.

These megalosauroids are the sister group of the neotetanuran clade which include the two clades the allosauroids and the coelurosaurs. On the allosauroid part of the tree it appears that the most basal allosauroid are the sinraptorids within which have now been include Metriacanthosaurus, Sinraptor, Poekilopleuron and Lourinhanosaurus (Strangely they leave Yangchuanosaurus out of their analysis). This suggests that the Sinraptorid clade was also widely distributed at least in Asia and Europe in the late Jurassic. Within the allosauroid clade, Allosaurus is the next branch which is a sister group of the carcharodontosauroid clade. The carcharodontosauroids further contain the carcharodontosaurids proper and the newly defined clade of neovenatorids. The carcharodontosaurids are now known to be widely distributed with members in North America, South America, Asia and Africa and are seen in an approximately 30 million year interval from the Aptian age (~118 Mya) to at least the end of the Turonian/Early Coniacian (~90 Mya). The neovenatorid clade is shown to include Neovenator, Aerosteon, Megaraptor, Orkoraptor, Australovenator, Fukuiraptor and Chilantaisaurus with representatives from Europe, Asia, Australia and South America, again suggesting a global distribution. This clade also probably includes Siamotyrannus from Thailand that was not included in the analysis. Of these all the neovenatorids excluding Neovenator form a monophyletic clade megaraptora. The megaraptorans are claimed by Benson et al to have acquired the coelurosaurian features (which we made us think Aerosteon and Orkoraptor are coelurosaurs. Of course there is the caveat that the position of carcharodontosauroids as a sister group of is Allosaurus might be questioned in the future.) convergently. But it is clear that they came in several distinct sizes, just as we have seen in several other clades of theropods including several coelurosaurian clades. On the lower end we have Fukuiraptor which is about 3m in length whereas the largest known neovenatorid was the colossal carnivore Chilantaisaurus measuring about 11.5-12 meters. Again as we discussed earlier we have the phenomenon of arm length variation in the in these tetanuran clades. The megaraptorans appear to have acquired long arms with large seizing claws, where as the arms of the carcharodontosaurids and allosaurids are relatively short though robust. In contrast the long arms of the megaraptorans appear convergent with the long arms seen in the megalosauroids of the spinosaurid clade. Interestingly, the sister group of the spinosaurids, the megalosaurids, also have relatively short arms. At the face of it the neovenatorids appear to have lasted at least 60 million years from the Barremian age to the Maastrichtian (Orkoraptor). Thus, it appears that the allosauroids were persistent till the end of the Age of the dinosaurs at least on some continents.

The implications of this are rather profound in terms of biogeography and paleobiology. Firstly, it renders most vicariant models of tetanuran distribution unsupported. Instead it appears that there was an explosive radiation of the tetanurans in the Early-Middle Jurassic which was followed by them attaining global distribution. In support of this Benson et al suggest, although without clear evidence that Shidaisaurus from the Middle Jurassic of Asia was an allosauroid. Second it shows that the allosauroids and even certain megalosauroids (the spinosaurids) were present from at least the Middle Jurassic to the Cretaceous and in most continents occupied the top predator roles (e.g. discovery of the Asian spinosaurid: Siamosaurus). Though in the northern latitudes in the very end of the Cretaceous the allosauroids were replaced by the coelurosaurian tyrannosauroids it is likely that in most other places some allosauroid predator continued to be present. For example the Southern North America, the extremely scrappy Labocania could even be an allosauroid. This has been generally interpreted as a pattern of global allosauroid dominance with only the delayed and local ascendancy of the tyrannosaurids in the North. However, these lessons are teaching us to be far more cautious. Indeed the chIna-s are claiming that some obscure scrappy fossils they have described as Sinotyrannus kazuoensis might be a large tyrannosauroid from the early Cretaceous Jehol Biota [Footnote 1]. While this appears dubious to me, a more careful analysis could very well prove the chIna-s to be right. In that case the idea of the late ascendancy of the tyrannosauroids would need to be further emended.
*Footnote 1: The fossil comprises of the rostral segment part of the skull, some vertebra, an ungual and the ilia. Based on cursory examination of these the identification of Sinotyrannus as a tyrannosauroid is certainly tenuous. Further analysis will be required to confirm the tyrannosauroid identity of this large carnivore (~10m), especially given that convergent coelurosaurian features are now suggested for allosauroids.

dIpotsava

A mantra fossil from the vedo-tAntric transition in charaka

The chikitsAsthAna of the charaka saMhitA cites a formula to be recited during the compounding of the agada termed the mahAgandhahasti (23.90):
mama mAtA jayA nAma jayo nAmeti me pitA |
sohaM jayajayAputro vijaye.atha jayAmi cha |
namaH puruShasiMhAya viShNave vishvakarmaNe |
sanAtanAya kR^iShNAya bhavAya vibhavAya cha |
tejo vR^iShakapeH sAkShAt tejo brahmendroyor yame |
yathA a.haM nAbhijAnAmi vAsudevaparAjayaM |
mAtush cha pANigrahaNaM samudrasya cha shoShaNaM |
anena satyavAkyena siddhyatAm agado hy ayam |
hili mili saMspR^iShTe rakSha sarva bheShajottame svAhA ||

The agada is a preparation that it specially used to kill or counter a disease-causing agent or poison and is contrasted from other drugs which help to provide nutrients or enhance particular functions. This mahAgandhahasti formula is interesting in several ways. In its opening part it has a peculiar formulaic structure of X is the mother, Y is the father etc. This is a very old atharvanic formula and is seen right from an early atharvanic spell in the R^igveda (RV10.97.9; iShkR^itir nAma vo mAtA) and similar forms in the atharvaveda. Interestingly, it is praised thus:
yatra cha sannihito.ayaM na tatra bAlagrahA na rakShAMsi |
na cha kArmaNa vetAlA vahanti nAtharvaNa mantrAH || (23.88)
When it is applied or placed [on a person] it is supposed to protect against bAlagraha-s, rakSha-s, abhichAra rites, vetAla-s and atharvanic mantra-s. Thus, its structure and its “target”, i.e. the AV mantra-s suggest that it belongs to a relatively early period, prior to the ascendancy of the classical tAntrika material. Yet on the other hand we encounter elements that link it to the tAntrika mantra shAstra such as the formula “hili mili”. Moreover, we note that while it invokes a wide range of deities (i.e. viShNu, bhAva=rudra?, vR^iShakapi, brahma, indra and yama), the most prominent deity here is viShNu. Specifically his vibhava-s such as puruShasiMha (nR^isiMha) and kR^iShNa are mentioned and perhaps even vR^iShakapi here is identified with viShNu. Also mentioned is vAsudeva, a name not found in the earlier vaidika layer of the vaiShNava shAsana, but emerging in the vaikhAnasa and pA~ncharAtra traditions. There is hardly any mention of nR^isiMha in the great epic which already contains early allusions to pA~ncharAtra and vaikhAnasa. However, nR^isiMha is prominent alongside with vAsudeva and the vyUha-s in the vaikhAnasa mantra-pATha. Hence, we suspect that this mantra from charaka belongs to the same layer as the vaiShNava mantra material of the vaikhAnasa mantra-pATha, which probably post-dates their precursors alluded to in the great epic. The mantra also preserves an old style Indo-European oath statement (satyavAkya) albeit with a vaiShNava statement — i.e. just as I do not know of the defeat of vAsudeva, and just as one does not take ones mother’s hand in marriage and just as the ocean does not dry up so also let this drug be successful. This again suggests that the mahAgandhahasti is a “fossil” mantra from the transitional period from the vaidika and tantrika mantra-shAstra-s along side other such examples we have previously pointed out, such as those of the AV parishiShTha-s. This may also be significant in being one of the relatively early vaiShNava mantra-s to mention narasiMha and gives a small window into the pre-classical mantra-s of the vaiShNava-shAsana.

vijayanagaran activities in shrI lankA

Since the vijayan colonization of lankA several south India empires have extended their sway over lankA. On occasions, the lankans too invaded or interfered with the mainland, most famous occasion being the invasion of parAkramabAhu. Due to some prominent historians underplaying or outright ignoring the vijayanagaran forays into lankA, I too was misled into believing this was an unimportant facet of their military and cultural expansion. But an impressive collection of lankan gems that I had seen in the karnATa country from the vijayanagaran period kept coming to mind and culminated in more detailed look at the activities of vijayanagara in shrI lankA. Further even the biased Islamic and Christian sources had recorded the activities of vijayanagara in lankA, suggesting it was not something minor to be brushed aside.

-kumAra kampaNa, the hero of Madhurai, the destroyer of the Army of Islam, had planned a large-scale invasion of shrI lankA to bring it under vijyanagaran control. However, he died just before the invasion and it was called off. Nevertheless the lankan rAjan bhuvanaikabAhu-V sent an embassy with gifts to maintain status quo with vijayanagara.

-In 1385 CE virupAkSha, was sent by his father harihara-II to bring lankA to pay tribute. He invaded the island with an amphibious force and forced bhuvanaikabAhu to accept vijayanagaran overlordship. He appears to have taken the state of Yazhpanam (Jaffna) and brought it under direct vijayanagaran rule and used it to exert pressure on bhuvanaikabAhu. In support of this we note that a source mentioned by the learned historian SK Aiyangar, the nArAyaNIvilAsaM states that virUpAkSha set up a pillar of victory in lankA. We note that around this time harihara-II took the grandiose title of pUrva-pashchima-dakShiNa-samudrAdhIshvara. Copper plates found at Alampundi in the drAviDa country state that virUpAkSha acting on behalf of his father conquered the siMhala-s and brought gemstones for his father from there. The Portuguese sources also mention the conquest of lankA by a hindu king whose name is hopelessly corrupted and state that the rulers of Jaffna were karnATa-s.

-In 1424 CE devarAya-II came to power and appears to have strengthened the navy by appointing a special naval command under the nAvigaDa-prabhu. Initially, the naval force appears to have been active on the Andhra coast as devarAya dispatched ambitious naval expeditions against Burma. These invasions landed on the Pegu and Tenasserim coasts and forced the Mon kingdom to become a tributary of vijayanagara and possibly even under direct vijayanagaran control. In 1440 CE a conflict appears to have emerged over the lankan non-payment of tribute during devarAya-II’s reign. As a consequence a lankan spice ship was captured and impounded by the vijayanagaran naval force. In response parAkramabAhu-II hoping to relive the memories of eponymous predecessor launched a naval expedition against the mainland and plundered Adhirampattinam. In response, devarAya sent his mahApradhAni (prime minister) lakShmaNa-daNDanAyaka to punish the lankans. In 1442 CE reconquered Adhirampattinam and launched an invasion into lankA. The lankans were defeated in battle fought south of Jaffna in 1443CE. Originally lakShmaNa intended to completely conquer lankA and bring it under direct vijayanagaran rule. However, the alarming news of the great Jihad being launched deep into vijayanagaran territory by the Bahmanid sultan reached him just then. So he accepted the tributes of parAkramabAhu-II and returned to the capital to reorganize the army to fight the Moslem invasion. This is supported an inscription near Chengalapattu in the Tamil country that mentions devarAya having subjugated the siMhala-s. Even an Islamic source (Abdur Razzak the Turk from Iran) and a Portuguese reports the same. Both these sources also report the subjugation of Pegu and Tenaserim in Southern Burma by devarAya. In the Burman accounts after the death of the king rAjAdhirAT of Mons we notice that there was break before the king rAma-rAjadhirAT takes the throne. This break corresponds to the vijayanagaran subjugation of the Burman coast, probably taking advantage of the internal conflict there.
-With the death of devarAya-II the advancing Islamic Jihad pulverized the Vijayanagarans and their empire began shrinking rapidly even as they fought to barely stave off the annual jihads of the Bahmanids. In this phase Lanka had entirely slipped out of Vijayanagaran control.
-Finally when Vijayanagara was revived under the great kR^iShNadevarAya he decided revive the control of Lanka. For this he asked the powerful governor of Pudukotai, narasingharAyar to organize a force for looking into the Lankan affairs.

-Around that time (1521CE) the siMhala king vijayabAhu raised a cry for help as he was invaded by the Portuguese armada. The Christian terrorists asked him to convert to catholicism or face death and launched a massive attack on him. The siMhala-s begged to the sAmUthiri of the chera country to come to his aid. In the past 20 years the sAmUthiri was raising a naval force to complement his army of skilled nAyar warriors to deal with the Christian threat from the west. The Christians had bombed Kodungallur in 1504CE and the sAmUthiri’s navy had been engaged a fierce naval campaign in which he was facing the adverse edge of the Christian armada. To shore up his naval defenses the samUthiri tried to form an alliance with the Osman Turk navy against the Christians. However, the Christians managed to make a landing at Kollam and demolished a shAstA temple and built a church atop it. But at this point the sAmUthiri deployed his force of elite nAyar warriors who made a clean sweep of the Portuguese fort at Kollam, exterminated the Christians and demolished their church. Soon after this strike the Christians signed a peace treaty with the Hindus to secure their trade in the west coast. But the king of Portugal sent an armada under Menezes to wage holy war on the Hindus. The Portuguese in a move to outflank the Hindus tried to conquer Lanka in an amphibious attack with several guns. With the call for help coming, kR^iShNadevarAya who was the overlord of the sAmUthiri sent a force to aid in this battle against the Christians in Lanka. The sAmUthiri’s navy and the vijayanagaran land force successfully thwarted the Portuguese attempt. However, soon after this there was an intercine war of succession in Lanka that resulted in the division of the land among the vijayabAhu’s sons.

-In 1525CE the Portuguese fleet decided to punish the chera-s for thwarting them at Lanka and set forth to attack Kozhikode. But the sAmUthiri had by then developed a sufficiently strong navy and won a major victory at sea against the Christians.

-In 1533 CE taking advantage of the intercine war in Lanka the Tamil general narasingharAyar invaded Lanka and made it a tributary of kR^iShNadeva rAya. These activities are supported by the Pudukotai inscription of narasingharAyar and the Piranmalai inscription mentioning kR^iShNadeva sending a force during the time of the Portuguese invasion attempt.

-In 1564 CE before setting forth to face the Moslems in that fateful encounter rAmarAya dispatched a force of 20000 men under kR^iShNappA nAyaka of Madhurai to bring Lanka under direct vijayanagaran control. He routed the Lankan king and also a large Portuguese force that tried to intervene and claim to be legitimate rulers of Lanka. He deposed the siMhala rAjan and placed his brother vijaya gopAla nAyaka as the viceroy of lankA. But the victory was to be last flash of the greater Vijayanagara as Hampi itself was destroyed by the Mohammedans a few months later.

-1567CE vIra vasantarAya, vijayanagaran general was still trying to enforce the empire’s rule in Lanka, but with the empire facing an existential struggle against the army of Islam this hold was soon lost.

Neuregulins, serotonin transporter and creativity

That the line between genius and madness can be thin one — this reality struck me hard when, as youth, I saw a mad Hindu mathematician on television. Some time later I got a chance to learn about the powerful mantravAdin Fourier and his wife — both had a remarkable streak of intelligence, but both were prone to quirky behavior, which on occasions, especially in the latter, bordered on madness. Fourier was way above the quotidian intelligence of most people around him — be it in the knowledge of saMskR^ita texts, the technical analysis of music and language or mathematical abilities. The other lecturers in the college where he taught were such dwarfs before him that they could hardly make sense of much of what he said. He wrote several books on topics ranging from mathematical analysis to travelogues and verses resembling the great poet bhAnudatta. A descendent of the great tAntrika from kali~Nga uttered several new mantra-s and vidhi-s once during a meeting in which even I was present. Fourier came back home and wrote all of them down neatly and later in the evening reproduced them in a discussion with his friend a chera magician and gave a lucid commentary on them. Of the many descendents of Fourier some were of reasonably high intelligence, but one of them was especially smart. Some thought he might be a second Fourier, and he used to assist Fourier in laying abhichAra. In his late youth after Fourier’s death he suddenly became mad and burnt most of Fourier’s books. Despite his great rivalry with the kula, Fourier strangely had a soft corner for M and sent her two of his books — she was unable to fully grasp them but saw their worth and showed them to me. I was stunned and felt the presence of a genius. With Fourier junior rapidly disintegrating into dysfunctionality, many said that it was the rebound of one of Fourier abhichAra-s. But Ashri said that genius and madness are faces of the same coin may be there was some interesting genetics in the whole thing.

Studies have indicated that mood disorders are 8-10 times more prevalent in artists and writers than the average population. Accumulating human genetic association studies have gone a long way in clarifying the picture in this regard and raise some interesting points. The neuregulin 1 gene is an extraordinary gene in vertebrates from which a wide range of growth factors are produced by alternative splicing that signal via the ERBB3/4 receptor tyrosine kinase. Mutations in Nrg1 had been repeatedly implicated in schizophrenia. Of particular interest is the T/T genotype in the Nrg1 promoter which results in increased amounts of the type IV transcript. It has been associated with risk for schizophrenia and also shows associations with distinct phenotypes such as decreased working memory capacity, increased sensitivity to harsh criticism and also interestingly decreased pre-morbid IQ. But recently a study showed that paradoxically when present in healthy higher IQ background (mean IQ 125) it confers a significant increase in creativity independent of IQ. A comparable study looked at the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4) polymorphism found about 1kb upstream of the transcription start site. This polymorphism is in the form of variability in the number of a 22bp repeat resulting in the S allele with 14 repeats and L allele with 16 repeats. The S allele has been associated previously with neuroticism and risk for depression and suicide. But interestingly in the healthy population the S allele confers increased creativity of verbal and figural creativity to its possessors. Interestingly, in an independent study the presence of the short allele S of SLC6A4 with other polymorphisms associated with the arginine vasopressin receptor gene have been associated with aptitude for dancing. In yet another study, the tryptophan hydroxylase gene, implicated in serotonin metabolism TPH1, was associated with figural and numeric creativity (A allele of TPH-A779C). This polymorphism has also been linked to smoking and aggressive personality and suicide. Interestingly, polymorphisms at this locus can be mimicked by an environmental effect on cognitive capability — namely availability or depletion of the amino acid tryptophan. R and I were once amused to learn that we had convergently taken to eating tryptone when we worked in the lab; though I am not sure it made a difference to me. The dopamine D2 receptor gene A1+ allele was associated with higher verbal creativity relative to the A1− allele. This A1+ allele arises from a SNP in the 3’ UTR of the DRD2 gene and causes a 30–40% reduction in D2 dopamine receptor density probably by destabilizing the mRNA. There have also been other conflicting studies which claim that the A1+ allele has been associated with increase in IQ or decrease in visuospatial performance.

In on study polymorphisms in the arginine vasopressin receptor (AVPR1) gene has been have been implicated in dancing aptitude, social behavior and autism which is characterized by a major deficit in social interaction. In several vertebrates AVP has been linked with social behavior, especially in connection to bonding between individuals. Hence, it has been proposed that the aptitude for dance might be linked to prosocial tendencies of the AVP pathway coupled with the altered neural states conferred by the serotonin pathway. The use of Ecstasy (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) in dancing parties is presented in support of this as it affects the serotonergic system and possibly even activates, downstream of serotonin, the release of oxytocin, a peptide related to vasopressin. In another independent study it was observed that polymorphisms at the AVPR1 gene showed association with musical aptitude. This is of considerable interest because across cultures music and dance are closely associated and this association is likely to have been present even in the common ancestor of all modern humans.

In summary, a sampling of these recent gene association studies suggests the following: 1) The same polymorphism might be linked to a “positive” phenotype like creativity, while also predisposing individuals for potentially debilitating psychiatric morbidity (e.g. NRG1, TPH and SLC6A4). This supports the contention with which we started this exploration, namely, the thin line between madness and genius. 2) Different genes could be specialized for different forms of creativity and they may or may not be coupled to general intelligence — thus not every one with high IQ will be creative. This is seen particular strongly in the case of science where not everyone with high IQ can be a good scientist due to differences in the creativity dimension. 3) Finally, the role of the AVP pathway in dance and musical aptitude suggest that certain specialized forms of creativity might emerge as a consequence of genetic interaction between general creativity associated with the serotonergic pathway superimposed on pathways linked to social interaction, such as expression of bonding. 4) Most of these polymorphisms are in the non-coding regions of the genes and appear to mainly function by altering amount of mRNA produced or its stability. This observation, taken together with the evidence for dietary tryptophan in cognitive abilities, suggests that rather than fundamental functional changes it is the amount of available protein that makes the difference in most cases. These point to the possibility of potential importance of environmental interactions like nutrients and substances that might mimic the genetic effects.

Finally, these finding raise interesting questions and implications regarding human behavior and capability. One could look at the conflicting role of some of these polymorphisms from an evolutionary angle, just like the sickle cell allele. In environments where malaria is prevalent this allele is favored by selection. Likewise, it is conceivable that in certain societies where creativity was emphasized saw a rise in such alleles due to enhanced fitness in such social structures. But their numbers were possibly balanced by the negative consequences to fitness that they caused via mental disease. It is also possible that the creativity associated alleles are frequently associated with a cost in their possessors. But this cost could be balanced if the society in which they exist supports them. Hence, it is conceivable that their numbers are likely to rise in societies that can support such individuals. The creativity alleles may spark off memetic and temetic revolutions in the societies that support them to alter them in their favor — simply put creativity creates memes and temes that addict the society, thus favoring the genetic variants that create them. Hence, the fitness cost of creativity could be offset by the memetic and temetic advantages they leverage and thereby allow their persistence. While stereotypes are greatly frowned upon today, the findings suggest that there is an element of truth to some of these. The link between dancing and music and the pathway linked to individual bonding is of considerable interest. In the Hindu world there has been a consistent trend to place dance and music (as entertainment as against the ritual music) in the domain of the gaNikA. That naTI, the shailUSha and the puMshchalI have formed a linked locus whose arts are laid out in the kAmashAstra-s is not surprising in light of the reported findings — gaNikA is predisposed to strongly exhibit emotions of bonding as it is just the other side of her aptitude in dance and music.

We also know the famous stereotypes in the differences in musical proclivities and types of creativity amongst different races. For example, one might say that the Africans tend to emphasize rhythm in their music, the Hindus emphasize melody (this is evident even from the earliest surviving Indo-European musical tradition the sAmaveda) and the mlechCha-s emphasize harmony. Hindus have historically emphasized phonetic analysis, euphonic creativity in language and developed a phonetic script. In contrast, the chIna-s and some other prAchya-s emphasized written communication with a complex script rather lacking in phonetic compactness and development of calligraphic creativity. Now the question arises whether the genetic differences in some of the above or other uncharacterized loci have a role in the human diversity in type of creativity and musical tendency. Recent studies indicated that certain positively selected alleles of ASPM and Microcephalin are correlated with linguistic tone or use of pitch differences to convey lexical and grammatical distinctions. Thus, the development and fixation of tonal languages might have a genetic vector. This study provides a potential model for similar considerations on genetic contributions to differences in creative expressions.While actual execution of such a study would need considerable psychometric standardization, one can easily see the available data that there is considerable available variation in the human genome to support such inter-population differences. For example if one looks at the SLC6A4 locus and compares the frequencies of SNPs across different populations one notices some striking differences (Here the populations are Western/Northern European, Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Sub-Saharan African):
The general differences in SNP frequencies follow the basic differentiation pattern of the human population similar to that suggested by physical anthropology. The Chinese and Japanese closely resemble each other, the Indians and Europeans generally resemble each other and the Africans form a distinct group. Now much of the inter-population difference in SNP frequencies is likely to be consequence of the population history. In the first block we have SNPs which differentiate Africans from all non-Africans — this set is likely to have differentiated as a part of the out of Africa migration. Then the second block differentiates all the 3 major groups Africans, Western Eurasians (Indians+Europeans) and Eastern Eurasians (Chinese+Japanese) and represents the frequency differences accompanying the fundamental differentiation in Eurasia. These SNPs are in non-coding regions and most are likely to be largely. However, SNP rs6354 in the first exon and rs1042173 in the last (15th) exon are respectively in regulatory regions in the 5’UTR and 3’ UTR respectively and could hence affect the function of the gene via mRNA stability. These could be candidates for potential population differences in certain mental traits arising from differences in serotonin levels.

A note on some recent work on India genetics

Recently the English scientific tabloid published an article on the genetic variation in Indians which has led to some excitement among the Hindus. The reactions of what appears to be the majority of internet-active Hindus were rather predictable and keeping in line with their rather visible symptoms of emotionalism and feeble-mindedness. The paper with 4 first authors lead by Reich does not present anything fundamentally new with respect to the central problem at hand — namely the genetic affinities of Hindus. However, it does reinforce what was previously known and expected. We shall consider two things here: the results and the spectrum of slow-witted Hindu reactions. The study covers 25 Indian populations with 2-9 individual sampled per population. These include varNa populations such as kashmirian brAhmaNa-s, vaishya-s of northern and southern India, shUdra-s of southern India such as kamma-s and velama-s (could be fallen kShatriya-s), north Indian kAyastha-s, several avarNa-s of northern and southern India such as madiga, mala, lodi etc and niShAda-s and kirAta-s (tribals) such as che~nchus, bhilla-s, santhAl-s, Ao Naga, the Andamanese and even African settlers such as siddi-s. This is the weak part of the study – the sampled populations are very spotty, their number relatively small and the number of sampled individuals in population are small. The paper further makes errors in classifying the castes according to non-existent schemes that are alien to the Hindu concepts of jAti-s and varNa-s. The study however sampled 560,123 autosomal SNPs, which makes it larger than any other such study on Hindus, and is the main strong point of this work. The work presents a picture of Indian ancestry that largely confirms conclusions from various previous studies but provides the weight of a genome-wide survey of variation.

The first two eigenvectors of the PCA analysis. Only select populations are labeled and the estimated % of ancestral Western Eurasian ancestry (ANI as per the authors) is given for some populations.

When presented in a principle component analysis with Chinese and Europeans the Indians, the first and second eigenvectors separates the 3 populations. But most Indians show an interesting “^” distribution of relationships to the other two populations falling along two lines pointing towards Chinese and Europeans respectively. Along the line pointing towards the Europeans are distributed the all varNa, most avarNa and some niShAda populations. There is some correlation between caste rank and north Indian location and the closeness to the Europeans. Thus the kashmIrian brAhmaNa-s are closest to the Europeans in this sample, followed, northern vaishya-s, kAyastha-s and south Indian shUdra-s. Towards the other end of this line are south Indian avarNa-s, northern and southern tribals such a bhilla and che~nchu-s. Some exception features are seen in the halakki tribal farmers of the karnATa lands. About half the individuals are relatively close to Europeans (roughly to the extant of southern shUdra-s), while the other half are only as close as other tribals such as bhilla-s and che~nchu-s are to Europeans. Further, the southern vaishya is farther from the Europeans than southern shUdra-s such as kamma-s or velama-s. On the other line, very close to the Chinese are the Tibeto-Burman speaking Ao Naga and Nyshi tribes. Closer to the main Indian populations, but on the “Chinese line” are the Austro-Asiatic speaking santhAl and khAria. At the point of intersection of the two lines are the kuruMba tribes. However, there are others who are in the angle in between these two lines — these are the tribes such as the sahAriya and tharu and the satnAmI people. When the lATa sample from HapMap was added to the results of this work it was found that a subset of them was located on the line pointing to the Europeans, overlapping with north Indian vaishya and kashmIrian brAhmaNa-s. However, another subset of lATa-s showed a peculiar descent and could be the gurjara.

The former British spy Patterson and Price develop a method to analyze the populations as a combination of tree-like branching from a common ancestor and admixture. Based on this they model the evolution of Hindus as one of admixture of an “Ancestral South Indian” population that is closer to the Andamanese Onge and an “Ancestral North Indian” population that is closer to Western Eurasian. While this is base model their own data suggests that things were more complex. My interpretation of it is thus: The term Ancestral South Indian is an unfortunate one because it is clear they were all over India at one point, given that there is some admixture of them even in the kashmIrian brAmaNa-s. So they are better termed the proto-Indians. Their genetic contribution is particular strong in the kurumba, the che~nchu and bhilla tribes and several southern avarNa populations. They are more distantly related to the exclusion of all other groups to the Onge of the Andamans. So the proto-Indians appear to represent a very early wave of Homo sapiens emanating from Africa and moving into the sub-continent and all the way to Andamans where they go isolated for at least 25,000 years. It would be interesting in this context to investigate the vedda-s of shrI lankA. At some point early Austro-Asiatic speakers appeared to have moved into India from the East and admixed with the proto-Indians giving rise to tribes such as Kharia and Santhal. Much latter the eastern Tibeto-Burmans appear to have invaded in northeastern parts of the country probably in several distinct waves. These together constitute the line connecting the Indian populations with the Chinese. On the other side as we have discussed here before multiple times Western Eurasians started entering India through the northwest. There might have some early invasions of this population that mated with the proto-Indians contributing the Western Eurasian ancestry perhaps even in the Neolithic. Archaeology suggests that the IVC/SSVC and associated chalcolithic spread was one major contributor of Western Eurasian genes, while linguistics points to the spread of Indo-Aryan languages and culture as a major contributor. After the entry of the Western Eurasian peoples, there appears to have been further admixture between them and the already established Austro-Asiatic-proto-Indian tribal admixture (e.g. in North Indian groups like saharia, tharu and satnAmI).

However, interestingly, the relationship between the archaeological attested Western Eurasian intrusion (SSVC/IVC) and the linguistic one (Indo-Aryan) still remains somewhat unclear. Nevertheless, the case for the intrusion of western Eurasian genes is now rather strong based this new data, along the lines of the arguments we have earlier presented here (e.g. there is clearly no evidence for the proto-Indian population to have dispersed into Western/Central Eurasia which would be required for the “Out of India” theories). A study of Indo-Aryan tradition shows that they clearly originated in northern climes outside India. This, combined with the constantly streaming genetic data on Indians indicates that most parsimoniously the Indo-Aryan language and tradition that defines India (bhArata) was actually carried along with the “genes” by the invading western Eurasian contribution to India. This puts to death the Talagerian fantasies (shared by many confused Hindus) of out of India movements of Indo-European. It also largely crushes the language teacher model of certain indologists, like a notorious German from Harvard, wherein the Indo-Aryan language but not genes are contributed to the proto-Indians. The study of vedic argues against Dravidian being a substratum to Old Indo-Aryan. The genetic data argues against Austro-Asiatic having been a substratum. This incidentally kills another hypothesis of the same Harvard Hindu hater. This leaves us with little room with respect to the language of SSVC/IVC and associated chalcolithic cultures — it was either indeed the distinctive language X or Indo-Aryan. The Dravidians only much later entered the Indo-Aryan cultural complex in Southern India as the wave of Aryanization spread southwards.

Using their tree-admixture model simulations they obtain the following results:
80,000-60,000 yrs BP (4,000 gens) split between Sub-Saharan Africans and Eurasians
40,000-30,000 yrs BP (2,000 gens) split between Western and Eastern Eurasians
34,000-25,500 yrs BP (1,700 gens) proto-Indian-Andamanese Onge split.
8000-6000 yrs BP (400 gens) split of Europeans and Adygei (time frame for origination of IE?)
4000-3000 yrs BP (200 gens) beginning of admixture between proto-Indians and Western Eurasians — implies that the Aryan invasion happened sometime before that.

Now let us look at some political aspects in the form of the reactions to the paper. The most remarkable reaction was the set of interviews given by the Indian authors of the paper. One of them remarked: “There was no truth to the Aryan-Dravidian theory as they came hundreds or thousands of years after the ancestral north and south Indians had settled in India.”; “…genetics proves that castes grew directly out of tribe-like organizations during the formation of the Indian society”. Another remarked: “When you look at the origin of the Indian population, the Onges in the Andaman Islands are dated to about 65,000 years ago, and the European population is dated to 40,000 years ago. So the question of Europeans coming to India does not arise. The ancestral North Indians must have given rise to the European population.” Now one wonders how they are saying something exactly opposite to what they say in the paper. In the paper it is mentioned that the mlechCha Reich wrote the paper, but how is it that the deshI authors who gave him the samples kept quite if they interpreted the result in a diametrically opposite way!

Next on some Indian internet fora that I visit I noticed that many had berserk. There were the usual brahmadviS-s who were hurling venom on the foreign and North Indian brAhmaNa-s forgetting all the while that the paper had suggested that even they might be up to half Western Eurasiatic in their origins. Yet other assorted Hindus well crying conspiracy and invoking assorted specters ranging from Talageri to the old dead Germans like mokShamUla to their modern counterparts haunting the rooms of Harvard and Columbia. They insisted that the Aryan invasion was dead and OIT was destined for a long life, not realizing that their much cherished OIT had just been blown to smithereens. Others posing as geneticists and statisticians claimed that they had already established AIT to be false that this new data was of no consequence — little did they realize that this new data was merely confirm what was already clear from other analysis. Finally, in the British tabloid a geneticist of Indian origin Aravinda Chakravarti was invited to write a commentary on the article. Putting on the pretensions of a historian he wrote: “The idea and shape of modern India was an invention of its twentieth-century political leaders, who crafted citizenship defined by civic and universalist, rather than ethnic or religious, criteria precisely because that citizenship is so diverse.” Little did he realize that it was hard to find a modicum of meaning in that sentence. The shape and the idea of India modern or ancient was not an invention of its leaders. They were merely lucky inheritors of a tradition forged upon a distinctive geography by Indo-Aryan culture, by the vehicle of Sanskrit and its vulgar prAkR^ita sisters. Then Chakarvarti goes on to quote Nehru who talks of “invisible threads” holding together the wildly diverse Indians. It is hardly surprising that to the progressive chAchA these threads were invisible or perhaps he was just too coy like his dynastic successors to state that this thread was the dharma. What the genetics has shown is that there is another such thread binding a large subset of the Hindus and this is one of shared genes. The Chakravarti informs us that: “… Austro-Asiatic speakers arrived in India about 60,000 years ago. They were dispersed and driven into smaller enclaves with the arrival of the Dravidian speakers around 3000 BCE. The latter people were themselves driven south with the arrival of the Indo-European speakers in about 1500BC.” One wonders what qualifies Chakravarti to write such nonsensical commentaries in the tabloid. As a geneticist he is certainly conversant of divergence rates. He probably realizes that this also applies to languages. How come Austro-Asiatic arriving at 60000 hardly shows the divergence commensurate with that age. He bothers not to inform himself about the linguistic substratum in old Indo-Aryan, the nature of Austro-Asiatic and Dravidian peoples and even archaeology but dishes out the above statements like facts.

In conclusion, all we can do is to just repeat what we said earlier. The Indian scientists, the Hindu thinkers and intellectuals appear to be clueless about their own past and how to handle the picture emerging from such studies. Denial and ignorance seem to be the only strategies they have offered such far. Is it any surprise if the mlechCha-s overrun the Hindus sheltered behind such defenses?

Yet another geopolitical yarn

As the va~Nga paNDita said it is no more fun to talk of geopolitics for what we have been prognosticating is turning out to be so nauseatingly true. Further, whatever new stuff we might have to say turns out to be a mere rewind of a past tape. It is truly hard to believe that Hindus had manu, viShNugupta and viShNusharman in their midst! Yet we shall take up a matter of geopolitics that is worth discussion among the Hindu elite. While the Hindus were distracted by the existential threat from the legalist chIna-s they took their eye off their age old enemies the mlechCha-s and the turuShka-s. These threats we shall discuss in two dimensions. We have covered both these on these pages before but we shall revisit them in different words (for after all what is there other than to replay the tape if history repeats itself). Recently, a Hindu thinker R Vaidyanathan created a new formulation of the clash of civilization in which, in addition to the conventional Abrahamistic players such as Isaism and Mohammedanism, he introduced a new player termed “modernism”. He sees an all-all clash between modernism and the other players such as the aforesaid Abrahamisms and also the dharma. While we accept modernism as potentially real entity, like socialism before it, we see modernism as merely a secularized tentacle of Abrahamistic thought. The 2nd and 3rd Abrahmisms in particular have the quality of being memetic viruses that deserve objective study as objects of special interest. They have the distinctive property of producing mental aberrations that normally arise from defective brain hardware via merely a viral “software”. This property of Abrahamisms is in a sense like a prion disease, wherein a defective prion molecule is enough to make normal protein molecules to fold as prions. This infective property of the Abrahamisms has been inherited by modernism. It does spread from brain to brain just like its predecessors but one of the properties of it is its ability to “emasculate” the infected individual. As a result a population with an epidemic of modernism becomes weak and susceptible to a life-threatening infection by Isaism or Mohammedanism.

So what is this modernism? While it tries to hide itself under the guise of science, technology, entertainment and fashion it is in reality none of these. Most lay observers fall easily to these subterfuges adopted by it and fail to recognize its debilitating social character. It is a term used by R Vaidyanathan but in the past it went under some other names stemming from socialism such as “progressivism” and “liberalism”. Like modernism these terms seem attractive and even desirable to the undiscerning.

So what is this modernism? While it tries to hide itself under the guise of science, technology, entertainment and fashion it is in reality none of these. Most lay observers fall easily to these subterfuges adopted by it and fail to recognize its debilitating social character. It is a term used by R Vaidyanathan but in the past it went under some other names stemming from socialism such as “progressivism” and “liberalism”. Like modernism these terms seem attractive and even desirable to the undiscerning.

To really understand what this modernism, or what ever one might call it, really is we have to turn to an analysis of the pretamata. We do this at some length because here is where we apparently depart from R Vaidyanathan. While the marUnmAda is similar, it is cruder and more primitive of the two so we can subsume its devices largely under the analysis of the pretamata. The premata is a system that rests on the belief in an entity called God (I spell this entity as they do with the capital letter God, only to distinguish it from the older concept of a god). From this God, the pretAchArin-s believe that an *absolute* set of values termed good and evil and something else which they call morals emerge. They typically believe that these are unique to Homo sapiens and non-existent or nearly non-existent in other organisms. In circular reasoning that is typical of such mata-s they claim that the presence of “moral behavior” in humans is proof for this entity called God. But it is a rather well-known result in evolutionary biology that behaviors termed “moral” by the pretamata are consequence of kin selection or of optimization of a prisoner’s dilemma type game. Thus, “moral behavior” has already been explained within the evolutionary theory and a corollary to this is the elimination of God of the pretamata/ the marUnmAda. Now, even though this is the case, we must realize that most influential biologists and other secular thinkers are products of Western “civilization” whose concepts are founded on the pretamata. Thus, wittingly or unwittingly they have imbibed this concept of absolute values in morals — most of them are rather terrified by the prospect of these values being in reality very relative. Hence, even if they reject the values of the pretamata, they create a new set of values that they hold as being absolute. It is this constellation of the new absolute values, adherence to and enforcement of them that constitute what is termed modernism. The individual set of values differs from group to group of those who uphold modernism but still the founding aspect of the pretamata, i.e. they are absolute, does hold within each group. One aspect of such values held by modernism is termed political correctness in the madhyama mlechChavarSha and its satellites in the leukosphere. But it additionally includes a wide range of other values that might be upheld to different extant within the leukosphere. Examples of these include:
1) The leukosphere has the supreme right in deciding what form of government is good for all people of the world. Corollaries of these include it is alright and not a genocide when Iraqis are killed in large numbers, but the Hindu varNa system is a crime against humanity. It is good for the leukosphere to possess nuclear weapons but it is bad for India to possess them. Republican Party (GOP) of US is a good mainstream party whereas RSS in India is a terrorist/fundamentalist organization.

2) Practices allowed by the rubric of modernism are good, whereas those which belong to competing systems, such dharma, are bad. Corollaries include: Valentine’s day is cool, but vinAyaka chaturthi or janmAShTamI are outmoded, noisy or primitive. Reading English works is good and a sign of civilization, whereas reading itihAsa-purANa or kAvya is sign of being old-fashioned. Talking of great modern western scientists is inspirational, while talking of old Hindu scientists in chauvinistic and obscurantist. Observing bakShaya and bhojya rules is strange and old-fashioned whereas drinking and eating all kinds of abhojya stuff is modern and progressive. Pop music is good but any form of old Hindu music is not keeping with the times.

3) The right of self-defense against predatory religions/ideologies is human rights violation on part of the victim who is defending himself/herself. A corollary is that it dangerous to know about or learn to use Ayudha-s. A strange spin off which is visible in the madhyama mlechCha desha is the idolizing of law enforcement. The very job definition selects for a typical law-enforcement agent to be one who is willing to use violence himself to achieve dominance. Now such people are intrinsically dangerous themselves and should be carefully controlled for society to be stable. By idolizing the law-enforcement agent (an aspect of modernism) one is actually idolizing a rather destructive streak of human nature. In contrast the intellectual kShatriya idolized in the archaic brahma-kShatra tradition was a very different figure who was an *upholder* of dharma rather than a *law-enforcement* agent.

These absolutes of modernism, not surprisingly, emerged in the leukosphere as it is an offshoot of the pretamata. As a consequence it has been in some conflict with the pretamata. But at deep level there is no conflict as they are structurally similar ideologies. Further, the madhyama mlechChavarSha, the bulwark of the leukosphere, is still strongly anchored in the pretamata. Hence, the pretamata uses modernism as a defensive strategy (as it earlier used socialism and democracy) to attack its rivals such as the marUnmAda and the heathens. The Hindu heathens fall prey to it in same manner they fell to the marUnmAda and the pretamata in the past. But this is further compounded by the intellectual lilliputs among the Hindu elites who are simply unable to fathom these ideologies.

For example, the Hindu intellectual cretins want to fight the evolutionary theory because they feel it undermines their “faith”. They feel that scientific understanding threatens their “religion” because it considerably undermines the very concept of punar janma. Hindus assert that they believe in God and that they have only one God. Some also speak of believing in God even though they are very modern and hence do not practice karman-s. When pressed to say more about this god they say brahman is the one God and all other gods are merely manifestations of him. They proudly cite the shruti pramANa for their one God being dIrghatamAs’ words: “ekaM sat viprA bahudhA vadanti”. When you ask them does any real Hindu *believe* in brahman or puruSha they tell you of course. On other matter they assert that Hindu kings never invaded any other “country”. All this is a sign of not just infection by modernism but the fact that these memetic diseases have completely blinded the heathen. Thus, rather than harnessing his unique position to study the unmatta mata-s and increase his horizon of knowledge and with that create a defense against diseases of the mind the Hindu eager succumbs to those very diseases.

The other dimension we intended to cover was that of the consequences of the war between the mlechCha-s and turuShka-s in Afghanistan. However, due to other matters of interest arising we are keeping away from this for now.

tryashra krIDa

utsavAdi

We were engaged in a conversation with ekanetra on variety of topics ranging from the preceptorial genealogies of the medieval advaita vedAntins to the mudgara-swinging bludgeon-men of parAkrama-bAhu in the “siMhala-damila mahAyuddha”. When, in the middle, ST chimed in that she was thinking of a paradox in traditional observances and wanted to know their textual bases in Hindu tradition. She alluded to events many solar cycles ago when we were still in our youth and filled with ignorance but full of the neophyte’s ardor. In those past days, at this time of the year, we both used to cut class to pursue our respective extra-curricular pleasures even as the rest of the pashu-s labored with their pashu-shAstra-s. While I was seeking my mukti from the pashu-pAsha in the study of the deep rahasya-s that I hardly fully understood then, our friend ST was seeking mokSha from the shR^i~Nkhala-bandha in the rAsa-krIDa. She said: “I was observing a solemn navarAtri, but all of a sudden I was reminded of our days in the city of our youth and the krIDa that used to be such great fun with the rest of the “gang”. But suddenly it struck me how in my childhood the navarAtri was a solemn affair at home. I wondered if the profligate rAsagoShThI was ever allowed in the shAstra-s.” I did not share ST’s closeness to the “gang” for after all like the advaitin we did not equate ahaM with the sharIra that was the “gang”. So I could not appreciate her sentiment in this regard, nevertheless the conversation veered to the tradition of the old Hindu madana-mahotsava-s. There is the famous kAmotsava that is observed on chaitra shukla pakSha, dvAdashI (chaturdashi according to some) and this is widely referred to in saMskR^ita literature. But I recall that the paramAra rAjan bhoja-deva mentions several others in his tome on shR^i~NgAra. But not having the original text of the rAjan before me I had to rely on my memory and certain other sources for this discussion. Hence, I must mention that many of them are missed in this discussion (but I might update them once if I feel inclined to look up the text again).

In the shAradi set of ratyutsava-s bhojarAja mentions:
1) navapatrika; 2)bhisakhAdika; 3) kandukakrIDa; 4) yakSha rAtri; 5) kaumudI jAgara; 6)abhyuSha khAdika / ikShu-bhakShika; 7) chandrikA-lalana; 8) haMsa-lIlAvalokana; 9) sarit-pulina-keli; 10) bali krIDa.

Of these yakSha rAtrI is known to be over-night gaming festival that coincides with dIpAvalI/dIpotsava. Hence, if a festival corresponds to the navarAtrI it should be before it. In the dashakumAra charita of daNDin, chandrasenA states the following to mitragupta and koshadAsa:
prAptaiveyaM bhartr^I dArika kandukAvatI kanduka krIDitena devIM vindhyavAsinIm ArAdhayitum | anishiddha darshanA cheyam asmin kandukotsave | saphalam astu yuShmac chakShuH AgachChataM draShTuM |
My king’s daughter kandukAvatI has come to worship the goddess vindhyavAsinI. It is not forbidden to look at her during the ball-festival. May the object of you two’s vision be attained.

Here we see a juxtaposition of the kandukotsva with the worship of vindhyavAsinI, which might suggest that it coincided with the navarAtri. As per the descriptions, navapatrika happens when the meadows are lush with grass following the monsoons. On those green meadows the participants engage in drinking and kAma keli. In the bhisakhAdika the guys hold lotus stalks in their teeth while the girls bite them off. Going by the time allotted to the season of autumnal festivals these two were possibly slightly earlier in the year and therefore before navarAtri in my opinion. The remaining utsava-s that follow dIpAvalI, include kaumudI jAgara, which is also mentioned by vAtsyAyana as the kaumudI mahotsava (also the name of a book of fiction by an early authoress vijjakA), a time suitable for initiating kAmabandha-s. It survives to this date in parts of India where flavored milk is drunk along with revelry on terraces. The abhyuSha and ikShu eating festivals appear to correspond to what in the drAviDa country is observed as the kArttika festival. The abyuSha (puffed-rice balls) is still made in the drAviDa country though the ikShu is eaten on other occasions such as pongal. The festival chandrikA-lalana was an overnight revelry when the moon was at its highest in the autumns. The haMsa-lIlAvalokana involved watching migratory water birds return to their nesting grounds in jambudvIpa, whereas the sarit-pulina-keli was revelry on the sand banks of streams.
In winter there were some more utsava-s like the blindman’s buff festival and the peculiar shuka-sArikAlApa-abhyasana. In this latter festivity young men and women tried to teach parrots and mynahs to speak.

According to bhojadeva there was another remarkable festival in spring that might have overlapped with the spring navarAtri or according to others with the vaTa festival. The polymath hemAdri also notes this festival but seems to assign a different date. This was called pa~nchAlAnuyAna or bhUta-mAtR^ikA or bhairavotsava. Here an image of bhUtamAtR^ikA and in some cases bhairava was installed and worshipped. The image was then carried forth with young women following, decked in fine costumes. They engaged in amorous dances letting their garments slip, wearing of ghost-masks and shmashAnAbhinaya (enactment of phantom apparitions from the cemetery). In spring bhojadeva mentions other utsava-s like:
udakakShveDikA involved young men and women sprinkling each other with colored water from pistons. This seems to have been incorporated in to holikA in some parts of the land whereas in the mahArATTa country the old udakakShveDikA used to survive in my days as a vulgar form on a pa~nchami day festival in spring.
chutalatika involved young women approaching their male counterparts and striking one of them with a mango twig to chose them as their jAra.
ashoka-dohada was a bacchanalic revelry for young women in which they ornamented their feet and embraced and kicked an ashoka tree. Then they spat chewed betel leaves and alcoholic beverages on the tree.
Finally there was also some ratyotsava associated with the great indradhvaja festival according to certain traditions.

Tianyuraptor, Hesperonychus and Anchiornis

Anchiornis

The enormous diversity of small dinosaurs is only recently becoming apparent. This is not surprising because birds, which are at the low end of the dinosaurian size spectrum, show considerable diversity today. The discovery of small dinosaurs has been hampered by the preservation bias, but the Yixian formation in China and the careful work of researchers like Longrich have helped in filling up parts of the lower end of the size spectrum. The discovery of Hesperonychus in Canada followed by a phylogenetic analysis defined a microraptorine clade comprised of the Yixian formation forms Microraptor, Graciliraptor, Sinornithosaurus, the Mongolian form Shanag and the North American Hesperonychus. Over all this phylogeny extends and partially confirms certain results of the earlier work of Turner et al. Other than the basal Mahakala it shows several monophyletic dromaeosaurid clades: 1) The Southern or Gondwanan clade including Unenlagia, Rahonavis, Buitreraptor and Austroraptor; 2) The Microraptorines, 3) Saurornitholestine clade of Saurornitholestes, Atrociraptor and Bambiraptor which are currently limited to North America; 4) The velociraptorine from Asia and 5) The Dromaeosaurines from North America. The last two clades are equally related to Deinonychus and might merge into a single dromaeosaur clade within which the relationships might still be fluid. Thus the small microraptorines appear to have lasted at least 45 million years from the Barremian age of the early Cretaceous (both the Yixian formation microraptorines and the Mongolian Shanag) right through the Campanian age of the late Cretaceous (Hesperonychus). The dromaeosaurs appear to have attained world wide distribution by the Cretaceous as suggested by the presence of the Gondwanan and Asian lineages and fragmentary remains from Africa and Europe whose affinities are still far from clear.

More recently another Yixian form was discovered, named Tianyuraptor by Zheng et al. It is pretty different from all other microraptorines in having considerably short arms (53% of leg length compared to the >70% of leg length in other dromaeosaurs). Thus, it is unlikely to have used them in flight, though one cannot rule out their use in wing-assisted incline running. It has a small, thin furcula which is again not consistent with a flight role. Its legs are also unusually long due to a proportionally much longer tibiotarsus and metatarsus than most other members of the group. In a phylogenetic analysis its position was not well-resolved as the chInAchArya-s have not done a proper job, unlike Longrich. Yet there are some indications (like the texturing on the maxilla) that it might have been a divergent version of the microraptorine clade, although the majority rule tree favors it being the most primitive of Laurasian dromaeosaurs other than the basal Mahakala. What ever the case, the presence of short arms in it is of interest because this feature seems to have emerged independently in the Gondwanan clade in Austroraptor. If we look at the whole avian-deinonychosaur (Paravian) clade we note that the troodontids also evolved similar shortened arms independently from a more long-armed flying ancestor as represented by the condition in Archaeopteryx. So just as in the tyrannosaurs, even in the deinonychosaurs long and short armed forms appear to have existed side by side.

The remarkable Anchiornis comes in to support this idea of repeated convergent evolution of short arms and also provides some new details regarding the biology of arm length in dinosaurs. Originally Anchiornis was described as a basal bird, but a more complete skeleton announced this week by Xu’s team suggests that it is a primitive troodontid. A similar thing had happened with Jinfengopteryx that the chIna-s thought to be a basal avialan. However, later analysis showed that it was also a troodontid. Anchiornis is striking in many ways. Firstly, it comes from the Tiaojishan formation which is a Jurassic age Chinese formation that preserves feathers on fossils. It is dated to be between 160-150 Mya and is apparently from the Oxfordian age of the Jurassic. Thus, it is older than Archaeopteryx which is of the Tithonian age, making it the oldest feathered fossil recovered to date. Secondly, it is remarkable in its feather patterns, with a prominent woodpecker-like feathered crest on the head, pennaceous feathers on both the arms and hind limbs, and a long tail which additionally has dense plumaceous feathers. Finally, unlike all other troodontids it has long arms that are in relative length longer than all other troodontids and also certain dromaeosaurs such as Microraptor. This establishes that the ancestral paravians were indeed long-armed with the most primitive members of the avialan, scansoriopterygid, dromaeosaur, and troodontid clades being long-armed. As Anchiornis predates Archaeopteryx, it is now clears the way for Archaeopteryx indeed being in the avialan clade rather than a precursor of all paravians. It also suggests that the explosive radiation of tetanurans happened before the late Jurassic with all major coelurosaur clades being already established by then. Finally, like Microraptor, Anchiornis has feathers on the legs, that too all the way to the metatarsus. Leg feathers also appear on Pedopenna an enigmatic paravian, and Archaeopteryx suggesting that the 4-winged state was indeed the ancestral condition in the paravian clade. Thus, it is quite possible that Chatterjee’s biplane model might have been a widespread early paravian approach to flight.

Coming back to the long arms of Anchiornis, it would seem that this, being the ancestral paravian condition, was associated with the emergence of flight/gliding in this clade. However, can this flight-based explanation account for the long-armed and short-armed tyrannosaurs? The ancestral tetanuran appears to be apparently relatively short-armed, so the arms clearly relatively lengthened in tyrannosaurs at the base of the coelurosaur tree, before shortening again in the Raptorex-classical tyrannosaur clade. Further, the scansoriopterygid Epidexipteryx has long arms but apparently lacks pennaceous feathers on arms instead having only hairy plumaceous feathers. These observations do question the teleological link between acquisition of flight and arm-lengthening [Footnote 1]. Other than in tyrannosaurs and multiple occasions in deinonychosaurs, we also notice arm-shortening in other coelurosaurs, namely the Alvarezsaurids. Even outside of the tetanurans, their sister group in the averostran clade, the ceratosaurs, show multiple relative arm-shortening events of their moderately-sized arms. Such a transformation is well-known in the Cretaceous abelisaurs like Carnotaurus and Aucasaurus. But more recently Xu made a remarkable find of a toothless Jurassic ceratosaur, Limusaurus that shows yet another case of major arm-length reduction at an even earlier phase of this clade. This shows that arm-shortening is a prevalent trend throughout the evolution of averostra, and to a certain degree there is also the opposite trend of arm-lengthening. One explanation for this phenomenon could be that on multiple occasions the arms became short due to various distinctive feeding adaptations — e.g. breaking wood-termite nests in alvarezsaurids, or head-first predation in tyrannosaurs. While such adaptive forces definitely played a role it is also possible that one of the developmental control genes in the arm development pathway has an evolutionarily unstable regulatory element that results in its repeated lowered expression and occasionally increased expression and corresponding changes in the size of the arm primordium. One possibility is that this regulatory element is a repetitive one prone to deletions or duplications. Exploring this would require some searching in the Gallus genome; I am just not yet inclined to devote time to nor have a person to sacrifice in an attempt. Whatever the case, arm-length variation is one of the most interesting evolutionary problems in dinosaurian.

Tianyuraptor

Footnote 1: A survey of relative arm lengths across coelurosaurs shows that long arms are seen in basal tyrannosaurs, ornithomimosaurs (e.g. Beishanlong and Deinocheirus), therizinosaurus (e.g. Therizinosaurus), oviraptorosaurs, basal troodontids (now Anchiornis), majority of dromaeosaurs, scansoriopterygids and birds. Of these given the poor performance of morphological phylogenetics one could imagine that in reality oviraptorosaurs and scansoriopterygids are basal birds that have reverted to flightlessness. In support of this we see similarities between Sapeornis and oviraptorosaurs, especially basal forms such as Omnivoropteryx. Further, the furculae of oviraptorosaurs also suggest secondary flightlessness. Even considering such a scenario, the long-armed state appears ancestral to the coelurosaurs. Thus, between the basal tetanurans and coelurosaurs there could have been an arm-lengthening event. There is no evidence for flight in the ancestral coelurosaur yet. While such a possibility cannot be ruled out entirely, it is more likely that the long arms were initially selected for something else — could be moving branches in an ancestrally arboreal lifestyle (e.g. the Hoatzin chicks) or a predatory mechanism that is yet poorly understood, or incline running.

Artist’s reconstruction of Anchiornis by Zhao Chuang/Xing Lida

A historical aside: Among all these exciting dinosaurian finds probably one individual who does not get the credit he deserves is the artist Gregory Paul, who long before others (in the 1980s) imagined feathered dinosaurs and understood deinonychosaurs and oviraptorosaurs as being secondarily flightless. His hypothesis has been vindicated most dramatically by Anchiornis. Ironically, another artist Gerhard Heilmann set a reverse trend in the early 1900s — he saw that birds were closest to theropods. But as theropod furculas were not known then and due to rigid application of Dollo’s principle he concluded that birds were not dinosaurs. Thus he reversed the pioneering conclusion of Huxley that birds were dinosaurs. All this is history now and we perhaps understand the origin of birds inside theropoda with considerable clarity.

turuShkaNaM madhyAhna

“The Sultan has drawn near to Allah, the lord of majesty and omnipotence, the creator of the world of dominion and sovereignty. The Sultan who is Allah’s slave made mighty with allahic power, the Kalif, resplendent with allahic glory, who performs the commands of the hidden book and executes its decrees in all regions of the inhabited world, the conqueror of the lands of the East and the West with the help of Allah and the army of Islam, the possessor of kingdoms of the world, the shadow of Allah over all peoples, Sultan of Sultans of the Arabs and the Iranians, the promulgator of Sultanic Kanuns, the tenth of Osman Kha’Khans, Sultan, son of the Sultan, Sultan Suleyman Khan the Padishah, may the line of his Sultanate endure until the end of the line of the ages.”

Thus runs an inscription in Suleymani masjid in Istanbul from the 1560s of CE. Suleyman-i-kanuni had raised the Osman Turks to their greatest glory. The Kalif of Islam led the army of Islam in jihads against the Shias and Isaists bringing them down over and over again. He was in a world dominated by Abrahamistic violence: The Habsburg monarch Karl (Charles) V saw himself as the lord of the Catholics leading them in the crusade against infidels. The tsar of Russia Ivan IV saw himself as the lord of the orthodox church leading them in their own religious war. In the Mohammedan world Suleyman was accompanied by Shah Ismail of Iran who saw himself as a jihadist for the Shia cause. Further east, Padishah Akbar saw himself as the true ghazi who was rooting out the kaffirs of Hind. The trajectory each of these took was the set the tune of history to this date. With the ascendancy of Akbar and Suleyman in the east and west it was the zenith of Mohammedanism on one hand and the Turkic military system on the other. There are striking similarities as well as differences in their paths.

Suleyman ruled for 46 years as the head of numerous jihads all over the Western world. Having ascertained that Iran was engaged with the invasion of the Uzbek Khan, Suleyman launched his first great Jihad on Hungary. He besieged and conquered the great fortress of Belgrade. He then seized Rhodes the head quarter of the Hospitaller knights who were waging a holy war on the Mohammedans. This was followed by the great Jihad of Mohacs in which Louis king of Hungary was killed. Then the Turkish army took Buda the capital of Hungary. From there Suleyman’s army reached the walls of Vienna but retreated only due logistic problems. This was the closest Western Europe came to being directly attacked by the Mohammedans (before Sept 11th which of course happened further west). The charge of the ghazis of Suleyman however left a deep impression on the minds of the Isaists because for the first time the Jihad had reversed the arrow of the crusades by attacking the white Christists deep in their own lands. On the naval front an Osman admiral Piri Reis had got to know of the Americas and wanted to launch a Jihad there. He made some remarkable maps of the Western hemisphere and some claim even of Antartica (but I doubt that). But the Portuguese had set up colonies right in the Islamic territory in Hormoz and Bahrain. Piri Reis was first asked by Suleyman to take these colonies rather than sailing to the Americas on a jihad. He successfully seized Hormoz but one of his ships sunk and he was left without siege material to attack Bahrain. So he retreated to Basra after capturing another minor sea fort of the Portuguese. In response Suleyman executed him. This short-sightedness of the Sultan saved the Americas from having an early Islamic invasion on top of the bloody Isaist invasions. Even as the catholics and the orthodox Isaists were in war with the Osmans, the rulers of France and England, especially the former formed an alliance with the Osmans. Repeats of this turuShka-mlechChAbhisaMdhi continue to plague the world to this date.

chaturdasha skanda-mAtR^i-kula-chakra

kumAra with the kula of glorious goddesses in the holy city of Mathura

In the kaumAra lore an important chakra is the 14 fold chakra in the center of which guha is worshipped. There are 3 major AvaraNa-s: 1) the chaturdasha-mAtR^ikA; 2) the kR^ittikA chakra; 3) bhrAtR^I chakra with kumAra residing in the bindu

The devatA-s of the chaturdasha-mAtR^ikA are:
AveshinI, vyashrumukhI, kutUhalI, ekastanI, jR^imbhiNI, stambhinI, mohinI, kR^iShNA, vishAkhA, vimalA, brahmarAtrI, bhrAtR^ivya-sa~NkhI, iShupatantI, amoghA
The devatA-s of the kR^ittikA chakra are:
ambA, dulA, nitatnI, abhrayantI, meghayantI, varShayantI
The devatA-s of the bhrAtR^i chakra are:
shAkha, viShAkha and nejameSha.
The devatA of the bindu is:
ShaNmukha

This was first established in the days of yore in holy city of Mathura, the kShetra which was then graced by several kumArAlaya-s. There was first the old city of Mathura (the Mathura near puShpapura, now Peshawar in the terrorist state) that lay near where the head of mahiSha when severed by skanda had fallen blocking the way to the uttara-kuru lands. Then a new Mathura arose in the land of the yadu-s and finally another Mathura arose in dakSiNApatha in the land of the pANDya-s. Each of them was the center of kumArAlaya-s in yore. But the holy city of Mathura in yadu land was the great kaumAra kShetra of the past. Repairing there one revels in recounting and hearing the various sports of kumAra starting with his deeds as parvata-nAshaka, the destroyer mountains. One recalls the account of the fiery son of agni impaling krau~ncha the son of himavat with his arrows and demolishing the peaks of the shveta-parvata with his shakti and sending other mountains flying off the earth. Then one recalls his marriage with devasenA who is also known as ShaShThI. Having done so, one recalls his frightful roars and war-cries fiery deeds in battles with dAnava-s and the overthrowing of the demonic prahlAda. Then on a ShaShThI night he repairs to the kadamba-vana and invokes skanda with the secret mantra and the trishatI in which it is embedded. He then invokes the red lohitAyanI holding a deadly shUla. While a brAhmaNa offers her red arka flowers, other varNa-s might offer her blood. He then invokes the twin deities mi~njikA and mi~jinka, the fierce shishu, ShaShThI, agni, indra and viShNu with oblations in his ritual fire. He then invokes the deva in the circle of glorious goddesses in the maNDala outlined above. The chakra might also take the form of 3-dimensional maNDala like a meru.

Raptorex!

Every now and then a fossil comes along to cause a veritable revolution in understanding of an evolutionary scenario. Raptorex is one such and comes in the midst of a spectacular upheaval (or as Hindus would say praLaya) in our understanding of dinosaurs.
Just to take in how fast things have been changing Raptorex may be placed in the context of the following earlier discussions of tyrannosaurs:
* The big and small of theropods
* Tyrannosaurs and morphological evolution in coelurosaurs
* The rise of tyrannosaurs

This week Sereno et al published the first description of Raptorex, a tyrannosauroid from approximately the Barremian-Aptian epochs (~125 Mya) of the early Cretaceous. It is represented by a fairly complete skeleton including the skull with braincase, and a good part of the postcrania except for the posterior half of the tail. Until roughly a decade ago our understanding of the evolution tyrannosaurs was strikingly poor. They were seen in the late Cretaceous record of Asia and North America, but nowhere else in the world — in these northern continents they were the apex predators in the last phase of the age of the dinosaurs. Their distinctive anatomy marked them all other theropods including other related coelurosaurian lineages — a large head/torso ratio, incisiform teeth on the premaxilla, an enhanced jaw musculature allowing massive bite forces and most recognizably reduced forelimbs with only two complete fingers. Both the ancestry and the emergence of the distinct tyrannosaur form remained enigmatic for nearly a century after their discovery. This began to change with the report by Hutt et al of Eotyrannus 2001 from the early Cretaceous (Barremian) of England. This was followed by a series of Chinese finds such as Dilong, Guanlong, Xiongguanlong, the North American Appalachiosaurus and Stokesosaurus and the European Aviatyrranis. Phylogenetic analysis of these finds showed that an earlier discovered fragmentary primitive coelurosaur, Proceratosaurus was probably the earliest known tyrannosauroid from the Middle Jurassic (Bathonian epoch ~165 mya). The description of these forms suggested that: 1) the tyrannosauroids were basal coelurosaurs which had separated early from the maniraptoriform lineage (with representatives such as Archaeopteryx appearing first in the Tithonian age of the Jurassic 150 Mya); 2) Were relatively small bodied forms that were under 3 meters in length; 3) Had long hands with 3 complete fingers and smaller head/torso ratios compared to the classical cretaceous tyrannosaurids; 4) The features typical of the late Cretaceous tyrannosaurids appeared gradually over 90 million years. Thus, the emergence of the typically tyrannosaurid features such as the reduction of arm size, loss of a digit, large head/torso ratio and high-force jaws were seen as emerging with increasing body size.

Thus, a line of progression was proposed from the very primitive Proceratosaurus and Guanlong in the middle and late Jurassic, via slightly more derived forms like Eotyrannus, Stokesosaurus and Dilong in the early Cretaceous, Xiongguanlong in the later part of early Cretaceous, Appalachiosaurus in the Campanian of the late Cretaceous and finally the giant Tyrannosaurus and Tarbosaurus in the Maastrichtian. This model saw the classical tyrannosaurid features occurring in the late Cretaceous only beginning with Appalachiosaurus. However, there were some unresolved issues. Along with the tyrannosaurids of the North American Maastrichtian there was the enigmatic dinosaur Dryptosaurus that appeared to be a relatively long-armed tyrannosauroid. This really did not fit into this model of progressive development that was laid out above. Then there was the highly controversial Nanotyrannus which was considered to be a distinct relatively smaller relative of Tyrannosaurus, but most paleontologists dismissed it as a juvenile of Tyrannosaurus. More recently the renowned anatomist Witmer studied the braincase of Nanotyrannus more careful and compared its skull with another tyrannosaurid specimen “Jane” (BMRP 2002.4.1). While he is very cautious in presenting his results at least I see them as suggesting that Bakker was right in regarding Nanotyrannus as a distinct species from Tyrannosaurus. This meant that the picture of progression from small, long-armed forms to large, short-armed big-headed forms might hardly be the complete picture of tyrannosaur evolution. This precisely where Raptorex comes in and changes everything.

In short, though coming from approximately the same age as Dilong and being only a little younger than Eotyrannus, Raptorex already has all the major features of the late Cretaceous tyrannosaurids. Further, it appears to be even more derived than Xiongguanlong.
Two sets of ratios of lengths are enough to show how clearly Raptorex mirrors its late Cretaceous successors:

Ratio	Guanlong	Dilong	Raptorex	Albertosaurus	Tyrannosaurus
Humerus/Femur	63%	53%	29%	29%	29%
Skull/humerus	1.38	1.7	3.0	~3.4	3.6
~absolute length	3m	1.6m	2.7m	5.8m*	12.8m

*Sereno et al report AMNH 5664 as an Albertosaurus. Originally it was named Gorgosaurus sternbergii but is now considered a juvenile Albertosaurus.

This shows how already in Raptorex, which was small-bodied like Dilong or Eotyrannus, the head had grown relative to the arms and the arms had contracted relative to the legs. It has many other derived features shared with the late Cretaceous tyrannosaurs, such as prominently enlarged olfactory lobes in the brain, incisiform premaxillary teeth with a sharp size distinction with respect to the maxillary teeth, potential functional didactyly and the prominently arctometartarsalian condition of metatarsal 3. As a result in a phylogenetic analysis we have Raptorex grouping with a crown formed by Appalachiosaurus+tyrannosaurids. Xiongguanlong appears as a sister group to this clade and Stokesosaurus, Dilong and Eotyrannus appear as basal to this clade including Xiongguanlong. Proceratosaurus and Guanlong form the basalmost tyrannosauroid lineage. Thus, rather than the steady progression that was suggested by the discovery of Xiongguanlong, it appears that there was a rapid early evolution of the “classical” tyrannosaur form. This early radiation produced a considerable morphological diversity of tyrannosauroids which include primitive forms such as Dilong and Eotyrannus, slightly more derived forms probably leading to Xiongguanlong and perhaps the much later Dryptosaurus, and finally the highly derived “classical” tyrannosaurs like Raptorex. An important point emerging from these finds is that the emergence of morphological diversity was not linked to size and occupation of the mega-predator guild. Instead, all the diversification happened at a much smaller size range which was simultaneously occupied by primitive and derived forms. Thus, the distinctive features of the classical tyrannosaurs was not a result of growth in size but was probably related to a distinctive hunting style that also included increased reliance on smell and a shift to a “head-first” attack mode as against the “grasp-and-bite” mode probably used by the more primitive forms. Interestingly, this also shows that the small arms of the classical tyrannosaurs were not a sign of vestigiality. Rather, they were preserved over almost 60 million years in the same reduced but robust didactyl state indicating that they formed a part of the specialized predatory adaptation of the classical tyrannosaurs. While the position of Dryptosaurus is unclear due to it’s highly fragmentary nature, it is possible that the long armed version of tyrannosauroid clade also survived alongside the short-armed version throughout their evolutionary history.

Raptorex when viewed in light of several other recent finds also throws some light on the rise of tyrannosaurs to the role of mega-predators. Recently, Brusatte et al examined some previously discovered fossils from China and showed that they represent the first confirmed Asian carcharodontosaurid theropod. This dinosaur, Shaochilong, coming from approximately the Turonian age of the late Cretaceous, shows that the carcharodontosaurids were prevalent in even the northern continents during the late Cretaceous (In fact after they had faded away in South America and possibly Africa). Likewise, Hocknull et al reported another theropod, Australovenator, from the slightly earlier Albian of Australia that appears to be related to Shaochilong and potentially connects them to Megaraptor of South America. This suggests that rather than being endemic, the carcharodontosaurids acquired a global presence over the Cretaceous. Their earliest representatives are seen in the form of Neovenator from the Barremian of England. They are followed in the Aptian-early Albian ages by Acrocanthosaurus in North America, Eocarcharia in Africa, Tyrannotitan in South America. These are followed in the Albian-Cenomanian by Carcharodontosaurus in Africa, Giganotosaurus and Mapusaurus in South America and Australovenator in Australia. In the Turonian their only currently know representative is Shaochilong. Thus, for approximately 30 million years the allosauroid lineage of the carcharodontosaurs attained global prominence in the mega-predator guild [Foot note 1]. In contrast, the first tyrannosaurs in the mega-predator niche are noticed only around 83.5 mya in the late Campanian of Asia and North America. Hence, it is quite likely that allosauroids and other basal tetanurans like Chilantaisaurus were dominant predators through much of the Cretaceous and only in the last 15-20 million years of the Cretaceous the tyrannosaurs suddenly grew in size to occupy the mega-predator niche after the extinction of the carcharodontosaurs. In the South, similarly, following the extinction of the carcharodontosaurids, we see that various other lineages including the possible coelurosaurs like Orkoratpor and deinonychosaurs rose to compete in the mega-predator guild along side the still surviving abelisaurs. The finding of Raptorex suggests that the classical tyrannosaur form had emerged much earlier and remained “in waiting” to enter the mega-predator guild much later in the Cretaceous. In light of this, it is conceivable that Nanotyrannus was indeed a genuine taxon that was an intermediate between the larger and lower end tyrannosaurs.

Finally, Raptorex reinforces a point we had pointed out earlier — theropods of various clades are “scale-free”. Thus, we repeatedly see various lineages display versions spanning a wide size range. Recent discoveries of tiny and large forms like Hesperonychus a tiny dromaeosaur, Beishanlong a large ornithomimosaur, Limusaurus a small ceratosaur and now Raptorex have further reinforced this observation. Now, many of these individual lineages show specialized adaptations but they are rather constant across the size-range they span. This shows that the dinosaurs appear to have achieved, to a considerable extant, decoupling of their adaptations from their body size. This “scale-free” nature of their adaptations possibly helped them to achieve enormous sizes when ever it was ecologically feasible. This probably contributed to their prolonged success but probably there was something here that led to their extinction at the K/T boundary.

Foot note 1: This raises some interesting biogeographic problems especially given that in Brusatte et al’s analysis Shaochilong emerges as a sister group of the Gondwanan carcharodontosaurids. Further, Acrocanthosaurus and Eocarcharia have been recovered as a sister groups in independent studies.

kumAra trishatI: commentary

The kumAra-trishatI, also known as the shatruMjaya trishatI, the rahasya trishatI, the guhya ShaNmukha-nAma-saMgIti or the skanda-nAma-sAgara had recently been only orally transmitted. In this sense it is reminiscent of the vinAyaka rahasya sahasranAma that was taught by bhAskararAya makhIndra or that secret collection which completes the sAdhana of vArAhI. In past from the paramapITha of rohitaka it had been transmitted to the pashchiMaugha in the two achala-s (in the modern Punjab and Rajasthan), to the pUrvaugha in deep va~Nga country and to the dakShiNaugha in the sahyAdri-s (the modern Konkan). From there it was transmitted to the glorious massif of kumAra-parvata (modern Kukke-Subramanya) and the shores of the dakShiNa sAgara (Tiruchendur of the drAviDa poet nakkIranAr). The dakShiNaugha and pashchimaugha were lost over time. The kaumArAcharya-s of the va~Nga retreating from the demonic shashidhvaja-s came to Bellary in the karnATa country and established a tapovana near the might rock of mahAmukha (a granite prominence still seen in Bellary). Here the learned tAntrika rAmAnuja deshika acquired the stotra and transmitted it.
…
Long ago we wended our way up to the hilly spur in the city of our youth on which the peshvA bAlAjI nAnAsAheb had resided. Atop it among several other temples was a shrine of skanda which was installed by raghunAtha-rav after his conquest of Attock — the farthest north the mahArATTa-s reached. But the installation of kumAra was repeatedly botched up by the mahArAShTrI brAhmaNa-s who had little knowledge of the kaumAra lore*.
1) The idol was broken by Moslems during the invasion of the Nizam of Hyderabad.
2) nAnA phaDnavis made a new idol an installed it next and it broke up on its own an year later.
3) A new idol was again made by phaDnavis and installed and insufficient rites were done at its installation. Several years later a lightning strike brought down the temple, so a new idol was made.
4) After the British conquest of India the temple was taken away from the peshvA-s and given to a local trust. In the late 1800s the metal crown made for the idol by mAdhava-rav fell down and broke the idol’s hand. So a new idol was made for the 4th time, this time funded by some vaishya.
5) In the 1980s the right eye of one of the faces of the idol fell out and was lost.
This was when the muni and I arrived at the top of the hill spur on the ShaShTI after the dIpAvalI. The prashnaka had informed me that the idol was botched up and needed a mahAshAntI, but the complete ritual system was not available to the purohita at hand. We lent him what ever aid we could, but went away a bit dissatisfied and not having the complete thing ourselves. The great student of our Acharya finally set things right through a secret prayoga. We went back to hill and stood silent in the afternoon quiet. It was then that we started receiving the secret instructions in the trishatI to perform the lengthy purashcharaNa to be able to understand the secret mantra embedded in it. Refraining from kAma-bhoga we performed it for a while. The mantra flashed briefly like lightning but we were unable to see anything more — in fact it looked like skanda vara given the brAhmaNa-s in quest of vyAkaraNa. Then the mantra revealed itself in stages. We saw the most basic level when it revealed its power to us, even as we were attacked by madaghUrNita and simultaneously by rasagola and darsha in the fifth year after dvAdashAnta. We then saw a vaiShNava who had attained a kShudra siddhi during a climb to the kumAra-gR^iha and were way laid for a while trying to attain the same.

After years of trying to force attain the kShudra siddhi and reaching nowhere we witnessed two apparitions of the deva. They were followed by dismal troughs in course of which we said to ourselves: “surely this mantrashAstra is hocus-pocus and we should move on in life”. But unlike shabara we did yet throw away our rosary into the commode. Then finally the veil of ignorance was pierced, at least partially, and beyond that is something a man does not speak about.

* I am aware of perhaps 3 exceptions including the one in the lineage of lakShmaNa rANaDe who raised on objection to this statement :-).

kumAra trishatI

OM asya shrI kumAra trishatI mahAmantrasya
mArkaNDeya R^iShiH | anuShTup ChandaH | kumAra-ShaNmukho devatA |
kumAra iti bIjaM | shAkha iti shaktiH | vishAkha iti kIlakaM | nejameSha ityargalaM |
kArttikeya iti kavachaM | ShaNmukha iti dhyAnaM |

dhyAyet ShaNmukham indu-koTi-sadR^ishaM ratnaprabhA-shobhitaM |
bAlArka-dyuti-ShaT-kirITa-vilasat-keyUra-hArAnvitaM ||
karNAlambita kuNDala pravilasad-gaNDa-sthalA-shobhitaM |
kA~nchI-ka~NkaNa-kiMkiNI-rava-yutaM shR^i~NgAra-sArodayaM ||
dhyAyedIpsita-siddhidaM bhava-sutaM shrI-dvAdashAkShaM guhaM |
kheTaM kukkuTam a~NkushaM cha varadaM pAshaM dhanush-chakrakaM ||
vajraM shaktim asiM cha shUlam abhayaM dorbhir dhR^itaM ShaNmukhaM |
devaM chitra-mayUra-vAhana-gataM chitrAmbarAlaMkR^itaM ||

arindamaH kumArash cha guhas skando mahAbalaH | 1/5
rudrapriyo mahAbAhur Agneyash-cha maheshvaraH || 1/9
rudrasuto gaNAdhyakSha ugrabAhur guhAshrayaH | 2/13
sharajo vIrahA ugro lohitAkShas sulochanaH || 2/18
mayUravAhanash shreShThash shatrujic ChatrunAshanaH | 3/22
ShaShThIpriya umAputraH kArttikeyo bhayAnakaH ||3/26
shaktipANir maheShvAso mahAsenas sanAtanaH | 4/30
subrahmaNyo vishAkhash cha brahmaNyo brAhmaNapriyaH || 4/34
nejameSho mahAvIrash shAkho dhUrto raNapriyaH | 5/39
chorAchAryo vihartA cha sthaviras sumanoharaH ||5/43
praNavo devasenesho dakSho darpaNashobhitaH | 6/47
bAlarUpo brahmagarbho bhImo bhImaparAkramaH || 6/51
shrImAn shiShTash shuchish shIgrash shAshvatash shikhivAhanaH | 7/57
bAhuleyo bR^ihadbAhur baliShTho balavAn balI | 7/62
ekavIro mahAmAnyo sumedhA roganAshanaH | 8/66
raktAmbaro mahAmAyI bahurUpo gaNeshvaraH || 8/70
iShuhasto mahAdhanvI krau~nchabhid aghanAshakaH | 9/74
bAlagraho bR^ihadrUpo mahAshaktir mahAdyutiH || 9/78
ugravIryo mahAmanyur ruchiro rudrasaMbhavaH | 10/82
bhadrashAkho mahApuNyo mahotsAho kalAdharaH ||10/86
nandikeshapriyo devo lalito lokanAyakaH | 11/90
vidvattamo virodhighno vishoko vajradhArakaH ||11/94
shrIkaras sumanAs sUkShmas sughoShas sukhadas suhR^it | 12/100
vahnijanmA haridvarNas senAnI revatIpriyaH || 12/104
ratnArchI ra~njano vIro vishiShTash shubhalakShaNaH | 13/109
arka-puShpArchitash shuddho vR^iddhikA-gaNa-sevitaH || 13/112
ku~NkumA~Ngo mahAvegaH kUTasthaH kukkuTadhvajaH |14/116
svAhApriyo grahAdhyakShaH pishAcha-gaNa-sevitaH || 14/119
mahottamo mahAmukhyash shUro mahiShamardanaH | 15/123
vaijayantI mahAvIryo devasiMho dR^iDhavrataH || 15/127
ratnA~Ngadadharo divyo rakta-mAlyAnulepanaH |16/130
duHsaho durlabho dIpto gajArUDho mahAtapaH || 16/135
yashasvI vimalo vAgmI mukhamaNDI-susevitaH |17/139
kAntiyukto vaShaTkAro medhAvI mekhalI mahAn || 17/144
netA niyatakalyANo dhanyo dhuryo dhR^itavrataH |18/149
pavitraH puShTidaH pUrtiH pi~NgalaH puShTivardhanaH ||18/154
manoharo mahAjyotiH pradiShTo mahiShAntakaH | 19/158
ShaNmukho haraputrash cha mantragarbho vasupradaH || 19/162
variShTho varado vedyo vichitrA~Ngo virochanaH | 20/167
vibudhAgracharo vettA vishvajid vishvapAlakaH || 20/171
phalado matido mAlI muktAmAlAvibhUShaNaH | 21/175
munistuto viShAlAkSho nadIsutash cha vIryavAn || 21/179
shakrapriyas sukeshash cha puNyakIrtir anAmayaH | 22/183
vIrabahus suvIryash cha svAmI bAlagrahAnvitaH || 22/187
raNashUro suSheNash cha khaTvA~NgI khaDga-dhArakaH |23/191
raNasvAmI mahopAyo shvetaChattro purAtanaH ||23/195
dAnavAriH kR^itI kAmI shatrughno gaganecharaH | 24/200
sulabhas siddhidas saumyas sarvaj~nas sarvatomukhaH ||24/205
asihasto vinItAtmA suvIro vishvatomukhaH | 25/209
daNDAyudhI mahAdaNDo sukumAro hiraNmayaH || 25/213
ShANmAturo jitAmitro jayadaH pUtanAnvitaH | 26/217
janapriyo mahAghoro jitadaityo jayapradaH || 26/221
bAlapAlo gaNAdIsho bAla-roga-nivArakaH | 27/224
jayI jitendriyo jaitro jagatpAlo jagatprabhuH || 27/229
jaitrarathaH prashAntash cha sarvajid daityasUdanaH | 28/233
shobhanas sumukhash shAntaH kavis somo jitAhavaH || 28/239
maruttamo bR^ihadbhAnur bR^ihatseno bahupradaH | 29/243
sudR^ishyo devasenAnIs tArakArir guNArNavaH || 29/247
mAtR^igupto mahAghoSho bhavasUnuH kR^ipAkaraH | 30/251
ghoraghuShyo bR^ihad-dyuMno dhanurhastas suvardhanaH ||30/255
kAmaprado sushiprash cha bahukAro mahAjavaH | 31/259
goptA trAtA dhanurdhArI mAtR^i-chakra-nivAsinaH || 31/263
ShaDashriSh ShaDaraSh ShaTko dvAdashAkSho dviShaDbhujaH |32/268
ShaDakSharaSh ShaDarchish cha ShaDa~NgaSh ShaDanIkavat || 32/272
sharvas sanatkumArash cha sadyojAto mahAmuniH | 33/276
raktavarNash shishush chaNDo hemachUDas sukhapradaH ||33/281
suhetir a~NganAshliShTo mAtR^ikA-gaNa-sevitaH | 34/284
bhUtapatir gatAta~Nko nIla-chUDaka-vAhanaH || 34/287
vachadbhU rudrabhUsh chaiva jagadbhUr brahmabhUs tathA | 35/291
bhuvodbhUr vishvabhUsh chaiva mantramUrtir mahAmanuH || 35/295
vAsudeva-priyash chaiva prahlAda-bala-sUdanaH | 36/297
kShetrapAlo bR^ihad-bhAso bR^ihad-devo ari~njayaH || 36/301

prakIrNaviShayAH

The ever malignant viDbhuk decided to take advantage of the absence of the sachiva who had gone to aid the 4th hero to attack the amAtya. We intimated the amAtya of the clause in the dharmasUtra-s regarding AtatAyin-s and that the time had come for observing it. The mantra of vAmadeva gautama was uttered to invoke agni who is called rakShohA and sent forth like a dart shot by sharva. And then the mighty thunderer, the slayer of vR^itra was invoked to make the dasyu bend before the Arya. The viDbhuk sent a cheTaka at the Amatya. It was like a collyrium heap and gruesome with kusha-like hair sticking out from above the ears. It attacked first at night when the amAtya as alone but the amAtya bold defended against it despite the fear it raised. The amAtya quickly realized what was happening and prepared the pratikriyA. The viDbhuk sneakily sent out a tiraskarin to prevent the amAtya from seeing the cheTaka. But luckily pre-warned by experience and aided by the vinAyaka rite the amAtya remained unfazed. But upon the second coming of the cheTaka the amAtya was prepared and unleashed the powerful counter-attack with brahmaskanda. The cheTaka went up in vapor like a missile of sAtyaki ending the somadatta-s. The yakShiNI netravatI showed that the viDhuk was raging like duryodhana when the pAshupatAstra fell on jayadratha on the 14th day.

We feared that kR^ishamukha might go to a fight with ST. But kR^ishamukha was held up in a great series of yuddha-s of his own and this did no happen (ST: I am sure he has quit the turf of asmAlloka and he is unlikely to ever cross your path).

Turning of the Turkic wheel: the Khazar Khanate

In a discussion with ekanetra we revisited the “turning of the Turkic wheel” at length. While we had earlier touched upon happening in this regard in the East on these pages, this time ekanetra wondered about the West. It was important because ekanetra was reconstructing the deep events that were to shape modern Abrahamistic politics. One point which was interest was how the transitions from Khazar to Seljuks to Osmans occurred in the Turkic world. Hence, the retelling of this long story:
After the initial thrust of the Arab ghazis the orthodox church had largely staved off the advance of the green crescent into their heart land. Initially, several Turks had been converted to the desert delusion by the Arab marauders of central Asia and had served as mercenaries in the wars against Iranian rebels like Babek Khoremi and also in the Jihads against other central Asian principalities. In the mean time the second wing of the Army of Islam, Sufi subversion, was working its way into the Turkic heartland resulting in the conversion of large swaths of the Turkic Turcoman tribes. These new converts were soon to form a more potent force for the Army of Islam than Arabs ever had. This process began with the initial Arab Jihads in central Asia and extended to early 1000s of CE – we have already seen their effects on the Hindu civilization.

But for the full story we need to trace back in time.
-In the 600s of CE a Turkic tribe called the Khazars, with links to the Blue Turks, broke free from their overlords, another Turkic tribe the Pechenegs on the western Central Asian steppes near the Caspian sea. A Mohammedan chronicle mentions that there were two strains amongst them – one with fair skin, red hair and blue eyes and another like dark-skinned Indians, suggesting that they might have been a composite tribe. Linguistic evidence suggests that they spoke a Turkic dialect and were pagans worshiping old Altaic deities like Tengri and Umai.
-In 650 CE the Kalif sent the ghazi Abd ar Rahman to wage a jihad on the Khazar. He penetrated into their territory but was destroyed by Irbis Khan the Khazar ruler in the battle of Balanjar, who used trebuchets against the Arabs. Following this attack, the Khazars became politically close to the Byzantines to stave further Jihads through marriage alliances.
-In 723 CE the Kalif launched another Jihad under ghazi al Djarrah ibn Abdullah on the Khazars as their Khan had recently died. Al Djarrah took Balanjar and asked the population to submit to Islam and upon their refusal beheaded most of them. But the Khazars regrouped under a warrior princess Parsbit Khanim, who defeated the Arabs and expelled them.
-In 731 CE the new ruler of the Khazars Barjik Khan retaliated against the Arabs, killed al Djarrah and marched deep into the Arabs lands carrying al Djarrah’s dried head as his banner.
-In 732 CE the Khazars reached Mosul where they faced the Kalif’s personal army led by his sons. After a long fight the Khazar Khan was killed by an Arab sharpshooter and the Khazars fled from the field. The Kalif pursued the Jihad deep into Khazar territory destroying Balanjar
-In 737 CE the ghazis reached the Khazar capital of Itil and sacked it defeating their general Ras Tarkhan.
-Around this time Leo III was the ruler of the Byzantines and the lord of the orthodox church. He was an Isaistic fanatic who was a mirror image of his Arab rivals, indulging in smashing of images, and started forcible conversion of Judaists. At the same time the Mohammedans were also embarking on the conversion of their paleo-Abrahamistic cousins in the Ummayad Kalifa. As result several of the Judaists fled to the Khazar Khanate.
-In 758 CE the Arabs captured the daughter of the Khazar ruler Baghatur Khan and she died while being taken to the harem of Yazid the ghazi who was occupying Armenia. The Khan sent his general the Ras Tarkhan with a large force to hit the Arabs. The Khazars invaded South of the Caspian and started plundering several Arab towns until the Moslems signed a peace treaty and paid them a large sum of money.
-In around 780-790 CE the Judaists who had migrated to the Khazar khanate had grown close to the ruler Bulan Khan. It is still not clear what had drawn them together, although it is quite possible that the Judaist trading network was pretty influential within the khanate. One of the Rabbis Ishak Sangari converted the Khan and several of the royalty to Judaism – probably the only major evangelical success of paleo-Abrahamism compared to its two younger cousins. But even after their conversion the Khans appear to have been reasonably tolerant because Islamic sources mention that in addition to two rabbis they also had a Turkic priest as judges in their courts.
-The Judaists fleeing from the Middle East hoped that the newly converted Khan would come to the aid of his coreligionists who were facing the brunt of both the Mohammedans and the Isaists. For the next 160 years the Khazars constituted the most powerful Judaist kingdom that has ever existed (including modern Israel after appropriate normalization). They accordingly exerted pressure on the orthodox church and Moslems to spare Judaists in their realm.
-In 920 CE the Arabs demolished synagogues in Iran and killed some Judaists. The Khazar ruler Aaron Khan in retaliation killed the resident mullah in his capital Itil and demolished the minar of the Masjid.
-In the 930s the Byzantine emperor Romanos restarted the conversion of Judaists in his territory. The Khazar Khan either Aaron or Joseph invaded Crimea and seized it from the Byzantines.
-In the 940s with the relationships with both the Moslems and the Byzantines deteriorating and several attacks from powers such as the Khanate of the Rus, the Alyani, and the pressure from other Turkic groups from the east the Khazars were stretched thin.
-The Khazars formed an alliance with their Turkic cousins of the Oghuz confederation. Among these was a chief called Seljuk who converted to Judaism under the Khazar influence and named his sons Michael, Israel, Moses and Jonah. It was Michael who later converted to Islam and founded the Seljuk dynasty.
-In the 943 CE the Khazars formed an alliance with the Nordic Germanic tribe of the Varangoi and helped the latter devastate Moslem territory. But over the coming years the Khazars realized that the Rus Khanate was moving closer to the Byzantines due to the conversion of Olga the Rus princess to the orthodox church.
-In 960 CE the Khazar ruler Joseph Khan formed a tacit alliance with the Moslems to help them against the Rus Khanate. He blockaded the Volga and prevented the Rus from trading via his kingdom.
-In the mean time the new Khan of the Russians Sviatoslav had rejected Isaism and returned to the pagan fold. He was a fiery warrior of tremendous energy. He decided to take on the Khazars head on. He first formed a broad alliance uniting various Slavic tribes to his banner and also some pagan Turkic tribes.
-In 965 CE he responded to Joseph Khan’s attack by counter-attacking the fort of Sarkel and reducing it. He then entered Crimea and drove out the Khazars after smashing them at Kerch. Next he pursued Joseph and his court via Samandar which he conquered next. Finally, the Russians and the Khazars had a showdown in the latter’s capital at Itil. The Russian army crushed them and Joseph Khan was killed. The whole region was sacked burned by the victorious Russian hordes erasing the largest Judaist kingdom completely.

The reverberations of this event are heard to this date: Recently the Russians erected a gigantic statue of Sviatoslav crushing Joseph which resulted in acrimony between the Jews and Russians.

The gandharva flight

We saw parachitAMbA and paramashaMbhu in our Aj~na chakra. Like a gandharva we flew through time and space holding our dUtI in embrace. We gazed on the hill of chaNDikA from afar. It was truly the hill of the bhUta-s who dance along with bhUtapati. On one end of the ridge was the pinnacle of the vetAla and the other end was the mound of chaNDikA. In between lay the circlet of stones of kapAlIsha-bhairava and rakta-chAmuNDA. Our chit rested in the mantra of the yAmala – the waves of existence merge into the bhairava and rebound resulting in his perception – we behold the one conjoined with the shakti – the li~Nga. We sense him who is known as vyomin and vyApin by the saiddhAntika-s. We descended to the ground ascended the steps towards Chatra of vinAyaka and then moved to the maNDapa of kAlikA. Then having saluted the li~Nga of somAkhyeshvara that we had installed in the days of yore we moved with our dUtI to the shmashAna of vetAleshvara where we had installed the li~Nga of ravIndreshvara after battling the dasyu-s. There on the muNDa ma~ncha we took our seat with our dUtI as shakti who is offered upachAra. Thereafter she opened the way for the paramasukha that is not available to those trapped in the lower existence of dissipation. We remained absorbed in yoga of abhisaMbodhi witnessing dance of the hordes of vIrabhadra and bhadrakAlI.

Primate evolution roundup

Apart from its parochial aspect, the early evolution and ecological diversification of primates are of considerable intrinsic interest to a biologist. There are several still murky issues all along the tree (at least to me), to name a few: 1) the position of the plesiadpiformes in euarchontoglires. 2) The date of the origin of the primates. 3) The ecological diversity and causes for the eventual extinction of the great strepsirrhine radiation of adapiformes. 4) The phylogenetic position of Rooneyia. 5) The monophyly of the omomyid radiation and their extinction. 6) Origin of anthropoid primates and the earliest anthropoids. 7) Position of the amphipithecine radiation in Asia. 8) The Paleogene primate diversity in India.

The weight of the data for more than a century has suggested a rather simple phylogenetic hypothesis for extant primates: The lemurs of Madagascar, lorises and bushbabies form the strepsirrhine clade. The tarsiers along with the anthropoids form the haplorhine clade. Within haplorhines the basic split among the extant forms separates the South American monkeys or the platyrrhines from the catarrhines of the Old world. The catarrhines further split up into the cercopithecoid monkeys and the apes or the hominoids. The cercopithecoid monkeys in turn split up into the colobine monkeys like the langur and the cercopithecine monkeys like the green monkey, the macaque and the baboon. The hominoids split up into the lesser apes like the gibbon and the great apes like Pongo and Homo. The main issue at hand is how the fossils forms are accommodated within this tree. Early primate evolution is a field with a limited set of specialists, including some with dogmatic ideas – e.g. Gingerich and Simons have held some rather stiff positions that have gotten more attention than they really deserved. This is more a reflection of the warlike manner in which Euro-American science is conducted, where the vague concept of “scientific prestige” frequently trumps any sense of fairness or the quest for knowledge. The latest example is the affair concerning the adapiform primate Darwinius which was erroneous claimed to be at the base of the haplorhine radiation. Primate evolution is also plagued by more direct issues: Most fossil forms are woefully incomplete and morphological cladistics fare rather poorly in determining detailed phylogenetic relationships among vertebrates (as suggested by its numerous failures in the past 2 decades when compared to molecular trees). Amidst the noise surrounding the origin and evolution of primates, the first objective and systematic attempt to address the origin of anthropoids and their relationship to other primates was carried more than 12 years ago by the pioneering primate evolutionist Richard Kay and his colleagues. This paper “Anthropoid Origins” is still useful for a beginner to consult.

Among the fossil primates in the Eocene (55-34 mya) there was a great side-by-side radiation of two distinctive types of primates had been recognized – the adapiformes and the omomyids. After expanding through the Eocene, these forms became extinct by the end of the early Oligocene. Kay et al’s phylogeny strongly suggested that the adapiformes were closer to the lemurs, bush babies and lorises, whereas omomyids were closer to the extant haplorhines. There had been considerable debate about the classical anthropoids and their origins. For a long time the best known early anthropoids were the monkeys from the Fayum beds of Egypt which were excavated by Simons’ expeditions over nearly half a century. These anthropoids came in two major lineages the oligopithecids like Oligopithecus and Catopithecus and the parapithecids like Apidium and Parapithecus. But these were from the later part of the Eocene or the early Oligocene, which led to ideas suggesting the origin of the anthropoids from either the adapiformes or the omomyids. Further, while the consensus was moving towards omomyids as basal haplorhines there was still debate about whether they were closer to tarsiers or anthropoids or outside of the two. The richness of the anthropoid faunas of the Fayum beds and them being the only source of information on early anthropoids for long led to a belief that the anthropoids originated in Africa, from where they floated early on to South America. But there was something which did not go too well with the emerging phylogenetic scenario of mammals. The molecular phylogenies suggested that the afrotherians were the original mammals of Africa and that the euarchontoglires clearly lay outside afrotheria. Amongst these the “center of gravity” in evolutionary terms was in Asia. The sister groups of the extent primate lineages like the flying lemur and the tree-shrew were exclusively Asiatic. The ancient sister group of the primates – the plesiadapiformes were Laurasia and likewise the two great Eocene radiations of primates the adapiformes and omomyids were also centered in Laurasia. Finally the closest extant sister group of the anthropoids the tarsiers are located only in Asia. This suggested that the split between the tarsiers and the anthropoids occurred early on in Asia and then early anthropoids migrated to Africa where they proliferated and eventually colonized the New World.

In the past 15 years an extraordinary series of fossil described by Beard and others had resulted in a veritable revolution of our understanding of anthropoid origins and the Asiatic radiations of anthropoids. The discovery of Eosimias from the middle Eocene of China showed that the Asian landmass had the earliest of the anthropoids. Further it showed that the anthropoids were already distinct in the Eocene and were unlikely to have been derived from the omomyids or adapiformes as they were already present beside them. This was doubted by the old fashioned experts like Gingerich and Simons, but Kay et al’s “Anthropoid Origins” paper strongly suggested that the eosimiids were 1) closer to anthropoids than the tarsiers and 2) a sister group to all other anthropoids including the two early African lineages of oligopithecids and parapithecids. Further Kay et al’s tree showed that the omomyids formed a branch of their own distinct from the tarsiers and were a sister group to all other haplorhines. Within the anthropoids it showed that the oligopithecids and parapithecids were a sister group to both platyrrhines and catarrhines. Along with these lineages in Fayum was also found the earliest catarrhine – Aegyptopithecus. These observations suggested that while the anthropoids originated in Asia the Platyrrhine-catarrhine split probably occurred within the great radiation of African primates.

Eosimias

But the fossils emerging in the past few years were to indicate a more complex picture and even bigger role for Asia in the evolution of anthropoids. The first of these stories goes back to find in Burma by the famous paleontologist of the older era EH Colbert – the early monkey Pondaungia. Phylogeny of this primate was for long debated. It was alternately considered an anthropoid or adapiformes and repeatedly denied to have anything to do with the evolution of anthropoids. Starting around 2003 anatomical studies and phylogenetic analysis by Kay provided hints that amphipithecids were indeed closer to the anthropoid clade than the adapiformes. About a month ago Beard reported the discovery of fragmentary remains of a new amphipithecid, Ganlea from Burma. The inclusion of this large-canined form in a phylogenetic analysis suggested that: 1) The amphipithecids, namely Myanmarpithecus, Ganlea, Pondaungia, Amphipithecus and Siamopithecus form a monophyletic amphipithecid clade. 2) The Burman monkeys form a clade to the exclusion of Siamopithecus. 3) The amphithecids are clearly more derived than eosimiids, oligopithecids and parapithecids forming a monophyletic clade with the platyrrhines and catarrhines. Thus, the origin of the ancestral crown group anthropoids could have taken place in Asia.

The Asian situation is further complicated by the discovery of the earliest India primates from the rich Vastan coal mines in Gujarat. In the past few years Bajpai, Tiwari and others have been recovering a remarkable fauna from the Vastan mines which appear to date to the Sparnacian age of the Eocene (54-55 mya). They announced their first major finds in a less than satisfactory paper in an obscure journal (2005): Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India. Though much of the material is highly fragmentary and poorly studied it appears that the extraordinary fauna included a mix of primitive metatherians, eutherians and also precursors of several modern mammalian lineages. These include primitive eutherians such as: 1) palaeoryctids; 2) cimolestids; 3) aptemyids which appear to be basal euarchontoglires (in my opinion) with an aye-aye like morphology; basal representatives of modern lineages such as: 4) primitive bats predating the split of yangochiroptera and yinpterochiropterans; 5) the enigmatic cambaytheres. Bajpai et al thought they were primitive perissodactyls but as Kumar suggested they might actively be very primitive elephants related to Anthracobune; 6) the primitive artiodactyl Gujaratia; additionally there are also the first Indian marsupials, the opossum-like Indodelphis and Jaegeria (?), agamid lizards and a primitive bird Vastanavis. In this fauna three distinct primates have been recovered: Marcgodinotius, Vastanomys and Anthrasimias.

The phylogenetic analysis by Kay in the Bajpai et al study of these three primates indicated that they respectively fall amongst the adapiformes, omomyids and eosimiids. Thus, we had Anthrasimias as an eosimiid predating Eosimias from Asia by almost 10 mya. This clearly indicated that the by 55 mya already the 4 great primate branches were distinct: the strepsirrhines (adapiformes), and the 3 haplorhine lineages namely omomyids, tarsiids and anthropoids. This phylogeny of Kay presented some other interesting features: 1) it reiterated that the tarsiids and anthropoids formed a clade to the exclusion of omomyids. This strongly suggested that the ancestral haplorhine was probably a tarsier-like form (given that the better preserved omomyids show large eye sockets like tarsiers) with a nocturnal habit. 2) More surprisingly it suggested that not only the Asian Xanthorhysis was a tarsier but also the African Afrotarsius (that too with decent bootstrap). This implied that tarsiers were not restricted to Asia but were once widely spread. 3) Most surprisingly it suggested that the enigmatic North African genus Altiatlasius was an eosimiid that was nested within a large eosimiid radiation spread over Asia, India and Africa including forms such as Bahinia from Burma, Phenacopithecus and Eosimias from China and Anthrasimias and Phileosimias from the subcontinent. 4) This phylogeny again reiterated that the amphipithecines formed a clade with the platyrrhines and catarrhines to the exclusion of the African oligopithecids and parapithecids. 5) As an aside their tree suggests that Rooneyia is an adapiformes.

Eocene world

When placed in a biogeographical context of these observations had extraordinary significance: Molecular phylogenies favored a Laurasian origin for the primates, but now some of the earliest primate lineages were seen in India, an ex-Gondwanan fragment and eosimiids and tarsiids were now being found in another ex-Gondwanan fragment Africa in the Eocene itself. In the early Eocene India was and island straddling the equator and moving towards Asia. Similarly Africa was also separated from Asia by the Tethys sea. This raises two possibilities: 1) As Krause and others had suggested some mammals were actually introduced to Asia from the ex-Gondwanan fragment of India. 2) These mammals indeed did emerge in Laurasia, but in the Early Eocene there was an extensive exchange with India across the shrinking Tethys sea. There was probably an island chain that linked Asia with India as the Tethys shrunk and this might have facilitated arrival of various forms in to India from Laurasia by floating. This might have indeed been followed by considerable diversification within the Eocene India, which then served as a staging ground for mammals to float over to Africa and Madagascar. Indeed, we suspect that the primates had already radiated in the late Cretaceous or immediately after the K/T extinction. Basal representatives of all the primate lineages had arrived in India by 55mya and most of them further floated on towards Africa from India. One lineage of adapiformes alone we suspect floated to Madagascar to seed the island with the ancestor of the lemurs. There, in isolation they underwent an explosive radiation to spawn over 100 species until their recent destruction by Austronesians. Such dispersals from Laurasia into India followed by a rapid radiation is also favored the detection of high diversity of early bat in the Early Eocene of India. The interpretation of cambaytheres from the Vastan mines as very primitive elephants suggests that such dispersals via floating might have also happened in the reverse direction – afrotherians floated along to India from Africa. In particular the sister-group relationship between elephants and sirenians, and the evidence for early elephants being aquatic in habit (e.g. Phosphatherium, Daouitherium, Numidotherium, Moeritherium and Barytherium, the early elephant lineages in Africa) suggests that they might have been more capable of crossing the incipient Arabian sea among the large mammals and thus reached the subcontinent. In light of the phylogenetic position of the amphipithecids it appears that there were multiple early dispersals of primates from Asia to Africa. In the case of the post-amphipithecid dispersal it is not yet clear if it again involved an Indian intermediate or else there was a direct dispersal via West Asia into Africa to found the common ancestor of the platyrrhines and the catarrhines. Indeed Asia-Africa primate exchanges appear to have been repeated throughout their evolution with possible additional exchanges occurring during the emergence of apes.

The grahaNa of the fourth hero

We learned that the amAtya was caught up with completing the devotions to the terrifying vighnarAja. We tried to reach the sachiva, but we could only reach MM. MM informed us that the sachiva had received the intelligence that the fourth hero had been attacked fiercely and was being pressed really hard in battle. The amAtya of the unstoppable third hero had gone to make offerings at the parvata of rudra to help the first hero, who was locked in his abhichAra combat. This amAtya first rushed to the help of the falling fourth hero. Then the news was relayed to our sachiva that he needed to enter the battle. So our sachiva entered the battle to aid the 4th hero – he was in a stiff saMarya.

We realized that a hit on the 4th hero was a like a direct hit on the communication center of the army in a yuddha. But we had to move to yuvapura, and if the communication center was gone we would not know anything of how the sachiva or the amAtya fought the yuddha. Further due to us being in yuvapura the 4th hero could only be protected via the low-tech mantravAda of the sachiva and the amAtya – but they did what ever they knew well. Those who deploy karNa-yakShiNI should be careful as she is not for the pashu-s. As we were advancing to the vyomayAna we briefly saw the yakShiNI once – we wondered why we should see her. After finishing with the vyomayAna, we went with one of our former warriors to get some food in what was an unusually good summer day in the cold wastes of yuvapura. We again saw the yakShinI briefly – this raised our alarms a bit for we were to join a brief yuddha there after with some mlechChAdi. [Many years ago when were still filled with youthful enthusiasm we decided to embark on our great quest. There we encountered a powerful mlechCha warrior from the cold lands of the north. His skill with various shara-s left us with wonder. We realized that if we had to find a place amongst true yoddha-s we had to exceed him. Aided by the 1st hero who was then struggling in the grip of mohinI-s in balabaja-sthAna we reached shAlAgrama. About 18 hours after we reached there the deva-s gave us the shataghni, and once that was in our hand we knew how to find that way. With the shataghni we exceeded the said mlechCha vIra of bhagadatta-like prowess]. After the yuddha of yuvapura, the guru of the said mlechCha-vIra accepted our victory. We hence realized that the appearance of the yakShiNI had nothing to do with this. Then we encountered three prathama-s who had decayed to the state of chaNDAla-s and were thus deservedly made servants of the mlechCha-s. The yakShiNI suddenly appeared and prevented us from being polluted by them.

We then retired and fell asleep. Around 2.00 AM we heard the karNa-yakShiNI finally whisper in our ears – we suddenly realized what was going on. She said that a mAraNa had been sent at the 4th hero. It was a peculiar astra like one dispatched by devakI-putra in the days of yore. Neither the amAtya nor the sachiva, nor the amAtya of the 3rd hero nor other auShadhaprayogin-s could figure out what this astra was. For sometime we were in dread, but we realized that only the svAyudha of rudra could save the 4th hero. In the shmashAna we had said “namaste rudra manyave”. We hoped that it might save. At the sight of the approaching mAraNa the troops of the 4th hero scattered like deer at the roar of a tiger and even the experienced amAtya of the 3rd hero trembled in fear. Luckily the sachiva got the signal “namaste rudra manyave” and swung into action aided by some learned auShadhaprayogin-s. They were able to stabilize the 4th hero like analAsura countered by R^ichIka aurva.

nAstika-s before the tathAgata and the nirgrantha

An essay by shrI sarvesha tivArI pointed me to some discussions that in turn reminded me of a debate with my parents’ jaina neighbors on a visit to bhArata long ago. He was narrating how vardhamAna was just the last in a long line of nirgrantha-s who had existed yuga after yuga by the side of the sinful vAsudeva-s such as kR^iShNa and rAma, and the kR^ityA-s of their age such as draupadi and sItA. Even as these vAsudeva-s and their prati-vAsudeva-s clashed in epic battle committing much violence the nirgrantha-s of their age practiced and taught the dharma of ahiMsa or the path of the jina beside them. However, none of these great nirgrantha-s who preceded vardhamAna ever find a place in the old itihAsa-purANa and are found only in the mangled versions of the same presented by later jaina authors. To a certain degree the tathAgata too similarly holds that his prior manifestations were around in the time of the heroes of the itihAsa. In large part we can argue that this is retrofitting, but did the two great nAstika-s really come out of nowhere and that too almost at the same time? From textual analysis of such nAstika purANa-s it is rather clear that most of the claims of the nAstika-s in the pUrva yuga-s are retrofitting. These texts were composed relatively late as reactions to the Astika works, rather than being independent traditions of past events. On the other hand White Indologists and their fellow travelers, who are eager to place practically all Hindu texts after the arrival of the two nAstika-s, compound the problem by emphatically declaring all signs of nAstika mata to imply the systems of vardhamAna and siddhArtha, rather than their precursors.

A jaina mantravAdin who was very generous to me with culinary and intellectual hospitality took on this issue in a no holds bared discussion. He was rather unique among the nAstika-s in being well-conversant with Arya shAstra-s. He agreed that the purANa-s of the nAstika were probably reactionary in nature but made the following arguments to present his case for even earlier nAstika presence (along with my (counter) arguments and other comments if any):
1) The RV speaks of muni-s who were vAtarashana (RV10.136.2):
munayo vAtarashanAH pishA~NgA vasate malA
This implies muni-s “girdled with air” i.e. nirgrantha-s or those wearing yellow rags – an image typical of Indo-Aryan ascetics of a later time.
*I agree that these R^igvedic muni-s are indeed early ascetics; however, rather than being jaina they are clearly proto-pAshupata-s because they are described as drinking a narcotic oShadhi, the kunannamA ground by vAyu from a vessel along with rudra (RV 10.136.7):

2) The taittirIya Aranyaka further clarifies who these vAtarashana-s are. In describing the mantra-s of the aruNaketuka chayana in which the chiti is comprised of bricks in the form of vessels filled with water it mentions the emanation of vipra-s from prajApati:
sa tapo.atapyata | sa tapas tapatvA sharIram adhUnata | tasya yan mAMsam AsIt tato.aruNa ketavo vAtarashanA R^iShaya udatiShThan | ye nakhAH te vaikhAnasAH | ye vAlAH te vAlakhilyAH | 1.23.91-92
When prajApati shook his body after performing tapasya from his flesh arose R^iShi-s known as aruna-s, ketu-s and vAtarashana-s, from his nails vaikhAnasa-s and from his hair(?) arose the vAlakhilya-s.
*Some take this not mean real R^iShi-s but astronomical entities: aruNi-s and ketu-s are comets and likewise vAtarashana-s could be some other phenomenon like meteors.
3) However, the TA further clarifies vAtarashana in TA 2.7.1 in the context of providing a brAmaNa explanation for the kUShmANDa mantra-s:
vAtarashanA ha vA R^iShayaH shramaNA Urdhvamanthino babhUvuH |
The R^iShi-s are said to have sought the vAtarashana-s who were shramaNa-s but they vanished and “entered” the kUShmANDa mantra-s. There the R^iShi-s are said to have found them by means of their shraddha and tapas.
Now commentators like sha~Nkara bhagavatpAda and sAyaNa imply shramaNa to mean parivrAjaka. Additionally sAyaNa takes UrdhvamanthinaH to mean UrdhvaretasaH. Our jaina scholar implied that all this means the vAtarashana was a nagna, parivrAjaka and also a celibate (Urdhvaretas) and hence it implied a jaina muni. Thus he argued that there is evidence in the veda for the jaina system having existed side-by-side.
*But we must keep in mind that there is nothing specifically jaina here. The Urdhvaretas is in fact entirely compatible with a pAshupata (rudra the puruSha is described as Urdhvaretas himself in a pAshupata mantra: R^itaM satyaM…). The vAtarashana-s of the tattirIya are clearly teachers of Astika lore such as kUShmANDa ritual and are described as seers of vaidika hymns (most likely the keshI-sUkta). We must also keep in mind that the bR^ihadAraNyaka regards the shramaNa as an Astika, rather than a nAstika ascetic. It is also not clear if the term vAtarashana meant a nirgrantha as interpreted by many. Since the same muni it the RV is described as being clad in yellow rags, it is conceivable that he was not really a digaMbara. Rather, vAtarashana might imply that he was just surrounded by vAta or simply wandering in the open without a home to contain him.

As previously discussed, these references indicate that there is no doubt about the presence of an ancient Indo-Aryan ascetic substratum from which different forms of early Indo-Aryan Astika ascetic traditions, such the pAshupata mata arose. There is no indication that these traditions referred to in the veda are nAstika as the nirgrantha mata.

However, other evidence does suggest a pre-vardhamAna and pre-siddhArtha nAstika tradition. For this evidence we have to turn to an ancient narrative preserved in the mAhAbharata in the speech of arjuna to yudhiShThira (shAnti parvan, chapter 11).The tale narrated by arjuna is referred to as an ancient itihAsa (atraivodAharantImam itihAsaM purAtanam):
Certain youth of good families before having attained adulthood renounced their homes and families and departed to the forest to live there as celibate ascetics abandoning vedic rites. indra out of compassion for their wrong ways went up to them in the form of a golden bird and pointed out their folly. He instructed them that the foremost of the words are the mantra-s and it is the duty of brAhmaNa-s as the first varNa to perform rites with mantra-s. Those who abandon the vedic karman incur pApa. The true asceticism is not renunciation and life in the forest but living in the midst of ones clansmen, performing vedic rituals to the deva-s, manes and entertainment of guests with good gifts. The ascetics having heard those words of shakra then gave up the nAstika path and returned to their homes:
utsR^ijya nAstika gatiM gArhasthyaM dharmamAshritAH |
Here, it is clear that the ascetics were termed nAstika because they were departing from the way of the veda. The narrative is clearly archaic because its primary protagonist is indra and not any of the gods who were ascendant later (as seen in other parts of the bhArata). It teaches a distinct concept of the primacy of vedic ritualism which is also central to the older system typical of the brAhmaNa-s and their mImAMsa successors rather than a sectarian atimArga teaching typical of other parts of the bhArata. Thus, this text might actually indicate the early nAstika-s before the rise of the famous two. Now is there any other evidence for these nAstika-s? Clearly they were contrasted with the vaidika ritualism, and when we look for this feature we do not have to go far – we are led to the upaniShad of the atharvan-s, the muNDaka. This text is strikingly similar to the position that is exactly antipodal to that taught in the Mbh by indra. The muNDaka denigrates vedic ritual or karman and instead praises the insights of the forest dwelling renunciate. But other parts of the muNDaka have elements of a genuine atharvan text. So it is possible that this text actually represents a production of an early nAstika who used an older atharvan text to insert his heterodox material. Indeed, the muNDaka taken together with the AkhyAna in the bhArata, shows that the early nAstika-s arose within the Indo-Aryan ascetic matrix and specifically targeted the performance of vedic rites. Now the muNDaka also illustrates how these nAstika-s also followed what may be termed subversion from within, by posing as the correct interpretations of vaidika tradition (this is again hinted in the initial reply of the ascetics to indra in the mahAbhArata narrative). Later on we see that siddArtha was following the same dynamic – as we have described before he was posing as a true inheritor and correct interpreter of the old path. The only difference was that he used the vulgar language of the lay. Had he followed his brAhmaNa advisers and redone his work in Chandas, then perhaps we may have included the early bauddha as part of the Astika tradition. But vardhamAna and maskarin goshAla were more radical – they simply pursued the trend started by the muNDaka more vigorously to simply drop the lip-service the shruti. So in a sense probably these famous nAstika-s at beginning of the great nAstika phase of the dharma were remembering these older dissenters within the old Indo-Aryan ascetic matrix when they claimed that their precursors had existed in the purva yuga-s.

However, the great god might have not been as kind on other occasions. There is an ancient sUkta of the bhArgava-s (indra juShasva … AV 2.5) that is used in a permuted form during the great ritual of the ShoDashin. In this it is said that indra slew the yatI just as he crushed vR^itra. In his commentary sAyaNa explains that the yati-s are the brood of the asura-s who are parivrAjaka-s. In the brAhmaNa-s we repeatedly hear the tale of the yati-s being done over to the hyenas by indra. Here sAyaNa describes them as being ya~jnavirodhIjanAH. The jaina scholar hazarded that these yati-s were the early nAstika-s. While this is plausible the evidence is hardly strong – we are hardly given the reason why the yati-s were fed to the hyenas. In the account in the pa~nchaviMsha and jaiminIya brAhmaNa-s, indra spares 3 of the yati-s from being eaten. These he supports and they attain the gifts of brAhmaNa, kshatriya and vaishya status by praising indra with 3 sAman-s which are synonymized with them: rayovAja, pR^ithu-rashmI and bR^ihadgiri. While the yati story is tantalizing if anything the survivors are at least firmly within the vaidika fold rather than being nAstika.

In conclusion we see that there were early dissenters among the Indo-Aryan ascetics who might have deviated from the path of vedic ritualism. These can indeed be seen as predecessors of the famous nAstika-s as they shared some general features with them. However, it is unlikely that they represented the specific traditions of the kshatriya nAstika-s siddhArtha and vardhamAna or the enigmatic goshAla. As we have seen earlier on these pages the primary rivals who were portrayed as being “conquered” in the bauddha lore are the brAhmaNa-s who upheld vaidika tradition. In this regard the last tirthankara is similar. His primary converts are brAhmaNa-s – these are called gaNadhara-s. The foremost amongst these was indrabhUti gautama of the a~ngirasa lineage. Only after the nirgrantha converts 10 brAhmaNa-s does he spread his message more generally, using these initial converts as his messengers. In the narrative of the conversion of indrabhUti it is said that he was performing a great shrauta yAga. The deva-s were called for the soma offering but he saw that instead of coming to him they went over to attend a lecture by vardhamAna. Furious he challenged vardhamAna for a debate but was defeated by the nagna and made a nAstika. This indrabhUti rose considerably in importance in the jaina lore and was nearly deified by the shvetAmbara-s. Further the jaina lore claims that when sacrificial altars of the brAhmaNa-s were excavated below them were found images of the nagna-s indicating their primacy over the vaidika dharma. What these observations indicate is that even though there earlier nAstika traditions they were quite weak even at the time of the origin of the two nAstika-s. Thus, even though like to portray themselves as having long independent history we see that they are closely associated with their primary rivals – the mImAmsaka brAhmaNa-s.

Asia and geopolitics

The mettle of any nation or for that matter any individual is tested in war or strife. That is why we are inspired by the image of the soma-drinking thunderer:
“AshuH shishAno vR^iShabho na bhImo ghanAghanaH kShobhaNash charShaNInAm|
saMkrandano.animiSha ekavIraH shataM senA ajayat sAkam indraH ||”
But the modern Indian “elites” appears to have lost the ardor of their ancestors even as they stopped their rites to the lord of the gods.
Years ago the third hero was up to date with all the geopolitics of the age and he would inform us of loka-vyavahAra with brimming interest. I used to be amazed by how he gained this intricate and hard to find information. In my own circles those who were geopolitically aware, were a mere fraction of the third hero in their knowledge, with the exception of ekanetra. Over the years I continued to maintain a healthy geopolitical interest and furthered my analysis, but the third hero declined to a state of childish imbecility. In a recent meeting he displayed a level of ignorance way below everyone else in the quriltai – almost bordering on that of a dAtra-mudgarau wielding JNU graduate. It was this encounter that brought me to the unpleasant topic of the Asian situation.

As we have seen before on these pages, we are pitted in the civilizational clash with three major forces: 1) the pretAcharin-s headed by the shveta-charman-s of the krau~nchadvIpa and their secularized parent population from Western Europe, also known as the mlechCha-s. 2) The chIna-s guided by imperialist legalism which is cloaked under socialism. 3) The turuShka-s also known as the marUnmatta-s. Of these, our millennial enemies, the turuShka-s are considerably weaker than the other two. Yet they have two advantages: 1) of being lodged inside our own lands 2) of being able to sell themselves to the chIna-s and the mlechCha-s to gain an advantage again.

If we look at recent history, the mlechCha-s have been greatly stretched due to the disastrous advice given to the former mlechChAdhipati by the neo-cons and the crooked faced upa-mlechChAdhipati. They launched a futile invasion of Iraq with no notable gains and ignored Afghanistan where their dear concubine TSP is having fun at their expense. While the mlechCha-s have had great success in subverting the South Koreans to the pretamata, they have hardly made any headway against the chIna-backed North Koreans. While the mlechCha-s have succeeded in emasculating Japan with two nuclear bombs and the subsequent formatting of their “hard drives”, they have only strengthened the chIna-s. The chIna-s do not have the limitations of Japan and have spent time to learn to play a more cunning game. As they were beginning to assert themselves in the 1960s (including by savagely invading and grabbing our territory), the Russians put them in place in brief encounter exactly 40 years ago. The Russian drubbing of the chIna-s was something that the third hero had ironically studied in great depth as a youth. We realized that this was of great importance in providing us respite from the chIna-s. But the chIna-s having learned their lesson tried to seek secret cooperation with the mlechCha-s in undermining the Russians. The Russians by aiding the Vietnamese punctured both the mlechCha-s and the chIna-s and poured water on this alignment of vectors. However, the great war of gandhAra allowed both the mlechCha-s and the chIna-s to screw the Russians by using the turuShka-s as the proxy. As the Rus and mlechCha-s fought in their epic struggle the chIna-s kept out and kept building their armory. At the end of the shIta-yuddha the Russians had been routed and the mlechCha-s had dismantled their empire. This made the chIna-s all the more powerful and their aims were clearly to rival the victorious mlechCha-s.

The operation of the chIna-s is understood poorly by most outsiders. The old rAjan jAvAharlAl was an example of this. Starting with the notorious Shi Huang Di of the Chin, they developed a system of cloaking the inner political infrastructure of legalism with outer coats. These coats are used both to fool their own people as well as outsiders depending on the situation. This inner legalism-outer coat model also allowed the chIna-s to imitate the dominant geo-cultural trends of the age while retaining an inner control and identity via the legalist structure. Originally it was the outer sheen of Confucianism coating legalism, while in the Sui/Tang period the outer coat included the bauddha mata while retaining same the inner pattern. In more recent times this outer coat has included socialism and more recently “Westernism”. This duality allows the chIna-s to interact and participate successfully with the dominant geo-cultural trend while retaining a certain inner identity. This inner identity is also projected inside the sphere of the dominant geo-cultural trend by careful image building. One striking example is that of the British biochemist Joseph Needham who was attracted to the chIna-s due to the shared common outer core of socialism. But he was soon used by the chIna-s to project an enormously positive image of their intellectual achievements to the world. While there is no question of the genuine achievements of the chIna-s, it is clear that Needham has exaggerated and over-attributed stuff to the chIna-s. Even today in the US the government pays to have exhibitions and seminars on ancient chIna medicine. In contrast, other civilizations with comparable achievements are typically denigrated by the west and negatively portrayed. Another aspect of this image building has been the acceptance of the chIna-s as equals or superiors by the western system. This aspect is based on a variety of factors such as: 1) the chIna-s exploiting the mlechCha fascination for shveta-tvacha and presenting themselves as shveta-charman-s too. 2) The chIna-s trying to project themselves as having higher IQ than the mlechCha-s. 3) Taking up mlechCha names and emulating aspects of mlechCha culture to make the mlechCha-s feel comfortable with them. As a consequence the mlechCha-s have gained respect for the chIna-s and have a positively larger than life image of them. Finally, the mlechCha-s have in quest of an unnecessarily lavish lifestyle shipped away much of their production and debt to the chIna-s, creating a dependency. All this image-building has made the chIna-s themselves feel a sense of superiority and entitlement to world dominance.

Coming to the original chIna invasion of bhArata in the 1960s, we observe the following: The chIna-s smashed the Hindu forces rather swiftly and conquered our territory with impunity. In response all we could do was to go crying to the mlechChAdhipati for help, remember, not the Rus who were supposedly our friends. The mlechCha-s were hardly going to help us for free and demanded that we hand over our shiras to their turuShka friends in the north-west. In desperation, our defrauded rAjan was willing to capitulate to the mlechCha demands in return for aid against the chIna-s. The chIna-s swiftly realized the issue and decided not to squander their territorial gains in further encounters, decided to call off any further invasion and returned the Hindus whom they had taken prisoner while occupying the newly captured territory. Earlier, when the chIna-s conquered Tibet absolutely no one could do anything to stop them. Today the mlechCha-s and bhArata-s humbly acknowledge Tibet to be a part of the chIna empire. Certain key points should be understood: 1) While the mlechCha-s would give us some aid if chIna-s attack us outright, it will be at the cost of emasculating us on the turuShka front – they are really not interested in us getting strong.
2) The mlechCha-s really cannot do much by way of aid because: 2.1) they have less familiarity than us in any of these regions. 2.2) They are finding themselves stretched by their recent military adventures (they could do nothing against Russia in Georgia). 2.3) They are themselves held by the balls by the chIna-s due to the manufacturing and debt issues. 2.4) A large faction amongst them prefers the chIna-s to us due the above-described image building.
3) Like in the 1960s, our army is disastrously underprepared for a great war. This has been admitted recently by the chiefs of staff of our senA.

But why is this chIna-issue coming to the fore right now for bhArata? It is clear that chIna-s are gearing up for their long cherished dream of world domination. This plan includes multiple aspects: 1) The chIna-s see the mlechCha-s as their ultimate rivals in world dominance to which they feel entitled. 2) But through the 1990s and early 2000s the Hindus actually grew in their capabilities despite the numerous pricks and cuts from the turuShka-s. This created a local challenge for chIna-s. 3) Due the peculiar vicissitudes of the yuga, the Hindus started sliding closer to the mlechCha-s (Several Hindus too have a deep fascination and attraction towards “westernism”). In the chIna eyes this westward slide made the Hindus from a local challenge to a real cause of worry. From the chIna angle other geopolitical points are also relevant. The mlechCha-s have freed their Eastern front by emasculating Japan. They have neutralized the mlechCha-s and others in Korea. They have threatened the mlechCha-s enough to avoid them from intervening in Taiwan. They have used the mlechCha-s and diplomacy to contain Russia. So their arms are free to strike their only immediate concern in Asia – bhArata. But at the same time their own conquered populations like the Tibetans and Uighurs are in a state of unrest, they are having a surplus of single males and internal issues to due the mismanagement by the communist party and economic issues. The chIna-s sensed that due to a napuMsaka ruler in bhArata, the Vatican subversionist and the general sapping of the Hindu cultural ardor by mlechCha va~nchaka-s the Hindus have a vulnerability despite their economic successes. Further, they have realized that the Indian monsoons have failed which has added strain to the basic Indian infrastructure. The spreading H1N1 influenza virus epidemic and the accompanying conspiracy theories spreading through the Indian population are also seen as potentially demoralizing factors that might tie down the Hindus. So they see this as an opportune moment to tackle bhArata – it helps to both direct their stirring people’s attention outwards and also to remove an obstacle in their quest for world dominance. This is amply evident from the rhetoric and saber-rattling recently emanating from the chIna-s. The Hindu generals realized that unless the country awakens there would be no hope of countering the chIna-s invading bhArata – hence their statements are no surprise.

In an extreme scenario the chIna-s have multiple objectives in this direction: 1) To gain territory by seizing Hindu lands with Eastern Eurasian ethnic majority (Arunachal, Ladakh, Sikkim and parts of the North East, as also probably taking Nepal and Bhutan). These regions can be used to dump the excess Han males and make them take local females. 2) Demolish East and North Indian cities to curb any hope of Indian economic competition with them. 3) To weaken the Hindu military in Kashmir to allow the turuShka-s to do what they have not succeeded in thus far. 4) To destabilize southern, central and eastern India via internal socialist terrorists so that, on the whole, India becomes unattractive to the west. This would neutralize any Indian competition to the chIna quest for dominance.

The naive Hindu thinking has been that the nuclear deterrence would hold chIna-s from doing any such thing. Some others felt that the chIna-s would need to use nukes to achieve a successful dominance over India and are unlikely to risk that. Yet others say that the chIna record has been one of avoiding bringing major wars on themselves. However, I see that situation as unique enough that they are likely to risk it, perhaps even in this year itself. Whatever the case, I remain deeply concerned of the possibility that the chIna-s could achieve many of the above objectives without nukes entering in the equation – i.e. using conventional forces backed by the internal socialist terrorists, just like the Khmer rouge in Cambodia. One of the main reasons for this is not so much technological superiority as the sheer numerical superiority that also our undoing in the 1960s.
Some very approximate numbers:
chIna senA:2.25*10^6; bhAratIya senA:1.3*10^6
chIna vimAna-s:2300; bhAratIya vimAna-s: 1300; while our LCA is still in the works the chIna slave factories are producing numerous yuddha vimAna-s of their own, even if they are of low quality.
chIna nAva-s: 250; bhAratIya nAva-s:145; however we have an aircraft carrier that they lack, but they are working on acquiring one. We have also recently produced a nuclear submarine to counter the similar nAva of the chIna-s.
chIna astra-s: the Deng Fongs; bhAratIya astra-s: agni-V. While there are astra-s which can reach chIna the true competitor for the Deng Fongs, agni-V is yet to fly and go into mass production.
chIna-ANavAstra-s: 100-400; bhAratIya AnavAstra-s: 100-300
In terms of military logistics I fear that chIna-s might have considerably more transport aircraft than us. In light of all this I would not be surprised if we are in for an existential crisis from the imperialism of our North Eastern bhai-s.

balA to kAmeshvarI

“mAtar-bhaNDa-mahAdaitya-sUnavo yoddhum AgatAH || 77 ||
Mother, the great daitya bhaNDa’s sons have arrived to give battle.
taiH samaM yoddhum ichChAmi kumAritvAt-sakautukA |
I wish to battle them due to my youthful enthusiasm.
saphurantAviva me bAhU yuddha-kaNDUyayAnayA || 78 ||
My arms throb with the itch for battle.
krIDA mamaiShA hantavyA na bhavatyA nivAraNaiH
Slaying them is my sport, so do not bar me with your prohibitions.|
ahaM hi bAlikA nityaM krIDaneShv-anurAgiNI || 79 ||
I am indeed a girl always delighting in sports.
kShaNaM raNa-krIDayA cha prItiM yAsyAmi chaitasA |
With this moment of battle-sport my mind will be delighted.”

nAgArjuna’s head

Remember nAgArjuna’s head. The prince wanted to cut off nAgArjuna’s head and advanced with a sword. He thought that no one knew of his ways. But when two men speak thinking they are alone rAjan varuNa hears as the third. The mantravAdin said:
idam indra shR^iNuhi somapa yat tvA hR^idA shocatA johavImi |
vR^ishcAmi taM kulisheneva vR^ikShaM yo asmAkaM mana idaM hinasti ||
The bharadvAja has spoken, the foot of the striding viShNu is upon the sadhyA’s head. May he stride widely and thunderously. urugAyo.adbhutaH

nAstika notes: ma~njushrI and the nAma-saMgIti

The meteoric rise of ma~njushrI in the bauddha realm is not immediately apparently in his hazy beginnings. He appears to have been the focus of the syncretic absorption of several deities which can be seen in course of the evolution of the bauddha literature [foot note 1]:
1) In the earliest bauddha lore he appears as a gandharva pa~nchashikha ma~njughoSha who provides the celestial music during the visit of indra to the tathAgata.
2) By the time of the mahAyAna texts he appears as a bodhisattva receiving nAstika teachings. Soon he rose to being a bodhisattva of level 10 like avalokiteshvara and vajrapANi who were also to rise greatly in stature in the future. But he does not represent the state of the complete buddha. It was in this phase that he absorbed elements of the deity bR^ihaspati or vAchaspati. However, in this stage the seeds of his future rise are seen in a teaching made by the tathAgata to the nAstika brAhmaNa shAriputra, where he states that ma~njushrI is a progenitor of the bodhisattva-s and their guide.
3) In the major kriyA tantra, the Arya-ma~njushrI mUla kalpa he becomes an important deity after absorbing kumAra as has been described earlier. In this text it is mentioned that as kumAra he will perform the deeds of the buddha in the world.
4) In the yoga tantra-s (the ma~njushrI j~nana-sattvasya paramArtha nAma saMgIti or the ma~njushrI nAma saMgIti) and yoginI tantra-s (e.g. kAlachakra tantraM) he rises to be the Adibuddha and he is in the heart of the ShaD-buddha-s. It is the yoga tantra phase that he starts acquiring elements of the bhairava of the shaiva tantra-s and this absorption was critical for his rise as a major deity. This absorption to a degree enabled him to break free from the limitations of the bodhisattva mold which his earlier evolutionary history had placed him in. Now by imitating the supreme Astika devatA-s he could himself be presented as a supreme devatA by acquiring their attributes for free.

We now consider some aspects of the MNS to appreciate the universal descriptions of ma~njushrI:
avaivartiko hy anAgAmI khaDgaH pratyeka-nAyakaH |
nAnA-niryANa-niryAto mahAbhUtaika-kAraNaH || 51

Some of these names are clearly distinctive features of nAstika tradition, e.g. the rhino (khaDga), which is considered a chief pratyekadbuddha by virtue of its solitary peregrination, named in this shloka. The term mahAbhUtaika-kAraNaH i.e. the single cause amongst the primal elements to me appears to be rather incongruous, if interpreted in its natural sense, with the basic bauddha principle of shUnyavAda. We indeed note that the nAstika AchArya narendrakIrti glosses the term to be “the pure thought of enlightenment (i.e. bodhi) amidst the 4 bhUta-s” [as translated from the surviving Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit original by the American scholar Wyman]. So rather than seeing manju~shrI as the kAraNa he actually see him as the state of bodhi in which one realizes the shUnyatA of the mahAbhUta-s. This does appear like a contrived explanation for a term that would more naturally exist in a praise of a deity under the Astika framework.

The following names again are directly drawn from the brahminical substratum from which the nAstika-s drew their intellectuals:
brahmavid brAhmaNo brahmA brahmanirvANam AptavAn |
muktir mokSho vimokShA~Ngo vimuktiH shAntatA shivaH || 95
The word brahmavid is artificially explained by the nAstika-s as meaning knowing brahmA the deity.

The absorption of shiva:
amoghapAsho vijayI vajrapAsho mahAgrahaH |
vajrA~Nkusho mahApAsho vajrabhairava bhIkaraH || 66
krodharAT ShaNmukho bhImaH ShaDnetraH ShaDbhujo balI |
daMShTrAkarAla ka~NkAlo halAhala shatAnanaH || 67
yamAntako vighnarAjo vajravego bhayaMkaraH |
vighuShTavajro hR^idvajro mAyAvajro mahodaraH || 68
kulishesho vajrayonir vajramaNDo nabhopamaH |
achalaikajaTATopo gajacharmapaTArdradhR^ik || 69

In these series we notice the name ShaNmukha which is an inheritance from his kaumAra syncreticism of the earlier stage. The names vajrabhairava (the “vajrified” bhairava), halAhala, yamAntaka, vighnarAja, gajacharmapaTArdradhR^ik are all indicative of his absorption of shiva’s attributes. The nAstika AchArya chandrabhadrakIrti explains halAhala as the poison that makes the neck blue, making it pretty obvious what prototype he has in mind. Some of these absorptions of shiva, seen first in MNS, emerge as important emanations of ma~njushrI who are prominent in their own right as devatA-s of important tantric rituals and texts in the subsequent layers of nAstika productivity. The main among these is vajrabhairava also known as yamAntaka who is at the center of several sAdhana-s in later texts. The epithet describing the deity as holding a freshly skinned elephant has no mythological foundation in the earlier bauddha lore and is thus clearly a transfer of the image of shiva as the slayer of gajAsura.

At the same time we also see an absorption of viShNu underway:

samantadarshI prAmodyas tejomAlI sudarshanaH |
shrIvatsaH suprabho dIptir bhA bhAsurakara-dyutiH || 102

The tAthagata smR^iti explains that these names describe ma~njushrI as the unconquerable preserver who holds the blazing chakra in his hand and has the shrIvatsa in the heart. Thus the identification with viShNu is clear though he avoids mentioning viShNu by name.
The absorption of the famous features of viShNu are also apparent in:
trailokyaika-krama-gatir vyoma-paryanta-vikramaH |153ab
One who covers the worlds in a stride and one who covers the sky with a stride.

In this phase of their evolution, the nAstika-s were still trying to accommodate and identify their innovations with the Astika devatA-s rather than depicting the latter as being crushed by the former:
devAtidevo devendraH surendro dAnavAdhipaH |
amarendraH suraguruH pramathaH pramatheshvaraH || 148

In explaining this shloka the famed nAstika mantravAdin and grammarian chandragomin states that devAtideva is viShNu, the dAnava lord is vemachitra and that pramathesvara is mahAdeva. The other epithets are pretty obvious in identifying him with indra and bR^ihaspati. So nAstika tradition was fully alive to this identification with Astika devatA-s.

While the text repeatedly tries to present ma~njushrI as the compassionate Adi-buddha striving against the negativities in the form of the mAra-s, we do get a hint of him as a fierce warrior:
vajra-bANAyudhadharo vajra-khaDgo nikR^intanaH |
vishva-vajradharo vajrI ekavajrI raNaM-jahaH || 72
He is described as holding the adamantine arrow and slashing sword with which he defeats enemy warriors on the battle field as an ekavajrin. The early nAstika commentators like smR^iti explain this shloka metaphorically as showing ma~njushrI battling the defilements coming in the way of the bauddha praxis. But it was the more literal meaning of this imagery that was to inspire one of the greatest warriors in the future [Foot note 2].

Finally it should be noted that the MNS is the first major nAstika contribution in a fairly old Hindu tradition – that of the sahasranAma-s. The earliest of these the 1008 names of viShNu and shiva occur in the bhArata itself. In course of the evolution of the tAntrika mantra-mArga such names started acquiring significance as a notable component of the upAsana of devata-s. It is quite likely the nAstika-s were acutely aware of the need to create similar liturgies like the sahasranAma-s they used in their pUrvAsharama as Astika-s. Hence in creating the MNS it is not surprising that they used some elements from the sahasranAma-s of Astika devata-s. They also have a long uttarabhAga to the MNS which is like phalashruti of the sahasranAma-s. It is also interesting that phalashruti provide a long list of Astika devatA-s who will protect the nAstika if he performs the nAmasaMgIti. These include the invocation of pratya~NgirA amongst others to guard the votary of ma~njushrI:
sarva-vighna-vinAyaka-mArAri-mahApratya~NgirA-mahAparAjitA sa-rAtriM-divaM pratikShaNaM sarveryApatheShu rakShAvaraNa-guptiM kariShyanti |

similarly
brahmendropendra-rudra-nArAyaNa-sanatkumAra-maheshvara-kArtikeya-mahAkAla-nandikeshvara-yama-varuNa-kubera-hArItI-dasha-dig-lokapAlAsh cha etc…

[Foot note 1] Also see:
nAstika notes-2
Some points regarding the Rewa stone inscription of malayasiMha
The mahAkaumara mantras in AstIka and nAstIka parlance

[Foot note 2]. In 1583 CE Nurhachi, a Jurchen chief, who was a descendent of the Jurchen-Mongol warlord Moengke Timur, in his early twenties, had a vision while reading the MNS that he was an incarnation of ma~njushrI as the fierce warrior. His father and grandfather had just been killed in attack by a Jurchen chief in the pay of the chIna-s. He apparently had nothing by a few weapons and armor left behind by his ancestors. But inspired by the idea of being ma~njushrI’s incarnation he raised a force and led them to a spectacular string of victories in the steppes, unifying tribe after tribe. Finally in 1616 CE after 33 unbroken military successes he declared himself Khan with the title meaning “The Brilliant Khan Who Benefits All Peoples”, reflective of his identity with ma~njushrI. His unified Jurchen tribes even acquired a new name with a folk etymology in which Manchu was equated with ma~njushrI. Then he led his troops to great victories against the chIna-s, the Koreans and other steppe tribes. He was finally killed by Christian mercenaries employed the chIna-s. But his son was to conquer the chIna-s and found the last great empire of the steppes that ruled chIna – the Qing dynasty.

adhika mantra-s of the nIlarudropaniShat

The nIlarudropaniShat has some additional mantra-s beyond those included in the nIlarudra sUktaM. These mantra-s are drawn from the raudra gaNa of the paippalAda saMhitA of the AV. The combination of the nIlarudra sUktaM along with the raudra gaNa (AV parishiShTha 19b3.4-5) is mentioned as being part of the mantra deployment in the peculiar atharvavedIya brahma yAga of bhArgava. This is a proto-tAntric ritual of the atharvanic tradition involving the worship of brahmA identified with rudra installed in a maNDala (AV pari 19b2.3-5) followed by a fire ritual. Further, some of these adhika mantra-s of the nIlarudropaniShat have an extremely important place in atharvaNIya prayoga. These prayoga-s are themselves kept secret and passed only between dIkShita-s.

namo .astu sarpebhyo ye ke ca pR^ithivIm anu |
ye antarikShe ye divi tebhyaH sarpebhyo namaH ||

ye chAmI rocane divo yash cha sUryasya rashmiShu |
yeShAm apsu sadas kR^itaM tebhyaH sarpebhyo namaH ||

yA iShavo yAtudhAnAnAM ye vA vanaspatInAm |
ye vAvaTeShu sherate tebhyaH sarpebhyo namaH ||

The first three of these mantra-s constitute the sarpa-bali mantra-s. Here the sarpa-s are identified with the arrows of rudra. In the AV-saMhitA-s there are two famous sUkta-s known as the praise of the arrows of rudra. In one of these sUkta-s the arrows are identified with various types of snakes.

yaH svajAnAM nIlagrIvo yaH svajAnAM harir uta |
kalmASha-puchCham oShadhe jambhayAsy arundhati ||

This mantra is the one which gives the famous viSha-nivAraka prayoga. The venoms of three types of vipers are countered using an extract of the Aristolochia indica (At least as per contemporary tradition)

babhrush cha babhru-karNash cha nIlAgalasAlA shivaH pashya |
tauvilike .avelayAvA ayam ailaba ailayIt ||

The second hemistich of this mantra is missing in most extant nIlarudra manuscript. I suspect what has been handed down to us is also corrupt and hope to investigate it further using a manuscript of the Orissan paippalAda saMhitA. The snake in the first hemistich (babhru/babhru-karNa) is the viper Pseudocerastes bicornis

sharveNa nIlashikhaNDena bhavena marutAM pitrA |
virUpAkSheNa babhrUNAM vAcaM vadiShyato hataH ||

This is a celebrated mantra of the secret prayoga. It is the head of that which the mahAbhArata refers to when it compares an astra to the atharvA~Ngirasa. When combined with the uchChuShma-s it is like the pAshupata praised by arjuna (The bhArata subtly lets you in on the secret).

sharva nIlashikhaNDa vIra karmaNi-karmaNi |
imAm asya prAshaM jahi yenedaM vivadAmahe* ||

Most nIlarudra manuscripts have the erroneous vibhajAmahe in place of vivadAmahe. The latter reading is confirmed by the paippalAda manuscripts of the Orissans.

namo bhavAya namaH sharvAya namaH kumArAya shaMbhave* |
namo nIlashikhaNDAya namaH sabhAprapAdine ||

Here the Orissan pATha has the peculiar kumAra-shatrave in place of the kumArAya shaMbhave. At first sight it is incongruous. But in the AV-P in the very next mantra kumAra-shatru is explained as a semantically equivalent formation modeled on shishumAra. Interestingly, in the taittirIya AraNyaka 2.19 shishumAra is explained as the Northern constellation (comprised of stars of Draco and possibly Ursa Minor) and is identified with rudra. Thus, the kumAra-shatru reading in the AV-P most probably has nothing to do with the god kumAra but is a homonym for shishumAra which is identified with rudra. However, in an interesting twist the TA 2.19 also identifies shishumAra with the god kumAra (perhaps as a name of rudra; given that the shatapatha brAhmaNa mentions kumAra as a name of rudra). The mantra to kumAra given in TA 2.19 is taken as the vaidika pramANa for the glorious aShTAkSharI vidyA in the kaumAra parlance.

yasya harI ashvatarau gardabhAv abhitaHsarau |
tasmai nIlashikhaNDAya namaH sabhAprapAdine ||

This is a unique reference to rudra’s chariot being drawn by a pair of yellow mules and a pair of donkeys. This mantra is similar to another AV-P mantra to rudra:
naktaM harI mR^igayete divA suparNA rohitau |
bhavAya ca sharvAya chobhAbhyAm akaraM namaH ||
Here at night the two yellow deer run and during the day two red birds fly. These are the animals of rudra worshiped in the next hemistich as bhava and sharva. There could be an astronomical allusion here. In the shiva sahasranAma from the anushAsana parvan of the mahAbhArata we see that rudra is called: hayagardabhiH. This suggests that some memory of this tradition continued in later times.
…

tvaM devAnAm asi rudra shreShThas tavas tavasAm ugrabAho |
hR^iNIyasA manasA modamAna A babhUvitha rudrasya sUnoH ||

yaH samAno yo .asamAno .amitro no jighAMsati |
rudraH sharavyayA tAn amitrAn no vi vidhyatu ||

These additional mantra-s are recited by few atharvavedin-s after the core nIlarudropaniShat. They together with sharveNa… mantra are part of the mighty secret prayoga. They for the three prongs of the “…” which is alluded to by manu and known to the practitioners of bhR^igu’s spells.

hiraNyavarNAyai namaH

The accomodation of women and shUdra-s in the pAshupata system

As we noted before the pAshupata tradition was originally strictly restricted to brAhmaNa males who were educated in the veda-s. They were celibate ascetics who kept away from regular social interaction. But by the time of the vAmana purANa we note that the pAshupata-s were accommodating shUdra-s (VaP 6.92). This is suggested by the mahAvratin dhanada having the shUdra arNodara as a disciple. From inscriptional evidence in the southern country we note that women and shUdra-s are included amongst patrons of the pAshupata maTha-s. Is there any other evidence for their accommodation? It is seen that secondary shloka texts, resembling the vedic texts to which the shUdra-s had no adhikAra, were composed in the paurANic period when the shUdra-s were being accommodated. These texts provide the same material as the vedic mantra-s on which they are modeled making their purport accessible to the 4th varNa. Let us consider some examples briefly that are provided by lakShmIdhara and the li~Nga purANa.. The first of this is a stand in for the pa~nchabrahma-mantra-s. Only 3 brahma mantra-s are represented here. I discussed this with R1’s. He speculated that perhaps the bahurUpI and rudra-gayatrI are genuinely vaidika and cannot be paraphrased as paurAnic shloka-s. Alternatively, their paraphrase has been lost.

vande.ham devam IshAnaM sarveshaM sarvagaM prabhum |
om IshAna namaste .astu mahAdeva namo .astu te ||1||
namo .astu sarva-vidyAnAm IshAna parameshvara |
namo .astu sarva-bhUtAnAm IshAna vR^iSha-vAhana ||2 ||
brahmaNo .adhipate tubhyaM brahmaNe brahma-rUpiNe |
namo brahmAdhipataye shivaM me .astu sadAshiva ||3 ||
o~NkAra-mUrte devesha sadyojAta namo namaH |
prapadye tvAM prapanno .asmi sadyojAtAya vai namaH ||4 ||
abhave cha bhave tubhyaM tathA nAtibhave namaH |
bhavod-bhava bhaveshAna mAM bhajasva mahAdyute ||5 ||
vAmadeva namas tubhyaM jyeShThAya varadAya cha |
namo rudrAya kAlAya kalanAya namo namaH ||6 ||
namo vikaraNAyaiva kAlavarNAya varNine |
balAya balinAM nityaM sadA vikaraNAya te ||7 ||
balapramathanAyaiva baline brahma-rUpiNe |
sarva-bhUteshvareshAya bhUtAnAM damanAya cha ||8||
manonmanAya devAya namas tubhyaM mahAdyute |
vAmadevAya vAmAya namastubhyaM mahAtmane ||9||
jyeShThAya chaiva shreShThAya rudrAya varadAya cha |
kAla-hantre namas tubhyaM namas tubhyaM mahAtmane ||10||

Similarly the following shloka-s attributed to brahmA are a shatarudrIya substitute for the 4th varNa to use. It has high frequency of overlap with the names of rudra in the shatrarudrIya and also includes an abbreviated paraphrase of the pa~nchabrahma:

namaste kAlakAlAya namaste rudra manyave |
namaH shivAya rudrAya sha~NkarAya shivAya te ||1||
ugro .asi sarva-bhUtAnAM niyantAsi shivo .asi naH |
namaH shivAya sharvAya sha~NkarAyArtti-hAriNe ||2||
mayaskarAya vishvAya viShNave brahmaNe namaH |
antakAya namas tubhyam umAyAH pataye namaH ||3||
hiraNyabAhave sAkShAd dhiraNyapataye namaH |
sharvAya sarvarUpAya puruShAya namo namaH ||4||
sadasadvyakti-hInAya mahataH kAraNAya te |
nityAya vishvarUpAya jAyamAnAya te namaH ||5||
jAtAya bahudhA loke prabhUtAya namo namaH |
rudrAya nIlarudrAya kadrudrAya prachetase ||6||
kAlAya kAlarUpAya namaH kAlA~NgahAriNe |
mIDhuShTamAya devAya shitikaNThAya te namaH ||7||
mahIyase namas tubhyaM hantre devAriNAM sadA |
tArAya cha sutArAya tAraNAya namo namaH ||8||
harikeshAya devAya shaMbhave paramAtmane |
devAnAM shaMbhave tubhyaM bhUtAnAM shaMbhave namaH ||9||
shambhave haimavatyAsh cha manyave rudra-rUpiNe |
kapardine namastubhyaM kAlakaNThAya te namaH ||10||
hiraNyAya maheshAya shrIkaNThAya namo namaH |
bhasmadigdha-sharIrAya daNDamuNDIshvarAya cha ||11 ||
namo hrasvAya dIrghAya vAmanAya namo namaH |
nama ugra-trishUlAya ugrAya cha namo namaH ||12||
bhImAya bhImarUpAya bhIma-karmakR^itAya te |
agrevadhAya vai bhUtvA namo dUrevadhAya cha ||13||
dhanvine shUline tubhyaM gadine haline namaH |
chakriNe varmiNe nityaM daityAnAM karmabhedine ||14||
sadyAya sadya-rUpAya sadyojAtAya te namaH |
vAmAya vAma-rUpAya vAmanetrAya te namaH ||15||
aghora-rUpAya vikaTAya vikaTasharIrAya te namaH |
puruSha-rUpAya puruShaika-tatpuruShAya vai namaH ||16||
puruShArtha-pradAnAya pataye parameShThine |
IshAnAya namas tubhyam IshvarAya namo namaH ||17||
brahmaNe brahmarUpAya namaH sAkShAchChivAya te |.5

This strange mantra is believed to be a rudra gAyatrI substitute althought it does not retain meter and has a grammatically strange form as it stands:
IshAnAya kadrudrAya prachetase tryaMbakAya sharvAya tanno rudraH prachodayAt ||

Further considerations on the pAshupata system

Though it is at the foundation of all the shaiva systems that survive to date, the old pAshupata darshana has all but become extinct. Of the pAshupata sUtra-s we have only 3 reported extant manuscripts thus far: two from vArANasi and one from the va~Nga country. Two of these manuscripts are fragmentary and the third though complete is poorly preserved. There appears to be another possible fragmentary manuscript from the tamil country that has not been studied at all (I have only seen the title and not examined it closely). Using two of the manuscripts our coethnic R. Ananthakrishna Shastri produced the first edition of the pAshupata sUtra-s in the first half of the 1900s. A few years ago, the white indologist Bisschop produced several useful corrections based on the 2nd vArANasi manuscript and other comparisons. These sUtra-s are the only testimony we have of the pAshupata system that bridges the gap between the earlier layers [footnote 1] and the rise of the lAkulIsha pAshupata system and its later kAlAmukha successor. The sUtra-s as we have them come with the bhAShya of a certain kauNDinya, who tradition records to be a successor of lakulIsha. This bhAShya also quotes a version of the sUtra-s that shows differences from the version transmitted as a mUla-sUtrapATha. This shows that the pATha used by kauNDinya was transmitted independently, but accompanied by the mUla-sUtrapATha, without any “gene conversion-like event” to equalize the two readings. Further, given the way the sUtra-s are organized to go along with the bhAShya, it is possible that some of the sUtra-s as we have them are only fragments of more complete sUtra-s that were extracted from an earlier version of the kauNDinya bhAShya or some other pre-kauNDinya bhAShya [It is possible that the more complete sUtra-s resembled the sUtra-like prescriptions of the pAshupata vrata in the AV parishiShTha 40]. This is suggested by the form of certain sUtra-s, where they were clearly parts of longer coherent sUtra-s broken for commentarial purposes:
mUtra-purIShaM nAvekshet |
strI-shUdraM nAbhibhAShet |
yady avekShed yady abhibhAshet |
upaspR^ishva |
prANAyAmaM kR^itvA |
raudrIM gAyatrIM bahurUpIM vA japet |
Here the pAshupata ascetic is prescribed not to see urine or feces and not to converse with women and shUdra-s. If he does see the former two or talk or touch the latter two he performs prANAyAma and does japa of the rudra gAyatrI or the bahurUpI (i.e. aghora) mantra. We notice that in baudhAyana dharma there is a single sUtra: strI-shUdrair nAbhibhASheta mUtra-purIShe nAvekSheta. Similarly, the remaining sUtra-s cited above might also be combined into a single one. Thus, transmission of the sUtra-s as we have them today does seem to be affected by the tradition of commentary and are probably not the original form of them.

Despite these issues we can clearly see that the sUtra-s are of an archaic character and resemble in large part the kalpa sUtra-s with some features of the darshana sUtra-s. Yet unlike the kalpa or darshana sUtra-s they do not bear the name of any author. Though certain traditions mention lakulIsha as an author, there is absolutely nothing what so ever to support this in the form of internal evidence from the sUtra-s. Even kauNDinya’s commentary merely states the following:
tathA shiShTa prAmANyAt kAmitvAd ajAtatvAch cha manuShya-rUpI bhagavAn brAhmaNa-kAyam AsthAya kAyAvata-raNe avatIrNa iti | tathA padbhyAm ujjayinIM prAptaH |
i.e. shiva incarnated in the form of a man by entering the body of a brAhmaNa in the forest of kAyAvata. Then he walked to Ujjain. This account matches those narrated in the puraNa-s and the kArvaNa mAhAtmya where lakulIsha incarnates in kAyAvarohaNa (modern Karvan village some distance north of Baroda). However, unlike the latter accounts the name lakulIsha is never mentioned even though in the subsequent lines kauNDinya mentions that shiva as the brAhmaNa imparted the shAstra to the student kushika. Only in the ratnaTIkA on the gaNakArikA (probably authored by bhAsarvaj~na) do we clearly see a mention of lakulIsha as the founder of the pAshupata system. This raises questions regarding lakulIsha being the actual composer of the sUtra-s.

Using the pAshupata sUtra-s one can look for key features of the pAshupata ritual described in it in the earlier texts to trace the early evolution of the shaiva system.
1) yoga and sAMkhya: As we have discussed before on these pages the practice of yoga goes back to the earliest shaiva layer in the form of the shvetAshvatara and even there is accompanied by the philosophical framework provided by sAMkhya. This connection to yoga continues through the atharvashiras and the epic period (MBH13.14 shiva is identified with the puruSha of sAMkhya). yoga remained a persistent and central theme of shaiva practice which eventually gave rise to the yoga of the mantra mArga. Beginning around the time of the pAshupata sUtra-s, elements of vaisheShika are adopted by the system. Eventually nyAya-vaisheShika comes to dominate the atimArga shaiva thought while sAMkhya remains at the foundation of most mantra-mArga shaiva philosophy.

2) The rite of bhasma snAna: The pAshupata sUtra prescribes the practitioner to smear himself with ashes. This rite is also found in the atharvashiras and the AV-pari 40 suggesting that it was an old ritual of the shaiva system which probably evolved from the vedic ritual of smearing with ashes of a homa seen in the gR^ihya daily offering. It is not specifically mentioned in the shvetAshvatara. It persisted amongst all later shaiva branches.

3) Iconic and temple worship of shiva: These are clearly present in the pAshupata-sUtra-s. We see a similar mention of iconic shiva worship and temples in the pAshupata vratra of the AV-pari 40. In both these texts we note that: a) the pAshupata wears rudra nirmAlya; b) he dances, sings, plays musical instruments and laughs loudly; c) he is asked to hangout at rudra shrines. However, the fire worship is a major component in the rite of the AV-pari 40, and one of the places the pAshupata might hang out is a fire house (agnyAgara). In the account of the pAshupata Ashrama in the Mbh13.14 (vulgate) we encounter the presence of large fire altars with kusha grass strew around them (vishAlaish chAgni-sharaNair-bhUShitaM kusha saMvR^itam) and the mention of divine women singing songs. In the same section rudra himself is described as dancing, singing and playing instruments. There is no sign of iconic worship in the atharvashiras or the SU. The early iconic worship as suggested by the AV-pari 40 appears to have mirrored those found in the late gR^ihya texts like those of vaikhAnasa and baudhAyana. Throughout later Hindu history shiva temples of pAshupata-s were prominent monuments on the landscape of bhAratavarSha and even left their impression on the visiting nAstika chInAcharya-s. Interestingly, the survival of classical music and dance in dakShiNapatha might have hugely benefited from the patronage they received from the kAlAmukha successors of the pAshupata-s.

4) Male brAhmaNa-s only: The original pAshupata vrata appears to have been a solely male brAhmaNa affair. This is attested in both the PaS and the AV-pari 40. The SU and AS also appear to be brAhmaNa productions indicating that it arose specifically amongst brAhmaNa vedic ritualists (not even other dvija-s). Only in the post-lakulIsha phase of its development it opened up to include the 3 other varNa-s. By the kAlAmukha phase we notice the involvement of women as patrons and dancers in the temples.

5) Wearing of li~Nga: We note this first in the PaS 1.6 [li~NgadhArI]. We see no mention of this in the AV-pari 40 or the earlier upaniShad texts. The earliest allusions to the li~Nga as an emblem of rudra appear in the great epic (anushAsana parvan). It is hence conceivable that the PaS belongs to this period when li~Nga worship had come to the fore amongst the shaiva-s.

6) Observance of govrata/pashuvrata: This is mentioned in PaS 5.9 [godharmA mR^igadharmA vA]. It finds a mention in the epic anushAsana parvan version of the pAshupata practice (Mbh 13.14 vulgate) where it is described that some pAshupata-s observe the govrata and others the mR^igavrata just as in the PaS. However, these vrata-s are not described in the AV-pari 40 or the earlier upaniShad-s.

7)pa~nchabrahma: A key feature of the pAshupata sUtra-s is their link to the pa~ncha brahma-mantra-s around which a number of comparisons can be made. Each of the five sections of the pAshupata sUtra-s end with one of the brahma-mantra-s. However, the pa~ncha brahma mantra-s have distinct origins. The rudra gAyatrI is part of the shatarudrIya of both the maitrAyaNIya and kaTha saMhitA-s, whereas the aghora (bahurUpI) is part of the shatarudrIya of the maitrAyaNIya-s. These two mantra-s are used in these kR^iShNa-yajurvedic traditions as a part of the shrauta ritual of the pacification of rudra after the 5th layer of the agni-chiti is laid out in a soma sacrifice. They are known by the technical names rudra sAvitrI and bahurUpI in the pAshupata system. Both of them are deployed in the AV-pari 40 pAshupata ritual but the other 3 brahma mantra-s are not mentioned in this version of the ritual. The mantra of sadyojAta occurs as a kumAra mantra in the atharvavedic tradition as a part of the skanda-yAga but is not deployed in rudra worship in any parishiShTha tradition. Only in the taittirIya AraNyaka (mahAnArAyaNopaniShat) and its atharva-vedic counterpart the 5 brahma-mantra-s are seen as a group. In the former it is occurs after the li~Nga sthApana mantra-s, but this group of li~Nga mantra-s is missing in the AV-mahAnArAyaNa. In ritual terms, the first mention of the pa~ncha brahma mantra-s is seen in the sections on iconic worship of rudra in the baudhAyana gR^ihya sUtra-s. Here, three rituals for the iconic worship of rudra are described (BGS 2.16-18). The first two for the installation and daily worship of rudra images cite several rudra mantra-s but not the pa~nchabrahma.Interestingly these have mantra-s similar to those deployed in the AV pari-40 pAshupata rite. The third of these, termed ritual of the bathing of rudra (the precursor of the famous mahAnyAsa) provides the deployment of the pa~nchabrahma: the sadyojAta mantra is used in AsanaM, pAdyaM, arghyaM, the vAmadeva in sarvopachAra pUja, the aghora mantra in installing the benign form of rudra, the tatpuruSha in japa and IshAna in seeking the grace of rudra. A further ritual for the pacification of rudra on aShTamI evenings known as the IshAnakalpa (BGS 3.15) also does not mention the pa~nchabrahma even though it deploys several rudra mantra-s.The absence of the 5 brahma mantra-s as a pentad in the AV pari-40 pAshupata system, but the presence of only the two older members of the brahma mantra-s in this system points to an internal evolution within the pAshupata system. The brahma-mantra-s as a group are seen only in the baudhAyana rudrAbhiSheka and the mahAnArAyaNa upaniShat-s of the taittirIya tradition (i.e. TA) and the AV (without li~Nga) among the vedic texts. Hence, it appears quite possible that the brahma mantra-s as a group emerged in the context of the early iconic worship of rudra (not necessarily as a li~Nga) in the late vedic tradition after the foundation of the initial pAshupata system. The pAshupata sUtra-s specifically share only with the taittirIya AraNyaka both the brahma-mantra-s and the li~Nga worship. This suggests that the beginning of the pAshupata sUtra tradition is later than that of the AV pari-40 and specifically emerged amongst the taittirIyin-s. To further test this conjecture let us look at the brahma-mantra-s as transmitted by the pAshupata sUtra-s and its bhAShya:

PSu:
sadyojAtaM prapadyAmi sadyojAtAya vai namaH |
bhave bhave nAtibhave bhavasva mAm bhavodbhavAya namaH ||
TA:
sadyojAtaM prapadyAmi sadyojAtAya vai namo namaH |
bhave bhave nAtibhave bhavasva mAm bhavodbhavAya namaH ||
kauNDinya bhAShya:
sadyojAtaM prapadyAmi sadyojAtAya vai namaH |
bhave bhave nAtibhave bhajasva mAm bhavodbhavaH || (Regular anuShTubh)
PSu, TA:
vAmadevAya namo jyeShThAya namaH shreShThAya namo rudrAya namaH kAlAya namaH kalavikaraNAya namo balavikaraNAya namo balAya namo balapramathAnAya namaH sarvabhUtadamanAya namo manonmanAya namaH ||
kauNDinya bhAShya:
vAmadevAya namo jyeShThAya namo rudrAya namaH kAlAya namaH kalavikaraNAya namaH| balapramathAnAya namaH sarvabhUtadamanAya namo manonmanAya namaH ||

PSu, TA:
aghorebhyo.atha ghorebhyo ghora-ghoratarebhyaH | sarvebhyaH sarva-sharvebhyo namas te astu rudrarUpebhyaH ||
kauNDinya bhAShya:
aghorebhyo.atha ghorebhyo ghoraghoratarebhyash cha |
sarvataH sharva sarvebhyo namaste .astu rudrarUpebhyaH || (Regular anuShTubh)
PSu, TA, kauNDinya bhAShya:
tatpuruShAya vidmahe mahAdevAya dhImahi | tanno rudraH prachodayAt
PSu, TA:
IshAnaH sarva-vidyAnAm IshvaraH sarvabhUtAnAM |
brahmAdhipatir brahmaNo.adhipatir brahmA shivo me astu sadAshivOm ||
kauNDinya bhAShya:
IshAnaH sarva-vidyAnAm IshvaraH sarvabhUtAnAM |
brahmaNo.adhipatir brahmA shivo me astu sadAshivaH || (Regular anuShTubh)

There is some variation even within the different transmissions of the taIttirIya AraNyaka 10 but the version here is the most widely used oral tradition in bhAratavarSha. It is immediately apparent that the version in the pAshupata sUtra-s is closest to the version in the TA 10. This further supports the specific relationship between the pAshupata sUtra-s and the TA 10 pAshupata tradition. This version of the mantra-s can also been seen in the li~NGa purANa (2.27.245-256) in the context of the famous jayAbhiSheka rite performed by a shaiva mantravAdin for a rAjan desiring victory over his enemies. While all mantra-s are not given in full here, those that are closely match the PSu form indicating that this transmission continued to exist in the shaiva world outside of the TA and the PSu. In contrast, the version transmitted by the bhAShya is: 1) in the form of metrically regular anuShTubh-s, were relevant and 2) closer to other texts than the TA. In the case of the sadyojAta and aghora mantra-s the bhAShya form follows the reading in the dhUrta kalpa of the AV pari-20 and the maitrAyaNIya saMhitA respectively. Further, other major transmissions of the brahma mantra-s in the mantra-mArga shaiva and vaiShNava pA~ncharAtra systems closely resemble the version in the bhAShya. In the early siddhAnta tantra the niHshvAsa saMhitA, where the mantra-s are cited in full, they follow the bhAShya version. The Indonesian mantra manual (now extant only in Bali) also gives these mantra-s in a form close to the bhAShya version. The Indonesian manual is derived from a mantra-mArga shaiva source, most probably a siddhAnta tantra, supporting this version being transmitted by the saiddhAntika-s. The version transmitted by the pA~ncharAtrika sanatkumAra tantra also reads very close to the bhAShya version. Thus, kauNDinya was not using the form given in the mUla-sUtra pATha or the TA but his own version that has also widely been transmitted in successor texts. There is a hint that kauNDinya was not a taittirIyaka and did not know of that these mantra-s were part of the taittirIyaka shruti. In explaining the sUtra 1.39 (atredaM brahma japet | in PSu; atrachedam brahma japet | in bhAShya) he says (for the word idam):
idam iti pratyakShe | niyoge vA | idam eva brahma japatavyam | R^ig-yajuH-sAmAnItyarthaH |
idam means in the current place an injunction (niyoga) to do japa of this [i.e. sadyojAta] mantra and not a R^ik, yajur or a sAman. Thus, it appears that he does not consider the sadyojAta mantra a vedic one. Elsewhere, he does consider it R^ik in the sense of being a metrical formula (e.g. in bhAShaya to Psu 5.21) suggesting that in the above case he means it is not a mantra from one of the 3 veda-s supporting the idea that he was unfamiliar with the TA 10. Thus, interestingly kauNDinya’s transmission is independent of the PSu, which belongs to the same tradition as TA 10.

In conclusion, we note that the pAshupata sUtra-s are not the beginning of the pAshupata system but are preceded by a number of pre-sUtra pAshupata teachings. The textual comparisons show that PSu pAshupata darshana is closest to the version practiced in the mAhAbharata and shows distinct links in the form the brahma mantra-s and the li~Nga worship with the taittirIya AraNyaka’s last section. Though, the pAshupata system arose early from the ancestral Indo-Aryan ascetic tradition, it appears to have interacted with the developing iconic worship of shiva, particularly in terms of incorporating the brahma mantra-s. In terms of the evolution of the brahma mantra-s, we note that the bahurUpI and the rudra-gayatrI were recruited earlier and the sadyojAta mantra emerged in the iconic worship of kumAra. But the brahma mantra-s as group appears to have been put together in the late vedic period for the iconic worship of rudra. This tradition of worship with the pa~nchabrahma appears to have been particularly vigorous amongst the taittirIyaka-s and was incorporated into their vedic corpus. It is from this taittirIyaka tradition that the mUla-sUtra pATha that we have appears to have emerged. But the presence of distinct sUtra and pa~nchabrahma readings in the kauNDinya bhAShya indicate that there was a transmission independently of the taittirIyaka-s that was partially normalized in the post-kauNDinya transmission. The great epic pashupata system is likely to have been coeval or post-dated the Ur-pAshupata sUtra-s but predated the kauNDinya bhAShya with the narrative of shiva animating a brAhmaNa’s body.

development	text of first appearance
bahurUpI, rudragAyatrI	kR^iShNa yajurveda
worship of rudra as a great god	nIlarudra, shvetAshvatara
practice of yoga	shvetAshvatara
identification of rudra with puruSha of sAMkhya. brahman of vedAnta	shvetAshvatara, kena
rite of ash	atharvashiras
pAshupata vrata	atharvaveda parishiShTha-40
iconic worship of rudra	atharvaveda parishiShTha-40, baudhAyana gR^ihyasUtra-s, taittirIya AraNyaka 10
singing, music, dancing	atharvaveda parishiShTha-40
bearing lakuTa, daNDa, khaTvA~Nga	atharvaveda parishiShTha-40, ancestral saMnyAsopaniShat
pa~nchabrahma mantra-s	taittirIya AraNyaka 10, baudhAyana gR^ihyasUtra-s, AV-mahanArAyaNa, pAshupata sUtra-s
li~Nga worship/wearing	taittirIya AraNyaka 10, pAshupata sUtra-s, mahAbhArata
govrata/mR^igavrata	pAshupata sUtra-s, mahAbhArata, ancestral saMnyAsopaniShat
simulated madness/huddukAra	pAshupata sUtra-s, mahAbhArata, ancestral saMnyAsopaniShat
shiva animating brAhmaNa’s corpse	kauNDinya bhAShya
lakulIsha and his iconography	purANa-s

footnote 1: In our reckoning the first proto-pAshupata layer is represented by the late vedic material such as the shvetAshvatara (early first layer; of course the parallel nIlarudra is drawn from the AV-P saMhitA itself ) and atharvashiras (late first layer; perhaps also includes the sAmavedic kena). The pAshupata ritual of the AV-parishiShTha appears in the form of sUtra-like prescriptions and might correspond to a pashupata practice immediately subsequent to the first layer. This was then followed by the pAshupata system described in the great epic. The system in the AV-pari 40 also appears to represent a precursor of the system expounded in the pAshupata sUtra-s. (see above for further discussion).

On biodiversity of Indians: the story again

A principle component analysis using a panel of 93 ancestry informative SNPs. Modified from :BMC Genetics 2009, Nassir et al. It shows how with these markers one can distinguish races such as African, Western Eurasian, Eastern Eurasian, Oceanian and Native American. But Indian are difficult to separate from Western Eurasians.

The leukosphere and its sepoys headed by the subversionists of madhyama mlechCha-desha of krau~nchadvIpa have been consistently trying to erase the identity of Hindus by foisting upon us such despicable identity-masking descriptors such “South Asia”. Yet the Hindu people comprise about a 6th of our species. Their genetics, linguistics and prehistory have been intensely studied, yet there remain many lacunae in our understanding of their origins. As of 2009 CE more than a decade of molecular studies has been completed on the Indian genomes. We shall briefly look at these findings to see if they can be reconciled with linguistic and archaeological data.

The genetic affinities of Indians as currently understood can be succinctly presented thusly:
1) The Indians as a whole form a rather distinctive group of humans that are well differentiated in genetic terms from Western (e.g. Europeans) as well as Eastern Eurasian peoples (e.g. Chinese, Japanese etc).
2) Yet, if we look at total ancestry based on the resultant signal from biparental markers we observe the Indians to be closer to Western Eurasian than to Eastern Eurasians.
3) However, if one looks at uni-parental markers we see the following pattern:
3.1- The Y-chromosomal affinities of Indians are greater to Western-Eurasian than Eastern Eurasians.
3.2- The Mitochondrial DNA affinities of Indians are greater to Eastern Eurasians than Western Eurasians.
4) Amongst Indians, irrespective of whether one looks at uniparental or biparental markers, the upper castes have greater affinity to Western Eurasians than to Eastern Eurasians. But this effect is most pronounced for Y-chromosomal data. Amongst Indians, highest affinity to Eastern Eurasians is seen only amongst tribals.

The cultural/linguistic situation may be summarized thusly:
1) The majority of Indians speak an Indo-European language of a single subfamily (Indo-Aryan), a language family they share with a large fraction of the Western Eurasians. Another major language family amongst Indians is Dravidian, which is unique to India.
2) Majority of Indians, irrespective of the language they speak, followed Indo-European cultural practices at least until recently and the survival of the most archaic Indo-European traditions is only seen in India.
3) Indo-Aryan as well as Dravidian shows evidence for a linguistic substratum from which each language acquired a large number of plant, animal and agricultural terms.

The chief archaeological issues might be summarized thusly:
1) India appears to have supported a microlithic hunter-gatherer population by around 30,000 y BP.
2) India appears to represents a zone of early independent domestication of various crops such as rice, millets, and certain lentils.
3) Farming and animal husbandry practices appear early in the NW of the subcontinent.
4) The same NW region shows a subsequent emergence of early regionalized large scale settlements starting around 5000-4500 BCE. By 2600 BCE these regional settlements in the NW had integrated into a massive culturally pretty uniform urban civilization – the IVC/SSVC. This civilization flourishes rather undisturbed for about 700 years during which some materially connected Chalcolithic civilizations appear in the interior of the sub-continent. At its peak it spans from the banks of the Oxus to the banks of the Godavari
5) Starting around 1900 BCE to around 1000 BCE the IVC sites in the NW declined and the population moved carrying aspects of the culture to the Ganga-Yamuna Doab and into Gujarat. Eventually the urbanization considerably declined or vanished until a second vigorous urbanization around 600 BCE.

If viewed at this level of granularity a relatively consistent picture can be constructed. Both genetics and linguistics point to an intimate connection between the Indian people and Western Eurasians rather than with Eastern Eurasians, except of the mitochondrial DNA. Both Neolithic and chalcolithic developments on the Indian subcontinent begin in the Northwest of the subcontinent and spread inwards. Taken together these observations imply that there has been a flux of people from the NW in waves who have notably contributed to both the linguistic and cultural affinities of modern Indians. This flux appears to have been either male dominated or the incumbent males from NW practiced hypergyny with the native females belonging to an older population closer to the modern Eastern Eurasians. The correlation between caste hierarchy and the genetic affinities to western Eurasians strongly supports that the idea the carriers of the Indo-Aryan language were a major component of this human wave which spread developments from the NW into the subcontinent.

But this neat picture is definitely muddied when looks at several specifics:
1) The R1 lineages are major Y-chromosomal haplotypes shared between Indians and western Eurasians. However, the studies on the diversity of the R1 lineages seem to suggest that their diversity is greatest in India. This at face value would suggest an efflux rather than influx from Western Eurasia. However, the reality may be more complex – involving a very early (pre-Indo-European efflux) followed by an influx of Indo-Aryan.
2) The IVC shows few signals that are compatible with it being Indo-Aryan e.g. rarity of depictions of horses which are central animals in the earliest Indo-Aryan text the R^igveda. At the same time there is no evidence for a cataclysmic end of the IVC at the hands of the Indo-Aryans. Yet, the spread of the IVC and the linked inner chalcolithic culture closely overlap with the historical spread of Indo-Aryan. The age of the earliest Indo-Aryan texts, despite baseless claims of white Indologists to the contrary, cannot be placed after the core IVC period. This IVC vs Indo-Aryan discordance remains a major problem in Indian history.
3) The IVC graffiti continues to confuse – is it a script or not remains unclear? Hence the corollary, namely the IVC language remains intractable. So despite certain recognizable Indic features we remain in the dark about the IVC/SSVC. I do suspect that the language X that appears as a substratum in Indo-Aryan and Dravidian might indeed be the original IVC but at some point it underwent a conversion to Indo-Aryan. When this happened remains entirely intractable yet.
So we may call the glass either half-full or half-empty – a personal choice. But in practical terms, we find Indian researchers exhibiting enormous intellectual insufficiency in handling these problems: Archaeologists display misunderstanding of comparative linguistics and textual studies. Linguists are non-existent or display a fundamental lack of understanding of the texts from which they get their languages. Biologists show a lack of understanding of texts, linguistics and culture. Add mlechCha-s with agendas and the dead weight of conformity to this mix and the result is fog.

sa~NketA

OM sarva-DAkinI-AvR^itAyai-sa~Nketayoginyai namaH

smArta-kaula intersections

The uttarabhAga of the brahmANDa purANa contains a large body of shrIkula tAntrika material. Some tAntrika-s mention that this section contains the dharma for the kaula practitioner. Other tAntrika-s hold that the tame views presented here are still a sign of duality which a genuine practitioner of kulAchara might transcend. Clearly, the emphasis here is on activities for a smArta brAhmaNa or one from any of the other varNa-s who is affiliated with smArta authority, but wishes to perform sAdhana-s and upAsana-s prescribed in the kaula shAstra-s. This is thus the bR^ihaspati dharma as adapted for a smArta practicing the tAntrika krama-s of the said shAstra-s. This should not be confused with the activities of a sAdhaka who *is* a kaula and considers other shAstra-s as pashu shAstra-s. For example regarding liquors we encounter the following injunctions:

paiShTikaM tAlajaM kairaM mAdhUkaM guDasaMbhavam |
kramAn-nyUnataraM pApaM tadarddhArddhArddhatastathA ||
kShatriyAdi trivarNAnAm AsavaM peyam uchyate |
strINAm api tR^itIyAdi peyaM syAd brAhmaNIM vinA ||

The liquors are generally classified as a beer, toddy, coconut toddy, mead and sugar cane liquor. A brAhmaNa male is prohibited from drinking these. A woman from the remaining three varNa-s might drink liquors except beer and toddy. Here again a brAhmaNa woman is proscribed from drinking any liquor.

The bR^ihaspati dharma recognizes that in kaula rituals liquor is used. But here again it is rather clear regarding a smArta brAhmaNa being forbidden from using it:
lakShmIH sarasvatI gaurI chaNDikA tripurAMbikA |
bhairavo bhairavI kAlI mahAshAstrI cha mAtaraH ||
anyAshcha shaktayas tAsAM pUjane madhu shasyate |
brAhmaNastu vinA tena yajed vedA~Nga pAragaH ||

The shakti-s mentioned include tripurAMbikA, the bhairava-bhairavI yAmala and kAlI among others, covering the shrIkula, kAlikula and generically the bhairvAchara derived from the bhairavatantra-s.

The same bR^ihaspati smR^iti also recognizes the fact that in the kula ritual maithuna needs to be observed. In this context it gives two shloka mantra-s. The first of these to viShNu and lakShmI can be used by one even without shAstra-j~nAna so that his acts of maithuna become mantra-karman-s:
sarvAtmako vAsudevaH puruShastu purAtanaH |
iyaM hi mUlaprakR^itir lakShmIH sarva-jagat-prasUH |
pa~ncApa~ncAtma-tR^iptyarthaM mathanaM kriyatetarAm ||

A person well-educated in the shAstra-s might observe maithuna as a part of kula worship; however, only with the svastrI and not on prohibited days using the second mantra:
iyam aMbA jagad-dhAtrI puruSho .ayaM sadAshivaH |
pa~ncaviMshati tattvAnAM prItaye mathyate ‘dhunA ||

The possibility of animal sacrifice and meat consumption in the context of bhairavAchara is recognized by similarly providing mantra-s to make them permissible acts. But here again meat is proscribed for a brAhmaNa except in life and death circumstances. But the slaughter of the pashu for the shAkta ritual might be done by the other varNa-s affiliated with smArta tradition using the shloka mantra if he wishes to be free of pApa:
shivodbhavam idam piNDamatyatha shivatAM gatam |
udbudhyasva pasho tvaM hi nAshivaH sa~nchivo hyasi ||
IshaH sarva-jagat-kartA prabhavaH pralayas tathA |
yato vishvAdhiko rudrastena rudro .asi vai pasho ||

While retaining the proscriptions on brAhmaNa-s while engaging the kula rituals, this bR^ihaspati smR^iti is unorthodox in certain ways i.e. it makes huge concessions to accommodate Aryanizing tribals who build irrigation works, temples of shiva and viShNu and set up agrahAra-s. The smR^iti gives an example of such a meritorious tribal woman who was even given the dIkSha of the shatarudrIya by a smArta brAhmaNa.
AM hrIM kroM sa~Nketayoginyai namaH ||

somAykhyAbhisaMbodhi

Long ago in the summer of the year before the ghora raNa of dvAdashAnta we were acquiring new vidyA-s for the great pursuit into which we were to dive a year later in the quest for the unknown. We were unharmed by roga and just before the peak of our youthful prowess. The waves of life were yet to bear us away into the swirling mahodadhi. We slept early those days and a little around 11.00 PM we were awakened by the stirring of the bewitching yakShiNI ullAsa-mekhalA, who was much like the most glorious yakShiNI nilalohita-mekhalA, who saved us from the noose of vaivasvata which was literally dragging us to our samAdhI at the floor mahAmbhodhi. That most powerful yakShiNI nilalohita-mekhalA, who is like one made of the substance of ana~Nga, rati and tR^iShA, after having taken us out with her ivory-like arm with a strength of 1000 elephants had then shown us the path to our greatest victories. But on the day after the stirring of ullAsa-mekhalA we went on a path that has no end. At around 10 AM on that day we mounted our faithful gardabha and rode to the foot of the vAnara-parvata. Then we tied our gardabha to our usual tree there and walked towards the foot of viNmUtra parvata. Then we entered the gaNakashAla and took the steps up to the terrace of that building. While our fellow travelers were all at the shastra-shAla practicing their weapons for the impending raNa, we witnessed the play of natural selection in the forest patch below us as the sun was repeatedly veiled by the clouds and released. To our surprise 4 kanA-s, who are like mada of soma to the eyes, appeared on the terrace. We thought our prayoga was complete and successful. But the foremost of those, who was like a bhaTTArikA among jana-s stepped forth from the rest and said: “Here are kanduka-netrI, tIkShNa-tripathikA kUrmastanI and ArjavakeshI. They do not understand what you and I know. Even if all your friends are gone I alone will be there. But this quest of ullAsa-mekhalA will not be completed. We shall both be on the path of the sow in the same year of our life”.

Sharada said: “you will certainly write about the many interesting things we waded into. Here are some sweets—I made 1 kg of them and bought another kg. CT and I had gone to feed the pigs these sweets. These are what remain. Take them with you but do not eat them at once.”
I: Will I know those which do not end in 4*ThaH.
S: My niece asked the same, they are there, the brAhmaNa’s lore. Remember not the yakShinI first but the yoginI.

Some philological considerations on Indic transmissions to Uighurs and Mongols

The vaiShNava had brought my attention to a fragment of a text on vArAhI sAdhana of the brAhmaNa shrIdhara that was transmitted to both the Uighurs and the Chingizid Mongols. It described the yoginI-s in the AvaraNa of eka-virA vajravArAhI. It presented a number of interesting philological features that lead us to the study in greater detail of the material collected by Shogaito in his analysis of Uighur and Mongolian vocabularies:

Sanskrit	Uighur	Mongolian
chakravegA	cakira-a-vigi	cagr-a-bigi
khaNDarohA	kanta-roxi	khaNDarohi
mahAvIryA	maxa-viry-a	mahA-biry-a
suvirA	suviri	subiri

Other words:

Sanskrit	Uighur	Mongolian
chitra	chitri	citiri
brAhmaNa	biraman	biraman
kalpa	kalp	galb
preta	prit/pirit	birit
shloka	shlok	silüg
vajra	vcir	vcir
virupAkSha	virupakshi	virubagsi

Then we have the names of various deities:

Sanskrit	Uighur	Mongolian
mahAdeva	maxadivi	maqadivi
Aditya	aditya	naran (Mon)
soma	soma	saran (Mon)
bR^ihaspati	barxasuvadi	briqasbadi
vaishravaNa	bishaman	bisman
buddha	burxan	purghan
garuDa	garudi	garudi
asura	asuri	asuri
gandharva	gandarvi	gandarwi
mahAsena	maxaseni	maqasini

E.g. of an Uighur text with recognizable words of Sanskrit origin (from an inscription near Beijing from the reign of Toghun Temür):
abitalI shaki-munili sarva-vitñeli
akshobili vcirapaninïN besh ugush mantalï
akshobi: akShobhya; sarvavitñe: sarvavij~nA; shaki-muni: shAkya-muni; mantal: maNDala; vchirapani: vajrapAni

One systematic rule concerning the endings appears to result in Sanskrit>Uighur: a>i. Shogaito observers that this is not the case with other Altaic languages like Mongolian if they directly acquire a word from Sanskrit or via a Tibetan intermediary. Interestingly, when Tocharian (an Indo-European language that geographically overlapped with Uighur before the destruction and absorption of the Indo-Europeans by the Turkic peoples) absorbs a word from Sanskrit we observe an a>e at the terminal. Likewise when Tocharian absorbs a Sanskrit word as an “inanimate” gender it elides the terminal:
e.g. shAriputra>shAriputre; pAramitA> pAramit;
Thus, it appears that Uighur initially acquired its Sanskrit loans from Tocharian as the Turks over ran the Indo-Europeans (of mummy fame). However, it continued to retain the Tocharian type terminal transformations, which explains the transformation of the Sanskrit words that were subsequently absorbed by Uighur. The endings in Mongolian in turn indicate that it subsequently acquired several already transformed Sanskrit loans from Uighur.

The rise and fall of the Uighur Empire

With the Uighurs in the news some people asked me about them. I decided to salvage one of my writings on their history, which I suspect is one of the more complete ones which I compiled from some obscure sources that very hard to even lay hands on these days.
…
Uighurs were the most powerful members of the Turkic Oghuz confederation, which included other clans such as the Khaljis. The yabghu of the Uighurs, Etmish Qutlugh Bilge, was a vassal of the Blue Turks when they were at the height of their glory under Kul Tegin and Bilge Kha’Khan. The pretender Özmish Khan seized the Blue Turk throne, three Altaic tribes, namely the Basmils from the region around modern Kucheng, the Uighurs from the region between the Kobdo and Selenga, and the Qarluqs from Eastern end of the Balkash Lake, tried to seize the empire of Mongolia. The Basmil made the first attempt by marching on Özmish Khan in 744 CE; they killed him in the battle and his capital Ötuegen was captured. They sold his severed head to the Chinese Emperor Hsuan Tsung hoping to obtain patronage from China. Confident of Chinese aid the lord of the Basmil Turks declared himself Kha’khan and the supreme ruler of all Mongolia. However, the Chinese governor Shuo Fang betrayed him when the yabghus of the Uighurs and Qarluqs made common cause with each other. This huge Uighur-Qarluq horde marched on Basmils in late 744. The Basmil army was beaten thoroughly by this coalition and its Kha’Khan was beheaded. The survivors were distributed as naukers amidst the victors or sold to the Chinese, and Basmil tribe was erased off the slate of Mongolian history. The Uighurs seized Mongolia and allowed the 3 Qarluq tribes to keep the western reaches of the original Blue Turk empire. The lord of the Uighurs crowned himself as Etmish Qutlugh Bilge Köl Kha’Khan, the supreme ruler of all Altaic tribes. He founded his capital, Ordu Baligh, some distance away from Ötuegen, and close to the original capital of the first Hun Kha’Khan, Motun Tegin. The lord of Qarluqs was asked to retain the junior title, Yabghu, in deference to the dominance of the Uighurs. Soon after this, Qutlugh Bilge ratified a treaty of peace and cooperation with the Chinese Emperor. Soon after this he died (747) and the empire passed to his youngest son, Kul Mayanchur Kha’Khan.

Mayanchur set up trading outposts with the Chinese where a large number of goods such as horses, yaks, camels, reindeer, fur, wool, silk, jade, metals, medicines and diamonds were traded. The Uighurs used their wider network of subject tribes to become a nexus point for goods. The gains made from this trade enabled Mayanchur to embellish their capital Ordu Baligh and build a second city in their original homeland, upstream of the Selenga River. Ordu Baligh was supposed to have a duodecagonal plan with 12 iron gates allowing an entry into the walled city. Inside the city there was vast area where the elite core of the Uighur army camped in gers (tents) in the classic Turko-Mongol style. There were also numerous more permanent stalls that constituted a huge flourishing bazaar. In the center of the city there was raised mound with a huge tent topped with gold in which the kha’khan of the Uighurs held court. The descriptions from the Chinese embassy in Ordu Baligh state that the Kha’Khan wore a ceremonial saffron robe and a rimmed hat with fur ear flaps. He was surrounded by a heavily armed squadron of bodyguards, which included of some of most elite warriors in his army, and held discussions regular with his administrators and army staff. There were embassies from various Turkic tribes, Chinese, Tibetans, Indians and Arabs that called upon the Kha’Khan to negotiate trading deals. This point clearly illustrates the power the Uighurs gained by taking control of the Central Asian trading hubs. They also set up a courier service throughout Mongolia and other conquered domains. These developments allowed the Uighur reap the best of their nomadic steppe world as well as those of the settled civilizations.

In 751 CE the Chinese armies faced huge defeats in Talas at the hands of the Qarluqs led by yabghu Tun Bilge and the Moslem Arabs, and in the South at hands of the Thais. At this point An Lu-shan, a general whose father was an Iranian from Sogdhiana and his mother a Mongol from the tribe of the Khitans, gathered a large army of Mongols and Chinese adventurers and marched on the Tang capitals of Loyang and Changan. The Chinese emperor sent a mighty army under his Altaic general Qoshu Khan to save his throne. However, Lu-shan routed the Tang army, captured Qoshu Khan and subsequently executed him. By 755 CE he had captured the two Chinese capitals and crowned himself emperor. The imperialist Chinese emperor, Hsuan Tsung’s empire lay in shambles: within his lifetime had raised China to its greatest heights and now he was beaten and fled for his life to Szechwan. He died there in despair and was succeeded by his son Su-tsung. He humbly sought the aid of the Uighur Kha’Khan to relieve him from the march of An Lu-shan. Mayanchur seeing an opportunity to meddle in Chinese affairs offered to help. He came down with his Uighur cavalry and besieged Changan and forced An Lu-shan to relinquish the city. Then he attacked Loyang before Lu-shan could act and occupied it. However, after having taken the city Mayanchur refused to move out and started seizing property within the city. The Chinese emperor paid him fine of gold and 20000 rolls of pure silk before he agreed to relinquish the city. He also took the Chinese princess as a wife and returned to Mongolia after receiving the promise that the Chinese would annually send him the same amount of silk and gold thenceforth. In the following year the Uighurs decided to restore the full extant of the unified Turkic empire, as under the Blue Turks, and attacked the Kirghiz to the north. The Kirghiz apparently were trying to contact the Chinese, Arabs and Tibetans for trade relationships. The Uighurs rightly saw this as a potential threat to both their military and economic dominance of central Asia. Mayanchur Kha’Khan led a great Uighur army of about 70,000 horsemen against the Kirghiz. He first raided and destroyed all the trading outposts of the Arabs and Tibetans set up in connivance with the Kirghiz. Then the Kirghiz were chased by the Uighur army in the direction of Siberia, where a fierce encounter took place between them. The Kirghiz army of 50,000 slaughtered completely by the Uighurs, their Khan was killed and replaced by a pliant chief who assumed a junior title as a servant of the Uighurs. In 759 CE Mayanchur died after heavy drinking at some celebration. He was succeeded by his son Tengri Bögü, who decided to inaugurate his reign with an invasion of China. He was asked by both An Lu-shan and Su-Tsung to come to aid them. However, he decided to act as per his own agenda. On November 20th 762 CE, Tengri Bögü’s cavalry force of invaded China and having captured the city of Loyang, went on to massacre its population. Several people fled into two gigantic Taoist temples in the city for shelter. The Uighurs surrounded them and burnt them down and killed the fugitives by showering arrows on them. They then devastated the countryside, gathered all that they could carry, and sent off trains of booty to Mongolia. They are said to have extracted 20 cattle, 200 sheep and 300 Kgs of rice each day from the Chinese population, resulting in famine. Finally the Uighur Kha’Khan decided to leave China after forcing on the Chinese ruler an agreement where by the Chinese would trade any goods the Uighurs wanted at a price set by them. Any Chinese trader passing through Central Asia also had to pay a hefty fine to Uighurs.

During his stay in China, the Kha’Khan met several Manichaeists who had fled from the from the ex-Iranian lands of Soghdiana under the onslaught of the Islamic Jihad. Their syncretic religion easily accommodated his Turko-Mongol pantheon, as is, and impressed him with their cosmology and astrology. The Kha’Khan became a convert to Manichaeism and made it his state religion. He underwent a profound change like ashoka and gave up eating meat, drinking alcohol and even banned diary products. His peaceful ways and enlightened reign brought great prosperity to Central Asia, but at home in Mongolia the ban on alcohol was not all well received. There were several complaints from the shocked pastoral peoples, unused to a life without the traditional Kümiss. The Kha’Khan’s cousin, Tun Baga Tarkhan, gained confidence of the disgruntled chiefs of the Uighur army who were disturbed by the injunction to lay down their arms. In 779 CE as the Kha’Khan was raptly hearing a lecture on Manichaeism in his pavilion, Tun Baga Tarkhan led a large force of rebels who beheaded the Kha’Khan, his relatives and close followers. However, the transition was not smooth; Tun Baga faced several rebellions throughout his reign. He tried to divert the Uighur attention outwards through an invasion of Pei-ting where the Chinese general Yang Hsi-Ku was killed, and subsequently they seized Kucha. They also raided the West and grabbed the territory of the Qarluqs. Then a Uighur army led by their general El Ugesi invaded their feudatories, the White-clothed Turks (survivors of the Blue Turk tribe) and tried to annex their territory. At this point the White-clothed Turks took the help of the Tibetans and formed a firm front against the charging Uighur cavalry. The Uighurs simultaneously faced with rebellion in Mongolia and a counter-attack by the Qarluqs on their Western flank. This resulted in a massive victory for the Tibetans who advanced unstopped to take the city of Khotan. Tun Baga died in 789 leaving the Uighurs shaken on all fronts. They elected the royal Bulmish Qülug Bilge as the grand Kha’Khan and his valiant son Qut Bulmish Alp Bilge as the commander of the army. He restored order in the Uighur realm by restoring Manichaeism and adapting it to fit the tastes of the Mongolian population. He also advocated tolerance of other religious streams. The Indian ambassadors to his court obtained sanctions to construct temples in the vicinity of Khotan that had a large number of Indian vaishyas. A temple of rudra was constructed in Dandan-uliq and temples to indra and the tathAgata vairochana in Balawaste. Wooden slabs from the former with images of rudra and umA survive to this date. He, however, strengthened the army and advocated the return of very aggressive military activity. He first pounded the Qarluq Turks and drove them away from his western flank.

Then in autumn of 791 CE he sent his son to conquer the Tibetans. Seeing the massive Tibetan army of around 150,000 marching into central Asia, the Uighur prince first decided to draw them into an ambush. The Tibetans formed an alliance with the Qarluq and attacked the western Chinese city of Ling Chow. The Uighurs clamped down on them after they entered the city and slaughtered their army and took away their cattle (mainly Yaks). The Tibetans survivors were sold in the Chinese markets. The Uighur Tegin then went on to attack Pei Ting in December 791 and captured the Tibetan commander Rgyal Sum. In 792 CE, prince Qut Bulmish led an Uighur cavalry of 50,000 to invade Tibet. The Tibetans sought the aid of the Qarluqs again, but they were beaten badly. Tens of thousands of Tibetans and Qarluqs were encircled by the Uighur archers and were nearly entirely exterminated. Then the Uighurs invaded the Tibetan-held city of Qocho and captured it easily defeating the Tibetans yet again. The Tibetans did not give up and tried to counter-attack by sending an invasive force against Kucha, but the Uighur Kha’Khan led his archers to spectacular win against them. The Tibetans tried to flee to the fort of Aqsu but here the Uighur Tegin ambushed them and the Tibetan army was massacred to man in the battle that ensued. With that the Tibetan aspirations in central Asia were smothered. Bulmish Qülug Bilge died in 795 CE and was succeeded till 808 CE by a series of his brothers. In 808 CE his son, the commander of the Uighur army and the hero of many battles, ascended the throne under the full dynastic name Ai Tengrida Qut Bulmish Alp Bilge Kha’Khan. He was hailed as the “celestial Kha’Khan” and led the Uighurs to their military successes. His deeds were celebrated in the stone inscriptions on the west bank of the Orkhon River in central Mongolia in Old Altaic, Middle Iranian and Chinese. He inaugurated his reign with a plundering invasion of Tibet and followed it up with the seizure of the cities of Kan Chow and Liang Chow west of the Yellow River of China. The Kha’Khan also made the Chinese Emperor build Manichaeist temples in China and threatened action in the event of their persecution under Chinese Legalism. The Kha’Khan had the Iranian script formalized for the Uighur dialect and introduced the printing press in his domains. Thus, the once illiterate nomadic Altaic tribesmen made great strides in producing a range of documents on various religious and secular topics. Amidst these, a text of particular interest is an illustrated one for the worship of the Hindu deities, brahmA, viShnu, shiva, kumAra and gaNapati within a Manichaeist framework. There are also a number of illustrated texts with the nAstika jAtaka tales.

In 813 CE the Kha’Khan led several conquering expeditions south of the Gobi Desert and across the west to TokMak near the Issyk Kul Lake. It was at this point that the news reached the Kha’Khan the Arabs were savagely persecuting the Manichaeist, and killing or converting them forcibly to Islam. At the same time he also noted that subjugated Qarluq and Tibetans were trying to make common cause. So in 820 CE Qut Bulmish decided to conduct a massive campaign to simultaneously destroy the Qarluqs and the Arabs. Moslems were executed in the Uighur realm in retaliation, and the horses were fattened over autumn in Mongolia in preparation for the great westward thrust. An Uighur cavalry of several tens of thousands set out from Ordu Balig in a vast crescent-shaped formation sweeping across the steppes. The Uighurs first crossed the longitude of the Issykul through a southern route and fell upon the Qarluq army and their Tibetan auxiliaries. The Qarluqs tried to pin the Uighurs down against a tributary of the Syr Darya, but the Uighurs dallied and resorted to a diversionary tactic by sending a smaller force to draw the Qarluq Turks away. The Qarluqs and a Tibetan cavalry of about 50,000 made some crucial tactical errors and found themselves encircled by the Uighurs. Seeing the Qarluq center being stretched, Qut Bulmish pressed with a cavalry charge armed with maces, spears and sabers. Using lassoes they dragged down the Qarluqs and slaughtered them by attacking them at close quarters. The Tibetans were brought down by the Uighur archers and the survivors fled in all directions. The Uighurs then dallied to distract the Arab holy warriors in Ferghana and Ushrusana. In spring of 821 CE, the Uighur Kha’Khan forded the Syr Darya and attacked the first Arab army led by Ahmed ibn Assad. The Arabs fell prey to the usual feigned retreat trick and were annihilated by the Uighurs. The Uighurs restored the property of the Manichaeists and looted the Arab treasuries. Then the Uighur army appeared to move further west but suddenly turned north to cross the Sughda River and seized Ushrusana. Here, the Ghazis under Yahya ibn Assad declared a Jihad on the Uighurs but were crushed by the latter and retreated in total chaos. Having raided the Arab cities thoroughly the Uighur Kha’Khan returned to Mongolia, rich in booty. After having raised the Uighurs to the greatest glory Qut Bulmish, the celestial Kha’Khan died. He was succeeded by Kün Ulugh Bilge Kha’Khan who consolidated his father’s gains by strengthening frontiers and signing a peace pact with the Chinese through marriage alliance and keeping up the hostilities with the Arabs.

During the reign of his successor Alp Külug Kha’Khan in 839 CE there was heavy snow and famine triggering popular discontent in the Uighur regime. The Kirghiz who had been subjugated by the Uighurs were the worst affected. The Uighurs stoked the flames with their savage handling of the Kirghiz rebellion. The Kirghiz lord declared himself a Kha’Khan. After a sacrifice and a feast he took an oath to exterminate the Uighurs as revenge for their great Kirghiz campaign of 758 CE in which a Kirghiz army of approximately 50000 had been crushed. The Kirghiz started assembling a large army between the Ob and the Yennesei, when a disgruntled Uighur general defected to the Kirghiz and provided crucial information for an invasion of the Uighur heartland. In 840 CE the great Kirghiz army of several tens of thousand horsemen invaded Ordu Baligh, and it is remarkable the powerful Uighur war-machine collapsed so completely against it. It was overwhelmed by the Kirghiz and is said to have “drowned in blood”. Alp Külug Kha’Khan fought relentlessly till the very end and after his horse was killed he was captured and beheaded. His grand golden tent was looted and ripped apart, and Ordu Baligh was razed to ground. The Kirghiz then seized all other Uighur cities in Mongolia and burnt them down completely. A Chinese observer noted: “The Uighurs were blown away all over the barbarian land”. Some fled towards the Qarluq lands they had captured, but were killed by the Qarluqs. Others fled to Tibet, where the Tibetans long seeking revenge captured them and handed back to the Kirghiz. The 13 elite clans fled to China and were arrested or driven back. All the Manichaeist temples in China were demolished and the priests executed. Other groups fled to Agni, Kucha and Qocho and some of them were overwhelmed and assimilated by the Moslems. The surviving Uighurs finally rallied back and established 3 Uighur principalities: 1) The Kanchow Uighur kingdom 2) Qara Khanid kingdom 3) the Qara Khoja Kingdom. The first of these was destroyed by the Tibetan tribes of Tangut and Xia-Xia during their expansion into central Asia in the 1100s of CE. The Qara Khanids were a mixed group that included the Qarluq Turks and was converted to Islam in the 10th century. They were involved in an epic struggle with the Ghaznavid Turks under the savage Mahmud Ghaznavi. The Mongols of the Qara Kitai Empire destroyed the Qara Khanid kingdom during their great conflict with the Islamic west. The last of these the Qara Khoja went on to found a tantric bauddha state under the model that was exported from India and continued the cultural renaissance of the Uighurs, producing several works of arts and medicine. They became vassals of Chingiz Kha’Khan and his successors and were important officials of the Mongol empire and gave them their first script. Finally, in 1397 CE, Khizr Khawaja and Timur-I-lang declared a Jihad on them, extirpated the Qara Khoja Uighur kingdom and converted the survivors to Mohammedanism.

In terms of cultural achievements the Uighurs were the most advanced of the peoples of Mongolia. Their unique urban-nomadic civilization, in many ways resembled the early Indo-Iranian states, that were founded millennia earlier, and they were again poised like the Blue Turks to take Turkic civilization to new levels. But they fell to the vicissitudes of the steppes and the Kirghiz promptly returned Mongolia to its old nomadic pastoralism. However, the survivors, of this last great group of literate of Altaic peoples of the early Middle Ages, lived on and passed their script and skills in government to Mongolic tribes of the Khitan and those of Chingiz Kha’Khan, and contributed to their spectacular success. Today they are warriors of the Dar ul Islam, which had ironically smothered their bauddha tAntric state.

A fine point in kR^iShNa yajur vedic recitation

For a general account of vedic accents and their oral rendering one might refer to the following: vaidika svara-s.

The recitation of the R^igveda, the vulgate atharvaveda and kANva shAkha of the shukla yajur veda follow a generally similar pattern over much of bhArata-varSha. The nambuthiri-s of the chera country, especially while reciting the RV follow a highly derived set of rules that are encountered nowhere else. The widespread mAdhyaMdina-s and the Orissan paippalAda-s have largely lost the original svara-s and have only a pseudo-intoned recitation. The common pattern of the RV, the AV-vulgate and kANVa-SYV (not their shatapatha brAhmaNa) is the elongation of all long vowels and anunAsika consonants with associated svarita-s. Further, all these traditions render short vowel svarita by raising the pitch and exaggeratedly stressing the vowel. A deviation from this latter trend in short vowel svarita-s is only encountered in the R^ivedin-s from the mahArATTa country. In evolutionary terms the general pattern shared by these recitations appears to be the ancestral state of the rendering of the vedic text (contra what some white indologists and their fellow travelers had mistakenly thought it was).

The kR^iShNa yajur vedic recitations that survive (taittirIya and maitrAyaNIya) or survived until recently (kaTha) differed from the above in that they do elongate all svarita-s with long vowel or anunAsika-s. They only elongate long vowel svarita-s if they occur next to a consonant. They also elongate the ‘M’ anunAsika next to a daNDa. But there are some fine points in these rules.
Rule 1: If a consonantal is at the ‘n’ at the end of word, and is preceded by a long vowel bearing a svarita, and is not generated by or engaged in a saMdhi, then it shall merely be rendered in a high pitch with a distinctive stress. It shall NOT result in elongation of the long vowel bearing the svarita.
However, if the consonantal ‘n’ is inside a word or linked in saMdhi then it shall cause the long-vowel bearing a svarita and preceding it to elongate.
udAharaNaM:
The following long vowel svarita-s in bold are not elongated but the ‘n’ after them stressed and raised in pitch:
…pibato janAn | (shata rudrIya last anuvAka)
An interesting case is when it is at the end of a word but not end of a sentence:
praghAsyAn havAmahe…(inTS1.8.3)
However, the following long vowels in bold with svarita-s are elongated:
sa ya eSho.antar hR^idaya AkAshaH | (in TU 1.13; svarita on Sha is due the abhinihita clause in the saMdhi between eSha and antar which in the KYV is rendered like a regular dIrgha svarita rather than as a kaMpa as in the RV or AV)
sendra yoniH | (in TU 1.13; here the consonantal n is inside a word).

In the KYV consonantal ‘n’ preceded by short vowel bearing a svaritA is not subject to nasal elongation as in the RV/AV/kANva-SYV tradition. However, there is such elongation under certain conditions.
Rule 2: If a consonantal ‘n’ occurs as part of a consonant cluster with two successive consonants (usually at n-s = n-th-s junctions) preceded by a short vowel svarita then the ‘n’ is nasally elongated.
udAharaNaM:
The nasally elongated ‘n’ in bold and the svarita in red
tasminth-suparNo (3rd trisuparNa mantra)
tasminth-sahasrashAkhe |(in TU 1.9)

Some notes on khecharI mudra

A sagittal section through the head of a normal human.

Hy-hypothalamus;Pi-pituitary; Po-Pons; Me-Medulla oblongata; T-tongue; kh-khaM, the place where the tongue should press in the khecharI mudra; rd- rAja danta.

Having performed vyomayAna we translocated to the most beautiful city of ratnapura on the shores of the paschima mahodadhi and occupied a room on the samudrataTa. There, while watching the purple sunset draped by the Russian volcano, we performed our saMdhyopAsana by pouring water from the raging waters of the sAgara as arghya. We then curled up to watch a remarkable documentary by a jaTAdhArI English baron called Jim Mallinson, which was recommended to us by Sharada. In the documentary Mallinson shows a temple of the sapta-bhagini from the ancestral regions of Sharada and R, but the actual icons in there are nine in number. Since we had done some investigation of the sapta-bhaginI cults in the regions around the city of our youth, Sharada asked us about the extra two images. But we got sidetracked by something else. Sir Mallinson seems to be a pretty interesting guy as he stated in the documentary that he was both a paraglider and the student of a text which I understood to mean the khecharI-vidyA. Checking him out on the web showed that he had indeed written a work on the khecharI vidyA that appears to be out of print now. We shall record some notes on the khecharI mudra here rather than talk about Mallinson’s documentary or the sapta-bhaginI cult and its evolution.

The khecharI mudra is a yogic practice of great antiquity emerging in late vedic stratum first represented in the maitrayaNIyopaniShad the only surviving portion of the maitrAyaNIya brAhmaNa in both manuscript and a precarious oral tradition. In this text the khecharI mudra is expounded by shAkAyanya to the magadhan king bR^ihadratha along with proto-“kuNDalini” yoga (MaiU 6.20-21). The khecharI mudra here is described as the great practice by which one has the experience of brahmaivAhamasmi, a key teaching of vedAnta. The practice was incorporated into the early classical yoga of epic period. Subsequently, it was acknowledged by the tathAgata as a means of achieving the state of a muni. It is clear that in one his sutta-s known as the nAlaka sutta (verse 38), in the mahAvagga of the suttanipAta, the tathAgata expounds the khecharI mudra just as in the upaniShad as the means of achieve the state of knowledge i.e. that of the muni. Thus, it becomes clear that khecharI was already well established in the yogic circles by the time of the tathAgata. Hence, it is not surprising that it continued in its popularity with the emergence of the shaiva mantra-mArga. That it was present in the common ancestor of shaiva mantra mArga is clarified by the fact that it is described in the archaic text of the kula system the kaulaj~nAna nirNaya as well as the saiddhAntika tantra-s.

But it was in the kaula streams the khecharI evolved into a distinct practice under that name with miraculous properties. In the kaulaj~nAna nirNaya it is described as a yoga which destroys diseases. Here for the first time the meditation on a multiplicity of gustatory sensations while performing the mudra is alluded to: when the yogin perceives a sweet taste he is able to reverse graying of hair and wrinkles; when he perceives the taste of milk he becomes amartya; when he perceives ghee he becomes svarAT. In the trika kaula system we find that it is described in greater detail incorporated into a meditation on the central trika goddess parA. Here too it is a means of destroying disease and decrepitude. The 21’st chapter of the mAlinIvijayottara states that the tAntrika invokes parA devI in the middle of a 16-spoked chakra, with the disc of he moon as its hub, in the midst of the void of the upper oro-nasal cavity – this is what is precisely meant by the term khaga in MVUT:
ShoDashAre khage chakre chandra-kalpita-karNike |
svarUpeNa parAM tatra sravanIm amR^itaM smaret || MVUT 21.2
Thus we see that the term khecharI comes from the fact the tongue moves to the kha the space of the upper oro-nasal cavity. The tantra goes on indicate that in the initial practice of the mudra the sAdhaka experiences a salty or iron taste (That this is default state can be easily verified by even merely moving the tongue backward in a regular person when having a clean mouth). By repeated practice the mudra he perceives a sweet taste and drinks that. Once he achieves the sweet taste he can perceive the tasting of all kinds of fluids he meditates upon, like blood, liquor, animal fat, ghee and milk.

In the subsequent yogic literature the khecharI mudra is even described as a means of holding of retas. It is said that a yogin who practices it does not have an outflow of shukra even when he is in coitus with a beautiful woman:
tenaiShA khecharI nAma mudrA siddha-namaskR^itA |
khecharyA mudrayA yasya vivaraM lambikordhvataH ||
binduH kSharati no yasya kAminyAli~Ngitasya cha |
yAvad binduH sthito dehe tAvan mR^ityu-bhayaM kutaH || dhyAnabindu 83-84
Further, from the shaiva stream, the khecharI also appears to have been transferred to the yoga of the pA~ncharAtra vaiShNava system (See below).

The classical standalone khecharI system came into its own relatively late, resting on the foundations of the shrIkula and the pashchimAmnAya tantra-s. The khecharIvidyA states that shiva first taught this system in various tantras such as the mahAkAla saMhitA (pashchimAmnAya), the glorious yoginIjAlashambara (shrIkula) and vishuddheshvara tantra-s. Then shiva adds that though these tantra-s cover the matter in different levels of details, it is the khecharIvidyA text which would provide a devoted description of the procedure. The holy nityAShoDashikArNava of the shrIkula again states that amongst the preceding tantra-s before the “arNava-ization” in the shrIkula stream were the YJS and ViSh. Thus, the khecharIvidyA in its classical form is an offshoot of the procedure proclaimed in the foundational kaula texts. It is here that the important mantra of the melaka is taught, which is supposed to be combined with the actual yogic practice of khecharI:
hrIM bhaM saM ShaM [paM] phaM saM kShaM ||
As per the khecharIvidyA the practice of the mantra is a must for attaining khecharI siddhI – this point is repeatedly mentioned and the mantroddhAra is given before the yogic procedures. The mantra itself of the form given above was current amongst my coethnics who practiced it in Thanjavur. However, I have seen a variant form which replaces the ShaM with a paM. This might also correspond to a variant uddhara, which I have seen, but was not able to completely comprehend due to the lack of clarity in the varga being indicated.

Then the khecharIvidyA text goes on to expound the practice of the khecharI mudra itself. Here we encounter the version that involves cutting of the frenulum linguae, something not found in the earlier texts. The text states that after having cleaned the palate for week by rubbing the yogin incises frenulum by a hair diameter using a sharp scalpel shaped like snuhI leaf. He then rubs the area with a mixture of rock salt and the pathyA plant. He repeats the procedure after 7 days and it is said that in 6 months he cuts of the frenulum. After that he wraps his tongue’s tip with a cloth and stretches it. After carrying out this exercise for 6 years he would have stretched his tongue long enough for the mudra. The text warns that he should do it very gradually and if he rushes with it he destroys his organ. Then he practices the entry of tongue behind the soft palate into the oro-nasal cavity of the pharynx. With 3 years of practice he is able to press the wall of the cavity well above the anterior arch of the atlas vertebra and reach the base of sphenoidal sinus. The yogin then may practice manthana. If he has siddhi of the khecharI mantra then he does not need churning, but if he can combine both then it is even better. In this he inserts a metal wire with a capsule at the end into to the nasal cavity with a thread and performing hR^idya prANAyAma he churns the capsule gently while focusing on the center of his eyebrows. He does this once a month. Then keeps pressing with his tongue the base of the sphenoidal sinus and licking the surface with his tongue in the act called the drinking of amR^ita. He focuses on the hypophysis and apparently stimulates it with the action of his tongue. When he tastes the amR^ita he gradually attains the siddhi-s of khecharI over several years of practice. These are described in hyperbolic terms: freedom from decrepitude, life stretched to 1000s of years, mastery of shAstra-s, knowledge of buried treasures and underground caves, dUradR^iShTi and dUrashravaNa, strength of 10000 elephants, success in chemistry and ability to repel abhichAra prayoga-s.

The vaiShNava version of khecharI that I have encountered is from the yoga section of the shANDilya saMhitA. In this text the khaM in the upper pharyngeal cavity is described as the seat of viShNu. The yogin meditates on it and performs the khecharI mudra largely as described in the khecharI vidyA text. In this consideration of shANDilya the khecharI mudra contains a mention of the cutting of the frenulum linguae as in the more mature shaiva texts. It also uses yoga terminology relating to the chakra-s and the meditation of viShNu in the sushumNa typical of the yoga of the shaiva tantra-s. We see an evolution of the khecharI and the associated yoga system within the shaiva tantra-s, but I have not encountered a parallel evolution in the pA~ncharAtra texts. So it seems that khecharI was transferred to the vaiShNava system relatively late from the shaiva system. However, I must stress that more careful examination of earlier vaiShNava saMhitA-s might change this picture.

To the outsider the hyperbole surrounding the khecharI mudra appears to give the impression of the whole thing being bogus. Some others say it has nothing to do with regular anatomy, but some kind of perceived or “yogic” anatomy. Hence they argue that its effect should not be considered in terms of regular anatomy. While I have nothing to say of the great siddhi-s mentioned in connection with the mudra, I am aware of yogin-s both vaiShNava and smArta (practicing shrIkulA tantra-s) who have practiced it, albeit without cutting their frenulum linguae. It is of central importance for their practice along with the triple bandha and is the basis for entering the state of chidAnanda or some say samAdhI. While I cannot speak for myself in this case, the reliable experience of the yogin-s suggests that the mudra has a very definitive physiological effect. These effects suggest that, though it might seem rather unbelievable, the khecharI mudra might stimulate parts of the brain that are adjacent to where the action takes place. This I suspect might account for the experiential aspects of their practice. More controversially it is conceivable that somehow the practice stimulates the hypophysis to release lutenizing hormone. I have not tested this hypothesis in anyway, but one cannot rule it out. In conclusion I believe that the khecharI is a real discovery of the Indo-Aryans that has been preserved as a central element of the tradition of yoga, while being refined through the ages. I must add that some practitioners of it do display some baffling capabilities (which insiders are well aware of) although none of this tested in any controlled way.

More on the tragic failure of the brahma

Wandering like an incorporeal observer in the midst of the mlechCha-s, chIna-s and other peoples, in the northern regions of madhyama mlechChadesha, I was reading the biographies of two of my renowned coethnics S. Chandrasekhar and GN Ramachandran (being a hybrid between earlier and later brahminical migrant streams from the north I can comfortably claim coethnicity with these who belong to the earlier migrant stream to the drAviDa country). Both their stories are fascinating but at the same time depressing to me. Their scientific explorations and experiences with the “other” (i.e. the mlechChAdi) is something I can identify with. Yet their dismal decadence in other directions is reflective of the tragic failure of our people, which is ironically highlighted by the contrast to what others see as their triumph.

While both SC and GNR’s existence have several commonalities, they are not the same and represent points at different parts of the spectrum. To get more points in the spectrum one could take the case of the poorly known paNDita Kameshwara Aiyar, the forgotten coethnic who translated Shakespeare into saMskR^ita in a devabhASha magazine he published early 1900s and the other notable scientist CV Raman. One may also more generally compare their lives with those of intellectuals from other parts of the country and other varNa-s: for example, one could take the case of the kShatriya from the Punjab, S. Chowla, a good friend of SC or the va~Nga kAyastha intellectual Jagadishchandra Bose or the shUdra scientist Gopinath Kartha from the chera country. Before exploring this spectrum we will look at some paradoxes in the existence of the former two.
GNR had not entirely lost his link to the foundations of his intellectual tradition; he cited the following verse:
purANam ity eva na sAdhu sarvaM |
na chApi kAvyaM navam ity avidyaM ||
The words of the poet often regarded as the greatest of the classical period. Our man took the lesson from the verse to be that of a struggle against established order and vindication of new ideas – a common conflict in science. He was also correct (in my opinion) in noting the multivalue logical nature of the syAdvAda of the nagna nAstika-s and the presence of an apparent precursor in the kena upaniShad. Yet, GNR was remarkably disconnected from his tradition in other ways – he was a patita-sAvitra and strongly repudiated performance of saMskAra-s for himself or his descendents.

SC was even more degenerate – even though he had learnt saMskR^ita he identified with the culture of the mlechCha-s (especially the English) rather than his own in various aspects of his life. His literary interests are the prime example of this – he appears to have fully soaked in the literature of English authors or other Europeans in translation, while at the same time rescinding that of his own after passing his college saMskR^ita exams [footnote 1]. His links to his substratum was a foundationless pastiche – he had considerable affinities for south Indian classical music. One may call that the pAsha of saMgIta yoginI – how else could someone so divorced from tAntrika underpinnings of the lyrics of a luminary of the system like muthusvAmI dIkShita still appreciate that saMgIta. But a remark made by him captures the essence of his situation (in some ways this might even be true even for many others among the bhArata-s who wander in the mlechChadesha-s): “I have not accepted fully the American way of life, the Americans have not fully accepted me or my way of life. However, I felt that I would be a greater misfit in India than I would be in the US.”

One might ask: So what was the issue with these great men? Why do I rant about their links to their culture? The point that struck me as tragic was their inability to make a difference in the larger scheme of things. For this we might look and history and how some of these men saw history. The western narrative has been that the secularized Abrahamistic principles allowed the emergence of an intellectual efflorescence which was sustained by their generally high IQ since the Middle Ages. In the process they appropriated the ancient thought of the Greeks and Romans, as though it was their own legacy, and incorporated it under an external façade of Abrahamism. Even this ancient classical thought did not come to them entirely directly – they acquired much of it from the world of their rival sister Abrahamism i.e. Mohammedanism which had swallowed it earlier from the Neo-Platonic heathens of Harran. Glancing through English or German fare from the late 1300s and early 1400s of CE we find that they were rather primitive in their thought – certainly not on par with the best of the coeval Hindu thinkers (for example one could look at intelligent men like Occam and Wycliff). I further postulate that it was not just reacquisition of classical thought via Islam that contributed to the education of the west, but also that its historic contact with Hindustan infused extraordinary new ideas, which caused an efflorescence of western thought in many ways. These possibilities of transmission are not entirely forgotten by the mlechCha-s. They accept the Islamic role albeit somewhat grudgingly. But accepting the heathen Hindu role is dangerous to their Abrahamistic scaffold. Hence, there is a general vector to deny this angle. In its more gross forms it takes the form of works like that of Murray that try to claim under the façade of objective research that all intellectual achievements of note were due to the mlechCha-s. There are more subtle attempts by indologists. Starting from Neugebauer, through Pingree and down to Pollock and Minkowski and their gaNa-s there is a movement to analyze Hindu knowledge systems that tries to show that (albeit very politely): 1) Hindus are idiots with the only things they came on their own were flat earths floating on mahodadhi-s or balancing gracefully on the hasti-skandha-s. 2) They needed Greeks, Chinese, Moslems and finally the West to deliver the most important ideas of their knowledge systems. What are normally thought to be uniquely Hindu elements, be it the valueless shUNya or the most obtruse viloma kAvya, they were all inspired by outsiders, be they Chinese or benevolent Meccan demons. 3) The tradition of Sanskrit (or for that matter it vulgar successors) is a dead one deserving a sympathetic post-mortem at the hands of these indologists. If it shows any signs of life it is surely a vetAla animating the much feared “Hindu fundamentalist” or even worse the “racist Brahmin”.

This issue that I have ventilated before on these pages is central to understanding the general failure of the brahma power that we were led to by the biographies of our coethnics. In historical terms the catastrophic military failure of the Hindus against the mlechCha-s in 1857 CE marked the beginning of the enforcement of the western narrative; to date a general awareness of its debilitating effects on the Hindu intellectual sphere is largely lacking [Footnote 2]. This is what lies at the heart of the failure of the brahma – the insolvency of the counter-attack in this fierce doxomachia that we as the natural leaders of Hindu society should be directing. While there are many aspects to the overall Hindu failure, such as the failure of kShatra or the military failure, the fragmentation of Hindu thought by regionalism and issues of more biological origin, I believe that in a doxomachia the brahma power being upheld is critical. One aspect I have been able to study closely is linked directly to the sociology of science or knowledge systems in general – something that our people rather completely failed to grasp and remain haunted by these deficiencies. This is where the biographies of the earlier mentioned coethnics shine light.

The creation of an ecosystem conducive to the generation and transmission of knowledge systems is essential for the intellectual growth of a group. After the collapse of traditional power centers following 1857 war the Hindu intellectuals, especially the brAhmaNa-s and to some degree other castes headed by the kAyastha-s, were without any support. However, due to their intellectual competence they entered the “world market” to compete in the apparently open field. As this happened, there were a succession of inspiring successes in the field of science – Ramanujam, Raman, the two Boses, Samarendranath Maulik, Chandrasekhar, Pancharatnam etc. But these pioneers were in a sense working in isolation:
1) they were cut off from the rest of the intellectual sphere inside their own cultural hemisphere; i.e. even though they were in the world market in science they had hardly any links to corresponding Indic intellectual sphere of other intellectual endeavors. In contrast, the Britons or other Europeans had a complete intellectual package inside which their science was embedded. Some creators of this European system were great polymaths of their culture e.g. JW von Goethe who was an intellectual precursor to Darwin and one of the greatest German poets of all times. The Europeans (and their American descendents) presented their intellectual system as a complete one with educational opportunities not restricted to science but other cultural, philosophical and artistic structures that closely interacted with science, even if some times antagonistically. Even though, as we have pointed out that Indic thought influenced major European intellectuals ( to name a few, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Mueller and even the antagonistic English intellectuals like Lyell) greatly, it was thoroughly assimilated within their own scaffold. In contrast the Indian scientists like those named above had no intellectual super-structure to turn to and felt the pressure to merge whole scale into the European one. In this context we see SC taking a dip into the European system, whereas GNR tried to find his own Indic scaffold, but having been partially subverted by the Western narrative could not complete the circle.
2) Most importantly the lack of the Hindu ecosystem for modern intellectual development was accompanied by the dispersion of the Hindu scientists working in the western academic framework. SC was given tenure later than less accomplished colleagues and paid lesser than them and this was not unique to him. Many of us know from first hand experience that even though we might have intellectual accomplishments that are easily measurable we get less for it than less-accomplished mlechCha-s. The mlechCha-s have their own networks and we are at best at the periphery of those – this enables them to control publications, flow of money for research and define “newsworthiness” of scientific discoveries. But very few Hindu scientists saw through any of this. They for a long time they foolishly thought that the mlechCha-s are fair or they are happy to get something because the situation in their own country is worse as the failure of the brahma is even more shocking. This was their biggest failure. The brAhmaNa scientists failed to first unite amongst themselves to create their own networks and then take over the natural mantle of the intellectual leadership of Hindu society. Thus, all we have become are slaves of the mlechCha-s or the slaves of the dasyu-s of bhArata.

Having created no natural ecosystem to reside in, Hindu intellectuals as group have failed to produce a system that can *independently* create and sustain knowledge at the highest and most competitive levels. Instead Hindu intellectuals are cannon fodder for mlechCha intellectuals erecting their towering pyramids. Like Tim’s dog Ram they wag their tail and yelp when a biscuit chucked by Tim lands beside their kennels and declare that they are not a cur but the great collyrium hued South Asian intellectual. In my pessimistic view if this not understood India is not destined for greatness but decline.

Footnote 1: On this point I was reminded by kalashajA stating when we were in college: “I do not know why I took this saMskR^ita. I fear I may even pull the plug in it and it is so strange – it appears as though Hindus cannot write a racy plot and instead spend all their effort in telling the most simple stories in such cloy and florid constructs.” Years later she has come around with a vengeance. Recently I passed over to her the kuvalayAnanda (a work of a famous coethnic of mine) – now she says that she finds reading it enjoyable- dwelling on the beauty (not syrupiness) of every word. SC had no such U-turn.

Footnote 2: There have been a few exceptions like the great Lokamanya Tilak (not surprisingly much vilified by the Indologists), the vaishya thinkers Swarup and Goel, and the arrogant but occasionally insightful Rajiv Malhotra.

deva yajana

We wandered like a bhogin in rati-given pleasure,
Like a brahma-rakSha we roamed, neither here nor there,
We became a kapAlin reciting the mantra-s of the 5 faces.
On one side was life with a path leading to glory,
On the other was the southern road, bloody and miry,
The wise know the decision at the fork to not be ours.

Hoping not to become the target of the god’s arrow we offered with the yajus of nAbhAnediShThA mAnava:
eSha te rudra bhAgo yaM nirayAchathAstaM juShasva vidergopatyaGM rAyas poShaGM sUvIryaGM saMvatsarINAG svastiM ||

The mixed soma that remains is the bhAga of rudra.
Wandering but performing the soma yAga in the mind, we said soma mixed with barley is that of the thunderer:
divaH pR^ithivyAH paryantarikShAth svAhA kR^itam indrAya taM juhomi ||

This the act of yaj~na. We make over the yaj~na to him who is the ya~jna, meditating on the soma to swell. He who covers the worlds with his strides reverence:
viShNo tvaM no antamaH sharma yachCha sahantya | prate dhArA madhuShchuta uthasaM druhate akShitaM ||

With the yAga performed in our minds as bhR^igu did, as apnavAna did, and as aurva did. He who does so experiences the vR^iShTi of the marut-s whose call is the maithuna of eternal bhoga:
udapruto marutastAGM iyarta vR^iShTiM ye vishve maruto junanti | kroshAti gardA kanyeva tunnA peruM tu~njAnA patyeva jAyA ||

Then even as the bhR^igu-s drove away makha he reverences the gods and absorb the luster of makha:
namo .agnaye makhagne makhasya mA yasho .aryAditya |
namo rudrAya makhagne namaskR^ityA mA pAhi |
nama indrAya makhagna indriyaM me vIryaM mA nirvadhIH ||

He casts the spell saying:
pratUrvan-nehy-avakrAman-nashastIH
rudrasya gANapatyAN
pUShNA sayujA saha

He sees the truth with:
mitraH saGMsR^ijya pR^ithivIM |
rudrAH saMbhR^itya pR^ithivIM |

The two lakulin-s: Arya and yavana

The late white indologist Daniel Ingalls, whose Asana is now occupied by “der Narr von Deutschland”, and who has spawned a brood of mlechCha indologists who have been prominent in misinforming the uninformed regarding Hindu traditions [footnote 1], once remarked:
“Probably no two traditions of philosophy differ more widely than those of classical Greece and India. It is only when we force our way through the logical surface to the seemingly illogical practices and goals of an earlier age that we can see similarities between the two cultures. These similarities, however, are sometimes so striking that the Indian evidence may help our understanding of Greece and the Greek our understanding of India. One gains such a reciprocal understanding, I think, from examining what I shall call the cults, meaning by this the sum of the practices and goals as opposed to the philosophy, of the Greek Cynics and the Indian Pasupatas.”
Thus, in a contradiction-riddled fashion Ingalls introduces his discovery of the relationship between the pAshupata shaiva-s and the Cynics (from kuon= dog). Another mlechCha scholar Thomas Mcevilley after him came much closer in grasping the Arya-yavana homology, but his prolix tome is so full of factual errors (Ancient Dravidian shaivAgama-s and a Dravidian origin for pAshupata-s!) that it only tarnishes the skeleton of truth in this thesis. The problem, as we have repeatedly stated, is that someone not befuddled by the odious Ibrahimi fog and not lacking understanding of the ancient heathen thought (like most modern mlechCha-s) should take up such studies.

That said we do agree that there is merit in Ingalls’ hypothesis for a connection between pAshupata and Cynics as graphically illustrated above by the images of the lakuTadhArin founders. While Ingall’s original work presents a number of contradictory ideas without laying them out as alternative hypotheses to be tested he does recognize many of the essential elements of this connection. Three general hypotheses might be proposed to understand this connection. 1) The out of Greece hypothesis: lakulIsha pAshupata emerged due to Greek cynicism being transmitted to India and being absorbed into older shaiva systems. 2) The lakulIsha pAshupata emerged in India and was adapted in via syncretism with older Greek thought. 3) The lakulIsha-s and cynics were products of an independent tradition absorbed by both Greeks and Hindus. Black Sea shamans, Middle Eastern Gilagameshists and the like have been proposed as this common source.

The main evidence supporting the first hypothesis goes thus:
-There is no mention of lakulIsha as a great pAshupata teacher in the mahAbhArata, which presents the first post-vedic material of pAshupata-s. He first appears with his students in the purANa-s.
-The pAshupata sUtra-s themselves do not clearly indicate the lakulIsha was their author, though the later tradition pAshupata tradition holds this view.
-There is inscription from the reign of chandragupta II vikramAditya in Mathura (380CE) regarding a pAshupatAcharya udita. He is mentioned to be the student of upamita who was the student of kapila. udita himself is described as 10th in line from kaushika. Some people have felt that this kaushika was the student lakulIsha (but note lakulIsha is not mentioned in this inscription) so by assign about 280 years for 10 generations they place lakulIsha in ~100 CE which is well after the Greek cynics. Some others state that there is an error in this estimate and there are two kaushika-s in the pAShupata list and place lakulIsha around 200 BCE. But this is also after the first Greek cynics
-The philological argument holds that lakulIsha is derived from Herakles:
Herakles>rakles>lakulIsha. In support of this it is stated that: 1) lakulIsha is not regularly derived from lakuTa inside saMskR^ita and 2) the word lakulIsha has many variants such as nakulIsha, lakulesha and lakulin. 3) An ectype of lakulIsha named musalendra has been stated to be his disciple. This name means bearer of a club, just like Herakles. The vedic rudra usually holds a bow rather than a club. Thus it is quite possible that the lakulIsha figure was adapted into the shaiva stream from a Greek cynical source.

Such syncretism is not surprising. We do know of the famous Greek bhAgavata Heliodorus who was a practitioner of some form of the pA~ncharAtra sect. On the other hand we know that at Nemrud Dagh there is Iranian-Greek syncretism where there Iranian verethraghna is explicitly identified with Herakles. So it is not impossible that in the zone of Gandhara where there is much evidence for Indic-Greek-Iranian fusion that the cynic cult centered on Herakles was absorbed. Further, we do have evidence in the form of the yavana-jAtaka and the paulIsha siddhAnta of Indic absorption of Greek ideas [Note how Paulos>paulIsha is similar to the proposed derivation of lAkulIsha from Herakles. We cannot be certain if this Paulos is the same of P. Alexandrinos the neo-Platonic astrologer].

Firstly, the key features for the out of India hypothesis are not apparent to many “main-stream” white Indologists and their fellow travelers as they tend to have ludicrous idée fixes on the dates of most Hindu texts – but we shall not waste time with those discussions here. The main points in support of this hypothesis are:
-There is a long history of pAshupataM that predates the emergence of cynicism among the Greeks. We note that it begins in the late vedic period in the form of the pa~nchabrahma mantra-s of the mahAnAryaNa upaniShad-s, and the shvetAshvatara and nIlarudra upaniShad-s. This is followed by the atharva-shiras, the pAshupata brAhmaNa and then by the pAshupata section of the bhArata (e.g. the ajAnana virachita rudra stuti). Probably a little after this emerged the pAshupata sUtrANi. Thus, even if, like much later tradition holds, the pashupata sutrANi were the work of lakulIsha, it is hardly the beginning of the pAshupata tradition. Hence, the roots of the pAshupata tradition is at least as old as 1200 BCE, which is certainly earlier than the 450-350 BCE time frame for the emergence of Greek cynicism. Hence, the origins of pAshupata shaiva tradition were definitely not inspired by the Greek traditions.
-Key elements of homopraxis that are believed to unite the pAshupata-s and the cynics are: 1) theriomorphic behavior and 2) seeking of dishonor or avamAna. There are specific similarities especially in the latter in form of lewd behavior in public both among cynics and pAshupata-s and behaving like madmen e.g. performing aTTahAsa and huDDukAra. However, it should be noted that these elements are not entirely unique to the atimArga of the shaivashAsana but in general of the atimArga matrix that includes both Astika-s and their nAstika cousins. For this we have to turn to the saMnyAsa upaniShad-s. In their current form many of these are later texts, but by they contain some genuinely archaic material [To give credit where it is due the white Indologist Sprockhoff performed a detailed study of these and noted the homologies within them. Based on these homologies and the AruNi text one may conclude that there were 1 or 2 ancestral pre-nAstika saMnyAsopaniShad-s from which all the later ones descended. Interestingly, in the older period they tend not to use the word saMnyAsa that often. The older term for the man of the atimArga was parivrAjaka].

That the atimArga was not unique to the pAshupata shaiva-s is suggested by relatively early parivrAjaka text known as the AruNi upaniShad, which appear to belong to the early vaiShNava atimArga. Here the naked paramahaMsa utters two mantra-s as he wanders about:
OM hi OM hi OM hi || AruU 11-12 [which is like the huDDukAra of the shaiva]
and
tad viShNoH paramaM padaM sadA pashyanti sUrayaH | divIva chakShurAtatam ||
tad viprAso vipanyavo jAgR^ivAMsaH samindhate | viShNor yat paramaM padam ||
[which is like the pa~nchabrahma mantra of the shaiva ascetic].

The AruNi text also states:
bhikShaarthaM grAmaM pravishanti pANi pAtram udarapAtraM vA || AruU11
That is the paramahaMsa enters the village for alms and uses his hand or stomach as the begging bowl. Explaining this point the medieval exegete yAdavaprakAsha (teacher of rAmAnuja the vaiShNava) states that a parivrAjaka eats food with his mouth like a cow. To this effect, a latter vaiShNava atimArga text, the nArada-parivrAjakopaniShad states:
Asyena tu yadAhAraM govan-mR^igayate muniH | NpU182
That is the vaiShNava ascetic eats food in theriomorphic fashion, like cow or some animal with his mouth.
The same text adds:
budho bAlakavat krIDet kushalo jaDavachcharet |
vadedunmattavad vidvAn gocharyAM naigamashcharet ||
The wise [ascetic] plays like child and the clever one behaves like an idiot. The eloquent one [speaks] like a madman and the scholar roams behaving like a cow.
Thus theriomorphic and insane behavior is also part of the vaiShNava paramahaMsa’s behavioral repertoire.

The bauddha majjhima nikAya shows how this behavioral complex of Indo-Aryan ascetics was adopted by the tathagata. In 1.79 of this Pali text we encounter the tathAgata walking around on four legs observing a pashuvrata even as the one described in the earlier bhArata epic (somewhere in 5th parvan). Later in the majjhima nikAya (1.387) the tathAgata is seen taking on two parivrAjaka-s one of whom is performing a govrata (the boomorphic conduct) and the other shvacharyA (cynomorphic conduct).

These behaviors being part of the ancestral Indo-Aryan parivrAjaka’s repertoire is confirmed by two statements made by baudhAyana in the dharma sUtra in describing the mode of existence of the avApachamAnaka (the ascetic who does not cook), which appears to include the vaiShNava vaikhAnasa ascetic:
kR^ichChrAM vR^ittim asaMhAryAM sAmAnyAM mR^igapakShibhiH |
tad aharjana saMbhArAM kaShAyakaTukAshrayAM |
parigR^ihya shubhAM vR^ittim etAM durjana varjitAM |
vana-vAsam upAshritya brAhmaNo nAvasIdati ||
mR^igaiH saha parispandaH saMvAsastebhir eva cha |
tair eva sadR^ishi vR^ittiH pratyaShaM svargalakShaNaM ||
pratyakShaM svargalakShaNaM iti || BauSu 3.3.21-22

These citations by baudhAyana appear to be from ancient lost texts which could very well be the precursor of the extant saMnyAsa upaniShad-s. It shows how the most difficult vrata observed by these vaikhanasa or brahma ascetics is one where they live like beasts or birds, eating raw and bitter and sour food just like them. They roam around with animals and live just like them amongst them. Thus, a key element which is present in some form in pashupata, vaiShNava and nAstika asceticism and also form a central element in Greek cynicism has its roots in the ancient Hindu asceticism but emerges only around 450-350 BC in Greece.

From the earlier statement from the NpU it also becomes clear that even the vaiShNava parivrAjaka assumed mannerisms of the insane. That this was an ancient trait of the parivrAjaka-s in general is supported by a sUtra in the vasiShTha dharma sUtra describing their behavior:
anunmatta unmattveShaH | VaSu 10.19
Though sane he puts on the appearance of the insane. This same statement is recycled repeatedly in various saMnyAsa texts like jAbAla upaniShad and NpU suggesting that it is from the Ur-parivrAjaka text. Another ancient saying pertaining to parivrAjaka-s that is widely quoted in multiple texts is:
saMmAnAd brAhmaNo nityam udvijeta viShAd iva |
amR^itasy eva chAkA~NkShed avamAnasya sarvadA ||
The brAhmaNa is always averse to honor like poison and like elixir longs for dishonor. As in the case of the pAshupata texts the vaiShNava NpU further adds how when the ascetic is reviled and tortured he attains yogic success (exactly parallels the pAshupata sUtra 3.19). Thus, another core element of the pAshupata behavior shared with the Greek cynics – i.e. simulated madness and concomitant seeking of appears to have been a feature of the ancestral Indo-Aryan ascetic and not a unique feature of the former. Not surprisingly, such dishonor- or abuse- seeking is also encountered in the tales of even the nAstika ascetics like the nirgrantha, the tathagata and the goshAla.

Finally we come to the club of lakulIsha and Herakles. At face value this feature is an important specific cognate of the respective founders of the systems under consideration. Yet, we must not forget that the carrying a rod or a staff is an ancient emblem of the Hindu ascetics, well before the emergence of lakulIsha in Hindu texts. This emblem is taken up by ascetics with a vedic mantra which is cited in many texts including saMnyAsa upaniShad-s and also the dharma sUtra-s (e.g. NpU 169 or BauSu 2.17.32):
sakhA mA gopAya | ojah sakhAyo.asiindrasya vajro.asi vArtragnaH sharma me bhava yatpApaM tannivAraye ||
Now it should be noted the daNDa taken by the ascetic is explicitly identified as the vajra of indra. Interesting, the Greek cognate uagros is used for the club of Herakles. Thus, even in this case it is not impossible that the club is a cognate of the older staff held by parivrAjaka-s. Specifically, a khaTvA~nga or lakuTa are mentioned as substitutes of a daNDa in the atharvaveda parishiShTha 40’s description of the accoutrements of a pAshupata ascetic. Since most features of the pAshupata-s that are believed to be specific cognates of the Greek cynics are integral archaic features of the Indo-Aryan ascetics that were inherited as a complex by various successor ascetic groups in the India milieu, the case for an Indic origin followed by a transfer to Greece only around 450 BCE appears entirely possible.

The last hypothesis involving a third party influence on both yavana-s and Arya-s is reminiscent of the posited by white Indologists to explain similarities between the mathematics of the shulbasUtras and that of the yavana-s. This again comes from their misconceptions regarding the age of the earlier Indo-Aryan literature. As we have seen above, the essential elements that need explanations can be traced entirely inside Greek or Hindu tradition. Hence, this class explanations is useless because it merely multiplies the number entities needed in an explanation without adding any value.

Looking at the two main contenders we find that Greek hypothesis has the advantage of explaining the etymology of lakulIsha and providing an explanation for the club as against the ascetic’s staff in the iconography of musalendra and lakulIsha. However, this is challenged by the mention of the lakuTa relatively early in the AV-pari 40’s account of the system. On the other hand, the Indic hypothesis has the advantage of providing continuity and context for the peculiarities of these systems, which is lacking in the case of the Greek cynics who appear relatively suddenly in their system. This probably was the basis for the confusion and contradiction displayed by Ingalls in his work – he simultaneous suggests that there was no genetic link between the two and yet believes that they are related. He even adds that they “discovered each other” to explain the etymological link between Herakles and lAkulIsha. More like scenario is the following: The parivrAjaka asceticism arose in the Indo-Aryan world and the incipient shaiva- and vaiShNava- shAsana-s both inherited it from their undifferentiated Indo-Aryan precursor. Thus vaikhAnasa and pAshupata ati-marga existed side by side before the tathagata or the nirgrantha. Around 500 BCE within the matrix of the parivrAjaka system emerged the nirgratha-s and bauddha-s who also inherited aspects of it to different degrees. Around the same time in the western limits of bhAratavarSha the yavana-s started appearing and participating in various Hindu systems. From then on right through the Hellenistic period catalyzed by the invasions of the barbarians of Macedon, yavana-s were actively involved in different Hindu systems. Around 500 BC some yavana-s most likely in the Northwest of bhAratavarSha adopted parivrAjaka practices from shaiva teachers. Given their syncretic nature they equated rudra (as shrIkaNTha) the founder of the pAshupata system with Herakles. Their shaiva teachers appear to have absorbed the name, perhaps being struck by the convergence in terms of the lakuTa held by both and the phonetic analogy in Herakles> lakulIsha. Thus, the figure lakulIsha emerged as an incarnation of shiva and a founder of the pAshupata system. We note that many aspects of cynic philosophy, not just practices, arise from early atimArga shaiva thought and its larger parivrAjaka matrix and were transmitted to Greece to found classical cynicism. The memes of ati-mArga thinking appear to have then on propagated in the Greek world all the way to neo-Platonism. In a sense this is reminiscent of how atimArga memes permeate mantra-mArga shAsana of the later era in India. Thus, in the cynic-pAshupata homology we possibly encounter one of those lesser appreciated types of interactions of the pagan Indo-European world – the two participants despite their apparent differences were able to rather intelligibly interface and take what they found valid suitable for their world view from the other and then move on with their own expressions. This is somewhat different from certain other interaction where one of the cultures simply acquires the whole complex from the other with hardly any local adaptation.

Footnote 1: In my investigation of the politics of indology I have found no evidence for Daniel Ingalls himself being a subversionist or engaging in willful misinformation. However, his students include notable mlechCha subversionists who belong to a larger wave of academic misinformation which can be termed Freudism. My mAtAshrI reports that even in her college days one such va~nchaka was already implanted in bhArata who was engaging in indoctrinating the gullible in the desh. But another student Thurman appears to be more sympathetic to our traditions.

Lost R^ik-s, the shruti and shUdra-s

A chaturtha asked me if mantra-s in the shruti were entirely inaccessible to him. I told that if looked hard enough in the texts to which he had adhikAra he could find enough to be moderately aware of the contents of the shruti if not its praxis, which indeed is largely the domain of the dvija-s. The vedic material embedded in the itihAsa-s, the harivaMsha, and the purANa-s has been of some interest to me for a while, though I have never gotten around to systematically studying it by computational means. Kane and Apte have written on this topic, with the former precisely touching on this issue of the adhikAra of the shUdra and the shruti. A learned clansmen, a student of the first veda, informed me that Apte is supposed to have had a student in the city of my youth who did such a study quite systematically for the great epic but I have never been able to access his dissertation on the same. There are, of course, a few famous examples, which we have covered at length on these pages before – the hymn of the ashvin-s and the praise of indra. Some are intended quotations, while others like the spell of queen kaushalyA are a mixture of vedic and later elements. The intended quotations, as Apte points out, are labeled with the qualifiers such as:
imAm shrutiM udAharet
nidarshanaM chAtra bhavati
ityapi shrUyate shrutiH
yastaM veda sa veda vit
In the old days I used to have a debate with some acquaintances over the possibility of a para-vedic tAntric system. It was in this context that I observed that the itihAsa-s and the harivaMsha cite vaidika mantra-s as such, but rarely, if ever, furnish a conventional tAntrika mantra [Footnote 1]. This to me indicated that the conventional tAntrika system post-dates the itihAsa-s though they do overlap with the majority of the purANa-s as they survive today. Hence, I tend take the stance that the tAntrika mantra shAstra is largely an evolute of the late vaidika system rather than being a survivor of a para-vedic system [Footnote 2].

Let us consider some well known citations from the bhArata. One chapter that is replete with citations is the lecture of kR^iShNa to arjuna on the nature of agnIShomau and nArAyaNa (vulgate MBH 12.343). It is definitely a highly interpolated section with at least 3 major players: 1) brAhmaNa-s trying to assert their superiority in the brahma-kShatra alliance. 2) vaiShNava-s trying to establish nArAyaNa-parAtvaM and 3) shaiva-s trying to establish rudra-parAtvaM. Yet all manuscripts contain the vedic citations in some form and the core of the narrative is actually that of agni-Shoma which is directly based on the vedic citations. This is evidenced by the original question of arjuna to kR^iShNa:
agnIShomau kathaM pUrvam ekayonI pravartitau |
eSha me saMshayo jAtastaM chhindhi madhusUdana ||
How did agni-Shomau, in days of yore, get established in the same original source? Such a doubt has arisen, please clear it O madhusUdana.

It is in answering this that kR^iShNa explains the transformations of nArAyaNa and cites some vaidika mantra-s as pramANa-s:
nidarshanamapi hyatra bhavati:
nAsIdaho na rAtrirAsIt | na sadAsIn nAsadAsIt
tama eva purastAd abhavad vishvarUpaM ||

mantravAdo.apI hi bhavati:
tvamagne yaj~nAnAM hotA vishveShAM hito devebhir mAnuShe janeti ||

nidarshana.n chAtra bhavati:
vishveShAm agne yaj~nAnAM hoteti | hito devair mAnuShair jagata iti ||

[1] stotras to tAntrika deities might be found but the lack tAntrika mantra-s; the harivaMsha might preserve proto-tAntric mantra elements in the context of ekAnamshA as noted before.
[2] in more general terms by extension I also believe that Talageri’s idea of the vaidika system being restricted to the pUru-s as being erroneous – the composition of the RV might have been dominated by the pUru-s but this hardly means that the other Indo-Aryans and Iranians did not follow a vaidika system.

continued…